All right, well, we just broke right into it.

Are you sure you don't want me to do a.

So, folks, we are live, Apologetics Live, no intro music only because, well, I was rushing to get to a hotel in time to do the show, and so.

And our guest hasn't even been able to get in yet.

I have.

I. I rushed down to got a burger, and so I told Drew, hey, you'll have to talk while I take myself off camera to eat every once in a while.

But we didn't want to.

To not do a show.

I know we missed two weeks, came back one, and I'm going to be traveling the next this week and next week, but I wanted to try to make sure at least this week we have a show for you guys.

Apologetics Live is part of Striving for Eternity.

We're here to answer your apologetic questions.

So if you have any questions about God in the Bible, feel free to go to apologetics live.com and if you scroll down and go to the duck icon, that is where you'd be able to join us in the discussion.

Let me put that up as the scroller down there so people can know to go there.

So just go to apologeticslive.com.

that's how you join us.

You can join us on, you know, whether it's going to be in.

On X, in YouTube, wherever you're watching us.

If you go to YouTube, we can see the comments.

And so that way I think we can see them on Facebook as well.

But.

Just wanted to give.

Just.

I'm a little bit discombobulated because of the fact that I literally, I, I, I drew.

I, I was rushing to get my wife.

I had to.

We moved, as you know, to the communist country of New Jersey.

And, and so I went to go get a car for my wife and took it to my mechanic and found out that, well, yeah, it was, it was.

It was in good shape.

It's just that the tire had been plugged.

My mechanic's like, yeah, you shouldn't be driving on that.

And I brought it back to the place, and they're like, no, the tire's fine.

And he feels the plug and goes, oh, we'll replace that tire.

It's such a New Jersey thing.

Sounds like, yeah, yeah.

And so my wife wasn't comfortable driving with the tire like that, so I had to rush back home to then come to Philly Airport.

So, so I'm at the hotel, and so we tried to make sure we'd get it, get the show in time.

So what we're going to talk about tonight is really about the parallel economy.

This is something that you see, you see this in Muslim countries or sorry, Muslim areas where they are very, very active in being to, to support one another as, as fellow Muslims.

We're not so good with that as Christians.

And you know, I just saw a thing online that you know, and I'm, I'm guessing that this includes Drew the and I didn't even introduce ourselves for those who are new.

My name is Andrew Rapaport.

My co host, Drew Vanita.

And so I saw a thing, you know, and it must be including the word of faith preachers because they were saying that, you know, I forget the number now but that the Christian wealth is like, I forget what was like 42 billion or 400 billion, something like that.

If you took very quick number, it was a really big number and it, that's what surprised me with it.

And when, when you look at that and go, wow, that what would you know, you, you see what a George Soros does with his money, right?

He affects our elections big time.

He affects our country and he makes, George Soros has probably makes more decisions for our country.

Just trying to get the light side don't look too faded out than, than Americans, than most Americans combined.

What if Christians got together and, and did stuff like that?

What if Christians would have the insane idea of, you know, just getting together and saying, all right, we're going to pull our money, we're going to focus our money to promote Christian things.

You know, I forget the guy's name.

He's, he's a Christian speaker.

He has no arms and legs.

Some of you guys may know who I'm talking about.

I can't remember his name.

I, I, Anyway, he, he's a Christian speaker at IT got very frustrated because I think his bank canceled him because he's pro life and because of that they canceled him.

They removed his bank account.

He went and started a pro life bank.

And so that's what we're going to be talking about.

And, and so we got, we got our, our guest here.

He goes like he's in a barn.

Yeah, well, we'll find that out.

So he's, he's walking around.

So Gabe, Gabe Wrench who is the, he's one of the co hosts of Cross Politic.

He is one of the guys that organizes the Fight LA Feast Conference which we'll talk about.

He is also and what he's gonna, we're gonna talk about tonight is he's the founder of the Christian business.

And as we talk about a parallel economy, this is what we wanted to talk about, How Christians can work together, you know, pooling our money toward things that, you know, promoting other Christian businesses.

So, Gabe, you.

You.

You became really well known because you.

You beat up a police officer and they handcuffed you.

They were doing everything they could to keep you calm, but you were just out of control.

Is that right?

Look, ranchers are pretty violent.

Pretty violent folks.

Yeah, well, not true, but there was.

I definitely became pretty infamous for the COVID My Covid police arrest, if.

If anybody knows about that.

But basically what happened was I live in a liberal town, so I live in northern Idaho, and I live in a liberal town.

We're the only, like, there's like, two blue dots in this red state, and I'm in one of them.

And in 2020, our city council, I mean, they were probably one of the worst.

They.

I mean, tripped a lid.

They.

Before there's one known case of COVID in town, they signed this health emergency order that required everyone outside, not just inside, to wear a mask or stand six feet apart.

That was outside.

And they did that for.

Health emergency order that they did for.

And of course, the mayor was doing.

Doing weddings, not standing six feet apart outside, you know, of course, you know, city council members were going to parties.

That's why.

It's a really smart disease.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it's so.

Yeah.

Very smart diseases.

Anyways, so it.

So the way my church would protest is we would go and sing psalms outside.

And in what we call.

In the middle of downtown, there's this little park called friendship Square, Very little tiny park.

And we'd sing psalms outside and not stand.

There's men, women, and children from our church, and we wouldn't stand six feet apart.

We wouldn't bring mass.

We wouldn't, you know, all that jazz, all that, you know, normal stuff.

Well, we did that for about five months, four months, you know, maybe.

Maybe.

So it started, I think, in, like, May or something.

I forget when we started doing it.

And.

And then September 23rd, you can go watch the video.

Google my name, Gabriel Wrench arrest, and you can go watch the video.

We did a after show after my arrest, too, that went all over the place.

But we went to.

On September 23, we'd been in downtown doing the psalm sings, but, like, our city council wasn't listening to us.

There's other politics going on.

Like, we had a petition of, like, something like a thousand emails or something that was Sent to the city council saying, hey, stop doing this stupid health emergency order.

And they wouldn't listen.

We tried to talk to them at city council meetings, but most of the city council meetings were limited to people.

How many people could be in the room because the whole Covid measures and all that stuff.

And so we just decided, hey, we're going to go sing psalms at the city hall and in city hall, in the parking lot of city hall, because that's so, you know, kind of, kind of, you know, protesting, worshiping, petitioning our, you know, politicians, basically the full first Amendment, everything there.

And when we got there, this was.

It was just the weirdest thing, man.

The cop, the police.

At other psalm protests and psalm things that we did, they were up on like the, the roofs of downtown buildings, taking pictures of us with cameras.

All stuff is super eerie and creepy.

Because singing psalms are really dangerous.

They are.

That's, that's.

Yes, they are.

You must have been singing imprecatory psalms.

So I'm trying to think.

I know the psalm that I got arrested to was Psalm 20.

Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we trust in the Lord our God.

And so I can't remember all the songs that we sang, but so city we.

So I remember getting off work.

We do the song, we do the protest about 5 o' clock when people got off work and everything.

So I remember going to city hall parking lot and a couple things.

When you first walk up to the parking lot, there was.

They spray painted.

They used city staff and resources to spray paint dots on.

Yes.

Every six feet apart so they could objectively see that we weren't standing six feet apart.

That's what the polka dots were for.

I thought, I thought they had put like some sort of.

Kids were playing in the parking lot, some sort of polka dot game.

That's what I thought it was.

And because you don't even really pay attention, you're just kind of walking up and you see all these polka dots on the concrete.

You're like, oh, someone was playing some fun game.

No, that wasn't for us.

For us.

And then secondly, there was like seven or eight cops lined up in the background against the city hall wall when we got there.

And it was just, you know, they're all masked up and it was just.

It's very Orwellian, you know, kind of feeling, you know, comply, comply, comply.

And.

And then one of the cops talked to my pastor, Pastor Doug, and said, hey, just, you know, you know, just kind of give a heads up if you Want if you aren't standing six feet apart and wearing a mask, then you're gonna get ticketed or arrested.

And Doug turns around, announces it.

There's like 200 of us again.

Men, women, and children and strollers.

Doug announces it to the.

And it was mostly my church, Christchurch.

And it was.

There's.

By that time, other community members started joining us a little bit because they were, like, fed up with this, too.

And so Doug turns around and announces, hey, guys, if you aren't standing six feet apart, you could get arrested and could be getting a little trouble here and everything.

And no one moved.

It was so beautiful.

No one moved.

No.

No stroller moved.

No kid moved.

Everyone just stood as.

After Doug announced it.

And then.

So we started singing psalms.

And then they came up.

My mom was next to me, and.

And I had a friend, my buddy Tyler was also next to me, on the other side of me, and we just started singing psalms, and they came up to me, and I came to my mom first because, you know, you got to go to the woman first.

You're kind of a coward to go up to the man first.

They came up to my mom.

My mom said, hey, I'm with my son.

And.

And as soon as I could.

Because your family could stand within six feet apart of each other.

Okay.

You know, and.

And as soon as I heard my mom say that, and they're like, oh, you're good.

I was like, oh, no, I'm not.

So I put my arm around my buddy, my friend Tyler.

I said, this is my buddy.

They came up to me and they said, you know, what's your name?

And I said, I'm not.

I'm not telling you.

And I said, I'm not telling her that I give my name.

I can't remember the detail there, but I put my arm around my buddy.

I said, and this is my friend Tyler.

And you gave his name.

I gave him up.

Yeah, I know for sure.

I didn't give him my driver's license.

And that was the real rub.

And so he started asking me for my driver's license, and I constitutionally just said, you're an officer, and you need to be protecting my constitutional rights right now, not this mayor's health emergency order.

And I said, you're in the wrong.

You know, the mayor's in the wrong here.

And you swore an oath to defend my constitutional rights.

So we.

And he wouldn't acknowledge that.

He just, like, you know, whatever.

And he said, just give me your license.

And I was like, no, I'm not giving you my license.

I'm right.

I had a bunch of people like Relevant magazine, after I got arrested, I had a bunch of people say, you weren't loving your neighbor.

You weren't submitting to Romans 13.

All those arguments.

What was funny was I actually was submitting to Romans 13.

It was the cops who were not submitting to Romans 13.

Right.

I was following the highest law of.

The land, which is the Constitution.

And a lot of Americans don't pick up on that.

The, the, the law of our land is not the president.

It's the Constitution.

That's right.

It's not even Congress, because that's why we have the, the Supreme Court or the court system to see whether what Congress does is according to the Constitution.

Yeah.

Now, Gabe, at this time, was it, was it you or was it Toby?

One of y' all were running for local, A local office, right?

Yeah.

So that was me running for local office.

I was just, I was running for county commissioner.

And the reason why I was running for county commissioner.

Am I breaking up a little bit?

Nope.

I think you sound fine.

Okay.

My video, my video on my side was breaking up.

It looked like it, but the, I was running for county commissioner, and the reason I was running for county commissioner is because every year the county commissioners would raise our taxes.

Every year.

Just, just rubber stamp.

They had to off.

They, they had the ability to raise our taxes up to 3% every year.

Property taxes.

That sounds like where I live.

Yeah.

So.

And I couldn't find anybody to run.

And I'm like this, this dad who's got three kids under 12 or something like that.

And so I was just like, well, someone's got to make a stand here.

I can run for county commissioner.

So I did.

And so I was running for county commissioner.

You know, I, I, I much rather would not, but I did.

So that was, I was already a political lightning rod in a lot of ways because they, you know, they knew me from my show Cross Politic.

They knew me from my, you know, I've always been involved in politics locally and of course, in various ways.

Church, the impact has in the, in the community.

That's right.

And then you have my additional church.

That's a lightning rod also.

And so I was a very polarized county commissioner figure.

And I kept pointing out how bad the commissioners were and their, you know, greed for raising taxes.

And we are the, we are the second highest taxed per capita property.

Property tax per house in the state of Idaho.

I pointed that out.

And one of the county commissioners like, no.

And I was like, I'll show you the.

I'll send you the data.

I'll send you the report.

So they don't even know what they're doing.

But anyways.

And so, you know, I did.

Yeah, there's other things going on.

I did debates, or I was supposed to debate my opponent on radio, and I went to the building to debate my opponent on the radio, and they wouldn't let me in because I wasn't wearing a mask.

And in the.

And I said, I'm not following that law.

But I also said in the law, in the health emergency order, not the law, in the health emergency order, it specifically states if you are hearing impaired, which I'm deaf in this ear.

It's dead.

It's just a dead ear.

You don't have to wear a mask because you need to be able to read lips, you need to be able to talk, you know, stuff like that.

And.

And so I, within my right, in the health emergency order, didn't have to wear a mask because it allowed for the.

For the, you know, handicap, basically to not wear it.

So.

But they wouldn't let me in.

They canceled.

They canceled debate right there on the spot on the radio.

And so I never got to debate my opponent, which would have been fun, but as you know, there's so many.

I could tell you so many dumb stories about how Covid was handled in my town.

And so when I.

When we started singing, the officer came up to me, and I just kind of was very polite, told him about the Constitution, told him that he should be defending my rights, standing right next to me, singing psalms with me kind of thing.

And then he basically, after about four or five times asking me, he went, acknowledge anything.

I said.

He just said, give me your license.

And he said, this is my last time.

Please give me your license.

And I said, no.

And so he literally had to take my hymn book out of my hands.

In fact, it was the chief of police that took my hymn book out of my hands so they could arrest me from behind.

And as they're walking me off to the car, the cop car, like, Pastor Toby comes up and is just like, rebuking.

You can watch all this video.

Most of the videos recorded Pastor Toby's like, rebuking the officer, saying, you were disobeying God.

You're going to report to God on this.

You know, this kind of thing is very beautiful.

My brother came up and he's always late to everything.

So he's a little late.

And he came up and he started getting on the cops and.

And they had lost the keys to the car.

So I was literally standing there for like five minutes waiting for the car to unlock as.

As all my friends are like standing around recording and rebuking the officer and all this stuff.

It was really a funny moment.

So I get in the car and they take me off and I get to the police station and I said.

And I started arguing with them about the ordinance.

You know, of course I told him on the way, I was like, this is wicked.

This is.

You should be defending the con, my constitutional rights, all this stuff.

And I got to the police station and said, hey, also, you know, again, I pulled out the deaf ear thing.

And I was like, you guys shouldn't even be arresting me right now.

I'm definitely one here.

I got medical handicapped.

He's like, we'll just sort this all out in court.

He wasn't going to listen to anything, you know.

So we went to jail.

Another married couple was arrested along with me.

They were just obviously making their statement.

They couldn't arrest every.

All 200 of us.

So they arrested me in a married couple.

And so I'm.

I'm in jail for three hours.

They.

They booked me and all that stuff and fingerprint me and all stuff.

Well, on my way out, when they released me, my, My sheriff, they would.

Took them, took me to the sheriff's jail cell.

My sheriff was fantastic.

He's like, get this guy out of my cell.

Don't.

He doesn't pay anything.

He gets out.

No bond, no nothing.

Get him out.

But as I'm leaving the jail, there's two officers.

I'm walking out, there's a room to the left.

I look in the room and two officers aren't wearing masks and are standing six feet apart.

And I was like.

I was like, the officer that's leading.

Me out, you do a citizen's arrest, I'm arresting you.

I told the officer, you need to rest.

These people, they aren't wearing a mask.

They're staying six feet apart.

And.

And I was like, I just got, I just got out of jail for this.

I just got arrested for this.

Yeah, so it was, it was like, it was such an awkward moment because they, I mean, they were like, yeah, I get what you're saying, or whatever.

And they're like, you know, you need to leave.

You need to leave.

And so they wouldn't even really.

But it was awkward.

They were like very caught off and embarrassed.

So I leave the jail that night.

We go right back in the studio and do a live show because the video of me getting arrested got recorded and was already starting to go viral all over.

Well, didn't Donald Trump shared it?

Right.

So a couple days later.

Yep.

So a couple days later.

So viral.

Had this initial viral moment.

And.

And then we do our live show.

That live show went all over the place explaining the details, and it just, you know, it just blew up all over the place.

You know, Christians getting arrested, you know, violating your First Amendment rights, that kind of stuff.

And then like, so that first wave was really just big.

And then Trump, like a couple days later retweeted it and it just went around the world again.

I ended up on Fox, Laura Ingram.

I mean, I just, I do media for about two or three days back to.

Back to back after that.

And then I was doing media for, you know, a month or two after that regarding the issue and everything.

So it was a.

It was a very viral moment.

And.

But I will say a couple things.

One is we ended up our city council and police never enforced Covid again, even though they kept that health emergency order in play in place until something like April of 2021.

So that was September 2020, and they kept the same health emergency in place.

They never enforced it again.

So we won.

Secondly, they had to drop the health emergency charge against me, the misdemeanor against me, because they were wrong.

Even in their health misdemeanor charges.

This is how blind my liberal city was.

Even in their own health misdemeanor or their own health emergency order.

It specifically stated that your First Amendment rights are protected.

So if you're doing a First Amendment protest, you didn't have to follow the Elder Mercure.

It specifically stated that.

I think, I think that was only for Black Lives Matter protests, not protests against.

Yeah, because that was the same summer, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That was going to cure it.

That was, that was the other thing that was going on during the summer Black Lives Matter came out of town and half of them wouldn't wear a mask.

Half of them wouldn't stand six feet apart.

Half them would, you know, that kind of thing.

And they never got arrested.

And they came through town two, maybe three times to Moscow, and they never got arrested.

So it, I mean, the hypocrisy and the silliness of this all.

I can just.

I can give you example.

Example magnifying it.

I remember two weeks before my arrest there, I got a hold of pictures from my mayor doing an outdoor wedding and not standing six feet apart from the Couple.

The couple's not wearing a mask, the groomsmen are not wearing a mask.

All this stuff.

And I got pictures.

I just tweeted out.

I was like, here's our mayor, here's the mayor of Moscow.

Yeah, I got arrested.

And then the third thing.

So one is, I encourage Christians in the church to stand up and do it wisely, rightly, keep worship center in our protests because we're calling for God's help.

That's what worship is.

We're calling for God to act on our behalf.

And then secondly, be a community about it, knowing that you could get arrested like me.

And then thirdly, like, pursue, pursue victory.

So we won in that moment.

But then I had Thomas Moore Society come and back me in a three year lawsuit, federal lawsuit against my city for violating my First Amendment rights and my Fourth Amendment rights.

And we won.

We won in federal court.

So this is like, you know, John MacArthur's case, my case.

We, we established some great precedent for stupid pandemics like this and what would happen nationwide.

So we pursued it.

And now it's going to bless other people who could potentially get in a pickle or something like this down the road kind of thing.

Because we pursued it all the way in federal courts and won.

And the judge, the federal judge just gave it to my city.

The federal judge in his, you know, in his decision just gave it to the city.

It was fantastic.

Wow.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, and this is going to lead into what we want to talk about tonight, which is your, your Christian business makers before we do, though, because that's, I mean, this is what really helps for.

I think a lot of people woke up to why we need a parallel economy during COVID I do want to say one thing and I'm going to encourage folks if the.

The Cross Politic podcast, if you're watching live, that came out yesterday, is.

I'm so for folks who don't, who haven't picked up already, Gabe and I are not in the same theological camps.

Would that be a fair statement?

You know, you know, I was going to say Andrew and Gabe, two completely different ends of the spectrum.

How in the world did y' all come together?

Well, I'll.

Well, we met it at Fight Left east last year, but we were both speaking at a conference together.

And to this day, I wish we were recording that conversation, because that conversation, in my opinion, is something that every Christian on social media would need to have seen on how to disagree as Christians.

Because both Gabe and I were listening.

That was the thing we were listening to one another.

I mean, I'm asking questions to better understand what positions he and his church hold.

He's doing the same with me.

And we're looking for consistency.

We're looking for.

We weren't looking to beat each other up or how to, how to show the other person's position is bad, but to try to understand one another.

And we actually walked away going, you know, we agree on far more things than.

At least I, walking into that conversation, thought I was going to agree with Gaba.

You know, when you're, when you're sharing a hotel room together, you know you're going to talk to one another.

And so it really was, it.

I mean, I don't know your, your reaction, if you want to share your side of that, but I, I think it was something that Christians would have needed to see how we can, how we could understand without saying, well, if you don't believe what I believe, you're wrong.

Yeah.

You know, I think, I mean, a couple things there.

One is, you know, the common verse that's brought up in these kind of things is iron sharpens iron.

And so you always, as a Christian, want to be able to talk with your other brother because you know they're going to sharpen you.

And your goal is obviously also to sharpen them.

But you think, I mean, yeah, we're very different.

I'm post mill, I'm theonomic, I'm biblical.

I'm biblical.

And so.

But I think what's happened in the church is we've gotten shy of debate and disagreement.

And we've also, I think, gotten shy of, you know, really, really going at it, really going, really working it out.

I would say my biggest frustration with, you can call it frustration, my biggest source of frustration with other Christians is that there's so much inconsistency in their biblical theology and reasoning in the church.

And so that's why me and Andrew, we're trying to find each other and making sure we're consistent.

It's like if you aren't consistent and you're picking, choosing a Bible verse, you know, Thomas Jefferson version of the Bible, then you aren't being a faithful Christian.

You just aren't.

We want, as faithful Christians, all of God's word is his word.

So we aren't called to pick and choose, and we aren't called to have a Thomas Jefferson Bible, and we want to submit to all of God's Word.

My pastor and I remember when I came to Moscow in 2002, Doug, maybe he's 03.

But one of the things that Doug said that just hit me so hard is he said, do not have any problem Bible verses.

Right?

Don't have any problem Bible verses.

He's like, if you have a problem with it, you know, search the scriptures, try to figure it out, maybe talk to the elders, you know, but don't, like, discard and avoid the Bible verse.

Like, work through it, and you might not even be able to come up with a full satisfying answer.

But I do know when I read that Bible verse, it's God's word.

I need to receive it and receive it with faith.

And I might not be able to fully understand it, but it's God's word and I got to receive it.

And so what's happened is over the years is, you know, we have churches that don't really preach through the Old Testament, or we have churches that don't really preach through, you know, Romans 1 or whatever.

You know, you can name it.

And so we have churches that avoid problem texts that their congregation might agree on.

So it's no wonder that we've gotten so sensitive against the Scriptures and we pick and choose.

And so this ends my point here.

And that's how we become inconsistent in our theology.

And so I just want Christians to be consistent.

And even if I disagree with you, I can see your consistency.

Like, Andrew, I'm like, okay, this is an easy conversation.

Yeah.

And that was.

That's the same thing with me is, you know, I.

Even the things where I'm like, going, okay, Gabe, what about this?

What about that?

Now we're seeing a consistency, right?

We both disagree with.

With the way we're interpreting and the conclusions we're coming to.

But, you know, I, you know, to question your.

You're kind of asking there.

Drew is that night in the hotel, I mean, Gabe and I hadn't met each other, kind of known each other from afar, but I really gained an appreciation for Gabe and his study of God's word.

And that's what got me to be like, you know, what.

What else is he working on?

So things where I was always told, you know, stuff about, you know, Doug Wilson's church, and I got to meet Doug.

That doesn't mean I. I didn't have the same kind of conversation as I did with Gabe.

But, you know, had.

Had breakfast with him, had dinner with him.

But, you know, I started to, you know, I just started asking him a couple of questions.

It's like, okay, I don't agree with the way Gabe interprets.

He doesn't agree with the way I interpret, but there's a consistency within it.

And one of us or both of us will be wrong.

Right.

When we get to heaven, we're going to figure that out.

But guess what?

When we get to heaven, we're going to completely agree.

Just like John MacArthur and R.C.

sproul are agreeing today.

Yep.

Right.

And so, so you guys did a cross politic and I hadn't listened to cross politic actually until, until after that.

That night I started going, yeah, I'm following what Gabe is doing.

He's, I, I even listened to his more health related podcast, the, the Water Boy.

Water Break.

Water Break.

Water Break.

And so, so the, the one thing I, I, I, you know, regular listeners, watchers here, you know that we've dealt with the, the topic of Israel.

Right.

And I have, I've kind of voiced this issue that I see within kind of covenant circles where their theology overrides what's going on in, in a, in a, in a nation that exists, existing today to the point where I get frustrated where people like are just attacking Israel because, well, that we're the Israel.

And so whatever you think, theologically cross politic, that came out yesterday on Israel and Toby Sumner.

Now Toby's your pastor, right?

I'm at Pat, I'm back at Pastor Wilson's church.

I went to help plan the church for two years and I went back.

So.

But yeah, Toby's my pastor.

100.

Like Doug and Doug and Toby are my pastors.

Yeah.

Okay.

So.

And, and you and Toby went to Israel.

Got to, got to do some stuff there.

The, the thing is that I'll tell you this, ever since October 7th, I've done a lot of speaking on the state of Israel, how it came to be.

Yeah.

That episode.

And, and you guys clearly said, hey, there's theologically, you have a difference with who Israel is.

Yeah.

Toby did an outstanding overview of how Israel came to be and I, I encourage folks to listen that because it really helps for, for this whole Palestinian Israel debate.

It was just, he did a great job of explaining, like, look, there are always Jewish people in the land of Israel.

They've been there for a long time.

And it was actually like after, after, you know, the United Kingdom took over that area, Arabs started moving in because with the, you know, the UK and with the Israel Israelites that were there, they were, it was a pop, it was a, a good place to live and a populous place as far as being able to make money.

And things changed in 1948.

Right.

So it's just interesting to, you know, because I've been so frustrated with so many Covenant theologians.

For those who may be new to the show, I'm.

I'm a dispensationalist.

And I'm.

And I always have to say this.

I don't support Israel, and I'm not a dispensationalist just because I'm Jewish.

They have nothing to do with it.

Just.

It's how I come to interpretation.

Right.

Yeah.

But Toby, you and Toby did a great job.

And anytime that you have, you know, I'm gonna say, like, Chocolate Knox.

Yeah.

I don't know if he goes, wait, I. I knew him, but before he was Chocolate Knox.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anytime you get him or he's.

He looks like he doesn't know what he's talking about, and you two just go.

That just adds more fun to it.

What's Knox gonna say?

Yeah, but it was really.

It was a great.

Really a great overview.

And so I just want to commend not only you and Toby, but also.

Go check that out on.

On Cross Politic.

It would have been the episode that came out in September 3rd of 2025, in case you're listening to this later on.

And it was titled Something like How Christians should be Thinking About Israel.

Something like that.

Something like that.

Yeah.

Something.

So let.

Let's get into what we really want to talk about, which is something you're.

I know it's a really.

On your heart is the issue that, you know, coming out of COVID It.

It really did change a lot of your views on.

On some things.

Oh, man.

Or strengthen them, maybe, I should say.

And specifically with how we as Christians should view business, how we as Christian business owners should view our business.

I mean, I'm not a Christian business owner.

Drew's working on his own business.

But as a business owner, how should we view our business?

Because, you know, some people just view it as their.

Their income, their way of making a living.

You have a very different perspective with it.

So.

Yeah.

Would you do us the favor first, leading us to why there's a need for the Christian business makers?

And then what is it?

How can people who may have their own businesses or if maybe there's ways that people don't have a business, how can people get involved and what would it offer them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's, I guess, kind of the theological argument for this, and then there's the COVID argument for this.

I say it's bigger than Covid, but, you know, everyone went Through Covid and saw a lot of problems there.

The.

The.

Did we just lose him?

We just lost him.

I wonder if his phone died.

Oh, that would be.

Yeah, that'd be funny.

It was in his car.

Okay.

Well, until waiting for him to come back, something I wanted to start the show with is.

And I didn't, I didn't pull the emails up, but I think I mentioned last week that we had a guy that was on, came in here, wanted to debate for.

For that he could be a Christian and a homosexual.

And he was in here.

He's someone I had known from the past when he was a youth.

He was in the youth group in my church that I pastored and so gave us back.

I'll finish this up real quick, though.

So you remember when Anthony came in trying to make an argument for, you know, accepting Christianity, accepting of homosexuality?

Well, after last week's show, he, he accused me of.

Just before the show, we lost him again.

We'll see what happens.

He accused me of.

Of lying because I, you know, I said it was a debate and it.

And then I said it wasn't a debate and you guys could go back to that.

And I explained last week that the word discussion debate is like, I think of a debate as a formal debate.

And we didn't have a formal debate.

So after the show last week, he challenged me to a formal debate debate.

Is homosexuality.

It sound like, is homosexuality in a.

In agreement with the Bible?

No.

Okay, I like that was an easy challenge.

If you guys watch that episode we had when he came in, he didn't know how to handle the issue of lust.

He knew how to handle what with the homosexuals, called the clobber passages.

And, and he thought he had a great argument, but he didn't know how to handle the issue of lust because I basically said, if you lust after a man, it doesn't matter about homosexuality.

You're in sin and there's no way you can be in a homosexual relationship and, you know, because you're lusting after someone that can't be your wife.

And he didn't know how to handle that.

So then he went.

He and his.

Whatever he wants to claim was, you know, was going back and, and accusing me of things.

Well, here's the thing.

He challenged me to debate.

I said, sure, he had a moderator that was going to moderate it, some guy supposedly named Wes.

And, well, I was told by his boyfriend.

Jamie contacted, emailed me, and basically said that because I.

He wanted to be the moderator.

And I said to Anthony, your Boyfriend is not going to be the moderator of our debate.

In a formal debate, that's just not going to be something that's going to happen.

So his, his boyfriend emails me and says, you're, you're not going to decide who's going to be the moderator and what platform it's going to be.

I'm going to be involved or it's not happening.

So I responded to Anthony saying, well, I guess you're pulling out, because the whole time when.

And I said this in the emails, he challenged me to a debate, but I think he wanted to pull out the whole time.

He wanted a way to say that I was running away.

And I'm like, I'm willing to bait you, but you have to be realistic.

Having your quote, unquote boyfriend as the moderator is not what we consider as an honest debate.

I don't care what channel it's on.

I'm not.

You want to have this guy Wes do it, that's fine.

And he's like, well, Wes contacted you?

No, he didn't.

So.

Jamie, the boyfriend said that he's going to release all these emails to the public and they're going to expose me.

I'm like, they're going to expose me as consistently saying, I'm willing to debate you.

Okay, end of October.

But your boyfriend can't be.

That's the only thing I've said.

Your boyfriend can't be the moderator.

Sorry.

We saw when he was in the chat, when Anthony was on the show that the boyfriend, Jamie just can't be.

He can't control his emotions.

So it's like, yeah, that's not going to happen.

I'm not doing a debate that way.

Whoop.

We lost Gabe again.

Yeah, well, he's.

Luckily he's picking up one of his, his kids and is headed back home.

So for folks who are listening on the podcast, he was driving.

So, you know, I'm tempted to maybe do a show where I just read through all the emails if they pull out of the debate, but I think they're trying to pull out and say that I was chicken.

I'm, I'm making demands.

I'm like, there's nowhere where I said anywhere.

There's nowhere where I said, who had to be the moderator.

There's nowhere where I said I wouldn't do the debate.

I, I, you know, I asked and, and Drew, you know, this, I do this in other debates.

I said, are you willing to share our opening statements?

Statement, yeah.

And he agreed.

He, he, he was like, you know, I I don't know if that.

Why we'd have to.

Why you'd want to do that.

I'm like, so it's not a gotcha thing.

Yeah.

If you know my opening.

I know your opening.

We could have better prepared rebuttals.

Yeah.

And then the real debates in the cross examination.

But if you are afraid, if you enter into a debate and you're afraid to share your opening with someone, it's like you're trying to catch them, you're trying to get them, and you want to, you know, surprise them.

I, I'd rather have that good discussion, honest discussion.

And so I prefer.

And I, I've debated people that refuse to share their opening.

I've had, I had one debate where I sent the opening.

Anyway, I said, you know, and I made a point of that in the debate to say he was better prepared for the rebuttal than I am because I gave him my opening statement, but he refused that.

Now just being able to say that puts him in bad light.

So.

So if the debate occurs, we'll let you know.

So, Gabe, back to.

Back to, you know, business makers, why you.

You had started it.

Yeah.

So for some reason my, my browser just kept refreshing.

Is that a problem that's happened before, Andrew?

Not that I know of.

Okay.

If there was, I would find a way for that to happen on Drew's browser.

Yes.

Especially when he starts talking post mill or all mill, you know.

Yeah.

I started saying we need something to fight for.

You know.

I'm almost home and I'll be able to get on a little more stable situation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So back to business makers.

You know, part of work is God made man before the fall to work.

And of course, we also work after the fall.

So work is something that is inherent to our creation and being made in the image of God.

We're made in the image of God.

And when we were perfect before sin, before Adam sinned, there was work.

And there's work after the fall.

And granted, with maybe a little extra little making, a little more difficulty.

And so work is something that we're called to do.

And particularly God particularly laid this out for Adam in the garden that Adam is.

And of course, this doesn't mean women get to be lazy, but God particularly called Adam to work, to till the field, to go out and take dominion over all the earth.

And his wife Eve was supposed to help him be a helper.

And so if you're doing work to the glory of God, it is so it's cutting with the grain.

How God made you.

It's just the direction and that God has just built in this world.

And so we're called to work.

And part of what's happened in the fall, now that we've, you know, 2,000, 2,000 years later, after Jesus.

All right, we know he's.

He is driving.

Jesus prayed, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We're not.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, it's breaking up a bit.

Can you hear me?

It sounds like there's probably a delay, man.

So sorry, I'm.

I'm done with the.

There's one place on my drive home from.

From work where there's a dead Internet spot, and I just drove through it, and now it's.

It's.

I'm past that dead Internet and that spot.

So no more.

We're done.

I'm sorry for making this problematic here.

No.

So that's good.

So God called us to work.

God called us to work after the fall.

And it's a.

And it's.

And it's something that, that God takes great joy in, in watching his creation glorify him in everything they can do.

We're not, you know, gnostics.

We.

There's oftentimes, I think there's so much Gnosticism that has affected the church and where we think our.

Our work is, you know, just something we do.

And then we really glorify God on Sunday.

Like, that's where we really faithfully to God.

And so we need to recover the theology of work.

We need to recover the glory of work.

And then what happened in 2020, I think really opened up a lot of people's eyes to the tyranny we have here in America.

And on top of that, the lack of real leadership we have in the church.

And I'll say that leadership not.

I'm not just talking about pastors and.

And, you know, elders.

I'm also including, like, you know, business leaders in your church.

There's.

I started Business Makers Network.

The original idea came to me because I started in 2000s because I had a bunch of business leaders.

After I got arrested, I went viral.

I went all over the Internet and everything, and I had a bunch of business leaders contact me and say, do you have.

Do you have a business network?

Because my business network, like C12 or Convene or these other networks, my business network is not helping me in my business.

In fact, half the CEOs of my business network, they themselves are shutting down or they themselves are requiring masking at the workplace or whatever.

I'll finish this.

And, and so they weren't getting help from their networks.

And so they said, I'm looking for like a courageous business network.

I'm looking for like a, a business network.

I'll be inside.

That is, that is strong and kind of courageous.

That's going to help me fight tyranny at my workplace.

You know.

He'S frozen right now.

He just, he, I think he just got home and he's trying to get.

Yeah, unfortunately for those watching, he froze in a really bad facial expression.

So, so, you know, let me, let me fill in some of the stuff that I know he's.

And he just texted me, says he's getting into his laptop, so I'm going to remove him so he doesn't look bad in the scene.

So what this is is that he got a bunch of people that reached out to him and folks are not in the business world.

You're not, you know, a lot of especially small businesses, they have networks where they try to work together and it's, it's either trying to get, well, hey, I, I have a need for something.

And you find someone that has that.

There's people that are running their own business.

They're often, they're very busy.

And so having a group people they can work with to help them with different needs that they have becomes really helpful.

But what Gabe was having was a bunch of people who were in business networks during COVID that weren't helping them.

And there was a need to get, you know, to basically look for the same thing that, but with people that have similar long term future values.

As I said in the opening, you look at the Muslims, they, they do this, they, they work with one another.

They find ways to be a benefit to one another.

Whether it's, you know, a Muslim will hire a Muslim plumber because he's a Muslim.

The difference with the Muslims and the Christians is that when the Muslim hires the Muslim plumber, they're going to pay them more because they're helping to provide for another Muslim family.

The Muslim plumber will do a far better job for the Muslim client because he's helping a fellow Muslim.

And I say that's different than Christians because anyone, you may have seen this, but Christians will hire a Christian plumber and go, hey, you're a brother in Christ, so I can get a discount, right?

Give me a deal.

And then the, the Christian plumber goes to the house and says, you know, well, hey, you're a Christian, so I can do shoddy work and you're going to forgive me, right?

I mean, you're not going to hold it against me that I cut some corners and didn't do a good job.

And this is why I say the, the Muslims understand what Gabe is talking about better than most Christians of saying, no, we're going to work here.

You know, I, I, I said in the beginning of the show, I just bought a car for my wife.

My mechanic is a friend of mine.

And so what you have is you, you have a case where the, the, the, my mechanic went out of his way to do me a favor to come and see a car that I was interested in.

Well, he wouldn't do that for, for anyone else, but he's doing that for me as, as a believer.

Where I am paying him, where he would usually charge a hundred bucks for that, I'm going there and paying him far more.

Okay.

I'm paying him $50 more than he would usually do because he went out of his way for me.

He looked at another car tonight, the one that I bought.

He didn't expect to get paid anything.

He's like, well, you brought the car to me.

I'm like, I'm still paying you.

Why?

Because that's what we should do as believers.

We should take care of one another.

And this is what Gabe was saying.

There's the business networks that are out there with unbelievers.

They're not going to take care of one another the way Christians should.

And this is what led him to the, the, you know, business Makers Network.

So, so Gabe, want, now you're on your front porch and we get to see it's nice and sunny out while it's dark here, but go ahead.

Well, you're muted, though.

Let's see.

I can ask you to unmute, but I can't unmute you.

You did.

I thought I came in unmuted.

I am, Am I just worse than Drew right now?

Is that what's happening?

No, apparently no one is worse than Drew.

They do.

He and Tom will do a whole show criticizing me when I'm not here.

This is true.

That's nice.

Very true.

Nice.

I do a debate on dispensationalism, and they do a whole show responding to it while I'm not here.

That's awesome.

Since Andrew's not here, we can have a fair debate.

Well, actually, it, actually, I will say this.

They, they did admit that I won the debate, even though they totally disagreed with my conclusion.

That's because the guy who was representing the Covenant position did a terrible job.

I mean, I mean, the whole thing was like, I agree with the covenant position, but if I wasn't, I wouldn't be convinced by this guy's arguments.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, Gabe, this guy wanted to debate me on the topic that covenant theology is more literal than dispensationalism or has a more literal hermeneutic.

Yeah, I remember you telling me about that.

Wow.

Yeah.

So.

So it sounds like you were kind of picking up where I dropped that off a little bit.

Where I dropped off a little bit.

But yeah.

So in.

During COVID I think we all realized how the Christian community was actually.

We were really kind of segmented.

Segment.

Segmented.

We were individual.

We were kind of weak because we're part of a broader church community or our churches weren't part of a broader church network or.

Or our business.

You know, how many employees I consulted during 2020.

21, you know, even to 22 who were like, my.

My business is wanting me to get back, so I'm going to get fired.

My business is requiring me to wear a mask.

My business, you know, and they.

They were just by themselves.

They had no other help and no other, you know, broader community to help them navigate this or even push back.

They're kind of weird.

This is what is going on with you, Gabe.

Now we're just playing the game of how long is he gonna last this time?

Yeah, yeah.

He's probably never had this trouble before either.

No, Well, I. I don't know.

I've never used.

Oh, by the way, folks, I've never used this.

Yeah, it's true.

I have a real studio.

I've never used this software before, so I don't.

Yeah, EVMux is new to us.

We just switched over to it from streamyard because streamyard doubled their price last year.

Doubled it again this year.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm not paying $800, you know.

Yeah.

But it's worked well for us until tonight.

Okay.

Yeah, well, it's.

It keeps causing my browser reload, so that's.

It's a very weird thing.

And so we were all kind of segmented.

Segmented and individualistic and weak.

And churches.

The reason.

One of the reasons why churches couldn't push back is because they're just the only church in their community.

Imagine if all the churches in your city said, no, we're going to worship God.

You can't tell us when and where and how to worship God and what to wear and worship.

Which again, was actually one of the reasons why we declared the war for independence was because the, the government, you know, King George was in his parliament, was trying to tell the church what they needed to wear during church as literally part of it.

It was one of the very sub, sub reasons.

And so, but if, if one church stood up in their community, well, they would get fined, they would get attacked.

But if, imagine if all 50 churches in your community stood up.

Well, they can't.

Or like, like us, they couldn't arrest all of us that night.

And so being not part of a broader network really weakens your ability to resist tyranny and to kind of just have a normal family life.

And so that same concept applies to business makers.

In 2020, how many businesses had to shut down?

How many restaurants had to shut down?

How many, you know, gym owners had to shut down?

Except for one in New Jersey, how many.

You just go through it.

But again, if your whole community is behind you and just say, we aren't shutting down, well, there's, there's nothing they actually can do about it.

So the, the idea came to me because these CEOs, other networks at other Christian networks were dealing with the same thing, even with their own network.

And so the goal of what I'm trying to do with Business makers NETWORKING, go to businessmakers.network and see their website, is to build a real thriving Christian business community.

That's number one.

And that real thriving Christian business community is.

You were, it sounded like you were making this point, Andrew, before I came back on where it's like, the Jews have their own business community, the Mormons have their own economy, Muslims have their own economy.

And it's the, it's the, that economy is the foundation in which they serve all the markets.

You know, in the, in the Mormon community, I'm in, I'm in Idaho and Utah, Idaho.

We got tons of Mormons all over the place.

They know if I need a business loan, where do I go?

I know Bob the Mormon.

I call Bob the Mormon for that.

And if they need a, a investor to help them launch a business, they knew who to call.

Like the Mormons have their own network of economy Christians because we're so wild, wild West.

We, and, and we think so individualistically.

We don't, we don't.

Sorry, I got a bee now flying around me like God's just putting all the, all the problems around me.

And, and if we, and so we're so individualistic in our thinking that we don't come together and form things like this.

So I really think one of the things I learned from COVID 2020 is like we really do need to rebuild the Christian economy.

We used to have a Christian economy, we really need to rebuild it now.

I don't like people talk about the parallel economy, stuff like that.

I'm not, I don't like that language because it sounds so resistant or so reserved or so retreatist as opposed to.

I like the idea of, you know, rebuilding Christian economy is because that's the foundation which you serve all other markets and, and you're also building something anti fragile with real relationships, people high value trust that you, that high, high value figures that you trust.

And you're building a network of people you can trust.

People who believe God's word, people who have the same morals, the same convictions and, and the same convictions about providing for their family, raising know, passing their businesses down to the next generation, you know, business and, and business leaders who come from a variety of backgrounds.

And so there's a wealth of knowledge that kind of builds up in that community.

So there's all sorts of natural ramifications of what it means to build a good Christian business community.

You know, wealth of knowledge, you know, people you trust, people that you could do business with and sign contracts with that, that, that you can trust, you know, and now you have a foundation for working with the rest of the economy.

I'm.

I'm not a retreatist guy at all.

I want to, I want to serve my non Christian brothers.

My non Christian brothers contradiction but I want to serve my non Christian neighbors just like I want to serve my brothers.

But I want to get wisdom and advice and build strategic relationships and be antifragile.

I mean Vimeo.

So my show cross politic.

Go to crosspolitik.com for that.

My show got so was canceled so many times by YouTube during COVID So many times.

You mentioned mass don't work.

You mentioned six fixed social distancing doesn't work.

You mentioned Ivermectin.

Whatever.

We got canceled so many times during COVID In addition to that, we had a six year contractual relationship with Vimeo.

Get canceled.

Vimeo was a, a basically hosting service that we use for distributing our content out to our club members, private content out to our club members and we had a six year contractual relationship with them year over year and they canceled our show after six years.

I got an email one day.

We did it, we did a show talking about Biden's connection to China and they canceled our show the next day.

We talked about Biden's connection.

We weren't talking about Ivermectin.

None of that.

Vimeo allows the distribution of porn on Vimeo.

But if you talk about Biden's connection to China, they will, they will kick you off of a six year contract.

And we had six years of content and videos on Vimeo.

That's a lot of content.

And I emailed Vimeo, I was like, well, how am I going to get all my content off Vimeo that we've been storing on there?

And they sent me an Excel spreadsheet of links to download.

Here's how you can get it off link after link after link.

You got to download it by yourself.

My point here is because I didn't have a trusting, you know, Christian content distributor host like Vimeo, we got canceled.

We, we, that was really hard for us.

We lost club members, we lost money from that when we had to spend all kinds of money to reboot and find a different situation.

And so that's part of what we need to, we need to build key infrastructure as Christians that help us be antifragile and that help us actually serve the economy better over time.

Does that make sense, Andrew?

Yeah.

And I mean, it's, I just want.

To make sure my voice also is being heard too.

And yeah, so I mean, it's, it's a thing where if, if I'm, you know, if I'm doing well, like for the Christian podcast community, which this podcast is, this live stream becomes part of the podcast.

As one of the many podcast person podcast community, we have different podcasters who have different backgrounds that can help one another.

I mean, we got, we have a couple people that were, we have actually three that are professional, you know, film producers, two for the secular world, one for the Christian world.

And so when we had, we had someone that was like, hey, I want to get into doing video.

Okay, here's three guys that can help you, right?

Because they got the background in it.

And that's the sort of thing that, how we promoted the Christian podcast community of it's, hey, what skills do you have?

How can you help one another?

Because we need to do that more as Christians.

And it's not, hey, I want to make money off this.

Let me, I'll, you know, I'll pay you it.

Okay, I'll step on a soapbox.

It bugs me when Christians charge other Christians to like, you know, hey, I'll be your podcasting coach, right?

And I'm like, we, we at the Christian podcast community, we offer that.

It's called free.

Yeah, you know, it's like, we're not going to charge you for that.

We're going to help you out and give you, you know, give you the tools you need to get things done.

Yeah.

And a lot of that is just what I believe is Christians working together with one another.

Yeah.

Yep.

And, you know, we're actually building some of that.

That.

That's kind of some of the vision we're building in our.

In our business network.

And.

And helping part of the network is we just want to help each other.

Help each other's business grow.

If you're having a bad sales cycle, you know, I'm sure there's a good, you know, manager and marketing or vice president themselves in the community that can.

Hey, you know, here's some things you.

Might want to work on.

And so that's definitely very much part of the goal.

And so we.

So I'm have to ask.

Hold on.

I'm going to ask a question for Sarah in.

In the chat.

She says, no, that's wrong.

Sorry, you're gonna have to tell us what we.

What did I say that's wrong?

I mean, it's usually a lot.

I've.

You know, I drew.

I. I was wrong once.

It was a long time ago, but I still remember it.

It left a scar on me.

Yeah, but it's usually every time you talk to me.

Right.

Becomes the new one time you're wrong.

Nice, Drew.

Nice, Drew.

You got to get ahead of Andrew.

Right?

Like, he.

He sets up these moments so that he can.

He can come in and do a punchline, but you got to beat him to the punchline.

And do you.

You ever think you beat me, that you don't get slammed back?

I mean, you.

You play like you stick the.

You're.

You're like the whack a mole.

You stick your head up and I. I got the hammer.

I'm ready.

Yeah, we'll see.

We'll see.

Yeah.

Just wait.

Just wait till I. Till I'm hosting and you're gone.

Okay.

Just wait.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me guess.

You're gonna invite Gabe back.

Okay, let's talk about.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Let me respond.

She's saying that, not you.

Charging.

Charging people extra.

Yeah.

So normally, what happens.

Oh, and there.

There, you see?

He was just going to answer Tara's point.

I don't know what's happening with his browser.

We've.

We have never had that with.

I wonder.

I wonder if it's the browser.

He's like, what are you.

What do you have ears up on?

Let's see.

That's a good question.

Well, I'M using Brave and Brave is very security conscious.

So what are you using there?

I'm on Google Chrome.

Chrome.

So Brave is a Chromium base browser, but it is not by Google.

So.

So, yeah, so Brave.

Brave is one that is very protective, conscious as a browser, but works with any of the Chromium type things.

What browser are you using?

I'm on Chrome.

I could change.

That's what.

That's what.

Yeah.

You know, that's weird.

All right, so you were just making the point.

Sarah had said, charging people extra.

Yeah.

So usually Christians, they expect.

If they.

If.

If I need to hire a Christian plumber at my house, usually what Christians think is, I'll hire the Christian plumber and he'll give me a discount because I'm a Christian.

We were brothers, Lord, as opposed to you.

What you should be doing is I'm going to hire the Christian plumber to come over, and if he does good work, I'm going to give him a tip.

You know, like, I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm actually going to bless him.

He blessed me.

And so why don't I just tip him more?

So that's how I'd be thinking about.

You see why I like him, Drew?

He even used.

Even though he wasn't here when I was describing, he even used the same exact example of a Christian plumber.

He even used the same example.

But we.

We must be brothers of a different mother.

That.

That's.

I'm.

It's got to be it.

He's really Jewish.

That's hilarious.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or he's just worked in plumbing and he knows how difficult it can be.

Well, I haven't worked in plumbing, so.

I've tried to work on my own house with plumbing and water and pipes just don't mix with me.

Well, your.

Your nickname is Water Boy, so.

That's right.

Maybe it should.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's right.

How did.

How did you get that name?

Actually, so what happened was when we started Crosspolitik back in 2016, we had, you know, Pastor Toby was on our show.

Chuck Knox was, you know, he had a stage name, is kind of his nickname really became a stage name, I guess, if you want to call it that.

Pastor Toby's.

Pastor Toby.

And so I'd intro the show.

Hey, y'.

All, welcome to Cross Politic.

You know, got Pastor Toby, Chalk Knox, and I'm Gabe.

It's like, I don't know.

It just didn't.

Just didn't land right to me in the Opening.

So I serve as a deacon at my two churches here in town, and now I'm not a deacon anymore, because when you transfer church, your eldership or deaconship doesn't really transfer.

Yep.

Yeah.

And so I transferred back to the church that originally ordained me as a deacon or laid their hands on me as a deacon.

And then I went to plant.

Help plant the church.

And so I had my deacon status, and now I'm going back to the church that.

And bringing my membership back to the church.

So I lost my deaconship going back, you know, which is.

Which is.

Which is fine.

Fine by me.

But the point is, deacons serve the church.

That's their job.

Serve.

It's all the practical.

Deacons take care of all the practical needs of the church.

And so I was a server, you know, you serve water and water boy.

So it's really not that exciting of a nickname story.

Yes.

So you went from a Nick of saying, and I'm Gabe to I'm water boy.

Water boy.

So I open up, show Pastor.

Pastor Toby Chalk knocks, and I'm the water boy.

There you go.

Not exciting story.

H20.

And I'm H2O.

Mama said.

Mama said.

We're gonna.

We gonna start politic right now.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

Andrew saying there.

Andrew doesn't.

Doesn't get that reference.

Yep.

No, I actually don't.

Sorry.

It's a.

It's a really millennial quote there.

It's from a movie called the Water Boy.

Yep.

With Adam.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's funny.

Maybe they'll have that on the flight tomorrow, and I'll actually watch it just for that reason.

Do you think.

Do you think Andrew would like that movie, Drew?

I. I don't know, because I don't know what movies Andrew actually watches.

I don't.

I don't think he watches any.

It's kind of slapsticky humor.

Yeah.

So I probably wouldn't like it.

There you go.

I have Drew.

I have enough of Drew, you know.

Doing that kind of humor.

Yeah.

Andrew.

Andrew Graham in the comments.

He knows.

He knows what it was.

He knows that reference.

Yeah.

He said Adam Sandler.

He also.

He also.

You know, I don't know if he was quoting me.

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

So.

But.

All right, so.

So as.

As Christians, I mean, we.

We agree, I think, with the idea that we should.

We should be working together more.

I mean, like, part of the thing that gets me, Gabe, is how many Christians would be more than willing to give a Lot of money to some secular company that's promoting homosexuality, transgenderism and all this.

But they wouldn't give even a fraction of that to a Christian business doing the same thing.

Yeah, well I'd say that's complicated because the Protestant work ethic is not really in Christians like it used to be.

And I think some Christian businesses have kind of proven themselves less honorable than non Christians have non Christian businesses.

So I think, I think there's that part to it.

I think the other part to it is they just aren't discipled or encouraged to think this way.

Because if we're part of the body of Christ, why don't we be very intentional about serving and working and partnering and building the body of Christ.

And I'd say lastly, the one caveat I want to put here is I want to be careful not binding Christians consciences in a way that I don't think the Bible binds the consciences.

So I don't have a problem with a Christian, you know, doing business with an unbeliever.

I don't even have a problem with Christian, you know, going to Disney World knowing that they support LGBT trans stuff and all that jazz.

Because God doesn't make you your purchase and your work.

And with other businesses you are not responsible for two things.

You aren't responsible for their supply and supply chain in the scriptures and you aren't supposed to responsible for how they spend your money after you give it to them.

And this is clear when Paul talks about, you know, eating food offered up to idols.

Paul says, don't even worry about asking a question on it.

Eat that meat, you know, for.

And he says, he says, he quotes Psalm, I think Psalm 24.

The earth is the Lord's in all its fullness.

So he says, eat the food offered.

Idols have.

Don't even think twice about it.

Now that was.

Idolatry is a bad thing, right?

In Scriptures.

Don't participate in idolatry.

Don't go to the temple and participate in the idolatry.

The food, the animal that was sacrificed in the temple in a false religious temple.

But he said you can buy it in the marketplace and you can eat it.

Do you think that money went to support the immorality that happened in the temples?

100 it did.

So God doesn't put you, make you responsible for the supply chain and the money that and how your money might be used once you pass it off in a transaction for business to the, to the business he might buy something from.

So I want to be careful now I do.

But I do just think, strategically, I wouldn't buy food offered to idols because I want to be strategic.

I want to go to the mom and pop Christian store down the tent in downtown to buy a burger and not the, the meat from the temple, from the idolatrous temple because I want, I want to support my Christian community.

So that's more of a thing of strategy versus a binding of conscience.

Does that make sense, those distinctions I'm talking about?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it does.

And I think that, you know, part of my thing, though is, you know, it's, it's not that, you know, look, I have an Apple computer.

Do I support everything Apple, Right.

Does.

No.

But I don't know any Christians that are producing a computer that works with all the technology I need as.

As Apple does.

Right.

And so you.

And I'm not responsible with what they do with the money, but if I have a choice between.

I, I've, you know, well, you brought up Disney World.

I know people that will go to Disney World and, and spend hundreds, hundreds of dollars on tickets and then go to the Ark Encounter or the Creation Museum and complain about the price of a ticket that is like a sixth of the price.

And that's where it's like you're getting a, you know, if you.

And there's nothing wrong with being with the entertainment.

Okay.

But you're getting a better experience, 100, you know, eternally at the Ark Encounter or Creation Museum than you're going to get at Disney World.

But they won't think twice of spending the money for Disney World.

Nope.

And, and they come in and I've heard, I actually heard someone when I was at the, the museum, Creation Museum, complaining about the ticket price and me being, well, me, I went, hey, you ever go to Disney World?

And the, the wife's like, oh, I love when we go there.

I said, what are those ticket prices?

Why don't you come?

Do you complain to them?

You know, this is back to Sister Terrorists and this gets back to Sister Terror's sister, Sister Tara's original question.

And I think part of what happens is, is Christians, when they go do business with other Christians, they expect a cheaper price.

They just expect it.

Yep.

You know, I go, I go to Disney.

I have no problem paying the 400 for one ticket or whatever it is, But I go to the Ark Encounter and it's like I can barely four fork over a hundred bucks for that experience.

And of course, it's not as big of experience as Disney, but it's still a very, very Big experience.

I mean, the ark encounter is amazing.

It's worth 100 bucks and more.

But the point is, is we just, we complain about pricing at a Christian for a Christian company, and we get a similar experience.

Maybe it's a bigger experience.

So it is, I think, worth more.

I think it's genuinely worth more in value.

More value there because it's bigger.

And, and yet we don't blink twice about it.

And we gotta, we gotta, we gotta change the mentality of how Christians think about business.

We got to change the mentality how Christians think about.

I, I think of this, Gabe, is I, you know, if I literally, this is no joke.

If I had a dollar for every time a Christian expected me to give him a free copy of my book, of one of my books.

Yeah, it's like, I, I, I would be able to, like, never work again.

I mean, it's like people would be like, well, you know, you're a Christian.

You, you shouldn't be charging for a book.

I'm like, So I spent 14 years of my life studying world religions, and you should just, and that should just be for you, free.

Like, there's the book costs money to print.

I should just pay that so that you could just have it.

Like, it wasn't, you know, pulling, you know, those different religions together and systematizing them and do it.

That wasn't easy work to go through all that.

That was years of my life.

And, and yet I'm always amazed that people just think like, oh, well, you should just give that away.

Like, my response usually is, okay, do you, why don't you try that your job.

I mean, should you go.

Do you expect to get a paycheck?

Well, yeah.

Well, getting paid for my labor is actually what I think I'm, you know, I deserve.

Yeah, you know, we're, I mean, I, I do in some sense climbing uphill a little bit or kind of going against the, the, I think some of the views of the church and how they view business and what I'm doing with business makers.

But I think it's, it's, it's already been so fun to.

We just started and we just launched in April doing business makers and all the business leaders that have come in.

It's been super fruitful and encouraging.

We're also doing, like, business summits.

You can go to our website, businessmakers.network and see the summits we're doing.

So we're going, like local regions and doing summits and bringing business leaders together and having some great talks and CEOs sorry, the bee, the bees attacking me again.

Yeah.

And I was at one of those summits that you did here in.

I lived in pa, you know, and it was, you know, it was really valuable in a lot of good insight, a lot of good connections that got made.

So.

So why don't we talk about that for folks who either a they have a business or maybe don't have one, thinking of having one, trying to think of starting one.

What.

What does the business makers network do for them?

What does it offer them?

What does it cost to.

To be part of it?

What opportunities are there?

Yeah, so I mean, you know, we have different tiers to be able to handle, you know, employees to be able to handle entrepreneurs and be able to handle CEOs that, you know, make a lot of money.

And so everyone can come in at their tier and it fits their abilities.

And then you immediately have access to the international network of business leaders of everyone in there.

We have an app that, that, you know, is where our business community is at.

So people can chat in the app, ask questions, you know, that kind of thing.

Ask questions of one each other, one another, that kind of stuff.

We are working on our first national conference next next year in Phoenix, Arizona.

Last week in Phoenix and last week in February.

And so that'll be another place, another piece of value where the community is the most valuable parts of this.

You get to join a bunch of motivated business leaders and they're more than willing to help.

I'm starting a business.

What you know, what do you recommend?

Is this a good business model?

What, what is a good business model for the business I'm starting?

All that advice and help is there.

And one of the things I've been doing, there's anybody who signs up for the network, I just set up a call with them.

Hey, how'd you find out about us?

What are you doing?

Just want to get to know you.

That's been super fruitful.

Just having a, building a relationship with business leaders in the network just as when they sign up, you know, and I tell everybody, hey, to call each other, talk to each other, get to know each other and everything.

So those are some practical benefits of what's going on.

We're working on.

So the business community.

The second thing is we're working on.

This is going to grow.

You know, we're, we're new, we're a new network.

So this is going to grow over the years, but working on creating kind of like an economic development engine where there will be layers to this, people need mentoring in their business.

People need their businesses starting up.

They need help.

Their.

Their business having a bad quarter or two quarters in sales, and they need help.

You know, it's like we'll have, as it grows, we'll have a lot of those pieces put in place.

And then secondly in the economic development engine is we want to create an investment fund for that, for those who join the network.

And so, as you know, business startup or as businesses need investment in their company, they can apply to the economic development fund and only inside the network.

Because what we need to do is we really need to think.

And it's funny, when you talk about business, sometimes people just kind of disconnect the gospel from everything you do.

Everything you do should be about the gospel.

Everything.

How you love your neighbor, how you contract with your other businesses, how you pay them on time, all that stuff.

That's all connected to the gospel.

So as you build a thriving company, you know, you're.

Let's say you're CEO of a company of 50 people.

Well, that's 50 families you're providing for.

I mean, that's, that's real tangible, you know, serving and loving your neighbor.

That's real gospel.

And so we really, I really think economic development.

We need to take economic development so more, way more seriously.

And I want Business Makers to become the center for economic development for the church in the kingdom.

And then last thing that we're going to do as a, as a business network, and some of the value that's, that's happening as a business network is we are absolutely going to use our network as a network for political influence.

Christians shy away so much from this.

This is a scary term here, political influence, but that's how you actually love your neighbor.

How you vote is how you love your.

It was one way.

You love your neighbor.

How you vote politically, what president you vote for, what local city council member you vote for.

What?

If you vote for a socialist, you are not loving your neighbor.

If you vote for a socialist mayor, you are not loving your neighbor.

Are you referring to New York?

Oh, man, you guys.

I wasn't.

But now, Now I am.

You vote for a mayor who wants to take over all the grocery stores in New York, you are not loving your neighbor.

One of the best ways to love your neighbor is staying on the word of God.

Influence politics, for the freedom, the biblical freedoms that we have and for the economic benefit of the church.

And so political influence.

So for example.

I'll just give you an example.

Scott Bottoms in Colorado, he's running for governor.

He's a solid Christian brother.

He's been in the house in Colorado for 12 years or something.

And Colorado is awful.

The politics are awful.

He's running forever.

Well, our network has a call, conference call scheduled with him two weeks.

Just our network with Scott talking about his run for governor, who he is.

You know, we're going to get to know him.

I know him.

I've known him for three years, so.

But he's a solid Christian brother and I want, I want the network to get behind him.

I don't.

It's not required.

You don't have to.

But I want the network to know about this guy.

So we want to use Business Makers Network for political influence for the good of the church and the good of your community.

So I'm not talking about like any sort of twisted, perverted political influence.

I'm just talking about natural.

We're, you know, I call the governor of Colorado and say, hey, I got, you know, our chapter in Colorado has 300 CEOs in the network.

We manage probably about $5 billion in revenue in the state of Colorado.

And I'm, we manage about, let's say, 3,000 employees out of our, out of our 300 CEOs.

Like, we mean a lot to Colorado.

Here's the economic freedoms.

We'd like to see you work with the House and the Senate on.

Here's the legislation that would really bless the church, really bless businesses, really bless families.

And that's just, we're just saying what we believe.

We're just socialists.

Do this all the time, right?

Yeah.

This is exactly what George Soros does.

Yeah.

And no one bats an eye.

Yep.

So why shouldn't Christians.

Yeah.

Because I mean, those things, right.

They, what you're talking about, Gabe, they end up affecting the community as well.

Because you make this call to the governor, all of these CEOs that have all these employees, it affects all these employees, it affects the church, which, you know, then affects the community because it opens up all of these different freedoms for, for these businesses.

They can hire more people, they can bring more resources in the community, whatever they need.

They can help the poor, help the orphans, fight against abortion, do all these different things that the church can do.

Right.

And then all it's doing is the network teaching the governor or, well, working with the governor on how to be biblical within the community.

So we want to, so that's, that's some big vision benefits.

We're creating chapters in local cities.

So we'd love to have a chapter in, you know, and I'm, you know, Boise, Idaho, chapter in Dallas, Texas.

All that stuff we're working on, we got.

We just, we're rolling out all our chapters or our first initial wave of chapters are coming out.

Any in Atlanta that you know of?

Um, we have a, um, guy that actually is gonna be the chapter president for your area.

I think he's a little outside of Atlanta, but you should absolutely connect with him.

He might be in Maretta, maybe Marietta.

Marietta.

Excuse me.

Yes.

Yeah, come on now.

Absolutely.

Let me say for folks.

Let me just share the screen.

So plc.

This is.

This is the website, right?

So it's.

It's businessmakers Dot Network.

Bring it up.

It's not on the screen.

Not me.

I thought it was.

I thought it was showing.

Let me, let me put it in a different window.

I'm just glad you're having technology problems.

Oh, I see why it switched me.

And then I, I have to add it in.

Okay, there we go.

Let's make that big.

No, not that way.

This way.

Come on.

I'll do that.

There we go.

So there's the website.

So, so just make, make a note that it's business makers.network.

Yep.

Not.

It's not the.com one.

So what you have here is you, here's, you know, you can join here.

It has, you know, how much it would cost per year at each of the different tiers.

As he was talking about some of the things that you're going to see here, right?

How you can have an impact, how your, your business can have an impact.

What, what is about, you know, so you could check out some of the, the differences here.

Okay.

The, the different options they have, you know, some different resources that I want encourage you guys to check out because it's, it's something where I think as.

As Christians, we don't do enough of this.

We don't.

We really don't.

I think, I think it's part of it, like we were joking a bit earlier, but part of our, say, tribalism of we want to be only with those that we agree with.

And I'm going to say this coming from, you know, I was.

My seminary was a fundamentalist Baptist, know, dispensational seminary, and very happy to promote those three things.

But the, the fundamentalist movement had a lot of good things that it did.

But one of the struggles I've seen with it is the separatism.

You know, all the, you know, like, I remember taking a class in seminary on ecclesiastical separation.

You had to be able to define all the different ways you should be separating from those that don't agree with you.

I actually got an A on my paper totally disagreeing with everything that was taught in the class.

And the professor actually gave me the A and said I disagree with your conclusion but I can't disagree with any of your arguments.

So I just had to make the argument stronger.

But I think, I think this is a big thing is, you know, so much of Christianity is about, you have to, we have to be 100% agreement.

And like we said, Gabe and I could be really good friends, get to know each other, disagree theologically and yet work together with, on things because we know we're both going to be with Christ, we both love the Lord, we love one another and we, we love the study of God's word.

Even if we come to different conclusions, it doesn't mean, mean we're being liberal by working with other believers that have a different theological point than us.

And it, it's something where, you know, I think Gabe, this is a network where people can, can use their business to further the kingdom of God here on earth with the money God's given them and the business God's given them and the tools God's given them to help one another to do just that.

Would that be a fair argument in your opinion?

You know, I think you make a great post mill argument right there, Andrew.

I, I, hey look, you could be postmill all you want on earth because you won't be in heaven.

That's all.

Well, not, I'd add to that, it's.

A short lived postmill.

Yeah, that's funny.

I think there's also add to my experience in the church regarding businesses growing up.

I grew up in the PCA church, kind of the reform, you know, whiskey drinking, cigar smoking, Calvinist kind of thing.

Right.

But when it came to money and it came to business, I, I would say whenever sermons were preached on, you know, maybe towards business, towards money, stuff like that, all the sermons I would ever hear were, you know, if you're rich, be generous with your money, which is absolutely, you can find biblical principles for that.

The other sermon out here is, you know, make sure you have a good work life balance with your family, don't overdo the work kind of thing.

And again you can find biblical principles for that.

But I never heard the sermon of the, of the parable of talents, Matthew 25, where the master gives 110 talents to one guy, five talents to the other guy, you know, one talent to the, to the last guy and he Says, take good care of it.

When I come back, I'll call you to account.

And what happens is, is, excuse me, is five talents, two talents and one talent in Matthew 25.

And what happens is, is the master leaves and he tells him, go, go, you know, invest it, go take care of it.

I expect the return on investment.

And the first guy has five talents, he turns it into ten talents.

The second guy has two talents, he turns into four towns.

And the last guy had one talent.

Nervous, scared, scared of his master.

Went very.

That is not true.

That's definitely not.

I do not take it and bury it.

I get it.

And then I go, what happened to it?

Where'd it go?

Taxes took it.

Yeah, exactly.

But there's, there's a couple big takeaways from this parable.

One is the guy that got condemned and judged and it was a serious judgment, you know, it was a, it was a judgment of going to hell.

Judgment was the guy who just buried his talent.

He didn't lose the talent, he just buried it, didn't make money off it.

So what, what God wants is, he wants, wants your life, your body, your heart, your soul, your children.

He wants them, he wants to see a return on investment, on everything you do in life.

That's right, he wants, he's going to come back and call you to account.

So, you know, so put this in, let's say business sense, let's apply this to business.

If you have a 20 million dollar company, I think possibly potentially what it means for you to be faithful is turn it into a 4,40 million dollar company, you know, if you have 5 million dollar company, 10 million dollar company, you know, he wants to see you do the best you can with the talents and gifts he's given you.

And he wants to see a return on investment, you know.

Yeah, that's capitalism.

Absolutely.

The second thing you notice about this, this parable is God's, it's kind of economic agnostic.

And what I mean by that is that it.

He's not talking about, well, if the economy's hard, you know, here's how you do it.

If economy's doing well, you know, he's, he's just saying you do the best you can no matter what's going on in the economy.

And so, you know, but, and I'll say lastly, I think there's a fourth guy in that parable and it is Drew.

And that fourth guy in the parable, he's not mentioned, this is extra biblical.

This is me adding to the reading into the text which is why this guy's drew.

But imagine you have a fourth guy in the parable and he's given two talents or whatever, he takes it, he invests it and he loses it.

He took the risk and he lost it.

I still, he might need to owe it back to the master.

Right.

Pay it back somehow figure out how to pay back.

But I still don't, I don't think that guy would have gotten judged as harsh as the guy who buried his own talents.

Talents in his backyard.

Yeah, it would have been more of a talking to.

It would have been like, okay, how did you invest?

Let's, let's look at the strategy you used so that next time you can invest a little wiser and it'd be.

Yeah, you know, you pay me back the 20.

Yeah, the two.

Two talents or whatever, you know, so, yeah, so I think they're, they're definitely a conversation there, but it'd be a discipleship conversation, not like you're going to hell kind of conversation.

Yeah.

And so this is, I think, one of the reasons now in the charismatic church, they don't have this problem.

Problem Charismatic church, they know that their money, their business, everything's for the kingdom, Kingdom, kingdom, kingdom.

So they get it in a way that I think the, you know, my Protestant brothers and sisters, and I'm sure, you know, a lot of evangelicals are in these camps too.

I, I feel like every time I'd hear a sermon on business and money growing up is almost some sort of like guilt driven kind of sermon versus, like, no, the pastor should say no, you need to take what God has given you.

You need to double it.

You need.

God wants to see an ROI on the talents, gifts, and money he's given you.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the charge of our time.

There's a reason why, you know, I got kicked off of infrastructure for crosspolitik and Vimeo and stuff like that, and I got suspended or.

And suspended and canceled from YouTube during 2020 because the Pagans own it.

Well, we need, we need to encourage people to think about dominating the business world for the glory of God.

Yeah.

Being that Protestant.

Bring that Protestant work ethic back.

You know, that's, that's an interesting point because a couple years ago.

Well, it was more than a couple years ago when they were doing the reform con, I think, at Jeff Durbin's church and Marcus Pittman gave a talk about Christians and technology and how a lot of the technological advances we have are because of Christians.

Like the telephone and everything.

Like that.

But there was a conversation afterwards where I think they were at Jeff's house or something, and a lot of people like Gary Demar was there and all these other people, and Marcus Pittman was talking about YouTube and he was talking about how, like, we need Christians to develop Christian platforms like this that last right now.

We.

We start a platform, but we don't see it through.

And it doesn't last.

It kind of fizzles out.

It doesn't gain traction like all these other Pagan platforms.

That's right.

And.

And so I would add a layer to.

To that analysis and kind of go back, how did we get here?

I think we got here through the church, for one, not discipling and casting that vision for its people.

I would say secondly, and this is just kind of a.

Maybe more of a practical historical analysis, too.

My dad's parents, you know, kind of came out of the Great Depression, right.

They experienced the Great Depression.

Save, save, save.

At whatever, whatever level.

And.

And then.

So my dad grew up, I think, in a generation that really valued job security at a very high level.

So they went and worked for the people building the infrastructure.

They didn't take some risks, maybe that they should have.

They didn't.

They weren't entrepreneurs very, very much.

And so I'd say my dad's generation, job security was super important.

And, and nothing necessarily totally wrong with that.

But now we have.

The Pagans own all the infrastructure.

Yeah.

The unbelievers own all the infrastructure.

They own Facebook, they own, you know, YouTube, they own Microsoft, they own Apple, they own, you know, it's like you can name all the key infrastructural businesses that we almost touch every day in one form or another.

Yeah.

And instead, I, I think we need to build a generation of builders, entrepreneurs, those who know that infrastructure is super key and important and, and key and important not just.

Not just to make money for themselves and their employees and all that, but also key and important for the health and liberty of our nation.

Like business matters.

Like.

Go ahead.

You know, I was going to say, growing up Jewish, it's, you know, there's a.

There's a perspective that a lot of people don't understand.

You know, a lot of people will criticize Jewish people loving money.

And there's a different view that Jewish people have about money after the Holocaust, and it.

Is this the reason so many of them become doctors, lawyers, you know, positions that make money is because they realize what happened in the Holocaust.

And their view is if, if they're making the money and they're, they're the ones donating to politicians.

There's the one that, where the people are depending upon them.

They have the influence.

And the thought is that, that they have, is if they have, that they can, they can prevent against persecution, they'll be out to fight because people will be dependent upon them as the ones that their livelihoods are tied to them.

And that's a mindset that Jewish people have.

That is really.

I think what you're to referring.

Referring to is that we, we need to see that our money is not our own.

Our money is a stewardship that God has given to us.

He lends us this money and how we do with it.

I mean, the parable you referred to, right.

How what we do with that money that God gives us to be stewards of, well, you know, we're going to be accountable for that.

Are we using that money just so that we can make more money, so that we can have a big bond boat and a nice house and a nice car?

Or are we doing it to further the kingdom of God, to help other believers, to be a good testimony to unbelievers?

Right.

You know, it's, it's sad how some unbelievers, excuse me, some unbelievers can have a better testimony with their money than believers do.

I'll give a.

For instance, someone who I think is an unbeliever.

And if you disagree with me.

Oh, oh, well, you're gonna have to justify this.

But Donald Trump, who I don't think is a believer in Christ, no matter how much he wants to claim.

So just based on what he, he says and thinks of, of, you know, why he's going to heaven by working his way there.

You know, there's someone who, who I know who ran into Trump in an L in the elevator at Trump Plaza at Trump palace in New York.

She didn't even know who he was, but he said something and she totally disagreed with it.

Yeah.

And so she said, I disagree with you.

And he says, really?

Why?

And so she explained why.

And she was just looking to use a bathroom, right?

So she goes, you know who's just in the elevator trying to find a bathroom?

But she go, she gets back to her table and two, two of the security of the hotel security come over and they're like, ma', am, were you, Were you in the elevator just talking to someone about your views?

And she's like, yeah.

He's like, well, that, that was Donald Trump, the owner of this hotel.

He just wants you to know your Dinner's paid for.

Anything you get is.

Is covered because he respected that she disagreed with him.

Right.

And he's, He's.

He doesn't.

There's a lot of stories with that guy, with that.

He.

He's not viewing his money as something that is for him to get more, but he's, He.

He uses that to help others out.

Now I do get to give a shout out to someone I met at, at Fight, Laugh Feast last year.

The real Parker Brown was saying, yeah, what's up, fam?

Love you keep grinding brothers for the Kingdom.

He is with the Watch well podcast, which is one if you guys, for those of you who love movies, which is really me, Drew, you know.

Yeah, very much so.

Yeah.

Okay.

We should, we should have a trivia one night so everyone can just see how much, how much you love movies.

Yeah.

So.

So I didn't, you know, I purposely.

Gabe, I purposely didn't do any of our sponsor spots because I wanted to actually do a longer spot for a specific thing coming up soon that's near and dear to your heart because, well, you run it.

Fight, Laugh, Feast, which is where we met.

I've been promoting this the last couple weeks, folks.

And I said, I'll say this, even with Gabe here, it's not a crowd of people there typically that I would be theologically in line with.

But I mean, the thing that I love the most is the name of it says it all.

You can fight, you can laugh, you can go out for dinner and Feast.

I've had some really, really great conversations with folks I don't agree with there, but I didn't find anybody that this was the thing, even though I, I knew that I was kind of like the outcast there, you know, the dispensationalist among the, the, the, the few.

The, the.

The crowd of people.

There was probably not too many dispensationals there, but being there and being able to have discussions.

I mean, we're going to talk about what the topic is this year, which goes right in line with what we've been talking about all show of needing to have a different view of how we view not just our business, but schooling and education for the kingdom.

But being able to go out there, have the discussions.

The fellowship is on.

You can get the.

I, I admit you can go and get all the teachings online.

You can do that.

What you can't get is the fellowship.

You can't get that iron sharpening iron that I really found at Fight Left Feast, where there is a promotion of disagreement in love.

And so, so let's, let's talk about Fight, Laugh, Feast and why education of our children is so important.

Yeah, so let me go back a little bit here because we started our, our show Cross Politic.

Jesus is lord over politics.

We started that.

In fact, you can see that's my logo.

The, the, I can't, I can't do it on your screen here, but the, the, you know, flag.

Bowing to the cross.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

We started that in 2016.

And one of the reasons why we started Cross Politic is because at least in my generation, the church did not disciple us well on how to apply the Bible to politics.

We believe the Bible applies to every area of life, but it seemed like the church had carved out an area where they wouldn't really apply the Bible or talk about it.

And politics was one of those issues.

And so I thought it was super important.

And, and I thought a lot of people were probably in my shoes where they haven't, weren't taught about how to apply the Bible to politics.

And so we started Cross Politic and God's been very kind to it, blessed it.

We've been around for nine years now.

It's, you know, we've had Ben Shapiro on, you know, Ted Cruz, you know Matt Walsh, I mean, all sorts of leaders on the show from a variety of backgrounds.

And it's all about Bible and politics.

And after four years of doing it, we started, you know, one of the things I, you know, I didn't want to become like we've, I didn't want to become like a celebrity, you know, ministry podcast guy.

Because it is weird.

It's a weird thing that, and that we're kind of one of the first, it's the first world weird thing where no nation in the history of nations where the average Joe can become a celebrity, but that never, you know, now the, you know, Pharaoh's a celebrity or whatever is well known guy.

Right.

You know, and Moses was a well known guy.

But generally speaking, we now have this, you know, entertainment culture where, you know, and you, you listen to people over, over the podcast or watch them on TV and you just have this way different perspective of them.

You know, basically celebrity perspective.

And we didn't want that to happen with what we were doing.

So we actually, that was one of the reasons why we started our first conference called the Fight Laugh Feast Conference.

Also we wanted to be able to, if we're talking and discipling people, we want to know them.

You know, if you talk and disciple People and you don't really know them, you know, so that's the second reason why we wanted to start the conference.

And then lastly, the conference Christian conference circuit, to me, is just so boring.

And it's the same topics again and again.

The holiness of God, which, again, that's a great topic, but it's the same rinse and repeat kind of topic because the church doesn't is pretty scared or pretty adverse to taking on controversial topics.

And so we knew, we thought the conference world needed to be shaken up, and we thought the conference world needed, you know, unvarnished truth in the conference world.

So our Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, that tagline Fight, Laugh, Feast actually comes from our show.

The reason why we came up with that tagline is because we believe Christians need to fight with each other and fight against the world.

So iron sharpens iron.

We believe Christians need to, you know, fight, laugh, laugh.

The joy of the Lord is our strength.

We have too many Christians who are depressed about what's going on in the world around them, too many Christians who are a little bitter about it, you know, a little frustrated scream at Fox News every night.

You know, we have a culture in the church that needs far more joy than we have right now.

The joy of the Lord is our strength.

It's actually a source of strength in fighting the challenges and problems and struggles of the world and your own sin and your own, you know, struggles that you have.

And so fight, laugh, and then feast.

God prepared a table in the front in the presence of David's enemies.

We need to recover feasting.

We need to recover the dinner table for fellowship with the family, for fellowship with Christ Christians, for fellowshipping and ministering to your.

To your unbelieving neighbors.

We need to recover the.

The idea of feasting and drinking wine and eating big, you know, steaks and, you know, and we do what we call in our community, we have.

We do Saturday night dinner is a big thing for us in our community because it's a great way to fellowship and it's a great way to end the week, and it's a great way to get your kids excited about some Sunday.

You know, it's.

So we do what we call Sabbath dinner, which is just kind of a.

It's a more special dinner than the rest of the week.

You know, the.

The special food is out.

The special wine glasses are out.

The special, you know, it's like, it's just a bit.

We're making a bigger deal out of it because ultimately we want to use it to prepare our hearts to worship the Lord tomorrow, you know, the next day, beyond just the fellowship and everything that it creates.

And that re I think that I idea and concept needs to be recovered.

So Fight Laugh, Feast.

That's the name of our conference.

And then we always have a topic every year.

This year, our topic, we're in Nashville or Tennessee at Rocket Town, Michael W. Smith's nonprofit.

And it's October 16th through the 18th.

And the topic is school wars.

School wars.

Public schools have have been one of the central mechanisms for how liberals have taken over our kids.

Christians for far too long have sent their kids to be discipled by unbelievers eight hours a day, 16,000 hours by the time they graduate high school, versus the two or three hours you might have in the evening before they go to bed.

And so the public schools have been the main mechanism of discipleship.

The church can't compete with those hours.

The church gets two hours on Sunday, you know, mom and dad can't even compete with those hours.

They get three hours on Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday, you know, whatever, before they go to bed.

And so we've been giving our kids over to unbelievers to be discipled.

And we need to reclaim Christian education.

We need to reclaim Christian discipleship.

We need to reclaim what true education is and what true discipleship is.

So not only are we going to address kind of the classical Christian movement, we're going to address homeschooling.

We're going to dress off a number of, you know, just kind of education specific topics like recovering the use of music and discipling your kid in education.

But we're also going to be talking about kind of the broader view of discipleship and how we need to be thinking the reason why the church, when the constitution was ratified, 1987, 1989, there was.

America was made up of 99% Protestants, you know, 99%.

How do we as a Christian nation go from basically being 100% Christian to where we're at now?

And it's because we lost our kids.

It's because we didn't disciple our kids.

It's because we have not taken God's word seriously in how we view our kids for a thousand generations?

And so we need.

We.

We got a lot of work to do on how we think about education and how we think about discipleship with our children.

You rebuild Christendom with your kids, you take back America with your kids, you take back your city with faithful children.

That's how you win.

What is it?

There's this video I Saw in Great Britain, everyone knows this.

The Muslims know this.

You know, all the, all the world leaders know this.

And that's why they built public school systems so they could get your kids too.

But this, this Muslim was arguing with this British guy on the street.

I think it was a British guy.

And the Muslim was like, how many kids do you have?

The British guy was something like one or something like that.

He's.

I got, I got five.

We're gonna win.

Yep, we're gonna win.

But.

But this is.

God actually made some.

So we.

I believe that the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as water covered the sea.

I believe that the gospel wins.

I believe that Jesus wins.

He's King of Kings, Lord of Lords.

I believe that there will be more Christians in heaven than unbelievers in hell.

That's.

I believe that too, because I'm pre meal.

Amen.

Amen.

That's.

And that.

But, but that's a victorious gospel and a victorious king we serve.

But yeah, what if, if.

Let's just take the evangelism out of this.

Sure.

Christians absolutely need to be evangelizing.

I'm not saying that, but if, if Christians alone would actually be fruitful and have more than two kids, actually be fruit, you know, have four kids, five kids.

The, the faithful Jews in Israel, I just was there last week, I think they're having something like four or five kids per, per household.

That's a lot.

On average, four or five.

And again, the kind of.

The faithful Jews that are, that are serious about what's going on in Israel, I think Christians alone, if you just had faithful children in your house, and they grow up, and they have faithful children.

So let's see, my pastor ran the math one time and he said if you have four faithful kids and they grow up and get married and then they have, you know, four faithful kids, and then they grow up and get married and four kids that believe in Jesus and they grow up getting married, four kids.

You do that, I think, for like a hundred years and you end up with like 250,000 descendants or something like that.

Just in like 100 years.

And just, just your family.

We're just talking about, you know, the Wrench family, the Rapaport family, or, you know, you know, we're just.

If you just have faithful four children and they grow up and they have faithful four children, they grow up, you know, just Gabe's family in, you know, 100 years or so.

I forget the actual timeline now.

You would have 250, 000 people.

250, 000 people.

That's funny, buddy.

He wants to get on camera.

Yeah.

You know, I pushed him away because he just got out of the shower.

But let me finish this point here real quick, Andrew.

250, 000 people here in Idaho.

That's all the votes you need for to win governorship.

Yeah.

The Wrench clan alone.

If God blesses us to a thousand generations of God bless us faithfulness, the Wrench family alone could vote for a governor and win alone.

My point is there is that if you just have.

If you're faithful to the Lord and you disciple your kids in the Lord and they grow up to be.

To trust in the Lord and they, they repeat and believe over generations, which is what God promises.

God promises, if you obey me, I'll bless you to a thousand generations then.

Nope, he dropped out.

Oh, well, I'll say this, you know, to Gabe's point, he'll probably come back in the.

To Gabe's point, Ray Comfort did a video some time ago and it was on.

It was on exactly this point with Muslims.

He was showing the birth rate of Muslims around the world in different countries, countries, showing how westernized countries are.

You know, I think he said that it was like 1.2 or 1.4 children.

In other words, you know, when you look at the average American family, the average American family, Ray Comfort in that video said, was like 1.4.

I think it was actually so.

So you look at American families, on average 1.4.

Then you looked at the Muslim family and it was like five kids, six kids.

And then he looked in Europe and you know, and he was, he basically was showing the numbers that within.

Within 10 to 20 years, the, the Muslims in Europe would exactly as.

As Gabe said, they would have enough power base to start affecting votes.

And look at who the.

Who's the mayor of Muslim of, of London.

It's a Muslim London.

And he, he was saying that within 100 years, just by population alone, the Muslim community will.

Will just dwarf all the Christian communities.

You know, there's.

There's a lot that Gabe's saying that really resonates with me and especially with the topic of the fight LA feast this year.

So my wife.

You're gonna be there, right, Drew?

I don't know, maybe the 13th is my wife's, is my wife's birthday.

And you're a birthday present.

It's in Nashville, you said?

Yeah, Nashville.

16th, 17th and 18th.

That's.

No, it's a, it's about two or three hours.

Away, I think.

Yeah, but so.

So my wife and I have three.

Three kids.

And our kids, they're all.

They're all boys, but they're like two years apart pretty much.

And so every time we would get pregnant and we'd announce it, someone would always have the joke, right, well, you know, what causes that?

Right?

And I'm like, well, it was on purpose.

And then we would get people from within the church.

Church, some who are family, that would say, I don't know how y' all are going to do this.

I don't know how y' all are going to have these many kids.

I don't know how you.

And I'm going, well, first, it's a biblical mandate.

Be fruitful and multiply.

Christians are supposed to have children.

And the reason all of these liberals are taken over is because they had the children.

And Christians stopped at one or they stopped at two, and then they sent their kids off to.

To public school to be indoctrinated by the liberal agenda.

And then they're shocked when their kids leave the church and become liberals.

Right.

Like.

And so for our five year old, we just started classical conversations this year, and we received a ton of pushback from people within our family that we're just saying, you're not going to be.

Able to do this.

He's going to fall behind.

And.

And my first thought is, okay, he's five.

Like, he can only retain so much anyway.

Right.

But right now he's doing absolutely great.

Right.

And so it's like we get.

I've.

We get more pushback from people within the church or people within our family that.

That are professing believers than we do from people outside of the church.

Like, we get more understanding from people outside of the church that go, yeah, I don't want my kid to go to public school either, you know, but people within the church push back against it.

Yeah.

So, Gabe, for folks who let me give a broad view, you got those who have children or those who don't.

Right.

Because this is going to be a focus on education.

And so I could see some people going, well, you know, I don't have kids in the house.

It's not an issue.

My kids are grown.

Should they attend?

Should they come?

I mean, obviously, Drew should be there.

He's only two hours.

It's gonna.

I'm gonna be in the air more.

More than he's going to be driving.

So there's no excuse, but for, you know, someone like, like myself who does, who.

My kids are all grown.

My kids Are having kids.

What am I going to get out of it?

Yeah, I mean, I think a couple things.

One is, the topic is actually bigger than, you know, public school versus Christian school debate.

The topic is a view of really ultimately how to recover the broken church in America.

We, we, you know, there's, there's many responses that I could have here, but you know, if, if, if we don't understand that the church is broken and how it's in its view of discipleship that the church is broken in its ability to raise kids for kids out of the church.

You know, most churches, you know, it's easy to see in mega churches.

Mega churches are this like a Starbucks model.

They, they depend on constantly finding new customers because they can't raise their kids to fill their pews when they grow older.

That's the megachurch.

It, absolutely.

That's because they recycle their congregation.

Probably most megachurches probably every, you know, five years, whatever, depending on how big the church is.

So you have to constantly being seeker friendly and constantly be getting new people in the doors like Starbucks needs to, to be able to maintain your mega church.

And so discipleship is just so broken that we can't keep our kids.

Southern Baptist did a study, I think it's 2012, but they found in this study that upwards to 80% of their own kids were leaving the church by their freshman year in college.

So something like 50 to 80% on the high side.

80, 50.

And which is, which is insane.

If you can't keep your own kids in the church, no wonder the church is so impotent, impacting society and culture.

And no wonder are evangelisms so impotent.

You can't keep your own kids.

How are you going to be effective evangelizing?

You know, this is why Paul in First Timothy Chapter 3 included the requirement that a pastor or an elder have faithful children.

If a pastor and elder does not have faithful children, they should step down as an elder or pastor.

It's that simple.

Because Paul is saying your leaders need to have faithful kids.

If they can't manage their own household well, how will they be able to manage the household of God?

And so the topic of school wars I think is addressing one of the fundamental issues in the church.

And we need to recover a vision for how our leaders raise their kids.

For our leaders disciple the church for how leaders think about church and their fruit.

Do I have good fruit in my church?

Are the kids growing up and staying in my church?

That's.

You should, you should, you should look at that and how parents keep their kids.

You know, so it's the topic.

School wars is just, I think covering.

So it's so important.

I think this topic and what we're doing and, and everything.

And I just, you know, of course it's my conference.

I always think it's always the most important topic here kind of thing.

But it, you know, God's.

We.

One of the difficulties for our conference has always been our topics.

You know, we did a top.

We did a conference on the politics of sex a couple years ago.

We did a conference on the politics of six day creation at the Ark Encounter.

We did a conference on worship is warfare.

Our conference topics are not the boring topics you get at the standard evangelical conference.

We, we think that our Christian churches nationwide need to be woken up and we think we need to cover the hard topics in a way that, you know.

Hang on.

I'm sure, sure.

And we need to recover, you know, that really.

I'll take, Let me just leave this here with you.

This last one, the Bible is.

Addresses every topic.

Why are we so afraid to bring the word of God into even the most controversial topics here in America?

And it.

And I, I think the church has largely become an apathetic church in America.

This is the history of Israel.

Whenever God blessed Israel, it was, you know, 40, 40 years until God started forgetting Israel.

Until Israel started forgetting God.

Right.

You know, when, whenever God blessed Israel, it was just one generation before they started falling into sin idolatry again.

Because the hardest thing the church needs to learn that Israel could not figure out is how to handle the blessings of God.

We're pretty good.

We're pretty good at getting on our knees and calling on God when, when we're, when we're struggling, when there's frustration around us, when our bills are tight this month, when our.

But you get on your knees and glorify God when things are good.

That's the hardest.

That's the thing that Israel couldn't get.

And I think that's what's happened in America.

God's blessed the church significantly.

We're the richest religious movement in the world.

World.

There's so much money in the church and, and yet we, you know, I got two cars, couple TVs and a house.

Right.

The, the urgency for Christians to seek Christ amidst.

We're the most blessed nation in history, in God's history right now that I know of.

We're so blessed here.

And yet the church is failing in its desire and intense seeking of a holy God that we need to humble ourselves before.

So I would say that's kind of the last, the last real, the real big point is like we need to repent of our apathy.

It's obvious that the church has gotten apathetic.

It's obvious that the church doesn't know how to handle the blessing of God.

And so we need man, you know, we need, we need to be faithful to God.

And so I would encourage, I mean, so let me, let me add this one point here.

The Fight Life Feast conference, we're very different.

We literally start off our conference what we call with beer and psalms.

We have juice boxes for kids.

We have a jumpy castle and we literally set up a jumping castle at our conferences for the kids.

We're very family oriented conference.

But we, you know, people have, people can have a little rub with the beer and psalms part.

But basically we start off the conference with worship and we think beer and wine is a blessing from God.

And we also think it can be used for great harm and destruction in the Christian life.

But we don't shy away from the sharp things of God.

We need to learn how to handle the sharp things of God.

So that's why we do fear in psalms.

The psalms are sharp.

Psalms are sharp book.

And so it's a, it's a fantastic Thursday night is just one of the funnest parts of the, of the conference because everyone's just there to fellowship and worship and, and hang out and feast and, and have a good time.

So that's how we start off the conference.

And then we have a jumping castle for the kids all three days of the conference.

And, and then we, you know, have kind of after party.

We do, you know, a lot of fellowship stuff, a lot of fellowship stuff.

And then we have normal talks and stuff throughout the conference.

Pastor Doug Wilson speaking.

Pastor George Grant speaking.

Larry Tout Townton is speaking.

We got Dr. Ben Merkel, President of New St. Andrews College speaking.

We got David Bonson speaking on free market capitalism and the economy and education.

So I mean it's just, it's probably one of the most unique conferences you ever come to because of the variety of speakers and topics and, and it should be just really a blessing and everything.

So we'd love to.

You go to fightlafffeast.com fightlafffeast.com to sign up for the conference.

And of course if you want to booth there, we still have some booth spots available.

There's a lot of all sorts of opportunities for sponsorships and attending and stuff like that.

So we hope to see as many people there.

Yeah.

So I hope, I hope you're hearing, though, a consistency throughout the evening that we've been talking, because even with the conference on a topic like school wars, it's not about how, you know, whether you put your kids in public school, private, you know, private Christian school, homeschool, as much as it is about the kingdom of God.

Same thing about your business.

And so it's more setting the idea of how, as believers, we should be viewing these things.

Then you can walk away from those different topic topics that you hear where you might be disagreeing with some and, and have those good or as you know, Gabe said, sharp conversations with one another.

Yeah.

And then go out, have a meal and, and enjoy the time together.

That's kind of unique, you know.

And so, you know, I, if, if, you know, especially those of you who are, you know, dispensational, please come and join me.

So I'm not all alone, you know.

Andrew, it really sounds like this.

This conference strives to apply all of Christ to all of life.

Yeah.

I think that's what their goal is.

Well, that's one of the, that is one of like the taglines I hear Doug Wilson say all the time.

Yeah.

Yep.

And you also.

So you also have a magazine for.

That's based out of the same name as the conference.

Magazine.

Yeah.

Fight Left Feast magazine.

And it's.

I love, I love what we're doing.

The magazine.

I want to make magazines great again.

Recover the beauty.

Recover subscription to magazines.

What's the next topic coming up?

The next topic coming up.

I haven't finalized the actual title, but it's about Jews, Israel and the church.

Yeah.

So again, that's a big topic right now.

People are fighting over a lot of division in the church, law, division, even in politics on it.

And so we are putting a magazine out on that.

We're gonna start a digital magazine starting in January so we'll have a lot more online too.

But it's a hard copy right now.

And it's a beautiful hard copy.

Actually.

I got.

Here's.

Here's my magazine right here on my coffee table.

I've.

I've just Fight, Laugh, Feast.

This one was on theonomy and natural law.

The anomy.

Natural law.

This one was on party.

Like it's 1776.

This.

This.

So I got a.

Or magazines.

That's Dictionary.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And magazines are still a very powerful tool.

I mean, I, I had one of my friends, you know, subscribe to our magazine and keeps it on his coffee table.

His mom or mother in law was a liberal Methodist.

And she'd come over, she started reading the magazine.

Well, she became her.

She started subscribing herself.

It's, you know, you can't argue with a book.

You can try to talk at it, but, you know, you can't argue with the magazine.

You process, you read, you digest.

So I really like the idea of a magazine.

And, you know, of course, everything that we do needs a lot of funding and.

And, you know, you know how it is, Andrew.

So we're.

We're pretty grateful and excited about the magazine and want to see it kind of continue to thrive.

So we're also.

We're.

We're.

So we're working on a digital form of this on substack, coming in January.

Excited about that.

I'm looking forward to.

To getting this.

Yeah.

Because there's those who are regular here, you know, that we've been talking about Israel and.

Am I freezing?

Nope, you're good here.

Good, good.

Yeah.

So, you know, the whole.

The whole topic of ISO, Andrew Rapaport.

Is, you know, Israel's a big discussion.

Drew, what are you doing?

Georgia?

So currently I work in the fragrance industry.

I work for a fragrance manufacturer working in sales, but I've also started my own business doing wax melts, room sprays, things like that.

Since I work in the industry, it's easy for me to go down, get samples, test some things out, try some new products.

So that's what I'm doing.

Yeah.

What's the application for?

What application?

Like, wax melts.

Like what.

What's the.

How to use a wax melt or, you know.

Oh, yeah.

So wax melts are like, you know, instead of a candle.

So instead of a candle, you just make the wax melts in little cubes, and then you put them in a burner, and then they just release fragrance out through your house.

Oh, super cool.

Okay, cool.

Well, and what church you at down in Georgia?

If you say on the air.

Yeah.

So I'm a member of Cassel Baptist Church and in Barto County.

Okay.

Very cool.

Yeah.

Well, that's great.

It looks like Andrew's frozen up officially.

Oh, really?

You can't hear me?

So do you mean you close out the show?

Oh, wait.

Is he frozen on your end?

Yeah, he looks like he's frozen on my end.

Oh, wow.

I can hear him.

I can't hear him.

Well, I shouldn't have said that.

We should have just acted like he was.

Yeah, I just ignored him.

And on my end is literally Frozen.

And I can't hear him.

I can't hear you.

I can't hear Andrew.

Wow.

Okay.

That's why he wasn't responding to me.

Okay, that's trippy.

So just.

Just tell him, since he can't hear.

Me, it's like Andrew's talking right now.

Ask him to.

Sending me a message.

Ask him to give.

You would have to translate.

Let him close out with anything.

Anything he wants to share.

Is it.

Is there.

So is there anything, Any last words you want to share to kind of close out this episode?

Yeah, I just, you know, I think, you know, Andrew is right in how he opened the show and kind of talking about being able to disagree and have unity.

And that shows one thing.

That shows that the bond of Christ is stronger than our disagreements.

And that's what should.

It should show, but also shows, I think people who openly disagree with me, I can love them better than people who won't share their disagreements with me.

You know, friendly fence.

Friendly fences make good neighbors.

And if I don't know what you believe about the Bible and if I don't know where you disagree with me on, it's harder to understand you and love you.

You know, if I know where you draw the fence lines, well, friendly fences make good neighbors, I can love you better.

And so I think this is important thing to recover in the church.

And I think, you know, I think we've kind of raised a generation who kind of looks at, like, Gen Z does not like the.

The current establishment.

They don't trust the current establishment.

They don't think they're, you know, millennials are getting to be part of the current establishment.

Millennials are, you know, their whole, you know, thing unto themselves in.

In Gen Z, you know, one of the reasons why we aren't connecting the next generation is because I think Gen Z actually wants to hear the debates.

Yeah, they actually want to.

To have honest conversations.

They want to know where people disagree.

They want to know, you know, why do you think Trump is a good president?

Or why do you think.

Why do you believe in predestination?

Or why do you believe in postmodern?

I think Gen Z actually wants to hear the real conversations, which is why our audience, our average audience is on the bell curve of 25 to 45.

And I think because the younger audiences are really interested in these conversations.

That's why Joe Rogan, he's all conversation and debate.

Right?

That's why all these, you know, shows are getting more traction than the church is, is because I think the honest Conversations, unfortunately, aren't happening in the church like they should be.

And so we experience that all the time.

I'm Moscow, you know, we're.

We're canceled all the time by the church.

All the time.

Yeah, all the time.

Doug's always making.

Making a news story somewhere.

Yep, that's right.

And.

And, you know, and hopefully, hopefully in the next 10, 20 years, 30 years, we'll see a lot of progress in that and that, you know, we get back to.

I mean, I mean, God put his church to be light into the world.

And if we can't disagree, if we can't debate, if we can't show the world how to let iron sharpen iron, it's no wonder we're losing America, right?

So, yeah, iron can't sharpen iron unless it comes in contact with each other.

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah.

So there you go.

There's my final thoughts.

And I still can't hear you.

Okay, let me know.

I'll close out the show and then I'll close out.

Wait, wait, Andrew, did you say you.

You would close out the show?

Yeah, I'll close.

Okay.

So with that, folks, if you want to come see me, I'll be out.

Fight.

La Feast.

Drew's gonna be there whether he knows it yet or not.

Are you paying for my hotel?

Is that what you're saying?

My wife to come, my kids.

I. I might be willing to pay for your hotel.

We could talk about that.

I wouldn't mind, but yeah, so I'll be a life.

Fight.

Laugh.

Feast.

I'm headed out right tomorrow to Washington, Indiana for Powerhouse Ministries is having a conference next weekend is Jeffrey Rice's church.

I'll be out there for the.

The.

What we're calling the Harbor Freight G3.

The, you know, the.

The Roadmap revival.

And then we have also, if you're in that same next weekend in the Philly area at my home church, Oxford Valley Chapel, one of our speakers, Aaron Brewster, will be speaking at my home church.

So if you're in the Philly area, go check out Oxford Valley Chapel.org and you can find out more about that.

And so really, really glad to have Gabe here.

Best part is now he can't hear me say any of the nice things about him unless, of course, he goes back and watches later.

So it is enjoyable having Gabe as not only on here, his, His.

His views, his insights, his friendship.

I've really learned to.

To value the friendship I have with him, even though we disagree.

And I think that's why we get along so well is, you know, and to be honest with you folks, I didn't think I would get along with folks from, you know, a Doug Wilson church.

We will be talking actually Doug Wilson was on CNN on Theology Throwdown.

We're gonna those that members of the Christian podcast community.

We're gonna talk about the CNN interview, things we liked, things we didn't.

So we're not going to shy away from it.

But you know, the, the I didn't think I would get along so well with someone, you know, at the church as I do with Gabe.

Really value that.

Really glad for that.

And so I hope.

Go down.

Hold on, I will.

I'll get, I'll figure out when.

I don't remember when we're recording September 9th.

Yeah.

So that's when we recorded.

It'll go out probably the next day.

No, we're recording it to September 16th is what I have.

Maybe I have it wrong, but I'll double check with it for you.

So, so I think it's something folks that if you could come to Fight Left east, it would be good if you could make it out to any of the events.

You're going to be blessed just with the fellowship of other saints.

And so it's, it's, it is a good time.

So thanks for, for listening there.

There probably will not be a show next week.

I'll see.

I'm going to be traveling so I, I think I will be in the air actually at the time.

So unless Drew and Tom can put something together there, there probably won't be a show next week.

Just giving you the heads up now.

And so with that, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

And we'll see you next week or week after.

See you.