168. How To Revive America (An Interview With The Based Boomer)

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Hello everyone and welcome back to the broadcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 168, how to revive

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America with the Based Boomer. Everyone and welcome back and a very happy 4th of July weekend to you.

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I'm so glad today that we're going to be able to talk to Mike D 'Virgilio, who is affectionately known as the

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Based Boomer. His channel is on Eschatology Matters. He's got a new book out called

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Going Back to Find the Way Forward, Trump, a Great Awakening and the Refounding of America.

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I hope you enjoy our discussion. I hope you can see how God is moving, even though sometimes it's discouraging to look at the state of our nation.

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We have to remember that God is still at work, that Jesus is the one who builds this church and that the gates of hell will not stand against it.

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So with that, enjoy the interview, enjoy your long weekend, have lots of sun, lots of barbecues, lots of fun with family and friends, and we'll see you again next week on the broadcast.

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Well, hello everyone and welcome back to the broadcast. I am so excited today because we're going to be having an interview with Mike D 'Virgilio, who is known affectionately on Twitter as the

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Based Boomer. Mike, tell us, man, who you are, brother. The Based Boomer, that's a pretentious title, but I want everyone to know

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I was given that title, so it's not something I just, it wasn't a self -moniker at all. So you said a little background, maybe?

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Yeah. Okay, well, I was born a long time ago, receding into the distance. In fact,

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I've started getting Medicare mailings and all this stuff in emails this year, so that tells you how old

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I'll be in less than a month, actually, 65. It's so bizarre. Wow.

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If you're a youngster, you have no clue. It's like, you'll never get there, it's ancient. But when you get old and it's like everything is like, oh, look how fast time flies, but it does.

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But yeah, so I was born and raised in Southern California and the last name D 'Virgilio is Italian if you couldn't tell.

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And so I was raised a Catholic and we were nominal Catholics, but it was all part of our

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Italian cultural heritage. And I actually thank God for it because it gave me, even though I was educated in a secular environment, public schools, it gave me something of a

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Christian worldview. And it also allowed me to, I believe that the Bible was the word of God.

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So when I was presented with the gospel, the Protestant born again gospel, it was in 1978 at Arizona State University.

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And it said right there in black and white that you could know you were going to heaven when you die. We're saved.

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I was like, I'm in like, sure. So it was an organization called the

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Navigators. Very serious, if you've heard of them, very serious scripture, memory, discipleship, evangelism, the whole thing.

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It was great, but kind of fundamentalistic and, you know, dispensationalism was huge in this late seventies, eighties, like great planet earth, the whole thing.

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And so graduated, wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life. And then I met a gentleman who introduced me to reform theology.

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I think you're a little familiar with that, right? Oh yeah, a little bit. So that was when

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I was 24 and it was 1985, early 85. That's around the same time I got introduced to it, actually.

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Did you? Yeah, I was watching R .C. Sproul. I was secretly watching R .C. Sproul in like my bedroom at night and becoming more reformed.

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Well, yeah, because I was going to a seeker sensitive church. So I didn't even realize it was like watching my undoing.

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Is this allowed? And the gentleman who introduced this to me suggested

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I go to seminary. I loved reading. He said, do you like to read? I said, yeah, I love to read.

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So he said, why don't you just go get a master's degree at seminary, kind of figure out your theology and go to seminary.

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And he got me on a reading program like Calvin and Hodge and B .B. Warfield. It was incredible.

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It was upside down from what I had believed more as a pietistic Christian. And so I said, sure,

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I'll go to seminary. I was going to maybe get a Ph .D. and teach or something and ended up moving back to Philadelphia and going to Westminster in Philly because he moved to D .C.

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I'll check it out. And then I'm going right back to California. And then so happened my wife in God's providence. She wasn't my wife then, but this young lady was there and we ended up getting engaged after four months.

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And great story. And I didn't want to go to get a Ph .D. Higher education was pretty liberal and lefty back then before woke.

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And I just, so just got involved in life and ended up building business. I've been in sales. I sell technology now and kind of lived, lived in Pennsylvania for a number of years,

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California, Illinois, Chicago area for 17. And now back down here or I'm not back down here, but it's where we got married.

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My wife's from Jacksonville and we live in Tampa area. And then this is, you see behind here is my office and my, where I spend most of my life.

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My writing I do right here. And yeah, so three kids, 23, 29 and 33.

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And then I, my 33 year old daughter has three children who are three and under. That's awesome.

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And that's brutal. It's, it's so, you forget my, thank God my wife can be a full -time grandmother and they only live five minutes away.

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So it's, it's, you know, I look back at what God, excuse me, said to Abram in Genesis 12, that this whole point of this deal was to bless through him and I'm, we are experiencing those blessings.

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Praise God. Right now, this very moment. It's just, anyway, that's part of the conversation we could have.

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That's just been my life. In fact, when I was in school, one of these navigator leader, he,

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I was leaving to go back to California. And he said, the Lord gave me this verse for you, Psalm 48, 14, and it's, this

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God will be our God. This God will be our God. And he is our guide even to the end.

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And that's just, you know, you see it, any Christian who's seeking him knows it's just insane how he guides and directs our lives.

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It's just incredible. It is. So, and, and speaking of the way

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I actually found out about you was I, I don't remember exact timelines, but I was on the eschatology matters

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YouTube page or YouTube channel. And I saw this like new show by based boomer.

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And I was like, I was like, I got to get to know this guy. Like anybody that would have the name based boomer, like I want to,

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I want to know. And then, you know, in the course of things, I ended up doing something else. And, and then like,

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I don't know, six months later, I get an email from you about, about this book. And I'm like, wait a minute, that's the guy that's the guy that I saw on eschatology matters.

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So the context of the email was, Hey, I wrote this book and would you check it out and see what you think?

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And I was so intrigued by it, especially like the, the red pill, blue pill, because I love the matrix, such a great movie.

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That's good to know. Okay. Yeah. I love the matrix. I love the first matrix. I tried really hard to actually like the second and the third out of loyalty.

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The first, but it just, it was difficult, quite the same. It's not. Yeah. It's when the brothers became the sisters and things just got weird.

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But but anyway, I was, as I was just looking at the cover and then seeing this picture of Trump on the cover and, and the title going back in order to find our way forward or in order to,

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I might be saying that. So people kind of get a sense of what we're talking about. Yeah.

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Going back to find the way forward. Look at me. No look. Awesome. Anyway, I was so intrigued by it.

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So I did what I normally do. I read a few pages and I set it down and didn't read for a very long time.

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And then you kept getting emails from me, right? Well, I got one more, two more, three, I don't know, but, but I remembered it and got back to it and I really enjoyed the book brother.

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So maybe, maybe let's dive into what was even the reason behind writing this book?

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I know it's not your first book, but like, what was the, what was sort of the impetus going into all of that? Yeah. You know,

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I've always loved to write, but it wasn't until I was 55 when

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I got my first idea for writing a book cause I'd never done it. And I like to read. So the, the impetus and this sort of relates to this book too.

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The impetus for my first book was the, um, the rise of the nuns, you know, we're not talking about N U N S but N O N E S because you know, 14, 15 before Trump sucked all the oxygen out of the room, there was a lot of news about Christian young people growing up in churches, faithful, and then going off to college or whatever and abandoning their faith.

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And it really ticked me off because I thought, you know, that would never happen to my children because I taught them all their lives growing up that Christianity is the truth and that's why we believe it.

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So I wrote a book called the persuasive Christian parent, how to build an enduring faith in you and your children. So it's very apologetics oriented to parents, basically how

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I did that. And then through that I decided, well, I'm going to write another book because this idea of the Bible not being able to be made up or invented, um, the stories are just too bizarre or whatever.

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So I wrote a book called uninvented, how the Bible could not be made up in the evidence that proves it. And so I was, okay,

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I got to write another book and I'm thinking of something, okay, I got this idea and I'm reading stuff and then the election was stolen and well,

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I believed it was stolen. It was compromised. Seriously. Yeah. Yeah. 2020 right. For Trump. Right.

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And I was no, to say I was not a Trump fan when he came down the escalator would be an understatement.

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I, I, despite, I don't know how you felt, were you ever, I think in 2016

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I was, I was begrudgingly supportive, um, because obviously

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I couldn't vote for Hillary. Um, and at, and, and really the day of the election,

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I decided to vote. Um, I decided that, um, that I needed to participate in some sense.

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I'm a veteran. I served in the, in the military and I really do value, uh, you know, participating in our government.

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Uh, and I, and you hit on that in the book actually, and I thought it was really helpful and you hit on it in a local level, which often gets overlooked.

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But, but I was, I don't know, I was just convinced I can't abstain from this. This is, this is something

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I'm supposed to do. And Trump's the guy that I've got in front of me. That was sort of my motivation in 2016.

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Well, you know, the red pill is so apropos as a metaphor because I despised him.

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It was June 15, 2016 first words in the book are there was a rip in the space time continuum when he came down the escalator.

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Like, I have no idea what that means, but something happened. Something pretty profound happened and nothing's never going to be present.

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It's a joke. It's just as, ah, I don't like Trump. And then the, his enemies were so over the top.

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I mean, it was incredible. I was like, can anybody be this bad? And the thing that was really persuasive to me was some people that I respected were taking him seriously, which was kind of strange.

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And then his children, I mean, they were well -adjusted, normal adults running as not spoiled brats.

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And I thought to me, children is everything. The first section of my first book was, it's all about parents because parents 99 .9

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% of the time are a reflection of their, their parents, the kids are. So started opening my mind, um, okay.

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And then in June of 16, we were in Illinois and the primary was in June and, uh,

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I was going to vote for Ted Cruz cause yeah, I just can't vote for Trump. And yet, yeah. And my mother -in -law talked me into it.

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So when I voted for him, it was, I was, I felt guilty actually vote for Trump, you know, and then

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I couldn't write Hillary, but come on. So, uh, and he was of course going to lose and then he won and then to see what they did for him for four years to four years.

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And it, it just, that's what convinced me. It was incredible. And then the election is taking not just him,

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Kash Patel, Roger Stone, um, what was, who was the guy that you quote that was really influential for you?

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Steve Bannon. Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to get to. Exactly. They just attacked, attacked, attacked not only Trump, but everybody around him.

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Exactly. I think they could. So what the election did to me, okay, so I've been a conservative since 1980.

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So when Reagan was elected, my dad was an Italian Catholic Democrat and it'll never change. And so I voted for Jimmy Carter, but don't tell anybody.

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So I see Reagan the first day we're at the Arizona state student union, we're watching him on the big screen.

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I go, huh, this guy sounds pretty interesting. So through Francis Schaeffer, I've, you've heard of Francis Schaeffer, I assume, you know, his apologetics kind of opened my world.

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And so I became a conservative. So I was a card carrying member of con ink, right?

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Which is a con and didn't know it. And it took Trump to open my eyes to that. Yeah.

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When you say con ink, I know what you mean, but for the person listening, what are you talking about? Like the Rhino establishment

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Republican sort of, yeah, the whole, the whole establishment Republican party, which

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I call today, having learned about the post -World War II consensus familiar with that phrase, all that stuff that it's, they've just been a con.

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It's a grift that they're liberals and skirts is what I call them. Their abbreviation is con. So yeah, they are cons.

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I mean, it's just, they talk a good game over and over, you know, you just say, okay, now, yeah, we got finally got this and you know,

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Newt Gingrich in the nineties and then boom, boom. And then the tea party. And then it's just, and then now this happens and none of it would have happened from 16 to 20.

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If it wasn't for Republicans, right. If Republicans actually fought against the communists and the

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Marxist, right. Wouldn't have happened just as much as the Democrats. If they actually conserved anything, they can serve the progressive leftist games of the last hundred years.

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Yeah. That's what they do. Yeah. So elections over. I thought this is it.

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We're gone forever. I was so depressed. I mean, as press as I've ever been. And I find it.

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Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's November of 20 and I find Bannon's war room on YouTube because it was on YouTube at the time.

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And so what I say is that he, he got me out of the fetal position and to mix metaphors, he talked me off the ledge because he has no time for thumb suckers.

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Yeah. And I love Bannon. I mean, he's just, so what he says is that we have agency, which as Christians, well, of course we do.

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We're made in God's image. I mean, he made us to be choice accountable beings who can change things, right?

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We're co -creators with the living God. But I was just so part of his eschatology too.

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I was just skeptical, sin, you know, the devil owns the world, all that stuff. And I started to grow optimistic because he said, it's just, it's agency.

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And then it's action, action, action. You're going to achieve anything you're going to do. You're going to make it happen.

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And he would, he would have all kinds of people through the show who are starting to do things.

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And you know, it's just, and I, so I started to become optimistic, exact, you know, like, wow, maybe something can happen here.

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Maybe something is happening here. And COVID was everything, really. I call it the neutron bomb of truth because God's, I first heard you with one of the canon press guys talking about post -millennialism.

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And he said, it's, it's sanctification in histories, the phrase he used.

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I'd never heard that. It's like, I love that because God truly is providentially in control of all things.

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And Mike Lindell, who's no post -millennialist, was saying right from the beginning, this is

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God's providence. This is God's providence. God meant this to happen. And I just wrote something on Twitter today.

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It's like, is it, is there any more evidence now that God in his providence allowed this to all to happen?

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I mean, and then once Butler happened, it was like, oh my. So I needed a theological justification for my optimism.

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There's a long way to this story. Do you think just we're, you know, just to jump in to one of the things you said, do you think that COVID was a

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Marxist overplay that, that they, they have been for a long time sort of trying to do what

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Gramsci argues for and taking the institutions as Herbert Marcuse talks about the same thing in the

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Frankfurt school, taking over education, entertainment, the media, the religion, all the long march through the institutions.

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To me, Hillary, and then the, the sort of COVID thing was the overreach.

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That was the, that was the chaos infused into the system to cause their globalist dreams to come true.

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And it failed. That, that's like where I'm leaning, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. I really couldn't agree more that, that.

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So I go in the book, I go back quite a ways, I go back to Abraham as we've talked about that, that, and I love kind of the scope of history and where ideas come from and how they, the implications and all that.

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So how I look at it is you have the heathens or the pagans, whatever, you have one slice of humanity.

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That's the, the, the seed of the serpent. And then you have the seed of the woman, which is the blessing of God's people.

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And that whole, that whole parallel track in history started with Abram and it went for 2000 years, finally to Christ.

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And that's, to me, it's like this continued on, started with the enlightenment and you can go back.

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I mean, you can, there's so many ways you could parse this. And then it came to secularism, which was grew out of the enlightenment and then progressivism, which grew out of secularism.

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You know, God was persona non grata. And this idea of the, and I talk about all of this really in the book, the rule by experts,

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Woodrow Wilson actually wrote in 1887, a paper at Princeton about that. And, and as soon as he was elected, it's like, boom, and it all seemed so plausible when you have evolution and you know, all of this stuff about how complicated society is now and the experts in science and, you know,

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I talk about progress and progressivism and how it got bastardized in the 19th century and so on.

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And people confused that with, like I did, with post -millennialism, just progressive secularism.

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And so all of this was sort of the inevitable outcome of this whole

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Babelian, you know, it's that tower of Babel that man could do anything, was

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COVID. I mean, you said overreach, right? That's, to me,

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God's judgment in his mercy is that he allowed them to overreach. So that just became so obvious to every, all of the liberals and lefties were, oh my.

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Oh, it was such a backfire. I mean, anecdotally for me, it was such a backfire for them because I've been a conservative basically my whole life, probably of the same variety that you were, and maybe even really not that interested in politics too much.

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And sort of the experts are the experts. They kind of, they do their thing and, right.

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And I'm a nerd and I like theology and I'm going to stay in my lane. But COVID really awakened me to a lot, a lot of things that are going on in the world.

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Some of them, some people would even say, or even leaning towards conspiratorial, but like the

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Jeffrey Epstein stuff, all sorts of different things that I would have never questioned. I would have,

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I would have never questioned. I would have been the sort of just go in my lane, do my thing. And they overplayed it, especially for me.

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Like for instance, my wife and I with vaccines, we would have never questioned vaccines until this.

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And now we're seeing, like, I remember watching the mayor of New York at the time, Blasio shove

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French fries in his mouth and make chewing saliva noises on the camera and say, if you take the vaccine, you can go down to Joey bag of donuts or whatever, whatever restaurant he was talking about.

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They'll give you a free thing of fries. And I was watching NASCAR saying, we'll give you a six pack of beer if you, if you take the vaccine.

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I'm like, what in the world is happening? And it caused me to lose faith in all of these different institutions and start questioning.

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Yeah. And part of the title of the book came from people like you and just millions, tens of millions of normal Americans saying something's, something's wrong here.

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Yeah. This is, this is not cutting it, you know? And to me, the red pill, the metaphor for the matrix is perfect because you really have a choice.

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You know, here's, here's one choice, Neo. You could take the blue pill and just go on your merry way. Keep listening to the media and what they do.

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Or you take the red pill and you go down the rabbit hole and see how far it goes. And I love what he says to Neo.

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He says, all I have to offer is the truth. And um, and that's what makes this so powerful.

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The metaphor and COVID and the overplaying was because the fact that people are discovering truth has metaphysical and spiritual implications.

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And that's huge because truth exists not because it's just the way things are, but because of he who is the truth.

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So here's what your book did for me. I'll just kind of say right off the bat what it, what it did. I had,

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I'm a post -millennial through and through. Uh, I am. How long have you been so? Um, so ignorantly, ignorantly,

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I have been a post -millennial for 10 years. I thought, thought that R .C. Sproul was a millennial.

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I didn't know either until like earlier this year. I didn't know. So I read, I read his book,

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The Last Days According to Jesus and believed, believed everything in it, which is partial preterist post -millennialism.

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But I thought that the title for that view was amillennialism and I didn't investigate it any further. Cause I was like,

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Hey, this is, this makes so much sense. I believe this. And seven years ago, so three years into that,

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I realized, Oh wait, I'm not amillennial at all. Cause I read a case for amillennialism by Kim Riddle Barker, thinking that it was going to be what basically the same thing

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Sproul wrote. And I was like, okay, that's not my view. But it was Kim that caused me, I was,

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I was pan mill all my life since, you know, since the early days, it's all pan out in the end.

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And then, you know, somewhere in 2014 I heard a series of talks based on that book and it's like,

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Oh, I guess the Bible does say something about it. So that, that's what I was until August of 22, but it turned, amillennialism made me more pessimistic.

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Yeah, of course. You know, and they think it's, well, it's, we're taking sin seriously, but you know,

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I'm pretty idealistic. Like I want to change the world. I always believed I could, but I, as an amillennial,

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I mocked my younger self who thought I could change the world. Right. And what should we take more seriously?

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I mean, I I'm, I'm a total depravity guy. Like I'm, I love Calvinism and the reformation, but, but if I'm going to take either total depravity or the irresistible grace or, or redemption or justification or saying, if I'm going to take concepts as being more serious, more efficacious than my own sin,

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I have to believe that his grace and the power of his spirit at work in me making me a new creation is more powerful than the old man.

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I have to believe that or else I'm, I'm some sort of weird dualist. Yeah. Well, Gnostic dualism is, is the kind of the church's assumption from pietism.

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I don't talk a lot about pietism in the book cause I'm writing another book kind of going over some of that stuff. I'm glad you are.

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Pietism is, is, pietism is a disaster. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Well, it's, you know, there was some good stuff that came out of it and in the pie early pietists were not at all like the dispensationalists, right?

25:28

But that whole flow through the 18th and then into the 18th century when you get Darby and the

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Plymouth brethren. And then it just all kind of revivalism, you know, just as it was a perfect storm, which parallel secularism so perfectly.

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It's just fascinating to kind of see. It's sort of like the Habsburgs in their first generation didn't have any crazy genetic traits, but just let it go a little while and it gets sort of the same thing.

25:58

But that's where we are. We're at the end. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Of these kinds of traits. Cause back in, you know,

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I don't know, I have a book by Lorraine Bettner called the millennium. Yeah. Yeah.

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He was like the only post -millennialist left in the world, 1940s or fifties.

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That might be actually true. And now, you know, there's a revival. I pray for the revival of that too, you know, because I'm working every week for it.

26:23

Yeah, exactly. So my brand or my view, at least of post -millennialism,

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I'm very preterist. I'm not full preterist. I think that preterism explains so much, but I'm not, not everything is a nail and not every tool is a hammer.

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Like I get it. But the, the sort of place I had settled into was that America as an empire is probably going to fall.

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And my job is to prepare people for how do we rebuild from the ashes, whatever, whatever replaces it, because I was becoming so pessimistic with America and yet so optimistic with the kingdom of God that I was,

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I was looking at it sort of through that lens. And one of the things that your book actually did, I told you before we even came on that it revived a hunger for reading for me because it was well -written and it was interesting, but, but also it revived a kind of optimism inside of me for America might not be lost.

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And I thought that that was a good thing that, that you sort of helped me invigorate in me.

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And the key thing that, that I see as, as being like the, the part of that, it's just this simple idea that the enemies are not really in control anymore.

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The fact that they've overplayed the fact that they've, they've swung one last time for the fences is the bottom of the ninth and down by three.

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And they missed lets me know that actually the future is quite bright.

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That's sort of the, the feeling I got walking away from your book is that they've, they've overplayed they're losing.

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Now let's take actually responsibility for, for, for ourselves as Christians and let's build something truly glorious.

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That's what I walked away from your book with a kind of optimism for the current moment. Well, I've always had optimism for the kingdom.

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I gained more optimism for America and what we can do here. Yeah. Well, it's so interesting because I found, you know,

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I was looking for early 22. I said, okay, I'm going to change what I'm going to write a book about this whole moment we're going through.

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And then it was August of that year that I listened to a James White, a sermon on my journey to hope.

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Yeah. I was listening to my MP3 player on a walk. I go, wow.

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Went upstairs. I was in Miami with a friend and I said, I think I'm becoming post -millennial, you know, it was just made so much sense.

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And it put together for me everything about what I was feeling about God, providentially working in history that, you know, it's not done with this.

28:56

Right. Right. And it's not, and even America, because when you look at how America, see federalism is a blessing.

29:05

So for those aren't familiar with federalism, it's basically that, you know, the 13 colonies were 13 basically sovereign

29:11

States. First they had a central government, it was too weak. So the constitution under the articles of confederation, and then you have the federal constitution and there was a whole battle about that.

29:23

But as, as decrepit as the constitution and federalism is today during COVID, it's still worked to a great degree.

29:33

I mean, look what's happening. So we're in Florida and when I moved here, I could not believe we moved here in June of 17.

29:42

And I could not believe the number of foreign foreign out -of -state license plates and it blew my mind.

29:48

And, you know, they went a little too far with COVID in my opinion, but still pretty good. And you look at today and you look at, it's just, it's, it's run completely what they're doing in LA.

30:00

You know, I'm from LA, what they're doing now, there wouldn't dare do that here. Right. At all.

30:06

Right. Because there is a certain level of sovereignty. So there is something about the genius of the founders.

30:12

And didn't South Carolina, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but it, this is proving your point. Didn't South Carolina just say that it's constitutionally legal?

30:19

I think the Supreme Court ruled on this, that they can defund Planned Parenthood on a state level.

30:25

Right. That's amazing. I don't understand the legalese of it, but yeah, yeah. So which is a small victory, but it still is, you know, and so, so the, so the idea, so the, the, so going back to find a way forward is that we have to, like I mentioned that sanctification in history, we have to go back to learn what

30:48

God has done. And I believe that God is sovereignly building his kingdom, extending

30:54

Christ's reign and building his church. I got that phraseology from Joe boot and that means history is his, it's his story, right?

31:03

So where we are, I can't look at it any other way and how things have gone down, especially since the election,

31:11

Spence Butler, Butler was a year ago, Sunday, right? And or the next

31:17

Sunday and all of that Trump, the election and how the left has been completely destroyed and what's happening to the

31:25

Democrat party. So it's giving us a shot. So it's Trump, a great awakening in the refounding of America.

31:31

And I have a painting up here in my office, which I see every day is

31:37

Washington, his great white steed on his knees praying.

31:42

And I was given to that for my 60th birthday by my wife and daughter. And it was really providential because as I was thinking about this book, thinking about refounding of America, the only reason

31:53

America was founded was because of God. If we believe anything else. So I talk in history about a

31:59

Christian theology of history, right? How do we interpret history and how do we interpret the founding of America?

32:06

I go back to St. Patrick and Alfred the Great and Magna Carta and all that God he's doing.

32:15

So to think that he's not doing now and he's just like, evil's going to, the left's going to win and Marx is going to win.

32:21

It's nuts. You mentioned the cultural Marxism and Marcuse and all those guys, right?

32:27

Yeah. I mean, all of that played into it and they just really thought they got it now.

32:33

This is it. So let me ask you this. This is a question that I still have is how is

32:39

Trump a catalyst for this? Obviously we know that the Lord is sovereign. So in a

32:44

Jonathan Edwards sort of way, we see the hand of God's providence over the events of all of this.

32:50

And yet on the ground, 2016 was something seismic. And how in the flesh and blood of it, how in the time and space of it is

33:00

Trump actually a catalyst for this sort of what you're saying is going to be cultural renewal and revival that's going to be coming.

33:08

So when he came down the escalator and Charlie Kirk said this that day as they were talking about the anniversary on June 16th, is that he said things that nobody else would say.

33:21

And being part of con ink, you know, this whole grift of Republicans who are afraid of the media and all that, he said things and he was just, boom.

33:30

And in your face, this is the truth as he sees it, boom. To me, that was a huge instigator because he was no longer going to fear the blob, the media, the left progressive.

33:48

Yeah. He's untethered. And so it was interesting because as he was running in the primary in 15 and 16, this idea that he was a businessman and couldn't be bought,

33:58

I thought, well, but how true is that? It ended up being true. He just doesn't need this.

34:03

He doesn't need them. He can't be bought. Yeah. He spent way less money than Hillary did.

34:09

He lost money. Yeah, exactly. Since he's been in office, I actually, um, that's why

34:14

I think there's just something about having the guts to say things that are politically incorrect.

34:22

You know, I mean, and that they can, you know, and that's why J .D. Vance is, was such a providentially great pick because he's learned that lesson and he's, you know, frankly, was it

34:33

Margaret? I don't care what you think or something like that. Yeah. Right. It's like, here's, and he goes, he goes into, uh, to Europe and speaks about, you know, free, free to speech and freedom of religion or whatever.

34:44

And just boom, you know, so there's something about that and you just can't escape that.

34:51

My cousin who's a doctor who helped educate me through COVID and I had my whole red pill health experience because of him and so on.

35:01

He went about a month or so ago to the white house. There was a big Maha event cause he's a doctor and he met

35:08

RFK and all that. He said, there are so many Christians in the Trump administration, it'll blow your mind.

35:16

I mean, just, he was, he was just, he was gobsmacked. He's like, I could like 80 % of these people are all

35:22

Christians. I mean, it's amazing. And you know, to me, this is so, God is so comical because he uses the most unlikely man to, to, to begin to open people's eyes to everything.

35:35

I mean, just truth about things, you know, truth about the globalists and truth about the

35:41

Marxist and truth about the medical industrial establishment and like you say, vaccines. I mean, I was always a little skeptical, but I mean, what

35:48

I've learned since it's. One of the things I love about Trump so much and, and it needed to play out a little bit for me to see it is, is he actually he, he's not a typical figure that you would look to, to be like a paragon of masculinity, but he actually is.

36:07

You know, maybe he doesn't have the physique of, of someone and you know, neither do I. But, but he has been courageous in so many different ways.

36:17

Like I remember watching, I would, for whatever reason, I never watched the news, but I saw that I turned my phone on and I just went to Fox again, never watched the news and don't trust

36:28

Fox generally speaking, and don't trust any of the major news outlets. But I saw that Shannon Breen, Breen was on and she, she graduated from the same college

36:37

I graduated from, which was Liberty university for my undergrad. I think, I think she's probably like,

36:43

I think she's probably a faithful Christian, truthful. And I saw that she was on and I was just like,

36:49

I wonder what she's having to say. There's this rally in Butler. Oh, okay. And then I watched it live.

36:55

I watched it happen. Oh my. And, and I was like, oh my goodness, like what a time to turn the news on.

37:01

And I just, I, I ended up thinking that the Lord wanted me to see this, you know, at the time that it was happening.

37:07

But I remember watching him stand up, which is not protocol the way that he did it.

37:13

And the, and the secret service team that they gave him was, was a joke and I'm not woke at all.

37:20

I'm not afraid to say there should not have been five foot two pudgy women protecting a candidate to the office of president and a former president.

37:27

Like that was utterly ridiculous. They should have had the A -team on, on that guy. But nonetheless, he stands up and he faces the crowd and his instinct in that moment was to encourage them instead of to be afraid of his life.

37:42

And I remember tears going down my face, being inspired by the vision of masculinity that I'm seeing and just thanking

37:51

God for it because I'm so tired of wussified, like cowardly yellow belly,

37:57

David French kind of men that, that our society has been told to look up to.

38:02

And I was so thankful for finally a vision of masculinity. Sorry, I said it out there. Yeah, I know.

38:08

I mean, it was, it was so powerful. And it was so counterintuitive because a normal human being doesn't do that.

38:17

Right. A normal human being cowers because you don't know how many bullets are coming afterwards.

38:23

Right. And his first instinct is fight, fight, fight for them. And that's, you know, his enemies, which again, his enemies are what opened my mind to him is he's a narcissistic, self -centered, blah, blah, blah.

38:38

He's a trippy dude. There may be some of that in there. He is so interested in others and, you know, he'll call people who are like, what is the name?

38:48

Adams. He had cancer. Scott Adams. Yeah. So he, he gets a call, he sees the number and it's, he listens.

38:58

He doesn't pick it up. Cause he, it's the white house. The president would like to speak to you. And he's like me, like, who am

39:04

I? Someone heard about it, you know? And he does that all the time. I mean, he's just, you know,

39:10

Tucker said he called him when somebody broke into their house and he called him to make sure they were okay. And I'm like, no, but that's, that's truly who he is.

39:19

And I, you know, again, it's so fascinating how God makes historical figures for the moment and how powerful our

39:27

God is, you know, he made everything out of nothing for, so this is all kind of a piece of cake for him, but, but he molded this guy in the trenches in Queens, New York, and dealing with hard hats all the time and truly, you know, knowing he needed to get the best out of them and to get what he wanted.

39:46

And it's just, it's really remarkable. And there's just, he's such a freak of nature that you know,

39:54

God, especially after Butler, even secular people, it's like something spiritual happened here.

40:02

This is, you know, and people would say that after Butler, the election was over.

40:08

I mean, it's just... Right. And I called it right after that. I was like, here's a guy who's what, indicted 4 ,000 times or whatever.

40:15

He needs this? I mean, really? He must genuinely want America to be great again.

40:20

That proved to me he loved the country. Another one that really inspired me was

40:26

I was afraid for a little while that Trump was going to be sort of bought and paid for by the state of Israel.

40:33

And I'm not a person that says that we shouldn't have allies in the Middle East, but I'm definitely, and you know this,

40:40

I'm not a person that says that Israel is the chosen people of God. The church is the chosen people. We are the

40:45

Israel of God. We've been grafted into Christ. They have been severed because of their unbelief and they need to repent and come back to Jesus, but we don't hold them up as a kind of magical charm that's going to,

40:57

God's going to bless us as our friend Ted Cruz just sort of articulated. But I was afraid that, that Trump would get in with that.

41:05

And recently, I mean, the language was colorful in his little interview that he did in front of the helicopter, but I was so like,

41:12

I was blown away. Here's a president speaking freely. He says, I'm angry at Iran and I'm angry at Israel.

41:19

Both of them messed this up. They both been fighting so long. They don't know what they're doing. Clean that up a little bit.

41:25

And I was, I think some people, maybe some Christians would be like, I can't believe our president just cursed on national

41:33

TV. Actually found it refreshing. I'm like, here's a guy who can say what he wants and he's free.

41:39

He's not bought and paid for it. And that to me is, is, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Vulgarity is so, it's like water nowadays.

41:46

It's just used all the time. And so it's, you know, it's the F word. They've kind of ruined it.

41:51

It's like, it's like, it's ridiculous. But sometimes there are some times when it's required or it's, it's apropos and that, you know, that was, but yeah, he can't really be manipulated if he believes something's good and he believes it's, and if he thinks somebody's screwing him, you know, he will let them know.

42:15

So, so Mike, you've pointed out, and I think successfully that Trump is an aberration in the matrix.

42:22

That's a good way to put it. Yeah. He's a shift in the code and, and it, it's pointing to something.

42:28

So practically speaking now as Christians, how do we view we're what, 200 something days into the

42:35

Trump presidency or whatever it is, 180. How do we view it? How do we practically get involved?

42:41

What are we supposed to do? It seems like God's given us space to do something. What do we do with that space?

42:47

Yeah. Well, one of the things, you know, we've learned hopefully, and I talk about this in the book, is that true governance is local.

42:58

I mean, it starts as Christians, right? With the family and governing your family. But there's a whole world right outside our door that has to be governed.

43:08

So, um, and, and it's, it's governed in a way that represents something, right?

43:14

So we live in a representative republic. So one of the things that on Bannon's War Room that I learned about was the,

43:22

I'm going to forget it, the precinct project. So there are something like 4 ,000 precinct positions in the

43:32

Republican Party throughout the country. What is a precinct position? What is a precinct position? I read it in the book, but for those who don't know.

43:39

Yeah, a precinct is, is a, is a, a location, geographic location with a certain number of voters.

43:47

Okay. So each precinct might have a thousand voters, as an example, and it's all through the country.

43:53

So ours is 38. So, so this guy put together the precinct project and this was, this was about the time of the

44:04

Tea Party and, um, trying to recruit average

44:09

Republicans and people to get involved in the party. Cause then they can have an influence on up the chain, you know, cause the precinct people, the committee people vote for people up here.

44:21

And so it's all representative, you know? And so we actually did. And it's politically dangerous for people up the totem pole to not vote with what the precinct wants.

44:32

Yeah. Or at least to take it into consideration, you know, cause people are actually taking, this is very difficult because I quote

44:39

McKinley, uh, I believe it is in the book about people in the 18, what was it, seventies complaining about their

44:48

Congress people being horrible. And he says in this little passage, he says, uh, it was written in the

44:54

Atlantic magazine. In fact, he says, well, people don't actually get involved at the precinct level or at the local level or at the party level.

45:02

So you have no right to complain. You know, the more things change, but that's really what's required is to get involved, to do something.

45:10

And I think, you know, getting involved, but this goes back to pietism because pastors almost never encourage their flock to get involved politically.

45:24

Yeah. I, I don't, you know, I don't remember ever happening and, but yet we're the ones who, if we're to be salt and light, then, you know, so, so there are innumerable ways to actually get involved.

45:40

And I know it's hard based on people's positions in life, but you know, and just teaming up with others of what we're doing on the internet is important.

45:49

Information is important. I mean, I call the, the internet, the Gutenberg press of the 21st century, you know, and the, those that were trying to build a new first century

46:01

Babel didn't count on the internet. There's just no way you can keep information and keep knowledge now, right.

46:10

It's really impossible. Right. And, and that's what the Catholic church found out with the reformation, you know?

46:16

So you know, I think, you know, getting involved in, to me, it's fascinating to, to, we go to our

46:21

Republican County meetings and we're in a pretty conservative part of the state of Florida, which is all becoming more conservative, thank

46:29

God. But to, to see what happens at the local level, you know, and then it goes up from there.

46:35

You're not going to, it's not going to always be getting the guy at the top, you know, cause what's happening with the

46:40

Senate now and they're ruining the big, beautiful bill that the Congress passed that was not perfect, but it was better. So what do we do to continue to have

46:48

Christians bubble up? Yeah. You know, and that's, that's a good analogy to one of the ways that I've thought about it.

46:55

So like, imagine that you've got bowls of different sizes that are stacked on each other of a sort.

47:01

And when the smaller bowl is filled, then it starts to overflow into a little bit larger bowl and then that fills up and then, and then it just keeps cascading down.

47:11

Right. So one of the ways that I've thought about this is we have to exert a massive amount of energy and effort nationally, but, but locally in our churches to disciple our people, because this push towards this very thin evangelism where we win people into the kingdom, but we don't ever do anything to disciple them is not working.

47:34

It's actually ruining the church and making us unaffected. So let's do that.

47:39

And then guess what? If we do that really well, husbands start discipling their wives and then wives start discipling children.

47:48

And then my goodness, what would happen if a family got really good at discipleship and started doing it with their neighbors?

47:54

And the cascading effect is, is contagious, but it has to begin about around a discipleship centric model,

48:01

I think, in the church. I love that because my first, I went to a right response. So I, I became

48:06

Post Mill in August of 22 and I started to give you a sense of how

48:13

God was in this. I'm looking for a justification for my theological, for my optimism.

48:19

It's like two or three weeks later, I hear Doug Wilson say on a, he was, it was like a panel talk and he goes, now with post -millennialism, you have a theological justification for your optimism.

48:28

I go, that's it, right? That actually is it. So I go to my first Post Mill conference in Texas, right response,

48:38

Joel Webb and I'm sure you know him. Yeah. I'm a big fan of him. And it was amazing because there were 500 people in Texas on a weekend at a conference.

48:45

And I didn't know there were, you could get 500 post mills in one building in a weekend, let alone there were even 500 post mills in the world, you know?

48:53

I just didn't realize that this is something's happening here. And one of the guys, I think his name is

48:58

Dale Partridge. He said, we need to disciple lawyers, you know, and just think about, we need to disciple and Canon and, you know,

49:09

Doug and Wilson and his son. And, you know, this I think is happening more is that the discipleship is not, so I think of discipleship in such pietistic ways, you know, it's

49:23

Bible study, it's you're reading your word, your quiet time in the mornings, memorizing scripture, all of that's critically important, but how about we disciple

49:32

Christian lawyers and show them about the nature of biblical law and God's, well, however, right?

49:40

And it could be anything, Christian educators, Christian filmmakers, authors, and so on and so forth.

49:45

So good. Yeah. It's taking the vision of what you were saying and then applying it.

49:51

Christian businessman, because we need rich Christians, right? That helps. Right. So Christian on and on.

49:57

I don't know if you know of Marcus Pittman. Marcus? Yeah. Marcus Pittman. Sounds familiar, but.

50:04

Yeah, so he did the documentary for Apology, Babies Are Murdered Here.

50:10

And now. Yeah, I've heard him, in fact. Now he's out at Canon and his entire thing is creating this platform called

50:18

Moore, L -O -O -R dot TV, as a Christian platform for really talented artists and artisans and filmmakers and all this stuff.

50:29

And I'm watching God do this. It's like, for instance, on this podcast, every week

50:34

I'm seeing people text, email, whatever Facebook message, send me a message on X that they're being convinced of post -millennialism.

50:42

Like right now, there's a Bible study somewhere that keeps adding me, you know, at Kendall Langford and they're so excited about post -millennialism and they're just they're like flourishing.

50:52

I'm seeing it every week. It's like God is expanding the borders and giving people hope, which is invigorating, right?

50:58

That is so huge. I, you know, if you if you if you're going into a battle and, you know, you're destined to lose, even though, you know, they're like, why?

51:11

What's the point? You know, post -millennialism is so beautiful. You know, the people that are against post -millennialism think we're talking about us in our own efforts going and doing an accomplice.

51:23

No, this is actually partaking of God's promise to advance his kingdom on earth.

51:30

I mean, in Christ's reign, he's at the right hand of God. And this idea of victory, this idea that we're not in this to get smashed and, you know, need to be rescued from a sinking ship.

51:41

Right. I mean, that really does appeal to people. Right. It really does. It appeals to our sin nature so much.

51:47

And I think like God says in the Scriptures, 365 times, fear not. So with something for one day each day of the year.

51:56

Exactly. I love that. So for for a system of theology that so weaponizes fear, anxiety and depression, dispensationalism, it can't even possibly be biblical because it runs afoul of all of the commands of do not fear, be not afraid, believe the promises.

52:17

Yeah. Every morning I repent of my worry, fear, doubt and anxiety because I'm so given naturally to that.

52:25

And Isaiah 26, Isaiah says, you will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you.

52:32

Amen. So if I don't have perfect peace, I don't trust. And it all comes down, no matter what we're doing in any context, give thanks in all circumstances, you know, that he he wants us to win no matter what that looks like at the moment.

52:47

You know, the Puritans, you know, got that stuff. We're going to head back up to 14 in Isaiah 11, 9 for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the

52:56

Lord as the waters cover the sea. They believe this could happen. Amen. You know, it wasn't just this kind of.

53:03

So I pray every morning I pray for revival, renewal, restoration and reformation. Right.

53:08

Because the pietistic me would have prayed for revival. And so what if it doesn't happen in our lifetime?

53:14

Like I love the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Fiery Furnace. They're like, our

53:19

God can do this. Our God will do this. And even if he doesn't, even if he doesn't, my my dead body will be the stepping stone for the next generation to take it further than I did.

53:31

And that's a vision talking about masculine vision. That's a vision men can get on board with.

53:37

We need a mission. You tell me. That's something that a jihadist Muslim would go, wow.

53:44

Right. Right. Right. He's like, they're like, we're warriors. And like, yeah, we are too.

53:51

We got this stuff. Ours is true. Right. Amen. You know, and that's that's kind of the the issue is the well,

54:02

I think it's a theology of victory. Yes. You know, and we're building cathedrals we're not going to worship in.

54:08

We get that part. Life is short. Right. As you get my age is like my mom is ninety two and I talk to her all the time and, you know, it's just like you can't.

54:19

Great. Give our time. We give ourselves faithfully to whatever he has for us.

54:25

And then you leave that to that next generation, because to me, God built.

54:32

A generational faith, that's you know, when you look at Scripture, it's so clear. It's Doug Wilson always says, you know, the

54:39

Old Testament, it wasn't generation, but specifically the New Testament was that it would be.

54:47

You know, and you look goes from this little spot in the Middle East to literally all over the globe. Yeah.

54:52

Every latitude, every longitude, every time zone has a church and it's just growing.

54:58

I tell people like, I don't know if you know this or not, and I'm not talking to you. I'm talking like hypothetically to that person.

55:05

Did you know that Christianity has quadrupled in size in the last hundred years? Why isn't people talk?

55:10

Why aren't people talking about that? That literally the church is four times larger today than it was a hundred years ago.

55:18

When we like to go back and think of the glory days of Christianity a hundred years ago. It's Jonathan Edwards was predicting what would happen in Africa.

55:28

It would be Christianized. They would be writing stuff and encouraging us. Yeah. I still think that that's future.

55:34

That's going to happen. Yeah. What's happening more than it has ever has, because when I was a kid, you know, it was the dark continent.

55:40

There was no, you know, there are nations, literally, I don't know if it's Ethiopia, whatever that are. We are a Christian nation, you know, right.

55:47

So yeah, no, it's all again, I do think we're just kind of getting started, but. So Mike, I think your book, what it's done and I hope that people go get it and maybe in just a moment, flash it back up so people can see the cover and go to Amazon and check it out.

56:03

But one of your book is done is you've pulled on a thread that God is doing right now in a tapestry of threads, but you've pulled on a thread that God is doing that we ought to be encouraged by.

56:16

And we ought to not just respond situationally and circumstantially, but we should let these things encourage us.

56:23

We should build, we should work. We should focus on our families and our marriages and our children and our neighborhoods and build outward to the glory of God.

56:32

And guess what? If all of us did that, then the nation would be fundamentally different at the end of this four years.

56:40

Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's, again, it's, it's a building block because Christians are understanding, you know, all of this journey that, that, because I believe we're at the end of secularism.

56:50

Yeah. I mean, it's just, there's nothing on the other side, you know, it's. What else is there?

56:56

Huh? What else is there? Transgenderism. What, what, what can you go further than that? 50 ,000

57:01

Americans a year, kill themselves, triple that number, try they're on anti -anxiety anti -depressant medication.

57:07

This idea of life in society without God, it just isn't working right. And people know that there's nothing else.

57:14

You can't sell atheism again. The new atheist kind of blew that the knowledge of science is proving its infinite complexity of everything.

57:22

Right. You know, so it's becoming more and more obvious. And I think the internet is an incredibly important platform for that.

57:30

So all of this. And even, even look at the, look at a pride parade, just look at people who are participating.

57:35

They don't look like the most. In Nashville, you saw that, right? I did. They don't look like the most healthy, well -adjusted people.

57:42

They don't look like they have things together in their life. Like, like despite the whole cacophony of colors and the chaos and all of it, like they just look sick.

57:52

Right. And it makes me feel sad for them. Like you've bought into a lie that's literally robbing you of every ounce of your vitality.

57:59

You look awful. And for those people that might've been, you know, they're liberal and they might've been somewhat, you know, empath, sympathetic to that whole thing.

58:09

It's discrediting it. I mean, the number of liberals who've become, I talk about Naomi Wolf in the book, she hasn't become a

58:17

Christian yet, but she, she was utterly secular agnostic and now she believes in God and the devil.

58:23

Yeah. Yeah. Russell Brand. Yeah. Russell Brand is, I mean, you know, say what you will, but he's, he's on fire and he's pretty solid, but you know, something's happening, something.

58:34

So Dylan sang when I was a kid, you know, the times, they are a changing, you know, that was the new left and you know,

58:41

Vietnam and Woodstock and all this stuff was happening. And in the boomers, really,

58:47

I call them in this piece I wrote the fulcrum generation because we kind of lived with the, at the apex of, oh man, progressivism and the sexual revolution and you know,

59:02

Freud and all of this stuff. And it's proven absolutely hollow. And the only answer is

59:10

Jesus. Amen. Amen. I'm coming out of it, brother. I'm encouraged for many reasons, but after reading your book,

59:17

I hope that everyone will go give it a read because it's, it was surprisingly dense to me.

59:23

Like it has, it interacts a lot with ideas and how ideas actually one generation handed off to the next and it, and it showed a linear pattern of how we got to where we're at, but also why it's truly in decline, as you say.

59:37

And I believe you, I think you proved the thesis. Thank you. Yeah. Cause I, it really is.

59:43

It's just so, it's so cool having been born in 60 cause it was, that was the 60s, 70s, 80s was all.

59:51

And you look, I use the Berlin wall as a metaphor because it really is perfect. Cause when Reagan said, tear down this wall was

59:57

June of 87, everyone thought, come on Ronnie, it's not going to happen.

01:00:03

The Berlin wall is not falling in our lifetime. Okay. Two years later, right?

01:00:09

Because an empire built on lies can't stand. Yeah. It's impossible. Yeah.

01:00:14

And that's all secularism and the enlightenment and rationalism. It's all they got. Postmodernism, you know, that's true.

01:00:21

We have the truth and you know, we need to be a little more humble about it, but you know, we have it and we'll share it and let

01:00:30

Jesus do his thing. You know, it's just. And with that humility, a humility,

01:00:35

I love how CS Lewis defines it. Humility is not thinking more of yourself, but it's also certainly not thinking less of yourself.

01:00:42

It's thinking of yourself less. Right? Exactly. So we don't have to be timid.

01:00:49

We don't have to be this sort of sanctified coward that we've propped up as a kind of Paragon of virtue.

01:00:57

We can be confident, bold, excited, joyful, public, and what we're doing is serving others.

01:01:05

Amen. Because that's what it's all about. You know, whatever gifts God's given us, whatever, anything, it's service because we're serving the

01:01:14

King, right? It's just he'll use and bless our most feeble efforts. You know, it's just, it's mind blowing.

01:01:21

It's just so exciting. Brother, I could, I could literally talk to you all day. I already struggle to sleep because I get excited about stuff and I'm like, it's.

01:01:31

That's a good thing to struggle with. Yeah. Well, I will probably struggle to sleep tonight. My mind will be filled with all kinds of thoughts, but I'm so thankful for you and we've got to do this again, especially if you write a book on pietism, we have to do this again.

01:01:44

But before we close, tell our audience like where we can find you, your ongoing work, where we can figure out like, you know, where to buy the book or also where to follow you on socials, where to hear about upcoming projects.

01:01:57

Give us that kind of detail. Well thank you. So I have my own website. It's MikeDVirgilio .com.

01:02:03

So I post a blog post every month, every week,

01:02:09

I'm sorry, on Wednesdays. And then I was invited last year to be part of the Eschatology Matters podcast.

01:02:16

And that's where the, Brandon, who runs it, asked me to do a based Boomer podcast because I was on a,

01:02:23

I was on John Harris's podcast called Boomer Gets Red Pilled.

01:02:28

Yeah. And. John Harris is great. Yeah, no, I really enjoy him and learned a lot from him.

01:02:34

He's red pilled me in a lot of different areas too that I'm continuing to learn about. So, so I put up stuff there or it's put up there for me.

01:02:42

Thank you, Brandon. And, and then, so this book I'm working on, I just mentioned pietism at the end of this book and I realized how powerful an influence it's been.

01:02:54

So it isn't about pietism, but it's, it's about that whole influence. And again, this kind of flow of Christian history with dispensationalism and all that.

01:03:04

And, and just kind of the assumptions I'm a very big, I'm not, I'm not a presuppositionalist in terms of apologetics, but I think,

01:03:12

I think it's assumptively all about assumptions and presuppositions all the time and how important they are.

01:03:17

And Christians all, we all have them, you know, and we're driven by them. So this book is kind of, kind of dealing with that.

01:03:24

So I'm almost done. I got another chapter to go. So, but I'm just addicted to writing and it blesses anybody

01:03:30

I'm blessed because I should be a pile of ashes on the ground somewhere smoldering and God, everything else is gravy.

01:03:38

It's just amazing. Well, you've encouraged me because you didn't publish your first book until you're 50. And I'm like, 50.

01:03:44

Well, I was 55 when I started writing it. Okay. It took forever. It was so hard. I did it all myself.

01:03:50

I'm a nobody quote. So nobody, you know, how do you. So it's, it's, it's funny, but it's, you know, if you just, if you have something and it's something

01:03:59

I have to do, I just, right. And again, if it blesses anybody, cause, cause in, in writing,

01:04:05

I just, I learned, like writing this book, I just, stuff I didn't know,

01:04:10

I was like, Oh, wow. Like Alfred the Great. I mean, how great is

01:04:15

Alfred the Great? So great. I knew nothing of him, but my daughter and son -in -law tell me about the

01:04:21

Netflix series, The Last Kingdom. Oh, I didn't even know about that. Is it good? Yeah.

01:04:27

Well, I, I loved it because I knew nothing literally about Alfred. And now that you know something, is it still good?

01:04:35

Yeah. No, I loved it. Somebody said, well, I don't envision the guy they had as Alfred is Alfred, but I didn't know it.

01:04:41

I mean, it was perfect for me. It was just, and I've read about him since and I didn't even know about this series. That's great.

01:04:47

Yeah. Yeah. We sing the battle hymn of Wessex every, every fourth week.

01:04:52

Yeah. At our church. That's our benediction. I didn't even know there was one, but that's so great. Yeah. Actually, um, look it up cause it's, it's wonderful, but, um, it's, uh, we sing it every fourth week as our benediction.

01:05:03

So like sending the troops out to battle. That's one of our hymns that we sing. Yeah. Gosh, that's it.

01:05:13

What God has done and what he's doing now could be another thousand years that people will be blessed by what's happening today, you know, right?

01:05:22

Amen. And we're just going to live forever and be raised from the dead. So, you know, there's that. We're going to have a lot of great conversations, you and I, in the library of the eternal state.

01:05:31

Forever to, forever to read. That's heaven for me. Brother, thank you so much for being on and thank you for sharing these super hopeful ideas.

01:05:39

I really do hope that people will interact with them, uh, and check out, check you out, man. Well, thank you for your kind words and your encouragement.

01:05:46

It definitely means a lot. Well, God bless you, brother. God bless you too. Amen. Amen.

01:05:52

Thanks again for watching the interview with Mike D 'Virgilio. Hope you go and check him out on all of his social media channels, mikedvirgilio .com.

01:06:00

Go check out the book and until next time, again, like I said before, have a great 4th of July weekend and we'll see you again next time on the podcast.