Pastor Greg Laurie uses snafu at White House to spread the Gospel

Pastor Greg Laurie posted a humorous video to his X on Thursday about how he was accidentally blocked from entering the White House grounds despite being slated to deliver remarks at an Easter service there.

While Laurie joked at the inconvenience of the procedural snafu that locked him out when he expected to go right in, he used his situation to illustrate what many will experience in eternity.

So, I went to the White House to lead a prayer at their very first worship service—and guess what? My name wasn’t on the list!
Yep. Pastor gets denied at the door.

It reminded me of something far more serious—what Jesus said will tragically happen to some people one day when… pic.twitter.com/8aaLhZLOTM

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— Greg Laurie (@greglaurie) April 17, 2025

“So, I went to the White House to lead a prayer at their very first worship service — and guess what? My name wasn’t on the list!” he wrote. “Yep. Pastor gets denied at the door.”

“It reminded me of something far more serious — what Jesus said will tragically happen to some people one day when they step into eternity,” he said. “They’ll expect to be welcomed into Heaven, but their name won’t be in the Book of Life.”

Laurie said he was ultimately allowed entry to speak during an Easter service with White House staffers, who packed into a room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building neighboring the executive mansion.

Preaching to them from a passage in Esther, Laurie encouraged Christians in the new administration to remember that God has placed them in their positions for a reason and urged them not to be afraid.

“God has placed you where you are for such a time as this,” he told them, referencing Esther 4:14.

Laurie also recounted the resurrection story from Matthew 28, and remembered how the angel who rolled the stone away from Christ’s tomb offered a message of courage to the women who witnessed it.

“We want to take this message to heart, to not be afraid right now,” he said. “That was given to first-century believers, but we need to hear it in the 21st century as well.”

Evangelist Franklin Graham followed Laurie, delivering a Gospel message that warned those in power not to presume that God favors them because of their prestigious position.

Graham warned that some he spoke to in the palatial office building neighboring the White House “might be in danger of losing their soul,” and reminded them of Christ’s parable of Lazarus and the rich man.

The parable from Luke 16 tells the story of an unnamed rich man who lived a sumptuous, powerful life, but was still cast into eternal torment upon his death.

Graham noted that remembering those who had warned him in life was likely part of the rich man’s torment.

“What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what should a man get in exchange for his soul?” Graham asked, paraphrasing Mark 8:36. “We all have a soul. It’s going to live as long as God, but it’s going to be in His presence in Heaven, or it’s going to be separated from Him in Hell.”

“Hell is real,” he added.

Graham shared that despite growing up in a devout Presbyterian church as the son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, he had to confess his own sinfulness before embracing his father’s message in his early 20s.

“All of us are guilty; I’m guilty,” he said.

Graham warned those listening that wealth and power cannot save them, and that God is inviting them to find their hope in Jesus Christ alone.

Both Graham and Laurie joined President Donald Trump and other prominent Evangelicals on Wednesday for a small Easter dinner in the Blue Room of the White House.

During brief remarks, the president said that Christ’s atoning work on the cross was God’s way of telling the world, “I love you.”