Chadd Wright
👤 PersonPodcast Appearances
Now, I've always wanted to elk hunt, man.
I've just, you know, I've just never made it happen.
There's a lot that goes into it, as you know.
And so they're taking me to New Mexico.
They bought some tag from a landowner and they're going to take me out there elk hunting.
It's a that's really impactful to hear you say that, Joe, because I think that is is and has been my exact same experience, you know, and we've been do we've I've been kind of public for the last five years now and it's.
It's been kind of slow, but again, it kind of went big there for, like, within two years.
Like, the YouTube and stuff blew up to the point that I'm nowhere, obviously, on the level that you experience in your life.
But, you know, you can't go out in public without somebody's going to stop you.
In all these comments and all this stuff, you know what I mean?
Like, I don't even know if I'm going to be able to do it like the Yukon race, the Yukon 1000.
We didn't finish that.
We went 435 miles and David started having circulation issues in his lower body because he's paralyzed.
Blood doesn't flow very well.
And like his leg is usually the size just of his femur, you know, or his bones.
And by the third day, his legs were the same size as my legs.
He sent me some pictures of some of these bulls.
And he started to develop these pressure sores on his butt, which is very, very dangerous for people who are paralyzed, just from sitting in that kayak for 18 hours a day.
But, like, we didn't complete that.
But we were out there, like, truly in wilderness, like, struggling, struggling.
I said, what an animal.
against not only the miles, but just the environment.
I love to hear all these hippie people talk about Mother Earth.
It's like, Mother Earth will freaking kill you, son.
You talk about Mother Earth around me, that tells me one thing.
You ain't spent much time in nature.
But, man, we're out there just, like, struggling through this.
And it became something that, for my teammate, he physically wasn't in a place that he could safely continue.
Nothing would grow except for the genetically modified seed or whatever they put out there.
That so refreshed me, dude.
Being out there, the experience, the struggle, it's brutal, man.
Like 120, 130 mile days, 18 hour days in this kayak.
You're getting three hours of sleep, having to cook all your food.
It's all self-contained.
But like I come out the other end of that, man, I'm just like so... Dialed in.
Without those experiences...
I agree with you 100%, man.
It is for me, for sure.
I have to have something.
You know, on the micro level, daily.
On the micro level, I have to have maybe two things, big things a year that I look at and I'm like...
I don't know if I can actually finish that or not.
And then it forces me to train, to learn, to prepare, to plan.
That's when you get, if we want to move toward mental toughness and how this kind of preps you and keeps you going through life, like that's where all the mental toughness is really built is through the training process.
Like on race day, you shouldn't be getting any more mentally tough on race day.
Yeah, you waited too long.
But your brain is just a muscle like any other muscle in my experience.
If you stop exercising it – and people want to act –
Like there are people out there, maybe like me or like David Goggins or these people that have become so mentally tough that like we're just good.
Like we should be able to show up anywhere, anytime and perform and just crush everyone.
That's not how it works.
Like every one of us, we have to prepare and train and train day in and day out and go through the process in order to perform.
That's a never ending thing.
That people want to take or believe in.
Just three of seven project dot com.
If you want to come train with us, that's what I mean.
That's my passion in life is is not only my faith, but teaching.
and everything that we do is uh we have training exercises you know once a month or something and i'm out there with you suffering with you beautiful and uh go check it out if you want to come hang out and joe man i can't thank you enough for your generosity there's many times during that conversation that you could have made me look like a fool i'm sure and uh you had a lot of grace for me i enjoyed it very much thank you very much all right bye everybody
So where we're hunting at is on the border of Arizona and New Mexico.
Yeah, so I bet you have great genetics out there.
I can't believe this is going to be my first elk hunt.
It's going to be rifle.
Now, I'm a big archery guy, too.
When I started hunting whitetails, that was what I did was bow hunt and still bow hunt quite a bit.
But this is a rifle hunt.
My wife a couple years ago bought me that RX-7 with the carbon fiber riser.
I always wanted a bow with a carbon riser because I remember hunting so many hunts in the southeast, whitetail hunts, walking into the stand and your hand just getting so cold carrying that bow around.
And how long does that stay in the soil?
Like does that ever come – can you ever get that out of the dirt so that other things –
They've probably got it mapped out for the next 10 years in advance.
could or would actually thrive there again?
I guess after many, many years, you could.
And those parallel limbs, and they're so short and compact.
You know, the old bows we used to shoot back in the day, the old Viper Techs and all that from Hoyt, and Matthews had the old—
SQ2s and Q2s, and they were just long and unwieldy in the stand.
You can make, like you said, 100-yard shots now with a compound bow.
I mean, there wasn't nobody shooting them bows at 100 yards.
Because they just weren't tuned, I think, so finely as the bows that we have today.
I mean, that RX-7, man, every time I shoot that bow, it amazes me at how that arrow just flies like a laser beam.
I'm like, good night, man.
I actually listened to that episode that you did with him, man, because I've ordered a pile of meat from them.
you can't even get much energy out of that thing but it's the extra challenge you got to get real close you got to get real close and be real accurate yeah i went i took mine on a mule deer hunt up in uh the wasatch range in utah two years ago and yeah i mean you you got to get within seven to ten yards
of that animal with a longbow.
You know, Fred Bear, he might could have made a 20 or 30 yard shot.
But, you know, you got to get right in their laps.
And I was on public land.
It was a wilderness area.
That's where I like to hunt.
I mean, I like wilderness areas.
That's the highest designation of preservation that Congress can award to a piece of land.
So if you're in a wilderness area, you know, there's not going to be no horses.
Nobody's going to be clearing trails with a chainsaw up there.
If you ever want to go in the backcountry, find a wilderness area.
That was a great episode.
Find a wilderness area.
we were watching these mule deer and you know i'd watch them in the morning they'd get up and feed well then they'd i'd wait for him to go lay down and then you had to move on that mule deer and use the terrain put the terrain between you and him and they'd be bedded down and you could get with i the closest i got to one was about five yards
And he was bedded down under a tree, just kind of out in this big old rock.
I was way up in the mountains, big old rocky area.
Well, I stalked all the way up there to him, and I got about five yards from where I saw him bed down at.
You know, I lost sight of him when I started to stalk.
And I got there, and I was laid down up against the rock, and that tree was right there.
And I thought, you know, it took me about an hour to stalk over here.
I said, I wonder if he got up and moved.
and I peeked my head up over that rock, and that big son of a gun was just looking right at me.
I'm talking about eye to eye, five yards.
He jumped up and tore out of there.
That was the closest I got to killing one.
But if I would have just laid there with that longbow and been patient and waited for him to stand up off his bed, I could have drew and shot him right there.
I don't know if he heard me or not.
I had shoes on, but, you know, I'm stalking across big granite rock slabs and stuff, so it was pretty quiet.
I mean, there was no indication when I picked my head up.
He was still laying there on bed.
There was no indication that he knew I was there other than when he saw me peek my head over the rock.
And stand up and tear out of there, you know.
Eastern or what type of turkey?
You know, his buddy's a big squirrel hunter.
Pretty much since I was about 13 years old.
Steve's buddy's a big squirrel hunter.
What's that guy's name?
Yeah, he's got a bunch of feist dogs.
I think he hunts off of mules.
I'll tell you what we ought to do.
We ought to set up a big squirrel hunt with everybody.
Me and you and Clay and Cam, and we'll just... We ought to set up a big squirrel hunt one weekend.
Boy, if we could get him to come in and cook, too, that would be outstanding.
Because I have a hard time making this wild game taste worth a flip.
I'm just not a good cook, man.
Yeah, I'm just not much of a cook, man.
Now, do you do much of your own cooking?
Yeah, I do almost all my own cooking.
I'm so blessed that she cooks because I've got a long ways to go.
I actually made a goal of mine I've been working on.
I cook for her one night a week.
And it's worked out a few times.
Well, I'm going to try that when I get to the house.
My cousin raises all the cows we eat.
My mama makes all the bread we eat.
My wife grows all the vegetables that we eat.
I'm going to say seasonally.
You know what I mean, seasonally.
My cousin raises all the cows.
You know, we get our water right out of the ground.
I take buckets of water once a week, go collect water.
Comes right out of a spring, some old rednecks found a spring back in there and ran a PVC pipe out of it, you know.
And so we just go there and collect all our water.
Well, you know, we'll order some stuff from the grocery store, you know.
It wouldn't be hard at all to ramp things up to the point that we were 100% eating what we could produce as a family unit.
Yeah, I mean, being here in Austin, I don't go to the city much.
No one person is going to produce everything that they need for them and their family to eat.
So we know where they're coming from.
We know how they're living.
We know what they're being fed.
Like I said, my mama makes bread.
My wife can grow anything.
I can bring in wild game meat at any time.
Everybody thinks about when the apocalypse comes, you know, you think you're going to be eating all these deer and elk and stuff.
You're going to be eating squirrel, buddy.
Squirrel and birds, maybe a possum every now and then.
Them deer is going to be gone quick.
If you want a really subsistence game,
You know, get your meat from the wild.
You got to be able to hunt small game.
Squirrels, rabbits, coon, possum.
I live on 700 acres in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
You got to be able to hunt them.
You know, you go out and try to hunt a coon without a dog.
You ain't going to kill no coon.
You know, I can take a good dog and kill 10 coons in an hour if I'm in a good spot.
Raccoon's pretty greasy.
Again, you've got to cook it right.
Other than elk, I've found elk seems to be really, really good, even if you're not a skilled cook.
To me, anyways, it's the best wild game meat I've ever ate.
But like these squirrels, coons, things like small game, even rabbit, they can get real tough.
Yeah, that's a coon right there.
You cook it in a crock pot.
A lot of this small game, you slow cook it, you know, and that kind of helps keep it moist and break it down.
I come here to the city, and you see the result of packing so many human beings into one area.
I don't know if a coon does or not.
I've killed a bunch of bears, and I know they do.
Yeah, that's the one thing I didn't like about bear.
I've killed two black bears, both of them with my bow, both of them about 500 pounds.
Whoa, those are big black bears.
They're big, big black bears.
No, these are Virginia.
There's a place in Virginia called the Great Dismal Swamp.
It's about a 110,000-acre continuous block of land.
That's what's left of it.
It's eat up with bears.
I mean, I would take my coon dog down the swamp bottom.
And during springtime, when them bears were out with cubs, I couldn't even hardly run my coon dog up and down through there.
There were so many bears in there.
And them sows would get...
They would get mad at us for being in there and start popping their teeth and making racket.
I took a young man with me down in there one time.
First time he ever been coon hunting.
I was hunting a dog called a leopard cur.
And I cut that dog loose in there and he went down in there.
Yeah, how are you going to feed them people?
I thought, all right, this is good because coon hunting can be rough.
We walked down in there and I had this young guy with me.
We got up to the tree and I walk up to that dog and leash it up.
And I'm fooling with the dog, getting it leashed back on the tree there.
And he said, what is that?
Other than the way that we figured out how to do it.
I said, what are you talking about?
He said, stop and listen.
And I stopped, and that dog quit barking for a second.
And all of a sudden, I could hear bark raining down on the leaves above my head because it was summertime.
But, you know, as you get older, you start to try to optimize everything because the world tells you everything's going to kill you.
About that time, about a 300-pound black bear comes sliding down out of that tree like it was on a fireman's pole.
I'm talking about that jugger landed right in the midst of me, him, and the dog.
And he's standing there.
He's just frozen because he's never been coon hunting before.
I mean, how are you going to feed them?
And about the time that bear hit the ground, I snapped the leash off of that dog because the dog was my only chance to run this bear out of our vicinity.
And those these cur dogs are real gritty.
I mean, they won't back up from nothing.
They're like a game cock, man.
Walking around the city, man, it's just coming from where I live.
And that dog tore out after that bear ran him out.
I looked over at that boy.
I said, you've got the gun.
You just stood there and didn't.
He said, well, I thought that happens all the time.
But that's how many bears was in this area, man.
So I'd be out there whitetail hunting.
You know, and a big old 500-pound boar bear would come up.
You know, I've had them climb the tree that I was sitting in, the tree stand.
But, you know, if a big one came by, it's hard not to shoot a big trophy bear, especially with a bow.
So I've killed two, but when we killed them bear –
There was a lot of poor, real poor people that lived around in there.
Well, there was one man named Zachariah.
And don't take this as negative.
He was about a 90-year-old black man.
He hunted year-round because he had to hunt to eat.
We'd see him out in the field deer hunting in the middle of the summertime.
Wouldn't nobody say nothing to him because they knew he had to eat.
But I'd call Zachariah when I'd kill that bear.
Well, then he would call all of his people in the community.
I mean, people love cities.
And we'd take that bear down to the skinning shed.
And within 10 minutes, we'd have 50 people lined up at the skinning shed with grocery bags.
There's cool stuff in cities, right?
And so we would cut this bear up and process this bear, and these poor people, they'd come down there and get them a big piece of meat.
Well, by the time everybody was done, they wasn't maybe but one piece of meat left, you know what I mean?
Because I don't like bear, but I sure do like killing them.
Have you ever had it cooked well, done well?
We've cooked some at the house.
But I haven't – I mean, I haven't – that's what I'm saying.
I'm not a good cook, man.
But me, when I come from where I live, you know, dude, I'm in the woods every day for hours and hours.
There's a way to make it taste good.
These bears, we were killing.
The reason they were so big, they were eating corn and soybeans.
Now, they'd eat a pile of deer guts, too.
Yeah, they'd eat everything.
I would gut a deer out there.
If I killed a deer, I'd gut it in the woods.
I don't gut them back at the house.
I just gut them in the woods.
I don't go to town hardly ever.
Well, see, I got to start running in the right circles with people that can cook.
i have a little mountain cur you know we go out and squirrel hunt for hours every day and but coming to the city it's like the air burns my nose it's like i've been coughing all day today you really notice it i noticed i can smell it it smells now we're staying right in downtown the smell reminds me slightly of lagos nigeria
I'm going to go ahead and tell you, if you can make an old boar hog taste good, you have got to be a master.
All that stuff just takes time, you know?
It's so much easier just to cook a ribeye.
I think I got a good chance of getting one.
These boys are serious.
Have you been up to the Yukon Territory at all?
What were you doing up there?
It's been quite the journey, both on the macro and the micro level, to wind up here at this table with you.
I spent about the last month sitting with a good friend of mine, one of my biggest mentors in my life.
I'd sit with him for hours on end while he was dying.
uh and um then i i had to leave him and i went out to the yukon sorry man uh we need to talk more about that by the way and uh i had i've got a teammate that i went through seal training and all with he was paralyzed 14 years ago
And he wanted to go on an adventure.
And I said, well, there's a race out there.
It's a thousand mile kayaking race.
It's the longest kayaking race in the world on the Yukon River.
He prepared for about two years.
And we went out there and did that on the Yukon River.
I came home and my buddy died the day I got home.
And so it's been a, man, it's been a while, last month or so.
Have you ever got to sit with anybody?
Not while they're dying.
It will teach you so much, man.
About what's important.
Like, I don't know, man, it just gives me the daggone chills thinking about it.
which it's 100X in Legos.
And the crazy thing is, is the type of person I used to be, I would have thought, you know, going and sitting with someone who's dying is a waste of time.
Like I got other things to do, right?
Well, this man, he mentored me.
It literally burns your eyes and your nose to breathe the air there.
uh hunting and everything working all that his name was don tidwell from the time i was about 13 to the time i left to go become a navy seal well i did my whole navy thing i got out i reconnected with dawn for a while but then i started this company now that we have three of seven project
I have a curse from my military service.
I have this unique ability to be able to forget you ever existed.
When I get on some sort of mission,
And you're not part of that anymore.
I can forget you ever existed.
And so I lost touch with him because of my own selfishness and been doing this thing for the last four or five years.
But even in Austin, I can kind of smell the sour, you know.
Well, his wife called me and said, look, he just wants to see you one more time.
He's got pancreatic cancer.
He's got maybe two weeks left.
He just wants to see you one more time.
Took a lot of courage for me to go show up in front of him and sit down with him and say, Mr. Don, I'm sorry I haven't been the friend to you that you deserve.
He's laying there dying.
He looks back at me and says, son, there's nothing to forgive.
And then I'm looking at these poor people, man, like these people laying on these park benches and all this stuff.
I mean, just like and then from that point, I'd go sit with him twice a week for eight or nine or 10 hours, just sit right there by his bed.
I read the scriptures to him.
He only had a third grade education.
We read about the gospel and we read about the resurrection and we read about creation and.
The first thing that you learn, I think, when you sit with somebody that's dying is that death is the great foe that sits above mankind and scoffs at our wisdom.
You get what I'm saying?
Death is this great foe.
It is the enemy that sits above us and mocks the wisdom of man.
Mr. Don had built basically an empire within the community he lived in.
He had made millions and millions of dollars as an entrepreneur.
Couldn't read or write.
But he still had to succumb to this process that's coming for all of us.
And I'm like, it just makes you think.
Like, I don't know, man.
That was like—that just hit me.
we think we want to look up at the sky and we want to explain how the cosmos began and we can't even solve our own biggest problem.
We can't solve our own biggest problem, which is death, right?
It's the biggest problem for all of us.
We can't figure out how to solve it, how to overcome it.
Like, we don't think about this enough.
Have you ever thought, why are you dying?
Have you ever thought about that?
the human's propensity to stoop lower than an animal.
Like, all of us, we understand death as, you know, we go along through this life, and then something happens.
One of our organs fail.
Cancer happens, whatever.
And we say, that killed us, right?
And that thing did kill us.
But your entire life is leading you to that point.
Like, why do you have to die?
Like, it's by necessity.
So why does that happen, then?
Like, we have the propensity as human to stoop lower than an animal.
That's a great answer, man.
I love thinking along those lines, man.
In the worst-case scenarios.
Is chewing tobacco going to kill you?
In the worst-case scenarios, yeah.
But is there a solution?
Like, is there a fix for...
Like, is anyone searching or even contemplating that?
I mean, I understand there's so much that goes along with the story that all of those people have.
I found a turd on the side of the trail today, a human turd.
It was a terrible log, too, man.
My wife went back and took a video of it.
You might see it on YouTube in the next couple of days.
But, yeah, man, just sitting with him makes me contemplate these things.
And for me, obviously because of my worldview being shaped by Scripture, it makes me go to Scripture and bounce these questions off of the Scriptures, you know.
I saw a lady sitting on the edge of the sidewalk today.
I think it was powerful, too, because, you know, I'm sitting with a man who's important to me, who is bearing this burden of death.
And by the way, he bore it well.
It was amazing to me that I could go and sit with him and he would talk to me and take time to spend with me, even in the midst of this terrible situation.
uh, process that he was going through.
I told him, I said, you could have just laid there on, on this bed and not said a word to anybody and nobody would have blamed you.
It's, it's your, he couldn't sit still, you know, and, and, uh, cause he was in so much pain.
She was smoking crack or something.
But, but then, you know, he had these same questions that I'm thinking like, why does this have to happen?
for me then to have to go and search the scriptures and then come to him with the scriptures and share the scriptures with him to you know give him some of the answers that he had you know it's like i would read a scripture to him and he would say because again mr don had a strong faith in the message of what we call the gospel uh
Now, my wife's in recovery.
But he didn't know all the other stuff because he couldn't read.
And I said, it's just mind-boggling to me, me being a man of the country, to see the human's propensity to stoop that low.
So I would read a scripture to him and then he would say, read another one.
read another one and i was see it was the it was the wildest thing dude i've never seen it i've never seen anything like it before i've been i've been following the lord jesus for uh 13 years now i was reading these words off of the page not even explaining them to him i was just reading him these scriptures and they were manifesting like power in him
Like you could see, you witnessed a change in his expression and his attitude.
It was like these words I'm reading are manifesting power and hope and like literal energy.
Like I would come over and read the scriptures to him and he would been in bed for the last four days, wouldn't get up for anybody.
I'd read the scriptures to him.
And then next thing you know, we'd be out on the porch.
Like he'd get out of bed and we'd go walk out on the porch.
I'd have to help him walk.
And his wife kept saying, you're the best thing for him right now.
I'm like, no, you don't understand.
It's not my presence for somehow I'm reading him from these scriptures.
And it's like manifesting some sort of power and hope in him.
And it like would give him energy in some way.
I've never seen it happen.
Like, I've never witnessed that before, you know?
And she looked at me and she said, well, I've done it.
Dude, it was wild, man.
I've heard people get mouth cancer.
Like and I would read these scriptures to him, Joe, and he would say, yeah, I understand that now.
And like we're reading complex things like we're reading about the resurrection, like the bodily resurrection of all the saints at the second coming of Christ.
And, you know, he asked me one of the questions he asked me.
has anybody ever really explained to you what happens when we leave here?
You know, because he's wondering these things like I'm about to I'm about to depart this tent, buddy.
What's about to happen?
And I'm like, well, the only answer I can give you, Mr. Don, has got to come from these scriptures.
And so and I would read these complex scriptures to
him first corinthians chapter 15 and second corinthians chapter 5 and uh he would he would under like it would make sense to him in his mind more than my mind could comprehend the truth of what i was reading like that was what was wild it was like that stage in his life this veil this veil between this realm and the next realm was getting thin and
My woman is so good, brother.
And he was taking in the truth of this word and processing it logically at a level that I can't process it because this veil for us is still so thin, unless you hit that DMT, right?
She came out of it, right?
We can talk about that later.
And so I'm witnessing it was wild, dude.
And, too, like, crazy things happened, like,
When I'd sit with him like every, you know, couple hours, I'd get up and go check in with his wife or something.
Yeah, that's the main thing is mouth cancer.
I mean, by the grace of God.
And we had a camera in the room with him and we could watch what he was doing.
And when I would walk out of the room, you give it a few minutes and you would see him start to look above him.
And he was he would be reaching like this for stuff above him.
And like we didn't know what he was doing.
We never even asked him.
I wish I would have asked him, like, Mr. Don, what are you seeing?
Like, what are you reaching for?
Well, then back when I would come back in the room with him, he would stop doing it.
And then toward the end there, he had a stroke.
His whole left side of his body was paralyzed.
And so he was just, you know, he couldn't sit up or do anything.
And then finally, at the very end, when he passed away.
He literally sits up out of, he sits up erect in his, out of his hospital bed, reaches both of his hands straight up like this, and then lays back down and departs the tent.
So I started researching this.
one time with my buddy Jesse Itzler.
What the crap is going on here?
I found this hospice nurse on Instagram.
I don't remember her name.
But she's like posting all these videos of people doing this exact thing.
And they're reaching for stuff.
And she's a hospice nurse.
Do you have it on your phone?
She's got a lot of following.
He took me out there when all this stuff started.
She's got a big following.
Just look up hospice nurse on Instagram or whatever.
But she posts all these videos of these people.
They're like calling out.
But this is another one.
That's not the one I watch.
It's a very common thing, and they're calling out a lot of times the names of loved ones that have passed before them.
They're seeing something.
He said, Chad, he asked me to come coach him, teach him how to run a long ways.
They're seeing into the other realm.
Oh, it's that lady on the far right over there.
That's the one I watch.
She's a little crazy, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you.
She puts out some wild stuff, man.
This is common stuff, man.
That this woman is not a believer.
And as far as I know, I don't think I don't know what her you know, what how her worldview is is on in terms of what happens after this.
I said, all right, I'll come out there.
But she's just sitting here showing you saying, hey, this happens.
Yeah, we can't figure out why.
We can't figure out what's going on.
Obviously for me, when I see that happening, when Mr. Dawn sits up in the bed, even though he's literally paralyzed by a stroke, it's an impossibility.
And me and Jesse became fast friends.
He sits up in his bed and reaches both hands in the air and then lays down and departs the tent.
What do I have to believe that, like, his transportation had arrived?
And to witness that, how does that not, like, strengthen your witnessing something that's tangible?
He said, I'm going to take you out here to L.A.
It's like how does that not strengthen at least your faith that there is something coming after this?
He said, I'm going to take you on a few of these interviews with these people.
Mouth cancer is pretty nasty.
He said, but I want you to realize that if you decide to do this, your life will never be the same.
He's seeing into a different, he's seeing into the next realm.
Jesse's an interesting guy.
And I don't even need all these signs and wonders like I don't even need all that, man.
He's one of my biggest mentors.
I mean, it's great when you get the opportunity to witness things like I got to witness with my friend, Mr. Don, and just see his faith and see that the word manifests power in him.
Like, it's great when you get to see it, but you can get too carried away with all that stuff, too.
It's like, I don't know, man.
You know, I'm wondering, Joe, if the Almighty ain't calling you.
I think a lot of people are wondering what the Almighty is doing, what he's working in you.
See, Scripture is dripping with something that's called election.
A lot of people get mad about me talking about this, but this truth that we will never choose God, the Almighty.
All forms of cancer are pretty nasty, but mouth cancer can really screw you up.
I enjoyed talking to him.
We will never choose to believe.
As a matter of fact, Scripture actually says over and over again, the whole message of the cross is foolishness.
Yeah, I love him to death, man.
Some dude died on a cross.
What does that represent to man?
That represents weakness.
But yeah, he took me out there.
That represents defeat.
The message of the cross is foolishness to man.
We will never choose to believe in the message of what we call the gospel.
That is that Jesus Christ died.
died on the cross according to the scriptures, he was buried, and that he rose again by his own power according to the scriptures.
was, yeah, it put me back really.
And the only way that we can or will ever believe that, like truly place our faith in that and everything that's contained in that statement right there, because there's a lot there, you could literally spend the rest of your life meditating on that right there, the gospel, the what was done on the cross and by way of the resurrection of Christ.
Some of the places that we went were very similar to some of the areas that we deployed to.
You would never get to the end of it.
You would never comprehend everything.
You would never search it completely.
to its bottom, you will never believe that.
And the only way that you can believe that is if the Almighty, in His grace, basically makes you alive spiritually.
Because these things are spiritually discerned.
They're not logically discerned.
They're foolishness to man.
These things must be spiritually appraised
And so the Almighty, by His grace, makes you alive, literally spiritually alive, so that then you can discern the truth of not only the gospel, but everything, the totality of what is contained in Scripture.
It's called the doctrine of election.
And so when I say, I wonder if the Almighty's calling you, what I mean is I wonder if you are one of the Almighty's elect.
And if you are, you better hold on to your britches, son.
And I, you know, that's a personal thing, man.
And I don't I hope you don't take that as any disrespect.
Seeing it's odd how much we have in common.
Seeing what what a special human being you are like, it's exciting for me.
to be able to hope that the Almighty is indeed calling you.
Like, that's exciting, dude.
Like, literally, I prayed for you last night.
Like, I literally, on your behalf, I begged the Almighty to basically make you alive spiritually so that you could have discernment
And be able to appraise these things that are in Scripture that have seemed like foolishness for so long to you.
They seemed like foolishness to me for a long, long time, dude.
We're talking about a bunch of wild stuff, man.
Well, I had I decided I wanted to become a SEAL because I wasn't really good at anything else in life.
And, you know, didn't want to go back to school and all that stuff.
But I decided I wanted to do that.
I finally went to join the Navy.
They disqualified me, sent me back home after boot camp, wouldn't let me go to BUDS, told me I never would be able to become a SEAL because I had a pericardial cyst on my heart, 7-centimeter cyst on my heart.
Research Navy SEAL pericardial cyst.
You can read the whole medical journal.
Came back home, paid for my own heart surgery as a civilian, showed back up in the Navy less than a year later, made it all the way through SEAL training unscathed.
So what did they have to do?
Yeah, they had to cut my chest open and take a big old cyst off my heart.
About from here to here.
Yeah, they peeled my pec up, peeled it up, cut me open right there, went in there and took that cyst off.
It took me about a year.
I was back in the Navy about a year after that surgery, you know.
But if it wouldn't have been for that, I wouldn't have made it through SEAL training, man.
I didn't even know how to swim, dude.
I didn't even know how to swim.
I was the most unlikely person to ever make it through SEAL training, okay?
Did you have any background in physical fitness?
Lord, no, I didn't, man.
It took me two or three months to pass a mile and a half run.
Made it through SEAL training, all this and that good stuff.
I had a very colorful career.
I mean, I've been through it all.
I've been in SEAL training at the end of our buds prep phase.
You know, I was awarded the hard charger award.
selected me the instructor cadre said you're the one that's gonna make it I was actually the only one to ever receive that award to make it through that training pipeline everyone else they had selected up until that point all quit but they selected me not based on my physical abilities but based on the fact that I had had a dang heart surgery just to have a chance to toe the line to try something that everybody quits anyways
After that heart surgery, when I went in the first time, I could barely pass the physical standards test that I needed to pass to get the SEAL contract.
If I would have went straight through and wouldn't have had that heart surgery, there's no way I would have made it.
I wouldn't have been able to meet the physical standards once I actually got the buds.
But when I had that heart surgery, and then I finally got to where I could, you know, okay, man, at that point,
I wanted it so bad because I had to go through all that.
You see what I'm saying?
I didn't want it that bad until I had to go through all that pain and fear and have my chest cut open and all this crap.
But, man, when I came out the other end of that, like I said, man, I was like a game rooster, man.
It was like you look into the eye of a game rooster and he's got one burning hot desire.
I mean, you're a man who appreciates combat sports.
You ought to go watch a cockfight one day.
I mean, that's what I had.
I just had this burning hot desire for this thing.
Nothing was going to stop me.
Made it all the way through.
Man, I had a lot of ups and downs in my time in the teams.
That's a three-hour-long story.
And I think it's the chemicals that they spray on the tobacco when they're growing the tobacco.
Basically, man, I got to my SEAL team, and they had slotted our entire team to cover down on Africa and a couple other European countries.
Because I'm like, there's a war happening.
That's the reason I joined.
Everybody that joined wants to go and fight in this war.
And here now, I wind up at this place that's not going to go where everybody wants to go.
And through the course of a couple of years, I just got involved in all manner of what I would call sin.
Sleeping around with women.
Hurting people on purpose.
Hateful, terrible person.
And the whole downfall of it.
is i was overseas i was on a and we had a range day the night before i had went out and just burned it down son i had no business going to the range that day i'm gonna go ahead and tell you but what do you do you get up and go to range right i'm sitting over on the range messing with my gun pretty out of it and i have a negligent discharge
And the guy that's standing beside me is my gunner's mate.
And it barely skims him in the side of his leg.
It was pointed down, thank God.
And that was the thing that, like, stopped me in my tracks.
Like, holy crap, Chad, if you keep going the way that you're going, you're going to kill somebody.
I don't think that people who live in the city, they've become acclimated to all of the constant noise.
I mean, I was involved in all manner of sin, buddy.
I had to go through a Trident Review Board, a Disciplinary Review Board, a Captain's Mass, the whole nine yards.
Luckily, I had a good enough reputation up to that point that I had guys that vouched for me, specifically my sea daddy, Jake Hubman.
he he wrote a whole long thing chad's chad's done well he's this is you know this and that and they presented that and the navy let me stay in keep my trident well went back home moved in with some lesbians still continuing on this this path or this just trajectory of just ugliness just hatefulness you know what i mean but i had kind of started hiding it a little more you know
While I was at work, I was like, OK, if I'm going to go to work, I'm going to have to square myself away a little bit.
You know, tell you how hateful I was.
This man, Jake Hubman, my sea daddy, he he started struggling with alcoholism shortly after I had that big mistake.
Well, I got back in the platoon, and they told us, they said, well, you know, Jake's struggling with alcoholism.
We're sending him off to this rehab program.
They said, just leave him alone.
Well, remember I told you I can forget people exist?
I just forgot he existed.
A couple months later, he killed himself.
But when I enter into that environment, like that noise is doing, it does something to me.
That's what kind of friend I was.
That's what kind of person I was.
Here's this guy who, that's the kind of person that I still am sometimes today.
There's literally nothing good in me.
Here's this man who had poured so much into me, literally trained me up, taught me the ways of war.
It's on account of his mentorship, probably that I was able to stay alive throughout the course of my career.
And I just turned my back on him.
When he was going through the hardest time of his life, he kills himself.
I don't ever get to make that up.
Does this describe to you the type of person that I was?
That's pretty bad, ain't it, brother?
I mean, that's pretty bad.
Like the traffic and the constant humming.
So I get back in a platoon, get ready, deploy again.
I'm keeping my wickedness under control, you know, outwardly, but it's still all there, man.
Well, we go up to Tunisia, North Africa, and Arabs attacked the embassy up there.
When all that Benghazi and that stuff went down, that happened all over North Africa.
So we went up there, re-secured the embassy.
We came back, we left there and came back to Germany.
to re-jock our equipment because that mission was over in Tunisia, came back to Germany to re-jock, and then we were going out to Nigeria.
It just, I feel like I begin to hold this tension within me.
And while we were in Germany, the only way for me to tell you this in just simple terms is we were staying in a barracks that was inhabited by some sort of demons.
And that was the genesis of my conversion, of me being made aware that, okay.
So I was in there with a couple of other guys.
I wish I would have wrote all this down.
I was laying in bed one night in this place.
There was nobody else in this building.
It was just me and a couple... There were me and a guy in one room and two other guys in a room across the hall there.
Well, I'm laying in bed, and all of a sudden I'm jolted awake by something that hits my door.
I don't know what it's doing to me.
And I lay in bed for maybe 30 seconds, and while I'm laying there listening...
I can hear some strange voices echoing up and down the hall of this building that we're in.
And so immediately I get up, open the door, walk out.
Nobody's in the building.
Go in my buddy's room beside me.
They're both passed out, but it scared me, dude.
I was like, what on earth is this?
These things, these things would, like the oven would be turned on, like these bumps and noises.
But more than all of that, there became this oppressive feeling of, like, evil in this place.
And the guys that I were with, that I was with in there...
They started getting freaked out about it, too.
We called our senior chief who had been staying there before us.
It was just like an old empty place that guys would come and stay in for a few nights before they left out.
We called our senior chief like, hey, man, did you have any strange experiences in this place?
Yeah, there's something there's something in there.
And so – but, like, I remember walking into this place, and there was a stairwell.
I would walk up the first flight of stairs, and then there would be a second flight that cut back, and there was, like, a landing up there because we were staying on the second deck.
You know, as a hunter, like how you have that sense when something is like staring at you, like you would I would feel this thing staring at me up there on that landing.
And I would fully expect to turn around and see some sort of something up there.
And I never saw it in physical form.
we started doing this research online about, you know, looking at these forums and stuff about this place that we were, you know, in and finding all kinds of other stuff about, I'm like, well, whatever is going on here, uh, I can't sleep at night.
Like I don't want to be in that place because it's, it's literally scaring me that bad.
The sanity check was the dudes I was with were getting freaked out too.
And, like, I wish I would have talked to them and written down the things that they were specifically experiencing.
Do you remember any of them?
It's been so long ago, man.
Like, the experience that I had was so powerful.
Like, that just is the one thing that sticks in my mind.
But I remember the two guys across the hallway, one of them had to leave.
They were going out to a different site.
And that dude, the other dude was left in that room by himself.
He moved across the hallway to stay in the room that me and my guy were.
Because he didn't want to stay in that room by himself.
And so I was literally at my wit's end with this.
I couldn't sleep at night.
How long did you stay there for?
This would have probably went on for about a week.
So why do you – I understand you love what you do, but, I mean, you could build a studio somewhere out in the mountains somewhere.
Yeah, this probably would have went on for about a week.
We were there for maybe two weeks.
And so I called my little brother at my wit's end.
Because, again, I just told you the type of person that I was.
I had no, you know, interest in spiritual matters.
I didn't believe in demons or spiritual warfare or God or any of that.
But I'm like here now I have encountered something that seems very real to me.
And and it's it's not in this realm.
Here's some sort of entity that I don't know how to combat.
I call my little brother.
Because I knew my little brother was a Christian.
And I said, well, here's one of these Christians.
They'll have a little bit of maybe a little bit of insight on this spiritual stuff that might be going on here.
He said, well, man, I said, I never ran into nothing like that.
He said, I'm going to put you in touch with my my pastor of my local church here.
His name's James Cordell.
James called me the next day and I told him what all was going on.
Well, he acted like it was no big deal.
I said, you don't understand.
I said, there's something in here.
I don't know what it is.
He said, ain't no big deal.
He said, put me on speakerphone.
He said, I'm going to walk around.
He said, walk around this building in up and down the hallways.
And he said, I'm going to pray.
And I put him on speakerphone.
I'm walking around this building up and down the hallways in my room.
He's praying against this thing in the name of Jesus Christ.
He says, all right, now, we had a little kitchenette there.
He said, you have some olive oil in there.
I said, yeah, we got a bottle.
He said, take just a little dab of that olive oil and just dab it on the top of your doorframe there.
Joe, I'm thinking the whole time, this is so stupid.
But what else do I do in this situation?
Let's give this a shot.
And I dabbed that little olive oil up there.
And we get off the phone.
we went i leave go to work we come back that evening wind down total like peace had returned to this place like i did no longer heard or felt or was experiencing any sort of fear or anything like it all was gone like i all the sudden it was just like oh
Okay, now I'm just in another little barracks room here.
Did the other guys feel the same way?
So this is what's funny.
I didn't tell the other guys that I did that.
Because they were all gone when I walked around with this crazy man on speakerphone.
I mean, in a certain sense, it's still embarrassing to tell that story today.
Again, this is foolishness, man.
You're asking me to tell this story on this platform?
It's hard, you know what I mean?
Because who's going to believe this?
I'm just telling you what I remember that experience as.
And it impacted me so much that it changed the trajectory of my entire life.
And the next morning we woke up and my buddy woke up in the room.
He said, what's all over the door?
And I looked up and that little dab of olive oil had somehow like dripped down and covered the entire door of the room that we were staying in.
And you could see it toward the bottom of the door, like the drips, like the whole door was like shiny, shiny.
And he said, what's all over the door?
And I said, don't worry about it, man.
I don't know what the crap that is.
I was so embarrassed to tell him that I had done that.
But it was just a dab of olive oil.
It was just literally a dab of olive.
I don't even know where that fits into the whole experience.
I don't even know where or how that fits in.
I don't even know what this thing was or why this thing would have been attached to a place.
I don't understand that, man.
And again, I'm not big on this whole spiritual warfare thing.
But after that happened, all that happened,
I mean, what you've done, man, is so cool.
no more nothing in this place.
I said, I have got to get my hands on scripture and figure out more about
this figure jesus who i heard this man praying in the name of right because there's obviously there was some power like being wielded there by the name of jesus in prayer and so i did i got my hands on a bible i started reading in the book of matthew
I tell people all the time, if you ever have the opportunity to go and see someone who is the best in the world at what they do, take that opportunity.
I began, again, through this, this was obviously the experience that the Almighty had chosen to call me out of darkness into the marvelous light of His truth.
I had seen the Bible before.
I had, you know, heard it read.
I had even read it before in the past, but it was never anything that meant anything.
I couldn't understand it.
Like, what the crap is this trying to say to me here?
I began to read in the book of Matthew, and I began to, well, for the first time in my life, I realized how all of that applied to me.
as the hopeless, wicked, ugly, depraved human being that I, like, my mind was awakened to my own state.
Like, I didn't realize how ugly and depraved I was.
Like, when I passed up on my friend and he killed himself, like, I didn't think nothing of that.
I just had this revelation of who I was and why I so needed something to save me from that.
And when I had that revelation, literally by the grace of God opening my, making me spiritually alive, able to discern the Scriptures, when I had that revelation, I read about Jesus, His life, His death, why He died according to the Scriptures, His resurrection, what that means for me.
Whether it's a runner, a fighter, a kayaker, whatever.
Like, literally, I was made a new creature overnight.
It's the greatest miracle that God the Almighty could ever work is taking somebody like me who was literally so useless, making me alive, making me a brand new creature, waking up the next day,
and being completely changed in how I see the world, how I see myself, how I see the words on these pages, how I see the Creator of the cosmos.
or a podcaster, it's so cool to be here and to get to witness what you do, how you do it, the level that you go to to make all this happen.
Nothing else that I have experienced in life produced that amount of change nearly instantaneously.
And I'll never forget walking down into the little platoon hut like the next day after having this revelation of the gospel and what it means for me and who I am.
And like, dude, I didn't.
It literally changed my desires.
Like, that's the miracle, right?
Like, how do you change your desire?
How do you internally change your desires?
Like, I didn't, I had no appetite for pornography anymore.
I had no appetite for the foul language that I used.
Like, I had no appetite for gossip.
Like my literal desires were changed.
And that was the ultimately more so than the whole thing that was going on in the barracks and the guy saying the prayer and this thing leaving.
Like that experience of being made a new creature and the realization of what on earth just has happened to me.
That was the thing and is the thing that I cling to so tightly.
Nothing else could have produced that type of change in me but the grace of God and the revelation that He's given me of who I am and who He is.
This has been from then to now just a long and arduous, sometimes joyful, but process of sanctification, essentially.
You're the best in the world.
So I don't know, maybe if you grew tobacco organically and then you chewed it.
One of the things that I pray most often is for the Holy Spirit
to conform me into the likeness and image of Jesus Christ at all cost.
That's so cool for me, man.
Well, first time I prayed that, that was hard to pray, man.
You read about Jesus in Isaiah 53.
What's it say about him?
He was a man of sorrow, well acquainted with grief.
Conform me into the image of Christ.
And that process of sanctification is ongoing.
If we don't talk here but for 30 minutes...
My understanding of the Scriptures is ongoing and progressive, even still to this day, and hopefully to the very day that I depart this tent.
It's everything to me, man.
It's literally everything to me.
Some people say, well, Chad, sometimes don't you have moments of doubt?
I got to see the best in the world do what he does.
Well, yeah, I'd be a liar.
Think about what I believe.
Like sometimes don't you have moments of doubt?
Yeah, I have moments of doubt sometimes.
But what I realize is that...
If I could possibly depart from this faith that I have in the Almighty, if I could possibly even depart from that faith, what would I have?
And how cool is that, man?
And like the hospitality that you have, you know, given me since I've been here, it's just next level.
And that's what you see when you get to witness the best in the world do whatever it is they are the best at.
You just get to see this whole other level of proficiency, of skill, of technique, of mastery.
And that opens up your mind into, like, what's possible.
That's pretty miraculous.
Not only that, but what about the content of Isaiah?
What about Isaiah 53 as it describes the suffering servant, how it literally outlines the life and death of Jesus Christ
and it was written, what, 400 years before the crucifixion?
Like, even the content of Isaiah, not only the accuracy of the translation and the accuracy over that span of time when you compare copies, but even the content of it.
How did this prophet write this thing about this person, and it was fulfilled perfectly, literally to a T?
by the person of Jesus Christ hundreds of years later.
And by the way, man, I'm not telling you or anyone listening to this what we call testimony, like what the Lord's given me experientially in life to share with other people.
I'm not telling you this to convince you of anything.
There's nothing that I can say to convince you
in the truth of the gospel like i truly believe that there's no there's no words that i can use there's no logic that i can apply there's nothing that i or anyone else can say to convince you of this and it goes back to what we started off in the conversation with of these things must be spiritually discerned and it is by grace god's grace
Well, I'm a podcaster, too, man.
that we are made alive and able to discern the truth of these things.
That's a hard, that's a hard thing to accept, man.
Like that man is totally depraved and I can't say anything to convince anyone of the truth of these scriptures.
But the Scriptures are dripping, literally dripping with that very fact.
That's the interesting thing about the Scriptures.
They leave nothing for man.
It's almost the single thing that separates what's contained in the Holy Scriptures from other religious philosophy.
I've got, like, 400 and something episodes out.
It literally leaves nothing for man.
What do you mean by that?
Meaning, there is nothing that you can do to be made righteous in the eyes of the Creator.
There is nothing that you can do to save yourself.
As a matter of fact, without the grace and the help of the Almighty, you can't even believe the truth.
And same here when I first started.
You are spiritually dead prior to regeneration.
You see what I'm saying?
If we had a dead man laying on the floor right here, and I said, dead man, hearken unto my voice.
There is a hospital a mile down the road.
And if you'll get up and walk to that hospital or you'll allow me to take you to that hospital, they'll shock you and bring you back to life.
Is he going to respond to that message?
He's going to lay there dead, right?
We're dead spiritually until we are made alive by the grace of the Almighty.
It leaves nothing for man.
It leaves me not a single thread that I can cling to.
It wouldn't give you mouth cancer?
And then you look at the whole saga of Scripture.
Well, what's this all about anyways?
Let's take it all the way back to Genesis, all the way through Revelation and everything in between.
is to glorify the Son, Jesus Christ.
What's the purpose in me even being saved?
It's so that I can be presented to Christ as His bride.
What do you mean by that?
The whole purpose of our existence is for us to be presented to Jesus Christ as His own people who will glorify Him for all of eternity.
It's to glorify the Son.
The whole saga that was determined by the sovereign and immutable will of the Father
The whole saga, the only purpose of it all is to present this, I can't say this word real well, peculiar people to the Son as a bride, an offering to glorify the Son for all of eternity.
The whole saga is to lift up and glorify Jesus Christ.
It's the only purpose for me even being saved.
Well, I think that I'm not convinced of this because that's what I want to believe.
Like, I'm convinced of this because I'm convinced of the truth of the Holy Scriptures.
And again, when you look at the thing from a 30,000-foot view, I'm convinced of that.
Because why would I want to believe that?
If I wrote this story, would it not give me something to cling to?
If I wrote the story, would it not give me some other purpose than just being offered up
as a bride to the glorification of the Son, Jesus Christ?
Like, if I wrote that story, wouldn't I write it differently than that?
Because I'm man, right?
I would leave myself something to cling to.
Surely, this salvation means something more than
than just that I am part of this special people now being offered up as a bride to Christ.
Surely there's something that I can do in this life, a choice that I can make to believe in this.
Like surely I have the power to make that choice.
But if I had the power to make the choice to believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ in and of myself,
then that salvation would be coming from me.
You see what I'm saying?
When you realize you don't even have the power of choice in you, you are dead.
You will not choose it.
By what Scripture calls the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of God who comes and dwells in you, and that is the entity that makes you spiritually alive and gives you the ability to appraise the Scripture's essentially spiritual things, because before that, it's foolishness.
I've just seen it pop up, you know, as I scroll through.
You know what I love about what you're saying, Joe?
It's so amazing how the Almighty works in each of us differently.
You know what's interesting to me about the body of Christ, the physical body, like it's being transposed onto that shroud, whether it's real or not.
Have you ever thought about this?
If you think about going back to talking about death and why do we have to die, why is it a necessity for all humans?
Well, the Scripture tells us that for a human,
the reason that we must die is because of sin, right?
That started with the very first sin of man and woman in the very beginning, right?
Because Scripture tells us that man was created to exist eternally in the beginning, the human physical form.
A lot of things happened.
Death, that's the moment.
Scripturally, that's when death entered the equation.
So this sin is a big problem.
Like, that is the genesis of death entering the equation and becoming a reality for all men.
Well, the newest vehicle that I have, and yes, Land Cruisers are my favorite.
I wonder a lot what happened when that sin...
It's almost like it changed...
It's almost like man was created in the beginning to exist in a physical body eternally, meaning he had perfect genetics, right?
He could exist, nothing decayed.
He could continue on for all eternity.
He also had the ability to be in the presence of the Almighty.
In some way, the human brain could interact with the Almighty.
But when sin entered the equation, it's almost like man's genetic code was marred, and death entered the equation, and we began to age.
I've become close friends with Daniel at TLC 4x4, and he's done two for me, a 100 Series and a 60 Series.
And it even, when I think about it along those lines, it's totally theoretical, by the way.
that's how we inherit our sinful nature, is because the result of sin actually changed the genetic makeup of man's physical body.
And therefore, by necessity, he now has to die because he ages.
And also, we lost our ability to perceive the Almighty and to actually converse with Him.
We lost something in our brain.
That's why I wonder about that DMT stuff.
We lost something in our brain that originally allowed us to see into this other realm and converse with this almighty being.
We lost the ability to do that because of sin.
Which brings me to the body of Christ.
The interesting thing about the body, physical body of Jesus Christ...
He was the only man, according to Scripture, who ever fulfilled the law of God completely and perfectly, which means his physical body, his literal physical body, was not affected by sin, which is the thing that is causing all of us to die by necessity.
Yeah, man, they're just awesome.
And like I said, my favorite part about driving the Land Cruiser is that it makes people smile.
And I just wonder if that physical body, if the body of Christ, if Christ would have grown to maturity, which he did, which was about when he started his ministry, was full adult maturity, I wonder if he would not have been crucified if he could have lived in that physical body forever.
If the aging process would have stopped and he would have never had to die because the effects of sin...
The curse was not upon him.
And it makes me think about that body because they took his body off the cross, laid it in the tomb.
When we die, our bodies begin to go through decay very quickly.
I'm not a very funny guy, you know, so there's not many.
You've seen that, killing animals.
You kill something within a few hours, it starts to get kind of blowed up, stiff as a board.
After about a day, it stinks all nasty.
They put him in that tomb.
He was there for three days.
That body didn't decay.
The Spirit then re-entered that same body.
And that body, that same body rose up and eventually ascended into heaven.
He took that body with him into this other realm.
I don't get many opportunities to make human beings smile, but I can drive this Land Cruiser and people look at it, point at it.
It just makes me wonder what the human body was like in the beginning when we were created perfectly with this mental ability to interact with this other realm, converse with the Almighty.
The absence of sin, in other words, our genetics were perfect.
The human body was perfect.
I've been thinking about evolution a little bit here lately.
Well, if you can't tell by now, I like to think about things.
Like the whole thing I just talked about was like totally theoretical.
Like I can't prove any of that.
But when I think about evolution, one of the first things that's striking to me is how on earth.
They're smiling and like that just that's cool to me.
Well, first of all, consciousness is a big problem.
You mentioned that earlier.
But how on earth did we, as the beings that we are, or we could take any being on earth and use it as an example, how do we go through, how many millions, or do some say billions?
Now, what I'm about to do here is I'm about to apply some country boy logic here, Joe.
3.5 billion years from life to what we are as beings now.
Are you ready for this country boy logic, son?
How on earth did we go through 3.5 billion years of evolution and being shaped by our environment?
And here we are after 3.5 billion years, and we can't stay around for more than about 75 years, and everything around us can kill us?
Like, if I think about, again, country boy logic here, if I think a 3.5 billion year long process of an organism being shaped by its environment, I would like to hope it would produce something a little different.
Better than what we are today.
But the newest vehicle that I have and I'm a car guy.
Now, I was poor most of my life.
Now, I am, I am, I heartily...
agree and believe in adaptation yeah heartily agree in in in different forms a drastically different forms of human look at just dogs just look at dogs your dog came from a wolf
But, you know, I got enough money I can buy the cars that I want now.
And the newest car that I have is a 1997 Dodge diesel truck.
It's a 97 with the Powerstroke diesel.
Man, you're headed in the right direction, Joe.
When you said the problem you always have is with man, man is indeed the problem, my friend.
You are headed down the right path, man.
I have a 97 Dodge Ram with the Cummins diesel because those are the two best diesel engines, undisputedly, that have ever been produced.
I'll tell you what, Joe.
I have the 100 Series Land Cruiser.
I should just let you talk the whole dang podcast, man, because you are so good.
Just summing stuff up and getting to the root of questions and things.
You talked about that whole transition from just living it out to have a better life to all of a sudden placing your entire hope in this message of the gospel.
That's that transition that I was talking about that you can't choose.
So you're summarizing all of this so well, man.
And it's interesting to me, too, that, you know, the Almighty has these plans for each of us, his sons and daughters, and he leads us each along this path.
Actually, the 100 Series is a 98, but I kind of gave that to my brother, so I can't count that.
to the ultimate revelation that we are searching for but every path looks different and it's so interesting to me to get to hear you speak this way because he led me along this path that involved this spiritual warfare what was i i was a warrior like i understood warfare
I understood encountering an enemy.
And that's the story I told you.
He kind of led me to this ultimate revelation and to this regeneration along the lines of that.
I have to believe that and I have to hope that he is leading you along this path specifically
the way you're experiencing it, because that's how your mind works, man.
You want things to be somewhat logical and orderly.
And, you know, like the Shroud of Turin thing or, you know, any of these other artifacts or the Dead Sea Scrolls or something like that.
Like I can do without knowing about all that and be just fine.
But according to the way the Almighty made you, maybe you can't do without all that stuff and be just fine.
I have an 86 Toyota they call Pickup.
Because you're different than me.
So I want you, man, it sounds so weird because we just met.
But like, I want you, man, to be confident in the direction that you're going with the questions that you ask and the way that you search.
Because it's beautiful, man.
Yeah, that is a very big blessing, man.
I don't know if I'm missing something, but I love old cars, man.
There's a philosopher that Martin Luther quotes in his book, The Bondage of the Will.
And this philosopher says, you can make anything out of anything.
and he's talking about Scripture, you can take the Holy Scriptures and you can make anything out of them that you want to make out of them.
That's my squirrel hunting truck.
You can make anything out of anything.
And that's where we have these issues.
You know, people love to point out the hypocrisy in the body of Christ.
the visible church, Christians, people who proclaim to be Christians, the hypocrisy of Christians.
And I would agree with you 100%.
There is a lot of hypocrisy.
And a lot of what the visible church does is makes what they want to make out of the Scriptures in order to control people.
You know, why am I going to go spend $30,000 on a side-by-side?
I can get in this Toyota truck and I can go anywhere.
You've got to watch this dude named Jesse Duplantis.
You can go in a side-by-side.
He's like a mega preacher, but dude...
You just gotta watch videos of this dude, man.
Well, you know, when people like to point out the hypocrisy of Christians, like, I get what you're saying, man, and how religion is used to control people.
You can make anything out of anything.
Here's how I would respond to you as a Christian.
Yeah, that stuff is everywhere.
That's my squirrel hunting truck, man.
Now, I'm not really a thief per se.
I covet people, the things that they have, the things of this world.
I do all of those things.
In that realization of who I am,
That revelation is the foundation of my clinging to Christ.
I see what you're saying.
Like, clinging to... Do I want to do those things?
No, I don't want to do those things.
But there is something in me.
There is a remnant in me that leads me to do things...
I love—I do it every day that I'm at home.
that I don't want to do, and the things that I want to do, I don't actually do.
Now, not 100% of the time.
Like, that's not my desire.
But when I do those things now, the difference is my response to them.
So, like, I told you how wicked I used to be.
Well, you know, used to be, if I had an argument with my wife...
You know, maybe I was rushing out the door and maybe I yelled at my wife and I went out and got my truck and went to work.
The rest of the day, I would be justifying my yelling at my wife.
I mean, it's not it's never going to go anywhere because, you know, when I was in the Navy, I lived in Virginia and we moved out to a rural community and they grew corn and soybeans primarily in the fields and nothing else would grow in that dirt.
She deserved to be yelled at.
I squirrel hunt every day.
Like she's in the wrong.
Now, when I do those things.
It's the same thing that I did before, but I do it now, and I get in my car, and it crushes me, dude.
How much squirrel do you eat?
I'm like, I can't believe I just did the thing that I know I don't want to do, but I did it anyways.
It's my response to those things.
Well, I eat squirrel on special occasions.
The most, I think, accurate way or picture to describe this.
Remember I told you I woke up the next day and like my desires had changed?
The most accurate way I've heard this described is if you had two plates of food.
You know, you had a plate of the finest food and then you had a bucket of garbage.
You turn a pig loose into the room.
The pig is going to go and stick his head in that bucket of garbage and eat that garbage before he eats the food off of that fine plate.
Because he likes the smell of garbage.
He's attracted to the taste and the smell of that garbage.
We have pigs at the house.
That's what he would do.
He would go eat the garbage before he ate the good stuff.
That pig, he's eating that garbage and there's this good stuff right here next to him.
And he's not even ashamed that he's eating that garbage because he's a pig.
I give away a lot of squirrel meat, you know.
If you had the power to snap your fingers and to turn that pig into a man, that man would then lift his head up out of that garbage and he would look around him and he would be ashamed that he had been eating that garbage.
And he would depart from that garbage and go to the finer food.
I'm blessed enough in life now that I can eat ribeye steak.
That's what he would do.
That's the transition that I tried to describe to you earlier how I was changed overnight.
It was like I no longer desired garbage more than I desired the fine things that the Lord has offered to me.
My desires changed, right?
I see what you're saying.
But we still go back like that.
There's a remnant of that pig in us.
And every now and then we want to go back and eat that garbage.
We don't want anybody to see us.
And it upsets our stomach.
And we respond to it differently.
That's kind of the change, and tying this all back into, well, why aren't Christians perfect?
I give away a lot of squirrel.
They preach all this stuff.
I don't kill all the squirrels that we tree either, but—
As a preacher, or as a teacher, the closer you preach the true, literal word of Scripture in terms of standards, the closer you get to that standard that's portrayed by Scripture...
the more of a hypocrite you are going to become because you can't meet it.
Really, since a young age, I was introduced to hunting with dogs, tree dogs specifically.
Which is totally in alignment with the whole truth that this cross thing is foolishness.
Like, I understand that.
Yeah, I mean, you read, and I think it's 1 Corinthians 2, the Apostle Paul is writing like, hey, I didn't come to you with these wise words, like trying to convince you of anything.
And there was something about a tree dog that just stirred this passion within me.
I simply have preached to you this gospel.
And notice that not many of you who are considered wise say,
Like, we're able to believe this because it's literally foolishness until you're made alive.
And it was, it's funny, it was by the Almighty's sovereign, immutable will that he chose the cross as to be the story of redemption for man.
It's funny that he chose the cross because
And he did it for his own good pleasure.
He chose to destroy the wisdom of man by a message that is seemingly foolish.
He chose to destroy man's wisdom.
our natural man's wisdom, right?
All the great things that man has done and known and discovered.
He chose to destroy all of that by this foolish message of the cross for his own good pleasure because man in his wisdom did not know God when he came here in the body, in the person of Jesus Christ.
It is the only thing that has stuck with me from childhood on.
They actually killed him.
He said, I'm going to destroy y'all's natural wisdom with this message of foolishness.
young childhood the first tree dog i ever walked to i mean i was i didn't even know i should probably shouldn't even have been in the woods but i followed my uncle to a coonhound tree down in a swamp and it just even at that age it just stirred something in me like
You summed it up well, brother.
Isn't it so good that we have men and women who have dedicated their entire lives to that job?
I'm so thankful for men like him.
Spurl is one that I love to read his stuff.
Martin Luther, of course, is another one.
But, I mean, because you think about me.
Like, what do I spend a day reading Scripture?
Two hours a day, maybe.
Like, I'm never going to become the expert.
You know, you spend an hour a day or two hours a day doing anything.
You're never going to become the expert.
No, you'll be proficient.
Yeah, you'll be able to kind of know your way around it.
But the stuff that you're talking about knowing, which is stuff worth knowing, you know, that's the meat that we can consume.
This is some sort of primal instinct of partnering with this dog in this chase.
Because you have to figure out how it fits with the rest of it.
Because you can read it in a way, and you're like, this is contradictory.
If Scripture is contradictory, it is not from God.
It cannot, by nature of what we know about the nature of the Almighty, what's revealed in Scripture to us just about His nature, His attributes, right?
It's one of my favorite things to study, the attributes of the Almighty, which we cannot even begin to grasp the fullness of it.
But some of His attributes have been revealed to us, and so if that is His Word, it cannot contradict itself.
Because that would go against what we know of as who he is.
And I've done it even up until now.
And I think ultimately, too, I think something that you could add to that, Joe, is if what I'm saying is correct in terms of what I believe about Scripture, ultimately there has also to be some divine influence over the preservation of
And it's just a unique experience, man.
It's the only way, right?
It would be the only way for the scriptures in their original language to be truly the Word of the Almighty to man.
The complete revelation of the Almighty to man.
Like, there has to be some divine influence
Was it a... How did it... You know, we like to... You like to... Kind of the...
And the great thing about dogs, hunting dogs, too, is...
And here's another thing, man.
It does involve an aspect of faith.
Like, you know, because we look at the letters in the New Testament who were mostly written by the Apostle Paul.
And the only way that we can trust that, okay, this is the literal message from God to us, but it's coming through a man.
Like, how does that happen?
Well, we have to believe that, again, the Almighty is influencing man through the power of His Spirit in the man to write the things that the man wrote.
You know, that's why this belief in the Holy Spirit and of the believer actually being possessed with the Spirit of God is so essential.
Like, it has to be that way, or else the Apostle Paul's writing his opinions.
the breeding aspect of it.
Or he's writing based off of his experience.
You know, you could take it all the way back.
What did Pilate say to Jesus?
Well, you know, what is, like, truth...
I don't even know that truth can come from man alone because everything that we have experienced is so influenced by our upbringing, by our perspective, by our memory, by so many factors.
So not only do you have your best friend, you know, my little mountain cur, her name's Wendy.
That's why, dude, I hate seeing these guys, these former military guys attacking each other, man.
about he did this and he did that and he didn't do this and he didn't do that.
I'm like, I mean, some guys might flat out be, you know, telling a fib, you know, I get that, right?
You know, that's not good.
But man, so many people are recounting experiences that they've had in their life and their service and whatever it may be.
And like all of that is shaped by their unique perspective and the way that their mind works and, you know,
You know, it's like I can't attack a dude for that.
So if we're saying that the Bible is truly the perfect revelation of God to man, then we have to understand that the source of all of that did not come from man.
In some way, it was wrought by God through man.
We hunt every day together.
You know, I talked to my buddy about that while I was sitting there with him, you know, as he was passing away.
And, you know, Scripture describes when you leave your physical body here on earth.
you know you your spirit basically goes into the presence of the almighty immediately but in that state you're unclothed and you don't want to be unclothed um and like i was i'm having all these i lost my train of thought there on what on where we were going with that but um
But now I get to breed her.
Yeah, man, I forgot the original question, but it pertained to something, a conversation I had with him.
And over the course, I'm hoping over the course of the next 30 years or so, I can breed in these specific characteristics
Okay, that's what I was talking to him about.
I was like, right now, Mr. Don, there is an element of faith in what you believe.
It's hard to explain that.
But when you leave here, you're no longer going to have to live by faith.
Once you get there, you're going to know you made it.
But it goes back to what you were saying, like, we'll never know.
There's always going to be an element of faith.
in what we believe like there's there has to be as it pertains to things of god there's always going to be a certain element of faith that very faith is the gift that the lord gives to his elect the ability to believe like that is the gift that element of faith
That's the gift that I treasure more than anything else that I have in my life.
Remember I told you I have doubts sometimes?
of this type of dog that i value and so that's fun you know not only is the hunting fun but the breeding is fun the training's fun everything about it's fun and you take a group of guys out squirrel hunting man and it's a blast because you don't have to be quiet look man you just you're out there in the woods on four wheelers everybody's got shotguns you know you get to the tree here's this dog just hammering a treat on this tree wow wow
Well, you like to look into all this stuff.
My wife sent me a YouTube video or something the other day.
Apparently they saw something with one of these telescopes or something that they look into the cosmos with that has completely destroyed all their evidence of their theology behind the Big Bang.
Even when we try to interpret hard things about Scripture or we think about –
The Lord, almost always we put time constraints on him.
Like you could walk the rows of those crops, you know, and there would not be a single weed growing in the field.
How do you think without the constraints of time in your mind?
It's freaking wild, man.
They lived a long time.
You know, that kind of goes along with my theory of at the fall of man, literally marring man's genetic code and how that has just kind of progressively gotten worse over time.
Everybody surrounds the tree, and that squirrel gets nervous, and he starts timbering out, going tree to tree, and you've got five or six guys with shotguns blasting away, and everybody's cutting up and laughing.
Yeah, it's, you know, there's a lot of speculation around, I'm sure you have had somebody on to talk about this period of human history in Scripture where it talks about essentially these angelic beings basically procreating with women, human women, and creating some sort of hybrid race, men of renown with special knowledge and
I mean, it's just a blast, dude.
It would seem that something like that, when you look at the example and all of the stuff you just talked about with the pyramids, they were getting special knowledge.
There was something weird.
But that's my thing, you know.
What I love about you is you're not afraid to ask these questions, man, and what you're doing here on the show.
It's like you're not afraid to dig into anything.
Well, I don't think you should be afraid of questions, and no one should be.
But a lot of people's pride, you know, like keep them from kind of asking those questions.
I like to hunt whitetails.
I get to go on my first elk hunt this year.
There's a family out in Utah.
Joe, that's so impactful for me to hear you say that because I have to share this with you, of course.
I told a few of my close buddies and friends that I was coming on the show today to have a conversation with you.
They own some ranch out there.
And it's amazing people's response when you tell them that you're going to come and sit down to the mighty Joe Rogan, the most powerful man on the Internet.
I've heard you called that.
Dude, don't be offended by any of that.
This is just what people say.
I had so many people tell me, now, Chad, when you go sit down with Joe, you better just stick to what you know.
I think it's called R5 Ranch.
And I'm sitting here like, buddy, I don't know a whole lot.
And they wanted to put a hunt on for a veteran.
When you really get down, like what you said, man, you're not—
attached to your ideas.
And a lot of times they're not even your ideas.
You just think about things deeply and you ask these questions.
And when you live that way, you do come to the realization that...
Man, there's very little that I actually know when we define the word or the idea of knowing something.
And even Scripture tells us any man that thinks he knows anything hasn't known as he ought to know.
So they partnered with an outfitter called G3 Outfitters.
In other words, as soon as you think you have the answers to most things, you are totally backwards.
You haven't known the ultimate form.
I think one of the ultimate forms of knowledge or knowing is realizing that you really don't know much.
But it's just funny that you talked about that and that was...
Some of the advice I received.
Yeah, man, it's people's perspective of what you've built here and, you know, what you do and what you've accomplished.
I think it's just like so skewed, like just based off of some of the conversations I had.
And for some odd reason, they selected me as their veteran that they want to take out on an elk hunt.
Why do you keep going at this point?
I mean, just in general as someone who's public.
No, I haven't either. Drones wasn't a big thing. It was kind of coming about after I had done Got Out.
No, I haven't either. Drones wasn't a big thing. It was kind of coming about after I had done Got Out.
No, I haven't either. Drones wasn't a big thing. It was kind of coming about after I had done Got Out.
And Al, you made the point of how the evil one will kind of wage war against us in terms of on that physical side, our health, right? Well, what is the evil one's ultimate goal? It's to kill you. It's to kill you, right? So he wants you out of here, right?
And Al, you made the point of how the evil one will kind of wage war against us in terms of on that physical side, our health, right? Well, what is the evil one's ultimate goal? It's to kill you. It's to kill you, right? So he wants you out of here, right?
And Al, you made the point of how the evil one will kind of wage war against us in terms of on that physical side, our health, right? Well, what is the evil one's ultimate goal? It's to kill you. It's to kill you, right? So he wants you out of here, right?
Because he knows if he can take you out of the equation, that's less that you can be used in the kingdom, you know, for the work that you've been given to do. And so I've just never thought about that before in terms of a spiritual attack, how, you know, addiction to food and sugar and an unhealthy lifestyle can Yeah, you can view it in that way, and you've got to wage the war on that front.
Because he knows if he can take you out of the equation, that's less that you can be used in the kingdom, you know, for the work that you've been given to do. And so I've just never thought about that before in terms of a spiritual attack, how, you know, addiction to food and sugar and an unhealthy lifestyle can Yeah, you can view it in that way, and you've got to wage the war on that front.
Because he knows if he can take you out of the equation, that's less that you can be used in the kingdom, you know, for the work that you've been given to do. And so I've just never thought about that before in terms of a spiritual attack, how, you know, addiction to food and sugar and an unhealthy lifestyle can Yeah, you can view it in that way, and you've got to wage the war on that front.
Yeah, I think about it quite often. And by the way, we were fortunate enough to interview my brother Zach on our podcast, and he laid out this whole doctrine of the eternal life beginning now for the believer in long form and so beautifully. Yeah.
Yeah, I think about it quite often. And by the way, we were fortunate enough to interview my brother Zach on our podcast, and he laid out this whole doctrine of the eternal life beginning now for the believer in long form and so beautifully. Yeah.
Yeah, I think about it quite often. And by the way, we were fortunate enough to interview my brother Zach on our podcast, and he laid out this whole doctrine of the eternal life beginning now for the believer in long form and so beautifully. Yeah.
Zach, you are just on to something there that has impacted me and really changed my perspective on the time that I have here on this earth as a follower of Christ. And man, I just pray that the Lord continues to use you to put that message out because it's a message that the church needs to hear. everywhere, and especially here in America. This isn't just us in survival mode.
Zach, you are just on to something there that has impacted me and really changed my perspective on the time that I have here on this earth as a follower of Christ. And man, I just pray that the Lord continues to use you to put that message out because it's a message that the church needs to hear. everywhere, and especially here in America. This isn't just us in survival mode.
Zach, you are just on to something there that has impacted me and really changed my perspective on the time that I have here on this earth as a follower of Christ. And man, I just pray that the Lord continues to use you to put that message out because it's a message that the church needs to hear. everywhere, and especially here in America. This isn't just us in survival mode.
Man, this is us thriving. Our eternal life began the moment we received the gift of salvation, and we are walking in that power through this life, man. And that message has changed my perspective, Zach.
Man, this is us thriving. Our eternal life began the moment we received the gift of salvation, and we are walking in that power through this life, man. And that message has changed my perspective, Zach.
Man, this is us thriving. Our eternal life began the moment we received the gift of salvation, and we are walking in that power through this life, man. And that message has changed my perspective, Zach.
I love you so much for that. But as far as spiritual warfare, you know... And the thing is, a lot of Christians might be listening to this, and it's hard to understand because, you know, we live in a country where our lives can be pretty cushy, right? And we're thinking about spiritual warfare. What is all this talk about spiritual warfare?
I love you so much for that. But as far as spiritual warfare, you know... And the thing is, a lot of Christians might be listening to this, and it's hard to understand because, you know, we live in a country where our lives can be pretty cushy, right? And we're thinking about spiritual warfare. What is all this talk about spiritual warfare?
I love you so much for that. But as far as spiritual warfare, you know... And the thing is, a lot of Christians might be listening to this, and it's hard to understand because, you know, we live in a country where our lives can be pretty cushy, right? And we're thinking about spiritual warfare. What is all this talk about spiritual warfare?
You know, I've got, you know, even our problems that we have here in this country, are pretty silly. I mean, they're a big deal to us, but they're pretty silly problems for the most part, right? So what is the battle for every believer, the battle that every believer can identify with? It's the battle between the remnant
You know, I've got, you know, even our problems that we have here in this country, are pretty silly. I mean, they're a big deal to us, but they're pretty silly problems for the most part, right? So what is the battle for every believer, the battle that every believer can identify with? It's the battle between the remnant
You know, I've got, you know, even our problems that we have here in this country, are pretty silly. I mean, they're a big deal to us, but they're pretty silly problems for the most part, right? So what is the battle for every believer, the battle that every believer can identify with? It's the battle between the remnant
of the old man, that because you are still on this earth, there is a remnant of flesh. And the warfare is the battle between that remnant of your flesh and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in you.
of the old man, that because you are still on this earth, there is a remnant of flesh. And the warfare is the battle between that remnant of your flesh and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in you.
of the old man, that because you are still on this earth, there is a remnant of flesh. And the warfare is the battle between that remnant of your flesh and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in you.
And, you know, I read Romans 12 and most of my speaking is off of Romans 12. Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed. Literally go through a metamorphosis. by the renewal of your mind. And when I speak on that, I have to wonder how many Christians are out there in the audience thinking, well, why do I need to renew my mind? It's because you are in a fight.
And, you know, I read Romans 12 and most of my speaking is off of Romans 12. Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed. Literally go through a metamorphosis. by the renewal of your mind. And when I speak on that, I have to wonder how many Christians are out there in the audience thinking, well, why do I need to renew my mind? It's because you are in a fight.
And, you know, I read Romans 12 and most of my speaking is off of Romans 12. Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed. Literally go through a metamorphosis. by the renewal of your mind. And when I speak on that, I have to wonder how many Christians are out there in the audience thinking, well, why do I need to renew my mind? It's because you are in a fight.
And the fight is between that remnant of your fallen man and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. And it's a daily battle for us to... to put that remnant to death as much as we possibly can. And now, this is not for salvation. This is fighting the good fight. This isn't salvation. We're saved by grace through faith and faith alone.
And the fight is between that remnant of your fallen man and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. And it's a daily battle for us to... to put that remnant to death as much as we possibly can. And now, this is not for salvation. This is fighting the good fight. This isn't salvation. We're saved by grace through faith and faith alone.
And the fight is between that remnant of your fallen man and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. And it's a daily battle for us to... to put that remnant to death as much as we possibly can. And now, this is not for salvation. This is fighting the good fight. This isn't salvation. We're saved by grace through faith and faith alone.
But to me, that is the daily battle and the spiritual warfare aspect. It doesn't always play out in the same type of experience that I had overseas, right? That's what we want. We want to experience something like that because it's this confirmation that, okay, this is real. I mean, you sense the realness of it. Yeah. You know, that experience that I had
But to me, that is the daily battle and the spiritual warfare aspect. It doesn't always play out in the same type of experience that I had overseas, right? That's what we want. We want to experience something like that because it's this confirmation that, okay, this is real. I mean, you sense the realness of it. Yeah. You know, that experience that I had
But to me, that is the daily battle and the spiritual warfare aspect. It doesn't always play out in the same type of experience that I had overseas, right? That's what we want. We want to experience something like that because it's this confirmation that, okay, this is real. I mean, you sense the realness of it. Yeah. You know, that experience that I had
I don't attribute that experience I had to the work of Satan because Satan is way smarter than that. Satan would have never orchestrated that experience because he's smart enough to know that that's going to probably put me on a different course, right? And so, you know, you think about how smart the enemy is. He... Should you fear Satan? That's a question that I struggle with.
I don't attribute that experience I had to the work of Satan because Satan is way smarter than that. Satan would have never orchestrated that experience because he's smart enough to know that that's going to probably put me on a different course, right? And so, you know, you think about how smart the enemy is. He... Should you fear Satan? That's a question that I struggle with.
I don't attribute that experience I had to the work of Satan because Satan is way smarter than that. Satan would have never orchestrated that experience because he's smart enough to know that that's going to probably put me on a different course, right? And so, you know, you think about how smart the enemy is. He... Should you fear Satan? That's a question that I struggle with.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, that's good, Jace. That's good. Isn't it funny how we can read these specific scriptures and kind of misinterpret them for years and years and years, and then it just doesn't quite make sense? When something in scripture doesn't make sense, it's because you're not understanding it right. Well, exactly.
Yeah, that's good, Jace. That's good. Isn't it funny how we can read these specific scriptures and kind of misinterpret them for years and years and years, and then it just doesn't quite make sense? When something in scripture doesn't make sense, it's because you're not understanding it right. Well, exactly.
Yeah, that's good, Jace. That's good. Isn't it funny how we can read these specific scriptures and kind of misinterpret them for years and years and years, and then it just doesn't quite make sense? When something in scripture doesn't make sense, it's because you're not understanding it right. Well, exactly.
Just back to your original question on the Ephesians, you know, and spiritual warfare, I just think it's, you know, don't always... Because you can get carried away with spiritual warfare, too. You know, you see people that their entire ministry just revolves around that one single, you know, aspect of Scripture, and you get carried away with it, you know, but... But there is a battle.
Just back to your original question on the Ephesians, you know, and spiritual warfare, I just think it's, you know, don't always... Because you can get carried away with spiritual warfare, too. You know, you see people that their entire ministry just revolves around that one single, you know, aspect of Scripture, and you get carried away with it, you know, but... But there is a battle.
Just back to your original question on the Ephesians, you know, and spiritual warfare, I just think it's, you know, don't always... Because you can get carried away with spiritual warfare, too. You know, you see people that their entire ministry just revolves around that one single, you know, aspect of Scripture, and you get carried away with it, you know, but... But there is a battle.
It doesn't always look like what you think it's going to look like. And the battle is the forces of evil. Basically playing to that remnant of your fallen man, I think, and trying to manipulate the mind into succumbing to that. Now, I don't believe in this battle that's being waged, and I don't know about you guys, but I don't believe that...
It doesn't always look like what you think it's going to look like. And the battle is the forces of evil. Basically playing to that remnant of your fallen man, I think, and trying to manipulate the mind into succumbing to that. Now, I don't believe in this battle that's being waged, and I don't know about you guys, but I don't believe that...
It doesn't always look like what you think it's going to look like. And the battle is the forces of evil. Basically playing to that remnant of your fallen man, I think, and trying to manipulate the mind into succumbing to that. Now, I don't believe in this battle that's being waged, and I don't know about you guys, but I don't believe that...
there is any force of evil or the evil one that can actually create a scenario where the... child of God can lose their salvation. I don't believe that. I think if we could lose our salvation, if it was ours to lose, we would darn sure lose it. And so that's another thing, when we talk about spiritual warfare,
there is any force of evil or the evil one that can actually create a scenario where the... child of God can lose their salvation. I don't believe that. I think if we could lose our salvation, if it was ours to lose, we would darn sure lose it. And so that's another thing, when we talk about spiritual warfare,
there is any force of evil or the evil one that can actually create a scenario where the... child of God can lose their salvation. I don't believe that. I think if we could lose our salvation, if it was ours to lose, we would darn sure lose it. And so that's another thing, when we talk about spiritual warfare,
I think so many Christians are out there going through life, and they hear about this spiritual warfare, and they get scared in a sense of, I might lose this battle and therefore lose my salvation. And so that's another important thing that I think should be discussed in terms of this conversation, is Satan is not powerful enough to come in and basically...
I think so many Christians are out there going through life, and they hear about this spiritual warfare, and they get scared in a sense of, I might lose this battle and therefore lose my salvation. And so that's another important thing that I think should be discussed in terms of this conversation, is Satan is not powerful enough to come in and basically...
I think so many Christians are out there going through life, and they hear about this spiritual warfare, and they get scared in a sense of, I might lose this battle and therefore lose my salvation. And so that's another important thing that I think should be discussed in terms of this conversation, is Satan is not powerful enough to come in and basically...
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You know what that is? It's that little thing you got sitting on the corner of the table right there for 90% of people. Yeah. That's that foot hole that's liable to make you tap.
You know what that is? It's that little thing you got sitting on the corner of the table right there for 90% of people. Yeah. That's that foot hole that's liable to make you tap.
You know what that is? It's that little thing you got sitting on the corner of the table right there for 90% of people. Yeah. That's that foot hole that's liable to make you tap.
I noticed this the other day. I'll share a little part of recently. Obviously, I'm connected in the fitness world, and a lot of the pages and stuff on Instagram are fitness pages, right? And by the standards of the world, it is not wrong for a female athlete to post these pictures of themselves that really don't leave much... for the imagination.
I noticed this the other day. I'll share a little part of recently. Obviously, I'm connected in the fitness world, and a lot of the pages and stuff on Instagram are fitness pages, right? And by the standards of the world, it is not wrong for a female athlete to post these pictures of themselves that really don't leave much... for the imagination.
I noticed this the other day. I'll share a little part of recently. Obviously, I'm connected in the fitness world, and a lot of the pages and stuff on Instagram are fitness pages, right? And by the standards of the world, it is not wrong for a female athlete to post these pictures of themselves that really don't leave much... for the imagination.
I mean, if you follow fitness content, you are going to see some stuff from female athletes, and I'm a man and I like women, and by the standards of the world, that's not an issue.
I mean, if you follow fitness content, you are going to see some stuff from female athletes, and I'm a man and I like women, and by the standards of the world, that's not an issue.
I mean, if you follow fitness content, you are going to see some stuff from female athletes, and I'm a man and I like women, and by the standards of the world, that's not an issue.
But just to talk about how something like that gives the devil a foothold, as I scrolled through Instagram, I realized I was seeing these photos of these female athletes, and by the world standard, there's nothing wrong with it. And I realized I liked it. Yeah. I mean, you hit one, and then you see the little dots across the bottom, and you're like, oh, she's posted a bunch of pictures.
But just to talk about how something like that gives the devil a foothold, as I scrolled through Instagram, I realized I was seeing these photos of these female athletes, and by the world standard, there's nothing wrong with it. And I realized I liked it. Yeah. I mean, you hit one, and then you see the little dots across the bottom, and you're like, oh, she's posted a bunch of pictures.
But just to talk about how something like that gives the devil a foothold, as I scrolled through Instagram, I realized I was seeing these photos of these female athletes, and by the world standard, there's nothing wrong with it. And I realized I liked it. Yeah. I mean, you hit one, and then you see the little dots across the bottom, and you're like, oh, she's posted a bunch of pictures.
Let me swipe through these real quick. But then what ends up happening, if you don't nip that in the butt, what ends up happening, you go out into public, and a glance becomes a gaze in real life. Yeah. Right. And then what ends up, it progresses from there.
Let me swipe through these real quick. But then what ends up happening, if you don't nip that in the butt, what ends up happening, you go out into public, and a glance becomes a gaze in real life. Yeah. Right. And then what ends up, it progresses from there.
Let me swipe through these real quick. But then what ends up happening, if you don't nip that in the butt, what ends up happening, you go out into public, and a glance becomes a gaze in real life. Yeah. Right. And then what ends up, it progresses from there.
Praise the Lord for that, man.
Praise the Lord for that, man.
Praise the Lord for that, man.
Well, I tell you, I appreciate that. I don't accept it because I'm going to tell you, Phil, man, there's not words that can express how thankful I am for Phil, even though I've never met him. uh he has been such an impactful force in my life and just a steady calm voice of of truth man yeah and i've gotten so much from that man and and i've never met him never will meet him yeah but
Well, I tell you, I appreciate that. I don't accept it because I'm going to tell you, Phil, man, there's not words that can express how thankful I am for Phil, even though I've never met him. uh he has been such an impactful force in my life and just a steady calm voice of of truth man yeah and i've gotten so much from that man and and i've never met him never will meet him yeah but
Well, I tell you, I appreciate that. I don't accept it because I'm going to tell you, Phil, man, there's not words that can express how thankful I am for Phil, even though I've never met him. uh he has been such an impactful force in my life and just a steady calm voice of of truth man yeah and i've gotten so much from that man and and i've never met him never will meet him yeah but
Well, you'll meet him one day. Well, I'll meet him one day. Yeah. Apart from this earth. But I'm going to tell you. Yeah. I mean, I don't accept that compliment because I look at him as like, you know.
Well, you'll meet him one day. Well, I'll meet him one day. Yeah. Apart from this earth. But I'm going to tell you. Yeah. I mean, I don't accept that compliment because I look at him as like, you know.
Well, you'll meet him one day. Well, I'll meet him one day. Yeah. Apart from this earth. But I'm going to tell you. Yeah. I mean, I don't accept that compliment because I look at him as like, you know.
You don't worry about all that. I just want to encourage every one of my brothers and sisters out there to today reflect upon what Jesus Christ said on the cross right before he gave up the ghost. It is finished, man. It is finished. We're talking about the spiritual warfare, all this stuff. Look, reflect upon that. It is finished. Praise the Lord for that, man.
You don't worry about all that. I just want to encourage every one of my brothers and sisters out there to today reflect upon what Jesus Christ said on the cross right before he gave up the ghost. It is finished, man. It is finished. We're talking about the spiritual warfare, all this stuff. Look, reflect upon that. It is finished. Praise the Lord for that, man.
You don't worry about all that. I just want to encourage every one of my brothers and sisters out there to today reflect upon what Jesus Christ said on the cross right before he gave up the ghost. It is finished, man. It is finished. We're talking about the spiritual warfare, all this stuff. Look, reflect upon that. It is finished. Praise the Lord for that, man.
That's not on you, Zach. That's my man, Jay Stone. I learned so much about Jay Stone this weekend, you know, good and bad. I thought I knew Jay, but until we had the hunting hell week this week, you know, we have hell week in SEAL training, and for some reason, that's so Navy SEALs, we got to make everything hard, even hunting. And so we wanted to plan a hunt, and I said, well, May...
That's not on you, Zach. That's my man, Jay Stone. I learned so much about Jay Stone this weekend, you know, good and bad. I thought I knew Jay, but until we had the hunting hell week this week, you know, we have hell week in SEAL training, and for some reason, that's so Navy SEALs, we got to make everything hard, even hunting. And so we wanted to plan a hunt, and I said, well, May...
That's not on you, Zach. That's my man, Jay Stone. I learned so much about Jay Stone this weekend, you know, good and bad. I thought I knew Jay, but until we had the hunting hell week this week, you know, we have hell week in SEAL training, and for some reason, that's so Navy SEALs, we got to make everything hard, even hunting. And so we wanted to plan a hunt, and I said, well, May...
Cocoon hunting, squirrel hunting, backwater, mosquitoes, heat, day, night, snakes. This is the hunting hell week. We had about 15 students to begin with, and we dwindled down the last hunt to four.
Cocoon hunting, squirrel hunting, backwater, mosquitoes, heat, day, night, snakes. This is the hunting hell week. We had about 15 students to begin with, and we dwindled down the last hunt to four.
Cocoon hunting, squirrel hunting, backwater, mosquitoes, heat, day, night, snakes. This is the hunting hell week. We had about 15 students to begin with, and we dwindled down the last hunt to four.
Yeah, yeah. And we had about the same attrition rate as SEAL training. We went from 15 to 4.
Yeah, yeah. And we had about the same attrition rate as SEAL training. We went from 15 to 4.
Yeah, yeah. And we had about the same attrition rate as SEAL training. We went from 15 to 4.
Well, we had the dog, you know, and that makes squirrel hunting so much better when you've got that dog to show you where they're at. And, you know, you're moving, you're steady moving. But we killed a bunch. We took a mess over to Si. We took Si a whole pan of squirrels yesterday. That's his favorite thing to eat. Oh, he loves it.
Well, we had the dog, you know, and that makes squirrel hunting so much better when you've got that dog to show you where they're at. And, you know, you're moving, you're steady moving. But we killed a bunch. We took a mess over to Si. We took Si a whole pan of squirrels yesterday. That's his favorite thing to eat. Oh, he loves it.
Well, we had the dog, you know, and that makes squirrel hunting so much better when you've got that dog to show you where they're at. And, you know, you're moving, you're steady moving. But we killed a bunch. We took a mess over to Si. We took Si a whole pan of squirrels yesterday. That's his favorite thing to eat. Oh, he loves it.
It is funny that here we've come down here to Louisiana, drove eight hours to do some hunting, And by the last hunt, there wasn't a single member of the hunting party from Louisiana. We had three Georgia boys and a Florida boy out there running... A North Florida boy from Lake City, from what I hear, right? Running around a cornfield last night.
It is funny that here we've come down here to Louisiana, drove eight hours to do some hunting, And by the last hunt, there wasn't a single member of the hunting party from Louisiana. We had three Georgia boys and a Florida boy out there running... A North Florida boy from Lake City, from what I hear, right? Running around a cornfield last night.
It is funny that here we've come down here to Louisiana, drove eight hours to do some hunting, And by the last hunt, there wasn't a single member of the hunting party from Louisiana. We had three Georgia boys and a Florida boy out there running... A North Florida boy from Lake City, from what I hear, right? Running around a cornfield last night.
We had no idea where we were, where the water was, but we had a buggy to hunt out of and a dog out there running a coon, and we made it happen. So... And Al, I want to congratulate you, man, because I know a lot of people are listening to this on audio and they can't see we only have half of Al. Where's the rest of you? I mean, I am so proud of you, man.
We had no idea where we were, where the water was, but we had a buggy to hunt out of and a dog out there running a coon, and we made it happen. So... And Al, I want to congratulate you, man, because I know a lot of people are listening to this on audio and they can't see we only have half of Al. Where's the rest of you? I mean, I am so proud of you, man.
We had no idea where we were, where the water was, but we had a buggy to hunt out of and a dog out there running a coon, and we made it happen. So... And Al, I want to congratulate you, man, because I know a lot of people are listening to this on audio and they can't see we only have half of Al. Where's the rest of you? I mean, I am so proud of you, man.
And I can appreciate the amount of discipline that it has probably taken you and mental fortitude. to to not only just begin that journey, but to stick with it to the point that you have to feel so much better now, man.
And I can appreciate the amount of discipline that it has probably taken you and mental fortitude. to to not only just begin that journey, but to stick with it to the point that you have to feel so much better now, man.
And I can appreciate the amount of discipline that it has probably taken you and mental fortitude. to to not only just begin that journey, but to stick with it to the point that you have to feel so much better now, man.
No, and it's amazing too, man, when you consider how much our physical body and our mind, we call it our soul, our mind, will, and emotions, and our spirit, they're all so interconnected in so many different ways. And you know, we don't do the best job as the church in terms of holding each other accountable to our physical health, right?
No, and it's amazing too, man, when you consider how much our physical body and our mind, we call it our soul, our mind, will, and emotions, and our spirit, they're all so interconnected in so many different ways. And you know, we don't do the best job as the church in terms of holding each other accountable to our physical health, right?
No, and it's amazing too, man, when you consider how much our physical body and our mind, we call it our soul, our mind, will, and emotions, and our spirit, they're all so interconnected in so many different ways. And you know, we don't do the best job as the church in terms of holding each other accountable to our physical health, right?
And when we can improve our physical health by discipline, by doing the things we know we should do, it does have a major positive impact on what we are doing. able to accomplish as an ambassador for Christ out in the world. Not only the image that we portray in this physical world, but we just feel better. We have more energy. We have more drive.
And when we can improve our physical health by discipline, by doing the things we know we should do, it does have a major positive impact on what we are doing. able to accomplish as an ambassador for Christ out in the world. Not only the image that we portray in this physical world, but we just feel better. We have more energy. We have more drive.
And when we can improve our physical health by discipline, by doing the things we know we should do, it does have a major positive impact on what we are doing. able to accomplish as an ambassador for Christ out in the world. Not only the image that we portray in this physical world, but we just feel better. We have more energy. We have more drive.
I think our mind is clear when we read the word, when we read scripture, when we pray, our mind is clear to, to, to, you know, receive what the Lord has for us in his word. Yeah. It's just all connected. And I would challenge every, uh,
I think our mind is clear when we read the word, when we read scripture, when we pray, our mind is clear to, to, to, you know, receive what the Lord has for us in his word. Yeah. It's just all connected. And I would challenge every, uh,
I think our mind is clear when we read the word, when we read scripture, when we pray, our mind is clear to, to, to, you know, receive what the Lord has for us in his word. Yeah. It's just all connected. And I would challenge every, uh,
follower of Christ who's listening to this show, if you need to lose a little weight, get out and move your body, put in the work, and it's going to make a positive impact in the kingdom. It's definitely not everything, right?
follower of Christ who's listening to this show, if you need to lose a little weight, get out and move your body, put in the work, and it's going to make a positive impact in the kingdom. It's definitely not everything, right?
follower of Christ who's listening to this show, if you need to lose a little weight, get out and move your body, put in the work, and it's going to make a positive impact in the kingdom. It's definitely not everything, right?
I'm not saying we should get to the point where we are worshiping our bodies and idolizing our physical fitness and our health, but it will make a tremendous impact, I believe.
I'm not saying we should get to the point where we are worshiping our bodies and idolizing our physical fitness and our health, but it will make a tremendous impact, I believe.
I'm not saying we should get to the point where we are worshiping our bodies and idolizing our physical fitness and our health, but it will make a tremendous impact, I believe.