Dr. Robert Jeffress is the Senior Pastor of the 15,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, a Fox News Contributor, and adjunct professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. Dr. Jeffress is Bible teacher and host of a daily radio program, PATHWAY TO VICTORY, heard nationwide on over 1,000 stations in major markets such as Dallas-Fort Worth, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Seattle. His daily television program PATHWAY TO VICTORY can be seen every day of the week on (TBN) Trinity Broadcasting Network and Hillsong Channel and Sundays on Daystar.

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Now, open your hearts to what God’s word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.
We have with us today in a sense, a founding father.
Oh my, no, not by age, but by helping us with this vision.
As soon as we started talking about getting away from the Cancel culture.
And how can we continue to promote the gospel without fear, Robert Jeffress was one of those very, very foundational guys.
Thus, the founding father where we had to have him on and there’s a handful of people and I mean, a handful that this program is dedicated to safe biblically sound teaching without drama.
And Robert Jeffers is an icon in the Christian church, a prolific author.
I am not going to name the news program as you have been on, but you’ve been on all of them and you are a front line warrior.
I want to welcome you to today’s program and congratulations on real life. Now, we’re excited to be here.
Thank you, Pastor. We are blessed.
And so one of the things right out of the gate, let’s try to get your book sales up and over the charts here.
And that is, tell us about your most recent book that you’ve written.
Yes, it’s called What Every Christian Should know.
And it’s subtitled 10 Core Beliefs For Standing Strong in a shifting world.
And this is really an update of a book called Basic Christianity that John Stott wrote.
What I’ve done, Jack is go back and look at the 10 core foundational truths of historic and why we should embrace those truths in a changing world.
You know, I’m sure you’ve heard all of the polls, you read them regularly about how many Christians are falling away from basic truth.
50% of Christians say that Jesus was not sinless, 60% of evangelicals saying there’s more than one way to heaven other than faith in Christ.
And I have to ask myself, why is that?
It’s because they’re not hearing these truths, they’re hearing them in your church, but they’re not hearing them in most churches.
So this book is a call back to those 10 basic beliefs about God salvation, the Holy Spirit and so forth.
Well, here’s the amazing thing about what you’re saying is somebody who might think that they are a mature, rooted grounded Christian will hear a book titled like yours and even the comments that you just made and they’re going to think, uh I don’t need that and yet I’m reminded that Peter said it’s really important to me that I write to you guys again and when people make the assumption, oh, Pastor Robert, I’ve got that down or I’ve got that down.
What we’ve discovered certainly since COVID people could say something, they could say that they believed in something, whatever that is.
If you were to ask them what is being born mean?
We encountered people who didn’t, who were Christian but couldn’t even tell you what being born again meant.
They didn’t understand what’s the function of the Holy Spirit. What, what is the value?
Why do I need to read my Bible often?
I think that it’s been the pulpits that have created.
What did Spurgeon say that in his day that we have, we have preachers preaching sermons for Christians.
And I think that I think when I say we, I don’t mean you and I, but we as pastors have created a flock that is undisc.
They don’t have boldness, they doubt the word of God.
They’re wondering why they read the book of Acts and all these powerful things are happening, but it’s not happening to them.
And some people want to blame God for being sleepy and it’s the exact opposite.
And if we don’t know the truth, we can’t pass it on to our Children.
I mean, like somebody said, every civilization is only one generation away from barbarism. Why changes?
Say we’re only one generation away from atheism?
I mean, now 50% of Americans say they’re not sure there is a God. 50%. Why is that?
Because they, through COVID a lot of it, they got disconnected to the church.
You know, you take a piece of coal, it remains on fire.
When it’s in the fireplace, you separate it, it grows cold very quickly.
And so I think there’s a need for good biblical doctrinal preaching.
And I would say to people watching right now if you don’t know how explain the Holy Spirit to your Children who he is and what he does, if you don’t know why we can know that the Bible is the word of God.
Here’s a book for you that you can pass this truth on to your Children.
This is an off the wall question, but maybe not.
Does the book stand alone Robert or do you see any need for maybe a children’s version?
I think we will do a children’s version of and talks about that.
But there’s a study guide that goes along with the book.
It’s great for small group Bible, the Sunday school class curriculum go through.
So I just want to encourage everybody to go to in fact, I need to ask you, where would, where would people find all of your books and all of your dot com?
Amazon dot com for the books?
Tell us a little bit about the remarkable story of you being the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.
I love it. First Baptist. Dallas has been in downtown Dallas, six blocks of downtown Dallas for 155 years.
Many people don’t know. Billy Graham was a member of our church for 54 years.
Even though he lived in North Carolina, he wanted to be at first Baptist Dallas because of our history of biblical teaching and a biblical foundation.
But anyway, I grew up in the church, the church had two pastors in 100 years, 50 years each.
George W Truitt and W A Chris Wall, two pastors in 100 years.
So there’s a strong foundation there and I grew up in the church and 16 years ago, got to come back and be the pastor of that great church and to God, be the glory.
But under your leadership, what has that church grown into today? Well, it was interesting.
The church was in a period of decline and downtown church, all the churches had gone to the suburbs, but God wasn’t finished with first Baptist Dallas.
We ended up doing the largest building program in modern church history in the midst of the recession in 2008.
And 2001, our people gave $135 million completely debt free.
We blew up all of the buildings started, Fox and Friends carried the implosion.
But anyway, I give the glory to God for what he did. We have a new campus.
God is blessing the church with all kind of new members. We have been just truly blessed by God.
So I’m curious if you saw this as I did in our area of southern California.
When COVID hit, you gotta remember we were under the uh the heel of Lord of Caesar, you know, either Lord Newsom or uh you know, Caesar Gavin, whatever.
But uh he just refused to recognize, you know, had this essential, non essential.
And immediately, I mean, within the first week, we were asking his office, where do you place the churches in California?
Where do you place the churches? He wouldn’t answer this f wouldn’t answer.
We have since learned that that’s his tactic. If he’s approached on an issue, he backs away. It’s interesting.
He won’t speak. So I sent him a video and it was about 12 minutes long and I told him with all due respect and with honor to the office of governor in California.
I being a native Californian, but a citizen of heaven. We’re opening up our church.
We can’t, we’ve been doing this media thing for a moment. That’s not working. We need to help the community.
Well, mayor and the city council went nuts. They loved us.
And then our county board of Supervisors, they said any heat you get, send any letters to us.
They took care of us. Well, frankly, Newsom didn’t do a thing about it, which we’re grateful for.
But the point is this, that the church in California is ignored and I’m going to tell you why it’s ignored.
A lot of people don’t realize this. There are some really powerful ministries in California.
It’s not recognized because you know how media will black you out or cancel you out.
So you’ve got ministries like Dr David Jeremiah forever.
We had Dr Charles Swindall with us before he went to Texas. We had Greg Lori Smith on and on.
It goes. But what happened was when COVID hit, there were a handful of churches that stayed open and those churches that stayed open.
Robert is an interesting thing that happened.
People flocked to those churches, the sheep went looking for food when the churches that stayed closed for say a year or whatever it was when they reopened.
And I’m curious what happened in Texas when they reopened in California, they reopened, woke, they reopened BLM, they reopened absolutely apologetic and they wound up imploding and some of those founders since left handed it over to new people, but the churches that did stay open, they got super blessed.
We saw exactly the same thing.
Super blessed churches that say closed a year they could never figure out how to reopen again and so forth.
They lost their members. You know, you would at least hope pastors thought their church was essential.
Well, they didn’t, if they didn’t, then, boy, I don’t want to be mean about this.
But let’s just be two pastors talking to one another here.
If, if a pastor doesn’t see when somebody comes out and announces it, I’m not gonna mention his name when he comes out and says right from the get go, we’re not gonna open our church until next Easter.
Well, that’s like a year and a half away. First of all, what made him say that?
Second of all, it’s what about your flock? What about those that are hurting and look Jack.
I mean, it’s one thing if everybody is closing and being a good neighbor, but when they are persecuting the church and singling out the church, we have to do exactly what you did and you set the standard, you and I watched the news, not that the news drives us, but we were looking at what was happening and you got to remember people.
A lot of people forget that when this initial thing, I think Trump said, give us 15 days, give us 15 days.
We thought the news coming out of China, we thought people would be dead on the streets.
We were seeing videos of people in various parts of China laying in the streets.
Well, then we were asked 15 days to flatten the curve.
After that, we began to see experts, they could not agree.
And then it’s like, ok, we’ve got to do what God has called us to do, but to see what’s happened since I personally believe it’s my opinion that the COVID event, God used it.
I’m not saying God sent it.
I’m not saying that’s his business, but I will say that God used it.
And what we saw in California was that it was like a winnowing the wheat from the chaff because since that time, the churches in California, there’s a steel spine in those churches that stayed open.
It’s really awesome and encouraging to say.
And by the way, that’s one of the things that we talk about in the book.
It’s one of the chapters is what every Christian should know about the church.
What most people forget is the local church is not man’s idea. It was God’s idea. God created the church.
It is essential. You can’t grow as a Christian apart from involvement in a local church.
And we saw the same thing in our church.
The mushy middle is gone, they’re gone and they’re not coming back and we’re not going to miss that.
And you know, they know where you’re at, they know what you preach and teach, they can come back when they want, but you’re not going to go change your messaging.
You’re not going to alter the word of God to bring them back.
And I’ll just tell you some of the good that comes and you’ve seen it as well.
Our internet ministry I campus exploded on Easter Sunday.
That first COVID when President Trump announced he was going to watch our service.
We had a million and a half viewers.
We had 30,000 who were saved that day and they haven’t gone away. I mean, they stayed with us.
And so it’s been a blessing.
I would never have dreamed it up or planned it, but God used it for you and look you and I agree that there are some, there were some.
Now, by the way, we heard it this week from the CDC that that 6% 6% of the COVID deaths reported were actually COVID deaths reported.
6%. The other percentage was those being reported as COVID death, but they had co morbidity issues having said that, you know, we’re sorry for any death.
But the bottom line is, I love the fact that you are so committed.
You will not waiver your inspiration to me and millions of other people.
And it’s an honor to be with you before we wrap this up. Just give a barrage.
Let have Robert Jeffers barrage us with again the book If you can as memory provides, go through highlights of the chapters that would help us promote your book on the walls of this conference.
Well, it’s called what every Christian should know 10 core beliefs for standing strong in a shifting world.
You know, the truth is Jack, cultures change, opinions change. God’s word never changes.
And the first chapter is the foundational chapter. Most people were surprised. I didn’t start with Jesus Christ.
What every Christian should know about Jesus Christ. That’s the second chapter.
The first chapter is what every Christian should know about the Bible.
The truth is apart from the Bible, we wouldn’t know a lot about Jesus.
Yes, there’s some external evidence he existed. We wouldn’t know he rose from the dead.
We wouldn’t know about the miracles. We wouldn’t know about his bleeding death on the cross on our behalf.
That’s all from the Bible that we know that.
So every doubt that a person has begins the same way it began in Genesis three when Satan slithered up to the woman and said, has God really said in my own life, the crisis time as a college student was when I listened to professors at a Christian college, talk about the contradictions in the Bible, the errors in the Bible.
And I came to the point I said, if this Bible is filled with errors, why do I want to spend the rest of my life teaching it?
And I almost walked away from Christian sanity as well as the ministry because I didn’t have a firm foundation in the Bible.
But unfortunately, some people showed me why you don’t have to commit intellectual suicide to become a Christian and believe the Bible.
So I would say of all the chapters, this chapter is the most important.
And by the way, your kids are going to ask you your grandkids, mom, dad, grandpa, why do you believe the Bible?
How can I know it’s true.
So I would get the book, what every Christian should know just for that first chapter.
Everything else, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, sin, salvation, the church, it’s all built on that foundational.
So before we wrap this up, you know, this a big, big part of now, today’s books is audio books.
Will it be available on audio on amazon dot com on amazon dot com.
Listen, everybody we have with us pastor Robert Jeffer, pastor, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.
If you’re ever in the Dallas area, you got to go.
I was there late one night at about 11 o’clock and I walked around six city blocks just to pray and to thank God for the ministry of Rubber Jeffers.
His ministry on online on air on TV, is pathway to victory and we love it.
And in fact, coming down from my hotel room down to this meeting here, he was on air.
And so listen, we are grateful Robert Jeff for love you brother. Thank you brother. Take care. Bye bye.
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