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it into their platform, which forces

0:40

people who understand a biblical definition

0:43

of sin to be

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the enemy. It's not that we're trying to

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take over the world. It's not we're

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trying to take over the United States. We're

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just trying to uphold righteousness.

0:56

John MacArthur is an American pastor, prolific author,

0:58

and the host of the National Christian Radio

1:00

and Television Program, Grace to You. He's been

1:02

the pastor of Grace Community Church, a non-denominational

1:04

church in Sun Valley, California since 1969, and

1:08

serves as the chancellor emeritus of the Masters

1:10

University and Seminary in Santa Clarita. Since

1:12

completing his first best-selling book, The Gospel According to Jesus

1:14

in 1988, John has written nearly 400

1:17

books of biblical commentary on themes such as finding

1:19

truth in our modern world, the shaping of the

1:21

Twelve Apostles, and extraordinary women of the Bible.

1:24

His expositional preaching and deep theological insights have

1:26

made him one of the most respected and

1:28

influential evangelical leaders of our time. During

1:30

the COVID-19 pandemic, he made headlines for his

1:33

defiance of lockdown orders arguing the government had

1:35

overstepped its bounds in restricting religious gatherings. Los

1:37

Angeles County sued MacArthur's church for refusing to

1:39

close down according to local mandates. MacArthur

1:42

and his congregation held their ground, countersuing and

1:44

winning, by utilizing precedent set by his Supreme

1:46

Court decision ruling that certain public health restrictions

1:48

could not be applied to houses of worship.

1:50

Los Angeles County ultimately settled the suit, paying $800,000 in

1:52

legal fees to Grace Community

1:54

Church. In today's episode, we discuss the decline

1:56

of religious life in the West and the

1:58

degradation of biblical teaching. in American churches. John

2:01

also addresses the challenges of convincing the upcoming

2:03

generation to live a life of faith, the

2:05

importance of cultivating a sense of community membership,

2:07

and the Christian understanding of the Jewish people.

2:09

This is a conversation you don't want to

2:11

miss. Welcome to another episode of the Sunday

2:13

Special. ["The Sunday Special"]

2:16

["The Sunday Special"] Pastor

2:21

MacArthur, thanks so much for joining the show. Really appreciate it.

2:24

Oh, it's my pleasure. Good to be

2:26

with you again. So let's start with sort

2:28

of the status of religion and

2:31

Christianity in particular in modern America.

2:33

Obviously, I mean, obviously those

2:35

of us who believe in the Bible, whether we

2:37

agree on the New Testament, we'll get to, I'm

2:39

sure, in a little bit, but those who believe

2:41

at least partially in the Bible or in biblical

2:43

morality, let's say, we've been lamenting

2:45

the downfall of church attendance in the United

2:47

States, the lack of biblical adherence in the

2:49

United States over the course of the last

2:51

several decades. And we're seeing all of that

2:53

come to a head. Do you think that's

2:55

a trend that is going to continue? And

2:57

if so, how exactly do we reverse the

2:59

decline? Well,

3:01

it's obviously a trend. And

3:04

there may be a number of things contributing to

3:06

it. We're going to get too technical, but first

3:09

of all, many, many churches

3:11

have lost their sense of transcendence.

3:14

It's like going to a rock concert. It's

3:17

like going to a TED Talk. It's

3:20

like going to hear somebody tell you, you're

3:22

really a wonderful person and you can speak

3:24

your own world into existence. It's

3:27

psychological, sociological games, but

3:30

it lacks the transcendence. It

3:32

lacks the sense of connecting

3:34

with God, with

3:37

finding reality in an

3:39

invisible means of support

3:41

beyond yourself. So many

3:44

churches are, I mean, they're

3:46

pumping the prosperity gospel, you get what you

3:48

want, or they're just talking

3:50

about being a better human being. And that

3:53

just doesn't lift you up. That doesn't elevate you. That

3:55

doesn't take away the fear of death. That

3:58

does not give you some. kind

4:00

of existential reality that

4:02

you can cling to that transcends life.

4:06

And I think another reason people don't go

4:08

to church is because it's so confusing. What

4:11

do you mean when you go to church? You

4:14

can go to a church and find a gay

4:16

pride flag flying, or you can

4:18

go to another church and hear a sermon against the

4:21

gays, you know, consigning them all

4:23

to hell. So what is

4:25

the form of Christianity that represents

4:29

accurately the Scripture and the Word

4:32

of God? I think another

4:34

thing that contributes to indifference toward

4:36

church is the crushing

4:38

disintegration of the family. And

4:41

people are finding their community online.

4:46

They create their own fantasy community. They create

4:48

their own, you know,

4:51

virtual world of

4:54

relationships. So they

4:56

don't need real community. They're not

4:58

dependent on the intimacy

5:00

of—and many of them don't even understand

5:02

what that intimacy is because of the

5:05

breakdown of the family. And

5:08

there's also an effort to

5:10

destroy anything traditional, anything historic,

5:12

anything ancient, anything

5:15

even 10 years ago in

5:18

favor of whatever the new zeitgeist is. So

5:21

there's so many things that assault the

5:24

church. Those are some of the things that come to mind.

5:26

So the biggest decline that we've been seeing

5:29

in terms of religious adherence in the United

5:31

States and the most important has been in

5:33

Protestant denominations. And obviously, Jews represent a very

5:35

small fraction of the population. Catholics

5:37

represent still a fairly

5:40

small minority of the population religiously in the

5:42

United States. And there's another decline

5:44

in Protestant adherence over the course of the last 50

5:46

years that really has

5:48

been devastating for the nation. So

5:50

for people who are looking at

5:53

Protestantism, you asked the question before,

5:55

and I'll ask you, how

5:57

does somebody who's interested in going to church

5:59

determine? What is a Bible believing church

6:02

that's worth their time versus a church that maybe

6:04

has a pride progress flag hanging off the door

6:06

and claims to be speaking in the name of

6:08

the gospels? So let's

6:10

go to the real issue here. A

6:15

church that is faithful to scripture, a synagogue

6:17

that is faithful to scripture, bears

6:20

moral authority. I

6:22

mean, it exists to say, this

6:24

is what the Lord has said. This

6:27

is what God requires. This

6:29

is divine mandate. This

6:31

is the morality that leads to

6:33

blessing and disobedience and

6:36

disregard for this. Morality leads

6:38

to cursing, you could say. So

6:41

the bottom line is, if

6:43

you're living in the culture that we're living in, where

6:46

you want absolute freedom to do anything

6:48

you choose to do, to

6:51

establish your own set of

6:53

rules, your own truth, your

6:56

own standards of morality, the last thing

6:58

you want is to step

7:01

into some place that's going to call

7:03

into question everything you're choosing to

7:05

do in your life and is

7:07

gonna exercise authority over you. The

7:11

church to be the church, and I think

7:13

this is true in Judaism with a synagogue.

7:16

If you're gonna be a faithful Old

7:18

Testament synagogue, then

7:20

you have to lay down the law

7:23

of God. If you're gonna

7:25

be a faithful church, you have to lay down the standard. And

7:28

it is not to crush

7:30

people, it is to bring

7:32

them into divine blessing. I

7:35

mean, that goes back to Deuteronomy, right? Do this

7:37

and you'll be blessed. Don't do this

7:39

and you'll be cursed. So I

7:41

think because the natural fallen

7:44

heart is

7:46

bent towards sin, the

7:49

church is not an inviting place

7:51

to go if it's faithful to

7:53

proclaim the scripture because

7:55

then that brings people under guilt.

7:58

And why would they go? to

8:01

be basically held up before

8:03

God and threatened with judgment.

8:07

But that's the message of the church, and

8:09

that's what leads to the good

8:11

news of the gospel, that Christ died to

8:13

pay the penalty for your sin, and through

8:15

Him you can have complete forgiveness of sin,

8:18

so that the church becomes the

8:21

family of the forgiven, and all

8:23

the blessings of God are dispensed there. So

8:26

how much of this is going to be

8:28

self-correcting, and what needs to happen in terms

8:30

of church in the United States in order

8:32

to fix it actively? Because

8:35

one of the problems that is faced by, I

8:37

think, Protestantism in a

8:39

certain sense is Judaism, not as much

8:42

by Catholicism, which has a centralized authority,

8:44

obviously. Catholicism theoretically can enforce from the

8:46

top, although increasingly they're not doing so.

8:49

Protestantism by nature is much more diffused

8:51

in terms of sources of authority. There

8:54

are a variety of pastors who are interpreting in a

8:56

variety of ways. Judaism has something

8:58

similar. There's no hierarchical structure. So

9:01

given the lack of hierarchy, how

9:03

exactly can you ensure that more

9:05

churches are spreading the

9:07

gospel? And by the same token,

9:09

is it just a matter of waiting until people

9:11

become disillusioned with secularism and wander their way back

9:14

to the proper church? Well,

9:16

there's certainly some truth in that. But Hosea

9:18

said it in a simple statement. He said,

9:20

like people like priests. I

9:23

mean, the people can't rise higher than whoever the

9:25

spiritual authorities are in their life. I mean,

9:28

when you've got a guy, like the

9:30

case that's going on with that Miller

9:32

guy down in the South,

9:35

where his wife committed

9:37

suicide and all these horrible things going

9:40

on around that, and that

9:42

guy is a pastor, what

9:44

would we expect to come out of that

9:47

except the chaos that manifests itself eventually? And

9:50

time and truth go hand in hand. You

9:52

can't hide forever. So I think

9:54

that the primary issue is leadership.

9:56

I mean, it's the same thing

9:58

in any field. You

10:00

never rise higher than the leadership.

10:02

We know that politically. We

10:05

know that in every aspect of life,

10:07

business, education, and everything. So

10:09

I think the church suffers from

10:12

really, really chaotic, inconsistent

10:14

leadership. The

10:18

church, if you're dealing

10:20

with people with deep needs,

10:22

hurts, pains, illnesses, this

10:25

is a perfect place to become

10:28

rich at the expense of those people

10:30

that you abuse. And

10:32

so people counterfeit religion and

10:35

they make themselves rich. So you're trying to

10:37

sort out not

10:40

only the false leaders, but

10:42

the weak leaders, the unfaithful leaders,

10:44

the untrained leaders. So that is

10:47

really the issue in Christianity. I

10:49

had a reporter ask me one

10:51

time, who is in

10:54

charge of the Christian

10:56

movement? And I said, well,

10:58

unfortunately, nobody is in

11:00

charge of that movement.

11:03

And it's that, that

11:06

is on the one hand, good

11:08

because you don't have the

11:10

hierarchy dictating everything. On

11:13

the other hand, you have to live with what you get. So

11:16

I think it's a leadership problem and the

11:18

call for genuine, honest,

11:21

godly, virtuous, kind,

11:24

compassionate, loving, truthful

11:26

leadership in the church is

11:30

more necessary now than ever in my

11:32

lifetime. So as somebody who spent

11:35

your life teaching faith and spreading faith, what

11:37

is the best way to teach faith? It seems

11:39

almost a self-contradiction in terms because obviously faith is

11:41

something that you have to believe or something you

11:44

have to feel. How can you

11:46

teach belief or feeling as opposed to

11:48

what you would do in say science

11:50

class would be to teach the scientific

11:52

process, teach falsification, teach evidence? How

11:55

do you teach somebody faith? What's the best

11:57

way to approach somebody with the faith? That's

12:00

really a good question, Ben. And

12:02

the answer is this, the only

12:04

faith that makes any

12:06

sense is faith

12:09

that has an object that can

12:11

deliver what you expect. I

12:14

mean, if you say I'm a person of faith, what

12:16

do you believe in? Who do you believe in?

12:19

I mean, that could be the ultimate folly if

12:22

you believe in the wrong thing. I

12:25

mean, you can get on a five-story building and

12:28

say I have faith that I can fly. We

12:31

had that happen in our church. Just

12:34

a few weeks ago, we had a guy who

12:36

had come off some drugs and

12:38

climbed up on the highest

12:40

point of our church. And I guess he thought he

12:42

was Peter Pan or something and

12:45

flew and it was, killed

12:48

himself. Fragic, this is not a person

12:50

from our church, but somebody in the

12:52

community. And I don't know

12:54

what he believed, but if you're gonna believe, you

12:56

better believe in the right thing because it's

13:00

the object of your faith. It's

13:03

the object of your faith. Who do you

13:05

believe in? What do you believe in? What

13:07

are the truths and the standards that

13:10

you can anchor your life

13:12

to because they're valid, because

13:14

they're validated, because they're approved

13:17

by actual evidence.

13:21

Otherwise, it's folly. Faith

13:23

without the right object is

13:25

foolishness. So let's say you

13:27

have a skeptic who comes to you. You say,

13:30

listen, I don't believe in the gospels. I don't

13:32

believe in the veracity of the Bible. Prove

13:34

it to me. How exactly are you

13:36

gonna convince me that this is something that

13:38

I should spend my time on? Do you

13:41

start with the values of the gospels or

13:43

do you start with the story of the gospels?

13:45

What's sort of the way that you lead

13:47

people into faith from your perspective as a

13:49

pastor? Well,

13:52

there are a number of categories. You

13:55

could start with the idea

13:57

of fulfilled prophecy. You can go back to

13:59

the Bible. Old Testament and many, many

14:01

times God said something was going to happen,

14:04

and it happened. I mean, it

14:06

happened in the Old Testament just the way God said

14:08

it was going to happen. So

14:10

you have those kinds of historical things.

14:13

You also have the miraculous element validated

14:16

by eyewitnesses throughout all of redemptive history,

14:18

throughout the Old Testament and the New

14:21

Testament. You

14:24

have thousands of people who

14:26

saw the risen Christ, for

14:29

example. You have the apostles who were

14:33

scattered and fearful when

14:36

Jesus was arrested and crucified.

14:39

Three days later, He's risen from the dead, and

14:41

if you question that, then

14:44

you have to ask, how is it that the

14:46

disciples, from being

14:48

fearful, turned into these

14:50

bold proclaimers of the

14:52

risen Christ and literally

14:54

gave their lives in martyrdom for a message

14:57

they knew was true. So

14:59

historically, you can go back and you can

15:01

look at the history of Scripture. You can

15:03

see fulfilled prophecy. You can compare

15:06

the Old Testament with history. That's

15:08

one of the things that I studied under a guy

15:10

named Charles Feinberg, a Jewish guy

15:12

who was really basically trained to be

15:14

a rabbi. He went to Johns

15:17

Hopkins, got a PhD in archaeology,

15:19

studied under William Foxwell Albright, the

15:22

leading archaeologist of that era, and

15:25

he spent his whole career as

15:27

a former guy being

15:29

trained for a rabbi, studying biblical

15:32

archaeology and showed how it paralleled

15:34

the actual accounts of the Old

15:36

Testament. But I think the

15:38

most compelling thing that Christianity has to

15:40

offer is the person

15:43

of Jesus Christ, the historical Christ, and

15:45

the fact that Christ does not come

15:48

across as somebody created by a committee

15:51

or a bunch of deceivers. The

15:55

moral character of Christ, the wisdom

15:57

of Christ, is so...

16:00

transcendent. So I

16:02

think there are a lot of ways you go at it,

16:04

but I would just say this in a general sense. Read

16:08

the Bible. Just read the Bible.

16:10

It has the Ring of Truth. It defends

16:12

itself. It's like a lion. You don't defend

16:14

it. You don't defend a lion. You open the cage

16:16

and let it out. It'll be okay. And

16:19

the Scripture is like that. It's

16:22

like that even morally. There's something

16:24

in the heart of people that

16:26

resonates with biblical morality. Obviously

16:29

their sinfulness fights it, but

16:32

the law of God is written in every

16:34

human heart. That's part of being created in

16:37

the image of God. And

16:39

you can fight that law. You can resist that

16:41

law. You can violate that law, but

16:44

that law is there. That is part

16:46

of being created in God's image. And

16:49

I think if your heart is open to

16:52

the truth, you go to

16:55

the Word of God, and I've seen this now for

16:57

all these years I've been in ministry. The

16:59

Ring of Biblical Truth is

17:02

so powerful to a person

17:04

who honestly reads the Scripture.

17:08

I just tell people all the time, go to the

17:10

Scripture, read the Bible, and

17:12

let it defend itself. You

17:14

know, one of the things that you mentioned there, and

17:16

obviously as somebody who's spoken his entire career as a

17:19

Jew about why Christians need to go back to church

17:21

and re-engage with the Jesus of the New Testament, the

17:23

perversion of Jesus into a sort of

17:25

namby-pamby, bizarrely

17:28

androgynous creation from

17:30

from Hight Ashbury is one

17:33

of these stranger things that's happened over the course of

17:35

the last 50 or 60 years in American life. The

17:37

attempt to turn him into a sort

17:40

of bizarre pacifist with

17:42

nothing of morality to say. People who are

17:44

out there, major politicians, will say that Jesus

17:47

was out there to teach non-judgmentalism and tolerance,

17:49

which is like I don't know if

17:51

they lost the ability to read a book or if they never

17:53

just understood the book they were reading, but I don't see that

17:55

at all when I read the New Testament. Well,

17:58

no. that they

18:00

didn't kill Jesus because he was

18:03

so kind and generous and compassionate

18:05

that they killed Jesus because

18:08

he exposed the hypocrisy

18:11

of the religion of the Jews and

18:13

that was nothing new and you know

18:15

that from Jewish history in the Old

18:17

Testament I mean God had a hard

18:19

time getting them to conform me to

18:22

his law even after Deuteronomy where

18:24

he said if you do what I command

18:26

you to do you'll be blessed if you don't you'll be cursed

18:28

I mean we all know the history that

18:30

you know they they wind up worshiping Baal

18:33

they wind up offering their kids to Molech

18:36

you know trying to keep them on the straight and

18:38

narrow is was a very difficult

18:40

thing to do so when

18:44

Jesus arrives there there

18:46

are true believers in Israel for

18:49

sure you know Joseph and

18:51

Mary his his parents Elizabeth and

18:53

Zacharias the priest and Simeon

18:56

and Anna at the at the temple when

18:58

they brought Jesus in to be introduced

19:01

to Judaism and saying you

19:03

have true believers but

19:05

but Jesus confronted false religion

19:08

in no uncertain terms and

19:11

he confronted irreligion in no

19:13

uncertain terms and much of his

19:15

ministry was pronouncing

19:18

judgment you

19:20

you either come to

19:22

God for forgiveness and salvation

19:24

or you're gonna you're gonna come

19:26

under divine judgment that

19:29

that's the real Jesus I wrote a book called

19:31

the Jesus you can't ignore and

19:34

that is the Jesus that at the beginning of

19:36

his ministry went into the temple and made a

19:38

weapon and cleaned out the buyers and sellers and

19:41

then he did it again in the Passion Week at

19:43

three years later at the end of his ministry and

19:46

then he stood outside the temple and said

19:48

not one stone is gonna stand upon another

19:50

in this temple I'm gonna bring it all

19:52

down because it's corrupt and one

19:55

of the one of the illustrations of that

19:57

corruption was the widow who gave her last

19:59

might And Jesus says, this

20:01

widow gives her last might, she has

20:03

nothing left. What kind of religion takes

20:06

the last coin from the hand of

20:08

a widow? And he pronounced

20:10

judgment on that temple, and it wasn't long after that

20:12

that the Romans came in 70 AD,

20:15

and everybody knows what happened to

20:18

Jerusalem, which is exactly what

20:20

Jesus said would happen. In

20:22

the meantime, of course, obviously there were true

20:24

Jews. The New Testament says

20:27

not all Jews are true Jews

20:29

in the spiritual sense, in the sense that

20:31

they love God and love His law and

20:33

want to honor Him. So

20:36

I think this is the big issue

20:38

with religion. Jesus

20:41

said this, He said, you

20:43

hate me because I told you your deeds

20:45

were evil. So

20:48

that's the big issue. This

20:52

is what biblical

20:54

Judaism does. It confronts

20:56

evil and sin. And

20:58

this is what Christianity does, it confronts evil and

21:00

sin. So if

21:02

you're happy with your sin and you love the

21:05

darkness rather than the light, why are you

21:07

going to go hear that? There

21:10

has to be something going on in your heart where

21:13

you've reached a point of deep

21:15

conviction, a deep dissatisfaction

21:17

where you begin to hate the

21:19

sin and the effects of the

21:21

sin and you're

21:23

looking for deliverance from sin. At

21:27

that point, you find a

21:29

place where the gospel is

21:31

being proclaimed, the gospel of

21:33

forgiveness. And

21:36

sometimes it's tough to find. Let's get to more

21:38

on this in a moment. First, if you're struggling

21:40

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22:40

do you think that, you know, obviously there are

22:42

many distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. One of the

22:44

distinctions that may have been pressed too

22:46

hard upon, but I'd like to get your take on

22:49

it, is the distinction between sort of faith and acts.

22:51

The sort of way that Judaism perceives itself,

22:54

and Maimonides certainly describes it this way, is

22:56

that the acts precede the

22:58

faith. Basically, the way that you bring people

23:00

to faith is through acting

23:02

in the way that the Bible suggests, that

23:05

you set up a track record of success

23:07

by acting in moral ways, and because you're

23:09

now living in the realm of godly morality,

23:11

you're living what God wants you to live,

23:13

that the belief is sort of a natural

23:15

manifestation of that. Whereas Christianity, conversion

23:17

in Christianity seems to be faith first

23:19

and then works later, meaning accept the

23:21

primacy of Christ, and then the acts

23:23

will naturally follow because you've accepted the

23:25

authority and primacy of Christ in your

23:27

life. Is that distinction

23:30

too hard a distinction? What do you make of that? Well,

23:32

I think both of those things are true. I

23:34

think, how

23:37

can I convince somebody to be a Christian

23:40

if they can't see the transformation? I

23:43

mean, what am I trying to do? I

23:46

can't say to somebody, you need to

23:48

be obedient to the law of God,

23:50

you need to believe in the Lord

23:52

Jesus Christ, you need to be obedient

23:54

to God's law, and God will

23:56

bless you. If my life

23:59

isn't a demonstration. of that.

24:01

So yes,

24:05

my behavior gives

24:08

grounds for somebody else's faith.

24:11

Oh, look, there was a philosopher in Europe

24:13

who said, show

24:16

me your redeemed life and

24:18

I might be interested in believing in your

24:20

Redeemer. I mean,

24:23

that's so foundational. So basically,

24:25

if you're ill

24:27

and you go to a doctor and the doctor finds a way

24:29

to cure you and you go to all

24:31

the people who have your same illness and say,

24:33

hey, this guy can cure me and I'm living

24:35

illustration of that. I mean, that's

24:37

that's the proof. So I

24:40

think in a sense, both of those

24:42

are true. You know, somebody has to

24:44

have the behavior that validates the faith

24:47

and then the faith comes and the behavior

24:50

follows in another person.

24:52

It makes sense. Yeah, no, that

24:54

does make perfect sense. I mean, this is some

24:56

of the stuff that you talk about also

24:58

in the war on children is because when you're

25:00

raising kids, it really is coincident

25:02

you teach faith and act at the same exact time.

25:04

I mean, the reason that you teach

25:06

a kid that something is good or bad when the kid

25:09

is three, four, five years old is because God says that

25:11

it is good or bad when they are three or four

25:13

or five years old. And so they're simultaneously learning

25:15

to believe in the veracity and truth

25:18

of the moral system you're teaching and the veracity

25:20

of the God who gave them that moral system

25:22

and makes them successful in life through that that

25:24

moral system. And that's something that you talk about

25:26

in your book is deeply lacking. We now live

25:29

in a world where people seem to have taken

25:31

up this sort of Rousseauian view of how you

25:33

should raise children. They just expose the children to

25:35

the elements and you don't make any choices for

25:37

them at all that the best form of parenting

25:39

is not in judgmental parenting, but that is

25:42

in and of itself a form of judgmental parenting.

25:44

You've judged against the moral system in favor of

25:46

an amoral system and then you expect children to

25:48

be able to navigate that. going

26:00

to follow. I mean, you'll have a disaster in

26:02

your home at three years of age. I mean,

26:05

they have to be conformed. That's why Proverbs says,

26:07

spare the rod and spoil the child. You

26:12

have to discipline. Literally, there has to be some

26:14

pain connected to dishonest or lying behavior

26:23

or unkindness

26:25

or whatever, attitudes as much as

26:27

actions. I mean, I've been thinking

26:29

about that watching the university conflagrations

26:32

going all over the place in this country.

26:34

And I'm thinking to myself, who

26:37

raised these kids? Where

26:40

has all this massive

26:43

kind of uncontrollable hatred,

26:45

anger, ignorance,

26:47

rebellion, destructiveness

26:51

come from? This is the

26:53

product. This is the product

26:55

of the parents of those young people,

26:58

clearly, this integration of the family. So

27:00

much of it is

27:02

screaming women and weak

27:06

men and abysmal

27:10

ignorance and hatred

27:12

even. And

27:14

then you give them the

27:16

bullhorn. You give

27:19

the bullhorn to the kindergartners. This

27:21

makes no sense at all,

27:23

but if you think that

27:26

children have been the

27:29

target of the last 20 years,

27:31

just look at the universities. And

27:33

they can't, with an undisciplined

27:36

life and a life

27:38

of almost hedonistic freedom, they

27:40

arrive in a university and come under the

27:42

influence of some

27:45

ideological activist who can basically

27:48

lead them to do anything he wants them to do.

27:51

And if it's rebellion, all the better,

27:53

because that suits the immature

27:56

heart. So this is the

27:58

proof of what's been going on

28:01

in the parenting process over the last 25 years? I

28:04

think that so many of these protesters

28:07

are representatives of a fundamentally anti-religious belief

28:09

system, because the religious belief system has

28:11

a few key predicates, a few key

28:14

principles. Some of those are, you

28:16

do have the willpower and ability to

28:18

change your own life, that you're

28:20

responsible for your own actions before

28:22

God. The idea that

28:25

there is an unchanging moral system, a

28:27

moral right and a moral wrong, that

28:29

has nothing to do with your self-proclaimed

28:31

status as victim. And

28:34

I think there's a reason that so many of

28:36

these protesters are burning the American flag. They don't

28:38

believe any of this stuff. They've decided that the

28:41

system itself is fundamentally corrupt, controlled from above by

28:43

powerful people. And they're all going to link arms

28:45

and march upon the system, which is why you

28:47

see this bizarre spectacle of people flying gay pride

28:50

flags in solidarity with terrorist groups that kill gay

28:52

people. It's not about their common

28:54

shared interest between one and others. It's

28:56

about their common shared interest against the

28:58

societal superstructure that has provided for their

29:01

prosperity and success. Well,

29:03

you're absolutely right. I mean, that's absolutely right,

29:05

but it wouldn't matter. It

29:08

wouldn't matter what it was. I was talking to a

29:11

guy yesterday from Brazil, and

29:14

he said they're fighting the same battle with

29:16

wokeness. And I said, well, wait a

29:18

minute. Do you have a sort of an oppressed category

29:21

of people? Is it like natives

29:23

of Brazil? Is it

29:25

like some ethnic group? And he said,

29:27

no, it's LGBTQ. The

29:31

wokeness issue is that they are

29:33

the oppressed people in the society.

29:37

And it just strikes me that when people

29:39

want to rebel, they'll

29:41

find any reason to rebel. And that's what

29:43

I see in the hearts of these kids.

29:46

They were raised in families where they didn't know

29:48

how to face the challenges of this world. Family

29:52

is where you learn by observing. You

29:54

watch how your parents

29:56

love each other, how your parents resolve

29:58

problems and issues. You

30:01

figure out how to live life by looking

30:03

at the model and example of your parents

30:05

and grandparents. These

30:08

kids, it's as

30:10

if they were raised in the jungle without

30:12

anybody to show them what to do. Somebody

30:15

opened the cage and turned them all loose

30:19

on the world. It

30:21

could be anything that could sort

30:23

of activate that rebellion. I remember some years

30:25

ago, an interview with a student who

30:27

said, I want to protest, I'm looking

30:29

for a good cause. It's

30:31

that kind of mentality they

30:34

want to rebel. And that

30:37

rebellion finds its

30:39

origin in the

30:41

fact that I'm God. There

30:43

is no transcendent authority outside of me.

30:46

This is how I feel and I'm

30:48

going to demand that what

30:50

I feel be considered as the most

30:52

important issue. I'm going to scream until

30:54

people get the message. As

30:57

I've mentioned before and as you've been talking about, I

31:00

think the curative to this is in fact not just

31:02

going to church but being involved in a church community.

31:05

In my community, obviously, I think

31:08

that the Jews have this right and Jesus

31:10

had it right originally because he's pro-Sabbath. The

31:12

basic idea that on at least one

31:14

day a week, you are supposed to remove yourself

31:16

from the world around you and you are supposed

31:18

to be in the community with compatriots who believe

31:20

in the living God is the way to do

31:22

it. We don't use electronics.

31:24

We all live within walking distance of the synagogue. Every

31:27

seventh day, we are spending 25 hours with

31:29

one another engaging in everything from prayer to

31:32

Bible study groups, having lunch

31:34

with one another. The problem is this,

31:36

that religion and faith practice, they're in

31:38

the water. They're in the air that's around you.

31:40

And when we separate that off from regular life,

31:42

it's like, these are faith principles that I believe.

31:44

They're apart from me and I believe in them.

31:46

That's not how most people historically have lived their

31:48

faith. It really is not about what you think. It's

31:52

about what you do and what you are in the world. The

31:54

way that I engage with my community and the way my

31:56

kids engage with my communities, they're engaged in

31:58

the community from literally the day that I've been

32:00

there. They're born, right? In Judaism, obviously, we have

32:03

circumcision on day eight. And the thing that we

32:05

say during the circumcision ceremony is

32:07

that the child should be dedicated, the

32:10

Chippah, the Torah, and the Mysim, the Toviyot,

32:12

meaning to the wedding canopy, to the Torah,

32:14

and to good deeds. These are things that

32:16

are obligated on a kid at the eighth

32:18

day, like when they're born. They're born into

32:21

a system of obligations and social networks and

32:23

social fabric. And when you rob children of

32:25

this, they become free radicals and they don't

32:27

know where to go. And then they do

32:29

end up creating identities

32:31

around terrible things. Well,

32:33

that is all exactly right. And that's why

32:35

I wrote the book, The War on Children.

32:38

The War on Children starts, well,

32:41

it really starts in not wanting to have children.

32:44

I mean, you don't wanna have children, you

32:46

know, buy a dog. And

32:48

then it moves to, if you do get pregnant, kill

32:51

the child in your womb. And

32:53

if the child survives, you know, let the

32:56

culture raise him. It's

32:59

easier for people, I mean, it's amazing. It's easier

33:01

for people to take a kid and put him

33:03

on a drug than it is to turn off

33:05

the cell phone. It

33:08

makes no sense. I mean, it's just one thing

33:10

after another, after another leads to

33:12

the irresponsibility. But you're absolutely

33:15

right. God's complete plan based

33:18

on the family, father, the

33:20

mother, loving each other, and

33:23

raising the children according to

33:25

the law of God so that their lives

33:28

could be blessed and so they could have

33:30

well-ordered societies. And God has built

33:32

in some things, like even

33:34

in an individual sense, the human

33:36

conscience. You know, it

33:39

screams at you, accusing you

33:41

or excusing you based on your conduct.

33:44

That's the law of God in the heart. And

33:47

the next barrier is the family where

33:50

the father's authority and the mother's authority,

33:52

as we find out in Proverbs, and

33:55

even to the point of corporal punishment, if need be,

34:00

channeling that child down the right

34:02

pathway. And if it gets

34:04

past that, then the society steps in and

34:06

God even gave the society the sword. They

34:10

don't bear the sword for nothing. They have

34:12

a certain amount of authority to coerce

34:14

people to obedience and

34:16

conformity that allows for well-ordered

34:18

societies to function. So

34:21

God has done just built into

34:23

the common grace of

34:26

the world. Things, mechanisms

34:28

that help correct people and

34:30

put them in the path of blessing.

34:33

And when all of that disintegrates, when

34:35

you reject the police, when you reject

34:37

the authority, when you reject

34:39

any authority and all authority, when you have

34:41

no parental

34:43

consistency, no moral

34:45

leadership in your home, where

34:48

there is no morality at all,

34:50

I mean, you can believe whatever you want

34:53

about morality and think that the

34:55

consequences are gonna be good in

34:58

spite of the fact that you violated the

35:00

law of God, who is the creator, who

35:03

knows how his creation functions best. When

35:05

all of that is disintegrated, and really you're right, at the

35:07

bottom of all of it is the rejection

35:09

of God. They don't want

35:11

a divine, transcendent, sovereign

35:14

judge ruling

35:17

on their lives. Yeah, and

35:19

in rejection of God lies rejection of man. This

35:21

is the part that I think the post-Enlightenment thinkers

35:24

got totally wrong. I mean, the basic idea

35:26

is that God created man in a particular

35:28

way, in his own image, which means that

35:30

you do have a nature, and that nature

35:32

is in fact fixed as a

35:34

human being in certain particular ways, and that God

35:37

has created roles and jobs for you across your

35:39

life. I mean, if you go back to the

35:41

book of Genesis, God puts Adam in the garden,

35:43

and he's actually got a job in the garden,

35:45

right? He's meant to cultivate the garden, which is

35:48

a beautiful place, everything's fine. It precedes man, man

35:50

gets there and it's his job to actually maintain

35:52

and cultivate the garden. He fails in that job

35:54

because he violates God's commandment and he gets thrown

35:56

out. And so what does God do? God gives

35:58

him more work. God

36:00

says that you're going to have to die at some point. You're gonna

36:02

have to be a father now, right? You just have kids until he

36:04

leaves the garden, right? This idea that the human beings, they

36:08

find their identity in the things and roles that

36:10

they play across the course of a lifetime, not

36:13

in how they feel. That is the fundamental

36:15

distinction in terms of identity that our society I think is

36:17

breaking down upon, its foundering, because

36:19

it used to be that a human being, the way

36:21

that I've talked about this, I say, you wanna know

36:23

what human beings are and what we aspire to be,

36:25

go to a graveyard, go to a

36:27

cemetery and look at what's on the headstone. What's

36:30

on the headstone is always loving father, loving

36:32

husband. It's the thing that you did for

36:34

the members of your family, for your community,

36:36

and for the world that actually define you.

36:38

But the way that we define ourselves online

36:40

is, how do I feel today? It never

36:42

says on your headstone, felt terrible, right?

36:45

It never said, and there's no emoji on the headstone,

36:47

right? Your feelings are irrelevant to what your life actually

36:50

is supposed to mean in front of God and in

36:52

front of your family. Yeah,

36:54

I don't know if you've seen Jonathan Hates book

36:56

on the anxious generation, but

36:58

he looks at that whole issue of the cell

37:01

phone and the internet from 2010 to 2015 as

37:05

this mega shift in dealing with

37:08

teenagers and young children, where

37:10

they shifted away from building

37:12

relationships, real relationships with real

37:14

people, to building bizarre

37:16

kinds of relationships with

37:20

people on the internet,

37:23

falsified, fanciful, fabricated

37:26

kinds of things that took over

37:29

their lives. And you can see it from

37:31

that time on, what you

37:33

have as a result of that is

37:36

all these teenagers who have anxiety and

37:38

bipolar and ADD and whatever it

37:40

is, and ultimately

37:42

the escalating figures

37:44

in suicide and self-harm and

37:47

all of that, because they're

37:49

disconnected from what makes life

37:52

life, what makes life

37:54

fulfilling. And that's real relationships with

37:56

people that you love and love

37:58

you. One of the

38:00

things that you've been hit with, that's been

38:02

fascinating to watch, is what I think is

38:04

an enormous amount of projection on the part

38:07

of certain people in politics. And that is

38:09

this accusation that religious leaders are getting too

38:11

political. And that seems

38:13

a bizarre sort of projection, because again,

38:16

the thing that I've seen over the course of my

38:18

lifetime is stuff that was considered radically uncontroversial when I

38:20

was growing up, is now considered radically controversial if you

38:23

maintain exactly the same position in 2024 that

38:26

you maintained in say the year 1995. So

38:29

if you maintained in 1995 as any religious

38:31

Christian would have going all the way back

38:33

to the time of Jesus, and

38:36

for a thousand years before that, under Judaism,

38:38

that for example, marriage is between a man

38:40

and a woman, that was

38:42

considered apolitical in 1995. Today, if

38:44

you're a pastor and you say that, now you're

38:46

politicizing matters. Or if you say that politics of

38:49

abortion, that this

38:51

matters because abortion matters to Christians, now you're

38:53

considered political. What do you make of the

38:55

projection that you saying the same thing

38:57

that you've always said now political, as opposed to people

38:59

on the left who are just, they're

39:02

just saying political stuff, but that's what they do because

39:04

they're political, and really you should bow to out. So

39:07

I grew up in a world where

39:09

Democrats had a sociological

39:12

view. They had an economic view.

39:15

Republicans had a sociological and economic

39:17

view. There was never a moral

39:19

issue. It was the workforce

39:21

and the ownership. Those

39:26

were the two parties. The Republicans were the ones

39:28

that created the jobs, and the

39:30

Democrats are the ones that worked the jobs,

39:33

and finding out a balance there, was

39:36

what the political leaders were supposed to

39:38

achieve. That all went

39:40

away early in

39:42

this century when politicians

39:45

began to make their

39:47

platforms moral or

39:51

immoral from my standpoint. When

39:53

you start saying it's pro LGBTQ,

39:56

it's pro homosexual.

39:59

It's It's pro-abortion,

40:02

it's pro-transgender, you know,

40:05

we got your back, we got your back. Everything

40:09

has shifted from the economic,

40:13

you know, definitions of the past

40:15

into these moral issues. So as

40:18

a Christian, I'm still

40:20

talking on a moral level. It

40:23

just so happens that politicians

40:26

have stepped into the moral world

40:28

and created chaos. So

40:30

for me, I have

40:32

to vote for what is righteous. I

40:35

mean, I don't always have a clear cut option,

40:38

but you take the best of the options that

40:40

are put before you. But so

40:42

we all wanna uphold righteousness

40:44

in this society because

40:47

we wanna represent God rightly and

40:49

accurately. And if Christians

40:51

and the people of the faith

40:53

in Judaism hold to the law

40:55

of God, then that should show

40:57

up in how they vote. It

41:00

should show up in their willingness to say,

41:03

I'm gonna stand against this trend because

41:05

it violates the word of God. That's

41:09

not Christian nationalism. It

41:11

just so happens that the

41:13

politicians have basically co-opted

41:16

sin and

41:18

turned it into their platform, which

41:21

forces people who understand the biblical

41:23

definition of sin to be

41:26

the enemy. It's not that we're trying to take over

41:28

the world. It's not we're trying to take

41:31

over the United States. It's

41:33

we're just trying to uphold

41:35

righteousness. And that attempt

41:37

to treat everyone who is Christian and voting

41:39

as a Christian nationalist is total insanity. I

41:41

mean, the reality is that this country's liberties

41:44

were rooted in Christian virtue. I mean, that

41:46

is just a reality. All of the founders,

41:48

including the founders who consider themselves more deistic,

41:50

believed in the virtues of the Bible. I

41:52

mean, even Thomas Jefferson, who was maybe the

41:55

most deistic of the founders, his great attempt

41:57

was to strip the Bible of miracles, but

41:59

to maintain... the morality of the Bible,

42:01

which of course I don't think is

42:03

quite possible, but he attempted to do

42:05

it because he understood the inherent value

42:08

of Christian morality. The attempt to say

42:10

that Christian morality itself, which is the

42:12

basis of all of American development, that

42:14

that is somehow, if you want to

42:16

maintain that, an aspect of Christian nationalism

42:18

as though you're a theocrat forcing everyone

42:20

in the United States to convert or

42:22

die, which is the attempt by the

42:24

media to recast this term Christian nationalism

42:26

into something that it really is not.

42:29

It's such an Orwellian exercise, the attempt

42:31

to say that if you believe in

42:33

Jesus or you go to synagogue or

42:35

you go to church and you believe

42:37

that the biblical morality upon which our

42:39

entire civilization is based is good and

42:41

ought to be effectuated in our culture

42:43

and ought to be supported by the

42:45

government on a broad level without, in

42:48

sectarian ways, forcing people to adhere to particular

42:50

religious beliefs. That if you believe those things,

42:53

that you are somehow a

42:55

13th century Catholic theocrat or something,

42:57

like that's such a bizarre take

42:59

and obviously meant to dissuade religious

43:02

people from even engaging in politics

43:04

at all. Yeah, and

43:06

that's the point. They

43:08

like to keep us out. They want to keep us

43:11

out of the public discourse. That's

43:13

for sure. That

43:15

is the legacy of secularism.

43:18

I mean, that's where secularism takes you. Religion

43:21

is an affront. Religion is

43:23

an attack on secularism.

43:26

And you have this secular society

43:29

unwilling to bend to the law of God.

43:31

I mean, you have the president saying,

43:34

if you're transgender, we've got

43:36

your back. And you know,

43:38

I heard him say that my reaction was,

43:40

what are you going to do? Push him over the cliff

43:43

from the backside. I mean, what you're doing

43:45

for somebody who's in that kind of transgression

43:49

and then that kind of pattern,

43:52

you ought to have their front and you

43:54

ought to stop them from what they're doing

43:56

rather than have their back and shove them

43:58

down that path any further. But secularism, hates

44:00

the truth and

44:02

it will do anything it can to label

44:04

it and vilify it and you

44:07

know that's what we have going on you

44:09

know one of the thing Ben I wanted to mention to

44:11

you there's

44:14

a story in the Old Testament that is pretty

44:17

compelling when when Israel

44:19

came out of Egypt after the

44:21

captivity and they were headed toward the promised

44:24

land the first group of

44:26

terrorists that attacked the

44:28

Jewish attacked the stragglers that it says

44:30

you remember where

44:33

the Malachites the

44:35

Amalek Amalek was a grandson of Esau

44:38

Esau had an axe to grind obviously

44:41

because Jacob got the covenant right and

44:44

Esau sold his birthright for

44:46

a meal and so there

44:49

was some hostility there but you go a

44:51

couple of generations later and you've got

44:54

Amalek he's the first terrorist

44:57

and he leads a group that raids them and

45:00

God says they have

45:02

to be destroyed they have

45:04

to be destroyed and in Deuteronomy

45:06

25 verses 17 to 19

45:09

as Israel stands on the edge of going

45:12

into the promised land after wandering in the

45:14

wilderness God says to them I

45:16

want you to destroy the Amalekites I

45:18

want you to destroy all of them all

45:20

of them I want you to destroy their animals

45:23

and he goes through the whole litany of things

45:26

because they are a

45:28

deadly deadly force in

45:31

this world and I need you to

45:33

be my instrument of judgment well

45:36

I don't know if you remember the story they they

45:39

battled the Amalekites first Samuel

45:41

15 and Saul was the

45:43

king and Saul was told to

45:46

wipe them out and he didn't do that he

45:48

allowed some of them to survive and and

45:50

he allowed Agag the

45:53

Amalekite king to live and he didn't

45:55

he didn't kill him he didn't cut

45:57

the head off fast

45:59

forward to the end of

46:01

the 15th chapter, Samuel comes up and

46:04

Samuel says, Saul, you didn't kill Agag.

46:06

And then Samuel does this amazing

46:09

thing. He hacks Agag

46:11

to pieces, which

46:14

is an amazing act and he did it

46:16

because God told him to do it. That

46:20

group of people were so

46:22

dangerous. They were so

46:24

destructive and so deadly and so threatening

46:26

to the plans of God for

46:29

Israel that he wanted

46:31

them wiped out. They didn't do that.

46:35

Fast forward to the book of Esther, a

46:37

few hundred years later. And

46:39

what have you got in Esther? You've got Haman

46:41

who is an Agagite who

46:44

is from the line of Agag in the Amalekite

46:49

and he plans genocide

46:52

for the entire Jewish race, right? In

46:55

the book of Esther and Mordecai

46:58

and Esther come to the rescue. It

47:02

wasn't until the Persians completely wiped out

47:04

the Amalekites that the

47:08

God's will was fulfilled in that judgment. Now you might not like

47:10

the fact that God is a judge, but

47:15

when God determines that I'm going

47:17

to protect my people, Israel, and

47:20

you're going to attack my people, Israel, I

47:22

have a plan for my people, Israel, as

47:24

the New Testament says, so all Israel will be

47:27

saved. There's coming a kingdom.

47:29

He will fulfill every promise he ever

47:31

gave to David. Every promise he ever

47:33

gave to Abraham. Every promise

47:35

ever coming through the prophets will

47:37

be fulfilled. When Messiah establishes his

47:39

kingdom, God is going to

47:41

preserve that people. And if you

47:43

are a threat to that people, historically

47:47

speaking, God says you need to be

47:49

removed. And I think

47:51

about that story so often when I

47:53

think about Hamas. This

47:56

is like the modern version of

47:58

Amalek. Until they are

48:01

wiped out. This is just going to go

48:03

on and on and on

48:05

and on and I know I don't

48:08

want to be callous about things but

48:10

God has in his sovereignty

48:13

made a decision for the

48:15

preservation of Israel into the

48:17

future into the kingdom of

48:19

Messiah That's his plan.

48:22

That's his promise You

48:24

can be a part of that By

48:28

coming to the Messiah and being a part

48:30

of his kingdom but

48:32

if you just attempt to destroy

48:34

the very people that

48:37

are the heart and soul of

48:39

God's plan Then

48:41

you come under the judgment of God

48:43

and I think Israel is acting even

48:45

though they're you know a secular nation

48:48

in in in the large

48:50

sense because Salvation is

48:52

individual not national I

48:55

think their desire to

48:57

protect and preserve them and

49:00

to fight in a in a

49:03

Really a terminal way against

49:05

those who would destroy them Follows

49:08

the divine pattern of God for

49:10

the preservation of that people until

49:12

he fulfills his plan for them

49:15

Your point with regard to Hamas is particularly true And

49:17

I just want to clarify here when you have a

49:19

force that is dedicated to the extermination of every Jew

49:21

on the planet Which is what Hamas openly says if

49:23

you are a member of that terror group The

49:26

moral position for anyone would be to

49:28

end that terror group and destroy them

49:30

wholesale and Israel has

49:32

done Actually an extraordinary job and

49:34

attempting to distinguish civilians

49:37

even civilians who are sympathetic to Hamas From

49:39

members of Hamas themselves the fact that there are

49:41

so many people in the West who seem to

49:44

lack moral clarity in what is Easily the most

49:46

morally clear conflict of our time

49:48

is a source of astonishment to me But

49:50

I think really can only be explained by

49:52

again an anti-biblical perspective that substitutes a

49:55

narrative of victimology In favor of a narrative

49:57

of right and wrong No,

50:00

that's exactly right. But you also know

50:02

in the Old Testament, God

50:04

said to the children of Israel, when you go into

50:06

the land, destroy the

50:09

Amalekites, destroy them. Because

50:12

I'm bringing judgment down on

50:15

their heads for their sins.

50:17

I mean, they're like a cancer in

50:19

the world. And we

50:21

all understand everybody's going to die, right? We're

50:24

all going to die. The wages of sin

50:26

is death. Ezekiel said, the soul that sins,

50:28

it shall die. And in the conflicts

50:31

of life in this world, death is

50:34

a reality. And it can

50:36

happen. The good news

50:38

is death doesn't have

50:40

to lead to eternal hell. It

50:42

can lead to eternal heaven. And that's where

50:45

Christianity comes in and says, in

50:47

Christ, there is the

50:49

promise of forgiveness of

50:51

sin, everlasting life in heaven.

50:54

And when you die, that's

50:57

where you're going to go. And

50:59

I think about that with the people.

51:02

We worry about what collateral damage is going

51:04

to be done. The message is, look,

51:06

you don't know when you're going to die. And

51:09

you need to make sure your life is right

51:11

with God. You need to make sure your sins

51:13

are forgiven and you have

51:15

received the gift of salvation so that

51:17

when that comes, you

51:19

can enter into his presence. So preaching

51:22

the gospel is what

51:26

the church's role in the world is

51:28

to be. But I think at

51:30

the same time, we have to warn the world that

51:33

death is coming to everybody. You may

51:35

die in a raid as

51:37

collateral damage. You

51:40

may die in an accident, a disease.

51:42

It's inevitable. It's inevitable.

51:45

There's going to be wages for sin. We just

51:48

need to make sure that we're prepared to enter

51:50

into God's heaven. So

51:52

let's talk for a second about Jews and Christians.

51:54

We referenced it at the top. Last time we

51:57

spoke, we had some extensive conversations on the differentiation

51:59

between the Jewish between Jews and

52:01

Christians. Obviously I'm not offended at all

52:03

by the fact that Christians want me saved. I'm quite flattered

52:05

by it that people care enough for my soul that they

52:07

want me saved after death. And

52:10

so I've never found anybody

52:12

attempting to convert me to be offensive or

52:15

dangerous in any way. Again, I think

52:17

that that's quite a good thing. There's

52:19

been an attempt, I think, to divide

52:21

Jews from Christians by some nefarious

52:24

actors out there who can't

52:27

hold two thoughts in their head at one time. The

52:29

thoughts being that, yes, Christians would love Jews to

52:31

convert. And the second thought being that also Jews

52:33

and Christians have an awful lot in common. You

52:36

can hold both those thoughts in your head at the same exact

52:38

time. What do you think that Christians'

52:40

relations with Jews should be like? How should

52:42

Christianity approach Jews? Well, first

52:45

of all, Ben, I have to say, thank

52:48

you for letting me come back again. I

52:50

was pretty direct last time we

52:52

talked. And I know that's what you're referring to.

52:55

I didn't hold back. You asked me then, what's

52:57

the difference between the Jews and the Christians? And

52:59

I said, it's your view of Christ. And

53:02

that is still the issue. The

53:06

Apostle Paul said, I could

53:08

wish myself a curse for

53:10

the salvation of my people of Israel. So,

53:13

you know, that's what I carry in my heart. Do

53:16

I want you to be saved through faith in

53:18

Christ? Yes. Do I

53:20

want the Jewish people to be saved? Do I

53:23

want them to come to the truth that Jesus

53:25

is actually their Messiah? He has to

53:28

be because he fulfills Isaiah 53. He

53:31

fulfills so many other Old Testament promises

53:33

because he was a miracle worker, rose from

53:35

the dead. He validated all of that. Do

53:38

I want the Jews to believe? Yes. Paul,

53:41

he actually said, I could wish myself

53:43

a curse for the salvation

53:46

of my people, Israel. So

53:49

yes, we want the Jews to

53:51

come to the knowledge of Christ

53:53

as their Messiah. That

53:56

is a basically... driven

54:00

by love. When

54:02

people ask

54:05

me about what I feel about the Jews,

54:07

my response is, you know,

54:10

unfortunately I was born a Gentile, but

54:12

I'm trying to overcome that. Everybody

54:15

I love the most in history

54:17

is Jewish. You can start with

54:20

Abraham and run the gamut all

54:22

the way to the New Testament of Jesus and the

54:24

apostles. And I

54:27

think true Christians have the

54:29

profound love for the

54:32

Jewish people because they

54:34

understand that God loves them in

54:36

a unique way. You know,

54:38

God said, I didn't choose you because you were greater than

54:40

any other people. He said, I chose

54:42

you because I set my love upon you. Richard

54:45

Wolff years ago said, how odd

54:48

of God to choose the Jews, which

54:51

was, you know, in a sense, I

54:53

suppose an easy to

54:55

understand statement. Why that? Well,

54:58

the answer is God says, because I chose to

55:00

love them. I chose

55:02

Abraham and I chose his descendants

55:05

because I'm God and I can do what I want. And

55:08

they're the ones I chose. But

55:10

the fulfillment of that choice, as far

55:12

as Christianity is concerned, comes

55:14

in the salvation that comes

55:17

through the Messiah, the Lord

55:19

Jesus Christ. So the prayer of Christians is

55:21

always that the Jewish

55:24

people would see Christ

55:26

as their Messiah.

55:29

And all I can ask of Jewish people is

55:31

read the four Gospels. Just

55:35

keep reading it and see

55:37

if you don't find the awakening in your

55:39

own heart that he is in fact

55:41

the Messiah that he claimed to be. I don't

55:44

think there's any gimmick. I don't think there's any

55:47

strategy. I don't think we

55:49

need to get you into an auditorium and play some

55:51

mood music to convince you. I

55:54

think read the New Testament. That's all I

55:56

can say. That is the

55:58

declaration. the revelation

56:01

of the Messiah. And

56:03

you read it and open

56:06

your heart to the Lord and see if

56:08

he doesn't convince you that Jesus is

56:10

your Messiah. That's the joy

56:12

that I would have for Israel, for you. Yeah,

56:16

the response the Jews usually give to that poem, how

56:18

out of God to choose the Jews is, it's

56:20

not that odd the Jews chose God, which

56:23

is also accurate to Mount Sinai and

56:28

the Jews opting in by

56:30

saying, we will do and we will hear

56:32

at Mount Sinai. And I think that in

56:34

the end for America, that's what

56:36

I'd love to see is a more Christian

56:38

America in which more people choose God. That's

56:41

gonna require more leadership like yours. It's gonna

56:43

require more powerful Christian leadership. It's gonna require

56:46

people who are willing to engage in community-minded ways.

56:48

It's gonna require actually putting obligations on people. And

56:50

this is something that I discover with my own

56:52

children every single day. I have four kids under

56:54

the age of 10. And if

56:57

you don't give them anything to do, they fritz out.

57:00

And I think that we're a society that has

57:02

given our kids nothing to do. We give them

57:04

no duties, we give them no obligations, we give

57:06

them no tasks. What kids want more

57:08

than anything is a series

57:10

of responsibilities. There's nothing kids want

57:13

more than responsibility. And giving them

57:15

responsibility, giving adults responsibility is

57:17

the thing that's missing in a society that's completely

57:19

now about lack of

57:21

responsibility. Yeah,

57:23

just to validate that, Grace

57:26

Community Church, where I've

57:28

been pastor for over 50 years here, when

57:31

COVID came, we had to shut everything down for

57:33

a few weeks. But then we

57:35

decided this isn't right. The

57:37

government is not the head of the church. Christ is.

57:40

So we opened the church. And I remember the day we

57:42

opened the church on that Sunday, we had over

57:45

1,000 children. We

57:47

had balloons everywhere, right in the middle of COVID.

57:49

As you remember, we defied the state of California.

57:52

We got into a lawsuit. We won

57:54

the lawsuit. The

57:56

church just began to explode at that point.

58:00

probably had 3,000 new

58:02

people come to our church since

58:05

that point. And the draw

58:07

turns out to be

58:09

families with children. So

58:11

that in the last two years, we

58:14

have created two homeschool

58:18

programs where parents, we

58:20

work with parents in two different groups

58:23

for homeschool. We have started

58:26

two hybrid schools, which

58:28

means half the week it's homeschool, half

58:30

the week it's classroom.

58:33

We actually now have a full

58:35

blown K through 12 full

58:39

Christian school. So we have

58:42

five different options to train

58:44

children because

58:46

parents are saying, you got to help us. We

58:49

have to escape the

58:52

threat of public education. And

58:55

if you want to build a church, you

58:58

know, go after the children, be

59:00

a protector of the

59:02

children. It's amazing how families will gather.

59:05

Well, Pastor MacArthur, it's as always an honor to see

59:07

you. It's wonderful to spend the time with you. I

59:10

really appreciate the time and the insight. My

59:13

pleasure. We miss you in Southern California. Well,

59:16

I miss you, but not Southern California. Really

59:19

appreciate it. Ben

59:30

Shapiro Sunday special is produced by Savannah Morris

59:32

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59:57

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