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1:17
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:20
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:22
Let's get into it.
1:22
All right, guys.
1:23
We've got a special return guest on the podcast.
1:25
His name is Eric Metaxas.
1:26
He is a number one New York Times best-selling author, speaker and conservative radio show
1:30
host.
1:31
He's written biographies of Christian giants like William Wilberforce, Martin Luther,
1:35
and the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
1:36
His autobiography of Bonhoeffer is on our 100 books every modern Christian man should
1:40
read less.
1:41
But he's also written some comedy books, some children's books, and even wrote for veggie
1:44
tales back in the day.
1:45
But we had him on last year on episode 248 to talk about his book is Atheism Dead, which
1:49
is basically a masterclass on apologetics and kind of looking at different things in
1:53
terms of how atheism frames it versus what it is in reality.
1:56
But today we're having him on to talk about a new book that is out.
1:59
It came out like by the time you're listening to this, it came out in the last week.
2:02
It's called Letter to the American Church.
2:04
And so this is an important book.
2:06
It's the shortest of all his books that I know of his books are normally four or 500 pages
2:08
long.
2:09
This is like 140 pages, but he sounds the alarm on stuff that is currently happening
2:14
in the modern American church as it pertains to the culture in America.
2:18
And then specifically how that aligns with what was happening in the 1930s with the church
2:23
there in Germany and what was going on with the rise of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich.
2:27
And so if that seems like it's a stretch, I implore you to read this book.
2:31
It is legitimately one of the best books that we've read so far this year.
2:34
You will certainly hear me talking about again at the end of the year when we do our
2:36
books of the year awards.
2:39
But in this interview, we spent a lot of time talking about that.
2:42
We spent a lot of time talking about what was going on and what kind of created the environment
2:46
in the 1930s in Germany that led to that.
2:48
But we spent a lot of time talking about why the church, why the modern church and specifically
2:52
modern pastors are so cowardly on most of these cultural issues.
2:56
And then they want to say, Oh, it's because we don't want to be political or we don't
3:00
want to be seen as big as bigoted or as as unloving, you know, it's not really a gospel
3:05
issue abortion.
3:06
It's not really a gospel issue keeping, you know, 14 year olds from cutting off their
3:09
healthy breasts.
3:10
It's not really a gospel issue that our southern border is just wide open and people are being
3:14
taken advantage of it like none of those are gospel issues.
3:17
So we dig a lot into that, but we talk about how the gospel itself has been bastardized
3:21
so that these people can kind of get their Christian pacifist way of working into things
3:25
and how they're not really following the Christlike model of meekness, but then we get into not
3:30
just lamenting what is, but how do we operate?
3:33
What do we do?
3:34
And so we spent a lot of time digging into that.
3:36
So it's a really, really fantastic interview, but before we get there, I do want to remind
3:39
you guys about our partnership with the upper room and the Kings Council.
3:42
So this is big time attention for business owners, entrepreneurs, and I know there's
3:46
a lot of soon to be entrepreneurs out there as well, but the upper room in the Kings Council,
3:50
their mission is to create wealth and provision for the purpose of establishing God's covenant
3:55
on earth.
3:56
And so the way that they do that, because there's some places they're like, Oh, this is how we
3:58
do it.
3:59
But they really do it.
4:00
And the way that they do that is that they give entrepreneurs the tools, the systems and
4:03
the frameworks that they need in order to really develop, but specifically deploy their
4:08
God given vision into the marketplace and how they can, you know, grow their businesses,
4:13
you know, grow their workforce, all those different things.
4:15
And one of the ways they do that as well is the upper room mastermind.
4:18
So a lot of you guys have heard about these different mastermind groups.
4:20
But if you're an existing entrepreneur or business owner that's looking for a tribe of
4:24
people that are, that are like you, that are like minded, because that's really a struggle
4:27
for a lot of entrepreneurs is finding people that are wired like you, doing things the
4:30
way that you want to do it and going the direction you're going in.
4:33
This is a great group for you to be able to do that.
4:35
They host these virtual and in-person events every month.
4:38
They focus on business strategies that allow you to increase and sustain your increased
4:42
revenue.
4:43
They have ongoing accountability.
4:45
It's customizable to your business because every business is in every person is a little
4:48
bit different.
4:49
I've actually spoken to this group.
4:50
If you actually want some more information on this, go back to episode 355 of this podcast.
4:54
We interview Riley Meek.
4:55
He is the founder of the upper room and the king's council.
4:58
And so the name of that episode is the king entrepreneurship and money.
5:01
But also in that episode, he talked about ways that you guys could get in touch with him
5:05
so that you could see about whether or not the upper room is a good fit for you.
5:08
So this is what he said specifically for our listeners here.
5:12
Text the words upper room, upper room.
5:15
So that's UPPER room, R-O-O-M upper room to 727-472-3860, again, that number is 727-472-3860.
5:25
It will be in the show notes.
5:27
And when you do that, you will get an application to schedule a one-on-one with Riley Meek.
5:31
And guys, this guy doesn't have a whole lot of time for one-on-ones, but he was very excited
5:34
about what we're doing here.
5:35
And he really wants to partner with what we're doing here at Undaunted Life.
5:38
So schedule that one-on-one with Riley Meek of the upper room in the king's council.
5:41
Again, that's upper room, UPPER room, R-O-O-M to 727-472-3860 to schedule your one-on-one
5:49
with the founder of the upper room and the king's council Riley Meek.
5:52
So guys, great, great interview today with Eric Metaxas.
5:55
It's a short interview and even the book short, but there is a lot packed into it.
5:59
So get ready, pack a lunch, we're going to get into it.
6:01
So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
6:04
Eric Metaxas, welcome back to Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
6:08
My privilege.
6:09
Thank you.
6:10
Well, hey, last time we only had, we had short time and we hit a grand slam.
6:13
So let's see if we can go to for two a short time because you've got a new book out this
6:17
week.
6:18
It's actually today, the day we're recording it, it's called Letter to the American Church.
6:21
So in it, you're warning us about the real potential for something nefarious on the horizon.
6:28
So what exactly are you sounding the alarm for?
6:31
Let me be blunt.
6:32
Let me be blunt.
6:36
I wish what I knew to be true was not true.
6:42
But what I say in the book, Letter to the American Church, and I beg people to take this seriously,
6:50
the silence of the American Church on all kinds of issues is exactly the same as the silence
6:59
of the German Church in the 1930s.
7:02
People might think, oh, that's a dramatic parallel.
7:04
You're overstating the case.
7:06
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I were overstating the case.
7:10
I promise you, I know enough to know that I'm not overstating the case and that the German
7:17
Church was lulled into silence for exactly the same reasons that the American Church
7:24
has been lulled into silence.
7:26
Many good people believe that I shouldn't speak out on this issue or that issue.
7:32
You can name the issue.
7:33
They say, I don't want to be political.
7:35
Well, that's what they said in Germany.
7:38
And these were not evil people.
7:40
They were used by evil.
7:42
They were used for evil purposes.
7:44
But they didn't think, hey, I want to worship Adolf Hitler.
7:48
I want to serve the devil.
7:50
I want millions of Jews to be murdered.
7:52
They had no clue what their inaction and their silence would bring about.
7:59
And I really believe genuinely that the Lord gave me the assignment to write the Bonhoeffer
8:06
book when I did as a warning to us today to say this is exactly what will happen to
8:14
you.
8:15
It'll be different in many ways, but it's the same thing.
8:17
You will be lulled into silence if you are not bravely speaking the truth into the culture.
8:26
Whether you're accused of being political, whether you're, whatever it is, if you do
8:30
not do that, what happened there will happen in America.
8:35
So I wrote the Bonhoeffer book, but then recently in the last year or so, I said, I have to
8:41
write a short book, it's probably my shortest book, explaining how it is that we could get
8:49
here why there are people today while we're having this conversation, that they're convinced
8:54
they shouldn't speak up on these issues.
8:56
They don't want to be accused of being political.
8:58
They don't want to be accused of being divisive.
8:59
They might lose people in their congregations.
9:02
They might drive people away.
9:03
They have all these reasons.
9:05
And I'm here to beg you, folks, to take this seriously, I cannot possibly overstate the
9:12
case of what we are facing.
9:14
Yeah, just finished the book yesterday and the alarm, your sounding is a loud one.
9:18
And I can see a lot of the through points that we're currently seeing in culture.
9:22
And specifically, as you brought it up several times there, Christians, but even more specifically,
9:26
pastors, not wanting to be political.
9:28
So I want to read this quote from your book here, which by the way, guys, like this is
9:31
one of your shorter books, maybe your shortest book, but it is, it is dense like get your
9:35
highlighters ready.
9:36
So let me read this quote.
9:37
So those who behave as though there is nothing to worry about, who seem to think as such
9:42
prominent pastors as Andy Stanley and others do, that we ought to assiduously avoid fighting
9:46
these threats to be a political are tragically mistaken, are bearing their heads in the sand
9:52
and exhorting others to do the same, or to put it another way, they are in the churches
9:56
singing more and more loudly to drown out the cries of those in the box cars, heading
10:02
to their gruesome deaths, just a brutal line there.
10:05
Let's keep going.
10:06
Sing with us, they say.
10:07
And don't worry about all those other issues out there.
10:09
They don't concern us.
10:10
Our job is to focus on God and to pretend that we can do so without fighting for those
10:15
he loves, whose lives and futures are being destroyed.
10:19
So fantastic summation of what we're looking at right now, where we have these modern mealy
10:26
mouths cowardly pastors, not talking about abortion, not talking about LGBT, not specifically
10:32
the tea right now in the transing of children, critical race theory, biblical marriage, which
10:37
is the only type of marriage is not cultural traditional marriage is called biblical marriage.
10:41
Eric, we have accepted our places downstream of culture while simultaneously begging the
10:46
culture to love us without realizing that they will always hate us in the end.
10:51
Go.
10:52
Well, I mean, it's almost funny.
10:53
I don't know if I mentioned it in the book, but the classic case is Tim Tebow, right?
10:58
Here's a guy who has been the nicest guy, the most wonderful witness.
11:04
Look how he was mocked, right?
11:06
So some people act as though, you know, if you don't talk about politics or something
11:12
like that, you'll be fine.
11:14
People be attracted to you.
11:16
Now, by the way, I love Tim Tebow.
11:17
He's not guilty of what I'm talking about, but what I'm saying is that people think that,
11:22
you know, if I just do the nice thing, I think maybe Mike Pence thought that, you know, on
11:27
January 6 when he says, well, I'm not going to do anything dramatic, like send this stuff
11:31
back to the States, you know, I'm just going to do the safe thing.
11:35
And the fact of the matter is people will hate your guts unless you do what they want
11:42
you to do.
11:43
The idea that in the church will be more liked if we don't talk about this or this or this.
11:48
I want to say bluntly, there are people who have made an idol of evangelism.
11:55
They have this idea in their minds that if I don't speak about these hot button issues,
11:59
it will attract people to the faith and then we can deal with those issues.
12:04
Well, now, of course, in some cases, that's true.
12:07
If you're having a conversation with somebody and you have discernment of the Holy Spirit
12:11
that I'm not going to talk about this issue or that issue because this is not the time.
12:16
But the point is for pastors to believe, to take this as a doctrine, that we're not going
12:23
to address what everyone in the pew is concerned with.
12:27
Everyone in the pew is freaking out about what's happening in the country that children are
12:31
being sexualized.
12:33
We have 5 million people, strangers who've come across the southern border.
12:39
Many of them, of course, bringing fentanyl.
12:42
We have drug mules.
12:43
We have every kind of nightmare happening, but we don't want to offend anyone.
12:48
We don't want to be accused of being racist or whatever it is.
12:51
Some crazy thing that we're going to let people's nasty words shut us up.
12:57
And I think to myself, people have died for their faith.
13:01
People have died for liberty.
13:03
And we're saying, "Well, I don't want somebody to call me that name.
13:06
I don't want somebody to say I'm being political.
13:07
I'm being a culture warrior."
13:09
And I think to myself, ladies and gentlemen, there are far worse things than being called
13:13
names, being silent in the face of evil.
13:17
Okay?
13:18
When I think of the fentanyl overdoses in this country, what about those people?
13:22
Do you not love them?
13:23
Do you not care about those people?
13:25
What about the people whose kids are being indoctrinated in their schools with Marxism,
13:30
with anti-American, anti-biblical Marxist atheism?
13:35
What about them?
13:36
What about black communities that are being devastated by Black Lives Matter critical
13:43
race theory?
13:44
They're being devastated.
13:45
The division is growing.
13:47
If you are called to love those people, you are called to speak out on these issues.
13:53
And when we have these siren songs in the church saying, "No, we're not supposed to
13:58
be political."
13:59
Andy Stanley wrote a book about this.
14:01
And I was blown away.
14:02
I thought millions of people listen to him.
14:04
And he is making the case it's a mess.
14:07
I mean, it's historically inaccurate, it's biblically a mess, but he's making this really
14:11
kind of rhetorical case that is going to mislead millions.
14:16
And then you have somebody like Jim Daley, head of the folks on the family, gave it a
14:19
positive endorsement.
14:20
And I thought, "These are not evil men, but they are misleading millions.
14:25
And I have to speak out and say, folks, what I write in this book, okay, Bonhoeffer was
14:32
saying this to the German church, and good men, good leaders did not hear what he had
14:38
to say."
14:39
They said, "No, no, no.
14:40
We're going to take a pass.
14:41
We're going to keep our nose down.
14:42
We don't want to get political.
14:45
We don't want someone to burn our church down.
14:47
We don't want someone to close our church down.
14:48
We're just going to be silent on all of these issues.
14:51
Those were the very issues if they had spoken up, if they had shown their faith in their
14:57
action and in their words, instead of just saying, "I'm a Christian," but living it out,
15:02
as though they believed God would be with them.
15:05
If they had done that, what happened in Germany wouldn't have happened.
15:07
And I know the history, and I can tell you bluntly, I know what I'm talking about.
15:11
It didn't need to happen.
15:13
The church was silent, and it is because of the silence of the German church that the
15:18
nightmare of the Holocaust and other things happened.
15:21
It is because of the silence of the American church that these nightmares are just beginning
15:26
to happen, and will continue to happen.
15:29
I believe the Lord called me to write this book for those in the church who will have
15:34
ears to hear.
15:35
There are still many who are on the fence.
15:37
They're confused.
15:38
I beg them to consider what I write about.
15:41
Well, Eric, you're saying the book, if another three to 6,000 Protestant pastors had stood
15:46
up with the confessing church at the time of the rise of the Nazis, we would have never
15:49
seen any of that gruesome stuff that we saw happen with the Third Reich.
15:53
But even beyond that, you brought up a lot of different points.
15:55
The conservatives and Christians are now trying to actually fight back a little bit, and this
15:59
is a rallying cry.
16:00
I think this book is a rallying cry because beforehand, Christians and conservatives wouldn't
16:04
find a hill work dying on, and then they wake up one day, and the war has passed them by,
16:09
and they realize, I never picked up my sword, I never picked up my helmet, I never picked
16:12
up my breastplate, and now society has passed me by.
16:16
But to a degree, these guys like Andy Stanley, I wonder if he would have written that book,
16:20
had Trump never been president.
16:21
And so I don't really want to get into the Trump stuff because you deal a lot with that.
16:24
I want to keep it to the book.
16:26
But the thing that I find, it's more than inappropriate, is the bastardization of the
16:31
gospel that we aren't going to talk about these things that concern people that carry
16:36
the Amago day for the sake of the gospel.
16:39
But I think what it's tied to, Eric, and I'll let you kind of weave this all together because
16:42
I know you know how to, is Christian pacifism.
16:45
So you talk about this in the book.
16:47
They meekly adopted the stance that it was the Christ-like thing to submit and not to
16:52
fight, nor even to mention such tremendously serious issues.
16:56
It's a bastardization of the gospel of the word meek, which is not weak and coward.
17:02
It is a tremendous amount of control under the guidance and direction of the father.
17:07
When you meek a warhorse, you don't take away the warhorse's ability to be a warhorse.
17:11
That's right.
17:12
You put it in the control of the writer.
17:13
So talk to me about how the bastardization of the gospel in Christian pacifism has kind
17:17
of given us this witch's brew of nonsense.
17:19
Well, right.
17:20
We need to be clear, okay, this is not even a conservative issue.
17:24
This is an issue of truth.
17:26
This is an issue of truth.
17:28
What is the gospel of Jesus Christ?
17:30
What does the Bible say?
17:32
What does God require of us?
17:35
I don't care what label you put on me.
17:38
I am to obey God and God will judge me for that.
17:43
If I say I have faith, and I do not live as though I have faith, self-sacrificially, God
17:50
will judge me.
17:51
So we have this siren song that, "Oh, yeah, to be self-sacrificial means to get the vaccine,
17:57
get a blood clot and die, get my ocarina," or just go along with the crowd.
18:02
That's what the German church did.
18:04
They said, "We just want to go along with the crowd.
18:05
We don't want to stick our noses out or we don't want to stick our necks out because we
18:10
want to keep our noses clean.
18:11
We really just want to go along to get along."
18:15
That is not what God is calling his church to do.
18:17
Let's talk about the issue of slavery.
18:19
When Wilberforce, everybody who read my book, "Amazing Grace," they say, "Oh, of course,
18:23
I would have stood against slavery.
18:25
It's so obvious.
18:26
What could be more obvious?
18:28
Don't you think there were voices in that day that said, "Hey, Wilberforce, shut up.
18:33
You and your Methodist enthusiast, Jesus-freak friends, why don't you stay out of politics?"
18:38
Yeah.
18:39
This isn't a gospel issue, William.
18:41
They said to him, "It's not a gospel issue in America.
18:44
There were pastors who refused to speak clearly against the evil of slavery."
18:49
This is a fact.
18:50
I've been reading about it recently.
18:51
They said, "Well, it's not a gospel issue.
18:53
We don't want to be divisive.
18:54
Folks, that's insane.
18:57
There are things that God requires us to speak against injustice, against lies, against wickedness.
19:04
And guess who did that?
19:05
Jesus did that.
19:08
John the Baptist did that.
19:10
You have all kinds of figures in Scripture who did that.
19:15
But today, the voices in the American evangelical church, some of them would say, "Well, those
19:20
weren't gospel issues."
19:21
And I'm thinking you are really very confused about what the gospel is and about what your
19:27
role is.
19:28
Your role is to speak up for those who have no voice, to be the conscience of the nation
19:34
as a church.
19:35
And so when wicked things are happening, there are all kinds of people.
19:39
By the way, if you're worried about evangelism, that is going to attract people to Jesus.
19:44
When they see bravery and when they see that kind of fearlessness, they say, "What is that?"
19:49
We had that in the civil rights movement.
19:52
When Dr. King said, "We're going to turn the other cheek.
19:55
We're going to do things that people are going to know God is with us because we're not fighting
20:01
the way the world fights.
20:03
We are simply going to do what we can, but we're not going to do nothing.
20:08
We're not going to sit back and say, "This is just the way it is."
20:11
So when you're dealing with all kinds of injustices, you really have to be brave.
20:16
But when you're brave, you're telling the world, "God is with me.
20:20
I'm not afraid to speak about truth because there are young women whose lives are being
20:24
destroyed by transgender confusion.
20:27
Their children whose lives are being destroyed by having this transgender, pronized stuff
20:31
injected into their minds at an age far before anybody can process these things.
20:37
And the devil is like a roaring lion in our culture.
20:42
And we have many voices in the church saying, "Don't talk about that.
20:46
Just preach the gospel."
20:47
My question is, "What dead pseudo-gospel do you think you're preaching if you refuse
20:52
to speak about the things that people in the pews are dying to know about?
20:57
They want to know I'm being forced to get a vaccine.
21:00
It's made because of abortions made it possible.
21:04
And everywhere I read that I don't need to take it, everywhere I read is that it's causing
21:08
harm.
21:09
I don't want to take it.
21:10
My job is forcing me to take it.
21:11
I'm going to a Christian school.
21:13
They're forcing me to take it.
21:15
This is madness.
21:16
When you tell people not to talk about these things, they're going to find someone who's
21:20
going to talk about it.
21:21
And I'm telling you right now, we have many brave voices talking about this in the church,
21:27
and their numbers are exploding.
21:29
Pagans are coming to those churches and saying, "Those people are brave.
21:34
They're talking about what I care about.
21:35
I'm trying to raise my family in this craziness.
21:38
They have the guts to talk about this.
21:39
I'm not going to go down to the Methodist Church down the street that is preaching the gospel
21:43
of the New York Times or whatever they're allowed to preach over there.
21:47
We are living in crazy times, and I want to make the case biblically, folks.
21:50
This is not about politics.
21:52
When people say that, they're just trying to shut you up.
21:56
This is about truth.
21:57
This is about justice.
21:59
This is about the church being the church.
22:00
And again, if you don't believe me, you read my book and you'll see what happened to the
22:04
Germans.
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The Germans bought the same lies, exact same lies about what is happening now.
22:10
And you mentioned, I say in the book, there was this thing called the Barman Declaration,
22:16
and these heroic pastors stood against the Nazis, wrote this thing called the Barman
22:21
Declaration.
22:22
Well, by 1935, two years into Hitler's rule, the persecution had been so strong against
22:30
vocal Christians that half of the number who had supported it or signed it vanished.
22:35
So you had only really 3,000 out of the 18,000 pastors in Germany willing to strongly stand
22:42
for the truth against total usurpation, the government trying to destroy the church, take
22:48
over the church, only three of the 18,000.
22:52
On the other end of the spectrum, you have 3,000 super pro-Nazis that, you know, that's
22:56
like the Antifa crowd, whatever it is, these people hate the gospel, and we know where
23:01
they stand.
23:03
But in the middle, there are 12,000 pastors out of the 18,000 who refused to commit, who
23:11
said, "We're just going to see which way the wind blows.
23:14
We don't want to get in trouble.
23:16
We'll let those hotheads, the 3,000 hotheads, Bonhoeffer and it will let them take the
23:21
heat.
23:22
We'll keep our mouths shut.
23:25
It is because of the silence of those 12,000 that what happened in Germany happened.
23:31
If any number of those 12,000, it could have just been a couple of thousand of those 12,000.
23:37
If they had joined the 3,000 standing with the Confessing Church, if they had done that,
23:42
everything would have changed.
23:43
I believe that's exactly where we are in America.
23:46
There are people that the Lord wants to reach.
23:48
It's why He called me to write this book and to say to them, "Will you stand?
23:52
Will you see that what happened in Germany is happening now?
23:56
It's exactly the same thing.
23:58
You are drifting along exactly as they drifted along.
24:01
Will you stop?
24:02
Will you repent?
24:04
Will you do what I require of you?"
24:05
If you do, you cannot imagine the disaster that will be averted.
24:10
You cannot imagine the souls that will come to faith.
24:13
We're looking at revival.
24:15
We're looking at great things.
24:16
But the silence of the church thus far has prevented it.
24:19
So we're in an unbelievable battle and the reason it's called Letter to the American
24:23
Church is because this is not a case I'm making to my fellow Americans.
24:28
It's a case I'm making to those who say, "I'm a Christian.
24:31
I want to do the will of Jesus."
24:34
That is the case that I'm making.
24:35
And I really humbly beg people to consider what I'm saying.
24:39
Everything is at stake.
24:41
We certainly seem to be at an inflection point.
24:43
We'll make this the last question of the day.
24:45
It's kind of like, okay, so how do we do this?
24:47
Because again, you mentioned some people are just going to be branded, "Oh, you're too
24:50
political.
24:51
You're too partisan.
24:52
You're too hot-headed as they dismissed Bonhoeffer.
24:54
Oh, you're just 20-something-year-old and you're just kind of a hot-head."
24:57
But then we get into something you also describe in the book, which is perfect biblical masculinity,
25:01
the masculinity of Jesus, the Jesus that went in and cleared the temple with a whip that
25:06
he made.
25:07
But God sometimes does things in a shocking way to show us his love.
25:11
That's a quote from the book as well.
25:13
But what exactly do we do?
25:14
Because part of the reason why I exist and why this show exists is because pastors won't
25:17
talk about this stuff.
25:18
That's why we talk about faith, culture, and politics, because someone's got to equip
25:22
these men with the truth.
25:24
So what do we do moving forward?
25:25
Well, look, the first thing I say since the book just came out today, I say if you have
25:31
a pastor that's waffling on this stuff, please give them a copy of the book, because I do
25:37
believe there are leaders who are not hearing what I say in this book.
25:42
They're only hearing the siren song of silence.
25:45
I really do believe that there are people out there who can be reached.
25:49
And that's why this is not a book designed to demonize people.
25:54
It's designed to reason and to say, please, please consider that that's the role we're
25:58
going down.
25:59
So that's the first thing I would say.
26:00
The second thing I would say is when whoever is listening right now, when you read the
26:06
book, you will be galvanized, you will say, I have got to pray and say, Lord, lead me,
26:13
where do I speak up?
26:15
How do I speak up?
26:16
There are innumerable ways to speak up.
26:19
If you're going to a church where the pastor refuses to speak up, I would humbly say, please
26:23
stop going to that church.
26:25
Please find a church where they are bravely taking on these issues and fighting the battle,
26:31
because there are pagans in your community dying for someone to take a stand for the
26:36
truth.
26:37
And they will come with you to the church where the pastor is a real man who's not afraid
26:42
of being divisive, but who is doing this out of love for the lost, out of love for his
26:48
flock, out of love for those who are confused.
26:50
If you care about black people in America and you're not speaking against critical race
26:54
theory, you're being cowardly because critical race theory is destroying black community.
27:01
So if you love people in those communities, you're commanded to bravely speak against
27:06
critical race theory.
27:07
Even though you might happen to be white, it happens to be false and you don't need
27:11
to be a person of color to see that critical race theory is evil.
27:15
A votey Baucom has spoken about it.
27:18
Enumerable people have spoken about it, but there's so many places where we can be tempted
27:22
to silence.
27:23
This is the moment that the church has to speak up bravely in every way we can.
27:30
There are innumerable ways.
27:31
That's the joy.
27:32
But folks, let's get busy because the hour is late and where we are now, I think most
27:38
people can see the drift of things right now is just horrific.
27:44
It is if it, I believe the Lord allowed things to get this bad to wake up those who could
27:50
be awakened.
27:52
And so that's my prayer that this book would reach people and awaken people and they would
27:56
say, okay, enough is enough.
27:57
I need to repent.
27:59
I need to start speaking out into the men and women listening to this.
28:03
If you're not a pastor and you give your pastor this book, in addition to that, you give them
28:07
this message.
28:08
Pastor, if you start talking about these issues, I will stand around you and I will take some
28:12
of the slings and errors that are headed your way.
28:14
And then you get a dozen of your friends and y'all wait in the lobby and y'all go in one
28:18
by one and say, pastor, if you start talking about this, we've got your back.
28:21
That is how you will steal his nerves and steal his resolve.
28:25
But that's all the time we got for today.
28:26
I know you got a bunch of these to do today again, congratulations on getting this book
28:29
out to us.
28:30
That's all for me.
28:31
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
28:32
Just to say, folks, if you go to my website, there's a lot more information, sign up for
28:36
my newsletter.
28:38
We're living in a critical hour, a critical hour.
28:42
So my website is just my name, ericmataxis.com.
28:46
Please check it out.
28:47
And Kyle, God bless you.
28:48
Thanks for what you do.
28:49
Yep.
28:50
It'll all be there in the show.
28:51
Notes, guys, ericmataxis.
28:52
Thank you for coming back on a Daunted Life of Man's podcast.
28:55
Thank you.
28:56
There you go, guys.
28:57
I hope you enjoyed the return appearance of ericmataxis on our show, but before we let
29:00
you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
29:02
Add on Daunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
29:05
for just spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
29:08
And I just want to remind you, text upper room.
29:10
That's UPPER room, R-O-O-M to 7274723860 to get an application to schedule your one on
29:18
one with Riley Meek of the upper room and the king's council.
29:21
Now the links I've got for you today, I've got a link to eric's website.
29:23
So we mentioned that there at the end of the interview.
29:25
So you can go to that website, sign up for his newsletter and all that.
29:27
So you can get connected with him and stay connected with him, but then I've got links
29:30
to two books.
29:31
So letter to the American church.
29:32
That's the book that we, uh, that he just released in the last week.
29:35
And then is atheism dead?
29:36
That's the one that I mentioned.
29:37
And that's the interview that we did last year.
29:39
That's episode two 48, which is in the show notes as well.
29:41
But also I've got a link to ericmataxis radio shows so that you can listen to that there.
29:45
Our guys thanks so much for listening to this episode.
29:47
We do appreciate it.
29:48
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
29:51
star view.
29:52
If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email
29:55
to info@andonto.life.
29:57
That's INFO@andonto.life follows on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our
30:01
website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming
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your way.
30:05
Just go to www.andonto.life.
30:08
And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to use their music
30:11
for our content.
30:12
The music on this podcast is our song, cutting the ties, which is off their 10th anniversary
30:16
re-recording of their album leveler.
30:18
The links are in the description.
30:19
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
30:22
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
30:28
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
30:52
[Music]