Faith, Freedom, and Action: A Conversation with Eric Metaxas

The Lord calls us to trouble, the Lord wants trouble to be afraid of us because he is inside us

as we walk into the battle. You just heard this in the last song, is that where God is in the battle,

okay? So what that means is if you're going through hell, something's going on in your life,

you know God is there. But let me, let me flip it and say if everything's fine in your life,

you need to find a battle. Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today.

As we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that He has for us.

If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyc.com.

That's citylightnyc.com. Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit

is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are

deeply loved by God that you are surrounded by His grace and that He has a real hope and a future for

you. Are you excited for Eric Mitaxis? This couldn't have worked out better that we,

we as a church in our life groups, read the book letter to the American church

and that He's here as a capstone on that whole thing. And I'll tell you this,

I first heard of Eric Mitaxis around 2012 after a couple of years after his Bonhopper book

was out and it was the thing in pastoral circles. I don't even know if all the pastors read them,

but they like to carry it around with them. If you ever wonder what pastors do throughout the

week, I don't do this anymore. They do a lot of things, but they also just go to like pastoral

conferences together on how to pastor better. I stopped that because they always serve really bad

chicken. It's like the same caterer at every one of those events. And everybody had that book

and he was Mr. Popular here in New York City. And then I noticed that as the churches began to

compromise more, and what I mean by that frankly is just go more woke. And you know how

woke is him crept in? It crept in under the guise of compassion, which is wonderful,

under the guise of love, and under the guise of tolerance, and it crept in slowly to where we

then sacrificed the word of God in biblical integrity. And as I saw churches go that way by around

2016, I mean his reputation here, his popularity went right down the tubes, but he did not compromise,

and he stayed true to the word of God. And I so honor that and I so respect that. The Lord needs

to raise up voices like this. I pray from right within our ranks. Spirit-filled voices that will stand

up for the integrity of God's word and never ever back down. Won't you put your hands together as

we welcome Eric Mataxis. So glad you're here. So glad. Thank you. I can't even believe

I can't believe the church like this exists in Astoria. Are you sure you're here today?

Really? Pastor Bowai, praise the Lord for you. I can't tell you. You have no idea. You do

have no idea. Now by the way, I was born in Astoria. And if you were not born in Astoria, shame on you.

No, I had no choice in where I was born. You know, that's not true. I'm Greek. When you're Greek,

legally by law. You need to be born in Astoria. That's the way it breaks down. We don't want to

break the law. You know, Romans 13. You gotta go with it. So my mother rushed over here just in time.

No, my father came from Greece. My mother came from Germany. They met in an English class

in New York City. And you know, in English class, I'm not talking about studying Chaucer.

If you haven't heard of Chaucer, you need to go back to school.

Yeah. But they met in an English class. And so I'm the son of European immigrants

to United States of America. My parents came here because they were smart enough,

wise enough to understand that America is the best country in the history of the world.

Doesn't mean it's perfect. In case I need to throw that in. In case you think I'm a Christian

nationalist or whatever, whatever term. But they understand like what we have here is not normal.

Okay, the opportunities have it. So they left, you know, East Germany and Greece to come here. And

you know, when you're in Queens, like this is like, this is immigrant city, right? This is it.

People come here from other places. And usually if you come from the other side, as my mother and

father did, and you lived through World War II, and you know what it is, literally to be hungry,

many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times, you appreciate things. You think differently

than your typical American. So I grew up in America, grew up here in Queens and in

in Danbury, Connecticut. And when you're hanging around with American kids in American school,

you realize if they don't get it, they think this is normal. This is not normal. Patriots have died

so that we could have freedom and opportunity. And I didn't really come here to talk about America,

but when I talk about my mother and my father, it's impossible for me not to think about that,

because they were immigrants. They had nothing to had accents. My mother still has an accent,

right? My dad passed in January, but they didn't even try to teach me to love America.

Like, you don't need to do that. If you tell the stories of how you grew up in communist,

East Germany, do you understand? I need to break down for you. Communism is Satan's politics,

okay? Communism by definition, Marxism by definition, atheistic, okay? Atheism is not neutral.

Atheism is like devil worshipping in another name, because it's basically the enemy of God.

The devil is the enemy of God. So don't, when people say secular or atheists, that's not neutral.

Now, the people might be nice people who are deluded, but if you live in a communist country,

or you come from a family, okay? Anytime I meet somebody who's, you know, living in Miami,

they're from Cuba. They get it. I don't need to explain to them the satanic evil of that kind of

thing, because they have lived it. It is nasty. It is evil. But if you grew up in America, you can't

think, oh, we don't have evil anymore. We kind of evolved past that. Everything's okay.

And no, there's evil as as much evil in the world today as there ever was.

But we've been uniquely blessed and spoiled in America. So a lot of times we just, we don't get it.

But if you grew up in a home like I did, where your parents are constantly telling you the stories

of how they grew up, you're going to, you're going to get it. You, you understand. And so I was

raised without even my parents trying to understand, there's the evil in the world. And what you have,

you don't deserve it. And you shouldn't take it for granted. And so I kind of grew up with that.

And you know, I should mention Rich is selling the books here. I wrote the book. I came to faith

dramatically, miraculously. How many people believe in miracles? Do you believe miracles?

Yeah. If you don't believe miracles, you're not a Christian. Just saying. I'm not judging,

but I'm just letting you know. I was saved very miraculously in a dream. The Lord spoke to me in

a dream. It was mind blowing. Now, you got to understand, I went to Yale University, okay, which

is a Marxist indoctrination camp. Did you know that? Yeah. Most of the Ivy League and all these

elite universities, you got to think, oh, it was great, great, until you get there. And you're like,

oh, so, but I was too foolish to know it at the time. You know, I was raised. I said in a working

class home and you go to these places, you don't understand like you're drinking the coolate of

secular humanism, Marxism, whatever. And I didn't, I didn't really appreciate what I had. But as I

moved on, I realized like, I don't believe anything. Whatever heartland values I picked up from my

mom and dad, I lost because that's the job of places like Yale University is to kind of, you know,

lead you down this path. And you're kind of drinking the secular humanist coolate of the cultural

elites. We could put it that way, right? It's like, yeah, we all agree on that, right? There's no

God, right? Right, right? Like America's not that great, right? You know, like it's kind of like the,

you kind of like buy into this thing. So I graduated. I was very lost. And the Lord very dramatically

saved me around my 25th birthday. I won't tell that story here. If I ever get invited back,

I could tell that story another time. It's actually, I'll be honest with you. Don't clap. I'm not done yet.

But the fact is that it is really a miraculous story. I mean, it's one of those stories that,

you know, I defy you to explain to me what it could be other than God because sometimes God

shows up in a way that blows your mind. And there's no alternative to be like, oh, well, what could

it be? It's God, like you're stuck. So Jesus delivered me around my 25th birthday. But I wrote a book

called Fish Out of Water, which I know Rich has here. But it's like, it's a story of my life growing

up in that path. But God saved me around my 25th birthday. And it just changed everything. It just

changed everything. And I think that, you know, when your conversion is dramatic, you can't

see, it's like solving for X. You can see clearly before, after, you know, and if you raise in the

faith, it could be more difficult because you're kind of, you know, but not by the way, being raised

in the faith, that's better. It's better than drifting away into hell and sin and death and then

having the Lord rescue you. But God will do what he's going to do. But it really, again, if I come

back another time, I could tell the story, but it is amazing that God has got miracles. And I say

this just because I think a lot of times people have a very intellectual faith. They're all theological

and it's kind of like you buy into a philosophical system. Well, that's not it. Okay. It's about a

personal relationship with a person, capital P. And there's a lot of people that identify as

Christians, they don't really get that. And I'm here to encourage you to say that the Lord wants

you to have a personal relationship. And he wants you to know that he wants to speak to you. Now,

he's going to speak to every one of us differently. You know, I have friends that see in the spirit and

they're seeing you see the angel. It's like, no, but they see it and then I'm making it up, right?

God is, you know, there's prophetic voices where God will deliver a prophetic thing and they say,

God said this and this and this. Now, there's always going to be frauds and phonies. We know that.

It doesn't mean there's no prophetic voices. I have a friend who's a fraud. No, I have a friend,

a friend named Ken Fish, who he was a quantum physics major at Princeton, like insane genius,

right? But he now has a ministry of healing and deliverance, right? And when you see that stuff,

you go, that's God. That's real. People being delivered. Have you ever seen anybody? I had never

seen this until 10 years ago. Somebody being delivered of a demon like right in front of you.

Like when you see that, you go, like, what was that? What was that? Right? So I think I was,

some of you know, Jordan Peterson, right? I had him on my radio program and I was interviewing him.

He interviewed me like a year ago, but I knew it was interviewing him. And he talks like in these

kind of metaphorical things, like when he's talking about God, it's like this metaphorical thing,

what again? And then he's talking about evil and the demonic, but he makes this metaphorical,

and it's like, well, it operates on the metaphorical. It can be complicated, but Jesus did not cast out

metaphors, right? Like it's real. It's like using the term like, oh, you're a tumor on the society,

like it's a metaphor, but they're actual tumors and surgeons cut them out, like real literal

tumor. They're literal demons and stuff. And so I think a lot of times a lot of Christians have a

faith that doesn't, it doesn't know the supernatural side of God, like it's all the intellectual side.

The intellectual side is important, but you need to know God experientially too. God wants to

speak to us. And so he's spoken to me many times over the years in different ways. And you know,

if you have a really high view of God, if you love God and fear God, you take that seriously.

You wouldn't say God said, but he didn't say. You're like, that's blasphemy if you say God said,

but he didn't say. So it's just very important that we have that we have an experiential

relationship with God and understand because I think if you don't, you can really lose your faith

easily, right? It's just like some ideas. But no, if you know him, you're stuck because you know him.

So like if things go wrong, it's like, well, I still I know God. And I know there was a reason I was

saying all that, but I can't remember. No, actually, I'll tell you why I say that because some of

you have read already read my book Letter to the American Church. How many of you I'm just curious,

how many of you have read the book? Okay, you guys can like go take a cigarette break because I'm

just gonna talk about that. No, the the sequel to that book is called Religionless Christianity.

And that just came out. It's about the same length as my shortest books ever. But when I say about

hearing from God, I've written, I don't know, 15 plus books over the years, but I've never ever

written a book like Letter to the American Church where I knew God spoke that to me. Now it's not

like I got a download and I'm like, you know, ghost writing like no, no, no. But and this is what I'm

saying like you have to learn how to hear from God because he speaks to each of us differently. We're

all his children. He speaks to us in different way. We're all different, right? But I knew that God

had given me this message. I never had that before, like a burning message from God. And I also never

written a book for the church before. Every book I write, except these last two Letter to the American

Church and the new one Religionless Christianity, I wrote for everybody. Another was every one of my

books I want anybody could read it. It's not just for the church, but Letter to the American Church

and Religionless Christianity, I wrote to the church. And I really felt this burning

passion from the Lord like you got to write this. And so I wrote it. And honestly, I didn't expect

it to, you know, do well or to whatever, you know, I just like sometimes the God says do something,

you say, okay, Lord, okay, and you just do it. But I'm glad that he's been using it. I'm glad

that churches like your church are reading it because unfortunately, it's important right now.

I wish you were not, but we're in a weird place in history right now. We're in a very, very weird

place. Now look, Romans 828, all things work together for good. Every bad thing

works together for good, for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purposes.

So anybody who kind of like rips off half of that and says like, yeah, I think all things work

out in the end. No, no, that's stupid. All things work together for good, for those who love God

and call the according to His purposes, okay. So, but I say that because things have gone crazy

in America and in the world. And if you're not really paying attention, you might not understand,

you might not be able to discern what is happening. But if you're a little older as I am, you could

see like, what's going on now? We have never, never, never, never seen anything like this right now.

We're seeing actual evil, right? But if you're Christian, you say all things work together for good,

for those that love the Lord. So in other words, what is happening now with all the lunacy that

you're seeing? I'm here to tell you God is using it. Now, He can't use it unless you cooperate

with Him. He will not force you to cooperate with Him. He has given you the freedom to ignore Him,

to avoid Him, to do whatever you want. But if you know Him and love Him and are calling

according to His purposes, you want to cooperate with Him. And so all these bad things that are

happening, the Lord wants to use it number one to wake up His church. He wants us to be awake

and we have not been awake. And that's bad, right? So the pastor was mentioning my Bonhoeffer book.

When I wrote that book, I had no clue, no clue that God would use that book in the way He did,

that it would be like a big thing. I believe me, trust me, I had no clue. But the Lord,

you know, He knows what He's doing and He wanted to get that message out. Now, what's the message

of the Bonhoeffer book? It's the same message that I talk about in the United of the American

Church and in religion with Christianity. At the end of the day, the story of Bonhoeffer,

it's a story of a man of God who sees evil rising and he sees the church not responding.

And as a prophetic voice, he's saying, hey church, God has called you to stand against this evil.

God has called you to speak against this evil. God has called you to go to war with this evil.

Now, you don't go to war, you know, in the flesh, but you don't sit on your hands,

you go to war against evil. When there's evil, God calls His people to stand against it,

to advocate for truth and goodness. And sometimes the church says, nah, we don't want to do that.

We just want to preach the gospel. We just want to do church. We just want to have a nice church

service. And so does Satan want you to have a nice church service. Satan loves that kind of a

church. That's Satan's church. Let's think about that. Let's think about that. When you say,

I don't want to get involved. I don't want to get involved. So you're looking for a religious

excuse to not get involved, right? That it looks good, but God knows His disobedience is wrong.

It is allowing evil to rise up. Now, that's the story of the German church. So if you read the

Bondhofer book and you know, it's an amazing story. It is a dramatically fascinating story.

I didn't invent it. I just wrote the story, right? I gave me the ability to tell the story.

It's an amazing story. But at the heart of that story is this pastor who sees the German church

flinching. He sees the German church using religious excuses to avoid doing the will of God.

Now, what is more satanic than using religious excuses to avoid doing the will of God?

What's more satanic than using scripture twisting it to avoid doing the will of God?

Was there anybody more religious than the Pharisees and the religious leaders in Jesus' day?

Jesus did not thunder against Hellenistic philosophy. He did not thunder against pagans.

No, he thundered against the religious leaders because he said that is where the devil lives.

If you're a Satan, where are you going to go? It's going to be the most satanic counterfeit conceivable

to go among the religious, to fool people that are fooled by mere religion.

And so we're dealing with that in our day, right? If you're the enemy, where are you going to go?

You want to infiltrate the church. That's way better than trying to call people into open sin.

Now, who needs that? Let's do it in a way that looks like virtue.

Because again, sin is bad, but even worse than just sin is sin masquerading as virtue.

That's satanic, right? So, Bon offer sees the church in Germany

absolutely buying these lies, right? Romans 13, the scripture says, you know, whatever the

government says, you do that. And he's thinking, excuse me, there's a whole other Bible beyond Romans 13,

much of which says exactly the opposite. So you need the Holy Spirit. You need a personal

relationship with the Lord to have discernment to understand what is God saying. If you want to

cherry pick scripture verses, the devil does that. The devil did that when he quoted scripture to Jesus.

So don't try to fool me by quoting scriptures. What is the Lord saying? What is a Holy Spirit saying?

And so, one of us, a lot of the church in Germany, being very religious, and say, we just want to

do nice church services. Well, Bon offer tried and tried to wake up the church, and he knew there was

a little window of opportunity, right? Because sometimes I think we think, oh God, he's so gracious.

So give me a second chance, his third chance, where like, well, yeah, on one level, that's true,

just like a lot of stuff is true on one level. On another level, it's not true. If you don't act by

X time, it's over, right? You know, it's like you ever try to catch a plane and you miss it by one

minute. Well, if you miss it by one minute or 40 minutes, it doesn't really matter. You're not

graded on a curve. You missed it. You missed it. It's gone, right? So the fact of the matter is,

you could say about an election. Oh, we only lost by two votes. Well, it doesn't really matter. If

you lose by a thousand votes, a million votes, one vote, that there's a reality in this world,

right? God is a God of reality. He invented reality in case you wanted to know who did that. That was

God. So when Bonhoeffer saw that the church in Germany, right, Hitler took control in early 1933,

Bonhoeffer could see if the church rises against this evil. Now, a lot of people they didn't see it

as evil. A lot of people were deluded. Just like people today are deluded. People in the church

are deluded today. They don't know. They don't get it. Bonhoeffer was trying to wake them up.

And he knew that they had like a year and a half or two years. Literally, that was it.

Because the aggressiveness of evil, the aggressiveness of the Nazi campaign to infiltrate churches,

to silence churches, to wipe out the opposition, it was lightning speed. And he knew that at some point,

it's over. So literally by about 1935, it was over, even before that. It was over. So Bonhoeffer was

trying to wake up the church. The windows closing. And he knows eventually, they didn't stand.

They did not stand. And we know today, I mean, if you read Letter to the American Church in particular,

or Bonhoeffer, or the new book, Religionless Christianity, you know what happened, right? That

at some point, I think he has Lewis said it, that God wants us to say that I will be done to him.

But at some point, if we don't do that, he says to us, at some point, okay, they will be done.

Like, it's yours. You rejected me, and now we're going to see what you have wrought.

And so Bonhoeffer knew by 1935 that the church had effectively said, we're not interested in fighting

evil. We don't know if it's evil. Who's to say? It's complicated. It's nuanced.

Because guess what? They really believed that. You can really, really believe stupid evil things.

You know, you think Hitler thought I'm a bad guy? No. Evil is deceiving, right? So people can

do evil things, and they don't know. So Bonhoeffer saw by 1935, it's over. The church said we're not

interested in this, but we don't do politics. And he's like, well, is that a biblical idea?

A lot of people kind of assume it's a biblical idea. I had a, I literally spoke to a pastor,

he was a yesterday, a hugely important pastor. He's now retired, but I love this man. This is

an amazing man. But he said to me on the phone, I didn't want to argue with him, I didn't have

the energy. But he said to me on the phone, I would never endorse a political candidate,

and who'd never endorse a political party. And he sounded very pious when he said that. And I'm

thinking like, are you insane? But tons of pastors say that. Good pastors, this guy is one of the

best, but he said that. And I thought, here's the problem, that's not biblical. But where did you

get that idea that that's biblical? Where did you get that idea? If you imagine, it's 1850, okay?

Slavery is on the ballot. And you say, we don't get into that in our church. We don't take a stand

on slavery. Now today, we'd be like, that's nuts. Many, many pastors at that time, maybe because it

didn't affect them. It was very convenient to say, we don't get into that. Well, God gets into that.

That's a moral issue, but they say, we don't do politics. We just do church. That's the devil's

kind of church, folks, that will not take a stand on slavery. But we're living through something now.

It's the same thing. Evil comes up and says, oh, that's too political. So this pastor yesterday

says this to me, and I was like, I just didn't want to get into it with him because I know he thinks

right on all the issues, but he actually said, but I would never publicly endorse a candidate,

or I would never publicly endorse a party. I'm thinking, nobody's telling you to worship a candidate,

and nobody's telling you to worship a political party. Nobody's telling you to make an idol of politics.

Every idol is satanic. You don't make an idol, but to say that you won't take a stand that you

won't want to, why? Because you're afraid, you lose your 501C3 tax system. Is that why? You make

it sound biblical, but it's because you're afraid the government will come after you. Do you ever

occur to you? The government is wrong. Did it ever occur to you that that's not biblical? That's not

even, it doesn't even square with our constitution, but you've just accepted it as a pastor because

all pastors, no, we don't take a stand on that. We don't get political. We don't, I'm thinking,

how can you, how can you say that? You don't make an idol of politics, but that has the devil

gaslit you into thinking you don't talk politics. If slavery is on the ballot, you're going to say,

we don't get into that, but there are many people who said that in the 1850s. There are many people

that would not advocate publicly for Abraham Lincoln. Now, I would argue is because they didn't

care if the slaves suffer. They just didn't care, but they wrapped it up in a nice religious bow.

Oh, we just do church. Well, if you did God's church, if you were the church, you would stick

your neck out and you wouldn't care what happens to you because you want to advocate for what God

is advocating for. That slavery is a satanic abomination and they usually do everything in your

power and people say, oh, you're being political. You'd be like, yeah, whatever.

Shut up because I'm going to do what God told me to do. Don't try to gaslight me into being silent,

but this and folks, you can always use those kind of arguments against religious people. I use

religion in the negative sense, right? Oh, I'm so religious. All you need to do is call me a name,

call me a Christian nationalist. Oh, okay, I'll shut up. Or call me a racist, right? It's like,

are you a racist? You're not. Well, then why do you care if somebody called you a racist?

But if you care that much about that, what do you do with God called you to do? And if you do

what God called you to, I don't think you'll be doing anything racist, okay? But people will shut

you down because that's the cup of that is never changed. And in Barnhofer's day, there would be

kind of like, well, if you're getting involved, so you're not with the fewer or you're not with

Germany or you don't care about Germany. You know, it's just to kind of bully people into silence.

And Barnhofer could see that if the church was silenced, the satanic evil of the Nazis would

rise. And it did. And now we can all sit here and we don't pat ourselves on the back. Oh,

if I was there, I wouldn't have done that. But we're doing it today, okay? Because, because no,

we're not going to, we're not, none of us is guilty of thinking maybe Hitler's okay, not today.

But in 1934 in Germany, you didn't know where that was going. You might not know. You can,

I'm going to play it safe. I'm going to sit on the sidelines. I don't want to get, I want to stick

my neck out. Well, usually part of that is also just a pure lack of faith. Because if you really

believe the God of the scriptures, now listen to this, if you really believe in the God of

scriptures, you don't fear death. Now, why don't you fear death? Because you actually know,

he defeated death on the cross and you'll never die. So even if they kill you, you don't die.

Now, if you don't believe that, you're not really a Christian. A lot of Christians are kind of

hedging that. Like, I don't know, I don't want any trouble. I don't want any trouble. The Lord calls

us to trouble. The Lord wants trouble to be afraid of us because he is inside us as we walk into the

battle. You just heard this in the last song. It is that where God is in the battle, okay?

So what that means is, if you're going through hell, something's going on in your life,

you know God is there. But let me, let me flip it and say, if everything's fine in your life,

you need to find a battle. Now, is there, well, I don't want the, I don't want the battle. It's like,

you don't understand. God is in the battle. God created you and saved you to go into the battle.

Because you bring him into the battle. So if there's injustice in the world, you're saying, well,

I don't want to bother. I don't want to, you know, let other people suffer. The Lord called you.

He died for you to go into the battle. So when you see evil out there, the Lord calls you to the

battle. And it means all kinds of stuff. And sometimes it means getting involved politically,

right? And others, if you say, well, I don't care who gets elected, you know, that's not,

that's not a gospel related issue. You want to bet that's not a gospel related issue.

First of all, we are now dealing, I didn't say this in the earlier service, but you know,

it's kind of funny, like people buy into an idea and it's a good idea at the time,

but you understand the times change. So the certain things that never change, but there are other

things. I mean, in 1985, you know, the face of the Democratic Party was tip O'Neill. Now,

there's only a few people here old enough to remember tip O'Neill. But it's kind of like, it's

another world. So when somebody says, well, I'm a Democrat, I'm going to, you'd be like, yeah,

you know, we can, we can disagree on a lot of stuff. But when the face of the Democratic Party

becomes Marxist atheism, now you got a problem. Now, I hope you understand this doesn't mean

that everybody in the Republican Party is doing the right thing. Very, very, very far from the truth.

There are many wicked people that are not advocating for God's principles in the Republican Party.

But I got to tell you what the Democratic Party has become. Now, a lot of people just don't know

this. And I realize they don't know that. And so, in a sense, they kind of look at you like,

well, what are you talking about? But if you're paying any attention, what's being advocated now

on a staggering level is Marxist atheism. It's not FDR's party. It's not JFK's party.

They were patriots. They believed in America. They believed in all the stuff that everybody believes

in. Over the decades, that has changed. And you have to acknowledge that. And you have

to acknowledge that, first of all, we're never going to make an idol of politics. You know, I said

that. Of course not. But to say I'm not going to do politics, you understand that's exactly what

the church said in the 30s in Germany. He said, we don't want to get into that. There's evil rising.

And fighting that evil part of that means being political. So, there's nothing in the scripture

contrary to what many pastors think. This is if we don't do politics. Many of the best pastors and

men of God throughout history have done a lot of politics. Can you imagine? Can you, I mean, just

just think for a second, this country never would have come into being, if not for what we now

call the Black Robe Regiment. Okay, these were pastors who are thundering from their pulpits about

freedom versus tyranny. Didn't get more political than that. They were trying to overthrow a tyrannous

British system, right? The pastors around the time of a civil war, they were thundering against

slavery. And of course they were advocating for political candidate because there was one who

was against slavery and there was one who was not. But then he said, well, we don't want to do politics.

How could you not? How could you not advocate for God's purposes? So we're living in a time now

where God is calling us to stand against evil. And sometimes that means being political. And

this lie that we're not supposed to be political, I'll tell you, there was a tweet put out by

a very well-known Christian rapper the other day, just the other day. And he had,

that's what I'm talking about. And in the past he's been very politically liberal, right?

But what you often find people saying who are advocating for bringing ungodly values to bear

on politics, they hide behind the idea that we're not supposed to be political, right? Because they

know that if you are saying, oh, let's not do politics, secular Marxist atheism wins. If the

church would just step back, don't be political. These values over here will come in and fill that

vacuum, right? So in this tweet, he was saying something like, which sounds so nice, it's so religious,

right? Saying something like, well, we don't, we don't need to worry about who is elected. You know,

God is on his throne. You've heard that one, right? Sounds very religious. Oh, God is on his throne.

So don't worry about who's elected. Yeah, when Hitler's elected, I think you should be worried.

Is God on his throne? Yeah, God's on his throne, but it's pretty irrelevant to all the Jews that are

being gassed, right? So in other words, God is on his throne, no matter what, we praise the Lord,

no matter what, we praise the Lord, no matter what, but it doesn't mean we don't do something

if God gives us the opportunity to do something. Okay? I don't know if you realize, but I mean,

I think I said in the last service, but the book, letter to the American church originally,

the title of that was faith without works as dead, because that's a very important concept.

It's all that he's saying. It's about faith, it's about faith, it's about faith. Faith without

works as dead, you're supposed to act, all right? David killed Goliath and cut off his head.

He needed to say, oh, God's on his throne. Look, Goliath, do his thing.

Now, but that sounds so holy, right? Oh, God has on his throne, praise the Lord. I'm all about

the kingdom. Well, if you're not about this world, you're probably not about the kingdom.

You're not, you're not given a choice. Again, it's this very religious sounding choice. Like,

I'm all about the kingdom. I'm not about America. Where did you get the idea, except from the devil

that you had to choose? You're supposed to bring kingdom values into how you live in America.

That's the Lord's will. That's why we have kingdom values. And we're still here in this world

is to bring those values to bear to the extent that we can, right? We don't force people,

but we advocate. We do what we can for what is right and good and true. So this idea that,

oh, I'm all about kingdom values, because if I'm about America, that's Christian nationalism.

Christian nationalism is the devil's term for actual Christianity.

Live, lived out. You live it out, right? You know, patriots died so you could vote.

They died, right? We're sitting here having a church service. Patriots died, fought and died.

So that we could be free. We could vote. We could advocate for God's purposes politically

in every other way. And people are like, no, no, no, I'm just about the kingdom.

Well, again, if you're about the kingdom, you're going to bring kingdom values to bear in this

world because you have the ability to do that. You didn't have the ability in the first century

Rome to advocate politically. You couldn't do that, but people have died so that we could have a

country where we govern ourselves and we could actually vote for people that we believe best

represent us. Not they certainly don't represent us perfectly, okay? But if you say, oh, I don't

care about that, then people who definitely don't represent you will come in and will bring the

devil's values in and they will do really evil to people that Jesus loves, okay? Trans children,

okay? They call them trenches. No such thing, okay? But the point is that you've got to care about

them. You've got to care about what's being done to them. And people in the world, they don't know

what to think. They're lost. They don't know that the scripture says we're creating God's image

male and female. That's it. They don't know that. So they're like, who knows? I don't know,

science. It's all very confusing. Well, you have to advocate because we know and we're obliged

to speak out and God wants us to speak out and to advocate. And the idea that you need to choose

between the kingdom of heaven or America, again, that's a devil's choice. That's not God's choice.

That's like saying, like, you love Jesus, right? Because of that, you can't love your spouse.

Easy. Carefully. You've got to choose. Hey, you've got to choose. Well, if I love the Lord,

it's going to make me love my spouse more, not less. So this lie that you've got to choose,

it's like, you love your family carefully. You can make an idol. Careful. Don't love them too much.

You understand? This is satanic twisting of God's truth. So we're living in a time right now

where the Lord wants us to be alive to what he's saying in history. And I don't have time to go

into it. Maybe another time, honestly, I would love to come back and tell you, but I wrote a book

called Is atheism Dead about science pointing to God on a level that would blow your mind. I mean,

if you read the book, I think I'm laughing because Richard said that you can get all six books for

$60. They're like, I think we're all losing money on that, Rich. I don't know what you're doing

there. But, but that book alone, okay? Which again, I can preach on some other time, but I'll tell you,

the evidence from science pointing to God, it is insane. It's overwhelming. I believe that the

Lord wants his church to wake up and to advocate for his purposes and to make it possible for us in

this country to have a new birth of freedom, to use the words of Abraham Lincoln, a new birth of

freedom that we would see people blessed because I'm just here to say that when the church gets

involved in politics and everything, can I tell you what? Other people will be blessed. Slavery

will be abolished. Roe v. Wade might get overturned in the future. Oh, it happened, yeah.

You know what people said to me? That will never happen. Don't vote in 2016. That'll never happen.

That's Pine the Sky. You are nuts. That's not going to happen. I think it happened. Oh, good.

People said, as I was growing up, the Soviet Union, that will never go away. That will never go away.

We will never see the iron curtain go away. We will never see the people in those countries be free.

That's never going to happen. East Germany will always be East Germany. That's where all my relatives

were. It went away. You have no idea what God can do and will do. And the only way that none of

these things will happen is if the church does nothing. Let me just close with this. At the end of

the book, the sequel to the Letter to the Microchurch Religions Christianity, I say, if you went to

George Washington in 1776 at the beginning of the revolution and you said to him, hey, George,

how's it going? He would say, I'll tell you how it's going. It's going very, very, very poorly.

It's going very poorly. It happened right here on this island, the Battle of Long Island,

the Battle of Brooklyn. We should have been wiped out, murdered in the cradle before we got to

do anything. If you asked him, how's it going in 1776? He would have said in the natural, right? It's

going extremely poorly. And so a lot of people, a lot of religious people say, well, I guess God has

decided. I guess it's over. I guess it's just time to go to the go to the go to the cellar,

get out the slim gyms and the water purification. Jesus will be here in 10 minutes. Jesus coming,

it's over. It's over. There's nothing you can do. That's the voice of the devil. There's

nothing you can do. Don't fight. Don't fight. Just sit on your hands, don't do anything. So George

Washington, at the time, knew that it was going very poorly. He knew that, but I believe he would have

said it's going poorly, but if Providence, Capitol P, if God be with us in this cause of liberty,

we will fight on and fight on and fight on. And if he gives us a victory, that's up to him,

but it's up to us whether we fight on. And if the Lord calls you to fight for something and it looks

like a losing battle, I think if you've read this scripture, you understand that's when God does

His best work. So I'm here to tell you in America right now and in the world, things look bad.

But if God's people will respond, if God's people will shake off these shackles, these lies,

these religious lies, I said, don't get involved. Don't get involved. That's the voice of the

devil, folks. God wants you to take your faith into every sphere for His purposes, not for your

purposes, not for America's purposes, for His purposes, but He has called us to that. And I ask you

to open your heart to how He would use you in that because He will use you. It's what He made

you for. He called you to enter the battle because that's where He is. Praise the Lord. God bless you.

This is the City Light Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message,

or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jansik in City Light Church, visit us

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