Premiere: New Show "Provoked"
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Watch the premiere episode of our new show, "Provoked". Pastor Zack Morgan and Desi Maes engage on what it means to be provoked. Don't miss the introduction and flagship episode of this exciting new show! Tell everyone!
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- 00:00
- Now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.
- 00:06
- So he's reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God -fearing Gentiles in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be present.
- 00:14
- That is Acts chapter 17 verse 16 through 17. My name is Zach and you are listening to your very first episode of Provoked.
- 00:22
- And what we want to do in this show is provoke the church to preach the gospel, rescue babies and destroy idols.
- 00:29
- So we're super stoked. We've been planning this and praying about this for a while now. So it's great.
- 00:35
- We're glad that we can get this thing rolling. Sitting next to me is my beautiful co -host and my sister
- 00:40
- Desiree Mays. Hello. And that is the first time I've ever called you
- 00:46
- Desiree. Did you know that? Have I ever in my whole life called you by your name? Maybe when you married me and Don.
- 00:52
- Did I say Desiree? Probably. I don't even think I did. I think we need to go look because I think I said Desiree. Yeah. But have you ever called me
- 00:58
- Zachary? Hey Zachary. Just probably being mean. Just being mean. You've called me worse than that.
- 01:05
- True. But we are, we're brothers and sisters in Christ and God saved you in 2009.
- 01:12
- Yeah. Somewhere around there. 2009, 2010. Yeah. You can talk more about it a little bit later, but a couple of people came up to me like, so you're, you're brothers and sisters like, yeah, you're real.
- 01:23
- Really real. I'm like, yeah, we're really real. No, but they're like, no, are you real brothers and sisters?
- 01:28
- I'm like, yeah, we have the same mommy and daddy. Yeah. We're, we're the same. Yeah. I think it's because you're so tall and I'm so short.
- 01:35
- We just don't look that much alike. That's what Jeff said. Yeah. He said, you're such a huge mammoth of a man. You've got that small little sister.
- 01:43
- But we, yeah, we rarely call each other by our, our actual names. We have so many nicknames.
- 01:48
- Can you think of some of the nicknames that we've had growing up? You called me faux head, remember?
- 01:57
- So for you, it'd be, well, mom called you Rosie. Yeah. I call, I just called you
- 02:02
- Des. I didn't even call you Desi. I've called you Des our whole life. Yeah. And grub steak. Cause you would always have crap all over your face when you eat.
- 02:10
- I was like a tomboy getting in the dirt. Yeah. And Mamie was, Mamie's the same way. You and her are so similar.
- 02:17
- But mine are ZZ. Yup. Yacho. Yacho. Where'd that come from?
- 02:22
- I think dad. You asked dad. That's from dad. Well, it's Yacho Might. He would call me Yacho Might. They would call me Yatchy or Yacho.
- 02:29
- You guys called me Willis. Oh, Willis T McCubby. And Caleb, our brother, he had just the weirdest, the weirdest possible names that you could imagine.
- 02:38
- Friends of cats. Jamie had good ones too.
- 02:45
- Yeah. So yeah, that's just a little, little snapshot into our family and our kind of weirdness.
- 02:51
- You have to get used to the weirdness. Yeah. But, so this is the first one and the format of the show is not necessarily going to be like this one.
- 03:01
- We'll talk a little bit more about what to expect in the future, but I think it'd be good just to lay some groundwork as far as introduction.
- 03:07
- And I think I will start out with my testimony, not, not go too long into it so they can learn about who we are and then basically why we're doing what we're doing, what's the purpose.
- 03:19
- Because we don't want to just be using this time to do nothing. I think if we're honest, we want to see the gospel go forward.
- 03:27
- We want to see the lost come to know Jesus. I think for you and I, that's been our heart cry and what drives us every day for some years now.
- 03:36
- And so we just want to use this vehicle and this tremendous opportunity that Apologia has afforded us to do that, to bring all glory and honor to Christ and to make his name known.
- 03:46
- But just a little bit about me, I guess, and I won't go too far into it, but my testimony is weird.
- 03:54
- I think some of the things that kind of transpired in my past, I don't even know if I told you, just I feel like for me,
- 04:01
- God has always had his hand in my life and I don't think I could ever get to a point or I don't,
- 04:07
- I don't think I ever remember a time when I didn't believe in God. I always believed in him.
- 04:12
- Even my best friend, JB, when we would hang out, we would cuss like kids would do.
- 04:18
- Cause we weren't necessarily raised in a Christian home, I'm thankful for dad and all that he's done for us.
- 04:25
- We weren't necessarily in a Christian home by God's grace, God saved dad. And I think when he was in his forties and saved mom and saved our brothers and sisters, but we didn't necessarily have like a primary predominant
- 04:38
- Christian influence, but I could just feel like God has hand on me like JB and I, we would cuss, but we would never say the
- 04:44
- Lord's name in vain. So we're like, okay, you could say the F word or whatever it is, but if you use God's name in vain, we would punch each other, which is so weird because we didn't have any
- 04:54
- Christian influence like telling us not to do that. But I just felt like God has always been upon my life.
- 05:00
- I remember just getting excited about Easter because that's when they showed like the
- 05:05
- Jesus films and stuff like that. But I remember I would be so riveted to that and so excited about Easter, not to get all the candy and the bunny stuff and all that, but to watch those
- 05:14
- Jesus films. And when I was in first and second grade, my friends used to tell me that I was an angel that God sent to tell him about Jesus.
- 05:23
- What? I didn't know that. I can't even believe I haven't even shared this with you. And so to me, looking back, it was
- 05:30
- God just always kind of wooing me, wooing me from even a young age. Never really ever believing that there was no
- 05:37
- God, but believing that there was a God and Jesus was my savior, which is kind of baffles my mind because again, we didn't have that influence.
- 05:47
- You were predestined. Yeah, exactly. But I remember kind of what kind of set things off was when
- 05:55
- I was 10 or 11 and we were living with mom in San Carlos and you remember that house?
- 06:02
- And with Jeremiah, our stepbrother, and just feeling like oppressed, like I couldn't sleep at all.
- 06:08
- Like I remember telling Caleb, my younger brother, and Jeremiah, stay up with me. Try to stay up with me as long as I could because I couldn't go to sleep.
- 06:16
- I just felt like an evil kind of an oppression for a long time. And then
- 06:21
- Jamie, our older sister, she started going to that church sanctuary. It was like a church for rockers or something because she was super into heavy metal and stuff.
- 06:31
- And I remember going into her room and seeing all those different, remember she had that little blue room with all the pictures of the, you know, like black
- 06:37
- Sabbath. Oh yeah. I remember that. Yeah. Aussie. Right. And so I go in, I'm like, dude, I can't sleep.
- 06:42
- I haven't been able to sleep. I just feel like an evil kind of presence. And she just like shares the gospel with me, like clearly.
- 06:50
- And I remember I just embraced Christ at that point. Of course he embraced me. I feel like that was the point and you never really know.
- 06:57
- I think some people have these really dramatic salvation experiences. I don't think I ever had that. But it was at that point where I felt something and I could sleep like a baby from there.
- 07:07
- That oppressive presence just went away. And so after that, you know,
- 07:13
- I didn't really have any, you know, we weren't going to church or anything like that. I didn't have any spiritual guidance. And so, you know, from maybe 14 to 19,
- 07:21
- I just got heavy into partying and, you know, drug use. And that was kind of what I wanted to do.
- 07:27
- I wanted to, I wanted to grow weed and sell it. Yeah. And so that was my trajectory.
- 07:33
- Again, just spending all the money I could on partying, just kind of wasted my life away. And then JB, my best friend for growing up, you know, he gets ahold of me and he says,
- 07:42
- Hey, I'm going to this church out in, I think it was a South San Diego called Grace Church. And he kept on inviting me to this church and I'm like, well,
- 07:50
- I don't want to go, you know, I'm just too busy doing my own thing. And he keeps on persistently, you know, inviting me.
- 07:56
- And so I ended up going and it's a charismatic church and they're like waving banners around in church and doing like backhand springs and cartwheels and you know, it was just like a
- 08:06
- Pentecostal church. And I was like, whoa, you know, this is kind of over the top. But I felt like, you know, in my own prayer life,
- 08:12
- I'm like, well, I feel like God, you're drawing me to yourself. I think I'm going to be a Christian, but I don't know if I'm going to be doing stuff like that.
- 08:19
- So I can't, I just pictured you doing that though, my big old body, Chris Farley.
- 08:33
- So anyway, they go to this little church with like 30 or 40 charismatics, but they were sweet, you know, and they started to pray for me specifically.
- 08:41
- And at that moment, I feel like if I wasn't regenerated at 10 or 11 when
- 08:47
- I was going through that dark time, I feel like it was then 18 when God just got ahold of me. And you know,
- 08:53
- I, you know, it was from that point at 18, I haven't looked back. So I've, it was a, you know, fully committing myself to the
- 09:01
- Lord. God really gifting me faith, gifting me repentance, turning from the drugs and turning. I remember, you know, it was crazy cause
- 09:07
- I was doing so much, you know, smoking so much weed. I wanted to grow it. And I just go back to these stoners and they were sitting in a room and I'm like,
- 09:14
- Hey, we need to start reading the Bible to these guys. And they're like, what? You know? And so I just got rid of everything.
- 09:20
- And you know, a lot of those relationships just faded away. I remember. Yeah. And you know, after that,
- 09:27
- I felt like within just a couple of days, I was called to be a pastor. Wow. You know, almost instantly.
- 09:33
- And then evangelism was like, it was pastoring and then evangelism was big. And even at that time, when
- 09:39
- I was in 18, 19, I, I saw such a disparity in the church as I was going through the scriptures, just, you know, just devouring the scriptures.
- 09:47
- Such a disconnect from biblical evangelism to the evangelism that I was seeing even at that time just saying, you know,
- 09:53
- I really think, you know, we're supposed to just go to the lost people and share the simple gospel with them. And anyway, that was just been on my heart since the beginning, you know, to reach people with the gospel and the pastor.
- 10:06
- And so maybe just go forward a little bit. I went to Bible college.
- 10:12
- So this church had a connection with the church in Poway called Living Way Church. And they said,
- 10:17
- Hey, you know, if you were called to be a pastor, if you really want to be an evangelist as well, start going to this
- 10:23
- Bible college. So I drove up there and the first day I drove in, my
- 10:28
- Jeep was all wrecked and I had a black eye and I walk into register to this
- 10:35
- Bible college. Do you remember why you had a black eye? I don't even know. I don't think I got in a fight with anybody.
- 10:41
- I had a big old black guy. Maybe I was messing around with a kid or with one of my friends or something like that.
- 10:47
- Big old black guy, shaved head. And I walk in and I see Jessica and you know, she talked to me for a second and the first initial meeting or my perspective of her was she's very bold.
- 11:04
- She was very bold and came up and talked to me. And so she went home after that, after meeting me for the first time and told her parents,
- 11:12
- I found my husband. I found the guy I'm going to marry, which I can't even believe it because I was crazy. I would like if Zoe came home and said,
- 11:22
- Oh, I found my husband and then pointed to a guy like me. I would've been like, whoa, because I'm super young in my faith.
- 11:28
- I mean, just brand new and still doing stupid stuff. So I start going to that Bible college.
- 11:33
- I meet Jess and she was initially interested in me and I had a friend who was interested in her.
- 11:41
- And so he comes up to me and says, do you want to court her? Do you want to go after her?
- 11:46
- I'm like, no, no, no, just go ahead and go, go for it. And so since he was my best friend at that time, we were going to Bible college together.
- 11:56
- We started hanging out with her. So as we were hanging out with her more,
- 12:01
- I just got to see the person that she was and get to know her. And God just like supernaturally just dropped love for her in my heart.
- 12:09
- It was like a switch that went on. And I told her, I said, me and my buddy didn't, it's not like we, our relationship broke up.
- 12:18
- He broke up. We just understood. And so I told her, I said, I love you like a husband and I want you to marry me.
- 12:27
- And she was like, whoa, let's put the brakes on this. And so I was like an idiot because she wasn't there yet.
- 12:34
- And I was like, well, okay, we're done. So I just, you're dumped, just dumped her right there.
- 12:41
- And then I went to my pastor and talk to him about it. And he's like, you're just a selfish idiot. And I appreciate that about him.
- 12:47
- He says, you know, he showed me the differences of love, worldly, selfish type of love. And of course went through all the different aspects of biblical love.
- 12:55
- You're like 20 then? Yeah. Okay. I think, yeah. No, I'm 19. 19. Yeah, I'm 19. Cause we got married.
- 13:01
- We're going to celebrate our 20th anniversary in a couple months. That's so awesome. Yeah. So I'm 20. And then, you know, he kind of shapes me up and kicks me in the tail.
- 13:10
- And then I go back to her and say, you know, I was selfish and we'll just see what God does.
- 13:16
- And we were married 10 months later. Okay. So I'm getting too far out of this. I think it's important though.
- 13:21
- I'm glad you added all that. Yeah. So we go to Bible college together and after three years, you know, we were going to get our four year degree, um, mind and pastoral studies.
- 13:31
- So after three years, my pastor calls us into his office and he's like, Hey, I used to pastor a church or be the associate pastor of a church in Arizona and Phoenix called, um,
- 13:42
- Bible fellowship church. And they, they need an associate pastor. And so I said, okay, let's do it.
- 13:48
- And so we, you know, we're 21 and 20 and, you know, pack up the U -Haul and move on over to Phoenix and go to this little church.
- 13:56
- We walk in the church. It's like shag carpet. It was like walking into the sixties. I mean, they have like, it was like you actually walk, even the suits that they wore.
- 14:03
- Really? Yeah. Wow. And so we do our best for two years just to love. And we learned so much and it was a good, it was a good for awhile.
- 14:11
- I really have relationships even today. Um, some of my best friends, I still know from, from that experience.
- 14:17
- But one of the downfalls was the pastor of that church was letting prophets in to the church.
- 14:22
- And unfortunately he just moved away from God's word. And so my pastor in Poway, Pastor Doug Balcom, he, uh, he said, man, you gotta get out.
- 14:31
- That's just unhealthy. You know, whenever you depart from the word and you start allowing these, you know, um, negative influences in as far as profits and stuff like that, you just got to get out.
- 14:41
- And so I'm so thankful for that council because we had poured our life into this little church and um, it was, it was rough, but it was the right thing to do.
- 14:50
- So we come home after three, after two years and you had Zoe and we had Zoe in 2003, right?
- 14:56
- Yeah. So we come home and I finished my degree and I'm just, you know, really just serving the church, seeking
- 15:04
- God, uh, evangelizing Ray Comfort was kind of new to the scene at that time when he was introducing his, you know, his ministry and his method of evangelism, which was mind blowing.
- 15:15
- And I just remember getting into that. So 2009, um, is when we started sitting on Hill Church and it was just us and you, it was you and Don and dad and Veronica, my stepmom and my brother and his, were they married at the time?
- 15:33
- No, they weren't. No, they married a couple months after we started. Right. Right. It was close.
- 15:39
- Yeah. Right. And mom would come and Jamie would come and yeah. Yeah. Our older sister.
- 15:44
- And, and Cliff and Vicki. Right. Yeah. So we started the church and we just build from the ground up and being a church planter is hard.
- 15:53
- You know, all the, all the time, all the, how many, I wonder how many invites we handed out to church. Yeah. Hundreds of thousands probably.
- 15:59
- Right. If not like tens of thousands. So yeah. Just building it from the ground up. Doing Turkey giveaways.
- 16:05
- Turkey giveaways. Hot dogs. Yeah. Until we found out that evangelism is just preaching the gospel to people.
- 16:11
- That's right. Yeah. So we went through all of that type of kind of an American evangelical redefinition evangelism.
- 16:18
- So we've done all that. Trying to fill the seats. Yeah. Just trying to make the church grow, which is rough on pastors because your success is built upon how many people are coming and you know, who fills the seats and all that kind of stuff.
- 16:32
- Anyway. Yeah. So we do that. And in 2011 is when, you know,
- 16:39
- Tony Miano, which is a precious brother in the Lord, he started to do his, his own ministry, cross and counters ministry.
- 16:45
- And that was just so pivotal for me because I saw this man go out and just share the gospel. Bold. I have these bold gospel conversations and he led the way he was, you know, and I appreciate him.
- 16:55
- He's still doing it today. I mean, just, just an immense brother in the Lord and just so formative for me and what it means to not only evangelize biblically, but from a reformed perspective too, from a reformed theological position.
- 17:08
- So he was such a, such a catalyst for me. And so in 2012 he starts going to the abortion mill and before that I really hadn't been on our radar because we didn't start going to the abortion mill until about 2012,
- 17:23
- I think. That sounds about right. Right. Yeah. So he starts going and then my eyes are kind of opened up. I'm like, wait, he's going to the abortion clinic because again, the plight of the pre -born babies in the womb dying, it just never even crossed my mind.
- 17:36
- Right. We never even really talked about it. I don't think maybe a little bit just that it was wrong, but we had no serious interest in it whatsoever.
- 17:45
- I do remember talking to you though, early on. I don't know if this was before you started connecting with Tony, but I do remember you praying and telling me that you suddenly just felt a burden for abortion.
- 18:02
- When we'd be setting up for church and you're like, man, I've just been praying and seeking the Lord and he's just really given me this burden all of a sudden about abortion.
- 18:11
- And so I think probably it was around the same time. I think. Yeah. Because I still to this day, even though I'm thankful for sitting on a hill,
- 18:20
- I think it's hard. God's sovereign over all things. So I don't know. Part of me says maybe
- 18:26
- I shoehorned myself in a position that I necessarily shouldn't have been in because the spiritual influences that I had had at that time,
- 18:34
- I don't think were directing me in the right place. Well, yeah, it's hard for me because I came to the
- 18:42
- Lord through that. And discipleship and all that.
- 18:48
- So right. So anyway, so I just go, I just say that because I had spent so much time and like fasting and prayer, just seeking the will of God and feeling like an unsettledness in my spirit that maybe this is not the, we're not going to be doing this forever.
- 19:03
- And so just like seeking the will of God, what do you, what do you want? And that was that time after I think six months of praying where I was in church and, and then just the word abortion popped up in my mind.
- 19:12
- And I think that was before even, you know, Tony had started going out and ministering at his abortion clinic.
- 19:19
- So yeah, he had dropped that word in my heart. And I look over to Josh, remember him to say,
- 19:24
- I think I'm supposed to start doing something with babies. And then from that point, God began to really, you know, reveal his will and, and, and change things.
- 19:33
- So, um, yeah, that was 2012 and then 2013 I go to Philly in September, 2013,
- 19:39
- I go to Philadelphia and Jeremiah Cry, which is an amazing evangelistic organization. Jeff Rose heads up and it was at that, at that, uh, first herald society that Rusty Thomas preached and he preached his, um, message on blood guiltiness.
- 19:59
- And that's actually in the first babies are murdered here. I was at that. If you, if you look in, if you ever check that out and he just preached that and it was like,
- 20:08
- I was undone, you know, everything was going to change, um, my life now, a huge aspect of my life was just to work to rescue babies.
- 20:18
- Yeah. I remember you telling me when you got back that it was like a knife going into your heart, like it was like really affected you.
- 20:27
- Yeah, it did. You know, and I didn't ask for it. I just sought the will of God. And of course he revealed his will as time went on and it was totally nothing that I, you know,
- 20:35
- I was just kind of stuck in that. Okay. God, I just want to see more people come and grow the church, you know, kind of a, um,
- 20:42
- I guess, uh, a different perspective or maybe a faulty perspective about what it means to be a pastor in a church planner.
- 20:49
- So, um, yeah. So I go there and that was just, God really spoke to my heart, really moved, um, through that sermon.
- 20:58
- And then I come back and the church dissolves in January 9th of 2014, you know, and what happens after that is in how
- 21:07
- I get back into Arizona as there's a pastor that I had made a connection with when I was pastoring here in the early two thousands.
- 21:15
- And so he calls me and he's elderly and he says, look, I'm, I, he was 80 I think at the time and he had been pastoring since 1959.
- 21:23
- And so he's saying, I'm looking for a potential successor. So I go to a
- 21:28
- Phoenix Christian assembly and this doesn't work out, you know, we try, but God makes it clear that this is not,
- 21:34
- I'm not going to be the successor and vast theological differences and, um, love a lot of the people, of course, they're in the connections that I've made.
- 21:42
- Um, but he just made it clear, it's, you know, this is not going to be the end all. So I do that and that's
- 21:49
- July of 2014 to where we kind of dissolved that type of relationship. And then the next Sunday I walk into Apologia.
- 21:55
- Now I had known Apologia because at that time where God kind of, you know, awakened me into the situation with babies dying and child murder.
- 22:03
- I think he awakened pastor Jeff and pastor Luke at the same time. And Tony was even a huge influence on them.
- 22:11
- So it's just weird. So I knew that they were getting into the fight and so I had listened to the redemption radio and Apologia and so I said, okay, let's go there.
- 22:19
- And my whole heart, cause you know, after the church closing and then coming here and having the situation with Phoenix Christian assembly not work out,
- 22:28
- I was just down, you know, like, man, you know, it's like I'm having to start over again. So I came into the church just thinking,
- 22:35
- I don't, I don't, I don't really need to be a pastor. I don't need to be a leader. I just want to serve. Right. I want to be a soldier on the streets.
- 22:41
- I remember you saying those words verbatim to me. I just am looking forward to going to church and serving and not being in any type of leadership role.
- 22:49
- Cause you know, you had done it for years and you were kind of just burned out. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so it was, it was just, you know, discouraged a little bit.
- 22:57
- Yeah. But I think in all of that was a crushing, you know, that God does to men, um, to do mold your character.
- 23:05
- It's all part of the sanctification and preparation process for future things. Now that I know you'd never, you never see it though, when you're going through it, you're like, okay,
- 23:13
- I'm done. You know, this is God just shelving me because of my past failures and, but that's, that's not what happened.
- 23:19
- So we walk into church and, and I really, all I wanted to do was serve at the abortion clinic. Um, and so walk in a church and pastor
- 23:28
- Jeff Lee preaches the best sermon on abortion. And I don't, I don't, I don't even think we have it up.
- 23:33
- I never, I don't know what happened to it, but it was just so riveting and God, just like God used rusty to kind of awaken me.
- 23:41
- God used Jeff, uh, at that moment and I, I even felt like he looked at me and he said, we need people to help in the abortion clinic ministry.
- 23:49
- And I was like, okay, yeah, I hear you Lord. Yeah. I'm, I'm done. I'm here. Yeah. And so just start serving.
- 23:55
- And then after a couple of years of looking at me and now I'm one of the pastors here and yeah,
- 24:01
- I just, I'm just blown away every day. I get to serve next to these guys and they're tremendous. I feel like the odd man out because these, these pastors and people here at the church are just phenomenal.
- 24:12
- Yeah. So that's a little bit about me and what we do on a day to day basis. I'm the pastor of, um, local outreach as well as other, other things that we do.
- 24:21
- Of course we all wear kind of different hats. Um, but we're all about getting out into the marketplace with the gospel and trying to save babies.
- 24:29
- Yeah. So you are a father of seven now, right? Yes. You have six children and one on the way.
- 24:38
- Yeah. Which is amazing. One in heaven. That's right. Yeah. So eight. So six here, one coming and then one in heaven and so you've got a baby too.
- 24:48
- Yeah. So we just found out we're, we're having a baby. So we're, we're getting to have babies together.
- 24:54
- You know what? That'd be crazy. It'd be the same day. Yeah. Which God's timings was unreal. So what's your due date?
- 24:59
- Like August 30th. Yeah. And Jess is maybe, it's like a week later or something like that. It's a jingle juice.
- 25:06
- So I, I'm married to Don. We've been married for, it'll be 14 years this year.
- 25:12
- And I have two babies, a nine year old and a, um, no, he's not nine yet.
- 25:18
- He's eight turning nine and I have a two year old and they're the best and we have one on the way. So yeah, we get to have babies together.
- 25:25
- Hey, did you read? What a trip. I know. Did you read? That just reminded me that you're not having a baby. Jess is having a baby. But I was just thinking about that article
- 25:31
- I just read. It was like a trans man gives birth to baby with non -binary partners, sperm and the doctor was also trans.
- 25:42
- I'm like, what the heck? People are going to like, I swear in like 20 years people are going to look back and read these headlines and be like, was everybody high?
- 25:50
- Like it's just insane. It's so hard to wrap your mind around, but it is. I mean, it's just the, the outworking of Romans chapter one, where God gives them over to a debased mind.
- 26:01
- I mean, can you imagine that type of headline in like the fifties? What they would do? Oh my gosh. Just the uproar of like, like a national uproar over that single situation.
- 26:10
- They would have been like, what the heck is happening? I think it's going to be like, you know how, like if you go back and look at eighties, um, like MTV videos, you go like,
- 26:19
- I can really see where people were doing a lot of like cocaine and meth during that time because they're just crazy.
- 26:25
- Like, I think that's what people are going to look back at our headlines. And of course we know it's Romans, you know, they're suppressing the truth.
- 26:32
- They've been handed over, you know, right. But I think people that maybe don't know that will be like, was everybody on drugs?
- 26:39
- Because it's so insane. Yeah. I think just biblically it's, you know, people say, oh man, the judgment's coming, right?
- 26:45
- And, and as Rusty says a lot, I mean, it's, it's, it's amazing that we're still here because of all the babies that die and, and all the children that are being murdered.
- 26:56
- But that is the judgment of God. And when you see the stuff like that, that is him judging and giving them over to a debase mind, right?
- 27:04
- It just, all of that flows out of a mentality of depravity. And that's what happens when you don't acknowledge
- 27:11
- God, when you continue to spurn him, your heart just continues to get harder and harder and harder. And then you eventuate to absolute absurdity like that.
- 27:20
- So why don't you go into your testimony and tell us about who you are. Okay. First of all, I just, do you want to say, talk about your kids?
- 27:27
- Because I said I had, so you have six. I told myself to, I'm like, don't forget about. Well, that's.
- 27:33
- Yeah. So Zoe is my eldest and I love her so much. She was born January 27, 2003.
- 27:41
- Preston's almost as tall as, no, he's, he's as tall as I am. Yeah. He's tall. So he's the second, he's the boy and he was born on March.
- 27:50
- Why am I giving their birthdays? It's okay. I'm like, Ann, they're social security, blood type.
- 27:56
- So Preston is the second oldest. And then you have Reese, Jude, and then
- 28:02
- Macy, Phoebe, Ann. Baby on the way. Baby on the way. That little Donald Trump Jr. Oh God, we're dead.
- 28:11
- There goes our show right there. Okay. So how about you share your testimony?
- 28:18
- Okay. Well, let's see. I feel like the same kind of, when you were talking to me about how you feel like God always had a hand on your life.
- 28:27
- Of course he did. I kind of feel the same way. We grew up in a, not a
- 28:33
- Christian home, but we did have some introduction to Jesus. Jesus, we went to church, I would say, like Easter.
- 28:39
- Pete Yeah, Christmas and Easter. You remember the church in Torrey Pines? Katherine Right. Yeah. So there was some introduction, although I had no real biblical knowledge of the gospel or anything like that.
- 28:50
- But I knew about Jesus and dying on the cross and just a very basic understanding.
- 28:58
- And so if somebody were to ask me as a kid, even I would have said I was a Christian, but I wasn't.
- 29:06
- But I do feel like there were times, like even as a teenager, I remember when we lived out in Mount Helix, I would go and sneak over to this church called
- 29:18
- Skyline when they were having, they used to have their services out of a junior high. And for some reason, when
- 29:23
- I learned how to drive, I would go, I don't know why I snuck, I wouldn't get in trouble, but I would just go attend their services by myself.
- 29:29
- Pete I didn't know that. Katherine Yeah. Like not regularly, but just here and there. Just I was like curious.
- 29:35
- So anyways, yeah, I remember when you got saved and I was like, oh, that's cool.
- 29:41
- Because yeah, you were just a partier and it was kind of crazy.
- 29:47
- I remember being like, wow. I mean, I just remember seeing you change really drastically. Pete Yeah. Do you remember when
- 29:54
- I was, cause I feel like God got ahold of me at 18. If he didn't regenerate me at 10 or 11 when
- 30:01
- Jamie shared the gospel, then maybe it was then. But do you remember coming into my room that one time and you said,
- 30:06
- I want to serve Christ with all my heart? Katherine Yeah. And I don't, I just think that's God's grace.
- 30:12
- Pete It's like his wooing. Katherine Yeah. Pete Just this process of the spirit of God wooing you to himself. Right? Katherine Right. Cause I didn't serve him with all my heart for years after that.
- 30:20
- So yeah, I just was like, grew up and did all the things nonbelievers do and got married and said
- 30:29
- I was a Christian, but I wasn't. And yeah, I was deceived.
- 30:35
- I mean, I would, I was so blatantly not a Christian. I like sometimes cringe and remember like trying to witness to people kind of, but just having just terrible, terrible, terrible theology.
- 30:47
- And I was not converted. You know, I'd be like, yeah, I'm a Christian, but you know, also Buddhism is cool.
- 30:54
- Just crap. This is pure crap. And the fruit of my life was evident of that, you know?
- 31:00
- So I just, I was, I wanted to be like an actress and I had all these desires for fame and for money and just the, you know, pleasures of the world.
- 31:15
- I like to just go out and party. And I was working at Nordstrom and going to San Diego State University.
- 31:22
- And I met Don cause he was working there too. And same thing. I saw him.
- 31:28
- I'm not kidding. You can ask. I have a friend named Angela. She was with me. I was going down the escalator and I saw
- 31:33
- Don from afar and I was like, oh, I'm going to marry that guy. Pete No way. Katherine Yeah. I said that. Yeah.
- 31:38
- Pete It's true. It's super sexy. True. But, so we ended up getting engaged a year later after dating.
- 31:49
- And then we got married a year after that. And then three years after that, you started the church and we were like, you know,
- 31:59
- I remember you asking if we would come help. It was close to our house. And so we're like, yeah, sure. You know, we'll come help.
- 32:05
- I'm, I'm a Christian, so sure, I'll go. But at that time we lived for the weekends going out and partying on Fridays and Saturday nights.
- 32:14
- So Sunday morning, that was like kind of a bummer for us to have to get up early, you know.
- 32:20
- But we started doing it because we loved you and Jess and God just began to change both of our hearts because,
- 32:30
- I mean, really that was the first time I was introduced to the gospel, to the actual gospel.
- 32:35
- Pete You want to tell them about the Bible studies? Jess Oh yeah. So I would, I remember going to your, the Bible studies in your house and it was so, it was such a sweet time though when you think about it, like so intimate and like just sweet, you know, we would worship together and just really the foundations of the faith, like just really, that was the first time
- 32:55
- I was really introduced to like who Jesus is. And so even though I was an idiot,
- 33:02
- I look back at those times with such fondness, you know, I just, I remember just being like, what about homosexuality?
- 33:11
- I'll never teach my children. Pete Yeah. We could be like talking about the different lakes in Jerusalem, like this different seas, like the
- 33:19
- Sea of Galilee. Like, okay, homosexuality is what I want to talk about. Jess Yeah. Yeah. And then I remembered like so clearly walking out with, you walked us out to our car and I've said, dude,
- 33:31
- I can't, I don't even know if I could do this, you know, and you're like, well, you have to decide, you know, are you going to do what you want to do or are you going to die and follow
- 33:40
- Jesus? And I hope that you do follow Jesus, but you know, whatever ends up happening, I love you.
- 33:46
- I'm always going to be here for you. And it was like, at that point, things started to change.
- 33:52
- And I remember seeing my husband change first, like God, just humbling him and him kind of transforming before my eyes.
- 34:00
- So that kind of shook me up a little bit, just witnessing that change. And then I remember being, you know,
- 34:07
- I told you this before, but I remember being at church one morning and sitting there and listening to you preach.
- 34:14
- And I remember I just had the fear of the Lord come over me. And I felt like all of a sudden
- 34:20
- I was like, scared. Like, I was like, crap, I'm a sinner.
- 34:26
- I am a sinner and I need Jesus. And he saved us.
- 34:33
- I don't know what to say, except for he's amazing and gracious. And you know, I totally thought
- 34:38
- I was saved before, but my heart was so, so far from him. And so then after that, it was just, you know, everything changed.
- 34:47
- And again, like that time I look back was, you know, it was hard, like doing a church plant and all the stuff we went through and all the hours we put in, but I still look back at that being such a pivotal time in my life because it was such a small church that you and Jess were able to like disciple us so intimately.
- 35:06
- And I was able to ask you all the questions. And so I just so appreciate that time in my walk.
- 35:13
- But yeah, I remember saying to my friends, cause they were like, wow, you're really going to church now and stuff. And I'm like,
- 35:18
- I literally said yes, but I'm not like some weirdo evangelist. And then God just came.
- 35:23
- Yeah. Cause you told me, I remember one of those Bible studies, you said, I'm never going to tell my kids that homosexuality is a sin or wrong.
- 35:31
- And I'm never going to tell my kids that abortion is wrong. Or even like that they,
- 35:36
- I'm never going to push Christianity, you know, they can choose for themselves. I just had horrible theology.
- 35:42
- But then just as like, as soon as I was saved and I felt like God gave me a new heart, it was just like going and telling people about Jesus is like, just what
- 35:53
- Christians do. Like, cause that's what you showed us. And like, that's just what I kind of learned really early on was a basic like Christianity 101 is you believe in Jesus as your
- 36:05
- Lord and Savior. You repent and turn to Christ and die. And you go and tell people about Jesus.
- 36:11
- Right. To me were like just the basics of Christianity. And so after the church had shut down, we started going to another church and talking to other
- 36:22
- Christians and just, in general, talking to other Christians, I was really naive. I thought everybody kind of knew that and kind of like,
- 36:32
- I was naive to all these different theology, different theology and different ways that Christians would act.
- 36:41
- So I remember like talking to Christians and being like, oh yeah, me and my husband, we started going out to the trolleys in San Diego to tell people, just share the gospel.
- 36:50
- Like he would preach and I would do like one on one and we would like pass out tracts, you know, with you, like you did that.
- 36:57
- But I remember being like, oh yeah, we go to the trolley and we just go tell people about Jesus. And I remember these Christians that were, said they were
- 37:03
- Christians for like 15 years, they were like, what? What do you mean? Like, what do you tell them? Do you tell them that Jesus loves you?
- 37:10
- Like, I'm like, well, I tell them about the holiness of God and I tell them about their nature and I tell them the gospel.
- 37:19
- And that was so foreign to them that it was just strange to me. And not in a way that I felt like self -righteous, like, oh,
- 37:27
- I share the gospel and you don't. It was like, I was actually really discouraged by it. I was like, because to them, it was like a weird thing.
- 37:35
- And so I was like, you mean there's Christians that don't tell people about Jesus? Like, I was so naive.
- 37:41
- I just didn't know that. And then I started to even kind of question my own, like, well, maybe
- 37:47
- I am doing it wrong. Maybe it should just be events where you invite people to church and they have a big youth conference and then hopefully they'll come to church.
- 37:57
- But I used to start to kind of wrestle with those things. But then as you just go through the scriptures and God just corrects your way of thinking,
- 38:05
- I'm like, no, this is what the Christians lived and died for in the Bible. And it's pretty conceptually simple.
- 38:12
- Yeah, it is. But it's just like in America, we've like made it so confusing, you know?
- 38:19
- And so anyways, that's pretty much it. And then I just, over the years have gone out with you and my husband has led the way and just going out and preaching to the lost.
- 38:34
- You know, he preaches and I have gospel conversations and God has just blessed that. And really that's like our goal if we have goals for the rest of our life is
- 38:42
- I just want to share Jesus with as many people as I can. I remember struggling with the issue of abortion and like when
- 38:51
- I was first saved being like, well, I still, I kind of knew it was wrong, but I'm like,
- 38:56
- I can never tell somebody else not to do that. It's a woman's choice. It's her body, blah, blah, blah, all that.
- 39:02
- And then I remember you handed me or you told me to go to 180 movie and I watched that and I was pregnant with Liam and I just bawled my eyes out like that changed my life forever.
- 39:15
- And then after that, God gave me the burden to help save babies. So really,
- 39:22
- I just, I want to raise my kids, be a faithful wife and mom.
- 39:28
- And I want to tell as many people as I can about Jesus and I want to help rescue babies and see abortion abolished.
- 39:35
- Pete Right. That's what we were talking about on the drive over here is we're not some special people. We're about as ordinary as you can get.
- 39:43
- And I think we want to capture that because the real work of evangelism is just done by the body.
- 39:51
- And I think a part of, we've been talking about maybe extra biblical evangelistic methodologies or maybe the broader
- 39:59
- American church has redefined it than what it truly is. And one of those things that we do is we think that only superstars can share the gospel.
- 40:08
- Only if I have the intellect of so -and -so or then I'd be capable of sharing the gospel with my neighbor.
- 40:14
- But that's not the biblical methodology. That's not the biblical example. It's just, if you look in the book of Acts, the
- 40:22
- Bible says they all went out boldly proclaiming the gospel. And so they went to the lost and they shared the gospel.
- 40:27
- And then they suffered and died and it was all for the sake of Christ. And that's what we want to do.
- 40:34
- So that's who we are. Again, we're just brother and sister and we feel passionate about the plight of the pre -born and we work hard to rescue as many babies as we can with as many people as we can.
- 40:47
- And we share the gospel with whoever we can. So we can get into the purpose, like why do we call it provoked and what is the purpose?
- 40:55
- So I ask you a question before I do that is, what do you want to get out of this podcast or why, what do you want to see this podcast accomplish?
- 41:06
- Well, I feel like God blessed me through giving me you and other people in my life that really encouraged me and reminded me because when
- 41:18
- I was a new Christian, I totally doubted that I could talk to somebody about Jesus.
- 41:25
- Even though that was very foundational and in the beginning
- 41:30
- I knew you had to, I really doubted. I'm like, I don't know enough about the Bible. So I doubted my own abilities, but I would hope that this podcast would help to encourage other people to know that if you're a born again
- 41:45
- Christian and you're listening to this, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you and you have the authority,
- 41:53
- Jesus gave it to you to go and share the gospel with people. It's not only a command, but you have the power to do it.
- 41:59
- And so I hope that this podcast encourages people that maybe feel like they're inept, that they don't have the right words or eloquence, that they can and they should and God will provide the words and that he will be faithful to give them the strength to do that.
- 42:20
- And also I hope that we talk a lot about idols. I know that's part of a big part of this is just taking down idols in our life.
- 42:29
- I mean, that's, you go through the book of Acts, it's huge. And it really, like Calvin says, we're idol making factories.
- 42:36
- So it's something that we really need to be aware of and to encourage each other to put those suckers to death.
- 42:45
- Petey Absolutely. Yeah. That's a good way of explaining it. So I would say the purpose of the show is threefold.
- 42:51
- So we want to provoke, provoke, and we'll get into why we use that word. We actually tried to come up with a bunch of names.
- 42:59
- What did it take us two months to find? And then Dawn just says, Hey, we're like, perfect. Dawn Remember you and me and Luke were like going back and forth and we could not agree on it.
- 43:08
- I don't know how many names we went through, but we want to provoke and that word provoke actually in the original language, it means to incite to action.
- 43:17
- Sometimes you think, Hey, stop provoking your sister. It's only about making somebody angry, but it's not.
- 43:24
- And we actually do need to be angry about certain things, but it's inciting somebody action.
- 43:30
- So what we're trying to do is we want to provoke our brothers and sisters to confront the culture with the gospel.
- 43:36
- And that's exactly what Paul did when he was provoked in his spirit.
- 43:41
- And I'm going to read the verse again. It says, now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.
- 43:50
- So he saw the idolatry going on. His spirit was provoked to action. And what did he do?
- 43:56
- Well, verse 17. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God fearing
- 44:01
- Gentiles and in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be present. So what works in tandem with sharing the gospel, getting the gospel into the marketplace is tearing down the false idolatrous ideological systems, systems of thought that people adhere to that are anti -Christ that actually get in the way of the gospel message.
- 44:22
- So that's what he did. He saw that he was provoked. And then he reasoned with them about their belief structures. And then as he was tearing those down, he would, he would erect or he would construct the gospel on top of that.
- 44:34
- So it's demolishing what people believe that's aberrant and erroneous and not according to the word of God, these ideological systems that hold them in slavery and then sharing the gospel.
- 44:46
- And then of course, looking at these different issues through a biblical worldview or through the lens of scripture. So that's what we want to do.
- 44:52
- And then we want to get people into the fight when it comes to rescuing babies. That's one of the big purposes.
- 44:59
- And as you said, just equip the church. We can't say it enough. We're nobody special.
- 45:05
- We're filled with the spirit of God. We know the true gospel. And so we want to help people to understand that. I kind of like describe it like this.
- 45:13
- I am a terrible singer. Like I do not, I can't carry a tune, but I have gone up during karaoke to show people like,
- 45:21
- Hey, if I can go sing, you can do it. It's kind of an example of like,
- 45:28
- Hey, look at like, I remember you showing me, look, if I can do it, you can do it. So we're nobody special.
- 45:35
- If we can do it, anybody can do it. That's why I love like going back to Ray Comfort. It's just every Christian can, can share the gospel.
- 45:41
- Absolutely. We're filled with the spirit and we have the truth. We can share the false gospel. And we'll, as we, you know, move down the road, we'll teach on what the gospel, the, cause there's essential gospel components that comprise the message, right?
- 45:55
- It's not just Jesus loves you, right? You know, and it's not only, Hey, you're going to hell, right? Right. So we can become, we can truncate the gospel and it's got to have the essential components.
- 46:05
- If it doesn't, there's no power there. So what we do, unfortunately, as Christians is we want to take components out because for the fear of man, or not only for the fear of man to, cause we don't want to tell them the hard truths about hell and everlasting punitive judgment, the wrath of God, but we'll also take away the grace of God because we can get out there and just be people over the head.
- 46:26
- You see that all the time, unfortunately on YouTube, YouTube, just people laying into people. And so it's gotta be a balanced presentation of the gospel, full of grace and full of truth.
- 46:37
- But a big part of the show is again, this subject of idolatry, tearing down idolatrous systems of thought.
- 46:48
- When, if you think biblically and historically, when God's people put away false worship by the way of the destruction of their own idols, that always, always, always results in God's blessing.
- 47:00
- So a huge undergirding issue when it comes to the state of the nation, the state of the church and the nation is false worship, people worshiping idols.
- 47:09
- But when God's people engage in idolatry, that's always, always, always results in false worship.
- 47:17
- And then we're going to get into Pastor Toby's sermon on that in the weeks to come. And he just so clearly explains how everything flows into the culture out of the house of God.
- 47:27
- If it's false worship, if it's strange fire that's happening within the house of God, that's going to have an impacting effect on the culture.
- 47:33
- Yeah. Sorry to interrupt because I feel like we get this question a lot.
- 47:38
- So I just want to address it now. So people tell, ask us why focus so much on abortion?
- 47:45
- What's your response? Yeah, that's a good one. Because people will say, well, all sin is sin.
- 47:51
- And I don't believe that. I don't think that's biblical to say all sin is sin. Of course, in the book of James says, if we fail at even one point of the law, and I'm paraphrasing right now, we're guilty of it all.
- 48:04
- One sin, one lie, one, even if you steal a little bit of beef jerky, like me and JB used to do, thrifty back in the day, that's still a transgression of the law of God.
- 48:14
- And because God is perfectly righteous and perfectly just, he must punish sin. He would fail to be the expression of his own self if he didn't.
- 48:24
- But different sins have different degrees of destruction. Right. God puts certain sins in the class of abominable.
- 48:31
- So the shedding of innocent blood would be in the class of an abominable sin. Homosexuality is in the class of an abominable sin.
- 48:38
- It's abominable inside of God because it's a blight on his character. All sin, of course, is a blight on the character of God.
- 48:45
- Because as we sin, we come outside of how God designed us to bear his image, to be the image bearers of God.
- 48:51
- But we focus on abortion because it is in that area of abomination.
- 48:58
- You think about it just practically. So say we're walking, say we plan an evangelistic event and we're going to go preach the gospel at some sporting event.
- 49:08
- And then as we're going, we hear there's a guy right down the street and he's killing two -year -olds in a home.
- 49:16
- And we're right next to there. What do you think we should do first? Go preach the gospel or go try to save those babies.
- 49:25
- So there's a certain situations and we're not saying the gospel, saving babies is more important than gospel proclamation.
- 49:33
- Actually, the only way to save babies is with the gospel. You can't do without the gospel. We're not saying that.
- 49:38
- But we're saying there's situations within the nation or just within the broader culture that's happening that has degrees of urgency.
- 49:48
- 05 .20 Right. Pete So like if we were, this is the great evil of our age. If we were living back in the times during slavery and we saw a black person being beat and killed and enslaved,
- 50:01
- I hope that we would stop what we were doing and go help them. I hope that we would have been those abolitionists to go and save our brother, our sister.
- 50:12
- So that's what I always try to explain is like, this is the great evil of our age right now. This is what we're called to do.
- 50:20
- And we're not saying that other things aren't important. Pete Right. No, but it requires immediate attention to some things.
- 50:27
- I mean, your kid's about to grab a frying pan. Pete That requires you to run over there to drop everything and to go help your child.
- 50:35
- 05 .22 Yeah. And we become so desensitized to it because it's hidden, because it's legal, because it's so common practice.
- 50:42
- But we forget that as we're speaking, children are dying. As people are listening to this, children are dying.
- 50:48
- And so that's why it's so important. And that's why we put such an emphasis on it. Pete You're right. 150 years ago was slavery.
- 50:56
- Pete And everybody would say, oh man, I would stop everything. I would stop all my pursuits, vocational desires, and I would just try to save the slaves.
- 51:05
- 05 .44 Yeah. Or during the Holocaust. In 20th century Germany, we'd say, oh man, if I were in that situation,
- 51:11
- I would do everything I can to be another Schindler and try to save them. But in this situation, because we're so desensitized to it, we just don't see the involvement of the church as it should be, which was part of this podcast.
- 51:26
- We want to try to wake people up to get in the fight. Right. That's a good question. So we are talking about, as we talk about the destruction of idols, and we're going to get a little bit into the format of our shows.
- 51:40
- I think a good thing to do just as a disclaimer is to say, we're not talking about the physical destruction of people or anything.
- 51:48
- We use words like provoked and we need to decimate idolatry and destroy idols.
- 51:54
- And of course, we're not saying or inciting any type of violence against a person. Because here's the thing, and you quoted
- 52:01
- Calvin, he said, our hearts are idol factories, right here. We make idols out of pets and we're not saying go home and chuck your dog in the trash.
- 52:10
- We make idols out of our wives, our husbands, our children. And so we're not, of course, saying destroy those.
- 52:17
- And even, unfortunately in the past, there's been some people who have killed abortionists and took it to a very evil and sinful place.
- 52:28
- We would never ever condone that. We do think abortionists should be held culpable for their sins, but we're saying it's not the arm of the church that goes about penalizing this type of behavior.
- 52:43
- That's the arm of the state. But Paul kind of explains it here clearly.
- 52:50
- He says in 2 Corinthians 10, three through five, he says, for that we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons are warfare and out of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
- 53:01
- So we all have enemies. And when you get into the fight for children, your enemies come out. We deal with people that hate us, that want to stop us as pastors in a church, we're constantly under attack from without and more painfully even from within.
- 53:15
- But we don't just line our enemies up. And as this verse is talking, we don't war according to the flesh.
- 53:21
- You don't just attack your enemies. Jesus says, love your enemies, bless those who persecute you.
- 53:27
- Even though you're reviled, you don't revile. It's talking about how Jesus was reviled, but he didn't revile.
- 53:32
- So in no way are we talking about hurting anyone or destroying anything. But he goes on to say, we are destroying, he uses pretty strong language here.
- 53:43
- We're destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
- 53:52
- So he says, we don't wage war like the world, like a physical combat sense, but we do.
- 53:58
- And it's a command of God here. We are to destroy speculations that were destroyed means to take down, to demolish, to bring something down to the ground.
- 54:08
- And the word speculations, this is a new American standard version. Speculation is a conjectural consideration of a matter, right?
- 54:15
- A speculation is an opinion. So Paul is saying we are to take down opinions that are not rooted in facts.
- 54:24
- That's what that word means. It's subjective bias. And if you think about it, the foundation of all antichrist ideologies and systems of thought are not rooted in objective truth, but false subjective bias.
- 54:39
- And we see that, don't we? Oh yeah. Especially at the mill. When we get into conversations. Because they have to, they have to reject any sound logic or any sound reason.
- 54:49
- We see it constantly, even as you bring up scientific facts about the baby. Oh yeah. I mean, and that's why it's really difficult.
- 54:56
- And this is why I'm looking forward to our next episode when we're going to be talking to pro -choicers.
- 55:03
- It's difficult to carry on a conversation without the other side, the pro -choice side, just resorting to absurdity, name calling, cursing, because they realize they were bankrupt with facts.
- 55:17
- They have no scientific grounding. They have no moral grounding. They have no logical grounding.
- 55:23
- And of course, no theological grounding. No theological grounding. And so what is that? It's just like a schoolyard.
- 55:28
- You get a dodgeball chucked at your head. They just resort to fighting. And so hopefully though, it'll be interesting to talk to some pro -choicers and have a hopefully a decent conversation, respectful.
- 55:43
- Of course, we're going to be loving and respectful, but hopefully that will be reciprocated. But I'm excited to do that and kind of just show people what that looks like.
- 55:52
- So when they go out and engage the culture with these questions, they're prepared to have answers and they see they just can see what it's like to dialogue.
- 56:03
- Absolutely. So that's good. So we'll talk just, I don't know how long we've been going for. I don't know. I was thinking we should probably look.
- 56:09
- Yeah. Maybe wrap it up pretty quick. But just maybe we'll talk about, and you just got into it, what people can expect if they come on and listen to Provoked, the format of the show.
- 56:19
- So as we were talking about being provoking or encouraging or stimulating our brothers and sisters to preach the gospel, save babies and tear down idols in their own lives.
- 56:30
- But how we are going to do it on the show is we're going to bring people on who adhere to these type of idolatrous ideologies or adhere to these antichrist systems of thought.
- 56:42
- And we're going to be loving about it. And we're just going to allow them to come on and to present their case. And then we're going to engage with that and do the best that we can, not only to show the absurdity of their thought system, because again, if you reject the
- 56:59
- God of the scripture, you always amount to absurdity. Not only to do that, but we also have to understand that these are souls.
- 57:06
- These are people we're talking to. And I think what should be paramount is not winning an argument with these folks.
- 57:14
- It's being calm and rational and respectful and collected and doing the best that we can to expose the folly of how they think and these foundational systems that they adhere to, but also to be evangelistic.
- 57:28
- And we want to be about winning them as far as we can, just by sharing the gospel to them.
- 57:34
- So what you can expect as you come on is we're going to week after or not week after week,
- 57:39
- I think we're going to do it twice a month. So biweekly, we're going on and you'll hear a conversation.
- 57:44
- I think for our second episode, I think we have two or three pro -choicers lined up. Yeah. And we might not be able to have people come on for every episode, but with you going out so often to the mills and some of it's going to be just what happened that week, going out and conversations you had that you can share.
- 58:03
- Yeah, that you can dissect. Right. Yeah, exactly. And I'm hoping even just for moms who are at home and listening to this and dads, but people that maybe you're at work or you're folding laundry and taking care of kids and you think, how is this applicable to me?
- 58:19
- I don't really get out much, but it's going to equip you how to train your children. It's going to equip you on maybe talking to your coworker or your grandma or your neighbor.
- 58:30
- There's somebody God's put in your life right now that you can share the gospel with or that abortion is going to come up or some other subject is going to come up that maybe you just felt a little timid about talking or maybe you felt a little insecure in your ability, but just knowing that God uses the things that are foolish to shame the wise.
- 58:48
- And so you don't have to be, you don't have to be pastor James or pastor Jeff or Ray Comfort.
- 58:55
- You are a Christian and you can share the gospel. Absolutely. That's how we win, right?
- 59:02
- It's body. And when we get the body of Christ, every single aspect of it, to be sharing the gospel with their spheres of influence of the people that they rub shoulders, that's how we win.
- 59:13
- That's how the gospel exponentially spread exponentially spreads across this nation and this earth.
- 59:19
- That's what we want. That's what we want to do. We just want to help. We just want to be some regular brothers and sisters.
- 59:26
- And a couple of things that we need to say is we don't feel like we're going to filter or sensor our show.
- 59:33
- And so as we get into conversations, it could get heated. We promise to keep our cool. But if you're listening to the show with your kids, there could be some foul language that you hear.
- 59:46
- We just want to warn you, maybe this is not the best show, especially if we have somebody on and we'll warn you or we're going to have people on so you can know and maybe not to turn it on a little ears listening.
- 59:57
- Cause we expect there to be some, maybe some explosive conversations just based upon the particular person that we're talking to in particular, the nature of the subject, the nature of the subject and how that can, you know, get people riled up.
- 01:00:11
- We see it all the time. Oh yeah. Yeah. I posted something on Facebook yesterday and like our community group looking for,
- 01:00:19
- I was looking for just a pro -choice person and it was a really, you couldn't really tell what side
- 01:00:25
- I was on. It was a very ambiguous post, but Oh my gosh, just, just asking for a pro -choice person to interview.
- 01:00:32
- It turned into like a bloodbath. People were just fighting each other. I got crazy messages, like just for posting that somebody was like, you have a hateful heart.
- 01:00:41
- And I just was like, what did I say that was hateful? Like they, there was nothing. It's just even mentioning the word pro -choice, uh, just incites anger in people.
- 01:00:52
- So. Right. It does. Uh, that's just the light. Right. You know, Jesus said, man does not come to the light unless his deeds are exposed.
- 01:01:00
- And Romans says that God is, or sorry, man is at enmity with God. So it just flows out, especially in the context of abortion.
- 01:01:09
- You just see it. And, uh, I think Rusty says it, it's just the scriptures on display as you get out there.
- 01:01:14
- Cause I do believe it's the gates of hell out there and that's where the devil is a company accomplishing so much of his work to steal, kill and destroy.
- 01:01:21
- Um, but yeah, that's, that's basically the show, you know, as Paul is talking about provoking, you know, when, when
- 01:01:27
- Paul was provoked, you know, that word does mean to anger. And I think what we want to do, and I think one of the most disheartening things is that there's this, there's just so much apathy within the church at large.
- 01:01:40
- You know, that's an antonym of that word provoked synonym is to anger, to incite, but one of the antonyms is, um, apathy and lack of interest.
- 01:01:50
- Um, and that's, it's, it's just disheartening to see so many babies being killed and all of this going on year after year.
- 01:01:58
- And the answer is always God's people. You think about slavery, you think about, um, what drove the men even to, to storm the beaches of Normandy.
- 01:02:08
- It's love for their neighbor. It was a, it was a biblical undergirding and a love for God and a lot of those men.
- 01:02:14
- Yeah. Um, so what we want to do is we want to provoke, you know, we want, we need more angry people.
- 01:02:19
- You know, Ephesians four says, be angry and do not sin. So you can be angry and sin, but there's this anger that we need to have against, you know, towards children dying, being burned to death and the wombs of their mother and being torn apart.
- 01:02:35
- We have to have more angry Christians, but channeling that anger in a constructive way. Yeah. And doing something like there's this great
- 01:02:41
- Spurgeon quote. I'm not going to say the whole thing cause it's long, but he just starts out by saying, brother, do something, do something, do something.
- 01:02:48
- Like there's, there's a lot of work to be done, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So well, that's episode number one.
- 01:02:54
- Yeah. And I love you. I think you did a good job. Love you too. And I'm excited to see what, what God's going to do with this.
- 01:03:00
- So we will, uh, we will be back on when we come back on. Right. But again, our second episode, we will have some pro -choicers on.
- 01:03:08
- We don't know exactly how that conversation is going to go. Yeah. But, um, as my sister has been saying, do something, get out there, share the gospel.