Sermon 7-7-24

Pastor Ray Lorthioir

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

The 7th Sunday After Pentecost. Texts: Ephesians 6:10-13, 2Thessalonians 2:7-12, Deuteronomy 13:1-5

Two Surprised Guys

OK. I thought I’d done my July 4th sermon last week. But the 4th was Thursday, and this week the YouTube algorithm decided to feed me a video podcast of an interview of Tucker Carlson by a man named Shawn Ryan. So here we go again.

According to his website, Shawn Ryan is “a former Navy Seal and CIA contractor with 14 years of service spanning multiple combat operations.” His show is “dedicated to preserving history through the unfiltered stories of heroic events and current world issues by honoring the real experiences of the men and women who lived them.”

I’m not necessarily a fan of Tucker Carlson. He and I deviate on some things. However, what sparked my interest was that at one point in the interview both men admitted that they are recent Christian converts. Both had a Christian background, but like many in the present time, they both found the Word of God boring and inconsequential. However, within the last few years, both have experienced circumstances that have led to a spiritual awakening.

Listening to the two men, they are still Christian newbies. And they admit it. Their level of theological sophistication is not great. In fact, if I were their pastor, I’d be worried about some of their thinking at this point. However, both say, they’re still learning.

Now, one thing both men confess is that even before their individual spiritual awakenings, they regarded the current political, social and philosophical trends of the West to be sheer madness. As Shawn Ryan said in the interview multiple times, nothing in the culture makes sense to him anymore. In effect, it’s insanity. The things that really trouble him are the rise in pedophilia — he claims that the U.S. is the largest consumer of child porn in the world — sex trafficking and human trafficking on account of the open border and the wokeness in the military and government. The incredible action that the state of Washington took in 2023 enrages him. There, minors are now “protected” by the state from their parents if a minor should seek a transgender change. He faults the general population for electing wicked people who could pass such a law disregarding the family.

Tucker Carlson has a distinct opinion about the people who are currently leading us at all levels, not just government. When it comes to our present infrastructure, our power grid and everything that has been built by previous generations, he’s of the opinion that the people presently occupying leadership positions would be unable to build any of it, or replace it if it should collapse.

He said, “The closer you get you realize that the people running things are . . . mediocre. They’re buffoons. They have no idea what they’re doing. They are weak people. They’re motivated by rage and envy.” He went on to say, “. . . they’re not capable people. They have no skills. They’re mad about the fact that they’re fraudulent and weak and helpless. If the supply chain breaks, they all starve to death. They know that. And they’re mad about it. Hence, they want to wreck the things that others built. This is like the oldest story there is. It’s why the vandals sacked Rome. It’s why people spray graffiti on beautiful buildings in New York City. You didn’t build this. Neither did your ancestors. You’re a moron. You couldn’t build anything. So you tear it down. It’s the oldest impulse there is: vandalism. It’s all vandalism. Vandalism is committed by vandals. And vandals are by definition, primitive. They may be [well educated] or they may be rich. But they’re still primitive. They’re not capable of any of this.” This is a most interesting analysis. If Carlson is correct, it means Marxists are among the primitives and vandals.

Both men have had spiritual awakenings. Both are now attending church. Both are reading Scripture. And both are amazed at what they’re finding. They’re discovering what Saint Paul said 2,000 years ago in Ephesians 6:10-13, “10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood! In other words, they’ve discovered that wokeism at its root is not of human origin. It has a spiritual origin. Therefore, the only way wokeism can be defeated is spiritually.

But there’s one other possibility. Again, St. Paul prophesied this 2,000 years ago in 2Thessalonians 2:7-12, “7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

In this end times scenario, unrighteousness will prevail before the return of Messiah Jesus. The key thing here is the delusion sent from the Lord Himself. This delusion will ensnare all those who hate the truth about this universe and its Creator and our place in it. The delusion will falsely comfort many in their indulgence of godless pleasure.

The delusion will even be confirmed by some supernatural signs and events. As Jesus said in Matthew 24:24, “. . . false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”

So let’s stop here a moment and explain how to tell false signs and wonders from real ones. The first thing we have to understand is that there will be no way to tell the difference by the sign or wonder itself. The thing will be supernatural. Period. It will amaze all.

But, there is a way to tell true from false. It’s found in Deuteronomy 13:1-5, “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God. . . .”

So, did you see that it’s possible for a rebellious person to perform a true supernatural miracle? Yahweh Himself will permit it. He will permit it as a test. There will not be anything discoverable in the miracle itself that will declare it false. Rather, it’s the false doctrine that the miracle worker  preaches that will declare the sign or wonder false. If the miracle worker does not teach Yahweh and the Lord Jesus Christ according to the Creeds and Confessions of the Church, but deviates in some way, or teaches idolatry, or teaches trust in spirit beings, or teaches atheism, or trust in some other religion, only then will it be clear that the sign or wonder was false.

Jesus said we would know false prophets by their fruit. And so, if their fruit is false teaching, only those who know Yahweh’s Truth will be able to discern that it’s false doctrine. And this is why doctrine will become more and more important as the years go by. Your eternal destiny may very well depend on how well you know Christian doctrine. If you ignore doctrine, you can and will be deceived. That’s clear from 2Thessalonians. And if you are deceived by the one Jesus called a liar and the father of lies, then you will follow that liar, the devil, into his eternal destiny — hell.

So, coming back to Tucker Carlson and Shawn Ryan, during the struggles both these men have had in coming to grips with the wokeism that seems to be overcoming the West, they both separately came to the conclusion that something bigger than just human politics or human philosophy is at work. And this startled them both because being children of this society they both believed that only politics or philosophy is what’s going on here.

Apparently Tucker has done some research into other religions and cultures. For he said, “There are commonalities between world religions that I’m aware of, and all creation myths. And one of them is . . . the belief that supernatural beings take physical form. They all believe that. The Greek myths. Jesus.”

Yes. Jesus would be the prime example — Yahweh, the Son, incarnate first in mortal human flesh and now incarnate at the right hand of the Father in immortal human flesh. But both Genesis and the apocryphal book of 1Enoch speak of other spiritual beings — elohim, gods in the Hebrew — who physically appeared on earth. In English translations these are called the sons of God. Genesis tells us they were somehow able to impregnate human women and have children by them — the Nephilim. 1Enoch tells us that these same supernatural beings corrupted humanity by teaching us various skills, such as how to make war. Both men speculated that something similar might presently be going on in the highest circles of power. However, they both concurred that they don’t have a proper answer to that.

However, Tucker noted this. “If . . . cultures in the world that [have] left written records [all reached] the same conclusion about something, maybe there’s something there. And maybe it’s not so crazy to think what everyone else has always thought since the beginning of time — that there is this combination in cases of human beings and the spiritual realm. It’s been written about since people have been writing. For the period of time since 1945 to the present we’ve assumed that’s not true, but everyone has always assumed it is true. I’m kind of going with everyone else on that.”

Tucker uses 1945 as the date when the materialist, secular version of world history that we’re presently taught took root. I would go back much earlier. Materialist philosophy actually dates from the so-called enlightenment of the 1700’s. And its full foundation was laid in the mid 1800’s with Darwin, Marx and others. Philosophical Materialism overcame academia and science by the early 1900’s. But 1945 isn’t a bad date to use when considering when Materialism became the de facto religion of the U.S. And I would also point to the mid 2000’s when the new atheists made atheism seem respectable.

Apparently, both Tucker and Shawn have left materialist philosophy behind. For, Tucker clearly said, “I think the real struggles are unseen. That’s absolutely a part of Christian theology. I didn’t appreciate it at all. The belief that the real struggles are in the spiritual realm is a belief of all theology. It’s been a constant belief since the beginning of history. Everybody has thought that except us in the West since 1945. We [Christians] may disagree with [other religions.] But [we] will agree with the fact that there’s stuff going on that we cannot see or measure.”

You can see from this quote that Tucker is skating on some dangerous ice. There is a definite spiritual struggle involving atheism, materialism and Marxism. However, from the true Christian perspective, there is also a spiritual struggle with the non-Christian religions that want to overthrown Christianity and dominate the West. This cannot be discounted.

Despite the thin ice, both men agreed in the interview that they had come to the place where they were looking beyond the mere physical in order to understand what’s going on. This was the surprising thing. And as Tucker said to Shawn, “The surprise is not that it [meaning spiritual experiences] happened, but that it took you — Blockhead — so long to see it clearly and then to admit it.” Shawn agreed.

Shawn went on to say: “with everything going on, with how disgusted I am in the country, with the citizens and with the government. It gives me hope, though, in a weird, weird way, now that I can see through this stuff . . .  [I]t actually makes sense that none of it makes sense — because it’s all been written. It’s in the book [Bible]. And it’s playing out right now.” In other words, Shawn Ryan has found that what’s written in Scripture explains the many evils we’re seeing in the present time. And more importantly. He now has hope in the true God who will be victorious over evil no matter what happens here.

Along with this hope in God, both men admitted that they have new respect for Christians. As Tucker put it: “I will say about the Christians to their great credit, they’re not shocked about it [meaning the wokeism and evil] at all. Some politician is going to save you? No one’s going to save you in this life. That’s a lie. And shame on you for believing it, you fool. I can’t believe that our stupid post-war materialist theology turned out to be fake. Who could have guessed?” He further said, “I can’t believe that in the end, when it really gets intense, as it is now, that it’s Christians, it’s people who actually believe the Bible that are the only ones with wisdom who understand what’s really going on. They’re not shocked at all. And they’re not panicked either. They get it.” In other words, real Christians know the whole thing is a struggle in the spiritual dimension.

Finally, both men sense that there are big things going on right now. Tucker said, “[Working in media] you could talk about your freaky sex life, but not about spirituality. The idea that you might pray was highly embarrassing. But now it’s different. Secular Americans are talking about prayer, etc. We were not talking about this five years ago. So what is that? 

There’s something going on. And that’s the way God works. Evil is not unchallenged. As the evil in the society rises in power, so does God.”

At the convention of The American Association of Lutheran Churches that we just had in the last week of June, we had a guest — bishop Torkild Masvie of The Lutheran Church in Norway and Iceland. They are a tiny body of conservative, bible believing Lutheran Christians in the spiritual wasteland that is now Europe. In recent years, they planted a church in the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik. Bishop Masvie told us that as of now there are twenty young men in attendance and only eight women. This remarkable. But it’s also understandable, given that one of the specific attacks of wokeism is on males, especially white males. And the state Lutheran churches of Europe have been lost in wokeism for some time. So, even though this is a small start, something bigger is going on behind the scenes that wasn’t going on before.

Lies have a terribly debilitating effect on all involved. And lies that proceed from the spiritual realm have an even more debilitating effect. But not all can perceive the debilitating effect. Even fewer can perceive the supernatural cause. But for those whom Yahweh has awakened, real Truth is like fresh air in deadly carbon monoxide. They will come to the truth of God’s Word.

On the other hand, Yahweh’s Truth is like the stench of death to those who are perishing. As St. Paul wrote in 2Corinthians 2:15-16, “15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.” (NIV)

As we saw in all three lessons, today, Yahweh has sent His prophets, His apostles and even His Messiah to call every kind of sinner back to Him. Those destined to be rescued from the present evil age and brought through the door of righteous eternal life that is Messiah Jesus will come. Each will respond to Yahweh’s Truth when the time is right for them. Therefore, pray that we consistently may be the sweet aroma of life to them through the proper proclamation of Yahweh’s Truth in Law and Gospel. Amen.

All Bible quotes are from the ESV unless otherwise noted.