The Eric Metaxas Show - Jerry Jenkins

Episode Date: April 1, 2021

Jerry Jenkins has written a novelization of "The Chosen," the popular crowd-funded drama of the life of Jesus and the early church, and talks about his work with his son, Dallas, as well as his collaboration on the "Left Behind" series.

to the Eric Metaxus show with your host, Eric Metaxus. Folks, it's the Eric Mataxis show. I don't know what hour this is, but it's definitely one of our two hours. I will also say this. It's highly possible that Dana Perino is going to be on with us today. But here's the issue. Whoever's on next, let me tell you who's on right now. Have you heard of sight and sound theaters in Branson, Missouri?

Have you heard of sight and sound theaters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania? Have you heard of Jesus? That's the title of the production. Josh, Inc. is with us. He is the president and chief story officer. So he claims, Josh, welcome. Hello, Eric. It's great to be on your show.

Well, listen, you've been on here before. You guys do outrageous stuff. I never know quite how to describe it. But this Friday, good Friday, and throughout Easter weekend, this is obviously Holy Week. You're doing something really special. It's called Jesus. us. So for people who know nothing about what you're doing, where they can watch it live

Friday, which is this Friday at 7 p.m. But tell us what is it? Oh, my goodness. Well, real quick story, site and sound theaters has been around for 45 years since 1976. We bring the Bible to life on stage. People call us the Cecil B. DeMille on stage. It's bigger than life. It's 300 foot a wraparound stage. It's 65 plus professional actors. Wait, wait, wait, 300 foot wrap around stage. Correct. So like when we do the Noah show, you're in the arc. When we do the parting of the Red Sea and the Moses show, you are in the Red Sea.

And in the Jesus show, which is the one you're referring to, I didn't want to create a show where people see a two-dimensional version of the Jesus story. I wanted them to be immersed in the story. And the way that Satan's sound can pull that off is by doing, we have side stages that are 100, feet long each and then the main stage is 100 feet wide 30 foot high proscenium and then we have the world's largest flying LED screen as our backdrop which really what what the world's largest flying LED screen so you've measured the other flying LED screens and they're shorter than the one that you guys have is that right that's right that's right no we were not out to try to break any records we don't try to impress we say sight and sound is where spectacle meets story

and not just story, but stories that change people's lives. That's why we are in this. But we did find out that the band, you two, has the largest LED screen, but site and sound theaters has the largest flying LED screen. So who know? You two. Those punks, look, you cannot compare an LED screen to a flying LED screen. That's like comparing an airplane that doesn't fly to a plane that flies.

What good is a plane that doesn't fly? So you have a flying LED screen. This sounds dangerous. Has it ever harmed anyone? No, we had the best of the best build it for us. Here in Lancaster County, we are in our backyard. Our companies that, you know, create this kind of equipment for, you know, the biggest bands of the world. So this is quite an interesting melting pot of talents here in Lancaster County.

And with our theater out in Branson, Missouri, it's a replica of our theater here in Lancaster. Site and Sound employees nearly 700 employees. and we run about 11 shows a week. But the cool thing happened, one cool thing that happened during COVID, which how many people can start a sentence like that? Yeah. We got shut down March 12th, you know, doors shut,

like every other theater in the nation, the world. We've always wanted to do live broadcast, but we never really had the capacity, the bandwidth, to do it because we're building these stage shows. But in 2020, we had the Jesus show filmed and we were pursuing getting that show out in movie theaters, the live capture of the stage production, which we did that on Easter weekend, which was great.

But in September, we presented Queen Esther, our live stage show, with cameras that captured it and broadcast it live to over 100 countries in one sitting. A hundred countries. Josh, you guys have exploded. Yeah, we have. This is absolutely amazing. And this is under your leadership.

I hope you're being compensated. Seriously, what you guys have done, I want to be clear for folks listening. So this is a live event. It is going to be playing this Friday, good Friday, obviously 7 p.m. live, but throughout the weekend, and people are saying, how can I find it? You have to go to site hyphen sound.com, site hyphen sound.com. It's live 7 p.m. Good Friday. And it is available throughout the weekend.

site-h-sound.com. Site-dash-down.com. We're incredibly thrilled to present this live show on TVs. If you go to site-dash-down.com, it'll show you exactly how to link to this to watch it live. But not only is the nation not showing live theater in general, but we're doing live theater and then we're broadcasting it internationally. And it's getting incredible buzz, and we're thrilled to be doing it over Easter weekend. this story of Jesus, this love that rescues.

It's the greatest rescue story of all time. We know that there are endless sermons that we could preach on Jesus, but our portrayal, sight and sound, was to show the greatest rescue story of all time. And it is for the whole family of all ages, and I can't think of a better way to have your family enter into Good Friday and Easter than to circle the TV and watch Jesus live at site dash down.com. Is it now, do you have to have like a huge?

huge curved TV or can you use a regular TV? You can use a regular TV. You can use an iPhone. You can use your iPad. It translates really well. It's going to be less immersive if you watch it on a phone. But I get what you're saying. So site hyphen sound.com.

You say dash. Technically, you're quite wrong, sir. A dash is two hyphens next to each other. Okay. And really we're talking about, I say that just because I'm a writer. I have to care about typography and about all this dingbats and all the technical terms. And Eric, I'm glad that you care, and I'm glad that I just got schooled by Eric Mataxis. I mean, seriously, like I was thinking, like, I don't want to correct, Josh.

This is his thing, but I want to tell people that a hyphen, you know, it's the little one is the hyphen. When you put two of them together, that becomes like a dash and no one cares. Why am I saying this? But I just want to make sure people go to site hyphen sound.com and they actually get this. Let me say this too. This is so immersive for people. It's like you're in the middle of it. And I heard, somebody said, I think was Albin, that during rehearsals while you're doing this,

somebody in the audience had their ear cut off in the Garden of Getsemini scene because Peter, the character playing Peter, he just got too close to, you know, to the audience. Is that true? Did somebody lose in the ear? That is not true. But we do definitely represent that that moment happened. That's actually a fun, cool little story within a story. Malkis, the Pharisee that got his ear cut off and was healed in the garden, we have him be a recurring character at the end of the show when Peter gives his sermon

that, you know, changes the world, you know, the 5,000 people that heard his sermon. And he's one of the people that comes to a salvation knowledge of Jesus Christ. And so that's what's so cool about our shows is with the, we take the biblical account. That is absolutely our guiding light. And we don't do anything. We don't create any fictional events or characters that take away from honoring the biblical text. And so anybody that we add, any event that we add within our shows is only to amplify the theme that's already been baked into these Bible stories that have been changing lives for thousands of years. And I say that all the time, Eric, we don't take credit for these stories.

They've been around for thousands of years changing lives. our calling and our mission is to creatively portray them in a spectacular way that the young and the old can come get immersed in the Bible stories and have a life change. Well, I just, I love the idea that you're giving people something to do at 7 p.m. on Good Friday. You know, some people, they would be going to the Golden Corral and that cannot compete. I also want to say that it is amazing to me that this will be live. That's kind of a big deal for you to do something this huge that's live. So if people go to site hyphen sound.com, they can check it out. But what about through the weekend?

It's the same thing, site hyphen sound.com. That's correct. Yeah, we're going to have encore events all weekend long. The live event, as you said, is 7 p.m. on April 2nd. That's 7 p.m. Eastern time. Yeah. And it goes all the way around the world internationally. And then we're going to do these encore events throughout the weekends.

So if you missed it on Friday or if you watched it on Friday, and you want to watch it again. Yeah. There's opportunity there to watch it again. Yeah. You can go to Branson, Missouri and watch it. Yeah, you can literally see it. Actually, you can get your ear cut off in Branson.

We're at a time. Josh, and God bless you. Congratulations. This is huge. Folks, go to site hyphen sound.com. Site hyphen sound.com. Thank you so much, Josh. Eric, always a pleasure.

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Jr., the son of Jerry Jenkins. Jerry Jenkins is the man behind the left behind series that has sold in the neighborhood of a hundred billion books, a billion with an M. Jerry Jenkins, welcome to the program, and please correct me immediately. Oh, thanks so much. The Left Behind series has sold about 63 million copies, but it's still selling 1,000 units a month. 63 million. That's pathetic. Gosh, we got to get it up in the bees and the billions. No, seriously, that is just madness. I'm a writer, as you know, and, you know, when people talk about those kinds of numbers, it becomes surreal at some point. That's where you have to, like, bring in the lawyers and the estate planners because I, I, don't know, what you do with that kind of money. Jerry, can you share with us what you've done with

no, let's not get into that. It's an honor to have you on this program. I love to talk to writers, because I am a writer, obviously, and I don't often get to talk to writers. Today we're talking about a new book. Tell us about the book, by the way. Yeah, it's called the Chosen. I have called you by name. It's based on my son, Dallas's creation, the chosen TV series, which has become an international phenomenon and I kind of pressed my nose up against the glass and said Dallas can I play too since I'm a novelist so I'm I'm novelizing each season so this is the first season of the chosen they hope to do seven seasons so it looks like I might have some work for the next few years I was going to say I I've had Dallas on the program to talk about the chosen let's talk about

that for a minute because I want to talk to you about left behind as well because everyone's heard of left behind whether they've read the books or not it's become a cultural phenomenon it's like Harry Potter, everyone knows about it. But let's talk about your son, Dallas. He was barely born, or was he even born when you started Left Behind? Well, he'll be 46 this summer. So he's not really a spring chicken. He was, he would have been 20, I guess, when left behind first came out. Yeah. So he was still a kid in my book. So he was really young that was in the 90s, mid-90s. And you obviously have made this career of writing these huge bestselling books. How did Dallas get into wanting to do what he's doing now, which is producing this TV series?

Explain that because a lot of people might as are not familiar with how it came into being. Yeah. And it sort of answers your question, too, of what I did with the means that came from left behind. Dallas always wanted to be a filmmaker. And so when he got out of college and started working for some film companies, he saw a script that he really liked. and said, Dad, if we were ever going to start our own company and do it the way we want to, now would be the time. So basically, I was financing his career there for a while.

He wound up in Hollywood for 10 years and then at a big church in Chicago for eight or nine years, I think it was, doing feature films and doing fairly well. I thought everything he did was brilliant, but I knew I was the proud dad and would be prejudiced. But he had a box office failure a few years ago where a picture that I think, thought was great and would be a big hit, just tanked at the box office. Are we talking about Ishtar with Dustin Hoffman? It was almost that bad. Except that this was really a good movie.

And the irony of it is, now that people know the story that the Chosen really was born of that failure, they're checking out the resurrection of Gavin Stone, and they're saying, how did this fail? Well, it was a marketing issue, and there's all kinds of things that go into that. So the movie that he did he do. directed or did he what was his involvement in the resurrection of gavin stone he was the director and and the the hollywood studio behind it tested it said it tested beautifully and they said if this works like we think it's going to we want you to do a movie for us every year for the next nine years so he he was

set until that thing tanked and you know when they tank they they they drop immediately and so he was basically you know with his wife up late at night weeping and and wondering what's next and knowing that his career in Hollywood was virtually over. And he had made a short film of the nativity scene for his church called The Shepherd, about a young shepherd who goes to the nativity scene. And people really loved it. So he said, I'd love to do a TV series about Jesus and the people he surrounded himself with and make him accessible, make the disciples real people and like us, and so we can see ourselves

and not have it be one of those big, sacred things where the characters are all on pedestals are made out of statues or whatever. And so he put that up for crowdfunding and, you know, wasn't too optimistic. He didn't want gifts. He wanted investments. But that thing became the highest crowdfunded media event in history. Christian or Secutor raised 20 million.

Whoops, sorry. Sorry. But you raised $20 million in, yeah, sorry about that. $20 million. In just a few months. And, you know, they've just finished filming season. and two. So it just became a phenomenon. But the heartbreaker is that Jesus and the apostles don't get

a penny, right or wrong? Well, it's a long It's in litigation. It's in litigation, isn't it? Because they deserve a piece of this. It's their story. Okay, so seriously, though, I talked to Dallas about this, and I was fascinated by the crowdfunding idea.

And why did he choose to do it that way? I mean, it's just a lot of people are choosing to do things that way. But what was it that he said, I'm going to do a TV series based on Jesus and the life of the disciples, the apostles, but I'm going to crowd fund it. Why did he choose to go that way? Well, he really connected with an outfit called Vid Angel, who saw that short he did online, and they said, we can go places with this, and what do you want to do with it?

And he said, he wanted to do a TV series. And they said, let's crowd fund it. And he was really dubious at first. He said, you won't raise $1,000. And he said, you know, my dad and I have never crowdfunded anything. We like to pay our own way and not ask people for money. And they said, well, we're not asking them for gifts. We're letting them invest in this.

And they can get their money back if it succeed. And so he was pleasantly surprised to see the thing just explode like that financially. Well, it's phenomenal. Now, for folks who are watching now or listening who are unfamiliar with this, how would they find The Chosen? Where can they go to see this? The best place to go is to the Chosen app. It's just the Chosen.

dot TV and look up that app. And you can download the first season for free. You can show it on your smart TV. Really, the way this is paid for now is that, you know, they offer it for anybody who wants to see it for nothing. And then those who can, they say, you know, if you want to help us show this around the world, and it's been seen in every country now by tens of millions of people, they say, let's just pay it forward, just, you know, help us show this to other people, because it does cost money to broadcast it, obviously. But that's how that works. That's amazing.

So the chosen. Dot TV is where people can go. Right. The Chosen. Dot TV. So how many episodes have been filmed? How many series, how many seasons rather, have been filmed?

Well, there was that pilot, the Nativity one called the Shepherd. And then they did seven episodes for season one. And I think they're planning eight episodes per season. season now following. And season two has just wrapped as far as the shooting. They did eight episodes and they're doing

they're in post production and the plan is to have seven seasons. So this is called the success. This is pretty amazing. It's an incredible phenomenon and now and so the crowdfunding is over. People cannot invest anymore, I guess.

Actually they still can. People continue to ask how they can help. So they're, you know, they sell merchandise, and this is the thing that kind of embarrasses Dallas. He says, I don't want to be a huckster, and I'm not selling this to make a profit. He's not selling Jesus lunch boxes? Why not? No, they're not going to do any of that stuff, but they've got some apparel and hats and that type of thing.

And it's not just to raise money, but it's also these are conversation starters. I mean, the things that the shirts say get people to say, what is this, what is the chosen, and they get to tell them about it, so it really works well. So this thing is obviously doing extremely well, and I guess it was you, Jerry, who thought of this, the idea that why don't we turn this into books? I know a little bit about books. My books have sold in the zillions.

And did you persuade Dallas that this would work as novels? Yeah, and that wasn't necessarily easy either. He said, you know, we've got a TV series based on the Bible, and now you want to write a based on the TV series. Uh-oh. And, of course, you know, as you know, Eric, we try to make the writing as easy as possible. When the framework is already there and the script writers have already written a brilliant piece, my job is fairly easy.

I mean, I do bring more to the table because I'm adding that inner monologue and the thoughts and feelings of these characters. That's what makes the novel different than the show. But the novel is doing well, too. It's been out a little over a month, and it's... people are responding well to it. Okay, so the book, they're going to want more as we go. The book is called The Chosen. I have called you by name.

Folks, I'm talking to Jerry Jenkins about Dallas Jenkins and about the TV series, The Chosen, thechosen.tv, we'll be right back. Hey, folks, you certainly heard me talk about my pillow and how their products have literally changed my life. Now, have you tried the pillow? They don't go flat. You can wash them, dry them as many times as you want, and they maintain their shape. They're made in the USA, and for a limited time, Mike Lindell is offering his premium my pillows

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Folks, welcome back. I am talking to the father of Dallas. Jenkins. His name is Jerry Jenkins. Jerry, welcome back. Listen, you're famous for the Left Behind series. I want to go back to that because you said that, you know, you sold it's close to 70 million books of all the books you've written. And you did this with Tim Le Hay. What year did you start and where did the idea come from? Was it a Tim LeHay idea and he came to you, the writer? It was Tim's idea. My agent called me one day and he asked me if I'd ever met Dr. LeHay and I had not. I, of course, was aware of him and even had published him in magazines that I'd edited.

And so, but my agent said, you know, Tim is a best-selling nonfiction writer who has a great fiction idea. And you're a novelist with no ideas. So let's get you guys together and see if something might spark. And, you know, I met with Dr. Le Hay. He was about the age of my parents. He passed about three years ago now. But there was a father-son dynamic there. And I really respected him, admired him. He's a true evangelist, really selfless guy and real heart for people. And I did love his idea. And I also love the fact that he acknowledged that he was not a fiction writer and didn't

want to help write this because that's not usually a good recipe if you get somebody that thinks they're a fiction writer and they're not. Right. And so we stayed in our lanes. He was the expert, the scholar, the the the theologian kept me on track that way. He was also a great cheerleader. I would send him 100 or 200 or 200. pages at a time and he'd say send me more i'm going to know what happens next myself but it just

it really turned out to be a marriage made in heaven we had a great relationship for many years and uh and the books just exploded it stunned us both and continues to stun me that they're still selling to this day and you finally got to meet kirk Cameron i know you always wanted to meet kirk um that was my goal seriously though the movies actually i got to what's that actually i got to meet i got to meet actually i got to meet nick cage when he started as one of the i forgot about in the last movie Gosh. Yeah. Well, okay, so you've done this. I want to talk to you a little bit. First of all, you know, you talk about the novelization. Some people don't know about that, right? The idea is that there is a TV series or there's a movie and somebody says, I'd like to put it in a book form. Now, to me, as a writer, I would say that's sort of easy because it's already there and then you just have, you don't have to come up with the scenes or the plot or anything like that. And you are a fiction writer. I'm a nonfiction writer.

I've wanted to write fiction. But in all seriousness, the difficulty for me, and I know my limits, if the plot is there, if it's the life of Bonhoeff or the life of Luther, the life of whatever it is, I can tell that story. But if I don't have the plot, if I have to invent the plot, it becomes very difficult. It's a completely different thing creating a plot. Is that something you've done all your life? How did you get your start? It is something I've done on my life.

And, you know, I'm sort of an intuitive plotter. I like to tell stories, but that's the hardest part of the work, too. It's grueling to create something from nothing. So to get a project like this where, as you say, you've got the story and you've got even the sequence, the flow, that does make my job a lot easier. But I want to make it unique as well. I don't want it to simply be a rehearsal of everything you saw on the screen. However, when you do see a scene in the book that was on the screen, I want that to be the exact dialogue and I want to describe it the way they saw it.

Because so often we read a book and then we see the movie and we go, that didn't even come close to what I saw in my mind when I read the book. So we're sort of deconstructing this, doing it in reverse constructing it. But as I mentioned, I try to add that inner monologue and the feelings of the characters to make it unique. You know, I was going to say, I have a book coming out in the fall, which is called Is Atheism Dead? And in the course of writing it, I did a lot of research in the biblical archaeology and things. And I have to say that when you really dig into the scripture, it does come to life and you begin to see the context. And that's what the chosen does. It gives you the context.

And it makes you realize, this is not mythical. This happened to people not that long ago. It didn't happen in Neolithic times. It happened at a time when we have most of the evidence we know. need to know exactly where they were and what they were doing and what happened. And to me, it's really fascinating that many people prefer to keep Jesus at arm's length. It's this mythical thing. But as you dig into it, you realize this is, you know, it could have happened in 1500 AD. I mean, it's something that we really can bring to life. And the more we bring it to life,

the more the scripture comes to life. It's not just words on the page, but we can sort of begin to see it and begin to understand the backstory. I think that's probably the best thing about something like The Chosen is that the backstory comes to life. And so it elevates everything to some extent. And obviously that's happening in the TV series for you. You're just putting that on the page. But you ever get any pushback from people who are so overly respectful of scripture that they're even afraid to comment on it or to novelize it? They would say, I can't do that at scripture. I can't touch it. Yeah, there is that element, and we have to be very careful. It happens that Dallas and I are lovers of the word and believe in the inerrancy of Scripture,

and we revere it. And so anything that's in the book or on the screen that happened exactly, as the Bible said, we would never want to violate Scripture. And we keep that clear. Now, some people say you shouldn't add to any of this other speculation of how these things could have happened. what led up to this? What's the cause of Simon, you know, having to fish all night, that type of thing? Right. I think readers and viewers have given us a lot of license because they know the Bible. Most people do. And they say, well, this isn't in the Bible, but it could have looked like this. Yeah. And they didn't say they went into outer space or they went to some country that nobody had ever heard of.

Jesus didn't go to India between 12 and 30, right? Okay, we're going to be right back. folks, I'm talking to Jerry Jenkins, Jerry B Jenkins, father of Dallas Jenkins. The TV series is The Chosen. You can go to The Chosen.com. Check it out. We'll be right back. My daddy left home when I was three and they didn't leave much. Tomorrow and me, just this old guitar and an empty bottle of boo.

Hey, folks, welcome back. We're talking about writing. I'm a writer. My guest is a writer. His books have sold a lot. Zillions of books. Jerry Jenkins. Welcome back. I want to say that, you know, when we talk about something like The Chosen, which is this series now, there are people who, I mean, I actually would say that it's one thing to respect the scripture, and it's another thing to idolize the scripture and to not understand that the Lord wants us to imagine what it was like. And we understand that there are parameters, right? We can't make stuff up. We can't add to it. But to try to imagine it and to flesh it out,

we're not saying this replaces scripture, but it enhances our ability to read the scripture. And I'm sure that's what Dallas had in mind when he started this. Let me just ask you specifically, the first season, what does it cover and what will the subsequent seasons cover? How did he decide to kind of parse the scripture in terms of the drama? Yeah, the first season starts with the pilot episode, which is the nativity scene with the shepherd, this young shepherd who gets to go. And from there, Dallas introduces the first four people that Jesus, in essence, calls around him. And that's Simon Peter, Mary Magdalene, Matthew, and Nicodemus. And so it's really been fun to do that.

And Jesus has a sense of humor in this rendering. He injures himself when he's working. He scrapes his arm. It's interesting when you talk about the pushback, we've had people say at the nativity scene, the baby Jesus wouldn't have been crying. And we're like, you know, that's really a fantasy to think. Is crying a sin?

I didn't know that crying was a sin. So that's kind of funny. Yeah. Yeah. But being God, I guess he wouldn't worry that he would know that he'd be fed, so he wouldn't have to cry. But, you know, you'd tickle that with a grain of salt. Yeah.

Yeah, and people will say you shouldn't add to or take away from the scripture, and I say what we're not adding to or taking away is from the gospel. We know what the truth of the scripture teaches about the gospel. We would never change that. That, you know, that's Jesus came, lived a sinless life, that on the cross, was dead and buried and rose again and as an advocate for us in heaven. That's the gospel, and that will never change, and we won't ever violate that. Well, you know, anybody who watches, you know, The Last Temptation of Christ or reads the novel by Katsunzakis, that is messing with Scripture. What you guys are doing is the exact opposite. I mean, it's beautiful. So the chosen.tv folks can watch it that way. I mean, you have to be thinking of this evangelistically also. In other words, there are people who, I find many people that they don't, they can't find a way into the scripture.

of times Christians say, well, just read the scripture. Well, you can read the scripture. Most people read the scripture and instantly become confused. You need somebody to explain it to you, to give it context. Watching the chosen is one way to get that. It sort of comes to life. And then when you do read it, it actually makes sense much more quickly. Yeah. And the thing is that this is one of those, you know, when you hear about a Jesus TV series, a lot of people, even in the church, say, I've seen so many of those and they all, you know, make Jesus inaccessible and put them on a pedestal and all that type of thing. This immediately breaks down that barrier. And people have said in thousands say it on the website all the time. They say, I took the opportunity to share this with my friends

because I'm not embarrassed. I can tell them, I can even tell them it's about Jesus, but they're going to like it. It's real. That is the ultimate compliment for any Christian-themed art. I was not embarrassed to share it. Isn't that the case? I was not embarrassed to share it with my neighbors who are not Christians. That says it all. If you're not embarrassed, it must be pretty darn good. I always say that's the goal, right?

You want to make something so wonderful that you can share it with people who aren't on the same page and they can kind of get drawn in and say, you know what? This is not what I thought. This is more interesting than I thought. I mean, I'd have to think that Dallas's experience in Hollywood helped him to to kind of, you know, kick up his ability to do things on a level that it's not just intended for people who are already on the same page. Right. He's really well-versed in popular culture. And, you know, I love the humor in this. There's a scene where Simon is saying that his brother Andrew can't dance, that he looks like an animal on ice when he tries to dance.

And Jesus is amused by this. And so they dance at the wedding at Cana. And he... Simon says to Jesus during this dance. So can you fix Andrew? Can you help him? You saw I'm dance. And Jesus says some things even I can't do. I mean, I think that's hilarious. That sounds like the kind of humor Jesus would have.

That's the kind of humor that I would like to get. And if I were doing something like this, that is funny. Now, I don't know if you could say an animal on ice. See, as an editor, I would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, animal on ice. This is happening in Palestine. I don't think they're familiar with ice. Am I right? Is that poetic license?

or not, it snowed there. It snowed there. I know it snowed there, but I still don't think about, listen, we're going to let this go. You guys are professionals. It is wonderful that you're doing this. I love the fact that you're working with your son. That's just a beautiful thing. And I do think that there are people who they'd like to read first. They'd like to check it out.

Or it's just, it's something that, you know, I would say, whether you or Jerry Jenkins or not, I would say to Dallas, have you thought, have you thought about turning this into novels because there are people for whom that is the, that's the way in. So I'm glad you're doing this. And it does seem like you're going to be kind of busy. You said that there are another planned five seasons after the one that was just shot. So seven total. Right. Exactly. So it's nice to have work. It's nice to have. Well, yeah, poor you. I know. You've really been, you've really been scraping the bottom. Finally, your son threw you a bone and you've got something to do. It's just, it's a wonderful, as I said, to talk to a writer.

Thanks for what you're doing. Thanks for serving the Lord with your gifts. There are tons of people, I hope, who are watching right now that have not seen this because I've heard such good things about it. I have yet to watch it. So I'm really looking forward to this, Jerry, thechosen.com.

And if I go on there, I can watch the whole first season. And when is the second season going to come on so folks can check it out? Yeah, the first episode of the second season is going to be shown on Easter Sunday. So that's, and then they're going to show the rest of them as soon as they're finished. Okay. So this is really soon. Okay. So I can binge watch season one.

And, uh, okay. Well, this is terrific. Jerry Jenkins, privileged to have you. God bless you. And thanks for being my guest. Hey there, folks. Welcome to Mondi Thursday. Does anybody know what Monty Thursday is? Does anybody care? I can just see all the Pentecostal saying what. That's the way it is in the body of Christ. We really have somebody there's some people that are all about Mondi Thursday. They're all about the foot washing tonight with masks. And then the other people that are like, what is Monday Thursday? What is Thursday even? Is that biblical? Doesn't it refer to Thor? That's not scriptural. This is an important time for me to say that at the end of this segment, Chris Himes is going to share an exciting egg story, a chicken egg story for Easter. That's right.

Before we do that, though, actually, let's remind everybody, you can probably still give to our Food for the Port campaign today's April Fool. So technically we're over. But if you want to enter the contest, if you want to give, if you didn't get a chance, Just go to 1, 844-863, Hope, 1-8-4-8663, Hope. 1-8-4-8-6-3, Hope. Hope. Okay, or our website Metaxistalk.com. And I've got to remind people to go to my website,

ericmetaxis.com, to sign up for the newsletter. Folks, we're sending out more newsletters lately because there's more stuff, more breaking stuff. The thing with Mike Lindell yesterday was insane. I would love to know what people think of the documentary, all this stuff. In Hour 1 today, we heard from Josh Anchor. Was that? No, that was this hour. Yes.

The site and sound, this, tomorrow night, 7 p.m. Eastern, site and sound in Branson, Missouri is putting on a live show. It's huge. You can watch it live. Go to site-h-sound.com. Site-hythound.com. If you're looking for something to do with the family on Good Friday evening, obviously this would be perfect. Site-hyphen sound.com. You can watch it there.

It'll be playing through Easter weekend. So if you love it, you can tell your friends and watch it again. But site-hyphen sound.com, it's called Jesus, in case anybody's wondering what Easter is about. Technically, it's not about eggs or anything like that. Then we should remind you that Salem now.com. has tons of films you can watch. Church people is the one we're promoting right now. SalemNow.com use the code Eric. Save big. In fact, I think you get money. Is that right? No, no. You just save money. But SalemNow.com use the code Eric. And speaking of the code Eric, I don't know if I've ever

mentioned on this program. If you go to Mypillar.com, you want to use the code Eric. Tell all your friends do not use the other codes. Even if you've never heard of this program, tell your friends to be safe. They need to use the code. Eric, we don't know what those other codes are. doing. We can only be responsible for our code. Eric. That's right. So SalemNow.com, but our sponsor is Mike Lindell. Mypillow.com. The dude is a patriot. I cannot believe him. And of course, my store.com, you can get most of my books at my store. By the way, anytime you have to use any code, just always use Eric, no matter where you are. It doesn't even matter. Whatever it is. Okay, we have a chicken story. Our chicken owner on the staff would be Chris Himes. Chris, what can you?

He talks about the New Jersey chickens in your employee. Well, you mentioned Jesus live. We had a, first of all, we were missing a chicken for, we have seven chickens and we were missing one for three days. We thought it was dead because we'd been seeing hawks, land giant hawks in our trees. And after three days, the dead chicken, we thought, came back to the fold. And so we're calling it our Jesus chicken because it was gone for three days and then showed back up again.

You know what? That is a type and shadow of the gospel. Well, then, yeah. And then this morning, this morning, the egg story is that we were out of eggs. We only had two. And I'm thinking, we have all these crazy birds and where are the eggs? So Tiffany says, well, you have to go back and get them, which I've never done before, really. Usually my son or Tiffany will do that.

So I went back and there are no eggs except there's one bird sitting there. And she looks like she really doesn't want to move. And I feel awkward. And I'm like, well, that kind of like, you don't want to ask someone to get out of their chair if they're really settled in there. 10 seconds. Go ahead. Yeah, and sure enough, I, anyway, I didn't get the egg. And my wife said, why didn't you get the eggs?

Yeah, it was awkward. Awkward, folks. Remember that word, awkward. Thank you.