Close Doesn’t Count

00:00 Father, thank you for the privilege of doing this today. We get to do this. Not a cliche, not just something to say to fill in space, but it's a declaration. It's a declaration of truth. It's a declaration of our heart and it's a declaration of faith. So, as Adam and I, as Adam and I talk today and just converse, we ask Holy Spirit, give us downloads from Throne Heaven. We're listening. And we thank you, Father, for who you are and what we get to do. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. It's Wednesday, February 4th, 2026. We get to do this. This is episode number 21. This is the life we've been blessed with.

00:42 This is a gift for we get to do this. This is the chance we dare not miss a bit. This is the life we get to do this. And we get to do this in a new location with a new rig, with the dog in the studio. With the bells. The bells, yes. I'm pretty fired up about that. I may overdo that today just because I've always wanted to do that. You know, now that I think about it, you just celebrated your birthday and just fantastic celebration at the church, and everybody's just, and we went out to dinner. And now that I think about it, I should have given you a bell for your birthday.

01:23 That would have been the ultimate. I can wait a year. Yeah. So we're all good. We're in the Curry Studios, Curry Compound Studios. And I just found out that I'm your first actual guest besides the keeper. You're right. Yes. So I'm kind of honored by that to be sitting in the keeper's chair outside of Dura Justice. Which swivels a lot. It does. If I remove too fast, I'm going to be, you'll be seeing the back of my head. And congratulations on you and Annette. 10 years at Bridge Church. I mean, we, and that was also celebrated this past Sunday. Wow. I mean, this has been just whirlwind for you guys when you think about it. 10 years. You know, when you're doing what you love to do, you're not counting time per se.

02:07 You know, you're just doing it. You get up every day, you stay the course, and you do what you love to do. And then you look up and it's a decade looking at those pictures of me when we first came. My hair was dark. Now it's gray. Both of you hadn't changed. I don't know if that's that much statement. What about overall? But you know, the hair is going to do what the hair does. But yeah, man, the church was so gracious. And I mean, I'm not often speechless, but I was speechless. I literally was, I didn't know what to say. I just was blown away. And just to have our team come up on the platform with us and put their hands on us and lay hands on us and pray over us and the church stretching their arms out.

02:54 It was, wow. I mean, I was kind of undone. You know, when I thought about it, because we always go to the early service, nine o'clock. And I'm thinking, wow, he's got to do this whole thing over again at 11 o'clock. Because I'm going to be doing my testimony. We'll talk about that this weekend. And I just got, I think I've said it to you before, but I am always so in awe of how pastors do two, three, sometimes four services on a Sunday. I mean, I can't imagine that. Well, I'm going to because I'm going to do it, but you're doing three. I mean, do you feel that it gets better each time? Or is it dependent upon who's in the church?

03:37 I'd say back early when we were doing this eight, nine years ago, where we were doing one service and we started doing two. It was kind of a big deal to change as the church started to grow, catch some traction. It was at first it was weird because it would be pretty vastly different between first and second in terms of what I preached, even the energy level that I had. I usually was more fired up in the second service because I was kind of waking up. And then I kind of got one under my belt. Nowadays, it's not that way. I feel like I've settled into that a few years ago and just I'm relaxed and enjoying both. So I now get to play guitar in both services. I get two standing gigs a week, man.

04:18 Most musicians can't say that. And you do shred it, man. I'm telling you. I love playing for God. Yeah. So I got to be honest. We're all going. Tina and I are going to Lake Wales, Florida this Sunday. You and Annette are joining us, which I'm so pleased that you're coming with us. This High Point Church, Pastor Jack Hilligoss, who asked me to give me my testimony on, of all days, Super Bowl Sunday. Oh. And I don't know if you saw the email, but he said, We're all going to be wearing our favorite team jerseys. Oh, no. Who's in the Super Bowl? Well, it's just, I think it's just whatever, whatever. Because, you know, here's the thing. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. Because I grew up in the DC area.

05:03 Oh, my team was my parents' team, the Washington Redskins. You cannot get, can you even say that out loud? You cannot get a Washington Redskins hoodie, t-shirt, jersey anywhere at all anymore, unless you go on like Facebook marketplace and want to meet some guy in the parking lot. Walgreens. Because I would have worn it. I would have worn it. I think, didn't they say that they wanted to go back to Redskins? Even the American Indians were like, We kind of liked it. How come you took that away from us? Yeah. Yeah. I don't have a jersey or a color. I'm just going to wear my Jesus hoodie.

05:42 I know that should do it. We have to bust out something. I don't know. I have to think about that one. I did not. I didn't read the whole email. I read your response, but I didn't read the whole thing. I got to tell you, though, I'm excited. Excited. Yeah, I'm nervous about it. Okay, nerves are good. I'm nervous every Sunday after all these years, 41 plus years of teaching, preaching, standing in front of crowds. I still get nervous, but it's a good nervous. It's good energy. Yeah. I love it. I think the thing is like three services. So I don't know. When you're carrying the ball, you are the speaker. It's not like he's going to get up there and go, oh, here, you got five minutes to do a decimal.

06:21 You're doing the whole 35-minute message. When a pastor does that, he's got to have some trust. That really is big for him. I hope I can bring it home. You will do great. I'm worried about it. No, you did that. We were with you at Houston when you did that podcast convention. And, bro, you just, you knocked it out of the park. Yeah. Well, that's phenomenal. I have Tina telling me now, don't do anything nerdy. Don't talk about RSS feeds. Don't talk too much about radio stuff. Just give me your testimony. So I get coaching constantly. Well, you get coaching right there from the front row. From the front row. In that car on the way home. She's learned, though.

07:02 She's learned to say something positive before she lands the blow. You know, it's like, okay, let me build him up. Then I'll tell him what he. I just can't wait to do a couple things. It's going to be good, brother. I want to say, turn to your neighbor and say, you're great. Okay, maybe not, maybe not, maybe not. So there's a pro tip that buys you a moment. Yeah, just to segue to think of something. Yeah. To breathe yourself, take a breath. Or I can just can somebody say amen. Can just somebody give me an amen on that. And I don't know what their crowd's like. You know, you're stepping into a different audience. No idea. I'm not sure what the vibe is there.

07:41 Well, what's kind of cool, though, at the end is when, and that kind of does, my testimony does lead up to that with Godcaster and, you know, what God has basically shown me what I need to do with my time and my talent, and to some degree, my treasure. And we're launching the Providence Voice live stream and their Godcaster app, which is kind of their brand, right? Providence. There are various things. Yes. Providence Voice. I'm really excited about that. I am. Although, as part of my testimony, I always say that somewhere in it, I'll say, and when I got saved and I look back, which is the amazing thing that God did, is like, no, we'll keep this guy waiting.

08:30 Let him get until he's like 58 and let's see if he notices anything. And I look back and I look at all the things I've been doing, which has been very consistent since I was 13 years old. A lot of just radio broadcasting technologies. And one of the first things I always tell people is, I thought I invented podcasting. I said, but I didn't. It's all God. God just used me. And throughout the years, people have started calling me the podfather, which I've always felt like. I mean, I've never, you know, I've never made a shirt or, you know, made a bumper sticker or really.

09:12 You do have a neon sign in your office. That's what I'm saying. People always give me that moniker. I've never, you know, it's like, it's, um, I've always felt very honored that people say that until this week, when Dan Bongino came back to his podcast, the third group of people I want to address are the grifters out there who mistakenly thought I wasn't coming back. Now, I am back. The podfather is back. And I'm here to take back this movement. Whoa. You need to have a visit with Dan. My whole timeline, because I had no idea. My whole timeline is just filled with people. This is. This is wrong.

09:55 And just they're saying horrible things to Dan Bongino. He's probably like, I stepped into something I did not know what I was stepping into. But it's even like, you know, it's like, I really, I'm really okay. I really don't. I haven't responded to anybody like, yeah, you're right, man. This guy is not cool. It's like, no, none of it matters. Let's see if he makes an apology, an official apology on the airport. I doubt it. I doubt it. Oh, he really does. Tinder brother, you know. He's a good guy, though. He's a good brother. Well, the thing with Dan, though, is he's gotten a little spun up. Yeah, yeah. He's had a rough go here. Tad. I'm not quite. I've never seen it. I mean, I always think that, you know, him being invited to be deputy director of the FBI.

10:40 You know, presidents make appointments all the time, you know, like, hey, thank you. And Dan Bongino definitely was very helpful towards President Trump. I think that when he got in there, he was just like, what? This is a hard job. Podcasting's easy. You know, this is just a hard, hard job, particularly, and we should just, I just want to talk about it for a little bit when it comes to Epstein. Because, man, this is just, it's insane what is going on, what people are thinking, what people are reading into things. Someone just, just before we started, sent me a note. He says, look at this. Epstein controls Bitcoin. I'm like, wow, okay, this is

11:26 unbelievable. And I just wanted to talk about it a little bit. Sure. Because what people are looking for isn't there, other than Jeffrey Epstein clearly was a creep. But nothing has come out of this. No one's being arrested. It's just a lot of emails. And when you look at emails, you're going to see anyone's email can be like, you can interpret things many different ways. I just wanted to play this. I think this is Euronews or yeah. Just an overview of this latest drop of the Epstein files. And I want to talk about how we as believers need to deal or can deal with this and need to look at it.

12:08 After he was released from prison in 2009, actually ABC. It's even better, ABC. After he was released from prison in 2009, Epstein was back to his jet-setting lifestyle. And the new documents offer more evidence that Epstein made it a point to cozy up to some of the richest and most powerful people on the planet, like former Prince Andrew, Woody Allen, Bill Gates, President Bill Clinton, and President Donald J. Trump. All the men have denied any wrongdoing and any knowledge of Epstein's molestation and illegal activities. But with the release of the documents on Friday, a number of prominent men find themselves having to explain the exact nature of their relationship with Epstein.

12:49 One of the newly released files described Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lucknick allegedly trying to arrange a meal with Epstein at his private island in 2012, writing, does Sunday evening sound good? A few days later, Epstein's assistant sent Lutnick this message. Jeffrey, wished me to pass along the below to you. Nice seeing you. The list of prominent men who spent time with Epstein and who are caught up in his sordid life story is long. The newly released documents include an FBI slideshow compiled sometime after July 25th, 2025, that lists allegations against other wealthy and powerful men tied to Epstein beyond Donald Trump, including convicted sex offender and film producer Harvey Weinstein, billionaire Leon Black, and bank executive Jess

13:35 Staley. DOJ officials have said that many of the allegations against prominent figures did not come from credible sources, were not corroborated, and none of those men have been charged with crimes connected to Epstein. So we've talked about this briefly that, you know, this is really, ultimately, it's all about the 2026 election. But there's a couple of things that I want people, because you can't avoid the conversation. You can't avoid it anywhere on social media and even in the news. Just turn on the news. It's there. It's in our face the whole time. What you are seeing is that

14:15 around money, people with a lot of money, all kinds of people start to congregate. And that is just a fact of the world. It is a worldly thing. And I, I mean, I remember when I first was on television in Holland and I was 19 years old, and all of these wealthy people started to kind of invite me to parties and, you know, nothing, nothing nefarious. But, and I think pretty soon I realized like, I, these people don't interest me. You know, there was this one really, really wealthy guy in Amsterdam, and he had this huge, like multiple canal houses.

14:59 And I am there and I see the prime minister of the country driving, riding a 10-speed bike through the house. I'm like, what? What? This is nuts. And there's something about money, first of all, that removes boundaries for certain people. Maybe for, I mean, when you just have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions. But then all these people so desperately want to be around them. And this is where networks are created. And the networks are money and politics and show business. That's really the three things. And the saddest part, and this is really what happened with this Epstein

15:45 club, is that there are many, particularly young women who want to make it in Hollywood, in modeling, in music, and they see that as an in, and they mistake the interest from wealthy men, powerful. And it's usually men. I'm just going to say that straight up. It's usually men. And they think, here's my shot. And I say this because I told you the other day that one of my daughter's friends appears in the Epstein files with emails. And she went to great lengths to, you know, to be a part of this and go to New York and

16:27 actually change her body. And then, you know, whatever didn't work out. And then she just got really depressed. And my daughter's actually been kind of counseling her for years through this type of depression. But what you're seeing is these networks, this is why people are attracted to it, because this is the stuff where things do get done in the world, in the world of politics, in the world of banking, show business, all of it. It really does happen. I want people to recognize that part. And also, it seems like nine out of 10 very rich, wealthy, powerful people are almost illiterate.

17:07 Have you seen some of these emails? They can barely write a sentence in good English, which I find interesting. And this reminded me of a classic bit from George Carlin. And I cleaned this one up and just shortened it. Thank you. I did. And just shortened it a little bit just to get to his basic message. And I think what he's saying, a lot of what Carlin said was true. And I think it's true as well. But I think we can look at this through believers' eyes and take a different path and also not be as cynical as the good George Carlin, who I think died very unhappy because he was just mad.

17:48 You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies. So they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking.

18:28 They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interest. That's right. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. And that's the classic line from George Carlin. That is it. How do we, how do we even look at this as believers? First of all, there's just the distancing yourself from the noise because it's all noise. It's all noise. But there is, it is true. There is a, there's multiple clubs, but there's big clubs of power and money from a biblical standpoint.

19:05 How do we A, recognize it? B, deal with it, and C, how do we route around it so that we just don't get caught up in George Carlin land of it's forget it, it's over, you're not going to win. Well, how we recognize it is the same way your mother probably learned account change. My mom was a bank, was in banking back in the day where they taught her. Now, I don't know if they'd still do this, but it's kind of famous where they would take a teller. And when they're training them, they would never let them handle counterfeit money. Only real money.

19:41 Only real money. So that when they knew all. all they knew was what was true, what was right, when a counterfeit came across, they'd recognize it immediately. They'd recognize the weight, the feel, the texture, even the color. They could spot those things because it wasn't true. And it's the same way. This is why I was even thinking about this this morning. I love Romans 12, too, talking about be transformed, be changed by the renewing of your mind. But that literally says from the New Living Translation, which is very accurate, be changed by changing the way you think. Be transformed by changing the way you think. And so there's a sense where we have to stop

20:25 thinking like the world thinks. And how do we think like the world thinks? Well, we read what the world reads. We watch the news that the world produces. We watch movies and television that the world produces. We celebrate the award shows that the world produces. Oh my God. No, I couldn't last through halfway of the Grammys. Once I heard that you can't be illegal on stolen land, I was done. I'm like, okay. Yeah, it didn't take long for them to get into it now. And the no ice pins. But, you know, all of that. So, what all these are, and what we do as Christians, and I say we because I'm including myself.

21:05 I'm waking up to a lot of these things over the years as I continue to grow that I've handled too much counterfeit stuff. Oof. And because of that, it can get a little bit mixed on what's real, what's authentic, and what's counterfeit, what's fake, what's true, what's false. And so I have found in my experience, I guess you could say pro tip, since I'm a professional Christian as a pastor, is that the more when I was younger and I was more immersed in the world and I was more immersed in the culture,

21:45 it was harder to recognize truth. But as I've gotten older and I've spent more time, like my morning times have become, I just can't get enough, honestly, in the mornings. That's when I got up at 5:30 this morning and just had a couple of hours of bliss. I mean, just with God, with some soft music playing in the 440 hertz key, of course, because that's the key of David. We got to have the right key. We do not want to be 1938 or whenever they change the hurts, make her things. But anyway, all I'd say, I'm getting off, but as I've gotten more handling truth and over the years, began to call out things,

22:28 carve out things that I know are not really good for me. They're not really helping me. They're just entertainment. And we've talked a lot about pushing back on media and various social media and various things. The more I do this, that means the more immersed I am in what's true, which means now when something comes across my desk or my phone or my screen, I just, I just cringe. I immediately recognize, oh, that's not true. No, that's off. That's off. Or I hear a preacher preaching something. I'm going, no, that's not true. That's all. Yeah, that's, I mean, I was even listening to a First Amendment lawyer who was just blatantly misrepresenting the, you know, we've talked about this, the First Amendment as well.

23:11 You have a right to your faith and practicing your religion, and you have a right. That's not what the First Amendment says. It says the government can't stop or abridge your, they call it natural right, but it's a God-given right, even if you read the Constitution. It's a God-given right. I guess this is what we call discernment because this is a big term, which Tina and I talk about a lot. It's like, well, how do you get discernment? Does that come back to the counterfeit money? Well, yeah, I mean, that's part of it. Of course, it can be much broader. That's just one example. Discernment, and when you read discernment in the scriptures, there's several places. One of them is in 1 Samuel when it's talking about the sons or the men of Issachar.

23:55 Issachar, yeah. That was 200. Sorry, I'm in a foreign environment. I hit the stand. My stand comes from the other way. I'm going to be knocking stuff over here in a minute. I'm sorry. Knock your speakers off your desk. So, especially to talk with my hands. So, 1 Samuel talks about David's mighty man. It lists out, there's one group that's 50,000, one that's 45,000. He gets to the men of Issachar. This is about 100 guys, wasn't it? 200. 200, yeah. 200, smallest group listed. And those were the ones that David kept close to him. And the scripture says this. They discerned the times and they understood what to do. So he kept them close because they discerned the times. They understood the times. To discern, for example, in the New Testament, it talks about the discerning of spirits. spirits.

24:40 So, a lot of time somebody will say, Oh, oh, I've got the gift, I've got the spiritual gift of discernment. And I'll say, What do you mean by that? I said, Well, I've just, I have God just gives me clear understanding about things. I said, Well, I'm sorry, that's not that's not what you're referring to. Maybe you have some wisdom, some learned wisdom. There is wisdom, but there's not a gift of discernment. There's a gift of discerning of spirits. It's very clear about that. What that means is you have the ability to see behind things, sort of like behind the curtain. You know, Wizard of Oz, pull the curtain back, there's the Oz moving stuff.

25:19 So, that's what discernment is: you have the ability to see beyond what's right in front of you to what's behind it. So, the discerning of spirits is you can discern the spirit of something behind it. So, something comes at you, somebody's standing there, and they're berating you, or they're on their mighty keyboard berating you. That happens all the time, right? And that's happening. The discerning of spirits means you understand what's behind it, and that's why you can go, you know what? I'm not going to be mad at this guy because that's not even him. There's a spirit driving that. Why? You discerned that. So, now what do you do? Well, you just painted a red X on that guy for prayer. Yeah, not to kill, but to pray, to pray, to bombard with life.

26:02 And so, that's the discerning of spirits. So, this idea of discernment, and it's a great word, by the way, it literally means to see beyond the obvious. That's what it is. You're just seeing something that's not obvious. And you talk about this all the time. When you do media deconstruction and when the media is going over here, over here, and everybody runs over there, you're saying, No, look somewhere else. That's discernment. Yeah, you're seeing beyond what appears to be obvious. Does that make sense? I'll be honest with you throughout the 20 years I've been doing that. Whenever everyone's looking to the right, I just know, oh, I just got to look to the left. I don't know why, but there's going to be something over there. It seems like that seems to be how the

26:49 powers in the heavenly places, you know, the principalities, thank you. That seems, that's how they operate. And for me, it's like once I figured that out, it's like, oh, well, if everyone says this guy is great, he may be great. Why don't we take a look over there? Just let me see what's going on with this other person. It's almost like it's a simple trick that the enemy just keeps playing over and over and over again out of hand. And yes. And we, and yet we still fall for it. And what's tough is when you have spiritual people, pastors, preachers

27:31 who are doing this on YouTube and TikTok and other places. And man, this is where discernment gets hard. Because also, as a new Christian, it gets hard. Understandably. Oh, I'm not so sure about this. Now, my spidey sense is saying, well, probably not, but that's just, you know, I'm 61. I've been around. I've seen some stuff. But in general, in the world, the fallen world, which I think this Epstein thing kind of shows us, this hunkering for being close to a power center, being, and it's often more power. I'm not even sure if for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

28:14 Yes. But there's something about fame and fortune, and it's always fame first, that draws people in. And man, social media is built on this. It is built on this entire concept of reward. And I know that we've talked about the neuro, the neurological parts of it where dopamine and different hits you're getting. These things are programmed for it. But what is it about? Does this just go back to the garden, man? When it's like, this is what you come on. This is what you want. You want this fruit. This is the thing that's going to give it all to you. Does it really go back to that?

28:58 Sounds exactly what we're being told. You know, take this pill, your tinnitus or your tinnitus will stop. This is what you need. This will do it. Then, yeah, buy this trinket. I mean, or whatever I happen to whisper out loud and my phone picked up. And then suddenly it fills my newsfeed with stuff I'd never think about. And that happens a lot. It's actually if you're just close to someone who has been looking at stuff on the phone. So do you and Annette ever get the same thing? Oh, yeah. It happens all the time, right? Yeah. So, Annette and I, our conversation, speaking of this dynamic, it has become fun. funny now because she, here's an Easter egg for my wife.

29:40 She's on her screen more than I am now. So we'll see if she picks up on this. Don't tell her. So what happens is she'll say, I'll hear, oh my gosh, across the room. I'm going, what's going on, babe? She said, did you read this? I said, I don't know what you're talking about. Read what? It's always the guessing game. And she'll share this tidbit. And I'll have to tell you how it's changed. So this happens all the time. And I'll go, no, babe, I haven't read that. And I said, is everybody talking about that? Yeah. Oh, it's all over. It's all over media. And I'm like, then that's not the issue.

30:20 Wow, that's a good way of looking at it. Something else is going on. And then now she's doing that. Just recently, she'll say, oh my gosh, what's going on? Oh, just did, have you read this? No, I haven't. Then she reads it to me. And she'll go, but I bet that's not the truth. I mean, she just autopilot. Well, that's good. That's good. Yeah. And we were laughing about it the other day because I was like, have you noticed that we just don't trust anything that comes across our screens anymore? But that's the incoming part. The part that concerns me the most is, oh, wow, I got to reboost this. I got to boost it, tweet it, read, you know, slash it, whatever.

31:01 I have to add my comment to this. That, to me, is the part that is, what are you showing up? I'm going to read you something. Okay. So this came across, this came into our Bridge Church IG message. I think we were mentioning Instagram. It's like the kids, IG, the Graham. Yeah. I think we were mentioned in this. And I won't say who mentioned this, but it says this: the church doesn't know the difference. The church has a massive blind spot all in caps. They don't know the difference between biblical Jews and Zionist Jews, the synagogue of Satan. Not my opinion. It's in the Bible. And in the comment below, it says, time to address what's going on in our nation.

31:46 Forgot to add elders of Zion. You can come up with a few more, right? Well, this is an ongoing thing. And by the way, that I'm trying not to say by the way, it fits right into Epstein because there's nothing better than having a Jewish guy who is rich, you know, claim to have connections. His girlfriend, Maxwell, certainly through her dad, whatever. You know what? You get rich? Yeah, you might get a call from intelligence. Who are you talking to? What are you doing? What can we do? It's all part of the same system. This just, what is the word?

32:21 It disappoints me. It disappoints me that people continue to think that there's this big blackmailing operation, that everybody's compromised. And if you don't speak the way everyone else does, then you're compromised. I mean, it's ridiculous on its face, ridiculous on its face that Israel controls America. I mean, if people just use their brain logically and look at history. Or people that get mad at me because I pray Psalm 122, verse 6 every Sunday morning, unapologetically. And sometimes I give a little explanation, let people know this is why we're doing this. Would you mind doing that again for people listening to this?

33:04 The simple thing is this, is God told us to do this. And he didn't qualify Israel because there was nothing to qualify. It was the nation of Israel, the city of Jerusalem. And he says in Psalm 122, verse 6, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. That's it. And then there's another tag on that. But that's what is a command. It's an imperative in the actual Hebrew language, which means it's a command. It's a mandate. It's not an oh, if you feel like it, or depending on if things change in culture, here's the thing. My thought on this, and the reason why I do this is: A, he commands it. Two, in the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis, two different places, but one specifically that I'll reference, is where he says that in you and through you, all the families in the earth will be blessed.

33:55 And he says, and those who bless you will be blessed, and those who curse you will be cursed. And then later in that same passage, God reminds Abram, it was Abram before Abraham, that this is an everlasting covenant. Right. So not something that gets interrupted or changed by the day of the Messiah. Yeah, it's forever. And so I have always stood that we're commanded to support Israel. That doesn't mean support all their politics. Man, I can't even say that about America right now. And yet I'm as red as they come and pro and I'm concerned. conservative, pro-life, you name it.

34:31 I'm that. And anyway, not going to get all off on the weeds, but and yet I will say, if our president or somebody's cabinet says something off base or that doesn't align with biblical worldview, I'll call that out as we should. Well, I do the same thing with Israel. However, I've been commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And there it is. There it is. There's a difference. And there is a, this is not a co-inky-dink coincidence. As we have blessed by praying for Israel, and we support a ministry in Israel that is messianic in nature.

35:09 That means these Jewish people have, they believe in Jesus Christ. They believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. And so we support their ministry. And when we started doing that, and when I began every Sunday, I'm telling you, the blessings that have come our way, we're operating in the Abrahamic covenant. And I don't mean this in a bad way, but I'm at a point in my life where I can't worry about what somebody else thinks about. Of course. As a leader, a spiritual leader, and one that's called to uphold the tenets of God's word, we're going to pray for Israel every week.

35:49 And I don't care who is sitting out there in the congregation feeling uncomfortable about it. And the only reason they're uncomfortable, it's not because they know, it's because they think they know because they saw it on a post. It's so it's so odd, though, how you can confuse that, the covenant, how you can, how you can confuse the command to pray for the peace of Jerusalem with somehow, regardless of what the Israeli government does, somehow conflating that with supporting them. It's like there's this mental block that has taken place. And even funnier, because we're going on, it's not funny.

36:31 Well, it's peculiar. We're going on a Bible study tour of Israel with about, I think, 60 people from the church. About 40. 45 or 40. Yeah. Very excited to go. It's always been on my bucket list. The first things I hear are, well, is it safe? I'm like, okay, so you really need to, you know, like get some different sources. You know, is any country safe? Second thing is, well, do you really feel good about supporting the economy of Israel? I'm like, huh? I support the economy of the United States, which has done some pretty bad things in its history.

37:14 But it's just, it's, you know, this is a biblical study tour. I want to see these places that I've been reading about. It's exciting. I have friends in Israel. You know, I look forward to meeting Sir Brian of London. We're both going to have to meet him for sure. Fantastic. Yeah, I like that guy. He's a great guy. He's sharp. The favorite thing he always says to me is like, Adam, just remember, we think Jesus was an insurrectionist, okay? But I love you. I can laugh with that. I don't care about that. Hey, thanks for being honest. He loves you too, bro. He's always honest. And I love that. I mean, you know, just, and here's the bottom line.

37:56 Okay, what if we're wrong? What if their government is corrupt? What if it sounds like we're supporting something? At the end of the day, we still should be praying for them. Well, they need more prayer. Exactly. Specifically for that reason. That's why that just so boggles my mind when people say that or they'll they'll sneak up to Net and why do we pray for Israel? She said, have you not listened to my husband for the last three years we've been doing this? And it's always funny, but it's because of something they read on their screen that got them all worked up. And our word is spun up. So many people, they live spun up.

38:34 I think people are so addicted to that dopamine hit, that dopamine dump, that when they're not getting that, they don't know what to do. Yeah. I mean, sitting in an airport, standing in a line at the grocery store. Nonstop. No one's reading the guy anymore. Why not? I mean, I feel bad for those places. You know, they're getting no business. By the way, they got a lot of truth. The National Enquirer, man, just look at men in black. They have it right a lot. I'm telling you. They know what they're talking about. Indian baby. Yeah. I mean, so that's tragic to me, though, that we now

39:13 say we don't believe all this stuff. We say, oh, oh, that's, yeah. But we're so addicted to the hit that we'll still read it but and convince ourselves it's not affecting me. It is women in a cesspool. You're going to stink. There's no way around it. There's a bumper sticker. There's a Texas saying. Yeah. So I guess in a way, just a broken record. I know. I'm concerned, though. It's important. Just for young people, because if you ask them that, when we were growing up, we didn't want to be you, firefighter, no doubt, policeman, you know, at a certain point, basketball, football, rock star, hero, rock star.

39:55 Hey, absolutely. I just wanted to be a D, I just wanted to be Dr. Johnny Fever. I wanted the dark room, which I have now. Wolfman Jack. Everybody's the wolfman. I got the dark room. I got my gear. You get that ambiance. Yeah, no one can see what I'm doing. I want to be the big voice behind the mic. But these days, it's the number one is an influencer. I want to be an influencer. I want to be famous. I want to, you know, be an Instagram star. And unfortunately, there's also a whole generation of parents who are like, well, yeah, that would be pretty cool. I'd love to see you have some success this way. And praise God. Our daughters just, they somehow got out of it. Nice.

40:39 They got out of it. And, you know, my daughter, Christina, she, I mean, and I had her on laptops when she was nine. You know, this is way before social media, but she even told me, oh, dad, you know, that ICQ thing. Yeah. Oh, I was getting all kinds of weird messages. So by the grace of God, she, you know, she got through a lot of that. But they've just, they've somehow they've realized, I would hope to think because of us, Tina and myself, that it's just, it's just empty. It's not worth it. It's, it goes nowhere. And I feel like we're just yelling into the void sometimes. There's no way to convince people.

41:24 People who I respect are texting me all day long, like, look at this thing from the Episode. Look at this. I'm like, bro, get off of X. I know. Get off. I mean, I can sit here and tell you the 10 ways how this is not true and dumb, but you just keep doing it. And from faithful people, too. What do you? I can't see it from there. Oh, yes. People we love. You're on there. No, I do. People we love. Yeah. And it wakens up all kinds of things, like a patriotic spirit. And we're going to fight and fight for our country and fight for our faith. I'm like, this is not the right way. This is not the way to do it. And Tina and I, you know, we pray before we go to sleep at night.

42:07 And we, by name, will pray for Waltz. We'll pray for Newsome. And, you know, I can see clearly that they're not great at their jobs, but I just, I stopped hating them. And I just, I can't do that. It doesn't make sense to me. Well, that's, that's coming in the opposite spirit. Some of the best advice I got as a young pastor was: whatever comes at you, come in the opposite spirit. And I remember when he said that, I was like, it's no wonder we're good friends, Pastor Jimmy. We have a lot of the same mechanisms. Come in the opposite spirit. In other words, if somebody comes at you with hate, you come back with love. If they come at you with cursing, you come back at them with blessing.

42:50 And what it did, it created a different response. I'd love to say I did it 100% of the time or still do it 100% of the time. If I'm not careful and guarding myself and watching my eye gate, my ear gate, all those different gates that allow things into your heart, I can be caught off guard and get all spun up pretty quick. Actually, a lot less than I used to. I'm just saying there's a filter that's kind of been built in me. And a lot of it's through our friendship and our conversations. What we do on here on air is just a micro of what we talk about. And I would say part of the beauty of our friendship is we start off every day with a little text update back and forth.

43:32 You know, sometimes it's just each of us sends one thing. Here's what's going on. Sometimes we go further. Sometimes we share some script. Well, you're always, you always attach your message with your daily grind. I have a couple other close friends. And if you can really keep it that way, if you can keep it as a group where you're just building each other up, it's fantastic in the morning. And that's how I start my morning. I just, I cannot, if I go to a screen, I'm going to be stuck. It'll be 45 minutes later. The dog's looking at me like, I really got to go. You haven't fed me yet. And just, it's a bad start. And almost every day I wake up and I feel the enemy poking at me the minute I wake up.

44:17 Boom. Good morning, Holy Spirit. Good morning, Lord Jesus. Good morning for your day. You have to. However, you respond to that drawing, that calling, and you've got different voices calling. And if you don't respond to the right one, you will start your day that way. And then it's hard to recover sometimes. And I remember doing that so well for decades. I remember, I'm in a bad mood. Don't talk to me. You know, because that first thought that pops into my head, somehow the enemy has, you know, not every day, but often, like, the first thing is like, and I, and I, and I, within seconds, and now like catch it. Like, no, there you go. No, no, no. Stop. Lord's Prayer. That always drives everything out, by the way.

44:59 Lord's Prayer. Boom. All right. Where'd you go, Satan? You just seem to be gone. Also, I guess 2 Corinthians 10 talks about bringing every thought into captivity and making it obedient to Christ, capturing your thoughts. Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. That's 2 Corinthians. Let me look it up on my phone because I don't have my computer here. Because the studio is not built for guests with laptops. Yeah, you've got this amazing desk. I got like three inches over here. So when this desk was built, it was just for me. So I didn't know I was going to have guests. I had no idea. It's also a standing desk, really. Yeah, I love that. Mine's a standing desk. I love that thing.

45:41 So let me go to make sure I got that right. 2 Corinthians 10:4. There it is. Listen to this. It says, We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. Now, that's the NLT. Let me read it to you in another translation that will clarify that just a little bit. I'll go with the New King James Version. It says this: We're casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

46:31 So I learned that principle many years ago. Maybe somebody preached on it or heard it or read it or something, but it was this idea that you can actually capture thoughts. And that's kind of what you're talking about in the mornings when you get up and, you know, we're always a little susceptible, right, in the morning because we're kind of starting with a clean slate. The scripture says his mercies are new every morning. You get a do-over every day to wake up with a clean whiteboard, right? No marks, nothing. And if we're not careful, man, we'll have that thing marked up by nine o'clock. You know, by 9 a.m., it's all cluttered. Or we can do some simple, basic practices that will help us start the day off with some order, with some peace.

47:15 I told Annette this morning because she wants me to start walking again because she heard him talking about the Israel trip and all the walking we're going to do. Oh, yeah. Shoes have been ordered for me. I got to break them up. I'm going to come in Thursday. My Meryls. I bought a tennis shoe, hiking shoe. I don't want to wear boots. I got some lightweight stuff. I'm not doing the boots. But anyway. Yes, please continue. Well, so we were talking this morning, and I was telling she wanted me to start walking. Okay, you know, I've got to start walking now. We got a train for Israel. I'm like, train, honey, five of our people on walkers. We're going to be fine. And one will be in a wheelchair probably half the time. And so she said, no, no, we got to get ready.

47:56 We got a train. She says, we're going to start going in the morning. I said, I love you, but no. Wow. And she said, she said, oh, you just don't want to walk. I said, no, I'd love to walk with you. And I'll do it in the afternoons and evening, especially this time of year. And we're going to walk when I get home, by the way. But I said, my morning time is too critical for me. If I don't set the tone first thing, and if I'm rushing through all that just so I can go walk, it's not that I don't want to be with you or walk with you. It's just it's rushing what is actually one of the most important times of my day. And you and I both, I mean, Tina was just asking me yesterday, why do you always get up at 6:30?

48:39 I said, because I like the 45 minutes. The dog is still asleep. You're still asleep. I just love, is she behind you? Is she in her bed? She's conked out. I just want to make the coffee, get it all set for both of us. And I just want to read, get in the word, have a sequence, some devotionals. Right, me too. And then around a rhythm. Around 6:30, between 6:30 and 7, your text comes through. And I found it so important to me. It's interesting about the clean whiteboard. My parents were kind of. hippy-dippy in regards to spirituality.

49:18 My mom did, you know, all kinds of things that, well, they were Unitarian for a bit there, which was also quite interesting. Had very little to do with God that I can recall. But my mom, she would, and God bless her. And I hope she's up there listening. She had, I don't know where she picked this up, probably from one of her many guru groups. And it was like, every day you have a brand new sign and you hold up this sign that says, I'm okay. I'm great. Now, instead of looking at the way we do from a clean slate, she would say, and throughout the day, people will start to rip little bits out of your sign.

50:03 And we had a saying at our house: if someone insulted the other one or said something mean, you just ripped my sign. And I think about how close she was to the right idea, but definitely approaching it from the wrong directions. Like, it can be positive, could be very positive. But it's all, it's kind of the same, the same concept in a way. That is, that is good, actually. It's right on the money. You know, they made a joke out on Saturday Night Live. Remember, positive affirmations, you know, affirmation. Stuart Smalley. Smalley. I'm capable. I'm good enough. Doggone it. Yeah. Funny, but at the same time.

50:43 It was a little hokey. You know, they went hulky way over. But there's some good principles there. There really is power in speaking God's word over your life. I mean, just taking Deuteronomy chapter 27, saying, you know what? According to God's word, and because I'm in Christ, I'm the head, not the tail. I'm above only and not beneath. I am blessed coming in. I'm blessed going out. I'm blessed in the city. I'm blessed in the country. In fact, if the enemy comes at me one way, the scripture tells me he has to flee seven. Seven ways. And you jump over to Isaiah 54. No weapon formed against me shall prosper. And every tongue that rises against me, God will show to be in the wrong. Jump into the new tab.

51:24 So you can go with that. And I do that often. And it's a rewiring of your mind. I started with Romans 12, too, today. Be transformed by renewing your mind. Be transformed by changing the way you think. Well, how do you change the way you think? You change what you say. Ah, yes. And so you begin to speak the life-giving word of God and start agreeing with what God says about you, and it begins to change everything. It's an identity issue. Again, from the hippie-dippy perspective, excuse me. Change your words, change your world. And there's a lot of truth to that. Yeah. It's not completely out of line. It's just what words do you use is the word.

52:08 Exactly. Exactly. I like to use God's word. Man. That does it. There's so much more one to talk about. I mean, we could close it. We could close. Well, it's more like a cultural thing. I just wanted to say that because you do the culture briefing every Sunday now, which I'm write and is fantastic. And Tina edits. It's the Tina Wash. Do you know what she said for this last one? She said, no changes. Wow. You wrote all that. That was untouched. Yeah. Said no changes. Wow. Yeah. There was one spelling mistake, I think.

52:49 Yeah. But I saw ChatGPT saying, this is perfectly written. Well, if it's some Chat GPT, then it'll show up with little emojis next to bullet points. And if I ever send you that, just decline it and block me. Something's happened. It's not me. But you add libged a bit, which I appreciate. I hadn't put it in there. Yeah, I hadn't put it in there for length about Iran. And, you know, there's, oh, man, you know, ever since I started publishing these thoughts after you read them on Substack, now I have a Substack app that has given me all these, I don't know how these people, how I subscribe to them,

53:28 but there's a couple of guys who are reporting from Israel. It's like, and everyone's ready and everyone has their phones charged and we're getting ready for an attack from Iran. And the president is positioning the Armada. I just want to say something about after I played this little clip. To step back from the brink, at least for now, amid the threats of a U.S. Armada taking military action against Iran and Iran's promise to retaliate, both sides have confirmed their intelligence. Contrary to the hype of the contrived media war, structural arrangements for negotiations are progressing. Border red. While Donald Trump also acknowledged discussions, he suggested strikes were still possible.

54:09 possible. Iran's president said a broader conflict would hurt both Iran and the United States. A concern echoed by analysts. Trump can launch an attack and then immediately post a tweet two hours later. I finished the job. No, this will give us a lead to an old war. Okay, so that's basically the messaging that's out there. Because this came out of such left feel that I had to dive into it. Like, what's really going on? And the president is not being completely transparent, in my opinion. He's saying, well, you know, we have to have a nuclear deal. I'm like, nuclear deal. We blew all that stuff up. What is this nuclear deal?

54:50 What's happening here is because of these recent uprisings, the leadership of Iran, I won't call them a regime because I'm sick of people calling everything a regime. I don't know anything about it. They're of a cult. They don't seem like a bunch of good guys. They are definitely weakened. I'm still not even 100% sure about how many people were killed. It's brought very sensitive. One person is too much. It brought very sensationalistically about the number is 30,000. Okay, I don't know that. I don't see the type of evidence I would like to see. And when I see certain open source intelligence groups like Bellingcat pop up, I'm like, okay, there's a narrative that's been set.

55:35 That's for sure. This is about one thing and one thing only. When a vacuum is created, the last thing you want is for people who may not have anyone's best interests except their own to fill that void. And that void right now is China. And it's mainly about oil. Surprise, surprise, because Venezuela and Iran had constant oil trade-offs. They have two different kinds of oil. This is all the ghost ships. This is the swapping out oil, which is all sanctioned by every country. So it's not like we're alone. So, you know, when they say, well, they're parked right off the coast of Iran.

56:19 Look at the map for a second. So they're near the Gulf of Aden, you know, the Hormuz Straits. And it's really a protection so that oil does not get hampered or captured by Iran with other actors. It's just a show of force to say, hey, we're looking out for everybody. As far as I can tell, this is not about an attack. We're not going to go boots on the ground. If anything, it will hopefully give people in Iran a new some breathing room to start and maybe take control. I mean, Iran, Tehran is a modern city.

57:01 I mean, this is not like some camel jockeys in the desert. So I just wanted to share with people that I don't think we need to be spun up about some kind of all-out war that's going to take place. As the president would say, well, the aircraft carrier has got to be somewhere. So might as well put it there for now. But it's about, it's much more about how can we stabilize what's going on there with something outside, but we're not going. And friends and lovers in Israel, I really don't think you're going to have a problem. I really don't. And I have had no fear about that. The first time we went to Israel, you know, there's always ever, there's never not rumblings about war with Israel.

57:45 I mean, it's just, it never stops. Well, there's always wars and rumors of wars. Exactly. And it never stops. And so, and that's kind of what Xi, our leader, was saying when people, he fields those kind of questions. You can tell he feels those all the time. He's not G, the leader of China, by the way. No, he's J-I. G. G. And great brother in Christ. Speaks fluent Hebrew. Yeah. Yeah. Not what I was seeing a stereotype there. No, not at all. But anyway, he feels those questions because people are, you know, family members are talking to people that want to go on this trip. Are you sure it's safe? I mean, everybody. Well, no one asked me that about Paris when we went. And man, not as safe as I was.

58:29 Walking around Paris with my wife's Louis Vuitton hanging out. I'm like, I'm not feeling safe here. I mean, it felt like walking through New York City. Same with London. So Dublin's different. Everybody's kind of nice in Dublin. I kind of feel like it's not. Dublin is very, very different animal. It doesn't fit in there. It's a very different animal. I just laughed with him. It was a lot of fun. But anyway, so there's this fear. And so when we were there in, I think it was 05, West Bank was occupied, stuff was happening. We drove by the West Bank, and it was lined with guns. I mean, just big O military guns. guns. And the guy on the bus said, Don't worry about them. It's not nothing to worry about. And we're, you know, a bunch of Americans all scared.

59:11 We don't see that stuff. And there's kids walking around with guns all over the place. That's part of the army, the military. But it's also, it's like when even now, when I tell people, I live in Texas, oh, oh, man, like, y'all got guns. Well, yeah. Y'all ride horses? No. Y'all got trucks? No, some people. But, you know, it's like, well, you must just be a bunch of racist rednecks over there. I mean, this is how. Well, now, if you say you're from Texas, you'll get, oh, Sharia law. I'm like, what? Not in Fredericksburg. I don't know where you're talking about. Not around here. You don't call 911 either.

59:49 Oh, spin it down, people. Spin it down. It's all going to be okay. So, what we felt when we were there was absolutely covered. We felt no fear. None whatsoever. And we were all over the nation. We were up in some places that might have seen some action here and there, but nothing. No fear. No place is safe. The most dangerous part of our trip will be the drive to San Antonio area. I was going to say, I was thinking that's going to be around here. I was thinking San Antonio. Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, I'm bringing the rig with me. So maybe we'll be able to sneak in a show or two while we're there.

1:00:26 I think that'll be a lot of fun. Oh, that would be really fun. Yeah. Great. I think it would be good. Hey, brother, thank you so much for coming to the Curry Conference. Let's do that again. I'm sorry. We're getting out of here. All right, everybody. We will be back next week. Please join us. We get to do this. Blessings to y'all. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is against we get to do this. This is the chance we dare not miss. This is the life we get to do this.