Saturday Guest Speaker ~Eric Metaxas

foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] okay thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] taxis weekend let's stand in worship together tonight [Music] now to his [Music] be with us [Music] the Lord above all things so much Sheltering you to his gently and thesis day [Music] oh that is [Music] by his grace [Music] surely his goodness and mercy shall she shouts [Music] [Music] Joyful Joyful We Adore them [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] in this place she adore him just praise it right where you're at foreign [Music] [Music] the glory forever [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] lift your voices [Music] the compound every blessing to my heart to sing thy Grace streams of Mercy never seizing call for songs [Music] [Music] [Music] here I raise [Music] my goodness to wherever I am available Jesus [Music] [Music] thank you Jesus thank you Jesus for the tonight [Music] [Music] and let thy goodness from to wonder come to me that God I love [Music] courts all else I adore your name [Music] to my heart to sing your praise let's sing that together [Music] sing it to him tonight [Music] oh Lord I adore us to my heart sing a praise [Music] [Music] unless lift it up tonight give him praise thank you Jesus thank you God we give you praise in this place tonight God you're why we're here Lord lift our voices tonight here at Grace Church thank you God for this body thank you for this church and this time to Worship You Lord with one mind and one voice and everybody said amen well why don't you turn to your neighbor and say welcome to church foreign [Music] [Music] good evening everybody come on now good evening everybody good to see you tonight good night to be in church looks like we have a lot of new faces and visitors come out to hear Eric that's fantastic that's what I'm doing here too this is going to be such an enjoyable evening we've had a pack day we had a great Women's Conference that happened today and yeah no the ladies brought it down in a good way and then we had Eric this morning with about 50 or 60 liters this morning as well and we've just had an incredible day hey if you're newer around here and you would like to get more information about who we are or about Jesus what Christianity is about why we do Church the way we do we'd love to interact with you if that interests you there's a connect card in your seats or up in the pews or online you can see how to interact with us that way just to answer any questions you may have or pray with you you know if you're going through the curve balls of life we're not meant to do that alone our team looks over these every week we pray for them we'll reach out and and pray with you if you'd like us to do it that way as well you can take that card at the end of the service and put it at any of the information desks on your way out to our eight team members or we have offering boxes you can put it in there too and for those of you that did come ready to give your ties or offerings we do that at the end on your way out as well okay just real quick if you will in your bulletin there's just lots of good things that are happening we have many things that are happening around here about seven days a week great classes and groups and outreaches ways to impact our city so make sure you take a look at that take us up on some of those things and get involved amen let's pray we're going to get right till this evening father we thank you in the name of Jesus for church and we thank you Lord for the freedom to assemble Lord we don't ever take it lightly we thank you for it and God tonight we ask you that you would bless this evening that you would open our hearts and open our ears we love you in the name of Jesus Amen and amen okay Grace Church I need you to give Eric my taxes a big round of applause and let's welcome him to the stage come on now let's give it a little bit more wow oh no oh that's not acceptable wow wait what is this God bless you God bless you thank you thank you I am I am so honored I can't even take it thank you wow I thought you would do a couple cartwheels and feel the energy uh oh my gosh he's probably gonna end up having a night talk show I mean he's just not like what what like four or five they don't know what you're talking about but I know I just want to explain yeah I have the translation I have the translation uh well um you really want me to jump into that that is so incredible to me that it's like what your world right you yeah not everybody's from this church so maybe some people don't know a lot of visitors here about 45 years so they've had enough um I uh well my name is Eric mataxis and I I do a lot of stuff so one of the things that the Lord I believe I I say I believe the Lord called me to do for years and years and years was to host a late night TV talk show you know along the lines of Johnny Carson or Dick Cavett or something because people coming from a traditional Conservative Christian world view it's like we're not represented in the culture and if we have a free market that doesn't make sense we ought to be represented you know we ought to have you know but we we're not and so that's something that God has put on my heart for many many years and uh last August man the time is flying we taped four episodes and there they were big deal episodes you can see them if you look up the talk show with Eric mataxis um or but but it was my effort to to try to make these four pilot episodes and we're in the process of trying to sell them and figure out who's gonna air the show and whether the show is going to happen because I I feel called by the Lord to speak into the culture so I am for Christians being involved in everything in politics and everything but my particular calling is to the culture and it remains to be seen how the Lord will will do that because I feel like what I'm doing right now to be perfectly Frank is is a drop in the bucket uh we live in a very very dark secular lost culture and there are very few places you can look except on explicitly religious programming right I'm not against explicitly religious programming but a lot of people just kind of flipping around and they kind of act like well that's not for me that's not for me of course it is for them but but they just we need to reach people where they are and um everybody's interested in truth and all this kind of stuff so that's part of what I hope the Lord is doing with me so thank you for asking all right now how many of you do not know who Eric mataxis is I mean there's just a handful all right get out you discussed how dare you all right how dare all right so I can't believe I travel that's why I didn't go with this big huge introduction but here let me give you an introduction all right let me give you an introduction why not so uh all right man I'm trying to figure out how many years ago this was that I heard you you're you're not a young guy uh so uh yeah I really do I'm trying to figure out I think it was between the wars that we first uh oh right we first met yeah no I haven't I've looked forward to this day yeah to me but uh I started reading your books I think the first one I read was uh if you can keep it yeah that was that came out in 2016 and that it's a it's basically a book about America I don't think they're selling it here in this crummy bookstore uh but you know why they aren't because every person in this church has it all right so we we I we I literally I literally on at least two given Sundays how many of you remember this read the book to our congregation so so I'm kind of wondering like how come I didn't hear this before because I kind of need the encouragement so we like we that blesses me in a way you just can't imagine dude get that turned me on us on and uh it got us on a whole different track because we we really didn't get that America was born out of Revival well can I tell you something and I say this seriously neither did I get it so when I got it you go crazy and you're like I have to share this with everybody this is this is vital information that you cannot have freedom the kind of American self-government and freedom that we have without faith and virtue you can't have it but I never learned that we should be learning that in the schools because it's actually true it's like math it's basic so when I put it in that book I got very excited about it and I uh we're trying to turn that into like a streaming TV series because we got to get this information out out out and uh that it really that just means so much to me I would uh obviously tomorrow morning I'm preaching on my book letter to the American church but if you ever invite me back I will be happy to speak on that or any number of other books which are more fun to talk about exactly than letter to the American church I mean we were we were giving that to everybody we were pushing that book because I kept running into people who didn't get it who didn't understand who think that somehow us getting into politics is dirtying our hands right and you were just so crystal clear that this is the only way we keep this country well when again when I discovered that I'm I'm really happy to to be humble and honest and say like I did not know these things and when I discovered them I just flipped out and it was Oz Guinness who wrote a book called a free people suicide he's a friend brilliant and I remember when I read his book I got the idea in the the central the central idea uh about how American style Freedom works and let me say it because it's not unimportant some if you don't know this he calls it the Golden Triangle of freedom and I never heard this before and when I understood this I just lost it I said okay Freedom requires virtue now most of us I mean I'm curious if you unders really understand that like if you could explain that to somebody else would you like raise your hand I'm curious who really understands that because I didn't understand that so just like most of us don't get that this is as basic As It Gets to be self-governing all right even the concept of what is freedom freedom I can do what I want no Freedom means I am free to govern myself I'm not governed from above by a king or from by a bureaucracy or a deep state or anything I'm self-governing we are the first country in the history of the world to pull that off and the reason we pulled it off is because the founders understood that if people have virtue in other words if if you will do the right thing without somebody pointing a gun at you to do the right thing or without a threat then you can be self-governing but if you won't do the right thing unless you're forced then you're going to need a heavy-handed authoritarian government so the founder said that freedom requires virtue but virtue then requires faith in other words why do you do the right thing when nobody's looking when nobody's forcing you why because you obviously have some faith in a higher order usually in God that says I'm not going to steal because I Fear God I'm not going to do this I am going to do this because I love God so if you have faith faith creates virtue so Freedom requires virtue but virtue requires Faith but then the key is Faith requires freedom in other words if faith is mandated by the state like in a lot of countries in Europe you know if you're part of that country you are a Catholic or you are better not be a Catholic or you better go to that church and not that church or it was mandated by the state and if it's mandated by the state it's not free and people don't do it of their own free will they just kind of go through the motions you know people who go to churches like that they're just going through the motions they're just ticking a box but to do it freely the founder said it has to be religion has to be free and we have to let people do whatever they want you want to be an atheist you want to be a Muslim you want to be a congregationalist you want to be a disabilian you want to be Pinnacle but whatever you want the government has hands off and that's all I'll say about it because that's we're not here to talk about it tonight but that's the genius of the American system and when I really understood that I simply couldn't believe it I couldn't I simply couldn't believe it and I said this is like so basic it's like the multiplication tables or the periodic table it's like a basic thing that needs to be taught to everyone in America and if you can figure out a better way to be free good luck I'd love to hear your I'd like to hear it because there is none so there's there's no way you get away from faith when you're talking about American style Freedom that's our history and it is inevitable and I just you know I would do anything I could to to teach every American to make to understand that because it changes you once you understand that totally changes you I mean you you pushed me to Oz Guinness you know to to read it but man when you explained it I I like there is a method to this somewhere did did it work okay all right you know what it's in my contract and this is not the kind of vodka that I have did I mention that he has a contract all right anyway when you explained it uh I mean I I still I want to linger on this a minute so this this idea of democracy yeah we are not you know because this is what's being pushed right now we're we're a democracy we're a democracy yeah we're not a democracy we're a republic right uh well that's the idea yeah and but I mean this used to be part of civics where you know but we don't have I'm guessing when you were in grade school right they were teaching this when I was in grade school they sort of stopped were stopping to teach it and by the time we are now uh but I even say in the book another another profound idea I think in terms of like vital idea is that America is an idea it's not an ethnic group it is an idea and if you buy into those ideas you can be an American if you don't buy into those ideas you're America in name only but to be free you you have to understand this stuff so it has to be taught to every generation and we used to teach it to every generation and that's why Benjamin Franklin said what I mean the reason where the title comes from is that at the end of the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin comes out and a woman Mrs Powell of Philadelphia a famous woman says Dr Franklin what have you given us a monarchy or a republic because she actually didn't know what they had done in there when they created a constitution were they able to come up for the first time in the history of the world with a constitution for a government that allowed people to be free and self-governing a republic is it possible they she didn't know so she says what have you given us Dr Franklin a monarchy Republic and he says a republic Madam if you can keep it in other words you have to keep the Republic it doesn't keep itself the Constitution doesn't keep itself it's a dead piece of paper but if you keep the Republic if you live out these freedoms and teach them then we can be free and obviously it's a miracle we ever came up with this government that God's hand in history it's a miracle it's sustained for over two centuries and we've been losing it for the last 50 years and that's why we are where we are now so you went into in this book you went into how God set this whole thing up I mean there was a Revival that was sweeping the country various Jonathan Edwards uh would feel yeah I don't think there's any doubt I mean listen I think if you're honest you you don't have to be a Christian to acknowledge history and Truth um our country would not have come into being if not for tons of vibrant Christians it wouldn't have been possible because the founders understood this concept that we need a virtuous people to sustain a free republic there's there's no remember all the founders understood this and in the book if you can keep it which is not available right out there uh you they knew I I quote all of them they all understood this idea this wasn't the idea of a few Christian Patriots they all understood that you need a virtuous people to pull this off so when you think about that you realize that's our history and that there's no way around it that all the founders understood this does not work unless the people are virtuous and moral and religious it doesn't work but we can't force morality and religion on people so they have to do it themselves so it's an amazing concept and then it was the the first Great Awakening George Whitfield was preaching up and down the 13 colonies like like a maniac and that's what led to Revival and to the ability of many people in the colonies to say we can govern ourselves I don't need to be told not to steal or not to do this or not to the I I want to honor God so that's an important part now you can overstate it or you can understate it but that's a fact of history there's no way around it and we we have to acknowledge that without that uh we never would have arrived at 1787 and the Constitution or 1776 and the Revolution and and we um it also needs to be said that and it's also in the book if you can keep it which is not available right out right out there um that in the book if you can keep it I talk about and and you have to get the hardcover because that cover is not really but um but in it's it's part of what amazes me about America is there are miraculous moments in our history that you see God's hand if you're honest about it you see God's hand creating and sustaining us and um I write about several of those things in in the book if you can keep it now Michael Medved wrote a book called The American miracle where he writes about a ton of these stories and I was blown away by his book and I'm doing a Socrates in the city event in Seattle I think we will live stream it so you can watch it but with Michael Medved on April 28th I do a speaker series called Socrates in the city where I interview people but but you see God's hand in our history and it's hard to deny it that's what's so fascinating it's like you you could see people getting really upset about this but most people Abraham Lincoln saw this better than anybody and he called us God's almost chosen people he saw that we were special to God so uh that these things are unavoidable if you're honest that's why I find interesting it's not just like a Christian interpretation this is this is our history and we've not been teaching it because things have become so secularized so that's why we have to push back hard because this is not Christian history this is history man I'm telling you there's so many pieces to this uh the whole concept of us going secular is just the the reason it's so frightening is there's no I mean from what you've just said the three-legged stool the triangle whatever you want to call it they it's impossible it is absolutely impossible you will you will devolve into big state government authoritarianism you will become less and less and less free there's no way around it and you see it you see the converse you know if you go to any state where any government sorry country where the government is strong and authoritarian their number one enemy is always religious people their number one enemy is people who answer to a higher authority because you're a threat to their Authority you see this all over the world and you see this in atheistic places like China or North Korea it is just a threat to the government's power and it was the biggest threat to Hitler and the Nazis now they couldn't be open that they were against the churches so they pretended to be for the churches they pretended they kind of wanted to take the churches over but the church the real Believers were the enemies of of Nazism and so that's you see this over and over through history it's very simple that if you want to be free you need to have people that are serious about God and if you're not serious about God the government will take over and the government will want you to worship it as God which is what happens just the incremental and I didn't mention Joe Biden yeah the the incremental creep I mean what we're seeing right now you if if you're not going to govern yourself you've got to have more loss and so that's I mean comment on that that's what we're seeing right I mean well it's it's uncontrollable it's kind of inevitable that if you are free you know you police yourselves in a sense you you know you don't need a lot of government but uh I mean if if you want to see what that looks like you think of you know Saddam Hussein's Iraq okay they had very little crime in Saddam Hussein's Iraq but that wasn't because the people were virtuous it wasn't because the people were free they were they're in a police state that if you look at somebody funny you'll be tortured and killed so to have real Freedom requires people of virtue otherwise things start to get out of control and then the government will step in and enforce whatever it thinks is right and it will prosecute the people it wants to prosecute and it'll let go the people it doesn't want to prosecute which is completely unjust and corrupt and that is what happens if we the people don't fight for our freedoms and and uh fight for that view of of things and and elect people who understand that so it relate that to this this new concept of critical race Theory Dei you know this is an attempt to control everything there's no doubt about it every aspect of our no I mean I listen I just I don't know if it's out of laziness people think I'm being courageous but I think it's sometimes not a laziness that I just cut to the Jason say all that stuff is from the pit of Hell it's from the pit of Hell In other words we can talk about why and how and whatever but in case you don't have a ton of time I'll just cut to the Chase and say it is from the pit of Hell it is designed to control people it is the enemy of people when you talk about critical race Theory okay you talk about uh the black lives matter organization that is an atheistic Marxist organization as far as I'm concerned they are the enemy of the black community they are the enemy of black families and as a white person I will speak up against it because God commands me to love people that look differently different from my for me so the point is that you the church has to be bold on this and the church acts like well but they've kind of got a point no they don't have a point I'll be honest with you they don't have a point everybody I mean first of all this is kind of funny to me I wrote a book called is atheism dead which they also don't have out there I think um I guess they want you to get how much have I pushed every book that he just wrote I am so um but that's old news but the point is I am seriously I'm so honored by that I can't even I got a joke but but the reason I bring up my book uh is is atheism dead is to say that the idea let's say somebody says Hey racism is wrong I go like yes I know that and I know why it's wrong because the god of the Bible says that he has no respecter of persons every one of us is equal in his sight so racism is wrong if you have a Biblical worldview if you're an atheist you tell me why you say atheism is wrong because you just say it's wrong what if you said it's right why do you say it's wrong you can't explain it because you don't believe in the god that says we're all equal in his sight if you believe that we evolved that there's no God and we evolved out of the primordial soup by accident we're just got here by accident then why can't I say maybe some races are more evolved than others guess what that's what the whole Eugenics movement teaches right that's what the Nazis said that we're racially Superior because we believe in evolution okay the Japanese and World War II they totally thought they were racially Superior to other races and so they didn't believe in God and they believed they're racially Superior therefore if you're racially inferior to them they have every right to crush you and to use you so atheism cannot even give an answer for why racism is wrong so when BLM or critical race Theory people are yapping about where race is wrong I'm like excuse me I know it's wrong because the Bible says it's wrong and it was Christians that brought about the Abolitionist Movement and abolished the slave trade and abolished slavery there was Christians doing that and why do you say it's wrong and they have no answer they just get mad and start talking some confused intellectual nonsense because they have no answer and they can't possibly have an answer there is no answer outside of the god of the Bible who created us says that it's wrong so when people talk about critical race Theory and diversity and stuff they're playing games and they are banking on the fact that you'll just shut up and do as you're told and many in the church have done that have shut up and done as we're told and that's a sin before God because we're allowing evil to come in so uh these are very important things and and if the church I mean the reason I wrote the new book letter to the American church is because I believe that Bonhoeffer was trying to call the Germans in his day in the 1930s to wake up and to stand against the Nazis and they basically said no we're not supposed to be political the church said no we don't want to we don't want to be political and we see what happened was hell was Unleashed and so I wrote this book because I feel something very similar is happening today dramatically dramatically similar and the same excuses are being given by the churches about why we don't we don't touch on that we don't get into that we don't want to be divisive and that's wrong it's opening the door to Hell In Our Generation it's already the door is open you see it everywhere you look madness has been Unleashed in this country total Madness and it's harming people and Bonhoeffer called The Church the conscience of the state he said it's the church's job to speak up and if the church does not speak up evil will be allowed to run rampant and in America many many many churches and you attend some of them do not touch this stuff they don't go there that's the kind of spirit that would say in slavery times oh we don't touch on the issue of slavery in our church because you know we got people on both sides we're all about the gospel what kind of gospel what kind of dead gospel are you preaching that you will not talk about slavery so it's very easy for us now to condemn them but we're doing exactly the same thing with the hot button issues that our divisive today we're saying oh I don't want to I don't want to take sides on that well just as lives were destroyed by slavery lives are being destroyed by any number of these things that a lot of pastors say oh I don't want to get political I don't want to get divisive and just as God would judge those who were silent in those days and were silent in the face of Nazism God will judge and is judging the church today and those churches that are not speaking on these issues are losing numbers think of the irony because they're not speaking because they're afraid of losing people and that's by not speaking they are losing people so I started reading some of his novel or not novel some of his uh biographies biographies uh I guess the first one I attempted was the biggest that you ever wrote bonhoth offer yes my goodness what what well first of all I didn't know it was 700 pages I probably wouldn't have it was only started it was only 600. in German at 700 that's true yeah anyway I literally I started reading listening to it I'm I'm a listener so did you read that was it you that read that no you had a No in fact that's hilarious the the this is before I had achieved like any fame or anything so that they they just took the book and they give it to some actor and you know he reads it and whatever and I thought well I I would have liked to read it you know so now I read all my books but that book if you listen to it on tape the actor you know the guy who reads it does a good job except for one thing he mispronounces Bonhoeffer every single time it's like dude you had one job yeah he says like bonhifer something like that anyway so no I did not read that the uh my goodness but I'm told that he does a good job other than that the storytelling is phenomenal I mean and you're like one of the consummate storytellers I've I've read I mean it's fascinating it holds you thank you and uh I can't tell you how many miles I walked listening to that book I thought will this ever end but but uh but it what it it painted the picture of Germany in a way I you know my dad fought in the War all of my relatives were in World War II and I had never seen them as the normal you know us I mean as us and so it just puts you in the culture the the the church that was there that was thriving and and it Suddenly It's all real it's in your face it's like this could be me yeah this would have been me and and my hope is that I would have gone with Bonhoeffer but he was he was like the outlier he was the one that he was trying to get pastors awake he was trying to get the church awake and it didn't happen well that's I mean that's why I wrote the new book letter to the American Jewish Bonhoeffer is my longest book letter to the American church is my shortest book and the the but the reason I wrote it is because I said exactly when people say how did that happen in Germany how in the world did that happen it happened exactly as it is happening right now in America exactly that's not hyperbole I'm not exaggerating like that that's exactly people are the same I mean if you think the Germans are uniquely evil then you're a racist they're equally sinful as you and me and that nation was a very Christian Nation and they had very Pious religious reasons for keeping their mouth shut in the face of evil just as many pastors today say oh Romans 13. we don't we don't we don't talk about that the German pastors refused to address this stuff and it was the same thing the cancer culture they were afraid if you oh if you bring it up people can look at you funny you could lose your job you know you could you're not loving it's not the loving thing to do you're being inclusive you're that's basically yeah they wouldn't have used those terms but it was exactly the same thing and so all you need is a bully to take advantage of that and that's we have now we have bullies taking advantage of that and pushing certain ideas and saying oh you can't talk about that you can't talk about that and you kind of think like what in America you think you're going to tell me what I can and cannot talk about there's a people died [Music] people died so that we could be free you're kidding you've got to be kidding people are pushing this and they're getting away with it and it is the job of the church number one to push back the church is the conscience of the state God calls us to be bold and to push back and so when churches don't you know my counsel is get out of that church do not tithe to the church like that because we're in a war and people are suffering and or or maybe you you can uh give my book to the pastors and say would you please think about this and if they they I mean I I wrote it to reach those pastors we sent it to every pastor we knew in this area so the thing that thank you I don't know that everybody read it well I mean listen that's the point is that we can only do what we can do right right right but if if you're in a church that doesn't understand that we're in a war with you name it it it's it's cultural Marxism it is it's the enemy of the United States of America it's the enemy of the gospels the enemy that and if you are not willing to take a stand and to do something about that you are absolutely helping it to happen like we need to understand there's no safe third path either you're working to do something about this or you're helping it to happen by being passive and that's exactly what happened in Germany the church thought we're going to take the safe religious path We're Not Gonna We're not gonna get involved exactly because of that evil took over you you said something some I know it had have been you that Hitler at one point says to I don't know what this bonoffer or some of his guys preach the gospel just stay in your lane yeah basically I mean he doesn't he didn't put it that nicely but um and he spoke in German actually but but it's exactly the idea no because this is exactly you know I'll probably mention this in the sermon tomorrow because it I say it over and over it's almost funny you have a good guy because there are a lot of good guys good pastors who are getting this wrong good guys getting this wrong and that's why I'm hoping to reach them but one of the great guys in Germany was named Martin niemuller and he really believed like look we can work with Hitler and you got to understand in 1934 whenever this happened it was early it's very easy for us to say what are you kidding don't you understand who the Nazis are in 1934 it was very easy to be deceived because the Nazis were not like exclaiming like oh we worship Satan and we're going to kill millions of people they they were not exactly advertising that right so you could be fooled and they were trying to fool you and trying to keep the church quiet and sleeping whoever so Martin niemuller is convinced to only get up a meeting with Hitler because he was a very prominent pastor and a World War one hero so he finally gets his meeting with Hitler and in the meeting uh he he's kind of being attacked about something and and Nemo says but you know my inferior I I we in the church care about the Third Reich we care about Germany we want to help right and Hitler looks at him like he's an insect and says I will worry about the Third Reich you just worry about your sermons and when he said sermons he meant your useless little religious sermons that don't dare touch on any of this important stuff right you just preach your little dead little gospel while we let you and that's when nemala realized what he's dealing with and and and here's the news folks when he realized it it was too late I'm not making this up this is true he understood it and he became a heroic figure against Hitler but by that time it was too late uh and he regretted it for the rest of his life he wrote that famous poem you know first they came for the Communists and I did not speak up because I was not a communist and then they came for the for the for this group or the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew that's kind of like now as our government is picking people off like oh if you speak against this we'll cancel you we'll put you in jail we'll do this we'll do that the IRS will come after you the FBI will come out we will threaten you so everybody's like oh okay I'll just I'll let them persecute that group and that group and we'll let the j6 people rot in jail and we'll let uh so-and-so get canceled on TV and so we'll let that happen nemauler wrote this poem saying that you know when they came for this group I said nothing and then they came for this group I said nothing and then when they finally came for me there was no one left to speak up because they had wiped away all the people who would stand up because of their conscience and so that's why we have to stand up even if you don't agree with somebody you stand up when somebody's attacked you you you you speak up for what is right and you don't have to agree with them uh what's right is right and what's what's wrong is wrong and and I really believe that that's that's how we have to be United it's not about agreeing on everything you know if if I speak out and I say you should vote for Trump and not Hillary Clinton it's not because I'm like cool with adultery well because I'm saying like like in an election right you don't vote for the perfect person you vote for the person that you believe you don't know but you believe is going to put forth American values or is going to do do the best job and we've got to stop this idea in the Church of thinking well so-and-so is not perfect I don't like this I don't like that you have to understand that if you do not vote for so and so because you don't like his Twitter feed and the other person gets elected you are on the hook for the policies of the one who gets elected you're not neutral so I'm not telling you who to vote for but I'm telling you if you do not vote you are responsible for the policies of the one who comes into office because you didn't have the guts to make an adult choice a lot you know how many people you know how many Americans serious Christians did not vote in 2016 or in 2020 they thought I'm going to take the moral High Road well yeah you're taking them all high road and you're throwing the nation to the dogs and everybody's going to suffer and you're going to act like well I had nothing to do with it you had everything to do with it you're exactly why it happened now we can we can repent the Lord wants us to repent but you know there are a lot of people are still not they don't understand that concept that there's no safe Third Way where like I'm gonna opt out of this because I mean I'll talk about that tomorrow morning but it's it's very important so we were talking you know you wrote this Bonhoeffer book I think 2010 and everybody loved you and all the churches that you were great and then probably around 2020 you know there's some shifts that happened of course in America what was it for you where you were just like okay I I can I have to get engaged into this at a whole other level well it was It was kind of an evolving thing I mean I remember in 2016 when you know I am radically pro-life okay so I have voted I got my thrives I feel good and I I voted for a lot of useless Republicans just because I figure well the hope the pro-life cause you know like so a lot of people are not so great but you know I believe in supporting the Republicans because usually they're conservative they're more friendly to you know but at the end of the day because they're better for America not not because they're better for me because they're better for America right in other words I actually believe if if you vote for republicans and conservatives you're going to bless the poor it's it's not like you know uh whatever 70 or 80 years ago when the Republicans were the party of the party of the Rich and then you know we're not FDR died did you know that yeah we're no longer under his Democratic party so the point is that I came out for Trump once that once the uh primaries were over and I was blown away by how many Christians and conservatives that were all my friends were they were part of the kind of what are they called you know the never trumpers right and you know I thought to myself like this is not complicated kids you might not love Trump but Hillary Clinton is going to bring about policies that are as wicked and what and even if she weren't uh gonna do that we're talking about one of the most corrupt politicians in America these are not you know godly people and so you're you're upset with Trump's whatever but you're going to allow this family to take over our politics do you understand what that's going to mean if if you did but there are people that they didn't want to hear it and they got really angry at me and I think it's because I said it this morning you know don't let the the clothing fool you you know I grew up in a working class home my mother and father who I talked to almost every day are you working class European immigrants and I was raised among those kind of people and so now I was being told by Elites Christian Elites conservative Elites like all those people are you know like Hillary Clinton called them deplorables but the point is it's kind of like they're you know they're they're the mob they're they're vulgar uh and and that's who Trump represents and I thought to myself yeah you like my mother and father right like yeah like they're white nationalists my mom and dad is that what you're saying they're racist really have you spent any time with them basically half of the country was being insulted as just being pigs and I and and that's when I got angry because that's when I said you know what this is not right you don't have to agree with people but when you demonize them and make them out to be something that is just not true just because you hate somebody so much that you know I thought it's just an issue of right and wrong I I was I was offended on behalf of my fellow Americans on behalf of working class people who are going to suffer and I and I thought to myself if I don't speak up I mean it's one thing to write about all these great Heroes but when this comes to you if you're silent like how dare you write books about these people right and so I mean it it even happened when I spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2012 I was invited to speak in the National Prayer Breakfast and Obama was there and and and uh and I had to sit next to uh the Vice President Joe Biden and you know I'm sitting with all these people and trying to be gracious and stuff but when I was invited to speak there I thought wow this is a huge honor because you know my bonoffer book was a kind of a big deal at that time so they picked me to be the speaker and I thought oh what do you say to National Prayer Breakfast I mean I can't even believe they invited me so I started watching the previous years of what the people said and it was so bipartisan that it was like totally meaningless blather like nobody was really being bold about their faith because they don't want to be divisive except for Mother Teresa in 1994 as four foot ten Albanian nun gets up there and not in a nasty way but in a bold way with authority talks about The Unborn in front of the clintons and she didn't do it in a way like you know and an end zone dance like like trying to make it like haha I'm humiliating them she didn't do that she spoke really graciously but firmly and when I watched that I thought to myself how could I give be given this honor of speaking there and not say something bold not to shame the president and Nancy Pelosi and the other pro-abortion people not to shame them but just to lovingly put out what God's view is on on this and I I just think that you know we are not how can you how can you read books about heroes like this or in my case write books about heroes like this and then when the time comes you're kind of like well I don't want the blowback God will hold you accountable for that you know and I I it's frightening when you read the last like page of the Bible and Revelation talks about who's going to be cast into the Lake of Fire and it says the Cowardly so courage is not extra credit for Christians that's not extra credit Christianity that is basic basic thing that the Lord knows you don't believe anything if you don't live it out and that's what I that's why I wrote this new book because I believe like somehow we got this memo in America and the American Church like you know we don't need to like like uh risk anything for our faith everything's cool everything's fine in other countries they suffer for their faith but in this country you know we're just everything's good and the Lord has you know put it in front of us like no what you what is required of you now is uh to be bold and courageous and if you're not I will judge you just as I judge the Germans who shrank in the face of evil so we're living in times now where the Lord is calling all of us to be bold and so for me it was just like a natural thing in the sense that like nobody wants to be in popular nobody wants to be hated nobody wants to whatever but I just thought you know the the people who advocated against the slave trade were hated and spat on and in some cases murdered uh if you you know we're in the Civil Rights Movement you're risking your life in this country but you do it because this is what God called you to do and the question is when did the church get the idea like we don't have to do that anymore you know that's that's kind of where a lot of churches are today and I wrote this book to say that's not biblical and here's how it went down in Germany and we are repeating that and we need to repent quickly and get serious so did were you bold was I bold at the breakfast at the breakfast well I was I was bold but I I tried to do it in a gracious way in the same way that Mother Teresa like it's not kind of like hey I got the microphone and I'm gonna I'm gonna make humiliate uh Obama and uh Nancy Pelosi and because I can no that's not God's way right so I was I was clear I hope I was bold but I also hope I was gracious because I was trying I always believe there's somebody who might hear what I'm saying this is not about just kind of throwing some stuff out there it's about trying to persuade people and look there's a time to be like super bold and there's a time to try to reason with people so in that speech I was trying to reason with people and um and in this book I'm doing the same thing I mean this is the kind of book you can give to somebody who doesn't agree with you or with me or whatever and and you say what do you think about this because I I'm trying to speak to those who can still be reached because I know they're out there so those of you who don't know uh I mean this is your first time listening to Eric you're you're a hero here no I know you know I'm not a hero thank you very much I mean serious man seriously because you've been on the front we need to get my wife on the line you've been on the front edge of this you've been on the front edge of this thing and uh I mean you have been bold you got completely I mean we got kicked off YouTube like five times over a period of time you got completely de-platformed well that's when I realized how insane things are okay because my radio show the Eric my taxes show is on on Salem Radio across the country 300 Outlets 120 cities National radio program two hours a day and you know you can listen on podcasts or whatever well we had put it on YouTube because we were filming a lot of the episodes the interviews that I'm doing so we put it on YouTube and it started getting a large following and after the 2020 election the Marxist monsters who run Facebook and Google and whatever they started giving people strikes like if you know as I would have on a guest and like somebody like Naomi wolf talking about vaccine passports Naomi wolf she was in my class at Yale she's a liberal feminist but she has the good sense to know that forcing people to do something to their bodies is not right so I'm talking her on the program and she's sharing about this and I had a few people on but we really once they started doing this to us we wouldn't even post controversial stuff on YouTube because I thought they're going to come after us well we were like one day away from clearing these two strikes they had against us and they went back two months and found my interview with Naomi wolf and said oh that's strike three and they wiped my entire program off of YouTube now that was a huge financial hit okay it was a huge hit in terms of my reach for evangelism it was a huge hit to be totally wiped off of YouTube that's my program right and that's when I realized like these people don't care about truth because if you're canceling me something's wrong with you because I'm not like you know spreading misinformation or whatever I'm trying to have intelligent conversations or whatever but they are they're at war with uh those people who believe in things that are different than they do they don't believe in free speech they don't believe in giving the other side an opportunity they don't believe in truth they believe in power and and when you're dealing with thugs like that you know you need to stand up and if you let them get away with it it's on you and so it's an amazing thing that that happened but that's when I knew how sick things were in in this country and and of course many pastors actually in the in letter to the American church I mentioned this I don't mention the name of the pastor but I was at the National Religious broadcasters convention with the Salem Media Group and there was some kind of a gathering or whatever and this prominent Pastor some of you would know the name some of you wouldn't but the point is he said oh I don't say anything controversial on my program because you know I just want to preach the gospel uh because I don't want them to cancel me so I don't say anything controversial and I thought right you're a coward and you're letting people like me take the Heat so that you can stay on the air and preach whatever useless gospel you seem to be preaching because trust me if you're avoiding all those topics what is left you know you're going to give me some like Bible verses what is the point if you can't live out those Bible verses so that's when I realized the church is complicit in this the church is complicit a lot of people are like well I don't I got to be careful now I get that you shouldn't be foolish but at the same time he was proud that he had avoided you know these subjects and I thought well that's interesting so they've got you like you know tied up in saying exactly what you can say and what you can't say whatever so you're not free and um the church Above All We're supposed to be free and courageous and if if more pastors and churches were being free and courageous then people wouldn't be getting canceled but it's because many people are being silent that they're letting they're letting them pick us off just like I said about Nemo or first they came for that group and I didn't say anything then they came for that group so so that's why it's called letter to the American church I've never written a book directly to the church to Christians but this book is directly to Christians so you've written 14 books to adults right adult books 14 normal books children's books yeah he's he's like a writer for uh VeggieTales right you did a lot of they have done so I did some ratings for new details yeah and what were you oh I wrote um didn't you didn't you play a character I'm the voice of the narrator on the Esther video you watched the Esther video the narrow I'm the voice of the narrator on that that's like oh yeah I'll be on my Tombstone and uh those of your parents and um and I wrote I wrote half of Lyle the kindly Viking I wrote the Hamlet omelette parody on Lila kindly biking um so yes I was I was involved with VeggieTales so so he's he's a comedian I mean he's funny as all get out uh he interviews some of the Most Fascinating People I had no idea who these people were and you just bringing them you know to the Forefront like I said I I now believe in the Shroud of Turin is now real actually that's funny well I love I love having a variety of people on you know uh on my the radio program and I also do this thing called Socrates in the city now when you say radio program it's it's actually you get I see you so well it's it's videos is it both it's this is what's complicated is is that uh the radio program we record almost everything and we put it on rumble or not on YouTube anymore right um TBN puts a half an hour of what I do on every weekend but that's just a half an hour out of about eight or nine hours of programming so everything else actually I I will say if you would just go to my websites my name Eric mataxis.com and sign up for the newsletter because then once a week we sent out all these interviews I do because I do pride myself on a very wide variety of guests and subjects so it's not all political it's not all faith-based it's just like a crazy you know melange of of guests just the other day uh I interviewed Pat Boone and I'm telling you when I get to talking to Pat Boone like all we do is talk about like show biz stuff you know like he's a strong Christian but we just kind of Veer into crazy stories about he knew everybody in Hollywood and I just love 20th century you know uh show business stuff and whatever and culture so but so every day is is is totally different uh depending on you know when you tune in but if you go to airconsaxis.com and sign up for the newsletter you'll get the the interviews and some of them are real serious and some of them are not so so I mean literally over the the years that I've been listening to Eric now I have read countless books because you know of people that he's interviewed it's entertaining it's fascinating it's it's you know increases your your brain just to Think Through the the you know some of the the thinkers that you have on like God's Guinness I would have never read Oz Guinness yeah well that's that's my job is that I I I discover these people and these books and stuff and I I want to feed the church or even you know people outside the church listening program I want them to be exposed to these great minds and thinkers and stuff and it's not all intellectual I mean it's just a variety of stuff but there's so many amazing people that you know if you're flipping around your TV dial you will never ever bump into these people and that's part of what you know I I want the Lord to use me more that way because there's so many Heroes and interesting people and thinkers and whatever that you'll never hear about them they don't exist in the culture the culture there's always about there's always a reason though for what he does and sometimes if if you if you're not exposed to Eric a lot you don't you don't really get it he's an evangelist by in every fiber of his being he's an evangelist amen so yeah so God puts him with these people that have absolutely no interest in God and and then as you keep listening over the years like Naomi wolf is one of the most amazing Stories I I mean I don't know what what uh role I had but all I can tell you is that that is always my goal it's huge is is to is to help people you know find Jesus and live out their faith and it's uh you know there's a number of ways you can do that sometimes it's going to be like on the nose and sometimes it's going to be a little bit more oblique and and stuff but I that there's no doubt that that's at the heart of everything that means anything to me absolutely well so the recent book that you wrote that I I think will go down as one of your your best was uh this book on atheism and uh is atheism dead yeah and you oh my goodness you took some of my favorite like Hugh Ross as a favorite here yeah uh you know we bring him in all the time but you made him make sense in a way well actually that's my joy right it's like I find these people that I know most people are not going to read their books over here these people but I read these books and I go this is amazing and I want to communicate this to a to a wider or audience if you if you if you ever have me back to speak on a Sunday morning I will speak on his atheism dead because there's stuff in that book yes yes and I get so excited the evidence for God from science is open and shut and you'll never hear this you'll never hear this even in most churches we'll never don't even know about it so that's why I wrote the book and by the way it's you know it's not really a book about atheism the last third of it is about atheism but its title is atheism dead because in 1966 Time Magazine ran a big cover story Is God dead because they're asking the questions like you know Is God dead is that idea dead and now we're kind of you know in the world of science and ironically since then the evidence from science pointing toward God has become like overwhelming when I say overwhelming I'm not exaggerating but most people aren't aware of it and when I discovered some of this I said I have to put it in a book and I have to put in a book that people will read Because Hugh Ross and others write books that are they're a little hard to they're a little difficult these are geniuses well I mean look these are super Geniuses and they're they're they're it's it's tough for them to to speak uh you know other than to the people that already kind of know some of this stuff and so I'm glad that they write those books but I wanted to write a book that could kind of reach other people and so the first part of the book is about science the second part of the book is about archeology how archaeological discoveries are proving the Bible to be history over and over and I don't even think we I don't think we're in even clued in to all of the evidence one thing of course we're not because we're busy you know fighting with marxists you know um but the fact of the matter is the evidence for God is crazy the evidence for the Bible is insane even if you don't agree 100 when you look at the evidence you're going to be scratching your head because you but but in modern culture where are you ever going to see this stuff man I'm not so excited I I'm telling our staff we have got to get our young people include in on this I mean this is the most hopeful that's right that right no that's that that's why I keep you know angling to be invited back because to me it's fun preaching a letter to the American church is very serious and very important but preaching on is atheism data on the evidence for God and all this kind of stuff is fun because it's so encouraging when you realize that in these dark days God is giving us more and more evidence for himself it is it is mind-blowing and deeply encouraging to the church I would just come back to St Louis for the two restaurants up Ontario hahaha we did it you got more I want to ask couples no go go for it I'll quit Eric just because we're wrapping up but I want you to talk this morning we hit it just a little bit you're encouraged because the Lord is doing stuff you're seeing yes church I mean I was asking him earlier today like how much he's traveling you're traveling a lot mostly to churches yeah that's a statement right there if churches are willing to have you in that's a statement because of how bold you're being so that encourages me yeah but then also we were talking about the Asbury Revival yeah and then this Jesus Revolution oh if you know and you know Greg Laurie tell us a little bit just a little bit how many people have seen Jesus Revolution I love it all right now if you have not seen it I beg you I beg you to see it this weekend I beg you to see it before it goes out of theaters I beg you to bring friends to see it because this is a gift to the church this is an amazing movie and we we need to use this gift for God's purposes and uh my friend um our mutual friend Malachi O'Brien made made a famous statement he said the fame of Revival the fame of Revival spreads the flame of Revival in other words when you hear people talking about did you see that movie and the movie was about Revival in the 70s but it gets people excited about the concept of Revival and that actually spreads real Revival and that's happened through through history and I am encouraged like we all know that Jesus is the only answer to these problems so so a big part of that is Revival and so I see Revival but but it's not going to be Revival just people say okay I'm I'm saved but I'm still not going to vote you know if if you don't understand God calls you to Faith to get involved in everything not just voting but in everything and to be God's voice in the culture and so I'm seeing enough signs of Hope because I go around the country I was just in I mean I keep getting invited to churches that I haven't been invited to before like this church and I go like okay here's another church that is standing strong and and they're all over the country but I keep bumping into them I was in uh outside Toledo Ohio last weekend same thing an amazing Church totally heroic there's a number of them in California but the point is that I keep finding that God is doing stuff and and and I it's hard not to be excited because you see that you know it's one thing to be working hard or to be fighting hard but when you see a little bit of progress you get very encouraged so I'm encouraged by that I'm also encouraged by all the revelations that keep coming out about everything whatever you want to talk about things keep coming out in the news that they have suppressed suppressed suppressed suppressed but it keeps coming out a little bit more a little bit more and I believe by God's grace it's all going to come out and we're going to be living in a different reality when it all comes out yeah yeah I just I just want to say thank you man thank you thank you for holding the line for standing strong for putting out all this the information that you have uh for you know being an evangelist in the midst of the darkness and you know for encouraging us I mean you're not getting because I get I get a little down I get sometimes defeated but you were encouraging me today just saying you know well other people encourage me and that's why I'm saying like we all have our part to do every single one of us every single one of us has our part to do and so I'm just doing the part that the lord gave me by his grace I'm doing it you're doing it well and I'm not I'm not you know you know I don't know every single one of us has to do his part and if you do it will turn the tide that's really the key it's not about a few leaders leaders can only exhort and but if everybody will do their their part do whatever they can do it will change America and if we don't we will we will reap some ugly stuff so it's like it's up to the church like there's no doubt in my mind so but I I see signs of encouragement we gotta but you know it's it's kind of like when you see signs of encouragement that's a sign fight harder work harder because God is saying yes yes yes I want my people to do what I have called them to do and I want them to just to say well I kind of agree with that but I'm not going to stick my neck out the Lord calls us to live out our faith and if we will do that we will see things we've never seen I'm convinced of it I mean I know it amen let's give Eric a big hand oh God bless you thank you Eric thank you Eric is going that way and he's going to circle around and he's going to be out in the atrium we've got a lot of his resources hey when it comes to books I don't ever Mind Shameless plugs when they resource the body of Christ his books are absolutely incredible in equipping us equipping us to navigate the dark Waters that we find ourselves in I would love for you to get every single one of them and buy three or four extra to get to your family members because they're incredible they're insightful and he is a God-fearing Jesus loving dude so I am so blessed that he's here with us so he's going to be out there and engage with anybody signing books if you want him to do that go ahead and stand again because I want to dismiss you let me pray for you father and per team Infinity per team is is here going to come up as well father we thank you in the name of Jesus God we thank you for Eric and his wife and his daughter and Lord we ask you to bless them in his ministry and all that he's doing every single outlet we thank you and we ask you Lord that you would anoint him even stronger give a more clarity to his voice and his mind and and let the the truth the Lord that he gives time to let it go further into the heart of your church here in America God we thank you for tonight I ask you to bless every single family in the name of Jesus Amen and amen God bless you hey if you're here tonight and you need prayer for anything you have any questions about anything come up we'd love to pray with you and then also we're going to be taking communion for we to Grace Church we take communion once a month on the weekend if you missed that this last week we'll have communion up here in about five minutes right up here we'll have communion God bless you thank you [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Grace Church St. Louis

Views: 2,066

Keywords: gracestl, grace, saint, louis, rontucker, stl, church, Jesus, grace church, grace church stl

Id: axJQ_oPRKWU

Length: 89min 30sec (5370 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 04 2023