This Election Was a Warning. Most Christians Are Missing It | Live Free with Josh Howerton

It took a generation of Christian statesmen to found the country. It will take a generation of Christian statesmen to preserve it. If you've been posting about politics, I would encourage you, do not post another thing about politics until you've shared the gospel with somebody. G.K. Chesterton looked at all of human history and he said, at least five times in human history, it has seemed that Christianity has gone to the dogs, and every single time it was the dog that died. 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. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Arazo, and today I have the honor and the pleasure to be here today with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham. We got some pigs to kick. Here's how I feel. This is how I'm feeling. We're going to talk election results. Whoa! What is this? What is this? Bro. We have a celebration. What is this? We have a celebration today. What is this? So for people that are not on YouTube or Spotify, our team just interrupted the show to bring a cake that says, Let's kick this pig. And it is a delicious cake that Pastor Josh is about to eat. What the heck? Is this just a random? I'm like, well, we had to bring it. You missed our anniversary last week. What? Yeah, we had a significant anniversary. No, wait, wait. You and Carlos don't have an anniversary. No, no, no, no, no. Hey, hey, this is not a Methodist podcast. That is not what we're talking about. That is not at all what he is talking about. What he meant to say. Please, Carlos, rescue us right now. What he meant to say is last week we surpassed the episode 100th. Did we really? Of the Live Free Podcast show. The episode 100th last week. Wow. So here we go, man. Come on, man. We've kicked. Anybody got a fork? I ordered it. That's amazing. We've kicked a lot of pigs. Dude, I got to say, we need to put up like a picture of this on YouTube. I just want to say, Paul, they did you dirty on this. I am so shocked. I'm so shocked that they did me dirty. Hey, you on this cake, it looks like you ate 12 of these cakes. They took a picture of me for like six months ago, I guess. Oh, my gosh. Carlos looks like a boy band member still to this day. All right. We got pigs to kick. Hey, thank you all. Hey, man. Well, that's a team, actually. So shout out to the team. I'm not joking. Can I have a fork? Look at that. Boom. And shout out to the Live Free Nation. Well, hey, here's. So wait, tell them what we're going to talk about. Today, we're going to have a great episode. We are going to. It is full. That's right. We're going to talk about the reflections after the November 3rd midterm elections here in the United States. And I want to tell you where we're going. Hey, man, we got hope. That's right. We got hope, brother. That's right, man. So we're going to break it down. Let me tell them how we're going to approach it. And then you can finish talking about it. So everybody and your mom, you can go to a bajillion other podcasts or news stations, and you're going to be able to get breakdowns of what demographics voted what and what did the exit polls say? We want to kind of do like the book of Revelation, not in like an apocalypse is coming, but like we want to do like book of Revelation where it's like, OK, our camera angle is going into the spiritual realm. That's right. And what does the Bible say is like happening in the spiritual realm? And then we'll kind of apply some things. And that's going to get fun and a little spicy. It's going to be fine. So we'll do that. In addition to that, we're going to go Mark chapter eight. And we're going to be asking, hey, what does it look like for Christians today to follow Jesus and give up your life in obedience to the gospel? So it's going to be great. And usually we would do the dive into the sermon first. I think this time we're going to reverse the order and hit the election first. Because a lot of things have been flipped recently. We're going to flip the order. That's right. So we're going to flip the order. I see what he did there. Just saying. It feels appropriate. And so we can end on a high note diving into God's word. Bro, that case is good. Is it good? Yeah, good. Good. I do want to say I missed y'all last week. We missed you. But I also want to like give a heartfelt why. So as you guys know, we had a tragic death in our church. And my eyes may sweat talking about it. Of one of the legit, like one of the greatest women in our entire church. A lady named Rebecca Hunt tragically passed away in her 40s. And she started, I just want to honor her. And then this is why I wasn't on that last episode y'all did. I was doing that funeral. But man, she was the type of woman who had a season, a little prodigal season. It came back to the Lord, became a capital D disciple. The reason she started the Christian school my kids go to is when her daughter got old enough where it was her age that she started getting a little sideways. She was like, I'm going to build. I'm going to build for my daughter what I needed when I was her age. Wow. Bro, it's legit. And she was just the best dude. And a great Christian family. And dude, this is a little story. And then let's get into the podcast. My daughter saved up her own money one year and bought Mrs. Hunt a sermon note journal to use for Lake Point sermons. And she actually used it. And her daughter texted us a picture that the last sermon she ever took notes on was, "A call to die." Wow. Wow. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Amen. And so A, that's why I wasn't here, I was preaching at a funeral. B, you know, I think I've got passages in the Bible that make me think that the great cloud of witnesses in heaven can actually see. And if so, I just want to know she's being honored. That's right. Well done, good and faithful servant. That's right. You were doing something infinitely more important. Oh, man. Thank you. So I'm glad you did. We missed you, bud. But you were where you needed to be. That's right, man. Well, as Pastor Josh keeps eating cake over here, we're going to have a great episode today. But before, man, as you chew on your cake, I want to ask you, I like your hat and I like your hoodie. Bro, okay, this is a big deal. Okay, so first of all, let me get this going here. There you go. Hey, drum roll, please. We got big news for the Live Free pod. Ladies and gentlemen, we are announcing the launch of the livefree.shop. Come on. Livefree.shop. Okay. It's official. It's official. It's official, baby. We got this. Let me state this correctly so I don't get in any trouble. Bro, let me just say, these are legit. They're good. Come on, man. These are legit. We're all rocking some new merch here. Yeah, but this is the best one. That's right. That's right. Sure. This is the best one. So I passed these out to a bunch of pastors in a cohort. Bro, these guys, they were like, "Can I get one for my kid?" All the stuff. So you got the Live Free, and then, hey, man, everybody keep your eyes in the appropriate places. Oh, boy. But you got it in the back here. We got it. Go Team Jesus, brother. Team Jesus. Team Jesus. Go Team Jesus. We got this. So it's livefree.shop. You got all the stuff. Can I just. So here's my push. I constantly. We run into Live Free listeners. All the time. This happened to us yesterday driving to the Bryce Crawford podcast. We run into Live Free listeners all the time, and people, I'll be honest, people start walking up, and I'm like, "Oh, they recognize me or you or whoever." You know, I really only get five-star reviews, one-star reviews, and nothing in between. And so I'll just gently say, when somebody walks up and they've got a Live Free hat on or this studly, manly, but anybody can wear it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I'm doing a commercial right now. Unisex. Oh, unisex. But it's great for a dude. That's right. That's right, man. That's right. When you got it on, I'm like, "Oh, this is a friendly." That's right. So that'd be. And. I think there's more. We constantly are hearing, actually, at Encounter this week, like, "Dude, bro, people are flying in from Canada." Canada. That's right. We hear this all the time, where they're up in Ontario, Canada, shout out, and literally, their discipleship group, they listen to the sermon, listen to Live Free, and then they deep dive it and confess and stuff to the thing. So it's like, what's awesome is you're walking around, it's like, "Oh, Live Free nation, Live Free nation, Live Free nation." That's right. That's right. LiveFree.shop. LiveFree.shop. LiveFree.shop. LiveFree.shop. LiveFree.shop. There you go. That's it. And free shipping for orders over $100 to get that, use the code FREE100. Yes. That's right. All the proceeds go personally into my bank account. That's right. That's right. By the way, that. That was a joke. That's a joke. I'm joking. That's like what the internet does with everything. Yes. So I just have to have fun with it. Yeah. By the way, I get literally not one dime. Right. Help us grow the pod and do all this stuff. Come on. Yep. All right. Carlos, you ready? Right now, before. Oh, dang it. I just want to celebrate one more thing. We got a lot of celebration, obviously. Where'd that go, man? We got a lot of it. Hey, we just finished Encounter. We did. Advanced Commitment Night. And, bro, it was a great night. Dude, it was. You did a great job, by the way, bringing the word. Yes, I did. Man, we come together as a church, and we like this, by the way, a lot. Worship, prayer, and we brought our two-year commitment to— It was awesome. Yeah, we're in a season of generosity and faith in our church, and so it was amazing. Dude, it was awesome. Let me shout out to— a live-free listener that's in a correctional facility. So, bro, this is amazing. We got this, and me and Carlos both read this. So, yeah, obviously, we're on the Pando app, 1.2 million people in correctional facilities access the thing. By the way, we've already had 1.6 million downloads in correctional facilities, and, bro, over 700 people, over 700 salvations. It's nuts. In, like, a couple months. It's stupid. Yeah. It's stupid. I'll just tease something. I think we want to figure out if we can do a live pod recording from a correctional facility. That'd be amazing, man. We're working on it. We're literally working on it. That's right. So, anyway, let me do this, and let's get to talking Bible, election results, all the things. So, we get this. I'm going to read some from this real quick. So, open this letter, and it's like a four-page letter from a guy named Chris Pierce. Shout out, Live Free Nation, Chris Pierce. He's literally listening right now. Literally. I want to read a short part of this letter, bro. Yeah. Now, I'm summarizing four pages. Hello, Pastor Josh and Lake Point Church and Live Free Nation. My name is Chris Pierce, and I'm currently serving my sentence at Red Rock Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona. Shout out. I am writing to say thank you for all you do and how it is changing me. Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for humbly standing on God's truth. Thank you for keeping Jesus Christ at the center of it all and for teaching us. It's about the hardest issues in Christianity in the world. I see you guys, he's talking about Live Free Nation, as a, quote, master candle in the world right now, a candle that lights the other candles to bring light into a dark world because he has anointed you for such a time as this. I believe you will be a great pillar God is using to delay the worst in the world as long as he allows and to get as many from the kingdom of darkness as possible. One more, like me. I write to you because your church has helped me strength, helped strengthen me to be a leader for my family and to begin to live as a man of God. Not just when I get out, but while I am behind bars right now. Because of you, I dedicated my life to Christ and have been mentored by a Christian man and now I'm faithfully serving in our prison chapel. This is stupid, dude. This is stupid good. Telling the other men about the hope of Jesus Christ and God has put a vision in my heart to do ministry. You guys are a huge inspiration to me. I'm praying for you today. Please pray for us while we are in here. Love you, brothers. God bless. Into the breach. Chris Pierce. And then, dude, this is nuts. He included a $60 check just because he's like, I want to help. And, dude, that guy has no idea what he just did. So, hey, well done, brother. We're with you. That's amazing. Hey, Ben, 2026 is almost over. It's a little while. A little bit, dude. We're excited because November 28th and 28th, as well as the church and all of our campuses, this is an in-person only. We are having a Christmas at the movies one weekend special at the movies edition. And what we do is, for people that don't know, we use popular Christmas movies to illustrate biblical truths. So this is a perfect opportunity for you to invite your one more November 28th and 29th. Well, it's the best. By the way, it's not preaching movies. That's right. It's like using a movie to illustrate, but I always hate when people say that. That's right. You're eating the cake. Well, that's a real good cake. By the way, the movie is Die Hard, right? It's not good. It's not good. I wanted to. I hope I'm not giving anything away. No, uh-uh. Uh-uh. I'm not. No, I wanted to. Honestly, the reason I did this is because every year, everybody was like, hey, man, my entire family comes in at Thanksgiving. And they're like, it's like my one more is in town. They'll go to church with me for that one week. And they were like, it'd be awesome if you did something to help me get my one. So this is specifically designed to help you with a one more. That's great. It's in person only. So you got to come. All campus. That's amazing. Hey, to download the Lake Point app, plus get a Bible reading plan for you to use every single day, plus the weekly sermon, plus an early release of this amazing episode with the one and only Chad Cheepelsee, who is here, ready to drop some wisdom here with us. Text the word app to 20411 or go to Apple or Google Play Store. Okay. Now, before we get, we need to kick some pigs. That's right. Before we get into election results and we start deep diving Mark 8, which thing do we want to do? Do you want me to give you guys, my pop quiz? Or do you want me to ask, see what we've been reading lately? We wish, wish you guys choose your own adventure. I like the option here. Yeah, choose your own adventure. It's a little more exciting. You go first. Which one do you want? Well, he said the quiz. I want to hear what you've been reading first. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. So Carlos, you've been reading something good. Man, I like to read the Bible. Good choice. Thank you. I enjoy it, actually. Bro, I'm excited for this one. So this is, this is, I don't, I will be, I will be surprised if you know this. I'm really excited for this. So I've read the Bible my whole life. I literally just discovered this recently. It's crazy. This is a hidden detail in the life of John the Baptist. And I'm about to explain how he fulfilled the prophecy given 400 years before his life. So we all know John the Baptist, obviously he is a, a little bit of a weird guy. And Matthew chapter three, verse four, gives us a very interesting description of who he was. And in particular, it specifies what he wore. So verse four says, now John wore a garment of, a camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locust and wild honey. This is really fun. Now, why would Matthew bother to tell us what specifically he was wearing? Why would he say camel's hair and leather belt around his waist? Like, what does it even matter? Here's why. Matthew is the first book of the New Testament. The last book of the Old Testament is the book of Malachi. So Malachi in chapter four, there is a prophecy that one day in the future, the Bible says, God would, the prophet Elijah, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Now, when the Bible uses the word the day of the Lord, it's talking about a specific time in history when God's going to come and intervene in history to provide salvation and judgment. And Malachi here is basically talking about the coming of the Messiah. So Malachi prophesies that before the coming of the Messiah, one like the prophet Elijah was going to come. So now you fast forward to the New Testament. Again, why does Matthew, 400 years after this prophecy, basically tell us that this is the day in this detail that John was wearing camel's hair and leather belt around his waist? Because guess who else in history was dressed in the same way? No way, dude. What? Second Kings 1.8, the messengers of King Ahaziah describe an encounter with a mysterious prophet. And this is what the Bible says. He wore a garment of hair with a belt of leather around his waist. And the king said, oh, it is Elijah the Tishbite. John is wearing the same thing as Elijah. And Matthew's point in telling us what John wore is that John the Baptist is the new Elijah. John is preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah. And so here's the math. If John is the new Elijah and John points to Jesus, then Jesus is the Messiah. That's the math. But wait, there's more. So Elijah calls the nation of Israel to repentance. John the Baptist calls the people of God to repentance. Both prophets boldly confront the wicked political powers of their time and both of them both are hated. Think about this. I literally just saw this recently. Elijah confronts King Ahab and King Ahab's wife Jezebel once Elijah dead. John confronts Herod Antipas and Herod's wife Herodias once John dead. It's the same thing happening. Why? Because new days, same demons. That's the Jezebel spirit. It's the same spirit working the same thing. What? Elijah crosses the Jordan River before he went up to heaven. Where is John? Where is John the Baptist when he meets Jesus? Jordan River. He is at the Jordan River and that's where Jesus' public ministry begins. Elijah's ministry was followed by a greater ministry with Elisha because he received a double portion of his spirit. John's ministry prepared the way for Jesus who was obviously somebody who had a much infinitely greater ministry. And so here's the point. John wore Elijah's clothes, carried Elijah's message, and came in Elijah's spirit and power. Why? Because he was pointing to the Messiah that was prophesied. Hundreds of years ago and his name is Jesus. Oh, listen. This podcast is over. We're done here. This is our. That is so legit. Bro. Are you kidding me? So, dude, I literally. I have never ever in my whole life seen that. I've been thinking studying the Bible for 30 years. I'm literally just reading it recently. I'm like, what is going on here? So anyways, that's that. Now, quick transition and then for listeners, we really are going to start talking about it. We really are. Okay. Now, I actually have a tie-in to what you just said. Okay. These guys do not know this is happening. This is the episode of surprises. So, I have a quiz for you. Oh, no. I have a quiz for you. I came across on TikTok this week the. This is going to tell you something about my TikTok algorithm. The precious moments. You remember the. Carlos, do you know what a precious moment figurine is? Is this like a girl toy? Oh, my God. No, I have no idea what that is. Dude, do you know what a precious moment is? I know what a precious moment is. You have to have an American grandma. It doesn't sound like. It doesn't sound very masculine. Whatever it is. No, it was for like a white American grandma. Okay. They all had precious moments. Figurines. They were little figurines. Okay. And what they were. No, don't look it up. I was going to look it up. Don't look it up. I'm going to show you an example. What they would do is there would be like some sweet moment from the Bible. You know, Jesus holding a lamb. Is it a devotional? Jesus holding. No, it's a figurine, Carlos. It's made out of glass. Okay. So, it's like Jesus holding a lamb. You know, a child. uh resting his head on the you know knee of the lord okay these are some precious moments ai generated have you seen this i i wonder if you're going generated precious moments from the old testament we're gonna pause each of them and see if you can identify them if by the way if you're on youtube see if you can identify it and here's what we're gonna do whichever one of you gets it right first wins the point okay so no stop stop i just wonder i wonder if you're going where i think you're going all right so play it wait you have to guess what bible story yeah you have to guess what bible story testament uh he got it first he got it first navel so where the woman basically drives the state through his head while he's sleeping jael yeah these are very un these are very not precious moments hey it's it's jael jael paul just kidding that's a joke maybe point carlos right keep going keep going this is hilarious bro these are hilarious it's gonna get dark i'm gonna warn you this gets dark is this forest company oh where they said going up you bald head that's right down to she bears it says i have an affection for that uh story in the bible that's all i'll say for those who are watching the video oh boy how many children do you remember oh it's like 35 like a lot so yeah so that's the moment before a bear eats all the children go to the next one oh boy i love the forrest gump music it's funny it's funny uh david it's all no no dude oh my god where the dagger swallows in his fat the fat guy by the way that's what the bible says this is not me being derogatory that's literally what the bible says his fat is that is that yeah do you remember the name of the king ehood no ehood is the guy that kills the king oh that's right that's right oh i forget the name yeah go on okay go to the next one wait what book of the bible is it uh that's in judges i think judges yeah a lot of these choices are in judges okay bro if you get this this is hilarious bro this is hilarious look at the guys this is a little inappropriate but it's in the bible look at where the guys in pain are holding wait it's david it's david after cutting the i don't know what the term is but the the part of the body that's right and then he's about to get married because that's what we'll ask of him so i was confused at first it looks like they're holding their stomach i see now they're holding lower than their stomach by the way don't send me an email this is in the bible okay now bro this last one is just heads up bro this last one capital d dark but this is in the bible see if you can figure what is this it's coming it's coming it's coming bro this is dark right here oh uh solomon where they talk about the baby no it's darker than that oh yeah that's it this is it's it's not it's not humor actually i mean it's like it's real dark that is king solomon all right i don't think so the two mothers during samaria's siege where one of them eats the baby yeah so uh little little dark little dark little dark and she's pointing okay uh i finished the look at what it says here i don't even want to say what it's going on all right we're officially done good job where's that good job boys where's that in the moment uh i don't have the reference in front of me but it's in there i promise okay okay it's in there you can do it you can do it next week great great yeah that's awesome we're gonna just real quick and then we're gonna finally dive into the election is we're kind of doing like a an oreo like a sandwich method here we've started with a lot of humor we're gonna end on an uplifting note and in the middle it might get a little dark we'll try to bring as much light as we possibly can we're gonna be great we're hope warriors today second kings second kings six all right okay so we're flipping it usually what we do is we go we call it air war ground war ground war uh for people who are listening just to understand how we think ground war is applying the scriptures to people and families quote unquote down there like the people in front of us in the pews air war is applying the scriptures to uh culture the culture up there yeah so ground war air war usually what we do is we start with ground war and with air war this week for reasons that'll become obvious in a second we're gonna start with air war and talk election results and then uh and then end ground war deep dive mark eight because it's awesome and uh uh and we'll do it that way now carlos is going to give a general overview of what happened while we're reacting to it and why it's a pretty significant moment in some ways in american history um but uh here's what we're gonna do again are you can you can watch a million cnn fox wherever you go you can get a million here's the breakdown of who voted what what exit poll says that we're doing what you're gonna take the spiritual lens camera angle and apply the word to the world and go okay how should christians think about this what's going on in the spiritual behind the scenes so carlos whatever you're gonna do yeah yeah so you know this last uh november 3 we had midterm elections and the following day pastor josh uh wednesday morning something incredible happened uh the sun came up the earth kept spinning and jesus is still on the throne so let me start there we'll go there so these elections have been described as a blue tsunami uh also known as a political bloodbath because the pendulum is going to be on the throne and the pendulum is going to be on the throne and swung hard the other side so democrats have taken control of both the house and the senate uh let me give you some overview james salarico in texas became the first democratic texas senator since 1988 we just gotta do this bro i got we gotta take our l man we did we take our l we did we did our best we did our best that's right uh in addition adam hamilton became the first democratic kansas senator since 1932 uh democrats flipped governors in texas georgia ohio iowa nevada is the one that people are like what just happened speaking of texas gina enojosa defeated greg abbott uh and that was the first democratic win there in decades uh she became the first latina governor of the state it's happened before do you remember does it say when i i would win the last statewide uh i don't know yeah yeah uh for the first time since the republicans party's founding in the 1850s the six states in new england maine new hampshire vermont massachusetts rhode island and connecticut will have zero republicans senators uh there's other reasons for that amongst other reasons and so generally speaking you know again uh we're not going to go deep into this but people are talking about how in some ways this reflection is a sharp rebuke of the republican agenda in in this season there's a there's division in the republican party the cost of living high prices iran war president feels out of touch uh tariffs and overall direction of the country uh there's a lot of gloomy talk out there so uh i'm going to pass it on to you that's the that's the very general overview i was going to say we'll get this in a little bit there have been tsunamis before both sides in both ways but what did make this one unique it wasn't just how many seats flipped it was that many of them were unexpected because they were in very traditionally conservative states like texas and kansas and even it's looking like in mississippi and other places like that was part of it wasn't just how many flipped it was where they flipped that made this one seemingly really significant all right i'll just start i'll start going okay so first of all let me just set this up if somebody's listening if you're a brand new listener because hey man this podcast is kind of doing real good right now and so there's like tons of new people every week uh and you're like huh well they're kind of just making it sound like blue bad red good uh let me just say the thing that i always say here's our caveat is uh right now it's just a it's a basic reality that right now in modern america 2026 when you're talking policies the publicly stated proposed policies that if you take christian ethics and a biblical understanding the role of the government it is simply going to code conservative in 2026 that's just honestly it's just a basic fact that's not what we're not saying that we never say is everything that happens on the right is good and everything that happens in life that's not what we're saying we're just really clear about moral asymmetry between the publicly stated proposed policies of the parties now i'm just gonna do my little caveat every real quick and by the way you're this is a little test for your soul uh uh how good you have been at obeying this next principle will probably determine if you have the ability uh to be joyful and have a hey dude the sun came up tomorrow and my kids love me and love the lord and life is good you know but what we always say is hey man every christian in america you gotta you gotta determine am i uh is my conservative above my christian or is my christian above my conservative so which one comes first in the priority and you're gonna have to decide in your life you know is is being a good conservative more important to you than being a good christian uh or as being a good christian more important to you than being a quote-unquote good conservative and you know what we always say we always say the same thing uh the moment that quote-unquote being a good conservative means being a bad christian i'm out i'm out we're team jesus so it's like hey man if as to the degree to which you're with team jesus we're in and to the degree to which you're not with team jesus uh we out that's right so that that's a little setup to say before i dive in all right so let me just uh let me just say a few like i've got like five quick things i want to riff on okay number one Sovereignty of God in all things is a great comfort, okay? There's a little phrase, it's an old Puritan phrase. I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow, okay? So, hey, man, listen, hey, bro, we good. We good. Me and Jana, we texted this to each other, and I was praying this this week. Psalm 47, for God is the king of all the earth. Sing praises with a psalm. God reigns over the nations, and God sits on his holy throne. Good verse. Come on, come on, that's great news. Number two, let me just be very honest. What happened, and some people don't like it, we're a little straightforward about this. It was sad and very grievous. I'll just be honest. I'll just point out a few things. What you just saw is whether it was the reason that they voted this way or not. What just. What just happened is the United States of America en masse intentionally chose max-boosting infant murder. By the way, the state of Virginia just legalized in the midterm election, I think the quote-unquote right is how it was phrased, to abortion up to birth. Let me just pause and let that sink in. Like, viable children can legally be murdered in the state of Virginia. The state of Virginia now, up until the moment they breached the birth canal, legislated sexual perversion. We're going to get into this in a second. What our nation just did in some ways is while they had been freaking out about quote-unquote Christian nationalism, they said yes to Islamic nationalism. I think what you just had is either eight or 11, I can't remember which one, more Islamic leaders were elected into office. We're going to show a video from one of those here in a second. In two cases, the state of Texas and the state of Kansas. Dude, I don't say this lightly. I'm not. That's not trying to be a shock jock. These are like biblical categories. Two states intentionally elected demonic apostate false teachers in Adam Hamilton and James Salarico. And then, dude, you had a lot. Actually, can somebody grok it? How many more DSA candidates got elected? Can somebody see that real quick? So Democratic Socialists of America who, oh, by the way, in their publicly stated policy aims, there's things like overthrowing the Constitution of the United States, enshrining something in between socialism and communism into official economic policy, a Marxist revolution, like essentially a takeover of the United States. How many is it? You got it? I was thinking. So a decent number of new quote-unquote DSA Democratic Socialists of America candidates were elected. Is this still thinking? My grok. It takes a long. It's been a long time, but I don't know. There must have been a lot of them. There's like a whole bunch of. There are around eight in the U.S. house. Okay, eight. So eight more. Okay. So, hey, dude, what happened was legitimately. Like, there's not another word for what happened in the policies that were chosen than national sin. A significant amount of national sin was chosen in that moment. Now, dude, this is going to take me a second. So, like, if you guys got anything to say, if you want to riff on anything here, the thing that I posted that people objected to is I was like, hey, what you're seeing happen is you're seeing Romans 1 happen right now. And some people kind of objected to that. So what I'm going to do real quick, and this is going to take me, you know, three or four minutes, is we're going to do a quick Bible study on Romans 1, and then we're going to do the thing that happened when you're in the mall, and you look at the map, and there's like the, you are here, son. I want to read, walk through Romans 1 real fast, and then I want to give. I'm going to point to the verse that goes, you are here. So before I do that, anything that you guys got on this? Just, hey, what happened was sad and grievous. No, I think even just to highlight a few things you said and explain in case it's still not sitting well with people. When you say that those two people were apostate, to apostate literally means is to rebel against or to depart from. And to be an apostate means you're departing from historic Christian teaching that has stood for 2,000 years. So, for example, on these two guys, I don't want to take too long on this, but Talarico, and I forget always, Adam Hamilton in Kansas is saying things, for example, affirming transgender, affirming same-sex marriage. By the way, as a biblical, like positive, godly good. Yes, that actually God wants you to do this. If you read the Bible, they believe that God would lead you to do this. One, even there's so many interviews that are out there, specifically with Talarico, where he would say that actually the Bible affirms the idea of you being able to abort. Correct. And the reason we would call them apostate is literally until about the last 50 years, every Christian from every major branch of Christianity, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant would all say that they're wrong. And in any other era in history would call them heretics. So we are simply saying what everybody for the last 2,000 years until recently would have said. So while that sounds harsh, it's just reality. That's just the one thing I wanted to double-click on. It's the objectively correct term. Yes. That's what you're saying. Trina, can you pull the Congress image? So this is something that people, the other one, this is something that people, so this is something that people were highlighting as well. Bro, this is so funny. Do your thing. This is an image here. So for people that are not on YouTube or Spotify, it says these clergy and one seminarian are headed to Congress. So six Democrats were elected that were clergy or in Talarico's case, a seminarian. And so that would be, so James Talarico in Texas, he's a Presbyterian seminarian, Reverend Adam Hamilton, in Kansas, a Methodist minister. There's more reverend. Is Adam Hamilton staying the pastor of his church while he serves in the Senate? I don't know how that'll work. I've wondered the exact same thing. It's a great question. Because that happened with Warnock in Georgia, right? Yeah, he does that. Yeah, keep going. Yeah. So, I mean, these are, I mean, ordained ministers, ordained Presbyterian minister and former chaplain. We're putting ministers in heavy quotes. All of these. All of these. And so the irony here that I think a lot of people miss is, again, when somebody quotes the Bible today in favor of biblical values, the label usually used for those people would be, oh, that's scary Christian nationalism. That's a, hey, don't impose your religion. Like, don't mix your religion with politics. You keep those two separate. But when somebody quotes the Bible contradicting biblical values and favoring progressive values, people will say, oh, finally, that's a good Christian man right there. I've been waiting for a Christian like this. That's right. And what people don't realize is what that's called. That's called progressive Christian nationalism. That's what it's called. And so, and people will be like, oh, that's finally something I can support. The Bible also, we have verses for that. 2 Timothy 4.3 says, And so what you need to understand is there is one way to read the Bible and say, man, I will trust what it says and I will submit under its authority. And then there's another way to use the Bible and ask, man, how can I make what it says align to what I already believe? And so when that happens, like, watch out, be careful. And as a teacher, you get to the next point, which is like, you're going to hear this increasingly, not just about those who are diselected, but even potentially future people are like, but he or she went to seminary. Seminary, number one, is places where usually people go to be trained to be a pastor. But your average Christian may not understand. There are some seminaries in the world that teach things like Jesus didn't really rise from the grave. That was just a metaphor that actually Jesus was not God. So just know that just because they didn't, just because they went to seminary, does not mean that they believe what the Bible teaches and what Christians have historically believed. Correct. So when it says this is, I just want to point this out and I want to keep going here. When, when it was a second Timothy four, the itching ears. Yeah. Okay. Cause I just preach it. When, when it says that, like when it says itching ears, what it's doing is it's somebody who has like a sinful desire or belief and they got this thing in them. They feel real uncomfortable. Like when you got an itch and they go around, like I got an itching ear, I'm looking at who, where's a Bible teacher who will tell me that what I want to do and believe is okay. And that's what, that's what that is. What we want to point out. We'll come back to you is like the, the same people who spent like two years decrying Christian nationalism. They said no to Christian nationalism, quote unquote, Christian nationalism said yes to Islamic nationalism and progressive Christian nationalism. Yeah. So I just, you need to have your eyes out for that. That's right. So can I walk Romans one? Please. So, so again, just to summarize, like, again, we're not everything on one side is good. Again, we're not everything on one side is good. Again, we're not everything on the other side is bad. We're talking about moral asymmetry of the ideologies and policies of the parties. I will just simply point out that a lot of people would say the three most deadly forces in all of human history are Islam, communism, and abortion. And the modern Democrat party supports all three. Like I'll just pop, just pause and let that sink in. So like, bro, you can, you can leave all the comments and shoot me all the emails you want. Like there is a clear moral asymmetry between these things. Now, let me just, let me walk Romans one. What we're going to do is we're going to do. We'll Bible study and we're going to take the, uh, we're going to take the, uh, the, the book of revelation camera angle, uh, over what's happening in the United States. So here we go. Okay. So, uh, some verses of the Bible, you don't have to try to be controversial. You just have to read them. And, uh, they have a, it's like a, they have a wick coming out of them. And when you read them, then the whole internet explodes in your face. Romans one 18 to the end of the chat chapter is one of those verses. Uh, this is your. you are here sign on the map. It begins like this. For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people. It's talking about the justice of God. I'll just gently say this. People always object to the concept of the justice of God, judgment, wrath, hell. That's the justice of God. It's very interesting to me. We on earth are always like justice, justice, justice, justice. And then we forget we are on the wrong side of the greatest injustice ever committed. We killed God. Okay. So watch. Now it says, who suppress the truth, bookmark that in your head, by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. Now, as I'm reading these verses, what you need to understand, not every Christian in history has lived in the middle of these verses. If you live in the United States of America in 2026, you are living in the middle of the progression that I'm about to read, verse 20. So it says they suppress the truth by their wickedness. Verse 19, 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 that people are without excuse. Okay. Now, when it says this, by the way, here's, let me just, we're doing a little Bible study real quick. When it says, all it's saying is nobody anywhere can with a clear heart and a clear conscience look at the creation and go, nobody did this. It's like, you know, and you can, some Reddit atheists can do whatever they typically do, but I'll just say there's a reason that literally in all of human history, no one has ever, no archeologist, no sociologist, no historian, they have literally never discovered. A civilization that did not have some religion that undergirded the civilization. Do you know why? Because Romans one is true. That's right. His invisible qualities have been clearly seen since the creation of the world quote, so that men are without excuse. In other words, God has revealed enough about his reality and his existence through the world. And through theologians typically call this through natural law. This is what it's talking about. That, uh, there are some things that, bro, you, you got no excuse. You will stand before God and give an account. For the revelation. It was very obvious in creation. People say that you have to learn religion, but actually, uh, atheism needs to be taught. Like because it's just look at history, uh, you know, for you to be an atheist, you have to learn how to be an atheist. Correct. Correct. Okay. Now I'm sure that will receive response. Uh, we don't care. Here we go. Now. So what it said is now, this is really interesting. Again, I'm giving you the, you are here arrow on the mall map in Romans one. Okay. So it said what a culture does listen real close. That is under what theologians call the passive wrath of God is they begin to quote, suppress the truth by their wickedness or unrighteousness. Okay. Suppress the truth. Now in 50 AD, when Romans one was written, suppressing the truth looks like they impale you on a stake or they throw you to lions. In 2026, what it looks like is they remove your books from Amazon D platform, uh, or post throttle you on social media, remove you from your job. Uh, basically all of cancel culture, which I'm going to give a prediction. Okay. So Romans one, you are going to see cancel culture come back with a vengeance. Like I just heads up. Like the, the day will come. I'm going to make a firm prediction. The day will come when you will have to go try to find a live free podcast. I'm going to make that prediction. Okay. Uh, now what is that? That's Romans one truth suppression. Now what is Romans one saying? We're giving you the, you are here sign on the mall map. It's saying whenever an ideology becomes idolatry, the people start to suppress the truth. Whenever they pre decide, I don't care what natural law, what, what that, what that means is what is clearly understood about God and nature. I don't care what natural law says about what's right and wrong. And I don't care what God says about what's right and wrong. I have this ideology that I elevate above what God says. That's when an ideology becomes idolatry. Romans one is saying whenever a culture does that truth suppression happens. Now let me give you some examples. That's why Amazon has spent a lot of time removing any books that question transgender ideology or books that question affirmation of gender reassignment surgery for children. It's why public schools in Texas, by the way, public schools in Texas, there are schools in Texas that can have a Quran in their library, but not a Holy Bible. It's why 95 research studies can be released that say the best environment for a child to be raised in a loving household is with a married mommy and daddy that go to church. But then five research studies that are like gerrymandered will say otherwise. Those five will be all over the news, but you're never going to hear a peep about the other 95. Why? Truth suppression. It's why Carl Truman, who the way, by the way, coming on the podcast next year, it's why Carl Truman's lecture on a Christian view of sex was removed by YouTube as a quote content violation. It's why, it's why the artist formerly known as Twitter banned people during the Olympics for saying that, that a biological male should not compete against women in powerlifting. Truth suppression. It's why someday this podcast will probably be removed from our YouTube channel. And it's why some of you in my generation and down, you hear all this stuff and you're like, well, everybody says all those things that you're disagreeing with. No, no. Everybody that you've been allowed to hear believes those things. Everybody else gets suppressed. Okay. Now what the next verses do, and this is the part that starts having a wit coming out of it. Now, when I read it, you're going to start going, oh, I am here on the mall map. The next verses say that the real test of the Lordship of Christ in our life is in matters of sexuality. That's what these next verses say. When the wrath of God is poured out and the truth of God is suppressed, watch. Sex replaces God as the new religion. We're going to give you some examples of this on the screen here in a second. 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. Although they, listen close, although they claim to be wise, they became fools. What it's saying is when a culture is under the passive wrath of God, I'm gonna explain what that is here. In a second, theologically, it's saying what you're going to have is you're going to have the elevation of a bunch of people. It says claim to be wise. They became fools. You're gonna have the elevation of a bunch of people with a lot of knowledge, but no wisdom, a lot of knowledge, no wisdom. It's going to sound like this. I went to seminary and I got a lot of degrees and I believe there are six genders and that socialism will actually work this time. And then actually 1400 years of history about what happens when Muslims get into political power at scale. It's going to be different here. A lot of knowledge, little wisdom. This is, by the way, this right here, claiming to be wise, they became fools. That's why when somebody wants to believe anything, there's anything. If you want to believe something, you can find a college professor with more degrees than Fahrenheit somewhere to affirm the thing that you already decided that you want to believe. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Okay, now watch verse 23. And they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Now, again, you are here on the map. Now, by the way, when you're listening to this, what you should be noticing is we're treating Romans 1 like a to-do list. All right, so here's what it says. So they exchanged glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings, birds, animals, reptiles. It's saying when we stop worshiping God, here's what's going to happen. We don't worship bad things. We take good things and we make them ultimate things. Okay, now, dude, let me just help you understand what happens here. So we're going to worship lots of things. The thing we tend to worship the most, humans, fallen humans, is sex because when God created everything, he said it was good, but when he created the human body, he said it was very good. So the thing that people historically in a depraved culture are going to replace with God most is they'll replace God with sex. Now, verse 24, here's what happens. Therefore, God gave them over. Now, let me explain this. Chet G. Palti, if you want to chime in on this, feel free. Let's do a little theology class real quick. Theologians historically will differentiate between what's called the active wrath of God and the passive wrath of God. The active wrath of God is like Sodom and Gomorrah, like fire and brimstone fall down on a city and like actually the active judgment, like hell falls on earth. It's, you know, it's Herod being struck with worms and dying in the book of Acts. It's, you know, it's earthquakes in Exodus that swallow up cities. That's the active wrath of God. Now, dude, this is, listen real close. Romans 1 is what theologians refer to as the passive wrath of God. Now, dude, Christians misunderstand this a lot. A lot of people think that what God does is they think God judges sin, okay? And that is true, but that's an incomplete statement. There are some sins that God allowing you to do them is the judgment in and of itself. So the passive wrath of God is when God looks, so worship is this. Worship is when we look at God and go, thy will be done. By the way, family, individuals, families, churches, and nations. It's when we look at God and go, that will be done. The passive wrath of God is when God looks at people who have decided, I hate you. I hate everything that you call good. I'm going to call what you call good evil and what you call evil good. God looks at them and he goes, you know what? Thank you. thy will be done. I'm going to let you have all the evil things that you have always wanted, and I'll just give you over to those things, and you will destroy yourself, and your culture will destroy itself. And that in and of itself is the wrath of God. When Romans 1 in verse 24, note the word therefore. God, when he looks at a culture that has like decided to turn their back on him in the highest form, it says he gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to what? To sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. Now, Paul, did you want to say anything on active, passive wrath of God, or did I get it? Oh, no, I think you said it so well. I mean, I think it's basically the idea of, you know, some people get really mad at God any time he seems to discipline people, but actually the worst thing he could do is just let you have whatever you want. That's exactly right. And just leave you to yourself. That's right. That's the absolute worst thing he could do, but that's what we're about to say. I don't want to step on too much because I think you're going in some directions, and I'll stop there and maybe add some stuff later. So here's what it says. Again, we're giving you the you are here sign on the mall map and the policies that were chosen here. By the way, we're going to end with a lot of hope. We've got to go down first. We're coming back up in a bit. This is like the, we're going to get there. It's going to be awesome. So he says, here's what it's going to look like in a culture. Okay. You're under the wrath of God. How are you going to know a whole bunch of people in your culture are going to start choosing sexually degraded things and they'll degrade their bodies with one another. So degrading of their bodies. So like, I'm going to say something that honestly is gross, but like you have to, like there's sometimes we actually do sins a disservice by sanitizing what they are. So I'm just giving you a heads up. If you got kids in the car, you may just want to like hit the skip forward 30 seconds button. And it's not like over the top. I just want to like be straightforward. So I'm going to talk for a second to give you a chance to, it says, uh, God gave them over sinful desires and the sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. Okay. Degrading of their bodies with one another. So here's what that is. Dudes, two dudes having sex with each other and putting their genitalia into the place where another dude defecates out of that's degrading your bodies with one another women cutting off their breasts and trying to be a dude. That's degrading your bodies with one another. The mass murder of infants and tossing their bodies in garbage cans like leftovers. That's degrading bodies. Dudes taking hormone blockers and dressing up by women. Like that's degrading your body. This is the, you are here arrow on the Romans one mall map and verse 25 says they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And they worshiped and served created things rather than their creator who is forever praised. Amen. Now this next part, pastors don't got to try to be controversial. They just got to read Bible verses verse 24 because of this, God gave them over. There's that word again, second time. So here's the second time. Here's the, you are here. So level two of God's passive wrath is when whatever I'm about to read next is celebrated in a culture. That's how you know, you're at level two of the gospel. You're at level two of God. God gave them over to quote shameful lusts. Okay. Even their women exchange natural relations for unnatural ones. So what you just saw is level one, like, Hey, when dudes start doing same sex stuff, that that's bad. When even the women are starting to do like same sex stuff, it's talking about lesbianism. That's another level. And it's going, you're at level two of God. Okay. Even their women exchange natural sex stuff. God gave them over to under the passive wrath of God. When you start seeing that celebrated in a culture check, we're going to show a little, show a little graphic here in a second about what, you know, kind of what's celebrated in the same way. The men also abandoned natural relationships with women and were inflamed with less with one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Okay. Verse 28. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, God here, there's this phrase again, God gave them over. So whenever you see a culture that becomes unrestrained in choosing, voting for celebrating, like enshrining into laws, the celebration and permission of evil things. Okay. God gave them over to a depraved mind. What's a depraved mind. It's when your brain starts to get morally calibrated to think of good things as evil things and evil things as good things. And when you see a culture that becomes corrupt, it's when your brain starts to get morally calibrated to think of good things and evil things as good things so that they do what ought not to be done. Now, this is going to sound familiar. Let's do a little verse 29 checklist. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Some people call this Romans 1. I call it 24. 21st century America. Although they know God's righteous decree. Now, listen, bro, I'm going to show you this. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, there is something inside of us that knows this stuff is wrong. They not only continue to do these things. Now, before I read this, what I'm getting ready to say, Romans 1 is saying, this is the last stop on the passive wrath of God checklist. If you get here, it's as bad as it gets under the wrath of passive wrath of God. They not only do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them. That's you better do my hashtag. You better march in my parade. That explains why there's so much pressure today. Unless I celebrate and support you, well, then I'm intolerant. Unless I use your hashtag and fly your flag, then you're intolerant. I'll just gently say, I think the point would be, man, if you're so insecure in your convictions, that you need my approval, maybe you should reconsider your convictions. Okay. So it says, they not only do them, they give approval to those who practice them. Now, right after the midterm, right after the midterm, it's like, you just start seeing like Romans 1 just appearing like, so like right after midterm, this is a little dark, and then we're going to get a little light here. Right after midterm elections finished, this was like posted like first thing. And by the way, at first I thought this was like a Babylon Bee, like, right, like, right wing, like, like, that's so gay. Like, I thought that was what was read it for people that are not watching. Yeah. So it's, it was posted by the Congressional Equity Caucus. I don't know what that is. But yeah, the American, so it's just, it's a big, it's a big, you know, image that says gayest Congress in American history with a big rainbow on it. And this for them, they're celebrating this. They're celebrating. This is not a slam. They're celebrating. Yeah. This is not like the Babylon Bee going like, that's so gay. Yeah. It's like, this is just like, actually, like, gayest Congress in history is let's get to work. So what are we doing? We're not only doing such things, we're giving approval to those who practice them. And can I specify the reason that's also being celebrated is because Congress, this particular Congress is on track to have at least 17 openly LGBTQ members, including Chris Pappas, who was the first openly gay man elected to the Senate. Oh, amongst others. Good. Keep going. All right. Not awesome. So celebrate, not only do them give approval to those who practice them, bro, stuff. I'll be honest, dude. Forrest Frank posted about this, too. Stuff like this started, like, immediately popping up and going viral. Like, look, bro, look at this. You could do that video. Bro, like, that sends a chill down your spine. This again, this is like, this was just on. What's that? I don't do it. What's what's the the team you Twitter over on Instagram? What's that called? What's that? What is it? Threads? Threads. Oh, yeah. All right. So like, I'm not on threads, but it's like, like this, like, put up that next graphic. Like, bro, this was like, look how many likes this stuff is getting. Like right after the election. I'm just going to read these. It's a little dark. Like all caps. I'm getting pregnant tonight so I can abort it at the gender affirming DEI gay marriage clinic in my third trimester. Almost over 9000 likes. Next one. Abortions on me tomorrow. Bunch of hashtag celebration. 14000 likes. Who wants to get celebratory abortions tomorrow? For 4800 likes. Gender reassignment surgeries for all the kids. By the way, that last one was posted by an elementary school teacher. Now, again, if you're like, if there's something in you, that when we're saying this, you kind of like, should these guys be going like, Hey, man, we don't apologize or back away from things the Bible says. Like you're Romans 1, play out before your very eyes, and I will give a final warning. You cannot do Romans 1.21 through 1.27 and not think that your culture will eventually end up in Romans 2.9 that talks about the day when the wrath and fury of God will no longer be passive, it will be active. And you have to remember that the Apostle Paul, when he's writing the book of Romans, it's a group composed of Gentiles and Jews, and most would say that Romans 1 is where Paul is focusing. Mainly on the sins of the Gentiles, which have been the sins of the surrounding culture at the time. So he is willing, and now in chapter two, he's going to call out the sins of particularly the religious Jews at the time. But here he is calling out the sins that are being done and celebrated. So if that's what the Apostle Paul did, we can and should do the same thing too. Yeah, you'll hear some people like, oh man, why do you guys, like, why do you act not, here's a little thing people say. And there's a way that it can be true. And then there's a way where it's actually a way to explain away a lot of the Bible. They'll say things like, oh, why do you guys expect non-Christians to act like Christians? No, no, no, no. All we're doing is saying everyone will stand before God in judgment, and God's judgments are true. Anything else on this? I want to ask you a follow-up question, but I want to let you finish. I'm done. Okay. I'm done on this. I got a couple other things we're going to hit, and then we're going to get happy. It's going to be great. Okay. Keep going, keep going. I'll ask you. All right, all right, that's great. All right, now, so that was by far the longest point I'm going to make. That's a pretty good point, man. We just did a little Bible study. It wasn't that long. Okay, all right. Oh, good, all right. Okay, let me give point number three, a thing Christians need to keep in mind. Hey, guys, there is no political solution to a spiritual problem. Amen. Let me just like, the other thing Romans 1 points out, hey, brother, we got a spiritual problem. Politics cannot fix what politics did not break, and mankind was broken long before any political solution. This is why the church that preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ, we're the hope of the world, baby. We got like, this is our train. This is our thing. Let me just, I want to point something out and just zoom out theologically for a second, okay? I don't want to, you know, I don't want to drone on and on here, so you guys got to keep this fun and just tell me to shut up whenever, okay? So what a lot of people don't realize is going to happen is people will take John 10. I'm the vine, you're the branches. Apart from you, you can do nothing. Okay, and usually they will correctly apply it to people. That verse is true at every level of existence, okay? Individuals, you got to, I'm going to make a point with this. Individuals got to stay connected to the root, Jesus Christ, in order to have the fruit. Okay, families got to stay connected to the root to have the fruit. Churches got to stay connected to the root to have the fruit. Hello, nations and populations of nations. You got to stay connected to the root, Jesus Christ. Make disciples of all nations in order to have the fruit, okay? So can I just like, a lot of people forget this, dude. And this is like, I've started to think I'm the only one who thinks this is interesting, but it's fun for me, so I'll talk about it. And Tim Barton, we can nerd out on it. So, dude, like, our nation was literally born out of a Christian revival. The United States of America literally was born out of a Christian revival. So think about this. First Great Awakening. And Brian was listening to me. I've got a bunch of stories about the First Great Awakening today in my car. Make your eyes sweat. First Great Awakening, the date's 1720 to 1750. So this is when Jonathan Edwards is preaching sinners in the hands of angry God. And literally, people are groaning and crying out in fear of falling under the judgment of God in his little church in Northampton. He has to stop preaching, according to some accounts. because the people are wailing, clinging to the backs of their pews in fear they'll drop into hell under the judgment of God. So many people get converted in the first great awakening. Edwards records, you could not walk through the city of Northampton on a Sunday without hearing all the families singing hymns in their living rooms. It'd be like driving through Rockwall or Dallas. And everywhere you go with your windows down in your truck, you're just hearing, I call God. And like, you just can't go anywhere without seeing families worshiping Jesus. Windows open, just flooding Dallas. Bro, they literally got to the point where they didn't need a police force in Northampton because so many people were like, why do I need, what laws you got? I'm obeying Jesus. They would talk about how this, and Spurgeon talked about the same thing, even when he was seeing things done in the UK later. We talked about the sign of revival is not how many people were there on Sunday. It was by the changed lives that were Monday through Saturday and the things that were different outside of the walls of the church. So that's a huge thing that we need to double click on and make sure we highlight. Yeah. 80% of the population in the colonies, 80% of them were estimated to have personally heard George Whitefield preach. That's crazy. No mics, no YouTube, no Instagram reel. By the way, George Whitfield would have crushed Instagram reels. He's a beast. Would have crushed Instagram reels. 80% of them, 10% of the nation, 10% of the entire population is estimated to have been converted and become active church members. Now, if you're like, ah, 10%. Bro, that would be the equivalent of in the next 12 months in America, 35 million people. Bro, it makes your eyes sweat. 35 million people, not just getting saved, becoming active members of their churches. 35 million. Now, that happens from 1720 to 1750. 26 years later, in 1776, a whole bunch of very largely, very Bible-believing Christian dudes decide, let's start a country. and they base a lot of the laws, legislation, political philosophy on things like the book of Deuteronomy. Here's my point. You don't get the fruit without the root. That fruit of what this nation became, the most blessed by God nation maybe in human history, that came from a specific root, okay? So here's my point, and this is like the warning. Charlie Kirk pointed this out. You have never in all of human history, and you will never see a nation move farther away from Christianity and get better. That has never happened, okay? Ancient Turkey used to be the center of gravity for the church, Revelation 2 and 3, okay? Moved away from Christianity, not awesome, not doing great, okay? Great Britain, once a very thoroughgoing Protestant Christian nation. Also, one of the most powerful, prosperous nations in the world. By the way, no one here is saying any of these countries were perfect. Nobody's saying that. Used to be one of those powerful, prosperous nations in the world. Not doing awesome. Mainland Europe. Bro, there's a reason everywhere you go in Europe, there's some massive cathedral. It was a massive outpouring of the Spirit of God and the Protestant Reformation and all this stuff moved away. Hey guys, mainland in europe not doing awesome now as the united states moves away from the root you're gonna lose the fruit so what people think here's what people think people think man we'll just like like we kind of like how everything's going like we're you know we're prosperous and you know the nation's thriving and all this stuff and we'll just we're gonna keep all that and just subtract god well hey bro you don't get to subtract the root and keep the fruit it's like there's cut it's gonna begin to yeah something begins to happen now you guys got any thoughts here, but I'm talking too much. No, no, you're doing great. Actually, I just want to make a Bible connection from Romans, and then I just want to give an encouragement, and I would even say, I don't want to say an admonition, but I want to say an encouragement to everybody listening out there. Number one, in Romans 1, we talked about how false worship led to degraded behavior. Right. And then, but what you then get in Romans 3 is the solution to that, which is the gospel. It says, for all have sinned, including all the people who have committed the sins that we just read in Romans 1. And then in Romans 2, it's focusing a lot on people who are very religious, but yet still did not worship God as he wanted to be worshiped. And so the solution gets to Romans 3, where Jesus Christ, it says, is the propitiation. He was punished for everyone's sins. And then you get to Romans 10, where he talks about now, man, we need to go and spread the gospel to all people, because how can they call on the one who they have not heard? What's interesting is if you go to Romans 12, I'm going somewhere with this. In Romans 12, what happens is it says, therefore, in view of the mercies of God, let us offer our bodies as a living sacrifice worship. And then it goes on to then list transformed behavior. So Romans 1, false worship, degraded behavior. Romans 12, after you receive the gospel is transformed worship and transformed behavior. So basically what we're trying to say is the point is, man, we got to remember, we got to get the gospel to people. That's right. Make the focus Jesus. And so let me just give encouragement to everyone that's listening or watching this is, and it's not bad, by the way, if you've been posting about politics. I want to go ahead and say that right now. But I would encourage you, do not post another thing about politics until you've shared the gospel with somebody. That's just a simple encouragement I'd give to you. And then for us, by the way, if you've been listening to us long enough, if this is your first time, let me say it for you. But if you listen to us long enough, you already know this. We're not an either or group. We're not an either or team. We're like, hey, we can both engage in politics and share the gospel. But I will say, I sometimes see a trend amongst Christians, especially on social media where they will post a ton about politics, but not a ton about the gospel. And I don't want to judge people's hearts and lives. I don't know what they're doing behind the scenes, but I would just give you an encouragement. If you've been posting a lot about politics before you post another thing, go share the gospel with another living, breathing human. That's great. There is no political solution to a spiritual problem. There ain't one. Let me just, this may get long enough that we're like, I would just take a break and come back to you remember this paul okay so title of the article missions rescuing from hell and renewing the world let's put the link to this in the uh in this caption yeah is that what's called description of the video or the discipleship guide i don't know what that is so we're gonna so and you should read it's really fascinating but bro this is so this is amazing now put up put up the quote trinity so what he does so check this out so just to illustrate what we're talking about like what happens to nations when they're full of people who love jesus worship jesus that kind of thing real good things like real good things so what this dude did i'm just gonna read it this is from this article in 2012 sociologist robert woodbury who by the way i do not think was a christian sociologist okay published the astonishing fruit of a decade of research into the effect of missionaries on the health of nations the jan feb 2014 you , titled the missionary roots of liberal democracy listen real close robert woodbury's article in the american political science review defends this thesis dude check this out the work of missionaries turns out to be the single largest factor in ensuring the health of nations wow so bro this is mind-blowing yep so this dude just zooms out for a whole decade and tries to figure out what's the greatest common denominator denominator between thriving nations what's the one thing bro here's his conclusion this was a discovery that he says landed on him like a quote atomic bomb to be more specific so what kind of missionaries we love our catholic friends we love our orthodox for all the things what kind of missionaries to be more specific woodbury's research supported this sweeping claim areas where protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average listen more economically developed today with comparatively better health lower infant mortality lower corruption greater literacy higher educational attainment especially for women and more robust membership in non-governmental associations and he finishes by saying this he concedes that quote there were and are racist missionaries this was written back in like peak woke era so everybody was like that was their first thing that they would think oh but they were they were all colonial racists guy that's like actually not true and missionaries who do self-centered things so he concedes that but ads if that were the average effect we would expect that the places where missionaries had influence to be worse than places where missionaries weren't allowed or were restricted in action we find exactly the opposite in all kinds of outcomes boom boom yep connected to the root you get the fruit it's good makes sense man yeah i mean the people don't know the reason today uh justice rights equality morality education these are all back to the christian roots yeah it's good all comes okay yeah all same thing that's great uh man this is all i'm talking for a long time are you good this is awesome you want me to speed it up what do you think no no you got it all right all right what is it if you want you can take another bite of the cake and then uh i've eaten a good i can tell yeah you're almost uh i'm not at this point uh you're on the cake let me do uh let me do one last uh like not it's not a bad news it's a warning and then it's like hey man let let let's we this is our thing we got some there's hope here uh so let me just kind of gently say this uh people need to uh face the reality that part of the culture war it's honestly it's just incarnational spiritual warfare part of the culture war is just incarnational spiritual warfare so throughout the bible what you have and i'm going to show you something that may send a little uh chill down your spine throughout the bible what you have is uh demonic principalities and powers go through the old testament they target quote the high places constantly the high places in the new testament it's thrones and dominions okay now again we don't want to get too weird with the islam thing but this is a thing like allah is a demonic entity and you have demons against the one true god that's what you have as far as what the what what worship is happening that's what literally the apostle paul says that when people sacrifice uh to quote unquote other gods they're sacrificing to demons so he's gone all the other gods of those other religions they're demons allah is a demon that's what he's saying now dude so when el saeed dude gave his do you see how he gave his acceptance speech so i'm gonna i'm gonna show you something like check this out so all uh a lot of the culture war is just incarnational spiritual warfare here's an example of this so you had eight uh more people elected into islamic people into political power so by the way we said no to christian nationalism we're saying yes to islamic nationalism that's what half the country is doing now check this out real quick here's an example this is acceptance speech my name is abdul rahman muhammad and i am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator elect from the great state of michigan listen to this language here in a second up until right about now you might have noticed i always say inshallah or god willing pause so okay he said it so inshallah that's that's uh that's if if allah wills that's what he kind of he kind of americanized it it's if allah wills that's what it means now watch what watch where he switches it to go whenever the outcome of this race was mentioned but today tonight we can turn that inshallah into uh watch this okay now pause now here's what that means that means praise be to allah so bro guy gets in a political office the first thing he says praise be to allah why because principalities and powers they target high places and thrones and i'll just say man he can say it all he wants and christians have a responsibility to oppose it and well i love that guy and want him to bend his knee to jesus christ okay but all thrones and dominions belong to him they belong to him so what you're seeing is in some ways play out is incarnational spiritual warfare anything for you guys on this you make you not on that specific not on that specific way usually you make me do everything you cook all right yeah this is like mj game six tall jazz you know flu game yeah no no that was uh that's this so we're just letting you do you think i had that basketball card now let's do two fast things here uh four i think obviously uh i think conservative political leaders they got some lessons to learn yep so you guys hey bro you got some lessons to learn yep so so let me just uh it would be really foolish like dude we're pastors but we're also leaders like we have to lead an organization and that kind of thing leadership 101 this is like cookies bottom shelf leadership 101 the first thing you do face the brutal facts maintain unwavering faith yeah face the brutal facts maintain unwavering faith so man i think that what they need to do is you got to pause and kind of hey let's read the room and figure out what the heck just happened and why it happened you guys got thoughts there oh yeah i've got a lot of them in this area um well and even i think in your original uh when i saw you post this on x uh it was basically like the the instinct of some people like oh voters are dumb or the people who didn't vote are dumb and that's what a bad leader does yeah um a bad leader immediately blames everybody else a good leader starts with them and it's looking themselves in the mirror and says okay like what happened what do we need to shift and change and this is me saying this so i just want to clarify this is not pastor josh or carlos saying this but do i wish more christians would vote yes and i wish more christians would vote yes and i wish more christians would vote in the primaries so that we get candidates worth voting for smart that's good call that's good paul not in all the races but in a lot of these races they were not lost on november 3rd they were lost six months ago in primaries and i'll just be real with y'all over again this is me saying this over the last eight to ten years i've seen increasingly more pathetic candidates put before us to vote for us conservatives and part of that by the way is on us like we often will say oh we get the leaders we deserve and we also get the leaders we vote for including in primaries so i will say this just to my fellow christians like we need people to start showing up not just in november but in primaries to make sure we're getting candidates worth voting for and then with that i just want to challenge man if you're involved in politics or even if you're praying about getting involved in politics we need people with unimpeachable character yeah and with actual conservative values that the primary thing is that we need people with unimpeachable character is not allegiance to a particular man or a particular wing of a party but that people who have unimpeachable character that's right and who actually have conservative values in my personal opinion over the last eight to ten ten years we've gotten a ton of candidates who are anti-liberal and anti-woke and by the way it's fine to be against certain things we've said in policies that we believe are destroying the nation but that's all they're known for what we've had a deficit of is people whose character was unimpeachable and who actually could articulate conservative values i saw so many candidates that they wouldn't know a conservative principle if it came up and slapped him in the face and then we wonder why they got blown off the map i mean i'm not saying in every race but i'm saying in a good amount of races so i'll just say like guys yeah we deserve better and so i will say this like man if you're out there you get involved number one be those kinds of people but then number two for us christians let's make sure sure that we're giving our votes to those kind of people. That's the only thing I, that's just a personal thing. I think that's part of the practical solution to saying, Hey, man, let's get back to some of these things we may have drifted away from. And cause I just, I just have a firm belief. Like actually, can I, can I do one more thing on this real fast? Like what's interesting is one thing that people might be tempted to think is, Oh, people must now love the democratic party. Yeah, actually the data is not there. I've got graphs from, so this is their favorability and unfavorability rankings of how your average person sees the democratic party. So six months ago, they had a 38% favorable rating yesterday, November 5th, it was 41%. So only 41% of the nation actually see them. So this is not, Oh, we love Democrats and their policies. This is a, Hey, we want a change. And I just have a belief that if we had a wave of new, truly conservative candidates who could give a vision of something worth building and not just worth tearing down, we can reach that. We capture people's hearts and move in some new directions. Again, that's just me. Just wanted to throw that out while we were on kind of the more practical piece of this. How many more points you got? One. Okay. We're going to do that. And then we're going to move on and we're gonna land the plane. Yeah, that's good. That's great, man. Yeah. Uh, yeah, let me just say agree. And I will say, man, what's, what is a little tough is, uh, you know, I'll just gently kind of like for, for pastors and churches, I do think pastors and churches have generally spent like the last 20 to 30 years, like, uh, painting, politics in particular conservative politics as like, Ooh, gross, icky. Well, Hey dude, or just not being clear with people, just honestly, just not being clear with people about moral asymmetry and that kind of thing. Well, if, if pastors and churches do that for 30 years, you're not going to have a ton of like upstanding Christians that are like, Oh, I should go into politics. Okay. So like, Hey man, I just like, we need like you're the nation needs a generate. It took a, it took a generation of Christian statesmen to found the country. It will take a generation of Christian statesmen, to preserve it. I'm going to forge you guys some message of next week, but some of my favorite emails and message I've gotten last two or three weeks is people who said, man, listen to the podcast. And it inspired me to run for office. It's like, we need more of that. We're going to see more of that. I will ask Pastor Josh on that note, because you do, you just said it is important for us, one as Christians and two, more importantly as pastors to continue to lean more into some of these conversations because the Bible does. Uh, I was having a conversation with a friend a while back and, you know, he brought up the, the idea, especially for younger Christians, some data seems to suggest that, uh, younger people are moving away from the church because the perception is that the church or Christians in, uh, in, in America, uh, some of them, uh, evangelical Christians, they lean too closely to the Republican Republican party, or it's like, there's a, there's like a people associate, Oh, well, evangelical Christian, that means there's some sort of association with the Republican party. Um, therefore they're moving away from the church or they're less interested in being part of the church. What's in your, I actually, I'm so glad you're right. So first of all, I say, I say a lot, I say a lot of things because people throw this at you constantly. So first of all, some people will, sometimes they'll point at us and this, like, be like, that's you guys. Like whenever somebody says that, I'm like that, they, they don't listen. That's the person that does it. They may see clips or they may see characters. They don't listen. So I'll just point that out. Number one, I'll just gently point out. That's not what the data actually shows. So the, uh, if you go back, it was a few years ago. Uh, the great de-churching book, essentially that book debunked that entire myth. It was like, basically there is no actual data. Now you will see. So here's what the book, if I remember right, showed people will say that they'll say, Oh, I don't, I don't go to church because of X. Okay. The data actually shows that affects like literal, like nobody like has not actually caught. Uh, I'll, I will gently say this just from, from talking to people. Um, what does frequently happen is people who already hate the church. They're like, Oh, I don't want to go to church. Because they are pre-committed to ungodly ideologies and actions. They say that to like hold Christians emotionally hostage. And essentially what they'll do is be like, Oh, you better not apply your beliefs in the public square or your evangelism will fail. And honestly, dude, it's like, it's like spiritual terrorism. It's kind of like if you don't, you know, and I'll just gently say, people say that we're like that. And I'm like, Hey bro, uh, our church has grown by like 16,000 people in the last eight years. And we're pushing towards baptizing 4,000 new Christians. Yeah. We're not pushing, uh, we're not promoting candidates. Uh, so again, I think that's, that's what people assume was like, Oh, you're talking about the other party. Therefore you must be promoting or you must be, you know, we are clear. I am. I'll say, I, I am clear about moral asymmetry. Yeah, that's right. I am very clear about that. Yes. But this is not like a, you know, like a red church or like, that's what people assume. I'm not wearing like a, like a, I don't got a GOP shirt. That's just a live free. Yeah. That's it. All right. So number two, I will just again, we already did the thing of, Hey, in 2026 Christian ethics and, uh, uh, uh, theology of the role of the government. It just is. It's going to translate conservative. It's just, that's just a fact, but we get our, we keep our allegiance the right way. It's Christian of the conservative over the Christian. And number three, I'll just, here's the last thing I'll say. And this may be a little spicy, um, particularly with men, particularly dudes, um, men generally don't start to really care about the future until they got kids. I'm just going to say that, like, I'm just going to tell you, man, um, it, when you got kids, it activates something in a man. And all of a sudden he starts caring a whole lot about the future of society. So I will just gently say this. This is why, um, sometimes, uh, there will be, and I'll just, just want to gently say this, um, younger Christians, they'll be like, Ooh, I get the ick. You know, it's like I get, they get the ick when like pastors make cultural or political applications. Uh, I will, I will gently point out when that dude has, uh, turns 34 and he's got two sons, all of a sudden he cares a whole lot about the future of society that he's in. And let me just gently say this churches should not reverse engineer their evangelism strategies from the immaturities of the people they're trying to reach. Say it one more time. Cause that's really good. Churches should not reverse engineer their evangelism strategies from the immaturities of the people they're trying to reach and disciple. So like, Hey bro, Hey, like this is a dumb thing to say. Young people don't like this. So you shouldn't do that. Well, Hey man, like, like we got verses from the book of Proverbs. Like, Hey man, the younger you are, there's some foolishness that you got to get out of yourself. Let's grow up a little bit and let's teach people to be a man or a woman of God. So there you go. I testify from experience. That's it. I think that's all of us. That's great. Uh, well, you know, I think people are also getting, uh, our hope is that when people tune into the live free podcast, man, you get joy, you get hope. Um, we are not people of fear. Happy warriors. That's right. The happy warriors. We are not people of fear. We are people of hope. Uh, in Luke 21, Jesus is speaking to his disciples and he's talking about destruction. And, uh, persecution and wars and earthquakes and global chaos. And he says this when, when not, if, when these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near. Uh, we have an ultimate hope, ultimate confidence. Uh, we know how the story ends. Let's go. Uh, we can walk in faith and confidence and courage, not despair. We speak up, we get involved, we vote, we labor so that righteous leaders can sit on earthly thrones. But we also rest and we trust that no matter what, uh, we know that there is one that sits on a heaven. And that's Jesus. Bro, let me just let this, or so we're going to say this and then we're going to take a break because I got to use the bathroom and then we're going to come back and finish the episode. So listen, dude, this is our thing. So I just want to, here it is. It's okay for somebody to have been sad for a couple of days. That's great, man. I totally get it. Yeah. Okay. Me too. That's great. One, let's just put things in perspective. Put, put up that graph about, uh, the primary losses throughout, uh, American history. It's like, bro, if you're ranking worst, I mean like, Hey, this does have significant consequences. All the things, it does matter. We're not downplaying that. But it's like, if you're going, you're going like worst primary, uh, moments, is it like barely in the top 10 in national history? Now that's not downplaying this stuff, but just to put it in perspective. Um, and what I really just want to point out, man, is, Hey dude, we're Christians. We're sadness. Okay. Despair is a sin. We got Bible verses. Therefore we do not lose heart. Can I just say something? We've been flipping. Nations for 2000 years. That's our thing. Like, Hey dude, there was a time when there was no such thing as a country that was full of a bunch of Christians. And now I got 2.6 billion brothers and sisters all over this planet. If you're like freaking out because of this one little thing, did you read your Bible? And have you ever heard about church history, bro? GK Chesterton. I'm on a, we're going to finish on a high note. GK Chesterton has got this fire quote fire. It's from his, I think it was Orthodox. I think it was Orthodoxy where GK Chesterton, he looked at all of human history and he said at least five times in human history, it is seemed that Christianity has gone to the dogs and every single time it was the dog that died. Listen, dude, listen, like our country was formed out of a revival and an outpouring of God's spirit that swept the entire nation and changed everything. And listen, dude, he did it once. Do it again. Listen, dude, he's going to do it again. And all it takes, listen, first great awakening, two anointed apostolic leaders. You got John, actually three, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitfield. Okay, bro. It takes like three anointed apostolic leaders full of the spirit of God, steel in their spines, fire in their eyes, sword out of their mouth. And that can, that can shift the trajectory of an entire country. I'm asleep real good tonight. Amen. real good tonight. We're going to be fine. Now let's take a break and we're coming. back well hey guys one of the reasons we are intentional in creating this kind of podcast episode is because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships having said that what we want to do through the live free podcast is we want to model what it looks like to be in a discipleship group where we come together and open up the word of god and grow together as followers of jesus to live free in christ and so for this reason we love that you're tuning in and honestly we don't just want you to be a passive listener we want you to be an active participant and so if you have not gotten connected to a local church i want to challenge you to find one near you one starting point that might be helpful is to text map to two zero four one one to find where some of our partner churches are located and because here's why you're not one podcast away one habit away one decision away one book away or one sermon away you are one relationship away to experience free church life and so if you're not connected to a local church i want to challenge you to find freedom in christ in community let's go ahead and do that and now let's get back to the podcast all right man we're back hey we're back baby in the meantime that cake is like halfway there at this point yeah i ate um paul's torso and great all right man well hey we're gonna speed run this that's right uh pastor mike shout out to master mike bro dude phenomenal job this weekend i love mike bro we live in uh we live in a such a such an individualistic culture obviously we're used to thinking generally speaking everybody thinks all about me how does this make me feel uh how does that affect me um the gospel is the opposite it's not all about you uh that's literally why jesus said deny yourself if you want to be a follower of jesus uh and so i love that this week and pastor mike uh emphasize this idea that when you uh give your life to jesus it just takes one small action and that one decision that one time uh it creates ripple effects in your life and other people's life uh it's it's one decision to say yes to jesus uh touches one life which means another life and then uh even after you're not uh here on this earth uh the legacy keeps growing dude honestly it's it's one of the best sermons i've i've ever heard best and most encouraging sermons i've ever heard it was it was you got to go listen to it okay so here's what i want to do i want to read the verse real quick and then we're just gonna we're gonna do a little mini hey hey bible study hey i will allow it thank you thank you what was that you forgot to ask the question i forgot to no we haven't got there yet okay okay all right read the thing and then we're going to speed run this and then we're going to do a little mini bible study and then we're going to run this thing because there's some awesome gold here mark chapter 8 verse 3 wait wait can i set it up uh i'll allow it okay so here you go so this is mark 8 right yeah mark 8 okay i thought you said something else so first of all let's we'll do a little bible nerd stuff i just want to get people into the word so first of all mark uh just for bible you know we got a ton of people it's their first time reading the bible mark four different gospels each of the gospels written to a different audience that's right just like when you do evangelism sharing the sharing christ you do it different for different dudes or whoever you're talking to uh so here's and this gonna make sense here in a second each one of the four gospels is uh theologians call it contextualized to a different audience so this is kind of fun just to know a little fun fact to know until matthew was primarily written to anybody want to guess the jewish to a jewish audience that's right the uh huge emphasis on fulfillment of old testament prophecy if you read matthew you'll notice the genealogy intentionally traces back to abraham and david because all the jews are going to be in the same place and they're going to be in the same place and they're going to their team luke primarily contextualized to a uh greek gentiles okay now i thought you pointed at him because you're like well here's a gentile people like this guy oh my gosh dude i was deferring he's from a different country we're all gonna bring race into this i'm from a gentile audience we're all gentiles we're all gentiles he's like where are you from he's probably for him the gospel is for him yeah yeah all right so luke gentile audience it's a address to theophilus a roman gentile guy that's why uh he primarily appeals not to old testament uh prophecy fulfillment he appeals to eyewitnesses because roman gentiles they don't know they're like they don't even know about that stuff uh and that's why he does the genealogy goes back to adam so he's pointing hey this gospel is for all of humanity gentiles to john primarily contextualized to anybody anybody roman gentiles uh well they usually say greek true usually is what they say you could i see what you're saying yeah yeah you could do that uh like for instance and i can't wait to preach this i'm preaching it right after christmas of the movies uh john one in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the the greek word that gets translated word is lagas lagas which was a a huge word in greek philosophy for like the underpinning idea of all of philosophy so and so he's going well that's jesus in him all things hold together is what he's doing mark this is where we are primarily contextualized what a lot of people say to a roman yep audience is what they'll do very action oriented and you're going to notice even in mark 8 you'll see this couple times he takes time to like explain jewish customs okay now i will just say good example when you got a one more you got to figure out how where are the gospel little tie-ins to this guy's life it's good and it's going to be different for every person it's good no no no go ahead go ahead you look like it's no no go so i thought you said mark and that's why i said roman gentiles but i'm not going to go into that because i'm not going to go into that because i'm not going to but i think you're talking about john and that was my oh did i say mark and maybe i missed that i don't know sorry john was that's right that's right and then mark was for the roman gentiles connecting a dot to the first part of the free today to the very people that paul was writing to yes in the book of romans those same exact kind of people writing the gospel for them boom and what you're about to see is where we ended talking about election so hey dude we don't despair we've been flipping countries for two thousand years that's what you're about to see it's like this is awesome okay so let me just set it up we'll do a little indiana jones thing real quick okay so go ahead and toss that first one so this is the history of philippi now here's why this is important it's way out in the middle of nowhere like for real i'm gonna talk about this next week so you have to have the suspense until next week for what happens here this is the i will build my church passage this is the peter confesses jesus the christ passage and jesus takes them all the way out in the middle to like quinlan texas in the middle of nowhere like why are we here and i'll explain why next week uh mount herman so look at top left so that's mount herman uh pop quiz chat g paul t what of what major new testament event probably happened in mount i knew you were going there and i was like trying to gotcha i know i knew i knew you were going there he's just pretending go ahead sorry the transfiguration yeah yeah he was just pretending yeah transfiguration so transfiguration of jesus probably happens top of mount herman okay it happens six days after by the way the events of mark chapter eight interesting okay the events of mark chapter eight happen look down there at the bottom that's history of philippi it's the sacred cave i'm gonna explain what that means uh later these pictures are ones that i actually took when i visited so check this out we've showed these before but i want you to see them so that's what it looks like when you're walking up to it when jesus does the on this rock i will build my church when you're seeing that you're like well i kind of see why i said that you get a little closer look at this next one nope go yep that's it that's the so when people are talking about the rock that's probably the rock and i'll get there next week and then go to the next one what's interesting when you're here is you'll see a bunch of these little things they're all over because they had there's three of them like in a little diagonal they were little spots where they would have idols uh two different uh gods and goddesses like little demonic false gods so they were right there and next week i will reveal why jesus picked this exact spot uh to come and do this but this is where it happens now uh all that being said okay one last thing and i want you to read the passage before carlos reads this passage uh you got to remember it's going to talk about carrying a cross uh a lot of people don't know this um four years before historians think jesus was born uh actually 70 years before jesus was born this is a fun little fact to know and tell for bible scholars 70 years before jesus was born was when the spartacus uprising took place that you watched the movie about when you were a kid which one this guy we just learned before the pod he hasn't even seen what's the movie he hasn't seen uh anchorman anchorman you don't know so when people say anchorman you don't know so when people say anchorman you don't know so when people say i am spartacus you don't know what you're they're talking about uh is that 300 by the way i just gotta get this out there i'm talking about the spartacus that was made in the early 90s or the late 80s because i think there was like a shady one made on netflix or something like that i don't know anyway i don't know the shady one or the 90s one you know you don't know anchorman you don't know i know i i don't know of it i just i never saw it because you know i'm not i'm not a fan of elf either unique new york i mean you he's just throwing out all these man he's just throwing you know i think elf's overrated i agree with you it's fine all right let's keep going we said we're going to speed run this so 70 years before jesus uh comes along the spartacus uprising happens uh they crucified 6 000 people along the roman highways four years before now this is actually important to this passage four years before jesus is born uh likely there was a jewish revolt against roman authorities uh they put down the revolt and they publicly crucified over 2 000 jewish dudes along all the roads oh by the way in the region that jesus lived so i just want you to think about this when jesus mentions the cross in this passage this is before his crucifixion interesting why is he mentioning the cross well bro that moment in 4 bc that would have been like every jew in his area is 9 11 yeah like trauma of all of them remembering wow i i walk past my granddad choking to death on his own blood next to the highway crucified. So traumatic event in the collective Jewish mind. With that in mind, Jesus says this, Carlos, can you read it? Verse 34, and calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? Yes. Now here's what the big thing that Mike landed on, which was masterful, was saying, man, if you want to find life, give it away. And if you spend your whole life just trying to keep your life and everything that's good for you, you're going to lose it. Okay. And dude, he did this thing, bro, this masterful thing about one of the reasons that Jesus says, hey man, when you give your life away, you actually gain. And Mike showed this, that when you live like that and you just walk around tiny little things that you didn't think were important at all, they can set in motion chains of events and ripples that change the course of all of human history. Can I give? One example of what this looks like. So dude, this is going to blow your mind. It took me probably 18 hours of research to do what I'm about to do. Let me show you how one tiny little event can change the course of all of human history. So we just read Mark chapter eight. In Mark eight, just stick with me. You're in about 60 seconds. You're like, what is he doing? Wait for the payoff. The payoff is great. So in Mark chapter eight, Jesus stands up right around this and he says, I will build my church. All right. Now come with me. In Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit fell in Jerusalem. 3,000 people were saved and the church that Jesus predicted would be born in Mark chapter eight is born in Acts chapter two. After that, Peter continued preaching. And by Acts four, the church grew to 5,000 people in those first days. In Acts chapter seven, Stephen gave a powerful sermon and was stoned to death, becoming the first Christian martyr. Ripples keep going, brother. In Acts chapter eight, God uses a volunteer in the church named Philip to convert an Ethiopian politician, sending a gospel seed on its way back to Africa. In Acts chapter nine, the Lord converted Saul on the Damascus road and made him Paul, the first and most prolific church planter the world has ever seen. Ripples keep going. In Acts chapter 12, AD 44, by the way, King Herod Agrippa has James executed and Peter arrested. And in the midst of persecution, Antioch becomes the church's center of operations. Paul and Barnabas get sent out on the first missionary journey. On their final missionary journey, Paul travels to Galatia, Phrygia, and Ephesus. He spends three months in Greece before going to Jerusalem and he's arrested. Then Paul is sent to Rome and he's shipwrecked on Malta, where he lived there two years before Nero eventually ordered his beheading in the year 64 AD. Now, at that point, my friends, the book of Acts ends. But the links in the chain of the spread of the gospel, and the ripples that keep going, do not. In AD 80, Christianity first spreads to France and Tunisia. In AD 100, the first Christians are reported in Algeria and Sri Lanka. In AD 150, the gospel is reported in Portugal and Morocco. By AD 174, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, the gospel's popping up there. By AD 328, churches are reported in Ethiopia, listen, as a result of the Ethiopian convert way back in Acts chapter eight. 200 years later, Pope Gregory I sent Augustine of Canterbury and a team of missionaries to present day England. And within the first year, they baptized 10,000 people. 200 years later, or in 635 AD, the first Christian missionaries arrive in China. By 740 AD, Irish monks brought the gospel to Iceland. But it wasn't until AD 900 that missionaries reached the country of Norway. By 1200, the Bible was available in 22 different languages. Ripples keep going. By 1491, missionaries arrive in the African Congo with the first church located in Angola. A few years later, Kenya reports its first known Christians. Meanwhile, in Spain, Pope Alexander VI wanted to send Catholic missions to the New World. As a result, Christopher Columbus took priests with him on his second journey to the Americas. In 1531, Franciscan Juan de Padilla started mission work in Mexico City. By 1550, John Calvin sent French Protestants to reach the people of Brazil. In 1640, Jesuit missionaries finally reached the Caribbean. The early 1700s saw the rise of the Great Awakening. Come on, somebody. In America, where both George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards stirred revival throughout the colonies. In 1835, the Southern Baptist Convention formed in Augusta, Georgia, and decided to spread the gospel. In 1840, three churches in 1840 organized to form the Union Baptist Association, and they began helping start churches throughout the state of Texas in 1852, three miles from where we are sitting right now. New Hope Baptist Church was formed. Years later, when the city of Rockwall was incorporated, the church would change its name to First Baptist Church of the United States. In 1850, the New Hope Baptist Church was formed in Rockwall, Texas. In June 1979, First Baptist Church would send seven families to start West Rockwall Baptist Church to reach hundreds of young families moving to the Lake Ray Hubbard area with the gospel. And in 1996, that church would change its name to Lake Point Church. In 2004, we started our first ever campus, the Town East Campus. In 2006, the Firewheel Campus was added. In 2010, the Forney Campus was born. In 2010, the Forney Campus was added. In 2012, the first meeting ever of Lake Point en Español takes place. Later that year, Lake Point Church Online was started, the artist formerly known as the iCampus. And then in 2018, God called me to Lake Point Church. And last year, in 2025, we started the Live Free Podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to talk about the Bible. We're going to talk about the Bible. And you never know what little thing that you will do will change the course of human history. Why? Because if you are willing to lay down your life, you will find it. But if you keep it to yourself, you will lose it. Amen. Bro, the ripples. The ripples, bro. That's amazing. Dude, it's awesome. That's amazing. It's awesome. It's just when I'm sitting there listening to Mike talk about, hey man, little things. Ripple, ripple, ripple, ripple, ripple. And it's like, we literally got the ripples that go from this page of the Bible to these three dudes sitting at this table right now. That's right. Any thoughts? I'm going to hold mine, but are you going to tell the Mordecai story? Oh, I got to. Well, because what I love that you just did is that you showed the grand scope and sweep of Christian history and how this huge thing can start with one. But in the middle of that, you've got a lot of people deciding to your point to make ripples on their own. And so you almost got like, if we just double click at one point in history, we got a guy named Mordecai Ham. I'm not going to step on it. I'm not going to go, but I'm just saying like, I think it'd be helpful to show just mainly to show like how to the people we're talking to, even if you think that what you do is insignificant, even if you're never going to be on a podcast, reaching tons of people, you can still have an insane, insane ripple effect, not just in your lifetime, but in the generations actually. I think you got to tell the story here in a minute. A lot of the people who have had the greatest impact on human history that will have the biggest crowns to throw at the feet of Jesus. They didn't even know they did something significant while they were on earth. So like, here's an example. So this is really interesting. When you read the gospels, watch next time you read them, the number of times a significant event in Jesus' ministry was an unexpected interruption. Bro, this is so fascinating. So I'm going to list them. I'm going to list them. Okay. So you're talking, okay, this is Mark 8 applied. The paralytic lowered through the roof, interruption. Woman with the issue of blood, unexpected interruption. Sinful woman that anoints Jesus with the whole thing of Nard. Unexpected interruption. The Syrophoenician woman who has the demon possessed daughter that he cast the thing out of. Blind Bartimaeus. Can't wait to preach that next year. Feeding of the 5,000. People forget that. He was trying to get rest on a boat because he's emotionally worn out after he hears about the death of John the Baptist. So all that stuff, all the children that get brought to him. Exactly. Zacchaeus conversion. Woman caught in adultery. One of the greatest stories in the entire gospels. Here's the point. If you're a Christian, there is no such thing as a coincidence. And many times the interruption, that's your assignment. The interruption is your assignment. Now, bro, here's an example of this. Dude, it's like all of Christian history has been shaped by people who got interrupted and they just went, you know what? There's no such thing. It's a coincidence. Let me just go with this and see if God's in it. So let me give an example of how all of Christian history was changed by a guy who had no idea what he was doing, Because he went with the interruption was the assignment. All right. So this dude had no idea. In 1934, Carlos and Paul, in Charlotte, North Carolina, there was a guy doing a tent revival. Carlos, you don't even know what a tent revival is. I've heard of them. All right. A tent revival. I feel old because we were on Bryce Crawford this week. I've never felt older in my whole life. Guys doing a tent revival. That's where they just pitch a tent, and he starts hurling gospel bombs and preaching a revival. The man's name was, I'm going to show a picture of him, Mordecai Ham. Now, that dude right there never, to my knowledge, published a book, never had a radio program, never got invited to the White House. His name was not on billboards, not some super famous Christian. Mordecai Ham out in the middle of dang nowhere around Chicago. Charlotte, North Carolina, pops up a tent, preaches a little tent revival to a handful of people. As the story goes, while this guy's preaching, two 14-year-old boys walked into the tent meeting, but when they walk up, they see it's full. Now, as they're leaving, an usher sees them, grabs one of the boys, and just says, hey, I can find two seats for you. And he didn't know it. But that dude changed. He changed the course of all of Christian history. He finds those two kids' seats. Those two kids, under the preaching of that guy right there, end up in that moment giving their lives to Christ. Their names were Billy Graham and Grady Wilson. If you didn't know this, Billy Graham preached to more people than anyone has ever preached to in the history of the world. Millions of people caught up into the gospel under the preaching of Billy Graham. Billy Graham. Grady Wilson, the other 14-year-old, was the guy that helped him organize all the crusades, all the stuff. Now listen, he changed the world. He. Not Billy Graham. Not Grady Wilson. The usher. One dude that was willing to go, you know what? The interruption might be the assignment. And what you've got to understand is you, you may not change the world. But one small act of obedience may change somebody's world. And that may change the world. So listen, bro. It's better to give your life away. And if you do that, you'll find it. But if you spend your entire life just keeping yourself to yourself, you're going to lose it and miss out on all this stuff. That's fire. Ripples, bro. Ripples. Ripples. I mean, that's a great way to land today's episode. No, it's not. It's not? No, it's not. Let me land it. Okay. Go ahead. Because I got it. Dude, I just got to encourage. That was pretty good. But if you got more. You got something? I've got a little nugget. Yeah. You give the nugget and I'm going to come and land it. You've been giving some great things. Well, I think a lot of the stuff that you're talking about actually just begins with the decision that's anchored in this text in a couple of places. When Jesus says that if anyone wants to come after me, he must take up his cross. We got to remember that now we see that as an instrument of salvation. But at the time, that was an instrument of condemnation and of death. Torture. It was really like take up your electric chair. Yes. Or take up your lethal injection. Yes. So it was this idea of like, hey, you have to die. Well, what's at the root of what Jesus is talking about? Really at the root here is basically said, you've got to die to what you want and you have to be willing to do whatever I want. Yeah, it is. That if you want to find life and if you want to find what is truly waiting for you on the other side is you got to decide it's not my will, but yours be done. That's it. But what's interesting is here is actually the very first part of this little section. We see basically Jesus hinting at, he's like, hey, and I'm going to go first. I'm going to show you what this means. It says here that he, Jesus, began to teach them that the son of man, must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed. Well, it's interesting that on the night that he was betrayed before all those things happened to him, Jesus had a moment in the garden. That's right, dude. That's right. That's right. Where he had some things I'm sure he wanted and one of them was not to have to go and die on a brutal cross. That's right. We got to remember that the cross was not only humiliating, it was literally excruciating. Excruciating is a word that literally they created to describe the pain of being killed on a cross. Two Latin words. Yeah. It is cruciatus. From the cross. From the cross. X from cruciatus, the cross. And so, but yet in that moment, Jesus said, not my will, but yours be done. And it was that moment that then led to the beginning of all those ripples. So I'll just say so much of what Pastor Mike and so much of what we're saying here really begins before these ripples go out. It begins with the decision is this idea of man, God has placed you here on planet earth. That's right. And I love, we've been talking even in this podcast about, man, there's some tough times that we're in and it seems like things are getting darker. But I love. It's been one of my favorite books and movies, Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf says, all you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you. That's a great quote. It's an amazing quote. All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you. And what I love is, is that here, what I'd say is the same choice is given to us. And it begins with us saying, not my will, but yours be done. God, I don't want to use the short little time that I have here on planet earth to do whatever I want. That's right. I want to do whatever you want. That's right. And if you will decide that is a big decision now, but then every day you get a little bit of saying, God, what do you want me to do? That's right. What do you want me to do as I go into this meeting? What do you want me to do as I'm about to walk into the house with my family when I get back home from work? That will set some ripples in motion. So I just want to connect those dots for us. That's great, man. Yeah. That's a good one. Let me finish like this, man, because there's a lot of people you listen to a sermon like Mike's or you listen to podcasts like this, and then you start to look at the stuff that you could do to lay your life down, to bless somebody, to advance the kingdom of God. And you start going like, hey, dude, will it really make a difference? Or is it really worth it? Let me share with you some words that were found on the wall of a Christian orphanage in Calcutta, India. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget. Tomorrow, do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world the best you've got anyway. Because you see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God anyway. Galatians 6, 9, and let us not grow weary of doing good. For in due time, we will reap if we do not give up. Amen. Amen. Amen. Carlos. We pray this out. I'd love to. Come on. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. God, thank you because we live in a culture that is starving for truth, and we find that truth in Scripture alone. So, Lord, I pray right now for every single listener right now tuning in to the Live Free podcast. Thank you for Live Free Nation. Thank you for the 100th episode. Lord, we pray that you may continue to use them. Father, without you, this is nothing. We can give it our best, but ultimately, it is you working, Lord. We pray that you may continue to use them. We pray that you may continue to use it. Father, that every listener right now, it may not just be information, but an invitation for them to experience transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit, that your word may not return void. Lord, I pray that that may be true, that we may be challenged to every single day, just like Jesus invited us to do so, to take up our cross and to follow the man who said, before Abraham, I am. And I am the way, the truth, and the life. And so, Lord, I pray that we may do that. But Lord, I also pray for our nation. Father, I pray that ultimately, the church may stand up and pursue to be the salt and the light of the world with courage and conviction and with boldness and humility, and not because of our own wisdom or strategy or might, but because of the power of the Spirit working amongst us. So, Lord, I pray for revival. I pray for healing. And so, Lord, I pray ultimately for your kingdom to come. And for your will to be done here on this nation for your glory, our joy, and other people's good. And so, we pray all of this with faith in Jesus' mighty name. Amen, amen, and amen. Amen. Live free, brother. Live free. Well, hey, thanks so much for listening. 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