The Eric Metaxas Show - Larry Loftis (continued)

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Larry Loftis continues his fascinating account of Corrie ten Boom and the great personal sacrifice she and her family made to save Jews during WWII.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. Do you like your gravy thick and rich and loaded with creamy mushrooms? If no one was looking, would you chug the whole gravy boat? Chug, chug, chug, chug. Stay tuned.

Here comes Mr. Chug-a-l-l-l-hug-hug-hug. himself, Eric Mattexas. Folks, we have the joy of continuing our conversation with Larry Loftus, L-O-F-T-I-S, best-selling author of many books, the brand new book. The True Story of Corey Ten Boom, it's called The Watchmaker's Daughter. Of course, her family were watchmakers in the Netherlands, Holland, and they hid Jews. Their story is pretty well known because of the hiding place,

Larry Loftus is telling us how much of the story has not been told, and he's included it in his book. So you mentioned Larry that Anne Frank is 10 miles away. Obviously, her story, she's giving us background on what is happening at the same time. But you just blew my mind by saying that Audrey Hepburn, the actress, comes into the story. I didn't know that she was Dutch. I don't know that is Hepburn a Dutch name? Is that her actual name? If you look in her, the biography of her, it's a very long Dutch last name that her mother had.

And I think that she, they shortened the name. In Hollywood, they didn't think viscer tufth as a last name would play on the marquee with Carrie Grant. And they were very right. But so she was in the Netherlands during the war. I did not know that. And so how does she figure into this at all? I mean, I'm stunned by that. So she's, I mean, my goal was to bring in everybody.

So Anne Frank's there. Audrey Hepburn's there. Queen Willamina's there. Who was there, Churchill, by the way. And so Audrey is the same age as Anne Frank. She's 13. And so she is later telling about what she saw and heard from her perspective in Arnhem. So I'm, you know, in the spy world, you talk about triangulating and, and,

radio frequencies to find somebody. Well, I have to triangulate what's around Harlem, what's around Corey. And so I have to know what's going on in Amsterdam, have to know what's going on in Arnhem, have to know what the Germans are doing, what the British are doing, what the Dutch are doing. The SOE is involved in the story, the SOE Special Operations Executive, which was the sabotage spy outfit that I talked about in code name lease. They're involved. A lot of people die. There's a huge, basically, an intelligence coup that a German pulls off. That's in the story. So all this is happening around, you have this tornado that's occurring around the Baye, which is the center of our story. Now, how do you spell Baye, because it's a little bit

counterintuitive, these crazy Dutch? B-E-J-E. B-E-J-E? I thought it was B-E-T-J-E. We're sure it's B-E-J-E. You're the author, I guess. you would know. And what is the Baye Ye? What is that? So they're like most European buildings, you'll have retail on the bottom and then residential above that. So the Baye was their home, but it also included their watch shop, which is on the first floor and then they're residential on the next two floors. So that was what they called their home. And that's obviously where they hid many Jews in what came to be known as the hiding place. And that building is still there.

In fact, it's the Corrie Tenbue Museum now. And they've ordered 100 copies of the book to have the English because of Americans coming there or British coming there. And there's a Dutch version that's already been the rights have been bought for. So there will be a Dutch version coming out by one of the – maybe it's the largest Dutch publisher. So that'll be coming as well. And we've got Spain and some other countries. Russia, believe it or not, Russia has bought the rights. So. Well, this is kind of crazy. My Bonhofer book,

I've been translated in many languages, including Dutch and Russian. It's kind of interesting. Well, they were allies. I forgot about that. Yeah, they were allies. But so you said, Queen Wilhelmina comes into the story. This is the queen in the Netherlands at the time. And so how does she come into the story?

Yeah, Queen Willamina is beloved like no one else by the entire country. They love this woman. They celebrate her birthday. So when the war breaks out, she essentially becomes Churchill, as Churchill was for the British. Not physically. Not in any physical sense. And so anyway, she had to escape. So she gets out, this is in the story, she gets out in the nick of time, the Germans were

bombing Rotterdam. The Hague was in question, so they had to get her out, so she ends up sneaking out, and they put her on a British destroyer to take her to London. So she ends up in London. Well, from London, she starts going on the BBC to give speeches to her people, just like Churchill is giving speeches at the time in 1940 and 1941 and so on to the British. She's giving speeches, and the Dutch would tune in, and they would hear that, and that's their encouragement because she's obviously telling them in Dutch. Well, what always amazes me, including the struggle we're going through in this country at this time for freedom, it really amazes me how it is the efforts of innumerable people.

We hear the most exciting ones, but everybody does his part. and when we think about what if Queen Wilhelmina had been a little less courageous? What if the Ten Boom family had been a little less courageous? What's the tipping point? At what point do you lose to the Nazis and the world enters a new dark ages? It's an amazing thing to me because we do, we want to celebrate these heroes and heroines, but at the same time we want to understand that if we're not inspired to do our part, we're helping defeat the good guys. We're not helping them win. We're helping defeat them by doing nothing.

And by telling this whole story of all these people who are involved in their various ways, you're helping us to understand something which I just find centrally important at this time, is that every single person, whether he knows it or doesn't, is involved in a war between good and evil. And if you think that there's a safe third place that you can stand on the sidelines, you are working for evil. Sorry to break it to you. It doesn't work that way that there's a third place.

I'm not going to vote. I'm not going to get in trouble. I'm just going to stand over here. God will judge you for your silence. And Bonhofer, even though he did not say it that we know of, but the famous, quote, silence in the face of evil is itself. Evil not to act is to act, not to speak as to speak. God will not hold us guiltless.

Here you have a family that absolutely obeyed God. And in the case of the sister, they paid the ultimate price. But they didn't fear death. They feared complicity with evil, which is really where we all ought to be. And the beauty of, as you know, as you dig into these stories, and you're thrust into the middle of their life at the time it occurred, all of the people involved in the story have to make that decision. How far do I go?

How much do I get involved? Like Hans Poli, for example. He knew that if he crossed that line, he could just stay in the house and hide. Everything would have been fine. But he felt in his heart, I can't let my country fail. I can't let the Nazis just keep doing this without doing everything I can do in my part. And that's what led him to join the resistance, even though if you get caught, resistance people were shot.

So he knew that going in. And you go around to all of the people around the story, they're Dutch policemen in Harlem. And they were basically under the thumb of the Nazis and the SS guy who was running the place router. They have to walk a very fine line. Their police officers, they're supposed to help the Nazis, but yet they hate the Nazis.

they don't want to help them. So they have to figure out, how do I help my people, but give the Germans the impression that I'm not doing so? And so you have a number of policemen that are trying to help. And Corey deals with some of them. And they can't come out and say, oh, I'm on your side. I'm really on your side. I'm faking it. This is the ultimate question.

You don't want to end up being the Alec Guinness role in Bridge over the River Kwai. You don't want to be helping them so much. because you have to do a little bit, but it's kind of complicated. We'll be back one more segment with the author of the watchmaker's daughter, Larry Loftus. Very exciting. Don't go away. Legacy precious metals has a revolutionary new online platform that allows you to invest in real gold and silver online. In a few easy steps, you can open an account online, select your medals of choice, and choose to have them stored in a vault or ship to your door. You have access to a dashboard where you can track your portfolio growth.

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with a gorgeous quote from Dietrich Bonhofer. I want to read that just because I had forgotten this. Bonhofer wrote so much. This is from his letters and papers from prison. Amazing. Let me just read this epigram that begins your book, The Watchmaker's Daughter. This is Bonhofer's voice, daring to do what is right, not what fancy may tell you, valiantly grasping occasions, not cravenly doubting. Freedom comes only through deeds, not through thoughts taking wing. Faint not nor fear, but go out to the storm and the action, trusting in God, whose commandment you faithfully follow. Freedom, exultant, will welcome your spirit with joy. That is so powerful, valiantly grasping occasions, not cravenly doubting. We're living at a time now,

I have to say it, and I say it very often, when many people are wringing their hands and saying, there's nothing I can do, what can I do? And then you give them an example of something they can do. They go, well, but if I do that, then this might happen and that might happen. They have ceased to live a life of meaning, a life of heroic beauty. We are put on this earth to live that kind of life, and these stories inspire us to do that. And folks, if you miss it, you miss it. You only get to pass this way one time, and God invites us into this glorious battle with him for what is right and true and good.

and it amazes me that Bonhofer says, he says, faint not for fear, but go out to the storm and the action. But before that, this is the ultimate line. Freedom comes only through deeds, not through thoughts taking wing. I think there are a lot of people that think that if I worry a lot and if I think the right thoughts, prayer is very important, folks. But prayer is action. And there's other kinds of action. If your faith doesn't lead you to works and to action, maybe you have no faith.

So it's extraordinary that you begin the book with that beautiful Bonhofer quote. I want to thank you for reminding me of it, Larry Loftus. So the book is The Watchmaker's Daughter. What have we not covered that we should talk about now? Well, the only thing I would, and by the way, I put that epigram in the book, and I got goosebumps when you read it. So it's moving even just to hear it. The only other thing that I would add is a lot of people in World War II suffered far worse than Corey did. Millions were executed.

Millions were in concentration camps. So she's not unique there. Hundreds of thousands hit Jews. She's not unique there. Where she's unique is this. She forgave everybody. And this was the hardest thing to do because, number one, she had to forgive the Germans, which she did. She had to forgive her captors and Ravensbrook, which was.

was very hard because many of them were cruel, which she did. And hardest of all, she had to forgive the person who betrayed them to the Nazis. The person who betrayed them was not a German. The person who betrayed them was a Dutchman, one of her own, a quizzling. So that person, which led to their arrest, led to Betsy's death, led to her father's death, led to Willem's later death, led to one of her nephew's deaths. Those people, that person, Corey felt like I have to forgive him, but that's like the most difficult thing in the world. And so she prayed that, you know, God would help her to forgive and she does. Well, she writes a letter to him to the very person that caused the death of all of these members of her family and says, I forgive you.

One of the captors who she later meets in the story in Germany was a Ravensbrook Guard who was very cruel. and he had come to one of her meetings at a church, and he comes up to her, and he says, Froyline, I loved your message. I'm a Christian now. I was at Ravensbrook, and, you know, I've been forgiven of all that. Will you forgive me? And Corey couldn't do it. She's like, I hate this, man.

This is the guy that beat us. This is the guy that whipped us. And so Corey just felt like I can't. And then he lifts his hand to shake her hand. She won't take it. So finally, he keeps talking and he asks her again, will you forgive me? And so Corey says to herself and silently prays, Lord, I can lift my hand. I can do that much, but you have to supply the feeling.

And so Corey lifts her hand. And as soon as they touch hands, Corey says there was an energy, there was a love for this man. There was an electricity that passed between us. And I just held on to his hands. and I truly loved him, and she forgave him on the spot. People usually don't understand what it means when we talk about forgiveness. And I always refer to the, to me, it's a funny story about, I guess, a few years ago when at the National Prayer Breakfast, Arthur Brooks was the speaker and talked about forgiving your enemies and so on and so forth.

And Trump gets up and basically says what everybody's thinking. Trump always says what everybody's thinking. He says, I don't get it. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't know how I don't I don't get it, right? He's being honest because most of us don't get it because it's not easy to get. We think forgiving someone somehow means saying, yeah, it doesn't matter. It's fine.

No, no. To forgive is something supernatural. It's a command from God. It makes us understand that we are ourselves guilty, and if we want forgiveness for the horrible things we've done, if you don't think you've done horrible things, you're a hypocrite or a fool or whatever. But to really understand that to forgive someone, as Corey Ten Boom did, doesn't mean you're saying it's okay.

But I don't think Arthur Brooks did a great job of explaining it because there are many people who honestly, they'll sit there and go, well, I guess that's like extra credit Christianity. I have no clue how you do that. If Corey Ten Boom had trouble with it, we all need to understand. It's normal to have trouble with it, and that's why we need God's help. It's not a natural thing. It's a supernatural thing, and you do it out of pure obedience, which she does. But it is a little bit complicated, and I think there's a lot of confusion on that issue

because people think, like, oh, maybe some amazing person like Corey Ten Boom could do it, but I couldn't do it. You're not understanding it, and it's vital. I think it's one of the reasons it's vital. We know these stories of people like Corey Ten Boom, because apart from these stories, how do you model this? Where do you look in life for that kind of thing? But that to me is the most dramatic thing about her story.

It's what makes, you know, it's one thing to be heroic and to hide Jews, to risk your life. But then to add to that forgiveness, And I would argue, Larry, that even if you don't get the feeling, I mean, that sometimes God gives you grace and he gives you that feeling. But it doesn't matter. It's not about the feeling. There are people that have wronged you. They may be dead.

You may not be able to hear them beg you for forgiveness, but God commands you to forgive them. What does that mean? How does that work? It's not easy to explain, and I won't try now. But it's just vital to the story, and I'm glad you put it in this story, because a lot of people can't accomplish. that, more than anything, they can't comprehend that. Well, Corey would be the first to say, and I put this in the book right after I give that scene, is that there are some things that are so hard to forgive, people that have hurt

you so deeply, and in her case, this Ravensbrook prison guard, is that you can't forgive them in your own power. You need the grace of God. And that's what happened. We see that play out in the story where Corey is obedient. She says, I'll lift my hand. But, God, you're going to have to give me the feeling. in the love because I don't have that. And he does. I mean, you see it happen miraculously,

you know, right before your eyes, if you will. Well, also, I mean, I think we have to be clear. Here this man comes and asks for forgiveness. This man, theoretically, is a changed man. He is not the man who did those evil things. He was born again and forgiven. And he gets that. And he comes up to her and ask for forgiveness. But there are many people who are not born again, who do not become Christians, who are not repentant of the satanic things that they have done. And God commands us to forgive them too, even if they're not sorry. There's something very, we have to understand what that means. It doesn't mean you say it's okay. But in order to keep our own souls right with God, we have to somehow enter into that. That's some heavy stuff. But if you ever want to see how

tough it is, all you need to do is read The Watchmakers's daughter. Obviously, you're doing a lot of media pushing the book. The good news is you're a wonderful writer. And so I'm just excited, Larry, that you got to tell the whole story, that we get the whole story. I hope somebody in Hollywood, other than Angelina Jolie, whom I will forgive eventually, that somebody will pick this up and make a movie because this needs to happen. But anyway, Larry Loftus, God bless you. Congratulations on the watchmaker's daughter. And thanks for your time.

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Again, use code Eric and Save Mypillow.com. You know, folks, I hate to promote my books. I'm never even pictured on the set with my books, because I just feel that that's vulgar, it's inappropriate. But today, I'd like to break that rule because my book, Fish Out of Water, has just come out in paperback. Yes. And I, well, actually what happened was we often do a reader writes. Somebody wrote to us, Kathy Kay writes, howdy, Eric, I'm reading fish out of water.

And I am just laughing out loud at your description of your teacher, Mr. Siambus. just hilarious. We need more mistress yumbuses in the education system to give back hands to the snowflakes. Thanks for the laugh, Kathy Kay. And I thought, you know what, Albin, I just had this idea

because sometimes we have time to fill on the air, you know, like a guest only can give us this much time, whatever, and we'll do different segments. So I brought out, I thought I would read all my books out loud over the air. But then I thought, you know what, the Martin Luther book too long, the Bonhofer book, too

long, the Miracles book. You know, I've written a lot of books, but since we just got this email, I thought maybe I could read the passage about Mr. Siambas from my book Fish Out of Water. Now, Fish Out of Water, I did just say it's in paperback. The stories in this book are true. Yeah. They're all true. They are.

And I just wanted to read, because Kathy Kay wrote to wrote to us. wrote to us. I can't wait for the sequel to this, because at that time you and I went fishing up at Lake Winipasaki was, it was very funny. Uh, right, right, right. Yeah, I am writing a sequel to it called fish, to fish out of water, but anyway, my book, more fish out of water. My book, my book, fish out of water, this is a, uh, now, you know what, it doesn't say it anywhere in the book, but in the hardcover book, I know I've said it on the year before, but the cover picture, that's my father at the Statue of Liberty. My mother took this picture.

They were on a date in 1957 or 58. And on the date, my mother snapped this photo. And you look at it and you go like, this is an amazing photo. It is. And that is my dad. And he ends up being the hero of the book inadvertently. It's just when you tell the story. He is just a funny guy himself.

But what Kathy Kaye, who wrote to us, is referring to the Mr. Cumbus passage, It's, man, how do you even describe this stuff? This is true, okay? So I want to read, I want to read this. It's just too horrible, but I'm going to try to read this. If we run out of time, I'll just keep going. Okay, this is early 70s. I'm in grade school, but I'm at the Greek Orthodox parochial school in Corona Queens, okay?

in Corona Queens, it was called Transfiguration, Metamorphosis to Christu. So this is me. I'm reading now about my experience in, it's either second, I think it's third grade, or maybe fourth grade, that this happened. So this is like 1971. Okay, here it is. Living in the largely Greek world in which I did then seems to be now, seems to me now, as though I were living in an alternative universe from the rest of the kids in the country. But this sense is never more pronounced than when I recall my encounters with that forbidding and anachronistic figure known to us as Okirios Siambas, whom we may here refer to simply as Mr. Siambas.

I see him now in my mind's eye wearing a gray suit and holding a cigarette, like something out of an illustrated 1940s menswear ad, looking simultaneously authoritative and oblivious. for clarity's sake let me simply say that mr siambas was a greek teacher in both senses of the phrase meaning he was hired to teach greek but was also so freshly out of greece that he had never really left and he made no concession to where he now lived nor in which decade such that he slapped and buffeted his incorrigible chargers with frighteningly unrestricted abandon it never occurred to him that other teachers in 1970s America were not doing this anymore. He was brutal. I'll get to that.

It was unbelievable. As for his grooming habits, one gathers he thought the use of deodorant effeminate and French. For whenever he leaned over me to point something out in my copybook, I observed that he stank like a rutting goat. It was also then that I recoiled to see him flourishing a grotesquely long left pinky nail which in some bygone circles had indicated a man of leisure. One must also mention that his fearsome corpse's breath, when carelessly directed, carried the blunt force of an expertly swung truncheon. This is just the beginning.

Trust me. Just trust me. Sorry, I'm laughing. We haven't gotten to the violent part yet. And this is all true. Nor can one do him full justice without mentioning that during his classes, He hacked loudly. He was a smoker and spat often and with great fluency into the large open trash cans lined against the wall

in the lunchroom where our classes were held, not neglecting almost to gargle his unhallowed ammunition before its flagrant deployment. Be times the hell-born oyster overshot its target and struck the wall. Mr. Siamba also swore with the discriminant abandon, in front of all of us, boys and girls alike, and always in the original Greek. But Siambas's expertly delivered clouts were his truest signature. As his student in third and fourth grade, I behaved such that he never laid a hand on me,

but I had the misfortune in second grade before he was my Greek teacher to be on the receiving end of one of these awful blows. I was then six and small for my age, but one day for an unhappy hour it had fallen to Mr. Siambas to substitute for Mrs. Rosner, then expecting and at a doctor's appointment. Uh-oh, we're out of time in this segment. When we come back, we're going to get to more phleg and more spitting. Wait, you're not going to believe the violence.

This is all happened. We'll be right back. Okay, folks, I'm going to continue now with my dramatic reading from my autobiography, my memoir, Fish Out of Water, Search for the Meaning of Life. This is all true. Yes, it is. So this took place like about 1970. 172. I was a little kid, and I'm describing one of these teachers in the Greek Orthodox parochial

school who was brutal. If anything, I'm understating the case. Okay, so I say that, like, I was such a good kid, like, you know, I never got in trouble. But I say, before Mr. Siamba, so as my Greek teacher, I had the misfortune to be on the receiving end of one of these awful blows, and he didn't exactly hold back. I was then six and small for my age, but one day for an unhappy hour it had fallen to Mr. Siambas to substitute for Mrs. Rosner, second grade teacher, then expecting, I skipped the grade, so I was six years old in second grade. She was then expecting it at a doctor's appointment. Siambas was there to see that we worked quietly until Mrs. Rosner returned. But when I rose to ask if I could use the bathroom, he, from his seated position, promptly slapped my face

and in Greek demanded I returned to my seat. I had never been slapped, so I immediately bawled awfully and slunk back to my seat. But even at six, I knew that he was so out of touch with the world in which I lived that I took it no more personally than if I had been spattered by pigeon dung. But in routinely pulling hair, yanking earlobes, and slapping impertinent young faces, Siambas was merely employing the full arsenal. available to teachers since Plato, although, as we have said, he was entirely unaware that in the America of my childhood, these retrograde methods had been retired along with stocks and the ducking

stool. At home, I would sometimes imitate him from my father, who thoroughly enjoyed it, although, of course, my mother was disgusted. Theotaki's knew Siambas, too, so when he visited us, my father asked me to make the Siambas, at which point I put my leg on a chair imperiously, as Siambas often did, swore loudly in Greek and then very noisily pretended to summon a nasty curd as though loading a viscous round into the chamber and then masterfully hoctued the flemy missile into the imagined trash can to the delight of my dad and theotaki. We may not leave the subject of Siambas without touching on that activity for which he was best known for by all accounts his most intimidating threat was when he would go to what was for him code red and declare thathiso Annapodes,

which means I shall begin the backhands. All the died-in-the-world Greek kids instantly appreciated the import of these chilling words pronounced Anapodes, which meant that Siambas having no other choice because of our wicked behavior would proceed to the next level of corporal punishment to wit, slapping with his full backhand. It seemed to be common knowledge among the others that the gravitational advantages of a well-delivered downward stroke, coupled with the garish rings on his fingers, would prove far more painful than the normal open-handed slaps, which they seem to withstand with no difficulty at all, likely experiencing far worse at home. But when at last the terrible specter of Anapodes was raised,

All bets were off and a respectful gravity fell over the room. Anything, it seemed, but anapodes. There's way more here. I just had to read. I apologize, folks. I don't normally read for my own books. But when Kathy Kay wrote in about Mr. Seamus, it's like, I'm reading that on the air. I don't care.

No one can stop me. It's my show. But there's so much insanity in here. The next passage is about the gym teacher that made us march around the gym. We literally never had actual gym like a man. kids. We marched around the gym in preparation for the March 25th parade of Greek independence down Fifth Avenue in New York. Every year, there's the Greek Independence Day parade around March 25th. We spent our gym class, quote-unquote gym class with Lambros L'ambrakes, who was the gym teacher,

marching around the gym. This is like prison camp activity. It's unbelievable. But anyway, so the book is out in paperback now. And there are, my favorite thing is if I'm traveling around the country and some comes up to me in the line, in the book line, they're not normally getting this book signed because I'm signing a letter to the American church or something else. But they will say to me like, oh, I just read your book. And my favorite part was either the Bradley's incident, which we cannot read on the air because they're children. Or anyway, there's lots of, lots of other stuff. But I just think that when we have time, I'll read snippets from this. Because a lot of times at the end of a show, I mean, you've had this wonderful, serious show.

It's just an opportunity to. Yeah, you can't read the one about the train ride in Italy either. It's a little bit. What do you mean, Elbin? Well, let's just say what's in the book. What I like about the paperback version, too, is all those wonderful photographs that you have in the hardcover. They're also in the hardcover, but they put them in the paperback version. which is why I probably cost too much money.

Look, there's pictures of Dick Cavett in here. He was my graduation speaker at Yale. And, of course, he read the book and gave me a nice blur before it. But anyway, just because the book is out in paperback, I thought I would take the opportunity to read a little bit from it. But I'm trying to think, like, we should do this where I read, I just read snippets because sometimes we've got five minutes or six minutes or something to fill. And some of these are sick.

The Siamba story is true, and I want to be clear, since we were talking about forgiveness earlier, I have forgiven Mr. Siambas. I want to be very clear about that. But the world needs to know what happened in that lunchroom. And it really did. Because I honestly think a lot of people think that I'm exaggerating, but I'm not exaggerating. No, but anyone who's older. I mean, I'm a little older than you, and I went through the whole thing with a nuns wrapping your knuckles with the roller.

and all that stuff. Yeah, that's a joke. Yeah. That's like minimum security prison compared to Rawa in New Jersey. Yeah, we got slapped around a little. But it was, no, it was, but honestly, like going to a Greek Orthodox parochial school in Queens in the early 70s, it might as well have been like 1936. Yeah.

Because whatever, like, it wouldn't even occur to them. What do you mean? No corporal punishment. Like, what are you crazy? Like, of course. This is how we keep the kids in line. So anyway, but most of the stories are more positive than that. A lot of them, I just want to say, are hilarious because I live this, and this is true.

So fish out of water, not for children, but I hope you enjoyed. Anyway, we'll be back with more, The Irk Mattaxas show. Folks, before we go, two important things. First of all, we do Ask Mataxis every week. We need your questions right into my. my website, Ericmetaxis.com, or the radio website, Metaxashton.com, any questions you want. I also want to encourage you. I just did that weird reading from my weird book, Fish Out of Water. A little long-winded, I apologize for that. But if you have any passages that you want me to read from

fish out of water, it's brand new in paperback, would you tell us, would you email us at Ericmetakis.com or at Metaxus Talk.com, any passages that appeal to you? that you think it would be good. We can read your name on the air or not. It's up to you. But I want to invite you to do that. Also want to say, before we go, that a week ago, I was in San Diego. And I spoke at my friend Greg Denham's church.

We kind of did a back and forth on the meaning of the crucifixion. And I've posted that here and there. I posted it on Twitter. if you get my email a few days ago, we sent it out on the email. But I want to recommend it to you because I thought it was a special discussion. I covered some stuff that I normally don't talk about in talking about the crucifixion and the resurrection. And of course, this is eternally important. This is not just important one day a week. So that was with Greg Denham. And then a couple of days later, I spoke on the subject of the resurrection. And there was also some stuff in that sermon,

which I just thought I wanted to recommend it because a lot of times if you listen to what I say, I'm saying the same stuff because I'm talking about my book or whatever. This was some fresh stuff which I thought you might be interested in hearing. So if you get my newsletter, you'll have these videos

or they should be posted in different places on my personal YouTube channel. Now, Albin, speaking of Good Friday, when I was with Greg Denham, Greg Denham goes to Israel like every year. He's the head of something. He's written, I guess he has a blog or something called the context movement, which really ties in the Jewishness of the Christian faith to explaining the Christian faith.

So he travels there every year. He's like an expert. At some point, I'm going to go with him. But I want to say that we want to recommend that you go to Israel with whomever. just because, as I keep saying, in these dark times, we need to draw closer to God. One of the ways you can do that that's kind of easy is by visiting the places where he walked, by acquainting yourself with the reality of the Holy Land. So the website to visit, which is really an amazing website, we just got an email this morning about,

hey, I visited the website, it's amazing. The website is holyland. Israel. Travel Holy Land dot Israel dot travel. It is it's worth checking out

and I know that I will be going next year 2024, maybe twice, certainly once, will be going to Israel and in my book is atheism dead, which I recommend. You do. Now why do I recommend it?

Not just because I wrote it, folks. I write my books because I want to help people connect with the truth, connect with God. If you know the biblical evidence for God, which is in the middle part of my book, is atheism dead, it is simply astonishing that this evidence exists. Most people are unaware of it. And when you get aware of it, it changes everything. Yeah, the most amazing thing is that the childhood home of Jesus, you'd think, like,

come on. You're making it up. Yeah, but it's there. I mean, and that's one of many, many, many things. But I just want to just say, if you're looking for a book on apologetics, I threw everything I had into it. It is called Is Atheism Dead? The first part is about science. Insane evidence from science.

Insane evidence from archaeology. And then the third part of the book, insane evidence from all kinds of other stuff. But it's important that we know what is true. And we don't just say, well, it's my faith. Who cares if it's your faith? Is it real? Is it true? That's the question.

Thanks for listening.