Charlie Kirk (10:12)

The battle between good and evil seems to be escalating. It is easy to blame politicians, government or poor leadership. But behind all of that is a spiritual battle. Pastor Alan Jackson's new book Angels, Demons and you'd talk about the reality of this battle and the spiritual realm that exists around us. It has a real impact on us every day. As you read, you will discover that angels and demons are not imaginary. They actually exist. You can find them playing a variety of roles throughout the Bible and they are still influencing the world today. We don't need to be afraid, but we do need to be aware and prepared. Angels, Demons and YOU provides valuable insight, practical tools and biblical truth to help you recognize the spiritual battle around us and become a difference maker in our generation. Get your copy today@AlanJackson.com Angels hear from people whose faith directly impacts our culture. On Pastor Allen's Culture and Christianity podcast. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.

Jensen Franklin (11:18)

And so if you go to church and it ends up being a TED Talk mixed with a rock concert with above average coffee and good organized parking, why should a 19 year old go wake up at 8:30 on a Sunday morning to go to that? The food is better on campus. You can go hear a motivational speaker for free. It's all paid for. Instead you're gonna draw them into your churches. And this is the greatest revival. And the church seems uninterested right now to seize it. Say, you know what? Yes, you need Jesus, but do you know why? You see the reason why it's not yet being translated into revival is that they say of course Jesus is your Savior, but we're not connecting the dots. How do you know you need a savior if you don't know what you're saved from? And you only know what you're saved from if you talk about sin. So we focus everything on the fact that someone's going to save you from drowning. Yet we don't tell a generation that they're drowning and they're so obviously drowning. It's the most suicidal generation in history, the most drug addicted generation in history, the most poor addicted generation in history, but objectively the most miserable generation in history. And yet we say you're just perfect the way you are. They don't feel perfect the way they are. They're telling you that everything is not okay. They're telling you that something is wrong. And the message that Christianity gives you is, well, he gets you or whatever that commercial is, right? Everything's fine. No, that's actually not how you win young people over. You win them over being like, you know what, you know why you're miserable? Because you're not following God's laws and commands. That's why. Actually. And you'll never actually follow all of them. And that's why you need a savior. Because if you don't have a savior, then you're gonna end up in a not very good place and you won't end up being enough. Boom. Mind blown. By the way, this is not like the Charlie Kirk thing. This is how the gospel was taught successfully for 2000 years. And the last 40 years we decided to hyper modernize it and it's been a failure. Everybody. And that is the most important thing is that we're living in a moment where we should be seeing a mass revival. Now. Good news, church attendance is ticking up a little bit. We've stemmed the curve a little bit. We're seeing a little increase in religiosity. Nothing too noticeable, but the decline has thankfully plateaued. Praise God that we are not going the way of Europe. Praise God we're not going the way of a lot of the secular west. But it's not reason for over celebration. God is giving us a little bit of grace and mercy. If you look at, and I study these numbers every year when they come out, the New York Times tracks this stuff. And the New York Times like begrudgingly had to publish. America's still kind of religious and like 80% of people still believe in God. Like okay, 65% of people go to church. You read this article, they're like begrudgingly going through the data. They still believe in this mystical celestial being. And, but, but despite all of that, and you go deeper into the data, what young people especially are screaming at is they say, give me a structure that I can live my life by. Give me a rubric that I can follow. Don't just affirm every bad decision I've ever made. In fact, it's okay if you tell me I've messed up because you'll be the first person to tell me I've messed up in my life. Because my parents won't tell me that anymore. My professors tell me I'm the greatest person ever. In fact, the modern church has been been led to believe this secular lie that what this church needs, what the generation needs, is a better pump up. You know, yeah, you're, you're enough. And you can do it. Because we think since they're depressed, they need to be pumped up more. It's you know, it's kind of obvious, right? When in reality they have everybody telling them the most narcissistic thing ever. You're the greatest. You're the most awesome. Take more pictures yourself, more selfies, more Snapchats, more tiktoks, more, more me, me, me, me, me. And all they do is they think about themselves all day long, right? And if you have anything wrong with you, you have to go claim mental health issues and go talk to a counselor, some of which are legitimate, some of which are obviously just concocted by the environmental factors around them. And they get in this endless spiral loop. When in reality we have to do less affirmation and especially with young men, more challenging of them, more saying, you know what? Honestly, I'm not going to talk down to you. Stop being a boy and become a man. You want to learn what that means? Come to church and I'll tell you what it means to become a man. Because we have the greatest story ever told of what it means to be a biblical man. We could tell you exactly what that means. And we're not going to sugarcoat it or sanitize it, because properly understood, the Bible is not a playtime book. The Bible is one, as of course all of you guys know, is one that teaches us at every moment, our life in the chapter that we are in with the struggle that we are currently encountering. And yet the predominant zeitgeist. If you go to most seminaries that can't draw 100 kids on campus, if you go to most. Some of these Christian conferences, all of these supposed experts are like, well, you know, Gen Z tends to be very pro lgbt. Can we just stop with this nonsense pro homosexual agenda, okay? Can we stop both of this? They're very pro lgbt. Again, stop using the acronyms of the left, okay, like, oh, they're very pro environmental. Okay, whatever. So they say, therefore, we must then water down our approach to go meet this generation that is in favor of these things. Or we can say, no, we're never going to compromise on truth and we're going to win them over from the false deception that they're living. Like, hello, as evidenced by what we have seen over the last couple of months, what we've seen the last couple of months. Again, this is just a political example, but I do want to say it's an amazing move of God. The impossible was done where President Donald Trump did 13 points better with younger voters in a way that no one ever thought was possible. Kamala Harris did worse with baby boomers. Now I understand. You know, it might not be some of you guys don't want to applaud for that. It's fine, I get it. But it is a phenomenal movement when you see young people go in that direction in a way that you could never have expected. And so the modern myth is this or the modern context is that the worst thing ever is that someone will send you a nasty email saying that you offended them. We live under, or we used to live under, in fact, you only live under this, by the way, by choice. We largely live under the soft tyranny of the offended peoples. And every one of us are victim of this. The soft tyranny of the offended peoples are a hyper minoritarian, loud vanguard that control our sermons. I'm not a pastor, but you know what I mean. That control our messages and control our outward displays where that's that little voice in your head where you are crafting a sermon and you say, oh boy, Karen's gonna be really mad about this one or whomever. Suzanne, whatever. Sorry. It's almost never Mark. It's just never see people didn't like that. It's almost, you know who I'm talking about, the complaints and that's fine. And it's that angry worded email. Oh, my goodness. I thought that this was this kind of church and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then your answer should be simple. I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. If you want to meet with me, I will lovingly tell you why I believe what I believe in the scriptures say, I want you to keep on attending my church. But if you are offended by something the Bible says is true, then I'm not going to dilute or weaken that stance. That I will not do. However, you are more than welcome to keep on showing up and receiving the word and listening to the worship music, all of that. And that's the difficulty is that the American church has largely been a victim of its own success.

Charlie Kirk (19:21)

If you want to make sense of the change and the chaos happening around us, you're going to need God's help. That's why Alan Jackson Ministries, a friend of mine, created the Culture and Christianity podcast, the Culture and Christianity Conference, and their weeknight news show, Alan Jackson. Now, millions of people also listen to Pastor Alan Jackson's powerful sermons each week. I do. On radio, television, satellite, and online. In today's world, there's desperate need for truth, and Alan Jackson Ministries feels a sense of urgency to deliver God's truth and a biblical perspective to Anyone who will listen. We can't afford to be complacent. Their mission is to help people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, which is the most important thing, giving your life to the Lord. Including here on the Charlie Kirk show. Go to alanjackson.com Charlie that is alanjackson.com Charlie to find recent podcasts, shows and sermons. Be informed, find encouragement, hear the truth delivered in a way that just makes sense. You'll also find books, studies, prayers and other tools to help you grow in your faith again. That's alanjackson.com Charlie alanjackson.com Charlie this is our time to make a difference. Check it out.

Jensen Franklin (20:34)

Right now, I can say this as an outsider insider, right? Because I do politics professionally, I do youth outreach, I do a podcast and I do the church outreach as a professional thing. But it's not the only thing I do. So I'm able to look at the church from an outside perspective, but also be on the inside. And the analysis is this is as the church grew so popular and Christianity was the predominant and still is, thankfully, but it's slipping. As we know view of the west is that we needed so many churches and we need so much infrastructure. So many people went into the ministry. And as so many people went into the ministry, far too many people went into the ministry that quite honestly were not ready for what happens when you have to say controversial stuff. And when you have to, by the way, definitionally, you cannot, they can't. You cannot coexist. You cannot be a pastor and avoid controversial things. It's impossible. If you think that is possible, you are wrong. You could go sell insurance, which is honestly also controversial. So I don't know what you want to go do. Okay. But go find something less controversial. But the temperament and this I want to try to meet those in the middle, the temperament of a lot of people that go into ministry are agreeable personalities. So if you were to break the world into disagreeable and agreeable now, would you say is Charlie Kirk agreeable or disagreeable? Pretty disagreeable, right? I try to. If I have a problem with you, I'm going to say something. Matt Walsh, very disagreeable, right? Like the most disagreeable. He's awesome. We're going to hear from him in a second. Right. Agreeable. By the way, just. And this is just an archetype, it's not true at every spectrum of the continuum. But the way God designed nature is that women tend to be more agreeable than men when it comes to conflict resolution. They are less likely to challenge authority, more likely to try to conform to societal norms and customs. Fine, you could disagree with that. You could say, no, I'll fight tyranny like Esther. Great, fine. That's not the point. You're the exception, not the rule. It's a generalization. And it's generalization for a reason, because it's generally true. The American church and the people that went into ministry the last 40 years tend to be people that were agreeable when it came to conflict resolution. These are people that are phenomenal at the one on one type counseling and ministry. They are very good at helping heal a broken marriage. They'll spend the four hours till 1am of the guy that's dealing with substance abuse. And by all objective measurements and metrics, they're checking all the boxes of what it means to be a good pastor. However, when that agreeable person has to get up and do a sermon about, hey, we're gonna go fight back against the Alpharetta City Council because they deemed our church non essential for the agreeable pastor, that is a very difficult thing to do. It is a temperament issue, meaning that it's just not really in their DNA to stand up to that kind of tyranny. It's, I thought I got into the ministry to love on people and to heal the sick and to have compassion. And that is true. And that's why I think we need to meet a lot of these pastors in the middle and maybe some of you. I hope this is resonating with you that the time right now for American Christianity and the reason why we're seeing this refiner's fire is that we are no longer in a peacetime Christianity. And I know that is a difficult message to hear. But I was raised in a peacetime Christianity and the peacetime Christianity lended itself to a type of pastor that was more agreeable and more about the expansion of the non controversial gospel. But when you enter into a wartime Christianity, all of a sudden the people are desiring and hungering. A metaphorical general like Jensen Franklin that is willing to of course help the people that are in broken circumstances, but also call out orders for the Christian flock to be able to, to go forth and spread the gospel and spread truth in their community, in their home. So that's the tension right now is right now the current composition of the American church is largely a peacetime force and we are in a wartime moment and we're seeing this tension where the peacetime force is like, I didn't sign up for this. I thought I was just going to do John 3:16 every Sunday, and then I'm going to retire and get a house in Destin, like, whatever. And they're like, stop it with all this politics. And in some ways we should criticize them. But you got to also love on them, like, they signed up for something that is completely different. And so the way we handle that will be different. Every one of your churches, maybe it can be like, hey, we're going to dedicate you to a different ministry. Bucket in the church. Maybe this is not for you. And I say this as lovingly as I possibly can, is that those of you that are cut out for the wartime boy, it is time for you to step up even more because you are needed more than ever. And. And I say this in the least judgmental way that I possibly can. I don't mean this in a judgmental way. Not everyone is cut out for the wartime stuff. Some people are sunshine soldiers and some are patriots. That's what the revolutionaries used to call the folks that used to go fight in the. In the July and August, yeah, the British are terrible. But in January, all of a sudden, the army, like, shrunk by half when smallpox was spread and you had to go march. And with no shoes In Pennsylvania on January 25, all of a sudden you realize what a revolutionary force is cut out of. And those Sunshine patriots and the summer soldiers went home to their farms like, yeah, beat the British. Let me know how it goes. And we see that tension. So how do we take a peacetime force into a wartime infantry? That. And of course, for all of my friends in the media, I'm talking metaphorically. I'm not talking about taking up arms. You guys know, it's a spiritual battle I'm talking about here. I have to, you know, clarify for all of our wonderfully accurate friends at CNN that always quote me right on edge, right? And so here's my final call to action. The final thing I'll say is this. And then I'm going to welcome up my great friend Lucas Miles. I've been doing this now, speaking at churches and learning for the last five years. And the biggest issue that I have finally seen is the question of what is the church and what should the church be? And a peacetime pastor will view the church as a place strictly and solely for food pantries and for marriage ministries and for. And worship music. All good. But in a moment that we are in and properly understood, this other church should always be, is that the church should be salt and light going into the community, changing the composition of the area around you, not just affirming the signs of the place of the times. What is the church is the most important thing. Christ told us what the church is in ecclesiastical to be in the public square, to be involved in the, the, the motion, to be involved in the laws and the customs and the community around you. It is a Greek word that understand that when Christ said on this rock build my ecclesia, it could have used synagogue, it could have used temple, but it actually used a secular term where otherwise a religious term would have been, would have been perfectly sufficient. So you think about it, that Christ said on this rock build my church. We only know this thanks to William Tyndale who translated the Bible back from the original Greek into new King James English. And that word ecclesia, it's a game changer because it wasn't a religious term because Christ, and this is not just, this is not exegetical, it is a fact of his repeated commandments to us is that Christ did not want us to have a comfortable Christianity where we just kind of stay within our walls and we're very sanctimonious and prideful and saying we have the truth and if you want, maybe we'll invite you in. He wanted us to be expansionist, he wanted us to be influential. He wanted us to be in every single domain. And you guys know this is that if we want America to flourish and to prosper, the only way that will happen is if the church wakes up, if we make that conversion from a peacetime to the wartime, if we wake up the sleeping giant in this country. Because our founding fathers warned us that the Constitution is only adequate for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the people of any other. I can win over as many possible kids on college campuses as possible. We can make a lot of videos go viral. But it's all for nothing if the church remains a weak, feeble institution. I hope you guys will rise up and speak the truth. Thank you guys so much.

Charlie Kirk (29:33)

Thanks so much for listening everybody.

Jensen Franklin (29:35)

Email us.

Charlie Kirk (29:35)

As always, freedomarliekirk.com thanks so much for listening and God bless.

Alan Jackson (29:40)

For more on many of these stories and news you can Trust, go to charliekirk.com.