Join Travis and Os Guinness as they discuss religious liberty in the West and how Christians should respond. Western Christians are often ignorant of history and can't see the forces that are slowly eroding away their faith and religious freedoms. It's the spirit of the age operating as a cultural carbon monoxide of sorts, slowly lulling people into a spiritual stupor by pleasures and distractions. They talk about Os's new book, “The Magna Carta of Humanity,” as well as modernity and its effect on the modern evangelical church. Rather than despair, Os shares his hope of a revival because only God can save us from the cultural morass we are in.

Check out The Magna Carta of Humanity and many other of Os' books and learn more about Os.

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It's watering time, everybody.

It is time for Apollos Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming and I am your host. And today we're having the second part.

Of our deep conversation.

With Os Guinness. If you haven't heard the first part of this conversation, I would recommend that you go back to take in everything that Os talked about.

And in this conversation we talk about his new book, the Magna Carta of Humanity. He also talks about a lot of other stuff, like playing Spot the Lie with his kids when they were young and how that works out in our modern society.

We talk about the subject of magic, modernity, and all of the different things that our modern culture has adopted that actually changes the very message of our gospel and how it's really affecting the church today. The church is in many ways unconsciously taken in these new forms, thinking that it is actually propagating the gospel, enabling it to go forward.

And sometimes it has. But it also has communicated a message in and of itself and may actually in the long run cause more harm than good if it's not taken in critically.

We also talk about the flabby nature of the Western evangelical church, consumerism, measurables, James Davidson Hunter, Derek Prince, slavery, praying for our leaders and praying and hoping for revival and so much more. And I want to let you know that today's episode is brought to you in part by Derek Eastman Insurance Agency, fulfilling all of your insurance needs.

In my interactions with churches with leaders, I was working with a search firm that supplies pastors for a lot of the megachurches in the United States. And one of the things that they said was 50% of all pastors that they're placing now are non Bible or seminary trained pastors.

Now obviously there are some that have gone through history and not had training, but that scares me when I hear that most of the pastors that are stepping into the pulpit to teach the word of God are not necessarily teaching the word of God. But the reason they're chosen is because of their personality or the fact that they have a business background.

They are the CEO or the celebrity preacher. And I've been asking myself, lord, what is this revival really look like in America? Because we seem so far gone.

And I understand God is bigger than my limited perspective and he can do what he wants. And I've wondered is God brought the nations to us with the refugee crisis we see going on? We've seen the movement of people, the largest in history.

And having so many refugees and internationals and immigrants come to the United States, is it? And I used to hear it say that God brought them to us for us to reach them, but now I'm hearing the opposite.

God has brought them to us to reach us and to help renew and revive the church.

And to me, that's where the hope is found, because I remember being in New England and pastoring in New England and a lot of the Anglo churches, Caucasian churches, were dying, but it was the immigrant churches that were thriving. What do you think about that?

Do you think that God is doing a movement in that regard to bring reformation and revival through bringing the nations to us?

I'll let you talk to the Lord and get the real answer on that, Travis. But I would just say look at a human perspective. I've thought about this for a long while. We're back to the challenge of modernity.

Yes, because the church is exploding around the world. We are the largest faith on planet Earth.

But the sting in the tail that people forget to tell us when they tell us about sub Saharan Africa or Asia or whatever is that it's mostly in the less developed parts of the world. Church isn't doing well, by and large, in the advanced modern world for various reasons.

So I've been on zooms in the last month, say to Korea, and I say to them, your greatness is that you've grown so well as you've developed so fast, and you've kept alive a passion for prayer and a passion for mission, which is wonderful. Excuse me.

No.

Okay.

But you've got to make sure you stay that way as you get advanced modern. And you can see some of the huge mega churches In Seoul, say 500,000 strong, beginning to have all the problems of the mega churches in the West.

In other words, modernity is a tough one. You just take one of 20 things. Peter Berger would say we live in a world without windows.

In other words, the modern Christian is functionally, often like an atheist.

We are closer to Elisha's servant who couldn't see the horses and chariots of fire than we are to Elisha when not close to our Lord, with the power of his spirit in his teaching, in his healing, in his deliverance, deliverances in everything. You know, my African friends, healing is routine.

Yes.

Not here in America. No. As many American Christians are atheists, unawares so that's only one example of modernity.

But we've got to say, can we be fully biblical with the power of the supernatural and 20 other things too, under the conditions of the advanced modern world? I would say yes. But to do that, we have to keep ransacking the Scripture.

What's taught us true, shown as true and real, and where are we and where there's gap, we got to say, lord, what's wrong? Is it your word that's wrong or are we wrong? Well, I hope we're humble enough to say it's us and then ask the Lord to put it right.

I am in total agreement. But my question is we're talking about modernity and you're talking about what's going on in Africa.

And I see those still, many Christians have associated modernity with Christianity and they don't know what to offer, say, Japan, because Japan is modern and they don't realize it's still one of the most unreached nations on the earth.

And seeing, as you mentioned, the ransacking of the scriptures, going back and rediscovering the gospel and removing it from modernity as much as we possibly can, I guess that's my question. How do we do that, remove modernity? Because it's so part of the air we breathe.

It's a current that we all seem to be a part of and caught up in, almost like a tsunami that has just pushed us apart and we're just carried along its waves. Is it through the proclamation and just holding on to the Word of God?

But I'm finding that even those who have subscribed to the Word, have used therapeutic understandings of it and have lost the power because we have more Bible studies than we've ever had before.

We have more resources than we ever had before, especially in the west, and yet we seem to have less spiritual power, whereas those in other cultures have.5% of the world's pastors have training and they don't have as many resources, but yet they still seem to have a greater power. Why is that? And why is that secularization? I know Philip Jenkins just wrote another book on fertility and faith.

Is he talking about how secularism in more developed countries has caused smaller families, whereas in the less developed countries, they have a greater idea of it? I mean, what is that?

Is it we're trying to remove modernity and pull it back by continuing on to the word, but how do we even help other people see what modernity is and what it's doing? Sorry, I'm on My soapbox. Because this is what fires me up.

I hope I didn't say remove modernity.

No, you didn't, but I said that.

And you used the word I think, hang on to. We can't remove modernity. We're in our bodies and they bring temptations, like sexual temptations. We're in our world.

We can only live in the times the Lord has put us in. We're in the 21st century, not the 18th or the first.

Right.

So we're in modernity. We can never remove it. But to resist it, we've got to recognize it. And modernity. As I said, most evangelicals are pretty good with ideas.

Not all of them, but they've got aware we need apologetics to combat bad ideas, Benedict xvi, the tyranny of relativism and so on. But modernity, no. The cars we drive, the way we watch television, the way the social media shapes us. These, the clock got a book on that.

They're not good at that. Now, Israel was called to be an anti Egypt, a counter Babylon, and so are we. So we're not trying to remove modernity, but we've got to have pastors.

Now let me clear. It's tough to be a pastor today. Almost an impossible task. You're to be a jack of all trades and the master of none, along with a collapsing remember.

I don't know if you ever saw our little book, no God, But God.

Yes. Actually breaking with the idols of our age that you did with John Seal. Yes. That was the first book that I ever encountered of yours, by the way.

Our friend David Wells.

I have that here.

Right there.

We gave his chapter he wrote on the demon and the way pastors were trying to mimic the Ph.D. and we gave it the title the Deminization Demonization with David at first went, oops.

You can see pastors trying to, you know, becoming super psychologists or great management experts and so on. We've got to.

You've got to have people who say, I can describe 20 features of the world of our day, modernity, which are inimical, hostile, opposed to the gospel.

Say that again.

We should be able to describe modernity and in that, be able to say these 20, let's say 12, 20, 30 features of modernity are absolutely opposed to the gospel.

That's your next book.

The Gravedigger File was really about that.

Which one?

The Grave Digger file.

Oh, yes.

Or my book Impossible People was really about that. I had a chapter on this specifically. You know, I could start specifying.

You know, I often say to I was saying to the Korean brothers, you take is Jesus Lord, of course, authorities at the heart of the Bible, but not at the heart of the modern world. Why just take the notion of consumerism, Everything, choice, preference. Now does it matter which cereal you choose?

No, but the same choice preference comes into our relationships, might always meet a woman more beautiful than, More handsome than, more fulfilling than. And you can see how that affects relationships. But now the Bible, the brother who wants to unhitch the New Testament from the Old. That's Marcion.

Yeah, it is.

You know, someone who doesn't like Leviticus, loves the book of John. Or one man said to me, love, of course, but hell, hell no. He said, in other words, we just take what we like. Pick and choose preference.

The church of your choice, you know, and some of the big churches. You want a jazz service, do you want a classical music service, do you want to, you name it, whatever, fill in the blank.

Yeah, but then you just take what you like and throw out the rest. No wonder the American church is as flabby. That's just one thing. Consumerism, we could pick 20 others.

Right. How do you counteract that though?

Well, to resist it, you have to recognize it.

Yes.

Now when you, I mean, we could do a thing on consumerism, show how it works. When my son was small, we had a little game, spot the lie.

I would give him a quarter this many years ago if he could look at a commercial or an ad and tell me what was the lie or the irrational appeal or the false associations or whatever. We didn't do it for long because he got so good at it. But it in him a skepticism of American advertising.

And we need a skepticism, a Christianly skeptical way of seeing how consumerism or secular, you know, for example, this may one of our Trinity Forum board meetings. Our chairman was the chairman of McKinsey and we had a visiting pastor whose name you would know. Well, I won't mention by name.

He visited for the day and in his time with us, he said, may I ask what are the measurable outcomes of the Trinity Forum? And the chairman jumped right in. We don't discuss that here. He said with McKinsey or my firms, if we're dealing with widgets, that is the issue.

We're talking about winning people to faith, seeing growth in character and leadership. Measurable outcomes are impossible. We don't discuss that. And there was an hour long discussion.

And I thought, of course the businessman was correct, the pastor was wrong. And you can see how pastors, you take the notion of numbers Quantification rather than quality. Take the biblical idea of census, state.

Why was David judged for that, et cetera. Why did Gideon had to cut down to his 300 and so on? Americans are closer to the world over numbers, measurable outcomes and all that sort of stuff.

How many foundations look at measurable outcomes first? And yet, Hudson Taylor, faithfulness, not success. You can't measure faithfulness.

Hudson Taylor used to say, a little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in a little thing is a big thing. You can't put that in terms of numbers. In other words, that sounds tiny. Americans are obsessed with polls.

I often say, damn the polls and think for yourself. You know, I have friends who are so discouraged that the nuns are dropping out of faith.

They didn't believe very much in the first place and they don't believe very much now. You know, the dead wood is falling away. I'm not either surprised or discouraged.

You know, you mentioned going back to the Miserables, and I've seen churches do that. And you try to, you hear the argument, oh, there's a whole book on numbers. But the response that I've had is there are two wings of a plane.

Or I like to have. There are hard facts and there are heart checks. Hard facts are the things that you can measure.

Heart checks are the things you can't, such as the holiness, surrender, the faithfulness, and redefining what success is. But I find that the church is much more along the line of the numbers and the quantification.

But that's where I feel like we've got so caught up in that that we've lost the other. And that's something that I think the Lord's going to correct in us.

As time goes on, as we see the culture begin to shift, and you're talking about the rise of the nuns, but I'm also seeing a generation that's coming up because I have four children between 18, all the way down to seven. And my children are very different in how they view the world, and they're very skeptical on some things, and they're not.

Yes, they are caught up in the social media aspect on one part of it, but they also recognize what fake news is, and they see the spin. And I'm seeing a lot of people turning off the news because they can't handle it anymore, because they don't know.

What to believe by anybody.

And they're saying it's not balanced. It's always from a certain perspective. And I'm seeing news sites such as All Sides, which says All Media has some type of bias.

It's learning to read what that bias is and then going. And to me, that actually works in favor of our faith because it will be proven true, if true. All truth is God's truth.

And as we continue the revelation, because God's word is true, and we continue to live that out, and it's the performance script that we are to adapt before a watching world, as Kevin Vanhooser from Trinity talks about.

But Francis Schaeffer earlier.

Yes, yes, and Schaeffer sees that. But I mean, I saw that, and there's just so much. So you are.

I have to say that you've been very encouraging, because looking at the headlines, looking at where people are at, every time I turn around, there's another scandal, and it seems that something has gone on and put up in the news that just causes me to be disheartened. And especially as a pastor, there's always another issue. There's always a new perspective that comes out and saying, how do we respond to this?

But what you're calling for is saying, let's really imbibe and understand and revisit and rediscover freedom, not just in the American Revolution, but in the Sinai Covenant and how that actually is prescribed and given to us so that we might be able to have human flourishing. However, how do we get a society that largely, I mean, that rejects the completely biblical narrative, doesn't even want to sniff it?

How do we advocate for something like that when the world seems not even to be able to want to listen to it?

Well, one prayer that my wife and I pray every day is based on Derek Prince. You know his story. Charismatic teacher. He was an atheist, came to Christ, found himself seconded in World War II to North Africa.

He found he was part of the longest British retreat in British history, from Libya all the way to the gates of Cairo and Alexandria. And they found themselves defending Jerusalem and the Suez Canal. Dismal record.

Churchill fired the general, sent out another man who died en route, and he sent out a third man. Well, Prince, in all this, who just come to faith, there's no fellowship, there's no teaching. The odd person he met was also a believer.

But like many, he says to the Lord, how do you want me to pray? And the Lord said, pray this prayer set over us a leader such that it will be for your glory to give the victory through him.

So he prayed that every day on this long, long, long retreat. And finally they were defending Alexandria and Suez, as I said. And then the third man happened to be General Montgomery, young man.

And his father was an evangelical bishop, and he brought the whole army together before the battle that had to take place. And Rommel was on them. And Montgomery said, let us pray to the Lord of the armies to give us the victory only he can.

And Prince was listening to this on his radio. Transition transistor not there. And the Lord said to him, this is the answer to your prayer.

And the next day was the Battle of El Alamein, which Montgomery won. And as Churchill said, up till El Alamein, all defeat. After El Alamein, all victory. And you can see the importance.

So my wife and I pray every day, lord, set over U.S. leaders. We turn in the plural, and we specify the men and the women.

We think set over US Leaders such that be for your glory to turn things around in this country. So I mentioned Lincoln earlier. I don't depend on leaders alone, okay? You got to have leaders and followers, all of us at the level we work at.

But the big missing thing is leadership and vision.

Now, if you had a Lincoln called America back, not make America great again, but called America back, repenting of the slavery, racism, as Lincoln did, and going back to the first principles, would it capture the ear of the country? I don't know. That's the $64,000 question. I would hope it would.

If it doesn't, and there's a little bit more drift, or this administration secures its policies further, the Republic is finished. America's not finished. America would still be a strong, prosperous, modern country, but the Republic would be dead and gone.

Democracy would be dying because democracy is different from the Republic. The Republic was shaped by Exodus. Democracy is Greek. So we're in an extraordinary moment. I have no idea.

But I do know that whatever the times are, we've got to be faithful. So you're, you know, doing your podcasts and things like this as well as being a pastor. I'm a writer. Speak here and there. We've all got to be where?

Wherever we are, in our families, in the Congress, wherever we are faithful and leave the outcome to the Lord.

Well, that's. Wouldn't you say then that Hunter would say, hey, he agrees with me Then after all.

No, no, no. Presence isn't enough. Our Lord was a lot more than present.

Well, I don't want to take up any more of your time. I just want to thank you so much for being so generous and with your time to discuss your book. I would recommend everyone go and check it out.

The Magna Carta of humanity. And of your other books, you've written. How many books have you now written?

I don't count them. 30 odd.

Again, thank you for coming on. Apollos watered.

No real privilege to be with you, Travis. God bless.

God bless you.

That was my conversation with Oz Guinness.

Stay tuned for a future bonus episode, because Oz and I kept talking and there was so much more content that we were not able to include that for today's episode. And be sure to check out his book, the Magna Carta for Humanity. It's not an easy read.

I mean, he says that he's not an academic and that may be true according to the strictest definition of the term. But his book is deep. And what I love about Oz is that he sees stuff way ahead of everybody else. But that's also why it makes it hard too.

He's not always easy for folks to understand or for them to grasp what he is talking about. Nevertheless, I think you should read the book, which leads me to your water bottle for the week. And it's this.

First up, realize that much of what is going on in our Western culture is actually a war on our religious freedom.

It is a cultural Marxism that is flying at us pretty quickly and we need to be aware of how incipient and deadly it is and also figure out how to resist it.

And the greatest antithesis to that or the antidote to the world's issues is taking in more of the Word of God and being under the preaching of the Word of God and read books like Oz. Oz's book does just that. It shows us what we have going on ideologically in our culture right now, and that's what makes it revolutionary.

But not like the American Revolution as much as the French one that seeks to redefine the world according to its polluted and deadly philosophy. The carbon monoxide of culture is subtle and it is deadly, slowly suffocating our faith.

Instead, we need to return to the truths of Sinai, where there is freedom and human dignity is affirmed. But yet there are parameters. What we do need more than anything else is to seek the living God and pray for revival, just as it was.

As Gypsy Smith said when asked how to have God start a revival, he said, go into your closet, get down on your knees, take a piece of chalk and draw it around yourself and then ask God to revive the person in the circle. Remember, if there is going to be any change, it must begin with a movement of the spirit of God. And revival begins with me.

We need God, that much is clear, and need to be aware of what is going on around us.

And remember that the weapons of our warfare, while they may often seem to take place in the public square, are actually taking place in the heavenly places. We may not be able to battle in the public square as some may do, but we can all pray. We can all read the word of God.

And God does listen to people who pray. Remember, Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours. He prayed and it didn't rain for three and a half years. We can pray and God hears.

Let's let our battle be spiritual before it's ever political. In fact, let's take time to pray right now. Heavenly Father, I pray for all of those who are listening to the sound of my voice.

I pray that you might bless them, that you might be with them, that they might embrace the forgiveness that is found in and through your son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I pray that you may establish us and you might give us the eyes to see the spiritual realities going on all around us.

Help us not to be caught up so much with the busyness of life, but let us take time to pray. Show us your glory. Display it in the world. But help us to know how we are to battle in the midst of this world. Teach us how to pray.

Teach us how to fast, to seek your face, to worship you, to share the truth of you with those around us. May you empower us. May you direct us, and may you forgive us when we fail or fall. But establish us and help us to be bold.

And may it be said of us, just as it was said as of the apostles of old when it after they had been persecuted, it said that they made a note that these were ordinary men, but they had been with Jesus. And that made them bold. May we, though ordinary people, be made bold.

And may the world see that boldness, but not ours, but the Spirit of God working in and through us. And may your name receive all the glory and the power because of it. But Lord, we ask that you establish it, establish the work of our hands.

Help us not to be ignorant of the strategies and schemes of the evil one, but show us how we we are to battle in the heavenly places. And Lord, we know that many of us do not have the power in the public square, the voice that is easily heard from those in power.

But Lord, we know that you are the most powerful one and that we are your children. And you hear our voice. Therefore it doesn't matter what the world says.

Help us to battle before you using spiritual tools, because we are in a spiritual battle. So Lord, glorify yourself in our lives and establish us that we might be the people you desire us to be. We ask you to bless us and be with us.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen, Amen and Amen. We do need God, that much is clear and we need to be aware of what's going on around us.

That's Kathy Brothers of Keller Williams Innovate and if this episode has blessed you, please hit that subscribe button, leave us a review online, interact with us on our social media pages and share this episode with other people. We do want to hear from you. We want to hear your questions and take your comments.

We want to be able to serve you so that you might be able to water your world, whatever your world is. And if you would like to partner with us in our ministry, please pray for us.

That's one of the greatest ways that you can partner with us because this is a spiritual work and requires spiritual power.

And if you would like to support our ministry financially, please go to our website apolloswater.org that's one P2L's apolloswatered.org and hit the Support us button in the upper right hand corner. And lastly, I do want to thank our team, Kevin, Melissa, Eliana, Rebecca and Donovan for help making this happen. Water your faith, Water your world.

This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from Apollo's Water. Stay Watered Every Everybody.