Why Young Men Are LOST… Here’s How To Fix it (Biblically) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the word of God tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ. Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now let's dive into today's episode. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. My name is Carlos Araslo and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton. Wait, do what you did before we started. Say let's kick this pig in Spanish. I said, vamos a volviar este cerdo. And my mind just went to when you said it, you did you did fine. I couldn't have done better than you, but then he did it just like. No, no, no, bro. I didn't help you because I can say I tried to say it. Didn't I say the iconic phrase? You did say it. No, because I was going to do I'm your huckleberry. Yeah. So yeah, rock thought you were telling it that you were. It's huckleberry. That's what that's what Doc Holliday says in Tombstone that you are supposed to have watched by now that I will be watching because the year has not ended yet. Yeah, but I was too busy watching at the movies. Come on, man. Hey, come on. Home alone, bro. It was such a fun movie. It was so fun, man. So fun, incredible amounts of salvation. That's why we do what we do. That tens of thousands of people getting bring lost family members. Here, the gospel clearly presented and it was amazing. I think we all finished getting the numbers in. I bet you we ended up having pushing towards 30,000 people in person for the thing. So my goodness, man, glory to God. Praise the Lord. We're going to get into that. But before we do, we have a couple of things that we want to let people know. In just three weeks, we have something that we are very excited about. Pastor Josh, what is it? It is Christmas Candlelight Services. And by the way, that will be, you know this, that's higher attendance than Easter for us. Really? Yeah. Christmas Candlelight Services are higher attendance than Easter for us. And we have like, oh, my gosh, I don't even know how many services. We were looking at it yesterday, how to take a nap just for looking at the and it's, I don't know, 30, 40 services across the campuses or more. I can't remember. And it runs that whole week. So if you would like, I want to go ahead now and plant a flag in the ground. If you've been just a live free nation, extended church family member, I am asking you in December, potentially at the Christmas Candlelight Services, come hang, man, let's go, come hang. So if you want to know times and locations, you can just text the word Christmas to the number 20411 and you'll get all those. That's amazing, man. We have a giveaway going on every single episode for people joining. And this right here is one of the pieces of merch we have, which by the way, last, oh no, we have a winner for each episode. And the winner for this one is Adrian Hausler, 1779. This is what she said. This is cool. They have been attending LP for four weeks. They drive every single weekend for like an hour. But it's so worth it. It's what she said. So shout out to Adrian Hausler, 1779. It's Hausler, like a German last name, not hustler, just to clarify. And we got some merch for you. And if you want to make a point test for, I like some. Oh, that's a joke. We're going to end. We're off. So it ends up, we're going to talk about, we're going to deep dive on the first Timothy passage from the message this week. That's pretty good. You see what I do there? And then later in the pod, we're going to talk about an internet personality that a lot of people will honestly probably don't even know who he is, but is becoming like an influential thing, especially in young men. Dude named Nick Fuentes. Like I'm actually going to show like an actual tweet of his that just says Team Hitler and he was like kind of serious. Yeah. And so anyway, we're going to talk about, by the way, no shade to that family. Jana's family background is German. Yeah. That's right. Say that. Which I'm assuming is German. I don't know. It could be Dutch. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. And if you want to participate for the giveaway for this week's episode, you can just, here's what you want to do. By the way, we said last episode that we were going to be letting people know how many people voted for Christmas tree before or after. And the results will be Pastor Paul Cunningham. I'm going to say they're going to say before, but we can't give them yet because we need to give people more time, right? I think we need a little more time to let people decide. Okay. It was kind of close for a bit, but then also we were just thinking, you know, for people that were team after Thanksgiving, you know, they were busy. So let me tell you what's really going on. I need time for the team that I want to win to win. So if you, so we're going to extend this one more week, you can go to the YouTube video only and comment either before or after. Is it best to put Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving or after we're going to tally the total responses, declare a winner and then somebody that comments gets the hat. When you say, I mean, you want a team to win. Do you at least want to give a tip of the hat? No, I'm not going to tip it. Okay. Okay. You just want to give more time. Okay. That's great. I think I'm excited for that. Awesome, bro. Hey, before we jump in, we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. And by the way, we're going to be talking about those right now. Um, and so your next step after joining the Lit Free Podcast is community. And we've actually done our homework and we've compiled all key takeaways, additional content and discussion questions that you can take from this episode to your life group. And so to get the show notes, AKA what we call our discipleship guide, go to lakepoint.church slash show notes or text the word notes to two zero four one one. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. I will allow it. Thank you. What did it make it to the sermons? Okay. So first of all, uh, at the movies sermons are hard. They're just different. I'll be really honest. I'm going to, now we'll tip my head on this. I don't love doing them a whole lot. I would rather just, you know, preach a normal Bible sermon, um, but there were a few things, so honestly, the main passage. So here's his up. The message was primarily geared towards the nature of the necessity of relationships, both for, um, just the flourishing of human soul and discipleship. Okay. Main passage was out of a second Timothy. So there are a few things that are really interesting here. Um, honestly, the stuff that did make it in is I wish I could have talked more about Timothy. Timothy is one of the most prominent and least understood, uh, characters, new Testament, few things that are interesting about Timothy. And this is going to lead into the passage where we talk about, um, Timothy, uh, extremely prominent in the book of acts. And then, um, this is really interesting. Timothy was at least with Paul when he wrote six new Testament letters, six of them, from what I understand, second Corinthians, uh, Philippians, Colossians, first and second Thessalonians, and then the book of Philemon. Okay. Um, interesting stuff about Timothy, fun facts, uh, Jewish mom, we are actually told specifically he's, I think the only new Testament, uh, character that maybe is not Jesus that we know two generations before him. He had a mom named Lois and a grandmother named Eunice, um, both believers, which by the way is very interesting because he's such an early convert that honestly there are some Bible scholars that speculate either his mom or his grandma would have been there like, like at Pentecost, like when Christianity is born. Interesting. I never thought about that. Yeah. Well, because I mean, Timothy's right, bro, you're talking like, you know, he's with Paul in the fifties and sixties AD. He's young. I'm going to talk about that in a second. But he's already two generations deep into faith. So there has to be a story there. There has to be a story there. So mom, Lois, grandmother, Eunice, we know that. Um, uh, he is because of, um, Greek dad. So believing mom, Jewish mom, but Greek dad. Um, we know Timothy was uncircumcised. That becomes a big deal in Acts 16. Paul takes him along on missionary journey. Paul starts to realize, man, the fact that Timothy is not circumcised is, which by the way, I'll just say, I don't know how anybody knew that, but we're not going to, I don't, people, I don't know, dude. Anyway, um, it became like a thing where, uh, where peep Jewish dudes that Paul's trying to share the gospel with started going like, well, this guy doesn't care about Moses in the law. He's not circumcised. So I'm not going to listen to him. So in Acts 16, this is crazy. Paul literally, it's, it's Bible scholars seem to think that Paul personally circumcised Timothy. I have no further comments. Paul plays no games, man. I have. And think about this, dude. Even though theologically Paul writes the entire book of Galatians, specifically arguing Christians do not need to be circumcised in obedience to Old Testament law. He still makes Timothy do it in order to remove any obstacle from, uh, sharing the gospel with people who need to hear it, the Jewish peep people he was trying to show the gospel with. So the little joke I always make is he gives a whole new meaning to have some skin in the game as well. I love it. They don't get old, honestly. I'll just say this, you know, I got a lot of circumcision jokes and they, they can't make it into the sermons. Okay. There I never mind. Not. Let's just cut to the chase. Let's go. Ah, I see what he did there. Okay. Let's keep going. Um, Timothy was, uh, apparently had some very clear prophecies made about him twice in the New Testament. Uh, Paul specifically mentions that, um, some prophetic words were spoken over Timothy that result in the rest of his life. We also know Timothy was Paul's favorite, uh, traveling companion. Uh, Paul literally says the phrase, I have no one like him about Timothy. Very interesting. Timothy then eventually goes on and becomes a senior pastor of Paul's favorite church, the Ephesian church. Also side note, the largest church in the New Testament, um, by all accounts. Um, I was checking this out. Rodney Stark, shout out, uh, a church historian. Um, he gives a little estimate that the, uh, the Ephesian church probably grew to a few, at least a few thousand people, which was a big deal. They were meeting in a little house churches all over the place. Um, a little fun fact. Timothy probably had, actually we know he had, had some stomach problems. Uh, first Timothy 523 Paul tells him like, Hey dude, you got some stomach problems. And he says, um, hey, don't just drink water. Have a little wine every now and then. That's a shout out Baptist. So he had that. Like, Hey man, have a now and then. And then last thing, um, we know that Timothy's great struggle was, uh, he struggled with like fear, insecurity and timidity. If you read, um, the epistles written to and about Timothy, there's a strange number of encouragements away from fear, timidity, insecurity. Paul says things like, Hey man, don't let anybody look down on you because you were young. Stop doing that. Timothy hit. So he had that in him or he'll say things to Timothy like, Hey, you have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of, uh, love, power, self-control. What were you going to say? When the apostle Paul told Timothy, don't let anybody look down on you because you're young, that word young implied under 40. Paul Cunningham, is that correct? Actually probably more under 30. Under 30. Okay. Neotase. Okay. Is you, Neotase was generally given more if you were 30 and under. Interesting. Okay. Just curious. That's what I, what I had read is that most of New Testament, Timothy was probably around in around 30 or in his early 30s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So generally, you know, how old are you now? Are you 32? I'll be 34. Oh, excuse me. I'm aging well. Aging well. Uh, working on it. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So I guess I'll take that word. That's it, man. Let's go. So all of this. Now what that leads into is it leads into, um, the type of relationships that every man of God needs. Um, you need, you need some Paul's in your life. And then if, and then you, you owe it to the kingdom of God to have some Timothy's in your life, so we can talk about that. But it, a lot of the stuff didn't make it in was Bible background stuff. I want to say about him. There you go. That's great, man. Right. Man. So honestly, like I love the sermon this weekend because, you know, the, the centerness on relationships and loneliness, it is, it is hard to do relationships today. It seems like more and more with just the culture that we were in technology, phone, social media, it's increasingly hard. And so I just want to open it up. Um, here, what do we need to know? Paul, any thoughts on, you know, here's what I think our people need to know in terms of this conversation. In terms of just loneliness, uh, over anything. Yeah. And I think in general, one thing I like to tell people, this applies to a lot of parts of life is your life is perfectly designed to give you the results you're experiencing. And so I think a lot of people, if they were honest, they looked at their life. It's like a lot of people would fill alone. Um, but a lot of that is almost by self-choice, not always, but a lot of times by self-choice, because now, um, we are on our devices all the time, which means by the way that I can be in the same room as someone, but still in a sense be alone and be isolated from actually had a conviction of this the last couple of weeks where I just was tired and had long days and we were wrapping up a softball season and I just found myself just on the couch on my phone or computer or something like that. And I was like, wait a second, like I'm here, but I might as well not be here. Kind of things. I think some of it is just, we isolate through ourselves through devices and screens. Um, some of it is just people not willing to be around other people. Some of it is even like, you can come into churches and you can leave, come and go without talking to anybody. So the idea, even when we're talking about isolation and loneliness, I would say is don't automatically assume that what we mean is like people that are alone in a cave or alone in a room and there's no one else around. Part of it is also just a posture of life where we can be around other people, yet isolated from those people. Those are a few opening thoughts that I give you. It's interesting, uh, you know, I never thought about this before, but you know, here in, we, in our culture, we live in a very highly individualistic culture where we tend to think of myself. And so even, uh, when you read something like the Lord's prayer and, you know, the disciples asked Jesus to teach us how to pray and you, you read the Lord's prayer, what Jesus does is he says this, he says, our father, which art in heaven, how will be that they can come that will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread. Our daily bread and forgive us our debt and we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And again, there's like the whole prayer is phrased in community. And so when we talk about following Jesus, and if somebody today can say, well, you know, I'm a, I'm a Christian, but I am isolated. Well, that's a problem because, um, you know, the whole point of Christianity is for you to be part of an Ecclesia, a congregation or a group of believers to walk alongside of you with other, uh, Paul's and other Timothy's around you. And so, and so I love that it's in this verse. Jesus is already telling you, Hey, it is implied that you are surrounded by believers. Well, you see a few other places to like, when I like to sometimes say is you have to follow Jesus for yourself, but you cannot follow him by yourself. That's so good. Say it one more time. That's so good. You have to follow Jesus for yourself, but you cannot follow him by yourself. Um, and even like one thing that people miss and it's, it's easy to miss it because in our English translations, when you read the word you, you usually think of like, Oh, me, like a singular, but when Paul is writing his letters, almost always when he says you, it is you all plural because even how these letters would have functioned as he would have written them often with the help of Timothy and others, they would have been sent to the church and then someone would have read it to everybody. So when they are hearing these letters read, because they would have had to make copies, there's no one, no way everyone could have had their own copies. So they're not reading this alone in their house. They're reading this together because following Jesus is a community project. Well, and here's, so here's a big, here's why I really wanted to hit this. So, you know, we're starting to get demographics on the podcast and as it grows, like I'm making, I'm having these guys bring me data. Help me understand. I'm a data guy. Um, most of the listeners of live free right now are dudes, which is by the way, really rare. Um, most Christian content is 70, 30 female men and we're skewing the exact opposite. Um, here's, here's why this is really important is it's dudes in particular that are like they lone ranger it. It's like it loneliness. And it's not, by the way, it's not even about loneliness. It's just, it's more like lone rangering, trying to lone range your life. And what you do is, it's kind of like, um, it's kind of like the John Wayne masculine ideal is like, Hey man, I got this. I don't need help. I got this. And, um, my friend, Patrick, Joe B. Martin, he always says the three most dangerous words in English language are, I got this, you don't got this. You don't got this. Um, it basically, there's two reasons for this. Number one, um, there are, there are a lot of sins and struggles that you will face in your life that they got to be gang tackled. And it's like, Hey man, it's like when, uh, when Derek Henry is running full speed down the middle of the field, one safety is not going to get him. It's like, he's going to win that. It's you're going to have to gang tackle that thing. Um, every man of God is going to face things in their life. It's bigger than you. And, and those are moments where it's like that sin, that struggles, got to be gang tackled. Um, so what, what I would say is that we got, we got this little bit in the message is what every man of God needs is you need some corner toters in your life. And I want to talk about what this looks like and how to do it because guys are really bad at it. Um, is it corn of toters? Is that passage? We all know it is the Jesus teaching the, you know, he's teaching the house. Uh, I think, uh, I think it was Peter's, Peter's mother in law's house. He's teaching a house and while he's teaching these guys bring their friend. That's a paralytic and they bring them on a mat and they carry them there. They can't get through the crowd. And so they literally climb up on top of the little deal and they make a hole in the ceiling above Jesus while he's teaching. Super rude. By the way, can you imagine, can you imagine like being in a service and we start hearing impact drill at the top of the security team will be a little, oh my gosh. That's what the flock, he gets like, they'd be all over that. That might look a little different. Yeah. It looks a little different today. Scott McNeal on team, bro. That would be a thing. Shout out security team. But they said, and they lower their, their friend to Jesus and he heals him. Now here's what's really interesting. The Bible, he says, Jesus, it says Jesus saw their faith and healed the man. Now, dude, this is so interesting. The point is Jesus did not look at the faith of the dude on the mat. He looked at the faith of his friends. That's good. And based on the faith of his friends, healed the man. And so here's what every guy needs in their life is they, you got to have some corner toters. Who are the four people? And I'd go for who are the four people in your life? The men that when you sin, you struggle, when, like, when honestly, when you're not walking towards Jesus, they're the kind of guys who they'll come grab you. They'll stick you on a mat and they're going to go, Hey man, you're a little wounded, you're a little banged up right now. I'm going to carry you to Jesus. Uh, you, you got to have that at least four corner toters in your life. It's good. Well, it seems to me to, um, Josh, that the younger you get, the harder it is to do that. Cause especially when you're young, you don't feel like you need anybody. Like, you know, you just kind of do your own thing. Like I feel like at some point over life, you start facing different things. And it's, it's like you start to realize, wait, you think, say it again. You think the younger you are, you don't need, you don't need the harder it is to, to do what you're saying, to find the right people in your life. I would have said the opposite. Boy, tell me why. Well, I mean, for me, so honestly, dude, it's like right now I got everything. I got everything but time. Yep. You know, it's like, Hey man, you know, you know, I got more money. And I did when I was 20, I got more, you know, all the things, what I don't got as time because, you know, I got a very full time job. Um, I got three kids, you know, 14, 10, six, uh, which means not only am I a three X parent right now, that means I'm a professional chauffeur. It's like, so it's, you know, well honestly, dude, when I was younger, I had a little more time. So it's like it was way easier for me to holler at some dudes and I'll talk about how I accomplish that now in my life. But now what, what makes you say the opposite? Yeah. Cause when, when you're young, you feel like you don't need people. Like I think that's, uh, that was my story. I think, uh, you know, I had a, I had a goal, I had a vision. I was running and honestly, I didn't have time for friendships. I kind of just, you know, I was busy and, and then, then you hit some bumps in the roads and then you're like, man, I don't know what to do. And honestly, I'm a little lost. And I mean, this is kind of part of my story too. Even like 10 years ago, my faith started to deteriorate because now I'm reading a bunch and I'm studying, uh, and I'm like reading maybe the wrong voices and listening to the wrong people. And then my faith and isolation started to slowly drift. And now I'm like, now there's a moment where you look back and you're like, where am I? What just happened? And so that's right. And so, but honestly, like if you even speaking of like people that are, have deconstructed their faith or that they're a little lost in their faith, uh, the vast majority of them is because they're not surrounded with the right people. Dude, bro, that's the, like it's the whole, um, uh, whoever walks the wise becomes wise and companion fools will suffer harm. Do I, I like to rephrase it like this. Um, what, what some people say is you show me your friends. I'll show you your future. Honestly, dude, let me take it a layer deeper. You show me your group chat and I'll show you your future. You show me your group text and I'll show you your future. I've watched this with guys my age and it honestly, dude, especially with pastors, you watch what group text are you in. That's who you're going to become. And let me just say this, I didn't plan on talking about this. Let me just say this really quick. So we hit podcasters and, and pastors real quick. So here's honestly, dude, let me go layer deeper on this. And then I do, I want to get practical because here's the thing. Good men of God that live consequential lives that make a difference in this world. And they changed not just their lives, but their legacies and their lineages. Those guys are not found. They're forged like 100% of the time. When you, when there is a man who lives a life of consequence, if you look up underneath that guy's life, what you're going to find is there were five or six other guys that he chose. He's like, I'm going to be in a posse with these guys. And he chose the right posse. And it's like, it's that thing of if you want to want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far to go together. It's the same thing, dude. It's like, I'm a big military history guy. It's the same thing. Like, I wish I could remember the name. I read a bio, a biography of this Navy SEAL last year. Oh man, Adam, something. But dude, if you, if you watch these Navy SEALs, man, you watch these interviews, these dudes, so here's what happens, man. They'll do the most insane, like insane things as long as they got four other guys that are as lethal as them standing next to them. Yeah. No, I'm serious, dude. So it's like, they'll look at these guys. I read a biography of, uh, or I read a deep dive on some of the guys that killed Osama bin Laden. And brother, I mean, seriously, they're literally, somebody's walking up to this guy and he's going, Hey man, here's what I need you to do. I need you to helicopter drop right into the middle of a, you know, whatever it is. It was an ISIS back then. What was it? It was Al Qaeda. Hornet's nest. You're probably going to die. Heads up. You're going to jump out of a helicopter right into an Al Qaeda hornet's nest. You're probably going to die. Even if you succeed, you know, there's probably people around him who are suicide bombers. So it's like, even if you succeed, you're probably going to die. And, uh, you know, you want to do it. And if there's, they'll come to like four or five of these guys and like, are you going to do it? Are you going to do it? Are you going to do it? Yeah. And it's, you know, honestly, it's like, if you watch people in the kingdom of God, that's what it's like. It's like you, you, you stick Peter around James, John and go down the list. And all of a sudden it's like, you willing to die? You willing to die? You willing to die? And like, yeah, man, let's go. Yeah. So let's go. It's like a thunder. It's like, that's, I got a little bit of that thunder. That's it. I can only speak to guys in this, but it's almost like what we're saying is this like, man, when we're together, men might become stupid in a sense of we'll do some stupid things and, and, and stuff like that. But when we're alone, it becomes dangerous. It's like, I say stupid, I don't mean like little stupid. I just mean like, we'll do things that you usually, you know, are fun, but also maybe a little, yeah, silly. But it's like, man, we're alone. It becomes dangerous. Um, and I think going back to even like the juxtaposition we were saying earlier, is Carlos, maybe we could say like this is like, when you're younger, you don't think you need friends and need other guys, but it's actually the easiest time for you to get them. Whereas when you get older, you realize you need them, but then you're so busy. I mean, part of even like a few weeks ago, and I was mentioning my knowledge, just fell myself veg in. It's because I was like, he was like, we are family loves when our girls do softball, but man, that means three nights a week. And then we had, we were doing rooted again. It was an amazing thing, but when we were looking at our schedule every night was full and so it can be hard then to find those guys in your life who I like to think of Ms. like, man, your friends are like a riptide. And a riptide is like literally if you, if you've never been to the ocean, a riptide is this current that they tell you, you cannot swim against it. Like it's, it's useless to swim against it. It's the only way to get out of it is actually to swim the side and get out of the tide. But that's why it's important to surround yourself with the right people, because when you begin to go in direction, you shouldn't. Those people are actually going to take you the direction you should be going to. So yeah, to me, it's like, I think of man, if like the people around me are a riptide, where are they taking me? But also if I don't have anybody around me, then I'm just drifting. I'm just floating out in the ocean and just aimlessly drifting. So you'll get, let me, so it's really interesting. If you look at some of the most consequential people in the Bible, it's like, go David, like man, after God's own heart. Warrior King, like accomplishes incredible things to the King of God. Ask yourself the question. How did he structure his relationships? Okay. So, so I got a pastor buddy who says this, every man of God needs a king's table is what he says. And he looked at the life of David. I think this is actually really helpful. He's like every dude, Carlos Arrazo needs a Joab. You need somebody that's a peer. They have the same spirit as you. They got those like, Hey man, I want to fight a battle. They're going to fight battles with you. That was Joab. Joab was leader of David's, David's army. They both shared like a common aggression and mission. You need a Nathan. Nathan was almost like the appointed prophet to the King, an older man, a wise man who could speak on behalf of God and walk in and at times rebuke David. Like, Hey man, you know, his whole, you are the man after David's affair. So you need, you need an eighth and somebody who will rebuke you and then, man, and then you need a Jonathan. You need at least one Jonathan. That's the friend that sticks closer than a brother. You got to have that now. I will kind of do a little thing about podcast. Podcast. Okay. Let me talk about this real quick. So you're, is that whole thing we said earlier of, so let me say this. And then I want to know what you guys think about this. So I'll say it. You guys feel very disagree. So I said earlier, show me your group and I'll show you your future. Here's a little bit of what I feel like is happening right now, especially for younger guys, Carlos, and this leads into the little Nick Fuentes thing we'll do later. Okay. So all right. If you reverse, let's go back to 2007. So if you look at spikes in loneliness and depression in America, they spike in 2007. Pop quiz. Why 2007? Do you know? I mean, I feel like I do. I feel like I do. YouTube launched in 2006, but became more like started to pick up in 2007. iPhone. 2007 launched the iPhone. Sorry, I cut you off. I was doing the math because that would have been about a year after I graduated. Smartphone. And if I remember right, App Store was just very close to that. Yeah. So smartphone and App Store before then you really couldn't like, you know, there wasn't enough to do, to do this all day. So to, so it spikes. All right. Then, and man, this is no shade. Like, you know, please understand what I'm saying. What I'm not saying, I'm not saying this about all pastors. One of the other things that happened is all of a sudden then for a variety of reasons, all these cultural issues and cultural upheaval starts to happen. And awesome, man. I'm not sure the pulpits did a very good job of stepping into those things. So then here's what, here's what you have happen. The, so this happens. I have phones in my hand. Then all these cultural issues that they're, they're looking at their phones trying to figure out what do I think about this? The pulpits are silent. Now, so here's step, step three is nature hates a vacuum. So especially young dudes over the next 10 years, they start going to podcasters to get, okay, what am I supposed to think about all these issues because the pulpits aren't speaking to these issues? So then you got this. So now what you have is in a secular culture, you've got the, the therapists almost function like secular priests, then the podcasters take the place of the profits in the culture. So here's, you get these two things. Now the therapists are the priests, the podcasters become the profits. And dude, here's what you got now is honestly, man, I think especially young men, people are now trusting podcasters and influencers more than like personal godly friends in their lives or even their pastors. Now that may sound self-serving. I'm a pastor. I don't care. This is just a Bible thing. And it's honestly, man, I think some of the way that people are being shaped right now is they, again, they're looking to podcasters and influencers for how they shape their lives and the trajectory of their lives more than godly people and more than godly pastors. So like, dude, if you're trusting Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes and Ian Carroll and whoever it is, and they're shaping who you are as a man, more than godly men in your life or your actual pastor, like I'll just say this, man, if podcasters like that and your pastor disagree on a moral or theological issue, your default mode should be to side with your pastor. Yes. And if you're not doing that, then what you need to check yourself on is, hey, bro, have all of a sudden has like, has a podcaster or an influencer actually become the functional shepherd in my life? And let me just say, like, you're in a bad spot if you're there. Yeah, that's a bad spot to be in. Well, hey, guys, one of the reasons we are intentional in creating these kind of podcast episodes is because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. Having said that, what we want to do through the Live Free Podcast is we want to model what it looks like to be in a discipleship group where we come together and open up the Word of God together and grow together as followers of Jesus to live free in Christ. For this reason, we love that you're tuning in. But honestly, we don't just want you to be a passive listener. We want you to be an active participant. And so if you have not yet joined a group, you need to get into rooted. Routed is a 10 week discipleship experience that helps you grow closer to God, build meaningful relationships and discover the purpose he has for your life. Routed guides you to practice the seven rhythms of following Jesus, to transform your faith from something you know into something you actually live out every single day. And so whether you're exploring what it means to follow Jesus and you're ready to grow deeper in your faith, or maybe you're searching for people to do life with, rooted is for you. Just text the word rooted to 20411. And our teams will follow up personally. Do not wait. Your next step starts now. Thought agree, disagree, additional comments. I'll let you go first. Well, OK, boomer me, Carlos. Which is OK, boomer. I'm not a boomer. That's funny. And I'm not Gen Z. So there you go. There you go. There you go. So yeah, I think it's I agree with you. I think it's it's just math at the end of the day. Right. So, you know, you will see today. And again, I'm a young millennial. So you start seeing it in Gen Z and you talk to our student pastors today and they'll tell you whenever they go to high schools and talk to students like these students are using headphones like all the time you go to lunch. There's always like a screen and the YouTube's always playing. Like it's a nonstop influx of voices going to their brains and their souls and their hearts, like literally all throughout the week. And so to me, like you just do the math. That's like literally 20, 30 hours a week, at least versus like their pastor who's speaking or their life group leader who's speaking into their life for like an hour, maybe a week or two, maybe or a text here and there. It's just one's going to win over the other. Like it's just kind of it's math. And so it's not it's not whether these voices are influencing you, influencing you. It's how they're shaping how they're forming you. And so the question really is, are they forming you or are these voices the forming you from who Christ wants you to become? You go back. And so we're all meant to grow to be more like Christ. And so the question really is whatever you're being exposed to, whatever you're listening, whatever podcaster or influencer is that voice shaping you to become more like Christ. So I think it's just math and honestly, like, thank God, we are in some ways starting to move towards leveraging some of the. Yes. This is I mean, we've had this conversation. That's why we started this podcast. That's why we started this podcast. A couple other thoughts. One is that I mean, it just makes sense when the iPhone comes out, those things by partly because right here again, just talking to men and men, women are a bit different in this, but guys, we bond over shared experience. That's right. Most of the time when I was going to, for most part, just get together to talk. Oh, that's what we're doing now. A lot of times how guys bond over shared experience. I would say I have literally never gotten together with other men to talk. No, you need to be doing something. Besides being a discipleship thing. And even then it's around the word. But if you, like, if Paul Cunningham called me, I was like, Josh, do you want to come over my house tonight and we're going to sit on the couch together and talk? I'd be like, A, no, and B, now I'm suspicious of you. But seriously, seriously, like that's the thing is even like I remember back to in college right before the iPhone came out, like, man, the fraternity, how we bonded is fraternity, brother, especially with your pledge class, shared experiences that you then, yes, debriefed, but it was shared experiences. So then if I'm on a phone all day, I'm not having common experiences and not building those relationships. That makes sense, especially specifically with men at least. Number two, that's why we're going hunting at some point. That's exactly what I'm thinking about. I'm going to shoot that pig. Let us shoot this pig. I'm not going to not kick you. I'm not sure. You can kick it just after it's dead, please. But the other thing is I think I'd add maybe one ingredient to what you said. I think around that time was also when you really began to see the rise of fatherlessness and when men are not getting discipled by fathers, they're going to get discipled by algorithms, bro. And so I do think that's maybe just one more like little ingredient I'd put in kind of this toxic stew that's combined is that I think you really began to see numerically a rise of fatherlessness, either because dad wasn't there or he wasn't engaged. And so I think that's maybe one thing I'd add in there too. We're sure, especially for the younger generation, like YouTube replaced fathers teaching their sons how to do life. So like even just how to tie a tie, there's like one of the most viral videos on early YouTube days is the video, how to tie a tie. Dude, I looked this up. Did you? Yeah. Have you seen it? It's like this old video. A bajillion. There's a whole new generation obviously going to YouTube before they'll go to their dad. Yeah, because he used to be like, dad, how do I tie a tie? Who else would you teach you? I'm going to go to YouTube. How do I tie a tie? There you go. Now it's chat GPT. Now it's AI. I mean, more and more, it's just a replacement of fathers. That's right. For sure. Although the clock going to go. How to tie a tie. 83 million views. That's great. 83 million. And they go, they go Windsor. So that's, you know, that's a different discussion. Now, one thing I don't know, we'll get some, you had some just practical tips for all of our specials for dudes in a second. I will say just to take away a little bit of something though, from some of very younger generations is while for sure, fatherlessness is a huge part of it. Now I will say, don't victimize yourself when in reality, you might be isolating yourself by how much you're consuming visually. So I don't want to, when I'm saying that I'm not doing this, we'll get into this with some of our critique of someone we're talking about later. I want to be careful and not have people victimize themselves when again, your life is perfectly designed to give you the results you're experiencing. So if you are a young, a young man or woman, teenage twenties, whatever, and you spend all your time by yourself on their device, when you actually could have amazing parents in your home, you might be isolating yourself. So I don't want to take complete responsibility. Let me say something about that. And let's talk about how, like as far as owning it, men's so like, I'm at, when I first say this, it may sound prideful. And when I get to the end, you realize why it's not in my entire life. Have I struggled with sin? Absolutely. Have I, have there been things in my life that's like, oh man, I had to get out of that for sure. In my entire life, I've never had a Josh went off the rail season in my entire life. Here's why when I look back at my life, um, I grew up in a godly family with a godly dad and a godly mom who got me in a church real early and they prioritized it. Then, and I'm going to talk about this in a second. Then when I turned 16, uh, my youth pastor asked me if, uh, I want to be in a discipleship group. So my closest friends all throughout high school were my D group. Like we're meeting before school, 7am talking about Jesus, how are we going to reach our, our school with, with the gospel. And then Wednesdays, where there was Jeff Carlisle, he's teaching us verse by verse through acts. Shout out Jeff Carlisle. Then I get to college and Jeff told me, he was like, Hey man, the first thing you need to do when you get to college. You need this. So freshman year, I'm walking around at union and I'm going like, you know, I'm going to shout out some, I'm going, Eric, Meryl, John Reed, Greg, Seth, Josh, Husung, I'm walking by the way, some of those guys listen and we're like, Hey man, we call it a war room. Hey man, we're a wage war against the flesh. So for four years, freshman year through senior year, it's like, I'm getting in there with guys and like we confessed any imaginable, any imaginable sin. It was like, we're going to get in the light, we're going to walk together, we're going to study the word together, we're going to do ministry together. Then I get out and it's like everywhere, you know, everywhere I'm in ministry. And now I got pastor friends. It's like, show me your group text. I'll show you your future. I got guys on our staff. Some of my closest friends are godly pastors. We text each other about every area of our lives. I bet on average 15 to 20 texts per day. And it's like, so here's the deal, man. That proverb of whoever walks with a wise will become wise and a commanding of full sufferers harm. Who you're walking with is actually more important than where you are. Because who you're walking with is going to determine where you go. So that's it. Now we can talk about how. Yeah. Let's do it. All right. Yeah. So a couple of things I would say, especially for men, is number one. So proverb, book of Proverbs, Proverbs seven is like, hey, man, it says, first of all, I said, I love this. It's really interesting. It says that wisdom is more valuable than wealth, health, really anything. The reason for that is think about this. I'm going somewhere this. If you have money, but you don't have wisdom, you're going to lose all your money. If you have money, but you don't have fame, you're going to become famous for infamous things. If you have a family, but you don't have wisdom, you'll destroy your family. If you have wisdom, at least all things. Here's really interesting. It's one of those verses you read and you're like, what the heck? Proverbs seven says, all right, great. Now, here's the beginning of wisdom. Get it. That's what it says. Here's the number one thing. I love it. I love it. Get wisdom. So the point is, it's like, here's how you succeed. If you're a young man, here's how you succeed at literally anything in life. This is just how I've done anything in my life. My dad taught me this when I was a kid. Find somebody that is better than you are at what you're doing. They've accomplished what you want to accomplish. You go find them and then you ask them millions of questions and then you just do what they said. So seriously, man, I'm 16 and my dad's like, Josh, you want to be a pastor? You need to go find Bob Russell. He was the pastor at Southeast Christian Church, the largest church in America at the time. And he's like, see if you can get some time with them asking questions about being a pastor. And I did. And I just did what he said. If you are, and I'm talking to guys, but this is for anybody, if you're struggling in your marriage or as a parent, bro, here's what you do, man. You walk into church 15 minutes early. You stand in the back. You wait and you watch two people with some gray hair walk in. A couple. Watch and see. It's the way you're looking for the ones who are holding hands. And when the service starts, he's got his arm around her. Or when they're singing worship, like they're real tight and his arms around her hip. And then when the service is over, you just walk up to them and you say something like this. You, Proverbs four, you get wisdom. You say something like this. Hi, my name is Blank. We are bad at marriage and you seem good at marriage. Could we take you out to lunch and ask you questions about having a good marriage? And then you do it and then you do what they said. So you do that in every area, in finances, in family, in marriage, in parenting, in career, in ministry. And I got, in my life, I try to have names. Like if, you know, I won't say the name, but if I got a financial question, there's two people. I'm going to call. Yeah. That's great. I actually, this is a thing I do. And I probably should do it for other areas of life. But like anytime somebody, when I ask them, hey, how long have you been married? And they'll be like, I don't know, 20, 25, 30. And anytime somebody's married more than me, I would be like, hey, give me one thing. That's great. To make it to where you are. So if you're like, you're Josh, you're 20. 20. I've been married 20 years. So I feel like I don't know if I, I'm sure. Okay. So I'd be like, hey, Josh, are you 20? Oh, bro, give me one thing I need to know to get to 20. Yeah. That's great. Every single time. And so I'm just like compiling all my, I'm going to write a book and I'm going to marry something. I don't know. But it's just, it's so helpful because I don't need the whole lecture right now. I just need one thing. And it's, anyway, it's good. Yeah. It's good. That's great. I didn't want to, I didn't know if you had more. I didn't want to interrupt you for your flow. Dude, the only other thing I'd say is, let me kick. If you want to get really practical. So I think one from the wisdom standpoint, like be a man that is aggressive at pursuing wisdom and you will find it other people. So like, here, so here's a big idea on that one. You don't, like the Bible says, when it says you have been given everything you need for life and godliness, what people miss is when that verse says you, the you is plural. Yes. So here's a big deal. Carlos, you, you don't have everything you need for life and godliness. Yeah. The church collectively does. So here's a big idea, dude. This kills me, man. I'm standing up there preaching every week and I'm going to look at a room with four, five thousand people, however many people. And what I know is, listen, I'm going to talk to you Carlos. You are a young man that is very talented with the spirit of God in you and a future in you. There is more in you than you can possibly imagine. You do not have what you need to accomplish everything you can, can for the kingdom of God, the good of people and the flourishing your family. You don't. But every time we're in that room and there's five thousand spirit filled people in there, somebody in that room has everything you need and your job is to go find it. Yes. So if you're listening to this right now and it's like, you're a guy, I guarantee every single person listening has some area where they're struggling. You're a slave to sin. You can't, you can't kick the porn thing or you're struggling financially or your marriage sucks or it's like, dude, I can't figure out my kids. Listen to me. You don't have everything that you need. Somebody in the body of Christ does. All you got to do is get up off your butt and go get it. Yes. Find that person whose kids are adults that are happy. They love Jesus and they love their parents still. And then you listen, bro, like, I wish you could see me like, just decide, I'm going to grab their shirt. I'm going to get as close to them as I possibly can. And there is, I'm going to ask them every single question imaginable. And then I'm going to do exactly what they said. And that right there, listen, that right there is why the church is the most powerful force on earth for shaping a man. And even like to give an example and an encouragement to do something specific, if you're listening to this and you don't have community number one, I would encourage you sign up for rooted. We're launching it here in just a couple months. Like if you don't have community, it goes like, oh, like even coming to church, like if I can't find someone when I'm in services, sign up for rooted. It's the easiest way to find community here. They can text rooted to two, zero, four, one, one. That's right. You can. There will be an ad about this as well. And then with that, at least a brief story of like how I saw this play out practically in my rooted group from this past few months is on the stronghold tonight. One of the couples just ended up sharing it. I'm like, getting chills thinking about it. I mean, it was incredible. But one of the couples before we split up and the guys and the ladies were separate, one of the couples was very vulnerable about just how they've been having struggles with alcohol. And you could just see the shame all over them. I mean, we're just wearing it. That night by coincidence, no, it was by Providence, the couple who shared their story, that was part of their story. Geez. And so here I am the I'm the leader and the facilitator of this group. And actually, I didn't even share the first word they did. And they were number one able to speak, not condemnation, but grace over them. And you could begin to see the shame lift off of them. And then also hear people who are a few steps of head who've walked through it, who can now help. So it's a beautiful example of how like you said everything you need. And that was just one of those so cool moments where God custom designed that moment. But also like the thing that this couple needed was sitting in the room with them and it was in community. That's right, dude. So yeah. That said, you know, it's like that don't fight the devil in the dark, the darkness his domain. That's right. Bro. And so like, man, even the like what we've started to see with this pocket, this is not a commercial. Well, I'm just applying what we're talking about. So don't take this the wrong way for listeners. Like what we're starting to see that like, if I get emotional, this is kind of thing is is what we're starting to see is like a bunch of guys. What they're doing right now is they'll listen to the sermon, then they'll listen to the podcast deep dive, then they'll grab that little show notes, the the group, the guide, and they're just deciding. All right. Hey, man, we're going to meet at that coffee shop at 7am before we go to work on Wednesday. Let's get up in there. Okay. What do God, what do God speak to you this week? What God speak to you this week? Okay, man, let's talk about the word together. Now, man, is there anything that I can pray for you? And that's where it's like, man, I'm struggling with this. I need this in my marriage. They pray for each other, then they move. Bro, it's one hour. Yeah. It's like literally one hour you leave and it's like your spirit's full. It's like the Navy SEALs are ready to go. And that's how the Christian life is won. That's how great men are forged. Bro, what you just shared like will literally change people's lives. Yeah. Like that's amazing. Praise God for the church. Amen. Hey, man, I want to talk about Nick Fuentes. So speaking of podcasts. Speaking of podcasts. We're an emotional group. We were from Godly Man. So let's talk about the opposite right now. So the other day I was here at Lake Point and I had three young men come to me, younger than me, and they said, hey, they're asking me questions about, you know, politics and this and that. And we had a great conversation. And at some point I said, have you been listening to Nick Fuentes? And they're like, what? What? How did you know Nick Fuentes? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, it sounds like you know them too. And you know, and so we had a great conversation on like, what do we, how do we make sense of this? And so if you're somebody's listening right now and they don't know who this person is, Nick Fuentes is an online political commentator who is, he would say, or some would say far right claims to be a Catholic. He'll say crisis king on his ex bio. I don't know about that. Right on this guy. I, some would say, you know, far political right. He's anti left. He's anti left. You can at least say that in most senses. In most senses. He has a streamer show called America first and he is super charismatic and I'm not, and he has a movement where the people that follow him are known as the groy purse. And it's a frog as a symbol. So. So. Uh, it's like, you, there's, you just, it's hard to understand. It's weird. That's right. But, uh, you know, so I'm just going to start here. If somebody's like, Hey, Pastor Josh, I have heard of Nick Fuentes, uh, Pastor Paul Cunningham, the Epistle missile, AKA, I want to know what do I, how do I see, you know, what do I do with this? Like, what are your thoughts on it? Do you have an, did you want to, did you have an introductory clip? Were you going to play or are you going to say that we have the one from that I tweeted? Yeah, yeah, we could show it. Dude, all right. It's a little bit before we talk about this. So the reason we want to talk about it is there's a legitimately a lot of young men, especially like Gen Z and down, it's become kind of a conversation there. And then it's become kind of a conversation in political, in political cultural circles. Yeah. So he, how would you summarize kind of his, his vibramessage? So he went on Tucker Carlson recently and that kind of platform him to like the next level. And he basically, I mean, his philosophy is he's known as somebody who is one, he's young, too charismatic, he's extremely popular. You're 27. Some people would call him a white nationalist. I think he uses that phrase. I think so. That's right. And then he, he's calling out some truths that I think have been politically incorrect to point out. That's true. And that is, by the way, that is one mistake people make is they'll just, they'll just try to, and this is not just with him, just in general, is instead of dealing with some of the arguments that somebody will make, they'll just try to stigmatize and that rarely works. So yeah. Yeah. And that's what's happening right now. So what, now in the last couple of months, really people are starting to discover who he is, what he said, and they're calling him anti-Semitic, racist, and we're going to talk about this right now in a second. And a lot of people that are mainstream voices in the political space, they refuse to debate him. And obviously in 2025, that's always going to backfire. Well, yeah. And he's been canceled from multiple platforms. And again, and so we're going to, we said some things as well, where, you know, he said very popular things. Let me show, like, Trinny, can you toss up? Let me show why people have, so there's a reason why people are like, hey man, let's not, let's not put this in the mainstream. Yeah. Like, very frankly, most of the clips that will go viral on this guy are so honestly, like, morally degraded. There's like, I can't play the clip. We looked for a while and we couldn't. We tried. Yeah. We were like, yeah. You throw up the tweet, like, it's stuff like this, like Team Hitler, and here's where this comes from. He's got a lot of clips. And some people are like, ah, but he's half joking. It's like, well, only half. Well, and kind of the, here's the thing is, this is a super rudimentary. I'm starting to try to try to go down the rat hole on this and I use the word rat hole on purpose. I'll talk about that in a second. Is kind of the vibe is like, hey man, it's a radical America first, especially American foreign policy, but just in general, like, hey man, American politicians should prioritize America first. First of all, true. Let me just say that. True. True. Hey, a dad has a responsibility to his kids. He does not have to all the other kids in the world. A pastor has a responsibility to his church. He does not have to all the other churches in the world. The political leaders of a nation have a responsibility to the people of that nation. They do not have to all of the other people in the entire world. So true. The other thing that he's real big on, that's why you get Team Hitler tweets and you get, you know, viral little clips about how Hitler was really cool and had a bunch of great ideas, is first of all, that was the strong nationalist impulse that was, I mean, that's Nazi. He stands for national. It's a national socialism kind of deal. So that's where that comes from. The reason you get this is there's also a shared deal. I'm starting, like I said, go down the rat hole is a heavy emphasis on what he calls the difference between Moga make America great again and Miga make Israel great again. And what he's pointing out is like, Hey man, what it feels like is sometimes there are internal political actors that are trying to prioritize Israel over America. And I'll talk about he calls it organized world jewelry is as I started to go down, get down this thing that, you know, very powerful, wealthy Jewish people in influential positions have constructed an American economic system that is inherently parasitic, especially towards, you know, white, the white people who built the nation. And so what people will use the phrase that you use a second ago anti-Semitism, sometimes we don't have to get into that. That's what they get. And just what you'll sometimes get the vibe of is an extreme hostility towards the vibe, this vibe of towards Israel and the Jewish people from Nick. The other thing that's important to know about him is very, very openly Catholic. Yeah. And so, you know, he's like, Hey, this is a crisis. You hear this from Christ's King in the midst of like 47 F words and Hitler and Hitler and tweets about how women, a lot of women like to be raped. Like that's an actual thing. Or the thing I tweeted was about how when he was 30, he wanted to find a 16 year old bride. Yeah, this kind of stuff right here, right in the middle of all that, you know, he'll talk about how this, I'm a Christian and this is a Christian nation and he's very openly Catholic. Real quick, the reason that we're showing some of these things and highlighting them is actually to say you probably shouldn't go down this rat hole yourself. Yeah. We actually, we said a week ago, we talked about that with some of the stuff around UFOs and other some of the other stuff and we're showing just enough to get you a sense of who this guy is. Because even the one thing I would tell people is when someone is trying to tell you who they are, believe, believe them. And so, but I just, I just, I want to at least want to throw that in there. We're not showing this to them and say, Oh yeah, you go check this out too. We're wanting to give you just enough to understand a little bit of flair. Actually, I would recommend to almost all of you, don't go down this rat hole yourself. Yeah. And also, he's the guy who's discipling this new generation. Yes. So like, you know, if you have kids, like this is probably one of the most influential discipleship voices. Counter formation. Young white man. Yeah. For young man. Something you said earlier and then it's not, look, you were going to go another direction out is, you know, when a person has like 10 followers on X or something like that and they're throwing crazy stuff out there. Yeah. We don't need to platform them and discuss them because it's like, all right, dude, they don't have enough clouds for not influencing a lot of people. But when you have a million streamers and they're beginning to make, have an influence, we got to do what's called counter discipleship. Yeah. We've got to actually go and say, hey, a generation of men are being led in a bad direction. Now we got to do some counter discipleship. So even if people are like, why are you even showing this guy stuff? It's bad because people are already engaging it. We got to go where they're at and reclaim them. So what you got, Pester Dush? Well, first of all, let me just ask Carlos. Yeah. And I want to talk about why do you think, what's your thoughts on why a guy like Fuentes catches steam, young man? Yeah. A couple of thoughts. So one, we live in a culture that has been for now a decent amount of time mocking the meaning and belittling masculinity, saying things that it's toxic and the future is female. We don't need men, the kind of conversation. TV shows have been portraying that's a stupid, young boys is dumb. And so what the result is now in our culture now, many young men feel like they've been ignored, humiliated, shamed. And now they're resentful and now they're angry. And so now they see somebody like Nick Fuentes in the response. You see somebody that's like bold and aggressive and he basically says, I mean, I don't care. I'm going to tell you what I think. And so I think this is resonating. Another reason I think coming from a woke era where the general belief has been a critical race theory that basically divides the world into oppressor versus oppressed. And the oppressor is bad and the oppressor is good. And so there's this general belief again that if you're white, then you are an oppressor. And therefore you owe an apology for everything. And if you are white fragility, you're not allowed to say this or that. Here comes Nick and he says, well, I'm white and I'm going to say whatever I want. And so people are like, oh, we can do that. Now we got permission tying it back to the conversation before. We are a lonely, isolated generation. And we are lacking father figures and older male role models for masculinity. We don't, younger men need a role model. We don't know, we don't have it. And this is why, again, you see somebody, even if somebody that's young, Nick to me comes across as like an underdog that all of a sudden he's really bold and he's saying all these things. And young men are drawn to that. That's why you also had some years ago like the Jordan Peterson phenomenon, the Andrew Tate phenomenon. Now it's Nick Prentice. It's transgressive. It's transgressive. It's a role model. It's strong. It's bold. I can see myself in them. And then, and obviously, the last thing I would say, obviously he's charismatic. He's talented. He's funny. He's in this meme culture. And so I think it really resonates. He streams lives. And so I think that's, he's going to where everybody is. And that's obviously on social media and online. Yeah. So I think you're on to some things. So first of all, this is, here's my opinion. This is what happens when you spend an entire generation telling young white men that you're toxic, oppressive and racist, no matter what you do. Doesn't matter what you do. You're toxic, oppressive and racist. Eventually they go, okay, I'll just be that. I seriously, I think, okay, I'll just be that. I also think this, this is the inevitable outcome of identity politics, this downstream from critical theory. So here's the deal, man. Like he's like very openly, like you said, like white nationalist. Okay. So like, here's the deal. If you spend 20 years going, hey man, is it okay for, for black people to advocate for the black community? Yes. Is it okay for, for Hispanic people to advocate for the Hispanic community? Yes. Is it okay for this group to advocate for, for them? Yes. Is it okay for white people to advocate for themselves? Well, of course not. Well, that everybody starts to go, well, that sounds really stupid. It's like, this is really dumb. So essentially what he's gone is, is what you're getting is, hey man, either everybody's allowed to do that or nobody is. Now what Christians have historically gone is, we've gone, hey man, again, this is different from Christian theology and critical theory, is that in critical theory, it's, it's group identities and who's oppressed and who's the oppressor. In Christianity, we're like, no, no, no, we evaluate people as individuals. It's, you know, this is like, it's the Martin Luther King, Jr. thing. It's, it's not the color of your skin. It's the content of your character. I don't care what color you are. I don't care where you came from. I don't care what your cultural background is. It's the content of your character, who you are as a man or a woman. So I think it's also, this is the, it's the accidental out birthing of identity politics and eventually it births into white identity politics. And what's interesting in that, and this would be one of my criticism of the Fuentes and in that group, is that, okay, so let's talk about woke left, woke left victim villain. Yep. And then now let's revise history and actually add that things really happen the way they actually happen. So then you got victim villain mentality and like, oh, we're the victims and it's a lot of bad things. We got to tear this thing down. And then Fuentes is arguing now against that and he's reacting to that. But then what's interesting that's happening on his side now. Oh, let's revise history. Was Hitler really that bad? Did the Holocaust actually happen? And hey, we're the victims. They're the villains. And now we've got to tear that down. So they're running the exact same play. Oh, it's the same thing. And that is why. And so my thing is, is like, for those maybe on the top spot, is like literally you are the exact same principle and you're simply repeating the same thing, but in the opposite side. That's why sometimes even people will call Fuentes and others the woke right. Because it's the exact same stuff that's happened. It's simply an equal and opposite reaction to what they had seen. Bro, it's the like, and by the way, what you can't do is go, hey, man, there's no truth in what they're saying. And I would just, but it's, and it's the same thing, the same thing. So like, I'll, there's a little bit of what I started like going down the rat hole a little bit. I was like, there's this has a little bit of BLM for white people vibes. Yeah. So, so like, for instance, all right, so it's what you said with BLM, what you had is you had a revisionist history. Let's do the 1619 project. Basically, all of American history is was built on racism and the systems are structurally racist. That's all 1619 project. And it was kind of like, it was convincing an entire community, man, this entire system is structurally racist and flawed. It was built by white people, for white people. And all of your problems are because of oppressive white people. Okay. Well, what this kind of does is it does revisionist history. Man, World War II, actually, man, who, who was the good guy? Who was the bad guy? You know, they were all maybe bad guys or maybe actually Hitler correctly diagnosed a lot of the problems and just went a little overboard on. And Stalin too. And, and Stalin, even he said in his interview with Tucker, he was a just Stalin admirer, a little smirk on his face. That's part of his vibe is like, you could tell he glories in being transgressive, kind of like, I'm going to be more transgressive than you and I'm going to have fun doing it. Side note before I finish this little analogy. This goes like behind the scenes, we'll talk about the happy warrior thing. Like, so here, listen, here's, I talk about this, we never talk about this in podcast. In like ideological and cultural debates and wars, it's always the happy warrior that wins. Yes. So here's what I mean is whoever is having the most fun is almost always going to win the war. Because everybody looks at him and they're like, I want to be with those guys. I want to be with those guys. They're like kicking butt and taking names and they're having fun doing that. So part of what he's kind of channeling is like the smirky, the smirky, transgressive, like I'm a Stalin admirer, you know, and it's, it's a little bit of that same vibe. It's like the happy warrior, except, you know, for some evil things. So what you got is, okay, so let me go back to this. So BLM for white people. So what, what you got here a little bit is you got revisionist history, World War II, maybe actually we misunderstood who are the good guys, who are the bad guys. Other side note I want to make, I promise I'll stop doing this, is like, you know, if you, what, if you go down the rat hole a little bit, you'll start reading things like, oh man, like general Patton at the end of his life in his journal, he wondered if, if actually we fought the wrong enemy in World War II. And then they'll build an entire view, an entire revisionist history of World War II off of one purported sentence in general Patton's journal. Now side note, by the way, because I checked into this, that was never in general Patton's journal. That's like an internet meme theory. Everything on the internet is true though. Yeah, right. Like it's like third hand people who, a friend of a friend of general Patton's friend said he may have said that it was never in his journal. And they'll build a whole revisionist history off of this one little, little things, little scraps. And I've noticed this, it has a parallel, Paul probably, resident with this, it has a parallel in, in, in biblical, in biblical criticism. Yeah. Is, it's almost a conspiracist vibe where it's like, let me take one little, this one little verse over here that could be interpreted this way, and they'll build a whole theology off of that while they ignore this mountain of other really clear verses. Yeah. It's the same thing. You'll start noticing like some of the, this little grope, grope movement, what they'll do is they'll take, they'll take just a couple little, couple little things, general Patton's journal, or, or this little purported conversation and build a whole revisionist history off of it, and ignore mountains, like 50 years worth of mountains of like first hand evidence on this. So anyway, you get revisionist history, then you get, so BLM does a America's Structurally Racist built by white people, for white people as parasitic on the backs of the people it enslaved and oppressed. What they do is they kind of go, man, the entire American economic system was built by the Jews. So man, the Federal Reserve and the central banking system built by powerful Jewish people, by the way, you start looking into it and it's like massively overblown. Yeah. Okay. So then it's like, man, Paul, do you know where all the problems in your life is a white guy? Do you know where they come from? Organized Jewry. It's the Jews, bro. Okay. So actually we throw out that little meme of the children's book. Like this is, I just find this absolutely hysterical. It's kind of like, this is like, it comes as a thing of like everything I don't like is a Jewish conspiracy, a child's guide to political discussion. And it's, I just think that's hilarious. But it turns into this kind of, now this is super snapshotty. There's a million little nuanced things, but there's some parallels. Thoughts, you guys got thoughts here? Oh, I've got plenty of. Paul, come on. No, no, no, no, no. I'll let you go. I'll let you go. I'll let you go. Yeah, well, I mean, some of it is, I honestly just some of the stuff I've already said, but even like what you're saying, a lot of what you just said is we would call that circumstantial evidence. And even like for those of you who even slightly enticed, I'm serious, but I'm sure we have listeners who have watched and listened to Fuentes and her, and her side, like, because to your point, he is a charming guy. But one thing I want to say real quick, you can speak really well and still be a fool. Yeah, that's right. Like Roman 1618 says, by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. So actually you need to be really careful of someone who, who can like talk really smoothly and be charismatic, but they're saying really foolish things. So is there actually the really dangerous people you got to watch out for? But yeah, so even like talking to people who may be even enticed by him, if he had to present his evidence in a court of law or turn it in as a major PhD dissertation, would it even pass bar? No, to your point. But it's like, oh, if I just kind of like these little things here and there. And this is where I think another thing that's happened over the last eight to 10 years is used to, I would say the right was, I'm going to say that there's the right spectrum conservative would have been really more people known for, we believe in objective truths, but there seems to be a growing trend of believing in every little conspiracy theory, alternative facts and things like that. So I think that's another thing that's fueled the fire of this is an, oh, but do we really know? And so the, the, the side that used to be known for its belief and objective lasting eternal truth is the one who's now questioning anything that doesn't line up with their experience or that makes them feel better or makes them feel like a victim. Because if you're a victim, you can feel victimized and then you can try to go after the villain. So those are just a few and I've got more thoughts in terms of other stuff, but I'll save them for a few minutes. Carlos. Yeah, I think at the court, man, you know, with this whole movement, we want to echo what you just said. We don't do critical race theory. We don't do critical theory. We do Christian theology. That's right. So you have to always go back to the core. Like I am, I am an American citizen. I'm Hispanic. I am a light skin, heterosexual male. And at the same time, I'm a Christian first. That's right. That's exactly right. We are viable people. So anything that we hear on the internet or honestly anywhere, we filter it through the lens of scripture because ultimately we stand on the truth of the word of God. That's right. And so anytime you hear, now if you hear anything from Nick Fuentes, like you said, he's pointing out some things that honestly, like some people are probably thinking and some of them could be true. Of course. Yeah, of course. And so, and so, but at the same time, you want to be mindful of what else you are absorbing and receiving from him as well. And if there is anything. That's putting it lightly. That's right. That's right. Well, yeah. And speaking to the younger people, maybe for them, it's a little bit of a shock. Like you're saying that there's some things that he's saying that are not great or not good or good for you. If there's anything that contradicts your ultimate identity as a follower of Jesus, as a son of God or a daughter of God, then you absolutely reject it. Yes, right. And it's just not for you. Full stop. That's right. And so that's it. And so, and ultimately that means that if what the word of God says is true, that means something that contradicts is false. Yes, right. Into that, but I think it was probably four or five episodes ago. We were talking in different contexts, but I kind of gave this paradigm of man, as you're reading and listening to people, I think we're talking about the pastors or other people, some of the applies here is you got to think it through, man, is this person like a road? Pretty easy to walk on occasional pothole you have to look out for. Or is this person a trail? Okay, I can still walk on it. Can maybe even trail run, but hey, more roots and rocks to look out for. Or is this person a minefield? That's right. There you go. And if they're a minefield, whatever's on the other side of the minefield, better be worth getting. And if you can get that same thing elsewhere, that's better, go get it elsewhere. And so I think part of what we're saying is, I don't think unless you guys disagree, you can say, hey, Nick Fuentes is a minefield. There might be some things here and there that like some of the problems he points out that you even pointed out. Yeah, we would agree those are problems. But my biggest issue with Nick Fuentes, actually I actually think my biggest have a lot of issues, is that he does correctly diagnose parts of the wound, but he poisons the cure. He poisons the cure. And I could go into a lot of what that means, but I mean, for now to say like, man, yeah, for sure, we have had confusing moral times, and he's speaking with clarity. We've had a lack of masculinity and he's speaking to that. So he's correctly diagnosing some of the, it was also to some of the progressive absurdities, but through how he says what he says, and then some of the things he says, he's actually poisoning the cure, and he's tearing things down, but he's not building anything up in any kind of a positive vision that can transform the world. So those are a few thoughts. That's a good way to say it. Yeah. First Thessalonians chapter five verse 21, test everything, hold fast to what is good. Yeah, wait, wait, I want to say one last thing here. So Paul's talking about, hey, this is a minefield, who Nick seems to like grab his young man. Yeah. So like, here's, here's what I want to talk to you. Just we're going to finish the pod right here. I want to talk to young men. And if you're a young man and you want to live a life of consequence that matters for the glory of God, and you leave a legacy of righteousness, and you change not just your family, but your life, your lineage, lineage and your legacy, that's, that's who we want to talk to. So Trinity, I want, I want you to play that. This is a little light, I'll just be honest, like this is a little much. But I'll be honest, this is a little tame compared to some of the other clips. Check this out real quick. No, I want to drink it straight from the tap. I want it raw. I don't want to wait a moment. Right when the milk is good, I want to start drinking the milk. Same thing goes with women. I don't want to turn 30 and find some 20 year old, 29 year old woman that I have something in common with and it's like, Hey, properly aged, like wine. Women don't age like wine, they age like milk. They don't age like wine. That's not how their hormones work. That's not how they work. Yeah, I got to find, I got to find my 16 year old life. Bro, probably when I turn 30 or something because here's the thing. I don't want to be like, let's say I can do a 30 as we say 18 year old now six year age difference. When I turn 40, she's going to be 34. Ew. Well, if I'm 30 and she's 16, 14 year age difference, when I'm 50, she'll be 36. Pause. Yeah, man. So here's my point. If you are a young man that wants to live a life of consequence for the glory of God, run as far as you can, as fast as you can from a man like that. Here's what you're looking for. You're looking for somebody whose wife is happy and thriving under his leadership. Yes. You're looking for somebody who's built a family and they got kids that are strong in the purposes of God. They have kids who understand righteousness and unrighteousness and you're looking for somebody who's actually built something with their lives. So man, the big deal on the whole podcast is make sure the right influencers are influencing you and they need to be meant, spirit filled men of consequence purpose who are living their lives to the glory of God. Full stop. I think you're right. We should pray for us. I would love to. Jesus, thank you for being a great and righteous king, a redeeming father, and for trading your life for our sins. Father, I pray for every young man and woman that are listening in particular. I pray that you would surround them with men and women who love you and love them and who have decided to consecrate their lives for the purposes of your kingdom. Father, I pray that if there are people who they don't have a godly men and women in their life, A, I'm asking you to give them the faith and the courage to take that step aggressively this week and do whatever it takes to get some corner toters in their life and to begin to follow you with an aggression and B, I'm asking you to bring the best, most godly people they've ever met into those spaces in your divine providence. I pray blessing on these people. Raise up a generation of young men and women who see clearly and stand firmly on your word and we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture, and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review, and share the podcast, and don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church online every weekend and find more resources at lakepoint.church.livefree. We'll see you next time.