>> ED HINDSON: I also have the privilege this
morning of introducing our speaker: one of America's great pastors, great leaders, and
great speakers. Doctor Robert Jeffress is the pastor of the
11,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. He is an active - go right ahead, Texans - he's
an active contributor to FOX News, has a daily radio program, Pathway to Victory, heard on
over 700 radio stations, his weekly television program on 1200 stations and 28 countries
including China, author of over 20 books, just led his church in a $135 million fundraising
campaign for recreating and remodeling their entire downtown campus, a graduate of Baylor
University, Dallas Seminary, and Southwestern Baptist Seminary. He has the mind of a scholar, the heart of
a pastor, the voice of a prophet; one of the newspapers in Dallas has dubbed him the "Texas
Tornado." Give a warm Virginia welcome to our guest
from Texas, Doctor Robert Jeffress. >> ROBERT JEFFRESS: Thank you so much. Thank you, Ed, so much. It is a real honor to be with you today. I have heard about Liberty, I have sent students
to Liberty for so many years, but this is my first visit and what a tremendous place
this is. Thank you for the privilege of being here. I actually had the privilege of knowing your
founder, Dr. Jerry Falwell, and what a great man of vision. I remember very well - this would have been
about 12 or 13 years ago – Dr. Falwell was gracious enough to do an endorsement for my
book back then that was titled "Hell, Yes." And I remember trying to explain it to Dr.
Falwell and I asked him, "Would you be willing to write an endorsement for this book?" He laughed at me and he said, "Well, heck
- " well he didn't actually say it, but you get the idea. He was a great man of vision and to see Dr.
Falwell's vision being carried on by President Falwell and his team. This is just great what you're doing here
for the Kingdom of God. Well, it's been a big week here at Liberty,
hasn't it? You started with a politician from Texas Monday,
my good friend Ted Cruz, and now you're concluding with a pastor from Texas. I want to tell you upfront, I promise no announcements
today, okay? No announcements. But I do have a serious pronouncement that
I want to make today, and that is America's collapse is inevitable, and the reason for
the collapse has absolutely nothing to do with ISIS or Obamacare. I came to understand the inevitability of
America's collapse a few years ago. Dr. Hindson mentioned our building project
in which we recreated our campus on seven blocks of downtown Dallas, the largest church
building program in history. But in order to recreate our campus we first
of all had to take down the existing building, six old buildings that had been there - some
since the early part of the last century - and so, the question was how were we going to
take down all of these old buildings - about a million square feet of space - without bringing
down the surrounding skyscrapers. And so the demolition people met with me and
they said, "Pastor, what we need to do is an implosion." And they explained to me how it would work,
they said, "We're going to take 200 pounds of dynamite and attach it to key structures
in these six buildings. We will explode the dynamite, there'll be
a pause, and then the law of physics will take over and the buildings will collapse
under their own weight." I said, "Well that sounds good to me, let's
go for it." So on a Saturday morning a couple of years
ago in downtown Dallas, they closed downtown Dallas for what they called the implosion
of First Baptist Church in Dallas. And I have to tell you: it really was pretty
exciting. I was standing on a nearby building. All the media was there: CNN, FOX & Friends
was carrying it live. We were told later 17,000,000 people around
the world were watching the implosion. And they had this big red button in front
of me and the mayor to press and they did the countdown - this was really cool - "five,
four, three, two, one." And I pressed the red button and just as they
promised, as soon as I pressed the button the exploding dynamite could be heard everywhere. And the exploding dynamite was followed by
nothing. Absolutely nothing happened. I cannot tell you how embarrassed I was. I mean, my first thought was - I have to confess
this - "Who am I going to fire first for this?" I mean, 17,000,000 people watching this! I could see this being replayed endlessly
on YouTube, "Pastor's Implosion a Dud." But what I had forgotten was they said there's
going to be a pause after the exploding dynamite. It was only actually a few seconds - it seemed
like eternity - but suddenly the ground began to shake, those building began to vibrate,
and within 30 seconds those once mighty buildings were reduced to nothing but a plume of debris-filled
dust. I learned something that day about implosions:
they are sudden, they are dramatic, they begin with a series of seemingly unrelated explosions,
followed by a pause, and then a sudden collapse. Students, I believe over the last 50 years
there have been 3 explosive decisions by our Supreme Court that have so weakened the moral
and spiritual infrastructure of our nation that our collapse is inevitable. The explosions have already occurred; the
implosion's coming. We're simply living right now in that in-between
time. What are these explosive decisions by our
Supreme Court? The first decision occurred in 1962. It was the case of Engel v. Vitale, which
removed the public prayers from the school and of course that was not just the only decision;
it was just the first of many decisions that followed later, that demonstrated our nation's
not-neutrality but hostility toward the Christian faith. In 1963, Bible reading was removed from the
schools, and those decisions culminated in 1980 with the case of Stone v. Graham, and
what the Supreme Court said, "It is unconstitutional to even post a copy of the Ten Commandments
in the Public Schools." Not to read them or teach them but to simply
post them: that's unconstitutional. And you know what the reasoning was of the
court, why it was unconstitutional to post the Ten Commandments? If I were to just summarize their ruling for
you, you would think I was making it up. So I want to read to you what the Supreme
Court said about why it's unconstitutional to post the Ten Commandments. The court said, and I quote, "If the posted
copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will induce the school
children to read, meditate upon, perhaps venerate and obey the Commandments. This is not a permissible state objective
under the First Amendment." Do you hear what the court is saying? "We can't post the Ten Commandments, because
if we post the Ten Commandments, students might actually read the Ten Commandments. And if they read the Ten Commandments they
might actually venerate and meditate upon the Ten Commandments. And if they meditate upon the Ten Commandments,
God forbid, they might actually obey those Commandments. And that's unconstitutional." I don't think it's any coincidence that 17
years after that ruling that said, "You can't post the Ten Commandments" in a Kentucky school,
17 years after that ruling, in another Kentucky school, Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky,
a group of students met together in front of their lockers to pray and read the Scriptures
like they did every morning. And while these students had their eyes bowed,
a 14-year-old, who had obtained a handgun, approached the praying students and opened
fire, seriously wounding five and killing three of those students. All in a Kentucky school where 17 years earlier
the Supreme Court said, "You cannot post the words, 'Thou shalt not kill.'" How do you explain such a thing? Especially when 118 years earlier the Supreme
Court had said why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note
or comment, be read and taught as divine revelation? Where can the purest principles of morality
be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament? And then, 118 years later, the Supreme Court
says, "You can't even post the Ten Commandments." What has changed? Did the Constitution change? Of course not! Here's what has changed: we've allowed the
liberals, the secularists, the atheists to hijack our Constitution and to pervert the
First Amendment to something our Founders never intended. Look, the First Amendment of the Constitution
says, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof." Our forefathers said, "We don't want a state
church like we came from in England that coerces people to worship in it." None of us wants that. But what has happened is the secularists have
changed the First Amendment from the word "established" to "endorse," saying the government
can't even show a preference toward the Christian faith. No, for the first 200 years of our nation's
history, we've welcomed people of all faiths or no faiths into our country, but we've also
said repeatedly that this country is a Christian nation. It is a Christian nation. That has always been the ruling of our Supreme
Court until recently. But here's my point to you this morning: let's
say that over the last 50 years the Supreme Court has correctly interpreted the First
Amendment. Do you think that changes God's attitude toward
America? Do you think God looks down on America and
says, "Oh, well you have a First Amendment. You're exempt from my principles." Do you think God says, "Oh I am so happy that
you don't elevate me above other gods and you place me on the same level as the deities
of Hinduism and Buddhism and Islam." Is that the God you know? Students, let me remind you today the First
Amendment does not replace the First Commandment of a holy God. God said, "You shall have no other gods before
me." And we need to understand: God is no respecter
of people or nations. Did you know God doesn't get goose bumps when
He hears the Star Spangled Banner? God doesn't stand up and salute when the American
flag passes by. God is no respecter of people or nations. Any nation that reverences God will be blessed
by God, and any nation that rejects God will be rejected by God. The second explosive decision occurred in
1973. It actually came out of a case in our own
city of Dallas, Texas. It was the case of Roe v. Wade that legalized
the murder of children in the womb, and since Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion, 50,000,000
children have been butchered in the womb. Now I know the conventional wisdom. I know people are saying today, "Well nobody
really cares about social issues any longer, and if, you know, we're going to win the White
House in 2016, you know, we ought to quit talking about social issues and cultural issues
and, Jeffress, you need to shut up and those students at Liberty need to be quiet because
after all, people don't care about social issues. All they care about is the economy." Okay, let's look at abortion simply from an
economic viewpoint. Did you know one study suggested that if those
50,000,000 children who were killed in the womb since 1973, if they had been allowed
to live and become tax-paying citizens, it would have added anywhere from thirty-five
to seventy trillion dollars to our Gross National Product. There would be no social security crisis. There would be no Medicare crisis if we had
not killed twenty percent of our population. There are great economic repercussions from
killing children, but the fiscal ramifications; they pale in comparison to the spiritual ramifications. All you have to do is look in history to see
what God does with a nation that sanctions the killing of it's own children. I mean, just look at the nation of Israel. Israel was the only nation in the world that
could truly be said they were God's chosen people, and yet because they got involved
in the worship of Moloch, the pagan god and they sacrificed their children on the altar,
what did God do? He raised up the godless Babylonians and Assyrians
to bring judgment on His own people. People ask me all the time, "Oh, I just don't
understand why God wouldn't protect our nation and He would allow, you know, these radical
Muslims on 2001 to kill three thousand of our citizens, and why God doesn't protect
us. Surely God doesn't use pagans to bring judgment
upon His own people, does He?" Just read the Bible. God will not allow sin to go unpunished and
He certainly won't allow the sacrifice of children to go unpunished. The third explosive decision that weakened
our nation's moral infrastructure occurred in 2003. It was the case of Lawrence and Garner versus
the state of Texas. It was the decision that struck down our states
anti-sodomy laws. Now I know, a lot of conservatives are kind
of skittish about this. They say, "Well, you know, do we really want
the government in our bedroom telling us what we can and cannot do?" But just as Justice Antonin Scalia was a dissenter
on that decision, he pointed out the ramification of it. He said, "Today's ruling and the reasoning
behind it leaves on pretty shaky grounds any laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman.” Now that was twelve years ago. Justice Scalia was prophetic, because I believe
we're just a couple of months away from seeing the Supreme Court strike down all restrictions
against marriage, and legalizing and making same-sex marriage the law of the land. You say, "Pastor, what difference does that
make? I mean, why do you conservatives get all bent
out of shape about same-sex marriage? I mean, if two people want to marry one another,
what difference does it make? How does that really harm anybody?" Look, we know how this movie ends, okay? I mean, the Hoover Institute did a ten-year
study of Scandinavian countries that legalized same-sex marriage. You know what they found? It's very interesting. They found not that many gays ended up getting
married. What they found out was the rate of heterosexual
marriage dropped precipitously over those ten years. Why? Well, if marriage is anything you want it
to be - one man and one woman, two men, or two women - I mean, if it's anything you want
it to be, why bother to get married at all? And that's what we're seeing in our country. Did you know last year the marriage rate in
our country dropped to its lowest level in 93 years? The reason for that is very clear: whenever
you counterfeit something, you cheapen the value of the real thing. You know, people have laughed at us for years
and said, "Well, if you're going to just expand it to two men or two women, why not expand
it further?" You know. People say, "Oh, that's ludicrous. Nobody would try to expand the definition
of marriage beyond that." Oh really? New Yorker Magazine last month had a story
about an 18-year-old girl who had been separated from her biological father. They were reunited, they have fallen in love,
and they want to get married. Let's all say "eew" together. That is a "yuck," isn't it? And yet, if marriage is a Constitutional right,
what right do we have to limit their marriage? Ladies and gentleman, remember this: whenever
you counterfeit something, you cheapen the value of the real thing, and what we're seeing
happen is a number of children are now being adopted in single-parent homes. Children need both a biological father and
mother. Sarah McLanahan, who is a sociologist at Princeton
University - remember, I said "Princeton," not "Liberty University" - Princeton University,
this secular sociologist said, quote, "If we were trying to design the best arrangement
in which to rear a child, it would be one in which the child was connected to both of
its biological parents." Gee, that sounds like a family to me, doesn't
it? I mean that was God's plan from the beginning:
one man and one woman in a lifetime relationship called marriage. And even though that's not always possible,
government ought to do everything it can to advance that optimal situation for children. I remember a couple of years ago when the
Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act; I was on the O'Rilley Factor that night
debating a gay activist. And I was talking about the sociological benefits
of children being raised between a mother and a father and this activist had just adopted
a child with his gay partner, and when I was talking he interrupted me and he said, "Pastor,
I want you to know, I'm offended by what you're saying. I'm offended that you're implying that a heterosexual
relationship is superior to a homosexual relationship." And I said, "Well sir, with all due respect
to you, you wouldn't be here tonight, alive and breathing and arguing with me if it were
not for a heterosexual relationship that had brought you together. That's how you're here." That is God's way of saying there is something
unique about the relationship between a man and a woman. Now here's my point, students, this is my
simple point: no nation that outlaws the mention of God in the public square, that sanctions
the killing of its own children and that destroys the most basic unit of society, the family,
no nation is going to endure that. We are not going to survive. The explosions have happened; the collapse
is coming. Now here's the question: what are you, as
students at Liberty University, supposed to be doing in the meantime? We're living in that in between time, that
pause; what are we supposed to be doing? I know what some of you are thinking right
now, you're thinking, "This is the most depressing message I have ever heard. Let's just pass around the revolver and end
it all right now, you know, mass suicide at Liberty University." "Pastor leads people to despair." No, no, no! Listen, if you're a Christian, there could
not be a better time to be alive than right now because the founder of our faith, Jesus
Christ, has told us exactly what we're to be doing in this in between time before the
collapse. Listen to Jesus' words in Matthew 5, verses
13 and 14. Jesus said: "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become tasteless, how
will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore except to be
thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Jesus said, first of all, we are to be salt
in this decaying world. Now you remember in Jesus' day, salt was something
more than just to raise your blood pressure. It was a preservative. There was no refrigeration. If you wanted to extend the shelf life of
meat, you packed it with salt. Now listen, get this: salt did not prevent
the decay of the meat, it simply delayed the decay of the meat. Eventually the meat would rot and would have
to be thrown out. The salt gave the meat a longer shelf life,
and in the same way God said, "I want you as my people to be salt in this world. I want you to prevent the premature decay
of the culture in which you're living. I want you to give this world a little bit
longer so that people can hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what we're to do: we are to be salt. And for us to affect the world, that means
we have to come in contact with the world. We have to be willing to push back against
the evil that is engulfing our country. Now, I know some of you may be theology students
with Dr. Hindson and you're saying, "Now wait a minute: prevent the premature decay of our
world? Pastor, don't you believe in the sovereignty
of God? Don't you believe that God has written on
His calendar in indelible ink the day of this world's collapse and there's not one thing
you're going to do to change that date? Don't you believe that?" Yes, I believe it, until I read my Bible. Because when I read my Bible I turn to an
Old Testament book called Jonah, and I read that God had said He was going to destroy
the wicked city of Ninevah. But then in Jonah 3:10 it says God changed
His mind. He relented of His decision. Now I'll confess I don't understand that. Talk to Dr. Hindson or some of your other
profs about that; they'll explain it to you. I don't understand that. But what I do understand is because of the
righteous actions of Jonah, God delayed His decision. He eventually destroyed Ninevah, but He gave
Ninevah longer to repent. And in the same way you and I have been called
to present righteousness to this culture, not to prevent the eventual collapse but put
it off so more and more people can hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the way we're supposed to do that is by
standing up and pushing back against this ungodly culture. You know, I am very concerned with the number
of Christians I see who engage in what I call "silo-spirituality." It's the idea, "Well my faith is a very personal
thing, but I have no right to take my Christian values and impose them on an unbelieving world. After all, to try to impose my values on an
unbelieving world, why that's un-Christian, un-American, and it maybe illegal.” When did we ever come up with that idea? Salt, if it's going to penetrate meat, can't
stay in the saltshaker; it has to come up and make contact with the meat. Students, remember this: Jesus Christ is not
just Lord over the church. He is Lord over all Creation. Jesus isn't just interested in spiritual people
and spiritual things; he's interested in everything and every institution, including the government. I mean just look in the Bible, the pattern
of God's men and women in the past. They didn't just speak to God's own people. They were people like Jonah or Isaiah or Jeremiah
or Ezekiel or Daniel or in the New Testament: John the Baptist, Jesus - they didn't just
speak to God's own people. They were willing to confront ungodly people
and ungodly leaders in an ungodly culture and say without stuttering or stammering,
"Thus sayeth the Lord." And one of the things I'm most grateful to
Dr. Jerry Falwell is he understood that. He didn't stay involved in this holy huddle. He understood that we were here to be salt,
to be a preservative, to stand for righteousness. God has called us to do that. You say, "Well how do we do that? How do we stand the tide of immorality and
try to give our nation and our world longer to hear the gospel?" One way we do that is through the political
process. I mean, think about this: in the Old Testament
times, you didn't get to vote for who was king. If it was a godly king, God blessed the nation. If it was an ungodly king, God cursed the
nation. But as John Jay, the Chief Justice, the first
Chief Justice of our Supreme Court, said, "God has given us the privilege of selecting
our leaders. And it is our duty as well as our privilege
to select and prefer Christians as our leaders." I remember I quoted that to Chris Matthews
on Hard Ball a couple years ago; he almost had a cardiac attack right there on the set. But that's exactly what the first Chief Justice
of our Supreme Court said. You see: we get to determine the spiritual
direction of our nation by the leaders we vote for. We get to make that decision, and every time
we go into the voting both, we're either casting a vote for righteousness or for unrighteousness. You know, I don't know if you have this in
your church - I have it in my church - people who are holier than God, you know what I'm
talking about? People who are just so spiritual and oh, I
had one just recently say to me, "Pastor, you need to calm down. You need to calm down. We just need to pray about our nation. We don't need to do anything else, watch us
pray. After all, in 1 Timothy 2, Paul said, 'Pray
for your leaders,' he didn't say do anything else or get involved in politics. He said just pray for your leaders." And I pointed out to this well-meaning person,
"You know the reason Paul only said pray? Because in Paul's day that's all you could
do." You didn't get to vote for the Emperor of
Rome; all you could do is pray but God has given us the privilege of choosing the leaders
that we have. The next time somebody says to you, "Well
I don't think Christians ought to get involved in politics," I want you to ask them three
questions. Number one: do you think God cares about His
Name being outlawed from the public square? Do you think God has any opinion about His
Name or His Word being prohibited from being mentioned in the public square? Question number two: do you think God has
any opinion about the rampant immorality that is engulfing our nation? Question number three: from what you know
of God, do you think God cares one bit about the 50,000,000 children who were murdered
in the womb since 1973? Do you think He cares about the 1.2 million
children being killed every year in abortion? Do you think He has any opinion about that
at all? If your answer is "yes," you've just answered
the question why Christians ought to be involved in politics. Last year, the last election cycle, 2012,
there were 70 million evangelical Christians in our country; only half of those were registered
to vote, and of the half who voted, only half - or, who were registered - only half of those
actually went to the polls. Ladies and gentlemen, if you and I who are
God's people would rise up and go to the polls and not vote Republican values or Democrat
values, but God's values we could turn this nation around overnight, and it is a sin against
God that we don't care anymore than to do that. God said we're to be salt. Listen, the only reason we're trying to push
back with one hand the premature destruction of our world is so that we can do what we've
really been called to do with the other hand and that is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's why Jesus said in Matthew 5:14,
"You are the light of the world." You are the light of the world. That's why we're here. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself the
question, why is it after you were saved, God left you here on earth and instead didn't
rapture you to be with Him in heaven? I mean, after all, if God's purpose is to
have perfect fellowship with us, couldn't He enjoy us a lot more if we were in heaven
with Him rather than being left here on earth where we're distracted and entangled in sin? Why did God leave you here? Why did He leave me here? He didn't leave us here to build a successful
career. He didn't leave us here to accumulate as much
money as we could. He didn't even leave us here to have a happy
family life. God left us here for one reason, and that
is to fulfill His agenda. That means sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ
with as many people as possible. Students, do you understand, it doesn't matter
whether you're going to vocationally be involved in ministry on a mission field, whether you're
going to be a scientist, a technology expert, an entertainer; it doesn't matter where you
get your paycheck from, you and I all have the same purpose here, ad that is to spend
whatever amount of time we have to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people
as possible. I'll never forget when I was 15 years old. I was in high school at that time, a sophomore,
and my teacher, English teacher - it was a secular high school - asked me if I could
stay behind one day to talk with her, and I said, "Well, of course." And she said, "You know, Robert, you're a
Christian. And I believe God placed you here with these
3000 students for a reason, and that is that you could lead as many people to Christ as
possible." And she said, "I want to challenge you to
do something." It was the beginning of the school year, she
said, "I want you to make a list of five of your schoolmates - classmates - who aren't
Christians, and then I want you to commit to God that sometime during this year you're
not only going to pray for their salvation, but you'll present the gospel to them." And so I took that challenge. I didn't have a lot of purpose in my life
at that time and I thought, "Well that sounds interesting, I'll agree to do that." And over that year I prayed for those students
and one by one I presented the gospel to them and every one accepted Christ as his or her
Savoir, and the added benefit was one of those ended up becoming my wife, so that was an
extra benefit to that. But you know, that helped center me on what
my real purpose was, and my purpose is the same as your purpose: to share Christ with
as many people as possible while there's still time. You know, the Apostle Paul understood that. Remember in Philippians he was in prison facing
what could have been his death. He said, "I rejoice in my situation!" "Rejoice, Paul? Don't you know you're about to die?" He said, "No, this is great. Because of my imprisonment, people are being
led to Christ and more Christians are becoming courageous enough to share their faith. This is great!" Now think about it, if Paul's purpose in life
had been that of most Christians today - peace, prosperity, pleasure, the avoidance of pain
- why, his imprisonment would have been a great tragedy. "Why always me? Look at what has happened! Wasn't God caring about me when He left me
here in this prison?" But no, Paul didn't have a giant pity party
for himself. Instead he said, "I think this is great because
my situation is helping the gospel spread further." That's what happens when you have a purpose
in life bigger than yourself. And remember in chapter 2 of Philippians,
he turned to those Philippian Christians in verses 15 and 16 and he said, "And as for
you, in the midst of this perverse and wicked generation, I want you to be children of Light,
holding forth the Word of Life." Look, if you think our culture's decadent,
think about the one in which Paul wrote those words. Remember who was the Emperor of Rome at that
time? His name was Nero, the most anti-God emperor
ever. He used to use Christians as human tortures
in his gardens, to light up his gardens. And yet Paul said, "As this world becomes
darker, you have a great opportunity to be children of Light. You see, Paul understood a very simple principle,
and it's one I hope you understand, and that is the darker the background, the brighter
the light. The darker the background, the brighter the
light. That's why Paul said, "You can rejoice in
this ungodly culture because the darker the background, the brighter the light." I had to learn that lesson the hard way a
couple years ago. My youngest daughter had just had a major
event in her life that I wanted to help her celebrate. I guess it's far enough away from the event
I can go ahead and tell you what it was: she had just broken up with the most worthless
human being for a boyfriend I could ever possibly imagine. I said, "There is a God in heaven! Thank You, Lord!" And so I said to my daughter Dorothy, I said,
"Dorothy, that is such a wise decision and I want to help you celebrate, so I'll take
you to the mall and I'll buy you whatever you want." Now, I want to tell you what I had in mind
when I said, "Whatever you want." I thought we'd go to North Park Mall there
in Dallas, and go to Forever 21 where you can buy those 20- or 30-dollar dresses; I
mean that's what I had in mind. Well the day came and we went to North Park
and she led me right past Forever 21 and instead she led me into a jewelry store, a very expensive
jewelry store. So I was already starting to get the shakes
a little bit and we walked up to the counter. Pretty soon the salesman came. He looked at my daughter, he said, "Good to
see you again." I thought I'd been had now. He said to my daughter, "Would you like to
look at that ring you were looking at yesterday?" She said, "Yes." So I was really getting nervous now. He goes back; he comes back in a little bit. He has this little box, ring box, but before
he opens up the ring box, he took out a piece of black felt and he placed it on top of the
Plexiglas counter. And once he had that dark background laid
out, he opened the box, took the ring, plopped it right in the center of that black felt. The contrast between the darkness and the
light of the ring - well, it almost blinded me to the price of the ring! Not quite, but it almost did. But you see, he was a master salesman. He understood the principle "the darker the
background, the brighter the light." Students, these are dark days that we're living
in, and if your goal in life is peace, prosperity, pleasure, the avoidance of pain, these are
terrifying days in which to live. But listen to me: if your goal in life is
to share Christ with as many people as possible there has never been a better time to be a
Christian than right now, because as the darkness of this world becomes darker and darker, the
light of the gospel shines that much more brightly. The darker the background, the brighter the
light. "So, pastor, this has been the most schizophrenic
message I've ever heard! I mean, I'm all confused. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to be pushing back against evil
and taking stands against ungodliness in our culture, or am I to be involved in evangelism
and discipleship? Am I to be salt or am I to be light?" What did Jesus say? He didn't say, "You are the salt of the earth
or you're the light of the world." He said, "You are salt and light." Students, what I'm saying is: we need to be
balanced in our approach. We need to push back against evil. We need to share the gospel. It's not an either-or proposition. But when I say "balance," please don't confuse
that word with "passive." This is no time for God's people to be passive. I think of the words of William Watkins in
his book, "The New Absolutes." He said, "It is time for Christians to reject
the new tolerance and instead become a people marked by intolerance. Not an intolerance that unleashes hate upon
people, but an intolerance that is unwilling to allow error to masquerade as truth any
longer. An intolerance that is willing to stand up
and call good "good" and evil "evil." May God give you, the students at Liberty
University, the courage to do just that. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for the faculty and the
students here at Liberty University. They are here by your divine and sovereign
plan. And Father I pray that as they discover the
unique plan that you have for their lives they would never lose sight of the purpose
we all have, and that is to share Christ and to make Him known. We pray that your hand of blessing would be
on this sacred institution as it has been for so many years, and we pray this in the
saving Name of Jesus, amen.
