The Eric Metaxas Show - Pastor Allen Jackson (continued)

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Pastor Allen Jackson continues his discussion, sharing insight into a couple of candidates throwing their hats into the ring for the upcoming presidential election.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas 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. They say it's a thin line between love and hate, but we're working every day to thicken that line, or at least to make it a double or triple line. Now here's your line jumping host, Eric Mattaxas. Hey folks, it's that time of the week when we do Ask Metaxus. Albin, you're going to read the questions.

I will. I'm going to try to answer. Try. Here's question number one. Admittedly, I have not read much about the man Socrates other than a Philosophy 101 course in college decades ago. Right now, however, I'm reading a book by I.F. Stone called The Trial of Socrates. In this book, the author indicates that Socrates was quite contrary to democracy and that he also seemed somewhat antisocial. Should you rethink the name of your conferences?

I get the an unexamined life is not worth living, quote, that probably underpins your event. But, however, maybe Aereopagus in the 21st century is a better name. Just a thought, God bless you. Ariapagus in the 21st century? Yeah. Hey, how about, I don't think so. Nah. Ariopagus in the 21st century.

You think that that might be better than Socrates in the city? Catchy. I got to be honest with you, friend. I don't think, nobody, including Albin, just now, can pronounce Ariapagus. Before we were on the air, Eric had to tell me because it's Greek, and I know Slovenian, but not. Right. Right. So, no, and the idea that Socrates was contrary to democracy, let me just tell you, he also didn't believe in the Lord Jesus. But the reason it's called Socrates in the city is because he was Greek, and that's all that matters to me.

Ladies and gentlemen, okay? You want to know what matters to me? He's Greek, good enough. No, the fact that he said the unexamined life is not worth living implies, and I say, this almost at the beginning of every Socrates event. By the way, you can go to Socrates in the city.com and you can watch our most recent events. But he says the unexamined life is not worth living, implying

that thinking about the deep questions makes life worth living. In other words, he's positing the idea that there is such a thing as truth, which is a beautiful idea. I as a Christian think that if we

search for truth, honestly, if we dare honestly to search for truth, it will lead us to the one who is truth, which is to say the God of the Bible. And I think that that's, you know, it's a noble project and that Socrates was a noble figure. I don't think he was a perfect person, but I'm not, I'm hardly surprised that he and Plato, you know, we're not like friends of George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton and our version of, you know, self-governor. I'm not really surprised. So I think I'm going to stick with Socrates in the city.

Good call. Question number two. How might the government avoid default? Are the Republicans being unfair? Okay. This is not really explaining itself, but I'm assuming that the person asking the question is wondering about, you know, the debt ceiling and so on and so forth.

But ladies and gentlemen, you ought to know this by now. Government likes to spend money. Here's the problem. It's my money. It's your money. They need to be reigned in. Traditionally, it is conservatives who understood this better than Democrats who are in favor of big government and who don't mind spending us into the tank.

but many, many Republicans, including George Bush and Donald Trump, have done a pretty bad job on this as well. I think we need to be extremely rigorous and do everything we can to not just lower the debt ceiling, but to lower the debt. We've got to get serious about this. And anybody showing any leadership on that is my hero. Yeah. Question number three, do you think Donald Trump,

sexual assault case will affect his presidential run. Are you and other supporters being blind and unfair to the facts of the matter? Yes, I am being blind. Oh, wait a minute. If I know I'm being blind, then how could I be blind? No, I think, look, Donald Trump, I don't know the details of his life before he became president. I do know that the witch hunt on him is unlike anything we've ever seen. The only thing you could compare it to is the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

There were people so horrified that somebody would be president that they would kill him in the case of Kennedy. In the case of Trump, the reason I... find anything hard to believe that they say about him is because they have lied about him so much. It's like the boy who cried wolf. I can't imagine that going after him at this point is anything but political or at least mostly political. So the idea that 20 years ago there was some incident and this is supposed to change my opinion of him, you know, I have to say I'm not moved by this.

But I am horrified that some people would be, that there are people just not understanding that they're throwing the kitchen sink in him. I've never seen anything. We've never seen anything like it. Going after him, you know, the way Bragg has been going after him. All of this stuff, it is so political that that should bother us. In other words, that should bother us more than anything. but so yeah so do I do I care about the what happened with the sexual assault case no it it doesn't rise to the level where I'm going to think oh he must be a really wicked guy who raped

someone like no I don't I don't I can't take it seriously because of what's happened okay what has been your fair I like this one what has been your favorite ask metax's question oh that's easy this one this one is my favorite favorite ask metaxis question. All right. And there's no close seconds, ladies and gentlemen. Wow. Yeah. That's terrific. What has been your favorite ask metaxis question is by far my favorite ask metaxis question. And I want to say thank you. Thank you. Okay. What would you study more if you had the time? Is there a particular part of science or history or English that fascinates you that you haven't delved into yet? you know that's a sore subject because I think the older you get the more you're aware of what you've missed

and I every time I write a book or even every time I read a book I'm just blown away by how many years I've wasted not reading other books or you know when I did my book is atheism dead I just couldn't believe how much there is out there to learn evidence for God from science, from archaeology. It really, well, I say that. History is another huge one. So it's interesting that the person who wrote this question asked that, because the more I learn from history, the more ignorant I feel about history. I think, oh, my goodness, I've missed this and this.

And there's so much, and it's beautiful. There's something beautiful about history because you're learning about something that is objectively true and that it informs where you are now. So I do my best to read what I can. But I do feel often that this is like where you have to give this to God because, you know, one of my favorite scriptures is be anxious for nothing. But in all things, you know, bring your concerns to God. Because you could just torture yourself with, oh, I. I didn't do this. I didn't do that.

I missed this opportunity. But I do often feel like I wish I had 100 years to live and I could read every classic book. I could read every work of Shakespeare 10 times. I mean, there's so many, many, many things that I feel that way. But I really do. And I feel that way about classic novels. But I feel that way, particularly about Shakespeare.

So the answer is... I just realized this is probably... probably your second most favorite Ask Mattax's question. No, my favorite asked my taxes question, Albin, I insist upon this. And there is no close second is what has been your favorite ask metaxon question. But this has to be second. This has to be second. No, no, no.

I don't think there could be a second. I think what has been your favorite asking taxes question is my first, second, and third favorite ask mettaxas questions. Fortunately, we're out of time. We'll be back with Alan Jackson. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of iconic American. brands selling us out to appease radical leftists. But it's not just beer and sneakers. For years, big mobile companies have been dumping millions into leftist causes, and we had to take it because another option didn't exist. Well, now it does. Patriot Mobile, America's only Christian conservative

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the church is this kind of drifting where where where we drift you know into this kind of a heresy and then we drift back into the opposite heresy. So when you talk about law, law and order, you could you could hear a lot of Christians saying, well, wait a minute. What about grace and love? As though we're advocating for for law and order against grace and love. Clearly we're not. But there are a lot of people who seem to kind of sloppily slide into grace and love and forget that if you're not grounded in law and order, you're going to have less grace and love. Yeah, there's a lot of confusion in the church. You know, it's been a sloppy grace.

We've had this gospel of salvation, which I believe in conversion, being born again, the new birth, that divine supernatural entrance into the kingdom of God. But we've stopped our story at that point, and we've told far too many people that if you take that step of faith, if you recite a little prayer, then you can live your life any way you want to. And you can roll back in with kind of a chirpy little, oh, I'm sorry, and everything's good. And there's no obligation to honor the Lord with your life. And we've said that for so long that before lawlessness ever made its way into the culture, we lost any sense of God's boundaries in the church. The reason we have no moral authority to talk about transgenderism is we've

winked and nodded at fornication. We've winked and nodded at adultery. We've said, it's not that big a deal. You know, we can live together. We can do whatever we want to do. We've moved marriage for the most part out of the church. You get married in a barn on a beach. You have a party with your friends. You know, the church was a little bit inhibiting the sense that it's a covenant between a man and woman and the sight of God. The church hasn't been willing to hold that idea up because it would cause us to be ostracized a little bit. If the church will come back and be who we're supposed to be, we'll see it reflected in the culture again. That's what Christians waiting for the next politician or political party to fix us is idolatry. We have an assignment to be the conscience of the culture

If we'll have the courage to do that at our kitchen table, at our holiday table, then with our friends, we'll see a change in the culture. Well, again, it is interesting. It takes some courage. And yet what I say everywhere I go is that if we actually believe that Jesus defeated death on the cross, then we are utterly free to speak the truth. We're not supposed to say, well, this will happen to me or that will happen to me. We're supposed to have this joyous freedom that he has given us by dying and defeating death on the cross, rising from the dead. And in a way, if you have a full-throated faith in that Jesus, you're free. And if you don't, you're not free.

You're afraid. You're governed by fear. You're looking around, wondering where the consequences are. And we have, I guess, because we've been so blessed as a nation and as a culture, we've really gotten soft and unwilling to pay the prices that previous generations have had to pay. And so that's why we've just kind of drifted to where we are. But as we've been saying in the conversation, some people are waking up. But what I get excited about is that there's a lot of non-believers waking up. and voicing common sense truths.

And in a sense, and God always does this, shaming Christians into, you know, who do I have to listen to to hear common sense? A comedian or whatever, I should be hearing it from my fellow Christians. I should be hearing it from the pulpit. So there's just something interesting happening in the culture that things are so bad that a lot of people who are just noticing

that these things are preposterous are daring to talk about them, and when a lot of Christians are kind of hanging back. Yeah, the theater of the absurd has become so bizarre. And some of us are actually growing weary with being given bread and being sent to the circus, that we're starting to grapple with what's happening. You see, I don't think that we're motivated just by freedom. We should be motivated by the obligation of love. We have an obligation to tell the truth.

That's an expression of love. If you go to the oncologist and he doesn't tell you you're sick, he's not your friend operating in love. He's a quack and it's malpractice. And the church has been a little guilty, but as you said, we're waking up in record numbers. COVID's a gift. If we could thank God for the pandemic,

it's like the curtain's been pulled back. And there's all these people now stepping into the light and we're blinking. It's a little uncomfortable. But God is mobilizing us. There's something good ahead of us. Well, that's what I feel like every time, you know, the enemy overreaches,

it's an opportunity for us to say, oh, I didn't, I hadn't seen that. I hadn't noticed that, but it's because I'm so, become so silly. You know, I remember when Bruce Jenner was on the cover of Vanity Fair, you know, in his guise as Caitlin, I remember thinking, this is so crazy. I don't even know where to turn. And that was just the beginning of this crazy stuff. and people in America, I guess, I mean, you know this as well as I do, but like if we have a kind of a national sin, it's we want to be liked, we're nice. You know, the Germans followed orders.

We all have things that can be good, but that can turn bad. And when you are kind of tolerating something that's like in your face crazy, you know, sometimes that's politeness and other times it's just fear of man. Now, you used the pendulum discussion earlier, and I think we're guilty of that in America, and especially in the church. Now, the pendulum always swings back this way, things balance out. Now, that idea really expresses a profound ignorance of history. The British lost the empire. Rome did collapse. The Jews were driven out of Jerusalem, and the temple was burned. The pendulum does not always come back to center.

It requires choices on our part and some intentional decisions. or I'm with groups of Christians frequently and they say, well, you know, the church is the sleeping giant. I pray that's true, but I have enough experience in the church. I don't know that there's a giant sleeping. I think there might be something small sleeping, and I pray it wakes up. But I think we're going to have to seek the Lord as if our lives depended upon it. We're going to have to get far more intentional. You and me, I'm not pointing my finger at anybody else.

I've got to know the Lord in a better way next week than I know him this week. In greater power, I have to recognize the voice of his. his spirit. We have followed the conventional wisdom of the secular culture for so long. We don't recognize the truth any longer. It's uncomfortable to us. I'm not asking somebody else to be the difference. I'm saying I'll change my schedule, my life. I'll be vulnerable. Let's go tell the truth. Well, it again, it's fascinating. We're living through something that a few years ago we couldn't have imagined. When you talk about COVID pulling the curtain back, I have to say that It really, it's a process for people. It was a process for me. At first I kind of thought, well,

okay, whatever. They're going to get a vaccine. Everything can be fine. And then more and more and more, you, I was horrified when my wife would say, you know, they're sending people into the nursing homes and, you know, kind of implying that they know this is going to increase the death rate. And I remember thinking, they wouldn't do that. I mean, they wouldn't do something like that. A lot of people feel that way about the voter fraud, about election fraud. They wouldn't do that. And you think, well, okay, wait, why wouldn't they?

Why wouldn't they? Why do I believe I live in a world where evil has been conquered so that people aren't tempted? People in power aren't tempted. So we've all been waking up slowly, you know, in fits and starts to what is going on. And then the question, and this is the big question, will enough of us wake up in time? We talk about a sleeping giant. I always talk about, you know, Gulliver being tied down by Lilliputians. He's a sleeping giant.

And as long as he's sleeping, they can tie him down. If he wakes up before they get him tied down all the way, they're dead. But if they can just keep him sleeping. And that's basically what is happening with the church. Will the church wake up in time? Will enough of us wake up in time? I want to talk to you about pure politics. Okay.

You filmed an interview with Senator Tim Scott, whom I've had the privilege of meeting a number of times. He is going to be announcing a run for the presidency as a Republican. We don't know when that's going to be. Or you can't even nod. Can you? I mean, that's the... impression I got. I heard that. That's what I heard.

I think he's going to make that announcement this month, unless something changed. Okay. So Senator Tim Scott, and is he South Carolina? South Carolina. South Carolina. Okay. You will be talking also to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He has already announced

that he's running for the presidency on the Democrat side. This is crazy and exciting, and I don't know where to begin. But when we come back, I want to talk to you about this because I just find it at least

fascinating that we've got such a, well, just that sitting here now and looking forward, we really don't have a clue how this is going to pan out. You know, and it's

the idea that it's going to be Trump versus Biden or it's going to be DeSantis versus Biden. I mean, I think we've got a lot of craziness ahead. I want to talk to you about that. We're talking to the author of Big Trouble Ahead, Pastor Alan Jackson, don't go away. Are you tired of not getting a good night's sleep?

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of World Outreach Church in Murphysboro. I want to talk, you know, current events. I also want to talk to you about Chad Robesho and Aziz. They were on this program and the nightmare withdrawal all from Afghanistan. What an unbelievable nightmare, a gift from the Biden administration. But let's just go back to the presidency. And again, you're a pastor, so you can say what you like. But I'm just fascinated by the idea that, for one thing, a number of Republicans are jumping in. I mean, when Larry Elder jumped in, obviously those who know him, black, conservative, I thought, well, that's interesting. When I heard that Tim Scott, the senator from South Carolina, black, conservative, is jumping in. DeSantis hasn't officially announced Trump and his people are throwing all kinds of shade to put it mildly.

DeSantis' word. And so it's just interesting. What do you see happening? Why do you think somebody like Larry Elder or Senator Tim Scott would even enter the race? Well, I think it's a very confusing time. And there's a lack of clarity. The hatred for Trump almost seems to overshadow or hit the mute button on everybody else. But I wanted to talk to some people who are influencing policy and thought in our country that were leading with faith. Even if I didn't necessarily stand next to their, all of their ideologies. Senator Scott was easy. He's a believer, but a courageous one. I mean, stands in the U.S. Senate and stands for a worldview that you and I would support in the face of a lot of antagonism. And I was impressed with, and it's not an easy story. He came from a

place of poverty, had to overcome a lot. He said the prayers of his mother, you know, delivered him and put him in this place. And I mean, I smiled when he and I talked. We've both been accused of being racist and primarily because of our worldview. That's an odd thing. When you see that picture. With Robert Kennedy Jr., another person with tremendous courage, I just read his letter to the American liberals, and he's challenging the principal tenets of liberalism that we've known in our lifetime as having collapsed. They've gone silent. They're mute. You know, things like defending free speech and the things that we would have considered principal tenets of the platform he's stood on. It takes courage to say that, particularly with his family

history. I mean, his family has paid a tremendous price to speak. into the public square. And I respect those men and women who are willing to lead with some courage and boldness to acknowledge what they see. Again, they're not creating anything. They're acknowledging what's happening in our world and say, I'm not going along with the mantra of shut up and do what you're told, and I'll give you another piece of bread. If we're going to have a future, we're going to have to be willing to help shape it. And I respect those people that are putting themselves out there and doing it. You know, what's going to happen in the election? I give you my opinion. I don't think the people currently in power have any intention of there being a free election. They have gained

the reins of power and they don't intend to release them. You know, how they'll do that. I don't have any idea, but they'll do whatever it takes. But they would never cheat or steal. Never. Yeah, no, this is what's so funny is that I, you know, in my whole life, I believe that in America, of course, we have fair elections. And I've really come to see that, The moral drift is such that it is clear that those on the left and some in the Republican Party as well, they don't care how they win. They don't believe in right and wrong. They don't believe lying or cheating or stealing is wrong.

They believe that if I can get power and get away with it, I'm good to go. Now, that is a new thing in America, and we've got to deal with that. And so you're right. We're dealing with a lot of issues. Because a lot of people are going to sit home and not vote because they think, what's the point of voting? Because it's not fair. So that's to me the biggest problem. I challenge that a little bit.

That idea of the desire for raw power is not a new thing in America, because that's a human condition. But what America has had from our founding forward was the fabric of a Christian heritage. So we had a moral base that guided our decisions. It guided our founding documents. It guided our Bill of Rights. That was the infrastructure that held us up. That has been carefully and systematically dismantled for several decades. So now we've lost the inhibitions on the raw grab for power.

We'll do photo ops in front of a church, but we're no longer informed by a biblical worldview. So we see it now in the open, in the public square. It's always existed in our hearts, but we've lost that. It's like our immune system has been diminished. And so the question is, well, we do the hard work to put that immune system back in place. and I'm not sure that answer has yet been resolved, but I have hope. Well, I mean, I agree with you. I don't think that, you know, Americans are inherently different,

but we did have things in place so that when I voted, I wasn't worried will that vote be counted. And I knew there's been corruption. And we have lost that. In our history, but more and more, as every year passes, I have less confidence that my vote will be counted. And that actually, in my book, if you can keep it, about America, one of the things I write about is the idea that if Americans don't believe in the system that when I vote, my vote is counted. When I pay my taxes, it goes to the right.

But if they cease to believe that we, the people, have a fair government, that we are the government, they pull away and you really do turn things over to tyrants, to a bureaucracy, whatever. So cynicism in the system, in other words, instead of saying, I've got to get in there, I've got to make sure it works, I've got to be a poll watcher, I've got to be, we've got to make sure that this works. If we don't get involved and do that, then for sure it will drift away. Coming back, final segment with Pastor Alan Jackson. His book is Big Trouble Ahead. Don't go away. know that you've got your reasons. These things that are pleasing you can hurt you somehow. Don't you draw the queen and...

Hey, get rhythm. When you get the blues. Come on, get rhythm. When you get the blues. Welcome back talking to Pastor Alan Jackson of World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro. So we're talking about the presidential election, and I find it just so fascinating. There's so much craziness out there. First of all, that we have somebody named Joe Biden who pretends to be president,

but almost everyone in America knows he's not actually running the country. That's fundamentally unconstitutional, right there. And I don't believe the Democrats are going to let him run for a second term. In other words, I think that we've had somebody plausibly make the case that Michelle Obama will step in, but I don't believe he's going to do that. Nonetheless, here you have somebody like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stepping in. He, as you said, has been really courageous on vaccines. It's just been absolutely heroic in talking about things that other people don't want to talk about. He wrote a book called The Real Anthony Fauci. You want to talk about pulling the curtain back.

There's a film coming out. So we're seeing a sifting that we've never seen in our lifetime. To see parties that a lot of people who would have considered themselves Democrats would vote across the aisle. A lot of people would vote for RFK Jr. Before they would vote for Joe Biden. It's a kind of a mash-up that we've never seen in our lifetimes. I think that's a very accurate description. But that sounds like when God's moving to me, and I take great hope for that. You know, when I read the book of Acts, nobody was more shocked by what happened at Cornelius's house in Cessaria than the people who were Jesus best friends.

I mean, it freaked Peter out. It blew his mind if he hadn't had a vision multiple times, if there hadn't been an angelic intervention. And so they're trying to process what God is doing. And when he goes back to Jerusalem, there's more verses spent explaining it in Jerusalem than describe the original event. We're watching things happen we've never seen before. We're watching the collapse of public trust. We don't trust the CDC any longer. I did until a few years ago. We don't trust the FBI any longer.

They lie to spy on sitting presidents. We understand we can't trust the CIA. They process documents that say something is Russian misinformation when they know it isn't. I mean, the list goes on it. We don't trust our churches any longer. Well, the collapse of public trust has exposed our idolatry. We've trusted everybody but God.

So for the people listening that see all those things happening, this isn't a disaster to me. This is God moving in the earth, preparing a church, preparing his people, awakening us. If America is going to have an extended future of freedom and liberty, it will be because the people of faith decide that faith is more important than the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or our favorite benefit that comes to us from the government. And so our foundations have been shaken, but it gives us a different future. Don't be filled with despair. Be filled with trust and hope in Almighty God. Well, despair is a sin. And when I hear particularly Christians, you know, say, well, there's nothing we can do. I think like, wow, thanks for being the voice of the devil, because that's exactly what he wants you to do, to despair and to say there's nothing I can do. God calls us to fight to do the right thing. Whether we win or lose, that's what God calls us to do.

and he decides when it's game over. And I think that's part of the challenge is that there's a strain in American Christendom that it's that the nattering nabobbs of negativism, to quote Spiro Agnew and William Sapphire, they just, they almost feel like, yeah, the world's going to, it's all going to burn, there's nothing I can do, whatever. This is not a biblical view. This is the voice of the devil.

And but I hear it over and over. Or a lot of times I'll put something out on social media and people will chime in in this kind of weirdly negative way. Well, Jesus is the only answer. In other words, if you put forward a solution, they feel they've got to religiously trump you by saying, but Jesus is the only answer. As if you didn't assume that in what you were saying. But it's kind of like a hyper-religious view. It's a negative view. you have long been a voice for hope and for action.

And I just can't help but think that your church and your influence is growing because of that. At least that's what I see with other pastors that have been like you. I intend to be an advocate for the kingdom of God in a biblical worldview. And if that grows, then that will create opportunities. I'm good with that. Yeah. If that's diminished, I'll be done. diminished right along with that. Well, there you go. But there is hope. I see good people stepping into

the public square. You've mentioned several. You know, Tim Scott, Robert Kennedy Jr. is standing up for truth in some remarkable ways. Ben Carson, you know, he's been willing to stand in the public square. Mike Huck. I mean, there's a long list of those people. Yeah. It's not, we're not absent people of courage and faith, and we just haven't been willing to support them. But we're changing. Again, I have a great sense of anticipation. But I, I, I have a great sense of anticipation. But I, I don't imagine that it's going to come without conflict. Yeah. And I'm not advocating violence or belligerence or hate,

but it's going to take a different kind of determination. We have apologized our way out of the public square long enough. Well, what's interesting, though, is I think I worry that sometimes politicians who are people of faith, they don't have the fighting spirit of somebody like a Trump. In other words, I look at people that don't seem to understand what's, at stake. And that's what, you know, I don't know, Senator Tim Scott.

I don't know if he would be willing to go against the deep state in the way that I believe Trump would and in a way that I believe Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would. I mean, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knows that the deep state murdered his uncle. He knows what he's dealing with. And my question is, yeah, he just said it. And so my question is whether some of these other. other folks have the fire to go up against the, you know, the deep state, these really dark forces that have finally been exposed.

It's not clear to me either. And I'm a bit amused. I hear Christians say to me, they can't support Trump because he calls people names. I've heard that dozens of times. Like, have you read the Bible? Listen to what Jesus said. He called people names all the time. And I'm not equating President Trump and Jesus.

But, I mean, the gospels are filled with Jesus calling people broods of snakes and viperes. and whitewashed tombs and all sorts. The disciples would come to him and say, did you know you offended them? Yeah. I mean, as if Jesus wasn't aware of his audience, it makes me smile. And we can't be polite with evil.

We have to call out what it is and deal with it. And that's my concern, and it's why I have been an advocate for Trump, because getting that is not a small thing, understanding that you're dealing with just tremendous evil and being willing to fight, we want to fight God's way, but that still means we have to fight. I'm sorry we're at a time.

The book is Big Trouble ahead. I've been talking to Pastor Alan Jackson, whom I thank. Thank you, my friend. Thank you, Eric. Darker shame, dark a shame. Hey, folks, before we go, three things we need to leave you with, at least three things.

Number one, do not forget, nefarious, has been put in more theaters. We're talking about the film, Nefarious. We've talked about a lot on this program. Steve Dase behind it, amazing film. It is in more theaters this weekend. Please, please, please take advantage of this. When people say, what can I do?

You can support great stuff. This is a great movie. We've seen it. It should not be rated R. You can take teenagers to it. It is really, you know, it's one of the things that I always hope someday somebody will make films like this. So Nefarious, you've got to check it out. Yeah, and you can.

Yeah, there's a website you can go to to make sure you know where it is in your area. Nefarioustickets.com. Nefarioustickets.com. You'll be able to find out where it is in the theaters and et cetera. Okay. Nefarioustickets.com, folks. So that's the number one thing I want to mention. The second thing I want to mention is that this week only, this week only, anybody giving $250 to our CSI campaign, which is the third thing I want to mention, will get a signed copy of my $32 hardcover fish out of water,

a search for the meaning of life. It's my memoir. It's a story of my life up until I come to faith or on my 25th birthday. It's all true. A lot of really loony, crazy, true stories, all leading up to my genuinely miraculous conversion experience, but you will get a signed copy of that book if this week only. This week, it's ending. This is the week. This is it. This week only. Okay, next week, this does, you can't do this. We're not going to do this next week. We only have limited supplies. But if you do it this week,

you give $250 to CSI. The way to give to CSI is go to metaxis.com. You'll see the banner. You can do it right now. Actually, let me give the phone number as well. 888-253-3522. Some of you prefer to call. We understand that. 888-253-3522. Or just go to Metaxistalk.com.

And you'll see all the information right there. You can give monthly, you can give however you want, to give. But every $250, the reason we chose $250 is because that is, that is the amount that when you give that a slave is freed and set up in a life of freedom. That's what this whole campaign is about. And it's a sacred thing that we get to do this. It's a privilege that we get to fight evil. It's rare we get to do this. So if you can give $250, that's the magic number. Whatever you can give, of course, It's going for that purpose. Some of you can give a lot more.

But every single person who can give $250 this week only, okay? So I guess that includes the weekend. But we will send you a hardcover, signed autographed copy of my book, which is titled, you know, it's the story of my life. It's titled Fish Out of Water, a Search for the Meaning of Life. So we want to encourage you to do that. Go to Metaxus Talk.com. you'll see the banner or you can call the number again 888-253-3522.

And generally speaking, if you want to get any of my other books, please go to my store.com and use the code, Eric. Unbelievable Bonhofer posters there, but support our sponsors. Mypillow.com, my store.com, neutromedics.com. Please use the code. Eric, we are grateful to you. God bless you.