a county in another state but we began in 1778 in virginia. >> next weekend join booktv, american history tv and c-span local conflicts their vehicles in louisville, kentucky. literary life with a booktv on c-span2. biographer john david dike and kentucky senior senator mitch mcconnell and offered chasing gayness on rebuilding american politics. the internet revolution. sunday at 5:00 eastern on american history tv three weeks at farmington plantation in 1841 key in shaping abraham lincoln's views on slavery. also the heyday of the steamboat on the ohio river. take a look, once a month c-span local content vehicles explore history and literary life of cities across america. next weekend from louisville on c-span2 and 3. from houston's first baptist

church joel rosenberg note reflect on whether the u.s. can recover from its economic and spiritual decline. it is about two hours. [applause] >> thank you. what a joy to be here in houston at houston's first baptist and i want to thank this church and the pastor for hosting us and making this possible. i want to thank all the churches that are participating all over the country. we have churches and small group bible studies and home village of groups in 42 states around the united states as well as in canada, india, new zealand who are participating. god bless you. for the next three hours we will

look at issues that are sobering to say the least and we will take questions from those of you here at houston's first baptist but we also want to take questions from those around the country. and the three hours we have here. we would love for you to tweet those questions. some of you already have but you can tweak in your questions during the event. even those of you who want to get to the microphone and you can do that, j.c. are/traffic. @j.c. are/traffic and we look forward to those questions. this is an interesting moment in our country's history. this is a book very different from many of the books i have previously written. it deals in large part with

bible prophecies because a number one question i get asked as i travel around the united states and around the world is it is fascinating you talk about israel and bible prophecy about is real, prophecies about iraq and iran and russia and egypt and syria, it is fascinating but what about us? what about the united states? where is the united states in end times bible prophecy? that is usually the number one question that i get asked. has been in the last few years. it is rivaled only in my case by joel. how can you be jewish and believe in jesus. that is a good question and i love to answer both of them but i was getting asked this question about the future of the united states so often that i decided to write a book about the united states even though

that has not been my primary focus. i want to begin in prayer this morning as we look at some of these issues and four questions in the implosion book and we will go to questions for go to prayer. let me set up four questions. hopefully over the next three hours will be the major themes that we discuss. and your questions can be variations of those or generally speaking anything else you want to talk about i reserve the right to say no, and especially on political things. this won't be a partisan or political event in any way. i do live in a work in washington d.c.. i am a failed political consultant. anyone i ever worked for lost. i went through political detox.

i am out and clean this particular year. i need a patch to keep that regulated so i will be on my best behavior because these issues are much more important than partisan politics. i don't say politics is not an issue that is critically important in our country but that is not our focus today. let's open up in frere. these other questions i want us to wrestle for. when i deal with in the book implosion, how much trouble is america really in? is it really possible that we could collapse? that we could implode? that seems like pretty strong language. we are having a rough patch, a dry spell. maybe we are in decline as a country but collapse, implosion, is that really possible?

that will be the first set of questions. secondly, a question that was pointedly asked of me by dennis miller, i was on his radio show and we were talking about the first question. cut to the chase. get to the point. what do you really believe? is there any hope for the country or have we completely blown it? he put it more crudely than that but i am not going to repeat what he said. is there hope for america? can we turn around this country given how offtrack we really are? 70% or 80% of the american people believe we are off track and the question is can we get back on track? is it possible to experience a third great awakening? a spiritual revival so sweeping, so game changing, evocative of

the great awakening of the 1700s and the second great awakening of the early to mid 1800s it is possible we could have a third one? that god would rescue our country by pouring out his holy spirit, in a dramatic and exciting way? that is one of the questions we want to process through, a set of questions today. third the issue of where is america in end times bible prophecy that being the question people ask most? and forth, as my after liked to say in washington d.c. so what? how do we live differently if all the things you are saying are true and the scripture you will be teaching today and the things that are in your book, if that is all accurate what does that mean for us? how do we live in days that are as challenging and sobering as these? in those four general areas and those four seems let's go to the

board of friend ask the lord to spend time with us today. father in heaven i thank you for your grace and mercy and for the opportunity to have this conversation here in houston but in churches and holmes in small group bible studies all over the country and several places in the world. i pray that you would be with us and that you would reveal to us your heart for this country and what you are saying to the churches and to our leaders at every level of our society. be gracious to us and died as we pray in the name of our lord and savior jesus christ, amen. when i was working on this book "implosion," i happened to be in

a phone call with the governor of the state in the united states american governor and we were talking about israel and radical islam and what was happening in the middle east. that is my major focus. those are the books i write about and what is happening in israel and in the epicenter as i call it. in relationship to bible prophecy but also here and now in the geopolitical world that we live in and that is the conversation we were having. the governor is interested in those things, that is what we are talking about. it being a year approaching the political season he asked me what i thought about what was happening in the political realm. i don't really want to talk about it too much. this wasn't somebody writing or anything. the point is we had a conversation and he asks me how

much trouble the country is in, he asked me what happens to america in bible prophecy? it was the first time the political leader asked me for that question and it was striking or had that experience yet and a key leader in our country was asking a question that i hear from people all the time everywhere i go. this country in so much trouble and curious we are in big trouble here and same basic theme. what happens to america. the reason people are asking that is they are deeply concerned about where we are. i was heading to a radio interview earlier this past week and the radio station was live

and was a 1-hour interview from above and:00 to midnight one night and i said yes to doing it and they sent a car from a car service to get me in my house because i was not going to make it on my own because i was sleepy. honestly i wanted to just take a nap on the way in. the 35 or 40 minute drive into the city and the driver was very chatty which was nice but i was like i just totally wanted to to an out -- tune out. i wasn't a great mood. i'm convincing that up front because i am writing a book about the church needs to wake up and engage people with where we are as of country and talk about christ and how desperate we are and i thought i just want to sleep. why is this guy asking me about

the washington nationals and they were winning that night so i suggested let's listen to the rest of the game. then they won and he turned the radio off and said what is your book about? oh man. i am just being honest. is terrible. i was trying to give him a short answer. it is called "implosion". can america recover from our economic and spiritual challenges? he was very interested. he is a muslim from a muslim arab background and by the time we got to the radio station, i am a muslim but my wife is a christian and we are starting to visit a church together here in the washington area. i am getting curious about spiritual things. i am so sorry i am such a moron. i can't talk to you.

i need to do a radio interview talking about how we need to wake up and talk to people about jesus. if you could hold on for an hour and we will talk about this on old drive home and we did. we covered a lot of ground. very interested young man in spiritual things particularly in christ. he is really weighing the country he adopted and is now racism of, our country. the united states. he came from the middle east where it was rough but things are going off track here and he was asking specifically do you think the end of the world is coming? the pastor of the church he was visiting had been giving a sermon about bible prophecy and never heard of these things before and began -- i am scared. i see us in big trouble. the middle east in big trouble. the world is in big trouble and

i wondering is the pastor right? the bible talk about the end of the world? this is clearly -- people use different terms to talk about feels like the wheels are going to come off of the country. they talk about how it feels you can hear the ice cracking under our feet both from the economic side and the spiritual cultural moral side. let's take a few minutes and look at the first question. how much trouble are we really in? economically i walk through this in more detail in the book than we can do today but just some big picture. we are now at about 15.6 or so trillion dollars in federal debt. both parties are cute the responsible. my point today is not -- there is plenty of blame to go around.

the point is we are at $15.6 trillion or so. we hit 100% of the gdp, the gross domestic product. we own 100% to foreign creditors. that is not good. that is just the tip of the iceberg. we are approaching $65 trillion worth of unfunded liabilities. promises our government has made us regarding social security, medicare, medicaid. promises politicians made who knew they would not be around when the bill came due. $65 trillion worth of promises that we can't afford are coming

at seventy-five million baby boomers go to retirement. a number of you are here who are hoping we can keep those promises and others who know the weekend and that is creating anxiety as it should. that is a tough word because we can't get our hands around $1 trillion. when my wife and i first moved to washington d.c. in 1990 the joke was $1 billion here or $1 billion their pre senate up to real money. politicians would just wait billion this and it didn't really matter. that was rounding errors. billions. now we are talking about wasting trillions. $0.40 on every dollar that the government spends is borrowed.

$0.40. if we were to pay $1 back perception to pay down the deck, every minute of every hour of every day it would take us about 32,000 years to pay off $1 trillion. there's about 1 trillion seconds in thirty-two thousand years. the numbers are in the book. and we owe $15 trillion plus and we are heading towards $65 trillion. this is why people are beginning to wonder. a lot more letters after the names and me. people who study this stuff. people who know this stuff. people who are economic, fiscal, financial experts looking at this and from both parties,

democrat and republican for saying we can't do that. that is not going to work. stiglitz -- greece is one issue. this will be much worse than grease because we are a larger economy and our debt is mounting so fast food becomes our creditors? who helps us get our bills paid when that goes on? i liken it in the book to the risk that we are on the titanic. recently released in 3d. if you haven't seen it but you basically know the story. the bottom line is we know there is an iceberg fifty trillion feet high and behind it there are sixty-five trillion more icebergs but rather than slow

down like the captain of the titanic at the time they sped up. let's get to new york city faster. that will make headlines. it certainly made headlines but not one that they wanted. we are speeding up. we are spending more. not partisan point but factual point i was obsessed with president bush when he was spending $400 billion deficits more than we had by $400 billion. now we are spending $1.2 trillion more each year than we take in so it quadruplwo scared. they're not seeing more jobs as a result of that spending and debt, they're not seeing theirw house rescue from foreclosure.ñ they know what debt us. they knowñ when you go underwar

sometimes your creditor takes back what you thought you owned free and clear. you thought it, but wasn'tç true. millions of millions ofñ americans are through struggling with that now. it's causing tremendous anxious sei. that's why we're heading. washington, in my view, politickings is a lagging indicater of where people are culturally in other words in a democracy while it's imperfect, -- [inaudible] the credit card wracking up it up and signing up for a new one and getting a new credit card. . and it is because that is how we are living overall as a country. we think it doesn't matter. some of we think it is all free. go to the atm and stuff comes

out. pay the credit card and you get stuff. when those bills come do, that is reflective of something going wrong. a misunderstanding of how we should live our lives and getting into debt it makes you a slave, and the ability to control your life and control your country. that you're giving a control. would you pay my bills for me? this is one of those issues that is causing people tremendous anxiety. but if it were only economic

that would be one thing but this issue of the implosion, the country begins to sink, we are not going to sink. maybe it is bad now but could get worse but when we look at our families and communities, our own personal sphere of influence and what we observe not in the mackerel but in the micro we already know the country is imploding. men we never thought would be trey their wives are betraying their wives. couples that we never thought would get divorced are getting divorced. kids we never thought would get involved in being drugs-we never thought that would happen.

is happening. people with families are imploding. when individual families implode, that is horrible. when you begin metastasizing that cancer to mix my metaphors across a country, that break down of individual lives and moral codes and people portrait each other in ever-increasing numbers, at some point we are going to hit a kidding point. we are going to hit some point where we enter a death spiral and begin to go down and cannot pull the plane out of it. when pilots experience a death spiral they usually flying in bad weather and usually don't have instruments or don't work but they have a perception that they're doing the right thing.

they are spiraling downward but don't have a proper sense of what their situation is. everything they do to pull out of that there's a point at which you can. people died that way. i put a lot of detail in the book on some of these specific issues but some have come up in recent weeks and statistics to paint the scene. i hope dennis is watching. we have a good conversation the other day. the fbi just put out updated statistics for crime in the united states. crime last year was down slightly but when you look at it in the context of 1960, violent

crime is up 160% since 1960. it leveled off a bit. down slightly. but in small town america, small towns less than 10,000 people each there is a murder wave going on in america. last year murders in small towns in america shot up 18.3%. people are slaughtering each other in small towns. chicago or washington or new york have problems but mayberry, andy griffith and barney? that is where we think our rock solid american values really are. small town america is our bread and butter. that is where we are okay.

cities are problems. it is not actually true. children, teams are using marijuana at higher levels than they are smoking tobacco. 23%, one in four american teenagers are using marijuana which scientists tell us is a gateway drug to doing worse drugs. one in five american teenagers are binge drinking. one in five. teacher of the year in a given city accused of sending sexually -- text fun to a 15-year-old in the school. a university of georgia professor charged with

prostitution. was running. the teenager shot his sleeping sister this week because she gets straight as and she didn't like that. a youth pastor in california was returning from a bible study was gunned down by a gang. you know these stories. we could tell the headlines. this is a cultural decay. this is moral decay. pornography. the pornography industry makes more money in america each year than abc, nbc and cbs combined. the number one, two en three novels on the new york times best-seller list currently are a horrific pornographic novel series for women, i won't talk about it, but this novel series

has sold more than ten million copies in the last six weeks. this is aimed at women from young teenage girls through moms through older women reading it as well. it is being described not even as a negative but the media is describing these as mommy porn. ten million copies in six weeks. abortion. since 1973 we as americans have killed fifty-three million children. fifty-three million plus. we are rapidly approaching sixty million children murdered in the united states. if god forbid we really do get there in the next few years

despite all the efforts to stand for life and try to legislate pro-life and get pro-life judges and christians and others have done to try to do that all the purse, we are if we get to sixty million abortions we will then be at ten times the number of human beings americans have murdered, ten times more than the nazis during the holocaust. you have to ask yourself at some point, aside from whether the lot of dynamics however it works before country begins to implode at what point does god either remove his hands of grace and favor from a country or proactively begin to judge it? this was the hardest book -- i

didn't want to write it to be honest. maybe some of you don't want to read it and i am sympathetic to that. some people, maybe you just skip the first half and just get to the good news and we will talk about the good news but i needed to set up the context of my perspective of what is happening in terms of the bad news. my mom's side of the family came to the united states from england before the american revolution. my father's side of the family were orthodox jews. they escaped out of russia, fascist russia in the early 1900s. if you are an orthodox jew living in russia in the >> host: hundreds you had two options. you could fiddle on the roof or you could try to get out. my family was able to escape and then rather than escaping out of

horrifying russia and all the persecution of the jews and settling in germany or austria or poland, we are safe here and of course they weren't but god moved our family across the united states or across europe to the united states and my family like any good jewish family set up shop in brooklyn which is where my father and his brother were born and it is in this country that my father and i and my family have come to know jesus as the messiah and my mom's family some of them knew the lord but drifted from the lord so my mom was in her mid 30s when she came to faith in jesus christ. she was raised in a church that never preached the gospel. she came from a strong christian heritage but the church she and her mom were going to, her

father left as a violent alcoholic who tried to kill his wife with an ax. that was a bad situation so my mom grew up as at only child in the home of a single mom going to a church that offered no hope. they were religious but didn't seem to understand the bible. they didn't teach jesus as the way of salvation. this is where we are and whether people are christians or jews or muslims or hindus people are beginning to get in the united states we are in deep trouble. the ice is cracking under our feet. my family background i love this country and i can't believe what i am seeing. you can't either. that is why on a saturday morning a summer saturday morning you turned out to talk about these issues. is there hope? the good news is there is. i need to add one other thing.

a marriage and the movement of homosexual sort of activism in the united states. the president declaring himself or being declared the first day president and saying he is for this and apparently there is no political resistance to that. he is not worried about that. the one he is running against presided over the first gay marriage law in the united states. not making a judgment but i have strong personal feelings about both those situations but my point is we are in a country where increasingly people are saying i don't care what the bible says. if you care what the bible says about protecting life or the sanctity of marriage we don't want to hear that and we are going to legislate against that and that is where we are. can we turn it around? the answer is i don't know.

i don't know if we can turn it around. and why are you wasting my time? i am being honest. i say in the book "implosion" i don't know if we can turn this thing around. i hope so. but i am not sure. i am not sure because we are not in end time bible prophecy. the united states doesn't show. we don't pop up. many countries are mentioned specifically and others are alluded to. regions of the world are alluded to but not the united states. israel is the epicenter of god's plan and purpose in the end times and there are plenty of countries around israel that get mentioned specifically. specific prophecies about those countries. others have names that are a little funky and we don't know what it means that you can do

the detective work and figure out what it means. macaw being the nation we know as russia. gomer being not where gomer pyle is from but being a nation of turkey for example. there are talks about the kings of the east coming against israel through iraq in the last days that there is no king of the west. nothing specifically refers to the united states. there have been a lot of theories. i write about a lot of the theories and quote a lot of books that have been written that say maybe it is babylon or the land of the war in the wings. all kinds of these. we are out there. people ask me why aren't we there? what you talking about? some are offended by that. just be clear, don't you believe we are in the last days? yes i do.

i talk about why in the book. we can talk about that more today. one of the main reasons is israel has been reborn as a country. jews are returning to the holy land after centuries of exile. that is exciting and those are end time prophesies we find in ezekiel 36 and 37 among other places that say these will happen in the last days. israel will be resurrected as a country. there is it is. we are there and seeing rumors of wars, lawlessness and the trail and everything jesus and the apostles and the profits said would happen. almost all of its is in motion. i believe we are in the last days. some people say to me if we are in the last days now and we are living in the wealthiest most powerful country on the face of the planet in the history of mankind, what do you mean we

don't have a roll? obviously the bible talks about prophesies that deal with all nations. for example the hebrew prophet -- don't know if you have done your research recently the only two chapters. i'd love that the little book. a nice little book. the book of joel is my favorite. only three chapters. in english. four in hebrew. god does say i will shake all of the nation's in the last days and the book of hebrews quote it's the book of haigguys and that god said in the last days he is going to shake all the nations. we are one of those nations. i believe god is shaking death. i believe we are going to be shaken a lot harder as we move forward. why? god is not shaking us out of judgment yet. he is beginning to shake the sand will shake us more because he loves us.

because he is trying to get us to let go of anyone or anything or any ideology, any religion or religious system we are holding on to for hope, for peace and security in this life or in the life to come other than jesus christ. got ones to shake us so that hopefully we will let go of what we are holding on to and focus exclusively on jesus who said i am away, the truth and the wife. no one comes to the father except for me. jesus and i am the living water. well up inside of us. he said i am the resurrection and the life. he who believes in me will live even though he dies. the scriptures, the new testament tells us he who has the sun has life. he who does not have the son of god does not have wife.

the bible is clear that jesus is it. he is everything that we need. he is our shepherd. our good shepherd. he is our great shepard. he is our chief shepherd. all those descriptions of jesus are in the bible. many around the world and the united states have drifted from that or actively rebelled and rejected that but also the church is drifting. the church is slipping and the bible says there will be' in the last days. the church will get week in the last days. those prophecies are coming to pass but people are asking if america is in bible prophecy, generally we are in there under the all nations type' -- prophecy, we are not specifically their then why not? the answer is we don't know why not because otherwise we would have to know because god told us

but-we are neutralized as a major cultural and military force in the world as we go deeper into the last days. otherwise the lord would specify that we are a major player. in the book "implosion" are walk through a number of scenarios. how might we be neutralized? there are a number of ways this could happen. economic collapse could be one of them. not the we don't exist as a country but we are so internally focused on our own economic problems we don't have the capacity or the desire to project influence, force into the rest of the world's as an

end time prophesies accelerate into motion or maybe we will be destroyed or harmed terribly in a war or terrorist attack. natural disasters. god could use. all kinds -- political paralysis. fighting with each other so much that we grind ourselves to a halt and therefore unwilling or unable to project or influence into the world that a critical moment in global history. i don't know. the point is there are a number of scenarios or given where we are as a country it is worth sorts of assessing these various scenarios to ask ourselves is their hope? there is always hope individually. jesus is clear. the profits are clear. the apostles are clear that if we repent, if we turn around

from our lost wicked ways, our sleeping ways. our drifting ways. if we turn back to the lord jesus christ he will forgive us. he will save us. he will rescue us. those are individual promises the scriptures are clear about but the bible does not give us any promises about our country being in saved as a country. doesn't mean it won't happen. means it is not defined in scriptures therefore we don't have a rock-solid promise. what's talk about a specific verse many point to. second chronicles chapter seven vs 14. if you have your bible their, in the book i quote it as well. second chronicles chapter seven vs 14, king solomon has been

praying to the lord at the dedication of the first temple in jerusalem. this is the lord responding a midnight or nighttime vision to solomon answering his heartfelt prayer and the lord says clearly if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turned, weekend from their wicked ways, then i will hear fromrepent from their wicked ways, then i will hear from heaven and forgive their sins. if we will turn to him and we will seek him and begged him and plead with him and repent and willing to turn away from what

we have been doing and go back to christ, our father in heaven who loves us. if we will implore him than the text says i will hear from heaven and i will forgive their sins and i will heal their land. let's be clear. the concept of that promise is to the nation of israel and to the jewish people. spend some time this afternoon or this evening going through the first few chapters in the book of second chronicles particularly chapter 6 and 78 you will see this is the concept. it is specific promise to the nation of israel. does that mean it cannot be used as a promise for us? i would say it is not a promise for the united states or any other country. god is saying to the jewish people review for a, if you repent i will respond and i will

heal you. if not, a promise, ironclad for every country. however, the good news is they are principles that are applicable to any country. .. country. paul, the apostle paul told timothy that all scripture is inspired by god. it is god's reasoning and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training and writing to the man of god. we will be thoroughly equipped to every good work that god is equipped for us. the point is an old testament promise to israel is not a promise to the united states but it is useful as a principle of the way god works. therefore, when you think about the first great awakening, the second great awakening, men like jonathan edwards, a pastor from new england, from massachusetts,

he would use a verse like this and he would pray and encourages people to pray second chronicles 7:14.ñ not only is god obligated to answer that for america but hopefully he bled because that is the kind of god that he is. we need to be careful about prayer. we can just put our quarters into the god vending machine and hit the button and get the kit cat out. whatever we want, as long as it put in $1.25 or whatever it is, boom, there it is. that is not how god operates in the premise like that is for israel but we should use that prayer. we should use that promise and save -- and they need needed too. that they would all turn to the lord especially with iran building nuclear weapons. what we really need to do was

turn back to the god of israel and his son jesus the messiah. that is what israelis do right now and we have to be praying for them to do that. that's part of praying for the peace of jerusalem. but this is the time to be begging god, begging god to do this, to heal our land. and it really needs to start with the church. there are 340,000 church congregations around the united states and jesus says you are the light of the world. and that light is not supposed to be hidden under a bushel. the city on the hill is supposed to be seen far and wide. we are supposed to be like houses as church congregations in a very dark world. and unfortunately, i think it's fair to assess at this point, not as appointed judgment just as a point of observation, that

a lot of 340,000 church lighthouses in this country, the light is going dim. or in many the light has gone completely. the church that my mom grew up in, there was no light there. the lighthouse was there but there was no light in the house. they didn't know christ personally. the church that my wife grew up in on the jersey shore, no light in that little church.ñ fortunately she got saved because her neighbors had little vacation bible school and she was like yeah, iñ want that and she gave her life to christ at the age of eight. at her church did not teacher how to know christ personally. i remember when we were married we went there to visit her family and they went -- but her family was not saved yet either at the time. most of them now are saved and

had spiritual awakenings in their own lives in the last few years but we happen to be going to a christmas eve service that night in in a pastor god bless him got up and he said, the church was actually packed. the church is not normally packed. at church on the seashore new jersey and we got married there, but it's not usually packed. like a lot of these churches, why would i go there than? why not just sleep in and why not go to starbucks and do something else, anything else than go to a dead little church? whitey that? anyway it was packed that night every person making their biannual christmas or easter pilgrimage, was really packed.ñ we were praying and thinking at least tonight something hopefully will happen. the pastor gave a sermon and he said, what do we really know about jesus? we don't know much.

we know about his birth that we don't know what he was like when he was a kid. we don't know if he got into fights with his brothers. he started going through this for the next 20 minutes and told us all the things we didn't know. we don't know about his teenage life. sure we have one story when he was 12 but what was he like as a teenager? did he date? city of the job? so at the end of this, it'sñ almost midnight. we have our candles ready to be let in front of everybody in the world. and he finally said, so we don't know much about jesus but what we know is enough. let's pray. [laughter] seriously, i wanted to jump up but i did not want to embarrass lynn's family but i wanted to say are you kidding? that sit? these people need jesus. could i just have the pulpit for just a few moments?

does anyone here know jesus? it doesn't have to be me. there's a lot we know aboutw jesus. it was painful, and people grow up -- let's set aside for a moment pagan culture. i'm talking about the unitedñ states, pagans, people who don't have any idea of battle cries.ñ they have no interesting got. i'm not talking about other religions right now. i'm talking about the church. a lot of the church is weak and growing weaker or dead. if there is going to be hope in this country, and there is hope for us individually, but if there is going to be a broad taste, game-changing transformative season in american history, it has to begin with church. i have lived in washington for 22 years.

i can tell you salvation is not coming from washington. i know you are wondering, maybe but honestly a lot of christians are waiting to get the right people in the right spot in washington and that willñ be wt we need. i am not saying we don't need it for other reasons but it won't save the country. we have been there are times where one party controlled everything and many people were excited about that and many people were all upset. we have seen a switch and the other team controlled everything in washington and the other side was all upset. that didn't say the country either. we have seen a divided. washington cannot save us. it could begin to turn the ship away from the iceberg and it could slow down spending. just one thing to do, stop spending us into the titanic mode. that would be useful.

but we need something so much more than that, and in a year where we are battling and discussing constantly who should be the next president, should be our next leader, what team should be in charge in washington, my hope for the book in motion in my hope importantly for your individual lives and as pastors, as bible study leaders and people, just your regular everyday lives, that your conversations would be about how much more that we need, that political change. i'm not sayingñ we don't need . i have a whole chapter about what the white mean by political.ñç i am not saying don't get engaged. what i am saying is, that was the scene of my life and if you want to work for prime minister, if you want to work for president, hey what you come work for a king? i have got a message. this is the message of the hour. is the message of the gospel, that there is hope and i need to

not try to go to sleep in the car service to tell the rest of the country they need to wake up to tell people about jesus.ñ i need to wake up. forget about the washingtonñ nationals.ñ go to bed earlier, joel. it's not that hard. i engage people who want to be engaged in a spiritualç conversation. we are going to end in a few minutes this section and continue this conversation with your questions but i wanted you to turn with me to a book in th bible you're not likely to expect in this conversation but the book of jonah. if you turn turned me into the book of jonah, one of the minor prophets. oh my goodness, a small book. again i like small books and i like jeremiah too. turn with me if you would to the book of jonah and as you do that, let me set this up for a moment because i want to put some context into the rest of the conversation we are going to have because obviously we have

not gotten through all of that yet. these are the four things we are working ourw way through in the three hours. but i have four sons. four sons, caleb, jacob, jonah and little noah, 18, 16, 14 and eight. and there is a little gap there between jonah and noah. why did you have a little noah? jesus said in matthew chapter 24 that he is not coming back again until the days of noah so we thought you know, if we are holding him back we had better have a noah, so now he is eight and he gave a slight to the word jesus christ. attribute is israel, baptized and so we were that living in the days of noah. if you forget everything else i'm saying today, least know

that. don't walk out of here saying, didn't know we were living in the days of noah. we are getting closer to the return of jesus christ. i'm not harold camping. i don't know. i'm just saying we are getting close. but jonah, i guess he is just about 14 now and he was 11 at the time but i have been invited on a series of trips to go into iraq as part of our ministry which is called the joshua fund. the joshua fund is a nonprofit ministry to bless israel and her neighbors in the name of jesus. so we are providing food and clothing, medical supplies, pastor encouragement, bible teaching in all kinds of things in israel but also in the neighboring countries around israel,? so we have been invitd to come into iraq into a pastors conference. for a guy named rosenberg to be invited to preach the word of god and iraq, i was amazed.

i was very excited. i had been three times at that point that we have been invited to come back into another conference, so, and they're not that many pastors in iraq so it's not like it was a huge conference. it was three or four dozen people but jonah said, dad, heard you mention that as part of this conference you are going to be traveling through the province of ninemile. i said yeah actually we are and i'm going to tell you aboutñ that. he said well, could i go? you can go to iraq. you are 11. have you seen the news? do you have any idea what's happening in iraq? he said but you know i really would like to go. i hear what god is doing over there and i want to see it for myself. i sits with her, i loved it and i appreciate you but jonah, no, it you may not go to ninemile. [laughter] now my wife god bless her says, really? that is your answer?

so your son jonah, don't go to ninemile? do you read this book at all, sweetheart? i said honey, okay i have got the story but i'm saying the kid is 11. look at what is happening on the news. do you really want me to take into iraq? she said at lease pray about it. you don't want to be the data tells jonah come you cannot go unless the lord says. let him be the one that says no and not you. alright, so we prayed about it and -- brigety get to him on amman jordan and we are waiting for a middle of the night flight. i can't confirm this but the flight from jordan into iraq started at night because the rocket fire, they didn't want people to see the planes so they would fly them in at night and have the lights off and circle

in an land. this was the north so it's safer than bad dad or fully show fallujah or something but anyway we are in amman and having some starbucks, it's not that difficult at that point. we are flying into iraq and suddenly there's a massive storm or marching over the city of herb deal, the northern city we were going to land in an it's so bad that they turned the plane around and sent it back to amman. when we got there one of the passengers we brought with us to teach had been sleeping and he woke up and said, that's funny, it looks the same as oman. actually, it is. so anyway i am texting len and i sayñ we are a little discourag, jonah and i because we want to get in there and at this point we don't know. we don't know what's going to happen. and lynn and her sweet wisdom, god bless her, i have this

jewish pessimism and medium battle with the holy spirit that is trying to be more optimistic about life that but she is a gentile and has the holy spirit so she is optimistic about life and it's a wonderful gift of faith. soshi texts back, i really wouldn't worry honey. i think this will be the first farm in history that prevented jonah from getting to nineveh. sure enough we got there. so we did go to nineveh and i will share that in a moment inñ the book of jonah, let me just read a few verses from chapter chapter 1, again as we finish this portion of our conversation and prepare for the q&a for the next two hours. the word of the lord came to john a, son of anna matar, go to the great city of nineveh and preach against it, because of its wickedness -- because its

wickedness has come up before me. but jonah ran away from the board and headed for tar she's which is southern spain. he went to now currently known in israel as java to a ship bound for that port and after paying the fare he went up or and sailed to flee from the lord. man of god, he is a prophet of god and the word of god and the lord is speaking to him specifi words for this wicked city, nineveh which is the capital of the syrian empire.ñ the man of god who knows the word of god says he's not going to do it, taking a disney cruise in the other direction. and it says that the lord put a great wind on the sea and as the storm arose, the ship threatened

all the sailors were afraid in each cried out to his own god. in other words not to the god of the bible, not to the god of abraham, isaac and jacob but whoever their pagan gods were and it did not work of course. so they start throwing cargo into the sea to lighten the ship but jonah had gone down below deck where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. get the picture? the city is going to be judged with fire from heaven. the terrible disaster is coming against the city's nineveh and god sends a man after his own heart and i hate to use that term, but to warn them that this is coming. he doesn't actually tell him to tell the people to repent but tell them this judgment is coming. you need to know this ahead of

time. and jonah goes the opposite direction and he is in the midst of a storm where he is now putting the lives of these pagan sailors at risk. he doesn't care. he is downstairs in the whole of the ship fast asleep. he is dead to the world. and the captain finally comes to him and he start shaking him and he says hey, how can you sleep? you have got to be kidding me. how can you sleep? get up and call on your god. maybe he will take notice of us and we will not perish. how convicting is that that a pagan captain of a ship going nowhere, going down to pass have to shake the man of god who knows the word of god and he knows the truth, and knows god in a real and amazing way and god speaks to them directly. this pagan has to shake him and

say hey man would be doing sleeping? we are in deep trouble. we are going down. maybe you have a god that can save us. maybe your god -- and of course he does have a god that can save him but he's asleep. he is not saying anything, not to the guys on the ship but he shouldn't be on the ship anyway. is it possible that much of the american church today, we have become like jonah? we tell the story, we have a veggie tale version and people are slapping each other with fish and that's fine but we sort of romanticized and we made a children's story. it's a very serious story about a city, about a country that is so wicked, god is done with it

and he says i just need you to know this is what you are doing and judgment isñ coming. and jonah won't do it. he won't do it and goes the other direction. he does not want people to repent. he's asleep. this country that we love is in trouble and it doesn't show up in bible prophecy. we are not one of those countries that specify a great lesson to the world until the end of time. it doesn't say that. we think that in god has used this in extraordinary ways. we know the word of god. we know the god of the bible. we have been personally saved by him and the country senses, our country senses that we are -- that we feel we are in the midst of the storm in and the wiki go

down and the church, too many in the church are sleeping. and a pagan, a muslim arab driver has to say hey, joel iñ know you're in the way to talk about this book but dude, can you stay for a wake for a few minutes to talk to me about jesus? how many muslims that you know if you know any, you expect them to be interested? maybe i should know christ. i have written books about this and i still forget. i still slip into business as usual. i suspect i'm not alone.ñ and i'm just saying we are at a moment where pagans are saying hey don't miss your time. we are in trouble as a country. people are talking about this all the time. have we gone too far?

have we already gone too far? is there any hope for this country? god is ricky this country twice before. the great awakening, the first great awakening in the early 1700's and the second awakening in the 20th century. in the q&a will talk about those events. god has rescued us twice before. but short of a third great awakening, the research i have done and looking at scripture and putting it all together, i don't think we can make it and less god pours out his holy spirit and a spiritual awakening that revives the church so dramatically the light start popping on all over the country. if that doesn't happen, i

believe america implodes the. whether it will happen or not, we don't have a promise that it will happen but i think we can say fairly that if we don't egg and plead and get on our feet and pray and fast and ask the lord under the principles of second chronicles 7:14, to forgive our sins comity healed us, then why should he do at? if we could know him, if we won't reach out and say lord, even those of us that are away, we don't have the power, we don't have the strength and we don't even at times has the vision to be the society that our society needs. we need you to move in power. if we don't ask, we won't receive. that is my concern.

james tells us, you have to not not because you asks not. because you ask with an internal motor. i'm not asking for a third great awakening to sell my book. don't buy it. at hope it's helpful. i'm trying to provide a resource but that is not the point. the point is a we are at the brink and if we don't wake up, and share the gospel and live the gospel in front of people in the forward-leaning and trying to be delayed in the darkness, i don't think we will make it as a nation. let's close in prayer and then let's prepare for some q&a. will take a brief break and come back. if you want to tweak questions to us, it's at jcr/traffic.

again at, the, j. jc r./traffic. we have a team in the back and we will start to work our way to your questions here as well as questions coming in from all over the country and maybe even some from around the world. let's close this morning in prayer. father, we love you very much and we are really concerned about where we are as a country. i pray that the things i've written will be useful to people. this conversation would be useful in helping us think about where we are and how serious it is and where we go from here. i pray for the next two hours in this conversation, we would be edified and encouraged as we look at examples of how you have

transformed our country and how you have saved countries in the bible in the past. when jonah finally did go, people did repent and even the king commanded everyone to repent and to pray and fast and you relented, you poured out your mercy on that city. we repent and when we turn to you you want to save us. that is your heart in that is your desire and we pray that you would have mercy on our country and on our churches and we pray second chronicles 7:14. if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then i will hear from heaven. i will forget their sins and i

will hear them. lord i pray that you would do that and unleash a third great awakening far beyond what we could hope for her dream of or imagine. we don't have any other hope that you and we pray these things in the name of our lord and savior, jesus christ. ayman. there are going to be microphones that he will see here in a moment. i guess they will point that out to you in a moment but we will take questions from twitter and i just wanted to begin this section with a story. and the story comes from the first great awakening. in the early 1700's, actually it was a late 1600's. a lot of people would come to the country in the 1410 1500's. they were pilgrims who did love jesus. not all of them but many who came to the united states to settle in this country to

economy -- colonies it was considered at the time many came in order to have religious freedom to not be told by state church what to pray, how to pray, how to read the bible but to really and truly be able to worship the lord and teach the word of god as is the lord directed them and yet, by the late 1600's, all the exhaustion, all the effort, all the hard work of building are trying to build the basis of a new land, a new country, had seen to take its toll and of a lot of people who came as believers began to slip in the area of discipleship. they weren't transferring what they need to be the word of god and the changing power of the holy spirit. they weren't really transferring that to their children and they weren't preaching the gospel

systematically that effectively into the colonies. we have our church and we will just be happy here and we were glad to know the lord but trying to reach other people, that is not us. that was the mindset among many, not all of the churches in the 1600's and some pastors began to notice, we have a problem because the culture was beginning to slide even then. and the people began to get worried and pastors began to worry about the spiritual slide of the colonies particularly in new england where some of these key passages were. there was a pastor named jonathan edwards. he was a young man. his grandfather -- was a pastor at, let's see, edwards father was a pastor and his mother's father, so his

father-in-law. takes me a second here. reverend solomon stoddard and stoddard was a strong man of god. he loves the lord and he began to see some early signs of spiritual awakening in his congregation and jonathan edwards married into the family and hadn't been around as a young man, began to see the early stirrings of what god was doing. all of this was on the heels of a major war in the united states that we don't really study much. maybe you have never heard of king phillips. king philip was the british name for native american, an indian chief and there was this massive war between king phillips forces and the british english forces known as king phillips wore.

in 1675, i quote a history book about this, the algonquin indians all over southern new england rose up against the puritan colonists, whom they had lived peacefully with for several decades. the results according to this historian, the result was the bloodiest war in american history. a terrifying conflict in which the puritans found themselves fighting with the cruelty that they had thought only from their perspective, the native indians, or capable of. that may have been a wrong perception and clearly they were fighting with great brutality on both sides. in august 1676, when the severed head of this indian leader, king philip, they captured him and they killed him and they cut off his head and they displayed it in plymouth, massachusetts. thousands of indians and english

men, women and children were now dead. more than half of the new town in new england had been wiped out and the settlers sense of themselves as civilized people of god had been deeply shaken. it was really in the aftermath of this horrible war, this shaking, the pastors like reference stoddard and others began to implore god, beg god. this is not novel not what we came to start. how did we get to the spot? how good this level of brutality and violence be the result of fix experiment that we came to bring christ and the walk with him to teach his word and live by him. then in october of 1727, a terrible earthquake shook the homes of new england and there was a series of aftershocks, literal earthquakes.

earthquakes are not common in new england but there were some big ones, and in the context of the aftermath of the war, these prayers, god began to literally shake the colonies. and people got scared and people began to say, maybe we need to turn back to the lord. people were fearful that they would die in these earthquakes and go to hell forever and ever and ever because they had not even their lives to the lord jesus christ. out of this, jonathan edwards, this young pastor, began to pray second chronicles 7:4 teen. not because it was a promise to her country but it was based on principle that we can at least ask. jesus did say ask and ye shall receive. seek and ye shall find. knocking the door shall be opened. then as he began to pray this it didn't go like he thought.

as i write about an implosion, the people in the community began to die from terrible death like a young woman, a young mom suddenly got this this terrible illness and boom she was dead. it happened in the congregation as well as in the community. that is not what i meant. what i meant was we want to wake people up spiritually. god used to those sudden tragic deaths in the context of other ways that he was shaking the community and the region and the country was not a political entity yet, and people began to come to church. as i write on page 237 in "implosion" the tragic deaths were mighty people of their own mortality and focus them on the prospect of spending eternity either in heaven or in hell.

five or six people suddenly came to the church and were converted. they became followers of christ. a well-known immoral woman in the community came to the church and she was dramatically safe. something began to happen. this is a quote from jonathan edwards. the news of this woman's conversion, this a moral woman's conversion, seems to be like a flash of lightning upon the hearts of young people all over the town. people began to talk about how things were changing right of run of their eyes and they began talking about their own need for dramatic transformation. it's one thing to say, i'm not as bad as her by people began to recognize they weren't that far off. maybe they were not doing her sins but they were far from christ also and god began to work. the work of conversion was carried out in a most astonishing manner edwards wrote

and increased more and more. it's not like jonathan edwards was suddenly more spiritual than he had been. it's not that he was preaching the gospel with more clarity than he had been. he had been praying and he had been faithful and suddenly something began to happen. more than he could have hoped for or dreamt of. he prayed for it but you know that you pray for something sometimes than the newer light, it's actually starting to happen. the apostle peter was in prison and they are praying, oh lord, lord you love peter. and the stone on which were building the whole church. oh lord, release him from prison. the server and grow -- will get that. we are trying to pray for peter. oh lord, we pray for peter. it's peter, it's peter. you're out of your mind. lord, you know lord jesus that

you are the great god. shoes like seriously, peters at the door. it's his angel. we don't expect sometimes, often actually that god will hear our prayers. my pastor in college, the one who discipled my life for me is from the country of india and he used to say joel, joe well and lynn, this is the prayer to god. we sometimes needed english to english translation. joel and lin lynn we serve the prayer hearing ended higher answering god. a wonderworking god. this is the god that the bible describes and in this book what is interesting, as i was doing the research, i was praying for

it and holy smokes, i am paraphrasing, he had to put a few more the's and thou's, in the old english talk but things began to happen. people got saved and not only did people get say but edwards writes that everyone in the town started talking about eternal things. they stop talking about normal things. they started to talk about eternal spiritual things. they started coming to church. somewhere filled with joy, they were excited. others were weeping with sorrow and distress he says because of the souls of their neighbors. they wanted to see them say because their own souls that they wanted to see where five. he calls this a shower of the -- began to move. i did this research in one of the things that is interesting to me is spiritual awake thing revivals, they have happened, they can happen, they do happen but again you cannot put your quarters into the vending machine and hit revival and do a

to a certain set of things that will determine that a revival will calm. now they're a things that we can -- that we should be doing anyway in hopes that there will be a revival and i brag about that in a chapter on, could they possibly experienced a third great awakening? and i go through that but i just love the stories. edwards ends up writing a small book called a faithful narrative of the surprising work of god. he believed in god. he believed that god was a prayer hearing, prayer answering god but he called it a surprising work of god because we know god can do it. we don't eyes believe he will do it. and yet, he saw people move. in a world without radio, without television, without the internet, without twitter, without facebook, the story begins to move. this little pamphlet, this booklet about what god was beginning to do dramatic way in

his community, the holy spirit pouring out in changing people, people he never thought would get saved, that booklet began to move and they kept printing and printing and printing. it spread all over the country and people began to read the stories in thing, love god if you are you're doing it in massachusetts, do it in our town. if you are doing it in northampton do it in our little town and pastors got excited and they began to pray because they knew the bible but now they began to see the surprising work of god in towns in your country. god heard those prayers in and and then began to say yes. this began to spread and then a pamphlet got sent overseas and people like george whitfield and john and charles wesley began to read is thing and go wow, what's going on in america flex lets go over there and see if we can be helpful and he began to sense the world was telling them

to come to america and preach the gospel and plan churches and make disciples and train pastors and this continued to spread. i just want to set up this period of time in this q&a because with that little story. there are so many others. i wish i could take the next 90 minutes just to tell you the stories but that is why he wrote the book, to capture it and at the end of the book i have a list of other resources, books that would be useful if you got into these. my point is you can read a number of other books that talk about these awakenings are going think it's important because the i think we get, lord it looks so bad. i don't think you could change it. i don't know if you will and maybe we should just give up and we should just hunker in the bunker. i don't think that is what we should do. i can't say what the results of our prayer is prayers going to be. that is up to a sovereign god, but we should be cognizant that god has given us to

game-changing, sweeping, transformative spiritual revivals. the secular historian journalist dubbed the great awakening as the is the second great awakening respectfully. that wasn't a christian way of describing it. the nonbelieving world went wow, that's huge. that is a big deal, and so it was. on that note it do we have some questions from people thinking they are ready to ask some questions and if not we will go straight to questions from twitter. we will start over there. wake up, people. the first one is, do you think that the current economic and foreclosure crisis is directly related to god's judgment on our country? that was a twitter question from andrea. do you think that current economic and foreclosure crisis is directly related to god's judgment on our country?

i wouldn't yet use the term judgment. i don't think that we are yet in a season of judgment. i think that is coming and i think if we stay on the path that we are on, that judgment is coming. but i think we are in shaking. i think we are in the early stages of the type of shake and that god spoke through the profit haggai in the old testament and through the writer of hebrews in the new testament where he said i will shake all the nations. i think it goes back to this point about god-loving us so much. believe me, he is a just god and there is a point you can push god too far and judgment and wrath will come. the scriptures are clear about this. but, he is a long-suffering god. he is a patient god and i think because he loves us, he is

trying to wake us up. what is the thing generally speaking that most americans are clinging to more than jesus? our 401(k), our housing value, our wealth. this is a big part of our lives and the lord is shaking that. just this week the federal reserve pointed out, new data showing that the average american family has lost 40% of affair net financial worth in the last three years. .. got that out of whack. that is not the right way to go. so i don't think it's a

judgment. i think it's part of his grace and mercy. questions here or do you want me to go to another? >> right here, yes. >> it sounds like you're talking >> both. routine formula. with there be for instance types of teaching? what would you suggest? >> that's a great question. and i do process that question in more detail in in pollution but i think you're right we need a formulaic. i think the key is to get back

into the scriptures and look atl examples. if we are talking about pastor's let's isolate that. i think it's critical that we i get back to the scripture and say all right examples -- we're talking about passages so let's isolate that question on pastors. it's critical we get back to the scriptures and say, lord, walk me through examples, setting aside the first and second great awaken for a moment, but scripturally, walk me back through times where people were told to repent and didn't, times they weren't told repent, but they did. times that -- walk me through different examples. so one of those we talk about with joan in jonah was not told -- if you go to the text -- i re-read it last night to make sure i was not off on this. but jonah was not told,

according to the text -- we don't know what he was told -- tell the people to repent. and it's intriguing to me because you would think that with a message of judgment, you'd want to give people the ability to repent. it's possible the lord did say that what you should say, but that jonah can't say it. why die say that? stick with me. jonah, chapter 4, -- well, champ ter 3, of course, we walks in and says, 40 more days and ninava will be overturned. that's his message. 40 more days and ninivina will be judged and they believed god. they declared -- he didn't tell them to declare a fast. jonah didn't. not that we know of.

they declaring a fast and all of them, from the great toast the least, put on sack cloth. then the news reached the king, and he issued the proclaimation, saying, don't let any man or beast, herd or flock, take anything. do not let them eat or drink -- talk about a fast -- normal we we talk about have water, liquid, consult your doctor, but don't eat. a meal two meals, a day, several days, 40 days jesus fasted. but this is not even supposed to drink anything. why? because -- i'm not saying that's a principle we have to apply. the text is saying, the kick is saying, we believe the man of god. we believe the word of god. we're in trouble. we better beg ', plead, for mercy, on the hope, the off chance that god might relent. and he says, the king says

specifically in chapter 3, verse 9, who knows, god may yet relent and with compassion, turn his fierce anger so that we will not perish. now, right before that, he not only talks about fasting but he says, let everyone urgently call on god and let them give up their evil ways and their violence. it wasn't just, don't eat, don't drink. let's have a religious ceremony. it was, people, people, this is serious. we've got to respent. we've got to turn. now, jonah's reaction is, woo-hoo, that's so exciting. i love to see wicked people respent and come to know the god of abraham, right? versus 1, chapter 4, but -- but what? what could possibly be but after this tremendous respentens. it says, godshot they did and

how they turned from their evel ways and he had come. passion on them and did not bring upon them the destruction the had threatened. but jonah was greatly displeased, and he became angry. okay. jonah's got issues, god bless him. he says he prays to the lord and says, oh, lord, is this not what i said when i was still at home? this is why i was so quick to go to flee to tarish. i knew you are a gracious and compassionate god, slow to anger and abounding in love, a god who relent in sending calamities, and now, lord, take my life. what? for it's better for me to die than to limp all -- than to live.

all the people repented. so now, walk with you. this is why i didn't want to go. this guy's heart was way off. but what -- this is an interesting example, and there's a lot of lessons there, but there's another lesson, and that is from the book of nahom. it's a great little book. one of those minor prophets, and jonah -- my jonah, we actually went to the town where nahom is from. nahom was a guy from the up to of el kosh. and el kosh is still in iraq. and an oracle concerning ninova. didn't we just read that story? yes, we did. the back of division of nahom, this is an entire book of judgment against ninova.

i thought we just covered that? the people turned to god and that guy got mad -- didn't we just go through this story? didn't they repent? yes, but, different theories of how -- of the time frame but roughly 150 years later, ninova had slid again, and the people were so wicked, and this test just goes through how horrible it really was, the violence, the wickedness, the the sore scorsercs, and he is told judgment is coming, and it did come, not long after the evil prophet brought the word, and in

612b.c. we know that ninova was in fact destroyed. those are two examples, two books that will about useful for pastors to up pack and go back through, because here's two cases of a wicked society, facing judgment, and when one -- that same exact society, when they heard the word of the lord one time, they really responded powerfulfully, and god relent because they repented. but the second time? they didn't repent, go god carried through on the judgment he had proclaimed. let's stop for there for now so we can open up for other questions. i think there's a lot of fascinating examples related to the nation of israel and ninova and others that are useful prims and examples we can draw from when we look at our country now. we need to be preaching a

message of repentens. >> yes? >> it seems to me the attacks on the church and on christianity in particular, have been becoming more obvious and more blatant. not only the recent advocacy for the homosexual lifestyle and all of that, along with the abortion you mentioned, and also, for example, the books you mentioned earlier that were number one, two, and three, on amazon, the main character who apparently does some obscene things, is named christian. this is not an accident. it's a blatant and more obvious attack on christianity, and on the faith, and on jesus christ, and his church, and i'm wondering, in all of your travels and everything, have you seen a shift in the church's attitude about this, to combat

this? we're being attacked openly, blatantly, and viciously, and is the church doing anything about it? >> it's a great question, and it's not a very comforting answer. some churches are. but i think most believers, we're like the frog in the kettle. if you the frog in boiling water, it jumps out. you put the frog in a lukewarm temperature, and it boils to death and it doesn't have a trigger mechanism to jump out. we're the frogs in the kettle, and that is realizing how bad this really is, we're signed of acclimb tieing, as it were -- >> we're not begging for mercy for our own lives and then be

filled with a spirit used by god to be a light in the darkness. and this is why we need an awakening. this i white it's called revival it you're a follower of jesus christ but you're slipping in your spiritual life, we need to be revived. we have life but we need to be revived. the rest of the culture needs to be vived. right? you can't dereviveed until you have been vived. you can't have life stir in you 'again if you don't have it at all. but how can we be that life, that witness to a world that doesn't get it if we are asleep or we are not -- we're running the other direction. it's possible that in a room this size, these folks and congregations all the over the country, it's possible there are people who are listening today, watching today, who god is

calling you to be actively engaged in teaching the word of god, preaching the word of god, making disciples, and helping be part of showing light to people who are lost, those in the church but also outside. and you are on the run. you are going in the opposite direction. today, god is saying, stop. turn around. don't be a jonah. don't go away. follow me. now, we teach our sons what repep tense is. we don't want to use the word repent anymore. sounds sort of religious and intolerant. repent means to turn around so we taught our boys that's what it means. so let me take my you cannest, noah.

years ago, i said, noah, i'm trying to teach you what it means to repent. this is important biblical concept. the first thing jesus said when his ministry began was, repent. the first that that john the baptist said when his ministry began was, repent. the first thing that the apostle peter said was, repent. so, know was here's the deal. we're sitting here in the living room. what want you to do is when i say go, you start running through the living room, through the kitchen to the dining room. but when i say stop. i want you to stop. okay? okay, ready? go. and he starts running, and he's running across the living room. across the kitchen, he's heading into the dining room and i said, stop, noah, and he stops. i said, repent, noah, and he turns around. i say, come back to daddy, and he comes running back and jumps in my arms and i hug him and kiss him and say, welcome home. that's the picture of

repentance. that is what god is saying to those of us who are drifting or walking or running away from him. he is saying, stop. not because i hate you. because i love you. stop. you're going in the wrong direction. you're going away from your father, who loves you, which protect you. turn around and come back, and i will hug you and i will clean you up and i will strengthen you, to go be used by the lord, to be a light in this dark. and i talk about this, write about this in the book, but this is a critical need. the church is -- maybe we tweet about it, blog about it, gripe about it. i have a dear friend, older woman, and she -- a friend of ours, and she has gotten politically obsessed. she needs to go through fox

detox. i'm not saying anything against fox. been on it many times. i'm just saying, she it's obsessed. and we can get that way. we can get rivetted on the negative. that's another -- that guy, and that's the president, or the speaker of the house, or -- whatever. it can become bitterness, anger, but is le ..tive and it needs to be. that's where we are. the church needs to be. right now i think we're genuinely -- a new tweet that just came in: is the church at fault for the moral collapse of society by not taking a stand against premarital sex? a question from naomi. yes. i think that true. the church has this -- i think

we can't just take stand against. i think you need to -- we should. let's start with that. we should be teaching our children and modeling not having premarital sex. since i asked the question, i was a e virgin and my wife was a virgin. that was god's grace. but the people we minister to, the young people, this is not generally speaking their supplies they're coming out of an awful lot of brokenness. they have been sold, this is awesome, and expected, and normal to give themselves away before marriage, and, one, it's making their marriages really lousy now. they're haunted by their past. they have brokenness. there's all kinds of issues. but many of them didn't even know that it was wrong or those who knew it was wrong, didn't know that there was a cost.

there's just so many pieces there. so, one, we need to be modeling this. we need to be speaking about it. we need to be teaching about god's plan and purpose for marriage, and for sexuality, and not act as though sex is a dirty thing. it's beautiful. but it has to be from the lord. and just like anything in the scriptures, if -- when god gives it, it's a blessing, unless it's abused, and the church needs to be a light in this area as well, because this is a huge area that young people are struggling with. i mean, not just young people. older people struggle with immorality, too and it's an issue that the scriptures -- i r --n't lookedp >> first peter and second peter. just keep writing about it. even then there is the importance of managing multiple times the same way from sin and

being faithful. this is a critical issue.aith it has a horrible effect on our culture. it has a horrible effect on our culture. i'll say this last thing mitchell conversation with dennis miller. dennis said, on abortion, i don't know. i'm not smart enough to know if at it wrong, but i don't feel like it's my job to tell a woman not to have an abortion. i said, well, i hear you, but one of the great moments in recent history for the prolife movement has not been the church, it's been the sonogram. right? just seeing that little baby in your womb changes often the dynamic. that a person in there. that has been huge. the numbers of abortions are going down by hundreds of

thousands but we're still over a million a year and what people don't say, when they have this big argument over abortion, is, the haunting pain that comes with the abortion. that it stays with you. now, god forgives sin. he heals sinners. he cleanses every sin away when we come to faith in jesus christ. he washes it away by his life and the great thing is you can be liberated from that haunting fear of that sin, or any, when you receive christ as your save your and you ask him to forgive you, and even as a believer, some christians are doing this as well. unfortunately not man. first john, 1:9, tells us if we admit our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all

unrighteousness. not all accept premarital sins, not all since except abortion. he says he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. and knowing women as my wife and i do who have gone through this, who have done this, and now are haunted by this, we do see the liberating power of christ alone to heal. we are not. >> 85% of americans say they're christians, 84% say they believe the bible is holy word of god,

what's the problem in why do we have 53 million abortion if most of us are believers. how come we have important nothingography rampant, killing men and now women and destroying young people and homes and lives and families if we're all believers. there's a disconnect, and it's painful, and that's why we desperately need a revival. yes? >> i have children the ages of your children and my husband and i also teach sunday school to middle school age kid at our church, and a problem i run into is in discussing some of what's going on and what they see on the news, and hear us discuss on the news, feel like our kids are torn between this, oh, my gosh, it's hopeless, the future is so bleak for us, what kind of world do we health but then i think, i'm not alone as a christian parent. on the other hand i'm saying, you know, things are terrible and the world is falling apart but go to college and get a good

degree and make a lot of money. so i know that's conflicting message to. the as far as where their hope lies but this suggestion formants to not make them feel like it's too bleak, give up, it's hopeless. >> amen to that. bless you sister, for that. our first born is going to college this fall, and we're excited about that. now, what we're teaching our kids is, yes, things are bad, and they're going to get worse actually. you see, kids already know that the country is in trouble. and they -- but they have good cheese meters. their knows can sniff out hypocrisy and cheesy talk from the parents and pastors. when we want to play games with them at church and not teach them the word of god, we're not only not equipping them for the battle they're about to go in

but we're actually disarming them. this is a mistake. too many in the church are coddling kids, playing games with kids, saying, oh, don't come to service where the word of god is being taught. just you guys go off and play. but, see, the thing is, one of the things i learned through having four sons, they're prewired for major cataclysmic conflict between good and evil. the want to watch star wars. they're all in. they want to watch lord of the rings. huge conflict with the world about to end and you'reown only guy on your team to battle the forces of evil? i want to be that guy. i want to be frodo. i want to be sam, luke. my point is, -- and a few years back, i was watching my kids be all in on these huge clashes and end of the world type stories and i'm like, i'm not teaching

them what i teach everyone else? the power of god to transform? what's my problem? i'm cheating my kids, and, by the way, when they can learn the language of -- whatever the languages of the elves, they learn "star trek" languages and i'm think, i'm not teaching them the language of scripture, and telling them, you are frodo. the world is coming to an end and you're going to have to battle against forces that are going to be difficult. but stay away from -- don't put the ring of power on. stay focused on jesus. okay. i'm not following all that. i understand we got age range issues and stuff. it's all good the point is, i think we're cheating our children. i think we are acting as though they don't get -- they don't want to be in a spiritual

battle. but what is interesting, my brother-in-law is a missionary in brazil, and he wife is brazilian, and they're home now, and it's been wonderful to spend time with them. and i met with him, my wife's brother, we were trying to share the gospel with him. he was not on the team, let's say, at the time, and in fact he threw a bible at us. now he is preaching the gospel and they're reaching at-risk children in brazil. one thing he said to me, you know -- the statistics are all very clear that about 90% of people who are in fulltime christian work, were saved before the age of 15. now, when god reaches into a young person's life and gets their heart and changes them, it can stick and be a game-changer for a lifetime, and often it's because they've been rescued from the other mistakes they

might make. not all of them. they're kids. but god can often grab their heart, save them, and uses them powerfulfully later. he sigh, why then is most missionness the world focused on adults when, i we reef children, they're the ones who will change the world, and they want to that's lou little boys are wire to fight good and evil. they want to be on the good-guy team. and we're like, yeah, we'll get it to. i would -- my pastor says, not a sermon, just a thought. i think that was a whole full-blown sermon. we need tone gauge our kids, help them understand, and take them on mission trips and get them involved and encourage them to pray for -- one of my sons here is jacob, and he -- one day he was reading through the strip tours and came to vest verses about sharing the gospel. and he says, maybe shy share the

gospel. so he told his mom and me, i'm going out in the neighborhood and going to find someone to share she gospel. jacob is not a talker. doesn't talk much. that's because his brothers talk a lot. i do a fair amount of talking. so, he maybe doesn't have enough oxygen in the room. maybe -- he goes out and he actually found a guy and started sharing the gospel with him. turned out the guy was believer. i was like, wow, awesome, taking you for a milk shake. i said -- he home-schools so how many unbelievers do you know? your brother's already saved. their friends are already saved. so, how many unbelievers does he know? i said, your soccer team, let's be praying for them. so he has praying for his soccer team. so, a couple days ago, the tournament, last game of the season, he said, think i really

want to give them a gift, something -- what can i give them we could share the gospel with them. all right, jacob, you're thinking good. this is good stuff. i don't know let's go to christian book store and find out. if you give me a couple more days i could call my publisher and gotten stuff for free. whatever. it's tomorrow. so i'm with you there. so we went to the christian book store. i asked the young guy, do you have some gospels according to john? i'm sorry, what? i said, you know, just the gospel of john, a little -- i don't know. so he gave me a commentary about john. i said, no, an actual bible but just john. no. so, i don't mean to be critical of that. a christian book store. i'm just saying we were looking all around and weren't finding anything so finally we saw on the shelf 15 copies of josh mcdowell's more than a carpenter. a great book, really clear and i

said, 15 copies. jew's books for signs. that's what the apostle paul says, that's a sign. so we got it. and he went home and he wrote a note into each of the kid on the team and he wrapped them up and gave them to the kids on the team. and this is the way we need to help our kid get engaged in the work of the kingdom now. we can't just outsource it to the pastors. we all got to be engageed, including our kids. let's take a twitter question. should we pray that god not judge america or do we need his judgment in order for our nation to repent and town him -- turn to him. this question is from cindy. i don't think we're in a season of judgment yet. the judgment will come. but even when you look at the book of revelation and the tribulation, even though, yes,

judgment begins dramatically in that seven-year period, and the bible speaks of the wrath of god being poured out at a series of jams poured out on all nations. but even in the tribulation, while there is judgment coming, guys are shaking in order to wake people up. but we're not there yet. i don't know how far away we are from the rapture or the tribulation. it may not be that far off. but we're not there yet. and so the question -- i think we're more in a -- hegi chapter 2 moment where god is shaking all the nations to wake us up, and we saw it on 9/11, as i write about in implosion, 9/11 was a huge wakeup call to the country about external threat, just as these threats are

internal. but we also still face serious storm threats, and what is interestings after 9/11, nor next few months, people start turning back to church. churches were full. and then not so much. i quote research in the book that shows that not long after 9/11, certainly -- if you went into 2002, 2003, the church pretty much went back to it normal sizes. now, many people did come to christ post-9/11. that was a trigger for many but sort of a massive spiritual awakening? it didn't happen, and you would have thought that would be a moment where god would get our attention. not because he caused those attacks. that was evil. the evil of radical islam that did that. not god. but he allowed those attacks. why? in part to shake us. in part to get our attention. and for most, it didn't work.

you think, if that didn't work, what coming down the pike? >> hello, this couple of months ago i read a book on isaiah 9:10. >> the hard by jerry. >> yes, it was written as a novel but well-documented and i liked the analogy to israel. >> i haven't read it. i can't comment. but what is interesting, in the secular world, there actually are a number of books coming out -- i actually cite a bunch of them in this -- in my book, but let me just give you some of the titles that have come out in the not too recent past. coe has sunday, the rise and fall of the american empire. the end of america. letter of warning to a young patriot. nemesis. the last days of the american republic. are we rome?

the fall of an empire and the fate of america. the post american world. dismantling america. after america. suicide of a superpower. will america survive to 2025? that's just a handful of books that are being written by people who, seriously, a few years ago, if somebody raised an issue of could america implode, could we not survive could we collapse? that would have been considered offensive. deeply offensive to most americans, certainly most christians. but i'm not getting any pushback. i would say i'm behind the curve in noticing and feeling like, all right, if the lord is telling me to write about this, most of those books deal with the economic, the political, and some of them deal with cultural, but most of them don't deal with the spiritual. therefore, they're defining much of the problem, but they're not

defining the answer. they're diagnosing the cancer in our body politic but they're not offering a cure. and this is a point that i make in implosion, which is that we need to look at society through three lenses. through what i call the economic lens. through the geo political lens. and then through the lens of the bible. my view is if you only look at current events, events in history, currently now, through economic and geopolitical lenses, you're not able to see in three dimensions. it's only when you look through the third lens, through the lens of a biblical perspective, can you begin to see clearer. it doesn't mean you'll understand everything about every moment of what's going on in your country or others but we can't certainly understand

what's happening in a country or how to fix it unless we're getting god's perspective. and unfortunately too many churches aren't teaching the scriptures. me a use a verse here or there but they're not teaching through the bible. they're not picking a book of the bible -- take jonah, or take first peter, and just go through verse by verse, line by line, chapter by chapter, and unpack, what is god saying? what was he saying to that city or nation? what is he saying the church? that's how the hers were written. imagine getting -- these days people dope even mail letters. that's why the post office is imploding. that's a separate issue. imagine you get an e-mail from your wife and, let's say you're on a business trip, and it's a long, detailed e-mail and she is sharing what's going on with the kids and her and things -- critical information you need to know, but rather than read it

all, you just pick out a line that says, i love you. or, i miss you. awesome. maybe that's the first line, for example. hey, i'm go. and the next line, i love you, i miss, and the mortgage us die and we don't have any now and won't have a house when you get home. my point is we can'tic and choose verses out of these epistles, whole letters for the church to walk through the challenges if you just cherry pick your way through it you're not going to understand the totality of what god is saying and you won't know the context of why god is saying what he was saying. was at a pastor retreat, and we are were going through first peter, which is a book about how we're going to suffer as we go deeper into the last days, and it's because god wants us to

draw closer to him to our suffering servant, jesus, who suffered fitz and -- suffered first and most. so the scriptures are clear heaves going to let us suffer and in fact he's going to bring suffering into our lives to draw competely dependent on christ. because he is our example. and somebody pulled out this express said, there's a verse here that says, by his wounds we are healed. the young past you're says i have friends that say that verse you apply that to member who is civic and they will be held. i said, okay, i appreciate that question. it's a great question. but that's completely missing the context of the text. is god a healer? absolutely. gentleman have extra is a healer. he raises people from the dead. this who is god is, and he doesn't just heal people in the bible. he heals people now.

but, again, you can't put the quarter in and say that god's going to heal you just because you pray for it. otherwise, when paul prayed three times for the thorn in his flesh to be taken away, how come god said, no, no, no. my grace is sufficient for you. my strength is perfected in your weakness. god answered the prayer. the answer was, no. i'm not going to heal you. deal with it. as i help you deal with it. as i take you through it. as you identify with my suffering, but i give you power. because, paul, want you to be weak so people don't think, paul is so great, paul is so smart, paul is never sick, he has car and jet planes and rolexs. i want to be like him. who wanted to be like paul? ship wrecked. tortured. beaten.

flogged. stoned. if you were in the 60s, okay, maybe. but, you know. he would go around and he said, even when i preach, i'm not trying to preach entertainment. i'm not trying to put on a show. i preach -- i try to forget everything except christ and being crucified. i don't want people's faith in christ to rest on how brilliant am as a speaker. i want it to rest on the power of god, that christ is powerful, that he is rised. i'm a moron, he is saying, compared to christ. don't pend on me. depend on christ. so he says i'm going fear and trembling. when jacob said he was scared to share the gospel with member in our neighborhood issue said, welcome to paul's world. paul said, niche fear and trembling. do you feel that way? i don't want to share the

gospel. that would be -- >> the fear and trembling is a good thing. it makes us dependent on christ. let me stop there so i can take your questions. >> there's many people that feel like the bankruptcy economically of our country, the bankruptcy morally of our country, is imminent. it's not if it's going to happen. it's when it's going to happen. and i know you've been in several countries throughout the world that have gone through that situation. but have you seen churches that have prepared for the opportunities because whenever this does take place, it's going to be a tremendous amount of opportunities for the church? have you seen churches that did prepare for the opportunity and how did they prepare for it? >> that's a great question. generally, the places i've gone, and the christian leaders i've

spoken to that are national christian leaders from their country, generality tell -- generally tell me they were unprepared. didn't see the driven about to be burnt down. take china. i have not gone the people's republic of china but look at china and you say, okay, enemy, they make good products for william, -- for wal-mart, but we got some concern, they're a rising economic power. owl kind of issues. but the church was effectively burn to the ground 30 some years ago, right? the communists just tried to decimate the church and they did a pretty good job in terms of trying to decimate the people of christ. but now there is north of 100 million followers of christ, some say 120 million followers of jesus christ. why? because they have preachers on television? because they have megachurchs? because they have christian book stores on every corner?

because they have -- because they're tweeting their faith? they're handing out door-to-door? no. jesus allowed godless, athiest, communist to essentially burn the church down so he could grow something better, stronger, deeper. people who realize i don't have anything but christ and they began to say, need jesus. and when they were in prisons or huddled in their home and realized, we're terrified. how come the next door neighbor have a light in their eye? something in their soul -- something sweet and peaceful about them. they're going through the same nightmare i am. what do they have that i don't? and that -- people -- chinese people start going to friends who were christians, true followers of christ, what do you have? i want it. and the cleaners, the believers of jesus would say, i'll tell you but you could get beaten. you could get imprisoned. they

could kill you for this. okay, maybe, but i can see you have life, and i need it. for this life and the life to come. and people are coming to christ. one of the greatest spiritual awakenings in the world and have to ask ourselves, i the church stronger in china or in america? and if you conclude that it's china, then you have do ask yourself how we got there how did they get there? how did god take them to this strength? there's the back to jerusalem movement in china, this missionary movement, where chinese believers in jesus say they want to reach every country, every culture, between communist china and jerusalem with a gospel, and western missionaries are saying, i don't know if that's a good idea. you know, that's hindu country, buddhist, muslim country,

they'll kill you, torture you beat you, execute you, and the chinese believers are like, and that would be different how? than what we have? but we have the life. we have the truth, the living water is inside of us. it didn't come from a church steeple. the church is not the steeple? the fear is -- they don't have the building. they don't have -- christ is living powerfully inside them and i have to ask, in suddenna, there's now five million followers of christ in iran there's more than a million followers of christ, in a muslim country, a radical muslim country building nuclear weapons. do we want what happened in china? do we want what happened -- a decides genocide in sudan, do we want islamic revolution in united states? we don't. but before you say, god, please don't let terrible things to happen to our country, we have

to look at it from god's perspective. i don't want terrible things to happen. i want a revival to come without terrible things to happen, but generally peeking in the scriptures and in history, god allows nations and churches -- churches, captle c -- in a sense to be burned down. in order that hing grow something deeper, stronger, where all the believers have is jesus. now, that is why this book might not do well. and i understand that. but i'm asking you to think about that god is shaking may need to get worse to get us really where we need to be. 9/11 didn't work. yes, sir. >> the country has been brainwashed -- >> can you start again. >> the country had been brainwashed by the separation of state and god and church.

churches have been intimidate by that, and the minority that do not believe, but we have lost in the book -- for instance, a drunk driver kills an expect tenant mother, he is charged with two measures and yet that same woman can get an abortion and walk out a free person. how can the church address those issues? >> well, that's a great question. i mixed that poll politics is a lagging indicator of where a country is morally and spiritually. the greatest way to change the state capital is to change hearts. changed hearts -- hearts fixed on jesus that say i wouldn't live in a biblical way. want to follow the scriptures.

i want me leaders to lead based on biblical principles. i'm not -- i want them to live by basic biblical prims. start with, not getting us in debt, because we will be enslaved by debt. that's a basic principle and we're not living by it. but ultimately the way you have to really -- the only way to get there is the society to change, the way society changes is for individuals to change. individuals can only change by their hearts changing because their mind will only change if they're heart has been transform and that can only happen through christ and i think we're at the point where the church -- i'll speak for myself. my -- going to the radio interview and not wanting to talk about jesus on the way. i couldn't be bothered at the

moment. at it good to confess and say, we're all like that. i hope that if you haven't dish if you're not comfort enable how to share your faith, maybe take a copy of implosion and give it to a friend and say, i heard this guy talk. i'm curious your take. let's get coffee. that's a good way to get a spiritual conversation started. but in the end, we -- i have to start sharing my faith more, and we need to start engaging our culture, even if there is a -- i think about my brother-in-law. he threw a bible at his sister and me once when we were trying to share the gospel. that happens. people who don't love jesus think this is foolishness and offensive to them. but you know what? i think it's fair to say that he loves the fact that we tried. and that we prayed for him. because -- not because of us but because god opened his eyes a

few years later through a crisis. through something horrible happening in his life that shook him so much that he had to ask himself, what do i have? my sister has something that i don't have. we went to the same church. we went to the same youth group. we played the same games. we were rebels together. but somehow my older sister knows god in a way that is permanent and -- that it personal and real and when the crisis came to our family, it's sustaining her and not sustaining me. you will get resistance. we will get resistance, but we're not trying to please them. we're trying to rescue them from hell. let's just be clear. it's not just about a bad life on earth. we're trying to rescue them from going to hell and burning in the lake of fire forever and ever and ever, with no way of escape.

or receive christ as their savior and be born again and go to heaven and live with jesus andol and me, forever, and ever, and ever. those are the choices. if we really believe that, we have to live it. we have to communicate it. we dare not -- we cannot try to slip into heaven incognito with a hoodie and sunglasses saying, thank god, i'm saved. jesus said, before he left earth, he said in matthew, chapter 28, go and make disciples of all nations. baptizing them in the name of father, the son, and the holy

spirit, and teaching them to obey all i have commanded, and i am with you to the very end of the age, i'm with you always. he's with us. the verse starts -- the verse before is, all authority in heaven and on earth, has been given to me, christ said. therefore, go. in other words, i'm in charge. you'll get resistance. people will hate you. do it anyway. and i'll be with you the very enof the age. we're getting close to the end of the age, and the questions, are we making disciples? and i'm going to be with you question in a moment. this is an important point. many of us are going to get to heaven. and we are truly born again, and jesus is going to welcome us with open arms when with get there. but i suspect he's going to say, i'm so glad you're here. become aboard. i prepared a place for you. now, would you introduce me to some of your disciples? and some of us, many of us are

going to say, my what? my who? you know, your disciples. many of us are going to get blank looks on our faces and are going to be like, is that streak in what did you say? your disciples. i said go and make disciples of all nations. right? lead them into the kingdom of christ. help them to grow in their faith. teach them the word, show them how to live the christian life. take them under your wing and help them to grow. and a lot of christians, born-again believers,er going to be horrified, standing before jesus saying, was that an important thing to do? now, i'm paraphrasing -- walk with mily to me considering of this possibility. the lord could say, really? the great commission, that's what i said, one over the last things i said is to go and do this, make disciples. most of us don't know what a

disciple is. most of us -- they don't know how to make other disciple. most of us have never made a disciple. i was very fortunate. not only were my parents investors in my spiritual life but when i went to college, there's a great guy on stafford campus' crusade for christ who taught me to to sayre my taught, and my pastor in college was this man from india, dr. koshi. he took my -- then my girlfriend, lynn, and i, and a number of others, young people, and we would meet at 7:00 every morning and i'm not an earl early guy. i was filmmaker. one of the reasons i did it. i digress. and he said these things you heard me say in the presence of

many witnesses, teach them to reliable men. that will be able to teach others also. personal. investment. and that dr. koshi says every christian needs to answer two simple questions. first who is investing in me? and who aim investing in, or grammaticallier who correct, whom am ien vesting? who is my paul? someone who is personally, intentionally, building into me, helping me become a man of god the way i should, that i can have an impact on my society. but it's not enough just to have a paul teaching you. we need a timothy that we're investing in. a younger guy, or several, or in the case or women, please don't take the younger guys, take the younger women, and take them under your wing and begin to invest in them, encourage them, train them, the way paul trained

timothy. many are not doing this. this is why the church is weak. at its core, i believe it's a failure not of evangelism. i believe it's a failure of discipleship, it's an epic failure of discipleship. this is how churches grow weak, because older, wiser, believers, are not investing in younger people, or at least younger than them, at least younger spiritually, and helping them to take what they know in their heads scripturally and get it into their hearts and then get the gears moving, get the athlete in motion, in their life, and that -- i wrote a book called "the invested life: making disciples of all nations one at a time." i wrote a few notes and we

worked on it together. we never seriously tried to publish it. weighted as a workbook with people we were discipling, but when i was working on this project and i began to think, the biggest crisis in our country, at its core is, the epic failure of discipleship. the church is not passing on and training younger believers to live this way. a moral, holy, prayerful life. that's the failure so continuedale said we'd be willing to publish that. so in september, a little book called "the invested life" will come out, which i hope will be helpful. another resource like this one, but sort of taking you to the next stage because we don't want to again to heaven dish don't want to get to heaven and stan before jesus and have him say what part of the great commission did you not understand, son? was it in greek?

well, actually it was but you had all the translation. so that's a critical issue. one of our last patients. thank you for your patience. >> thank you for you teaching today. as we make disciples, as i strive, one of the hardest questions i get from believers and nonbelievers alike is what the rapture is, and you talk about that in your book as one of the downfalls of americans itch agree fully with you. i was fortunate enough to read the whole thing and i encourage everybody to read the whole thing. one one of the final ended to america will be when we are raptured because we have such a great christian body here. it will not be the same america. one of biggest pushbacks i get -- you talk about, we're all gob believing christians are going to be gone in the blink of an eye. what about the chirp who have not reached the age of decision? do they go, stay?

what does the bible stay about that? >> that's a big one to close on. with three minutes to go. it's a great question, the, though, and one on our hearts. i define the rapture, i know that term is not in the bible but i walk through what it means. the worth trinity is nose in the barracks either, but be learn from the scriptures, at a moment of god's choosing -- that's the context -- the trumpet is going to blow and the word jesus christ is going to come down, and the dead in christ, people who died already but had known christ as their personal savior, and we'll meet them in the air. gone, boom, out of here. that's going to be exciting. what happens to young people? the answer is, i do not know.

wonderful scholarships i respect believe if children are not yet age 13, that would be an age of accountability, and everyone under that will be raptured. i don't know. i just don't. i means at least we need to be very sober about teaching our children to know christ permanently and make that an urgent priority. but we cannot only limit our ministry to our children. i mean, a lot of people, a lot of young couples, young families, say the great commission, go and make disciple, but i'm busy. it's hard. and believe me, it's hard. it was harder for my wife because she did all the work but it's challenging are f-first to give birth to four boys, and it's hard and we don't have the gift of raising teenage daughter. that's apparently a challenge also, and god blesses you for

doing that, because some day that may come in handy, for our sons. so keep up the good work. anyway, i don't know the answer to that question, but we need to be praying and i want tone courage you now as we close, this is the critical moment in our country's history. i don't know how much more time we have. good-good-... flsh

to get into the scripture but it might be good for a book club, and it's i hope it did good evangelistic tool that you share that with the neighbor. and began to get into the conversation spiritually. the gospel is clear in there as well as the whole spiritual conversation. this is an exciting moment in our country for the church i think. i want to be optimistic, because i describe myself as a strategic optimist but a tactical pessimist. i know it is all going to work out somehow but i fear partly by jewish side of me is it's well today but tamar is going to get worse but we are not supposed to live by fear. we are supposed to walk by faith and the love this country. it's in deep trouble, and we have the answer and the answer is jesus christ.

he has rescued us in the past. he might rescue us again. made the church be blessed by god, to be used for him and buy bye-bye him at this moment, and may you truly give your life wholly and completely to christ. don't hold that. don't behalf in. be all in with christ at this moment. we look at what is happening in the last days and we look at what is happening, what the bible says, and we can go check, check, everything is ready for him to come and get us so if you are living a life, drifting or rebellious from christ, if you are doing anything, watching anything, listening to anything, reading anything, spending time with someone or something for which he would he ashamed when christ comes back for you, could i encourage you to, and in fact

if you have any major plans for sin in your life, can i encourage you to postpone those? yet very -- better yet cancel them out right. now is the time to turn around and come back to the father and plead for his forgiveness through the blood of christ in him alone, that he would use you, bless you, mold you, you and your household and your church and your community and this nation. this is the moment. let's pray. father in heaven we thank you for this time and these are big topics and i thank you for giving us this time and all these folks who are here in houston and around the country and even around the world. who are interested in this topic, i pray that all the things we have said today that they would be edifying and would be encouraging to people to get back to christ.

we need your spirit to move. we need a third great awakening in this country and we need a spiritual awakening in the church all over the planet. may you purify your bride, for your namesake before it's too late, please father. we pray in the name of our great king and our savior, jesus christ. amen. and let me just close by saying thank you everyone here at houston's first baptist and around the country as well and i also want to say that i hope this is a resource for you and i hope invested in life in september will be and also the pastor here wrote a fabulous book about the walk with christ, abiding with him in this moment in history called, i am changes who i am. it walks through what jesus taught in the book if john.

i love the book and i endorse it. i don't endorse a lot of books that greg but greg has become a friend and this is why we want to do this event together. i would encourage you to consider that book as well. i am changes who i am. this is the story of christ in us. may god left you in thank you for your time and i really appreciate you guys coming out

>> host: how old was she when she killed herself? >> guest: she was 26. >> host: why did she kill herself? >> guest: she killed herself because of her, well, what we know is she left a suicide note that said that she was distraught over her husband's philandering so that was the immediate cause. >> host: and the was the president grandfather stanley dunham's grandmother. >> guest: she lived only to be 26 and because of that dramatic, stanley and his older brother moved back to old eldorado and a character named christopher columbus clark that fought in the civil war. >> host: where did the grandparents meet? >> guest: they met in augusta which is about 12 or 15 miles

away both in butler county sort of on the way to wichita and that is where she grew up. stand had already been out of high school for several years and matalin was a senior in high school. he was working in construction and renovation and that's where he met her. >> host: what was that life like in kansas? >> guest: their life before or after? after they are married it was sort of her parents didn't really like him or the first thing that her father had was dark skinned and an element of race even in that and she married him secretly before she ridgely the from high school she was a very smart young woman who had always been on the honor roll until she met stanley who was slick talking out of

arkansas, kansas, and sorry, and that's what she wanted. she had grown and the sophistication of hollywood and stan promised something else he promised to take her back there and then they are somewhat unstable. not the marriage was necessarily on stable but the jobs were always unstable and they never knew where they were going next said it was a rocky road. >> host: where did the obama clan began? >> guest: it began actually in sudan. i would start the story in the small village by lake victoria to the south and east of the

major city in the province which was a very poor part of kenya. it's where the little tribe is basically center the second referred largest tribe in africa and the about where the obama's found themselves. >> host: on the president's paternal side where the grandparents? >> guest: he was born in the late 1800's and was in the first wave to be westernized they had come out and he learned english and became sort of inculcated into the british culture so he

worked later as a chef and cut for many british military people and folks in nairobi and the mother came from another village in that area, and she did not -- he was a very difficult guy to live with. he had several why of this and when he moved to the area near where she grew up it was back to another home state of the clan around lake victoria. she had enough. she had a younger wife along with him and so she ran away. she left the family when barack obama, the president's father was a very little boy.

>> david maraniss his grandparents died in 2006. did president obama ever meet him? >> guest: no, he never met after the 1980's after his grandfather had died. aside from the very early days of his birth but he didn't get back to kenya until both of his grandparents were gone so there's a dramatic diference in that part of the story. >> for barack obama the story how many interviews did you do over the course of the last four years? >> guest: i would say almost 400, and i had a wonderful assistant who helped with some of the leader interviews in the story but i traveled all over the world and so everybody could find in every part of the life

of president obama and his parents and grandparents. >> host: barack obama sr. was born in 1936. what was his childhood like? >> guest: from a fairly early age he was dealing with western culture in the british. he was a very smart kid. his father was difficult to get along with and was not often there mostly in the nairobi and he was growing up. he was lucky in the sense that he was smart enough to get into a very good school in that area, and although he never totally finished he was a very smart student. they had that clash of old and

new. for all of his youth and adolescence he was in a colonial country in a very poor part of the kenya, so he lived in the mud huts with cowles and no television and stuff like that. a century behind in some ways and get kenya was starting to emerge. the rebellion was beginning, the push for independence was beginning and the generalization he was a part of that. >> host: how long were you in kenya and what did you see? what was it like to be over there? >> guest: kenya was one of the great experiences of my life. every day was unforgettable. we were there for about two