You know, there's just sometimes those prophets that, well, we wouldn't want to be them.

And, well, one of those prophets would be a guy who knew what God wanted, so much so that he ran away.

That's we're going to be talking about on the Rap Report.

Welcome to the Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community.

For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity.org well, welcome to another edition of the Rap Report.

I'm your host, Andrew Rapaport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community, of which this podcast is a proud member.

We are here to give you as an audience different interpretations and applications of the Bible for the Christian life.

We are here to help with that.

And today we're going to be talking about the prophet Jonah with.

Oh, this is going to be fun to say.

Not just my friend, but now I can say author John ner.

John and I know each other.

I forget where we first met.

Was it Ambassadors Academy?

It was, yeah.

Ambassadors Academy, 2019.

Yeah.

So, so we met there back when you were.

Now you're, now you're one of the leaders there.

So congratulations.

Thank you.

So, yeah, so you were, you were there.

We got to meet.

We've kept in touch.

You have?

For folks who don't know, I've, we've talked about on my other podcast, Apologex Live.

I think you've been on there not with me, but with different, my different co hosts.

I had, I think, but I, but I know that we've talked and promoted your, your Tulips outreach that you do and that that's not a Calvinistic.

It's not that you're going out to Christians trying to convince me Calvinists because it's tulip.

It's actually the flower folks.

So, John, why don't you introduce yourself for folks who, who may be new to you.

Let them know a little bit about you.

How did you get saved briefly, and then the ministry you do out there, and then we'll start talking about this book that you have coming out.

All right?

Yeah.

So my name is John Neifert and I live in the Midwest in Iowa.

As a kid, I grew up as a pastor's kid.

I know a lot of people are gonna have certain perceptions there and, and so on.

But, you know, I actually grew up in a Quaker or Friends church.

Right.

And then I Went to college at a friend's, you know, the William Penn College, which is a, you know, Quaker, you know, Colle while.

But since then, I have basically converted over to Calvinism.

I do now attend a Christian Reformed Church and.

Right.

The CRC North America, you know, goes back a ways and.

And so on.

But that was one of my.

My big struggles.

As, you know, my wife and I got married.

You know, we came to this new church.

There was no Quaker church in the area, so I kind of started going to where she was going as kind of in that dating phase and.

And so on.

But, you know, it took me a little while to kind of wrestle through a lot of those different things.

Right.

But it was really, you know, in high school I started, you know, I mean, growing up as a pastor's kid.

Right.

You know, involved in youth group, a lot of different things.

Right.

You know, made, you know, some, you know, confessions and became a member of the church, you know, there.

But I would say in terms of how I came to Christ, right.

In Christianity, I would say my college years were.

Were much more influential.

Right.

You know, there I'm away from home, I'm kind of exploring what, you know, what I can and can't do and, you know, different things that I wouldn't have done, you know, younger years.

But, you know, really that conviction of, you know, seeing my life is not what it should be, that really drew me back to.

Back to the Bible, back to Christianity and.

And so on.

Right.

And, you know, since then.

Right.

And I think even in years of.

Of.

Of that time, I always had a, you know, a drive towards missions and evangelism.

I read some books and, and different things, but it never really clicked.

I mean, there's a lot of books out there that, you know, just didn't.

Didn't do anything for me and, you know, didn't really help.

But, you know, starting to see great comfort and the way of the master and, and seeing that approach.

Right.

I mean, that, that made all the difference.

Right.

And it took me a little while to kind of get comfortable with.

With some, but.

But that's how I got started there.

And probably the, The.

The biggest jump into that is actually with Tony Ramsek when he's with Answers in Genesis.

They get.

Got involved in the Iowa State Fair.

There's a gospel booth there where we look at creation evangelism.

Right.

A scale model of Noah's ark and.

Right.

We just, you know, so I, I jumped in, I helped him.

And, you know, that's when it really clicked for Me, right, in, in terms of actually doing it and, you know, getting excited about it, seeing the joy of sharing the gospel, explaining, you know, theology and, you know, different things, you know, to people there.

And from there, I started, you know, my nonprofit ministry, Tulip Gospel Outreach.

Right.

Which really started as, you know, trying to do the same type of evangelism and outreach at our town's, you know, Tulip Festival every year now we use that.

And, and I, I actually wrote a track that, that first year, you know, called Tulip the Beauty of God's Grace.

Right.

And it actually does go through the doctrines of grace, but it, you know, it, it builds on the history of, of that town.

Right.

That the founders were Dutch reform who came from Holland fleeing religious persecution.

Right.

So we use those, those type of things in history to, you know, get into those spiritual conversations and, and, you know, get the gospel to him.

But, you know, that, that's kind of the background and, you know, just continues to grow, you know, in, in the ministry.

And, and you have a podcast, too, I've been privileged to be on.

So why don't you mention that?

Give a plug.

Yeah.

So we've got a, a podcast that we've been doing, it's roughly around two years, called Bibles and Bullhorns.

Right.

And it's essentially trying to get out there and interview experienced evangelists so that them and others can be encouraged and equipped for those.

So those try to be, you know, we try to do those about half an hour, 45 minutes.

We're never really consistent and how long it actually is, but.

Right.

You get in a good conversation and it's, it's.

Yeah, you want to finish it.

So, yeah, you can always do a part two, but.

Right, right.

You know, speaking of Ray Comfort, he just had his birthday.

I saw that.

Yeah, yeah, I, I did.

I, I, Someone had said.

Someone posted that.

He was, had posted online.

He was 84.

And so I texted him.

I'm like, I, I thought he was like, 74, 75.

I said, you know, Steve says, you're, you're 84.

Is that really true?

He goes, no, I'm 104.

And then he said, no, I'm really, I'm really 76.

I was like, I didn't think he was in the 80s, but, boy, if he was 84.

He looks good for 84.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, he looks good for 76, too, but he still runs around like a, like a little kid.

And you get him where he's with his little camera.

He runs around like A little kid in a candy store.

Like, what do you.

Let's get this interview.

Let's get this interview.

He runs around like a 20 year old, but maybe with a slow limp or something.

Yeah, yeah.

So let's talk about this book.

So you, you have been working on this book.

Well, for a long time, because I remember you, you talking it.

And so the book's title, folks, is called the Gospel Through Jonah's Eyes.

Now, I'm just going to say, and by the way, this will be available if you want, at strivingfraternity.org in our store.

It's.

You can go there if you want to pick it up.

But John, let's start.

So you're an evangelist by heart.

You want to talk about the gospel.

But Jonah, I mean, isn't he the guy that ran away from sharing the gospel?

What are you trying to say?

Yeah, he is, right?

You know, so getting into this, right?

I mean, the, the idea about writing about Jonah and evangelism, right, has been stirring in my head for, you know, you know, several years.

And it's probably been about a year and a half, two years ago that actually, you know, committed to, to writing it, right?

So the idea initially was, hey, there's all sorts of different lessons for us as evangelists, you know, in the story of Jonah, right?

I mean, there he is going to the Gentiles and, you know, preaching God's word.

And look what happened, right?

You know, the, the whole city, you know, turned to God, right?

So that was kind of the initial, you know, part of this, right?

And I thought, hey, I'll just kind of write a, you know, very practical.

Here's some lessons from Jonah and kind of go through that.

And I decided before I write, I'm going to take this and I'm going to preach through Jonah, right?

So that, that helped me really dig in a little bit deeper, you know, to study and, and really, oh, my perception about this and what it actually says sometimes is a little bit, a little bit different, right?

But as I did that, right, I did it in a, you know, four or five, you know, series, you know, of sermons that, you know, I went through.

I used that as the basis, right?

It's like, hey, there's really more to it than this, right?

More to it than just some simple gospel lessons, right?

You know, and, and that's, that's really what shaped where I ended up going with the book, right?

And there are some, some key lessons about evangelism and about, about the gospel.

But through this, I, you Know, really want to.

Want people to see the gospel itself.

Right.

You know, and, and that's where, right there when I started the book, I, you know, the first couple chapters really looks at some of the.

The other information we have about Jonah besides what's in the book by his name.

Right?

And a lot of people say, oh, well, that's all we really know is, is those four chapters, you know, in the Old Testament.

But there are a few other places that Jonah is.

Is listed.

You know, in, in Second Kings, it talks about him as, as being a prophet, right?

Yeah, so we had a little bit of that.

And then also in the New Testament, Jesus, both in, you know, Matthew and Luke, you know, makes the statement to the, to the Pharisees, said, hey, the only sign you're going to get is the sign of Jonah.

Right?

So we have those things and I try and write to, you know, get some of that historical background and context before I, you know, jump into, you know, the actual story of Jonah and how we see, you know, the gospel coming out in mat.

Maybe a little bit of long answer there.

But yeah, no, and, you know, that's really what's going.

This is the thing a lot of people know the account of Jonah, but one of the things I find a lot of people don't realize, and I'm going to spoil the ending, folks, if you haven't read all of Jonah, right?

No, but when, when kids are in.

Grow up in, in the church, they think of Jonah.

They have this story about a.

And you know, they always think it's a whale.

We could talk about why that might be.

But the.

There's always that talk, right?

It's a.

They just get into chapter one, maybe chapter two, where he's running away, swallowed by a fish, spit up on land, goes to Nineveh.

But the real key to that book is chapter four at the end, right?

Yeah.

I mean, he explains why he did not.

Why he ran away in chapter four.

So let, I mean, let's discuss that because, you know, we're going to talk about the gospel.

I mean, John, I know you don't exactly do this, but you've run into others who may want to run away when God calls them to evangelize.

Maybe a little.

Hey, you know, I've probably done a little bit here and there too, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And I think one of the interesting things as I, I looked at this whole story, right, it's.

It's portrayed in, in the first chapter, but also very much in.

In the fourth chapter, right.

Is Our sinful nature, our humanity, our natural tendency to run away from God or not want the same things as, as God wants, you know, comes out in, in Jonah right there.

There he is.

He, you know, and actually one of the interesting things about chapter four and is it shows that Jonah was faithful completely in the command that God gave him.

Right?

Because it says afterwards, then he went out to the east side of the city.

Well, where was he coming from?

He was coming from the west, right.

From, from Israel, from, you know, Joppa and all that.

So he, he went all the way through the whole city and proclaimed, you know, God's message to him.

Right.

So there he comes out at the end and he, and he sits down and he wa.

For God to bring the destruction that he wanted God to bring.

Yeah, I mean, I, I, there's this, the view I have of this, and it's just my sanctified imagination, but I think it went up on a high hill for a reason.

Right.

He wanted, he wanted a good view of that destruction he was waiting for.

Yeah.

You know, and, and the fact that he says, this is why I didn't want to leave my land.

Right.

Because I knew you would be a God of mercy.

Yep.

That just, it's like, what kind of prophet is he, Hey, I want you to go to Nineveh and, and deliver the gospel to, to these people.

And, and the very reason he didn't go is because he knew God's nature was to, he knew that.

Well, God, if you're telling me to go to these people, you're going to give them mercy.

And I just don't want them having mercy.

Right.

And, and, and part of what I say in the book is he loved God's mercy.

He wanted God's mercy mercy.

He accepted God's mercy.

He just didn't want it for Nineveh.

Yeah.

He wanted it for himself and Jewish people, but not for those Ninevites.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, and, and the other thing that we see in, in chapter four, right.

I mean, we see God's compassion for the lost.

Right.

You know, should I not have, you know, pity on these people?

You know, you know, he goes through that.

We, we see his compassion, right.

And he's patient with the, with, with Jonah because he's going through.

Jonah says, I'm angry.

And you know, rather than telling Jonah you're wrong, he asks questions and, you know, kind of leads him through and eventually gets to telling him, hey, this is, this is why I did it.

Right.

But the interesting thing is there's a little part in there, Right.

You know, the, the little part where Jonah builds a booth to go out and look over there.

Right.

I mean, that's, that's really interesting because you see his attempts to save himself, his attempts to, you know, provide shade and comfort and everything else, they're futile, right.

You know, they're inadequate.

Yet when God sends the vine, it's His.

His vine that provides the shade and the comfort.

And he loves it, and then he takes it away.

Right?

Yeah.

So you have little.

Little aspect of the gospel right there in the middle of that check as well.

Okay.

John, how much is this like, us?

I mean, let's not be too hard on Jonah, but I know.

I mean, we're sitting there and we, we have the people we know, you know, our, our church family, right?

And here we have.

God sends us to go to lost people.

And it's just like, I don't want to talk to them, like, or even worse, like, maybe.

Maybe they're like a Democrat.

You don't want them getting saved.

Right?

I mean, like, I'm saying that tongue in cheek, but there are those people that I've seen that you get someone that comes up and says they're.

They practice homosexuality.

And I've seen Christians on the street that won't share the gospel with them.

They just want to judge them and why don't you share the God?

They don't want them to be saved.

They just want to condemn them.

And I'm like, well, then why condemn them?

Like, if you're not going to share the gospel?

But, but that's so much like what Jonah had to learn.

I think when you look at this is one of the things where I say, like, certain books you could tell are written by God and not men.

Would any human being end the book the way Jonah ends, where it's just like, he, he's up.

He's upset that God showed mercy because he didn't want them having mercy, right?

So that's the first problem, right?

He's.

He.

And, and it's a thing where God ends up just reprimanding him because it's like you cared about this vine, this plant to give you shade, and yet here's all these human beings that God wants to regenerate and you didn't care about them.

Like, which one's more important here?

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

And you know, we see a lot of people and hear a lot of people talking about revival today right?

Now look what Jonah did, right?

I mean, arguably the, the.

The largest known revival in that sense in history, right?

You know, he went into the city, you know, a large city, and, and, you know, you could, you could debate over the actual size of, of Nineveh, right?

You know, various different interpretations on that, but the whole city came.

Came to God and they repented.

Now, it was only for a time, but, you know, in, in the story, we, we see that, right?

Why would Jonah not be overjoyed?

Why would we not be overjoyed when, you know, instead of avoiding talking to that homosexual, you know, let's.

Let's talk to him.

It may go well, it may go poorly, right?

But if.

If God chooses to save him, we should be overjoyed at that, right?

We should.

And.

And this is the thing.

I mean, folks, I, I look at Jonah and go, yeah, I could see a lot of myself in him.

I, I just can.

You know, it's.

And, and so I don't want us to be too hard on him, but at the same time, like, let's, let's look at this and see where, where are we, right?

So, so what is.

Let's, let's work through this book now with the gospel.

How do we see the gospel with Jonah?

Yeah, so there's, there's a number of different things, and, you know, we can look and we know certain doctrines, right?

We, you know, you know, how many times have you heard, right, Salvation is by faith and not by works, right?

Well, that comes out very clear in Jonah, right?

You know, a lot of people miss that, right?

You know, when you, when you look at Jonah, he went in and he.

And he, you know, spoke the words that God gave him and the people responded.

And, and the way it says they responded, the first thing it says is the Ninevites believed God, right?

So it's, it's.

It's their belief, right?

Their faith first that says, hey, you know, you know, he's bringing this message of destruction.

We believe him, right?

You know, and then that's what, what turns, you know, some of this, I think back to, you know, when, when God gave the law through Moses, right?

And it says, hey, you know, do this and practice it.

And when you do that, all the nations around will see and recognize that you have a great and just God, right?

So Assyria, who would have been interacting with Israel, you know, over and over, they would have, you know, at least had a surface knowledge of, of the law of God, right?

They would, they would have seen that.

And now God's bringing a message to them of judgment.

They could have turned.

I mean, here's.

Here's.

Here's one guy in the midst of a whole city that hates him, right?

Yeah.

Talk about fear.

Yeah.

You know, Jonah could have easily had that fear, right?

But, you know, you know, they.

Instead, because God went before him, he turned their hearts, right?

And.

And they didn't turn and, you know, attack him and, you know, depend on all the, you know, the torture and cruelty and everything else that they were used to.

They believed God.

Right.

So.

So we see that aspect of the gospel, and.

And I'd like to point out, too, that we see that we're bringing God's message.

Right?

So God gave Jonah a message.

Right.

God gave us a message.

Right.

The gospel.

And that's what we bring.

Now, you know, you could argue the, you know, the.

The pros and cons of.

Of telling your testimony or things like that, but in the end, it's the gospel.

It's the message that God gave that is the power of salvation.

Right.

So we see that aspect of it.

Of it as well.

But even in the first chapter, you know, and.

And this is not really, I don't think the intent of Jonah or.

Or the book, but Jonah was in the.

In.

In the belly of ship.

They brought him up and, you know, they.

They drew lots, and then they.

They started peppering him with a whole bunch of questions.

Right?

What do you do?

He testified to God.

Yeah.

Right.

And.

And it says they feared him.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they were saved.

Right.

But being faithful in doing what God calls us.

Right.

To.

To testify to God and his works and who he is is part of our responsibility as Christians.

Right.

You know, that's just the base beginnings of the gospel is.

Is pointing people to Christ and.

And raising his name.

So that, I mean, those.

Those are the big things that I think about through there.

But there's lots of different things that we.

We could kind of explore through there, you know, and seeing the gospel.

But so let me ask.

I mean, for people who may.

Well, they just.

They're.

They're not the type who think about sharing the gospel.

They're a little afraid.

What.

How could this book be an encouragement to them?

That's a. Yeah, that's a really good question.

I mean, part of it is, you know, what I said before, right.

You know, here's Jonah going in the midst of his enemies, right?

And, you know, it's just like the New Testament when they say, hey, I'm sending a sheet among wolves.

Right.

You know, that's just kind of the nature of the Christian Life.

We're, we're here, right.

You know, and, and it's not new, right, because this has been going on since, you know, the very beginning in the Garden of Eden.

Right.

It's a, it's a battle between, you know, the, the seed of the serpent and the, the seed of the woman.

It's a battle between Christian and non Christian, you know, people of God and, you know, the Gentiles or, you know, whatever term you want to use.

Right.

And typically I'll, you know, when, when someone talks about their fear, I, I help encourage them that, hey, God is going to be with you just like he was with Jo.

He was with, you know, many others.

Right.

But do you really want to, you know, stand back and let your neighbor be, you know, continually in that sense of hopelessness?

Right.

You know, and, and, and we see that in Jonah, right, The, you know, everybody calling on their own gods.

Right.

And you know, they really expose their, their hopelessness in that, you know, in, you know, through this story.

But, and I think unbelievers are not afraid to share their own ideas and their opinions.

Why, why should we as Christians be afraid of that?

Right?

Yeah.

And I don't know how to explain that really, but you know, that, that's a, that's a key aspect I think of, you know, seeing that God is with you no matter what.

Right.

And, and it's going to bless your efforts.

I'm not going to say, you know, you're not going unpleasant experience, right.

Because I've had people throw ice cream at me, you know, you know, lots of different things, but if there's ice.

Cream, I might not mind.

I mean, just, hey, great, thanks.

Pick it up out the street.

That's a different story.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

But, you know, and you know, part of that is, hey, you know, remember that when, when they hate you, it's because they hated Christ first.

Right.

And it's, it's not us that they hate, really.

It's, it's not directed at us.

It may feel like that, but it's, it's really, you know, their hatred of, of God and Christ and who he represent, you know, what he represents and, and so on, and we're just the mouthpiece there, you know, but.

Right.

God doesn't call us to a life of luxury.

It's, you know, a life that's filled with suffering and persecution.

Right.

You know, what is it, second Timothy that says, hey, if, if you seek to live a godly life, you will receive persecution?

Right.

And you know, just like, you know, Ray explains, you know, in hell's best kept secret, right, with the parachute.

The parachute is not there to make your life more comfortable, is to prepare you for what is to come, right?

So, yeah, we've got to recognize as Christians that that's part of our, our life.

But I, I would say, you know, my own experience and probably yours as well, going out and sharing the gospel.

Most of it is not others yelling at us, right?

I mean, it's, it's not that uncomfortable.

I mean, it's, it's.

It's.

You always have to get over that.

That first word that you get out, you know, and, and that's hard.

But once you start talking, you know, it, it gets a lot easier and, you know, you become more.

The more you share the gospel, the more comfortable it is.

You know, that is an interesting topic for us to talk about because I think there's a lot of people who just bring it to right now, Charlie Kirk's murder.

A lot of people saw what Charlie Kirk did and they think, wow, there's something special about that guy.

I think there was some things where he had a good memory.

He, he.

A lot of what it was.

I mean, he was a voracious reader from what I understand.

He constantly said he didn't waste any time.

You know, one of the things that I've heard about him from multiple people who knew him very well, like his wife, is that he lived every minute as if it's his last.

And so he, he, he never wanted to waste a minute.

And because of that, he was constantly reading and studying and preparing.

And a lot of people go, well, I, I could never be like a Charlie Kirk.

Now, you know, I know a lot of his stuff.

He dealt with political things and, and, you know, ethical issues, moral, you know, abortion, things like that.

But the thing is, is that a lot of people think, well, they can't.

He shared the gospel.

That was his foundation for all of his arguments were from scripture where, where the underpinnings of, you know, a presuppositional argument.

And so the thing that I think is there's a lot of people who think, well, I could never do that.

And so, you know what?

We could do it.

So after this break, I want to dive into a little bit more about the fact of, you know, how do we get to be like, knowledgeable like Charlie Kirk?

Some people think that's not possible.

I think it is.

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And so if you use that code, you go to mypillow.com and you would be able to get yourself not only a great pillow that I use, I actually travel with mine wherever I go.

When I went to Israel, it was with my MyPillow.

I left some clothes behind, but I didn't leave my pillow behind.

And so go to mypillow.com, use promo code SF.

Also, we are sponsored by Lagos Bible Software.

They, they are a great Product.

I have a very large logos library, a lot of books.

I use it very much to be able to do a lot of different things.

If you wanted to say, well, you know, I'm really curious of where Jonah is mentioned in the Bible outside of the book of Jonah, quick search and you'll get all of that.

In fact, what you could do is you say, you know, I want us dig more into Jonah.

You want to learn about it.

What you could do is go into the, in Logos, they have a fact book.

You go into the factbook and just type Jonah.

You're going to get everywhere in the Bible Jonah's mentioned.

You're going to get everywhere that Jonah's mentioned in, in your books and commentaries.

And so you could pull that all up.

And the neat thing is if you don't have logos at all and you start with their subscriptions, you can get it actually as inexpensively as like seven or eight dollars a month.

Month.

That's if you pay for two years up front.

But that's how much.

So one cup of Starbucks for a day can get you Lagos for a month.

I mean, just think about it.

And so if you're spending seven bucks at law, at Starbucks a day, let's talk.

But other than that, you could get, you know, great Bible software, be able to quickly search and if you get the larger subscriptions where they have the original languages, things like that, you're able to do a whole lot more with it.

One click you could get into the Greek and the Hebrew.

So go to lagos.comsfe Obviously, again, SFE stands for Striving for Eternity.

That gets you the discounts that they have going on, that you get the same discounts that you'd get through them.

But you, you're helping them to realize that we sent you and that helps them to continue sponsoring us here, which we greatly appreciate.

And so if you would want to get some great software, go to lagos.comsfe to get yourself some great Bible software.

So John, talking about evangelism, you know, because you've experienced this, guys that would talk to see Ray Comfort out there and be like, I can't do what he does.

Looking at a guy like Charlie Kirk who goes out and I think that the thing is for me and you know, Mark Spence, he would always say this, hey, you don't have to learn the answer to everything.

Just learn the answer to the last question you didn't know the answer to, right?

And like, why is Ray Comfort so good?

Well, he does it every week for 40 plus years now.

Right.

Why is it Charlie Kirk is so good?

Because he went to college campuses.

And what a lot of people don't realize, they think of the videos they see of Charlie Kirk that are recent.

But when Charlie first went to college campuses, he didn't do a breath.

A huge breadth of topics.

He sticked to one topic.

So he studied a topic and got really good with one topic and moved on to another.

And so when we see him after doing that for 18 years, or I guess was it about.

However he started when he's 18, I guess, and he was 32.

So.

Or 31.

So when, you know, now when you look at that, when you're doing it day in and day out on college campuses, you get good at that.

You're.

You're someone who.

You've been doing evangelism for a long time.

How, how do you view, like what Charlie Kirk did?

How can.

Can other people get as good as him or Ray Comfort or some of these other people at sharing the gospel?

Yeah, I think there's a couple questions in there, right.

When you narrow it down to sharing the gospel.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, that's, that's, you know, very narrow.

Right.

But when you talk about the breadth of stuff that the Charlie Kirk has, I think the big piece is doing it over and over.

Right.

You know, the, the more you do it.

Right.

You and I have both had situations where, you know, when, when we were early on in sharing the gospel and the question.

And we're just stumped.

I don't know if you remember the first time I got up and did Open Air in, In Ambassadors Academy.

It was embarrassing, right?

Yeah.

I got a little ways in and then I was kind of stumped and tongue tied.

And, you know, it wasn't so embarrassing because I don't remember that.

I don't remember you being tongue tied.

Yeah, well, but.

But you learn from those things, right?

You know, and.

And I think the more you do it, you know, the, the more you're going to, you know, you know, grow in that you recognize more quickly that, hey, I've had this question before, you know, you recognize it and just cut to the chase.

Right.

You know, a lot of times I get into something and someone will ask a question and I'll start going down, you know, two or three different paths.

And, you know, they don't always go the way I expect them, but I've learned from that.

So next time I run into a Jehovah's Witness or, you know, whatever.

Whatever the situation is, I can Say, oh, well, you know, that path is fruitless.

I can, you know, focus in on, on this other.

Right.

So just the experience, right.

And doing it over and over, you know, helps a ton, you know, and that's why with my ministry, right, we do outreach events, right.

And, and, and there's nothing like an outreach event to solidify, to share the gospel.

Because if you just try and share the gospel once in a while, when you run into the, the opportunity or, or someone in the grocery store or whatever, you might do it here and there and, and every so often, and it's like you're relearning it every time.

Whereas if you go to an event, hey, we're, we're there deliberately to go out on the street and start talking to people.

And you might do it 10 times in a day, and every time you do it, it gets more and more comfortable, right?

And, and, and then it's just there where it's, it's just kind of a natural, you know, flow.

I think Ray's approach too, helps, Right.

You know, I don't know that I could do what Charlie Kirk did, right.

Even with a lot of practice and memorization and, you know, stuff like that.

You know, one of the, one of the secrets of, you know, Ray is stick to the gospel.

Always come back to the conscience.

Right.

You know, and I would make that same comparison with Jonah.

Well, God gave Jonah one message, you know, hey, you know, 40 days until he's gonna be overthrown, right.

You know, he didn't have to learn and study and, you know, all these different things.

He just had to deliver the message, right?

And if we think about it that way and that structure, Right, right.

The, the gospel is very simple and you can watch a hundred of way the master videos and see how it's done.

But then still, I've seen so many people on myself.

Even the first time you actually try and do it with a real person, you're stumbling through the words, right?

But you get over that that first time and then you get better and better, right?

So the, so the experience makes a big difference and the focus, narrowing the focus on, you know, just like Paul said, I seek to know nothing but Christ and him crucified.

You know, focus on that, right?

You, you broaden out, you know, through, through the, you know, the rest of these things.

And God does call us to study and learn and, and be prepared, right.

You know, you have, do not conform to the patterns of this world in Romans 12, but, you know, the, the renewing of your mind or In Jude, where we have the contending for the faith and.

Right.

We're all called to do that as, as Christians.

And there's lots of different ways and everybody has a little bit different personality and approach to that.

So we can't say, oh, you're not, if you're not doing it the way Andrew does it, you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, you'd like to say that, but.

But you know, it's, you're, you're bringing up a really good point, which is it's actually the reason many years ago I started Jersey Fire and then Ohio fire, NorCal fire.

Is these outreaches something like what you do at the Tulip outreach, which I recommend people to go to and, and, and get involved in.

Because what that does is when you're at an event with a couple dozen hundred other Christians that are all out there for the purpose of evangelizing, it is so much easier because you go with a, you go with another person and if you get stuck, you could just go, hey, John, what do you, what do you think about this?

Right mid sentence, you're stuck.

John, could you, can you help me out here?

Right.

And then someone else to help you.

There's people you can learn, but you're emboldened to do it.

And it's something you said, I learned many, many years ago.

If, if we take people out and we keep them out there for roughly three hours or talk to more than six people, they start to love evangelism.

And, and what it is, is they start realizing, wait, I've already answered this four times already.

Right.

And the reason the three hours, the three hours is because it's some, for some people, it takes them two hours to get into convers enough to have the six conversations.

Right, Right.

But you're, you're suddenly realizing, I'm not hearing anything new.

Now the sad thing is the next time we go out, we're just as nervous and it takes us the same six people to get that feeling again.

Right.

But that's the thing, is that when you go with groups, it is so much easier to, to share the gospel.

And you know, one of the things Mark Spence, who works at Living Waters, fun story that he, he had told me once is that when he was starting to share the he, he was not really comfortable to doing it in the open.

So what he did was he got a cell phone.

Now granted, he, he says when you do it, make sure your cell phone is off.

So he would carry like a fake cell phone and he'd go on A train.

And he'd put his phone to his ear and he would pretend like he's talking to somebody and saying, you know, either how someone shared the gospel with him or how he shared the gospel with somebody.

Buddy.

Now he knows there's no one on the other side of the phone.

He always says, he told me, he's like, make sure the phone is off, because, like, if it rings, then it's really embarrassing.

But.

But, you know, we had that experience.

I was in London and for the Olympics, and we're sharing the gospel.

And we'd get on this train.

We did like an hour train ride to get to where the Olympics was.

And so we're sitting on the train, and especially afterwards, we're all spread out around the train talking about the conversations, the gospel conversations we had.

We're talking with other believers, but every day we're there for like two weeks, every day, someone was listening in.

Every once in a while, someone would ask, you know, like, kind of interject.

And I mean, sometimes they're.

They were, you know, disagreeing.

But it was amazing how I still remember this one woman as I was talking with this.

This guy, Bobby McCurry.

He and I are just next to each other and we're talking and this lady turned around and she said, you know, my mother used to say.

Say things like that I didn't believe her, you know, and it's like.

And she.

So she.

She had somewhat of a Christian upbringing, but she had said.

But things have, in her life have caused her to think maybe she should have been listening to her mother.

Mother.

But her mother was gone then.

And so it was like, you know, so she comes to us and she started talking.

Bobby just sat there sharing the gospel with her.

Now, that wouldn't have happened had we not been just talking amongst ourselves, but if we're so afraid to even do that.

Right.

Yeah, we got to get out of the comfort zone.

Yep.

But there's so many different crazy ideas you could do to share the gospel.

Because here's the thing.

I know, John, you're.

You're not this way.

It's.

It's just everyone else, so many people love to eavesdrop when someone's on the phone in.

In a public setting.

You know, it's.

It's the very reason when I pray for my meal in.

In a restaurant, I mean, I just raise my voice so everyone can hear because they want to listen in anyway.

And I make it very gospel centric.

You know, I thank God for, you know, saving us and explain it There's a lot of creative ideas we could do.

Yeah.

So praise God for the.

Those who listen in when you're talking to someone else, because it happens a lot.

It typically.

Even you and I do open air when.

When I'm very well aware that the person who's heckling me or the person I'm talking to when I do open air is not the person that's listening.

It's usually the dozens of others who are just sitting there and they never say anything, but they're listening.

Right.

And you never know.

So you never know how that's going to go.

I mean, that's the thing, handing out a gospel track.

It's an easy thing to do.

Right.

And so, so what for folks that may want to do the tulip outreach, what would be the website for that?

So it's kind of long.

It's tulipgospeloutreach.org.

right.

It's.

It's, you know, on the book.

So if you get the book, you can, you can do that.

But tulipgospeloutreach.org gets you there.

And then, yeah, we have on the front page kind of events coming up and things like that.

And if you.

And if you want to get the book, just go to striving for attorney.org.

the book, again, is the Gospel through Jonah's Eyes.

So you can pick it up there.

And then, you know, the website for.

For the outreach.

So then after reading the book, you could go to the outreach.

Good idea.

Yeah.

Love to have you.

So let's.

Let's just wrap up with what are some.

In your opinion, what are some things that if I'm going to read your book for the first time, maybe I'm not comfortable sharing the gospel.

Maybe I am.

What.

What was your goal?

What were you thinking?

Who's the audience?

What do you want them to walk away with?

Yeah.

And.

And really, there's multiples.

Right.

So for someone who's shared the gospel before.

Right.

I think this can be a very encouraging and, you know, you know, book, you know, to reinforce some things you already know, maybe learn some new things along the way.

You know, actually, when my, my pastor was reading it for the first time to do some editing, he.

He made a comment and he said, I felt like I actually learned something.

You know, there is.

There is stuff there to learn.

You know, as I kind of unpack things a little bit more of my audience, I'm not looking for.

I didn't write it for the one who's really theologically deep and right you know, you know, all those different things, right.

I, I did write it a little bit more for the, the lay Christian maybe, who hasn't been in the Word as much.

Right.

So when, when I'm making a reference to a scripture passage, most of the time I put that scripture passage in there so you can read it and, and see what it's saying and make sure that, right.

I'm not leading you astray with, you know, just saying, hey, it says this over here and then I tell you something about it.

Right.

You know, so I want people to see the gospel, right.

In the pages of scripture.

Right?

Because it's there.

You know, I grew up and, you know, I hear, hear the gospel and, you know, a lot of these, you know, but I still struggle with different things like, well, is it the law or is it the gospel?

Well, really, it's both and here's how they fit together.

Right.

But, you know, so, so going through this in Jonah and, and stepping through all of these different things, I wanted to point out the gospel in all of these things, you know, along the way so that reading this, if you didn't have a clear picture of the gospel, you would have a more clear understanding of what it is.

Right.

And when you understand it better, it's, it's a lot easier to step out and explain.

Right.

I want people to see that in scripture.

Right.

You know, I, I'm not a seminary graduate or an ordained preacher, but I do preach right.

In, in my own church and you know, various churches around as well.

And you know, the, the advice over and over is stick to the word.

Word, right.

You know, go back to scripture.

Right.

You know, when, when, when people see these things in scripture, right.

It's, it's reinforced.

It's not my opinion, it's not my words.

It's, it's, it's really what God is saying here and, and seeking to understand that.

Right.

So, and the other thing is if some, you know, by chance, some unbeliever is curious, hey, what's this guy writing about?

Jonah?

I've heard, right?

I mean, Jonah is one of the, you know, better, better known, you know, characters in the Bible.

What's, what's this guy writing about?

You know, I want them to be able to read it and.

Right.

They're going to hear the gospel along the way and hopefully that's going to cost them the thing and.

Right.

I mean, it's another way of sharing the gospel with, with the unbeliever who happens to come across and read the book.

Right?

But, but really it's.

It's to help the Christian see the gospel and, you know, and see how we can, you know, explain it and, you know, teach it and, you know, spell it out, you know, to.

To people in, you know, in scripture and, and.

And be able to make that real, you know, in.

In it's in.

In a real conversation.

So there you go.

So again, folks, if you want to get it, it is.

The book is called the Gospel Through Jonah's Eyes.

You can get it@restrivingforattorney.org in our store.

It'll be up there.

So, John, any.

Any other things you might want to share close out with?

Yeah, I mean, there's.

There's probably a few different things that we didn't touch on, but.

And I think that's okay.

I did touch a little bit on.

Right.

It's.

It's God's message.

Now when we look at the message that God gave to Jonah, a lot of people say, oh, well, that's, you know, just a hateful message.

You know, God's going to bring judgment on, on Nineveh.

But mixed in that message is God's mercy as well.

Right.

He says 40 days, you know, you have so.

Right.

He gives them time.

He's.

He's telling them this for a reason.

Not because he wants to condemn them like Jonah wants him to condemn them, but because he wants them to come to him.

Right.

So he shows his mercy by giving them time, you know, and mercy to turn.

That was in his intent.

He's showing compassion.

Right.

And as we go out and share the gospel, we've got to have that same heart of compassion for the, for.

For the lost as well.

So.

That's a good word.

So, folks, go and get a copy of this book.

Go out, please, to the Tulip Gospel Outreach so that you will get more trained up for sharing the gospel, because the more you practice, the more comfortable it will become.

And so with that, folks, that's a wrap.