Dead Men Walking Podcast with Zack Morgan & Desi Maes of Provoked Podcast: Evangelism

Dead Men Walking

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00:13

We are so lucky. Yes we are. So blessed. I shouldn't say lucky. Yeah. Don't say lucky.

00:19

To have a guitar player like you so we can just make a new intro every time we want one. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, man.

00:24

Which we did just write some stuff last night to, I don't know, two nights ago, whatever that was for the book suggestions coming out, you guys are going to love this tune.

00:34

Go check it out. Book suggestions. Maybe we'll review it on a different episode. We got those coming out in September.

00:40

Jason, how are you doing, brother? Doing awesome, man. I am full of catfish right now.

00:45

Had some fried catfish for dinner and I had way too much. I should have stopped before the third one.

00:53

Okay. So if you're not off halfway through this. Yeah. Yeah. It was really good, man. I love catfish, man.

00:59

So good. Well, hey, you live next to a great lake. You got to have some catfish as well. That's right. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, I'm doing good too, man.

01:04

I'm happy to be back in studio. We want to get right to it because we got a special guest here tonight and we love it when we have people on that we not only admire, but we listen to, we agree with them.

01:16

They inspire us. And we want our listeners to hear that kind of stuff too, because, you know, we want to bring value to you guys and we want to bring people on the podcast that, you know, can speak biblically, that can encourage us and all those things.

01:29

Tonight we have Zach and Desi, brother and sister duo of Provoked Podcast.

01:34

Hey guys, how you doing? What's going on? Thanks for having us on. Yeah, no problem.

01:40

We have 200 people in this little studio. Yes, we do. They were all applauding you. They must not know us.

01:48

Exactly. But we're going to get into a little bit more of what they do. They're sitting in on our Newsy News segment. And guys, feel free to jump in if you want to say something.

01:57

I might even put you on the spot. But we're all proud of you guys. All podcasters here. So you don't mind being on the spot. Maybe even have a comment on it.

02:03

Jason, you want to do some Newsy News? Yeah, let's do it. Let's get it. Here's our Tom Askew approved Newsy News. News, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the speculation.

06:58

Where does the Bible talk about global digital currency, global government, the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, spent 20 years in Afghanistan with no success.

07:10

Every attempt at a globalist empire has failed. Egypt, pyramids,

07:15

Babylon, artifacts in the British museum, Greece. My wife and I visited the empire's ruins in 2017.

07:22

Remember the Roman Empire? Like Greece, tourist attractions today. Holy Roman Empire, gone.

07:29

The Third Reich, a distant memory. That was supposed to be the end.

07:35

Before Hitler, it was Mussolini, who was the Antichrist. The advance of communism, what's left?

07:41

Cuba and North Korea. He just keeps going. And it's just a great little response to what is going on right now, that everybody's trying to use end times, eschatology tactics because of vaccines, because of what's going on in Afghanistan, because of, you know, fill in the blank.

07:58

It's crazy because the older you get, the more times you live through that too. I was born in 81, so I grew up with my father who to this day is still kind of a dispensationalist pre -Tribber.

08:08

Rapture's coming. Like when I was a little kid, he was like, you hear those sirens go off for the nuclear war. We're going to meet in heaven.

08:14

The rapture's coming. We're going to meet you in the sky, naked. Well, hold on. We won't have it.

08:19

That's true. Because you're leaving them. Jason, you always got to make it weird when we talk about eschatology. Well, that's what they used to tell us.

08:26

There's a lady present for crying out loud. I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying.

08:32

So anyway, naked. No, no, no, no. I just keep going. But my point is, is like your eschatology matters. When I was younger,

08:38

I didn't even know what it was called. I didn't have a label for it, but I was like, is, are things really getting worse? Like, don't we just, since the apostles, hasn't it just been like Christ can return at any moment?

08:47

There's been all this rise and fall through history. And I didn't know that I was leaning like kind of post mill on mill without even knowing what it was as a young teenager.

08:55

And yeah, we just kind of see every time we see something happen in the world, it's like, watch out.

09:01

It's going to get worse. The tribulations come in and it's like, well, we know what Gary DeMar lands. He's very futurist and you know, not premature.

09:08

Yeah. Partial preterist and all that. So, you know what, what do you think guys is, is your eschatology important when it's like, when you're looking at world events like this?

09:16

Oh yeah. It's so funny when uncle Gary gets on like a, your Facebook post, that means you probably messed up.

09:22

He just has this ability. I was, I was just looking at somebody else's who'd said something about, you know, what's going on in Afghanistan.

09:29

And I was just super, you know, tons of posts. And then you look down in the middle and he, there he is, and he's contributing to it.

09:35

And everybody's like, Oh, that's exactly the way we should be looking at this. That's how we should be thinking about this particular issue.

09:41

So I appreciate the guy. But yeah, I've, I've been a pastor in churches that were heavily dispensational and 10 years ago about, and I kind of could see what that does, how it fleshes out in the life of the church because we're so concerned about, you know, getting raptured out of our clothes that what we do is we neglect the generational outlook and we also neglect evangelism.

10:06

And so what you would see when that type of eschatological system, and I love, of course, we love our brothers and sisters who hold to that.

10:14

This is a secondary issue. We don't have to divide, yada, yada. We all understand that. But Jesus said, wisdom is vindicated by its fruits.

10:21

And I think you can really see a genuine eschatological position.

10:28

You know, if it's really biblically, it holds up in, you know, of course, biblically and under pressure in the life of the church.

10:36

What is it doing to the people? Are they, are they focusing on their kids? Are they focusing on discipleship?

10:42

Are they building for the future? Are they going out? Are they being salt and light into the culture? But what

10:47

I experienced in these dispensational pre -mill type of environments where it was, it was really moved to the primary issue.

10:55

When I bounced from the church and I actually bounced from my pastor, when the pastor said, if you don't believe in the rapture, you're not going to be raptured.

11:02

So I said, that is a false gospel. Absolutely. You now have moved eschatological convictions into the primary category you've added to the gospel.

11:11

We got to go, which is the best decision of our life because we went from there to apologia. And of course, we feel like we've come home to an amazing church, but no, you're right.

11:21

Eschatology matters. It's not a salvation issue, but it's definitely a sanctification issue. It's, it's definitely going to have an effect on your productivity here as a

11:31

Christian and whether or not you're going to make an impact. So, yeah. And what would be the, you know,

11:36

I feel like what would be the motivator to pour into the next generation? Yeah, because we're going to leave.

11:42

That's what we heard. Hey, it's, we actually had a clock and I'm sorry if I'm taking too much time. We had a clock on the pulpit and it was like dialed up to 12 because we're going to go.

11:51

And we have these prophecy conferences where people were like, Hey, if we're here by October, this is in 2015, there's going to be millions of people upset.

11:59

And so, yeah, that type of focus can get so wacko. Yeah. And so not to offend your listeners.

12:06

We just believe it's doesn't have really good biblical background or biblical support there.

12:12

It really has an effect on the people of God and any local church that is kind of focused on it.

12:18

Yeah. Oh, great. For sure. Amen. All right. Let's we'll go into our topic for sure.

12:26

But this is a note from missionaries in Afghanistan. At the moment we are praying desperately for friends on the ground in the house church movement in Afghanistan where the

12:37

Taliban are coming after all Christians. Their courage is immense. Most expect to meet

12:43

Jesus face to face in the next two weeks. It is a powerful reminder right now of what matters and making every opportunity count for eternity.

12:54

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So I know provoked have been covering this. And so it's cultish. Those guys out there, you guys have really been making sure people are hearing about this, but that what a what a wow.

13:04

Does that make it real? Yeah. When you're in real time, when we're over here complaining about our latte and and what the worship pastor wore.

13:15

And, you know, if we even want to go to church because, oh, we don't feel air quotes safe and that you just have tweets come tweet after tweet.

13:22

And then even people who are tweeting, they're finding where they're at and going and killing them. Right. So so the word can be stopped, but they're tweeting, hey, look, we expect to die within two weeks.

13:31

All for Christ, all for the Lord, all glory to him. And you're just like, what am I doing with my life? Right. Like, what are we doing over here in fat, lazy,

13:40

Western Christianity? Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

13:45

Yeah. The scriptures say when the wicked rule, the people groan, you know, and of course, we don't need to get into Trump and Biden and their differences and that.

13:56

But I think we can understand we do have a wicked ruler that's in charge of our nation and we're suffering the consequences of his decision making.

14:05

And we don't necessarily get into the weeds when it comes to being in Afghanistan. I mean, I believe that we shouldn't have gone there.

14:11

But I think somebody put it well when he was talking about our departure, the quickness of a departure.

14:17

It's almost like you have an 11 year old child and you just say, hey, get out on the road. You know, it's time for you to get out of the house.

14:24

So I think there could have been a lot more preparation that went into, you know, trying to value your neighbor, value life, you know, upon exiting or thinking about that heavily before we exited the way we we did.

14:36

But anyway, you guys might think differently about that. But God's sovereign and what

14:42

God and I don't know if you guys are familiar with the Scottish covenanters that went through incredible persecution back in the 16th century.

14:49

It was so horrible and unjust what they went through. But God did use that to give us a picture of true

14:55

Christianity and how to suffer well. So even though all of our brothers and sisters are suffering over there and we, you know, we wish we could go rescue them in a moment,

15:04

God will not. Their death won't be in vain. The Bible says God, you know, he values the death and the blood of his martyrs.

15:12

So, yeah, it's tough. Yeah, cool. Well, is that all we got there, Jay? Yeah, yeah.

15:17

Okay, well, let's get into the meat of tonight's subject. But first, can you tell us,

15:23

Zach and Desi, can you tell us a little bit about Provoked Podcast and what it is about and what you guys are doing over there?

15:29

I've been talking too much. You go ahead. Oh, yeah. Well, Provoked, our purpose is to preach the gospel and to destroy cultural idols and to rescue babies.

15:41

That's kind of the gist of it. So we just, we want to provoke the church to get out there and to share the gospel, not only in the public square, but in their own lives, in the workplace, in their families, in their neighborhood, to go out and to be that salt and light and to, you know, go out and rescue babies.

16:02

Abortion is the preeminent issue of our generation, and we believe that it should be of the utmost importance to go out and rescue these children every day.

16:13

Yeah, we just think, I mean, you look at the numbers, and I know sometimes you're like, where do these numbers come from? You know, but the stats are an incredibly low amount of people,

16:22

Christian, professing Christians who have their theology somewhat in line, you know, it's just a minuscule amount that actually shares the gospel that actually goes out.

16:31

And by and large, you have 400 ,000 plus churches within the greater American Evangelical Church, and just people aren't sharing the gospels statistically, and they're not being led by men who equip them or show them how to do it out in the culture.

16:48

So we want to not ever, we don't really want to act like a parachurch ministry that's out from under the accountability of the local church.

16:55

We're all about the local church. We just want to use this to help provoke and stimulate our brothers and sisters to accurately share the gospel in their sphere of influence, deal with, you know, the evils of our day, like, of course, our good

17:09

Christian heritage is not all throughout church history. Yeah, and defend the faith, too. That's a huge focus of our podcast.

17:15

Yeah, awesome. So I've always found when talking to other believers that actually going out, maybe like street witnessing, street preaching, those type of things can be very daunting to even a mature believer.

17:30

They feel like I might be put on the spot. I might be asked questions that I can't answer. So from your perspective, what are some of the main things that one should do besides prayer and obviously meditation on the

17:45

Word of God and all those things? What are some practical things to where we have a listener right now that goes, yeah, I need to do more of that.

17:52

I need to get out my community and witness and preach the gospel. What are some practical things that they can do to start preparing themselves for that?

18:00

Go ahead first. Okay, cool. We got to know the true, like Schaeffer would say, the true truth, right?

18:07

The true gospel. I think that's number one. You know, the gospel has been adulterated in the, you know, the greater

18:13

American evangelical church. And unfortunately, people are in spiritual environments where they really don't know the true gospel.

18:21

It's a truncated gospel. It's a gospel not about the kingdom. It's a gospel about what God can ultimately just do for you, you know, and it's robbed of its essential components.

18:33

Of course, the true gospel has indispensable components that need to be in there.

18:38

Like, you know, of course, God is creator, God is holy, the sinfulness of man, judgment to come, the law of God, but of course, bringing home the sinfulness of man in the heart of the unbeliever, as he hears the law of God, the work of Christ, the response of the believer.

18:54

So I think what we need to do is understand what the true gospel is before we can communicate that.

18:59

That's number one. Number two, and this is tough, because people message us all the time and just say,

19:05

Hey, look, I don't have any type of leadership that is training me how to preach the gospel, and they're not going out.

19:11

And that's tough for so many people. And the biggest problem out of all this, of course, and I'm a pastor, so I could say this is you got to point at the pastors, we have to point at the pulpits.

19:20

I mean, we really need men who are leading well, and equipping their people and, you know, bullet catching leaders who go out and say,

19:28

Hey, look, this is what Jesus has commanded us to do. And I'm going to do it and not just tell you to do it.

19:34

And I'm going to teach you how to do it. So for that person that's saying, Hey, how can I do it? It's, it's daunting, it will never not be daunting.

19:42

I think what's amazing in a church where your pastors are teaching you and leading you, like I said, from the front lines, is that that mitigates the fear and people feel very much more comfortable to go out.

19:54

And they become equipped. And of course, I'm just using our church as an example. And we're not the perfect church.

19:59

But it's been so awesome to see our people grow and begin to preach the gospel, because they're going out and they're being led.

20:07

And they are being shown by their leadership. This is what it means to be a Christian. This is how we obey the commands of Christ.

20:12

So a lot more can be said, but I would just tell that person know the true gospel, get out there, talk to your pastor about it in a loving and gracious way.

20:21

We don't want to be bulls in china shops and go in and tell your pastor how wrong he is. That's just not a way to win a person.

20:27

So you want to respect your spiritual leadership, tell them what the scriptures say, and ask him if he can help you do that.

20:34

Yeah, that's where I would start. Yeah, I would just just to add, I love what Ray Comfort said. He said,

20:40

Don't pray for less fear, pray for more love. You know, that should be our motivation.

20:46

Yeah, yeah, I, I used to live in Kansas City. And in the middle of a little area where there was about 1015 different bars, there was always a guy standing there in a devil costume.

21:03

And he had a sign. And, you know, it was like, I, I think

21:09

I was in a little bit different area in my life as well. I was pretty soft with what

21:14

I knew of the gospel at that time. I was not regenerated yet. I would I would put myself in that situation.

21:20

But But yeah, but I didn't ever go up to him and challenge him or anything like that.

21:26

But I think I would say, I said a couple things to my friends a couple times, you know, like, man, that guy doesn't understand, you know, what the gospel is all about.

21:34

And I didn't even really know what he was, what his, what he was actually saying, you know, right. Right. And, and I think my looking back on that, like,

21:44

I wish I would have been able to go into that situation and ask him and then be able to tell my brothers and sisters that who, who

21:54

I was with that I used to go to church with even at that time. I mean, we, it was, it was such a crazy time in my life,

22:01

I guess. I mean, it was more of the deconstruction situation and the universalism and whatnot.

22:08

But, but yeah, I mean, I'm so glad that God redeemed me from that. And I have, I have repented and we're all good.

22:17

But all that to say, I think whenever we hear about someone standing on the corner, open air preaching, it all seems like legalism.

22:27

It seems like the guy that's out there is just got the heart of stone and he's just talking down to you.

22:35

And every time I see one of you guys' videos on YouTube, on Facebook, it looks like you guys actually care about the people that you're preaching to.

22:48

Well, it doesn't look like it. I know you do care about the people that you're preaching to. And it's just, it's just amazing to watch.

22:54

I mean, have you guys, I mean, is there a challenging moment within,

23:03

I mean, 50 % of those, I mean, that we're not seeing? Is there just a lot of, you know, you guys just standing there, yeah, the pushback, or is there a lot of just, you guys just stand there preaching the gospel and there's not, not too many people that will stop and listen.

23:17

I mean, like, what's, what's the response usually like out on the street? I mean, I know I've heard about the

23:22

Hebrew Israelite that spit in Zach's mouth. Unfortunately, I heard about that.

23:30

But you know, like, I mean, there's there's a lot of different situations that happen those in those moments. So I guess all that to say, yeah, you just be the longest question.

23:40

I'm tracking all of it. I'm sorry. I had to go through the whole situation.

23:45

You said a lot of good stuff, a lot of important stuff. I think that's super relevant to this conversation we're having.

23:51

And I think the first thing you said was, and I'm so glad you said it, because you said when you watch us out there, that you see us speaking the truth and love.

23:59

And I guess when you're talking about difficulty, and we can get into kind of external difficulties when it comes to the people, you know, but the biggest thing is you got to keep yourself in check.

24:08

You know, we cannot bring reproach to the name of Christ and the way that we communicate the gospel.

24:14

We cannot not speak the truth and love. We have to be loving these people. And that's tough, because we do it a lot.

24:21

I mean, we I think we calculated how much evangelism we do. We're up in the thousands of hours per per year.

24:28

And it's sometimes you can get jaded. And you're just okay, it's time to go out to the mill. It's time to go to the strip club.

24:34

It's time to go out. And you kind of go through the motions when you really need to kind of war against that and make sure you're speaking to people, you're listening to people, you know, you're, you're looking at these people, not just as the masses, but people are who are going to stand before Holy God.

24:49

And you're communicating this in love, actually concerned about their souls. That's something that I beg

24:54

God, for every day, I don't want to just go out here again, and just go through it, because it's my job.

25:00

So that's probably the biggest difficulty when it comes to external stuff. Yeah, you got people, you know, cussing you out and flipping you off.

25:07

The funniest thing when you're, for me, as you're standing by the abortion clinic, and just 100 year old

25:12

Grammy, like flips you the bird. I cannot not laugh at that every time.

25:18

So yeah, you've got stuff like that, and people spit, and then that just comes with territory. Maybe the difficult thing is when you have professing

25:25

Christians coming out, you know, and saying, you're doing, you're doing it the wrong way. And in younger, you know, maybe nine, 10 years ago,

25:33

I really was a little bit too, I guess you could say, maybe combative. And, you know, now

25:39

I kind of just say, Well, if I'm doing it the wrong way, why don't you come stand next to me, and I'll learn from you. Right. And they immediately backpedal.

25:45

And I just want to come out here and tell you, you know, kind of be that armchair quarterback. But yeah, it's just a lot of experiences of Go ahead.

25:55

Did you tell him Peter and Paul then did it the wrong way, too? Yeah, I said that it's okay, let's open up our

26:01

Bibles because Jesus did it. They told you know, there, here's the biblical example of how we need to evangelize.

26:06

And people would say, Well, that's, that's prescriptive, not descriptive or discreet. Okay. Well, they did it all throughout

26:12

Jesus's ministry all throughout the book of Acts, Acts chapter, you know, two through four through all the way down.

26:19

And I think a lot of it is because Oh, I know what it says, because the way that they're spiritually reared in their house of faith, and, you know, the guys that they look at, it's not comfortable to get out there.

26:30

The more that you do it, the blessing of going out regularly, the more you do it, the bolder

26:36

God makes you. And I guess the fear is mitigated with regularity and consistency.

26:42

That's just a blessing of being evangelistically active all the time. But yeah, it's tough.

26:47

So hopefully that answered your question. Yeah, for sure. No, absolutely. So let's say we have someone out there listening.

26:53

Once again, we'll play devil's advocate here. And they say, you know, I just feel like it can get to a shouting match, like you just said,

27:00

Zach, or it can get combative. For you guys, what, what's some advice you would give to on just being the most effective when speaking to a non believer or even someone of a different religion, which we'll touch on that in a minute here to when sharing

27:16

Christ, obviously, we're showing the fruits of the Spirit, we're keeping ourselves in check. Is it is debate good?

27:22

Is answering question good? Is it just go up to them and start saying, Hey, this is what I believe and preach the gospel?

27:28

Is it a question and answer? Like what, what is effective when you're on? And I know all things are different, you know, all situations are different.

27:35

But what's been the most effective way for someone who's listening right now that goes, Yeah, I need to start doing this, but I don't want to be out there, you know, being a clanging cymbal.

27:44

Right? I say, you know, prayer, prayer first, you know, leading into that just preparing your heart, and asking, like Zach said, you know, pleading with God for you to keep your motivations in the right place.

27:56

Like, why am I out here? You know, is it to check this off my list of, you know, to do this week?

28:02

Or is it because I actually have love and concern for the lost? Because I know that without Christ, they're going to be separated from God forever.

28:11

Like, what is my motivation to be out here today? And to just staying in the word, like scripture say, like, going to them with a heart of humility, like, let's go and reason together, like scripture say, you know, and thinking upon your own salvation and what

28:27

God has saved you from regularly, I think we need to preach the gospel to ourselves and be reminded of that.

28:32

So that, you know, we do come into any type of evangelism encounter with a heart of humility.

28:38

And, you know, for us Calvinists, knowing it was not of our doing at all, God sovereignly chose us, not because of anything we've done.

28:47

And so I think just keeping those, those theological truths in your mind and in your heart and really focusing on them and just, just that compassion, just that love and, you know, going back to the law to stop the mouth and remembering that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

29:06

Yeah, totally. Just a couple of things that we could talk about this forever. Love it.

29:12

But the greatest thing is, yeah, just our theological conviction is, you know, Calvinists, we can, we can sleep sweetly.

29:19

I don't know if you guys ever heard MacArthur's, the theology of sleep. Ever heard that one?

29:24

It's a good one. It's just about evangelism from a reformed perspective. And he's like, hey, we scattered the seed and we go to sleep because we can't cause the seed to grow.

29:34

That's the work of God alone, salvifically and, you know, and honoristically in the heart of a person. So we could just, hey, we spread the seed.

29:42

We don't bring intention to ourself. We're not out there saving people. You know, we're out there preaching the true gospel and that gospel is

29:50

God's power unto salvation. You know, so that's the only way you're going to have longevity.

29:55

If you're going to only evangelize until you see people saved, you're not going to last long, right?

30:00

Because that's up to God. We just, we, we deliver the goods. We spread the seed with the hearts, like, like Desi just said so well, with humility and passion and precision in what we're saying.

30:12

And, uh, we wait and on the other side, we'll see who God saves all for his glory. I think so many times churches can get wrapped up in fruit, quote unquote fruit.

30:21

And if we don't see fruit, well, we're not going to go preach the gospel when all it is, is it's trying to boast himself.

30:27

And, uh, that's just not the way that the scriptures describe evangelism. Um, we go out in first Corinthians chapter three, it says we're nothing in this whole transaction compared to God's salvific work in somebody, but we spread the seed, we share it in love, and then all glory is going to belong to God when he brings his chosen to himself.

30:48

Right. Uh, when it comes to different religions and my sister said this so well in the past, I mean, we just go out with the gospel.

30:55

You don't have to know everything you have to know about the Mormon religion. That is a vast, vast, just abyss of information there within, and it comes to Joe's witnesses and Islam.

31:07

Of course, it's good to have a working knowledge. So you, the person under, you know, knows what you're talking about.

31:13

Um, you add an apologetics, I think Acts chapter 17 is where we got our name.

31:18

So Paul, he goes and he sees the city full of idols, right? And so he's provoked of course, what, because what idolatry does to a nation, it's the premier sin.

31:27

Anyway, don't want to get into there. So what does he do? What does he do? He confronts that with the gospel.

31:33

And so in the evangelistic process, there's presuppositional apologetics where you're tearing down every lofty thought, right?

31:41

You're answering the fool to, according to his folly, you're letting him see the bankruptcy of his worldview, and then you're building upon it the gospel.

31:51

So I would say, don't get so wrapped up and putting people in their place. We really have to check our hearts.

31:56

Even presuppositional apologists can do this. It's all about just, you know, uh, the nitty gritty and, uh, kind of semantics there of apologetics.

32:06

We have to make sure along with that, we're building with a proper explanation of the gospel.

32:12

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And just, I'll, I'll just tack onto that too. And I will lovingly say this to anyone listening, you know, we have a responsibility to have robust theology and to understand and to have knowledge about things outside of our belief system.

32:28

I really do believe that. I feel often that I've met Christians 20, 30, 40 years in the faith.

32:34

And if it's not with inside their kind of what they've learned, you know, been taught or learned in the last 30 years in the pew, they have no idea how to witness to Jehovah Jehovah witness or to Mormon seventh day

32:47

Advent. What's the difference. And I'm not saying we all have to be scholars, but we have to have some type of knowledge of that.

32:53

Now me naturally. I mean, I read atheists. I read Mormons. I, you know, I read it all across the board too.

32:59

I would love for them to prove me wrong. Let's see a prove the Bible wrong. Now I have a biblical reformed worldview and I haven't read anything outside of the

33:08

Bible that would, that can contradict what I believe the Bible says. And I've read a lot of it.

33:14

Yeah. Bonson would be amen. And you right now, man, with everything you just said. I would say too, though, just to not let that become, because I've done it myself where I'm like,

33:26

I don't know enough. I, you know, I'm walking into this and I have no idea what, you know, all about Mormon theology or whatever the case is.

33:35

I remember a couple of years ago, we had a protester that was coming out and I ended up meeting her for coffee and just, but she was one of those people that just bullet you with questions and elephant

33:48

Hurley. Yeah. And so before I was going in to meet with her, pastor Jeff called to pray for me and I said,

33:54

Hey, I'm just, I'm just nervous that, you know, she's going to bullet me with all these, like, what about this Levitical code?

34:00

You know, just like your brain scrambling to try to answer all. And he said, just take her out at the feet, ask her why she believes what she believes, where is she getting, what's her foundation, you know, her epistemology.

34:13

Right. So it's just getting to the foundation of where are they getting their beliefs and you know, most of the time it's just their own, their idolatry.

34:23

Yeah. Especially within, you know, the Mormon world as Dr. Wright would say, Pastor James would say is you have to teach

34:29

Mormons their religion, you know, their own religion. So yeah, you're absolutely right. You do have to have a working knowledge in it.

34:36

It is a sign of respect to the person to where you say, I'm actually know what you believe. I don't know it all.

34:41

And I'm going to be humble enough when maybe you asked me a question that I don't know the answer. I'll, we'll get back to you on that.

34:47

What do you think though, about like Ray Comfort saying, cause people have asked him that too. And he's like, Jehovah's witness,

34:53

Mormon, atheist, Satanist, doesn't really matter. They need the gospel. Yeah, exactly. That's the balance of it.

34:58

That's the balance of it. If you don't know all those things, which I think it is beneficial to know, like look at all the fruit that has come from like Dr.

35:06

White, you know, different apologists, but like when all else fails, you have the gospel and that's the power of God into salvation.

35:14

Right, exactly. God is doing a transaction there spiritually when you make, when you answer the call to his following.

35:21

That's why he commanded us according to his following. That's why he commanded us to do what God is doing something when you demolish all lofty thoughts, like Paul commanded us to do.

35:30

But ultimately, if you are lacking the gospel and all of its essential components, if you're lacking that explanation, you're not evangelizing, you're not doing it.

35:39

So I would say, yeah, we need that knowledge. We need to have that working knowledge like you had just said, brother.

35:45

But if the gospel is absent, there's no evangelism. It doesn't really matter. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

35:51

Matthew 28 or 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

35:57

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold,

36:04

I'm with you always to the end of the age. Amen. Yeah. I think that there's some urgency to proclaiming the gospel as well.

36:12

You know, and at times I hear about someone saying, yeah,

36:19

I've been living next to a guy for about five years. Well, you know, have you shared the gospel with him?

36:24

No, no, just waiting for the right time. Just waiting for the right time. Yeah. And you know, it's like there is some type of urgency there and, you know, some form of the word, you know, but it's like, man, you know, even in Mark 16, 15, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

36:46

John 14, 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

36:52

I mean, there's so many ways to pick apart how to share the gospel, you know.

37:00

I think that there is just a reason to proclaim the gospel as well because of what it's done to each of us, you know.

37:09

I mean, and yeah, I just, whenever I think about what has happened to my life since that time in Kansas City that I just described,

37:19

I mean, it's like I can't keep my mouth shut. And at one time

37:24

I did do the stage cage. I am very strategic now about my words as much as I can be.

37:36

Oh no, I was there and we laugh about it and joke about it. I mean, I talk, you know, I pray every day kind of Zach, what you're saying to like have compassion and not make it a debate.

37:46

Like understand why I'm out there talking to people. I had a gentleman come to me and he kind of was giving me a compliment.

37:52

He said, you know, man, it feels like you got your life together. You got a great wife, great kids, a great job, great business.

37:59

What are you doing? Puffing you up. Well, I was paying. And I said, oh, it's because I'm a horrible, wretched person.

38:09

What? And I was like, but I have a savior. And it was like, it just knew different ways to bring people in and say,

38:17

Hey, uh, I know who I am in juxtaposition of who a sovereign, Holy, righteous, just, and wrathful

38:24

God is. And that's what really set me on the path. Uh, you know, I've said many times on the podcast, uh, said the sinner's prayer at seven at my church got saved at 24 when the

38:33

Lord flipped me upside down. Right. And, and, and so, uh, this is so important.

38:39

This discussion we're having because we do have to talk passionately about it. And Desi, like you were saying earlier,

38:44

I wasn't trying to say you have to be a know -it -all either. I totally agree with what you're saying. If someone's listening right now and they say,

38:50

I know who God is and I love him and I have passion and I know what he's done for me. Uh, and I, and I need to tell that to other people, please go out and do that.

39:00

And I would say like Zach said to do it with, do it with accountability as well.

39:06

Right. Um, I'm not really big on these kinds of rogue actors out there. Everyone's got a ministry nowadays, right?

39:11

And they have no accountability or no covering or anything like that. Hey, be, be under your pastor, uh, and, and go out and preach the good news.

39:19

But I did want to switch gears real quick as we finish up here. If I could just ask you a quick question just for my personal enjoyment.

39:24

So anytime I talk to someone and I tell them I'm reformed, uh, I get the robot, uh, argument, right?

39:30

That's the first thing I get. The second thing I get is why even evangelize then if God knows who's he's going to save and who he is.

39:37

And I said, well, why do you pray? Since God's, you know, knows everything and don't even, you know, but what's the response you might give or outside of, well, we're commanded to what's the response you would give when someone says, and I'm sure you've heard it.

39:50

Well, you know, if you're, if you're Calvinist reform, whatever, and you believe in all those things, why even evangelize?

39:55

What's the point of it? What, what would be something that you would give in a couple, couple of paragraphs? I can start if you want.

40:03

I'll just, well, one thing for you guys here, only easy questions for us in 30 seconds.

40:10

Well, one thing is it's not just about getting your ticket punched to heaven. It's about setting the captives free, right?

40:16

If we believe in the severity of sin and that we're slaves to sin, we, and we love our neighbor.

40:21

We want to see them set free from sin. Right. Um, so that would be my first answer to that.

40:28

And then you can, yeah, yeah. There's so much to that. We could go in so many different directions, but I think we are, our gospel proclamation from the people of God, um, is the means to God's ends.

40:40

Of course, he's saving his people and he's doing it through the vehicle of his people. Uh, he looked throughout all scripture.

40:47

When God does anything, he mobilizes his own people. It's just a consistent method of him accomplishing his goals on earth.

40:53

So it's staying true to how God does stuff in the Bible, but also, yeah, he uses the gospel proclamation as the catalyst or kind of the, um, the medium or the mechanism of saving that soul that he's going to save.

41:07

And it's a, it's an incredible reality and he does it. And Jesus said this too. He says, Hey, look,

41:13

I've included you in my master's business. So he commands us to do it. And of course that's premier or commanded.

41:20

We show God our love by obedience to his commands. And he does it so we can enjoy in the victory of it.

41:28

And the, and just the wonder of it being involved in God, saving his people and bringing them to himself.

41:34

But also we're all post smell here. I think we're all posts. Yeah. And, uh, you know, it's the, when we talk about things going from worse to better or maybe better to worse to better, ultimately

41:46

Jesus is going to put all of his enemies underneath his feet. Right. Ultimately, we're going to see a massive, and I think we're even in the midst of it, just the spread of the gospel all throughout the creation, saving and regenerating and renewing and redeeming.

42:01

And that is the church going out and preaching the gospel. So we're going to see this reality that God promises us in his word, verse 15, of course, all throughout the scriptures.

42:12

If we're going to see this reality, we are going to see the people of God with their mouths open, declaring the gospel.

42:19

That's how it's going to happen. Right. Because you're talking about a world taken over for Christ is a world taken over by the power of the gospel where the scriptures say we'll cover the earth like the waters do the sea.

42:32

Right. So you're talking about pastors, preaching the gospel, teaching their people how to, how to teach, preach the gospel you're talking about at that time before Jesus comes again.

42:43

Right. And wraps this thing up. You will see a global advancement of the gospel in the church.

42:50

So why do we do it? We do it because of that, because that's the way God's going to wrap all this up for his glory when he does it.

42:59

So it's just so encouraging because I get down, I'm sure you guys are the same way. You're like, where are all the Christians?

43:04

Why aren't people preaching the gospel? Why aren't we taking this seriously? Exactly. Perfect. Thank you.

43:12

Thank you. Right. So we get on ourselves, but then we could just rest in the fact, no, we don't know how long it's going to take.

43:18

Maybe like, you know, uncle Gary says it's going to be in the distant future, which

43:24

I believe it's going to be way in the distant future, but it's going to happen. And it's such an encouraging thought. Yeah.

43:29

Yeah. Amen. You guys don't evangelize like Joel Osteen here like this. I just, I'm very careful about saying who wouldn't wouldn't go to heaven.

43:36

I just, only God can judge a person's heart. Do you have like a throw up? We got him on on Sunday.

43:44

He's going to be on on Sunday. But no, we joke around, we pray for him.

43:52

But here's the thing. There's also a righteous anger that bubbles up in me when I talk about wolves and sheep and like blaspheming the name of God.

44:01

Right. Do not blaspheme the character of God. That's what he's saying. Do not take my name in vain.

44:06

All the character that's in principles and in the holiness and righteousness and just don't go out there and say something that blasphemes that.

44:13

And unfortunately, we have a lot of people in leadership roles in this country that do that.

44:19

So the only way I can't stop from yelling about it is to laugh a little bit about it.

44:27

It's scary, man. You think of Furtick and Osteen and all the lot of them. I don't know how they sleep at night, other than the fact that they can't be saved.

44:35

I mean, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, educating you, like the scriptures say, and then you do that stuff, you live that way, you speak that way.

44:46

You know, it's, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of living God. If I talked, if I had the opportunity to talk to one of those guys,

44:54

I'd be, you know, as humble and as calm and quiet and say, man, you are storing up for yourself wrath into the day of wrath, like you can't even imagine what you're facing.

45:05

I wouldn't want what's headed for these guys. I wouldn't want that on my worst enemy, because you're talking about a judgment that is going to be meted out in a horrible way.

45:15

So I'm praying for them. But yeah, you're right. We should have a righteous anger. You've got to, you know, as the pastor said, you've got to expose the wolves, or they're going to eat all the sheep.

45:23

And when I say that, too, I just want everyone to know, it's not like I'm excusing myself. Believe me, I live in holy fear for the things that I've done in my life, that I will bow a knee before and lay before God, and he will judge me on those things.

45:34

So anytime we're talking about any one person, don't think we're excusing ourselves from that. Because you don't know the wretch

45:40

I was, and sometimes continue still to be. Thank God for his grace and mercy. But yeah, absolutely.

45:46

When it's, when it's, leaders in a position of power like that, and blaspheming the name of God, boy, is that,

45:52

I don't know how we got on the subject, but it's scary. Yeah, we don't have to get into it. But Jesus did it.

45:57

He said, you snakes, you vipers. He marked out the false teachers, and it was all for, you know, the sheep.

46:04

So you can get away from the bad guys and go to the good, not the good ones, but the faithful ones.

46:09

Right. It makes me think of Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. There's a part when he talks about, you know, it's just the mere pleasure of God that's holding us back from basically just going to hell at any, right into hell at any second, you know.

46:25

And it's just, it shows us what a merciful God that we serve, that he allows us for his glory.

46:34

But that should also compel us to evangelize. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and as Matthew Henry said,

46:41

Christ is hated because sin is loved. And that's the big picture that we see. And I think that you'd go to when you evangelize.

46:49

When you guys do it, too, you guys talk about some really big issues, too. Like you were saying,

46:54

Desi, before we get caught up in the minutia of point -by -point doctrine in theology, when in fact

47:00

Pastor Jeff was telling you, well, just take it out at the knees. Like, why do you believe what you believe? Where do you think that belief comes from?

47:07

How do you even think, you know, these big philosophical issues really help to kind of boil down to the smaller issues instead of starting with those smaller issues.

47:18

Jason, got anything why we should finish up here? No, I think you said it all. Sorry, Jason, I didn't let you,

47:25

I didn't let you talk. Sure. Thank you guys for being on.

47:34

We appreciate it. It's an honor. Thank you. No, we appreciate it, guys. Hey, can you throw out social media and stuff like that for people listening so they can see that?

47:43

I forget every time. Yeah, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also go to Apologia Studios YouTube and Facebook.

47:53

So, yeah, thank you guys for having us on and keep doing what you guys are doing. Yeah, you guys are doing great. I love your show. Thanks so much.

48:00

You guys are perfect for this. Yeah, keep doing it. Awesome. All right, guys, as always, we thank you so much for listening.

48:07

And as always, God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Dead Men Walking Podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips or email us at deadmenwalkingpodcast at gmail .com.