JD Hall on Legal Battle over Preferred Pronouns

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:12

Hey everyone, welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I have a guest with me to share a story, something that's going on now, something in my mind that's actually compelling, inspiring in some ways, but also a sign of the times because we know that persecution against Christians is ramping up and we know where it's coming from.

00:33

It's coming from a radical, secular, Marxist, and now

00:39

LGBT lobby that really seeks to smear and discredit and attack anyone who would stand up for biblical morality.

00:49

Well, one of those people is with me today, and that's Pastor J .D. Hall, and I appreciate you so much joining me.

00:55

Thank you, Pastor Hall. Sure. Thanks, John. So I want to get into this story a bit.

01:00

Many people know you from your polemics, Pulpit and Pen, Protestia, but some don't know that you're also active in politics.

01:10

So I think that's important to understand for this story. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, it's kind of funny.

01:15

I live in two different worlds, it seems like, where the people that know that I'm involved in politics don't know that I'm involved in polemics, and then the people that know that I'm involved in polemics don't know

01:23

I'm involved in politics. And so a lot of people are surprised to find out either one, depending upon which side of the aisle that they're in.

01:33

To me, there's very little difference. And I make a point of that every time that I speak somewhere in the state, and of course,

01:43

I'm not nationally known for politics, but statewide, pretty much anybody who's anybody knows me.

01:50

And every time I speak, I am very famous for saying the problem to our, or rather the problem is not politics, and the solution is not politics, but the problem is sin and the answer is

02:03

Jesus. And so what God has done is really create an opportunity for me to go into secular organizations to speak, and then to preach the gospel.

02:13

So it's kind of bit the opposite of what Greg Locke does, in which typically he goes to religious events and preaches politics,

02:21

I go to political events and preach Jesus. And so that's what

02:27

I'm known for when people say, why are preachers involved in politics? I would say, well, because they intersect, politics and religion intersect.

02:36

I mean, politics are downstream from religion, what we believe affects the way that we vote, clearly.

02:42

And so, you know, I've been doing politics actually longer than I've been a preacher. But not just politics, but in particular, this last go around that has occupied so much of my time over the last year, has not really been political, but cultural.

02:58

And that does affect the church, even more so than politics.

03:04

Right, it certainly does. And so my understanding is not only how do you have websites, and you publish things, but you've gone around, you've spoken at various political events, even at the

03:17

Capitol, and you share Christian ethics, but you also share the gospel. Have you seen fruit from this?

03:24

I'm sure you have. Yeah. And so let me explain first, John, my dalliance into politics in Montana.

03:33

When I first moved here, shortly thereafter, I became the chairman of the Republican Party. And I mean, that was 15 years ago.

03:43

And I got disenchanted with McCain and then Romney. And so I'm like, you know what, if this is conservatism,

03:49

I really don't want to have anything to do with this. This is like David French style of conservatism. This isn't really conservatism.

03:55

And so I quit, and it was overtaken by rhinos. The next thing I know, there's a woman named

04:01

Tammy Christensen, who was going to run for office. She was the heir apparent for that position for our local representative position at the

04:08

State House. And because her father had that position off and on for 30 years, we have term limits, but to get around it, they just swap back between the

04:16

House and the Senate. You know, it's just a dog and pony show. And so he had that job for decades.

04:24

And she was like next in line to get it, prominent local business owner and the tractor dealership and all that, which is a big deal in a small town.

04:33

And I didn't think anything about it. I'm out of town hall and the woman says that she's pro -choice, but she's running on the

04:39

Republican ticket. And so I'm like, did I hear that right? And I'm looking around going, did she just say that?

04:45

Did she say that she was pro -choice? And I'm relatively early, you know, new in this community.

04:51

I've only been here for a few years and somehow every face in the room turned around and looked at me like I'm on the back row because I'm a back row

04:59

Baptist, right? But they know that I'm a loud mouth by this point. So they look at me like, what are you going to do about it? And so that's when

05:06

I decided to kind of take over the Republican Party locally and to make sure that she wasn't elected.

05:14

And then after that job was done, I backed out. And then after a few years of good candidates, another

05:22

Rhino popped in. I tried to stop him, but we couldn't stop him in time. He took office. And so I kind of game plan for two years to take over the central committee again.

05:31

And we did that. And then we put a good candidate in and, you know, now

05:37

I'm the state committee man for our central committee. And so that's how I got involved in this.

05:43

It's basically motivated entirely by the pro -life issue. You know, all we can do is what we can do.

05:51

And I know that we can have most control over our own backyard. I don't want to see my county go blue because what happens at the statehouse affects the rest of us throughout the state and in particular in Montana, if you can understand the nuances of that.

06:10

We have like Washington and Oregon, and if you met the people from Washington and Oregon, these are some of the most conservative people in the entire country.

06:18

But the problem is those states are very blue on the electoral map because of Portland and Seattle and they control the rest of the state.

06:28

And so what we have to worry about in Montana is like Bozeman becoming a hub for liberals through the technology market because it's becoming a technology hub that's going to control the rest of the state and turn it red.

06:40

So we're from Eastern Montana. And so I've just had opportunities over the years, which basically ignited like, like, like thermite over the summer.

06:51

And that kind of picks us up where we're at now. So over the summer, you know, we wrote a story about a transvestite at the

07:01

Capitol at the Montana Daily Gazette newspaper, one of our publications, who was doing just unspeakable things with a group of other transsexuals that kind of overtook the

07:15

Capitol for a day. They were running amok and we were fielding phone calls and answering questions or answering phone calls about who these people were and why were they there and the things that they had done were nearly unspeakable.

07:31

And the name of that article is who's the gothic transvestite haunting the halls in the

07:36

Montana State Capitol. And so we get a letter or actually

07:43

I reached out to this fellow first and said, Hey, we're going to run a pub personal interest story on you and about your actions down there today.

07:55

Could you, you know, can we talk about this? And he says, no, because you've misgendered me and et cetera, et cetera, because I don't use preferred pronouns because I don't lie.

08:07

And so I think I called him Mr. Jowart, which is his name.

08:15

And then we had an email sent to us after we ran the article that said retract this, but didn't it didn't give us a reason why to retract it.

08:28

Why anything in it is unfactual. And he sent a summons to court, which

08:34

I just kind of passed off to my attorney and shrugged away because,

08:41

I mean, at Pulpit and Pen, we've been threatened to be sued like five million times. But in order for something to be libelous, it has to be untrue and malicious and willful.

08:53

And it's, you know, it's a difficult standard to prove. But in this case, we believed it to be the truth and certainly not malicious or willful in any way.

09:04

And I sought comment before the fact. But next thing I know, he's got like a GoFundMe that says he wants to sue me for transphobic hate speech, which, again, not not a thing.

09:17

But you've got to understand that in the course of my life, that's just another day. Like I mean,

09:23

Jonathan Kahn threatened to sue me and like made it was kind of funny when

09:29

Jonathan Kahn threatened to sue me. And this was I think before The New York Times interviewed me on Jonathan Kahn.

09:39

He made up. This fake attorney's letter and acted like an attorney and, you know,

09:46

Clayton Jennings had threatened. I remember that one. Yeah. Clayton Jennings threatened to sue us. And Greg Locke had mentioned in Newsweek that he was going to sue or sue us in Newsweek is what it was that led to some national press interviews, which, again, it's got to be untrue for it to.

10:03

So, you know. So anyways, I didn't think much about it. But then a very interesting event occurred in the summer in June of 2020.

10:14

I'm coming back from the Montana GOP kickoff or convention rather.

10:23

And I have with me all of the delegates from Richland County. And we're leaving

10:29

Helena, which is a very blue dot because it's the state capital. So it just attracts bureaucrats and bureaucrats are not typically

10:35

Republicans. It attracts lobbyists of all kinds. Montana has a huge amount of dark money in the state.

10:41

And so there are a lot of people just trying to. I mean, when you're a small rural state, but you still have equal representation in the

10:47

Senate, for example, you're going to have a lot of money pour in from Vermont and Maine and New York and California and from all over the country trying to basically parasite your two senators.

11:00

And so Helena just attracts all the liberals in the world. And it's kind of a zoo over there in western

11:07

Montana. So we stop at a gas station called the Town Pump, and it's the largest gas station chain in Montana.

11:16

It's a Montana owned chain that got started from the Montana Coal Fund through public resources. And there's a casino in every single

11:25

Town Pump gas station in Montana. But in some towns like Coal Strip, it's the only gas station that there is.

11:33

And so you kind of have to patronize them whether you like it or not. And like if you were to take all of the casinos, excuse me, slot machines in Montana Town Pump gas stations and add them up there, they'd be more slot machines than in Las Vegas.

11:51

Yeah. True. True story. They make about 600 million dollars a year. So anyways, we go into the gas station and ordinarily when

12:03

I see a quote unquote transgender person, I don't typically say anything.

12:10

You know, I might slide a track across the counter or something, but that's about it. But this time the transvestite was wearing a pin that was pink and blue striped, which the last time

12:23

I knew was the pro -life colors. And I knew that because we had begun to sue the city of Bozeman over painting the crosswalks the gay pride colors.

12:36

We asked them to paint them blue and pink outside the Planned Parenthood clinic or the abortion clinic.

12:41

I think it was an off brand Planned Parenthood for the unborn. They said no. And then we went to sue them for viewpoint discrimination.

12:49

So he's wearing this pro -life pin, which intrigues me. Why is a transvestite wearing a pro -life pin?

12:56

So I asked him the question, what does your pin mean? Now keep in mind the Supreme Court has said that clothing is speech and it's because somebody wore a shirt that said

13:05

F you on it and it went all the way to the Supreme Court and they said clothing is speech. You can't make him take his t -shirt off any sooner than you could stop him from saying that word, which short of a city ordinance you can't do.

13:16

And so anyways, I asked him, what does this pin mean?

13:21

He says it stands for transgender pride. And so I say, well, you're not a woman, you're a man, clearly, and that's the way

13:29

God made you. You need to repent of your sins and believe the gospel. And I didn't say it.

13:35

I didn't scream. I didn't shout. I didn't yell it. I said it in a normal conversational tone as he's put my, you know, my snacks in a bag and I go outside.

13:47

And following me out as a customer who had heard that this giant rhinoceros lesbian woman and she just begins to scream.

13:54

That's what I've been calling her all over the state because I don't know how else to describe her. She gets in my face and she screams, yeah, she screams, you're going to hell and Jesus hates you and all kinds of imprecations far nastier than what

14:06

I said. And in the meantime, you know, I've got all these witnesses, they're standing, they watched it go down.

14:13

They watched this go down in the parking lot and like, I'm trying to get to my truck and she's preventing me. I'm like, could you get out of my way, you know?

14:21

And so, you know, I hear them call the police and say, we'd like to report the hate crime of transphobia.

14:32

And I'm like, all right, all right, whatever. So the clerk comes out and she's like, sir, can you leave?

14:39

And I'm like, trying to, all right. And so we left,

14:45

I immediately called the police and I said, hey, this is so -and -so, here's my number, here's my name, here's where I live and here's my attorney's number if you need to have someone explain the first amendment to you.

14:55

So the police called it first and said, hey, we had to go explain what you did was not against the law.

15:01

There's no law against that. But six days later, they called back and said, well, we are thinking about charging you.

15:07

Our police chief says, with criminal misconduct, because of the way the woman, you know, you had an altercation in the parking lot.

15:16

And I'm like, I can't be held responsible for the behavior of someone else.

15:24

So if I solicit a reaction and the reaction is the disturbance, I can't be held responsible for their reaction to what

15:32

I said. Well, since then, that police chief has been arrested and he's now behind bars for pedophilia.

15:38

So I don't think that, I don't think that I'll be in trouble there. But anyways, town pumps ban me from every town pump location in Montana.

15:48

So like I had to go get an auxiliary fuel tank from my pickup truck because there are some towns where you can't drive across the state without stopping at a town pump.

16:00

And so they ban me from every location. So what we did, John, was I had my attorney,

16:06

Brent Allen Winters, from a common lawyer. He has a podcast and he sent a letter to them and he's a very good

16:15

Christian man. And he said, you have 20 days to recant or we're going to sue you for violation of the 1964

16:24

Civil Rights Act because you just discriminated against Pastor Hall's religious viewpoint in a place of public accommodation.

16:34

And so you're the one that has broke his civil rights. Then we had about 10 or 12 legislators sign on to that letter saying, we're going to pass legislation banning any state employee from using their fuel card at town pump because you violated religious free speech on your premises.

17:03

And they were serious. We already had the bill written. We were ready to go. And last year, our state gave them $600 ,000 of their $600 million, $600 ,000 of it came from the state of Montana.

17:13

So the legislature is perfectly within its bounds to decide how our money is spent.

17:21

If we don't want to give it to that business, we don't have to. And so in the meantime, without me even trying, trucking companies found out about this because a senator had posted it and went in and canceled their accounts.

17:36

And by my count, it's about $3 .6 million that they lost roughly overnight once this story broke.

17:46

And so within 19 days, on the 19th day, we got a letter saying, well, we'll unban you from the town pumps and we'll take that back.

17:59

But don't go back to that one gas station. That's fine.

18:06

So that put me on the radar of the groups that are all funded by dark money, outside dark money, including

18:14

Love Lives Here, which you've probably never heard of, the Montana Human Rights Coalition, and Planned Parenthood, all of which are funded by George Soros.

18:24

Now keep in mind, Planned Parenthood doesn't just do abortion. Their hand is in everything that is wicked.

18:30

It doesn't matter if it's drag queen story time or if it's, you know, gay marriage. I mean, they will lobby for anything that is wicked and evil.

18:41

So even though this doesn't have anything to do with abortion, we still see Planned Parenthood's fingerprints all over this.

18:47

This garnered the attention of all the wrong people. When did this whole thing, this event at the gas station, when did that happen?

18:53

That was in June. That was that recent. OK, all right. And over by July. But that was in June.

18:59

So we, you know, we won that round and that really ticked them off. And so then I preached a sermon that you can find on Sermon Audio called

19:07

Transhumanism and the Transgender Movement, something like that. And you can see that it's right there along June, July.

19:16

And there's a moment in the middle of the sermon where I stop and I get emotional. I said, I'm tired of this nonsense.

19:21

I'm tired of this. I quit. I quit. I'm not I'm not going to do this any longer.

19:28

I I'm not playing along anymore. And so, you know, there was something in me that broke that said,

19:34

I'm tired. Not that I ever did pretend that a man was a woman, but I'm tired of being pushed upon me.

19:40

So like a week before the town pumpins and I was in Billings and they have the screen, which is in more of a normal place in Montana, there's there's a screen on the gas pump.

19:53

And it was during Gay Pride Month and the transvestite comes on the screen, this big black guy, and he's like,

19:59

I'm a woman and you need to appreciate me as a woman or you're a bigot. That's my summary. And so I go into the gas station.

20:07

I say, hey, listen, and I'm not a raving lunatic screaming or anything. I'm going, hey, listen,

20:13

I came here to buy gas. I didn't come here to be socially engineered. There's a gas station across the street

20:20

I would have gone to if I knew I was going to I wouldn't get a sermon by a transvestite tell me it's my moral obligation to accept them as a woman when clearly that's not the scientific or objective reality of the situation.

20:30

So I know it's not your fault. You're just a clerk. But when you see the corporate office, would you please tell them I don't appreciate being socially engineered when

20:36

I just came to buy gas? Thank you. And I leave three guys come out and I'm like, oh, great. OK, now

20:42

I'm on code red. I'm going to get whoops. No, they all wanted to shake my hand because that was a normal place in Montana. That was the week before.

20:49

But you can see that that sermon when I preached on transhumanism and the point of that was going back to Genesis chapter chapter three.

20:57

The sin of Eve was because she wanted to be like God. Satan was cast out of heaven because he wanted to be like God.

21:03

They built the Tower of Babel because they wanted to be like God. And today we still see this desire to become like God.

21:11

And God introduced himself as I am the creator. In the beginning,

21:17

God created and it's God made the male and female, both male and female. God created them with that rabbinic repetition that we see two or three times in the scripture.

21:26

God created the male and female. So if you want to steal for yourself the attributes of God, you would start with assigning gender.

21:35

That's one of the first things that a doctor says when he pulls a baby out of the womb.

21:40

It's a boy. It's a girl. Before he even says it has 10 fingers and 10 toes.

21:47

He doesn't have to say it's a human. We know that part. But it's a boy. It's a girl. Why? Because that's a central tenant of who we are as humans.

21:56

And so what transsexuals say is, and this is a quote unquote, what they say is, and this is the ironic part, is that we're denying their humanity.

22:04

Like I did a post about why transgenderism doesn't exist because it literally does not exist.

22:10

OK, so no one has ever changed. They're gender in the history of mankind. And. You know, people said, well, you're denying our humanity, not denying your humanity,

22:21

I'm affirming your humanity, who God made you to be intrinsically as a man or a woman.

22:28

So I was castigated by conservatives and Republicans for that, John, at the town pump.

22:36

Not I mean, not greatly, but people were casting shade like, you know, is that the best way to do it?

22:42

I don't know if that's the best way to do it. Like you could have like got to know him first and and you got a cup of coffee with them.

22:48

Yeah, yeah. Yes, there's that type of crap. And or from like the libertarian branch of the

22:54

Republicans, they were like, well, just let the guy live his life. He's just there to work. At least he has a job. He's not in welfare.

22:59

And I'm going, listen, all I know is I've got 30 seconds in that dude's life. I was struck like a deer in the headlights as much as he was.

23:07

I mean, I wasn't anticipated. I felt and people say you didn't give him any warning.

23:13

I didn't have any warning that a dude was going to be wearing a dress. I got a little bit closer. I'm like, that's a that's a dude. Sorry. From an eastern

23:20

Montana rural guy. I don't see that every day. It's a little startling. And so it was just as much disconcerting for me as it was for him.

23:27

Right. Well, anyways, long story short, I find this guy six months, more than six months later.

23:33

And the guy from the gas station. Yeah. And I had a friend. I had a friend in the nearby area.

23:41

Montana must be pretty small if you're finding these guys, if you find someone again. I'm not going to say where I found him.

23:48

OK, so I had a guy stop into that gas station pasture and was going to witness to him because he wasn't banned, but he could never find him.

24:00

So anyways, I happened to find this guy somewhere. And so guess what?

24:07

He's no longer a woman or pretending to be. Wow. Beard, masculine.

24:15

So I say, you remember who I am? He's like, oh, yeah, I remember where you are. I said, what's what's what's this?

24:21

And he says after that night,

24:26

I went home and I was peeing, standing up. And I thought that guy's right.

24:32

I'm not. You've got to be kidding me. So you're your comment, actually. And he says he says my boss reinforced that I was a woman.

24:41

My co -workers reinforced that I was one of my parents, my siblings, my friends, my psychiatrist. They all reinforced

24:46

I was a woman. Every single customer that went in that store and called me Mary, every single customer that went in and called me, ma 'am, they all reinforced that I was a woman.

24:55

It took one guy to come up to me and say, you're not a woman. Oh, my God. I thought about it that night.

25:01

I don't know. So we're following up. We pray that they receive Christ, but they're no longer pretending to be a woman.

25:10

So it can't it can make a difference in people's lives. So that kind of flipped.

25:15

But but what that did was that. Incident, which it didn't make the news so much as it made its rounds and social media and the political blogs around the state that brought the wrong attention to where this transvestite individual that I wrote the story about then was able to get legal counsel, who happened to be the president of planned, not president, the attorney for Planned Parenthood.

25:46

He's suing our attorney general to overturn four pieces of pro -life legislation that were passed in the last legislative session in another law firm consisting of girls that came from the

25:57

Ninth Circuit's Court of Appeals because Montana is under the Ninth Circuit. God forbid.

26:02

Right. I mean, yeah. Yeah. The California appellate system. But and so they all they do is sue

26:10

Christy Jacobsen, our attorney of state, our secretary of state, to overturn voter ID laws so that every dead

26:17

Democrat and their dog can vote. And so on top of that, then they started to sue me.

26:22

And that's when it got out of hand. And John, I can't talk about the lawsuit or some of the fallout, but that's when it really started to get wild.

26:33

But here's what happens. And here's here's the main story that I want to focus on. When you're sued, what most people do is and this is what they want you to do is to cower like a church mouse and be scared to stay inside your church.

26:52

Keep it in there and and then cower and bend and yield.

26:59

And I'm going to be honest with you, if I could talk about Kerry Gordon for a second. I felt fear for the first time in my life because I'm a little bit different.

27:13

I've, you know, a touch of Asperger's and I'm just a different egg. I don't really feel fear.

27:19

Like I'm not really afraid of people or situations or anything. It's just not an emotion that I have and.

27:27

Often anyway, and it was so off putting that, I mean, within two days, it really concerned me and I prayed with Kerry and he said,

27:36

I pray that these people would feel the fear of God for the first time in their life. And he said, listen, the reason this is so foreign to you is this is demonic.

27:46

And he prayed with me and I tell you what, that gave me a dose of courage.

27:51

And I said, screw this. I'm not going to stay here and keep quiet. I'm going to go out West where there are these little nests of homosexuals and activists, and I'm going to preach right in their backyard.

28:04

And that's what I did. I preached 90 times over the course of the summer in 60 different venues because I would go back to some of the same venues several times.

28:13

Only one church in all those 90 places. So I'm preaching to secular organizations and groups because they know me as the political guy.

28:19

But what they get is Jesus when I show up. Right. And that about darn near killed me.

28:26

But that kind of brings us up to where we're at now. Well, I saw so I saw Kerry Gordon's post where his church made a very encouraging video to support you.

28:37

And then someone sent me some news stories from Montana. And so right now,

28:42

I mean, if you put your name into Google News or something, you'll have all the local Montana, a lot of them, at least the

28:49

Sydney Herald, Great Falls Tribune, KTVH. Actually, I'm not even sure if all these are in Montana, the

28:56

Newark Advocate, perhaps they are. There's a bunch of others. And they're talking about what's going on with this case.

29:05

And and so some, I guess, are more favorable and I'm assuming most are not. But that's that's kind of the dose that I got.

29:14

Mass resistance put out a really good article. All I'll say is about that ordeal is that you don't realize how corrupt the judicial system is until you get until you get into it.

29:31

So in eastern Montana, with a jury of my peers, I'm relatively, relatively safe.

29:39

And they want to move it though. Right. And so, you know, we've been able to get politicians elected and unelected.

29:46

But the problem is judges are nonpartisan. And so in Montana, like everywhere, the judicial branch of government is usually the worst.

29:55

So far as liberalism is concerned, just the way it is, even when we have, you know, a majority on the

30:01

Supreme Court of Conservatives, isn't it weird that there's always like a conservative or two siding with the liberals on important issues?

30:08

Because we don't have a majority of conservatives. That's why. And so one exception was our district judge.

30:19

And I'm sure she hates my guts because, you know, like one time I called her out for letting a 26 year old out of jail for DUI so he could attend prom with his underage girlfriend.

30:30

Like I called her out at a public meeting for that. And I'm sure she remembers that. And then her son is, you know, the prosecutor at a nearby county and was going to enforce a mask mandate that was above and beyond that of our governor.

30:47

This was back during the COVID crisis. And I kind of chopped him off at the knees. And so I'm sure she remembers this type of thing.

30:54

And so it was supposed to stay within our district. I mean, that's kind of how it's supposed to go, which is basically all of Eastern Montana.

31:05

And then they used like a veto, like they said, they each side gets one veto to move the case.

31:12

And they use their veto card on that judge, which would have been fair. It would have been a jury that was at least near my county and near my peers.

31:21

And there's a lot of difference between Eastern Montana and Western Montana, Montana. But anyways, through a lot of details

31:29

I won't go into, it got moved to the most liberal judge in the state. Who's mannish in her own ways,

31:39

I'll leave it there. And she, yeah, she was going to take off my head with a guillotine.

31:48

I mean, she was ready to go scorched earth.

31:56

And like she dismissed a summary judgment and dismissed a counterclaim without even a hearing.

32:08

And then I claimed that I was dangerous and menacing. And so it's like the discovery request or in their complaints, they would cite the scripture verses that they found to be so threatening.

32:23

And I'm like, thanks a lot for praying, Kerry, that they'd feel the fear of God. I didn't know that that was a sanctionable offense.

32:29

But anyway, so I go out and I preach.

32:36

I went on the first The Arise USA tour and there was six tour buses led by Trent Lewis and David Allen Steele.

32:43

And they wanted a preacher to go with them through the state as they're going through the country. So they called me and so I went with them.

32:49

And then I would just I preached only west of Billings, not in eastern

32:55

Montana, because I didn't want to taint our jury poll. Little did I know that it would wind up in Cascade County under the worst judge in the state.

33:04

And so. Yeah, then forced into into bankruptcy over that, and then, you know, my enemies are dancing in the streets, he's bankrupt.

33:17

In the course of the preaching over the over the last year. Or over the last six months, and we don't do altar calls,

33:27

John, like I didn't think you did. No. So it's hard to keep track. But we've had two hundred and four people reach out to us saying that they've been born again or saved by my preaching.

33:43

Those are the ones that reached out to us. I'm not talking about those who raised their hand and closed their eyes and bowed their head that we followed up with to make sure that they get into a church, which has been difficult in some of those locations to make sure that they get baptized.

33:59

I've baptized many of those. We've had seven homosexuals come to Christ and turn from homosexuality and to transgender people, quote unquote, transgender people.

34:10

So if all that happens is the bankruptcy.

34:20

As terrible as that is, I don't know how terrible it is, but I'd be willing to die for what

34:29

I just said. Yeah, it would be worth my death and hanging on the gallows.

34:35

It'd be worth the guillotine from the original judge whose hands it's now out of.

34:43

It would be worth a hundred deaths. Because people have come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

34:54

Yeah, I'll point out some political things like the Democratic Party platform is a little more than a point by point refutation of the

35:01

Ten Commandments. You know, thou shalt not murder. And they've got abortion. And that's the

35:07

Sixth Commandment. And thou shalt not commit adultery. And they have gay pride parades in the street and celebrate adultery and cohabitation and every type of sexual sin they celebrate or thou shalt not steal the

35:20

Eighth Commandment. And they're socialists. They violate that, you know, as a major part of their party platform.

35:28

I mean, just today, this morning, I saw that they now have the votes to pass a reparations bill through the

35:34

House of Representatives. That will be in your headlines this morning when you get around in Montana or no, in the

35:40

U .S. House. Oh, are you serious? I have not been following that. Oh, my goodness. The representatives.

35:46

Yes. On judge reports this morning. OK, then on the Ninth Commandment, thou shalt not bear a false witness.

35:52

And that judge, the original, well, not the original judge, but like the third, the judge that they found that they wanted finally said,

36:04

I'd have to wear a mask. And that, you know, I you know, it was just that. For me to have to raise my hand and say,

36:12

I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And then to hear the judge refer to this man as a woman is honestly too much to take.

36:27

And it's it's it's it's exceedingly hard to do. And so moving forward, any time

36:34

I can have my attorney there without me being there is probably a wise thing because because of of that, not that I would have an outburst or anything like that, but just because it would it would make me exceedingly bitter on the inside.

36:49

And I'd have to pray, you know, fervently to talk when it's time to talk.

36:56

And I'm sure the Lord would give strength to do that in that hour. Well, right now where things are right now,

37:03

I mean, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on was because I saw these stories and I saw

37:08

Carrie's post and I want to get the scoop from you. But I wanted also to to let viewers out there know what they can do to help.

37:15

And I know they can pray for you. And but there's also, I think, a financial need here as well for the lawyers fees.

37:22

I mean, you're I'm assuming they got a mountain of money that's never ending. Probably got a mountain of blood money.

37:29

Yeah. There's a supply for murder is really high. And and therefore there are rather the demand for murder is really high.

37:39

And so, you know, supply is lucrative. So they have a mountain of blood money to come after me.

37:46

And that's what people don't realize. Either Republicans or Christians, they're like, oh, Jordan got into a scrap with somebody over, you know, doing what he does or whatever.

37:59

And it's like, do you realize that I'm up against basically Planned Parenthood and the

38:05

LGBTQ lobby before you celebrate my bankruptcy? Why don't you realize who

38:12

I'm personally up against? All right. Before you celebrate that. But most importantly is prayer before we talk about the

38:20

Liberty Defense Fund. So I had an esophageal stricture that entire time all summer, which means

38:26

I couldn't swallow. Sometimes I couldn't even swallow my saliva at night. I'd wake up choking. Oh, so it was incredibly dehydrated.

38:34

I was I had lunch with Justin Peters and I had just come off of a speaking tour and explained to him that I hadn't been able to eat or swallow or drink for like two days.

38:46

And God had just removed it. Finally, whatever was stuck in my throat got unstuck.

38:52

And I remember eating with him at the Cracker Barrel and it was the best meal I've ever ate in my life because it's been days since I've eaten.

38:59

So on the speaking tour, I couldn't eat because this esophageal stricture until after I spoke that night in case

39:07

I choked because I can't speak when I'm choking. And so I would just eat like a bag of peanuts a day, maybe after I spoke.

39:17

So I've lost 70 pounds since it began. And then

39:22

I went to the doctor about a month ago and said, I I'm dying. I don't know what's wrong, but I think

39:29

I'm dying. And I have organ failure or something. I'm not right because I was slurring my speech.

39:37

I was I had word displacement, stuttering. All sorts of staggering, no motor skills, like I told my kids, quit throwing me my car keys because they're hitting me in my face every time like I got no motor skills, didn't know what was wrong.

39:59

And the doctor runs a battery of blood tests and says, you had the vitamin D of a weak, dead old corpse.

40:06

You have no vitamin D. They gave me 80 ,000 excuse me, 200 ,000 emergency units.

40:12

And then put me on 40 ,000 units a day. Apparently you die without vitamin

40:17

D. You kind of need it. Yeah, you kind of need it. And the doctor said, you're lucky that you're not dead for real.

40:23

I have no idea how you walked in here. I literally have no you should not have had the strength to walk in here. And which makes sense, because I remember walking up the steps to like Columbus Hall in Cascade County where I could barely make it.

40:39

I walked into the church one of those Sundays to preach and fell in the church parking lot, hit my head so hard I got a concussion and preached with my peripheral vision all blurry and people were colorful.

40:55

And I fell down the church stairs a week before that. And the

41:01

EMTs had to come and get me up off the floor because my knee had popped out a joint.

41:07

I mean, it was just it was just a wreck. But since then, they've cured all that up.

41:12

Here's the amazing thing, though. All of those symptoms, they wouldn't disappear on a podcast necessarily, but they all disappear when

41:19

I was preaching. Wow. God gave me the strength to get through that where every sermon was fluent.

41:27

Every time I spoke publicly out there in the name of Jesus Christ, it was,

41:34

I don't want to say flawless, but I mean, the speech and everything and motor skills, mannerisms. God gave me the grace sufficient for that specific hour.

41:43

And that's God's, that's the power of prayer. And so when you think of a polemicist as just the guy complaining about the gospel coalition all the time, understand that,

41:53

I mean, I haven't done polemics hardly at all for nearly two years, maybe three.

42:01

And, you know, I've assigned that to other people within our organization. I've been focusing on this battle in particular for the last year.

42:12

And so if you want to support us financially, you can give to the Liberty Defense Fund, which is under our church's 501C3, and that'll take care of those legal expenses.

42:24

We got notice yesterday that they're coming after me in bankruptcy court.

42:33

Oh, I'm so sorry. No, no, no, don't be. Every night

42:41

I'd pray John's Psalm 17 .7, in thy presence vindicate me. I still want my vindication.

42:49

God's still going to give me my vindication in court. But a different one.

42:56

God's good. I'm not worried about that in the slightest. So the last thing

43:02

I'm doing is running from a confrontation or a legal fight. It's just because of the situation, because of everything that has transpired, it's just going to have to be a different court,

43:13

I guess. What's the website? You mentioned the defense fund, but where do people go? Just go to fbcsydney .com.

43:20

FBC is in Fellowship Baptist Church. FBC, Sydney, like Nebraska, not

43:25

Australia. S -I -D -N -E -Y, not too wise .com and click

43:30

Liberty Defense Fund. You can give right there. They'll take care of my legal needs sufficiently.

43:37

And so we're thankful that God has provided that. And so if I could just give a word of encouragement,

43:43

John, to everybody out there. Yeah, you'll take the heat. Last night, my son was bowling.

43:51

And my 16 -year -old son and somebody shows up, some kid, and kids are mean.

43:59

And they're like, here's your dad on the front page of the paper declaring bankruptcy. Why do you have money to bowl? Are you serious?

44:06

Oh, my goodness. A kid at a Christian school. And my son is not as prepared to handle that as my daughter.

44:14

She'll rip somebody's face off because she's a couple years older and slightly more mature, much more mature.

44:21

But my wife works at the hospital. And I think the only reason that newspaper stays alive is because of hospital subscriptions.

44:32

Because every room gets one and they're all over the desks. And they're my faces on the front page of the paper.

44:39

My wife has to walk by it like, you know, a hundred times a day. And then it sparks conversation.

44:46

Are you this guy's wife? Yes, yes. This isn't encouraging yet,

44:51

JD. Well, the encouraging part is there's another local paper in town that has allowed people to defend me.

45:01

And people understand the real story. And so I went to a meeting Monday night, a civics meeting that I'm obligated to go to.

45:09

Because I'm an elected official for that office. And it was the first time I had to come out in public after the bankruptcy news broke.

45:19

And I didn't really want to go. And I don't think I'm going to keep going. I don't know after my term is up.

45:26

Because I obviously have other severe things to deal with besides local peddly crap.

45:32

And my wife's like, why go? You don't have to go. And I go, no, I'm going because I'm going to hold my head up high. I didn't do anything wrong.

45:39

I'm not ashamed. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I've fought the good fight.

45:44

I've run the good race as hard as I could, as good as I could. And these people that want to judge me, what are they spending their life doing?

45:54

And the fact is, John, here's the thing. From Irving Kanner or Liberty, excuse me,

46:02

Louisiana College back in the early days of all the way through Greg Locke and Clayton Jennings and Jonathan Cahn.

46:10

And you can't kick as much butt as I've kicked in life and not expect to have it kicked back once in a while.

46:18

There's just consequences to live. If you live by the sword, you'll die by it.

46:24

That's just the way it works. But the encouraging part is in the end,

46:31

I'll be vindicated. In the end, Christ will vindicate me and God wins.

46:39

I mean, how many souls have come to salvation through this?

46:47

I have no idea, but one day I'm going to know and then it's worth it.

46:53

And I'm always quoting to people, Isaac Watts, am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of lamb?

47:00

And do I dare fear to own his cause or blush to speak his name? Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease while I let others fight to win the prize and sail through bloody seas?

47:12

Must I not do my best? Must I not stem this flood? Or is this vile world a friend of grace to help me on to God?

47:21

No, I must fight if he would reign. So increase my courage, Lord, and I'll take the toil and endure the pain supported by thy word.

47:32

Listen, in some other countries, we'd be put in jail. In some other countries, we'd be put to death.

47:40

And it turns out in this country, you may have to go bankrupt for doing your best to tell the truth because the legal system sucks.

47:51

Whatever, it doesn't matter. The truth is we have to be proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

47:58

And along with that, the law that brings the conviction of sins. And we need to be pointing out there's no such thing as transgenderism.

48:06

It doesn't exist. That is a myth like the leprechaun or Sasquatch or moral Democrats. They just don't exist.

48:14

These are mythical creatures and need to be pointing out reality to people.

48:21

And objective reality from God's general revelation and then bringing in the special revelation that reaches into people's hearts and turns a heart of stone into a heart of flesh.

48:36

And last thing, John, people don't realize that polemics and what

48:43

Montana Daily Gazette is, is basically our polemical form of writing applied to politics. That we kind of created at Pulpit and Pen over the years.

48:54

Polemics is evangelism. So when people say, why don't you do evangelism and do something worthwhile?

49:01

It is evangelism. Pointing out the counterfeit by default is demonstrating the true.

49:09

You know, I have like a lady in my church that was saved because someone sent her a message and said, you know,

49:17

Stephen Furtick is garbage. He's a false teacher. And she's like, what?

49:25

And started looking into it and said, well, who do you think I should listen to? And they're like, Alistair Begg. Here's Alistair Begg.

49:33

And I've been a little disappointed with Alistair lately, but he's no Stephen Furtick, obviously. I mean, we can't put them in the same category, right?

49:41

And so she was saved. Why? I mean,

49:46

God's Holy Spirit using God's Holy Scripture. But because he used polemics to do that, it is evangelism.

49:55

It is sharing the truth. And I kicked myself over that transvestite because I'm like,

50:02

I only had 30 seconds. I didn't drop a scripture on him. And we're born again, not by corruptible seed, but by incorruptible, which is the word of God.

50:10

You know, I was mad at myself. I didn't use the scripture. You know, I just said, you're not a man. You're a woman. You should repent and believe in Jesus.

50:17

I should have given some scripture, you know. Dang it, Jordan. But the Lord was gracious enough to use that.

50:25

And so even in our weakness, God's greatness is made known. And that's the main story.

50:31

And I guess hopefully that's the encouraging part is do not grow weary in well -doing for in due season, you shall reap a reward.

50:40

Yeah, well, I'm encouraged by that. I didn't realize, I didn't know about that story at the gas station. And, you know, your courage, your bravery in this is infectious.

50:48

And I hope people hear that and have the same reaction that they're willing to say something when, you know, there's a risk involved.

50:56

If people want to give, I would just emphasize fbcsydney .org. You can go to the top. There's a tab that says church giving, and it comes down and there's general fund giving and then religious liberty fund.

51:06

That's what you want to click on. And that'll take you to a portal where you can donate. So I would just encourage people who want to help with JD Hall's legal defense to go there.

51:18

And then, of course, pray for JD as I'm praying for JD and that, you know, you would be faithful and that the

51:26

Lord would be merciful and that you'd be vindicated as you've talked about here. So I appreciate you sharing that.

51:32

I know your time is limited as a pastor with everything else you're doing. I have to I have to zoom out and go see my doctor and my attorney.

51:42

OK, well, I'm going to let you do hours away. So that's that's been my life. So that's why I covet your prayers.

51:48

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for giving us your limited time. God bless you, JD. Bless you. All right, bye now.