Dead Men Walking Podcast Greg Moore & Jason Hamlin Episode 1

Dead Men Walking

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Exploring theology, doctrines, and all of the fascinating subjects in between, broadcasting from an undisclosed location,

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Dead Men Walking starts now. Well, hello, everyone.

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Welcome to the very first episode of Dead Men Walking. I am Greg Moore, your host. I have a very special guest with me today,

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Jason Hamlin. How you doing, Jason? How's it going, everybody? We're going to get into his story in a little bit, but first,

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I just want to explain a little bit about what this podcast was about. For those of you who haven't linked up with me on Instagram or Facebook, which you can find us at Dead Men Walking Podcast, both on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, a lot of people reached out to me and said, well, what's that name all about,

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Dead Men Walking? And it really comes from one of my favorite passages in Ephesians, 2nd

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Ephesians 1 through 6, where Paul is making a juxtaposition of us being dead in our sins, enslaved to sin, and then

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Christ coming, raising us up, and seating us in heavenly and priestly places. So that's kind of where the name of the podcast comes from.

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I've walked through my walk with Christ, my sanctification process, realizing that we are all dead in our sins until Christ decided to show us

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His glory and the work on the cross was done in our lives. So, Jason, it's so good to see you.

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Jason's a, oh man, he's a crazy kind of guy. He's got a really cool past.

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We've known each other off and on for quite a long time. He's an internationally touring musician.

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He's been in Japan. He's been in the United States, Eastern Europe, all over the place. Very talented musician.

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Also a brother in Christ and just an all -around great guy. And I wanted to have him on the podcast because this podcast is going to be very conversational.

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You know, I've done other things where it's question -answer kind of interview style, but I just wanted to bring other brothers and sisters in Christ into the studio and really focus on doctrinal issues, theology issues, maybe even testimonial stuff, and all the very interesting things in between.

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Maybe the good times, the bad times, the struggles, the opportunities we have as followers of Christ.

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And just kind of, you know, do the biblical thing of iron sharpening iron, lifting each other up in encouragement, as the

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New Testament says. So, Jason, it's so good to have you here. It's good to be here, man.

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And I don't know, we'll see how this goes, but I feel like this isn't going to be Jay's first or last time.

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I think he might be hanging around a little bit more because offline, I know we had a conversation just a few nights ago, and boy, it lasted hours and hours.

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The time just flew by, but we covered so many things. And one of those things, maybe you can just start out with a little bit of a biography of who you are for those of the people listening that don't know.

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Just give us a bio where you grew up, kind of what you did. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. I grew up here in Michigan, actually right here in Monroe.

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The great county of Monroe, Michigan. That's right. And I decided to go to college in Tennessee, met up with some other musicians, and we hit it off and started jamming, started writing, started touring churches, actually.

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And then through the years, we decided we wanted to get into clubs, we wanted to get into bigger venues if we could, and go a different way,

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I guess, and try to bring the gospel into the world,

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I guess. Yeah, so we ended up touring all over the

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States, well, a lot of different countries in Europe, Japan.

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We did that for about 12 years, and now I'm on the line at Ford Motor Company.

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That's a big difference. Let me ask you, were you a believer when you were playing music, or what's your story there?

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I mean, did you grow up in a family that knew about the Lord, or were you saved later in life, or how does that work?

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I was brought up in the IFB, Independent Fundamental Baptist, yeah, yeah.

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So we were, yeah, man, I mean, fire and brimstone every week.

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But yeah, I went to a Southern Baptist College, and it was different.

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I mean, I don't know, there were people from all different walks of life. I finally learned about praise and worship music, which

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I didn't even know about before I went to college. I mean, it was all hymns, you know, it was mainly hymns.

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And then all of a sudden, you know, started learning about praise and worship. You know, I took seven guitars my freshman year of college to, you know, to Union.

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And yeah, like, I had all these electric guitars. I had one acoustic, because I love Phil Keagy.

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I was trying to learn Phil Keagy stuff. Wait, you had electric guitars growing up in the IFB? You were like the wild child.

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Right, right. Oh, man, I mean, I grew up on Zeppelin, Van Halen, I mean,

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Beatles, you know, it was, yeah, you know, I mean, but I couldn't tell anybody that. I heard that the

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IFB actually doesn't believe in premarital sex because it could lead to dancing.

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That's my IFB joke. Sorry. We love

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Baptists. We're kidding. Definitely, definitely. We have reformed. So sorry.

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Anyway, so you had the guitars, you're at Union. Yeah, at Union, and everybody's playing acoustic guitars. I'm like, what are these guys doing, you know, playing acoustic guitars?

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And luckily, most of them were playing Taylors. I'm not really a Martin guy.

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Sorry, Vince. They're buddy Vince. The Martin -Taylor rage is on.

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Oh, man, forever, I'm sure. But I'll play a Martin if it's around, but only if I have to.

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But yeah, man, so I started picking up the acoustic and, but I never played the acoustic conventionally.

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It wasn't, it was more of my electric playing, being brought into my acoustic playing.

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And yeah, I mean, and that's what our band kind of based our sound off of was more riffs, more riff based stuff.

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And we had beatboxing as the, as the percussion. It wasn't, we didn't have any other instrument.

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We just had vocal percussion. So it was two man band. It was, well, it was started out as three. Three, okay. Two vocal percussion, and they sang harmonies.

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There were, there was a little bit of hip hop in there. And yeah, man, I mean, we covered so many different genres.

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I mean, you could catch us on a bill with The Roots, and then you could see us with Zac Brown Band, you know.

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Yeah. And then we would play like a bluegrass festival in between, you know. So it, it just, it randomly,

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I mean, we would get on so many different shows, you know. Yeah. It was, it's cool. Well, it's cool and creepy, but we were talking a few nights ago, like I said, and I said, what's the name of your band?

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He said, Scratch Track, right? And I said, oh, Scratch Track. And I repeated it a couple of times. And then the next day in my

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YouTube feed, it said, here's some suggested videos for you. And it was a Scratch Track.

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Audio, audio or video. Our phones don't listen to us, by the way. That's exactly what I'm saying. It like, you know, had never clicked on anything you'd done before, never really listened to it.

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And then, and I listened to it and I was like, oh my gosh, I need this for my intro music for my podcast, but then

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I probably got to pay Jason. So maybe I should just stick with royalty free. I need it right now. You know, we're, we're laid off.

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So, you know. Oh, right. Cause of the COVID -19 stuff. Right. We'll get there. We'll get there. So exactly.

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So, um, so you, you grew up a fundamental Baptist. Were you, did you carry that kind of faith into college or was it kind of, sometimes

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I see a, when, when I see guys and gals that grow, grow up really strict, legalistic, or even fundamental, they hit those college years or those young adult years.

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And it's like, you know, yeah, you kind of go nuts. Was there any of that? Or was it just, was it measured insanity or.

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You know, it, it was, it was somewhat measured. I mean, we, we had some, you know, we had some great professors, but, um, but you know,

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I mean, you, you start running into a different thought. I mean, you know, in, in college,

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I mean, you, you run into people that are from all different walks of life. Right. And, uh, you know, I started meeting some of those charismatic people and you're like those

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Pentecostals, but, uh, but you know, yeah, I mean, it was, it was, you know,

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I mean, I had went to, uh, different churches growing up to see different groups singing, um, in churches and, and, uh, but yeah, man,

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I mean, I mean, it was something that my, in college, my mind was just, I mean,

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I was this little kid, you know, learning about all these different, different things, you know, and it's like my, my, my horizons just expanded,

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I guess. And, you know, and I, and I think at the same time I started getting, um, to the point where I didn't really know about my faith, you know?

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Right. And if somebody asked me if I was a Christian, um, I'd say, oh yeah, yeah, I'm a Christian. Totally. Yeah. And, uh, and nobody really pressed into that, like, well, okay, well, what, what exactly are you, are you saying, why are you saying you're a

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Christian, you know? Right. And, uh, and I mean, I was one of those people, I would crack the Bible here and there, but it wasn't a daily devotion.

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It wasn't a relationship with Christ. It, it was none of that. It was, it was completely, um, you know, um, not in, and not that I was like running in any kind of way, but it was just not in the forefront of my mind.

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I was just like, yeah, I love, I love God. And I say this, you know, it's your lip service. And don't feel bad.

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80 % of America identifies with, I am a Christian, air quotes, you know, and then have, doesn't really go much farther than that.

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I believe the Bible and you say, well, what even, well, you know, it doesn't go too much farther than unfortunately.

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And the, uh, yeah. And I mean, as well, as we start touring, you know, we were saying that we were, we wanted to bring, um, the gospel of Jesus, you know, um, in, on our lyrics, be more inclusive than exclusive, you know, it was, it was a very, uh, you know, not that we were trying to be sneaky about it, but it, it kind of like started feeling you too -ish in some ways, like,

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I mean, just, just give them the gospel, just give them, you know, what they need to hear. Um, uh, but yeah, I mean,

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I mean, for years throughout that, I mean, you, you start running, you start, um, changing what you believe, um, you, you start getting very lax, you start, um,

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I don't know, you, you run into so many different situations where you, you are completely, um, just a hypocrite and you're, you're, you're on the wrong side of the fence, um, or you're, or you're on the fence, which puts you on the other side of the fence.

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I mean, the fence is the devils, right? So, um, uh, so, you know, I, I just, uh,

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I don't know. I think at one, at a certain point, I, uh, I just was,

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I was looking around at my life and, uh, and, and where I was in it and it wasn't what

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I wanted. Um, yeah. And anyway, that's when I, it's crazy because, uh, when you look at, when you look at the

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Bible, it's just God constantly reminding us of his goodness, of his mercy, of all these things of also his judgment, his wrath, all the characteristics of the

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Lord. And, um, you know, it's, it's kind of, you go, what is he just, does he want all, you know, is he just forgetting that he did this?

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Like he'd remind the Israelites like once a week, what he did for him. And it's no, it's mostly because we're just really dumb and we're really good at rationalizing.

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Like as, as a, as a race, as a people, as a fallen in a fallen world, you can rationalize just about anything you need to rationalize.

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And that was, you know, that was a big step for me in, in my walk with the Lord, just, you know, some things are permissible, but not everything beneficial as Paul said.

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And it was rationalizing it and saying, well, in the easiest way to rationalize, look at someone else and then compare, right?

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Well, I'm not that. And then, um, you know, at a certain point in my mid twenties, it just hit me like a ton of bricks.

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And it says, you know, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and your righteousness to the Lord is like filthy rags.

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Um, and if you want to get really disgusting, that interpretation of what those rags are, they were, you know, feminine product rags essentially.

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Uh, so that's the image that the Lord is trying to put in your mind. That's what your works and your righteousness is like.

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And, uh, when I realized that, um, I'm desperately in need of a savior and that nothing

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I can do can please him unless through the work of, you know, uh, Christ on the cross, it really made it easier for me not to look at someone else and say, at least

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I'm not that bad. So I can do this. And he, because God looks at all sin and says, it's, it's all pretty bad.

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There's not one holy. Look at the, uh, the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. I mean, you know, the tax collector is just like, forgive me,

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God, for I'm a sinner. And the Pharisee is looking at the tax collector saying, man,

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I'm glad I'm not that guy. But how many times a week you look at the Pharisee and say, man,

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I'm glad I'm not like that Pharisee. It's like, Oh gosh. You know, like, I mean, we're, you know, we're wired that way.

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Um, uh, but yeah. Yeah. That's it. Or just the fact that, you know, every morning, uh, before school, sit my kids down, we have

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Bible study. We do a Psalm and a Proverbs. Sometimes we'll jump around in the gospels, but when we do a proverb,

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I always make it very clear to them that, um, we're not reading in on someone else's life of who did bad examples.

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The fool does this. The fool does that. I said, we are the fool in Proverbs. You know, so often in Christianity, we want to kind of like remove ourselves from parables and remove ourselves from Proverbs and remove ourselves from the story and say,

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Oh, well, that was like that guy. And God's just trying to teach me a, you know, a fable, a parable, a lesson through this story.

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When in fact, when you read through Proverbs and it says, you know, a fool is on, you know, lack self -control is like a, you know, a city with no walls.

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He's saying, no, you are, you're the fool. And here's what you need to do to not be that fool because you're in a foolish state.

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Our flesh always wants to do foolish things all the time. I feel, not that I feel that the

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Bible says that, but, um, so to not remove ourselves from that is vitally important.

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Uh, because then, you know, when I read through Proverbs and I replace fool with Greg, it becomes a lot more personal.

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And it's like, Oh no, I have done that before. And then I try to introspect and reflect and go, when did I do that? How can

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I not do that again by the grace of God? You know, all these other things. So you're, you're in the band. When, when did the, uh, when did scratch track or when did you leave scratch track or did they, did they kind of dissipate or did you guys go separate ways?

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Well, uh, we'll, we'll left the band in oh five and DJ and I continued on, um, through 2012 ish.

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And, uh, okay. So up until not that long ago. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.

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When I started at Ford, I mean, obviously we couldn't tour anymore. I mean, we were touring, I mean, all the time.

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I mean, this was, this was our, our gig, you know, this was our job. This is, that's how we made money.

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And, uh, and yeah, I mean that when I started, uh, Ford, it was a completely different world because I mean, my, my life was, you know, it, it wasn't structured.

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I mean, if, if, you know, if we had a show on, you know, uh, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I mean, it would start it at anywhere from seven to 11, you know, and then we'd be off stage by eight to, you know, one 30 or whatever.

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Right. And, uh, you know, I mean like, but all that other time I could spend sleeping, taking naps all day longer or whatever, you know, like answering to very few people.

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Yeah. I mean, we, we can, you know, we were in charge of our business. Uh, we had a couple of different management teams, um, as we, uh, as we were touring and then a booking agency that helped us out and, uh, to do college shows and, and to do, we had a, another booking agency before that, um, out of LA, the book, the agency group.

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Um, but yeah, I mean, we, we, yeah, man, we didn't have any kind of structure set up for our lives.

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We just knew that if we needed to drive from Chicago to New York one day, you know, we knew we had, you know, 12 hours to, to get there and play the show.

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But I mean, when I started at Ford, it was like, you're tied to this 20 foot area and that is all you're going to be doing all day long.

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It's like a rat in a cage for a creative person. I mean, geez, my mind was just racing all day long, but podcasts, audio books,

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I mean, dude, I, you know, I fought it for a long time. I was like, Oh, I'm just going to listen to music. And then,

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I mean, you know, you listen to the same songs all the time. I mean, you know, you, you get trapped into that one record.

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You know? Um, I re I remember when I was younger, I, I had the Led Zeppelin two

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CD and I was trying to learn every riff, you know, off this, off this thing. And, and I remember burning a hole like into the

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CD. Like it, it started, it started skipping in it. And there was a huge hole going over, uh,

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I think it was whole lot of love or something, but yeah, but yeah. Great tune though. Oh gosh, man. Geez.

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I, yeah, I, I still can't do a lot of those riffs, but here, here and there, I, you know, I could pull them off if I'm, if I'm throwing down some, but I can't believe you've lasted.

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I don't want to say this. I don't want it to sound mean, but creative people, it's very hard to do a monotonous job when you're a creative person.

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Dude, working at Ford has been the hardest thing I have probably ever done in my life.

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I mean, it is, uh, you know, the, the daily, the daily, you know, I'm, I'm luckily

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I'm a floater and at one time I was a team lead, so I was always doing different jobs.

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Um, and like, I mean, I give it up to these guys that are, that have been there for 30 years, man.

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I mean like there's some people that are there, that are there right now that have been there 40 and you know, 40 plus years, you know, that's crazy, man.

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I mean, but that's, that's awesome. I mean, if, if you have a brain that can do that, um, but yeah, you're, you're so right.

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I mean, having a creative mind and, uh, being, being tied to the line, you know, doing the same thing over and over is difficult.

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It's a huge difference. I was in a band for about two years, nowhere near the level of success that you had, but at the same time,

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I, I tell everyone two things about that. One, uh, we had five guys in the band and people don't realize how hard it is to keep five young guys on track to do, to accomplish a goal.

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I couldn't imagine, you know, just the dynamic of most of the time, if you're in a band with someone, they're creative.

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Um, you know, when you, when you talk, uh, creative people, you talk just weird, weird things, weird ideas, spontaneity, let's do this.

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Um, and then most of them, maybe not business savvy. So then if you're dealing with contracts and venues and things like that, we're all just looking at each other, like, where did our manager go?

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We don't want to deal with this. We've got an after party to go to or people to hang out with. And then the second thing is, like I said, you re you really report to no one.

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The only profession I can really liken it to is maybe like standup comedy, where you get up at about noon, you have the afternoon and most of the evening to do, you know, to do whatever the heck you want, get yourself in trouble, sleep, nap, watch

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TV, whatever. And then, and then you perform at night and then you're, you're up late at night and there's really no responsibility or reporting in or attendance.

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Or so to go from something like that to where you're internationally touring for years and years and years, and then go into probably one of the most structured jobs.

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I mean, even in retail and things, you have some leeway. Like I was in, you get into, uh, you know, that kind of, you can

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I don't have anything, but to pick up this one part and put it in the car, you know? Um, uh, yeah, that's funny.

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That's, that's crazy. So, so then you get into Ford, uh, you, you live in Monroe in 2012.

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Yep. Monroe, Michigan. Uh, well, kind of, we were on the road and I was coming back and forth.

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Yeah. Because I had just met Mandy. Okay. Um, we were, you're now my now wife.

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Yeah. And, uh, we were dating, you know, off and on. Oh, that's a, that's a whole nother story.

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But, uh, but yeah. Well, it's a podcast. We have time. But yeah, man, we, uh, uh,

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I ended up back here, uh, going to Ford, you know, working at Ford. And I mean, you know, I was still like, man,

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I still want to do music, but I mean, you just, you just get into that different life and, you know, you, you, you have different, uh, priorities,

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I guess. Absolutely. One of the big things for me when I came back, uh, I say came back to the

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Lord, but I always have to preference this a little bit of my backstory. And we'll, cause it's kind of reminding me. One of the things when

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I came back to the Lord was, um, I was listening to a Jason Upton sermon and he just said so many people in the world who play music then get saved or come back to the

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Lord and say, oh, well, I'm just supposed to play music. And he said, you know, that, that is so detrimental to just assume that whatever talent you have is the gift that the

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Lord wants you to use in service to him. He said, what you have to do is take all your gifts, whether they're musical, creative business, you know, logistical, whatever they are, put them on the altar.

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And then the Lord hands you back what he wants you to use for what season and what time. And I heard that and I just went, that makes so much sense because I, I had this image of like, oh, well,

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I, I, I was in a band. I played music since I was a young child. Well, then I'm going to play music in church.

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And there was like a purifying, like two or three years where there was no music for me. Um, and I think a lot of that had to do with just getting out, shifting the purpose of music in my life.

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Um, you know, when I wasn't following the Lord, I wasn't saved. The purpose of music was self gratification and self glorification.

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You know, this, when you've got 10, 20, 30 ,000 people in, you know, screaming fans and, uh, not even the adoration of the fans, but just the vibe, the energy, you're playing music, you're with your boys, you guys are gelling.

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I mean, everything's working. It's very addictive and it's very self -satisfying. You can have 10 people in that crowd.

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And if all of them are singing your lyrics or, you know, it's like, oh my gosh, they like this song, you know?

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Absolutely. Yeah. You know? So then you, so then, you know, then you open your Bible and you look at the

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Lord talking about yourself being crucified, your flesh being put to death, you being a slave to sin, but now a slave to Christ.

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And you're like, whoa, right. Uh, what purpose does music serve now? And you know, when I made that paradigm shift in my mid twenties, that music was to ultimately glorify

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God. Yeah. All things are to glorify God. Uh, it really gave me a reverence for what, what worship, what praise is, what music is.

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Um, you know, so, so, so many times I see, uh, you know, non -believers becoming believers that are musicians and they take that entertainment aspect with them and look at it.

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It's not a sin to be entertained. I'm just saying when you're doing it in the service of the Lord for worship or praise, it's such a sacred duty that we're called to that.

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Um, I think, uh, I think a lot of modern worship bands or worship teams would, would do very well to understand what it is you're actually doing on that stage or in that home or wherever you're doing it.

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Um, I mean, it's, you, you are ushering people into the presence of the Lord through worship. And I know we talked about this a few nights ago, but I, you know, music is very powerful.

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It's extremely powerful. I mean, I think the only reason why Satan could even challenge

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God was because he was essentially the angel of music, you know, there there's, there's really nothing more powerful that I can think of.

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I mean, more than the spoken word, more than, you know, uh, visual music just does something.

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It, it moves, it moves. It can move for sure. And I mean, you know, this is where we get into, uh, might be some differences with, uh, some of the audience members, but, um, soaking and, um, you know, uh, maybe singing a song that, uh, um, makes

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God out to be your boyfriend or, you know, it's, it's like, it's like, you know, it has went off into some weird areas.

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Um, but, uh, but you know, I, uh, yeah, I, when I walked back into the church, when

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I came back, when the, when, when God just regenerated me and brought me back,

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I was afraid to get up there. I, and I still kind of have that inside of me, just that fear that, that, that fear of the

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Lord, you know, and it's like, it's like, I don't want to get back up there.

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If I still have something like that, even like, you know, back inside of me in any shape or form, you know, and, uh, and I, and I did, uh, start playing at city light for a little while and, um, uh, stepped away, um, just cause different things gotten, you know, um, uh, yeah, it was, it was happening in life and whatnot, but, um, but yeah, you know,

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I, uh, I don't know, I ended up, I've ended up in this space right now where all

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I want to do is praise and worship Christ with my life.

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I mean, and, and, you know, when, when it comes down to, you know, uh, pumping your gas at the gas station, like I would, every, everything that you're doing is for the glory of the

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Lord, you know, and, and, um, uh, sharing the gospel and, the great commission.

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I mean, you know, we're, we're, we're called to, um, to always be in remembrance of him.

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I mean, this is, this is not something that I do on the side. This is not something that is, uh, there, there's nothing before him, you know?

26:56

Um, it's, it's God, my family and, you know, everything else kind of falls in, you know, below, but I mean,

27:03

Christ is everything. Which is why, uh, you know, I have a real hard time. It's funny that you touched on the, the, uh,

27:11

God is my boyfriend type songs. Um, I, I really think, and this doesn't, this isn't meant to sound, uh, in any way condescending, uh, but I think there's, uh,

27:24

I, I feel like there's a lack of maturity when people seek out those type of songs and not like an immaturity, um, in, in like mental immaturity.

27:35

I think it's an immaturity in their relationship and understanding of who

27:40

God is and his character. Um, because I'll tell you what, when you, you know, Proverbs says the beginning of wisdom is to fear the

27:48

Lord, right? Not to be scared of him, but that word fear actually means to reverence and awe, to understand his character.

27:54

The closer you get to understanding his character and who he is, um, the closer you get to wisdom.

28:00

Yeah. Okay. So, you know, when you have that in, in your head and you understand he is an all sovereign, all powerful, all knowing, loving, merciful

28:10

God, which is also 100 % justice, righteousness, holiness, and wrathful because he has to also have wrath because he is just, um, and you understand what you are in comparison to him, uh, dead in your sin, slave to sin, um, no work can please him except through Christ's work on the cross.

28:27

And then you understand his grace and mercy through those lens. I'll tell you what, um, a song that treats

28:33

Jesus like my sugar daddy or boyfriend just, or, you know, whatever. Yeah. It'd be weird if I thought

28:39

Christ was my boyfriend. That's a whole nother subject, but you get what I'm saying. Uh, when a, when a worship song treats him like that, it feels such lacking in foundation and truth and understanding of who

28:51

God really is. And for me, I, I can't even, those, those songs that, uh, do absolutely nothing for me.

28:58

I can't, there's, you know, every worship song that I sing, I want it to be uplifting and glorifying to him.

29:04

Right. Um, you know, that's why I had a phase where just, you know, for two or three years, I went back to hymns just in, not even, you know, it wasn't the, uh,

29:12

IF, uh, IFB hymns probably just an organ and a vocalist.

29:18

I mean, there's artists out there, you know, Shane and Shane, um, Eddie, um, Eddie James does a whole

29:24

P whole album of just him and a piano on hymns. Um, you know, Shane and Shane, the same thing with two guitars and two voices and, uh, even jars of clay years ago, redid, uh, some hymns.

29:35

And I mean, they sound contemporary, but the words are so powerful. I heard a preacher and boy,

29:42

I wish I could remember who it was, but it stuck with me for years. He said the difference between secular music and Christian music is secular music.

29:49

It's all about the sound Christian music. It's all about the words. And I went, there, there's some truth to that.

29:54

Now there's exceptions to the rule, but generally that's what we're doing where, you know, corporate worship isn't necessarily about the music, right?

30:03

Uh, the music does help created by God and for his glory, but the words are usually what's so important in, in uplifting words.

30:10

I mean, you go back to, you know, you read about, um, uh, these hymns and how they were written, you know, when we were talking about, um,

30:18

John Newton, you know, amazing grace, slave trader, own slave boats, uh, you know, uh, took guys and beat them in the club within the shins until they couldn't walk anymore.

30:28

I mean, just a total wretch got radically saved, wrote, uh, you know, amazing grace saved a wretch like me.

30:36

Um, two days before he died, he said, my memory has faded, but two things I do remember. I was a wretch.

30:42

I'm a horrible center, but God's mercy and grace is greater. And then two days later he died. So he had this whole thought of who he was and then how

30:52

God saved him and who God was in relation to him. And out of that, we've get one of the greatest hymns of all times, you know, or it is well with my soul.

31:00

I mean that whole story, I'm sure you're familiar with that where, uh, I don't know that. I don't know that I, um,

31:07

I think it's Horatio spats. I might be saying the name wrong. Someone's going to correct me. Horatio. Uh, I can't remember his last name right now, but essentially he was a, he was a very wealthy and well -off businessman in Chicago and the

31:18

Chicago and, uh, his, uh, wife and I think it was, uh, five of his five of his seven children.

31:26

And if I'm getting this story a little bit wrong, we'll, we'll correct it later. Um, his wife and three of his kids went on a ship over to England.

31:33

He was supposed to follow them. You know, this is after the fires of 1917 in Chicago, he lost like 90 % of his real estate business devastated financially.

31:42

He decides, Hey, I'm going to finish up some work here. Wife, you go, um, you know, kind of, uh, sail across the sea there, go to England.

31:51

I'll meet you in a few months. Um, halfway out in the middle of the ocean, the two boats ram each other.

31:57

Almost everyone is lost except for his wife is three, his three daughters drowned, uh, right there in the ocean.

32:02

She gets back to England. Um, she sends a telegram and all it says to him is saved alone, which is where that hymn comes from.

32:10

Well, it is well with my soul is he takes the exact same boat on the same route, tells the captain, tell me about where this crash happened, where my, my daughter's drowned.

32:21

He gets down on the bottom of the boat. And then he writes the first three verses of that when, when sea billows roll, it is well with my soul.

32:28

He's releasing back up to the Lord. You took my three daughters. This horrible thing has happened. Uh, this was only weeks later and he's writing a hymn saying, but it is well with my soul.

32:38

Now, when you have that backstory and you hear those words, I mean, it's give, it gives me, gives me the chills right now.

32:43

I mean, it makes me tear up a little bit, especially, you know, you're, you know, and you're a new dad too. Yeah.

32:49

Well, you know, uh, new baby, new baby girl. Um, that's another thing too.

32:54

Once I had kids, man, I become a big softie. I can't even watch the old yeller and stuff. I'm like, Oh man, do then to steal

33:01

Magnolia's was on the other day. And like, Oh my gosh, I just start. I'm crying a little bit.

33:06

I'm like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing right now? I got a beard. I'm a man. Right.

33:12

When I'm, when I'm, and I'm not trying to be a songist, if that's a, if that's a word like, you know, anti certain songs, but, um, you know, um, when

33:21

I sing that song and I understand his goodness and then, you know, you, you, you put me in front of like reckless love or something, uh, just not a big fan.

33:31

And I think there's just a lack of, uh, especially in Western Christianity. You know, because we're so well off here, there's just a lack of maturity.

33:40

And once I'm saying, I'm mental maturity, but in a maturity of your walk in your relationship with God and who he is.

33:46

Yeah. I mean, what we were being taught right now, um, since, since I can, I, I came back to Christ, uh, two years ago.

33:53

So I'm, I'm, you know, I, I don't like the term baby Christian. Um, um, but you know,

34:00

I am, I am, uh, just kind of starting back out, you know, um, but it's the me gospel.

34:06

It's, it's all about my anointing, you know, my breakthrough, my ministry, my ministry, all of that, you know, and, and when

34:14

I hear songs that are all about me and my transformation of like, you know, uh, you know, um, financial mountains being moved or this, uh, my marriage mountain being moved, you know, this, this burden on my marriage mountain, you know, um, uh, but yeah,

34:33

I mean, it's, it's like, it's all about us, you know, and that's not what

34:38

I read in scripture. Right. What I learned in scripture is all about Christ. It all, it all points to the

34:45

Trinity, you know, and, uh, and, and not to say that we all don't have things to, to work on.

34:50

Um, you know, we're being sanctified. We are definitely, uh, you know, walking out our, our, uh, our salvation, you know?

35:00

Um, uh, but I mean, this isn't about, um, the Joel Olsteen message.

35:06

Right. This isn't about, and, and I'm not, maybe I should, should just watch my mouth here, but, uh, but yeah,

35:12

I mean, the, the me gospel, That's okay. You can, you can use some of those words. The me, the, the me, um, worship songs do not work, um, for, uh, why we're headed to church, why we're going to church.

35:28

It's very short sighted. It's short sighted in so many ways and set you up for so many, so many failures essentially in your walk with Christ.

35:36

I tell, uh, newer Christians this all the time, or even some of those who've been Christians for quite a long time, like you've, you've said you've come across where, uh, you know, you don't really get past the first couple of questions of, well, why are you a

35:49

Christian? Well, I've been a Christian for 40 years. Why? And then they kind of fall apart. Right. Um, but, uh, but the, but that whole me self -centered, um,

36:01

I almost lost my train of thought here because you got me going on the, on the 40. It's what we do, man.

36:06

40 year old Christian. That's okay. Um, but yeah, it's very short. It's very short sighted. Uh, my wife said this to me just a few, uh, years ago.

36:15

Um, you know, she, she lost her 17 year old brother unexpectedly three years ago,

36:20

April 1st. And a few weeks after that, she just went, can you imagine if I was a believer that just believed

36:29

God blessed and gave and sugar daddy and promised only good things and good financial and no hardships.

36:37

She goes, I feel so bad for those people that believe that because then when, when the sea billows do roll, okay.

36:44

When the valleys in life do happen, where are you God? And in fact, the

36:49

Bible just teaches again and again. And again, one of my favorite passages in the

36:55

Bible is Shadrach, Neshach and Abednego because they stand right up. They look at Nebuchadnezzar. They say, uh, our

37:01

God will save us. Our God can save us. But even if he doesn't, and it's like, well, if he knew he was going to get saved and they knew he could save him, why'd they add in that?

37:09

But even if he doesn't, and they're making such a great point there that it doesn't matter what happens to us, uh, because our

37:18

God holds us in the palm of his hand, meaning any Valley, any mountain, his grace is sufficient.

37:24

His grace is enough. And I think that takes a real paradigm shift in most Christians thinking, because we equate, especially in Christianity, we equate, uh, you know, money and cars and material things and a good job and a nice family and health is blessing.

37:39

Right. And we count, you know, disease and virus and, you know, struggles at work and as, oh, that's the devil trying to get.

37:46

And it's like, well, no, the Lord, uh, works all things out for good for those who love him, according to his will.

37:53

I mean, it's, it doesn't say he works good things out. It doesn't say he works bad things out. He works all things out.

37:58

Right. And that includes bad things. And I got to tell you, um, you know, you read the book of Job and there was a lot of bad stuff that happened to him there.

38:06

And a lot of people forget that it was actually God who suggested Job said, what are you doing? Satan? He said, I'm just roaming to and fro.

38:12

He said, have you thought about my boy, Job? He said, oh, I can't touch him. He got a hedge protection around him. He said, I'll remove it.

38:18

You're not allowed to have his life, but do what you must. So God not only suggested, but also said, go ahead and do what you think you need to do against him.

38:26

So valleys in our life, I think once again, short -sighted when we get into a valley and then we say,

38:31

Lord, take us out of this valley. Oh, it's hardship. Get us out of this. Right. When in fact, he says, I have you there.

38:36

That's the purification process. That's the sanctification process. Look at Paul, right? I have a, you know, whether it was a physical ailment or not, you know, scholars can argue about that, uh, for years to come, but he said, it keeps me humble.

38:49

Had a very specific purpose. You know, I don't ever want to pray myself out of a sanctification process.

38:56

God's got to be up there just ringing his neck going, you know, what I put you in this for a reason.

39:03

I've just come to realize that whenever there's an issue in my life, whenever there's a hardship, whenever there's a valley, the very first thing

39:10

I do is say, Lord, what are you trying to teach me? What do I need to learn? What do

39:15

I need to, what kind of pride do I need to swallow and put down? What kind of humbleness needs to raise up in my life? How do

39:20

I need to treat people better? What is it that you're trying to teach me? Uh, and not go to,

39:26

Hey God, can you do this for me? Right. You know, Oh, I'm out of a job. Oh, I'm scared about COVID -19.

39:31

Oh, I, you know, don't have money to pay bills. It's like, well, what are you, you know, I've had that even in my early years of marriage when we were having financial issues and the

39:41

Lord said, Oh, you need to get your spending, right? Yeah. That's what I'm trying to teach you. That's why you can't pay your bill. It was that simple.

39:47

You spend too much money on things you don't need. And now that sounds really dumb to a lot of people, you know, but I'm no, uh,

39:54

Ramsey. Yeah. Okay. But it was, it took the Lord to have to tell me, you know, this, you overstop eating out.

40:02

That's really what it was. Oh my right. Right. Sam and I were both working when we first got married, had no kids for the first three, four years.

40:08

I'm, I am ashamed to tell you we added up cause we didn't cook. We were working. We would go out to eat friends, this, that,

40:15

Hey, I'll pay for this. We added it up one month. It's ridiculous. I'm not even going to say it on the podcast. Cause you would go, that's ridiculous.

40:22

And that was 10 years ago, 13 years ago, money. Same. When we were on, when we were on tour, I mean, when we were on tour, you know, we were making, we were making pretty good money.

40:31

And, uh, I mean like what we, we would eat out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and get snacks in between at gas stations, you know, in gas around the time we really started touring.

40:43

I mean, that was when it popped up over four bucks, right. You know? And so, I mean, you know, we're just,

40:48

I mean, unfortunately, you know, we were not stewarding our money correctly within that, in that, in those seasons.

40:56

Um, uh, but yeah, I mean, uh, well you were just talking about what, there was something that just came to my brain.

41:02

Oh no, I lost it. And the, and the red tape is running. No, that's okay.

41:08

All right. No, we were just talking about, uh, the, you know, trying to get out of the valley when we first get into it.

41:15

Uh, I just, it's, it's in, and I think once again, I think it's partly, uh, due to there, there are a lot of different churches and famous preachers and just kind of this vein of let's preach this prosperity and this kind of faith, uh, message, this gospel, which

41:34

I do not believe in and think it's harmful to the church. But then on top of that, you've got to realize we live in the wealthiest country in the world.

41:43

Okay. If you're a single person and you make $27 ,000 a year or more, you are in the global 1%.

41:49

You know how we have this whole 1 % of thing in the United States, like Democrat, Republican 1 % or Bernie Sanders and all concerned.

41:56

Yeah. Well, guess what? Everyone in this country that makes $27 ,000 is a global 1 % you're richer than 90, 90, 99 % of the seven and a half billion people in this world.

42:07

If you make 27, so, you know, against that backdrop. But, but my point is that we're so materialistic here and we equate materialistic things with blessing.

42:17

And I just don't see that in the Bible. Um, you know, there's a great line by the reformed rapper

42:22

Shilin and he's talking and it's actually called false preacher is the track. And I highly recommend it.

42:28

It's very funny and unique and very theologically rich. And he essentially calls out false teachers.

42:34

He calls out prosperity, gospel message, uh, preachers. And one of the lines though is, is basically so simply says why, you know, why would

42:44

Christ promise you the one thing that he said would damn your soul? Yeah. And it's, and it's so simple, uh, meaning the love of money, the love of materials, you know,

42:53

Christ preached against that all the time. So how in God's name could you set up a whole ministry that just says, he just wants to give you things, you know, we have so many verses that talk about not piling treasures up here on earth, put the treasures in heaven, those types of things.

43:09

And I look at that and I go, that is such an anti -biblical message, but yet it's being gobbled up by the millions and millions of Christians in the

43:17

United States that just go equate things with blessing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I literally, what

43:24

I was just thinking about, um, was just about friends that have become atheists out of that gospel, out of that, that gospel message.

43:34

Um, uh, and you know, they, they didn't get their breakthrough. They didn't get the job that they wanted.

43:40

They didn't get, uh, the healing, you know, of their mom, you know, having, having, uh, cancer or whatever.

43:46

And, you know, and I really, I really think that in the church now we need someone to stand up and to say, you know, and I'm sure that there's plenty of people out there trying, but I mean, this, this, the, the me gospel, the, uh, you know, the, the prosperity gospel, the, if you're, if you're not happy, healthy, and wealthy, then you aren't doing something right.

44:13

You know, when you're, you know, you're supposed to be up here, you know, but just like you said, the valley, he's there with us.

44:19

And it just spits in the face of our forefathers and it does our church fathers, our apostles, everyone in the

44:24

Bible. I mean, there are not a lot of stories of health and wealth and, uh, respect in the

44:29

Bible. There's a few places where God lifted up certain people to certain positions of authority because he needed them to be there.

44:35

And that was his will Daniel, you know, for instance, or something like that. Generally it was a bunch of bad dudes and bad women, murderers and, uh, you know, adulterers and liars and thieves and the

44:47

Lord changed their name, use them. And then it was a life of pretty much misery from secular standards.

44:54

Right. And, and I, I mean, we were talking about Fritz Erba the other night, you know, um, uh, and, uh, how he just, he did not want to change his mind about baptizing his children.

45:05

And he ends up in this hole, um, in this, that was the prison cell that he was put in for seven years in the ground, a hole in the ground, 30 feet down.

45:18

And this guy, he did not want to baptize his children because he did not believe in that.

45:24

Okay. Um, and, uh, you know, and, and I mean, theologically, uh,

45:29

I'm sure some, uh, Doug Wilson can have the argument about it, but didn't he have a chance to like, uh, to like, what would like to, you know, to go back on that?

45:41

Yeah. Yeah. All you have to do is say is, yeah, renounce that. And what he spent like 30 years in a hole in the ground, he was seven years in the hole and he ends up dying down there.

45:51

They, they continued to, you know, give him his food down there. And like, I mean, just like he was in a prison cell, but they put him in the hole because, um, the prison cell that he was in, uh, he could, he could still speak to people on the street and he was converting people to Christianity while he was in prison.

46:09

So they did like that. So they, they threw him down in this hole, but seven years. But could you imagine, could you imagine pulling the average

46:16

Christian once again, air quotes off the street and saying, Hey, renounce, renounce something you believe in or throw you in prison.

46:24

They'd be like, okay, sure. Yeah. Pre -millennialism. No, I shouldn't say that. Announce pre -trip.

46:30

Okay. Done. They pulled me off. They're like, wow, that was easy. Right. Right. Announce, renounce the sinner's prayer.

46:36

Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Never found that in the Bible. I'm good with that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Just go down a bunch of things like, what is this guy even saved?

46:43

Right. Right. Announce, renounce altar calls. Okay. I'm fine with that too. Oh my gosh, man.

46:49

There's a lot out there, but look at, I know God is sovereign because he can even use altar calls to save people.

46:55

Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. So, uh, so yeah.

47:02

So the last two years you've kind of been like, I, like, I don't like you. I don't like the term baby

47:07

Christian. Yeah. So many weird. Right. Right. Just weird. There was like songs made about it in the eighties where like, there was like adults in like cartoon diapers and I'm a baby.

47:17

Like, I don't know if you've ever seen them. I think I saw a couple. Yeah. I'm sure. I mean, it made it to like the double warts and stuff.

47:23

These songs are serious. That's, that's an, that's another reason why I think I'm reformed and know that God's sovereign over salvation is people actually got saved in the eighties and nineties with all that horrible

47:34

Christian music out there. It was just junk. Yeah. Like, I don't want to offend anyone who, you know, likes like DC talk and news, but I listen to it easy, dude.

47:44

I grew up in a legalistic church where, you know, uh,

47:51

I was told Keith green was the head of a Christian contemporary music and was the devil. And if you, you know, basically

47:56

I've ever heard Keith green. I mean, the guy's life was just one of just a gospel missionary and he played the piano and some of his songs were a little bit faster, but it was like, you know, it was so tame.

48:07

Right. But, uh, you know, and I, so I, when I got my hands on newsboys and DC talk, when

48:13

I was kind of, you know, early teens, I was like, Oh my gosh, what is this? I think the only, uh, the only

48:18

CD had ever owned was like Dan Mullen. Oh, you remember that guy? He was like an acoustic kind of worship.

48:23

Very, very dry, but you know, beautiful. But you know, a 13 year old boy doesn't really want to listen to Dan Mullins.

48:29

Like I wanted something with, you know, with a little, little beats, you know, some Zeppelin stuff. So I got ahold of that stuff and I was like,

48:36

Oh, this is unbelievable. And then a few years later I got ahold of a Zeppelin and Floyd and ACDC.

48:44

And I went, well, what the heck? So Metallica grew up with, I mean, fifties and sixties. I mean, I, I grew up with like Motown with Beatles with like, even some of the oldies were monitored in my home.

48:57

So I grew up, um, it was a, it was a, it was a spirit filled church, but there was ever,

49:03

I never saw any spirit moving. So it was a weird thing where it was almost a name only. Uh, it was very legal.

49:09

It was mostly homeschoolers, very legalistic. Um, so it was like two hours of television a week.

49:15

It was, um, no communication really with people who, you know, were, were homeschooled.

49:21

Um, there was a lot, like I said, a lot of music was monitored very tightly, nothing with a rock beat because the actual music could be sinful, you know?

49:32

And if you played it backwards, it said Satan. Right. Uh, no, you played a forward.

49:37

Now I look at it and probably said Satan, that legalistic music. Good Lord. Talk about binding people up. But, um, so it was a really, it was a really crazy thing for me to go from that to then, you know, getting into my mid teens to later teens where, um,

49:51

I was, went from homeschool to public schools, kind of everything was open to me. It was just like a whole new world. It was, you know, a launching pad into just debauchery and excess and wild and fulfillment of whatever fleshly desire you want.

50:05

Uh, but my, my point being was, is I look back at some of that and maybe newsboys and DC talk.

50:12

They're both good. I shouldn't use them, but you know, a lot of that Christian music was just a copy of like better secular music.

50:20

I went, you guys aren't even coming up with anything new. You're just worsely cop is worse than even a word copying the secular version of, you know, it's like you too would come out.

50:30

And then, you know, two months later there was a Christian you too copying that album. And it's like, I'll just listen to you too.

50:36

I don't want the off -brand Oreos. They never taste the same, right? Right. The name brand

50:41

Oreos taste good. Yeah. Yeah, dude. I, I really, honestly, I don't know if this will be on the video or not or on the recording.

50:48

Hopefully you might have to edit this out. Oh, then I definitely want to hear it. My buddy is, is actually like the

50:55

CEO, like co, um, I want to say CEO or COO of, uh, of, uh, you know, my

51:03

Christian music. So he's like the guy that like puts out all this

51:09

Christian music now. And there's some well in his defense, I'm talking about eighties and mid nineties.

51:14

All right. All right. It's a different world. We didn't, we didn't know what we were doing. I think we were like recording on like little 12 key

51:21

MIDI keyboards with like a speaking spell. It was just the production quality was horrible. The dove of wards had just come out.

51:28

It was like, you know, not now it's like you listen to some of these guys on, you know, Amazon music and Apple.

51:33

I mean, they're producing their own stuff and it's like just heads and shoulders above any, right.

51:38

Anything back then. So I was really talking about that 10 year period where, cause I'll get in trouble.

51:44

I'll get a phone call and then, you know, and then it spirals down. No, I'm joking. He's a good guy. No, the stuff nowadays, it's well,

51:49

I mean, there's some good stuff out there, man. It's awesome. I mean, I, uh, plus with the technologies, just like you and I doing this, you know, um, this podcast, there's musicians out there that are putting out their own stuff, have a home studio, never would have heard of them 15, 20 years ago, if they had to go either

52:06

Christian label or secular label. Uh, we've talked about that too. How bands can just sit on a major event and just put it on the back burner and you never hear them.

52:16

Now you have so many avenues. I mean, heck, like I said, a band that hasn't been around for eight years, we said your name twice, four days ago.

52:22

Now I'm watching you on YouTube. Cause my, my phone listened to me and I was like, oh, that's my, that's my boy,

52:27

Jay, you know, on my YouTube feed. Cause we said is, is a band name. It's, it's so funny how many bands are out there though that none of us will ever hear.

52:38

Yeah. I mean, it's oversaturated. I mean, I, I heard this, I mean, this is going back because you know, uh, oh three.

52:46

Um, but there were, I want to say there were 25 ,000 records that were put out that year. And, and that might've only been record labels, um, that were putting out, putting out the album.

52:56

Maybe they didn't take into consideration other, other, uh, you know, independent, um, labels or, or independent bands like us.

53:04

Um, but only a thousand of them sold more than, wait a second.

53:13

No, no, no, no. This isn't right. I'm getting it wrong. It was like, it was like, it was something you can tell us whatever, whatever numbers you want.

53:19

We don't know. We don't know. I'm going to make this up right now. I'm joking. I think it was 5 % of that of the 25 ,000 sold more than a thousand records.

53:28

It was something crazy. I mean, I mean, yeah, you know, there's the same bands are being, are getting on radio.

53:36

The same bands are selling albums. The same bands are getting into stadiums or venues or, you know, it's, it's all, you know, but I mean, there are underground bands that are making a living and doing well.

53:49

Um, uh, but yeah, man, I mean, I mean, there, there's just so many bands now you can't keep up with all of it and I can't stand

53:56

Rolling Stone. So I'm not going to look for a band in there because more than likely the editor is being paid off by the, um, the record label, you know, to get their band in, um, you know, uh, on an article or whatever, but it's like,

54:11

I think I stopped, uh, in 2005, I stopped, uh, picking up Rolling Stone when they did their best 100 guitarists in rock history.

54:20

And Jack White was like 88th. No, wasn't he like 17th. I want to say he was like way up there.

54:27

No, he was way down there on the one I picked up. Oh, this was early though. This was like 2004, 2005.

54:32

So he'd only really been on the scene five or six years, but like three years in to Jack White, I was like,

54:37

Oh, he's going to be one of the, you know, he's just unbelievable. And then of course, I mean, just what he's done in the last 20 years.

54:44

Oh dude. Have you ever seen, um, this is off subject, but what's the, what's the, it's a documentary with, uh,

54:52

Jimmy Page, Jack White, and, um, it's going to get loud.

54:58

It's going to get louder. Isn't that a great documentary? They're just, and then, uh, uh, edge. Yep. Right.

55:04

Yep. And they're just all sitting there jamming, showing each other, you know, edge has got like 4 ,000 buttons and he just creates sound out of thin air.

55:11

You know, Jimmy Page, obviously all about that rhythm, that groove. And then Jack White just makes a guitar on the side of the stage with like, you know, two iron cords and a glass slide and a two by four.

55:22

And, uh, I, I just watched that and I was like, yeah, that just solidifies anymore. I still really like Jack White.

55:28

I'm praying for him. He's dealing with a lot of Irish Catholic guilt. I've seen some interviews, uh, you know, that he was going to go to, uh, um, to be a priest.

55:38

Yeah. He was going to go in the priesthood. That's where he was going. I heard this. I don't, I heard him say this in an interview.

55:44

He said, but I heard that I couldn't bring my amp. So it was like, whether that's a joke or not, that's still pretty funny.

55:50

Yeah. No, it's crazy when you see those celebrities and, or, you know, musicians or actors or whatever, and you almost just go, man, they're just, they're right there either through their song or through the, or the, uh, maybe the movies they take, you go, you can tell they're either struggling with something or they maybe had a

56:11

Christian upbringing or something. And I've always felt that way with Jack White. He's just like, right. He's almost there.

56:17

It's Romans one. I mean, suppressing the truth, you know? I mean, it's like, you know, there's so many, there's so many lead singers writing these tunes or, or the guitar player, whatever.

56:30

Uh, Ringo, Ringo wrote a couple songs, but we won't talk about those. I don't believe it. Yeah. I know.

56:35

Right. It had to be Paul and John for sure. Um, uh, Hey Ringo, here you go, buddy.

56:41

Take this one. Wasn't that a, uh, wasn't that a famous quote? They like, they were all, the

56:46

Beatles were all sitting around talking. They said, you know, how is, is a Ringo star in the top 10 or 15 of drummers of all time?

56:55

I don't know. And Paul McCartney goes, he's not even the best drummer in the band. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a quote by one of his bandmates.

57:03

I was like, Oh, poor Ringo. Dude. Here's the thing with Ringo, man. Like, like you've heard the cuts with Pete best.

57:10

Yeah. You've heard those cuts and they were not even close to what Ringo was doing. So what Ringo did in that band was played the right part every time.

57:20

I mean, like, you know, I mean, you know, yeah, he was the smartest guy in the band.

57:29

He's like, I'm just riding. I know. Exactly. And I'm going to be a billionaire one day.

57:36

Right. He was right. Exactly. But yeah, Ringo, man. But, uh, but anyway, I, I, what

57:41

I was going to say about lyricists, I mean, they, they go on the border of Christianity and then they, and then it's like, they, they bring it back, but it's, they don't realize a lot of times.

57:53

I really feel like they don't realize what they're, where they're headed, you know? And like you're talking about, they're getting on the edge of Christianity, um, or a

58:02

Christian lyric. And then all of a sudden, you know, they, they pull it back, but it's, it's Romans one right there, you know?

58:07

Well, it's crazy because even if you're an atheist and you, and you staunchly opposed to the idea of a creator or a, or a higher, you know, being or something like that, um, whatever you want to call him, uh, or intelligent design, you have certain attributes seared into your conscious, into your

58:26

DNA that, that, that are there, whether you believe in him or not. Right.

58:31

You know? And so when I see unsaved or secular people talking or singing about certain things or doing certain things, you just go, oh, well, you know, my worldview is viewed through the lens of the word of God.

58:44

And you go, well, oh, that's just because that's the way the Lord created us or created this reality or principles of God, character of God, whatever it is.

58:53

And I always get a chuckle out of that because it's really a, it's, it's a, it's a losing battle. Yeah. You know?

58:58

Um, I was watching a debate with, was it Christopher? Who's the old one?

59:03

Christopher Hitchens. Is it Hitchens? One of the four horsemen. There's Dawkins, Hitchens. You're talking about with Doug Wilson with Hitchens and Wilson?

59:12

I think it was Hitchens, but he basically said, oh, I don't believe intelligent design, blah, and then in the next breath, he's talking about the video game theory that Elon Musk is talking about.

59:21

Oh, well, there's a hundred million different realities and this, and this one's a simulation. I went, well, who's the simulator?

59:28

Right. Right. Like what is this? It was so crazy that he could flip flop so quickly and he's not a dumb person.

59:36

Yeah. So at that point, you're either being disingenuous on purposes, which makes you a liar. I always tell people, and I always play this game and it's kind of mean, and this is why

59:45

I don't have a lot of friends, Jason, but I just, someone will say something and I'll just lean over to my wife and I go, liar or stupid.

59:52

It's one of the two. Either they know exactly what they're talking about and they're lying because that's not the truth or they're too stupid or ignorant to understand what they're saying and that's why they're wrong.

01:00:02

And my wife just rolls her eyes. She's like, Greg, you can't, you know, not now though, in my age of maturity, in my fine, fine years of late thirties,

01:00:09

I say it quietly to my wife before I would, you know, just say it out loud to people, to their face.

01:00:15

But it's really, it's a simplified thing, but it's really the way I think it's like, it was the same with him. I just go, look at, are you, are you lying?

01:00:22

Are you stupid? Like, you can't, a simulation in billion different realities, well, who's running the simulation?

01:00:30

And then of course, Elon Musk comes out and says, well, it's the higher power running this simulation. I'm like, okay, so it's creation. Like they got all these fancy words just to replace the truth of intelligent design.

01:00:41

They have to borrow from Christianity. They always have to borrow from the word of God, whether they want to admit that or not, you know,

01:00:49

I mean, you know, where, where do they, where do they come up with, you know, is, is our, our feelings.

01:00:59

Can you, can you touch them? Can you taste them? Sure. Or a thought or a thought or, or anything. I mean, it, how about logic?

01:01:06

Where did logic come from? We know that it's real. We can prove that it's true. We can't touch it, taste it, feel it, hear it.

01:01:13

Yeah. What is it? Right. And we're not just a bunch of bags of protoplasm, just, just, you know, rolling around and bouncing off each other's, you know, space and you know, what, what are we chemicals just fizzing?

01:01:26

I mean, you know, I've heard that before, you know, it's, it's like, are we, you know, what, what, how can you actually explain humanity, you know, without borrowing from the

01:01:39

Christian worldview or at least having a view that there's an intelligent designer. You know, we can get into what you want to call him.

01:01:46

If he's the God of the Hebrew Bible, if he's the Judeo -Christian, but the fact that an atheist,

01:01:51

I can never be an atheist because it takes way too much faith. Yeah. Look at, I'm a conservationist and a hunter. I sit out in a blind for eight to 10 hours at a time by myself looking at nature.

01:02:01

There's no way I come back from that and go, there isn't someone who designed that. Yeah. I just watched a two hour documentary on dolphin reef reefs on dolphins on a reef.

01:02:09

It's called dolphin reef on Disney plus. Oh, is that that one where they're like watching them rub up against the plants and like figure it out?

01:02:15

Yeah. Yes. But the delicate balance of a reef, okay. The coral and then it overgrows and the fish come in and eat the old coral and then the turtles come in and eat the, yeah, they're eating the stuff off and then the predators eat the fish and then the bigger predators eat.

01:02:31

And if one of those go out of balance, the whole reef dies, right? You just look at that and you go, and I mean, you have fish for very specific things and they're only found in those areas where there's coral and you go, you know, they eat coral, which is basically eating rocks.

01:02:44

It's a fish that eats rocks. Okay. And you just go, how stupid do people have to be to, to ignore all that and say, no, this all happened.

01:02:52

It was happenstance. Right. And then the second issue that I have with that is, you know, and of course, um, oh, the other horseman atheist guy,

01:03:00

Sam Harris, he has to write a whole book on it called the moral landscape, because it goes, look at, if we're just a bunch of, uh, you know, stardust floating around in skin bags and we all got here by an accident, then why have morality at all?

01:03:12

If there's not an objective moral law giver that says, this is the standard that one has to abide by.

01:03:18

There's not something outside of us. Well, then guess what? There is no reason that I just can't come up to you and take your money because I need it.

01:03:25

Look at, you're just a bag of protons, electrons and neutrons. What, you know, in his book that he wrote,

01:03:31

I read it and it was hard to get through because it was just so many false premises upon false premises, but he is a wordsmith and he makes it sound really nice.

01:03:39

And I guess if you're already leaning that way, you can kind of, what is that called? That self -perpetuating bias where you just kind of buy into it and go, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:03:46

Which I try not to do with even theology and doctrine. That's very hard to do too. You try to be, okay, what does the word of God say?

01:03:53

Right. Not what this guy says it says. Right. Even though it sounds good and it might be, enticing to my bias already.

01:03:59

Yeah. That's why I like reform. Well, let's talk about that a little bit.

01:04:06

We didn't have to get into it, but I can tell a little bit about where I came from too. We're coming up on an hour.

01:04:12

It's flying by. We'll probably, I don't know. We can stick around for another half hour or something. We'll try to make these under 90 minutes.

01:04:18

I don't know. Chop these up. I'm sure I said something stupid. Right. So for me, like I said,

01:04:24

I grew up in kind of a legalistic, spirit -filled, but no real evidence of the spirit.

01:04:30

There wasn't even talking in tongues or doing anything like that. Maybe like the one weird lady who might say something one Sunday, like that.

01:04:37

And I say weird air quotes. I'm not being mean, but you know, the character of that one person that always might speak out or something.

01:04:46

Then went into my teens, went to another church, which was a little bit more, it was in a transitional period from a

01:04:53

Baptist church into a non -denominational charismatic church. Which by the way, do you know how many charismatics it takes to change a light bulb?

01:05:01

Three, one to hold the light bulb, the other two to cast out the spirit of darkness. I'll be here all week.

01:05:10

Make sure to tip your waitresses. So that went a little more liberal that way.

01:05:16

And then I remember distinctly being 14 years old, going up to my youth leader and saying,

01:05:23

Hey, why do people go to hell? And he says, well, they don't believe in Jesus. And I said,

01:05:29

Matthew doesn't say unbelief is a sin. And he says, yeah. And I said, didn't

01:05:35

Jesus die for all sins? And he says, yeah, but they don't believe in him. I said, yeah, but it's a sin and Jesus died for all sins.

01:05:41

So how can they believe if the sins already been paid for? Why is anyone in hell? And he just looked at me and he went, oh, that's a good one,

01:05:48

Greg. And then walked away. And I was so upset because it's like, okay, here's a guy that is supposed to be in some type of spiritual authority.

01:05:56

And I'm asking him now, I'm realizing I was asking him about limited atonement. I didn't know that at the time, but it just didn't make sense to me.

01:06:03

I'm reading the Bible. It's saying all sins covered. It's a choice though, universal atonement, but I have to choose to want it.

01:06:11

Okay. But I can't choose to want it because of my unbelief, but that unbelief is in a sin. So why would God send me to hell for something that he forgave me for that?

01:06:19

I couldn't possibly believe or not believe anyway. Now I was 13, I think, or 14.

01:06:24

And you go, well, I was, I must've been, I was a real geek. All right. Because why am I thinking about this when I'm 13 or 14, but it didn't make sense.

01:06:31

I wanted to know the answer. So I had all the different type of questions growing up and it really, and I don't want to belittle my parents at all.

01:06:40

Cause I'm not, you know, Bible studies every morning, very, you know, my parents did end up getting divorced when

01:06:46

I was a teenager, but it was very God -centered upbringing. Okay. But there wasn't a lot of explanation of why, and I'm a why person.

01:06:54

Why, why, why? You know, it's, it's why I'm own a business. That's why I'm in, you know, entrepreneurial spirit.

01:07:00

It's just, always thinking always need why noise the heck out of my wife. She goes just because Greg, right after the fourth, why on something.

01:07:08

But, um, so that wasn't being satisfied with the why. So then, uh, uh, 16, seven, about 16, go to Monroe high.

01:07:16

Uh, I'm way ahead in all my classes. I was homeschooled. I have all this free time on my hands. I get there and it's just like the wild West.

01:07:22

Like we were saying, uh, just start going crazy, uh, doing all kinds of stuff I shouldn't do, uh, hanging out with the wrong people, going to clubs, doing drugs.

01:07:30

And for a while there, uh, probably between the ages of like 17 and like 22,

01:07:35

I, you know, towards my late teens and early twenties. When I look back on it, I think it was just,

01:07:42

I didn't care if I would die or not. I don't know if I was actively trying to commit suicide, but it was like, meh, anything, anything

01:07:49

I can eat to get me high, put it in there. Who cares what happens? I was just running. I think a lot of that came from hurt with the divorce of my parents.

01:07:57

I think a lot of that came from just maybe the upbringing and stuff that happened in the household. I think a lot of that just came from rebellion against God, knowing absolutely what

01:08:06

I should be doing and just deciding I'm going to make my life, my way, do what I want to do. When I was 20 in 2004,

01:08:15

I think it was 20, however old I was 23. Um, I lost everything all at once. My band, my house, my driver's license, my car, my girlfriend, who is now my wife, all these things just gone overnight like that.

01:08:28

And I remember when I did lose them, I remember thinking, well, I think I still have, I still have Jesus. And that was the first thought that came into my head.

01:08:35

And I haven't thought of the name Jesus or said the name Jesus in almost eight or nine years, but it was that quick that everything just had to be stripped from me.

01:08:43

And from there, um, it was, it's a pretty cool story of just reuniting with my now wife.

01:08:49

We've been happily married for 13 years, 14 years, this, uh, November and the

01:08:54

Lord, just working a refining period of like two years of just getting every, all the junk out of my life and just saying, you need to focus on me.

01:09:01

You need to focus on glorifying my name, you know, and just really doing a work in me during that time.

01:09:08

I really, I started listening to, you know, obviously reading the Bible, but I started listening to a lot of RC Sproul, a lot of John Piper, started going back into the early church fathers.

01:09:18

I really loved the sermons by Charles Spurgeon, by Keith Green, Leonard Ravenhill, Jonathan Edwards, John Newton, John Bunyan, all the

01:09:26

Johns, even John Wesley, we'll throw him in there. And, and started seeing these reoccurring themes, um, and started seeing writings and even commentary in, uh, like, uh,

01:09:40

Matthew Henry commentary, a big guy in Strong's and commentary. If you're not reading the Bible with, uh, looking at original

01:09:47

Greek and Hebrew and also, exactly. And actually looking into what's being said, the

01:09:52

English language just slaughters the Bible. You really need to get into the original text and starting to realize that there was a type of, they're all the questions that I've been asking about this.

01:10:03

Well, if God is in control of this, why does he allow this to happen? Or, you know, if, uh, like I said, if did

01:10:09

Jesus die for everyone in the whole world and why does everyone go to hell? They just have to choose, or, you know, can, can a believer lose their salvation?

01:10:16

That was, I was scared to death of that when I was young. Like if I do enough bad things, I won't be saved.

01:10:21

I mean, I had family members that was like, he's not saved while he's out clubbing and drugging and doing whatever you can't be.

01:10:29

And I started to read these guys and read through the Bible and it started to line up and go, oh, well, the first of all, the answers were in the word.

01:10:35

So I never got any, my answers from any theologian or scholar. But then when I started reading the works, I went, oh no, there's other people who believe these certain sets of principles.

01:10:44

And I called them principles, but at the time it was a theology. So for like eight years through my twenties, man,

01:10:51

I just wrestled with this. And I went, I found out, I think when I was 25, oh, it's called, it's called

01:10:57

Calvinism or being reformed the doctrines of grace. Right. And I started looking into it and I'm like, and for me growing up,

01:11:03

I had heard of the word Calvinism, but I just knew it meant like it was some weirdo that wasn't really a

01:11:09

Christian. That's what I was kind of taught. Don't even look at it. It's a weird, it's weird. Calvin was a weird guy.

01:11:15

Calvinists are weird. It's not biblical. Don't touch it. So I had that stigma going into reform theology.

01:11:21

And I don't even like using Calvinism or reformed. I just say, I believe the Bible. Right. Right. So for like, it took me a long time, man, to actually admit, you know, probably from like 24 until I was like 30 or 31 to where, well, that's not eight years.

01:11:35

That's seven years. But to go, yeah, I believe in this systematic theology of the doctrines of grace and what

01:11:42

Calvin and Luther taught. And then by the way, most early church fathers, most great theologians.

01:11:50

I mean, you look at, like I said, you're Spurgeon, the guy who wrote amazing grace, the guy who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, the guy who wrote the commentary

01:11:58

I'm reading, Matthew Henry, the guy who wrote the most famous sermon of all times in America, Jonathan Edwards, the guy who wrote a study

01:12:04

Bible, grew up on John MacArthur, the guy I'm listening to now, John Piper and Matt Chandler. You know, it just, the list went on and on.

01:12:11

All these guys had this same theology. They're all reformed. Right. And I went, oh, so it's not like this weird little, and I studied those guys.

01:12:19

I grew up on those guys in homeschool. Like my first, in third grade, I had to memorize a

01:12:25

Jonathan Edwards sermon. That was one of my homework, no mention from parents or pastor or anyone else what his theology was, just memorize this sermon.

01:12:34

And so I knew who they were, but had never been exposed to the theology that they viewed the Bible through. And when

01:12:40

I saw that, I was just, it was just amazing. I went, oh my gosh, I'm not this like weirdo struggling with these weird things.

01:12:47

This is pre 1890. This is the majority of our early church fathers just went, oh no,

01:12:54

God is sovereign overall. God does work all things out for his glory. Oh, he does elect whom he wants to elect and his blood covered it enough for them to be saved.

01:13:04

Oh no, there is nothing that can pluck us from the father's hand. You do have eternal security in your salvation because if not, that would be no

01:13:11

God that we would want to serve. Someone who could do one bad thing and then God changes his mind and says, you're no longer saved.

01:13:18

I mean, just all, you know, and I start reading this and I go, oh my gosh, this makes sense and I'm not alone.

01:13:24

So probably my early thirties, I started identifying and a lot of reform people can identify with this too.

01:13:32

I came out of the Protestant closet into another part of the closet called reform, but, and there's a joke within the reform community called the cage stage, which means you, you, you start viewing the

01:13:47

Bible through that lens and you just have to tell everyone about it and you want to talk about it and you want to refute, but you also want to in love and love argue and debate.

01:13:55

And boy, did I go through that stage because I'm already like that anyway about everything all the time.

01:14:01

And it was to the point to where I haven't noticed. It was to the point to where in like, oh geez,

01:14:08

I'd say about eight, eight years ago, maybe seven years ago from now. So 2011 or 12,

01:14:15

I saw a sermon by Matt Chandler and he said, if you are using your theology like a blunt instrument, then you, my friend, don't understand reform theology at all.

01:14:27

Theology is to be used like a scalpel. And I went, oh my, it like snapped me out of it. I went, that's exactly what I'm doing.

01:14:32

I'm just going around hitting people on the head. Well, oh yeah, well then if you believe this, then what about this Bible verse? Well, oh yeah, well then make sense of this.

01:14:38

I've got the answer. I make sense of it. And it was very self -defeating and I had to go back and apologize to a lot of people.

01:14:45

And honestly, really the only way I get now, I get like that with, with friends that know where I'm coming from, know me well, you and I have those kinds of discussions, you know.

01:14:54

But if I'm talking to someone who, who I just met or is another just fellow believer's acquaintance,

01:15:00

I'm past that stage. From cage stage to hopefully one day sage stage, as they say.

01:15:06

So for me, it was a big overcoming a stigma of like what reformed even meant, or even like predestination, like it was not even brought up in the two churches

01:15:17

I went to. You couldn't even say it. The Bible only mentions it 35 times in the New Testament alone.

01:15:23

Like we have to discuss it. What does it mean? Why, what is foreknowledge? What is predestination?

01:15:28

Why does he keep saying he people? Why does he keep saying that he'll, you know, God draws people and then Christ will raise them up on the last day.

01:15:34

Like all these verses that we just kind of glossed over growing up in church. And those were the ones that really spoke to me because I had an election experience.

01:15:43

I had an experience where I wanted nothing to do with Christ and it was him that drew him, you know, drew me to himself that allowed me to be saved.

01:15:52

So that's kind of where, you know, that was a very long drawn out version of that. And here's the thing, people who aren't reformed people, you know, they're still on the team.

01:16:04

You're still a brother in Christ. You're still a sister in Christ. There's core doctrinal issues. I think that we have to believe in, you know, the

01:16:11

Trinity, who Christ was, his deity, the work on the cross. We believe those things we're brothers and sisters in Christ, that outer, that second ring of doctrine and theology, which then gets into doctrines of grace, justification by faith alone, stuff like that.

01:16:27

I think there's some room for disagreement there, but still, hey, you're still on the team. You're still on my, you know, still part of my tribe.

01:16:35

But I feel in the reformed community, that's almost a one -way street.

01:16:40

We feel that way quite a lot about non -reformed, but I tell you what, you tell someone, especially if you say the

01:16:47

C word, you tell someone you're a Calvinist, which I don't even like using that word because it was like, it wasn't even Calvin really, it was the

01:16:53

Bible and it was Luther, but where you tell them you're reformed, I see them bristle a little bit. And I don't know if that's a reputation that proceeds or just the fact that this type of theology has gotten so popular over the last five or eight years.

01:17:07

I mean, you're seeing a resurgence of it. Dude, when I first came back, I was honestly really into the

01:17:14

NAR. I mean, Todd White, man, I was like, Todd White, dude, man, this guy goes on the street.

01:17:22

And NAR is the New Apostolic Reformation. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I mean,

01:17:27

I loved it. I mean, Bethel and Dan Mahler, and I still do.

01:17:32

I still love those guys. I do have some differences with some of the teachings, but you know, about six months into all of that,

01:17:44

I got turned on to some reformed teaching because I wanted to know more about the little gods conversation.

01:17:52

Sure. We're all mini -Christs or mini -gods. Rooted in Eastern mysticism. Right, right. So, you know,

01:17:57

I really wanted to know more about that. But anyway, reform just kept showing up in every

01:18:07

YouTube video that I was looking up. And I wasn't even trying to look for people bashing it. I just wanted somebody to just teach it, you know, because I mean, it's one thing to have conversations with your brothers and sisters at church or in your circles, but I mean, just to hear from the scholars or people that have been studying the

01:18:29

Word for their entire life and really have dug in to the Word. It's great to put all of those into the melting pot of knowledge and to know more just about Scripture.

01:18:44

But anyway, yeah, reformed teaching. I mean, I am completely just headed that way much more than anything now, but I still have some of the supernatural tendencies that I still lean towards.

01:19:07

Matthew 10, healing the sick, raising the dead. I mean, there's lines where I do draw certain lines for me, and I think you mentioned this before, a cautious continuation.

01:19:26

Meaning, look, God is still working. God is still moving. The Bible clearly states that.

01:19:31

Now, I think we have a difference in opinion when we're talking about like capital A Apostle, lowercase A Apostle, capital

01:19:37

P Prophet, the office of prophecy, Prophet versus the gift of prophecy. That's an argument we can have, but absolutely,

01:19:44

He does miracles. Absolutely, He's a supernatural God. I'm just cautious about it because I see it a rampant abuse.

01:19:51

Yeah, I mean, right now, even during this COVID -19, there was a prophet that said that it was going to be destroyed by March 28th.

01:20:01

Well, guess what? It's April, whatever it is, and it's still around. It's like, okay, so how is that guy still called a prophet?

01:20:10

If you read in Deuteronomy, these people were done away. I mean, I'm not saying do away with them, but take that word out of the front of his title.

01:20:21

He can't get one prophecy wrong. You just can't have, that's not your batting average.

01:20:28

Your batting average is supposed to be 1 ,000 if you're a prophet. Well, that's the standard that the Bible said, batting 1 ,000%.

01:20:34

Yeah. No, it's tough because, well, even around here too,

01:20:44

I mean, the online community of Reformed is awesome, and there's so many great things coming from music to preaching to sermons and churches, but I found around here, there's not a whole lot of that, which is really crazy because even if you go like the five points of Calvinism or you talk about the solas or you talk about the doctrines of grace,

01:21:11

I ask most people, most of my friends, do you believe this? Yes. Do you believe God's sovereign?

01:21:17

Yes. He's in control over everything, which I always find funny is people who don't believe

01:21:23

Reformed, but they're like, God is in control. He's on the throne. Well, what are you saying? Is he in control of some things, all things?

01:21:29

Well, is God sovereign? Yes. He's in control of all things. The devil did the coronavirus. The Rona. The devil did the

01:21:35

Rona. Yeah. So you go through that.

01:21:40

You say, okay, and you go down list by list, and most of these, most

01:21:45

Christians and mature Christians that I talk to, they're like, yeah, I agree with everything you just said. And I said, well, by that definition, you're

01:21:53

Reformed. You're technically a Calvinist, as they would say. Oh no.

01:21:59

No, I'm not that. So I think a lot of people battle the same things that I battled, especially my age, because I think there was like a generational thing in the eighties and nineties with that kind of stuff too.

01:22:11

I think they're battling a stigma of what it actually is. It's like, oh, no,

01:22:16

I just believe in the Bible. I believe what the Bible says. Yeah. I mean, I even said it,

01:22:22

I think I said it to you the other night, just about God's sovereignty. And I was like,

01:22:28

I'm like 99 .5 % sure. You may have to speak into this, but I mean,

01:22:35

I'm pretty sure he's in control of this, of the coronavirus. And then I started thinking about it.

01:22:40

It's like, why would I even give the devil 0 .5 % credit for something like it?

01:22:47

We give the devil too much. Absolutely. And it's too much authority,

01:22:53

I guess. There was a famous comic in the seventies and I wasn't alive then, but I've heard people say there was a famous comic and his punchline was the devil made me do it.

01:23:06

Gosh, I can't remember his name, but it's such a cliche Christian -y thing where we just go, oh, well, the devil is attacking the devil.

01:23:15

The devil, Satan's got a foothold. And it's like, how much of that is just you and your flesh? Like Satan can only tempt, the

01:23:22

Bible says. He physically can't make you do anything. All he does is just hold up a mirror to your flesh and just go, hey, just give into it and do what your flesh wants to do.

01:23:32

The natural state of rebellion against righteousness, holiness, and ultimately God. So I think even then,

01:23:40

I was saying earlier how people remove themselves from the stories. I think we remove ourselves, rationalization, right?

01:23:45

Remove ourselves from our actions as well. Like, no, I'm pretty sure your flesh got you into this position.

01:23:51

Don't give Satan credit. He's been given dominion over this earth, but he's defeated and really not much of anything to look at.

01:24:00

I was listening to, I think it was Dr. James White, or maybe it was, no, it might've been

01:24:05

Piper, John Piper. And he was talking about even how Western Christianity has almost adopted this dualism type theology for good and evil, like yin and yang, like black versus white, like good versus evil, like God's here and evil's here and they're warring, but in the end,

01:24:22

God's gonna win. They're arm wrestling, but in the end, God wins. And it's like, no, you have this little tiny speck called the adversary, and then you have a sovereign, all -powerful, omnipotent, all -everything

01:24:35

God seated at the right hand of the father, in total control. There's not this dueling.

01:24:41

There's this one thing that rebelled that even God will use to his glory. That's what the

01:24:49

Christian landscape looks like, the believer's landscape, not this, oh, Satan got me today, but God's gonna get him tomorrow.

01:24:55

And I'm in a valley now, and a blessing's coming, and it's like this dueling good and evil. It's like, no, you're held in the palm of his hands, but his sheep know his voice.

01:25:05

From my hand, you cannot be plucked. We serve an all -powerful, all -sovereign, amazing, righteous

01:25:10

Lord, and Satan is just an afterthought. He's just the spirit of rebellion, the spirit of being an adversary and an accuser.

01:25:19

Well, look at what Jesus said in the Great Commission. All things in heaven and on earth have been given to me, and go therefore and teach.

01:25:31

That's awesome. And it's like, wait a second. He said everything, right?

01:25:38

So it's like, why are we even having this conversation? Why are you putting up pictures online that have

01:25:47

Jesus and Satan arm -wrestling? I have seen those. It's like, wait, what?

01:25:55

Jesus created Satan. Well, yeah. And I mean, things invisible and invisible.

01:26:04

Colossians 1. I don't have the whole evil thing figured out either. I'm not saying

01:26:09

I do. I watched a two -and -a -half -hour answer to a question by R .C.

01:26:18

Sproul on who created evil, and it was the most elegant, wordsmith, theological, scholarly answer.

01:26:28

For two hours, he explained this, and at the end of it, I had no idea what he had just said. I just went,

01:26:34

I'm still so confused. It was like putting my brain in pretzel knots and then going, okay, get it, but I don't, but I do, but I don't.

01:26:44

And so I don't know. It's like eschatology. I mean, you sit there, and you're like, oh man,

01:26:52

I'm post -mill. And then you hear different arguments, and you're like, wait, maybe, you know, you go a different direction.

01:27:03

But yeah, man, I mean, listen to some of these guys talk. Dr. White, I mean, listen to him and Doug Wilson do a debate is ridiculous.

01:27:11

I mean, like, I don't even know what they're talking about, but it's so informative.

01:27:18

You're just like, I know they're saying something super cool. I'm going to watch it again and have a dictionary next to me so I can figure out what the crap they're saying.

01:27:27

And then I get up there, and I'm like, I don't know, man, I just think there's going to be some sixes and some beasts or something. We got to be ready.

01:27:34

Yeah, man, let's just, you know, 42 months, y 'all, 42 months.

01:27:39

Sorry for any Southerners listening. I don't know why I do it. Yeah, I'm sure they'll be. Yeah. How do they get out of that? We're not. You can't do like Chinese accent.

01:27:46

But you can still do a Southern draw to say like you're doing something dumb.

01:27:52

Right. The poor Southerners. I mean, isn't that demeaning to them? It's funny. I used to get made fun of when I was in when

01:27:58

I was in the South. I was the one getting made fun of for having the Yankee accent. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, you can go the other way.

01:28:05

You know where you are. Exactly. Get back up there. We ran you out once.

01:28:13

Yeah. Do it twice. I remember when I went down to South Carolina for my dad's business when I was young and I ordered a

01:28:19

Coke and he went, well, what kind of Coke you want? Yeah, I just want a Coke. And he said, well, like a Mountain Dew Coke, Pepsi Coke.

01:28:25

I'm like looking at my dad. He's like this. I'm like, we call it pop.

01:28:32

But. But, you know, I've switched to soda now.

01:28:37

You say so soda. Are you serious? I don't know why. I don't like pop anymore.

01:28:43

My step mom's name is Soda. That's her nickname. She's she's Vietnamese.

01:28:48

She has I think her real name is one soon. OK. But yeah, but she always wants to be called soda.

01:28:55

So, yeah. So I can't call pop soda around. So I don't know. I just don't know.

01:29:00

About three, four years ago, it just felt so cheap to say pop. Give me a pop.

01:29:06

Give me a pop. I don't know. Soda seems more mature. I feel like. No, is it?

01:29:11

I don't know. It's just in my own head. Yes. These are the battles I had in Minnesota. Right. Minnesota. Well, that too.

01:29:17

And I love saying Minnesota. Yeah. I swear to you when I worked in retail and someone came in and said they were from Canada because in Detroit and Toledo market.

01:29:27

Oh, yeah. People from Canada quite often. It was like knee jerk. I just I just had to be like, oh, sorry.

01:29:33

Did you say a and I'd say a and they looked at me like you idiot. And I felt like an idiot as soon as I said it.

01:29:40

But it's like one of those things where I just had to do it. I don't know why. I guess the only thing I know about Canadians is they say sorry weird to me, you know.

01:29:48

Yeah. But then, you know, when I was out west, I had people making fun of me and like, what's what's up with that?

01:29:54

Ah, yeah. Everything's with you. You know, the car, you know, they didn't. I guess this podcast is devolved into like accents.

01:30:04

Do me. Do me. I say words. Oh, my gosh. Well, hey, man,

01:30:10

I'll tell you what we come up on about an hour and a half. Jason, it was sweet. Great having you here.

01:30:15

I'm definitely going to have you back because when we get into it, you know, maybe we'll bring a couple other brothers in here too.

01:30:21

I'd be great to grab a couple more mics and we'll just have a free for all. But thanks so much for being here.

01:30:28

You have anything you got to you want to plug any plug or promote or, you know, guys who grab a 10 year old album or something, you know?

01:30:36

Yeah. Yeah. Get a catch scratch track on iTunes, YouTube. You know, we're out there still.

01:30:41

We're on all the all the platforms, I think. I will say this, though. If you find him on Facebook, Jason Hamlin, he does post some of the best memes.

01:30:49

Hey, yeah. Come on by. Stop on by, man. Oh, my gosh. That that we just did that for things or whatever.

01:30:59

Mandy had me do it today. Oh, they're going around. I did one, too. I mean, you know, we're self quarantine.

01:31:05

We're at home. We're, you know, I'm I'm not super bored, actually. Like I got a lot going on.

01:31:10

I mean, we just had a baby, you know, and I mean, I'm you know, I'm always in the word. I'm always on YouTube.

01:31:16

I'm all the reading. Nine weeks. Oh, my. Yeah, man. So that's a lot of fun.

01:31:22

Have fun. Oh, my couple of years. I'm ready. I'm surprised you got out of the house.

01:31:28

Oh, dude. I mean, right. Like I told you right before. Right before I left, we had a little accident right there in the kitchen.

01:31:35

Yeah. No, I lost her milk. Yeah. I had to wipe that up. But yeah, man. No, she's it.

01:31:41

It's awesome. I been so great. Such a blessing.

01:31:47

So it is crazy how those quizzes are popping up again now. Yeah. It's like while we're quarantining, like, let me log on to this website where I talk about myself and I'll do a quiz about my.

01:31:55

Yeah, exactly. And then she give it to all my friends, which I did one, too. Totally.

01:32:01

Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I'm so interesting. Of course, I want to know about some celebrity

01:32:06

I did or didn't meet. Right. Right. Oh, yeah. I saw that. I did. Right. Right. Only I care.

01:32:13

Yeah. Yeah. Who's the most famous person you ever met? Um, Jean Claude.

01:32:19

No, I'm joking. Dude, I don't I don't know. I don't know. I mean, like I was

01:32:26

I was in the same bar as Angelina Jolie. Maybe you heard of her.

01:32:32

Yeah. And right before she was there, Denzel Washington was sitting at my table.

01:32:39

No bigs. Right. Yeah. I don't know, man. We were always around around somebody that was

01:32:46

I say always like like super famous. We weren't super famous. I mean, we we opened for some cool bands and we were we were around some some cool people,

01:32:56

I guess. But everybody's a cool person. You know, we were talking about that the other day. Like, yeah, people are. It doesn't matter who they are.

01:33:02

People are just people. You know, you don't have to be nervous that Angelina Jolie is sitting there.

01:33:09

You can just walk up to her and be like, hey, how's it going? If she's not cool, then, you know, that sucks. I was having in 2005,

01:33:16

I was in Los Angeles with three other buddies. We're sitting at a Starbucks on Sunset. We're sitting out on the patio.

01:33:22

We're getting into a deep discussion on Mel Gibson, Passion of the Christ, because it had just come out like the year before, like maybe, you know, just six months before.

01:33:32

And I mean, we're like my one buddy is a producer and the one buddy is a director. And like, is Jim Caviezel the right guy to play it?

01:33:39

And yes, he was. And I'm totally in favor for it, of it. And the other guy doesn't like Mel Gibson.

01:33:44

And the other guy was said it was too Catholic and the right. We're just having this like weird discussion. And this this guy is facing away from us.

01:33:52

But like right at the next table, we're out in like those like wrought iron kind of chairs and he just leans back and he's like,

01:33:59

I think Jim did a pretty good job in it. And we look over and it's Jim Caviezel. No lie.

01:34:06

He heard the entire conversation. He listened to the whole thing, waited for 20 minutes. And dude, we sat there and talked to him for 15 minutes.

01:34:12

He was the coolest guy. Yeah, that's awesome. You know, he's like, well, I figured I was 33. My initials were

01:34:18

JC. So it was time to do the movie. And that was a quote like that. He said like all the time, you know, yeah. That was probably one of the coolest ones, just the way that he totally snuck attack, sneak attack our conversation or combo, just eavesdrop and then just lean back.

01:34:33

I was like, I think you did pretty good. Much better than my Angelina Jolie story. But I saw Julia Roberts once I ran in front of her car.

01:34:40

Like you got hit by your car lights. We're in L .A. Well, almost. So like we're in L .A.

01:34:46

that light had just turned green and we just like booked across the cross the road.

01:34:52

And she like looked at us and went, look, what do you do? You know. Oh, but yeah. Yeah. Julia Roberts.

01:34:59

And then Mark McGrath. Where did you go? He's famous. Did you play with him? Because I was around this.

01:35:05

Was he still we were playing in the mid to late 2000s or no? Yeah, he might have been sugary.

01:35:10

Days were like late 90s. Yeah, we I think we were playing the Viper Room that night and they and he was like just hanging out.

01:35:18

How was that? That's an iconic, iconic play, right? Viper Room was Johnny Depp on that or something or like had some part ownership in it.

01:35:27

Yeah. Viper Room was really rad. Yeah, man, we played tons of venues.

01:35:33

We went we went to it was like a Wednesday night. It was nine dollar beer night in Los Angeles.

01:35:41

Yeah. Forty year old. That's a special. That's a special. Yeah. Twelve months, right? Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. So it was you know, we're all broken from Michigan and and we go to this bar and there's like eight people in it.

01:35:55

And then we're sitting all at like one table, just us four guys. And in walks this guy and like Luke Wilson.

01:36:01

And this was right off of old school. OK, so he was still like in everyone's mind.

01:36:07

Yeah. You know, the the less famous Wilson brother, Owen Wilson's little brother.

01:36:13

Right. So he walks in, he sits down, he must be with his agent. And all three of my buddies who live in Los Angeles are like, oh, my gosh, it's awesome.

01:36:22

Yeah. Oh, should we say it's just a dude, right? I go there and talk to him like, no, don't don't.

01:36:27

So I walk up to him like, hey, man, saw your movie look good. He goes, are you from around here? No, I'm from Detroit, man.

01:36:33

I said I didn't even recognize you. But my buddy said, you know, but I did see the movie and it was good. Well, sit on down.

01:36:39

Yeah, I'll buy you a beer. So we pull up a chair at the bar. Now that I'm sitting there having a beer now, they all come over.

01:36:46

Yeah. Oh, hey, man. Yeah. Right. Had to break the ice with him. But it was so funny because it was another interaction where he was just didn't over stare.

01:36:53

Welcome. Talk to him for five minutes. Just a dude. Yeah. That happens to make movies. It was funny when they left, though.

01:37:00

He got into like a he got into like a really nice Porsche Boxster. And the guy he was with, who was his agent, got into like an 88

01:37:06

Corolla. I'm not kidding you. It was like such a contract like, well, we definitely see who's making the money in that relationship.

01:37:15

It was great, though. But I guess you got to keep up appearances. Oh, yeah, man. But yeah, that's always been my thing is

01:37:21

I've never really been star struck. You know, I think about it now. I'm like, you know, if the only people that would really like make me be like probably reform teachers like.

01:37:34

Yep. Like James White. Like if I met James White, you look like that for Chandler.

01:37:41

Really? Yeah. Because I Instagram Chandler and I said, hey, I'm happy that you'll never be on preachers and sneakers.

01:37:50

Have you ever seen that Instagram account? I said, but if I start one called Preachers and Polos, it's just going to be 800 images of you.

01:37:58

And he said, thanks, man. And I went, oh, my life is complete. Matt Chandler just commented back to me on Instagram.

01:38:03

But yeah, probably it'd be like him or who was the this is the weirdest one.

01:38:09

So like for like eight or nine years, I was really into NASCAR. OK, like camping out at M .I .S. every year for a week, like the races, the pit crews, like got to know the drivers, the whole thing.

01:38:19

Right. And I ran this Twitter account that like just blew up overnight, like like half a million followers.

01:38:26

I called it NASCAR hard card, which a hard card means you can go anywhere in the race. Oh, you're basically crew. And I worked for NBC for like two years and got to do all the

01:38:35

NASCAR races, you know, drove around Dale Junior and stuff like that. Gotcha. So. I'm I'm always in that the

01:38:44

NASCAR community is huge on Twitter like they they do everything on Twitter and they were like early adopters of Twitter, like the drivers and stuff.

01:38:52

The president of the racetrack would always retweet me or give me information of M .I

01:38:58

.S. right. And I'd go there every year. So this guy was kind of like I never met him, but he was the president of the track.

01:39:05

He would always like DM me. Hey, good. Right. And so it's like this weird thing to where like I looked up to him because he was kind of like the president of my home track and NASCAR that I was really into.

01:39:14

But no reason to like have any type of like celebrity. He's just a guy who's running the

01:39:20

Michigan International Speedway. Right. But in my mind, it was like, I don't know. He's just built up somebody. He was somebody.

01:39:25

He was like built up. He was in the industry. He was always hanging out with drivers and owners. And right. So like like six months ago,

01:39:32

I go to a meeting. I sit on the board of the Business Development Corp.

01:39:38

OK. This guy walks in and I go, man, he looks familiar. Now, this was this was 2005 and six and seven and eight.

01:39:44

So this is 10 plus years ago, going on 15 years ago. Skywalks. I'm like, he looks kind of familiar. I've probably seen him around.

01:39:50

He sits down. He's like, oh, I'm the new vice president of Consumers Energy. Before that, I was the track president at Michigan International Speedway.

01:39:58

I was like, dude, I interrupted him. I said, do you remember me?

01:40:04

NASCAR heard he's like, yeah, we never met. We used to tweet each other. And we had this whole moment in front of like bank presidents and like all these leaders of Monroe County.

01:40:11

And we geeked out on NASCAR for like five minutes. And I was just like, I'm not just saying this. I don't get like starstruck that often.

01:40:18

But like you were like the guy, the dude in this like five year period of my life where I was just all in on racing, you know, and it came full circle.

01:40:26

Now he's not even doing that anymore. He's like, you know, doing something for Consumers Energy. But that was one of the funnest ones that I say it was.

01:40:33

It wasn't really a celebrity, but it was like someone that I looked up to. And then now he's sitting on the board with me.

01:40:39

That's so funny. Yeah. And he's not even doing that. All right, man. I think we're going to wrap it up. Yeah. You got anything else you want to add before we go?

01:40:49

Jesus is real. No, that is true. He's real and he's alive. I appreciate you being here, man.

01:40:55

And just hanging out and having a conversation. I'm sure you'll be back. And like I said, maybe we'll get some other guys in here too.

01:41:01

But guys, if you want to check us out on Instagram, it's Devin walking podcast,

01:41:07

YouTube, Facebook, all the same names. Be sure to check back on those social media accounts.

01:41:12

We'll be doing video updates of this conversation and more. And the first in the podcast will be coming out every two weeks and probably going to be releasing them on Wednesday.

01:41:22

If any of that changes, I'll let you know. All right. Thanks, guys. And we'll see you next time. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at dead men walking podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips or email us at dead men walking podcast at gmail .com.