Provoked: What Happened to Biblical Evangelism?

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

If we don't open our mouths and commend Christ, we're not loving

Him, no matter what we're doing with our hands. What is going on, everybody?

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, everyone. Feliz Navidad. I think we said that on the last one.

Did I? Yeah, exact same. Was it even Christmas time? Uh -huh. That's crazy. It'd be weird if it wasn't Christmas and you said

Feliz Navidad, but yeah. Hey, it's been a minute, but we are provoked, and it's good to see you.

I don't think we've been, we've filmed for what? Yeah, a couple months. A while. Yeah, I mean, we have separately. I recorded with Rachel Zwane, and you recorded with Scott Hoard, but we haven't been in the studio together in months.

So, hi, guys. It's nice to be back again, and we hope that you are all,

I can't even speak. See, once you get out of the studio, don't do it for a while. Anyways, we hope that you guys are blessed, and the purpose of Provoked is to, what, equip the church to go out and preach the gospel, rescue babies, destroy cultural idols, right?

Yeah, defend the faith. Defend the faith. Yeah. I think we should do maybe a little recap of who we are for our new listeners.

We haven't been on, like, for a while. Yeah, let's do it. I was going to do it. I'm glad you filled the little dead space, because I had, like, robotic music going on.

And we hope that you enjoyed that track, if you heard it. Yeah, that was really cool. It's called Eternity. It was cool. A guy sent it to me through Facebook.

I'm like, I was telling Oscar, sometimes you get some crazy music. That was a pretty dope.

That was solid. Yeah, the lyrics are so good. It's just so good to have such reformed lyrics.

But UDES, that's Oscar Dunlap over here. This is Matt DeJesus. He works for us at the studio.

He made our intro. I did. He did. Oh, guess what? And so I go to Louisiana, and they're like, hey,

I watch your show. We're like, oh, that's cool. And he said, don't tell me the other podcasts, but your opening is the best.

Right on. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And that's because of your good work. Well, praise God. We appreciate that.

Yeah. So we could speak a little bit about who we are. Yeah. Is that what you want to do? Yeah. I mean, people are probably bored of that, but just a little recap.

We're middle -aged siblings that love the Lord and just want to encourage the church to do what we already talked about, preach the gospel, rescue babies, defend the faith, destroy cultural idols, and just really hoping to encourage you to just speak up in the everyday.

It doesn't have to be some big event, although if you do outreach events, that's awesome too. But I think

Ray Comfort said, God forbid someone knows me for more than 40 seconds without me talking about Jesus.

And you know he's got a – does he still do that to where if you find him without a track, you get 1 ,000 bucks, something like that?

Have you heard of that? No. I don't know if it was 1 ,000. It was $1 ,000. That is serious. And so one time he was at a party and somebody pushed him in the pool because he had his tight bathing suit on.

He had a track in his bathing suit. He brought it out of the water. He was like all wet. That's awesome.

That's crazy. Commitment right there. Yeah, just like you said, it's nothing conceptually hard to grasp.

We're just Christians doing what Christians should be doing according to the commands of Christ. It's not really hard to wrap your mind around, but what we want to see and what we want to do as a podcast is just help our

Christian brethren evangelize, which you guys want to do, which we'll get into in just a few minutes. But we picked

Provoked, and we had thought about the title and a name for the podcast over and over. We had thought about like Skull Crushers.

Nope, that wasn't on the table. What were some of the names? Idle Smash. Yeah, that was one of them. And Serrated Edge.

Yeah. Or Serrated or something. The Woodshed. Oh, yeah. The Woodshed was one.

What was the other one? And we were like, oh, there was another one that sounded good, too. But then we decided it was...

The Slime Master. Yep. Slime Master. No. Oh, I can't remember what it was.

Yeah, I can't remember. And then Don says, what about Provoked? And he was reading Acts chapter 17. He was listening to Pastor Jeff Sermon at ReformCon on Acts chapter 17.

And he says next to me, what about Provoked? And I just smacked him. I was like, that's it. I was like, that is awesome.

Yeah, I just smacked him right across the face with excitement. That's what she does when she's excited. She just hurts people.

No. Yeah, that's a true story except for the smacking part. No, it's pretty cool because Paul saw all the idols.

And I think as Christians, we like to bemoan the state of our nation. We could tell you all day what's wrong with it.

But it says he was provoked in his spirit. And what did he do? He confronted the situation with a gospel. He went in discussion.

He went into apologetics. He just confronted his situation and his circumstance within the nation of Israel at the time with a gospel.

And that's pretty much all that we want to do. Saying that the answer lies with the power of the gospel. It's the gospel that change hearts.

It's the redeeming power of the gospel. And so we want to get it out. And only the church can wield the gospel.

It's this redeeming all encompassing effects of the gospel cannot be done through anybody but the church.

And so it's not a plan B. It's not as if God's going to accomplish it a different way. It's our duty to get the gospel out.

And that's what we want to do with this podcast. Just let everybody know that we're not anybody special, but we want to take the ordinary person, the ordinary

Christian. It's the best thing to hear. Like we have a couple of times now, I watched your show and I'm ministering to my mother or sharing the faith with my friends or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. So my name's Desi, Desi Mays. I'm a wife of 15 years to Don.

I have three kiddos at home, Liam, Ember, and Knox. And, yeah, I've been a

Christian since about 2009, 2010. And the Lord has just given me and my husband a burden for the lost.

And we went through a period of going to like a mega church and getting really discouraged because the thought of doing public evangelism was just like, you're a freak for wanting just to talk to people.

Not a freak, but just like, it was just so foreign because of a lot of what the

American Evangelical Church teaches now, which is just, you know, you invite people to church. You, you know, make sure you got good coffee there.

They hear an inspirational message and that's it. You don't really tell people, hey, you've sinned against the

Holy God. You're dead in your sins. And Jesus is calling you to repent and believe in him and follow him and die.

That message isn't too popular right now. But over the years,

God has been so gracious to bring, you know, faithful laborers into our life to encourage us. And so now all we want to do is just tell as many people as we can about Jesus and encourage other

Christians to do the same. Gospel proclamation should be like drinking water for the

Christian, right? Yeah. And the cool thing is if you make it, especially in a church where the pastors lead from the front, you make it just normal.

The generation that follows you, it's not some big thing. You know, like I was explaining at the day of conference, they were asking what was the, when was the first time you went to an abortion mill to, to preach the gospel and rescue babies?

I said, how was that like? And I'm like, well, I drove around at like seven times I was sweating bullets and I went away from it because I really didn't have any leaders at that time to go with me to say,

Hey, this is how you do it. But then you see in like juxtaposed to that is our kids who have no problem.

Like they will fight to go to the mill, which is weird. They have no problem with fear because they know dad is there, their pastor is there.

So it's just as you get out in the front and we're leading and helping and we're not replacing the local church, of course, as a podcast, we're here underneath the accountability of it, supporting it.

But as you lead and help and equip, it mitigates the fear and it just, it normalizes it.

Right. I think the more you're like in taking it. I like what living waters does, you know, that just showing by example.

And so does apologies studios, pastor Jeff does this all the time and going out and just interacting with people and you hear the conversations and you go, this isn't rocket science.

You know, like I can share the gospel with somebody. So that's what we hope to do. Yeah. That's all we're about.

You're who are you? Oh, who am I? I am

Zach Morgan and I'm a father of seven and God saved me when I was 19 and it's been a fun rollercoaster ride.

But yeah, for early on I knew I was called to be a pastor and I knew it was called to evangelize and I was kind of in a weird church situation where they were doing cartwheels down the center with banners, uh, jumping off the stereo.

That was just me. No, I'm just kidding. I wasn't at that church. Um, but within two weeks I knew, I didn't even know what I had no spiritual background.

I had no training whatsoever and nobody, but I'm like, I'm, I think I gotta within two weeks of being saved,

I need to be a pastor and I should be out sharing the gospel. And so it's just been a journey in different church situations, trying to do that, learning from, you know, where it went kind of wrong and that was, uh, uh, suppressed, you know, and we could talk a little bit more about that.

But here I am, pastor, one of the pastors of Apologia Church and just trying to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Yeah. So what are we going to do today? Well, we brought these two guys in there, Apologians and um, good friends.

Oscar Dunlap is a deacon and uh, Matthew DeJesus is a veteran, uh, evangelist.

So why don't you each kind of tell us a little bit about who you are and then I want to hear about what you guys are doing.

Okay. Well, I'll, I'll start. Um, well, I've been a believer for many years.

I, you know, 10 years old, baptized, came to a public profession of faith at that point.

Didn't know exactly what I was doing though, you know, and then went to several different, uh, churches from that point.

My parents weren't Christian. My mom was Jewish, my father Catholic. And then eventually my brother became

Mormon. Oh wow. So we've got a mixed bag of nuts. So I knew just enough, uh, about Christianity and Mormonism to know it was wrong.

And so that caused a lot of fights in my family. Even my family, my parents kind of ostracizing me a little bit because I was seemingly attacking my brother and we almost came to blows a couple of times too.

So that's not the way to evangelize. So I keep on telling Oscar that, but you know, but uh, eventually, you know, praise

God. He brought me to a mega church where Dr. James White went. We went there at the same time and uh, we knew each other.

We, you know, we were friends back then. I went as part of, not part, but I joined in on Alpha Omega ministry outreaches.

And that was when the fire was lit really in going out and evangelizing, going to Mormon events, going to the general conference up in Salt Lake and all that with him.

And so that lit the fire. And then I was handing out tracks everywhere and going all over the place and, but it wasn't preaching yet until later on.

But, um, then, you know, felt the call to go ahead and open my mouth, you know, instead of just hand out tracks or I was actually videotaping because my business also is video production.

That's a major part. And so I went ahead and, uh, I was a, a friend of Tony Miano, which

I think we all know, we all know. And he, uh, he wound up leaving California going to another state.

And, uh, what wound up happening is I was working with him on several videos and I kind of left that void where I didn't have a preacher to follow along, you know, to do his videos.

So I just felt that tap on my shoulder. Like, you know, Matt, you can open your mouth to, you know, and the first time

I went out and preach was the first Friday's two hours straight. Wow. And so I did, I thought it felt like a half hour, you know?

And that was, I was just, this is it. This is it. I knew it was the greatest thing that we could do to help bring people into the kingdom.

The greatest work that we could do. Yeah. And for those who are listening that don't know what first Friday is, it's basically an art venue in downtown

Phoenix and there's just a ton of foot traffic, lots of 20 ,000 people. Yeah. Lots of colorful characters.

Yeah. It's such a good venue though. Cause people are doing poetry and it's just, I always see a guy on a, um, hoverboard that has like a, a magic carpet.

Have you seen that guy come by? Yeah. Every time we've gone out, my Liam's always like excited to see that.

Yeah. Not to throw you a throw a wrench in it, but you guys went last Friday, right? Yes. How are the crowds like post

COVID? It's past same. Oh, absolutely. The only thing that's different is there's not as much police presence there.

Like they were having barricades and things like that, but now it's just as many people. I mean, it's amazing. That's great.

Yeah. Cause it really, really died off there for a while. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. All right.

So as you stated before, I'm Oscar. Um, I am married. I have a beautiful wife named

Teresa. I have three kids going on four. Um, I have a interesting story that I shared on another podcast, um, where I've, I was lost in a, in a false understanding of scripture, a false gospel for eight and a half, almost nine years, uh,

Hebrew Israelites. Um, and it was really by God's mercy that he saved me out of there.

Uh, that was, um, that was, uh, uh, a big chunk of my life from the time

I was 18 to 26, 27. Um, and in, in that I was as involved as you could be, right.

I was out on the street, the guy yelling at people that you see, I was that guy, right. Um, I was being groomed to lead in that, you know, in that kind of setting, um, teaching and things of that nature.

And, uh, what happened is over a long period of time, slowly, but surely the Lord showed me, um, by my own personal experience and by also observation of others, that there was no power to overcome sin and, and a false gospel, right?

Because there is no spirit. Therefore there is no sanctification because there is no finished work of Christ. Right. Right. And so all of these years, and I realize

I'm the same man that I was when I got into this, I'm no different. I may be on the outside, but inwardly there's nothing different about me.

And then observing all the guys around me, they were progressively falling deeper and deeper into sin.

So that was the first thing that struck me. Like, you know, we're promised that we would be set free from the bondage of sin and it's just not happening.

It's just not here. There's no freedom here. Um, and then after some more time, um, that, that would, that's been, that was tugging on me for a long while.

And then, uh, after some more time, um, God really miraculously, um, you know, saved me.

Um, I shared this on cultish as well, where I, uh, it was a three o 'clock in the morning. I'm driving to work and, um,

Mark 10 and 18 is just like on repeat in my head. And, uh, I, at the time

I didn't believe in the DD of Christ. I didn't believe in, uh, the Trinity or anything like that. And, uh, it's specifically, um,

Christ saying there's none good, but God and most cults, anybody that doesn't believe in the Trinity, they use that to, to disprove the

DD of Christ. Look, Christ right there. He's saying there's none good, but God. And, uh, for the first time

I, I, I understood what was being said there. Right. So I was like, really, there's none good, but God, there's none good, but God.

And I'm like, wait a second. Christ is obviously good. That's why he can save. Right. He's, he calls himself the good shepherd.

He has to be good. Right. Uh, him that had no sin became sin on our behalf. Right. Um, and he condemned sin in the flesh.

Um, I knew just for my, my lack of understanding, I still knew that Christ had to be good.

Right. And then from there it was, there's none good, but God, Christ is God and Christ is good. And therefore

Christ is God. And it snapped literally in a moment just like that. Wow. And, um, it was, uh, it's, uh, words can't explain it.

Right. I was, uh, driving to work and I was, I was bawling on the way to work. I was in tears because I knew like,

I know a lot of people that like get into reform theology later on. I, there, I didn't know what was happening there, but once I started to understand what it was to be reformed,

I was like, Oh, that was a, I knew that because I know I didn't choose this. Right. Christianity was enemy number one for me for a long time.

You know what I mean? Like all cults, you know, their target is on Christianity. That's what, that's the target. Yeah. So, uh, a long time, you know, it hasn't been that long.

That's been three years, three years since that took place. Um, a lot of, uh, picking up pieces being ostracized totally by that community.

And, uh, you know, since we did some videos, they really, they really not like me these days. Yeah, I bet.

So, um, that's been a whole journey, but, but God has been gracious. Um, and now, um, uh, thanks to Matt.

Um, I, I, you guys did a class, you did a, guys did a class here. Uh, it was an evangelism class and, um,

I went out to the class and I think it was like four, I believe it was four classes at the end. You were like, okay, we're going to go out and we're going to hand out tracks.

And so I was doing that for a while, just out there handing out tracks. Um, I was very,

I was very provoked because I know what I had done prior to being a Christian. I know that I attributed to, to, uh, uh, the suppression of knowledge in people.

I know I'd helped them suppress the knowledge of the truth because I was advocating this stuff. I was teaching people these things, you know, part of the reason why

I actually moved back to Arizona was because I felt a sense of guilt in contributing to that, uh, in other people's lives.

You know, I taught people this stuff. And so I wanted to come back and meet with these people and talk to them and share with them.

And that didn't work so well. They didn't want to hear, but a couple of them did. Where did you move to? I was in, so I was here and then we moved to Michigan for three years.

Um, so there was a, there was a, there was another congregation of that same organization I was a part of in Michigan. So then when

I was saved, um, I, I was just praying as to what was next.

Uh, this was like right at the start of COVID and I knew it was time for us to go and I didn't know exactly where, so I was praying about that.

And that's when the Lord laid on my heart. We'll go back to where this started, go back to where you've done damage and try to reconcile some of those things.

And so came back here and, uh, yeah, like I said, uh, going out with Matt one day, he actually physically tapped me on the shoulder.

He said someone, he felt the tap on the shoulder. He actually tapped me and said, all right, your turn. Really? Yeah, go.

And from that point, I've, I've been out there every day. Praise God. Praise God. And it's so cool.

Like you said, God used even through the Hebrew Israelites at eight years, you look like a

Hebrew Israelite preaching the gospel, meaning that, you know, you got used to dealing with confrontation, your faith, the faith, the face, even projecting yourself, articulating what your message is.

And so that has just gone into your gospel witness, which is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. He was actually saying that when

I was first starting, he was like, I just want to come up on the side of you and start reading really loud because that's how they do it.

There's one guy reading and one guy talking. Right. Um, but, but I think definitely God has used that.

Uh, I was explaining to a brother who was asking me about like, you know, you've only been a Christian for, you know, a few years.

Um, but it doesn't look like it, you know? And I was like, well, God did a lot of back work with me.

Like even though I wasn't a Christian, I spent an inordinate amount of time in the scripture, right? Not properly understanding it.

Right. But once God put Christ in the proper place, he was the cornerstone. All the other stuff fell into place.

Wow. You know what I mean? So exactly. Right. Cool. Amen. So you guys said, you know what, we're going to continue to go on the street, go over to mill

Avenue, go to first Fridays, go to the strip clubs. Uh, and now you want to start a podcast.

That's right. What's it called and what do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish through it? Well, uh, we want to reach the whole world for the gospel.

So that's a minor goal. It's called two witnesses podcast and with a number two, don't do to do two

W O two. And so, uh, it's something I want to do a long, long time ago.

And I never just got it together to do that. It was too busy working. But then of course,

Oscar comes along and I start talking to him about some of this. And he said, he wanted to do one too. Yeah.

I said, let's join forces. Well, you guys both have like fantastic voices for podcasting.

I think you both. Thank you very much. You're welcome. And like just, you know, street preaching, obviously you guys, your voices carry.

So it's awesome. Well, we're, we're just thrilled and blessed. Uh, we've, we're just starting.

So we have only a few shows under our belt at this time. Yeah. But, uh, we're doing more. We're going to shoot another one

Friday for our part two of our Mormon conversation that we're having with two. Uh, they're not elders.

They're actually mature men in, in their Mormonism in their thirties. And they're very well educated, you know, but it's amazing.

You got to watch it. I've watched everybody. Yeah. I was watching you guys and I was really impressed by, uh, their, their demeanor too.

They really seemed genuine and wanting to learn. And, uh, I was really blessed by the conversation.

I was saying it's the, it's the most open honest conversation I've ever had with Mormons by far, by far, especially a lot of, uh, a lot of the elders, they're not elders.

Obviously they're not prepared to, you know, answer or ask the kind of questions. So, you know, in that kind of environment where we pre -submit questions, uh, there's no surprises.

They know what we're going to talk about, give them time to prepare. Um, it just allowed it to be very fruitful in that way.

And you're not jerks too. That's always good. We're genuinely having a good time there with them and we're laughing and enjoying our time there, but we're getting to very deep subjects.

And we're coming to the great understanding that they don't even know really what they believe. There is no solid ground whatsoever.

Their God changes. He changes his mind. I asked him if these truths are eternal. They said, yes, yes, yes.

But until the next prophet changes them. So they're not eternal. Yes, but we can't know them. That's exciting.

Well, I mean, I feel like you guys have unique giftings and I just pray that, you know, the

Lord uses that to encourage his church. You know, it's, it's really cool to hear both of your, your testimonies.

And I'm excited to see how this podcast goes. Yeah. So while you're sitting there watching this

YouTube video, go over to two witnesses podcasts and press the subscribe button. You guys are on YouTube, right?

Yes. Okay. YouTube and Facebook. Okay. How about on a pod apple podcast yet? No, not yet. Not yet.

Okay. Sweet. So people fish around YouTube for hours and hours and hours and hours and they're going to come past your, you know, podcasts.

And they're going to say, why should I subscribe? You know, what am I going to get out of this? So what can, what can you forecast into the future?

Like what are you going to bring to the table? One of the things that was a burden on my heart was, uh, again, because I've been doing so much evangelism and, and trying to get people involved in it was the big thing.

A previous church I attended, it was absolutely pulling teeth to get people out there on the street.

Right. The other weekend, a Friday, we had 27 apologians out there in night, not first Friday, Saturday, Saturday, no

Avenue 27. I was like almost in tears, you know, because the contrast is amazing when they have a church and a church leaders who are burning with wanting to get the message out to people and, you know, reached a loss.

It, it trickles down to us. And I was, you know, so thrilled by the amount of people.

But what we're trying to do is it's, we want to encourage people through the podcast. We want to encourage them to come out and start evangelizing themselves, you know, maybe handing out tracts, you know, they don't necessarily have to go in the box and preach, but if they want to, you know, we will help train them in that.

And what we plan on doing with the podcast is kind of chalk talking videos of encounters discussions that we would have and preaching to break it down and give people a greater understanding, hopefully having less fear about what you have to actually discuss with people.

You know, that, that's the number one factor is a fear factor. And I don't know what to say when I get out there. Well, you can come out and pray.

You can come out and hand out a track. It's they're not going to bite you, you know, and, and then learn from what's going on.

Right. I have this good quote actually just reminded me of what you said. It's a, it's Ray comfort.

And it says, what motivates us more the more the fear of man or the fear of God.

If we fear man more than we fear God, we don't see God, see God in truth. We see the

Lord as less than a man. And this is proven by those who we obey. A W Tozer said an idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand.

Yeah. What about you? What do you want to accomplish? So I think my, you know, as we came together and we talked about this, we both shared that burden of equipping the body.

I think when you look at the greater, you know, the evangelical church, I really feel like evangelism is the underbelly of the church for like, everyone knows that it's there, but no one wants to look at it.

And, um, uh, apology is a, is an oddity in that regard, right?

Most churches they don't have. And I talk to people from other churches. And that's one of my first questions when I ask them, um, there's even some people from other churches that come out with us.

Right. And, uh, they're like, yeah, no one's supporting this. They're like, Hey, yeah, we want to go evangelize. And they give you a tap on the shoulder.

Like, good job with that. You know, we'll pray for you. Right. And that's kind of the whole of it. Um, but so, so not just encouraging, you know, individuals, but also encouraging churches to support and to equip their people.

Right. Uh, we do classes here where, where this is the focus to go and prepare the body to share the gospel.

So I would say, um, the significance of it, right. We have it. And it's not just like, it's a good idea.

It's something that we should do, but we're commanded to do this. Right. This is a command of Christ. So number one, the ops, the obligation, um, the obligation of sharing the faith, the significance of it.

Right. Um, I would say methodologies behind it, you know, uh, the way that you should do a different methodologies, you know, there's a lot, there's a lot to talk about in that regard.

And then, um, I would say the benefit of it, the fruit of it, because I have seen how sanctifying it is.

Right. So when you have people out there, there's, there's few things that motivates the study of scripture, like serving and working and laboring for the

Lord, right. Because you have to be prepared to share. Right. And in order to share, you have to be reading your

Bible. And when you get those questions, you don't know, you're forced to go to the scriptures and find so that you can find the answer.

And for the next time be prepared. Like you said. So I, every time we go out, I have homework. I go back, even if no one's asking me a question,

I'm thinking about something that I'm preaching. Okay. I got to go check into that. I need to go figure out, you know, what to say in this regard and we have to be ready to be ready to give a defense.

We have to be ready to share. And so hand in hand, uh, Apollo evangelism and apologetics, they go hand in hand.

Right. Right. And so that's our hardest to share and equip people in that regard. I have a question real quick.

Uh, so I just saw it posted recently, uh, um, about how social media is the new soapbox.

Right. And that it's just more effective than face -to -face evangelism. But I would have to say, uh,

I w I would say, obviously, uh, we know, social media is a huge blessing and you can reach a lot of people, uh, offer

God's glory. And I think it's wonderful, but there is something about looking someone in the face and talking to them and that you can't get when you're evangelizing, you know, via, via Facebook or whatever social media platform.

So what would you say to that just in your experience? Like, well, it's, it's just incredible.

I mean, every single time it's a, it's a new experience, you know, in different people, but you know that they are deeply lost.

Their worldview is skewed and you need to know that they have that void in their life.

They, they're, they're trying to run their own direction. They're trying to do it their own way, their, their pride. And it's, it's kind of a voice of clarity that we're bringing to them, you know, uh, almost like a splash of cold water in the face type of thing because people don't really spend the time thinking about their worldview.

They don't spend time analyzing, well, how do I really think right and wrong is here and why is it here?

You know, they don't do that. So they just go on their life, you know, whistling past the graveyard, so to speak, thinking it's not going to happen to them.

So we bring a sense of urgency to their lives and really question what they're thinking and how their perspective is of their, their world.

Yeah. I think if you think about it like a, like a setting, like a classroom, right?

You could teach a bunch of people and it can be very effective and a lot of people can learn from it and they can benefit from it.

But one -on -one interaction, nothing can replace one -on -one interaction. So like even going out and proclaiming the word is a great blessing, but I like to talk to people personally.

Right. So if we're, so if there's any time that we don't actually preach is because we're having a lot of conversations and the preaching stimulates the conversations.

So while one person is preaching, then people start surrounding and then everyone else goes to talk to those guys.

You know what I mean? So nothing can replace that. Right. I know just in my own, you know, walk in salvation, like my brother, you know, is the one that shared the gospel with me and it took him,

God using him and really going through the hard questions with me and, and looking in his face and knowing that he loved me and cared for my soul, but cared about me enough to share the truth.

It wasn't, you know, some abstract preacher. It was somebody who loved the Lord, feared the Lord and cared for my soul.

So yeah, I agree. There's nothing like face -to -face interaction and one -on -one.

So. Yeah. I think in the, in the best of the worlds, best of worlds, para -church ministries, podcasts like this wouldn't exist because it'd be the job of the pastors, the elders, the local churches to be doing what we're trying to do is to equip churches.

But we sense a major deficiency within the American evangelical church. I mean, they say, and you know,

I was like, who are they? But only 2 % of professing American evangelicals share their faith. That's millions upon millions of people.

If you look at the numbers. So it's just not happening. So my question is why, according to your guys's perspective, why isn't the

American men, the American evangelical church evangelizing? Yeah. They, for some reason,

I don't understand it. They don't take the great commission seriously. Fear man. It's it's all directed at us believers.

It's our call, you know, our marching orders basically and we don't take it seriously. We want like we were talking about the, the pastor is the one who's going to be saving the people.

So we bring them to church and that's our evangelism. Right. When I was in that big mega church, it was visiting people that visited the church with a gift bag and that one word of the gospel, just inviting them to church next

Sunday and that we thought we were evangelizing, you know, and that's the problem is that they don't see that it is a call on their life individually as a

Christian, as part of the uniform, you get it. That's part of what you do and you're, you're motivated and you're, you have the strength to do it because of the spirit of God in you.

And I just want to bring at one point you mentioned Ray comfort. Yeah. One other thing he mentioned, he said, what we need to do is not fear less, but love more.

That's right. You know, and that, that was my motivation. You know, I have a reach group with a mid way

Bible study. I call it the heart of evangelism. And that was my main thing that I wanted to bring about is that we need to really have a love for these people that will motivate us.

My wife and I, Brianna, we, we wind up, uh, praying over that Bible study to get, you know, to help people see that, you know, and know that unless you have love, love for the

Lord first and then love for others, you're, you're not going to be doing the work that you should be doing.

That's right. Amen to that. I would say, uh, biblical literacy, I would say there is a lack of the knowledge of God, uh, that is, uh, there's a great deficiency there and it, and it starts with people not reading their

Bibles. And I think that's all directed from the pulpit. It's, it's, you know, not expository preaching where you're digging into the word and you're, you're feeding the sheep.

And what happens there is you have a lack of the knowledge of, of God's holiness. You have a lack of understanding of Christ's efficiency.

You start to lack the understanding of man's depravity and how much he needs the gospel, right?

Everything shifts, uh, uh, the wrong way in that regard. Right. Um, and so things like, things like sharing the gospel don't become,

I mean, they, they, they aren't, uh, regarded as, as highly as they are in scripture because people aren't reading the scripture.

People aren't in their Bibles in the way that they should be. Um, uh, I think it's, uh, Machen Machen talks about, um, one of the, the, the worst things that could happen to the church is a lack of understanding of God's law, right?

Because everything starts with the law in the sense that that's how we're, that's how we know that we're sinners.

That's how we know that we need the gospel. And that's where Christ comes in and saves the day. But if you have a lack of understanding of God's holiness, right.

And his, and his righteous standard, then everything else, the gospel is not as necessary. Right. You know, people are all right.

You know, they go to church on Sunday, they'll be okay. It makes me think of the Catholic church, right?

Because they withhold the scriptures from the sheep. Yeah. You touched on a really good point.

I want to ask you guys about this. So you said, uh, you went to a mega church and the pastors said, okay, evangelism is going and giving somebody a gift basket.

So what we've seen is a, is a reducing of what biblical evangelism is. It's a redefining of the biblical example, biblical terms, uh, just the theological truth.

I think somebody said, you know, if, um, the church or church doctrine were like a wax, uh, face, then evangelism would be the wax nose that we kind of twist according to what we want.

So why do we do that? Why do we, and you look at the scriptures, you look at the examples of evangelism. It's very simple.

I mean, go out to the lost and share the gospel. You see it all through the book of Acts. They went out proclaiming and then

God was adding to their numbers. Why have we distorted evangelism, uh, to the point that we have in our nation and where are we okay with it?

Yeah. I think a lot of like touching on what Oscar was saying about, uh, biblical literacy.

I think that is a main thing in what we can, what we see, at least on the street, almost everyone who questions what we're doing or has any kind of doubt or is a skeptic.

It's all based on questioning whether the Bible is truly the word of God. It is.

It's a huge thing. The believers, the Christians are so -called believers that come out the same thing.

They question what the word of God is saying and is it truly his word? And so there's a ton of that going on.

It's absolutely a plague in Christianity. They don't believe the word. They don't read the word.

You know, we have people, yeah, I read the Bible. Yeah. You've read maybe one or two verses possibly, but not the whole thing.

So that's our, again, our great desire to encourage people to read. I mean, one of the greatest,

I'm not, no boasting here, but one of the greatest blessings of my life was when I made the commitment to read the

Bible through every year and now I'm on my 12th year now and it's, I can't get enough. You know, it's still not enough.

So you've written, that means he's read it 12 times. Yeah. I have every verse read 12 times. That's awesome.

Any thoughts about why we distort it? Yeah. I think that, um, uh, part of that is, I think it starts with, um,

American evangelicalism, not in the large part, not considering the world to be, to belong to Christ.

Right. Right. There's an advocating of, of the obligation to go out and to speak into the world because they don't consider that there's a, there's, there's a separation, right?

Between Christ's authority in the church and then the world. Right. And so Christians, they, a lot of Christians, they don't see the world as his stomach.

They don't say it's not his, right? So we can, uh, you know, go to church on Sunday, we can worship.

And these can be people who are faithful Christians, but they have a lack of understanding of what Christ says about his authority, that all of it is his.

Right. And so they don't, you know, we are going out as, as, as heralds to go proclaim to the people, not that you should accept

Christ, but that Christ right now is your King. Right. And you should surrender. Right.

So most Christians, they don't have that view. Most Christians are like, oh, you know, well, you know, you could give them a try, try them out.

And, uh, they don't even do that because if it's just a matter of trying them out, then they're like, oh, well, let's just kind of live in a certain way and show forth our faith rather than, uh, offending people.

Right. Everyone wants to be nice and no one wants to tell anybody that they're sinners. Right. You know, so. Yeah. And just to clarify, we're, we're not speaking like, oh, we share the gospel.

And so we're so, you know, but we're saying this as fellow brothers and sisters who love the bride and just want to encourage, because I was that person.

I still, I still struggle with fear of man and man pleasing. It really, the

Lord, I have to ask God to give me strength every day for that, because it's just part of my fallen nature that I hate offended people.

And I hate when people that I love are angry with me. And so it's really something that I have to walk out.

So we're not sitting back saying like, oh, we're so professional evangelists. We're so great.

We're just saying, hey, uh, no, this is, if we can do it, you guys can do it.

And when you love the Lord and you love the loss, it's just a natural fruit of that. Right. Can I say something?

Uh, one of the things I, I don't want to speak for Oscar, but I think most evangelists who truly love the

Lord are going out there and sharing their faith. They, I, at least I feel this way that it's, it's almost a selfish thing in a way, because I get such a blessing in doing it.

It just is amazing. I, you know, I want to go because I want to, I want to be obedient number one because I love the

Lord and I love people, but I'm also getting something out of it. I'm not trying to sell it in the sense that, well, you're going to get this gift if you evangelize.

No, it's just the reality of it. You're being obedient, you know, the God's word and you're following through on it and living it.

And it's, it just winds up being, you know, incredible blessing. Yeah. There's blessing and serving.

Yeah. You're sanctified in your service. Yeah. Like we're not, we're not sitting over here saying, well, look at us and we've got it all.

No, but I think what you, like we had said initially is we've been given a great commission.

I mean, Jesus died for our sins. Can you imagine electing us into the kingdom?

How could we not want to obey? I mean, it'd be like a guy you take your kids to the mall and get some food, get some lunch or something, go see a movie and some guy shoots up the mall and a guy jumps in front of your child to save your child's life, takes a bullet.

I mean, how you would venerate him and honor him for the rest of your life. Just a simple man. And you think about the savior of the world.

How could we not say, okay, I mean, for all that you've given me justification and glorification, sanctification and eternity with you, like you're saying true liberty and freedom, how could we not give our life to this

Christ? But Jesus says this, he says, if you love me, obey my commands. If he obedience is not in just lip service, this is not in no

I'd feel good about what you've given to me, but it's shown in my activity of obedience.

So how could we not do it? So I think it's okay to say there's, you know, there's, we need to course correct in our nation.

If such a minuscule amount of professing Christians are actually obeying him, dealing with a pretty big issue when it comes to the status of people's souls, getting the gospel out, which is the only means of salvation.

That's why you want to do it. We want to see people saved. How could we not do this? If it's really based upon the eternity of, of our folks, of our neighbors around us, that's, that's what drives us.

I think too, just like reflecting on what God has saved you from and that, you know, we don't, we don't have to go on on judgment day and face him and be held accountable for our sins.

We are covered in Christ's righteousness, you know, and just reflecting on that. And really the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom and just the love that pours out for God because of what he saved us from.

Yeah. And you think about what is the character quality that God highlights when we stand before him for his servants, well done, good and faithful.

It's just about being faithful. If we can get that in our minds, it solves a lot of problems. Especially pastors.

I won't take a bunny trail, but we feel like we have to be so many things other than just a faithful pastor.

You know, I gotta be this and that and what people expect me to be. I gotta be a comedian, a CEO or, you know, whatever.

I'm just called to be faithful as a biblical, the biblical definition of a pastor and that's all

I need to be. Yeah. Right. If I could say something really quick about that, I was studying the life of Whitfield, who was probably the greatest evangelist, one of the greatest evangelists that the church has ever seen and studying

Whitfield and studying the reformers. What I, what

I noticed is a lot of times we look at these guys as if they're just like just the most amazing guys ever.

Right. But you study their lives and you see that they're ordinary people and they just read their Bibles. They believed it and they shared it.

Now it's Calvin. Yeah. And it literally changed the world. I mean you have the reformation, you have the great awakening, you have the founding of this nation, you had the ending of slavery.

All of these things come from people who faithfully applied the word of God to their lives and shared it.

And I just think that that's so amazing. That's what it is. Yeah. And he gets all the glory. Yeah. What does that quote, you know, preach the gospel, die, be forgotten, all glory to God.

That's what we want to accomplish. And if we have any other motive to use Christ as just a, or religious things or Christianity is, is a springboard for our own glory, it's all going to be burned up to nothing.

Right. Cause he gives grace to the humble, but he resists the proud. Um, okay. So what do you guys think about reform theology as it relates to evangelism?

How important is it? What do you guys think? Yeah. Before I was reformed, I knew nothing before I was reformed.

I was going out and evangelizing because I believe the great commission. That was it.

And I, I saw that, you know, people, either Christ is going to come soon or people are going to die, but they're definitely going to die, you know, so they need to hear the gospel.

So that was my motivation. Once I became reformed, it lit the fire even brighter ending.

And I just saw that absolutely. These people need to know the authority of God, what you were saying before that he's

King and ruler Oscar, you know, like you were saying, the whole thing was that they need to be submissive to the

Lordship of Christ and that he is their Lord, whether they acknowledge him as Lord or not. Right.

And so we're being there, waking them up to that. But that was a really major thing for me.

Once I became reformed was understanding that sovereignty of God. Yeah. I mean, I wanted to go around screaming it out to everybody.

God is sovereign over everything, you know, every molecule. And so that made a major, you know, upturn in that.

There's two things I would say about that. One is, um, when it comes to reform theology, it to me,

I think that's why we, everyone will reform people love the Puritans, right? It's because they take these, these great theological truths that are like floating in the air.

They're like abstract. And then they apply them. They make them practical right into every aspect of their lives.

And then it radically changes their lives and it changes cultures. And I think that's what we need.

That's the mind that we need going into, uh, the public square is that these things mean something in real time, right?

They have, they have a practical, uh, application to be applied right now.

Right. And so, uh, that, and, and, and, uh, taking that into account and thinking about that, uh, about God's sovereignty, what it really does for me is there is no failure, right?

God is sovereign. Everybody he wants to reach with the gospel measures, they will be, they will be reached. Um, now, now, because God is sovereign that doesn't give us, uh, an excuse not to go out.

Right. Right. But God is using us as a means to accomplish the end that he wants. So, um, every time we go out there, it's a success because we're going out there proclaiming the gospel.

God is glorified. So I think if you don't have that grounding of reformed theology, you go out there looking to see, uh, not just plant seeds, but to see the fruit.

And if you don't see the fruit, it seems like a failure. I could have said this differently. I could have did this. Maybe if I said that, that person would be saved.

Knowing that God is sovereign, you're free from, from any of that. Um, you know, any of that weight on your shoulders.

Yeah, for sure. Speaking of practical, you know, applying a practical application.

I wanted to ask what your guys's, um, feedback and kind of, uh, advice you would give to our listeners about Christmas is coming up.

And this is a time that, you know, you get together with people, your loved ones that you don't always see maybe once a year.

And a lot of the temptation is just to, you know, get along and you only see these people once a year.

And so you don't want to ruffle any feathers, but we don't know if we're going to see these people next year. Right.

And if we love them, we're going to share the truth with them. So what practical, um, tips would you give to evangelizing to family, uh, during the holiday season?

Well, always speak the truth in love. Okay. But then I would say something to the effect of maybe if you, there's a loved one that you want to really talk to, maybe pull them off to the side.

So it's not a thing, a spectacle that's going in front of the, you know, the family and standing on the table with the drumstick, you know, you guys need to get sick.

Maybe just pull up. So, you know,

I just pulled someone off to the side and have a little conversation. How's your life going? That's with one of my brothers.

My brother has five sons. Okay. My Mormon brother and one of them called me one time and just asked, you know, it was,

I asked him how his life was going, which would be a great question to someone that you've not seen in a while.

Yeah. And he just opened up. He said, ah, things are not too great. Kind of lost direction. And I said, do you mind if we talk about faith right now?

Cause I have some things to say. He said, sure. Yeah. We had a two and a half hour conversation to share the gospel with him and all this.

It was just wonderful. Yeah. So, I mean, I think something like that would be appropriate. Yeah. Gentle and quiet spirit.

Yeah, for sure. And I agree. I think, um, I think one thing that I would add to that is

I think we need to be praying for those opportunities. We need to be praying for wisdom and discernment.

We need to be praying for, for, for hearts that are open to hear it. And then, you know, uh, when the opportunity comes, we need to be ready to, and prepared to, to, to give a witness.

Yeah. Um, I think it's a, the holiday season is a springboard of those kinds of conversations.

I mean, we're gathering together, you know, for the incarnation. This is what this is about. Right. Um, and if no one's talking about it, then, you know, it's kind of missing the point.

Yeah. And so I would say everyone knows, uh, whether they're Christian or not, they know what Christmas is about.

And I think that just gives us an opportunity to speak. And so again, I would use wisdom and discernment, but I would, I would really take it to heart to pray about those opportunities because again,

God is sovereign. Yeah. What would you say is that you want the family? Yeah. Just with family or friends, you know, people that you, that you know, always get to see, like, what would you, what would your advice be?

Yeah. I don't know if I can add to what these guys just said, because I think there was so balanced in their response, especially, you know, not, not a clubbing them over the head, which is typically a selfish motive.

Right. It's just like, I need to do this. I, and I understand the motive is I want to obey God, but I think it's selfish when you just, you're not really considering who they are in the state of affairs.

You know, it's, you have to use tact. You know, we do the best that we can. We want to be winsome and we want to be clever about how we do it.

And that's inviting them into a conversation to where we're listening and they're hearing and not necessarily us just proclaiming in that can, it's tough for opener preachers like we are because hours and hours and hours of vitriol, hatred, abuse, you're not really exchanging.

It's just you letting it out, declarative evangelism, which evangelism is primarily is, but sometimes

I can work against us in a conversational setting, which I think is the most fruitful just to, okay, I'm going to listen and I'm actually going to be concerned and I'm going to, you know, have a dialogue back and forth and not presume that they understand, they understand everything.

You know, there's just a lot of jerkiness and evangelism out there and it's something that we have to dispel because it doesn't lead to any fruitfulness of any kind.

Yeah. Thank you guys. So I'm praying that you guys have a great podcast, but I thought I'd put you into the heat a little bit and I'm going to ask you questions and they need short responses.

So the challenge, because you know you get these, they'll blurt it out and you only have a couple seconds.

I'll give you a little bit longer than a couple seconds, but these are some of the questions that you are going to hear when you go out.

Okay, here you go. You both answer short, quick, concise.

This is to help you as you go out there in the, uh, in the culture. Why should I care about what the

Bible says? Well, because it's the absolute truth of God.

It's God inspiring. God breathe scripture that speaks into your life right now. Your reality, it comports with reality.

And so you need to hear this. I would say apart from the Bible, you can't understand anything apart from God's, a word that grounds all of reality.

Everything is nonsense. Right. And if you want to know or understand anything, you'll have to come to a knowledge of scripture.

Bonson smiling down. How do you know the Bible is God's word?

It's been revealed to us. It's been revealed to every single human being that it is, that God is real and that's his word.

I would say Romans chapter one tells us that God is angry with sinners every day and they have no excuse.

They have no apologetic for their lack of belief in God's word. So I would say that's grounded in scripture and, and God has given us a supernatural understanding of that, you know, in our saving and our regeneration, they're suppressing the knowledge of truth if you don't believe it, but that does not give you an excuse not to believe.

Nice. Uh, why has God invisible? Why can't we see him? Why doesn't he just show up right now and just reveal himself?

You wouldn't believe him anyway if you did. Uh, yeah, yeah. He had showed up in this site 2000 years ago.

Amen. Amen. That's like a gangster with the glasses. I like what, uh, what, what, uh, when crisis given that story in a

Luke, I can't remember what chapter it is. And he's a, it's Abraham. It's an Abraham's bosom. And he says, um, he's, he says exactly that.

He says, uh, let me, uh, send them to my brothers. Right. So that they may believe. And he says they have the prophets. And even if somebody did come from the dead, they wouldn't believe.

So, uh, again, God is not, God doesn't need to show up to give you evidence you already know, right?

God is immaterial. He doesn't make himself out of his things, right? He came in the, in the, in the person, an image of Christ.

And, um, he's revealed herself in that way. That's what he chose to reveal himself. Good. Last one. Your God is a moral monster.

He, he, what about babies with cancer and he promotes slavery? There's a purpose in everything that God does.

And explain to me, sir, what is your reason for that too? I want to know what you, I, I turn it back around a lot of times people.

Yeah. What is your reason for death and suffering? Isn't senseless or does their purpose behind it all?

It's Dr. White answer. Yeah. And I would say, what is your standard to say that he is morally a monster? What is your reference point to point to and say,

God did this wrong? I think we understand a sense of morality because we're made in God's image. Uh, we are the pot.

We can't ask God why he's doing what he's doing. But just to ask that question, just to ask that you're begging the question of an ultimate standard by what you're trying to judge

God, instead of understanding that you're under the judgment of God. What'd you think? Awesome.

Good. I think I'm excited to hear more of your guys' podcasts. It's gonna be great. No, I'm totally excited.

I'm glad we did this. And I pray that God uses it well. Anything else you want to say before we sign off?

Just really thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. Say the same thing. We really appreciate it.

Um, we really want to, um, we really just want to be served, you know, we want to serve and we want to be of use to the body.

So any, any opportunity we get to speak about these things, we, we jump at it. Yeah. Two witnesses podcast.

So go up there on the thingy search engine. It's right up here. Two witnesses podcast, go to it, subscribe.

And let's give these guys support because we do need guys, uh, helping the body to, uh, witness before we sign off.

Um, Gabe the babe. Can you, can you hear me, Gabe?

Hey, um, he's, we love Gabe. He put the, he put all these cameras together. He's such a servant here and an awesome brother.

His dad has been in a abortion mill ministry. How long, Gabe? 30 years, right?

Whoa. Wow. Yeah. I think it's 30 years. How old are you? You're 20. Yeah.

So 30 years, three decades out in front of the mills and, uh, guys like that because we do that regularly.

Just, they earn a place of stature at least in my mind, as far as respect, you know, I mean constantly out there in that horrible environment, trying to say these babies spending their life and their time on the earth.

Um, but he had just unexpectedly been diagnosed with B cell lymphoma and he's battling cancer.

So what you can do and we're going to attach it to provoked. We're going to do this right after this, but you can go and support him.

Please pray for him, pray for his recovery, pray for his healing, but you can also give to, so you'd be able to press on the, uh, go fund me link that we're going to link to our

Facebook people. Please be praying for a Dennis screen. That is Gabe's dad. Yeah.

So that would be awesome. Well, thanks so much. I'm going to end in prayer for Dennis, but we just want to let you know that we love you guys and, uh, follow these guys and go out and preach the gospel.

Yeah. And thank you guys for sticking it out, even though we're not really consistent in, you know, getting our stuff out, but you know, life happens.

We're busy. You're a pastor, dad, and I'm a mom and you know, we're just thankful for the time that we do get, but we're hoping to do some exciting interviews, uh, this upcoming year.

Yeah. Things are going to get back on track. We just, uh, maybe had to move. Yeah. Had some health issues.

Yeah. But we've got, we've got some stuff in the pipeline and, uh, but we're just thankful to all our faithful listeners.

And we still get messages all the time on like, we haven't even put anything out barely, but we have people that are listening.

And so I'm just thankful for that. But if you're waiting for us, just go listen to them. Yeah. All right.

Well, let's go ahead and pray. Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus. And we love you because you're gracious and you're good.

You're good. You are good. And you can hear our prayers. We know that they avail because of your goodness and your righteousness given to us.

But we do lift up Dennis to you. We pray that you would heal his body of this cancer.

We trust you in all your doings because of all, all your doings towards your children are good. We pray that you would give them financial resources to battle this.

We do pray in our own finite wisdom, Lord, that you would heal him completely of this, help the family as they go through, especially this holiday time when this was unexpected to come out of the blue.

I know it's stressful and brings about fear. So I pray in the midst of this, you would comfort the family, heal him and help them.