Speaker 1: So easy question for you to start this whole thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you come from California to Texas, the land of fruits
Speaker 1: and nuts, brother, and you go to In and Out
Speaker 1: for lunch.
Speaker 2: Hey man, I had to feel at home. You know,
Speaker 2: all this Waterburger stuff. You know, we might have to
Speaker 2: get into a fight, but I'm like, I had a
Speaker 2: friend try to compare Waburger to In and Out and
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, you got problems, bro.
Speaker 1: So I didn't say anything when you texted me that.
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm on my way, I'm making good time.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop buy in and Out and grab a
Speaker 1: little lunch.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, I am man, he's going
Speaker 2: to do that. That's what he's gonna do. I was
Speaker 2: on my way and I'm like, oh, home, I exited, and.
Speaker 1: Did it taste the same as California In and Out?
Speaker 2: You know what it did? Man?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: And not just that, but I said to the lady
Speaker 2: at the count I'm like, every one of these is exactly.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm literally at my in and Out
Speaker 2: in my neighborhood. You know.
Speaker 1: But did you tell you said I'm from California and okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said, yeah, man, and she was.
Speaker 2: She used to work at an in and Out in California.
Speaker 2: So yeah, bro, we call it the Lord's Burger.
Speaker 1: The Lord's Burger, that's it. So it's like the Lord
Speaker 1: Chicken is Chick fil a. You get your chicken.
Speaker 2: If you're saved, you eat it in and out? Are
Speaker 2: they a Christian based company and then out? Are you serious?
Speaker 2: I don't know you've net You've never looked under the cups, and.
Speaker 1: I maybe it's embarrassing.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen too much under the cups and under
Speaker 2: the fry thing of Majinga's Yeah, so get with it, man.
Speaker 1: So now I feel really bad because I don't know
Speaker 1: this about Waterburger. I don't know they don't have scriptures
Speaker 1: on their cups. So yeah, that's a really good argument.
Speaker 1: And believe the gospel.
Speaker 2: Man, there's still time saved. There's still time for you.
Speaker 1: I get saved again almost every time in this podcast.
Speaker 1: We got somebody.
Speaker 2: I love it, man.
Speaker 1: I think I got saved with Ray a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, multiple salvations.
Speaker 1: Your father in law is Ray Comfort, Yeah, the one
Speaker 1: and only who we had him on here. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: not not handsome sitting here in the in the seat
Speaker 1: like you are.
Speaker 2: He was on the screen, he was he doesn't travel anymore, man.
Speaker 2: He put an end to that years ago. So yeah,
Speaker 2: you got to get them remote.
Speaker 1: So I purposely don't know your testimony or how this
Speaker 1: even that your connection with Ray, I don't know, and
Speaker 1: I typically I will like dive in and want to
Speaker 1: learn everything about it, but I was, man, I have
Speaker 1: heard that you have quite the story, pretty crazy. Great.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well let me say first of all, a
Speaker 2: lot of people don't know this, you know, but Ray
Speaker 2: is obviously my father in law. But what a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't know is Rays of Jewish descent and
Speaker 2: I'm of Arab descent, and together we are the solution
Speaker 2: to the Mid East crisis.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And if that doesn't work, We're going to start a
Speaker 2: new mattress company called Easy Comfort, and just call.
Speaker 1: It today.
Speaker 2: Easy Comfort. It's a match made in heaven.
Speaker 1: So let me get some context to what you just said,
Speaker 1: because it's it's by no coincidence that I was literally
Speaker 1: talking about this today with two friends that were here
Speaker 1: at the house, and we're talking about racism and how
Speaker 1: in America we have no idea, we have no idea hatred.
Speaker 1: And when I've been to Israel, in fact, a man
Speaker 1: who's sitting here with us on this particular trip I
Speaker 1: was telling them about. We had Rami with us, you know,
Speaker 1: loving the death. He's an Arab Christian, but there were
Speaker 1: there were times when we would go eat at certain
Speaker 1: restaurants and he would not eat with us, and he
Speaker 1: would say, there is a Jew at your table. I
Speaker 1: would say, Rami, you're a Christian man. You've been you know,
Speaker 1: been set free from You've been set free from this
Speaker 1: in Christ and he can't. It runs deep, man, It's
Speaker 1: run so deep. He couldn't sit at the same table.
Speaker 1: So that this is what you're talking about with with
Speaker 1: Arabs and Jews. There is something going on there that
Speaker 1: goes beyond what the American mind could possibly understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a history, there's a lot of you know, acrimony,
Speaker 2: and yet I have seen, like with Ray and myself,
Speaker 2: you know, but even in the Middle East, the Lord
Speaker 2: take Jews, Arabs, save them and break down. As Ephesian
Speaker 2: talks about that middle wall of separation and that unity
Speaker 2: that we have because of Christ. Man, it's beautiful and
Speaker 2: you see that, you know, when two people get radically
Speaker 2: saved and were at enmity, and then now they have
Speaker 2: Christ as the bond. There's nothing like it. And that's
Speaker 2: what the gospel does. You know, you think of Revelation five,
Speaker 2: from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, He's
Speaker 2: redeemed us to God by his blood. Yeah, man, so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's it all goes back to the gospel. But man, Ray,
Speaker 2: and I you know, he's been my father in law
Speaker 2: now boy, as of a few days ago, twenty nine
Speaker 2: years wow, and yeah, thank you. You know, he was
Speaker 2: my hero before I knew him, and then you know,
Speaker 2: I met him and then he became my father in law.
Speaker 2: But you know the old saying never meet your heroes
Speaker 2: because you'll be disappointed. We always seen that we build
Speaker 2: people up and then we realized that were't all we
Speaker 2: thought they were cracked up to be, and that we
Speaker 2: get disappointed. But man, with Ray, it's been the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: I mean, my respect for him keeps grow and I
Speaker 2: know him. You know, he's not just my boss. He's
Speaker 2: my father in law. So I know him his family
Speaker 2: and he's a real deal. I mean, what you see
Speaker 2: on our television program, what you see on our podcast
Speaker 2: what you see on you know, our YouTube channel the movies.
Speaker 2: This is Ray Comfort twenty four seven. I have never
Speaker 2: in my twenty nine years of him being my father,
Speaker 2: in thirty years almost of knowing him, I've never seen
Speaker 2: the man have an off day when it comes to
Speaker 2: sharing the Gospel. He is on and always on. It's
Speaker 2: like his his face is set like a flint, you know,
Speaker 2: and he's just heading toward eternity and he's gonna grab
Speaker 2: whoever he can on his way. And I've never known
Speaker 2: anyone like him. His humility, his godliness, his generosity. Don't
Speaker 2: get me emotional, bro, Yeah, it's it's it's amazing. So
Speaker 2: I'm humbled. I constantly pinched myself that, like, I get
Speaker 2: to serve the Lord with ch because before I met him,
Speaker 2: I dropped to my knees one day very distinctly, I said, Lord,
Speaker 2: I pray that someday in some way this man can
Speaker 2: disciple me. And so I first heard about him. This
Speaker 2: guy comes up to me. I was visiting some friends
Speaker 2: at a Bible college and this guy that I just
Speaker 2: got to know a bit, he comes up and he goes, hey, man,
Speaker 2: you ever heard of this guy named Ray comfort, and
Speaker 2: he starts looking around like he's about to do a
Speaker 2: drug deal. He's like and he goes he's crazy. I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: I never heard this crazy guy.
Speaker 1: I n even recover.
Speaker 2: But he got my attention. So he sticks a book
Speaker 2: in my hand called Springboards for Effective Evangelism. He's, oh, man,
Speaker 2: you got to read this. I took it out of
Speaker 2: you know, courtesy. I'm thinking that's going to go on
Speaker 2: that stack of books at home. I'm never going to read.
Speaker 2: And but by God's providence, one day I picked it
Speaker 2: up and man, I couldn't put it down. I'm like
Speaker 2: reading this stuff he's doing. He's going up to strangers
Speaker 2: on the street. He's doing a mock funeral in public
Speaker 2: with like these guys dressed up like Paul bearers and
Speaker 2: he's got a guyline on the ground, the sheet over him.
Speaker 2: He's talking to people about death. You know, it's going
Speaker 2: up to the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar preaching the gospel.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, this guy's not crazy. He's clinically insane.
Speaker 2: You know, like what in the world. And you know
Speaker 2: he becomes my father in law and you got to fill.
Speaker 1: In that gap right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, before before that, before that, before that, I
Speaker 2: had started an evangelism team through a church that I
Speaker 2: had co planted, and we were about to go out
Speaker 2: for our first time and someone brings a VHS if
Speaker 2: you remember what that is, a VHS state and they're like, hey, man,
Speaker 2: you ever heard of Ray Comfort. I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: have pops it in and it was one thing that
Speaker 2: you know, read about what Ray was doing, but to
Speaker 2: see him in action, I mean, this little guy stepping
Speaker 2: up on a step stool, you know, yeah, right Tan
Speaker 2: and the Lord repent, you know, and he's just doing
Speaker 2: his thing. I'm like And so from that point I
Speaker 2: really got connected with the ministry. And then we uh
Speaker 2: I called to order some tracks one day and I
Speaker 2: heard leaving waters. I'm like, no, no, it can't be.
Speaker 2: So we keep talking a little more and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, is this very comfort? Oh yeah? Right, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah. I'm like, no way, so personable, so down
Speaker 2: to earth, so humble, you know. And at the end
Speaker 2: of the conference, he says, you know, if you ever
Speaker 2: want me to come speak at your church, because the
Speaker 2: ministry wasn't far from our church, he said, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd love to, And so I said.
Speaker 1: You're a Christian at this point, like you were a
Speaker 1: Christian before? The first guy says, have you heard of recovery?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, okay, I got yeah, I've been saved
Speaker 2: a couple of years, so we need to get to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well yeah yeah, So I'm on, you know. I like, yeah,
Speaker 2: if you ever want me to come speak, I left
Speaker 2: to him like yeah, yeah, let me pray about it. Amen, yes,
Speaker 2: you know, like, where can you come? So a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks later he came spoke, and and then you
Speaker 2: know what's crazy is after he became my father in law,
Speaker 2: one day he came up to me with that book
Speaker 2: that I first learned about him through, and it was
Speaker 2: a reprint of the book, and he surprised me by
Speaker 2: putting a chapter of poetry I had written into the book.
Speaker 2: So now I'm in the book that I first learned
Speaker 2: about him through. And then one year I went our
Speaker 2: way to Israel and we stopped off in New York.
Speaker 2: We had a long layover, and I find myself standing
Speaker 2: with him in that same park I watched him in
Speaker 2: the video preaching at and I was there with him,
Speaker 2: side by side, preaching the gospel open air in that
Speaker 2: same part, and so it was just like surreal, you know.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, okay, there's a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: gaps to fill in. Yeah, I do want to say
Speaker 1: that's how older, you know, nine? Yeah, let's I'll say
Speaker 1: this as respectful as I can. You and I we will.
Speaker 1: We Lord Willing will have a lot of years without
Speaker 1: Ray here. And there is a generation of faithful Bible
Speaker 1: teachers that right now is kind of at the at
Speaker 1: the later years of their life, the twilight years of
Speaker 1: their life. Some of them. I think we'll probably lose
Speaker 1: some within a year or two, not Ray, but we
Speaker 1: will be You and I will be a generation to
Speaker 1: tell our children and our children's children we knew this man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you walked up the hallway with a lot of men
Speaker 1: on my that have passed from years past that that
Speaker 1: we don't have any connection to, right but we will
Speaker 1: with this particular generation. And Ray is right there in
Speaker 1: the middle of this small group of faithful men that
Speaker 1: will be remembered because of the Lord's work in their life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, Paul Washer. We spent about an hour
Speaker 2: and a half with Paul Washer recently at the Shepherd's Conference,
Speaker 2: just you know, hanging out in a boardroom and and
Speaker 2: to see his because he's a giant amongst us, you
Speaker 2: know now, but to see his excitement about Ray and
Speaker 2: he just looked at her, I said, you're my hero, Like,
Speaker 2: you have no idea how much you've impacted my life.
Speaker 2: And he has said before publicly, Ray Comfort will never
Speaker 2: know how much impact he's had in this world until
Speaker 2: he reaches eternity, you know.
Speaker 1: And Arsi Sprolls teachings are still people still watch those videos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that will happen even more with Ray. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: many more videos.
Speaker 2: And man, the older he gets, the more passionate he gets,
Speaker 2: the more jaddicky becomes. I'm like, Ray, what in the world.
Speaker 2: You know, he just I mean, he keeps discovering he
Speaker 2: has these abilities. You know, it's like that are just insane.
Speaker 2: You know, he gets saved and before he got saved,
Speaker 2: he saw this leather jacket and he thought, oh, I
Speaker 2: can do that, makes a leather jacket. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: he has a leather jacket shop. He's got like made
Speaker 2: like over a thousand jackets in his time. Then you know,
Speaker 2: he gets saved and he's like, oh, you know, he
Speaker 2: almost failed English and he stood up in front of
Speaker 2: his class one time to give a speech, and he
Speaker 2: dried up. Everyone started laughing at him. He sat down.
Speaker 2: He said, I will never speak in public again. Get saved.
Speaker 2: Next thing he knows, he's open hair preaching. He's speaking everywhere,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Jeremiah, Yeah, I give you your mouth right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then you know, one day he just decided to
Speaker 2: try his hand at painting. He discovers he's this brilliant painter.
Speaker 2: He started painting these portraits and we started making putting
Speaker 2: them on eBay and and getting money for the ministry.
Speaker 2: Then in his late sixties, he thought, you know, I
Speaker 2: can't wait for my team to finish editing. I'm gonna edit.
Speaker 2: He learns to edit, starts editing most of our videos
Speaker 2: and movies. Yeah. Yeah, and now yeah, he's been watching
Speaker 2: a lot of ballet. I'm getting scared. Bro Oh great
Speaker 2: comfort the ballerina. No, so tell me about how you
Speaker 2: got saved. Yeah. So I was born in Lebanon. Immigrated
Speaker 2: to the US with my family in nineteen eighty. I
Speaker 2: was about four and a half. Lebanon was a real
Speaker 2: It's a city called Junia. It's near Bay Route. I
Speaker 2: mean Lebanon's so small, but yeah, about probably fifteen to twenty
Speaker 2: minutes from Beirut coastal town. Immigrated nineteen eighty with my family.
Speaker 2: A couple of my uncles had come ahead of us,
Speaker 2: and so by God's grace, we ended up here. And
Speaker 2: you know, as a kid, I had this sort of
Speaker 2: chip on my shoulder soldier mentality. You grew up in
Speaker 2: the midst of war. You're always hearing about the enemy,
Speaker 2: and you're just kind of sort of almost influenced with
Speaker 2: this aggressive kind of fighter mindset. And so Muslim family, no,
Speaker 2: actually Catholic Catholic, Yeah, yeah, Lebanon is unique in the
Speaker 2: Middle East in that regard and that it was almost
Speaker 2: a majority Catholic population. So grew up Catholic. We had
Speaker 2: priest nuns, we had a monastery that was run by
Speaker 2: our family forever, you know, and so my dad almost
Speaker 2: became a priest. But we move here and man, I
Speaker 2: just I had this again chip on my shoulder, and
Speaker 2: so early on, getting into trouble in school, getting in
Speaker 2: the fights. Eight years old, I did my first Holy
Speaker 2: Communion in the Catholic Church and I decided, man, that's it,
Speaker 2: I'm changing my life I'm going to reform this thing.
Speaker 2: And I got cleaned. I got to reform again. Bro,
Speaker 2: the easy reformation. I thought, you know, I thought, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna I'm gonna, yeah, change my life.
Speaker 1: So I cleaned.
Speaker 2: I cleaned up the outside of the cup really well.
Speaker 2: Stopped lying, stealing, cheating, robbing banks all at eight years old.
Speaker 2: But you know, I really cleaned up my life. Became
Speaker 2: teacher's pet, mama's boy, stopped cussing, go to local Catholic
Speaker 2: gift shop by crosses, you know, do all my rituals.
Speaker 2: But you know it was the outside of the cup.
Speaker 2: I wasn't regenerated. And so I hit high school and
Speaker 2: just things just started to spiral out of control, peer pressure,
Speaker 2: and I had my long list of dos and don'ts.
Speaker 2: It now was a distant memory, you know. So freshman
Speaker 2: year in high school, became my class president, sat on
Speaker 2: my throne, started wreaking havoc. Fight after fight, ended up
Speaker 2: vandalizing a classroom, threatened to kill a teacher, got kicked
Speaker 2: out of my first high school, sent to my second
Speaker 2: high school. At this time, believe it or not, I
Speaker 2: was a rap artist. Ray was my backup dancer and
Speaker 2: beat boxer. I was a rap artist. I had my
Speaker 2: artist producer contract signed. My producers produced some of the
Speaker 2: top artists in the industry. I don't if you remember
Speaker 2: Montel Jordan. This is how we do it. So my
Speaker 2: producer wrote that song, and then O. G. Pierce was
Speaker 2: his name. And then is this where easy came from? Well,
Speaker 2: they're my initials, man, But I know it worked. It worked. Yeah,
Speaker 2: people thought, oh, you're taking an easy eas name. I
Speaker 2: had it before him, an Easy anyway. And then my
Speaker 2: producer also produced if you remember Leio Gang's for Paradise album,
Speaker 2: he produced Smoked most of the songs on that, not
Speaker 2: that particular song, but most of the other songs. So
Speaker 2: they took me on. I'm fifteen, you know, and and
Speaker 2: I was on my way man, and so I just
Speaker 2: thought I was cool fifteen yeah, and then and then
Speaker 2: I end up at this other high school. This was
Speaker 2: a gang infested high school. So firstdy on campus. I
Speaker 2: connect with this guy. We're walking. I used to go
Speaker 2: on the local you know radio station, CAISSEFM. At times
Speaker 2: I do like rap battles and you know, so, and
Speaker 2: I'm doing my album. So I started talking to him,
Speaker 2: was like, hey, man, come hang out with us at lunch.
Speaker 2: I did, and that day turned into a week, a week,
Speaker 2: and now a month, and one day we're walking off
Speaker 2: campus to go to lunch. He's like, hey, man, we
Speaker 2: want to jump you in. And these guys were crips
Speaker 2: and so I'm like, all right something. They jumped me in, man,
Speaker 2: and it was so surreal.
Speaker 1: You know what does that mean?
Speaker 2: So mean, Yeah, that means that it's it's an initiation
Speaker 2: into the gang. So that means you get beaten to
Speaker 2: a pulp by you know, I think four guys that
Speaker 2: were part of it with me, And so they beat
Speaker 2: you to a pulp for a certain amount of time
Speaker 2: and and then that that initiates you into the gang.
Speaker 2: It just shows like you're really you're dedicated to be in.
Speaker 2: It's all biblical. I was a biblical gang stuff, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. So anyway, so yeah, the dust
Speaker 2: settles and I just stood there like kind of man,
Speaker 2: what I'm a crib like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: As a kid, you'd hear about the bloods and the cribs.
Speaker 2: It's like so from there, man, things just I started
Speaker 2: doing stuff that I just never would have fad them doing.
Speaker 2: You know, and things got out of control and I
Speaker 2: get kicked out of my second high school. And in
Speaker 2: the midst of all that, I, you know, I one
Speaker 2: day I tried to commit suicide in front of my
Speaker 2: family and just was in front of your family. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: there was just an altercation. I just ran for the
Speaker 2: kitchen drawer, grabbed a knife, and I just started stabbing
Speaker 2: at my wrist, you know. And I didn't, by God's grace,
Speaker 2: I didn't look at what I was grabbing. But it
Speaker 2: happened to be a dull knife or I don't know
Speaker 2: what would have happened.
Speaker 1: But where's the Catholic church in this part of your life?
Speaker 2: So I still believe in God. I would pray every night,
Speaker 2: I do the sign of the Cross when I'd passed
Speaker 2: by a church. But that's all, you know. I had
Speaker 2: gone to an Evangelical church with a friend of mine
Speaker 2: a number of times growing up who lived in my neighborhood,
Speaker 2: and and I actually stopped certain christ Catholic practices. I
Speaker 2: just it made sense. I'm like, yeah, praying to marry
Speaker 2: my friend's like, man, we should only pray to God.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't pray to like statues. And I'm like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: it was like the that makes sense. And I would
Speaker 2: pray at night and I'd say, God, I know I
Speaker 2: need to give you my life. I know I need
Speaker 2: to stop this stuff, but I just can't, you know, and.
Speaker 1: And then tell me. It seems like there's a big
Speaker 1: difference between the Lebanese Catholic Church and the American Western
Speaker 1: Catholic Church, at least from what I've seen when I've
Speaker 1: been in the Middle East. It's very different, and it's
Speaker 1: very different pretty much in Latin America. And is there
Speaker 1: is there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? There, I mean there's overarching, massive similarities, right, you
Speaker 2: have some differences. And the part of the Catholic Church
Speaker 2: that I was a part of is called Maronite, so
Speaker 2: it's a sect within the Catholic Church, but it's under
Speaker 2: the pope and everything. It's it's Catholic. But there were Yeah,
Speaker 2: there were some differences there, but but but still the
Speaker 2: same the same sort of spirit and the same false doctrine.
Speaker 2: You know that basically we're not just saved by grace
Speaker 2: through faith alone Christ alone, but our works play a
Speaker 2: role in that. And then of course you have the
Speaker 2: idolatry and the marriology and a whole lot of other
Speaker 2: dangerous things, you know.
Speaker 1: So you go a few evangelical churches, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: then drop a few practices, yeah.
Speaker 2: But still not saved, but had more of an understanding,
Speaker 2: a little bit of Okay, there's a difference here, you know.
Speaker 2: And so anyway, one day, my friend was invited by
Speaker 2: his parents to go to an evangelistic event. It was
Speaker 2: like a big one and at a big stadium, you know.
Speaker 2: And so they invited him, told him to invite me.
Speaker 2: So he invites me, like a month before we're supposed
Speaker 2: to go, and so I said, all right, I'll go.
Speaker 2: I had no idea then why, I said yes. Now,
Speaker 2: I know it is God's profit. But I remember that
Speaker 2: day rolled around that we were supposed to go. It
Speaker 2: was actually like two in the morning. He and I
Speaker 2: were at a party. We're drunk out of our minds,
Speaker 2: and I remember we went and parked off a street
Speaker 2: in our neighborhood, and I mean I was. I looked
Speaker 2: at her and I said, man, I feel so good.
Speaker 2: And I said, this is the best feeling I've ever had.
Speaker 2: I said, I want to feel this way for the
Speaker 2: rest of my life. I having no idea how the
Speaker 2: rest of my life was going to be transformed. Hours later,
Speaker 2: I go home, crash, get up the next day, do
Speaker 2: my same stuff. Said to my mom, Hey, I'm going
Speaker 2: to some Christian thing with my friend Buill to night.
Speaker 2: She goes, yeah, right, you liar here I am I
Speaker 2: first time in my life telling her the truth that
Speaker 2: she's not believing me. And so I got angry. My
Speaker 2: bedroom walls was full of rap posters. But it wasn't
Speaker 2: because I just liked those artists, but it was because
Speaker 2: I had holes all over my bedroom walls. I just
Speaker 2: had a real, real anger. I'd go in, I just
Speaker 2: punch holes into the walls, you know. And so I
Speaker 2: started to hit the walls. I'm getting mad. My friend
Speaker 2: pulls up and I was this close to not going
Speaker 2: with him. I was about to go and do what
Speaker 2: my mom thought I was going to do, go party
Speaker 2: and whatever. But I get in the car and the
Speaker 2: whole way there, I'm fuming, you know, And we walk
Speaker 2: in and and man, it was just I couldn't. The
Speaker 2: atmosphere was so foreign to me, you know, people just
Speaker 2: full of joy, and they're looking up toward the heavens
Speaker 2: and singing as if though God was like, really there
Speaker 2: little I know he was, you know. And then the
Speaker 2: preacher got up and began to preach the gospel. And man,
Speaker 2: it's as if though he had a hidden camera following
Speaker 2: me around everywhere, he had a chip in my brain.
Speaker 2: He was reading my thoughts. I mean, everything he was
Speaker 2: hitting on. I had been thinking about, you know. But
Speaker 2: when I heard that salvation was a free gift. You
Speaker 2: can't earn it, you can't work for it, and you
Speaker 2: can know for certain you have everlasting life, and that
Speaker 2: God was willing to forgive me no matter what I
Speaker 2: had done, you know. And when that call was given
Speaker 2: to repent and trust the Lord, Man, I did immediately
Speaker 2: and instant transformation, brand new creation. Everything about me changed
Speaker 2: and that split second. Different people have different testimonies, but
Speaker 2: that's mine. You know. We get in my friend's car,
Speaker 2: we're heading home. He turns on the same filthy radio
Speaker 2: station we used to listen to. I go, whoa, bro,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? I go, We're Christians. We don't
Speaker 2: listen to that stuff anymore. He's like, whoa. It's like
Speaker 2: this guy got over saved yea. Yeah, you know. And
Speaker 2: so so that was man, that was, and everything the
Speaker 2: way I thought talked acted felt I was a brand
Speaker 2: new creation. You know, I got kicked out of my
Speaker 2: first high school my second. After my second high school,
Speaker 2: I had a great point average of zero point three
Speaker 2: to two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not about you know.
Speaker 2: At least what was oh right, but that was four
Speaker 2: f's two D minuses, and the D minuses were in
Speaker 2: pe and drama. I think it's illegal to give anyone
Speaker 2: an F and those. Yeah, and so so I get
Speaker 2: back into my first high school, and I prayed for
Speaker 2: some specific I went from that zero point three two
Speaker 2: GPA to four point zero, started teaching Bible study at
Speaker 2: the Bible Study Club on campus, graduated, went to a
Speaker 2: Christian university, ended up co planning at church at twenty,
Speaker 2: which is crazy. I don't recommend it, and then met
Speaker 2: a crazy guy named Ray Comfort.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're twenty years old. Right around this time
Speaker 1: is when this guy comes up to you and says,
Speaker 1: have you heard of this guy Ray Comfort?
Speaker 2: Is that yeah, I'm prout, Well I'm about no, I'm
Speaker 2: about probably eighteen, okay, Yeah, because I got saved a
Speaker 2: month before I turned sixteen. Yeah, a couple of years later, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I talked talk to this guy and then yeah, then
Speaker 2: I meet Ray when I was about nineteen and then yeah,
Speaker 2: and that was and he came and spoke at our church,
Speaker 2: and then came a second time, and his daughter came
Speaker 2: and uh, she took one look at me, proposed on
Speaker 2: the spot. Are we are? See? I can say that
Speaker 2: ravely because she's not here, you know, I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yes you can, yes you can. So what happened to
Speaker 1: what happened to the Catholic Church in this this transformation?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So like in your mind? Yeah. And part of the
Speaker 1: reason I ask it is because people, you know, love
Speaker 1: our Catholic listeners, but they get we get pretty defensive, yeah,
Speaker 1: saying that Granger, first of all, you don't understand and
Speaker 1: you should maybe and maybe we should one day have
Speaker 1: a Catholic apologist where we could actually have a good
Speaker 1: discussion because they say you're misrepresenting us every time. You
Speaker 1: just get it all wrong. Yeah. And so so I'm
Speaker 1: trying to be in this conversation unbiased towards yours. Is
Speaker 1: your story mind? Yeah? So what happens in your mind?
Speaker 1: You're you're not converted, everything's new. Why don't you go
Speaker 1: back to the Catholic Church?
Speaker 2: So honest question, Yeah, yeah. Well my family was curious
Speaker 2: about that as well. First it was like, man, we
Speaker 2: don't care if it's Buddha that saved you. You know,
Speaker 2: you're you're a different person. But then after a while
Speaker 2: it was like, hey, what's wrong with our church? And
Speaker 2: so you know, they said, hey, the priest said he'd
Speaker 2: like to meet with you. Obviously they put him up
Speaker 2: to that. I went to the priest's house, we sat down,
Speaker 2: and I just gave him scripture after scripture. He wasn't
Speaker 2: expecting that, you know, and I said, well, what about
Speaker 2: this and what about that? And so you know, look,
Speaker 2: I the majority of my family's Catholic. I absolutely love Catholics.
Speaker 2: We've done a lot of videos on our YouTube channel
Speaker 2: regarding Catholicism. We do it respectfully, humbly, because our call
Speaker 2: and scripture is to consider others more important than ourselves,
Speaker 2: and if we don't have a spirit of love and kindness,
Speaker 2: then it's contradictory to everything we claim to stand for
Speaker 2: as Christians. But love has at its core truth. You
Speaker 2: can't have true love without truth, and so we have
Speaker 2: to speak the truth in that regard and the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2: I say this, you know, with humility has a false gospel,
Speaker 2: you know. And as far as where they stand, you
Speaker 2: just have to look at the councils. It's clear in
Speaker 2: there that if you believe you're saved by grace alone,
Speaker 2: through faith, learn and Christ alone, you are anathema. And
Speaker 2: that charge, you know, came from them. And so like
Speaker 2: Martin Luther said, here I stand, I can do no
Speaker 2: other unless I'm convinced by scripture. And so Galatians makes
Speaker 2: it clear if we preach another gospel, then we are anathema.
Speaker 2: And it's clear what the gospel is.
Speaker 1: But as an eighteen, when were you converted? Month before
Speaker 1: I turned sixteen? So yeah, about sixteen? Okay, So let's
Speaker 1: like just look at this with a microscript. I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting you go, you have this meeting the priest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course I agree with your what you're saying
Speaker 1: about Galatians. And what is it that he said that
Speaker 1: made you say, I think I'm not going to this
Speaker 1: church anymore as opposed to agree to disagree see it
Speaker 1: mass Wednesday?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well I had, I mean I had already come
Speaker 2: to that conclusion before meeting with him. So it wasn't
Speaker 2: and it wasn't right away. It might have been maybe
Speaker 2: maybe a year later or so. So I had already
Speaker 2: really i'd really jumped headlong into apologetics, and I had
Speaker 2: this this heart and mindset of like, well, man, I
Speaker 2: want to know for sure, why you know this is
Speaker 2: what is supposedly the truth that I've now committed myself to.
Speaker 2: I mean, I believed enough of what I heard at
Speaker 2: that that night to believe, but then I wanted. I
Speaker 2: wanted to know because truth is important.
Speaker 1: You know, was there a hinge for you? Like, you know,
Speaker 1: Martin Luther Romans one seventeen. Is there something that you
Speaker 1: go this was? Maybe it?
Speaker 2: There doesn't have to be something sure? Well, yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean again for me, I mean Ephesians two, eight and
Speaker 2: nine is so clear. You know, you got on Timothy one,
Speaker 2: you got Titus two, Titus three, You've got I mean
Speaker 2: Romans four, Romans eleven. The scripture is riddled with verses
Speaker 2: on the fact that we're saved by grace through faith
Speaker 2: and that faith is in Christ alone, and so all
Speaker 2: of that combined the systematic teaching of the doctrine of
Speaker 2: you know, of salvation, it was just clear. And then
Speaker 2: and then you know, also the idolatry is so blatantly clear.
Speaker 2: I mean when I level with my Catholic friends, I
Speaker 2: just have to look at them say, I mean, you
Speaker 2: must know in your heart of hearts that this is wrong,
Speaker 2: and you know they won't call it worship. But the
Speaker 2: analogy I use is it's like it's semantics, right. It's
Speaker 2: like the doctor says to you, Hey, granger, you got
Speaker 2: you gotta know surgery tomorrow, so you can't eat any solids?
Speaker 2: You okay, no problem, doc. You go home, grab some chicken, steak, fries, vegetables,
Speaker 2: you throw them in a blender, right, you goz them down,
Speaker 2: you go the next day, doesn't xtra, Hey what did
Speaker 2: I tell you? No, doctor, I didn't eat, I drank.
Speaker 2: Come on, we don't worship. We venerate, Yeah, bowing down right,
Speaker 2: lighting incense, kissing, holding up, praying to what do you
Speaker 2: call that? If that's not worship, what is? And so
Speaker 2: so you know, I level with them, and you just
Speaker 2: know that their conscience bears witness. But the tradition has
Speaker 2: such a stronghold that I think it leads to unfortunate's blindness.
Speaker 2: And it breaks my heart, like this isn't something I
Speaker 2: glowed over, Like, no, man, it's like I was there,
Speaker 2: and there's liberty, there's freedom in Christ. He can set
Speaker 2: you free from that, and he's the only mediator between
Speaker 2: God and man.
Speaker 1: Amen. Yeah, as I think about it, I saw a
Speaker 1: meme one time that said that had you know that
Speaker 1: veneration and the picture of the idolatry in the Catholic church,
Speaker 1: and then side by side it was a Protestant church
Speaker 1: with everyone has their hands up, and there's bands, and
Speaker 1: there's there's a fog machine and lights and they're all
Speaker 1: kind of and and so how do we address this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's another big problem today as well.
Speaker 2: And I do I do remind my Catholic friends that
Speaker 2: there's there are a lot of unsafe people in the
Speaker 2: Evangelical church. Amen, A lot. I mean, Jesus Matthew seven.
Speaker 2: Many will say to me on that day, Many will
Speaker 2: say to me, on that day, Lord Lord, have we not?
Speaker 2: You know? Prophesidecast out dem has done many wonders, all
Speaker 2: these religious things. You say, I never knew you, Titus
Speaker 2: once sixteen. They profess to know God, but by their
Speaker 2: deeds they deny it. First John, by this one, we've
Speaker 2: come to know them if we keep his commandments the
Speaker 2: one who says I've come to home but doesn't keep
Speaker 2: his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not
Speaker 2: in him. God is light, and then there's no darkness
Speaker 2: at all. We say we have fellowship with Him, but
Speaker 2: walk in darkness. We lie and don't practice the truth.
Speaker 2: So it's not a Catholic problem. It's a human problem.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's it. That's good.
Speaker 2: That's important to realize. I mean there's pastors that aren't saved.
Speaker 2: I personally know pastors who were not saved and in
Speaker 2: the pastorate chain of Christ.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh oh yeah, yeah. I mean John Wesley
Speaker 1: is a great example.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, John was preaching till the Moravians the truth.
Speaker 2: I'm going to convert the Heathens. Who's going to convert me?
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, so Rachel comes with the picture Ray first. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you meet Ray, tell me about that, because I don't
Speaker 1: think we got to that. You meet, You're on the
Speaker 1: phone with him, that's the last you heard. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you meet him, then what happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he came that first time to the church and
Speaker 2: spoke and it was weird, man. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I just all I'd seen him on was a television
Speaker 2: screen and read his books, but to like meet him
Speaker 2: in person, it was just it was really cool. It
Speaker 2: was it was a special moment for me, you know.
Speaker 2: And then the second time when he came around, and
Speaker 2: what happened was, you know, I meet Rachel and we
Speaker 2: just really hit it off, you know, I mean she
Speaker 2: came to pick him up. His wife dropped him off
Speaker 2: at our church that morning and Rachel came to pick
Speaker 2: him up, and she came up the stairs to the
Speaker 2: second floor where sanctuary was, and he introduced us. You know,
Speaker 2: he was always trying to match make you know there,
Speaker 2: and we just hit it off. I said, hey, we
Speaker 2: do Evangelis on Fridays, if you everyone to come join us.
Speaker 2: Gave him my card and he was.
Speaker 1: Trying to match make it oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Because you know, I was a pastor and he you know,
Speaker 2: got to know me a little bit, and you know
Speaker 2: he wants his r to get married and you know,
Speaker 2: so so anyway, so then I I remember I called
Speaker 2: Ray to thank him for letting me for speaking at
Speaker 2: our church, and I said, hey, if you ever need anything,
Speaker 2: let me know. I was actually when moving this weekend.
Speaker 2: If you want to help us like I'm there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I go and I do that, and
Speaker 2: that's where we really connected, Rachel and I. And then
Speaker 2: just from there she she actually started to fellowship at
Speaker 2: our church and we just yeah, just went from there
Speaker 2: and ended up getting married April sixth ninety six. So yeah, man,
Speaker 2: you were young twenty. Yeah, I'm doing it opposite of
Speaker 2: my dad. You know, my dad passed away last January
Speaker 2: at one hundred and thirteen. Wait what Yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: eighty three. But plastic surgery. Bro, Come on, it's gonna
Speaker 2: be a whole podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So my dad is a Mediterranean diet I was telling me, man,
Speaker 2: I'm telling you to buoy. It's all about Tabulli.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was born nineteen eleven and my mom he was
Speaker 2: sixty five when I was born. He and my mom
Speaker 2: were like thirty five years apart in age. He's a
Speaker 2: really good looking guy. And yeah and so yeah, he
Speaker 2: one website had him as oldest man in America. He
Speaker 2: was in the top five in the world. So I
Speaker 2: come from old stock, brother, Yeah, you do that deep
Speaker 2: wisdom that is that I need, that I need.
Speaker 1: Tell me about your parents? Did they ever? Did they ever?
Speaker 2: Except both of them came to know the Lord.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to see that. I want to say that
Speaker 1: in the most respectful way to uh yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad. Uh my dad cried out to to
Speaker 2: to God at one hundred and nine. So there is hope.
Speaker 2: There is hope.
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord. Now we know why the Lord sustained
Speaker 1: his life.
Speaker 2: Or so, I know people were praying for him all
Speaker 2: around the world, you know, and.
Speaker 1: Some people are more stubborn than others. The Lord would
Speaker 1: have done that to me, like all right, great dreams
Speaker 1: going to hold you around for a long time.
Speaker 2: It's like, all right, God, I believe, now take me
Speaker 2: and then my mom on her deathbed, you know. So
Speaker 2: that's that's a joy for me to see that the
Speaker 2: Lord did that.
Speaker 1: And so you get married to Rachel. Moving moving down
Speaker 1: the timeline here, Yeah, when do you start working for
Speaker 1: Living Waters?
Speaker 2: So I was pastoring, I said, I co planted that church,
Speaker 2: and it was a real growing, real real dynamic church.
Speaker 2: God was doing some great things. And I remember one
Speaker 2: time I was I was talking to one of the
Speaker 2: vice presidents at Living Waters now, but he was also
Speaker 2: one of the pastors at the church, Mark Spence. I said, Mark,
Speaker 2: what do you what do you sense? Like the Lord
Speaker 2: my half for my life? Like you know, so I
Speaker 2: see you, you know, working at Living Waters serving, I
Speaker 2: see you serving in leadership. I mean, and what did
Speaker 2: Mark smoke this? I mean, man, this dude's so lod
Speaker 2: because it's funny. It never ever came into my mind
Speaker 2: like to serve at Living Waters. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I was pastoring. I was I had not my own
Speaker 2: itinerant ministry. I was traveling speaking, and I thought, all right,
Speaker 2: whatever man. But then years later, uh, the ministry started
Speaker 2: to really grow. And so on my day off from
Speaker 2: the church, I think it was Mondays, I would go
Speaker 2: in and just help, you know. And so a week
Speaker 2: after week after week, eventually my Lord began to knit
Speaker 2: my heart with the ministry. And I called Ray one
Speaker 2: day because he raised very non administrative. I mean, you
Speaker 2: talk anything administration. His eyes we rolled back glaze over.
Speaker 2: He just he just he's a creative genius. He just
Speaker 2: wants to yeah, right, he wants to create. He doesn't
Speaker 2: want to deal with any of that that that falls more.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm a visionary too, but that falls more
Speaker 2: within my skill set. So I called I go, hey, Ray,
Speaker 2: the mystry was starting to grow at this time, more
Speaker 2: staff were coming on and he just, yeah, so, Sarah,
Speaker 2: what do you think about me one day? Maybe you know,
Speaker 2: possibly like sort of a kind of in a way,
Speaker 2: you know, serving at Living Waters. He's like, are you serious?
Speaker 1: And he say, yeah, bro, yeah, when can he get
Speaker 1: down here?
Speaker 2: And he was flipping out. He just I'm like, whoa okay,
Speaker 2: And so yeah, So I came on in two thousand
Speaker 2: and three and just hit twenty two years at the ministry,
Speaker 2: and and so you know, I started as kind of
Speaker 2: the general manager, became the vice president, executive vice president.
Speaker 2: Now I'm the president. You know, succession is important. Sure,
Speaker 2: a lot of organizations and ministries don't plan ahead, and
Speaker 2: so the ministry dies with the founder. So we're trying
Speaker 2: to get away from that. So it's not just myself,
Speaker 2: but but a few other guys within the ministry are
Speaker 2: are more public now and so we can keep the
Speaker 2: vision going.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so important because we mentioned the older guys,
Speaker 1: So we have desiring God grace to you. Liganeer still
Speaker 1: going nine marks. We see a lot of these Living
Speaker 1: Waters organizations that are now thinking to themselves, what what's
Speaker 1: the future of this. Yeah, I think Desiring God is
Speaker 1: an example of an organization that's going uh oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to really figure out the succession in the now.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, let me say, Liganeer did a phenomenal job.
Speaker 2: I'm good friends with Nathan W. Bingham, you know, who's
Speaker 2: who's one of their vps over there and does their
Speaker 2: podcasts and different things. But they're so they're so smart
Speaker 2: because they diversified so the ministries. I think it's stronger
Speaker 2: even than when doctor sproll. It seems like it, yeah,
Speaker 2: was alive, and that's that's what you want. So that's
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do. And again, I don't say
Speaker 2: this like lightly or or like out of exaggeration. I
Speaker 2: regularly like just step back and in a sense pinched
Speaker 2: myself and I'm like, I can't believe I'm here. Like
Speaker 2: you know, the old illustration of a of a turtle
Speaker 2: on a fence post. You know, it didn't put itself
Speaker 2: there because it's impossible, And so I just look and
Speaker 2: I say, lord, I you know, I summed up my
Speaker 2: testimony years ago in this little verse. I once was
Speaker 2: but a lump of coal upon a heap of Meyer.
Speaker 2: Yet Jesus Christ redemed my soul and saved me from
Speaker 2: the fire. And that's it.
Speaker 1: Man. We have a guy sitting in room with us
Speaker 1: right now. Remember at our church that was saved through
Speaker 1: Living Waters. And in fact, I didn't even know that
Speaker 1: until we were just talking before church one day and
Speaker 1: and this came up. And he's just his his testimony
Speaker 1: is is pretty unbelievable. Through the work of Living Waters
Speaker 1: in this case, simply publishing a well edited video of
Speaker 1: the gospel through with Ray. It was the Which one
Speaker 1: was it? I think it was. It's the most viewed one.
Speaker 2: Oh, Mario, Mario, Mario Ray, Praise daily Lord, give me
Speaker 2: another Mario. Yeah, that's video is like at five million
Speaker 2: views or something.
Speaker 1: Just so if you guys, if you search on YouTube,
Speaker 1: if you search Living Waters or Ray Comfort and put
Speaker 1: in the search criteria most viewed, you'll get this video
Speaker 1: of Mario. And that video saved my friend here. The
Speaker 1: Lord used that and and that's just one example. And
Speaker 1: I thought it's encouraging to have him here with us now.
Speaker 1: Someone who listens to your podcasts, all of them, and
Speaker 1: it's we all, we all well, we have a love,
Speaker 1: a special love for the the Lord used to save us,
Speaker 1: whatever that way might be, or whatever ministry or whatever church. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mine was desiring God, you know, as we as we
Speaker 1: mentioned that, and and those guys all desiring God, they
Speaker 1: all know that, you know, and and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: so important for us to remember that as you're working
Speaker 1: doing the grind, you know, thinking creatively, going through administrative
Speaker 1: things that we're talking about real people, yeah, that are
Speaker 1: getting the Gospel, and it's incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we we always try to remind ourselves of that.
Speaker 2: That's why I love to read feedback from our listeners
Speaker 2: on every podcast, because it reminds us this is why
Speaker 2: we do what we do, and our aim is to
Speaker 2: decrease so that He might increase hman to hold up
Speaker 2: Christ like Moses did the serpent in the wilderness, so
Speaker 2: that people will look under him and be saved. So yeah,
Speaker 2: we were. We're blown away by what God has done
Speaker 2: with the ministry and the reach He's given us, and
Speaker 2: and that we get to be a part of it.
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Speaker 1: then fast forward many years, and somehow our wives become friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I don't know how that happened.
Speaker 2: You know, my wife, Rachel has has a social media presence.
Speaker 2: She has a little ministry called Joyful Mothers, and she
Speaker 2: started it, you know, just to minister to women. She
Speaker 2: just had a heart for women. So she did it
Speaker 2: for like kind of her friends at first, and it
Speaker 2: just started to grow. So now she's got about one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand, you know, followers, and it's been amazing, and
Speaker 2: I think Amber might have connectedly there.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've asked for specifically who found who
Speaker 1: or how that works, but they they started chatting and
Speaker 1: then they're like, you know, we get got to get
Speaker 1: our husbands together one of these days. And so at
Speaker 1: some point I end up getting a request if I
Speaker 1: would check out your book before it came out, latest book,
Speaker 1: which is called Fight Like a Man. Holding it right here.
Speaker 1: You read this, Jesse, right you read this, and you
Speaker 1: have not read this probably, but I just gave you
Speaker 1: a copy, so fight like a man. I got this
Speaker 1: probably in I want to say, December or maybe late November,
Speaker 1: and that's the first time we actually were texting. And
Speaker 1: so I read this book and it's it's a there
Speaker 1: are there's some older books that talk about the purity
Speaker 1: of a man, and this is a culturally relevant book
Speaker 1: for that, for a man to pick up a book
Speaker 1: like this and to walk through it seeking godliness, seeking
Speaker 1: purity specifically in godliness. And we live in a world
Speaker 1: that probably is more difficult for a man, with more
Speaker 1: temptations readily available than ever in history. Is that Is
Speaker 1: that too bold to say?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's the truest thing anyone could say in this context.
Speaker 2: You know, when I was a kid, and probably the
Speaker 2: same with you. How old are you going er, I'm
Speaker 2: forty five? Okay, yeah, so you as well. Probably you
Speaker 2: know when I was a kid. Man, Look, you wanted
Speaker 2: to look at pornographic images, you had to have a
Speaker 2: friend who had a dad maybe who had a stash
Speaker 2: or a buddy stole a video from a liquor store
Speaker 2: that you know you used to carry them. Now we
Speaker 2: all have these supercomputers in our pockets. At the click
Speaker 2: of a button, you can have access to millions, maybe
Speaker 2: billions of images and videos. I mean, it's insanity. So
Speaker 2: the accessibility has accelerated the degeneration in this area. And
Speaker 2: it is a problem. And it's not an epidemic, it's
Speaker 2: a pandemic. It's a destructive worldwide tsunami that is ravaging men,
Speaker 2: it's ravaging families, it's ravaging the church. And Granger, I'm
Speaker 2: a humbled brother that you would want to talk about
Speaker 2: this because it's not a popular topic. It's a prevalent
Speaker 2: one and probably the issue of the day when it
Speaker 2: comes to the sin that is destroying men and the church.
Speaker 2: But it's not comfortable. Who wants to talk about that,
Speaker 2: you know? And it comes up when a leader falls
Speaker 2: in the body of Christ, and then we talk about
Speaker 2: it and everyone's alert and then right back under the radar.
Speaker 2: And yet at the same time, it's like a hidden
Speaker 2: cancer that's eating away at the moral fiber of the church,
Speaker 2: which is weakening it spiritually, which is limiting its impact,
Speaker 2: which is dishonoring God. And so I was passionate about
Speaker 2: this subject as a pastor. It was like the number
Speaker 2: one counseling topic. And even now I'm counseling guys constantly,
Speaker 2: and it's become so prevalent that men have become desensitized.
Speaker 2: People have, wives, have It's like everyone does it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm struggling with it, and no man, this has to
Speaker 2: be dealt with head on, and hence the title fight
Speaker 2: like a man. You know, men are called to fight,
Speaker 2: and a man isn't just someone who's masculine and athletic
Speaker 2: and physically strong so on. But a man has courage, conviction, devotion, dedication, character,
Speaker 2: and more importantly, a man is willing to lay down
Speaker 2: his life and love for others. And that should be
Speaker 2: for the Lord and for people, especially his family, his wife,
Speaker 2: his children, and his whole circle of influence. And so
Speaker 2: we have to recognize that, and we have to have
Speaker 2: a battle plan because the tragedy is is a lot
Speaker 2: of men are acting as if though they're they're living
Speaker 2: in peacetime, and so they don't have a wartime mentality,
Speaker 2: which is what we need. I mean, imagine World War two, right,
Speaker 2: Imagine a soldier being deluded into thinking that he's on
Speaker 2: a luxury cruise ship heading for the shores of Bora,
Speaker 2: Bora to an exotic resort when in reality he's on
Speaker 2: a Higgins boat heading for the shores of Normandy. I mean,
Speaker 2: this guy's gonna saunter off the Higgins boat clad in
Speaker 2: a bathrobe, some fuffy slippers are remote in one hand,
Speaker 2: a latte in the other end, and probably some skinny,
Speaker 2: you know, pink polka dotted jeans, and he's gonna get
Speaker 2: smoked in the great illustration. And that's what guys are doing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, yeah, bro, know this thing's kind of hard,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's just like he prowls about like
Speaker 2: a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And then
Speaker 2: the world system that is massive and enormous is all
Speaker 2: rallying against you and your your flesh, which is the
Speaker 2: true adversary, is coming against you, and you're just kind
Speaker 2: of yeah to do, dude, tiptoeing like you're in a
Speaker 2: field of lilies, you know, with a feather duster in
Speaker 2: your hand, like, and that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: So tell me, how does when we read Greater Love
Speaker 1: has no Man than this, that he lays down his
Speaker 1: life for his friends, where does sexual purity compromise that idea?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because sexual impurity doesn't just affect the person who's
Speaker 2: being sexually impure. Sexual sin has ripple effects that creates
Speaker 2: havoc across the spectrum of life. First of all, you're
Speaker 2: you're dishonoring the God who gave you life.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: First Corinthian six eighteen says, every sin that a man commits,
Speaker 2: he commits outside that the body.
Speaker 1: You just said, you just sounded just like great comfort.
Speaker 1: No God that gave you life, But the God that
Speaker 1: gave man been hearing the guy for so long.
Speaker 2: But you know, he who commits sin commits, you know,
Speaker 2: every sin the man commits commits out side of the body.
Speaker 2: But you commit sexual morality, sins against his own body.
Speaker 2: What that passage is doing is it's it's highlighting sexual
Speaker 2: sin as a distinct sin with greater repercussions and ramifications.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's part and parcel with reprobation. If you
Speaker 2: read Romans won, I mean the ultimate giving over of
Speaker 2: those who have hardened their hearts against God is sexual immorality.
Speaker 2: And so you know, we have this mindset as believers
Speaker 2: and we say it sin a sin, sin a sin, Well,
Speaker 2: sin is sin in terms of it being all a
Speaker 2: violation of God's law and being wrong, but not all
Speaker 2: sin a sin in terms of its its ravages and
Speaker 2: its repercussions and its seriousness and its impact. I mean,
Speaker 2: you may ask me to help you move house, and
Speaker 2: you know, I may lie and say, yeah, I got
Speaker 2: something going on this weekend. That's a sin. It's inexcusable,
Speaker 2: it's wrong, it's reprehensible. But it's different than if I
Speaker 2: went and murdered your entire family and burned the house
Speaker 2: down with them. So men need to realize that sexual
Speaker 2: sin biblically does have a certain dynamic and element and
Speaker 2: facet to it that is distinct and has massive ramifications
Speaker 2: and repercussions associated with it. And we need to realize that,
Speaker 2: and we need to fight. You know, we fight not
Speaker 2: with carnal weapons, but in a spiritual sense, and we're
Speaker 2: willing to again lay our lives down. The standard is death.
Speaker 2: If the standard is death, in terms of our love
Speaker 2: toward the Lord and others, anything beneath that standard should
Speaker 2: be a given, should be a given. I mean, imagine
Speaker 2: a platoon of Navy seals up on a hill on
Speaker 2: an island looking at another island with a hill on it,
Speaker 2: and the commander says to his men. Hey men, your
Speaker 2: mission is to cross the waters, scale that hill and
Speaker 2: save the President of the United States who's been taken hostage.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine if and while you do it, you
Speaker 2: need to be willing to die in the process, be
Speaker 2: willing to lay your life down to save the president.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine if one of the seals looks at
Speaker 2: his commander says, yeah, but Commander, I don't know if
Speaker 2: you realize this, but there's some jellyfish in that water.
Speaker 2: Are you saying that we're Are you saying that we're
Speaker 2: to risk getting jellyfish things? The other one's like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, sir, there were some you know, some steel
Speaker 2: traps that we saw there on the sand as we
Speaker 2: were servying. You know, you're telling us to like get
Speaker 2: our feet hurt, and the other ones like, you know, sir,
Speaker 2: I saw some poison ivy on the side of the
Speaker 2: hill there. You want us to get poisoned? Did you
Speaker 2: not hear me? Soldier? I said, the mission is to
Speaker 2: be willing to lay your life down. You're talking to
Speaker 2: me about jellyfish and steel traps and poison ivy, And
Speaker 2: so our call is to die for the sake of others,
Speaker 2: to die for the sake of the glory of God,
Speaker 2: and we're not to fight. And I ask him in this,
Speaker 2: I say, look, if some dude came up to your
Speaker 2: wife right now, cocked his fist back and was about
Speaker 2: to pop her in the face, would you jump in
Speaker 2: front of her and absorb that blow and then fight
Speaker 2: that guy off if you're not knocked out. I say, look,
Speaker 2: if some guy was aiming a gun at your children
Speaker 2: and was about to pull the trigger, would you jump
Speaker 2: in front of them, absorb that bullet, and if you lived,
Speaker 2: fight that guy up. I mean, which guy would say?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Of course, you know. And yet we're not willing to
Speaker 2: fight to save our wives and children and friends and
Speaker 2: the church and the world from the ravages of our
Speaker 2: sexual sin. Were the ones cocking our fist back? Were
Speaker 2: the ones getting ready to pull the trigger? And we're
Speaker 2: not willing to stop that. There needs to be a
Speaker 2: massive wake up call.
Speaker 1: Just a little porn. Are we over exaggerating this? I
Speaker 1: mean you're talking about you're talking about killing and yeah,
Speaker 1: but just a little porn just to relax.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a man and a woman eating a little
Speaker 2: piece of forbidden fruit in the garden. Thousands of years ago.
Speaker 2: Come on, what's a big deal? And here we are
Speaker 2: with a fallen, broken world that's ravaged by sin and
Speaker 2: devastation and death. Right, Like, it's like what Nathan said,
Speaker 2: you know, to Tasaul, It's like, what's this bleeding of
Speaker 2: the sheep? I hear? Oh, yeah, they're for the Lord.
Speaker 2: You know, obedience is better than sacrifice.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 2: God wants us to recognize the value of yielding to Him.
Speaker 2: And you know, the pendulum swings right. And so the
Speaker 2: overreaction of you know, I mean, the proper reaction to
Speaker 2: a workspace gospel, which is good, has turned into an
Speaker 2: overreaction to where now like we we ignore the parts
Speaker 2: of scripture that tell us to exercise ourselves for godliness.
Speaker 1: That's good. Over emphasis of grace, yeah, is a problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the call of scripture to to put off the
Speaker 2: old man, the call the scripture to flee youthful lusts,
Speaker 2: you know, to to be passionate for the Lord. I mean,
Speaker 2: we can do those things because we are saved, because
Speaker 2: we are redeemed.
Speaker 1: And and so that's the distinction in the in the
Speaker 1: Catholic conversation we had earlier, is that one gets you
Speaker 1: redeemed and the other what you're saying is because you're redeemed, absolutely,
Speaker 1: But either way, stop sinning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the call scripture, what we're called to do that.
Speaker 2: And it's like, look, it's amazing, isn't it. Granger? You
Speaker 2: know when you think about how, in a secular sense,
Speaker 2: people respond to those who are going all out on
Speaker 2: something right, like you'll hear, oh, man, you know Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 2: he was so dedicated the Mamba work ethic, and you know,
Speaker 2: and and look at Chris Curry, Steph Curry what he
Speaker 2: does on the court and all his regimens. Who looks
Speaker 2: and goes, dude, you're over doing it. Stop man, just chill. No,
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, that's admirable.
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Who says to a guy who's who says to a
Speaker 2: guy who quit smoking, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Dude?
Speaker 2: He relaxed, don't worry about that. Noh that's cool. Oh
Speaker 2: he quit smoking. That's good. You know. I mean, you
Speaker 2: got campaigns across different states. Smoking is bad, you know,
Speaker 2: But you tell a guy, hey, bro, you know, you
Speaker 2: might want to be careful with what you watch, what
Speaker 2: you listen to, because that gets stirredy you up sexually,
Speaker 2: I'm not talking evening about porn, but the movies you
Speaker 2: watch with crazy steamy scenes and you know, and hey, dude, chill,
Speaker 2: don't get legalistic, brother, you know. And and at the
Speaker 2: same time, we're getting ravaged by the sin that is
Speaker 2: wreaking havoc and destroying people, you know, And so wow,
Speaker 2: we've got so good man.
Speaker 1: I occasionally we'll hear from country artist country music singers
Speaker 1: that they'll turn to me because I guess they think, well,
Speaker 1: Granger could help me, because he understands. I had this
Speaker 1: one guy who's had quite a bit of success and
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, man, I need I need to talk.
Speaker 1: I've got a bad problem. And I was like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: He's like, when can we talk? And I'm thinking, did
Speaker 1: you know, as he did he get upside down financially?
Speaker 1: Is he lost everything? Maybe he's you know, he got
Speaker 1: in trouble with some prostitute. I'm thinking, really crazy, you know.
Speaker 1: And he says he ends up saying I'm addicted to porn,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't we shouldn't underestimate what he means by that,
Speaker 1: because all all these other things on the outside seem
Speaker 1: really bad and this is the same and he's saying,
Speaker 1: and I feel like a dark cloud is over me
Speaker 1: and I can't stop. He said, In fact, my dad,
Speaker 1: who's a Christian, had a dream and he said to hey, man,
Speaker 1: I I son, I had a dream that you know
Speaker 1: there there was that you were in trouble and you
Speaker 1: were running, and there was there was blood and it
Speaker 1: was he had this big, elaborate dream. And he goes,
Speaker 1: I know, I know that God put this dream in
Speaker 1: my dad's heart and I can't get out of it.
Speaker 1: And he's on the outside, I'm smiling, and I'm living
Speaker 1: my life and I have success, and I have a
Speaker 1: girlfriend that I love, and but deep down I can't
Speaker 1: stop this stranger help me. Wow, And and this is
Speaker 1: happening everywhere. Yeah, these people people listening right now that
Speaker 1: are in the same dark cloud and on the outside
Speaker 1: they're smiling and and if someone finds out, they cover
Speaker 1: it up with what you said. Yeah, go easy, man, man,
Speaker 1: it's not bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know this this book is it's not
Speaker 2: a beat down book. It's I give guys a kick
Speaker 2: in the pants because we need it. Like, hey, like,
Speaker 2: sober up on this. This isn't a joke. There are
Speaker 2: ravages that will result from your sin. But it's a
Speaker 2: book of hope. That's the whole point. Like Christ can
Speaker 2: set you free, He's done it for many men, he
Speaker 2: can do it for you, and so so men need
Speaker 2: to recognize that there's hope in Christ. No matter how
Speaker 2: bad you've fallen, how far you've strayed, the Lord can
Speaker 2: totally deliver you from it. I tell guys, look, it
Speaker 2: is possible, starting today for you to never look at
Speaker 2: porn again. Never. There's a difference between that and like
Speaker 2: a flash of lust. I would never tell man, you're
Speaker 2: never gonna have a flash of lust or struggle with
Speaker 2: you know, your eyes wandering. But there's a big difference
Speaker 2: between that and porn because porn is a process. You
Speaker 2: have to decide number one, I'm gonna look at porn
Speaker 2: right now. Then you have to you have to execute
Speaker 2: another action. You have to go and sit down at
Speaker 2: your computer, or you have to pull your phone out.
Speaker 2: Then you have to open up the browser. Then you
Speaker 2: have to put in a search word. Then you have
Speaker 2: to start scrolling. Then you have to start looking. It's
Speaker 2: a process, and it's possible to kill that process and
Speaker 2: never do it again. One of the problems is a
Speaker 2: lot of men say I can't help them, I can't stop,
Speaker 2: I can't help them. And then I give him a challenge.
Speaker 2: I say, look, if Elon Musk came up to you
Speaker 2: and put up one hundred million dollars for you, if
Speaker 2: you didn't look at porn for six months, one hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars guaranteed. I mean, it's made official, it's an
Speaker 2: Escro account. The money there, one hundred million dollars. Ranger.
Speaker 2: You and I both know every single man, everybody their
Speaker 2: dogs will do everything possible and they will succeed.
Speaker 1: Then he and Elon saying, and I'm monitoring all of
Speaker 1: your device.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be monitored, right, And I tell guys too.
Speaker 2: And also let's add to that, Okay, every moment of
Speaker 2: your life is gonna be video recorded, right, all the time.
Speaker 2: And then all your porn times and all the stuff
Speaker 2: you do, that's all gonna be played in front of
Speaker 2: your church, in front of your wife, in front of
Speaker 2: your kids, in front of your mom, your dad, your family,
Speaker 2: your friends. Give me the money, right, or I tell you, guys.
Speaker 2: I tell guys, if you know you're gonna have different
Speaker 2: parts of your body fall off every time you look
Speaker 2: at porn, there goes the right ear. Next time there
Speaker 2: goes the eyeball, there goes but see, but that's not happening.
Speaker 2: So guys aren't seeing physically what's happening. So it's like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's like it's I've said this often. You know,
Speaker 2: if our lungs were sitting on the outside of our
Speaker 2: chests instead of being covered by these walls of flesh,
Speaker 2: you would have a lot less smokers in this world.
Speaker 2: You've seen them before and after picking pictures of lungs,
Speaker 2: or like the healthy lung and the smoker's lung, and
Speaker 2: one as pink and you know, full of life, the
Speaker 2: other one is charred and black. The problem is is
Speaker 2: that guys don't see what's happening to their lungs, and
Speaker 2: so they some of them are evenly physically fit and
Speaker 2: healthy and everything looks fine. But inside, man, they're decaying.
Speaker 2: And so so if men could see what's happening to
Speaker 2: their their spiritual man, the gaunt and weak and emaciated
Speaker 2: spiritual man, if they could see the ripple effects of
Speaker 2: what will happen to their children in the future because
Speaker 2: of their sin, to their wife, to the hindrance of
Speaker 2: the spread of the Gospel and be a wakem call.
Speaker 2: But now they're just going about everything seems fine, and
Speaker 2: you know there's no I mean, seriously, imagine every time
Speaker 2: you looked at porn one of your body parts were
Speaker 2: to fall.
Speaker 1: Off, and you're just echoing Jesus when he says, if
Speaker 1: your eye causes you to sin, couch it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your hand caused cut it off? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh ge. This is a legalist bro. So you know
Speaker 2: it's that call to recognize, no, we're called to do
Speaker 2: war with the sin and to recognize that God has
Speaker 2: given us all that we need for that. And that's
Speaker 2: why the book's called the Bold the subtitles a bold
Speaker 2: Biblical battle plan. Guys need to give their heart and
Speaker 2: mind something to do before the battle during the battle,
Speaker 2: and oftentimes, again they're not equipping themselves like soldiers, and
Speaker 2: so I get really practical in the book. What I
Speaker 2: wanted with the book was I wanted a book that
Speaker 2: was biblically based but also theologically sound, because anyone can
Speaker 2: quote scripture and say this is in the Bible. If
Speaker 2: it's not theologically accurate, it's not exeguted properly, then it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. But then I wanted it to be hyper practical,
Speaker 2: because you have a lot of books on the subject,
Speaker 2: but there's not like practicality, like how do I biblically
Speaker 2: carry this out? And then I wanted it to be memorable,
Speaker 2: because if you don't remember all the stuff you learned
Speaker 2: that was even practical, what's that going to help you?
Speaker 1: Jesse, what are the steps in the book? The ones
Speaker 1: that I remember? Tell me? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's that goes with the note Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so you know, the most the practical, the real practical
Speaker 2: section is called the you know, the Six Seeds to Succeed,
Speaker 2: and that's where I have you know, six biblical principles
Speaker 2: and then each of them is attached to an alliterated
Speaker 2: sentence that men memorize and they're you know, each chapter
Speaker 2: in that section is packed full of truth, and then
Speaker 2: you memorize the sentence and then that triggers so when
Speaker 2: you're being before you're tempted, you develop what I call
Speaker 2: preventative preparedness. So it's like the US doctrine of peace
Speaker 2: through strength. You bolster yourself so much at the enemies
Speaker 2: even hesitant to attack you, you know, and yeah, and
Speaker 2: so and and then when you do get attacked, you
Speaker 2: go through the six seas and then that strengthens you.
Speaker 2: But you do it beforehand too. Like you know, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go into the gym, I'm going to meditate
Speaker 2: on the sixth seas before even go in there, so
Speaker 2: that I'm my strength is bolstered. I'm ready, I'm equipped.
Speaker 2: And then if I'm in the midst of it and
Speaker 2: the temptations arise, I give my heart and mind something
Speaker 2: to do. I go to those six sees and I
Speaker 2: go through them.
Speaker 1: Which are creation, cross, crisis, crown, crowd in christ right,
Speaker 1: six sies, and a note. I love the note. Yeah
Speaker 1: that that got me too, because it's, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's so practical. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I know, we're running out of time, but maybe I
Speaker 2: could at least hit we have time here, I forget time,
Speaker 2: but like, if I could hit on at least to
Speaker 2: begin with creation, let's do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that. Do you need this?
Speaker 2: No, i'ven't meditated on this for years about that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: So creation? You know. One of the things that makes
Speaker 2: sexual sin exceedingly sinful is the fact that we are
Speaker 2: using certain features and faculties to engage in that sexual
Speaker 2: sin that should be blowing our minds and causing us
Speaker 2: to worship God. So we begin with vision, right, think
Speaker 2: about what's happening with LUs. First, it's vision. Your eye
Speaker 2: has one hundred and thirty seven million light sensitive cells.
Speaker 2: The focusing muscle moves about one hundred thousand times a
Speaker 2: day each one of your eyes. Granger has a built
Speaker 2: in super sensitive light meter, im media, automatic focusing, wide
Speaker 2: angle lens, and full color instantaneous reproduction. Sounds like I'm
Speaker 2: talking about a camera, but the camera was patterned after
Speaker 2: the human eye. This is a marvel of ingenuity like this,
Speaker 2: the human eye. I mean, even Darwin said, to suppose
Speaker 2: that the human eye could be informed by natural selection
Speaker 2: seems I freely confess absurd. In the highest degree of course.
Speaker 2: It's absurd because it didn't happen. It was fully designed
Speaker 2: by God. You think of just vision and all that
Speaker 2: is entailed there.
Speaker 1: Have you seen those pictures of up close the eye
Speaker 1: up close? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just it's it mind blow unbelievable. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: this blind process called evolution decided to give sight. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So but yeah, vision, But then your eyes are connected
Speaker 2: to your brain, right, something is processing these images so
Speaker 2: it's not just vision, but it's cognition. So you think
Speaker 2: about the brain one hundred billion neurons or microscopic nerve cells,
Speaker 2: has got more nerve lines and all the telephone lines
Speaker 2: in the whole world put together. Right, You've got electrical
Speaker 2: signals from two hundred thousand living thermometer cells, a half
Speaker 2: million pressure sensing cells, three to four million pain sensing cells,
Speaker 2: plus all the signals from your eyes, ears, nose, and
Speaker 2: taste buds that are working in perfect order and harmony.
Speaker 2: Then you've got imagination, you've got creativity, you've got memory,
Speaker 2: you've got recall, like what computer can you compare the
Speaker 2: human brain to? Right? And then you have coitionion, which
Speaker 2: comes from the word coitus, which is the mechanism of
Speaker 2: sexual intimacy. I mean you think about all that's involved
Speaker 2: in that, from desire to pleasure, to anatomical compatibility to
Speaker 2: dynamic emotional unity to procreation. Every human being that's ever
Speaker 2: existed has come through this process, billions of image bearers.
Speaker 2: Like I mean, when you pause, and that's what I
Speaker 2: tell guys, you pause and think about what you're using
Speaker 2: to commit these sins with. These things have God's fingerprints
Speaker 2: of design all over them. They should be leading you
Speaker 2: to worship. And you know what we do. It's like
Speaker 2: we pull the Mona Lisa off the wall of the
Speaker 2: loop and we throw it down on a dirty table
Speaker 2: and we use it as a place mat. We take
Speaker 2: a live grenade and we play catch with it casually.
Speaker 2: That's what we're doing. We're tampering. We're tampering with something
Speaker 2: that is loaded with so much beauty and power and
Speaker 2: you know, God oriented design and we're tampering with some
Speaker 2: heavy stuff. And so this principle is, you know creation
Speaker 2: and that alliterated sentences wield wonders as well springs for worship,
Speaker 2: not weapons for wounding, because that's what we're doing. We're
Speaker 2: taking them and returning them and using them as weapons
Speaker 2: to wound the Lord. Others and ourselves.
Speaker 1: Will willed wonders as well, springs for worship, not weapons
Speaker 1: for wounding. Yeah, so you know it's got the soldier
Speaker 1: mentality here, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, and it goes on from there, and you
Speaker 2: know all those different principles in there.
Speaker 1: Cross Yeah, stop spitting and stomping on such a sacred symbol.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, because when we commit sexual sin, we're doing
Speaker 2: it in the shadow of the cross, and we're saying
Speaker 2: in essence that Christ's priceless sacrifice means nothing, and we
Speaker 2: spit on it, we trample it beneath our feet.
Speaker 1: Crisis, consider the catastrophic consequence of compromise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean, you think about what's happening.
Speaker 2: You know. I keep a list granger of different Christian
Speaker 2: leaders and men who have fallen into sexual sin. And
Speaker 2: the list is long, and it's tragic. But a part
Speaker 2: of that principle is remembering those seeing those tragic examples
Speaker 2: and avoiding them. And then I think about all the
Speaker 2: other crises that result from sexual sin. The crisis of conscience.
Speaker 2: You know, first of all, a wounded conscience limits you
Speaker 2: in so many ways in life. That's that saying that says,
Speaker 2: there's no softer pillow than a clear conscience. When you
Speaker 2: don't have one, you can't be a person who is
Speaker 2: at rest, who's filled with the peace of God. And
Speaker 2: then a seared conscience is unbelievably dangerous because then you'll
Speaker 2: do the unthinkable, and then you have the the crisis
Speaker 2: of moral authority. How are you going to speak into
Speaker 2: the life of your son, of your younger brother of
Speaker 2: a dear friend who is being destroyed by pornography. When
Speaker 2: you yourself are tampering with it, you won't Then the crisis
Speaker 2: of leadership capacity. You limit yourself from being used as
Speaker 2: a man in all these leadership roles, or at the
Speaker 2: very least, you're limiting your effect and impact because you
Speaker 2: can't be thriving and being a good leader. You won't
Speaker 2: want to lead anyone, and no one will want to
Speaker 2: follow you because even though they might not know you're
Speaker 2: doing that, they see the weakness in your life. And
Speaker 2: then you have the crisis of witness. How excited are
Speaker 2: you going to be to share the gospel when you're
Speaker 2: tampering with porn and living in a way that's contrary
Speaker 2: to the gospel. And then the crisis of joy, which
Speaker 2: is really the spice of life for the Christian. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a part of our inheritance as believers
Speaker 2: to have the joy of the spirit.
Speaker 1: He's my friend, that's saying I have this dark cloud
Speaker 1: over me. He's basically saying my joy is gone, right, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: That's that's what happens. And you know, and and that desensitization.
Speaker 1: I remember one time counseling a young man when I
Speaker 1: was pastoring in the prayer room and he said, Man,
Speaker 1: I'm reading the word, I'm praying, I'm going to church,
Speaker 1: he said, but I feel so weak. I feel so
Speaker 1: I don't understand.
Speaker 2: And I just looked at him and I asked him
Speaker 2: if he participated in a very specific Lewde sexual sin.
Speaker 2: And it's like he's just he looked off to the side,
Speaker 2: and then he like the light bulb started to go,
Speaker 2: you know, on, and he goes, yeah, I do do that.
Speaker 2: He's like, you think that has something to do with it?
Speaker 2: So desensitized because it became such an habitual part of
Speaker 2: his life. He's not connecting the dots. You're living in constant,
Speaker 2: flagrant rebellion against the Lord, and you expect to be
Speaker 2: thriving spiritually. No way, That's where that crisis.
Speaker 1: This crisis also if run to its logical conclusion, and
Speaker 1: if it's uninhibited by morality, basic morality, then I've seen
Speaker 1: where it goes. Oh I've been to Thailand. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you get these men, these older men, flying to Thailand
Speaker 1: to these remote places to take little boys to a
Speaker 1: hotel room. Absolutely, and you wonder what sicko would do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sicko that a long time ago started with just
Speaker 1: a peak of porn.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, because because what happens is, you know, with with
Speaker 2: with your endorphin levels, it gets to a point it's
Speaker 2: like with drugs, you need more, and before long the
Speaker 2: stuff that would would cause you to get aroused doesn't
Speaker 2: do it anymore. So you know, a.
Speaker 1: Little bit more, a little bit more weird, weird.
Speaker 2: I mean, I won't even say any of the stuff
Speaker 2: I've heard is out there because I don't want to
Speaker 2: stumble anyone. But it's so it's so reprehensible, but that's
Speaker 2: that's how well, that's how sin works. It's progressive and destructive,
Speaker 2: and so people have to understand what they're opening themselves
Speaker 2: up to. And that's why we see marriages destroyed, because
Speaker 2: I mean, basically, a man's committing adultery with hundreds of
Speaker 2: women constantly in his imagination and through images, and now
Speaker 2: he's expecting that kind of performance, which is totally unrealistic
Speaker 2: from his wife. And he's also depleted because he's giving
Speaker 2: his energy away there. And so man, the repercussions are
Speaker 2: so multifaceted and so numerous. It's tragic, such a good book, man.
Speaker 1: I wish everyone could have this crown envision endurance, ensuring
Speaker 1: eternal enrichment.
Speaker 2: James one twelve blessed as a man who endures temptation,
Speaker 2: for when he has been approved, he'll receive the crown
Speaker 2: of life, which the Lord has promised to do his
Speaker 2: love them. And that crown of life is not the
Speaker 2: crown of salvation. But when you study it out, it's
Speaker 2: dealing with eternal reward. Look. Two Corinthians five says we
Speaker 2: will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. We're
Speaker 2: going to give account for our lives. And even though
Speaker 2: for the believer that's not a judgment under condemnation, it's
Speaker 2: still a very serious and intense day of reckoning. And
Speaker 2: we will suffer loss of what what rewards we could
Speaker 2: have had in the eternal realm. And anything God wants
Speaker 2: for us we should we we should want, and so
Speaker 2: that that's an important one, and so we need to
Speaker 2: we need to think on rewards. I mean, you look
Speaker 2: at Hebrews, and I mean you talked about Piper earlier, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, Christ, for the joint that was set before him,
Speaker 2: endured the cross, and it's speaking of Moses. You know that.
Speaker 2: You know, he was looking to the reward and so on.
Speaker 2: So away we're called to do that, and we want
Speaker 2: to understand that our temporal sins will have eternal ramifications
Speaker 2: for you, for us as believers.
Speaker 1: You're a good talker. You talk as well as you right,
Speaker 1: you should have a podcast or some good Yeah, you
Speaker 1: should be like the president of like a big minister
Speaker 1: wuary crowd, do as the departed did, and don't dispense devastation. Right.
Speaker 2: So Hebrews twelve to one says, you know, because we're
Speaker 2: surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us
Speaker 2: set aside the weights and the sins that so easily
Speaker 2: ensnare us. And that word cloud that has been translated
Speaker 2: in some places as crowd. And so that's really referring
Speaker 2: to Hebrews eleven, the previous chapter, the Hall of Faith,
Speaker 2: and all of those saints that went before us, and
Speaker 2: all that they endured, but all that they persevered through
Speaker 2: because of faith. And at the end it says, and
Speaker 2: we're tempted. In the last portion, some of them were
Speaker 2: tempted and they persevered, and so we need to think
Speaker 2: of them because we're surrounded by so great a cloud
Speaker 2: when it says their testimony of faith trusting the Lord,
Speaker 2: and we need to cast those sins aside. And then
Speaker 2: we need to think of the crowd of our children
Speaker 2: and our grandchildren, and our wives and our friends as
Speaker 2: I alluded to before our sin affects them. And so
Speaker 2: we need to wake up and say, wow, I can't
Speaker 2: let myself do this because of love, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to fight and so yeah, that one is due as
Speaker 2: the departed did the Hall of faith, and don't dispense
Speaker 2: devastation to those that you love.
Speaker 1: And then your booke end. You know, you start with
Speaker 1: creation and end of course with Christ always that's the book,
Speaker 1: in the beginning, in the end, and seek the sweet
Speaker 1: Savior for strength, satisfaction and sympathetic support.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it all comes down to Christ. He's everything,
Speaker 2: and apart from him we can do nothing. So he
Speaker 2: has to be the source of our strength, and we
Speaker 2: need to recognize that our calling is to have an intimate, personal,
Speaker 2: close relationship with him. You know, there's a there was
Speaker 2: a Christian hip hop artist that did this song that
Speaker 2: had a really powerful line in it and it said
Speaker 2: this said he was giving this sort of this kind
Speaker 2: of Pilgrim's progress, scene of a guy running toward the
Speaker 2: kingdom and the porn monster is coming at him like
Speaker 2: a dragon and trying to attack him. And he had
Speaker 2: this line that was so powerful. He said, with my sword,
Speaker 2: I hacked it to pieces because I'm way more attracted
Speaker 2: to Jesus. And He's got to be our everything. Man,
Speaker 2: when you fall in love with Christ, when you taste
Speaker 2: of him, you don't want to wound such a savior.
Speaker 2: You want to you don't want anything to interrupt that
Speaker 2: sweet fellowship you have with him. And often we're not
Speaker 2: pursuing the Lord, we're not seeking after him with our
Speaker 2: whole heart, and so so there's that danger. So Christ
Speaker 2: has to be or everything. You have to feast on him,
Speaker 2: you know, he said, you know, if we drink of
Speaker 2: the water he gives, if we feast upon him, we'll
Speaker 2: never hunger and thirst again. So what happens is if
Speaker 2: we deprive ourselves of Christ as our spiritual sustenance, it
Speaker 2: leads to a process of spiritual starvation. I mean it's
Speaker 2: like in the physical right you see physical starvation. It
Speaker 2: starts with deprivation. You're first deprived of your normal sustenance.
Speaker 2: Then it leads to desperation. When you haven't had what
Speaker 2: you normally have, you'll get desperate to where you know
Speaker 2: you're willing to do the thinkable. Then it leads to deviation.
Speaker 2: Now you deviate and you actually begin to eat things
Speaker 2: you would never eat. Here about people in starving countries.
Speaker 2: They're eating grass and tree bark and rats and cockroaches.
Speaker 2: The story alive that rugby team that crashed up in
Speaker 2: the Andes. They ended up eating their friends. Remember who
Speaker 2: in their right mind would do that? No one in
Speaker 2: their right mind. But starvation is a state of it's
Speaker 2: an altered state of mind. And then obviously it ultimately
Speaker 2: leads to deterioration. And so in the same in the spiritual,
Speaker 2: you deprive yourself of feasting on Christ. That deprivation leads
Speaker 2: to desperation. You get desperate, you have to satisfy. Then
Speaker 2: it leads to deviation. You start satisfying yourself with physical
Speaker 2: stuff in the place of the spiritual, and it leads
Speaker 2: to deterioration. And so we have to feed on Christ.
Speaker 2: He sympathizes with our weaknesses and causes us to come
Speaker 2: boldly to his throne of grace. He doesn't break a bruise.
Speaker 2: Read he doesn't quench a smoldering wick, and it tells
Speaker 2: us first John, these things were written so that you
Speaker 2: may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an
Speaker 2: advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous is a
Speaker 2: propitiation for our sins. So we're not to sin. But
Speaker 2: if we do. Christ paid for those sins. He's our advocate,
Speaker 2: our attorney, the one who comes alongside to help. He
Speaker 2: paid for those sins with his blood, and so he
Speaker 2: can set you free.
Speaker 1: Not the confession booth.
Speaker 2: God forbid.
Speaker 1: Okay, you are the man of alliteration. Should be a
Speaker 1: country music songwriter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to do a rap and uh.
Speaker 1: So you finished this idea with Nope, I love nope yeah,
Speaker 1: not one peak ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so so I am so practical.
Speaker 1: Not one peak ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's even but ever works?
Speaker 1: Sorry sorry sorry I do say I do mess that up?
Speaker 1: Yeah it works? Not one peak even even? Yeah, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: ever works too. I have other people right and say, hey,
Speaker 1: should be ever ever even? I think I saw someone
Speaker 1: say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so so let me give you the backdrop to
Speaker 2: that real quickly. So I was counseling a young man.
Speaker 2: I said, hey, man, how you doing with porn? You said,
Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty good. I said, how you doing with lust?
Speaker 2: Because this is the right A lot of guys say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not looking at porn, but we have a porn
Speaker 2: machine in our brains, you know, from images we've seen
Speaker 2: or ones that our minds can conjure up. And there
Speaker 2: are women walking around everywhere we could lust after. And
Speaker 2: so I said, how are you doing with that? And
Speaker 2: he kind of hung his head, sort of in defeat discouragement,
Speaker 2: say I'm not doing too well there. And as he
Speaker 2: said that, granger, I felt this sort of zeal for
Speaker 2: righteousness and purity rise up in my heart and I
Speaker 2: just said, brother, we just need to say, man, enough
Speaker 2: is enough. I am done with this. I said, you
Speaker 2: know what, we just need to We just need to
Speaker 2: say nope, this is over. I said, in fact, we should.
Speaker 2: We should say that word nope out loud, because you know,
Speaker 2: nope has has an attitude. It's different than no. Say
Speaker 2: hey can you do this for me?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Can you do this for me? And I go no,
Speaker 2: But if you can you do this for me.
Speaker 1: I go Nope.
Speaker 2: It's like ooh, all right, that's got some attitude with it.
Speaker 2: He's serious about this. So anyway, I said, we should
Speaker 2: say that word out loud. You know, I felt it
Speaker 2: resonated with him, resonated with me. Next day, I'm leaving home,
Speaker 2: driving in my car, heading toward the office. I'm still
Speaker 2: in my neighborhood, and these two girls come jogging by,
Speaker 2: wearing barely any thing. Caught a glimpse of them in
Speaker 2: my periphery, and instinctively, without even thinking, I go nope
Speaker 2: out loud, And as soon as I said it, I thought, man,
Speaker 2: I wish there was some kind of a crosstick that
Speaker 2: went along with it that could help me and men.
Speaker 2: And so then that popped into my mind right away,
Speaker 2: not one peak even, and so but later it progressed,
Speaker 2: and I thought, okay, but why not one peak even?
Speaker 2: Why what fuels that well? Like we talked about before,
Speaker 2: it's love. It's the five main things that I love.
Speaker 2: And so you know, Jesus said, whoever puts his hand
Speaker 2: to the plow and looks back isn't fit for the kingdom.
Speaker 2: And so I envisioned my hand going out to grab
Speaker 2: a hold of the plow, and each one of my
Speaker 2: fingers as it wraps around the handle represents one of
Speaker 2: my main loves, and so not one peak even Why.
Speaker 2: Because I love my Lord, the one who paid the
Speaker 2: highest price ever paid for anything ever purchased in the
Speaker 2: history of the universe, to redeem me. I don't want
Speaker 2: to wound him. I love my Lady, the one that
Speaker 2: I vowed before heaven and Earth to be faithful to
Speaker 2: my soul companion, the one I'm called to lay my
Speaker 2: life down for. I don't want to wound her. I
Speaker 2: love my lineage, my children, my grandchildren, successive future generations.
Speaker 2: My sin will impact them. I love his lambs. I
Speaker 2: love God's children, the ones that I'm called to be
Speaker 2: an example to and to lead and influence. And finally,
Speaker 2: I love the lost, the ones I'm called to be
Speaker 2: an example to through the Gospel and to reach with
Speaker 2: the truth. So because I love my Lord, because I
Speaker 2: love my Lady, because I love my lineage, because I
Speaker 2: love His lambs, because I love the lost. Nope, not
Speaker 2: one peak even or ever the glory of God.
Speaker 1: So we talked about that literally in our church building
Speaker 1: the other day. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, Grangel, let me just say, man,
Speaker 2: I've been humbled by the response. First of all, that
Speaker 2: doctor John MacArthur endorsed it, said every man needs to help.
Speaker 2: This excellent book offers. Kirk Cameron endorsed it. Ray comfort.
Speaker 2: Of course, ken Ham wrote the wrote the foreword to
Speaker 2: the book, but in an Australian accent, so you need
Speaker 2: translations understand it. And then the success of the book
Speaker 2: has has blown my mind. You know, Debut is a
Speaker 2: number one best seller, number one new release on Amazon
Speaker 2: in its category, and the number one best seller out
Speaker 2: of you know, all categories. It was one of the
Speaker 2: top books, and so and and I have an email
Speaker 2: address at the end of the book that tells men
Speaker 2: to write in if they have a story of how
Speaker 2: the book has impacted them. And I have been blown
Speaker 2: away by the emails. I'm getting a guy saying this
Speaker 2: has changed my life. This has really helped give me
Speaker 2: practical tools and biblical insight into it. And so it's
Speaker 2: been humbling and I'm encouraged to see what God's going
Speaker 2: to do through Amen.
Speaker 1: You are a modern day Puritan. They you know that
Speaker 1: the Puritans talked about these things and they they fought
Speaker 1: viciously against sin. Yeah, and we've really we've lost that.
Speaker 1: I think I think you nailed it. Where we have
Speaker 1: I said it wrong. We have an overemphasis of grace.
Speaker 1: You can never overemphasize grace. But what I mean is
Speaker 1: the teaching of the doctrine of grace. Yeah, it overwhelms
Speaker 1: the man's responsibility to fight sin, to fight like a man. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the Puritans knew this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, look and Titus tells us the grace of
Speaker 2: God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching
Speaker 2: us that denying on godliness and all worldly luss, we
Speaker 2: should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.
Speaker 2: The grace of God to bring salvation has appeared to
Speaker 2: all men teaching us these things. So if you're saying that,
Speaker 2: oh I'm under grace and you're living in sin, you
Speaker 2: have not been tutored by grace, because grace teaches you
Speaker 2: to deny on godliness and all worldly luss to live soberly, righteously,
Speaker 2: and godly in the present age. So no be killing sin,
Speaker 2: or sin will be killing you. We have to do
Speaker 2: war with sin. We have the weaponry to do it.
Speaker 2: It's now to stand. It's time to stand up and
Speaker 2: be men and fight.
Speaker 1: Amen. Will you come back ever to Texas? And brother,
Speaker 1: or maybe I'll go to you.
Speaker 2: Come on, let's do it. We want you, We want
Speaker 2: you to come in the studio and do a podcast
Speaker 2: with us as well, and we'll do that country and rap.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: You gotta grab some unholy waterburger maybe on your way out.
Speaker 2: Oh don't even say that, brother, Thank you, easy, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Brother.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I
Speaker 1: appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out
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