The Eric Metaxas Show - Keith Getty and Thann Bennett

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

Keith Getty joins Eric in the bunker to share his weekly Facebook-Live Family Hymn Sing; then, Thann Bennett of the American Center for Law and Justice focused on how what we do in life reflects upon a "higher power."

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So here's your plain spoken, homespun host, Eric Mataxis. Hey, folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. It is Monday, as I'm told by my handlers, and we've got a special guest immediately to begin the week. His name is Keith Getty. My friend, Keith, what are you doing here?

I'm in hiding in Nashville. I'm talking to you on a computer. And you're looking well, Eric. You're looking healthy. Well, as long as I've fooled you, let me ask you, what is this incredible thing you're doing tomorrow night? I mean, I heard about it and I said, we've got to get you on. You, you're the man, to tell my audience about this.

Because it sounds like we're trying to make the best of this bizarre time in our history. This is like our blitz, you know, for those of us who are alive to remember World War II. So we're trying to make the best of it. And it sounds like you and your lovely wife, in fact, all your wives are making the best. So tell us about it. I've got a whole bunch of wives. Yeah.

So we're having, St. Patrick's Day was two Tuesdays ago. I was in a mood the whole day. And my wife was having to try and encourage me and stop me. And eventually at dinner time, she goes, Keith, I think Christmas has been the worst St. Patrick's Day of my life. What do you say to an Irish guy in St. Patrick's Day in quarantine? It's like a joke. Do you know what I mean?

And she goes, well, let's do a hym sing. And I said, okay, and she goes, why would put it in FaceTime live in case people want to sing along? I said, okay, let me translate from my English speaking audience. Okay. You're right to tell to you, let's do a hymn sing. Correct. And why don't we put it on Facebook live so everyone can sing along? By the way, don't let go of that wife.

This sounds like the perfect wife to have when you're down on a St. Patrick's Day. This sounds like an amazing idea. So what happens, sir? When no one else can understand me, when everything I do is wrong. But she, so we threw it up. And it just got this amazing response. And so, you know, obviously, you know, Fox News, television carried it a few times last week. A lot of a bunch of radio shows carried it.

And it's just 25 minutes of us and our kids singing and being crazy. It's available on YouTube. You can go to YouTube and get it or you can go to our Facebook site and get it. And then we started as a weekly thing. So last week's show, his views is in the millions now. And it's the most viewed thing we've ever done in 20 years of writing hymns. And it's just us and the kids getting together singing. this week's theme,

for one minute, we're going to talk about five things you can do in your home to get your family singing to the Lord, and then next week's, we're going to look at Easter special, but it's just encouraging families to get back to singing hymns.

Whether you're Luther or Calvin or Charles Wesley, all these people in their different backgrounds encouraged hymns to be sung at home and in the church. And it's almost like the Lord has kind of given us a little bit of a focus for a season to really improve the singing in our homes, but also just filling our homes with songs of the Lord, even if it's just singing along with your Lord,

I love it. I love it. And so what's the easiest way for my audience to find this tomorrow night? What time is this tomorrow? 7.15 central time, 8.15, New York time. Okay, so 815 Eastern time tomorrow night. And if people want to find it, they would go where? You would go to Keith and Kristen Getty Facebook. Keith and Kristen Getty Facebook. Yeah. And then it'll be available the rest of the week on YouTube as well. Unbelievable. My friend, this is a wonderful thing. We've been talking about this. these are bunker videos because we're all, you know, locked down someplace and we're trying to make sense of this. This is like the London Blitz. I didn't live through that and none of us did, but it's a rare thing in life to go through something like this because it's unprecedented. We're

trying to make sense of it. What do we do? And then, of course, who is we? How do we process this when we're all alone? And so obviously what we have today is social media and the internet. So we talk to each other. So we're really grateful to you and Kristen for doing this. We'll see you tomorrow at 815 Eastern Time. I guess Facebook Live is the easiest way so people can find you on Facebook tomorrow. That's right. Eric, thanks so much for having us on. Well, we love you and we're looking forward to it ourselves.

Thanks for doing this. I hope you and Suzanne stay safe. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Albin, Chris, this is crazy stuff. Oh, my goodness. That's great stuff from Keith Getty. Wow. I love it. Well, we've got a few, we've got a few announcements to make. Let's be clear, actually. Let's get the first things first. For the rest of this hour, I'm talking to Than Bennett, correct?

Yes. And that's 30 minutes. Okay, yes, yes, Than Bennett, yes. But that's 30 minutes? Yes, 30 minutes. Okay, so then, so then this is it for us today. So we've got to get everything in in the next couple of seconds here. Yeah. First of all, we want to encourage people. Oh, actually, no, sorry, hour to today. This is embarrassing. I hope you're at least sharing some of this embarrassment.

Last Friday, I went for a run to listen to my interview with Greg Lorry. And I was so excited, so excited, because Greg Lorry was going to talk about the ostrich story, how an ostrich was used by God to lead Johnny Cash to Christ. And I went for my run, and I started listening to the Greg Lorry program. And first, the first thing, now James, our engineers on here, but you can't see his face. This was a Christmas show. So neither James nor you mentioned that this was a Christmas show. So I'm running in Central Park thinking, oh, darn, it's a Christmas show.

So it was all Christmas music. So that was strike one. Strike two, Eric Mataxis, the host of the program, would not shut his mouth. He would not let his guest talk. that's what happens when he's friends with his guests the way I'm friends with Greg Lori. So I talked way more than Greg. And I thought, oh, but at least at the end of this Christmas episode where Eric won't

shut his mouth, at least we'll hear the ostrich story. And then I realized the ostrich story, which we had promised our audience of billions, was not in that program. We have egg on our face. an ostrich egg on our face. Do we not feel horrible? Yeah, I found the person responsible and I fired myself, but then I had to rehire. Are you going to rehire myself? He's going to do your job. That's the problem. That's the problem. If you can pay a lot, then who are you going to find? I actually have an explanation for it. You know what happened was Greg Delory was wearing the exact same

color clothing, all black in both interviews. He did one in August and he did one in December. And I was actually watching the August one and not realizing I thought it was the December one I was watching. I gave Jane. Well, here's the issue. Here's the issue. We apologize for that. I apologize most of all for not shutting my mouth because I know that I had that problem. But we never would have aired that.

You know, it's one thing to do it once. It's another thing to re-air it. So, but we will play the ostrich thing with Greg another time this week. In our two today, are we playing that? Yeah, that's. We're playing in an hour two today. Okay. And it's not a Christmas episode.

No, it is not. It's from August 2019. Okay, so that's number one. We got that out of the wait. Number two, number two, we're still doing our fundraiser with food for the poor, for the poorest of the poor in rural Guatemala. And we want to make the announcement again that for the next three days, we're ending this, this week, we will have another grand prize winner.

the woman who won the grand prize last week, her husband wrote us an email and said that she was screaming because she was so happy because I think she had really lost faith in the whole process. And she said, how come I can't win? And she was bitter and angry. And the Lord rewarded her murmuring and complaining by letting her win. So she is the grand prize winner. And I forgot her name, but it's a beautiful name.

Yeah, Celeste Johnson. Celeste. Celeste Johnson won the Grand Prize. Gets to visit studio, all that. And so our new winner, we're going to announce another winner this week, folks, if you give anything to food for the poor. And by the way, we know you don't give to get, but we just want you to know that whatever you give,

we want to bless you. We're going to pick a grand prize winner. But we've just got seconds left. So before we go to Tham Bennett and then an hour or two to Greg Lorry, for the rest of the week, we've got a lot of fun stuff. we want to share with you. I'm going to end this segment on a sad note. I receive a word for my very, very dear friend Martha Linder,

that Patty Colson, the wife of Chuck Colson, passed away late last week. We loved Patty. She was one of the dearest souls in the world. And the only joy is that we know she's with the Lord and almost as good. She's hanging out with Chuck. She missed him terribly. We've got more to share the rest of this week, many important things. But thanks for listening, and we'll be right back.

Hey there, folks. Hey, guess what? I am sitting here in the studio with a man. His name is Thon or Than Bennett. That's the first question of this interview. How do you pronounce your first name? It's Than, Eric. Nathaniel is the full name, but believe it or not, my mom did not like Nate or Nathan.

My baseball coach has said, I'll give you one syllable, mom. pick the middle syllable there. Than. Than. Nathaniel. That's right. See, I love that. Like, I wanted to know where Than came from.

Well, you are a little bit complicated to explain. First of all, we are sitting here talking about, we're going to be talking about your brand new book. It's called My Fame, His Fame, Aiming Your Life and Influence Toward the Glory of God. What a beautiful idea, a vital idea. I'm excited to talk to you about that. You've got a forward to the book by Mark Baxter. We've had him on the program. I think very highly of him. And you've got a wonderful blurb from

Susie Larson, another wonderful person. So I am very excited to talk about the idea of this book. But before that, I want to find out a little bit about you. I know you live in Maryland. You've got three kids, obviously married. And you work with Jay Sekul. What do you do with the ACLJ? Yeah, so I'm the Director of Government Affairs for the ACLJ, which basically means that anything that touches on public policy, legislation, regulation, interface with the executive branch. All of that crosses my desk. And Eric, I have had the incredible privilege of being on Jay Seculo's team, along with his son Jordan Seculo, for the last 14 years. Probably your audience knows us best for our legal work, right? Jay, over the years has cut his teeth, defending constitutional liberties, individual liberties, and mostly in the courtroom. But what maybe some of your audience doesn't know is we have a robust public policy shop. We also have a robust international affairs shop. We represent persecuted Christians

and religious minorities around the world. And so I'm kind of the interface between the legal world and the public policy shop. Your audience probably also knows our daily radio broadcast it airs on TBN. I've had the fortune of trying to keep up with Jay on that for about the last 13 years now. Well, Jay is a hero, and you are now a hero too, because what you guys do is huge, absolutely huge. But so when did you become a Christian? Because to write a book about proclaiming God's fame and his glory, that's like hardcore Christianity.

I would also say it's basic Christianity, but a lot of people don't do basic Christianity. They're kind of nibbling at the edges. And this is the heart of what it means to love God, to serve God. How did you come to faith and to write a book like this? Well, first of all, I would just say that basic Christianity should. should be hardcore Christianity. It's about giving your entire life to a belief in someone who gave his life for you, right? But I came to faith at a very young age, was privileged to be raised in a Christian home, parents that pointed me towards Christ. But Eric, coming to a faith and then

giving your life fully to Christ, it's two different things, right? So I grew up in the cornfields of Illinois, was a country boy at heart, really, still am. So as we sit here in New York City, this is maybe a little out of place for me. But I did give. give my life to Christ early on. But this book, honestly, Eric, is about a public proclamation that it's going to be more about surrendering my entire life to Christ and making my entire aim pointed towards his glory. So let's talk about that idea, because this is an idea I said earlier. It's so basic. It's so foundational to what it means to be Christian. If you don't get this, you're not getting most of what it means to be Christian. And yet, it is not something

that people talk about, and it is not something that you're going to hear in many churches, but it's at the core. So what is it that drove you to want to write a book about it? It's one thing to understand it. It's another thing to write a book about it. I would say two things. First of all, I was frustrated with where our culture was, and I wanted to figure out what I needed to do to impact that. And it drew me to this story of Habakkuk and this redefinition of fame that I saw in his story. You know, we've got an obsession with fame in our culture, Eric, and it's mainly a negative one, right? It's one that is obsessed with platform and with notoriety and with visibility. And Habakkuk gives us a new definition of fame. Now, there are people

listening who don't know who Habakkuk is. I've done my part by, I wrote a children's book called Uncle Mugzing the Terrible Twins of Christmas and the little puppy dog in there is named Habakkuk, but you go way farther in your book. Tell us, before we get into it, who was Habakkuk? So Habakkuk is this Old Testament prophet that you're right. A lot of us Christians don't give him his due diligence. But Eric, I think his story actually points us to how we should be living. He is this prophet who looked around his world and got very frustrated by what he saw. And specifically, he got frustrated by the fact that he thought God was absent. So what it was what is a good prophet, a good follower of Jesus supposed to do in that situation?

You would think that he's supposed to be faithful to the end, right? Not this guy. This guy confronted God, and he actually blamed the absence of God for the problems that he was seen. But here's the interesting thing, as Habakkuk and God go back and forth, they go a lot of rounds, what God essentially says to Habakkuk is, I've been here this whole time. My fame and my power and my glory have been ready to address the cultural problems. that you see, but they've been waiting on something. They've been waiting on you, Habakkuk, because my fame, I intentionally did this. I, the creator of the universe, intentionally

entangled my fame with the pinnacle of my creation, you. So you might think I've been absent, Habakkuk, and you might think it's my fault, but I am calling on you to step forward and carry the fame. And I would just leave you with this thought. There's a specific reason for this, Eric. It's because God's greatest desire was relationship with us. So while the goal is always for his fame to be elevated, he doesn't desire it to be separate with us. He desires us to carry it to the world in tangible ways. Now, this is so interesting. First of all, we have to point out, Habakkuk, you know, he's not a minor figure in scripture. He has his own book. Right. Hey, how many of you listening? Got your own book in scripture? None? He has his own book,

right? One of the books of the Bible is the book of Habakkuk or Habakkuk. I never know how to say it. But it is interesting, Thon, Than, because you bring up the point that we're supposed to want to declare the glories of God. We're supposed to want to say, this is what he's done for me. This is how wonderful he is. And when you do that, you're sharing him with other people who don't know. And I just thought to myself, how many Christians do I know who don't even pray before a meal? They just forget. They just start eating the food. There are little. moments in life that are built in rituals to declare God's glory to say, hey, wait a minute, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be able to partake of this meal. Where we have opportunities

to do that. And you're talking about going way beyond just that. But I never really thought about that, that God sort of holds back his fame and his glory because he says, I created you specifically, you're the ones that are supposed to be sharing my fame with others. I'm waiting on you. So I would say, yes, when you and I think about fame, we instinctively think about the negative version of it, right? The version that Madonna talked about when she said, I'm not going to be satisfied until I'm famous like God. And so I think we as Jesus followers have had a temptation because we see that fame to cast it aside altogether. But Eric, I would submit to you, What did Isaiah mean in Isaiah 4321 when he said, my people who I created for myself that they might proclaim my name?

The very purpose that we were created, it was not for our fame, it was for himself and that we might proclaim his name. But Eric, you know, you also look at the very tangible commands of scripture, right? Love your neighbor, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, visit the prisoner, on down the line you go. that doesn't happen absent us. So it's not a human-centered fame. No, it's all about his glory in the end, but the neighbor is not loved until we love them. God designed it that way. In other words, he doesn't say, I will do all this stuff. He created us to do it. And that's, you know, it's so basic, but it's also so important because you're right. We forget. We always say, where was God? Where was God? And God says, well, I created you to do all of these things. And if you're not doing it because you're

lazy or you're disobedient or you're obsessed with something else, I can't force you to do what I created you to do. But I did create you to do it. Yeah, I think all of us want to be heroes of faith. And you think about the great hero of faith, Moses. People forget, Eric, that God wanted to kill him at one time. And why did God want to kill him? He wanted to kill him because Moses's excuse was send someone else. I'm not qualified. Send someone else. Why did God spare Moses? He spared Moses because he desired Moses. Moses wasn't indispensable. God wasn't out of options. God doesn't have to use me or you, but he desires to use you and I. And he's designed it that way. He's designed his visibility to be contingent on our willingness to step into it. It's an amazing concept. And I say that, because I want to

underscore this idea that if you call yourself some kind of a Christian, you should want to make God famous. You should want to lift up the name of Jesus because there's so many people depending on you, you. Think about that. We'll be right back. It's knowing that your door is always open and your path is free to walk. Hey there, folks. I'm talking to Fan Bennett. I could have sworn that was a Vietnamese name, fan, and then you're telling me it's short for Nathaniel, Than Bennett. You've written a book called My Fame, His Fame, Aiming Your Life and Influence Toward the Glory of God. Now, you, like me, are not ordained. You're not a pastor. What caused you to say, I want to write a book about this?

Well, we mentioned Mark Batterson in the first segment of the broadcast, and actually Mark played a pivotal role in me deciding to write this book. Actually, 20 years ago, Eric, about the time I moved to Washington, D.C., I heard what I would call the inaudible but unmistakable voice of God telling me to write, but I had a lot of excuses. And, you know, I'm not ordained. I work in politics. I had a lot of excuses. Basically, I wanted God to send someone else. And I still remember the date. April 19, 2015, my pastor, Mark Batterson, gave a message that was called One Little Yes. It was a simple message. It was a message of saying one little yes to something that God, God was asking me to do. And I knew God was trying to get my attention. And so finally, at that

moment, I yielded to his call. I told him I'd give him an hour of every day to doing this task. And we're about five years later now, Eric, three manuscripts in, two of which are published. This is the second one to be published. And what made you choose this subject? Because as I said, it's kind of a hardcore concept. Usually we get a lot of books in here about, you know, how to be a better Christian, how to, you know, three steps to whatever. It's, it's kind of a schick. You see it over and over and over again, and they're not bad. There's just, there's a lot of them. This is deeper. So, the thing that got my attention focused on Habakkuk story was actually my wife. She had scrawled Habakkuk 3-2 on our chalkboard in our basement office. And Habakkuk 3-2 is the profession that Habakk

finally makes at the end of his story when he's given up the ghost, so to speak. He's fought with God. He's confronted God. And he's given up and he said, okay, fine, God. If you're going to show up, then I will be there to carry your fame. And it's this profession where he says, Lord, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds. And then here's the important part. Repeat them in our day. In our time, make them known in wrath, remember mercy. And Eric, I was at that place of being frustrated with our culture. And I wanted to know what I was supposed to do about it. And Habakkuk's story, it gave me some comfort, honestly, because he was so frustrated with his culture. He was also frustrated with God. And that's where I was. And it gave me a tangible place to hook

into and to say it's not about making sure that the right president is elected or the right law is passed, although I've got a passion about that too, Eric, but it's about what am I called to do in my community to make God's fame known. And so that story of Habakkuk forms the basis, but I guess I would just say thank God for wives who plant subtle ideas and subtle ways, right? I hate that. No, I don't. I joke always, but it's just beautiful. It's such a beautiful thing. Now, the idea, again, of fame and spreading God's fame, I've bumped into this a lot where I wrote a book on miracles, and I remember there were a couple of people that had amazing miracle stories, and they said, well, I don't want you to use my name. and I just remember thinking, are you kidding me?

Like, God did this insane miracle in a couple of people's lives. And I said, you don't want me to put your story in because you're afraid somebody will trace it back to you or whatever. I thought, this is why you were born. Like, God did this miracle in your life. And it really happened. Like, it's not like it's some crazy philosophy you have. I mean, you experienced something, but they were shy. It's like they didn't.

And I guess I was thinking the same thing. is like, don't you want people to know what God can do and they can talk to you and you have credibility and, you know, you're very educated people. Why wouldn't you want people to know who you are? Because it's like God's giving you a ministry just by making this miracle happen in your life. I think the answer to that's pretty simple, actually. I think that we have a fear of being made to be seen as peculiar. But the word tells us that if we're going to walk in this, if we're actually going to live this out on a daily basis, we are going to be peculiar in our society. And Eric, I think we've got to come to a place where we choose to be peculiar, where we choose to say, look, the mighty fame of God, the mighty acts that we've heard about. We do want them to come in our day, and we're the one, we're willing to be the ones that facilitate them, even if it makes us peculiar. We've got to make a choice where we want the God of the universe, the creator of our souls, the ones who's drawing us to him side, where we actually want him to show up, Eric. I mean, I think it's very easy to.

to say that, right? But when God comes and asks you or asks me to do something that is going to show his power off and it's going to make us different, do we still want it or do we want to walk the other way? I want to get to a place where that's what I want more than anything in life. And I also think it's a fundamental question of do you trust God? I'm fascinated when people kind of like, well, it's like they are afraid he's going to embarrass them. And I remember before I really gave my life to Jesus, having that fear, thinking that being outspoken as a Christian, it will be embarrassing. I'll become one of those religious fanatics and this and that. And I remember this friend of mine, Ed Tuttle, the guy who really led me to faith, he gave me a scripture.

And it was the Jeremiah 29. I never remember the verse. But, you know, I know the plans I have for you, sayeth the Lord, plans to give you hope and a future, plans not to harm you. And I remember thinking, God is trying to convince me, Eric, I'm not here to embarrass you. I want to bless you, but you do need to trust me. But if you trust that I love you more than you love yourself and I'm more concerned with how you come across than you are, you'll trust me. And I'm just, I think a lot of people, they are afraid of being tagged as religious fanatics or something like that. And I think, they think God is a God of religious fanatics. They forget that God is the God of every flower and every beautiful sunrise and he's this wonderful god you can't it's almost like we're saying i'm more

wonderful than he is so i'm going to kind of i'm going to pull it back a little bit we're going to go to a break a couple more segments with fan bennett the book is my fame his fame if you feel that it's real i'm on trial and i'm here again your present hey there folks this ericman texas show that's elton john i'm eric and i'm talking to Van Bennett, T-H-A-N-N-Bennett. The new book is My Fame, His Fame. And, Thane, you just said that your previous book was about the passage I was referring to. What was the title of your previous book?

It was called In Search of the King. I was excited to hear you mention that passage. You were referencing Jeremiah 29-11. I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper. But there are two verses that bracket that, Eric. The first one sets the context. It says after 70 years of exile have passed. So you're in a tough spot, right?

And then God says he's got a plan for you with the verse you quoted. The verse I wrote about is verse 13, which says you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. So sometimes I think we shortchanged that promise that you referenced Eric because we just say, oh, God's got this magnificent plan. He's going to prosper us where it's sort of wound and set to go, right? Well, no, there is an obligation on our side to seek him out, to give him our whole heart, our whole life.

and that is what enables him then to fulfill that promise of Jeremiah 29-11. So I don't know if that was prophetic that you brought that up, but it really does actually tie into the theme of this book as well. Well, this book is My Fame, His Fame, and there's some suggested questions that come from the publisher. I never use them, but there are two here that I actually liked. One of them is, why do so many famous people suffer from loneliness? What does this tell us?

What a great question. Well, Claire Dane said that fame doesn't end loneliness. And I would think that she would know. She's one of the most famous people on the planet. She said it doesn't end loneliness. But I think there's a pretty straightforward and simple answer to that is because we were not made to be known by the masses. Now, it's okay to be known by the masses, Eric, but we were created to be known by the creator. And if I could, maybe this is something that our family has learned in a very personal way recently.

We've had the opportunity to partner with an adoption agency to provide interim, for newborns as they're headed towards an adoptive family. But it was something we learned in the training process that drove this point home for me, Eric. They did a study on three sets of children, children who had healthy attachment, children who were neglected, and children who were abused. And they found out that the children who were abused actually failed better than the children who were neglected. It all came back to this idea that the children who were abused. This was far from ideal.

They had healing that had to happen. But they at least had the attachment grooves, the etching in their brain. the etching in their brain formed and it could heal over time, whereas the children who were neglected didn't have that etching, and it was much harder to develop that later in life. But here's the point. As I was listening to this clinical research, I thought, of course it does, because we were designed to attach to our creator. We were made to abide in him. And so to your larger point, we've talked a lot about what do we have to do? Well, Eric, everything that we have to do has to be rooted in an attachment to him. We have to be known by him. Otherwise, all the other tasks, they will have

no fuel. That is the fuel that enables all those other processes to work. Well, it's interesting, too, because I think that a lot of people say, well, I'm a good person or I'm a Christian, but they don't, they don't acknowledge God in everything. In other words, that we're supposed to acknowledge God in all our ways, which means that how you comport yourself sexually. That's a huge thing in our culture. That never was a question. But there are people that sort of, nah, they give that a pass, or they kind of look around at the culture for guidance. And I always say that that's one of the most basic ways because it can be shocking to people. You say, like, well, I don't believe in sex outside of marriage.

So I'm not sleeping with my girlfriend or my fiancé. And people are like, what? And you're like, well, yeah, I'm a Christian. And it kind of like smacks them up the side of the head like, wow, you're serious. God must be real, or I wonder if God is real for you to make a sacrifice like that. That's a big one, saying a prayer at a meal publicly. There are all these ways that we can kind of point to God. Obviously, anytime you do good works, like what you're doing with these infants,

there's ways in every part of our life that we can be pointing to God without doing it, obviously. But people just look at us and they go, who are you pointing at? Something's going on there. Well, I think are we serious about surrendering fully to him or is that lip service? Is that something that we want to put on so that it looks good? Or are we actually giving our entire life to him? And, you know, it's interesting that you bring this up because I actually just recently watched an interview that you did with Matt and Lori Crouch.

I believe it was at this very table. It was at this very table. You were talking about a Christmas special that some people might think didn't fit your character very well, right? Correct. Here was the answer that you gave that I think speaks to this question. And I'm sorry if this embarrasses you, but I think you told Matt and Lori, well, I'm a little nuts. Yeah.

You said, I am into all the different expressions of God and I want to express them in different ways. And Eric, that's the answer to this because, you know, someone who's going to read Bonhoeffer might not watch that Christmas special. Well, they may watch it and then go to therapy, trying to understand how the guy who wrote Bonhofer could be, you know, doing that weird Greek character. But, in fact, it doesn't make any sense to me. Well, we all need therapy at times. Right, right. Well, but here's the point. I think God has given us multiple opportunities to reach people in different ways, and we have to be willing to put him on in all of his different expressions to reach them.

Look, it might be a little bit embarrassing at times. I mean, I'll tell you this. He's never going to call me to do a Christmas special. My grandfather was a Methodist minister for 42 years. He used to have all of his grandkids up on stage to sing to the congregation. Really? Except for one. One little six-year-old, his voice was so obnoxious that even though he was the grand. and child of the minister, he was not allowed. That was me. That's funny. Your next Christmas special, don't invite me. Oh, my gosh.

I see that as a challenge. No, it is so funny because it is true that, I mean, a lot of people, if you go to our YouTube channel, Eric Mataxis show, we put the Christmas special on there. But yeah, a lot of people are like, what is that? And I can't explain it. I just want to glorify God with all my gifts or the gifts that I think I have. And I do think it's important. You have another question is why do so many people kind of live their lives in a fear of the unknown?

I think that's related to your thesis. Yeah, because there's risks there. You don't know what's going to happen there. But I would turn that question on its head. If we're not willing to go into the unknown of God, how are we ever going to tap into his mystery, the parts that we don't already know? If we stay within the parts of God that we know, we're never going to grow our faith. so it's a little bit scary to step outside of that.

But, Eric, do you want to know more of who God is? Do you want to experience more of his power? Do I want the acts of old to actually reoccur in my day? I do more than anything. But I can't experience them, Eric, if I'm intent on staying within what I already know. And also I want to say to people, if you have that kind of fear, it's dumb. Why? Because God is so good and so wonderful that that fear really is, that's certainly not of

God, anybody who's afraid of that, they don't understand who they're dealing with. They're dealing with someone who loves them like crazy and wants to bless you. Folks, do not fear God in that way. We'll be right back. Actually, yes, it's been brought to my attention. Folks, we're talking to Fan Bennett. The book is My Fame, His Fame, just a few minutes left. You write in the book, Tham, that God's famous gathering, smoldering on the horizon, and that in spite of the polarization in this country, you believe revival is at hand. I agree, I think, that with Kanye West and Justin Bieber and all kinds of things going on, we know that there's tremendous things going on in prisons around the

country, I have a sense that we're going to see something. Boy, I couldn't agree with you more, and I think it's going to be the promise that was delivered in the book of Habakkuk, where he says, look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed because I'm going to do something in your time you would not believe, even if you were told, Eric, I know this makes me sound a little bit crazy. I believe that with every fiber in my being that we stand on the edge of that moment, and it's contingent on you and me deciding to carry it. And I would just tell you, I think I would respond to that question by asking people to look at the story of Abraham and Sodom in Genesis 18. And there is a moment where God has said, I've decided to destroy Sodom.

He's going to destroy them for their wickedness. And I've got to tell you, if that's me, I'm in. What could be better than God's judgment raining down? But that's not what Abraham does. What Abraham does is he engages in negotiation with God. He says, if I can find 50 people, will you spare the city? And here's the thing, Eric, two things. One, God says yes, but Abraham doesn't walk away.

He goes back six times asking for a greater, grant of God's mercy. And I would just tell you a couple of things. God didn't walk away until Abraham walked away. So it's time for us to push our God a little bit more and say, we need you in this time and we're willing to be the ones that carry it. And then the last thing I would say on that, Eric, is how desperately do I want to be someone who is more, who is quicker to advocate for the righteous remnant than to call for destructive judgment? I have not been that person most of my life. I have been the person that sees the cultural failing. and ask for God's judgment to fall.

I don't want to do that anymore, Eric. I see a lot of that on the Internet. People are kind of excited that, yeah, it's all going to hell. Praise God. Let it burn. And I think, wait a minute, that doesn't seem like the heart of God. No. That doesn't seem like the heart of God.

I think that we should be pressing forward for revival, praying and fasting and doing whatever we can, proclaiming his name in our own circles, however we can. Because what a wonderful thing it would be to see. see that, first of all, there is a holy remnant in the United States and around the world that are on fire for God and that are doing things that you're not going to hear about on the network news for sure or on Fox. So you're just not going to hear these miracles. We try to talk about some of them on this show, but there are great things happening. And I really do believe that if we continue to pray, we may see amazing things and never to lose

hope. I think he's anxious to do them. I think the full threat of Scripture tells us that he's anxious to do them. But Eric, I really do firmly believe this. I think it's contingent upon us stepping into that void. It's not an accident. It's not human-based. It's for his glory, but his peak desire is relationship with you and me. So why would he separate his fame and power from relationship with us? I would submit to you that he doesn't, and we have to step in and be the ones that call it down. Well, thank you for writing the book where you talk about this. My Fame, His Fame, Aiming Your Life and Influence Toward the Glory of God by Fan Bennett.

I'm thrilled the work you do with our friend Jay Sekulu and ACLJ, but I'm slightly more thrilled that you're writing these books. Congratulations. Thanks for being with us. Thank you, Eric. Thank you for having you.