Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Alex McFarland: Church Decline Leading America’s Decline

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Alex McFarland: Church Decline Leading America’s Decline · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic, off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Fierazzo.
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  Well, hello friends, welcome, and God bless you, appreciate you sharing the podcast.
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  We have Alex McFarland with us today, an amazing man of God, great apologist and author.
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  He is a youth, religion, and culture expert, the author of more than 20 books, including
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  the latest 100 Bible questions and answers for families.
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  Also the assault on America, another great book, The God You Thought You New, and so many
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  others, the assault on America, many great books.
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  He's also, he serves as the director of World View for Cheris Bible College in Woodland
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  Park, Colorado.
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  And you can hear him live daily on 200 plus stations of the American Family Radio Network.
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  He co-hosts the Truth and Liberty TV broadcast, and we're blessed to talk to him today.
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  Alex McFarland, welcome to World View Matters.
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  Good to see you brother.
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  Well, it's good to be back.
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  You were so gracious to have me back multiple times.
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  Thank you.
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  Well, you read a lot of great books and tired to keep up with you.
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  But anyway, let's talk about a very important subject before we get into some of the other
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  ones.
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  I want to talk about peanut butter.
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  I saw this, a link on your website.
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  I said, oh, my goodness, this is awesome.
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  McFarland Farms, organic peanut butter, tell us a little bit about that.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, we were in the chicken business for 68 years.
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  We have had a farm for 88 years.
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  And my grandfather and my dad, we raised thousands of chickens.
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  And growing up as a kid in North Carolina, I just figured that I would run the chicken
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  farm someday.
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  And when McDonald's first had the egg muffin, we had like 271 McDonald's that we delivered
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  eggs to.
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  And anyway, I got to tell you how the Lord worked, though.
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  When I was in college at 21, I became a Christian.
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  And then about three years later, I really felt led to go into the ministry.
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  But I was really agonizing on how to tell my dad because I had a lot of responsibility
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  running trucks and even at 25 years old, I was overseeing a lot of employees and inventory.
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  But I really, really prayed about it.
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  And one morning, I loaded one of my trucks.
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  And my dad and I would meet for coffee at like seven in the morning.
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  And I said, look, I really need to talk to you.
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  And he said, I really need to talk to you.
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  And you know, my dad was a Christian, but he was a World War II that he was a pretty
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  tough guy.
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  And he wasn't a real touchy-feely guy.
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  But this is probably the closest moment we ever had.
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  And I said, Dad, listen, I'm going to go to seminary.
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  And I think God has called me to preach.
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  And he just looked at me and all of a sudden, he reached out and he put his hand on my
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  head.
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  And he began to pray over me.
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  It was a very touching moment.
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  Wow.
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  And he prayed a prayer, a blessing over my life.
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  And my dad looked at me and he said, son, I've been agonizing how to tell you this, but
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  I've sold the egg business.
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  And I was like, really?
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  This is perfect.
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  Wow.
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  Praise God.
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  And he had some health issues.
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  And I had really wondered if I go to seminary, how's my dad going to run this business without
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  me really, because I knew he couldn't replace me for the amount of money that he paid
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  me, which was not a lot.
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  But God worked it out.
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  And do you know what, David?
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  There just might be somebody watching this program.
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  And maybe they need a little general reminder that God has our plans worked out.
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  And we will commit our way to Christ.
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  He really will direct our life.
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  And brother, we still run the egg, we're not the egg farm, but the peanut butter company.
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  We have a natural food company and we make all natural peanut butter from just North Carolina
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  peanuts.
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  And there's no chemicals, there's no pesticides.
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  It's all natural.
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  And one day, I'm hoping, because see on the one and the website, if you Google Alex McFarlane
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  peanut butter or how's this for a good URL, me nuts for peanuts, the number four, me nuts
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  for peanuts, all of the profit, 100% of the profit of the peanut butter company goes
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  into missions.
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  Not only our work, we support other missionaries to my my prayer, and we're not quite there yet.
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  But I've prayed that $1 million a year would go to world missions from out of this North
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  Carolina peanut butter company.
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  So anyway, well, I'm going to go there because I love peanut butter.
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  I really, we got like five jars in the cabinet in the pantry right now, but I've got to
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  try this Alex and I'll write a review for you.
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  I'm kidding.
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  Oh, thanks.
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  Thanks, man.
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  No, but we'll try it.
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  And I'm sure some of our viewers will go with it to the website.
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  We can get the link at Alex McFarlane.com, but it's me nuts, the number four peanuts.com.
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  So we'll like get some some peanut butter moving off out of North Carolina there.
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  So Alex, you wrote a recent op-ed and I love the title.
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  You know, you've been talking about the biblical worldview like I have, but you've been writing
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  about out it for a lot longer.
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  The Barnard research and everything else, but it's called drain the swamp with a question
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  mark.
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  Some churches need to drain the pulpit.
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  Now before I even knew that was, whoop, that was about Alex McFarlane.
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  I just said kudos.
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  I love the title.
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  I'm in.
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  You had me at hello.
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  So drain the swamp.
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  People are talking about the swamp, but we're talking about the churches and the lack
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  of biblical worldview and the lack of sound doctrine and the whole council of God and
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  teaching prophecy, apologetics.
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  We've got a very biblically illiterate, well, nation, but in the church show, go ahead
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  and wherever you want to start with this topic and I love again, some churches do need
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  to drain the pulpit.
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  So what made you decide to tackle this one and put up that provocative headline?
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  Well, you know, it's interesting.
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  My family for really 200 years had been a part of a traditional mainline denominational
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  church in North Carolina, and I didn't really hear the gospel at the church growing up
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  because it was a very liberal, theologically liberal church.
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  And then when I was in college through a Monday night Bible study for college kids, I really
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  heard about how I could have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
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  And I got into apologetics, you know, literally like, you know, 72 hours after accepting Christ,
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  I was reading books by Josh McDowell and Chuck Colson and the late Norm Geisler, Francis
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  Schaefer, reading the footnotes, I came across names like C.S. Lewis and John Gerstner
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  and G.K. Chesterton and E.J. Cornell and some of your viewers will know some of those
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  great names in apologetics, David Noble and the book Understanding the Times.
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  Now here's my point and I completely give God the glory, but I've pastored two churches
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  and I've literally spoken in 2000 churches throughout 50 states and five continents.
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  And here in America, David, our nation is struggling to a large degree because of the
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  silence of 345,000 American pulpits.
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  I mean, you think about this.
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  Two weeks ago, I was with George Barna, highly respected trend watcher, researcher,
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  statistician, sociologist, Barna was saying to me, every week like 500,000 pastors speak
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  into the lives of 100 million adults, 100 million adults that probably have a born-again
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  relationship with Christ.
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  You put your faith in Jesus, your sins are forgiven, but we don't vote from a scriptural
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  vantage point very often.
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  I mean, look, if you're a born-again believer, the Bible is our authority.
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  The Bible, God's complete word, God's holy word is our roadmap for life.
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  Now as a Christian, I should know where I stand on abortion, gay marriage, transgenderism,
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  the rule of law, morality, marriage, even things like education, government.
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  How would I know where to stand because the word of God speaks with clarity?
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  Let me just say this.
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  I'll throw it back to you.
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  What about the nation of Israel speaking out from the pulpit with a clarion call against
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  anti-symmetism standing for the nation of Israel against Hamas and Hezbollah?
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  And I got to tell you, look, I love the church because I love the one who is the head of the
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  church.
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  Jesus.
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  Thank you, Lord.
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  I have nearly contempt for many, many, many American pastors because they would not dare, the
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  majority of American senior pastors would not dare get in their pulpit and have the courage
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  to call sin, sin, to unequivocally not, well, on the one hand, this, not dialectic vagueness,
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  but with a clarion call, say, the word of God hath said.
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  And if we had to have million preachers that were actually preaching the whole council
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  of God every Sunday morning, and I know because I've pastored one church of 2,000 members,
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  I've pastored one small church of 200, but David, we have a pastor problem.
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  Yes, we do.
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  And part of that problem, we don't have time to get into it, but the seminaries are part
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  of the problem, teaching church growth, and they've surrendered in errancy, but that's
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  for a whole other topic, but Alex, let's talk about pastors now.
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  When you mentioned Israel, we've had Olivier Melnick, we've had Jan Markelle, we've had
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  other leaders in the prophetic community and pro-Israel leaders and speakers.
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  And when I had them on, I get, I get emails from people saying the day after or the Sunday
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  after the Hamas attacks, last October 7, my pastor did not even mention Israel.
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  And it's a head scratcher at this point, but I think we're learning that if you, if
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  they're not teaching about prophecy and the whole council of God and the Old Testament
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  and how do we expect them to be biblical on Israel, right?
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  Right.
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  Well, you know, they say it takes four years to go to seminary and tend to get over it.
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  And that's sad, but true.
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  Yeah, and, you know, there's just so much woke revisionist, moderate to liberal to
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  heretical theology out there.
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  And, you know, really, and I've, I've sat on ordination committees.
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  I've, you know, been involved in trying to mentor a lot of people.
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  And I've got, you know, two postgraduate degrees myself, but I can honestly say I knew what
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  I believed before going to graduate school because, you know, I became a Christian when I was
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  an English major at 21 years old and I had read my share of literature and language and the way
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  that we ought to handle the word of God and the way that it was handled up until, you know,
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  50 years ago, words mean things and the Bible is made of words.
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  And we look at what's called a historical, grammatical approach to hermeneutics.
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  What is the historical context?
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  What do the words say?
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  And what do these words mean in terms of my walk and witness for Christ?
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  And nowadays, I mean, we have so much, you know, really woke theology.
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  We've got, you know, Marxist theology.
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  We've got, you know, gender inclusive theology.
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  It's, it's crazy.
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  The word of God says you must be born again.
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  The word of God says God made male and female.
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  The word of God says in Genesis 12, God will bless those who bless Israel,
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  curse those who curse Israel and, you know, just from a historical standpoint.
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  And look, I love all people and the gospel is for the human race.
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  Jew, Gentile, you know, oriental, accidental, western, eastern, Arabic, but here's the thing.
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  March 1470, I'm sorry, March of 70 AD was when Rome,
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  Blitzkrieg, Jerusalem, and the nation of Israel was scattered.
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  May 14, 1948, Israel was regathered.
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  But here's the thing, Muhammad was not even born until 571 AD.
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  Islam started about 610 AD.
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  So for the Muslims and I've debated at universities and I've
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  dialoged on colon shows, look, by historical precedence and by divine right,
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  the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.
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  The Jews had been in Israel for three millennia before Muhammad was even born.
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  Yes. And so I've dialoged with just clueless liberal American clergy who say,
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  well, you know, what about the right of the Palestinians?
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  Well, there is no right of the Holy Land to Palestinians.
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  It's the land of Israel.
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  Now, Donald Trump, you know, one of the most courageous men that has ever occupied the
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  Oval Office, it was a great gesture.
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  It was a promise that went back to Gerald Ford had never been fulfilled.
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  Trump put the American embassy in Jerusalem.
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  That's right. And guess what? World War Three didn't happen.
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  And so, you know, Biden has reinstituted a flow of money to Hezbollah and Hamas.
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  And I think we all know I just two weeks ago today, two weeks ago today, I heard
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  candidate Trump speak in Nashville and he was introduced by the former ambassador to Israel,
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  David Feldman. And David Feldman told the crowd of 3000 people, he said, look, we all know
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  if this man had been in the Oval Office, the Hamas attacks of October 7 would not have happened.
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  And he said, you know, in Jerusalem, they pray every day for Donald Trump, once again,
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  to occupy the Oval Office, interesting. Because I know I'm often a tangent, hang with me,
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  but look, the greatest favor any president could ever do the American people is to be a friend
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  to the nation of Israel. Biblically, yes. And there's too much biblical ignorance about that,
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  being an ally supporting Israel. We've got to take a very brief pause. We're going to talk about
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  some of these numbers in the survey that Arizona Christian University and Barna came out with,
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  when we come back with Alex McFarland on World View Matters.
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  Hey, if you're listening via audio podcast, help us out by leaving a five star review,
• 16:48
  it helps the show rise in the rankings. And if you're interested in being a sponsor of World
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  View Matters, you can send us an email. Our producer will get back to you, go to worldviewmatters.tv
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  and send us an email. So Alex McFarland, I want to talk about that survey now in some of the numbers.
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  And there's, you know, so many surveys, so many numbers, Gallup, Pew, Barna does a great job
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  with the research. But in the church now, we're talking about Christians and of adult American
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  adults, born again Christians, only 13% of born again Christians hold a consistently biblical
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  world view. There are more numbers in this survey. Go wherever you want with this brother.
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  Well, yeah, I mean, we can know where we stand because we know where the word of God stands,
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  you know, and when it comes to Jesus alone being the Savior, heaven, hell, marriage, morality,
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  it's not hard if you trust what the Bible says and I do and we should. And David, I believe
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  compelling lines of evidence point to the authenticity and the trustworthiness of God's word.
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  So these shockingly low numbers of clergy and laity that actually hold to a biblically informed
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  perspective about the key issues of our times, it's because we're in an America that really for
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  about five decades, our theological schools, our seminaries have not really taught people
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  how to proclaim and defend the Bible. You know, we've had focus groups on how to maybe understand
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  or how to, you know, you empathize with other worldviews and obviously we care about people,
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  we empathize in the sense of caring about the the plight of our fellow human beings. But when it
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  comes to worldview, origin, purpose, destiny, you know, where did we come from? Why are we here?
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  Where are we headed? How does one prepare for eternity? And morally, how must one live till we
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  enter eternity? If you're a Christian and certainly if you're an ordained minister, you don't have
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  an opinion, you have what the word of God sits. Amen, brother. Amen. You say something very
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  interesting in this article. And again, it's on Alex's website, drain the swamp, question mark,
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  some churches need to drain the pulpit. And yes, I would love to see new pastors come in that do
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  teach the whole council of God. But you say in your article toward the end, if you are in a church
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  that teaches a biblical worldview, praise God, if not leave. I agree with you, Alex. And then
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  someone might say, but our friends go there. What's your response? Or we've been going there for years.
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  Yeah, I know. Look, it's not easy and it's not a decision I take lightly. But we've got to
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  remember, if you're a Christian, all of life is a proposition of stewardship. You know, Paul,
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  in first Corinthians 6, 19 and 20, Paul says, we are not our own. We're bought with a price. Now,
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  time is a non-renewable resource. Look, if you lose money, you can get more money. But all the time
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  you waste is unrecoverable. And everything post salvation, if you're a born again believer,
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  everything we do post salvation is about growing in Christ and contributing to the Great
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  Commission. I mean, really, that is our job description. And so I've got to say, look, since
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  most of these liberal denominations and these moderate milk toast woke pastors,
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  you got to speak in the one language they'll respond to. And that's money. And so there are a lot
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  of people listening and you're attending some dead morgue of a church and you need to take
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  your family and your checkbook and find a place where God is at work that the hour is late.
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  Jesus is coming back. He really is. People need to be saved. Our nation needs to be saved. We need
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  to stand with Israel. And you know, I realize we say, yeah, but my friends go to XYZ. Yeah, but
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  your friend didn't hang on a cross and die for you. Jesus did. And so I truly think it is the
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  hour is late. There's wokeness. I mean, my goodness, this is in the news today. A United Methodist
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  pastor drew a swastika on the grocery bags of a Jewish woman. The groceries were on her porch.
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  And this United Methodist minister drew an antisemitic symbol. And then when he was called out,
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  he denied it, lied, denied it. Then they said, well, we have your own video. But you've got to
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  understand the United Methodist Church. I've spoken UMC churches. I've dialoged with
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  denominational heads and pastors agonizing to get out of these liberal, you know, denominations.
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  The PC USA. And I don't use this term lightly. The PC USA is apostate that they are. And so I would say
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  parishioner that if you love the Lord, if you love the scripture, if you care about the great
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  commission, then for goodness sakes, find a church that honors Jesus and his word and plug in
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  there and don't waste another Sunday at some dead liberal morgue. Amen. Yeah, I'd appreciate your
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  straight talk, Alex McFarlane, because a lot of these denominations, there's splits over worldview
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  issues, over doctrine. And it's really sad for nation of homosexuals. Yes, yes. We lost our mind.
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  Yeah. And if you're watching, you might know someone who goes to a church with the rainbow flag
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  flying out front because they are, quote, unquote, welcoming or inclusive. But we're, give me the
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  book chapter in verse on that. You know what I mean? Alex, at the end of your article, you offer
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  several insights that parents can instill how they can instill a biblical worldview to the next
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  generation, begin early, reinforce your children's spiritual foundation, Hollywood, corporations,
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  governments, social media. They've done a disservice to a young people today, probably for more
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  than a generation. And they are not getting the biblical worldview anywhere else if they're not
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  getting it at home. So go ahead and share your final thoughts for parents today. Well, you know,
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  among other things, and I applaud the godly parents that are, you know, trying, praying for their
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  kids to know the Lord and grow in the Lord. But I want to say a word to the men out there to the
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  dads to be the priest of the home that God has called you to be. Have a daily devotion with your
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  wife. Do you know? There's things like open windows and our daily bread and the word for today. A
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  lot of good devotional books. When a husband and wife have a devotion together, the divorce rate is
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  like one divorce out of 1,100 couples. In other words, statistically nil. And so we need the men
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  to be the priest of the home and the godly shepherd of their family. And be in church. I say this
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  lose at anything else, but win with your children really. And we've got a lot of camps, conferences,
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  resources, my own website is AlexmanFarland.com. But I'm excited. God answers prayer. And I believe
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  there's a great awakening coming to our nation. And we all should want to be a part of it.
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  And you can get the books that we were talking about on Amazon. And which is great that they're still
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  on there. You haven't been, you know, canceled because we've seen that before. But yeah, 100
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  Bible questions and answers for families. That is the latest, right, Alex?
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  Yeah, that's the latest we've done. And listen, I give God the glory. We did the first 100 Bible
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  questions about three years ago. And it did okay. This one 100 Bible question and answers for
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  families came out October about six months ago. It's in every Barnes and Noble Costco Sam's Club,
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  Walgreens, Christianbook.com, Amazon. And this book has kind of swept along the first book. And
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  now the publisher is asking for a third book. So I value your prayers as, you know, the next six
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  months, I'll have to be writing. Well, you know, I've only got five books out. You've written more
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  than 20. And I remember one of our first podcasts together that we did. I asked you how on earth,
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  do you write about a book a year? And I'll never forget. You said, I try to write a chapter a month,
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  right? Yeah. I'll never forget. You told me that. But anyway, Alex, we appreciate your ministry. We
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  didn't even talk much about apologetics. But where can people listen to the Alex McFarlane show?
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  Oh, well, on, you know, Buzz Sprout, iTunes, all the podcast platforms and just
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  Mount website, which is Alex McFarlane.com. And I appreciate you. You're doing a great work.
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  Yes, worldview matters. And you present the Christian worldview very fruitfully. And I commend you.
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  Well, praise God. We're trying to equip the saints because as we've been talking about,
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  the church is not doing a great job at equipping them. Although there is a strong remnant
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  of true Bible-believing pastors and leaders out there. But a lot of people maybe are in the
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  ministry for the wrong reasons. And those are the ones you need to drain, right? From the pulpit.
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  Alex, brother, we hopefully we can talk to you again in the near future. God bless you and let us
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  know when you're in Wisconsin, okay? God bless. Thanks. All right. Bye-bye.
• 27:11
  Alex McFarlane.com. I will go try some of the McFarlane peanut butter. There's a deal if you get
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  the crunchy and the creamy. So I'm going to get that. I encourage you to do that as well. Well,
• 27:24
  anyway, friends, thanks again for sharing the podcast. God bless you and as always, keep speaking
• 27:29
  the truth about things that matter.