Provoked: From Atheist to Bible Re-Binder W/Jon Holladay

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00:04

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Him, no matter what we're doing with our hands. Merry Christmas, everybody.

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Merry Christmas. We're tuning into the show. It's called Provoked. Too bad we didn't say it at the same time.

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No, it's good to be back inside the studio. It's been a while. Yeah, it's been a while, but that's just the way that we roll.

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It's going to be better next year. Yeah, 2023. No promises, though, but it's going to be a whole lot better.

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No, we're happy that you're here. If you've never tuned into our show, we want to encourage

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Christians is to be Christians. That's what it's all about. Not only in our profession, the things that we say, but in our words.

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We need to put the pedal to the metal. That's a saying I say all the time now. It's so weird.

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I don't know why. It just got stuck. Yeah, it's stuck in my brain. You've got to put the pedal to the metal as far as being salt and light into our culture.

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The reason why our nation is in the state that it is in is because the abdication of Christians when it comes to their duties to be evangelistic.

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It's just a tiny bit of Christians that do that. So we're not the standard, but we do want to come alongside the

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Christian church with our show to try to facilitate that and to come and to help you, primarily in rescuing babies and getting the gospel out there far and wide.

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It is the hope of the world. It is God's saving mechanism is the gospel. So many people are like, what do we do?

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What do we do? Look at the state of our nation. And I can understand that. Look at the statistics. Well, the answer is the gospel.

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It is the power and the salvation. It is. We shouldn't try to better what God says that he uses to save.

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And the more that we get the gospel out, the more we'll see its redemptive power inside the culture and inside the nation.

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Amen. Right? Yeah. So that's what our show is all about. And how are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm feeling very passionate about what you're talking about lately.

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Just the state of the nation, the Western evangelical church has lost its saltiness.

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And I know we talk about it a lot, but just like the last couple of weeks, just seeing how everything unfolds. It's giving me like a, just an indignation to just speak out about it more and, and not to be haughty about it.

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Cause we don't want to be like, Oh, we're so, you know, we're so great. We're not, we're nothing. But it is something that is of great need and importance in our country.

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And right now for us to speak the truth and to be proclaiming the gospel, because we're just seeing the fruit of a gospel -less country that's been fed prosperity gospel.

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And so now this is what we're seeing is just a lot of false converts and the fruit of false conversion.

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And how is the, how is the culture going to know anything about the law of God if Christians don't preach the gospel and understand the component, the essential component of the law of God in the preaching of the gospel.

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But it's an anti -Nominian type of church. That means anti against the law.

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Right. Yeah, but I'm, I'm fired up too and I've just been thinking long and hard about all these things.

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And maybe we'll talk about it a little bit farther down the road in the episode. But yeah, I just have just like this renewed zeal just to, to do what we've been called to do because the lack of obedience in evangelism, in being salt and light, in getting into the marketplace, in Christians getting into places of political power in, you know, not holding our magistrates accountable for their roles and their functions.

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We've abdicated that. And then we're here. And then you look at your kids and you're like, look at the nation you're about to inherit.

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Absolutely. I've been thinking about that. Our grandkids, it's like, what are they going to have to deal with? Yeah. And if we're, if we keep going, obviously we're post mill, we know that Christ is overcoming, like his kingdom is going to overcome.

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But right now, if we see the, the projection of how fast things are going, you know, how the unbelieving world is trying to dominate, like everything, like woke theology is everywhere.

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Like, I mean, even just this week, I subscribed to this new, like a workout app and you could like put like these tags on it where it's like, you know,

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I put like Christ is King and like, and then I started to put like abortion is murder. Oh, well that's not allowed, but it's like,

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Oh, you know, BLM, it was like bands off my body.

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A bunch of pro abortion stuff was allowed, but nothing anti -abortion, you know, it's just, that's not that huge of a deal, but it's just shows you like it's insidious.

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It's everywhere. They are so bold with their theology. Like we have to be obviously more bold with ours and we have the truth.

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So that gives us more option to do it. But yeah, it's, we need to be, we really need to realize what a pivotal moment

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I think of history. This is, if we don't fight with everything that we've got, what is our, what are our children going to have?

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They're going to have to fight harder than us. You know, imagine what they're going to step into in 10, 20 years if we don't really fight now.

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Yeah, no, we just, we got to fight and we don't know what the outcome of that will be. But like William Wallace, his dad told him,

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Hey, we don't necessarily fight to win. We fight to fight. Right. Yeah. The results are

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God's duty is ours. Right. That's what John Quincy Adams said. So anyway, yeah, well,

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I just want to get into this, but we will stay on track. Go to apologyiststudios .com.

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If you could, Hey, there's no possible way we could be doing what we're doing without apologyiststudios.

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And what you can do is go to that website, be an all access member, support this ministry.

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If you could this upcoming year, we're attacked from all different angles and we need the light of apologyiststudios, apology of church, apology of ministries to continue to shine brightly in the culture, affecting the church, encouraging the church, training the church to be like what you had just said, you know, agents of change within the culture as they bring the gospel and the law of God.

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So yeah, you can do that. Sign up support every month and we love you for it. And it's really crucial that you do that.

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All right. So we wanted to talk a little bit about our plans this year, but first we wanted to bring a good friend of the ministry on the show.

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His name's John Holliday. He is the owner of something called

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ICA Bibles, but it's actually not ICA. It's ICA. It's in Christ alone, but I'm sure so many people have called it that, right brother.

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Well, why don't you just come on the show? Thanks man for being with us. Thank you so much, man. Yeah, I have been called.

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I have been called ICA more than once. I don't take it personally. Uh, I, I decided on the business name because I do think that that is,

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I mean, if you could sum, if you could sum up, uh, what I believe in, in, uh, just so many words, it is all in Christ alone.

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Now that's not to, you know, go off on a tangent about one or another doctrine about works or anything like that.

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James does exist. But, uh, when, when I started, I didn't have anything.

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And I, uh, I, I would stamp letters. You know, it, I had, I had an alphabet set, so I just put

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ICA on my Bible all the time. And, uh, I was, I was ICA for a little while and I finally ordered a logo and it wound up a little bit messy, but it did say in Christ alone over the top of it so that I was trying to help people a little bit.

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Right on. Yeah. So you have sent us messages. Of course you send us two Bibles. I like a dumb, dumb that forgets everything all the time.

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Part of being over 40 for some reason for me, um, forgot mine at home, but my sister has her beautiful Bible that John sent us.

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If you guys can see, it's beautiful shark skin here in the blue, which is amazing. And goat skin, uh, in the, uh,

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Brown here. Yeah. And so what you do is Bible rebinds. And so we wanted to bring them on just because you've been such an encouragement to us.

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Um, and just to allow you to talk about the ministry and the business that you do, why you got into it and, and where people can go to get these

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Bibles because they're beautiful. And you have been so such a blessing even outside of the

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Bibles that you've gifted us. And we just wanted to say that we truly love you in Christ. We're so appreciative of you.

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So just let us know why you did it and what you're doing and what people, where people can go to, to, to pick them up.

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Awesome. Uh, uh, honestly, I need to up my game on the ordering process.

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Things are moving so fast and I'm, uh, I am, I do love,

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I love the personal touch of talking to everybody and I don't want to give it up, but, uh, I'm kind of like you,

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Zach. I'm I start being forgetful. Anybody who knows me knows I'm a little bit dingy. That's okay.

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Uh, I like talking to everybody about what they want. And so far, if you just, if you just message me on Facebook, I see a

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Bibles and you want to talk to me about something and what you want to do, then we'll work it out from there. That's how I've handled everything so far.

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I do have a website with some really outdated pictures on it, but, uh, I really kind of hope nobody ever looks at that because I need to do some work on it.

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But, uh, man, I, I love talking to people and I love meeting people. And, uh, so that's how you can get ahold of me for now.

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Or you can email me, uh, at, uh, ICA Bibles at gmail .com.

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I have a website. It's ICA Bibles .com. It's all pretty simple. Uh, but yeah, the way

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I got started, man, is it was, it was really weird. So I've always been, I've always had a love for craftsmanship.

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I, I grew up when I started working, I was 13 and I started working for a brick layer and he kind of taught me some stuff about, uh, laying tile and stuff like that.

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And I've done some various other things, but since I was, how did I say I was 34?

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So in the past 20 years, I've spent over 15 years, um, working in construction and doing some of the more aesthetic things, uh, building big walk -in showers and working on tile and things like that.

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So I love spurting stuff up. In fact, at one point my dream was to, was to buy houses and, and remodel them and just kind of, uh, have, have my vision and see it happen, which would be great, you know, if you have a massive checkbook, but, uh, so the way the

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Bible thing started, which is, uh, I, I wanted, I was,

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I was a brand new Christian and I had a Bible that somebody in my family had bought me and it was a fairly cheap, uh, crossways or something.

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And it was falling apart immediately because I was losing my mind. I mean, I had, I had,

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I had screwed dry erase balls, uh, dry erase boards all over the walls.

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It was, it was getting out of control and my Bible was falling apart immediately because it was just one of the, it was a super cheap

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Bible. uh, but I had, I had kind of gotten to the point where I knew my landmarks and anyone who has their personal

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Bible and wants to keep it, uh, understands that, that they know where everything is at. And, uh, so I wanted to look for a

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Bible that would last. And I remember at one point, my wife and I were sitting in a Martell's bookstore and we were sitting on the floor and we'd found a, we'd found that ESC that was, gosh, it was expensive.

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It was $250 or something. And we only had so much money and we were weighing the, you know, the price versus the consequences.

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And we wound up not getting it. We decided not to buy it, but I loved it so much. I didn't know that there were

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Bibles like that out there at that point in time. And it was beautiful, just a nice goat skin Bible.

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And it was all flexible. And you could tell it was wrapped in this cool thing. It was in a box. Uh, and what can you love more than the word of God?

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What can you love more than what he's written for us? then.

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And like I said, I kind of, I came from the construction world and I like to spruce things up. So what better to do that with anyway, skip forward a year or two.

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And, uh, there was a point in time. I'm not, I'm not even here to represent myself.

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Funny enough. I love provoked and I loved, I love a lot of things, but, uh, skip forward a year or two.

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And I still hadn't upgraded my Bible and my, my brother -in -law, one of my best friends, uh, bought me one of these.

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And I know Jeffrey gets represented by apologia quite often.

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So he probably doesn't need my help. Yeah. But this, this is my personal Bible. Those are beautiful right now.

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I couldn't believe it. I was sitting in the store looking at one that was, that was production made and I thought it was amazing.

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And, but to get hit like that with a gift like this, because the most precious thing to me is the

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Bible. I didn't, I'm sitting there looking at it. I should be looking at the camera. I'm sorry, because I'm still amazed by it.

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But, uh, I, I didn't know you could feel loved like that. And he's, he's my best friend.

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He's, he's blown way too much money on me and met so many needs. It's, it's not even comparable, but, uh, it just hit me different.

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And I mean, I, I've never hugged a man like that. You know, uh,

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I was, I was mind blown and I, I spent time just sitting here looking at it and, and going over it thinking, man, it was, it was hitting me right in that spot where I went,

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I really want to learn how to do that. Because at first, like everyone else,

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I thought I could figure that out, you know, and you're always wrong. You lose a ton of money at first and, and mess everything up.

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But, uh, um, there's something very different about, about the

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Bible to me that brings me so much more joy than anything else that I grew up trying to improve.

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And, and, you know, putting a, whether it's an artistic touch or just a ton of work into, uh, doing that with the

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Bible to me, but plus it makes them last way longer. You completely deconstruct it and use the appropriate materials and, and one layer at a time and you reconstruct the spine.

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And hopefully if your work is good, it lasts a really long time because once again, I didn't want to lose the

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Bible that I had all this, all my stuff in, but I needed to restart with one that, uh,

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I could do that with, that would last a long time. And most people are that way. Most people don't want to give up their Bibles.

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Most people want to want them reconstructed in a way that'll last once they start falling apart.

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And what you want to offer is another 20 years, another 30 years of exactly what they had.

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And, uh, so that's, that's, that's what I do. I do it part time. I work part time at my job and I, I work way too much at this.

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And, uh, and I hope that it's worth it for people because it's, it's a very taxing process.

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It's a very expensive process. And, uh, but I want everyone to have exactly what they want and love their

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Bibles as much as I do. Pretty much where I sit. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, it's so much craftsmanship in the

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Bible and you know that this thing is just going to last for a long time. So that's awesome, brother.

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What a, what a blessing, what a ministry. So we're so thankful for it from our, from us because we, we, you know, you gifted us and Emma, we were just absolutely surprised.

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So we appreciate you so much, but, um, Hey, before we let you go, I did want to get into a little bit of your testimony, how

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God saved you. It's always awesome. It just, you know, sparks my interest when somebody says I came out of atheism, um, into Christianity because statistically you'll see people go into some form of Christianity, of course, and what we believe in the scriptures, you know, they came out from of us meaning that they weren't truly of us.

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Right. Um, but it's just fascinating for me to see somebody that came out of that. So kind of explain, you don't have to go into too much detail, but really how

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God saved you and you kind of pulled you out of that system of thought. Okay. Uh, a little bit of both really.

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Um, uh, I don't want to, I don't want to be a letdown, but I, I did grow up in church.

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I mean, I was not, uh, my, my family has brought me to church my entire life.

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I'm surrounded by family and including my in -laws that are all Christians. And, uh, there's just, there's a, it's, so it's not an extremely exciting story, but I think that you, if you're not serious and you're not pressed, uh, and I think that's a strong word as we live life together as Christians, that we, uh, that we have, that we have one heart and one mind, and we have a reasons for things and convictions for things that we believe.

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Uh, if you're not pressed on that, then, then you'll find your own way sort of, because I was,

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I went to church with my family until I was 15 or 16 or something like that.

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And then, you know, made it on into doing whatever I wanted to do.

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And there was no root. It's like the parable of the sower. You know, if you had to pick one, sure.

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I knew that people believe stuff, but there was, there was absolutely no root. And I, uh, you go off and meet new people and realize that there are other things that, that people believe.

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And one that really burns me up right now that I, that I fell for was, um, someone who's without knowledge.

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And I, uh, I describe it as, as lazy is what I was. So laziness brings zero knowledge.

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And I'm a logical person, but if you're not, but if you're not working hard, your logic brings you nowhere.

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So logically, um, if you look all, if you look across the world or across America, as far as you can see all the way around you, everyone's taught evolution.

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And so logically more people think that it's true. More people think that's the way the universe started.

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And, if you're lazy, you don't question it. You go, well, everybody else is crazy.

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You know, that's if you even think about it, but, you know, I spent, I spent a lot of years doing whatever

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I wanted to do and, and being lazy and avoiding thinking about it. And, uh, on into my late twenties,

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I guess, uh, I was fortunate enough to have people come to me pretty well, constantly, and challenge what

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I was doing or what I was thinking and want to have conversations. And that I wasn't even an atheist.

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I was just a guy who was like, sure, whatever, you know, kind of like that. And, but being pressed on things like that, which

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I think is a good thing. If you're close with people, press them, uh, strive to be of one heart and one mind.

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And as I was pressed, the more I was pressed, the more angry I got, the more I thought everybody thinks they're better than me.

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And the more I started to buck against the system that was around me and start to look at it, uh, all the other options.

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And, and, uh, before too long, I was,

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I was drunk ranting at everybody I could find, uh, anybody, anybody who would, who would, uh, claim any sort of, of Judeo Christian religion, anything.

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If I heard it here, I came and, and, uh, I made myself an anger, a militant atheist.

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Whereas if everybody left me alone, I would have been a nice little soft, nobody and, and wound up in the same place.

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But, uh, but thankfully I was surrounded by people who would press me and ask me questions.

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And, uh, golly, it was, it's still, it's still so weird to me what happened, but in this process and in a rather short process,

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I was challenged three times. one was,

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I can't remember who was first, but one was my brother, my older brother. One was a good friend of mine who lives five or six hours from me.

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I went to see him. And one was my brother -in -law, uh, and me ranting about things three times within one month.

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They said individually, go prove it wrong. Then if you're so mad about it, go prove it wrong.

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And on the third time I said, I will, I will go and do that. And I will let you know, this is going to be easy.

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And guys, I shut myself off. I shut myself in my room, ignore my family. Uh, I'm surprised

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I even went to work because I, it, it got a little bit weird, but, uh, what

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I realized in, in going to research to prove that, basically prove the negation of everything they were saying, not to prove something else was true.

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But what I realized was I'm not an expert in anything. I'm not a biologist.

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I'm not a cosmologist. I'm not an archeologist. I'm not a linguist.

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The list goes on and on of what things people debate about. And I am none of those things. And odds are, most of your listeners are none of those things.

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And most of everyone is none of those things, but you hear experts, uh, argue about it all the time.

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What am I going to do? Most logical system. I listened to, um,

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I listened to lectures. I listened to debates. I listened to men like, uh, and I didn't know who was who

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I was just Googling stuff. I listened to men like Robbie, like Frank Turek. I listened to men like James.

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James was in the very beginning, uh, James White, who would just take questions from the audience and be ready for, with a reason defense for absolutely anything.

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And the, my very, uh, beginning based system for understanding who was telling the truth was who's dodging the question.

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And it was overwhelming. As I, as I encountered, uh, or as I, as I, all these different speakers and all these different debaters, it was overwhelming.

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Uh, no matter who you, no matter who you look for, there's one with a reason to Pence and there's always one who's dodging the question.

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And that kind of, you probably said, keep it brief, but I'm, I'm still going, but it was somewhat of a, it was quickly a trend that I started judging human nature and started judging against myself and what

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I was doing. Uh, and, and breaking it down into the most logical system and what had to be for the

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Christian God to be real. And, uh, I asked myself things like I worried about things like there are so many religions in the world.

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What are the odds that I grew up near or in the one, uh, that is true.

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And later on it broke down into which the, you know, which subsection of theology is true, but we'll leave that alone.

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Uh, but I thought, well, if I grew up a Muslim, I would obviously, um, have a preconceived notion that is true.

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And if I grew up a Buddhist, I would have a preconceived notion that that is true. Uh, so I really wanted to know to kind of break myself out of the culture and the mindset that I grew up in and, and come in with the facts so that I would be purely convinced or unconvinced of any of it, because it seemed like more people believed in absolutely nothing than, than believing in something.

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Uh, and I pretty quickly came to the conclusion that, that once I started looking into the things that they were arguing about, even though I'm not an expert, uh, it was, it's relatively provable all the way up to,

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I think, uh, I think my conclusion ended.

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In, uh, the life of Christ as it should. And, uh,

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Lee struggle. I don't know if you guys have, have listened to some of his stuff. He's, he's been around forever. Golly.

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Yeah. Uh, and his, his case for Christ and, and he was thinking the same thing as I started listening to him.

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He was thinking the same thing that I was thinking that, that, uh, either Christ existed or he didn't either, either he died or he did either.

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He rose again or he didn't. And, and, uh, if any of those things fail the test, then, then we've got to start looking elsewhere.

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And I started with that and, and moved from there and I can disprove absolutely none of it.

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So I'm a, I am a very logical person. I like to put the, put the numbers in the machine and whatever data it spits out is where I'm at, but that's not, that is not the end of it because, uh,

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I have tried and tried and tried my entire life. And one day something changed because one day

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I was open to it. Uh, I called up, I called up my, some family and said,

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Hey man, you want to talk about some stuff? And cause, uh, I got some questions and he said, cool.

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Is it cool if so -and -so comes over and, and I went and sat down and talked and had some questions, see what they thought.

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And, and they said, then it's, I think docile was the word they used, uh, but no longer is no longer as angry.

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And I sat down and asked questions and, uh, and I was still not fully convinced or, or wouldn't make a commitment.

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I guess as it were, they, uh, they prayed for me and I drove my five minutes home and stopped in my driveway.

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And, uh, I was just thinking back over the weeks or the months that I'd been warring with this.

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And I just, I, I have had, I had had, uh, almost verbal conversations with myself talking to, uh, like, like I can't do this anymore.

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I've got to go, man, I'm exhausted. You're killing me. It was, it was horrible.

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I was so over it. And at that point I had,

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I think at that point God had done something is what I mean by that. But, um, I was so over it and I just went, you know what?

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There are a lot of things I don't know things I can't prove, but I know this universe didn't create itself.

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And all the evidence around me points me in one direction. And I, I stopped in my driveway and prayed before I came in the house and, uh, just let it all out.

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So I have no control. I've broken everything I broke. I ruined my whole life. I was killing myself.

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And, uh, and ruining my family. And, uh, I just begged,

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I bawled and begged and went straight in the house and woke up my wife, begged for forgiveness.

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And the real struggle started right there. That's awesome, man. Yeah. Yeah. That's where that went.

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Yeah. Cause he, of course we're not saved by our logical, uh, of course, you know, uh, apprehension of the truths.

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But, uh, yeah, yeah. Of course he draws us through those things. It's the power of the gospel that does that.

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And then he just regenerates you as you, as you, you know, hear the gospel, putting your faith and actually, you know, according to the scriptures, you know, we have a monergistic type of, uh, understanding of soteriology is, is that God, he gives you that new heart.

29:44

And then the gospel comes in, in his timing for that individual. And then from the outflow of the new heart is faith and belief.

29:52

And so, you know, one of the primary fruits of having the abiding Holy spirit is this conviction of sin.

30:00

Right? So you break down and so many people break and then they go and like you did, they wake up the wife and say, forgive me.

30:07

You know, that's how we know that we're in, that's one of the fruits that we can know that we are in the faith. But that's, that's fascinating, man.

30:14

Um, I wish that happened to more atheists because of course it's like, I can't see him.

30:19

I don't believe. And so it's, it was just really, you know, sparked my interest to hear you say,

30:24

I went from atheism to Christianity where I, where I, you know, I think what happened with you is that there were so many seeds planted in your heart all throughout your upbringing, right?

30:33

Being brought up in the church. And then, you know, you went in, departed for a while, but the

30:39

Lord brought you back, uh, in, in his timing. So that's awesome. It's so beautiful.

30:45

I've got a short memory, but so 12 years to me is, is a really long time. I went to read the

30:51

Bible and, and I went, I remember Noah's Ark, Adam and Eve and Jesus.

31:00

I got to start at the beginning because I didn't, I didn't know. I didn't know what an Israelite was. I didn't know anything.

31:06

I couldn't remember anything and had to completely start over. And gosh, if I took time off for a year now and have to do the same thing again.

31:13

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, dude, I'm going to, I think we're going to let you go right now, but I just want to tell you,

31:19

I'm so thankful again for you. You're such a great guy and wanted to bring you on just to spotlight you and what you're doing to bless so many

31:26

Christians. So if you want to just to kick butt Bible with a shark skin and goat skin, and is that the only skins that you do right now?

31:36

Shark and the goat? No, I work with a lot of cow hides and things and several different types of goat skins.

31:41

And, and some people have pressed me into working with some other exotics. I've got some,

31:47

I've got some hippo skin at my house right now. It's like thick. Your Bible's like 10 inches thick with play around and take risks.

31:58

But yeah, I've got some, I've got some crocodile sitting there and it's, it's got a home somewhere eventually, but don't tell it.

32:06

I didn't say that out loud on the internet. Yeah. Don't tell anybody because it stresses me out.

32:12

But yeah, I appreciate it guys. Yeah. Thanks man. No, we appreciate you. We love you.

32:18

And yeah, go to ICA Bibles. You can look it up on, in Christ alone, Bibles on Facebook, get ahold of this guy and get yourself a

32:25

Bible. And I'm probably too, too late, too late for Christmas presents, but maybe for next year.

32:32

Yeah. It takes a lot of work to do this type of stuff. Yeah. Brother, thank you so much for sharing your, your testimony and for just coming on the show and blessing us.

32:40

And I, as you were speaking, I was reminded of James that every good gift comes from the father above.

32:46

And I was thinking about your, your life and just how he, you know, it's amazing that the creator of the universe who holds everything together, also like desires to have a personal relationship with his children.

33:00

And, and just the gifts that he gives us, even through a, something like a Bible, you know, like where you said you and your wife were at the bookstore and you were just,

33:08

Oh, just loving this Bible. And then God put into motion, someone to give you that just to bless you.

33:14

And that ultimately comes from God and, you know, and just every person, every labor that had come into your life to, to speak truth into you and to, to press you, which

33:24

I've been also been thinking about a lot lately that a lot of times we get so shy and we don't want to ruffle feathers with people that we love that are, you know, claiming to be

33:33

Christian, but are really going hard the other way of anti -biblical truths.

33:39

And like, for me, I'm like, Oh, I don't want to fight with this person because I don't get to see them very much. And I don't like that feeling, but man, the loving thing to do is to lovingly press them to be like,

33:49

Hey, we're Christian. So let's challenge each other. Not in a hottie way, not in a, I'm better than you way, but like you're claiming this, let's talk about it.

33:58

Or you're doing this. Hey, you're not forgiving somebody or you're, you know, supporting this ideology that is absolutely anti -biblical.

34:08

Hey, I love you. So I'm going to press you because I love you. And so it's just super encouraging to hear how

34:15

God use the people in your life. Because one thing I've done when I have a friend or a family member, that's like you give them the gospel.

34:21

And then they're like, I don't want anything to do with you anymore is that I just pray, Lord, please bring more laborers into their path because they've cut me off for now.

34:30

But God, I pray that you would just, just be relentless with them. And so it's so cool to hear that God did that in your life too.

34:38

You know? And don't we all get the feeling though, that if we did, if we press, then we'll, then we'll run somebody off and we'll have done something wrong or, but when really that's exactly what they need, rather than sitting in their comfort zone, like I was right.

34:52

And, and saying, well, yeah, I'm a Christian and never, I mean, living the worst life possible.

34:58

Uh, the, the. People need to be brought out of their comfort zone,

35:05

I think. And that's one of the reasons that I love y 'all show. Uh, and, and, and another one of the reasons, if I may have just one more minute, everyone struggles with different things.

35:16

One of the things I struggle with is getting worked up. Uh, because I am kind of a logical fellow.

35:21

I get worked up whenever people are being unreasonable, when I hear unreasonable things. And, uh,

35:28

I, I'm not really an angry person, but boy, I will start arguing. Uh, I think they call it cage stage.

35:34

And I put myself back in the cage every once in a while. Uh, but guys.

35:40

Uh, there, I've, I've benefited from, from many ministries and everyone has the different strengths.

35:46

And I have never seen anyone like the two of you, uh, Present the truth and provoke people in such a sweet manner.

35:57

And that made me check myself. That made me check myself so hard.

36:02

I've never seen, I've never seen such hard work done in a, in such an understanding way.

36:09

And what I want to point to, and not just say, Hey, everybody ought to be sweet because there's a time for everything.

36:16

But, uh, that there's the fruit of the spirit. And glycine's five.

36:22

And that doesn't mean everybody try to be those things. That means that it is the spirit of God that does it.

36:28

And I believe I won't make you positive, but I believe it's James four.

36:33

I don't remember. Maybe it's five. We'll see, uh, the wisdom from above always get it wrong.

36:39

It's either four or five. The wisdom from above, uh, does not mean that, uh, you figure out what wisdom is from above.

36:46

It means the wisdom came from above and, and both of those things, uh, are, do not come naturally to me.

36:55

If every, if everything that God said you should do, or that God provided to us came naturally to us, then we would, uh, then we would be perfect and not need

37:05

God. But those two things, those, uh, those two passages specifically are things that I struggle with and being able to, um, present the strength in myself to do them.

37:17

And it is very encouraging to, uh, to see people provoke people towards the kingdom of God and be able to do it in a way that I can't.

37:27

And in a way that I wish that I could, uh, you guys are a blessing to me. I love y 'all so much.

37:32

Awesome. Love you brother. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We'll, we'll talk to you soon. Thank you brother. God bless you.

37:38

See you brother. Thank you. Bye. Awesome. Awesome. Cool. It's so cool to see God, uh, pull people right out of darkness, especially in like that atheistic environment to where they're seem like they're, they're just, um, boxed in evolution.

37:52

And like, I like how he said, you know, these people are coming off as, as knowledgeable, you know, thinking that they have the ironclad information and that's the reason why they're there.

38:02

Right. But it seemed like, how he said, it's just, it's ignorance. It's a laziness to not really look into that, but to just kind of believe it because everybody else is believing.

38:10

Yeah. Like you were saying, like, you know, the common, you know, think tank or whatever that is, uh, you know, evolution.

38:18

And I mean, that's what we grew up into. It's you go through the public school system, state run colleges, and that's what you're taught from kindergarten to.

38:25

Yeah. Just an open sewer pipe right into people's minds. Right. That's true.

38:31

So, um, maybe just for the rest of the episode, we'll just talk about the new year. What do you want to accomplish with our show?

38:38

Hmm. That's a good question. Just to keep, keep going. And that renewed zeal.

38:43

That's what I have been just like praying about, because I feel like you can just get kind of jaded.

38:50

And we talk about it a lot of like, you know, the, you just, you're in the fight and you're just, you're just kind of tired and things become mundane almost, but just a renewed zeal.

39:02

And, you know, that obviously comes from God. That's not something that we can just like, you know, three -step program to be more zealous.

39:11

We want to have zeal with knowledge, obviously, but we wanted to be spirit led and just, you know, pondering upon our own salvation, you know, being thankful and also just asking

39:21

God to give us strength to plow forward and keep going. Because like we were talking about earlier, like just the trajectory of the nation right now, it's just going so fast into depravity.

39:34

Like what, what's going to be left if we don't, if God's people don't start speaking up more and more and more.

39:41

Yeah. We'll just be another nation, you know, left in ashes, like so many nations before us.

39:48

But we have to, we have to fight, you know, a lot of people, a lot of Christians don't like warfare terminology.

39:53

It's like, you know, the Bible says, God is a man of war. Yeah. He trains our hands for battle.

40:01

Yeah. And we can bend a bro. Well, bronze leap over a wall. The boys have a cool like name.

40:07

I think, you know, for their bronze bow bender. It's like the bronze bow bender. It's like the best, like little, what is it?

40:13

It's like a screen name or whatever. Gamer tag. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. I only know that because Liam tells me things.

40:19

Right. Ecclesiastes, there's a time for war, but we have to fight. If we're going to fulfill the great commission of the gates of hell will not prevail.

40:27

That's a fighting militant forward moving church. Right. And you're right. You can get jaded.

40:32

And I think when it comes to me, my jadedness or like, I can get cooled off as far as my zeal. Cause you're like, you know, this is not going to change anything.

40:40

You start thinking very fleshly. It's like, what are we doing? We standing out in front of abortion clinic and no one's saving their babies.

40:47

And just the flip off after flip off after, but you have, we have to keep in the fight because that is what the prevailing church does.

40:56

That's what we do. Yeah. And so we need to fight this year. We need to fight for babies. What do we want to do with the product podcast and our ministries?

41:03

Just fight, fight for life and have that zeal. And I think zeal, the zeal will come and can be continually renewed in your heart and your spirit.

41:13

It's really based upon the outflow of your relationship with God. I think ultimately we get jaded because we just, we let our time with him go by the wayside.

41:22

We get so busy and we know where you got kids and we got work and we got ministry and life and church, but we cannot let our personal intimate relationship with Christ go by the wayside.

41:32

Cause we'll dry out and your zeal goes out. Somebody once said all good ministry that flows out of any individual doesn't, you know, regardless of what they're doing is based upon the outflow or the outflow of ministries based upon the flowing in of the power of God and the person that comes through daily intimacy of worship and prayer, being in the word constantly absorbing it.

41:56

That's where that zeal will come from. Like that undying fight in you. And that's what I've tracked.

42:01

I've got so many heroes out there who've been doing this for decades when it comes to trying to say, baby's preaching the gospel fighting against wickedness is exposing those.

42:10

It comes from just their love for Christ. That's where that zeal comes from. And so I think this year, yeah, we're just going to fight harder, expose the wickedness of abortion.

42:20

That's been on my heart and mind is getting out there, letting people know this is what it is. This is how we should be talking about it.

42:27

Going to the mayors, going to the civil magistrates in any realm, right?

42:33

In any municipalities, of course, going to our city council members saying,

42:39

Hey, look, this is what is happening in your nation and just not stopping from doing that regardless of what they do.

42:45

Right. Just constantly pressing that. That's what the scriptures are talking about. The church, it's a pressing forward, moving militant vehicle.

42:55

I guess you could say that's what we have to be doing. Right. Yeah. You're straining towards the goal. Like it's not like a cakewalk, like we're straining.

43:04

So we have to like really push and all through God's power, he gets the, all the glory and all of our strength comes through him.

43:12

But it's not like it's going to be easy and it is easy to get like, you know, overwhelmed or jaded or just like you, you feel like anything you say or post or whatever, it's just kind of going to go be thrown to the wayside and we're just seen as extremists.

43:27

But if we really believe in the power of God and the power of the gospel, power of God and the power of the gospel, then hearts are changed by that.

43:36

And minds are renewed by that and cultures are changed and families are changed. And so, yeah, it's just, we have to think upon God's promises,

43:45

God's truth revealed through his word and remember what we're fighting for because, you know, we can get completely overwhelmed and just be defeatist and be like, this whole society is going to hell and we're

43:59

Sodom. And maybe, maybe we are under judgment. I know a lot of people believe we are and still

44:05

God's going to use his people even through that. If that's the case. Yeah, that's what I preached about on the first part of my sermon at apology

44:13

Utah. Was, um, yeah, we're, we're definitely under judgment.

44:18

You can track it through Romans one. I won't get too far into it, but you know, when a nation doesn't acknowledge

44:23

God, dishonors God. And when a nation in Romans chapter one suppresses the truth, the suppression of truth leads to the ungodliness that leads to the judgment.

44:35

Right. So when you say things like, oh, the baby's just a clump of cells or homosexuality shouldn't be embraced and championed and forced upon the populace to accept.

44:44

So you start suppressing that type of stuff. Blacks, um, they're less than human. Yeah. Right.

44:50

This is 150 years ago. Yeah. The suppression of those truths accepted by the society led to this, that society diving into the ungodliness of abortion.

45:00

Right. So you will kill a baby based upon your thinking of, you know, a falsity, a lie.

45:07

Right. Yeah. Of course, go back to the garden of Eden. Um, Adam and Eve led to the first fall in the first sin based upon the suppression of truth.

45:15

Did God really say, right. So they acted upon that lie, which led to the ungodly act, which led to a judgment upon them that really the death of their spirit, right.

45:25

The fall. Right. Um, so that's where we're at. And if you, if you track it, there's so much suppression of the truth when it comes to, you know, gender identity, your sexuality, uh, everything aimed at the family.

45:38

When you aim at the family and you attack it and you redefine that, which

45:43

God is defined with his word, then judgment comes in. So we, according to scriptures are definitely in, in, inside of judgment.

45:50

Well, what do we do from here? Well, like I said in the beginning, you have to preach the gospel because that's what saves the people.

45:57

And we're talking about saving the nation. Um, so, so many people are like, the nation is lost. And I can understand when you look at statistics and you look at it out there and you see, um, you know,

46:07

I was working out in the gym the other day doing some sit -ups and I just noticed right in front of me, like, um, just a bunch of kids, probably 15 to 17 and like 10 of them.

46:18

And they look normal to me, you know, and then just doing the sit -ups and I kind of sit up and I see one of the guys go and just passionately kiss one of the other kids on his lips.

46:29

And I was like, what? And none of the kids said anything. It was like, you know, and at that moment

46:35

I just kind of stopped sitting up thinking we're, we're in trouble here. Look and look at the weakness, the wickedness that was, that is just embraced in our societies.

46:45

You're going to be just that homosexuality. It was just normal. And these guys, kids didn't like a feminine or anything like that, or, you know, um, you know, like a flaming homosexual or something like that.

46:54

And I was like, Oh man, what are we going to do? Yeah. Well, we got to wake up to the reality of it because what we can do as Christians is just put our head in the sand.

47:02

Oh yeah. And that's happened all throughout the history. When it comes to God, pouring his wrath out upon a nation, the main segment of the populace or the mushy middle, they call it, they just check out.

47:14

Hopefully this will go away. I'm just going to focus on me, myself and I, and my kids, my family store up wealth, try to, you know, get as much money as I can to be as comfortable and easy, live the easy life.

47:25

What does that do? That just furthers the nation, right? And it just furthers the judgment as for furthers, the degrading of a nation.

47:33

When Christians who were supposed to be the salt and light in the preservation of that nation, bow out and abdicate that duty.

47:40

Oh yeah. And that's what's happened. And that's why we are where we are. Uh, look at Joel Osteen, like, you know, one of the biggest churches in America goes on Larry King and says, well,

47:52

I don't know if homosexuality is a sin. And I can't really say, you know, you've got people that, uh,

47:59

PC USA, the Presbyterian church of USA that really, you know, it's okay.

48:04

It's embraced. All are welcome. They don't call out sin. Um, and so how many people are continuing on a path of destruction because they're looking at these people that say they follow

48:16

Christ and they're affirming it and applauding it. That's why we're in the state that we're in.

48:22

It's not because of unbelievers. It's because of the church in America lost its saltiness a long time ago.

48:28

And so now it's time for us to do the hard work of regaining that and regaining ground and standing for truth.

48:35

Yeah. And it's just telling the truth and saying, no, no, no. This is what you were saying. That's a lie. Yeah. This is what

48:41

God's word says. That's it. It's not, it's not hard. It's not conceptually difficult to wrap our minds around the evangelistic commands, but it's something that we have to get busy doing to our death.

48:53

Yeah. And it's a, it's a sacrificial life. It's, I'm laying down my life. I'm laying down everything for the sake of the kingdom.

49:00

And that's what the scripture says. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things are going to be added on to, you know, don't worry about your food and clothing.

49:07

Matthew, that's in Matthew chapter six, right there. Right. So Jesus is talking about your main focus as a

49:13

Christian cannot be wrapped up in all the allurements that this country throws at us. Right.

49:18

And that's, I think it's strategic just to get all these shiny things, this and that, and that, and I understand we have to make money and we have to, you know, provide for our kids, think about the future.

49:27

you know, I understand all that, but what needs to happen in the moment is the selfless, sacrificial, carrying your cross daily

49:35

Christians who are saying, no, no, no, I am putting my desires and my goals.

49:40

It's, I'm no longer self -focused here and I'm kingdom focused. I'm Christ focused. I'm loving my neighbors to the point that I'm getting out there.

49:49

You know, with a robust desire and zeal to stand against the wickedness, to tell the truth, to call people, yeah.

49:57

Call people out by name, to press your people that, you know, that are claiming to be Christian.

50:03

Say, wait a minute, you're saying that, you know, you're affirming abortion.

50:08

You're sad because Roe V. Wade got overturned, but you're saying you're a Christian. How many women are going to have an abortion because of your influence, or maybe the celebrity's influence or whoever, or your pastor who's up there saying that, you know, we don't, if you're having an abortion, we don't, we don't judge you.

50:27

We don't, you know, it's like, okay, you need to stand for truth. You need to think about the ramifications of your actions.

50:34

And if you're, you know, if you care for the lost, if you care for babies in the womb, you have to like die to yourself and like get,

50:44

I'm sorry. I'm saying like a lot, but you have to just give up your need for comfort and men seeking approval.

50:53

What word am I? Just seeking the approval of men. Yeah. Like I just, it's so uncomfortable.

50:58

Yeah. It's so uncomfortable to, to take that stance day in and day out. And you just, you get tired of it.

51:04

And this, in this culture, it's just like, oh, every tolerance is so key.

51:11

And we all have to come across as tolerant and loving. And of course, but the way that God tells us to do it.

51:18

And it's, I don't know. I'm just, I'm tired of it. Yeah. Because it leads to it.

51:24

But in, in God's judgment, there's mercy too. Yeah. Like I'm thinking about the covenanters and all that they had gone through because in, in the persecution of the church, which we're seeing.

51:36

And again, it's nothing compared to other Christians in different nations, right? Communist nations where there's

51:41

Christians sitting in jail cells, they will not ever leave. Yeah. North Korea, of course, all throughout it.

51:48

And Pakistan, Iran, right. They're sitting there suffering for their faith in Christ and they will be there till their death.

51:56

Yeah. So there they die, you know, of just old age or whatever, or just the conditions that they're under or they to be executed.

52:03

Yeah. We're not there yet. Right. But when the persecution, when God does roll out his system of judgment, which he's outlined in his word.

52:11

And one of the, one of the final things is the unleashing of tyrants upon the nation, which we, of course we have, but it is the purification of the church.

52:20

It, it really, it separates the, um, the wheat from the chaff because people with this shallow

52:27

Christianity, which like you are saying right now, which is, I believe in Jesus, but I embrace those things that he hates.

52:34

Right. Or the scriptures call a bomb. It'll be like, I love Christ, but I think homosexuality is just absolutely fine.

52:41

Abortion is fine. What, what it will do is it'll reveal the false converts in the assembly in the church, get those things out.

52:49

And then you have this purified form. Yeah. And hopefully press the elect. So like me,

52:55

I was that person that was like, Oh, homosexuality is okay. Abortion is okay. But God loves me and sent his people to share truth with me and pressed me in a loving way to convict me of my sin.

53:09

And then I was set free of that. And my eyes were open. You know, it's like, if we don't do that, what's going to happen to your loved one?

53:17

Obviously we know God is sovereign, but he uses his people. We know this to share the gospel and to also hold each other accountable within Christendom.

53:26

So that's not just for the lost. It's also to press fellow Christians. Like I need, like I needed the other day, my husband to tell me, you have a bad attitude right now.

53:37

You're in sin. I didn't want to hear that, but I needed him to press me on that, you know, to convict me.

53:43

So the loving thing to do is to lovingly press your Christian brothers and sisters.

53:49

Maybe they're false converts. Maybe they're not, maybe they're really, they're really saved, but they just need you to, to press them.

53:56

Yeah. Maybe they're just so infected by the culture. You know, people have different categories. It's not necessarily always like,

54:01

I get infected by the culture. That's for sure. Oh yeah, we all do. Yeah. But again,

54:07

I mean, it's just the loving thing to do is loving for Nathan to look at David and say, you're the man, you know, in his sin, you just got done murdering, you know,

54:16

Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. And the most loving thing he could do is look him directly between the eyes and say, you're the man, you know, and that's in David, everything changed.

54:25

Of course there was judgment there, but you know, that's what we do because what we do, if we don't like we've been talking about in this episode, press them, you know, challenge them.

54:34

Hey, you, you, you say you're a Christian, but you believe abortion is okay. There's something wrong there.

54:40

Can I, can I share with you what being a Christian is actually all about? That's a loving thing to do, but we're so self -preserving in our flesh, right?

54:48

So I, I care about my relationship and I'm really worried about their response. Yeah. So it's a self -love thing.

54:55

I don't, I don't like to be in that situation. I don't enjoy it, you know? So yeah,

55:01

I was just trusting God to give us strength and knowing that his definition of love tells us that we have to rejoice in truth.

55:08

Yeah, absolutely. And get that truth out there. Yeah. Well, thanks for watching the show today.

55:14

We just, again, wanted to bring our brother on. He was such a blessing. So thankful for John holiday.

55:21

And yeah, you'll see that in provoked. We want to kind of bring our brothers that are not necessarily in the spotlight.

55:28

I like pastor Brian Gunter. He put on Facebook today, some of the best preachers, some of the just best quality men and women out there just unseen.

55:36

So it'd be cool to, I think we'll, we'll do that. I don't know what we'll name, uh, the segment, but, uh, just bringing people that you don't see who are just amazing brothers and sisters doing awesome work, uh, rebinding

55:47

Bibles for, for people and, and all that jazz. That'll be a part of the new year. I did want to do,

55:53

I do want to focus more on manhood. I've been talking a lot about that on Facebook and, you know, getting that out what it means to be a true man.

56:01

Because, uh, when we talk about the turning the ship around of the nation, you know, it's a furthering of righteousness that does this.

56:09

And it's a furthering of what it really, what it means to be a man. You know, when it comes to the, the state of the nation is always the state of the man.

56:16

The quality of the man determines the state of the nation. So really focusing on, you know, um, training our sons, training in the young men and training the men, men that do not know what it means to be a godly man.

56:28

Yeah. We're going to go after the magistrates this upcoming year. We're going to put on a bill alleged of, uh, uh, equal protection in this legislative session in Arizona.

56:37

So we're going to be talking to the magistrates. We're building relationships with our city council members. We're going to be talking to our mayor.

56:43

Maybe we'll talk to Mrs. Hobbs while we should. Yeah, we should. So, yeah, we're putting the pedal to the metal and it's time to be salty and as bright as we possibly can be, not only in the four walls of the church, but also outside to where your salt and your light is a preservative element in your nation.

57:05

You will do this if you love Christ, because it's an, it's a command, but you will do this if you love your kids and you love your grandkids and you care about the world that they're going to step into.

57:17

So we're excited. We're full of zeal. Yeah. Um, yeah. So I'm going to do more mom stuff to just mom encouragement and maybe we do some segments on, you know, biblical manhood and just homemaking and being faithful as a mom and a wife.

57:33

Yeah. No, that's absolutely one of the most important roles is the role of a mother training of godly kids who know the truth and live that truth out.

57:41

Right. Right. Yeah. All right. Well, we love you guys. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Happy new year.

57:46

Cause we probably won't be back till after the new year. Right. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah. We might have one more before we take a break.

57:52

Okay. Yeah. All right guys. Hopefully this was an encouragement to you. If it was, you can share it on Instagram, on Facebook, um, wherever you get your podcasts.

58:02

Yeah. Just give us a like and review and share with your friends that may want to hear it or may not want to hear it.

58:08

And then they'll fall in love with us. Right on. And if anybody wants to come on the show and kind of debate the issues we're game.

58:15

Yeah. We haven't had a debate in a while, but I really love these interviews we've been doing. They're my favorite. I love just hearing people's testimony and how

58:23

God's using his people in all these different areas, you know? Absolutely. All right guys, we'll see you next time.