Transgenders and Violence

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

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From there, go to the StreamYard link. Just join where it says to participate. You ask me your hardest question.

Just remember, when I say I don't know, that's a perfectly good answer.

I didn't say it would be a satisfying answer for you. I just said I can answer any question. So for those who are watching live, sorry for the couple of seconds there of delay.

We were having a technical problem. In other words, I was trying to get something up on the computer that wasn't coming up right away.

It had nothing to do with the co -host who was backstage. He was just going, yeah, okay, what was the delay there,

Andrew? Drew, how are you, sir? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. And I'm in a different part of my house this evening.

So we don't get to hear the kids, or more importantly, we don't get to see your wife's arm. Right, yeah.

She's not trying to sneak behind and try to reach and grab something.

But she was here just a minute ago. Are you going to tell her that we were actually live when she came on and said hello?

You really should. I should. That would be great. I should really do that. She'll go watch the video and go, you lied to me.

I'm not going to lie. It was a joke. Yeah. Well, let's start with something a little bit more somber instead of a joke.

I got an email we want to read here from a regular viewer, many of you in the chat.

And folks, if you're not watching live, you're missing out. We have a lively chat.

They like to not only discuss things that have nothing to do with what we're talking about that night.

I think they tried to just distract us, Drew. But one thing they do is our chat room is very good for praying for one another.

And Kathy Deming, one of the regulars, has sent me an email asking for prayer. She said, Hi, Andrew.

I was wondering if you can have prayer requests for me on the next show.

I landed in the hospital January 30th, had emergency surgery on the 31st and was unable to join the chat as I was very weak and tired.

I literally passed out, came home February 8th. I am looking looking at eight weeks of recovery period.

I tried to join the chat last week, but had a hard time. Appreciate your prayers and hope to get back to the chat soon.

Thank you, Kathy Deming. So if I'm just going to ask if all of you guys could lift her up in prayer when you're doing your prayer time.

I've already prayed for her today as I just got that. So but if you guys could pray for her, that would be wonderful.

We would appreciate it. And Drew, I know we are both really not looking forward to this topic.

Yeah, it's not it's not when you go, you know what, let's get that one.

And let's talk about that one tonight. That's going to be fun. You know, we could we could let's just distract ourselves.

And Dee is saying, hey, Chris Honholz, I heard James White mention your response to the He Gets Us Super Bowl ad.

I'm not on X. Where can I read it? I think he wrote a blog article, but I'm sure

I'm sure he'll post to where you can read it. But but, yeah, it wasn't just James White who noticed it.

Maybe, Chris, if you want to be so daring, you could you could let folks know who actually shared the article and blew up your phone.

Mm hmm. And who is now following Mr. Honholz on X. And that's what it's called, by the way,

Chris. It's called X. Wait, who did this? Mr.

Honholz. Mr. Honholz. He has revealed the name. There it is. Yes.

Jenna Ellis not only retweeted it, but started following him and blew up his phone.

Because she does when she when she posts something, she gets a lot of notifications and people hate her.

Yeah. So basically, he he probably thought, oh, I'm going to have a nice quiet day. Go to work.

No, my phone's blowing up with people telling me I'm a Pharisee. So we're going to be one of the few that won't deal with the

He Gets Us Super Bowl ad, because, well, folks, if you're watching or listening here, we're ahead of the curve.

We dealt with that one like a year and a half ago. Yeah, they said they did it last something similar last year or two years ago.

So this is nothing new. Yeah, we did it before they did their first Super Bowl ad.

We we looked at their different videos and addressed the problems with them. So we warned you a long time ago.

So those who are regular here, you weren't surprised. All right. So the topic tonight and folks, anyone can ask questions.

I should mention that you could just go to ApologeticsLive .com. That's the way to join.

You just scroll down. That's you can watch the show there. You can watch previous shows there. You can follow the podcast there, but you can also join the discussion there.

You know who I don't think is going to join, by the way, Drew? Chris Hanholtz. Oh, well, he might.

He would be more than happy to. But the couple of guys who made some really interesting comments about Calvinism and, you know, and I said, well, why don't you come in and let's discuss it?

You hear those crickets? Yeah. Who was it that was talking about Calvinism?

Where was this? On Facebook, we had and I actually grabbed a quote because it's going to go into my why

Calvinism talk at the Open Air Theology. This is what it said.

This guy, Jeff, says, quote, Calvinism is not response. Calvinists are not responsible for their own actions.

God is. So is it no wonder that they reject that many reject the

God of Calvinism? If God is responsible for what they do, then

God is blamed for much of the evil that he does not do.

Unquote. As he read about what Joseph said about basically that very thing, what you meant for evil,

God meant for good. So there is an intention on the part of man that does things that are intended for evil.

But yet God, in being sovereign, does have a purpose. So either evil happens and it has no purpose or there are things that God allows to take place and they serve a purpose.

That's a Calvinist view, by the way, that God allows. Oh, yeah.

So we can also throw you can also tack on Providence in there, too, and how God works things out.

You know, we may have to do an in -depth show on the doctrine of Providence.

I'm just looking up John Piper book that I was given on Providence. I heard that was a very, very good book.

I don't have it, but I've heard from a lot of people it is a very good book. Yeah, it's not a thin book.

It's about two inches, two and a half inches thick. That is a serious situation to get into.

But I also have Charnock's Divine Providence, which would be a lot weightier to get through, but even though it's thinner.

The thing is, how much of the doctrines we address here, whether we're discussing Calvinism or Charismaticism with prophecy, it's really

Providence that is misunderstood. So much confusion there.

So the topic we wanted to talk about tonight, in case folks did not hear, and we actually had an article that I sent

Drew, I don't know how long ago, and I said I wanted to... It was a couple of weeks ago. The plan was to do this a while ago, and then we kept putting other things in front of it.

Yeah, but after the shooting at Joelstein's church, what did you call it?

You didn't call it a church. I called it the Joel Osteen Motivational Center. Oh, I love it.

You know, I wish you'd share what you really think about these things, because you keep holding back.

I do. You know, it's part of that having self -control, right? It's part of self -control and the spirit working and growing me that I just,

I don't let loose. And I wonder if tonight's show, we may trigger

Mr. Honholz. I'm kind of expecting that we may see a Voice of Reason radio on tonight's episode.

Oh, look at this. Chris Honholz said, Motivational Center sounds about right.

Oh, and we have someone saying, sup, y 'all? It's either Hax or it's

Darren. Yeah, because neither one of them want to bother doing... I mean, it's like, click a button.

That's all that's involved. Go to apologiacslive .com. There's instructions to just click a button so that we can get your name.

And then we know who you are, because we just keep confusing these Facebook users. The person says it's

Hax, but we know for sure until afterwards when we go on Facebook. So, video or it's not real?

Not anymore. Not anymore. I mean, now with the deep fakes. Oh, yeah. We are in for an election year of election years, because when you think about how much they hate

Trump, they're willing to outright lie, say that he supports white supremacists because he says both sides have bad elements.

And they just skip where just before that he says he condemns white supremacy. I mean, if they're willing to completely flip what he says or make up what he says, say, oh, he's told people to drink bleach.

What do you think they're going to do with deep fakes? I mean, we're not going to be there. The reality is with A .I., you can't trust anything anymore.

Right. So how once this technology really gets perfected, the idea of how do you weigh in a court of law, how do you weigh evidences when someone says you did something?

Because now they can mimic voices and you can have audio that sounds just like you saying things you've never said.

They can do A .I. video and pictures. Like there's one guy who got –

I think he got well -known on TikTok or something like that. But he would have this

A .I. overlay of Tom Cruise's face on his face, and it looked just like Tom Cruise.

And so it's like now, how do you trust anything like you said? Yeah. I mean, after all, this was what

Ben Shapiro might have said. Many people have questions about God and the Bible. With so many different views about God and how to interpret the

Bible, many people wonder where they can turn to get biblical answers. Well, have no fear. Turn to my friend

Andrew Rappaport and his friends on Apologetics Live. They can answer any question you have about God and the Bible. Check them out

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and challenge him with anything. Please ask him your really hard questions and tell him Ben sent you. I mean, that really could have been

Ben Shapiro. It could. Or not. Right. So the thing about this, right, when you have it slowed down, you can kind of hear the cuts, right?

But Ben Shapiro speaks really fast. So all you got to do is speed that up and you can't tell the difference.

Yeah. Actually, the reality is because the only clips I had of Ben Shapiro were chopped up.

If I had a full dialogue, you wouldn't have heard it chopped up as much. In fact,

I may have you saying some wonderful things about me by next week. We'll see. Then everyone would know it's a lie.

Yeah. So there was an article in and I want to I want to address the issue of what happened at Joel Steen's church as well.

But there is a. An article that was in The Epoch Times, if you if you subscribe to that, you can go maybe it's it's there for free.

But the title of it is Growing Concerns Over Links Between Transgenderism and Violence.

Subtitled An Increase in Mass Shootings by Gender Confused Individuals is

Sparking Worry Over the Violent Cocktail of Medical Health Issues and Body Altering Chemicals.

And this is the thing and I want to kind of want to go through this article because I do see a concerning thing.

Look, we just had another shooting with the. Who is it that won the

Super Bowl? I don't remember. The Kansas City Chiefs. The Kansas City Chiefs. OK. Taylor Swift won the

Super Bowl. Huh? Taylor Swift won the Super Bowl. Yeah, at least

I now know that she's a singer. Oh, so we do have this comment.

Hi, this is Jody. Can you see my name? Yes, because it says Jody. But your account says you're just Facebook user.

So I just go to ProjectsLive .com. There's some instructions for Facebook. So. Here's here's what we end up seeing.

The shooter at the in Kansas City. Notice we know nothing about the shooter.

OK, two people they have in custody. And. We know nothing about them.

So what do you think I immediately think after what we've seen in recent days?

I think that that person must be a leftist. Right. Why?

Because whenever they don't put out the information. That's usually someone that that isn't going to carry the weight for the

Marxists. I mean, their first thing every time is the gun, the gun, the gun. When a leftist uses a gun.

And if it's if they think it's someone that's conservative, even if they're wrong.

Right. The first thing they did when there was that the shooting in the gay bar, it was a

Christian evangelical Christian. Oh, sorry. It was a Muslim. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, well, if you think about the shooting that took place in, I think it was

Charlotte where the guy went into the church. Now, he they were once everything took place, they were really quick to point out he's got these type of flags in his his room.

He's got these types of posts. Right. He they were really quick to give information as to who he was until they get corrected.

And that's I mean, we still don't know if you remember how the guy a girl that thinks she's a guy that or thought she was a guy that went into the

Christian school. They don't want to release that manifesto.

All the other manifestos, they're in a rush to do. And so what we end up seeing is they they had, if you remember, the shooter at the massage parlor.

They were quick to say that he goes to church. They weren't so quick to say that he was a leftist.

Right. Each one of these that they don't promote it as much. The shooting at Joel Steen's church.

Drew, do you know what was written on his AR -15? I do not.

It said free Palestine. Well, there you go. That sounds very conservative, right?

Oh, wait. No. Yeah. And and guess what? Yep. That person who went into Joel Steen's church and shot people.

Yep. That person was a transgender. Now, here's you know what the most sickening thing is of that whole account?

A guy who goes into a church thinking he's a girl and brought, I think it was a five -year -old child.

I think it was their five -year -old child. Yeah. Brought their child with them.

And very tragic, the child got shot. And I think the child's still in critical condition.

I have not heard the latest on the child. I'm glad that there was not a lot of death and injury in that.

But we don't hear the same rhetoric coming out from the media when it's a transgender targeting

Christians. And just for the record, you don't see

Christians playing the victim card. But if you were actually to look at the statistics throughout history and worldwide,

Christians have always been the number one group. I should say evangelical biblical Christians have been the number one targeted group for persecution everywhere throughout time.

Well, last 2 ,000 years, not throughout time. Before that, it was a Christian. It was the

Jewish people, right? But it has been for thousands of years, all over the world, that Christians get targeted.

And you see everyone going, oh, we're a victim, we're a victim. Well, right now, the Marx is victimizing

Christians. And that is something that I think everyone in this audience gets and knows.

I want to go through this article before we get to Joel Osteen. Drew, maybe you could just read a couple because I figure not everyone...

Actually, you know what I will do is I'm going to put it up on screen. And you could read it and then we'll engage with some of this article.

If I could find it. Here we go. Because I figure not everyone has this. You want me to read it off of that screen?

Yeah, I can't read it off that screen, but I've got it pulled up. You can make it a little larger. I can do that. I mean, I've got it pulled up so I can read it.

Yeah, but I want to make sure the audience can read it too. So I got to make it large enough for folks who are watching.

But for those who are not, that's why I would like you to read. Is that good size now on the screen?

Sure. I mean, I've got it pulled up on mine, so I'm not really watching the screen. But here's how it starts off.

It says, mental health issues that manifest in gender confusion combined with potent cross -sex hormones can be a recipe for violence, some experts have said.

Since 2018, five people who identified as transgender or were gender confused have gone on killing sprees at schools and businesses.

Authorities have been increasingly slow to confirm so -called gender identities and motives in cases such as these.

My son's screaming for me. Yeah. So you want to keep reading?

Yeah, I'll keep going. Yeah, I see, Mommy. Yeah. When shooters' gender identities were revealed...

Now he's trying to... Oh, wait. Now we got to see your wife's arm, but we got to see a little cute little boy there for a split second.

That's Lawson, and he's named after Steve Lawson. But does

Steve Lawson know that? Yes. So he actually met

Steve Lawson when my wife was eight months pregnant.

Dr. Lawson was preaching at Praise Mill, and we went up there, and my wife was eight months pregnant and was talking to Dr.

Lawson afterwards and said, well, this is little Lawson that we're about to give birth to.

So there you go. All right. So let's deal with some of what you already read, okay?

The article is not saying... I'll show this. It is not saying that the cross -sex hormones are the cause, okay?

One of the things you see with the mass shootings that has been kind of universally known is that in every one of these cases, the gun gets blamed, which

I don't know, a gun doesn't do anything without a human doing something to it? Well, along that lines,

I mean, just look at what Jason Cave says. He says, the fork made me fat, right?

It's the same lines. And then Chris Honholtz, pencils misspell words.

I mean, it's definitely the gun's fault. It's the pencil's fault. It's the fork's fault for why

I'm overweight. It's not my fault. Correct. It's...

So if you don't have a human pulling the trigger, that gun doesn't go off.

It's not magic. The gun doesn't have a mind of its own. But one thing we see in almost every one of these cases where you have these people who are doing these mass shootings, and a mass shooting is...

I think it's four more... Three or more people or four more people?

Yeah, they define it right here at the bottom. It says, a mass shooting is defined by the Crime Prevention Research Center as the killing of four or more people in a single incident that's not gang or drug related.

So what you see is that you have... You have four people.

The one that's going to kill four people. We see this on the rise.

But one thing we see consistently is that most often these are people who have been on mood -altering drugs for a very long time and usually got off, took themselves off cold turkey.

But there is, in almost every case, mental health issues. Yes, correct.

Now, let's be clear. The issue we have here, this is...

You know, transgenderism is a mental health issue. People are...

When they're gender confused, well, they're confused because it's a mental health issue.

Or nowadays, I don't even think it's that. I think it's that they just want to fit in. And the way to fit in nowadays is to pretend you're the opposite gender.

And so that's a big part. Or another way to fit in is because I see everything has to do with mental health.

And so I have a mental health issue. Therefore, I need medication in order to be... to deal with my mental health issues because I'm just like everybody else.

Yeah. So Mr. Hanholds says, the argument basically boils down to, quote, if there were no guns, then shooters can't kill so many people, unquote.

Then he says, except for bombs, pressure cookers, cars, fertilizers, and et cetera.

So this brings up a good point that Chris makes, okay? So if you look at Scotland, I've listened to a lot of people who have been to Scotland, like Jeff Rose, who is an open -air preacher.

He did a lot of ministry, lived in Scotland for a little while. He'll tell you that guns are illegal in Scotland, but people carry around swords, and they carry around knives.

Why? Because guns are illegal, and so they need something to protect themselves with or to cause crime with.

Correct. And so the article here is not saying that these chemicals that are being put into people's bodies to make their hormones change and things like that, it's not that we have a direct cause, but as it says, the numbers are starting to show a pattern.

You go, well, the numbers, we're not talking about all that many people. I think, did they already mention the number?

Five people since 2018. And though that sounds light, the question is, how many of the people did we not know were transgender?

Right. Because it says whenever the gender identities are revealed, and it's shown to be someone who identifies as transgender or is gender -confused or non -binary, whatever, they don't align with either one, then it's suppressed.

They kind of bury that. And what you end up seeing is, with the case in Joelstein's church, they're very concerned about trying to figure out the proper gender to call this person.

And as they've dug into the past, found out, oh, they were born a different gender.

But they haven't mentioned anything about that. And that's the thing that we'll see.

And when we look at this, well, we're going to see some of these cases here.

It starts with, of the 37 public mass shootings from 2018.

Now, just stop right there. Does that number surprise you? I'm pausing for effect.

I want people to think about it. If I was to ask you, how many mass shootings have there been since 2018?

Would you have thought it was as low as 37? No, you would actually think it was much higher.

And this was actually something that was pointed out, I think in, it might have been 2018 or 2019, maybe even 2020 by someone like Ben Shapiro, where they were looking at, are there really as many mass shootings as people are saying?

And what they've actually looked at is they've counted things as mass shootings that weren't mass shootings. So where someone, there was an incident where someone pulled into a school parking lot and shot themselves, right?

Committed suicide. They counted that as a school shooting, which when you get into a school shooting, that counts then as a mass shooting.

You know, one of our podcasters, Jamal Bandy, has a podcast,

Prescribed Truth. And in there, this is back in 2019, 2020,

I forget when. He went through all the statistics from the previous year, where they were the white cops killing blacks.

I think he did it in 2020 about the statistics of 2019. And he went through every one of them and looked at all of them.

And I think there were 19 of them. And he looked at the claims, like there was a time where a officer was being shot at.

He shot an individual. The bullet went through the individual, shot a black person behind him and killed him.

That was counted. Well, that should have been an accidental death. That was not the intended target, but they counted that.

So when he got all done, there was only one case out of the 19 that counted that could be, he felt, possibly a white cop killing a black person.

Right? Is that a justified shooting?

Or would we say that's, you know, a white cop killing a black cop just because he was black?

Well, see, that was the one case that he said there wasn't enough evidence to show whether the officer,

I mean, the claim was the officer did it because the guy was black. It was the only one that was questionable on being a legitimate shooting.

Okay. But all the others were clearly legitimate shootings or accidental shootings where the black person wasn't even the intended target.

Now I'm saying that to say this first off, the way black lives matter sound, it sounded like there was way more than 19 in a year.

It sounded like it was happening every day. Yeah. They make it sound like it's happening all the time in every city, every day.

Yeah. And so you would think from 2018 to 2023, in that five year period that man, there's must've been a lot.

No, there were 37. So if we count the number of ones that we know are by transgenders, that's 13%.

That's double their population, by the way, they're the claim is, is that they're 6 % of the population.

If that's true, then they do twice as much of the mass shootings for their population.

I don't know the, the, it would be an interesting thing to get all of the, these mass shootings and the date, the, the individuals and start to put some, some looking together of who is doing the, the mass shootings.

It might find some interesting things. This article is saying that the trend is going up in the number of transgenders.

And remember, this is not, this is 2023. So this doesn't count the most recent one, right?

That would be another one. So, and we don't know about the one in Kansas city yet. So they have not revealed that I know of,

I haven't heard whether it was male or female, just two suspects makes me wonder, you know why they're not saying two men.

They usually would say they're, you know, very rarely would they say it's most of the mass shootings are done by men.

Okay. That's just statistics. But there are some where it's a woman that transgender, you know, becomes a transgender and then they, they do it.

Right. Well, that in this article, I believe it does talks about that.

Once you, when you get a female and you started because males are naturally more aggressive because we have testosterone.

When you start injecting a female with loads and loads of testosterone, it's naturally going to make her more aggressive because it affects those hormones.

And those hormones cause you to act in certain ways, especially if you're not used to dealing with those specific hormones.

So John brother, John is saying nearly 43 ,000 people die from gun violence in 2023.

And I'd like to get the stats on that. That'd be interesting. And I guess that's, that's probably taking into account gun gang violence.

Right. And home invasions, things like that. So if, so if you, if you take away right gang violence, if you take away right,

Chicago, the city of Chicago, right. Then, you know, what do you,

I wonder if that number is cut in half, take away all the black lives matter protests that happened.

But so, so now here's the thing. The article says here, there were three additional shootings that were carried out by transgender or gender confused individuals that resulted in fewer than four victims.

And so, okay, that's, that would put the number a little bit higher now. Right. So suffice it to say the, the point being is you have a large percentage of people and it's, it's increasing.

And that's the concern that this article is trying to raise. So here it's, it's saying that the case that received the most media scrutiny is that of 28 year old

Audrey Hale, who went on a killing spree at covenants at covenant school, even the epic times.

They, they don't want to say that. I think this, the real name of the school is, is covenant Christian school.

I think when that happened, we pointed that out in Nashville. Go figure.

Yeah. Well, the epic times is for folks who don't know it's, it's put out, I think it started in Hong Kong, but it is, you know, it is,

I think there's some tie they have to a Chinese religion. That's an anti communist religion.

And so people are very supportive. They do the dances, uh, swing, swing way.

I think is what it's called. If my bride was here, I'd ask and she would know. Um, Oh, so John is giving us an update here.

He says that, uh, 617 homicides, 2 ,450 shootings across Chicago throughout 2023.

Well, that doesn't make up for 43 ,000. So you're going to keep doing the homework there, John. You get, um,

KT is thinking that I'm referring to, uh, fun. Follow John dong.

No, it's a different one. It's you'll see them advertise the dance. They do a lot of dance.

They don't promote the religion aspect of it. In fact, if you don't read Chinese, you may not even realize it's a religion, uh, because they put that in Chinese.

So, but a lot of people go there just for the culture, the Chinese culture to see the dance, things like that.

so I'm not surprised that they don't mention covenant Christian school, but it says here, she gunned down three nine -year -olds and three adults, uh, before police shot and killed her.

Mrs. Hale identified as a transgender man, according to the police.

So he was, she's the one that has written the, um, the, the, the manifesto that we've only had three pages released of it.

And clearly when you see it, she, she, uh, spoke, even though she's white, he spoke about against whites.

Um, so, you know, she did go to that school, by the way.

and so, you know, the, the article here says, uh, the three pages of the police confirmed to be from Mrs.

Hale's journal were leaked to the media. Steven Crowder who posted them online, the writings online, the pages can, uh, contained racial slurs against white people.

Mrs. Hale was white. That's one of my favorite parts of that.

Mrs. Hale was white. Yeah. And so this tells you she, she's railing against white people because she really thinks that whites are so bad.

No, because that's the agenda because she's, she's in that loop and it's something that is, they, they, they can't separate it.

They don't even recognize you. It was funny. I, I, I was, I was watching something that, that was on, on the

TV, some TV show. Uh, and the idea of this show was that all these contestants had a trust of money.

And if they, they, they get to vote each other out or they, or they get to all split the money at the end, who's ever left, or they vote people out and, and then they get more for themselves.

And it was, it really was interesting because the, the scene that they had there, you see the three women, two, two, uh, two blacks.

The one black was really funny because she was, she was condemning a white guy for, for talking about her being

African. I never said I was African. She has big earrings of the country of Africa.

She has a necklace of Africa, you know, she's calling herself the

African queen, but she's from Nigeria. Where is that?

Where is that exactly? Yeah. Okay. So, so it was just one of those interesting things, but it was so interesting that she was upset with this white guy because he was a white guy.

And therefore, you know, he was taking away her power.

So she had to vote him off to get rid of him because he, he was taking away her power.

And meanwhile, she was saying like, she's gonna just, you know, she's not going to trust anyone.

What does that even mean? Taking away my power. What does that mean?

Well, I guess in, in the, he had an ability to, to prevent her from voting anyone off the island or off the, out of the house, whatever it was.

And so, so, yeah, so it just, it's interesting that he didn't even recognize.

And this is the same thing with, with hell here. He didn't even recognize her own behavior when she criticized others.

Right. He was saying, he's just trying to have his power. And, and meanwhile, she started out like saying,

I've got to be in control. And, and if he is, if he's kind of a leader, I got to get rid of him before he gets rid of me.

I got to be in control. No one can take that away from me. And you're going, huh. But then you're saying he's the one doing that.

Well, you know, and so it's, it's just really quite interesting to see. Hell here can, can say that, oh, there's problems with whites and doesn't get the fact that she's white.

Or was white. Um, and so this is a thing that is, and they go through some other, you know, other cases here of gender fluid people that, you know, had done mass shootings.

Now we heard of a couple in 2018, but 2003, 23, 2024, we're starting to see more of it.

Now it's interesting because what they don't want to talk about, where did

Audrey Hale shoot? Where did she decide to target a Christian school, a

Christian school this past weekend? What did, what did the, the transgender, where did they target a church?

How about, how about the, the, the case, the shooting in Texas? Remember that a couple of years ago, and that was at a church.

Now that one didn't count because only one person died. It doesn't mean the person didn't have intent to kill more, but you can't count that one in, in the statistics of a mass shooting.

And so what we end up seeing is, I think that this article lays out an argument, and I think it's a pretty good argument that this is on the rise, that this is something that we're, we're seeing more and more of.

And what, what is so interesting is when a gay bar gets shot up or a abortion clinic gets shot up, how fast were they to say that this was based on the fact that it was the gay bar, even the massage parlor, the, the abortion clinic, all of them, they rushed out to say it was a evangelical

Christian. And none of them were. One was a Muslim. One was a liberal.

Yeah. He went to church once in a while, but he made it really clear. the reason he shot the women in the massage parlor is because it was more than massages there.

And he was struggling with guilt because he was paying for more than massages and knew it was wrong.

So yeah. The, the third one was again, a leftist who shot up the abortion clinic, but that never got corrected.

But when a church gets targeted, then it's, you know, they don't focus on the fact that it was a church.

I remember, Drew, I don't know if you remember this and I forget where it was the church where a guy came in to like the

Wednesday night Bible study and sat there. It was a black church. Yeah. That was in Charlotte, Charlotte.

Okay. And he, he shot several, maybe, maybe Charleston, South Carolina, something like that.

I'm sure someone in the chat will, will let us know. Cause they'll know. So, but you know, the, the thing that amazed me and I want to think it was

Charleston, but is the news. I mean, that was all over the news when that happened.

And the only reason they mentioned church was cause the word black was before it black church, black church, black church.

You know what they, you know what they really didn't show. You only, I only saw this once.

I'm guessing this is haps says Charleston, South Carolina. But what they, what, what they did not focus on when that guy was at his sentencing.

Well, that's what I, that's what I wanted to address. Go. Yeah. Go for it. Because this is where the news, before you say these were, cause

I'll, I'll let you say it, but I want to give the, the lead up to what I was going to say. It was every day in the news every day until what you're just about to talk about.

And the news went silent. So what happened when he was, when he was being charged in sentence members of this church, who had family members who had sons and daughters that were murdered by this man, they stood up and through the pain and through the tears.

And this is only, this can only be done through the power of Christ and the

Holy spirit in you. They looked him dead in the face and they said, I forgive you.

That brought me to tears. That was powerful. And once that happened, nothing else.

Yeah. The news went silent after that because it didn't fit their narrative because the

Christians, well acted like Christians. They, they wanted to hear blacks come out slamming the guy for being white, killing them cause they're black.

And instead they acted like Christians cause they were, it was a genuine Christian church. Yeah. At least it seemed to be, you know, they acted in a genuine

Christian way. Yeah. It, it seemed to be in, in here's the, I don't even think that they would even call themselves a black church.

Right. Because on this one, and this wasn't the first time that this guy had shown up, he had come a couple other times and they, they welcomed him.

Right. It wasn't. So they didn't care anything about skin color. They were just like,

Hey, he's here. You want to worship with us? You want to do Bible study with us? Okay. And they just welcomed him and accepted him.

So I don't even think they cared to be, even be called the black church. Yeah.

But the media did. So, um, so yeah, you know, it didn't fit the narrative and therefore they just said, okay, we're, we're going to stop reporting on it.

Right. And this is the thing you have to recognize that there is a, you know,

I think, I think I was seeing Chris on holds in the chat talking about narratives. I don't know if those are the ones that you started and look at what you started, but I didn't star those.

Okay. So, um, the, the thing is when it doesn't fit their narrative, when, when reality doesn't fit their narrative, they don't throw the narrative out.

They throw reality out. And this is what we were seeing.

This is what we're living in. And so they're going to blame the Christians. Like they did with hail.

They tried to blame the Christians because she went to school there. They tried to blame the

Christians in the school for what she did. So you even see this with, uh, so -called

Christians that would even probably at one time aligned with reformed theology.

Uh, there was a police officer who a white female police officer who accidentally went into the wrong apartment and she thought someone broke into her apartment and she shot the man.

I mean, complete accident. Right. And at the court hearing, right.

Her brother, the, or that man's little brother gave her it.

See the sorrow asked to give her a hug. Right. You had the judge.

The judge got off of her bench, came down, gave her a

Bible, her personal Bible, and prayed with her. Right. And then, and then this person, uh, this, this church figure who happened to be black.

I think it was Jamar Tisby. It was either Jamar Tisby or Eric Mason. I'm thinking it was Jamar Tisby just could not stand that.

Yeah. Cause it was, it was a police officer. And, and, you know, one of the things, let me just say with, with that case, there's a reason that that happened.

It's, it's not, I've said on this program for a long time, because of the way that, that the police are treated.

Okay. First off, um, for folks who don't know what a police officer's life is like, um, they work long hours.

They, they don't make much pay. So the way that the police union takes care of that is gives them overtime.

I had someone I went to church with. He was a Newark police officer, Newark, New Jersey. And the policy they had was if someone accused you of racism, you were suspended for a week.

Okay. You spend it with pay after three. Nope. You're suspended without pay until they can, they can figure it out.

Um, and so he was in a situation where he was suspended.

He got suspended. Uh, the, the, the last time that he actually got to a point, he was white.

He would not go out without a black officer with him. Cause he, as a white, he just, anyone that was black, which is much of Newark, he wouldn't arrest him.

He just stopped arresting them because he was the one that kept, because he would have to not only lose the pay, but then he's got to fight to, to get the pay back and, and then get interest on it because he's, he meanwhile would rack up bills on his credit card.

Now the last time was really bad. Cause I think he, he was suspended for like months, uh, because his partner, if I remember correctly, his partner was black.

Some kid pulled out a BB gun on the police officer. And the officer pulled out his, his weapon.

And in the last second realized that was a BB gun and didn't fire. But he was so ticked off that the partner got so angry.

He shot the kid with his own BB gun in the jail, which was wrong. Okay. But both partners were suspended, even though the guy that I went to church with had nothing to do with it.

And he eventually was found innocent and, but he had like six months of back pay. He had to fight to get that back.

He maxed out all his credit cards. What did the union say? Hey, we will take care of you. He was working eight hour shifts at shop, right for security and eight hour shifts at the hospital.

And he liked the hospital cause he could sleep. If nothing was going on. Think about this.

Is this what you want? A police officer with a weapon that has to make split second decisions.

And he's working 24 hours a day. The only sleep he gets is in the hospital when things are going wrong, right?

He's not living with his family cause he, his family lives down South Jersey. So he's sleeping at his mother's house when he can, you know, when he can get off work and have a few hours, right?

This is the, why did that officer that you're referring to make that mistake? Because as she said, she was exhausted.

Yeah. She was an officer makes a mistake of pulling instead of their taser, their gun. They're exhausted.

They're not like the police are the last ones you want to be having on the job exhaustion, you know?

So I'm just trying to read some of the comments here, but all right.

So let's move to the situation with Joel Steen's church.

So looking at the article and that's why I was wrong on the age. It says a shooter, a shooter who was killed by an off -duty police officer.

After open fire at a Houston mega church while seemingly using a seven year old child as a human shield has been identified.

This is a transgender using. So why did they bring the child to use the child as a human shield?

If I, if I hold the child in front of me, they won't shoot at me. And, you know, this is like, you want to sit here and be like, oh, we should, we like Audrey, hell, they, the, the transgenders held her up as a, as a role model.

They were saying how, how strong she was and how, you know, like, yeah, no, there's nothing strong about killing children.

I mean, and the elderly, yeah, there's a four. There's, there's,

I think there's a, a, another level of depravity. If you use, if you go to kill children.

Well, and I think if it's even more, and if it, if this was her child here or his child,

I guess, cause he was a police said also identified him. So the police identified, identify as a woman named

Denise police also identified him as a man named Jeffrey. So we don't know which one he actually was.

And I guess this is the thing that they weren't saying the biological or not. So I don't know, but, but to use your, especially if it's your own child, knowing you're, you're going to a church to, to open fire and you bring your own child, that's even worse.

If, if that's the case, bringing a child's bad enough and bringing the child so you could use the child as a human shield.

I mean, folks, you know who does that? Hamas. Oh. And what did

I say was written on the gun on the AR 15 that all the liberals say, you know, the bad, bad guns.

They, you know what AR stands for, right? Drew, it stands for assault rifle, right? Oh, rifle.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For Arma, Arma light, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah.

Not Arma light rifle. None at all. Yeah. The maker of the, yeah, no, it wouldn't be that.

And Smith and Wesson, you know, must mean something else, you know? So they're a bakery, right?

Yeah. So, so what you, you see is as we look at this, you know, and, and I want to,

I'm going to end up with this giving a, what I think a Christian perspective on all this, but I want to lay out what, what happened because look, regulars here, you know, we do not think very highly of Joel Olsteen as a pastor, but would that be fair to say,

Drew? That would be very fair to say, yes. Would we even consider him a pastor? We would not, we wouldn't consider him a pastor.

We wouldn't consider him a preacher. We wouldn't consider him a teacher of the Bible. We wouldn't consider

Lakewood to even be a church. Yeah. But I do think you hit the nail on the head.

It's a motivational center. I like that. Yeah. Yep. That's the new name of it.

So, you know, but the, the reality is, do you think this person, and I don't even know what the real name is, so I'm just going to say person.

Do you think that they cared about the theological differences that Christians have with Joel Olsteen?

No, I think they actually thought that this was a church.

They viewed this as a church and the people inside as Christians. And it's called one of the largest, if not the largest church in America.

So this is, yeah, I think it used to be, it used to be a basketball arena where the

Houston Rockets used to play, is what I believe it used to, it was at one time. And so it's a, it's, it seats several thousand people.

Like I want to say 40 ,000 people, maybe 20 ,000 people. It seats. Wow. Okay.

And so what you end up seeing is here, this person is got a, you know, pro

Hamas, sorry, pro Palestine sign on the weapon.

So, so right there, I look at that and say, okay, there's problems here. And I think that what we end up seeing with it is we can, as Christians, we can sit and, and some may accuse maybe

Drew and I have doing this so far. We could sit back and complain. And I'm trying to lay out the facts of it and give the details.

But I want to say, when we look at this from a Christian perspective, should we be surprised first off?

Not if you've ever read first Peter, if you've read first Peter, you shouldn't be surprised.

You know, Peter wrote a whole book about preparing for persecution because he knew to expect it.

And so I think that what we end up seeing is, we see that there is, you know, there is some that we have to recognize this is going to happen.

Now we do things to protect ourselves. Yeah. And I want to explain that, you know, in Texas is a little bit more interesting.

I'm going to play a video drew. I know you've seen it. I'm going to play a video with two lawyers talking about the shooting at Lakewood and why it was, it's interesting because churches are one place where for a while you were not allowed to bring a gun.

Yeah. Which is very interesting. I did. I actually did not know that. Yeah. And so, you know,

I know, I know a number of pastors who, who carry only in church.

See, I, I, I carry, but I either have one on me or I have one within reach.

But I always have one in the vicinity and whether that's in my car, whether that's at work, whether that's at church, where, wherever, especially if I'm with out with my family and we're going somewhere.

I always, always have at least one and then at least a knife as well.

We'll see. And this is the thing I'm saying there's those who carry conceal, carry, or open carry.

I've been in plenty of churches where I've seen both. You know, I remember being in one church in Florida and I turned,

I turned to one of the deacons and I said, so you got an urban carry. That's the type of holster. And he looked at me like, he's like, you're from Jersey.

I said, yeah, but I, I know what an urban holster looks like, you know, an urban holster is one to really hit in.

It slides all the way down your leg so that you really can't see the weapon. But it, it doesn't what they call print.

And so the, the thing is that I know, I know pastors though, that their only concern is for their, their flock, because they know that they're going to be the ones who see someone coming, do come in and do something there.

They, their perspective, right? Unless you're, you have someone that's all the way in the back of a building.

That's why some churches that are bigger have, have people stationed throughout the church in different angles for security.

Yeah. Yeah. So when, whenever me and my wife go out to eat, I sit in a strategic place.

I never sit with my back to the door. I always sit where I can see the exits, but primarily the, the front entrance.

So I can see who's coming and who's going. Okay. So, so I got to tell you a fun story.

So we're at the, the now wasn't the phrase, the second annual

South Jersey apologetics conference. The speakers are myself,

Matt Slick and David Wood. And so before the, the, before the

Friday night, the pastor takes us out for dinner. We look in the restaurant and all three of us as speakers spotted the one seat we all want.

There was one seat that you had your back to the wall. You had a view of the restaurant.

And so the argument begins on who's going to get that seat. Matt goes for it.

And, and Matt, you know, I've said, Matt, you know, you can't sit there. You know, actually

David, David Wood was like, well, I want to sit there. I said, well, Matt, you can't sit there. He's like, why not? He goes, I want to sit here to be able to protect you guys.

And I said, Matt, you're not in Idaho anymore. You're in New Jersey. You don't have a gun with you.

And he was like, all right. And so David Wood goes, yeah, you need me because I could protect you with my martial arts.

And so back as well, I got Krav Maga. So the two of them discuss how much they've been doing their training. And so Matt was out of it because David Wood did more training.

So then I smiled and David Wood is pulling the seat back. And then I started explaining my martial arts background.

And he just looked at me, turn the seat, turn behind the seat so that I could sit in. So I got the seat being the one that if it came down to just the use of hands that we all determined,

I had the best skills to protect the table. but there is, there are pastors who have to, in their mind, carry to protect the flock.

Why? Because churches are targeted. One of the common things you have in churches now is, which

I, I really can't stand this, but I understand why so many churches do it.

They lock the doors as soon as service begins while people are walking around and look, but after that, they locked the doors.

Now our church does that. And we have someone that stays at the door and they have a really nice eyepiece.

I don't know how they did it, but you can, you can look out even from a distance and have a full view of the outside, but outside you can't see in, you know, it just really does it well.

And so, but there's someone that's watching to see if someone's going to come in.

In a previous church I was at, there'd be a sign on the door and people would text the person to open the door for you.

Yeah. I've heard about things like that. Yeah. Which I'm not a big fan of that one either because you just gave out your phone number.

You know, I, we should have just gotten a beeper. Oh wait, Drew, you probably don't know what those are.

I live in, I am a part of the generation. Okay. That saw the end of the rotary phone and the iPhone.

Okay. You did not see rotary phone. My grandmother had a rotary phone. Okay. Your grandmother.

All right. My dad, I remember my dad had a beeper before he got a cell phone.

And I remember when he, when my mom and dad, I remember their phone numbers for the first cell phones that they ever had.

Well, I remember mine cause I still have it. They'll have that number.

So, but you know, as we look at this, yeah,

I think there's a part where in church, we have to recognize that we have to be more careful.

We're the church is being targeted and the media is not going to come to the defense of the church.

Look, you could look at the, you know, when, when Roe versus Wade was, it was leaked, it was going to be overturned.

There were pregnancy centers being burned, being blown up.

And there was no interest in investigating it, but you get one shooting at a, in an abortion clinic and it's a huge issue.

And it's all over the news. And like, where were you when, you know, you can't block a, you can't even block an abortion clinic.

You'll get arrested, but you can blow up a pregnancy center and no harm. And it's, you know,

I don't want anyone to think there's a double standard. It's, it's not actually a double standard. Tyranny doesn't have a double standard.

They have a single standard. Their way, or you're dead. I mean, their way, or you're in jail.

That's not, those who think that the leftists have a double standard.

It's not, it's tyranny. It's, it's whatever they say. Do what I say.

Yeah. Do what I say, or we're going to take you down. Correct. And then we're the only ones that are trying to go.

That's not right. We actually have laws. You know, we have a certain form of government.

So what you're doing is not right. We're basically the ones trying to play by the rules while they're going.

There are no rules here. Yeah, there are no rules. The rules are whatever we say and they can change any moment. So. I want to, you know, and we'll probably end it a little bit early tonight, unless people have questions, but, and come in, but I want this, this video is 11 minutes.

What do you do? I'm thinking of playing it one and a half speed. Hold on. Let me, let me put this up from Chris.

Huff says tyranny doesn't have a standard hashtag. That's a tweet. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's not a standard. It's tyranny. Right. And, and that's where we're at.

So I want to play this. This is the, they're called the, their, their channel is called armed attorneys.

If you're interested in, if you're interested in anything with second amendment rights,

I recommend you check them out. There are two attorneys that are knowledgeable on the, on the, the issues of gun laws.

They, you know, do a lot of videos to educate people on what to do in different situations.

If you, if you're concealed carrying, you definitely should be checking guys like, you know,

I can't say channels like this, you know, out. Because what you should also have is you should also have carry insurance as well.

Like USCCA. Yeah. Because what they do is when you're a member of USCCA, if for any reason you have to pull your gun and you have to discharge it, they will send an attorney for you.

So they, they actually send a defense team for you that fights for you.

Yeah. I think, got to double check. I think, I don't remember if UCCA sends an attorney, they think they have one available, but I think with UCCA you can pick your own or, or get one.

And they pay for it. I mean, it probably, it probably works. Yeah. I think they get there, you get their own and, and then they'll pay for it.

There's others. There's, there are ones that will provide an attorney and look, there's nothing wrong with getting multiple.

Right. But, but even things like this, right. The, the sources that they, the resources they provide things like training thing.

They, I mean, they'll send out, they have a magazine that comes out, I think every month that has practical articles for you to follow.

And they just have different things. But what do you do in this situation? So it's, it's, it's, everyone should invest in some type of carry insurance.

So this, this, the title of this video is called less laws, save lives,

Lakewood church attack breakdown. Drew, I don't know.

Do you, do you think we should play this all the way through and then talk about it or chop it up as we go?

I fear if we chop it up, we may, we may be here for a while. Yeah. Why don't, why don't we play it and then we'll, we'll take notes, but there's a lot.

I mean, look in 11 minutes, they're going to give you a whole breakdown of what happened there. And so I, I think this will be really helpful for you.

All right. Taking us out. And here we go. I hate it when the lack of gun laws makes people murder innocent civilians.

I hate that. I wish they would make that a crime. I wish they would make that a crime. Today we're talking about the recent attack at Lakewood church over the weekend.

We're going to talk about what happened in Lakewood. We're going to talk about how fewer laws actually save lives. We're going to talk a little bit about the Democrats reacting.

And then finally, what can we do going forward? What lesson can we draw from this attack? So before we get started, show your support for the second amendment by hitting the like button.

And to start off, we've got to talk about the history of the law and carrying it in houses of religious worship. Just a little bit. I think this is illustrative for everyone because I think it's a good timeline.

It shows how these little changes make huge differences in how you can apply this in your state. So I'm going to step one. In 1995, in Texas, we actually didn't get concealed carry license here until 1995.

Yeah. Carrying guns in Texas. Crazy enough.

Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. So January 1st, 96, you are allowed to carry guns. However, you are not allowed to do so in churches.

In 2007, that changes. So it's actually, I know this is a little bit of a baseball from talking to a lobbyist, a gun lobbyist who's been doing it a really long time in Texas.

This is why it's so complicated. This is why it's so complicated. So when they removed churches, they just did it. And it's not worth explaining here, but anyone who read the law would be like, what?

Because churches were still prohibited. But then you'd read all the way down to the tiny little section where it was just hidden away that you actually could carry it to a church, except that the church could post, trust that science basically, they made it a crime to carry inside only if they post science.

And the reason they did that actually is that they were kind of hided from the Democrats. Yeah. And so like the lawmaker who won the bill, like handed it to their lobbyist and like his staffer, like a lot of cash, they were drawn to figure it out.

So they like wrote that in a bar, which is why it's complicated. So anyway, that was 2007. More recently. Yeah. Well, I'd say 2007 and 2014, at the same time, in Texas, we added civil immunity for self defenders.

So at the same time that we're trying to pull back some of these gun free zones, we add this protection where if you're hiding justified defense, that you are immune from damage.

So they can still sue you, you still got to respond to the lawsuit. But at the end of the day, if your conduct was justified, you wouldn't lose your house or your car, you know, it's completely removed from the list of prohibited places.

We take that completely out of the list. It kind of floated around for a while. All remaining language got deleted with the passage of Texas constitutional area.

That was in 2001. Well, these are also important, right? Because going back, when I first started doing what

I'm doing and sort of advising people on gun law, people would call in and say, I want to have like sort of just this covert church security team, people who have licenses.

We want to help protect the church. Am I allowed to do that? And we just would look at the occupations code, which is what Texas says. This is what license security does.

This is when you're, you know, pretending to be licensed security, right? And so we would tell people, yeah, you can have a church safety team.

Just don't, you know, don't get, Hey, don't list of, you know, administrations.

And then in 2017, the Texas legislature actually passed a bill that said exactly what we've been advising people to clarify. Yeah. So, you know, we knew when

Texas is going to have a church safety team, you just call them security. You couldn't pay them. That's what we would tell people.

But I think what's really good about that is, because obviously security companies, what came down to where people were, you know, not there, but you know, we're going to report you for having, um, unlicensed security officers.

Right. Because as we've seen churches, um, they are a target of many attacks. Unfortunately. Yes. So, so that was 2017 when we memorialized or codified this volunteer church safety team provisions where churches can now have volunteers access security effectively on their, on their campuses.

And so that was, that was a great leap forward. It's 2023. And if your state doesn't have this, start calling your mom. Yeah. 2023. We said,

Hey, you know, we're going to have this volunteer security team.

We want to have, you know, any sort of security officer here. We don't want to be on the hook for what they do. And so, yeah, that's a great thing.

We got to do a new law. Just kind of, and that's why we mentioned that immunity from liability. That was only towards the individuals. When you have lawsuits, everyone is getting dragged in, theoretically a church would get dragged in.

So these little churches, it would just stop existing. And so we passed immunity from liability for the acts of the safety team members.

Um, so let's say we find ourselves in this kind of Lakewood church scenario, um, Okay. So I'm going to stop it because I'm seeing people are saying, there's an echo.

I don't know why. Um, so I'm just going to, we'll, we'll do.

You don't know why, you don't know why there's an echo or you don't know why they're saying there's an echo. Um, Um, well, I don't know why there's an echo.

Yeah. So, um, I'll, I'll, what I'll do is I'll put a link in, uh, for folks to watch this and we can cover, you know, that.

Were you hearing an echo? Yeah. Were you not? Were you not hearing? Not at all.

I was hearing. And so I was getting text messages and I was going, Hey, hold on. Let me, let me try this.

I wonder if it's coming through my, let's continue playing it and I'll see whether it was, uh, my mic, whether I got to mute my mic.

Well, let's try it again. Let me know if you hear an echo. Okay. Okay. Went into a church, had a long gun, had a backpack, began her attack.

And it was immediately. Yeah. Immediately. We have, uh, yeah.

All right. Even though it's, it sounds like it slowed down. You, it still sounds like there's an echo.

Wow. I wonder why, because it's, it's yeah. All right. Well, I dropped the link in.

I'll put the link in the, uh, show notes for the podcast. So you guys could go, because what they did, what

I, I really thought it was valuable to, to, for churches because what they go through and what they were starting to go through was the, the history there of their whole point was when you have less gun laws, it's safer.

All right. Less people die. And because, because you're not restricting the good guys and carrying the guns.

Correct. Criminals. Criminals don't care about laws. That's why they're criminals.

I mean, it's crazy that we try to make laws for people that don't obey laws and don't care to obey laws.

I mean, we have laws about not stealing, but yet the criminals who like to steal, they, they still steal.

Yeah. And so, um, and, and, yeah,

Chris, I was saying this would be good to share with my church safety team. It would. And this is why I wanted to play it because they're showing how as lawyers, less law produces more safety.

But the other thing that I found really interesting with it was, and they, they were just getting into it to explain it.

And that is the church safety teams. There's, you got to know your local laws to be able to, you can't call them a safety team.

I mean, I thought it was kind of funny that the one guy says, call them demon hunters, but you don't, you can call them something other than security.

You can call them a safety team and that would be okay in, in most

States. Right. But calling them security means that they're trained that you, you know, in some

States they, they have to have a certain amount of training. You guys see them. Yeah.

So, and that's what they, and that's what they were saying. They were saying, uh, you know, they had security teams or security companies that were coming in and they were saying,

Hey, uh, you're calling this a security team, but yet you're not licensed as a security team. We're a security team.

If you pay us, we'll come do it. Yeah. And I'm going to put, I'm putting the link on, on, because some folks in Facebook won't see the, the link that I dropped in the chat there.

So I put that up. You guys can, it's not too long. So you could be able to type that out and, and watch it later, but they were going through the whole idea of how to, you know, as we got to be able to protect the church and they ended up going in and breaking down what happened with Joel Steen's church.

Um, you know, step -by -step and, and so it's good to do it, but as, as church members,

I think we need to be aware of the fact that if you're going to carry in church, which

I know a lot of people want to, um, know what the laws are. Okay.

Um, you know, I, I like the D says, you know, we have, we have police officers in our church who conceal and carry.

And that's, that's good when you have police officers. Um, Well, just if you're going to be an owner of a firearm, regardless, you need to know the laws of your state.

And if you're going to have a, so here in Georgia, we now have constitutional carry.

Now how the law was written before it was, do I need a carry permit?

Yes. Can I carry a gun without a carry permit? Yes. Because the law was so vague and how it was written, you could say both things, but now we don't, we don't need a carry permit.

We have constitutional carry. The only reason we would actually need one now is if we're carrying out a state, because there's some, there's 20, 30 states,

I think that recognize Georgia carry license. So, well, you know,

Chris, Tom holds is saying Nevada actually requires a state approved security ID card to do private security.

Let me tell you how tough Nevada must be. I hope

I'm not going to go. It's Nevada. Yeah. Nevada. Because if you remember when we were in Indiana and I said,

Nevada and Chris yelled at me. Yeah, but he didn't have a taser with him. So it didn't matter.

He could yell all he wants when he's got his taser. No, sorry. His taser was taken away.

That's right. His toys were taken away when he retired. But let me, let me, he says, thank you.

Drew. Nevada is so hard. I hope I'm not going to get myself in trouble here,

Mr. Hon holds, but so you could be a police officer carrying a weapon for 25 years and retire.

And the next week go to work, private security. And yet they won't let

Chris do certain things until he actually passes a test to use his weapon.

So, so yeah, it's like, Hey, I've only been carrying and have to be proficient and train every single year, but no, we can't trust you with a gun there,

Chris. Yeah, that's his state. But, but I will say this. If you carry, okay.

If you are a gun owner lane, preface it that way. Forget if you carry, if you are a gun owner, take classes, train practice.

Don't just go to a range by yourself and go, Oh yeah. Hey, look, I'm having some fun shooting off some bullets. Okay. We have, we have someone in backstage who can tell you that.

That how much he does dry runs, dry fire. Um, uh, when his family is not home, he will run over shooting solutions by himself in his house.

And he does it all the time. That's because he's got no life. I see his head nodding.

As he works. Notice he just stopped where he's nodding his head like this until I said he's got no life.

And he went, his head was up and he's trying to push it up higher. There's Mr.

Huff. So, so this is a, this is nothing.

It doesn't actually doesn't, you can actually, you can actually take this out, but you can't put any ammunition in, but this is the proper weight.

And this is exactly the design for, for what I carry. Or if, if I carried, let's just assume, maybe

I carry, maybe I don't, but, uh, and it just laser. That's all. This one box 17.

This is blocks. Yep. Is it the, uh, 19, 19? Okay. No 17, 17.

Yeah. I was about to say that's a big, that's a big frame. Yeah. So the nice thing about this is

I can, I don't know if he's, if I can get, yeah. Can you see that? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So what this does is I have a target. I use it. I target pro and you know, you're, you're practicing dry fire.

Why Chris, why is dry fire so important? Um, so the term

I've, I've started using is dry practice, um, dry practice. I practice, um, because the thing about, um, the thing about shooting is, is especially in a self -defense situation.

Um, and God forbid anybody ever listening to this or watching this right now is ever in that, that, that kind of situation.

And I sincerely know, um, but, but, you know, you guys brought up a good point is this is the world we live in.

Um, scripture tells us that the men will go from bad to worse. Scripture tells us that out of Mark seven, out of the heart proceeds, all of these things.

And, and that's exactly what we're seeing. It's not a gun problem. It's not a violence problem. It's a sin problem.

It's a depravity problem. Um, and part of the, the, you know, part of the thing about, about being prepared is, and, and, and is being aware of this.

And so, and then being able to be proficient, especially men, let me talk to the men for a second. Um, women as well, but especially men like that's how the

Lord has built you. He's built you to be a protector and provider. Um, so going back to your question,

Andrew, one of the reasons that I do that, and by the way, you can do it with an unloaded pistol.

You can do it with a carbine. You can do it with a. That's what you have there. But the, but the point is make sure it's.

Yeah. Certain certain ones. You can't, you can't, you can't do like my, my Smith and Wesson.

I used to have, you can't, you would not be able to do dry, dry practice. What'd you call it?

Uh, because yeah, no, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about breaking the trigger. I'm not talking about that. No. So what'd you do?

Oh, go ahead, Chris. Yeah. No, the whole, the whole thing. And the whole reason you're doing that is not, yes, you want to, whatever platform you're using, you want to know that platform inside and out, right?

You want to know what does the trigger feel like? Where's the, if it's strike or fire, where's the wall, how much pressure do you need?

Um, there are a couple of different drills. I could just talk about real quick right now that you could do at a flat range by yourself or in your home.

That's unloaded. That will teach you to get used to that. But the whole thing with dry fire are your eyes.

Because in a self -defense situation, you're not going to present and go, Oh wait, let me just get it right.

Okay. No. Usually what's going to happen is you're going to draw and it needs to be muscle memory to where you pick something in the room.

I'm on it. And it's right there. It's training your eyes to do instinctive what's called instinctive or there's some other terms for it, but instinctive shooting, because that's what self -defense is.

Those self -defense moments, you're going to be drawing and backing up. You're going to be, you know, you're going to be moving in that. I like flat ranges, flat ranges teach you, uh, hand eye coordination.

They teach you how to figure out which eye is dominant. They teach you how to operate that firearm.

But I mean, really where, where the rubber is going to meet the road is, is what you do. What drew said when I was backstage is can you move and shoot?

Can you, you know, in a situation like what happened at Lakewood, you know, and I don't know all the details. It's just not moving.

Can you move and shoot? Can you fall and shoot? You know, I get a training where it wasn't just moved back.

It was, you had to fall back because there's absolutely. And, and so it's, it's, and, but I'm, I'm going to, yeah,

I know you said the men, but I'm going to say if there, look, if, if you have a weapon in your house, do not allow it to be accessed by anybody who is not trained to use it.

And so if you, if you have a wife who, who is not willing to be trained and don't give her the combination, right?

The reason being is if a person doesn't know how to use a weapon properly, they usually are the ones that end up dead.

Absolutely. Yeah. Accidents, accidents happen. I mean, no, man, it's when you, you said the muscle memory there, there's so, so there's a spot where if I was to pull it out, you know,

I'm going to, you know, I come right. You really can't see from here. You know, I'm going to come right to about here.

I come right up with my rib cage. That's, that is muscle memory. It goes right to,

I have one spot where I'm going to bring it right to. and the purpose of that is what you just said,

Chris, it's, it's a muscle memory. And at that spot, I'm right about the, the hip range.

That's, that's where I'm going. The next one, not fully straight out, but I'm, I'm just getting my second hand on and I'm just kind of, you know, in a, in a position, but now

I'm trying to get core core body if I had to. And then you're extending. So I, I can get three rounds out really quickly.

Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And you'd be surprised. And that's, that's one of the things, that's one of the things that I practice. I'll take my, my, my trainer here.

This is my trainer. Drew has the same trainer. He might, you know, and you're coming up here and I don't really know if you can see it, but you're coming up here and there's a lot of times you got to describe where you're coming up to for,

I'm sorry. Yeah. For people listening. So if you're, if you're drawing out, I mean, there's so many different scenarios, but you want to try to play through the scenarios.

But if you're in a position where you've got somebody in your face and you're doing like this, you're trying to, you're pushing back and blocking and drawing here.

This is where the first shot is going to clock off. And then you're going to create some space. So your center line, press out.

Don't scoop press out. And so with your sternum. With so what, for folks who are listening on the audio, what you're doing is you pulled it up to your, you know, up to your rib cage, the, you know, just leaning it against rib cage, your second one, your, your center line, you put your second hand around and then you push down and press it up.

Yep. And, and so you got a tramp, but, but you know, the, I, I'm, my big thing is to emphasize on training.

Okay. And if you, if you're with Drew, you mentioned USCCA. If you're with them, they have training.

It's part of, part of what they give you is the training. Watch the videos, take the class. I got it.

Yeah. Let me, let me, let me caution everyone. Just be careful with USCCA.

There's some stuff lately coming out with them. There's some situations that are under investigation and with their insurance provider.

And so just be careful. Yeah. That's why I'm looking at answers as well.

And like I said, it's not bad to have multiple insurance. It doesn't hurt.

We're worth the money to never use it. But they offer the training that, you know, and that's the big thing

I would say is if, if you are going to, if you're going to have something like that, you got to know how to use it.

And, you know, in a case like this church situation, you know, look, we have to realize that there's fewer police on the force.

I mean, remember, we're supposed to, you know, we're supposed to defund the police.

So, you know, with that, you just go, okay, what are we going to, you know, so.

Well, let me, let me, let me say one more thing to just as far as the training piece, you know, the likelihood that any of us are ever going to be in a situation again,

God forbid it could happen, you know, where we have to deploy and discharge a firearm of self -defense or in defense of others is, is pretty rare.

It happens. It happened. I mean, and you hear about it, but I would say this is a challenge.

And we've talked about this, this topic before, but I would say this is you yourself.

Like this trainer is a shield. It's a tool. That's all it is.

I mean, it's not a shield. It's a three 65 X macro, but it's, it's a shield. It's a tool. You are the weapon.

And, and understand that you're not always, you may not always be in a place where you can access that weapon. You may be in a place where you have to be the weapon.

So make women make sure you can defend yourself. Make sure you, you know, if you don't want to carry a firearm, You know,

Chris, the thing that pops into my head, make sure you can rack. May I have a friend of mine?

You know what he does? He trains how to rack against his jeans. What if he doesn't have a hand free?

What if he's got a racket left -handed? Right. You gotta be, you have to know how to use it.

If, if you're going, like the worst thing to do is to just think, oh,

I know how to pull a trigger. I'm fine. No, no, no, you're dangerous. Chris, Chris, what you were just saying makes me think of Tim Kennedy.

And what he always says is help is not coming. Right? No. So you, you are your own help.

You are your own help. So that means you have to be prepared. And so not, and here's the thing. What if you're the person who doesn't have a firearm, then you must know how to get out of certain situations.

Or one thing people don't, don't have, and you see this, just go to the store and pay attention.

People don't have situational, situational awareness. Put your, I mean, their phone, their phone is sitting there and they're staring at their phone.

Like, don't do that when you're in public. I can't. So I've been walking out of the store.

Okay. And I've just, just behind people and I'm going, I can steal this guy's wallet right now.

And he would never know because he has, he has no clue who's around him. Yeah. Yeah.

Here's, here's the thing though, too. Like, like people may say, okay, from a, from a believer standpoint, why are we talking about this?

Why are we talking about this? How does this, where do we see something like this in scripture? Well, I mean, you see, you see commands and reminders in Proverbs all the time about discipline, diligence, awareness, wisdom, discernment, seize discipline and do not let her go.

Right. You see that all throughout the Proverbs, you see the command to be prepared. You see, um, you have to do that.

This is the world we live in. And no, I'm not saying that, you know, if somebody like, and let me be clear here too, like we have to be really careful in talking about this as believers, because there is that spiritual component.

There is that biblical component of how do we respond when we are attacked? How do we respond when someone, when someone comes at us?

I mean, obviously, no, we're not going to go. We're not going to go to a place where it's going to be an unnecessary level of violence.

But let me say this, let me be very, very clear about this. And I believe that scripture also supports this is we, as believers need to be prepared as far as we need to go to come to defensive of, of the ones we love and, and, and, and, and be in our self second.

Like I, I, whoa, there are balloons. That's weird. So, but we need to be, you know, so, so it's there's a saying and I'm going to butcher it right now.

But it's, it's violence in and of itself. I'm not a fan of violence, but sometimes there is certain types of violence that stopped further violent acts from happening.

Yeah. And the, the, the thing is, and Chris Hunthold says,

And we are way off the origins of it. Yeah, sort of, but not really because, you know, we started talking about transgenderism and violence, but then also shootings and just what happens and the need to be prepared.

Yeah, and the thing is, is that, you know, you have to be ready. And look, do you have to carry?

No. Because the thing where I wanted to go earlier was, you know, in Kansas City, you had guys tackle the shooter.

Oh, man, protectors. Yeah, these people, they didn't even think about it. And then the one guy said he tackles them, then sees the gun and realized, no, we got to keep the gun down.

Yeah, yeah, when the cops came, I saw a video. There was a video someone shot on their phone. So this guy's got this guy and he's cinched down.

He's holding him down. He's like, get the rifle, get the rifle, get the rifle. Yeah, it's like, I mean, it's scary, but you know what?

I'm glad that there were people doing that so that there were less deaths, less people harmed than taking out their phone so they can get the video.

No, I'm going to get lots of downloads on this one. Who cares about your downloads? People's lives are at stake.

You know, it drives me crazy when I see people that see something like that.

And instead of trying to protect people, they want to get a video.

Now, I understand people are scared and they run away. That's one thing. The people that just take the video.

Okay, you should be helping the situation, not getting video, right? But, you know, we need more.

We need more heroes like that. We need more people willing to stand up and risk their lives. And as Christians, we need to be more than the world willing to do that because we have nothing to fear in death.

So, you know, it's an aspect where we have to recognize the world that we're in first.

We also have to see our role in this world, which is really first and foremost to share the gospel.

Amen. But as we said, we're an example, whether it's as Drew and I talked about earlier, the church members who forgave the guy that shot their church up, right?

The world didn't like that message. Sure. Congregant after congregant after congregant saying,

I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. That wasn't what the world wanted to hear, right?

We need to be different than the world. So we can't just sit here and complain and go,

Oh, it's all bad. It's all bad. It's all bad. Complaining is not going to help. We of all people should be joyful in this world because we have

Christ to look forward to. And I think what we're seeing, though, too, also highlights the need for, and Drew, you and I have talked about this in the past, we see a lack of evangelism by so many professing believers in the

Lord Jesus Christ today. And I know, Andrew, you agree with that, obviously, when you're about to go to the Open Air Theology Conference, and preach there on Calvinism.

But it's, which by the way, I almost, I was talking to Jeff. You're coming.

No, I'm not. But Jeff was like, You are. Jeff was like, Dude, I wish I would have known you were available 24 hours ago.

So anyway, but there's a lack of evangelism. You could come, by the way. I could.

You could grab Drew, throw him in the car, and make your way out there.

He's got to work. He's got to work Thursday and Friday. And I did not give enough time notice to get off.

Yeah. But there's a lack of evangelism amongst believers today.

And I think this highlights a reason. Like, let me put it this way. We've been talking about weapons.

We've been talking about preparation. We've been talking about all that. But let me say this. The highest point of preparation that we as believers in the

Lord Jesus Christ need to have is the ability, the boldness, to proclaim the gospel of God and of our

Lord Jesus Christ in every season. In every season. We need to be living it.

We need to be preaching it. We need to be speaking it. We need to be doing it. We need to be commanding.

When I say commanding, I'm using very specific language here from Timothy. But the goal of our command, the LSB says, the goal of our instruction, the

NASB says, is love, love from a pure heart. And so the greatest weapon that we have against transgenderism, against the violence that we're seeing, against the attack on believers, fill in the blank, the greatest weapon we have, scripture tells us, is that of the gospel.

It is the power of God and the salvation. We need to be bold in proclaiming that, living that, loving that, to everyone around us.

And so that's how we, first and foremost, fight these battles. That's where it starts.

That's where we need to be the most prepared. I think of Paul's words to Timothy. Again, bodily training is a profit.

It's a little profit, but God. Yeah, absolutely.

And so part of the godliness, and I'm saying this, and I know Drew's going to love this.

I'm saying this as a historic pre -millennial, like we need to be preaching the gospel in a way where we actually believe what the great commission says.

Don't say it, Drew. Don't you say it. But it's the truth. That goes for all believers, whether you're historic pre -mill, dispensational, it doesn't matter.

We are called, look, be a pro. Preach the gospel. That's the weapon that is going to overtake all this stuff.

That's what the Lord is using. The Lord has promised to build one institution, and nothing will ever come against it.

And that's the church. And how he builds it is on the foundation of the gospel. Yeah.

Jason Cave said from earlier, absence in the body is to be present with the

Lord. And that's something we have to recognize is that I think when we look at these things,

Christians can be, oh, maybe I shouldn't go to church because bad things happen.

I've heard that. And the answer is no. You don't not go to church.

You just be more aware when you're at church. But are you that afraid to lose your life?

Are you that worried? Is your life so bound in the earthly things that you're afraid of being without it?

So we're a little bit off the topic from what we originally started with, but I wanted to get into some aspects, and I was going to play a video to show you.

Church security teams or safety teams, you need them, okay?

We're in a different age. And so you need people to do some safety, but you also need to be aware in your church, hey, how can we do this legally?

How can we do this so that the church doesn't get sued if something does happen? So you got to think through all those things.

And so that's what we really want to do. I want to end with just,

I wanted to, first off, Rob says he got his cable from my podcast.

So those that listen to the Rap Report podcast, if you don't, what is wrong with you people? But the

Rap Report, I'm going through a series on what is a pastor, and I've been giving out these nice cables.

Actually, I have one here. This is where I can show you. So they're nice, longer than your regular type of cable.

Really does not kink. And nice thing, it has a lifetime guarantee. So if it breaks -

What kind of cable is it? Is it a USB -C? Is it a iPhone Flash? So the one that I was giving out was

USB -C to USB -C, although it has the adapter here to be able to go to USB -A.

But I do have about, I think, four or five iPhone ones.

So here's what we'll do. Well, all the iPhones now are going to USB -C.

Yeah, the new ones are USB -C. Yeah, but not everyone can afford those, Drew. That's true.

I can't. Look, I've got the lightning port. Yeah, me too. And actually, my son tested this, by the way.

He's horrible on cables. And so he snapped it, and he's like, so Dad, has it really got a lifetime warranty?

I said, well, call the company. Sure enough, they sent him another cable. So, yeah, so each cable has a security code on it, or a, like, not security code, but a social security number.

Not social, what is it? An ID number. Serial number, that's what I was, yeah.

Social security number, oh, dang, man. Yeah, so really nice cables. I'll just say for the record, just so people realize, one, no,

I did not pay. If you go and look these MagFast Lux cables online,

I think they sell for like $79 a piece. So they're not a cheap cable, but they're gold -plated, which gives them faster speeds.

I did not pay $79 a cable. I paid far less. And by the way,

I paid it, not the ministry. I donated them to the ministry to be given away. So it was something that I did for the ministry.

So for folks here listening to the Apologetics Live podcast, I'm going to open it up to you guys as well if you want to get some of the cables.

Here's what I want to know. We asked earlier, hey, we might think of switching to another night.

We want you to email us, let us know. So it's down to staying on Thursday nights or moving to Sunday nights.

I want to get feedback. And so to get the feedback, I'm bribing you. I'm willing to bribe you with a cable that is a lifetime cable.

It'll be the last cable you ever need. If you have an iPhone, let me know. But here's what I want to know.

Sunday or Thursday, what's your preference? And then you can send us your address and let me know if you have an iPhone.

And once the iPhone one's run out, after that, you'll have to go buy your own adapter for it to talk iPhone.

But, yeah, I love it just because they're longer than the typical cable and they don't kink.

They're really neat. So email us at info at strivingforeternity .com,

info at strivingforeternity .com. It'll be in the show notes as well for the podcast.

But email us. I want to know, Sunday or Thursday, which do you prefer? So we're bribing you with a cable.

Just shoot us a quick email. I'd appreciate it. If you find this podcast helpful, do me a favor.

Just text it out to five friends so that others will know that you found it helpful.

It's the best way to help us out. One other thing I want to do is let you know how you could support us.

Now, we didn't do a MyPillow commercial. That's one way you could support us. I could put that up there. You can go to mypillow .com,

use promo code SFE. That supports us. But I'm going to ask for special support. I'm asking for support for our

Philippines trip. We're headed to the Philippines. So far we have raised,

I think it was, $550 now for a $2 ,500 ticket.

Now, understand, once we land in the Philippines, they take care of the food and the housing and everything there.

But we have to get ourselves there. The reason, and I don't typically sit there and ask you guys for support, but in this one, this is a big ticket item where we have not been booking any other things for the states because we got to have this money come back in first.

So we are looking to get support. If you could go to strivingforeternity .org

slash support, so strivingforeternity .org and then slash support, that will get you to the page where you can support us and give us a donation.

I think there might be a place you could say for Philippines trip. That would be helpful so we know it's designated to that.

If you want to give monthly, hey, we're not going to complain. But with that, Drew, I'm going to put you on the spot.

Okay. So we haven't talked about me posting about me going to the

Philippines and raising support at all, have we, in our private conversations? Okay.

I want to put you to a test. Because I posted online asking for support, and some people said that I was abusing ministry funds by spending $2 ,500 for a ticket because they could find cheaper tickets.

So I want you to help. My math may not be so good. Okay, so $2 ,500 ticket, right?

Yeah, so I was challenged with why do I fly Delta instead of United because someone found it.

That's a no -brainer. Sorry, go ahead. Anybody who's flown those two airlines should know why.

Yeah, well, I could have gotten a flight for $1 ,500. It was on China Air.

And my wife said, no, you are not flying China Air. What airport are you flying into?

We're going to get to that. So here's the thing. I live in Pennsylvania. I'm not far from Philly. I can go to the

New York airports. Which one? Well, I could go to Newark. I could go to JFK.

I could go to LaGuardia. So I looked at all those. I also looked at all of the ones in Ohio because when

I leave, I'm gone for two weeks and my wife is home or I could take her out.

And what we were originally thinking was I could take her to drive her out to my daughter's and she could hang out there and take care of the grandson and then

I'd drive back and fly out. That was my original plan. So why fly Delta?

I fly Delta for a very simple reason. The only reason I want to go through this is because some people tried to make this public and so I want to go public on the record.

And I challenge one of the people privately and let him, okay, find me the flight that will be cheaper.

And so why Delta? Because with Delta, I can take three 70 -pound bags international because I fly just Delta versus one 40 -pound bag.

I'm going to take clothes for two weeks. I'm going to take ministry materials, the books, everything else.

That's how they get out there. So I can take all that, which generates money for the ministry, or I could leave that behind and just bring my clothes.

Or I could pay, I think when I looked it up with United, I think I would end up paying the bag fee and overweight fee was going to be,

I think it was like $460 for three bags. Yeah, okay. So why do

I go Delta? Because I just saved myself near 500. So why don't I go to New York?

Okay, well, New York is about $200 in tolls and gas to get up there. And don't forget, what am

I going to do with the car? Oh, it's going to sit in long -term parking, $100 a day for 14 days.

So if you want to find me a cheaper flight than $2 ,500, and you're going to find it out in New York as one person did, you got to add on the $200 for tolls and gas.

You got to add on the $1 ,400 of long -term parking.

So right there, you're at $1 ,600. And now you got to find something that as well as this one person couldn't do.

This one person was claiming that I'm misusing funds. I shouldn't be asking people for donations when

I'm flying out of Ohio for convenience. Okay, so there's a reason

I'm flying out of Ohio, because my son -in -law will drive me to the airport. Am I paying long -term parking?

No, I just saved $1 ,400 of ministry money. Am I paying for gas?

Well, actually, no, because I'm driving myself out there on my own dime, and my son -in -law is going to drive me to the airport, and it won't cost anything.

So you're flying out of Cleveland? No, I looked at Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus.

And we ended up going with Dayton because that was the closest. And all of the flights except for Cleveland, Cleveland had a cheaper flight.

What are the dates? I am going, good question. So I am going, the dates are

April 22nd to May 9th. Okay. So he's looking up to see if he could find some.

So Cleveland did have a pretty good flight, and my thought there was I could drive up there from there and maybe leave my car at Mr.

Silvestro's house. That was the plan. Going to Manila? Yep. Okay, all right.

He's going to do some looking. And so the thing is that if people want to claim that I'm abusing funds or misappropriating or using it, as the one person said,

I'm asking for donations for my convenience to get my wife to Ohio.

I said, how is this a convenience thing? I was planning on driving to Ohio and then driving all the way back.

So it's nothing of my convenience. It just was financially smarter because the ticket price when

I was looking, and remember, prices change. But when I was looking, I got $2 ,400.

It was like 24 and change. I forget how much, but close to 25. But that was a decent price compared to all the other prices

I was seeing. Yeah, I could get it at 22, 23 out of New York, but I was going to pay a lot more in other things when it goes to New York.

Gas and tolls and parking. So when

I looked through it, flying out of Philly where I could get someone to drive me to the airport or flying out of Dayton where I could get someone to drive me out of the airport, the price was the same, still cheaper than long -term parking, tolls, and everything else

I'd have to go through. And this is how you know it's not the real issue. The person goes, well, why don't you just do it by Zoom?

Because that's not what they asked for. They don't want to go to the

Sky Dome or wherever they're going to be having us and put us up on screen and have Justin Peters, Jim Osmond, and myself just to be a face.

I love doing this with you guys, but it's so much better in person, just saying. Well, it's very different, and if you want to have a greater impact on the church, it's not, hey, it's just all about my teaching.

No, it's that fellowship. It's the one -on -one that you have. There's an aspect of once the teaching is done, the ministry begins.

Yeah, and that's why I love the Open Air Theology Conference because they book so much fellowship in.

So that's what makes that conference so great. Yeah, I really think that I just wanted to be public on record on why it is since someone made public claims and I wanted to make it public why

I chose to do what I did, why I flew out from where I went, why the tickets were so much.

It's like, yeah, I could fly a cheaper airline that I don't trust. I wouldn't be able to take as much materials for the ministry to be able to be recouped.

You know, I wonder, this person who said that, I wonder who are the pastors and preachers that they listen to because I wonder if those pastors and preachers go on trips and do events like this in other parts of the world and if they fly their own jet or are they flying first class or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the reality is that, I get it when you're asking for money, but the thing is there's a couple of different ways people could do this.

You could, especially with some of the people that do know me personally, you know what you could have done? You could have picked up a phone.

You could have sent a private message saying, why are tickets so pricey? Could you find anything cheaper? Could have done like Chris said, hey, where are you flying out?

Let me see what I could find. And here's the thing too. It's like people don't understand. I had to go to Spain for a work trip.

It was a big sales kickoff for work in December. And we were there for a week.

People just don't understand how much money it costs to fly international.

I mean, I'm looking right now and Andrew's absolutely right. I mean, if he were to fly United, okay, they have flights starting at 1900, but that doesn't include everything he has to take with him.

And there's 58 layovers and – not 58, that's an exaggeration. But a ton of layovers.

I already have like three layovers. Yeah. I mean, but it's one of those things that Delta does try to get you there as quick and as little layovers as possible.

I mean, my thought process behind that is don't answer a fool in his folly.

I mean, that's just a foolish – And that's why I want to –

It's like I do believe that I owe it to people that support us to say why

I'm doing what I'm doing. But what gets me is one of the people that commented knows.

So I don't make a living from striving for eternity. That is the reason we can go to churches.

We go to churches no other parachurch ministry is going to go to. Because we go to the churches that can't afford to refund us.

That's why I can't book other things because if the money is not in the bank, we don't go.

Right? So that's the reality. Like it does cost money to do things. And if you don't –

COVID changed things when it comes to travel. Oh, yeah. They've increased.

They've tripled. Hotels have doubled. Rental – Oh, my gosh. I think it stayed the same. But, you know, this is the reality of trying to travel now.

And it's – Well, Andrew, this week – Like last week, I had to go to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Right? I live in Atlanta, Dallas, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. I had to go to Raleigh, North Carolina from Sunday through Thursday for work.

I did my expenses and submitted everything. It was a $1 ,600 trip. And that didn't include the flight.

Yeah. Like that was hotel. That was – It's like people. It costs money to travel.

We flew out to Washington State. It was a $600 flight. I stayed with the pastor's in -laws.

Pastor picked me up. So no rental car, no hotel. You know? It's like, okay.

And at that thing, driving fraternity, I didn't get paid anything. Striving fraternity,

I didn't get paid anything. We sold six books. Because there were only 25 people there. And some people go, well, is that really worth the money?

Is that good use? Well, yeah, because the majority of churches are like 25 people.

And they are not – You don't know the investment eternally. I mean, how do you put a price on –

You don't. You can't. Look, we're talking about the Open Air Theology Conference and the fellowship. Yeah.

Most of the people that attend a small church like that go out to conferences. They don't have the conferences within their church.

They don't have the event within their church that spurs them on to grow. And that's what we end up seeing is when you have a church that has like a weekend seminar and people get excited about studying the

Bible and living out their faith, that church starts to grow so that it doesn't remain 25.

But most people are like, oh, well, that's just a waste of money because it's so few people. Well, then you got to –

In my opinion, a low view of God. That you think he can't grow a church.

And that's the thing is like everyone is so focused on – Well, there's got to be a return on investment.

This is not a business. Like, okay, we can't control the cost of travel.

But I don't see anyone that complains when the big ministries –

Like, here's the thing. You know what a lot of the bigger ministries do? You don't fly one person. You have to fly at least two.

Even if the other person is not speaking. Just for the accountability. That's what I did with Just Thinking for a year and a half.

If the boys didn't go together, I was with them. Yeah. So someone has to fly with them, right?

That's an extra ticket. But no one's going to complain for that.

And if people say, hey, is it James White's convenience that he's asked for donations because he's now in an

RV because he's not going to fly anymore? Well, you could argue that's convenience. But he's doing the best he can with the decisions he's going to make.

And he's trying to not waste money. I'm trying to not waste money. But the reality is these things cost money.

And yeah, buying an RV and getting it retrofitted for James to be able to do ministry and do his shows while on the road and be able to learn all the stuff and then hook up and take off.

That costs. Here's the simple thing.

I've said this before on the show and I'll end this with this. The Muslims, you know what they do? They pay more for when other

Muslims work for them because they're taking care of one of their own. Christians expect to get discounts from other

Christians. Or they do shoddy work when they're doing work for a

Christian because, hey, you're a brother in Christ. You don't have to do good work. You mean you're not going to do this for free because you can count it as service to me?

Yeah. I think I just triggered Mr. Huff.

In a good way. That's. But that's reality. I mean, so, you know, folks, are you taking your money with you to heaven?

I'm not. And if anyone questions, I'm a donor striving for eternity.

I'm one of the largest. So my money goes to my church first. Ministry second.

So, you know, I'm not I'm not planning on wasting the money because I want it.

I want to be able to get to as many churches in a year as we can. So I'm getting a hobby horse.

So, Drew, did you help me do the math, though? I was told fourteen hundred dollar ticket.

I can get from New York to the Philippines Airlines. Huh? If you want to do that, it's

Philippines Airlines or China Air. Yeah. Well, this person says Delta.

No, there's no way out of the lowest ticketed price out of Ohio, Philly or LaGuardia.

I checked all three. It's six hundred dollars. He said JFK. So it's going to be more expensive.

I just got a JFK. So so let's let's do the math. Help me with the math. So my ticket was just under twenty five hundred.

But I did look. It's it's one hundred dollars a day for parking for two weeks. So that's fourteen hundred.

So fourteen hundred dollar ticket. A fourteen hundred dollars. Thirty nine to two hundred dollars to get there.

OK, so. So you're at forty one. No less than that, right?

No, because if you're at twenty five hundred for a ticket. No, no, no. No, no, no. He said he could do it for four.

He said he sold Delta one for fourteen hundred. OK, so fourteen hundred. And then and then another fourteen hundred.

So that's twenty eight. And plus another two hundred plus another two hundred. OK, so that's that's three.

So my math may not be so good. Which one is cheaper, flying out of.

Ohio for twenty five hundred or flying out of New York for, would you say, three thousand? Three thousand.

Yeah, my math's not so good. Help me out. Which one's better? Which one's saving more money? You know, it's probably that twenty five hundred one.

Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. And it's not out of my convenience. You know, it was a cost savings measure.

So that's why it is. And Chris is still looking up. He's he's trying to look for this one in JFK. Yeah, I didn't go and look up the what if if I could find one at that price.

Yeah, there is some JFK. If you.

So seven, 10 a .m. from JFK arrived. You got two stops, one in Minneapolis, one in South Korea.

And so it's a twenty eight hour trip total. And it's fourteen hundred.

And yeah, you're losing a day. So there are those flights out there. But to your point, like, look, man, like,

I mean. The one flight that I saw that was one hundred dollars less got me there too late.

I was going to come in a little bit later, but they they got they have a scheduled for an eight o 'clock interview.

Oh, first thing in the morning. OK. Two in the morning. Yeah. I was about to say, like, looking at this.

Yeah. No. Yeah. You got it. So on my way out there, I completely lose a day on the way back.

I mean, I take off and land within a few hours. It's like it's really crazy with the time, the time, the date difference.

One way I completely lose a day. One day I take off and land at the same time. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things that I mean, if you're bored and has approved it, then they know you.

And yeah, let people jaw jack all they want. Yeah. And it's going to happen.

So but if you guys do want to support, it would be help. Striving for .org

slash support. I'll get off my my rant box now. You know, it does it bugs me because, you know, like I have people all the time that say, like, if I write a book and I'm a

Christian, I should just give it away to free. Why? I mean, I had a guy that actually said like that we shouldn't ask for support.

We shouldn't take money. Like no one should take money from the ministry. And it's then we don't have folks that are taking.

I mean, I get a little bit of a salary because when my kids went to college,

I basically was going to have to quit the ministry and go get another job to pay for college. And they were like, OK, we'll pay a couple thousand dollars for to make up that difference.

And now they've continued because that, you know, they've just continued that amount.

OK, so it's not like I'm making a ton of money. You know, even the apostle

Paul said, you know, you should pay preachers. And then if only if the congregation doesn't have the means to pay a preacher, did he ever get a job?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, talk about that in Thessalonians. Don't be we don't want to be a burden to you. We don't want to we want to take, you know, as far as we as much as we can.

We want to take care of our needs because we don't want to burden you. Right. But at the same time, it's right to pay a preacher.

Absolutely. Chris Arnold says, yep. Have heard that one, too. Some of the book is not trusting

Jesus, who told us that we should freely given freely receive the free. You know who those people who it is that says those things.

It's those people that just they don't want to pay for the book. Correct. They want something for free.

And I remember saying, well, they probably go pay fifteen hundred dollars for the iPhone.

Yeah. We were asked, we're doing it. We're doing a free conference, a free conference.

And we're asking for support. And based on if people supported, they got, you know, books.

You know, there's a certain level where you got books or you got dinner with all the volunteers and the speakers. Right. And he was saying that that was showing preference.

And, you know, we should just we should just walk by faith. And I said, OK, I will be willing to do that if you're willing to go into your job on Monday morning and tell your boss you don't have to pay me a dime.

I'm going to trust and walk by faith. Pay me whatever you want to. I'm a

Christian and I'm just going to serve you for free. And his response was,

I got to feed my family. And so I'm glad no one else needs to. No one in ministry needs to feed their family.

It's just every morning I go outside and see that man up on down from heaven. Yeah. But that's where you go.

But but is that not walking by faith? What happened to walking by faith? Yeah. Let faith feed your family.

Yeah. So, yeah. But so next week,

I don't know. Do we have a plan for next week there, Drew? I will be at a theology conference.

Yeah. Next week, you're going to be out of town. So I don't know yet. Okay. So we'll talk this week whether we may or may not have a show.

We'll see. I'll reach out to Mr. Brewster and see if actually I can't reach out to Mr.

Brewster because I think Mr. Brewster is going to be at the open air theology conference. We'll come up with something you guys should do.

You should just do a live broadcast with the speakers of the open air. And if I can,

I will join. That might be an interesting thing, but I don't know what he's got planned.

So I can't guarantee it. But we could try something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Because imagine having that, right?

Imagine having Jeffrey Rice, Keith Bossky. You were not there last year to see what was on the throw downs that happened.

It's all going to be recorded this year. So he's planning on putting out video for a documentary.

So we'll see how that goes. I'm just saying, look, Mr. Huff, you don't want to go.

Okay. No, no, no. It's not that I don't want to go. I wanted to go. So there was this close.

Jeff is going to have me preach. I know. I know. But here's the thing. You could go there.

I mean, because we're going to at that conference, put Mr. Hanholds and Mr.

Rice and Mr. Butler all in their place and end this Bigfoot discussion that these guys believe in Bigfoot.

I'm just saying we are having that debate, Mr. Rice and I. That's going down. Oh, boy.

It's a lot of fun. But we'll see. Next week, I don't know what we'll do. But just go to ApologeticsLive .com.

That's always the place we will put up. If we're having a show, we edit that page there so you know the topic.

So always go there to check out if there's going to be a show. We'll put it there. And so with that,

I think that is a wrap. No, wait. That's how I end my other podcast.

That'll work. This one I end with. Let's see if Drew knows it. Striving to make each day an eternal day for the glory of God.

That's getting closer. Strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. But you know what?

I don't want you to just do today. I want you to do each day. Every day. There you go.