Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Matt Thayer: Does God Still Speak Through Prophets Today?

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Matt Thayer: Does God Still Speak Through Prophets Today? · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:03
  Welcome to Worldview Matters.
• 0:05
  Discussing controversial issues, discerning current events, defending biblical Christianity.
• 0:13
  No topic, off limits.
• 0:16
  And now, here's your host, David Fiorazzo.
• 0:20
  This is hearing the voice of the Lord and being faithful to it.
• 0:23
  I had a dream where Jesus appeared in the dream.
• 0:25
  And I heard a voice and it began to speak to me.
• 0:32
  Some people absolutely have the gift of prophecy.
• 0:35
  But how does this apply to America?
• 0:37
  It's up for us Christians to understand that it is the word of God that needs to be the bedrock of any functioning and flourishing civilization.
• 0:44
  When you hear his voice in the mouths of his messengers, it tunes people into knowing what he sounds like.
• 0:51
  What is a false prophet?
• 0:53
  What people don't understand is that the kingdom of darkness has a level of accuracy.
• 0:57
  Satan would love Christians, so just be a spectator, not engage, not participate.
• 1:02
  Friends, family, and Christ, welcome to another episode.
• 1:05
  Very important podcast today.
• 1:07
  New project coming out called Can You Hear Me Now?
• 1:11
  And I want to introduce to you Matthew Thayer.
• 1:13
  He's been telling stories his entire life.
• 1:16
  He's a filmmaker with an ability to tell stories that connect with audiences' hearts.
• 1:21
  Matt has a passion to tell stories of hope, life, and redemption.
• 1:25
  And in addition to the genre-bending docudrama, The Enemy Within,
• 1:30
  Matthews directed the acclaimed No Limbs, No Limits, which we had Nick Vujicic on a month ago to talk about that one.
• 1:36
  That's in theaters in a matter of days.
• 1:39
  And also The Trump I Know, Selection Code, and State of Denial Arizona.
• 1:45
  Plus, the Reawakening series.
• 1:48
  He has won 14 Telly Awards for his scripted and documentary work, as well as multiple directing awards from film festivals across the country.
• 1:58
  We're talking about a brand new project again called Can You Hear Me Now?
• 2:02
  Very important.
• 2:03
  And you can stream it today.
• 2:05
  But to tell us more about that, welcome, Matt Thayer.
• 2:08
  Good to see you, brother.
• 2:10
  Hey, David.
• 2:10
  Good to be here with you, man.
• 2:12
  Thanks for your time.
• 2:12
  So the website, spiropictures.com, that is S-P-E-R-O pictures.com.
• 2:19
  You can get so much more information.
• 2:21
  They can get all the links to all of your projects.
• 2:24
  First of all, welcome.
• 2:25
  It's so good to talk with you.
• 2:26
  I've seen some of your projects, but never got a chance to connect.
• 2:30
  And so this is really good.
• 2:31
  So
• 2:33
  I don't know.
• 2:33
  I'm struggling with what question to ask first, because I want to talk about your background and starting in your basement in 2009, reluctantly doing documentaries.
• 2:44
  But obviously, a question on a lot of people's minds is,
• 2:48
  Charlie Kirk, you were one of the last interviews he did before the assassination.
• 2:55
  And so talk to us about how that came about.
• 2:57
  Why did you include him in Can You Hear Me Now?
• 3:02
  about do prophets still speak?
• 3:05
  Does God speak through prophets?
• 3:07
  Tell us about how that connection came to be and your experience interviewing Charlie.
• 3:13
  Yeah.
• 3:14
  So we set out to explore the kind of the division that happened in the prophetic, you know, over the 2020 elections, because it's kind of an interesting thing.
• 3:22
  You know, you have some prophets that are backing off saying that Trump was going to win.
• 3:25
  And then there's other people that are saying like doubling down and saying, no, actually, this was stolen.
• 3:30
  And then of course, you have all of the other things that are going on with the prophetic right now and people abusing the gift and all of that.
• 3:41
  But we knew that this was coming out in a midterm election and I was homeschooled.
• 3:46
  I grew up understanding the Christian heritage of our nation and how Christians really need to be a part.
• 3:52
  of providing solutions to our government.
• 3:54
  And so we wanted to include some of that.
• 3:57
  And so we had, you know, Bill Federer is in the film, Kelly Shackelford, who's a First Amendment attorney.
• 4:03
  He's also in the film.
• 4:04
  But, you know, we wanted to reach out to somebody who could really explain the separation of church and state.
• 4:10
  And, you know, this moniker that's been labeled on people like Christian nationalism, you know, and who better to do that than Charlie Kirk.
• 4:17
  So we reached out to him.
• 4:19
  And they were enthusiastic about the project, invited us down to Phoenix.
• 4:24
  And it was kind of crazy because we asked for a September interview.
• 4:28
  And they were like, ah, September's booked.
• 4:30
  And, but we got some opportunity in October.
• 4:32
  And we're like, ah, it's too late for us.
• 4:34
  And they said, well, there's this one window on August 27th.
• 4:37
  And if you can get down here, we can make it happen.
• 4:40
  And so we did.
• 4:41
  And TPUSA was amazing, full of amazing Christians who were just on fire for the Lord and for the country.
• 4:48
  And Charlie was spectacular, sat down, probably the best interview that I've ever had.
• 4:52
  And I've interviewed the president of the United States, you know, not to toot my own horn, but, you know, I mean, I've interviewed a lot of really famous people and Charlie was the best.
• 5:00
  And and then all of a sudden, you know, you're working on this props, you know, this prophecy documentary about like how God speaks.
• 5:07
  And then all of a sudden, two weeks later.
• 5:09
  you know the guy that you just interviewed is shot you know right there in front of everybody and you know i'm i'm just packing up a u-haul because we had just bought a house and i'm like sweating in the tennessee heat going like lord i was just one of the last people to interview him and right now i mean this is probably one of the last unseen interviews with charlie kirk i'm like what are you trying to say with this and so um we went back to the drawing board on some of the edits and
• 5:37
  you know, work through it.
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  And, you know, what we've produced is really, really touching people.
• 5:43
  It's pretty extraordinary.
• 5:44
  I don't think I've ever seen one of our films have the responses that it is, both in just kind of causing conversation and, you know, opening up people's eyes to the idea that God is actually speaking today.
• 5:57
  so Spiro Pictures is on Facebook friends most of you are on social media look it up Spiro Pictures go follow them on Facebook they also have a YouTube channel Spiro Pictures so subscribe to them on YouTube so Matt how can people see this today
• 6:15
  Well, you can go to SalemNow.com.
• 6:18
  We have a four-week exclusive with them.
• 6:19
  It worked out really well.
• 6:21
  Salem has been a wonderful partner in this and helping spread the word and marketing and all of that.
• 6:25
  But also, it was really one of the first places that gave Charlie Kirk his shot in broadcasting the Charlie Kirk show originally.
• 6:34
  So it just felt like a really natural partner.
• 6:37
  They have a four-week exclusive.
• 6:38
  So you can go to SalemNow.com.
• 6:41
  And they have a great streaming platform, very similar to Netflix.
• 6:45
  And you can buy the film there and you can watch it today.
• 6:48
  And then in about four weeks, sometime in October, we're still trying to figure out the date.
• 6:52
  But we'll be releasing it wide on Amazon and Apple and all of the other places that people stream things.
• 6:58
  Great.
• 6:59
  This is an important topic because the body of Christ has been divided on this for a long time.
• 7:04
  But I want to touch back on something you said about what I believe is the second biggest lie in America, the separation of church and state.
• 7:12
  It's a lie.
• 7:13
  But yet, pastors, reverends, Christian leaders have been unnecessarily self-censoring since the 1950s, if not before, because that's when the Johnson Amendment was passed.
• 7:25
  But...
• 7:26
  And the body of Christ started to believe that, well, I guess we're not supposed to talk about politics because it's secular.
• 7:33
  Matt, I know you can speak to this, so share your heart on this issue so the body of Christ can better understand.
• 7:40
  That's a lie of the enemy, isn't it?
• 7:45
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:45
  And I think you can actually break that down.
• 7:47
  We don't talk about this directly in the documentary, so I'm kind of sharing something fresh off of my mind.
• 7:51
  But pietism, pietism was a thing back in the 1500s in the Lutheran denomination.
• 7:58
  And it was essentially that the same thing.
• 8:00
  It's that, well, the church isn't supposed to get involved in politics.
• 8:05
  Well, interestingly enough, the German princes loved that idea and poured a ton of money into pietist coffers.
• 8:13
  And my question to people is, which...
• 8:20
  which thought process is easier to corrupt, right?
• 8:25
  Is it easier to corrupt a church that says, which is actually closer to our founding and our heritage, a congregationalist church that understands that we're supposed to pick our representatives and we're supposed to hold them to account and hold them to the ways of God?
• 8:39
  Or is it more easy to corrupt a church that says we're not supposed to get involved in politics?
• 8:46
  And I would probably venture that the latter is easier to corrupt because the state can absolutely then, you know, pour money in.
• 8:55
  And the people that are the people that are saying that the church shouldn't be involved are actually going to welcome that money.
• 9:02
  And so, you know, I would just kind of like kind of throw the whole, you know, you'll know them by their fruit back at people when it comes to that conversation.
• 9:10
  Good.
• 9:11
  Thank you for speaking to that.
• 9:12
  And so I want to go back and get a little bit more of your background, because you, from what I've read about your background, you were a reluctant documentary filmmaker.
• 9:21
  So how did that come to be?
• 9:24
  And now you've made seven.
• 9:26
  So talk to us a little bit about your journey and how you've progressed in this genre.
• 9:32
  Yeah, it's crazy.
• 9:33
  I've been seven and six years, which is a pretty crazy clip.
• 9:36
  You are busy.
• 9:37
  Yeah.
• 9:39
  But, you know, what happened was when I was 13 years old, I fell in love with animation.
• 9:45
  I'd always loved animation, but, you know, I kind of was watching Aladdin and I saw the names at the end of the film.
• 9:52
  And I'm like, my 13 year old brain kind of connects it with these are people with job titles and they got paid.
• 9:57
  Oh, my gosh, like you could actually do this.
• 9:59
  And so I started pursuing animation, and I probably couldn't have articulated this then as well as I can now.
• 10:07
  But I wasn't as interested in making the characters move.
• 10:09
  You know, animators are actually classically the actors of an animated film.
• 10:14
  And what I was more interested in is who the characters were, what the story was, what the world they were living in.
• 10:18
  And so I always had a kind of more of a director's mind.
• 10:21
  And after, you know, kind of putting that aside, you know, getting married young and to my first wife and having kids and having to put bread on the table,
• 10:28
  You know, I thought I was just going to put all that down.
• 10:31
  And then my life just fell apart, you know, due to, you know, some of my own, you know, shortcomings and everything else.
• 10:38
  I'm laying there and I'm asking the Lord,
• 10:40
  what am I supposed to do?
• 10:42
  You know, I was in a real bad spot.
• 10:44
  And he's like, well, you know, that stuff, that thing that I put in your heart that you've always wanted to do, but you've never done, you could do that.
• 10:49
  And so he started giving me scenes in my head.
• 10:52
  I mean, it was just the way that I could explain it was like I was watching a movie on the inside of my forehead.
• 10:56
  And I was talking to my now wife of 20 years.
• 11:00
  We were dating at the time and I was explaining to her what I was seeing.
• 11:03
  And she's like, that's actually really good.
• 11:04
  And I said, I think so, but I don't know how to get it out of my head.
• 11:06
  But like I said, I was homeschooled.
• 11:08
  So it just kind of like self-education was
• 11:10
  wasn't something new.
• 11:11
  And so I went down to Barnes & Noble and I bought the first book that I could on screenwriting and I learned how to edit and, you know, started editing my kids' school stuff, doing, you know, graphic design, volunteering at the church, you know, just to learn cameras and all of that and then started doing some short films and winning awards.
• 11:28
  And then doing a lot of commercial stuff.
• 11:31
  And then about 2020, a friend of mine who is a Hollywood producer, he's produced stuff for the Irwin Brothers and, you know, worked on, you know, big stuff for Warner Brothers.
• 11:42
  He and his partner had an opportunity to interview some of the people in Trump's family, like Laura Trump and, you know, Eric Trump and Don and all this other stuff.
• 11:52
  And we were, you know, and so they asked me, they said, would you be willing to direct, you know, this documentary?
• 11:57
  Yeah.
• 11:58
  Well, I'd always made fun of documentaries.
• 12:01
  Documentaries weren't as cool as they are now.
• 12:03
  You know, I was like, I want to go to Hollywood.
• 12:05
  I want to make movies and TV shows.
• 12:07
  And and so, you know, that was one thing.
• 12:10
  And then the other thing was, is I'm like, I'm trying to get into Hollywood and making a positive documentary about Trump seems like drawing a real line in the sand.
• 12:17
  You know, like I could be black forever.
• 12:18
  And yeah.
• 12:21
  And I felt God in that moment, and this is actually in the film, this Can You Hear Me Now film, I kind of tell this story, but basically it felt like he lifted me up above my house in Redding, California, where I was living at the time, and he shows me down the coast and he highlights Hollywood.
• 12:38
  And he's like, why do you care what they think?
• 12:41
  And I was like, whoa, okay.
• 12:42
  And then he turns my head and he says to the interior of America, and he's like, that's your audience.
• 12:47
  Get to know them.
• 12:50
  And so I was like, wow, that's, you know.
• 12:54
  So and then I felt like he kind of unpacked something for me.
• 12:57
  He says, we're living through an information war right now.
• 13:00
  I've given you a talent for storytelling and I need you to enlist.
• 13:05
  And I was like, yes, sir.
• 13:06
  You know, and so when God asked you to enlist in the army, you know, he said, you know, you got to do it.
• 13:13
  So.
• 13:15
  So, yeah, but God knew what he was doing because, you know, a lot of people said, yeah, you're committing career suicide.
• 13:21
  all of that and i said you know and i was like well this is what god told me to do and um you know seven years you know six years later i've made seven documentaries i've been a working director and now i actually have hollywood producers who have made films that you know come to me and really love some of the other stuff that i've been writing and everything else so god knew what he was doing you know what i mean so it's like it's you need to say yes to him he knows how to get you to the dreams that he's put in your heart that makes sense
• 13:49
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:50
  And praise God, because that is biblical.
• 13:52
  Seek the approval of God, not man.
• 13:54
  I'm glad he showed you Hollywood.
• 13:56
  Why do we care what they think?
• 13:58
  Because they don't care what we think.
• 13:59
  In fact, they're against the biblical worldview and what we believe.
• 14:03
  So I do want to talk about that 2020 election.
• 14:07
  You know what?
• 14:09
  Let's talk about that right now.
• 14:11
  Let's just get this out, because I want to move into the prophetic and talk a little bit about that.
• 14:15
  And I
• 14:17
  A lot of people were predicting a lot of profits as you have in Can You Hear Me Now said Trump's going to win.
• 14:23
  It's going to be a red wave.
• 14:24
  In fact, I was at a conference in Texas that year before the election and there were pastors saying it's going to be a tsunami, a red wave, a tsunami.
• 14:32
  And Trump's going to win.
• 14:34
  And yeah, charged up the audience.
• 14:36
  And then what happened?
• 14:37
  I personally believe there was a lot of corruption and fraud and it was stolen.
• 14:42
  So personally, I think that some so-called prophets, maybe some of them do have the gift, maybe some of them don't.
• 14:50
  But I think a lot of them can double down and say, you know what, we were right, but he didn't end up in the White House.
• 14:58
  How do you respond to that or how do you handle that aspect in can you hear me now, Matt?
• 15:04
  Yeah.
• 15:04
  So the way that we handled that in the film is we, we used it as more of like a case study.
• 15:08
  I mean, I kind of like, you know, it's like, yes, I'm a Trump supporter, but you know, I'm trying to look at it from the standpoint of like an investigative journalist and trying to understand, you know, like if God was saying this, you know, is it possible that these people were still right?
• 15:23
  Even the people that backed off later.
• 15:24
  Right.
• 15:25
  Because, you know, we prophesy, we see it here in part, we prophesy in part is what the Bible says.
• 15:30
  Right.
• 15:30
  And so, you know,
• 15:31
  So they're seeing this red wave, this wave, this tsunami.
• 15:36
  And, you know, I mean, honestly, with some of the stuff that I've done, I have actually done documentaries on election fraud directly.
• 15:43
  And some of the evidence that I've seen, you know, really shows that there was a red tsunami, that there really was a huge groundswell of boats.
• 15:51
  And that's what actually kind of broke the system.
• 15:54
  And so the fact that these profits were backing off
• 15:59
  you know kind of you know because but but i can see why they would because you know a stolen election in a in in a country like america is like a black swan right it's not something that they would consider as being you know something that could happen and you know when you're prophesying you know unfortunately we do have our world views and our traditions and everything else that we filter things through and so you know it makes sense and so then you have these people that were doubling down saying no actually it was stolen
• 16:27
  And so, you know, and to your point, you know, I think that that heaven really, really honors authority and honors contracts.
• 16:36
  And we have a contract that says we the people.
• 16:39
  give our authority to our representatives, right?
• 16:41
  And so to me, it totally stands to reason spiritually that Trump would still have had the mantle of president laid on him by the people because heaven would know who actually won, right?
• 16:55
  If it was fraudulent, if it was stolen, which there's a lot of evidence that's coming out that shows that that's gonna be proven to be the case.
• 17:06
  then heaven would have seen and honored the authority that was invested into Trump by the people.
• 17:15
  And I think it stands to reason, too, because he was still operating with a lot of authority and a lot of power, even in those four years where he wasn't in the office, right?
• 17:23
  Kingmaker, all of the things.
• 17:25
  And to see the way that the deep state was still going after him,
• 17:31
  During that time, really kind of like when you add all of those things up together, you're like going, OK, I think there's something deeper going on here than than just whether or not, you know, somebody, you know, got the news right, if that makes sense.
• 17:47
  Absolutely.
• 17:47
  Absolutely.
• 17:48
  I agree.
• 17:48
  And there is a lot more coming out.
• 17:50
  It's just sad that it takes so long to do some of the investigations and some of the research.
• 17:56
  And anyway, here we are today.
• 17:58
  We have to back up as Christians and say, God's sovereign.
• 18:02
  He allows what he allows.
• 18:03
  But I like how you said that about the mantle.
• 18:07
  You said to in an interview, you said we didn't make this film to win an argument.
• 18:13
  We made it to look honestly at the claims, the history, and the human cost of getting the answer wrong.
• 18:20
  So, Matt Thayer, tell us about what is the modern prophetic movement, and is it just a matter of if a so-called prophet is wrong once, are they a false prophet?
• 18:33
  What is your take on that?
• 18:35
  Well, no, because I mean, I think even in one of the favorite, you know, verses that, you know, sensationists or those that don't believe that prophetic, you know, gifts operate anymore.
• 18:45
  One of the ones they use is in First Corinthians.
• 18:47
  And it says, you know, we prophesy in part, we hear in part.
• 18:50
  Right.
• 18:50
  And I already, you know, quoted that.
• 18:54
  And, you know, and then he, Paul uses the verse, he uses the word in the Greek, I can't remember the name, what the word was, because I'm not, I don't speak Greek, but he says, he uses a word that means to sift or to sort, right?
• 19:11
  And so what are you sifting and sorting if it's just all good?
• 19:15
  Right.
• 19:16
  And I think that even in 1 Thessalonians 5, 19 through 22, he says, don't quench the spirit, don't despise prophecies.
• 19:25
  He says, hold on to what is good, test everything and hold on to what is good.
• 19:29
  Well, that means that there's going to be some stuff to sort out.
• 19:34
  So we have to sort that out.
• 19:36
  And what I love about it is that, and then you have Peter who quotes Joel, who says, your sons and daughters will prophesy.
• 19:45
  Right.
• 19:45
  And so what it is prophecy, prophecy, if you look at the actual, you know, origin of prophets, prophets were emissaries from a high king to a lower king.
• 19:57
  Right.
• 19:57
  They were like the lawyers that came forward and said, hey, you know, that covenant that we had, you know, where, you know, you do these things, I'm going to bless you and, you know, make sure that you guys are protected and all that other stuff.
• 20:09
  Well, you're violating that.
• 20:10
  And if you keep going down your path, you know, bad things are going to happen.
• 20:14
  Right.
• 20:15
  Well, the Old Testament prophets were just essentially functioning as God's emissaries to the nation of Israel saying, hey, look back at Deuteronomy.
• 20:24
  Look at these look at these curses.
• 20:26
  You know, we're doing everything that's going to lead to these curses.
• 20:30
  And so they were really kind of covenant lawyers that were coming forward.
• 20:34
  Well, when it says in Joel that your sons and daughters are gonna prophesy, if we actually do believe that Jesus is king and his will and his ways are perfect and amazing and actually do benefit humanity around us, regardless of whether or not they believe in him or not, because that's really what a good king does, right?
• 20:50
  A good king wants to create...
• 20:53
  a wonderful place for his subjects.
• 20:54
  A good father wants to create a good home for his kids.
• 20:58
  Right?
• 20:59
  And so, you know, and irregardless of whether or not they think he's good.
• 21:04
  He still wants to do that for his subjects.
• 21:08
  And so if his sons and daughters are supposed to prophesy and prophets are actually emissaries and ambassadors of a high king to a lower king that is just trying to correct direction and ethics, then that, to me, makes sense what Paul is saying because...
• 21:23
  we have to then take the word of God and we have to look at the word of God as essentially the rules on the fridge at home.
• 21:29
  Right.
• 21:29
  I have rules on the fridge.
• 21:31
  You probably have rules on the fridge.
• 21:32
  You know, no devices, you know, no electronic devices in bedrooms.
• 21:36
  Make sure you're using those out in the living room.
• 21:39
  You know, you can't have them plugged in in your room.
• 21:43
  You got to plug them in out in the open.
• 21:47
  You know, go to bed at 10, you know, 930, whatever, right?
• 21:50
  So if I leave my kids, you know, I've got eight kids, right?
• 21:53
  So if I leave my younger ones with the older ones, you know, because I'm out for the evening,
• 21:59
  You know, I'm not there, but they can look at that rules on the fridge and they go, this is the rules of the house, you know, and if somebody calls and pretends to be me, right, maybe uses a voice thing or something like that and pretends to be me and says something that violates those rules, well, then they have something to check it with.
• 22:16
  And so, you know, God in, you know, the loving father gave us this rule book, this amazing tome of, you know, his interactions, you know, with humanity and nations and all of this stuff.
• 22:28
  And we can look back on that and we can, we can then, you know, pair that with what's being said now.
• 22:34
  And we can, we can understand and get closer to understanding and hearing his voice now, like a tuning fork, you know, it's supposed to, you know, you're not, you don't, you don't play tuning forks.
• 22:43
  You use tuning forks to, you know, to tune your own instrument.
• 22:48
  So, Matt, this is going by way too fast, and I have a ton of questions that we're not going to get to.
• 22:53
  But one of the things is, I noticed you mentioned Deuteronomy 13.
• 22:56
  I noticed a lot of prophets today seem to be drawing attention to themselves and not to God, and I think that's one of the tests, right?
• 23:03
  Does it make you follow God or draw to God, or does it draw you to the prophet like some sort of celebrity?
• 23:08
  We have too many celebrity prophets and pastors, but that's for another time.
• 23:11
  I wanted to ask you about what you saw at the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, because one of the questions—
• 23:17
  There's a claim in the film that says there's a mass awakening underway.
• 23:22
  I mean, I saw that, the great movie, A Great Awakening on George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin was amazing.
• 23:29
  So what's happening now?
• 23:31
  How do you speak to that and what's maybe happening now in our country?
• 23:36
  Well, I think the prophetic is supposed to kind of give the church a clue in on what's happening right now, what God's doing right now, right?
• 23:42
  And we've all been praying for a revival.
• 23:44
  We've all been praying for it.
• 23:46
  And I think it's actually happening.
• 23:48
  Because, you know, what you saw at Charlie Kirk, I mean, we were just at the Truth and Liberty Conference, and Lucas Miles, who heads up TPUSA Faith, just said that they think that that is what the largest presentation of the gospel ever recorded.
• 24:02
  Yep.
• 24:02
  Right.
• 24:02
  And so that's extraordinary.
• 24:04
  And then you have all of these people on social media after he just dying, going like, I'm drawn to the Bible.
• 24:08
  Why am I want to go to church?
• 24:10
  You know, like, I don't know anything about Jesus.
• 24:12
  And so the spirit was really communicating with people.
• 24:16
  And this this generation is hungry for authenticity.
• 24:20
  And, you know, referencing the Great Awakening, what was interesting, if you look at history, and this is why it's so important to understand history and to see the patterns in history, is that even in our own history back in the 1720s, there were people that were bemoaning the generation back in the 1720s and saying, ah, they're just carousing, they're staying up late, they're mixing with, you know, all this stuff, right?
• 24:38
  All of the stuff that was taboo at the time.
• 24:40
  And they're like, this generation is completely lost.
• 24:43
  And yet all of a sudden in 1730s and 1740s, all of a sudden you have George Whitefield and John Wesley and Charles Wesley and the Great Awakening happens.
• 24:50
  And 80% of the Americas heard the Gospels from the pulpit.
• 24:57
  That's extraordinary.
• 24:59
  And then if you think about that and you do the math, you know, John Adams was born during that time.
• 25:04
  Samuel Adams was born during that time.
• 25:06
  Thomas Jefferson was born during that time.
• 25:08
  Patrick Henry was born during that time.
• 25:10
  And these young people were raised by people who had heard the gospel, right?
• 25:18
  And understood that truth and liberty was God's ideas, not man's ideas.
• 25:22
  And so they took that and they became the revolutionary generation.
• 25:25
  Right.
• 25:26
  So the reawakening generation gave birth to the to the revolutionary generation.
• 25:31
  So what we're seeing right now, if we look at the pattern of history and we kind of like tune in, what are you doing, God?
• 25:36
  You know, we can actually ourselves, like I said, I have eight children.
• 25:41
  Well, I cannot be looking at this as myself.
• 25:44
  Right.
• 25:44
  I might not see this.
• 25:46
  You may not see this.
• 25:47
  but they will.
• 25:48
  And what we need to do is we need to do everything that we can to champion God's ways, to teach God's ways, to bring God's ways to the forefront in every single aspect of society, whether it be business, government, education, medical, everything, and then see what the next generation does with it.
• 26:06
  And I think the next generation is going to blow our minds.
• 26:10
  I hope so.
• 26:11
  And I think the youth, I'm really encouraged by what we're seeing.
• 26:14
  You answered the last question I was going to ask because one of Charlie's last reflections on camera was stop being so next life focused if it comes at the cost of you not caring about this life.
• 26:27
  As Christians, we need to be out in culture.
• 26:30
  Salt and light, we've kind of forgotten about those principles.
• 26:33
  One more minute, Matt.
• 26:34
  I know you can watch the film at SalemNow.com.
• 26:37
  You can stream it.
• 26:38
  Anything you'd like to share in this last minute, brother?
• 26:42
  Yeah, no, I just encourage Christians to just open up their minds to the idea that it's not just about saving people to get into heaven.
• 26:50
  We're supposed to bring heaven to earth.
• 26:52
  That's what Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer.
• 26:55
  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• 26:57
  God has amazing, amazing plans for this earth.
• 27:01
  He wants to restore this earth to Eden, and we get to be a part of it as the sons and daughters.
• 27:06
  And so it's an amazing adventure to live, to be a part of bringing his ways into all aspects of society, and the church needs to catch up with that idea.
• 27:20
  Absolutely.
• 27:21
  And Lord willing, he'll use us.
• 27:23
  Here we are.
• 27:24
  Send us, Lord.
• 27:25
  Matt Thayer, thank you.
• 27:26
  Sparrowpictures.com, Facebook, YouTube, check them out and watch Can You Hear Me Now?
• 27:33
  And you will not be disappointed.
• 27:35
  Brother, thanks for your time today.
• 27:37
  God bless you, friends.
• 27:38
  And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.
• 27:41
  See you next time.