Provoked: With Eddie Roman

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00:04

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.

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I mean, this is what's wrong with the Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know who we are.

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This is where we hold them. This is where we fight. Officer, you need to repent of your lawless conduct.

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You don't know the law, and yet you pretend to represent it. That's not law enforcement, sir.

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That's being a thug. We will not stop fighting and bothering you all until this monstrous, barbaric practice of legalized abortion ends, and we are teaching our children to do the same.

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God's word says that the shed blood of innocent humans cries out for justice, and mark my words, they will have their day in court.

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Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel.

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Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. If we don't open our mouths and commend

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Christ, we're not loving Him, no matter what we're doing with our hands.

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What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Provoked. I'm here with my wonderful sister,

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Desiree. Do you like going by Desi or Desiree better? Either way.

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I like Desi for people that know me well. Sometimes that's a little disarming for me for some reason.

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I don't know why. It's just a weird thing. I don't know what it is, but if somebody I don't know says, Hey, Des, I don't know why that sounds aggressive to me.

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That's funny because I only call you Des. I know. If people I know call me Des or Desi, I don't think twice.

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Desiree, that's a little bit more formal. They probably don't know me that well. A lot of people just call me Desiree and I don't correct them.

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Yeah, I don't like Desiree. Yeah, because my name is Desiree. But tomato, tomato, whatever. Yeah, welcome to our podcast.

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We hope you love it because it's the best podcast ever created. It's like the best one. Think about any other podcast.

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Ours is better. But the purpose of our podcast is just simply, we want to use this as a vessel to serve

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Christ and to encourage our brothers and sisters out there, because we have millions within the church system, the nation, right?

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Professing Christians who don't put feet to their faith, right? They don't evangelize. They don't really understand what the gospel is.

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You only know what you know, right? And it's really has to do with the pulpits, has to do with spiritual leadership, not really understanding what evangelism is and not, of course, teaching that to the body and on and on and on.

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But we, you know, the purpose of this podcast is not to, you know, come against the local church.

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It's to come under the local church, to come alongside of the local church and its leadership and just assist the saints and say,

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Hey, you know, we're just some average, ordinary people just trying to obey the great commission and that we want to provoke you.

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And sometimes people don't like that word. I think we've got a couple of messages to say, why is it provoked? What do you need? What do you need to provoke people?

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And I think we provoke people. Why? Cause we want to stir them up to love and good works. So we provoke them to stir them up to love and good works in the area of Christian living, evangelism, apologetics.

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Yeah. So we want to stir the heart. Yeah, exactly. Because I think, people think we need to be

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Christians have to be nice all the time. Yeah. It's like, cause provoking somebody think about provokes, why'd you provoke me or, you know, don't provoke your sister or brother by saying that.

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So it has like a negative connotation, but it's a scriptural kind of, I guess issue or it's a scriptural example of who you don't want to provoke.

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And I think it's important to understand that Paul was provoked in his spirit because he was provoked. And he was moved to engage the culture with the gospel.

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Right. Right. So we want to provoke it. Also it's almost like there's such a sleeping giant within the American church that you kind of need to push them and poke them and say,

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Hey, this is what Christ has called you to do. He, he is your master. You've been bought by his blood.

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Your life is no longer your own. He says, go out and proclaim the gospel. And that's what we should do. So, that's what our show is about.

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If you could, right now, go to apologiestudios .com and become an All Access member.

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Just tons of incredible information that you can just wade through there and thousands of hours of incredible teaching.

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It's a good way to, especially for dudes, because of our three primary duties as Christian men is to provide, protect, and to be the priest of our homes.

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We always need to be increasing in our ability to provide, to protect our family, and then to govern our homes spiritually.

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This is a great thing that you can do as a guy, take in all this great biblical information so you can teach it to your kids and your wife.

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As you support Apologia Studios financially, it keeps the lights on and keeps everything going.

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Where can they go for all that? You can go to apologiestudios .com. While you're there, you can go over to reformcon .org

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and pray about joining us in the end of October because it's going to be fun. Yeah, it's going to be fun.

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The last time we went, it was really just a great time of learning and fellowship and yeah, everybody had a blast.

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My kids loved it. Desi's going to be preaching. No. Nope. Nope. Just kidding.

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We've just lost. Probably be there, you know, helping in the kitchen and stuff. We've lost 80 % of our viewers. Yeah, they're like, gosh.

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No, it's going to be rad. Yeah. There's going to be tons of people. We've got a huge venue. It's just going to be. It's the

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Sheraton over there in Mesa Riverview, right? I think. Yeah. It's really nice over there. It's a really cool park too if you have kids.

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Yeah. We're expecting a big number, so it's going to be sweet. Yeah. Go to reformcon .org and sign up and come see us.

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Yeah. And while we have you, please give us a five -star review if you like our podcast because that's going to help kind of boost our numbers and we're so thankful for all the messages we got the last couple of weeks after Jesse's testimony, our episode with Jesse Schreck from Italy.

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So thank you guys for all your messages of encouragement and that was a really,

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I liked that episode. Yeah, it was sweet. It encouraged me so much. And then we'll get out there in Italy. Yeah. That would be amazing.

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Cool. Well, talk to us a little bit about your husband and what's been going on. So Don, a lot of you know, ran for state house representative in our district and it started about 18 months ago, kind of started the process.

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He felt called to step out in that area in faith and, you know, kind of put some feet to his faith and kind of branch into the political realm.

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And last night was the primaries to go on and he didn't make it. And so now we're kind of just in the aftermath of that.

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It was just, you know, a lot of work and we learned a ton and had a lot of people come around us and show us, you know, kind of the ins and outs of running for office.

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And so it was a really great experience. It was really cool to see him. You know, he's such an organized man and just person.

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And he's like, I was telling you, just like a good athlete, like when he goes in, he plays to win and he gives it his all.

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So it was really cool to just see him kind of step out into that area that he's never stepped out into and just all the love and support that we've got from our church and elders and friends and having our kids being able to see their dad, you know, do that.

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And we talked about that last night because our son Liam, 11, was super bummed out. And we said, look, we're not called to results.

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We're just called to faithfulness. And dad felt called to do this and to learn. And God doesn't say you need to win.

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He just says be obedient. And so, you know, our prayer is that God will use

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Don and this experience to encourage other men to step out into the political realm and men and women.

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And what was his main goals or goals? I mean, why did he want to do it? Because it required a lot of sacrifice.

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Yeah. His main goal was just to, he wanted to be able to put forward legislation to protect all life and end abortion in this state.

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And he just wanted, you know, to be a voice of Christ in that area.

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In the political realm. Right. So what an incredible example. We just hope that through that, he'll be able to lead more

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Christian men and women into the political realm because the scriptures say when the wicked rule, the people groan.

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And so when the righteous rule, even though we're only righteous by Christ and his blood, it brings about the blessing of the

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Lord. So, yeah, it's just sad to see so many Christians demonize any political involvement.

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I really think it has to do with undergirding theological systems where anything to do with the world is inherently bad and we can't really, that's just not our realm.

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And we can understand that there is jurisdictional boundaries there. Like I as a, you know, upholding an office within the church couldn't run to be a governor, right?

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Those are two, that's a silver realm. And then there's the civil government, church government.

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And I couldn't do that unless I like resigned. But we need to get more Christian men and women in political positions of power, you know, governed by the constitution, but also their understanding of God's law.

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Right. Yeah. I was just thinking about, you know, when we got to the abortion mill, we were pleading with the moms and we're telling them, you know, this baby is going to be like no other baby.

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There's never going to be a baby in all of throughout history that's going to be the exact same imprint as your child with their soul.

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Their unique, their love, you know, their precious. God has made them in his image. And so, but I think that about everybody too,

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I was thinking about Don and how unique God created him and made him with these special giftings and, you know, our guests that's coming on, you know,

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God has created you. He's given you certain talents and giftings and we're just called to use them all for his glory because the man's chief end is to glorify

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God and to enjoy him forever. And so whatever your unique giftings are, sometimes it's easy to feel like you don't have any, but God is giving you, you know, certain qualities that there's never going to be anybody like you throughout all history.

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And so that's not to puff yourself up, but it's just to say God is a masterful creator and he's a designer and you're a unique individual with your own talents and God has put you on this earth for a purpose during this time to make him known.

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Exactly. With that being said, I'd like to introduce our next, our guest, our friend and brother in the

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Lord, Eddie Roman. Hi, Eddie. How are you? Hey, doing good. Thanks so much for having me on Provoked.

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Yeah. Thanks man. So, so thankful that you're, you're on, cause I know you're a busy guy.

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Yeah, I am kind of busy, but I found shelter in a corner of my bedroom right now to talk to you guys, so.

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Sweet. Yeah. So Eddie is a director, producer.

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Are you guys still producing anything as far as Way of the Master? Is that kind of over? Yeah, no, actually we just launched season eight.

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And so if you go to livingwaters .com, you could find all the listings, but yeah, it's going strong.

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It's, it's airing in 190 countries all over the world and it continues to actually be our biggest outreach.

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You know, so many people see us on YouTube and we got tons of YouTube videos, but the television side of thing is actually where the majority of people who find out about Living Waters for the first time, they're coming from flipping through channels.

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And so Way of the Master still is, you know, kind of the, the, the biggest outreach and the format we have now is, is a lot different.

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Basically, I've been taking a crew of about four or five guys out and just following Ray and Easy and Mark and Oscar around.

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And so it's just like witnessing clips gone crazy from a bunch of different angles and stuff. So it's, it's a, it's a lot different, but you know, we all like it more because it's just kind of showcasing the stuff that made,

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I don't know, Ray known as that's just, that's just his witnessing clips. So, but yeah, Way of the Master is definitely going strong.

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That's, that's so awesome. It's just been amazing to see God use Ray and you guys all in just the ministry.

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I think you guys have a million subscribers now, right? On YouTube? Yup. Yup. Two million,

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I think on YouTube, right? Or plays or something. I don't know. I can't keep track actually.

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So I'm going to, I'm so focused on TV. I know we passed a million subscribers a while ago, but yeah, it's pretty neat.

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My son Liam watches and pays attention. I, he said they had their golden play button. So I think that means you have two million.

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He has one, they have 1 .13. Okay. There you go. But that's awesome. It seems like it's skyrocketed too.

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Like you guys, you know, went from 100 ,000 to four to five, but it just exponentially the time kind of gaps shrunk between, you know, so many people subscribing to your channel, you know, it's crazy as COVID was just a huge blessing to us because everybody was at home, everybody was on their computers and, um, that's when the view count just went nuts.

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So many people found out about living waters during COVID and it's actually becoming kind of a problem because every single time we go out filming, um, people will come up to Ray and they'll say,

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Hey, we just came in from Arizona. We thought you'd be here. Um, and they just, you know, so it's, it's, it's cool.

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But at the same time, we're like, Casey is trying to talk to someone. Can you step back? So it's, it's, it's, it's kind of funny, but yeah, we, we definitely have gained, um, crazy amount of, of viewers and subscribers just during COVID.

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Yeah. So that's so great. Yeah. Yeah. It's just been, like I said before, just really a special thing.

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Um, you know, looking at a year as his ministry, especially him using Ray, uh, specifically, it's, it's just incredible what the guys do.

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I know, I know the street preaching scene since Ray started out on the streets has kind of, it's kind of exploded, you know, just his example, going out there faithfully with the true, true gospel, um, not a, you know, false gospel or a watered down gospel, but it's just been incredible to see so many men inspired and moved along into public evangelism because of his testimony and your guys' work there.

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Why do you think, um, it's been so successful? Man, I don't, you know, a big part of it is just Ray himself.

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I think his, his faithfulness, um, he is just the real deal.

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What you see on YouTube is what he's like in person, his character. I mean, there's, there's so much stuff about him on a personal level that people don't even know about.

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Um, he, he really, and it's funny cause he's, he's a, he's a friend and I don't really talk this way about him a lot, but he really is a man of God.

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Like there's, there's times when he'll be at Huntington beach and, you know, there's been times when he's gotten into just this heated debate with maybe a homeless guy and the guy's just cussing at him and going on and on and on.

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And then after, after it's all over and the guy's sitting there, Ray'll go over and say,

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Hey man, can I buy you some shoes? And he'll take them across the street to just the first surf shop they see there at Huntington beach.

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And they'll say, okay, just pick one. And you know, in this one case I'm thinking about the guy went in and he picked like super expensive shoes and Ray just bought them and just gave them to him.

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And like, that's the kind of guy he is. And he does that. He does that with food. He does that like he's constantly carrying in and out gift cards and he just gives them to everybody all the time, you know?

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So, so he's, he really is just a loving, gracious man. But you know, when it comes to what, when it comes to evangelism, as everybody knows, he just does not stop.

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Like literally every single day he gets on his little bicycle and he goes out in the neighborhood and just interviews people every single day.

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He, he does that three or three or four people every day. Like that's all he does. So, and that's it.

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I mean, biblically God blesses faithfulness, right? It's just faithful commitment, faithful obedience to the word.

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And I think that's part of it. And I would think he's such a balanced guy too. Like you just talked about.

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He's firm in the truth. He's not going to compromise. And I've watched, I don't know how many of his videos in the past, almost 20 years.

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Um, so he's firm in the, in the, in the truth, but he's also so gracious and actually loves the people that he's talking to and he speaks the truth in love.

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And sadly, there's not a lot of examples of guys who speak the truth and love out there in a, in a massive public format.

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I think, you know, our, uh, pastor Jeff Durbin does that well too. I mean, has that robust theological understanding and knowledge never compromises the truth, but also knows how to deal with people who are up in your faith or up in your face and Ray does the same thing.

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And I would just say too, I've thought a lot about it. It's the, it's really the understanding of the law in its place in the gospel message.

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I think that as well as just who Ray is and the vessel that he is, but him kind of bringing back the law into evangelism is why

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God has blessed it so much. Yeah. Um, you know, for, for those who might not have heard this already, if, if there's a message he, he did about evangelism, it's his classic evangelism teaching.

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It's called Hell's Best Kept Secret. And if you go to either hellsbestkeptsecret .com

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or just livingwaters .com, you can find that teaching and it just kind of gives his philosophy on evangelism and you watch his videos and then you listen to that message and you understand what he's doing and why he's doing it.

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But it, but it's like you said, you know, he's using the law. Um, he's not just going up to people and saying,

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Jesus loves you. He's not just going up to people and trying to emulate what he might've saw at altar call, you know, and that's kind of what we fall into as Christians.

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You know, at the beginning of the show, you were saying how the lack of evangelism in this country is in part the responsibility of the teachers and the preachers, you know, and, and for, for years, for decades, we've been presented this idea that evangelism is, you know, this, this, uh, telling people that God loves them, um, and, and then, you know, a few other things, you know, say this prayer.

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And so as a church, I think, you know, we, we do as we're told. And so we've got this idea that that's what we do.

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Um, and even sadder than that, we got this idea that evangelism is for the elite, it's for the super spiritual, it's for the missionaries, you know, maybe once a year we'll go out and do evangelism in another country, but for the rest of us, you know, it's just not something we do.

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And so I think when people watch Ray and they just see how natural and biblical, um, and easy and even how fun it can be, you know, like that, that's a, that's a thing about him too.

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People are just scared to death about doing evangelism. And here's this little funny guy, just cracking jokes.

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And it's, you know, it's, it's super interesting. And I mean, his videos really are representative of the fact that when you go up to someone and start talking to them, like all kinds of stuff's going to happen and it's not a cookie cutter thing at all.

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And it's, it's just a great practice, you know, the practice of regularly sharing your faith.

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Um, I, I, sadly, I think a lot of Christians are just missing out on, on so much, um, just in their spiritual walk with, with simply, you know, being clueless on, on the fact that they should be evangelized.

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And that is so true. They're missing out on so much of the blessing that comes through it.

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But then what we talk about to our folks at our churches, sanctification too, because evangelism is just a primary part of sanctification.

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And we say, it's kind of like an engine, you know, your spiritual life is like an engine with different pistons. Right. And so one of the pistons that needs to be firing is prayer or like the scriptures say, adherence to the apostles teaching, and that's just the intake of the word of God, community fellowship, but evangelism is one too.

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We don't treat evangelism like in everyday practice, right?

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We don't, it's like, well, we'll do it once a week or not even that we'll do it a couple of times a year or something. And then it's kind of like an annual endeavor, but it absolutely affects your sanctification because it's gotta be a, a process oriented thing that you're doing, not an event oriented, you see what

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I mean? So it's huge. Okay, cool. Um, let's go back in time a little bit and we just kind of want to hear your testimony, like how did

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God save you? How did you get into the world of evangelism? How'd you start working for living water? So just tell us as much as you want.

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Yeah, back in time, back to the eighties. So, uh, man, around, around 1983,

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I was, uh, down at my local seven 11. I was a Pac -Man champion.

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I actually won, I actually won a belt buckle for the, like the Pac -Man championship of, uh,

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I dunno, San Diego or my neighborhood or whatever it was. Um, and so that's what

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I did. I hung out, um, playing video games and when we weren't playing video games, we would go over to the magazine rack and look at the skateboarding and the surfing and the

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BMX stuff. And for whatever reason, I just got really interested in BMX.

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I wanted to get rad. I wanted to be like a motorcycle guy. And so I saved up my paper route money and bought a used

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BMX bike and that became my life. Um, and so for about three years

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I would just get home from Catholic school and then, uh, just ride, ride my bike and, and copy all the guys

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I would see in the magazines. And then, uh, eventually met a group of other guys who rode and started going to contests and started winning contests.

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And you can imagine my surprise when I went over to that magazine rack at seven 11 one day and picked it up and I was in it.

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And so, yeah, it was really cool. This is before the internet. This is when you had to look at magazines to, to see stuff.

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And so that began is about a little over 10 years of just full -time writing and eventually turned pro, um, got to tour all over America and Europe and, uh,

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Tahiti different, different places. Um, yeah. And I was, I was one of the guys that was in the magazines all the time and they didn't have it on television a lot back then.

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This is before the X games, but I was on television a few times and you know, so I was just a little, uh, little

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BMX star and it was just, it was just, it was just funny looking back. Um, and so during that time

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I was, you know, extremely fulfilled and happy and just living life.

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And if you would've asked me if I believed in God, I would've said, yeah. And you know, I was like, I would've told you

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I was a Catholic and didn't think about it too much. Um, eventually my

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BMX writing, just, you know, that my, my life just became doing that all the time.

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So eventually the older I got, the less hold my parents had on me, that the more

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I would skip church. And I never really would say that I was against God, but I just didn't care about him.

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And being a Catholic, obviously I didn't have an idea of who the right God was in the first place, but there came a point, um, in my later teenage years when, you know,

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I was sleeping around, I was promiscuous and, and all that. And just kind of out of nowhere,

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I just started getting convicted and nobody talked to me, nobody preached to me, didn't read the

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Bible, wasn't even going to church, but I just started just feeling guilty about my promiscuity.

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And it's actually kind of funny. So in my mind, I just thought I need to get right with God.

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So I went to, uh, the Catholic church, I went to confession. And so for you non -Catholics out there, confession is when you go into a little room and you tell the priest all the sins you've done, and he prescribes a few prayers and forgives you.

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That's kind of how it works. Um, and so I go to this priest and I say,

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Hey, uh, you know, I haven't been to confession for years. I don't even remember what

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I'm supposed to say. Is it okay if I still do this? And he said, yeah, that's fine. Cause there's like structured things you're supposed to say to the priest before you confess.

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And I said, well, um, I've been having sex and I know that's not right.

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Um, and, and I'm not married. And he says, uh, well, he asked me, so do you use a condom?

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Oh boy. And there's a Catholic priest. And I said, well, yeah. And he said, well, it's okay. As long as you protect the girl, um, you're fine.

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Yeah. And so, and so I walked out of that church, a happy man, because I thought everything was fine.

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Um, and I went and said the prayers he told me to pray, but it didn't take just maybe a week or two weeks where the conviction was back.

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And I knew that that guy was wrong. I knew that it was wrong. And, and, um, shortly after that, uh,

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I broke up with my girlfriend and that relationship, or I didn't break up with her. I said, Hey, we could still be boyfriend and girlfriend, but let's not, you know, let's not have sex anymore.

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And so that relationship lasted about another week, you know, cause that's, that's all that it consisted of.

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It was pretty, pretty pathetic. And then not too long after that, a friend of mine, a guy named

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Vic Murphy, who was a pro BMXer, he got saved. And I watched him go from being a drunk and just a irresponsible, you know, party guy kind of guy.

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And he got, he, he became undrunk and normal and he started going to church and he started preaching the gospel to everybody and I went to church with them.

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And, you know, at first I thought, well, I'm a Catholic. I know what church is about, but it was the first time

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I'd ever been to a Christian church where they actually teach the Bible and go through the

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Bible. And I'd really never heard the Bible being taught before. And I heard the sermon on the Mount and I heard that if you lust after a woman, it's the same as committing adultery.

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And that really hit me because even though I had gone to Catholic church pretty much my whole life, never heard that before.

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And it's sad because like, I just remember that when I'm talking to people now, it's like so many people are just in some kind of religious system and yet they don't know much, anything about the word of God, you know?

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And so it's, it's, it's easy sometimes to get impatient with people and be like, you're a Christian, you should know this stuff.

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You say you're a Christian, but I remember I was that guy, you know? And then after hearing the sermon on the

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Mount, I understood that I was going to hell and I knew that, but I still liked going to church.

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So I kept going. And it's funny because I'll meet people, um, when I'm evangelizing who will say some, you know,

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I'll take them through the, the 10 commandments and get to the place, you know, if God was to judge you, should he find you innocent or guilty?

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And they'll say guilty and then they'll admit they're going to hell and then they just won't care. And that used to be me.

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Like I used to know for a fact that I was on my way to hell, but I just figured out

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I'll worry about that some other day. Um, but I kept going to church and it was a process of about three months or so.

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Um, and then at one point I heard teaching on the Holy Spirit and it was just very basic.

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It was something along the lines of God can give you the power to overcome sin.

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And, and that just made a lot of sense to me, you know, I thought, you know, yeah, that makes sense.

29:30

If God can do anything, um, he's probably not going to be spending too much time making people rich or giving people cars or all this, but that makes sense, you know, it makes sense.

29:42

And so I believed and I actually walked down the aisle at an altar call, um, you know, and, and there's all kinds of problems with altar calls, but in, in my case,

29:55

I understood the law. I understood the gospel and that's when

30:00

I got saved. And immediate, immediately after that, I started getting hit with all this temptation and, um, you know, it was, it was by the grace of God that I immediately stopped being promiscuous and, and put that behind me just, you know, and, and, and just got involved in church, got involved in reading the

30:24

Bible and, and, you know, never looked back and yeah, never, never, never even looked at pornography again, like it was over, you know?

30:33

Um, so yeah, that God does have the power not only to save, but to keep you from, from whatever it is that, that he wants to keep you from, you know?

30:43

And, and, and, and obviously, you know, that, that was the beginning of my sanctification that, that, that sin

30:50

God dealt with right away. There's, there's all kinds of other ones, you know, but, uh, he definitely saved me from that one.

30:56

So that's, uh, yeah, that's, that's how God saved me out of Catholicism and just general unbelief and not caring.

31:04

Praise God. And so how old are you at this time? That was, um, right around 21, 21, 21.

31:12

Yeah. So were you still biking or did you continue on with your BMX career after that? I was still biking.

31:18

That was, that was right in the, in the middle of it, right. Kind of at the height of it. Um, some interesting things happened about around that time.

31:26

One is, you know, this is before email. So I wrote a letter. I wrote a test.

31:32

I wrote my testimony out, um, and made copies and mailed it to all my friends.

31:38

Every pro freestyle bike rider at that time, you know, this is around 90, 91, 92.

31:46

They all would have got a, a letter from me, um, with my testimony. And so I lost, lost a lot of friends.

31:53

Yeah. Um, but didn't care, didn't care at all. And, and it's funny because so, so I was known for being one of the guys who invented street riding.

32:04

And so street riding is where you, um, use obstacles on the street.

32:09

So like wall riding and rails and all, all that stuff. Um, you know, so if you ever see a sign that say no bikes or skateboards, that's partly my fault because I'm one of the guys who like encouraged kids to destroy stuff.

32:24

And so after I got saved, um, you know, I would, I would go to like throw my bike over a fence that said no trespassing and I just felt bad about it.

32:36

And so eventually I just kinda didn't want to put marks on people's buildings anymore.

32:42

And, you know, and eventually my, the main thing is my interest just changed and I got so into being a

32:50

Christian that I kind of stopped caring, um, about BMX, but also at the same time, the recession, you know, the, the early nineties recession had, had set in and the bike companies just were losing money.

33:07

The, the bike industry went from having probably like eight or nine monthly magazines to one or two.

33:15

And the bike companies started pulling out. And so like I lost my sponsor and all kinds of guys lost, lost their sponsor.

33:23

And so, you know, everything kind of died as far as the industry goes.

33:30

Um, now another thing going on is during this whole time, I'm also a photographer and video guy, just kind of picked it up as a hobby.

33:39

But then during all the BMX years, I started doing that main, mainly filming all my friends doing

33:46

BMX. And so, um, I actually am one of the first guys to film

33:53

BMX and like sell VHS tapes, remember those and, you know, at the, the blockbuster video and all that stuff, and then

34:02

I got hired to, um, be a producer, video producer for GT bicycles.

34:08

So I would make a bunch of their training stuff and then we would make

34:13

VHS, VHS tapes that BMX kids would buy, like cut out the coupon in the back of the

34:19

BMX magazine. Sounds so old. Just talking about this stuff. I was just trying to explain to my kids about blockbuster and they were like, wait a minute.

34:27

What's it like? I think they couldn't picture it. Yeah. Why, why would you go there? Yeah. We're like, no, this is what we did for the weekend.

34:34

We would go on a Friday and we get to pick out two, you know, VHS. Yeah. Milk does.

34:41

Yes. So did you go to school for any of this or are you all self -taught? Yeah. So I, in, in my high school, um,

34:48

Hoover high in San Diego, they had the first, uh, elective class of video production.

34:55

And so, you know, they, they had everything I learned. Um, that I still use today.

35:01

I learned in that high school class, they, they taught, uh, scripting and outlining and camera and editing.

35:08

And it was just basics of everything. It was taught by a guy who was like a former, uh, newscaster down there.

35:14

And he convinced the school to, to get all this video equipment. And so I learned how to edit and this was before.

35:23

Editing software was on computers. This, this might've been before computers. So, and so, so, um,

35:31

I learned how to edit. And then after that, I got a job at a video production company in San Diego that like transfers home movies to, uh,

35:42

VHS tapes back then. Um, and that was crazy. Cause I would, so people would come in and they'd give us like 20 rolls of eight millimeter film and I would put it together and you would just see someone's life.

35:54

Just go back, go back, go by in minutes. It was, it was crazy, you know? Um, but so, yeah, so, so I eventually just got more and more into the video production side.

36:06

I bought a bunch of books on lighting and all that stuff. And then I went to San Diego city college to their television, um, school and, and, uh, just, just learned a lot of basics and really just kept filming.

36:20

And eventually got hired by GT bikes. Um, and then they ended up making a television show called crank as in bicycle crank and, and, uh, that was on Fox sports network.

36:32

And so, um, by the age of 25, I was a video producer and doing all the sports stuff and making commercials and, and, uh, really had, you know, achieved everything

36:45

I wanted in life as a, as a, uh, a BMX guy and a video guy. It was, it was pretty neat. Um, but then when

36:51

I got saved, I just began to pray that God would use my video skills for his glory.

36:59

And, you know, that, that was, that kind of became my prayer. And, and it was, it was fun.

37:06

You know, I, I, I mean, I still, to this day, I, I watched the X games and I know some of the guys who are like announcing or the company owners and, and stuff like that.

37:15

And a lot of the younger guys, they, they grew up watching my video. So, so they knew who

37:22

I am, you know? So it's, I'll get asked to like present an award at something, some

37:28

X games contest every once in a while, it's like, we're going to bring out the dinosaur and he's going to give you a trophy, you know, so it's, it's, it's kind of, kind of fun, um, but yeah, that was, that was a big part of my life.

37:44

Right. GT bicycles. Okay. So that's in early nineties to the mid nineties.

37:52

What, what happened after that as far, cause your career kind of took a pretty drastic change, right?

37:58

Yeah. So, um, you know, I'm making this, this TV show and, and all this stuff, everything's great and I'm, I'm going to church at the same time and I'm pretty involved by now.

38:09

I'm, I'm teaching a new believers classes and, you know, involved in any way I can. And, uh, some of the pastors came to me, some of the guys

38:17

I was working with and they had started going over to Sudan in Africa, um, to, you know, if you're familiar with that ministry,

38:26

Samaritan's purse, where they go and they do like, you know, disaster relief types of, well, they were doing the same kind of thing out of their church.

38:34

And so they came and they asked me if I would go on this mission trip and, and film stuff. And so I did,

38:41

I went and, um, that began about eight years of full -time working for a missions organization going in and out of, uh, third world countries and really dangerous places like Sudan, which was in a civil war at the time.

38:59

And, um, we, we did a lot of stuff with the persecuted church. So I, I've interviewed, um, persecuted

39:06

Christians who are like hiding, um, out in places like Israel and Burma and Vietnam and China.

39:12

And, and, uh, that, that was a, that was a crazy, crazy time. And so, you know, the first mission trip

39:19

I went on, you know, I paid my own way in the whole thing and then, and then we got back from the trip.

39:25

I put a video together and, um, basically we had gone into a famine.

39:31

And so we, we put this video together and showed it to people. And that video, that one video raised over a million dollars.

39:40

It was, it's insane. Like, I think about fundraising stuff like that now, and it's like, boy, that would be nice.

39:47

But yeah. And so. The, the church, they, they gave me my money back that I had prayed on the, that I had paid for on the trip, just like kind of as a thank you.

39:57

And then they hired me full -time. So that became, became eight years of just, just doing that, um, all the time and that definitely changed my perspective on life and, and, you know,

40:12

I, I saw suffering firsthand. I met Christians who literally were risking their lives every day to go teach at a

40:21

Bible study or to go preach the gospel, like we, we took the Jesus film over the 16 millimeter projector and a generator, and we would train up some guys over there, uh, over in Sudan.

40:34

And then, and then come back a few months later and they'd, they'd bring the projector and it'd be like, just destroy, just thrash.

40:41

And you could just tell they they'd been using this thing. And these guys were walking in and out of enemy territory and war zones just to go do a

40:50

Jesus film outreach at night. It was insane. And like, we, we would go and with, with our, with my little

40:57

Bible knowledge at the time, I was teaching at pastors conferences simply because, um, over in places like this, there might be one church and it might have one

41:08

Bible and everyone shares the Bible. They take turns reading it and they, they don't know anything, but they do know that, that they are willing to follow

41:18

Christ rather than Islam. And, and there, you know, a lot of these guys have lost family or their, their families have been taken as slaves.

41:27

Um, it's insane. I mean, you can look up stuff that happened in Sudan in the nineties.

41:32

You know, it's, it's, it's not a secret, but, um, but yeah, so spent a lot of time just seeing a very different version of Christianity than what we see here in America, you know, and, and so I would come back to America after these trips.

41:49

And one time, you know, so, so I'm literally filming dead bodies and people who are starving to death and just horrible stuff and, and churches filled with, um,

42:01

Sudanese believers who were just singing worship and praising God in the midst of this, this horrible situation.

42:08

And then I come back to America and, and my friend who's a pastor, you know, the first counseling meeting he has is with a woman who's trying to decide whether or not she should, uh, get breast implants because she wants to look better or not, you know?

42:22

And it's just like, and I, and I, and my friend, he's, he's complaining cause his, his dad got him a red car for his birthday and he wanted a white one, you know, so it's just a very different.

42:34

So man, what you said earlier about sanctification, um, God used a lot of that to sanctify me cause like I would get home and I'd be bitter, like what's wrong with all these weak

42:45

Christians, you know, and, and yet, you know, I was exactly like them, you know, if I, if I hadn't gone on this trip,

42:51

I would've known that, and so God definitely used all these experiences to, uh, you know, change me in a bunch of different ways.

42:59

So, awesome. So that brings it up to the beginning of the new millennium.

43:05

Is that where we're at right here in the time? Uh, let's see. So, well,

43:10

September 11th actually had a lot to do with another change.

43:16

So September 11th happened. People started kind of, you know, they were afraid they were holding onto their money and something happened with the

43:26

Red Cross where they misappropriated funds. And so people just stopped trusting charities for a little while.

43:34

Um, it was, it was, uh, just this crazy little thing. And I remember it cause affected us like, like we suddenly had no funds.

43:42

We stopped going to Africa and, and, um, I eventually left, uh, the safe harbors was the name of the ministry.

43:51

I left, I left them and ended up being a wedding photographer for a few years.

43:56

I'm still doing side works. I did freelance for a lot of different ministries,

44:02

Billy Graham organizations, Samaritan's purse. And I was around their big crusades a lot. And then, um, eventually got a job making

44:11

Greg Laurie's TV show. Oh, really? Yeah. And, and so a lot of things happen there.

44:18

So I was constantly around big crusade evangelism. So I was the guy with the camera down on the field.

44:24

So when the altar car call would happen and all the people came forward, I would go up to them and ask, you know, why'd you come down to the field?

44:31

And, um, you know, a lot, a lot of times it was, you know, pretty, pretty normal answer, but every once in a while, there would just be the most ridiculous stuff.

44:39

You know, this is the only time I'm going to ever get to touch the, uh, the Anaheim stadium first base, you know, or, uh,

44:47

I want to meet, uh, Jeremy camp. Where is he? You know, like people would just come down. Um, but the saddest thing would be.

44:56

People would come down. Um, you know, and I had this happen a couple of times where they'd say,

45:01

I'd say, so why'd you come down to the field? And they said, well, this is my church. I come here once a year and this is where I get right with God.

45:09

And you know, that, that always, um, that always stuck with me, you know?

45:15

And, and, uh, I mean, sadly we run into that kind of thing all the time, um, where people are just basing their salvation on some religious experience they had, whether it was last month or 10 years ago, you know?

45:28

And so, so I was with, um, those different ministries for a while.

45:36

And then during that time of watching all this big crusade of evangelism,

45:41

I started getting convicted about the fact that I was not doing any kind of evangelism, you know, and what's, what's sad is

45:51

I was going to church all the time and I was around these organizations all the time and I never was encouraged or taught to do evangelism myself, you know?

46:04

And so that just started really, uh, messing with my mind.

46:10

I spent a good year just thinking about that and convicted about that and trying to evangelize and planning on doing it and then getting scared at the last minute and turning away.

46:21

And it was just, uh, it was, it was a really hard time. And, you know, there were, there were times when

46:30

I would evangelize and it was almost like when in my mind I thought, okay, this is really important now.

46:35

You know, there were, there were three times when a friend of mine's relative was literally on their deathbed and they said,

46:42

Hey, could you go make sure this person's going to heaven or something, you know, kind of stumbled my way through it.

46:48

And, um, you know, there, there were, so there were times when, when I would do that, but for the most part, just didn't talk about Jesus at all.

46:58

You know, that's what you did at church. That's what you did with your Christian friends. Um, but you just didn't do it to others. And so I'm going through this year of conviction and around the end of it,

47:09

I just come across this video of this little guy from New Zealand witnessing to people.

47:14

It's Ray Comfort and didn't know who he was. I didn't know who Kirk Cameron was. I'd never seen any of his

47:19

TV shows, but I just started watching these videos and. Um, you know, they, they were advertising for this thing called the ambassador's

47:28

Academy, which is basically a weekend of teaching and then going out and evangelizing with Ray and the living waters guys.

47:36

And so I thought, yeah, I'll try this. This looks like it could help. And what year is this?

47:42

2005, this is, this is 2008, 2008.

47:47

Okay. The Academy's 2008. Yeah. Um, and so when on, when on that weekend, and so I, I had pretty much never evangelize to anyone at this point, other than like someone who is dying and couldn't say anything or, you know, just, just really nothing.

48:06

Um, and so when on, when on that, that, um, training thing and that we can absolutely change my life, like God used that to just wake me up and open my eyes and the main thing is that he just drew me to repentance, you know, because, because I just,

48:24

I just, just saw very clearly and, and it already kind of understood that I was just a coward and I was just afraid.

48:32

And so, um, so we do all this teaching and then we get on a bus and we all go to Hollywood Boulevard.

48:39

So like now we're all going to go preach, open air, preach on Hollywood Boulevard, you know, yeah. It's like one of the worst places to do that.

48:48

And so on this bus, on the way to Hollywood Boulevard, I just repented and I prayed and I, um, ask

48:56

God to forgive me for not being obedient and not just doing what he wants me to do.

49:02

And, and just on that bus, just, uh, you know, just humbled myself and, and admitted everything.

49:10

And, and, uh, got to Hollywood Boulevard, got out and, you know, watch someone open air preach and all these, you know, homeless people and, and just really not so, uh, savory people walking around.

49:26

And, um, my team leader said, all right, it's your turn, get up there. And was that Tony was

49:31

Tony there with you? Uh, it wasn't Tony. Tony was, he was one of the leaders at the time.

49:36

He definitely was one of the guys, but, but, um, yeah, it was just one of the other team leaders. And he told me to get up on the box and I did.

49:44

And it was the most comfortable place.

49:50

It was the most comfortable thing. Like, like it felt just like I was teaching a Bible study at church because I'd been doing that already.

49:57

And it felt no different. And, um, got a couple hecklers immediately yelling at me and, and it was, it was fine.

50:06

And, and so I, I got through my first open air preaching and then immediately started talking to the, to one of the hecklers and, and, uh, did my first one to one conversation, you know, like all in that weekend and, and, uh, never stopped since that weekend, you know, right away

50:23

I started going out every week and, and, uh, eventually the elders at my church, they, they were looking for someone to teach an evangelism class.

50:34

And so, um, I did that and, and I've been going out weekly and leading teams from my church and teaching evangelism classes, not only at my church, but in, in seminars in different places, uh, ever since, you know, so, so yeah.

50:51

Wow. Yeah. I remember I took the church that I was at in 2006 through way of the master.

50:59

That's when the books were starting, you know, first starting to come out with the study guides. Yeah. And I remember we had like 115 people in that room.

51:06

And then by the time, you know, at the end of the, the whole study, you're supposed to go out and there was four people.

51:14

Yeah. Yeah. That, that's, uh, that, that's my life. Yeah, exactly. So, so you, um, go to the masters

51:21

Academy, life changing. And then where do you, how do you start working for living waters?

51:27

So not too long after the, and so again, this was the first time I had. Encountered anything, living, living waters, you know, there's all these people there who were like, have been watching the show for years and they're fans and, and I didn't know any of these, these people, um, it was, it was, you know, the first time

51:45

I, I, uh, had met Ray and all that. And so it was about two months after that, um, where living waters put out a newsletter and just said they were looking for a video editor and the, the same recession that had like taken my job away had affected them.

52:07

And, and so they had lost living waters had lost their video crew. A year or so earlier, they went to Europe.

52:14

I don't know if you've ever seen the Europe episodes, but they went to Europe and, and just open air preached all over the place, they came back with a mountain of footage that no one really knew what they were going to do with, and then the recession happened and they, they lost a whole bunch of employees.

52:29

So that footage actually sat there for a pretty long time. And then, um, eventually they were looking for an editor.

52:38

And so, um, you know, because I had gone on the Academy, I knew who they were.

52:44

They knew who I was. And it's funny because all my years of filming BMX was basically going out and just filming everything and then coming back to editing room, editing room and going through a mountain of boring footage and looking for the good stuff.

52:59

And that's basically what I had to do with this Europe stuff. And so they gave me, um, kind of a test.

53:05

They had me do one episode and, uh, it, it, uh, you know, they liked it.

53:12

And so I've been doing the TV show way of the master ever since. Wow. That is so cool. What season did you start?

53:18

Did you take over? Uh, season four. Season four. And then season eight. Oh, that's awesome.

53:24

And then you were a big part of 180 movie, right? You helped. Yeah. So, yeah, um,

53:30

I, I did, uh, I did the soundtrack. So, so it was funny cause Ray Ray, the running joke at living waters is

53:37

Ray always goes to Hitler, like everything's Hitler, you know, and, and, and, and rail actually do it on purpose as a joke sometime, you know, he'll get ready.

53:46

He'll get finished talking to someone. He'll just go, oh yeah, Hitler, you know? But so Ray had written a book called

53:52

Hitler got in the Bible. And so he was making a video to, to go along with the book.

53:57

Um, and, and in the process of making it, it turned into a pro -life video to where he, he asked someone about abortion.

54:08

You know, he asked his, his famous question. It's all right to kill a baby when, and, and we were all, we were all looking at the footage and we just said, this, this isn't about Hitler anymore.

54:18

This, this, you know, you can leave Hitler, but this, this is about abortion. And so I, um,

54:25

I, myself, Mark Spence, um, and, and others, we, we kind of worked just kind of re redirecting that.

54:33

Um, and then doing a, you know, just kind of helping in a way where, um, Ray, Ray has always been the director as far as having the big idea and like being the guy to go out and start things.

54:46

And then we'll kind of come in and, you know, make it happen, make it.

54:51

Yeah. Or, or, or give suggestions, you know, that kind of thing. So, so I was involved in one 80 and, and that way.

54:57

And then, and then pretty much every other, you know, video we've, we've put out since then, it's kind of been the same where, where there's a group of us that kind of give their input and, you know, help move things around.

55:09

Yeah. Our family always looks for your name at the end. When we're like atheist delusion, we were like, there's Eddie's name. And just that one 80 movie.

55:16

I mean, I've personally handed out thousands. Movie changed my life. So when

55:22

I got saved in about 2009, 2010, I was struggling with the issue of abortion, I knew it was wrong, but I was still in that mindset of like,

55:31

I can't tell anybody else what to do, judge not, you know, um, and my pastor gave me the one 80 movie and said, you know, watch this.

55:41

And I was just in tears. And so that really was, that changed. That movie really changed my life and like gave me the courage to start going out when we would go out and then actually met

55:53

Eddie outside of an abortion clinic in San Diego. Me and Dawn would go and some other

55:59

Zephaniah and Mel and the Higgins, Richard and Shannon and God, we got to see God close that, um, that facility.

56:06

Yeah. You, I was just - With that, with that crazy security guard lady. Yeah. Remember her? Yeah. Uh, then, then that the abortionist there's a, if you look on YouTube, it's called like demonic abortionist.

56:18

He got in our friends, Zephaniah's face and put some scissors up into his throat. Robert Santella, that man ended up dying a couple of years later.

56:26

Um, yeah, that video went viral. Yeah. That video went viral. And then I know you and Dawn went out to Planned Parenthood together several times to witness.

56:34

So, um, just God is amazingly sovereign. And, uh, I got to meet your beautiful wife and your boys said, actually,

56:42

I don't think I ever got to meet. I think I got to meet a couple of your boys down at Comic -Con. Cause we went out with you guys down time.

56:48

Yeah. Um, so yeah, if you're, you want to share what has happened recently to with, um, your son,

56:55

Jesse and, um, kind of what God has brought your family through and it's just, uh, a tragedy, but also very just encouraging to see how

57:05

God has just worked through both you and your, your wife. I read your wife's blog and, um, it was very, very encouraging to just read how

57:14

God gave you guys the strength to endure such a trial. So I won't say anymore. I'll let you share that.

57:19

Cause it's, it's a very amazing story actually. Well, real quick, just because you mentioned his name,

57:25

Richard Higgins. So funny thing about Richard Higgins. So he's one of the guys that, um, that continues to go down to an abortion clinic in San Diego.

57:33

So I met him, I don't know, it was like five years ago or so, and we get to talking and, you know, he finds out about my

57:42

BMX pass and he says, you know, when I was a little kid, I used to walk to school and, um, there, you know, there was this guy who lived on the block, um, on this hill, the school

57:55

I went to and I would walk, I would walk to school and he was always doing these tricks going down the hill.

58:01

He would do this frame stand thing where you kind of stand on the bike and, and you're not using. And I asked him what street it was and he told me, and I said, that was me.

58:12

No, that's crazy. It's so funny. What part of, so you went to Hoover high.

58:18

So where did you guys live growing up? I live in East, East San Diego. So I went to Patrick Henry's.

58:24

Zach went to Oswalt. Yeah. We grew up in like La Mesa, San Carlos. Yeah, I lived,

58:30

I grew up right off of home Avenue. So when you go, when you go down the freeway, you always see home Avenue.

58:36

Yeah. Off the nine to four, 94 or 94. Yeah. Uh, the, the 94.

58:43

Okay. I know where that is. Yeah. Yeah. Look at that. We're in the same hood almost. So you must, well, you live in what you guys are

58:49

Murrieta now? We're in Murrieta now. Okay. So you probably still get good Mexican food there. Heck yeah.

58:55

Yeah, definitely. Not here. I'm sorry. Um, yeah.

59:02

San Diego has better Mexican food than Mexico. Amen. Maybe that's not true.

59:07

All my, my friends from Mexico are going to eat me up for that one. Okay. Just anywhere else then. Yeah. Yes. All right.

59:14

So, uh, Jesse, so my son at the end of 2018, my son, Jesse, he was driving through a torrential rain storm and his car lost control and he went off the side of the road and went about 15 feet into a ditch, somebody driving by, um, did not stop to help him, but he, but they called the paramedics.

59:37

And so the paramedics came and they looked for him and they couldn't find him because this was in a really dense area and they looked for him for a while.

59:44

And then finally, as they were all packing up to leave, one of the, the paramedics just happened to go over and look over the side of the road and saw him down there.

59:53

And so they, they got him out. The weather was so bad. They, they wanted to life flight him, but they couldn't, um, because the weather was so bad for the helicopter.

01:00:03

So they took him to hospital and. Put them on life support. And so this happened in the middle of the night.

01:00:11

Um, the next day I was at work, um, and my work was about an hour and a half away from the hospital he was at.

01:00:18

And I got a call from my wife and she basically just said, I'm on my way to the hospital that they, they told me that Jesse's there, but they won't tell me anything else and parents worst nightmare.

01:00:31

Yeah. And they basically said, get here as fast as you can. And so I, uh, finished,

01:00:37

I finished my last edit of a TV show I was working on. And I just, I just said to the guys,

01:00:42

I'm not sure when I'm going to be back. And, and I left and, and I got to the hospital and. Walked in and saw my son hooked up on life support with all kinds of tubes and wires and, um, his face was just destroyed.

01:01:00

And he was, he was just a mess. And the doctors comes in and starts explaining to me things. And I literally got lightheaded and I had to sit down because it was just so overwhelming.

01:01:11

And he had, he had, so he had flipped his car, his flipped his truck a couple of times, the truck was destroyed and.

01:01:22

Basically his head took the brunt of the impact. So he, he, he, um, broke his, the area around his jaw and different places in his, in his, in his skull in about five different places, he, um, his, or his, uh, optical nerve was crushed.

01:01:41

So his eye actually is fine, but he, he is now permanently blind in one eye because of the optical nerve was destroyed and he suffered a traumatic brain injury.

01:01:52

And so he was in the hospital intensive care and then in, um, rehabilitation for about six weeks.

01:02:00

When he came to, he didn't know who I was. He didn't know who his mom was. Um, he couldn't talk.

01:02:07

He couldn't walk. Like he, he really did start from, from ground zero. And so he, he, uh, had all kinds of hallucinations and crazy stuff during this time.

01:02:20

And so eventually he got out and he had to come home. And then, and then we began taking care of a guy who would almost fall down the stairs every time he would try to walk.

01:02:31

And it was, it was so, so, uh, it was, it was a good man. I would say nine months of me and my wife just full time, you know, care, taking turns, caring for him and just being around him.

01:02:45

And, um, he was just very unpredictable with a, with a traumatic brain injury. You just don't know what you're going to get.

01:02:53

It's not like a broken arm where they could say, okay, this is going to heal in this many days, but it's, it's just all over the place.

01:02:59

And so, um, it was horrible. And so my wife and I basically had to come to a place where we just had to trust

01:03:09

God more than ever before, you know, looking, looking at your son and just thinking he could, he could literally be a vegetable for the rest of his life, you know, um, or even before that, we didn't know if he was going to survive.

01:03:23

And later the doctors would tell us they didn't think he was going to make it. Like they, they all thought he was going to die. Um, and just go into a place where, where you realize my life is about to get really hard and my life might not go the way

01:03:40

I thought it was going to go, you know? Um, but at the same time, trusting God with that.

01:03:46

And, you know, so it was, it was definitely a, a big time of growth for both my wife and I, our family actually came together a lot stronger.

01:03:56

Um, one of the pastors, um, that I'm close to, he took me aside during this time and he said, you need to really be strong now more than ever before.

01:04:05

Um, and you need to know that statistically speaking, marriages do not last when something like this happens, they just don't.

01:04:13

Um, and so that, that really, uh, you know, sobered me up and, and, um, made, made me really just, you know, realize how, how devastating and serious this whole thing is.

01:04:26

So, you know, um, thankfully the Lord definitely proved himself faithful and, and just did nothing but strengthen us and help us.

01:04:36

And, and our church came together in amazing ways. Like we, we just continually would get support and meals.

01:04:46

We got so fat because people just kept bringing us meals all the time. Yeah. It's like the meal train is on.

01:04:53

And, uh, but I mean, taking care of, uh, you know, we have three other boys and so giving them rides to school and just supporting in every different way.

01:05:01

It was, it was, it was, uh, an outpouring of, of God's love by God's people that I, that I had just never experienced before.

01:05:08

And so the best thing to come out of all this is that when, when

01:05:14

Jesse finally came out of his coma and was coherent again, um, he said to me, you know, uh,

01:05:23

I'm glad that God saved me cause I would have went straight to hell. And he admitted that he had been just playing the game and he wasn't a

01:05:31

Christian and, and that he, he just, uh, would have went to hell and he knew that.

01:05:38

Um, and since that time, you know, at the end of 2018, um, he has grown.

01:05:49

He is a Christian. He's bearing fruit. He's in fellowship. He's, he's studying and I mean, he's a changed guy and mentally, um, he's, he's come just amazingly far.

01:06:03

If you were to meet him and talk to him, you wouldn't think he had a brain injury. You wouldn't suspect that if you knew him before, you definitely would see some changes, but he he's doing great.

01:06:15

He just got hired at a local gym as a personal trainer. Um, he's always been into fitness, um, you know, super buff, just like his dad.

01:06:25

And, uh, I'll always been, uh, um, just really into CrossFit and he was actually on his way to, to, uh, join the military.

01:06:35

His, his goal was to be a Navy SEAL. And, and, and he might've actually pulled it off. Like it's, he, he was a really fit disciplined guy.

01:06:44

Um, and so, so that's, that's, you know, one of his dreams that was taken away.

01:06:50

So that's something he had to deal with in the last few, few years, but he's, he's definitely, um, past that and just really thankful to be alive.

01:06:59

And, and, and again, the most important thing is he's, uh, he's saved and he's a different person and God not only gave him a new chance at life, but, but gave him a whole new life.

01:07:10

So things are good. That's good. That's so good to hear. Yeah. God even can use, uh, car wrecks to wake people up.

01:07:18

And I think it was just a big wake up call for him. Same thing happened to John MacArthur. I don't know if you guys know. Oh yeah. Yeah.

01:07:25

He was ejected from the car and he said that he was fully coherent while he was spinning around.

01:07:32

Like he was having these deep thoughts while he was like flying through the air, skidding on his backside on the asphalt, like God had given him the ability just to, you know, cause anybody else who'd lose conscience or you would forget about these things, but he was just so aware of it.

01:07:47

So God can even use like a type of stuff to wake you up. So I'm so glad he's okay. You got to watch this video.

01:07:53

Yeah. Uh, I'm going to put it at the end of this interview, but it's just really encouraging.

01:07:59

And now that he's a trainer, if you see like what he was like right after the wreck, he could barely walk.

01:08:05

And then at the end he's running. And then now he's a personal trainer that you just, you think about, you know, like you were saying your plans for your life, your plans for your kids.

01:08:15

And, um, you don't, you don't plan for these things. Um, but Eddie, I was listening to your podcast,

01:08:21

Romans Road, and on your first one, you're talking about the brevity of life and, you know, and just like that God doesn't really care if we're a

01:08:28

BMX or we're a Navy SEAL or whatever, you know, what's more important is our righteousness.

01:08:35

And we don't have our own righteousness. We need Christ's righteousness. So as a parent, as you know, I'm sure that was like the most traumatic thing for you and your wife to go through.

01:08:46

But gosh, if that's what it took to bring your son to the Lord, then it was all worth it, you know, all the pain and all that trial.

01:08:55

And, uh, we just, we always pray for, you know, we don't want bad things to happen to our kids, but sometimes those are the things that need to happen for God to bring them to himself.

01:09:06

And so it's just a beautiful, beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that with us. We definitely want our kids to land in a ravine, even though it's so painful, rather than have their destination be eternal punishment, like he had said, you know, so it was an act of God's grace by allowing that to happen.

01:09:25

Yeah. And when we're looking at like Eddie, you were in your sermon, you were talking about just how fast life goes and we're just, we get so consumed with, you know, the people that we're living, you know, dealing with in our daily life, but really like for God, it's nothing, it's just, we're here and we're gone and we're, that's it, you know?

01:09:44

And so if we're keeping our eyes heavenward and we're looking at eternity and keeping our mind on eternity, then these things, you know, make more sense.

01:09:52

And there you see the importance of, okay, well, we had to, we had to go through that trial, but now my son is going to be with me for eternity.

01:10:01

Yeah. So, you know, well, it's getting a little long, so we're not going to keep you too much.

01:10:06

We're so thankful for your time. I just got a couple questions for you before we let you go. So of course, the primary purpose of this podcast is to help train

01:10:17

Christians as you guys do to properly share their faith. And then also just to get the gospel out.

01:10:23

So for those Christians that are like trepidatious, like we have always been, you know, all of us have gone through that time of being fearful and, you know, trying to get out there and evangelize, but not doing it.

01:10:35

How would you encourage the Christians who are not yet in the game or in the field? How would you encourage them to get in?

01:10:42

What are some necessary first steps? Man, I would say in the simplest way that you can trust

01:10:52

God, you know, I look at evangelism very similar to prayer and that prayer is one of those things that all

01:11:00

Christians, we know we should do it. And yet it's a discipline. It's something we have to do.

01:11:06

It shouldn't be something that we do once a year, it should be something that we do.

01:11:12

And yet, just like the prayer meeting, it's very neglected. It's not something that people do easily.

01:11:20

And, you know, I would say the biggest reason that people don't evangelize is simply because of fear, fear of what people are going to think, fear that, you know, you're not going to do it right or mess up.

01:11:33

And that really just usually comes down to pride. You know, if you're if you're a Christian and you know enough to have been saved and you know enough to explain it to someone else.

01:11:44

So there really is no excuse. So often people think, you know, they look at videos of Ray and Jeff Durbin and all these guys, you know, who have all the answers.

01:11:56

And some Mormon walks up and next thing you know, Jeff Durbin is like explaining their theology to them.

01:12:01

You're watching those videos and you're thinking, I can't do that. Well, you need to realize that that that is not required.

01:12:09

You know, the majority of evangelism counters that I have and even that Ray has, they're they're pretty straightforward.

01:12:19

They're simple. People aren't asking a whole lot of questions. People aren't blocking you with all these these crazy objections.

01:12:26

You know, that happens once in a while. But the majority of going out and explaining the gospel to people is just me going through my gospel presentation and them listening, you know, and there's so much.

01:12:46

There's so much just false. Situations that we have in our mind that we think is going to happen, you know, we're going to get punched, we're going to get laughed at or whatever, and sure, those things might happen.

01:12:58

But if you make evangelism just a normal practice, normal part of your life, it you really see that it's not as hard as you think.

01:13:07

It's not as crazy as you think. It's just talking to people. You know, we talk to people about everything else, right?

01:13:15

We don't talk to people about the one thing that really matters. And as far as fear goes,

01:13:22

I would just say, trust the Lord. You know, in Joshua 1, 9, Joshua is being sent out to go fight a war and God says to him, don't fear, don't be afraid, because the

01:13:34

Lord your God is with you wherever you go. And it's such a basic, you know, kid's

01:13:41

Sunday school concept that we know about God. And yet it's not something we practice, you know, but evangelism is definitely one of the places where we can just trust

01:13:53

God and put our faith in him on a regular basis. So, you know,

01:13:58

I would say if it's something you've not done before, go watch a bunch of Ray Comfort videos, a bunch of Jeff Durbin videos, just, you know, just watch that stuff and then just go to that person that you've been wanting to talk to, you know, you know who it is or someone in your life, whether they're at work or a relative and when you're around them, you just think,

01:14:21

I need to, I need to explain the God, just do it and, and, and trust God, you know, even if something negative was to happen, you can still trust

01:14:31

God. Amen. That's absolutely awesome. Okay. So one last thing, we'll hopefully have a lot of unbelievers listening to this.

01:14:38

So could you just take a brief minute or so and just share the gospel? Yeah. So the gospel, according to 1

01:14:48

Corinthians 15, is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

01:14:54

Okay. And the, and the reason that matters is because the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is how

01:15:01

God paid the price for our sin. And, and so sin is basically anything that you do that is against God's will.

01:15:10

And so a very easy way to look at sin is just to look through the 10 commandments. You know, if you've ever lied to someone, you're a liar in God's eyes.

01:15:19

If you've ever stolen anything, you're a thief. If you've ever used God's name in vain, whether you believe in him or not, whether you care about him or not, if you've done that, you're a blasphemer.

01:15:29

If you've ever looked at a woman with lust, according to Jesus, that makes you an adulterer.

01:15:34

And so all these things are just sins that all of us commit. And the reason that we commit these sins is because we're sinners.

01:15:42

You know, it just shows our nature. The things we do against God just simply show that we're against him, we're his enemies.

01:15:51

And that's the bad news because God's enemies will be punished. God will have the last word, right?

01:16:00

No matter how proud you are, no matter how big of a case you might think you have against the creator of the universe, the fact of the matter is

01:16:11

God rules the universe and he will have the last say. And that's the bad news for sinners like us.

01:16:17

But the good news is that the same God who will judge us is also a merciful king, and he's provided a way to save guilty sinners from the punishment they deserve.

01:16:29

And the promise of the God who created you is this, if you turn from your sin, and that begins in your mind, if you turn from your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, then you'll be saved from the punishment you deserve.

01:16:46

You don't have to try to be good in order to work your way to God because it's too late for that.

01:16:54

None of us can be that good. But the fact is that God loves his people so much that he's provided a way for them to be saved.

01:17:03

And if you trust in Jesus Christ, and stop trusting in yourself, then he will accept you as one of his children.

01:17:12

And that's the gospel, right? That's the short version of it. You know, if you want the long version of it, a bunch of different websites, you can go to livingwaters .com,

01:17:24

apologia .com. What did you guys? Yeah, no, that was great.

01:17:30

That was such a great, simple, straightforward, rich gospel presentation. So I'm so thankful.

01:17:36

We just need to do that all the time. If you come on our show, you're gonna end up sharing the gospel. Yeah, I mean, it's the most important thing we could share.

01:17:43

It is. It is the power of God and his salvation. Absolutely. And if you have time, Google, Eddie Roman, Living Waters, and you're going to see how

01:17:50

Eddie has a really interesting way that he goes about sharing the gospel too, that draws a crowd.

01:17:57

He's an artist, so he uses art in his presentation. One of the things that you do, not always, right?

01:18:03

I wouldn't call myself an artist, but I would say I've learned how to paint a couple different things in order to preach the gospel.

01:18:11

I actually have a website, eddieroman .com, where you can see my art and get to my podcast and all kinds of different stuff.

01:18:19

And then what's the name of your podcast? I already said it, but can you tell where people can go listen to that?

01:18:26

Roman's Road. And so, you know, if you get on your podcast app and put in Roman's Road, Eddie Roman, it should come up, hopefully.

01:18:36

If I'm paying my bills this month, it should be there. I love the art presentation. My son really loved it.

01:18:42

And he was like, maybe I can use my art like that. So, you know, there's different levels of artists. So I don't know.

01:18:48

Well, thank you for your time, brother. We sure appreciate it. And please give our love to your family.

01:18:55

Okay, I will. Yeah. We just so appreciate you and all that you do for the kingdom. And thank you for just your time and sharing your story.

01:19:03

Yeah. Thanks, man. I know you're busy and it's just amazing what God's doing with you guys over there.

01:19:09

I think we won't know the extent of it until we're together in glory. You know what God has done through Living Waters and just the team of incredible men that you guys are.

01:19:20

So thank you for all the work that you're doing to get the gospel out. It's awesome for coming on. We appreciate it.

01:19:26

Well, thanks so much. It's been my joy. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

01:19:31

All right. Bye bye. Bye. All right. That was awesome. That was. So I just love just listening to these different stories and just how

01:19:39

God makes us, like I was saying, Eddie's so unique in his giftings and his story and his testimony and just how

01:19:47

God has orchestrated all that. And like, you know, he's been doing so much work for Living Waters. He's not, when you think of Living Waters, people are like, oh,

01:19:54

I love Ray. And, you know, he's just there plowing and working and getting the gospel out. Oh, it takes a village.

01:20:00

Yeah. And he's just kind of behind the scenes, you know? And I think that so many of like heroes of the faith are going to be people that aren't in the limelight.

01:20:09

They're the people that are just doing the hard work and labor. And yeah, that's what we talked about last time. A lot of times a limelight can just spoil because you can let the light get to your head.

01:20:20

And you know, like we had talked about, it's so much easier to succeed in obscurity than in popularity.

01:20:26

But yeah, it's, I mean, it just seems like in ministries, God will have certain individuals that fulfill that role.

01:20:33

You know, like Ray would be like, fulfills a role that Jeff fulfills, but it's just the team that comes together with all the unique giftings that complement one another to do the work of God.

01:20:44

Yeah. And it's just so awesome to see that happening over there. Totally. And speaking of, Ray's coming on next time.

01:20:50

So that'll be exciting. Mr. Comfort is coming on. I'm going to try to get him because I think there, I don't know if it's still happening, but I think in the past, if you could find him without one of his tracks, he would give you some money.

01:21:02

Yeah, we'll see. Cause I think, I think he jumped in a pool one time.

01:21:07

I think, and I think, yeah, I think somebody's like, Hey, where's your track? And he pulled it out of his bathing suit and it was wet.

01:21:14

So we'll see. Yeah. He's hardcore. That's great. Okay guys. Well, we love you.

01:21:19

We're so thankful for you tuning in to Provoked. Share it, like it, do all that YouTube stuff so we can, yeah, just move forward with training people on to share the gospel and rescue little precious babies dying out there.