Roger Marsh: Hello, and thank you for joining us on this Friday edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh and Family Talk is the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. 2020 and the COVID pandemic was and continues to be a trying time for our nation and the world. The disruption, death, and division that had been caused and exposed over the past year and a half, have required us as Christians to press into our faith in God. The closure of the majority of Christian churches in our nation for at least part of the year, just added to the mental and emotional struggles of many. That's where our guest today comes in. After losing a congressional campaign in his home state of California, Sean Feucht felt that God was calling him to lead outdoor worship services all over the country. He knew that the true source of healing and revival is in our Savior, Jesus Christ, and that God requires repentant, poured out hearts before he brings salvation.
Sean is a Christian activist, missionary, speaker and worship leader. He's a graduate of Oral Roberts University and his journeyed around the United States, leading evangelistic worship events, wherever he is invited. Sean Feucht is a singer, songwriter and author. He has released over 22 music albums and co-authored five books, he's also created numerous teaching resources as well. Sean has led evangelistic worship concerts and missionary trips to many countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. Sean and his wife, Kate have four children and make their home in California. Let's listen to Sean's encouraging message right now here on Family Talk.
Sean Feucht: I grew up in Montana until I was about 12 years old and hated Californians. And that's why I think God is so funny that he would then send us to move to California, a place I said, I will never live. Lived in Texas, north Texas, lived in central Pennsylvania, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma, a lot of really great conservative people in those places. And then boom, God dropped us in California. And I have a book called Brazen: Be a Voice, Not an Echo. I wanted to share it this morning because it's the precursor of this season that we're in now. So the first chapter opens up with me, really just feeling like I was a failure. Actually a year and two months ago, when I lost in the election as I was running as a conservative in California. Yeah, I don't recommend that unless you have an angel open a scroll.
Part of my process was I felt like God had tricked me into doing that. And I lost, and I'm like, "I ruined my whole life." I was at the apex of my career as a musician, as a worship leader, as a songwriter. People liked me because I was a missionary as well. And so, 20 years we've been spending, going to dark and hard nations around the world, that's really our heart. And I stand up to do this political thing simply because I'm looking at the future of my children and deeply concerned. Then praying the prayers that God would raise up a pro-life movement to overturn Roe v. Wade. I've been praying the prayers that God would protect the innocence of our kids, been praying the prayers God would transform the education system in America. I've been praying all these prayers.
And then finally the Lord was like, "Well, it's time for you to become a fulfillment of them." And so, when that didn't happen and I blew up my whole career and half the people in America hated me, or maybe more, I don't know. I had no idea that that season was just preparation for one that was way more intense to come. And I didn't even realize how intense it really was until we're right in the middle of it. And I will never forget this. I was with Lou, we were riding to DC to the DC event. We had almost 40,000 people show up in Washington, DC last year, the largest church service in America was on the Mall in DC, Let Us Worship. And I was telling Lou, "Man, we're getting all these death threats and all this stuff," legitimate stuff, not just online and trolls, but letters to our house.
Satanists are running after us with blood in different cities. Antifa, I mean crazy stuff. And I'm like, "It's so wild, Lou. I'm sure you've been through that." And he's like, "No, never been through that." It's like, "Cool, cool. I guess this is a different level." There are times as worshipers where we're just called to go to war. And I hope even my story is an encouragement to some of you, because we have to stop worrying about being misunderstood. David showed up, everybody was lulled to sleep under the spewing of Goliath. They were just used to it. They were used to partnering with just, "Oh, we'll just put Goliath over here and deal with him. He's going to do his thing."
And David shows up and he goes, "Who the heck is this guy, that he can talk like that, that he can speak like that?" And the judgements against David was the fact, his brother said, "David, you just want to be here, because you probably just want to get a selfie with Goliath. You just want to be in the middle of things." And they mistook his confidence in the Lord for arrogance. And David was the one that had to wake them up. He had to remind them, "Hey, listen, we don't partner with the enemy. We obliterate the enemy." And it took that warrior spirit. And so anyway, the Lord had been, I guess preparing me in these nations and everything. So when America shut down, lost the election, my wife and I were just licking our wounds from just getting beat up, and frustrated at the church for not backing us, if I was just honest. And just lost so many friends in that process.
And meanwhile, we're literally just standing for the values that we all believe in. Putting ourselves out there and then everything shuts down, the virus happens, California's the most restrictive. And then our interesting, hilarious governor says that we can't sing. I know you guys have an interesting governor too, but the fact that these guys... Here's what's wild about this, the fact that these guys can say these things is one thing. The fact that people actually do it, comply, blows my mind. And I could do a whole message on Romans 13 thing and how that's so taken out of context.
Listen, there is no biblical theology that allows the government to tell us how and when to worship God. There's no precedent for that in history. In fact, the opposite is true. We can see 2,000 years of history where the church has worshiped through pandemic, through persecution. I tell people I'm like, "Listen, are you kidding me? I'm not going to allow a 99.9% survivable virus to stop me from worshiping God, you're out of your mind." And listen, my family's on healthcare. I'm the only non-doctor in my family. I don't know what that says about me, and so I understand that it's real. I understand, I get all that. But the point is that this is a season in America where it's really exposed. It's really exposed how courageous we are, how willing we are to be misunderstood. And do we fear God above man?
I deal with this with my friends. And when we stood up, I thought the Congress season was wild. When we stepped into this season, it was a level I never imagined. I was sharing a little bit last night, but we were worshiping, it was just a spontaneous thing happened on the Golden Gate Bridge. We went down to Huntington Beach, 1,000 people showed up and then the cities that were exploding with violence, Portland, Seattle, the Lord kept speaking to me about bringing worship into these cities.
And he's like, "Just like you've done in Iraq, in front of ISIS. Just like you've done in Afghanistan with the Taliban, you're called to do it in your own nation." And I'm like, "I tried, I tried to change things. Send me back to the nations." I had my friends, all my underground church friend leaders in China, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq. When this whole thing was shut down, they were texting me going, "Hey Sean, remember, don't listen to those guys. Remember what we've taught you. Remember how we worship." Probably the largest worship service in the history, modern history of Saudi Arabia happened two, three years ago. I was invited to this thing. I thought it was going to be 10 people there. And I show up and 3,000 Saudi Arabians. There's no warm-up music in those countries. They're not like trying to warm themselves up.
They don't do that. They were wild. They were worshiping for four hours straight before I even got there. And then I got a guitar and I'm like, "They're singing the words. I'm just trying to follow them the whole time." So we're going into Portland. And the sheriff calls me, he's a great guy, calls me. He asks me, begs me, "Please don't come into Portland. We can't control the city. We can't control Antifa. We got the feds everywhere. We don't even know who the feds are or our own police officers are. We got people getting stabbed and killed. We don't even have the ability to chase down all of the aggressors." And I'll never forget, I felt that oppressive, demonic spirit that was attacking me, "Yeah, just back down, Sean."
And then I had pastors, several pastors emailing me, calling me saying, "How dare you call our worshipers to come to a dangerous part of the city?" And I was thinking, "See, this is where our theology got a little messed up. Those are the places we're called to go to." And I almost canceled it. And then I shared the story last night, I had my Russian friends, "Brother Sean, we will meet you tomorrow. We got the sound system." And I love going with the Russians because they tell me all the time, "We refuse to allow the place where we live to become like where we fled."
And so, we threw up a graphic and called people to worship, and 6,000 people showed up in downtown Portland. And at the time I could... It was hard to even get credibility with the charismatic church, the prophesying church. I couldn't even get the people that... We prophesy this, we sing this, we share this. And then after Portland, thank God people like Franklin Graham were like, "Whatever this kid's doing, this is God. We got to get behind him." He posted on Facebook. It was the number one shared post on Facebook in the world that day. Isn't that crazy?
Turn to Matthew 16. So this is the moment we're in, in America, the American church. We're going through this identity crisis of trying to discover who we are. Are we cool church? Are we a Christian club? Are we relevant? Are we making sure that we don't offend people? Gosh, we're going to look back at our life and think, "We just tried so hard to fit in when we were never supposed to in the first place." I love this verse in Matthew 16, because Jesus is asking Peter, listen, after three years of traveling with him, seeing the signs of wonder, seeing the miracle, seeing the feeding of the 5,000, hearing the sermon on the Mount, seeing all the theology, Peter is still kind of like, "Well, I don't really know."
The disciples bring me great solace because these guys were eye witnesses of everything and it still took them a bit. So, Jesus goes to Peter and he goes, "Hey, listen, who do people say I am?" The famous question that we all have to ask, not who does the mob say I am? Who does social media say? No, no, who do you I am? And Peter goes, "Oh, well that's easy. I mean, some people say this, they say that you're Elijah. Others say that you're Jeremiah. Some people say that you're this." Jesus goes, "No, that wasn't my question. I'm not looking for public opinion. I'm asking you, what do you personally profess about who I am?"
And Peter goes, "Hold on, let me think. Let me think. You are the Messiah, the son of the living God." And all of heaven goes, "Finally." The angels are working overtime to convince this guy. It's like, "Yes, he finally gets it." Jesus goes, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. The only way you can catch that revelation is from the Father." This is how you catch that revelation is from the father. It's not from the media. It's not from the narrative of the world. It's not from whatever, it's from the father. And so Jesus goes, "Bless you." And so he says, "In return for you professing who I am, I'm going to profess who you are."
The only way you can find identity, and this is where I feel like we're shifting. Listen, the post-COVID church looks a lot different than the pre-COVID church. All of the research is suggesting that at the very most, the George Barna Research says at the very most, 60% of the is going to return, the very most. But I can tell you what I've seen across America in 90 cities. If this is the church, if this is the 60%, I'll take this any day of the week. Because, we are seeing things I would never dream of in my life. The church is getting her roar back. We're getting our grit back. We're getting our courage back. We're finally starting to stand up for stuff.
And COVID in this season of oppression and intensity, that's been hard for so many of us. It's really refined us. And it's really showed us what we're made of and more than anything, it showed us what we think about who He is. And so Jesus goes, "Okay, here's your job description. As long as you know who I am," and we're moving past the self-help gospel. We're moving past the look inward into yourself to find out, you ain't going to find nothing good, when you look inward. That's a lie from the pit of hell. And if you believe that theology, you can get free today. Just look inward and just find your... And I'm a millennial, and that's the thing, let's just find our inner. I'm like, "Y'all are messed up, man. You ain't going to find nothing good in there."
Jesus goes, "Because you professed who I am, this is who you are." And he says, "You are Peter. And on this rock, ecclesia." The word rock there, ecclesia means ruling body government. She's with me. You know what that means? You're kind of a big deal. Turn to someone, say, "You're kind of a big deal." This is not a club where we're gathering to sing three fast and three slow and punch our card on the way out the door. You establish the government on the earth. We're worshiping, we're singing, we're praying. And guess what's happening in the spiritual realm around us? God is sitting enthroned on the praises of His people. This is why we go to DC because when we go to worship there, we're building the government higher than the White House higher than the Capitol.
And this is why we're going back in September and all y'all are going to come, because now more than ever, we need the government of God in America. But Jesus is giving Peter the job description. You are the ecclesia and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it. It's so funny, man. These funny politicians, they don't understand the church and the enemy overplayed his hand. "We'll I'll get him really good. I'm going to shut every church down and release a demonic virus and make them all fearful." It's like, "Uh oh, guess what you just did. The church left the building." Now we're taking over the parks. Now we're taking over the beach. Now we're taking over the downtown and the enemy overplayed his hand and he had no idea what was coming.
You should have seen it. I wish all of you could've seen the moment when we showed up in the Chop Autonomous Zone in Seattle. 3,000 Christians rolled up in there. Antifa was like, "What is happening?" They didn't know what to do. And we were just declaring, "Listen, Malachi 1:11, from the rising to the setting of the sun. Every place in sense is going to arise. Every square inch of planet earth is the Lord's." There's not one place, whether it's in society or whether its real estate on planet earth, that can have any safety from worship. We're taking it all.
So, he says, "The gates of hell will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Isaiah 22:22 has been one of the key verses for my life. The key of David that shuts doors that no man can shut and opens doors that no man can open, it's worship. This is what you guys were doing for three days here. Some of y'all are like, "Man, all these crazy worshipers from all over. They were over here and they hijacked the church and" they wouldn't stop singing. Guess what? That's the new normal. Get ready. That's not just a once a year thing, that's about to be an everyday thing.
And you know what, one day the songs never going to stop. I'll give you the keys to the kingdom. Whatever you bind on the earth would bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on the earth will be loosed in heaven. So Jesus is telling Peter, "Listen, you may have an identity crisis that you're just coming out of." What's incredible is he's releasing this authority on Peter, who's kind of a messed up guy still. He's coming out of hiding. He's coming out of his... And this is before Peter denies Jesus, a few chapters later. Jesus is reminding him, "This is your identity. What you bind, what you loose, what you break. This is a big deal. What you carry, the authority that you carry is a big deal." This is what the church in America, this is the identity crisis we're walking through right now.
I had this prophetic moment with my kids when we were watching The Lion King. I have four kids, so I take prophetic moments however they come. Watching the Lion King, Simba's walking in the jungle. It's the part of the movie where he lost his father and he's depressed and hopeless and Scar's out to kill him. And he's mangy, and he's the most saddest, depressed lion there is. Simba looks down in the puddle on the ground. And instead of seeing a picture of himself, this depressed and hopeless and dejected, he sees a picture of his father. He remembers his identity. And I feel like what we've encountered over the last three days, and what happens in the place of worship is we remember who we are again. We get rid of the divisive narratives and the rhetoric of the media and the fear that's enraptured in our culture. And we get out of this whole thing and we go, "Oh, that's right. You are the son of God. That's right. When I worship and pray, things shift. That's right. I carry divine authority to bind, to loose, to set free."
And just now in this season, we're stepping into an awakening across America like you never would imagine. I want to show you these pictures real quick from the Jesus People Movement. Anybody remember that? Any hippies in here? Come on, any Jesus People Movement hippies? So here we go. This is the late sixties, early seventies in California. Now why did God start this thing in California? Because he's funny. And he wants to use the most restrictive place in America. The most difficult place to worship in this season to shift the whole world. Signs, wonders, miracles, people getting baptized. People high, blitzed out on drugs, getting baptized, getting sobered up. Visions, dreams. The incredible launching that came from this movement that changed America, centralized a lot, happened in southern California.
And the Lord says, "No, I'm awakening a raw, rowdy, wild undomesticated movement." So he began to speak this to us. And I had a dream. I was like, "God, I wonder if you would do it again in Corona Del Mar. Looking at these pictures, I wonder if you'd do it again?" Last weekend, this is what happened in Corona Del Mar. Look at that. How wild is that? This is southern California. This is mega church heaven, right? But guess what? All the churches are shut. So it's time to go to the cliffs, baby. It's time to find our voice again. It's time to get raw.
And I love it. In Newport Beach, we told the mayor, we said, "Hey, heads up, we're going to come take over Newport Beach." He's like, "All right, I guess I can't do anything." We're like, "You're right. You can't, we're coming." We set up the big sound system there, they didn't have that sound system, the Jesus People Movement. And then at the end of the worship, people getting healed, saved, delivered, suicide being broken. People were coming up that had been cutting, they had marks from cutting, from suicide. Their cutting marks were dissolved. Crazy guys. And then we were like, "All right, we got to go to the cliffs."
And we went to the cliffs and the water's freezing. People just one after another getting baptized, presence of God. I'm telling you, we are in the middle of a new Jesus People Movement in America. These are some of the greatest days to be alive. Are you with me? We are the church, Matthew 16, God is reminding us who we really are again. This is why there's such a battle over worship, because its who we are. It's what we're called to do. And when we do it, things change.
Roger Marsh: You're listening to Family Talk. And you just heard a presentation from worship leader and missionary, Sean Feucht. In the summer of 2020, Sean traveled the nation to hold worship services in some of the most violent, depressed cities in the US. His goal, to lead God's people in worshiping the Lord in freedom, regardless of their circumstances. Now you can learn more about Sean Feucht and his ministry by visiting our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. And while you're there, be sure you also search for a previous broadcast as well, in addition to Dr. Dobson's bestselling books and many other great family resources. It's all waiting for you at drjamesdobson.org/broadcast.
Thanks so much for joining us on Family Talk today and every day this week, be sure to join us again on Monday as we continue to bring you relevant, encouraging broadcasts to help you build a healthy, God-fearing family. I'm Roger Marsh, have a blessed weekend.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.