Voddie Baucham on Charlie Kirk: It's Time to FIGHT!

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This is bigger than Charlie Kirk's murder. This is a fight over whether a free people can even speak at all.

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Bode Bauckham just preached out of 1 Peter 3, and he's going to show us how to move forward as Christians in today's climate.

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Take a look. We do have to engage the culture, and unfortunately, what has happened to us for the most part is we've been lulled into this false sense of security because we haven't lived like most

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Christians have had to live throughout the history of the church. If you've been wondering how to navigate these difficult times, this is the video for you.

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So let's get into it. Welcome back to Wise Disciple.

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My name is Nate, and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you are meant to be, which includes navigating these difficult times with biblical vision.

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Make sure to like, sub, and share this one around if it blesses you. In recent days, we've seen a number of shocking things culminating with the assassination of Charlie Kirk the other day, basically engaging in dialogue, doing what we hope all of us will learn how to do and learn how to do well, doing what you are preparing to be able to do, what you're being taught to do, what you're being sharpened for so that you can engage in the marketplace of ideas and proclaim the supremacy of Christ in every area and aspect of life.

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A hundred percent agree with Voti. We need to be trained. We need to be able to engage others and capable to do so the way that Charlie did.

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This is why I created my debate masterclass series. This is why very soon I'm going to film new classes for it.

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And look, you know, if there is anyone telling you that your lives must be compartmentalized, that your

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Christianity is separate from your politics and other views. As a matter of fact, if you are being told that because you are a

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Christian, that you should not have an opinion about politics or economics or whatever the view is that you should not talk openly about your convictions, that is absolutely false.

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As Christians, we should have opinions about all facets of our society. Why? Well, because we should be engaged with where God has placed us.

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We should be informed by our biblical convictions and we should be able to provide our views as well as the reasoning behind them.

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You know, my focus here at this ministry means that you're not going to hear me talking about 49 different categories.

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I'm going to be zoomed in like a laser on how to think, speak, and act like Jesus in today's culture. That doesn't mean

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I don't have opinions about all aspects of society, and it doesn't mean that you shouldn't have opinions and speak from those convictions either.

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We all have to. I know that, and again,

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I'm standing here as the father of nine, the grandfather of three so far. I've told my kids

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I want 50 grandkids. I don't care how they divided up, just get it done. But my kids range from 35 to 12.

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I have a son born the same year Charlie Kirk was born, and I also have teenagers in my house who watched him and would share videos of his interactions and debates on campus.

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And so I come here today as a pastor and as a father, hoping to help you think about this biblically.

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Now what he's going to do is preach from the number one passage that everyone utilizes when talking about apologetics.

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It's 1 Peter 3, which is fascinating to me because I literally just taught from there as well in the last video.

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And he actually might disagree with me. So let's see what happens. Hoping to help you think about this while avoiding extremes, because on the one hand, there's that tendency that we might have to say, we just need to be careful.

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We just need to be careful. There are people who are afraid for me today because I'm here talking to college students, right?

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Like all of a sudden, we just can't talk to college students. That's one extreme.

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The other extreme is the people who are saying, you know what, OK, fine, we're going to flood the zone.

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We're going to be in their faces. We're going to, right, fill in the blank. And there's a ditch on both sides of the road.

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We do have to engage the culture. And unfortunately, what has happened to us for the most part is we've been lulled into this false sense of security because we haven't lived like most

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Christians have had to live throughout the history of the church. Most Christians have had to live as minorities wherever they were.

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Most Christians have had to live as persecuted minorities wherever they were. Some Christians still live in that way, but it hasn't been so here.

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We've had the incredible privilege of living in this land, and I don't care what people say or how often they say it, this country is rooted, grounded, and shaped by biblical

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Christianity. Amen. Amen to that. I was talking to my pastor the other day, and I told him that, you know, the reason why

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I'm so bothered by Charlie Kirk's assassination is not just because his wife and children are without him now, which is horrifying to think of, you know, it's not just because of the vile hatred celebrating his murder.

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It's because I feel like this was a shot in the neck of the First Amendment.

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Our First Amendment reminds us all of our freedom to express our religion publicly, of our freedom to speak in this country, and of our freedom to peaceably assemble.

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And guess what? Our public schools largely do not teach that anymore. How do I know that?

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Because I used to be a public high school teacher. I was there on the ground, and I can tell you, it's not being properly taught.

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If you asked high school students what the First Amendment says and what it means, they wouldn't be able to tell you. We cannot forget, ladies and gentlemen, about our freedom to express our religion and our freedom of speech in this country.

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The gospel advances because of our ability to speak freely. Amen. Paul has addressed

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Christians in general, or Peter, rather, has addressed Christians in general. He's addressed

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Christians as citizens, and then he's addressed wives, he's addressed husbands, he's addressed slaves and masters, and then he comes down in verse 8 of chapter 3, and he says,

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Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

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Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. Do we not need that right now?

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For to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

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Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the

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Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

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This is the paragraph that comes right before his words, and the famous paragraph that we know, the very place that we get the word apologetics from, when he says to always be ready to give an answer, to give a defense.

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He uses the word apologia to give an apology, to give an offense, a defense, to give a reasoned response.

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This sounds like what I just said in the last video, you know, and I appreciate that.

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You know, I have a great respect for Voti. So when you hear somebody you respect saying the same thing, that's a big deal.

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I want to say this, all right, I'm not an apologist. I'm a teacher.

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I'm trained as a pastor, but I'm not an apologist. I'm not Mike Jones. I'm not David Wood. I'm not

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J. Warner Wallace. I'm not Sean McDowell. I see myself having a different role in this space.

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And yet I use apologetics on a regular basis, just about every single day.

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Why? Because every Christian needs to use apologetics. Apologetics is a biblical injunction that applies to all

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Christians. And I say this to encourage you. So like, if you're thinking to yourself, I'm not an apologist, hey, neither am

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I, but you still need to understand how to give a defense and to strike down arguments.

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Okay. That's what the Bible expects of you. So this is a place where we get our word apologetics from, and this is the paragraph that comes right before it.

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It lays the groundwork and it sets the tone for what's about to come.

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He gives us the identity, the attitude, the conduct, and the character that would be assumed in the next paragraph.

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So when he talks about being an apologist or doing apologetics, we have to remember this.

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By the way, the other thing that we need to remember is, remember I said earlier that he has addressed a general

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Christian audience, and then he addressed different segments of the Christian audience, right? People in different walks of life, wives and husbands, you know, citizens in general, and even slaves and masters and so on and so forth.

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And then he says at the first, finally, all of you, I want to dispel another myth right at the outset.

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The idea that apologetics is somehow just for a select few. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Peter makes it clear here, just by the structure of this passage, that what he's saying, he's addressing all those who named the name of Christ, a

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Savior and Lord to begin with. I mean, there's probably a subset of people who hear that and then they go, ah,

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I have to go to Biola now. Ah, I have to get a PhD in philosophy now.

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No, you don't. No, you don't, but you do have to love the Lord, your

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God with all your mind, right? That means thinking about God.

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That means thinking about conversations on behalf of God, thinking about encountering people who are seeking

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God that, uh, and what you might say and how you might answer each person. You know, look at how

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Paul says it, Colossians four, verse five, walking wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

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Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

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Does that sound like anticipating your audience? Does that sound like a forethought and practice?

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It does to me, right? Does the Bible say, uh, go get a

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PhD before you can do all of this? No, you don't need a PhD praise the

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Lord. If you have one, but you don't need one to obey what the Bible tells you here. Who are we? Who are we supposed to be?

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When people look at us, when we are giving this defense, the phrase, finally, all of you again, makes it very clear that he's talking about all

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Christians, but here he's summing up his teaching on submission and suffering. That's the context here in first Peter, the idea of strangers and exiles living a life that is marked by in many ways, submission and suffering.

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His instruction about apologetics is given in the context of his instruction about suffering.

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What's our attitude? Well, first our attitude is to be unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind.

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By the way, that's the opposite of the way we normally think about apologetics. Amen. Like this is the last thing that comes to our mind.

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Usually we think, you know, he's quick witted. He's got a quick tongue. He's, you know, can, thinks quickly on his feet, always has a comeback and can put people in their place.

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And isn't that any other, um, not that there's necessarily anything wrong with all of those things, but ultimately the idea of unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind.

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That's our attitude because that's our, I said this before, but what

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Peter envisions is a scenario in first Peter three is a scenario where you are living in such an upside down kingdom centered gospel centric manner that non -believers look at you and they are so compelled by how you comport yourself that they come and ask you about your faith.

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There is something so different about how you navigate the world. It's not fleshly. It's not selfish.

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It's unlike anything the world is used to seeing. You know, that's the basis for our apologetics.

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That's the starting point for deep conversations. That means if the world is angry and hostile and dehumanizes others and is tribal and spews hatred against their enemies, what are you supposed to do in response?

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Right? Oh, Nate, you don't understand. They're cheering for Charlie Kirk's murder.

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They're dancing on his grave. They're mocking his death and they're slandering him. These people are demons. See that right there.

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That is an unbiblical response. I'm tracking all of it, you know, leading up to that last part.

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And then you lost me. The Bible tells us that these people, a lot of whom are happy as clams right now, they are blinded and that they are prisoners inside their own ideologies.

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The Bible reminds us that the Lord has not come back yet out of a desire to give these same folks an opportunity to repent of their wickedness.

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Look at this. Second Peter three, verse nine, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some counts slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

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Is that a weak God we serve? Why doesn't he drop the hammer on these monsters, right?

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It's because this is not the way God wants us to see this moment and to see these people.

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You see, the Bible actually has what we need to understand how to proceed with all the hatred in the world today.

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And it's actually not more hatred. That's the world's response. We need to pay attention to what the

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Bible says and we need to obey it. Our attitude as Christians, that's not to say that engaging in apologetics is always calm or peaceful.

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It's not. Jesus was not always calm and peaceful. When he addressed people who disagreed with him, he referred to people as a brood of vipers turned over tables in the temple.

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He was not always lowly. Jesus meek and mild. Amen. So I've heard this sentiment, uh, quite a bit and I I'm hesitant to correct

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Voti here. So allow me to, to simply add this clarification to what he just said.

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Jesus does not resort to this style of heated language against any old person.

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All right. As a matter of fact, Jesus does not resort to this style of language to Gentiles at all.

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No, this was reserved. What Voti's pointing out was reserved specifically for the corrupt religious leaders that were supposed to lead

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God's people and shepherd the sheep. And then they failed to do so because of their pride, their hypocrisy and their wickedness.

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That's why Jesus calls them hypocrites, right? That that's why these words are thrown around, you know, vipers, uh, the blind leading the blind, by the way,

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John the Baptist did the same thing. Okay. This language was specifically directed at the corrupt

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Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Scribes and the elders who ultimately would kill Jesus because he made it clear who he was and how he felt about them.

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Right? So let's not make the mistake of, uh, seeing Jesus do that to a select group for a specific reason and think that we can do that whenever we want.

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Okay. That everyone is fair game because Jesus did it. That's not the proper conclusion. Particularly when we think of those who are unchurched, right?

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That's not how we should approach them. That's important to remember that because people will often try to use that.

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People try to use that against me all the time. You engage in a debate or discussion and things, you know, kind of get a little heated, a little more adversarial.

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And especially if people are not doing as well in the debate as they want to do, then all of a sudden there's a problem with your tone.

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It's not so much what you're saying. It's, it's your tone. Like what tone? Is this tone better or this tone?

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Like what are you talking about? Usually what they mean is right now

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I have this picture of you standing with your shoulders squared and your feet 10 toes down and saying what you're saying with your whole chest.

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I don't like that. I don't like that.

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And usually what they mean at that point is I don't have an answer for what you're saying.

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And it's making me uncomfortable, maybe even a little embarrassed. And so right now it's just much easier for me to call you a bad person and to say that your tone is just somehow not

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Christian. So please don't hear me saying that we need to bow to that. We absolutely do not.

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Amen. We need to say things confidently. We do need to stand 10 toes down.

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Yeah, absolutely. We don't need to apologize for the truth. You cannot be a jerk either.

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There is a contingent of folks who claim to speak for Christ and say true things about the

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Bible and are some of the biggest, most insufferable and vulgar jerks I've ever seen in my entire life.

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And they are completely dishonoring the name of Christ while claiming that they're just speaking the truth.

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Oh, I'm just matching energy for energy. If he's a vile jerk, then

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I'm going to be a vile jerk right back. You know why? Why? Where is the biblical justification for this?

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You know, because Proverbs says answer a fool according to his follies.

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Is that why some folks do this kind of thing? Because if that's the case, they're reading the scripture wrong.

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Golly, don't fall for this. Ladies and gentlemen, don't be like these people. There's too many of them floating around right now.

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By the way, when Proverbs talks about answering a fool, according to his folly, it doesn't mean be a jerk.

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If he's a jerk, you know, look at this. Verse five, answer a fool according to his folly.

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There it is. Lest he be wise in his own eyes. I guess that means be a jerk, right?

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No. If that were the case, then what does verse four mean? Look at verse four. Answer not a fool according to his folly.

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Lest you be like him yourself. Have you ever read these two verses, this passage and wondered like, what is this getting at?

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You know what I mean? Like, how can it say on the one hand, don't answer a fool according to his folly. And then on the other hand, do it.

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Right? You ever thought that before? The way that we figure this out, because the author is communicating something very particular.

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The way that we figure this out is not by noting the repeated phrase, right?

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But by actually paying attention to what the qualifier say after the repeated phrase.

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Okay. Look at this. Verse four. Lest you be like him yourself. Look at verse five.

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Lest he be wise in his own eyes. Right? Solomon wants you to use discernment in how you proceed.

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When you engage a fool, you need to wisely navigate how to engage certain kinds of people.

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And if you're dealing with a fool, step one, don't be like him yourself. Verse four. If he's a jerk, don't be a jerk back.

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There is no such thing as a Christian jerk, as it turns out.

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And that actually gets even more clear as you get into the New Testament, particularly with Paul, where we are right now, with Vody in first Peter.

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Three, there is simply no biblical justification to act like a moron because somebody else is.

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That's literally what an immature child does. No, what Solomon is saying in verse five is do not allow a fool to be wise in his own eyes.

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Now think about that. What does that mean? If you're going to engage, then make sure it's so that the fool knows that he's not wise.

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How do you think you should go about this? If a fool is saying something foolish, but they think they're right.

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What does that mean? That must mean they believe their position is justified and that their logic is airtight.

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Solomon is saying if their logic is folly, answer the folly by showing where the logic leads.

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This is engaging the fool at the level of his foolish assumptions and exposing the flaw in his thinking.

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Why? Because if you don't do that, he's going to think he's wise in his own eyes. Can you see that? In philosophy, this is actually called a reductio ad absurdum.

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And Jesus did this, by the way. I mean, this is actually consistent with the rest of the scripture.

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You know, Paul says, I've said this many times in videos, so I'm not going to pull this up. Paul says in second

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Corinthians 10, we strike down arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.

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Right? Apparently God wants us to engage folks at the level of their own arguments.

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As a matter of fact, look at how Jesus responds to the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 12, when they tried to claim that he exercised demons by the prince of demons.

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He provided a reductio ad absurdum. I'm not going to go there.

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Just go look at it later. The point is, there is no such thing as a Christian jerk.

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Earlier on, Peter urged believers to, in chapter 2 verse 12, keep your conduct among the

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Gentiles honorable. They're watching you. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable.

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Be mindful of the fact that governors are sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good, he says in chapter 2 verse 14.

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Chapter 2 verse 20, he said that even to slaves, if you sin and are beaten for it, and you endure, there's no value in that, no honor in that.

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And later on, he's going to say that about all of those of us who named the name of Christ and who are apologists. We don't want to be people who suffer for doing what is dishonorable.

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We've seen enough of that in recent days as well, have we not? Men who named the name of Christ, men who are preachers and pastors and Christian leaders who are discovered to be dishonorable men who bring shame and dishonor to the name of Christ.

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And at that point, it doesn't matter how many arguments you want.

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At that point, it doesn't matter how skilled you were at answering objections.

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At that point, your lack of character just negates everything that you stood for and everything that came out of your mouth.

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Oops. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3 that leaders must have an excellent reputation with outsiders.

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We're not getting this as a church, friends. A lot of us who go to church are not getting this.

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Somewhere along the way, we believed the lie that truth spoken with mockery and hatred and reviling is still a good thing.

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It is not. That is a worldly concept that has crept into the church.

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The world wants us to mock and to hate and to revile. Okay? Even if we are saying true things, that's what it wants.

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That's what the devil wants. But what God wants is for you to be a man or a woman of character and then say true things.

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To have an excellent reputation with outsiders and then say true things. And that expectation, it's not just for leaders.

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That's everybody. Peter says in 1 Peter 2, to keep our conduct with the

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Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against us, everyone will see how we actually behave and glorify

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God. How can you do that when you act like a nonbeliever? That people can't tell the difference between your behavior and a nonbeliever's behavior.

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Right? Nate, you don't understand. I got to tell it like it is though. You know what I mean? Like these people need to be stopped.

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They need to be slapped upside the head with truth. Hey, where does the Bible teach that though?

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Which book of the Bible is that? Where are you getting that? Is it the book of opinions?

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Because what I'm saying right now and what Vody is teaching is the biblical expectation for you.

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Verses 13 and 14. Now, who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed.

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The understanding here is that there's suffering that often comes. And our

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Lord warned us about this. Did he not? They hated me. They will also hate you. And by the way, the suffering that Peter is talking about here in 1

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Peter 3 is not people calling you names. The suffering that he's talking about here in 1

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Peter 3 is people taking your life. And that's what's come crashing in on us here.

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Not that Charlie Kirk was a preacher in a pulpit somewhere, but that in large part, it's those issues in those areas that have directly confronted biblical

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Christianity that he spoke to in the public square. Issues like biblical manhood and womanhood, marriage, human sexuality.

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These same issues that biblically we stand 10 toes down on.

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These are the ones. And by the way, here's what you need to understand. The game has changed.

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We don't debate anymore. You see, now we look at issues not through the lens of our underlying philosophy.

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But we look at issues through our identity and our lived experience. So when someone is taking a position on political issues today, oftentimes because of this, you know,

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Marxist ideology, the suppressor oppressed ideology, that's the way we sort of divided the world. We look at it through that lens.

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And so this is this is not just my political opinion or position. This is my identity. And this is my lived experience.

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Yeah. Are you taking notes? I was talking about this in a previous video.

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And I was highlighting the way Paul characterized the Christian battle in front of us.

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And again, it comes out of second Corinthians 10. I encourage you to try to link the video in the notes. And I said that people are imprisoned in the ideologies of their own minds.

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The enemy lies to the world. People believe those lies and they are imprisoned. And these lies are varied and they all attack different aspects of the world that God has made.

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For example, many in our culture today are influenced by what's called critical theories. And that means that they see everything through the lens of power dynamics.

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If you've seen some of my other debate videos, I've talked about this. These folks tend to see words as power.

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And so within this particular scheme, words can be violence. Are you seeing where this is headed?

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Because if the system itself is violent, which is what we tend to hear from this type of crowd, well then the noble thing to do is to disrupt it, right?

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Even forcefully, even with violence. Fire with fire, right? So if you say something

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I don't like, I get to hurt you or even kill you. That's the air people are breathing, whether they realize it or not.

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And it all stands on top of a false worldview. That's what's really going on here, friends.

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This is not a battle between left and right. This is a battle between up and down. I stole that from my senior pastor, right?

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So the question is, what happens to words in this type of worldview?

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What happens to the free exchange of ideas and debate, right? So we can't have a debate on that.

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For you to have a debate on something that I have declared as my identity and my lived experience is for you to negate my identity and to negate my lived experience.

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And by the way, we've already decided that words are violence. Yep. So if your words are violence and they are violence against my very identity, it's reasonable that I would respond to your words with actual violence.

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Just know that. So that's what brings the persecution.

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By the way, this did not magically appear overnight, you know? This type of thinking trickled down into culture from academia.

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Well, first, it originated from the pit of hell, in my opinion. But that's what I mean. If you wonder where this stuff comes from, you know, how culture changes over time.

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First, philosophers think it up. Then academics teach it at the universities. Then artists paint it.

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Filmmakers, you know, media folks film it, right? Then politicians legislate it.

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And by the time your average person believes it, it feels like it's always been that way. People just assume it because they've been downstream from these false ideas for decades.

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And they don't even know better. So when you've staked out that position, when they know, for example, that you believe that life in the womb is precious and ought to be protected, when you believe that God made them male and female and one can't become the other, when you believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and that regardless of what the

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Supreme Court said in Obergefell, man does not have the right to redefine the institution of marriage, when you believe,

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I mean, and I can go down the list, when you believe these things, you don't believe in a slate of positions that are debatable.

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You have identified yourself as a person whose very existence is violence against the identity and lived experience of others.

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And you are not worthy to live. That's where we are today. One of the questions that people are asking, maybe you're asking this right now is, okay, what do we do now?

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Right? What do we do now? We realize now the type of people and the situation that we're facing.

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What do we do about this? The answer is we strike back at the ideology. The ideology that produces death and destruction must itself be destroyed.

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And I propose to you that the first idea or belief on the docket to be destroyed is words or violence.

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We need to demonstrate how ridiculous this claim actually is, how logically bankrupt it is.

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And we need to show people that what it leads to is everyone dead. It will lead to a culture of chaos and anarchy and death and destruction.

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This, this idiotic theoretical claim will lead to actual physical destruction.

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And we can bring the receipts for this, right? See, this is what I mean.

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A lot of people who stand against biblical principles, they want to make the focus about Charlie and his character, right?

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That's what they want us arguing about. I propose to you that if Charlie were here, he would reframe the discussion right back to the issues.

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Why? Because the ideology is where the fight actually is. People are stuck inside the prisons of their own ideologies.

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Second Corinthians 10. And we need to destroy the ideologies and lead them out of it and into salvation and the obedience of Christ.

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Actually, it's even worse than that. I mean, we are drifting in this historical moment into a battle over speech itself.

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Which is something that we used to value in this country. If we do not fight for the right to speak freely in this country, we will lose it.

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Now that won't stop Christians from spreading the gospel, okay? But I'm concerned that a lot of us are not thinking about the effects of our ability to communicate freely today.

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And what's going to stop it? What's going to stop our freedom? Lies, ladies and gentlemen, lies.

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False ideologies. Call it whatever you want. If enough people believe the lies, we lose our ability to speak.

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It's the lies that must be destroyed. And we need to save the people who believe the lies.

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Okay? Think about that. How else are people going to know the truth if we cannot hear falsehoods and then provide the antidote?

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The weight of truth is felt through antithesis. And the way that we assess both of these things is through our words.

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It's through talking. I can't believe actually that I have to say this out loud.

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Like a part of me is like, hey, duh. Truth is defined and clarified and called into focus by its antithesis.

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This is classical logic, friends. This is the law of non -contradiction at play. But this is actually also biblical.

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Look at this. Isaiah 5, verse 20. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

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Who put darkness for light and light for darkness. Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

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Think about this. That means that truth is defined precisely by the denial of its antithesis.

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You only feel the weight of the truth when you see the weight of the lie. What happens when we're no longer allowed to determine the difference by talking to each other?

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You know what I mean? That's what's at stake here is we try to figure out how we move forward. Ultimately, our righteousness vindicates our explanation.

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16 and 17. Having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

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For it's better to suffer for doing good. If that should be God's will than for doing evil. You're going to be slandered.

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You're going to be reviled. Yep. And it's wonderful when those who slander you and revile you are put to shame.

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When you've lived your life in such a way, when you've conducted yourself in such a way, when you've engaged with people in such a way that there's just nothing for him to hold on to.

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Well, he's just mean. Well, like, where was he mean? What part was mean? It was just his tone.

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What tone? What was that?

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Because what I heard was gracious, respectful, confident, very well prepared.

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You see, when that happens, your opponent is put to shame. Because when that happens, what is revealed is they don't have an answer.

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They don't have a response. So they resort to argument ad hominem. Do you disagree with my position?

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Do you have something that you can offer?

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And they're just reduced to, you're just a bad person. May it be that.

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And may it never be. They don't hear you because you actually are sinful in your presentation.

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Yeah. Okay. Here's the takeaway for you. Are you ready?

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Number one, be the man or woman of character that God wants you to be.

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As a matter of fact, go back and read the Beatitudes and ask yourself, does this describe me?

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Am I even close to these behavioral qualities and characteristics? Am I striving?

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Am I even trying to be this type of person? Because guess what?

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That's who Jesus wants you to be. Number two, it's time to go to war. But in the way that the

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Bible tells us to. Okay. We don't fight the way the world fights. Go back and look at second

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Corinthians 10 verses three through five. Our job is to battle arguments, to strike them down and destroy them, not people.

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And again, I propose to you, the first argument on the docket, in my opinion, is that words are violence.

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This is a lie that needs to die because it leads to death. If you hear someone espouse this particular idea, ask them a question, right?

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Are you concerned about violence? You know? Because if they're saying that words are violence, they must be concerned about it or else why are they even bringing it up at all?

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You know what I mean? But that's the thing. The idea that words are violence causes real violence.

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If someone espouses that words are violence, they are making violence reasonable. And we're seeing this play out right now.

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Are we not? Words are not violence, ladies and gentlemen. Words actually stop violence.

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Words actually reveal the truth. Right? Which means without words, nobody's going to hear the truth.

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We need to bring our society back to some areas of agreement. We all need to agree that ideas have consequences.

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That a healthy nation does not fear words or the clash of ideas. It welcomes it because the best ideas will lead to our flourishing as a people and as a society.

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And guess what? The best ideas are those that have the best reasons. We need to keep talking so that we can investigate good ideas and discover bad ideas, right?

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Identify them, you know? And the reasons behind both types. Amen? And that means number three, people are not irredeemable.

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And in this type of conversation, they're not who we should be fighting. The lies are.

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We must see people for who they are and also for who they could be. You know, their potential.

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If they reject God and they're against you as a Christian for holding to your beliefs, the

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Bible says they are blind prisoners of their own ideologies. But that's not the potential end of their story, right?

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The gospel can give them a different ending, right? If you had met me 20 years ago, there's no way you would have guessed what

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I'd be doing right now or what I'd be saying. Praise the Lord. Yeah.

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Do you know what? Like I'm trying to communicate. Your job is not to fight people, but to save them.

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Do you realize? Think about this. Do you realize how many people who have hated you for being a Christian will give their lives to Jesus at some point in the future?

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A lot of them are doing it right now because of what happened to Charlie Kirk. Amen? The world does not need more shouting.

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And it definitely does not need more silence either. It needs courageous, consistent disciples who will fight lies with truth and love.

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Listen, um, disciples are not bold because they're fearless. All right.

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They're bold because they're focused on mission. If you keep the mission of Christ before you, if you do not lose sight of that mission, you will not be cowed by threats.

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You certainly will not be tempted to become what the world is. You will become the type of person that strikes down arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God in order to save souls for Christ.

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It's time to get to work friends. And I'm going to do what I can, you know, with these videos from my vantage point, breaking down arguments for you here, but you need to start studying.

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You need to start preparing and you need to get out there and you need to engage false ideas.

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One soul at a time. Amen. All right.

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Let me pray for you, Lord. Thank you so much for this opportunity to sit together with the brothers and sisters, with those who are genuinely seeking the truth.

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Lord, I pray that you would be with them now. As they close this video, as they go about their lives, Lord, be with them, guide them, lead them, let them speak the truth to a world that desperately needs to hear it.

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And we know as Christians that the truth is a person and his name is Jesus Christ. Give us the strength,

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Lord. Give us the boldness to be able to say what must be said, even when it's difficult and people don't want to hear it.

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Fill us up with love, Lord, that is a supernatural gift that comes from you and your

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Holy Spirit so that we may administer it to other people. And it provides healing from the divisiveness of this nation.

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And I trust you, Lord. I trust that you have heard my prayer and that you will answer.

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And it's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. If you enjoyed the insights here, you're going to love my

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