The Eric Metaxas Show - Hugh Ross (Encore)

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Astrophysicist Hugh Ross returns to the show to tell adventurous stories about how the same God who created the universe for a purpose creates each one of us for a unique purpose, as well. (Encore Presentation)

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I many times on this program have interviewed someone I admire tremendously. I've read many of his books. He is a brilliant scientist who is the founder and president of reasons to believe. He has written many books talking about faith and science. I have used those. books in my own life and in some of my own books in the beginning of my miracles book I talk about the fine-tuned universe some of that comes from john lennox's books some of that comes from hugh ross's books just tremendous mind tremendous thinker but he and his wife kathy have now written

a book called always be ready a call to adventurous faith always be ready the cover is a gorgeous cover i just want to read i just want to i just want the book because it looks so wonderful but i now have as my guest, Dr. Hugh Ross. Hugh Ross, welcome to the program. There you are. Thanks for it. You're in Covina, California, I'm told. Where is Covina, California? Oh, it's about 15 miles north and east of downtown Los Angeles. All right then. Well, this is not a typical book for you. Always be ready, a call to adventurous faith. First of all, tell us what is this book? Well, it's a book fundamentally based on 1 Peter 315. Always be prepared with good reasons for the hope that you have in Jesus Christ. Share those reasons with gentleness and respect. And if you do that, God will supernaturally bring people to you that he is prepared in advance to hear and respond to your reasons.

And people ask me, why did you wait so long to bring this book out? I've been an evangelist for the past four decades. and it's like I wanted to give people first those good reasons. And so I published 17 books kind of laying out what I think are some really good reasons for adult Americans today to respond to the Christian faith. And this book is kind of like a capstone to that. We're saying if you've got those good reasons under your belt, you're now prepared to see God do miracles in your life to bring people to you that he's prepared to hear and respond. And I speak on seminary campuses a lot, and I'm running into a lot of things. 70 professors who believe the book of Acts ended with the first century. That's not my experience. The Book of Acts is happening today in the lives of Christians who actively share their faith.

We're over and look at the Book of Acts. There's no conclusion. It just ends. So that tells me, it implies that this is the norm for the Christian life that's walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay. Now, I just want to interrupt for folks who aren't tracking, what you mean, I think, is that the Book of Acts talks about the early church, the church right after Jesus ascends into heaven, and he gives us the gift of His Holy Spirit, and we see miracle after miracle after miracle healings and all kinds of things, and as a result of those miracles, people come to faith in Jesus. But there are a lot of people, often they call themselves cessationists, who say, you know what, that ended. Once we got the Bible itself, all that stuff ended, all the miracles and stuff. And people like you and me know

that that can't be right because we've experienced miracles. We've experienced them and we've, we know tons of people who've experienced them. And we're not dumb. We're careful. We're not, you know, we're not inclined to be fooled. We want to know, is it really Jesus? And we come to the conclusion it is. And so we want to talk about those kinds of things. But you are, you're a man of science. So you particularly don't take these kinds of things lightly. You're very critical in how you judge these things. So I'm dying to know when you talk about this, when you talk about having experienced these sorts of things, what are you talking about? Give us some examples of what you mean. Well, for example, I took a young man who was a brand new Christian, and we were just going

cold turkey knocking on people's doors, wanting to share the Christian faith with them. And this is an evening where we knocked on 20 doors, nobody was home or whether they wouldn't answer the door, and we said, okay, we're going to do one more. and it was a really dark place and overgrown with bushes. We opened the gate, and there was a big German Shepherd dog there. And it turned out it was a five-acre estate. And so the dog ushered ushered us in the dark all the way to the front door. We knock on the front door, the man opens the door and says,

how did you get here? And we said, well, your dog showed us the way. And he said, didn't you guys see the sign at the gate? It's lit. And it's a big sign. no, we didn't see a sign. He says, that sign would have warned you that this dog is trained to attack anybody who dares to open the gate. Did he bark? I said, no, he didn't bark. He's trained to bark at anybody that comes close to the gate. And then he looked at us quizzically and said,

you two wouldn't be Christians, would you? And we said, yes. And he said, I said, but why do you ask? It says because my wife and my three children and I have been praying this evening that God would send us Christians to show us how we could become Christians. He invited us into the house. He asked a whole lot of questions. He had some doubts that he needed to get taken care of. Bottom line was the entire family committed their lives to Jesus Christ that night while the dog was sitting beside me. And their comment was the dog never sits beside a stranger. And so they took us out to the gate.

And there was this big sign warning us that there was a trained attack dog on the premises. And the young man that was with me said, this is just like the book of Acts. God blinded us to the sign. God's spirit took control of the dog. The dog ushered us all the way of the front door. He said, we would have never found the front door without the dog. And the dog never barred. And the five people in the house said, because of our dog, we knew we had to listen to every word you said.

I mean, that is straight up nuts. That's my favorite kind of story. I love that. Now, I have to ask you, they weren't Christians, but they were praying, you said, that God would show them how to become Christians. Did you get any background on that? Because, you know, typically people who aren't Christians aren't praying along those lines. Well, they have been going through some family struggles and issues that are typical of people who are not followers of Christ, and they knew they needed something. And they heard about Christian. Christianity, but they didn't understand much about it. And so they literally got together all five of them as a family and said, you know, God, please send us somebody. And right that very night, he sent two people to them. I just, I find the story of the dog, that's hilarious. I thought you were going to say, and they shot the dog because he hadn't done all the things they trained him to do. Thanks a lot, dog. We trained you to bark. You didn't bark.

We trained you to do these things. He didn't do any of that stuff. But I think that they saw that he was listening to a higher authority. Let's put it that way. That's crazy. Now, that happened in California. That happened in California. But the book is filled with stories where, it's not just my stories, but the story.

stories of other believers literally all over the world. And you know, my passion as a pastor is that every Christian would have these kinds of experiences. And I basically tell people, you want to see God perform miracles. Here's a guaranteed way to see God perform miracles in your life. Prepare good reasons. Develop that gentleness and respect and sharing those reasons. You'll see God doing amazing things. And this isn't just a one-off story. It happens hundreds of times. I tell people what it happens the first six times, you might think it's all a coincidence, but after three or four hundred times, you realize this is the Holy Spirit at work. So you've experienced this sort of thing many, many times?

Many, many times. In fact, I go one chapter just on airplane stories, and virtually every time I get on an airplane, God opens up an experience. And one thing that tells me that this really is God's miraculous hand, over half of Half the people I share my faith with on airplanes, either of a doctorate in one of the sciences or they have a doctorate in theology. And you and I know that doesn't make up half the American population. It's just that God knows who I am. He knows who they are. He puts us together.

A friend of mine came out of the Mormon faith, and he says it's amazing how many times I'm on an airplane and I'm sitting beside a Mormon or an ex-Mormon. God knows your background. He knows their background. He puts people together. It's so beautiful, and it's so particularly encouraging to hear this from you, Dr. Hugh Ross, because you really are a man of science who has used his mind for many decades, very carefully, very precisely. You're not sloppy when it comes to this kind of thing. So it's really exciting to me.

You've written this book. We'll be right back, folks. The book is Always Be Ready by Hugh Ross, written with his wife, Kathy Ross. It's a call to adventurous faith. This is the Eric Metaxor show, Don't Go Way. There's been a national focus on eating only the healthiest of foods, and that's great news for Balance of Nature. Their method of producing a vibrant nutritional supplement is second to none.

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They're gone. So don't wait. Go to MyPillow.com. Use promo code Eric or call 800-858-0263. 800-8-5-0-263 to grab this exclusive deal. That's MyPillow.com. Promocode Eric or call 800. 858-0-263 promo code Eric. Would you like to... ...radio show. Folks, I... This is a really miracle Monday. So if you're not listening this on a Monday, it doesn't matter. But we do these shows on Monday where there are a preponderance of miracles in the narrative,

where my guest has wonderful stories that he or she wants to tell. I love this kind of stuff. I think we all need to know that, you know, the God that I claim to believe in and claim to follow is alive and doing stuff now and wants to do things in all of our lives. I think we need to understand that if God's not doing that, why bother? At least that's my takeaway. I have a real privilege to have as my guest today, Dr. Hugh Ross, the book is Always Be Ready, a call to adventurous faith. Dr. Ross, welcome back. I love these stories.

I have to tell you. And I just want to know if there's another story you might be willing to share, because it's just so encouraging to hear these things. Well, I've got hundreds of stories, but one I'll share with you is I did some ministry in Australia and Canada, long flights, came back, and I had a clot in my widow maker artery. And so they had to do surgery to bypass that clot. A clot's cleared. I'm fine now.

A clot in your widow maker artery? That doesn't sound like a good clot, Dr. Ross. Yeah, but they did surgery. But I wound up spending three and a half days in the hospital. And while I was there, I got visited by five chaplains. I later found out nobody gets more than a single chaplain visit. But I got five chaplains visiting me. The first four that visited me, I found out they were not believers.

So I said, well, you know, you're a chaplain, and yet you don't believe that the Bible is the word of God. And they said, yeah, science. proves that it can't be the word of God. Well, forgive me, but why are they chaplains if they don't believe the basics of the Bible? They saw, I asked them that question. They said, well, my job is just to give some compassion and reassurance. I said, isn't it difficult to give reassurance if there's nothing beyond this life that you can offer to reassure them? And they said, well, I just don't believe. And I said, well, why don't you believe? And they said, well, it's because of

science. Science contradicts the Bible. And I said, said, have you ever talked to a scientist who actually thinks that the Bible is the inspired inerrant word of God? And they said, we don't think such an individual exists. Uh-oh. Get ready for the punchline. Here it is. And I was in a public ward, so there was other patients listening to all this. But I wound up talking to four different chaplains for whom their big issue about the Christian faith was a scientific, what they thought was a scientific contradiction. I got to talk to each of them for over an hour, got to give them my book navigating Genesis. And so they walked away with that. The fifth chaplain that visited me was a believer. And he was one that told me nobody gets five

chaplain visits. This is an outright miracle that you've got five in just a space of three and a half days. And he says, I know those four chaplains. You've given me an opportunity to take each one of them out to lunch. Thank you for giving them your book. I'm going to follow up on each one of them. Now again, yeah, go ahead. This is an accident. This is God pulling the strings. But isn't it hilarious? I mean, there's so many things that are hilarious about this, but it's hilarious to me that there are chaplains who don't believe in the Bible, in the God of the Bible. What in the world are they doing?

I mean, if we are all, you know, accidents, random mutations have evolved into us, and here we are, and life is utterly meaningless, what can some of the United? what can somebody possibly say to comfort us except, I mean, it seems to me that they would only just say some confused things, that they don't really have any comfort. What a hard job that would be to be a chaplain who doesn't believe in the God of the Bible. Definitely, but I wound up doing a chaplain's conference once, and I heard that that's the case that most chaplains really aren't believers. It's almost like they think they're, they're health care workers or they're, I don't know what they think of them. Self workers, and they're trying to just listen to people, hear their pain, and, you know, people need that, but they need more than that. Yeah, a little more than that.

My goodness. Well, that's so cool. Well, what else is in this book, Always Be Ready? I mean, you say Always Be Ready. A lot of people would say, oh, you know, I'm a Christian, but I don't know that I'm ready to share my faith. Maybe that makes me uncomfortable. I also feel intellectually ill-equipped to share. What do you say to those folks?

Well, you do need to be equipped. That's something I've noticed in the church I attend, is that people who feel they're not well-prepared, they don't share their faith. They're afraid they're going to be embarrassed. But that's why it says in 1st Peter 315, be prepared, prepare good reasons for your hope. And so I like to just share with people

who aren't sharing their faith, look, You need to get yourself educated on these issues because God's going to give you opportunities if you're prepared. If you're not prepared, he's going to find someone else to go. But you need to be prepared. Moreover, you need to develop a demeanor of caring for people, being compassionate, gentle, and respectful. People say, oh, how do you get a conversation started? I ask people questions. I mean, every person is different.

You don't want to treat the unbeliever in a cookie cut or fashion. You need to find out what kind of person you're talking to. And you're only going to find that out by asking questions. And incidentally, people like talking about themselves. So it's easy to get a conversation going. You've indicated that you really care about them and they begin to ask some appropriate questions. And also, if you ask enough questions, eventually they ask you a question. Often that opens up a door.

I mean, a lot of my airplane stories is just people overlooking my computer, seeing something I'm writing or a talk I'm preparing. and suddenly a crowd gathers around me, and I get to share with several people. And the book is filled with stories like that, but the key point is it's not going to happen if you don't prepare yourself with the reasons that they need. It may not be the reasons you need, but prepare reasons that the people around you need in order to be able to respond. And when we talk about this idea that we're commanded in Scripture to be prepared,

what would you suggest people do who aren't prepared? Because they're all different levels of preparation. There are some people that maybe they know the Bible, but they don't know how to argue, how to reason from it. There are other people that have no idea about the science that you talk about in your books. So what are some of the things that people can do to become prepared? Well, no matter how well prepared you are,

you should always have resources on your purpose. person. I mean, I carry a briefcase around me. It's filled with DVDs and books and booklets. And as I'm talking to someone, I figure, okay, what resource is going to really impact them the most? And people appreciate

that you select something that's appropriate to their questions. So you want to have a variety of resources at your disposal. And, you know, that'll help you, like, for example, if you forget something crucial, well, hey, here's something you can read. Put your contact information,

If you got questions about this, feel free to contact me. We can talk about it. And these days you've got phone, you've got Skype, you've got Zoom. There's ways of having really personal contact across the country, even months after you've given the resource of. And I find that happens to me personally. I'll be contacted by someone maybe a year after I met them on an airplane and gave them a booklet to look at.

And then they suddenly called me up and they got questions or they approached me on Facebook or Twitter with their questions. You know, we live in an amazing world today. I'm actually leading more people of faith in Christ through social media than I am through my public speaking. That wouldn't have happened 50 years ago. And I believe this is all God's hand. He's the one behind it all. Well, I love the idea that you're talking about how you do it.

I've done something similar. I often will have a copy of my Miracles book with me or something like that. or I will send people to my website or to Socrates in the city or to, there's so many great websites. I am second is terrific. I think it's valuable to have, as you say, to be prepared with that, whether it's a card with these things written down or something, because there are people that are hungry. I mean, I think the problem, Dr. Ross, is that we often feel that people are hostile. They don't want to hear it.

It's annoying. But what you're really saying is that God can and does sometimes put us directly in the path of someone who is hungry, someone who wants what it is that we have, by God's grace, discovered and possess. And I think we need to be more hopeful, thinking that there are people out there that they really are hungry for this. They really are hungry, as it says, God's written eternity on the heart. heart of every human being. Everybody, even the most hardened atheists, has a sense that there's something beyond this life. But this is why First Peter says, gentleness, respect, and a pure conscience. Often the unbeliever we're talking to is expecting us to be hostile. So we get a hostile

reaction because they're anticipating hostility. But we can diffuse that by showing compassion, gentleness, and respect. And I've seen many an atheist start off with a very angry, demeanor towards me, but after 20 minutes go by, they suddenly melt. They're listening. I love it. Forgive me. We're going to go to a quick break here. We'll be right back, folks. I'm talking to Dr. Hugh Ross. The book is Always Be Ready. Eric Metaxis, and I'm talking to my guest for this hour, Dr. Hugh Ross. He's the author of many books on science and faith, but the book I'm holding in my hand right now is called Always Be Ready, a Call to Adventurous Faith. And, uh, Dr. Ross, I've just got to ask you, there's a chapter in this book where you sort of reprise many of the reasons.

In other words, you've written many, many books. Your ministry is called Reasons to Believe, and you help equip people. But in this book, you give the shorthand, the crib notes in a sense in one of the chapters. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. I mean, I've written 17 books about scientific evidence for the Christian faith and for the accuracy what the Bible says about science, history, and geography. And one thing is we do at Reasons to Believe is we make available free chapters of our books that really helps if I'm talking to somebody in a grocery line or at the bank.

And they're interested in something I'm speaking of us is you can get a free chapter that answers your questions. Go to reasons.org slash Ross. You can get a free chapter of always be ready, the chapter on my airplane stories, by going to reasons.org slash Ross. That way, even if I don't have resources on me, I can take a free chapter of always be ready, the chapter on my and take them to a place where they can least get an idea, hey, there really are solid reasons for my faith. But yeah, I did put a chapter and always be ready,

where I give a quick summary. The evidence, for example, that there must be a causal agent beyond space and time that created our universe that establishes deism. The fine-tuning argument you talked about establishes that this God that transcends space and time must be a personal being. And the latest books I'm writing

is basically making the point every component of the universe, earth, earth, life, and every event in the universe, earth, and earth's life, plays a role in making possible the redemption of billions of human beings from their sin and evil

and enter into an eternal relationship with a creator. And it's something you see in the Bible. God begins his works of redemption before he creates anything, implying that everything that God creates has a redempt of purpose. But I've been sharing with my scientist, peers who are not Christian, saying, just try this test.

Do your scientific research from a Christian redemptive perspective and see if it doesn't make you a more successful scientists. See if it doesn't assist you in making more scientific discoveries. And it's a wonderful way just to kind of get them thinking maybe this stuff really is true. Give us an example so we can understand what you mean by that from a scientific point of view. the idea of redemption and science, typically people don't think of those together. Well, for example, I just produced a new talk where I talk about how God is the ultimate dart player, how we throw these darts of planet Earth, basically asteroids, giant asteroids that hit the Earth of just the right composition, just the right time, at just the right place,

to make possible a brief era where billions of us human beings can live and thrive and develop the technology where we can, can quickly communicate the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. Three asteroids struck the Earth in the last two and a half million years, and if those three hadn't hit at just the right time and just the right place, that if they weren't composed of just the right chemicals, we wouldn't be here today. So it's basically making the point about everything that you see in the history of the universe,

Earth, and Earth's life actually does play a role. But I'm going to push you to explain that because I have not heard of these three asteroids and how they have had any effect on where we are and who we are. Do you mind going into that? That's just fascinating. Well, I'll try to be brief. I mean, there's an asteroid that struck below the south tip of South America two and a half million years ago. It struck in 17,000 feet of ocean water.

But it created a cloud of aerosols that blocked out the light of the sun to a sufficient degree that it actually transformed the earth from being ice-free into being covered with ice, where we have an ice-age cycle. And you can't feed billions of human beings unless we live in an ice-age cycle. I mean, the food that we eat today

is a result of ice that's left over from the last ice age, melting and watering the great agricultural plains. The ice-age cycle also establishes regular fertilization events, which makes our planes fertilization. enough to grow all this food. But none of that would happen if we didn't have three asteroids that struck the Earth to cool the Earth down sufficiently to make this possible. And the last

asteroid struck 12,800 years ago, which prevented the Ice Age cycle from driving the temperature up to a peak where it would melt the polar ice cap and drop us into quickly into another Ice Age. Instead of that happening, this asteroid hit Northwest Greenland and actually prevented the temperature from going up to that peak and actually initiated 9,500 years of extreme climate stability, which is exactly what we need in the context of an ice age cycle for billions of us to live here at one time and develop the technology where the message of redemption could go to all the people, groups of the world. I can't help but be stunned that I've never heard any of this, and then I get to hear it from you in my own show. Have you

written about this? Where have you written about this specifically? Well, I introduced the topic in a book you interviewed me on Improbable Planet, but within a few months I'm coming with a new book that goes into these, because these asteroid things were just discovered literally months ago. So I got a new book coming out where I basically made the point, you know, we can drive the point even more security that every event and every component in the universe, Earth, and Earth's life plays a role in making possible our existence today. It's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. In fact, I just produced a new talk saying even the distribution of super galaxy clusters in the far distant universe plays a role in making our existence possible. Hang on a moment there. We're going to go to another break. Folks, you want to

check out reasons.org. You cannot believe this stuff. Check it out. This way. It's your chum. It's time to come blow your horn. Hey, folks, it's Eric Metaxa show. I'm talking to my friend, Dr. Hugh Ross, always absolutely fascinating to talk to him. He's a brilliant scientist who's also a man of profound faith. He combines these two things in most of his books and his talks. You can go to reasons.org to find out all kinds of stuff. But I have them on the line in his studio. I'm in my studio and we can talk with the magic of Skype. I have to ask you, Dr. Ross, when you talk about these three asteroids is fairly new information. So when did we discover this?

because it's very fascinating. Well, the latest, the one that hit Northwest Greenland, that was discovered a little less than a year ago. But it will be in my next book. And there was a lot of skepticism because people said there's no way an asteroid a mile in diameter could escape our attention. We'd create a huge crater.

We don't see the crater. The crater was 3,000 feet below the ice of North Greenland. That's why we hadn't found it. It took a NASA flame going over with ice. penetrating radar to say, wow, there's a crater there 30 kilometers across. And they did some research. They were able to date it and actually explains why we have this episode of extreme climate stability in the midst of an ice age cycle.

But that's what it takes for us to exist. It's just stunning. And what it makes me think, what a lot of your work has made me think, but particularly this now, is that the more science we know, the more we learn from science, the more proof we have for the God of the Bible, not less. It's the exact opposite of what we've been hearing in our lifetimes, that the more science we know, the less need we have for God. Precisely the opposite.

It must be embarrassing for some scientists who cling to an atheist worldview. Well, that's kind of the theme of always be ready, because when I do talk to strangers, I just make that point that the more we learn from the record of nature, the more evidence we uncover for the supernatural handiards. work of God, and they say, give me some examples. So I typically give them examples that have been discovered just a week or a month ago, making the point, literally, every day we get a stronger case for the Christian faith than we had before. I mean, that's what my Twitter site's all about.

I give people, hey, here's a research paper that just got published. Here's a link. Check it out for yourself. And that's a theme you see in Psalms and Job, that the more we learn about nature, the more evidence will see for God's supernatural handiwork. That's another place where you're guaranteed to see miracles. Often I speak on a university campus, I tell the skeptics there, if you're not convinced today, wait one month and just watch what happens as these scientific papers are published. Do you ever wonder or think that we are in the last days? Because this kind of evidence is not something that we've had throughout our history.

it's really only in the last 50 or so years roughly that you see this accumulation of evidence and it seems to be accelerating, which would lead me to believe that we're going to some kind of end point, some omega point where it just becomes undeniable to those who have an open mind. Well, you see that in Daniel 12, 4, that at the time of the end, we'll see knowledge explode everywhere over the world. but you also see the book of Ezekiel that the greater the pride of a human generation, the more evidence God provides. And I think you could argue that we're living at a time

when humans are exhibiting more pride than they ever have before. So God's punching through that with a huge amount of new scientific evidence. I think you're right. I mean, it really is extraordinary. The fine-tuned universe, again, I just wrote two chapters in my book Miracles on it. And, of course, that's just the skating across the surface. But I discovered this first when I was reading your stuff in the 90s. And then Dr. John Lennox writes about this kind of thing.

And it just becomes overwhelming and shocking that the world doesn't know. And then when I put these arguments out there, you know, the hitback, the people who just don't want to hear this, and they come up with really convoluted, sad arguments against it, it is a strange thing because it does seem. rather clear, but they seem to want to concoct ways around it and often are simply very dismissive. They don't really have the arguments. I know that Stephen Meyer, whom I expect you know, is almost done with a book called The Return of the God Hypothesis, which talks about this, that science more and more and more is pointing in this direction. But you wouldn't know about it

from watching the mainstream media, from watching any media, really, unless people go to reasons.org, be listening to this program once in a while. Well, I have 50 books of my office written by astronomers and physicists who aren't believers about this fine-tuning. I mean, you've got Paul Davies, for example, in agnostic physicists, it says the evidence is overwhelming for fine-tuning design. And so people who study this, regardless of their religious background or theology, recognize that there are these signatures of design.

And what I've been noticing lately, too, and I debate a... atheist scientists, they're appealing to non-empirical arguments for their faith. Because 100% of the actual evidence, the physical evidence, supports a theistic worldview. And so they're saying, well, let's speculate about what we don't know. But that's not a good way to live your life, to base your life on things that we don't know. I always encourage people in those kinds of debates. Let's look at what we do know. I mean, it'd be foolish, for example, to marry a woman that you've never met or don't know. Let's base our evidence of what we know. And if you want to see that, there's actually a debate you can watch on YouTube. It's between me and the British chemist,

Peter Atkins, and you get to see how, you know, he's an atheist chemist. I'm a Christian astrophysicist. How we respond to that evidence. I just find it funny and particularly painfully ironic that you have scientists moving away from empirical evidence. I mean, doesn't that tell you everything? They abandon the scientific method and everything supposedly that modern science is based on because they're conclusions that make them uncomfortable. It's a bizarre thing, but they seem to leap in the direction of what might conceivably be possible rather than, you know, take the conclusion seriously of what is probably almost certainly possible. We're going to go to another break. We'll be right

back with Dr. Hugh Ross. The new book is Always Be Ready. And the website, you've got to check it out. Reasons.org. Are you rethinking your child's educational path? Are you wondering if their current school truly supports your family's values? Well, if you're thinking about this, you're not exactly alone. The Herzog Foundation is here to help. With the Trump administration working to abolish the Federal Department of Education, hurrah, and return control to the states, there's never been a better time to explore Christian education for too long federal overreach. has dictated how children learn. But now, parents have a greater say in their kids' futures. This shift could make Christian education more attainable than ever. So the Herzog Foundation,

these are our friends. There are a trusted guide in navigating these changes. So whether your family is considering a Christian school, a hybrid model, homeschooling, Hertzsock Foundation provides the resources. Families need to make informed decisions. This is very, very important. So the Herzog Foundation, you can find them at herdssockfoundation.com. Kirtsock Foundation.com. Hey folks, I am talking to Dr. Hugh Ross. Always a joy for me to do that. Dr. Ross, there's something from your book where I think it's quoting you.

It says, the face of the man roiled with emotion. Oddly, a wave of peace and calm washed over me. An inner voice assured me no one would be harmed and showed me a man in desperate need of someone to listen and point him gently to the only. one who could heal the wounds in his soul. Did that happen to you? Yes, I knocked on this door, and there's a man that opened the door, and he had a loaded gun pointing right at me. When were you going to bring that up? That's, I think we should have led with that. Are you kidding? So you're knocking on doors, trying to share your faith, and a man is pointing a loaded

gun at you? No kidding. No kidding. And, but I just had the sense that I was a no risk or danger. So I just began to talk to him. He says, who do you think I, what do you think I am? He says, I thought you were an undercover police officer. I said, if I was a police officer, what would you have done? He said, I would have blown you away.

But when he found out I wasn't a police officer, he waved me in with his gun into his home. I sat down. The gun was still on the table. And it took me a half hour to persuade him to put the gun to the side. but he told me his story. He had been hurt. A lot of neighbors had called the police on him.

And so just listening to his story, turns out he was really open to the message I had to come with him. And he invited me back several times, got to talk to some of his relatives. And none of that would have happened if I'd run away from that door when that gun was pointed at me. And again, it wasn't me. The Holy Spirit told me,

you've got nothing to fear, just stay calm. and it was my calm demeanor that really reassured him that I was not someone there to threaten him. We hear extremely rarely, if ever, of Christians like you, going door to door, knocking on doors. It's a bold thing. It's a beautiful thing. I've never done anything quite like that. Is this something that folks in your church do? Because this is a wonderful thing. it seems somehow quaint and old-fashioned and beautiful, and we don't live in a time where you hear about this kind of thing. Well, I train the people at church, look, we have to go out without any ulterior motive.

We're not going to mention our church. If they ask us questions, we can invite them to a Bible study that's in their neighborhood. But we were basically there making ourselves available to find out, number of one, we'd ask some questions to see what kind of spiritual state they were in, made ourselves available to answer questions. You know, in a typical Saturday afternoon, we'd be maybe getting to three doors because people were so hungry to talk to us.

And literally every time we did that, our teams would see people come to faith in Christ. There were weekends, and we saw more than a dozen come to Christ. We wound up planting a church as a result of just going door to door in this one neighborhood. We wound up planting six Bible studies and said, we need to get these Bible studies together. and I know what happened is we would lead someone to Christ and they say could you come back next

Saturday I want to invite my friends to hear what you got to say so again just like what you see in the book of Acts but it's only going to happen if you're prepared to go and if you're prepared to share the reasons that they need I just I love this we're out of time but uh Dr. Hugh Ross it is it's my privilege to get to talk to you and to share you with my guests thank you for your new book always be ready i hope folks will get a copy of that and i hope everyone will go to your website reasons dot org there is a ton of great stuff there that will encourage you and equip you dr ross god bless you thanks again oh you're very welcome and they can go to reasons dot org slash ross and get a free chapter as you know our friend mike lindel has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their

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