Charlie Kirk Declares Faith Courage and Freedom Essential at California Church Gathering with Pastor Bart Pierce

amen so let's formally begin look tonight is a declaration that faith is essential courage is essential freedom is essential these are chaotic times one of the benefits of k are one of the positives that can come out of chaos is clarity and ideas matter ideas matter and we are sensing this in a big way and it's my prayer that every one of you would leave here so encouraged and so and even renewed and transformed when it comes to faith courage and freedom so um look the background of this a little bit because we have a pro kind of a program running in the background is this we live in the greatest country that has ever been in the history of man i mean what a gift all right it's a gift that's just a flat-out fact but perspective america is not the salvation of the world jesus is the salvation of the world so the question becomes how do we embody our faith at this particular time in the context in which we find ourselves the answer to that question is huge because it has to do with like what our allegiance is how we live whether or not we're participating in a work that will never break down we want to explore these things and we're going to start with faith all right and i'm gonna introduce charlie just in a matter of literal moments but you know maybe some of you have come and you're wondering you know faith i mean come on man that's superstition that's some form of intellectual suicide far from it actually listen the bible says the righteous just think about this the righteous shall live by faith the righteous in other words someone who's right with god vertically is going to end up being actually right horizontally with their fellow man the idea that the righteous shall live by faith introduces us to the idea of what is intangible because i mean very few people would say that love or justice is just merely chemicals in your brain uh the intangible world exists we can see each other but of course i'm speaking there's sound waves going on around the room and you are interpreting them as words and words of meaning and meaning impacts our life even down to the cellular level therefore actually faith is what gives meaning to life because love is an idea translated ultimately physically justice is driven by an idea that is purpose to impact us physically and our culture and our generations so the point is that the that the righteous shall live by faith ideas matter and i i can't think of anyone that's really like charlie to be frank with you because he's on the front lines of ideas visiting all the campuses all throughout our country and and i think of him to use a southern california i'm almost done so you're going to be excited about this okay i think of like a southern california illustration he's out sitting on a board and he's and he senses and knows the swells that are coming our way the ideas that are ultimately going to manifest themselves and and therefore it's a great advantage that we have to be able to sit down talk with them about the next generation that is on its way up and what we can be doing about i don't know if he needs really an introduction uh i don't think in this crowd he does but he's a new york times bestseller 26 years of age he's the president of turning point usa and i believe one of the exceptional communicators in our generation let's give nice warm welcome charlie curt thank you charlie thank you so much for being with us i could have sat listened to you for another couple hours oh thank you so much on a sunday thank you so much my children are here and that's going to go a long way um charlie listen uh you i have heard you say that you see atheism on the rise of course the idea of atheism is that you know we came from nothing we are nothing we're headed nowhere or we came from mindless nature at best educated steak and there's no authoritative there's no authoritative answer to the meaning of life i'd like for you to talk to us a little bit about this rise of atheism that you see and why it matters why why it's important we understand what maybe we can be doing about it yeah first of all it's honored to be here thank you and i i love yes i mean that and so i love coming to california and i love being around california christians and conservatives because you're in such the ideological and spiritual minority it almost warrants a more exciting and more bold form of christianity and conservatism so god bless you guys i love that so it's awesome i mean i i do love speaking in wyoming but it's it's a little different right everyone's conservatively christian so there's something rebellious and exciting about advancing the kingdom and i don't know our country in california it's really exciting so um that's number one first of all i want to divide atheism into two categories i think that there's an evangelistic atheism in our country uh and then i think there's kind of a passive atheism and i i've said this before and i'll say it again that the fastest growing religion in our country is atheism and if you've sent your kid to public high school or to university they have been proselytized by people that are trying to get them to believe in nothing and when we really boil it down it's very depressing world view and we don't talk about this enough we we that are christians we're not just talking about something that is true because we are we're not just talking about something that is moral we're also talking about something that's very exciting and full of joy but if you believe in nothing there's no afterlife there's no creator you're never going to see your loved ones again justice is nothing more than an aberration and if you extrapolate that it gets very quick into nihilism which is a belief in nothingness well and if you believe in nihilism then you'll very quickly get into hedonism which is self-indulgence you see that all across our country right where people are just trying to find the next substance or the next you know alcohol or the next drug that is going to give them that high and so i think that we as christians have a couple learning lessons here and i go to campuses all across the country so you don't have to right i mean i spoke at i've spoken at brown stanford ucla boulder you name a campus i've been there i've spoken more campuses in the last five years than any conservative in the country and i run a whole organization represented on college campuses and i could tell you that the christians on campus have nowhere near the evangelistic zeal that the atheists have and there should be no reason for that right it should be that the eighth i always i have some fun with atheists i have some i have some friends that are atheists that are actually i think they're really trying to seek out truth they just come from the wrong default position and then then there's also bitter and arrogant and deceitful atheists i want to make sure that that distinction is very clear but i always joke around atheists and this you want to drive them nuts you say without god there would be no atheists like like they can't like they can't understand that right and at all it just that's a really nice way to frame the beginning part of the argument right without without god you would not be able to believe that there is no god and so the the second part of it which is very i could i could dive into it further but is it do you do you want to believe in atheism it's a very important point right and dennis prager who's an american treasure he really is he taught me this and he has so much wisdom which is so lacking and he said it so so well another thing he would say which was oh god there is no wisdom we have no god therefore our culture has no wisdom and which is you ask an atheist do you hope you're wrong it's a very important question because a lot of the atheists should hope that they're actually incorrect about the world right they should hope that they actually do want to be able to have eternal life and that love is something that is real it's not just a combustion of chemicals but here's a really interesting question for an atheist and maybe there's an atheist watching on our live stream or that's here tonight i just want to first say that your life has meaning you are more than a collection of atoms and chemicals you have a spirit god wants to come in a relationship with you and that there is hope for you and we should say that more often and more clearly really but let me say one final thing though which is which the atheists don't have an answer for this they have theories they've written books on this but it's something that a first grader can understand which is what is music what is music to an atheist and we don't think about this have any of you ever cried after you hear a certain song of course you have the longest book in the bible is the book of psalms which is literally a book of songs the last part of the book of uh the book of psalms last chapter is to praise god using instruments and drums and trumpets music is not just a passive activity i really believe that god gave us music to be able to tap into the higher levels of spirituality i really believe that it's not something insignificant but for the atheist what is music why do people feel something outside of themselves when they listen to music explain this to me and they can't because for them it's just like nothing but just chemicals firing and the reason why when you hear a beautiful concerto from mozart or from bach that you feel something that is beyond what your words can possibly put into into articulation is because god gave it for a reason to be able to demonstrate his love his mercy his compassion something that is broader than just linguistics can dive into so they'll say well it's animals use music that's not correct so birds there might be songbirds but the social darwinists they cannot explain that that they might the songbirds might make noise but they don't make music it's something very different and so i i love that as an example because we have an answer to that there's so many things that the atheists have to answer for and i say this we as christians have a couple things that are tough for us to answer we do have answers for them natural disasters why certain people are born with certain troubles we struggle with them and rightfully so we admit that as christians but we have answers for those things we do the atheists they have to answer for everything else they have to tell us what love mercy compassion what why what this world that we have what is math why does why do things why are we able to make sense of the natural world where does this come from what is anatomical physics why do we have the laws of nature maybe there was a god that put in the laws of nature why do we have the perfect composition of oxygen and nitrogen in the air so that we're able to be able to to breathe and we're able to actually thrive in this world maybe it's because god breathed us into existence that we're able to breathe ourselves and so the final point i'll say with this is that we we as christians need to i think take a step back to go a step forward and in a lot of different ways in the secular world that we're living in because it's very very secular we have lost the zeal and the passion and the excitement of the early church we've almost gone into a a position of negativity and defensiveness and when i see more people that are committed to bringing people to believe in nothing the atheists than christians i know that's a problem and so i'm happy to talk into where this actually leads us societally but this is really something that's happening in our country which is a theological debate in our country and this is something that's very missed people say oh we're so politically divided i say no we're not we're theologically divided it's either you're going to worship god or worship man it's that simple and we choose to worship god awesome i love that fantastic beautiful charlie i want to talk to you about ecclesia but i want to get a little running start here's the reality the reality is uh we have no idea who god is and we have no idea who we are and why we're on planet earth unless he reveals it to us so let's get a little running start to a little different aspect of faith because as charlie will talk a little bit about ecclesia is a community of those who worship god the community of faith and the true and living god okay so just track with this real quick i mean when we talk about faith we're we're going back to a father father abraham who's been in the news these days because of this abrahamic kind of pact now that israel is is entering into with the uae and the bahrain okay but um look the lord has revealed himself there's a plan unfolding from eternity past to eternity future through abraham through david in the messiah of the lord jesus when we receive communion as jesus christ followers we are celebrating this genius plan from eternity past to eternity future through israel and the messiah of israel and ultimately believing that jesus is returning to israel will one day the nation of israel live for full potential among the nations thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven are you guys tracking with me on this okay so watch this so there's a divine plan that in fact is unfolding it leads to like where is it now and at least to this generation it leads to ekklesia and i would like charlie to talk to us about that what is ecclesia do we have a clear picture of it what is the responsible what's the responsibility of ecclesia in this generation well yeah it's such an important question and actually this is now being really the forefront of the conversation and christianity in our country and around the world and my pastor pastor rob mccoy is here who's an american hero by the way he's the ceo he's opened up his church he's phenomenal and bart we need to talk about this term ekklesia yeah let me be very clear in just simple language the church is more than a youtube live stream the church is more than just sitting sunday morning 11 a.m and turning on your television screen and watching your pastor what's happening tonight is at glacia do not forsake the gathering of believers now let let me let me talk about a technical reason why this is true because somebody tonight is going through something very difficult and you're going to confide confide in somebody else tonight that will hopefully be able to help you see what happens in church is it's more than just the 90 minutes or the two hours of the service it is congregants helping congregants through real life problems all that is shattered completely when you just decide that the church is nothing more than a live stream now i am not saying that certain people need to listen to the radio to be able to consume service everyone should have the liberty which means you have responsibility the agency to make the decisions that you see fit the problem is when you shut down all the churches and say we know what's best for everybody no you don't have the liberty open your doors and trust your congregation to assemble and if they do then they're making the right choice all of a sudden what we've seen and i've been i've been very um i've been very excited about certain pastors like yourself and like pastor rob mccoy they've been opening their church and also i'm challenging some of these other pastors in southern california that are not opening their churches and i'm saying you understand that this right now that we're living through is the greatest opportunity in our country's history to advance the kingdom of god that we have ever lived through and so explain to me and and by the way there's a there's a remarkable and horrendous double standard right now remember if the left did not have double standards they would not have any standards at all and so which is they're allowed to have 600 000 people march down the streets of los angeles because they say the right phrase they're allowed to do whatever they want because looting i guess is an essential activity in the new world that they're trying to create however the gathering of believers is something that they don't want i got very frustrated and i have to stop myself and just kind of you know pray i was flying cross-country yesterday to be here with you guys and every single seat on an airplane was taken up every single seat and people were right on top of each other and i looked down the road and i said this is coming from chicago i was going to arizona going to arizona then connecting through to california but in california christians can't gather and in chicago christians can't gather but everyone is allowed to be slobbering on top of each other for four hours across the country in a confined air circuit somehow this is essential and church is not maybe it's because you're being targeted maybe it's because they want the believers not to assemble and for for pastors not to realize that that for thousands of years we've had ecclesia which and and this is a very important thing and christ actually means assembly saints a symbol that's what saints do and christ said on this rock build my church but it really was ecclesia which is together we're all one you when you heard that worship earlier you realize i'm actually feeling something a higher connection than if i was just sitting in my living room right now that's right and if you didn't feel that then okay but i'm sure a lot of you did and there's a reason for that it's because when two or more are we should not forget that what what here's the call to christians across the country if you go to a church and your pastor hasn't opened look them clearly in the eyes and say open your church it's that simple open your church yeah let me let me say something real quick i love it good job so we were talking about um how at times the way forward is the way back sometimes to get right perspective it's good to go back to the early church get context which gives us clarity to the course that god has intended for our lives so if we go back 2000 years just real quick you had jewish followers of jesus who were being mistreated they weren't the only ones being mistreated but they've been terribly mistreated terrible injustice some being put to death so that was the trial and james writes about the first book pinned in the new testament is believed to be written by the half-brother of jesus jacob james so he addresses a trial which is something we fall into adversity pushback difficulty and then he addresses temptations actually tim which is different which is a it's an enticement which is like a lure but there's a hook in it and and it's it's enticing me to go outside of original design or my conscience or the will of god but sometimes trials can lead to temptation so watch the trial was push back persecution trying to marginalize christians the temptation was don't gather with other believers that's why the hebrews writer said don't forsake the fellowship of the brethren so watch this the day the trial is coved the temptation is not to gather and that cannot be the case we are the church we are a counter-culture to a culture that is breaking down a culture and community that jesus is building for which will last forever so this is an important perspective in fact timothy paul the word to timothy said the church is the pillar and ground of truth and i'd like i want to lead to something else i'd like you to comment on and that is look here's the thing god has given us a conscience that accuses or excuses our actions but only it works as if only if it knows what is right or wrong we live in a culture that is increasingly relativistic and and that the the conscience that god has given us to protect us is not even operating properly therefore it's it's one of the things we have to understand is jesus christ followers we are a conscient we are the conscience to a generation that is breaking down so look here's the thing we're part of a very big beautiful unfolding plan in the west we have a way of con of making christianity so consumer driven we've got we're part of a covenant uh a a an unfolding plan guarantee uh that is in the sun that's an important perspective we must never lose can i hear an amen to that okay so i'd like to ask you your response to martin luther king's statement kind of what we're talking about and that is the church must be reminded that it's not the master of the servant of the state but rather the conscience of the state it must be the guide and critic of the state and never its tool if the church does not recapture the prophetic zeal it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority your thoughts sounds like what we're living through generally in in the christian landscape in our country with obvious exceptions and that's jack hibbs and that's yourself and pastor rob mccoy and ken graves and so many other terrific pastors and pastor jurgen down the street who's doing an amazing job so and when i say this list it's not an exhaustive list but they are the exception not the rule um look he's onto something here and we have to be very clear about our history in our country i went to public high school in the suburbs of chicago so i know what your children are learning if you've sent your kids to public school i debate the products of left-wing indoctrination at the highest levels of colleges i've spoke at brown i've spoke at stanford i know what your kids are learning and they are learning that our country never has been never should be anything close to a christian nation this is wrong we are founded right after the first great awakening we were founded because of activist pastors and churches that all of a sudden talked about it's sinners in the hands of an angry god you guys want to watch you guys want to listen to a sermon tonight that will just wake you up listen go read that sermon jonathan edwards who is preaching activistically across the eastern seaboard and guess who is inspired by an outspoken christian that we know of benjamin franklin it was the sons and daughters of the great awakening that all of a sudden took these christian ideas and principles where we saw the greatest return to the kingdom where alcoholism was on the rise where debauchery was on the rise where criminality was on the rise but it was the great awakening outside of the state and you saw the british monarchy be very confused by this new evangelistic protestant religion that was growing throughout the colonies but then what happened was this there was a direct connection this is something that we have to do a much better job of explaining to the general population but first and most importantly explain to christians is when you all of a sudden believe that we're all made in the image of god that we're depraved by nature and we need jesus christ to literally raise us from the dead then all of a sudden we're all equal in sin we're like huh why is king george bossing us around so much who gave him a mandate to control us all of a sudden this idea of first principles articulated by john locke started to make real sense where then all of a sudden people that were reading that were writing because everyone had the bible then thank you martin luther for distributing the book that allowed literacy to grow at such an exponential rate all of a sudden a monarchy became something that was very easily challenged thomas payne in february 1776 publishes common sense for the working man the mo the highest and best-selling book per capita it sold hundreds of thousands of copies when there was like only 10 million people in all of america okay this this guy was inc prolific thomas payne argued very clearly that it has now come time to rebel against this tyranny but only worked because the people had the moral foundation for it and then ben franklin said it so perfectly you just couldn't have captured it better when all of a sudden the constitutional convention was ending in philadelphia they come up to him to write the newspaper they say so benjamin franklin what is it is it a democracy is it a dictatorship is it a constitution is it a republican he says it's a republic if you can keep it if you can keep it that's right and what he meant by that and it's so clear what the founding fathers said they said in the federalist papers this thing's gonna work only if you guys stay on a moral track you guys can screw this up really easily this thing is just basic firewalls that if you guys make some mistakes it should hopefully catch you but here's the here's the elemental and fundamental point is the church that has always prevented us from allowing these marxist insurgent forces from taking root in our country we've taken this for granted this is why the soviet union this is why italy and other countries that did not have the protestant ethic built within it were so quick to follow the marxism and communism it was activistic pastors it was the communal gathering of believers it was ecclesia all of a sudden if you forsake that in 90 days have you felt like your country has turned in a direction you never have seen before maybe it's because we shut down the church and we stopped gathering maybe it's because we we muted the pastors we turn it into a youtube live stream they took easter and palm sunday and a lot of churches pentecost from us so it's very important that we speak clearly that where do we get liberty from of course it's from god god is the source of liberty and we throw around this word oh yeah i i love liberty we love liberty of course we do but it says very clearly that where the spirit of lord is present there is liberty we are free because christ sets us free we forget that you can lose everything that you love in an instant the church built this country and god willing it'll save this country listen i love that fantastic [Applause] beautiful you know charlie dennis prager said i was shocked in a way when i heard this um and maybe i shouldn't have been shocked but he said the church will be the deciding factor to the survival of america without the church it's over that's what he said hey let me just say something i really believe the holy spirit is present that the lord is present in our life and i am convinced he's calling out his people and i would just want to say to every jesus christ follower out there never miss church now this we're miss a pandemic and i get that so whether it is online because some have to watch online and participate online or in person i want to just say in the name of jesus make it a make it like one of the chief priorities of your life and values never to miss church okay that is part of discerning the lord's body okay the hand can't say to the foot i don't need you so we're not just like okay well thank you lord you gave your life on the cross paid the debt of our son and we praise his name for this and then i receive his grace and hope be on the grave and then it's like that's it no we have we're part of the process of of bringing renewal and change and regeneration to it to a generation so i just i just want to say we have declining church attendance i i that that is not according to original design that this pandemic can be purifying to help us see what our values and priorities are to be so i just want to say look um i believe that someone who doesn't value being committed to a local church is neither not born again or they're not being led by the holy spirit and again this is a pandemic and i get it so whether it's online or in person i just wanted to say that i believe that with all my heart and i believe that is biblical hey let's talk about um let's talk about ekklesin a little different way and that you mentioned just a little bit but in our history in our history um do we understand the the significance of how jesus christ followers or the church have impacted the civilization in which we know and and and are we i think you may mention this but are we on a verge of another great awakening which actually i actually believe because i believe that's what holy spirit is doing awakenings aren't like gold rushes you don't you don't discover them you have to work at it you have to open your church you have to talk to people you have to get up early and stay up late like oh i found a great awakening like that's not how it works okay it's you you have a little skin in the game you travel the country you put a little on the line you risk a little bit we act as if it's like oh i found it like that okay it's not that way so we have to understand that so that's the first part the second is this i love that hey listen would you come back here on a sunday morning preach i sure would appreciate it okay oh you said yes okay i'm gonna i'm calling sarah okay i will speak at any church that will happen i mean that and okay very good not every church will have me so it's a whole that's a different conversation for a different time um so we live in a very short experiment we live in something called western civilization we don't talk about this enough i said in my rnc speech that president trump is the bodyguard of western civilization immediately it just like volcanic reaction from the activist media was very delightful to see in real time i wasn't sure what part of it they hated the most the bodyguard or the western civilization or the president trump part but it was just a beautiful just perfect right so but what is western civilization it is it's really this incredible experiment of self-governance where we have created the government that we're the sovereign we the people it's a republic values private property rights biblical abraham bought land in hebron you guys can go visit it in israel free enterprise where's your favorite place to visit i'm curious in one and two give just just rank them no your favorite trips that you take right rank them yeah the best trip i ever took was to israel and the second best trip i ever took was to israel okay and i've only met you very much i've only been there twice so so free enterprise which is biblical happy to dive into the biblical defense and i'm announcing tonight that charlie and i are going to take a tour to israel we're leading it and charlie and i are going to do it right charlie no okay there we go no sorry it's such an opportunity okay i had to throw that in no it's it's great no go ahead so the rob let's it took it it took hundreds and then eventually thousands of years for the west to be born but it really the the the fuel the the fire the gasoline on the fire gas you could say was the protestant reformation where all of a sudden you had the widespread dissemination of the word of god which actually allowed for literacy rates to expand dramatically and as people were able to read they were able to question and then you saw the enlightenment both you had the scottish enlightenment what we consider to be the traditional enlightenment but then the west was this incredible fusion of reason and revelation right so revelation in the word of god but not forsaking our capacity to be able to make sense of the natural world so this is something that's very important so if you go to india for example they have three religions that are bigger than christianity at least they used to be in traditional times hinduism buddhism and islam now in india if you go to calcutta or hyderabad you will see up close and personal human suffering that we in the west would never tolerate now some people will say it's because of colonialist rule or it's because of um it's because of the lack of resources while there might be some merit that argument they also do not have the same sort of moral centeredness that we have in the west unfortunately because of the hindu moral construct if someone's on the side of the street in the caste system they're meant to be on the side of the street in fact there's some value in that we don't have that in a christian world view we say it is my duty to go help that person i'm gonna go out of my way to compassionately and lovingly lift that person up we take that so much for granted the rest of the world not the rest of most of the world whether it be in china the world's largest country or india the world's second largest country lives without western values they have hundreds of millions of people that do not have freedom of dialogue speech or basic technology that we hold near and dear for example if you go to an african village and a woman has to wake up for the crack of dawn and walk six miles to go get water and walk back six miles we in the west say that's not right however unfortunately some cultures say why is that not right that's that's just the way it is well no it's not right because you're not able to spend the time necessary for your kids not able to lift yourself up to a higher socioeconomic status so i could go chapter and verse of exactly how the west was created but without diving too far into the philosophy of it what we're experiencing right now is so miraculous we don't even realize it in fact we are at the later end of modernity where we have things so good so incredibly abundant we throw more food away than we consume we have an obesity problem not a starvation problem we have more we have more information out there yet we're lacking in wisdom we have piles full of plastic in our garage so incredibly overwhelming we have dollar stores to sell us that garbage back to us and then we have garage sales where we ask people to sell it away from us and then we have a whole cottage industry of self storage where like i have so much garbage from the last decade i just need to go find another place to go put on my garbage and so we should not forsake that there have been incredible developments in western society thanks to free enterprise that has made life sweeter and better but life is not sweeter and better because of those developments for example the ability to operate on a brain tumor have open heart surgery be able to eradicate polio diagnose you know infant mortality make that go down all those things are positive things however if that's that's that's the reason side of it right that if you just focus simply on the mechanical and the technological advancement then what do you get well you get a society with a bunch of stuff and no soul so that's where the west always was it was that blend of the reason and the revelation and you could see where the society goes when it loses that moral centeredness that moral relativism is chaos i can give you two examples in the last week if that's okay the new netflix series called cuties and sb 145 here in california if you do not have a moral center in your society protection of the innocent protection of children understanding the passage of a young woman or a young man to adulthood then all of a sudden you're going to have the sickest people that i can think of all of a sudden to take levers of power in culture and in politics and that's what's happened here in california and also in hollywood this is not a mistake it's not a surprise and it will only intensify and worsen and so i'm here to tell you the optimistic part of it is that we have we have such joy to sell we really do that sells the wrong word but to be able to communicate the the troubling truth so this is just the very beginning of a country and a civilization that is losing its moral center and you could see this playing out i see people that message me and say charlie i thought you were alarmist two years ago but this cuties thing on netflix is just too much for me and i say good that you have woken up now it's time to do something about it because just this is not a spectator sport the west you have to be involved in everything that you do happy to comment on that more one final thought on it though it is the bible and the teachings of the bible that built western civilization here is the evidence for that here's the evidence of that countries that do not have a biblical worldview and have nothing but technological advancements we'll get into a state of chaos and will not be able to get the same sort of socioeconomic and also moral uh success will be able to join the west beautiful thank you so much hey you know it's interesting to me i know you love the book of james james chapter 1 verse 5 that the lord if we ask him he'll give us wisdom which is like right application for life he'll do so generously you know it's interesting in that context the first application of a genuine faith righteous shall live by can someone tell me faith may be informed by the truth of who god is his genius plan in his son in the personal work of jesus jesus the the evidence of that will be the the movement towards protecting and fighting for the most vulnerable and needy amongst us pure and undefiled religion is to care for widows and orphans now 2000 years ago i mean those were the poster children i hate to use it that way but of vulnerability and need okay so um i would like to i'd like to ask you like in terms of application today we look at the landscape of our culture um if it's if it's in the context of james that the first application of a genuine faith in other words being rightly aligned with the true and living god that it would then then it would care transl to fight for to protect the most vulnerable and the most needy what do you think that looks like an application today well that's such a good point and that that's contesting in the public square and this is something that i do so i want to be very clear my day job is politics it is two podcasts a day one on saturday one on sunday traveling to college campuses working through a political vehicle and i'm a christian while doing it right and so i'm in the political space and the reason why i'm speaking at as many churches as i can is i'm saying guys why is the church generally so silent and non-active and non-mobilized when you have the truth you have the you have the comfort of knowing what comes next you should be the most mobilized and the most active and the most vocal on every single one of these issues and so what it looks like applicationally is this is that every church in the country and every christian should be doing something about the fact that in california they have passed sb 145 to normalize and decriminalize pedophilia in this state that should bother you so beyond anything i could put into words as a christian as an american any with a moral center then do something about it because you know what how they got that past is they obsessed in a religious fervor by the way every single day they met they gathered they focused and they got it done and so while we rightly gather around around biblical truths of what the text tells us if there's no application in the public square or the decaying world around us i do not believe it is fully living out the great commission that christ gave us truly number two is this which is what does it look applicationally i think that i think that in a lot of different ways christians and and the church and let's just talk about just americans in general um and i talked about this a little bit it can't be a spectator sport right and so so many of you and this is why i want to call out pastor rob mccoy who opened his church who has been criminalized by the the city state and local government and has just been punished for fully opening his church and has taken a stand and has refused to back down from these tyrants because that's what they are at every single turn this is rob mccoy pastor mccoy stand up turn around let him see who and so look it's it's here's the here's the long way short of it how about we live out those instagram buzzwords that all those christian instagram accounts are always posting be bold in your faith how about you do it okay be fearless totally agree like daniel in the den alliance great why is your church closed we know how this all plays out do you why is your church closed not great available and you said it best it is a trial and i understand that there you have to pray and you have to reflect but now that we're in mid-september everybody right i can tell you this i get message thousands of messages my podcast every single week and the messages that get me the most angry are from people that are searching for christ that have been all of a sudden they have some interest and they send me they say charlie i now have interest to commit my life to jesus christ one problem there's not a church open with a hundred mile radius so for the pastors that have kept your doors closed you are complicit in secular people not finding the kingdom it is that simple it is that simple i love it [Applause] [Laughter] charlie thank you so much listen i'm really excited because we got a bunch of other questions so i i would like to ask you to give a little some perspective because i have a dear friend in israel and he's a he's a is a leading rabbi he's an orthodox jew i love him so much he's a dear friend and so i told him that you're coming and um he was so excited about it and he says you know ben shapiro next and i'm thinking i hope so you know but you know i mean only if charlie could get him here i mean i don't think i could um anyways charlie i want to ask you you're on the front line during universities he he he he and i want to ask you this too do you see a rise of anti-semitism you see a rise of anti-israel and um would you just comment briefly on that of course and what can we do about it that's what that was that's one of the questions there's a huge rise of anti-semitism it's a massive problem in my in our country and i've been to israel twice i understand the issue of judea and samaria and the nation state of israel and not just his geopolitical importance but it's moral importance in the world and what's incredible to me and i've joked around with dennis prager who's amazing and ben shapiro about this is when i go to college campuses as an evangelical christian i have to debate american jews about why israel should exist like how did this happen that's weird and that is weird it's not so but that's a whole different issue that's a completely different issue but it's a real thing um and so look there's just talking about the state of israel and why we have to continually defend it and the rise of anti-semitism or your question was is that there's a great book that dennis prager wrote called why the jews and it talks about the historical repeating of the persecution of the people of faith and the people of the law it's a phenomenal book and it talks about that this is not a mistake is that that the the jewish people have been long persecuted for multiple different reasons but i believe that we as christians have a moral prerogative to defend anyone that is persecuted to defend anyone that is wrongly accused in the public square today you go to a college campus and they say we stand against hate i i hear all their buzzwords right we stand against any sort of bigotry and five minutes later you could turn to your right and see the boycott divestment sanction palestinian authority muslim brotherhood group walk through campus with a eliminate israel from this river to the sea which is a euphemism for basically destroying all of israel and i i it's so orwellian i thought to myself can you just say there's no hate allowed on campus and they say well but israel's an apartheid state don't you understand that which is one of the biggest most disgusting lies that's for anyways it's up in israel it's just such an easy way to dispel this apartheid state thing so i was driving from jerusalem to hebron and i was with my amazing girlfriend and i'll never forget i didn't get that much sleep the night before and we were driving down i was asking our great guide from impuritsu which is a great group in a pro-israel group and it's this yellow sign i don't speak hebrew and i said well that's a really graphic sign it was a it was a line in the middle with a red line to the right and a red line to the left and i asked him i said well what does that mean and he said well we keep going straight everything's fine and he said if we and we said we go left we die we go right we die what are you talking about we die he's like so so blunt and he's like we got killed i said what do you mean we get killed and it's like like a westerner like right in your face like i know i only have four hours of sleep but this is a lot to comprehend and so he said he said well that's controlled by the palestinian authority and he said if we drove another mile a mile down that road past one more warning sign they'll throw our rod they'll throw rocks at our car 200 people will come in and they'll kill us and they'll drag us to the streets and we'll be left to fend ourselves it is a no-go zone for the israeli defense force that's what happens if an arab goes into jerusalem or into his israeli occupied area or israel and he's like well we've probably given the right to vote in some food and some welfare this nonsense that israel is an apartheid state is such a lie that is sold to overly privileged clueless western students that have no idea what oppression actually is no clue at all whatsoever it is israel that allows the three monotheistic faiths to openly express their religion to be represented in the knesset to visit their holy sites the palestinian authority which is nothing they are no greater morally than the mexican cartel run by a money-laundering maniac by the name of mahmoud abbas who has not been democratically elected in over a decade who has laundered the west's money played victim while launching rockets at israeli children while subsidizing terrorism we have to do a much better job of explaining what's happening in the middle east because we have totally abdicated our role in that and i believe christians have a moral responsibility to contest for that and to go against the ugly and disgusting movement of anti-semitism that is now normalized and funded at the top levels of hollywood culture athletics and uh education fantastic i love that excellent a moral and theological responsibility beautiful proud of you hey listen we're gonna we're gonna transition to talk about courage okay but i just want to say something think about the unfolding plan of god real quick okay and with that from eternity pass to eternity future abraham david the messiah of israel jesus the davidic king who is the savior of the world of course we we worship the messiah of israel jesus christ followers we believe he's the davidic king we believe that he's going to come back to heaven on earth will integrate like a little lego pieces and things and and if you were to think of salvation or god's plan like a bus that's moving into the future and abraham's in it and david's in it and it opens and it invites you into this plan and jesus is there at the door the bus has a star david on the side don't ever forget it the new covenant that we celebrated communion that was inaugurated by the blood of jesus christ on the cross was given to israel for which the world is invited into okay and when jesus returns he's going to separate the nations between the sheeps and the goats and one of the things he's going to say you did it to the least of these my brethren i mean first application come on he's speaking to a jewish audience he's not speaking to like bob and uh ed you know he's speaking to you know peter james and john so he's at first supplication you need to remember my you've done at least he's my brother and you have done it unto me and i just wanted to say that look we have a moral and theological responsibility to stand with our jewish friends and to stand with israel that's just a flat out fact that's just biblical that's just no-brainer so let's talk about courage you know i just think it's interesting like the lord told joshua you know in this transition to lead the children of israel into the promised land speaking of the land of israel unfolding plan um that he told him three times to be courageous you know and i and even though he's like i'm fully backing you joshua it's just like set your feet on the piece of real estate and it is yours but the implication is because he's saying you know have heart that you're not necessarily always going to be feeling like this rush of adrenaline like to be honest with you because we had some coffee before we got here you know in the morning i feel particularly courageous after about four shots you know what i mean and uh so but he's saying look you may not feel great or what you see may be stumbling you but you need to press in and press on and i believe that we are living in a season the lord is calling us to courage um it was asked john wayne you know what is courage and he said it's being scared to death but settling up anyways you know what i mean you just got to keep moving forward and it's been said you can't steer a parked car we need to keep moving my question to you is what are the components to courage why is courage so important today i think it's the probably the most lacking of the greater traits in america today and think about that there's a lot of things lacking i think we're lacking honesty integrity i think we're lacking all sorts of things that we consider to be fruits of the spirit but boy are we lacking courage right now and i'm not saying that there's not courageous people but a courageous nation is one that first and foremost you have to know what you're fighting for so that helps when you know truth right the second thing is i get asked this question a lot you know i was at a meeting recently i've just traveled the country i was just where was i uh i'm having a joe biden moment um so uh oh yeah that's right so um so i was in uh arizona florida virginia and my defense i've actually left my basement in the last month so um all across the country i was at an event in virginia and usually virginia somewhere else and someone asked me they said well charlie do you think we are going to win i knew exactly why they were asking the question i could see it because i've been asked this question many times i speak over 300 times a year what they were really asking is if you answer no can i stop fighting that's why they were asking the question so before we judge whether or not we are going to get involved in this very brutal but necessary struggle for our civilization we have to just disregard the probability of winning or losing as a completely irrelevant metric it does not matter courage is putting aside the probability of whether you're not going to win and proceeding anyway that's what courage is [Applause] good so there are values that are of value and that's why we value them i mean right life is not like always a means to an end i mean did that make sense okay yes like love is an end in itself really i mean we should love because it honors god and because god is love we are to forgive we're to be pure we're to make the gospel known these are right we do we do it because it's the right thing right and therefore we're committed to it that's partly what you're saying and also in matthew 5 i think 28 i'm paraphrasing here but christ has one of the greatest mic drop moments in the sermon on the mount where he says and i'm paraphrasing here but he says blessed are you who are persecuted and condemned and then it's the dot dot dot because of me and so you should consider a blessing if you're being attacked right now and if you're not being attacked why aren't you being attacked right now yeah and let me just say you know remember remember when the lord said you must pick up the cross deny yourself and follow me in context i mean speaking to the jewish boys who are following i call them boys because you know much older than they were they they were and um uh and he's saying look here's the thing you think this is going to be a popular movement initially but the reality is is this movement is going to start like a grain of mustard seed and you you think i'm going to go to jerusalem and i'm going to knock out the red coats and establish my kingdom or something and no first i'm going to give my life i'm actually i'm going to defeat the darkness behind the darkness because the core problem of man is a broken relationship with god and that's why jesus gave his life on the cross really giving us the chief penicillin of what is needed for man the cure for man can i hear an amen to that all right dying for our sins paying the debt resurrecting from the dead but he's just saying look here's the thing you need to be willing to be the minority and and and your difference actually is the strength and what is needed in a generation you're going to be a counter culture to a culture that is breaking down and so um just remember that our difference is what is needed and and we need to be willing to stand alone if we if you will of course we're never alone because the lord is with us i just want to encourage someone i i wouldn't be surprised someone has come in here and it's like man i i just need some help when it comes to courage just know that the lord has not given us the spirit of fear but power love and a sound mind that is the holy spirit and that's the spirit of the risen christ and we need his help to be those examples and embody that love and that courage today and and it's available to us if we ask yeah and two things on that number one it's a lot worse in your head than it usually ends up being in real life number two is you're a lot tougher than you think do not underestimate how much toughness god has given you you can you can you can shoulder a much tougher burden than what someone might be whispering in your ear incorrectly about what you're able to do we we are built to be able to endorse a ton of suffering and so do not underestimate yourself why i might be called all these names and all this again it's usually worse in your prediction than in the reality and secondly you're a lot tougher than you think i love that awesome i'd like you to comment on this you know um november 3rd is is obviously the election and um golly how many we have what 365 million people in our country so uh i did the i divided that earlier and i kept for i can't remember it i'm terrible with math but the point is is that there's going to be a lot of people who are really really happy after the election and there's going to be a lot a lot of people who are really really bummed right and um and that and that's just the way it is and it reminds us it does it not that uh and faith reminds us of this is that look um an idol is a god replacement and the reality is is that we need to remember that the lord made us to have our identity in him right so no matter what happens we have security and our identity in him can i hear an amen to that that's very very important um so we need to keep marching on but i i wanted i wanted your your thoughts on this and that is um you know getting back to james interesting what you're studying on sunday morning i know you love the book of james one of the concerns that james had jesus's half-brother is that the the adversity that they were experiencing would lead to the temptation of reactive anger and that they might fight evil with evil all right so therefore he emphasizes what the wisdom of god is which is first pure and first peaceable right so it does take courage to love uh you know i think peter and john like when they were buffed when jesus was moving through a samaritan city and the samaritan city would not welcome with hospitality as they were making their way to jerusalem they turned to jesus and asked do you want us to call fire down from heaven upon these liberals you know what i mean it's like i mean and he's like that that's not the spirit of the father so i i just look it's it's crazy we live in a time it feels like there's this mob mentality that's that that exists and and as believers we're not to get caught up in that could you comment on that i mean that takes courage and of itself i'm happy to i'll talk about the election too um look not all elections are made the same and that's a hard thing to talk about everyone says it's the most important election in my lifetime it's probably true because you want to live in the moment you want to live in the present i have a unique opportunity i'm 26 years old and so i can look at things a little bit more intergenerationally than most people i travel to churches and campuses i travel and meet ceos i meet pastors i meet middle class families i meet with 14 year olds and 80 year olds so i can look at things a little more intergenerationally i one of my earliest childhood memories was 911 which we just remembered a couple days ago i remember the financial crisis i remember barack obama getting elected twice being from the suburbs of chicago i can tell you it truly was a political movement i am the front seat to history in 2016 and now the potential for re-election i can see the cultural tidal wave and the tsunami and the hurricane that is coming i can see what happens if these people get power the one thing i've learned about the left when they tell you they're going to do something believe them is they're just doing it for you know some sort of self-healing exercise so when they see that when they say that they want to double the amount of abortions in america they actually mean it like that's not something that is they're just saying for the sake of saying it so first on the election i'm a huge supporter of the president and i'm a friend of his i think he gets such an awful misrepresentation [Applause] i think that so if i could dive into this for a second i'm glad i'm really glad you guys applauded for what's happening in our country it's it's great and if you're not a sport of the president i'm glad you're here tonight maybe i can persuade you and so and i will i will seek to do that um here's what's here first of all just on the kind of the idea of expressing your support for something for from us our whole country's history we've agreed that you can tell someone that they can or cannot do something okay you can't sleep in the middle of a crosswalk okay like okay that's probably a reasonable law right uh it used to be you can't publicly do certain things in the streets of la but apparently now that's not allowed right but for a long time we had some sort of mechanisms of what you can and cannot do but what now we are really flirting with in our country is now we're telling people you can't think something right never happened before and it's not they're not they're proposing it governmentally as much they will but now it's if you dare say something i'm going to crush you if you don't say something i'm going to crush you if you don't post that black square i'm going to find you i'm going to crush you and destroy you and find your family we have to just kind of take a societal deep breath and then just center ourselves and say what is going on right now and there's a lot of different contributing reasons to it but if you cannot think as rene descartes said at the beginning of the enlightenment i think therefore i am you cannot think you have lost your identity and if you've lost your identity you will go back into tribalism which is a dangerous disgusting thing that christ brought us out of quicker than you can imagine and so what is really happening in our country it's not just political it is theological and i'm happy to get into the president i'll talk about that in a second but this is now a referendum on whether or not you can think something that the ruling class does not think can you believe something vocally can you wear that hat without having your business burned down without being kicked out of school but having to worry the brick is going to throw through your living room window that is now all things that we don't know and i can give you countless amounts of examples and i'm going to tell you right now that conservatives are decent and reasonable people it's a good thing but if in november it looks like the president wins on election night and all of a sudden they find a bunch of ballots to if it's a red mirage as the bloomberg group said that's a very dangerous thing for the country i'm telling you and i don't want to live through that moment where people think something happens and then they reverse it almost instantaneously all that the founders gave us voting as a pressure release valve it's the best way that we have prevented ourselves from tearing each other apart because the one thing that all of you have you're just screening at the tv and you say at least i can go vote right at least i can go show up and do something about the founders knew that but if that pressure release valve goes away we human beings are a lot more simple in the nature in a state of nature than i think we give ourselves credit for and i'm telling you right now if if they are allowed if they're allowed to just say you can't think that you can't do that it's there's there's no gap between civilized society and chaos there's not a transitional state and you can see they're almost trying to provoke it in the streets right where two police officers in compton 48 hours ago were shot and what did they have to hear as they were fighting for their life in the hospital did you hear about this they were fighting for their life in the hospital and they could barely hear it and they asked the doctors what is that it was 200 blm incorporated rioters saying i hope you die i hope you die by the way if your pastor endorses blm and inc inc that's who they're endorsing just so you understand wishing death among our police officers truth can be hard sometimes but it's necessary and so and i'm going to add something hold on a second of course black lives matter because god created us in his image all lives matter that can i hear an aim into that just hold on hold your thoughts here hold on a second here's the thing let me just tell you something there is a battle there's an ideological battle there's a spiritual battle there you know so the two co-founders there's three but there's two in particular of bln i'm talking about blm inc actually look to uh the dead spirits they they they cry out they communicate this is in the this is just flat-out fact they're looking for uh unseen spirits to it to inform them to inspire them and that's a dangerous they're calling upon the dead of course which is witchcraft that's a that's that's very very dangerous in fact look i want to pray real quick father i want to pray for these leaders of blm that they actually would call upon you as we we lord you love them you care for them i pray that you would rescue them from the crazy witchcraft and seduction that they're involved in for which they have informed the world that they're participating in and we ask these things in jesus name okay i would go back it's fine i have to say it though most of american christianity has embraced these people just so you know the southern baptist convention has embraced critical race theory and i i am not going to be patient i'm not going to be silent any longer for these pastors that pander to blm incorporated not gonna happen so and i i wanna reinforce what you said which is so true the the statement black lives matter is absolutely true however it's almost semantic overload because it's three things at once it's a true statement an organization that wishes for rioting and crime to happen and also an incantation that is used so much that if you do not say that when we say it we're going to punish you it's like whoa all these three things are happening simultaneously right and so it's it's like semantic overload it's actually linguistic brilliance on behalf of the left right we're now it's plastered on the nba and you have to watch it if you you know watch a basketball game so let me can i just say one thing about the election really quick of course where look there's i'm a friend of the president i've gotten to know him over the last couple years and i could i could go on a lot about it but there's there's something about him that i think it's really misrepresented in the in the media which there's there's a caricature of him where they're trying to make it seem as if he has no care for the office or for the country and he's just trying to either enrich himself it's his very bizarre caricature right and i can tell you this that i i've been around a lot of politicians congress and isa is the exception to this but this president quite honestly has been so targeted by the opposition spied on impeached at every single turn and i understand it's very hard for certain christians and maybe there's some people in this room they're like well i don't understand how a three times married twice divorce former cover of playboy magazine is someone that i should support well he's also the most pro-life president in american history so don't figure that one [Music] he's also moved the embassy to jerusalem recognized golan heights canceled the iran deal gorsuch cabin on the supreme court 200 circuit court judges before the virus the best economy american history lowest black latino and asian american unemployment deregulated the american economy gone after child sex trafficking in