Charlie Kirk’s Death Changed Everything

I side with God in a dark world, and if I get persecuted, I get persecuted. And there are leaders that you have hurting people and you've not said a thing from your pulpits. One of our own was shot for what he preached, what he believed, and I saw him as a true martyr.

Dad, can I ask you this question? Because there's people who will immediately take offense that you just called him a martyr.

That's a strong statement, but I want to say this before we go on.

Look at social media, what's happening. Everyone is offended with everybody. Y'all, we are all way too fragile. Like, let's just be honest.

There's the example of a guy that saw himself as like Charlie Kirk's archenemy. He's crying. He said, I'm going to his memorial. Everyone knows I don't agree with what he stood for, but I cannot help myself from getting to that memorial.

You know, I'm going to read this because I want you to listen to me, Pastor. I want you to listen to me, leader. I heard something in my spirit. I hadn't read the verse in just months, and that is Hey everybody, welcome to the Jon Bevere Podcast. This is a special, special episode, and I am so honored to be joined not only by Arden, my normal youngest son who's always with me, but now my normal oldest son Addison. Addison, you're 39 years old. Arden, you're 31 years old, correct? And, um, I want them both on today because we are going to talk about Charlie Kirk, and we're More than that, we're going to talk about the effects, the ripples, what's going on. There are so many questions out there, and I felt that as a father, a father in the faith who loves, loves, loves the church, the whole church, I feel like there's some things that need to be addressed. There is confusion, there's anger, there is great revival going on all at the same time. Yeah. And people are like, what's going on? And I hope that between the three of us. The Holy Spirit can speak through us and bring clarity. I want to say this: his death has manifested three things. Number one, there is great misunderstanding. Number two, the fear of man. And number three, the tremendous offense that is in the body of Christ right now, which, by the way, Jesus prophesied would happen right before his return. First thing I want to state is this: I did know Charlie personally. I was able to speak on the same platform with him that wasn't his event. I remember the leaders said to him, "We don't want you to say anything about government or politics." He told me that right before he got on the platform. And the way he said it, he wasn't angry, he wasn't bitter. He was a man of God and got up and brought a message that brought the men in this massive conference in a 10,000-seat auditorium, brought them to conviction. Now, secondly, I want to say this, uh, the 3 times I spoke for him, when I met him, spoke with him, very kind man, but a man who is very courageous and a man who had conviction, which we need today in the body of Christ. And conviction comes from the fear of God. The fear of man will eliminate conviction a lot of times in the area of truth.

Yeah.

And so the first thing I want to say is this: A lot of people had problems with Charlie Kirk because he spoke about government. Now let's stop and think about this. It's not like I just wrote this because of what happened. I wrote a book that came out May 6th of this year. I think it was Addison. You Are Called. The message shows that God calls his people into every sector of society. One of those sectors would be government. If we say that men of God should not speak to governmental things, then we've got to throw out Samuel because Samuel wrote out how a king should behave. We got to throw out King David. We got to throw out King Solomon. We have to throw out Isaiah because he was counselor to the king and spoke to the kings. We got to throw out Jeremiah because he was the same way. Most of the prophets, we got to throw out Daniel because Daniel is not just a government leader. He's a government leader in Babylon and he's over all the satraps of the entire nation, which were— those were the governors of the region. We gotta throw out Nehemiah. We've got to throw out Ezra. So men of God and women of God should be involved in government because government affects our daily lives. So you're going to discredit Charlie Kirk's message of the gospel because he talked about government when I believe God called him to government? You're already on the wrong track of thinking.

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's just because oftentimes we get divisive over politics and this understanding of if you see things different than me, then you eventually, you hate who I am. And that understanding of that, which is so far from the truth. It's what I do think I value so much about Charlie, and we were talking about this before, is that he opened it up for conversation. He opened it up for disagreements to actually take place. But so much of what I actually even saw is that as those disagreements take place, he was always speaking, you know what, hey, here's the word of God. Like, God loves you. God doesn't want to keep you there, doesn't want you disillusioned. And yes, there, there was things that you could have done in a nicer way, of course, but he never shied away from truth. And I think we've gotten to this place in society where it just feels like people are hiding behind their social media wall, and they're, they're just shouting and building up a case against anyone and everyone that disagrees against them without actually even having conversation. Because what conversation will lead to a greater understanding of unity, a greater understanding of intimacy in the relationship, and a depth to understanding your fellow brother or sister.

Yes.

Yeah, there's a, there's a rabbi, Rabbi Sacks. He passed away, but he would say that the primary responsibility of a Jewish parent is to teach their children how to ask good questions. And I feel like what Charlie did is he asked a lot of hard questions that people really didn't know how to engage. And he's now caused a lot of other people to ask questions.. And it's leading to some fresh takes on what's actually happening in our world today. And that's uncomfortable. Anytime we engage truth in a fresh way, that's uncomfortable. And we're seeing the pangs of that.

And how many people do we know that would actually give the microphone to the people that hate them and then talk to them about what the scripture says? Now, here's the thing I wanna address today. There are so many people, first of all, our church attendance is through the roof right now. We have record church attendance. Last Sunday was the most attended in the United States history, from what I heard. Am I correct?

That's what I heard too. That's what our senior pastor said.

Okay, now, um, we have a lot of hurting people. I know when Charlie was shot, I couldn't work anymore the rest of the day. I had things I had to get done. I was so heartbroken that one of our own was shot for what he preached, what he believed, and I saw him as a true martyr. A martyr is somebody that is killed for what they believe.

Now, Dad, can I ask you this question? 'Cause there's people who will immediately take offense that you just called him a martyr. Yes.

Can you speak into that? Yes, I have a good friend named Josh Howerton. He's a pastor in Dallas, and I'm gonna take a statement that Josh made. John the Baptist, Would you agree that John the Baptist was martyred for his faith? I think all of us would say yes. Yet John the Baptist was martyred specifically for speaking against King Herod's marriage to his brother's wife. So there's the core reason of why he was martyred. Now, was Charlie martyred because he was speaking about something specific? That's what some would argue about a sexual preference, a gender preference. Yes, but he was martyred because he preached the gospel boldly in the public square. And I want to address something right now. There are leaders that you have hurting people and you've not said a thing from your pulpits, or some of you have said very little and you're not healing your people because God made a statement to his leaders. He said, they are healing the hurts of my people superficially because they're not declaring the truth now. I had a, literally a billionaire on his ranch look at me and he said, why aren't you ministers addressing the relevant things that are going on in our society? And I said, I don't know. And even the Holy Spirit asked me recently, I have it in my journal, why aren't my leaders declaring the truth and exposing the works of darkness with truth? And I said, Lord, tell me. He said, "It's the fear of man." Now, I want to make a statement, and this is really important that you listen to me. Yes, you might be able to find clips of Charlie saying things you disagree with.

And you would say things that you—

I disagree.

You wouldn't be on board with how he communicated or what he communicated. I was just saying the way he did. Just to be clear. So John Bevere wouldn't even be on board. There's no perfect martyr too. Let's just be clear. If we took inventory of everyone who's died for what they believed in, we would find lots of skeletons in their closet. Let's just be real.

Let me say this. Charlie was martyred at the age of 31, almost 32. I would hate for you to go back and pull every one of my soundbites in my 20s. You could crucify me because there are things that I regret that I taught. I regret that I said. There are things that I have regretted that I've said to my family. Every single one of us have made mistakes. And the problem is these leaders who won't say anything, you've majored in on maybe something taken out of context because you could take anything out of context and make a statement with it. Like you could take statements from the Bible. Judas hung himself, go and do thou likewise. And you could make a doctrine, a teaching.

Well, the accuser used scripture against Jesus. Against Jesus.

Counting them.

So for you to, Alienate yourself, not speak about this man of God to the people in your congregations or to the people in your audiences, whether you're somebody like me, means that you might possibly have a fear of man. Yeah. And, and that's a strong statement, but I want, I want to say this before we go on. Think about Jesus. Would you lead her, please? He comes into the Samaritan town, and the Samaritans will have nothing to do with him. James and John look at Jesus, and this is Luke chapter 9. Yeah, actually it's not, it's, it's Luke chapter— yeah, 9, verses 51 through 55. They look at Jesus and say, do you want us to call fire down on this community like Elijah called fire down on those 50 soldiers? Yeah. And Jesus looks at James and John, says, you don't know what spirit you're of. Now Jesus made John one of the leading disciples, gave him the Book of Revelation.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, how many other books? 4 other books. I think he's written 5 books in the New Testament, right?

Yeah, yeah, 5 are credited to him.

So what if Jesus would have said, "Oh, you made the most ridiculous statement, therefore you're disqualified as a leader." That's what you're doing by not aligning with this brother in Christ who laid down his life. And right now a revival's happening. And the question is, is a revival going to be happening in your church, in your ministry, the people of your influence? It won't if you don't side with truth.

Yeah. Dad, this is something I learned from you, watching you, that fear of God is a posture. It's something we go to every single day to be aware of what God is doing on the earth today. I mean, to your point, even you're sharing the story of James and John. What about Peter? Matthew 16. Gosh, that's so good. He says, hey, no, no, no, this cross idea of you dying. No, no, that's not right. And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. And this is right after, right after, verses after he said, upon this revelation, upon this man, I'm I'm gonna build my church and the gates of hell, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. And so we have to be careful with how we navigate these moments. And I mean, I think of Luke 17, what Jesus says, he says, pay attention to yourself. If your brother sins, rebuke him. Okay, think about that. Pay attention to yourself. If your brother sins, rebuke him. What's the precursor? The fear of God. An awareness of, hey God, search me, know me, what's going on inside of me so I have clarity. So I'm not just projecting my own fears, my own insecurities, 'cause you'll never serve who you fear. No, uh-uh. You won't. Now, you'll serve God if you fear God.

Yes.

But when it comes to people, you will never serve them. And if as leaders, we're called to serve people.

You'll serve them in a way. You'll serve whatever they want you to become.

No, you'll be a slave to them. Oh, there you go. You won't serve them. Yeah. You'll be a slave to them. Yeah, that's good. You'll be a slave to their whims, So their pendulum swings, you'll be a slave to whatever's happening in the moment. You won't be rooted in the fear of God. And that's why I love that I look at you and you have conversations with pastors all the time. They'll reach out to you and be like, John, how are you still passionate about God? How are you still doing this in your 60s? And you ask them a couple questions. You ask them, are you still praying? Like, are you still getting on your face before God? Not just to get something to give, but to receive from the Father. And are you reading your scripture, reading the Bible, not to just get sermons, but to receive from God. And I think we graduate beyond that place.

It stops right there.

Yeah. And they're like, yeah, no, no, okay, it doesn't go any further.

Gosh, to be honest, I've only cracked my Bible open to get my Sunday sermon. And I said, there's— there it is. Because you're now trying to get something for your people instead of allowing the Bible to read you.

And I think that's so important because it's easy for us to go to scripture and just justify whatever we wanted to say. Yeah. Instead of reading from this place of the fear of God, being sensitive to what the Spirit of God is doing in the earth today and listening, listening for the heart of God in this cultural moment, because God is definitely doing something right now. You have to be blind, you have to be foolish to not be aware of the fact that God is moving somehow, some way in the earth today. And I want, I want to be involved with that.

Well, I think it's not that you have to be blind, but I think it's something else is that I think what the deeper root and what you talked about earlier is the offense. An offense, I mean, offense blinds you. From everything that's going on. I remember I lived in offense for an entire year, and it's just, it was, I look at it as one of the worst years of my life. And it was everything that was told to me, everything I saw through a lens that was just an incorrect lens. The people that were closest to me, I couldn't hear their wisdom and counsel. And Dad, like, I'm listening to this and I'm hearing stories from friends that will say like, you know, my pastor maybe shared something or I shared something and they just got rebuked by people around them and they got torn down and they're trying trying to figure out what do I do? And obviously that's the fear of man, but then also the realization of how do we speak to offended people?

How do we speak to people that are hurting? That is a good question. And let me say this, you have to have the attitude that Jesus had. Jesus got so strong with his words that the Bible says many of his disciples, so we're not talking about the multitudes, many of his disciples walked away. This is John 6, go read it, walked away. And then Jesus doesn't turn to the 12 and go, guys, we gotta really do— and you two is leading our teams, right? You lead our overall team, you lead our Nashville team. He doesn't look at them and go, oh my gosh, we just lost more than half our staff, you guys, you got to double up on your duties. He looks at the 12 and says, are you going too? Yeah. And he, he shared with me one day in prayer, he said, I was ready to start all over just by myself because I would never compromise the truth because he is truth. He is tempted in all points like we are, yet without sin. Now, it's interesting, Jesus said, and I wanna deal with the fear of man, then I wanna go to offense. Jesus makes a statement, he says, don't fear those who can kill the body, and afterwards they can't do anything to your soul, but fear him, fear God, who after he's killed the body can cast the soul into hell, okay? He's talking to disciples. And you want to know when he says it? There's a multitude that gathers. This is Luke 14 to Luke 12. There's a multitude that gathers so large that the Bible says you couldn't even number it. Now, number the 5,000 men only. So this is a massive crowd. Yeah. He doesn't say, hey guys, step aside. It's my time to preach. Turns to his disciples and says, beware of the yeast, leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. And he said, this is what's going to set you free. From being a hypocritical leader, guys, and that is this: don't fear those people. Yeah. Don't fear those who can kill you, but fear God, who after he has killed, killed the body, can cast the soul into hell. Now, Peter is in that group. Yeah. Watch what Paul has to do with Peter. This is a letter written to the entire Galatian church. Paul writes Galatians 2, but when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for he did what was very wrong. Emphasis: very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers who are not circumcised. But afterward, some friends of James came in. These are the circumcised believers, the Jewish circumcised believers. Some of James' friends came in. Peter wouldn't eat with the Gentiles anymore. Yeah, he was afraid of criticism. Yeah, you just asked that question. He was afraid of criticism, okay, from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter's hypocrisy.

Wow.

Yeah, okay, there it is. He's right to a whole Galatian church. He's not writing this to Peter, he's writing to the whole Galatian church. And even Barnabas was led astray, led astray, which many people are being led astray today by their Hypocrisy. Okay, where does hypocrisy come from? The fear of man and not having the fear of God. The fear of God isn't to be scared of God. It's being terrified of being away from him. It's being terrified of disobeying our Creator who is perfect and good and just.

Yeah. Wouldn't you say it's, it's the fear of not being plugged in to the reality of God, to the truth of God, to the peace of God, to the authority of God? Like, it's the fear of, hey, I'm going to plug into something else, whether it's the popular opinion of our day or whatever fear or whatever thing is trying to control me or constrain me or drive me. And Dad, I would ask you, because I think every single one of us struggle with the fear of man to some degree. Like, I don't think that's something that you ever graduate from completely. How do you, how do you put language to, or how do you recognize when you're operating from a place where you're fearing man rather than fearing God? Because I think people have the desire to serve people. Like, they want to take care of people, they want to see people, they want to empathize with people. How does that turn into ungodly fear. You see what I'm saying? Where the people that they want to serve, they actually end up hurting. They actually end up estranged from those people because they don't know how to engage with them in a way that honors the heart of God.

Let me ask you first what you think it is, and then I'll answer.

There you go. Uno reverse.

I want to hear what you say.

Yeah. I mean, I think when it comes to fear of man, I think it goes back to that idea of being misunderstood. You know, when you look at the life of Jesus, he was misunderstood by his mom, by his brothers and sisters, by his disciples, by the religious leaders, by the political leaders. Even the baptizer who announced who he was was offended with him and sent messengers saying, are you really the right one or should we look for another? So for me, I'm speaking personally, fear of man looks like me feeling like I'm going to be misunderstood. Yeah, because I do have a heart to reconcile people, like even in the wake of this moment, I have a lot of friends who had a, I would say, a different response to the news. And I could sympathize, I could empathize with their response. And even me, I'm not someone who followed Charlie Kirk. I wasn't like, I respected his message. I didn't always agree with his methods. And so when everything came out, I had to process this before God because I had to reconcile some things over here with some of my friends and how they're processing it and things that I'm feeling.. And then also seeing, wow, I'm feeling a call to boldness in a way that I've never felt it before. I'm someone who's more comfortable with nuance. I'm someone who's more comfortable with the complete story, like figuring out the complete picture. And there is something to be said about sorting the whole counsel of God, and that takes time. But I also realize, you know what? There are ways that I have shrank back. God, how are you asking me to step forward? And I'll tell you where I shrink back is that fear of being misunderstood.

So, um, when I wrote The Betrayal of Satan, which was 31 years ago—

wow—

there was a revelation that hit me. You know, I, I always say when I write these books, one-third of them I've never heard. And, and you know this, you're an author. You know this, you're an author. While you're writing, all of a sudden the Holy Spirit shows you something. You're like, oh wow. But boy, this became so real to me. The disciples came to Jesus and said, "You know, the leaders of our nation are really offended by what you just said." And Jesus' response was this, "Let them alone. Let 'em alone. They're blind leaders of the blind, and the blind are gonna lead the blind into the ditch." Now, who are the blind? The blind are the offended. The blind are the ones who live their lives based off of the fear of man and will not ground themselves on the truth of the word of God. And I think in these last days, you gotta remember that Jesus made this statement, Because the disciples said to him, what's going to happen? What's going to happen in these last days right before you return? He says in Matthew chapter 10, he said, and I can quote this from memory because this is the very core of the bait of Satan. He said, and then many, many, the word many means most, will be offended. Okay. Which will lead to betrayal, which will lead to hatred. Now, I want to say this. You hate someone if you have no love for them, because the word hate means actually love less, which is like a vacuum with no love in it. Hate isn't necessarily anger or yelling. Hate, the Bible says that Absalom hated his brother Ammon, therefore he neither spoke good nor evil. It's contempt. It's absolute contempt, right? And so they're going to hate one another. And the Bible says you hate your brother, you're a murderer. So don't even think you're safe. Don't even think you have eternal life abiding in you. You're not saved. Yeah. Okay. You're just not saved. And this is the thing I can say about Charlie Kirk because of my dealings with him privately. He loved his enemies. Now, Jesus tells us that love your enemies, right? Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who despitefully use you. Right.

Well, there is an example, too, is I told you guys this before we started, is there's the example of a guy that basically he saw himself as like Charlie Kirk's archenemy. And he was like, we completely disagree on so many things. They had gotten into a debate. I think it was the day before Charlie Kirk was assassinated. And after that debate, Charlie reached out to him and was like, hey, I would love it if you come. Like, let's have a cordial conversation. Like, come in. I value actually your voice into this. And I want us to be able to have this disagreement face to face and be able to talk through this. And the next day, Charlie gets assassinated. The guy has his team come to him and says, hey, Charlie was trying to reach out to you. And it's amazing because this guy is telling the story on CNN and he's saying how he's crying. And he's like, here he is trying to reach out to me. I'm stuck behind this wall trying to shout these things behind this thing. And he's trying to reach out to me like, let's have a conversation. And he's crying. He said, I'm going to his memorial. Like, I'm going to go there. He said, everyone knows I don't agree with what he stood for. But he said, but I cannot help myself from getting to that memorial. And being able to do this. And I think what I'm seeing more and more right now is if people disagree with you, then it's almost like we're picking up other people's offenses. Like, it's not even— a lot of these people, they didn't have a conversation directly with Charlie Kirk. They never had this face-to-face dialogue. But yet they've picked up offenses either of themselves, from other people, from generation offenses, whatever it is, and they've carried it into their heart. And then I think it's— made it harder and harder for them to even hear from God, to hear from what's actually happening right now. When you look at this and it's like, there's people flooding into the church, but yet you can't see what God's doing because you're offended with someone you never even spoke to.

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Or you're trying to protect yourself. Yes. You're trying to protect your ministry. You're trying to keep people from not leaving your church or your social media posts or your followers. And when I wrote The Betrayal of Satan to what you're saying, it was mostly people offended because of the way they were treated. Well, this has grown 25 years later. Literally, I did 35 or 25 years later, 30 years later. I didn't realize that now it's even bigger because it's now if they don't agree with my ideology, my position on government, whatever it is, my gender, my race, then they're my enemies. And it's like we've picked up everybody in our group's offense and we've brought it in. And what it does is it leads to deception.

So it's that idea of vicarious offense, right? Like I'm taking your offense, I'm taking your offense, I'm taking your offense. And it's actually why gossip is so dangerous.

Yeah.

Provides a form of release without actually restoring a relationship. I have an issue with you, I go talk to Arden, I get a release, but the relationship isn't restored.

And then you also create a rift.

Oh, now there's a rift here. So here's what's happening. We have rifts all over the spectrum on social media. Now, Jesus knew this would happen. And I think about the call to prayer. Okay, what we see in Matthew 6, Luke 11, this idea of praying daily, Receiving forgiveness, extending forgiveness. Yes. I think of John 20, what Jesus says. He says he breathes on them and he says, receive my spirit. Like, this is, this is not the spirit of the age. Wow. This is my spirit. So this isn't the old way of doing it. This is the way of the kingdom. He says, receive my spirit. When you breathe this in, when you receive forgiveness and you breathe it out, you are going to either withhold sins by not breathing it out, or you're going to release them by breathing it out. But here's the key, and it's really simple. Can you breathe out without breathing in? And can you breathe in without breathing out? No, you can't. You've got to breathe it in and you've got to breathe out and you've got to do it daily. And here's, here's the key. People think when they're thinking about the Lord's Prayer, why is it daily? Well, every single day when we talk about many being offended, people, when they think of offense, they don't think about that part of themselves that is so central and core to who they are. That part of themselves kind of off limits. But if we're being honest, that is where offense really takes root and we find the root of bitterness. When we pray every single day and we receive and we release forgiveness, what are we doing? We are also going back to old wounds and we are releasing and receiving forgiveness in ways that we couldn't before. Wow. So it's not just an invitation to release what happened that day or may happen that day. It's also surrendering. God, I'm surrendering my pain. I'm surrendering a piece of my past to you in a way that I haven't been able to surrender it before. 'Cause I like to say forgiveness is an act of faith. So that first move to forgive is an act of faith. Now from there, you work out the forgiveness and that can take time. That can take, I mean, that could take a long time. It could take a full process. And sometimes you cannot be reconciled on this side of eternity. 'Cause reconciliation takes two, forgiveness only takes one. But if you look at social media and what's happening, which y'all, I haven't even been on social media since this has happened. But just what I'm hearing from other people, what they're saying, Everyone is offended with everybody. Y'all, we are all way too fragile. Like, let's just be honest. Like, come on.

So here's what happens. You know, you look at Cain and Cain murders his brother and God says, hey, your brother's blood is crying out from the ground to me. But then God says, this is going to happen to you, Cain. And what is Cain's response to God's— the result of what he's done? He said, I'm going to be a vagabond, which means I'm going to be a wanderer. And he said, everybody who sees me is going to try to kill me. So Cain gets this persecution complex, this everybody is out to get me complex. This is the deception that comes with offense. I mean, if you look at Jesus, he said after the offense, betraying one another, hating one another, he says then many false prophets are going to rise up and deceive many. Who are the people they're going to deceive? They're going to deceive the offended. An offended heart is the breeding ground for deception. And the thing that's so scary about deception is you think you're right when in reality you're wrong. And so Jesus said there's going to be mass deception because of mass offense. And he said because of this, lawlessness is going to abound. Now, lawlessness is when we're not submitted to the authority of God. Jesus said, I have died for you and I did nothing wrong. Now I want you to do what I have done. Forgive one another as I have forgiven you. Breathe out forgiveness, because if you don't breathe out forgiveness, you're going to be deceived. You're going to see yourself as a victim. You're going to see yours your people as a victim, your gender as a victim, whatever your idea.

And this is the same. Like, we're not picking sides with this conversation. Oh, every side.

We're picking sides with truth.

I will say that. That's what we're doing. Because every side, every person has to reconcile this in their own heart. Yeah. Like, no one else can do this for you. No. This is between you and God. You have to breathe in the forgiveness and then go and breathe it out and be a part of that.

But this is what really concerns me. He says, "Because of this, the love of many is gonna grow cold." And what really, really rivets me is the word love is agape. And as we all know, there's 4 Greek words for love in the New Testament. There's eros, which is sexual love, storge, which is the awe kind of love, that's what people had for like Michael Jordan. There is phileo, which is affectionate love, and there's agape. And Jesus said the world cannot receive agape love. They can't receive it. It's the love of God shed abroad in a believer's heart when they're born again. Jesus is actually saying the agape, He's talking about Christians, of many are gonna grow cold. Right now we have Christians that if they really sit down and ask themselves honestly, am I really under the Lordship of Jesus? And if you assess yourself accurately and say, Holy Spirit, help me, you might find out you're under the banner of your gender, your ideology, your governmental position of Republican or Democrat, you're under your race, whatever it is, you right now have made that more of an issue Because let me tell you something, if truth is what matters to you, it does not matter what party, political party people say they're for. You're going to want to see government doing things that will enforce the laws of God because the Bible says righteousness exalts a nation. And righteousness is when we as a nation live according to God, God's ways. And so what is unrighteousness though? It tears us down like Greek, like Rome, like these other empires that have fallen. We're no different.

Yeah, yeah. Well, can I even speak to this? Because I felt like I wanted to go over to Colossians, and I think this is really interesting. But it says, as you're saying this, but I wanted to read actually the verses before this, but I thought this was a good thing to add on to. It says, above all these things, put on love. So obviously putting that on, making sure that is something that you daily get dressed with, putting on that love, which is perfect, which is the perfect bond of unity. So understanding the love of God is going to grow cold if we get— if that's going to grow cold in us. There goes unity out the door. So it's the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your heart, to which indeed you were called in one body.

Wow.

And I think it's everything that you guys are saying right now is there is all these dividing factors within the church. All these people saying, well, you don't understand, or you can't speak to that because you're a male, you're, you're a female, you're a Democrat, you're a Republican, you can't do this. They completely throw out the idea and the understanding that we are called one body. You cannot have a body that is fighting against each other. It will continue to destroy itself. But I wanted to go— why I actually even came to this verse is obviously it's speaking to the elect of God right before that. And it says, elect the— as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and graciously forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you, So also should you. So first, speaking to leaders, like, how is it though, are leaders supposed to navigate? And I would say just people in general supposed to navigate this where they want to be empathetic to the things that people are feeling. And they've almost like what we were talking about before. They've almost taken it to this place where they have not actually spoken to the root cause. They've addressed the symptoms.

I want to deal with something. There's a difference between empathy and compassion. Jesus had compassion on people and spoke the truth. Empathy says, let me just get down in there and feel sorry for you.

Yeah.

And which is—

I feel like if you want, that's the job.

I would say that's toxic empathy.

Absolutely.

Which I feel like is most people's idea of empathy.

It's addressing symptoms in my mind. And I feel like we're not addressing the root cause.

So Jesus always spoke the truth. Even if people walked away. I mean, look at the rich young ruler who— this guy could underwrite all of Jesus's outreaches for the next year. And Jesus loved him. The Bible says he loved him. And he said, you have to go sell what you have because you have an idol in your life. It's your money. Now, for you, it might be your, you know, your, your social media. It might be the way people look at you. It might be your gender. It might be your idol or whatever. Your gender ideology might be your idol, whatever. You have to address something. You can have no idols before God. God wants you all to himself, which means I side with God in a dark world. And if I get persecuted, I get persecuted. And that's why I made the decision. And I'm so proud of you two for coming on with me today, because you guys knew what I was going to do. And I'm probably going to upset a lot of people, and I might lose a lot of followers, but I really— I'm, I'm gonna do— I'm gonna model my life after Jesus. Are you gonna go too? I mean, I'm gonna speak the truth because I know the only thing that will really help people is truth, the truth of God's word. Eve thought she could improve on God's word, so did Adam. Look where we came. So if you think your love is greater than God's, because the Bible says this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments aren't burdensome. If you think your love is greater by not keeping the commandments of God and just being empathetic, then you are deceived. You're one of the many that are going to be deceived. And I hope with all my heart, I hope the strength of what I'm saying to you right now will jerk you just enough to take a really good hard look, because Paul said, examine yourself. See if you're in the faith. Yeah, because some of you actually don't know God. And there are a multitude that have come to say— it will come to say, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I, I, I went to a church, we cast out demons, we, we actually preached the gospel, or whatever. And Jesus is going to say, I don't even know who you are because you practice lawlessness. What's lawlessness? Offense. Jesus links offense with lawlessness right there in Matthew 24 of the last days.

Yeah, the So he said many, many will be offended.

And I will tell you, the reason I wrote Bait of Satan is because the 2 years I was in a deep, deep, deep offense with the man that was closer to me than my father. While I was in that offense, I did what you did, Arden. I saw people that were against me. I saw the people that were for me as really being against me because they reminded me of the person who hurt me. And the people that were actually against me, I felt they were for me. I was totally skewed in my vision.

Can I ask this? Because you say you're quoting Matthew 24, and I think this is so interesting. It says that many will be offended and will betray one another and then will hate one another. But then it goes to the next thing. It says, then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. So what we've talked about today is the pastors that have not addressed it and speaking into that. I think it's so interesting that that if we don't address offense, that is what's saying will actually lead to many false prophets. So when people are asking this question, like, well, my pastor didn't say anything, what do I do? Because I think I've seen a lot of people then take this authority figure and say, I need to call out my pastor, I need to do this. Like, is that the correct response? How do we navigate that as a body?

I think it's good for us to recognize that prophets, false prophets, they leverage pain. You see this, you see this all throughout Scripture. Yeah. They exploit the people's pain and they offer a solution that doesn't align with God's heart for the people. Yeah, it's superficial. It doesn't actually address the issue. So you see that, you see that connection there. So I just want to call that out before you share what you're going to share.

No, I absolutely love what you just said.

And I think a lot of people are trying to ask, how do I respond? What do I do?

Do I not do anything? While you're thinking about it, I'll say something. It's just language that has become very real for me in this moment. We need to be humble before God and bold before man. And I think what's happened, Dad, if I'm being honest, I think a lot of us, we want to be bold before God. Now let me explain what I mean by that. We want to tell God how things should be. We want to read scripture the way we want scripture to read. We're not humble before God. We're not saying, hey God, transform me, search me, know me, reveal these things in me that might contribute to the divide, to the confusion. So we got to be humble before God and then we got to be bold before man. And it's that confidence that comes from being in the presence of God that we need to divide between what is true and what is not truth. I love the quote from Spurgeon. He says that discernment isn't knowing the difference between right and wrong. It's knowing the difference between right and almost right. And we need people who are trained in discernment in this moment. That cannot happen. That cannot happen if we are not humble before God for the purpose of being bold before men. Now, not to go tell everyone what's up so we can validate ourselves, because I do feel like there are people out there like, I'm going to try to validate something because I don't feel safe. I don't feel protected before my Father. So I'm going to go around and try to invalidate everyone else. To try to prove something. No, that's wrong. That's an offense. That's a breakdown. Listen, you need to go get with God first.

And I love this passage. We've watched that, it doesn't end well.

It doesn't end well. It just leads to more confusion. I mean, Dad, you love this verse. I hear you teach out of it all the time from Acts 20. And I think leaders, y'all need to hear this. We all need to hear this. Therefore, this is Paul speaking, I testify to you this day that I am innocent, innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. And then he goes on to say, pay careful attention to yourselves, to yourselves first. Yeah. And to your flock and to your flock. So are we being humble before God, saying, God, hey, what's going on inside of me? How am I fearing man? How am I participating in the lies of the enemy and the rhetoric of our world? How am I being ungodly with how I'm engaging this moment? I don't want to do that. God, I wanna fear you and I wanna speak truth no matter what it costs me. I know that you are love, that love emanates from who you are. I don't wanna put love, my idea of love, into a box. I want to reveal your love in how I speak and how I lead. And I wanna say one thing to leaders that I'm recognizing in this moment. We all have a responsibility to serve the people that we lead. And it's gonna look different based on where God has placed you. Like, we talk about the military metaphor all the time. You have different roles in the military based on where you're located. And so we gotta be really careful not to look across the table and be like, why aren't you doing exactly how I'm doing it? We all need to be biblically responsible and we all need to be bold and we all need to serve the people that God has called us to serve in a way that reflects God's heart for them. So we better be on our knees for those people, not sitting across the table pointing at everyone and saying, why aren't you doing it the way I'm doing it?

You know, I'm gonna read this because, and I want you to listen to me, pastor, I want you to listen to me, leader. I heard something in my spirit. I hadn't read the verse in just months. And that is Paul said, there must be divisions among you so that those that are approved and of genuine fitness will become evident. I'm telling you, I heard that scripture so clear that this is really revealing who the hypocrites are and who the true men and women of God are. Jesus said, I have come to set the world on fire. And I wish— this is same chapter he said, beware of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. I've come to set the world on fire, and how I wish it was already burning. I have a terrible baptism to suffer ahead of me, and I am under heavy burden until it's accomplished. Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No. I have come to divide people against each other. From now on, families will be split apart, 3 in favor of me and 2 against. 2 in favor and 3 against. He came to bring a sword, and that sword is truth, and truth will find out, it will locate where people's hearts are. If you lead your flock and you don't consider your own state and your state of your flocks, you're going to give them what they wanna hear. You're going, you know, let me just say this and I'll— and I— because we need to put a wrap on this. If I got somebody who's coming in with an abscessed tooth and I'm a dentist and I look at that person the entire appointment and say, let me talk to you about my pickleball game. I want to tell you, I've learned this new shot and I just talk to him. What have I done? I've— I haven't healed him. Yeah, I have healed him Superficially, I may even get him excited about his pickleball game because he's an avid— maybe you're both— yeah, now he's not thinking about the abscess tooth. I haven't really healed him. You can come and motivate your people and give them positive, uplifting, encouraging, inspiring messages while they're hurting, because— and you have basically just talked about pickleball when they needed their tooth fixed. Yeah. And so I'm asking, and then they're gonna— and I'm 66 years old. Yeah. And so listen, I'm telling you, please, as a father, I implore you this Sunday, get before your people and heal their hurt with the word of God. And if people leave you, even on your staff, and say, I don't like the fact that you sided with truth, that you sided with somebody who led more college students to Jesus than probably any other human being that's ever lived. Well, then that's okay. You're on God's side. So side with truth, not with what you think will be empathetic towards your people. Do you guys have anything else before we close?

No, I think that was great. I was saying is that if you don't address the tooth, eventually they're going to bite down on something and it's just all that pain, all that things that you didn't— it's going to resurface and you're not going to be there to help them. To do that. And so just thinking that, oh, maybe I could just ignore it for now, it's gonna resurface in a moment where you're not around and they're gonna feel the pain and they're gonna react.

Well, and for the compassionate pastors out there, 'cause I feel your heart and I know that God has put you in a place to serve people. I wanna remind them that pain that isn't transformed will eventually be transferred. So at some point, if we don't address these things, generationally, it's going to be transferred. Culturally, it's going to be transferred. And I just feel that regardless of where you stand on Charlie Kirk, even that, I would be like, look, set that aside. Open your eyes. The fields are white for the harvest. God is doing something in the earth right now. Do not deny that. Lean into what the Spirit of God is speaking in this moment. And every single one of us, if we look in the mirror, I know there is a call to greater boldness.

I know that.

Yes. So that's what I would leave. And the boldness is to serve. The boldness is to heal. The boldness is to speak truth that divides, that clarifies, that sets the captive free. And who are we to slink back and not speak the truth? Yeah.

Well, I hope this has encouraged and strengthened you as a believer, as a leader. And I just want you to know we care deeply about you. I wasn't scheduled to do this. Neither of these men were scheduled to do it, but we care enough about you that we want to help you lead your flock well. We want to help you lead your families well. We want to help you lead the people there in your Bible studies well. So until next time, this has been the John Bevere Podcast, in which I have had the great privilege of sitting with two warriors, Addison and Arden. Thank you both for being on. And we love you. God bless you. And I wanted to say one last thing. I would highly recommend the Beta Satan book, and I would highly recommend The Awe of God. The bait of Satan deals with offense. The awe of God deals with the fear of man. When you fear God, you'll no longer be afraid of and be a slave to men. So well put. God bless you. We love you.