We’re under siege in a culture war, and it’s time to bravely navigate this changing terrain. In this episode of More Faith, More Life, we explore how we’re being subtly coerced into accepting what we shouldn’t, and how the shift in our culture is being accelerated by the powerful and the influential. But fear not, for we draw parallels between the events leading up to World War II and current events to expound on how faith can be our guiding light in this war.
In an era of uncertainty and rapid changes, the potential threats we face might seem overwhelming. From the looming threat of a war with North Korea to economic upheavals like the nations uniting to end the US dollar, we emphasize the importance of keeping our faith steadfast. Through all these trials, faith is our anchor, it’s our beacon of hope that can guide us through the storm. Tune in as we explore the intersection of faith, politics, and culture in the heart of this cultural war.
Key Takeaways:
- The culture war is a battle for our minds and beliefs, and it is important to resist being worn down by the forces that seek to control and manipulate our thinking.
- Relying on faith and the teachings of the Bible can help individuals navigate the challenges of the culture war and make decisions that align with their values.
- It is essential to protect children from being influenced by agendas that may contradict one’s beliefs and values, and exploring alternative education options such as homeschooling or private schools can be a viable solution.
- Having faith in God and trusting in His power can provide individuals with the strength and guidance they need to face the challenges of the culture war and protect themselves and their families.
- When it comes to elections, it is important to vote for candidates who prioritize the safety and well-being of individuals and their children, rather than simply aligning with a particular party or personal preferences.
Where To Dive In:
0:00:01 Introduction to the culture war and the importance of winning
0:01:54 The shift in culture and the current culture war
0:03:18 Forceful nature of the culture war and the impact of cancel culture
0:04:30 Need to determine personal values and beliefs
0:06:01 Comparisons to World War II and the rapid pace of the current culture war
0:07:42 Discussion on climate change and the need for balanced perspectives
0:09:32 Misconception of running out of resources
0:11:28 Personal experiences with oil crisis and the importance of logic
0:13:29 Put faith in God and the Bible, don’t be afraid.
0:14:53 Schools should focus on academics, not controversial topics.
0:15:53 Parents should have the right to teach their own children.
0:16:46 If enough parents pull their kids out of public schools, change will happen.
0:17:38 Find alternative schooling options if public schools don’t align with your values.
0:19:20 Housing market is being manipulated by the wealthy.
0:20:46 Keep your land, don’t sell it.
0:22:44 Have faith in God amidst threats of war and global changes.
0:24:10 Get connected to God through faith and prayer.
0:25:18 Use your faith to stand up for what you believe.
0:25:49 Faith and its impact on life
0:26:15 Need for strong foundations in relationships and parenthood
0:26:57 Importance of voting for safety and protection
0:27:30 Encouragement to take action and not follow the crowd
About the host:
Steve Gray is the founding and senior pastor of Revive Church KC. He has been in the full time ministry for over 40 years and was launched into national and international recognition in the late 1990’s as the leader of the historic Smithton Outpouring, and again in 2009 when he lead the Kansas City Revival which was televised nationally on the Daystar television network. Steve is also a veteran musician, songwriter, recording artist and published author. His books include When The Kingdom Comes, Follow The Fire, and My Absurd Religion.
FREE Listener Community
- Weekly spiritual encouragement
- Edification from like-minded, bold Christians
- Community with young leaders who want MORE from life and their relationship with God
Transcript:
0:00:01 You don’t want to miss more Faith, More Life podcast today because I’m going to talk about the culture war and how you can win it.
0:00:08 You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith, More Life Podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship, artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold, truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.
0:00:33 When I was in my early forty s, I was craving more. More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.
0:01:08 So if you’re ready to do more, subscribe to More Faith, More Life and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week, it’s time to be and experience more.
0:01:21 Hello everyone and welcome to More Faith, More Life. We’re going to talk about the culture war that you, I, all of us are involved in. Yeah, that’s right. There’s a war and it’s called a culture war. And it’s very important that we understand the power of this war and how you and all of us listening, we need to win this culture war. Okay, maybe you didn’t know we’re in one. Yeah, I remember when I was in high school, it was not really a culture war, but it was a strong culture shift.
0:01:54 All the TV shows changed, what was going on was changed. We go from the Leave It to Beaver show where everything’s mom, dad, kids, clean, they never talked about anything other than just life and just fun watching their lives, right? And then it switched and changed and all of a sudden it got to be political, racial, sexual, and all these issues came in and between that the Vietnam War, the music, all that was shifting and our country shifted.
0:02:30 And so now we’re sort of in that right now because the people who were in college and above a little bit, then 30 years old or whatever, they were part of that culture shift. And now those are the people that are also in control of our government and the Congressmen, the governors, not all of them, we got some young ones, but those that were affected by that have affected our culture. Now what’s happened is though, there’s a new culture war and most of them that were in the culture shift then, I’m surprised that they’re not with it because a liberal way back then was someone who said, we all have a right to our own opinion.
0:03:18 Now liberals are, I’d only want you to hear my opinion, and if you don’t listen to my opinion, you’re wrong. You’re racial, you’re evil, you’re demonic, whatever it is, right? And so we’re in this culture war, and it’s important that you understand it because what’s happening in the culture war is getting ordinary. People who have common sense, they know that when something doesn’t sound right, but we’re being worn down to allow the culture, I guess, to shift again, but to forcefully shift. That’s why I call it a war. It’s not a choice.
0:03:58 It’s being forced on us. And you can feel it as you look at the cancel culture, right, where freedom of speech is now starting to be controlled and being agendas are being pushed on us and it’s wearing us down to where after a while you feel like, well, this is the way it’s supposed to be. And if I question it, I’m a bad person. If I don’t accept everyone as they are, which I’m not saying, don’t do that.
0:04:30 I try to leave everybody alone. I don’t care what kind of lifestyle they do. If they’re not asking my opinion, I don’t give it. If they want my opinion of their lifestyle, okay, but I leave them alone. But you need to know for yourself what is right for you, what is your heart, what is your mind, what does faith say? What does the Bible say? Because the goal of this time together is we want you to get more life.
0:05:00 And so we want to find the things that are going to rob us of life. And sometimes we don’t see it when it’s happening and don’t realize like it was when I was in high school through the 70s into the 80s. We did not realize because I wasn’t a Christian then in college or anything. So naturally I leaned a little left. I think my roots were not that way, but I leaned that way. It was popular to be that way.
0:05:28 I joined the riots. I’m not proud of it, but I did. I joined the riots and I joined the songs and I sang in bars and nightclubs. I was really leaning that direction and not knowing that it would affect us today to where now we have high inflation, government spending, canceling oil, all the things that are now being presented as the right thing to do. And we have to have our faith then to understand how we’re supposed to think.
0:06:01 How are you supposed to think and what will happen if you don’t? So in my opinion, we’re being worn down to accept what we shouldn’t have to accept. We should get choice we shouldn’t have forced on us. I’m kind of a little bit I don’t know if I’m that great a student, but a little bit of a student of world war II, a little bit of one, but mostly World War II and the events leading up to it. And there’s so much similarities where you see in Europe the wearing down of the people’s thinking, wearing down, it wasn’t overnight and a good ten years worth wearing down the people’s thinking to where they accepted, what, ten years before, they would have said, this isn’t right.
0:06:47 What am I thinking? This is wrong, this is stupid. This is senseless that’s happening to us today, only at a much faster rate, because with the Internet and everybody’s got their phones and we’ve got all the channels we want on television, things like that. So it’s quicker, it’s popping faster. And we’re being worn down by sometimes rich people, sometimes, celebrities, sometimes, right. Politicians sometimes.
0:07:16 And influencers. Yes, sometimes. And we’re being worn down that there’s something wrong with us if we don’t agree, if we’re not comfortable, if we don’t go along with it, there’s something wrong with us. And so we give in because we don’t want something to be wrong with us. Am I correct about that? Yeah. So let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about let’s see, I’m trying to think, who do I want to talk about here?
0:07:42 Let’s talk about, oh, boy, I don’t know, zion. Zion’s with me, the producer again today. I don’t know if I want to even say the word climate change, but okay, climate change. Okay, there’s some climate change, right. People give you the idea that it’s really rapid and we have something to be afraid of. Right? Again. Well, actually, now we’ll go back way far. I was in grade school and we had to make conservation posters. There was Conservation Week or something like that.
0:08:19 And it was really good because there’s a difference between believing in conservation, that we should conserve, that we should protect land and animals and things like that. But what it turned into, even though we were doing these conservation posters, we had to do them as far as school. There you go. But anyway, art class. But you know what? There was a hint of we have to conserve and be careful because we’re going to run out.
0:08:50 And I’m in grade school and here in like we’re going to ten years, 15 years from now, we’re going to be out of land. We’re not going to have room for people and silly things like that. You look up the statistics, but I think it’s something like Zion. It’s something like all the population of the world, if you gave them 5ft, 8ft apiece or something, they could all fit in Texas or something like that. I don’t know if I have it exactly right, but it’s some big, big thing, like we’re thinking we’re running out of room, we’re running out of space, we’re running out of resources, and so we have to cut back and so we can’t drill for oil because it’s going to ruin the earth. Well, we need to protect the Earth. That’s right. But we can do that and still have enough oil.
0:09:32 Right now, the electric cars are going high guns on big guns on the electric cars. But I think, give us another year, a lot of people are going to think it wasn’t so good because the grid in California is running. There’s not enough electricity to do everything we want to do. So you can get an electric car if you want, but you should have the choice to get a regular car, gas eating car. So how do you figure that out? How do you figure it out? Because you certainly don’t want to ruin the planet, do you?
0:10:07 You don’t want to be stupid and think, wow, I’m part of the guzzling group, right? You don’t want to do that, right? But you have to realize we’re not going to run out. We’re not going to run out. You got to put your faith in the word of God, okay? And you study the word of God. We’re not going to run out. There’s plenty everywhere for everyone, even with the population of today. The reason we run short is because of people, not because of the land, not because you don’t have enough or enough room.
0:10:44 People, politics, people and greed, okay? So you don’t want that. You don’t want them running your life. Zion, you got to help me here. I’m, like, in a tour of my life way back, okay? So I remember. I’ll get this. Okay. So I got my driver’s license and loved to drive. I was crazy driver. Oh, I’m so happy. And President Carter got elected, and they brought in the oil crisis. You may not realize this, but imagine this in your life. So the oil crisis came, gasoline started going up, and then they told us, there’s not enough.
0:11:28 We’re running out. So guess what they did? They took your birthday, I think. I think it was your birthday and they rationed it. So I could only buy gas every other day or twice a week. Twice a week. And then other people’s birthdays. They are on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I’m Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. I don’t remember what it is. You couldn’t even buy gas on some days because we’re running out.
0:11:54 Guess what? It was a hoax. We’re not running out. We weren’t running out then. We’re not running out now. We have the ability in our country to have enough oil for ourselves and at the same time use good conservation. Be good about it, be safe about it. Take it. We can do it all. We can do it all. But what we don’t realize is innocent people are screaming about running out and oil and the drilling and all that that don’t really know. They don’t know.
0:12:25 They’re trying to do the right thing, but they’re not listening. They’re not listening to logic. They’re not listening to science. They’re listening to people who are stressing them and causing them to be afraid, right? Come on back to the Bible. If angel appeared to you today, what’s the first thing he’s going to say? Don’t be afraid. At least that was very common in the Bible. Stop being afraid. Don’t judge by fear.
0:12:51 Don’t think of oil, inflation, food shortages, with all going on. I read an article today, truckers say the way things are going, there’s going to be a food shortage. I can believe it. We’ll go to the store and not have enough on the store shelves. That doesn’t mean we don’t have enough. You understand what I’m saying? We have enough. It’s getting it to the store goes through politics and finances and cost of gasoline and shipping and all those kinds of things, embargoes ships out into the sea that can’t deliver.
0:13:29 It has nothing to do with the amount. It has to do with politics, fear, control, just like it was in other times. Okay? So you got to erase all that. Erase all that. Okay? We’re going to go back and we’re going to put our faith first of all, we’re going to put our faith in God, and we’re going to put our faith in the Bible. We’re not going to run out. Okay? So now you can be that new person that when you hear all that fear and the earth is going to melt or whatever, or the earth is going to be destroyed or whatever it is, you don’t have to fall for that. No, don’t fear.
0:14:08 We have plenty. So what we need to do is elect and speak out the truth and start relieving our culture of fear, because we’re in a culture war, and then in our schools, right, our schools. There’s a culture war in our schools. I don’t know. I don’t know where the people come from. I have a lifetime teaching certificate in the state of Missouri. I’m one of the few people that has one of those, and I have a lifetime teaching certificate. And so I’ve been in education, I understand it. I’ve taught in the public schools, and today, I don’t know where the power, where did this power come from?
0:14:53 That the schools and teachers well, not all teachers. The school systems are deciding what’s right for our children. Well, I’m okay with that, aren’t you? If they decide I think we should learn science and math and this is the amount of each and technology, that’s great, but we’re eating up the children’s lives in school, teaching them sexual preferences, gender. Well, I don’t need to say anymore, that’s enough.
0:15:24 Why? And you know what? You got to be careful. You got to put your faith in God and realize that’s up to the parents, and that’s up to the Bible, and that’s up to God, and that’s who’s going to teach me. I’m not going to take these people probably that grew up in the 70s, went left in the 70s. I’m not going to do that. They’re not going to force me. They’re not going to shame me. I get to think for myself.
0:15:53 All right, so really, that’s what the culture war is. And I could go on the other things, but that’s okay. It’s really a culture war of do you get to think for yourself? Do you get to use your faith and you decide, are you going to be afraid? No, I’m not going to be afraid. Are you going to allow outside sources to teach your children? No, I’m not going to let that happen. Well, people tell me, I don’t know what to do.
0:16:19 I got to send them to school. I got to send them to public school. In my school, they’re teaching them things that I don’t agree with. Well, then don’t send them to the school. In fact, thousands in public schools would say, if you continue this way, we’re not going to send our kid to school. Because did you know they get money for the amount of students? They get money, money from the state or money from the government according to the amount of students.
0:16:46 If thousands say, no, not going to do it, guess what? The school is going to change because they will lose all that money that they could have, because that well, you say, I don’t know what to do. They get to go to school. My taxes are paying for school. That’s right. So you’re going to have to have faith. You’re going to have to have courage, right? Faith in God. And you’re going to have to courage stop being afraid and find a way to take your kids out. And I’m all for public school.
0:17:13 I still have my license, my teaching certificate. But right now, you need to force the issue and not say and not show up at the school board and yell and scream until they dismiss you or have you arrested. Pull them out of school. Pull them out of school. Thousands of you should do that. Thousands. Pull them out of school. And you say, what do I do? I’m paying for school that they’re not going to. That’s right.
0:17:38 Have faith and get life. Have faith in God. Have faith in God. Let this thing go. Figure out a way home school, and you don’t have to do it forever. Just make your statement. Get a coalition of people together and make a statement. Just me. That’s me. I’m not anti school, obviously, but I am life for life, right? And so this is not a good system, right, controlling your kids. And I’m telling you, I’m telling you, even Christian kids who live in moral families and they go to church and they learn the Bible have been worn down, worn down in feeling like there’s something wrong with them if they don’t accept all these other agendas.
0:18:27 So you’ve got to just pull it. Pull them out. Home school, co op school, private school. We have a private school. We have the cheapest. It’s one of the best. And we got a beautiful building, and we keep the prices down. And people that go to their church even get a bigger discount. If I was worried about that, I’d say, where’s that church that gives discounts? Because it’s as affordable as it’s going to get anywhere.
0:18:53 But you can get parents together, trade off home school. There are just a lot of options, but explore every option. If they’re not doing what you want, make them pay. Money is the way. Money is the way to get your way, okay? And so don’t be afraid. But parents are afraid, okay? I’m just telling you, they’re afraid. They’re paying with their taxes. And then I don’t know what to do. I got to go to work.
0:19:20 I can’t afford it. But trust God. Trust God. Continue to pray. Find a way to protect your children until this gets better, till we end the culture war. Okay? So it goes on the housing market. Right now, of course, if you hear this a year from now, it may have changed, but right now, the housing market is crazy trying to buy a home. And there’s manipulation there. Get it? So it’s difficult to buy a home.
0:19:50 Let’s say it this way. It’s difficult to sell a home. It’s difficult to buy a home. Okay. Well, what’s really happening is the rich billionaires and companies and corporations, you know what they’re doing? They’re buying up the homes that you can’t afford to get you can’t afford to pay the down payment, whatever it is, and they’re buying them up. And then what are they going to do? And they’re going to control the homes and rent them out.
0:20:18 Okay. And they’re going to charge rent. Okay. I don’t know what they’re going to charge. Will it be exorbitant? I don’t know. Will it be fair? I don’t know. But they’re going to control they’re going to control the neighborhoods. And if you don’t have a house, what do you do? So right now, you got to have faith and decide, what do I do with this? Pray and ask God, what do I do? And don’t act in fear and don’t act in greed. Don’t jump ahead of God. Don’t get behind with God.
0:20:46 If you have to seek advice and find out. Maybe we should stay put. Maybe if we get a chance to sell, we should. But as one guy said, I don’t know who coined this phrase, but I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I was with Oral Roberts, and he said it, but I don’t know if he coined it. Maybe somebody else said it. But some people in Tulsa, he owned a huge amount of land. Of course, he built the university, and he owned this huge land. So they came and tried to get him to sell land, sell that land.
0:21:20 And his answer was whether he’s the first to say it or not, I don’t know. But he said, no, not going to sell because God don’t make land anymore. God don’t make land. And so keep your land. That’s why you really want to consider if you have a house, maybe work harder to pay it off or put more equity in it and wait for this war, the culture war, to change. And there’s a good chance it will. But you also now have to be very much on your toes to understand that.
0:21:48 You need to get your emotions together, your mind together, your finances together, faith together. If I gave any advice to anybody right now, it would be this. Get in a Bible preaching church. Not just a Bible believing. Most all of them say they’re Bible believing, but they don’t preach the Bible. You’ll notice if you listen to sermons today, the Bible is hardly mentioned. It’s just therapy and life coaching and all that.
0:22:16 Get in a Bible preaching, learn the Bible, get the Bible, get the word of God. And you know why I’m not being religious here. I’m not being religious. I’m telling you, you’re going to need that faith, and you’re going to need the God advantage. You’re going to need God on your side with what could come right now. It’s changed in the last week or so. Right now, it’s possibly the greatest threat of war is from North Korea.
0:22:44 They’re trying to get weapons, rockets maybe, with nuclear warheads, I don’t know, that can reach America. Okay? And they’re just about there, but they want to do that. It’s a matter of time. What do you do? You’re going to panic. You’re going to hide. You can’t hide from that. And then we have the nations meeting together this week. I believe this next week, whatever it is. What is? Oh, Brazil, Russia, India, China.
0:23:15 And I can’t remember the next again, but I think it’s four or five nations. And guess what they’re getting ready to do? They’re getting together to figure out how to end the US. Dollar, how to end it and make their currencies rule the world. And Brazil, brazil’s got so much oil, so many resources, they got everything there, right? And so they could really just forget the rest of the world if they wanted.
0:23:42 And let’s see. Oh, and get this. Yeah, north Korea, the leader of North Korea is meeting with Putin, the leader of Russia. Yeah. And that’s making China nervous. All this is going on. The main bottom line is you’re going to need faith because the world culture war, and the world is changing, and there’s nations that want what we have, okay? And they’re going to try to get it. There are ways to stop it.
0:24:10 It’s preventable, but it’s going to take faith, and it’s going to take people to connect with God, because this is so big that you cannot stop it. I cannot stop it. Only a God power, the grace of God, and the power of God can stop it. So we better get connected with him. We better get connected. We better not be this lazy religion that’s all about me or I don’t even go to church anyway. You get connected to God because if it gets tough and the bombs are going to go or attack or rockets or your kids have to go, or you have to go off to war or whatever, you got to know how to pray, to stay protected and stay in a miraculous position with God. I’m talking about more faith. You need more faith, a faith to adjust your life, faith to read the Bible and believe it right, because it’s going to save your life. It’ll create more life. It’ll get your head on straight and you realize, yes, we love, we accept, let everybody live how they want to, but don’t make me live that way.
0:25:18 Don’t make me be like you if I don’t want to. And I want to use my faith. I want to know and say, this isn’t right. There’s something’s wrong here. And I know it’s wrong, but, oh, well, I’m afraid. I’m afraid what they’ll say. I’m afraid I’ll lose my job. I’m afraid they’ll cancel me or whatever. Be critical. They’ll criticize me on Facebook or whatever. Okay. Get faith in God. Have faith in God. And Jesus said, know if you have faith in God, you can say to this mountain, be cast into the sea.
0:25:49 Well, why is that so important? How are you going to live without that? Here’s, this big mountain, now it’s gone. He said, have faith in God. And so that’s why I’m telling you, have to have more faith. It’ll produce more life. If not, you’re going to fall into this. And the weakness that our country shows because people are afraid. People have fallen for certain agendas and we’re showing ourselves weak to the other nations.
0:26:15 And they will, I’m telling you, I’m telling you, they will come after us. They will come after us. But if we get God rich in God, rich in faith, back to the solid foundation of relationships and marriage, family, kids, responsible parenthood, not having fear, pulling our kids away from whatever we have to do, all these strong, strong things that need to be done, have faith in God. More faith is going to keep you in more life, and it’ll keep you safe.
0:26:57 Safe. One last thing. When it comes election time and all that kind, I’m telling people, don’t vote for the candidate you like. Don’t vote for the party just because your parents did. Vote for the one that will keep you safe and your children. That’s our job, to keep people safe, right? Not to get in this political culture war. All right, well, anyway, we’re in a culture war, and I want you to personally win it by listening to these things I’m saying. Taking action, take action.
0:27:30 Don’t follow the crowd. You can’t trust the crowd, but you can trust God. More faith is going to produce more life. Thanks for listening today. I hope you can tell I’m really, really pushing to help make your life a whole lot better and keep you safe. Till next time. Bye.
