Iris After Hours - Episode 2 - With guest Rolland Baker

welcome to iris after hours casual conversations with inspirational speakers off the clock hi guys welcome back to iris after hours now today tonight when we're never actually listening to this podcast we have a really amazing guest and it's really hard for me to introduce this guy because what do you say well he is an incredible missionary he is a a preacher he is a theologian he's a scientist he understands like everything in physics and science it's crazy i almost went to mit yes almost went to mit but he chose to study god and the gospel as if he was going to study like the most amazing scientific you know world and it's very hard for me to introduce him because he is my spiritual dad and he is crystalline biological dad real dad real father and he's a true father and it is none other than our favorite role in baker roland welcome to your to your podcast this is a rsv yes wow some of that was true you know outside you did almost go to mit right caltech but i interviewed at mit and harvard but my mom didn't want me to go to the east coast so i finally just lied on your intro so roland you are an incredible human being i mean i agree i can say that you can't say that but making incredible human beings um and yeah i made one right here so i know i know with some help come on greatest accomplishment so roland you you are a big blessing to the body of christ i listen to you when you talk even in conversation when we chat even when you're preaching up the front of a church or at a mission school or wherever and you're totally challenging and inspiring i just wanted to just throughout our audience what do you consider yourself to be a mainstream christian how how do you see yourself in christendom how do you define yourself and and your perspective where you come from i found anywhere mainstream yet yeah i know mainstream there's so many streams that might mean what most christians are that might be mainstream yeah but all depends how you approach the subject you take temperature you know jesus said i wish you were hot or cold you know but because you lukewarm i'll throw you out i'll spit you out of my mouth well possibly the majority of christians are in the in the middle category yeah i mean and so you wouldn't want to be defined as those so that that's one way of defining mainstream right another way of defining it would be you know they accept most of the creeds of the church through history and they agree on more more things and the the fringes would be the ones that that have doctrines that are not agreed on by most people you know that'd be another way of defining it yeah or you could define it by uh you know how involved they are in revival how much they want revival what do they think of revival so if you think a revivalist is extreme or on the fringes then the mainstream wouldn't be there yes right but uh if you want to be as hot as possible if you want to be in that 10 for example uh for instance jesus healed 10 lepers and only one came back to even thank him you know and you know the others can just didn't even care enough to come back and thank him wow but if you want to be in that 10 then i wouldn't be mainstream you wouldn't be either you know right right and usually when ministering i actually am aiming for that 10 percent right i'm not trying to be i'm really not trying to be so secret sensitive that i just want to eliminate all controversy and try to appeal to the greatest common denominator or the lowest common dominant denominator yeah i'm really abling aiming at that 10 percent that is really hungry and receptive and god is chosen and there's a lot of fruit and they can start a fire i suppose what i'm really asking ryland is every time i hear you preach there is a baseline that comes through strongly and it's the gospel it's it's that the word of god is true jesus died for our sins and and we are saved fully by a perfect savior and we don't need jesus plus anything and i suppose what i'm asking is in that sense i suppose mainstream is the wrong word but there's that the main tenets of christianity don't change and that's your solid base that the the bible is the word of god and that the gospel is really your heart and what you preach even though you it comes out in that ten percent of what you do you understand what i mean yeah so do you want a complicated answer or a step away do you do simple answers you do do one-liners a simple one would be uh jesus is the same yesterday today and forever come on god says i am not a human being that i change my mind yeah things like that yeah you know the faith once and for all delivered to the saints you know that's that's the simple answer nothing changes but however it gets complicated yeah because relationships develop and are complicated my relationship with you changes every day as we experience more together yeah and our relationship with god changes every day as we experience more with him we find out more about him and some would say in theology spirituality that that god changes as well as he has more experience with us so that leans toward open theism and even process theology where god is in process as well and he's learning by experience how to deal with human beings and he learns from his mistakes and he's in process and learning better how to deal with us and so you know that's the other side that's the other side of the coin and you can get really extreme in that direction too right and there's a lot of discussion in the church today about how much does god change his mind or change and how much we how much we can affect that change you know how much in control are we compared to how much in control is he right yeah so that's a complicated answer how do you suck on the kind of answer it sounds kind of crazy what did you say christy can god say that god's learning from his mistakes that's what process theology is all about everything's spontaneous everything's fresh and new you know god starts every day clean and fresh like we do and he's wondering what's going to happen today you know and uh but do you think that we don't fully know the future and you want a simple answer or yes well a simple answer jesus says there's been a day appointed that only the father knows and and you know there's times and seasons and jesus kept saying things like uh the time has come the time is fulfilled you know now is not the time then he would say now is the time yeah and it seems like he's working according to a script you know the crows right on time and everything is settled and there's a there's a day the day of the lord is set you know on the other hand we have a verse that says you should behave in such in such a way just to speed his coming to hasten his coming so there's different perspectives in scripture and and then the answer becomes complicated to understand more about that you have to deal with the whole subject of sovereignty the sovereignty of god yeah that god is largely interested it's a very very scary subject it's a very very big subject okay for those maybe for those who are new to christianity why is it so scary somebody got saved yesterday and they're listening to this going most people react very strongly against the idea that god chooses whether you go to heaven or hell and what you're going to do and everything you say and you're just a robot and that doesn't sound like you have much to say about anything and your will doesn't matter and and everything's determined and you have no part to play you don't really participate you're just an object in his in his hand and right life isn't so fine just being run around like that yeah right so it makes it scary to completely lose control of your life well it just doesn't sound fun to be to be just controlled completely by god all the time yeah that's true however yes here we go but some people think it's that extreme yeah there are people that uh are very cold about that right no hyper calvinist no they're just really almost unemotional about it and they just seem to thrive on that idea you know they get really militant about it sometimes and uh however however the scripture says that where the spirit of the lord is there is freedom come on so the question is what is freedom yes definitely you can choose whether you want to drink coffee or diet coke but are you free to choose and do what is pure and perfect wow you can want to do what's pure and perfect but can you do it and so in what sense are you free you know your conscience says you ought to be totally loving loving your neighbors yourself at all times but you know you can't do it so how free are you you know but the holy spirit comes along and he is able to form your heart scripture describes god as he who forms our hearts wow so unless he forms our hearts changes them we're not really free to do his will so then the question is can you improve on god's will a lot of people are upset by the idea of just doing god's will because they're sure that there must be more fun things to do and a more exciting type of life to live and a more exciting calling and something that you enjoy more than to do whatever it is that you think god's telling you to do yeah yeah well but that raises the question do you really know what god wants you to do exactly and then the question is harder sometimes then the question is if you really knew god's will i mean you just really knew it do you really think that you have a better plan that's more exciting you know and more fun and more interesting and more challenging and and more climactic and more thrilling and more romantic and all those things do you really think you can come up with a better plan wow well yes it might be better than what you think is god's will but what if you really knew him well enough yeah could you improve on on what he has in mind for your life and that requires the holy spirit yeah have you and mom ever wanted to do something else yeah every three days we quit the ministry so there's been some challenges along the way yeah but one time recently but you wouldn't look back to when you first started and said yes to what god was telling you to do not the overall picture but there's details yeah we would have changed a lot of details because we weren't exactly right on track yeah but for example things get a little challenging in africa you know it's it's taking us several years longer than to you know to transform africa than we thought but it gets extreme at times it gets so extreme that you're out of ideas yeah you don't have answers if a gun were held to your head you don't have an idea what to do in a certain situation sometimes on many levels of that many things all at once and so heidi and i reached a climax recently when she just threw herself on the bed we were hit by all kinds of things all at once and she didn't have a faint idea what to do about it anything and for the first time i heard out of her mouth god i would love to be on your puppet strings wow because i don't know what to do i would love to be on your puppet strings and just be controlled by you and probably it's not until we utterly fail at everything we try to do to control ourselves that we want that wow it's so interesting and so the idea of being on his puppet strings and knowing that he is in control of you and knowing that he cannot fail at that and and could possibly bring great comfort when you've got to that point but the next thing to realize about being on his puppet strings is that's not a matter of him making you do something you don't want to do no but that's the impression most people have of sovereignty yeah the real situation is that he was able to so change your heart that you wouldn't dream of wanting to do anything else yeah and now he sets you free to do the the thing that actually makes you the happiest yeah that formation that that inner transformation of the heart yeah so for example we were in hong kong christie remembers this where you in i was are you hong kong we started off in hong kong in the in the new territories which is kind of a over the hill from downtown kowloon and they have apartment buildings and it's it's kind of westernized and they're tiny and small but this is is pretty nice place but the real slums in hong kong are in downtown kowloon the black dirty streets you know the black alleys full of drug addicts and prostitutes and little old ladies with no families and it's just greasy and dirty and dark and black behind all the glistening five-star hotels yeah and it's a grungy dim dark place and so i was traveling in heidi's in hong kong and i give her a call and heidi says hey roland can we move to the slums and i know her well enough to know she wouldn't say that if god weren't motivating her so i said well sure absolutely this is after i was born yeah sure yeah yeah um so i come back to hong kong to see what she finds you know as for a place to live it's in the most crowded square mile on earth whoa national geographic identified it as the most crowded square mile on earth in central yamada kowloon 365 000 people in one square mile oh my goodness you know where grocery stores underground yeah is claustrophobic the markets are underground you know there's nowhere to jog so i just jog up and down 27 floors you know so oh that wouldn't even grip you feel it it was terrific for us so she finds she finds an old old old chinese building with a coffin shop and an idol shop and a brothel at the bottom floor there's no elevator so you walk up these dark black steps with glowing incense and smoke from offerings and candles and idols and all that how many floors dying floors narrow narrow stairway all smoky and dirty and dark nine floors to the top and it's an illegal shack of a building that's what the chinese wouldn't live in on the roof on the roof with a tin roof that blows off in typhoons and there's no there's no rooms you know there's it's just just black walls there's no plumbing uh faucets you know it's just just one one tap in the corner but no sinks bathtubs gosh and and not even the chinese would live there and she says this is perfect and then she says to me i can't believe i get to do this so we move we move all our stuff up all those floors oh my goodness and we set up bookcases to make rooms and and she pours cold buckets of water on her kids to give them baths and remember that kristen and we no but it's probably a scar in there my real point is that god so changed her heart she would not want to do anything else yeah she would not want to do anything else i don't care how much you paid her this is what she wants to do yeah it's always because she's freaking out going i would never could never do that but so that's okay so her being totally free and being totally controlled by god's sovereignty wow so if you think that you can't have free will and god be sovereign at the same time you have really drastically underestimated god right yeah so it's not so black and white is it the smart black and white it's not you know are you a calvinist are you an armenian that's not really the point the point is understanding how how god works wow now roland you come from the craziest spiritual heritage i meant to say this one i introduced you you're a third generation missionary and you're you were born in china you were born in china christian you were born in china and your parents were born in china and your grandfather your great grandfather h a baker who was a theologian and an author he wrote visions beyond the veil which is in a must read a christian mustard my favorite books yeah one of my it's amazing um he tricked china and was a missionary to china so you have this crazy heritage in the mission world um can you just tell us a little bit about how that happened a little bit did hey what's the story with h.a how did he inspire you yeah well how did he get inspired to go look look where did where where's the seed is it go further back than h.a or is it did it start with haiti i was born in china and when i was two we moved to hong kong and so we spent which was part of china still no which is from the british colony there oh it was cantonese to mandarin yeah yeah it was cantonese speaking at the time right but my first language was really a unan dialect oh okay it's a unanimous it's a province that's uh just over the border from burma and vietnam oh it's wrong it's very mountainous and they have their own they have their own tribal dialect there so that's that's what i started with oh i didn't realize i said we went to hong kong and got into cantonese and then went to taiwan learned mandarin and finally my family forced me to learn english so you didn't know english when you were born i mean obviously i didn't really start speaking in the family until i was at least five or six and went went to first grade that was awesome so you were speaking i was like yeah i went to chinese kindergarten all my friends were chinese on the streets and where i thought in chinese oh my god yeah so english was very embarrassing to learn that my parents would make us me and my sisters and i speak to each other in english which is really embarrassing that he's crazy but anyway uh when i first began remembering things what i most remember about hong kong was my time with my grandfather because he kind of took me up as his future hope was he how old was he there was he was he sort of semi-retired no he's in his late 60s 70s at that time did you have more in common with him than your dad did later but my memory in hong kong was sitting on his lap as he told me stories from china right and those stories were all about angels and demons and power encounters and visions and heaven and and the future and it was just so exciting oh my god i mean he made christianity look so alive and exciting it never occurred to me that that jesus wasn't real i don't ever remember not believing in him all the spiritual or the things of god or the spiritual world wow and i could go on all day in this podcast just relating stories that he would tell me as a kid so right from the beginning i was used to god being real and present and here and doing things and miracles are normal revival is normal everything's normal why would anyone think that god's real if he doesn't do anything so this was this was normal christianity it's normal it's just normal this is mainstream christianity for you for me yeah it's absolutely normal it was tough later when i went to missionary boarding school and ran into how old were you when this happened uh seventh grade i was in a in an american military uh school in in way taipei taiwan until i was in seventh grade and then my parents sent me to a missionary boarding school yeah so three years in hong kong i went to taiwan at five years old by yourself two in china three in hong kong and then our whole family moved to taiwan hang on so when you were five you weren't left by yourself without your family no no our family moved to taiwan that's where all missionaries went from china because they were thrown out by the communists and they needed somewhere to go into taiwan what happened what you all the missionaries turned into china i'm always well 49 was the revolution ah 49. so we had to leave for hong kong in 1949 right you got any memory of that no no you too young but my mother says that they could hear the guns of the red army miles mao zedong's red army in the distance when we fled out of there escaped by riverboats and that's the c-46 airplane that's when communism took over in china did they ever go back yeah there's a story to that uh lots of stories my father started a bible school in quinman where i was born in yunnan province and his vice principal was pastor gu and when the communists came they arrested him and put him in labor camp and they arrested his wife and put her in another labor camp and they didn't see each other for 22 years oh my goodness and that's when i started to learn about persecution and hardship is also being normal in the christian life yes wow you don't hear that much in the states but i grew up in that chinese environment where during the cultural revolution the church was extremely persecuted yeah and again i just thought that's normal paul says anybody who desires to live godly in christ jesus will be persecuted and i just thought that was normal oh yeah you're experiencing it and it's in the scriptures so it's not it's mainstream for you yeah yeah and that's also when revival took off in china left wow how i wrote persecution that triggers these things wow because then people have to make big decisions about what's really about what's really important what am i going to do you know is it worth ditching jesus to say you know satisfy these guys or how valuable is he you know how much do i value eternal life yeah i think a lot of teaching today is is almost along the lines of if you become a christian you won't have to suffer and so the christian religion is all about how to avoid suffering by the power of god you know it's it's it's right it's how to get away from any sort of suffering it's how to enjoy life it's how to have a good taste of heaven on earth and it's it's all about transformation you know changing this world into heaven as quickly as possible yeah and a good heavenly father would never want his kids to suffer you know and we would never want to wish that on anybody and we don't prescribe that for anybody so so what is our theology of suffering right because if christians suffer is that a huge mistake is that something going wrong or are we believing the wrong thing or we don't have enough faith we're not declaring the right things are things out of control is god wishing it would be different but he can't help it you know what's what's going on and it's not often addressed in the places that you speak no often sometimes you're the only one who's really talking about that yeah it's uh and we follow a god who killed his own son yeah for the sake of the world that's yeah that's divine child abuse you know yeah that's what people say you know they a lot of people don't like the whole idea of the atonement is as being penal substitution or anything like that because why would how could a good heavenly father do that to his son it doesn't make sense anyway how can you bear somebody else's guilt so there's lots of argument about that see i don't think people understand a good drama and you need these elements to make a good story i mean god understands story that's what that's my perspective of it is it so it is very dramatic there's controversy lots of controversy about all this yeah now take job to please some people would say i don't think heidi and i especially i would not have survived if it wasn't for job's example wow that really had a lot of teaching today is that we we can't uh allow the theology of job trump the theology of jesus but actually what's going on here job is leading a blessed life you know he has a fabulous family wives daughters prosperous wealth respected wealth everything's going great and he loves god yeah so here comes satan and he says you know well yeah job loves you but how real is it because you got stuff he only loves you because you got stuff how real is it you know just let me do a few things tweak a few things and see if he feels the same way about you you know how deep is this love actually sorry i just thought of that s plus how deep is your life for that one yes it's like having a girlfriend and then through some circumstance you're you're separated you know for a long period of time and you know are you going to stick with her are you going to find somebody else or how deep is it yeah wow so god allows job to be tempted and tested and persecuted he's faithfulness yeah he loses everything gets horribly sick and deep pain and everybody blames it on him even his closest friends say is also all your fault you know but guess what job is able to say though he slay me yet will i trust him wow and i actually think that that is a fundamental decision that every christian has to make yeah when you become a christian you don't just try god out see if he works for you see if he makes things better see if he does what you expect does what you say yeah makes you comfortable enough that's not what you do you realize he's my only source of life he's my only source of eternity he's my only source of forgiveness he's the only way he's the only person who could ever make anything right in my life yeah so he's worth it if he never does a single miracle for me in my whole entire life and i just die right now in the dirt he's still worth it wow and no matter what people put me through i trust him he knows what i can handle he knows me he can take care of me and i don't care what he does if it's him i'll trust him wow now you see well we've been at that place so many times not as drastic as job but but at that place many many times yeah if we don't get the money if people don't behave if we get cheated if people steal if things don't work out if we have failures in our own life on and on and on when does the time come when we should just give up on god there's no other choice there's no plan b there's nobody else and that's what christianity fundamentally is it means you have arrived at that that single point around which everything else revolves yeah and there isn't anything else there's no other god besides me god says there's nowhere to go to no other options no one another helper no other philosopher no other religious guru no other religion no other anything that's going to help this is it all your eggs in water in one basket and the chinese realized that and they just went through hell on earth and they just climbed to god yeah because and the extraordinary thing about this rising wasn't it if you've ever read one of these books like lily's amongst the thorns or my sister's book you know every good gift what i got out of those books was just being overwhelmed with how much is possible for a human being to love god some people don't like those books i'd say 90 maybe 99 of people just would not enjoy reading them yeah because they can't even conceive of the idea that a human being can love god that much wow while going through well going through these things persecution being tested yeah so it's the new testament actually that says about job in james you know consider job the outcome of god's dealings oh yeah that's right enjoy what's the outcome the outcome is he lived twice as long hundreds of years longer twice as prosperous as he was before the most beautiful daughters in the land and he will be glorified forever in heaven for being able to say that that though he slay me yet will i trust him wow would you take that away from him would you have a better plan for him and we're talking about eternity it's not worth comparing whatever it is we go through here with eternity yes wow so we're after the outcome we're after a love affair that is so deep now you realize when love strikes you okay sarah you do you listen here talking to your wife here when you fall in love there's not much you can do about it i mean you fall yeah heavily and there's not a thing you can do about it it's totally effortless it's not something you're straining at you're not striving at it you're not working toward it you're not trying to get it you're not trying to manufacture some love loves that you can enjoy it happens to you yeah it just happens to you and it's so great that if someone were to offer all the wealth of their house to buy you buy it from you like the end of song of songs says you know you wouldn't pay any attention yeah and if difficult things happen if you were separated if problems came up if your family didn't like it on and on and on would that change anything no no not at all nothing can shake it that's how we know it's real yeah it's tested and that that's what this life is really about it's not about enjoying heaven right away so much as it is arriving at and finding out that your love is real which is heaven actually wow that is heaven that is heaven wow wow that's crazy like the the great writer sadhu sundar singh he was one of my grandfather's favorite sri lankan indian no he's indian indian he was a born in a sikh family but he he nearly committed suicide and came along and showed up just in time and supernaturally supernaturally oh my gosh it looks surprising yeah yeah and then he became a traveling itinerant christian preacher all over north india but like a sikh dressed in saffron robe and barefoot and someone asked him once if the rocks as he hiked all these roads cut his feet he said my feet cut rocks he was awesome but his point was that our hearts are the throne and citadel of god and when he moves in heaven begins wow wow so heaven on earth isn't just stuff right away you know i mean we're gonna have stuff forever we can do without for a while if necessary heaven is when god moves in and sits on the throne of your heart wow wow i think that that's why revival often follows persecution because they realize how real their love is for god or how real that relationship is yeah they yeah it's real and they realize this planet and this life is is not where we're headed yeah it's not the that's what's so complicated yeah what we have here and presently in this life is is not heaven we're strangers and pilgrims on the earth we're we're going someplace else and there's nothing down here that really satisfies nothing wow absolutely nothing it takes a lot of life experience for many people to get there yeah probably it's the minority of people but i think the great majority of people and even christians they can function okay as long as they have a pretty good job and a pretty good family and a pretty good car and a pretty good place to go camping on weekends and pretty good hobby and some pretty good friends and some pretty good movies to go to as long as they have that they can get along pretty good yeah it's all going to end and none of it's going to be enough in the end and and people are being sinful human beings that aren't perfect are going to disappoint them and you know there's a they'll find out soon enough you know that they're not going to make it that way but people in persecution know that right away yeah they know right away there's nothing down here in this life it's almost a shortcut isn't it it's a shortcut we know right away this is this is i don't live for this place you know gosh and they get all beat up they get all beat up and tortured and and separated from their families and and on and on and on like you can't believe and they realize hey but nobody can take jesus from me wow the world kind of well kind of give him to me scripture has things to say and so did the saints of history scripture says yeah we'll share the glory of jesus in heaven but only to the extent that we share a suffering it says that are you where does it say that roland can you remember i don't have the exact reference but right now i think that's kind of difficult i i i teach in harvard school in every harvard school to the extent that we share his sufferings we share his glory wow and here's something the great mystics used to write about and understood as they got older when we think about the many ways in which we please god and we please them in many many ways we try to please him in every possible way we please him with our generosity our faithfulness our giving our good works our efforts our evangelism our preaching using our spiritual gifts you know we all these things please god but the great saints of history who also were often greatly persecuted some were burned at the stake sealed into dungeons put in the tower ignored vilified you know earning the scorn of this established church and on and on and on but they realize that there's one thing that god appreciates more than anything and that is how much we're willing to suffer for him wow that's what moves his heart that's what brings him to tears that's what deeply moves him wow just like job did because it really ex it's the extending of one's self that's what suffering does you have to really extend yourself to to get through it just as a measure yeah it is a it is a way that god glorifies himself god actually allows a certain degree of suffering like he did job he allows it we might it's not for me to prescribe that for anybody i would never prescribe that for anybody and god knows us so well he knows how much to prescribe it's like medicine you've got to know the right dosage some ministries that literally do take upon themselves the task the challenge of the job of breaking people yeah you know let's see what he's made out of right now yeah you know let's send him out without any support for you and see if he lives you know there are ministries like that that's not the point no it's a roma it's a romance the point is the best possible end result yeah the question is how great a resurrection do you want hebrews 11 for example talks about the faith heroes you know they closed the mouths of lions and walked on water and in hebrews 12 11 11 11. and all the great heroes but guess what there's a group at the very end that refused their deliverance to get a better resurrection now not many of us are in that group and maybe nobody this is the tip this is not the ten percent maybe this is not the two percent of the one percent that's the point zero zero one but there are people there are people that want the best possible resurrection and they will resist every temptation they will resist everything because they want the best wow that's another category and it's kind of the opposite of most preaching yeah that's the full eternal perspective isn't it where you're living for your death basically by living but of course but can you achieve true intimacy with god and reach that level of faith and love without going through extreme suffering because that's not most people know well i don't know but there's a lot of that's an excellent question this gets complicated now some of the early uh saints for example prescribed uh suffering for themselves you know they're very ascetic yeah they sleep on nails they work scratchy clothes they don't fall asleep and stop praying and you know they do all these things say even saint francis on his death bed refused a pillow under his head as he's dying because he wanted to suffer to the end but that's not the point either no it'll prescribe suffering no just to think that that will make you more holy or pursue it in and of itself yeah paul says flatly that severe treatment of the flesh doesn't doesn't is of no value it doesn't make you more holy god makes you more holy not suffering so we don't say suffering causes revival or suffering makes you more holy or brings you closer to god that no suffering in itself doesn't do anything but make you suffer that's not the point the point is real love for god wow now the question do you have to suffer to get there well i happen to know some good friends of mine that have extremely amazing experiences in god i mean they have visitations they have visions they have experiences that just blow your mind but they haven't encountered much suffering at all in their life but that also means they get rattled easily they get insecuriously they have a lot of questions they they when difficult situations come up they get really unstable so you're saying it builds character it builds love it feels lovely now suffering just for suffering's sake is is pointless yes but suffering for jesus sake yeah fulfills love and the scripture says suffering for righteousness doesn't it suffering are those for righteousness for righteousness sick now when i've grown to do the right thing you get you can't you know you will get persecuted if you're going to do the right thing and you do it despite that you're doing it to suffer you're doing it because you want to do what's right i've suffered a lot but often it was for being stupid come on you're talking to me right here same thing same deal with me man i'm not talking about just being dumb i'm talking about really suffering for the sake of the lord because you love him wow and if he allows that the result will be that you love him more and that you will get rewarded a hundred times more in this life in the next jesus says and so that that makes you closer it's the fellowship of his sufferings and one way you can think about it is yeah the friendships you know if you have a friend and you all you always just have good times together that's good but if you've been through something together like if you've been in vietnam in the battlefield together that camaraderie you go through something together it really brings you close absolutely it's the same with jesus when we go through the same things that he went through it brings us close how much have you read of h.g i've got all his life yeah what no i haven't read a lot of i guess his other books i've got all of his letters his personal letters in at my house yeah i never finished under his wings yeah is that even published i don't know not in a regular way so roland so in 1949 h.a goes to hong kong with you yeah parents with your parents yeah because this is when your parents were kids but you and you were a baby so what hey is there he's left all of his work behind in china what he's planted in terms of the gospel and the communities of faith that the orphanage or whatever how how did he cope with that what what happened with h.a after that oh what what he just kept soldiering on he just he was different tell us he's the most dedicated missionary i've ever heard of really you know i've you know i've read up on about every missionary famous missionary i could think of but he had a cane right that he used he had a walking stick he had a hardwood walking stick very uh carved and ornate that he walked over the hills of southwest china with for 15 years 12 hours a day over the mountains wow and it's worn down about 5 inches that hardwood walking stick which i still have it was given to me by his walking companion all those years so he leaves china and neither he nor my parents ever saw his home again wow in in yunnan way up in the mountains until i went back 50 years later which was just recently your research no no that was back in 2003 or something okay so i went back i wrote a long newsletter about it that's on our website yeah that visit i called it a missionary legacy you know why i'm a missionary 50 years later i go back to his mountain valley way way up there where white people foreigners had been forbidden for meant all those years but it opened up and so i was able to go and i go back to this mountain valley and people streamed in from all corners of that valley because aj baker's grandson has arrived wow it's the biggest event of the century they remembered him with tears running down their faces they just couldn't believe that missionary that gave up everything in america to come and bring them salvation 50 years later they're just weeping at his memory and they were weeping because what he was willing to endure what he was willing to suffer because he lived like they did he he fully incarnation his normal day was to get up at four o'clock in the morning pray in tongues for two hours and then walk 12 hours hike over the mountains to the next valley and preach again to another village and if they're in famine he eats rotten cabbage right with them and he doesn't have underwear shoes or anything he wears kind of rough set cloth type clothes and chinese cloth shoes and well he's just chinese would wear yeah what the chinese would wear and he was just like them gosh and after visions beyond the veil he went up into that mountain country and uh there's a book about that god in conor land he wrote actually a lot of books and they're just extraordinary he just embodied what i thought the gospel meant a person should do it he embodied what i thought a missionary was yeah i thought it was normal nothing extraordinary just normal but he went through a lot to get that way now i have to say that he didn't get that way just because he's better than other people or because for some reason he just made a better decision yeah he got that way because he was called by god god picked him out and made him this you know he's god's workmanship like all of us who believe so he comes from ohio so way back in the early 1900s in ohio he reads the great commission and the great commission says go to the outermost parts of the earth and preach the gospel so he decides okay that's exactly what i'll do i will get as far away from the nearest white man as possible come on so he takes a slow boat to china what year are we talking oh it's fairly early 1900 wow back when you took boats to china yeah which even you did yeah right so he gets on a riverboat hauled by coolies you know up the yangtze river gorge and up into the foothills of the himalayas and up until tibetan it takes him six months to get to where he wants to go oh my goodness i ended up in a town 10 000 feet up in tibet and starts to preach but nobody responds he's there for five years he gets maybe one person saved but he's not sure about him he is totally totally 100 discouraged broken disgusted feeling like a total failure you know he's a valedictorian of his college class and all of that he's got no working skills no profession no way to make money no nothing he's a total flop in life wow but he heard there's more he was in a very cessationist type denomination in but he heard there was something more cessationist means they don't believe in the gifts god doesn't yeah doesn't act it doesn't matter the miracles that he did in the new testament anymore so but he heard that he does and he got really hungry really hungry so hungry that he got kicked out of his mission how did he hear i'm just curious to know what he heard from him well you read the book under his wings and these wings okay hey baker yeah under his wings everyone's story but he ends up back in the states total flop no job just he has to do common labor he doesn't know where to go from here but he ends up being very single he's uh at this stage no he's married all right he's married he's uh kids oh sorry i'm just like curious because his first two kids died of disease it was it was hard what he had two kids born in china before my father yeah and they died from diseases boy when a girl yeah so so you've got wow aunties and uncles anyway buried in china yeah he ends up in a church finally where the holy spirit hit and this is way back in around 1920 or so i guess so talking about suffering oh my gosh yeah he that well he literally failed his first two children he lost yeah he lost no success in ministry no gut didn't get anywhere he was so bored in china he became a bird expert and a photographer that's when he got into photography yeah he really got into photography he carried these big hole plate cameras on the backs of yaks with their tents to mix the chemicals and everything over the mountains and he knew all about the birds of southwest china and the mountains and built bridges and roads and anything but the gospel because the gospel was not working yeah so gosh finally he quit got thrown out came back to the states and eventually he ended up in a church where the holy spirit came as a total surprise and wrecked rectum every manifestation in the book wrecked him yeah it please explain the holy spirit filled him up and he experienced the power and presence of god in such a way that he manifested in just about every way you can think of like falling down shook fell down laughed cried had visions umpteen you know multiple languages looking visions locking pentecost like together his personal pentecost yeah his personal pentecost he couldn't he couldn't uh a lot like heidi if you heard her stories you know for three days she couldn't speak english all she could do was laugh wow and so this time long story short god tells him to go back to china take his wife with him and don't tell anybody what he needs the three directions very simple come back just go back to water take your wife don't tell anybody what you need oh my god that's part of what hawaii yeah that's partly why we operate iris like we do it's his testimony yeah i was going to say what the what are the parallels well george mueller and h.a baker are for runners from the way we handle money and iris wow yeah george miller would just probably wouldn't he yeah things would turn out praying just sacks of groceries would well there's one other bob zuber he was a man in my life oh there was one point he went to bible school without a job without tuition without money without anything he just showed up on the day of the first day of class walked into the principal's office and said god told me to go to school here the president looks at him and says either you're crazy or god sent you thinks about it a minute and tells the secretary go get his books wow and for an entire semester every day a sack of groceries would appear on his front step and he never knew where they came from wow so that's kind of where iris got started in all of this so what happened once you followed that so he goes back to china to quinming it was a wild west robert town in those days cobblestone streets and no real civil government just gangs running the place and shooting at each other and executing beheading each other uh beggars all over the streets lepers you name it all there was no social network no no it was just wild and crazy like the old wild west in the states and wow only worse my dad used to look out his bedroom windows and watch them shoot and execute each other and carry heads around on pikes and all that and the gangs would try to burn his he had an orphanage they tried to burn his orphanage down and they couldn't they'd throw fire on it and it wouldn't burn even though it was old dry wood and the thieves would say we can steal from here here and here but we can't steal from there because jesus lives there wow he didn't have electric fences and guards and dogs and he was radical that experience made him radical gosh this is your heritage role yeah and then that's where visions beyond the veil happen yes and so one of my highlights when china opened up again china was closed all of us until 1980 when heidi and i first went went to asia so we stopped in hong kong and we actually got to going to china for the first time in 1980 when the bamboo curtain came down wow so eventually we got to quinn ming and i actually got to stand in the very courtyard of my grandfather's orphanage and go in walk into the actual chapel where the visions beyond the veil happened oh my goodness and that was still standing no and for people no they bought up the block and made it now it's a big new modern shopping center but yeah for people who don't know can you quickly sum up what visions be on the veil vision's beyond the bail they they got up to about 50 orphans from the streets get this on amazon you can you know you can board it through the rs website yeah on the iris website but very quickly uh as a total surprise the holy spirit fell on these 50 kids one day and they got extremely convicted by sin crawled under their chairs and tried to hide and prayed night and day they didn't know anything about jesus or salvation never heard a bible story had no idea what salvation was but they knew they were sinful and they were so convicted and demons were mocking them and chained them up and invasions threw them out over the flames of hell and they thought they were lost done for in hell and they deserved it these just innocent little oppressed abused children but they knew they deserved it wow that's what's missing in revival today everybody thinks god kind of owes them some heaven because they're they're good or something but it's that it's that real place and at least these children should be protected and sympathized with and and you shouldn't put the burden of sin on them and you shouldn't you know try to make them feel like awful sinners they're just victims and yeah that's not how they felt no that's one of the first things the holy spirit did oh my gosh talk about conviction of sin wow he made these poor victimized kids thrown out of tin mines in the mountains and for dead they they just felt intensely guilty of sin and they could see their old friends in the flames of hell on the streets wow then angels would catch them at the last minute as they fell take them up into heaven and they were just day after day after day for weeks and weeks they were again given visions of heaven and jesus and the angels and all around and and then taken into visions of past events in the bible you know they saw vivid visions of bible stories that people questioned today and they saw visions of the rapture not the time of the rapture but people rising in the air and getting the new bodies and meeting jesus and the persecution in the last days they didn't make it clear that that was the tribulation of revelation but they saw a future tribulation which included the cultural revolution in china you know yeah and so and you met the last surviving child yeah that experienced that right yeah i asked at one point what happened to these children yes of course because they have these you know after all after all these years of of being separated in china what happened to them the answer is that two-thirds of them were martyred they're really fiery ones the really strong ones killed for their fight they were killed for their faith during the revolution during the cultural revolution the one third remaining they were the wimps that turned up to be the pillars of the church in southwest china they would go through the mountain villages every day just teaching all day long every day every day because they had no one else no missionaries these little kids became the preachers of the mountain areas wow but lishu yi that my grandfather's walking companion they finally forced my grandfather to leave china after a year because he didn't want to leave he wanted to face whatever but they finally persuaded him to leave then they jumped on his walking companion and they they threatened him they threatened to kill him all sorts of things so they tried to get him to to accuse him of being an american spy and doing this and that and all he would say was you might as well shoot me right now because if you let me go all i'm going to do is go start more churches so get it over with just shoot me now because you know what i'll do otherwise and he lost face and they let him go and he went up to the mountains and now he's got about ten thousand people under him in the mountains but i don't know if he's still alive i last saw him when he was 92 wow back in 2000 uh 10 or so about six years ago that is crazy so my grandfather got turned into an extremely radical person because of this tremendous uh infilling or outpouring of the holy spirit after failing miserably for five years is that so interesting and losing two children on the mission field yeah the lives of two of his children sewn in their soil in china wow so he would tell me tremendous stories of power encounters angels and demons doing fantastic things uh demons come demons coming through the walls of his orphanage to actually steal children take them out through concrete walls and take them around the world to tempt them with pleasures and all kinds of things put them back in bed i can't tell too many stories and nobody would believe this podcast wow it is it's like this is amazing but this is testimony this is your experience i mean yeah i mean you can't really argue against people's experience i mean that's what's happened he also never went to a doctor in his life really never took an aspirin in his life come on hi jay but he's kind of funny though he his vision kind of went down a little so he wouldn't wear glasses so he would wear a big magnifying use a big magnifying glass to make things oh my gosh did he inspire you to be a missionary when you were really young when i was did you know that's what you wanted no because we almost went to cal tech yes i did almost go to caltech and the reason for that was i didn't think i could ever be spiritual enough to do it to be like my grandfather in any way i recognized that he had the highest calling i recognized that he did the best thing with his life but i did not think i was spiritual enough to do anything like that so i chose what i knew was second best but it's what i could do which was science yeah you had an understanding of it you are also i feel like it's worth mentioning you're an avid photographer yeah which is interesting yeah he oh his pictures were old style he used big cameras his big negatives and his pictures were crystal clear fantastic and then he passed it on to my father and my father became a photographer a real avid one too but my father got into stereo color slides and i mean they're so realistic you put a stereo kodachrome color slide in a stereo viewer and it's like a time machine it just feels you are there you know you're just you're standing there it's so realistic and i caught the bug and ever since i was eight years old you know when i started my first dark room in my bedroom and developing my own pictures and designing my own developers and so three generations of missionaries and photographers yeah so my daughter now uses an iphone it's kind of crushing but i use a canon 5d mark iii as well yes on occasion i've seen that okay he's totally on board yeah she's got a very good eye rolling you should be proud i am proud of her but you were saying as well that you thought you would do the second best thing because you knew how to do science you were really smart i did and i however just to be more familiar with my parents roots in the bible and so forth i decided to go to one year bible school before going to cal tech just just to get a little taste of where they came from and get some bible background that sort of thing so i did go to southern california college which is now vanguard university okay some is a god for one year does it well hardy went to yeah heidi went there too we got to be in ma degrees there and i saw our son election so that year went by but i never planned on staying i kind of looked down on the place and and kind of almost mocked it really and couldn't wait to get out and it got down to the day before registration at caltech the very night before registration at caltech when all of a sudden the holy spirit hit me gosh what did that look like it looked like staying up all night not able to sleep a wink wow and i finally figured out that 20 years down the road it was infinitely more important that i know god as well as possible than his creation whoa what a crazy so i said can i ditch science because that you know i can i can be the the most amazing scientist discovering all kinds of things but what good does it do me you know when i die exactly and it's not about how much science can i do and still go to heaven it's it's about about how well can i get to know god in this life wow what a what other better goal could there be exactly i can decide to be as good a scientist as i can be and still be a christian but that's not the same as dedicating your whole life to knowing god as well as possible that's why these podcasts are so amazing so let me say you dedicated your life to that and now we're reaping the video and it's not missionary work necessarily it's not it's not doing the works of the christian life that's not the big thing that's the result wow but i have not set my heart on being a missionary even no or a teacher or a theologian or anything like that no my heart is still there's only really one reason we have to live there's only one real purpose for our soul in life that's to get as close to jesus as we can wow that's it come home we don't divide ourselves we don't say yeah i want to love god but i also have to love people and do this and go there and fulfill this and fulfill my destiny and take care of my family and enjoy life and no that's too complicated and you're all divided up your heart is all divided up with all these different things and and often god gets left in the dust and relatively speaking yeah they still say i love god but you know it's barely there anymore because of all these other things you've set your heart on yeah that's like an epidemic in our western christianity yeah and i receive if we if we're not careful we can be so busy yeah just so busy doing all these amazing programs and you know vice presidents of every area and we all got our six month and 12 month plans and on and on you end up letting your heart beat set on these things these things are what keep you going and motivate you every day wow that's not your real job no your real job is to get us is him that's who he wants you to be a lover of god with all your heart and mind and soul and strength now you think about what that means yeah what does that look like look at what it means to love god with all your mind all your soul all your strength all your heart everything wow that's all not partly not one tenth not one fifth not one half it's all and that's why the bible is able to say don't love the world or the things in it because that's that's not of the father he wants a total love affair wow not a works one no because when you're really in love with god nothing's working anymore yeah the trees grow fruit naturally you know they don't try to nothing is working anymore once you fall in love you fall enough in love washing dishes is fun nothing bothers you you're just you're just gone gosh i love that yes well that brings me to my next question you have a crazy revelation of joy although you're happy to embrace suffering but you're happy to embrace joy yeah okay we have both yeah tell us a bit about that the theology of joy i mean how important you're in the christian life paul's sitting in a dungeon in a prison philippine different places and he says in all my afflictions my joy knows no bounds gosh now what kind of life is this gosh that's that's convicted what kind of life is this what does he have inside of him that he can say that he's got god inside of him you have god inside of him you you don't know how to be depressed is this a revelation you got later on yeah i mean any any christian growing up knows the verses yeah did you go through suffering to get this revelation i've heard preachers preach about it so often and when they get to the verse like that you know rejoice in the lord always and again i say rejoice they say it kind of a monotone and yes let's not forget to rejoice you know the turning point you're not full of anything in acting it's hard to preach about george you don't have any you know not really actually being connected to what you're saying yeah or experience or know the experience of what you're saying but but going to toronto that was a turning point but not right away okay we're just gonna come one second another technical thing um the table rolling when you're any touching of the table comes through the microphone so even the cupboard but if you're i know we need coasters but just take it from there keep going on what you're saying um um say again what was the turning point he was just about to talk about one of the turning points was going to toronto okay if you can just say what was the turning point and we'll go in from there so where was the turning point for you when you got that real revelation of joy people asked me if there was one particular day or night you know when something happened but actually it was a step-by-step process for me i began noticing the effect god was having on people when i prayed for them i think first when i went to brazil there was a trip in brazil people were so hungry to be touched by god they were literally clinging to me they're just hanging on to me they just wanted more wow and i'm going what is this you know i didn't know myself what this is yeah but i have to say that everything from god is a gift there's no prescribed way to get it there's lots of books about it but they don't really work yeah yeah it has to be an experience no it's everything from god is a gift it's not because you followed the right procedures or learned how it's because god is gracious to you yeah and i began to understand that there's nothing i would trade joy for now let's think about this sometimes i ask what would you rather have than joy and people say well there's lots of things there's jesus there's heaven no not without joy what good is jesus without joy being able to enjoy what good's life of heaven without joy what good is salvation without joy what's the point of anything without joy wow paul said the kingdom of god is righteousness or love peace and joy in the holy spirit yes the joy is where we're headed that's the we can say jesus is our destination he's not just the guy who bought our salvation and blessings 2000 years ago he's actually where we're going he's our present lover yeah you know we have a father but we also have an intimate human companion who is our perfect lover spiritually speaking but that results in what peace and that results in what joy and if you don't have joy in the end there's no point to anything but yeah this on the journey as well right not yeah it's joy it's it's joy on the journey but you you know enjoying the suffering these things step by step you know if we're as far along as suppression is for example our national director in mozambique he he he just he's depression-challenged you know his his answer to everything is laugh that's how he sees incredible healings and all kinds of different deliverances and miracles you know he does he's amazing the joy of the lord is your is your motivation your reward in your greatest weapon wow it's what jesus is what jesus got that's what got him through the to the cross yes you know for the joy set before him he endured the cross if we expect to do what jesus did we're going to need his joy yes yes it's the strength you know the joy is the joy of the lord is your strength nehemiah says so if you want twice as much strength you're going to need probably twice as much joy wow that's kind of in hebrews 1 the father says to his son because you love righteousness and hated wickedness i will anoint you with what the oil of gladness or joy oh yeah and it becomes our greatest weapon you can laugh the devil in in the face when stuff happens to you you've got faith real faith yeah that's powerful but i think most christians are your acting class most christians are in a place where you know yeah i love jesus but i'm not thrilled about it but i love him yeah i'll do it yeah christianity is okay the christian life is kind of rough but you know i'm gonna make it i think probably they're not enjoying it yeah but our real calling is no matter what god lets you go through you are thoroughly enjoying your relationship with him wow i mean really enjoying it yeah authentic genuinely authentically your job is to love him but you're not really loving him unless you enjoy him now that's a that's a good uh convicting message right there did you hear that guys you're not really love god with all our hearts but what does that mean it means we actually enjoy him otherwise we learned from our daily experiences yeah you somebody can come to you and say i really love you you know nathan but you know i i'm not that thrilled with you but i don't enjoy being around you yes but i love you you can tell the difference you know it's not until someone enjoys being around you and is interested in you because he wants to be and then i don't even need to say i love you because you're really in love now you can do nice things for people if somebody's hungry you can feed them if somebody needs some money you can give them money that's not the same as being interested in that person and really enjoying being around them and being in their life and and just does that become easier more difficult when you're in extreme situations yeah like the mission field yeah yeah you get mightily tested and since we're not perfect yet we keep learning but that's our understanding it's my understanding but usually in church it's pretty solemn yeah and we have solemn assemblies we have all these things you know they're great i happen to really love liturgy when it's beautiful and there's fantastic music and you know like the messiah and the beautiful robes and the voices and the solemnity and the the glory and the oh the buildings the architecture the surroundings the court the majesty yeah it's all great but that's not all yeah we can also be kids come on how do i know that because in the early days especially our orphan kids abandoned kids from the streets would roll around on the floor with jesus in the throne room of god and he's just playing with them and laughing telling worse jokes in retail and you mean being like a father being like a kid dad yeah another kid yeah angels slap their knees at his jokes you know even if they're not funny getting you wouldn't believe how informal and fun god is and it's a good thing can you imagine millions of years in heaven if everything's solemn it's just one big million-year solemn assembly it makes so much sense when you talk about that this makes so much sense to me that god is this way that he's not like stoic and you know no people say you you disrupt a meeting with with joy laughter that that's just that's irreverent that's disruptive you can't hear the preacher preacher look as a preacher i never thought that my voice was the big thing in the meeting i would be thrilled that the holy spirit interrupted because i'm sure whatever he did would be better than what i have to say come on so would love for the holy spirit to so take over meetings we have no idea when the offering is supposed to be or when i'm going to have a chance to speak or or anything as long as he's in control wow see that that control issue is the big yes churches have a control issue pastors and preachers and ministries like to have be in control yeah they think the holy spirit needs to be pastored and shepherded and and yeah there's attention isn't it and but really let's find out what love really is you can you don't start revivals by careful planning in production you know it's it's not a staged presentation you know put people on fire you don't do this this and this to make people fall in love right yeah no it's a it's a divine art form wow we betrothed people to jesus we don't just make them believe and say a prayer we betroth them to him that's tricky if you ever tried to be a matchmaker you don't do it by arguing arguing you know being apologetic and all of that and just pounding it into somebody yeah or trying to convict them that's the holy spirit's job yeah you you get used miraculously by god to be the friend of the bridegroom wow and that's a supernatural beautiful romantic amazing perfect uh thing we call ministry wow but often we we mess it up yeah we want to control people make it hard work and ruin everything i know we get obligations don't we so many obligations to think things have to be a certain way or we get cultural things that impinge on us to make our encounters with god or our community encounters with god have to be this way or that way what advice would you give to like to young leaders like anywhere that that are coming into lead communities of believers communities of faith churches whatever you want to call it pretty much try to be the opposite of the world in every way the opposite of the world think small think small don't think big come on stop for the one get lower still wow uh diet yourself so you can live i had to laugh i was watching kung fu panda again recently all the new ones in this big old turtle guru you know guy yes yes yes he says to his big enemy he says when will you ever learn that the that the more you take the less you get concrete and he he keeps coming up with this stuff that be good for christians to hear the world can figure that out why can't the church figure that out yeah wow so it's not our job to get up a platform and get influence and get increase our mailing list and figure out how to use social media that's not it you only have one job that's just to fall more in love with jesus and get closer to him and that just concludes all of life he's going to the beach and it includes going to in and out includes sports it includes but if he really is the joy of your life you're home wow he knows what to do with you he knows how to use you you don't have to you cannot figure it out and if you studied how any revival ever started you realize it wasn't because a whole bunch of people sat down and decided okay here's what we're going to do to start revival no it was always a huge surprise and you know one of the best revivals i ever heard of and know about is the indonesian revival oh that meltar wrote about like a mighty win i asked him recently was that a total surprise or did a whole bunch of people get together and just pray hard for a long time yes it's aimed for revival and he said well for most of us it was a total surprise wow but i do know this he said 20 years earlier god spoke to a couple and said i want you to pray for revival here twice a day for one hour each time wow that's a big commitment one two years they prayed an hour in the morning an hour in the evening for a revival that is huge for timor it wasn't their idea gosh that's my main point here thank god it's god's initiative it's he often picks out the unlikely the nobodies the least of these the unknowns not the big shots not the well-known not the ones that have it figured out he gives simply comes to people reveals himself gives some simple instructions they obey with simple love and faith and they did that for 20 years and when the revival did suddenly break out so spectacularly big flames came out of the out of the sky and the whole church looked like it was on fire and all the villagers came running with buckets of water to put it out and that was the holy spirit that's crazy and then got kicked off and when it kicked off this couple said that's it i've been what i've been praying for for 20 years and gosh but they were following instructions yeah it wasn't divine it wasn't their initiative god does give us hunger yeah you know and we pray we like ii peter says we we add to our faith these qualities to confirm his calling and choosing us so yeah we we seek god with all our hearts and we we go after him we pray for things we ask for things but we give him the credit for putting that spirit in us we don't just say i'm better than so-and-so because i made a better choice we we just give him credit for changing you yeah wow and so we pursue him with everything that he put in us otherwise you become a passive calvinist or something and you know you say well if god wants to bring revival you know he knows my address and yeah while i go to the beach yeah that's not what i'm talking about at all no that's great i love the way you explain things wrong that's really yeah it's really really bad because i ran into people even at bible school i had people say why are you a missionary why do you even bother preaching overseas if god wants to save those people he can't without you so there's gosh there's no love of that we're after real love which is oh nothing be being work anymore you know wow in fact i really think the point that christian life should be lived at the point of maximum joy and least effort at all times wow that's amazing that's when you know you're on course you know when your joy goes down and everything becomes work to the extent that that happens you're off course know it's it's ironic but when i think of joy it's like there is no effort in what you do when you have real joy you know what i mean joy or no ask any teenager who has a boyfriend or girlfriend you know they do they oh man do i have to text this person again you know it doesn't work that way you can't stop them yeah and i often say to people don't be a christian if you can possibly not be one wow and don't give any money if you can possibly stand not to because who why would god want anything else wow that's great my god why would god want a follower that says you know i'd really rather have this over here but you know if i have to if it's only you that can save me i guess i'll have to stick with you yeah that's so mediocre and passive isn't it no but most christians say that it seems to me that most christians act in the way and it seems like they're almost doing god a favor okay okay this is rough god it's not easy to love you but i'm gonna do it anyway and i hope i get my reward i know that's so funny isn't it gosh it's such a such a but joy is critical you take it away there's nothing left yeah wow but most churches are very somber no you didn't always experience joy that much did you no no because you see this transition in your dad christine yeah are you aware of it yeah oh yeah tell us about christy i think you were in some early meetings in toronto where you were kind of watching yeah i think there was a marked difference in both you and mom yeah um definitely where how old were you when this happened i don't i don't know i just feel like you guys were very tired and a little more solemn and then well she's actually about 15 or so right after experiencing more of the holy spirit in a greater way there was definitely more difference in energy and continents and even a lot of speakers in the movement who see this a lot even they are i think apologizing for it yeah i i really they might say to people you know i realize you know some people might be disruptive and make noise but it's it's okay you know just trust me you know stuff's being worked out you know bad stuff's coming out good stuff coming in whatever they have to do however they react don't don't worry about it that's not my attitude my attitude is joy is what everyone's desperately wanting yeah they're desperate for it not this side salad that they're desperate to find a church where they when you walk in you can't help but be happy you know who wouldn't go to church like that yeah and so you want to take the people who have the most of that and use them like kindling yeah come on you know you can't light a whole bunch of logs of the match you know the dead wood cold dry or wet probably right but you get some dry kindling together and put a little match to it and you should people like that should be front and center in church you know just let them manifest and express their joy and be free and sing and dance and run around the church and make room for them and what happened to you and mom in toronto to mom to in you oh the first time i was super convicted everyone else was laughing but i spent three days sobbing my guts out in front of everybody going up and down the aisles couldn't stop wow and then i had amazing experiences going out to see niagara falls are you made of the mist boat yeah yeah all the tourists were there in the miss japanese tourists snapping you know their little cameras but i thought of niagara falls as the holy spirit this incredibly powerful thundering pure white power falling down over hard rock cutting through hard rock and the sin in our hearts and all of that but nothing can stop it just refreshing misblowing and spray all around it's all pure and cool and refreshing but it can cut through hard rock and not fail i just bawled it was so overwhelmed and so when i say joy i'm talking about uh joy that's based on something yeah not just funny or you know it's uh it's based on something you can't be that joyful in the lord unless you take the gospel seriously enough yeah yeah so people often ask well how can you act like a kid to church and also be a heavy theologian well it's because i'm a heavy theologian that i can be a kid that's amazing yeah wow wow that's that's incredible what do you do for fun for fun like that i play tennis i mean i really like thank you and much country people harder now than i did when i was 20. how important is fitness lots come on are we going to sneak in as one of the cool buddies my parents no it's very good at working out it's hard come on you know let's feel those guns rolling come on oh yeah feeling he will drop down and do push-ups i know anywhere anywhere when i was giving birth he was doing that actually i've heard i've seen the photos i could still do 100 push-ups and 500 sit-ups and come on and all of that but uh yeah i used to weight lift so you need it with the vp meeting i used to squat with 500 pounds but i went to the mission field heidi lost 30 pounds and wedding ring fell off and bad nutrition and bananas banana diet banana and rice couldn't you don't recommend it couldn't keep that up it's pretty important yeah it's hard to you know feeling sick and tired and exhausted and in pain it doesn't it cuts away at your joy it does and you might not think haley's important unless you're sick you know then suddenly it's really important and i've been sick you know so it's heidi she's nearly died a number of times and so have i so yeah um by the grace of god but uh i've heard preachers say there's nothing to laugh about you know the world's going downhill and everything's falling apart and tribulation is coming and oh my god you know but i'm not going to that conference role yeah but however the world turns out or whatever god does with it the fact is that we have god forever yeah i mean that's he's our prize hey he's our joy so if he's the one and only spot where you set your heart what's going to take that away from you nothing so at all times in all circumstances you have every reason to laugh i love that now some people might say that's cheap you're supposed to weep with those that weep but actually if you're all feeling sorry for yourself it's hard for you to identify with other people exactly you can't feel their pain because you've got so much of your own yeah for instance if i were a poor uh villager and in mozambique and some missionary came sobbing for me and they're they're just all discouraged and they're weeping because they don't have any answers and and they're just on their hands and knees and feeling horrible i'm so sorry you have a crummy life and i've been sick and dying before myself and i really didn't need visitors that said i'm so sorry for you i'm so sorry you're going through all of this that doesn't help that doesn't help at all you need some alex appraiser he came along laughing and he had visions of my future and i just knew i was going to survive and that he's always happy that was it you know i've had moments when i was supposed to die soon and people like that would come along and they would have full of joy and hope and vivid visions and all of what's going to happen and that's that come on there's so much energy and joy isn't there well it's it's the energy of that oh that's that's yes that's critical it's the persecuted church in china that first said to me and taught me that joy is the energy of the holy spirit oh no it's the energy come full circle yeah this is very if you want energy it's these persecuted christians in prison being tortured that then understood that wow wow yeah that's what the church needs to preach we don't need to apologize for meetings where people get a little too happy you know that's what kind of what kind of theology is that yes and it's true though you never know what god's doing in that person yeah in that moment and you've heard something how can you judge christie you know oh all kinds of manifestations uh you've heard stories when people are just laughing on the floor for two hours and everyone's thinking okay that might be light and funny and that's all it is and then you find out you find out the world got transformed or they got healed i know one when i've i've spoken sometimes i know one person that teenager 14 years old dragged to the meeting by her father didn't want to be there wanted to go shopping i gave her a five second prayer and her cousin friend she's on the floor for hours and hours laughing and she woke up the next morning a total mystic just a total mystic what do you mean what what is what does that mean a total mystic total mystic meaning god reveals jesus reveals himself to her in visions and in her heart and completely changes her inside and out and and man right away she began to get so much joy she literally didn't know what to do with herself yeah just wanted to do a thousand things she had so much energy and so much joy she didn't know what to do next because she's just so happy wow filled with the spirit and the very night before she's just a complete grouch you know so wow transformation yeah jesus that's what's possible doesn't happen to most people but see i in iris i i go for what i know is possible that's why we have a first core value a lot of people might say look we're never going to have anything but the bible and we're never going to have anything but certain examples in church history maybe there's some crazy mystics here and there but for most of us we're never going to get there and let's just settle for what is realistic and realize this is not heaven yet and you know let's let's let's let's just get busy doing good things so what you're saying you're really going for what's impossible but our first core value is that it is possible to pursue god and to know him better and to come to seek his revelation of himself to you yeah that's the promise in john you know jesus says if my words abide in you and you do what i say uh my father and i will reveal ourselves to you and that's that's headed yes he is where we're headed come on he's not just somebody we go to for what we need and what that's the whole problem with charismatic movement you know oh we got gifts let's go get them jesus paid for them all so let's go get them right and you can lose that perspective that's like christmas ripping open the past the packages and but no parents yeah christmas without parrots and the other problem is oh we got parents but we don't want his packages yes no don't get presents we've got presents we don't need them we don't need any gifts no god wants to give us packages just to still make him the point let's have both yes and no don't the point is not getting more packages god remains the point exactly but the reason you can't get more packages is that if if he did they would become the point yeah i love that so getting more gifts and power and anointing and ministry that's not the point and it's not always the answer those are tools for us to love people with as god puts his love in us yeah but then we're ready for them they are not the point yeah it's like saying about a great artist the whole point of rembrandt is his brushes that's the secret this is brushes no the brushes are just a tool yeah and the miraculous gifts are just tools wow you know miraculous gifts don't hug you in the night they don't love you there's nothing there it's it's just a tool that's a good perspective now roland we've got some really deep spiritual theological questions to finish up with here are you ready they're hard hitters yeah okay ready i think you're ready for it what's your favorite movie ten commandments cecil b demille come on i love that i thought ben hur was it crystal crystal have you seen the tank of moments yes yeah yeah it's epic well for a long time ben hur edged it out because it's the pure gospel yeah i mean ben hur has you know terrific injustice vengeance and and loved him oh all of that resulting in the grace of god and eventually lepers get healed and that fixes everything it's a pure gospel it's a famous novel yeah written by a christian there's a remake coming out oh no i don't see it yep who's in it don't know come on 10 commandments i think was put forward in a uh in a way by cecil demille that completely missed the point he gets up in the front on the stage and he introduces the movie and he said it's all about freedom people finding freedom no it's not it's about god you know yeah come on god gives you freedom but it's not about freedom it's not about you know like there's one point in there where ben where moses has is saying all who thirst for freedom are are welcome here can you come in but it's not thirst for freedom we want freedom by itself what does that mean it has no meaning it's just an abstract idea we don't live according to abstract principles we as soon as you make anything in the christian life abstract and impersonal you know just a principle you don't really have anything that's psychology but that's god is freedom god is freedom still one of your favorite movies despite oh yeah but what makes it so discrepancy there what makes it the number one movie what makes it the number one movie for me is not the fact that it's about freedom it's about god's holiness come on it says absolute holiness and i think about that night before the passover and before they left egypt they're protected by the blood over the door the blood of jesus and they're protected in there and all hell is breaking loose you know all the firstborn are being or dying all around them but in that space in there god's own people whom he has made holy in his uh made to be known holy among the nations yeah that's the safe place to be under the blood of jesus yes and then god's extreme power you know the parting of the red sea and all these miracles and and the great sin is we still don't believe after seeing all those things i know that's like crazy we need to believe and the reason faith is so important is that it's the beginning and the foundation of love yeah how can you possibly say you love god if you don't trust him that's where everything starts and that's why god is not pleased with any without without faith without faith it's impossible to please god because those who seek him uh must diligently seek him with all their hearts yeah where does kung fu panda fit in all this is that more or less impactful would you say because well eastern mysticism comes up a lot of profound things like peace and tranquility and balance and not being lustful and and and not having desire that makes you miserable because you can't get it but none of these things actually work no unless god makes it work so they have these idealistic ideas but only god can make them real come on okay christy you got the next question it's deep are you ready roland do you have a favorite sound i know the answer is this is a very big subject this is actually a very big sense of the whole artistic world which has to do with the whole iris media department which has to do [Music] [Laughter] years ago i met somebody that thought heavy metal was the only way to reach youth today especially the youth of europe and i was and also from having been in indonesia for a long time i i asked is there such a thing as a as an evil sound like wyong in indonesia you know the very demonic way on indonesian balinese dances oh yes things like that with the mask and the jerky movements and i said i asked the question is there anything such is any such thing as ugly you know is there music that's just discordant and bad and ungodly and makes demons happy but not angels it's extreme yeah his answer was no it's all in the eye of the beholder and it's going to be a heavy metal section in heaven and you can sit in your messiah section but you know it's a section not one of your favorite sounds it it is one of them but i i really wish that there was a christian karen carpenter that's one of my favorite sounds her voice and and yeah that was another one yeah i mean those are sounds that i can imagine heaven sounds like that you know come on now listen talking about music that has actual melody yeah it's music yes a lot of worship music sounds like just a bunch of abstract random notes that you attach words to there's no all right let's not get that offensive talking about heaven wrong what what do you want to hear when when it's all said and done and you leave this shell called the hallelujah the chorus would be good you know what do you come on and you're sending up to the game charlie and i are going to sit in a certain seat and we're just going to this and the angels do it come on come on charlie's in charlie's your l.a musician oh yeah oh yeah oh you're charles yes yes i know you're talking about it so i thought you might be doing that charles i love classical music i really do heidi and i had a little vacation in vienna and we actually went to strauss concerts and yeah and i love it but it's not the only one i like contemporary too yeah i like certain kinds of contemporary music especially in the early days of the jesus movement they had music that had fabulous lyrics and melody that just make you cry come on what a gift hey music's such a gift but listen this is the question roland when you're at the pearly gates and you're about to get led into heaven what do you want no big deal but what would you love to hear jesus say about roland baker well done good and faithful servant come on the end i love it i love it yeah now christy is it what's the next one oh if you were to have any other profession what would it be yes a day job if the missionary world collapsed and fell apart the whole spiritual world fell apart i would like to be a bush pilot in alaska didn't make much money not very important you just deliver toilet paper and whatever people need you know the duty and the air and the freedom and the the world around you and the lack of pressure and the fun and the challenge in a kodiaq in a kodiak yeah yeah that's the plane that roland's got if you don't know it's a kodiak it's a purpose-built mission plane that when i went when i took off in the kodiaq it felt like i was going into helicopter it felt like we switched straight up that thing so combine that with being a photojournalist and writer with a pilot coming together and actually what's happening in in africa what has happened that i was forced to do both of those oh it's happening you live in the dream world yeah so no i don't think i could work in a in a theological library and you just do that and i don't think i could be a scientist in a laboratory and just do that or a preacher and just do that but now i'm forced to be a photojournalist and a and a pilot and preach the gospel all three so come on what's the first thing you want to do in the states if you've been in africa for a long time and have i retired in the states no what's the first thing you want to do in the states go to now here come on family rolling come on in and out of our chinese food well that's close but you know we have a really great chinese restaurant in pemba but there's no in and out so yeah and then right after that frozen yogurt with lots of chocolate chips really like frozen i know he does any time yeah kisses on top come on i think your daughter likes the yellow in and out i think chrissy is like a pretty big fan after that definitely dim sum and and chinese and mongolian barbecue and you know is it true that you used to jump into violent typhoon waves oh yeah taiwan while being strapped to a pier yeah well a tree yeah we go out typhoons hit a lot in taiwan philippines that area cyclones basically and as a kid you just wanted more typhoons and the bigger the better the faster the more fun you know because walls and trees would go over you're so exciting you know and it was fun to go out in the mid midnight you know with a screaming wind blowing 100 and some miles an hour and see if you could take it you stand up you know with all the beats beating against you and but what was really fun is as soon as the rain let up or even before go down to the beach for the wild waves and get a long long road and tie yourself to a tree and just throw yourself out in it no real thing pull yourself down couldn't take you out and hope the rope didn't break yeah yeah when you were hippie no you weren't here but you had long hair that was really cool yeah come on roland actually i bought a wig in today so we're going to put it on just to see what you look like when you're younger so okay we're going to throw you into waves to see that actually we might say that for the next episode you will be back roland we are bringing you back for another podcast but thank you so much for coming in today and sharing i expect to check in the mail come on this will not be the last podcast so we're gonna have to like pray for a lot of money in to keep you coming back you're wrong because i'm not cheap this is not the last podcast guys yes thank you i'll let you just all i need is some that comes a little premature chocolate and cookies maybe a cookie come on all right thank you so much thank you everyone for listening and being here at iris after hours we're so grateful for you guys and if you have any comments or questions you'd like to see us ask future guests you can leave them on our comment section under our youtube channel thanks for listening come on suffering and joy let's go [Laughter] this podcast is presented by iris global for more information or to support the work of iris global please visit us online at irisglobal.org

Channel: Iris Global

Views: 33,901

Rating: 4.7682405 out of 5

Keywords: Heidi Baker, Rolland Baker, Iris Global, Iris, Iris Ministries, Africa, Mozambique, Floods, Relief, poor, orphan, love, stop for one, stop for the one, Iris Afterhours podcast

Id: t-u6cfwOh2k

Length: 108min 7sec (6487 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 14 2016