Give Peace a Chance

00:00 Father, what a privilege to be before you today. And literally to have the privilege of being in being able to speak into people's lives. But, Father, it's not my voice or Adam's voice really that we want them to hear. We want them to hear your heart, your voice, your heart for them, your love for them, calling them back, wooing them, drawing them, teaching them, all of us together. And Father, we really are in this together, and we get to do it together. So, Lord, we commit everything we do to you, everything we do for you for your honor and glory in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. It's Wednesday, June 10th, 2026. We get to do this.

00:44 This is episode number 36. 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. Hello, brother. Cheers, brother. All right. There we go. The clanking of our metal, the Yeti cups. It was beautiful. It was a beautiful thing. What are you drinking over there? I'm drinking, I presume it's black rifle coffee. Just black. Jay. Just black, yes. Yeah, that's their medium. I love it. I need to. I'm drinking some something you treated Wheaton me with gigawatt.

01:27 Oh, yes, gigawattcoffeeroasters.com. Cold brew. This is amazing. Isn't that good stuff? I'm feeling like I'm going to have to reach out to these guys. How do you get it? Well, Eli the coffee guy, he started, he was a producer of the No Agenda Show. And he, like many of the most amazing small companies who listen to the No Agenda show, they started a little coffee roaster company and sent us some coffee. And like, wow, this is pretty good coffee. In particular, I like the cold brew, which he had to stop for a while because there was some, yeah, there was some scare about the way cold brews were made, and everybody had to stop it for a little bit.

02:10 And he brought it back. And it's, I mean, it's the perfect add-on to my already caffeinated life. No kidding. You just like, you know, I've already had two cups of coffee. I think I'm going to throw a cold brew on it. It's cold, yeah. Yeah. I'm just switching gears. It makes you feel better anyway, like you're not drinking too much. But it has that nitro in it. So you got to give it a little shake. You got to be careful opening it because it will give you a psh. I had a feeling. Yeah. But it's good, isn't it? So good. So good. He and his wife, Jen, run that company. And you don't have to get their email address. I have a feeling Eli listens. Hey, Eli, if you do, brother, you've made me happy. Oh, man. Happy today. I like it. It has been a crazy week so far for me.

02:54 How about you? We've had a lot going. You know, I hate to say this. This is kind of the contrast between black and white. Pretty easy. Pretty easy going for me. Vacation. Vacation is a good thing. It is not. You deserve every single minute. Nice. Every minute of it. Yeah. So we had this for our, you know, we're kind of pulling radio stations and churches too, kicking and screaming into the digital station concept. We have a lot of partners, which is Christian for customers, I've learned. But, you know, for many of them, it's like, okay, I got it. It's checkbox. It's good to go. And, you know, we have probably 15% that really are getting it and their success is amazing.

03:37 I mean, really like huge increases in engagement, in listening, in sharing. It's really, really big. So we do these Godcaster use, which is for our customers. And we typically have like 25, 30 people, a little less in this vacation period. But it's a confluence of things we have to do. So there's Zoom. And man, you learn a lot about software development when you use Zoom professionally because they change things all the time. They move buttons. And then we have a co-presenter thing. And then, you know, all of a sudden the sharing, screen sharing doesn't work, which is critical.

04:17 And we also have to show how the app works on the phone. So now you're sharing your phone screen into the computer. So there's a lot that can go wrong. And yesterday, and we've had four of these. Every single one of them has had a problem. Yesterday was really probably the worst. Wow. And at eighth quit, it starts at noon at 8:30. First, my power brick on the computer died. This does not happen often. These things, I mean, it's a little underpowered for the, because you're supposed to have 130 watt, and this one came with a 90. And the thing just fried. Okay. I had a backup, so plugged it in, ordered a 130. That's fine. And then literally everything went haywire. The computer had to almost be re-expressed.

04:59 rebuilt from the ground up because of some, I think it had to do with the sharing of the phone screen and all kinds of driver displays. Wow. And so now it's like 10:30. We haven't even really done a rehearsal. Gordon and I do this together. And I'm calm, but I'm like, oh, man, I knew I had time. And then Gordon, my partner, Godcaster, he puts in, because we have an internal chat. And so I'm like, the enemy is up to his tricks. Power supply fried out. I have a backup locating it. System crash. Another 15, 20 minutes. And he replies, Psalm 140, verse 4.

05:41 Nice. Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked. Preserve me from the violent man who have purposed to overthrow my goings, which sounds a lot like the King James Version. And I look at that and I pray it right away. And I pray it a second time. There you go. And would you believe that the results came right away? Really? Right away. All of a sudden, bloop bloop, the spirit is coming back. And I'm like, Holy Spirit, thank you. And I just wanted to share that because we forget to do these things. We've talked about it before, you know, like can't find my keys. Well, I have a golden question for you. And I want you to just, I'm teeing it up for you. Yeah, okay, sure. How did knowing Jesus help you navigate the technical meltdown?

06:24 Complete trust and faith and knowing who's really in control and that this was an enemy attack. And how does that translate into people's lives? I mean, just in the normal dailies. Well, more and more these days, every single thought of mine comes back to, I'm not in control of this. Now, that doesn't mean that in the waiting, we're not supposed to be doing things. Oh, right. That doesn't mean you sit on your blessed assurance. But first, just knowing that, knowing that I'm not really in control. Whatever is happening is for a reason. In this case, it was pretty obvious. Anything that, I mean, man, I'll tell you another story. The enemy does not like me doing this.

07:06 That's just clear. There you go. And so once you, and it comes back to my Ephesians, you know, this is a spiritual war, and these are wars happening in a whole different realm that we can't necessarily see. I'm like, okay, this makes nothing but sense that, you know, there's something going on. And I really believe that computers, you know, it's natural because it comes from sand. It is silicon. You know, no two chips are the same. So there's got to be some kind of connection to the natural world through these things. So easily fryable. You know, you can create some energy and fry the, I mean, really a power brick.

07:44 Are you kidding me? How many times has that happened in your life? So that really is how I look at things. And increasingly, I recognize this for myself. Like, wait a minute, I'm not in control of this. And then I'll pray right away. And of course, the most important thing is when it is resolved, I pray out of gratitude and thanks. Absolutely. And just like, oh, yeah, man, this is awesome. Thank you. Can I give a little caveat to that? Yeah, please. Because this is a hard thing I've learned. Most of my lessons, just quite frankly, I've learned the hard way. I rarely just get something by osmosis from somebody else. Good ones do. It's usually you have to be in a trench or in a ditch or behind a door and figure it out.

08:27 But I learned to, when I pray for or about something, especially in the middle of a crisis, in a meltdown or technical or mechanical. Yes. I thank God in advance. Thank you that you're going to take care of this. Thank you that you're in control. Father, I thank you that you're answering my prayer. Even as I'm praying right now, you're already orchestrating events and atoms and molecules and things and elements to come together to bring this about. And so I've learned to do that with just about everything. People I pray for, I think in advance for what God's going to do in their lives. That's just extending your faith out beyond the moment into a future probability.

09:09 And this is what I think is the hardest for non-believers to hear and to see. It's like, come on, man. This isn't logical. You're praying to some skydaddy. I'm like, okay, you know, this is what faith is. This is what believing is. That to me is the core. And not always immediately, but it always works out. Not always the way I want it. Exactly. I'm still here. Every single day, everything works out. That's why we pray, your kingdom come. Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. His will, not ours. Yes. Because we definitely have a will, don't we? We need to be very strong.

09:48 We do. Especially when you're in the middle of a meltdown. That's why I think it's good to unpack this a little bit with you for our listeners because. because, you know, people can see, can hear a voice over the air over the internet or whatever, and think you live a charmed life. You know, you just got it all together. Everything works every time you fire it up. You know, your car always starts. Everything works. You know, every day's Friday. But the truth is, it's not like that. Hard things come, trouble comes. It's not that we live any different in terms of things happening. It's just we now have the ability and the empowerment to engage those things with faith, with hope, with love.

10:34 And that changes how we engage, changes how we deal with situations. I'm counseling a couple of brothers right now online as we're talking. They produced a movie documentary that you know about. And they've got one guy who's a part of that world who's just gone rogue and dark. And he's hammering them online and accusing them of things. And it's totally off. And yet he's a big talks Christian talk and Christianes all the time. And I was encouraging him, hey, man, stay the course. Never react. Return hate with love. Love will always win. I'm so proud of you guys. But man, they've not been in the spotlight.

11:18 Right. Hardly ever. And I just said, brothers, I said this. I said, I've learned the hard way after 40 years in the public eye. When you're over the target, you become the target. It's so true. And really, that's what you're saying is, man, the devil really hates me doing this stuff because I'm feeling that resistance. Oh, and earlier in the week on Monday, it was quite an honor, actually. I was asked to be part of a discussion about the Young Washington movie, and that was for Angel Studios. They're doing an A250, America 250 series. And, you know, so that movie's a part of it.

11:59 And so the writers were on, and they asked me to be on, which it was kind of weird. Other than I've seen it and I have opinions about it. Your trusted voice. Well, thank you. That's kind of you to say. And so Angel Studios has been doing these for a while. They know how to do interviews with people. They know how to set it up. They've got a studio, obviously, Angel Studios. We get ready. We're chatting. We're good to go. Hit record. Whole thing starts to fall apart. And they can't figure it out. And I'm like, did you say it's because I'm on? I said, the enemy doesn't like this kind of talk. So you got to pray over the equipment. Good for you, brother.

12:39 And I couldn't hear what they were doing, but it got resolved. But this happens all the time. It does. All the time. You can almost set your clock by it. And I'm like, not today, Satan. You can try. You can try. You're not going to win. It'll eventually all resolve itself. And it does. If you think about it, the MO of the enemy is just like the MO of what you and I have been talking a lot about, and that's social media. And that's this insane attempt to steal your attention. And your joy. Your joy. But to divert your attention, to get something out of you or away from you. And we see that play out in social media and whatnot. And people do it and they don't even realize they're doing it.

13:21 I think a lot of people don't realize. They're just playing the game. I got to do this to get more clicks, likes, comments, and followers. Or just feel recognized. Or just be seen. Be noticed. It's not even for that kind of clout. It's just notice me. Just to be validated. So I only really look at Twitter. X. And I know every single time I look at it, I'm going to see something negative. And I've noticed the algorithm because if you look at the comments, they're not always in chronological order. Interesting. So whenever I post, it's usually just a new show. That's all I really ever post there. The fourth comment will be the negative one. And it's not the fourth in order of

14:06 age. So that's what the algorithm does. It's like, oh, I feel good. Nice one. Thank you. Create friction. Create, which creates more feedback. And everybody's in a pecking contest. And it's a lot less sophisticated than people think. It really is. Tina's figured out her Instagram algo. She'll search for one thing. Oh, trust me. Oh, I'm in the shoe algo. Oh, I'm in the cottage cheese algo. I'm in the Maltese puppy algo. And, you know, and then eventually it goes away if you stop looking at it or we look at something else. But it's really, it's not that sophisticated. It's pretty obvious, but that's the same with you showing an interest for controversy or someone counter to your opinion, then it only goes.

14:49 gets worse and worse and worse and worse. You go down the rabbit hole. Nothing surprising there. So, speaking of social media and how people are looking at what the mainstream media is trying to call the war of choice, have you noticed this theme? The lingo. Yeah, it's the war. It's a war of choice. It's always the way it's framed, right? And framing matters. Where it's kind of interesting to see that, you know, for all these decades, did we really even realize that the Strait of Hormuz was that important that the whole world would fall apart over it, which actually hasn't happened in the United States?

15:32 Yes, our gas is more expensive. Actually, I think it went down about 20 cents the other day. And, you know, that there's clearly other things at play. And I say this because what has happened in certainly in the United States is there's this, and I think young people believe this 100%. The 85% who believe it are all in, that Israel controls our government and Netanyahu controls Trump. This is just what people believe. This is why we have this big split in the, you know, in the conservative commentator podosphere, if I can call it that.

16:14 Podosphere, you know, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Megan Kelly, you know, Megan Kelly lamenting with Sean Ryan, like, you know, they own everything, which is de facto quite ridiculous. We've talked about that about APAC and, you know, how small and insignificant APAC is compared to the National Association of Realtors or AARP. The biggest lobby in the world is old people. Oil industry lobbies. That's not even as big as the Realtors. The Realtors is much, much bigger than the oil lobby. And there's also the NRA and there's all kinds of lobbying going on.

16:55 And the amount of money that we're sending to Israel, which is very, very insignificant in the grand scheme. So this war is seen as, and I kind of dispute that it's a war. I mean, we don't have troops fighting each other. People have died. Our own troops have died, but it doesn't mean it's not important. It's like a chess game, is what it looks like to me from the outside looking in. It's definitely a chess game. And Israel is also a piece of the chess game. Now, the reason why I'm bringing this up and why I want to play a few clips is I was reading,

17:33 I think the U-version was doing the Beatitudes this week. And so the seventh, I believe it is, is Blessed are the peacemakers. Should we be saying blessed or blessed? Because blessed sounds so much more biblical. Blessed are the peacemakers. I know it does. Now, and I wrote this down. I forgot actually what is the scripture for Blessed are the peacemakers. Matthew chapter 5. Yes, but which version? Thank you. And I wrote it down, and I realized I'd written down blessed are the peacekeepers.

18:14 And I grew up in. You see this train coming. I grew up in Europe, and we had Yugoslavia, in essence, just blew apart. The U.S. was a part of that too. But then it became Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it was partially a religious issue, but a lot more political, and as always, about resources and turf, et cetera. But in came the blue helmets, and the blue helmets are the United Nations troops, which is kind of a weird thing.

18:53 You don't hear too much about them anymore, but they literally have blue helmets, and they are known as the peacekeeping force. And so when I, even though I read clearly peacemakers, peacekeepers is what registered in my mind. And it struck me right away. And I had to do kind of a deeper dive on this. Like, what exactly is a peacemaker? Is a peacemaker just someone who says, hey, guys, calm down. Everything's going to be okay? Or does a peacemaker have to go through certain motions to create peace, perhaps in a region where there has been no peace for 100 or 200 or more years?

19:38 Is there any explanation or any analog in scripture that you can think of for the term peacemaker? Well, I mean, I'm looking at some explanation right now on one of my Bible programs, and I asked the question: can the word peacemakers in Matthew 5, 9 be translated to peacekeepers? And it says the short answer, not really. Right. The Greek word, and I'm not even going to try to pronounce this with my Texas accent. It'd be butchering, means those who make or create peace, not those who merely maintain or keep it. Yes. That's another level. Make or create peace.

20:19 That's rich. So that's where my mind went because I also looked at that Greek word, and it's like a whole bunch of E's and I's with weird squiggly lines over it. I don't know if you have a phonetic pronunciation guide. That's why, you know, usually I take a stab at Greek, but this is a very long word. Irena poyos. Is that it? Well, Irene means peace. Irene. Irenae. Irene. And it's this equivalent of the Hebrew shalom, but it's Greek, means peace. So there's the front end of that, peace. And then the Irene, so it's Irene no Poya.

21:00 Poyo. Poyo. Poyo. So the definition I got of it is disrupts the broken status quo to forge a new one. Ooh. And I'm like, wow, okay. So there's something else to the idea of creating peace. Now, what is the second part of Matthew 5:9? Blessed be the peacemakers. For they shall be called the sons of God. Thank you. Wow. So I can already hear someone going, oh man, are they calling Trump God? No. Son of God. No, no, no. But I do. I wasn't even thinking about Trump. I know you were because of the straits and all that.

21:41 I went right to us as sons and daughters of God. I mean, although that's on a larger level, I get you. So I'm just saying that doesn't have to be the default. No, but this is about us, all of us. But there's also a lot of believers who think that Trump is controlled. And I think he's controlled by one thing and one thing only, which is the same thing that controls my life and your life. And that's ABBA. So let's just hear how that control that people think about is working out in real life. A key piece of President Trump's 2024 campaign was no new wars. You guys remember this? This is the setup, obviously. This is MSNBC, so you can hear what's been. And there's no difference between left-wing media and right-wing media or extreme left and extreme right in this particular regard.

22:28 NBC's Kristen Welker asked him about that during their interview last week. One of your consistent campaign promises was no new wars going all the way back to 2015. Did you break that promise to the American people? No. I had to stop a country, very powerful, very dangerous country, from having a nuclear weapon. What changed? Because you insisted no new wars. I didn't guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world? I built our military. I inherited a terrible military. We had no equipment. We had nothing. I built a tremendous military.

23:08 Biden gave a lot of it away, but it's still a relatively small portion compared to what I built. But you said it over and over again. Why would I build a military? The thing is, there's a lot, a lot of video of him from 2024 saying some version of no wars or no new wars. Take a look. So we are going to make sure there's no wars. We don't want to have wars. I call them endless wars. With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over. I don't have wars. We had no wars. I could stop wars with a telephone call.

23:50 I could stop wars with just a telephone call. It properly stated it would never start. No more wars, no more disruptions. We will have prosperity and we will have peace. Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all. This is what happens with campaign promises. You get called on it, right? You get called on it. And rightly so. And so having a new war, being a peacemaker, perhaps two different things. Is it a war of choice or is he being a peacemaker? Well, first, let's dive into the this was all done for Israel.

24:32 Netanyahu told him to do it. He was sitting there in the, in the, what is it, the situation room. He was at the head of the table. This has all been written in the New York Times. There's no surprise. No pictures or actual evidence of it. It's just here's a source. Yeah. You know, Trump was pushing his chair in at the table. Yeah, he's a hospitality guy. He's like that for everybody. But anyway, let's see how it's working out. Israel and Iran have now appeared to back away from further escalation. Just hours after the two nations exchanged fire for the first time since the U.S. broke April truce. Now, we have to bear in mind that this is Israel now attacking Lebanon, which, yes, there's proxies in there, Hezbollah of Iran.

25:19 But meanwhile, the president is waiting or working on some peace treaty or some deal with Iran, and this is going on in the sidelines. Axios cites two Israeli officials who say Israel was preparing for the biggest wave of strikes on Iran since the ceasefire took hold when President Trump called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and asked him to stop the strikes. The president told Axios, quote, I said, Bibi, you better be careful or you will be on your own very soon. After the call, the outlet reports Netanyahu told his senior military commanders to cancel the strikes. So who's in control here? And this is MSNBC report.

26:00 Why would they even report on it? Because they know that they feel like this is a scoop. And I'm pretty sure it's true, or at least the information about it was leaked purposely to them, also to ABC. This is after President Trump posting on social media early Monday morning that Israel and Iran are looking to do an immediate ceasefire and claiming that broader negotiations for peace are proceeding. But over the weekend, the two countries traded intense strikes. Iran firing multiple waves of ballistic missiles at northern Israel, saying it was in retaliation after Israel launched strikes against Iranian-backed Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. President Trump, in a series of interviews on Sunday, sending a message to Israel to hold its fire.

26:41 Now, this isn't the first time that he has called Netanyahu and said, dude, you got to stop this. This was also a report. This was from two weeks ago. And according to Axios, President Trump just yesterday unloaded on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over this. With expletives flying over the phone, Axios reports that Trump demanded that Netyahu back off his plans to take his attacks, an offensive against Hezbollah, straight to the center of Beirut. A U.S. official summarized the call this way to Axios: that Trump told Netanyahu, quote, you're effing crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. This is what you say to someone who controls you.

27:25 Obviously. And the part that no one has reported that was in the Axios piece was that he said, you're the reason everybody hates Israel right now. Wow. Now, why no one reported on that is, I mean, what? Why bother, right? Right, right. So I'm not really believing the Trump is controlled by Netanyahu or he did this for only for Israel. In fact, here comes the peacemaker part, because this has been going on since his first administration, and it's a little thing called the Abraham Accords.

28:03 Very difficult to even find a current clip about the Abraham Accords. This is from WION, I think. So a bit of an Indian accent, but it just gives you the brief layup of it. Well, Abraham Accords are a set of agreements brokered by the U.S. that aim to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab states. Now, the pact was announced in 2020 during Donald Trump's first term as president. UAE and Bahrain were the first Arab nations to sign the deal and recognize Israel as a state since Jordan in 1994.

28:39 After the UAE and Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan also joined the accords. However, Sudan has yet to ratify the pact because Akestan formally joined the grouping on the 6th of November. That's just last year. And that makes it the first nation to join the Accords in Trump's second term. So this is pretty legendary, where you have Arab Muslim nations coming into agreement with Israel. There's only one person who that doesn't benefit, by the way, Benjamin Netanyahu, because he is on a, without war, he's very vulnerable for his position. So you kind of got to look at his actions and say, well, why is he trying to disrupt something?

29:19 And then why is President Trump telling him, hey, bro, you got to stand down. So the final piece, and I think this is why it's taking so long to get this deal together of what the peacemaker is doing is this. I would like to have the countries we were talking about in the Saudi Arabia. Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and the others. We'd like to have them immediately join the and Steve Woodcoff is working on that with Jared and some others, but we'd like to have them join the Abraham Accords. It'll be historic if they do it. I think they owe that to us, to be honest. I think, because that really would be a tremendous sign. And I think those countries owe it to us. Steve, are you going to get them to sign? We're definitely pushing it, Mr. President.

30:04 I'm not sure we should make a deal if they don't sign. You want to know the truth? If they don't sign to join the Abraham Accords, I don't know that we, you know, we have countries in there already. UAE, great countries, bold countries. And it's turned out to be so good, so effective. And so we're, you know, requesting strongly that they join. It'll be great. It'd be great for Saudi Arabia. It'd be great for Qatar and Kuwait, the whole group. So the Iran deal might be contingent on more countries joining the other one. I don't want to say that. I'm not going to give you what's contingent and what's not. He just said that, but okay, I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing or not.

30:45 But I think that's truly the idea here. And Iran will be one thing, but Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina, to be in these accords and to, hey, you know, we may not agree on a lot of things. We have some cultural differences. By the way, Arabs and Israelis have lived together for forever. And friends who I know in Israel say, well, yeah, you know, they're all kind of coexisting. There's a whole Arab quarter in the old Jerusalem, the old city that you walk through. It's just trading their wares just like everybody else. So I think that's what's going on here.

31:21 And again, I take nothing for granted when things pop up in my daily devotional or something, and it hits me like I'm like, blessed be the peacemakers, not the peacekeepers. So, you know, yeah, he said no more wars, no more endless wars, but maybe this was a great opportunity. Well, and I will, I want to caveat that with: don't make this jump that Adam Curry is stating that President Trump is the son of God. No, please. He is one of billions. I know you're not saying that, but I know how people take this stuff and run.

32:01 That's okay. I mean, that'll be number four on X. It'll be right there. It'll be right there. Or some Dutch guy rolling his eyes, you know, like, oh, boy, oh, brother. I can't believe he said that. But I just, you know, I just wanted to put it into context. It gets so convoluted and so myopic, you know, so constricted down to, you know, a worldview that is, well, that's just it. We might as well not vote because Israel controls everything. I'm like, no, it's really, it's ludicrous when you look at the facts of it. What started that jumping on that train? I know Candace was yakking for, she's been yakking for the last few years, but

32:43 why, Megan? Why, Tucker? Why are they jumping on this train? It came from Massey. APAC has been, that's the American-Israeli political action. It's not a PAC. It's not like a political action committee. It has a different acronym. And this is a lobbyist, large lobbyist. And it's Jewish Americans. And so the biggest complaint has been that AIPAC should register under FARA, the Foreign Agent Registry Act, that they are really acting on behalf of Israel. Now, is it a stretch to say that Jewish Americans want

33:27 certain policies or laws based upon their homeland, or their ancestral land, or their friends or family, or on behalf of Israel? It's not such a stretch. But it is not literally the Israeli government controlling the money. It's Jewish American money. Just like there's Arab lobby groups, et cetera. I think we went through that on a previous show about how they separated all of that out. When Thomas Massey went on Tucker Carlson, he made true statements by saying, you've got to know, man, that AIPAC has a lobbyist, a person for every single member of Congress and the Senate.

34:15 And that was like, what? That's my Tucker line. That was a good one. That was good. Oh, this is crazy. But, you know, again, yes, so does the National Association of Realtors, et cetera. But tie that in with. thousands of years of the Jews are responsible for everything wrong in my life. It's not that hard to take that. And of course, at this certain point, it became okay to say these things out loud. I can't exactly pinpoint that, but it came after October 7th. Which is so bizarre to me. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm outside looking in.

34:53 I'm going, these people got brutally attacked and kidnapped in brutality beyond human imagination. But they're the enemy? Well, it was the retaliation, the retaliation and how that was portrayed. You know, genocide. But this has been going on for a long time on the left side of the political spectrum with boycott, divest, and sanction, the BDS, you know, having universities sell their stock, all of this stuff. And it just bled over in some form of audience capture. It's hard to pinpoint how these things work against.

35:32 But it's amazing how it spreads so quickly. And all of a sudden, you've got a next generation, a lot of them coming to Christ, coming to G. I mean, we see some amazing things happening in the next gen, but also we see this push, particularly in females, way to the left. And they're articulating this, you know, the river to the seas and all the mountain to the seas and all this stuff. And it's like they've just bought it, hook line and sinker. But if you were to set one down and say, tell me exactly why you think what that means, and tell me why exactly you feel like the Jews are doing all this.

36:10 All they can do is sight podcasters. Right. And what they will say is, well, why are we sending all this money to Israel and I can't afford my rent? And the answer is, look at the actual numbers. I looked them up today, and it ends in 2028, and they're doing some things to change that. It's $3.3 billion a year. Well, we've sent $38 billion to Israel over the past 15 years. Yeah, we send $150 billion within two years to Ukraine. There you go. Which isn't even something we're remotely involved in. Exactly. And we've said before that $3.3 billion is, you know, that whole annual budget, which is spent on U.S.

36:51 military equipment, is about three weeks of SNAP benefits. So, you know, you have to put the money perspective. It's just, it's become, people parrot stuff. And particularly if you've got your favorite podcasters, I know how hard this is because when I say, well, this is just not true, the hate I get and I've been listening for 10 years. I can't listen anymore. Boomer take, you know, everything you can imagine. Like, okay, well, but I'm not going to buckle because this is just the truth. And I can go way back. I think we've done some of that. You can go back to the 70s and explain how Israel got involved and why we set it up.

37:32 You know, after Vietnam, we didn't want our kids dying, get some people in the desert to fight our wars. I mean, it's not like we're innocent as a country in the setup of this, but it's just, it's become a thing. And you remember one of the last things Charlie Kirk did that we had on recording and we played, where he was asking Gen Z, are you an anti-Semite? And they said, no, I just don't think we should be sending all this money to Israel. But if you're going to call me an anti-Semite, I might as well, if I'm going to be accused of the crime, I might as well just do the crime. So, you know, no one has helped in any way in this conversation.

38:15 But it's dumb because the evidence isn't there. And ultimately, Nanyahu is responsible for what he does. But I see a very good outlook and picture. If Saudi Arabia signs on to this, and I have a feeling they will, Iran almost won't matter. By the way, Iran, I mean, the school kids are protesting. You look at, because the internet opened back up. They went, oh, we'll turn the internet back on for whatever reason. And so the high school kids, they're out there protesting, saying we're done with these mullahs.

38:51 Not a lot of hijabs on the girls' heads, you know, and it does not like bombs and rubble everywhere. This is this, you know, when you think of war, this is not exactly what you're seeing in Iran or Tehran or anywhere, really. This is a very small, small theater, which is just about the Hormuz Straits. And we're keeping it closed. We're keeping it closed because we're going to be okay. And we'll see if they come to the table. I keep. predicting before July 4th. I think I know the president well enough. He's like, man, I got to get this done by July 4th.

39:32 Maybe he's waiting a little bit. But meanwhile, oil just keeps going down no matter what happens and gas prices come down. So it's not exactly what people predicted it would be. But most importantly, just calm down, everybody. And let's get on our knees and fight like men and women of God. Yes. I mean, and that's not just some anecdote. This is like, this is what moves things. It moves nations. It moves atmospheres. It moves people. And we have the ability to move things. I read a book years ago. It was in college, Wesley Duel. And it was, gosh, I'm trying to remember the title.

40:11 It'll hit me when I'm out thinking about it. But his whole idea was you can pray for any place in the world, and it's as though you're there. So if you're praying for what's going on in Iran and Israel and Persia, for lack of a better term, sometimes. If you're praying for that, it's literally as though you were standing on that ground praying. You don't have to go there to pray for it to be any more powerful than praying where you are. It was called Touch the World Through Prayer, is what it was, the book, where he talks about all these stories of prayer where people couldn't always travel and go to other places, but they could pray for them and they would pray fervently and God would move.

40:55 And this is where we've got to get back to as believers and sons and daughters of God to say, my prayers matter. What I say matters. I'm not just moving molecules in space. You know, even physically speaking, in terms of physics, when you say something, it's forever. We think the internet captures something forever. That's just what you can see. But what you don't see are the sound waves that continue to reverberate. When I pray a prayer, it's going. The concept that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can cause a tornado somewhere else. Well, we could cause an F5 somewhere else in prayer. And, you know, it's what I've been pounding this drum for three plus years.

41:39 We don't have a political problem. We have a spiritual problem. When we get that right, it's amazing how other things will line up. It's really cool to think of it that way because it's really like the internet. You know, you can type something on your computer here and it shows instantaneously clear across the globe. Prayer works the same way. It does. Absolutely. It's already there. There is no time, space, you know, continuum. Yeah, just to quote back to the future. So there is nothing. There's nothing to, in the spiritual realm, there's no walls. There's nothing resisting. Well, there is resistance. No, of course. There is that.

42:24 But it doesn't stop. And so we can stand and pray. And here's the thing: you know, I don't have to agree with Masad or Idief or any of the things that are going on over there to pray for them. Of course. And to pray that way for peace, for shalom, because that's what God told us to pray. Yes. There it is. There it is. You know, Texas Slim came through town, and he actually got into his program that he needed to get into. He has some physical problems. Yeah. Good. So pray for Texas Slim for his physical problems. That's an answer to prayer right there. Are you kidding me? Yeah, right on. And even though he has some stuff that he has to go into medical care for, he's always thinking, and he's always thinking about young American men.

43:13 And he sent me something that he's been working on for a while. He calls it the cowboy code: ancient wisdom for modern men. And I asked, I said, man, can I share this on the show? He says, yes, please. And so he has 12, go figure. He has 12 scripture, pieces of scripture, and the way he sees them. And so I wanted to share that. We can talk about each one. As iron sharpens iron, we hold these truths to be our standard. Stewardship. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. That's Genesis 2:15. So he's thinking like a rancher and how we should be. But I think you can translate that to everything we do with it. He's not thinking in terms of climate change.

43:57 He's thinking what God has given us the green light to do. Expertise. Know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds. Proverbs 27, 23, which, again, doesn't just apply to cattle. It can apply to anything. It can apply to being a pastor, really. Or your own family. Excellence. Whatever you do, work hard hardily to. as for the Lord and not for men. Colossians 3:23. This is something I've been working on real hard. Like, I'm doing this for God. I'm not doing it for me. I'm not doing it for, you know, I hope it works for other people, but that, you know, really do it. It's not to be confused with perfectionism. And that's easily done.

44:40 Yeah, we'll break that. Excellence. Well, excellence. Oh, excellence. Excellent. It's got to be perfect. No, no, no, no. It just means it's giving the best you've got towards something. And then trusting God for the rest. Transparency. Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. Man, so many, I've fallen prey to this a lot in the past. Like, yeah, maybe I'll work on that. Say yes or no. It's usually better than something wishy-washy. Integrity. Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his way crooked will be found out. Proverbs 10, 19. And that's pretty much always true, I'd say. Honor. For we aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord's sight, but also in the sight of man.

45:25 2 Corinthians 8, 21. Do you have anything to say about that one? Well, I'll just think about the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. We pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Yes, good one. Brotherhood, of course, my favorite is iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. That's Proverbs 27, 17. And I'd point out that sharpening an iron, if you're really doing it right, includes sparks. Absolutely. Friction, sparks, heat, all of the above. So it's not just like, hey, yo, bro, I agree with you. He's pretty. That's not how it works. Courage, be watchful, stand firm in the faith.

46:06 Act like men. Be strong. 1 Corinthians 16, 13, 1 Corinthians. Tina rubbed me, was rubbing me about that the other said. 2 Corinthians. She said, you mean 2 Corinthians? Whatever. You say I'm European. Exactly. Steadfastness. Be strong and courageous, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9. Stay the course. Mentorship in everything. Set them an example by doing what is good. Titus 2:7, 8. Put down your screens, parents. That's the best. That's the shortest shortcut to people lead. Discipleship. The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.

46:50 This is a tough one from Luke 6 for a lot of people to get wrapped their head around. Well, the way I see that, first of all, you have to break down the word disciple. Another aberration of that is discipline. So again, it goes back to that excellence piece, integrity piece. When you have discipline, you become impervious to the enemy. I heard a Satanist say this recently. She said, the thing that when she was in Satanism that they fear the most is a Christian who's disciplined. Ooh. Because they're unmovable. Where was this that you were listening to a Satanist? I know, right? Just hanging out on the street corner. Hey, what's that? I like your pentagram.

47:32 So you went to Austin? Is that what you're saying? Okay, I'm sorry, Austin. Yeah, it wasn't Austin. But anyway, no, it wasn't Austin. But anyway, she was writing, and I'm a Substack freak. I'm really enjoying Substack. But she was writing and talking about how now she's radically saved. She's all on fire for Jesus. But she said she feels like the Lord allowed her to go through that 10-year period so that she can now come out and say, this is what's happening, and this is what works. Wow. Discipline. Wow. Discipleship. It all works together. And 12, finally, justice. Surely the righteous will never be shaken. Psalm 112, 5 to 6. So just a nice, nice list.

48:12 Solid. And you mentioned Substack. So as we start to get our game together here, we're going to integrate the podcast with Substack, I think. Tina and I are looking at some of the capabilities. We had a nice little hangout as we solidified our partnership with the girls. Yeah, that was great. Was that Monday? Yeah, that was Monday. No, it was Tuesday. It was Monday. I don't remember what. What day is today? Is it Wednesday still? Today's Wednesday. I know, me too. Hey, I'm on vacation. It's all running together, right? I know, I know. And also, so we really want, because it's such a nice social network that they've turned into something different than how it started out. Oh, really? I mean, it was really just here's, it started out as really email lists.

48:54 You know, you write something, you can send it to remail. You can subscribe to the email, and you can pay for the subscription. Okay. Then they added these notes and other things, and it became more of a social appreciation network. Yeah, it really is. It's positive. And now you can even host and start, but not that we're going to host our podcast with them, but it's now. now common to have a podcast integrated. And I kind of like it. I think it's a cool system in this. I'm impressed. So, this, I got to read this note from Shelly Carpenter on Substack. She reached out. Yes. She said, I absolutely love we get to do this, as do my pre and teenagers, 12 and 13. They enjoy listening, and without a doubt, questions ensue. We are a grateful family.

49:39 We love that. What a great what really landed with me on that was that a 12 and 13-year-old are listening to Christ. And boy, I felt the weight from that in a good way. I even told Annette, I said, that really makes me think through, even in a different level, what I'm saying, how I'm responding. Because the next generation, if they're listening, I want to make sure that what I'm saying is going to be helpful for them too. Yes. Not just for mom and dad. Keep staying the course, brother. I think we're doing okay. Man, really. You know, these 12 and 30 of the Carpenter family, man. These 12 and 13-year-olds are not like we were when we were 12 and 13.

50:19 We were kind of moronic, I'd say. We were dumb. You think? Yeah. It's a different, it's a little different now. Very different. So, with that, we got a note from Charles, Charles Steele. And he says he listens to the show. He doesn't just love the show. He absolutely loves the show. But in 2017, his daughter Viola was diagnosed with a rare heart condition. It's pulmonary vein stenosis. I'm sure someone out there is going, oh boy. She's had several heart surgeries. He said 14. Yeah, a lot. A lot. But he is asking for discernment in a decision that they have to make about an operation.

51:04 Should they do it or shouldn't they do it? There's pros and cons to everything. And he asked, he sent a prayer for her basically for his daughter Viola, but also for discernment for them. You want to just pray for them real quick? I do. We all can do that. So we're praying for Viola, and he sent some pictures of her too. Just a beautiful, beautiful child. I mean, just heart-wrenching, really, from a daddy, granddaddy at the bottom of my heart. So, Father, we lift up Viola right now, and Charles and his family, as they make this very weighty decision, this weight that they're carrying. Lord, your word says that your yoke is easy, your burden is light.

51:42 So I'm asking, Lord, that you would just completely infuse this decision with your wisdom, with your guidance. Your word tells them and tells us that we have the mind of Christ, that we hold the thoughts, feelings, and purposes of your heart. And so, Lord, as they make this decision, I'm asking as a family that they would be able to go into this confident. I just appreciated Charles' spirit, even in the way he wrote. I was lifted up. I was encouraged. I was strengthened by his writing and just his faith. And so, Lord, we hold this family before you. We ask, Father, for a favor that you would do what only you could do for Viola's heart and for her life and extend her life, Lord, that she would live and not die.

52:28 Give her peace. Give their family peace, Charles peace, in Jesus' name. We pray, and we thank you in advance for the answer. We thank you in advance for the wisdom. Thank you in advance that the decision they make will be the one that's your heart. In Jesus' name, amen. That's a new way. I like that in advance. That's what we talked about at the very beginning. Instead of ending with just amen, thank the Lord for what's going to happen. Happen in advance. Yes. Okay. We learned something new. We learn every day. Every single show. Man, I had so many other things. We'll just make sure that there's stuff too. What did you have that? Because I always feel like I buffalo right in. No, no, no, no. Brother, listen. You got to remind me so we do some of this stuff on the next episode.

53:13 You know what we need? Eventually, we need another day. That's where this is going to come down. I'm serious. We've got too much to say. Yeah, we do. Too much good. And every day there's something else we could add to the world. We'll just think watch the news. So this morning, I want to do this very short. Sure. This morning, as I get up in the morning, well, I got up at 4:55 this morning. I'm like, okay, Lord, apparently you have something to say, something to do. I went ahead and got up, me and Mr. Chevy. And so I sat down and I just pulled out my Bible, my trusty Bible, and just started reading through. And there's a couple of places where my Bible just falls open too. It's done it so much. It's like Harry Potter's book. Well, I don't know about that.

53:57 But it just, I think it's just really creased there. But anyway, it's in Colossians. And you know my heart for Colossians. Colossians 3 says this, and Colossians 3:1. If you then were raised with Christ, seek those things which which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Man, if that's not good enough, the next verse was the one that sealed the deal for me. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. Amen. So I did a little deep dive because I had some time this morning, hours, and I just jumped into that whole idea of what does it mean to set your mind? And it literally means to fix your attention upon your focus. So I wrote this daily grind and I called it First Things First.

54:39 And I want to share this because I think this might help somebody. It helped me this morning just as I sort of thought out loud with my keyboard. I accidentally caught a couple of headlines early this morning when I turned on my computer. That's all I had to do was just awaken it. Yeah, just move the market. There it was, you know, bing, bing, bing, notifications. As I turned on my computer to write today's devotional, I could feel the pull to click and keep reading. Most everything that comes across your screen is screaming for your attention. The next news story, the next breaking headline, the next hyperlink, all designed to capture you. Not just your attention, but you. Paul was crystal clear when he wrote, Set your minds on things above.

55:23 This is a call to a deeper place of knowing Jesus more fully, eliminating distractions, and focusing your attention on him. This was such a wake-up call when I was waking up because I got my brand new cup of coffee. I mean, I'm barely, you know, and I hit my mouse and my screen comes off. And there's all those notifications just saying, look at me, look at me, alert, alert, breaking news. So if you're reading this, and now if you're listening to this, you have no doubt already been dopamine bombed by alerts, notifications, and headlines. Resist it. Resist it. Scripture before screens. I said, put down your screen and pick up your Bible.

56:06 And brother, I just want to end with that today because as I floated that out on different platforms, you know, here I am, part of the problem, right? Alert, pay attention to me. My daily grind. This is important. I know. It feels so weird, doesn't it? It's meta. It's very meta. It totally is. But what was interesting is feedback I got from people just almost instantly is: I did that this morning. That happened to me this morning. Yep. Because it happens to all of us. Of course it does. By design, it happens to us. So just a caution: stay the course, pick up your Bible. That's what I did. My real Bible, not my screen Bible. I've been doing that a lot more. This is really way to avoid what's happening on the screen.

56:47 If it's only you version, you're going to get a buzz, a bing, a boop, a notification, and it's kind of distracting. But I do turn off all my notifications. That's when I go to bed. Especially in the mornings. Yeah. Yeah, my stuff doesn't do anything at night. So it's just when I move the screen, I accidentally, with my coffee gut, bump my mouse, and all of a sudden the world's screaming. I literally laughed out loud. I said, I know what you're doing. I caught you. And I just ignored it. But that's why I wrote that because I love it. I know people struggle because it is such a, it's by design. Hey, we love you guys. We so appreciate everybody who's listening to the show.

57:31 Your encouragement helps and it motivates us to continue on. I mean, that one about the kids listening and also the privilege of praying for Viola and Charles and their family. It's our privilege to do that. We get to do this. I have an idea. Let's do it again next week. We get to do this then. See, everybody, have a fantastic week. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is against. This is the chance we cannot miss. This is the life of me and this night.