Episode 89

What does it mean to share the gospel? What exactly are we doing each time we proclaim the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ? In this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we weigh in on Babylon Bee’s interview with Elon Musk, the world’s foremost engineer and business magnate. In it, the Bee made a controversial gospel presentation to Musk, and the reaction to his answer was even more controversial. The interaction lit up a storm of reactions from all sides. Some found it to be in line with the Bee’s brand while others found it appalling and inappropriate, satire or not. Join us in this episode as we discuss it, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter as well.

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay and I’m MCG and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

This is episode 89 of the Removing Barriers podcast. And in this episode we will be discussing Elon Musk and the Babylon Bee viral podcast where Elon Musk was declared saved by the Babylon Bee guys.

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So Jay, on December 21, 2021, the Babylon B CEO, Set Dylan, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicole sat down with Elon Musk. Yes, that Elon Musk of SpaceX, Tesla, and maybe soon to be Twitter. They are just Elizabeth Warren and the other happenings of the day, like wokeness and political climate. However, they ended the podcast, which I’m not sure what to call it, but the weak, sad, awful presentation of the gospel. Here is a clip of the Babylon Bee guys quoted unquote presenting the gospel to Elon.

We’re here. The Babylon B is a Christian organization and we’re a Ministry. Well, how come we’re doing the show on a Sunday? Exactly. We have to make a Church right now. A day of rest in Church. God said, don’t work on Sunday. Okay. Get into the whole Jesus rest thing. Okay. Straight out. Okay. So to make this Church, we have to do, we have to make sure. We’re wondering if you could do us a quick, solid and accept Jesus as your Lord and savior on the show. Personal Lord. Let’s just say, like, I agree with the principles that Jesus advocated and there’s great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus. And I agree with those teachings. And things like tone the other cheek are very important because as opposed to an eye for an eye, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. So forgiveness is important. And treating people as you would wish to be treated, love thy neighbor as thyself. Very important. So it’s like a 60%. As Einstein would say, I believe in the God of Spinoza. But hey, if Jesus is saving people, I mean, I wouldn’t stand in his way. That’ll be true. I’ll be saved. Why not? Sweet. We did it. I think you just said yes.Just a baby. Cool.

So, Jay, you heard that. What is your initial reaction to that? Bear in mind that the Babylon Bee is a satirical media company. Was this presentation of the gospel an attempt at satire? To answer your first question, when I first heard that clip, everything within me, it was completely cringe. I just cringed within myself. I could not believe what I was hearing. I hated every second of it, and it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t joyful at all. I did not enjoy it. I did not think it was a good thing. Everything within me revolted when I heard it. I understand that the Babylon B is a company that specializes in satire. It’s a satirical media company. However, when it comes to something as serious as the gospel and the eternal destination of someone’s soul and ultimately the glory of the living God, none of that can occupy the same space as satire, in my opinion. The definition of satire according to just a quick Google search, maybe it’s Wordnick or the American Heritage Dictionary. Satire is a literary work in which human foolishness or vice is attacked through irony, duration, or wit. There is nothing foolish or evil about the gospel. It is above satire. It is above poking fun at. It is above those things. And I don’t think this gospel presentation was an attempt at satire. I think they were being serious because he prefaced the question with the fact that, well, Babylon B is a Christian company and we’re a Ministry. He literally said, we’re a Ministry. And the entire conversation was not one of satire. It was a serious interview where they were asking him legitimate and serious questions, and they brought moments of levity here and there with a joke here and there. So the interview itself was not satire. The interview itself was not meant to be poking fun at anything, although they found opportunities to poke fun at a lot of things during the interview. And so that would lead me to believe that they were being serious, they were being earnest in asking him those questions. That pathetic. Pathetic is probably too mean of a word, but just unacceptable. Presentation of the gospel, which is not even a presentation of the gospel. They didn’t say anything about the gospel. And so, no, I don’t think they were attempting satire. I think they were serious, and I think it was egregious.

Do you think this is an epitome of what some folks call easy believism? I think it’s a good example of it. I think that they treat Salvation as something trite, as something easy, as something that doesn’t cost you anything, because his words were literally, Would you do us a solid as though Salvation was a favor or something that you can do just to appease someone? Which is exactly what he asked Elon to do. But we know from Scripture that Salvation is a very weighty thing. This is the word Incarnate humbled himself and came to Earth to pay for sins that he didn’t commit. He came to show forth the glory of God in dying for wretched sinners like us. And that’s not something to be trifled with. Easy beliefs says that you can follow Christ and it doesn’t have to cost you anything. You can follow Christ, and it’s all just easy peasy. Just say this little prayer. Just believe these 12345 things on our checklist or however many it is and you’re saved. Boom. It’s that easy. And Christ made it clear in scripture that Salvation, though simple, is not easy. I’m not sure where Christians get the idea that we can just easily become Christians or live the Christian life when it costs the God of the universe everything. And we think we’re just going to saunter in and it’s not going to cost us anything that we could trifle with it as they did. I think that a lot of people would say it’s not as serious as that. It’s a satire, it’s light hearted. It’s not that serious. I think to say that is to demonstrate a very low or cheap view of the gospel. Or maybe you just don’t understand what the weight of the gospel is.

Yeah. Let me ask, though, you said that as if Salvation doesn’t cost anything, which means Salvation is a free gift. So what do you mean when you say it doesn’t cost anything? Because of course we know for us it didn’t cost us anything, but of course it cost Christ his life. Sure. Sacrificial death on the cross. What I mean by that is that Salvation is a free gift that will cost you everything. In Luke chapter nine, verse 62, the context of this is Jesus trying to explain what he came to do, what his mission was, who he was and what his mission was, and what it means to follow him. I’ll go back and I’ll start in verse 56. It says, for the Son of man has not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. And it came to pass that as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou GOST. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests. But the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee, but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at my home, at my house. And this is verse 62 that I wanted to get to. And Jesus said unto him, no man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God. The idea that we could follow Christ and not die to self and not give up everything is a very common lie in the world. That’s the easy believism that we’re going to just make our way into heaven on flowery beds of ease. It’s simply not true. It’s not that we can work for Salvation. It’s just that the Bible makes it clear that we’ve been saved by him unto good works, we’ve been saved by him. And he’s called us to turn away from all of the things in this world that were dragging us to hell to begin with. And that’s what I mean by it’s a free gift that will cost you everything. Right.

So Salvation is a free gift, but living the Christian life will cost you everything because you have to give up the worldly desire that you have. I just want to make that clear so that we don’t confuse folks. Right. I don’t want anyone thinking that you can earn Salvation or that somehow Elon Musk is somehow more acceptable to God because he’s an incredibly intelligent and incredibly wealthy man and he’s very high value according to our worldly standards. But Salvation is absolutely 100% a free gift you can’t earn that. The Bible makes that clear in Ephesians two, eight and nine. We’ve been saved by Grace through faith, and it’s not of ourselves, it’s a gift of God, and it’s not of works lest any one of us should boast. I want to make that clear. But at the same time, Salvation is a very precious gift that costs the Son of God everything, and it’s going to cost us something as well. Yeah, I would agree with you on that.

I don’t think that they were trying to make an attempt at satire. The Babylon Bee, of course, they normally publish a lot of memes and stuff like that, and a lot of them are really funny. Yeah, they are. But I think you have to draw a line someplace. And you were dealing with someone who probably doesn’t have a lot of Christians in this circle. A lot of Bible believe in Christians who will actually share the unadulterated word of God with this person. Right. So you had an opportunity there to share the gospel. No, I’m not even questioning these men’s Salvation because I don’t know them. I don’t know if they truly save or not. We know that they’re conservative. We know that they say the baby is a Christian organization or Christian company. They say that they are Baptist, which whatever that means, because when you say Baptist, you can mean so many other different things. But do not joke with someone eternal destiny. If they were joking, if this was a temporary attire, I think they were making fun of someone eternal destiny. And if they were not, it was just a completely sad targeting to do when you have opportunities like that. And I believe the gospel, as you said, is very simple. But the elements that I believe that someone must understand because we tend to say, oh, Act Jesus in your heart, which is a term I don’t like, but the intellect has to be reached as well. In Salvation, someone cannot understand what Christ did for them and get saved. I’m not saying they have to have all the theological terms down and understand all the doctrines out there, but there are some simple things that I think you should have to understand. And yes, a five year old kid can understand these. The fact that you are sinner, what are you being saved from? Nothing of this thought was mentioned data fact, could he give it a solid acceptance of Jesus? And he didn’t even say upset of Jesus. He said he agreed with the principles that Jesus teach. Well, there’s so many other men out there who agree with the principles that Jesus teach.

Well, he said, here, let me read the quote. He said ultimately after he talked about accepting all of the teachings of Jesus, he kind of shrugged his shoulders and cocked his head to the side and said, If Jesus is saving people, I won’t stand in his way. Okay? Yeah, sure. I’ll be saved. Why not? And then to that, everyone responded, we did it. I think you said yes. Oh, sweet. We got them. This reminds me, if you ever go to these, I don’t think you’ve ever been. But there would have these huge gatherings of crusades and all of these different Christian things coming together. And at the end of all these different crusades and Christian concerts do this as well. Wherever there’s a large gathering of fairly nominal Christians, at the end, they’ll always have something called an altar call where if you want to be saved, come forward and they’ll do some kind of emotional prodding and some kind of weak presentation. As bad as the preacher in Texas, Joel Osteen. Yeah, about as bad as that. And they’ll say that’s Salvation. You could write that note in your Bible and that’s the date that you were saved and all that. And this was no different. It’s just as bad.

So what you’re saying is that you think that it was not an attempt at satire, they were being serious and they squandered an opportunity. Because I think you’re right when you said that, Elon, he’s not just incredibly wealthy. He’s incredibly important for a lot of reasons. And people at that level, they don’t have many people in their inner circle. And the people that they have in their inner circle are more than likely they have no idea what the gospel is. By my count, watching the podcast, three men there professing Christ, and there was one off camera as well that I could hear laughing and chiming in every once in a while. So there are four men there with a lost soul, and they came up with that. And I don’t want to sound like I’m coming down too hard on them because how many missed opportunities have I had in my life to share the gospel? So I’m not necessarily coming down too hard on them. But at the same time, this was a deliberate and I would imagine planned podcast. It’s not like Elon just happened to swing by. I would imagine they reached out to him or he reached out to them and they set a date and they made plans and they sat there and they reviewed like we do, podcast preparation. So I would imagine this wasn’t some happenstance thing. This was very deliberate. And to miss that opportunity, I think was tragic, like you said. Yeah.

And going back to the fact that you said that Elon most likely don’t have any Bible believing Christian folks in his circle, and quite honestly, maybe the folks that he does have in his circle are probably more. Yes, sir, sure. Yes, people kind of folks. Because as we mentioned earlier, we’re talking about the CEO and founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and soon to be Twitter. We’re talking about the richest man in the world. But also we talk about a man who, if he’s not saved, is on his way to a terrible place called hell. And you don’t joke about that because hell is a real place. A lot of times, if you look up the statistics, Jesus speaks more about hell than even heaven. Hell is a real place. And if he, Lord, is not saved, he’s on his way to a crisis eternity called hell. You don’t joke about that. The gospel is not satire. We should not be making satirical presentation or arguments about the gospel. The gospel is about heaven and hell, life and death, and the good news that Jesus Christ came to die in the cross and rose again according to the scriptures. If you look at one Corinthians 15 and verse three, the Bible says, I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. So Paul is saying here that, hey, this is the gospel. I present unto you the gospel where Christ died, he was buried, and he rose again according to the scriptures. I don’t see any one in the Book of Acts joking about a perfect, eternal destiny, which is what if it is satire, what they were doing here. But I don’t think it was satire. I think it was the fear of man that caused them. Of course, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt here, but I believe it was a fear of man that caused them to prevent such a weak water down. Whatever religious talk that they had with Elon, because I can’t call the gospel because there are many elements of the gospel that wasn’t even mentioned.

When you saved the fear of men, were they afraid of what Elon himself might think, or were they afraid of what people might think that they would dare to bring up the gospel to him? Just Elon status I see in the society again, we’re talking about the CEO, founder of Tesla and Spacefx and soon to be Twitter. We’re talking about, well, according to American Standard, the richest man in the world. Now, if you Google it, I dig a little bit deeper. There are some conspiracy theories out there that the President of China and Valley Putin and stuff like that, way richer than we will claim they are. But from what we know, he’s the richest man in the world, what, 200 and something billion dollars, 219,000,000,000, $219,000,000,000, the richest man in the world. He was sitting right next to them and it was a fair man. They were showing too much respect. One of the reasons I believe that not only was the fear of man, but you can tell they were nervous because you can hear the nervous giggle on the nervous chatter and stuff like that. And if you actually watch a video of the podcast, you actually saw that the body language and stuff like that kind of change. So you can tell almost like they were embarrassed to bring it up. They weren’t sure how we going to react to a religious talk because of course they were talking about politics. They were talking about current events of the day and all the stuff. I think it was a short time after Elon and Elizabeth Warren had a little bit of a back and forth on Twitter and stuff like that. So because of that, I think they kind of reach out to each other and Elon respond to some Twitter tweet by them and that’s how they kind of connect and get on the podcast, I think. But you can see the body language on the video. You can hear the nervous gig. It’s a fear of men. They were given respect of persons because I’m sure if it was just another everyday Joe or everyday Elon, they probably would have given a different presentation of gospel. I’m giving them the benefit of doubt here, of course. Galatians one, verse ten. So do I now persuade man or God, or do I seek to please man? For if I yet please man, I should not be the servant of Christ? And escalation. 110 and also with the respect of the person in James, chapter two, My breadwin, have not faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with respect of person. James gave a good example. If someone came in, you would get clothing and the person said, sit down here, we should not have respect of person when it comes to the gospel. The gospel is effective for the rich and for the poor, no matter who it is.

I had a similar situation well, I wouldn’t even call it similar, but the closest I’ve ever witnessed to someone who wasn’t even famous but guess have some sort of stature was a pastor. I remember knocking on the door and the person who answered told me he was the pastor of a local Church in the area, which I actually knew. I actually knew of the Church. I actually knew of one or two person who actually attended that Church. And I still seek to present the gospel with him. I still ask probe in question to see if he had a biblical view of Salvation one and two and see if he had a biblical testimony of Salvation. Why, I could have said, well, he said he was a pastor. Go on to the next door. No, because I was dealing with someone sold so he could say he’s a pastor, but that doesn’t mean he has a biblical view of Salvation. I’m not saying I did that because I wanted to be cocky or I have some kind of corner of a truth, but I cheated the way I treat someone when it comes to the gospel. I realize that I’m dealing with someone soul that have eternal destiny in heaven or hell, and I believe it’s my responsibility as a Christian to the lifeline and try to snatch people from the Brinks of hell and present the gospel to the best of my ability to this person. I think they had a golden opportunity here and they missed the Mark. That’s what I think. I don’t think it was satire. And even if it was satire, you do not make satire of stuff that is this serious in someone’s life.

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again, I don’t want to come down hard on them either, because how many golden opportunities have I missed to share the gospel with someone who absolutely needed it? Needed to hear it? How many times have I been swayed by the fear of man as well? But it’s important to point out that in one Corinthians 118, the scriptures say, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. Again, we go back to the definition of satire. It’s making fun of and exposing human foolishness or vice. The gospel is not human foolishness. It’s not vice. There’s absolutely no situation that I can think of where it’s ever appropriate or right to treat the gospel that lightly. Yeah. So do you think based upon what the Bubbling B folks did, that we can say now that Elon is saved? Oh, absolutely not. What’s sad is that they said that to him, too. They said that to him. They’re like, oh, we got them. Are we good? We got them as though this were just some pickup sticks type thing where it’s just, oh, you say you saved. Okay, you saved. I guess, man, the egregiousness of this is to not only present a shell of the gospel, I can’t even call it a shell of the gospel. It had whatever that presentation was, not only to present that to someone that’s lost and then to hear them fumble through an answer that has nothing to do with genuine repentance or genuine faith that has no marker of that at all, and then to try and give them an assurance of their Salvation and say, we got him. What are you all even talking about? Of course the question is, can you ever be sure that anyone is saved? But they declared to the whole world that they think he saved. Now, I don’t think that Elon would do this, but let’s say, for example, Elon took them at their word. I don’t think he would do this or that he would believe this, but let’s say he took them at their word and believed that he was saved and held onto that as proof of his Salvation till his dying breath. And so when judgment day comes, all he has to stand before the Lord in is his own righteousness, his filthy rags and a memory that one time I was on the Babylon Bee podcast and they said I was saved. How tragic is that? How sad is that? Yeah, I don’t think them declaring him save make him save. Absolutely not. And even if they were to try to say, oh, it was just satire, it doesn’t matter, it’s still wrong. It’s not a satirical situation, it’s not a purpose. Yeah. As I said earlier, all the gospel and Salvation are simple. I think there are some simple things within there that you must understand, like the realization you’re sinner, there’s a penalty for your sin, and there’s a provision for that sin in Jesus Christ. Again, you don’t have to understand all the theological stuff behind of that. But I think that the intellect also has to be realizing that, hey, I am a sinner, and I don’t see Elon show any remarks for his sins that he had to show me that.

But when I put this to someone, I think that if the Holy Spirit is moving and the person is responding to the message of the gospel that you presented to them, I think you would know as well because I’ve witnessed 1000 of people not trying to tune my Horn or anything here. Maybe not thousands, but definitely hundreds of people. And when someone is responded to the gospel, you can tell that the Holy Spirit is moving. And again, that’s why when you sold winning, it’s so important for you to be right with the Lord because the Holy Spirit is working through you. The Holy Spirit that lives within you is working through you, and you can tell when the Holy Spirit is moving. Of course, I wasn’t there in the room and I don’t know what these men felt. And again, Salvation is not a feeling. I tried to explain myself clearly here. I’m not saying that there must be a feeling, but I believe if the Holy Spirit is moving and working in the life of someone you’re witnessing to, that the Lord, the Holy Spirit that’s living within you will actually indicate to you as well that this message is penetrating or this message is hitting the right spot. Of course not always. Sometimes you will say something to someone and it will be years later that they actually get saved. But we know that we plan to see that someone else will, and then the Lord give the increase. But here I don’t see anything to indicate that Elon had a realization that he was a sinner. I don’t see anything here where Elon realized that there is a penalty for his sin, that he cannot pay for himself because he’s a sinner himself. He cannot pay for his own sin. And I don’t see any realization that he turned to Christ for the provision or to pay the wages for that sin. Saying that you agree with the principles of Christ does not make you a Christian, because there are many people out there that agree with the principles of Christ who are not remotely even close to Christian, because many people they believe he’s a good teacher. The Muslims believe he’s a good teacher. And there are many other people out there and other quote unquote religion. They believe he’s a good person and believe he had good principles. So that says nothing to me.

You brought up whether or not we can genuinely know if someone is saved. Well, not to 100%. I don’t think any of us can to 100% know without error if someone is safe, we can guesstimate. We can talk about our experience with the person. We can talk about the life change that we have seen in the person. We can talk about the fellowship we’ve had with the person and say, you know what? I believe with as much certainty as our human certainty can be that this person is saved. But I don’t think we can be 100% sure that anybody save. I think the only person you can be sure of is itself. Of course, in Romans, chapter eight and verse 14 to 16, the Bible says, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For he has not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but he has received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, the Spirit itself bear witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God. So I think if you are saved, I think that the Holy Spirit can confirm that within your heart that you are saved. The Spirit is a bear with us, with our Spirit, that we are the children of God. But I don’t think I can do that for someone else with 100% accuracy. So they should not have declared to Elon that he saved. Even when I’m witnessing someone and they make a decision of a crisis, I never tell them that they are saved. I always say that if what you have done or what you just said or what you have just received was genuine and it wasn’t true. The Bible says this. This is what the Bible says. So if the person repented of their sin and trust, Christ of the Savior said, the Bible says that for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I’m not declaring to them that they are saved. I’m telling them that if this was genuine within their heart, because I cannot know with 100% certainty that what they did was genuine, I can have a good guesstimate, because if the spirit is moving and all that stuff, I can have a good guesstimate. But I cannot say but 100%. I know that for sure. But what the Babylon Bee did was not only wrong, but it was extremely dangerous, because you’re talking about person eternal destiny, which is vitally important. And that’s not the way you want to present the gospel to anyone, much less to Elon, who is the richest man in the world who may not have another opportunity to hear a gospel presentation in addition to it being about someone’s eternal destination. Another thing that they’ve done, and I think I’ve said this before,

I’m not sure what they’ve done that’s so egregious is the cheapening of the glory of the Lamb, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Majesty. All of that was completely gutted and cheapened by what they did, whether they meant it for satire or not. Either way, I really think it was taking the Lord’s name in vain. I really do think that and I realize that’s a very heavy charge, because that’s breaking one of the Ten Commandments. But I really think that’s what happened there, and that’s not funny at all. So about declaring whether or not someone is genuinely saved, I agree with you. We can’t know for sure who’s genuinely saved and who’s not. We can point to recent examples of high profile men that we all thought were Christian, and recent developments and allegations have demonstrated them to at least there’s a reason to believe they’re not what they portrayed themselves to be. The only person that can know if they’re genuinely converted, as you said, is the person themselves. Although someone can genuinely deceive themselves into thinking that they are saved when they’re not, the heart is exceptionally deceitful. It’s wicked. The Bible says we can’t know it. So it’s possible for someone to deceive themselves into thinking that they’re saved. I’ve heard a statistic of a chaplain who does prison Ministry, and he said, like, 98% of the people in prison don’t believe they should be in there. Well, that might be true for some people, perhaps, who are falsely accused, but those that should genuinely be in there, most of them don’t think that they deserve to be in there. You could really create a lot of excuses and justification for yourself. You could really fool yourself into thinking that you’re saved when you’re not. You could justify your sin into thinking that you don’t deserve the punishment that you get or that you’re going to get for your sin. And so none of us can genuinely know, and we can’t declare whether someone is genuinely saved, especially now after something as trite and empty as they did. But again, the Babylon B is a satirical site. At first when I heard it, I thought they were making fun of the altar call, the easy believing approach to Salvation that many people in Christendom today, and I say Christendom very loosely, very lightly that they employ today because they had the cheesy invitation music in the background, the cheesy piano playing in the background. And at that particular moment, they had that playing. And I thought, okay, they’re making fun of this easy believing. But then, of course, as I began to listen to, I realized they were being serious. And so I had to think about it.

They got backlash for this as well. Of course, many Christians spoke out in opposition to what they did, and I am very pleased to see that a majority of the reaction to what they did was negative. I’m very happy to see that it’s hard to find anyone that would react to what they saw in that podcast in a sort of positive light, like, oh, just lighten up. This is the Babylon Bee. They’re being funny. I found very few interactions in that camp, which gives me some glimmer of hope that a majority of Christians realize how absolutely bad this was. So the question is, do you think that the backlash was warranted, the backlash that they got? Yeah, definitely. I think they made a big error and miss a big opportunity. As I said earlier, how many Bible believing in Christian does Elon have inner circles? I would guess not a lot, if any at all. So this was a big and should I say, like Barney five? Did I say big? Well, it was a big miss opportunity here that they had. And as you were saying, that come to mind. I know I’m going to choose not to say this person’s name, but when Larry Elder was running for the governor of California in the recall, I think it was probably late last year or early this year, a very prominent pastor had Larry Elder at his Church. I really don’t think that Christian churches should be having politicians in their pulpit, regardless of what side they’re on. But anyway, that’s nearly here in the but anyway, this pastor of a very well known Church, a very well known College, at least in his space, went on Twitter and said, Larry Elder made a decision for Christ today. And there were a lot of people asking him, what do you mean by made a decision request? Did Larry Elder get saved? Shouldn’t Larry Elder be the one who come on Twitter and say this? I was thinking about because why in the world are you going to use such language? That is vague. And when we say someone make a decision for Christ, we normally talk about that. They make a decision for Christ that they got saved, they repented of their sins, and they have trusted Christ as their Savior. I’ve never seen any public confession from Larry Elder of such. But this pastor went on Twitter and said it. And up to this day, I haven’t seen anything that he replied to any of the comments on Twitter of folks accidentally. What do you mean he hasn’t responded to any of them? I haven’t seen any. I haven’t checked, lady, but I haven’t seen any. So I’m just simply saying, I don’t think we need to be careful when it comes to these famous folks, especially that you don’t want to be saying, hey, this person is saved or this person let that person, because I believe that if that person is truly saved, they’re probably going to make it public. If Lariela truly repented of his signature, Christ or the Savior, I don’t see why he would not make it public himself. If Elon truly got saved here, why haven’t he spoken about it in public? When I got saved, I made it as public as possible to my friends and my people in the circle. I’m not saying that, you know, if someone gets saved, that go on social media and blast it to the rest of the world. I just got save on a simply saying, Larry, I’ve put a lot of things on social media. Elon has put a lot of stuff on social media. None of them put on social media. There was a point in a life where they repented of the same and trust cry as a savior. So, yes, the backlash was definitely warranted.

And I think that it was needed because you don’t want folks to believe that. One thing they have to say is that I believe in the goddess pornography. And if Jesus is saving people, well, I won’t stand in his way. No, I think that again, the gospel is simple, but I think there’s a certain things that need to be in place, like the fact that you’re a sinner, which you didn’t see. Why do you think they presented the gospel to him like that then? If you go to their website, you mentioned that on their website, they claim not just to be saved, but that they have a particular theology. They call themselves Baptist. Right. Of course, Baptist can mean a gazillion things nowadays, but typically, if you hear the word Baptist, you’re thinking, okay, they have some handle on theology, whether or not, I guess we could open up a whole can of worms in terms of what their theology is. But you would imagine, at the very least you understand the basic tenets of the gospel.

Why would they present the gospel in that way? You mentioned the fear of man earlier. I wonder if it’s something more than that. I wonder if they were trying to convey that it’s just that simple to trust in Christ, if it was just something that they normally do on their podcast and they thought nothing of it, because this is just what we do type of thing. I’m not an expert in anything. I can’t think of one thing that I can claim that I’m an expert in, so I’m not an expert in reading people by the language or discerning their laughter. But as I said before, forwards the fear of man. I can’t think of any other reason why. And I’m saying that giving them the benefit of the doubt that they actually save now, it could be a possibility that they’re not truly saved. So they don’t know what the true gospel message is. That’s a possibility. But I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. And if they are truly saved and if they’re truly growing in the Lord and all these things, the only other reason I can think of why they would present the gospel the way they did is because of fear of man. It’s because of who Elon is, nothing more, nothing less. It’s like me going into my boss office or the CEO of my company office and presented the gospel to him. Obviously, I’m going to have some kind of fear and some kind of nerve there, because I’m talking about, quote unquote, to some extent, the most important person in the company. Hopefully I will have enough courage and enough boldness to actually present the gospel to him. But the power dynamics was just too great for these men. The richest man in the world, a company that’s trying to get on his feet, trying to come up the field of Tesla and SpaceX, that sending people to the International Space Station, to a company that writes satire that folks half of the country don’t care anything about, and another half probably have never heard of them. Right? So the power dynamics was just too great. And I think because of that, again, down with the four words, not just from a financial perspective, though, the power dynamics were off.

As I said earlier in the podcast, Elon Musk is a very important man, not just because he’s so incredibly rich, but because of his intellect and his intelligence and what he’s trying to do to solve some very real problems that we face in our world today. If you think of innovators and entrepreneurs that have completely changed how we live our lives, you think of people like, for example, let’s say Steve Jobs, for example, with the invention of these little supercomputers that we now carry around in our pockets that have completely revolutionized how we interact. You can talk about people like the Facebook guy, what’s his name, Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. Bill Gates and all these people who created either programs or platforms that fundamentally change how we interact, social media and those kinds of things. Elon in many ways more important than them, because someone who single handedly saved the US aeronautical industry in terms of going into space without having to rely on Russia single handedly just opened up a rocket company, a rocket technology company, so that the US no longer has to rely on a foreign and oftentimes hostile country in order to get to outer space, or Tesla, which is clean energy company that’s seeking to address some real issues in real time. This is not just a very wealthy man, but a very important man in those particular terms. And they just felt like perhaps like you said, the fear of man. We just make satire, we just do this, that or the other, and they gave credence to that. So is your contention with the method or the message of the golfer presentation that they did both, how they did it and what they said all of it was wrong, not a thing they did in that interview was right. Everything was terribly wrong. As I said before, I’m encouraged that so many Christians have come out against what they did. Justin Peters created a rebuttal video that I thought was really great, and I hope that Elon sees it because Justin Peters describes how appalled he was at what they did. And he went on to present the true gospel. And he appealed as though Elon were watching the video and as an extension, anyone who would be deceived into thinking that what the Babylon be presented to Elon was the gospel. Anyone who would be deceived into thinking that as they watch the podcast, Justin Peters appealed to them and gave them the true gospel of Christ. And I would like to make reference to that video, although I personally don’t agree with Justin Peters on every single point of doctrine. But in that particular instance, I think he was on point. He did what the Babylon Bee should have done. So the method of the presentation was wrong. The message was absolutely wrong. I think the objective was wrong as well. I don’t think they were doing it for the sake of Elon’s soul. I don’t think they were doing it for the sake of the glory of God. He made it clear when he prefaced the question with his statement that Babylon B is a Ministry, he made it clear that he was doing it for his own, for lack of a better word, glory or gratification quote. Would you do me this solid? Would you do me this solid? You know what you use the term do me a solid is that literally means Would you do me a favor? Would you help me out this time? Would you do this for me? Salvation is not about you. Salvation is not about you. Salvation is not about a feather in your cap that you can say, oh, I brought Elon Musk to the Lord. No. Salvation ultimately is about the glory of God, but it’s also about the lost soul that’s sitting in front of you. It’s not about you. And so their method was wrong. Their message was wrong. All of it was wrong. And we should push back and we should speak out against it so that no one thinks that that’s okay. Yeah, I definitely agree. I think both the method and the message was definitely missed the Mark.

You mentioned before earlier in the podcast that you felt like the Babylon Bee missed an opportunity to present the gospel. And I know that you mean because Elon was sitting right there and there’s a lost soul right in front of them and they didn’t reach out to him. But could you elaborate on that? What did you mean when you said that the Bee missed an opportunity here? Yeah, I think they missed a big like I said earlier, big, huge opportunity to share the gospel, an opportunity that I believe may never present itself again. Who knows? And even if Elon should join them in another podcast episode, how foolish would they look if they tried to share the gospel with him with someone who they already declared to be saved? So this was a gigantic missed opportunity by the guys at Babylon B. Now, I will also say this, a soul is a soul. And I personally have missed opportunities to share the gospel with others. And we all, I believe, should repent of that. I don’t believe there’s a Christian out there who can say that they have never missed an opportunity or a golden opportunity to share the gospel. And when we do that, when we have the opportunity to share the gospel and we don’t, I think that is a disobedience to Mark 1615, where the Bible says and he said unto them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

If I had everything to share the gospel with Elon, I trust that I would be brave enough to actually present and share the unadulted word of God with him. But I don’t know if I would have opportunities to share the gospel with someone, Elon Musk Thatcher, or even Elon Musk himself. But if I had the opportunity to share the gospel with him or the opportunity to share the gospel with anybody, I will share something like this. You know, the Bible says in two Corinthians, chapter five and verse 21, for he had made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. In that one, verse two Corinthians, chapter five, verse 21, the gospel is summarized. We see here firstly, that we have a great God. The Bible declares, for he who is that he God the Father, and we know that from previous verses. If you look at other verses leading up to verse 21, we know that he is in reference to God the Father. So we see that we have a great God and that God, from the foundation of the world, promised us a Savior. That promise was given to Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman created Genesis, chapter 3:15. The Bible says, And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy feed and her feed, and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise a field. Our great God promises a Savior long before Christ actually died on the cross, providing an escape from a crisis eternity, otherwise known as hell. So we see we have a great God who made us a great promise of a Savior, because God knew that as sinners we cannot save ourselves or we cannot pay the penalty for our sins on our own. So he promised us a Savior.

The Bible says, for he had made him to be sin for us. Made who yet made Christ to be sin for us. We seen John chief 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believe it in him should not perish, but have everlasting in life. John 3:16 is a fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, where God promised Christ, and in John 3:16 we see God sent Christ because he loves us so much. We have a great God, and Elon is not the God of Spinoza. We have a great God who created heaven and Earth, who created Adam, Eve, the first man and the first woman, and through these two all mankind, because of their sin, are sinners not only by birth but by choice. But not only do we see in two Corinthians five, verse 21 a great God, but we also see a great substitute, a great God who promised us Christ. He is our substitute. Elon, listener. You should have died for your sins. You should have hung on that cross. You should have been beaten with the cat of nine tails. You should have the Crown of thorns on your head and beaten into your skull. You should have been marked and split on. You should have your bed plucked out. You should have been buckling under the weight of the cross. But God put Christ in your place. Our great God provided a great substitute which is His Son, to die in your place so that you can be redeemed. You cannot be redeemed to the God of Spanish, so you can believe in Him as much as you want to, but he cannot save small G, God of Spinoza. But we have a great God in the Bible who is your creator, and he says, do and you don’t. And he said, don’t and you do, and that is called sin. The transgression of the law of God is sin. Helen, you have sinned, and that makes you a sinner, and you should have died for your sin. But God gave us a great substitute which is in His Son Jesus Christ. And the reason why you cannot do it is because your sin is exceedingly sinful. The Bible declares in Ivory 64 and very fixed. But we are all as unclean, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. Elon, even the good that you do is no more than a puff filthy rag to God your good works. Can I get dear titles, chapter three, verse five. Not by works of freshness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us according to the great God. His mercy save us by the washing of the regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost in Ephesians two, verse eight and nine. For by Grace are he saved through fate. And that not of yourself. It is a gift of God. Note it is a gift, Elon. You cannot buy it with all the money you have. It is a gift of God, not of works as any man should boast. You have no good works. You can boast of all the good things you do, will not earn your way to heaven because you’re rotten sinner from birth and from choice. And if you can see yourself the way God sees you as a sinner without hope, without any way to be reconciled to God on your own, but to the great substitute which was Jesus Christ.

The Bible said he had made a sin for us who knew no sin, right that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So if you have never realized that you are sinner. Romans, chapter five, verse twelve. We’re by one man sent into the world and debt by sin, and so debt passes for all men, for that all have sinned. Roman street ten as it is written, there’s none righteous, no, not one. Roman street 23 for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And that all includes you, listener, that all includes you, Elon. You are a sinner before God, and in order for you to be saved you cannot do it on yourself, because God will not accept the good works from a filthy sinful hand. But pray the Lord there’s a great substitution, the Bible says in Romans five, verse eight. But God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, while we’re still unlovely, while we were yet in our filth, that substitute, the great substitute Christ died for us. What a substitute. I don’t think Elon will be listening to this podcast, but if Elon does listen to this podcast or even you listener, the Bible declares in Romans chapter ten, verse 9, 10, 13, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus confess means agreeing with the charges against you. The charges against you is that you are sinner and you’re on your way to hell to pay for your own fence. The charges against you is that you cannot do anything or any good work to get out of this punishment. But I say dosha confess what they agree with the charges against you and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believe it unto righteousness and with a mouth confession is made on the Salvation for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Elon if you recognize that you are sinner and your sinful state and confess your sin not again to the small G God of Spinoza which cannot save but Jesus can the one who made a substitutional debt on the cross paid for your sins you can be saved again your riches will not help you and if you recognize what the great God has done for you should a great substitute second Corinthians five, verse 21 says that we might be made of righteous of God in Him. What a great position that great God through the great substitution place us in a great position that we might be made the righteous of God in Him. Wow! he took the beaten and the punishment for our sins. For your sins Elon that we can take on his righteousness. What a great substitution. What a great position for us offer to us by our great God if you have never trust Christ as your Lord and Savior my plea to you listener my plea to you Elon would you trust him today?

Thank you for listening to get a hold of us to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers, go to removingbarriers.Net this has been the Removing Barriers podcast. We attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clear view of the cross.