Tim Keller said WHAT about Stephen Colbert?

A Reset on the Podcast, Sponsorships, and Why I’m Recording While Sick

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. As I am recording this, I am looking outside and I live on a, for lack of a better term, it's kind of a cliff, it's kind of a hill, cliff, ridge, I guess ridge would be the best term.

And I'm behind the lip of it. And at a certain time in the morning, the sun will rise and shoot some rays down in my direction. And we have currently a state of emergency in my county. We have an ice storm that came through and it is just stunning.

It is like a crystal palace that I'm looking at with the light streaming through all the trees and the trees are just ice. And man, I so badly want to go and take a walk out there. And I don't know, you're probably hearing my voice, I'm still sick.

I'm not sure that that's going to happen. But it just is a reminder that God is so creative and so good to allow us to have the sense perception. We don't just see what's happening, things that he's created for his own enjoyment, but we actually are able to process that and appreciate that.

And that's such an incredible thing. And that can't be explained by any Darwinian natural process. This is something that, this is, in fact, as I just saw, some ice fell, kind of a dusting of ice came off one of the trees and it looked like little glitter coming down.

It's just amazing. For those of you who live in the deep south, I understand why you do. For those who have moved there, I understand why you've moved there. And I appreciate so many things about the deep south, but I'll be honest, you don't generally get this kind of thing and it is a beautiful thing when you do see it.

So anyway, I am sick still. Some of you might be wondering why I'm even recording this and I will explain that, but I just want to thank you for your prayers, especially. I'm getting better every day.

There's a window I have, I found, and it expands every day. So I had, I think, an hour, two days ago probably, and I recorded a very quick podcast that was just an update. And I did it to show you what I was doing, to encourage you, but also just ask for prayer because I felt horrible.

And then yesterday, I think my window was probably two hours and today, hopefully it'll be three or four. So I'm at the beginning of that window. I can definitely feel the headache starting, but I really do want to get this podcast out.

And I'm going to explain a little more of why that is at the end. Let me just give you a little teaser because I don't want to, for everyone who listens to this podcast wanting to get to the meat, I don't want to prevent you from the Tim Keller analysis, but I think it's time for a little bit of a reset.

Not the great reset, just a reset as far as why do this podcast, why listen to this podcast. I'm going to kind of strip it down to the basic fundamental reason that I even do this. And we're going to talk a little bit about that.

And I want to respond in doing that to some critiques and criticisms that were made during the last week, especially when I was gone, that I really could not get to in a timely manner, which I do regret.

And some people are, I don't quite understand it completely, but I think there's some people that don't quite understand the amount of just the volume of messages. And the kind, I think some people look at the podcast and they think that's all that's happening is just when I turn the record button on, because that's what they see.

And there's so much more happening behind the scenes. So I'm going to tell you about a little bit of that, give you a little bit of a behind the scenes sneak peek, I guess, but I need to respond to some criticisms and I'll explain why I'm doing that.

I also need to apologize to some of you for something I did say on the podcast last week that I do regret, that I do think was wrong. I don't think, there's a few people really blowing it out of proportion, I think.

And so we'll talk about that as well. But I do want to acknowledge it and I do want to talk about it. And because I've been so sick and traveling, I just have not been able to get to any of it. So my wife and I were talking about this a little bit yesterday and she agreed with me.

Actually, she was the one that kind of convinced me in some way. She encouraged me to talk about some of this. And so we're going to get to that. But we're going to talk first, though, about the thing that everyone, most people who clicked on this came here for, which is this Tim Keller tweet.

And last thing before we get to that, I just need to let you know about a sponsor for this particular podcast. And that is, I can pull up the website for you, Gold River Trading Company's Tea and Hot Chocolate.

They have hot chocolate, too. I don't know if you all knew that. I actually have some now. I'm actually very much looking forward to trying it. Cinnamon Hot Chocolate. If you click on the hot cocoa link at GoldRiverCo .com, you can see Cinnamon Spice Hot Cocoa.

I've been sick. I haven't felt like drinking hot chocolate right now because of that. I don't know what it is, the richness. In fact, I tried a piece of candy last night and I just couldn't do it. I don't know.

It's something about sweets that when I'm sick, I just can't do it. But I'm sure when I get better, I'm going to be drinking a lot of this stuff. But I'll tell you what I have been drinking is a lot of tea.

And that's been helping me get over this COVID. There's all sorts of teas. The ones I usually talk about are Peppermint Green Tea and Gunpowder Green Tea. I really like those. But lately, I've been having some of the Chamomile, which is down here.

Chamomile Herbal Tea. And that's been really helpful for having COVID. I would encourage you, go to GoldRiver Trading Company, GoldRiverCO .com. On the way to checkout, when you're checking out, whatever you choose to purchase, put in the promo code CONVERSATIONS, capital C, CONVERSATIONS.

And that'll get you 10 off your order. And this is a pro-Christian, pro-American, anti-cancel culture company. And it is a quality product. And so I just want to let you know about that. And I'm going to talk a little bit about sponsorships at the end, because I've gotten some pushback on that as well, that I shouldn't have sponsors and stuff.

So I do want to talk about that. But I'm very grateful to GoldRiver for sponsoring this particular episode. It's good to know about companies that are not caving to all the nonsense that so many companies out there are.

And I'm just really grateful to be able to tell you about it, because it's a good product. And I sometimes lament, I don't want to know what a product that I really like, I don't want to know what they're giving to.

Because if I knew, then I probably would feel convicted that I shouldn't be using it anymore. Well, GoldRiver Tea is not like that. And that's why I think it's a good product, and one that you should consider supporting.

Tim Keller’s Praise of Stephen Colbert as Christian Public Witness

So let's talk about this Tim Keller tweet here. So this, let's see here, if I can pull it up. This came out last night, I believe, or yesterday, yeah, February 4th at 1 .17 PM. So it was actually in the afternoon.

Someone sent it to me more towards the evening. But I'm going to play for you the video that he's commenting on, just so you know. And then we'll get into his analysis of it. He's actually added some things to this in the last nine hours ago.

He added something else. So let's start this.

I think something that your viewers really connect with in your comedy and your hosting skills, especially in the past few years, is how open and honest and authentic you are about the role your faith plays in your life.

Oh, that's interesting. And I was wondering, is there any, you know, does your faith in your comedy ever overlap? And does one ever win out?

I think ultimately, us all being mortal, the faith will win out at the end. But I certainly hope when I get to heaven, Jesus has a sense of humor. But I will say this, I will say this. Someone was asking me earlier about what I, this relates to faith, because my faith is involved with, I'm a Christian and a Catholic, and that's always connected to the idea of love and sacrifice being somehow related and giving yourself to other people.

And that death is not defeat, if you can see where I'm getting at there. Someone was asking me earlier, what movie did I really enjoy this year? And I said, well, I really liked Belfast, which is Kenneth Branagh's story of his childhood.

And one of the reasons I love it is that I'm Irish and Irish-American, and it's such an Irish movie. And I think this is also a Catholic thing, because it's funny and it's sad, and it's funny about being sad.

In the same way, that sadness is like a little bit of an emotional death, but not a defeat, if you can find a way to laugh about it. Because that laughter keeps you from having fear of it. And fear is the thing that keeps you from turning to evil devices to save you from the sadness.

As Robert Hayden said, we must not be frightened or cajoled into accepting evil as our deliverance from evil. We must keep struggling to maintain our humanity, though monsters of abstraction threaten and police us.

So if there's some relationship between my faith and my comedy, it's that no matter what happens, you are never defeated. You must understand and see this in the light of eternity and find some way to love and laugh with each other.

All right, so that's the clip. And Tim Keller's comment on this was, this is brilliant. This is a brilliant example of how to be a Christian in the public square. And I'm going to stop there, but let's just read the whole thing and then we'll go, okay.

So he says, notice the witness, but in a form the culture can handle. We should desire to have more Christians in these spaces and give them grace as they operate. So I'll get into his responses since then, since there's been pushback.

But he says, first of all, this is brilliant, a brilliant example of how to be a Christian in the public square. And you know, this is, brilliant is the word that I'm, that's just kind of like underlined, circled, exclamation points and stars around as I look at this sentence.

What makes this brilliant? What makes it brilliant? Is it, is the brilliance that he got a clap at the end? Is the brilliance that he was able to, off the top of his head, quote something that honestly the people listening probably would not have the, I mean, I, I had to listen to it twice and I'm like, what, you know, this is, I felt like I was getting into Yodaland a little bit there.

Cause it was just getting so, involved. You gotta laugh because if you don't laugh, you fear. And if you fear this happens and I almost felt like he was going to go on like some kind of a, you know, fear leads to hate and hate leads to, leads to suffering or something.

But it was, I think what, what stands out to me as if there was anything brilliant about it is that he was able to navigate this in such a way that he was able to get it, give the audience a pinch of transcendence, a pinch of, there's something bigger than us.

And that's why we can live. That's why we can laugh even through sadness and trials. Cause there's something bigger, there's a plan. So he's able to kind of relay this to the audience in such a way that no one was offended.

And you know, no, no one, I mean, I don't see, I mean, unless someone's coming up to him afterward and he has the gospel and then that's, I know some of you are probably screaming at the podcast right now, Stephen Colbert is not a Christian.

I get that. We're going to get to that, but let's say he is. Let's say he was an evangelical Christian and, you know, understood the gospel and completely and was ready to lead people to the Lord. And people heard him say that.

And then they came up and, you know, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, I want to talk to you more about your faith, but he just certainly didn't invite anyone to do that. And it was, I mean, that's all he gave you.

I mean, I don't know how that would be different than a lot of other religions that just have an understanding that there's a God who rules the place and has a plan, that there's some kind of providential element to existence.

So that's as far as he went. And I wouldn't, I personally wouldn't call that brilliant, but it's, with all the minefields today, I could see how it would, it could certainly come off that way to someone, that you're able to not get canceled and not get the hot seat turned up on you, not look like a fool, and be religious at the same time and a Christian nonetheless, Catholic, but Christian.

That's what he said. He said, I'm a Christian Catholic. So, so that's, that's the first thing, brilliant. And, and so these are not, that's not a word that I would see. I could, I'll ask you this question.

Just think, think with me. Would you, could you see the apostles using this word to describe the public witness of one of their own, one of their disciples? Could you, could you see Jesus saying this to the 12 or the, you know, his followers and say, well, you, you know, you were brilliant.

Uh, we are supposed to be wise as serpents, innocent as doves. I just don't see that word. You know, that's, that's not, um, and I'm not saying it's wrong. And brilliant, brilliance is like, this is a, it's an English word.

We use it today. I'm not, not, not trying to read back into an ancient manuscript, uh, the assumption that they would have used, but I'm just, I'm saying the concept itself of brilliance, it's just not an emphasized one when, when you're trying to reach people, when you're trying to be a public witness, right?

Brilliance doesn't pop out at you from the pages of scripture. But I think this is one of the things, and this is, this whole, this short tweet is, is packed full of so many telling things. I think this is one of the things that the evangelical intelligentsia, they really prize, they really prize this.

They want to be known as brilliant. They really want that applause line. They want to wow people when they start talking about their faith. Uh, they want people to love them and not cancel them and be attracted to what they have to say.

And, uh, they, they want to be able to appeal to them on some kind of a common ground, some kind of a language that they'll understand. So it doesn't mean quoting Bible verses. In this case, it means quoting, uh, I guess, I don't know if that's a, I, I forget the name of the guy that he quoted, but I don't know if that was, um, a poet or a philosopher, whoever, uh, a novelist, but quoting someone, uh, that, and it's not even an explicitly Christian quote, but, but at least showing that you're well-read, um, being able to, uh, integrate, um, some, some aspect, even if it's a very basic aspect of your faith, uh, with pop culture.

He, I mean, he did it with this movie. I mean, these are the kinds of things that I think the evangelical intelligentsia, they, they think of these things as what we should aspire to. This is how to do it.

Pop culture, uh, quoting novelists, uh, or, you know, thinkers out there in the world, you know, stay out, shy away from the Bible verses a bit, but, you know, give them a little bit of a dose. Give them that milk.

They can't quite handle the meat, but just give them that little bit of, you know, this sparkle of, uh, uh, some sense of transcendence, something that they'll be attracted to. And, uh, and so he says, this is how to be a Christian in the public square.

This is how to do it. This is the example. This is what we should all be aspiring for, apparently. And then he says, uh, notice the witness, um, but in a form of the culture can handle. Uh, now he, so now he's not just saying that this is an example of how to be a Christian, this is also an example of how to witness example of, of showing forth Christianity, showing it, showing Christ to people.

Um, but it's in a form, it's in this particular form, the culture can handle. So they can't handle, I don't, it leaves it open to speculation of it, but what can't they handle? That's the question. What, what is it that they can't handle?

They can't handle what the apostles did, or Jesus did, or John the Baptist did, or the prophets did, or what is it? They can't handle what the reformers did, what missionaries have done for hundreds of years, the gospel, is that what it is?

They can't just handle someone sharing the gospel. They can't handle someone quoting the Bible. They can't handle, what is it that they can't handle? There's something that we need to be. So you see a positivity in that first sentence and a negativity in the second and it would be coming out that, you know, hey, there's a, there's something to watch out for here and a landmine that you don't want to step on.

And Stephen Colbert didn't step on it. So, you know, good for Stephen. And then he said, we should desire to have more Christians in these spaces and give them grace as they operate. So he's saying more Stephen Colbert's, we need more people like him.

And really we need them in entertainment. Part of me almost debates whether or not, I've had this thought in the last year, whether or not the media is the public square. It's very controlled. It's one perspective.

It's, you know, how much of the media is really reflective of a, more of a, a neutral coming together of the various people who make up this country and are able to express themselves, that's not what the media is.

It's certainly, if you want to call that the public square, it's certainly a rigged public square. So in this rigged public square with landmines, with things that we're supposed to avoid, we should not communicate in a way that the culture can't handle it.

They can only handle so much, which I mean, look, the culture can't handle. I'm just going to be direct here. They can't handle when you talk about their sin, that's what they can't handle. And so we need to give grace to people like Stephen Colbert.

To operate. That's what we need to do. And this is not a grace that seems to be afforded people. I mean, Tim Keller has like no grace for the religious right and quote unquote, Christian nationalism. I mean, it's just, he paints them in the worst possible light.

We've talked about it on this podcast. He accuses them of using certain groups of people to fundraise off of, and they just care about money. And the reason that we're in the bind we're in is because of the religious right types, the culture warrior types.

You know, there's really no grace given to those people. And not even a sense that, you know, maybe there's some of them who are well-meaning and really are trying to hold the line for biblical teaching and are, they're seeing that, hey, something like, let's say same-sex marriage is wrong and we're going to support what the Bible teaches on this particular topic.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of grace for that coming from Tim Keller. He's very hard on those people, but he's got all the grace, all the, the grace in the world for Stephen Colbert. Now let's talk about Stephen Colbert for just a moment.

Stephen Colbert, I don't know a lot, a lot about him, but just in that little clip, you know, he's not, first of all, Tim Keller is a Presbyterian. I just find it interesting. I, and maybe some of you are getting upset at me for this.

I do believe that there are people who would think of themselves as Roman Catholic, perhaps even attend Roman Catholic Church, who it is, it is possible that there are saved people in the Roman Catholic Church.

I do believe that. The reason I believe that though, is because, and I'm going to get in all sorts of trouble for this. The reason is because I think that they're not operating in accord with Catholic teaching and doctrine.

They are, they're following what they understand to be true about Jesus from their reading of scripture. And they do trust in him for their salvation. They, they believe in his imputed righteousness. They're not buying into the infused righteousness of the Catholic church through sacraments.

And they're, they're not letting that barrier get in their way between them and Jesus. I do believe there are people in the Catholic church who perhaps are some of them that could be immature. There, some of them could be, you know, new, new converts figuring this out.

I, I am open to that idea. But generally Presbyterians, Protestants in general, who are Orthodox, they're not going to come out. And, and, and really take someone who's Roman Catholic and incorporate them into the tent of Christian Orthodoxy and just act like there's really no difference there.

Cause there certainly is a difference between what a Presbyterian, an Orthodox Presbyterian would think of as true Christianity and what Catholic following Roman Catholic doctrine would think of as true Christianity.

It's amazing. This is a very ecumenical type statement from Tim Keller. So I, I don't want to complete this analysis without at least pointing that out that there's also, so not only is there this double standard of granting grace for someone who's really not sharing much that that earth shattering, not only is there, while not sharing, you know, showing grace to people who have really tried to hold the biblical line on things like marriage and abortion, not only is there that, and also this really warped understanding of what a public witness should be as far as brilliance and making sure that you're communicating in a form that the culture can handle, making the culture be your, determine your messaging, but there's also an ecumenical strain in this whole thing.

You know, Stephen Colbert, he's on our side. He's doing the work that we should all be doing. We need to support men like him. I almost feel the echoes of the Apostle Paul, support men, support men like him, you know, give, give, give men double honor who, who do really crude jokes on late night TV, but when there's a brief moment for them to show how hypocritical they are, they wow the audience and give a little bit of one basic truth that Christians believe, which is that there's an eternity without even going into the gospel or anything.

So this is just so telling and it grieves my heart because Tim Keller, you know, that I've done a lot of study on them. People who listen to this podcast know I put a lot out there on Tim Keller and I see a lot of dangerous things.

I've even seen some false teaching come from Tim Keller, but I do still have that recollection from 15 or so years ago of some of the things that he said that were very good and some of the things that did help some people and to see where he is going, to see how he's doubled down in his, his elderly years, his really his sunset years, he's, he's dying of cancer.

It is, it is beyond heartbreaking to see him double down on, on these horrible ideas that he's had over time. And some guys, they, they get off, they, Billy, Billy Graham, I think of him right now as someone who ended up kind of getting a little, little off, more than a little off towards the end of his life.

And he said things that were just non-orthodox. And there's part of me that wanted to say, you know what, he's, he's losing his mind. I, I cut him a little slack here. You know, you have, you have a ministry and I know he went farther and farther to the left the longer he was in ministry, but I don't want to take away from some of the good things that he did.

Some, I'm not saying that was all good, but you know, I can show you videos where he's preaching, he's giving you the gospel message. And, and then to see him at the end of his life saying things like with Robert Shuler, that the, that, that, that implying that there's all these multiple ways to get to Christ.

You can be in another religion and you can go to heaven. It's just, it was amazing to me. Well, Tim Keller's kind of in that stage, you know, he's, the difference to me though, is, is Tim Keller is not losing his mind as far as I know.

Uh, he, his body is, is, is going, but his mind is not. And, and this is what he's choosing to, to do for the last, his last years. He's choosing to double down on this kind of stuff. And there's so much of it.

I, there's so many Tim Keller things people send me. I just kind of let go because I'm just like, it's not important. Um, but so why even show this? Why, why show you this? I think, I think for me, it's just, it's very telling and it's, it's a confirmation for me that, you know what?

All the, the suspicions that we've had about some of Tim Keller's, frankly, some of it's false teaching, some of it's just really vague and really compromise, compromise sounding and just really, uh, disturbing.

Well, this is, this kind of stuff confirms that there's a problem there. And I think it is helpful for us to mark someone like a Keller and say, I mean, this is not someone that we, you know, I just preached in Romans 16, the end of it, I'm seeing Keller fit into that category.

This is not someone that we need to be promoting, citing. Uh, we want to be very careful. Uh, you know, if you are going to give a Tim Keller book out that has good teaching in it, you know, give a really heavy qualification about it.

This is, this is someone that does not have, I mean, talk about discernment. Um, I don't even know what to say. This is, this is stunning. You know, Stephen Colbert, you know, again, he's a man who, uh, he's a man who, who not just makes crass jokes, but very pro abortion, very pro transgender and all the evils of, of the left that the left promotes Stephen Colbert is right there and promoting it on his show.

And so I don't, is, I guess we give grace to that too. We just kind of let him operate. We let him support the murder of babies and we just, well, it's worth it because of a 32nd snippet where he says that there's such a thing as heaven.

You know, this is, this is nuts. This is nuts. This is the death of Christianity. If we make people like Colbert, the heroes, and there's so such a desperation for it. That's the thing. There's such a desperation out there for heroes, for people that are Christians who can go out there and really represent Christianity.

And I'd like to suggest, um, we already have people that do that. Some of them are small time pastors. They're street preachers. Um, some of them you might hear on the radio. There's, there's some bigger names out there.

Uh, it may not be in the future that we, you can really have a lot of Christians in some of these industries. I'm not saying not to try, but it's a very, very hard and compromising industry to get into the entertainment industry.

And it will, um, if you're public about your faith, it is not going to go well for you. And so you have to be somewhat compromised generally. I want to leave that little door open in case, you know, I, I would love to see Christians involved in Hollywood.

I just don't know that that's possible. And I say this knowing, uh, people who are involved in Hollywood and the Christians I do know tend to be more behind the scenes and, uh, so it's a, anyway, uh, let, let's just finish this off because, uh, Tim Keller has written some followups here.

Catholic Intellectual Superiority and the Evangelical Desire for Respectability

Uh, he, he retweeted Anthony Bradley who Anthony Bradley, I believe is a campus pastor at one of the, uh, church. Um, the, the Redeemer church is in New York city. And he said, it just shows how intellectually superior Catholics are at articulating their faith.

A Protestant would not have been able to do that. Anglicans could, most evangelicals would say there's no gospel in his answer. Um, and so Tim Keller's thinking this is, I guess, somewhat of an astute observation.

And this is another thing I've noticed. Uh, there is such in, in both a political conservative world and in the Christian world, evangelical world, uh, Protestant world, there is such a, uh, sometimes a jealousy or respect for Catholics.

And I am not saying you cannot learn from a Roman Catholic on anything. I'm not, I'm not saying that, um, there are, uh, things, especially, um, you know, the further back, the thing about the Catholic church is it developed over time and you have different errors coming into the church at various, at different times.

And so there's a trajectory of becoming more and more compromised over time to the point that now you have Pope Francis, the communist Pope. So, uh, you know, you go back in church history, you look at, uh, people like, uh, Thomas Aquinas, you look at Augustine, uh, some, some very pivotal figures that many of the reformers really drew upon.

In fact, there, there's this whole thing on Aquinas lately. I don't, I'm not going to get into it now, but look, a lot of, a lot of great Protestant thinkers really drew on Aquinas. There's no doubt about this.

And, and I'm not saying you can't learn from some of these people, uh, that happened to be part of the Roman Catholic church, but you know, what are we talking about here? We're talking about a comedian who makes crass jokes, supports abortion and transgenderism, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And this is a superior Catholic. This is what we aspire to. This is the superior, really the court jester is the, the superior Catholic who can articulate his faith the way Protestants can't, it's just this kind of smug kind of way, elitism, this way of looking at, honestly, ourselves.

I had a whole section in, uh, I think it was Christianity and social justice. I think it was my last book on this topic where I point this out, that there's the image that evangelicals have about themselves.

They really think of themselves. They bought the, what the newspapers have been saying since the scopes trial about them, that they're a bunch of ignoramuses, a bunch of dummies. Uh, and, and, and they're looking for that figure that, that he's going to come and show that we're not dummies that, and, and they're looking to the Catholics, there's a jealousy that the Catholics have this intellectual rigor and public witness that is, and you look, look at who you're admiring though.

This is not some theologian. This is Stephen Colbert. I almost wonder if I'm being spoofed, right? Where's the hidden camera? This is amazing to me. But Tim Keller thinks that's a, that's a really good take on the situation.

And then he says, uh, comments from the original tweet remind me that there are habits on Twitter we should reject. One, if you cite person X at all, you must answer for everything person X has ever did or said.

Well, I don't know what everyone said, but I'm not saying that about Tim Keller. I'm not saying he's got an answer for Stephen Colbert's pro-abortion rants on his show. Um, but I, I at least think that you shouldn't be saying, holding him up as an example of how to be a Christian public witness when he's supporting the killing of unborn children publicly.

Is that too much to ask? And then number two, he says, I can attribute opinions to you that you would not own. Um, I, I'm sure you can. I, but this is, these are all very beside the point. This is, this is a really pathetic response in my mind.

Um, it doesn't get at the heart of the issues here. So this is sad to me, uh, just because of where Tim Keller's at and the stage of life he's in that he's doubling down on some of the stuff, and I would just encourage you pray for Tim Keller.

Pray that he repents and that he retracts some of this stuff, uh, before it's too late, because I know his time on earth is very short. Let's read some Bible verses that I think directly address the problem with what Tim Keller's trying to do here.

One is John 15, 18 through 20. It says, if the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world because of this, the world hates you, remember that the world word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master.

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. If the goal is to try to get into the good graces of the world, to get an applause line, I'm not saying it's wrong to get an applause line.

We like human approval, but if a goal is that that's your public witness, that's the way to do it. Uh, in a way the culture can understand. So they don't really, you give them the most non-offensive, I guess, bit of your religion you can, and they clap and they don't get saved.

But the, this automatic posture of those in sin is to hate those who are going to confront that sin. The world loves its own. That's why they love Stephen Colbert. All right. He's of them. Keller's trying to recruit him to he's, he's on the side of winsome Christians who are engaging the world correctly as public witnesses.

No, he, they love him because he is, he's of them. He sank, he approves of their immoral choices, jokes about them. Uh, and, and so I don't think it's a mystery why they clap if he's got a religion, he's not confronting sin.

Uh, you got second Corinthians four, even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing in whose case, the God of the world is blind to the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

What is a way that any culture can handle Christian truth? What, what, what? No culture in sin, no people in sin has ever been able to handle truth. And I'm, when I mean truth, I'm talking about the truth of their, their condition, their sin, the truth of who God is, he's holy, a, uh, very nice therapeutic thought and quoting a novelist or something about how there's a world after this somehow.

And I mean, that's not going to offend hardly anyone start talking about the holy God and see what happens. Uh, start talking about the gospel and see what happens. There's, you know, if, if you make your standard, uh, what people can handle, you know, you're never going to get there.

People can't handle the gospel. It's a work of God that they, uh, convert in the first place to the truth. Um, Acts 26, uh, 16 through 18. Uh, I'm going to jump ahead, I think to verse 17, um, to, to, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.