Wednesday Service - September 22nd, 2021

[Music] hey church family i want to welcome you to campus we are so excited you've joined us for service whether you're here wednesday night at 6 30 saturday at 6 00 or sunday morning at 9 30. it is an honor to have you one quick note we will not have on campus services on wednesday september 22nd our junior high and senior high will continue to meet but no service on campus [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] join us saturday september 25th at our 6 pm service for an extended time of worship with nicole c mullen she is a grammy nominated and dev award winning singer songwriter we'll see you there [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] hey church water baptisms every saturday night here on campus at world outreach church the lord is moving if you've made the decision to follow him fully but you haven't been in the pool yet what are you waiting for take advantage of the opportunity go out and register online at wchurch.org together we'll see the lord move in and through our lives to change our community and our nation he's moving come be a part we'll see you here [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] thank you for joining our live stream tonight we have some special guests on campus almost 3 000 pastors and church leaders from across the nation so for live stream i'm going to share a podcast i did just a few weeks ago with a good friend eric mataxis eric talks about what's happening in our nation in the world and the place you and i can stand in prayer and with our faith to make a difference in this generation enjoy the message [Music] hey it's pastor allen and my guest today is eric mataxis from new york city they let you out we're glad to have you i don't know if they let me out i got the heck out though i'm here you don't have to go back you know taxes are better here there's a lot of options in tennessee i think like pretty much everything's better here so i don't need any selling i uh i appreciate it well if you don't know eric he is a new york times best-selling author he is the host of a daily radio program television program some describe you now as the christian gatekeeper to new york city what a mantle i don't know who described me that way it sounds like my mother or father might have been the one behind that i don't think that's true but thank you but thank you i'll take anything uh best of all he's my friend and so it's good to have you back in murfreesboro and at the church well i do feel at home here i've said that to you before i've been here enough times that i feel very much at home here and i want to say thank you for making me feel that way it's a big blessing every time i get to be here we're sitting on about the one year anniversary of the chinese coronavirus invading our shores and our world has changed i don't know if the change is permanent temporary transitionary what i do feel is that the change that has started is going to continue yeah and i think it could be repurposed and it could be to our benefit as christ followers and we could see a moving of the spirit of god unlike any we've seen before but i know it is a extraordinarily disorienting time who could have predicted last february the world we've lived in for 12 months or the outcomes i mean the economy was roaring i mean there was and we're not in that place anymore so i just want to take some big rock ideas kind of get your perspective yeah you know i live in tennessee our governor is a believer i live in a small town man the mayor is a believer the church the church that the governor attends i have preached in that church years ago and he was there so i met him not too long ago and he's like i know you from you know libra's fork blah blah blah i thought what and then i heard him talk and i thought he's a real believer he's not a believer he's he's solid so that's another reason i like to come back to tennessee so it's not it's not new york you know i i confess before this last year i didn't really think of governors and mayors is that essential but that's everybody's takeaway nobody until this year nobody thought that governors and mayors had any power because they didn't exercise that power very much and suddenly now they've been given this power and you can see who's good and who stinks who understands the constitution and who does not have a beginning and doesn't care and those people uh are temporarily in leadership and we have been able to watch them be utterly foolish in the way they govern and we've never had you know listen all these things a friend of mine once said all things work together for good i know that friend uh for those that love the lord and are called according to his purpose and so one of the things that comes out of this is that americans see what happens when you have a leader who doesn't get this stuff it never mattered before now it matters and it's it's i just think it's forcing people to to wake up and not everybody's all all that vocal but they're making their notes they see what's happening well if you'll promise to send them back we'll loan you our governor our mayor for 90 days but we need a max and we don't want yours in the intro can you even imagine can you but isn't it the startling thing is to see the level of lunacy on the left i mean you you you kind of think you know uh we're no longer in a day when democrats and republicans are very similar except on some issues we're at a point where the party's been taken over by really crazy culturally marxist ideas and it's a wake-up call most americans know i don't want my daughter competing with dudes who who think of themselves as as women i don't want that and i might be politically liberal but i don't want that i don't want uh you know shut down so that all the businesses are destroyed what is going on there's madness so i really i think a lot of people are they're they're making notes we've never been here as americans we've been very spoiled we have been protected and speaking of protection i think one of the changes this year has been the first amendment it's as if we put it in the shredder if you take those fundamental tenants no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion we've had all kinds of laws prohibiting it sure you know we've lived for several decades now with abortion being defended that you can't tell me what to do with my body that was sacred until this year when we can tell you all sorts of things to do with your body where to keep it where you can take it where you can't how to mask it well listen the part of i mean you remember i know i've spoken here at world outreach on my book if you can keep it about the the link between faith and freedom it's important especially for people of faith but for every american to understand that the title of book if you can keep it it's franklin said to the woman who asked him after the constitutional convention what have you given us a monarchy or republic he says a republican madam if you can keep it and we're being reminded right now we must keep the republic we've got to fight over these issues otherwise you know it's just like if you don't weed the yard come back in a couple years it's a jungle it's a it's over you have to keep the garden you've got to keep the republic if you don't do that if you're not vigilant if you don't pay the price necessary to do it moment by moment day by day week by week month by month it just goes away the natural state of man is fallen and and selfish and self-government is an amazing beautiful thing and so you start seeing that we haven't had to do very much it's all been done so well it's kind of like you know what it's like it's like if your parents do something so well for you you never have to learn how to do it right and in a way things were done so well for us that it lasted for a number of decades even with nobody doing anything and now we've run out of gas we're on fumes and i think that most americans are thinking okay so i have to now fight i have to learn what constitution says i have to learn what is freedom of religion what is the separation of church and state how does that work and is that happening here or are these jugheads utterly unable to process this and do their job and the answer is yeah it looks like they are so we're gonna have to speak up we're gonna have to fight back we're gonna have to do civil disobedience we're gonna have church whether they like it or not let them come sue us let's go to court that's america and i really think it's healthy that we in america have come to a place where we understand if we don't keep the republic if we don't do something there'll be people happy to do it for us and they will do it the wrong way so this is there's there's some good stuff in here i really think so i think if there are enough patriots who care um and enough christians who understand you have a job as a christian to be a patriot and to care for for the the gifts god has given you and not to say i don't care it's all going to burn if there are enough of them i i think we're going to come through this in in a different way but it's a battle praise the lord yeah but listen i want to come back to an idea because i think after the events at the capitol on the 6th of january and as horrific as it was it's been seized upon in so many places as labeling christian belief as being causative for the problems that we have but i think one of the outcomes is it's caused christians i've listened to used language like fight and defend and assertive language and i think we're being bullied away from that into a passive place of course and we don't want in any way can condone what happened to the capitol but we do have to have a dialogue about how we are assertive in this season well i think i think there's a lot to be said when we say well we don't want to condone anything that happened in the capital can i be honest i don't even know what happened in the capitol because the news has not covered it sufficiently so they're putting forth a narrative which they did the second it happened that we're all supposed to accept it and yet to this day some cop died they said he was killed with beaten with a fire extinguisher we don't know who did it we don't we have no information on this and it's assumed that some trump supporter did that i'm here to say i don't believe that unless you tell me who was it and by the way if somebody kills a cop do you know anybody who's not going to condemn that i don't know a soul that would not be sickened by that but cnn reported i think literally two days ago in the eighth paragraph of a story that it doesn't look the cut the doctor said that his injuries were not consistent with blunt trauma injury in other words it was not what we've been told but the news doesn't talk about it so we literally don't even know what happened and we're all condemning it like it was the worst thing that happened we we have not been given clarity on what happened on who did it we know that if anybody does something wrong i would think trump supporters more than anybody would say we believe in law and order now that narrative is not being put out there and then we're being demonized for being trump supporters i just want to say to everybody who's listening this is evil and if you don't push back against it you deserve it if you do not push back against this nonsense anyone in america who would demonize a group of people i don't care who that group of people is if it's trump supporters if it's non-trumpers whatever it is you can dislike people you can disagree with people but when you demonize them and you start saying they're a threat that is evil it is utterly un-american in fact it's not un-american it's anti-american it's what they do in fascist countries it's what they did in germany in the 30s it is what they did uh in in all kinds of countries like what they do in china if you don't if you look in the wrong wrong way you say the wrong thing they're going to come after you they're going to say you're a threat you're dangerous we're going to arrest you there's nothing more anti-american than that and so i'll tell you something alan when i see people kind of doing this kind of stuff it tells me something's fishy in other words if they were on the side of truth if they were on the side of good they would never behave that way they're afraid of something i think they're afraid that some things will be uncovered and they want to shut down the opposition when you try to silence people when you try to silence voices i know you're hiding something because good people don't do that so we have to push back on this narrative and the idea i just want to say the idea that anyone would dare would dare to try to demonize people for how they voted that's as despicable and as anti-american as anything we have ever seen every american needs to know your vote is sacred and you should never ever give anyone the right to do a thing like that because that is exactly like overt racism like he says because of this i'm gonna demonize you i'm gonna hate you and i'm gonna make it okay to hate you that other people are gonna hate you and if they don't hate you i'm gonna persecute them that is what happens in places like germany in the 30s and to see people so out of touch with the american founders vision and the constitution to be pushing this stuff we've never been here before but if the people on our side do not push back and do not scream and say we will not stand for this uh we deserve it i agree and it's brought back into the discussion something i heard years ago in graduate school you know the christian nationalism was toxic and to be avoided at all cost yeah you know god forbid you should be a christ follower and a patriot as if we're going to turn our nation over to people who are agnostics and atheists and i think these current events have pulled that back into the public a square again and in some more liberal theological circles it's causing big chunks of the church to step back or step away and we have to use our voices you have to be but this is the point separating the sheep from the goats because if you you just have a little bit of cowardice you're going to hide under the desk because you say oh i don't want them coming for me i don't want to you i don't want to lose my reputation i don't want to lose blah blah blah blah and i think well trust me when i tell you the germans who did not do the heroic thing didn't do it for exactly these reasons when they said yes i'll do business with that company which is working with the nazis to murder and incinerate jews it's like if i don't do it somebody else will do it i might as well do it and maybe i can have some good influence but the point is i need to eat like everybody else so i'll do business with satan people in america today they're doing business with china china is torturing and raping and killing people for their religious beliefs that is happening now how can we sit by in a rich strong nation like this and say you know what that's not our business uh we'll do business with them and we aren't going to use our power to force them to change their views of human rights and religious liberty we're not going to do anything how is that different from doing business with the devil how's that difference from doing business with the people who murdered the the german jews i mean the fact of the matter is there were companies that did that they said you know what i'm not going to let it affect my bottom line i don't care if you're that kind of a person i want to know where you're coming from nike or apple or whatever it is and i don't ever want to give you a penny if you we're at a time now where people need to look at this stuff because this doesn't just affect us it affects people around the world and we are to be our brother's keepers to the extent that we can so we're we're in uh in some ways these are exciting times alan because we we're having a clarification and it's not like the lord is missing he's right here with us in the middle of it he wants to guide us by his holy spirit and you know and i know he wants us to be courageous the the people who built america were courageous people the people who led the early church were courageous people who went to their death for their faith knowing jesus already defeated death if we don't have that kind of courage then we really don't have faith and now is a good time to see you know i visited the holocaust museum yad vashem in jerusalem yeah and they have trees around the periphery that is represents individuals who they labeled the righteous amongst the gentiles people who stood up on behalf of the jews during the second world war and i had an israeli friend who i was walking through and he said why are there so few why aren't there more and i look at where we're standing today and and we don't want to miss our opportunity to stand up you don't have to have a microphone or a platform or a huge social media following you may feel like you are an insignificant person but there is no insignificant voice for the truth and if we will all use our voice it will rise up before the one who watches over us if you believe that and we do you know you can't go wrong you know that every prayer is answered the lord sees everything and you know solzhenitsyn uh said i don't know if i quote it in my book uh but he said one word of truth outweighs the world when you get hooked up to what god is doing you're you have the power of heaven with you people need to know that need to walk that way talk that way if the church will rise up and speak truth if you see something say something you say for example i saw uh some funny business with the election and i know some people who know some stuff other people say well shut up don't say that he said excuse me this is united states of america you will never tell me what to say and by the way i'm saying it because i love my country now if it's not true that's great that's good news absolutely but you're not going to tell me not to talk about it and anybody who goes along with that becomes part of the problem and there are many christians today who are part of the problem they don't want to rock the boat they don't want somebody looking at them funny they don't want somebody writing something about them and i think to myself well listen we passed this way one time and now's the time to to stand and to trust god and put the results in his hands he's the author of my career and my life and and everything so uh yeah it's it's it's important that we that we really encourage people to to trust god and to speak the truth knowing that's what christians do you mentioned solzhenitsyn this week i read again his templeton address and it was 83 yes but if you read it he's speaking to the events that are unfolding today in our headlines exactly so go read it if you haven't looked at it lately it's not a long read it's not hard you'll understand the words but he can speak with authority into what we're watching and he paid a huge price to have freedom in his life and if we're not willing to pay a price we won't give freedom to our children and grandchildren well that's that's the thing we've got to pay a price people have always had to pay a price and it's a joy to pay a price uh we're called by god to pay a price people paid a price for us why shouldn't we pay some price it's it's it's it's a good thing it's a wonderful thing okay you live in new york city with a lot of media yes sir censorship we're watching things that i just it's unimaginable i grew up with the aclu and they defended the most heinous things and said in the name of free speech we had to tolerate them yeah and so now we're watching what happened you know they've lost their voice all of a sudden and they're censoring things in a way that just it doesn't seem like the nation i've grown up in well it's not uh look the one wonderful thing about the left was they really believed in certain values like free speech and they said because a lot of times conservatives get stuff wrong right conservatives maybe years ago would have said no we don't approve of that that's that's uh they wouldn't have said hate speech they would have said that's it's just something it's unseemly we won't have that and so they were more on the side of censoring and the left was always on free speech i don't care if it's vulgarity sexuality well we just want everything right well today they have gotten silent because they have lost their principles uh you may remember like in the 80s the aclu many of whose members are jewish defended uh a nazi white supremacist group to march through skokie illinois which is a jewish suburb of chicago mainly jewish and they defended it because they said look these people are vile but this is america in america we will defend even that and you know that challenges some people but you think wow those those people have principles they're not afraid of somebody saying something stupid you've got a right in america to say anything you want including stupid things and today we're being told no you don't if you bring up um the uh the election the whether there was fraud uh you may be contributing to violence you may be contributing to what happened at the capitol well what did happen at the capitol until somebody tells me what happened and who did it i'm not even going to allow that to be used as a cudgel to shut me up what what happened people were murdered well hey hey guess what i'm against murder and everyone i know is against murder so it's not like you can say you know but people are trying to when people try to shut you up you know they're afraid they're afraid of what you're gonna say and why are they afraid uh that's why we need to speak louder not less we need to speak more and louder not lower and not less and we're going to see things and i i would be wrong if i didn't say prayer works there are tons of saints praying and fasting i'm doing two nights a week a a prayer call with a bunch of people all around the world uh we're getting thousands of folks on facebook live or wherever it is and and i know there are tons of those happening there are people praying all around the world we need to pray uh and we need to watch people online who are encouraging us along these lines we need to feed our souls with the truth of god so that we can stand right now and so that we can pray into this because do we think god doesn't hear our prayers if we pray for this nation i mean if we pray for the nation we're praying for freedom for everybody in the world if you care about people in china you better care about america because their hope is here they're looking to us to help them in hong kong and in these places so i just want to remind people like really pray and god hears every single prayer don't don't ever doubt it because it's just not true i have a lot of friends that have been joining you in that prayer initiative can you tell us how to find it uh no uh i uh i actually don't remember the the title of it i think it's well if people sign up for my newsletter every time we do it i send out the link um it may be called global prayer initiative but uh my website is just my name ericmataxis.com and i uh if you sign up for my newsletter on every newsletter i sent out the links to it because it has been a real source of strength for people and it's a it's a little bit more on the uh you know there's a little prophetic stuff going on or or or whatever but i think the cool thing is god is uniting his church and we it's there's no longer time to be fussy if people are calling on the name of jesus um you know we just need to all be in it together and we're all going to have differences and stuff but but these are people who love jesus and they're crying out for freedom and for truth and it's been a privilege to be part of it we can put a link on our web page too to help people find it but i i think that's a great um transition point i've been concerned for the christian community since the election and the events since for a number of reasons there were a lot of voices speaking into that community prophetic voices political voices yeah i think there was a sense that there was a lot of malfeasance um there's a lot of anxiety just left over from covet and essential and non-essential yeah and censorship all this stuff but we cannot afford to live angry resentful embittered hateful we've got tools to offload that stuff and we've got a little homework it seems to me to do in the christian community we have to forgive doesn't mean forgiveness doesn't mean that we're endorsing what happened right it means we're turning people loose we'll we'll let god deal with that i'm not going to hold the anger and the resentment and the embittered if we hold those things the enemy has nullified us just as certainly as the censors have so i think it's so important that we do the things we know to do and then we can see god move he's the one i trust to walk this baby that's the whole thing people say you know how are we going to get out of this well i'll tell you what if the lord wants us to get out of his out of this uh he will make a way we don't have to think necessarily about this is what's going to happen that's not we don't know what the future holds we don't know what god is going to do we don't know what's going to be revealed the lord's i believe in the business of revealing stuff i believe the swamp is going to be drained now if it's uh to the bottom or not but i think things are going to be revealed and we need to fight for that we want transparency and clarity we want our governmental leaders to be responsible uh if they don't protect free speech if they don't uh have a view of the constitution that takes it seriously if they're in a view of the individual respect for their fellow americans um we need to throw them out of office and we need to speak against them and there i mean there are many things we can do but number one what you said we must trust the lord i think a lot of christians get in their own view of things and how it's all going to burn is that you know we're in the end times and i think well no matter what's going to happen you should be praising the lord if we're in the end times praise the lord if we're not praise the lord that's a command so why does he command us he commands us because he knows we're not going to do that normally so if he doesn't command us we'll find an excuse we have no excuse and the tools we've been entrusted with are more powerful than the white house or the halls of congress you know we were filled with despair because we felt like we lost an advocate but the truth is our ultimate advocate didn't lose his throne but see isn't that interesting isn't isn't that maybe part of what god is doing is he's saying to his people i want you to look to me more directly than you've been doing yes look to me directly and ask me what i want you to do and ask me to do what you think uh needs to be done i really think that that's part of this is that we've in some ways had our eyes on a man and uh that's normal that's natural but sometimes god says okay now i want you i want you to walk more deeply with me and nothing but good is going to come out of that you have a new book you don't write little books this one is fish out of water yes and don't forget the subtitle a search for the meaning of life that's that's the real point that's the big that's the point fish out of water search for the meaning of like well you know i wanted to write this book for many years and in fact i wrote it 20 years ago when uh i thought now's the time and then i just kind of sat on it forever and the years passed and i had to start all over again but i wanted to tell the story of my conversion how did i get to the point where around age 25 i had a flat out miracle conversion jesus made himself known to me totally miraculously it was not i reasoned my way to faith or i just kind of made a decision i mean it was one of those things where like you read about in a book except it happened in my life it totally blew my mind it was a dream having to do with a fish out of water and um i thought in order to tell that story i really have to tell the whole story of my life up to the point of that dream because you don't really the dream doesn't really make sense unless you know what came before to kind of put yourself in my shoes while i'm having this dream and the funny thing is this is true this is this is this is alan like weird but true i wanted to write this book for a long time and viking which is a secular publisher they published my luther book or whatever big new york secular publisher they signed up to to do it and i handed in the manuscript and they said it's basically not christian enough we want a you know kind of a more christian and i thought how ironic because they kind of maybe see me as that's the brand for texas and i said no i want to pivot away from that to write a secular literary memoir that is sprinkled with christian stuff but really is secular until the end now the end what happens i meet jesus now of course at that point there's no escaping that that i become a christian but in order to really appreciate that you really have to tell the secular story so it's not like it's nasty or anything but it is the story of a point of view of somebody who's kind of going through life a little bit skeptical of those christians or that group you know you you don't know what you think you're trying to make sense of it and i think most people in america they kind of live there you know maybe they've got some christian friends but they're not ready to make that step because they don't want to become weird like so and so or so and so are they they feel they're fine that was me and those are not evil people those are just our fellow americans or whatever just going through life trying to make sense of things and i think we need to reach out to them and so this book is meant to reach out to those people so my biggest hope is that believers will give it to people that are not on the same page as we are without telling them the punch line just say it's a it's a funny crazy story i think you'll enjoy it i i know the the the writer i've heard him speak and see what you think now i do think believers are going to enjoy it a lot but i do hope that they think of people that would not read a jesus book in other words if you give them something by lee strobel or whatever that they might they can go i don't want to i don't want to read about that stuff i know where it's going i'm not interested those people need to be reached somehow that's basically why i wrote the book and it is really i told you before a lot of it is insanely hilarious because it's true stories of my childhood my dad's greek from greece my mom's from germany that's another reason i'm a fish out of water i never fit in any place and but the stories of growing up in the greek community some of them are just flat out nuts they're nuts and if you don't find them funny you're not reading carefully enough they're insane but i lived it all some of it at the time i did not think was funny at all but in retrospect it becomes hilarious but there's all those kinds of crazy stories and then i get to my time at yale where i'm the you know i'm i'm the innocent who who is blessed i come from a working class home my parents worked hard jobs i didn't go to college and i'm at this university so i come there with wide eyes and pretty quickly discover that you know if you're looking for the meaning of life they don't believe in that stuff here they don't they don't say it too much but they don't give you the impression that they take god or truth seriously or any of those old-fashioned ideas like honor or whatever they just i think it's presumptuous to think there's a meaning of well that's that's a big that's one classic thing like who do you think you are that you've got the meaning of life and you know it's like saying who do you think you are that you'd be the only uh uh species in the universe on this planet who do you think and it's like well look if it's true it's true it doesn't have anything to do with what i think about it i could be a prideful jerk about anything and the question is is it true but i realized when i was at yale that if i want to fit in here i'm not going to i'm not going to be that christian or i'm not going to be too conservative that's not what flies here and i didn't know what i believed so i just drifted along and when i graduated that's when it got ugly because uh as i often say i i you know a lot of people that i knew they deal with this stuff by getting a really good job and working really hard and they distract themselves with the things of this world i was not that distracted because i was trying to be a writer so i went into a really dark period without getting into the details but it was just i was lost and the lord very dramatically found me and that's the end of the story but i think that for people who are not where we are theologically you know i try to tell the story from the point of view of the person in the moment who is skeptical of those christians or skeptical of this group or that group whatever and says i don't i don't need help i'm fine and because that's that's who i was and i want to relate to those people let them know you're not alone a lot of people they couldn't care less about the whole jesus thing they kind of think like well i'm not against jesus or i just don't know i'm i'm just not into it the way you are not realizing that of course god isn't to them and he has a purpose for them and he doesn't want to make them like that other person he wants to reach them on their own level and that's what i didn't believe and so that's how the lord communicated to me in the dream at the end of the book that he reaches me in on my own level in a way that just absolutely exploded my ability to take it in i just said this is a miracle there's nothing more to be said now and now everything is uh you know the rest of my life just going to follow from this moment making sense of what happened in that dream but by the lord's grace for the last 22 plus years i've been walking with him and and in funny ways i'm i'm actually surprised took me this long to write this book i meant to write it years ago because only the first 25 years of my life it's a memoir it's not an autobiography or anything like that but um that's uh that's the basic story of the book well i recommend that the title again is fish out of water a search for the meaning of life and i think in some ways it's a bit more approachable than some of the hefty tomes oh yeah of course because it's a it's a goofball telling of my childhood and mine your humor is more a part of this book and so even if you're a casual reader yeah it's a very engaging story hopefully that's that was my goal and you always think like for your writing about yourself who's going to care but then i thought well i'm i'm telling really crazy funny stories uh that tell themselves you know and stuff so i do i i've been told a lot from people that admit that it makes a great read now that again as a writer that's your hope but i've told that a lot one guy said to me he literally read it in a sitting he he kept going until he asked that i i almost don't believe but i know he wasn't making it up but i thought that's the highest compliment you could pay a writer because there could be really important information but it might be a slog by the grace of god it's not a slide i also it's a book that i could hand to somebody that i was hoping would form a more favorable opinion of christianity and it would move them down the road that's correct that's exactly right that's that's that was my goal because i thought we don't have books like that there are very few of them out there uh there are many books and i've written some of them that are just you know they're straight up about the faith but i said i want to write a book that that can help people pull them along a little bit open their heart and mind a little bit to where we're coming from so they don't put us in that box because they're wrong to put us in that box but they don't know any better so i mean the premise is different but it it's usefulness fits more to me like with chuck coulson's loving god yeah than it does like the body yeah and so if people are looking for a read and a tool to help there's i took this one you said and since i was unconscious the premise of the book is built around a dream which i love you introduce the supernatural without it being goofy but since i was unconscious when it happened that i couldn't take any credit for it that'd be like lazarus taking credit for his own resurrection from the tomb boom well that you think about it but that's like that's a theological point to be made sometimes we act like we're responsible for our faith most of the time can you think wait a second that faith is a gift and you better get get that straight that that's not your doing it's god's doing but sometimes we kind of get pumped up like yeah i believe and those jerks don't believe well you are those jerks apart from the grace of god so you need to have mercy on them and so that's that's i find it interesting that the lord chose a dream so that i could never say i found my way i didn't find my way he found me well if covet has limited your mobility you can't get to the bookstore you can go get it i downloaded through my kindle a few days ago and so it has been a good friend with me i highly recommend it fish out of water thank you eric for another one i say your books weren't accessible i'm thinking um donald drains the swamp that's pretty accessible stuff look the but the luther book is probably the toughest read but i'm kind of proudest of that in some ways but that that's kind of you know it's a it's a hefty read but uh listen we're living in crazy times and i honestly believe ellen that people are they're more open to what's the meaning of life what's going on you know the things are so crazy right now that i think a lot of people are quietly wondering what's it all about what do i do and only if you know jesus can you walk through some of these strange times and you know we don't know how long these strange times are going to last or or whatever and i think that it's an opportunity i didn't plan it i didn't write it to come out during this bizarre time but i i do think people are they're thinking a little bit more deeply or they want to think more deeply okay i couldn't agree more thank you for your voice in our nation thank you for yet another book fish out of water a search for the meaning of life i'm going to finally figure it out i got a book that's going to help don't don't you worry i think you may have already figured it out but uh the i just want to remind people that even though i think believers will enjoy it i know they will but i want them to think of people who would not read maybe a christian book uh and think of this as as a way to to build a bridge without telling them the punch line or whatever just to just to show love in a way and to to open a door that's i mean that's ultimately why i write wrote it and i just want to make that clear well the book is filled with humor that's wrapped in truth and that is a wonderful combination i recommend it highly if you don't know eric mataxis read the book check him out listen to his radio show pray for him he is standing in a difficult place standing for the truth of our lord and his kingdom and he's making an enormous difference thank you for what you do good to have you back in tennessee we'll teach you to speak a little hillbilly and drink some sweet tea some true culture i listen you know i am thrilled anytime i get to come back here thanks for having me we are honored

Channel: World Outreach Church

Views: 1,717

Rating: 4.9215684 out of 5

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Id: aNyac_lpjes

Length: 44min 23sec (2663 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021