BY : Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter
Lakepointe Church Pastor Josh Howerton says he sees a “resurgence of the purposes of God” taking place across the U.S. as Americans grow increasingly weary of what he calls “a non-ignorable dark force in the world.”
The U.S., he said, is a “prodigal nation” that is beginning to find its way back.
Howerton, whose Texas-based megachurch draws about 30,000 people weekly, made the comments in an episode of “The Shawn Ryan Show” released Monday. When host Shawn Ryan asked why Christianity seems to be “the one religion that is totally acceptable to disparage,” Howerton replied, “That’s exactly what the Bible said was going to happen.”
He explained that he sees attacks on Christianity as part of a broader spiritual battle. “There’s this tacit assumption throughout the entire Bible that Satan is really over all of the world’s systems,” he said, “and that’s why everything in the world aligns against one thing in particular: Christianity, Christ and Christians.” He added simply, “I think Satan is so real and so evil.”
Howerton said the devil has gained significant “momentum on the field” by shaping much of contemporary culture. But he sees a pattern in that success: “The devil always overplays his hand.”
As an example, Howerton pointed to how some men are now asking, half-seriously, “Who’s going to tell my son he can’t be a chick?” a reference to widespread promotion of transgenderism and castrating children suffering from gender confusion.
The church, he said, has become one of the few cultural spaces still standing against that shift. “You got to the spot where there wasn’t many places in our culture left besides the church of Jesus Christ.”
The conversation also turned to broader religious trends. Howerton noted that while religious attendance and Christian identification have been declining for years across the U.S. and the West, the opposite trend is underway in the developing world.
He also pointed to anecdotal signs of a domestic turnaround, saying, “the tide’s turning.” Citing conversations with “every pastor I talk to,” he said church leaders are reporting more people getting saved and baptized than ever before.Howerton attributes this shift to rising awareness of moral decline. “The obviousness of darkness has become so smack you in the face” that people, especially young men, have “awakened to the reality that there was a non-ignorable dark force in the world,” he said.
That awareness, he added, naturally leads people toward faith: “If there’s a darkness, there must be a light. And that light has a name, and his name is Jesus Christ. I honestly think that’s a lot of what’s going on.”
Ryan agreed, adding his own take on the cultural moment. He said there’s “never been more distrust in U.S. institutions, world institutions, our government,” largely because “we’ve been lied to a lot by pretty much both sides of the political spectrum.” He said both political parties have let down the people who “stood behind and propped up” their leaders.
“We can’t even figure out what gender people are anymore,” Ryan said. “There’s just nothing to really ground yourself in anymore anywhere except the Word.” He added that people are searching for something concrete, and increasingly finding it in Scripture: “We’ve put our faith in men, in human beings,” a bet, he suggested, that keeps failing.
Howerton echoed the sentiment, framing it as a warning against political idolatry. “There’s some things that I hope a human leader will do,” he said, “but at the end of the day, I’m not going to trust a king. I’ve really got to put something in the king of kings.”
That idea led Howerton to the parable of the Prodigal Son. “I feel like we’ve got a bit of a prodigal nation,” he said, comparing the country to the wayward son who eventually concludes, “Everything else didn’t work, but I know I can go home to dad.” Howerton believes a similar realization may be dawning across the country: “We tried everything else, and it didn’t work. I wonder if I could go home to my Heavenly Father.”
The conversation then shifted to forgiveness. Howerton said he sees “a really weird connection in the Bible between satanic and demonic activity and unforgiveness.” He explained that “Beelzebub,” one of the Bible’s names for Satan, translates to “Lord of the Flies,” and drew a comparison to how flies infest untreated wounds, turning something survivable into something fatal.
“When Jesus calls Satan Beelzebub, what he’s saying is: Hey man, every wound you’ve got, if you don’t close it by the power of Jesus Christ, His blood and forgiveness, that is a wide-open pathway for Satan’s work in your life,” Howerton said. He described unforgiveness as “a portal straight into your soul for Satan and demons.”
He added, “If Heaven is the place where everybody’s forgiven, and Hell is the place where nobody’s forgiven … when we forgive, we pull Heaven down into our lives … and when we choose not to forgive, we pull Hell up into our lives.”
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