The Confessionals - 899: Underground Mission for Souls

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

What could make a man abandon everything he believed and risk his life to follow Jesus? Tony Merkel sits down with Steve Kang to hear his incredible journey from a radical Buddhist upbringing to becoming a passionate follower of Christ. After a devastating spiral led to a life-threatening crisis, Steve says he experienced the terrifying reality of Hell before his life took a dramatic turn toward Jesus. His transformation would eventually take him into underground churches in China, where he witnessed Christians risking everything for their faith. This is a powerful story of redemption, radical faith, and what it truly means to surrender everything to follow Jesus.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/0bJS3SaV📰 Subscribe to Our Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/newsletterBecome 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.comStevin Kang YouTube | Book | FacebookSPONSORSGHOSTBED: 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 Media6726 Morganton RdP.O. Box #08Greenback, TN 37742SOCIAL 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 MUSICTony Merkel - Come Quickly Available on 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, boning 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. The giant comes out of the cave and

they're all frozen. And he starts running and firing up 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 prices. And when he got about 15 yards away from me, I raised that 12 days and I blow this head off. 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, you're listening to The Confessionals podcast. I'm your host, Tony Merkel. Thanks for being here. If you've an experience, you'd like to share with me on the show, a topic you'd like to discuss, go ahead and shoot us an email. My email address is Contact at theconfessionalspodcast.com.

That's contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. Or go to the website, theconfessionalspodcast.com. Hit the contact section, and you can reach me that way as well. Other words for me, just get hold of me. If you want more shows on a weekly basis, we got you covered. We offer memberships. Every Thursday, we drop a member episode on our website and on our app. We have an exclusive app.

This is a social media app. and we house our membership content on there so you can either get it on the website or on the app. Either way, when you're a member, you get access to hundreds of episodes that we've done over the years and hundreds more coming in the future. I'll wait for you on the other side. Hope to see you there. All right, friends, listen, the Confessionals, Exposing War in Kingdoms is the book I wrote, and it is coming October 6th. Then you can pre-order right now on Amazon. Link in the description of this episode. It is me documenting my documenting my journey through the supernatural, my own personal experiences, experiences I've covered on the show.

And when you combine the two, it creates a narrative that's hard to get away from how supernatural our existence is. These are my conclusions I've come to over the last decade of doing the show, all in the book, The Confessionals, exposing Warren Kingdoms coming October 6th. Get your pre-order in today. Thank you very much for everybody who has been pre-ordering. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you very much. All right. Merk, merch is back, friends. Merkmerch.com. That is our merch website, obviously. And we have hats, t-shirts, hoodies in there. I actually don't think we have hats in there. Now, I think about it, we are sold out of hats. But what we do have, t-shirts, hoodies, coffee, mugs, stickers, a lot of cool stuff in there.

People are loving the coffee. They're loving the mugs. I actually am pretty surprised by that. They are flying off the shelves and I actually have to take some home for myself because y'all will keep buying them and I haven't even got to steal my own mugs. So I'm mugging my mugs. You know what I mean? Anyways, murkmerch.com. That's kind of corny, I know. Merkmerch.com is where you can get all the good stuff.

Go ahead and check it out today, friends. All right, listen, we have Steve Kang coming on the show today, and he is somebody who I had wanted to talk to for quite some time. I was so glad to have him come to the studio because he shares his journey from a deeply Buddhist upbringing into a drug-fueled spiral that ended in a social. suicide attempt that was extremely graphic. He shows us the scars on the show today. And this is an experience he describes as absolutely traumatic. And what's even more traumatic is when he describes

the descent to hell is what he experienced when he killed himself. After surviving this, though, and actually making it through, he encounters Jesus and later experienced a very powerful vision of heaven. So Steve's life is now radically changed and eventually it takes him into an underground churches in China where he witnessed persecution, supernatural encounters, and extraordinary faith, which can only be built up when you have such persecution happening. This was a fantastic conversation. I know you guys are going to enjoy it. So let's get to it right now. Steve Kang in studio. How are you, sir?

I'm real good. Bless to be here. Yeah. Tony is an honor. I'm glad you're here. We were talking beforehand, and it was a bit of a journey to get you here because you had gotten sick last time. And I wish I could tell you that was a unique thing, but it happens.

And I was telling you before, but I think it's worth the audience to know. Yeah. You know, many people know that I had a pastor on named Todd Coconado. he started coming under attack physical sickness when he was just driving to the studio from Nashville. And then people flying in talk about feeling like the spiritual heaviness. And usually those conversations are conversations that were deeply impactful. And so there is a level of spiritual attack that I believe that happens on for some people when they're about to come on the show.

And that's not to scare future guests. But it's because you're actually going to be doing something that is kingdom-oriented and is going to be an impactful conversation. Yes. And so when I found out you weren't able to come because you were sick, I was like, oh, yeah, this is going to be a good chat. He's going to be a good chat. I love that.

He is worthy. I guess the greater the warfare, the more the impact. Yeah, absolutely. And so over the years, I had conversations with people about near-death experiences. And I don't, some of these experiences that people have, I feel like saying near death is wrong because some people, they actually died. And then they came back. I'm like, that was a near death.

That was full death. Actual death. A-D.E. This was an actual death experience. One of the stories that I'm reminded of always is a pastor friend of mine. He was in another country. And he said he was in a hospital where there was a main. dead on a table for the last 45 minutes. He was dead, medically dead. They were, he, it was the next

stage was doing whatever they do with the body. And another pastor friend of his that he was with said, let's go pray for that person. And he told me, he said, honestly, I wasn't there with my faith. He's like, well, I'll do it with you. But I don't think anything's going to happen. He said, when they were praying, breath started coming back in the lungs. I believe it. Just like the Bible. It's wild, right? And so I hear people's different experiences with, with, with, you know, the other side with death experiences. And we can go into many different directions with the conversation at any point. But what I'd like to do is start out with your testimony and lay the foundation of your childhood, what you were growing up under as far as religion that led to this.

And I think it's just very important that people get a full scope as to what brought you to that moment and then what happened afterwards because I think sometimes we tend to to gloss over aspects of our story because we know it best. But when people get to hear the root of somebody's life that led to something so dramatic, that's where the change happens, right? Yes, and the change happened, Brother Tony, and it's been, it was so real to me. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to my life. It was meeting God.

But the amazing thing is, I didn't go looking after him. He came after me. And this is love, not that we loved them first, but that he first loved us, one of my favorite verses. So to start the story, I was born in a very radical Buddhist tone where Crissadeo was never mentioned. We had a Bible somewhere, nobody ever read it. It was mainly Buddhist relics, Buddhist writings. My grandparents on both sides were devout Buddhist. My grandpa was a winery owner, one of the wealthiest men in our city. He gave all the money to the temple because my grandmother was a meditating, praying monk. And then they

grew me, they dedicated me to service to Buddha. So from the age of six, I was in the temples hanging out with my aunt, who was also a radical Buddhist, and my parents were Buddhist. So the earliest memory of me of spiritual encounters was seeing Buddha floating in the living room. And I was like, oh, there he is. Like an actual entity? Yeah, like, wow. But it was a dream. But it was in the house and it was so real. So I thought Buddhism was the way, right? Yeah. And then when I would get sick, I would see demons like hundreds of demonic faces like laughing at me and I had a flu and I was not medicated because there was no medicine in South Korea back then. So I thought every child sees Buddha and sees demons and gets,

meditates like me. So when I met the monks from the age of six, from a very young age, I was asking these monks that were training me. I said, hey, what's the purpose of life? Why is this guy rich and this guy poor. Why is this family well off and this family suffering? And the monk said it's because their past life sin. And if you don't want to have a bad next life, Steve, you need to meditate and reach nirvana. And I said, how many people reach nirvana? And they said, not too many in history, but you have millions of years. So you better start now. It takes millions of years to get there through reincarnation. So I was under so much stress to reach eternal life and reach God that from a very young age, I was in the temples asking questions, praying.

And while even in high school, while my friends were partying it up on the weekends, I did go to some of them. I was in the temples trying to reach Nirvana. So that's my background, Brother Tony, in terms of my spiritual experiences. Now, because I had a wealthy grandpa and wealthy dad, I never knew poverty. So my father was so rich, he didn't even know how to drive. Everybody knows how to drive. He had drivers.

Wow. He had breakfast in Korea, lunch in Japan, and then dinner in Shanghai and came back. So I remember growing up with my nanny, and my parent was always missing. So later on when I met God and they said, Father God loves you, I couldn't really relate to that. I was like the absent father, but he encountered me. I'll talk about that later, but he encountered me in a powerful way. Because not only did I see hell, but I saw heaven as well in my near-death experience. So anyhow, so here I am growing up, had my whole life planned out.

And you know what they say is if you want to make God laugh, tell them your plans, right? Because not one plan that I wrote down as a Buddhist has ever happened. But God's plans, Jesus' plans started happening in my life. So, yeah, so at days 18, I moved to California to become an attorney. So I went to Pumont College in Claremont. And during this time, my dad, who was like my hero, who always was wealthy, calls me and says, Steve, entire country of Korea went through a financial crisis.

It was very similar to the 2008 real estate crash where everybody lost their homes. But it was all over Japan, Korea. And my dad who had, I think, like 10 businesses at the time, he said all of them went bankrupt. And then he goes, I don't even have money for you to come to fly back to Korea. And I thought he was joking. I go, dad, that's the worst joke I've heard in a while. He goes, I'm not joking. You need to find a place to live.

I don't even have your tuition. I go, so I went not from, you know, racks to riches. I went from riches to rags. And then after this happened, I had to, after the phone call, had to find a place to live. I'm calling all my friends. And the only friend that opened up his house to me was my high school friend named David. And he, I didn't know at the time, but he went from high school, regular high school kid to a big drug dealer. It's like, I go to his house.

And we got high. We got high every single day for, I think, three straight months. I don't remember being sober one day the whole summer. So here I am planning for my lawyer Buddhist life. Now I'm just getting high every day. And when I went back to school in August, late August of 1998, so I've been a Christian for 20 years. This happened 28 years ago.

I remember I was so high, Tony. I couldn't read one sentence of a book. That's how damage I became. I was so lazy. I was like, oh. And then I was like, I need another hit. So I smoked another bowl, but it was laced this time. So it was laced with, it looked like marijuana,

but the one that I smoked that led to my new and death accident was laced with heroin cocaine and PCP. It's called the death pole in the streets. I didn't know. So half the people that smoke heroin, you know, they end up killing themselves or they sell the furniture. This is like fentanyl level, you know. Back in the days, it was the fentanyl of the street drugs.

And me being a nice Buddhist kid that like just got high because I think, that it was part of California life, you know, and my dad's broke. And I was like, you know what, I'll maybe this will, I just did it because everybody else was doing it. I didn't even really care. But I thought, I'll just quit, you know, and start studying again. But the transition never happened. I went from getting high to smoking the deathbow.

And now I'm up for 10 straight days. So for 240 straight hours, I did not get one second asleep. And human beings, they lose their sanity around like three, four, fifth day. And Jet Li, who is like a martial artist, he stays up like eight days in the road to make a kung fu movie. I beat him by two days. Because I was up for 240 straight hours. During this ordeal, I thought maybe the Buddhist gods were mad.

So I told my mom, because it was the craziest, the most depressing, hardest part ever. Like, I thought I experienced hardship, but this was a whole other level. It became spiritual. It led to a suicide. So I know how hopelessness feels. and Jesus knows too. Thank God. And during this ordeal, my mom goes,

the Buddhist gods might be mad, Steve. And because I was so brain damaged, after smoking this deathbowl, I couldn't talk anymore. When I looked in the mirror and I looked into my eyes, I couldn't recognize myself. Like, who is that looking back at me?

And the black pupil part got bigger than the white part disappeared. It was crazy. We had... The whites of your eyes disappeared? Yeah, it was like getting totally covered. like a horror movie. And I saw myself,

I was like, that is not me. And I knew I was going to die, Tony. But I didn't know how. And then me and my mom are like, you know, the Buddhist guys are mad. So let's pray more.

So we have these wooden things that I've been hitting my whole life, right? You know, me makes, and then they teach out of the chance. I was an expert chanter. I knew all the words of their, you know, mantras and stuff.

And it's not working. It's not giving me the peace that he used to give me right when it mattered the most. And not only that, we had poultryed, poultarized activity. So as we're praying, cups are falling off like the bathroom far away. So we got to chill. You know, the horror movie, chill you guys. I was like, ah, we bought a little relic. We put on the wall. They're supposed to bring blessings from the Buddhist monks. It's a piece of paper. But he started making metallic noises. God's my witness. My mom's my witness. I'm a witness. I'm a witness. Three witnesses right there. So boom, boom, boom. And then I was like, wow, this is the scariest. I didn't know polteris are real. I didn't know demons were real. Because in Buddhism, they don't teach about Buddhism. You know, angels and demons.

And then I'm losing my sanity. And then I knew I was going to die because around the eighth day, I had an encounter, but not with God, but with the demon, with the Buddhist gods. And Grandpa came to me and said, Steve, if you kill yourself now, I will give you 50,000 less years of hell. So he talked to him like, I'm talking to you. And I was like, and by now I don't even have a same mind. I haven't slept in eight days.

And he goes, if you commit your life to me as a living, like a sacrifice, you'll have this much, 50,000 less years of hell. And I'm thinking, how long is hell? And if I kill myself, it'll be only a few minutes of pain. So I went to the, I wrote my mom a letter first. I said, Mom, I failed you in this life. I'm trying to be a monk and a lawyer. But I'll meet you in the next one.

Because right now I can't think. I'm hopeless. I feel so sad. I don't know how to get out of it. Like, I know, I experienced despair, darkness, depression, death, even while I'm alive. So even though I was alive, I was dead. And I went for the knife because I had no hope, despair, and the God told me to do this, right? So I grabbed the knife, and I'm on my knees, and my mom comes out, she read the letter.

And this is the 10th day now. She read the letter around the 9th day. On the 10th day, I'm in the kitchen. I found the biggest knife. And I've never killed myself before. So I'm like, how do I do this? So I'm sitting there thinking. My mom walks out from her bedroom and sees me in the living room and she calls 911.

And I'm in Irvine. Irvine have a lot of cops. It was called the safest city in America. So the cops came in like 30 seconds, a whole squadron of them, like four of them with bats and mason. They go, put the knife down. And I looked up. And then the demon talks to me, which I thought was God back then. And the Buddhist God goes, it's now or never.

They're here to prevent you from coming. to me. I was like, oh my gosh, I got to do this somehow. So I cut my neck open. See the scar right here? Wow, yeah. And then I cut my stomach too. So if you see the stomach here. Well, you went straight down. Oh, yeah. I went for it because I wanted to go to heaven, escaped despair. And in America, 60 people commits suicide every day. In South Korea, 50 people commit suicide every day. So in two countries, you got 100, about 20 people committing suicide every day, thousands across the world. And right now, 40 million Americans experience depression according to real statistics.

So I was going to become a statistic. And hindsight, it's kind of, you know, I can laugh about it now. But while experiencing it, I felt I experienced what all human beings experienced. I don't have God, which is eternal separation from God, which is real. No religion, no striving, no philosophy, no money, no good deeds, could bring me out of this place. So when I cut myself open, the cops came after me.

They started whacking me with the bat. I dropped my knife. And then I was like, I got to do this. But once they maced me, it was over. I don't know if you ever been maced, brother, but it hurts. It's like getting hot sauce up your nose. That's a thousand times stronger than any hot sauce you ever ate with a taco. So that hits my face.

I've dropped the knife. Now I'm bleeding everywhere. My mom said later, the entire living was covered with blood. She said there was not one spot that wasn't covered, but I cut an artery. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm,

and then I dropped the knife, and I'm put on the stretcher. I get cared to the ambulance. I went to the UCR Vine emergency room, medical center to do a surgery. While I went to surgery, while I'm heading there, I'm going in and out of my body,

like in and out of consciousness. And it was, I thought I was going to come out of my body. When I did, I thought it was going to go straight up to bliss. I started sinking. So now I'm going down. And I'm like, why am I going down?

And I'm looking for the grandpa who told me to do all this. He's not around. I was so disappointed. I was like, you got to grab my hand or like, tell me where to go. You never saw him again? No, no, he's gone. Wow. The devil comes to steal, kill, destroy.

There's 500 million Buddhists in the world. And I pray for them, you know, to meet Jesus. No shame. So I went, so my spirit leaves my body and I start sinking. And it felt like a roller-colder. coaster, elevator, just going down, down, down. And when I, when I, and I knew, I'm hitting to like eternity. Like, now I know for sure.

I supernaturally knew I'm heading towards eternal, which I thought was going to be heaven, but now I mean eternal death, which I did not expect. Because in Buddhism, they don't even teach about hell. So I land, boom, I land about maybe five minutes later. You lose the track of time because you just know you're heading into eternity where time don't matter. I land and I look around. And I'm like, why am I here? Because there's people everywhere.

There's no sunlight, no plants, no dog, you know, the dog, by yourself, your cute dog, no animals. Just people, but I couldn't really, there was no distinction. I was surrounded by people, but I felt so alone. I felt so lonely. And I felt so much pain. And I supernaturally knew I was in hell. And I'm going to be here forever. And I supernaturally knew for the first time in my life,

Tony, that I'm a sinner, which was the strangest thing. Because my whole life, I was a pretty good Buddhist guy. I never killed anybody. I sold drugs, but it was just weed. I never sold the drugs that killed. I stole like a chocolate bar once. I cheated on a test once, like in high school. But I never did anything deserving of death.

But when I got there, I knew I deserved it. I knew I was a sinner, which nobody had to tell me. And then everybody else was a sinner next to me. and I knew it was forever. I just supernaturally knew. And that wasn't at the end of it. I look around and there's demonic-looking beings that I knew was in charge of this place called hell.

Now, biblically, they have a right to torture you before the second resurrection, where the demons and the unbelievers go to the lake of fire, Revelation 21, right? Revelation 20. But here, it wasn't the lake of fire yet. It was like the, it was the hell before the eternal judgment. But these demons are about to torture everybody. to the left, there's like a, like prison cells, and I knew I was going to go in there. And I

looked to the right, and there's demonic beings with capes on, and some of them were big. They're not like human size. They were huge. And I just knew they're going to torture me soon. And all these people were here for eternity. So by God's grace, I experienced eternal separation from God and what that hopelessness and death feels like. But I'm here to tell you that Jesus changed all that. Because my mom who saw all this happening and my mom's friend who was the mother of the guy who was selling the drugs at the house where I was staying at, she was praying for me to get saved and to become a preacher to her hypocritical Christian kids. Wow. And that's exactly what happened. And that church called Grace Ministers International in Fullerton where later I got baptized in the year

2000 and became a youth pastor there. This one church by the grace of God, this immigrant little church grew and planted 10,000 churches and baptized a million people. And they came to the hospital. Eight of the prayer warriors came to the hospital because my mom called them. And they said, this is spiritual warfare. And my mom said, this is spiritual. What? She never heard those words together.

She heard spiritual before and warfare before, but not the words together. Spiritual warfare. And she's like, okay, well, help me because Buddha's not helping. She was so disappointed at her religion that she allowed Christians who she resist her whole life to come and pray for a dying son. the emergency room. Wow. That's desperation. Yes, she was so desperate. As a matter of fact, she was calling out in the emergency room I heard. Like, she went berserk. You know, moms. Yeah.

Buddha Allah, Jesus, Confucius. And all people were staring at her. Like, what's wrong with that lady? She was calling every God out there. And the only God they came were Jesus through his servants, through the church. Spirit filled. And they prayed for me. And eight hours later, after two operations, I woke up. And the doctor told me that it's a miracle. I'm here. He said, it's a miracle because he was a blood vascular, like, surgeon specialist in the OR. And he said, my blood pressure and heart rate kept dropping. He said, he told my mom, we have a high chance. We're going to lose him.

And she was like, we've got to do another surgery. So it was eight hours, you know, thus eight hours in the natural. And when I woke up, I don't know if he's a Christian now, but he said it's a miracle, Steve, that you're here. I don't know how we did it, but you're here. So I thanked him. Wow. He said that. He said it's a miracle.

He's not even a preacher. And then, and then, but right when I opened my eyes in the OR, I opened my eyes, and I look at my body, I had staples everywhere, twos going all over me. Just no strength from losing all the blood and all the suffering I went through the 10 days, which was like just horrific. It was literally hell on earth. But when I got to hell, it was a hundred times worse when I went to hell. because on earth you have hope like a shot of morphine coming

Advil's sleep for those in pain but in hell there was no hope there was no maybe I'll repent there was no chance when I opened my eyes I didn't see Jesus yet but I heard his voice in my spirit he said Steve I love you no more drugs

and no more Buddhism and I knew that was not Buddha because Buddha don't talk like that but right before I open my eyes I heard his gentle voice And I was surrounded by Christians everywhere And they were staring at me and saying In Jesus name devil be gone

And I said, I'm not the devil And they're like, good, we have to check Because you try to cure yourself And then It's logical Yeah, and then they shared the gospel of me Wow And they gave me the gospel tract

And when I got the gospel track I said it I was like, I got to pray this prayer Because I'm not going back down to hell And then they said You know, follow after me Lord Jesus You're my Savior

So I said the sinner's prayer, but I still was so, the memory of hell was so vivid. I told myself, this isn't enough. Like, what if I faint again? I go back down there. So I said, can I pray again? So they leave me in the sinner's prayer again. So I said three times with them. I still didn't feel the peace.

I said, can I just get the piece of paper? So they gave me the paper and I read it 10 times until I felt the peace of God come into me. Until Christ did something. I'm not saying I was totally filled with the fire of God, but he gave me some peace and assurance. And that was my introduction, Tony, to Christianity. Wow. Let me ask you before we go further.

So, one, what you just shared, do you feel like you wanting to repeat the prayer? Was there any kind of connection to your Buddhist up bringing? Because I'm not familiar with how the logistics of the faith of Buddhism goes, but is there a ritual, is there a ritual in nature to it? So that it, you know, we do these things for our own salvation, whatever you would call it. So when it comes to the repeating of the prayer,

were you kind of still stuck in that kind of idea of that religion? Well, that's a really good question, brother. Like, I never thought of that, but, yes, in Buddhism, you keep repeating the same mantras. Like, it's crazy. Like, I can go into detail, but that Buddhist book they gave me to meditate on, had all these prayers. and you prayed over and over again.

But it could have been habitual, but I just wanted to have some peace. Yeah. I think it's cool because not this particular situation, but in general, people have situations where God meets you halfway. And so it's not 100%. Nobody has the same testimony

because we come to God in our own paths here and he meets us where we're at. And so I was just, I was curious because I was wondering if there was some kind of like Buddhist upbringing that you had words. Like I have to do these mantras. And God's like, I can use that. Like, go ahead, read it 10 times. Yeah, yeah. And you'll feel my peace coming to you.

Yeah, that makes sense because the Lord knows each one of us very intimately. And he might have, yeah, used that to convict me to do more than one prayer. But I remember around the 10th time I prayed it, I felt like a touch of God. And I was, okay, I'm not going to go to hell. Yeah, and that's when I stopped. It's really cool to be able to look back at our lives in general and see how God worked in a very unique, customized way for us as an individual. Now, with this experience you had, I think sometimes people, and I'm one of them, because I have a hard time explaining to people how I feel about the supernatural. There's like this gut feeling I have, and sometimes I don't have the words to express it.

But one thing that you mentioned is that, like, I forget how you said it, but you painted a picture of physical. You hit the ground. You were falling and you fell and you hit. And you're now somewhere else. Was that somewhere else? Did it seem like it was a physical place? Like the people you were seeing where they look physical or was it more like ethereal, spiritual, and less physical? because I feel like there has to be personally,

just from the people that I've talked to and stuff, it feels like there should be some kind of physical aspect to whatever's on the other side of that veil, but we just can't often understand it. And sometimes I wonder if it's from Hollywood, this idea of these poofs, and the spiritual realm is a poof, and it's not physical, but I think there is a physical nature to it.

Yes, there's definitely physical nature. As a matter of fact, it's more physical and more real than the physical world, in the sense that God teaches us that the resurrection is physical. Jesus' return is physical. We say spiritual world, but I think a better word is the eternal world. What I mean by that is, in the eternal world, like in heaven and hell, it's physical. It's just in a different realm, but it's physical.

So God made heaven and earth, the earth, in the beginning, to trap the devil, right? You know how the devil was at the Garden of Eden already? So it was a physical place. And the reason why I've been studying 2nd Peter Revelation a lot nowadays, it says God has reserved the current earth, not for a flood this time, but for burning. He's going to burn the current earth and current heaven, create a new heaven and new earth.

So many verses on that, all throughout the epistles, even in Isaiah, even in Ezekiel, even in Revelation, and even Jesus. He's going to make all things new. physically. He came in a body. So this is not puff, puff, puff. That's Hollywood's, you know, play with AV audiovisual stuff.

This is a real physical world. When I was in hell, it was physical. The rocks were there. The purplish rocks, the cliffs, the demonic beings were physical. They're not just spiritual. And I was there in my body. You know, and I knew I was going to be there forever. But the good news is if you believe in God,

now you're in heaven. forever with your body, with Jesus, see, in the real city. So, yeah, so I start having nine months later, but I guess I can talk about that when you when you want to, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think, I appreciate you sharing that and expressing that because I think there's an element to, well, how real is eternity, right? And so I think, again, if you want to take it away from hell and just put it in more to heavenly, there's still a skewed perspective.

There's how many people think that this idea of the Christian God, the Christian theology, and spending eternity in the presence of God is going to be boring. You have this idea that, you know, I don't want to float on the cloud or I don't want to. What am I going to do? You know, like, where's the fun? And we have a very limited scope as to what fun is from this perspective we have. But it just feels like whether you're talking about heaven or hell, the physical aspect, this is a very tangible, real experience that just it will last forever. It's not even a lifetime.

It's eternity forever. Yes. So true. And I'll end my. little spat here with this because I do find myself thinking about eternity and what will that be like. I have never experienced Jesus the way some people have, you know, like some people have had encounters with Jesus. But I try to fathom eternity, infinite.

and the fact that there is a God who is infinite. He is beyond comprehension. He is. And that he's so glorious that my eternity is going to be at every waking moment discovering a new level of his glory. The only way I can describe it to people is like if you have like your most holy God moment, you've ever experienced on this side of reality where it's like you knew God was real. It was like he was speaking directly to you. Like if you take that and you multiply by infinity and that is your existence of every second in eternity.

That's right. Like boring doesn't cross my mind. Oh, no way. Yeah. It's so crazy you mentioned how it gets more real. Because when I had my encounter with heaven nine months later, it was just that. I'll never forget it. And, you know, and Tony, Tony,

the Bibles does say, blessed is he who believes without seeing. Remember doubting Thomas? I'm not going to believe unless I see him. Jesus shows up and goes, hey, see my hand. Look at the nail mark in my hand. Look at my rib. And Thomas goes, my Lord, my God.

And then Jesus doesn't go greatest your faith. He goes, more blessed are those who believe without seeing. Yeah. So if you believe without an encounter, you're more blessed. Biblically speaking, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, doubting Steve here, even after I saw hell, I backslid. So what happened was for nine months after seeing hell, I still live like a Buddhist.

I don't know why. I felt like God's forgiving. So it's okay to sin, but that's not true. The Lord gives us grace to not just be forgiven of sin, but to be free from sin. I didn't know that because I was a disciple. So I went right back to the world, and my non-Christian friends were asking me why. I'm living with while I'm partying with them. They start kicking me out of their parties.

Like Steve, you should be living as a Christian. I was like, you're right. So like, what's you want to call it? Like, God was speaking to me through my non-Christian friends. And it came to a culmination in an end when in June of 2019 I had a visitation from God and he showed me heaven. He showed me the end times. He showed me the great tribulation. And it was so clear because I never read the Bible up to that point.

And after the fact, I saw it. And this is related to how you were saying, heaven is not boring. It is more exciting than earth. It is joy glorified. In his presence, there's a fullness of joy. The bliss that I felt when the Lord showed me his glory was the antithesis of hell. Everything I saw in hell was healed when I had encountered heaven.

It happened around end of May, beginning of June of 2009, about nine months after the hell experience. I remember I was at the peak of my backsliding and my dad looks at me and goes Because you're living just like you used to as a Buddhist I choose not to be a Christian and that really hurt me Wow I was like dad how could you say that? He goes man like you're lying

That's full of baloney He used other words And I looked at it and I was like Oh Lord you gotta do something like this isn't good Because I thought I was 19 right And I'm like I gotta party it up before God calls me to be holier I was like one more party

And God's like nope That's not how this work you're going to surrender. But to do that, he had to show me, you know, his glory and his kingdom. And what happened was, I just went to sleep in like another day of parting. And then Jesus took me to heaven. And I shared this with Daystar and, you know, hundreds of churches. I shared a story.

But we were in the great tribulation. Because the end of all things at hand with all this AI stuff, the mark of the beast, it's real. It's not symbolic. Some theologians teach it like, oh, it's symbolic, Steve, the millennial kingdom, the great chivalet is symbolic. Nope. The Bible is literal. The Bible is real. It's physical. The word became flesh, not ethereal beings. And in this dream, me and my mom and my brother were at the end times. I knew everybody, either every Christian was killed either by denying the mark of the beast or they got martyr or they got rapture. So me and my mom, my brother, we were in a car, and we're escaping the one world government. The whole world became one, and everybody had the mark.

And I didn't even know this that was in the Bible, which was fascinating. Yeah, because you hadn't been disciples or anything yet. Yeah, it was like supernatural download and understanding. So here I am, like escaping. And then either I got killed or a rapture, I can't remember, but we're sitting on top of a mountain, a high mountain. And I found that later, all this is in Revelation 2021. And I looked up and it was the most beautiful, clear sky, physical. And I saw a golden city coming from heaven.

Physical. I saw angels, physical. Worshipping the Father. And when I heard their worship, Brother Tony, I knew it was not the voice of man because it was so beautiful. And then the glory of God came to me. The Father God came to me, the maker of heaven and earth. where you're from where I'm from.

Where we're from. He's our dad. He's our Abba. He's your dad. My dad. The Lord says, your God. I'm going to my Lord and my God.

My father, your father, right? Jesus is father's our father. And he speaks to me from this, the brightest, it was brighter than the sun. And he's showing me his glory. And he speaks to me. When I looked into that light,

it healed me from the trauma I had in hell and the isolation, rejection I felt. And he spoke to me and said, I thought he's going to say some other things, but he just went to the point. He's the word. Jesus Christ is my beloved son,

in whom I'm well pleased. So he's a father and a son, their family. And he was inviting me to join their family, which is the family I've been waiting for my whole life. Because as a Buddhist, I always felt like I was out of place. I always felt lonely. I always felt weak.

But the father said, I love you. And that did something to me. It made me like crazy. It made me like come to life. He gave me not a set of rules, but an encounter. He gave me a new heart and a new spirit. And he goes, Jesus is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Listen to him, listen to him, listen to him.

And that's all over the gospels, four times. And three of the four gospels, appear four times. And then I was like, wow, I got to stop sinning. Wow, I got to surrender. And I opened my eyes, and I was back on earth. But before I share about the back on earth, the New Jerusalem was just like the Bible says physical. Gold everywhere.

Pure gold. It was translucent gold. It's different gold. Tony, then the gold, which it's not translucent. The gold in this world is like, all in gold. It's still pure. Fallen gold.

But heavenly gold was translucent. You can see through it, but it's the walls of the city. And you walk on it, your cup's going to be gold, your chair is going to be gold. you're going to be rich, amen. So I tell everybody, sell everything you got and live for Jesus.

And that's what I did after the encounter. I went to China to be a missionary. But that encounter showed me that God is real. And he's a good God and he desires you and I to surrender. So we can come and live for him. And then he told me that I'm a missionary to America. Because I thought I was here for the American dream. So I quit school and I went to China and then later seminary.

to become a pastor. Wow. Wow. So you go from that dream that this encounter, completely radical changed from that moment on, and it spawns you to go to China as a missionary. Yeah. How fast did that turnaround happen?

I wish I could say the next day, another 14 months of training. Yeah. Because I thought I was ready. But, you know, what's funny is like even when the Apostle Paul not funny, what's biblical, I correct myself, what's biblical is

when Saul, you know Saul in the Bible, Saul who wrote the whole New Testament, Rabbi Saul, the zealots of all zealots, the Jew of Jews, there's no radical Jew like Paul, like Saul. This Saul, he was going on,

killing Christians. Sometimes I wonder, you know, he goes, I have a throat in the flesh. Maybe he remember all the Christians he killed. Maybe. Because he killed so many Christians.

And then he has an encounter with Jesus. And he ends up becoming a missionary and then he gets, you know, martyr for the Lord. What an amazing turnaround. Yeah. A sinner to saint. So Paul, I thought he would like change the world right after. But Christian history says he went to Saudi Arabia for a few years. And I was always wondering what he did there.

But I think God taught him how to die, how to pray. Because when he met me, just like he trained me in the, just like I trained myself and the monks trained me in the temple. Now Jesus trained me because he got me stuck in a prayer mountain. So our church had a prayer mountain for people who either backslid or cause trouble or was about to go to the mission field. Hundreds of people did a 40-day water fast there. They fast for 40 days water. I did 21 days, but even one day's by God's grace. So I was drinking water, drinking juice.

I met all these people doing 40-day water fast here in America. It's in Corona, California, Grace Prayer Mountain. He had me stuck there in training to read the Bible. to do service three times a day could God not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline. So in Buddhism, I was like doing chance for eight hours, but now I'm praying and reading the Bible.

I read the Bible once a month. And the pastors lie to me, Tony, they said, Steve, because I'm new to Christianity, right? And I'm surrounded by these radical Christians. I thought every Christians were like, damn, and they go, Steve, oh, by the way, Christians read the Bible once a month. I was like, once a month?

There's 1,189 chapters, sir. They go, oh, yeah, it's part of the discipleship. So I read it once a month, 40 chapters a day. And they were like, oh, we were kidding. And then they go, every Christian prays three hours a day. So I was praying. I was like, Jesus, come to me like you show me out, but he didn't come right away. And then I was like, Lord, meet me.

And then after five minutes, I ran out things to say. I was like, how you pray as a Christian? And then they gave me a phone book. They like pray for all the churches in the phone book. Wow. That took another hour. So now I'm praying for all the churches. And they're like, here's a globe.

Pray for all these nations. And that took another hour. So I was like, wow, this is way more fun than Buddhist praying. In Buddhism, it's the same word. Nah, nah, nah. You know, there's like eight letters you repeat over and over again. And Christianity, I got to pray for my mom and God started touching her because she got radically touched. And then my dad got saved by 10 years later.

That's another story. And then everyone, my uncle, my ex-girlfriend, people start coming to Christ. And I was like, everything I prayed for started happening. So I got addicted to prayer. And I thought I was ready. But when I went back down to the world, like, or away from the prayer mountain, my non-Christian friends were waiting. And they tested me. And I fell right away.

And I learned, I'm not as strong as I thought. So I went back to the prayer mountain. And I was like, you know, forget this. I'm not even going to live. Lord, what do you want me to do? Because, like, you know, because the drugs, it caught me a lot of damage. I had insomnia still. And I couldn't sleep or wrong.

run or play basketball like I used to. So my body was already kind of broken, Tony. But I said, Lord, this is all I have. But he's supernatural healed me like 10 years later. But this is all I have. So the pastors go, we pray for you. And the Lord's sending you to China. So in the summer of the year 2000, they told me to wait and keep praying and reading

the Bible. In the year 2000, they sent me to China. It's a one-way ticket. Wow. they may sound like it was normal It's like the page on the body and said, good luck Yeah, and the good thing was there was like A short-term mission team coming with me like 20 of us

But they came back, I stayed there with the missionaries Because they told me this is a normal part of Christianity So if you want to, if you need some missionaries Tell the young people, hey, everybody does it Everybody dies for the Lord Okay, Gen Z got to go, amen Yeah Wow

Wow Yeah, you know, Gen Z is going to through a whole different, there's a whole revival happening in that the other generation. It's amazing to see. It's, it's hard for me to comprehend. I'm, I call myself an elder millennial because I just been an elder. I was 1985 and I think it's 1982 or 1983 is when millennial started. But it's hard for me as somebody who's, you know, going to be 41 this year. I, I, I, I see this younger generation and it's, it's not recognizable from what I, saw growing up. I lived in a culture in a world where the young people, you weren't chasing

after any kind of religious existence. You were chasing self, self-desires, building yourself up, all that. Yeah. And to see a whole generation that's seeking a spiritual existence. And some of them, they're not seeking Christ, but they're seeking, they're seeking a spiritual existence. There's this like fertile ground that's that I'm seeing in a young generation that is unrecognizable from what I ever experienced. I'm so glad you mentioned that because I've never seen anything like this either

and I'm so grateful because the Christians nowadays, I might be wrong but I believe God in his infinite grace and wisdom know the end is coming. So he gave him very special grace to Gen Z.

They understand the gospel in two minutes and they surrender in three minutes and they receive tongues at the fourth minute. They get delivered the fifth minute and they get plugged into church the six minute. When we go out to evangelize, high school kids? I don't even need to argue. There's no apologetics. Do you guys want to accept Jesus? Yes, pray for us. I was like, is it scripted?

They were scripted. I was like, are you guys practicing? They're like, no, we want Jesus. So even before I came here, Thursday, we pray for eight kids here, 20 kids here, 50 kids here. It was crazy. I've never seen a harvest like this in my life. Wow. You know, because I think like you said, they're like hungry. It's fertile ground. You're coming back soon. Yeah. Yeah.

So you go to China. Yep. I'm going to at some point probably want to bring it back to more of like your evangelism and some of the things you've experienced because I imagine there's so much that you've experienced in China just in the short period of time you were there

but you're in the spirit you coming you went to China and at some point you got sick though right and there was like a final I feel like there was like a like you heard from God or something I can't remember exactly but there was like this almost like final stamp on your life

that you that you had I think the Lord basically told you you were ready now. You were finally ready to... Yeah. Yeah. Is that... Am I getting the... You got it right.

Okay. Good. Yeah. First thing I'm like, hopefully this isn't a different N.E. You know, like Randy Kay's book. It's not the other thousand people you interview. So your timeline is correct. Just the number of years between China and that another chance God gave me was a whopping 13, 14 years.

Okay. So in the year, two, I go to China and it was amazing. I can go into detail, but this was under the persecution of the communist government. So even getting there was a very scary for me. They were searching through my bag looking for Bibles. Wow. The soldier picks up the Bible.

Oh, by the way, the older people go, Steve, you're the youngest one in the team. We're going to put the Bibles in your bag because if you get, and they were like making fun of me, picking on me, like, you know, Christians got their own hazing thing going out with the Holy Ghost. Holy Spirit hazing. If you get caught, you're young. Look at us. We're 40, 50, 60.

We can't survive prison. You can. So I was like, that's not encouraging. So they throw the Bible in there. And I'm, like, coming out and they're all waiting for me. Like, you know, we're praying for you, right? The soldier goes you. Like, and I was like, huh?

And I don't even speak Chinese. He takes the bag. He opens it. He takes. He looks at the Bible. He opens it up. And he goes, hmm. I think God blinded him in hindsight.

And then he puts it back in and he goes next. Wow. This was when Christians were going to prison. So I was like, this must be the Lord. So that was a good start. And when I was there, we visited many, many underground churches in China. These churches were worshiping God at their homes in the factory. They never have revivals unless it's raining.

So the day we got there, it was raining. So there was so much rain, and the soldiers can hear the sound? Wow. So that's when they worshipped. And there was like 300 evangelist pastors that gathered in our team. And there's no bathrooms there. This is the countryside. Like, we drove eight hours.

And when you go there, like, if you make the wrong turn, you just got to reverse, like, a mile. In this narrow road, and both sides, you fall into a hole. I was like, oh, let us not fall. We never fell. I was like, he's like, oh, oh. It's like adventure, you know? Like, adventures of, you know, Holy Spirit. So, and then we got to the factory.

And for the first time in my life, I felt the Holy Spirit on my skin. You know, you know, it's a physical. Holy Spirit, I believe, is physical something. He lets you feel him in your body, which is a temple of the life. living God. And I felt him go, woo, and I was just weeping. Everybody was just weeping. And the services were from like 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. They don't got Bible. So you got to like, when a preacher comes from out of town, they're like ready with their notebooks. I met 13 year olds. 13 year olds who were taking care of like 300 house churches. And I was like,

how old are you like, oh, I'm 14. I'm 13. I'm in high school. I said, what are you doing? They're like, oh, my parents abandoned me because I accepted Jesus. So I saw like book of acts Christianity in China. And I was like, I thought I was going to live there forever. And like so many times the soldiers came to catch us. But every time he rescued me, because it wasn't my time yet. So none of us got caught. But, you know, unfortunately, or for the glory of God, many of these saints got caught.

They got imprisoned, martyr, beheaded, beaten to death, all for Jesus. And I remember this one time I was like stuck in the attic. And the soldiers came to the first four. We like ran up there. I could see them through the cracks. The soldiers were running around looking for. for us. And then the sister

or the brother, I can't remember, next to me goes, hey, Steve, don't worry, you know. Don't be afraid. I was like, I'm a little bit afraid. I'll be honest. I'm afraid, okay? I'm not from China.

I'm from America. I'm American. I'm American and Chinese. I'm American and Chinese. And I'm Korean, you know? And I studied Chinese. I knew that much. And she goes, if you go to a prison,

you get closer to Jesus. And then I was like, wow. That's good. but I'm not there yet. That's not my level. The increasing, she knew that from not even having scriptures. Yeah.

She knew that just from hearing the word preached to her. Yeah, she knew that through the experience of her pastors and the testimony of other people. Yeah.

And yeah, so China marked me for life. And then I thought I was going to spend it like my whole rest of my life there. And they're a great culture of giving you tea. They're so nice.

Contrary to what the news shows you, they're not all communist. They're hungry. Most of the country, one guy. There were 100 million Christians over there. Whoa. Born again.

That's the biggest church. Yeah. Like a tenth of the population Christian and the government hates them. They're so afraid of them. The only movement that can topple communism, just like they topple the Roman Empire. And Constantine's like, oh, shoot, I got to become Christian to leave this country. They'll like me, right? So it was so powerful, Tony.

So I thought I was going to be there forever. But the mission's looked at me and I was 20 years old and they go, Steve, thank you for being with us for the past. half a year or so, but we need you to get a degree, get a job, learn a skill, and come back. So they send me back. I was kind of sad and glad. Sad that I had to leave my Christian friends there that I met, we traveled with. Because our little church planted 3,000 house churches there in like six months. It was exploding the harvest back then.

Everyone was getting baptized. Everyone's excited. They're like, yeah, let's die for Jesus. And it's not just you. It's like this other guy, this other girl. It's like united. There's no denominations. That's such radical faith.

Yeah, one faith, one baptism, right? And everybody in the same heartbeat. Like, let's save souls. When I spoke broken Chinese to people sitting next to me, they got tons in the train. While the communist soldiers were looking, this guy with the, I still remember he hit a basketball. And I was like looking at my, you know, we didn't have a Google back then or chat GPT. No smartphones, right? 19, year 2000, I would open some dictionary and like look up the word and tell him about Jesus.

in the worst Chinese ever and he accepted and received the Holy Spirit right there. Jeez. And he was speaking in tongues with me. He was like, what are you saying? I was like,

I don't interpret it, but that's God. And he's like, it's all good. Yeah, yeah. He's like, I feel good. I feel happy. I was like, that's Jesus.

So, like, it was harvest season. And that's what's happening. And here's the good news, Tony. That's what's happening in America right now amongst Gen Z. You don't even got to, You just got to show up, but you got to show up. You got to be there for them.

You got to be there for them. How can they hear without a messenger? Someone got to go. Someone got to do the podcast. So they sent me back to America. And then, like, I was still on my spiritual high from missions. And this is where PTSD comes in, post-traumatic syndrome for missions. Okay.

Yeah, PMS, post-Mission. I call it PMS. Post-Mission syndrome. Because now I'm back in America and then no persecution. Now my friends are like, hey, let's go on three-day vacation. Hey, let's go on a road trip. And I went from radical Christian to vacationing Christian. In like six months, I changed again.

And I saw myself and I was, where's my fire? Where did it go? And the Lord showed me, if I do not live in missionary as a missionary in America, I'm going to become lukewarm. And he said, I spit up my lukewarm people. I was like, really? I read that in the Bible. And it shocked me because I was in the brink of being one minute,

I felt like his favorite child. the next minute I felt like I was going to be sprew up. I was like, why are Christians so bipolar? What's going on here, Lord? And the Lord showed me through the scripture, through the Apostle Paul, I die daily. You got to die daily.

And I was like, Lord, how do I die? And he said, you got to surrender. I was like, how do I surrender? That sounds so easy about her. You got to stop thinking, stop planning. Whatever the Bible says, do it right away. Live for me, Steve. America's your mission field.

That has so many supernatural dreams and encounters, if I told you the story, it take 10 hours of him verifying America's a mission field. And now where I live in LA, we've got 150 nations, the Muslims walking down the street. I got, there's so many people to preach to that I realized the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So in the midst of doing this, I made every mistake in the ministry. I yelled at my youth kids.

I yelled at pastors and listened to me. I fought with this pastor. I rebuked this parents without love. And the Lord said, I made every mistake in the book. And after 10 years of ministry, I had a lot of disciples, but my ministry was small. And I was like, Lord, like, this is not what I expected. And the Lord introduced me to a man whose disciples I know, but I never met him personally. But they call him the saint of South Korea.

His name is Pastor Park. I just met him in a revival, and I was just weeping. He has 120 or so uncles and aunts and mom and grandpa, or not mom, dad, grandpa, all pastors except him. Because he saw division in the church in Korea. His grandpa's church had 30,000 members, his uncle 5,000. But he saw them fighting and committing little sins here and that. He goes, ah, Jesus is not real. So he left the church, Tony, and became a doctor.

He married into, like, the billionaire families of Korea. So rich. And then one day when he was 38, and he's a smart doctor, he had a heart disease. He was going to die. And then the Lord met him powerfully. An angel came and fixed his heart. And he ripped up his MD certificate and started living with homeless people.

That's radical. Yeah, like he went from doctor to, like, no pastor in Korea lives with homeless people on the streets. He was sleeping with them. He said he got beat up every other day. He said there was a whole culture of homeless people. He thought, like, they thought he was one of them. So they beat him up every day. He said he got beat so many times.

He didn't know there was a world like that. But as he was getting beat up by homeless people every day, he said, I deserve this. I'm a sinner. But thank God, Jesus saved me. And then his church had six homeless kids getting high on glue

because Korea didn't have drugs back then. So you get glue and you get high off the butane gas and glue. Very dangerous. Sounds like it. Yeah, yeah. And these kids would come, spit, and cuss while he's preaching.

But he was used to that. He was just used to that. But 10 years, he served the homeless. 10 years, he lived with the homeless. Praying for them. He's like a hidden saint, You know there's like public figures, but he was a hidden figure. If you say Elijah was a public figure, he was like an Enoch.

You know, Enoch didn't have a public ministry per se, but he walked with God. The Bible says, all it says, he walked with God. Elijah was politically public. So he was like an Enoch hidden. And then after 10 years, Jesus came to him and said, I saw all that you did for me. Every homeless person, right? The people he gave everything to. Now it's my turn to take care of you.

The next Sunday he goes to church and his hidden hole in the wall church, like 100 new people. And he's like, where? And he's like, he's in his shabby clothing. Like he don't even preach. He just stands up there and goes, God loves you, right? He looks up. Yeah, a hundred people. And they're like, how did you all get here?

Oh, we saw the sign. Yeah, right. God sent them. Wow. The next Sunday, 500 capacities where they moved to a bigger building, another thousand. That fast. It was so fast. And then he said it was so big.

to start sending them out. And then God said he's going to be the senior pastor of this one church where they had 10 division, 10 splits. And then he prophesied the pastor there's going to die. And he got to be the pastor. So the pastor was upset. He goes, hey, tell me, I'm going to die. You got to take over?

He goes, yes. God show me, why don't you repent? And he's like, screw you. He died that month. His vitals were perfect. And then he took over. And then all the elders were famous for kicking out newcomers, sinners. They're like Pharisees.

right. He got rid of all their titles. He got rid of all their titles. You're brothers and sister now. We're all brothers and sisters. That church started growing and it planted all these churches and he's celibate.

He's not married. He never backslade once. Not once. No porn, no drinking, no smoking, no anger. He just crucify. I said, Lord. But he always tells us

in the public, he's the biggest sinner. So I met him and it gave me a fresh start to Christianity. His message was, Love the unlovable, blessed unblessable, forgive the unforgivable, and serve those who can never repay you and never defend yourself and promote yourself. And I was like, wow, this sounds like the apostles, the deduads you, the teaching.

So I met him and I resigned from my mega church. I was serving at the time. I was serving at the biggest Korean American church. I had 300 youth kids. I did a 21-day fast and the Lord told me, clearly you're going to be hidden. I was like, oh, man, that sounds good, but bad, but good. But I surrendered And the joy of the first love got restored

And it was better than having a big ministry It was better than You know, speaking at the biggest churches Because I had Jesus now Purity restored All the mistakes I made God goes Let's start over I was like, yeah, holy graham

Hallelujah Jesus Black slate So I started living with kids that had no parents They started living in my house But this is America now And then in 2013 So 2008 to 2013, 2013, 2013, 2014, this revolution happened in my life. And then at the same time, I went to a divorce.

I don't know if I shared this with you. I was married for 30 days to a beautiful woman. No comment. But I thought she was pretty on the outside, but she had the religious talk. But when it came down to it, you know, so God bless her. I got remarried nine years ago to my beautiful wife now, who made me a better man. She's a saint. And then

And after meeting him, my ministry shifted From Because I always wanted big and public I'm not saying that's bad because we need Elijah's To being more of an Enoch And every day feels like heaven again And he started sending me The most broken evangelist

Poor missionaries who nobody knows about A hidden servants of God Missionaries in Africa That The Lord told all these people want to get on a stage, because Korea got 55,000 partisan churches.

Wow. Yeah. And they sent out missionaries. And I go to Korea like twice a year to the ministry there. And the Lord has hidden ones where God will not share them with the world. Like Sadu Sander Singh.

Like, you know, like Heidi Baker, these saints. And then my standard of the gospel where what Jesus said became literal. Before I thought he was like, making suggestions. I love those who hate you.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. But God is like love those who hate you. And I feel like you understand that better than me with all the persecution you're going through, Tony. And so I learned the way of the cross and joy got restored. And now every day became revival. The Lord showed me every day's revival.

Every day's cross. Every day is evangelism. On the airplane here was leading a sister to Christ. I was sharing gospel with all the people at the hotel. the whole world became my parish and and he started connecting me with wonderful people in the kingdom like you like destiny image like saints that were hidden for the last day's harvest and

and so yeah he said die daily love the unlovable blessed unblessable forgive the unforgivable and always humble yourself and I'll take care of you and I was in so I started living under the shadow of his mighty wings and ministry became way more fruitful, way more peaceful, and way more victorious. Wow. Yeah, by the way, the cross, yeah.

So the evangelism in your life has, I mean, it's, we were talking earlier and you were telling me about Toronto and how that one scene and it just kind of, but it's true, though, when you're doing boots on the ground evangelism, you're on the front lines and there, it can get a little crazy. Yes, it can. Yeah. But there's, there's this, the spiritual side of it where I think whatever we experience in the physical is just a mirror reflection of what we're, what's happening in the spiritual. Exactly. Good point. And when you're doing this evangelism ministry, there's a war happening around that very, it says just one person that you're talking to, like the person on the plane.

Like, you talk about Principalities of the air, Satan be the God of the air. You're up in a plane, and so you're in his territory, and you're speaking to something about Christ and leading them to the cross, like that's,

the spiritual happening there is on another level. When you, because you're still very active, obviously, in evangelism and ministry. state side versus China. You described the scene of hiding from soldiers in China. In the flesh sounds terrifying, right? And you were scared.

I was. Has there been moments where you're doing ministry work where you've found yourself in similar situations here in America or like in Toronto or whatever, where you're thinking, And this is on the same level of scary as in China. Because, I mean, what you painted for China, I mean, I feel like you and I could probably spend two hours talking about experience in China. I can only imagine growing up, I remember here, I was telling my son about this just the other day about China and their one baby policy.

I think they have that. They still have it? I think they reversed it recently because their population started going down. It's still like the largest. Yeah. Yeah. And I was trying to explain my son, who's eight, that he's like, that's crazy. I know, I know.

And he was even doing the math. He's like, that doesn't work. He's like, eventually you're going to kill yourself by doing this. But so I just, I know how radical the culture is over there when it comes to being a Christian and how secretive has to be. if this is found out, especially back when you were there in early 2000s. But, yeah, I mean, to get back to my original question, though,

knowing that aspect of how severe China was, did you have similar experiences doing evangelism here? Yeah, a great question because many of your listeners are evangelizing in America. And the quick answer to that is yes, because whether you're in China or America, the devil don't like losing... people and God loves winning people. So there is a huge conflict of kingdoms.

One thing I can say though to encourage everyone and you know and myself is the more you evangelize like the I learned it's not me doing it. It's not Zachariah 4.6. It's crazy because I turned on a random sermon this morning and it was Zachary of 4.6. Not by minor strength but by my spirit. Yeah.

So you kind of know whether it was in China or America, the intensity of fear For example, in Toronto, not America, but in the Western Hemisphere, when I went to Toronto, it was actually, the evangelism was actually led. But one of the disciples or the saint, I just told you about Pastor Park. Oh, really? He sent a couple that don't speak no English. I thought they're like, K-pop stars or celebrities by that.

Nah, they're pastors and their pastor wife. I was like, what are you guys doing here? They're like, God sent this to 10 years ago. When they went there with a Bible, all the liberal churches made fun of him and said, marriage, you say marriage between a man and a woman, that's blasphemy. Like all these rainbow churches were attacking them. But they stood their ground. They prayed for them.

And now all the people that attack them are their disciples and church members now. Isn't that amazing how love always wins? Truth never fails. So they came and they invited me. I got to share my testimony there a few times. And he casually invites me to the evangelism at Toronto. He's like, Steve, it's just a pride parade. I was like, yeah, me and my will be there.

So we go there with our little tracks We're like Oh God loves you No This was conflict of kingdoms 10,000 By the way God loves LGBT

People but You know God wants you to meet him And really repent And live a holy life So you got 10,000 LGBTQ people coming But they're not dressed

They're all naked I never seen naked Grandpas in my life Just naked Just strip naked Walking And we're there With our Jesus

Love You tracks And I'm like What is going on And pastor's like Oh don't worry This is our 10th year doing this. I got beat up the first tears. I said, oh, really?

Now you tell me. And then this one lady, I think she was like the leader of the gang. She brought a motorcycle and she's just revving it. The smoke is getting to my wife. She's coughing. She's like, honey, I can't breathe. And for the first time, I was mad at the Avengers and Field in a long time. I looked at that.

I was like, you don't got to do that. She's like, like, wong, wong, wong. And that revving excited the demonstrators. Now they're gathering around me. And they don't look friendly. They look hostile. Like possessed. And then and then the revving and the Holy Spirit goes, like how you feel?

I said, Lord, I don't like being here. My wife's dying. She can't breathe. And the Lord goes, I love these people. And I was like, what? I didn't want to hear that. I thought God would say wage war, you know? So I just waited for the revving of the.

But during that conflict of the kingdom, Brother Tony, I knew I was saved. it kind of reassured me, I'm on the right side. Because, you know, you saw what evil and wickedness looks like. Yeah. But at the same time, they need somebody to tell them. As soon as the revving stopped, the Holy Spirit prompted me to start preaching because I have a loud voice like you. So I just started opening your preaching. And the whole crowd looked at me.

And then I was like, everyone, listen, I'm not here to judge you. But there is one who will judge you. When you die, you must believe now. Instead of preaching. And they're like, who is this guy? And when I said the name Jesus, they went, no! And then they started rushing at me. So I was literally running from the crowd trying to grab me and running and preaching.

I never done it in my life. It was scary as China. It was like China on steroids because at least Chinese soldiers have clothing on. Yeah. And I didn't want to, no one touching me. I didn't want to touch none of them. Trust me. An angry naked mob.

Yeah, there were like all types of Asian eyes. And I was like, oh, hell no. Yeah. Hell no, Jesus. Heaven yet. So to answer you question, yes. And I think many true evangelists, that's not even on your show,

many of them hidden preaching the gospel faithfully, they've been attacked. I've been rushed at with people with hammers and knives and radical people that wanted to stop me. But every time it happens, just like the Bible, the Lord gives you anointing to love them, to not be afraid.

So the fear does last, like five, ten seconds. And then the Holy Spirit takes over and you go, oh, I'm just a vessel. And then you're like, fearless, courageous, not to oppose them, but to win them over for Jesus. Hearing this story, it reminds me when I was younger. I probably told the story in the show before, but I'll say it again. It's my show.

Yes. But when I was younger, I was in Bible College. And me and my wife were part of a street ministry team. And we were in, we weren't, I don't think we were in Philadelphia I think we were in a town around Philadelphia. It might have been Norristown. But I remember we were out of the streets probably about midnight, 1 o'clock in the morning. And the bars are getting out and you're hitting people that came out of the bar.

And sometimes I look back on that, I'm like, well, I was young and dumb. What was my tactics? I didn't have tactics. I just put myself in situations that could be hairy. And I have my girlfriend that isn't my wife yet with me. and I'm bringing her and then other people. And I remember we went out there one night and we split up into groups. And it was just me and my wife and I think two or three other women.

And so we're walking around the streets. And this guy comes out of a building. It must have been a bar or something. He was drunk. And we started talking to him. I started talking. My wife's very introverted. So she's just always watched.

Praying. Yeah. And thinking, why am I? dating this guy. He said this was a good idea. But I'm talking to this guy and I don't remember how the conversation was going, but I just remember he started getting more and more aggressive. And I'll pause in this story and just but a note that what you experienced China, Toronto, stateside, I experience the aggressiveness. Again, it's a manifestation of what's happening in the spiritual. There's there's demonic forces.

at play when you're doing this stuff. And you have to understand the power of the Holy Spirit that comes within you, though. There is no need to fear and coward when you truly understand what team you're on and what power you actually have within you. But I was young and dumb, and I didn't know. And he started getting more and more aggressive. And I'm trying to cut it off the conversation because I'm thinking, okay, you know, I got my girlfriend here and I don't. And I forget what I asked or what I said. I just remember the phrase, he's real close to me, and he says something like, because I have a gun. And that's when everything just kind of like, like everything just disappears around me. It's like this tunnel vision. And I'm just thinking, what did I do? What did I just

do? Oh, man, I could have talked to the lady in the wheelchair down the road, but I had to pick this guy. The one guy with the gun. Yeah, well, in that area is probably plenty. Okay. But I, so, so it's that kind of conversation now. And I'm trying to find a way to get out of him. And every time I'm trying to cut it off, he steps closer. He's not letting me go. And all of a sudden, this other guy comes walking down the sidewalk and takes him away.

And just steps between him and I and gives him this like this guy hug and starts talking to him like he knew him. And the whole thing just got diffused. and from the outside, this guy wasn't yelling. He was just talking aggressive to me very closely. Like, you would think that we're just having a conversation. This guy just steps in and communicates with him, calms this guy down. I see just calming down. And the guy just walks away.

And the guy that was being aggressive. And the guy that interfered or interjected, he turns around and I said, hey, thanks, man. I didn't know. This guy was getting aggressive. and he just kind of cut me off and he goes, yeah, I was driving by and I saw what you guys were doing. I figured I understood what you were doing and you needed some help. How the heck that you know? Yeah. And so I turn to my wife or my girlfriend and I'm like, everybody good, maybe five

seconds. I turn it back around. The guy's gone. Wow. He's gone. He's gone. It's like an angel. Yeah. And I can't say I've ever had an angel that said, be not afraid. I'm an angel from the Lord, you know? But that, I mean, I have Holy Spirit goosebumps right now. just telling the story because I feel like... Amen. I believe that's an angel. Yeah, I do. Yeah.

And so... Come into the flesh. But that's the kind of stuff that... I mean, that wasn't even Holy Spirit as much as an angel interfering, right? We have to understand that it doesn't matter how crazy things get around us. Like, we do have that authority in these situations. And there's a real spiritual battle. I wrote down here, conflicting kingdoms you kept on saying that.

Yeah. I call it warring kingdoms, and it's like very much real. Yeah, and we should expect it because we're not at home yet. And I love how the Lord says in Acts 1-8, he says, When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power, exusia authority, to be my witness. So you got some Christians not evangelizing, and I think that's because they didn't receive the power of the Holy Spirit.

And anyone that surrenders can receive it. You don't have to see hell or heaven to save souls. Yeah. If you're born again, the Holy Spirit, help me today. We make ourselves available. Then I think God can help us save souls that day. Because we're here to plunder hell. We're not here to play church.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I had an incident where a guy was rushing me with a knife and a hammer. And he was in a wheelchair in front of our church. But he was faking it. He got up and started rushing me. And then this random guy came like you and he took away his wheelchair. and he started going after him.

And then he came all around. And then he's like, I thought you needed help. So I always kind of related to your story. Yeah. Yeah, when the Lord sends, I don't know who they are, but they always come in a car. Yeah. Right time. Yeah. It's amazing.

Yeah. I mean, I was asked not to name drop the person, so I'm not going to do that, but I do want to tell a little bit of the story. We have a friend whose dad is a pastor. and his dad, not too long ago, had a guy come in his church and starts, I can't remember all the details, but it was like he came in the church on a Sunday, interrupted the service, and I was walking down the aisle and yelling at his dad at the pulpit. And his dad, if I remember correctly, went up to the guy and starts rebuking him, and the guy just starts spazzing. He just starts spashing.

They had to call the police and all of that. all that stuff. But it was demonic manifestation going after people in some kind of form of ministry. And I just, I've seen that so many times. So many times. And even in my own life, I mean, I've seen part of my journey of coming to understand how much power and authority I have is when I found myself in the middle of the battle, not knowing that I had a sword on. my hip. That's right. Hey, so good. Yeah, I just, I was not prepared to understand it. And, and I, and I'm in the middle of an attack. And, and in that, that specific, you know, instance, I had my butt handed to me. And I had to learn that, one, this is very real. It's not a game.

Nope. And, uh, though it's very real and not a game, you are more than equipped to handle it through Christ. That's right. And you can get so caught up. We were talking about this earlier too, in the weeds and trying to understand the darkness. But in reality, I've been using this phrase, we need to be tethered to Christ so that when we're looking at the face of darkness, we can easily find our way back to Christ in that moment who's our protector. Amen. Yeah. And so I think it's really cool with what you're doing. with the ministry and the evangelism and everywhere you're going. You said earlier, was it the church that you first got hugged into that it was planning all

those different churches and stuff? Yeah, Grace Church. How many was it? Right now they've planted, all documented, 10,000 churches. Wow. So it's only like 4,000 or 5,000 members, but we sent out the church, my mom and dad still go there. My good buddy, June Lee, still go there. So we're going to evangelists together Thursday.

he bringing like 50 college kids go. So we're going to be like, we're going to have a team of like 60 preaching the word. So hundreds of the regular lay people just met God. And they saw what the pastor was doing. And they went to, so we made a own seminary called Grace Seminary, accredited. And they all sold their homes and went, hundreds of them. And one would go to Russia, plant 30 churches. Another to Brazil plant 30 churches.

And our strategy wasn't go there and wave a flag. it was go there, plant the seminary first before the church. And then you had a huge, like a good core group, and then the churches started multiplying. So 10,000 churches have been planted across like hundreds of hundreds of nations. Wow.

Yeah. And so we became like a denomination, but it's not perfect, right? Because it's manmade. Yeah. There was a lot of issues in the process. But now here's the good news, Tony. The next gen caught it

because they see their parents do that. And these Korean kids speak English. And these were like, our parents didn't speak English. They're like trying with broken English. Like, Jesus said, I'm like, what the? Brother, like, what did you say? Jesus, you know, it's Jesus, right? But they were not to say that.

So their kids received it. And now they're going to Israel. Some of these college kids are going to Israel for five years. Turkey for three years. So we, you know, and that really encouraged me because, you know, the kids, they do what their parents do. They see and they learn. So, yeah, so the baton's been handed down.

Is there a level of, like you mentioned Turkey, and I don't know the laws and everything, but I know Turkey is a largely Muslim nation. Oh, yeah, secular and Muslim, yeah. Is there a level of having to sneak the people into the country initially? Initially, there is. Like, you don't want to tell the, you know, their version of the INS. Like, well, we're a full-time missionary. We usually go in as a car.

We're here to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and destroy your government. Yes. We're here to like make a coffee shop. So they'll allow schools, coffee shops, hospitals. Okay. But it comes to the worship part of it. So that's the way to go into the restricted nations. But like countries like Russia, they already know.

Like these KGB people, they already know. And you got to pay them under the table fee. Yeah, you can't just go in there like because they know. They do your background research. China, they know. They know. Most of my pastor friends can't go in anymore. I was invited to Hong Kong recently.

I can't go because they won't let me safely drive to the church meeting and preach. I'm not even on the hit list. There's pastors on the list that are really being watched. So if you want to go to Turkey, let's see you want to go to Turkey, Tony, with your truth. I want to be hair plugs in Turkey. We're good at the resurrection for free. So they, when you go there, you want to go as a kingdom, like business. man, because they all want money.

They all want more investment, right? Schools, yeah. I was once recruited to, not recruited, I should say. I found myself in a conversation where somebody was asking if I'd be interested in sneaking into an unnamed country to shoot a documentary of ancient biblical archaeology sites. Is it Turkey?

No, no, it's not actually. But it was just me and two other guys that had been going. And he said, I have connections to get us. in, we should be okay. I'm like, that's not good enough for my wife. You know, I'm not fair about it, brother. Well, you know, all the guy, all the guy bones in. This sounds amazing.

It's like, my wife's not going to let me. There's no way my wife's going to let me do this. That's a good sign for me, too. Like, you get all these ministry doors. Like, if your wife says yes, it's from the Lord. Right. Yeah, she's our, like, yeah. Yeah.

They're like our Holy Spirit kind of, yeah. I'll tell you what. If my wife ever said yes, they'd have to be from the Lord. I know my wife. 100%. I mean, we've been married for next week.

It will be 19 years. Oh, wow. Congrats. Thank you. I know my wife. And so if she says yes, I'm first going to check her temperature and then I'm going to say it's from the Holy Spirit.

Sounds like my wife. Can I go here? No. Can I go go by yourself? Can I go, no. Oh, man. So I want to ask you to take you back to your childhood. Yep.

And what the monks were telling you, you about this nirvana and this pursuit of this nirvana and not many make it so in buddism believing that there is reincarnation as a child what is your perspective when you're hearing this are you believing that you're on your first life and you have so much work to do or do you come do you pick up a perspective that i've been alive once before and i've already put in time and i'm just keeping to work my way towards this nirvana. Yeah, they told me I had many past lives. And then my aunt was one of the cult leaders.

And she's like, Steve, I just found out I was a citizen of UK in the 1700. It was crazy. And I was like, are you sure? And she's like, yes, the monk showed me while I was meditating my past life. So they were huge on their past life talk. Okay. They were huge on their next life talk. And when I was hearing these stories, because I didn't have Jesus Christ in the gospel back

then, I thought it was all real. I'm a kid. Like, what is? It's a cool story. So I'm trying to achieve a better next life. And it was also mixed with like prosperity gospel. So they wanted you to be successful and give a lot of money to the temple. I remember my dad.

Your dad was doing, right? Yeah, he brought. One day he had a bag and I was like, what are you doing? He's like, we're going to give this to the monk. And he opened it. It was just like cash piled up. Because this monk said he was, by the way, this monk wasn't just the normal monk.

He said he was the Christ. I thought he was Jesus. I thought he was my Christ. Can you believe? Because when we took pictures of him, he would glow. He healed my aunt's leg that was hurting for many years. They have supernatural powers. Counterfeit.

So I thought he was my God. I thought he was God's messenger. So everything he taught us, I thought it was the truth. And he said, Steve, like, you're kind of limited in this life. But if you want a better next life, like, spend more time in the temple. So I did it for a better next life I was like investing you know Yeah

Which was I wish I was a Christian Man if I was a Christian in high school I would preach to every All my friends Yeah Yeah open and preaching in the cafeteria So I wasted a lot of time As a Buddhist

But you know The Bible says All human means we live once And after that we face judgment So there's no There's no turning around Yeah there's no reincarnation But it was a huge fear factor

Yeah Yeah He's especially a large portion of your childhood contemplating eternity and the deep philosophical, at least philosophical, not theological perspectives that isn't normal

for a six-year-old. For most kids, I'd imagine. Yeah, I don't know why. I think it's because they kind of dedicated me and I think a lot of, not just me, but a lot of kids in like Tibet, Thailand, China, India get

I kind of groomed or dedicated to do that. So from early childhood, they have encounters. And they told me I was going to either become a monk or fortune teller. I didn't like either. I was going to become an attorney. Like, what are you talking about? I'm going to have a fortune teller? They kept putting me into this mold.

Like, you're going to be this. Like, the monks want you to do this. And even my parents agreed. But I know there's millions of kids that have early encounters. And my prayer to God is that it will lead to Jesus. It raised up a radical generation for Jesus. So when I was at the Toronto Church, I had four, five-year-olds who were praying in tongues

and praying with me for an hour because the moms trained them. The babies are powerful. They do whatever you, you know? You got like little kids playing piano. Have you seen those? With the five-year-olds like, you're playing like Mozart. And I realize you can do that with the Bible and Jesus.

And nowadays, so many kids have dreams of the second return of Christ. I found that very fascinating. All those YouTube clips of little kids that don't even know how to spell. Jesus told me he coming back soon. And I was like, what? Another kid, Jesus told me he coming back soon. So I know he came back soon.

And as a Buddhist, I had so many demonic encounters. But then I think it was just God showing me like the reality of the other kingdom. And then, and then because I would do like Chi meditation and I could do like 200 push-ups in a row, Tony.

You get like, you know, those Shaolin monks. So they taught us how to do chi breathing, get physical strength. So I was doing all sorts of stuff, like martial arts, Buddhism. It's all related, like violence. And then when I sinned, they told me I got blessed. Like, I would write these letters as a Buddhist monk. And then the monk would read it, the Messiah guy, whatever, the fake Messiah, excuse me, the Antichrist.

He would read it and he would go, wow, like I see everything you did last week. And he would tell me everything I did last week. And I was like, how do you know that? And he goes, you know, I'm like a God. And I was like, maybe you are. And then, but if I see him in Korea, I'm going to get all my money back. Hey, remember all the, you're a frost. I want my dad's money back, not with interest.

Yeah, I think he'd probably run. Yeah, yeah. He's, he run from the Christian, yeah. You said something I think is important to hit on too, because I think this is something that people get caught up in where the idea that, you know, healing takes place through vessels that are not Christ, chasing after Christ. Unfortunately, yeah. And, and I think the people who, who are, the jury still out for them when it comes to who God is and all this stuff, they can look at something like that and say,

so what's the difference between God healing somebody and this person and their God healing that it's it clearly it's not exclusive to to god and i i would say that there is absolutely a counterfeit power there is i think we will we often are kind of just trained to believe that you know god's all powerful satan is nothing and and and the the kingdom of darkness doesn't have any kind of weight behind it and that's just simply not true And when you look at, one, you look at the sorcerers with Moses. Yep, I was thinking that, yeah. I mean, that's a prime, it's probably one of if not the best examples of counterfeit power

that eventually can't keep up with God's power, right? And so it falls short. Yeah, it clearly falls short. But even in the book of Acts, the demonized girl who was owned by the... Fortune-telling girl, yeah. Right. So like, I forget how I was talking to you recently, but it kind of brought it to my attention because the men who owned her were so angry at her deliverance because she was no longer able to do what she was doing that was making them money. Cast it out. Right.

One word. And so it's like that that itself should show you that it's, there is a tangible power there. but it is counterfeited. It's not sanctioned by God. And again, going back to be a broken record, the power that's within us that Paul experienced, right? And so, I mean, you were talking about him being Saul, and now he's Paul.

Like, he experienced a supernatural power that made him go blind and until Ananias came to pray for him. And even that. Skills fell off his eyes. Yeah. Like, I'm not, my thoughts are just running together right now, but I just, I'm going to keep it going. Even that, though, so you're talking about evangelism, and we were talking about it over there in the other room,

but this idea that, for me as a human, maybe there's certain people groups that I don't want, I don't want to talk to them, you know? Ananias is in that boat. Ananias heard of this guy Saul who was killing people like him. And God is saying, He killed his church members. Yeah. Like, he knew who he was. And God comes to him and says,

I want you to go pray for Saul. And then he comes to Paul. Who's killing your church members? Yeah. And Ananias, I mean, it's such a short character in the scripture. But, like, there was, there was, like, this begrudging attitude

of just like, you know who this guy is? Lord, I heard of him. But he didn't obey right away. Yeah. But that's why I think it's really cool to see people like you, who are just so radical about evangelism and sharing the gospel because it's just like, that fleshly hindrance of maybe biases

that we build up over time and stuff, when it's put up against the power of the gospel, it just withers away. It's just like you can look at somebody as a human being. Yes. And it's no longer, I don't agree with you on something. It's just like, you're a human and God loves you. Yes.

Yeah, every God desires all people to be saved. that's in 2 Timothy 2.4, I think. God desire all people to be saved. So that includes the people we don't like naturally. And then I love what the Apostle Paul said in the New Testament. He wrote very clearly, I became all things to all men. Greeks, Jews, barbarians, free, slave, male, female,

all social, economic class, all nations. And then now we got Hishi Day. He will love all of them. He shi day them. So I see Paul becoming all things. tall men. But when I was hanging out in the church a lot, Tony, I remember when I had this season where I became kind of religious and theological, and I was just too holy for everyone.

And there was a season in my life where I wasn't evangelizing for like a year or two, like a year or a semester. And I was reading all these books and I was like, wow, like I'm a Christian, you know. And the Lord, thank God, woke me up because in the Bible, you don't see that. Like the miracles that Christians do, it leads to salvation. I don't see him doing miracles. Like, Lord, I want to see like a special. And God goes, that's like new age stuff.

Miracle should lead someone to Jesus or bring someone back to God. It's not just like whenever I want to see a miracle. A wicked and adulterous signs generation looks for a sign. So we got miracles for a purpose. And we love all types of people for a purpose, which is to win them over. I love how he became all things to all men. And I had a little bit of an easier time evangelizing because I remember being the ignorant and Buddhist who made fun of the Christian club kids who couldn't see Christ.

I thought Jesus was a made-up story when I met hypocritical Christians. But when he came to me, a sinner that don't deserve it, I said, wow, Lord, what do you want me to do? And every time I pray, he tells me, save one more for the Lord. I need you to speak up and trust me when I say this Tony. I don't want to talk in the airplane. I want to relax. He always got me preaching to the guy next to me.

Last time I was preaching to this girl, she never went to church. life, this Hispanic lady. I opened my Bible up because the Holy Spirit, see, because he pushing us. He pushing us. Get out there. Get out there, Steve. Get out there, Tony. Lord, I want to watch a movie. No. Not right now. At least not right now. And when he pushed me, there was this lady sitting next to me, and then I opened my Bible and I turned the light on, you know, the nightlight. And she's looking at me like, that's a big Bible. And I said, ma'am, have you? Have you? Have you? read the Bible before? She was never in my life. I was like, are you Christian? She was, I'm Catholic. And I said, do you have trouble sleeping? And one of your daughters is really causing your heartache.

And you've been having anxiety and insomnia recently? She goes, yes. How the heck did you know that? So I didn't know. The Holy Spirit told me, let's pray. So she prays. And she goes, wow, I feel peace. So I went through all the, in the Bible right there. I went through the 10 salvation verses. She accepts Jesus. She feels freedom. I can see the, because my eye open sometimes, I can see the demons leaving. is breaking off of her neck. And I go, Lord, how you feel now, lady? And she goes, now I'm a Christian. I got her number.

It ends up that she, living in the city where we're planting one of our house churches. So we plant house churches here and there. And when I saw that, and the Lord will ask me after, like, is it worth it? Am I worth it? I go, yes, Lord. You're worth my. So I'm training myself constantly to say yes. To say yes.

And sometimes he gave me a break, but I'll be in and out, eating a burger with our church people. right after evangelism, like 20 of us eating, Holy Spirit said, get up on that chair and preach, and I will go, why? We're in a Christian restaurant. The Bible versus Lord under the cup. It's like Ananias, right? But I've learned over the years

the prompting of the Holy Spirit that I must say yes. So I got up on the chair in the middle of my burger getting cold. My burger getting cold. I don't want to do this, but it's not about my feelings. It's about our commander,

your commander, my master, your master, our commander-in-chief. So our king. So I got up in the chair. I started preaching. The whole restaurant looking. I do this regularly. I'm preaching like Jesus loves you.

Everyone stop eating. Listen, this is more important than the burger, blah, blah, blah. And then the manager's like, cut it. He's rushing at me. But you got this church over here like say, Amen. And then you got the unbelievers rolling their eyes. I come down and I apologize to the manager.

And I went back to my car after we broke fellowship. And this guy starts rushing to my car. And I was scared because in LA you don't want nobody rushing at your car like that at night. This was like Compton, like rushing at my car and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

And he goes, knock, knock, knock. I rolled down the window. He was sitting next to me once he was opening a preaching. He goes, Steve, I haven't been to church in many years. But while you were preaching and spitting at my food, I looked at you and I said, oh my guys, that's God speaking to me.

I want to come to church. So he came to church with me next week. We dedicate his life to the Lord. And then the Lord would ask, is it worth it? Yes, yes it is, Lord, you are worth it.

So I think evangelism is not like a program we do, but a lifestyle. And we were that guy once, right? You were that, we were that ex-boot is ex-Muslim. But like you were saying, God desires all meant to be saved.

And he needs preachers right now. He don't need church warmers. Yeah, he don't need church pew warmers sitting there warming their church. He needs the whole church out and it's still not enough. you see? Yeah.

So we can pray like Lord, the harvest send our workers in the harvest field. You know what's funny? People who pray that, they end up preaching themselves. They're like, Lord, send somebody. And guys like, I'm sending you. No, I said somebody. Yes, yes. Like Ananias.

He will send Paul. He will send Moses. I can't speak, Lord. Oh, I'm sending you. You got Aaron. No excuses. Yeah. Yeah.

So God is good. Yeah. Absolutely. Amen. I want to hit on this last thing here before we wind it down. And I feel like it's a little off topic, but I got to bring it up because you've said it in the other room. And I just think it's interesting. It's not off topic.

We're talking about the spiritual warfare side of things. You guys do a three-hour prayer every day. Is that right? Yeah. It's like a remote call. Just on Zoom. Yeah. Yeah. How long have you been doing that?

Yeah. So that started during COVID when the Holy Spirit. So before COVID broke out, we kind of had a feeling something was going to happen. We didn't know what nobody really knew. But it's today's 1,931. Wow. Yeah, Monday to Saturday. Saturday, we kind of prayed on our own. But now we prayed together Saturday, two hours.

Then Monday to Friday, three hours. Is that open to public or is that a church group? Yeah, it's open to the. different churches. We have people joining from Nigeria, Kenya, Azerbaijan, UK, Spain. We have some from Japan. And then we have from South America.

Some from Kentucky. Really? Yeah. Texas. Yeah. My Kenfo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's on fire. She's like a Filipino lady. Her name is Sandy. You got her on a show. And then she got, she was a street kid, and then she met the Lord. She's a minister.

She's more on fire than me. And she married an American guy. She lives in Kentucky, you know, and they're doing deliverance ministry there. We have ex-witches, X, X, X, X, X, X, all these people joining. But the one common theme is when we pray, you have to have two things. You got to say no to sin. No more backsliding. And you've got to save souls.

If you don't want that, we'll find another prayer meeting. Because we're going to dedicate a life to this. And you've got to be more serious about it. We take ourselves very lightly, but we take the mission of God more seriously than anything else. So by God's grace, we have like 30, 40 people come in and out during those three hours. Yeah. So 30, 40 people in the three hours. And you had a witch pop in once.

Yes, that was yesterday. That was just yesterday? Never had a witch pop in. I don't know how the heck she got the Zoom link. That's what I was going to ask? Yeah, yeah. And then I've kicked out people in the past that overtly continue sinning or live in the, live like mobsters or sell drugs. I'm like, if you're going to, you got to have a standard.

Amen? The Bible actually says, if the brother calls himself a believer about outright sins, treat him like unbelievers. So he feels shame and repents. This is biblical standards. So she was there and she had this graphic on

where snakes were moving. She was telling us she's a witch, green hair. And nobody, so we turn our cameras off. Because we have our protocols. We can focus on Jesus, except our online ministry classes. So I used to pray on site, but after COVID, we kind of shifted to Zoom.

And then we've been praying to Zoom ever since. But a lot of my, we go to on-site prayer meetings too in the evenings and stuff. But when I saw that, I kicked her out. I said, you can't be here. Because she was what one of our staff members called the Unrepentantant Witch still goes to church. But her true loyalties to the devil, see? She's hanging out at church meetings. So, yeah, I have had a, we had to kick out a lot of people in the past that came out in a different,

name or from cults trying to infiltrate. Yeah. Because Holy Spirit show you. And I go, hey, if you're not here for Jesus, because as shepherds, we've got to die for our sheep. Yeah. So my number one hatred is false teacher. I hate that more than Muslims, as much as ISIS.

When I see false teachers messing with God's word, destroying the sheep, the Lord gave us a lot of authority to fight them and kick him out. Paul said, for three years, I warned you with tears in Acts 20. that they're the Jews the book of Jew the revelers they drink in the morning

they pray upon weak people they infiltrate their homes and these for the darkest the chain reserve for them the darkest hell is reserved for them yeah so we're very serious about false teachers

trying to come in and of course we've got to humble ourselves but I feel like the Lord has given us every Christian a mandate to protect your prayer meeting to protect your flock, to protect your family from anything that's not in the word of God.

So even though we're super, supernatural, we have the Bible. Yeah. Both, which is God's weapons for us. It should also say what's, like, it should point to what's actually happening with these pyramids. The fact that

a witch feels, well, probably the witch probably doesn't feel the need. It's probably whatever is instructing her. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Feels the need to infiltrate. And to know that it happened just yesterday, and that kind of falls right in line with what we were talking about. You coming here and what I would believe is at some level an attack,

the first time you tried coming here and you were sick because you were out of country, right? Yeah, I came back from South Korea and then my flight here was the day after. Yes, that's what I was. And I was like, and I really get sick. So I knew your show has a huge impact. against darkness. I was like, okay, this is going to be a good show.

You don't want to be sneezing on me. Yeah, yeah. I understand. Yeah, yeah. But it's just, God is good, yeah. It's like a very, uh, repeatable narrative seems like, uh, they're,

and not everybody. I don't want to say it's like a common thing. Yeah. But there's many people who. Gearing up to come on the show and something happens, whether it's an attack on them physically or their schedule or merely just a sense of darkness and heaviness that's oppressing trying to get the person to turn away from sitting in that chair.

Right. And so I believe that from your original time is scheduled here and to being here today, what happened yesterday, I believe that's just, that should be just a sign of what was going to be accomplished and was accomplished on this conversation. Amen. Amen. And so, so good. I appreciate you coming in and sharing with us and talking with me.

Awesome conversation. And before we get out of here, you have a book, right? Where can they get the book? Yeah, Tony, it's such a blessing to be on the confessionals. The book, eight hours in hell, you can get on Amazon. Yeah, we got it published. You know, my goal wasn't just, I wasn't going to write it,

but that's an image that it's going to reach a lot of non-believers. And I say, yes, sir, sign me up. I'll write ten more if you need to. But they can find out on an Amazon. Amazon and the Destiny Image website. It's not just about the ordeal in hell, but how to walk a sanctify life, set apart life, and to store up a lot of treasures in heaven.

Because rewards in heaven is real, and not everyone getting the same reward. Yeah. Yeah. We got to run like we're going to get the prize. It says in the Bible, run like there's one winner. But to encourage each other to do that, it's like we all got to win together.

Yeah. Amen. That's cool. That's cool. And I highly encourage people to check it out. Amazon. And Destiny was obviously they're friends of the show.

Yes, they are, yeah. Yeah, I appreciate being. Thank you. Thank you. Glory to God, Tony. Love you, brother. Thank you.