The Eric Metaxas Show - Jeff Myers

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Jeff Myers of Summit Ministries explores the idea of what "Truth" means to people today with his brand-new book, "Truth Changes Everything."

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Taxis show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Folks, welcome back. This is our two. Lots more crazy stuff to share. Albin, I got stuff to share. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get this in.

It's nuts. It's nuts. Maybe it'll have to leak over until tomorrow. Yeah. Because in a couple of minutes, we're talking to our friend Jeff Myers for the rest of the hour. I mentioned the video, the procedure. Folks, this is an important assignment, very important, that you send that video to everyone you know. I talked about it before. It's called the procedure. It's four minutes long.

Got to get the word out about that video. Got to send it to everyone you know who is going to vote. Tell them, you've got to watch this before you vote. Know what you're voting for. You need to know. You need to understand what you're voting for. All right. So, Albin, yes.

Today is the 30th. The 34th. I'm sorry, today's the 31st, which means it's what we call All Hallows Eve or Halloween. Okay. All Hallows Eve. Yeah. A couple things we've got to talk about with All Hallows Eve, with Halloween. But we also have to say that typically October 31st is celebrated as Reformation Day.

That's right. Why? Why? Why? Why? That's what I want to know why. Well, it's pretty simple. Everybody says that's the day Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. Except guess what? That probably never happened.

At least it didn't happen on that day. The reason everybody says it happened on that day is because on that day, Martin Luther did something we know he did on that day. He posted a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz. And anyway, it's all in my book. If you subscribe to my newsletter, I sent a whole thing today about Martin Luther. I've been reading my own Martin Luther book. I know, you told me. I wrote it five years ago.

That's right. It came out five years ago. Yeah, because it was a 500th anniversary. Five anniversary. And I thought, you know, maybe I should reread it or should read it because I, you know, I tend out to read my books. But I've been reading it, and it's kind of funny because I've been loving it because there's so much crazy stuff in it. Like really funny, crazy, unbelievable. But it's every word is true. I don't, I don't like it when people exaggerate or even shade the truth. I just, it should be exactly what we know.

And I debunk a lot of stuff in the book. Yeah. And five years ago, I interviewed you. We played it as a fun facts Friday. And there might be a surprise for listeners tomorrow. We might be re-airing both hours. Yeah. There might be. November 1st, All Saints Day, we might be. Trick or treat? That's right. You want a treat? This will be a treat. You better fly right. Otherwise, you're going to get tricked. And by the way, I am from Terrytown, which is the hometown of Washington Irving, of who, of course, wrote.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. And tonight, I'm hoping to watch The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, which is my favorite movie. The Ghost of Mr. Chicken. That's starring Don Nott. That's right. Who's your spiritual father? That's right. And his name is Luther Hags in the movie.

So Luther going along with Martin Luther. Okay. So tonight it's on something. TV channel tonight? Well, I've got the Oh, you've got the DVD. Okay, so the Ghost and Mr. Chicken is your favorite Halloween film? No, it's my favorite movie. Of all time? Yes,

that in life is beautiful. And White Christmas, those three. Wow. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Yeah, loved it. Love it. Still love it. Who came up with that title? The Ghost I know. And Mr. Chicken. That's very funny. Don Nott's is like the greatest. Yeah, he is.

So, there's so much to talk about here. I I want to hit everything. Yeah. Let me just mention, I'm only going to mention this. Okay. We'll talk about this later in the week. But did you notice?

And ladies and gentlemen, this is again why you need to be really alert and active as an American citizen. The lies that are being promoted, it is horrifying, it is despicable, but it's so bad that pretty much everybody's waking up. So when Nancy Pelosi's husband had some incident with someone was a person. that his friend, his lover, an enemy. Nobody knows. We used to have journalism. And we used to say, oh, here's what happened. We know nothing.

But immediately, people like Rob Reiner, Meathead from the, All in the Family, and others are pushing this narrative that this was, you know, it's January 6th. It's Trump kind of ginning up hatred of Nazism. Like, they get right on that. Like these are the old boomers that they're too tired. to think. And so they just kind of like rehash that it was the Jews that were behind, you know, whatever it is, whatever canard, whatever they need to push. Then you look into the details and you find out there's some weird details that make you wonder what really happened. We don't know. So we're not going to talk about that right now. No, it's kind of like another Jesse Smollett moment. You create something and turn it. Well, that's the point. It's like, we don't know.

Is it a 100% hoax? We don't know. 50% hoax. Is it the cover-up? Okay, here we go. We've got to talk about a few of the things briefly, quickly. I mentioned that I was in Pennsylvania at Harrisburg. So I posted some of the stuff on my social media.

I posted, okay, the day that I got there, when I spoke in Harrisburg at this wonderful church life center, I posted. that video. My friend Malachi O'Brien was there. Malachi, we're going to have him on the program to discuss this. He is running a marathon a day. Did you hear that, ladies and gentlemen, 26.2 miles per day. Wow.

Trying to set the Guinness Book World Record, okay? I think the record is 60 days. Anyway, the point is he's up to like day 24 or something like that. So about four days ago, I ran with him. Of course, I only ran about five and a half miles with him. But I had a video of myself. I posted it on an Instagram. And it was just so fun to be a part of what I think will be an historic effort.

But he was there with Doug Maastriano. It was incredible. So then after that, Suzanne and I drove to York, Pennsylvania to visit my sister-in-law, Goanne and my brother-in-law drew, and we hung out with them. Then we drove to, well, I was going to say Valley Forge. Actually, it was King of Prussia, PA. And we went to a hotel there. And the next morning at 5am, I'm not a morning person. I woke up at 5 a.m. to speak at an evangelistic breakfast in King of Prussia. It's a Valley Forge prayer breakfast. And it was delightful. It was so delightful. But then later that day, I'm sorry, when I was done signing books, we had to jump in a car and motor up to Manhattan to pick up Little Georgie.

And then that was like two hours in traffic. Then we had to go two hours to Danbury, Connecticut. So I was so exhausted after getting up that hour and driving all that day that I just about died on what day was that? Thursday, Friday, Friday, right? But I got to tell you this. When I was in Connecticut, my father tells me, he says, did you see the flowers downstairs? Okay?

This is no joke. This is like out of some fairy tale. I decided sometime, I think, in the early summer, that we needed to have some morning glories around the house in Connecticut, Danbury. So I went to two nurseries and bought a bunch of morning glories and planted them everywhere. Okay. They weren't growing too successfully. eventually they growed and then they really took off because they really grow but no flowers it was the

most bizarre thing i said that's the whole point we've got vines but no flowers and they grew they grow like weeds at some point right my father says go downstairs i go downstairs into the basement this is no joke these these things are so aggressive it's like animals they're so aggressive they somehow found chinks in the wall. The windows are all closed. They grew into the house. Wow. Into the basement.

It was like sleeping beauty, like 100 years of thorns and stuff. It was the most bizarre thing. And there were flowers inside the house. They just needed some warmth. Only inside the house. But it was so crazy. Inside flowers. With my mom and dad.

And your dad's doing good then? My dad's doing all right. I mean, just a blessing to be with them. There's so much more. Yeah, you know, SalemNow.com, we've got to get this in because there are two great movies. No Vacancy, starring Dean Kane and Sean Young and also Border Battle. Charlie Kirk is involved in that, so you know it's great. I forgot about that.

I want to talk about all kinds of films. Oh, first place to start, SalemNow.com. If you're not aware of it, now you are Salem now.com. I want to talk about films. I want to talk about everything. Salem now.com. Check it out. Happy Reformation Day. And we'll see you. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best.

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Patriotmobile.com slash Eric. Patriotmobile.com slash Eric or call 972 Patriot. Hey there, folks. Welcome. As promised, my guest right now is Dr. Jeff Myers. He's a friend. He's a president of Summit Ministries as an educator and entrepreneur. He's become one of America's most respected authorities on youth leadership. And he's been praised by people like James Dobson. Hey, if Jim Dobson thinks that you're something, you're something. So I want to say to Dr. Jeff Myers, welcome back. Eric, great to be back with you. I'm amazed you have another book out, a new book. It's called Truth Changes Everything. And that is itself simply true, right? That when you're dealing with truth, it affects everything, it changes everything, it touches everything.

So what is this book about? I mean, it's a fascinating title, but what's the subtitle? Well, the subtitle is how people of faith can transform the world in times of crisis. So looking at the times, I just thought, you know, I want to go back in history and see, has it ever been this bad? And it turns out it's been a lot worse at various times in history than what we experience at the present time. And it was people of faith who stepped in and really changed the whole course of the world. And it was just that it was the truth has found in Jesus.

So they believe truth exists. Truth exists as a logical proposition. It exists in mathematical formulas. also exists in a person. It's Jesus, and people who believe that Jesus is the truth are the ones who gave us modern science, the arts, education, our justice system, our political structures, everything that we take for granted that we don't want to lose. That is an amazing thing to hear you say. I'm saying similar things everywhere I go, because I think that there are many people who, it's really bad theology. They seem to think that the truth of Jesus,

only affects us in the religious sphere. It's a theological thing. I'm just going to preach the gospel. And you think, wait a second. No, if you bring the gospel of the kingdom into the world, it changes everything. Slavery will get abolished. Science will be invented. Most people are unaware that the truth that is Jesus will change everything. So it's one of the reasons I was so happy to see the title of your book, Truth Changes Everything, because we are living in times where people need to get this, need to understand that if you're living your faith out, you're going to be doing more than simply leading people to Jesus. You're going to affect everything, and the people whom you lead to Jesus will themselves affect their own spheres. And this is something you're saying it's played, it's played itself out in history. Talk a little bit about that because some people just aren't aware that this is true. Well, the amazing thing is when you look back at history and you just ask the question, who was this Jesus follower and what did they do and how did that change the course of the world? It's stunning.

There are about 75 stories that I'm able to tell in the book. I thought about you a lot as I was telling these stories, and I thought, I'm going to be sure to tell stories that Eric hasn't told in his books. And there's some fun ones in there. But John Wickcliffe is a really good example. He was a professor at Oxford University. He wanted to translate the Bible into English at the time. that was just not thinkable. Latin was considered to be the perfect language. If you

translated the Bible from Latin into English, it would be like adding curse words every third or fourth word. So they didn't want to do it. But he said Moses heard from God in his own language. The disciples heard from Jesus in their own language. The people today need to be able to hear from God in their own language. Moses didn't speak Latin. Jesus didn't speak to his disciples in Latin. It's kind of interesting. But it's kind of bizarre, isn't it? How culture warps people into thinking there's nothing to discuss. It's got to be in Latin and how it's revolutionary. It was revolutionary for John Wickcliffe to suggest this idea. And he got in trouble, a little trouble. Yeah, that's right. He could have been burned at the stake for this. But, you know, it is typical of each age that we think

we're the best that's ever existed. But he had to really standardize the English language in order to print the Bible. A lot of people don't know that he actually invented 1,100 words in English, including the words mystery, communication, persuasion, even the word wordy, to put the Bible into English, he thereby standardized the English language, which became the number one trade language in the world, and it still is to this day. And the entire course of history has been changed. I love nothing better than learning something new. What you have just said to me, I'm a little bit astonished that I have never heard that before. That is an amazing thing that John Wickliff, by translating the Bible from Latin into English,

invented words. Now, by the way, we know that's exactly what happened about 100 years later when Luther translated the Bible into German. He sort of created the modern German language because there were all these dialects and he had to kind of do what hadn't been done before. But you're telling me, Wycliffe himself did this with the English language.

I'm ashamed that I've never heard that. That is wonderful to know. Well, as many books as you've written on history, I'm glad I can share a little bit of new information. But you know, you think about language itself. When people say today, speak your truth instead of saying, as we used to, seek the truth, they're saying there's no truth that actually exists. And that's now a majority viewpoint. The balance has now tipped.

And the most of the people in this country now say that truth is up to the individual. If that's true, then there's no point. even communicating that or talking about it because our words have no meaning if there is no such thing as truth. So it starts with language. But in the book, I just go on to science. You've told a lot of those stories as well, the arts, a fascinating story that I had never heard told before, just about how beauty can be communicated through Jesus followers and how that can literally change the course of artistic history. So it's just, it's fun. We can. We can. individually make a difference. Talk a little bit about science. I mean, in my book is atheism,

dead. I talk about some of this, but, you know, I want to hear from you because it's so, it's really against the spirit of our age. The spirit of our age, really since the enlightenment, many people have brought into this lie that science and even reason are somehow at odds with faith. We know that's not only not true. The opposite is true. Our faith is what enabled us to do science and so and so forth. But you do, you talk about that in this book? I do. There are different ways of knowing. Science is a way of knowing, but history and theology and philosophy are also ways of knowing. The rabbi Lord Jonathan Sachs, who was the Jewish leader in London, very well respected, passed away a couple of years ago, said science takes things apart to see how they work.

Religion puts things together to see what they mean. So there's a difference between the two. but if you look back at the history of it, and you know, Rodney Stark, who was recently passed a historian and sociologists of Baylor University, he said of the 52 individuals whose inventions and discoveries constituted the foundation of modern science. Only one of them was an atheist. Fifty of them were known to be believing Christians. Well, how? Why? Well, because they believed that the world actually exists, first of all. Second, the world is not a God. There is a God. He made the world, but the world is not God. So you don't have to be, you don't have to worry about studying it. Third, there's stability in the world because there's design. If you do an experiment at time A

and an experiment at time B, you're actually experimenting in the same world, which is not something the ancient Greeks were confident of. And on and on, all of these assumptions are either consistent with or derived from scripture. And it took people who not only believe that truth exists, but that truth is personal. Truth is Jesus. If Jesus is the truth, then he wants me to be the very best scientist I can be.

Some cool stories. You know the story of Robert Boyle, the founder of modern chemistry. That kid could have turned out to be a trust fund baby. I mean, he grew up in this 20,000 square foot castle that had been built by King John. His father had purchased it from Sir Walter Raleigh. And he said, now I'm not going to live that way. I have all the money that I could ever need,

but I'm not going to live that way. In fact, he wrote a book called The Christian Virtuoso, How to Be an Experimental Philosopher, that was his word for scientist, and be one who glorifies God and loves Jesus at the same time. These people did not see a conflict between their science and faith. In fact, it was their faith that made their science possible. And Boyle invented, I always forget that the branch of science that he, invented, but these are as seminal as it gets. I mean, without these folks, there is no science. Modern science was invented by profound men of Christian faith. We need to know that. We need to say it over and over and over again to those people who would lie and distort the truth and claim somehow that

faith is at odds with science. That's not even close to true. That's what I kind of find so funny, Jeff, is that it's the very opposite that's true. In fact, John Lennox has said that it is atheism that is incompatible with science. We need to make that case that if you're an atheist, you don't believe in meaning. You don't believe in transcendent truth. You don't believe in truth. What do you believe in? Why would the universe make sense? Why should you examine it and expect it to make sense and reveal its secrets? Why shouldn't it just be a absurd. You know, we need to push those who purport to be atheists and say, you're not making, you're not making sense. And it is, as you just said, absolutely Christians, Christians,

Christians who invented what we call modern science today. We'll be back. We're talking to Dr. Jeff Myers. The book is called Truth Changes Everything. You've heard and seen the raw, uncut truth about the brave men and women, patriots that were wrongfully arrested on January 6th. by the tyrannical Biden regime and corrupt DOJ. But with your support, Jake Lang and all the January Sixers can find justice. Here is his message. Hello, my name is Jake Lang. I'm a January 6th political prisoner who has been held in solitary confinement for over 21 months

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We need your support. The need is great. The time to donate is now. Thank you, and God bless you. Folks, welcome back. We're talking to our friend, Dr. Jeff Myers, who's written a book called Truth Changes. everything, how people of faith can transform the world in times of crisis. So, Jeff, this is a book of

stories, and I love that. It's great to communicate in stories. Tell us who are some of the figures that you mentioned in this world and how their faith came to transform a certain field or a certain period in which they lived? You know, Eric, one of my favorite stories in the book, and one that I had not heard told before was of Antonio Volvaldi. He was a priest. not very good at his job because he was so consumed with music. He would, in fact, be conducting a mass and just leave right in the middle to go right down some musical passages. And the head of his diocese took compassion on him, said he can't help.

He's not in his right mind because he's a musician. And he wondered how he could take his Christian vocation as calling to be pastoral and his desire to be a musician and put them together. Well, Eric, he ended up in Venice becoming a commens. becoming a composer for orphans. There's a large orphanage in Venice called Hospitali della Pietta. Thousands of boys and girls would be dropped off there because they had physical defects or maybe their mothers

were involved in prostitution. Hospitales de la Piaeta. Hospitale del Pietta. Where is it in Florence, Venice? It's in Venice. In Venice. It's in Venice. And what time period did Vivaldi live in?

So this was the early 1600s. Okay. Well, the boys could go out and get a job. job at age 16, but what about the girls? There was no potential for them. Many of them had physical defects. They had all kinds of difficulties. They would end up on the streets. They didn't have enough money for a dowry, so they couldn't get married. So he turned them, Eric, into the finest orchestras and choirs in all of Europe. And I was first a read in Rousseau's book, The Confessions. He mentions having gone there, and you kind of traced this back and you realize Vivaldi became

a great composer because he had to compose so much to keep all of his choirs and orchestras of orphans busy. And they literally traveled. They traveled throughout Europe. They became the most famous musicians of the age. And Vivaldi became so productive as a result. You know, writing a concerto, which is an orchestral piece that features a solo instrument, is like writing a book. It's very difficult to do. Well, he wrote 500 concertos that we know of, and many of them are specifically designated as having been developed for certain performers who were in his orphan choirs and orchestras. In one six-year period, he developed a new concerto every two weeks. So it's this great convergence of ministry and music where he became a great composer because he had to fulfill his ministry. these young girls received a purpose and a sense of direction in life they otherwise never would have had.

And now we know of the Baroque period of music as having transformed the whole musical landscape for all of history. And it was Antonio Vivaldi along with Johann Sebastian Bach, who did it. I was going to say, and he would have been a contemporary roughly of Bach's. And Bach was a man of tremendous Christian faith who created some of the greatest music that's ever been created. And it really did come out of his faith as well. He wasn't just, I mean, because we have this idea, this modern idea of the artist that goes off and expresses himself. But these were men of profound faith. And writing, in the case of Bach, it was for, it was church music. It was ecclesiastical music. It was meant to draw people closer to God. And

some of it is obviously the greatest music ever. So you talk about music, you talk about science. What else do you talk about in this book? It's called Truth Changes Everything. Yeah, and Truth Changes Everything. I decided we have to tackle politics. I get it. I know a lot of people think that it's just so irritating to keep talking about politics over and over again.

But, you know, take, for example, the founding fathers of the United States of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, since 51 of them, possibly 53 of them, were known to be believing Christians. And of the larger group of 204 founding fathers, virtually all of them were members of Christian denominations. Now, obviously, going to church doesn't make you a Christian, but it does change what you look at for your founding sources. And one political science history professor, Donald Lutz, looked at 15,000 documents. the founding fathers quoted from.

And he found that they quoted from the Bible more than all of the others put together. A lot of people today think, oh, you know, we have the freedom to reject God in this country. And God's, you know, yeah, we say, sure, we pledge allegiance, and God is here and there in God we trust.

But that's all just historical stuff. That doesn't really matter. But to the founders, it made a great deal of difference because they thought there were principles in the law of Moses that could help make a great society. Now, Eric, I majored in political science in college. No one ever told me that.

No one ever told me that it was the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments and so forth, that formed the basis of the greatest nation on earth. But that's what happened. Well, or they act like it's kind of incidental, that it's not central. And I wrote a book called If You Can Keep It, where I really discovered,

in the course of writing that book, what you're talking about in this book is that it is the truth of the Bible that leads us to be able to be self-governing. So anybody who thinks, oh, I think self-governing and liberty, it's great stuff. What does it have to do with faith? Whether you like it or don't, it has absolutely everything to do with faith. And even if you're not a person of faith, you need to know history and you need to know that this is true. You need to know how it works, how it came about, and how it could not have come about otherwise. You need to do the math. We'll be right back talking to Dr. Jeff Myers. The new book, Truth Changes Everything.

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Hey there, folks. As you know, most people in America, are under the delusion that truth is kind of up to the individual, that it's subjective. There's no such thing as the truth, that it's your truth or my truth, which most of us know in five minutes you can figure out that doesn't make sense. Either one plus one equals two,

either there are things that are either true or aren't. But we've kind of, the zeitgeist tells us, well, that's an old idea. It's not an old idea. It's called truth. Truth is not something that's malleable, what your favorite ice cream is or your favorite color. Those are things that we can have different opinions on. But there is this thing called truth that's come under attack.

So it's one of the reasons I'm so proud of my friend, Dr. Jeff Myers, with Summit Ministries, has written a book called Truth, Changes Everything. So, Jeff, let's talk about some more of the stories in truth changes everything. what other spheres have been affected by men and women of faith? Well, you know, if you trace back even things like justice, so it just, it probably goes without saying, but if there's no such thing as truth, there's no such thing as justice. Justice is only your opinion.

It is kind of like the ice cream that you choose to eat. And Peter Rumseroquen, who founded the sociology department at Harvard University, said, look, if you give up on the idea of absolutes, only thing you have left is physical force. So you end up in a brutal kind of world just because you don't want to acknowledge that truth exists. Now, that doesn't make it easy to find. But people, I went back into the 1940s and the aftermath of World War II, the United States was in a position of having to try the Nazis. Well, what were they going to try them based on? because the Nazi's defense was everything we did was inside of our sovereignly controlled territory.

And so it was our nation. You can't tell us what to do. And by the way, by what standard are you going to judge us? Are you going to say there is an absolute standard of right or wrong? Or do we all get to decide what is true for ourselves? And the American prosecutors were seized with indecision in the situation. They didn't know how to approach it. What they finally decided is, basically, because we won, we get to judge you. Well, which begs the question, if the Nazis had won, would they get to judge us? You see, and that was the situation they went through. Out of that time came the United Nations charter for human rights. And if you look at it's really interesting.

It says there are certain rights. These are just human rights. Humans have this value. But if you look at the introduction to the document, it says because the signing nations agree on this, it is true. Not because it's actually true and we have discovered and now know that it's true, but just because we agree on it, which obviously means if they didn't agree on it, it wouldn't be true. So you look all the way back and there's some amazing people in history, Hugo Grotius is an example. It's a guy was a child prodigy, developed what we think of as international law.

You look at people like Samuel Rutherford, who was a Presbyterian pastor, wrote a book called Lex Rex. The Law is the King. King Charles II was so angry at him. He sent his soldiers to arrest him. He was going to bring him back to London, put him on trial, you know, give him a fair trial and hang them, as they say. And Samuel Rutherford died before the soldiers arrived and said, I had been summoned by a higher authority. Those were his words on his deathbed. But that book Lex Rex, all of a sudden, you know, the horse is out of the barn.

The king is not the law anymore. The law is the king. All of that, Eric, was the heritage of Christians who just believed that Jesus is the truth. Because, you know, in Greek times, yeah, truth exists, but you can't discover it because there's nothing personal about it. It's so other. It is so out there. But it was Christians who came along and said, no, no, truth is right here with us.

It changed the way they viewed human nature, changed the way they developed medicine and charity and all of these things. You know, Catherine of Siena is one of the people I talk about in the book. Just a wonderful story of a woman who ran toward people who were dying from the plague rather than away from them.

And she was asked, why? Why are you doing that? You're going to die. Why are you running toward people who are sick? And she said, well, Jesus is with the suffering and I want to be with Jesus. So if you want to be with Jesus, you've got to go toward the suffering.

not away from them. And I think that's what we need to do in our own time. Engage, not escape. Well, I mean, of course, this is the history of Europe, the history of the world, is that the Christian faith more and more finds its way into every sphere and then transforms the world. I mean, hospitals were started by Christians. Most people aren't aware that all of these things that we now somehow take for granted, they didn't always exist. and that people of faith brought them into existence. When we talk about self-government, when we talk about respecting the individual,

the sanctity of human life, all of these ideas come out of the Bible and took many of them a long time to come out of the Bible and to overtake the lies and the confusion. But it's undeniable. It's the history of the modern world. And it's just so funny that we're living in a time when people are divorcing the things that are really the fruits of Christian faith from the Christian faith

and then setting them at odds with the Christian faith. I mean, you could see this in the world of medicine. We now have doctors and medical professionals practically bullying women into aborting their children or into suggesting that a young woman have a sex change operation. It's an extraordinary thing once you become unmoored from the truth. of God, it's an awful thing. So it's kind of important to me that you've written this book, truth changes everything, because we need to remind ourselves of what is true and where we get, what we know to be good, where it came from. It's exactly right. No nation has ever gone

as far in the direction of error as ours has gone and survived unless it reclaimed truth. And who's going to do this, except for people who not only recognize the truth exists the facts are there, science and history are real, but that Jesus as a person came into the flesh and he is here with us even in the times of crisis that we face. That's the hope of the Christian message. And Eric, it is there. Brian Grimm's a very well-respected sociologist. He found that if you take all of the things that Christians do to make the world better, it adds up in America alone to $2.67 trillion of economic value. That would make it about 20% of the United States. States economy. There are 130,000 addiction recovery programs at churches in the United States of America.

You go on down the list and you think Christians are doing the right things, but don't get discouraged. Don't think that in times of crisis, we just have to give up because it's all over. I want to come right back to the point you're making. Just got a short segment. Folks, don't go away. The book is truth changes everything. Dr. Jeff Myers of Summit Ministries. Hey there folks, talking to our friend Dr. Jeff Myers with Summit Ministries. The new book is Truth Changes Everything. Jeff, at the end of the last segment, you were talking about something, and I thought we need to give that a little bit more time.

Please say that again what you were saying. It's so important. You know, Eric, I think a lot, I've heard a lot of people say, well, you know, that's all Christian history, but Christians today aren't doing anything that really makes a difference. And I was mentioning that there's this well-known, very well-respected, sociologist named Brian Grimm, who just decided to look at that, and he found that if you add up the economic value of all the things Christians just in the United States are doing, it adds up to

$2.67 trillion of economic value every year, which would make it about 20% of the United States economy. There are 130,000 addiction programs that are based in churches in the United States of America. the United States government gives away about $33 billion in aid to the overseas poor. American Christians give away $44 billion every year in economic aid. So we are doing a lot of the right things, Eric. I just think people get so discouraged, and they think, truth is lost, times of crisis will never be able to survive this. Just be like the people in history who believe that Jesus is the truth.

Be the very best you that you can be. whatever vocation you're called to. And then God does the work. I come away from this feeling a lot more optimistic than when I started. Well, listen, the negativity and the hopelessness that a lot of Christians are kind of giving voice to, it is sinful, folks. It is wrong. We are in a battle. And if you cannot be a happy warrior, praising God in the midst of the battle, if all you can do is say, we're losing, we're losing, have you seen the polls or whatever, who can't, cares. Your job is to do the right thing with joy unto God, knowing that he's going to use it. And I really have to say, you know, Jeff, that so many people who have that attitude, they're actually making the

problem worse, ironically, because they're saying, well, what's the point in fighting? We've lost the battle. You will lose the battle if you don't fight, and if you have that negative attitude and you always focus on these negative things. Because everywhere I look, I get invited to all of these events where I'm the speaker at something recently. I was in Houston speaking at an event for the Mighty Oaks Foundation. Unbelievable heroes. A guy named Chad Robeshoe. They bring the love of Jesus and the message of the gospel to warriors dealing with PTSD.

It is an overwhelmingly successful ministry completely funded by Christians who believe in giving to help those who are suffering. And I thought to myself, the good that that one or is. organization is doing. All of the pregnancy centers around the country, everywhere I look, I see hope, I see people living out their faith. It's what you just said. People living out their faith. It's not going to be covered by the New York Times. They are living out their faith. They're putting their money and their time for God's services to help strangers. And it's a beautiful thing. And we need to know that that's God's will for us. We're not supposed to sit in our hands and complain and think, well, I better get my beef jerky and my water purification tables and go hide

in the caves because we've lost the battle. We've not lost the battle, but if you have that attitude, we may lose the battle because of that attitude. The book is truth changes everything. We've just got seconds left. For whom did you write the book? This is for the average reader. This is not for youth ministry, obviously. No, this is for people who wonder what difference they can make in times of crisis. And the message of truth changes everything is times of crisis are the very best time in all of history to stand up and speak the truth. We live in the best time imaginable. Amen. And God calls it to, calls us to this battle for such a time as this. This is a book of hope. Truth changes everything by Dr. Jeff Myers. Jeff, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks, Eric.