The Eric Metaxas Show - Pastor Allen Jackson (Encore)

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

We see the battle between good and evil—angels and demons—throughout the Bible and in the world around us. Pastor Allen’s new book, Angels, Demons & You, provides a biblical perspective on the reality of these spiritual forces and how they impact our daily lives.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noblegoldinvestments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. Do you like your gravy sick and rich and loaded with creamy mushrooms? If no one was looking, would you chug the whole gravy boat? Chug, Chug, Chug, Chug, Chug. Stay tuned. Here comes Mr. Chugg himself, Eric Ma, Texas. Folks, welcome back. It's hour two. It's May 7th, Wednesday. The papal conclave is happening today. They're going to be voting. We've been talking about it with John Zmirak. We're talking about the evil of Tom Tillis in North Carolina, the rhino senator. who is, I don't know, corrupt, out of his head, maybe both. John, you were...

I was saying that... ...to say that you think that, well, look, let's just put it this way. If Tom Tillis blocks Ed Martin, his political career is over. So Tom Tilley has to be very desperate. There has to be some skeleton... Eric. ...that he's being blackmailed, something. You know, it's not necessarily over, because in the past,

Trump has let people screw him, and he's forgiven them and endorsed them anyway. That needs to stop. I was explaining why an established and squished Republican, a rhino, is worse to have an office than a Democrat. A rhino is like a squatter living in your house, sleeping in your bed, eating out of your refrigerator. A Democrat is just like a noisy neighbor who throws beer cans over the fence. A rhino is in your party, squatting in your party, claiming the man. of being a Republican, claiming that he is the mainstream moderate choice, and you are a dangerous extremist. So the establishment anti-Trump Republicans want you and me, Eric, to have no political

representation at all. We're supposed to be out in the fever swamps while the Karl Rove's of the country make deals with the James Carvels of the country to carve up you and me and our country and make backroom deals. Donald Trump is like the last, last lifeboat going off the Titanic that is America. And if we don't stop the Republicans in Congress, they're just going to squander all four years of Trump's presidency. They might be perfectly willing to lose the midterms because then they have an even better excuse for doing nothing. Right now, we have the House, and we have the Senate, and we have the White House. And apart from Donald Trump's executive, orders, absolutely nothing is being accomplished. Mike Johnson has accomplished nothing,

nothing in office at all. The Democrats, when they get power, they act like Mussolini in Italy. We're going to make the trains run on time. When the Republicans take power, we all stab each other in the back because the rhinos want us to fail. Well, it's depressing. Since you brought up Mussolini, John, I don't think I told you this. I was in Rome, Georgia recently. Did I tell you this? saw it on your on your Twitter. You saw it. It's the funniest thing. In 1929, I was in Rome, Georgia, and they said, you want to see a Romulus and Remus statue? And they have a copy of the famous sculpture that's in Rome of Romulus and Remus, the two, the twins being suckled by a she-wolf. They have one of those in Rome, Georgia, sent to them. And the plaque says that I posted it

on my Instagram account, sent to them by Benito Mussolini in 1929. Before we knew how bad Mussolini was and we were accepting, you know, before he was so bad. Back in 1929, he was not persecuting Jews. There were Jewish members of the fascist party. In 1929, Mussolini was considered like a progressive politician. Time magazine said we needed an American Mussolini. Up until 1934 and 35, Mussolini,

if Mussolini was against Hitler taking over Austria. The English hope he could be a counterbalance to Nazi Germany. But unfortunately, Mussolini was a reckless gambler and an unprincipled opportunist. And when he saw the Germans were strong, he threw in with them. Then he was perfectly willing to persecute Jews. Actually, if you want a really good picture of the life of Mussolini, there was a very good movie made in the early 80s with George C. Scott playing Mussolini. and he did a brilliant job.

Brilliant. It's a powerful, powerful movie. It was a mini-series, and you can get it on Amazon Prime. Is it as the Day of the Dolphin? I'm not seeing the Day of the Dolphin. Don't. Okay. It stars George C. Scott.

I think it's his worst choice ever to star in Day of the Dolph. He played Mussolene better than he played the Dolphin. Well, in the 70s... That dolphin prosthesis was not very convincing, because the 70s, they didn't have the kind of makeup and the kind of CGI we have now. So did Scott do the dolphin squeaks himself or were those? No. No.

The day of the dolphin, I can't believe, you know, you just mentioned Jersey Scott. And, of course, with my weird, you know, entertainment fascination background, I thought of the day of the dolphin, but it was the late 70s and it was a movie where Jersey Scott played some scientist and dolphins are able to speak. And so it's about dolphins, you know, having human intelligence. It's really creepy. And nobody should see it unless you're, you know, you just want to see a really, really dumb movie. But we'll move on.

Let's talk about stupid. The Trump administration is doing something really stupid. Uh-oh. Had a Paul? He tweeted about it. Tell us more, my friend. Yeah. The Trump administration is supporting.

the abortion industry against pro-life states. The states of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho try to restrict the chemical abortion. Because in the waning days of the Biden regime, the FDA said, you could get the abortion pill, which is dangerous and causes a miscarriage in the toilet and causes lots of medical problems. You could get it over the Internet, just so. do a Skype appointment with a doctor in another state, and we will ship you the abortion pill into states where abortion is illegal. So this is a violation of states' rights. The Trump administration

should be siding with states like Texas that want to protect unborn life within their borders. Donald Trump said abortion is a state issue. Well, if it's a state issue, then why can't the state of Idaho actually protect unborn children in the state of Idaho. Unfortunately, the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi, sided with the abortion industry, the big pharma, in saying that these states don't have the right to keep the abortion pill restricted inside their borders. So I want to know, is the Trump administration pro-life, though it has to be realistic and realizes, okay, you know, states like New York and California,

are going to have abortion. But we're basically pro-life. So we're going to help pro-life states enforce their laws. Or is the Trump administration indistinguishable from the Biden administration in this issue? The CNN reported that the Trump administration basically repeated the talking points of the Biden administration on this issue, that states can't keep chemical abortion out of their borders. That reminds me of the Fugitive Slave Act, where even free state like Massachusetts were expected to send escape slaves back to Mississippi, because federal law Trump states, right? I don't know if I've missed it, but why do you suppose the Trump administration is making this

mistake, and do they have time to change course? Well, they've already filed their legal opinion, so we have to hope that the Supreme Court rules against them. I think they did it out of a sense of political necessity. Remember, during the waning days of the 2024 election, Trump and Vance both said that they were not again, that they favored IVF and what they call emergency contraception. But emergency contraception is just a euphemism for chemical abortion. They did it for political reasons.

It was a very close election. They thought that they could cut the child in half this way, like Solomon. But you really can't. You're either pro-life or you're not. and it has come down to the point of decision. Unfortunately, the Trump Department of Justice has repeated the talking points of the Biden administration. And pro-lifers, we need to put pressure on the administration and say, look, you can't take us for granted. Just because the Democrats are so much worse, just because they want cannibalistic rituals and Masonic temples every Easter.

That's an exaggeration. Okay, that's a job. But just because the Democrats are so terrible doesn't mean you get to be really bent. because you're not as bad as the Democrats. The left is incessant and implacable in hounding the Democrats to go further and further and further left. We can't let that move the whole political spectrum further and further and further to the left. And, oh, we'll take half a lot.

We'll take half a moldy love for maggots. We're at a time. John Smirak. Always a joy. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. There's been a national focus on eating only the healthiest of foods. and that's great news for Balance of Nature.

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Eric. Ladies and gentlemen, I think I've already told you that there is one church in America that has invited me twice as much as any other church in America. So would I go out there on a limb and say, I spit on all those other churches? No, I wouldn't say that. That wouldn't be nice. But I might think it. I might.

But I wouldn't tell you if I did. Seriously, I love World Outreach Church in Murph. Friesboro, not just because they've invited me a zillion times to speak over the years, but because their pastor, Alan Jackson's become a friend. And, you know, it's an interesting thing. You get invited to churches, but sometimes you just, you feel kind of a connection. Like it's, you know, it's special. And that has everything to do with my guest right now. Pastor Alan Jackson, Pastor Alan Jackson, I wanted to embarrass you. I hope I've embarrassed you. Welcome to the show. You did a pretty good job. It's good to say you.

good. Well, it's always fun to talk to you. We see each other here and there, but you really, your church, I was thinking about it. The last time I was down there, you all have had me down there. I mean, every year since, I don't know, practically since the Bonhofer book came out and you have an amazing congregation. But, you know, we all know that these things don't just happen, that you are a particular kind of leader. And you've written many books, but the new one, Alan, you'd know because you know me. This interests me particularly. The title folks of Pastor Allen Jackson's brand new book, it's brand new.

It's angels, demons, and you. Now, Alan, well, okay, so it's angels, demons, and you. The subtitle is Unseen Spiritual Influences in Our Lives. So, Alan, what led you to write this book right now? Well, I think there were two primary motivators. I think the problems we're facing are not fundamentally political problems or economic problems. I think they're spiritual problems. And it's unsettling to me that the voice is telling the most truth right now are political leaders.

I'm very grateful for that. but I think our spiritual leaders need to have a voice. So I wanted to start with that. And then I realized that most of us are comfortable having a discussion about angels or demons. It's when you interject you into the discussion that everybody loses their courage. It's like talking about diet and exercise. We can do that. But if you talk about diet and exercise and me, now that's an uncomfortable conversation.

And so I wanted to do what I could to add some momentum to the courageous leadership we're seeing so that the people of faith would stand up and recognize their spiritual forces that are driving all of these things that we're seeing on battlefields. And, you know, DEI is not an ideology that started in the hearts of men. I think it started in the pit of hell. And we need to understand the spiritual forces in place so we can take our place. Well, it is interesting because I have, I've been embarrassed over the years to see my own timidity in saying things or in living things out. And I think part of it has to do with a lack of faith on the part of the faithful. In other words, I think there are many people that say, I'm a Christian, as though it's a black or white thing.

It is not. There are many people that, I guess, maybe they believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. They say, but they don't live it. So you kind of wonder, do you really believe it? How much do you believe it? Do you really believe God created the universe? Do you really believe that every atom in your body and the universe? was created by God and that he is making the electrons go around the nuclei right now.

Do you believe that? Do you live like the Lord is in the midst of everything, and he is with us, and he loves us? And I think that many of us, there's a timidity or there's a lack of faith. We kind of say, well, theoretically, I believe in that, but do I? And so when we talk about all the world's problems, we talk about the political stuff, we do forget what you're saying, that at the heart of it, ladies and gentlemen, is a spiritual battle. There is no doubt. There is, there ought to be no doubt in anyone's mind that at the heart of everything, there is a spiritual battle. And that what got Donald Trump elected was ultimately a spiritual thing, that we know that there is an outworking in the physical, is an outworking in the history, in the political, right? But at the heart of it is the

spiritual stuff. So I love talking about this. I have to ask you, Ellen, what was your journey in terms of this kind of stuff? Did you grow up knowing that angels and demons were real? Did you see deliverance? Did you see that kind of stuff? Or is this something that you've kind of come into over time? No, it was really a part of my entry into Christianity. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and told she had six months to live. And we were church. who went to church every week, but the pastor, when he came to visitor in the hospital, didn't believe in heaven or hell. Now, wait a second.

Hold on there, partner. What kind of a church was this, quote-unquote, what kind of a quote-unquote church was this? It was a large Methodist church. The pastor of this large Methodist church didn't believe in heaven or hell. Correct. You've just described much of the American, quote-unquote, church today. I mean, the mainline church is lost. We'd have no idea what they believe.

But it's just interesting to me that you, who now are, you know, one of the leading pastors in the country, that you grew up in a Methodist church. It calls itself a church, but you're telling me the pastor didn't believe in heaven or hell. I mean, that's amazing. Well, I think the awkward truth is the problem we have in the church today is not new. This has been incubating for a long time. I mean, you and I have spent a good bit of time in academia, and we've been training church leaders for decades. in institutions that don't believe in the authority of scripture, they don't believe in the fundamentals of the redemptive work of Jesus, and now those people are significant voices in

the church across our nation. We've got some heavy lifting due to change that, but my mom on the way to Mayo Clinic for some pretty dramatic surgery prayed if there was a God because she said she didn't know if there was one. He would let her know the truth before she died so she could tell her sons, I've got two brothers to be Jewish or Baptist or Catholic, whatever. And after a four-day work up at Mayo Clinic, the doctor came in a room late at night and said, Mrs. Jackson, you had cancer. We have pictures of it, but we've looked for four days. We can't find it. Go home and raise your babies. And we moved to Miami and went back to another Methodist church and that pastor didn't believe in the divinity of Jesus. But a few weeks later, my mom's

washing dishes and she heard a voice and Methodists don't hear voices. And the voice said, you asked to know the truth before you died. And she said, I did. And he said, I'm the way, the truth in the life. And she knew it was in the Bible. She didn't know. where. She went and got a Bible and looked until she found John 14. And so our entry into Christianity came with really God's divine intervention. And we were pagans. We didn't know how to pray a prayer for healing. She didn't ask for healing. She just asked to know the truth. And so I kind of grew up in that side of the church where we talked about miracles and the supernatural. But, you know, then when I got into academic Christianity, I had to figure out how to bring alignment to all of that with

and when I found out that the history of the church is filled with the supernatural involvement of God, there is no church story, there is no gospel. You know, the angels were necessary for Jesus' birth circumstances to emerge. Without angelic help, that whole Bethlehem's story doesn't happen. Jesus in Gassimony, when he's facing the beginning of his passion, the angels came to minister to him to encourage him. So I think it's nonsense for you and I to think the purposes of God could be birthed in our lifetime in our generation without the support of the angels and the angel armies, or that we can withstand the temptations that come to us, or that we can walk through those most critical times,

and we have to make the hardest decisions of our lives. We need the strength that comes from the angels. And I believe in the new birth conversion being born again, but tragically, we've been told once we've done that, and we've been dipped in a pool, we're kind of done with spiritual things. And I think we've got to grow up in our faith because we need a more robust response in this generation. Well, there's no doubt about it. I think we're seeing the beginnings of that. I think even you're writing this book is more evidence to me that something is happening. We are seeing people who never would talk about God talking about God. A few days ago, somebody in the space station was giving thanks to Jesus. So we've got believers in the second heaven. It's kind of amazing to see.

what is happening culturally, that there is a spiritual rebirth happening. And I really do think that it has everything to do with people acknowledging the reality of God and stop getting to a point where you don't say, well, it's metaphorical, I sort of believe it. No, no, no, no, there's a reality here. And the Lord created us to live in this reality, to walk in it, to have maturity and understanding it. I still think your title is funny, angels, demons, and you. It's like, it sounds like a 70s self-help book, Angels, Demons, and You. And yet it is dearly, dearly serious, deadly serious, I should say. You know, I think we're watching.

We just had storms all weekend around here. I don't know what happened in New York, but I smiled because I think what we're living through right now is like a truth storm. Yeah. You know, there's a force in the truth that's being released and it's disruptive. It's overturning things. It's, it's a big, it brings a bit of. of anxiety because you're not sure what's going to be uncovered or what's going to be disrupted, but it's a gift from God. And I pray that the storm intensifies and that the disruption increases

and the things that have been buried and clothed in darkness and deception are revealed by the truth that's being. See, that is exactly part of what's happening. Folks, we'll be right back. I'm talking to my friend, Pastor Alan Jackson of World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. You should visit. The new book is Angels, Demons, and. you. I'm talking to my friend, Pastor Alan Jackson. He has a new book out called Angels, Demons, and You Unseen Spiritual Influences in Our Lives. So, Alan, what are some of the things that you say in the book that we can talk about? Well, I think, first of all, open your heart to the reality that there are spiritual forces that will help you in fulfilling God's assignment for your life.

You know, all of our heroes in the Bible, whether you, I mean, whichever one you want to pick up Older New Testament, very clearly had spiritual support. You know, Peter, his story emerges with angelic visits and deliverances from prison and, I mean, Paul, and I think we've imagined that we can outwork evil or out think evil or out-organize evil, and I'm all for work and organization, but I want all the spiritual support that God will make available to me. And while we have language for it, we don't really have any intent to open our lives to that. and I think it's unfortunate that we typically focus on the dark side and where the demons and

I mean I think we have to acknowledge that and have a plan if you don't have a plan for dealing with the devil I'll tell you this he's got a plan for dealing with you so we've got to move out of the theoretical and get a little bit more sophisticated we learned during COVID how to practice hygiene in a way that diminished our susceptibility to a virus we better learn how to to practice spiritual hygiene so we diminish our susceptibility to unclean influences and forces. Because the nature of the world we're living in right now demands us to be in spiritual health. And that's really the goal of the book, but not to focus on the dark side, but to understand God has provided help and assistance to all of us.

So one thing I always want to say about the demonic is that the most effective thing our satanic enemy can do is to scare people, to lie to them into thinking, to get them into thinking like, ooh, I don't want to mess with that. That's scary. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you exactly the opposite is true. The devil is scared of you if you are aware of your authority in Jesus. If you're not aware of your authority in Jesus, then you are going to be scared of the devil. But if you're aware of your authority in Jesus, the devil's scared of you because Jesus is inside you. He's alive. And the devil is scared of him.

And so we are made for spiritual warfare. God made you for that. And so don't be cowed into thinking, well, that's extra credit or that's scary. I just don't want anything to do with that because as Pastor Allen has just said, the devil wants to do with you. He just wants to neutralize you. And God wants to activate you. But Alan, on the positive side here, when we're talking about angels, What can we do? Because over the years, we've all heard of, you know, new age stuff about, you know, spirit angels or spirit guides, whatever. So I have an innate caution against that because people can go wrong in that way. So what do you mean when you say that, you know, angels can help us? Or what can we do, I guess, is my question.

Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, the book of Hebrew says we entertain angels and we're unaware. of it. I really don't have much use for sloppy Christianity that tries to impress people with hyper spirituality. You know, if you're merging, if you're pulling onto the interstate, you don't need divine guidance. You need to look at the traffic. I'm not confused. I don't think spontaneous makes you more spiritual. The God of the Bible is a book filled with prophecy, and he can tell us hundreds of years in advance what's going to happen. So I'm not impressed when somebody said, I didn't know what I was going to do until this moment. I mean, I know God sometimes intervenes.

He does in my life. But I think the behaviors that bring forth that spiritual support that we're talking about are the fundamentals of Christianity. It starts with a reverence for Jesus. Devotion. We've lost a sense of the ultimate devotion to Jesus. We've exchanged devotionals. I release a devotional every morning.

It's a little 10-minute thing. It's kind of a spiritual bump for your day. Reading a 10-minute devotional does not mean you're devoted to the Lordship of Jesus. Let's come back to those fundamentals of giving Jesus the first priority in our life, practice humility, say no to that carnal self. If you'll engage in those fundamental spiritual disciplines, God will provide support that so exceeds your intellect, your physical strength, your contact list. He will open doors. I think we've watched it with what's happening in the political realm. We have the most unlikely things happening, the most improbable people standing in

power in spite of things arrayed against them that were insurmountable. The only explanation is God. And the church who's been cowering in the shadows, unwilling to tell the truth, wonders why we're powerless and impotent. Because we haven't come back to the point where we're truly devoted to the Lordship of Jesus. When Paul said in Philippians 3, I count all the things that were to my credit is nothing but dung compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus.

We need a little bit more of that in the hearts of God's people. people, and if we will, I think we will see supernatural help that will cause the world to step back. You know, the power of the gospel is in the demonstration of the glory of God, not the demonstration of our intellect. Well, that's what's so interesting to me is that in history, when people see God move miraculously, or in any way, you can just see it in somebody's life sometimes. I mean, you know, sometimes it's miraculous, and you just go, why? I got to do something about that.

But other times you just see it in somebody's life. You look at somebody's life and you go, you know, there's no really explaining his life or her life apart from God. That life seems to be evidence of God. And I think that's what people are looking for. And because I just have over the years seen so many people yapping about Jesus. I want to slap them down and say, shut up, live it, because people are looking at how you live.

and it's ugly to hear people talking about Jesus or whatever. And something in their life seems phony or dishonest or whatever. And God cares about our character. God cares about aligning our lives with him more than he does about us talking about him. We're going to be right back. I'm talking to my friend, Pastor Alan Jackson, the brand new book, Angels, Demons, and You. a downhill run to Papa Eide. Welcome back.

We're talking to my friend pastor of Alan Jackson of World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Alan, I know a lot of people follow you online every Sunday. They tune in to your sermons. How can people do that if they want that? Because one of the blessings to me that has come out of COVID is how many people start started following pastors or churches that they hadn't known about before. But everybody else shut down. They said, oh, I need something on Sunday morning.

And they discovered folks like you or my friend Jack Hibbs. And there's spiritual health that has come into the church as a result of that. So how can people find you online? That's my first question. Probably the simplest way is just, excuse me, Alanjaxon.com. It's A-L-L-L-E-N-Jaxon.com. And if they want to get the book, they can go there, Alanjaxon.com. warfare and it'll give them a link to order the book okay allan a l-l-l-en-allan

allan jackson dot com all right good um and so tell us more about the book the title folks is angels demons and you well you brought it up a few moments ago when you talked about fear and i think that there's there's two forces that we're all having to grapple with right now it's fear and deception and when i i talk to people a lot that have a have problems with fear maybe they've got a diagnosis their frightened of. I mentioned my mom's healing. I mean, God supernaturally intervened when she was a pagan, but a few years later, all those lumps and masses came back. And it frightened her so badly she wouldn't even go to the doctor. And a more mature Christian friend came to visit and said, oh, nonsense, I'm going to the doctor with you. And it turned out to be benign and it was something easily resolved, but fear

paralyzes you. And what I've invited people to imagine is that fear is a person without a body. And I don't think that's weird at all. But, you know, fear will occupy your life. If I went home tonight and there was somebody sitting on my front porch and said, I've decided I live here. I'd say the heck you have. And I would move them off my porch. And if they were bigger than me, I'd get an equalizer. But when you recognize that fear has invaded your heart or your thoughts or your life, you've got to deal with it like a person without a body.

You don't belong here. In Jesus' name, you have to go. And what's remarkable is it will leave. Now, it may revisit and you'll have to address it again. You know, the grass doesn't stay cut and the cows don't stay milked and the bed doesn't stay made and you don't just make a spiritual adjustment once and maintain the freedom forever. You have to give attention to it.

And deception is the same way. See, I think we've misunderstood. You mentioned it earlier. We're not in a power struggle with the devil. It's a truth encounter. And once we know the truth, he's defeated. But we've been so frightened of the conversation that we just wanted to deny it exist. like denying gravity. You know, you can say, I don't believe in gravity, but it won't spare you

the consequences of gravity. And there's too many Christians that have said, well, I just don't believe in those things, as if that's going to insulate them from the reality. And I want to invite people, it's not, we're not trying to protect our comfortable little bubble. We want to use our lives to make the maximum impact for the kingdom of God. And to do that, we're going to have to engage in the spiritual realities of our world. It doesn't make you weird. I don't want you to be strange. Don't cancel your insurance. you know, you want to use your intellect and your wisdom and your common sense, but you also want to believe that there is a spiritual realm,

and it's impacting your life today, whether you're impacting it or not. Well, to me, that's more and more, I just say this is living in reality. This is not, there's no spiritual reality. There's just reality. And the spiritual part of reality is just a part of reality. You know, it's like talking about the atmosphere. It's just part of the world we live in. It's not separate.

And I think a lot of Christians buy into this lie, this secular lie, that, well, my faith stuff, well, that's separate. It is absolutely not separate. It is part of reality. And I think part of the revival that we're going to be seeing, Alan, is people understanding that there is no dividing line between the secular and the sacred. Everything is sacred. God is in charge of every atom in the universe.

and we need to live that way. We need to stop pretending that I have this spiritual side over here for Sunday morning or whatever it is. Everything we do is touched by God is spiritual and we need to live that way. And I think, you know, I spoke at your church on my book, is atheism dead, talking about how science points to God. We sometimes say, well, that's separate. It is absolutely not separate. God created the universe. All of science is going to point to the miracle of God. All of everything is going to point to the miracle of God. And many believers have bought into that lie that, no, my spirituality is separate. And so what I see happening in this revival is it's holistic.

It's to say there are angels and demons everywhere. God is everywhere. This is reality. And God wants me to be a mature believer to live in that reality and to stop living kind of in the shadows in my little religious corner. And I think that there's hunger in the world, that they're non-believers, hungry to see that, and that the scariest thing to the devil is a mature church. And I think the church is really maturing right now. That's been my view over the last number of years that Christians have been waking up. Oh, I agree with you. But I think it's not happening necessarily

within the institutional part of the church that we're so familiar with. See God raising up voices, is people with courage to speak the truth and embrace a biblical worldview and talk about it. In a way, I've never seen it in my lifetime. It's an amazing season to get to be a part of what God's doing. But I still think it's probably a minority position, and I suspect it's going to stay that way. And we're going to have to be willing to be identified with that group of people who have acknowledged Jesus as Lord and King. And you're completely right. I couldn't agree with you more fully that we've got to integrate it across our entire lives.

You know, it's as crazy as thinking you can go to the gym and work out for an hour and then eat whatever you want and drink whatever you want and you'll be healthy that's just nuts i mean i'm an advocate for going to the gym but every time i pick up my fork i make a health decision and the same thing is true with my spiritual life it's not where i sit on sunday morning for a few minutes it's who i am when i go to work and how i behave when i go home and what i do with my discretionary time and we've got to integrate our faith into the part of our lives and the great lies that jesus and faith will diminish your purpose or your joy The exact opposite is true. The more you yield to Jesus, the more full your life becomes.

If only people would believe that because it's true. Folks, this is true. This is not Christian truth. It's truth. It applies to everyone. This is for you. God made you for this. It's not extra credit. He made you for this. Apart from living in this reality, you're missing it. This is what you were born for. And it's beautiful. We're out of time. Pastor Alan Jackson, thank you. The book is Angels, Demons, and you folks, grab a copy. Check out Alan Jackson at Alan Jackson.com. Alan, we love you. Grateful for you. Thanks for coming on. Keep up the good work. You're making a difference, my friend. Folks, welcome back. Very exciting that we get to participate in the modern day abolitionist movement. We get to free slaves. We've been talking about this on this program. This is a real thing. But just as real as the evil of modern day slavery is, just as real is the good that we get to do.

We get to do something about this because of Christian Solidarity International with whom we partner on this program. I'm talking to Todd Chapman, who's telling us the stories, the reality of this. I think I mentioned that every $250 that we give, freeze a slave. So if you go to the website, Metaxistalk.com, you'll see the banner. You click on the banner. You see a number of options. Some people can easily give $250 or multiples of that. I encourage you to do that.

It's tax deductible. And it is literally freeing slaves and setting them up in a life or freedom. But if you can't give $250, maybe you can give monthly. Some of you can give monthly. If you give $10 monthly, if you give $20 monthly, that's a huge. thing at the end of the year. Every $250 freeze a slave sets them up in a life of freedom. So I want to encourage you to do that. There's a phone number. I will give you. The website is metaxis talk.com. You'll see the banner. But Todd, tell us more about this because, again, so many of us cannot fathom

that this is real. This is going on while we're having this conversation. There are people praying that somebody will reach out and save them from a life of slavery. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And just to quantified the impact that you have had, if you've ever participated in one of our campaigns here on the Eric Mattaxas show, over 100,000 slaves have been freed since CSI has been doing this. And every year, more and more freed. I think last year, your listeners freed about a thousand slaves between our May campaign that we're kicking off right now and the one that we do at the end of the year. So thank you, if you've been a part of that.

If you never have, could I just boldly say, you're missing out on a blessing? You really are. because think about it, this is the gospel. This is the gospel message. We were all born into slavery and sin, right? And God redeemed us through the gift of his son, Jesus Christ. And we now, you know, because of our gratitude for what God has done for us, we can set another person free, a person who is actually in physical bondage.

They're enslaved. They're being verbally abused, psychologically abused, physically abused. They're being forced to convert to Islam, even though they're Christian, And their slave master says you will convert to Islam. And then they get physically mutilated as part of that process. It's absolutely horrendous what happens to them. But you know what? They don't give up.

They don't ultimately give up their faith that God can and hopefully one day will deliver them. And we get to be a part of that. I'll give you the phone number again because obviously a lot of people would like to talk to a person. The phone number, which I hope you'll dial today, is. 888 253, 3522, 888 253, 252. 888 253, 3522, 888-252. 888 253, 3522. And the website, if you go to metaxis talk.com,

at the top of the page, you'll see the banner, click on the banner at metaxis talk.com. It'll take you a number of options that are there. Again, you can call, but if it's easier for you, just go to metaxis talk.com, and it'll show you a number of options, including some of you would rather just give a smaller amount monthly. That's easier, obviously, whatever you can do. You're doing the Lord's work. So, Todd, thank you for sharing this important. It's an important opportunity as I see it, folks. You put your faith in action. It will strengthen your faith. Those aren't just words. That's real.

So thanks for doing what you can do. And thank you, Todd, for sharing. My pleasure. Thanks, Eric.