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In the studio. Top Lobson Productions. very special guest today everybody pastor rick this is uh top and ravens pastor that's right a lot of people are going to be incredibly intrigued about because they wonder like where would these guys go to a church and what would that pastor be like so it's going to be very intriguing for you to kind of uh talk to us a little bit about your life and uh and what you're doing i feel

like this was a mistake already how this is yeah yeah you could feel his energy right by the way our audience pastor rick is already passively familiar with you okay because we we say things

about you always good things i bet you said something about the crimson worm i we did mention

it we mentioned it and i would love if we can get into that conversation just a little bit today because it is fascinating you want to you want to unpack that right now and then we get into your

story kind of after that i know that was like a very moving sermon what was that a week or two ago top uh father's day yeah it was father's day so top said it was great man yeah it was a it was

a really fantastic uh what is it it's an isaiah 50 something pretty close uh psalms 22 okay

and uh by the way since then i have spoken to you and you said there's more to it to unpack and you're planning on doing that. Did you already do that or is that happening this coming Sunday?

That's coming July 19th. We do a show, our show, a service where we bring in the Spanish church.

That's right.

With us. We call it One Church Una Familia. The pastor of that church interprets me as I preach. And so we go from there and I've already given him the first sermon so he can listen to it. And I've already prepared the second sermon. So I've got that information if you'll want to sneak it in about the second

one. Yeah. So can we lay the groundwork for this? This is something that you said you organically came upon, right? Which is remarkable because how long have you been reading the Bible?

Well, I've been in ministry 49 and a half years. I was a youth pastor for 14 years, lead pastor for 35, and I've been a senior associate now for six months.

And still the Word of God is revealing itself to you in ways that it hasn't, you know, in all

those decades. Absolutely. One of the joys of my life, I tell young preachers this all the time, my favorite thing to do is to study God's Word and then get ready to preach it by prayer and fasting and seeking God. And so it's cool. You know, what's a wild thing I heard in the last,

I don't know, year or two, and it kind of pierced my heart a little bit. You familiar with G. Campbell Morgan?

heard the name not much he said if he hadn't been uh preparing sermons he'd think he'd be

backslidden at this point is that something you could relate to i can understand that yeah the one of the downfalls if you will say about pastoring is you don't have the time to study like i do now since the other guy has taken my senior pastorate i have more time to read and study what i want to amen and so it gives me the time to dig deeper into god's word when i ran across this i almost lost my mind it was so good i mean it was it was it was so powerful and i keep digging into it and it gets deeper and deeper and if i get emotional uh you know just hang with me

because it's touching for sure do you want to get into that on teaching right now or because

Can I say something real quick? Because the way that I spoke with you about coming on the show and you were telling me a little bit about the sermon and I, and I heard and I go, man, how crazy is it that like, because Pastor Rick doesn't preach every, every Sunday anymore. And I go, you know, it's just crazy that David said he's, he's going to come back to visit the church. And then you told me the message that you were giving. I'm like, I don't want to hear it, but I already knew it was like, it's one of those things where it's like, bang, like a shot in the dark. and it seems to happen that way more often than not oh yeah oh sure in fact our my first um

my first time attending your church it was like i don't even know if i ever ended up telling you this but we were going through something very particular and actually top and i kind of sought you out for counsel on the matter and um when you gave your sermon that visit that i had made that sunday it was like and i'm sure this happens to all sorts of people all the time but even my wife was like it was like was he was talking to you and and i remember in particular you had given an anecdotal story regarding uh a relationship of yours a friend that you had fallen away from because of some differences there was some contention and you were i believe periodically reaching out to him praying for him and just just trying to bridge that gap and um and i think in the story you might have made leeway like there was finally some sort of a breakthrough but you know my entire issue was a falling away with someone who i was feeling compelled to to reach out to so such a you're soft you know you such a unique circumstance uh in my life at that time and it was like it was you know like the sermon was made for me and i can guarantee you that there was countless others in the congregation who probably felt that way too, because despite being a unique situation in my life, it's a very relatable one in everybody's life. And so, but that happens very often that what you're saying and what you're reading, God is working through

that in people that are listening. Well, one of the things I've found is that if I will be real with people, and I will tell them I have issues with people, with personalities, with conflict, with family, with everything like that, people are going to relate to that because people definitely have conflict. Everyone has conflict. Everyone has issues they have to work through, but the standard for a Christian is a whole lot different than the standard for somebody that's in the world, if that person's in the world. But then the standard becomes even a little bit harder if both of you are Christians, because then you've got Matthew 18. If you got ought against your brother, you go to him, you try to work it out. And if that doesn't work, you get somebody else go with you. And so I try to express real life to people. My pastors that have worked for me for years and years say you're a storyteller teller and i said well that that's my life i love telling stories and matter of fact the the sermon i did about the crimson worm i ended it on a story about my son and reconciling with with him sorry it was uh it was tremendous well let's let's let's

get into that well the guys kudos to you too though because the guys are very in this world of fake and real and spotting fake from a mile away and one thing they've always said about you is that you're just a real ass dude like they've always said that but no matter what you know regardless of anything else they're like this dude is real man yeah so that's very cool and

very needed very needed in the church today i've always said what you see is what you get and don't expect me to give you a preachy answer if you come to me privately i'll give you the word of god and i'll give you what you need to hear but i'm not going to just you know uh brush you off with something that's going to make you feel good when you leave the room so so you have to you have to

be real with people amen um so so let's get into this story because we've already alluded to it a bunch and and um it's a fascinating one so this topic of the crimson worm how did you how did you put us in the mindset of you know where you were when you stumbled upon this i think that's very

interesting like what was that like um in my study yeah and rightfully called the study because i was in there just reading and studying. And then I forget who alluded to Psalms 22 and the worm. And as soon as they said that, I said, well, wait a minute, that's a prophecy about Jesus. And I asked myself, I said, would Jesus consider himself a worm? And then I go to Psalms 22, verse 6, and he says, I am a worm, not a man. That blew me almost out of my seat, and immediately I started digging into that. As soon as I looked up crimson worm, because the original Hebrew is that it's a tola, which is a type of worm. Well, tola means crimson worm. And so I looked up crimson worm on the internet. And as soon as you do that, it shows a worm, but it also shows the cross. I was like, whoa, what's going on here? You know, and so I started digging deeper and deeper into that. And then you start reading the life of the crimson worm everything about it is so identifiable with the cross and what jesus went through we actually

have some images here on the screen um you want to make that that picture big top uh the the that one yeah that's actually if i'm not mistaken the one that you showed yes that day at at church hard to see a worm in all that mess looks like a gigantic blood stain so already we're off to

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In regards to this.

The image that you just saw is when the Tola or the crimson worm actually gives up its life. And when it does, the fluid in the worm gushes out. And I'll have to get a little bit ahead on my next sermon. But not only does it stain the tree, which is like symbolic of the cross, it covers its babies, its young. So from the Tola worm, once it gives up its life and it knows when it goes up on that tree, it's going to die. It knows that. And so when it dies, the cross or the tree is stained, but the kids are covered in the blood, which is so symbolic. The blood ends up saving the children. Exactly. And so they become blood red for the rest of their lives. And those who are females that do the same thing will go through the same process and be willing, which you can carry that further, too, because that's what we should do once we have accepted Christ. Amen.

It's remarkable, too, because you're saying it climbs this tree knowing that this is going. I mean, that's its purpose. Right. Right. That is its purpose. That's its destiny, ultimately. And it's fulfilling it.

Yeah, and I found this so interesting when I read this. The whole time I was sitting there, I was just blown away with what God was speaking. But the young, before the mother even dies, before the worm even dies, start feeding on the body of the mother. Jeez.

And Jesus said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part with me. And so here is this, these babies that are partaking of the body of their mother so that they can live. And and it's so interesting to me that when Jesus did that teaching, when he said, unless you eat my, you know, eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part of me well the bible says that many turned away and never followed him again

yeah we laugh about that passage in regards to church growth like in the modern 501c3 system is like church growth church growth church growth it's like well then jesus is the biggest failure if it's about church growth because he i'm guessing at thousands at that time he says you got to eat my flesh and drink my blood and then he's down to 12 right i think he even asked them

you guys going to go to where would we go you have the words of life i love that and and that's true and all these church growth specialists that come to me and want to come to our church and want to and i'm all and i ask them the same question why do we think numbers are the thing that god is looking for. I thought he was looking for disciples. Amen. Not for just to get a number so you can be in a magazine or be on TV or be whatever. We're to make disciples. And when you look at it, 11 out of those 12 turned the world upside down after they became the disciples Christ wanted them to be. So it's not so much. And that's why I've tried to invest in people like Pastor Mark and my other pastors who are there a whole lot because they can do twice as much as I've ever done, you know, by, by, you know, discipling them and watching them grow and mature. And so.

Yeah, you're right. Get a couple of real ones that are serious about it. Cause I think they even say that about Paul and Silas, they say, these are these men that have turned the world upside down and now they've come here. Yeah. You get a couple of real ones. It's way different than just a giant building of people who may or may not really be dedicated to it.

Well, one of the, and I don't want to regress too far back, but when I was a youth pastor one time, I had a youth group that I took from six. By the time I left there three years later, it was like 120. And about 30 of those went into full-time ministry because I pumped it into their heads. Jesus said, pray the Lord of the harvest. that he'll send forth laborers. And so I kept telling them, God didn't just save you to sit on the pew. He saved you to be a world changer. And so go out there and do something and make something out of your life. And so every now and then I'll hear from some of them and they'll tell me what they're doing. And I just rejoice that, you know, that's powerful. To me, that's what we should be doing. We concentrate way too much on things that matter very little to the kingdom of god you know and so it's it's about the show most of the time it's about how we appear what we look like but but if we make disciples jesus will take care of the rest amen yeah no that's the staggering

thing for me man is like the thrust of jesus teaching revolves around don't be a hypocrite like don't be a stage player don't be an actor that's really the thrust of his teaching and then And we somehow we do kind of find ourselves in a place where, like you're saying, it becomes more about like what things look like as opposed to what's actually happening.

Well, we and I am one so I can say this. Sometimes pastors get caught up in the presentation. We get caught up in the information.

Sure.

And where God teaches us, and I'm learning this more now that I've stepped back than I did while I was there, is that if I will spend time with him, when I get up there to share, I'll be ready. But if I don't spend time with him and I'm always polishing that sermon, you know, trying to make it look good and trying to make it sound good, this will make them cry. This will make them laugh. This will make them engage this. It's not about that. It's as I seek God with all of my heart. then his anointing comes his power comes and he'll speak to someone like you who just showed up for a service because you're needing some answers and i may say something that had nothing to do with my sermon amen and i'm like where'd that come from god knew someone was sitting there and there have been so many times that I have said, I don't know why I'm going to share this, but I'm going to share something that God did in my life one time. And there will be people sitting there who needed to hear that. Well, that only comes from prayer and seeking God and being filled with Holy Spirit, you know, to be filled and to walk in there ready. And I don't think you're ready until you've been filled with Holy Spirit and spent time in prayer. Amen. I'm very intrigued by this.

preparing. I do show like once a week and there's a lot of preparation to do it. And, and so that morning time that I'm typically just spending with God for an hour or whatever it is that it can just be like, Hey God, whatever you want to talk about. Right. And then it changes to, Hey God, I love you. This is what I'm working on though. Like this is what I'm preparing right now. And, um, you know, by the grace of God, I got kicked off the show, like I was telling you for a little while. And so I got a little bit of a break. I got a little bit of a break and it was wild how I was like, wow. Yeah, we did that for your own good. I know. I was like, this is so nice to be kind of back to like, Hey God, we can talk about whatever you want. Right. But I'm trying to live in the balance of that because I don't think God's like, Oh, that's so cute. You just hang out and me and you just hang out every morning. And you just, like you're saying to just sit in the pews and it's like you know this is the next thing and i'm just trying to live in

the balance of that now but well if i could if i could interject for a second too because i think you know matt has some valid criticisms of the church um but i think doing this what we're doing now i'm like do you realize what what's happening like if we're talking about a show if we're talking about the production look around you yeah um if you're talking about the preparation that the pastors do and then like you know maybe they they can't focus on this is like in in a way like i feel like you're you're going through this now you're seeing this but like i i still struggle and i i don't think i'll ever want to understand exactly what is necessary to bring this forward without like this takes a lot of work yeah doing this helps to understand yeah the slippery slope

that it is because well how do you balance it right well you also have this this sense of like Like I am bringing the word of God to people. That's what I've chosen to do in my service. And so to say there should be a standard of the way that it's presented. Should be the highest. Yeah, yeah. I can understand that jump. It should be of the highest standard, right? We're talking about bringing people to Jesus Christ. We're talking about salvation. This is the most important subject, full stop. and therefore dedicating resources to having it look good and sound good and all these other things, they're important. But then I guess the question is, where does that line get drawn? And we're just men, so we're fallible, and we tend to slip on these slopes. You could easily just go in a direction where all of a sudden you're going through the repetition of it, and you get caught in the groove almost, and you turn around one day. haven't we done that just on our stupid show well i think what saves us from that is um on our on our stupid show well it is is that i am never preparing like anything and and i i don't want to say i humble myself but i'm constantly presenting myself in a way to the audience it is to say like i'm an idiot and i'm here for the ride and and we're we're going through this together um and maybe that's part of it but like i'm never preparing anything and and i i just and also something that pastor rick that you taught me and you don't know this but um you have such a a big emphasis on holy spirit that i began lots of places can expose you to identity theft oh no

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we opened up in here um every time i

I come to do a show. I always ask for Holy Spirit. And it's like, it's not what I want to talk about. It's whatever needs to be said through me so that someone will be drawn closer to God by the words that we say here. So please, Father, send Holy Spirit and like over and over like that's every day, every day. And my my my walk is new and I've never been to a church before your church. and um so i don't have a framework for maybe a church that doesn't really push the idea of inviting holy spirit in um i even maybe it's a little bit silly but i i say the show is god's show and to send holy spirit to be you know in the studio with us on the show on the show with us yeah i don't know if those words are um silly but i think that that's been my saving grace for a lot of it. It's like, it's not on me. It's on, you know, it's God. I want to serve, and whatever happens through me is great, but I don't really have a lot of plans. But I do always ask for Holy

Spirit to come. Yep. Just to add a little balance, the scriptures say, Paul says, and when he's talking to Timothy, he says, study to show yourself approved. You know, you don't want to be ashamed, and so study, you know, do that. But then as you minister, make sure your dependence is on Holy Spirit, not on knowledge, you know, knowledge puffs up, you know, but if you have Holy Spirit with you, He will guide what you're saying, and He will say to a person in the building, like I said earlier, something that you hadn't even really thought about. And I've had literally had people come to me and say, you said this. And I was like, I didn't say that. But I believe because of Holy Spirit's presence, he lets them hear what they need to hear for that moment. And they try to give me credit for it. And I'm like, no, no. I said, that was just God speaking to you in that service. And so preparation is good. I would never go to the platform going like, we're just going to trust God today and, you know, flip a coin. Okay, Timothy, today let's do that. But I would never do that. I always go in with a plan, but my plan is always subject to the presence of Holy Spirit. And if he says, go this direction, then I just put down what I have prepared and say, okay, Lord, lead me. And can I give you an example of that? Years ago, we had one of those services where the presence of Holy Spirit was so strong. And maybe later I can tell y'all why I started doing that about inviting Holy Spirit. But let me tell this story first. And so, I mean, the presence of God was so strong, I felt Holy Spirit whisper to me and say, give an altar call. People are here and need to be saved. So I gave an altar call. Five people came forward weeping, gave their hearts to Christ. We had people praying with them, getting ready to move on with the service. And he said, there's more. I was like, okay. So I gave another altar call. And I said, okay, I believe there's some other folks here. God spoke to me. Well, like three more people came forward for salvation. And so I said, okay, you know, we've taken care of that. And then God says, there's one more. And the word for that person is desperation. They came here desperate today. Today is life or death for them. So I repeated what God said to me when I

said that. This lady screamed out in the service and started weeping just uncontrollably. She was with her husband. I mean, he was freaking out. It was their first time in our service, and she was freaking out. He was wondering what was going on. About 20 ladies came and got her, and they brought her to the altar, prayed with her. She had planned her suicide. That afternoon, she would have killed herself. She said, I woke up this morning and something inside of me told me to go to that church on Pixieola Road and take one more chance. Give me one more chance with your life. So she came to our church, and I wonder how many times we miss what Holy Spirit's trying to do because we have our plan. We have our program. We've got to do it this way. And if it's not done by 1120, then we're out of.

we need to figure this out, but back up and give room to Holy Spirit just to come and to do whatever

he wants to do and be sensitive to that. How much of a hindrance do you think it is of people that operate in the intellect, like just in the intellect or just in their knowledge, as opposed

to surrendering and being guided by the Holy Spirit? I think it's one of the reasons people are turned off from the church. I think there's a reason that people, you know, kind of take a step back and they go like, well, that feels kind of canned, that feels kind of, you know. But saying that, I still think the church is the best thing to float. And it's, even though it's got its problems. I played team sports. Every coach I had, every team I played with, we had our problems. We had our arguments. We wanted to fight. I traveled on a tennis team. You know, we had our struggles. We had our fights. I worked at the paper mill and we've had our struggles. We had our fights. And so I'm not going to abandon the church just because we've got struggles. You know, the, we've got things we need to figure out. But one thing I have learned that if the church will come together, work together, love each other the way they're supposed to, they can touch the world. When I went to our church, they supported nine missionaries. Now we support 240 because I kept presenting that vision to all these people for all these years. And every year we add to that number. The gospel is being preached all over the world, not because I've done anything exceptional, but because the church has come together and we put our resources together and our hearts together. And it's made the church more real to me of what we can do together compared to what we can do separate. And so let me go back to the story of why I invite Holy Spirit. We were having a Christmas Eve service, great service. Everything went well. God was glorified. We felt good about everything. This guy comes up to me. I'd never seen him. To this day, I think he was an angel. I don't know if you believe in that.

We just read it in Hebrews in the earlier show. There you go. Some of entertained angels unaware.

There you go. And so he comes up to me and, you know, I hadn't been the pastor very long. And he said, great service, really enjoyed it. The singing was great. He said, what you shared was good. And he said, but can I offer you some advice? And I'm like, of course. I think a lot of us would be a lot better off if we would listen to the people God puts in our lives. And so I said, yeah, sure. He says, he says, you would be blessed and this church would be blessed if every time you did something, anything, invite Holy Spirit.

That was right when you started, you're saying?

Not long after I became the lead pastor. Wow. And that was probably, that's probably been, I would guess, 28, 29 years ago. So I'd been the pastor for about seven years and this guy shows up. I turn around to talk to somebody because they tapped me on the shoulder. I turned back and he was not even there. I was like, this is kind of freaky. But from that time to this, everything we do, we invite Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

How about your personal life?

I mean, like, it's not just a church, right? You're going places if you have something going on. Because I try to get in the habit of that. It's like, you know, for I think leaning on God, you know, even on small struggles or I think he wants to participate and and wants to be a part of doesn't have to be the show. Right. It doesn't have to be the church. What about just your life?

the holy spirit is probably the most important thing person he's not a thing he's not a just a spirit he's a person he's the third person uh it's like my best friend when i go to the gym to work out i invite him because there's people there that need god yeah uh when i i I kind of make fun about this, but I have a restaurant ministry. When I go to restaurants, I'm going to witness to that waitress or waiter. I'm going to share Christ with them. We've got.

a family in our church right now that for five years I invited this waitress to our church and thank goodness it was a Mexican restaurant because I love Mexican food and so so she she finally went home and she's Mexican her husband is gringo and so so he you know she went home and she said, if we don't go to this church, this preacher is going to drive me crazy. So can we go to his church? Well, they came. They both got saved and they've been in our church for the last five years. And so we take Holy Spirit with us everywhere we go and we invite him to be a part of that because it's so important. So I think that's the intriguing thing. The more you

read the Bible is like, wow. And the life of Jesus specifically is like, if this Bible was written today would be the story of Jesus at Walmart, at the restaurant, at the gas station, at the kids' sports games, at the job, at all of these things of life. It's so tied into our everyday

life. Absolutely. And one of the reasons the church does not grow. Lots of places can expose

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done. Is they meet him at the door of the church, Holy Spirit, and they tell him goodbye when they leave and they don't have any relationship with him until they get back. Holy Spirit was never meant to be just someone to make you feel good about being in church. He was to be there to lead your whole life. Jesus said, it is necessary for me to go away because if I don't go, Holy Spirit won't come. And so when I leave, I'm going to send him to you. And when you read John 14, 15, and 16, he tells you he's going to teach you. He's going to guide you. He's going to lead you. He's going to glorify Jesus in your life. And it just goes on and on and on. of everything that he's going to do and so we need him not just for church we need him in our

we need him in our family we bring that up a lot even the john 14 passage where he says that the holy spirit will teach you all things and bring all things to your memory and it's like uh yeah if you're going to read a bible you're almost wasting your time if you're not saying god explain this to me the holy spirit's the author so i understand it then sure then certainly i don't really care so much what a commentary says like if you wrote a book it wouldn't mean very much if i went to the raven and said hey what do you what's this passage mean it'd be a lot better for me to just come to you and ask and i think that's what that passage is telling us the holy

spirit will teach you absolutely and he will let you know when people are not preaching the truth you'll be grieved in your spirit when you hear them because you'll know it's not real and so So you can tell, and a lot of people just get comfortable coming to hear a message. They have a little concert with the music and everything, and they feel good about that. They like the contemporary music. Some people like the hymns, whatever. And so that I want to have in service on Sunday makes them feel good about themselves. But I need Holy Spirit teaching me all the time. I need to learn about Jesus being called a worm. Can I tell you something else about the worm?

Yeah, absolutely.

Once the worm dies, when it's still on the tree, he's burst open, but his shell is still there. Guess what color that shell turns? Solid white. Thought you were going to say that. And then Isaiah 118 says, though your sins be is scarlet scarlet worm same word yeah tola same word though your sins be as scarlet they shall be

white as snow amen so did i get the verse right i told top there was an isaiah passage i'll tell

you you nailed it we yeah you you were ahead of me we moved past it before you know we said this then we moved on to some to some you know some of your stories and and i was still hanging on there about the the first you know chunk of the crimson worm that we're talking about it's just such an unbelievable parallel we find this all the time you know uh the show that top and i do is is very heavily into conspiracy through a christian lens and there are all these elements about the nature of reality that echo christ and lots of other people of of you know different proclimate would say new age practitioners occultists they will look at these elements that you could point to so many of them and they will say there it is jesus christ is purely allegorical it's a metaphor for this natural phenomenon that takes place it's the bible is a metaphor it's an allegory for the stars for the mazeroth the the the story of jesus christ in some people's eyes uh might be an allegory for the crimson worm uh for the tola and what i find is that god's creation echoes and all of it seems to point towards jesus in this unbelievable way it's uh much like in like an orchestra works together to to make a song creation all points to jesus christ and there's some that do it a lot more um i don't know what the word would be on the nose i mean that's an unbelievable one and And I want I want to go around and just present that to people. Hey, what do you think of this? Because it's incredible. It really is incredible. And I was just caught up there before when we were talking about it. Like that is if I didn't believe what I believe, I would say that is bizarre.

Yeah. But there's so much like you're saying that it's supposed to bring us back to God. Right. But we see it like in the food forest community. We grow our own food. We have a food forest. and in that world most of the people are like oh man mother nature is so incredible you know and nature becomes god right no no no no there's a god of nature like like all of this should be pointing us back to the creator not the creation itself but the one who created it it should be pointing us back to that but you're right that happens in all these different aspects of life

yeah say mother nature's good but father god is better amen because he's always pointing to his son yeah he is always pointing and that's one thing that makes unity if you read john 17 you know jesus is like one of his last prayers is that we'll be one the father is always this is my beloved son in whom i'm well pleased but jesus is like oh it's my father my father loves And Holy Spirit's like, no, I'm here to magnify Jesus. What would happen if the church did that? If we began to lift each other up instead of ourselves and to be other-centered. And the beauty of the Trinity is that God invites us into that Trinity to be a part. That's what John 17 is all about. You got Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And there's this unity that's so great. But he says, Matt, come on in. Yeah. Yeah. It's staggering. That whole John's guys, come on in. You know, you're welcome to be a part of this. And again, that's why I would never, you know, I've been part of churches that that have hurt me. I've been part of churches and stuff, but I still think the church is the best thing.

It's staggering because he's saying he prays that the church would be one as he and the father are one. Right. And then he says even more staggering things than that. he says, you love them as you love me, right? That God loves us as much as he loves Jesus. The whole, the whole thing's staggering, but it's based on that unity. And there is a wild thing in the Godhead that like, for humans, we think that servanthood means lower than it means less than, but like Jesus was setting up his life as a servant to the father. He was no less than the father. And the Holy spirit sets himself up as a servant to Jesus saying he'll only, he'll only say things of me he's not going to say things of his own so you have the holy spirit's a servant to jesus jesus is a servant to the father but nobody's lower than anybody else in the godhead

you're giving pastor rick a softball there when i first arrived at the church i showed up in the middle of i believe it was a seven-part sermon on late you showed up late no no i didn't show up late but i did show up i mean i didn't know that you were starting it i would have started attending a few uh weeks earlier it was a uh several part sermon

on humility humility was and it was it was fantastic and you're talking very much about

exactly what matt is highlighting right there can we just go back to the um mother nature is good but god the father's better was that the quote can we get that on a shirt or a bumper that's a

banger yeah yeah i like that was solid that's for all the pagans out there um i love that you know there's something that i did want to talk about in regards to the church because you have something that it's centered around it's centered around jesus christ it's centered around the word of god this is incredibly powerful thing and the more you spend time in it the more it reveals itself to you you're talking about this relationship that you're having with the word for uh how many years now it's four or five decades and you're still exposing or being exposed to different revelations how how and you guys are going to know better than i because i've only been on this walk for it's been like four years or five years um how does something that is centered around something so powerful and so important you know being your salvation and being welcomed into this trinity like you're talking about turn into for some people um a you know an appearance once a week you talked about like for some people it feels good maybe they like the music things of that nature it seems to be a almost a cultural phenomenon that i wonder if it's unique to the west because i hear testimony from other countries where it seems radical radical these people are especially in third world countries you had missionaries from oh well they spent some time

in africa sorry to interrupt but maybe uh maybe you can tell us that story that you told on pentecost uh on the pentecost service about the mission that you did in uh and i guess it was a

spanish country because i think that's what he's asking god called me uh is that what you're talking about so yeah yeah the we were on a um missions trip to mexico and uh for the food and so we you know we were doing our typical trip we would go into a village having no knowledge of what was going on there we would pass out literature all day long and then have a service that night we took our own generators we took our own food we took everything. It was pretty much roughing it, you know, as far as Americans are concerned. And so, you know, before that service that night, I was preaching that service that night. And so I was on the backside of a mountain behind the church. The church was way up on the side of a mountain. And so I went behind it and I was praying. And it was one of those biblical Holy Spirit moments where the wind began to blow. The presence of God was so strong, and I was begging God. I'm one of those guys that I wanted to be a missionary. I was begging God to let me stay there in that village. I said, I won't even go home. I'll just stay here, and I'll pastor this church. They didn't have a pastor for the church, and so I said, I'll stay here, and then the presence of God just got stronger and stronger. And then he spoke to me. He said, you're going to go back to the United States. You're going to eventually become a lead pastor. And your job will be to make that a great missions church. And I mean, I began to weep and cry. And of course, you know, he's Lord. So whatever he says, you're like, yes. You know, even though my heart was to be a missionary, he let me know that what would happen in the church I would become the pastor of. And this is the only church I've ever pastored. I've never built up through the ranks and made it to where we ended up being. But the first thing I did when I came to this church after they called me to be the lead pastor, I was a youth pastor, and was plan a missions conference, because I said, if this is going to be a great missions church, it's going to have to start now. And I can't deceive these people and make them think that I'm just here to fill a position and get a salary. I'm here to build God's kingdom. And so we started with those nine missionaries, and we have just added to that every year. We have a

Missions Convention every year where we add more and more, and this year is going to be, and for our size church, you know, y'all may not think this is very much, but this year we'll probably give $600,000 to Missions. That's a lot. And that, you know.

That's not a very big church to be able to do that. Well, that's because people have caught the vision of missions and to be a part. Is that the story you were talking about?

No, you had mentioned a story in the village. I think you brought like a pair of speakers there and things went kind of crazy in this village when you were given the word of God there.

Are you? I'm trying to. Give me a little bit more information.

Well, even before we get into that, so you feel like that was the call of God at that time when you went around the backside of the church? And was that when you were a youth pastor, or is that even before you were a youth pastor?

I was called by God to preach before that. I was like you. I was not raised in church, never went to church.

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Matter of fact, the year I gave my heart to Christ, my doctor had told me, you keep doing the drugs you're doing. You're going to die within the next two months. I said, I guess I'll die because I can't quit. I was addicted to drugs. I was drinking like crazy. i was just doing everything in the world where did you live at at that time louisiana you're in louisiana north louisiana wait born and raised in louisiana born and raised in north louisiana a community called bass drop and just close to munro okay so like straight cajuns or no that's no no cajuns they're mostly just country people yeah uh big paper mill town two paper mills there you could smell when when you came into town and uh what is that ink ink or you're talking about the actual smell of of the paper the the chemicals they use for the processing of the wood you would smell it when you came into town oh yeah so you were smoking weed and drinking and doing didn't smoke weed but i was doing you know a variety of drugs and stuff like that and the my doctor told me and i showed him what i was taking and he said two or three of these would put an elephant down

Are we talking about pharmaceuticals? Okay, got it, got it.

And so he said, how many are you taking? I said 18 a day. And he said, and he showed me a vial. He held it up to me and he said, you know what this is? I said, that's nasty. He said, that's your blood. We just drew your blood. He said, your blood looks like nasty water. You were going hard in the paint. And then two months later, God put a Christian bounty hunter in my life that would not leave me alone for two years. I love that word, man. A Christian bounty hunter. He would chase me down wherever I was. It's a kingdom, man.

That's a very logical word. I like that.

So he would chase me everywhere. And finally, after about two years of him driving me nuts, he said, go to a revival with me. I didn't even know what a revival was. He said, go with me. And I said, OK, I'll go with what year. That was 1974. Who? So who was doing revivals in 74 in Louisiana? Let's see. Oh, it's so long ago. Is that William Branham or is it like? No, I can't even remember the guy's track of. Oh, I can't believe I couldn't think of this. The guy that became the pastor of that church was doing the revival, Mike Cheshire. pressure and so probably not very well known uh but i went to the service uh i was very frustrated sitting there i was very antsy i didn't feel comfortable i was not in an environment or was it in a no it was in a building it was in a big church and it was a similar of god church and so uh so i'm hanging on to the pew in front of me just waiting just to get out of there and i even said to god i said god once i get out of here i'll never come back and you won't have to worry about me again and about that time the evangelist who used to be a next football player huge guy. He sat down beside me and grabbed

me pulled me up close he said hey rick how are you doing i went how do you know my name he said everybody knows your name he said this church has been praying for you for over two years is what the pastor told me no way and uh and i said well that's i said i can tell i've been miserable

and for perspective how many people in that town you think if you had to guess uh it's about the

size of leesburg okay yeah about the size of leesburg and he says you want to live for god don't you? I said, I do, but I can't. And then he said the words that changed my life. He said, stop trying. I went, I said, great. Now the preacher's telling me to give up. I said, my life is already, he said, no, wait a minute. Let me share with you. So he opened the word of God and he shared the scripture, Galatians 2.20, for I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but it's Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live, I live, you know, and then it goes on and tells that, and what I got out of that was I didn't have to live a life I couldn't live. I needed Jesus in me to live his life through me. Amen. That sounds simple, but it's profound. And so I gave my heart to Christ that night and, you know, and started serving God, went straight to the paper mill where I work, told all those guys, you know, and they pat me on the head and said, you'll be all right. You'll get over it. And, and that's been since 1974. So I got over it. So that's profound, man. I mean, I think there's a lot

of people today that are trying to, I mean, even if you look at like Thomas Akempis, it's a great book, the imitation of Christ, but that's not what we're doing. We're not imitating Christ. We're just surrendering to him and letting him live through us. That's a hard concept though,

Because culturally speaking, like from the outside looking in, you know, you and this is a lot of the judgment that I'm experiencing now because I wasn't always a Christian is, well, you're supposed to behave like this or you're supposed to do that. this is what a christian looks like and and these standards are in your mind because give me an example of something else that has a standard and if you are that thing you're not supposed to try to sure that's a that's a difficult concept actually to grasp even though it's simple and it is profound it's a little confusing and i i think i'm getting better at it as time goes on but it's um it is uh uh you know you're like you're letting go and and a lot of it is uh maybe i don't know if i'm doing it right but it's you know talking to god and and trying to to let go and and allow this thing to happen instead of trying to do this thing it's allow this thing to happen yeah and and i don't know it's hard to put into words for me but it is um no you're explaining saved by grace through faith like that's what you're explaining it's just surrender of your life but i can see how from the outside looking in like people that will criticize christians or you know whatever ideas they have um that is not the lens allowing christ to live through you dying to yourself so that christ can live through you is uh man it's it's uh it's a

hard concept to grasp well i and i think because for a lot of people christianity is just another um division of society it's just you know yeah maybe you know you're this type of person this type of oh there's that type of people they're called christians yeah yeah no no well this is

going back to the question that i had originally which is like how do you how do you have something that is so profound and for some people it is just um it's like walking the dog or doing the dishes it's just a thing that they do the monotonous yeah it's a monotonous repetitive thing where um especially if you were raised in it i think for a lot of people if you're raised in it it can become habit sure instead of relationship and um and once again the most important thing in your life the most important thing in your life has for some been reduced and i don't think that's necessarily like the fault of the church or or the everybody's walk is their own um but you do see it you see i was in a a church once where it was uh i stepped into one before i stepped into yours and i i left and the reason that i left is because it was i had felt like i had walked into uh the walmart of jesus christ and there was several floors with balconies that overlooked and they there was um you know an entire what would you call that uh where you go and get like lunch it's there's an entire restaurant a breakfast spot you go and you buy breakfast and i didn't think that was too bad honestly i said this is kind of fantastic i had to get a little coffee and a sandwich and then i'm looking at this thing and it is so

Um, the word that came to me was manufactured. Sure. And I felt like this doesn't feel I don't know what it's supposed to feel like, but it doesn't feel like that. And I think there are certain people that gravitate towards that. And I'm not saying there's not real people there that have real relationships with God. And I'm not saying that that church isn't helping people in their walk. But there is this person who has just gone through the motions. And it is now just repetitive thing you might catch your favorite show on saturday every week and you might go to this one on sunday every week and it almost carries the same weight and i don't know how that is happening around something so profound yeah well put man the one of the things that

to me is so dangerous about the way the gospel is presented now is that we're becoming more and more secular if we can appeal to them by being a super walmart we have everything for you your children your family we you know one-stop shopping you can get everything here but the message of Jesus is deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. If I wonder how I'm supposed to live, if I follow Jesus and watch him, I'll know how to live. And so, and this whole concept in America of denying yourself, man, we live in a society. I've got to have more. I've got to have better. I've got to have a new car every year. I've got to have a bigger house. I've got to get this boat. I have to get. And for us, we have been preaching and teaching our people, deny yourself and give to missions. You don't have to have everything now. Lay up treasures in heaven instead of trying to lay them up here. And so it's a hard sell because no one wants to deny themselves. And so

it's tough for sure. Have you experienced anything resembling a, I don't know, like a revival or resurgence or an uptick, a dramatic uptick in not just, you know, appearances in the church, but an interest in this because lots of places can expose you to identity theft.

Oh, no.

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finger on the cultural pulse and and i would say that after um the charlie kirk situation there was a nationwide, if it wasn't a full pivot towards Christ, people at least started looking over their shoulders with interest. And I wonder if that resulted in anything meaningful. Did these people come? Did they stay?

One of the heartbreaking things to me about that whole situation was there was that strong emphasis on Christ. All the politicians, you know, were talking about Jesus. Some who admittedly said, you know, that I normally don't talk about Christ and, you know, in my public life, but now I'm going to be bold. I'm going to be, and it kind of has drifted away because of, you know, the cares of this world. We are so self-centered that it is hard for us to stick with something, even Charlie Kirk dying. Now, I believe a lot of people's lives were changed, and I believe a lot of people came to Christ because of that, but I don't know what the long-term effect of that will

be. Yeah, I wasn't in the church game in 2001, but I remember hearing that after 9-11, a lot of people started to go back to church, too. That was a thing back then?

Oh, yeah. We had one of the largest services we've ever had the whole time I've been there. Right after 9-11, we had like 800 people in that building that we have, which that was just packed. That same building? That same building.

and then it just kind of fizzles out is that like kind of oh yeah people are touched

but they're not changed the comforts of life we we we we're touched by you know people dying we're touched by buildings falling down we're we're touched by that but until we're changed you know until we receive christ and let him live his life through us there's not going to be a

permanent change yeah the change is so is a profound thing my wife and i were talking one time about how uh why is the bible different every time you read through it like if you read through she's she started a few years ago to read straight through also genesis to revelation and then pick back up genesis and go to revelation and we were talking about it and she came to the conclusion that like because you're a different person now every every time you you've been changed like every time you read through the bible you it's changing you sure i know you're talking about the born again experience that until you're born again and changed in that sense but even like as you read through the bible like the second time you read through it you're not the same person you were the first time and then the third time you're not the same person you were the second

time right there's also something interesting about like the prophets like daniel elijah these guys that have this very strong what seems like unbreakable connection to god because what david just described it's something that i i've done to i've done as well it's like you get like hot and cold and like you don't want like i don't want to it makes me not want to i don't want to burn too hot because i know that i'm gonna then get cold on this and forget and then now i have to be it

now i'm a hypocrite within myself you know what i mean i remember people in church telling me that When I first started to go to the 501C3 system, they tell me now, Brother Matt, slow down. Don't get too passionate. We've seen a lot of people come and go. They're on fire for God, and then it fizzles out. And I also remember hearing this from the pulpit. People would say, think back to when you first got saved. Think back to when you were very early in your relationship with God. Think back to how good it was in those days. And I remember being like, dude, I wouldn't go back to that for a million dollars, dude. I would never go back to that time. like i'm so grateful for where i'm at today and i was like what do you mean like that was your best time with god was in the beginning like i don't know anything about that i don't i don't know that experience all i know is that it gets better the closer you get to them and the more time goes on but that does seem like a thing that happens is that like people get hot and they

fizzle out or i don't i don't know we're event oriented we are as excited as the last event we had. And we always look back to that event to measure any upcoming event to see if we're going to be any better. And, you know, my whole thing, and every pastor has a struggle. You know, we're not like some kind of super spiritual. I mean, you've seen enough going on in the news for the last 30 years to know that pastors are real. But every person that has a relationship with Jesus and back to Holy Spirit. Every time you open this book, you should say, Holy Spirit, come here. I'm about to read. Please reveal to me what you're saying to me in this book. I need your revelation, because if I don't have his revelation, it's just going to be information. But if I have the revelation of Holy Spirit, if I invite him, every time I read this book, it's going to be life-changing for me, and I'm going to find new stuff that excites me, you know, more. Even Pastor Mark, the new pastor at our church, he's like, man, he said, you know, when you preached about the crimson worm, he said, you got more information? I said, I said, well, matter of fact, I do. And he said, well, you want to preach again? I went, sure. And so he sees, you know, that we don't have to fizzle out.

Yeah.

Amen. We all go through life. Life hurts.

Yeah.

You lose somebody you love.

It's rough down here, man.

Yeah, it's rough on this side of heaven, and it's tough, but...

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With Jesus, it's definitely better than it could be without him, for sure.

Amen. So earlier you were talking about, you know, we talked about the Walmart of churches and how there's something for everybody. And one of the things that dawns on me as to the danger of this trying to appeal to everyone is that it results in some of the things that we're seeing today. It wasn't long ago that I saw a trans pastor, something like that, and I saw another pastor. It was a female talking about how Jesus Christ isn't the only way to salvation, but she's standing in front of what reports to be a Protestant church. And, you know, so in other words, in order to please everyone, there is no standard. and we're living in this era now where maybe the most egregious thing was one of the mega church pastors with the jets and things like that and that was egregious enough that was the talk of the town when it was happening look at the wealth that they're hoarding but now we have something totally different we have something totally different where everything is flying in the face of what scripture says we're even now changing this idea not we in this room But there are those who claim to be, you know, shepherding people towards Christ or maybe not. Maybe, I don't know, if you're standing up there and you're saying he's not the way, then I don't know what you're doing. But this has it's it's gotten to clownish places. And I don't know, maybe you could speak a little bit to this idea of what we should be doing instead of trying to appeal to everyone and being all inclusive. I mean, we've seen what that spirit that goes under the guise of inclusivity, the fruits that it bears.

I think there should be a lot of caution to the church that when you start trying to make everyone feel accepted, even in their sin, you know, we welcome everyone at our church. But the call is to repentance. you know the homosexuals welcome to come to our church but they're called to repentance if you come to christ you can't stay in your sin you've got to repent and ask god to help you if i would have stayed in my sin when i came to the church i would have died because i was lost i was empty i needed that call to repentance and uh and when they confronted me with my sin And they said, you know, you need to get right with God. And fortunately, the church was patient. And this is how bad it was for me when I first started coming to the church. Every lady who had a child, if I walked close by, the ladies would grab their kids and pull them away and say, stay away from that guy.

No, we have customers like that when Top of Raven walks. I'm very familiar with that.

We love children.

The children love us.

They come and they hang out in the studio.

And this was old school back then. And I would wear like a sleeveless shirt to church, no socks, tennis shoes, shorts, you know, and I was just glad to be in the kingdom. I had no sense of any type of rules or anything like that. I was so happy to be free. And every now and then, the pastor, hinting for me to dress better, would say, we're going to take an offering for Rick to get some socks this week, maybe. That's quite a heavy hint. And I'm like, really? Some socks.

So the evangelist that kind of you rubbed elbows with, it ended up, I don't know if we finished that part of the story, but it ended up that, uh, that night I received

Christ. I invited Christ into my heart and to my life and, uh, life changing. I went home and told my dad, uh, of course my dad was not a Christian. My dad and mom were not raised in church. And I went home and told my dad, he knocked me flat of my back with his fist and spit on me and said, don't ever talk about that in this house again. And through the tears, I told him, I'm going to love you into the kingdom of God. Respect. And he just, uh, every time he'd see me, he'd kick me, slap me, spit on me. My dad was an ex boxer. So he was strong, you know, golden gloves and all

that stuff. And so young adult at that time, you're a young man. I was 19. Yeah. Wow. And so,

and that was pretty big boy that's profound though a lot of people in this nation don't

know anything about suffering loss for christ and so so i kept sharing with them and then

god called me into the ministry uh And I went off. There are so many stories, but I went off to Bible school when I was leaving Bastrop, Louisiana to go to Bible school. My dad was punching me through the car window and yelling at me, cussing me because I quit the paper mill to go into ministry to go get trained.

How many years later was it from when you were 19 till you left for Bible school?

One year.

So within a year, you were like, I'm out of here.

Yeah. So and of course, that's a story, too. You know, they had to help me a lot at Bible school. My first semester, I got in four fights. They told me if I got in one more fight, I was going to be kicked out. Did you win? Did you win? Yeah. Dad was in bolding gloves. You better win. But what makes that story so beautiful about my father? Before that happened, I hated him so bad. When I was lost, I hated him. I used to dream of hurting him, killing him. I used to dream of ways of getting rid of him. One time he beat my mother and I told him, I said, you got to sleep sometime. I will cut your throat. And that's how deep the hate was. I could go off to Bible school, been at Bible school for like four months. I run into a guy from my hometown, which was 320 miles away. He said, hey, I ran into your dad at Safeway grocery store, and your dad told me to tell you he's praying for you. And this guy started to walk away, and I just grabbed him. I said, what did he say? He said, your dad said that he's praying for you. He said, let me go. And I said, what did my dad look like? He said, well, he's about your height, and he's built like a gorilla. I said, that's him. and so I ran to the phone and I called my dad and I said tell me what happened and he said why don't you come home this weekend I'll tell you what happened so I went home he had invited the whole family over and and he stood up my dad never did anything like this and he started telling the story of how that he and mom got up on a Sunday morning and he told her to put a dress on and She's like, why? He said, we're going to church. They went to the nearest Baptist church that they could find because they knew they'd give an altar call. So they went there, and when the preacher gave an altar call, they gave their hearts to Christ. And he came over to the place where I was sitting, and he grabbed me and picked me up, and he embraced me, and he said, it was your love that led me to Christ. And so it was just unbelievable. So I can't wait to see my mom in heaven. How long was that after you got to Bible school? About almost six months. Wow. And his words were, the only light I had in my life was gone when you left. Wow. And he said, I needed someone in my life. And he said, it made me realize how much I needed God. and so and uh and he was faithful to god till the day he died i mean he he got every kind of award

you could get for not missing a day in church or missing sunday school or anything he was all in and and right after you know he got saved i went home and he snuck in my bedroom and which terrified me because i had flashbacks like a gorilla i had flashbacks of when he used to come in there and yeah you know and be yeah yeah you know what i'm saying and so i see him get my wallet i'm like oh no he's a thief now and what he was doing was opening my wallet my dad never gave me anything yeah and putting money in my wallet to help me at bible school wow and and i knew that he was changed and so talk about dominoes or or ripples right i mean from that one guy pestering you what happened to that guy huh what happened to him you know the guy that was the christian bounty hunter yeah yeah yeah still in my life still in my life good friends currently yep they they're uh they live in uh munro louisiana so he was about the same age then maybe a little bit older he's like three years older than i am and uh but they're still he and his wife and i are still good friends you know and love them she had a stroke a few months ago i check on her every week and uh but he he i mean he took such abuse from me what what my father did to me, I was doing

to him, except I was not hitting him. I was verbally abusing him. And I would mock him. We worked at Safeway Grocery Store together. And so, I mean, I abused that boy every way you could be abused. And he would tell me the same thing I told my father, I'm going to love you into the

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We're prohibited by law. 21 plus terms and conditions apply that those little things. Right. Earlier in this conversation, you were talking about, you know, saying things that you don't even know why you say them. And it just means something to somebody. Somebody out there hears that and it sets them off in the right direction. This guy over had every reason to stop trying to push you to do this. and and this seed that he plants is your whole family's more yeah not his whole family his whole

town i mean this whole church 240 missionaries all over the world that's an insane that's an insane you never know man you start looking at the how many people are going to be in heaven because one person comes to christ amen and and the that's why we have to you know jesus said the fields are white unto harvest, but the workers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he'll send forth workers. And that's our job is to not only be senders, we want to send people, but everywhere we go, Paul says, I make the most of every opportunity, whether it's in the gym, whether it's in the restaurant, whether it's in Walmart, God forbid, because I don't go to walmart that's my wife's job so i i do not go to walmart 9 p.m anyway exactly and so uh but it's so important how uh and we've all probably seen the movie jimmy stewart you know it's a wonderful life how one life touches so many other people have you ever seen that no it's a little before my time yeah definitely before your time i'm sure but that they show it every christmas

If you get a chance, I'll take you up on that. I'll have to watch it.

It's a wonderful life. And the whole premise of the show is to show how his life, he was going to commit suicide. And God sent an angel to save him. And the angel let him have his wish of seeing what life would be like. He said, I wish I'd never been born. and he let him see what is what life would have been like without him being there so it was way worse it was bad because because he was not there so many lives were affected negatively and so uh and and i believe that's true with all of us yeah we touch more people than we realize yeah i believe that what you guys are doing here is touching a lot more people than you realize it's touching

people. Yeah. Yeah. That, that is like one of the worst things though. Right. To, to, to look back at your life and say, what would it look like if I never existed? Right. There's no difference. I remember thinking that when I was young, I was like, yeah, what if I just look back on time and like, there was no difference whether I was ever born or not. Like that would be the worst feeling.

Yeah. And that's why it's imperative that we figure out what it means to deny ourselves. I'm not here for me. I'm here for every life that I can touch. Every person, there's people, I can call names right now of people that I'm working on trying

to get them into the kingdom of God. You ain't retired, man. You say you're retired.

no i'm still working full-time because i'm the senior associate but everywhere

go, I have what I call a project, somebody that I'm working on trying to get them into the kingdom of God, and so it's important that, what would the church look like if everyone did that? Amen. If every family just won one family a year, the churches would explode with growth, but instead we we don't reach out we don't try to help people we don't try to love people and because of that the church gets smaller and smaller but if if we could ever catch the vision of you know one leading one to christ and then do that again and do that and and they do it and and as we do that you know lives can be changed for sure yeah that every time i think of something

like that it reminds me of the story when paul's on the ship to rome and they get in a terrible storm they start throwing all the food overboard and everything and then he gets up in the morning he says relax everybody an angel of god visited me last night of whose i am of whom i belong to and uh the angel tells him like you're not going to lose anybody on the ship and i always i even like the first time i read that i always remember thinking like i wonder who's on my ship right you know i wonder who like if i don't do my part who else is getting absolutely toasted by that they're just not like i don't know i want to be aware of who's on my ship and who all am i affecting and who's not going to make it if i don't not that i have to come up with my own story or my own life but if i don't surrender to god and live out whatever destiny he's made me for how many other

people are not going to make it because of that. And we all bear that responsibility that I've got to care about the souls of the people around me. I looked in the eyes of a couple the other day and I told them, I said, stop defending your child's lostness and start being concerned about their soul being lost for eternity if you don't do something. I said, you just keep pampering them, babying them in their sin. You keep supporting them in their sin when you should be crying out every day, night and day for their soul to get right with God, for them to come back to Jesus or to serve him. And I said, you can measure a person, you can measure how much you love a person about whether you care if they go to heaven or not amen and so so it's so important and the story i told the other day about my son joshua they that was hard to get through to share

you know to share about that that was like a continuation of the the crimson worm and um you know you talked about john the baptist becoming less or decreasing so that christ could increase and uh that was a really heavy idea you know i'm a father and and everybody here is is a father and and it's this idea that at some point you are going to have to decrease so that your son can increase um can you talk a little bit about that because that was that was

great yeah my son also pastor rick if you're um we want to respect your time too we've been going for a while so no he's got time you're buying now right there you go it's a preacher man are you kidding me okay i just want to make sure we're ready to rock well i'll share this story and

then we'll call it a day perfect all right the uh my son growing up uh because i played tournament tennis i taught him tournament tennis any good uh was i good no i was all right I got an offer to play pro, and a guy was going to sponsor me. And I had a choice to make about ministry or being a pro tennis player.

You suffered loss for Christ's sake.

And I didn't lose anything when I accepted the call. And the fleece I put out before God was that if a pastor calls me and tells me he needs a youth pastor by this Friday, I got to let the guy know on Friday whether I'm going to play pro tennis. He was going to pay me, you know, very well and pay for all my travel, for everything. And I told him, I said, well, if I hear from any pastor, I don't care what they pay. I shouldn't have added that part. That was the bad part. And so I ended up that Thursday night before the Friday, a pastor called and said, I need a youth pastor in South Louisiana. So I called the guy and said, I can't play pro tendon. He said, you got to be kidding me. And I said, nope, not kidding.

And so three weeks later, I left to go be a youth pastor where they couldn't pay me anything. I worked part time as a bricklayer and in South Louisiana and that heat, you know, but but I would do it all over again. You ever have like a church tennis competition? We did. You ever show anybody?

Oh, yeah, you did.

Who they're dealing with? Yeah, we had another guy in the church that kept telling everybody he could beat me. So somebody got the idea of having a, you know, a tournament and inviting the people to come out. And we used it for a fundraiser, you know, for missions, of course. And I beat him, of course. But anyway, back to the story. But Josh was a great, Joshua, our son, was a great tennis player, lived for God, seemed like, you know, all of his young years and everything about 17 a shift happened in his heart and his life and he started drifting started uh going the other direction very rebellious that was in louisiana or that's here here in florida yeah all of my kids were raised in this church and so you know and so he to make a very long story short uh he was doing the drugs he was you know he was drinking like crazy. We would get calls from New York State. Your son is in a rehab up here. He fell and he's got 18 staples in his head because he was so drunk he couldn't walk. Fell hit his head. He went to South America with a girl he didn't even know, swimming in rivers with anacondas and just all kinds of stupid stuff. And we kept praying that God would save him. And so finally He came home because he just ran out of money, ran out of hope or help or anything. And he came home. He was angry at God. He was angry at me. He was angry at the world. But he was especially angry at me.

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And so a couple of weeks after he got home, we were sitting at dinner. Everybody else got up and left. And he was, I mean, he was angry. And I told him, I said, son, and this is where the John the Baptist thing comes in. God laid on my heart that if I would be willing to decrease, my son might be able to increase. And so if I was willing to die to myself, then my son could live. And so I told him, I said, you can say anything you want to me and I will not get angry. I'll not be mean to you in any way. You can say whatever you want. He said, you're lying. You knocked me in the head. I know you will.

What was he mad at you about?

Being raised in a Christian home. He felt like, you know, that he was restrained from doing all the stuff he wanted to do. And we were just trying our best to raise him the way God wanted us to raise him.

That's been a rough balance for us.

Oh, sure, sure. And, and I understand that, you know, I, I understand that in kids, it's been raised in church. There was a battle there for our kids and man, it's a, it's a tough battle, but you

got to be careful because if you, if they live like restricted, like that, so restricted, then when they're finally allowed out of it, they just go haywire. So there is a balance of allowing some stuff. I would say that's ultimately what we came to the conclusion of is allow for some stuff, be open and honest but like man that you it does end up for a lot of kids especially pastor's kids uh just kind of carry that burden right in a grudge and oh yeah oh yeah and and if people

in churches said stupid things to them they don't forget that yeah if if

Someone prophesies over them what they're going to do or what they're going to be, and that's not true. It scars our kids, and so people need to be careful. I was very protective of our kids. I would tell from the pulpit, don't say anything to my kids about what they're supposed to do with their lives. And if you do say it and it's not God, I'm coming to you.

Yeah, because you believe in the power of words.

And so, you know, when appropriate. Yeah, when appropriate. But anyway, for three hours, he told me, you know, everything he thought I'd ever done wrong. Wow. Every, every, and, and, and Holy Spirit said, you know, this is a setup and this is how you're to answer him. And so one after another, after another things that he said, I would say, I am so sorry, please forgive me. And he'd go, you're not going to argue with me. Nope. I am so sorry. Please forgive me. After three hours, the atmosphere changed. His heart got softer. He became more open. And not long after that, we had a guest missionary. Of course, it had to be a missionary. They came to our church and gave an altar call. And Josh gave his heart back to the Lord. Wow. And so it's, you know, and he's doing great now. Beautiful wife. two beautiful grandsons. That's awesome, man.

It's a hard thing for a father to sit there for three hours and just respond with, I'm sorry, please forgive me. I mean, that's... Or even with everything you got wrong. Like as right now.

Even though in your heart, you know, 90% of it is just filtered through a mind that's all messed up. I knew it. Something's true, right? But the benefit of doing it was worth it. it was worth me dying for to see him live amen and the uh somebody asked me did it hurt i said

dying usually does yeah yeah but seeing your kid walk with god there's not really any you can't

put a price on yeah what is the thing i wouldn't give for that right and so and so you know he's been living for god now all my kids are living for god and so he was our prodigal he's the one

kept us praying all the time. That's what it sounded like. The prodigal son sounded very similar, but you said something wild right there. You said it was a missionary, and you said, of

course, it was a missionary. What do you mean by that? Well, the passion of my life has really been three things, and we've covered all three of them, is missions, Holy Spirit, and one-on-one soul winning, and so to me, it felt so appropriate that a missionary was there speaking when my son gave his heart back to Christ. And so it just felt right.

Do you think it's easier for people, though, when it's a foreign person for whatever reason?

He was not a foreign person. He was actually someone who was saved in our church, raised in our church, sent out from our church to Honduras and was back preaching and raising money to go back on the mission field. And he gave a great message and gave an altar call. And, you know, they always say, close your eyes and bow your head. But my Bible tells me to watch and pray. So I was doing like this. I was watching my son. And when that hand went up, I was just like, yes. And so it was a beautiful thing.

We did. We did read the scripture of Jesus when they asked him how to pray and he lifted his head. He didn't close his eyes. I'm just saying something to that.

And I'm not against people falling down if Holy Spirit or the presence of God is real strong. But most of the people who fell down in the scriptures fell on their face. They didn't fall backwards.

Just a thought. No, it's interesting. There is some interesting parallels. Or like when they prayed and the whole place was shaken. Not just the person shaken, but the whole place was shaken. There you go.

Was that the story? Did something shake? Man, I'm going to have to re-listen to that.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what you're talking about. That night that I preached some weird, it was, there were two people in the service that Holy Spirit spoke to me about. And he said, call it out and give the altar call. And it was two people in an inappropriate relationship. I didn't know those people from Adam's house, Cat. You know, I had no idea. And I was like, God, you're asking me to do something that's kind of tough. And he said, okay, I'm good with that. Go ahead and do it. And so I said, okay. Well, then when I said it, the interpreter that I was preaching through it, I'm not saying that. I said, you're going to say it. I said, you're going to say it.

and i said you're gonna and i yelled at him i yelled at the interpreter or the translator and i said say it well when they call these two people out they both the person over here and the person over here jumped up and ran to the altars wow to get their hearts right with god and revival broke out i mean we were there for the next three hours praying for people because god was moving but people knew something was wrong but they couldn't figure out what it was and it was those two people living in sin that had stopped god everybody it affected everyone and when we called it out god you know did something i don't think that's the story but

it's a great it reminds me of uh i think that's joshua where they brought the forbidden stuff

into the camp right oh yeah yeah yeah the sand of aiken yeah my aching body it was by the time they got through with his whole family too family and that's a boy that'll preach yeah the cursed

thing bring it into your home and the whole the whole family's cursed yeah well pastor rick i we

really appreciate your time man and we've had you for an hour and a half i know this is great he went to the wrong standard shop and he then he drove over yeah yeah yeah but uh thank you for coming and talking with us is yeah always a great to hear you speak and uh what a great conversation i'm i'm glad that you came in and spoke to matt he's he's a little slow so this is

great i like you matt i don't care what they say he's all right he's all right you're all right thank y'all for the privilege i appreciate it very much and you'll be in my prayers for sure

i appreciate that a lot and that story about your dad's powerful man

it makes me cry every time i talk about that yeah because uh he he was so lost so lost and so it's

a little thing you do you never know right you do a little thing for someone you you you preach a little bit to somebody and you could have 50 years worth of uh dominoes oh hey do you want to ask

like it's not a question that matt yeah this is a question that we ask so yes we like to ask this

at the end of our other show uh to all of our guests um i mean man you just laid out a really crazy life story in so many ways for us are you having fun am i having fun right now i feel like

my christian life is the best it's ever been uh that that relationship with holy spirit just gets fresher every day matter of fact at our staff meeting today i challenged our other pastors to tennis i said come on guys i said depend on holy spirit more and more and more and stop giving information and start doing transformation with people by the power of holy spirit so it's good amen it's good so life's always challenging you know last year went through cancer uh 45 treatments with you did prostate cancer never missed a day working out i said i'm not gonna miss a day they're not gonna stop me beat it and so i did beat it and it's doing well right after that i got a a bowel and and you know obstruction lost 18 pounds in five days and my daughter had called her son said dad's dying he's done and uh and god touched me through that so within a day after i got out of the hospital with that i was back in the gym you know so uh i'm driven uh personally but i'm driven more by holy spirit how old are you how old do you think i am you better be nice 55 when you get some time read revelations 21 8 liars all liars have their part in the lake of fire that burns forever

71 71 you look good dude you're just steady in the gym like every day too uh six days a week Six days a week. You've got to have a day of rest.

Well, that's my day to prepare, sermon, study, pray, seek God, you know. And Pastor Mark has me doing a lot of stuff. I'm doing a lot of teaching training at the church. And so just because we have Holy Spirit doesn't mean we don't do things with excellence. Yeah. I think we should. Quite the opposite, right? Right. The more of God you have in you, the more you should do everything with excellence and integrity.

We thought that even with the coffee shop was like, if we're if our claim is we have rocket fuel that we're running on that the rest of the universe doesn't have. It should be the coolest coffee shop around. There you go. There you go. Something that we're just, you know.

excuses to have weak coffee everything we do should be great yeah i guess to answer matt's

question too is like that's kind of why i started i i started wanting to play guitar in the church is something i haven't done a long time but it's like i have this skill and it's like what am i doing with this like i'm yeah put it toward that we have this skill of what we do here put it toward that like all all effort for a full court press put put it towards this it just makes the most sense and it like look at the rewards that it reaps it's it's almost uh i don't know it's like almost selfish because you know it's like yeah duh like the more i do this the better my life gets it's like so then just do more of this but what about for other people because is it true

that they don't necessarily really like him on guitar i have been told that i don't know if you've

They get tired of it.

Oh, my God.

Incredible. Wow. I'm a punster for sure.

That was a fast one.

That was a fast one. 71.

That was pretty fast, man. That was good.

All right, so we're wrapping it up.

We got to go. Let's bring it in for a landing. You done? No, you do it smooth, man. This is your show. Oh, yeah.

You're the one that ends it. How are you going to end it? No, no, we're just going to end it. Did you have anything else you want to say? would would you ever consider coming back on because i had a really good time hanging out with you you'll come back yeah all right love that and i'm and i'm sure like i said like the the the whole fan base loves you and knows you and knows stories of you and you're talking about really real people that would spot a faker from a long way away and so we just really appreciate you a lot and i and i like i feel like we just scratched the surface of like your life and your stories man i was already moved very much by i appreciate that your story of your salvation your dad especially hits hard that's very heavy man your son i mean it the whole thing was just

great i'm really grateful you came on today well thank you very much i appreciate the invitation and it was better than i thought it was going to be i was terrified for sure i told you i told you i have never done cameras very well during covid i was just freaking out with the camera looking and so they finally pulled it way way back and then zoomed in real far so that's better but uh but thank you thank you very much thank you and you guys will be in my prayer every day thank you

appreciate that for sure great episode of straight bible let's get out of here matt tell the people Well, goodbye. Wrap it up.

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Hello, it is Ryan.

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