Pastor Clarifies Position on Gun Debate

How many of you were here, but I talked on a very hot topic last week, which isn't uncommon, and that is on guns. What does the Bible say about self-defense? And I made some comments, and I went against those who worship the guns, gun worshipers, which we can fall into that category, not trusting God. And what happened is the media picked it up, and it was ran, even I just heard on Glenn Beck, it was ran underneath, you know, pastor says, stop worshiping guns, and stop watching O'Reilly and Hannity, and you know, I got our server was shut down for a while, and there's, I think there's like a thousand views on the sermon just in that one day, and people emailing all upset at me, and what I say, what I told them, and what I want to tell you too, is read, watch the entire message, don't just go off of a short little clip, or an 800 word article, but go back and watch that message on if there's confusion about gun control, and where we're at in a society, because I do believe that the church can speak on these issues.

We can speak boldly, and we can speak authoritatively with the word of God. These things aren't things where we can cower down, and hide from, because the Bible speaks volumes to these issues. But I do want to clarify, I'm not encouraging people to go out, and arm themselves, and you know, in this fear factor, I'm actually coming against that.

I was saying, listen, it's good to protect yourself. I believe in protection. The whole point of the message is, what people missed is, the heart of the message was, what did I say? Our prayer closets are empty, while our gun safes are full.

We're trusting in Remington, and Smith, and Wesson, but not in the God of the Bible. That's where our help comes from. So the whole message was just to challenge people, to put it in its proper perspective.

Self-defense is biblical. I mean, there's a plethora of examples in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, I find it's ironic that Paul says, Timothy, if you don't provide for your family financially, you're worse than an unbeliever, and you have denied the faith. So if I don't provide for them financially, I'm worse than an unbeliever, but if I want to provide and protect physically, I'm a warmonger.

It makes no sense. So that was the whole thrust of that message, was not coming against O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. I was saying, watch less of them, and spend more time in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and I will say that again tonight.

Turn off, if we've got three hours a day for this, and feeding our mind, and feeding our mind, but no time for this, that's why we're in fear factor mode. That's why we're worried, and we're scared, and all these things, and there's, I mean, meteors are hitting the earth now. Oh, look at the news, but see, that's why we have to say, where does our trust rest in? Where does my trust come from? Where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, so I was encouraging people, stop scaring your family to death.

You can be well-armed, but start leading them spiritually. Sure, you can have these things for self-defense, but don't worship these things. Your protection is not in Smith and Wesson, Browning, and Glock.

It's not. Your protection is in God, and God alone, so yeah, and the people I upset, I think they needed to be upset. If it, if, you know, what's that old saying, you throw a rock into a dog pile, and the one that makes the noise is the one you hit, so I have a feeling that a lot of these people were worshiping their guns.

How dare you, and they were saying, we have a second amendment right, and we, you know, we had this, and I mean, I was getting emails all day long, and I finally just started sending to Randy and said, Randy, you want to handle these? Normally, I don't. You know, you can just blow people off, but some of the people, hey, listen, you might want to listen to the message, and some people appreciated that, and they had a better understanding, but man, they just wanted somebody to, to rail at, so I wanted to clarify that. I went back over the message, and there's nothing I would take out, because I am challenging gun worshipers.

We're putting more emphasis on, on the weapons than on God, and as we're seeing a decline of, really, do you want me to tell you what the problem is? We do not need gun control. We need sin control. If you look at, when I was raised up, we would go target practice shooting, and all these things, Royal Rangers, Boy Scouts, 30, 40 years ago, I'm only 43, but when we were younger, you wouldn't see any of this stuff.

What happens is, you'd see little bits here and there. Now, there's mass shootings. There's people hiding out in Big Bear.

There's shooting 20-kilo guard. This is ridiculous. People, this is a world out of control.

When they remove the fear of God, when they remove God from everything in the government, everything in the school districts, they remove Him from everything. Don't talk about Christ anymore. Don't name the name that saves.

Begin to remove Him. Begin to re-mock His word. He removes that shelter and safety of protection, so what we're seeing is a direct result of the spiritual condition of our people.

It's not a gun problem. It's a sin problem. It's a nation on the brink of destruction, walking away from the very God on which the foundation was built.

That's the problem, and pastors have got to stop being motivational speakers, and start being confrontational, and say, this is what the word of God says. It's okay to say, listen, this is wrong. Stop worshiping your guns, and start worshiping Christ.

The problem is not gun control. It's sin control. We have a moral problem.

It's absolutely alarming if you look at what's happening to society. So, wow, we got to do this. No, we got to do this.

The nation has got to break and get on her knees before Almighty God and cry out, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from her wicked ways, then, and only then, will I heal their land. As we're disregarding Him, and removing Him, we have no time for Him. We don't want Him to be involved.

Now we have softcore porn on normal television. Everybody's addicted to this, and addicted to that. We don't want God in anything.

We remove Him from our schools. We'll talk about Buddha and Hare Krishna, but you can't talk about Jesus Christ. When you start to remove all these things, Romans 13, God gives them over to a debased and corrupted mind.

So, would God judge America? Folks, He's already judging America. This is what judgment looks like when He removes that, that, that hand of protection and safety. And again, I'm not an alarmist.

I didn't want to, I didn't want to say a lot of this today, but I'm a realist, and this is what's happening in our culture. That's why I get passionate about this issue, because I want to tell people it's not gun control. It's sin control.

It's moral control. You're either restrained by the Bible or by the bayonet. You're either, you're either restrained by the strong arm of man, or by the inner working of the Holy Spirit.

Evil has to be restrained one way or the other. So that's what's happening in our culture. And I think if more pulpits would say that, in love of course, and call the nation to task, instead of cowering from these issues.

Because what happens, oh, I'm going to lose some people. I better not say that. I better not say it.

So then I become a motivational speaker. What would you like to hear today, guys? That God loves you? You're going to be healthy, wealthy, and wise? All you have to do, keep, what do you need to, just keep, just keep going forward, brother. You're not, you're the head, not the tail.

You're above and not beneath. Just, you'll be great. You'll be prosperous.

What do you need to hear today? What do you need to hear? Just tell me. I'll tell you what you want to hear. No, I can't tell you the truth.

I'll lose half the crowd. Well, see how that works? You see how that works? And that's what's happening. The church is almost on the side of, of, of removing God.

Because when you say nothing, you say something. The church doesn't realize that. When you say nothing, you say something.

Well, we're not, we're not saying all this right, but you're not saying the other side either. And so once this hit the news, and, and, and we've, and, uh, pick, Fox and all these different things, and people are getting upset. How could you, and you should need, you know, and people just, they don't, they don't, the heart of the message is return to God, and He will return to us.

You're going to see this get more perverted, more shootings, until a nation either breaks or is destroyed. That's, that's the, the consequences. Man, she didn't want to come feeling good or leave feeling good.

Well, there is hope. There's hope in Christ. That's why I show up.

That is our only hope for our nation. It's the only hope for the church to turn back around and turn back to Him. So anyway, hopefully, hopefully that clarified some of that for those out there.