Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we're all about sound doctrine for everyday people. The interview you are about to listen to andor watch on the video podcast version is right here at the Ark Encounter in Kentucky. I got the chance to sit down with Mark Spence. Mark is a courageous and passionate man filled with biblical truth. We talked about evangelism, we talked about abortion and some really tough questions on that topic and what it means to live all of life for Christ and his glory. I pray this interview is a blessing to you, and you'll be able to share it to encourage others. Let's jump right into my conversation with Mark Spence. So tell me a little bit about your ministry and what you do and what your goals are and how that weaves into evangelism pro-life, all of those things.
SPEAKER_03Yes, our founder, Ray Comfort, came here to the United States, I think, in 1989. And then I connected with Ray back in 1994, where I was just traveling with him, going to different churches, kind of carrying his bag, helping him out, accountability, fellowship, and friendship. And then he had asked me if I would design an evangelism uh school for him. So back in 2001, I wrote a curriculum alongside him and a gentleman named Kurt Cameron, and it turned into a 750-page book, which was really a novice approach to evangelism and apologetics. Ray came to the United States because he saw a problem with our evangelistic message. One, it was a life enhancement, it was a prosperity message. It was you'll never experience true peace and happiness until you ask Jesus to come into your heart. You have a God-shaped vacuum that only God can fill. And then people respond in an experimental fashion to see if the claims are true. And what does the Christian actually experience? Trials, tribulation, persecution, temptation, and suffering beyond measure. Welcome to the body of Christ. We have senior pastors that are standing up to the pulpit and saying, hey, we have some guests here today. We're so happy that you're here. Listen, we just want to tell you that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. But before I tell you about that wonderful plan, there's some needs inside the church today. You know, Early's battling cancer. Nancy lost her job this week. Susan, she doesn't know what's going on with her kids and her husband and just goes on and on. And then, oh, back to our guests. Yeah. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. You look at the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, all the things that he went through, being shipwrecked and scourged and everything else. And this is why the early church, and we go back over to the Mideast, they count the cost. They count the cost when they become a Christian. So that's the first element that's uh necessary. And then second, using the law of God, the Ten Commandments, to bring a knowledge of sin, because a sinner will not turn to the Savior unless he's convinced that he needs to be saved. And that's what the law of God does.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's really good. I want to ask you some questions about pro-life and abortion issues because I know you're well versed there, and you do a lot of work with pro-life, and you have a film coming out. Yes. You want to tell us a little bit about the film, and then I got some questions for you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, let me build it up a little bit if I may.
SPEAKER_02Go for it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So the film is called What Is It? Okay. Right. And this is the illustration that I like to give. You know, imagine you wake up early on a Saturday morning to your son calling out to you from the other room saying, Daddy, Daddy, may I kill it? You're like, wait, what? Charlie, what are you talking about? Kill what? He goes, Oh, there's a cockroach inside my room. It's dirty, it's ugly, it's taking dominion of my room. How would you respond? Charlie, kill the cockroach. Just like God said, take dominion. If, on the other hand, if Charlie responds back and he says, It's Sally, it is my sister Sally, she's driving me crazy, can I kill Sally? You'd wake your spouse up in a frenzy and saying, Hey, our little Charlie has turned into Chucky.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And we need to deal with this situation. In the same way, as you as a parent could not respond to the question, if he may kill it, we cannot answer if we can kill what is inside the womb unless we answer what it is. And so inside the film, what is it? We answer that question using science. It's the science of embryology and the science of biogenesis. Every species will bring forth after its own kind. And you're a distinct, unique individual from the moment of fertilization, never to be repeated in the future. Every embryology worth its, every embryology textbook worth its salt will easily, readily admit that. And then we have uh the science of uh, well, really philosophy, which is uh just simply the idea of we believe that uh the murdering of innocent human beings is always wrong. Abortion is the murder of innocent human beings, and therefore the premise leads to the conclusion abortion is always wrong. Right? So we go through that, and then obviously that leads into some questions, legitimate questions. What if the child is deformed? What if the mother's raped? What if, what if, what if? And so I just kind of tear down those things one at a time and dismantle them, and it's actually very easy to do so. But it more than this, right? This is not a woman's issue, a woman's rights issue. If it was a woman's rights issue, then abortion should never become legal. Because it was all men that presided on January 30th, 1973, on the U.S. Supreme Court that codified uh Roe v. Wade and made abortion legal in our states. Men decided the fate of women here in the United States. If it's a woman's issue, then abortion should never have been legal. So there's that, there's that argument, that gender politics that we obviously want to have nothing to do with, but this is a Christ gospel-centric issue. I don't want to change people's minds about abortion without their hearts being changed. Obviously, I want them to be pro-life, but if I get them to be pro-life, what are they gonna do with their girlfriend? Practice safe sex, whatever that means. They'll still be fornicating, they'll still be on their way to hell. No fornicator will inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 tells us. I want there to be a change of the heart because the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. You deal with the individual as Jesus did with the woman at the well, then we're gonna have progress, and I think that's the way to go. Can we legislate uh that morality? Yeah, we legislate morality all the time, but I'm gonna tell you, one person at a time is kind of the angle that I'm going in with this film that we're producing. Maybe it'll hit more than one person at a time, but it's none of my business. God is sovereign, God does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whomever he wants. He answers to no one, he doesn't care what you and I think about it. The Bible says that God is in heaven, he does what he pleases. So he's not moved when paupers and princes and presidents rule or reign, or when certain people die. He is the judge of the living and the dead. He holds the gavel in his hand, and when that gavel comes down, the arguments are over, the court is dismissed. God is ruling and reigning exactly as he sees fit, and he welcomes us to come alongside. So here am I. Send him no more. It's here am I, send me God. I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to go anywhere as long as it's forward. I want to step out of the boat, I want to go into the batter's box. My my John Piper said, Um, you are not your own. You've been bought with a price. And what lies before you is a stewardship from the owner for the owner. Warren Wearsby, he said, You're a Christian because somebody cared enough to share with you. Now it's your turn to return the favor. So I want to pay it forward. I want to move forward. I want to, when I listen, Costi, when I die, I want it to be said that I left everything out on the field, that I had nothing left to give. When I cross that finish line, I'm not crossing the finish line with another step to give. This is not a playground. This is a battleground. This is a battlefield. Every morning when I wake up, I reach over for God's word and I and I say, God, speak to me through your word. Because that's how God speaks to us. Amen. That is how God speaks to us, is through his word. And I grab a hold of his word and I say, God, I have to see your face before I see my wife's face. And I stumble out of bed and I go over to my sliding glass door in my master bedroom. And I salute, and the sun's not even up yet. And I say, God, I'm reporting for duty. Whatever you want to do today. My eyesight is not mine, my five kids are not mine, my wife's not mine, my finances are not mine. You have flat tires in store today. Amen. So be it. Ephesians 2.10 says that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should walk in them. And that word workmanship is the Greek word poema. Or we get the English word poem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That we are literally the expression of God's heart, the symphony of his praise, the trophy of his grace on display to walk in a holy work. Everything we do is holy. Everything we do is ordained by God to bring God glory. We have our Bibles have become nothing more than adult coloring books. We have them highlighted and underlined. We might be able to point people to a reference or so. But God says that the word that he gives to us, they are spirit, they are life, and they are truth. We are sanctified by his truth. His word is truth. Where do we go from here? What can God do with a person that is completely consecrated to him? I think this world is yet to see. Henry Valerie said, this world is yet to see what God will do to and through and with and by the person who's consecrated to him. Dio Moody was in a hotel. He read that. Shoe salesman at the time. Got down on his knees and he says, I call heaven and hell as a witness that my life is not my own. God, you do what you need to do. Nothing is mine, and you have permission. And no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much I kick and scream, never let me be out of your will. So my what I want you to honor in the future is my prayer right now, which is yes. Yes to what? Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Whatever you must do to receive the greatest amount of glory, God, it is okay with me. I readily admit I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't need to know. My daddy's in charge. My God is in charge. My father knows what he's doing. And because he knows what he's doing, I'm okay. Corey Tin Boom says, hey, when you go through a tunnel while you're on a train and you're going through a dark tunnel and you can't see what's going on, you don't take your ticket and throw it out the window and jump out with it. Buckle up and enjoy the tumultuous ride. And when your eyes are on the Lord, you can mock the tumultuous storm. It doesn't matter. In John chapter uh four-ish or John chapter five, we have the story of Jesus that is asleep in the stern, and then we have Peter. Right. Peter enters in and he goes, Hey, Jesus, don't you care that we're perishing? No, seasoned fishermen, see a Galilee, they know what's going on. And here's Jesus, he's asleep, he's at rest. And then Jesus rebukes him because of his lack of faith and that he should have known what's going on. But then we go to the last book that Peter wrote. And Peter says, Chapter 5, verse 8. Hey, you can cast all your cares on him because he cares. He went from a place costume where he was saying, Don't you care? to bro, what do you got? He can handle it. What do you got? Before you even answer, he can handle it. I don't care what you're going through, your redeemer is bigger than your past. I used to pray for amnesia because of the things that I've done, the lives that I've wrecked. I've done some terrible things in my life. Terrible things. I wanted to be a con man when I was in the world. In my BC days. When I was in the world, there was no greater tragedy than to hear. He used me. He got what he wanted from me. When I became a Christian, there was no greater thing to hear than to hear. He used me. And he got what he wanted from me. What God wants and is asking and is commanding is for people to lay down their lives. God doesn't see anything lovely in men that he saves people, but because God is love, first John 4 6, he loves to save people. This is not an invitation to come forward. This is a declaration. You must repent to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He's had no predecessor, he'll have no successor. You cannot impeach him, he's not going to resign. It doesn't matter who the president of the United States is, it doesn't matter who the King of England is, he is the Capital K King in whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.
SPEAKER_02No, no, that's great. I wanted you to kind of give some runway for your passions, your even your driving convictions, why you do what you do, and what wakes you up in the morning. And to hear that is incredibly not only enlightening to hear more about your story, but really motivating because that is and should be the driving theme of the world. Have you ever prayed for amnesia? I've never prayed for amnesia. That was a fun what you just said was a good one.
SPEAKER_03Listen, God does not want to erase our memory. Because he who's forgiven much loves much. And one of the most powerful things I've ever heard is the reason why I know God isn't finished with me is because I'm still alive. I don't deserve to be alive. Right? Because of the sufficient work of Christ on that cross 2,000 years ago, when he became my substitute and in himself he suffered the wrath of the Father. He made a way where there seems to be no way. He paid a debt he did not owe because I owed a debt I could never pay. He made that way. He gave me that access. And it's more than fire insurance. This is what Christians are longing for, is fire insurance. I'm like, there is so much more. We are called into fellowship with him who created sunsets and seafood and surfing and sex, a God who knows all about me and isn't turning his back on me. Of course, I cannot contain this. Of course it permeates and it's coming out of the very pores of my skin, and I'm dying within me, and I just want to tell the world because I am, I feel I'm borrowed time, and I want the world to know.
SPEAKER_01Amen.
SPEAKER_03It's not about me. It's about Christ in me, the hope of glory. And I don't serve God to gain his acceptance, man. I'm because I am accepted. I serve God, you know, joyfully.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_03He's not calling me to be fruitful, but faithful. And that, and even when I'm faithless, he's faithful to complete the work which he started because it's all about him, anyways. You know.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02I love that. You fired me up. Can I ask you a few questions about uh abortion that you brought up that I know you'll unpack further in the film, but I would love to ask you because one of the things in our generation, we have a lot of college students in our church, and you probably deal with this a ton with abortion. People, first of all, they'll argue that life is not life until birth or whatever. There'll be all these different timelines. The arguments are all over the place. So I want to talk to you about that. Number two, um, cases like rape or other things where they'll say, Well, that's you know, kind of a different case and those kind of things. First of all, why does life begin at conception, or what would be your argument to someone who maybe says, Well, it's kind of just a clump of cells, or you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_03Boy, so which one directly? When does life begin?
SPEAKER_02Start with when life, when does life begin?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but it begins at fertilization, right? When the sperm and egg meet, even before conception, before it travels and connects on end. That's when life begins, right? Who decides that? God decides that. Who's confirmed that? Science has confirmed that. You or you from the moment of fertilization. Well, I was still developing, of course. And you're still developing well into your 20s. Your brain is still developing. I read an article from Harvard that says our brain is still developing until 43.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_03You know, a six-year-old cannot give birth. She's still developing. Yes, she's still developing, but she's as developed as you'd expect her to be. People say, how can something the size of a dot be a human being? Why can't something the size of a dot be a human being? And there's only four differences, and I'll go through them really, really quickly. Four differences between a pre-born, which some people say we can kill, and a newborn, which some people say we can't kill. Stephen Schwartz had coined this. It's called sled through the acrostic, S-L-E-D. First, it's the size, right? You're larger than most people. Does this mean that you can have more life? You're more alive than other people, or you can kill people that are weaker than you and smaller than you? You know, Shaq is a lot bigger than uh uh Kevin Hart. Yeah. Men are bigger than women, typically. Yeah. You know, why does size have anything to do with it? Of course, it's smaller. It's gonna develop, though. Size has nothing to do with it. Then you have the level of development. How can something who is still developing be a human being? We kind of touched upon that a little bit. Well, we're always still developing. And then the environment, they're not in the world yet. They're not in the world yet. They are in the world, they're just in a different location. What you mean to say is you can't see. Well, allow me to show you, you know, through our technology with ultrasounds. Absolutely. Is an astronaut no longer a human being because he's in outer space? You know, still a human being? And then finally, it's the degree of dependency. Well, how can something that's so dependent upon someone else be a human being? Do you want to kill people in wheelchairs? People in comas? Come on. People that are drug induced because of whatever reason, maybe they're in a car accident? How are they less human? And if you're thinking that, well, because they're out of touch with reality, or listen, the child could be deformed. Well, so what? What if you're in a car accident? Can I kill you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's saying that's very telling about what you think about people in wheelchairs. You know, we we give them preferential treatment. That's what a civilized society does. We allow them to park closer towards a storefront or give them seating on a train or a bus. We don't kill them, we help them. You know, what if the mother was raped? Okay. What civilized society punishes a child for the crime of the father? You could be the product of rape. You could be. Your father could have come home in a drunken stupor, your mom protecting you from your dad and not ever telling you this. Does she have the ability of now coming up to you? And how old are you, Costi? 38. 38. You're 38 years old. Does she have the right to kill you? Because you're a product of rape? Of course not. But wait a minute. I'm in the world now. No, you were in the world before. We don't punish a child for the crime of the father. No civilized society does that. We we give hope and we give help to the mama in need. You think of anybody that you really look up to, who would that be? It's somebody who's kind of phoenixed up through the soil of calamity and despair and difficulty because they did the very thing that the world is not doing. Well, we need to be there. You know, Norma McCorvey, who was the voice for Roe v. Wade, she um it went all the way to the US Supreme Court because she said that she was raped. And then she later went on and said, no, she was not raped. But let's say, let's, for sake of argument, Costello, let's say that I were to legalize, and this is just a point, prove a point. I don't believe this, but let's say abortion should be illegal in all cases except for rape and will include incest. Yeah. Are you willing, as somebody who's a pro-choice advocate, Mr. Skeptic, to eliminate abortion in every other case? And 100% of the time they say no. And I go, well, then why are you bringing up rape and incest? Why are you marginalizing this 1%, less than 1%, because it's less than 1%. And even the 1% that say that they are raped, there's a there's a really good statistics. Randy Elkorn inside of his book, Why Pro Life, brings this out that a lot of teenage girls are just saying that. A lot of women are just saying that to save face and for sympathy. I'm not saying that people don't get raped. We know that they do. But I'm saying that there's a lot of made-up statistics.
SPEAKER_02There's a percentage of those that say they're raped that also would be considered potentially their line. A percentage. That's right. Each percentage has a percentage.
SPEAKER_03But the question we need to answer is, well, what is it? Right. And so Greg Kokel from Stand of Reason, he pulls out inside of uh uh some literature that he's written, is it's called Trot Out the Toddler. If we can't kill the toddler for the same reasoning, well then we can't kill the pre-born inside the womb. The world is overpopulated. We need to kill China, it was all about this. The world is overpopulated. Let's let's kill the pre-born. Well, why don't you start with the elderly then? You won't you won't do that. Well, why don't you start with you? You've lived a pretty full life. Give the pre-born a chance to come out. And it's it's obviously it's it's a myth. The CIA came out and I think it's 2015, that there is uh enough land here inside the world to give every single person 2.5 acres of land. So the world is not overpopulated. Fly in a plane, you're gonna see there's plenty of land, you know, as you look at.
SPEAKER_02Man, that was surgical. That was a surgical argument. Yeah, I don't know about that. What are some of the biggest um you know opponents of the pro life agenda that that you deal with in in the Christian world?
SPEAKER_03I'm not sure you're gonna like my answer. I just want the truth. Yeah. What are the biggest challenges that you're talking about? Somebody once said questions are dangerous because there's answers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um Gene Wilder said, if you're not going to tell me the truth, well then why start speaking? Totally. Ges said, You shall know the truth, the truth will set you free. David Foster Wallace came along and he said, Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's going to be comfortable when it sets you free. Some of the biggest proponents that we have are leaders within the church. Opponents are leaders within the church. They're people with inside the church. I had uh a pastor come up to me and he said, um, I heard you say that you think that a majority of the people that uh darken a pew on a Sunday are not Christians. And I said, I'll take it a step further. I think there's a lot of people behind the pulpit that are not saved. The Christian firing squad lines up in a circle. There's some bad to that. But I'm going to change the word Christian to religious. We don't speak up enough. We don't call heresy enough. We don't call heretics enough. We don't speak up enough about people that are doing damage to the church. And then we have people that we, you know, we kind of love and respect. We have somebody like Tim Keller, who I've benefited tremendously from his writings, who has a terrible stance on abortion. Um people that are gonna come along and say, I'm personally pro-life, but what they do, and I could never, I can never have an abortion, but what they do in the privacy of their own home with the direction of their doctor, allow them to do. And I said, Well, how do you feel about slavery? Are you personally against slavery, but it's okay what somebody else does? Well, that's a person. Well, what is that? Come on. What what what is it? Well, it's just a blob of tissue. So you're a bigger blob of tissues. Can I kill you? Well, it's just a fetus. Well, what kind of a fetus is it? Is it a feline fetus? Is it a canine fetus? What is it? And fetus is Latin for a little one or little child, right? In order to know what it is, we look to mom and dad. What is it? So stop with these euphisms on what it is and just call it what it is. It is a human being, a distinct, unique individual created in the image of God, worthy because of who God is, of intrinsic value, dignity, hope, and respect. We treat them as such, regardless. We treat everybody, homosexual, heterosexual. Listen, no homosexual is going to inherit the kingdom of God, but I still treat homosexuals with respect and dignity and honor because of whose image they bear. I don't secretly call them some derogatory name with my friends, because, but by God's grace, there go I. These are fellow image bearers. They need the gospel. And Paul said he's not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God and the salvation. And when I get opposition from within the church, and this is what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11, and the last of which, of which I would never have expected, the burden from within the church and the attack within the church. That's what we're dealing with today. It's attack within the church. If the church would raise up a gauntlet, a mantle, one of which they say, no, abortion is murder. And no murderer will inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians 6, 9, 10. What do we say? You stop skirting around the issue. Things just are what they are.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_03No liar will inherit the kingdom of God, no thief, no fornicator. It includes murder. Why do I even have to say that? But listen, only the Christian worldview can say why murder is wrong. It's because we're fellow image bearers. Yeah. That's the only reason, but man.
SPEAKER_02Why, if you could try to surmise with believing the best but still shooting straight, why do opponents like that, or why do these guys have mushy positions on this? Is it is it pragmatism? Is it they've been capitulating to the culture now for years and they are there are there is there some sort of backwards angle, like, well, I'm trying to, you know, Mark, relax, relax. I'm trying to win them. I'm trying to win them first. And then like, is there a bait and switch? What are the reasons if you just had to, even not knowing, like, or not even being able to ask that some of all of them all the time, what would you say if your own son said, Dad, why in the world then? Like they know the Bible, they preach the Bible, they wrote books on these topics about God and the gospel and truth.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, listen, I'm not clairvoyant. I can't read into that, but I do think that more Christians watch Whoopi Goldberg than John MacArthur. Uh we need to be careful where we get our news from. Totally. The average Christian will spend uh more time trying to figure out what sort of a latte they're gonna order in the morning than what's really gonna happen to them 100 years from now. These are Christians, these are people who ask Jesus to come into their heart, who received Christ as their savior. We spend more time, listen, I'm gonna survive off of a 10-minute devo in the morning. Satan laughs at your 10-minute devo. We need to hide God's word inside of our hearts so that we don't sin against him. And when we do sin, we have an advocate. But it's moment by moment, it is day by day. We prepare messages for the masses, but those messages aren't back for us. We need to start with that man in the mirror. We need to say, God, search me and try me and see if there be any wicked way in me, lead me in the way of everlasting. Everything I want to do is to bring you glory. And we have pastors that are preparing sermons, but they're not preparing their own hearts. They're ready to, because they they can talk, they can communicate, maybe they have a good education, maybe some really good theology, but they're not setting themselves apart. They're not doing much-needed sabbaticals or even surrounding themselves with people that can speak into their lives. Uh, there was a great book uh written by uh Tripp. I obviously don't agree with everything that he that he stands for, but it's called Dangerous Calling. And inside that book, he he talks about how senior pastors and pastors alike assistants associates, they feel like they have nowhere to go. I mean, how much is too much? At what point does that pastor need to step down? Because they dropped the F-bomb? Because they looked at something in a moment of weakness? Because they did something they shouldn't have done, they took from the benevolent fund? At what point is just a step above where they're no longer forgiven? So what happens is we have created pastors that are now celebrities. They may not have a social media presence, but they're still a celebrity. They're a celebrity to me, they're a celebrity to my wife and the kids next to me as we watch them moment after moment, and people sing their praises and they feel like they have no place to go and nobody to confess to. And as I've traveled, I'll tell you, I've been to almost 50 countries, a little more than 50 countries or so, 49 states. Pastors who will open up to me because they have nobody else to open up to, confessing to me, enough to where I go, you should not be in the ministry with that. You need a sabbatical, you need something, you need to go to your elders, bro, and you need to confess these sort of things. But we've created a society where they're they're standalones and they're one-offs. There's nobody that can relate to them and create an opportunity to speak in their lives. So now, where do they go? They go to secular media and they're believing lies and the lies of the enemy who came to the enemy came to kill, steal, and destroy. And they're because they're not speaking into people's lives, um, they're not repenting. Thomas Watson said, When you repent, repentance flows like a river. That it just flows. What else do I got? You you want me to confess? Listen, I got I got it all. What else do you want to know? I I'm not hiding anything. You know, our our mutual friend Matt Shockeford, he took over a church where there was gross negligence on the people and gross sin amongst the people when he was there. And then he had an elder that came to him and said, Hey, you know, I want to come back and be part of the elder board. And he probed a little bit deeper and he saw that there was some really gross skeletons inside the closet. But he wasn't volunteering this information. It wasn't true repentance. I'll tell you what you need to know because I don't want to go so far, right? You have an instrumental value. We treat people like instruments. If you're an electrician, well, then as long as I need electrical work done, then you're instrumental to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But we need to stop people treating people with instrumental value and now with intrinsic value. And with this intrinsic value, we realize that people are people. If they're going to repent, um, that's between them and God. If they're not willing to repent, well then they do not need to be in a place of leadership, in a place of position. You know, we receive the stricter judgment. Uh Thomas Watson went on to say after that, he said, every time we take a breath, we're sucking in the mercy of God, and there's no there's no guarantee of an exhale. God has a very long fuse when it comes to his mercy. Jose says that he delights in being merciful. But that fuse is running out. And there's literally gonna be hell to pay. And so I live my life in a way where I want to be able to sell my parrot to the town gossip, right? Where there's guys in my life that sneak into my life and they know everything about me. What you see is what you get, right? I I have no skeletons in my closet. You're you're welcome to search my phone, search my internet. You everything is open and naked and bare. What do you got? Talk to my wife. Devotions are more than just opening up the Bible with your kids, right? It's like, Noah, how are you doing, man? What's going on? It's living life. It's being able to say, I blew it with mama this morning. I said something I shouldn't have said. I did something I shouldn't have done. You might have saw it, you didn't see it, but I'm here to confess it. Costi, it's not our job to raise Christian children. It's our job to model what a Christian is for our children. God's gonna save who He's going to save, but I'm gonna, listen, I'm gonna model what it means to walk with God in simplicity and intimacy because worthy is the Lamb to receive the reward of his suffering, and that includes an all confession with no pomp. I've been saved by grace. A saint who occasionally sins for sure. I got my PhD in sinning. I know how to do it well. The old man is dead, but I know where he's buried, and I can dig him up well. But I want to tell the world about the God who saved me. And I have not arrived, I have not attained. You know, the apostle Paul at the beginning of his ministry said he's not worthy to be called an apostle. As he continues to write later on in another book, he said that he's uh um least of uh the saints, and then finally, in the last book that he wrote, he said he was the chief of sinners. Not because he was sinning more, but it's it's a realization that it's not about you, it's about Christ in you, the hope of glory, and it's about him and his holiness. And as you get a bigger glimpse of God's holiness, you realize and recognize just who you are, and God uses cracked vessels. Yeah, I don't remember what the name of it is, but there's a there's a an art in China, in Japan, where a piece of pottery is broken. They don't throw it out. They put gold in between the cracked parts and they put it back together, and now that becomes a story, and that is on display. They don't throw it out, they put it on display. God does not throw us out though we are created new in Christ Jesus. He puts the gold, if you would, inside of us. He is terrible metaphor, but he is the gold inside of us on display. Where the angels are left just going, What in the world are you doing? It's just left with, God, you alone are great. But holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. It doesn't say grace, grace, grace. It doesn't say love, love, love is the Lord God Almighty. It says holy, holy, holy, and sprawl nailed it out of the park when he said, When uh Ozza went to catch the ark, when uh the ark went into a ditch and it came to fall, and he went to catch the ark and he died. He presupposed for just a moment that his hands were cleaner than the dirt by which the ark was gonna fall. No. Listen, God did not come to make bad people good, he came to make bad people forgiven. That is it. Jesus Christ is my substitute. That is it. And that's the answer. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and put your trust in Christ. And we talk about grace and mercy and justice and uh uh propitiation and sanctification, and you know, Christ rose again from the dead, and he's seated at the right hand of the Father, and it has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with you. Come along for the ride, come along for the journey, and you'll see. So good, brother.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate your time. I'm that was like an absolute fire hose of wisdom, evangelism, stirring. I my last question for you would just be what would you say to somebody who was listening and they are watching, and they say, Hey, I'm you know, maybe they're wealthy, maybe not, maybe they're a student, whatever. They've but they've got a life and they've got some gifts and they've got some some tenacity and they've got a good work ethic. What would you say to the person who's a Christian and they've kind of been on cruise control and they want to take the next step?
SPEAKER_03What would you say to that person? Don't overthink it. Repent. Repent is a great word. It's a great word metanoi. It means to change your mind. It means Greg Bonson said it's literally it literally means to think God's thoughts after him. That God thought about this first. He allowed you to come along for the right, he's given you a chance to repent. God sees you the way you are, but he loves you too much as a believer to keep you in that mess, right? So allow that mess to be part of that mess to be part of his message in that you turn to him in faith and you let it go. If somebody's wealthy, I think of the quote from Randy Alcorn who said, God does not bless us financially to raise our standard of living, but to raise our standard of giving. You can't take it with you. You know, give, give, give, give. My wife and I, we purposefully uh save money so that we can give. So we can give, give, give, give, and give until we don't have any more. I got taxed, uh, I just did my taxes the other day. And I owe, uh, on top of all my taxes that I paid, and I pay a lot of taxes, but I owe $8,500. I don't have $8,500 in the bank. I don't know. I just I don't live like that. But when I got that news of $8,500, I laughed. I rejoiced because it's none of my business. I'm not an unfaithful steward with God's finances. Um, Lord, I don't know what you're gonna do, but I'm gonna rejoice in advance. This is not an issue. This is a stepping stone. This is a stepping stone to get me to where I need to be. We look at Romans 8.28, we say we have it highlighted and underlined, but what does it really mean if we were to examine it? We say that all things work together for good to those who know God, love God, called according to his purpose. I'm sorry, some things work together. No, everything, that dark blotch that you have said, remove this cup from me, or that terrible thing, that spouse's infidelity, that wayward child's rebellion, is all working together for your good. That car accident, you're good. Everything is working together for your good for your good and for God's glory. The the bottom level of my stairs was completely flooded when we woke up one time, and my son Noah came up and he warned us about the flood. And we grabbed some towels and he goes, uh, no, you're gonna need more than that. I went down there on the whole bottom floor. We walked in, it was just water, puts of water. And I just started laughing. And I go, man, that's creative, God. I have no idea what you're gonna do, but I know you're going to do. So the kids go, we're gonna man our stations. The carpenter comes in, that person comes in to cut into the drywall, you know, three feet up. When they cut into uh, you know, remove all the linoleum that's on the floor. They every person is an opportunity to share the gospel. We don't go into the highways and the byways and the gutterways to compel people to come. So Christ brings them to our door. And they knock on a Saturday morning. What do we do? We dim the lights, we get down an army crawl, and we try to escape away so that people don't know that we're home. But it's an opportunity. My kids activate the ring doorbell, they would record the conversation, and away we go to have a conversation. Water bottles ready, gospel tracks ready to have a conversation. I think the people want to stay for lunch. You know, because it is an opportunity, it's not an interruption of my day, it is designed by my God for the day. Everything, the millions of things that God had to do behind the scenes to orchestrate a divine convergence for this one moment. Jesus said, I have meat to eat you know not of. When he went out of his way to meet the woman at the Mount of Jerizam there, the woman at the well, to have that conversation, a Samaritan. There's no relation that we have between the two of us. Well, if you only knew the person who's talking to you, right? And so that's the story. So flat tires are not a bummer. Cold food at a restaurant is an opportunity to give a bigger tip and talk about grace. Right? Every walk by a newspaper stand, you put a gospel track inside the newspapers. I rented a car not too long ago, and there's this thing called OnStar. Are you familiar with OnStar? Yeah. I push this button and away I go. Do you need directions? Do I need directions? Yeah, do you know how to get to heaven? Oh, that's so good. And she's all, uh, I I I've I've never been asked that before. Well, do you ever give it any thought? What do you think happens after we die? Come on. You know, and now I'm not as animated as I'm here, right? I just I get I feel like I come out of my skin when I start talking about deep theology and things like this, but I'm like, hey, you know, do you ever give it any thought? I mean, I talked to one guy one time, he thinks that we turn into a penguin. Do you think we turn into penguins? What do you think? We get one crack of this thing called life. We sleep a third of it away. Our best years, Paul Washer says, is 15 years. You're a flower for 15 years, and then the petals fall off. What are you going to do? I shared the gospel with her, and she said, you know, I've never had somebody share this with me before. Absolutely amazing. I just pushed a button. God pushed her button and got a hold of her. Right? The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. You know, he guides us and directs us with his eye. He knows what he's doing. He's able to grab a hold of those ugly things that we've done, those vile things that we've tasted, and say, Listen, your redeemer is bigger than your past. And there's nothing that's out of the scope of my ability to do things. You have to understand, Job says that God only does miraculous things. Everything God does is miraculous. Everything God does is wonderful. Everything. Whether it's healing a headache, or if somebody actually had the ability to get up and walk from a wheelchair, like my brother Justin Peters. Well, I'd long to see that happen. But I'll tell you, if that doesn't happen, this side of heaven, the person that's going to help him up on that day is enough for him, and he's okay with that. God's able to do what he wants to do, and God's going to do what he's going to do, and I'm going to be along for the ride. It's like an elephant and a mouse that are crossing a rickety bridge. Terrible illustration. I don't, I'm a guy, that's all I got. And the mouse and the elephant are crossing the rickety rope bridge. They get to the other side as they're getting there, though, the bridge is just shaking back and forth. They get to the other side, the mouse looks up at the elephant and says, We really rocked that bridge, didn't we? Now the mouse is along for the ride. And God says, Come along for the ride. You know. I don't want to be after that white picket fence live. I don't, I don't, I don't have time. There's no time to be wasted. Amen. You know.
SPEAKER_02Live all out for the gospel. That's right. That's what we're here for. That's it. Well, Mark, brother, thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for the encouragement, the exhortation. And I'm looking forward. When does the film come out, by the way? The film you guys are doing for pro life?
SPEAKER_03Yes, what is it? So September. What is it? Unless in Spanish it's something else because that doesn't translate well. But uh for the mass audience to be able to see it on YouTube, it's September 6th. September 6th. Yes.
SPEAKER_02All right, and where can people go to find out more about your ministry and LivingWaters.com. LivingWaters.com. Yeah. All right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's it. We have a podcast, the Living Waters Podcast. Uh shocked that people listen to that. It's always you go off like this on it? Dude, boy, there's four of us.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so you all go and right. I just want to be a fly, I just want to sit in the quiet zone and listen.
SPEAKER_03It's it's four idiots talking about theology and deep things. We finish each podcast with, you know, thank you for tuning in to the Live in Waters Podcast, where we have no idea what we're doing. Right. So, yeah, Live in Waters Podcast uh is there. We have a television show called The Way the Master. Awesome. Um, all the social media channels and everything like that. So awesome, brother.
SPEAKER_02Grateful for you, man. Keep up the great work.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
unknownThanks.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for listening and watching for loads of free resources or to learn more about our ministry here for the gospel and to partner with us with either a one-time or a reoccurring gift. You can go to forthegospel.org and all of the information about our ministry is there. As well, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel where all of our resources are available for free. And be sure to follow us on all social media channels. I will be back next Monday with another episode. For now, keep on living for the gospel.