The Biggest Story Of The Week

About The Biggest Story Of The Week

Pastor Heath Lambert takes the biggest story in the news each week and evaluates it in an intentionally biblical and Christian way.

Publisher

Heath Lambert

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

14 Mar 2025

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

54 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Oct 2026

   A Plan to Take Back America for Jesus

   A Plan to Take Back America for Jesus Heath Lambert Christian Nationalism and American Decline For years, Christians have noticed the moral decay of our society and have lamented the creeping secularism of our culture. Most Christians do not believe that America was ever a utopian paradise of perfection, but also know our country has drifted from a shared morality and a cultural consensus around the truthfulness and goodness of Christianity. Some have referred to this drift as a movement from the positive world where Christianity was assumed and accepted to a negative world where our faith is viewed with skepticism and hostility. The Christian response to this change has often looked like panic and frustration. These responses have led to intense debate among Christians about the best way forward. Some leaders have argued that Christians should embrace the culture defeat and begin to live as a prophetic minority. Others have argued that Christians should fight back hard and work to make America a Christian nation. That has led to many other debates, including whether such a project is wise, possible, justified by Scripture, and even what a Christian nation would look like. All these debates are important. Like many Christians, I have strong opinions on them and believe there is a time and place to debate them. I also think the contemporary debates obscure a basic consensus among Christians. Even as we debate the Christian response to American cultural decline, there are four steps we can take that most Christians will not consider controversial. They are steps that any Christian can take right now to help us recover what has been lost. Pastors Must Preach The first step is that every man called to preach must be committed to preaching that demonstrates how God’s Word calls Christians to appropriate political engagement. A commitment to do this is harder than it sounds. One reason this is difficult is because of the role models of many preachers. Many preachers today were influenced by ministers from a prior generation who made an intentional and strategic decision to avoid political engagement in their ministries. Those ministers were reacting to a generation of preachers before them who they judged to be focused on political engagement to the point of distraction. They believed this engagement damaged their ability to preach about the gospel of God’s grace to everyone. Their hope was that silence on controversial matters of politics would lead to increased influence as they preached the gospel message. This well-intended decision had disastrous consequences. One problem with it is that it is simply not faithful to Scripture. Christian ministers are not allowed to pick and choose the parts of the Bible they will address or the people to whom they will address that teaching. We are to preach the whole counsel of God to the whole people of God. That means we must preach the parts of the Bible that apply to politics. The Bible is no political manual, but God does share his mind with his people on countless issues in the public square. God provides specific direction on crucial policy debates about abortion, marriage, so-called “go marriage,” the transgender issue, and many others. The Bible offers helpful guidance on everything from tax policy to zoning rules. When we Christian ministers ignore the biblical teaching on these matters, we deprive God’s people of God’s instruction, and we leave a vacuum in the public square that will be filled. And that is what happened. Christian silence on these matters has not led to Christianity’s increase in our culture, but its decline. One of the most important ways Christians can take America back for Jesus is by listening to preachers every week who will simply preach the true, pure Word of God and apply it to the situations we are all facing out there in the world. Believers Must Shine A second step is for believers in Jesus to shine. In Matthew 5:16, Jesus says, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” That passage means that every Christian reading, watching, or listening to these words needs intentionally to focus on developing a reputation for being a Christian in their family, neighborhood, work, or school. You must live your life so that the people around you eventually know you to be a committed and joyful follower of the Lord Jesus. There are a million miniature acts which pack a massive punch that any Christian can do: you can find ways to be the person that people know as praying for them, you can deliver a delicious treat to the family on the block who just moved in or is going through a hard time, you can invite your friends to church and to lunch after to talk about what they learned, you can be the servant who offers to help out with a home project on the weekend, you could be the nice kid at school that doesn’t gossip, bully, or tell dirty jokes, your house can be the one on the street at Halloween that doesn’t just give the very best candy but a written invitation to an event at your church, you can host a prayer meeting for anyone who wants to come, you could invite people to an evangelistic Bible study that would address what Scripture says about a controversial topic, you could tell people how much a faithful book on Christianity has influenced you, gift it to them, and take them to lunch to talk about it. And of course, you can do all these things, ready to share your personal testimony and biblical truth about the salvation that comes through Jesus. There are multiple things on that list that any normal Christian should do. And we do not have a chance of taking America back for Jesus until Christians start doing all of them and more. Christians Must Engage A third step Christians must take is to engage in the political process. Most specifically, here, I mean that Christians must run for office. Only a very select handful of Christians could run for high elected office like President, Governor, or Congressman. But there are plenty of other elected positions Christians can fill. There are neighborhood homeowners associations, community zoning boards, city councils, school boards, state representatives, mayors, and many other opportunities. Most churches have at least one Christian with the competency for some of these positions, and some churches have dozens of people that could do it. Romans 13:4 says that government is “God’s servant for your good.” Christians are the people who have a relationship with God and so are most equipped to use the levers of governmental power to honor God. Some of you are the exact kinds of people who could begin making decisions today to get elected and make a difference for Christ in your community. You should consider doing it. Intellectuals Must Instruct A third step is for some Christians to become intellectual leaders on this topic who will teach the larger church. So many of the issues that Christians face are obviously clear-cut matters of Christian morality. But many other issues are quite delicate and require very careful thinking. Issues of taxation, religious freedom, the specific rules regulating legal immigration, and numerous other matters all require careful thought and communication. We need growing numbers of Protestant—and especially Baptist leaders—to do this work. The gold standard on this are people like Al Mohler, Andrew Walker, and Denny Burk at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. We need many more like them who can help the church navigate these complex cultural waters with faithfulness. Every Christian can shine the light of Christ in their context. A significant number can become elected officials who influence government at every level. A smaller group will have the kind of intellectual gifts and opportunities to teach the church how to grow in this way. But God is raising up people to do this, and one of those people could be you. The Way Forward Every faithful American Christian with their eyes open knows we are living in dark and desperate times that absolutely represent a slide away from where we have been. Every faithful American Christian also knows that our ultimate citizenship and our ultimate hope is not on earth, and not in America, but in heaven. But every faithful American Christian also knows that, during the days of our life on earth, God has made this place our home. God has raised each one of us up to be alive in these days. He is calling us to be salt and light in a culture of decay and darkness. He is calling all of us to be his ambassadors and do our part to make sure that when we go to our eternal home, we leave our earthly one better than we found it. There is something for all of us to do. Some of us are called to preach. Some are called to be expert thinkers who instruct the entire church. Even more, we will be called to get involved in their local governments. But every single Christian can do something. That includes you. So, pray. Ask the Lord to help you get involved, then pick something I mentioned or make something else up, and go use your life to make a difference for King Jesus.

2. 

   2 Oct 2026

   Authentic Truth about Artificial Intelligence

   Authentic Truth about Artificial Intelligence Heath Lambert The AI Revolution Is Here Artificial Intelligence has been in the news a great deal lately, and that is not going to change. But in the last few weeks, there has been a lot of talk about the dangers of AI. In early September, Jacob Coxon, a researcher and developer for artificial intelligence at Anthropic and OpenAI, publicly resigned, saying he could no longer accept the risk of working on the products. He said the various corporations developing AI are more concerned about beating one another in a contemporary AI race than they are about deploying the technology in a safe way. He ominously warned that AI could threaten the existence of human life by the end of the decade. Many statements have followed this warning: some have said the statement dramatically overstates the risk posed by AI, others have said the statement understates the risk, others have called for governmental regulation to protect against the supposed threat, others have said that no governmental regulation can adequately address the threat we now face. This week the President of the United States seemed to acknowledge that AI has a real PR problem as he called on Americans to refer to the technology, not as artificial intelligence, but as super intelligence. If nothing else, the swarm of attention at least means that the AI revolution is here, that the revolution can feel scary at times, and that every Christian needs to think carefully about where we are in this moment. I want to make a start at this careful thinking by highlighting three truthsin the uncertain world of artificial intelligence. The AI Revolution Cannot Be Stopped The first truth about this revolution is that there is no way to stop it or even slow it down. One of the most significant conversations recently has concerned the best way to regulate the advance of the technology. Some, including Jensen Huang, arguably, the most significant leader in the AI revolution has said the best regulation is for AI companies to regulate themselves. He advocates this approach because every company wants to avoid failure in the marketplace, and the best way to ensure failure is to release a destructive product. Others, including the leaders of some technology firms, have asked the federal government to regulate corporations, who will be unwilling to impose accountability measures without legislation. There are problems with any effort to impose regulation. Jensen Huang’s argument that private corporations will avoid releasing damaging technology out of the selfish desire to achieve success in a competitive market overlooks the law of unintended consequences and the possibility that a company interested in success could accidentally release a threatening technology. The appeal for governmental regulation is, if anything, worse. Governmental regulation has two serious flaws. The first problem is competency. There is no way legislators in Washington, D.C. will be able to develop the competence to fashion coherent legislation in a highly sophisticated and rapidly developing segment of technology. The second problem is jurisdiction. Even if the American government could figure out how to craft helpful legislation, their laws would have no force in places like China where people are working just as hard as Americans to be on the cutting edge of development. There is no way to stop the AI revolution, to slow it down, or to grant any one person or control over where we go from here. There is no pause button, and there is no rewind button. As my papaw used to say, the horse is out of the barn. Our best bet is to unleash the ingenuity of countless inventors and entrepreneurs. In the past, when we have developed technology that caused problems, we have had to work hard to develop more technology to solve those problems. We need to pray we will be able to do that here. AI Can Neither Destroy nor Perfect All Human Life Many will receive it as a hard truth that AI is an unstoppable reality because of the fears and predictions of many that AI will bring about the extinction of human life. Processing this concern requires understanding a few realities. First, expert opinions about the results of the AI revolution exist on a continuum. On one extreme are the AI Skeptics. Skeptics are the experts who believe the AI revolution is going to bring about the most dire consequences, including the extinction of the human race. Skeptics are the ones we hear about most often because doom and gloom increases views and clicks that generate advertising revenue. But AI skepticism is only one perspective. On the other extreme are AI Utopians. The utopians believe AI will generate such remarkable advances in technology that an idyllic society will be the result. When people of equivalent expertise make opposite predictions, it is fair to say we do not actually know where all this will lead us. What we do know is that AI is guaranteed to be a bigger phenomenon than anyone can imagine. Regardless of how significant you think the revolution is going to be, it will be bigger than that. The AI revolution is going to dwarf the industrial revolution, the communication revolution, the technological revolution, and the digital revolution. People who are concerned that this is going to impact every area of life are correct. Some of that impact will be good, like the marvels that are certainly on the way in medicine, communications, and travel. Some of that impact will be bad, like the challenges to morality, privacy, security, jobs, and even the loss of life. In spite of all the blessings and curses that are coming, Christians know that AI does not have the power to lead either to utopia or an apocalypse. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 says, “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” AI is going to make some things better and some things worse. Some of those improvements are likely to be better than you can imagine right now. Some curses of AI will be absolutely horrifying. But history ends and eternity begins with Jesus, not with anything human beings can make. AI Will Increase the Value of Relationship Right now, AI appears to be a threat to human relationship. We read reports of people asking AI questions they used to ask their parents, of church members raising theological problem to AI that used to go to pastors, and even hurting people using AI as a digital therapist. As concerning as such practices are, I suspect one of the blessings of AI will be the ways it increases human relationship. God designed human beings to interact with other people. He designed us to be instructed and to grow and change through relationship. The isolation that comes with interacting with the shining blue light of a screen glowing in your face will create an environment of cold detachment from others that will, at first, create decay in our relationships. But the decay of those relationships is the very thing that will eventually create increased desire for personal contact and authentic human interaction. This is already happening. The other day, a group of students from First Baptist came up to me and started asking theological questions. They had very clearly been chewing on these matters for a while, had been waiting to speak to me specifically, and were reading their questions from text messages they had been sending to one another. As they read the questions from their phones and expressed gratitude that I was talking to them, it occurred to me that the very phones from which they asked their questions also had AI applications that could have answered their questions long before they came to me. I asked why they waited so long to talk to me when they might have asked ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or any other AI app. These students look at me with incredulous suspicion. It was quiet for several moments. The look on their faces made it seem like they were trying to decide whether I was insane or not. Finally, one spoke up and said, “Well, we want to know what you think, not AI.” I think we can expect more statements like that in the future, not less. The AI revolution poses definite challenges for Christians these days. But I think the opportunities are far greater. Jesus has been building his church for two millennia, and he is committed to that work even in the midst of the AI revolution. In these days full of chaos and concern, it is Christians who can be a steady source of stability, a pillar and buttress of truth, and a place where people can find love and relationship in a digital world.

3. 

   25 Sept 2026

   The Cold Hard Truth About Iran

   The Cold, Hard Truth about Iran Developments in the Conflict with Iran In the last week, there have been several developments in America’s unpopular conflict with Iran. President Trump returned early from Camp David to the White House, and Benjamin Netanyahu made a surprising return to Israel. Both President Trump and the president of Iran have made statements in New York at the meeting of the United Nations. And, in recent days, President Trump has said that he is in a “deciding mode.” It is impossible at this point to know how this conflict will end. What is certain is that Americans in general are growing tired of the conflict in Iran, which they never really supported in the first place. The Cost of the Iranian Conflict Americans are unhappy with the Iranian conflict because of its tremendous costs. Americans do not want to pay the costs of an ongoing conflict that puts American lives at risk on the other side of the world. Americans are also uninterested in disrupting their comforts at home by paying increased costs for things like gasoline. No American wants Iran to be a global threat. Neither do they appear eager at this point to pay the necessary costs of eliminating that threat. But this situation is more complicated than a mere verdict of approval or disapproval allows, and Americans would do well to remember that. There is Always a Cost Americans need to remember that we live in a sinful world where there is a cost to absolutely everything. For 50 years, American governments have been at odds with the Islamic Fundamentalist regime in Iran. The Iranian regime is committed to violence, has often resorted to terrorism, and would, if it could, develop a nuclear weapon they would be happy to use against the United States, which they consider to be the great Satan. In responding to this threat, American presidential administrations typically intervene with financial pressure. Until Donald Trump. The calculation of President Trump is that the threat Iran poses is too great to be overlooked and that the United States must at least try addressing the threat with force. The political cost Trump is currently paying is exactly why previous presidents have avoided it. The question, however, is not whether we will pay a cost, but which cost we will pay. Right now, most Americans consider the costs of this conflict to be undesirable. But since everything comes at a cost, we should consider the cost of allowing Iran to develop as a threat. This cost ought to be particularly apparent following the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. In the months after those attacks, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had to answer hard questions about whether they did enough to avoid those attacks. Both men were in possession of intelligence that the al Qaeda network was planning a large attack with the potential use of airplanes. Both Bush and Clinton argued strenuously that their intelligence was not specific enough to stop the 9/11 hijackings from happening. The point is that there were people willing to hold those leaders accountable if their inaction in the short term created an overwhelmingly painful cost that might have been prevented. We need to remember this in the conflict with Iran. For decades, American presidents have had much clearer knowledge of Iranian nuclear ambitions than anything we ever possessed about the terror plans of al Qaeda. Our increased knowledge about Iranian intentions forces a reckoning about which cost we are willing to pay. Are Americans willing to avoid paying the cost of discomfort today if that requires paying the cost of a nuclear attack tomorrow? These are the calculations that are before the American president. Any president must make these calculations knowing the responsibility they will bear if their unwillingness to pay costs in the short term leads to worse costs in the long term. Some Conflict is Intractable Americans also need to remember that we live in a sinful world where not every conflict is winnable or easily so. This reality makes the decision to use force against Iran even more complicated. No decision to use force is a guarantee that our engagement will be easy, quick, or even ultimately satisfactory. This is not a problem with any particular president, but with the hard reality of life in a sinful world. In such a world, the challenges to winning a conflict with Iran are considerable. On the one hand, there is the nature of the enemy. Iran is governed by Islamic radicals who are not interested in being accepted on the global stage. This means the normal carrots and sticks of international diplomacy are nearly worthless in this situation. On the other hand, there is the nature of what an unqualified victory would require. In order to declare absolute victory in Iran, the United States would have to project a massive amount of power on that side of the world well beyond what any American would support. Meanwhile, it is not necessary for Iran to come close to defeating the American military. All they need to do is stay in the fight. Understanding that everything has a cost, and that some problems are not solvable, can help us respond to Iran. It is easy to evaluate the conflict in Iran using the same tired political grid we are accustomed to these days, where those who support President Trump trust him and give the benefit of the doubt, while those who hate him use it as another evidence of his incompetence and unfitness. Christians have a higher calling than this. First Timothy 2:1-2 says, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions . . .” Our responsibility as Christians is not blind support nor blind hatred of any president. Neither is our responsibility to think we have better ideas about how to handle complex problems after watching a few hours of watching news or scrolling social media. Our first responsibility is to pray. We need to pray for President Trump. In a world where there are always costs, we need to pray that God would give him the wisdom to pay the right ones. In a world where some problems are intractable, we need to pray that the current conflict would not be one of them. Regardless of your support for or opposition to President Trump, it will be a blessing to all of us if he can succeed and terrible if he fails. So, let’s pray for him. These realities remind us that the conflict throughout history can only finally be conquered by Jesus Christ. The world’s one true King, who is alone the Prince of Peace, promises he will end all conflict and place his enemies under his feet. But the promises to do that will be fulfilled on the last day when he brings history to a close. Only on that day will all conflict end. If you’re watching, listening, or reading to Truth in These Days, that day is, apparently, not today. That means we are all living in a world full of heavy costs where no important victory is easy or even always possible. So, we need to pray. We need to pray for this conflict. We need to pray for our president. And we need to pray, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

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Podcast Authority Score: 17 / 100

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