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Aug. 13, 2024
Faith, Freedom, and Action: A Conversation with Eric Metaxas
Join us for a powerful conversation with Eric Metaxas, a renowned author and speaker, as we explore the profound intersection of faith and patriotism on the CityLight Church podcast. We start by looking at Eric's steadfast commitment to biblical truths amidst societal pressures and how his immigrant background shapes his unique perspective on American freedoms and opportunities. Hear firsthand about the profound sacrifices made for liberty and the gratitude many immigrants feel towards this nation.
We continue our discussion by examining the miraculous aspects of Christianity, from dramatic conversion experiences to deliverance from spiritual darkness. Eric shares compelling insights from his influential books, "Letter to the American Church" and "Religionless Christianity," underscoring the significance of having a personal relationship with God beyond intellectual understanding. This episode offers a deep dive into the supernatural manifestations of faith and their implications for believers today.
We emphasize the necessity for Christians to participate in political processes, advocate for values aligned with God's purposes, and understand that faith without action is dead.
Stay connected with CityLight Church and be inspired by our community and teachings.
For more information and resources, visit www.citylightnyc.com
(00:00) The Power of Faith and Patriotism
(09:01) Experiencing God's Miracles and Speaking
(23:08) The Call to Stand Against Evil
(30:46) The Role of Politics in Christianity
(41:41) Connecting With City Light Church
Chapters
00:00 - The Power of Faith and Patriotism
09:01:00 - Experiencing God's Miracles and Speaking
23:08:00 - The Call to Stand Against Evil
30:46:00 - The Role of Politics in Christianity
41:41:00 - Connecting With City Light Church
Transcript
00:00 - Speaker 1
The Lord calls us to trouble. The Lord wants trouble to be afraid of us because he is inside us as we walk into the battle. You just heard this in the last song is that God is in the battle. Okay, so what that means is, if you're going through hell, something's going on in your life. You know God is there. But let me flip it and say if everything's fine in your life, you need to find a battle.
00:26 - Speaker 2
Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyccom. That's cityightNYCcom. Pastor Boyan Jancic and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you, that he has a real hope and a future for you.
01:07 - Speaker 3
Are you excited for Eric Metaxas? This couldn't have worked out better that we as a church, in our life groups, read the book Letter to the American Church, and that he's here as a capstone on that whole thing. And I'll tell you this I first heard of Eric Metaxas around 2012, a couple of years after his Bonhoeffer book was out. And it was the thing in pastoral circles. I don't even know if all the pastors read him, but they liked to carry it around with them. If you ever wonder what pastors do throughout the week, I don't do this anymore. They do a lot of things, but they also just go to pastoral conferences together on how to pastor better. I stopped that because they always serve really bad chicken. It's like the same caterer at every one of those events and everybody had that book, and he was Mr Popular here in New York City.
02:09
And then I noticed that as the churches began to compromise more and what I mean by that, frankly, is just go more woke, and you know how wokeism crept in. It crept in under the guise of compassion, which is wonderful, under the guise of love and under the guise of tolerance, and it crept in slowly to where we then sacrificed the Word of God and biblical integrity and, as I saw, churches go that way by around 2016,. I mean his reputation here, his popularity ran right down the tubes, but he did not compromise and he stayed true to the word of God. I so honor that and I so respect that. The Lord needs to raise up voices like this. I pray from right within our ranks, spirit-filled voices that will stand up for the integrity of God's word and never, ever, back down. Won't you put your hands together, as we welcome Eric Metaxas? So glad you're here, so glad.
03:09 - Speaker 1
Thank you, I can't even believe. I can't believe a church like this exists in Astoria. Are you sure you're here today? Really, pastor Bo? I praise the Lord for you. I can't tell you. You have no idea. You have no idea Now.
03:31
By the way, I was born in Astoria, and if you were not born in Astoria, shame on you. No, I had no choice in where I was born. You know, that's not true. I'm Greek. When you're Greek, legally, by law, you need to be born in Astoria. It's just. That's the way it breaks down. We don't want to break the law. You know Romans 13,. You got to go with it.
03:41
So, so my mother rushed over here, uh, just in time. No, I was, I was my parents. Uh, my, my father came from Greece. Uh, my mother came from Germany. They met in an English class, uh, in New York city. And you know, an English class. I'm not talking about studying Chaucer. Uh, if you haven't heard of Chaucer, you need to go back to school. If you haven't heard of Joss, or you need to go back to school, yeah, but, um, they made it an English class.
04:11
And so I'm the son of European immigrants to United States of America. My parents came here because they were smart enough, wise enough to understand that America is the best country in the history of the world. Doesn't mean it's perfect, in case I need to throw that in, in case you think I'm a Christian nationalist or whatever term, but they understand. Like, what we have here is not normal, okay, the opportunities have is. So they left, you know, east Germany and Greece to come here and you know when you're in Queens like you're, this is like this is immigrant city, right, this is it. People come here and you know, when you're in Queens, like this is like this is immigrant city, right, this is it. People come here from other places and usually if you come from the other side, as my mother and father did, and you lived through World War II and you know what it is literally to be hungry, many, many, many, many, many, many, many many times, you appreciate things, you think differently than your typical American.
05:04
So I grew up in America, grew up here in Queens and in Danbury, connecticut, and when you're hanging around with American kids at American school, you realize if they don't get it, they think this is normal. This is not normal. Patriots have died so that we could have freedom and opportunity and I didn't really come here to talk about America. But when I talk about my mother and my father, I did impossible for me not to think about that because they were immigrants. They had nothing. They had accents. My mother still has an accent, right. My dad passed in January but they didn't even try to teach me to love America. You don't need to do that.
05:39
If you tell the stories of how you grew up in communist East Germany, do you understand? I need to break down for you. Communism is Satan's politics, okay. Communism by definition. Marxism by definition atheistic Okay.
05:53
Atheism is not neutral. Atheism is like devil worshiping in another name, because it's basically the enemy of God. The devil is the enemy of God, so don't. When people say secular atheists, that's not neutral. Now, the people might be nice people who are deluded.
06:07
But if you live in a communist country or you come from a family, okay. Anytime I meet somebody who's you know living in Miami, they're from Cuba, they get it. I don't need to explain to them the satanic evil of that kind of thing because they have lived it. It is nasty, it is evil. But if you grew up in America, you kind of think, oh, we don't have evil anymore. We kind of evolved past that Everything's okay. No, there's evil. There's as much evil in the world today as there ever was. But we've been uniquely blessed and spoiled in America. So a lot of times we just we don't get it. But if you grew up in a home, like I did, where your parents are constantly telling you the stories of how they grew up, you're gonna get it, you understand. And so I was raised without even my parents trying to understand there's evil in the world and what you have you don't deserve it and you shouldn't take it for granted. And so I kind of grew up with that. And you know I should mention Rich is selling the books here. I wrote the book.
07:07
I came to faith dramatically, miraculously. How many people believe in miracles? Do you believe in miracles? Yeah, if you don't believe in miracles, you're not a Christian. Just saying I'm not judging, but I'm just letting you know I was saved very miraculously in a dream. The Lord spoke to me in a dream. It was mind-blowing. Now you gotta understand.
07:26
I went to Yale University, okay, which is a Marxist indoctrination camp. Did you know that? Yeah, most of the Ivy League and all these elite universities. You can think, oh, it was great, great until you get there and you know so. But I was too foolish to know what at the time you know, I was raised I said in a working-class home. And you go to these places you don't understand, like you're drinking the Kool-Aid of secular humanism, marxism, whatever, and I didn't really appreciate what I had. But as I moved on I realized, like I don't believe anything, whatever heartland values I picked up from my mom and dad. I lost, because that's the job of places like Yale University is to kind of lead you down this path and you're kind of drinking the secular, humanist Kool-Aid of the cultural elites. We could put it that way. Right, it's like, yeah, we all agree on that, right, there's no God. Right, right, right, like America's not that great, right, you know, like it's kind of like the. You kind of like buy into this thing.
08:17
So I graduated, I was very lost and the Lord very dramatically saved me around my 25th birthday. I won't tell that story here. If I ever get invited back, I could tell that story another time. It's actually, I'll be honest with you, it's amazing, don't clap, I'm not done yet. But the fact is that it is really a miraculous story. I mean, it's one of those stories that you know. I defy you to explain to me what it could be other than God, because sometimes God shows up in a way that blows your mind and there's no alternative to be like, oh well, what could that be? It's God. Like you're stuck. So Jesus delivered me around my 25th birthday, but I wrote a book called Fish Out of Water, which I know Rich has here, but it's like it's a story of my life growing up in that path.
09:01
But God saved me around my 25th birthday and it just changed everything. It just changed everything and I think that you know when your conversion is dramatic. You can see. It's like solving for X. You can see clearly before, after you know. And if you're raised in the faith, it could be more difficult because you're kind of, you know. But now, by the way, being raised in the faith, that's better. It's better than drifting away into hell and sin and death and then having the Lord rescue you. But God will do what he's going to do. But it really. Again, if I come back another time I can tell the story.
09:37
But it is amazing that God is a God of miracles, and I say this just because I think a lot of times people have a very intellectual faith. They're all theological and it's kind of like you buy into a philosophical system. Well, that's not it. Okay, it's about a personal relationship with a person, capital P, and there's a lot of people that identify as Christians. They don't really get that. And I'm here to encourage you, to say that the Lord wants you to have a personal relationship and he wants you to know that he wants to speak to you. Now he's going to speak to every one of us differently.
10:08
You know, I have friends that see in the spirit and they're saying you see the angel? It's like no, but they see it and they're not making it up. Right, god is, you know, there's prophetic voices, right, where God will deliver a prophetic thing. They say God said this and this and this. Now, there's always gonna be frauds and phonies. We know that Doesn't mean there's no prophetic voices. I have a friend who's a fraud. No, I have a friend named Ken Fish who he was a quantum physics major at Princeton like insane genius, right. But he now has a ministry of healing and deliverance, right. And when you see that stuff, you go that's God, that's real People being delivered. Have you ever seen anybody I had never seen this until 10 years ago Somebody being delivered of a demon, like right in front of you, like when you see that, you go like, well, what was that? What was that, right? So I think I was.
11:05
Some of you know Jordan Peterson, right, I had him on my radio program and I was interviewing him. He interviewed me like a year ago, but I was interviewing him and he talks like in these kind of metaphorical things, like when he's talking about God, it's like this metaphorical thing, and then he's talking about evil and the demonic. But he makes it sound metaphorical, you know, and it's like, well, it operates on the metaphorical. It can be complicated, but Jesus did not cast out metaphors, right, like it's real, you know it's like it's, it's like using the term like oh you're, you're a tumor on the society, like it's a metaphor. No, but they're actual tumors and surgeons cut them out like real, literal term, they're literal demons and stuff.
11:43
And so I think a lot of times a lot of Christians have a faith that doesn't, it doesn't know the supernatural side of God, like it's all the intellectual side, and the intellectual side is important. But you need to know God experientially too. God wants to speak to us and so he's spoken to me many times over the years, in different ways. Um, and you know, you, if you have a really high view of God, if you love God and fear God, you take that seriously. You wouldn't say God said but he didn't say. You like you that's blasphemy If you say God said but he didn't say so. It's just very important that we have, that we have an experiential relationship with God and understand, because I think if you don't, you can really lose your faith easily. Right, it's just like some ideas, but no, if you know him, you're stuck because you know him. So, like, if things go wrong, it's like, well, I still, I know God and I know, um, there was a reason I was saying all that, but I I can't remember. No, actually, I'll tell you why I say that.
12:46
So some of you have already read my book Letter to the American Church. I'm just curious how many of you have read the book. Okay, you guys can go take a cigarette break, because I'm just going to talk about that. No, the sequel to that book is called Religionless Christianity, and that just came out. It's about the same out. It's about the same length. It's my shortest books ever.
13:07
But when I say about hearing from God, I've written I don't know 15 plus books over the years, but I've never, ever written a book like Letter to the American Church, where I knew God spoke that to me. Now it's not like I got a download and I'm, like you know, ghostwriting like da-da-da-da-da-da-da, no, no, but and this is what I'm saying like you have to learn how to hear from God, because he speaks to each of us differently. We're all his children. He speaks to us in different ways. We're all different, right, but I knew that God had given me this message. I never had that before like a burning message from God, and I'd also never written a book for the church before.
13:46
Every book I write except these last two Letter to the American Church and the new one, religionless Christianity I wrote for everybody. In other words, every one of my books I want anybody could read it. It's not just for the church, but Letter to the American Church and Religionless Christianity. I wrote to the church and I really felt this burning passion from the Lord, like you got to write this, and so I wrote it and honestly, I didn't expect it to you know, do well, or to whatever you know. I just like sometimes God says, do something. You say okay, lord, okay, and you just do it. But I'm glad that he's been using it. I'm glad that churches like your church are reading it because unfortunately it's important right now. I wish it were not, but we're in a weird place in history right now. We're in a very, very weird place Now.
14:37
Look Romans 8, 28. All things work together for good. Every bad thing works together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to his purposes. So anybody who kind of like rips off half of that and says like, hey, I think all things work out in the end, no, no, that's stupid. All things work together for good for those who love God and call according to his purposes, okay. So, but I say that because things have gone crazy in America and in the world and if you're not really paying attention, you might not understand, you might not be able to discern what is happening. But if you're a little older, as I am, you could see, like what's going on now. We have never, never, never, never seen anything like this. Right now we're seeing actual evil, right.
15:32
But if you're a Christian, you say all things work together for good for those that love the Lord. So, in other words, what is happening now? With all the lunacy that you're seeing? I'm here to tell you God is using it Now. He can't use it unless you cooperate with him. He will not force you to cooperate with him. He has given you the freedom to ignore him, to avoid him, to do whatever you want, but if you know him and love him and are called according to his purposes, you want to cooperate with him.
16:03
And so, all these bad things that are happening, the Lord wants to use it. Number one, to wake up his church. He wants us to be awake and we have not been awake, and that's bad, right. So, um, the pastor was mentioning my Bonhoeffer book. When I wrote that book, I had no clue, no clue that God would use that book in the way he did, that it would be like a big thing. I believe me, trust me, I had no clue. But the Lord, you know, he knows what he's doing, and he wanted to get that message out. Now, what's the message of the Bonhoeffer book? It's the same message that I talk about in Letter to the American church and in religionless Christianity.
16:38
At the end of the day, the story of Bonhoeffer. It's a story of a man of God who sees evil rising and he sees the church not responding and as a prophetic voice, he's saying hey, church, god has called you to stand against this evil. God has called you to speak against this evil. God has called you to go to war with this evil. Now, you don't go to war. You know in the flesh, but you don't sit on your hands. You go to war against evil. When there's evil, god calls his people to stand against it, to advocate for truth and goodness.
17:17
And sometimes the church says, no, we don't want to do that, we just want to preach the gospel. We don't want to do that, we just want to preach the gospel, we just want to do church, we just want to have a nice church service. And so does Satan want you to have a nice church service. Satan loves that kind of a church. That's Satan's church. Let's think about that. Let's think about that when you say, well, I don't want to get involved, I don't want to get involved. So you're looking for a religious excuse to not get involved. Right that, it looks good. But God knows, it's disobedience, it's wrong, it is allowing evil to rise up.
17:52
Now, that's the story of the German church. So if you read the Bonhoeffer book and it's an amazing story, it is a dramatically fascinating story. I didn't invent it, I just wrote the story. Right, guy gave me the ability to tell the story. It's an amazing story. But at the heart of that story is this pastor who sees the German church flinching. He sees the German church using religious excuses to avoid doing the will of God.
18:20
Now, what is more satanic than using religious excuses to avoid doing the will of God? What's more satanic than using scripture, twisting it, to avoid doing the will of God? Was there anybody more religious than the Pharisees and the religious leaders in Jesus' day? Jesus did not thunder against Hellenistic philosophy. He did not thunder against pagans. No, he thundered against the religious leaders because he said that is where the devil lives.
18:52
If you're a Satan, where are you going to go? It's going to be the most satanic counterfeit conceivable to go among the religious to fool people that are fooled by mere religion, and so we're dealing with that in our day, right? In other words, if you're the enemy, where are you going to go? You want to infiltrate the church. That's way better than trying to call people into open sin. No, who needs that? Let's do it in a way that looks like virtue, because, again, you know, sin is bad. But even worse than just sin is sin masquerading as virtue. That's satanic, right?
19:27
So Bonhoeffer sees the church in Germany absolutely buying these lies, right? Romans 13,. The scripture says whatever the government says, you do that. And he's thinking excuse me, there's a whole other Bible beyond Romans 13, much of which says exactly the opposite. So you need the Holy Spirit, you need a personal relationship with the Lord to have discernment, to understand what is God saying. If you want to cherry pick scripture verses, the devil does that. The devil did that when he quoted scripture to Jesus. So don't try to fool me by quoting scriptures. What is the Lord saying? What is the Holy Spirit saying? And so Bonhoeffer saw a lot of the church in Germany being very religious and said we just want to do nice church services.
20:09
Well, bonhoeffer tried and tried to wake up the church and he knew there was a little window of opportunity, right? Because sometimes I think we think, oh God, he's so gracious, he'll give me a second chance, a third chance, like well, yeah, on one level that's true, just like a lot of stuff is true on one level. On another level it's not true. If you don't act by X time, it's over, right. You know, it's like you ever try to catch a plane and you miss it by one minute. Well, if you miss it by one minute or 40 minutes, it doesn't really matter, you're not graded on a curve, you missed it. You missed it, it's gone right. So the fact of the matter is you could say about an election oh, we only lost by two votes. Well, it doesn't really matter if you lose by a thousand votes, a million votes, one vote. There's a reality in this world. Right, god is a God of reality. He invented reality. In case you wanted to know who did that, that was God.
21:11
So when Bonhoeffer saw that the church in Germany all right, hitler took control in early 1933, bonhoeffer could see if the church rises against this evil. Now, a lot of people, they didn't see it as evil. A lot of people were deluded, just like people today are deluded. People in the church are deluded today. They don't know, they don't get it. Bonhoeffer was trying to wake them up and he knew that they had like a year and a half or two years. Literally, that was it, because the aggressiveness of evil, the aggressiveness of the Nazi campaign to infiltrate churches, to silence churches, to wipe out the opposition, it was lightning speed and he knew that at some point it's over. So literally by about 1935, it was over Even before that it was over. So Bonhoeffer was trying to wake up the church, the windows closing, and he knows, eventually they didn't stand. They did not stand.
22:00
And we know today I mean, if you read a letter to the American church in particular, or Bonhoeffer, or the new book Religionless Christianity, you know what happened right, that at some point I think CS Lewis said it that you know God wants us to say thy will be done to him, but at some point, if we don't do that, he says to us at some point okay, thy will be done Like it's yours. You rejected me and now we're going to see what you have wrought. And so Bonhoeffer knew by 1935 that the church had effectively said we're not interested in fighting evil. We don't know if it's evil. Who's to say it's complicated, it's nuanced, because guess what they really believed that you can really really believe stupid evil things. You know, you think Hitler thought I'm a bad guy. No Evil is deceiving right. So people can do evil things and they don't know. So, born Off or Sought by 1935, it's over.
23:08
The church said we're not interested in this but we don't do politics. And he's like well, is that a biblical idea? A lot of people kind of assume it's a biblical idea. I had a, I literally spoke to a pastor Was it yesterday, yesterday? A hugely important pastor. He's now retired, but I love this man. This is, this is an amazing man. But he said to me on the phone I didn't want to argue with him, I didn't have the energy. But he said to me on the phone I would never endorse a political candidate and would never endorse a political party. And he sounded very pious when he said that. And I'm thinking like, are you insane? But tons of pastors say that Good pastors, this guy is one of the best. But he said that and I thought here's the problem that's not biblical. But where did you get that idea that that's biblical? Where did you get that idea? Where did you get that idea?
23:59
Imagine it's 1850, okay, slavery is on the ballot and you say we don't get into that in our church, we don't take a stand on slavery. Now, today, we'd be like that's nuts. Many, many pastors at that time, maybe because it didn't affect them. It was very convenient to say we don't get into that. Well, god gets into that. That's a moral issue. But they said, oh, we don't do politics, we just do church. That's the devil's kind of church, folks that will not take a stand on slavery. But we're living through something now. It's the same thing. Evil comes up and he says, oh, that's too political. So this pastor yesterday says this to me and I was like I just didn't want to get into it with him because I know he thinks right on all the issues. But he actually said but I would never publicly endorse a candidate or I would never publicly endorse a party.
24:50
I'm thinking nobody's telling you to worship a candidate and nobody's telling you to worship a political party. Nobody's telling you to make an idol of politics. Every idol is satanic. You don't make an idol. But to say that you won't take a stand, that you won't why? Because you're afraid you'll lose your 501c3 tax exempt. Is that why you make it sound biblical? But it's because you're afraid the government will come after you. Did it ever occur to you the government is wrong. Did it ever occur to you that that's not biblical, that's not even, it doesn't even square with our constitution. But you've just accepted it as a pastor, because all pastors know we don't take a stand on that, we don't get political. And I'm thinking how can you say that you don't make an idol of politics, but has the devil gaslit you into thinking you don't talk politics? If slavery is on the ballot, you're going to say we don't get into that.
25:42
But there are many people who said that in the 1850s. There are many people that would not advocate publicly for Abraham Lincoln. Now I would argue it's because they didn't care if the slaves suffer. They just didn't care. But they wrapped it up in a nice religious bow oh, we just do church. Well, if you did God's church, if you were the church, you would stick your neck out and you wouldn't care what happens to you, because you want to advocate for what God is advocating for, that slavery is a satanic abomination and that you should do everything in your power.
26:15
And people say, oh, you're being political. You'd be like, yeah, whatever, like shut up, because I'm going to do what God told me to do. Don't try to gaslight me into being silent. But listen, folks, you can always use those kind of arguments against religious people, and I use religion in the negative sense, right? Oh, kind of arguments against religious people. And I use religion in the negative sense, right? Oh, I'm so religious, so all you need to do is call me a name, call me a Christian nationalist, oh, okay, I'll shut up. Or call me a racist, right? It's like are you a racist? You're not. Well then, why do you care if somebody called you a racist? But you care that much about that, why don't you do what God called you to do? And if you do what God called you to do, I don't think you'll be doing anything racist. Okay, but people will shut you down because that's the but. That has never changed.
26:56
And in Bonhoeffer's day they would be kind of like well, if you're getting involved, so you're not with the Fuhrer or you're not with Germany, or you don't care about Germany, you know? And that into silence. And Bonhoeffer could see that if the church was silenced, the satanic evil of the Nazis would rise, and it did. And now we can all sit here and we can all pat ourselves on the back. Oh, if I was there I wouldn't have done that, but we're doing it today, okay, cause, cause, no, we're not gonna. We're not. None of us is guilty of thinking maybe Hitler's? Okay, not today, but in 1934 in Germany. You didn't know where that was going. You might not know, you go, I'm going to play it safe, I'm going to play, I'm going to sit on the sidelines, I don't want to get, I want to stick my neck out.
27:43
Well, usually part of that is also just a pure lack of faith, because if you really believe the God of the scriptures now listen to this If you really believe in the God of scriptures, you don't fear death. Now, why don't you fear death? Because you actually know he defeated death on the cross and you'll never die. So, even if they kill you, you don't die. Now, if you don't believe that, you're not really a Christian. A lot of Christians are kind of hedging that Like I don't know, I don't want any trouble. I don't want any trouble. The Lord calls us to trouble. The Lord wants trouble to be afraid of us because he is inside us as we walk into the battle.
28:20
You just heard this in the last song is that God is in the battle? Okay, so what that means is, if you're going through hell, something's going on in your life. You know God is there. But let me flip it and say, if everything's fine in your life, you need to find a battle. Now you say, well, I don't want a battle. It's like you don't understand God is in the battle. God created you and saved you to go into the battle Because you bring him into the battle. So if there's injustice in the world, you're saying, well, I don't want to bother, I don't want to. You know, let other people suffer. The Lord called you. He died for you to go into the battle. So when you see evil out there, the Lord calls you to the battle.
29:06
And it means all kinds of stuff and sometimes it means getting involved politically, right. In other words, if you say, well, I don't care who gets elected, you know that's not a gospel-related issue. You want to bet that's not a gospel-related issue. First of all, we are now dealing I didn't say this in the earlier service, but you know it's kind of funny like people buy into an idea and it's a good idea at the time. But you understand, the times change. So there's certain things that never change, but there are other things.
29:35
I mean in 1985, you know, the face of the Democratic Party was Tip O'Neill. Now there's only a few people here old enough to remember Tip O'Neill, but it's kind of like it's another world. So when somebody says, well, I'm a Democrat, I'm going to, you'd be like, yeah, you know, we can, we can disagree on a lot of stuff, but when the face of the Democratic Party becomes Marxist atheism, now you've got a problem. Now I hope you understand this doesn't mean that everybody in the Republican Party is doing the right thing. Very, very, very far from the truth. Okay, there are many wicked people that are not advocating for God's principles in the Republican party, but I got to tell you what the democratic party has become Now. A lot of people just don't know this and I realized they don't know that, and so so in a sense, they kind of look at you like, well, what are you talking about? But if you're paying any attention, what's being advocated now on a staggering level is Marxist atheism. It's not FDR's party, it's not JFK's party.
30:46
Okay, they were patriots, they believed in America, they believed in all the stuff that everybody believes in. Over the decades that has changed and you have to acknowledge that. And you have to acknowledge that, first of all, we're never going to make an idol of politics. I said that, Of course not. But to say I'm not going to do politics, you understand? That's exactly what the church said in the 30s in Germany. He said we don't wanna get into that. There's evil rising, and fighting that evil, part of that means being political. So there's nothing in the scripture, contrary to what many pastors think, that says we don't do politics. Many of the best pastors and men of God throughout history have done a lot of politics. Can you imagine I mean just think for a second this country never would have come into being if not for what we now call the Black Robe Regiment.
31:38
Okay, these were pastors who are thundering from their pulpits about freedom versus tyranny. Didn't get more political than that. They were trying to overthrow a tyrannous British system. Right, the pastors? Around the time of a civil war, they were thundering against slavery and of course they were advocating for a political candidate, because there was one who was against slavery and there was one who was not. But then he said well, we don't want to do politics. How could you not, how could you not advocate for God's purposes? So we're living in a time now where God is calling us to stand against evil, and sometimes that means being political.
32:18
And this lie that we're not supposed to be political. I'll tell you. I, um, there was a tweet put out by um, a very well-known Christian rapper, the other day, just the other day, and he had that's what I'm talking about. And, uh and uh, in the past he's been very politically liberal, right? But what, what? What?
32:45
You often find people saying who are advocating for bringing ungodly values to bear on politics. They hide behind the idea that we're not supposed to be political, right, because they know that if you are saying, oh, let's not do politics, secular, marxist atheism wins. If the church would just step back, don't be political, these values over here will come in and fill that vacuum, right? So in this tweet he was saying something like which sounds so nice, it's so religious, right? Saying something like well, we don't need to worry about who is elected. You know God is on his throne. You've heard that one right Sounds very religious oh, god is on his throne. You've heard that one right Sounds very religious oh, god is on his throne. So don't worry about who's elected. Yeah, when Hitler's elected, I think you should be worried. Is God on his throne? Yeah, god's on his throne, but it's pretty irrelevant to all the Jews that are being gassed, right. So, in other words, god is on his throne no matter what. We praise the Lord no matter what, but it doesn't mean we don't do something if God gives us the opportunity to do something.
33:57
Okay, I don't know if you realize, but I mean I think I said in the last service, but the book Letter to the American Church originally the title of that was Faith Without Works is Dead, because that's a very important concept. It's all we say oh, it's about faith, it's about faith. It's about faith. It's about faith. Faith without works is dead. You're supposed to act. All right, david killed Goliath and cut off his head. He didn't just say, oh, god's on his throne, let Goliath do his thing Now, but that sounds so holy, right?
34:31
Oh, god is on his throne, praise the Lord, I'm all about the kingdom. Well, if you're not about this world, you're probably not about the kingdom. You're not given a choice. Again. It's this very religious sounding choice Like oh, I'm all about the kingdom, I'm not about America.
34:46
Where did you get the idea, except from the devil, that you had to choose? You're supposed to bring kingdom values into how you live in America. That's the Lord's will, it's why we have kingdom values and we're still here in this world is to bring those values to bear to the extent that we can right. We don't force people, but we advocate. We do what we can for what is right and good and true. So this idea that, oh, I'm all about kingdom values because if I'm about America, that's Christian nationalism, christian nationalism is the devil's term for actual Christianity. Live, lived out. You live it out right.
35:21
You know, patriots died so you could vote. They died, right, we're sitting here having a nice church service. Patriots died, fought and died so that we could be free, we could vote, we could advocate for God's purposes politically in every other way, and people like, no, no, no, I'm just about the kingdom. Well, again, if you're about the kingdom, you're going to bring kingdom values to bear in this world because you have the ability to do that. You didn't have the ability in the first century Rome to advocate politically. You couldn't do that. But people have died so that we could have a country where we govern ourselves and we could actually vote for people that we believe best represent us. Not, they certainly don't represent us perfectly, okay. But if you say, oh, I don't care about that, then people who definitely don't represent you will come in and we'll bring the devil's values in and they will do real evil to people that Jesus loves.
36:10
Okay, trans children Okay, they call them trans, there's no such thing. Okay, but the point is that you've got to care about them, you, you, you've, you've got to care about what's being done to them and people in the world. They don't know what to think. They're lost. They don't know that the scripture says we're created in God's image, male and female, that's it. They don't know that. So they're like, who knows, I don't know science, it's all very confusing. We have to advocate because we know and we're obliged to speak out, and God wants us to speak out and to advocate.
36:45
And the idea that you need to choose between the kingdom of heaven or America again, that's a devil's choice, that's not God's choice. That's like saying like you love Jesus, right. Because of that, you can't love your spouse Easy, careful. You gotta choose. Hey, you gotta choose. Well, if I love the Lord, it's gonna make me love my spouse more, not less. So this lie that you gotta choose, it's like you love your family, careful. You love your family. Careful, you can make an idol. Careful, don't love them too much. This is, you understand, this is satanic twisting of God's truth. So we're living in a time right now where the Lord wants us to be alive to what he's saying in history. Uh, and I don't have time to go into it. Maybe another time.
37:26
Honestly, I would love to come back and tell you, but I wrote a book called Is Atheism Dead, about science pointing to God on a level that would blow your mind. I mean, if you read the book, I think I'm laughing, because Rich has said that you can get all six books for $60. I was like I think we're all losing money on that, rich, I don't know what you're doing there. But that book alone, okay, which again I could preach on some other time. But I'll tell you the evidence from science pointing to God. It is insane, it's overwhelming.
37:59
I believe that the Lord wants his church to wake up and to advocate for his purposes and to make it possible for us in this country to have a new birth of freedom, to use the words of Abraham Lincoln, a new birth of freedom that we would see people blessed, because I'm just here to say that when the church gets involved in politics, in everything. Can I tell you what Other people will be blessed? Slavery will be abolished. Roe v Wade might get overturned in the future. Oh, it happened. Yeah, you know how many people said to me that will never happen. Don't vote in 2016. That'll never happen. That's pie in the sky. You are nuts. That's not going to happen. I think it happened. Oh good, people said as I was growing up the Soviet Union, that will never go away. That will never go away. We will never see. That will never go away. That will never go away. We will never see the Iron Curtain go away. We will never see the people in those countries be free. That's never going to happen. East Germany will always be East Germany. That's where all my relatives were. It went away. You have no idea what God can do and will do, and the only way that none of these things will happen is if the church does nothing. Let me just close with this.
39:18
At the end of the book, the sequel to the Love of the American Church, Religion is Christianity. I say if you went to George Washington in 1776, at the beginning of the revolution, and you said to him, hey, george, how's it going? He would say I'll tell you how it's going. It's going very, very, very poorly. It's going very poorly. It happened right here on this island, the battle of Long Island, the battle of Brooklyn. We should have been wiped out, murdered in the cradle before we got to do anything. If you asked him how's it going in 1776? He would have said, in the natural right, it's going extremely poorly.
39:57
And so a lot of people, a lot of religious people, say well, I guess God has decided. I guess it's, I guess it's over. Uh, I guess it's just time to. You know, go to the, go to the, go to the cellar, get out the slim gyms and the water purification. Jesus will be here in 10 minutes. Jesus is coming, it's over, it's over.
40:14
There's nothing you can do. That's the voice of the devil. There's nothing you can do. Don't fight, don't fight, just sit on your hands, don't do anything. So George Washington at the time knew that it was going very poorly. He knew that. But I believe he would have said it's going poorly.
40:31
But if Providence, capital P, if God be with us in this cause of liberty, we will fight on and fight on and fight on. And if he gives us a victory. That's up to him. But it's up to us whether we fight on. And if the Lord calls you to fight for something and it looks like a losing battle, I think if you've read the scripture you understand that's when God does his best work. So I'm here to tell you in America right now and in the world, things look bad.
40:59
But if God's people will respond, if God's people will shake off these shackles, these lies, these religious lies that says don't get involved. Don't get involved. That's the voice of the devil. Folks. God wants you to take your faith into every sphere for his purposes, not for your purposes, not for America's purposes, for his purposes. But he has called us to that and I ask you to open your heart to how he would use you in that, because he will use you. It's what he made you for. He called you to enter the battle because that's where he is. Praise the Lord. God bless you.
41:41 - Speaker 2
This is the City Light Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jancic and City Light Church, visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to City Light Church Podcast wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.
The Lord calls us to trouble. The Lord wants trouble to be afraid of us because he is inside us as we walk into the battle. You just heard this in the last song is that God is in the battle. Okay, so what that means is, if you're going through hell, something's going on in your life. You know God is there. But let me flip it and say if everything's fine in your life, you need to find a battle.
00:26 - Speaker 2
Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyccom. That's cityightNYCcom. Pastor Boyan Jancic and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you, that he has a real hope and a future for you.
01:07 - Speaker 3
Are you excited for Eric Metaxas? This couldn't have worked out better that we as a church, in our life groups, read the book Letter to the American Church, and that he's here as a capstone on that whole thing. And I'll tell you this I first heard of Eric Metaxas around 2012, a couple of years after his Bonhoeffer book was out. And it was the thing in pastoral circles. I don't even know if all the pastors read him, but they liked to carry it around with them. If you ever wonder what pastors do throughout the week, I don't do this anymore. They do a lot of things, but they also just go to pastoral conferences together on how to pastor better. I stopped that because they always serve really bad chicken. It's like the same caterer at every one of those events and everybody had that book, and he was Mr Popular here in New York City.
02:09
And then I noticed that as the churches began to compromise more and what I mean by that, frankly, is just go more woke, and you know how wokeism crept in. It crept in under the guise of compassion, which is wonderful, under the guise of love and under the guise of tolerance, and it crept in slowly to where we then sacrificed the Word of God and biblical integrity and, as I saw, churches go that way by around 2016,. I mean his reputation here, his popularity ran right down the tubes, but he did not compromise and he stayed true to the word of God. I so honor that and I so respect that. The Lord needs to raise up voices like this. I pray from right within our ranks, spirit-filled voices that will stand up for the integrity of God's word and never, ever, back down. Won't you put your hands together, as we welcome Eric Metaxas? So glad you're here, so glad.
03:09 - Speaker 1
Thank you, I can't even believe. I can't believe a church like this exists in Astoria. Are you sure you're here today? Really, pastor Bo? I praise the Lord for you. I can't tell you. You have no idea. You have no idea Now.
03:31
By the way, I was born in Astoria, and if you were not born in Astoria, shame on you. No, I had no choice in where I was born. You know, that's not true. I'm Greek. When you're Greek, legally, by law, you need to be born in Astoria. It's just. That's the way it breaks down. We don't want to break the law. You know Romans 13,. You got to go with it.
03:41
So, so my mother rushed over here, uh, just in time. No, I was, I was my parents. Uh, my, my father came from Greece. Uh, my mother came from Germany. They met in an English class, uh, in New York city. And you know, an English class. I'm not talking about studying Chaucer. Uh, if you haven't heard of Chaucer, you need to go back to school. If you haven't heard of Joss, or you need to go back to school, yeah, but, um, they made it an English class.
04:11
And so I'm the son of European immigrants to United States of America. My parents came here because they were smart enough, wise enough to understand that America is the best country in the history of the world. Doesn't mean it's perfect, in case I need to throw that in, in case you think I'm a Christian nationalist or whatever term, but they understand. Like, what we have here is not normal, okay, the opportunities have is. So they left, you know, east Germany and Greece to come here and you know when you're in Queens like you're, this is like this is immigrant city, right, this is it. People come here and you know, when you're in Queens, like this is like this is immigrant city, right, this is it. People come here from other places and usually if you come from the other side, as my mother and father did, and you lived through World War II and you know what it is literally to be hungry, many, many, many, many, many, many, many many times, you appreciate things, you think differently than your typical American.
05:04
So I grew up in America, grew up here in Queens and in Danbury, connecticut, and when you're hanging around with American kids at American school, you realize if they don't get it, they think this is normal. This is not normal. Patriots have died so that we could have freedom and opportunity and I didn't really come here to talk about America. But when I talk about my mother and my father, I did impossible for me not to think about that because they were immigrants. They had nothing. They had accents. My mother still has an accent, right. My dad passed in January but they didn't even try to teach me to love America. You don't need to do that.
05:39
If you tell the stories of how you grew up in communist East Germany, do you understand? I need to break down for you. Communism is Satan's politics, okay. Communism by definition. Marxism by definition atheistic Okay.
05:53
Atheism is not neutral. Atheism is like devil worshiping in another name, because it's basically the enemy of God. The devil is the enemy of God, so don't. When people say secular atheists, that's not neutral. Now, the people might be nice people who are deluded.
06:07
But if you live in a communist country or you come from a family, okay. Anytime I meet somebody who's you know living in Miami, they're from Cuba, they get it. I don't need to explain to them the satanic evil of that kind of thing because they have lived it. It is nasty, it is evil. But if you grew up in America, you kind of think, oh, we don't have evil anymore. We kind of evolved past that Everything's okay. No, there's evil. There's as much evil in the world today as there ever was. But we've been uniquely blessed and spoiled in America. So a lot of times we just we don't get it. But if you grew up in a home, like I did, where your parents are constantly telling you the stories of how they grew up, you're gonna get it, you understand. And so I was raised without even my parents trying to understand there's evil in the world and what you have you don't deserve it and you shouldn't take it for granted. And so I kind of grew up with that. And you know I should mention Rich is selling the books here. I wrote the book.
07:07
I came to faith dramatically, miraculously. How many people believe in miracles? Do you believe in miracles? Yeah, if you don't believe in miracles, you're not a Christian. Just saying I'm not judging, but I'm just letting you know I was saved very miraculously in a dream. The Lord spoke to me in a dream. It was mind-blowing. Now you gotta understand.
07:26
I went to Yale University, okay, which is a Marxist indoctrination camp. Did you know that? Yeah, most of the Ivy League and all these elite universities. You can think, oh, it was great, great until you get there and you know so. But I was too foolish to know what at the time you know, I was raised I said in a working-class home. And you go to these places you don't understand, like you're drinking the Kool-Aid of secular humanism, marxism, whatever, and I didn't really appreciate what I had. But as I moved on I realized, like I don't believe anything, whatever heartland values I picked up from my mom and dad. I lost, because that's the job of places like Yale University is to kind of lead you down this path and you're kind of drinking the secular, humanist Kool-Aid of the cultural elites. We could put it that way. Right, it's like, yeah, we all agree on that, right, there's no God. Right, right, right, like America's not that great, right, you know, like it's kind of like the. You kind of like buy into this thing.
08:17
So I graduated, I was very lost and the Lord very dramatically saved me around my 25th birthday. I won't tell that story here. If I ever get invited back, I could tell that story another time. It's actually, I'll be honest with you, it's amazing, don't clap, I'm not done yet. But the fact is that it is really a miraculous story. I mean, it's one of those stories that you know. I defy you to explain to me what it could be other than God, because sometimes God shows up in a way that blows your mind and there's no alternative to be like, oh well, what could that be? It's God. Like you're stuck. So Jesus delivered me around my 25th birthday, but I wrote a book called Fish Out of Water, which I know Rich has here, but it's like it's a story of my life growing up in that path.
09:01
But God saved me around my 25th birthday and it just changed everything. It just changed everything and I think that you know when your conversion is dramatic. You can see. It's like solving for X. You can see clearly before, after you know. And if you're raised in the faith, it could be more difficult because you're kind of, you know. But now, by the way, being raised in the faith, that's better. It's better than drifting away into hell and sin and death and then having the Lord rescue you. But God will do what he's going to do. But it really. Again, if I come back another time I can tell the story.
09:37
But it is amazing that God is a God of miracles, and I say this just because I think a lot of times people have a very intellectual faith. They're all theological and it's kind of like you buy into a philosophical system. Well, that's not it. Okay, it's about a personal relationship with a person, capital P, and there's a lot of people that identify as Christians. They don't really get that. And I'm here to encourage you, to say that the Lord wants you to have a personal relationship and he wants you to know that he wants to speak to you. Now he's going to speak to every one of us differently.
10:08
You know, I have friends that see in the spirit and they're saying you see the angel? It's like no, but they see it and they're not making it up. Right, god is, you know, there's prophetic voices, right, where God will deliver a prophetic thing. They say God said this and this and this. Now, there's always gonna be frauds and phonies. We know that Doesn't mean there's no prophetic voices. I have a friend who's a fraud. No, I have a friend named Ken Fish who he was a quantum physics major at Princeton like insane genius, right. But he now has a ministry of healing and deliverance, right. And when you see that stuff, you go that's God, that's real People being delivered. Have you ever seen anybody I had never seen this until 10 years ago Somebody being delivered of a demon, like right in front of you, like when you see that, you go like, well, what was that? What was that, right? So I think I was.
11:05
Some of you know Jordan Peterson, right, I had him on my radio program and I was interviewing him. He interviewed me like a year ago, but I was interviewing him and he talks like in these kind of metaphorical things, like when he's talking about God, it's like this metaphorical thing, and then he's talking about evil and the demonic. But he makes it sound metaphorical, you know, and it's like, well, it operates on the metaphorical. It can be complicated, but Jesus did not cast out metaphors, right, like it's real, you know it's like it's, it's like using the term like oh you're, you're a tumor on the society, like it's a metaphor. No, but they're actual tumors and surgeons cut them out like real, literal term, they're literal demons and stuff.
11:43
And so I think a lot of times a lot of Christians have a faith that doesn't, it doesn't know the supernatural side of God, like it's all the intellectual side, and the intellectual side is important. But you need to know God experientially too. God wants to speak to us and so he's spoken to me many times over the years, in different ways. Um, and you know, you, if you have a really high view of God, if you love God and fear God, you take that seriously. You wouldn't say God said but he didn't say. You like you that's blasphemy If you say God said but he didn't say so. It's just very important that we have, that we have an experiential relationship with God and understand, because I think if you don't, you can really lose your faith easily. Right, it's just like some ideas, but no, if you know him, you're stuck because you know him. So, like, if things go wrong, it's like, well, I still, I know God and I know, um, there was a reason I was saying all that, but I I can't remember. No, actually, I'll tell you why I say that.
12:46
So some of you have already read my book Letter to the American Church. I'm just curious how many of you have read the book. Okay, you guys can go take a cigarette break, because I'm just going to talk about that. No, the sequel to that book is called Religionless Christianity, and that just came out. It's about the same out. It's about the same length. It's my shortest books ever.
13:07
But when I say about hearing from God, I've written I don't know 15 plus books over the years, but I've never, ever written a book like Letter to the American Church, where I knew God spoke that to me. Now it's not like I got a download and I'm, like you know, ghostwriting like da-da-da-da-da-da-da, no, no, but and this is what I'm saying like you have to learn how to hear from God, because he speaks to each of us differently. We're all his children. He speaks to us in different ways. We're all different, right, but I knew that God had given me this message. I never had that before like a burning message from God, and I'd also never written a book for the church before.
13:46
Every book I write except these last two Letter to the American Church and the new one, religionless Christianity I wrote for everybody. In other words, every one of my books I want anybody could read it. It's not just for the church, but Letter to the American Church and Religionless Christianity. I wrote to the church and I really felt this burning passion from the Lord, like you got to write this, and so I wrote it and honestly, I didn't expect it to you know, do well, or to whatever you know. I just like sometimes God says, do something. You say okay, lord, okay, and you just do it. But I'm glad that he's been using it. I'm glad that churches like your church are reading it because unfortunately it's important right now. I wish it were not, but we're in a weird place in history right now. We're in a very, very weird place Now.
14:37
Look Romans 8, 28. All things work together for good. Every bad thing works together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to his purposes. So anybody who kind of like rips off half of that and says like, hey, I think all things work out in the end, no, no, that's stupid. All things work together for good for those who love God and call according to his purposes, okay. So, but I say that because things have gone crazy in America and in the world and if you're not really paying attention, you might not understand, you might not be able to discern what is happening. But if you're a little older, as I am, you could see, like what's going on now. We have never, never, never, never seen anything like this. Right now we're seeing actual evil, right.
15:32
But if you're a Christian, you say all things work together for good for those that love the Lord. So, in other words, what is happening now? With all the lunacy that you're seeing? I'm here to tell you God is using it Now. He can't use it unless you cooperate with him. He will not force you to cooperate with him. He has given you the freedom to ignore him, to avoid him, to do whatever you want, but if you know him and love him and are called according to his purposes, you want to cooperate with him.
16:03
And so, all these bad things that are happening, the Lord wants to use it. Number one, to wake up his church. He wants us to be awake and we have not been awake, and that's bad, right. So, um, the pastor was mentioning my Bonhoeffer book. When I wrote that book, I had no clue, no clue that God would use that book in the way he did, that it would be like a big thing. I believe me, trust me, I had no clue. But the Lord, you know, he knows what he's doing, and he wanted to get that message out. Now, what's the message of the Bonhoeffer book? It's the same message that I talk about in Letter to the American church and in religionless Christianity.
16:38
At the end of the day, the story of Bonhoeffer. It's a story of a man of God who sees evil rising and he sees the church not responding and as a prophetic voice, he's saying hey, church, god has called you to stand against this evil. God has called you to speak against this evil. God has called you to go to war with this evil. Now, you don't go to war. You know in the flesh, but you don't sit on your hands. You go to war against evil. When there's evil, god calls his people to stand against it, to advocate for truth and goodness.
17:17
And sometimes the church says, no, we don't want to do that, we just want to preach the gospel. We don't want to do that, we just want to preach the gospel, we just want to do church, we just want to have a nice church service. And so does Satan want you to have a nice church service. Satan loves that kind of a church. That's Satan's church. Let's think about that. Let's think about that when you say, well, I don't want to get involved, I don't want to get involved. So you're looking for a religious excuse to not get involved. Right that, it looks good. But God knows, it's disobedience, it's wrong, it is allowing evil to rise up.
17:52
Now, that's the story of the German church. So if you read the Bonhoeffer book and it's an amazing story, it is a dramatically fascinating story. I didn't invent it, I just wrote the story. Right, guy gave me the ability to tell the story. It's an amazing story. But at the heart of that story is this pastor who sees the German church flinching. He sees the German church using religious excuses to avoid doing the will of God.
18:20
Now, what is more satanic than using religious excuses to avoid doing the will of God? What's more satanic than using scripture, twisting it, to avoid doing the will of God? Was there anybody more religious than the Pharisees and the religious leaders in Jesus' day? Jesus did not thunder against Hellenistic philosophy. He did not thunder against pagans. No, he thundered against the religious leaders because he said that is where the devil lives.
18:52
If you're a Satan, where are you going to go? It's going to be the most satanic counterfeit conceivable to go among the religious to fool people that are fooled by mere religion, and so we're dealing with that in our day, right? In other words, if you're the enemy, where are you going to go? You want to infiltrate the church. That's way better than trying to call people into open sin. No, who needs that? Let's do it in a way that looks like virtue, because, again, you know, sin is bad. But even worse than just sin is sin masquerading as virtue. That's satanic, right?
19:27
So Bonhoeffer sees the church in Germany absolutely buying these lies, right? Romans 13,. The scripture says whatever the government says, you do that. And he's thinking excuse me, there's a whole other Bible beyond Romans 13, much of which says exactly the opposite. So you need the Holy Spirit, you need a personal relationship with the Lord to have discernment, to understand what is God saying. If you want to cherry pick scripture verses, the devil does that. The devil did that when he quoted scripture to Jesus. So don't try to fool me by quoting scriptures. What is the Lord saying? What is the Holy Spirit saying? And so Bonhoeffer saw a lot of the church in Germany being very religious and said we just want to do nice church services.
20:09
Well, bonhoeffer tried and tried to wake up the church and he knew there was a little window of opportunity, right? Because sometimes I think we think, oh God, he's so gracious, he'll give me a second chance, a third chance, like well, yeah, on one level that's true, just like a lot of stuff is true on one level. On another level it's not true. If you don't act by X time, it's over, right. You know, it's like you ever try to catch a plane and you miss it by one minute. Well, if you miss it by one minute or 40 minutes, it doesn't really matter, you're not graded on a curve, you missed it. You missed it, it's gone right. So the fact of the matter is you could say about an election oh, we only lost by two votes. Well, it doesn't really matter if you lose by a thousand votes, a million votes, one vote. There's a reality in this world. Right, god is a God of reality. He invented reality. In case you wanted to know who did that, that was God.
21:11
So when Bonhoeffer saw that the church in Germany all right, hitler took control in early 1933, bonhoeffer could see if the church rises against this evil. Now, a lot of people, they didn't see it as evil. A lot of people were deluded, just like people today are deluded. People in the church are deluded today. They don't know, they don't get it. Bonhoeffer was trying to wake them up and he knew that they had like a year and a half or two years. Literally, that was it, because the aggressiveness of evil, the aggressiveness of the Nazi campaign to infiltrate churches, to silence churches, to wipe out the opposition, it was lightning speed and he knew that at some point it's over. So literally by about 1935, it was over Even before that it was over. So Bonhoeffer was trying to wake up the church, the windows closing, and he knows, eventually they didn't stand. They did not stand.
22:00
And we know today I mean, if you read a letter to the American church in particular, or Bonhoeffer, or the new book Religionless Christianity, you know what happened right, that at some point I think CS Lewis said it that you know God wants us to say thy will be done to him, but at some point, if we don't do that, he says to us at some point okay, thy will be done Like it's yours. You rejected me and now we're going to see what you have wrought. And so Bonhoeffer knew by 1935 that the church had effectively said we're not interested in fighting evil. We don't know if it's evil. Who's to say it's complicated, it's nuanced, because guess what they really believed that you can really really believe stupid evil things. You know, you think Hitler thought I'm a bad guy. No Evil is deceiving right. So people can do evil things and they don't know. So, born Off or Sought by 1935, it's over.
23:08
The church said we're not interested in this but we don't do politics. And he's like well, is that a biblical idea? A lot of people kind of assume it's a biblical idea. I had a, I literally spoke to a pastor Was it yesterday, yesterday? A hugely important pastor. He's now retired, but I love this man. This is, this is an amazing man. But he said to me on the phone I didn't want to argue with him, I didn't have the energy. But he said to me on the phone I would never endorse a political candidate and would never endorse a political party. And he sounded very pious when he said that. And I'm thinking like, are you insane? But tons of pastors say that Good pastors, this guy is one of the best. But he said that and I thought here's the problem that's not biblical. But where did you get that idea that that's biblical? Where did you get that idea? Where did you get that idea?
23:59
Imagine it's 1850, okay, slavery is on the ballot and you say we don't get into that in our church, we don't take a stand on slavery. Now, today, we'd be like that's nuts. Many, many pastors at that time, maybe because it didn't affect them. It was very convenient to say we don't get into that. Well, god gets into that. That's a moral issue. But they said, oh, we don't do politics, we just do church. That's the devil's kind of church, folks that will not take a stand on slavery. But we're living through something now. It's the same thing. Evil comes up and he says, oh, that's too political. So this pastor yesterday says this to me and I was like I just didn't want to get into it with him because I know he thinks right on all the issues. But he actually said but I would never publicly endorse a candidate or I would never publicly endorse a party.
24:50
I'm thinking nobody's telling you to worship a candidate and nobody's telling you to worship a political party. Nobody's telling you to make an idol of politics. Every idol is satanic. You don't make an idol. But to say that you won't take a stand, that you won't why? Because you're afraid you'll lose your 501c3 tax exempt. Is that why you make it sound biblical? But it's because you're afraid the government will come after you. Did it ever occur to you the government is wrong. Did it ever occur to you that that's not biblical, that's not even, it doesn't even square with our constitution. But you've just accepted it as a pastor, because all pastors know we don't take a stand on that, we don't get political. And I'm thinking how can you say that you don't make an idol of politics, but has the devil gaslit you into thinking you don't talk politics? If slavery is on the ballot, you're going to say we don't get into that.
25:42
But there are many people who said that in the 1850s. There are many people that would not advocate publicly for Abraham Lincoln. Now I would argue it's because they didn't care if the slaves suffer. They just didn't care. But they wrapped it up in a nice religious bow oh, we just do church. Well, if you did God's church, if you were the church, you would stick your neck out and you wouldn't care what happens to you, because you want to advocate for what God is advocating for, that slavery is a satanic abomination and that you should do everything in your power.
26:15
And people say, oh, you're being political. You'd be like, yeah, whatever, like shut up, because I'm going to do what God told me to do. Don't try to gaslight me into being silent. But listen, folks, you can always use those kind of arguments against religious people, and I use religion in the negative sense, right? Oh, kind of arguments against religious people. And I use religion in the negative sense, right? Oh, I'm so religious, so all you need to do is call me a name, call me a Christian nationalist, oh, okay, I'll shut up. Or call me a racist, right? It's like are you a racist? You're not. Well then, why do you care if somebody called you a racist? But you care that much about that, why don't you do what God called you to do? And if you do what God called you to do, I don't think you'll be doing anything racist. Okay, but people will shut you down because that's the but. That has never changed.
26:56
And in Bonhoeffer's day they would be kind of like well, if you're getting involved, so you're not with the Fuhrer or you're not with Germany, or you don't care about Germany, you know? And that into silence. And Bonhoeffer could see that if the church was silenced, the satanic evil of the Nazis would rise, and it did. And now we can all sit here and we can all pat ourselves on the back. Oh, if I was there I wouldn't have done that, but we're doing it today, okay, cause, cause, no, we're not gonna. We're not. None of us is guilty of thinking maybe Hitler's? Okay, not today, but in 1934 in Germany. You didn't know where that was going. You might not know, you go, I'm going to play it safe, I'm going to play, I'm going to sit on the sidelines, I don't want to get, I want to stick my neck out.
27:43
Well, usually part of that is also just a pure lack of faith, because if you really believe the God of the scriptures now listen to this If you really believe in the God of scriptures, you don't fear death. Now, why don't you fear death? Because you actually know he defeated death on the cross and you'll never die. So, even if they kill you, you don't die. Now, if you don't believe that, you're not really a Christian. A lot of Christians are kind of hedging that Like I don't know, I don't want any trouble. I don't want any trouble. The Lord calls us to trouble. The Lord wants trouble to be afraid of us because he is inside us as we walk into the battle.
28:20
You just heard this in the last song is that God is in the battle? Okay, so what that means is, if you're going through hell, something's going on in your life. You know God is there. But let me flip it and say, if everything's fine in your life, you need to find a battle. Now you say, well, I don't want a battle. It's like you don't understand God is in the battle. God created you and saved you to go into the battle Because you bring him into the battle. So if there's injustice in the world, you're saying, well, I don't want to bother, I don't want to. You know, let other people suffer. The Lord called you. He died for you to go into the battle. So when you see evil out there, the Lord calls you to the battle.
29:06
And it means all kinds of stuff and sometimes it means getting involved politically, right. In other words, if you say, well, I don't care who gets elected, you know that's not a gospel-related issue. You want to bet that's not a gospel-related issue. First of all, we are now dealing I didn't say this in the earlier service, but you know it's kind of funny like people buy into an idea and it's a good idea at the time. But you understand, the times change. So there's certain things that never change, but there are other things.
29:35
I mean in 1985, you know, the face of the Democratic Party was Tip O'Neill. Now there's only a few people here old enough to remember Tip O'Neill, but it's kind of like it's another world. So when somebody says, well, I'm a Democrat, I'm going to, you'd be like, yeah, you know, we can, we can disagree on a lot of stuff, but when the face of the Democratic Party becomes Marxist atheism, now you've got a problem. Now I hope you understand this doesn't mean that everybody in the Republican Party is doing the right thing. Very, very, very far from the truth. Okay, there are many wicked people that are not advocating for God's principles in the Republican party, but I got to tell you what the democratic party has become Now. A lot of people just don't know this and I realized they don't know that, and so so in a sense, they kind of look at you like, well, what are you talking about? But if you're paying any attention, what's being advocated now on a staggering level is Marxist atheism. It's not FDR's party, it's not JFK's party.
30:46
Okay, they were patriots, they believed in America, they believed in all the stuff that everybody believes in. Over the decades that has changed and you have to acknowledge that. And you have to acknowledge that, first of all, we're never going to make an idol of politics. I said that, Of course not. But to say I'm not going to do politics, you understand? That's exactly what the church said in the 30s in Germany. He said we don't wanna get into that. There's evil rising, and fighting that evil, part of that means being political. So there's nothing in the scripture, contrary to what many pastors think, that says we don't do politics. Many of the best pastors and men of God throughout history have done a lot of politics. Can you imagine I mean just think for a second this country never would have come into being if not for what we now call the Black Robe Regiment.
31:38
Okay, these were pastors who are thundering from their pulpits about freedom versus tyranny. Didn't get more political than that. They were trying to overthrow a tyrannous British system. Right, the pastors? Around the time of a civil war, they were thundering against slavery and of course they were advocating for a political candidate, because there was one who was against slavery and there was one who was not. But then he said well, we don't want to do politics. How could you not, how could you not advocate for God's purposes? So we're living in a time now where God is calling us to stand against evil, and sometimes that means being political.
32:18
And this lie that we're not supposed to be political. I'll tell you. I, um, there was a tweet put out by um, a very well-known Christian rapper, the other day, just the other day, and he had that's what I'm talking about. And, uh and uh, in the past he's been very politically liberal, right? But what, what? What?
32:45
You often find people saying who are advocating for bringing ungodly values to bear on politics. They hide behind the idea that we're not supposed to be political, right, because they know that if you are saying, oh, let's not do politics, secular, marxist atheism wins. If the church would just step back, don't be political, these values over here will come in and fill that vacuum, right? So in this tweet he was saying something like which sounds so nice, it's so religious, right? Saying something like well, we don't need to worry about who is elected. You know God is on his throne. You've heard that one right Sounds very religious oh, god is on his throne. You've heard that one right Sounds very religious oh, god is on his throne. So don't worry about who's elected. Yeah, when Hitler's elected, I think you should be worried. Is God on his throne? Yeah, god's on his throne, but it's pretty irrelevant to all the Jews that are being gassed, right. So, in other words, god is on his throne no matter what. We praise the Lord no matter what, but it doesn't mean we don't do something if God gives us the opportunity to do something.
33:57
Okay, I don't know if you realize, but I mean I think I said in the last service, but the book Letter to the American Church originally the title of that was Faith Without Works is Dead, because that's a very important concept. It's all we say oh, it's about faith, it's about faith. It's about faith. It's about faith. Faith without works is dead. You're supposed to act. All right, david killed Goliath and cut off his head. He didn't just say, oh, god's on his throne, let Goliath do his thing Now, but that sounds so holy, right?
34:31
Oh, god is on his throne, praise the Lord, I'm all about the kingdom. Well, if you're not about this world, you're probably not about the kingdom. You're not given a choice. Again. It's this very religious sounding choice Like oh, I'm all about the kingdom, I'm not about America.
34:46
Where did you get the idea, except from the devil, that you had to choose? You're supposed to bring kingdom values into how you live in America. That's the Lord's will, it's why we have kingdom values and we're still here in this world is to bring those values to bear to the extent that we can right. We don't force people, but we advocate. We do what we can for what is right and good and true. So this idea that, oh, I'm all about kingdom values because if I'm about America, that's Christian nationalism, christian nationalism is the devil's term for actual Christianity. Live, lived out. You live it out right.
35:21
You know, patriots died so you could vote. They died, right, we're sitting here having a nice church service. Patriots died, fought and died so that we could be free, we could vote, we could advocate for God's purposes politically in every other way, and people like, no, no, no, I'm just about the kingdom. Well, again, if you're about the kingdom, you're going to bring kingdom values to bear in this world because you have the ability to do that. You didn't have the ability in the first century Rome to advocate politically. You couldn't do that. But people have died so that we could have a country where we govern ourselves and we could actually vote for people that we believe best represent us. Not, they certainly don't represent us perfectly, okay. But if you say, oh, I don't care about that, then people who definitely don't represent you will come in and we'll bring the devil's values in and they will do real evil to people that Jesus loves.
36:10
Okay, trans children Okay, they call them trans, there's no such thing. Okay, but the point is that you've got to care about them, you, you, you've, you've got to care about what's being done to them and people in the world. They don't know what to think. They're lost. They don't know that the scripture says we're created in God's image, male and female, that's it. They don't know that. So they're like, who knows, I don't know science, it's all very confusing. We have to advocate because we know and we're obliged to speak out, and God wants us to speak out and to advocate.
36:45
And the idea that you need to choose between the kingdom of heaven or America again, that's a devil's choice, that's not God's choice. That's like saying like you love Jesus, right. Because of that, you can't love your spouse Easy, careful. You gotta choose. Hey, you gotta choose. Well, if I love the Lord, it's gonna make me love my spouse more, not less. So this lie that you gotta choose, it's like you love your family, careful. You love your family. Careful, you can make an idol. Careful, don't love them too much. This is, you understand, this is satanic twisting of God's truth. So we're living in a time right now where the Lord wants us to be alive to what he's saying in history. Uh, and I don't have time to go into it. Maybe another time.
37:26
Honestly, I would love to come back and tell you, but I wrote a book called Is Atheism Dead, about science pointing to God on a level that would blow your mind. I mean, if you read the book, I think I'm laughing, because Rich has said that you can get all six books for $60. I was like I think we're all losing money on that, rich, I don't know what you're doing there. But that book alone, okay, which again I could preach on some other time. But I'll tell you the evidence from science pointing to God. It is insane, it's overwhelming.
37:59
I believe that the Lord wants his church to wake up and to advocate for his purposes and to make it possible for us in this country to have a new birth of freedom, to use the words of Abraham Lincoln, a new birth of freedom that we would see people blessed, because I'm just here to say that when the church gets involved in politics, in everything. Can I tell you what Other people will be blessed? Slavery will be abolished. Roe v Wade might get overturned in the future. Oh, it happened. Yeah, you know how many people said to me that will never happen. Don't vote in 2016. That'll never happen. That's pie in the sky. You are nuts. That's not going to happen. I think it happened. Oh good, people said as I was growing up the Soviet Union, that will never go away. That will never go away. We will never see. That will never go away. That will never go away. We will never see the Iron Curtain go away. We will never see the people in those countries be free. That's never going to happen. East Germany will always be East Germany. That's where all my relatives were. It went away. You have no idea what God can do and will do, and the only way that none of these things will happen is if the church does nothing. Let me just close with this.
39:18
At the end of the book, the sequel to the Love of the American Church, Religion is Christianity. I say if you went to George Washington in 1776, at the beginning of the revolution, and you said to him, hey, george, how's it going? He would say I'll tell you how it's going. It's going very, very, very poorly. It's going very poorly. It happened right here on this island, the battle of Long Island, the battle of Brooklyn. We should have been wiped out, murdered in the cradle before we got to do anything. If you asked him how's it going in 1776? He would have said, in the natural right, it's going extremely poorly.
39:57
And so a lot of people, a lot of religious people, say well, I guess God has decided. I guess it's, I guess it's over. Uh, I guess it's just time to. You know, go to the, go to the, go to the cellar, get out the slim gyms and the water purification. Jesus will be here in 10 minutes. Jesus is coming, it's over, it's over.
40:14
There's nothing you can do. That's the voice of the devil. There's nothing you can do. Don't fight, don't fight, just sit on your hands, don't do anything. So George Washington at the time knew that it was going very poorly. He knew that. But I believe he would have said it's going poorly.
40:31
But if Providence, capital P, if God be with us in this cause of liberty, we will fight on and fight on and fight on. And if he gives us a victory. That's up to him. But it's up to us whether we fight on. And if the Lord calls you to fight for something and it looks like a losing battle, I think if you've read the scripture you understand that's when God does his best work. So I'm here to tell you in America right now and in the world, things look bad.
40:59
But if God's people will respond, if God's people will shake off these shackles, these lies, these religious lies that says don't get involved. Don't get involved. That's the voice of the devil. Folks. God wants you to take your faith into every sphere for his purposes, not for your purposes, not for America's purposes, for his purposes. But he has called us to that and I ask you to open your heart to how he would use you in that, because he will use you. It's what he made you for. He called you to enter the battle because that's where he is. Praise the Lord. God bless you.
41:41 - Speaker 2
This is the City Light Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jancic and City Light Church, visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to City Light Church Podcast wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.
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