Matt Walsh Lecture - St. Mary of Pine Bluff

I want to thank your father for inviting me and it's a great honor to be here in this in this beautiful church and this beautiful state as well I'm a little jealous honestly if your whole setup and I can tell I can tell just walking in here that this is a church filled with crazy Jesus Freak extremists so I feel right at home and I thank you for that now I always feel sort of unworthy I I enjoy being invited to talk about faith and and I'm always honored I also feel unworthy to talk about these things because I have no great wisdom and I have no great virtue but I do have the microphone for some reason and God has seen fit to give it to me and so for as long as he has I will try to make use of it so today I want to talk about Satan's attack plan the way I see it Satan has two general battle plans two modes of attack that he uses on a country on a culture on a people we'll talk first about the his first attack it's the kind of direct violent old-school blood and martyrs type of persecution and it's very simple it's very straightforward kill the Christians that's the plan it doesn't get any more complicated than that and this is happening across the world on an unprecedented scale we you wouldn't know it if you relied on the media for your news because we hear about it on the news only sparingly and never with the word persecution attached to it but still the reality is that the ground all over the globe is soaked in the blood of Christian martyrs it should be noted that the extermination of Christians in the East is ignored not just by the media but by the church and by Christians in this country as well we don't really care I mean we say we care but we don't really we have our own concerns and this is all too far away for us to notice too distant in geography and in experience so we generally carry on as if the church is not under siege as if the war is not being waged upon her and I can tell you what the situation reminds me of it reminds me of I think of one of the first great battles of the Civil War Bull Run and if you're familiar with your American history you know that the Confederates won that battle but and it was a spectacular unexpected defeat for the Union and the Union was so confident they so expected to win and win so easily that many Union sympathizers came out to the battlefield and literally set up picnics on the sidelines and they sat there with their picnic baskets drinking tea and eating sandwiches of course the picnickers would soon be grabbing their blankets and their baskets and running for their lives the battle didn't unfold the way they thought it would but in kind of their lackadaisical attitude their arrogance their silliness they remind me of the church in the West because here we are off on the sidelines having a picnic eating our sandwiches as this brutal and horrific battle is fought in the distance and perhaps we too will soon be running for our lives a recent report tells us that Christian persecution and genocide is worse now than it's ever been in history which if you know anything about church history that's an astounding fact Christian's in Afghanistan Somalia Sudan Pakistan North Korea Libya Iraq Yemen Iran Egypt many other countries are frequently in prison tortured beaten raped martyred their churches are destroyed their houses are burned they meet and worship in secrets and they risk their lives in the process they live every moment in constant danger about 215 million million Christians across the world face what we call extreme persecution for their faith that's violent oppression it's estimated that around a million since 2005 have been slaughtered of course it's impossible to know exactly how many but we do know that Christianity has been drastically reduced in parts of the world where it's existed for 2,000 years tradition tells us that st. mark brought Christianity to Egypt in the early part of the first century and today the seed that he planted 2,000 years ago has been almost entirely ripped up and destroyed there are many examples of this persecution that I could point to I want to just cite one story because I think it's powerful and relevant to our situation have you heard about this happened a year or two ago a group of Christians in Egypt were in buses and they were headed to a monastery in the desert to pray on a pilgrimage and Islamist militants stop the buses boarded the buses but they didn't just start shooting what they did was they pulled each person out half off of the bus and had them kneel there in the desert in the sand and they interrogated them and the Christian pilgrims were asked first if they were Christian and then told that they needed to renounce Christ and convert to Islam when each person refused and they all refused they were shot in the head or the throat including the children now I think it's helpful to imagine because this is we're not talking about ancient history we're talking about things that happen every day across the world so I think it's helpful to imagine confronting this yourself just imagine what you would do because remember there are two questions here you have to choose martyrdom twice so the first question are you Christian you could probably escape death right here all you have to say is no one word one syllable will save your life it's all it's gonna take just tell them no it's just a word no this is why you're screaming to yourself and your head just say no but then a piece comes over you and God reaches out his hand and Steady's you and you find the courage to kneel on the ground in the desert with a gun to your throat and speak the simple truth yes then the second question will you renounce Christ and convert to Islam now perhaps you didn't know there would be a second question you thought they'd kill you after you answered affirmatively to the first but now you have another chance to save yourself another chance to avoid a violent death out here in the middle of nowhere and so you start telling yourself well maybe this is a message from God maybe God's telling me you know he wants me to live I have things to do I have a family I've got got plans but again the Holy Spirit enters you and you hear the voice of God in your heart telling you to speak the truth and so you say no I think it's especially powerful in this age of permissiveness and tolerance and a culture where Christians are terrified of telling anyone no ever over anything but the word no is what made these Christians martyrs but how many of us have faith like this these Christians were willing to give up everything for Christ how many of us are willing to give up anything let alone everything most of the so-called believers in this country will lash out angrily if you so much as suggests that they give up watching certain TV shows listening to certain music they'll explode in fury if you urge them to change their lifestyle to any degree whatsoever believe me and yet we think we possess the conviction and the faith to just give up our lives for Christ let's face it most of us would grovel and weep at the feet of our Muslim captors and recite whatever Quranic prayer they tell us to recite and I suspect that most of us would do that they would even have to put a gun to our head they could put it to our TV and we would probably we renounce right there Christ has already told us what it means to follow him give up everything he commenced embrace your suffer and carry your cross go hungry for me bleed for me die for me whosoever will save his life will lose it whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it and these Christians out to the east they have heard these words of Christ and they've taken them seriously they've taken them literally and they've said okay Lord thy will be done take it take everything just think of what these martyrs were doing in the first place when they were killed they were traveling to a desert on a pilgrimage to pray at a monastery despite the enormous risk that such a journey entails what about us many Christians this country can't even be bothered to get up on a Sunday morning drive 12 minutes to church there aren't any Islamic militants patrolling the area looking to put a gun in there put a bullet in their heads or make slaves of their children so what's their excuse they don't want to get up it's a hassle it's boring the seats aren't comfortable the sermons are boring why should we go we don't want to you can't make us Wow now we've come up with our theological excuses for not going to church not changing our lifestyles not really doing anything at all we found a verse or two in the Bible that justifies our laziness in our minds or it came up with a verse that we've decided should be in the Bible if we're really supposed to do such-and-such or not do such-and-such and that verse that we came up with is not in there so we're good to go this is the one area of religion where American Christians exert some effort in finding excuses to not be religious but our brothers and sisters to the east they know nothing of these excuses whatsoever they can't understand why we even want to find them they look at us and and they say you can be as Christian as you want and nobody will hurt you you're perfectly safe nobody's going to kill you you could shout about Christ from the rooftops well we're stuck down in caves why aren't you on the rooftops now why aren't you shouting well because we might lose Facebook friends somebody might accuse us of being weird and besides really if we start being really Christian then we experience things like guilts and we start to feel guilty about all of the gossiping we do at work or the lies we tell a porn we watch we might start to feel ashamed of the fact that we drink too much or spent too much money on frivolous things we've bought three different iPhones in the last two years that we give practically nothing to charity whatsoever that we make no sacrifices at all that we live just like everyone else lives that by our acts and our fruits you could not distinguish us from an atheist that's what's stopping us what's stopping us is that nothing is stopping us this is Satan's strategy for us this is Plan B and it is far more effective this is how the church has been subjugated in America we have bent our knees in submission to the forces of evil and they have not even fired a shot because the program that our culture carries out to exterminate and subjugate Christianity involves more of the more of the carrot than the stick we are just lulled to sleep we are tempted with all the pleasures and luxuries known to man we are made fat and lazy kill us why would anyone do that we're not worthy of persecution we are Christians not worth killing we are no threat to Satan he laughs at us he says I'm not worried about you guys a Christian Afghanistan now he's a threat he must be destroyed it's the only way what a lazy soft equivocating Christian in this country there's no need to persecute him just turn on the TV give him the Internet let him float into oblivion why would the demons waste their time tormenting someone who's already walking to hell of his own volition that's the recommendation Satan has given to his legions he said if someone's already going to hell don't interfere in fact walk before them and smooth the road out set up little refreshment camps and make it as easy as possible for situation has made all the worst because the enemies of the church in America have infiltrated it so they do what you want don't worry about sin let's be tolerant let's be welcoming let's be accepting this message is not just preached by the media and Hollywood it's preached from the pulpit so faithful Christians who wish to live according to Christ's precepts are alienated and disregarded by the very Shepherd's who should be guiding them Satan himself speaks from the mouths of many priests and many pastors in this country urging their flocks to conform with the culture making the Orthodox feel silly or even bigoted for trying to rise above the standards of the world we are a culture where babies are killed by the millions marriages fall apart left and right children are emotionally and spiritually abandoned in broken homes their innocence is attacked their purity destroyed by pornography and degeneracy we are drowning in sin in this country and when many of us drag our sorry beaten carcasses to church on Sunday if we even bother doing that anymore desperate for direction for clarity for encouragement for correction desperate for something I mean dear God just give me something what do we get from most poets nothing just hot air nonsense a whole lot of nothing I heard a sermon recently about blessings from the movie Toy Story apparently we're supposed to be friends I was so glad I heard that this church is a wonderful exception and it is an exception be grateful for what you have many of us do not Satan's leeches in America have figured out the secret don't put a gun to their head and tell them to stop being Christian no don't do that don't appeal to their fear don't try to make them afraid because if you do that you may accidentally awaken their courage and then you're in trouble if your persecution produces a bunch of passionate courageous Christians well then the only thing you can do is go and kill every last one of them because if you leave even one Christian of that sort alive if you let one slip through the cracks you're in trouble a Christian like that is the most powerful person on earth for as long as he lives he's the most powerful person on earth because he cannot be shamed into silence he cannot be intimidated he cannot be made to conform the world has nothing on him he's free all you can do with him is kill him he's too dangerous your tricks won't work he has the grace of God and you have nothing better to offer him and he knows it Satan knows that we have become numb in our comforts our faith is stagnant and still we don't cling desperately to glut to God as we ought we cling to other things we cling to our relationships and our jobs and our ambitions and our friends and our phones and our pets we don't even think of it most of the time we make no attempt to conform our lives to His commandments to walk the narrow path christ says pick up your cross and follow we take it as a suggestion we leave our crosses on the side of the road and we head back inside or there's a new netflix show to binge Satan does not want us to be jolted out of this stupor the persecutors of the Church in America have a very easy job for them the strategy is clear put down the gun drop the machete don't scare these people don't make martyrs of them don't give them any hint that there's a war going on in the fate of their souls hangs in the balance don't let them think about the fact that right now around them there are angels and demons fighting over them let them be arrogant them self-assured let them push out any thought of their own mortality let them enjoy themselves let them have their spiritual indifference and let them dress it up as positivity and hopefulness let them have it all fluff their pillow for lower feed them pamper them pleasure them give them everything their heart's desire don't appeal to their fear appeal to their lust to their laziness their gluttony their vanity their pride their boredom and then watch them drop like flies it is because of this plan that Satan has so expertly carried out that although we claim to have seventy percent of uh we claim to have a population that is 70 percent Christian I think we all know that it's really 5% maybe 1% temptation that's our cross that's our trial that's our battle it's not as dramatic as what those in the East are dealing with and of course every Christian across the world across history has to battle temptation but not every Christian has lived as we do in a culture seemingly designed for no other purpose than to tempt this is a culture designed by Satan it's tailor-made by him he is the tempter and so everywhere we look we are surrounded on all sides by temptation that's why I think it may be worthwhile here to step a a bit to the side and talk for a moment about temptation itself so that we can try to understand what exactly it is and how we handle it and for this lesson we in turn as always to Scripture we're told that at the beginning of his public ministry our Lord went out into the desert he was led into the desert to be to be tempted and it's a very fascinating scene where Jesus is going out to confront Satan he's going out and calling out saying this is Satan's time he's saying okay Satan do your worst I'm here and even he went into the duel with one hand tied behind his back he starved himself for forty days ahead of time and then he said all right so then why did he do this he could have why did he go through any of this he could have sued Satan approached he could have just smacked him away like a like a fly but instead he engaged him and I think the reason for that well there are two reasons first of course Christ was fully man and fully God and he desired to drink the cup of human experience and that includes tent although he could not experience it the way that we do internally because he was not sinful he experienced it externally in his way but second I think the real reason for this whole scene is that Jesus was exposing Satan he drew the snake out from his hiding place underneath the rock so that we could see him and see how he functions and what did we learn about evil from this exchange well we learned first of all that it's prideful to the point of insanity so I just think about it the devil was trying to tempt God how crazy is that he must have known that he wouldn't succeed of course I've heard some people fear some people theorize like fault machine far be it for me to disagree with him but he theorizes that the devil didn't know he was he was actually this was he wasn't sure if this was actually the Messiah and this temptation was about finding out this was a kind of a fact-finding mission for Satan maybe that's the case but I tend to think that Satan is literally full of pride and so he thought he had a chance and we do the same don't we in our pride we try to win victories over God God tells us to reject sin to live holy virtuous lives God tells us that this is the only road to joy and we know that it's true because we've tried to find joy and sin and we know that we'll never find it there but we keep trying anyway we keep trying to game the system looking for joy where we know it cannot be looking for joy where we know we're only going to find misery well we think part of us that we can have it all that we can beat God at his own game and so we humiliate ourselves the same way that Satan humiliated himself Jesus drew evil out into the open in full view so that we could see it and recognize it within ourselves next we learn that Satan is as Pope Benedict described him a theologian he knows scripture backwards and forwards knows it better than we do he used God he used God's own book against him he was quoting scripture and what does that tell us well it tells us that just because someone has knowledge of the Bible doesn't mean that we should follow them tells us that knowledge of the Bible does not in itself mean that a person is saved Satan knows the Bible Satan knows that Christ is the son of man yet Satan is still Satan Satan's flaw is not that he believes the wrong thing but that he does not love God and will not serve Him next importantly we learned the forms of temptation that will be used against us Satan tempts Christ first to turn rocks into bread so that he can eat appealing to his physical appetites and Satan tempts Christ to throw himself off a cliff allow the angels to come save him this is an appeal to pride and ego then he tempts Christ to worship Him the devil and in return he'll receive all the power and riches in the world and appeal to materialism so we learned here that Satan seeks to make of us gluttons egoists and materialists and I'll settle for just one if you can get it but these days he has no problem getting all three finally we learned that these temptations can be overcome if we depend on God and God alone because how does Christ respond to each salvo from the devil he quotes scripture which is amazing again Christ could have easily just said get out of here just get out of here before I smack you you could have said that but he didn't because that would not be a model that we could follow Christ can respond to the devil that way we cannot we are no match for the forces of Hell we cannot beat them Satan is stronger than us smarter than us more powerful we're not going to win an argument we're not going to win a fight we are puny and weak he will eat us for breakfast we cannot beat him we cannot beat him on our own I think what Christ is telling us with his response is not to rely on our own understanding on our own strength on our own resilience he's saying don't walk into a match with the devil by yourself with no armor with no ammunition don't do it I didn't even do it and I'm the son of God he's telling us use the Bible as your shield grasp onto God onto your face he cannot harm us when we're huddled close to the Lord we can go where he cannot we can walk in the light of Christ we can retreat into the arms of God we can stand beneath the cross that's our shelter and so there's a lot that we can learn from this because we live now in a desert of our own a spiritual desert and we are alone out here all of us we cannot look to the world to have our back just as Jesus was alone out there so are we alone we cannot look to anyone to support us to encourage us when the devil comes for us to try to resist the devil resist temptation live a pure and holy life to attempt to be virtuous this will only provoke laughter and jeers from those around us they will mock us and as Satan grabs us by the ankles and tries to drag us into hell and we cling desperately onto a rock or a root with all of our might the world will come and start prying at our fingers and say stop resisting what are you doing this is silly what's the big deal and it will try to make us feel stupid for even caring this is the situation there's a war happening here too but it's a spiritual war and much of it is invisible to us and the tactic of the evil one has been to numb our souls and fill our stomachs and rub our shoulders and make us forget about God to the point where we have no desire for God because we don't think we need him and we're missing then the key to life the very purpose which is to allow the Holy Spirit to foster within ourselves a true aching insatiable desire for God this is why Christ tells us to give up everything and follow him he's saying give up the attachment the attachment is the problem not the thing itself the more things we have the more attached we become to those things the less we hunger for the bread of life and we become like someone who dies of starvation despite having a pantry full of food because he filled himself on soda and chips it wasn't enough it couldn't sustain him but he never felt the hunger pains because he had filled his stomach with grease and sugar this is the advantage if you can call it that which are brothers and sisters in the Middle East have over us truly we learned blessed are the poor blessed are the suffering they really are blessed they have few attachments few possessions few pleasures they live lives of suffering persecution and danger they have nothing but God which is to say they have nothing but everything our case is different every Petty and meaningless desire of ours is spilled we have so much that we even invent new desires and we fulfill them too every day there's some new fetish some new interest that's grabbed a hold of some segments of society we plunge down to the darkness of our own egos and we pull up just whatever depraved disgusting desire we can we present it to the world and we fight for the right to satisfy it so that we can even feel heroic in our indulgence there's so much noise so much commotion so much media so many lights and sounds and all it does is keep us focused on a million things besides the one thing that matters we run from God into the white noise of modern culture and we lose him somewhere in there though he still pursues us this is the crisis of the modern church it's a crisis of desire that so many of us that we may be decent people though we may be nice though we may even believe and all that God stuff sort of we don't really desire him we don't love him a lot of people in truth are bored by God and they find religion tiresome and burdensome they can't spend this chance to stand to spend too much time with God too much time in prayer to go to church to read scripture is a torture for them maybe it is for some of us in here as well before to be honest but here's the problem if all the things that are purely about God in this life scripture prayer church if all that is to us dull and uninteresting and all we can do is bide our time until we can get back to the TV then how can we expect to go to heaven do we even want to heaven would be torture for someone with that mentality because there would be no leaving God to get back to the TV it would be only God always it would be only the one thing we spent our whole life trying to get away from if we find little appeal and spending even a few minutes with God now how can we expect to find any appeal in eternity with him this is the difficult truth that we come to not everyone wants to go to heaven not every Christian wants to go to heaven in fact I would wager that most in this country do not and so they won't in the words of CS Lewis heaven is an acquired taste and the goal of our life is to acquire it to develop a profound authentic yearning for that eternal and perfect unity with God to get to the point where we are like I mean think about the the people in Scripture the the the the sick and the poor when they encountered Jesus like the woman who crawls to Jesus in the crowd it just wants to touch his robe for the woman who weeps before him and bathes at his feet with her tears for the paralytic who's lowered in through the roof to get to Jesus and Jesus was in a remember he was in a crowded house and and and all these people were coming to him he knew he's he's Jesus he must have known that that guy was out there paralyzed he could have said hey guys make room but he needed to see the desperate urgent desire he needed them to tear a hole in the roof to get to it and this is the desire we have to foster within ourselves in a country that tries to instill so many other competing desires I can't say exactly every step we should take to develop this desire I've certainly not mastered it myself and besides it's not about the steps that we take or our plans or our designs and simply about opening ourselves to the grace of God I do know that it begins very simply with something so simple that I think as Christians we think we don't even need to talk about it because we all know it many of us don't do it begins very simply on our knees praying Christians today are very cynical about prayer they they say well it doesn't get results it's not just atheists who say Oh thoughts and prayers don't do anything there's no results Christians say the same thing and that's only because we're looking for results in the wrong places prayer does make a difference and here's where we see a difference first and quickly when we really start praying frequently unceasingly we see a difference first in our appetites not our physical appetites but we really start praying we begin to feel a deeper desire for holy things and less desire for hollow things it's very evident to me that we live in a country where most of the Christians here almost never pray because if they did they could not carry on this way and you really start praying when we really start praying our spiritual and intellectual appetites grow deeper more mature you know you start to find a lot of music you listen to a lot of the shows that you watch whatever else they no longer appeal to you you find that certain sins and temptations have less of a hold on you you want to read the Bible more you want more of the sacred more of the reverent in your life you find certain things appealing that you never found appealing before you find flaws and other things where you never saw them before you find meaning where you found meaninglessness and meaninglessness where you found meaning you love people more you hate sin more you want to talk about God more and you want to think about him and you want to tell people about him you want to help people you change everything else in your life may stay the same and may even get worse who knows especially when the devil starts to realize that you're getting all Christian on him but you will change guaranteed and then the more we change the less we look at prayer as a thing that brings results we see prayer as an opportunity to spend time with God and think about him and worship him to not always be asking for things but just to be there in his presence listening that desire that fire is kindled and we know it when we start to feel and that's the crucial thing for us to want the right things because I believe that the truth is in the end we will all be given exactly what we want and that's a terrifying reality and I imagine that when our time comes we will stand before the throne of judgment gazing upon the one true God the king of kings and Lord of lords seeing him in his awesome power and goodness dressed as he's described in Revelation in his robe dipped in blood clutching his sword of truth towering above us just immense and eternal his eyes like two burning Suns and his face glowing like it did in front of the apostles at the Transfiguration shining forth with so much beauty and Majesty that we can barely comprehend the perfection that we behold and I imagine though of course I don't know but I imagine that in this moment of just unspeakable joy and terror all combined in one the culminating moment of our lives the moment we were made for the moment that decides everything for better or worse in this moment I imagine that he looks at us as we stand there before him naked and trembling and exposed and he asks us just one question what do you want and this will be the first time in our lives when we are forced to answer that question honestly the answer will be drawn forth from us as we stand there in this place where no lies can be uttered for the martyrs the persecuted their answer has already been given they gave their answer with their blood they submitted their lives entirely to God they carried their cross they trudged up Calvary and they died beside Christ upon that hill like the penitent thief they they look to our Lord in their pain and they said I accept this Lord this is mine to bear I accept it do not save me from it let me die here with you and Christ gazed upon them and gave him the same answer that he gave the thief today you will be with me in paradise but what about the rest of us what will we say when we face this moment when God asks us what we want what will be our answer it's not so clear-cut for us we are not martyrs and we probably will never be I'm afraid to say that I fear the worst for many people in this country I fear that a great many of us will have no choice but to look back at God knowing that we were looking at him for the first and last time in our pitiful wasted lives trying as we might to soak in his warmth and goodness one last time before we're cast out into the dark and we will be forced to say I want myself Lord that's all I would leave me alone I don't want you why haven't you gotten the message yet but I pray and I have hope that all of us here in that moment will be able to say something entirely different I pray desperately and fervently that we'll be able to answer in gratitude and ecstasy I want you Lord only you you are what I've been searching for you are the answer to every question I've ever asked you are the hunger and the pit of my stomach that aching in my bones I have felt a deep longing all my life because I had been separated from you Lord I've traveled through life and passed through death to find you I do not deserve you because I am weak and sinful but I hate my sins I hate them father please have mercy on me and let me come home I just want to come home and no matter what our answer is to that fateful question God's response will be the same so be it my child as you wish and we will simply walk through the door that we have chosen thank you everyone god bless you you

Channel: St. Mary of Pine Bluff Catholic Church

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Id: qVrdSwp_7RA

Length: 47min 48sec (2868 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 06 2018