Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, welcome to the podcast. So I just want to get right into it here. I'm bothered by this problem we have of weak men creating hard times. If you don't think we're in hard times, I feel sorry for you. And, you know, not to be rude or too direct, but maybe you're part of the problem. You know, there's the hard times. I'm talking about. The powers of forces that are coming against our culture are things like LGBTQ.
[00:00:26] It is a destructive movement that claims tolerance, and it's tolerant of nothing except, you know, except full acceptance.
[00:00:36] It only tolerates people who shut their mouths. I mean, you know, one of the most destructive things happening in our country today, it's moving through the marketplace, and, you know, it's the equality. You know, these equality classes. All that is. Is pressure to shut your mouth, digest the ideologies that were force feeding you. Shut your mouth or else. You know, I look at our schools. Our schools are running basically run by puppets. Most of our public schools across this country are just puppets who are. Who are just trained to get their little government handouts, you know, their government money. I mean, dude, my kid is in public school, and it's not a terrible place, but it's. It's run by not the best group of leaders and the attendance. My daughter is an honor roll student, and she hasn't had the best attendance because we pull her out, we do things. We travel as a family, whatever. She's my daughter. And then they started to threaten us about, like, if you miss another day or two, we're going to take action on you. I mean, it's just absurd. It's, like, why they do that? Because their motivation is, every kid that comes to school, they make a certain amount of money per day from the federal government. So I don't know if that they really care about my kid being there as much as they care about getting that. That money from the federal government. So they put these bully tactics in place, and I get it. Some kids might come from bad families that might need that motivation. But anyway, I think you hear what I'm saying. So we're just. I'm tired of, like, looking around and saying, weak, weak leaders, weak leadership in the marketplace. LGBTQ has run rampant, right? That. That messaging doesn't belong in the marketplace. Sexual messaging doesn't belong in the marketplace. And so you've got these big, massive companies and corporations caving to the pressure of giving in or being canceled in this whole cancel culture. So I guess the point I'm making is like, when are we going to wake up? You know who has some of the worst leaders in our entire country is the church culture, the church landscape. The gospel was never meant to motivate you. The gospel was meant to transform your life. The gospel is not meant to, like, be this cool, inspirational thing. It's meant to actually help you lead a life of victory and that the Bible calls you to things like destroying your flesh, killing off the sinful nature, and it doesn't care about how you feel. I mean, yes, God loves you 100%. I mean, 100%.
[00:03:05] His grace is. There's, I like to say this way, his mercies are new every morning. Grace, I look at Grace during different than most people, because Grace is, to me, is about being trained to live in righteousness. Grace is there. Out of the book of Titus, it talks about grace training us to conquer the flesh, to overcome worldly passions, and to renounce ungodliness, those types of things, and to live self controlled, upright, and godly lives. So am I perfect? No. I'm not sitting here touting off like I've got it all together, but I do want to talk.
[00:03:37] Weak men create hard times. We're in hard times.
[00:03:40] We're in really hard times. And I like to. There's a movie out, a book out, letters to the american church by Eric Metaxas. I would encourage you to read the book or go, go watch the movie. You know, I love his writings about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And I believe the same scenario and setup is for us. We're in the same type of scenario and setup where our schools already have, you know, the Hitler youth program installed through political correctness. That's another one of the stupidest things that they've ever designed. But it's a force. It's a force, and it's a. It's made to destroy and it's made to. It's basically be quiet or else that that's what it is. And it's training a culture, it's training the youth to have this passive, I guess that's just the way it is, mindset, and they go along with it. And so I guess this podcast is more of an alarm. I'm trying to sound an alarm. I mean, guys, we've got to step up, we've got to speak out. And we definitely want to do that in a God honoring way. There's a way to do it in a God honoring way. I mean, it's just about being mean or rude, but it's about being firm and taking a stand I love the concept of liberty. It's one of our values. Honor, affection, liberty, war, and valor. And liberty is a. A value of mine that I want to continue to grow in until I pass from this world. But liberty is about Christ.
[00:05:08] It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. It's for freedom, for liberty. Christ came. I mean, think about this. God himself had to deal with sin, the captivity, the captive power. The captive power that sin brings into a person's life. When we agree with sin breaking away. One of my spiritual mentors, Cliff Payne, who's been on our podcast multiple times, he wrote this amazing article. I need to get it on our website so you guys can download it. He gave it to me to use whatever I wanted, and it's amazing. Just a short four page article on salvation. But in there, he uses this analogy of our cell phones, and it's an easy analogy for us to get right away. So, like, if, you know, when our cell phones are plugged in, when they're plugged into a source of power, they essentially could run forever. I mean, obviously, we know they won't, but, you know, that's the metaphor, that it could actually run forever.
[00:06:03] But as soon as that plug comes out of that phone, it begins to die. It immediately begins to die. This phone I'm recording on right now is dying.
[00:06:14] And that's how it is when sin came into the world, you know, when God told Adam and Eve, if you eat of the tree, you can't eat of the tree of good and evil. I mean, they already knew what good was, right? But they had to, to go find out what evil was. And as soon as they did that, that's when that death that God talked about entered their lives. Surely you will die. They begin to die. They became unconnected from the source, the source of life. So liberty. It's for freedom. It's for liberty. Christ came to liberate us from the powers of sin so we wouldn't be captive to the sinful nature and to the flesh.
[00:06:44] So we have this next phase, this next part of, like, Galatians five. One says, stand firm, then.
[00:06:53] And I look at the land in which you live, the constitutional land, the constitution of the United States of America. And I look at that as like a gift from God. And if it was actually functioning the way the founding fathers installed it, we would actually have a land of liberty. We no longer have a land of liberty. We have a circus in the White House, and we have just a pure mad. There's just madness, madness across the land. Chicago. I live about an hour off from Chicago. Chicago is.
[00:07:19] I've heard, I've seen reports it's on the brink of war. I mean, it is absolutely terrible. There's a bird just loving my podcast right now.
[00:07:28] We'll just let them enjoy it anyway. Stand firm. Then what are we doing to stand? What are we doing to stand firm? What are we doing to love culture but to push back?
[00:07:41] There are more of us that need to speak up. If, literally, if 5 million believers would just step up and show up, this would all change. Now, I'm not looking for the world to go back to the way it was. I'm okay with us being on the timeframe of this world drawing nigh, and maybe the end of the age is coming near. I'm okay with that, too. But what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to sit back and be lazy and use those things as an excuse to be a coward. I'm not going to do those things. I love liberty, and I'm going to stand for liberty. I'm going to stand firm for the liberty that comes from Christ.
[00:08:17] I'm not trying to mix up, like, constitutional liberty and like, the liberty of Christ and mix them all together. I think they overlap in a lot of ways, but nothing compares to the liberty that Christ offers. But this land in which we live, it needs men to stand up. It needs men to be alarmed, alerted, awakened, to stand into our rightful places. And you know, the next part of that verse says, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. So we got to look at our personal lives. And the first place, you know, if God, if Jesus came to destroy the works of evil, if he came to destroy darkness. And think about this, guys, God hates sin. I mean, you might know that in your mind, but do you know that in your daily lives and your daily habits, does your heart pulse with conviction and sensitivity as a set apart person devoted to holy things? We're a covenant people devoted to holiness.
[00:09:15] God wants to use you in a mighty way, but he only uses holy vessels. He wants you to be striving and working towards holiness. Now, your works don't accomplish holiness. Only the works of the cross do. But we've got to apply the cross to our lives. The Bible is very clear that we have to put to death a sinful nature.
[00:09:33] So how seriously are you taking that today? How serious are you about destroying the works of evil in your own life? How serious are you about never submitting again to a yoke of slavery? I mean, man, I'm not perfect in this area, right? I get it. I'm not perfect. I struggle with stuff. But you know what? I've been thinking about this lately. Maybe I want to look at it this way. When Jesus says the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, I want to look at that like, I just want to look at it like the flesh is weak. That doesn't mean, oh, I'm so weak, I can't do this righteous life. I don't want to look at it like that. I think that's the.
[00:10:09] I think that's a weak man mindset. And I had it until just a few days ago. But I think I've been thinking about this and I'm like, you know what?
[00:10:18] I think what Christ might be saying, I need to study into this, right? I mean, but I want to look at it different. I want to look at it like he's telling me, the flesh is weak, it has no strength, it's weak. The spirit of God is willing. The spirit of God is able. I mean, guys, Satan is so weak. The Bible says that if you draw near to God, that's very key. Draw near to God, it resists the devil, so he flees from you. That's how much power we have. That's how much power we have in Christ. That's how much power we have to overcome this world and overcome temptations.
[00:10:51] So that's it. I'm done ranting. I just. I want this to be an alarm. What are you doing to honor liberty?
[00:11:01] How are we being responsible citizens? Are we walking in the responsibility of liberty? I mean, the Bible calls us to that, right? Stand firm. Don't submit again to yoke of slavery. And so that means the liberty that's been given to us in Christ and the liberty that's given to us in this constitution, not cheap, it is worth much.
[00:11:22] It is paid in blood.
[00:11:25] And as citizens of the kingdom and of this country, we have to walk diligently in the ways of liberty. So I appeal to you, crush sin, get some men in your life that are on fire for God.
[00:11:43] That's what we need. I mean, we need a 5 million believers, we need 10 million believers to stand in this hour with fire. And, you know, I think God's moving in this country in a powerful way. I mean, we hear stories of baptisms breaking out and revivals, if you want to use that word, that breaking out across campuses and across the earth. But remember this, guys, God called us to make disciples. We have to have zeal for his kingdom. I love the book of Hebrews where it says, jesus brought many sons to glory. I want that to be like one of my life missions is to bring many sons and daughters to the glory of his kingdom. So graceops is a culture designed for you to tap into in a strategic way to use the content to make disciples, to open up biblical bible based conversations with knucklehead dudes in your own backyards, around your own bonfires and barbecue pits.
[00:12:42] However you hang, you know, whatever you do to hang with the guys, add the element of a holy focus. Put a holy focus in there.
[00:12:52] I mean, that's where I'm going.
[00:12:54] I'm going to start fasting three days a month. I want to press into the things of God. If we don't take killing sin seriously, we become carnal. We become carnal. The church at large has become carnal.
[00:13:10] It's of, I think, some of the weakest men and even women that I've ever come across as far as like a biblical, you know, as far as when you look at weak, weak men create hard times. The church has created these hard times. The church is responsible most for these hard times.
[00:13:27] The church has watered down the gospel at large. If you're watering down the gospel to grow a church, what you're doing is what Jesus said to the Pharisees. You're actually creating twice the sons of hell that you are. Because if you're not able to stand against the forces that are devouring, and I am absolutely. Oh, I'm just so fed up with the, being accused of being a nationalist, all this kind of stuff because I happen to love the constitution or, or like, I like it a lot. So there's so many churches out there. Well, we're just supposed to be about the kingdom, but ignore evil.
[00:14:10] Isn't that what they did in 1930? Germany ignored the pressures, the forces that were devouring and tearing and destroying and just went about their kingdom business.
[00:14:23] I'm sorry, but I don't read the Bible that way. The Bible says everywhere my foot treads, that's where the kingdom of God should go. And there is a battle not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual entities, spiritual rulers and powers and principalities. So I want to fight those. I want to be a valiant warrior in this earth and fight those things. I want to bring men with me. I want to build men till I pass. I want you to do the same thing. That's why I do this stuff. This is hard work, guys. Grace office isn't some easy little thing. It hasn't been easy from day one. Hasn't been easy from year one. I mean, it's hard work. It's like. It's literally pushing a rock uphill. So if you're hearing me today, man, get involved, get connected, become a partner. Help me go full time in this thing, right? Like, I mean, don't just sit back and be like, yeah, good work, bro. You know? Like, put some. Put some sweat equity into this thing with me. Call me, get ahold of me. Set up a phone. Call with me, man. I'll activate you where you are, and I'll you and help you and empower you the best I possibly can. I'm here. That's what I want to do. So, anyway, I'm done ranting.
[00:15:30] The good thing about hard times is it does create strong men.
