Our 2nd Blood Red Church nominee Joe Domico | Ep. 12

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By the way, my firstborn son's name's Josiah. We like him because he was the only one that tore down the

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High Places. Yes. Because all the other guys left them up. And there's all different theories about what happened, what they did at the

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High Places. But the bottom line, it was bagging. So it had to go. And welcome to Tearin' Down High Places.

00:45

My name's Average Joe. Got our normal pastors here with us. Pastor Jeff. Pastor Jeff.

00:51

Pastor Tim. And today we have a Red Church pastor coming in,

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Joe D 'Amico. Welcome to Tearin' Down High Places. Nice to meet you, sir. It's good to be here. Yeah, yeah.

01:02

So we're gonna talk a little bit about Joe's church. Let me introduce you real quick. He's from Gateway Christian Church in Woodbury, New Jersey.

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If you do wanna reach out to him, you're gonna love this email address. It's jdomico, J -D -O -M -I -C -O, at inyourfaith .org.

01:21

In your faith. What a wonderful. In your F -A -I -T -H. Yes, yes. Very, very well said. No list. In your faith.

01:26

Well said. That's fantastic. I know, where did that email address come from?

01:32

How'd you come up with that? We were just talking around with some radio guys, friends of mine.

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And they said, in your faith, because they think I'm from New York, even though I told them

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I'm from South Philadelphia. And they said, in your faith. So I don't remember if it was me or somebody else, first one that said faith, but that clicked as soon as I heard it.

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And that was about, wow, in about 1998. And now it's become a radio show.

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Yeah, that's what we used to use for our cassette tapes. I don't know if you guys are old enough to remember that. Yep. And then new

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CDs, and then for the radio show and all of our media ministry. Where can people listen to you on the radio?

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They can listen to me on Hope FM network. Here locally, it's 90 .5 FM and 4 .30

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PM daily. Nice. And also 94 .9 in Mount Laurel. It's right on top of that tower.

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Right up there. Yeah. They got two stations over here. Yeah, I can reach that from Westville.

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Oh yeah. Oh, nice. And what the viewers may not know is I got saved through Hope FM listening to preachers on the radio.

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And one of those preachers was Joe D 'Amico. Praise the Lord. I used to listen all the time in your faith. So, you know, it's funny when you listen to people on the radio, you have this like vision of what they look like.

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I thought Joe was a lot younger and better looking. I thought he was too. Better looking, boy.

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He probably was. Wow. It's an honor to meet this guy because I don't know exactly who, you know,

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I got saved. I was listening to a bunch of preachers, but God was working in my life at that time. I know. I was driving a truck and listening to Hope FM.

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And, you know, one day I hopped in the truck and was listening to these preachers. They would come on one after another. And then one day

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I hopped in the truck unsaved and hopped out of the truck saved. Wow. I would say the primary guy

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I listened to was Joe D 'Amico. Wow. So, yeah. I got saved, listen. Well, actually,

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I mean, initially, the first time I got saved, when I first was coming to the

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Lord, I mean, I decided to read through the Bible and I don't know what caused that.

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I stole my roommate's. He had a stolen Gideon's Bible. It was a King James and I didn't understand.

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Now I speak fluent King James, but back then, because I have a lot of King James only friends. So I only speak to them in King James.

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These and those. So I started reading through it. I had a dictionary reading through it.

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And then one day I was really, I smoked angel dust and it was really strong.

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And I used to work at the time in Atlantic City at the Playboy Hotel Casino.

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I was a supervisor and we just got done work and I used to drive back and forth down the expressway.

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By the time I got home, I thought I was on Mars or something. And I went into my parents' house because I lived in Brighamton.

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I went to my parents' house in the attic. I turned on this Christian radio show, WZZD 990

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AM. And I heard the word for today with Pastor Chuck Smith. And I heard it says recorded live at Calvary Chapel, Coast of Mesa, California.

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And I was like, oh, freaked out. What's that mean, recorded live? And so I listened to it and I made

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God a deal. If he got me down, if I got my brain back, I would serve him for life. And I was not faithful to that.

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And then about three months later, I was watching the 700 Club. And that was about early

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June, 1983. And Ben Kinchler, the old host, was on there. And I was clicking,

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I was about to click him off. And he said, don't you dare turn that. And I dropped the thing because I was probably intoxicated at that time too because I was an alcoholic at the time.

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And I dropped it and I listened to the gospel and I prayed with him right there. And that's the first time

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I ever heard the gospel. I mean, I grew up in Catholic Church. I went to Mass every Sunday from when I was zero to 18.

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Now, you know, my father did not allow not showing up because you felt sick or you were up too late.

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So, and I went to Catholic school for 12 years, but I never heard the gospel until that. It was real clear.

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He told the gospel, Jesus died for your sins. According to scripture, you're buried and raised third day. If you believe and trust and cling to and rely on that, you'll have forgiveness of sins.

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And I prayed there. And then I got, no,

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I guess I got radically saved. I went, I threw everything out. I quit smoking and doing all drugs and alcohol in that same day.

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And then, you know, I went all the way to Philly to church, the

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South Philadelphia church where I had friends that went too. And then started,

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I went to Calvary Chapel, Philadelphia because I heard them on the radio. And I drove all around. I used to go to like Bible study, different Bible study every night of the week.

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I mean, I went Monday. I didn't go, no, there were meetings for drug addicts. So I just went to Bible studies and I met, my wife was one of the people that used to come.

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We were just friends and we fell in love and we got married. And then I was peeling potatoes.

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Well, after a long story, after I got out of the Atlantic City casino industry, because I promised

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God I'll stay there. Hey, I'll use the money for you, Lord, so, you know, but I knew it was immoral. I used to get players, prostitutes, and drugs.

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I mean, I used to get cocaine and hookers for players. That's what we used to do. I mean, because people think it's a nice, clean, it's no big deal.

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If I go down and put a couple of quarters in, it's corrupt from the top down. And so I was on the dead game, dead crabs game.

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And that means there's nobody there, it's just the dealers. And my dealer friend who I used to hang out with was telling him

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I read Isaiah 53. I was all excited about it. That was Messiah and he said, yeah,

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I read that before. I don't believe that. And like, that was the end of it. The next thing I knew about two hours later,

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I got, I already had my break that hour and they asked me to go up to the casino office. I thought I was getting a raise or something.

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And I went up and I was getting written up for affirmative action for the persecution of a

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Jewish kid. And I said, and I was a CO's management and he was a dealer.

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So that was like a big deal. And I said, I would never do that. And I ripped it up and they called security and the

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Lord told me, don't look back. And I went out, I went out in the boardwalk and I called the pastor of the church

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I was going to, told him they'd been praying and fasting for me to get out of there. And I thought that they wanted me to get the money.

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If there's somebody listening to this podcast right now that's been saved, but they're still entangled in something, let this be a word to them to make the break right now.

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Just like Joe did. Did you ever look back? Did you ever wish you had gone back to the money? Never, no.

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I saw the evil in it. Like I said, I used to, I was compromising. And where I lived at my house, we rented a house.

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I had roommates and they were free basing cocaine all the time, which I did right before, right before I got saved, by the way, before crack came out.

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It was about a month till it came to Atlantic City. If that would have happened, I probably would have been a crack head.

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Because those guys all, they're all still messed up. And so I started reaching out to friends.

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I got a lot of my cousins and friends saved. I got in big trouble with my family because we're a conservative

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Italian family and the Catholic church is the one true church. And no, I was real tactical when

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I, I read Dave Hunt books, right? And I was calling it the whore of Babylon and the woman that rides a beast.

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And they didn't really appreciate that. So you were like Paul in terms of, in Galatians, he says, I wish they would go ahead and emasculate themselves.

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You were not afraid of the strong rhetoric. I wasn't. Except when I got caught. I got caught at my grandmother's house.

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My grandmother was an old Italian, went to mass every day. And I paid one of my cousins $50 to throw the idol of Mary that was on the front lawn into the lake across the street, which was really just a swamp.

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And before he did it, he cheesed me out. And I got, he, then he did it. And then I got,

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I was like the devil. Like, how could you do that? Yeah. You were like Gideon tearing down the idols.

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So when I was a young man, still contemplating all these things, who I was listening to was this guy.

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Wow. And I. He's in the Roman Catholic. I, yeah. And I respected what he was saying so much that like,

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I was encouraged to start living like that too. You would share stories like that. And I'm like, wow, this guy is like still going, you know?

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So I was like, so encouraging to hear that. Got in a lot of trouble with my family though, I have to say that. I was drug dealing and doing all kinds of things.

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And my mom, I was an angel. I never did anything wrong. Cause she never noticed that. And I never did anything in front of her.

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With it, when I, when I got baptized, that's what it was. When, when I got baptized, I was so excited.

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I was like, you know, I came home and I told my parents, my mother, it was on the phone. She took the wired phone and threw it at me.

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She never did anything like that. Get out of my house, you blank blank. And like, how dare you disrespect?

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And I thought it was like the greatest thing in the world. And my dad would say, you know, you know, we have

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Jesus in our church too and all. But what was really neat is about four years later, my wife got to leave my dad to the

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Lord. She was out walking in the town and the Lord told, directed her to go to the house and she just went there.

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She's prompted her and she went and he was trying to read the Bible. And he, and so she explained him being born again,

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John chapter three, and they read and he accepted the Lord. That Sunday, because Gateway had already started, we were meeting in the

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YMCA in Woodbury and that my dad wanted to be baptized. And so I went, you know, got the lifeguard and said, before you guys open,

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I'm gonna have a quick baptism. And my dad got baptized and my mom really was upset.

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Like really, she couldn't believe it. He did something so horrible, even though he was a gambler and whatever else all of his life, she couldn't believe he did that.

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Then very next day, he was driving home from a store called Hechinger's, it's like an old depot.

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And he had a massive stroke and he still lived after that, but he was never the same, but he had, before he was unable to do everything, he made that decision to follow

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Jesus. And it was really powerful. Wow, that is powerful. My mom stayed with Rome till the end.

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She used to come to church, at our church, to support me once a month, but you know, she never responded.

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And my, you know, because all my sisters, I have five sisters, three brothers, and the five sisters all think she's an angel saint.

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And because she went, she died in 2005. And it's not, you know, that's how they are.

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I mean, and, you know, they believe that she, my dad really isn't, because look, my dad used to do this and this.

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But I said, but he was forgiven of all the sin. And they just couldn't receive that. That's the offense of the cross.

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Yeah. Wow. And listen, although, I want to say this, we were a real conservative

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Catholic family. Like, you know, living together before he got married, that was still unheard of.

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But what happened was, I had a sister who was married to a police officer. And he was a real nice guy, except, you know, she wanted, they wanted to have a baby, and he didn't want to have any babies.

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But the police officer got a younger girl pregnant while he was still married to my sister. And she freaked out and kicked him out of the house.

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And she started hanging around with the softball team. And she said, you know, one of the softball people, you know, said, maybe you're gay.

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And she became a lesbian. Like, because she was bitter against men. And it's a lot longer story than that, but my parents were very totally against it, my mom.

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But what happened was, they had her friend, or whatever you call it, swept my parents' sidewalk, mowed the lawn, shoveled the snow before any of their other kids, you know, they had eight kids of me, and did it, she did it.

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And then they said, oh, well, she's really nice. My mom said, they're just roommates. I said, come on, that's what she said.

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I mean, just the blindness of religion, I mean, that's very upsetting. I liked what you said about, you used to be an alcoholic.

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You know, that sounded like a purposeful statement that you said it in a certain way. I did, yeah. Like, instead of saying that, you know, you're still an alcoholic, right?

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Like a lot of alcoholics say, or people use the term. I was a rock and roll band guy, and tried to, you know, one of these guys tried to start a band when we were teenagers, and we started going back into the

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Texaco woods in Westville every late afternoon, and we would, each of us would get it, bring a case of beer that,

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I don't know how we afforded that, and we would steal a bag of ice from the ice house that was there at the time, and we would go pour the ice into the box, and just in the woods back there, and just drank every day, and did it every day, and that's what happened.

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See, I didn't know I was an alcoholic. I drank every day, and by the time I was working at the swing shift, which starts at 4 p .m.

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or 6 p .m., in the casino, I would, when I woke up, I used to drink a glass of scotch.

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I didn't know I was an alcoholic. I just thought it helped me feel better in the morning. So then you started

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Greek class. When did that start? Well, I went back, my dad had a diner on Route 130, which is now 295, in West Stafford, and I went back working for him, which

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I did since I was a little kid, managing the diner in the morning, and I had to get up at like 3 .30,

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4 o 'clock in the morning, and so I was there, and I think it was peeling boiled potatoes for home fries.

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What diner is this? Joe's number two diner in West Stafford, Joe's number one was

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Gateway Diner in Westville, but it used to be called Joe's Diner, and that's my grandfather. Is it called something different now?

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It's closed, they're rebuilding the area because of flooding, and Joe's number two got knocked down because it's interstate 295.

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You can't have businesses on it. So I was there, and then I really, the two times

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I've heard the Lord is when he said, don't look back at the casino, and he said, you're gonna preach the gospel, and I thought there was somebody there.

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I went and checked, because it was before anybody got there to the diner, and then the waitress came in, and I said, is anyone else here?

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No, no other cars out there, and so I started, I said,

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I need to start my education, so I took classes at Villanova.

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I did not matriculate any kind, I just took classes, because I had to take

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Englishes and all that to get a Bible degree, and I decided

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I was gonna go to get an undergraduate degree, and I just thought the best thing was biblical languages, because I used to listen to expository teaching.

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I listened to John MacArthur, and I said to myself, I don't learn Greek, I don't wanna be, I wanna be able to read it myself, so I found out there was

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Pepperdine University on the west coast, and there was Abilene Christian, both had undergraduate biblical language degrees, so I never knew nothing about Texas, and we, my wife and I, we newly wed, we were only married for a couple months.

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We packed everything into a trailer and went to Abilene, Texas, and I'm telling you, after you drive down the interstate 20 past Dallas -Fort

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Worth, there's nothing but desert and armadillos and scorpions, that's all, not rattlesnakes.

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Better not run out of gas. And then you came to Abilene, and like, there were no trees, my wife cried when she saw there were so few, there was no trees.

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How do you say scorpion in Greek? I think it's scorpionos. Scorpionos.

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So anyway, went there, and I went, and I was a, no, thought it would be real easy, but I didn't know, like I said,

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I used to do good in college until I started hanging around my rock and roll friends, because then,

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I guess, it wasn't cool to get good grades. And so I actually didn't go to classes so I could be accepted, which was kind of crazy.

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I was in Catholic school, and I, God, they asked my parents to withdraw me because they thought

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I was selling marijuana, which, by the way, I wasn't. I smoked, we used to, Gloucester Catholic High School, you could smoke in between buildings, because you walked between buildings.

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But we smoked cigarettes, too, and somebody said I was selling it. Anyway, so I went to public school, and I did real bad there.

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And so I wasn't real good on parts of speech or English, but I went right into a Greek and New Testament major.

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And I had to take, I took four years of Greek, I had to take a year of Hebrew, and we had a semester of Aramaic, which was a lot of fun.

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And I started using my Greek texts, because there were the guys that used the inner linears and cheated, and I just decided that you may as well learn it.

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And I still use it every day. I think words, and I've learned modern

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Greek since, so I can speak to Greek people, because it's all different pronunciations. And yeah, it's fun.

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And you're gonna be putting on a class in the near future for some of us lay people that might be interested? Yes, Lord willing,

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Calvary Chapel Bible College, which is out of Calvary Chapel, Marlton is gonna have a

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Greek class, and I'll be doing the teaching. My friend Danny Barger is the,

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I guess we would call him the headmaster there right now. And they have classes every semester, including spring and summer classes.

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But that's supposed to be in the fall of 2024. So anybody that wants to take the class could sign up and join you.

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It's either gonna be in Woodbury or in Marlton. Yeah, you'd sign up through ccmarlton .org,

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and look for Calvary Bible College and sign up. Awesome. All right, you mentioned

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Danny Barger. He was a missionary to the Middle East, and it still goes back there,

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I think. Amazing, man. We have to have him on TDHP at some point. But he reached out to Muslims a lot.

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I wanted to ask you about something that happened in your ministry. We're friends here with David Wood.

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David Wood's been in our church and preached a couple times. And Nabeel Qureshi has since gone to be with the

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Lord. The two of them would go evangelize in Michigan. Tell me about your experiences evangelizing

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Muslims. Well, we were there because of Danny Barger. Danny Barger was - Oh, Danny was part of that too. Danny Barger was a missionary in Egypt.

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So he knew Egyptian, Arabic really well. And we did the

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Musa, Moses tour. Started out in Goshen and went all the way, the steps of Moses, to Mount Nebo in Jordan.

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That'd be cool. So it was great. And we went to Jerusalem after that. That was the first time I went to Israel. And it was a beautiful trip.

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And I always describe it like all the lands around Israel were one way. It was all dirt, desert, and dirty.

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And when we walked into Nuweiba, or really when we came into Israel from the border, as soon as you got to the border, it was like the

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Wizard of Oz where it goes from black and white to color. That's not a lie. I mean, because there was vegetation and life.

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And we're just like a quarter mile away. It was just dirt. But anyway, but they're trying. And so we just were on that.

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And then we went to the Arafat. And at the same time, Dave and Nabil, they were going,

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I guess, about a year. I'm trying to think, 2004? It was every year.

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They had 2004, 2005, 2006. And we used to go to Dearborn, which is a suburb of Detroit that was started by Henry Ford, who was an anti -Semite, and brought

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Arabs in just to annoy Jews. That's what he really did. He wrote a series of books that Adolf Hitler had published into German because it was a severe anti -Semite.

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Anyway, so we went there. And to me, it was amazing, first of all, because Dearborn, they have a

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Yemeni section. And when you're there, it's like in Yemen. You go to a store. It's like being in Yemen.

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If I didn't know where I was at, because everybody speaks Arabic, that's where I think I was at. Then they have a big

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Lebanese section, which is really nice. And Americanized. And then they got a Saudi section.

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And so we went there, and went the first year. And a lot of stuff going on.

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It was kind of, we had met in the street there, and we had our own booth.

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And the pastor from California we were with, he had like a question and answer thing, and it was real nice.

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Second year we went, Nabil and David were there again. And they had this thing set up inside the main tent.

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And it said, any question you have, you ask. So we went, and there was a bunch of these scholars there.

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And they had in the sign, just like every sign's there, had it hanging up. It said, the prophet

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Mohammed is prophesied by Jesus. I said, oh no.

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I knew what it was. And then I went there and asked a question. He showed me, you know, in John 16, when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will lead you into all truth.

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And I said, I said, no, no, no. I said, ruach ha 'qodesh. That's Arabic for the

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Holy Spirit. And he said, and he said no. And so he said, they got the big guy came.

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The big guy came to study with me. And I was there for about, I would say 45 minutes. And I, you know, tore him apart with that.

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It's talking about ruach ha 'qodesh. And they told me there's no such thing, because they don't believe in that.

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And I said, well, that's what Isa was talking about. And I said, you guys are wrong.

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And so this other guy came up, and these other guys are with him. And as I was talking, because it was getting a little heated because I, you know,

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I don't, was not intimidated by them at all. I got picked up. Now listen, I weigh 250 pounds.

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These two guys picked me up, and they took me outside and threw me over this wall, which

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I was able to land on my hands and save myself. And they told me I'm kicked out.

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How big was the wall? It was about six foot. Yeah, and it was like,

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I didn't even know what happened. Like, look, they said to ask any questions. So, smart me,

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I went right back. And some of the guys were like, Paul, let's go. You went right back. Lystra, yes. I sat in the camera.

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Paul got back up and went in. Tell me what you're doing. And they acted all different, because the camera was there, even though it was just me.

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So, I went back with a couple of my friends. And - You went right back in. We did it again. We did it again.

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This time, all day was filmed. And so then David and Nabil were there. They heard about it. And they decided to do something.

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So they went, and they went and really pressed these same guys. And they ended up getting, you know, arrested.

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I remember seeing videos of them getting arrested. They got two years in a row. And it's a shame, because there was a lawsuit.

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They closed down the Arab Fest, which I used to love going to it. It was good food. And it was a good time.

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It was, and it was a great time. Like, we talked to a lot. I didn't see anybody get saved, which was not a person from Islam that became a

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Christian. I haven't seen that. Now it could happen, but I would have liked to. Yeah. It's so much a process.

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Like, the way Nabil came, he was talking to David Wood for years on the debate club and all, before Nabil actually got saved.

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So, it could have been in time. Through your life, you lost your job by sharing Isaiah 53, and then you went on to get baptized, and your own mom threw a phone at you and kicked you out.

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And then, later down the road, you actually were in Israel, and Muslims picked you up and threw you over a wall.

26:49

Yeah. And some people would look at that and be like. Well, that happened in Dearborn, Michigan. Oh, sorry, Dearborn, Michigan. Right here in America. My bad,

26:54

Dearborn. I also got arrested at the Liberty Bell, because I was. Oh, do tell. I was with my friends from college, graduate school students from Abilene Christian, and they'd never been to Philly before, and they lived with Cheese State.

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Yeah, and we went to Liberty Bell, and proclaimed liberty. And it said scripture on there, and I said, yeah. And there was a bunch of people there, and I started explaining them what that meant.

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That, he said, that Moses said that following Torah brings freedom, and freedom, and that's what they brought into this country.

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That kind of liberty, the liberty that only can give by the Lord. And so, the guy comes up. You're not supposed to talk about that.

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Why? There's nobody else here. The next thing I know, police come, and they took three of us away. Oh, there was like 10 of us, but only three of us got arrested.

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Wow. And they thought I was the main speaker, so I got taken to the roundhouse in Philly. Wow. And then they let us go, no charges, but it was still, you know,

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I didn't like that, because, you know, that's what this, the things that go on now, as you know, on college campuses, there's not freedom of speech anymore.

27:51

Right. Because you know that. I mean, they, they're, I call them jerks. I don't know what else to say, but they don't let you say, you know, anything if you disagree with their, their view of the cancel culture.

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So I was drawn to this type of preaching, because he was just so direct. That's what made me keep listening to Joe D 'Amico.

28:09

So there are people out there that need to hear it. You do it when you have to. You do it when you have to. Yeah, I don't, like I said,

28:14

I don't like to do it, and be listened to all the time. Yeah. Yeah, that's just fake. Yeah, people, you know, people get offended.

28:21

And again, I go to, like I said, when I first became Christian, I went to the priest, the parish

28:26

I grew up in, and I became equipped, and he couldn't answer any questions. And what's worse is he didn't care.

28:33

He told me to go study church history. I studied church history. I came back, and he's still, you know, it's like, you know, he tells my parents that, don't worry, he's gonna come back to the faith.

28:44

I am. That's what, I was like, really, you know, because, but, you know, they didn't, so me and my, when

28:51

I got married, me and my wife went there, and we wanted our names removed from the rolls of Rome. Because, you know, because I was new

28:59

Christian. I was like, you know, it's the whore of Babylon. I told them that. I told the bishop in Camden.

29:06

It didn't go over real well, but I mean, I said, well, I said, have you ever thought about that before?

29:11

And so I'm there in Revelations trying to read it to them, and they tell me, you know, they say, hey, you need to get, no, we're gonna get security.

29:20

Security? I said, what? I thought you guys were priests. What do you mean security? I'm asking you a question.

29:26

I really want to know what your answer is. And they never, I never got it. So some of the viewers might be looking like, and the lifestyle that you're living and what you chose, they might look at you for all this persecution that you suffered, and they might think like, why are you doing that?

29:41

That sounds like an awful, what's the purpose for all that? And do you regret any of that?

29:47

No, I really did all those things because I really cared. Or like with the guys at the sign -up, ask us any question about Torah, and they have that Prophet Muhammad's prophesied by Jesus.

30:00

And I said, really? I said, I wanted to know what that was. And so that's what we got, what happened.

30:06

And they had the one guy and he didn't know enough, so they went and got the other guy. Because see, I knew enough

30:11

Arabic to be dangerous, so they didn't like that. But you cared about them and wanted them to know the truth.

30:16

I wanted the truth, yeah. And they just wanted to throw you over a wall. Oh, I tried to tell them about the, I tried to, again, preach into them about the

30:23

Holy Spirit, and that he will help you come to Jesus. He'll help you come to Isa.

30:29

Isa's not a prophet. What you heard is true. And I said, if you read the

30:35

Quran, it doesn't tell you what you guys say today. The Quran says to read the Injil, the

30:40

Gospel. It says to read the Torah. It says to read the Psalms of David. And you guys say it's corrupt.

30:46

But it doesn't say that anywhere in any of the writings until way after Muhammad. So how do you do that?

30:53

Instead of answering, they get mad. They get upset. And that's the anger because they can't answer the truth.

31:00

I think in our culture, people act as if Muslims are persecuted in America.

31:06

All this Islamophobia. They think that everybody is being persecuted, but not

31:12

Christians. It's exactly the opposite. Christians, it's open season on all times. It's open season on Christians.

31:19

Yeah, yeah. It really is. It really is, yeah. I mean, we get accused of things.

31:25

I remember in Dearborn, there's the Three Angels Satellite Network.

31:31

And they would have, during the time we were there, they would have, like James White came in and him and Dave Wood did it.

31:36

A bunch of teachings on there. And they would say that these guys are evil and wicked. They were just firm in saying this, especially

31:45

Dave Wood, because he tells you what a pervert Muhammad was. And he's just telling you the truth. He's not doing it to disrespect them.

31:52

He's not telling you, it's just like if we were to talk about Joseph Smith. You know them by their fruits. Joseph Smith was a, what's a nice bad word for him?

32:02

Sleaze that used to try to witch wells and make money however he can. Sell potions or whatever.

32:08

And he found a way with religion because he found a bunch of people who were really serious about wanting to have an

32:14

American denomination. And he took them and led them astray. And they're still that way today.

32:21

When you were talking about evangelizing and Greek languages and you're talking about the history of the church,

32:26

I was thinking of James White. I was thinking of the very James White language. He says that's the most important thing you need for evangelism is to be able to know church history and the languages.

32:36

And yeah, James White's great with the Greek text too. I mean, yeah. So Joe, we bought land not far from here for a future building.

32:46

And when we went over there to pray for it, somehow the night before, someone came and implanted spikes this big in the concrete, in the asphalt of our road going in to pop the tires of all the cars that came in.

32:59

This just happened a couple of years ago. That doesn't make the news. If that happened to a local mosque or a synagogue, what would, how many helicopters would be out reporting?

33:11

There was just a kid arrested, 18 year old kid, I forget, in the Midwest, Iowa, Coeur d 'Alene,

33:18

Iowa, was arrested because he was going to kill all these Christians in seven churches on one day.

33:24

And he was a pledged member to ISIS, even though he didn't know the first thing about Islam, which is kind of weird.

33:31

But that's, you know, you get a lot of that with like heavy metal music and that kind of stuff that burn the church stuff from Norway.

33:42

Second Timothy 3 .12, indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

33:50

How else are we getting persecuted as Christians in New Jersey, since we're all South Jersians? You probably won't like this, but I call the state the

33:59

People's Republic of New Jersey. Oh, I love it. You're in the right room. You know what I'm saying? Uncle Phil in Trenton has sold us out so many times.

34:09

He's supposed to be a Catholic. You know, and he's so pro -choice and everything.

34:15

They sold us out for the marijuana money. They didn't care about what it's going to do to people. They just thought revenue.

34:22

And it's disgusting, because, you know, I have people in my neighborhood. I was in New York City two weekends ago, and I never smelt so much pot in all my life.

34:32

And I used to smoke it every day. I never smelled it like that, because everybody's smoking it around here. My neighborhood now, where I live in Gloucester County, New Jersey, people are, neighbors are smoking it, and they smoke and drive, and I know it's really strong, and they shouldn't be driving, but they do it anyway.

34:50

And I just don't understand how they sold us out for that. But besides that is everything else.

34:57

Every law that they pass, the LGBTQ, which I have no problem with LGBTQ people.

35:03

My problem is I don't, I can't play make pretend. Like, I'm a five -year -old.

35:09

Oh, look, I'm a girl now, says my 62 -year -old neighbor. He's dressing in a dress, and it's really alarming looking.

35:20

But see, all the other people are like acting, calling him a feminine name. I can't do it.

35:26

I mean, I can try, I just can't do it, because I feel like I'm lying. And I feel like I'm going back to third grade, where Johnny wore his mommy's high heels.

35:36

That's what this is like. And then, at the same time, our state, your state that you live in, and your president, by the way, all believe that a 18, 19 -year -old signing student loans, which

35:52

I did myself, because when I went to college, I didn't have anything. We signed for student loans, and we had to pay them off, but those kids were tricked into the loan.

36:02

That's what they're saying, so they shouldn't have to pay it back. They believe that, but at the same time, they also believe a four - or five -year -old can decide if they want to be a boy or a girl, if they're the opposite.

36:13

Wow. And that's where we live in New Jersey, and we're like, you know, it's California and us.

36:20

We're destroying both sides of the country. I mean, it's really bad. Is there any hope, any optimism that we can turn this?

36:26

Because, hey, I see the churches are full. The conservative churches are growing. We're spreading in number.

36:33

We just planted a church a couple years ago across town, and that church now is full. Like, is there gonna be a revival?

36:40

Is there hope for us, or is this just, is it nothing but a tribulation to come?

36:45

I always have friends who are Dominion theologists, and they said that, and it really never happens, even though I'm a pre -trib, pre -millennialist.

36:55

I thought, yeah, that'd be great. You may have a revival in the U .S., and I still believe it can happen, and maybe it will.

37:03

Maybe people will start looking up for the Lord instead of looking up for the eclipse. I don't know. I don't know.

37:09

They get all weirded out about the simplest things, but they don't get to the things that really matter for eternity.

37:16

Amen. And how many people have you seen that were walking with the Lord? 20 years ago, right?

37:21

And now they're woke, and now they accept things that are really bad, innocent, but they make it seem like you're the bad guy because you stand against it.

37:33

Right. They even say Christianity's compatible with that. Is Christianity compatible with any of that? No, no.

37:39

I mean, no. I've been in Jordan like five times, the country of Jordan, which is former

37:46

Israel, and I've been to those cities that were overthrown by the

37:53

Lord. Why were they overthrown? Why did you overthrow? Sodom and Gomorrah and the other, there's two more towns right near it, spared

38:04

Zohar because that's where Lot went, but why? What's the reason why?

38:10

It was because of perversion. That's why. And everything that goes with it because the abortion and that go together.

38:17

It goes together. It does, yeah. So you think we're under judgment? I think there comes a time, and I'm getting controversial again.

38:29

You might get in trouble with this one. You can edit it out. We really just did it out of controversy. We're looking for some, actually.

38:35

God gives them over. Just like it says, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. There comes a time where God'll give you over to your sin.

38:43

You've seen it with people. You've known people you've talked to, and they continued it, and God gave them over, and it just took them over.

38:50

Just like the guy, 60 -whatever -year -old guy who's a woman now. I mean, God gave him over.

38:56

It's not just, you know, that's why I really believe that God allows that to happen because people, they want to live like that, but there's consequences for doing it as well.

39:06

And Romans chapter one, the whole passage there. Yes, and there's not enough people willing to tear that high place down.

39:13

They actually affirm it. Good for you. You're wearing a dress today, and you're a 60 -year -old man.

39:19

That takes courage. No. That's how Romans one is. Not only do they do, but they approve of others and encourage others to do it.

39:26

By the way, my firstborn son's name's Josiah. We like him because he was the only one that tore down the high places.

39:33

Yes. Because all the other guys left them up. And there's all different theories about what happened, what they did at the high places, but the bottom line, it was pagan.

39:43

Yeah. So they had to go. It was a little bit of corruption, a little bit of compromise, even in the best cases, right?

39:53

Yeah. Yeah. So we got to call it out. Well, we're excited that you're here today because we want to nominate you for something very important.

40:01

Next year, early first quarter in 2025, we're going to have something called a

40:07

Red Church Summit, and a bunch of pastors who are running red churches are going to be our nominees, and you are our next nominee for the

40:17

Red Church Award. Wow. That's awesome. Thank you, wow. You're welcome. You're welcome.

40:22

Red Church. I was going to think, it's not Republican, by the way. No, no, no. There's gray churches and there's blue churches.

40:29

Blue churches are easily identified by rainbows. They got them on there. And then the gray churches are the ones that just kind of got their feet on both sides.

40:37

And we're really trying to seek out to encourage those brothers and sisters without calling them out by names, but just to encourage them to be bold, and you're bold.

40:45

So that's really what it's about, being bold in the gospel. There's opportunities right now. If you want to be bold,

40:51

National Day Prayer's coming up in a second, and there's going to be prayer gatherings, and we have one in West Stafford, that Riverwinds, and they have it every year.

41:01

I led it for 25 years, but now there's a Methodist pastor who last year invited a female person from Islam to pray, which was kind of, you know.

41:12

I told them, I asked her, because it's like, you don't do that. And I asked why.

41:18

She didn't even live, she lived in Pennsylvania. Well, we want to be affirming and inclusive. Inclusive.

41:24

And they're a rainbow church, so that's what happened, you know. But we need to, no, like I did,

41:30

I was very nice, but I said, that's absolutely crazy. You know, we had the

41:36

Woodbury Ministerium in 19, about 96 it was. And I used to be committed to it.

41:43

They did good stuff, collective food and all, but then they wanted to have a Buddhist part of it. There's no

41:48

Buddhists near us. So they just wanted to bring one in so we could be inclusive. Inclusive.

41:54

And I said, it's a Christian ministry. We give in Jesus' name. And so that's what happened, that they didn't give in Jesus' name, so we started our own food bank.

42:05

Because I can't, you know, I just can't do that, because why do it if you're not doing it in Jesus' name? So many people think it's okay to have female pastors, and those are those blue churches we were talking about.

42:15

Pastor Jeff made a great call out from Titus today in our Galatians study on how, you know, pastors are called to call out this compromise.

42:25

And we don't want women fighting, right? Women aren't designed to fight. Men are designed to fight. We've got to encourage,

42:30

I think, it's a good reminder, we've got to encourage other Christians to get out there, fight for the truth of the gospel, and that's what we're seeing you do.

42:37

See, that's an easy one you think would be easy, because it wasn't until 1969, United Methodist started ordaining women.

42:44

But before that, it was unheard of. Like, I mean, yeah, there were women who were scholars, like Barbara Allen, Kurt Allen's wife.

42:52

Yeah, that's good, but she wasn't a preacher. But then, when that happened, now, today, you would never know that.

42:59

I have a sister, my sister, who's not even, well, she's a nominal Catholic, and she got a mail order thing to be able to marry and bury people.

43:08

And it's kind of like, it's like a joke, though. It isn't serious.

43:15

And my sister's here, she's a good person, but she needs to be born again.

43:20

But female pastors can't get thrown over six -foot walls. No. They're not gonna, they can't fight. No, it's just like, well, it's just like soldiers, and look what they do with that.

43:29

I mean, I know someone from my own town that just got a ceremony from the

43:36

United States Army, a Vietnam veteran, because he had his name changed to a female.

43:43

They had a big thing for it. And I'm like, what? What, no, it's like, what is that?

43:50

Why would you make, why do you spend money doing that in the United States? It doesn't make any sense.

43:55

I'm sure our enemies around the world are quaking in their boots because our military is doing that. China's that, because China keeps sending people here through the southern border.

44:05

They're saying that, wait a couple years, when we're all speaking Cantonese. All of us.

44:11

That's very serious, because. It is, that's a big deal that's gonna happen. Even the secularists recognize that as a problem.

44:17

I know, but nobody talks about it. And again, your president, I hate to keep going to South Africa.

44:25

He's our president, but not yours, Joe. Oh, well, yeah. But my, he's, the only word

44:30

Joe is, he's in with them, and his son is, and I mean, you know, and the media protects him, and everyone will protect him.

44:41

And you can't get the truth out, really. I mean, like, can you just look at the last two presidential administrations?

44:48

This one, how the media's all for everything. Even the guy, old guy, fallen down, not knowing which way to go.

44:55

And before that, the other guy was before him. They were against everything he did. Everything, they questioned.

45:02

They looked up the notes at the State of the Union, the Speaker of the House, which is so, so horrible for a person to do like that.

45:12

Yep. Makes me, see, I wouldn't even say I get in trouble by saying that's why a woman shouldn't be doing that position, and emotional, doing something like that.

45:19

That's bad. I mean, it makes our foreign, the foreign nations that watch us think we're losers, and they laugh at us when that happens.

45:29

That's what they do. I'd say the women have a higher calling in motherhood. It's a much higher calling. Yeah, it is, but I'm saying that what

45:36

I, my concern is the way you look in front of China, Russia. Sure.

45:42

You know, they think that we're weak. Right. No one invited us. It's the weaker vessel, the Lord calls. They're a weaker vessel, and then when you see that leading a country, you're like, you automatically think maybe that's a weak country.

45:53

A lot of Christian leaders now are no longer using the term complementarian, because the complementarian stress so much this is only the church, and only the home.

46:03

That masculine leadership, we're only saying that the husband in the home, the pastor in the church needs to be male.

46:10

So many people are going back to the more biblical term, which is patriarchy. Patriarchy is father rule, but that could touch on all areas of society as well.

46:20

That it's more natural for men to lead. Not that women can't in some cases lead, like a Deborah in other circumstances, but looking for men to step up as leaders in society as well as in homes and churches.

46:32

What does the woke crew say about patriarchy? Oh, they hate it. They think that's like the devil. Yeah. Yeah. Why would women want that though?

46:39

You know, like, why do they want a career? Isn't it like, that's just extra work for them.

46:46

You know what I mean? Why? Well, the Proverbs 31 woman does work, but she works hard, but she's building her husband's home.

46:54

Together with him and for him. Right, but why would you want to go build someone else's work? Right. Exactly. You know what I mean? Now you're submissive somewhere else.

47:02

And then, I feel like it's just extra work, extra things that they really shouldn't want.

47:08

Well, a lot of women are totally stressed out because they're trying to do too much. Yeah. Yeah. And I've lost friends, because they ask me if I'm a pastor, ask me and I say, no,

47:18

I don't believe there's any authority for that in scripture. You need to have a husband and one wife. And they get mad.

47:24

I just saw a church in Gloucester County Community Church. You probably never heard of that around this area. But that's a big church in the

47:30

Pitman, Washington area. And about,

47:36

I guess about 2000, he had a ministry school and had a woman there. She told me she was going to be a pastor.

47:42

And then he said, nah, she's not. And then he ordained her as a pastor.

47:49

But she wasn't going to do any weddings or funerals or preaching. For long, she did weddings, funerals, and guess what?

47:55

She sent me a copy of her first sermon. Yeah. Now she was totally whacked.

48:02

I mean, she led the women's group. I told him that. No, she was totally gone.

48:07

She thinks she's a messianic Jew, kind of Christian. And she started this group and she was on my fake book.

48:17

And on there, I saw she was at a Kenneth Copeland conference. And I'm like, I just like called her out there.

48:24

I said, what are you doing there? He's a false teacher. I couldn't believe it. I was like,

48:29

I'll freak out. That guy's got the scariest eyes. He just looks demonized. So she said, ah, he's okay.

48:36

And then we got in a debate with a bunch of her friends. I got cut off. And then she preached a message about me.

48:43

Oh, she preached about you. How horrible, yeah. Because what was going on, because I say false teacher,

48:49

Joyce Meyer's a false teacher. Or say Kenneth Copeland, word of faith people are false teachers. So I'm the bad guy.

48:56

Yeah, yep. That gives you credibility in our book. I would say false teacher in front of their name before I say that.

49:03

Nice. Because it's bad. I mean, and people accept it. And I just got, somebody sent me a devotional and it was one that was the female one

49:13

I just mentioned. And like I said, I mean, I really don't receive that because I know about the person.

49:21

That's hard for me to receive. After hearing from Joe today, I think Joe Gormley just got demoted back to average

49:28

Joe. No. He's expert Joe. We got expert Joe. Well, I prefer average

49:34

Joe, please. What Joe is telling us is biblical because in Galatians five, you read seven to 12,

49:41

Paul is just that way. Extremely direct and even uses strong language when you're dealing with certain people.

49:48

He doesn't treat the sheep that way. He treats the wolf that way. Right. The Judaizers, because that's what they need.

49:54

And even when Paul went into Lystra, got stoned and then went back to Lystra, Joe got thrown over a wall and went right back in.

50:02

It wasn't as bad as that. I really, I mean, I broke the fall and I was just,

50:08

I couldn't believe that they did that. And then they acted like, you know, we're asking any question. I was really asking questions.

50:14

I wasn't like, it wasn't till after that that I started. No, I probably got a little fired up and I probably did get a little fleshy.

50:21

I'm sure I did because. Because you got thrown over a wall. Oh, because they're lying to people. I don't like that.

50:27

Right. Somebody lies out in the open and that's, you know, it's just like Episcopal pastor.

50:34

I call him that. You know, he's telling the, you know, the homosexual kids that it's okay with God.

50:41

And see, when I hear him say that, I say, no, you're lying to them. That's wrong. We don't care. Where do you get, what authority?

50:46

Do you have to say that? Right. Well, they don't believe the Bible. Okay, yeah, but you say you do. You deceive people.

50:53

I did a sunrise service for our ministerium. I guess it was the

50:58

West effort national park minister. This is years ago. This was back in the nineties and I did it.

51:05

And the Methodist guy and this other guy were there. Cause I said, the resurrection is one of those provable things.

51:11

I was like, I listened to a D James Kennedy message and I was all psyched up. So I did one like that most provable things.

51:17

The reason that we're meeting here on Sunday, the first day of the week and all these things. And he got and said, Hey, Domenico, you shouldn't be saying that.

51:23

You made it sound like the resurrection is a real event. We all know that didn't happen.

51:30

I said, oh, do we? It's Episcopal? Episcopal and a Methodist. They said, we all know that there were them.

51:36

The idea, you need to teach them that this dumb sheep because they don't know any better.

51:41

But we all know that a body that's dead. And the guy's telling me and my, my assistant who was with me, that when instead what happens and where you're a mortis, you get bacteria in your body.

51:52

And if you were coming back to life, you'd die right again. And I said, you're talking about the God who spoke.

52:01

And they were just like, you know, laughing at me. And yeah, so I try to work with liberals.

52:08

I do, but they, you know, that's the kind of thing. They see, they say that we don't receive them.

52:13

They attack us on stuff like that. Even behind our back or in front of you, they'll do that. And we need to stand up and everybody needs to stand up against people who say, you know, it's true.

52:25

Like I said, just like the simple thing, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. That's a gospel that you know, that's true.

52:32

What year did you start Gateway? We started Gateway in 1992. And you're preaching the same gospel in 2002 and 2012 and 2022, 2024.

52:44

Because it's true. You don't have to change. You don't have to blow like a wind in, you know, like a read in the wind, the winds and waves of doctrine.

52:52

You just preach the truth and you keep standing and God has blessed you with it. And I've had people do this. So you can go back and get our early teachings.

52:59

And I say the same things as I did then. Like my view, some people, they change their view on the rapture and this and that.

53:08

We're always steadfast and we teach the same thing because we teach through the

53:13

Bible. You know, we're Calvary Chapel affiliate, but we don't use the name. We just, we like Christian Church better.

53:20

And it was Gateway Calvary Chapel. That's what the CC is for. We use Christian Church because somebody complained in New Jersey and that's fine.

53:30

We don't have to, but some of those guys today, they change, they change through the years and the gospel remains the same.

53:38

And that's why you and me and all of us need to stay with the text of scripture and not get into all these different ideas.

53:47

You know, just like I told you earlier about that group of Galatians. Galatians is so easy to understand from the beginning.

53:53

I mean, it isn't hard. It's Paul says, I marvel that you're so similar from him that called you from the grace of Christ to another gospel.

54:01

It's real. That's what the whole book's about. He can't believe, just like me. I can't believe that I see people who used to walk faithfully with the

54:08

Lord that take this, the rainbow agenda. Yeah, it's a different gospel.

54:15

Even churches that they know, and I know that they know, but they're doing it to be popular.

54:21

Maybe more people will come. Well, I'm gonna tell you what, if you wanna go left wing like that, less people come and they don't financially support you because I know people that have done it and you end up closing the doors because it's a funeral parlor and it's better off being a real funeral parlor than a church building.

54:38

Wow. Hey, man. No problem. I'm serious. Let's go. Awesome. You know what

54:44

I mean? You got any closing thoughts there? No, that's it. That's the exclamation point. We're done. Yeah, we're done.

54:49

So if you see a brother down, pick him up. And if you see a high place, tear it down.