The Eric Metaxas Show - Kurt Nelson

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

Kurt Nelson, president and CEO of East-West Ministries, takes a deep-dive into the powerful and controversial phrase, "Love your enemies"... just how does that play out on a personal level?

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. It's the show about everything. And we do mean everything. Yes, even that. Yep, and that too. Oh, you bet. Definitely that. Now, here's everything you want to host, Eric Mataxis.

Hey there, folks. This is technically our two, but I'm still talking to our friend, Dr. Lewis Marcos of Houston Baptist University. You were just saying, Lou, about how Solon in classical Greece had the wisdom And it's an extraordinary thing that 25 centuries ago, he had the wisdom to govern in a way that we still marvel at today. We're still trying to get this right today. Tell us more about that. It's amazing. Basically what So long did is he declared what the Old Testament calls a jubilee.

He released the debts. But he did not redistribute wealth. He wasn't a Marxist, right? He tried to bring true justice, but preserve a balance. And people might think he's an elitist because he kept most of the political power in the hands of landowners. But that's because the people that own land have much more at stake in a government being stable. And so he just understood human nature. And Eric, let me tell you what he did.

Okay, here is, I'm going to tell you the reason why Rome was great and why America used to be great. And it's the same thing that Solon did. What Solon did is he actually increased immigration, but he wanted skilled workers from other parts of Greece to come to Athens, and at the same time he opened up immigration, he increased Athenian pride. In the same way that the Romans took their enemies and made them into Roman citizens,

and in the same way America used to take immigrants and make them into Americans, This is what Greece did at the best. When Greece became ethnocentric and everybody was excemi, a foreigner, and they didn't want to listen to them, they fell apart. And we need to go back. See, Eric, you and I are both Greek, right? When we grew up, we were Americans, right? The old question, if there's a war between Greece and America, we're on the side of America.

We're Americans. But in our homes, we celebrated our Greek culture. We had festivals. We invited people in. But we were Americans, and that's what we had together. The Greeks did that at their best, the Romans did it at their best, and when they ceased to do that, when they could no longer absorb and assimilate the German barbarians

as they used to, they fell apart. And that is what we're losing. We have lost a sense of our own identity and pride, and we don't believe in ourselves. So why should the immigrants believe in ourselves? You know what? That is exactly, I can't remember if I ever sent you a copy of my book, if you can keep it, but that's basically the thesis.

It's this idea that we have to love our country and celebrate what's good in it or it goes away. And then we lose cultural confidence. And of course, that's precisely where we are today. And it's where Europe is today. My goodness, talk about losing cultural confidence. Angela Merkel and others, they don't really have anything to assert. They're sort of just there. And they're allowing those from the outside to come in and to digger.

I mean, we see this all over Europe. You see it in England, you see it in France, that they've allowed a Muslim ideology to come in, in a sense, to dictate to them, rather than say to them, hey, if you want to come in here, you have to adopt our attitudes, but they no longer have attitudes. They no longer know what they believe.

And that's why, again, I talk about this all the time, Lou, but how vital it is for Americans to know what is America, what is American-style self-government, to celebrate it, to know the polar, and the songs of our history to celebrate Paul Revere's ride and Longfellow's poem, and on and on, because if you do not know who you are, you cannot possibly share the glories of our democracy and freedom with the rest of the world. And of course, that's what it would be to make America great again,

would be to restore that kind of patriotism. It's not ugly nationalism. Oh, it's not. The immigrants come here because they want to be part of the American experiment. And they come to L.A. and they said, no, no, we hate ourselves. Right. The Europeans can't fight radical Islam because they are a moral and spiritual vacuum. And as Aristotle used to say, nature hates a vacuum.

It will end up being filled by something else. It's amazing. We invite people here and then we tell them, no, we're a bad country. Hate us. It's crazy. That whole self-loathing thing actually is true. You see it in academia. It's close to a disease.

Amazing. Well, it really is. I mean, the whole idea that if I'm white, I should just shut up and hide in the corner, you think, what madness? What are we talking about? If anybody has a sense of history and a sense of the history of ideas, you know that's not going to end well. But it's where a lot of the radical left in academia is today. And it's a joy to be talking to somebody in the academy who is not there, who gets this stuff. It's amazing. I mean, one of the other things I reveal in Pericles' funeral oration is, you know, his version of the Gettysburg Address, he starts and he says, I'm not going to talk too much about the soldiers who died, because some of you will be mad if I don't say enough good things about them, but many of you will be mad if I overpraise them. Pericles and the Greeks at their best understood that the greatest destroyer of democracy, the universal asset of democracy, is. envy. Envy leads to resentment. That is what I am seeing in the streets of our great nation right now. It is a kind of envy that wants to tear everything down to a lowest common denominator world. And Pericles understood that, and he was able to hold it. But once he died probably of the plague, all the demagogues rose up, the people that play in our prejudices and our anger. And Athens was torn apart and they lost the Peloponnesian War. And we would have lost all of ancient

Greece, if it wasn't for Alexander the Great, taking it and spreading throughout the world, God has a sense of humor, and we still have it. But again, here's the other problem. Real quick, Aristotle said this, that the kinds of behavior that democracy breeds are of what democracy needs to survive, right? So democracy often breeds the very kind of envy and bitterness and resentment that will destroy it. And it's weird. The more everybody gets raised up, the more envy there is. Because peasants don't envy the king.

Peasants envy the peasant next door who has two more cows and an extra acre of land. We're Greeks. We know about the Greek Civil War, which was worse. They killed more of themselves than Hitler did. And Hitler killed a lot of them. We have got to replace envy with gratitude. and I know that sounds old-fashioned it's like write a thank you note

but we've lost a sense of gratitude for the legacy that's been passed down to us for this great nation that allows us to criticize it these people couldn't be petitioning under Lenin or Stalin or Mao or Castro or Pol Pot or any of these people that would be put to death immediately

and you know the great irony of history the very professors that want Marxism will be the first people to be killed if Marxism ever takes over the country amazing. It is amazing. It's just so much fun to talk to you. We've just got a couple of minutes left today.

But trust me, Lou, we've got to have you back. There's so much we want to talk about. But you bring so much to the conversation because a lot of times when we're talking current events, it's only about current events. You're able to bring an historical perspective. And it's a beautiful thing. What you just said about envy,

there is no question. That is at the heart of, of Marxist ideology and certainly the cultural Marxism we're seeing today, it is about the deification of envy. And I remember when I was an undergraduate before I really found my way and God found me, I bought into that idea. So I remember those feelings, that the idea

of righteous anger against those who would oppress me or anything. And it's intoxicating and it's horrifying and it leads to the bloodbath of the French Revolution. So it's important we identify it. It is envy. You're quite right. And it's disguised as anything but envy. I'm sorry we're out of time today, Lou, but I want to say that it's just great to reconnect with you.

I know that people can find you fairly easily if they can only spell Marcos with a K. Louis-Marcoe, Adoptist University. I know you're on YouTube. Where else can people find you? Is there a website? My website is being reconstructed these days so often. So it's just best to go on YouTube or go on my Amazon page. I'll answer you.

I'm sorry we're at a time, but we will have you back as soon as possible to continue the conversation. God bless you, my friend. Thanks. It's great to be here. Keep up the fight. Hey, folks, welcome back to here from Texas Show. I'm talking to my dear friend, Curt Nelson.

He heads up East-West Ministries, which is ostensibly headquartered in Dallas, but they are all over the world. Kurt Nelson, welcome to the program. Thank you, Eric. Great to be with you again. I have traveled with East West Ministries to Albania a couple of times. Because of East West,

my book on Wolverford's was translated into Albanian. I've been to Kosovo with you all. We've been to Macedonia together. Now, Greeks aren't supposed to say Macedonia. We're supposed to say like the former republic known as Massa. I don't know what it is. But the point is it's north of Thessalonica. And we've been there ministering together. You and East West are all over the world. And you are operating in a number of that we cannot mention on the air. So I want my audience to know a little bit about East, West, Kurt. Sure. Well, thank you, Eric. It's great to be on your show. We are focused on reaching the least reached people in the entire world with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some shocking statistics. There are about 3.2 billion people of the 7.8 billion people in the world who've never heard the name Jesus, have no idea who he is, why he came, what he accomplished, and what he offers them. So East West is focused on those 3.2 billion that do not know Jesus. Largely Hindu block, Muslim block, Buddhist block, some animist and even some communists still around that we're trying to reach with the good news of the gospel of Jesus and to plant churches, mostly house churches, because those withstands. opposition and persecution a whole lot better than a traditional church with a building and a steeple and a cross and stained glass. And then we're equipping leaders and multiplying disciples of Jesus

in these spiritually dark nations. Well, Kurt, you're going into some very dangerous places. I know for a fact, you know, people talk about this, but you guys are, you're doing this. You're going into dangerous places to share the best news in the universe about Jesus. How long has East West been in operation? We are a 27-year-old mission. I like to say we've got about a 45-year-old history because our founder, John Maisel, was actually part of another mission that birthed East West. So a lot of experience in 27 years of history with East West.

I'm always fascinated how everybody has a different burden. If you come to faith and you really want to serve God, a lot of people or everybody has some different calling. Not everyone's called to do the same thing. Not everybody feels this burden for the loss that you talk about. We should, to some extent, of course. But the idea of actually taking your life and saying, I'm going to go. for years into a place that it might be dangerous, but I do it because the love that God has for people that they've never heard about this God who loves them. They can't even conceive

of this God who loves them. It's a glorious thing to think that East West, I know there are other organizations that do it, but you guys are the ones closest to me, closest to my heart. You are doing this in genuinely dangerous places. You know, you're absolutely right about the motive, Eric. One of my favorite passages is in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, and that's the chapter where it talks about us being ambassadors for Christ, which is an intermediary between two parties that could otherwise be hostile. And in 2 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul writes, it is the love of Christ that compels us. It is the love of Christ that constrains us to get out of our comfort zone. I like to say out of the pew and into the world.

get out of our comfort zone here and to go, whether it's on a short-term mission trip or a mid-term deployment or even to move overseas and take up long-term residency to communicate the love of Christ to those that have never heard it and never experienced it and don't know about it. You know, it's a funny thing. I sometimes think it's easier almost to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ to somebody who's completely ignorant of it because here in the West, oftentimes when you want to share with the neighbor or something, they think they already know it or they've already heard it and rejected it. They don't, but they've got all of these cultural accretions against the good news,

and it's almost harder to break through that than it would be in a place where they know there's a spiritual reality, they know there's suffering, and they're more open to a real answer. Yeah, we've seen there are studies that prove that the great, greater the persecution in, for instance, the 1040 window where there's greater persecution, there's also a greater openness and responsiveness ironically to the gospel. We had a couple of our missionaries. We'll call them Chris and Jose, and they were recently in a Muslim country, and they were

meeting with a guy named Alexei, all names changed to protect the innocent, but Alexei was telling them of honor killing in his culture. and he said that there was a relative of his killed 13 years before, and he said, sooner or later, we will avenge, we will kill a person who killed our relative 13 years ago. Well, that led Chris and Jose to share, they said, well, in the Old Testament, you read in Exodus 21, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. But they said, Jesus brought in a radical teaching, which we read about in Matthew 6, where he said, if you forgive other people when they sin against you,

your heavenly father will also forgive you. And I want to read this quote, Alexei said, Jesus' teaching is like something from another world. And so to your point, you know, we say familiarity breeds contempt. Well, Alexei had no idea of Jesus or his teaching, and he considered it otherworldly, but that led them because of his curiosity to have a conversation with Alexei about the love of Jesus who is willing to forgive our sin and teach us to forgive those who have sinned against us. And of course, it actually is a teaching from another world. That's the point, right? Only the God who created the universe could come up with something that is so confounding to our human minds, at least up to a point. At some point, with God's help, we can make sense of it.

But I was just talking on this program to Arthur Brooks, who now teaches at Harvard. He was with the American Enterprise Institute. When he spoke in the National Prayer Breakfast, this last year, you know, I spoke there in 2012 and this year 2020, he preached on loving your enemies. And when it was over, this makes me laugh. The president got up and the president always says what everybody's thinking, even though you're not supposed to say it. He says it. He gets up and he says, you know, Arthur, I don't know if I can agree with you on that. And he just keeps going. I think most people, like the president, they don't really understand what does it mean to love your enemy,

but they're afraid to say that. So they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. They kind of feel like, oh, that's for extra credit Christians. Like, I could never do that. But the reality is Jesus calls us all to love our enemies, but he wants us to understand what it means. And I think most people, like the president, they haven't really heard what does it mean.

They think it means something like agreeing with your enemy or ignoring the tremendous sin. I mean, if somebody kills a relative of mine, I'm not supposed to forget about that or say, oh, that's not a big deal. It is a big deal. So when you all talk about teaching this radical idea, how do you go about explaining this so that it makes sense to people? Well, you're absolutely right. You know, it's hard for us, I think, as followers of Jesus, to even acknowledge that we have enemies, right? I mean, it's like we're not supposed to have enemies, but it was in Matthew 5 where I'll read this. Jesus said, you've heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. That's conventional wisdom, right? Love your neighbor, but hate your enemy. He says, but I tell you, here's the otherworldly, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your father who is in heaven. If you love those who love you, he says, what reward will you get? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more

than others? So the only way we know for people to be reconciled to each other is first to be reconciled to God their creator, which again, you and I know, comes through a relationship with Jesus Christ. In Ezekiel, the prophet Ezekiel says, God wants to remove your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. You know, that's the unforgiving heart versus the forgiving heart. And so we use, to answer your question, we use a variety of methods that are culturally, contextually relevant in each and every people group that we're working with. to communicate the love of God, the life of Jesus Christ, and the message of His gospel of grace in as winsome a way as we possibly can. And it's not easy, as we're saying.

But I think part of it has to do with the fact that if you understand, a lot of people say they're Christians, but they don't really understand their own guilt. In other words, they have this idea that being a Christian means being a good person. And they don't understand that according to Jesus and according to the scripture, we are all equally lost. We're all equally divided from God. If I'm five yards farther away from God or whatever, in terms of infinity, it means nothing. And when you appreciate that he comes that distance to love us,

we realize we're basically equal to everybody else that we want to say they're much worse than I am. And if you don't get that, it's hard to get this other piece. We'll be right back talking to Kurt Nelson with East West Ministries. Hey folks, Eric Mattaxas here. The Trump campaign has a special offer just for you. The president really wants to give you a sign 2020, Make America Great Again hat. He wants to make sure the lucky winner is one of his top supporters.

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to share the good news of Jesus with all kinds of people in many danger zones. And, Kurt, I was just saying that I think that there are a lot of people that they're cultural Christians, and they think that, you know, I'm not really a bad person. I don't need that much of Jesus. But like that guy, he really needs Jesus. And I think that's what leads to people not understanding that we're all guilty. If you understand you're guilty and that Jesus had to die for you, not for those bad people, for you because you're one of those bad people.

If you don't get that, you're not going to have gratitude to Jesus. and you're not going to understand that you're morally no better in God's eyes than all those people you think are so terrible. That's a big problem in what I think of as the cultural Christian church. There are people that they don't have that sense that they should be bursting with gratitude to Jesus. They kind of act like, well, I didn't do that much that he had to forgive. That's to me the problem we have in the West.

You know, Eric, I would say it's a very common phrase we've heard before. The ground is level at the foot of the cross, but if you take all 7.8 billion people on the planet, we have one thing in common, and that is our sin. That is our alienation from God. In Romans 3, Paul talks about us all being rebellious against God. And so for me, you know, I had to come to recognize my own iniquity, my own disobedience to God's commands, my own unrighteousness, and that was the basis. Talking about enemies, loving your enemies, in Romans 5, Paul says, we are all enemies of God

and estranged from him. That's the bad news, but the good news is it says God demonstrates his love for us, and that while we were still enemies of God, Jesus Christ died for us. So Jesus went first. He died for me, he died for you, he died for the world, and he made a way. for us to be reconciled to him, and then how much easier is it to reconcile to one another? As I said, I think there are a lot of folks that they think of themselves as Christians, they're churchgoers, but they don't get this piece.

They don't understand that according to the Bible, we are all guilty. And I want to say to those people, you need to get that. If you don't get that, you're not getting really the most important part, because what gratitude will you have to a Savior if you don't really believe what he did on the cross was for your sins? You think it's, well, well, I had some sins. Nobody's perfect. Well, what the Bible says is that nobody's perfect applies to you dramatically. And if you really go through your life, don't compare yourself to anybody else.

Understand that the evil that you have done at any point is part of something really deep. deep. And that's hard for people to believe. We think we live in a secular culture that's, you know, it's all relative. But I think when you go, and I want to ask you, when you go to these places that are really spiritually dark, you're talking about satanic oppression of Christians, a persecution of people for no reason. You recognize the evil that's there. And if there's anything good, you want that. You're hungrier for it than you would be in a relatively comfortable Western culture. You know, the key to our work is our national partners. So, these would be indigenous workers that are working in these 59 spiritually dark countries. And

we've had workers imprisoned. We've had them beaten. We've actually even had some that have been killed for their proclaiming the good news about Jesus. And so they're in difficult situations. the missionaries that we send are in difficult situations, as you said, Eric, spiritually dark, hostile, and it takes the love of Christ to lead you into that situation and to keep you in that situation despite the hostility, despite the spiritual darkness. It is a spiritual warfare. It is a spiritual kingdom that is being established. Before I forget, what is the website for East-Westman?

in case folks want to check you out. www.org. No hyphen? No hyphen. No hyphen, just eastwest.org. What could be simpler? Eastwest.org. I imagine that some places you go, there's a kind of a radical atheist, secular climate,

and other places where East West goes, there is animism and, you know, sorcerers and witch doctors and a lot of demonic stuff. And I'm guessing that when you go into one of these places where there's a lot of this demonic stuff, people are much less closed to finding, you know, the power that can help them deal with all of that demonic stuff. Yeah. And what I would say, South Asia and Southeast Asia, you know, it's a very spiritual environment and parts of obviously the continent of Africa, very, very spiritual environments.

You know, there's no foreign concept of demons and angels and spirits and spiritual power. And, you know, in some ways, those are easier environments to go in and talk about the one true and living God. It's a new concept that there's only one God and there's only one true and living God, and all the rest are what the Bible and we would call idols. but most of the world is probably more spiritually engaged than we are here in the United States, although it may be those dark spiritual powers that you're talking about. Well, that's what I always find funny, is that it's kind of like going to the mafia for help. And then when you find out there's somebody above the mafia, you're like, I want to go to them, because when I go to the mafia for help, they're going to want stuff from me in return.

And I don't want to deal with them, but I have no other option. options. Jesus really kind of is the ultimate Trump card. We're going to be back. Final segment with my friend Kurt Nelson of EastWest Ministries. You can go to eastwest.org and check them out. Hey there, folks. I would be remiss in not mentioning my friend Jim Netherie. He's the one that introduced me to East West Ministries, and I ended up going to Albania a couple of times and speaking to members of parliament in Albania about William Wilberforce, this great politician, and helping them understand what would it mean to be a great politician on the model of Wilberforce? I guess I want to talk, Kurt, about you all, you have people in full-time ministry around the world

and all kinds of countries, but you do take people on short-term, missions to give them a taste of what that's like. Talk about that, if you would. We do. All of our short-term teams are evangelistic in nature, so the very gospel we've been talking about is what we're all about when we go. We train and equip those teams to be adept at sharing the gospel in the cultural context. We'll be taking them to.

We hope to take 1,000 people or more a year to about a number, about 15 or 20 of the 59 countries we're working in. and we're just waiting for COVID-19 quarantines and shelter in place to lift, and then we'll be back about that business. So those are all you can find the opportunities to go on our website. I guess when somebody goes on a short-term mission, a lot of people kind of develop a hunger. Like they suddenly see something they didn't see before,

and they recognize that they can use their life and their time. in a way that gives them a lot of personal satisfaction. But I guess you have to go and taste it just to see what it's like. I'm imagining a lot of folks that you take on these short-term missions say, like, I've got to go back. It's very transformational to the people that we're sharing with, but also to the people that volunteer like you're talking about. I liken it to first kiss, first date, first ice cream,

that it really is addictive in a sense that you go, wow, God just used me to bring this family, this couple, this individual to know Jesus out of sheer utter spiritual darkness. And that not only happened once on this trip, but it happened five or 10 or 15 or 20 times on this trip. And you just can't go back to life as normal after you've experienced that. You've got to go back. I think that part of the calculus here is that many people in the West, certainly in the United States, we're so comfortable. that our faith is really not awakened. And when you go to a place like this,

you begin realizing what's at stake, what is happening spiritually, and it changes things for you. My greatest desire would be that the church in America would wake up, the church in the West would wake up and would be bold and would understand what an amazing thing it is to have a relationship with the kids,

God of the universe to know that he loves you. He's familiar with you personally in a way you can't even imagine. All that stuff I really do think it's easy to forget. And by going on trips like this, usually people have a renewed kind of faith, which is just as valuable even if they don't go on another trip, although they probably will, but it's valuable back here in the pews of their home churches. So you remind me of one of my favorite verses. Philemon is only one chapter. So Philemon verse 6, Paul says, be active in sharing your faith. For in so doing, we are reminded of all the riches we have in Christ Jesus. So to your point, Eric, when we go and we tell somebody about Jesus, it's like we're preaching to ourselves at the same time, and we're reminded of all

the riches that we have personally received through a relationship with Jesus Christ. So you're right. Billy Graham always would say when people will come down and make a commitment, he would say, now there's a few things I'm going to ask you to do. And one of those things, the most dramatic, I mean, he always says, you know, find a good home church, a Bible-believing church. But he always says, share your faith with someone. Now, that to me is kind of a litmus test. There are a lot of people that say, well, I'm a Christian, I believe, but they're not sharing their faith with anyone. They're not even thinking about it. And I want to challenge those people. If you're not wanting to share your faith, are you sure you have a faith? Are you sure you're a Christian? Because the Bible says that

if you are a Christian, if you have understood what Jesus did for you, really understood it, not just say you understand it, you're going to have a desire to share that with someone because it's like having a billion dollars in your pocket and you're hanging around with people that can feed themselves. If you're not sharing some of that, you must not have any appreciation of what's in your pocket. And I really think that this is a key.

I wanted to say this on this program, Kurt, that if you aren't somehow sharing your faith, you need to question whether you yourself get it. because not everybody's going to be an evangelist, not everybody's going to have a radio show, not everybody's going to run a ministry called East West, or we're all called the different things. But nobody can escape being called to the basics of sharing what you have with others. Some of us will be eloquent. Some of us won't be eloquent.

The Bible doesn't talk about that. The Bible talks about simply a desire to give others what God gave to you either through someone else or through himself. So this is a mandate, I guess, is what I wanted to say. Some of Jesus' last words were, you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the other most parts of the earth. So it is expected of us that follow Jesus to tell other people about the treasure that we've discovered in him. Absolutely. Well, and there are a number of easy ways to do that.

I think a lot of times people get all nervous and think, I think to myself, hey, if you don't feel like sharing, don't share. but make sure you get yourself in a situation that helps you feel like sharing. And what I mean by that is when you go on a trip with East West or when you read the Bible more or you do any of those things, when your faith comes alive, the next thing that happens is you go, oh my goodness, I want to share this with people. So I want to say to people, if you're not sharing or if you don't feel an inclination to share, at least know that there are things you can do to, reanimate your faith so that you're not just walking around being useless to God because he made you

for his purposes. And I think, you know, again, I always said the easy way for some people would be to go on a short-term trip with East West. Some people can't do that. But there's all kinds of things you can do to revivify your faith. And I know that that's important. Just a couple of seconds left. Anything you want to share with the group here? Well, it would be our great joy to equip anybody who wants to be equipped to share their faith to do so, whether it's here in the U.S. or to go on a trip around the world. We'd love to do that. Well, I'm just so glad to have you on the program. We've been friends for a long time. East West is a wonderful organization. Folks, go to eastwest.org. You can check it out. And Kurt Nelson, my friend, God bless you. And thank you. Thank you. Folks, I have something very positive to tell you. But before that, I wanted to start with something negative. Chris Heim's, do you have something negative to share with you? the group? Well, yeah, as you know, we got eight chickens during this pandemic. We kind of got

stir crazy and my wife wanted chickens. So we got eight of them, one for each of the family members. And sadly, live chickens. Yes, yeah, but eight in total, two big ones and six little ones. And now we're down to seven. We lost a little one. So it's very sad. You mean you lost it? It flew away? No, we lost it in that. It didn't wake up one morning. It was very sad. We had to bury it. You had to bury it in your backyard in Weehawken.

That's right. And we put some stones on top of it. And then a couple days later, we noticed the stones were disturbed and something or someone, but probably something removed the chicken from the backyard, probably a cat. You think a cat dug up your little chicken grave? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, because we have a neighbor who has a bunch of cats that she feeds. So we have some unwanted cat neighbors that are in our backyard all the time.

All right. I wanted to start on a negative note, and I thank you for that. Albin, I'm going to turn to something positive now. I hope you would, please. Are you ready? First of all, before I forget, Mike Lindell is here to remind me. He's kind of spooking me here, but he's here to remind me that if you go to mypillow.com, it's obligatory now.

It's federal law. You have to use the code, Eric, to see. save big bucks. Very important. Please, folks, we don't joke about this stuff. It's a federal law. You could go to jail if you use a code other than Eric. I might be joking, but why risk it? And also, really good news, we are raising money for food for the poor this month. People often say, you know, God has blessed me. I want to give back. Maybe you've been blessed just a little bit, but you still say, I want to do something good because I know there are people who are suffering around the world. Food for the poor is an organization that we have vetted.

We work with them. They feed the poorest of the poor in third world countries right now because of COVID. Folks in Haiti and Guatemala and countries like that are struggling even more than they were before. It's horrific stuff. But the good news, and you know I mean this because I've said this many times, the good news is that we can do something about it. We have a little money that we can spare for those who are suffering. And folks, I want to say if you go to metaxustalk.com, that's our website. Metaxistalksotoc.com.

If you give anything, whatever you give, you will be entered for a grand prize, which is always outrageous. It's a ton of sign books from me, signed books from Albin. You'll probably get a Mike Lindell, Bumblehead doll, just to freak you out. and all kinds of stuff and a visit to the studio, anybody wants, whatever's like, anybody who gives anything. And I want to say for $37, you can feed a kid for six months. That's how far the American dollar goes. $37, folks, would you please?

Would you think about doing that? Anybody who gives $100 feeds three kids for six months. Think about that. Now, if you give $100, you not only are you enrolled to get the grant, prize, but you also get metaxus super. That is a value of almost $100. It means commercial free podcasting. Okay. Some of you say, I don't like listening to commercials. Well, you can get just the straight 40 minutes of the show, but you have to give $100. Anybody who gives $1,000 before August 10 gets a free signed pre-publication copy of my new book, Donald and the Fake News.

this book doesn't even come out to August 25th. If you give $1,000 before the 10th, we'll get this in the mail to you. It will be signed, obviously, and we'll get in the mail to you right away, no delay. That's my promise. A very limited supply there, but anybody gives $1,000.

Lots of other stuff. I just want to say that if you go to Metaxisttalk.com, you can see everything. And by the way, there is a phone number. I'm going to give you the phone number. Folks, write this down. We really need your help. The phone number is 840.

8463, Hope, 844-863, Hope. Please dial it right now. 844-8663, Hope, 844-863, Hope. Thank you.