Something Demonic is Happening at These Megachurches…

The Limits of a Merely Pro-Life Witness

I have so much empathy and understanding for followers of Jesus who would say, I believe that life begins at conception, and I believe that stopping an abortion is saving a life. That's a very—saving a life is a very valid cause, but that's not the only life that we're called to save.

If you're pro-life, there's a lot of life.

They are more offended by you being less than kind in a debate about abortion than they are about babies being slaughtered in the womb. And ironically, they will be less than kind toward you about being less than kind on the issue of abortion, and will feel completely justified in their attack on you because you violated the 11th commandment, which is far more grievous than violating the 6th.

Do you see that? It's crazy how this happens.

I don't know, Judah. I think some of it is God gave you, you know, your personality. I was always in my baby pictures, I'm smiling, you know, my smallest baby pictures. But I think a lot of it is just, you know, you just—I just, to me, I've just seen the positive in life, to see that making the choice to see the good, because I think there's good and bad in almost every situation, and I think it's what we choose to see.

Megachurch Cheerfulness and the Fear of Offense

What we just saw from Chelsea Smith, Judah Smith, and Joel Osteen is characteristic of most Christians today. We are so afraid of saying anything offensive that they either end up caving to talking points that are very unbiblical, or they don't ever say anything offensive at all.

Of course, this means that they essentially never defend the parts of the Bible that the culture.

Finds offensive. When we talk about defending the faith, a lot of times people get upset about defending the faith. We get upset, we don't like the idea of apologetics, we don't like the idea of, you know, us claiming to be right and assuming that other people are wrong, and so on.

And so forth. This is why pastors like Chad Veach of Zoe Church, where Chris Pratt attends, has a glowing article by the New York Times about him, saying, Mr. Veach believes he can save souls by being the hip and happy-go-lucky preacher, the one you want to share a bowl of acai with at Backyard Bowls on Beverly Boulevard, who declines to publicly discuss politics in the Trump era because it's hard to minister if no one wants to come to church.

Jesus is supposed to be fun, right? This is why pastors like Joel Osteen get invited to so many nationally televised interviews with people like Larry King, Piers Morgan, and Soledad O 'Brien. Great pleasure.

Welcome to Larry.

King. Now an old friend, frequent guest with us on our previous show, Joel Osteen. Do you know how.

Much you're worth? Uh, I never dwell on it. I never even dwell on it. But can we dwell on it now?

I wouldn't know the figures. I'm gonna try it for a week. I won't give it 31 days, but I'll do seven and we'll see how it goes. Thank you for joining us. The book is called I Declare 31 Promises to.

Speak Over Your Life. And we know Osteen is confronted during these interviews with difficult questions. He tries to say what he's supposed to say, but he says it apologetically with an enormous.

Number of qualifiers. Part of my, if you want to call it success, is I've stayed in my lane and my.

Lane is lifting people's spirits. You say here also in that spirit of inclusiveness, it doesn't matter who likes you or who doesn't like you. I like that. All that matters is God likes you. He accepts you.

He approves of you. Is that true for every, is that true for homosexuals? Absolutely.

I believe that God's breathed his life into every single person. We're all on a journey. Nobody's perfect. You know, you, you know, the Bible says that sin is a sin is pride. A sin is selfish ambition.

I mean, there's a lot, we tend to pick out these certain things, but I believe every person's made in the image of God, you know, and you got to accept them as they are, as they're on.

Their journey. And as we saw earlier with Chelsea Smith, co-pastor of the megachurch Church Home, where Justin Bieber attends, she was unwilling to simply call abortion sin, but rather even made the unbelievable statement that she has empathy for pro-life women.

I have so much empathy and.

Understanding for followers of Jesus who would say, I believe that life begins at conception.

Boldly Naming Sin and the Need for Repentance

This is an unwillingness among Christians to unashamedly state what the Bible clearly teaches.

We have a problem with that, but then we also have a problem and probably more of a problem with the idea of engaging forcefully in a disagreement over ideology. Because what I like to call the, the 11th commandment, the 11th commandment is thou shalt be nice.

And we don't believe the other 10, right? Of course, there are Christians who boldly speak truth to the culture concerning the evil of ending pre-born life. We've raised up about 900.

Local churches across the country that go to abortion mills to preach the gospel, to offer help and hope and love to mothers and fathers going in, and to even adopt the children if they'll let us. And we've saved thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children from death.

And you can.

Prevent that here. But many Christians today, especially those in the megachurch camp, want nothing to do with pastors like these. And not only that, oftentimes they will even attack and criticize pastors like these for being too unloving.

And so there are Christians.

Who, if they see you engaging forcefully on an issue, let's say abortion, for example, you're engaged in a debate about abortion. And let's say that in your advocacy of a pro-life position, you are less than kind.

There are Christians, especially millennials, and I'm not trying to pick on millennials, but you know who you are. Especially millennials, they are more offended by you being less than kind in a debate about abortion than they are about babies being slaughtered in the womb.

And ironically, they will be less than kind toward you about being less than kind on the issue of abortion, and will feel completely justified in their attack on you because you violated the 11th commandment, which is far more grievous.

Than violating the 6th. But it doesn't end there. There are many Christians who will even argue that pastors who forcefully engage with the culture on controversial issues are actually the source.

Of these problems. And in another way that this manifests itself is, you know, abortion, homosexuality, whatever. What you often see is people will come at you, you're engaging on these issues. And they'll say, the reason that we have all these problems is because of people like you.

Because if we were more loving. When Chelsea Smith says that.

Pre-born lives are not the only lives we are called to save, and that there is a lot of life we are called to save, she is repeating the left-wing talking point that the reason so many abortions are happening is because pro-life people aren't caring about babies who actually are being born.

Oh, okay. So the problem is not sodomy. And as we saw from the New York Times article on Judith Smith, pastors like Smith think that confronting the culture is counterproductive. He wants Jesus to be fun and not offensive, rather than someone who confronts the culture with its.

Sin and need for repentance. Our disposition is that we just, we don't want to engage in these battles. In fact, we don't even like the word battle. We don't like war language. We're Christians. We should not be engaging in battles with people.

We should be loving people.

Spiritual War, the Gospel, and the Power of God

What we as Christians need to remember is that we are in the middle of a war between God and the ideologies of the world. And that in order to call people out of the world, we need to boldly and unashamedly expose the sin that exists in the world.

We're not at war with people. I'm not at.

War with Robin DiAngelo or Ibram Kendi. I'm not at war with Christians who have adopted their ideology. I'm not at war with those people. I'm at war with those ideas that stand in.

Opposition to the truth of the gospel. And when we engage with the culture in the way the Bible commands us to, rather than in the way the world wants us to, then we will see the real power of.

God in changing hearts and lives. And Paul says our weapons are so mighty that they can do in an instant what it takes man weeks, months, or years to accomplish. There wasn't a weapon known to man.

That could do what Paul just said. So instead of compromising to please the culture and thus undermine the power of the gospel, we should speak in a way that fits with the fact that we're in a spiritual war, which Vodie explains more about here.

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