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What's real and what's not real? That question is becoming really important—even around the Christmas holidays. What's real and what's not real? There's so many things going on out there that is causing people to stumble or be manipulated. Not necessarily in their Christian life, but just in our country, just the way the news media does things and the way certain personalities do things. It's incredible. And then we lose sight of a lot of the good things or needed things that we need to be focused on, especially some of the bad things that we might want to pray about.
There are a lot of controversies out there. Some of them are just mind-numbingly stupid, and other ones we really should pay attention to. There's so much stuff swirling around, and it is hard to tell what's real, what's not. So it's a really good reminder for us to take a step back. What are we focusing on? Are we letting media tell us what we're supposed to get all riled up about? Are we really focused on what's important?
Gramster Rant: The Candace Owens Problem
Take the Candace Owens thing that everybody's talking about. In the words of the Grinch: stupid, stupid, stupid.
Here's the deal. Ben Shapiro fired her. Turning Point USA turned their back on her. She is a manipulative person who is really causing a lot of problems. She talks out of both sides of her mouth. She has no evidence about anything, and she's doing it purely for the clicks.
We watched Mark Driscoll go through something similar. Back in the day, he had some pretty firm, good teachings—especially for men to rise up and be strong in the Lord. Then he got full of himself, and that desire for significance has carried over for the last decade in Mark Driscoll's ministry. It culminated about a year or so ago when he had that little made-up controversy about "the spirit of Jezebel has been here," and then the pastor comes in with "you're off the platform." The whole thing was rigged. The whole thing was planned. The whole thing was so that both of them could elevate their platform and sell books and draw attention to themselves.
Everything Candace Owens is doing right now is to try to line her pockets because nobody wants to work with her in the conservative space. She has shown herself to be an absolute charlatan.
What makes this particularly concerning is the methodology. Even if—let's just say—she comes forward and outlines all the evidence of the conspiracy theory. Even if she does that, the way she went about it shows she's not sound. She's not playing in reality. She's playing on manipulation. She's actually doing something that I consider to be satanic. And what I mean is this is what Satan does. It's how he operates.
"Did God really say? Did he really mean that? Is that how we're really supposed to go back to the garden?" Playing with words and using your virtue against you.
She has said, "I've got evidence and I'm bringing it tomorrow. I've got evidence and I'm bringing it next week." Tomorrow and next week come—she has no evidence. "I'll meet you anywhere, any place. Name the day and time." All right, we're going to give you a couple weeks' notice—December 15th. "I can't. I'm homeschooling that day. That's the hour I do my podcast."
She has just pulled the curtain back, and we've all seen that it's pretty sorry behind the curtain with Candace.
None of it's real. There's nothing tangible. There's nothing tactile. There's no proof. It's not real. It's words. Someone's playing around with words.
The sad part is there's lots of incredible stories that are very real going on out there that we should be paying attention to instead. We'll get into that in a future show—not making it so much about Candace, but more about this is how Satan operates and this is how people manipulate. We can break it down point by point. But just not right now. It's Christmas.
A Story That IS Real: Samaritan's Purse Hijacking
One story that IS real—I don't even know if you heard of it—was that one of the airplanes of Samaritan's Purse was hijacked in South Sudan.
This is an incredible story. Ten years ago? Front page for two days. Now we barely even hear about it. Barely a blip on the screen. I had to search for it because it's not being pushed on any social media platforms. It's not being talked about by any news outlets. And that tells you everything you really need to know.
It was a small King Air plane. These planes that they have are not big because the runways are not big enough. They're small dirt runways. So they're moving medical supplies in South Sudan, and this plane is going to take off. Someone had stowed away in the back of the plane, and once it took off, they came forward and said, "You're taking me to Chad"—which is another country. You don't get to necessarily just fly willy-nilly into different countries.
There was an airline pilot and then one other Samaritan's Purse staffer on board. So here's another thing—now we've got two witnesses. We got two witnesses who are testifying to what actually happened. Now you have some evidence. Now you have something concrete. Biblical even.
The pilot was trying to convince the hijacker, "You don't have to do this," trying to talk him out of doing it. It was not working. The guy was threatening to kill him. And finally the pilot thought to himself: The only thing I can do is share the love of God.
So he started talking to him about how God does love you. They flew around for a little while. They did not leave South Sudan. Eventually the pilot said, "I have to stop and get gas"—you only go so far in those little planes. They had to land because they were out of gas at that point. The hijacker was taken into custody.
It ended well. It ended as good as it possibly could. And that just goes to show where even in a hostile environment, sharing the love of God can turn the tide and make such a huge difference.
We're not seeing that in all these things where people are just throwing out these conspiracies and there's no evidence. No, they're trying to cause division using something that's not real. The Christian's life is to bring unity through something that is real—and that is the love of God through Christ Jesus.
Good Ground Ministry
Samaritan's Purse is one of those organizations that I always pray never turns south. What any organization was 10 years ago, 5 years ago, is not what it necessarily is today. That's any place. Fresh Road Media is a two-and-a-half-year-old nonprofit 501c3, and it's nowhere near what it was when it first started. Organizations are like an organic thing—constantly moving.
Having said that to protect myself: I am a huge fan and supporter of Samaritan's Purse, and partly because I've seen them behind the scenes. I have seen others behind the scenes that I would encourage people to never give a dime to and to run as far as they can from. But this one? Samaritan's Purse is really good.
We were out in Alaska, and there's a place called Port Alsworth on Lake Clark. You can look it up on the map. This is a little place—a retreat center for all the pastors and missionaries that are out there. They come here a couple times a year. There was a group called Arctic Barnabas—they were the encouragers that went around and encouraged a lot of these pastors.
When you're doing village ministry in rural Alaska, you are in a village with a couple hundred people and there's no roads in or out. You're just there in that two-and-a-half-mile square village unless you fly a small plane to another village. So guess what? The pastor is the counselor. The pastor is the police officer. The pastor is the mortician. When somebody dies, the pastor—I mean, it's very intense ministry work.
Out in these Alaskan villages, they have in a collective the highest alcohol, sexual abuse, drug abuse per capita—and suicide—in the world. February and early March is what's known as suicide season. So these pastors need a break, and when they do, they go to Lake Clark.
They had a lot of buildings that were run down. Franklin Graham had built a retreat on the other side of Lake Clark. They said, "Franklin, come over here and look at this." They showed him around and asked, "Do you see us doing ministry here all the time? Do you think Samaritan's Purse would write us a check so we can do some stuff?"
Franklin said, "No, absolutely not. I'm not going to write you a check. But here's what I will do. I will bring all the materials in. I'll bring my people in. We'll build it, and we will just dedicate it and leave it in the hands of Port Alsworth. We don't want any credit. We don't want any recognition. We just want to build this nice facility."
We got there in 2003, and this thing was being dedicated the weekend we showed up. It was an amazing, amazing upgrade for that area.
That's what Samaritan's Purse does. Why are they in Sudan? Christians are being slaughtered there. We're all supposed to be leaving Sudan. No—they're going in with medicine.
Do you see what I'm saying? Some are worthy good-ground ministries. They take care of needs. They love people. Are they perfect? No. But the Christmas box thing—there's churches all over America doing it. I think that's an awesome outreach.
I love how they work through the local church. That's what they do. They don't come in like, "We're this ministry and we're going to save everybody." No, they work with the people who are on the ground and help them do what they're called to do. They work through the church. Disaster relief. A lot of the really wealthy people in America have funded it, so they're very well funded.
And it really emphasizes the danger that these missionaries and people sharing the gospel globally really do face. They really do face danger.
Always take care of your local church. That is really what God's calling is on you. But above and beyond that, in your year-end giving, look for good-ground ministries that you can put some investment in. There's a big difference between Samaritan's Purse and another ministry—I don't want to call them out by name, so we'll just call them World Vision. Find a good-ground ministry to plant the seed in and to continue to be faithful. But always take care of your local church first.
And then find a way to help people around you as well, because that's what we are called to do.
Weird and Wacky Christmas Traditions from Around the World
It is the holiday season, and there's nothing more wonderful than celebrating that and looking forward to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So let's look at some weird, wacky Christmas traditions from around the world. Are they real? Are they not? They're really, really fun.
Santa Surfing – California, USA
We're going to start right here in the United States because there is kind of a little phenomenon going on that's becoming popular. It's catching on and becoming a tradition. It's called Santa Surfing, and it goes on in California around the LA area.
Late December is not surfing season in California—it's too cold for the locals. But there's this phenomenon that happens pretty consistently, kind of like the January thaw in the north. They have this Christmas heat spike right around Christmas day. The temperatures will spike up to around 70, and people can tolerate the surfing weather.
So what they do on Christmas is grab their surfboards, put on their Santa suits, and go out and surf. This has become a tradition for a lot of the locals: "Let's just spend a little time on Christmas. We'll go out to the beach and let's see if we can spot a surfing Santa."
Sometimes it's like, "I hope we see one"—you kind of want to catch one. Other times there's like a lot of them. I think it depends on the temperature, obviously. You have to have a passion for both surfing and Santa for it to work for you. The Christian band Switchfoot—that's a surfing term, and they are surfing dudes. That's where that whole band name comes from. They're the only ones I know that surf, and I know there's been other people that have gone out surfing with Switchfoot. I don't know if it's on Christmas or not.
What a fun thing to do! You kind of want to get out and get some fresh air and give your legs some exercise after all the feasting and celebrating. Gnarly waves! Ho ho ho! On Dancer! On Prancer!
KFC Christmas – Japan
For some reason—and this is fascinating—Japanese people all descend on Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. There's lines, there's reservations, people are making orders and they're stressed: "Am I going to get mine?" To get your Christmas KFC is like mandatory, just like we want to have our Thanksgiving turkey.
KFC opened in Japan in 1970. How it started was the foreigners who lived over there, when the holidays would come around, they missed the turkey. Turkey's in very short supply in that region of the world. So the owner-marketer of KFC had a great idea: Let's market a Christmas KFC dinner.
You got your chicken, you got your sides, and then they'd actually put a little Christmas cake with it—probably strawberry shortcake, because that's kind of a thing over in those Asian countries for Christians and those who celebrate Christmas. Strawberry shortcake particularly is a thing.
The people who missed the traditions of home started going, making that what they would do just to bring back a little semblance of home during the holidays. It just grabbed on and exploded. Locals did the same thing. Now KFC is a huge part of the Christmas celebration in Japan, and Christmas Day is consistently the busiest day of the year for KFC. They have delivery and reservations and everything.
13 Yule Lads and the Christmas Book Flood – Iceland
We have the 12 days of Christmas. Iceland actually celebrates formally 13 days of Christmas. They have what are called 13 Yule Lads—mythical creatures, like young boys who go and do work how we would think of elves. You don't go down to the Yule Lad store and apply to be the Yule Lad for the holiday season—but I bet there are positions for people that want to play Yule Lads, like the way people would play elves or Santa.
What the children do in Iceland is take their little winter boots—and they're so cute—and set them by a window. Then in the middle of the night, the Yule Lads come. If you've been a good little boy or girl, they do this for 13 nights in a row—you get like a little candy or something in your boots in the morning.
So then you reach into that smelly boot and pull out that unwrapped candy cane. Merry Christmas! But hey, it's no different than stockings.
If you've been a bad child—because we always have to make room for that—they put a rotten potato in your boot. For 13 days in a row. If I got 11 rotten potatoes, I'd be like, "Man, maybe my luck's going to change." Oh, there's the tater.
We thought coal was a bad gift—I would take that over a rotten potato. On Halloween, Charlie Brown's going to get a rock. I don't know.
Iceland also has Jólabókaflóð. Literally translated, it means "Christmas Book Flood." On Christmas Eve, the gifts that are given are books—Christmas books. Specifically, they spend the rest of the evening reading their books, talking about it, and drinking cocoa in front of a fire.
That sounds like a fun little thing! That sounds awesome!
This began in World War II. Those countries kind of tried to remain real neutral—too cold to fight, let's just stay inside and have a Jólabókaflóð. When most of the world was rationing everything—including paper—Iceland did not get in on that. They were just like, "Whatever. We're doing our Christmas Book Flood."
The reason behind it was: "Hey, we're going to give you this book because there's a lot of people around the world who couldn't have this this year." It was a thanksgiving thing. And that became a tradition that remains to this day.
The Almond Hunt and Family Sauna – Finland
Traditionally, some of the food they eat in Finland is this rice cream pudding topped with cinnamon and milk. Love that stuff. My dad used to make that for us in the winter, like on Saturday mornings—just a rice pudding hot breakfast, and it was so wonderful.
What they do on Christmas in Finland is hide an almond in one of the servings, and then whoever finds the almond in their serving—they're like the winner. I don't know what they win, but it's just a thing. It could have just been bragging rights. They get the big bath towel while everybody else has hand towels. I think that's up to each individual family.
There is another thing they do at the end of the day, Christmas day. It's customary for the whole family to go together and warm up in the sauna. That's a Christmas tradition—going to the sauna.
Everybody in Finland owns a sauna just like most Americans own a garage, pretty much. That's what I've been told. Wherever you're gathering for the holidays, that's who you're saunaing with at the end of the day.
Now, I wouldn't want to do that with my uncle Phil and aunt Shirley. Like, no thank you. But saunas are so part of the culture that nobody thinks anything of it in Finland. I know that from some of the Finnish hockey players in the NHL—when they do the little stories of them going home in the summertime, it's a very common thing.
Cold cultures embrace saunas—in Alaska, it's a very common thing too to have saunas. We kind of have something in America, especially in rural America. A lot of us have campfires, and I would compare the campfire on par with the Finnish sauna—how we want to have campfires at night, they want to do saunas at night. That's just the different cultures.
But there's two different effects: when you have a campfire, you get dirty. When you have a sauna, that's actually a clean thing. They're very popular in the northern regions because you can sauna every day instead of taking a bath or shower where you're just soaking wet and it's very cold. It's not as fun as going into a sauna and kind of cleaning and purging yourself.
Midnight Mass and Fireworks – Brazil and Portugal
Brazil and Portugal share a lot of traditions. This one's not really weird or wacky, but they hold a midnight mass, which is very, very common. Both countries are very, very Catholic.
After the mass, everybody gathers at the square. The church is at the center of town. That's where everybody meets. That's the social gathering place. Portugal's next to Spain, and we walked across Spain—every town you walk through, like 99% of them, the church was at the highest point of town and right in the center of town. The town was built around the church. The church is the hub of culture in a lot of these places.
So they have their midnight mass, and then what do they do? They go out and enjoy a fireworks display. Christmas fireworks! In the winter! I think that's pretty cool.
I still want to do fireworks on the 4th of July because it's a totally different feel. But when we were in Alaska, that's what we did to celebrate New Year's—because Fourth of July in Alaska, the sun's up. You can't do fireworks. Fireworks don't work on the Fourth.
So we would do fireworks down on the beach on New Year's Eve because it was very, very dark then. The fireworks would start at 3:00 in the afternoon. Pitch dark at 3:00 in the afternoon from 3 to 6. We're like a retirement community! Much better timing honestly for the kids.
I like explosives during a celebration. I don't know what it is. They're beautiful. I love them. It's what the Founding Fathers would want. They did.
Ceiling Tests and Spider Decorations – Ukraine
Orthodox Christians in Ukraine actually make up almost 50% of the population. It's a bigger thing in that country. They observe Christmas Day on January 7th, not December 25th like we do.
They have this dish they make called kutya—it's like a bread pudding type thing made out of wheat mixed with honey and sweet stuff, a cakey thing. They cook it, and then when they think it's done, they take a handful of it and throw it on the ceiling. If it sticks, that's a good thing—you're going to have a good harvest that year.
So that's kind of strange. Who cleans the ceiling when this tradition is done? I don't know. There's got to be something.
But another odd thing that's part of Ukrainian Christmas is spiders and spiderwebs. They decorate with spiders and spiderwebs for the holiday season, much like what we would do for Halloween.
Well, when you leave the residue of wheat and honey on the ceiling, that's what's going to be drawn to it. Might as well celebrate it! I'm seeing a circle of life thing more than a Christmas tradition.
Spiderwebs are actually very pretty. They're beautiful. If you can see them with dew on them in the morning, they can be beautiful. Some spiders make really yucky webs that just look like they went "bleh" and puked out a web. But some are very intricate and pretty amazing.
I just don't see that part ever being a part of American Christmas.
Pastorelas and Las Posadas – Mexico
In Mexico, they put on what's called pastorelas—shepherd's plays. They retell the Christmas story, which a lot of people do throughout the world. A lot of American churches still do the Christmas plays with the kids on Christmas. Just common.
But they also have Las Posadas, a religious march where they're actually reenacting the journey that Mary and Joseph took.
I think that's kind of interesting. I like how it gets you outdoors. It gets you with a whole bunch of other people. It's very community-oriented. Up here, weather may not always be conducive for that type of thing, but I like that idea of redoing the journey of Mary and Joseph.
Also, when you think about it, poinsettias are a wonderful plant that grows wild everywhere in Mexico. That stuff is propagated and shipped up here to the north. So thanks to Mexico, poinsettias are a prominent part of Christmas celebration here in the winter lands.
Swan Pie – Tudor England
Let's go back in time to Tudor England. Royalty—they often have a thing for very lavish stuff. One of the things that King Henry VIII made popular—he was of the family of Tudor, which is why they call it Tudor England—was Swan Pie.
I always get my King Henrys mixed up because there's so many of them. A lot of times eras were kept track of by whoever was ruling. So you have Tudor England, you have Victorian England, you have the Elizabethan era—all that stuff. This goes back to Henry VIII. He started this.
They would go and hunt the swans. Swans were beautiful animals. They would bring the swan home, very carefully skin and debone it, use the meat to create a meat pie that had tons of butter in it. How is that not delicious?
Then they would take the skin and the carcass and just reassemble it, feathers and all. When everything was done and ready to be served, they would drape that swan over the pie. So you had this serving of this actual swan on your table. It was called Swan Pie.
If you're an audio-only listener, you're missing out on the picture. There's a really adorable child, a young male child, and obviously his mother. They're sitting in what appears to be a kitchen, and there's lots of dead animals lying around. But on the table there's this beautiful decorative swan sitting atop what appears to be a pie or some sort of food dish. It screams Tudor England.
It stayed very popular in England, but it was so labor-intensive that really only wealthy people had it done for them. No taxidermists were harmed in the making of this Swan Pie.
The tradition made its way to the United States too. When the pilgrims got here, even though they didn't have a lot of resources, swans were plentiful on the East Coast. So that was a thing here in the United States for a little while—until I think someone just said that's gross and they stopped doing it. It eventually died out.
Maybe the dead carcass oozing into the pie caused illness? I'm not claiming Swan Pie created the bubonic plague. I'm just saying.
You realize you have a cowhide laying in your TV room right now, right? It can be made clean, it's been treated. It's not like we took it off the slaughterhouse floor and spread it out to put the reading chair on—but somebody did. And you bought it. Fifteen years ago, I bought a cowhide. We're going to put our chair on it. It looks beautiful. It is a cool thing.
Roller Skating to Mass – Venezuela
People in Venezuela, for whatever reason—and we don't know why—began strapping on roller skates. Not ice skates, but roller skates. And they started roller skating to mass.
This is huge in Caracas. I think it depends on what your streets are like—if it's just gravel, you might not be able to do it. But if you have pretty decent streets, the city will actually close down traffic so you cannot drive through that area of the city or through that town. And everybody puts on their roller skates and they roller skate to church.
Looking at pictures, a lot of them are inline skates now. But traditions—once they take hold, they really stick.
I would love to see people roller skating to church in Iowa in the snow in December. Probably not going to happen. But in Alaska, they snowmobile or four-wheeler to church. They don't get in the family truckster and drive very often.
Traditions around the world are very, very interesting. I think all of them—except for the Swan Pie, the spiders, and the sauna—I could get into. I don't think I'd strap on a pair of roller skates at this point because, you know, bones break easier the older you get. An orthopedic surgeon who repaired a leg broken in 12 spots specifically said: "Never ski, never roller skate, never ice skate." Which is great, because I never really started.
As we get older, certain things have to go away.
Right On or Way Off?
Mike Shaw joins us once again. He's not just a Christmas tradition—he's part of the family. We just did Christmas traditions for like 45 minutes and talked about what's real and what's not real and can you focus on what's real. It was kind of fun.
Statement One
"The problem with people binding Satan in Jesus' name is that someone seems to be constantly letting him back out again."
RIGHT ON!
That whole "I'm going to bind you, Satan, and I'm going to use my spiritual authority"—you've lost touch with what the Bible actually says. We never have to actually speak to Satan at all. He's a defeated foe. Our Lord and Savior takes care of him.
To say, "Get behind me, Satan." To say, "You're not going to win today, Satan." I don't have a problem with those things because you're in the mode of giving it over to Jesus when you do that. But understand how insignificant we are. It's all about the Savior.
When he redeems us and saves us, we don't have to worry or even talk to Satan ever again. When we have that victory, when we get to the other side and we have that victory crown given to us—or some of us get a couple different crowns—we throw them at Jesus' feet. Why do you think that is? Because HE'S the one who defeated evil. He defeated Satan. He defeated death, hell, and the grave. And he gives it to us as a free gift.
People, I think, think too much of themselves. "I'm going to bind you, Satan. I'm going to be a spiritual warrior." No—the spiritual warfare has already been done. We rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
If you're going to bind Satan, do it once and for all, would you? Actually, Jesus already did. That's why we celebrate.
If you want to do spiritual battle, there's some really good advice from Paul in Ephesians chapter 6. Put on the whole armor of God. He goes through each piece of armor and its significance. I love the shield so that you can block the fiery darts of Satan that bring the doubt into your mind. That helmet of salvation—remember who you are in Christ. You are his and you are his forever, and nothing will ever change that.
Now you live in a fallen world and bad things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to bad people. It's just part of life. I would rather walk through it with Jesus—me positionally in him so that I'm going to be with him forever. And forever starts the minute you accept him as your Lord and Savior. I would rather do that than the other, because I tried the other and it didn't work. It's not very fun.
The big thing I love about Ephesians chapter 6 and the full armor of God is how we attack. How do we attack in that? There's one offensive weapon. It's the sword of the Word of God. Stand firm. That's how we attack. We don't attack—we stand firm.
When you have folks out there who want to "bind you in the name" and "I'm speaking truth into my life"—look, there is a reality. The Bible talks about you can murmur your way into bad things. Proverbs talks about the wise person and the foolish person. But they take that truth and then they put it into their own significance.
If you chase this down and work all the way through the onion as you peel it all away, you realize at the core is selfishness. "I want to be significant. I want to be important. In control. I want to have authority. I want to have power."
The real authentic repentance, the real authentic righteousness from Christ is: I must decrease. He must increase. I'm here to make his name great. I love the idea of standing firm.
Nowhere in Scripture do we even have an example of anyone engaging in this type of activity. James 4:5-7 gives us a good picture. It says: "Or do you suppose it is of no purpose that the Scripture says"—and this goes back to Old Testament, they're referring to an Old Testament scripture—"He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us. God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you."
There's this wonderful imagery of us just being totally focused on who? Not Satan and what he's doing and where he's going and we're going to have to tell him what-for. No—we are focused completely on the Lord Jesus Christ and on God himself.
It's just like if you have a dog and you take your dog somewhere out in public. If that dog is totally focused on its master, you can let it off the leash. You can let it have a sense of freedom because it's going to obey you. It's totally focused on you. It's not going to miss anything.
God wants us totally focused on him. You can't have divided interests there. You can't be focused on Satan and dealing with Satan while you're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. It just doesn't work. It doesn't happen.
When we submit ourselves to God, the squirrels and the rabbits can run all around us. It doesn't really matter. We're not going to get distracted. We're not going to worry about chasing them out of the yard. We're not going to tell them squirrels where to go. We're going to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ, and in that way his will will be done.
We aspire to be dogs—we're actually sheep, which is even worse. But even sheep will just follow you around and do whatever you do. They're a little bit brainless. If you're walking through the grass and the little sheep is following you, and you jump over an imaginary log, that sheep will do the same thing. There's nothing there, but it will mimic what you're doing just because, "Oh, that's what my master's doing, so that's what I'll do."
Lots of parallels between the shepherd and the sheep and the way we act and relate and respond to the Master.
Statement Two
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
RIGHT ON!
All you have to do is go on X or Facebook, try to tell a universal truth, and see what kind of reaction you get.
Is that from 1984? Is that a George Orwell quote? Good memory—that should get an extra point. And here's the thing about 1984: it's not an instruction book. Stop it.
Especially the last 10 years, it's really been ramping up. "I'm this stone-cold, step-on-your-toes truth preacher." No, I'm really not. The culture has moved to where I'm just giving you the same truth I did 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago. Same truth we wrote in Bible Sidekick. Now it's coming across as stone-cold, hardcore truth speaker, step on your toes, don't care what anybody thinks of you.
In a time of deceit, the truth makes you the enemy. Some people love their delusion much more than they love the truth. Many times you'll be talking to somebody—especially the "love is love" people—and they are waiting for you to stop talking so that they can trash you. They're not listening to anything you're saying.
That's why we just proclaim—we don't debate. I am not this hard. I'm just simply proclaiming the Word of God as written, the truth that many of us have accepted for 2,000 years. And over the last 12 to 15 years, our nation has shifted to where you post a universal truth online and you'll just have the whack jobs come out of the woodwork.
We are actually seeing that today. It's off-putting, a little bit scary, and people tend to pull away and not really want to be a part of that revolutionary act. And that's exactly what it is.
But here's the thing you have to remember: it's always been that way. Think back to the prophets. Think back to Jesus. Think back to the apostles. The lives that they led, as they proclaimed truth—what happened? Tremendous pushback. Tremendous violence against them. Many of them were martyred.
Make no mistake—nothing has changed. As a culture gets deeper and deeper into the delusion, there is going to be more angst, more vitriol against when someone says something that is simply true. But that's what we as Christians are called to do. Because who is truth? Jesus Christ himself is truth.
Make no mistake: Jesus Christ is not a revolutionary. That's not—he didn't come to change the world and make the world a better place in some utopia. Not at all. He came to rescue people from this fallen world. We need to keep that straight. Even though speaking truth can become literally a revolutionary act, and we need to be prepared to stand on truth, don't misconstrue that Jesus came as a revolutionary. That's a bridge too far.
Statement Three
"Jesus was a liberator of the oppressed, not a mascot for the powerful."
WAY OFF!
That reeks of liberal patheticness, is what it does. "I'm going to be the wisest man in the room and talk about how Jesus was for the oppressed, not the powerful. He wasn't their mascot." It just sounds so off-biblical stupidity.
From Archie Bunker of the Christian world: Shut up, Meathead. That sounds like Meathead said that.
Jesus was the Son of the living God who came to earth to be the spotless Lamb of God, to take away sins, to rescue fallen sinners. All the rest of that mumbo jumbo is mumbo jumbo.
Read that first half again: "Jesus was a liberator of the oppressed." It's like, what? He came to save ALL of mankind. We're born into Adam—the sin nature. The only way out of that is to be born again into the Spirit of God.
In the Old Testament, you were saved by believing God and it was accounted to you as righteousness. In the New Testament, what you do is believe God and it's accounted to you as righteousness. Trust God and righteousness becomes a gift. It's the only way you can be in God's presence forever, because no sin can be in his presence. The only way you can do it is to be righteous. And the only way you can be righteous is to receive his gift.
And that's for the rich, for the poor, for the powerful, for the weak, for everyone who happens to be a human being. For the slave and the free.
That quote was for somebody looking at colonialism, or DEI, or critical theory, or Marxism. That's what's got written all over it when you got "oppressed" and "powerful" in the same sentence. And then you try to shoehorn Jesus in there? Because Jesus was the one who came in love to sacrifice for us.
This statement puts two people in two different classes, and that is NOT the gospel of Jesus Christ. Critical theory. Leftists try to divide and put one group of people over here and one group of people over there.
Jesus? No. You're all in the same boat. You are ALL dead in your transgressions. Whether you are influential, whether you are poor, whether you are rich, whether nobody knows your name—it doesn't matter. We're all in the same boat. The message is the same for everyone, regardless.
And not only that, but you don't have to be rich or powerful or influential in order to oppress another human being. Human beings can do that through the sheer evil that resides in their heart—unless a Savior comes and redeems that heart, removes that heart of stone, and replaces it with a heart of flesh.
Final Thoughts
It's been quite a long show, but quite a fun show. It is a variety talk show, and we just try to laugh louder, dig deeper, and live larger in the Lord Jesus Christ. So many of you have reached out and said, "Hey, I listen on my long commute or when I'm in the garden or when I'm on my computer doing graphic design"—wherever you are listening or watching this program, just know that it means a lot to us that you're a part of Fresh Road Media.
Sitting around as a group, having a good laugh, talking about some theological truths that the Bible reveals to us—that can be so strengthening for whatever we have to face. And whatever we do have to face, God is going to give us the grace that we need to go from one day to the next.
That doesn't necessarily mean what we think it's going to mean. The things that make us feel good as human beings are not the things necessarily that God is going to use to help us persevere and move through these last days. And I don't think there's really a doubt that we are moving through the last days of human history.
We proclaim, we don't debate. And the reason is that the Republican party, Trump, MAGA—that's not going to save America. That's not our salvation. America is headed towards destruction under the judgment of God because of sin. And all we can do is continue to share the gospel while there's still time. Make hay while the sun's still shining.
We're doomed? Join us while you can? No—come alongside us so that we can share the gospel while we still have time. Who knows? It really does culminate with us preparing for that second coming.
This holiday season is a time for you to once again focus on what's real. Focus on what's true. Get back into God's word. Don't waste your time with what the TV or your phone or your iPad or your computer is telling you that you need to be all riled up about today. No, no, no, no, no.
Whatever is good, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is praiseworthy—think on these things. Because this holiday season, there's a lot of those things to focus on.