Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Jay Lowder on Campus Revival and 500 Salvations at Stephen F. Austin University

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Jay Lowder on Campus Revival and 500 Salvations at Stephen F. Austin University · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

0:02
Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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Speaker 2: Hey Jay, thanks for joining me.
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Speaker 3: Man, good to be with you today.
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Speaker 4: Jay Louder evangelist and founder of Jay Louder Harvest Ministries.
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Speaker 4: Jay recently headlined a campus wide event at Steve and F. Austin,
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Speaker 4: a public university there in Texas. Got a lot of
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Speaker 4: headlines that I've been enjoying reading. I wanted to talk
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Speaker 4: to you about that. Of course, this comes as a
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Speaker 4: movement of God is kind of it's catching a lot
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Speaker 4: of attention sweeping across college campuses in the United States
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Speaker 4: as part of this Unite s movement. You've seen firsthand, Jay,
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Speaker 4: what's happening on these college campuses else? What stood out
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Speaker 4: to you at this event at Stephen F. Austin And
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Speaker 4: what were your faults?
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Speaker 3: Well SFA is actually underneath the University of Texas. They're
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Speaker 3: affiliated together, and believe it or not, they called me
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Speaker 3: last year, but I wasn't able to go. It was there.
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Speaker 3: Last year was the first year they ever did this event.
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Speaker 3: I had another obligation, so I couldn't accept. Was invited
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Speaker 3: back this year, and man, there's just such a hunger
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Speaker 3: on the college campus. It's not every day that you
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Speaker 3: see five hundred students make commitments to Christ, especially in
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Speaker 3: a setting like this, because you know, here we are,
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Speaker 3: we're on campus, and we're in one of the buildings
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Speaker 3: on campus, and the way it's set up is there
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Speaker 3: is these long rows with just one row in the middle.
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Speaker 3: And so I'm just one of these guys that believe
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Speaker 3: if you mean it, you mention it. And I mean
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Speaker 3: we had no music. I mean, we had a band,
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Speaker 3: but I'm to my during the imitation time when I
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Speaker 3: asked people to make a public decision for Christ, it's
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Speaker 3: not an easy thing to do, to stand up in
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Speaker 3: front of your peers and other people that you go
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Speaker 3: to college with. And like I say, there was over
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Speaker 3: five hundred decisions for Christ. I mean, it seemed like
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Speaker 3: you just couldn't you couldn't stop these kids from saying
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Speaker 3: yes to Christ. I made a comment about it. It's
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Speaker 3: only the second time in the history of our ministry,
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Speaker 3: and I've been in full time evangelism in over twenty
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Speaker 3: years where we had so many people that wanted to
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Speaker 3: accept Christ as savior. We had to ask people to
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Speaker 3: leave who weren't making a decision. There was a room
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Speaker 3: large enough to walk through that follow up process with them,
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Speaker 3: and so It was basically, if you're not wanting to
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Speaker 3: give your life to Christ, will you just gather your
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Speaker 3: things and quietly leave? And I've never seen that except
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Speaker 3: one other time in Houston, Texas about five years ago.
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Speaker 2: What do you think is driving this? Jay?
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Speaker 4: And I asked that in terms of where this movement
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Speaker 4: at Abilene Christian? I'm not Iblien Christian, but Steven at Boston.
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Speaker 4: And where this movement at Steven at Boston that's happening.
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Speaker 4: As like I said at the intro there, other college
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Speaker 4: chemids are seeing something similar. I was writing today about
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Speaker 4: the United S movement at at Pittsburgh University of Pittsburg
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Speaker 4: or Pittsburgh University.
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Speaker 2: I forgot how what pit costs themselves, but.
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Speaker 4: They had hundreds of salvations last night. And this is
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Speaker 4: happening in the universities across America. What do you think
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Speaker 4: is driving this? This outpouring in this I don't know
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Speaker 4: this is coming to.
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Speaker 2: Christ so many college students.
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Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that I have a definitive answer,
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Speaker 3: but I know that there are several factors involved. I
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Speaker 3: think first of all, you have to look in the
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Speaker 3: context of people who are in college. A lot of
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Speaker 3: these people they've left home for the first time. They're
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Speaker 3: in a new environment, they're isolated away from what it
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Speaker 3: was like in high school, you know, where you knew
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Speaker 3: everybody and you grew up there and you had mom
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Speaker 3: and dad looking over your shoulder in different forms of accountability.
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Speaker 3: And so I think part of it is being in
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Speaker 3: that transitionary time where some of the certainties of life
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Speaker 3: seem to be gone. I think another factor that plays
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Speaker 3: into it is when a person goes off to college.
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Speaker 3: Not only are they changing geographical locations in many places
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Speaker 3: in many cases, but on top of that, they're encountering
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Speaker 3: new temptations. And then I think another part of that
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Speaker 3: is the fact, of course, the statistics tell us that
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Speaker 3: if a person doesn't come to Christ by the age
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Speaker 3: of like twenty, the chances of them ever coming to
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Speaker 3: Christ diminish greatly. But I think there's just a real
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Speaker 3: hunger among young people. I think some of the uncertainty
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Speaker 3: that's going on in the culture and the country, I
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Speaker 3: think students are looking for something that's real. I think
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Speaker 3: a lot of students have experimented with some of the
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Speaker 3: vices that this life offers and found those vices to
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Speaker 3: be very empty. You know kind of reminds me of
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Speaker 3: the rich young ruler. You know, he built the barns
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Speaker 3: and build greater and greater and greater, and yet there
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Speaker 3: was still a lack of satisfaction. And I think that
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Speaker 3: plays a huge role into it. And then if I
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Speaker 3: had to mention, another thing is is you know, God
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Speaker 3: loves everybody, and there's nobody that God doesn't want to reach.
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Speaker 3: But I do think that I want to be careful
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Speaker 3: how I say this because I don't want it to
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Speaker 3: sell like I believe in God's partiality, because I don't.
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Speaker 3: But I do think that there is a strategic move
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Speaker 3: of God knowing the impact and influence that these young
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Speaker 3: people can have. I mean, they're on the bridge of
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Speaker 3: launching into a new life, maybe going into new cities
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Speaker 3: and getting married in beginning life. And so again to
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Speaker 3: say that I know the answer to that definitively is no.
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Speaker 3: But I will tell you this as someone who's been
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Speaker 3: twenty years plus in full time evangelism, and I mean
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Speaker 3: I've done everything from NFL football teams to addiction centers
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Speaker 3: to prisons, to megachurches to small churches. I've never seen
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Speaker 3: a demographic that's more hungry than what I see among
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Speaker 3: college students.
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Speaker 2: Do you think the pandemic sparked anything?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. I think again, that kind of plays
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Speaker 3: into everything that's going on in our culture right now
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Speaker 3: and has been going on. You know to what degree
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Speaker 3: that would be, obviously, I wouldn't know, But I do
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Speaker 3: think that that plays a role into it. I think
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Speaker 3: social media plays a role into it. I think the
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Speaker 3: facade and the camouflage of what a lot of these
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Speaker 3: students see online that presents itself as an illusion, a
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Speaker 3: mirage of what reality really is, plays a role into it. Again,
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Speaker 3: I just think there's so many factors. But again, to
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Speaker 3: be a college student and to publicly, without a band
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Speaker 3: leading worship or anything, stand up and say I don't
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Speaker 3: care who sees me, I don't care who judges me.
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Speaker 3: There's an emptiness in my life. Nothing is filling it,
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Speaker 3: and I want Christ to come in my life. I
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Speaker 3: mean that says a lot. It says a whole lot.
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Speaker 2: Did you sense when you're preaching that something was a
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Speaker 2: miss that's not a mess, but su that the spirit
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Speaker 2: was leading and that go ahead?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that. And some of
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Speaker 3: the listeners may go this is this is odd, but
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Speaker 3: that's okay with me. My youngest son was with me
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Speaker 3: and he was sitting on the very back, and later
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Speaker 3: on we were talking about it and I said, and
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Speaker 3: I hate to use this word, and people tend to
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Speaker 3: criticize it, but I said, did you feel what I felt?
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Speaker 3: And again, I know the emotionalism crowd is going to
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Speaker 3: come out and say something, but I mean because there
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Speaker 3: was such a real, old presence of God in that room.
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Speaker 3: Now again from the aspect of you know, we obviously
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Speaker 3: didn't see Michael the archangel, and we did we didn't
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Speaker 3: have anybody swinging from chandeliers, but the presence of God
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Speaker 3: was so real, and I knew that we were going
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Speaker 3: to see something great. To say that I expected to
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Speaker 3: see what we saw would not be accurate. But God's presence,
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Speaker 3: the presence and the people who listening to this, who
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Speaker 3: understand the work of God's spirit and understand what it's
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Speaker 3: like to feel his literally just smothering presence. It was
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Speaker 3: so obvious in that room, so obvious.
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Speaker 4: How would you categorize what's going on along college students nationwide?
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Speaker 4: And if you're not comfortable aging yet, that's fine. But
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Speaker 4: the word revival gets debated. Some people call it an
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Speaker 4: outpour and some people just call it a movement of God.
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Speaker 4: What do you think is going on right now?
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Speaker 3: Well, I think it's important, first of all to look
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Speaker 3: at what is the difference between a revival and an awakening.
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Speaker 3: And I know a lot of times these terms are
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Speaker 3: used synonymously with one another, but they're completely different. A
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Speaker 3: revival is something that takes place among those of us
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Speaker 3: who already know Christ. It's a maybe it's a reigniting
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Speaker 3: or a fanning of the flame that already exists, where
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Speaker 3: an awakening oftentimes is more synonymous with people who don't
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Speaker 3: know Christ coming to know Christ again. A lot of
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Speaker 3: people don't make that differentiation, but there is. And so
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Speaker 3: for me personally, as someone who only knows full time
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Speaker 3: of vangelism undeniably, I would equate what we saw in SFA,
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Speaker 3: what I saw when I spoke at Liberty University to
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Speaker 3: fifteen thousand students. I would not call that a revival.
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Speaker 3: I would call it an awakening because what we're seeing,
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Speaker 3: and not to say that we're not seeing people who
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Speaker 3: already know Christ coming back to Christ, because you and
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Speaker 3: I know the repentance is not just for the unsaved.
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Speaker 3: It's for everybody. But what we're seeing is is mass
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Speaker 3: numbers of people that don't know Jesus. They may have
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Speaker 3: a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. They
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Speaker 3: may know about Christ but don't know me personally, that
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Speaker 3: are coming to faith in the Lord. And it's a
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Speaker 3: big difference.
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Speaker 4: Would you say that what is going on right now though,
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Speaker 4: was not happening ten years ago. I mean, it seems
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Speaker 4: like there's a debate right now that there's nothing different.
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Speaker 2: You're saying, Oh, I totally.
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Speaker 3: Agree with that. I totally disagree with that. I mean, again,
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Speaker 3: as someone who's been doing this for twenty years, I
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Speaker 3: mean I've never been on staff at a church. This
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Speaker 3: is all I've ever done is full time evangelism. The
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Speaker 3: only thing that I could liken it to, And again
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Speaker 3: I wouldn't put it in the exact same box or category.
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Speaker 3: But what it reminds me of is after nine to eleven.
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Speaker 3: After nine to eleven, this was much earlier days of ministry,
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Speaker 3: and I was actually doing some things on my own
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Speaker 3: and traveling some with other evangelists. But I saw a
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Speaker 3: real hunger among people after the Twin Tower towers fell.
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Speaker 3: Now and to be completely honest with that. It was
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Speaker 3: short lived, but it was extremely real, It was extremely powerful,
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Speaker 3: and so if I had to try to correlate it
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Speaker 3: with something that we've seen in the past, that would
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Speaker 3: be the closest. But again, I wouldn't put it in
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Speaker 3: the same box because we're seeing things now that we've
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Speaker 3: never seen. You know, I mentioned Liberty. I got a
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Speaker 3: chance to speak at Liberty University, and I've spoken now
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Speaker 3: four times there and one of the times that I
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Speaker 3: spoke there, we had several thousand people make a public
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Speaker 3: decision for christ We're not talking about a secular university.
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Speaker 3: This is a Christian university. So yeah, it's unprecedented in
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Speaker 3: my opinion.
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Speaker 4: And you talk about comparing it to something that this
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Speaker 4: one has been going all long. I was around nine
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Speaker 4: to eleven, of course, and this is more Lenkedy than that.
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Speaker 4: You know, the unit astment, which I repreens earlier, it
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Speaker 4: started two and a half years ago, and then you
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Speaker 4: had the outpouring at Wilmore, Kentucky at Asbury that was
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Speaker 4: before that, And so there's something going on right now
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Speaker 4: that we haven't you know, again.
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Speaker 3: I think it's important to differentiate because I know that
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Speaker 3: there has been, there have been rather some revival type
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Speaker 3: atmospheres that have happened. I've seen these things online, you know,
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Speaker 3: where again, more along the Christian crowd, warship goes on
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Speaker 3: three days straight and people who already know Christ are
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Speaker 3: just falling in places of repentance and in worship. Again,
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Speaker 3: I would call that revival because again it's among believers.
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Speaker 3: But I think when we're talking about what happened at SFA,
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Speaker 3: and there have been some other pockets where we've seen
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Speaker 3: this happen in Texas, and of course you mentioned what
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Speaker 3: happened with Unite recently again that that would be different
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Speaker 3: than what we might have seen it some of the
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Speaker 3: others where the worship that went on for hours, where
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Speaker 3: it was more so believers getting right with the Lord.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, we need, as you and I agree, and all
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Speaker 4: Christians arealness, we need both revival and an awakening.
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Speaker 2: We need we need Christians to revive their hearts and
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Speaker 2: the general population to be awakened.
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Speaker 3: Let me say right quick, I don't want to I'm
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Speaker 3: not maximizing or minimizing one or the other above one
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Speaker 3: or the other, because like you said, they're both very
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Speaker 3: very important. We know that the Scripture says the judgment
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Speaker 3: begins at God's house, and so it is extremely important
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Speaker 3: that there is whether you want to call a revival
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Speaker 3: or renewal whatever, among those of us that know Christ.
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Speaker 3: But are also equally important is there needs to be
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Speaker 3: an awakening among people who have never been awoken spiritually,
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Speaker 3: need a new Christ.
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Speaker 2: Curious, what were you preaching on that night? What was
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Speaker 2: your text?
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Speaker 3: Well, I preached there three nights. Okay, the first night
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Speaker 3: I preached out of Matthew chapter seven. To me, one
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Speaker 3: of the most fascinating things that Jesus teaches in all
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Speaker 3: of Scripture, where he's giving us appeal back kind of
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Speaker 3: a look at the Wizard of Ozo to speak, when
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Speaker 3: he pulls back the curtain, and he lets us not
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Speaker 3: only look at what's going to happen in the end days,
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Speaker 3: but he even lets us hear the excuses that people
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Speaker 3: are going to make when they're trying to convince Christ
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Speaker 3: that they have a relationship with him, And Jesus is saying,
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Speaker 3: I never knew you. Well, but wait a minute, I prophesied,
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Speaker 3: I preached, I shared my faith, I did many wonderful works.
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Speaker 3: Even one group says I cast out demons in your name,
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Speaker 3: and Jesus says, I never knew you. So that was
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Speaker 3: my That kind of set the tone. That was the
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Speaker 3: first night, the text that I used.
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Speaker 4: Let's as we close here, I want you to respond
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Speaker 4: to people who are pessimistic about the future of our country,
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Speaker 4: specifically young people. I think that's always you know, all
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Speaker 4: of most other people always been you know, kind of
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Speaker 4: get off my loan, and we're always passive is to
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Speaker 4: go about the future of the nation.
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Speaker 2: Because we're looking at the young people. That's not near.
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Speaker 4: But that is common nowadays to think that the future
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Speaker 4: of America is hopeless, that the younger generation is hopeless
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Speaker 4: as well. I sense that you're thinking something different.
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Speaker 3: Well, I'm definitely figuring something different. And I take the
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Speaker 3: scripture literally. Jesus said this. He said the fields are wide,
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Speaker 3: end of the harvest, and Jesus told us to pray
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Speaker 3: for laborers to get into the harvest. I know there's
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Speaker 3: always that crowd out there that they want to say, well,
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Speaker 3: isn't emotionalism or is it real? And the first thing
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Speaker 3: I would say to those people, or who are we
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Speaker 3: to question anybody's salvation experience or commitment to Christ? We
14:47
Speaker 3: ought to always rejoice in that. But I think if
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Speaker 3: you've become so narrow minded that the only news you're
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Speaker 3: listening to is CNN or Fox, you're missing the point.
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Speaker 3: I believe that the Scripture teaches is that in the
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Speaker 3: last days that God wants to pour out his spirit.
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Speaker 3: I mean, this is in black and white. And if
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Speaker 3: we believe what God's word says, we should not only
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Speaker 3: be praying for that, we should be working towards that.
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Speaker 3: We should be investing in that, and we should be
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Speaker 3: rejoicing in that. The last thing we need is another
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Speaker 3: group of Pharisees or Sadducees sitting back with their arms folded,
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Speaker 3: try to evaluate what somebody else is doing with their life. Man,
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Speaker 3: I believe that God answers prayer. I believe that God
15:31
Speaker 3: answers prayer before we even pray it. And what I
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Speaker 3: would say is is all of us should be asking
15:37
Speaker 3: God to show us in what way we can be
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Speaker 3: employed into His kingdom. If you see, for too long
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Speaker 3: we've asked God to bless what we're doing instead of
15:48
Speaker 3: asking God instead to help us do what you're blessing
15:52
Speaker 3: and what God is blessing right now. For some unique reason,
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Speaker 3: God is really pouring out his spirit on young people,
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Speaker 3: many of which and again, I know we're running out
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Speaker 3: of time here, but if you could read the direct
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Speaker 3: messages of some of these students who are lonely, who
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Speaker 3: have mental health issues, who are suicidal, who are trying
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Speaker 3: to find a reason not to in their life the
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Speaker 3: night before they came to the event, it not only
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Speaker 3: will break your heart, but it give your heart to
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Speaker 3: see other people come to know Christ.
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Speaker 4: Briefly tell us about your ministry and how long you've
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Speaker 4: been operating this ministry and where you're going next.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think that's one of the reasons that I
16:29
Speaker 3: have the passion for young people that I do. To
16:32
Speaker 3: try to condense this down to an elevator's speech, I
16:35
Speaker 3: attempted suicide at twenty one years of age, and my
16:38
Speaker 3: life was a complete wreck. Had completely Even though I
16:42
Speaker 3: grew up in going to church here in the South,
16:45
Speaker 3: God was not a part of my life in any way.
16:48
Speaker 3: After my suicide attempt, I was invited to a evangelistic
16:53
Speaker 3: outreach where the guy who was speaking had attempted suicide.
16:57
Speaker 3: I had long since given up church. The only reason
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Speaker 3: why I went was hoping that maybe he could provide
17:04
Speaker 3: some bullet points or a road map of how I
17:06
Speaker 3: could escape my suicidal tendencies. And that night when I went,
17:11
Speaker 3: he didn't say anything about his suicide. He presented an
17:14
Speaker 3: unadulterated view of Jesus Christ hanging on a cross like
17:19
Speaker 3: a scarecrow, between heaven and earth. And he finished his
17:22
Speaker 3: sermon that night by saying, some of you you've been
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Speaker 3: around church and you know about Jesus, but you don't
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Speaker 3: know Jesus. And you're going to wake up when they
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Speaker 3: lost an eternity. And when he said that, I knew that.
17:31
Speaker 3: I knew that. I knew that even though I was
17:34
Speaker 3: at one point religious, I was lost that even though
17:38
Speaker 3: one time I had made a profession, there had never
17:40
Speaker 3: been a genuine confession in my life. And I got
17:43
Speaker 3: on my knees that night, nothing fancy, nothing that would
17:46
Speaker 3: have impressed anybody, and I said, God, you know I'm
17:49
Speaker 3: a wreck. You know I'm a sinner. You know I
17:51
Speaker 3: can't even find a reason not to end my life.
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Speaker 3: Will you save me? And then three nights later I
17:56
Speaker 3: went to the closing event and it was for an
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Speaker 3: unevent for students, and I saw multitudes of students do
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Speaker 3: what I had done three nights before and I turned
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Speaker 3: to my roommate, the guy that God used to save
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Speaker 3: my life, and I turned to him. Nobody in my
18:14
Speaker 3: family's ever been in ministry. There's no background in ministry.
18:17
Speaker 3: And I turned to my roommate and I said, that's
18:20
Speaker 3: what I'll do with the rest of my life. And
18:21
Speaker 3: he's like, what are you talking about? And I said, Man,
18:24
Speaker 3: if somehow, someway my life could be more than just
18:27
Speaker 3: making money, If somehow, some way God could use my
18:31
Speaker 3: life to give hope to broken people like me, that's
18:35
Speaker 3: what I want to do. I never dreamed it would
18:37
Speaker 3: have turned out to this, But that's our ministry. We're
18:39
Speaker 3: full time evangelistic ministry. It's all we do, it's all
18:42
Speaker 3: we want to do. I wouldn't say I'm good at
18:45
Speaker 3: anything on this whole planet. I wouldn't say that I'm
18:47
Speaker 3: really passionate about much on this planet. But one thing,
18:50
Speaker 3: and that seen people come to know Jesus. There is
18:52
Speaker 3: nothing nothing better than that and.
18:56
Speaker 2: The end of that. Jaylouder dot com is a website.
18:59
Speaker 3: Jay, Thank you, Thank you man. Been a pleasure.
19:04
Speaker 1: If you enjoy today's interview, please make sure to subscribe
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19:10
Speaker 1: to the team at life Audio for their partnership with
19:12
Speaker 1: us on the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot
19:15
Speaker 1: com you will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts
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Speaker 1: in their network.
19:21
Speaker 2: See you next time.