Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #0257_ Charlie Kirk, Gen Z & Israel — The Dark Reality of a Generation Becoming Desensitized

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#0257_ Charlie Kirk, Gen Z & Israel — The Dark Reality of a Generation Becoming Desensitized · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Ruslan KD, welcome to the show, man.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Sean Ryan, thanks for having me. This is incredible.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: My pleasure.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: You're a great host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you. So I saw a video that you
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: had posted out. I had a bunch of people text
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: it to me. The first one was Darren Tyler, you
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: know who?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Pastor Darren Tyler, shout out.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: He texted me about my Nathan Apfel interview. Yes. So
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: that went crazy. And yeah, you know, I was like, really,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: we talked a lot about doing that interview because I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: did not, I did not want to, you know, lean
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: people away from Christ. And, but, you know, it, I
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: thought he had some good points. I didn't agree with everything, but. Man,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: we got some backlash from that one, buddy. Oh, really?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I didn't look at any of the comments
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: or the feedback.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. We got all kinds of texts and emails
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: from friends of mine, Darren. And it definitely, I would say,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: absolutely sparked a conversation. I mean, obviously, you're a big
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: part of that. So, yeah, I thought it would be.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I thought it would be good to maybe get the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: other side of the coin here. And, and so thank
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: you for coming.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: And thank you for having me.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: This is great.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: And you got a great team here, by the way,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: everyone's so hospitable and kind and friendly and you guys
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: got something special here.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you, man. Thank you. But yeah, so that's, that's
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I want to do, you know, some of your backstories
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: sounds very interesting and, and, and, you know, but the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: real reason is to cover, you know, what I talked
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: about with Nathan on here and, and, and kind of
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: get the other perspective here. So, But yeah, everybody starts
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: off with an introduction here. So Ruslan KD, a Christian
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: hip-hop artist, podcaster, and YouTuber. Founder of King's Dream Entertainment
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: with releases including your Indie Jones series and collaborations with
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: artists like John Keith and Paul Russell. Originally from Baku, Azerbaijan,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and came to the United States as a refugee at
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: age six. due to religious persecution and conflict. A former
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: gang member who converted to Christianity in high school after
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: exploring evidence for faith and moving away from atheism. A husband,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a father, and all in for Jesus. So, probably missing
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a lot here, but yeah. You know, I was talking
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: with Jeremy, and we'll get into this. Now I know why,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I think I know why he became an atheist, but
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, this guy was a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: refugee from getting persecuted from Christianity, but he's an atheist.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And then I dug in more and found the rest out.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: But this is going to be an awesome discussion. So
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I got something for you. I'm fairly new to Christianity.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I have not read all of the Bible. Most of
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: it I don't understand. But one thing I do, quite
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: often is in the mornings, especially if I'm troubled with something,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: you know, or something's on my mind, I'm in a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: dark place, I'll open it up hoping for some inspiration
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: that I'll understand. And a lot of times I get it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And the last time I did it was a couple
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: days ago, I think it was Monday morning. And all
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: this Charlie Kirk, you know, the assassination of Charlie Kirk's
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: been on my mind. I mean, you know, maybe yours too. Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: We both have big... Big audience. And so I flip
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it open, hoping for some inspiration. And I don't know
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the verse. I know it was Matthew. Okay. It was
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: in Matthew. And I open it up, and it's about
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the end of the world.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, this isn't the inspiration I was
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: hoping for.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: An abomination of desolation and all that.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And it was talking about, he was talking about, you know,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: in the end, there will be, rumors of wars and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: earthquakes and all these things will happen. And I don't
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: want anybody to think I am mocking the Bible. Cause
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I look at that, you know, I mean, that is,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: you know, even though I haven't read it all, but I,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you know, I have given my life to Christ and
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: that's the way I try to live, you know, the best, uh,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: best that I can, I guess. Right. But, you know,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I'm reading that and I started thinking about it. And
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of the guys on my team, uh, are very, uh,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a lot more educated on the Bible than I am,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: you know, from their upbringing and stuff. And so I
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: called Darren, he's my lead editor. And, or I didn't
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: call him, I was texting him. And I was like,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you know, man, I was like, this almost sounds like
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: some conspiracy that was put together. And, you know, the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: reason I say that is I was, you know, just
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: in my lifetime, we have always been at war. And so,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: you know, rumors of wars and wars. There's, you know,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: very young, we had Desert Storm. I spent, we spent,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the U.S. spent 20-something years, you know, in Afghanistan, Iraq.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: We've been to Somalia. We've been to Panama. We've been
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: to Colombia. You know, and I was just, I was like,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I don't even remember a time where there wasn't war.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: And those are just wars that the U.S. were involved in.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: That's not. all the civil wars that are going on
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: in Africa, the Middle East and Israel and South America.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: And then I was thinking even more and I was like,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's ever been a time of peace
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: in human existence. I mean, the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Alexander the Great, China. I mean, there's always the Greeks,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: there's always always been war, civil war, Native Americans. I mean,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and so, you know, I kind of thought about that
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and I was like, and there's always been earthquakes too, right?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: There's always been war, there's always been earthquakes. And I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: was like, well, this is almost like convenient, you know,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to say that. Like a good conspiracy theorist would take
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: a pattern and say, when you see these things, this
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: is what it means and this is what's gonna happen. And,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I feel like that would be like me saying,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: you know, when the end times come, you'll start to
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: see men cheating on their wives.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: And it's like men have been cheating on their wives
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: since the beginning of the time, not all men. And
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: so I just want to, you know, I mean, this
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: is fresh in my mind. You're obviously very studied on
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: this stuff. So I just want to get your take
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: on it. on what I'm feeling.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think what you're feeling is the
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: angst that a lot of people are feeling right now.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you know this, but there's an
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: actual conspiracy rumor prophecy that like today is supposed to
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: be the rapture that's going viral all over TikTok. And
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: so there's a ton of people, like the day we're
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: shooting this, I don't know when this is coming out,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: is that this is gonna be, like it's all gonna
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: be gone either yesterday or today, right? So that's happening
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: in real time. And I think that that's a real
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: angst that people feel.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, the rapture is supposed to happen today? Yeah,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: like we got left behind.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: So there's been a long history of people reading and
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: trying to interpret and trying to say what is and
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: isn't supposed to happen and how it's supposed to go down.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: The beautiful part about Matthew, you're talking about Matthew 24,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: is the end of Matthew 24, Jesus says in verse 36,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: but about that day or hour, no one knows, not
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: the father. As it was written in the days of Noah,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: so it will be at the coming of the son
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: of man. And then he goes on to explain craziness
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: and all this insane stuff that's going to be happening.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: But the beautiful part about everything you're describing is that
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: from here, from that passage of like rumors of wars
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: and all the abomination to all this scary stuff, Jesus
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: then goes into Matthew 25, which is one of my
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: favorite chapters in the Bible. And there's two parables and
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: one story. I'll try to condense it for you because
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I don't want to get you too in the weeds.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: But he opens up with the parable of the 10 virgins,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the wise and the foolish virgins waiting for the bridegroom
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: to come back. Jesus is the bridegroom. There's virgins that
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: are wise. They had oil to keep the light on
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: for the bridegroom. And then there's virgins that weren't paying
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: attention and they got left out. So now he's talking
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: about the end of days and he's giving you a
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: a parable, a story with these virgins and there's a
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: ton of context with the bridegroom and the virgins and
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: all this sort of stuff. So he's like, hey, basically
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I can come back whenever, like live with the eminency
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: of Jesus as if he's going to come back at
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: any moment, right? Which is yes and amen. But then
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: something interesting happens. From the parable of the virgins, Jesus
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: coming back at any time, right? He goes into the
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: parable of the bags of gold or the parable of
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: the talents, right? There's one person he gave five talents to,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: one person he gave three talents to, one person he
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: gave one talent to. There's a master that's going on
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: a mission. He leaves some money with his servants. The
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: guy who has five takes the five, invests it, doubles up.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: The guy who has three doubles up. The guy who
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: has one hides his talent, right?
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: He's afraid.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: He's scarce. He doesn't want to engage. And so something
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: interesting is that the guys who doubled up, Jesus says,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: well done, my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: with little things. Now you'll be faithful with more, right?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: And so end of days, Jesus is coming back. It's
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: going to get scary. He goes into stewardship of resources.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: How are you managing the time, the talent, the treasure,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: the things I've entrusted you with?
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: So in light of the whole conversation of the end
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: of days, it goes right into, hey, what are you
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: doing with what you've been given, right? What have you
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: been doing with the time, talent, and treasure that you've
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: been given? And the person that doubles up, he's rewarded,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: he's celebrated. The person that doesn't, he's rebuked. And it says,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Verse 26, this is the person that had the one
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: and buried it.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: He was afraid.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: He didn't want to try. Verse 26 in Matthew 25 says,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: his master replied, you wicked, lazy servant. So you knew
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: that I have harvest where I have not sown and
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: gather where I have not scattered seed. Well, then you
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: should have put my money on deposit with the bankers
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: so that when I returned, I would have received it
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: back with interest. So that lazy one, he rebukes him.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: But this is the crazy part about all this. End
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: of days, all this, wars of war. Live as if
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Jesus is going to come back. Make the most of
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: your time, talent, and treasure. And the end of Matthew
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: 25 is about the sheep and the goats. And Jesus
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: goes on, I'll just read it to you because I'm
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: trying to paraphrase, but I'll just read it to you.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: It says, when the son of man comes in his glory,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: the end of days, and all the angels with him,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: will be gathered before him and he will separate the
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: people one from another. As a shepherd separates the sheep
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: from the goats, he will put the sheep on his
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: right and the goats on his left. Then the king
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: will say to those on his right, Come you who
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: are blessed by my father, take your inheritance. The kingdom
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: prepare for you since the creation of the world. Verse 35,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I was a stranger and you invited me in. I
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: you looked after me. I was in prison and you
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: and say, Lord, When did we see you hungry and
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink?
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: When did we see you a stranger and invite you
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: in or need clothes? When did we see you sick
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: or in person or go visit you? Verse 40, and
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: the king replies, truly I tell you, whatever you did
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: for one of the least of these brothers and sisters
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: of mine, you did to me. So when we read
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: all of this in context, I think the big idea
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: from Matthew 24 and 25 is, hey, Jesus is coming back.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: The world is going to get dark. However, as people
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: of the book, as followers of Jesus, as people of
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: the way, our job is to utilize our time, our talent,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: our treasure, our platform, our personalities to usher in the
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: most amount of good so that we can help the
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: least of these. And the least of these might be
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the widow and the orphan. The least of these might
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: be the persecuted Christians overseas. The least of these might
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: be those folks in our own country that have a
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: distorted worldview. But ultimately, as followers of Jesus, regardless of
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: when the end comes, we're called to care.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: For the least of these.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: We're called to utilize and be faithful with what's in
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: front of us. And in that, be a blessing to
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: other people. So that like the end of day stuff,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: every single talk on the end of days in the
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: New Testament all goes back to, and live such good
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: doing wrong, they see your good deeds and glorify God
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: on the day he visits, right? That's the beautiful part
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: about this gospel, the story of God coming in the flesh,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: living the life we couldn't live, dying to death we
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: should have died on the cross in our place for
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: our sins. And doesn't just give us hell insurance and goes, man,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: the world's going to go to hell in a handbasket,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: but I got you in the afterlife.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: He sends and allows us to experience a piece of
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: heaven on earth, to usher in his kingdom. And that's
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: what I love about that entire sequence of events, you know,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: of Matthew 24 and 25. As it lands at, man,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: we get to do good. Like we got good work
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: to do on this side of eternity.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Well done. Yeah.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Sorry, that was a whole lot, man.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: No, that's good.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: We just had a Bible study. I'm not even sure
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: if this is going to be in the pod or not.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: It's going to be. But yeah, and I want to
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about end of days, maybe
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: towards the end of the podcast. But to kick it off,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I thought we kick it off with a prayer. Let's
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: do it. You want to lead it? Yes, please. Perfect.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, Father God, thank you so much, Lord. Lord, have
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: mercy on us, Father. For sometimes we drift and sometimes
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: our ways are not aligned with your ways, Lord. So
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: have mercy on us, Lord. Father, would you just extend
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: your grace in this moment, Lord, to this conversation, that
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: it would be covered by your spirit, by your presence,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: that you would move in ways that impact people and
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: encourage them and inspire them and empower them to do
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: good here and now, Lord. I thank you for Sean.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I thank you for his amazing team. I thank you
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: for every person behind the scenes and the logistics and
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: the cameras and the editing. I thank you for just
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: what he's built, Lord, and how you've used them thus far.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: And Father, I would just pray, would you just use
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: this conversation? Would you just let this be a conversation
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: to bless people, Lord, that as we're looking at the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: world and it seems like it's getting darker, Lord, that
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: a little bit of light can shine bright. And so
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: would you let Sean's light shine?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Would you speak?
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: And shine through me, Lord God. And would you equip
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: others to be encouraged and to shine their light in
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: a dark world, Lord? We thank you, Lord. We pray
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Amen. Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. Well, we always start every
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: podcast off with a gift. Oh, my goodness. Let's go.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Vigilance League gummy bears, legal in all 50 states, made
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: in the USA. Of course, you don't have to worry
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: about that in California, right? Yeah, no. California.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Do you know gummy worms is my favorite candy?
• 15:27
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• 15:29
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• 15:30
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• 15:33
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• 15:35
  Speaker 1: We'll load you up before you leave. That's awesome. And
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: then one other thing. So I have a Patreon account.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And it's a subscription account. We've turned it into quite
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the community.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: They've been here since the beginning, and so they're the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: reason I get to sit here with you today. So
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: one of the things I do is I offer them
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. Oh, cool.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Shout out to the Patreon. We got our own community, too,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: so it's beautiful.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Cool. Are you on Patreon? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right on, man.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: This is from Kirk Powers. What were the driving factors
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that contributed to your period of atheism and eventually led
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: you back to Christianity with an even stronger level of faith?
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, your Patreon got the coolest names
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: because we did some out there and the Kurt Powers
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: sounds like a superhero. So perhaps the Kurt Powers. Atheism
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: to me was a direct correlation to the problem of evil,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: which I think is a tough thing to work through
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: from a apologetics, polemics, human level. It's like, why does
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: evil exist? Why do bad things happen? And that's what
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: led me to atheism. When I was a child, I
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: had to have been the youngest atheist walking around. And
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: what led me to Jesus was starting to see the
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: providential hand of God over my life, even in the
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: areas where I suffered and even in the areas where
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: things did not go good. And the more I saw that,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: it was as if my life was a movie and
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: God kind of orchestrated even the evil things, and he
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: somehow used.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: It for good.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: So I started seeing that as I kind of drew
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: more to Jesus, and then it all clicked. Nice.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nice. I mean, it takes a lot of energy
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to be an atheist, right?
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: You got to do a lot of mental gymnastics. Yeah.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Talked to Lee Strobel quite a bit about it on
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: one of his interviews. And yeah, it seems, I mean,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you're still, you're forcing, like, it's still a faith in
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: not believing, correct?
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: I think it requires more faith to not believe.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Really? Yeah, I think so. I think so.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Because I think just from nature, you know, there's miracles.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Atheists have to believe miracles too. So you have to
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: believe that everything came from nothing. You have to believe
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: that mindless matter made matter and mindless matter made mind
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: and consciousness, something that doesn't have a mind makes a mind, right?
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Order from chaos. How do you get order from chaos?
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: So the miracles that atheists have to acknowledge, in my opinion,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: are way more preposterous than the virgin birth. And so
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: I have a line where we say like virgin birth
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: or virgin universe. Like you decide, because the virgin birth
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: starts sounding a lot more sensible when you consider the
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: virgin universe as a, like that sounds realistic to you.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: There's a man that came, lived, died, rose. That sounds
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: a lot more sensitive than everything came from nothing.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. I've never thought of it like that. Yeah.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. But let's move into your story
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a little bit. So you obviously grew up in Azerbaijan.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: What was going on there when you made the trip
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: back to, or not back to, to America?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm ethnically Armenian. My father's Armenian. My mother
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: was adopted by an Armenian family. I think I did
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: my 23 and me, and she's either like Ukrainian or Russian.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: So she was adopted by an Armenian family as a
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: little girl. And that region of the world, I'm sure
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: as you know, north of Iran, right, Armenia is is
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: splat in between Turkey and Azerbaijan. They kind of refer
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to themselves as, you know, two states, one nation, two nations,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: one group of people. And so you have Armenia, which
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: is the oldest Christian nation in the world. Ethiopians and
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Armenians always argue who was the first Christian nation. And
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: you have this really rich history of Christianity. And all
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: of this is on the backdrop of communism and the
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Soviet Union. So you remove God, you remove faith, the
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: government becomes God. communism becomes the religion. And in this
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: weird post 1915 Armenian genocide with the Turks and Armenians,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: the Soviet Union decided to drop these weird parameters within Azerbaijan.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: So you got Armenian, you got Azerbaijan, and then there's
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: this little region called the Nabor-Karagak region. And it's right
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: on eastern Azerbaijan, but it's predominantly an Armenian strip of land.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: And I don't know how, you know, the theory is
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: like sometimes the quote unquote superpowers does this intentionally to
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: maintain instability in the region. And so what started happening
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: was they became rumors of RZs getting displaced from that region.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: And then the RZ supposedly getting displaced from Armenia. And
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: then that led to this mass ethnic cleansing of all
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Armenians from the city of Baku in the late eighties
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: called the pogroms of Baku. So half a million Armenians
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: are displaced and ethnically cleansed from the capital. About 500
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: of them brutally murdered. And we, as a family, end
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: up applying for refugee status. We applied for Australia, we
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: applied for Israel, and we applied for Armenia. Excuse me, America.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: We applied for America. America, we're the first people that
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: accepted us. Now, my dad and everyone had to already
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: leave because they appear more ethnically Armenian. Me and my
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: mom were more fair-skinned. So we stayed, kind of handling
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: the affairs. And it ended up taking a little bit longer,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: and then we ended up transitioning, coming to the United States.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: in 1991, May of 1991, a few months before the
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: fall of communism.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Wow. How old were you? I was six. Six years old. Yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: So I remember, I remember food rations lining up to
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: get a box of food. I remember.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: No kidding. Yeah. Yeah. Lining up.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I remember, I remember there was looking into our bathroom
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: as a kid and there was a tub of water
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: and I asked, what is that about? And they were
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: like that. We get water rationed for the family to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: bathe with. So you get water and that's your water
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: for the week to bathe with.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: So very different. My first memory in America was coming
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: from the airport and then pulling up to this beautiful, shiny,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: amazing store. And I thought to myself, how kind. My
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: parents took me to replenish my toys.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I don't have any toys.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: They took me here to buy toys, right? I've never
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: seen anything like it. It looked like a toy store.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It was a Lucky's.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Grocery store off of El Cajon Avenue and the 805 freeway.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: The grocery store in America looked like an imaginary toy store.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: That's how colorful and beautiful it was. And it was like,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: they weren't coming to give me toys. They were just
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: going grocery shopping because we didn't have any food. And
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: so come to the United States, mom and dad see
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. I don't have a lot of
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: crazy memories. There's a memory that my mom tells me.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: This might be a big graphic, but I'll share the
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: story with you anyway. I've only shared it once or twice.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: So Arzees are ethnically Muslim. Muslims get circumcised. Armenians don't
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: get circumcised because we are like, hey, Galatians says you
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: don't got to get circumcised. So culturally not part of
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: the world, no circumcision. So we were the last ones
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: there because we were fair skin and everyone left. and
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: they're starting to swarm in and they have reports of
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: where there are Armenian families and they're going in and
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: they're beating people up, they're harming people. This is explored
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: in a movie recently released actually called Beyond Borders, this
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: conflict specifically. It stars Elizabeth from The Chosen. So people
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: are coming in our house, right? And as a kid,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: this is probably gonna be TMI, but I'm just gonna,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go for it. We're gonna full send it.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: As a kid, I end up having like a weird
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: UTI infection as a kid. So they end up getting
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: me circumcised, right? And then when they come in and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: they're about to bring harm to me and my mom,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: my mom actually is like, no, no, no, no, no.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: We're not Armenians. We're not Armenians. We're not Armenians. Armenians
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: are circumcised. Look, my son is not circumcised. So she
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: literally shows them my penis. And that is what makes
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: them say, okay, these are Russians.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: They're not Armenians. And they leave.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: So- My penis saved me and my family's life.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Good for you. Family jewels, buddy. But I mean, so
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious. I don't know much about this. I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: don't know anything about this. So, I mean, if communism
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: is cleansing, you know, were they just cleansing Christians? Because
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: communism is the religion. So were they persecuting Christians? Just
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Christians or was it any religion?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't that it was communism or the Soviet Union.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: It was the Arsies who had their own nation state
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: within the communistic Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union just
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: kind of stood back and were like, we're going to
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: let this play out. They didn't want to interfere too much.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: So what they should have done is said, hey, you
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: can't kill 500 Armenians in the streets. Like, can't do that.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: But they waited and waited and waited until it really.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Hit the fan.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: And then at the end, they stepped in in January
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: and So it wasn't a Soviet, the Soviet union was
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: doing it. It was that the people in the, like
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: they were looting and rioting and killing, and you could,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: people can pull up footage of all this.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: It's, it's horrific.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: The stuff that happened in that area, that in the
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Boro Karabakh region, that area just recently got ethnically. Two
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: weeks before October 7th, the last 120,000 Armenians in that
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: autonomous Armenian region within Azerbaijan just got pushed out, uh, September, 2023.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: So the last 100,000 Armenian Christians just got cleansed, I
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: think they were cleansed from Azerbaijan. No one talked about
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: it because two weeks later, you had October 7th. And then,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: but people can pull up videos and there's just, I mean,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: there's like a mountain of just Armenians trying to leave
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: that region. Man.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: And so Trump recently just is trying to negotiate a
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: peace treaty and is trying to normalize relations between the
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: two countries, like maybe a month or two ago.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I would do anything to protect my family, but
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: there's always that one worry in the back of my head.
• 25:33
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• 25:42
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• 26:20
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• 26:23
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• 26:56
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• 28:14
  Speaker 1: don't know, man. It seems like, you know, we're seeing...
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's because of the internet or
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: if it was always happening, but I mean, you know,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I've read about, you know, they're crucifying Christians today in Syria.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's happening all over. Israel has bombed several
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Catholic churches, probably an accident, maybe, but there's been no
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: repercussions for that. And so, I mean, you're probably a
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: lot more tuned into this than I am. I mean,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: how common is this in that part of the world?
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: It's very common in parts of Africa right now. Yeah,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: what they're doing to African Christians is just absolutely horrific.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: They're shooting up churches. They're killing women and children. It's
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: really dark right now. From my understanding, Africa is probably
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: the worst. I know North Korea sentenced a family to
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: life in prison, a family with a two-year-old in it,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: in their concentration camp. Yeah, we just covered it on
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: the channel because the Bibles are.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Illegal in North Korea.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, that, you know, this is several years ago,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: but there was a two-year-old in the family and they're
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: sentenced to life for just owning a Bible.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: What do you do about this? I mean, what do
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you do about this as a Christian? I mean, as
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: a believer, when you're seeing your people be killed, persecuted,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: you know, for their beliefs? I mean, what goes through
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: your head? Well, one, I pray.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I pray that justice will prevail. I pray that Jesus
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: would make all things right.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: So one, I pray.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Two, I I look at what's in front of me
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: right now, and I say, well, how can I be
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: faithful with what's in front of me? And can I
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: contribute to relief in those parts of the world? Can
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I send Bibles there? Can I help get messaging out there?
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Can I fund folks that are willing to go out
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: there and do some of the humanitarian work? So I
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: think that, and then three, I think awareness, like just
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: bringing awareness to it. Because it's not a trendy thing
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: to talk about Christians being persecuted and killed, right? There's
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: not a good story arc to it. There's not an
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: oppressor-oppressed narrative to it. It's just, this is really sad, right?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: But I think bringing awareness to it is also helpful. Yeah,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I interviewed this guy.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to say his name because he didn't
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: want to talk about this on the interview. But, you know,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: at his... they were doing missionary work at a very
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: young age and going into parts of China. And we're
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: preaching the word and they would have the Chinese Communist
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Party coming in and kicking in the door and looking
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: for Bibles and what are you doing here? And very,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: it sounds like special operation shit. I was like fascinated
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: when we were talking offline about it. And I mean,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: are there, are we, Are Christians, I mean, are there
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: missionaries embedded in North Korea that are in places like
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: that still today?
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: I would definitely say China, for sure. For a fact, China, 100%.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I can't speak to North Korea, but there's a lot
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: of amazing underground churches in China. There's some churches that
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: are kind of tolerated by the government in China, but
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: they got to be connected to the state. But the
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: underground church revival is huge.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: It's not just China.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's parts of Pakistan, parts of Afghanistan. They're
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: they're broadcasting Bible teaching to Iran over the airwaves and
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: people were hearing it, getting saved, getting baptized. And there's
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: tons of revival happening in parts of the world. It's
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: like when you try to suppress the movement of Jesus,
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: it flourishes ironically enough. And then when here, when we
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: have all this freedom to practice our faith in America,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: we're kind of take it for granted.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I just think that's, I mean, that is throwing it
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: all on the line right there. Yeah. Doing that. I mean,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: there's lots of Christians doing good things in places like Haiti,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and they go all over the place, right? But I mean,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: to do that, that is a, you're not doing a
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: field trip there. You know what I mean? And I
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: was just curious if you knew of any of that
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: going on. Yeah.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: My wife went to China for like a month-long mission trip,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: maybe six months before we got married. as an English teacher.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: They weren't as locked down back then. So she went
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: there and she said, even just going there as like
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: an English teacher, they had people following them around and
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: keeping tabs on them.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of scary. Yeah. Yeah. So you get
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to the US. What happens?
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Get to the US.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: This is amazing. It's a fresh start.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful. I'm in San Diego, you know, awesome. I
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: don't know the language, don't know anything. My only context
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: of anything related to America, my dad would smuggle in
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: video cassettes into our house when we were a kid,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: we had a BCR.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: He was like a.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Bootleg smuggler, you know, he's always a hustler. And he,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: my only context for American culture was Michael Jackson in
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: American Ninja.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: That's it. Right on.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: And so I ended up trying to learn English through cartoons,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Michael Jackson, American Ninja. few months into being out here.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: So my mother and my father had a tumultuous relationship
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: because they had to, he had to leave early. And
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: so he's living in Moscow, kind of trying to go
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: back and forth because again, we're fair skin. So he
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: stayed behind the longest. Long story short, I find these
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: letters with kissy marks on them that I'm like, oh,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: these are sweet. And I take them to my dad.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I'm like, look, mom wrote you these like beautiful letters.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: There's like lipstick on them. Well, they weren't to my dad.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: They were to her boyfriend back in Baku. So that
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: was the straw that broke the camel's back. They had
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: a fresh start. They're starting over. He was like, I'm done.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: And he had also a relationship back in Moscow. And
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: so long story short, a couple months into being here,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: my mother and my father split. My mother's dad dies.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: My grandfather dies. He fought in World War II for
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: the Soviets, right? Awesome dude, English teacher.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: He dies.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: And my mom just goes down this dark spiral of depression, despair, anxiety.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: She's a single mom now. We're on welfare. I remember
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: our check was $ 650 a month and our rent was
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: $ 450 a month. And so we have to stretch that
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: $ 200 a month on food. So no car. My dad
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: tries to come around, but my mom had a very
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: toxic taste in men. So he'd come around. The dudes
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: that were there would fight him multiple times, fights. One
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: time my mom jumped in, grabbed a heel.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: And scraped his face.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: The cops had to get called. And she told me,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: don't say I did it when the cops came. And
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: my dad tried to be in my life, but she
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: made it very difficult for him. And we had this
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: conversation as men, like, what happened, dude?
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Where were you?
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: He kind of explained his side. At the same time,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: we start going to the Armenian Apostolic Church, which again,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I don't have any God. I don't have any Jesus
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: as a child. I don't know anything about God. I've
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: never heard anything about the Bible, the gospel, anything. But
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: we come to America and there's this beautiful a diaspora
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: of Armenians and the Armenian Apostolic Church. So this is
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: the oriental arm of the church, a beautiful liturgy, beautiful art.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: So simultaneously I'm becoming an altar boy. I'm like, this
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: is awesome. I mean, I love being an altar boy.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: We got to light the incense. People may not find
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: this appropriate, but when there was leftover communion wine, you
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: can't discard the communion wine. That's holy. So guess who
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: they had finish off the communion wine? right on to
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: this guy right here so i'm like man this is
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: great i love this that that that hyatt is awesome
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: there's a there's a picture that i that i when
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: i do talks i put up as me getting kind
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: of christened as a little six seven year old kid
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: and then there's some older kids that are also altar
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: boys and they're 13 14 ish they were like the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: senior altar boys i was a junior altar boy long
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: story short they end up sexually assaulting me like repeatedly
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: sexually assaulting me uh starting from showing gay porn and
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: doing the acts on me.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And then in.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: The midst of all that, it was framed as if I,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: as a seven year old would initiate seven years old, seven, seven,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: eight years old, that I was the one that like
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: initiated this stuff. So even in the way it was
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: framed was very twisted. The church didn't, didn't do much.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: They didn't do anything. Um, At the same time, my
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: dad remarries and my mom was bitter at the church
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: because they remarried and they shouldn't have remarried technically according
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: to her because they were, I guess, not divorced as
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: is according to her. So she's angry at the church
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: because they remarried my dad. I'm like, this happened by
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: these guys I met at the church and you guys
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: didn't do anything. And so like I was done. I
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: was like, there is no God. And if there is
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: a God, he does not like me. So I had
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: to have been the youngest self-professed atheist Walking around.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Damn, man. What do you... I mean, there's a
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: lot of kids that go through this. A lot more
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: than I'd like to, you know, think about. And, I mean,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: just on the show that we've had so many, you know,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: people that have been sexually abused, physically abused, by family,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: by neighbors, by whoever. And so I'm just, you know,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: what's your advice to kids that are going through that?
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: It's going to be all right. It's going to be okay.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: The grace and the mercy of God can do wonders
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: in transforming our hearts and reorienting us back into a
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: healthy place. There's going to be some work. I had
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: to go to therapy. I discovered as an adult that
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I had onset PTSD. I didn't know that.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: As a child.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: I didn't know why I was the way I was,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: but as an adult, Now I'm married with a family
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: and I'm like.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I got to figure this stuff out.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Like, why don't I have these weird patterns and conflict
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: and go to therapy, get good treatment, get counseling, get
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: around people that are going to call you to more.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: And you could either allow those things to defy you
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: or you could persevere despite, you know, Dave Ramsey has
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: this quote. He says, the only difference between successful people
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: and unsuccessful people is there's a pile of poop all
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: of us have to deal with, but those of us
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: that are successful just figured out a way to stand
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: on top of all the poop. And so that would
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: be my advice.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: How'd you get yourself out of it?
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: So something interesting happened. Growing up in San Diego, predominantly
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: black neighborhood, my mom and me, and then there was
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: another Armenian refugee family in the complex. It was like
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: a eight unit complex. And so I get into music.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: I get into hip-hop. I love hip-hop. I love the graffiti.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: This is the early 90s, so this is a little
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: different than it is. But you talk about LL Cool J,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Public Enemy, just a different time in hip-hop. And then
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: the gangster rap came on the scene. And so I
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: end up going down like just doggy style, the chronic.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Like this is who's discipling me at this point. Eight,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: nine years old, I'm listening to doggy style, the chronic.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Fourth grade, I got my ear pierced and I remember
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: going back to the Armenian church and they had nothing
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: to say about the sexual abuse that happened to me,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: but they were concerned that I got my ear pierced
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: and I was listening to rap music now, right? Which
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: is like, where are the just scales? So I get
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: into gangster rap. The manager of our apartment complex, her
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: name's Cherie Jackson. I said, I'm still in touch with
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: her to this day. Cherie Me and her son were
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: best friends.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: His name's Steven.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: And Cherie was involved in some street activities. One night
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: when Steven stayed the night at my house, we would
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: do sleepovers back and forth. One night he stayed the
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: night at my house. There was a drive-by and bullet
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: holes on his side of the building. So this is,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: I'm just painting a picture of who Cherie was. And
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: took me to my first concert. I was like nine
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: years old. Definitely one of the only kids in the audience.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: one of the only white kids in the audience.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: I saw Dr.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Dre and Snoop in concert live.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: This is 93.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: And Cherie ends up getting arrested for going to jail
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: for moving, trying to move cocaine through the airport or
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: a Greyhound or something. So she goes to jail, gets
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: radically saved in prison, like on fire for the Lord,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: loves Jesus, comes out. And everyone in our apartment complex
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: starts coming to church with her because clearly there's a
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: night and day shift. And I, at the same time,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: I'm just completely unraveling. I'm now in a gang. I'm
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: smoking weed. I'm drinking. This is all in for it.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I'm breaking into my schools and stealing karaoke machines because
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: I want to be a rapper. Just a complete derelict
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: of a kid. And I get arrested at the age
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: of 11 for breaking into a house. Our gang leader.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Damn, at 11?
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: At 11, yeah. Our gang leader was in jail and
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: we wanted to bail him out. And so we found
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: out the same girl he was messing with told us
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: she was messing with another dude and he had money
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: and stuff in his house. So we're like, we can
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: break into here and take the money to go bail
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: him out. That was the plan. Well, in the midst
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: of that, I'm the smallest one, I'm in the window,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: the bathroom window, you know, the little small little, I'm
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: like in the window and our lookout gets put into
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: this armbar. It's like UFC armbar and he wasn't a
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: great lookout at all. So there's an ex-police officer that
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: saw everything that was happening. So I get arrested. and
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: go to jail for the night. My mom has to
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: come bail me out. And I knew at that point, like,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: I'm not built for this life. Like, I am not
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: a tough guy. Thankfully, we weren't playing with guns and
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. But I knew, like, this is
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: not for me. At the same time, Cherie is coming
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: to faith. People are getting saved in our apartment complex.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: And now I have to do community service as a
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: part of my probation. I wait till the last minute,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: of course. And the only way I can get the
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: hours done is if I start doing it at Cherie's
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: church and with Charles and Willie, who live next door
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: to me. blue collar guys. Charles had some kids that
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: I was friends with. Willie was single. And in that,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: I'm starting to hear about Jesus and I'm getting softened
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: to the idea of Jesus. I'm getting softened to the
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: idea of God.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not a Christian.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: I'm still saying I'm an atheist, but they're just talking
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: and just saying like, man, like, and it was this
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: beautiful balance of like, we're going to accept you right
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: where you are, but we're going to tell you the
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: truth about yourself. Like, we love you and you're welcome.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: but you have some issues and you need to get
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: your life in order. And they were just talking to
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: me like I was a grown man. They weren't coddling me.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: They weren't talking to me like I was a kid.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: And so through Cherie, through Charles, through Willie, I started
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: hearing about Jesus. And it was weird because they would
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: tell me stuff like, man, God's going to use you
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: to do great things someday. You're going to reach millions
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: of people for Jesus. I'm like sixth and seventh grade.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: And this is now the environment I'm in. At the
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: same time, I end up, I'm in seventh grade.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I'm a 1.0 GPA student.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: My mom sees all this stuff. Now we're getting a
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: reputation as the kids that are breaking into houses and
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: doing stuff, even after I got arrested. And my mom
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: sees this. She wants to relocate us to North County, Oceanside,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Vista area. And at the same time, there was a
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: kid who brought a gun to school and told me
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: about it. And then when he got caught with it,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: told the police it was my gun. So the police
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: bring me in to the principal's office and are interrogating me.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't, I didn't see the gun.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: He said he had a gun. I didn't see the gun.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: And they're like, well, he's saying it's your gun. And
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like, it's not my gun. They're like, well, we're
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: going to run the fingerprints. And if it's your gun,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: like you're going down for this, you're already on probation.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, scan the effing fingerprints. Like, this is
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: not my gun. Do it. And so they're like, we're
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: going to do it. And so it's just the weirdest
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: sequence of events. Long story short, the kid who brought
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: the gun is expelled. One day I'm walking home. This
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: is like the week I'm moving. I'm walking home. And
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: this kid, this kid's walking towards me and Samoan kid.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: And I see him and I'm like, hey, like, what
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: was up with the gun? Why are you telling them
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: that it was my gun, right? And I look and
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: he has a knife in his hand and he says,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: why did you effing snitch on me? And I'm like,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: snitch on you? And so as he's walking and lunging
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: towards me, thankfully he was a fat Samoan kid. I
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: just jetted and ran for my life down El Cajon
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Boulevard with everything I had. A couple of days later,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: we moved to North County And now I got a
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: clean start. I escaped this kid attempting to stab me.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: I escaped going to jail. I escaped all the craziness
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: in my life. Okay, this is a clean start. I'm
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: not gonna smoke weed. I'm not gonna drink. I'm not
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: gonna break into houses. This is a fresh start. And
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: so I end up discovering basketball. I thought I wanted
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: to be a professional basketball player. Like this is my
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: path now. That's my purpose in life. This is Michael
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Jordan's last season with the Chicago Bulls, that era. And
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm going to be a basketball player. And
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: then I start doing better in school. GPA goes from
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: like a 1.0. I didn't think they would take me
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: into the eighth grade, but I went from like a 1.0
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: to like a 3.8 my first year in eighth grade,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: just a different environment. And then more and more people
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: around me are telling me about Jesus, right? And I
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: ended up meeting a girl my freshman year. I did
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: a talent show where I rapped and I won this
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: talent show at Ringo Terrace Park and met this girl.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: And the only way I could see her is if
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I went to church with her and her family online.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: Sundays over the summer.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: School year was done. I couldn't see her. So I'm like,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: why not? Might as well, right?
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: And I start going to this kind of seeker-friendly church
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: and they're talking about Jesus and they're telling me about
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: the gospel and I'm slowly softening to it. Now I'm
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: still one foot in, one foot out. I'm still sleeping
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: with her. I'm still kind of smoking weed a little
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: bit on the down low, right? But I then start
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: asking the questions, is Jesus God? Is Jesus the only
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: way to God? How do I know this? And me
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: and a girl break up. I'm dating a Jehovah's Witness girl.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I got Muslim friends. I got Mormon friends. I got
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: all these different friends. And I'm just confused trying to
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: sort out the truth claims. My manager at Pizza Hut
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: and the lead delivery driver are both devoted Christians. And
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I'm asking them like, because I'm talking to this Jehovah's
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Witness girl, they don't believe Jesus is God. They believe
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: he's a God. but I'm still going to church. And
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: so they hand me a book and it was The
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a book this thick
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: by Josh McDowell. And as a sophomore in high school,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: I just devour this entire book. And I'm just, it's
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: like an academic textbook, right? Like English is my second language.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not a great reader, but all of a sudden
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: the light just starts going off and all my answers,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: my apologetics questions, all those answers I got from just
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: reading and researching. And so the another year or so
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: of wrestling. And then like my junior year, I'm like,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: all right, I'm done. I'm gonna surrender my life to
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: the Lord. I'm gonna do it his way. I'm not
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: gonna have one foot in, one foot out. But it
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: was a messy four or five years of going from
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: atheist to deist to theist to Christian. I'd say it
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: was about a four or five year process for me.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Wow, at that young of an age. Yeah. How did you,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: thank you for sharing that. How did you, what I
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: meant to ask was, And we were going to get there,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: but how did you remove yourself from the sexual abuse
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: within the church?
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I just stopped going to church. Yeah, I just was like,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not, I can't be around these dudes anymore.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Like this is, it's just weird. It's awkward.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Again, the way it was framed was that it was
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: my fault and I initiated it.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: How did they frame that? I mean, a seven-year-old?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I had people, I had other people in the neighborhood
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: come up to me and start asking me if I
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: was gay. Like I remember the word gay was, In Russian,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: that's my first language, sounds similar to the word baby blue.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: And so I remember someone coming up and asking me, like,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: are you gay? The gula boy. The gula boy. And
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: I was like, gula boy, that sounds like baby. What
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: are you asking me? And then they had to explain
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: it to me. And so they framed this whole thing
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: as if it was me, a gay kid, trying to
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: initiate relations with these older boys. And so that made
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: me very upset.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Wow. Damn. What did, I mean, what did they say?
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Did you guys approach them? Did your mother approach them?
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: There was like this kind of like community town hall
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: meeting almost in someone's house. And I remember they were
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: screaming and crying and saying it was me. It was
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: all my fault. I was the one that did it.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: And I just kind of froze. I didn't, I couldn't,
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: I didn't know what to say. Like, I just cried
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: and was like, no, you know, and that's all I
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: remember from that day. But yeah, it was like all
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: the Armenian families in the neighborhood kind of got together
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: or maybe it was the other kid's parents and maybe
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: my mom. I don't think my dad was there. And
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: it was this big meeting and they just made me
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: look like I was the initiator.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Did they ostracize you guys?
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, now I'm the quote unquote gay kid.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So yes. Yeah. Holy shit.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: My mom is a single mom. So that's already kind
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: of frowned upon. And now I'm the kid that they're.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Viewing as the gay kid. That's enraging, man. Yeah. I'm
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: sorry that happened to him.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Damn. Is this the same church that Nathan went to?
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. So this is Armenian Apostolic. a
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: part of the oriental arm of the church. So this is,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: oriental orthodoxy is the Armenian apostolic, the Ethiopian orthodox, this
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: is that arm of the church. So this is very
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: high church, liturgical, apostolic succession, this is what their connection is,
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: pretty deep to the early church.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Gotcha. Yeah. Gotcha. And you had mentioned, maybe you didn't mention,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: maybe it was in the outline, that you found a
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: lot of darkness in the music industry that you were in?
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Is that the darkness about the gangs and stuff, or
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: is there more? Yeah, I mean, one, there's the practical,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: what is going to sell? I was talking to Dr.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Anthony Bradley, and he said this point. He said, free
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: markets without virtue get us OnlyFans, right? And so if
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: you have free markets and anything goes, what is going
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: to sell? It's going to be lust of the eyes,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: lust of the flesh, pride of life. So what was,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: what would sells in music? Lust of the eyes, lust
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: of the flesh, pride of life. So the music that
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I was consuming was very dark. You know, I couldn't
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: imagine being, I couldn't, my son is 10 years old now.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine him listening to Doggy Style by Snoop,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: you know, or listening to The Chronic by Dr. Dre.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: It is just so, so, so dark. The content is
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: so dark. Um, Even when I started becoming a theist
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: listening to DMX, it's dark and hell is hot. 13
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: songs are all about just the most horrendous murders, the
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: most terrible things. And then there was like a song
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: about Jesus at the end of the album, right? This
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: was like DMX's thing. And so you're talking about people
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: that have been traumatized making traumatizing music over and over.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: And then I am trying to do it for the Lord.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: And as I'm building this thing out, then long, you know,
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: I'm jumping way ahead, but we end up working with
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Interscope records on a project for an artist that was
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: signed to me. And so going from these meetings, um,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: from all the major record labels, you start, you, they,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: they say they want to do something positive. They like
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: what we're doing as Christians. Cause at this point I'm
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: jumping ahead. I'm a Christian now, but at the same time, um,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: there's just a heaviness to the environment that even people
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: who are trying to do the, hey, we like you guys,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: you guys are doing Christian music. There's a heaviness to it.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: And then there's a, hey, we're going to kind of
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: curate this in a way that we can monetize it
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: and make as much money from it as possible. So
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: we can kind of feel better about ourselves because the
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: other stuff we know we're selling to the public is
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: just utter debauchery and it's harmful to people. Man.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Got quite the childhood. Yeah, quite the childhood. Wow, dude.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: What was it like going to church? I mean, that
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: had to be quite the hurdle to get over with
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: what you experienced as a seven-year-old, and then you're back
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: in a church. Did you have any fear?
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: No. People make fun of, like, evangelical churches and are like, hey,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: you know, there's no reverence, there's no art, whatever the
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: critique is. And for someone like me that came from
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: a quote unquote high church setting, one, I didn't really
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: understand anything. It was like beautiful paintings and art, but
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: I didn't get it. And so stepping into an environment
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: that like, they're speaking to me plainly, we're not doing
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: the liturgy in Armenian, we're doing it in English. You
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: could understand what the message is about. And not only
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: can you understand, it's actually relevant to you. Like they're
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: talking about, Hey, you could take this biblical principle and
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: apply it to your day-to-day life. And then the illumination
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: of the gospel message was like, oh man, like even
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: though I'm a sinner and even though I'm clearly broken,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: I knew I was broken, that Jesus offers me an
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: invitation to something better, to something transcendent. That really resonated
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: with me. And so it was as simple as like, man,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know about this whole church thing, but like, Jesus,
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: if you're real, reveal yourself to me. And it was
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: that simple. If you're real, reveal yourself to me and
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: I'll do whatever you want me to do. So it
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: just started there. And because the environment was so different,
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: it wasn't a challenge, but it was a challenge intellectually
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: trying to ask all the questions. It was a challenge
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: in that regard.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Interesting, interesting. Let's move into Nathan's interview. All right, let's
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: do it. So a lot of people upset about that.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Like I had mentioned, I didn't necessarily agree with everything
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: he said. I do like the end message that is,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: I think that, you know, he wants transparency within the churches.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I think that's a good thing. They should be transparent. But,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: you know, there was a lot of, you know, outlandish
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: claims in there, according to your talk on your YouTube channel.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: And so let's start. Yeah.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Well, one, I mean, again, my life experience, that is
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: my life experience, the experience of a lot of my friends,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: you're coming from an environment where your father's not in
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: the home, you're broken, there's trauma, and then you step
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: into a church context that now I don't, I'm not
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: just hearing good information, I actually have access to pastors
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: and men who believe in me and are speaking life
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: into me. And not only that, but I get to
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: serve and learn stuff like expensive cameras and microphones. I'm
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: being called to lead and teach other people as I'm
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: now walking with the Lord. And so all of this
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: has culminated, like the local church has culminated into me
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: becoming who I am today, the husband that I am today.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, I discovered Dave Ramsey in the local church.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: I got out of debt because of Dave Ramsey, because
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: of I was going to a local church, me and
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: my wife were $ 100, 000 in debt. And in 18 months,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: we were debt free. This is before I was doing YouTube,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: before I was doing music. So I am a testament
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: of the local church and the goodness of of what
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: most local churches are. So to me, when I'm hearing Nathan,
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, man, there's abuse and we should
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: absolutely call that out. And I do call that out regularly.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: At the same time, when you start wanting to attack
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: the institution, when you start wanting to say that anyone
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: who's ever taken money as a pastor is now corrupt,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: then I start taking issue with that because I know hundreds,
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: if not thousands of pastors. And I see these men
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: and I see most of them aren't getting rich. 47%
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: of pastors are bivocational. The medium pastor's salary in the
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: United States is $ 61, 000 a year. The average public school
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: teacher's salary is $ 72, 000 a year. So this notion that
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: like most pastors are getting rich and most, I think
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: it's harmful because now what's happening is now we're utilizing
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: very broad strokes and it's impacting people like myself 20
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: years ago that really needed the church. Like the church
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: was my lifeline to everything, to everything. to manhood, to masculinity,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: biblical masculinity, to financial literacy, to developing my skills, my giftings,
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: to doing life with someone a season ahead of me
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: that can speak into my life. There's so many incredible
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: practical aspects of a good local church community. And the
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: way he spoke about it was, in my opinion, the
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: epitome of a hasty generalization fallacy, where you're spotlighting Things
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: that are true, but you don't have enough of the
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: data to understand that that's not reflecting of everybody. So
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: I paralleled it to police brutality, which if anyone should
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: look and say, hey, police brutality is bad. White people,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: black people, bad. Police should not misbehave. However, when you
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: look at the data and you go, well, how prevalent
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: is police brutality? Some studies say that you're more likely
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: to get stung by lightning than you are to be
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: killed by a police officer. Some say you're more likely
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: to die die of a bee sting than you are
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: to die of a police officer. So now we took
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: the police brutality thing and we said, defund the police.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: Abolish the police. And what happened when that happened in
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: major cities? When you mess up with the institution, when
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: you mess with the institution and you start defunding stuff,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: there's ramifications to that. Are all police officers racist?
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: No.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Are there some bad apples?
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Should those people be held accountable?
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: And so I think that same mindset of, hey, the
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: system is corrupt.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: Policing is corrupt.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: You're tinkering with things that are going to have ramifications
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: and they're not good. And so we saw it in
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: major cities with law enforcement, the defund the police movement.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: And now everyone's kind of coming around now and going, ah,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: we probably shouldn't have defunded the police. We probably should
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: better fund the police. And when you look at the data,
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: most people in black and brown neighborhoods, actually, I want
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: to say 70% of them prefer more police in their neighborhoods.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: They want more order and protection from the bad guys,
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: not less.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: And so I think, again, you're tinkering and you're messing
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: with stuff, but you don't understand the ramifications of what
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: you're really saying. And so bad police, they should be
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: held accountable. They should go to jail if they misbehave, absolutely.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Bad pastors, they should be held accountable. If they break
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: the law, they should go to jail. But how prevalent
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: is it? How pervasive is it? That's my concern. And
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: I don't think the data supports that it is as
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: pervasive as Nathan has laid out.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Do you, I mean, do you, do you disagree with
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: his end message that churches and pastors should be transparent
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: with their finances if they're receiving donations to run their church? Yes.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: I think pastors and churches should be transparent, and I
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: think most are. The question is, what do we mean
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: by transparency? I worked with adults with developmental disabilities from
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: 2010 to 2012. It was one of the most fulfilling.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: Jobs I had.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: I had to pick up a group of three folks.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: One of them had high-functioning autism. One of them had
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: high-functioning Down syndrome. Take them to the gym. Take them
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: to school. Take them just kind of do their day
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: with them, right? It was such a fun job. And
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: I remember we had an all-staff meeting. I remember we
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: had an all-staff meeting. And our president and our vice
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: president was there. And I remember finding out that the
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: president of this organization or the CEO of this nonprofit
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: organization made like 150 grand a year.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: And the.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Vice president made like 100 grand a year. And as
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: a 25-year-old kid that was struggling on the front lines
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: doing this work, I was pissed. Like, what do you
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: mean he's making 150K? We're doing the work on the
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: front lines, right? Now, I didn't have to see those
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: people again. I didn't have to see I saw him
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: once a year and that was it, right? Now imagine
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: if I, as a 25-year-old kid, had to do life
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: with that person every single week and hear them preach
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: every single week and have to, and get counsel from
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: them every single week, knowing exactly what they made. I
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: don't think that's a healthy dynamic. So should churches be
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: transparent and accountable?
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And most are.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: What Nathan is asking for is he wants to know
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: what every pastor makes to the dollar. because if he's
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: a giving member and, and, and it's just a different
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: dynamic than in the nonprofit world.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: And so, no, I don't think pastors need to reveal
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: what they make. I don't think every staff member needs
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: to reveal what they make. I don't think that's helpful.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: I don't think when you're doing life on life for
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: people is helpful. Um, people naturally are going to deal
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: with envy and jealousy, depending on what season of life
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: they're in, especially if you're young and you feel like
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: the world's against you. So no. So I think there's transparency,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: but there's not, you know, I don't need to know
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: everything about your life, you know? Um, Our church, Rhythm
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: Church in Oceanside, you met my pastor earlier, we put
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: out a magazine every year where you get to see
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: exactly how much came in. You get to see exactly
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: where the money went. You get to know how much
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: was spent on staff, how much was spent on buildings,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: how much we give away to missions, how much we
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: give away to the community. Every single thing is, but
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: you're not going to find, you're not going to walk
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: in and find out exactly what my pastor makes. You're
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: not going to find out what the admin makes.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: It's lumped in as a group.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: It's lumped in as a group. Yeah, it's lumped in
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: as a group. And I think that By the way,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: the bigger the churches are, usually the more transparent they
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: are because they have external audits. They spend less money
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: on staffing. They spend less money on building because just
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: sheer volume. And they spend way more money on giving
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: and missions and serving the community. And if a church
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: doesn't provide that sort of data, people have the agency
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: to go to a different church, right? There are churches
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: right now, the pastor who married me and my wife,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: The deacons and the elders vote on his salary. Everything
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: is transparent. You know, he has a parsonage on site
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: next to the church. Everything is full. So there are
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: churches like that. And I would say, if you want
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: a church like that, praise God, go find a church
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: like that. If you want to know where every dollar
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: is going and you want the deacons to approve every
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: stapler that gets bought, it's like, cool, man, might as
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: well do it. But when you give a, and this
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: really happened, when you give a $ 20 donation to a church,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: And then you email them or call them and say, hey,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: I want all your financial records and I want to
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: know what your pastor makes. I think you're a little
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: out of pocket at that point.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I don't disagree with that. And that's
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: something that I thought about after that interview, you know,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: when he was talking about, I donated to that church.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, okay, but did you donate a dollar?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: And now you're demanding all these answers, maybe showing up
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: at somebody's house with a camera crew.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Blasting and saying they're not transparent. Demanding transparency.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't, you know, I mean, I run
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: a for-profit business, but if somebody was at my front,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: in my front yard with a bunch of cameras and
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: a microphone and demanding my financials, probably would have ended
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: a lot worse than I did with wherever he was. But,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: you know, but I do, I mean, I don't know
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: how you would I mean, I don't know exactly how
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: you would do the transparency. I like the grouping it in,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: all of the staff. This is how much staff we have,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: and this is how much is allocated to that.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: And again, most bigger churches do that. And they get
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: external audits.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: They do that.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: And the funny thing is with Nate, what happened to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: him was awful, man. What he went through with the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: pastor that mentored him and that dude being convicted of
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: sexual assault against his own daughter that they adopted, that
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: rocked our entire region where we live.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Everyone was devastated by that because that's a good church.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: I don't even want to say the name of the church,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: but anyone from the region knows what church I'm talking about.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: That was a good church. And the pastor was a
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: good pastor. And my friend there is still one of
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: the pastors there. And they do an amazing job of
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: reaching the community and helping people. And they have one
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: of the best mental health counseling programs in the area.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: That's like Christian counseling where you can go to them.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: But what happened to Nate and the pastor that then
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: committed that is awful and it rocked our entire area.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: But what happens is when something bad happens to you,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: like to me as a kid, we develop a schema
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: for seeing everything through that lens. So like I had
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: a schema of like church is bad, church is evil.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Church just wants to harm me.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: This is all BS.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: This is all nonsense. I had the same schema and
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: it takes a while to detangle that schema and say, well,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: let me not generalize and say all churches are this way. No,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: this was my experience. And what's the general data and
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: the general consensus on it? And when you look at
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: the data, the data just doesn't reflect this conclusion that
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: churches are all stealing, churches are all unethical, churches are,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: not all, but most. And I think that the distinguishment
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: is any abuse is bad. Any abuse is bad and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: any abuse.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: Should be called out.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: And I'll lock arms with Nate in a heartbeat and say, man,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: if Kenneth Copeland owns a $ 19, 000 parsonage and like, like, No,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: that's not good, right? But then what he's doing is
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: now that's impacting young men who really need the church.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: And now they're looking at their pastor side-eye and they're
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: looking at the institution side-eye, not understanding that, man, Jesus
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: established the church. Like Jesus established both in a, where
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: two or three are gathered, I'm with them, and in
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: the local gathering and sometimes in large gatherings. We see
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: all the above. We see home churches in the New
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: Testament and we see them gathering in Acts and there's
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: thousands of people there. So this idea that.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: You know, This is good.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: This is bad. It's like bad is bad.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: Good is good.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: There are big churches that are doing great, great work.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: There are small churches that are not doing great work,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: that don't have accountability, that rewrote the bylaws, right? And
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: so how we speak about these things has ripple effects.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: And if you want to tear down the institution, that's
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: going to come with consequences.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I believe that minor correction are 19,000 square
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: foot home, not $ 19, 000 home.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: Excuse me.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Sorry. Thank you.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: 19,000 square foot. Minor difference there. Big difference.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: But, but you know, you know, another thing that I
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: don't think that Nathan didn't highlight it. I think this
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: may have been, I probably should have picked up on it.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: I should have picked up on it quicker, but you know,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: one of the things that he had said is that,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the 14, I think he said it was
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: a 14 point guideline on the IRS that, you know,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: that they go into it. something that we didn't discuss is,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: and he said it, but we didn't dive into it,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: is that it attracts criminals to open churches as a facade.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: I should have gone down that rabbit hole more. I
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: didn't really broach it at all. Sometimes it just doesn't
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: hit me until the interview's over. But I think one
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: of the things, and I do think this is an
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: important point, that the guidelines are so lenient and allow,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: you know, no transparency that it actually... And that's, I think,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: where he was going with the Hells Angels, is that
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: it can attract criminals to build the organization in the
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: church as actually a facade, you know, and so that
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: alleviates having to be transparent about where funding's coming, you know,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: if it's from... who knows, drugs, whatever, right?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: It's money laundering.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Oh yeah. Great money laundering or a great way,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: great way to launder money. And we did not highlight
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: that enough and it should have been highlighted enough, but
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: you know, what other, um, like I said, I've, I've
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: gotten a ton of texts from people, emails, a lot
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: of from people that I actually, that I really respect. And, um,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: So I just, you know, I really want to dive
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: in and get, you know, the other side of the
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: coin here. So what other things did he do?
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Can I read some data to you?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Okay.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: So here's some data. So I already said this to you.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: Average full-time pastor salary in America is $ 58, 000. That's the medium, right?
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: Average teacher salary is $ 74, 000. So most pastors are making
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: less than public school teachers. I love public school teachers.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: God bless public school teachers. I prefer pastors to get
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: paid more than public school teachers. Lifeway Research reports that
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: nearly half, 47%, of evangelical pastors are bi, according to
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: a national congregant study done in 2021. Being a pastor
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: is hard, man. 42% of U.S. pastors said they've seriously
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: considered leaving full-time ministry in the past year. So this
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: is a study that was just released by Lifeway Research's
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: relevant magazine just reported on it. Now, here's the pros
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: of church that don't get talked about enough. And again,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: as a kid that like, if it wasn't for the
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: local church, I would not be sitting here with you
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: right now. I don't even know if I'd be alive
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: right now, right? Harvard's Nurses Health Study followed 74,000 women
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: for 16 years and found those who went to church
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: more than once a week had a 33% lower risk
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: of dying.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: It's a bigger effect than many medicines showing that faith
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: actually adds years to your life.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: So me growing up poor on welfare, single parent home, right? Man,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: the church gave me the framework for the healthy rhythms
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: in my life, right? Here's another one. Harvard also found
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: that women who went weekly were five times less likely
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: to die by suicide. And both men and women had
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: dramatically fewer deaths from despair, up to 68% lower risk.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: So in a world where we know deaths of despair
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: is rising, especially you're connected to a lot of the
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: SEAL community. Man, there's a strong connection to death to
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: despair and suicide being mitigated by people who go to
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: church regularly. And for me, I had a lot of
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: despair and I needed hope as a kid. And the
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: church was a segue for that. You can interrupt on
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: any of these if you want. 2016 study in the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: American Journal of Psychiatry showed that attending church reduces the
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: risk of developing depression later in life even after adjusting
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: for prior mental health issues.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: Wow. Right?
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: How many young people are dealing with incredible levels of
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: anxiety right now?
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: Astronomical amount.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: 42% of Gen Z say that they feel hopeless about
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: the future. 47% of Gen Z, it's higher amongst women,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: say that they constantly feel anxiety almost.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: All the time. Damn, 47%. 40%.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: And I can send all this data to you guys
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: too if you guys want to link it below. Anxiety
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: is at an all-time high, man. And I'm not saying
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: these are causations. I'm not saying these are one-to-one, but
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: I'm saying there's very, very clear correlations of people who
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: are going to church having less rates of depression, less
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: rates of despair, less likely to commit suicide, you know?
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that is, I mean, all these things,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: you know, when I was saying I had a, it
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: was a big decision for me to do that, to
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: conduct that interview. these are the things that I didn't
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: want to take away from people. And those are, not
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: to call them minor things, the major one being I
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: don't want to steer anybody away from Christ because I
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: think that's where a lot of people find Christ. And
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: that's where they learn. And another thing is regardless of
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: the pastor's motives and what they're doing, it's still you know,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's still a good message that they put out,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: whether they're, you know, overspending or overpaid or buying jets
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: or living a 19,000 square foot home or not. Like,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: people are, you know, they are being rejuvenated. They are
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: turning into better people. They are leaning into Christ, you know,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: going to church. And so, you know, his, you know,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: we had a discussion about, you know, what is the church?
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: And I'm with him, you know, that, and, uh, and, uh,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: I mentioned, uh, One of my mentors, Todd Bell, he
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: lives here. We haven't done it for a while, but
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: we do a home Bible study. And that was one
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: of the first things that I learned is that the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: church is, according to him, I agree with him, the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: church is the living body of believers, not a brick
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: and mortar. But Nathan doesn't, I don't think he steps
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: foot in a church.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: I think Nathan actually does go to church. from a
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: conversation he had with my friend, I want to say
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: Jeff from Church Disrupted. So I think he goes to
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: church like once or twice a month. I'm not sure
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: if he goes regularly, but the idea about the building
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: is interesting. It's the building, you're right, church is the community,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: church is the camaraderie, but church is also the local ecclesia,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: that word church means local gathering. It's almost like a
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: governmental term in the original Greek. So the church gathered
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: in big groups on Solomon's porch outside of the temple,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: and they gathered in homes. And then the moment they
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: could gather in buildings, they did. And that's around 175 AD.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: And this is not according to me. This is, I'm
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: going to butcher his name, but David Guzik did a
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: whole lecture series on church history. And people can look
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: up his series and I could send that over to
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: you guys as well. But it breaks down the errors
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: of the church. And so around 150 to 200, the
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: moment that it got a little more relaxed under Roman
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: occupation and the church couldn't meet in buildings, they did
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: meet in buildings for pragmatic reasons. We meet in the home,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: but we also meet in large groups and we come
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: together for corporate worship, liturgy, the reading of the scriptures, encouragement,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: so communion, right? Those things, the sacraments. So I think
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: it's in both. I don't think it's either or. I
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: think the home church is where you're known and where
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: you're connected and But I think the bigger gathering, there's
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: nothing like worshiping with hundreds of other people. We saw
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk's memorial. And how beautiful was it to see
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: Chris Tomlin up there and my buddy Phil Wickham up
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: there leading worship and 100,000 people singing to Jesus. There's
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: a beautiful part about corporate gatherings and worship. Again, just
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: because it's big doesn't mean it's bad. Can I keep
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: going on some of these stats?
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, keep going.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: Harvard's human, this is Harvard, Harvard's human flourishing program found
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: that people who attend church weekly are 30 to 50%
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: less likely to get divorced. And couples who go together
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: are the most stable. Coming from a broken family, coming
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: from a single parent home, my wife comes from a
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: single parent home. The 2008 recession, we got married in
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: 2008 in the middle of the recession. The church was
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: absolutely the backbone to help us build a stable marriage
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: coming from utter dysfunction. People talk a lot about the
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: divorce rate, right? We know the number one correlation to
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: young men going down the dark path is not having
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: a father in the home, right? And what you see
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: amongst churchgoers is they're more likely to stay married, to
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: get married, to stay married, to have healthy marriages. And
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: I think that's so crucial, you know, is just fathers
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: in the homes with their kids and building solid families
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: and 30 to 50% less likely to get divorced.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: A lot of good coming out of there. Yeah.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: The National Ad Health Study used advanced methods to show
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: that teens who go to church are less likely to
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: use marijuana, drink, or smoke. Strong, strong decline in that.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: Long-term U.S. household data shows that regular attenders give three
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: to four times more to charity each year than non-attenders,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: around $ 3, 000 versus $ 700 a year. So church ends up
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: shaping our generosity. You become a more generous person. You
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: keep that open-hand mentality because you're trained to be generous.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: You're trained to give. We look at the gospel story
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: as Jesus gave everything, gave his life for us. And
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: so there's a byproduct. So folks who are in church
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: are way more generous. $ 700 for the average person, $ 3, 000
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: a year in charitable donation for the churchgoer. A 2022
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: study in the journal Nature found that communities with more
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: cross class friendships. And this is me like poor and
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: I'm around folks that are wealthy, poor and I'm around
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: men that are stable. Um, so communities with more cross
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: class friendships, often built in churches have much higher rates
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: of upward mobility for poor kids. So just access to
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: a mentor, just access to a Bible study leader that's
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: financially stable. And I'm coming from welfare, more, more opportunities
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: for upward mobility.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: Um, I could keep going, man. There's so many.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about tithing.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about tithing.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: That's something I didn't know about until Nathan came here.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: And you talked about that in that video as well.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: So what is it? Where did it come from? Should
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: we be doing it?
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: So the tithe is an Old Testament law, primarily around agriculture.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't just 10%. It was probably around 23%.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: And it's talking about, hey, the first fruits that are
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: coming in, you should be giving to those.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: The what groups?
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: The first fruits from your crops. You're talking about an
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: agricultural society. So as they're getting grain and all that
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: sort of stuff, they're tithing off of their grain. And
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: they'd also take care of the priests. There was a
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: component to it of almost like a civic use for
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: sometimes infrastructure and stuff like that as well. So it's
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: to take care of the Levites, but then there was
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: also stuff to take care of just the society as
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: a whole.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Who are the Levites?
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: The priests in the Old Testament.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Levites are the priests. They would minister
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: in the temple. And so the tithe would go to
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: them to care for them. And so it's one of
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: the commandments in the Old Testament, and it had multiple
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: utilities to it. In our modern-day context, we as followers
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: of Jesus, we don't follow the letter of the law
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: for the Levitical law. but we do extract principles from it, right?
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: And there are certain laws that are moral, there are
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: certain laws that are civic, there are certain laws that
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: are identifying markers for the Jewish people, right? Tithing, those
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: sorts of things. And so today in our context, New
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: Testament Christianity with the letters of Paul, we're called to
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: radical generosity. We're called to give and be generous, open-handed,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: not under compulsion, but to be consistent in our giving.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: And so when most people are talking about tithing, they're
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: not saying you have to give a literal 10% or
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: God's gonna curse you. Generally speaking, there are some people
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: that do that, but generally speaking, when we're talking about tithing,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: we're using a shorthand for saying, hey, this is a
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: great principle for you to walk out. There's something to this.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: In the same way, we would say Sabbath is good
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: for you, right? Most of us, we believe in Sabbath.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming you probably take a day off at least
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: once a week. Maybe you might turn your phone off.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe you may not turn your phone off. Maybe you
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: don't do any work, but you practice the principle of Sabbath. Now,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: in the Old Testament, they got really gnarly with the
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: Sabbath laws, right? Like you couldn't do any work. You
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: couldn't do this. And so we take Sabbath and we say, yeah,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: taking a day off is good.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: Yes and amen.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: Every single person should take a day off. And so
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: in the same way we use to tithe, we use
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: it as a short form. We're not saying, hey, if
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: you don't give a 10%, you are cursed and you're disobedient.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: We're saying, hey, this is a great financial principle to
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: live by. learn to live on 90 and give 10.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: And for me and my wife, man, we've consistently given
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: above 10% for decades while we were struggling. We just said, hey,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: we're always, we're gonna carve out generosity.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: That is a value of ours.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: And we're gonna consistently give at least 10%. It's a
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: rule of thumb.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: It's not a law.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: No one's saying you're gonna go to hell if you
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: don't give 10%. But it's a good benchmark to say, hey,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: none of it is mine anyway. It's all God's. God's
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: giving me money and letting me steward it, manage it
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: for him. So We're gonna give 10. We're gonna look
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: for opportunities to give to other charities. We're gonna give
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: the single mom in our community and try to take
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: care of them as well. And we're gonna save and
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: we're gonna invest. And then we're gonna enjoy the fruits
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: of our labor as well. And I think if you
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: look at any financial expert, they would put together those
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: four things, save, give, invest, enjoy. This is whether it's
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: Dave Ramsey or secular psychology would tell you there's something
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: to giving. In the Christian world, we just says, hey,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: We're going to use shorthand or tithe. And we're going
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: to say, that's a good principle to live by, but
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: we're not going to condemn you to hell for it.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: If you don't give, okay, we understand, right? And so,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: but we've practiced it. We practiced it when we were
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: in debt. We practiced it while we were getting out
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: of debt. We practice it now and we give above
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: 10% now. And then if you factor in all the
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: charities and all the other stuff, because I think we
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: give what we value too. So if I value my
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: local church, if I value the communication of the gospel,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give to it.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: I want to support it.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: If people value your show, they partner with you on Patreon,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: as they should, because they value you. And so this
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: idea of giving is somehow bad or it's evil or
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: you're not supposed to do it. I would agree with Nathan.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, I don't think it's a literal 10%.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: I think it's a principle that most of us say,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: that's a good principle to live by.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: Does it always have to do with money? Or I mean,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: can you give time? Can you give?
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: I think you can give everything.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: I think you give time. I think you give resource.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: I think you can be generous with so many different things.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: For us, it is money because I don't want, you know,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: there's a joke we always say, like the last part
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: of a man to get saved is his wallet. You know,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: we're so attached to our money. We're so attached to
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: our finances. And so I think it can be multiple things.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: But I think when you're willing to sacrifice financially and say, hey,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: these are my values. This is what I believe in.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: and I'm willing to contribute in this way, something unlocks.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: And I can't even put words to it, but something
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: unlocks and has always unlocked for me. Can I give
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: you a quick tithing story? This is gonna sound so cheesy. Okay,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: so I.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: Come to faith.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to live this stuff out. This is like,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: I'm surrendered to Jesus. I had this 1987 Toyota Celica.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: This is back in the day. I don't know if
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: you had any friends like me, but we would put
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: the big 10-inch subs in the trunk and drive around, boom, boom, right?
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: And I had this Celica.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: And one day I come out and someone broke into
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: my car and all of my sound system is jacked.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: It's all gone, right?
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, man, this sucks. I call the police.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: The police come. The police run fingerprints and they do
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: this whole investigation, right?
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: This whole thing.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: So I forget about it. I start going to church.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: I start giving. I'm just, man, I'm working at Pizza Hut.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not making any money.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: My little $ 250 check, I'm, In faith, I'm going to
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: practice this principle because I think there's something to the
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: principle of giving. In faith, I'm not lying to you.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: A year and a half later, but it was the
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: first month I started giving to my church, started being generous,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: I get a check in the mail for $ 800. They
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: had caught the kid doing something else that broke into
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: my car, threw the fingerprints, made him pay restitution. and
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: sent me the money, didn't call me nothing, and I
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: got a random check in the mail for $ 800.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: As a kid, to me, and I'm like, I just
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: started doing this. And I'm not saying every time you give,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: God's going to send magic fairy money from heaven. Like,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: that's not the point. But for me, it was like,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to be faithful with this little bit
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: I got. And all of a sudden, that same week,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: I get an $ 800 check, you know? And the weird
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: part is, man, the more I'm generous, the more I
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: give money away, the more I'm just willing to just go, Lord,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: it's yours anyway. What do you want me to do
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: with this? I'm going to provide for my family. I'm
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: going to save.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to invest.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do all that stuff. Lord, what do
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: you want me to do with this, man? Is it
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: being generous to that waitress that, man, you could tell
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: she's had a rough week. And let me just be
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: radically generous with her and just blow her mind. And
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: then do that. They run and chase you out. The
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: restaurant are crying because that mattered so much. I think
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: that's the heart posture. That's how I.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: Like to get. I like to, I mean, I'm very...
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: I'm very choosy on who I give to both time
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: and money. But, you know, I mean, we, we, a
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: lot of times for the interview, we'll go to breakfast,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. And, and I always, always over tip
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: because I mean, I know where we live. It's hard
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: to get by here as a, as a waitress, you know? And,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: and so I always do that. I'm always looking, but
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: I just, you know, I love to give almost, you know,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: I've been, told by numerous people that I over give
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: and that causes, that can cause resentment. I struggle with
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: that sometimes. But I'm very choosy because I want to
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: know that whatever I'm giving, whether that's time or money,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: that it's not gonna be wasted. And so I'm always,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for somebody that's gonna use what I give
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: them in the right way to better their life. You know,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: and you don't always see that with a church or
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: a nonprofit or, you know, I'm not picking on those
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of good ones. You know, there's
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of good nonprofits out there, a lot of
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: good churches out there. I've given to both. But, you know,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: I like to see the direct impact. And I like
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: to see the, you know, even with, you know, a
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: lot of the people that I bring on the show,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's guys that have been watching and women,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: you know, for years, like Are they really trying to
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: do what they say they're doing? Are they on the
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: hamster wheel and they're not getting any traction? Are they
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: gonna give up? Is the money gonna get to them?
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: When they do make it, are they gonna be flaunting
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: all kinds of erotic shit all over the internet? That's
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: not who I wanna give to. I wanna give to
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: the person that's gonna appreciate it, use it, better their life,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: better their family life, better the world. And so, I mean,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: in God's eyes, does it matter who you give to?
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: Does it have to be to the church? Can it
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: be to anybody? Can it just be generosity in general? Yeah.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: I think, yes, I think it's ASN. I think you're
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: a generous person. You know how fun it is to give.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: I think for me, man, I'm so in love with
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: my local church, and I'm so in love how God
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: is using us. We do a thing called Bless Local,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: where we just Just give a lot away to our
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: community and go above and beyond to be generous to
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: the single mom, to be generous to those who are struggling.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: We give a lot away to missions. We do a
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: lot with disaster relief in other parts of the world.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: And I want my pastors to do well. I want
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: them to be able to afford a home and buy
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: a home in the city they live in. I want
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: them to be able to send their kids to college
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: without worrying about finances. I want them to do well
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: because I value them. We value public school teachers. I
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: value my pastor a lot. And I value the men
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: and women that are like, they're laying their life down.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: They're preaching.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: And this is their service. This is their contribution. I
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: want them to be well taken care of. And so
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: I have a church that I'm so in love with.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: And I love everything that's happening at Rhythm Church. And
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: I would encourage people, if you're at a church and
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: they're not transparent with the finance, like I just had
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: a buddy that hit me up and was like, hey, man, like,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: Like my friend called this church and he gives there
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: and they wouldn't share any of the information with him.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, well, that sounds a little weird.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: Most churches do. But if that's the case, he might
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: want to look for another church. If they're not willing
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: to offer anything they're doing with the money, I wouldn't
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: want to give either.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: And so I think the gathering of.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: The local believers every week with the preaching and the
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: teaching and the discipleship and the community that's happening, I
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: value that. And I think the scriptures call us to
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: value that. And I think we should give to that.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: Does it have to be a percentage and some legalistic thing?
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: I don't think it has to. But to me, man,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: I have it by the grace of God. And generosity
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: is the antidote to greed. And I think we have
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of consumerism and self-centeredness in America. And if
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: I could be generous, and by the way, I give
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: beyond just churches, just amazing nonprofits I partner with every
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: month as missionaries I partner with every month. I give
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: beyond just my local church, but I get to see
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: the impact of what happens in my local church. I
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: get to see the young men We're next to Camp Pendleton,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: big Marine base right there in Oceanside. Men coming in,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: they're broken. They're hurting. They start coming to church. They
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: start getting discipled. People are pouring into them. And within
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: six months, they're totally different people. I value that. And
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go above and beyond. My goal, and
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: I'm not trying to brag or flex, and maybe we need.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: To cut this out. But my goal is to be-
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: They're not taking it that way. Yeah. Didn't come off
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: that way.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: My goal is to be the single biggest giver in
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: my church. Like I want to be the single biggest
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: hero in my church. And that's what I'm shooting for.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. But I
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: work hard because I value these things.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: Do you think that churches can overemphasize growth instead of
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: spreading the message?
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think churches can do all sorts of goofy things.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: I think overemphasizing growth, I think overemphasizing, maybe overemphasizing politics,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I think overemphasizing the social programs. I think
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: there's all sorts of things they can do. The idea
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: is how many people can you be faithful with?
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: Is it 1,000?
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: Is it 1,400? Is it 10,000? Is it 5,000? What
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: are people doing in our church? The church that planted
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: my church is a church called North Coast Vista. And
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: ironically enough, when I had a conversation with Nathan in January,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: I would love to hear if Nathan would acknowledge that
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: he said this to me. When I told him the
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: circles I'm in and I said, hey, this is who
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: my pastor is. This is the pastor who pastors him
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: and helped plant our church. he told me, oh, bro,
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: you're connected to the gold standard of this stuff. You're
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: around guys that are doing the best at this when
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: it comes to transparency. I wonder if he would say
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: that now, but I used to think growth is bad,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: big church is bad. And then I went to North
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: Coast and I met Pastor Chris Brown. And what happened was, man,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: one of my close friends, he lived in my studio.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: I used to rent two condos next to each other.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: Me and my family lived out of one. I had
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: my studio kind of like this, not as nice as this,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: but in the downstairs of the other And upstairs, we'd
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: always have rooms, different rappers, creative people, sometimes family would
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: stay in the rooms. And one of my friends, his
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: name was Tanner, Tanner Ross, he got leukemia. And I
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: was downstairs, he came down and told me he was
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: going to the hospital. We thought it was nothing. He
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: got leukemia and he beat it the first time. But
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: the second time, on Thanksgiving Day of November, November 2022,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: Thanksgiving Day, he ended up He came back and he died.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: And I watched for.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: Those several years how North Coast Church wrapped their arms,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: not just around Tanner, but around his wife, around his family,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: around his friends, how they showed up for them. And
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: I got to see a big church disciple and love
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: and lead and pay and take care of and sacrifice
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: for a dear friend of mine. And so I was
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: critical of churches up until that point, critical of big churches.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: And now my scheme has shifted where I said, okay, yes,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: I'm a local church guy, but like, man, big churches
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: aren't bad. They're doing good. And when I saw that
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: and I saw Chris Brown and.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I just, I saw it up close. You know,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: I saw the mercy and the grace I feel good
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: for even crying about it because it's a good thing.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: It's a good thing to see churches do good things.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: And it's the biggest church in our city. It's a
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: $ 30 million budget. And Pastor Griswold is one of the
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: most transparent people I've ever sat with. And I've seen
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: him be generous to my pastor and plant us and
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: take care of Rhythm Church. And I've seen him be
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: generous to me. And that's when my mind, like, it shifted. Like,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: big is not bad. These oftentimes they have more resources.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: And to see them lock arms and be there for
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: this family, and I'm still, I just saw Tanner's parents.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: His dad just came to my book launch event. And
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: they're still hurting, but the church is still with them.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: They're still next to them. We did a vlog on
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: the church because I said, I got to highlight what
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: God's doing here. We did a vlog and it was
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: like investigating the biggest megachurch in my area. You know,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: we're being spicy with the side of it. while we're
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: doing the vlog, his mom is there and she's just
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: there and they're just taking care of her and loving
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: on her, giving her something to do, giving her dignity
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: after burying a child. You know, this is years later
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: at this point. So I got to see it up front.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: Like I got to see it up front and go, yeah,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: they showed up. They showed up for my friend.
• 1:33:35
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  Speaker 1: I want to move into, we're seeing this, at least
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: I think we're seeing it. The internet makes it look
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: like that, right? But it seems like, actually, it is happening. Tons,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: I told you the story about Eddie Penny earlier, a
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: big part of my journey to Christ and a mentor
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: of mine. And we're seeing this big wave of the
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: revival of Christianity. And one of the things that I
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: always bring up that's like a public display of all
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: this is, I think it was University of Georgia where
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: they showed this tailgate party and all these kids, these
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: college kids are getting baptized in the back. It looks
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: like a kegger, looks like a fraternity party. And then
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: you look and it's people getting baptized. And You know,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: I'd mentioned, you know, Eddie came on my show and
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: shared how he got saved. And then, I mean, it
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: was at least a year, every single person that came
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: in here on the show had brought up Jesus Christ
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: and coming to the Holy Spirit and getting into the
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: Bible and all that stuff. And these are, you know,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: these are these type of individuals that I'm talking about
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: on the show. I mean, a lot of them have seen,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you've seen the worst of humanity
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: as a seven-year-old, you know, but these guys are coming
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: back from war. They've seen, they have seen a lot
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: of carnage, you know, and, and so for that kind
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: of revival to happen, you know, amongst that, it takes
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: a lot. And I mean, we're seeing it through the
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: veteran community. We're seeing it in, in, in generation Z where,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, my parents went back. I mean, a lot of, I'm,
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: I don't go to church, but I'm very into it.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: I want to learn. That's one of the reasons you're here.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: I want to learn from you. And I'm bringing on
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: people like John Burke, Lee Strobel, priests.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: Lee Strobel's awesome, man.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: I've read Case for Christ. He's one of my favorite
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: people in the world. But he's got a new book
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: coming out called The Case for Christmas this year. Oh, duh. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: But anyways, I think we're seeing this huge revival in Christianity,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: not just in the country, but worldwide. And I wanted
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: to get your thoughts on that.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: Well, I think people have been faced with evil and
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: discover darkness. And when you face and you see darkness,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: you see COVID, post-COVID, you see how dark the world gets.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: I think that the natural reaction is, well, if there's evil,
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: there has to be good. And I think it's honestly
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: just walking through that paradigm. For me, I was coming
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: to faith around the time of 9-11. So it was like, man,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: you see those towers go down. You see that sort
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: of stuff. You see celebrating in parts of the world
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: and you go, oof. There's some evil in this world.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: There has to be good. There has to be light.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: So I'd say that's what you're describing. I think that
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: would be my first assessment, especially folks who've gone to
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: war and seen the evil of all of it, the
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: darkness of all of it. I think you see that
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: and you go, there has to be the opposite of this.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: And done it. And done it, too. I mean, you know,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about this on the show, but
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: I don't agree with all the reasons that we were
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: over there. One of the reasons I left the agency
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: is I didn't understand the mission anymore. Mm-hmm. You know,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: and I think that a lot of things that went
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: down were, there was a lot of nuance to them
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: and maybe we shouldn't have been in parts of the world.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: But not only, you know, I don't think it's just
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: the fact that people see evil. I think it's also
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: the fact that it is so hard to find actual
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: truth these days. in everything with, I think it stemmed
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: from COVID, but I mean, right now the big thing, right,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: is Charlie Kirk's assassination. Who did it? What was it?
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: What killed him? A lot of, you know, a lot
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: of conspiracy type stuff around the sniper shop that may
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: or may not be conspiracy. But, and so what I'm
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: getting at is, I mean, it's with all these big
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: events that happened, you know, COVID, the wars, Israel, Charlie
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: Kirk's assassination. I mean, the list goes on and on
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: and on, right? I mean, whatever, and there's multiple narratives
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: around each one of these things, right? And so whatever
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: narrative that you want to buy into, you can convince
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: yourself that's what happened. And I mean, do you know
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: what I mean?
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, Charlie Kirk's.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: Assassination, right? It was the far left. It was the
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: far right. It was a trans person. It was Israel.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's in, in,
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: there are very compelling factors in each one of those
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: different avenues of what may have happened. Right. And so
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: I think, I think that the, for me, I'm, I'm
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: extremely confused. You know, it's, it's like, fuck man, all
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: these guys have very compelling arguments. I'm, on what happened.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of compelling arguments on COVID and
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: there's a lot, all of these things. And so it
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: becomes almost impossible to find actual truth. Jesus says, you know,
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: I am the truth, right? So I think that plays,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: the confusion on finding truth also plays a big role
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: in why people are coming back. I mean, would you
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: agree with that? Absolutely.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: I think I love that you pointed to that verse, right? John,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: And that word for truth, the way, Jesus in the
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: Christian worldview is the only thing that makes sense of reality.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: Because if you don't have Jesus, you don't have anything
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: to anchor reality on. How do we know we're not
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: in a simulation right now? Because I believe Jesus is
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: the way and the truth and the life. So I
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: think everything is anchored in Jesus being the truth. And
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: then What we can know is I know through who
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: Jesus is, through his time on earth, and then the
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: good that's impacted that. And I think that's crucial because
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: to your point, we're living in alternate universes, it seems.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: It's like you can frame either anything the way you
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: want to. Now, here's my deeper theory. And then I
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: do want to come back to the idea of revival.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: This is what I think.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: Post social media, so many people have seen, you've dealt
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 2: with this personally, but so many people now are so
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: chronically online. that they're consuming the most traumatic stuff that
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: most people are not accustomed to seeing. The death of
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: George Floyd, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the crazy lockdowns
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: with COVID, the deaths of despair and increases. Is the
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: medicine worse than the disease, right? In terms of the
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: byproducts of the lockdowns from COVID, potential vaccine injury, all
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: of these different things. And what I think has happened
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: is we've consumed so much trauma that people's brains are cooked.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: Like they can no longer decipher reality. And so everything
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: is black and white. Everything is binary. Everything is so
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: polarized and so charged. And you're either deifying Charlie or
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: you're demonizing Charlie. And it's like, dude, like, hey, let's
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: turn the temperature down. But I think this generation is cooked, man.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: I think they've consumed so much media and they've seen
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: so many traumatic things that the cognitive distortion is binary
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: black and white, all or nothing, thinking about every issue.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: Name an issue, it's black or white. Israel's either the
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: heroes or they're the villain.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: That's it. No nuance, right?
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: And in your work, your line of work, and in
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: my life as well, you start traveling and seeing and
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: you're like, wait, there's There's more nuance to some of
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 2: these things, that these things are complicated. They're not binary,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 2: that people are complicated, that we all have struggles and
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: internal wars within our hearts that need to be redeemed
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: and rescued, right? And so I think that's where we're
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: at as a people. I think as a people, we're
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: just cooked, dude. Chronically Online, average American spends seven hours
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: a day passively consuming media.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: Seven hours? A day.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: That's not working. That's not learning. That's just passively consuming media, right?
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: Whether that's YouTube, Netflix, fill in the blank, right? That's
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: almost 50 hours a week. And so you could find
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: any story you want to tell to yourself. But to
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: your point, what story is true?
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: C.S.
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: Lewis says how the Christian story is the myth that's true,
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: that it transcends everything, right? And by myth, he just
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: means the story that's true. Like it is transcendent. in
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: the story of Jesus and what it's done to shape
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: history and the good that it's caused. I don't think
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 2: there's anything like it. So if you're not anchoring yourself
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: in Jesus, you have no way to make sense of anything.
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: There's no epistemic basis for any, you can't know anything, right?
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: Because that could be a deep fake. That could be
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: misinformation or whatever. And so I think that's where we're at.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: And so I think people rightfully so are going, I'm
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: so disillusioned with all this. I need something more. I
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 2: need something deeper. I need something ancient. I need something transcendent.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: I think that's what we're seeing with, especially young men
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: are coming back to church. This is the first time
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: I want to say within modern history that men are
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: coming to church.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: More than women are. No kidding. Yeah.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: Young men are attending church at higher rates than young women.
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: And this is the first time within modern history that
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: this has happened.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating. Yeah. I did not know that. I mean,
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: is the biggest, do you have any insight? Is Gen
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: Z the biggest? generation that's being revived back into the church?
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: So Gen Z, from the data I've looked at... Back
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: into the church, into Christianity? Yeah.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: From the data I've looked at, I want to say
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: 48% of Gen Z, non-Christian Gen Z, is Jesus-curious. So
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: they're very open to Jesus. They're very open to church.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: They're very open... Because I think we've came to the
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: conclusion in society that new atheism and secularism completely failed us.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: It's incoherent, right?
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: Because the very same folks with new atheism, Richard Dawkins
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: and these guys, that were, they were the elites and
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: they were the smart people. Now they're getting canceled for
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: saying a man is a man and a woman is
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: a woman. Like the worldview that you champion has imploded
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: on itself and they've turned on you and they said,
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: you're a bigot now for making biological statements about gender. Like,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 2: so I think we've come to the place of like, yeah,
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 2: it's new atheism and secularism.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: It doesn't work. It doesn't work.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: And so now people want something else. And I think
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: that that is Jesus.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: Do you, do you, find yourself thinking about spiritual warfare often?
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: All the time. Is that what's going on with this search?
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's impossible to find. It's not impossible, but
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: it's very, very hard to find truth these days in anything. Yeah.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: And so do you think that spiritual warfare plays a
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: part in that confusion? Absolutely.
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Ephesians 6 says we don't wrestle
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: against flesh and blood. We wrestle against principalities. And powers
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 2: in an unseen world, that there's a realm beyond this world.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 2: That is, I think, is acknowledged by every civilization throughout
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: all of society. There is something beyond this life. There's
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: a realm beyond this life. And so if we're talking
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: everything from this phenomenon of UFOs to just this utter
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: complete darkness of some people getting a hold, it's like
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 2: there's a dark passenger in them to do what that
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 2: man did to Charlie Kirk. There's an unseen realm that
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: we don't see And it is real and it manifests
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: itself in different ways. And oftentimes it needs prayer, it
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: needs fasting, it needs deliverance. And there's a spiritual world
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 2: that people are uncomfortable acknowledging, but I think we all
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: sense it.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: Why does it need fasting? What does that do?
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: Well, Jesus said that they were trying to cast out demons.
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 2: The disciples were trying to cast out demons in the
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: gospels and they couldn't. And Jesus said, some only come
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: by fasting. Some only come out by fasting. There's something to, again,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: the spirit realm where sometimes Jesus was casting out demons
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: and the disciples would just keep casting out demons.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: Boom, it'd go.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 2: Other times you just say, no, sometimes this requires fasting.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: So there's a deeper stronghold that requires more to lift
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: this darkness.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: Do you have any idea on how demons manifest in
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: search for truth? I mean, is it a possession and
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: social media influencers. I mean, you know, I mean, even
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: with the Charlie Kirk stuff, I mean, the day, probably
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: two or three days after that happened, it was like
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: every single time I would scroll through X or IG,
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: it's a slow-mo shot, you know, a slow-mo video of
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: him being shot in the neck. And I mean, and
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: that desensitizes people. it desensitizes everybody who sees that and
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: it's over and it's almost like a, it's like a
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: fucking brainwashing, you know what I mean? It's literally every
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: post and people should be seeing stuff like that, you know, in, in, in,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, especially kids, you know, and I mean, to
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: desensitize a kid that's on there, like, I mean, my,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: my kids won't be on social when they're older, but,
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: But there are a lot of kids that are. It's
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: desensitizing them. It's making it, it's becoming normal to see
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: that stuff. I mean, and the week before that happened,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: or maybe it was two weeks, you know, it was
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: the Ukrainian girl that got stabbed in the neck on
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: the subway. And before that, there was something else. I
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: can't remember what it was at this point in time. But,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just, I mean, so I'm asking, you know,
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: how does this happen? How is it manifesting? Why is
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: it allowed to happen?
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that I'm not an expert in the
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 2: spiritual realm, but from my understanding, I definitely think there's
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 2: demonic elements that are often hijacking people when they open
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: themselves up to darkness to then cause harm against other people.
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 2: I would say what happened to me as a child
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: with experiencing sexual assault was a demonic thing that distorted
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: my brain and my identity and my self-image. And I
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: think when we're seeing the horrendous nature of certain things,
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: I think there's a demonic component to then go out
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: and harm someone or even to send something like that
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: to someone. Like I was getting videos of the Charlie
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: Kirk thing from Christians, you know? And I'm like, I
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: don't want to see that. And I was just alarmed. Like,
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: why are we passing this around? And so I think
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: there's something demonic that happens when someone is causing sin,
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: like harming someone else. And then that is then propagated
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: and passed around. And now we're consuming it. We're becoming,
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: like you said, desensitized to it. How it all is connected,
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know. There's men like Michael Heiser that have
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: done amazing research on the unseen realm, and he has
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: a great series on that. And it's evident though, it's everywhere,
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: that there's something happening. And what happens, I think, from
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: my limited experience is that you take these forces someone
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: then sins against someone else, that then causes consistent issues
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: and trauma in their life. They then pass it on
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: to someone else. And then that can even affect people's epigenetics.
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: Like your genetics can then, you could be more predisposed
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: to being an alcoholic, right? You could be more predisposed
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: to being an addict. All of that is passed around
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: and you're walking through this stuff. And so, and Jesus
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: can break those curses, right? Jesus can lift those things
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 2: yet we still have work to do. I don't think
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: it's a coincidence that both my mother and my father
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: committed adultery on each other. Both my mother and my father,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: my mother more so than my dad, struggled with alcoholism.
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: And then I have sexual assault committed against me. And
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: then I'm smoking weed at a young age. I think
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 2: the enemy is crafty and I don't think that stuff's
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: a coincidence.
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: Here's another question I have. With how prevalent all this
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: is in the search for truth I mean, you could
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: find yourself totally... encaged in this kind of stuff by,
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: you know, what the algorithm is serving you. And you mentioned,
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of averages, what, seven hours a day? Yeah, yeah. Consuming...
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: The United States, yeah. Social media? I mean, it's so,
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: you know, for those, you know, couple days in the
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: week or two before that, every post I saw, it's
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: Ukrainian girl getting stabbed in the neck. A week later,
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: it's Charlie, you know, And I mean, so you can,
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: it would be very easy to entrap yourself in that
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: dynamic for a long period of time, forever, possibly, right?
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, one of my questions I have
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: for you is, I mean, to get to heaven, the
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: only way to heaven is through, you know, Jesus, right?
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: That's right. And so it's on my mind on if
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: somebody has not come to faith yet, you know, how
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: could they be judged for not believing when they are
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: entrapped in all of that? Everywhere, you know, it would
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: be like being put in a room and that's all
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: you're showed all the time, you know? And so, you know,
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: I don't, it's, I mean, when I see that and
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: how often it's, you know, you're exposed to these things,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know how he could blame you for not believing. Mm-hmm.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: I'm just being honest. Yeah, no, that's a great point.
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 2: I think that that is a point that is often
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: raised of like, how could a good God send people
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 2: that have never heard or maybe have heard and just
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: haven't understood, how could he send them to.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: Hell, right? When they're entrenched in that. When they're entrenched
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: in that, right. It's almost, we have free will, right?
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: But I mean, when you're entrenched in that, that can be.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: I think it's a very valid question.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: It's a trap.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 2: I look at it in a few different ways. One,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: Romans 3.23 says, for the wages of sin is death.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 2: So every single person has a degree of contributing with
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: their own sinfulness, right? And the good news is that
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 2: Jesus then comes and deals with that sin. Now, when
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: it comes to the issue of hell and who's going
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 2: to hell and how does all that work, right?
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: I prefer C.S.
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: Lewis's And if you've never read Mere Christianity, you would
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: absolutely love Mere Christianity. It's just as timeless as ever, man.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 2: You read that, it was written during World War II,
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: and it's just like, oh my gosh, it's like he's
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: writing about it in our time. It's so trippy.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: But C.S.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 2: Lewis has this quote where he says, the gates of
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: hell are locked from the inside. The gates of hell
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: are locked from the inside. So the people that are
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: going to hell are going to hell because they want
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: nothing to do with the light, and they want nothing
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: to do with Jesus, and they want nothing to do
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: with goodness and beauty. The gates of hell are locked
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 2: by people who are saying, I want nothing to do
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 2: with this God. The question is, and this is a
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: very deep question, is how many people are actually, that's
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 2: their heart posture, and how many people are misguided, and
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: how many people haven't heard yet, and how many people
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: is God going to redeem? In my life, man, I
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 2: feel like God just kind of.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: Scooped me up.
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: Like, Man, I was spinning my own wheels and though
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 2: it was four years of wrestling, he just kind of
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 2: scooped me up. And I don't have the answer to that.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know how many people were like middle finger
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 2: to Jesus. I think those people definitely exist. Like I
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: think when you go down the rabbit hole of like
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: the debates with the atheists and then you start getting
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 2: to the bottom of it and they're like, they're judging God.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: Like their position is I'm judging God. And I think
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: that's a very dark place to be because you have
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: no basis for good or evil if there is no God.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 2: How can you judge God? Based on what standard is
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 2: God good or evil if there is no God, right?
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: Objective morality comes downstream of an objective standard. And you're
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: an atheist, so there is no objective standard. So it's
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: all subjective. Based on your subjective standard, you're going to
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 2: judge God. That's a dark place to be because you
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 2: have no basis for making any of those claims. There's
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: no truth claims that there's no God. So I don't
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: know how many people are like middle finger to God.
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 2: I want nothing to do with God. How many people
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 2: are deceived? How many people are, man, they've been sinned
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: against so much that they're just stuck in a pattern
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 2: of addiction, right? I do know that the wages of
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: sin is death. I do know that God loves the
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 2: world so much that he gave his one and begotten son.
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 2: And Jesus calms and he doesn't run from the mess,
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 2: and he doesn't run from the darkness. He steps right
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 2: into it, and he comes in the form of a
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: human body, a physical material body, and he lives amongst us,
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 2: and he eats food like us, and he's tempted like us,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 2: and he works like us, and he experiences the full
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: human experience, and then through that, ends up dealing with
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 2: that issue of sin, right? That issue of, hey man,
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 2: on our own, like we're all cooked, left our own devices,
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: Every single one of us is cooked. But there's something
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: to this grace and this mercy that He creates a
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 2: pathway to heaven. And again, not just heaven in the afterlife,
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 2: but helps us usher in a piece of heaven on earth,
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 2: helps us usher in His kingdom here and now.
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think everybody's been deceived to one degree
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: or another on the planet. But, you know, another question
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: for you is, you know, the reward, the going to heaven.
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, are there, and do you believe that there
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: are levels of heaven, or are you rewarded more for
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: being faithful your entire life? You know, what do you
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: think about that? I mean, somebody that's been deceived that
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: isn't given the middle finger to God and Jesus. I mean,
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: but lived a very, very sinful life versus somebody that
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: has been revived and is doing good and pumping good
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: into the world and donating to good causes and spending
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: time with people in need. You know what I mean?
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: Those don't balance out to me. Yeah. So I think,
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: this is such a great question.
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 2: I think one, there's rewards here and now, generally speaking,
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 2: especially in the West, for living out God's ways. So
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 2: if you take the Christian worldview and you apply it
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: to your life and you practice the faith, you practice
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 2: loving your enemies, you practice prayer, you practice reading the scriptures,
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: you practice the principles on what it means to handle
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 2: your money God's way, to lead your marriage God's way,
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: that there's rewards.
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: Here and now.
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 2: You will have, generally speaking in the West, in a
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 2: state that's not oppressing Christians and we're not under Roman occupation,
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 2: generally speaking, There's a lot of fruit here now that
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 2: we get to experience by aligning our lives with God's ways.
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: So I say that's generally true. Then there's real persecutions
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: of Christians getting beheaded for the name of Jesus in
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: other parts of the world for doing the same things.
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: So it's this weird dichotomy there that's tough to deal with. Now,
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 2: when it comes to good works, I believe we're saved
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: by grace through faith to good works. And meaning that
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: faith is a confidence. I'm placing my confidence. I'm placing
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 2: my trust. I'm placing that when me and you are
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: organizing this conversation, my confidence is that it's happening.
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: We're going to meet up. It's right. Like I have
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: a trust in you.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 2: Even though I've never met you, I trust that you
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: are who you say you are, that your team is
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 2: who they say they are. So I'm placing my trust,
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 2: my confidence. And then by grace, it is a gift.
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 2: That means great grace means gift. You didn't do anything
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 2: to deserve it. I can't do anything to make God
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: love me anymore. And I can't do anything to make
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: God love me any less. In the same way, my
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 2: 10-year-old who's about to enter puberty, he can't do anything
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 2: to make me love him any less. He can't do
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 2: anything to make me love him anymore.
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: He's my son. He belongs in my family. It's in
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: his best interest to be obedient.
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: It's in his best interest to live out his father's
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 2: race because I'm a good father and I have his
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: best interest in mind. That doesn't make sense to a
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: 10-year-old's brain or an 11-year-old's brain. I think sometimes we're
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 2: the same way. And so with regards to the works aspect,
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: Saved by grace, it's a gift through faith, a confidence
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 2: and a trust. I'm gonna trust Jesus' ways even though
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 2: they don't make sense. When I got saved, I was like,
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 2: I can't have sex with my girlfriend? Like, why can't
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: I have sex with my girlfriend? Like, I like having
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 2: sex with my girlfriend. It's like, nope, there's a standard
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: and there's an ethic to how I am to treat
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: my body.
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: My body's not my own.
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: It didn't make sense at the time, but goodness does
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 2: it make sense in hindsight on why I shouldn't have
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 2: been sleeping around, right? So there are then good works
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 2: that I'm supposed to do here and now And I
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: do believe that those good works provide different rewards in heaven, right?
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: How that looks, I have no idea. You do?
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's different, not different levels of heaven.
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: But he who is faithful with little will be entrusted
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: with much. So that Matthew 25 passage, we see that
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: that is a foreshadowing towards heaven. This is the pilot,
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 2: like this is the test pilot, this is the test drive.
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 2: that we get to try and see how we're faithful.
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 2: And then in heaven, we get opportunities to serve in
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 2: different ways. And I think people think heaven is going
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: to be this, like we're in the clouds floating like angels.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 2: Heaven's going to be more real than this. And there's
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 2: going to be a new heaven and a new earth.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: And there's going to be a reality that feels and
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: tastes and smells even more real. And it's not just
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 2: going to be floating in the clouds like angels in diapers.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a real new reality that we're
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: going to get to walk in. And there are then
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 2: rewards for faithfulness here on earth. How that works, I
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: You know, I thought where you were going is the
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: rewards happen during your lifetime. They do too. And I
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: think that, you know... That's a perspective that I've not
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: thought of, that if you lead a good, faithful life,
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: then you'll be rewarded in this life, and then maybe
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: everybody's equal, you know, when they get to Heaven.
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 2: I think it's in both. I think rewards in this
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: life and rewards in the next life.
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: You know, the funny thing is, I think everybody in
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: the West ties rewards with money and possessions. But, you know,
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: what comes to my mind is, ever since I've come
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: to faith, I've had a much clearer conscience and less
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: mental suffering. More peace. More peace. Great way to put it.
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: More peace. Peace of mind. And then I think back
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: about when I was sleeping around, doing drugs, boozing, fighting,
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. I mean, that does not
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: create a clear conscience, a clear mind. That does not
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: bring you peace. That brings you peace. Mental suffering.
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 2: And consequences to that. Consequences to your body, right, from alcohol.
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: Consequences.
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, to me, I think of the cool kids
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: in high school. My buddies in high school, they're not
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 2: doing so well in their 30s and 40s. They got
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: a couple different kids with a couple different women. They
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 2: didn't develop any useful skills. They partied a little hard.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 2: Their bodies are starting to break down. There's consequences, man.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: And they look at my life, and they're now coming
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 2: around to the faith. You know, I was like, I
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: was telling you guys about this 25 years ago, man,
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 2: we could have saved so much heartache and headache by
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 2: just getting aligned with Jesus back then. But that's the
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: beautiful part about the grace of God. Like every moment
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: passing is another chance to turn it all around. Every
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 2: moment passing, God's grace is extended and mercy is extended
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 2: and we don't deserve it, but he gives it anyway.
• 2:04:12
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  Speaker 1: just a couple minutes earlier, a new earth. What do
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  Speaker 1: you mean a new earth?
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  Speaker 2: So in Revelations, when you're reading through the end days
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 2: and how it's all going to play out, talks about
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 2: a new heaven and a new earth, that this earth
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 2: will be made new. And there's a new heaven that's
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 2: going to be, and it's going to be more real
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 2: than anything we're experiencing. Paradise on earth, paradise in heaven.
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know if we're going to be flying back
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 2: and forth in some sort of spaceship. I don't know
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 2: how that's going to work, but that's how the scriptures
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: describe a new heaven and new earth. Randy Alcorn did
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of really good work on the idea of
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 2: heaven and really digging deep. And he has short books
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: and long books. And the way he describes heaven, it's
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 2: nothing like we've.
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: Been conditioned to think about heaven. What does he say?
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: He says it's more real than this.
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: It's physical.
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 2: There's probably going to be food. There's all the things
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 2: about this life and some in heaven, right? Like it's
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 2: going to be better and more real and more transcendent.
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 2: And there won't be any sin. There won't be any crying.
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 2: There won't be any death. There won't be any despair.
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 2: We'll be physically in the presence of God, right? And
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I'm going to have some questions,
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 2: you know, for Jesus when I get there. But I
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 2: think it's going to be even more magnificent than we
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 2: can imagine.
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: Interesting. You think that? I believe that, yeah. I believe that.
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: I believe that.
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 2: But I don't then become so heavenly minded and I'm
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 2: of no earthly good. because I think that's the dangerous part,
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 2: is then you can really start thinking about heaven, that
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 2: you become disoriented with here and now. And the here
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 2: and now, I think, man, this is, what an opportunity.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 2: As much as there's delusion and confusion and despair, what
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 2: an opportunity that we get to communicate through these devices.
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 2: What an opportunity that we get to have a conversation
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 2: like this, and it goes out to millions of people
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 2: that then will sit here and think deeply and ask questions.
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 2: There's never been a time like this in history. Yes,
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of dark stuff, right? Unrestrained capitalism leads
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 2: to stuff like OnlyFans and just the most dark stuff
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 2: on the internet. And then you have goodness and beauty.
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 2: You have transcendence. You have conversations that are pointing people
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 2: towards something different, aiming at something more beautiful. That I
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 2: think we take for granted as well. I think we
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 2: forget what a stellar opportunity that we have to just
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: do so much good in the world.
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the reasons that I like the
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: home church or Bible study or whatever you want to
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: call it is that it gives you the opportunity, if
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: you're with the right group, to ask questions with zero judgment.
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: And that's something that I think that a lot of
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: churches have wrong is, you know, that I don't think
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: that there should be a... you should never be offended
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: by a question, a real question. And I've asked a lot,
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: I've asked a lot of tough questions to Todd in
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: my Bible study. And questions that I would never feel
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: comfortable asking at church in front of people or putting
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: a pastor, priest, minister, whatever, on the spot like that,
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: because it's become, I mean, it's like a line that
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: you can't cross. Do you think that most churches are
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: open to all questions? The tough, tough, tough questions?
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 2: I think most churches are.
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: You do? I do. I do.
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 2: And I think that because the churches I'm connected to,
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: the pastor's not hiding out in the green room in
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 2: between services. He's out meeting people. He's conversing. He's having
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 2: conversations with people. He's answering hard questions in between the services.
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: So you met my pastor. Every single week, There's guys
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 2: asking him questions in between every service. Every single week,
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 2: he's talking to people. Every single week, we're engaging with
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 2: the felt needs of what's happening in our church. I
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 2: think one of the things about what I get to
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 2: do that's amazing is I'll do live events now, and
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 2: we'll do conversations like this in a live podcast format.
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 2: I might give a talk, and then we're going to
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 2: their questions. Ask us anything. I'm not ashamed of anything.
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: Ask me anything. And the quick answer might be, I
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know how.
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 2: Heaven works and I don't know, but I have hope
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 2: and I have trust and I have confidence. I think
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 2: the hard part though is people want answers for everything.
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 2: And the reality is there's a degree of tension that
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 2: we get to walk through in life. There's a degree
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 2: of tension we get to walk through in faith. I
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 2: don't have all the answers. I could only have confidence
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 2: and trust. And I think this is how the world
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 2: works because this seems to be the most clear explanation
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 2: of reality.
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: Let's move into end times. Okay. I mean, we kind
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: of touched on at the beginning of the podcast, you know,
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: brought up the verse or what I read in Matthew.
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: And I mean, it sounds like today. You know, there's
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: another one. Shit, I can't even remember what it was.
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: Is it... I can't remember the chapter. But it's basically
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: talking about Oh, it's Romans. And it was talking about
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: the fall of the Roman Empire and, you know, confusion, agendas,
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, pull it up. It's a crazy passage. Man,
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 2: I love your Bible recall. You're new, but you got
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 2: some good recall because you're citing books. And I might
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: find a chapter for you, but you got some great recall.
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 2: You're describing Romans 1.
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: You know, we wrote, scripture on every exterior stud in
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: this entire studio. I heard about that.
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 2: Was it the Bibles that you guys put in the cornerstones?
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: We put a Bible in each corner. And then we,
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: as a team, we wrote scripture on every single exterior stud. Yeah.
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: That's so good.
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 2: So you're referencing Romans. You want to finish your thought
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 2: and I can read it?
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: Go ahead. I'm finished.
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 2: Romans 1, 18. The wrath of God is being revealed
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 2: from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people.
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 2: who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 2: be known about God is plain to them, because God
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 2: has made it plain to them. So that's that question of,
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 2: do they know, do they not know? It says God
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 2: has made it plain to them through nature, through our mind, right?
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 2: For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities,
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 2: his eternal power and divine nature have already been seen,
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 2: being understood from what has been made so that people
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 2: are without excuse. For although they knew God, They neither
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 2: glorified him as God nor give thanks to him, but
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 2: their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 2: Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 2: exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 2: to look like a mortal human being and birds and
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 2: animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 2: sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 2: degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 2: truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 2: created things rather than the Creator, who is forever praised. Amen.
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 2: Because of this, God gave them over to shameful acts.
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 2: Even their women exchanged natural or sexual relations for unnatural ones.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 2: In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 2: with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 2: Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 2: themselves the due penalty for their error.
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What does that mean?
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, it means what it says, which is like, man,
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 2: instead of worshiping God as God, they started worshiping creation.
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 2: And if you aren't aligned with creator, you will always
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: worship creation. And worshiping creation could look like actually making
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 2: idols out of stuff. Worshiping creation can look like worshiping
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 2: the human body, worshiping sex, worshiping pleasure. That can then
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 2: look like what we see now with some of this
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 2: wild ideology that says you were born in the wrong body.
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 2: God didn't make you this way. And those are deeply
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 2: theological statements that if you think about it, Um, it's
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 2: not that the, my pastor said this a couple of
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 2: weeks ago. It's not that the churches became more political.
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 2: It's that politics have became more religious and theological. Now
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 2: we're talking about gender. Now we're talking about marriage. Now
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 2: we're talking about, is that a baby in there or
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 2: is that not a baby in there?
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a baby if you feel like it's a baby.
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 2: And if you don't feel like it's a baby, then
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 2: you can kill it. Like this is, this is what
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 2: happens when you don't put creator in his proper place
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 2: and you start worshiping creation.
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: So is that going to happen again? Is that what
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: that's saying?
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 2: I think that's happening now. I think this is the
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 2: state of humanity for it.
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: What I'm asking is, is Romans saying that this is
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: going to happen again, or is this strictly talking about
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: the past?
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 2: Well, what this is really saying is that because this
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 2: is happening, that's evidence that God is letting people do
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 2: what they want. The fact that this happened, God's just
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 2: handing them over to their own sinful desires and their
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 2: own crazy, selfish, sinful, carnal base instincts, right? And if
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 2: you think about like materialism and secularism, like at the
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 2: end of the day, what are they telling people? They're
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 2: not telling people you're created in an image of God.
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 2: You have value, dignity, worth. There's sexual standards for you.
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 2: There's life standards for you. No, they're telling young people
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 2: you're in a highly evolved animal in heat. So wear
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 2: protection and have at it. It's like, that's the worst
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 2: advice you can give to young people.
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: It's terrible.
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 2: Anyone that's ever participated in hookup culture will tell you
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 2: that it leaves you so empty and depleted, but that's the,
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 2: that's the spirit of the air, you know?
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: And so back to Matthew, I mean, we have that
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: happening right now, all over the world. And then, you know,
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 1: like I had said, rumors of wars, earthquakes, all these things.
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: So what I'm asking is, I mean, are we, in
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: your opinion, are we approaching end times.
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 2: One i don't know so let me let me because
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 2: no man knows the day or the hour um two
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 2: there's there's an argument that could be made that we've
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 2: been in the last days since jesus ascended to heaven
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 2: you know we're patiently waiting for his return um three
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 2: is it possible that these are all signs of the
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 2: times um I think there's some other things that have
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 2: to happen first. I think there's a strong argument that
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 2: the third temple needs to be built in Jerusalem. I
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 2: think there's a strong argument that the gospel has to
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 2: go forth to every nation and tongue. It hasn't happened yet.
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 2: There's still unreached people groups. So I think there's still
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 2: some room to go in terms of my understanding of
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 2: the end times. So you got third temple. We're not
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 2: anywhere near having a third temple built. The Temple Mount
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 2: in Israel, as I'm sure you know, is controlled by
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 2: the Muslims. They're not letting Jews build a third temple
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 2: up there. Now, there's talks of red heifers being brought
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 2: to Israel from Texas, and they're waiting to do the
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 2: sacrifice of the red heifer to usher in this moment
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 2: of their Messiah. But the third temple is nowhere near
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 2: being built. They can personify it and talk about it
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 2: a lot, but we're not there yet. And the gospel
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 2: hasn't gone forth to every nation, language, and tongue. There's
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 2: still unreached people. There's still people on earth today that
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 2: have never heard about Jesus.
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, also, I mean, I think it did,
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I called a really good friend of mine,
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: Congressman Eli Crane, about a lot of the stuff that's
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: going on in Israel right now. And, you know, I
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: had a conversation with him about, you know, I'm not
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: interested in what people think. I'm interested in what the
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: scriptures say. And I'm confused by a lot of the scriptures.
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: And he had brought up, I believe it's Ezekiel 38
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: Several times to me. Reddit didn't really understand it. I
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: don't know if he's talking about at the time or
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: this is going to happen in the future, but it
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: basically says that all the nations will rise against Israel.
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: We see a lot of that happening right now. I
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: am not happy with what's going on over there at all.
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: October 7th was horrible. Gaza looks like a dumpster. 60,000
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: people killed. That's several months old. Probably a lot more now.
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: You know, bomb Catholic churches in Libya, in Gaza, rumors
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: of one in Syria. I mean, I'm not happy with
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: what's going on over there. But, you know, at the
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: same time, when we see the rise against Israel, and it's,
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: once again, it's everywhere in my feed. You click on
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: one thing, you want to hear what somebody says, the
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: next thing you know, that's your entire feed. You know,
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: and it is incredible. every comment section, doesn't matter what
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: the post is, you know, everything, you know, there are
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: people out there that claim everything is Israel's fault. In
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: Ezekiel 38, 39, it talks about these, I think it's
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: 12 nations that rise up against Israel, that's where the
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: Antichrist will come from. And so, you know, I'm curious about,
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on this?
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 2: So you're right in that Ezekiel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 2: are being written At the same time, they're all contemporaries
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 2: of each other. And they're being written to and about
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 2: the children of Israel who were exiled in Babylon. So
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 2: that's the backdrop of those three books. And so it's
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 2: very wild stuff, right? Now, Babylon was the enemy and
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 2: they were held captive, taken out of the land. And
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 2: in those books, there's apocalyptic stuff in all of them.
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 2: Daniel has some really wild stuff about the son of man.
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 2: He's coming back and there's all kinds of really cryptic
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 2: stuff in there that is prophetic, but it's also serving
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 2: two purposes. It's also speaking about stuff that's happening there now, right?
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 2: And so my thoughts on all of it, man, is
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 2: I think October 7th was awful. I love Israel. I
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 2: love the people of Israel. But on the night that happened,
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 2: and I got in a lot of trouble for this.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 2: I'd love to hear your thoughts on the night that happened.
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 2: I said, man, this October 7th is so bad. I said,
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 2: But I'm nervous because the IDF can be heavy-handed with
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 2: how they respond. And I got torched by the Christians.
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 2: You're a Christian. How dare you say the IDF can
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 2: be heavy-handed? And I just got back from Israel less
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 2: than a year ago. And we landed the day Benjamin
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 2: Netanyahu got reelected. And it was tense because they don't
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 2: have a two-party system. He had to connect with the far-right,
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 2: the ultra-Orthodox folks. to build a coalition and they don't
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 2: have a two-party system. There's multiple parties. So he already
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 2: wasn't popular. And you align yourself with the far right
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 2: in Israel. I'm not sure how much you know about
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 2: the far right in Israel. It's a lot of the
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 2: ultra orthodox. They don't work. They don't serve in the military.
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 2: They just read Torah and pray all day. And that's
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 2: their service to Israel. Everyone else in Israel has to
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 2: serve two years in IDF. So they're already not, the
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 2: coalition he made was already not popular. And I could
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 2: sense it. And I got friends in there in Israel
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 2: that are Armenian. I got friends in Israel that are Christian.
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 2: I got friends in Israel that are Palestinian. I'm hearing
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 2: all of their different takes. Some folks that love Israel
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 2: that are Palestinian. Some folks that dislike Israel that are Palestinian.
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 2: And so back then it was clear as day that, oh,
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 2: like something's about to go down. Like there was a
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 2: weight to that. And they were trying to explain all
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 2: this to me. And I'm just like, I don't understand
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 2: Israeli politics, right? But what we're seeing, I think, is
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 2: the overflow of, a government that is heavy-handed. And they
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 2: also have the backdrop of the Holocaust over their legacy.
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 2: So it's never again, we're going scorched earth. And it's like,
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, there's churches, we're going scorched earth. Wait
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 2: a minute, there's civilians, we're going scorched earth. Now, if
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 2: I give them the benefit of the doubt, are they
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 2: intentionally blowing up churches? Are they intentionally blowing up civilians?
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 2: Are they intentionally bringing harm I really would like to
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 2: say no. I would like to believe they aren't. I
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 2: would like to believe there's more checks and balances in place.
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 2: Do they have a right to defend themselves?
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 2: Do they need to clean it up and fix it?
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 2: You guys got to clean that up. So, you know,
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 2: I've been to Israel one time. I get emails all
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 2: the time about going back to Israel. Ministries, Kufi, Israeli government,
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 2: they want me to, I'm not going, I got to
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 2: clean that up.
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: Like, I'm not going. Clean it up. Figure it out.
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 2: Like, it's been two years. This was supposed to be
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 2: when we declared victory in Iraq and then stayed another
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 2: 20 years. It's like, is this indefinite now? How long
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 2: is this going to go on? And so I say
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 2: all that to say with, I can't speak to the
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 2: policies of the IDF and if they're intentionally doing things.
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know. What I'm asking is from a scriptural standpoint,
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: we hear that they're God's chosen people. Are they God's
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: chosen people? I thought there was a new covenant that
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: encompassed all of us. Am I wrong about that?
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 2: I think, so what we're getting at is dispensationalism, which
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 2: is a view amongst many Christians. I do not identify
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 2: as a dispensationalist. So dispensationalists will believe that Israel and
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 2: Jewish people are under a different dispensational period and Christians
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 2: are under a different period, right? I had somebody on
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 2: recently to really go deep on dispensationalism. And to say, hey, like,
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 2: is this stuff accurate? Is Israel under a different period?
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 2: So like Andrew Klavan from The Daily Wire will say
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 2: stuff like, I don't think Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan's a Christian.
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 2: I don't think Ben Shapiro needs to come to faith
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 2: in Jesus because he's doing great as a Jew, right?
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 2: And it's like, no, no, no, Ben Shapiro needs to
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 2: come to faith in Jesus. I want Ben Shapiro to
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 2: be a Christian. I'm not going to water that down.
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: He needs Jesus.
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 2: So you're getting at dispensationalism. I hold to the view
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 2: that the church is the continuation of Israel and God
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 2: has something planned for Israel. And I don't know how
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 2: it's all going to work out. There seems to be
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 2: a lot with the prophecies and a lot with just
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 2: the establishment of them as a nation, a lot with
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 2: these things. And so we've had these debates on my
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 2: channel before. We've wrestled through the scriptures before. And there's
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 2: a lot in here about all Israel will come to
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 2: faith in Jesus at some point in Romans. I think
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 2: it's Romans 10. I'm trying to find the verse for
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 2: you right now. How it all plays out. It sure
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 2: does seem like, man, everyone's rising up against Israel, but
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 2: is Israel being sloppy? Those are questions someone like you
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 2: is way more equipped to answer than me. I don't
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 2: understand the geopolitics. I don't understand just war theory the
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 2: way you do. But it seems like, man, the church
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 2: is a church. I would say it's the continuation of
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 2: new Israel. And God has some sort of plan for
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 2: his original people.
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: And that's in scripture. That's in Romans. How that works?
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, I wish I knew. I don't know.
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 2: So Romans 10, I'm trying to find the verse for you.
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 2: But not all Israel accepted the good news for Isaiah said, Lord,
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 2: who has believed our message? Consequently, faith comes from hearing
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 2: the message and the faith is heard through the word
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 2: about Christ. But I did ask, did it not hear?
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 2: So this is talking about Israel hearing, but not accepting.
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 2: Paul is talking about how he's so distraught that his people, Israel,
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 2: aren't coming to faith. And then there's a verse that says,
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 2: And all Israel will be saved. And I don't know
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 2: what to do with that. Like, I don't know how
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 2: that all works. I would like to believe that there's
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 2: going to be some sort of revival where the Jews
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 2: will come back to faith, right? Here it is, Romans 11, 25.
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 2: It says, I do not want you to be ignorant
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 2: of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 2: not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 2: until the full number of Gentiles has come in. So
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 2: Paul's going out to the Gentiles, the Jews, they don't
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 2: like that. He's writing to a mixed church in Rome,
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 2: both Gentiles and Jews. Gentiles are just non-Jewish people, non-Jewish Christians.
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 2: Verse 26, and in this way, all Israel will be saved.
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 2: As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 2: and He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 2: is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 2: As far as the gospel is concerned, they're enemies for
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 2: your sake. But as far as election is concerned, they
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 2: are loved on accounts of the patriarchs for God's gifts
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 2: are irrevocable. There's a lot of tension there. It says
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 2: all Israel will be saved. It says they're hardened right now.
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 2: But it says that because of the patriarchs, because of Abraham,
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 2: because of Jacob, At some point, it sounds like God's
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 2: going to turn Israel to him, back to Jesus. I
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 2: don't know how that works.
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: Me neither. I don't know how it works either. I mean,
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 1: you know, and then there's the other hand where you hear,
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: you know, the only way to the Father is through me. Well,
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: if they don't believe in him, how do they get there?
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: And what happens to all of the Gentiles who didn't believe?
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it a different– we're down a different–
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by a different timeline?
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 2: Dispensationalism is the view that there's different dispensational periods and
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 2: that God interacts with his people in different agreements. And
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 2: so the Jews are under a different dispensational period and
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 2: we as Christians are under a new one. So sometimes
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 2: that can look real wonky and saying like Christians are
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 2: like really into Israeli stuff and just give Israel a
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 2: blank check to do anything. That's how that can look, right?
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 2: And I don't want to name names on here, but
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 2: we've talked about this on my channel extensively. I had
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 2: my friend on who's a dispensationalist, and we were trying
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 2: to kind of hash this out, because he was like,
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 2: you sound like a dispensationalist. I'm like, I'm not a dispensationalist.
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 2: You need to believe in Jesus, right? Whereas covenantal theology,
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 2: which would be, hey, there are different covenants that God has,
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 2: and we are under the new covenant, and the church
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 2: has replaced Israel as the new Israel. So I'm kind
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 2: of in between both positions, right? I think God is
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 2: going to save Israel, and I think God has a
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 2: plan for Israel.
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know how that works.
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 2: At the same time, I believe the church is the
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 2: new Israel, and I believe the church is God's people.
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Well, I appreciate that. It's a tough conversation
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: to have.
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 2: I took a stab at it. I took a stab
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 2: at it.
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about your new book, Godly Ambition. Yes. What
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: are you discussing in there?
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 2: I think right now we're in a time where men
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 2: and young women are conflicted about should they go after
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 2: the things that they believe God's put on their heart?
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 2: How do I get out of this despair, this quiet quitting,
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 2: this hustle culture, all of this tension? And when I
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 2: look at the scriptures, oftentimes Christians see the word ambition
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 2: and they view it as a nasty word, ambition, ew, right?
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 2: But when I look at the scriptures, I found out
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 2: there's two words for the word ambition. One is edithia,
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 2: which in the Greek is like a, it's a selfish
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 2: clobbering by any means necessary ambition. And it's forbidden in
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 2: the scripture. but there's a second word for ambition, and
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 2: it's found three times in the New Testament, and it's phileotiome.
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 2: My buddy Wes Huff tried to help me with the
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 2: Greek on this. And that word for ambition is found
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 2: three times. And phileo is where we get the etymology
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 2: for the word, like Philadelphia, brotherly love. And phileoti, time it,
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 2: time it. It's like there's a time in there. So
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 2: it's an ambition that out of a brotherly love, I
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 2: am going to be faithful to aim and get after
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 2: the things that God has for me. And that word
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 2: ambition is used three times in the New Testament. I
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 2: make it my ambition to preach the gospel where others haven't.
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: Paul says that.
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 2: Paul also writes and says, I make it my ambition
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 2: to do what pleases God. And then in 1 Thessalonians 4.11,
• 2:31:35
  Speaker 2: Paul writes, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life,
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 2: working with your own hands, minding your own business so
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 2: that you will not be dependent on anybody and so
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 2: that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders.
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 2: And so I'm really trying to orient people to say, hey, man,
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 2: hustle culture left is burnt out. Work your face off
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 2: 18 hours a day. That just swung people to the
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 2: other side of quiet quitting. And I'm just checking out
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 2: and I don't care anymore. And the apathy and the nihilism.
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 2: And that there's a better way in the scriptures. And
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 2: it's called godly ambition. And I'm trying to reorient people
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 2: and say, hey, how do we get men and women,
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 2: but men specifically, to see their time, their talent, their treasure,
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 2: not as their own, their ambition is not their own,
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 2: but it's to be managed and stewarded. That this is like,
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 2: this is not mine anyway. Let me manage it onto
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 2: the glory of God. And so we open up with
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 2: discovering your calling and your purpose, the difference between purpose, assignment,
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 2: and calling. We talk about talent stacking, how to develop
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 2: your skill sets. And we really are trying to get
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 2: to the brass tacks because, you know, we were talking
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 2: about church and what should the church do. One of
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 2: the scariest passages, In Scripture, it's 1 Timothy 5. And
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 2: it's not about the end times, but it is a
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 2: very high call. And the passage is talking about widows
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 2: in the church and who's to care for certain widows
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 2: in the church. And in that context, widows in the
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 2: church were the most destitute, most vulnerable people. And Paul
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 2: says something interesting. He says, hey, those widows that are
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 2: young enough to get remarried, they should get remarried. Because
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 2: if they don't get remarried, they're going to be busybodies
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 2: and they're going to be causing a fuss. The widows
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 2: that don't have anyone to care for them That's who
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 2: the church should be taking care of. And then he
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 2: has like a caveat. He's like, as long as they've
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 2: been faithful to washing the apostles' feet and they've been
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 2: serving in the church. He adds a caveat to the charity,
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 2: which is really interesting. And then he says, but those
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 2: widows that have family, the family is supposed to take
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 2: care of those widows. And then he makes this bombshell statement.
• 2:33:30
  Speaker 2: It says, for he who does not provide for the
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 2: needs of his family, specifically his immediate family, is worse
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 2: than a non-believer and has denied the faith. That's a hoof,
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 2: that's a gut punch in light of the economy, in
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 2: light of all the uncertainty, the wealth inequality, all these issues.
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 2: We're still called to provide for the needs of our family,
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 2: specifically our immediate family. So what does that look like?
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 2: That means we don't ship grandma away when she's old.
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 2: We don't wipe our hands of the person that's down
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 2: on their luck. No, no, no, we have to take
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 2: care of our own. How do we take care of
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 2: our own? We gotta have some godly ambition for that.
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 2: We gotta get our life in order. We gotta get
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 2: our finances in order. And again, men are struggling, man.
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 2: They're chronically online. They want to play video games. They're
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 2: being told by the left and the right that they're victims.
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 2: There's a system out to get them. They, them, are
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 2: going to destroy you. Israel's bad. These people are bad.
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 2: The left is bad. Everyone's bad. The police are bad.
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 2: And they're just growing in despair and nihilism. And I'm saying, man,
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 2: there's a biblical framework on how we can get after it.
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 2: And you don't got to lose your soul, but you
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 2: can get after it and serve God while serving your
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 2: family and building some stability to do good for others.
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: You had mentioned, you just mentioned, you were talking about
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: single mothers. And you said, the way I took it
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: is that they need to be in the church to
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: be taken care of. Did I hear that correctly?
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 2: That's what 1 Timothy 5 lays out, yeah.
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so wouldn't that be somewhat of a contradiction? And
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, earlier you just said, I don't know who
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 1: it was, but you said that you should be preaching
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: the Bible correctly. where it's not preached, correct? So why
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: would it be bad to not take care of a
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: single mom who is not in the church? Because wouldn't
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 1: that also come with preaching the Bible? Yeah, you're right.
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 2: It's not bad to take care of a single mother
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 2: that's not in the church. You're absolutely right. What we
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 2: run into is a hierarchy of priorities, right? So there's
• 2:35:30
  Speaker 2: a hierarchy in scripture of values, right? So a lot
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 2: of people As an example, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty. How a
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 2: lot of these pastors get in trouble. They start calling
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 2: for unmitigated loyalty. And loyalty submits the truth. Loyalty is
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 2: not the highest value. Truth is the highest value, right?
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: Love, goodness.
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 2: So what happens is we conflate our values. And so
• 2:35:52
  Speaker 2: we're more concerned about the single mother out there or
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 2: what's going on in that country over there than we
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 2: are within our own home. And so you're right. It
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 2: is good to care for the single mother. but there's
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 2: a hierarchy of priorities. So what are those hierarchies? Galatians says, hey,
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 2: do good to all people as you can, as opportunity
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 2: presents itself, but especially those in the house of faith.
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 2: So what we see in scripture is that first and foremost,
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 2: there's us now, me and my household, you and your household.
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 2: We have to first take care of our own, your
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 2: immediate family. Then it's your extended family. Then it's your
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 2: local church family. Then it's your community. Then it's the nations.
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 2: And what we do is, we do the opposite. We
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 2: wanna go and worry about what's going on in other nations,
• 2:36:32
  Speaker 2: other parts of the community, stuff we can't even really
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 2: control if we're honest. And then we neglect the things
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 2: we can control. And it creates this weird upside down
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 2: inversion of values. And the reality is we should care
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 2: for those single mothers, but I should care for the
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 2: single mothers in my church first. And then when I
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 2: have means and when opportunities present themselves, I'm absolutely gonna
• 2:36:51
  Speaker 2: bless the single mothers that aren't in the church And
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna preach them the.
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: Gospel as well. Okay, so it's a priority list. It's
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: a priority list, yeah.
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 2: And that's uncomfortable to talk about because people think that
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 2: the church is exclusively a charity. And the church does charity,
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 2: but the church primarily exists to preach and teach the gospel,
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 2: make disciples and cultivate godly community. And the overflow of
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 2: that is charity, right? And so I think we inflate
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 2: these things and we say, no, no, no, the church
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 2: is just supposed to give all their money away. It's like, no, no,
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 2: the church is supposed to preach and disciple people and
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 2: care for the widow and the orphan within the context
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 2: of the church. and then we go on beyond the church.
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 2: But my big idea is if we just apply godly
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 2: ambition and everyone just takes care of their household and
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 2: then their extended family, that will solve a lot of
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 2: our societal ills. If men say, I'm gonna step up,
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be the priest, provider, protector of my home,
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna figure it out, it's hard. Finances, job market, AI,
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 2: who knows where the world's going, it's hard. But I'm
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 2: gonna figure this out. I'm gonna figure out how to
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 2: take care of my family and my extended family. If
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 2: that just happened in the next five years, all these
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 2: men that are coming to faith, all these Gen Z,
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 2: if they just said, hey, I'm going to figure this out.
• 2:37:55
  Speaker 2: I'm going to figure out a way to take care
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 2: of my own, take care of my extended family, and
• 2:37:59
  Speaker 2: then be generous through my church. Because I don't just
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 2: give to my church. I give through my church, right?
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 2: I think we will see a radical change in society
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 2: by men just showing up, being fathers, and then being
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 2: father figures to folks in their family and their communities
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 2: that don't have fathers. The world changes within a short
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 2: amount of time.
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: In my opinion. I love that message. Yeah. Nice work. Yeah.
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 2: So, so, so I think you're right though. I think,
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 2: I think we should live for something bigger than ourselves.
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 2: And I think the, the, the poor and the marginalized, um,
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 2: need help and need resources. I think that the, the,
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 2: the tricky part is you've heard of toxic, toxic charity.
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 2: You've heard of sometimes charity can do more enablement than,
• 2:38:40
  Speaker 2: than helping people. Right. And so one of my favorite
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 2: charities that I've partnered with is a company called Charity Water.
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 2: where 100% of what they get goes towards the actual
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 2: mission of bringing clean water filtration systems in parts of
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 2: the world that need it. So we donated my birthday
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 2: a couple years ago, and we were able to build
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 2: a water filtration system in a part of the world
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 2: that when you bring clean water to people, it changes everything.
• 2:39:05
  Speaker 2: It's actually the best ROI because now they can farm,
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 2: now they have clean water, now they have better hygiene,
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 2: just that alone, right? And so like, We should absolutely
• 2:39:13
  Speaker 2: be doing that, right? But not at the expense of
• 2:39:16
  Speaker 2: my family, not at the expense of my in-laws, right?
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 2: So it's and both, but there has.
• 2:39:20
  Speaker 1: To be a hierarchy. There has to be priorities to that.
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: Great point. Yeah. Great point. Well, man, this was a
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: fascinating conversation. Man, thank you so much.
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 2: This was great.
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: You asked great questions. Thank you for coming.
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 2: I got questions for you.
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 1: What do you got? Can I really ask? Yeah. All right.
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 2: The war on drugs in the 1980s.
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: The war on drugs in the 1980s? CIA. Oh, shit.
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 2: Was the CIA complicit in bringing over cheap cocaine to
• 2:39:53
  Speaker 2: pay the Nicaraguans to fight communism? Is that verified? Because
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 2: I've heard they've admitted it, but I haven't been able
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 2: to find anything recent. And then the whistleblower who, you know,
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 2: self-deleted himself by shooting himself twice in the face.
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 2: And then the turn around and punish and have this
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 2: crazy war on drugs and this hundred to one coke
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 2: to crack disparity, which was supported by liberals and Republicans
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 2: and Democrats. So this isn't a partisan thing, but that
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 2: ended up causing a lot of harm to a lot
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 2: of communities. So I was curious as a guy that
• 2:40:29
  Speaker 2: is very connected and aware, did the CIA do that?
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 2: There's been movies and documentaries to fight those wars at
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 2: the expense of poor communities.
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: That is not my expertise. And, you know, I think
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of people think that I was a lot
• 2:40:47
  Speaker 1: deeper within the agency than I actually was. But, I mean,
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: so I don't know. I would say there's a high
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: probability that that is probably true. You know, something that
• 2:41:03
  Speaker 1: kind of skirts the line on that, I had this
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: interview with this guy, Roger Reeves. He was the... most
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: prolific drug smuggler out of Columbia. Just lots of trips
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 1: back and forth. He connected with this guy called Barry Seal.
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: Do you know about this?
• 2:41:22
  Speaker 2: Barry Seal sounds familiar.
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: Barry Seal supposedly worked for CIA.
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 2: He was the plug. He was the connect, right?
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: If I remember this correctly. Roger was flying cocaine out
• 2:41:33
  Speaker 1: of Columbia, a lot of cocaine out of Columbia. Went
• 2:41:36
  Speaker 1: to jail for a long time. He came in for
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 1: an interview. he had met this pilot named Barry Seale.
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: And some of this may be off, so you have
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: to re-reference my interview with him in case I'm off
• 2:41:49
  Speaker 1: on some things. So Roger would fly the cocaine into Louisiana, right?
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: And he would land on highways that are under construction. Well,
• 2:41:59
  Speaker 1: when Barry went to work with him, he told him
• 2:42:03
  Speaker 1: that that's the plan, would land on the highways in Louisiana. Well,
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: Barry said no, I don't fly into Louisiana. I fly
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: into Arkansas. Bill Clinton was the governor at the time. Um,
• 2:42:15
  Speaker 1: so maybe there's some ties there, but what I'm saying
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: is he was protected by either state government or federal
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 1: government or both to fly in the cocaine to Arkansas,
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 1: you know, for dispersion. And so, you know, I think there's,
• 2:42:34
  Speaker 1: there's something maybe there to explore, but, um, I was
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: born in 1982, so that's a little before my time there.
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 1: And the other thing about the agency is you don't
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: get access to everything. Everything is very compartmentalized, segmented. They
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: call it a need-to-know basis. And if you don't need
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 1: to know, then you don't get any information. So that's
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: not something that I've been read into, not something that
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time exploring, but I'm sorry
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 1: I don't have it. No, it's all right.
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 2: I've always thought about it. My wife's parents were both
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 2: caught up in the war on drugs. My mother-in-law was
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 2: working at a company, sliced her finger, like the tip
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 2: of her finger got cut off, and she ended up
• 2:43:24
  Speaker 2: getting a settlement. And man, they partied hard. They partied
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 2: a little too hard, and they both ended up going
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 2: to prison. And then because of the drug laws back
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 2: then and the war on drugs, they got some pretty
• 2:43:36
  Speaker 2: harsh sentences. And then you know, you just, then the
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 2: cycle starts of like now my sister-in-law is trying to
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 2: raise the girls at 12. She's robbing and stealing. She
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 2: gets arrested. She then gets pregnant at 15. And so
• 2:43:50
  Speaker 2: the cycle just continues of despair and fatherlessness.
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: You know. Generational trauma. Generational trauma. Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 2: My wife, by the grace of God, like she ended
• 2:44:00
  Speaker 2: up going to live with her best friend when she
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 2: was in high school. And that's how we met. We
• 2:44:05
  Speaker 2: met in high school and the best friend white evangelical
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 2: Christian family, mother and father in the home. They weren't perfect,
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 2: but they were great. And that kind of removed her
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 2: from being in these pretty rough environments. And we met
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 2: after that, and we got married. And when we got married,
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 2: we knew, it's like, hey, we are not going to
• 2:44:23
  Speaker 2: repeat these cycles. We're not going to continue the fatherlessness.
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 2: We're going to figure this thing out.
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: You guys broke it together.
• 2:44:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So we've been married 17 years now, together 21.
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: Congratulations. I think she's the one.
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's great. My wife is great, man. Yeah, we
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 2: got two kids. Levi is 10. Zoe's four, and we
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 2: got one on the way in November.
• 2:44:48
  Speaker 1: Congratulations.
• 2:44:49
  Speaker 2: Another boy.
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, man, that's awesome. How many kids you got? Two.
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 2: Two all day?
• 2:44:54
  Speaker 1: Two and four. Two and four.
• 2:44:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 2:44:56
  Speaker 1: I got a four-year-old.
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 2: It's such a fun age. Boy or girl?
• 2:44:59
  Speaker 1: Boy or girl. Boy or girl? Yeah.
• 2:45:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, kids are the best, man.
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: They are. They are. They definitely change your perspective on
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: the world. And how you, how you carry yourself.
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 2: A lot, like the men I'm speaking to are coming from,
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 2: you know, similar backgrounds, struggling. And a lot of what
• 2:45:15
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to get them to understand is like, dude,
• 2:45:19
  Speaker 2: like you're going to get married one day and like
• 2:45:21
  Speaker 2: your wife is going to want to stay home and
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 2: just be a mom and be with her babies. And
• 2:45:25
  Speaker 2: the data supports that too. You know, Forbes did a
• 2:45:28
  Speaker 2: study about a decade ago, 86% of working women prefer
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 2: to stay home if they were given the opportunity. And
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 2: then this is not Christian women. 86%. This is a
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 2: little dated. This is probably around 75 now. Want to
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 2: stay home for a season when they have kids. This
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 2: is working women with kids. They prefer to stay home
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 2: if they were given an opportunity to. And some women
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 2: grow resentment if they aren't. And that conversation is very unpopular.
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 2: So my advice to young men is like, bro, there's
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 2: a future version of you that's like depending on this
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 2: version of you to make good decisions. And if you
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 2: don't make good decisions... Like, you're going to pay for
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 2: it later.
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 1: That's a great, that's a, I love that. There's a
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 1: future version of you. Yeah. Depending on what you do.
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 2: No one told me this stuff. Like when I was 20,
• 2:46:13
  Speaker 2: new to the faith, like no one sat me down.
• 2:46:14
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey man, like you got to go
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 2: make some money, bro. Like you can't, and you got
• 2:46:18
  Speaker 2: to stop getting into debt. Like you got to clean
• 2:46:21
  Speaker 2: this stuff up because at 28, 29, like your wife's
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 2: going to want to have kids and she's going to
• 2:46:26
  Speaker 2: stay home. You know, she's not going to want to
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 2: be a boss babe in 12 weeks. You know, again,
• 2:46:30
  Speaker 2: like after pushing out a human, no one told me
• 2:46:32
  Speaker 2: these things. And again, by the grace of God, and
• 2:46:34
  Speaker 2: really through Dave Ramsey's stuff, we were able to clean
• 2:46:37
  Speaker 2: up our finances and got out of debt. And it
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 2: was so life-giving to have that stability and then transition
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 2: into music full-time and then YouTube.
• 2:46:47
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, man. I'm going to steal that. Yeah, it's
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: a good line, right? I love that.
• 2:46:52
  Speaker 2: You could sauce it up. You could talk about sci-fi movies.
• 2:46:54
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll talk about my favorite movies or sci-fi movies,
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 2: time travel movies, and movies the timeline continuum, and so
• 2:47:02
  Speaker 2: you can really sauce it up. But yeah, I think
• 2:47:04
  Speaker 2: it's so real because when you don't have the motivation,
• 2:47:09
  Speaker 2: you have all the time in the world. When you
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 2: have the motivation, kids, a wife, people depending on you
• 2:47:15
  Speaker 2: to provide, you don't have a lot of time. And
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 2: so if I can say, hey man, while you have
• 2:47:19
  Speaker 2: the time, let's make you an asset to your current employer.
• 2:47:24
  Speaker 2: Let's not go in and try to get the most
• 2:47:27
  Speaker 2: amount of money for the least amount of work.
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no.
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 2: You're going to show up and you're going to be
• 2:47:31
  Speaker 2: the best dude. You're going to be the first to come,
• 2:47:32
  Speaker 2: last to leave, most competent, working your face off. And
• 2:47:36
  Speaker 2: in that, you're going to be a greater asset to
• 2:47:38
  Speaker 2: your current employee. And I'm sure you appreciate that. You
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 2: have an amazing team here of just studs that are
• 2:47:42
  Speaker 2: crushing it. Those people end up being amazing in an organization,
• 2:47:47
  Speaker 2: but they could also go on and do their own
• 2:47:48
  Speaker 2: thing if they want to, because they're competent, they're stable,
• 2:47:51
  Speaker 2: they're confident. And people don't understand that. Like they don't
• 2:47:56
  Speaker 2: understand that. Like, man, you got a window of time
• 2:47:57
  Speaker 2: from 25, from 20 to 25 before you're married with kids.
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 2: I figured this out, figured this stuff out, you know?
• 2:48:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, man. Awesome interview. Man, thank you so much.
• 2:48:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you so much.
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 2: This is a copy for you, so maybe you can
• 2:48:10
  Speaker 2: take a peek sometime.
• 2:48:11
  Speaker 1: I will. I will. And I just want to say
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 1: congratulations to you and your wife on breaking generational trauma.
• 2:48:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you. And that's a huge thing. We talk a
• 2:48:21
  Speaker 1: lot about that here, so I love it. Thank you.
• 2:48:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for being here. I learned a lot.
• 2:48:26
  Speaker 1: All right. No matter where you're watching Sean Ryan Show from,
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 1: if you get anything out of this, please like, comment, subscribe,
• 2:48:46
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• 2:48:52
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• 2:48:55
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