Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes.
Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. No local church has ever lost its tax exempt status for anything the pastor has done in the pulpit. Now, I don't encourage, I would not advise any pastor to officially endorse a political candidate from the pulpit. But what I'm saying to pastors is don't be intimidated from sharing what you believe is the truth of God's word from your past. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. Every day it seems like our country wanders farther away from the Christian principles that it was founded upon.
But the Bible warns that any nation that rejects God will eventually fall. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress teaches how the local church can be salt and light in order to preserve our nation for the proclamation of the gospel. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. In our country today, there's a sinister movement taking place to silence pastors from telling the truth about God and the Bible. But gratefully, and for now, that door remains open for programs like Pathway to Victory to uphold the timeless wisdom of God's word.
But there's no guarantee that our freedoms will be protected forever. We have a matching challenge that's active right now. Several friends of Pathway to Victory have created a matching challenge of $750,000 so that every dollar you give today will be doubled in size and impact. We will channel your gift into broadcasting the truth through Pathway to Victory all across the country we love and even around the world. When you give your gift to the matching challenge, you're ensuring that the Christian voice remains a powerful force for good in shaping the future of our nation. While there's still time, we endeavor to speak the truth and love to as many people as possible until Christ returns. And when you give your generous gift to the matching challenge, I'm going to send you an encouraging book that will engage your entire family. It's called The Miracles in American History. By reading this book, your children and grandchildren will be captivated by true life moments in history when God stepped in and accomplished the impossible.
We'll say more about this fabulous book and the matching challenge later. But right now, let's continue a message that was originally delivered to an influential gathering of pastors and church leaders. My goal in this message was to bolster the confidence of these leaders to stand up boldly for the truth. The message is called For Pastors Only. Do you know what America's last hope is?
What America's greatest hope is? It is the local church. And I want to submit to you this thesis. The preservation of our nation for the proclamation of the gospel depends upon the effectiveness of local churches in fulfilling their mission.
And then I want to go one step further. The effectiveness of churches in fulfilling their mission depends upon pastors fulfilling their calling. And I want to talk about specifically the role that the pastor has in helping the church achieve its mission so that our nation can be preserved for the proclamation of the gospel. So how is it that a pastor fulfills his calling? We're going to look at the three distinct callings of every pastor. First of all, we're going to talk about the pastor as preacher.
The second role is the pastor as a prophet. Why are pastors so reticent to confront their culture when it departs from God's commands? I think there are three reasons pastors are hesitant to act as prophets.
One reason is a misunderstanding of the Bible. The second reason pastors many times don't act as prophets is because of a misunderstanding of the constitution. Some pastors and many laymen believe that the separation of church and state prohibits pastors from addressing controversial issues like abortion and same-sex marriages because such issues are, quote, politics rather than spiritual issues.
The phrase separation of church and state appears nowhere in the constitution, much less in the Bible. Groups today like the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, they regularly try to intimidate pastors and churches from influencing legislation or elections by threatening their tax-exempt status. You probably saw on the news, my good friend Barry Lynn, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced he's writing a letter about Pastor Jeffress to the Internal Revenue Service. You know what? Anybody can write a letter, a 10-year-old can write a letter to the Internal Revenue Service.
It doesn't mean one thing at all. You cannot afford to allow people like Barry Lynn and others intimidate you and muzzle you from sharing the truth of God's word. That is important that you stand up for your rights as an American. Now, we're going to take a little history lesson here.
I think you'll find this interesting. A question comes up, pastors, well what are we allowed to do when it comes to influencing elections or legislation? Historically, churches in our country for the first 180 years of its existence spoke passionately for and against candidates for public office.
Did you know that? It was a regular routine in churches. Christians opposed the election of Thomas Jefferson as president because he was a deist. They opposed William Howard Taft for embracing Unitarianism.
I mean they regularly did that. They also were at the forefront of influencing legislation. It was the churches who led the movement for abolition of slavery, for desegregation. And by the way, I want to stop here and say something. There is absolutely no place in the church for racial prejudice.
None whatsoever. And I am so glad about the number of African Americans and Latinos and people of every ethnicity imaginable that are coming to First Baptist Church. And they are welcome here.
We're glad to have them here. And if there is anybody, if there is anybody who is uncomfortable with that, better get your heart right with God or find another place of worship. Because the fact is that's what the church is supposed to be. And everybody is welcome in our church. The church has always been at the forefront.
It's always been at the forefront of leading for desegregation and civil rights. However, in 1934 the government enacted a law that prohibited tax-exempt non-profit institutions like ours from using a substantial portion of their income to lobby for legislation. It doesn't mean we can't lobby for legislation on those issues that have a biblical basis.
It just means we can't use an overwhelming amount of our money to do so, which of course we don't. But in 1954, and this is where it gets interesting, Congress approved an amendment introduced by then Senator Lyndon Johnson to the IRS governing churches and other 501c3 tax-exempt organizations like ours that prohibited those organizations to influence elections by supporting specific candidates. And then in 1987 that amendment was expanded to also prohibit speaking out against specific candidates. Although pastors can influence legislation, they cannot as a group in a church officially support one candidate over another in an election. This restriction is being challenged, and many people predict that it will one day be abolished because it's such an apparent violation of First Amendment rights. Now, while a handful of churches through the years have been fined for violating this no substantial part of money being used for legislation or other issues, what you need to know is no church has ever lost its tax-exempt status in the 57 years since Lyndon Johnson headed that amendment.
Do you realize that? Not one church in history has ever lost its tax-exempt status. My friend Barry Lynn won't tell pastors that.
He tries to intimidate pastors. Oh, you're going to lose your tax-exempt status. Not one church has ever lost their tax-exempt status. There is one church, the Pierce Creek Church in Binghamton, New York, that lost its tax-exempt letter ruling, which is something different because during the 1992 election they ran a full-page ad in USA Today claiming that Bill Clinton was the Antichrist.
And not a wise move, okay? The IRS notified them that they couldn't do that anymore, but if they didn't do anything like that again, they would be just fine. But here's the bottom line for pastors. No local church has ever been fined.
No local church has ever lost its tax-exempt status for anything the pastor has done in the pulpit. Now I don't encourage, I would not advise any pastor to officially endorse a political candidate from the pulpit. But what I'm saying to pastors is don't be intimidated from sharing what you believe is the truth of God's Word from your pulpit. It is a fear many times of a misunderstanding of the Constitution that causes pastors to silence themselves. A third reason pastors don't act as prophets many times is a fear of controversy. Now pastors make for easy targets of criticism, even from church members. Now it's easy for laymen to say, well pastor, we're behind you. Keep standing for the truth.
We're right there with you. Unless church attendance starts to fall and receipts start to diminish a little bit and then suddenly it's off with its head, you know. It's very easy for that to happen in churches and most pastors recognize that. Any true shepherd of a local congregation is concerned about the spiritual, the organizational, and yes the financial health of his congregation. And although the universal church will never cease to exist, the fact is many local congregations have shut their doors because of diminishing attendance. No pastor wants to be the catalyst for killing his church.
Now I'm sympathetic with that. I'm sympathetic with pastors who are concerned with taking controversial stands that could send their congregants out the door and discourage new members from coming in the door. You may find this hard to believe, but during the first 15 years of my pastoral ministry, I rarely if ever spoke about controversial issues. Never spoke about abortion, never spoke about homosexuality, never encouraged my people to vote, much less gave them any criteria for how to select a candidate. Instead I figured my job was just to preach the Bible and leave all that other stuff to other people.
After all, why bother to try to save a sinking ship? I spent the first 15 years of my ministry. Some of you who are with me in Wichita Falls knows that many of my years there I never said anything about those subjects.
But about 13 years ago something happened in my life that changed my thinking about that. I was preaching a year-long series through the book of Genesis in my last church and I had come to Genesis chapter 19, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And I had already finished the sermon, it was about a Wednesday, and I was making the application points about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And one of the application points was, as a culture we cannot afford to condone what God has condemned. And so that was the point I was going to share the next Sunday morning.
We cannot condone what God has condemned. Well, a member of our church who worked in the local library that Wednesday came in to see me. She said, pastor, here are two books that are in the children's section of our public library. Daddy's Roommate, which is about a little boy whose father divorces his wife and moves in with another man. And it's a picture book for children promoting homosexuality.
And it shows this little boy's father and his homosexual lover in bed together. And then the other book, Heather Has Two Mommies, I bet you can figure out the plot line of that one. But anyway, she handed me these books and said, pastor, what are you going to do about this? And I said, well, you know, I really hadn't thought about it. So I sat there with those library books and I thought, what am I going to do about this? I mean, I've got enough headaches as a pastor of a church. I don't need to get involved in this. But how can I, as a pastor, stand up with a straight face and tell my congregation we cannot condone what God has condemned and why I do nothing about it?
So I said, well, I'll try the diplomatic route. So I called up the local librarian on the phone and I said, you know, somebody brought to my attention these books and I'm sure you're unaware that they're in the children's section of the library. And, you know, these are books that are promoting a practice, a lifestyle that, first of all, is against the law in the state of Texas, which it was at that time.
It is responsible for the greatest epidemic of all times, AIDS. And it violates the teaching of three major world religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. And I said, because of that, I just don't think these books belong there. Public tax dollars shouldn't be used to purchase these books. Would you remove these books?
And she said, basically, not on your life. And so after I've tried the diplomatic approach, the next Sunday I was standing up, preaching my message, went through this, and I had those library books with me in the pulpit. And I felt impressed by God to say this. I held up the library books and I said, these are in my possession and I'm not giving them back.
And I'm telling you, that was the shot heard round the world. I mean, the next week, the editor in the local paper said I needed to be put in jail for disobeying the law. And he said, remember, Martin Luther King wrote some of his best work while he was in jail. And Pastor Jeffress needs to go to jail. And so all of this.
And so, you know, I paid the $54 to buy the library books. It started a controversy in our community that lasted for two years. Every major outlet talked about it. PBS actually came to our city and filmed a documentary about this firestorm that had divided this small West Texas town. I mean, there was a federal lawsuit.
It was the biggest brouhah you can imagine. For two years in the local paper, almost every day, scathing letters about what Pastor Jeffress has done, and the First Baptist Church of Wichita Falls, and all of this, and all of this, and all of this. I wish I could tell you that during those two years, our church exploded in growth.
It didn't happen. A few people left, but mainly a lot of new people just weren't real anxious to come to our church. I mean, when you're reading about a church that's homophobic and hates people, and a pastor that's this, this, this, and this, and this, it really doesn't encourage people coming to church. Later on, God blessed our church tremendously with explosive growth, but it didn't happen during that time.
Somebody asked me, a reporter for the Fort Worth Star Telegram, he brought up that incident up in Wichita Falls. He said, Pastor, if you had it to do over again, would you do it again? I said, absolutely. Absolutely. It wasn't popular to do, but I am never going to disobey what I feel the Holy Spirit leading me to do.
And regardless of the cost, I had to take a stand at that point. Now I'm going to say to you, pastors, you may not be feeling called to borrow books from your local library, okay? That's okay. That doesn't have to be your calling, because it was my calling. But preaching biblically based messages on controversial topics, encouraging your members to vote, challenging laws that violate God's laws, are just some of the ways that you can fulfill your role as a prophet.
Now, at the risk of offending some, let me be very blunt. Pastor, you will never be criticized by the world for building a homeless shelter. You will never be criticized by this culture for asking your members to give sacrificially to build water wells in Africa. In fact, the culture will applaud you as a pastor for doing those things, because they think that's what a pastor is supposed to do.
Encouraging nice people to do nice things. That is their idea of a pastor. Nobody's going to criticize you for that. But if you dare stand up and point your finger at the culture and say, this is wrong, thus saith the Lord, you better be ready to suffer. You may be suffering, not the loss of your life as the Old Testament prophets did, but be prepared to suffer the loss of your reputation, your career, your livelihood. And that's why Paul said in 2 Timothy 4 verses 2 and 5, be prepared to endure hardship. Timothy was told that if he fulfilled his role as a prophet, it was going to get hard at times. But that's the pastor's role, not only as a preacher, but as a prophet. 2 Timothy 4 explains a third role of the pastor, and that is as an evangelist. Do the work of an evangelist, Paul reminded Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 and 5. And when Paul said, I want you to be an evangelist, Timothy, he didn't have in mind, I want you to travel the countryside with five suits and five sermons, okay?
That's not his idea of an evangelist. He meant do the work as a pastor of an evangelist proclaiming the good news of the gospel. You see, the great commission in Matthew 28 is for us to go into all the world and make disciples, fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Now, before you can be a disciple though, you have to be a convert. You have to be introduced to faith in Christ.
And while it's possible to be a convert without ever being a disciple, it is impossible for somebody to be a disciple without first of all being a convert and saved. And so one of the primary things that a pastor is to do is beyond his own ministry, he is to be involved in evangelism. How can a pastor beyond his own personal witness be and do the work of an evangelist?
Let me suggest several ways. First of all, through his preaching. Through his preaching, make sure in every message, no matter what you're talking about, there is some explanation of the gospel. You know, Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, it doesn't matter what passage he was in, he always made a beeline to the cross.
And we're to do that as well. Also, I would encourage those of you who are pastors, when you're preaching, always challenge unbelievers in the audience to make a decision to trust in Christ. The second way we act as evangelists is through equipping. You know, the pastor is to be an evangelist, but he's not the only evangelist in the church. My mentor and professor for so many years, Howard Hendricks used to quote Bud Wilkinson's definition of football.
He said, in football you have 22 men on the field, desperately in need of rest, being cheered on by 50,000 spectators in the stands, desperately in need of exercise. An improv would add, you know, that may be and make for exciting football, but that is a lousy way to run a church. God never meant for just a few people to be out on the field doing all the work. We're to all be involved in ministry and especially evangelism. Remember the words of Ephesians 4, 11 and 12? And Christ gave some as apostles, he gave some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. A third way we do that, a third way we act as an evangelist is through organizing. You know, you read through the book of Acts that chronicles the ministry of Paul and you quickly come to the conclusion that Paul was a man with a plan. He had a plan for reaching his world for Christ. And I would say, pastor, ask yourself the question, wherever you are, church family, what is our strategy for taking the good news of Christ to the community we're in? We need a strategy. We have to have a plan.
What plan do you have? What strategy do you have for being that light in that community where God has placed you? You know, in speech classes, we were taught there are a number of ways to end a talk. You can do so with a penetrating question or a relevant quote or an interesting story or a poem or a song.
Don't get afraid, I'm not going to use the song. But one way to end a message is by repeating the major thesis of that message. And that's the way I want to end today. I want you to listen carefully to these words. The preservation of our nation for the proclamation of the gospel depends upon the effectiveness of local churches in fulfilling their mission. And the effectiveness of local churches fulfilling their mission depends upon pastors fulfilling their calling as preachers, as prophets, and as evangelists. At Pathway to Victory, we're praying that God would use today's message to ignite a renewed passion among pastors to preach the gospel with freedom and boldness. In closing, let me remind you about a tremendous opportunity to double the impact of your giving through the $750,000 Beacon of Hope Matching Challenge.
Every dollar you give between now and July 5th will have twice the ministry impact until we reach the goal amount. As faithful believers living in America, you and I stand at a national crossroads. Will we boldly uphold the timeless biblical values that have shaped the very foundation of our great nation? Or will we stand on the sidelines and watch our beloved country slip further into moral and spiritual oblivion? Today I'm asking you to join me as together we stand firm on the principles of our Christian faith.
Make no mistake, we cannot save America. Only Jesus saves, and a true revival happens not on Capitol Hill, but in the hearts of men and women who love God and our country. Would you be among those who steps forward and gives generously to the Beacon of Hope Matching Challenge? Together, let's stand firm on the principle of faith, family, and freedom that have guided our great nation. To thank you for your gift today, I'm going to send you two wonderful resources. The first is an inspirational book for the whole family called Miracles in American History. Thirty-two amazing stories of answered prayer. And then as a bonus, I'll also include a DVD of one of my most popular messages, America is a Christian Nation. Thanks for your generous support. Now more than ever, let's demonstrate our faith in Jesus Christ as a beacon of hope for the country we love.
David. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. You're invited to request the book Miracles in American History when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. When you give, you'll also receive a DVD copy of the highly requested message by Dr. Jeffress called America is a Christian Nation. Simply call 866-999-2965 or visit our website at ptv.org. Now when you give an especially generous gift of $100 or more, we'll also include the complete America and the Bible teaching series on audio and video discs. Plus, you'll also receive an additional book written by Dr. Jeffress called Praying for America, Forty Inspiring Stories and Prayers for Our Nation.
Remember, your gift right now will have twice the impact because of our beacon of hope matching challenge. So be sure to get in touch today. Call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could send your request by mail. Here's the address. P. O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. One more time, that's P. O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
I'm David J. Mullins. To many Christians, persecution is something that happens in a far off place. But in reality, persecution is already taking place in America. Join us Tuesday for a message called When Persecution Comes, right here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory.
