The Confessionals - 871: There's a Serpent War Hidden in the Bible | Nils Glenn

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

What if the Bible is far more supernatural than most Christians have ever been taught? In this episode, Tony sits down with @NilsGlenn to explore the strange and often overlooked layers of Scripture: the Nephilim, the Watchers, Genesis 6, Psalm 91, demons, spiritual warfare, and the cosmic battle running from Eden to Revelation.But Nils’ interest in the supernatural side of the Bible is not just academic. He spent years chasing the dream of soccer, only to collapse on the field when his heart suddenly failed. As doctors fought to save him, Nils says he saw himself standing in darkness until Jesus reached for him and showed him a kingdom still ahead.What followed was not a clean, easy recovery, but a painful confrontation with fear, identity, and the fragile line between life and eternity. Nils shares the story of his cardiac arrest, his second near-death scare, his love for the supernatural worldview of Scripture, and the calling he believes God placed on his life. His testimony is a sobering reminder that God can meet us at the edge of death, open our eyes to the reality behind the veil, and send us back with purpose.Please pray for Tony's wife, Lindsay, as she battles breast cancer. Your prayers make a difference!If you’re able, consider helping the Merkel family with medical expenses by donating to Lindsay’s GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/b8f76890📕 Pre-order Tony's Book: https://a.co/d/0bJS3SaVBecome a member for ad-free listening, extra shows, and exclusive access to our social media app: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinThe Confessionals Social Network App:Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrhGoogle Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZThe Counter Series Available NOW:The Counter (YouTube): WATCH HEREThe Counter (Full Episode): WATCH HERETony's Recommended Reads: slingshotlibrary.comIf you want to learn about Jesus and what it means to be saved: Click HereMerkel Media Apparel: merkmerch.comNils Glenn Instagram | YouTubeSPONSORSGHOSTBED: GhostBed.com/tonyQUINCE: quince.com/tonyIVERMECTIN: twc.health/tonyVENICE AI: https://venice.ai/theconfessionalsRUMBLE WALLET: https://rumblewallet.onelink.me/bJsX/ConfessionalsCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] ADDRESS:Merkel Media257 N. Calderwood St., #301Alcoa, TN 37701SOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theconfessionals/Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelProduced by: @jyorkofficialOUTRO MUSICJoel Thomas - SpinningYouTube | Apple Music | Spotify

Hey, everyone, before we get to this week's show, this is just your weekly reminder to please continue to pray for my wife, Lindsay. She is battling breast cancer right now, and we're praying for complete healing in Jesus' name. Thank you. Merkel. Media. This was all circulating around the base that a giant had to kill, but no one was supposed to talk about it. I saw three long, bony fingers, reach up underneath the door, curl up to grab it, and then disappeared.

When he came over to me, dude, he slithered over to me. He's out of the cave and they're all broke. And he starts running and firing at this giant. Well, the giant moves. He's got a spear in one hand, and he's running really fast. And spears, Dan, holds him up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated.

Got places, got closer. Dr. Barson, when he got about 15 yards away from me, I raised that 12 days and I blow this head on. I feel something pulling at my leg, and I look over and there are two small. Reach my hand into this bush, and I touch air. Couldn't breathe and I couldn't move because I know I'm seeing a monster. Welcome to the show, everybody listening to the Confessionals podcast. I'm your host Tony Merkel. Thanks for being here.

If you got something you want to say to me, go ahead and shoot me an email. My email address is contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. That's contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. Or go the website, the confessionalspodcast.com. Hit the contact section, and you can reach me that way as well. Either way works for me, just get a hold of me. If you want more shows on a weekly basis, we have you covered on that front. The Confessionals has membership episodes, and we have hundreds of them already posted

for your listening pleasure, and we'll continue to do them as long as we are existing here on these platforms. So if you want the extra shows every week, every Thursday on the website and on our exclusive app, just go to the confessionalspodcast.com, hit the join button and become a member, and you'll get access to all that extra content, whether it's on the website or the downloaded app from Apple App Store and Google Play. Hope to see you there. All right, friends, listen, I have a book that is coming in October and it's available for pre-order on Amazon. The link is in the description.

The book is called The Confessionals, Exposing, Word. The Horing Kingdoms, The Hidden Truth Behind UFOs, Cryptids, and Spiritual Warfare. L.A. Marzuli did write the foreto-for-to-this book, and I'm excited to offer it to you. Presales are going on now. Please go ahead and get your copy reserved today because all the pre-sales push the algorithm to say, hey, people are interested in this book, and then they'll push it to more people. This book is about my life's journey into the supernatural that starts in my childhood. the very first chapter, I paint the picture of the environment that I'm growing up in as a child

and the UFO experience that I had with my mom one night in the trailer park of Kutztown, Pennsylvania. And from there, we go into a lot of other stories that involve my life, this show, and the stories from this show, and where it's taking me. I hope you guys enjoy the book once you get it, but please go ahead and hit the link in the description and get your pre-order today. Thank you very much in advance, guys. I'm excited about this. I've been talking about doing this book for, I think, a year now. And it's finally we're about four months away. And I'm super excited. And I hope you guys are as well. All right. Today we have Nils Glenn coming on the show. And he's a Bible creator on

Instagram that I stumbled across. And he has a real passion for taking the deeper and stranger parts of scripture and showing how they all point back to Jesus. In this conversation, Nils shares a story of suffering a cardiac arrest on a soccer field, being dead for eight minutes, and the vision he says God gave him in the middle of it all. We also get into the book Enoch, discernment, supernatural experiences, and how all of it ties into a powerful testimony about identity, calling, and the reality that our lives on this side of eternity matter deeply. Let's get to this conversation with Nils right now. Yeah.

All right, cool. So Nils Glenn, how are you, man? I'm so glad to be here. Actually, this is going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. So I found your. your page. And I don't remember exactly where on Instagram, what video it was, but I found one of your

your videos on Instagram. And I went to your page. And in the description, you say, I was dead for eight minutes. And I was like, huh, I wonder if he has a story. And I reached out because I just, I find it, I find it, um, it's huge for where we're going as a culture, at least in this country. You and I were talking before we started the show and your dad comes from a deep theological background. And you were raised in a Christian home. And as was I and a lot of other people, I don't know how much time you spent overseas. I haven't spent much time overseas. And I'm learning that overseas, the culture, the Christian culture is way different than what we have here.

and they have a different understanding of supernatural anything. And so when I hear people like yourself having experiences, I think it's important to magnify those and to share that with the world because our culture here in the United States, I think is shifting. We see the government over the last, since I started podcasting in 2017,

they started talking about this disclosure stuff with the aliens and UFOs and all this stuff. Right. But there's this clear shift in our culture where we are now entering into a new stage. And there's a lot of people giving credence to the supernatural. There's something beyond us and all that. And I think it's important to amplify people's stories like yourself. So welcome to the show.

I'm glad you're here. Yeah, thanks for having me. Actually, before we get into your story, though, let's tell people where they can find you. Because your Instagram page, that's what I found you on. And then you have a YouTube. I don't know what else you have. But it's not about this. It's completely different.

So why don't you tell people about yourself? Yeah. So on Instagram, it's Nils Glenn. And then YouTube is Nils Glenn. And then I have a small like newsletter that I just kind of forget about. But occasionally I'll just go into, you know, because it's really hard to cover interesting, weird Bible stuff in 60 to 90 seconds on Instagram. And then even on YouTube, that is longer form.

It's still hard to include everything. So occasionally when I get the hunch to go and make a newsletter, I will. So those are usually like the three different areas. So you're not on TikTok or anything? No, I just never. My content journey started on TikTok. Really? I mean, you know, just discovered the app was just being stupid.

But I never took it seriously. It never was making the content that I am right now on TikTok. I never really started that way. I just don't like trends. I just don't like TikTok, quite frankly. I don't know. It just feels, I don't know. I can't really put my finger on it.

I just don't like it. For some reason, it's like Instagram is fine. Reels are fine. Shorts are fine. But TikTok, I just, I don't know. It just feels different to be. Yeah, well, it's interesting because I didn't like TikTok and I wasn't on TikTok really until I got a social media manager

and he put me on TikTok. And I think we were on TikTok and we maybe had like 10,000 subscribers. and now, I think I just checked yesterday and it was at $157,000. Amazing. If someone wants to go and take all my clip You're already doing the work.

Just put it on it. Like, that's the thing. I think it just might be laziness. It's just like, I can't be bothered. I just want to upload my video and, I don't know, be done. You got a thing against TikTok, so it's just like, I don't want to deal with it. So TikTok's out.

Yeah, pretty much. So on YouTube, are you doing a lot of shorts as well? Are you doing long form video? No, I'm exclusively doing long form on YouTube. Honestly, ever since I started making long-form videos and taking YouTube a lot more seriously, I just find it to be more enjoyable than they're making shorts. I mean, my content journey started, I say started out on TikTok, but really what I'm doing right now started out on Instagram. It was just making kind of how it started was, you know, I talk about weird parts of the Bible. That's like the things that I enjoy.

Welcome. Yeah, it's like perfect. Like, you know, Nephlem, Sons of God, Heiser stuff, kind of kind of all that. And what I noticed when I started making videos was. or rather what I didn't notice was there was a lot of interesting stuff out there. It's like you could read the unseen realm. You could watch Heiser's stuff on YouTube. But no one's like reading papers. No one's reading like these weird theories that biblical scholars have, you know, worked really hard at doing. And the presentation that they're giving is they're in front of a whiteboard and it's just super boring.

And I'm just like, who's going to be listening to this stuff? Right. Well, I am because I'm somewhat interested in it, but I realize that no one my age, or at least not even necessarily that my demographic is my age, Gen Z, but no one was really taking this cool kind of biblical scholarship and making it in like entertainings. Like you could argue Bible project and stuff like that. But on a, you know, short form level on Instagram, I feel like on one side in Christianity, you kind of had the cringe type stuff, which I just could care less about. And then on the other hand, you had these like old dudes in front of like a whiteboard that. just, you know, was getting like 100 views. But the stuff that they were saying was interesting. Yeah. So I was just like, how can me, you know, and I was just always a fan of like being creative and editing videos and I love like cinematic movies. So like even I'll be working out in the gym and I'll be listening to Hans Zimmer and

I'm just picturing, oh, I can tell the story about the gospel like through this music. I just got to find the images to do it and then I can just make videos about it. Or I can talk about the Sons of God and the Deuteronomy 32 worldview and tied into this and use time by Hans Zimmer from inception and it's just tied in beautifully and just so that's kind of how my content creation started I was just like why don't I take these really fascinating I felt like under talked about interesting things in the Bible because that's what I'm interested in and can I make it like entertaining for people on social media to watch and then started doing that and that's when things kind of took off on Instagram but I think my heart was always like the longer form

YouTube stuff because you can only say so much in 60 to 90 seconds yeah So that's kind of how I got into that. I kind of learned that too. I mean, there's, I was always amazed by people who can write music and get such a beautiful message across in three minutes. It's like, how do you do that? I mean, I need a three-hour podcast to get what's going on in my brain. You know, I don't know how people do it in such short form.

So when I saw your stuff, I was like, man, this is really good. I mean, it's really creative and really well done. And when did you start this? I think October two years ago. Okay. So it's been a two year journey. Yeah, yeah. So it's been about two years on Instagram.

YouTube, I really started taking seriously kind of like quarter four of last year. Mm-hmm. You know, I was making the off-and-on YouTube video. But it really hasn't been until January of this year where things kind of started taking off. Yeah. So you get a lot of traction there. Yeah. Good.

Very, very good. Mm-hmm. Awesome. Yeah, I started the year, I think, like, 6,000 subscribers. And then now I'm at 75,000. So. Nice. I don't know.

That's good. growth man that's good growth just praise god yeah i'm looking at your youtube now and stuff so yeah you're definitely doing the long form two-hour videos yeah that's really cool man um yeah we when we started doing youtube uh for real uh i don't think because i had the youtube for years and i just didn't really try with it yeah uh and i think we had nearly 50 000 subscribers and then once it's amazing when you start actually trying with something you know how it grows yeah and you know the thing that i like about youtube is that it's It's the last, like, click and watch platform.

You know, Instagram, TikTok, arguably YouTube shorts. It's just like when you're just sitting there scrolling, like, you're being fed what YouTube thinks. And you are doing that in some sense with like there's the YouTube algorithm, what shows up on your homepage. But you still have to get people to watch. Yeah. And to me, I find that to be really fascinating because how you approach making YouTube videos versus a short form piece of content is just night and day different. and I just find that to be fun because there's a whole element of strategy

for YouTube that you just don't get when you're just focusing on the short-form stuff. I agree. So I just fell in love with that and then fell in love with making the longer videos and I get to talk about, I just literally yapped to a camera about the Bible. I'm just like, I would do that for free.

So it's nice that I can, you know, kind of build this and, you know, all glory and praise to God for just blessing that. Yeah. And it's really all him at the end of the day. I'm just a steward of what he's given me. So it's just kind of how I view it. I just yav about the Bible and try to be entertaining while I do it, I guess.

And just honestly, and another big thing, too, is like the reason why I talk about these particular things is, I just think that there's so much more to the Bible than what I feel like the average lay Christian kind of like is being fed. Yeah. You know, a pastor's job on a Sunday. Like they can't, you know, they're reaching and they're talking to theologians and then someone who just became a Christian yesterday. and maybe someone who's not being a Christian at all. So it's like they have to go a mile wide and an inch deep. Yeah.

And I just feel like the average congregant of a church, I just feel like, based out the conversations that I've had, like wants to go deeper. And there's so much more to the Bible, just if like how things are connected, you know, Old Testament to New Testament, like the typology, the like the seat of the search. There's like there's so many different types of things that just make. the Bible come alive. And I had such, so many profound moments in, like, in studying and research where you just kind of like, the Lord just kind of shows you these things. I'm just like, wow, my appreciation for God's word just like, yeah. And I'm just like, Lord, would you

please allow me to help other people kind of like experience that? And I'm not claiming to be a theologian or a Bible scholar. But my whole thing is just like, I learn about the Bible and I share what I learn. Yeah. If it's interesting. Great. If we disagree, great. All I'm doing is presenting ideas and then, you know, use discernment. That's the most important thing. You know, I really make sure that I try to present things in a way where if I don't know, I'm honest about it, and I say I don't know, that's fine. And like, we can disagree on certain things. But ultimately, I think, especially with social media, people, we're kind of being trained not to think for ourselves. I think that's a big problem. And so my whole thing is just kind of just present these ideas.

I'll give my opinion on what I think is the way, but ultimately let people decide on use the sermon, pray, seek God is what I'm saying true. You know, and if we disagree, that's, you know, that's one thing. So you mentioned about Heiser and like, so you're familiar with that work. Was that something that you were familiar with before you found him? Were you into like the idea of Genesis 6 and the the sons of God and all that stuff. Yeah, so I was. And it was one of those things, that's funny, I kind of share it this way.

I was one years old when 9-11 happened. So like when people kind of say that question, you know, people always ask it, but I never understood what it meant. Like, where were you when 9-11 happened? To me, it was, where was I when I first discovered the pastor?

Kind of like, I remember where I was. I was driving, I was invited to this AI church hackathon thing for AI Church Hackathon? Yeah, it was like a whole thing. I was making this Bible, like, AI thing, and then I presented it at this hackathon. But anyways, I was driving, and my mom was in the passenger seat,

and then my dad had read the unseen realm, I think two years prior to this. And he was kind of always proud of me. She was like, hey, I think you'd really like this book. I'm just like, okay, dad. And so, and then I just, like, never read it. And then for whatever reason, I just started, you know, on YouTube,

He has the supernatural seminars, like the four-part series that he has. He just kind of goes through everything. I just remember sitting in there driving my mom's truck after this, driving back to Minnesota. And I'm just like, it's like my mind is just like racing because it was almost like all these things that. This might sound weird, but like wanted to be true. Like as you read the Bible, you see that there, these other gods are being talked about as if they have some type of authority or power. Yeah. why is it that I grew up hearing that

these were just wooden statues with no power at all? Right. Like, what am I missing here? And then, of course, you get to the Divine Council worldview, the Babel story, God separating the nations, according to the number of sons of God, and Yahweh taking Israel as his portion, and then, and then, you know, Daniel, like seven or ten where it talks about, you know,

Michael battling. Oh, yeah, the Prince of Pradesh. Yeah, the Prince of Persian, just like all these kind of like mythology type stuff. I was always kind of interested in then. But you know, you're crazy if you think there's any remote truth to maybe how those things came to be. Right. And to me, that just never made sense to me. And so it felt like for the first time in my life, all these things that were kind of like really interesting to me.

I was like, yeah, but there's no way that those are true. It was kind of like, wait a second. Like, what if? And then, of course, that opened the can of worm. and then, you know, I actually read it and then read as other books, angels, demons, reversing Herman, stuff like that. And then that kind of really inspired the content that I did make, especially on Instagram when I started, because I went through all those sort of questions that go in your head about,

you know, I always know that I wanted to make videos, but what am I going to make videos about? Like, I like working out. I like soccer. I like, but the thing that kept coming back to me was the Bible. It's just like, I just love this. And but then again, I'm 23 years old or 24 years old at the time. Like, who's going to listen to me? I didn't go to seminary.

I just think the Bible is interesting. So, but like there's people smarter than I am. There's people who are making better videos than I am. If they can just, if I'm going to be talking about Heiser stuff, why can't they just go watch him? And then they just, you know, can skip me. So like, all these questions are going in the back of my mind. And I was just like, you know what? No.

And so I decided, I was like, Nils, you're going to give yourself 30 days. and you're going to make a video and you're going to post every day for 30 days and at the end of that you can decide if you don't want to do it but you're at least going to give yourself a college try at it and I was like well what am I going to talk about

and at the time that's when I was getting into all the Heiser stuff so I was just like well there's a lot of interesting stuff in here can I boil this down into 60 seconds because at that time Instagram didn't have even 90 second reel so it was all like under 60 seconds and so I just really got into it then And then, you know, through Heiser, you kind of enter different, different veins.

And then, you know, you go down different little rabbit holes about all sorts of different theories and stuff for the Bible. And really, that just kind of opened this, I don't want to say Pandora's box, but this re-invigoration of like, oh, my gosh, there's so much here. And I feel like no one's really talking about it. It's kind of becoming like a resurgence, I feel like, or not resurgence, but insurgents, I guess, of all of all these different ideas. but at the time, I didn't really feel like there was. There wasn't. Yeah. So that's just kind of how it'll started.

Here I am, I guess. Yeah. I've arrived. No, I agree. I mean, I remember, I mean, shoot, when I started in 2017, how much landscapes changed in not even 10 years yet. I mean, it's crazy. And it's confirming for me because, you know,

the audience knows that, I've said it a million times, how God called me into the podcast. And so on the hindsight of that, it's very confirming for me to say, okay, I know he called me back then, and now I see how things have changed over the years and how culture has shifted in this direction. And for me, it's like God knew what he was doing when he did it. So with all the looking into scriptures and being into the weird stuff, like what is something that like either kind of catches you off guard or that really kind of gets you. like for me it would be amped up.

I'm like, oh, yeah, I can talk about this all day. Like, excuse me. So like, for instance, recently I was doing, and I'm not a theologian, not a scholar. Me too, brother. You know, like I'm legit. Use me a podcaster now, or used to be a trucker now podcaster. And I dropped out of Bible college. So, I mean, that's my resume.

But I was doing like this little bit of a study on the idea. could cryptids be in the Bible. And I think the jury is still out on that for me. But my main thing was, could there be something in the Bible that points you in the direction of that? And, you know, people will say, they'll often want to reference things

like the book of Enoch or the book of giants and go that route, which is, you know, fine. I don't have anything against the book of Enoch. But I was like, can I do this with the Bible? And it took me down this, a couple different rabbit holes and one of them was well one of them was in Isaiah

a word that was being used and in the, in the... For unicorn, is that the one you're saying? Seder. Oh, Seder. And the King James is actually, it's actually they actually say Sater twice. I think in Isaiah 13 and Isaiah 34. And both times are talking about

the ex, this is Tony's words, The evacuating of people in a geographical location, whether it's a town or wilderness, and it being vacant and what moves in. And it talks about the wild animals, but it talks about this, like, this, well, the King James says Seder, but the idea would be maybe like a goat demon, which is mentioned in Leviticus. And so you're talking about goat demon. Yeah, you have like, you have Baphomet and all this stuff that you're like, okay. So, but what really got me was David's Mighty Men. And so you have the Mighty Men, the three that are like the leaders of them. And then you have the other 30.

And the other 30 has a leader. And I can't remember their names. But the only other person that goes into detail for his resume, they list the names. But there's these resumes of the three and the leader of the 30. And there's one other person that goes into and it's Benaya. and he is David's lead bodyguard. And when you look at his resume, it says that he chased down a lion into a snowy pit and killed it.

I'm like, okay, I mean, I couldn't do that. Yeah, it's just like that alone. Yeah, for sure. But if you're going to be David's bodyguard, lead bodyguard, David did that and a bear as a teenager. Yeah. You know? And so it's like if you're talking about resumes and they're listening to resume,

Okay, that's impressive. But for David, if I'm David and I know what I did and I'm looking for a guy who's going to protect me and be in charge of that, that's a good starting point. So the next one is it talks about this Egyptian that he killed. And in different translations, the description of the Egyptian is wildly different. Some translations will call the Egyptian a very handsome man. And I'm like, well, that doesn't qualify yet. He was just like, it might.

He killed an Egyptian, man, he was good luck. He was very handsome. He was very handsome. But the, I can't remember the... It doesn't hurt, though. No, it doesn't hurt at all. I'm stokey. But the other way they transcribe it,

and it's like this word, I can't remember the words, it's driving me nuts, but is like an impressive man. And then it could be translated as a giant, a huge man. call him a giant or a huge man. And I'm like, okay, if we're talking about in context, the bodyguard, that's a resume builder. Not that he was good looking at one pageants, but he was a

huge man. And so, okay, so he killed a lion, he killed a giant. What else? And the other thing that it mentions is that he killed two lion-like men. And I'm like, okay, but what's that? And I started looking at. And the word in the Hebrew is Ariel. And Ari being lion, L being God. So when it's translated in this literal sense, it was lion like men of God or something like that. Interesting. And so when I was looking at it, I was thinking, what are the chances that these men, these two guys he killed? Now, before we get to Benaya, we have guys killing 800 people. Like, so one guy kills 800 soldiers. Another guy is back to back with David himself

because the rest of the Israelite army abandoned him. They fight off 300 men. Like this is what we're talking about. We're talking about like real big feats. And so we got Benaya who killed a lion, a giant, and then what? Two guys that moved like lions? Or two guys that looked like lions?

Or could it be that they were hybrids? And then when you keep reading, and it says they were lion-like men from Moab. Well, when you look at Moab, and I think in Deuteronomy 2, if I remember correctly, it talks about how God told the Israelites to spare the land of R within Moab. I can't remember exactly why, but it says that the land of R was the land of giants. And so we know there were Nephlam situations going on there, and could have been that these lion-like men, this is me, again, I'm not as,

God, and I'm not saying this is gospel. But I'm just saying is, is it possible that if these two guys who were, who were described as lion like men coming from the land of Nephilim, could they have been some kind of hybrid? Yeah. And that's where I went. And that's, so anyways, I say, tell me your stories. Like, what are the things that kind of make you scratch your head? I can't believe I just read that.

And if that's the way I'm reading it is true, that kind of just shifts my paradigm. Yeah, I think there's two things that come to mind for me. The first one is, you know, it probably coincides a lot with what you said. Yeah, you know, you have Deuteronomy. And then you have the conquest of Canaan, which is already really interesting because it's kind of like a proof text that people go to and say, well, God committed genocide and God did this and God did that. And he wiped out women and children, you know, and all these different types of things. But I found it was really interesting that that conquest was a lot more spiritual than it was kind of anything else. you know, because we have God's promise that they're going to be inhabiting the land.

And then the 12 spies come in and they're just like, shoot, there's giants here. And then they're all scared. But eventually Joshua goes in. And it was really interesting is that the places where God kind of commanded them to wipe them out. The Hebrew word is Kerem, and that it kind of means devoted to destruction. but it was just like that word was only really assigned to the places in the hill country. And who are the inhabitants of the people in the hill country? It was the Nephilim.

Usually when they were dealing with places, other words, God would tell them to drive them out. So it wasn't like we're just killing humanity here. But there's a spiritual warfare in this sense of like, and you know, then that goes back to the like the seed, you know, from the serpent going to, you know, eventually Joshos conquest, you deal with the giants that the, you know, that are causing, causing all these problems in the hill country. Then eventually there's one sort of giant clan left and it's David, and then David eventually he comes in and finishes the job, so to speak.

But it's really cool how like the serpent imagery from Genesis 3, where in, I think it's 315 where it says, you know, we get the, we get the promise that he will crush his, he will crush your head and you will, and you'll strike his heel. And then you go to David and Goliath. And then Goliath, I think the author is doing something really intentional here of the idea that he comes out in scale armor. And so like immediately, you know, if you're an Israelite, my guess is like you're immediately thinking back to the serpent, you know, serpent scales, all these different types of things. And then what does David do after he strikes Goliath down?

He goes off and he and he cuts his head. And then fast forward to Jesus on the cross. It's like that's kind of the same thing that he's doing is like his feet are at the bottom and he's crushing. and the whole idea of like Satan being or the Nakash in Genesis 3 being sent down to the Hebrew it is Arets or like Sheol like the underworld like the ground type stuff. So like this thread of it all goes back to giant stuff like it's really a spiritual battle and that that to me was a great apologetic for these people who come and claim that God was commanding genocide.

And I'm just like even in the book of Joshua, there are. times where like God is using this kind of language and instructing Joshua to do certain types of things. I think it was the Amalekites where they were supposedly all wiped out, but then they show up a couple chapters later. So like there was clearly war, like, and this was very common back and back in the day. It's like they would use hyperbolic language to describe some of these conquests, of course. And so this whole like idea between like the serpent and then the Nephlam and then David, David with Goliath and then going all the way. to Jesus, just like that whole thread

of spiritual warfare that there was, you know, the term Heiser likes thrown is cosmic geography. It's like there was a very specific way that God had Israel and his people deal with the nations at the time just to prepare him to go into Israel.

And of course, Jesus doesn't, or Jesus has to show up through that and through David's line. And just the way that that ties in with why Joshua was only tasked to deal or wipe them out to those specific places versus the other places to me, I just found to be incredibly fascinating. Because I was like, that's a detail that you just like purely miss.

If you're not familiar with the, if, um, the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, which is like, you would never have any kind of like defense if there wasn't really something spiritual going on or that, you know, these battles were more than just, um, we're taking your land. It's like, why? Yeah. You know? So that was just one of them. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. No, that's fine. Yeah. So I think that when you're looking at the scripture, the more you look at it, and this is why it's such a supernatural book, man, because you can spend your entire life reading it, studying it, and on your deathbed discover something new. the depths of it and the way it intertwines with itself. And it's so layered that I'm telling you, the more you look at it, the more you can't just say this was a man or men writing a book. It's just, it's too supernaturally driven in a way where it's like it's impossible for this.

Like let alone the fact that it's a 1,400 year span, give or take that it was written. 40 authors, 66 books. There are three different languages. Three different continents. It's like this, and they all have this narrative going in one direction. In my mind, it's impossible for that to have come together in the natural. And even down to, like, honestly, dude, like little things. I just realized this probably about six months ago.

So everybody knows the splitting of the Red Sea, you know, the Exodus. And, you know, that whole story. But at the end of them wandering the wilderness, so we often think about God splitting the Red Sea, moving water, then walking across. But when you just think about the grand scope of things, you pull back, you're like, okay, so they entered the wilderness walking through the Red Sea. 40 years later, they exit the wilderness, not walking through the Red Sea, but God stopped the Jordan River from flowing so they could walk across to the Promised Land. And then you look at that and you're like, wow, so God did it twice. No, God did it four times in the Bible. Because Elijah and Elisha, he stopped the Jordan River again so they could cross over.

And then Elisha comes back the same way. Yeah. And so like literally four times in scripture, God stops water from moving so that his people or a small group of people could walk across it for whatever reason. And it's like, it's little things like that that I sit back and I'm just like, wow. And it's not, I wouldn't say it's like, it's not like paradigm shifting, but it's still like, wow. Like we often hear that one story, Red Sea. Most people don't even talk about the Jordan River and it happened more with the Jordan River than it did with the Red Sea. Yeah, right.

And it's just crazy to me. Yeah. And it's also interesting, you know, you mentioned the like the wilderness in 40 years. You know, if you think about Jesus being tempted, you know, by Satan, it's like one of the first things that happens. And like the Holy Spirit drives them out into the wilderness. there's so much parallelism going on between like Israel's journey in there and then and then Jesus because the Israelites are just complaining that their food sucks and that they don't have any food and then God gives a man.

I'm just, ah, it's not good enough. Well, here, you know, here's some meat and whatnot, just like all these different temptations. And you think about when Jesus was driven out to the wilderness and then Satan shows up and then he's just like tempting them with like the same things that the Israelites were tempted with, which is really interesting because where Adam was tempted, you know, Jesus obviously fulfilled. And it's like where Moses was tempted, Jesus, you know, overcame those too.

And so that's another really interesting thing to think about. Just like the fact that, another interesting thing about that story too. I'm sorry, this is kind of getting obvious. Just go. Yeah, off script a little bit. I was doing some digging. And it was interesting.

Shoot, I'm trying to remember the exact quote. but when Satan is tempting Jesus in the wilderness you know Jesus quotes back or Satan is essentially quoting Psalm 91 and it's a very specific Psalm and it's traditionally in I guess Christian theology it's this like Psalm of triumph or just like God is our refuge stuff like that well it's interesting that Satan quotes to Jesus and kind of tempts them and he mentions these specific words like one of them is pestilence one of them is destruction

and in our English translations, that's like kind of what it says. I think it's in verses like 12 through 14 or like 11 through 11 through 13 or something like that. And it was interesting that Jesus responds to those temptations by quoting Deuteronomy. You know, man shall not live by bread alone, but you know, by everywhere that comes out of the mouth of God. And in the Dead Sea Scrolls, they found this particular cave that had a Psalm of David, David and like I think it was like three or four other exorcism Psalms and the other ones are not in the Bible, but they there was one other Psalm that was in that collection that was an exorcism Psalm and that was Psalm 91. So what was really interesting is Satan is quoting this exorcism Psalm and he talks about words like pestilence and destruction, which the Hebrew words for those are literally demons of of the time. It's like we we see that. It's it's it's incredibly fascinating. I wish I could remember all the all the particular details. But Jesus is essentially. coding against this because Satan's ultimately fishing for information. So, like, you know, he brings them up to the high mountain.

He tells them to jump off. And really what we know is that Satan didn't really know what the plan was. Because I think Paul says that, like, had they known, they never would have done it. And so it was really interesting that he tells Jesus to jump off this cliff. And if Jesus does it and survives, he knows that, all right, well, or if, like, God, God saves them and then like the angels come and save him. Satan knows just like, all right, well, I mean, he can't be killed. So I got to try something else.

But then if he jumps off and then he dies, well, he's not so naive to know that. Okay, it can't just be that. And God's going to have to resurrect him eventually. So it's like, that's kind of off the table too. But Satan doesn't really know any of that stuff. And so instead of Jesus giving in and, you know, to do either one of those things and giving Satan some information, Jesus calls his bluff and just like, no, like you're not going to tempt me because like he knows that he that he's fishing for for information.

But the reason why why I bring up the Psalm 91 thing is that um Satan conveniently forgets. Yeah, you want to just pull back. It says Psalm 91, Psalm 91 if you can. But Satan conveniently forgets the part where it's like a verse later he says that the Messiah, because this is a messian, kind of like a messianic psalm is going to be the one to, I think it's like, I don't know if it's crushed the serpent, but he said, he says like has victory. So it's really interesting that Satan is coming and quoting these verses. And then literally the next verse is him prophesing his own defeat. But Satan conveniently omits that one.

So anyways, all that to say is like this crazy thing. You know, there's so much type of stuff in the wilderness about Israel doing certain things. And then Jesus actually being the fulfillment of that. And I just wanted to piggyback off of that. But I just thought that was interesting. I mean, Psalm 91 is something that in my world is, is almost like a constant. I mean, it's, this is going to sound bad because it's not,

but it almost becomes like a ritual in the sense of like, I will read Psalm 91. Like that is my protection prayer, you know? And it's, it's interesting how when you dig into these things, the more those little details pop up and you start connecting these dots. And again, it goes to, yeah, this is not an accident. No, it's not. It's impossible for this to be an accident.

And then the next thing Jesus does is go and cast out a demon. Right. So it was just... I was just going to... I'll tell you what. Speaking of Jesus casting out demons, are you familiar with a pastor name Jack Hibbs? He's out in California.

I think the name sounds familiar, but I... No. He's been around a long time. I would imagine I'm probably not his most favorite cup of tea, you know? But I mean, I've met him once, and he was very, very cool dude. I would love to talk to him more. But he had a thought that he shared about this idea of God or of Jesus and casting out demons. So he said that, do you ever wonder why Jesus cast the legion into the pigs?

And he talks about how this idea that one, in the scripture, I think Jesus himself, talked about, where do demonic spirits go? They go into the deserts. And in the wilderness. Into the wilderness, right? Which goes into what I was talking about with Isaiah. But when they don't, when they come back, they bring their seven others. And he said, do you ever wonder why it's the dry place, it's the desert?

And then he went into this idea, which I was surprised that he did. He talked about the book of Enoch and how the, there's this thought that the dead spirits of the nephalum are the demons that we encounter today. And he said, how were the nephalum killed through the flood? And so they'll do anything they can to avoid what killed them the first time. And so the poetic nature of it, sending them off. Setting them off the cliff into the water. The very thing they don't want to be in is what he sends them into.

I thought that was an interesting connection point, you know. And there might even be something deeper there too, because if you think about like the you know biblical theology this idea of like the sea is kind of like the same as same as like the wilderness like the point is like it's it's chaotic like dead things go there humans cannot flourish there yeah the wilderness is where dead things are and um the sea is is chaos it you know it can't be taken we have the imagery of like the you know the the the leviathan and then at the end of the day um Jesus in revelation says that there's going to be no more sea because like he ultimately is going to be like overtaking the sea.

You know, throughout the New Testament, Jesus walks on water. He controls the sea. It's like all these Israelites are thinking just like, yeah, like the sea is chaos. But like we need someone to kind of take care of that. And then Jesus shows up. And so I think it's really interesting too

because like not only do they go, you know, out into the wilderness and then out into the sea, but like the sea was also the place of where like sin belonged. You know, you think about the story, you know, Vitticus 16 with the Atoment with you, with Azizal. It's like the high priest put his hands on one year, sacrifice the gold for the sins of the people.

And he's put his hands on the other one and then sent it out to the wilderness to Azizel. Because that's where sin belongs. Another interesting connection too is like when Jesus is crucified, he's out of the city into Golgotha, which was where sin belonged. And he, you know, obviously he took all that upon us, of course. But it's just like even just, if you just read the Bible with understanding that the wilderness is where dead things go and where sin belongs and that the sea

is chaos. It's like all of a sudden you could read so many of Jesus's parables. You could find so many connections that Paul makes and what the Old Testament is just like, why was it such a big deal that they would send out the goat to the wilderness? Yeah. Like why is like, okay, is it just to send the goat out into the wilderness? But there's so much richer things and just in, I mean, even like the idea of like casting your sins will go to the sea of forgetfulness, you know, when you repent and you come to the Christ. You know, it's again, like you just said just a second ago, where do your sin go to the sea? It's where it belongs.

Where it belongs. And it's really interesting when you start breaking this stuff down. I mentioned it earlier and I think you might even brought it up at least a little bit. you're familiar to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Where do you fit in your paradigm? Where does Enoch and maybe even other extra canonical books, where do they belong in your perspective? I mean, I don't think Enoch is canonical,

especially two and three. It's important to distinguish that too. Yeah, and I probably, I think the view that makes the most sense is that they're helpful. Like, it can provide context. Like, we get context to Genesis 6 and what was going on through Enok. Like, this is what the people at the time were thinking about.

This is how they kind of viewed it. It wasn't even until like 400 where the Sons of God thing, I think it was like Augustine or a couple of people before him where they started not saying that this was something supernatural, which I just found to be really, really strange. But yeah, my view on the Dutero-canonical apocryphal. type stuff. Like, I don't think it's inspired scripture. I can confidently say that.

But that doesn't mean a book like Enoch is important. We know that because Paul, like, literally all throughout the Bible, I think even in Proverbs, it's like there's an Egyptian, like quotations in there. The, you know, first Samuel, second Samuel, first and second kings. Like they mentioned like the like the book of kings or the book of, I don't know, there's there's like 20 different books that are extra biblical books that are mentioned as like accurate history. So like when you have stuff like Maccabees and stuff like that, okay, I can look at that and say, okay, this is probably historical.

Is that the same weight and level of scripture? No. You know, when I personally look at Enoch, I think it's helpful in providing context to what could have been going on in Genesis 6. The watcher story, the Azizel story, the angels coming down on Mount Herman. Mount Herman is just a crazy thing and it's in its own right. Like, you know, in Matthew, is it 16 when Jesus was with them? And he was just like, upon this rock, I will build my church. We maybe can get into that too.

But like, I think it's helpful. But I don't know if I would go so far to say it's canonical. But that doesn't mean it's not important because literally Jude quotes that Peter, you know, they're all alluding to the story that there's more going on that the angels that sinned around the time of what angels? Genesis 6 doesn't really talk about it. I mean, yeah, we get one verse, right? Yeah. That's said that, oh, no, that's not actually what it says.

It's clearly talking about some human aspect. I'm just like, yeah, but that's not what it says. Yeah. It's like, this is what it says. And so, like, how can me, you know, get helpful context? I do think you can get to a point, though, in putting too much weight on it where you get into, because my biggest thing, when it comes to, you know, you alluded to earlier about that, people are kind of becoming more aware of like supernatural type stuff. And, you know, even before

you talked about like how the east is a little bit more like mystical and supernatural. And then we have like the West and we had the the enlightenment or a lot more like logical. And then if things can't be, makes sense in a scientific way, we kind of get kind of wiesy. But on the other hand, I think you can really lose discernment. And I think that's one of the most important things. If you're talking about anything, whether it's prophecy or healing or. visions or anything like that. If it can become really easy to confuse what the Bible clearly says and doesn't say versus things that we kind of add to it that can't really be verified.

And honestly, sometimes I think that can be a hindrance to the churches because if we become so unsc-you know, maybe I'll just use the term unsatisfied with what the Bible says, that can kind of lead us into... like not being able to discern like truth versus this is I'm making this up in my mind. Yeah. Because it kind of sounds cool. And so, you know, even though you will probably get into my cardiac arrest story, I do feel like God gave me a vision.

But it's not something that I take very lightly because I need to have discernment. I'm just like, is the stuff that I'm seeing in this vision of mine? Is this, does it line up with what the Bible says? If it doesn't, it might be a figment of my own imagination. And I'm not saying that everyone who has visions, you know, whatever is, you know, crazy. I have a whole backstory about my, how I was skeptical of all this stuff. And I went through a cessationist in time. Thanks, John MacArthur for a little bit.

You too? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my theological background, I'm kind of like a mud. It's like I have all these different. I went through a very charismatic phase, very cessationist phase within the span of like two years of one another. So it was just like, yeah.

But all that is to say. The most important thing for me is can I be discerning? And that's a hot. And that can sometimes be hard. And sometimes you don't have all the answers and sometimes things aren't clear. But what is clear is what we have laid out in the Bible. Anything outside of that, I can't really put my full stake into whether or knowing it's 100% true or not because the Bible is what I have to go off of.

And so that's really important thing to me. So anything that regards to the supernatural world, And the beautiful thing about even including like a book like Enoch is just all what's really doing at the end of the day is just providing context. Right. It's not like you can't like, I mean, you would say, well, does does it talk about 200 watchers descending? You know, on Mount Hermit in the Bible? No, it doesn't. But can we get into the minds of the people who are writing this stuff?

Right. To perhaps understand why Peter was referencing this event and why Jude was referencing this event. Yeah. But like I said, discernment. especially as things become more supernatural or I'll use the term revival or these these kinds of these kinds of buzzwords like whatever revival means. Yeah, I just I don't know just I can sum all that up by just saying discernment. That's that's all I can say.

I understand agree with you. I understand agree with you. I mean, one, I see there's people. I'm not going to name drop anybody, but I recently saw a creator. I guess he's a creator. He's also a radio guy. But he was, he was,

he was seen pretty irritated about the book of Enoch. And, and he, I'm paraphrasing, but his emotions at least read it as, I'm sick of these people talking about Enoch, you know? I don't know if he actually said it like that,

but it was an attitude in the vibe. And he's like, I'm sick of it. And, and, and I can get that sentiment. I can understand that. But he,

he went direction. of like brushing it off. It's like it's, it's, his basically thing was, it's not scripture and I'm tired of people saying it should be scripture or something. I agree with that. Yeah, I agree with that.

I agree with you, sir. It doesn't mean that it's impossible to look at. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't look at it. It doesn't mean you shouldn't consider it. And the way I look at it is, um, so,

you know, going to Bible college, uh, I, and you went to college, right? Yeah, I did.

I studied finance though. So, Well, I don't know how it would be in finance, but I mean, it wasn't, it was like I had at least one professor who wrote a book and that book was what I had to purchase that semester as part of the materials. How convenient is. Yeah, exactly. And, and, but it's like, I'm going to Bible college and I'm, and I have this whole list of books that I have to spend thousands of dollars on that as an, as a 17 year old kid when I first started, had zero interest reading any of them. Yeah. Yeah, I have to spend thousands of dollars on these books. that my professor, this person is telling me, I have to read to understand a Bible better.

And it's like... Just go into that? It's that simple. I know. Just be slave to the lender, my friend. But then there's like, you know, the commentaries. And like, there's all this reading material out there for people to read and understand scripture better.

And that's perfectly acceptable. For some reason, if you start reading the quote, commentary of the day for biblical times, the reason why these guys in the scripture had this worldview is because they read these these scripture, not scriptures, these, this content, it's like all of a sudden that's a bad thing. And I don't think it is a bad thing. I think it's very important for us to read

this stuff so that we can understand how they were viewing the world around them. I think Heiser put it this way that I think is really interesting. You said something about like, any context that is outside of first century AD and pre that is completely foreign to the book. You okay, Jay? Foreign to the Bible. Since the reason.

Okay. All right. Well, we'll keep going. Was that recording? Okay. Good. But he says just like any context outside of what the biblical authors were about is completely foreign to how we should interpret the Bible. And, you know, on one hand, it's like, that's really.

I had to sit with that for a little bit because we have all this church history, we have the creeds, we have all these different types of things. But there is something to think about any context that comes after when something was written is completely foreign

to what the biblical writers were thinking about when they were writing. So how does that become our interpretive lens to understanding this stuff? And then that's always been like a question for me in my mind. I was like, to me, that makes sense. Like, if I write a book today, which, yeah, might happen.

If I write a book today and someone, you know, like a hundred years from now is using, like, their own time to interpret what I'm saying instead of looking at what happened before me, like before when I was writing the book. Yeah. Like, my words would be skewed. And it's like, you would lose the meaning. And so we almost like treat the Bible, like, why don't we treat the Bible the same way we would treat any, you know, you know, because it's God's word. Just yeah, but also God gave us a brain.

Yeah. And while God inspired every word, it's like there were human authors, it would, you know, carried along through by the Holy Spirit. But I mean, they had thoughts. Paul used literary devices. Like the biblical authors are like phenomenal writers. Like they're using, they're using metaphors. They're like they're comparing like they're drawing back. They're drawing parallels. They're like they're quoting. Just like, yeah, God could have orchestrated everything. but my view kind of is that like God providentially prepared them to be in the position to be able to do that

yeah like God was not you know Paul was not you know in like a trance we'll just say so to speak and just like I got the God's like just telling I was sitting down here like I was like I'm writing something but the experiences that Paul went through in his life God ordained that God providentity prepared him to be able to write the stuff

that he did and that's the way did it. Now, would maybe Christians disagree with how, you know, I view inspiration in that way? Sure. That's fine. But at the end of the day, any context that we interpret that isn't the context that the biblical writers had is just like, I don't know if that's the right way to do it. I'm not a scholar. I'm not a theologian. Caviar at that, but I'm just saying, I don't know. Yeah. I get it, man. It's, when we're talking about these kind of things, it can be complex in the social side of things because every word that comes out of your mouth, you know

somebody else is going to say, oh, you're absolutely wrong and here's why. I was like, maybe, but maybe not. Yeah, I know. It's just coming out everything I say, which is maybe. Yeah. You just never know. But so, yeah, I think

this is a good course of conversation because of what you went through, though. Because you mentioned that how you I forget how you said it, but like, Theologically Homeless. You know, like a mutt. You're hybrid. So there is,

and just so the audience knows, whatever we talk about when it comes to your cardiac arrest, I only know what you said on your Instagram reel, which was like two minutes. You said there's a whole other part that you haven't talked about publicly. So we're in for a journey together, friends. but whatever you experienced, was there a conflict in your theology at that moment,

or were you more aligned theologically with what you saw? Like saw in the vision or just experienced in the cardiac arrest? Well, I mean, sure. I mean, the cardiac arrest is a whole maratose side of that in itself, right? But like in the vision, because I mean, for instance, when I went to college, I went to a Pentecostal college, some of this God. I ruined a bunch of Calvinists there.

And so, yeah, like, I had this, like, total different, like, theological upbringing compared to what I was exposed to with my friends. Yeah. And I don't know, one, myself, if I would have experienced what you experienced in my, in my more reformed years, how I would have handled it, let alone the people I was friend myself with, would they have even believed me if I told them I had an experience like that, right? Exactly.

Well, to answer your first question about, I mean, when, and maybe I can share the vision after I tell the cardiac arrest story. Can I say one more thing before you go any further? Yeah. It's going to drive me nuts if I don't say this. Because I've seen, I don't look at a whole lot of comments online, right? And when I do, it's always one that it sticks in my head. And as I said that, it's sticking in my head. I am not poo-pooing Calvinism, reformed people.

I'm not bagging on them, like, at all. Like, I have lots of friends that are reformed. I love them. You were predestined to say that. You were predestined to say that. I just, like, I don't know what it is, how I'm relating messaging, but somebody took offense. They're like, you're always bagging on. I'm like, I'm not.

Like, I love them. Like, I just, we just don't agree on everything, but it's fine. Yeah, right. Anyways, go ahead. I'm sorry. I'd clarify that for that one person. It's a very, yeah. It's very, it's very good, it's very good clarification.

Yeah. When I look at the vision that I experienced, one of the biggest things for me, and maybe I can provide some context after about maybe I white, I think this way, but even I was skeptical because I would hear of like people having visions. And to me, you know, I'm not, I don't even want to say like these that like some people are lying. I'm sure some of them genuinely are. Yeah. But I, to me, the only basis that I have for knowing if this is something that's of God, of not, is what is what he's revealed to me. At least that's my take on it.

And so if my vision doesn't line up with something that I see in the Bible, I don't know if I can say that it's from God, especially if it contradicts it. Right. And so to me, after I had it, I went to, you know, I told my wife, I told some of my close family members, I told one of my pastors, I'm just like, like, tell me if there's like, because I, because I, it's so vivid for me. After it happened, I literally wrote down like 23, I drew it out on like 23 like squares on my little, uh, remarkable pad. I like, I wrote out the whole thing. And then I would tell people the story, just like a few people because for, I just didn't feel like God was told me to blast it online, right?

And I, I, I told them I was just like, help me. It's just like, am I like, am I like, am I, does this line up with with with what the Bible says and like am I be am I being crazy am I because like I don't want to go and tell people that I had a vision from God and like in be lined to them and not can like and not be truthful like when I say that like I don't want to think that my own imagination came up with this but then as I look at what happened in the vision which honestly I'll probably share it here but with how that related to the last two years of my life and what God has just been pounding at me and like all the stuff that I've been doing. And what he's literally been putting in my mind as I've been reading on how literally from

the creation to revelation, this whole idea of ruling and reigning with Christ connects together. Like it, to me, it's, it's, there's no doubt in, there's no doubt in my mind that it was him. Yeah. Um, but before we get there, the cardiac. Yeah, I want you to, I want you to share from the beginning. Yeah. Because I think it's important for the context of the whole situation. You understand the severity of what your, your physical body went through.

Right. And I'll quickly give my like my theological background too because that might be some, you know, I grew up, you know, Christian home. Both my parents are Christians, four siblings, all them are Christians. We grew up going to an evangelical free church. My dad taught Sunday school at a small Baptist church. So kind of, you know, pre-mill, you know, kind of stuff. It was all like, hey, like this is what the Bible says. you know, we, we weren't charismatic, but we weren't cessationists either.

Grew up, went through high school. My, I think it was like my sophomore through my senior year of high school or junior, through senior year of high school, I went through a very charismatic phase. So it was just Todd White this and Todd White that. It was, you know, burned. Burnt a little bit. But it was, it was. But so like, I.

I went through a phase of that. And, you know, that honestly served as much as the craziness as now. To me, at that point in my life, I do feel like God used it in a way that that was actually really helpful. I did feel like I was on fire, fire for the Lord. And I wanted to go out and pray for people. And I wanted the gift of healing. And I just wanted to go and do that.

And I genuinely think it helped me talk to my classmates in high school because I would just be talking about the Bible in school. It was funny. when I was in sixth grade. Sorry, this is this kind of going past the time. I used to like have like a group of like four or five students where I would be in like a computer class and I would just be researching like Bible stuff when I was like in sixth grade. Because like I said, I was always talking to my dad about this stuff or we talked about talking about that before the show. And I would make these little printouts of hey, like this is Nils's like I didn't know the term theology.

But I was just writing Bible verses and giving my opinions on them. and I would hand them out to like four people in sixth grade. And I would, I don't know, I did that like four or five times. But anyways, that was, that thought just, I've never thought that thought in the last like, you know, 10 years. So that just kind of came up. Okay, where was it? Okay, anyways, go through a very charismatic phase. But like throughout high school, I mean, I was unashamedably a Christian, but, you know, behind closed doors, there was pornography.

There was all these different types of things. So on the outside, good Christian kid, on the inside, I was really dealing with some stuff. Some prior context before it gets at the cardiac arrest story, too, is I was a decent soccer player. The cardiac arrest happened on a soccer field. Growing up, started when I was five years old. Dad taught me throughout high school, I broke our high school's record for goals scored. I think I scored like 86 or 89 over four years. Went to state for the first time our school's history.

I played semi-pro for five years, playing college, played with and against Minnesota United. the pro team up in up in Minnesota. So soccer was, all that is to say, soccer was a big part of my life. Eventually at times, there was one part of my college season where I had just went to, oh, actually, sorry, but before I get to that soccer thing, after I graduated, I went through this very charismatic face and I went to a reformed university in Iowa. So here I am, this guy who's Holy Spirit this, Holy Spirit, that, Holy Spirit, that. And then you go to a reformed college and they're just like, Holy Spirit, what are you talking about? Like, this is all community here. Right. So anyway, I'm just bashing on them a little bit.

He said it not me. I really respect. I really respect. No, but like, but even that, I was really exposed to reform theology. It was my first time showing up where someone thought that the earth was old. And I was just like, you can't be a Christian and say that. Now, I think you can be. But like, I grew up in kind of like a bubble in that sense where it's just like, no, I mean, this is literal.

Everything's literal. Everything's literal. If you don't believe it, you don't believe that the Bible's true. You don't believe that the Bible is the Word of God because it clearly says this, right? So, anyways, go play soccer, go there for one fall semester. So, like, 2018, I was 18 years old. So my first freshman college experience, I leave after the first semester. I'm just like, if I don't play professional soccer, I can't do it here.

So I go back to Minnesota, finish up my generals. and I'm playing with a soccer team. I play at a junior college for a year and a half. And then there was this one moment in the third semester I was there. So the year and a half, the last semester I was there, we were waiting to go out to practice. And eventually the talk of religion comes up. We had some Muslims on the team, some atheists, whatever.

Until this guy says, oh, I'm a Muslim. Some guy asked me, what am I? I said, oh, I'm a Christian. And then he looked at me. He was just like, oh, I didn't know you were Christian. And then to me, that was just like a dagger in my heart because I was with these guys for a year and a half. And there's no fruit in my life. There was nothing about my life that would have said that I was a Christian outside of maybe bringing it up every now and then.

And that was like the worst season of my life. I'd come back after that full semester and I was living in a place I didn't want to live into just like porn every day. Just lost all my motivation. I was playing semi-pro at the time and that was going terribly. And so it was just like my identity you could honestly really wasn't in Christ then. Like I was saved. I was, but as Paul said, I was living a very carnal life. I was very carnal Christian.

And that just led me down a spiral because, well, if soccer is going bad and my identity is kind of wrapped up in my ability to kick a ball around. And I'm, I have these addictions that I can't break free from. I'm not going to church. And I hate school because I'm this big entrepreneur guy. And college is a scam. And I'm going to start a big company and do all this. It's just like when all these things are hitting you at the same time and I'm just at home playing video games skipping classes all day.

Like you don't go in a very, very easy spot. And that was the context of when this guy told me. He's just like, I don't know you were Christian. And then, to me is just like God just then and there just convicted me. Just like knows like you're done living this double life. fast forward get recruited to play out in South Carolina play there for two years

and my relationship with the Lord has never been better went through my John MacArthur phase where it's just like every day for like a semester it was just I would drive to the gym and just John MacArthur sermons like the Grace to you YouTube channel just like playing during the workouts

John McArthur but I was reading my Bible every day I was getting into all this and I was like a really good spot And it was funny because, oh, and then soccer's like wasn't going great, but also wasn't going as bad as it was then. And I was starting to become a much better player. And but there was this one point towards the end of my semester there where I talked to one of my teammates who grew up Catholic, but was just had one foot in and one foot out in the world. It just like loved like the party scene. And I'm at this college where there's five Americans out of the 33 of us there.

So it's a very like Latin American, South American, European, just like everyone's just kind of like partying on the weekends, you know, doing like the college soccer experience, right? I was in my room like reading my Bible. It was funny because it was like multiple nights. It'd be like 2 a.m. And there's just a party in my living room. And there's six of us living in a three bedroom apartment. And the walls are crazy thin. And I'm just like, can't sleep.

So I just go out to my car and read the Bible. It was actually great. But. Sounds amazing. It sounds great. Six college-aged soccer players sharing one tiny fridge and one and no one does their dishes. With the appetites you guys had, yeah. I'm sure the food was going all the time.

Yeah, right. And so what happened was where God kind of like changed or reversed that first soccer teammate thing is my teammate comes to my room crying. And at this point, you know, and I'm not saying this in like a prideful sense, but I, you know, you can kind of examine your life and kind of see like, you know what, am I exuding the fruits of the spirit? Am I living as though, you know, although I stand, is like, is there a general sentiment that I'm living for Christ? Right. And at that time, I really felt like I was.

This time my soccer teammate comes in, mind you, different school, 1,300 miles away. And he comes into me, comes into my room crying. I think he was just coming home. He probably slept with the girl or something like that. But he came into my room crying. And it was like 1 a.m. I was reading Ecclesiastes, but I just remember he comes to my room crying. He was just like, why are you so different?

And to me, like I said, I'm not saying that I was this like super Christian, but I think we would be surprised how the world can kind of take notice if you actually live out what you believe, you know? And to me, in my mind, as soon as he said that, I went back a year and a half ago to that college kid who said, knows, I didn't know you were a Christian. So now this soccer teammate coming in my room crying saying, why are you different? And I don't know. To me, to me, that was like a big, like.

Stepping stone. Yeah. Yeah. It's like evidence of the work you've been putting in your own faith. Yeah. Growth you've been making. Like it's like almost like a graduationer. It's like, thank God I don't have to go.

I don't have to worry about going through that one time that they didn't know I was, was a Christian. I've been there. Even with the show, I said in the beginning of the show, I was a Christian when I first started the show. And it would cut me when people would leave a comment or something saying, it's really cool to see Tony finally coming around to his faith or something like that. I've been a Christian the whole time. Like, what are you talking about?

Exactly. But it's not of them problem. It's a me problem. Like I was not Whatever I was doing I was not living publicly in a way that people Like I exuded Christ And and and I took offense to it when I first read that stuff

I was in we're talking within the last year or two And I would be like what are you talking about? And then I started how to do personal examination I'm like clearly I was in I was saying one thing But whatever my actions were on the show were completely different And so I've been through that. And it feels good to see the graduation of the faith. Right.

Of course. And so anyways, I only say that to provide some more context getting into the soccer piece because that kind of like affected that in some way. So I'm towards the end of my soccer career. And I'm going through like a crisis of when I was in kindergarten, and I wrote what I wanted to be when I grew up and I was a professional soccer player. So it was just always like something that I wanted to be.

was never ended up being good enough had some injuries so yeah he didn't go pro because he got injured stored you know I had tore my rotator cuff had a cardiac arrest right

yeah there's that yeah there's that which I'm gonna tie that into because that's also crazy because had I been a professional soccer player like I wouldn't have anything that I have right now so I think that was another way

God kind of orchestrated this but anyways before we get there keep edgy do along a little bit But so soccer is going terrible for like my last year there. It's just not good. The coach and I are not by being,

I can't believe I just use that word unironically. I must be Gen Z. Yikes. Do not edit it out. And so soccer is going terribly. I'm just not playing well. I'm just like, well, I have all these dreams and I'm just like sucking, right? Eventually, I have this identity kind of crisis.

moment where the only way I can escape soccer is going to the gym and working out. I so much loved when soccer practice. Sorry, it's my puppy. That scared the crowd. I was like, what? I was like, that you? I was like, sorry. So, like, that was like my only solace.

And that was the time where, you know, I was listening to all those sermons when I just like saturating myself. And I just remember I was driving one day, driving to the gym. And I'm listening to this sermon. by Carter Conlin. He's a pastor to Times Square Church. I think he retired a couple years ago. I don't know why I was listening to him.

I've listened to me like two of his things before, just on this random YouTube channel that, anyways, and he's talking about this, like, how our life is but a vapor. And Romans 818, for I consider the suffering of this present time is not worth compared to the glory to be revealed to us in Christ Jesus.

And he's talking about how it's like, the things that we kind of like hold onto in life, like at one point, point, like the suffering that you go through, the whatever. And to me, to me, it like, it may seem small because, you know, we live in America and it's like there's bigger things to suffer on. But to me, this not getting to where I was wanting to go in soccer was a huge suffering thing for me because I had attached so much of my, like, I don't want to say like worth,

but like in the back of my mind, it's like I would say that my identity is in Christ. But in the back of my mind, it was just how good am I kicking a soccer ball around. And I think partly is because my dad had taught me like he was always, there for everything growing up and he just so so much encouraged me to like play soccer and he was always at everything and I almost like didn't even want to be professional soccer player because I wanted to but in like honor of him and I always felt like he would kind of be really sad if I because anytime I would playing bad he was just like no like you're the like you're the best player out there's like you you can do this he would always be encouraged he would never say anything

never said anything negative about me or to me like once in my entire life just was always an encouragement to me. And I just remember, I get this moment in my, in my faith where I'm just like, I like, I can't, I like, I can't hold on to this soccer thing anymore. And so I'm in the gym and I'm listening to the sermon and I just started. I just, I'm in the gym parking lot and I'm just weeping. And it felt like this like this burden was just being lift, like God was just lifting this burden off of me saying, I don't have to be a professional soccer player. Like, I'm going to die one day. And then I get to be with Jesus for an eternity.

So what is, like, what is, what does this matter? And that's not even to say that if you like things like to go and pursue them. Obviously, you should do that. But if your identity is wrapped up in that and that you're, you're ruined when it doesn't come to fruition, it's like, where is your identity in? So anyways, I call my dad and I tell him, I just, I just tell him I was just like, dad, I don't think I want to do this anymore. And he was just, and I told him what I felt like God was putting in my heart

and he was just like, one of the greatest joys that I have is like when you follow what you feel like God has, God has told you to do. I don't know if it was that verbatim, but he said something like that. And then that created this just weighed off of me. Soccer season's over.

I go back to Minnesota to play semi-professionally. I play the best soccer in my entire life. I'm starting on this USL2 team. I had been there for like four years. I started literally as when I was 18 years old. I walked in onto the pitch. I'm going to say that. And I'm just like, I've never seen the ball move this fast.

I'm really the worst player out there. And then here I am starting on their top level team that they just got promoted to, which is like as close as you can get to being pro without being pro. And I'm starting the first game in the season. Turn my rotator cuff. Don't play the rest of the season. But all that is to say, that is the context leading up to what happened, which was March 19th of last year.

I was playing, it's about 10, 15 at night. I was playing in a mensly game. Something I've literally done hundreds of, I've played hundreds of games. So like nothing new here. And 15 minutes into the second half, don't ask why the game started at 9 or 10 p.m. But it was after halftime,

it was about 15 minutes into the second half and the ball comes to me and I fall down I start going into a seizure and that's it my I go into a cardiac arrest

my soccer coach which is kind of funny the whole soccer player thing they kind of think I'm being dramatic at first because soccer players have the like a if you get stepped on the foot, ow, ow, you kind of complain and, you know, roll around on the ground. Oh, drama. Oh, drama.

Soccer coach comes over, thinks maybe I'd swallow my tongue because apparently that's like a thing. You like swallowed your tongue, you kind of like go into like a little seizure. I don't know. Maybe maybe that's correct. But anyways, there I am. I'm going into a cardiac arrest. My body's shaking uncontrollably.

He puts me on my side, which is what you're supposed to do. Heart stopped. Breathing stopped. Air stopped. and then I'm dead. It was shortly after that someone from the opposing team

came over and yelled, I'm a doctor, let me do CPR. Or, you know, kind of like clearing everyone out. He starts doing CPR.

A couple of minutes go by, nothing. Eventually, they get to me to wear a point where I might, like, my throat is like now making noises.

Like my mouth is like, making like weird weird weird kind of noises. And then some time goes by after that and then they lose me again for good. It's heart stopped, breathing stopped, air stopped going to my brain. My face started turning black and blue. So that's how you kind of knew. Eventually, and this was in the span of I think like seven or eight minutes that this was going on, eventually someone was able to run and get the AED.

You know, that thing that they strap you with. And then they do the, do, you know, they shock you. And that's what they did. And then I was up and after that. But I have no memory recollection of any of this stuff happening. I remember the second half starting around 10 p.m. This happened at around like 10, 10, 10, 15. I remember the second half starting.

I remember waking up in the ambulance. No recollection. There was one like tiny, like brief kind of like microscopic memory. that I have of like, I think just before going down. So I wake up in the ambulance. The first thing I see is my dad and my brother walk by. I was playing in a game with my brother and my dad was there watching. Like he always was for literally every game, even up until I was 25 years old when this happened.

He was just always there. They bring me to the hospital in the ambulance. And as I wake up in the ambulance, I didn't know. why I was there, but for some reason I had an understanding that I knew that I needed to be there, but I cannot tell you why. They bring me to the hospital. They bring me in on the, on the stretcher. And there's like 15 doctors in this room. They're all just like strapping me with stuff. And surprisingly, funnily enough, I'm in like good spirits. I think I like crack a joke when I first get in there. I'm just like, hey guys, I didn't expect to see you, see all you. I don't know.

I said something stupid like that. But they're like strapping me with all this stuff. And like trying to figure out what the heck, what the heck had happened. I knew that I had gone into a cardiac arrest, but over the, as I was going, my wife gets a call. She's just about to like hop in bed. And she gets a call from my brother saying, hey, Nils Claps on the soccer field. He's going to, he's going to the hospital and click. And that's just wasn't John. Actually, I don't know if I should have named drop them, but it was not the best delivery. But he had just seen his brother go into a cardiac arrest and die in this soccer field, so I get it. So my wife shows up and then her mom shows up.

My mom is trapped in a snowstorm in Nebraska. This is all in Minnesota, by the way. And I stay over there overnight. They come the next day, do ultrasound, try to figure out what's going on. They have no idea. Another day goes by. It's in the morning. The doctors come in and they're like, hey, we're going to do an MRI and a CAT scan today.

Great. 30 minutes later, they come get me, do the MRI in the CAT scan. Bring me back. Literally within like 15 minutes. The guy, the cardiologist comes in and he's just like, hey, we know exactly what, like, we know exactly what happened. So, yes, I had a cardiac arrest, but in particular, ventricular cardiac arrest, which I'll explain the difference of those later. But he comes in and we know exactly what happened. You can get surgery in 15 minutes.

Sign here. Wow. So he came in and said that I have ARVC, arithmetic, right ventricular cardiomyopathy. Essentially what that means is your heart has four quadrants. There's like the top two, which are called your atrium, and then there's the bottom two which are called your ventricles. My lower right ventricle through years of playing sports and like working out and high intensities, you know, basketball, soccer, track for a semester.

instead of like my heart kind of like repairing normally through all that it turns into scar tissue and scar tissue is tissue that just like doesn't work so like when your heart has tried to do this and be flexible and malleable my lower right ventricle really sucks at doing that and the surgery is to get a S-ICD installed subcontinuous internal cardiac device and it's actually right there if can see it. Oh yeah, I can see that. Yeah. So it's this device that was installed right next to my heart made by Boston Scientific and it essentially monitors my heart 24-7 and then if anything ever goes wrong or shadowing it does. It's going to shock me. Shock me back to life. Spoiler alert. A couple months after it happened. I'll get there. So there I am in the hospital room and we're

talking about like what the heck this means. Like, I get the surgery. And then afterwards, like, what, okay, what does my life look like, look like now? Well, I'm done with sports. You know, talking to the cardiologist, he's just like, you don't want your heart rate going to go above like 107, which is not really a lot. But yeah, he's just like, you're pretty much going to be done with sports for the rest your life.

And me hearing that was, you know, this is always one of those things that happens to other people. Right. Well, what happened after is I eventually get the surgery and we go home and, you know, I'm just recovering the pain on the surgery was like a 10 out of 10. I fractured my skull, broken bones, sprained ankles, like everything throughout my athletic career, but I'd never experienced pain, pain like that. It was just brutal for like two weeks. And so we get home and life is just like, what do you do? I spent most of my days that first week, I would just sit on my couch and look out my window.

In my mind, it's like, I can't think about anything. It's just blank. It's just this idea that, you know, it's funny, I was really wrestling with the questions of what these doctors were talking about. Every single doctor came into me. single doctor came to me and said, you're incredibly lucky. Most times when we diagnose this thing,

it's in an autopsy. Wow. By the way, the guy who saved my life, who did the CPR on me, not only was he a doctor, he works night shift, so he had every reason not to be there.

He works in cardiac arrest. Wow. And so, and where it happens was the M Health Fairview sports facility when there was an AED a 30 second or like a 10 second jog away. I have played many soccer games in like the middle of nowhere in Minnesota

where there's not a hospital or AED or anything within any amount of time. Yet this happened at the M Health Fairview spot and there was a doctor on the other team who very well could have not been there who works in cardiac arrests who was able to come and perform life savings to CPR in me

and you know doctors would even say that like even for a couple moments if your brain is not getting oxygen you have like serious problems now I mean maybe I have serious problems but I was seeing don't we all kind of like raw kind of evidence of that

and just like there were so many things that had to go right for me to be alive right now. In all intents and purposes, I shouldn't be. And when that thing happens to you, it's like most people kind of have this idea that, like, if you go through something like this, that like you wake up the next morning,

you're like, I never want to waste another second of my life. To me, it was the exact opposite. I was paralyzed for the first, like, month afterwards. I just, I couldn't. what am I going to do? And the hardest part about that whole cardiac arrest story was, or at least the first half, was that my dad was there. And he didn't tell me until a couple months after.

But, you know, he saw me fall. He saw people, like, rush over to me and people get kicked away. I think my, the guy who's doing CPR, yell that my dad to, like, get away, you know, give me space and whatnot. But he told me, he was like the only thing that was going in his head, like when that was going on was, um, God please save my son. And like, to me, it was one thing to go through the cardiac arrest myself. It was another thing to have my dad who's literally been there from the very beginning, who's been nothing but like supportive and like when it was really hard to be. And day in and day out, like, just feel powerless. us.

And, you know, that was really hard for him too. Of course, my brother, who was my teammate at the time, playing there. But yeah, so life after that gets, I'll go share the vision after I share the second part, just because, you know, providing some of that. So some time goes by and life slowly starts to return to normal. Whatever the new normal is, my wife is just, you know, It's so interesting because my theology of who God is, it didn't change. There was a couple pieces of scripture that God just throughout this whole cardiac arrest process

where I would have every reason to complain, every reason to get mad at God, every reason to be angry and be resentful in like hate God for this. but Romans 828 for I consider the suffering of this present time is not worth compared to the glory to be revealed to us in Christ Jesus Romans 828 he's working all things out for good for those who love God and called according to his purpose 38 and 39 for I consider neither death nor life nor angels nor height nor depth nor anything in this world really will be able to separate me

from the love of God and Christ Jesus James consider it all joy when you face various trials and let patience it goes on to say let patience have its perfect work in you so that you may be complete and lacking nothing. Paul, you learned to be content in all things. He wrote that from prison. Three times Paul asked God to take away his thorn in the flesh and God said, no, every single time. No, Paul. But why? Because my grace is sufficient for you. It goes on to say, where you are weak, I am strong. There's so many, you know, and this is something that I just want to be an encouragement. It's just like, it is really only Christians. who can go through suffering

and have joy. Throughout it, God gave me such a peace. And while I still drive by a soccer field and see people playing, and while I would love nothing more than to go to the LA Fitness and play pickup basketball,

there's still such a joy of, A, the fact that I'm alive, and B, the fact that because Jesus is who he says he is, I can have full confidence in understanding that what he says is true and that I don't have to worry, that I can have joy, that Jesus will give me the peace that surpasses all understanding

because that's what it was, because how else do you go through something like this and not? But it is because of Christ that I'm even able to do that. And then to me, that was just such a huge, humbling thing for me. And going back to the soccer thing, if I had, if soccer had worked out and I had been a professional soccer player and I'd put all this time and energy and resources into doing this. And if soccer wasn't going well, then I wasn't doing all the stuff that I'm doing right now. This would have happened on the soccer field somewhere and who knows if I would

have been as lucky. Had I given all that my identity in soccer, if it wasn't taken away in the moment where God lifted that off my shoulders, it would have been taken away in a much more worse circumstance. Fast forward a couple months. Life slowly starts to get to normal. Like I said, my wife is having a much more harder time than I am because she's like waking me up every hour at night the first couple months saying, hey, like, are you okay? Are you okay?

Are you going to die tonight? And so for her, for her, it was really hard. fast forward to October last year, literally a couple months ago. I am touring Boston Scientific. Boston Scientific is the I lift up my shirt here.

Is that like a thing? No, that's fine. It just shows like, yeah, that's the devices. Did it feel weird having a device in your body? You get used to it. It's hard to sleep on my left side

and I'm a side sleeper. So I usually start on there and then I switched to the other one. But fast forward, I'm touring Boston Scientific. They invited me out to do a tour of their facility. And I go there and you just see, it is crazy how technology,

like, I got the full tour on how they make this thing from like start to finish. Wow. And their headquarters is in Minnesota. So I just got to see it there. And anyways, I tour it. I leave amazed.

I'm just like, I have every reason to trust that this thing's going to work. Go home to my wife, Sierra. Let's be. If something were to happen to me, I'm going to be fine. And I had that confidence. Four days later, I'm in South Carolina.

I'm visiting a client. I guess you could call him a friend. Client slash friend. 1,300 miles away from my wife and my family. And away from Sierra again, my wife. I am in the backyard with, there's me, there's him and his wife and his two kids. They're like six and nine.

And guess what we're doing? We're just lightly kicking the soccer ball around. hardly anything. Yeah, did I run a little bit to go grab a ball? Yeah, but was I at playing a full intense soccer game? No, I wasn't. I feel my head starts to get very lightheaded. I feel my body start to shut down.

And then I end up going on one knee and then my second knee. And then I get up to try and stand up and then boom. Cardiac arrest number two. my device went off and it literally felt like an explode. I literally thought a bomb was dropped on the house next door. That's how loud it was,

but it was like in my body. And they say it feels like you getting kicked in the chest by a horse. I've never gotten kicked in the chest by a horse before, but that's, if I had to imagine what that felt like, that's what it felt like. And after it happens, and this is in front of him,

and then their kids start crying because like, they don't know what's going on. And Kyle is his name, the guy I was there to meet with. I had told him, like, he knew the first story. And I told them that it could happen just so happens that it did. So he thinks I'm joking. Like at first, he's just like, Nils, like, are you being serious? You're being serious?

I'm just like, yeah, I'm being serious. And I remember after it happens, I go back on my knees. And I'm like, I'm hypervitingly. I'm just sitting there. I was like, like literally that for a while. and I don't know what to do. And I'm just sitting there in my mind is racing. And I feel my head start to get lightheaded again.

Literally the same thing that I just experienced like two minutes ago. And literally, like I'm not even joking when I say this. I just like whispering crying out to God because I'm just like in my mind. I'm just like this is it. I'm going to die right here. Like this is, I'm going to die. And I was just like God just like God save me please. Like, think, what else could you do?

A third one ended up not happening. But my body was giving all the symptoms of, like, one that was going to happen. Eventually, call 911, bring me to the hospital. And I'm in the ambulance, and I start shaking so uncontrollably. Like, I felt cold, but then my body was just like, I couldn't, whatever. And a part of me, I didn't want to call my wife because the last time she got a call when I was playing soccer. I was going to the hospital.

This time, it's the same exact thing. And we kind of made a deal that she was going to come with me everywhere after the first cardiac arrest because she didn't want to have that happen again. And she just didn't happen to come to this one. So now, hence why, she's here. Yeah. Get to the hospital. And then they show me, they bring out this Boston Scientific machine that measures what my device saw.

for 18 seconds my heart was approaching 300 beats a minute. And so my device recognized that. And then it shocked me out of it. And she came in and said that, so there's two types of like fibrillations you can get. There's a fib atrial fibrillation, which is like the top two, which is usually like it's like pretty treatable.

You don't have to worry about dying. I'm not a medical doctor. Some people probably probably die for that. But when it's ventricular fibrillation, that's the cardiac arrest that kills you. She comes over and she's just like, this was ventricular fibrillation. If that had not gone off, you would have died. And they don't really have a cause.

There wasn't really reason they said I could have been doing anything, which honestly worries me the most because I'm just like, could you argue? I mean, I was just lightly passing a soccer ball around. It's like, how is that going to cause anything? And they said that, oh, I may, it could have been your electrolytes, whatever. Anyways, it's 1 a.m. They're like, we really want you to stay here, but you don't have to. You can go home. I'm just like, I don't really want to pay for hospital visit. So I go home, get to my hotel room. And I just, I sit on my bed and I just lose it. I just, like, I'm crying out to God. You know, because the difference between this cardiac arrest and the one in March is in March, I didn't really experience it. I experienced the repercussions of it, but mentally having memories of anything happening,

I didn't experience it. This one I did from beginning to end. And I just, you know, it's funny because earlier I talked about how God had just given me so much peace. Well, this time, I literally felt like David in like a third of the Psalms and then Job. I get out my bed, I'm sitting down and I'm just like, and I'm just bursting in tears. I'm just like, instead of saying, God, thank you for. saving my life. I was just like, God, why me? Why is this happening to me? What did I, like, what did I do to you? What did I, what did I do at all to deserve this? Like, it's my life so bad

that this is, like, what did I do? I remember at the very end of Job, God, like, Job just, you know, he does all this crying out, right? And at the very end, God is just like, where were you when I created the heavens and the earth? The birds, the water. the land, the mountains you see, the trees, where were you? You don't understand. You don't get it. And to me, that was really humbling because you're right. I don't.

And so I cry myself to sleep and I wake up the next morning, you know, call family. I explain to them what happens. I'm on my phone with my dad. dad. I'm just like, we're just crying together and my brother's crying together. I get out. I wake up, go down to the hotel coffee area, and there's these two poor girls that were working at this like coffee thing. And I just, I order like a decaf and I just bring my Bible and I just go to the corner. I'm just like, I just need to find some solace here because like right now I am struggling. Open my Bible to the Psalms and just try and start reading.

and then I feel myself get lightheaded again. My body starts shaking uncontrollably. I mean, with some sense of control. Like I could still, but like I couldn't stop. My legs were shaking. My hands were shaking. And I say, hey girls. So yesterday this happened.

I feel like it's going to happen again. If anything happens, please call 911. And they're like, okay. eventually 10 minutes go by the shaking doesn't stop I call 911 not for an ambulance but they bring out like an EMT

then they strap me up with a bunch of heart to monitor my heart they monitor me for like 45, 50 minutes and they're like no else there's nothing because like in my mind

I'm experiencing all the things that happened before I had the second cardiac arrest and so I'm just like yeah it's going to happen again so they monitor my heart and they're just like there's really nothing

that your heart's doing that's going to signify that you're going to have a cardiac arrest And so I'm like, why am I shaking? Why is this going on? Enter anxiety, which is something that throughout my whole life I'd never really struggled with at all. Like I always thought people who would say that they're anxious people, I would always kind of, it was like,

Bible says not to be anxious, you know, right? Right? And it's a counter response. No, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's a little tongue in cheek. But it was my first time experiencing something where truly there was.

like something, you know, I've been anxious before, like just, you know, before a soccer game or something like that, but, but nothing, nothing to this. So now, after experiencing something that was rather traumatic for the next couple months, up until like very recently, as of what we're recording this, I would have these spurts where I would, any inkling of lightheadedness, like if I, if I stood up too fast, if, you know, whatever, any inkling that I was going to have a cardiac arrest, my body would go into fight or flight mode. and I'd start shaking and then I'd be incredibly uncomfortable and then my mind is just like wandering. And so there was a whole lot of, um, that had to be dealt with and that's like a completely

different beast. I can really empathize with those people now. Interesting how that works. So like I would go into these fighter fight or fight kind of responses where like I think I'm going to die and that would just happen while I'm sitting at my desk. Well, I remember after the second one happened. Like, I think it was like a week later, I went and played mini golf with, um, with my siblings and, and, and their wives. And like, I had to leave halfway. I was just like, I can't, like, I'm not enjoyed, like, I have, I think I'm gonna, I literally think I'm about, I'm about to die. And I remember, um, our pastor came over and he was explained to me, like, how trauma works in the brain, because I was like, I have, I have no idea. I just never cared.

He was just like, when you experience something traumatic, like, it gets, like, stored in your, like, it's either your amygdala or hippocampus. And then, you experience it and then it goes up whatever the other one was to your prefrontal cortex where you register what's going on. And when you experience something traumatic, it can get like corrupted on the way there. And so that means any,

like anytime you experience something remotely like that, your brain says, you're about to die. So that's how your brain functions. And so it's interesting. It's like you kind of have to like tell yourself that. Like when I experienced it, I'm just like, nope, I'm good.

Like brain. Like think, like, because it's sole job, not sole job, but a big part of its job is keeping us alive, the brain. And so when it sees something that's going to kill us or has almost killed us in the past or anything that comes up that puts it remotely in that scenario, your brain says, uh-oh, I've seen this before.

And so that was me like all the time. It was just really annoying. Thankfully, by the grace of God, it's been able to subside a little bit. So that's the cardiac arrest story. Now, what happened on March 19th when I was down? You know, like I alluded to earlier, actually, no, I'm not even going to say it. I'm just going to go right in and say it. So I watched this all on like a movie screen, okay?

It's like, you know, kind of like that. I was like sitting in your position right now, kind of kind of watching like a screen like this, but I was in like a movie theater. It kind of felt like I was just like watching this all happen. And so like I see the ball being passed to me. And then I pass the ball to somewhere out. It's a pest of all to someone else. And then the camera kind of goes up to, like, my chest high.

And then you can just see something is wrong in my face. And then it like zooms up on my face. And then, you've seen like the anime death note? Okay. So anyway, there's this like one like famous like heart attack effect. It's like the heart thumping. It's like boom, boom. But anyways, I like heard that sound.

effect. And and then you just see my, my eyes. I kind of go like, like, I just, I'm going into a cardiac arrest. And then I fall backwards. I see myself go onto a seizure for a couple of seconds. And then I, and then eventually I give like my last breath. It's, it's this final like, and then, then I've done. Out of my body comes this like orange silhouette of like my body and it's being raised above me. And, you know, when a body is like in the air and there's the gravity, it's kind of like, in like a little U shape, I mean, like, the legs are dangling and like your back is arched, kind of.

Like I saw that in the orange silhouette, wed coming out of my body, which I presume would be my spirit. And then I was transported to this dark, I don't know if it was like a forest or like this dark room or dark, it was just like dark, dark and corrupted. And my body is corrupted. So, like, I have sores all over my arms in my face. And I'm walking from point A to point B. I don't know where I'm walking to.

All I know is that I have to get there. I start walking. And then, you know, throughout this, there's like, it's kind of weird. It might be like my videographer brain, but there's like, there's like kind of like scene changes. Some of it is like me walking towards the camera. Other words, it's just like me watching it on the screen. But eventually, I start to become very weak.

and eventually I can't walk anymore. I just progressively get weaker and weaker and weaker, but I have to get there. I have to get to be. And it's in a straight line. And I'm walking and then eventually I fall down on one knee. Interesting. And then I fall down on my second knee.

And then the screen kind of goes to where, like you don't see anything on the screen, but all you see is like me sticking out my right arm. And you can just see. see it. It's just like gross. It's just like corrupted. And it's just like, you know, kind of like shaking there. Then it cuts to my face again. And then you see me and you see like my eyes closed. My body start to fall forward. And then it goes back to the side view of my arm. And as my arm starts to fall, a second hand comes and grabs it. And this hand, this, it was like robed, is just bright,

and pure and white and holy. And the second it grabs my arm, the corruption in my arm starts to slowly dissipate and turn into the same image of the hand that grabbed me. The camera pans up from my POV and I look up and it's Jesus. I can't see his face. I don't know what he looks like. But where his face would be,

because he was wearing like, you know, he was just emitting this just like radiance to him. And his face was too. And it's just like, so like I couldn't, I couldn't make out his face. I could like see like the size of his ears is about how much I could see. And he pulls me up. And then he puts his arm around me and he points to where I was walking to. And all this corruption was kind of like dissipating.

And you know, I could, I could finally see clearly to where I was walking to. And it's all of this like kingdom images. So like there's castles, there's, you know, like, you know, planetary. It's all this like kingdom imagery. Like you think about like a king and authority and rulership and stuff like that. Just like all this beautiful, beautiful imagery. And he points to it. His armors are on me and he points.

He's just like, Nils, one day we will rule this together. And then he comes in front of me, puts his arms on me like that. And he says, right now my work for you is not done yet. Go and do as I have commanded you. And then he was gone. I was back in that same dark area. The only difference was I could see where I was going. And B, my body was in the same image and likeness as his.

So around me was this radiance and like the corruption around me was was dissipating. It wasn't all gone like when he showed up, but around me there was something. in my body, in my body, like, I wasn't sick anymore. I wasn't corrupted. I was in the same image and likeness as him. And that was that. Now, to me, why I think that means so much is literally over the last like two years, I feel like, there's been, well, really my whole life, but specifically over like the last two years,

there's been such this imagery in my mind of like ruling and reigning with Christ and this like kingdom building kind of like imagery and I get something like that and I'm just like what the heck because in Eden

when God made Adam and Eve what was their task to have dominion and rule and reign sin entered the world sons of God sons of God rebelled. Who are the new sons of God in the New Testament? Christians.

What does Revelation end with? Us ruling and reigning with Christ forever and ever. So what the heck do we think that from A to Z what the middle of the Bible is about? God providentially preparing us to step into that role to rule and reign with Christ, you know, to rule and reign with him forever and ever. And so to me, we talked earlier about discernment. I look at that vision and, I don't think that's

something that cannot be grounded in scripture because we see that all throughout in fact Paul in I think it's 1st Corinthians 6 they're just arguing with each other and taking each other to court and he's just like don't you know that one day you'll rule over angels

don't you know early in Revelation it talks about like he who overcomes in like ruling and reigning and at the very end we get like we get the inheritance of that. And so for me,

what that's done is, you know, the content that I make, the, this kind of like passion that I feel like the Lord has given me to figure out and share about these interesting parts in the Bible.

That's all fine and cool, but what I really care about is, can someone come away with a better understanding of Scripture so that they can understand that one day they will be ruling and raining with Christ forever and ever, and that, stuff that they do on this side of eternity matters for that. Right.

That the parable of the unjust steward, this guy was, he was so shrewd to set up his own financial future on this side of eternity. Jesus says, or he commends that man for his shrewdness and says, why can't you Christians do that same thing for when we're talking about eternity? This guy is so worried about setting them, he's so smart that he can set himself up here on this side of eternity, which is one day going to pass away. aren't you just as shrewd as him for eternal things? And Jesus gives the parables of the, you know, of the talents or the minus or whatever.

And, you know, like some people are going to be having different levels of authority and rulership. And, you know, when that time comes, at least it seems to me that that's what the Bible says. And Paul, interestingly enough, when he's talking about like running this race so that he may receive a reward, he talks about like, the works that we're supposed to do as Christians, Revelation talks about we build our wedding garment out of our righteous, the righteous act, so to speak. And then Paul says this interesting stuff about

if he does this work willingly, he gets a reward. If he does it doing willingly, he has to do it anyways. So what is the difference between someone who gets a reward? on the other side of eternity versus someone who doesn't seemingly. Are you faithfully saying, like, yes, Lord, and like, I know these, you know, because we know that,

I think is the Ephesians or, you know, or whatever the verse that says, he's wrought in all of our works in us, you know, before creation. So, like, the works are going to be done either way. God has set aside works for you to do in your life regardless. Are you going to do them willingly or are you going to do them complaining and begrudging and whining and you know whatever and so like to me

um just like all these things kind of put into perspective of me of that our like life seems to be just God preparing us to one day rule and reign with him and enjoy him forever

you know and that's sorry I just you opt for like no you're doing I don't know however however long that was but we came to the table to hear you hear you talk man don't have to apologize guys. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, like if there's like one thing that I hope people, like even, even though every single one of my videos isn't about ruling and reign with Christ, right,

I just hope someone can can come away from it and understand that, yeah, there's a lot more to the Bible than what we think we are. And we can have a bigger appreciation of what scripture says. But at the end of the day, what really matters is God created you for a specific purpose, and that's to rule and reign with him forever and ever. And it's seemingly how we conduct our lives here, has direct consequences on how that's done. Not in like a, we have to be worried. C.S. Lewis has this quote about like, you know, the different kind of rewards in heaven.

And I think you put a really interesting way. It's like we're all going to be completely satisfied to varying degrees. Like, we're all going to have cups. I think he kind of said it like, but our cups are going to be different sizes, but they're all going to be full. So to each one of us is going to be satisfied with. that's what we'll have. We'll have a complete satisfaction,

but that will be to varying degrees. It's hard to understand on this side of, you know, because it's just like, well, I want a bigger cup. You know? Like,

like, as a human, you look at somebody else's cup, and you're like, well, there's cups bigger than mine. So how can I be satisfied with mine? But it's,

it also, it makes sense a lot. And I don't think I've ever heard that quote from C.S. Lewis. Yeah, I mean, I was paraphrasing more than quoting, but, but one thing that I want to tie in to is like, Paul tells that, I think it's Paul. He's like, no I has seen, no, no ear has heard, nor has it even entered into the heart of man what I have prepared for those who love me. I don't know if it's to those who love them. I can't remember if it was Jesus said that or Paul was quoting anyways, but the point being, we have no idea. It's going to be better

than any one of us can ever imagine, of course. But, yeah, that's not even to say that. You have to be worried, right? But there should be a sense of, like, Jesus gave us a sense of urgency with how we conduct our lives. And, like, you look at throughout the Old Testament, you know, Joseph was a great steward. Moses was at times a great steward, sometimes not.

But Jesus seems to have tasked us with be a good steward. Because I need you to be a good steward. steward in the time to come. And like this process of sanctification, my Eastern Orthodox friends would say theosis. Is that quote from that church father, God became man so that man may become God, or at least partaking in that divine image. I think it talks about that in first or second Peter.

And Paul, and all of that is saying, do you not know? Do we not know? That one day that we'll have authority and that was kind of like the plan from the very beginning. Yeah. you know, when it comes to eternity and what we're going to experience,

uh, to draw from, from my reform days, I, you, you, you were talking about MacArthur. I still love John Piper.

Oh, and he's from your neck of the woods. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Minnesota. But, um, he has a phenomenal sermon about, uh,

what eternity is going to be like. And, um, me paraphrasing he he says that it's going to be like so this is me saying this um every moment in eternity with an infinite god a never-ending god a forever god every moment of that eternal state of existence in his presence is going to be a brand new moment that had never been discovered before had never been experienced before. And he said, you're going to spend eternity climbing mountains of his grace that you have never even experienced before, forever.

That's really exciting. It's like. It doesn't make sense. I mean, imagine like you having an epiphany. Imagine the most God moment you ever had in your life, whatever that is. It could have been a near-death experience to a moment of your life that God directly spoke to you. The moment of your life where you felt the closest you've ever felt to God, and that pales in comparison to a millisecond in eternity with God.

Like that closest you had is you cannot compare to what it's going to be, and that's for forever. And what you're saying, man, it's beautiful. And this experience that you had, I would say it's an experience. you're having. Yeah. Because I mean, dude, you're young. Like, first of all, let me go back to what you were saying earlier about, I guess,

I forget what the context was, but you were expressing almost like insecurities of like, why would somebody listen to me kind of thing? Like, I went through similar things in my younger years and I feel old even saying that to you. In your younger years. But I can say that when I was in my 20s, I, I struggled with some things when it comes to my qualifications to talk to anybody about anything. And I could tell you, you're 26, I'm 40, sitting on this side of the table,

I can now say as what I would call an old guy back in my younger days, like old guys are very eager to listen to younger guys and what they have to say because God speaks through, I mean, the scriptures are riddled with examples of God speaking through the younger generations. and well God call all the disciples were very young children in today's world yeah like children teenagers like very young people um and they weren't qualified he was just like wasn't wasn't wasn't that might be wrong on this but wasn't peter like 14 or 15 years old when that's what i've heard yeah yeah i mean even if even if he was late late late teens or you know yeah i mean whatever young people and um and so like it's for me because i don't know

think about the stuff like I used to, you know, I don't think about age. But for me to sit here and hear you sharing your, one, your story, but also your perspective on things, age is just a number. You got, you have so much to offer in your Instagram, the videos you're making. Like, it's, it's clear that what you went through and are going through shifted things in your life. And it, it gives you a whole new meaning and purpose. And it's not to be selfish. Like, it's not selfish to say,

I'm working for an eternal state of existence, eternal glory. That's not, it's not selfish. Because in the middle of that, you're great commission-minded, you know? And we're called to make disciples of many nations.

And so I'm extremely encouraged by what you shared. Now, with all this going on, on, you, I know some things you didn't share, and I'd like for you to share because there is more information about your medical, if you're okay with that, when it comes to, like, decades from now what they're telling you. Yeah. I think it's important to understand that, one, like I said, this is an ongoing thing.

That's what I meant by that. But, like, there's room in this world for doctors to speak and share their expertise and Thank God, there's a doctor on the field that day, all that. But that does not override God's will for anybody's life. And so I don't care if a doctor says you have two decades before you have a heart transplant or what. Like, it doesn't matter because God's plans are way bigger, way greater. And honestly, God could be like, I don't care what they say. Yeah, right.

I have that over here in my ledger. Yep, he's got until he's 91. You know, let me just double check real quick. But you could just share with people like the future of this now. So you shared what happened, your experience with the vision. But where are things going for you in your life right now? Yeah. So I'll give a little bit of their medical diagnosis about like where they think stuff could be going.

So there's no cure for this. You know, unless God supernaturally heals my heart, which he very well could do. or through AI or whatever, you know, the next 10, 15 years of stuff really, because like they've already advanced a lot of their knowledge and understanding of this particular disease because it's pretty rare. It's very rare. And I was fortunately able to go to like the number one hospital in the U.S. or male specifically like for this disease.

Like they have like the number one in two people who like research like this disease specifically. And it was like two and a half hours away. So I was like, cool. Not anymore, but. But so they were kind of saying that there's no cure for this disease. All we have are band-aids. There's this cardiac device. There's taking stuff like beta blockers to slow down my heart rate and stuff like that.

They had me on some electrolytes just because after the second one, my electrolytes were low. So they're just like, yeah, they'll take these. And the MRIs, after the first cardiac arrest, you know, they got to see those. There's clear damage on the right ventricle. I got a second opinion, January, late January of this year at Mayo, the number one place. And they said that there wasn't really a progression of the disease between last year and this year. The only thing that they saw that there was a little scar tissue on the back of my heart,

but it's really not a problem unless, if it were to spread from my right ventricle to my left ventricle, that's when that's what things would be really, really, really bad. They say, they say I'm at like a five out of ten for the disease as far as progression goes.

So I'm not like, I need a heart transplant tomorrow. I'm also not like, you don't have anything to worry about. Like go, you know, go do whatever. It's just,

you know, a weird place to be, but it's better than the alternative of being dead. Yeah. Being honest there. Yeah. Although to,

you know, to live as Christ, to die, is gain and I'd be with the Lord. So that also wouldn't be too bad. But you know what? I'm a human. I want to cling on to this old what life of mine, right? I understood. Um, and they were saying there's some clinical trials that they found that so they were doing some gene therapy stuff or like in rats. They were able to because like, so part of my disease is like I'm missing. I either have half of or I'm like missing a particular gene, which is the PKP2 gene, which is the gene that I'm missing. Um,

And that's like, they kind of describe it as like a glue that kind of keeps stuff together. And so when there's not a glue that keeps stuff together, it's like your heart doesn't, it just doesn't really function as well. He explained it much better than I could. But we talked for like three hours, which is why my bill was so high. But paying that off. What was that? So he was saying stuff like there's, they found in rats that they were able to take a PKP2, or something like that from someone else.

Essentially, they were to take like a virus and then like inject it into rats and then it was able to stop the PKP to or like able to stop the disease from progressing. It wasn't able to reverse it or heal what was already there, but it could just help stop it from progressing. So they're doing clinical trials on humans,

I think this year and the beginning of next year, which is like a huge lift to be part of something like that and it's incredibly risky because they have no idea what the heck could happen. So probably one. won't do that. We'll see. But I really want to play soccer and basketball, or at least run. I haven't ran in like over a freaking year. Okay. So anyways, if the disease stays as it is, okay, it's just I have the device. It might shock me a few times. We really have no idea. We're going to keep you on this beta blocker medication, which by the way makes you drowsy. So like every day, I'm just having to fight just being tired, which is, you know, not ideal. But yeah. I guess, better than the alternative, but, or it could get worse. And if it gets worse, they talked about potentially needing a heart transplant. And the first cardiologist said that, and he said this like a day

or two day or two or three days after, like while I was still in the hospital, which was just kind of like a daunting way to say it. But I mean, he had to say it. He was just like, if you do get a heart transplant, there's like a 90% chance that will have like another 10 years. This guy didn't seem to think that a heart transplant would be likely at all. And he's like the head guy for it. So I don't know. We'll see. Like he said,

only God knows he might have a very different number than the one, what these people are saying. But when you're hearing that from a doctor who does have a brain that God gave them and is using it to rationalize and try to figure out how the world works, you know, that was a huge, I don't want to say like hit, but something,

I definitely felt something because I'm just like, great. The event I get a heart transplant, I have a 90% chance at another 10 years. Clock's ticking. Just pray that doesn't get worse, right? And so how do I stop it from getting worse is not participating in soccer, not playing basketball, you know, not being.

Thankfully, I can still like lift weights, but they don't want me doing it at the rate that I was doing before or at the intensity that I was doing before. If I couldn't do that, I would probably be a much more depressed than what I am right now. because I'm just like, are you seriously? I can't do anything, but they're at least allowing me to do like something. So I can go on walks and I can lightly lift weights. Outside of that, I really can't do anything is what they say, of course.

So who knows what 10 years could look like, unless the pre-trib rapture people are correct. And then in 2023 or Piti 23 or 26, we're out of here, or 36. So, yeah, that's, I mean, I'm just, I mean, all I can really do is take it day by day, right? It's like, God's clearly giving me work to do. Right. And I have to steward it. So whether I do it, I can do it willingly or can be grudgingly do it.

And I'm going to try my best to do it willingly. Well, I think you are. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I, how I opened up this conversation. I went to your Instagram because I saw a post you made that it attracted me. And when I was on your on your page is when I found out in your bio that you died. And and to know that that wasn't the front story as to why I got to your page tells me that you are doing what you need to be doing.

You know what I'm saying? Like it's like you're putting out this this cheapens it, but content. you're putting out stuff that attracts people but the biggest thing with this kind of stuff like you're doing the YouTube long form content the short form

content most of the time I don't want to say it's impossible but most of the time it's not going to usher somebody into the kingdom of God but it's breadcrumbs and seeds and it gets people thinking and it gets some interested in things and so

your your Instagram does just that. And it really gets people interested. And that can bring them into the kingdom as they investigate things, whether it's through longer form content that you put out or something else, somebody else puts out. Maybe it leaves them a question and they simply search it and all of a sudden they're on a YouTube video of some pastor.

And I literally had a guy and his daughter in here last year at some point. And they were shamans. and not anymore, but at one point they were shamans. He raised his daughter in that life. And now they're Christians. And the way that whole ball of Christianity in their life started as shamans, and they were high-ranking people, is him and his wife were sitting up late one night.

And they somehow stumbled across a Sid Roth program. And Sid Roth is really well known for the supernatural and all that stuff. and there was a call to salvation on that program, and they stood up in their living room and gave their lives to the Lord and turned away from all the stuff they had built their lives on. And then a few years later, their daughter also gave her life to the Lord. But like, it's the quote-unquote cheapening of content, right? But it's like, this is the stuff that ushers people into the kingdom

because you're a willing vessel, you're putting things out there, and it's making people question where they stand on things, you know? And it's, I just talked about this recently, but a lot of times people that are not in, in the faith of Christianity, and they have many different reasons why, you know. And one of the biggest things that people do is they question the legitimate, the legitimacy and authenticity of who Jesus is. And I don't know, is Jesus real? Did he ever exist? Did he say, did he do what they say he did? stuff but many times the people who question those things don't actually investigate their own questions and if they did they'd find it's sad it's very sad yeah you would find that there is a whole list of things that show why one yes he was a real person he did exist why he did do what the scriptures

say he did and why you can put your trust in the narrative of the scripture and um and sometimes, actually a lot of times, it's small pieces of content on Instagram that get people thinking in that direction. And then all of a sudden, they don't even remember you. They don't remember how they got on this rabbit hole. They just know that two years later, they're going to a church and they're raising their kids in church because somehow they got on this rabbit hole that got them to understand that, no, this is all 100% legit. And maybe this conversation we had they does that for somebody. In fact, I don't have to say maybe I know for a fact that's going to happen.

It happens all the time. And so I think that as you go forward in this journey of your life, the importance is on the daily grind of it. It's an everyday process for you. And how can I serve the Lord today and glorify his name? And that might be an on Instagram video. That might be just how I love my wife. I love it. Yeah.

I was what I'd say. I love it. Absolutely. So I appreciate you coming in and sharing, man. This is really good. This has been great. Thank you so much for having me, Mr. Merkel. Oh, don't say.

Jeez. Jeez. He old guide me. I love it. All right, man. Let's wrap up. Sometimes I feel along. Because I like swirming.

Roses adulation. So they noticed used to say they weren't my focus line. Jones and for the Joneses things. I know that everything that's going on could base. When they keep it snick is important But so is what you bring It's easy to get better And see that everything ain't at