Testimony and Calling of Jason DeMars

I wasn’t looking for a ministry story. I was trying to win games, fit in, and keep my life under control, until God started removing the props one by one. I share my personal Christian testimony from growing up in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, through a sports-centred identity, a season of drifting into marijuana and partying, and the quiet but relentless conviction that I could not “fix myself” into holiness.

What changed everything was hearing the gospel explained plainly: regeneration and the new birth are Christ changing you, not you reforming yourself. That truth opened the door to a hunger for the Bible, serious study of doctrine, and an unmistakable pull toward preaching. I also tell the story of how I first encountered William Marrion Branham, why the message connected to Malachi 4 and Revelation 10:7 grabbed me, and how questions about spiritual gifts, restoration, and baptism became real in my walk.

From there the Lord redirected even my practical skills. Internet marketing and early social media became tools for Bible teaching and outreach through Present Truth Ministries, which eventually opened doors to missions work, translation burdens, and relationships with persecuted believers. I talk candidly about Turkey, the call to go full-time, the confirmations that stopped my excuses, and what it looks like to live on “running on empty” while watching God provide at the exact moment of need.

If this testimony helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review so more people can find it. I’d also love to hear your questions, testimonies, and prayer requests at jasondemars.com.

Transcript

Welcome And Why We Study

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Greetings, Bible believers and followers of the end time message. Welcome to another episode of the Jason Demars Podcast, the place where we explore the incredible mysteries hidden within the pages of the Bible. I'm your host, Jason Demars. It's time to get started on another journey into the heart of God's Word. If it's your desire to grow in Revelation and see the message in the light of the Bible, you're in the right place. Today, brothers and sisters, we delve into the scripture, guided by the extraordinary revelations that God chose to unveil through Brother William Marion Branham, a messenger with a unique calling to fulfill Malachi 4 and Revelation 10:7, and unlock the secrets of the end time message. Our purpose isn't to have another basic Bible study. We're going to dig deep and peel back the layers of prophecy, decoding the signs and perhaps discovering how the Bible resonates within the very fabric of our present day and time. In this podcast, my purpose is to help you grow in your faith through solid Bible teaching through the lens of the message of Malachi 4. So grab your Bible, a cup of coffee, and let's get started. And remember that your feedback, testimonies, questions, and prayer requests are always welcome. Please send them on social media or at jasondemars.com. With that said, let's get into today's podcast. Welcome to the Jason Demars Podcast. We're going to change it up a little bit this time. I'm going to be speaking about my testimony in some of the travels recently. I've had a number of questions and I found myself sharing my testimony a few different times. It's been a while since I've done that when I first started my ministry. It seemed like wherever I went, I was sharing testimony, my testimony, as well as how the Lord led me to the missions work in the Middle East. And so it could turn into a very long podcast, but I want to first maybe focus on my personal testimony and how the Lord led me into full-time ministry and why I'm continuing with full-time ministry. So this is, you know, the the you could look at it and say, why why is this guy doing this podcast? Well, it's a help to people, so it's nice, but there's there's a bigger, really a bigger picture to all of it in how the Lord led me in my ministry and in my life. So I think it'd be good to get into it. And just before we do that, want to say thank you to all the subscribers. There's people that are doing$3 or$5 or$10 or$20 a month to subscribe to the podcast that helps me pay for all the software and all the supplies that I need for it and the monthly fees that go into it. And then anything that goes beyond that helps support the missions work that I'm doing. And in all of this, I think there's a number of things that I'm wanting to speak about and go into as the ministry is slowly changing over time. Brother Branham had seasons and junctures of that as well. And so with that said, we'll get right into it. I am originally from a town right next to Minneapolis, Minnesota, called Columbia Heights. I was born there in that city. Went to elementary school and then high school there. My my my dad was heavily involved in starting youth sports. And I have a I have a sister that's 15 years older than me, and I have a brother that is 11 years older than me. So my birth, my conception and birth was not planned. My mom, when she found out she was pregnant with me, went to tell her sisters that she was pregnant, and she cried quite a bit about it. She was she was in her, I guess I should have my dates better, but I'm gonna say she was she was probably in her late 30s, like 35, 36. My dad was about 40. So she didn't expect it. And her sisters right away didn't let her wallow in her sorrow and said, This is this is the Lord, this is gonna be wonderful. You're gonna you're gonna be so thankful for this little baby that's coming. And so during this time, leading up to this time, I think my mom, you know, was definitely involved in the family in general. Was she was still smoking, and the family did a lot of social drinking. We grew up in a Lutheran church. I think my dad's parents were my dad, my dad's father was Catholic, he married French Catholic, and he married a uh Swedish Lutheran woman. And so that was anathema to my grandfather's family, and so he wasn't his my great-grandfather was very unhappy that he had married a Protestant, and they growing up, my grandmother, I kind of went between both churches, but my dad mostly grew up Lutheran, and my my mom's parents lived real close to a Lutheran church, and so she grew up in a Lutheran church there in Columbia Heights, first Lutheran church. And I went to I grew up in that, but my during that time when my mom was pregnant with me, she had an experience with the Lord and it changed her life, and she became from then on a continual student of the Bible. She loved the Bible, she went to Bible study fellowship, and she was uh involved in teaching Sunday school at the Lutheran church. So I I kind of had a different style of growing up than my older brother and sister did. The Bible was at the center. My mom spent a lot of time focusing on teaching me and instructing me in in believing the Bible, though we went to a Lutheran church before at that point in time was still it was still in the process of going from being a conservative Lutheran church to being what we have today in the ELCA, a very liberal Lutheran church. And growing up, as I mentioned, my father was heavily involved in sports. I started playing from an early age, probably kindergarten, started playing basketball, started playing t-ball, and then you know, when I get got into like fourth and fifth grade, started playing on the football team, and I did all three of those sports until my senior year in high school. And I think I spent most of my time in sports, and then you know, summertime was in sports, and that was really the the focus. My brother is actually already retired from bat coaching basketball, but he coached basketball at Irondale High School in Minnesota for many, many years, from the time he was probably see, he coached me at Columbia Heights, and then was a couple years there after I was gone, and then got a job at Irondale, which is that was the school that he was teaching Fiat and Health at. And so I'm just giving you the the trajectory of my life, came into came into my middle school and high school years, and the pressure and desire to fit in caused me to be a young man that was swearing a lot, and though I didn't until later go the wrong way with drinking and partying and smoking marijuana, you know, generally was a rough guy. My my my friendships and everything really centered around sports, and so as a result of that, I I stayed out of most of most trouble up until my senior year. And, you know, uh around the beginning of the senior year or the middle of the senior year, I needed to make a choice about what college I was going to go to. I had been recruited to play uh basketball and football. I had some success. I was a quarterback in in football and point guard, shooting point guard slash shooting guard in basketball was uh uh all conference and my senior year, all conference honorable mention, my junior year, and I think all state honorable mention my senior year in basketball and football. It was all conference honorable mention, playing quarterback. Our teams weren't very good, but I was recruited for division three and then some division like 2A teams there in Minnesota and was struggling to make a decision, and my parents wanted me to focus and make a decision, and during this time period that I was needing to make a decision, I really wasn't a person that was praying about it or seeking the Lord, though my mom was certainly praying for me. I can remember she always would say, growing up, we're I'm I'm praying that you won't do anything wrong, but that if you do start to do something wrong, that you'll get caught immediately before it goes too far. So, and I certainly did experience that a few different times. I can get into that a little bit, but decision-making time, early senior year. I'm sitting in my room, I can remember thinking about several schools that I had narrowed it down to. One was St. Thomas in Minneapolis or St. Paul, St. Paul. Another one was Hamlin, which is also in St. Paul, and then the third one was Bethel, which is in Arden Hills. So as I was thinking about this, I can remember hearing a voice. Again, I didn't have the Holy Spirit. I wasn't, I was a long ways from being born again and living a Christian life, but I heard a voice say, You're going to Bethel College. So I picked up my phone. I called the offensive coordinator on the football team and said, Hey, Coach Might, I'm coming to Bethel. And he's like, Awesome, I'm excited. Just fill out the paperwork and we'll make sure to send you in the mail all the workout things that we need you to do leading up to football season. And so that was that was that was great. I was excited, told my parents, they were shocked actually. The condition I was in, they didn't really think I was going to choose a Christian school. That's the part of it is St. Thomas is Catholic, Hamlin is Lutheran, and Bethel is Baptist. And St. Thomas and Hamlin play lip service to Christian classes, but Bethel, you have to sign a lifestyle agreement, and there's no drinking on campus, and you basically it's basically you're gonna have to take quite a number of Christian theology courses while you're there. So they were really surprised and thankful, but really surprised as that senior year went along. I I went through football season and basketball season that was closing up, and we were going into baseball and uh baseball got started. We had a new head coach for the baseball team, and he didn't like the Demars family, and so he was a local Columbia Heights guy, and I I I I can't even I can't really remember his name, but that's probably good. But he didn't like the family, and he had it out for me. So I came in, you know, I had been all conference honorable mention, I think, in baseball the year before. Good hitter, did some pitching, played outfield, and he didn't like me, so he basically took me out of the starting lineup, didn't didn't put me in at pitcher anymore, and it was very strange. All the all the people on the team didn't understand it, I didn't understand it, and when I asked about it, he just got angry, and I said, I think we had a few games that rained out, and so I was supposed to be the next one pitching, but since I since we had like a week off, he was gonna just pitch the same person he had pitched before, guy that was younger than me, good pitcher, but I I got really upset about that, and I took my uniform out of my bag and I threw it on his desk and said I quit. And and I didn't really expect him to say good, but he did. He did, and he let me walk away. All the people on the team were disappointed and frustrated. I said, Oh, he'll change his mind and just keep showing up and practicing hard and supporting the team, and you'll get through. I said, No, I don't want to waste my time. I'm gonna be playing, I'm not gonna be playing baseball in college, I'm gonna be playing basketball and football. And that was a fateful decision because after that, my built-in friend group was gone. Other friends came by me, and there was a younger guy that I started hanging out with, and he introduced me a year younger, introduced me to another friend, and that other friend kept nagging me about smoking marijuana. He said, Have you ever smoked weed before? No, I never smoke weed, and I don't plan to. I'm gonna get you to smoke weed. I'm gonna get and he would say that every day, I'm gonna get you to smoke weed. And instead of me going, hmm, there's a light bulb going off. This isn't a good friend, this isn't a good influence. I think because of the condition I was in from quitting baseball, I was like, sure, why not? I'll try it. So I tried it and started smoking marijuana on an irregular basis. But this led to some other friends and partying and you know, drinking. I think most of my and none of none of his excusing, but it was mostly done in what for a young person would be considered moderation, although I did get quite buzzed and and drive very frequently in that condition. But going through going through that time, I knew I was doing wrong. And even there was one point in time where I had a I had another friend who always kept those things separate, but once once he found out that I was because he knew my parents and he respected them and never wanted me to introduce me to smoking marijuana or partying or anything, he always kept that separate. He had to stay at our house a few times because of the condition that his mother was in. And so he he never really introduced that to me until I got introduced elsewhere and began to ask him for it. And then eventually I knew, eventually I found out that he was, you know, not big time, but he was small time dealing marijuana, and he was telling me about the money that he makes, and I thought, goodness, I'm working and making money here in this spring and summer, but man, it would be nice to make a little extra. So I was like, uh give me a few of them and I'll try to sell them. And I think I had hit them in the back of my car that I had, and it was underneath some stuff and in a strange container, and I think maybe I brought one to a friend's house and they gave me the money for it, and after that I was just like under so much conviction, I I just said, No, I can't, I can't do this, and I went and brought it back to him, and he said, It's alright. I didn't think it was a good idea for you, but I'm glad that you came to that conclusion on your own. So just these different ways that you saw. So, you know, some ways where I was going the wrong way, but some ways where the Lord was only letting me go so far. So I'm thankful for that. So going into going into the college before football season, I had gained a bunch of weight because I was smoking marijuana and getting the munchies all the time, overeating, and I was being lazy, not doing my workouts. I was playing basketball and I was being somewhat active, but I wasn't doing my workouts and I was definitely overeating. So going to college, start out, and the coach is upset. Why are you, why are you not in shape? Why are you coming to football like this? And so that didn't put me in a good place to start off with. Played, I think I played JV that whole first year. And a lot of people, what in the world are you? You you swear all the time, and you're talking about marijuana. Why did you come to a Christian school? And I just would always say, I don't know. So first year went along, just continuing in the same kind of life. Coming into the next year for, and I think for both for football and for basketball, it didn't go the way I thought it was. I didn't have the favor of the coaches, especially in basketball. I think I was on the JV, was the second leading scorer and the second least minutes on the team. It's like you score all the time and play hard, but the coach just doesn't take take notice and even had a number of times there was promises made to say, hey, we we're gonna have you start next game, and then they just completely go back on that. And you know, I look at it and I think, man, it wasn't fair, but the reality is God was doing something in this situation, he was he was working something out for me, and so even I go back in in the years of baseball, playing baseball in my like I think eighth and uh seventh and eighth grade years. I a coach that had been been, he's a retired coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, pitching coach, and he had pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals away, I mean, back like in the 40s and 50s. So he was a very old uh gentleman, came down by the baseball field and s and uh watched me a little bit, watched, I mean, watched the whole team, but watched me pitch, and he said, I want to show you a few things. I think you're ready to to learn. And he showed me a few things and it and it the things that he showed me really clicked, and I was suddenly throwing so fast that nobody could nobody could hit me. It was like maybe one person in the whole lineup that we're playing against could put the bat on the ball. The rest of them were just striking out over and over and over and over again. It was like my dad always tells the story, you know, if if we were in a tight jam, as like another another pitcher was in and the bases got loaded, he would say, All right, all right, Jace, you're you're in. So he'd put me in, bases loaded, nobody out, and I'd throw nine pitches and the game would be over. So just crazy. And then suddenly, between my ninth and tenth grade year, the pop that was in my arm just vanished. And I had I didn't have the pop anymore. I still could pitch, but it was all about control and changing speeds, and I I couldn't, I just I guess it's like the Lord gave me a taste of what it was like to be high level, and then said, That's you're you got a different I have a different plan for you. So you know, back to back to then in college, you know, going through that, getting into that place, soft. More year coming into football season, the coach said, You know what? I'm I'm not gonna put you at quarterback anymore. We're gonna move you over to wide receiver. We heard you had a little bit of success doing that in high school, and I think you could be very good possession receiver for us this coming year. And I said, Coach, I'm not fast enough. I'm just that's not and that's not me. I don't think that's a good idea. I think I think I'll be done playing football. Then we fast forward to basketball, and the coach met with me and said, you know, you're coming into your sophomore year, you did you did did pretty well statistically, but we're just gonna keep you on the JV. And I just decided, you know what, it's not worth it. You have to make such a sacrifice for all of this. Sacrifice your Thanksgiving, sacrifice your Christmas. It's like the the basketball owns your time completely while you're in college. And I said, you know, I'm just not gonna play. And I went and started playing the Innural League, which is just, you know, low commitment level there. And I so I quit quit my sports, and suddenly I've got way more time on my hands than I'd ever had in my life. And at the same time, I'm going to classes on the Old Testament, classes on church history, classes going through the gospels. And so, you know, every day, you know, I'm I might I might go meet some friends and go to somebody's house and smoke marijuana and have a little social drink, and then go back and I go, oh man, I gotta do my homework for Bible class. And so I open up my Bible, start reading my Bible, and I'm getting under conviction this is the wrong way to live. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna fix myself. I'm gonna change. I'm not gonna do that. I'm just gonna have fun for a little bit while longer. And so, because of this change from playing organized sports to intramural sports, this also changed the group of friends that I had. And so now these other friends were pretty serious believers. They were, their father was a Presbyterian minister, and they really loved to talk about predestination and the Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Reformers, etc. And I was just I was just sitting listening. We had a thing where we would drive over from Arden Hills to the Buffalo Wild Wings in Columbia Heights, and we would get a big group of people from Bethel over there, and we would get the Tencent Wings back then on Tuesday night, and we would sit and we would eat wings and we would talk about theology and go into the Bible. And they started asking me about different things. Do you believe in predestination? I said, Well, you were you were reading out of the scripture about predestination, so I would have to say, Yeah, I I believe in predestination. Oh man, they got so excited. Oh wow, man, he believes it. So then start talking, and this was kind of an ongoing conversation. They begin to ask me, if you if you believe the word, then why do you live this way? Well, you know, I'm going to correct some of those things, is what I told them, and change what I'm doing so I can do better, and you know, we'll get those things on the straight and narrow, so to speak. And so these guys looked at me like, what do you, what do you mean? You're gonna you're gonna fix yourself and you're gonna straighten yourself out. That's not what the gospel is. The gospel is you you put your trust in Christ and He changes your life. That's what the that's what regeneration, that's what the new birth is. It's not you reforming yourself, it's Christ changing you, and he changes you because you put your faith in him. My this struck me, ah, this is the answer. That's what that's the place that I've been so blocked for so long. And I remember driving home one Tuesday night from Buffalo Wild Wings to my parents' house. And I I think this was perhaps during my junior year, early in my junior year of college, and I just was thinking about these things, and I said, you know, said Lord, I don't wanna I don't wanna live like this anymore. I wanna live for you. And it was just in that simple several phrase prayer that there was like an immediate, instantaneous release. I felt so much pressure and weight of sin coming off my shoulders, and such peace came into my heart at those moments at that moment, and from right there we were going to they were encouraged me to go to Bethlehem Baptist Church in downtown Minneapolis. And so from that moment I started going to that church, and that pastor, John Piper, was always telling students we have a library, I know it lists prices, but if you don't have the money to buy the books, just take what you want and read it. And so we started doing that, and then we started going to the Wednesday night service there to ask the pastor questions about the Bible, and we're I'm I'm starting to learn about predestination and the sovereignty of God. I'm starting to learn about the new birth, and I'm starting to learn about justification by faith, and studying Jonathan Edwards and Martin Luther, reading, reading the biography of Charles Spurgeon. And so I remember sitting one day in the chair at my mom and dad's house and reading a big I see if I can grab this volume uh quickly. Excuse me. Yeah. I was reading this big volume of Jonathan Edwards, sitting there reading it, and this is very difficult reading, you know. Big big book there, and wonderful, wonderful truth in that. And my mom said, Who are you and what have you done with my son? And so she I never liked to read. I read the sports paper, memorized the sports, all the team's rosters and statistics, and who was first. And man, I could tell you any of that stuff. So here I was giving my whole heart and time and dedication to studying the word. And at this point in time, I realized I needed to change my major from from business marketing, and I wanted to immediately, I think I immediately just instantly knew that the Lord had called me to uh ministry of the word, and that change of desire, and in in that birth that I had in the word, my whole desire changed, and within that desire changed, I knew that that it wasn't like something that I had a great voice speak to me. It was just born into me that the Lord had called me to the ministry of the word. And so I told talked to my parents about it, and I talked to my advisor at school, and he said, Well, you're this far along, you're better off just changing your major to philosophy and getting a minor in uh theology in preparations for going to seminary. So during this time, I remember my mom telling me the story that she was sitting in her rocking chair and she was uh very pregnant with me. She just she said she laid her hands on her on her belly and said, Lord, you've given me this child, and I'm dedicating him back to you, Lord. And you know, she could see she could see all that she went through and the purpose that this unexpected son coming was was born to serve the Lord. And so yeah, I changed changed my major, started taking philosophy and theology classes, going into the last half of my junior year, and my senior year, I had a year and a half left, enough time to get a philosophy degree. It's kind of a a lighter degree where you can fit in sometimes another degree, and sometimes a partial degree, so a minor. So began going that direction, was spending my time feeding on the word, reading as much as I could, memorizing as much scripture as I could, and meeting with friends to debate predestination, Calvinism and Arminianism, and all kinds of different doctrines over the course of time. We'd meet up in the library, in the back corner of the library, and it was kind of our debate place, and so we'd always meet up there, and people would come and know that they could come and talk to us and go back and forth with us, and was going to my parents' church. I was going to two services every Sunday, and then a midweek service, and then I can remember even during those times that they had all night prayer meetings. We would go to that, they had missions at the man's, which is the man's is speaking of the pastor's home. And so he would talk about missions, foreign missions, and encourage young people to go into missions. And then I would go to my mom and dad's church, Grace Roseville, in the morning, early, early service, and then the later service, I would go to Bethlehem Baptist, or sometimes vice versa. So everything I could, and and I was uh following the Puritans, so many times after after service, you know, we would just go back and we would have Sunday, Sabbath, we would just rest and we would play guitar and sing hymns and read in different portions of Spurgeon or Edwards or Luther and read in scripture and talk back and forth. It was a real, at least for me, it was a real revival that was taking place, that the Holy Spirit was moving and growing as quickly. In this process of time, there was a young man by the name of Bob Newman that was there and kind of became a part of that friend group. Not sure exactly how we got in introduced to them, but there was a friend of a friend who got introduced to him, and he kind of came in and we started, we heard about him and said, you know, he's kind of messed up in his theology, so let's go straighten him out. And so we met with him and in the the library, and he began to speak to me and he said, Do you ever think about God's purpose for the reformation? He was an artist and he started to write, and he's he wrote this, he wrote the Jesus said, Except a corn of wheat fall in the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. So he said, Do you ever consider that going into the dark ages, the seed was planted in the ground and it died? And then it at the Reformation it put forth a stalk, and he says, This is Luther. It's this it's the seed sprouting again, and he's just drawing and drawing, and then he says, There comes the tossel, and he says, That's Luther's message of sanctification. And he he said, then the shuck comes, and the shuck says, Is that the seed? And I somebody said it looks like it. He said, No, that's not the seed, but it's the ki it's it's where that it's that which holds the seed. It looks similar to the seed, but it isn't the original seed. He said, That's the restoration of the gifts, Pentecost. He said, But inside of that shuck carries a seed, and he said, That's the original seed, and that was God's purpose for the reformation was to restore the church back to the original seed, the original faith. And I heard that and I was just like, wow, I never heard anybody explain that before. Who taught that to you? And he said, William Branham. I said, I don't know who that is. Do you have any of his sermons? I'd love to listen. So he said, Yes, he he he was a prophet and he died back in 1965, but we have many of his tapes. I said, Okay, give me one. So he gave me anointed ones at the end time, and I put that in my tape player, and I just played that over and over and over again. I was just amazed to hear it at the conviction and the surety and the way he was preaching about predestination and the way he was preaching about the supernatural operating in his life and in the life of believers. I was really amazed by it. At the same time that the Lord was doing all this, my sister and brother-in-law, they were going to a charismatic church and they were encouraging me, encouraging me to speak with tongues to get the Holy Ghost. And I couldn't quite see that, though I was all in favor of any experience that the Holy Spirit would give. And I didn't believe, even at that time, as I began to study the scripture, I didn't believe that spiritual gifts were only for history, but that they were for now. And during this time, I was studying and looking at this and realizing, you know, in the pro in the process of time, I would go to their Saturday evening church service sometimes at there in Minnesota. And one time I was really struggling towards the beginning because I was trying to straddle two different things, two different worlds. I had I had this was probably really shortly after I truly put my faith in Christ, and I was talking about how, you know, I just want to live closer to the Lord and can't quite find the answer because I'll get so far, and then it seems like something drags me down and I'm start drinking again. And God's grace, I didn't the whole smoking marijuana was gone, but I would go to a party because I grew up, you know, parents are Christians, as I understood it, and they're drinking socially, so I thought, well, I'm 21, I can drink socially. So I would do that, and it's like this drags me down into a place where I'm saying things and talking about things that I shouldn't be doing. And so I was telling my brother-in-law this, and he said, We'll be praying for you. Went into service, and so it was amazing because he opened in the scriptures, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And he said, This is some of you out here are really being dragged down because of your friends that you choose to keep. And he said, No doubt you want to save your friends, and he said, but you have to take these steps. And he said, sit down with your friends and say, The Lord has changed my life. I think you know that. I want to live for Christ, and I don't want to do the things that I've done in the past. And so I want to continue to be friends with you, but I'm I want to ask you to help me. So please don't encourage me to don't encourage me to drink. I want you to make sure I don't go to parties, I don't drink, I'm not in situations that are compromising me. So if you'll help me live closer to Christ, we can continue to be friends. And so, and then from there, it depends on what they say and how they respond. And so I did that with my friends, and I uh all of them said yes, but all the rest, they basically just abandoned me from there. Only one friend stuck by me, and he would sometimes catch himself, he'd say, Oh, there's a party. He's like, wait a minute, no, there's a party, but uh, you said you don't want to go, we'll hang out another day. Great, thank you. And so the I lost that group of friends, but he gave me a new group of friends, and so that young man that witnessed to me about Brother Branham, the Lord was already dealing with me about the spiritual gifts and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Is it separate from the new birth? Is it is it is is it before you believe? Is it after you believe? And so the Lord was dealing with all these things with me during this time, and so as he was dealing with the me on these things, then I get introduced to the message. I'm given the church ages book, and I was listening to the mess, listening to anointed ones at the end time, and to me it explained exactly what was happening, why charismatics had gifts operating, and but their teaching was false. And so Brother Branham approaching it the way he did was just wonderful to me. And then from there you had a where I I felt like this was an additive to the theology that I believed in. So I didn't really wasn't understanding what the message was all about, but and my friend was trying to tell me, and he was showing me uh 20th Century Prophet. I remember watching 20th Century Prophet, and then I asked him, What's about this serpentcy thing? And I thought it was really weird. The people had explained it to me. It didn't make any sense, and I didn't, I thought it was wrong. And so he he explained it to me again, and I remember going upstairs and telling my mom about it, and I said, Mom, this is this strange doctrine that it wasn't a fruit in the garden, but it was sex, and that sex produced Cain, and Cain was of that evil one, and so Cain was because it says there's two seeds, one the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent is Cain, and the seed of the woman is Abel, then Seth, which was ultimately Christ. And so the two seeds have enmity, and she said, You know what? That makes more sense to me than I've ever heard in my life. I said, Really, mom? Huh. And so that gave me a pause and I started to consider that. But then as I read through, as I finished the Church Ages book, it was a revelation to me that I needed to be re-baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And from there on, I started going to three services on Sunday. I went to the early early service at Bethlehem Baptist, then I went to the middle of service at Grace Roseville, and then I went to the message church at the 10:30 service, and then fellowship with them in the afternoons and evenings. And I was just on fire for the message. I couldn't get enough. I I read every book I could, I listened to every tape. In many ways, my classes kind of fall behell behind because I was spending so many time, so much time listening to tapes, studying tapes, and writing notes. And I think about into my that was about when I was coming to the message was between junior and then into senior year. I think it was when I really really received it, totally received it. And so through that, through that process, I was still planning on going to seminary. You know, I heard what Brother Branham said, but I thought, well, you know, I don't have really any way to prepare myself for preaching. And we're in Minnesota. I don't, you know, we're not in connection. I don't even really know that there's message believers all around the world and all around the United States. At this point in time, I'm just completely in the dark. So I start talking to my pastor at the message church there and started asking him about seminary. And he said, Oh, you feel led to preach? I said, Yeah, I I know I'm called to preach. And he said, Well, do you want to preach on Wednesday night? I said, Well, uh, I'm not sure I'm ready. And he said, Well, if you're anointing, if the Lord has called you to preach, it's not your uh preparation that makes you ready. It's the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And so I said, Well, I'll pray about it and get back to you. So I prayed and Eventually started preaching now and again in the local church, and as time went on, I kind of began to preach more, had some ups and downs through that time. That pastor had a wonderful daughter named Amy, and we decided that we were crazy about each other, so um we we I think she was just had turned 18 and I was graduated, just graduated from college. I think it was August 2001, maybe even August, maybe even August 2000 that we started seeing each other, and we knew that we wanted to be married right uh not right away, but within a few months, you know, maybe maybe five, four, five, six months. We knew we wanted to be married, and at least I did, and she was in the process of that, but my her her dad wanted her to get a diploma, and so she graduated from high school, got a diploma from Rasmussen College, and we got married February of 2003. Like I said, ups and downs in ministry, but as time went along, I felt like the Lord was calling me to something more, and you know, I I I was I was ignoring that, wasn't following that, and that resulted in some backsliding. I can remember even backsliding to the place where I was asked to preach a Wednesday night service, and I showed up in in jeans and a polo shirt, and he said, Are you preaching? Aren't you preaching? I said, What? I had totally forgotten, spaced it out that he'd asked me, and so just a lack of lack of burden. And he's I said, I'll go home and change, and he said, Nope, you're not preaching tonight, you're not ready. And so during this time, I started getting doing learning how to do internet marketing for business that I was involved in, and I'd spent a ton of time on it, and that was part of the backsliding. During this process, I had I think that was just as Avery was born in 2008, and I got laid off my job at the bank, and so it was between jobs, and I I got hired to be uh CFO for a guy that ran an in-home and group home care company, and it was just before Easter, and I remember driving driving up to the cabin. I was gonna open up the cabin for the year, our our my my father's cabin, family cabin. I was gonna get that open up just before Easter, and driving up there, I I went and I was trying to find a place to eat, everything was closed. I went over to I was driving over to the grocery store. The grocery store was closed. This is weird, and I heard a voice say, Go to Duluth. And I thought, I'm not doing that, I want to get home and see my wife. And suddenly just this heavy feeling washed over me. And I I knew I was under conviction, so I said, Lord, if you want me to go to Duluth, will you when I go to this next gas station, if there is De Gorno Supreme Pizza, then I'll know that you don't want me to go to Duluth. But if there isn't one, I'll know that you're sending me to Duluth. So I went there, they always had it. So I was I was I was saying something that was steep because they've always had it. Years and years they've had it, they had it. So I went there, went into went into this gas station, we're in the back, the freezer section, and no de giorno, no supreme pizza. I said my so got in the car, drove to Duluth, and during this time, the Lord laid on my heart to put some messages of Brother Branham. I can't remember what they were, but whatever it was, is everything was hitting so hard, and there was such an anointing on those. So I began to think Lord wants me to, the Lord wants me to speak to someone or start something or do something in Duluth. So I said, Lord, where where do you where where do I where do I go eat? You want me to speak to someone? He said, go where you like. And so I went to famous Dave's and thought, well, I'm gonna speak to the the the uh person there. And she was just as unfriendly, didn't want to talk to me whatsoever, standoffish, and so couldn't couldn't break through that. So I went and went for a walk along the boardwalk along Lake Superior, and the Lord started dealing with my heart and started speaking to me. And one of the among other things, he was showing me what a what dark city Duluth is, and he spoke some things to me about doing some outreach there, which I'm still waiting on the Lord for that day to happen. But the other thing that he dealt with my heart is he, and he had been dealing with my heart leading up to this point already, spoke to my heart, but he reminded me that he wanted me to take what I had learned for business marketing and to use it for the kingdom. So the things I was learning was about you know the early days of social media, YouTube, YouTube marketing, and so forth. So he and starting a website. So I from that place moving forward is where I started my website, chose the name Present Truth Ministries, which it's still on, is present truthmn.com. You can go there and look at the website. So I just started doing the teachings, I started doing YouTube videos, I started doing posts on Facebook and MySpace. So I was using all those social media places to spread the message. And so little by little, from doing that, I started getting invitations to the Philippines, to Africa, to India. But from there, I got in contact with a Iranian brother that was living in Turkey, and he asked me to come visit the churches there. And I started finding out that they're message believers, but they don't have many messages translated. I think they had like five messages of Brother Branham translated and started developing a burden to sponsor the translations. I didn't know I was gonna pay for it. My church helped me with a small portion of it. By then I didn't really have many context, didn't know I was gonna work, and so I definitely dismissed going to Turkey. I was working full-time for Wells Fargo in their mortgage division, and so that was in spring of 2009. That's when I started doing persecution advocacy for the for the Iranian believers, and that led to a lot of different contacts in the State Department and persecution lawyers, advocates, and in the Christian news industry as well, voice of the martyrs. So that kept me very, very busy, and in time the Lord started dealing with me, and towards the end of 2010, I surrendered to the Lord to take a missions trip to Turkey, and which we did in February of 2011. And the first trip we visit visited a future first trip, I was flown thrown right into the fire. I was presiding over a church split between message believers and United Pentecostal church, and so we were working with that, and then we're working with another church. We realized they really don't know much about the message, so that created a greater burden. And even on the trip there, the Lord spoke to me and he said, I want you to quit your job and go full-time in missions. And I thought, Lord, the church can't even support the pastor uh full-time. How is it gonna support me? Which it it it couldn't and it hasn't. And so I didn't know how it was gonna work, and so I resisted. I said, No, Lord, I'm not gonna do that. I'll try to do a missions trip every year. He said, No, I want you to quit. And I want you to go full time. And so this was just what the Lord was speaking constantly. And I said, I don't know how this is gonna work. Of course, at this time I started developing some context, message believers around the United States and Canada. And so, because of that persecution advocacy, I was needing to get believers praying, and so this opened a lot of different doors as far as uh being in contact with people, and I had an email list to update people about that, and so I mentioned that I announced on the blog, I just put on the blog that I was gonna be going on a missions trip. I didn't know how I was gonna go on a missions trip. I didn't say I had money or didn't have money, but a brother reached out and said we'd like to pay for your tickets for your missions work. So then they said you should over in Turkey. They said you should bring your wife with. Said, Lord, if you want to bring my wife with, you're gonna have to provide for that overnight that very night. Somebody sent from overseas sent an offering that covered exactly that amount for the for her ticket to go to Turkey with me. So we uh so that as the Lord was dealing with us to go dealing with me to go full time, you know, the the frustration and the Lord's hand was heavy, let's just put it that way. And so it just had to be a step of faith. Coming into 2012, it was about a year and a half, I was resisting this call. And in the late springtime, we had I had three experiences that were confirmation. So while I was going through this, I was studying the scriptures and studying the lives of other missionaries that walk by faith, and I realized, was realizing and seeing that it is a walk of faith, that it isn't about asking people for money. You know, you can, you know, as as you see through the history, you can speak about what the Lord is calling you to, and then the Lord moves on people's hearts. And so when I'm starting to read this and realize this and study this, and the Lord's dealing with me, and there's a lot of things that he's speaking in other circles, but other ways. But this particular thing was just he nailed it down. There was a we had a testimony meeting in the Somali neighborhood over in Cedar Riverside area. We had an Iranian young man that had been a Muslim and became a Christian came to speak. I I had him share a testimony, and he got up and said, You know, when God calls you and sends you on a mission, you don't go. He said, When your boss at work sends you on a business trip, you you go immediately. You know that your ticket will be paid for, your hotel, your food, your gas, everything will be paid for for the trip. But when God calls you, you you you you say, I don't know how anything will be paid for. And so as he's speaking this, is I mean, he doesn't know what I'm going through. No one knows, just my just my wife knew, not even my pastor knew. And so, because he was also my father-in-law, so he's a man of faith. I I say that in jest, but it still was a little nerve-wracking. So we he's speaking that, and it's just the tears are just coming down my face because I realize this I don't know how this guy with broken English is putting this all together so eloquently for us. And he says, When you're why is it that you believe your boss, but you don't believe God when he calls you? My that was for me. So then Wednesday night, brother Greg from there, Schwartz was preaching, and I was thinking about these things, and I was thinking about how about how will how will my family be provided for? How will how will that be take place? He says, and you say, Well, how will my family be provided for? The same God that can provide for you can provide for your family, my so then I said, But but what about my future? Uh what about health insurance and retirement and everything? This and he's he said, You say, What about my future? The preacher said that. You say, What about your future? The same God that can provide for you and for your family knows how to take care of your future. My so I was on my face after that service, crying out to the Lord, okay, Lord, I don't know how this is gonna work, I don't know what to do. But I'll obey. So the next day I was sitting in the car, and a brother from church sent out a quote by email, and I'm reading this quote in my car, and I'm going, Wow, Brother Branham says there people could look at Joshua and say, Joshua, why are you attacking that mountain where giants are? That's reckless. But the thing of it was is what they didn't know was as soon as Joshua had the word of the Lord, he could be reckless. So I'm reading this, I'm I'm reading this on my phone, and I go, huh, and I throw it the phone over to the passenger seat, and I say, Okay, okay, Lord, I get it. So those three in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. So the Lord asked me to go full-time in ministry. He promised that he would provide for my needs, that he would provide for the missions trips, that he would provide for my family, and that he would take care of my future. So the reason why I'm full-time, the reason why I'm not working a banking job or another job is God asked me to do that. And I tried for a year and a half to run away from it and not do it. In fact, I've even I've even made attempts a few different times to when when I thought that times were hard to take care of it on my own and go back and and uh find a job, but God has blocked me time and time again, and he has been faithful and he has provided along the ways. I couldn't describe to you the miracles. When I first started, I I didn't think we would hardly have any money at all. I think we would I thought we were going to be suffer maybe on the streets. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I was willing to be obedient to the Lord and He's provided for us. There's times when we first started, there was people I didn't even know who they were, I didn't even know how they knew me, but suddenly there's a PayPal from New Zealand and just the exact amount that you needed to pay your bills. And I'm still living this way to this day. I wish I could say I had I my bank accounts were full, but we're always running on empty. And God is providing. He's providing for me in in the early years when we were doing missions, work with the Iranians. That's a whole other testimony, is he's provided for six different ministers. He's provided for me, six different ministers, my trips, and three other ministers, two other minute, three other ministers' trips. And so the Lord has been faithful along the way. He's backed up the word that he gave to me. Let's put it that way. He promised to provide. This is not for everybody to go full-time and do that. If it was just on my own, I never would have. I never would have left the banking industry, more than likely. I would have just, you know, my father worked the same job 35 years, my brother's working the same job. Let's see, he's he's uh 59, he's in the same job since he's 23. So, you know, he's been the same job, he'll be and he'll work there till he's retired. And my grandfather, the same job, I think, for 55 years. And so this was my plan. Uh, maybe I wouldn't be in the same job, but in the same industry and just stay with it and build the retirement and vacation days and all that other stuff. And that was my plan and that was my desire, but God called me to something different. So ministry has changed, you know, it's gone from working with Iranians, that's where I was at full time to start with, and then it went to working with Arabic speakers in Egypt, and now is a new change of corner. We're trusting the Lord every step of the way. We look to Him to provide. You know, we get in situations and circumstances, you say, My goodness, the rent is due tomorrow. How are we gonna pay it? It's impossible. We don't have the money. God makes a way. How are we gonna take care of this need or that need? God makes a way. He's faithful. You know, we don't we don't know how he does it. We're not here to beg and beg for money and ask, hey, can you send us some money every month or this or that? But God moves on God moves on hearts. And he speaks to people about supporting us and helping us, and he provides supernaturally. I mean, read you read the story of George Mueller, you read Brother Branham's testimony, he's ready to go back full time. His wife says, You want to do that, but did God you want to go back full time and work for the the county, the line, the power company. Said things aren't going good, I'll do it. But his wife said, Did God ask you to do that? Or are you just doing that? And we've seen that time and time again, you know, we we we walk with the Lord. It's not an easy call, but it's it's his call, and that's the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm trusting the Lord to open the doors, I'm trusting the Lord to to lead me. Moving forward, I really like to begin to do missions work in North America. I'd like to start the process of doing some outreach meetings with local churches across the country. We're in a situation where we need to be doing missions work here in America to spread the message into places that have never heard it before, put the message into towns and cities where there's no churches or or very small churches where we could help them in their outreach. And so we'd really like to do that. And we're praying the Lord helps us and gives us grace. You know, I foresee doing some sort of campaigns focused on introducing the message, speaking about the truth of the Godhead, speaking about Malachi 4, speaking about water baptism, and speaking about serpent seed. Maybe not in that order, but introducing the message on that level, you know, starting in different towns, maybe like we go up to Denver and we rally the church existing churches there and begin to do some outreach to try to introduce it to places where it hasn't been, and you know, like hold a mystery expo or a conference like that where we can really get into the introduction of the message. That's been my specialty over the years. That's what my specialty was in in Turkey and in Egypt, and the Lord moved mightily, and even to where He did He did signs and wonders accompanying the Word. And so we love to see something like this we do in North America because there's a great need for spreading the message to new areas and new places, and we certainly can work together as a team with pastors around the country to do this. I I don't know how the details are going to work out, but I ask that you'd pray for me about that. So all right, thank you so much for taking the time. I trust this testimony was a blessing to you. I'm sure I left things out. I hope I didn't left the leave any big things out or get going on one thing and leave another thing off. So I know that can happen. So forgive me if it did. We appreciate you. Thank you once again to the subscribers that support me on a monthly basis. Support the podcast on the monthly basis. You can do that on our website, jasondemars.com, or you can do that on our Buzz Sprout link that you'll see below wherever you're listening to this. God richly, richly bless you.