Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 33 | The Art of Ignoring the Truth | Guest: Eric Metaxas

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

While Jase is out of town, Phil and Al speak with author Eric Metaxas about his faith journey and how many universities today are teaching students how to ignore God because they don’t have a better answer.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So we're, so we, today, Dad, we're Jason's on assignment. We sent him off to go and, you know, do some research for us today. And so in Jason's place, the brainpower has gone up exponentially because we have one Eric Mataxis all the way from New York City taking the place of Jace. So that's that's that's that's a big seat to feel I don't know what just happened but I think Jace should never turn his back on this group because that was we didn't tell we're auditioning for

you know potential replacement so we thought we'd start with metaxus right out of New York City I don't know whether he came out of I don't know whether he's a voice crying out in the wilderness yes I am or he came here into where there are voices cried out of the The Lord put me in New York City. It's a missionary posting, and I'm there for God's purposes. But in all seriousness, my wife and I grew up in the tri-state area, right? She grew up in New Jersey. I grew up in New York and in Connecticut.

But as I was saying to you, Brother Phil, I grew up in a place a lot like this. You know, people shoot guns. I grew up fishing, ice fishing, and all that kind of thing. When I went to college, I entered the sophisticated world of, you know. And you went to Yale. I went to Yale. And Yale, I want to say up front is a dramatically ungodly environment. When I went there, I went there with American values.

My parents raised me to love my country. But Yale is ahead of the curve in terms of political correctness. And think about this. William F. Buckley went to Yale in the late. 40s. He wrote a book in 1951 called God and Man at Yale in 1951 telling the world that the faculty at Yale was atheist and communist. So this didn't just happen 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. I was there in the early 80s and it was well advanced. So I was schooled in how to think like a cultural elite. I grew up in a working class home and I was schooled how to think that

and of course I drifted away from God and a simple understanding of the universe until the Lord very dramatically saved me around my 25th birthday. I was dramatically born again and pretty quickly became politically conservative after that. So that's the short version of how I got to be. And your story is on I am second. I am second did a spectacular video of me telling my story. story of how I came to Jesus. And this is not to imply that I was an atheist. I hated God before. I was raised in a church, but I never heard the gospel. It was kind of cultural Christianity. You know, Greek Orthodox. You kind of grow up. You're Greek. That's where you go. They are good people and they're what I would call God fearers, but they don't know the details

of what it is to walk with Jesus, to read the Bible and all that kind of stuff. So you kind of get a part of it, but you don't get the whole thing. And when you, go to a hostile environment like Yale or Manhattan, you're not prepared, and I was not prepared. Well, among the Ivy League schools, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, didn't they all start their roots? Weren't they all like preaching schools? Every single one of them, except for Cornell. Every single one but for Cornell were dedicated to raising up godly ministers of the gospel.

But it makes perfect sense. Satan goes to those places, and I believe he's redigging the old wells. Because if you think about it, there was revival in New York. The whole West Coast, sorry, the whole East Coast used to be godly people, you know, who believe. I mean, George Whitfield, in my book, if you can keep it, I talk about George Whitfield. He was the greatest evangelist in the history of the world. I joke around that he makes St. Paul and Billy Graham look like lazy agnostic. and he preached.

It was the first great awakening up and down the 13 colonies. And they say that 80% of the colonists is before we became America. 80% of them had heard Whitfield preach in person at least one time. And that was what enabled the United States to become the United States. That's a long story. I'm not going to go into it. Now it's in my book, if you can keep it. But the point is that we are on every level.

level founded, not just in godly principles, but in a Christian culture. Self-government and the liberty that we celebrate cannot exist without enough people who we would consider seriously religious, virtuous people. And so George Whitfield, you know, as an evangelist, brings about what we think of as, you know, the revolution and all this kind of stuff. And now I'm speaking, I'm skipping over the top of stuff. But the point is that all of that is true. And so we have fallen a far ways. We know.

But I believe that the Lord wants to redig the old wells, that all of these places, that the culture, places like Manhattan, Hollywood and all the Ivy League, that there will be revival and that the story's not over. So whenever I hear Christians say, like, ah, it's over, and you know, the Lord's going to come back in 10 minutes. It's like, no, no, no. That sounds defeatist to me. We need to fight.

We need to pray. And we need to know that there are many people that have not yet heard what we call the good news. So you think God used, Eric, so you're, because of the pathway you took and as you explained, losing your way, but then coming back to him, you think that has now set you on the course to be able to speak into that? Of course. It's exactly right. It's just like what Paul says. I mean, Paul got this unbelievable education and whatever. And he knew it was dung. Right. He knew that. Yeah. But he said, but it will be used by the Lord for his purposes. So when I say I went to Yale, people perk up. Oh, maybe I'll listen to this guy. Oh, I'm a New York Times bestseller. Oh,

maybe I'll listen to this guy. I know these things are dung. But if these things can be used to get people to listen for five minutes, then I say, praise the Lord. That's why the Lord gave them to me. But it is kind of funny because I was raised, as I say, in a working class background. My parents are European immigrants. They came to America. They loved this country. They raised me to love this country.

And, you know, took me to church every Sunday. And that's the world that I grew up in. But then I learned to speak the language of the cultural elites. You go to a place like Yale. You make friends with those kind of people. And you learn to speak that language. And you think all the people in power, this is the language they speak. This must be the way you need to talk to be successful.

And I bought into that. And I always joke around that at a place like Yale, the one thing they do not do in any of these places. And now it's true of public schools, not just universities. They don't give you an education. And education used to be, we're going to answer the most basic questions. Who are you? where do you come from? What's the meaning of life?

Where are you going? That's the basics of like, you know, we want to, and everything else is details, right? Right, right. because they are now of the mind that there's no good answers to this. You evolved by accident out of the primordial soup. give you a good job, work really hard at go for the gusto, don't think about these questions, and it'll all be over in a few decades. That's right.

But whatever you do, don't think about those questions because you have good answers. And I graduated, I was an English major, and of course, if you're an English major, you do not get a good job. And so I had plenty time to think about these questions and to twist in agony thinking, I know that there's no meaning to the universe and what am I supposed to do with my life? and things got so bad that I moved back in with my parents. That's what I always say. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy.

Yale, Princeton, Harvard. Bingo. See, which depends on human tradition and the basic principle of this world rather than on Christ. I'm looking at it saying, That's it. Hollow and deceptive philosophy. That's why when Paul talked to the Corinthians, he said, where's the philosopher of this age?

Where, where is this? Who's going to? He said, they think what we're preaching to them, it's foolishness. He said, but to us, it's the power of God for salvation. So you read it, you know, and you say, boy, there's a lot of hollow and deceptive philosophy. It's entrenched in our education system. It's entrenched.

just being poured out. Carl Marx is lifted up to now. They're back on Carl Marks. Yes, that's right. I just didn't think they would go back to him. And I'm thinking, Carl Marx, you know, forget the God of the Bible. We're going with Carl Marks. I'm like, Carl Marks, I'm thinking, surely we haven't slipped that far.

But in Texas, it's a scary thing to watch. But think of the irony, in 19. 1989 and 1991, the Soviet Union is unraveled. The wall comes down in Germany. The Soviet Union is unraveled. You would think in the natural, communism is over, right? And here we are. We have socialists talking about redistribution of wealth, talking about taking all the money away from the billionaires at the point of a gun. The state is going to take it away. And you think we don't need the Soviet Union because it has come inside the tent. and now we're fighting it. The snakes have come inside the tent. This is a terrible place. It's a terrible place. And I'm like, hold the phone a minute.

Let's see. I've got a couple degrees. You said, was there any God there, Jesus? Even at a little Louisiana Tech. No, not a word. It wasn't that they were bad-mouthed him. They just never brought him up. So I listened.

I was educated. So I leave. And I have this idea. I said, you know, if I could, I've got this duck call, it sounds closer to a duck than the other duck calls. So I told us K, I said, I'm going to build duck calls. I said, well, find me a place on the river. I have an idea.

I think it would work. I said, it's going to take a little time. I said, but you'll have that long green in your pocket. I was I was China I said find me a place on the river and I said I'll make a living not by using the degrees I've earned from Louisiana Tech major in education I said look I said I'll fish the river we'll sell the fish we'll survive the duck call will take off I said it's an idea now here I am an American I'm going to trust number one I had repented how to clear a head I'm 28 years old. I said, get me a place on the river. I'm done with living the sinful life, the whole world around getting drunk. That's over. I said, I have a clear head, clear direction. I have a plan. We're going to trust in God, whatever happens. We're going to trust in God and we're going to move forward. We're going to trust in capitalism because it'll work. I said,

it will work. And I said, it will work hard. Those three things. Trust in God, trust in capitalism, them work hard. My college buddies, when they found out, they said, what's Robertson doing? They said, well, I think the last we heard, he's down on a river catching fish and settle them. They're like, what? The man has a master's degree. Is he a complete idiot?

So they come down and they pull up and I'm patching nets and I see my old college buddies and they're all out, you know, some of them are insurance men and school teachers. whatever. And they said, Robinson, what, what are you doing? I had an old pickup truck over there. I said, well, I'm patching his net. I'm getting 30 cents a pound on the buffalo and the cat, the drum, and the, and I said, but I'm getting 70 for the cat. I said, a hundred pounds of catfish, 70 bucks. I said, so I'm surviving. I said, I've got my duck call here. I'm working on it. it's going to take a little time where I'd start making them. I said,

but I think it's going to take off. So I'm going to fish until my duck call takes off. So they went up the road and they told me, they said, later they said, when we drove back up the road, we said, you talk about a complete idiot. That guy is an idiot. Well, they said they looked up in about 25, 30 years. They said, the sucker is a genius.

So you can go when I'm, America from an idiot to a genius. Yeah. It takes you a little time sometimes, 25 or 30 years. Yeah. But that's exactly what happened. And a hit television show. But under Marxism, I couldn't even have gotten it off the ground because there's no private bit. There's no, there's no, you just can't dream up something and go with it. No. But in America you can. That shows you just one redneck in the middle of the pile. You say, you know what? It is a great country because you come up with an idea. and the idea works and the blessings come and God was right all along.

You kept him at the top. Then comes capitalism. And we got these people now running around now and said, no, that won't work. Well, it's a sad thing to watch, Maddox. Well, listen, you know we are in a fallen world and there's a lot of sad things to watch, but the Lord calls us to hope and joy. And he has us here still breathing. to be his answer to that foolishness.

And we are by His grace. And there are tons of people out there who never get to hear common sense wisdom, who never get to hear the joy of Jesus. They never get to hear about it. And one of the things, God's calling on my life, the reason I do radio and TV, is because I know those folks are hungry for truth, and they're not getting it, we know,

from the mainstream media. Even if you watch conservative media, you're not hearing about Jesus. That's right. You're not hearing about the truth about sexuality. How many young men are confused about their sexuality? Do they ever hear anybody tell them? You don't need to go down that path.

Don't let the world tell you you have to follow that. You don't. You can be free, whatever it is. They'll never hear it. My wife, for many years, has run a crisis pregnancy center in New York. York City, right? And I hear the truth about what these women go through. Do you think you'll ever hear those women's stories in the mainstream media? You won't even hear it on Fox News. You'll never hear

the pain the woman goes through because she had an abortion because her boyfriend bullied her into it, said, if you want me to stick around, you will take care of that. Here's $200. You never hear those stories of women being bullied by men into aborting their children. And then you never hear the story. of those women walking with that pain, with that wound for decade upon decade with nowhere to go. Oprah Winfrey did not have those women on her show sharing their pain. That's that religious stuff, see. Well, that's the point. They just block it off.

Guess what? We're talking about it. Yeah, metaxia is out of a, if I had to label him, I would say he's sort of a refined version of us. And I'm stressing refined. He's verified. You can tell by his impeccable dress today. Oh, my gosh. But the kicker is, we're sitting here at a table together.

So we've been to New York. Here's what I thought was interesting here. So the first time Dad was on your radio show, I don't remember what we were selling. I'm sure we were pushing a book. Maybe one of Dad's earlier books. You were still in your old place during your radio show. But it was interesting because when you guys came together, I was there and I'm just watching you guys do the interview. and it's a short bite, probably a six-minute.

No, no, no, no. I always do long interviews. Otherwise, in six minutes, I wouldn't have been able to convince your father that I'm part of the tribe. That's right, exactly. It took 30 minutes. It would have took a while. New York City.

But I noticed, you know, as different places as we are, there was a kinship, I think, early on. And there was no doubt, dad loved you, my taxes because it's like, wait a minute, I'm in New York. You could tell you it was different. And then, of course, you connected and you knew dad was not. just this character. Well, let me tell you something. For many, many years, the Lord has had a call on my life to reach the culture, right, for his purposes. In various ways, it's not always

preaching about the gospel explicitly, but in all kinds of ways. But what has been at the heart of it for me is to bring God into the mainstream. In other words, it's not some religious thing for religious people. It's for everybody. And when you turn on the TV, you would think that either somebody's preaching a sermon from a pulpit or the whole universe is secular and there's no God. And people just living their lives with God in the way that people do, praying over a meal or something like that. That has been censored 100% from American public life. It doesn't exist. So when you, on your TV show, when somebody said, you know those duck dyns, they're Christians, and they're explicit about it on the show, I said, are you kidding me?

I was, I leapt for joy. And when I realized that this was true, I said, God is not finished with America because look what he has done. People would tell you that it's over, it's over, it's over. Well, it's not over. And this kind of thing is only increasing. I'm going to do what I can by God's grace through my program. you're doing what you do. But I have a hope that there are many Americans that just say,

look, I'm not particularly religious, but those people don't sound crazy. Maybe I can find what I'm looking for in them. And God used, obviously, the show for us to be able to set that platform. But then, you know, along the way, you find sort of that like-minded connection to partnership. I like this text in lieu of what Mattaxa just said. Paul talking to a church, 2,000-year-old writing, give or take a few, mid-50s probably, A.D. You're like, I wonder if this is pertinent today.

Let's see what the man said. I'll tell you this. This is Ephesion 417, if you folks have your Bible, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They're darkened in their understanding. I wonder if that is pertinent in today's world. Are people darkened in their understanding? Don't live like them.

They are separated from the life of God. What's all this Jesus thing about? Loving God and loving your neighbor. That's what it's about. They're like, you're talking to me? I said, I'm talking to you. Loving God. Loving your neighbor.

that's what a life of God is because of the ignorance they're separated from that they don't get it you say it would solve a lot of problems it would solve everyone's problem they don't get it because of the ignorance that's in them due to the hardening of their hearts the mind of America across the board you say there's been a large change of of heart just since I've been on the earth. Yes. It's right in front of you in plain sight. You're like, what are we doing?

What are you doing? Having lost all sensitivity, they've given themselves over to sensuality. So as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. You didn't come to know Christ that way. surely you heard of him. You were taught in him and accord us with the truth that's in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life

to put off your old self. I've been there, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires to be made new in the attitude of your minds. Everything we do attacks us when you get right down to it. We're just trying to get people to just, think about it. I made the statement here a few months back. I said, you know, here's the scary part. I don't know whether I've ever converted a person who is into the left-wing ideology. I don't

know whether I've ever converted one. All of you, he said, Dad, I don't know. It's difficult. I can't remember. Well, a guy contacted me about a week later. He said, you converted one. He said, me. he said i heard you speak and i started trembling he said especially when you got to the part where you said how could you ever kill the god who made the cosmos how could you kill that you only could do it if he became a human and let you do it that's the only way you could kill him he becomes a human then you could kill him well when they killed god three days later you're not you're going to kill him well when they killed god three days later he stands back up and shows them how they went about it showing Thomas look Thomas Thomas Thomas said I don't believe it unless I see him so he showed him the marks he

said check this out well once that happened everything changed they kill God but three days later he stands back up on the earth and said go tell people that I'll get them out of here alive they just have to trust me and they have to turn from evil don't live like they used to. Change your mind. It's called repentance. It's a scary word for America. It's a wonderful thing that God allowed us to repent.

We have the option of repenting. And they can say what they will, Metaxus, but I watched my own life from the time I was born to 28. I noticed something, Metaxis, I said, I wonder why so many are about 27, 28 to 31. or 32. I just got to think of it. I said, everybody I talk with, I keep seeing them come up and they're about in there

around 30. And I said, why is that? I said, it's got to be something to it. What it is, is you've, by the time you get to be 30, 28 to 30, you have a track record. Yeah. And it's very, all you have to is look back and say, okay, this is me. Yeah. This is where I am.

That's right. What I saw my record and it was like this. a short circle like a dog chasing his tail and I'm like okay so I leave that but after that I show people that I said how old are you because I'm looking at them and they say 29 the next one comes by how old to you 28 31 30 well I told them that and I said how's it going for you and they're like oh it's the most terrible life I'm in the crystal meth I'm opioid you know hoaring around breeding anything I get my hands up and it just goes on and on and the track record is not a period when they say is there a better way we point

them to jesus it's a lot better way well you understand that to really sin uh the lord can work with that but when you are living a life pretending that everything's fine uh when you really screw up honesty well that's what i'm trying to say is that if you i was so miserable by my twice i I graduated Yale. I was still 20. So by the time I was 24, I hit my midlife crisis. I said, I've been out of this greatest school ever, and I'm living with my parents. You had the pedigree. You had the paper, but it just didn't turn your life around. Well, think about this. Think of my parents who never got to go to college looking at me thinking, you went to Yale University, and we paid for it by my mother, you know. And you made it. And my mother cleaned houses. My father, you know, they worked hard to pay.

so I could go to Yale University. And here I come back, confused, useless, not knowing what I'm doing. And of course, my Yale friends, their parents would be like, oh, Eric's finding himself. You know, he's finding, he's a writer, he's finding himself. And my parents are like, well, we would like you to find yourself a job and stop, you know, whatever. And the thing is that I was so miserable that I opened my heart a little bit to say, okay, God, if you're there.

but I was not excited about it, but I was desperate. And the Lord visited me in a dream. It's in the I Am Second story, and it's in my book Miracles. I write the detailed version of it, but I thought, how loving this God is that he reached me in a way. He knew that he needed to reach me in this way. He needed to blow my mind. And he spoke to me in this dream, and I have never been the same.

I went to sleep thinking, you can't know if God exists. and I woke up knowing him personally, and I've never, I've never been the same. It has changed, you know, changed my whole life. Everything I've done since then, I have been led by God in my career path, which is one of the reasons of such a strange career path. I never would have picked it for myself, but God has known what he's doing with me, and he brought me to your studio today. And here you are.

So since you brought that up, we'd answer questions a lot of times from folks that listen to us and watch us. And there was an interesting one that came in, and I wanted you to speak to it. And of course, Dad as well. His name is Kyle, and we got this from Facebook. And he said, just what you just described. So it sounds a lot like you. He said, I have a difficult time getting my brain to believe in God.

And not because I don't want to. I have my wife. I have my kids. I go to church. I study. I pray. I hope. I ask for God.

And honestly, he said, you know, I'm searching for this. But yet it's not there for him. Yeah. And so he said, what can you tell me? So I thought about you. I thought, what did you tell a guy like that? Let me tell you something. I grew up, you know, normal way, but I don't really know how a car works.

But I get in it every day. I turn it on and I go where I need to go. You don't need to know everything. You need to know the basics. What are the basics? I open the door. I turn on the condition. I do this and it takes me where I can go.

Anybody who says I have questions about God, I think every human being, the most devout Christian, will still have questions because we are human. We can't. Until we see him face to face, we cannot have the answers. But the fact of the matter is, if you really want to know there are books and there are things to help you. But I'm here to say, not believing in the God of the Bible is infinitely less logical than believing in the Bible. somebody says you got to choose yes or no, it's open and shut case. I wrote a book called Miracles. And just in the first part of the book, Miracles, I talked about the scientific case

for God. It is so overwhelming that the only, the most shocking thing is that why don't they teach us in the schools? Why don't most Christians even know. But the scientific case for God is overwhelming. The evidence for God is overwhelming. Now, when people says, well, I still got questions. I got, listen, folks, to not believe in God, as somebody else has said, my friend Frank Turrick, takes infinitely more faith than it does to believe in God. It is just open and shut. Even the resurrection, in two of my books, I wrote about the resurrection, the scientific evidence, the logical evidence for the resurrection is shocking.

I had no idea. I thought I have to just take it on faith. No, no, you don't. If you read, you know, just I wrote a chapter on it, my miracles. book, but it's, it's overwhelming. And I think Christians have been cowed into thinking that we have some kind of intellectually inferior position. That is not only a lie, but precisely the opposite is true. Everything in history, in science, everything in this universe points to the God of the Bible. Every day, there's more archaeology proving the Bible. Now, you think it would just be just the

opposite. The more science we know, the more archaeology, the more we know it's not true. precisely the opposite. So part of the reason I do what I do on my radio and TV show and my books is to arm people with some of this information because the world tells you you're crazy. But the news is that in fact they are crazy. The God of the Bible is real and wants us to know him and has given us evidence and all kinds of proofs so that we can know him. Well, you could tell you the guy that wrote the letter, beyond all, question the mystery of godliness is great it's great it's a mystery you say hmm he appeared in a body god becomes flesh so that he could die he appeared in a body was vindicated by the spirit

whoops he's back from the dead look a bunch of guys with all of the preliminary from genesis three 15 somebody the seed of a woman would do away with satiety and crush his head. You say, 5,000 years in the making, 5,000 years, 5,300 by my count, here comes someone appearing in a body, a local carpenter's son, and later like, whoa, he was vindicated by the spirit, he died,

and three days later he came back, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, and still is, was believed on in the world, I'm there, was taken up in glory. You say, the mystery of God, and this is great. And that was First Timothy. Let's not forget. First Timothy, four.

Yeah, and over in Romans, oh, the depths about 11, verse 22 or three, oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. And Matakas brought it up, how unsearchable his judgments. We will always say, what in the world? What? What? And we're like, whoa, how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out? You just can't figure it all out as humans.

That's why you say, you know what? I'm not getting out of here without him. If there is no God, none of us are leaving this planet alive. No one. You say, this is a window of escape, rescue, escape. I'm still waiting on a better story, Metaxus, if they have one. I'm like, here's the story. Appeared in a body, was vindicated by the spirit, was believed on in the world,

preached among the nations, believed on the world, take it up in glory. I said, look, life, immortality, freed from Satan, freed from sin, freed from law, freed from guilt, freed from the grave. I said, you got a better story? I've never heard a person say in the back of the rear. I got a better one. Yeah. Not once, has anyone ever said.

I said, because if you have a better story, we'll stand up and tell us about it. Well, you know what? You know what their better story is? Since they don't have a better story, the only answer to that is to push it away and to spend all of your energy trying not to look in that direction. because once you, once anybody begins to think about what we're talking about, it will confront them. And so the only way to escape it is to pretend those people are crazy. I just don't want to think about it.

And I realize that's kind of what I did until I was confronted by my own misery to think about this stuff. Because think about that without this. Without the truth, without Jesus Christ, without faith, without love. Without that, you look at human beings, you say, well, what would the suicide rate and the murder rate and the drug use rate and the gross immorality and the diseases that follow 110 million Americans at any given time are suffering from a sexually transmitted disease? They're producing children through all this immoral conduct, the divorce rate. What would it take for us to say, do you all think? think this thing is going well? Do we have some problems here, the human race? It would take an act of the Holy Spirit because we are not capable in our own. In other words, we just have to be obedient.

And what you're doing here, it's just beautiful to listen to you, annotate the scriptures. This is giving God, the Lord is using us to speak to some people that he has appointed. because honestly, the level of hopelessness, if you don't believe what we're talking about, as I said, the hopelessness is so horrifying. The only thing you can do is spend all of your energy trying not to look at it. Otherwise, you'd just kill yourself. That's right. And I love the analogy about the car because I think all people have a baseline of faith.

And this is what Kyle's question is about because I get on an airplane, you know, once a week, sometimes more. You talk about a faith moment. I mean, I'm sitting there in that plane having faith that everybody that worked on this plane knew what they were doing, that the guys up front are really on top of things today because my life is in their hands. So I mean, a lot of trust in that. There's a lot of trust in faith in everyday living. And so when you're right, when you look into the eternal and you see that and you see the possibilities that opens up everything. So Kyle, I want to encourage you to look up some of Eric's early stuff, you know, know, and, you know, especially the IAM's second video, which I thought beautifully lays out this

idea of conversion, especially in this idea. It kind of led to a lot of your early writings, I think, about apologetics and all the things you did, which really showed that. So I encourage you to look those up. I think that will help you. Tell us now, so you're, tell the folks, our folks, why you're here. You didn't just come to Louisiana to do our podcast, although we're so appreciate you. No, well, I'm so thrilled you. Let me do the podcast. I didn't know I was, I was going to get to do this. But no, the reason I'm down here now, I have a daily radio show all across America. In fact, I was in Romania, Kluge, Romania. I never heard of this place. And there were 500 people came to hear me speak. And I said, this is insane. I'm in Romania. Half of them said, oh, I listen to your

podcast or I listen to your radio show where I watch your YouTube thing every day. Former Soviet block. And I said to myself, am I dreaming? So my radio. station, my radio stuff goes everywhere, not just, we put it on YouTube. You can watch it like a TV program on YouTube. And TBN puts about a half an hour of this, you know, what we capture in the studio, it's a TBN studio for this radio show. They put it on the air every weekend. So I have this short TV show on TBN. It's twice a week. But I went to the folks at TBN and I said, listen, I had this crazy idea to do a family variety Christmas special. Like they used to have when we were kids, Dean Martin, Johnny Cash, Glenn Campbell,

you know, they have these variety shows that the whole family would watch, right? And they were not, you know, sickly, sweet saccharin, you know, like when people talk, they say family programming, sometimes adults really don't want to watch it because it's boring. No, we're talking about entertaining, funny, tremendous quality talent. We've got music. But something that the whole family can enjoy together. And so I went to the folks at TBN said, can I do this? And they said, well, you know, they had some questions for me because I've never done this before. But what they don't know is that God has created me to do this. And so we struck a deal. And sometime in December, they're going to air

this Christmas variety special a whole bunch of times. And I said, who can I get to be in the this variety special because I wanted to be fun. And I thought of a guy named Phil Robertson. And he somehow... Because nothing says Christmas special. Like Phil Robertson. Yeah, I'm just a barrel of fun. Because he looks like sanity clause. Look at him. He looks just like Santa Claus. So I said, can we do it? And you said, if you guys come down, we can do it. Because we talked to originally about coming to New York. And I thought, how am I going to get that back up there? Well, listen, this was God's plan. So we came down here. It's why I'm here now. And we're filming some kooky stuff. People aren't going to believe it. So they're going to have to tune in.

We're not going to tell them anything. But I, you got to watch it. I'm telling you it's nuts. And what I've already seen, mom is on it as well. Mom and Dad, we're going to do some fun stuff later after we finish the podcast. We're going to shoot some guns. We're going to shoot some guns, which is going to be fun. Dad, now, when we talked about what we're filming today, you saw Dad perk up, right? Because we're going to the woods today. We're doing some fun stuff. But, And also tell our audience about your, you're doing some children's books now, which you sent me a couple of them. My grandkids love them, by the way.

So tell them about the children. Well, here's the thing. I've done a little bit of everything. So people find me confusing, you know. Some people think he's the author of Bonhofer, the 600-page book about a German the ologian. Yes, that's true. But I'm also a goofy humorist.

I like to joke around a lot. So I'm, you know, to quote Whitman, I'm large, I contain multitudes. You can figure it out. But that's how the Lord made me and I'm decided to go with it. So I like to do comedy. And people don't know this. I've written 30 children's books. When I first got saved, the Lord totally miraculously.

And I don't use the word miraculously lately. I don't mean it was a blessing. No, he was a miracle. Handed me a job. If you heard the story, you'd say, that's a miracle of God. Writing children's books and children's videos for rabbit ears. So I've written 30 children. books. I have been involved with Veggie Tales. I wrote for Veggie Tales. I'm the voice of the

narrator on the Esther video. So I got involved with the Veggie Tales guys and stuff. So the Lord's give me a very weird resume. But the point is when Trump got elected, the guy who convinced me to look at Trump seriously is my very dear friend lives in Kansas named Tim Raglan. And he and I work together on all kinds of children's books and stuff. And when Trump got elected, I said, Tim and I have done children's books together. We need to do a children's book about this president. What are we going to do? And I was even thinking it's going to be a children's book,

but it's going to be a book that adults are going to buy as a gag gift for each other because it's very funny with adult humor. Kids aren't going to get the adult humor, right? But we came up with a caveman named Donald because he's a little bit of a caveman. And Donald, he lives among the cave people. he's a builder of caves, and there's a big swamp. And in the middle of the swamp lives their king. And they can't talk to the king.

He's out of touch with his people, and the people can't, you know, they have no say in their government or anything like that. Because the king lives in the middle of swamp. He only talks to the swamp creatures. So Donald says, well, let me go down and look into this. I think maybe I can figure something out. So he goes down because he's a no-nonsense guy. He, you know, he solves problems. So he goes down to the swamp.

And he finds out, long story short, the swamp is made of money. That's why it's green. It's not algae. It's money. And he says, these swamp creatures, they're not going to let you talk to the king. The king's not coming out.

We need to drain the swamp. And everybody looks at him and says, you can't say that. You can't say, you get in trouble for saying that. The swamp creatures will get angry. And he says, well, you're pretty angry, aren't you?

Maybe it's their turn. So he says, it's real simple. I'm going to get a shovel. I'm going to go down. I'm going to dig a ditch. It's going to be the biggest, most beautiful ditch you've very. ever seen. He doesn't say we're going to get Mexico to pay for it. He just says we're going to

dig a ditch. And he digs the ditch. And then all the cave people come to help him and they dig the ditch. And guess what? The swamp starts to drain. The money starts to flow out to the horizon. And all the swamp creatures and the king chase the money to the horizon never to be seen again. And the swamp is drained. Flowers, bloom, trees grow. And everything's great. Except they say, but we don't have a king. So a little girl says, maybe we can make Donald our king. So my taxes is into reeducating our children. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

So they say, we want to make Donald our king. And Donald says, no, you are a free people now. A king tells people what to do and they have to do it. But a free people tells their leaders what to do and the leaders have to do. And they say, you mean like a president? And he goes, yep. And if that's what you're looking for, I'm your caveman. So he becomes the first president of the free land,

is the free people, whatever. So that's the first book. It's called Donald Drain's De Swamp. I'm beginning to see this Yale gig. Oh, yeah. Come forth. That's what it is. A lot of brain power is.

So there's a second book called Donald builds the wall. And there's a vicious gang in there called MSNBC 13. And only the adults will get that joke. But they build a wall. There's a kooky character, an angry little girl who believes that you see what happens. You mentioned the free market before. The free people start inventing things because it's this very fertile environment because they're free and they start inventing. So they invent fire.

The cave people invent fire. They invent the wheel. And when they invent fire, they start cooking their food. And this angry little girl who looks something like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. but it's not. It's an angry little girl. She says this smoke is toxic. And we're going to all people are breathing this smoke and we're going to be extinct in

a couple of months. We need to save this. And she's got a plan and it's called the Green Raw Deal. By the way, by the way, Ocasio Cortez, the love. She is the cutest Marxist I've ever seen. Yeah. Well, that's the key. So the devil comes as an angel of light.

brother, be not to see. So then there's a crazy old man in it and whatever. And then, but Donald says that in order to keep, people keep coming in. And some of them are great because they love freedom. But some of them come in, they just want to game the system. So they keep trying to push those people out the can't give it. So Donald says, we got to build a wall. And they build a wall.

And then the swamp creatures who went to the horizon chasing the money, they ran out of money. And they said, where did we used to get money from? And they said, well, all those other people, they used to work, and we would get it from them. And they said, well, we know how to spend money. We need to get some money. So we need to go back and take what is rightfully ours. So they try to storm the place, but Donald build the wall. And, you know, so that's, so Donald rains the swamp is the first book.

Donald builds the wall. It's a second book. They're funny for adults. And you can send it to, I always think the greatest thing is to send it to somebody who is not a fan of this president. Because the books are, it's good humor, it's fun. and it gets us to laugh at what's what's going on. But all I can tell you is, you know, I put it out there and people seem to like it. You sent some to me for us, and I admit I laughed as soon as I opened it up and read it,

and then shared it of my grandkids. So check it out. Metaxus does a lot of great work, but this is his latest. I think you'll enjoy it. Good gift stuff. It's shorter than Bonhofer. It's shorter than Bonhofer. And a little bit easier to read.

You'll laugh through it. Eric, man, we really appreciate you coming. We're excited. We're about to go over and get in the woods and do some filming. Do some shooting. Do some shooting. And we're going to see if we can. We'll see how the Manhattan look.

Yeah. Works on the property. We'll see what happens. Which is good. Well, I feel so honored to be welcomed as I have been. I love you all. And God is using you and will continue to use you. And let's enjoy the ride because the Lord is with us.

That's great. Enjoyed it. We are so glad you're watching and listening to the Unashamed podcast. be sure to like us on Facebook, subscribe on YouTube and iTunes that's going to keep you up today with all the new episodes and it's also going to let other people

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