We're rolling. Would you please pray us in, brother?
I would love to do that. And then I'll just,
we'll do a roll in with this. Excellent. Excellent.
Welcome today, brother. It's good to see you.
It's good to see you. Long time no see. 24 hours,
less than 24 hours. Pray us in. I'll tell you
what's on my mind. Okay. Father, what a privilege
it is to be before you and with my brother, Adam,
that we get to sit together and talk about you,
God, the world and other things, Lord, whatever
it is you have. us to bring that would help someone.
That's our heart here. Our heart is to honor
you, to glorify you, to continue to advance the
kingdom in our time, but also it's just to enjoy
a conversation about life and about what you're
doing and what we see you doing all around us.
And Father, we put this in your hands. We give
it to you. And for those who will listen to this
and those that are listening even now, I ask
for your grace to be poured out upon them, your
life. hope, joy, all the fruit of the Spirit
to be poured out upon them, even as they sit
back and receive. And Father, you say what needs
to be said in Jesus' name. And God's people said,
that's what I always say as a pastor. Amen. Amen.
This is Jimmy and not Annette because I've got
a special guest star today. Oh my gosh, it's
been so long since I've done a podcast. We were
gone and I want to welcome Adam Curry. Adam,
welcome to the show, brother. It's good to be
here. It's good to be here. It's just fun to
do life together, whether we're sitting on a
mic or we're driving down the street or we're
just whatever we're doing, cooking steaks, whatever
it is, just doing life together. I reached out
to you for three reasons. All right. Wow. Thought
this through. One, there hasn't been an episode
of living up in a down world during your vacation.
So I miss seeing that update in the Godcaster.
Two, I just wanted to talk with you because even
though we see each other all the time, there's
always other people around. We love our wives,
but it's different when we're just sitting down,
just yapping. We don't want to be rude. You know,
we also want to keep an ear on what they're talking
about. And, you know, it'd be four of us talking.
So that was, I'm like, I just really need to
talk to my brother, Pastor Jimmy, about a couple
things. And two, God told me. Wow. And I heard
it loudly. Wow. And this was, did I text you
on Monday or Sunday? I think it was Monday. Yeah.
And I just heard, like, do a podcast with Jimmy.
Do a podcast with Jimmy. Oh, that's right. And
we weren't even sure if we could get together
this week because you had things going. I've
got things going. And then, and I was like, okay,
well, maybe we'll do it next week. And then.
God moved in very interesting ways. I'll share
it because I thought about it this morning. It's
sad. So I had a hair appointment today in Austin.
And boy, do I need it because, you know, I'm
looking. I got a mullet going on here because
of my vacation. I don't get my hair cut on vacation.
I'm now six feet seven tall with my hair piled
up on top of my head. And usually I have to set
these things far in advance because a very good
friend of mine, Johanna, she does my hair. I've
been going to her for almost 16 years. It's more
than just my hair. She's a friend. We talk. She's
in. Very liberal Austin. Her clients are very
liberal. She is right down the middle. She's
not a believer yet, working on her, but she appreciates
prayer, and she always thanks me when I pray
for her, for family. And she gives me real insight
into what's happening in other cultures, other
parts of our culture. Her puppy, her dog, 14
years old, passed away. Oh, no, that's heartbreaking.
Yes. Now, and she called me, and, you know, she
called me because we're friends, you know, and
so I... I tried to minister to her, and I think
I comforted her. But at the same time, that was
the reason why we can sit here together. So this
puppy was old, you know, had some heart issues.
But it took place and opened up this opportunity
for us. So I don't know if, you know, it's like
one of those hard things. Yeah. We love our fur
babies, my goodness. And does God do these things?
You know, this dog could have passed away in
a week from now, but does God do these things?
You know, I don't know. I don't know. He does
all things for good, ultimately. There we go.
And she was there when he passed, you know, and
so that worked out perfectly. I just had to get
off my heart because I kept hearing it like,
well, this is how this opened up. And I was surprised.
I'm like, wait a minute. I have a whole day open
now. Because, you know, you go to Austin, it's
a whole day trip. And so here I am. Wow. Well,
we should cheers. Yes, we are. At what time in
the morning? Cheersing with our Black Rifle coffee.
I know. Exactly. I was going to ask what you
have in your tumbler. I've got a White Rose Resistance
tumbler, which we got at our event. I have my
Joe Rogan tumbler. Nice. Yes. Which I carry everywhere.
And so, yeah, I've got Black Rifle, just black.
So, man, I'm in a good place right now. So we
were in Florida. And a lot of things happened
to me there. Maybe you should just explain what
this was. You want to just run down why we were
there? Yeah, I'll give the brief version of what
it is. There's an organization. Actually, it's
a group of organizations. But Remnant Alliance
is a group of pastors and a group of organizations
like the Patriot Academy, Citizens Defending
Freedom. It's a whole group of seminary, college,
university. Not Waverly. We're not good at memory,
are we? Oh, my gosh. I keep saying Waverly. It's
Wagner, isn't it? I think it's Wagner. Wagner
University. So a bunch of groups that get together
and do things here and there finally said, wait,
maybe we should get together and actually form
an association or a network so that we can get
together often. help each other and encourage
each other. And so anyway, this was the first,
I would call it the embryonic meeting, just the
first. And the meeting was about 35 to 40 people.
And they asked us to invite either a business
couple or a leader couple from the church. And
Annette and I were like, oh, Adam and Tina need
to be here. Little did we know that would morph
into the Godcaster. We'll talk more about that
in a minute. So you're in this meeting. Tina's
in the meeting. We're together. And Jack Hillegoss,
he's a pastor at High Point Church in Lake Wales,
Florida, who also ran for mayor several years
ago, like a term and a half ago, and won. And
because he had a wake -up call during COVID and
said, I got to do something, the Lord told him
through various people, you should run for mayor.
He did, and he won. And now he's running again.
They're starting their campaign. So he called
a group of about five or six pastors. and said,
would you bring some people from your church
that you think would be interested in this? And
let's just have a meeting to see if it's God's
heart for us to form, become a formal association
or a formal network based on values, not so much
on theology. A lot of networks are based on theology,
and those are called denominations. So we're
not trying to create a denomination system. Which
is probably unique amongst churches. I think
so, because we're saying this isn't all about
your theology. We've got some criteria that are
important, and we need to agree on the basics,
right, the main things. But we're trying to create
a broader affiliation here, a broader association,
where we come together based on these three things
and what's called the seven mountain strategy,
which is a fancy word for here's what culture
looks like, and we're identifying these seven
areas. But really, you can boil it down to three,
and it's faith, family, and freedom. And it's
not political. It's about cultural engagement.
And so politics is only one of many spokes. So
we all came together, met for basically two days,
two half days, one full day. And we heard from
different organizations. We heard people sharing
different ideas. You and I got to do a presentation
about the Godcaster and really that mountain
of media, arts, entertainment. And we came away
from that. Jack was asking the question, do you
think we should take another step? Do we feel
like God's in this? And it was obvious. God was
all over it. The whole thing was such a God movement
because it started with Steve Maxwell. It was
very unorganized. In my mind, Steve Maxwell's
like, hey, can you guys come? And then all of
a sudden, Pastor Jack Hillegoss is sending out
agendas. And there was, you know, and bless Day
Minette, because she had already just said, I'm
just going to get hotel rooms and we're all set.
And so we were kind of even autonomous in that
regard. And it just like, it was like a Woodstock,
a mini Woodstock. Just we all came in from wherever
we didn't really know, like, yeah, it's going
to be something cool, man. Something good is
happening. Just don't eat the brown acid. It's
going to be great. And it was, I mean, there
were heavy hitters there besides yourself, Dr.
Rick Scarborough, who is, I mean. He actually
formulated the Remnant Alliance in the first
place, which has reached thousands of pastors
across the United States about cultural engagement.
And then Pastor Paul Blair. who by himself is
an enigma and an incredible story, having been
a Chicago Bears lineman, I think. Yeah, football
player in the NFL. And then called into ministry
and just a fascinating guy. You look at him like,
I just want to hang out with this guy. He looks
fun to talk to. He's a mountain of a man. He
is. He is. And he is Liberty Pastors because
this also fits into this. He's a pastor. Yeah.
Two campuses, Orlando, Edmond, Oklahoma. But
he started Liberty Pastors to try to begin to
rally pastors around this idea of how do we intelligently
engage our culture and become a voice in the
public square. And you and Pastor Brian and Naomi
and Annette, you all went to one of those. Is
it like a course? Is it like a three -day thing?
It's like a three -day, yeah. Similar layout
to what we just did. You go a half day, then
a full day, then another half day. And it's drinking
from a fire hose from guys like Rick Green from
the Patriot Academy and others. I mean, just
David Barton was there. I mean, it's just. And
it's very similar along the same lines of culture.
And I think. Yes. So for me, all of this came
together within there. I'm like, oh, now I see
why we're here. We have Remnant Alliance, all
these organizations who have something to offer,
something to help with all of these mountains
and these seven mountains and culture and politics
and just everything, life. And then you have
the churches, the embassy churches, as they'll
be called, that are affiliated with it. And so
there's already a list of like 10 or 12 or maybe
even more, I'm not sure. And it all came together
for me during this meeting. I'm like, oh, okay,
something happened in 2020, and that was COVID.
And when we all started to come out of that,
where the world itself is living in complete
trauma. complete trauma from COVID. People may
not admit it, but that's why they're all getting
spun up over all kinds of things. You look at
the news, you're on fire. They're mad. They don't
know why they're mad, but it's because, well,
they're mad at their government. They're mad
at what was done to them. There's all kinds of
things that were forced on people. And this,
of course, is a worldwide phenomenon. And it
feels like this group of pastors and affiliated
organizations Without us even knowing it, I think
we're saying now is the time. We got our wits
together. We figured out, wait a minute, something
really bad happened here. We got snookered. I'll
just use a friendly word. We got snookered. And
not only is it time to change that, but this
is a tremendous opportunity to spread the gospel,
show people what's good and evil. help them understand
why they're feeling the way they're feeling,
and to change all these mountains, to recapture
mountains, or at least to influence them, to
move them as possible. And that hit me so hard
because I'm up there. You know, I was asked to
come in and talk about the Godcaster. And honestly,
up until now, the Godcaster is, well, this is
for radio stations to move to digital and to
bring in, you know, your local content. That
was basically the pitch. Um, and the other side
was for, for churches and ministries, you know,
now you can broadcast outside of the walls of
the sanctuary, but it didn't go much further
than that. And so, and when, when I'm sitting
here, I'm like, oh, I see what's happening here.
And you and I, by the way, I think I said it
on stage. Have you ever had that where you, well,
I'm sure you have because of your professional
speaker, where you're, you're speaking or you're
preaching and things are coming out of your mouth
that you hadn't thought about, you hadn't prepared,
but you're actually Your mind and your opinion
is being formed as you speak. Yes. I had this.
And, you know, because all I know how to do is
just tell my story or tell a story. I can tell
stories all day long. And so I kind of knew what
would get this group engaged. I knew how I could
get them, you know, just to pay attention and
laugh. And boy, God bless Pastor Paul. Every
single time I said something, he was cracking
up and laughing. There's always one. Well, there
was two, and Pastor Jack was on the left. So
I would lock eyes with them. You know how you're
always looking at one person? And there's Pastor
Paul. He's like, ah, this is great. And Pastor
Jack's like, yeah. So it just felt so good. I
think I said that you and I, I think it was about
us, that when we met, it was like a Reese's peanut
butter cup. Yes. You know, it's chocolate and
peanut butter came together, and we just felt
like, wow, this is. There's something really
good here, which is another reason why I just
wanted to sit down and chat with you, because
we don't get the opportunity to do this from
my perspective, from your perspective about what's
really going on. Right. True. And so things started
to come together in my mind, whereas I'm seeing,
hey, this group of guys, they figured out how.
Easy it is actually without money to change the
political landscape in your local community.
That's how Pastor Jack became mayor. That was
the main one that stuck with me. There's a number
of different categories and different mountains.
And as I'm talking, I'm like, wow, this is something
much bigger. They all understand that in order
to... affect your local culture. All politics
is local. Your local culture, you need to be
broadcasting into it. And you can't just do that,
you know, on Sunday and two, or in Pastor Jack's
case, four, you know, four sermons. You have
to push it out. And at the same time, out of
my mouth are coming the words how no agenda runs
where, you know, we really... Value for value
is not just people donating money to us, but
they're contributing their expertise. And I'm
like, and it hit me like, ah, every church has
that person who goes to the sports games. Every
church has that person who goes to every single
city council meeting, every single school board
meeting. The person who is in the Chamber of
Commerce and can tell us what's going on there.
Good, bad, indifferent. And then after that,
I'm sitting down with Pastor Jack's team. He
had assembled a team to create their version
of how the Godcaster would be used. And I think
it's very simple. It's just a digital station.
It broadcasts on -demand and live content. We
know that churches during COVID became content
factories. Everybody's got that. I mean, I love
walking in here. By the way, I love being in
the church. I love our church. It feels like
home. It feels like our clubhouse also. I mean,
house of God, but also our clubhouse. Yeah. You
know, I walk in and there's faith and I had a
nice chat with the dudes installing the new gear
and we're upgrading our gears. He's a rock star
in that world, by the way. Crazy stuff. He did
Elevation Church. Oh, really? That guy's amazing.
Yeah, I had a nice chat with him. Great guy.
Yeah, we talked about old radio gear. Nice. We
still had knobs instead of faders. Robert's amazing.
And then... It all came together. The whole loop
came together, that it's a two -way street. It's
not just, you know, as I was saying, Mayor Pastor
Jack, your station can't be Mayor Pastor Jack
with, Mayor Pastor Jack with. That's not it.
You need to have incoming, and every single person
in your congregation, in our city as well, has
a high -quality recording device in their pocket.
I mean, mainstream media uses these all the time
to do interviews, press. You see them all the
way holding their phone up because it works.
So all you need is one person to manage the incoming
and every single one of those becomes a podcast.
It's irrelevant. This is another thing that happened.
Do you mind if I just keep rambling? No, no.
Keep going. So Dr. Rick Scarborough, he asked
a question. He said how and he's kind of a funny
guy. You know, he's like. He almost looks like
your Bible teacher in school, you know, kind
of a little hunched over. Bible professor. How
long should a podcast be? And I flippantly said,
until it's boring. And I felt bad about that
because, you know, he actually got up and walked
out. And I'm like, did I offend him by saying
that? And I cornered him. Well, actually, he
cornered me. And he said, I'm going to show you
what I'm doing here. And he has this one minute,
my take. And every week he does a one minute,
my take, it airs on the bot radio networks. I
mean, it's on hundreds of radio stations. I would
love to have that on our Godcaster. And I said,
this is a podcast. He said, is it? I said, yes,
because it's perfect. And, and, but instead of
uploading them to the web, you know, for every
month at the end of the month, do them every
single week and actually turn that into an automatic
podcast feed forum. It's just, it's so good.
And it's just this one minute take. But it's
super, super good, and that is a podcast. A podcast
is really the delivery mechanism. It's just a
technology piece that is all over the Internet.
No one really sees it. You don't see it, but
it's how the Internet connects together in so
many ways that software engineers use that all
the time. So the Godcaster is based on this technology.
So as you rightly point out, now that that's
a podcast, we can add that to the Bridge Church
Godcaster. It'll update every week whenever he
updates it. It'll run during Hello Fred in the
regular lineup in between the music. But because
it's in the Godcaster ecosystem, any other Godcaster
can add this just by typing in Dr. Rick Scarborough,
my take, pops up, they add it in. Now we have
a syndicated network. Beautiful. And it may be
fun. Just to, you know, there may be other stuff
that they're doing that would be relevant here.
And so it all started to come together. I got
so excited about this. I think I even said it.
Tina said to me, Adam, we've been together for
over 10 years. I've never seen you this excited
and joyous about anything. And I'm a pretty happy
guy. You are. I'm always pretty up and happy.
You're living up in a down world, brother. Exactly.
And so I just see all this opportunity. I'm like,
man, we got to. Get on the stick in our own church.
There's so much we need to do. You know, God
has just been, you know, I think I had a scripture
yesterday that popped up for me. Yeah, and then
after that, tell about meeting with Jonah yesterday,
Jonah Mandel. That's another part of this. That's
exactly what I wanted to say. But yesterday I
saw Galatians 6, 9, and let us not grow weary
of doing good, for in due season we will reap
if we do not give up. Yeah. I'm like, okay, God,
yeah, you got me working hard. I get it. But
I can run a calendar. I've done it before. You
know, I've had a pretty easy 15, 16 years doing
no agenda. And, you know, I was like, oh, boy,
you know, oh, I got to get up at 7. So this is
really not too much of an issue. And as if, no,
not as if, in his perfect timing, he, I ask.
Jonah Mandel, Pastor Brian's eldest son. He's
14, just going into high school. I asked him
a couple of weeks ago, I said, would you be interested
in doing a podcast? He said, yeah, I would. I'm
like, okay. And I met with him yesterday and
oh man, he's got ideas. He's not afraid. And
he's like, yeah, but I want to do a podcast and
came up with a name, Young and Faithful. Love
it. Which I think is a great name because it
has... For older people, it kind of harkens back
to Young and the Restless. So it has like a familiarity
to it without it being that at all. So young
and faithful. And, you know, he has all those
topics and I'm going to set them up and, you
know, co -produce with him. But the idea is to
teach him how to do it himself. And that's the
thing we need more and more of. When I was with
Glenn Beck a couple weeks back. And I'm telling
him about, you know, the problem is we're all
here in our 50s and 60s. And where's the young
people? They're on TikTok. They're on Instagram.
They're doing reels. They're doing nonsense.
They're throwing it away to Silicon Valley. And
it's just, they create it and it's gone. And
all they're getting is some light dopamine hits.
And it's not, or heavy, it's not really effective.
It's not doing anything for the kingdom. And,
you know, we need this younger generation. to
come in and start doing what we do. And it turns
out Glenn Beck is starting his own program called
The Torch, as in passing the torch. Nice. I'm
not quite sure. You know, he wants to talk to
me about it. He said, you know, we got to, you
know, Glenn Beck, a very busy guy, but, you know,
we'll connect at some point. He already has a
CEO, Ford and everything. So he's got quite the
operation. Yeah. So it just all started to come
together. And I'm like, and then as a part of
that, Pastor Jimmy, I'm always going to say Pastor
Jimmy on the air because I need to put that respect
on your name. Thank you, brother. We need to
be doing something, you and I. Yeah, I agree.
And somehow I felt this would be the start of
something. This is what God's moving me to do
because that Reese's peanut butter cup, you know,
that's the thing that I feel we can help people
with. And when I say people, I'm talking about
our people right here in Bridge Church. And it's
not something I can do on my own with my own
program, no agenda, which is a whole different
area. But it's also not something you can do
from the pulpit. You know, it's like a coming
together. And so if you don't mind me just switching
into a topic here, the floods that we witnessed
here is very polarizing to people. How can God
do this? Why did God let this happen? And what
immediately, this is my world, what I see is
people going into their timeline and, oh, it
was, you know, this company was over cloud seeding.
Not true. It was 5G towers manipulating the weather.
Not true. And by the way, I say not true because
I've been down these rabbit holes for the past
two decades and I know it is and isn't true.
And yeah, there's stuff happening, but this is
not it. And so even for myself, it's like, how
can we help people through this time of understanding
that? I don't think it's even possible for you
or I individually to talk about this in our own
sections, in our own places, and get the message
across. And so I'm asking you really as a new
believer. Why does God let that happen? I mean,
that may not be the right question, but I think
that's the question people are asking. That is
a question people are asking. The thing about
it is we tend to, when things are going good,
we give God the glory. And then when they're
going bad, we immediately throw him under the
bus and back over him a couple of times. You
know, it's like, you know, it's always one way
or the other. But what people tend to not think
about, and this is like getting up to the 30
,000 foot level and looking back down. God set
this world into motion. He created it, right?
The Holy Spirit hovered over the waters. Genesis
1, He created man, Adam. Then He created Eve,
woman, from Adam and all that. So we know that.
But then a... It was kind of like, Adam, you
had one job. Don't eat that. Name these animals,
and we're going to fellowship in Eden. We're
going to create an amazing world here. One job,
one thing. And when that one thing went away
through the sin, the rebellion, and them enacting
their own will over God's will, what happened
was the world went into a fallen state. And the
thing about it, the world will not be redeemed
until the end of time. And so now we— That's
a hard concept to grasp. It is a hard concept.
That's hard to grasp, man. But they were the
only ones. They were the first ones. They had
one job, and that was to walk in fellowship with
God and with one another. And when they failed
in that one job—now, God made a way to redeem
all of that, but it was plan B, not plan A. And
so we live in a fallen world. People run stop
signs. People drive drunk. guns don't kill, people
kill, they pull triggers. I mean, the list goes,
it's ad infinitum at that point. But for whatever
reason, young in my faith, I was able to reconcile
that quickly. Part of it came when my mother
passed away while I was in college. She was only
45 years old. And I was a student in school,
a ministerial student. I was training for the
ministry, theology. And my own family was coming
to me. I'm still a young Christian saying, how
could God let this happen? Right, exactly, exactly.
And you know what I had to say to one of my uncles?
It was hard to say it, but my mother had been
a smoker her entire life since she was 12 years
old. That was that generation, right? And she
also drank tea nonstop all day long, never worked
out a day in her life. She was sedentary. She
wasn't overweight. She was unhealthy. And her
body crashed. Because not taking care of it,
not stewarding it well, is that a character issue?
It's not a character issue. It's probably an
ignorance issue, not knowing what we know now
about the human body. And I had to look at my
uncles and say, in a sense, she did this to herself.
She did not take care of herself. I grew up with
her, and I know how unhealthy she was. And how
many times I racked my brain of ways to try to
get her to quit smoking. You know, when we first
finally got, you know, windows that rolled down
in her first big Lincoln Continental. Electric
windows. I would roll her windows down, you know,
like, you're making me breathe your smoke. But
anyway, all that, it's a funny way to say it.
But at the end of the day, I understood very
quickly, God didn't do this. God gave her every.
For love, he gave her choice, the power of choice.
So then when we go back to the floods, force
majeure, there's even a technical legal term
for it, act of God. There you go. That's a confusing
thing in this world. We say act of God, and it's
a legal term. Here's the thing. The world is
groaning, according to Romans 8. It says that
the world is literally groaning. You look at
the... The floods, you look at tornadoes that
have been happening. Earthquakes. Yeah. Wars
and rumors of wars. All of that's happening.
Matthew 26. As we continue to move towards the
last of the last days. Whatever that is, it could
be another thousand years. It could be ten. It
could be tomorrow. It could be tomorrow. But
we know the earth. It feels like the earth is
groaning. That's not an act of God. That's just
the Lord said, this is how things are going to
go. He didn't create. He doesn't create calamity.
He doesn't create chaos. If anything, he creates
order out of chaos. And so it's so easy to just
blame God. Why? And we all want, that's the golden
question. Three -letter word with a question
mark. Why? Why? Why? And I came early on in my
faith after my mom passed and all my family's
coming to me going, how could God do that to
her? And she was the best one out of us all.
And I'm like, God did not do that to her. She
did that to her. She made choices. The reason
why somebody runs a stop sign, other than it
being a health event, which, by the way, in Naples,
we saw a man have a health event and run off
the road and do offense. Oh, really? We didn't
tell you all that. No, you didn't. We're standing
at a stoplight, and we see this guy rolling slow
in an old pickup, and he's looking out the window.
His face is contorted, and he's having a seizure.
Oh, no. And we saw, I mean, and I'm sitting there.
I said, Annette, that man's having a seizure.
He's having a health event. And fortunately,
there was a police officer who saw him and he
pulled in behind. So we didn't have to stop,
but we just immediately prayed for this poor
man. But things happen. So other than that, we
make choices. And sadly, our choices ripple effect
into other people's lives, good and bad. We make
good choices. It's a blessing to everybody else.
We make bad choices. It's a ripple effect into
other people's lives. God didn't do that. He
gave us because of love. He gave us the power
of will, free will, choice. Which is the, this
is what I've learned. You cannot, of all the
things that we have similar to animals and the
world around us, the one thing that is different
is the ability to love. And you cannot, you know,
Nazis in the prison camp couldn't force the prisoners
to love them. Even though they could force them
to do horrible things, you cannot force someone
to love you. And the way I see it, the way I'm
interpreting in my early walk here is that's
actually the hack that God put in. It's like,
you got to love me of your own free will. The
way I've made you, no one can force you to love
me, love someone else. So that's up to you. It's
the one uncontrollable variable in another person's
life. I cannot override that. We can overpower
things and get a behavior, get people to do something,
but it's not out of love. It's just out of fear,
obligation, whatever. And so it goes right back
to, you know, you have to look at a scenario
like this. You know, why was there an 8 .7 earthquake
in Russia of all places? Why is New York? having
rumblings and seismic activity. There's a lot
of things. I do need to add one little thing
about earthquakes because about 12 years ago,
for I think marketing reasons, they changed the
number scale from Richter scale to something
called the momentum scale. So an 8 .7, which
just gets great headlines, really is more like
a two and a half on the old Richter scale. So
this is... It's actually evil that this was done.
And nobody ever defines that. It's not definable.
It's just like, Daymonette and I are always laughing
about that. She says, it's 106. I said, Daymonette,
is that the temperature or feels like? No, it's
the feels like temperature. Okay. This is a marketing
thing, and it's done for different reasons. I
think maybe for climate change agendas. It's
a marketing for news, you know, like, hey, 8
.7, this is insane, this is crazy. Of course,
even a three on a Richter scale is a big deal.
Right. So it was up there, but, you know, you
can't equate it to what happened in San Francisco
in 1991. We were still on the Richter scale.
We were still on the Richter scale then. I'm
sorry for the interruption. No, no, that's spot
on. But back to where we were going, but that
is a good point. The earth feels like it's groaning,
right? Things are happening. Events happen. Sometimes
things just happen. And when people say things
like, you know, well, you know, that was meant
to happen or that was meant. I'm going, I don't
think so always. I don't think something's meant
to happen just because it happens. I think people
make choices when it comes in the purview of
our control. We make choices. People make choices
where they build homes. People make choices.
Oh, yeah. I don't want to. Victim blame, but
these are choices. But it is true. I mean, if
I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, which was Tornado
Alley back in the 60s and 70s, it's kind of moved
more towards Oklahoma up north a little bit and
west towards Dallas -Fort Worth area. I mean,
it's moved. But I grew up there, and I had a
choice. I could stay there and live now. When
I was a kid, I didn't because we saw the May
11, 1970 tornado to kill 27 people in Lubbock.
F5 came through Lubbock. And so I made a judgment
pretty early on. I don't like tornadoes and I
don't really want to live where there are a bunch
of tornadoes, you know? I mean, so as a young
adult, I went to tech one semester, then I moved
to central Texas, you know? Yeah. Well, what
does central Texans have that they've got? Well,
we are the flood, the floodplain of the United
States. Yes. We have, we have, we have a severe
drought and heat wave and yeah, there's. I choose
to live here. Yeah. I also choose to live aware.
I choose to assess my area, live aware, and then
you have decisions to make regarding that. I
live by a creek. That creek's never flooded over
the original bank that our house is built on,
ever. I found that out before we moved there.
So it's not technically a flood zone. Right.
But when those rains were coming and all that
was happening, I was down there checking the
bank, never even. hardly rose at all so but that's
us we live three miles from the guadalupe that's
right comfort where it comes through comfort
i didn't i wasn't worried about that so again
back to choices back to free will and does god
cause chaos does god's god cause and then use
people say well he allows it well i guess technically
you could say that but it's not like he's green
lighting everything that happens Things are just
happening. He also gave us the stewardship over
the earth. Absolutely. And so that's up to us
whether we're doing it well or not and where
we build, where things erode, et cetera. So in
my mind, it's like this thing's going to groan
and crack and creak for the rest of times until
end of times. And lives will be lost and it will
feel terribly unjust because children will pass.
Yeah. Good people will die because of the earth.
volatility. I mean, we're just a spinning ball
in space. I mean, it's like, are we sure it's
a ball, Jimmy? I mean, or a Frisbee, I don't
care, whatever. I mean, it's, it may be a Royal
Frisbee, but a Mattel Frisbee, but at the end
of the day, you know, he threw me with that one.
Sorry about that. Totally threw me off my track.
Yeah, about the Earth that would just spin and
ball. Well, it's like you say about the Internet.
It's amazing. Any of this stuff works. It's true.
It's amazing that this thing can stay as stable
as it has in space. No kidding. That stuff blows
my mind. That's a good way to look at it, man.
Just say, it's amazing. All of this works regardless
of what you think. It's amazing our weather patterns
aren't worse than they are, if you think about
it. We're a ball in space orbiting with a bunch
of other balls and stars and comets. And it's
amazing a comet hasn't taken us out already.
I mean, so I have to look. I just assess those
things and look at them. And then I say. It's
a miracle we're alive at all. We're the most
vulnerable thing on planet Earth. We are so vulnerable.
And the weakest out of the whole animal kingdom
for the most part. Yeah, no kidding. Except for
our fur babies, maybe. They're a little more
spoiled than we are. But literally, you have
to take these steps back and look at things and
try to be objective to say, okay. Am I going
to blame what Scripture reveals to be a completely
loving and gracious God who desires to bless
His people? Am I going to blame Him because the
river rose? Am I going to blame Him because a
tornado went through a trailer park in Post,
Texas? Am I going to blame Him because somebody
ran a red light? So this is just a lack of wisdom,
a lack of knowledge, a lack of... The scriptures,
this is, this is what I'm learning. It's like,
I go like, so, well, it was written. This has
all been told through thousands of years and,
and, you know, okay. I mean, you can, and if
you don't believe it, this is the, this is the,
as a new believer, this is just the, the hardest
thing. And thank you, by the way, for that. That
was a great explanation. I'm going to, I'm going
to use that. And I wouldn't even say for just
new believers, there's people who've. loved God
for years, but have never reconciled pain and
suffering and accidents and these things that
happen in the world. I had to early on because
I was faced with it with my mother passing away.
And she was the best out of our whole big family.
I come from a large family and she really was
the most righteous, truthful, loving. sacrificial
person in the whole group that's why my uncles
who were wild honky -tonk hero kind of guys you
know yeah who were saying how could god let this
she was the best one why not me you know that
yeah it's that immaturity and that inability
to be objective and say well we all got stuff
right we all abused our bodies or we've not taken
care of ourselves and it's a crapshoot on who
that's going to land on next, right? For example,
we know that Steve Maxwell, our friend from Florida,
he had a health event back in October, November,
and he died for 15 minutes in an ambulance. was
brought back, revived, resuscitated, resurrected,
whatever. Coma for two weeks? Coma for eight
days. Eight days. Walked out of the, and now
seeing him now, he looks like he could play a
professional football at this point. It's a miracle.
Dude is shredded. He's working out. What happened?
Well, that event provoked him. I got to take
care of myself. And man, is he ever doing it.
I mean, he's probably in the best shape of his
life. Yeah. I mean, he looked fantastic. I was
like. Dude, you look like Adonis. It was funny
because we were at their house. They had a dinner
for all the attendees, and it started raining,
and then Steve is moving these big parasols on
the terrace, and they're heavily weighted. And
these things, they've got to be 40, 50 pounds.
I'm like, Steve, can I help you? And he gives
me a look. I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. My bad.
I was looking at you at the old heart attack
crippled guy. Walking out of the hospital after
eight days in a coma. He's like, no. Just moves
it right over. It was fantastic. But this all
feeds into what we're talking about is that God
has given us this privilege to steward this life.
And there will be things we have no control over.
something falling off of the building. Every
day. Every day. Every day it's a miracle we're
alive. I mean, this stuff works at all, right?
Yeah. And so we have to think that way and be
okay with that and reconcile. Everybody has to
reconcile suffering, pain, injustice. We all
have to reconcile those things to think it's
a privilege that we have a single breath in our
lungs. You know, we can get mad at God over all
these things that happen. Or we can say, thank
you for letting me live this life. Thank you
for letting me be born for such a time as this.
Thank you that I'm here and I'm who I am. Whether
it works good or not or I'm in the best scenario
or not, I'm here now. This is what we have now.
And then I always use this W -I -N -N, what is
needed now. So what is needed now in this time?
And to me, it's to help people reconcile pain.
But also they've got to reconcile blessing because
we don't do real well with that either. No kidding.
When things are going great, we tend to get soft
and weak. And when good times make weak men,
you know, we tend to not do well when things
are good. This is why I instituted the praise
break. Did you start that? I just came up with
it one day when I wrote a daily grind. I'm like,
yeah, exactly. And so I do it all the time now.
When something goes my way or something good
happens, I go, praise break. Just throw my hands
up. Praise break, just for a second, because
it just resets your mind for a second. Like,
where's this coming from? This is great. I want
to be happy about this moment. By the way, every
morning I start off with, you know, well, good
morning, Holy Spirit. And I go, good morning,
Lord Jesus. Good morning, Abba. Thank you for
the roof over my head. Thank you for the food
on my table. Yes. That's it. Yes. That's it.
And then I'll go on and, you know, get ready
for my Bible study, whatever. Those two things,
like. We don't even realize sometimes we're so
privileged. Like, thank you for the roof over
my head and the food on our table. The two most
basic elements. And you've got to do that stuff.
And you're right, it resets our mind. And we
have to do that often. We've got to recalibrate
the scale. Every day, several times a day. Remember
the old scales that had the rusty... Oh, the
knob that you twirl? The knob that was rusty.
You had to reset it every time. They were never
accurate, right? No, of course. They were like
four or five pounds off. They still use those
at the airport. There you go. So you've got to
recalibrate that thing often. We have to do that
with ourselves, especially in the face of calamity
and tragedy. and injustice, all those things.
And for whatever reason, the Lord gave me the
grace to do that early on so that I've not had
to wrestle with my faith or the fairness or unfairness
of the world. That stuff just doesn't move me
because I'm like, I can't say that's unfair.
It's amazing. I even get a breath in my... Like,
we got some bad news about our cabinet's drama
that's been going on the last night. It's not
over yet, brothers. Not over yet. They think
it is. They say, we're not going down there.
Forget it. You owe us X amount of money. I mean,
it was a really unjust thing. Yeah. I could get
real torqued about that, or I could just go,
hey, so we may end up paying twice the amount
for these cabinets than we should have. In a
fair world, in a righteous world, but sometimes
things aren't fair. Sometimes, and I'm not going
to get torqued about it. Yeah, my mom, as long
as I can remember, Adam, life is not fair. She
just always said that. I think every parent,
that's parenting 101. But I don't know if parents
today are still saying these things, brother.
I don't know if they are. I don't know either.
I mean, I was watching a news story yesterday
about... Parents who are using AI chat bots to
make up stories for their kids. You know how
you make up a story or you read a book, obviously,
but you'll make up a story, a fun little story
for your kid. And so saying, okay, chat GPT,
make up a kid's story. The moral being brush
your teeth and make this the, you know, these
the characters and then off it goes. I'm like.
No, no, no, no. And so when I was sitting here
with young Jonah yesterday, I'm like, you know,
I'll get some jingles going and I'll email it
to you. He says, Mr. Adam, I don't have an email.
And I knew he didn't have a phone. He has a watch
and his watch, he can text and call. And the
only apps are controlled by his dad's phone.
And I'm just sitting here going like, that's
so. awesome that is so awesome wow this is a
kid who reads books of scripture he's really
you know there's a there's a hopefully a a pastor
in the making right no doubt this kid's got it
all over no doubt young man um he plays golf
you know he's he's he's doing stuff he plays
music he writes devotionals for the for the for
his class and for his buddies and like yeah and
is he missing out Didn't seem like a disconnected
young man to me. Not at all. Yeah, he seems very
in tune with everything that's going on and seems
really mature. And I'm like, we are, we collectively,
we're really, and this kind of brings me to the
things that I, see, I got my, thank you very
much for your daily grind today. You had Ephesians
6 .11. Well, you mentioned you read Ephesians,
so that got me thinking about Ephesians. That's
why I did it this morning. I was like, oh, I
read through that again. Pastor Jimmy does this
daily grind every single day, sends out, I think
you send it to a lot of people on text message,
and you always send one to our little besties
group, the four of us with Tina and Annette,
but you always send me separately, and we have
our own little conversation going there. But
I always, if we've spoken or if I've had any
kind of... verbal or audible contact with you,
I see where these daily grinds come from. Oh,
we were talking about that the other day. And
so, and I said, I think the other day I said,
you know, God moved me to reread Ephesians, you
know, to get my, my, my spiritual warfare armor
on and get ready for all the things that are
coming. And so then when I see that show up today,
I'm like, wow, that's so awesome. Thank you.
I appreciate that. Through conversations and
friendships and relationships. You'll say something,
Tina, Annette, whoever. So maybe Brian here or
whatever, Pastor Brian. And then that gets my
mind leaning. And there are these constant, we
call them God taps, God wings, right? Where you
get these reminders throughout a day. And so
that was a reminder of, because I was thinking
about Victor Marks too. I'd read some of his
stuff. Because he's on warfare a lot. Obviously
he's got a war mindset. But I was thinking about
that and I was thinking. you know what, there
is some attack going on. I need to get back into
Ephesians 6 especially. I just went right back
through that. Some attack? Yeah, I mean, right?
Some attack? Yeah. You know, I try to explain
to nonbelievers and say, you know in all the
movies they got the little devil on one shoulder,
the angel on the other. This is real. This is
real, except they are. Eight feet tall. You can't
see them. The angels, they're not as cute as
you think they are. They're not running around
like cherubs with little bows and arrows. No,
no. They can knock you down with one fell swoop.
And then there's the enemy, and the enemy is
very ugly and very, very grotesque looking. And,
you know, there's so much. As I become more aware,
I know that there's physical manifestation. These
things are. popping up around us you know sometimes
they move into our dimension if you will so where
we can see them or really feel them right and
i just really want people to Think about that
and just be aware that all the time this—and
it's in Scripture. Very clear in Scripture. It's
all throughout Scripture, but Ephesians, especially
with the principalities and—come on, Pastor Jimmy,
you're better at this than I am. Well, Ephesians
1, when Paul's praying, he talks about Christ's
overall principality, power, might, and dominion.
And all of those are spiritual in nature. And
then in Ephesians 6— He goes into principalities
and powers. I even read commentaries on that
even recently because I like to go back and just
brush up on things, what really smart people
are saying, see if I'm in alignment. And not
always, but that's not always a bad thing because
they're just people too. But the scholars generally
agree that all of those are literally spiritual
entities. It's not talking about government.
It's not talking about... Physical rulers. It's
talking about spiritual rulers in heavenly places,
Ephesians 6 talks about, and Ephesians 1. So
these are real. These entities are real. The
devil is real. It's not an old Flip Wilson thing,
you know, the devil made me do it. Remember that?
It's not that. It's literally there's an interactive
life that we live with realms that we can't necessarily
see. On an ongoing basis. I think this is a big
key to getting into young people's hearts and
minds. Because if you say, hey, there's this
stuff going on that you can't see with your naked
eye, they are much more inclined to believe that.
I agree. Because, you know, there's a lot of,
of course, we always go through cycles of new
age and spirituality and UFOs and all this stuff.
But I even see it with Joe Rogan, who... I text
him maybe once a month, you know, if I see a
good show or something happened. And I literally
saw good and evil pop up in one week. And the
first one was this Tallarico state rep who, and
I want to be real careful here because, you know,
his seminary school and his church, his denomination,
wherever he's coming from. does not align with
mine, doesn't mean that he may not believe in
the same things, but he has a very, and this
is what I call the sparkle clergy, has a very
distorted view when you, instead of saying Jesus
is real, he's like, well, Jesus is a pattern.
You know, like, no, okay. And so he was justifying
a lot of evil doings in our world. based upon
his interpretation of scripture. And I could
see, first of all, I know Joe well enough that
He was like, okay, I don't think he was really
buying all of it, or he was very guarded. But
then within the same week, this guy Chad Wright
pops up, and he's just ministering to Joe. And
he says, Joe, your analytical mind, this is exactly
what we need. You're going to be a great preacher.
I can't wait to see what God's going to do with
you. And he was just going like a step beyond
what I ever said to Joe. But I texted him, and
I said, 100%. Chad Wright is praying for you.
I am praying for you every day, and Joe, thousands
of people are praying for you. That was it. I
didn't say, and by the way, great episode. I've
sent him stuff like that before he answered this
time, which told me he moved a little bit. But
what I was seeing is here's a guy who believed
in UFOs, believed in the multidimensional layers
of the universe. If you look at his journey,
you know, it just keeps coming back to, well,
where did it start? And I think he's ready. He
even said in that interview, so in order to get
to where you are, Chad, right, you have to believe
in this. You have to have faith that that is
true. Bingo. There it is. There it is, faith.
And I think that clicked with him. I'm sure it's
super scary. I know how. anxious you can be about
this and making that big step. But I want people
to really think about that, the spiritual beings
that are all around us, because it's much easier
for this generation to accept that because there's
so much we don't see that people easily believe
in. Exactly. And, oh, by the way, this has been
written about for thousands of years. So just
read this book. You know, check this out. You'll
be astounded. And that's been so helpful for
me because I've done all kinds of breath work
and, you know, you name it. You know, I've done
it. My mom was part of a group called the Mind
Control Group, which is pretty funny considering
what kind of job they had. And she would go into,
I can go into alpha and then to beta state and
then all of this stuff. And, you know, so I was
kind of grown, I grew up with that idea. Like,
yeah, you can probably do that, hypnotism, all
these mystical things. But when you just say,
hey, look at this, look at this story, look at
this truth that is written here, read that and
you'll get it. And then you can, and, you know,
and Hollywood has... knows that these stories
work, the good, the bad, the evil, the villain,
because it's true, because that is the life that
we're living in, and it feels natural to us.
So I'm so hopeful that we can propagate this
and have people look at it. Ephesians is just
such a great thing because... It involves warfare,
which you don't really expect from, oh, the godly
Christian people. Sweet, nice people. Hey, man,
I got a helmet on. I got a breastplate on. I
got a belt on. I got my special shoes. Exactly.
I got a shield. I got a sword. I got all this
stuff. And I'm going to battle every single day.
And, you know, that's really something I hope
that we can. we can pass on to these new generations.
And I'm excited to see where Jonah will go. I
want to see more of our youth. I'm going to dedicate
myself to trying to get more of them to do stuff.
And we know that this Gen Z definitely is considered
to be more conservative by nature. Many are looking
at faith. So part of the warfare that we as,
I'm going to say it, elders, have to help them
with is people like tolerico this is a danger
we have to we have because it's so it's so believable
like oh okay so i can be a godly guy and all
these other things and you know an abortion would
be okay too so i don't have to have a confrontation
about that with with other people right right
and yet we were born into a world at war it was
at war before we were born into it And now that
we are born again, born the second time, the
spiritual birth, we're drafted. We signed our
draft card and we said yes to Jesus. That's why
I'm in the prayer unit, right? Yeah, I love your
hoodie, man. You're rocking one of your great
hoodies, one of your 30 hoodies. Pretty much.
But it's true. And we have to help the next generation
understand. I think you're right. I think they're
more open to it. I know when I was a youth pastor
out in Southern California, we had a massive
move of God. But we also had massive spiritual
warfare. I mean, literally where we were in the
high desert, that's where all the rave parties
started, where the cult was so heavy. We were
out walking around our church, and it was right
up next to a desert draw, like an old river that
only runs during the flood season, right? So
it was like almost a canyon. And down in the
bottom of it, we found a site where animals were
being sacrificed against our church. I mean,
it was like coming against us because our church
stood. I mean, we were a strong church and we
even had a whole ministry dedicated to what's
called SRA, Satanic Ritual Abuse. We had counselors
that were... that were wired and trained to deal
with that because it was so prevalent in that
culture. It's not even a bad idea for here because
it's everywhere. Here's the thing I found out,
and this is just kind of a side note, but it's
important to say, when we lived in Southern California
in the high desert, Victorville, Apple Valley,
Hesperia area, which is known to be a very spiritually
dark place, I actually was more alert, more in
tune with God, closer to God in the sense that
evil was obvious. Nobody hid it there. I will
say that about California is nothing hidden.
It was out in the open. You knew what you were
dealing with here in the South and in Texas,
Texas is like the South on steroids. It's a whole
nother level of independence, a whole nother
level of we're on the Republic of Texas kind
of thing is that people here are known for their
niceness. We're known for the decorum. They're
known for their sweetness, give you the shirt
off my back, which is a beautiful part of our
culture. The only problem is it can also mask
what's really going on and cover. So people can,
I love you, brother, and give you a hug, and
you don't know they're stabbing you in the back
in the next conversation. So at least there,
the enemy was visible. And boy, was he ever.
I mean, I learned a lot. I got put on a crash
course. of what spiritual warfare is about and
the real stuff. I'm talking way beyond things
that go bump in the night. So how do you make
yourself aware of this every day? I mean, do
you? I do. Are you thinking about it every day?
On the days I don't make myself aware, the things
that happen make me aware. I'm reminded. Right,
if you don't watch your six. Because you don't
think 24 -7 on a single thing. We're not singular
by nature. We're thinking about a million things.
We're busy. We're doing tasks. We've got things,
boxes to check, podcasts to do, sermons to write.
So we've got stuff going on. So you don't think
about it all the time. But there is an awareness
that you can live with. I call it living with
your eyes wide open. You know, you just, you
live. I think Victor Marks calls it the four
A's. You assess. You're aware. You there's a
third one. I don't know. And then the last one's
act. So there's there's four to it. I can't remember
the fourth one. But anyway, it's this attitude
of living aware, living with assessment, living
with situational awareness. Well, we have to
do that spiritually, just like we do. For example,
when you and I walk into a restaurant, we always
joke about. Who's going to sit with their back
to the wall facing the exits? Who's going to
keep their eyes open? And I'll say, do you have
my six? Right? Right. So we live in a world where
we need to be situationally aware. And men should
always know to walk into an environment. My dad
was a first responder, so I got this. Where are
the exits? Where are the exits? Or the entrances.
You notice they always light the exits. Make
sure you know where those are. I am that guy
in the airplane who actually will look when they
say the closest one could be behind you. I always
look back. Okay, I see it. I know where it is.
And I'm looking for the marshal. I'm trying to
figure out who's the marshal. Who's the marshal?
Is it he or she this time? Is it like Liam Neeson
or is he just a regular dude? That is so good
because the devil's playground is the phones.
I'm just going to say it. I agree. It's the devil's
playground. I agree as one who admits I'm addicted
to this thing. Because so much of my life as
a pastor is communication. Of course. So naturally,
I'm communicating with people from my congregation,
other pastors. Yeah, well, the communication
part is okay, but it's everything else. But that's
not what all this is. This has a lot more than
a phone. Yes. Right? It's a gateway drug to a
lot of dark things. When we travel, I get in
the habit of I'm tall, so if I'm standing behind
somebody, I can see what they're doing. And I'm
always amazed at the speed of the fingers flicking
and moving and zooming and commenting and this
and that and back and forth. And it's unbelievable
if you step back and watch. have the most broken,
inaccessible phone possible. Not always possible
because those phones usually break by themselves,
but I try to purposely make it difficult or unattractive
to use. And we were in New York for Tina's birthday
and 85 % of the people on the street were walking
with their phone in their hand, walking and on
their phone doing all that quick fingered stuff
that I'm talking about. The other 15%, we're
holding their hand and guiding them. Keep them
from running into the stop sign or whatever.
So that situational awareness that we have or
actually don't possess anymore because we're
just doing this, we're doing it in the car, at
the stoplight, we're watching TV. And I think
the text messaging also has, there's a whole
bunch of issues with that, but anything else,
it is sucking you into the devil's play. I know
I sound like a... Like a crazy Southern Baptist
guy. It's sucking you into the devil's playground.
He's a curmudgeon. But it is true. It is absolutely
true. And the whole phone ecosystem is geared
towards knowing what you're doing on other apps.
I mean, we could go real deep into that, but
it is geared towards keeping you engaged because
engagement is money. That's just the bottom line.
But the more engaged you are with what's in your
hand, the less aware you are of your surroundings.
No, zero awareness. Which means we're all basically
sitting ducks. You go into airports are where
I see it the most. Oh, goodness. Everybody's
on their phone because nobody wants to engage
another human being. You could run through the
terminal naked. Half the people wouldn't even
know it. Wouldn't even notice. Wouldn't even
know it. No. So being spiritually aware is something
that is already suppressed below our actual physical
awareness. And getting people to be cognizant
of what they're doing, what they're thinking
of, you know. Tina and I did Bill Loveless' Christ
-centered marriage course here through the church.
It was on Zoom, actually. And that—now, we've
only been together for a little over a decade,
so we're pretty good and fresh and new no matter.
We haven't had enough years for real irritation
to build up. But it changed our perspective of
each other to such an enormous degree, so beautiful,
because— I now can recognize, and you know, I've
been divorced twice. I've had a colored life.
But there are things that still to this day,
the way my wife might say something or ask me
something, typically or in the morning before
I've had coffee or my eighth cup. And I'm like,
wow, old Adam would have been irked by that.
Right. And my spiritual awareness is telling
me, The enemy is knocking on your brain, brother.
That's the enemy right there. And he's trying
to make you feel bad about something which 99
.9 % of the time had no malice intent at all.
We all tend to say something that's like, oh,
there's a little undertone of something there.
But because of the spiritual awareness of, and
not everything you do is the devil or the enemy.
I think people have other issues, but a lot of
the time it is just something is said and the
enemy is like, oh, I have an opportunity. Oh,
I can make him feel bad about this or angry or
whatever. Man, how can we teach young people
these skills? How can we teach our peers these
skills? Yeah, there's certain martial arts that
it's not about how strong you are. It's about
how well you can leverage the strength of your
opponent. Yeah, your opponent. And that's how
the enemy works. It's not that he's strength.
He's a deceiver by nature, a liar by nature.
And so all he does is leverage our missteps,
our mishaps, our mistakes, our moments. And he
leverages our own energy. That's right. That's
what jiu -jitsu is. It's exactly the same. And
so he's the ultimate opportunist. How can we
teach the next generation that? How can we make
them more aware? There's also another caveat
to this that you can become so hyper aware that
you see a devil or a demon behind everything.
We become very legalistic. Or just hyper spiritual
to where you can't even have a normal conversation
with another human being without it being something
weird. So there is that tension and that slash
balance, which are the same thing. Balance and
tension are the same thing, the same way that
we have to find to where. I'm situationally aware
in the natural. I'm situationally aware in the
spiritual, but I'm not weird about it. I don't
sit in a restaurant or an airport on a plane
and stare at everyone that makes me nervous.
I also just want to enjoy my steak. Exactly.
So there's four levels of colors that the Patriot
Academy, they're taking that class, where they
talk about the first level is white. And that
means you're completely unaware. You're walking
through the airport with your phone in your hand,
bumping into people and stumbling over things.
That's the white color? That's white. The next
one, there's four of them. The next one is yellow.
Yellow is where you want to live, where you're
situationally aware, but you're not hypervigilant
at that point. You're not walking into a restaurant
with your hand on your holster or having your
hand on your gun because you're assuming something's
going to happen. That's where you want to live.
That's the peaceful state where you can enjoy
your dinner, but yet you're still cognizant.
Mellow yellow. Yeah, mellow yellow is what I
call it. The next one is the level orange. Orange
means there's a potential threat. That's where
you've assessed the situation. And you see something.
Somebody, you're at a gas station with your wife
on a trip. Stop it at a Love's or one of those,
you know, what's the big one? Buc -ee's. Buc
-ee's. Thank you. That one. You're there. And
there's a lot of people. And there's some sketchy
people that pull up next to your gas pump. And
they're looking over at your wife. Now you've
moved into potential threat mode. You're in orange.
And that's a vigilant place. But the last one
is really the scary one. That's the red. So you've
got white, yellow, orange, red. Red means there's
imminent threat. So once potential threat, now
this is imminent threat. In other words, they're
coming at you. They've made a move. And that's
where you have to act. And so make the analogy
to the spiritual from that. It's exactly the
same. Yeah. It's exactly the same. When they
taught us that principle, we took our staff.
through the constitutional defense course where
we got to shoot 300 rounds. That was a blast,
you know, with, with our, our ladies and our
staff are shooting in there, man, they're amazing.
So, but, but when I learned that I made the,
the, I just made that jump within a nanosecond
of this is exactly what spiritual, the spiritual
life is the same. You can live very unaware of
your surroundings. Sadly, most Christians live
at the white level. They're unaware. I'm not
talking about holding a phone. I'm just talking
about they're not in the Word. They're not in
the Scriptures. They're not getting their buckets,
as we use that a lot. They're not getting their
buckets filled up. So they have nothing to draw
from when things do go to yellow on into. So
it's the same way spiritually. I've got to be
aware. that there are nefarious things happening
around me in the spiritual realm. There's a very
real enemy. Scripture says he's a schemer, a
strategist, a liar, a deceiver, a manipulator.
All of those are accurate descriptions of the
work of the enemy. Whether you're talking about
Satan himself, that would be the ultimate E,
enemy, or the enemy in terms of minions and the
demonic forces and wicked hosts that are there
that the Bible talks about. So the yellow, that
would be the place you want to live, where you're
aware of your situation. You do connect the dots
and go, eh, that's not normal, or that's beyond
the scope of just happened. There's something
behind that. The Bible calls it the spiritual
gift of discerning of spirits. And that's where
you actually, the Holy Spirit helps you see behind
it. Can everybody develop that? Absolutely. That
spiritual gift? Because it's a gift of the spirit,
not a gift of the person. Right, right. So I
don't possess that gift. I get to use that gift
because the gift is the person of the Holy Spirit
who lives in me. Right. So he has these nine
manifestation gifts that are available to me
whenever he wants to manifest them if I'm open
to them. See what I'm saying? I've got to will
submit myself to him, be led by the spirits,
what it means. That means in a given situation,
I'll know what's going on. So, for example, In
that yellow zone, you're aware. You can see things
that are happening, but you're not spiritually
seeing a devil behind everything. Wait, my light
flickered over there. Oh, man, I saw that in
the movies. That's got to be demonic. No, power
surge because we live in a small town, and that
happens in small towns. Power surges everywhere.
Or the toilet broke in the men's bathroom. That's
not demonic in nature. It just broke. That's
plumbing. You know what I'm saying? It's plumbing.
It happens. Those things go away. They break.
So all that to say, on into the orange and the
red. It's the same of, is this a potential threat?
Is there really potentially something dark going
on here? We should be practicing this. Oh, absolutely.
We need to practice this daily because you should
be able to go from never white, always yellow.
To orange, red, quick, back. Okay. Red, I'm back
down. Okay, back to yellow. That may be a conversation
we need to have on a broader scale with our church
family and students and young people. Using that,
I love that color scale because that's just a
good template. It's not a Bible term or you won't
find the four color scale in scripture. but you'll
find those degrees of awareness in Scripture
in various things. So anyway, I think that would
be really something to talk about. So that's
just one of the nine spiritual gifts? Yeah, the
gift of discerning of spirits. So we have eight
more times we've got to talk. Yeah, absolutely.
How long have we been talking? An hour and 11
minutes. Yeah, we've been going on for a bit.
I would love to do this again with you, brother,
because there are a couple other things that...
are really on my heart that I see out in culture.
And a big one we could talk for a whole episode
about Israel. Absolutely. And Epstein and Mossad
and AIPAC and, quote, the Jews. This is a huge
thing that is just wrecking culture right now.
It's wrecking people's minds. And there's so
many different ways to look at this. I would
love to talk to you about that. Definitely. I
also would love to come back and talk about the
things that our president is doing that people
don't even see or understand because it's so
superficial. The way I say it is he's playing
4D chess. Everybody else is playing go fish.
Yes, that's true. The problem is we're the fish.
We're just sitting and going, give me a nugget
on my news feed. But when you see... What he
is actually doing – Glenn Beck knows the president,
and the president always isn't a big fan of Glenn
Beck. And he said, you know, I talked to the
president, you know, it was a couple months ago.
I heard him say that. And he said he has changed.
He said – Yeah. Because I said, you know, is
he a believer? Does he really believe God saved
his life? And I don't think Glenn said that.
but he said he has changed, and he says, I don't
care anymore. I'm going to do what I set out
to do, which is good for our country. And just
at a high level, lowering our debt, that is underway
in multiple ways, increasing what's in your pocket
in middle America, not the elites on the coast,
which is completely upward wage pressure. So
maintaining the dollar as this flows into it
with this, I love to talk about stablecoin one
day and what all of that means, how the tariffs
really work. It is to a point, he's already said
it, that there may come a day, and I would say
probably right around the midterms, when President
Trump will send everybody a check for $1 ,000.
We made this money. It's not borrowed. It came
from the new policies we put in place. I'm sure
that above a certain income amount, you won't
get it. But here's your check, everybody. And
again, that will be used for political reasons,
but that's life. That's part of it. And it'll
have his signature on it and his picture, probably.
Probably right. Like one of those picture discs.
Um, but, but the truth is it, it really, he really
is doing these things. And, and finally, um,
there's a video going around now, kind of a viral
video. Please don't go looking for it. Stay off
your phone. Uh, and it's a whole, I lived in
London for five years and it's a whole bunch
of people from the UK. Now, of course it's, it's
edited, you know, could have been man on the
street stuff is always deceptive because you
can make it look like everyone's happy. Everybody's
sad, but all these Brits. came to America on
vacation this summer, and they stayed for anything
from a week to a couple of weeks, and they're
all saying, you know, it's unbelievable. You
know, in Britain, all we hear is America's horrible,
America's racist, it's a dangerous place, it's
falling apart, it's no good. And every single
one of them is saying, this country is so great.
And what they all say is everybody... Wants to
chat. Wants to say hi. How you doing? What do
you do for a living? Everyone's grinding away,
as they'll say. You know, they're trying to get
something done. They seem to have purpose. And
I just wanted to pass that on because you can
get the feeling that we suck. And that's intentional.
That message is intentional. And there's your
enemy. There it is. I've lived in a lot of countries,
and we are, to my experience, the best country.
to be in, the best country to live in. And they'd
even have, like, look at the pride these Americans
have. pride these Americans have with their flag
on every porch hanging out. You know, they're
proud to be American. They're proud of where
they are. Yeah, we are very aware of our shortcomings
and our issues, which is, of course, what the
enemy uses to continuously stomp us down, stomp
us down, stomp us down. So I just want to pass
on to the people who are listening to Living
Up in a Down World that we... We live in a great
place, and we can make it even better. There
it is. Even better. I'm with you. And it can
rub off. It can rub off on other countries. And
we absolutely can do this through the Word of
God, through Jesus, through following Jesus,
living like Jesus. And I've been doing this two
and a half years now, I think. It's fun, Brother
Jimmy. It is fun to live this way. We get to
do this. Yes. I've heard that before somewhere.
You have some of the best slogans in the world,
man. You've got a lot of them. I'm a simple guy,
so I need those simple little reminders. We get
to do this. This is exactly right. I would love
to do this with you again. The sooner the better.
Tina and I were talking last night. We're going
to do a hiatus for Curry and the Keeper for the
summer. Oh, a little break. And so, you know,
maybe you and I will have some time to, you know,
to do these on a more regular basis. I'm in.
Because. What we just did was basically have
a lunch meeting. Yes. This is what we do at lunch.
Yes. We talk like this. When we have one of those
rare lunch meetings. Rare by ourselves. Those
are rare. That's true. And it's not that we don't.
In fact, we adore our wives. Absolutely. And
our friends. We hang out with a lot of people.
We love hanging out. But this is what I crave.
I don't just miss it. I crave it. I need to do
these with you. Iron sharpens iron. Amen to that,
brother. That's what it is. Amen. Well, listen,
as we land the plane here, I feel like we just
started the conversation. Yes. So, so let's just
see where this goes. Okay. Let's, let's have
a little dream time. Yes. And maybe even some
of our listeners might have a good suggestion
about what we do with this. Where do we go from
here? Yes. Because I want to continue to do living
up in a down world and that's been sick. We got,
she got sick that last and she, this is her first
day back to the office cause she's been so sick.
So I knew she wouldn't have the voice or energy
to do this, but we'll continue that and you'll
continue to carry in the keeper at some point.
But I'm, I am wide open to whatever God wants.
Well, he's pushing me. I got a thumb in my back
on this one. Yeah, exactly. And that's why when
I got all this, I'm like, I got to reach out
to Jimmy. We have to do something. If only just
for ourselves and for me, what we just did here.
It's for our church. This is for Fredericksburg.
It's great if we reach other people. Right, right.
But we have, what do we have, 1 ,100, 1 ,200
people in the congregation? Yeah, easily. I want
them also to hear this side of you, brother,
because I do, because it just seems like it's
not enough time. Yeah, it's never, and it's always
different when you're standing up on a platform.
Of course. As opposed to sitting at a table talking
and riffing off of one another. By the way, I
super really hyper enjoyed. You and I being on
the platform together. That was fun. Each with
a microphone and riffing off of one another about
our heart. You from a more technical standpoint
and visionary standpoint of Godcaster. Me from
the practical application. And to my visionary
from the spiritual standpoint of how the potential
impact of this, of getting the gospel out over
the airways. And just crushing the prince of
the power of the air as the scripture calls the
enemy. Exactly. And just taking back the airways,
taking it all back. I think that was a part of
why I came here this morning is because that
felt good. It did. You know, we look pretty good
on stage together. We take this thing on the
road, man. I'm seeing tour buses. Somebody even
said, a couple people said that to us. You need
to take that on the road. Well, we'll start small.
Sounds good, brother. Well, we will do it. We're
on it. And with that, we are out of here. And,
man, we cooked on for an hour and 19 minutes.
I feel like we could do a three -and -a -half
hour easily. Love you, brother. Love you, too,
brother. Thank you so much. Glad we get to do
this. Glad we get to do it together. Amen. All
right, everybody, have an amazing week on purpose.