Ep. 19 - Precision and Purpose

In this episode we dive into the nuanced world of shot placement. Back with us are the familiar voices of my great friend, Wes Chester, and my right hand man, John Wesley (Dub) Keene. We discuss the factors that we have to be sure to consider. When to take a shot? How is the deer acting? What angle is the deer at and how does that change where to aim?
From there we look at what our next steps are to make sure that our hunt ends with a successful harvest. How can we be sure that our arrow flight was true and hit the mark.

For our Vertical focus we look at how we can be sure of our salvation.

In his book, How to be sure you are a Christian, Bill Bright - Founder of Campus Crusade for Christ (Now Cru), said, 

"My experience in counseling thousands of students and laymen through the years since I met Christ personally has convinced me that there are literally thousands of good, faithful church-goers who have received Christ in prayer, but who are not sure of their salvation."

How do we move away from constant worry or even occasionally wondering about this to the life of victory that Jesus came to give us? We discuss all of this along with the fun banter that you have come to expect from the guys. 

Thanks for joining us on The Bowtreader Podcast. Leave a comment to let us know where you are listening from as well as any topics that you would like to hear us cover. Be sure to like the episode and subscribe to follow along.

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Transcript

JOHN: 0:07

Hey guys, John with the bow trader podcast here. Wanted to thank you for joining us on the podcast. We are starting off a brand new season, the 2025 podcast recording season. Uh, we're going to be dropping episodes on a more regular basis. We're excited to get this back going again, and it's going to be much the same as what we've done in the past. We're going to be talking about Archery hunting. We're going to be talking about shooting bows, setting up new equipment. We're going to be talking about what it's like getting out in the field, how to interact with others. Interacting with God in our vertical relationship with Him, the creator of the universe that wants to have a relationship with each one of us. So those are the things we're going to be talking about. We're excited that you're joining us. Exciting that you're, that you're listening. Uh, we want you to, to share, share your feedback with us. Let us know what you want to hear, what topics you want us to cover. And we're just super excited that we get to share this time with you. So buckle up, enjoy the ride Alright, so, let's, let's, uh, let's go around the table, introduce everybody. We got some familiar voices in here. Um, Dub's here with us today. Dub, step up to the mic and say, hello, everybody.

DUB: 1:23

Hello.

JOHN: 1:24

He doesn't listen. Not nearly as good as I do, right? Yeah. And then we got Brandon, of course. Brandon, say hello. Hello. See there? That was on cue. Perfect. Then we got Wes Chester sitting over here. I'm here. He's here. Ready to go. Wes has been in here in the shop shooting his target bow and it's like, I mean, a glorious thing.

WES: 1:51

It's taking some time, but we got it together.

JOHN: 1:52

I love it. I love it together. Yes, sir. All right So we're gonna be talking about shot placement today Specifically with archery hunting. I mean most of the time that's what we're talking about. It's archery hunting I mean we will get into talking about chasing birds and stuff like that but we're gonna we're gonna really dive into this idea of shot placement today and I think I think one of the things that, that I have learned and, you know, for a lot of you guys that are going to be listening to this guys and gals, whoever's listening to this, some of the things we're going to talk about, you're going to be like, well, duh, John, we know that, but some people don't, you know, and I mean, especially whitetail hunting, which is 95 percent of what I do with a bow is, you know, really thinking about. Not just where you're trying to hit the deer, but where that arrow is going to come out. I mean, to me, I think you need to be aiming for that more than anything. You know, I mean, you'll, if you, if you run in, in any kind of archery circles whatsoever, you're eventually going to hear somebody saying, aim for your exit. And I mean, and that is the absolute truth. Because if you aim Um, if you're hunting from, you know, if you're 20 feet in the air and you take a shot on a deer and you're like, all right, I want to hit this deer right behind the shoulder, chances are it ain't going to end well, right? Right. And why is that?

WES: 3:23

Well, it depends on your angle, depends on the deer's angle, depends on your distance. And I know Dub's going to like this one. It depends on your broadhead.

BRANDON: 3:35

There you go. I've already been rebuked on that one. Rebuked.

JOHN: 3:41

Yep. Now tell me about, let's start with distance. We'll start there. Now, how does distance going to affect the shot? Anybody, whoever

BRANDON: 3:51

wants to go. I think one of the biggest things is that just how's the deer going to react? Yeah. Um, travel time with the arrow is one thing, you know, and considering that, I know a lot of people say that, you know, they, they aim low. Um, because of planning for a deer to drop, you know, um, and you hear different stories and, um, uh, you know, I think everybody's probably got an opinion on that just like they do broad heads and other things, but, you know, how's the deer going to respond? Sometimes it may be even. Um, noticing the deer's behavior, how they're acting before you shoot, are they jumpy? You know, like we talk about these does all the time that are on edge already and it'll

JOHN: 4:35

pick you off from a hundred yards away.

BRANDON: 4:37

Yeah. Are they jumpy? Are they just cruising through and not, not paying attention? And so I think that's one way I believe distance affects a shot for sure. Um, is how's the deer going to react?

WES: 4:51

What is your confidence from that distance? Absolutely. Sure. Yeah. And do you know what the distance is? Yes. You know, uh, I work really hard at judging distance because I don't want to have to pull out a range finder and see how far he is and then put the range finder up and try to find him. I hook my release to the string. So first thing I do when I get in the tree is I will arrange distances. So I know where he's at, you know, um, and, and are you confident that that distance? I mean, sure. Basket rack, eight pointer at 40 yards, but what if it's a 140 inch 10 pointer at 55,

JOHN: 5:33

right?

WES: 5:34

Do you want to let him walk because you're confident at distance or you're not are you just man? I might not ever get another chance. I gotta try it.

JOHN: 5:40

Yeah. Yeah. What about you dub?

WES: 5:43

I shoot long

DUB: 5:44

distance So

JOHN: 5:45

you practice long distance. Let's clarify

DUB: 5:48

practice long distance. So I feel like a 60 and under shot for me is a lot easier than most people.

JOHN: 5:56

Well, I mean you you We got a Let's clarify this. West will practice dub. Alright, let's let's fix this. John Wesley is dub. Wes Chester is Wes. Alright, now, but dub will consistently habitually practice at 100 yards. Yeah, if not further. I mean, like we've got a target off our back porch. That's I think right now, 131 yards. There you go. 131 yards and he will send 0. 2. If you wanna be specific. Okay. And he did that without a rangefinder. See, I can't see 131 yards 0.2. It's a, it's a big target. It's, see the target in the range down there? It's, it's one of those, so you, I've only

DUB: 6:38

missed it like a few times.

JOHN: 6:41

And now in the early days, he'd miss it a lot when he's shooting, you know, 50 pounds today, uh, you know, he's drawing 80 pounds or whatever. And, and, you know, he'll rip it down there, but early on, nah, there was more, there was more missing than that. These targets, they have a little piece of wood at the top and at the bottom. And there are numerous arrows in that top piece of wood. And they are not all mine.

DUB: 7:04

The, well, how it's set up is the target, it's downhill, so the arrow arcs, and it'll hit that plywood, just,

JOHN: 7:11

poof. Yeah, it just, zing, it's gone. Zips right off of it. Yeah, it's gone. Gone. If you, you'll hear it, I mean, it's, you know, foam is home, right? Yeah. And you'll hear it, and it's like, you shoot, it used to be he would shoot, and it's like, you could just sit there and, you know, drive the Mississippian back, and then his arrow would hit, you know. That's great. And now it's, it's, funk.

7:31

Yeah.

JOHN: 7:32

Yeah. Yeah. Now, now it's pretty quick, but yeah, so he'll, he'll practice it extremely long distance, which makes that, which makes that 40 yard shot like a chip shot, but still,

DUB: 7:44

and it makes a 10 yard shot like a

JOHN: 7:46

Um, yeah, yeah, but still, you know, even with that, you're, you still got to contend with a white tail deer and they are super jumpy and I listen, I don't, I, I obviously talk to a lot of people that, that bow hunt, I mean, working a bow shop, that's, that's the people that we talk to on a daily basis and everybody has their idea of how much a deer is going to drop or where you should hold or whatever. And I, I just, I don't know. I'm not comfortable with, with holding low. I really don't.

WES: 8:17

Yeah. Well, there's, there's too many factors. If that deer hears that bow go off, he's going to drop. Sure. Yeah. So if you've got a 20 mile per hour wind, blow it in your face, he's not going to hear that. He's not going to drop.

8:33

Yeah. If he's

WES: 8:34

on edge. Yeah. If he's alert. And he hears that bow go off now. He's gonna hit the ground almost. I mean, I've seen some of these videos that is just amazing how much they can drop when they turn to leave.

DUB: 8:48

Yeah, um, me and dad were hunting in a ground blind. There was a squirrel over the deer shaking limbs and dad shot at the deer. That deer dropped like two feet.

JOHN: 9:00

Oh, it was crazy.

DUB: 9:01

Hit the dirt. Bolted su

JOHN: 9:03

super light arrow. Super fast bow. I mean, it was, it was like we had three

DUB: 9:08

15.

JOHN: 9:09

Three 15. What

DUB: 9:10

is what your bow was shooting.

JOHN: 9:12

That's pretty fast. Kids. He's all, you know, big and proud right now because he shot his bow through the chrono earlier with like a 200 grain arrow and it shot, oh my

DUB: 9:25

hunting arrow shoots.

JOHN: 9:27

Um, three, three 30 that that's fast. I'll give you that. That's fast. But anyway, yeah, I mean this deer, I mean, and it was, it was a flat shot at 20 yards. I mean, a layup, right. And these squirrels were up in the tree, you know, playing in it, like it was a dang jungle gym or something. And so the deer were super edgy. They had no idea we were there. The wind was blowing towards us. You know, we had black on and it was, it was just a really good setup. And I shot and I was like, I turned to him, I said, Hey, were you videoing? And he was like, no, the camera wouldn't work. You know, you just had this, my phone or whatever. This is before he had a phone. And, uh, I said, man, I think that deer got out of the way. I mean, and sure enough, we walked down there and the arrow was, you know. 25 yards behind where I shot just laying on the ground, you know, I mean, I saw it because it skipped in the dirt and I was like, man, I think that deer just completely ducked out of the way and which was crazy. And then, you know, of course the squirrel start laughing at you, you know, cause you made a bad shot, which is, it's not a good way to stay alive. I'll just put it that way. But anyway, so, so we've got, we've got this idea of should, should we. Should we aim a little bit low or not? Let's, let's, let's put that part of the conversation to the side and go back to that idea of, um, so we talked about distance a little bit. Now let's talk about the angle of the deer. Right, and where we're gonna aim to hit. So, so when we're, when we're whitetail hunting, when you're hunting anything, you, you want to make a shot that's gonna kill the animal. The whole point, if you're, if you're gonna shoot an animal, shoot it to kill it. Right. You know, just, if you're trying to kill something, kill it. You know, don't, don't make a sport out of putting a hole in something. If you're gonna shoot it, kill it. So you're looking for lungs or you're looking for heart. You're not looking for a headshot. Although those do sometimes happen, right? A couple years ago, um, Wes was hunting and, uh, Dub, Dub was hunting. And, We've all seen it, you know, a deer will turn and like scratch their, underneath their head, underneath their, their jaw with their back leg. Well, the deer, as he released his arrow, the deer turned and did that. And caught that arrow right between the eyes. And of course, you know, it was his first buck, so I posted it on social media. I didn't care. Dude, we got freaking flamed for that. It was, you know, and I didn't take it down. I didn't care. I mean, people didn't know the story. I wasn't going to go back and tell the whole story. You know, I was proud that he killed a deer. I didn't care how it got to the skinning rack. You know, but everybody was like, well, would you do that? How could you, what you're telling me is you'd never made a mistake or something like that has never happened. Well,

WES: 12:20

the same thing happens with gun hunting. A hundred percent, you know, the, the shots that we take where we hunt are usually 60 yards or less. Oh yeah. Way less.

JOHN: 12:33

Are you talking about gun hunting? Gun hunting. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So

WES: 12:36

my shot is in the neck. I mean, the deer drops, there's no tracking job, and there's no wasted meat. But you get roasted by some of these people for being an unethical shot. Yeah. I mean, so it doesn't matter what you do, kill the deer. They let them think what they want to think. Yeah,

JOHN: 12:59

that was the, that was the position we took on it.

BRANDON: 13:01

I think the biggest thing, man, I love what you said, Wes, is are you comfortable with the shot? To me, that is the number one thing. When we were getting ready to go out to Colorado and you were helping us get ready with our bows to go elk hunting, um, you know, we were shooting 80 yards consistently, you know, you get out there, you got a huge target. So it's a lot different, but I got really comfortable shooting 80 yards. And, uh, it's kind of like what you were saying, Dub, um, we, uh, we, we got really comfortable with that. So coming back and deer hunting, you know, 40 yards felt very comfortable. Whereas the year before 40 was, Oh, I don't know, but I think ethical is what, what is realistic for me. And what am I comfortable taking that shot? And given all circumstances and certainly it happens quick, you don't have time to think about everything. But what am I comfortable shooting? Um, whether it's a rifle or a bow to me, if you have a high level of confidence, not Not a confidence, not, not a wish, right, but a true confidence that this is a shot I can, I can consistently make, then take that shot. But stuff happens, you know, it's one thing to make a mistake. It's another thing to take a shot that you know is a high likelihood of wounding a deer and not killing it because you think I'm not going to see that deer again. This is just like you talked about the one that went under the tree. Mm hmm. Oh, yeah. You could have taken a shot at that deer. Yeah. But you knew, like, there's no, there's no high probability of me killing this deer. Yeah. And to me, that's, that's where it matters is we're going to make mistakes. Look, I track deer. Um, I track, you know, probably close to a, between 60 and 100, at least a year, depending on the year. And Most of what I track is mistakes, and that happens. Um, but I think there's a difference in that and just making a bad choice.

JOHN: 15:16

Yeah. You know. Yep. I would agree with that. You know, and, and then going back to that idea of, or that, that, that question of what's the position of the deer? You know, if you've got a deer that's quartered away from you. I mean, you got to get, you got to get way back on your entry to go through something that matters and way high and way high, man. I'll tell you, I shot a deer, uh, three years ago now. And, um, when I shot him, he was at like, I don't know, five steps or something from the tree. And so when I shot him, I was like, I was probably two or three inches from his spine. Where I went in, right, going down, he was, he was, he was, he would've been, he, I guess technically quartered away from me, uh, but he was walking right past my tree. I

DUB: 16:12

think the correct term is directly underneath. Yeah,

JOHN: 16:15

I mean, he was, he was very, very close and, um. Wound up going through a lung and going through his heart. And I mean, that was, it was game over. The only thing, I don't even know how he ran after that, you know, I knocked him down and he got up. And probably

DUB: 16:33

because he was 200 plus pounds. Yeah.

JOHN: 16:35

He was, he was big, big deer. Um, but yeah, that was, that was cool. Had a lot of fight in him. Yeah, for sure. Um, and then, you know. I'd say this as much as you practice at a long distance practice at a super close distance too Because that one will will kill you, you know, we've done um 3d shoots And we'll always set up a target super close. I mean like three yards And it is hilarious to watch people walk up to that target. They're like, they'll, they'll, they'll look at it and, and, and you almost just like step it off, you know, cause they don't trust their range finder because it's so close and then they'll go to shoot it. And I mean, and it'll be a target, like a raccoon or something, you know, something really small and, um, they'll go to shoot it and they're like, you'll look at them and they're like trying to look down their arrow and stuff. And it's like. You're going to miss. I mean, and then we watch him just completely miss. Well, I had a guy asked me one day, he was like, why do you, why do you set the target up so close? You're going, your target's going to get shot out. I was like, dude, people miss this thing nine times out of 10. They'll miss, you know, because when you're shooting a target that close, you know, from a 3d standpoint. You need to shoot like a 60 yard pin, you know, to be able to do it. And, and, you know, most people, the, the 3d shoots that we have traditionally done have been just fun shoots. It's not like, it's not a, it's not a part of a club or anything where people are coming out and trying to make a certain score or something. So it'll just be a group of buddies that hunt together and they'll just come out and shoot. And they have no idea how to respond to that target at three yards. And it's hilarious, you know, and they give each other a hard time. And then the next guy will come up and he'll, he'll miss or he'll clip the, you know, the top of it or whatever. So in that little raccoon target, there's actually a scoring ring, like right in the middle of his head. And, uh, so that's what the one that everybody goes for is right in his head. And it's, it's a challenge. It's, it's funny to watch it. Um, but anyway, all right. So let's say you've, you've shot a deer. So, you get down. What's next or or let's before we even go that far. You've shot a deer. What's next? What do you do? You've shot a deer.

WES: 18:48

Calm down. Yeah.

JOHN: 18:50

Yeah. Yeah. Typically for me, when when it hits me is after the shot. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

WES: 18:55

Absolutely.

JOHN: 18:56

Before the shot, getting it done, everything, I'm typically fine, you know, and then after the shot, it's like, man, is I have this, this adrenaline dump that happens and I'm like. It's like having to hold onto the tree sometimes, you know, I mean, I've never gotten like, you know, Luke, Brian excited. I mean, we've all seen that video down, but, but maybe close, but anyway, um, but yeah, I mean, you, you take that shot. Usually the deer is going to run off, you know, with, with archery hunting. I mean, most of the time we don't just knock them down and boom, they're dead. Like with a rifle, we don't have that much energy that we're working with. So what do you do when you, when you take that shot?

BRANDON: 19:40

Man, you'll have to gong me or something on when you start talking about this stuff because this is something, this is what I love, right, is the tracking aspect of it. Um,

JOHN: 19:49

well, I'm talking about before the tracking.

BRANDON: 19:50

Yeah. Well, I think the biggest thing, and I tell my boys this all the time and, and it seems like, and other people too, but it seems like we can't get this down because we're so excited. The first thing I think is one exactly what you said, Doug, is, is calm down. Yeah. But man. Mark where they were. Yeah. You know, like one thing that happens with me, um, with a lot of people is I'll go and, and, and I may be hunting with them and I'll say, where was the deer? And they're like, and, and, and they'll call me, I'll drive an hour and get there and I'll say, well, where was the deer when you shot? I'm not a hundred percent sure.

JOHN: 20:28

Yeah.

BRANDON: 20:29

And, and one of the first things I think before you ever get out of the tree. Um, I think the number one thing for me is know where the deer was at, you know, I think for me, that's one of the things, you know, that's, that's huge, um, because I will go track a deer if somebody thinks that they hit that deer and they are very confident, which everybody is, because a lot of times it's wishful thinking, um, I'll go help them, but at least know where the deer was, you know, give me, give me something to

JOHN: 20:57

work with and the thing, so here's what I'll tell you to do when you take that shot, You need to collect yourself really, really quick and watch and listen. Let's see if you hear the deer crash. If you don't, that's fine. Don't freak out, but just listen and try to figure out what, you know, which way the deer is going. Cause I mean, yeah, sometimes. Especially for us down here, we're hunting in some pretty thick stuff. So, I mean, the deer could run 10 yards and then you not be able to see it anymore. Yeah. Or run or here or here. Yeah. I mean, you, you may be super thick where you're at and then there's an opening, you know, 20 yards away. And as soon as they hit that opening, man, you might not hear a leaf crack, you know, at all. And that deer bust right through there. So stop and listen and try to watch, you know, where the deer goes, try to watch and see what the deer's reaction is to the arrow. Because that'll give you a really good indication of what you hit when you hit the deer um And then the other thing like you said really Try to pinpoint where that deer was standing because i'm gonna tell you right now when you get down out of that tree Everything looks different. Yeah. Especially in the dark. Yeah. Especially in the dark. But even if you have the good grace of shooting a deer, when you still have plenty of light, everything is still going to look so different when you get down and being able to go and, and, and figure out where that deer was standing. And listen, you know, You may not go to where the deer was standing and see blood immediately. And that's not unusual. Absolutely. You know, I mean, hopefully, hopefully you can go and find your arrow. You know, our goal is to punch all the way through. It's really nice to have two spigots dumping blood.

BRANDON: 22:47

It's a whole lot easier to find something that way. And going back to earlier conversation of where we aim. If the deer is closer and you've got a steep angle and you don't get a pass through, a lot of times it takes a while for that deer to bleed. The cavity has to fill up with that

JOHN: 23:04

blood before it comes out that entry hole. You know, that's one thing I learned with hunting out of a ground blind. You know, you're, you're typically making pretty, pretty flat shots. And man, you got to watch and see where that deer goes because it might go 30, 40, 50 yards and you not even get a speck of blood. Right. Yep. You get nothing. Yep. Um, so. Um, and I know Dub, you like hunting pretty high. I know that you like getting pretty high in the tree.

DUB: 23:29

16 to 25 feet is very common for me. Yeah. I typically don't go higher than 25. I just get where I feel is, I don't really get cover. I hate trees with cover. I don't know how to explain it, I just don't like it at all. So I get to where I think that the deer will not be able to see me as good, but I still have a really good shot angle.

JOHN: 23:52

Yeah, um, but typically hunting from an elevated position, you're gonna have, you know, a high entry and a low exit, and that low exit is what makes all the difference in the world, right? Um, I mean, regardless, if you don't have a low exit, you're still gonna, the deer's still gonna expire. I mean, if you punch through a deer's lungs. Those those bags can't fill it with air anymore. It ain't going far, right? But it still can be a challenge to find it so I always say Stop and listen, and then don't move too fast. Like don't get down and start, okay, I know the deer went this way and go straight from your tree, straight to where you think the deer went. Always, always, always go to where you shot the deer. Um, and then start from there. Try to find your arrow. Hopefully your arrow is sitting right there. You can look at your arrow and see what it looks like. If it's green, you know, probably go to the truck. You know, I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean, it doesn't mean that deer is not going to die. That deer is probably gonna, gonna die, but you need it to go to its first bed and stay right there, you know, and let it expire right there. It's going to take a little bit longer. Or if you go to go to your arrow and it's got super dark blood on it, you know, like real deep crimson red back out of there, just as quiet as you went in back, back out of there. You know, because you probably got in his liver again, he probably ain't going to tote that, right? But if you bump him out of that first bed, dude, he's gone. I mean, he'll be in the next county. Yeah,

WES: 25:28

when we're in Kansas, you know, everybody's waiting for that text that you shot one. And unless you saw that deer fall, you stay put where you're at until somebody gets to you. Yeah. I mean, which is usually 30, 45 minutes. Oh,

JOHN: 25:42

sure. Yeah. So, which is pretty good timing. Yeah. It is. Um, I had a friend up in Missouri that went hunting this year and he hadn't done a whole lot of, of hunting. He's done, he's done a lot of shooting, uh, shooting 3d stuff and things like that. And he's, he loves archery. He's really into it. And, uh, he shot a deer and, uh, sent me a picture of his, of, you know, that he just shot, shot a deer or whatever. And I said, dude, don't move. He said, what are you talking about? It's like three o'clock. I want to get down and find this deer. I said, don't move. Just wait. Just sit there, you know, and basically said everything I've been saying right now, just over text message, you know, and he was like, can you, can I call you? I was like, no, I'm in a tree. Don't call me, you know? And, uh, so anyway, um, and, and like when, when, when Dub killed, um, that buck that he killed this year, yeah, I was 45 minutes away. I said, don't move till I get there. He's like, dad, you're like an hour away. I said, no, I'm not that far. I'm, I'm getting ready to leave. I was in Sylvania. And I said, just, just sit, sit there until I get to your tree. So you, so, so because it was getting dark and I said, you sit right there and then I'm going to walk to where that deer was standing when you shot it. And then we'll go from there. And I got there and we still had a little bit of daylight. And, um, yeah. I got, I walked to where the deer was standing and sure enough, I mean, it was, it was in a creek bottom, so it was wet and you could see where the deer jumped when he, when he shot him. And I found the arrow a few feet away. And when I bent down to pick the arrow up, I saw through, you know, the underbrush, um, I saw that white belly, but I didn't say anything. I let him, I said, all right, come on, get down and come over here. And, you know, I stuck his arrow in the ground right where it was standing. He got up there and looked at it and he was looking at the arrow. And he's like, Dad, I think I made a really good shot. And I said, buddy, I think you made a great shot. I said, but, you know, fine blood. This is this is it. You know, this is the way we do it. And, uh. You know, so he started looking and found some blood, then he went this way and was tracking the blood and everything and, and, uh, you know, the whole time I, I actually stepped back because his mom was there to, you know, she was all excited and wanted to go down in the woods and I stepped back and I said, the deer's right over there and I said, it's, it's cool. We got this. And, uh, so she started to say something, I said, don't say anything, just let him, let him find it, you know? And anyway, um, so. Looking at what the blood looks like, looking at what your, what your, uh, what your arrow looks like, if you can find your arrow, if you got a pass through. If you shoot a super light arrow, you probably didn't get a pass through. Okay. Here we go. I knew I'd fire him up with that. If you shoot a super light arrow and a mechanical broadhead, man. You don't have a chance. You've got no chance in the world.

DUB: 28:34

One thing for you, dad. How many did you kill this year?

JOHN: 28:36

None, man. Here we go. Here we go. I shoot those heavy arrows and fixed blade broadheads, I didn't kill anything. I didn't even take a shot. He knew you didn't have a chance. I knew, I was so, I was so, you know, I lacked so much confidence, I just didn't even take a shot this past season. Which is terrible. Oh, and he's crying now. Ha ha ha. But, um, But yeah, I mean, so, think about the broadhead that you were shooting. what, what kind of hole it's going to put in a deer. Um, you know, so there are broadheads on the market that are, um, mechanical broadheads that are, that, that open from the front, which means that as it goes into the animal, it pushes it open. And I have had so many people

DUB: 29:28

such as a schwacker or a grim reaper. Yeah. I've had, I've

JOHN: 29:32

had so many people that, um, will tell me that they picked their broadhead up on the other side of the deer and it wasn't open. Wow. So they think that it didn't deploy. Yeah. Which is not. Not true. Snap back closed. Yeah, just snap back closed, right? And, um, And then they would be like, well, we didn't even look for the deer. And I'm like, what do you mean you didn't look for that deer's dead, dude. I'm telling you, if you, and then I look at the arrow and it's got white hair all over it, I'm like, nah, it didn't open, you know, typically if you got white, white hair on your arrow, you know, and you say your broadhead didn't open, you probably like shot through the brisket or, you know, right up under the belly or something like that. And, and chances are, yeah, you, you probably didn't harvest that one. Um, But, you know, continuing on that, what, what does it look like, you know, are there bubbles on the, on the arrow? What does that mean if you got bubbles all over your fletching, Wes? Dub, dub, excuse me.

DUB: 30:38

Sometimes lung.

JOHN: 30:39

Sometimes lung. Most of the time lungs. But not always. That's where those bubbles are at usually, right? It looks kind of pink and bubbly. That's probably a dead deer pretty quick

BRANDON: 30:54

Yeah, I'd say look at the color more than bubbles. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I would say

DUB: 31:00

Bubbles can come from other places. Not just lungs.

BRANDON: 31:03

Yeah, if it's pink and bubbly then I think you got a really good chance that it's long and You know, you're probably gonna find him pretty quick. But if you just have bubbles and it's bright red blood that can come from It can come from anywhere really. Yeah, bright, bright red can come from anywhere. Yeah, it's just, it can come from a leg. It just means it's arterial, right? You can hit any muscle, heart muscle or any other muscle and it can be bright red. Yeah. Um, like you said, we, I found a lot of deer that are, with rifles that were shot through the brisket. The dogs end up finding that deer, usually not dead, but they find it. Yeah. And, um, but it's one of those things where that they bleed and bleed and bleed and people equate a lot of blood with a fatal shot. And it's just not true. There's nothing that bleeds probably more for three or 400 yards and a leg that's blown off. blood. You know, and but you get to three, 400 yards and you quit finding dropping blood. You start finding smeared blood. Oh yeah. And it's just because it's just rubbing off on stuff. And so a lot of blood bubbles, all that stuff. I think a lot of that gets sometimes blown out of proportion just because even clots, people see clots. Oh, that's gotta be long or that's gotta be hard. Well, like clots. So it could be, I mean, I found a lot of clots that were busted legs. And so. Um, you know, you just don't ever know in those, in those cases, but it just, the thing I would say is don't draw a false conclusion because of those things, bubbles, clots, bright red blood, whatever. And my thing would be when in doubt, back out. Like if you have any question, like you're not gonna hurt the situation. By giving it a little bit more time, you know, so that that would be my encouragement is just Make sure what you're looking at, you know And if you're unsure get somebody to come look at it That's more experienced or whatever and you know, a lot of times people don't find deer because pride gets in the way And so being willing to ask for help sometimes is the best thing Like

JOHN: 33:22

when do you make the decision to call somebody in with a dog? Um,

WES: 33:28

I would say, you know, if you've done the proper things, if you found your era, if you found blood, depending on what kind of blood, how much blood, um, I mean, you, you should start looking at making that decision right now. Yeah.

BRANDON: 33:48

Yeah. For me, I really encourage people that if it's, if it, if you're serious about finding it and you have not found it. and 150 or so yards. Just get out and call somebody that can come in and help you find it. Um, but if, if you find a dark blood green stuff on your arrow, especially if you find a liquidy dark blood, um, you're going, that's going further and further back. Dark, dark blood, Is probably liver. Mm-hmm Green is probably stomach li uh, liquidy. Dark blood is small intestines. And the further back you go, the longer it's gonna take that deer to die. A busted stomach, busted intestines. Deer's going to die. He's going to septic. At some point he's going to die. But like you shoot a deer, even with a rifle sometimes with, um, in the small intestines. And unless you've got dogs that catch that deer. That deer may live 24 hours. And so the further back you go, the, the longer you need to give that deer. And, um, but now I've seen some terrible shots too, that, I mean, I can't tell you how many deer I've found that didn't run anywhere, hardly, that were shot in the rear end. You know, and like

DUB: 35:14

this arteries back there, they just,

BRANDON: 35:16

yeah, I mean, I'm talking, I had a buddy, it's kind of funny story. I had a buddy that took hunting one day and he was new to bow hunt. And I said, look, if you're going to miss, miss, don't miss forward, miss a little bit back. Right. I'm thinking two, three inches. I'm not talking about shooting him in the rear end. Right. Well, he's in the stand about 30 minutes and he texts me and he's like, Hey, I think I took what your advice to literally And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, I just shot this deer in the butt. Well, I'd gotten another call to go track another deer, um, that was supposedly hit in the lungs and ended up showing back on camera later. Um, we, we looked for that deer forever thinking that his would be the hardest one to find. Well, we looked for that deer forever. We finally get back and, um, we put dogs on his and it went literally 70 yards. And so. The one that he shot in the butt. The one he shot in the butt. I had another one this year, went about 200 yards, shot in the rear end, um, you know, it happens, but if you find that green blood, dark, dark blood, liquidy blood, man, you know, you gotta get out of there for sure.

JOHN: 36:27

Yeah.

DUB: 36:29

Well, my first deer, the arrow, I mean, I don't know, I pulled it up real quick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how I would describe that.

BRANDON: 36:41

Yeah.

DUB: 36:42

A little bloody with some stomach matter. Yeah. Went 40 yards? 50 yards? Nah, he didn't

JOHN: 36:48

go that far. I mean, not even close.

DUB: 36:51

But then I shot this deer. Never found it.

BRANDON: 36:56

Yeah, so, you gotta think too. Think about the, the entry and exit. Mm hmm. Because if the last thing that arrow goes through is gutty matter, then it's going, you're going, it's going to look more gut shot, right? went

DUB: 37:09

in like quarter to right in the shoulder and came out right here.

BRANDON: 37:14

Absolutely. So it went

DUB: 37:15

through everything.

BRANDON: 37:16

Yes. So you got to consider what we were talking about earlier is, is angle and shot placement, right? So the reason you had gutty material is because that's the last thing it went through. Um, but now take the opposite and you know, You're gonna know a lot different if he's quartering away and you go through some good and then you hit heart and it comes out. That area looks very different. I would be willing to bet the one that you had that had all the blood on it that you never found was probably hit high. Um, it happens a lot. You know, you kind of got that nose on between the vitals and spine and we get a lot of that where there will be a lot of blood. We'll track the deer for a mile or more and yet you don't find it and um, because there's no, it just doesn't hit anything vital. I would say if you're going to miss, I'm not talking about shooting in the ham. If you miss a little miss a little bit, it's a little bit back and if you're going to miss on the deer, I would say at least lower half, if not lower third, because that's where all the good stuff is really, um, at least from what I've seen.

WES: 38:26

Yeah. Yeah. So. I know you guys have seen this product where it's a 3D target and you shoot it and it comes up on a screen and shows you where the arrow would have gone through the deer and where it would have exited on the other side. Yeah. Yeah. Delta McKenzie target. Yeah.

JOHN: 38:45

It's pretty cool. They've got, um, they've got, uh, these targets that they have these little QR codes on them. You go, you shoot it and you go up to it and you scan the QR code and then it, it, um. You know, you're able to see the anatomy of, of the, of the deer, uh, and they have, they started with a white tail and then they've added some other things now. And um, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a pretty cool thing for sure to be able to see that and, um, have an idea of, all right, where'd that, where'd that arrow go? What did I go through on that shot? Right. Give you, give you a better indication of, of, you know, practicing, uh, to get. To get ready to, to go to the field and to see what's going on. So the other, the other part of this, you know, we hunt in Georgia, uh, a lot and most of our deer season is pretty hot. Yes. You know, so I would say just as important as making a good shot and getting, um, you know, recovering the deer pretty quick is. Getting that thing opened up and getting that heat out of there, you know, I mean, when we kill a deer in September and it's 90 degrees outside, man, I mean, within with, with, I don't, I don't want to put like a, a time frame on here, a time reference or whatever. But I mean, pretty doggone quick, you want to get the guts out of that deer and get that thing opened up and get some air in there, uh, because that meat will go to spoiling really fast.

WES: 40:19

Well, that's an absolute known fact that the second his heart stops pumping, that meat starts deteriorating.

JOHN: 40:28

Yeah.

WES: 40:29

I mean, it just depends on how long you want to let it deteriorate. Right. Some deterioration, 30 minutes is not going to kill you.

JOHN: 40:36

Yeah.

WES: 40:37

But if it's not got blood pumping through it, that thing is starts to ride it around in the back of the truck and showing your mama and your buddies. No, no,

JOHN: 40:44

that's a bad idea.

WES: 40:45

Send them a text with a picture, but get that thing opened up.

JOHN: 40:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I, you know, that time of year we kill a deer, it's, it's happening wherever we find it. Right. I mean, it's, I mean, we'll, we'll, we will completely field dress one. We won't, we'll never go to a skinning rack. I mean, it's, it's done right there. And like, we're, we're, we're skinning out shoulders and hams and hanging them in the tree and, you know, letting that airflow get all around them and everything, and then getting all of that to a cooler as fast as we can. Yeah. Um, you know, because we, we want to preserve as much of it as we can. And then I'll say something else is going to be controversial. I do not like. Putting deer meat on Directly on ice. Yeah, I hate the idea of I don't know where this came from. I Don't like bleeding My meat. I don't like doing it. I think, I think there is a distinct difference in the flavor, you know, and, and, you know, I mean, there may be disagreement here at the table talking about this, but, you know, I, I was at a, um, I was at a men's breakfast a week or so ago, and, uh, one of the guys talked about how they don't like Wild turkey, they said it's too gamey and I'm like, man, that, that is, that is it. That is the flavor. That's, um, that's way better than anything Butterball's got to offer. No offense Butterball, but I'm just telling you to me, a wild turkey or, um, wild hog or something like that. Man, I'll take a wild hog over a farm raised pig in a, in a minute. Um, just depending on what it is, right? Um, just, I just think

BRANDON: 42:22

the flavor is so much better. So what you're saying though is basically we'll never be saying Bow Trader Podcast sponsored by Butterball.

JOHN: 42:29

Probably not. No, I probably, I probably just solidified that right there. Yeah, I probably, I probably sealed that envelope right there. But I have,

WES: 42:40

I know what you're talking about. I got so many buddies. They quarter that thing up, they pull out the back straps and the tenderloins and they throw it in a cooler with ice and they just keep putting more ice on it and they let it soak four or five days. Yeah, it looks like a bale of cotton.

JOHN: 42:54

Yeah, it's nasty, man. And it's like, so when you have meat like that, you know, you're not going to go to the store and buy. A rib eye steak that looks like that.

WES: 43:08

My grandmother would always look for the ones that were half off because they had done turned brown. She said, that's the best cut of meat there is right there.

JOHN: 43:19

Yeah, she, she remembers the depression is what it is. Listen, I'll never forget Wes calling me one day and he said, Hey, we just had some people move in down the road here from Michigan. And she wanted to know if I wanted some canned deer meat. I said, Wes, what's canned deer meat? He said, John, I don't know, but she's bringing me some.

WES: 43:39

And guess what? We did not eat it. It was in a jar. They, they canned deer meat like we canned green beans and stuff. Yeah. We call that spam,

JOHN: 43:48

right? Yeah. It didn't look like spam. It was, man, it, uh, But I

WES: 43:53

guess that's a staple up there. I mean, that's the way they keep it in a jar on the shelf in the pantry with green beans.

DUB: 43:59

In Stephen Ellis cookbook, his first one, he said that he would, his dad would keep a, um, like a milk crate full of those in the back of his truck, and that's what he'd have for lunch, is he'd have an onion, cut it, pieces of bread, canned deer meat.

JOHN: 44:13

It's just, I don't know. And he grew up in Michigan. Yeah, he grew up in Michigan, that's right, yeah. So, there's a

WES: 44:17

great, great guy that I watch, he's on Facebook, he's called the Bearded Butcher. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Man, he's got an experiment going right now that he's showing where they killed a deer. And, uh, they were, they were taking pieces off of the back strap at a day old, and then he took a piece off at a week old and then he, I mean, he's just dry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JOHN: 44:39

But it's not in water. No, it is not hanging. It's hanging in there. Cooler. Yeah. I've seen some of that stuff.

WES: 44:45

And then the next one will be at a month.

JOHN: 44:47

Yeah. That's pretty wild. But yeah, I mean, you, you would never go, you would never go to the store to the, to the grocery store and buy a ribeye and then take it home and put it in water. No. Yeah, you wouldn't do that. You know, and I mean, so why do, why do we wanna do it with our deer meat? It's that that meat is porous and it is absorbing all of that stuff. You know, it's absorbing flavors that you don't want to eat. Ha ha. Yeah. And, and, you know, so maybe some of the gamey, quote gamey flavor that you're tasting is part of not handling the meat like it should have been handled. You know, um, I mean, to me, there's, I mean, I, I, it's just, I love it. I love deer meat. I love wild turkey. I, you know, the only thing I'm not a huge fan of is. Um, large mouth bass. They can taste like seaweed. Yeah. I'll eat them but you know, I'd much rather have a flounder or a crappy. Yeah. Yeah. Um but anyway, so those are some of the things Brandon go ahead. I was just going to say or a crappie if you're from Michigan. Uh or a white perch white perch

45:57

white perch.

JOHN: 45:59

Those are some of the things that that we You know, think that, that you should look at, you know, when you're deciding if you're going to take a shot, you know, if, if you're going to take that shot, like, like Wes said earlier, you know, you're going to take something that you would say maybe is a, is a lower percentage shot, a longer shot than you would normally take because it's a, it's a big buck and you, you want, you want to, um, A shot at that big buck and you, you know, you're, you're hunting somewhere and you don't think you're going to have that opportunity again. And I mean, yeah, those are, those are all the factors that, you know, have to go through your mind in, in a very short time frame, you know, about what you're going to do, how you're going to respond. What, if you're going to, if you're going to try to harvest animal or not, and then what to do after the shot, uh, all the way down to. What, what to do with the meat, you know, and we'll, we'll get into, you know, how to cook meat and stuff like that. Um, at some point on a podcast, cause that's something that I really like to do. Um, you know, because obviously that's, that's the whole goal here.

WES: 47:05

Yep. I want to break in right here and say something, you know, you, you said I may take that marginal shot because I don't know if I'm going to see that deer again. I encourage you now that deer season's over and it's freshly over. So, invite your neighbors, invite the people that hunt with you, and y'all sit down and just go over your season and make sure everybody's on the same page. Listen, if you kill that eight pointer, if that's what you wanted to kill, I got no problem with that because that is legal. But what gets me is the guy who kills that little six point basket rack and then complains because he don't ever see any big deer. No. Absolutely.

47:48

Yeah.

WES: 47:48

So we, we, and our little group out there and hope you like it. We're going to go and we're going to sit down and we're going to have a meal and I've encouraged everybody to bring their trail camera pictures because It still baffles me at the people who don't run trail cameras, who don't know what's in our woods. Right. Yeah.

JOHN: 48:07

Yeah. I mean, cause we do have some pretty big deer. We've

WES: 48:09

got

JOHN: 48:09

some

WES: 48:09

great deer. You know, our deer, this is a whole nother podcast. Where, when they reintroduced our deer here in Georgia in the sixties, they were from Wisconsin.

JOHN: 48:19

Yep. Yep. Well, Wisconsin and Texas. Yes, there were some Texas in there. And some from Ohio.

WES: 48:25

So, if you've ever seen those deer? Let, let a Georgia deer get to five and a half or six and a half years old and buddy, you got something.

JOHN: 48:34

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

WES: 48:36

And the guys down in Southwest Georgia have figured that out and that's where the big deer come from. Yeah. Besides, besides the metropolitan area.

JOHN: 48:45

Yeah.

WES: 48:45

But anyway, get with your buddies. Y'all get on the same page. Talk about it. Hey, maybe that, maybe that six pointer, maybe he is five and a half years old. He needs to go, but y'all need to know that.

JOHN: 48:55

And don't fight about it. Don't

WES: 48:56

fight about it. For goodness sakes. It ain't worth fighting over.

JOHN: 48:59

It ain't worth losing friendships over. But I just think

WES: 49:01

there's so many people that hunt here in Georgia, even in Bullitt County, that don't realize the quality deer that we have. And the last thing I'll say, please kill those does. Please kill

BRANDON: 49:16

the does. You know something too that I think is important and I think if if everybody's in agreement on it in your area It can be really good too is you know I think it's easy for us who've been hunting for a long time when we bring the next generation along with us is to be so set on Don't shoot this don't shoot that don't shoot this don't shoot that don't shoot a doe during Rudd or what you know, you get in a lot of that stuff But if you've got a young kid who never gets to shoot

WES: 49:47

Let him, they're never, they're

BRANDON: 49:49

never going to love it. No, you know what I mean? And it just to go and sit, I mean, they're never going to love it. A lot of kids get a pass. Yeah. Finding, finding some balance in that, but being on the same page with that too, I think that's huge because we want the next generation of hunters to love it. Like we love it. But the reason I love it is because I used to shoot deer and, um, and as I got older, um, began to want to kill, you know, bigger, older, nicer deer. But coming along, um, especially at a really young age, that's kind of what got me hooked, you know? So I think that's really important as well is, but I think being on the same page with your neighbors and everybody having the same goal, it's huge. Nothing worse than having You know, one person in the middle of everything, he's shooting everything and everybody else is letting it, letting them walk, you know, so,

JOHN: 50:46

yeah, but I mean, that's still gonna, it's gonna happen, you know, and, and like I said, there's no reason to fight about it and get upset and lose friendships over it and everything. I mean, it's. At the end of the day, it is a, it is a wild animal, it is a resource, you know, that we, we, we have the opportunity to go out and harvest, you know, and, um, you know, I don't think we need to be doing things that are going to, they're going to hurt that, um, there are, we, we know all of us sitting at the table right now know people that years ago, uh, They would never see a deer track in Bullock County. I mean, they wouldn't even see one. They'd have to go down to one of the islands, even see what a deer track looked like. And the same thing is true with turkeys. You know, I mean, there was a time where we didn't have turkeys.

WES: 51:39

I wish I could find it, but I stole, excuse me, DNR please don't come and write me a ticket now, but in the Ogeechee river swamp, they put up sheets of paper that said, Warning, 5, 000 fine for shooting a turkey.

JOHN: 51:57

Oh my gosh. This

WES: 51:58

is when they first started restocking those things. Like, so

JOHN: 52:02

that would have been, like, late 70s? Uh, yes. Or early 80s? It would have been early 80s, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That's pretty cool. And to go and, and read that story, um, to learn about that. So, like, um, National Wild Turkey Federation, their, their big conference is coming up here in, uh, February. If you have the opportunity, go to that, uh, I think it's really cool, but, um, they have some stuff up there about, uh, the people who were so instrumental in, um, helping, um, repopulate the Southeast, basically, with turkeys, and, uh, just really cool stuff, uh, the, the guy that started, uh, Mossy Oak, his dad was really involved in that, and, um, Yeah, they, it's, it's just a, it's such a cool story. They put out, they put out a movie last year about that. Yeah, I think it was Mossy Oak did like a Yeah, Mossy Oak did a documentary about it. So definitely look that up. It's, it's worth the, the 90 minutes or so to watch it. It's so cool.

DUB: 53:01

I don't remember the name of it. It was like the Fox, somebody else. I don't remember the name. Yeah,

JOHN: 53:05

so, so Toxie's dad is, uh, calling the fox, I think is kind of how that all went down. Uh, but anyway, it's pretty, pretty cool stuff. Have you

WES: 53:14

ever seen the documentary where the guy found a turkey nest? And he took the eggs and incubated them. Oh, yeah. He stayed with them for a solid

JOHN: 53:24

year. That was here in, in, uh, coastal Georgia. Yeah, it was close somewhere. Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

WES: 53:29

That was pretty cool, too.

JOHN: 53:31

Yeah, he, uh, showed the thing where the snake came in there and got one of them. Yep. And then got stuck in the pen because he couldn't get back out after eating the turkey or whatever. Yeah, it was pretty cool. So he

WES: 53:39

was the surrogate mom to that whole little brood of turkeys. And I don't know, they started with 10 or 12 and I think really only, Three or four of them maybe made it. It's probably reality in the, in the real world.

JOHN: 53:51

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. So I got another question for y'all, um, that I want to talk about today. And that is what's the meaning of salvation and how do I know, or how do you know that you're saved? You know, we always have a vertical part of of our podcast, and that's one of the that that is the question that we want to focus on today. So what do you think about that?

BRANDON: 54:23

You just cross your fingers, right? No,

JOHN: 54:25

I don't know. I don't know. I don't think that's something. That's it. I think, I think we can have a little good

BRANDON: 54:31

way to bet on your eternity.

JOHN: 54:34

I think we can have a little more assurance than that. Doug, what do you think? This isn't your turn to be silent. Uh, that's a look of panic, deer in headlights. I just made a bad shot. I can't do anything. I should have shot that fig's broad head. Uh, so, so I read a quote this week, um, And it said that, uh, this was in the, um, in a book, uh, called, um, How to Be Sure You Are a Christian. It said, um, My experience in counseling thousands of students and laymen through the years since I met Christ personally has convinced me that there are literally thousands of good, faithful churchgoers who have received Christ in prayer, but who are not sure of their salvation. And that was, uh, that was written by Bill Bright, and he's the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, which is now called CRU, and they have, they have campus ministries all, all over the country. Um, but what, I mean, what do you guys think about that?

WES: 55:43

Well, the first thing I did was looked up the definition of salvation. Okay. The state of being saved from harm, danger, or loss.

JOHN: 55:53

Okay, alright, alright. So what harm, danger, or loss are we being saved from?

WES: 56:03

I'm being saved from being dangled over hell by a stinging, uh, stick, stick and string. Yeah. Dangling over hell with a rotten stick. Yeah. Yeah. That was the

JOHN: 56:14

part of the conversation we had earlier. So why, so, so let, let's, let's, I guess, Since we define salvation, let's define the need for salvation. Who wants to take that? Who wants to talk about the need for salvation? We're all looking at dub and he's like, man, he's just backing away. He's doodling with

BRANDON: 56:36

a Sharpie hoping we're not looking at him. So, well, so where does that come from? What's the idea behind that? I just think, you know, it goes back even to what we talked about with the, what I would call the horizontal part, right. shot placement. Um, to sin literally means to miss the mark. And so you think about Romans 3 23 where Paul says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In other words, we've all missed the mark. Just like we were shot shot out of a bow and we didn't hit the right place. Um, wasn't because God could name. It was because Uh, we couldn't live out the life that God called us to and, and rebellion pretty quickly in our creation. And so, um, uh, what we really need to be saved from is, is our own rebellion against God. Um, and that separation that resulted in that, you know, and I know we talked about before we started that, that referencing hell and this and that can, Can polarize people a lot of times and people a lot of times I get the question of how could a good God send You know somebody to hell and um, you know, and then you go back you really look at it Well, God's never sent anyone to hell. That's that was their decision and I actually heard someone say this one time talking about how It's actually an act of mercy on God's behalf because if you don't want to spend it spend time with God now Why would he force you to do it for eternity? And so when we look at this, it's really, um, we're being saved from ourselves. Um, and, you know, God gave himself, uh, to save us, um, from, from our own iniquities, from our own trespasses and from the spiritual death, really, that came from that. And so, um, I look at it as, You know, we were never intended to be separated, but we are and what we have to find is a way of reconciliation back to the life giver if we really want to have life

JOHN: 58:46

and that's something that we can't achieve on our own, right? Right? There's there's no way that we can. So, so let's let's back up a little bit further. So, I'll share a little bit about what I believe. And I believe that there is a creator, right? Let's, let's start there. I believe that there is a creator that is, if you're going to create something, like if I'm going to, if I'm going to make this box right here, this bottle right here, I'm not a part of that bottle, right? I'm going to create it. I'm going to create it using materials to do that. So God is apart from creation. And he created everything and he did it in order and he did it with a plan in place, right? And based on the evidence that I can see in scripture and in a lot of historical documents, I can say that Jesus Christ is who he said he was, right? So if I believe he is who he says he was, Then that means I'm also going to believe that he did what he said he was going to do, which he came here to bridge that gap that I could never bridge on my own to bring me back into a right relationship with God. He, he literally came here to pardon me, you know, and I use that word because that's a word that unless you're hiding under a rock somewhere. Um, the, the, the idea of having a pardon in the U S is everybody can understand that right now. It's pretty popular. I mean, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's probably the number one Googled thing right now. You

BRANDON: 1:00:25

know, you, you, you can go Fox news, CNN, MSNBC. Whichever one you subscribe to, they're all,

JOHN: 1:00:32

they are all talking about it to some degree or another, uh, from one angle or another right now. And yeah, I mean, so, so I was pardoned not because I was even seeking God, right?

WES: 1:00:44

Yeah.

JOHN: 1:00:44

Um, he did that out of his immense grace and mercy towards me. Um, because he wanted a relationship with me, he made this creation for me to have a, uh, a domain to live in. And so that's, that's the basis that, that I'm the, the, the starting point, the beginning point of this idea of salvation and needing salvation and, and wanting to be in a right relationship with God. And to think that, all right, to get back to the question, how do I, how do I know that I'm saved? And Why, why do we even struggle with that? You know, what causes us to struggle with that? And what does it look like to become saved? I mean, how do, how do you get to that point? You know, first you have to realize that there's a problem. You have to realize there's a danger, right? If you, I mean, you could be going through life and never know that there's a problem. All right. So here's the problem. You came into this world separated from God because of your inherited sin. All right now You can look at that brand new baby boy or brand new baby girl. You just brought home and you can think they're perfect and wonderful It won't take long for you to think that they are full of sin Absolutely. I've got a friend right now who just brought home. I think two weeks ago brought their little girl home and I talked to him, uh, I talked to him Monday and he's sick. Their whole house has been sick. And he's like, John, this has been the hardest week of my entire parenting life. You know, bringing this baby home, you know, And it's not because she's trying to make his life hard. She's just trying to survive right now, buddy. And unfortunately, you know, a sickness came into their home and now they all got it and they're, they're all going through it. And, you know, when a baby gets sick, the last thing they think about doing sleeping when you want to sleep, you know, and, um, you know, it's just, it's, it's, it's difficult, right? So we get into that, that idea or that realization that, man, I've, I've sinned against God, you know, because I, I haven't lived a perfect life and that's the standard, you know, anytime we're going to look at something, we, we really need to define what the standard is and when we're, when you, when you think about a standard, the, the most distilled version of a standard is going to be the truth. Yeah. Okay. And I know I am persuaded that what is recorded in scripture is the truth. I've, I've looked at the evidence. I've investigated it because I wasn't sure. And I have, I'm persuaded. I am certain that what is in scripture is the truth. Every part of it. I can't find a single contradiction. If you can come find me and show it to me. Yeah. And we'll talk about it. Yeah. I don't think it's

BRANDON: 1:03:50

there.

JOHN: 1:03:51

You

BRANDON: 1:03:51

just need more a little more investigation and context. Yeah. Yeah. You think so?

JOHN: 1:03:55

I mean,

BRANDON: 1:03:55

if you, if you find a contradiction. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's

JOHN: 1:03:58

exactly right. That's exactly right. But um, but what do you, what do you guys think about this? I don't want to, I don't want to run over everybody and talk through this and, and be the only one talking here.

BRANDON: 1:04:11

I'm trying to do, not do the same thing. Cause I was thinking through this today. I would, I was probably more excited about this podcast and, um, Um, any of the others, which I thought last week was our best one. Um, we've done two, so, um, we're just getting better and better. You got a

WES: 1:04:31

50 percent chance of it being the best one. Hey, that's exactly right. I was really

BRANDON: 1:04:35

excited about this one. Um, because it's something, you know, my mother in law passed away, uh, getting close to a year ago. And we had so many conversations. very topic. Um, she believed she knew, but man, she struggled because it was so hard for her in her mind to be able to say all the stuff I've done and it's just gone. And we have such a mindset of I'm only going to get what I've earned. And it's like you said, we cannot earn that salvation. We can't, we can't do enough good to wipe out the bad. And God does not look at it as a scale. Where if I can stack more good chips than bad chips, then I'm okay. But we, we, we believe that because of the world we live in, that um, If I can do more good than bad, then hopefully I get in, you know, um, and you think about it too, like, what is our standard? What's the standard that we go by? Typically it's the person next to us or the guy we know. And we look at it and go, well, at least I'm not as bad as that guy. And if we think that we don't need a savior, or if we think that we meet the standard is because we're comparing ourselves to the wrong one. And the standards perfection, and we've all missed the mark, you know, and so the great news is God did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. Um, well, he did for us what we didn't even know we needed to do. Yes, like unaware of it, like the worst thing and you know, people like this, I'm sure who like consciously incompetent or unconsciously incompetent. It's like the worst place you can be. It's like the emperor with no clothes on you. You don't even know it. And like, that's how I know. That's how I was before I got saved. I had no clue.

WES: 1:06:51

Well, I hear you. I hear it. I'm sure you, everybody hears it, but I'm a good person. Yes. I'm a, I'm a good person. You know, I, I help give to charity and I do this and I do that. I'm a good person and, and people think that that's the ticket.

BRANDON: 1:07:08

Yeah. I tell our folks all the time, look, God didn't send Jesus to die to make you good, he died to make you alive. And, um, you know, if he can get a hold of your heart, then he's going to change your life. And so a lot of times we get way more into behavior modification than we do heart transformation. And I think that's one of the things that happens so many times is, as you talked about. John would just, he created us for relationship, and it's not like he was needy, like he's got perfect relationship within himself with the Father, Son, and Spirit, but just a relationship of love and that brings him glory. I mean, the original command was to fill the earth, and we were created in his image, fill the earth and rule over it in a way that brings him glory. But that was forfeited because of sin. And now, man, what an incredible guide, um, to do what he did for us, that we could once again, regain the ability to fulfill our original commission. So, yeah. We're not on video. So just to give you a little commentary, that was John hitting Dove with a Diet Coke bottle, an empty Diet Coke bottle. So it wasn't,

JOHN: 1:08:37

you know, wasn't that bad, but he apparently he's looking up something to tell us, I think. Oh, no, he's not. He's, he's looking at mechanical broadheads. He's, he's checked out, probably texting somebody, probably his mom and saying, Hey, y'all done or what are y'all doing up there? Um, you know, to, to get back into that idea of, of not knowing if you're saved or not. Um, so my daughter. Recently had a conversation with some, some peers of hers. She, she's, she's 19 and she had a conversation with, with some peers and they were talking about, um, Um, how would you answer the question? Are you, are you going to heaven? And, um, you know, some of them said that they would say they didn't know or they weren't certain of it. And she was like, What do you mean? You know, like, what do you mean you're not certain of it? You've, you've accepted this free gift of salvation that Jesus has made available to you. You've accepted Christ into your, into your life, and you've made him the Lord of your life. What keeps you from being 100 percent certain from saying that you're gonna, you're gonna spend eternity with him at this point? Because that's what he paid for. Yeah. You know, he paid for You to be able to, to be in right relationship with God, you know, and, and our behavior should follow and there should be behavioral things that change, you know, if we go from being an orange tree to an apple tree, well, we should stop dropping oranges, right? And we should start dropping apples. Um, and I know that's kind of a weird way to look at it, but I mean, if you're, if you're going to be altogether new,

BRANDON: 1:10:22

um, And I use that example one time in church, and this is just, let me just bring you into my world here. Hang on, let me take my shoes off first. no, no, no. I use that example one time in church and somebody came up and they were like, well, you know, they actually did do a hybrid. So you can, and I'm like, are you serious, man? I'm like, so you can have apples and oranges from the same tree? I'm like, just, just look, every analogy breaks down at some point. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But anyway. But, but what you're saying is exactly true, right? If the, if, if the tree changes, if the root changes, um, there ought to be something different.

WES: 1:11:02

So let's go back. So why would a person not know? Why would they not know?

JOHN: 1:11:09

I don't, I don't know. Uh, Tony Evans, who's a pastor out in Texas, he calls it ADD assurance deficit disorder. You know, I don't know. I mean, at, at worst. You're making really little of the cross, right? Like worst case scenario, you're, you're saying, you know, what Jesus did didn't, wasn't really effective. And that's a pretty, that's a pretty bad place to be. And then at best you're saying, you know, I question if, if, um, I question if I actually did accept what he, what he gave to me. Right. I mean, maybe, maybe at best you're, you're putting it on your shoulders of, you know, maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe I didn't see personally. I don't question

WES: 1:12:03

because I, I remember the night. I mean, I, I remember, I remember getting dunked under the water. I remember it. Yeah. The question that I have is, am I still worthy of that? Yes. You know,

BRANDON: 1:12:17

and I think that's the issue for a lot of people. Right. Um, is we, like every Sunday, every Sunday I get up to preach, I don't feel worthy.

JOHN: 1:12:29

Yeah.

BRANDON: 1:12:29

I mean, I, I went into our prayer team two Sundays ago and I'm like, y'all got to pray for me. And they were like, why? I was like, I do not feel worthy to go out there today. I mean, I'm preaching through Isaiah six about the glory of God, who am I to stand up and talk about the glory of God. If you think I'm perfected in the glory of God, go ask my wife and kids. Right. And I know my own heart and I know how simple my heart is. So I think it does a lot of times comes back to this worthiness and everything in the world tells us that you get what you've earned. If you're worthy, you get it. If not, if you earn your paycheck, you get your paycheck. If you don't, you get fired, you know, and that, that workspace mentality of the old covenant has, has caused a hybrid gospel. That we believe in the cross, but it still takes my behavior and I've still got to earn it and if I'm good enough, then I'll get in. If I

JOHN: 1:13:28

don't mess up. Exactly. Then it'll, then it'll still be good. Right. And when in reality, you know, um, our pastor, Dr. John, he, he tells the story, um, I'm going to mess this up. I know I'm not going to get it right. He's his storytelling ability is, is, is incredible and his memory is incredible, but he tells a story about going, um, with his dad, like to a hardware store and he got a nickel to go to the hardware store where, cause he was going to get a piece of gum. Well, when he got to the hardware store, he didn't have his nickel anymore, so he wasn't going to be able to get a piece of gum. And he said, you know, and he told some more parts of the story and maybe his dad gave him a nickel or something. I don't remember that, all that part, but he said, you know, with our salvation, you know, for him to get that piece of gum, he needed to hold on to that nickel. It was his responsibility to hold on to that nickel, but it's not our responsibility to hold on to that salvation. Yeah, that is in. He's in the hands of Jesus, and he's not letting go. We can, we can count on the fact that he's not going to let go of our salvation. He, he paid a price for us and he's covered us with his blood and with his righteousness. And from that point on, when God looks at us, he sees the perfection of Jesus. Right. From, from a, from a relationship standpoint. Yeah. We are now, we have now taken on. The, the, the relational status with God that Jesus has, that's what the Bible says. That ain't what I say and, and I don't, I'm not going to sit here and claim to, to completely understand that and, and, you know, you talk about being an Isaiah, Isaiah 55 says that God's ways are higher, higher than my ways. And I, I, I can't

BRANDON: 1:15:18

understand it. Yeah. I mean, and, and the thing is, and I would ask you guys this question of. The people you know who are saved, like, like, well, let me back up. We don't know anybody's heart, right? Like we, we can't judge someone's heart. Only God can do that. But the people that you would say, man, they are the most solid in their faith. Or, you know, if I had to, you know, look at someone and say, yeah, they're a believer. They have the attributes of that. I would still ask this question though, do they live more like they're under the old covenant or the new covenant? Okay. All right. So tell us more about that. So do they live free from condemnation? Do they live like they're, the truth has set them free? Um, do they live as though they have, um, unimpeded access to God? Um, or do they live more like, I have to fulfill this law, and the first thing on my mind is fulfilling the law and being good, or is the first thing on my mind my love for Christ and what He's done for me? Um, do we still look for someone else to go to God for us, like the Israelites at Mount Sinai, when they didn't want to hear the voice of God, and yet they said, Moses, you go talk to God, and you come tell us, because. To me, a lot of times that's what Sunday morning is, is people show up and very well, many of them are saved, but it's almost still this mindset of, you know, Dr. Waters or Brandon or whoever, you go hear from God and come tell me what he says. When we're missing the best part, which is, man, I get to go. I get to go in that tent of meeting now. It's not just Moses that gets to experience the glory, right, of God. And so, what I find is, even though we have been taken out of this Old Testament, Old Covenant model, we tend to still live as though we're still in it. Um, we still live with a mindset of, Fulfilling the law in my ability. We still live with a mindset of I'm not really sure if I can go boldly before the throne of grace to receive grace and mercy in my time of need. It's still based on how I feel about me, not what the Bible says about me. So what is

JOHN: 1:18:02

driving that? You think it's, I mean, You think it's, uh, I don't know. I know God's forgiven me, but I haven't forgiven myself kind of thing, kind of mentality or, yeah.

BRANDON: 1:18:15

I mean, I, I, I, I think that's some of, I think we're a product of our environment, so, and, and I'm actually going through a series with our, our college students right now called A Better Story. Um, I wrote this book, um, I really did. I know. I'm like you, I probably sound like I'm half. Literate, but I actually did write a book called a better story. It was number five on the New York time kidney. It never was. I don't know. It's um, actually it's, it's really funny because I did write this book and every now and then I'll check my bank account and it'll say content distribution and it'll say like 2 and 30 cents. And I'm like, somebody bought a book. But, but we're going through it and it's, it's named after the book and the whole book is my journey to get out of this place of living in condemnation, which almost literally almost killed me. And the problem with it is we are a product of our environment. From the time we're born, we're, and I heard somebody say this one time, this is so great. From the time we're born, we're measured. I mean, what did, what did they do? Well, no, no,

JOHN: 1:19:24

no. Yeah, we measured like a fish when we're born, you know? Yeah, yeah.

BRANDON: 1:19:27

So, he's 21 inches, 8 pound, 8 ounce. I mean, and we never stop being measured.

JOHN: 1:19:32

Okay.

BRANDON: 1:19:32

And so, think about this, man. Everything in our life is performance based, you know? Um, why does, and I use these examples all the time. Why does Patrick Mahomes make the money he makes? Because he's the best quarterback. Well, Arguably the best quarterback in the NFL. Maybe Lamar Jackson, is that who you're thinking? Josh Allen. Josh Allen. Oh, now, now we'll get him to talk now. Here we go. Yeah, yeah, Josh Allen. I mean, but why do they get paid what they get paid? It's because they perform. Why does Taylor Swift get paid what she gets paid? Because she, she's a good performer. Why? You know what I'm saying? I don't know. The reason I say Taylor Swift is She's the only one I know. And the only reason I know her is because she dates Travis Kelsey. Oh, we, we know, we know you're a Swiftie. It's okay. I am. I was trying to hide it, but it's just all over me. I know. Um, but you think about why do they get paid where they get paid? They get paid where they get paid because they perform. Um, and so that's been driven into us and into our minds from day one. And so it's hard for us to come to the gospel all of a sudden. And go, Oh, this is free. That makes sense. Well, I don't have to earn it. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's completely makes sense

JOHN: 1:20:47

on the same token. You know, we don't want to take it to the other extreme either, where it said, you know, where we say, well, I mean, I've been, I've been, I've been saved, I've been, I've been made right. Check that box is good. Absolutely. I can go on living however I want to, I got my fire

BRANDON: 1:21:02

insurance, right? Yep. And I think the thing is, if somebody can say, I checked the box, now I can live how I want to, then they haven't actually experienced grace. Because one of the ways I think you know you're saved is you don't want to live the way you used to live. I mean, it makes you uncomfortable. Well, and, and, and like, I go from being bent away from God to being bent towards God. It said Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31. where God takes out the heart of stone. He gives us a heart of flesh. He's no longer writing it on tablets of stone for us to fulfill, but he says, I'm going to put a new heart in you and I'm going to write my decrees on that, that heart of flesh. And I, and if you go read Ezekiel 36, I don't think it's like verses 22 through Oh, I don't know, 36, something like that. And you look at how many times God says, I will, he doesn't say you will. He says, I will. And he's doing it all for the glory of his name. And he says, I will take that heart of stone. I'll write these on your heart. I'll move you to follow my decrees. I'll sprinkle you with clean water. And you look at those things and it's such a move of God. And one of the ways I think we know we're saved is. All of a sudden, I go from being bent away from God to being bent towards God. I'm not perfect, but I'm not the same. And if somebody can just go through life and say, Well, I prayed a prayer. Now I can do what I want to. Then, I don't think they've had that encounter with the grace of God. Because, you're never the same again. And it's like you said that night with us that you, you went under the water, you came out of the water, you knew you were different from then on. I can remember April 1st of 2000, I always joke around because I got saved on April Fool's Day. Um, I hope I don't get there and he's like, gotcha, you know, and so, but I look at that and I'm like, I remember standing at Tattnall County campground under a streetlight. Um, well, not a street light, just a light because there's no street there, but under a light talking to some of my friends and the people who were there on this retreat with me and telling them I'll never be the same again. And then telling me, I'll give you four months, you'll be right back the same like, no, you don't understand. I will never be the same again. They didn't believe me. I didn't know if I fully trusted myself with it. But I knew something was different and again, so far from perfection, but it's not the same. So anyway, I did what I didn't want to do. I just totally hogged.

JOHN: 1:23:49

No, you're good, man.

BRANDON: 1:23:50

You're good. So it's good

JOHN: 1:23:51

stuff. Dubbs went over there hogging all the airtime. That was me patting him on the leg, saying that was the atta boy, Pat. Now move on up to the microphone and let's hear your take on it. Cause you've got a completely different, you've got a completely different take on this, right? Because you're 16 years old and you're going to look at it differently than what we do. So we want to hear what your take is on the main dude. We're just having a conversation. It's just the four, four of us guys sitting here having a conversation. That's all this is. You know, and so, so let me give some more, some more background on what I talked with your sister about. So she said that one of the things that one of the one of her peers said was, um, you don't want to come off as, you know, I think it's prideful to say that I know that I know that I know that I know that I'm going to heaven. I think it's prideful to say that And I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, if it was, if it was based on something you did, absolutely right. If it, if it was based on something you did and you know, Like if if if if you were to talk to somebody and or if somebody were to come to me and say John How do you know that you're going to heaven? And if I started listing off the things that I've done,

BRANDON: 1:25:04

yeah

JOHN: 1:25:05

I you know, I'm really taking the wrong attitude towards it, right? I mean because If I start listing off the things I've done, I'm telling you every reason that God has to say. Mm hmm Yeah, this is why I had to send Jesus. Yeah, you know was because of all the crap that you've done because of You know, where you fell short on this and where you fell short on that, and you thought you were doing good because we, we have this insane ability to create this idea of truth in our own heads that is so far from truth that it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's really, it's scary, you know, I mean, we, we have, we have the ability that no other part of creation does, and that is the ability to deceive ourselves. Oh man. And I can deceive myself into thinking that I'm doing right when in reality, I'm doing the furthest thing from right that could be done, you know, and, um, you know, I think that that I think we need to look at that. And I mean, so how did, how did this, how did these college age people get to this point where, how I mean, there was like a, uh, you know, there was several of them together and there was a consensus that this was, yeah, this is the way we should look at it. We shouldn't, we shouldn't just tell somebody, yeah, I'm certain that I'm going to heaven. How did we get to that point? You know, and I think, I think you can look at our, our society, our culture, if you will, and we're told to accept everything, you know, like we're, we're told to accept that there's 462 genders. And not anymore. Right. And we're and we're told to accept, you know, that You know, whatever. I mean, I don't want to piss people off by saying some of these things, but I mean, it's just like we're told that everything's okay. Men can

WES: 1:27:06

play in women's sports.

JOHN: 1:27:07

Yeah. I mean, they can

WES: 1:27:08

go in women's bathrooms. It's okay. You know, don't get a bit out of shape about that. No, that's, that's wrong. That's crazy.

JOHN: 1:27:14

I mean, I don't even know. I don't, I don't understand how any of that ever. I mean, how do you write this down and say, now, this is a good idea. It's

BRANDON: 1:27:21

what you said. It's deception, right? Yeah. And Jeremiah also says that our hearts are deceitfully wicked above all things who can understand them. Right. And so certainly we look at things and, and it's easy for us to be deceived and we have the same blind spots. They might not be as obvious. Right. And, and certainly, um,

JOHN: 1:27:42

yeah, cause we're not perfect. Right. I mean, You know the way Jesus said it was well before you go removing that speck from your neighbor's eye You need to pull the plank out of your eye

BRANDON: 1:27:52

first, right? Yeah Yeah, and and I would go back to the reason that those college students probably felt like that which one let me say this I love crew Our crew ministry here or at Georgia Southern University, Jay's Bosley, all those, those folks that run that, man, Matt, Matt Wise that does the athletes in action, you know, Matt, um, is a good friend of mine. I wish I got to see more than I do, but Matt, Jay, that whole group, man, they are so discipleship mind is discipleship focused. I love that ministry, but I think all of us fight the same battle. The reason that I think. Those students may have been unwilling or a little gunshy to say, yeah, I know I'm saved is because it still comes back to that idea that I have something to do with my salvation. And so in an effort to be humble, they're saying, I don't want to say, yeah, I'm saved because I don't want it to look like I'm saying I'm that good. But it kind of is that same misunderstanding, I think, of the gospel to where when we realize that it's a God centered gospel and the only way that we are glorified is when we think we did it. But when it's God centered, it begins and ends with Him, then He's the one who gets the glory. But I don't think it's, it's, it's I think it all resorts back to the same thing, and it is, Satan has built a system that's based on performance and that causes us, he's blinded the minds of unbelievers, second Corinthians four four, and we have a hard time seeing the light of the gospel because we are brought up in a performance system. It's drilled into our head. And then God says, I'm offering you life freely. I'm offering you change freely. And we cannot wrap our mind around it. I will say this too, and I know we've, we've kind of picked it up over here a little bit tonight. But, you know, I asked him how old he was when the shop started. Um, and I knew he was probably like eight or nine. He said nine. And I can remember the first time I walked into the shop and this little kid comes up to me and he's like, can I help you? And I'm like, I doubt it in my mind, you know, I'm like, there's no way. And then, you know, he had more bow knowledge at nine years old than, than I ever have. And that was kind of my first introduction to him and my first introduction to you too, John. And, and. The longer I've been around, I kind of got out of bow hunting for a little while was I was raising my children, but then once we got back in, I got to start coming back into the shop, um, and seeing him grow up and seeing the person, the young man he's becoming and to see how you interact with your family and to see those things has been extremely powerful. Um, to me, because that to me, it kind of goes back to last week's episode, but that's really what it's all about is you're instilling that in them. And I see it in him, even if he's Mike shy a little bit, but I see it in him from watching him grow up just in the shop.

JOHN: 1:31:32

Yeah.

BRANDON: 1:31:32

And I think that's so powerful. And I think that is the power of the gospel too. Right. You see the change, you see what happens. And, um, man, when you can't fake it, you can't fake it. You can't, you either. It is kind of one of those things. What's Kirby Smart say? Uh, you either you lead or you're not. Oh, yeah. Um, well, you, you kind of either have it or you don't. And I think that, uh, that's one of those things for us that. You can tell. And I think the challenge for us is the renewal of our mind. God gives us a new life. He gives us a new heart. Um, but he says our mind has to be renewed. And we don't think in the old ways. And I think a lot of those old ways are what keeps us from, uh, really living in the freedom. Jesus said, if you hold my commands, you'll know the truth. The truth will set you free. And, uh, man, there's so much more freedom, I think, in Christ. Um, and what we oftentimes experience because we hold on to a lot of the truths of the world.

JOHN: 1:32:39

You know, we're, we're, we're, we're lulled into thinking that we're not in a battle, that it really doesn't matter. You know, we just kind of go about our workaday lives and you know, we want to, we want to go home tonight, have something to eat, go to bed and have a good night's rest somewhere safe, get up and do it again tomorrow. You know, and we're often, you know, we're okay with that just kind of being it, I think, you know, and man, the worst kind of chains are the chains that you don't even realize are holding you down. Yes.

BRANDON: 1:33:22

The chains that you don't even realize are there. Yeah, there's a, there's a documentary about the church in Iran, um, how fast it's spreading. This has been out for a few years now, but it's called Sheep Among Wolves. It was, at the time it came out, I think it was a two part series. And a lady and her husband had moved from Iran. They were Christians. They moved from Iran to the United States. And she actually asked her husband if she could move back to Iran. Um, because she felt like they were being lulled to sleep by a satanic lullaby. And, you know, it is easy, um, when you have everything to miss the thing you need the most, you know?

JOHN: 1:34:03

Yeah. And, and, I mean, when you, when you look at our founding documents, um, it says that every man is endowed by his creator, right? And that we should be able to have life. Liberty in the pursuit of happiness and we get so hung up on that pursuit of happiness. I Mean, I wish I Almost wish that that part would have never been put in there. Yeah, because we're so hung up on being happy that Will will trade happiness for holiness in a dang second I'm talking about in a New York second, and that's pretty quick. Yeah, that's what I hear. Yeah. Yeah, you know and I mean to the point that we don't even we don't even approach life like there's I mean, it's just one side and we're all happy to be here and, you know, we don't want to get sick and we don't want to, we don't want to have a financial struggles and we don't want to have marital struggles or anything like that. We just want life to be pretty even keel and be able to go through life and be happy and, and, and everything's good. And then, and to the point that we wear, we wear happiness and busyness as badges of honor. Like you'll see somebody, a man, how you doing? Busy. Busy, we're just busy. What the heck does that even mean? You want to be busy? Like you, you just want to be busy all the time? I'm getting it. Nah, I'm, that ain't, that ain't where I'm at. What'd I tell you last week? What'd I

WES: 1:35:40

tell you I was doing the night it was snowing? Uh, what was that time

JOHN: 1:35:44

time? Some fishing. That's right. And I said what? And you said you're going. That's right. You're going. And I'm going. Okay. I'm going.

WES: 1:35:51

Can't be so busy. You're not going to catch some sheep. You got

JOHN: 1:35:54

that right. You got, even though I'll never catch one because they got them little teeth and they'll just bite the crab off and leave the hook.

WES: 1:36:01

Well, you know, I, I tell the story all the time that I've been fired from one job. Yeah. And that was the biggest blessing of my life ever. Um, you know, I was tied to a job that I worked 12, 14 hours a day. Wow. Um, I had a newborn at home and I felt like I had to be there. I mean, it couldn't run without me and I got fired and I went home and my wife said, you know, gosh, what are we gonna do? And I said, I'm gonna train dogs. And she started crying right there and she said, we're going to starve to death, you know, and we've never looked back and just the job itself has afforded me the opportunity to never miss a basketball game. That's so

BRANDON: 1:36:49

good, man.

WES: 1:36:50

Never miss a football game. You know, when those kids are doing, I can go, if the teacher needs something at school, call me, I can come, I can go, I can do what I need to do. So the busy part. I get it. I mean, I get it. I see so many people and I tell my buddies all the time and I should have told you the same thing. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I've heard that. You've

JOHN: 1:37:12

told me that plenty of times. I've heard that. Oh yeah. Man. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, there has to be balance in life. You know, I talk about God, the creator God, and how he did things in order. You know, he is not a god of chaos, right? And busyness is just another way of saying chaos. You know, if you're just constantly busy and you can't stop, like if, if you, you know, let's, let's go a little bit deeper in this. How am I going to have a relationship with God? Well, I got to spend time with him, you know? And if I'm only spending time with him on Sunday, man, I don't have a real good relationship with him. You know, really? I mean, now, now, granted, I've got some friends. Two years ago, I lost a really good friend of mine. He had, he had cancer and, uh, he, he graduated to glory and, and he was one of those people that there'd be times where we'd talk every day and then there'd be times where we would go months. I mean, we'd go two or three months and dude, we'd pick right back up where we left off. We just kind of had that kind of relationship. And I remember having a conversation with him about his faith. Yeah. And it was just out of the blue, you know, I mean, he, he became, he became a mentor of mine. I had a tremendous amount of respect for him. He loved the Atlanta Braves. He loved Georgia Bulldogs. He loved his family and he loved playing golf. Yeah. All right. He taught me that I needed to love my family. He taught me I needed to love the Braves, win, lose, or draw. And we know which one it is more often than not. He taught me that I don't really like bourbon, you know, because he, he would golf and then he would have bourbon or whatever. And I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of that, but you know, he taught me these things. And then I remember asking him one day and, and like, you know, We've talked about the man hug before, right? I'm, I'm big on the man hug when I, especially if I see a real good friend and I hadn't seen him in a while, you know, go up and you, you, you shake hands and he just bring it on in, right? You get, get that good hug. And, and, uh, so. So, he and I, we, we got, every time we'd see each other, we'd hug each other. Yeah, and then you just hold it for a while just to make it a little awkward, right? Don't ever give Brandon a man hug is what I just heard. Anyway, but, but I remember having a conversation with him about his faith and, you know, just talking through that and it was, you know, I thought it was going to be awkward and then I was nervous about it and everything, you know, because here this guy, I mean, he was, I mean, I'm telling you, he was a mentor to me. He was, he was. He was like, um, he was 35 or 40 years older than me, you know, and he took me under his wing and, and, you know, we just had this, this great relationship. And I remember having that conversation with him, um, about what he believed and why he believed it and everything. And it, it was. You know, it wasn't like I didn't walk away from it thinking, man, I wish I'd have never done that. I didn't really walk away from it really understanding where he stood on things either, you know, I mean, like I didn't, I wasn't like, man, we're going to be in heaven together one day and we're going to, God's going to have something really cool for us to do and we're going to get to worship him the whole time but we're still going to get to do really cool things because that's what heaven's going to be like. Oh yeah. In case y'all, in case you're wondering, okay, yeah, Jesus came and he saved us and gave us, put us into a bright relationship with God and we get to have a relationship with God here and now, right? And then also we get to spend eternity not a separated, not separated from God, okay? Which means we get to be with God. And these, these cartoons that you see of people floating around on a cloud playing a harp, that ain't, that ain't what it is. Yeah, we don't have wings. Uh, nah. We don't turn into angels. Or flowers. We're not looking down, you know, at, at our, at our kinfolk down to see what they're doing and making sure they're doing right. You know, grandma that's gone on before you, she's got way more important things than to look down and make sure you're doing right. Okay. Is there

WES: 1:41:23

duck hunting?

JOHN: 1:41:24

I don't think so. I don't, I don't, I don't even know that there's fishing actually, but. I'm pretty sure there's I don't know. We'll find out. Okay. I'm going. Oh, yeah. I'm going just I'm going

BRANDON: 1:41:38

So real quick story, yeah, I'll tell you the story and this is gonna be the longest podcast ever.

JOHN: 1:41:43

That's fine Definitely not the longest ever Joe Rogan goes for like eight hours That's true And nobody's ever gonna listen to this so we can say whatever we want

BRANDON: 1:41:50

to say. By the way listen in next week because we do Have Donald Trump I'm kidding, but Joe Rogan got to do that, so we're not Joe Rogan, but yeah, anyway, we, we used to go to the Geechee River and do baptisms, and uh, it was really cool, we kind of caravan from, um, whether we were at this little blue building we used to meet at over behind Burger King or the high school we met for about four years, and we caravan out to the Geechee River, and it made me think about you asking about the duck hunting, but we get out there, and you never knew he was going to be there, right? And so we go to this spot, we always baptize and there'd just be tons of cars pull up and there was this guy, you know, just, just, just a girl boy. He's out there working on his truck right there by the river landing. And you hear him banging and I'm over there talking about baptism and you hear like, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank. You're trying to crank his truck, you know. Um, about that time, he finally gets his, his, uh, truck to crank and the song blaring on the radio and you can't make this up, right? Was if heaven ain't a lot like Dixie, and we're right in the middle of baptisms and so it couldn't have been more perfect, but yeah, so anyway, I just took us completely down on, you know, you think about

WES: 1:43:03

stuff like that, but there's a, there's a country song where the guy. He talks about heaven and he talks about, you know, he's, you've been promised streets of gold, but he would gladly give it up for a little farmhouse.

BRANDON: 1:43:17

Yeah.

WES: 1:43:18

I mean,

BRANDON: 1:43:19

well, if you build your theology on country music, I'm telling you, man, um, because you know, uh, was it, uh, propped me up beside the jukebox, you know, want to go to heaven, but I don't want to get an eye. That's right. Um, Uh, you know, and I think you mentioned Luke Bryan earlier, you know, that most people are good. I'm like, nah, I don't believe that either. Yeah. Um, I think so. It's one of those things where man, yeah, it's, it's, it's,

WES: 1:43:50

the, the, the point was it makes you think what is heaven going to be like for us? Right. You know, I mean, you know, it's going to be good, but is your heaven going to be different than my heaven? Is it going to be different than your heaven?

JOHN: 1:44:03

Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, I think maybe what my perception of what heaven's going to be is, I mean, it's probably going to be different, you know? I mean, I think that like Isaiah, when he walked into the temple, you know, with what y'all are going through in, uh, in your teaching right now, when he walked into the temple thinking he was going to, to meet with God and then, you know, He walked into the temple and he met with God right there. I mean, it was this real thing that happened. Um, I mean, I, I think, I don't know, you know, I don't, I don't know, like, like the song says, I have no idea. I don't know if I'm on leap for joy. I don't know if I'm going to shout out and, and, and worship or, or if I'm just going to fall down and, and, you know, fall on my face, you know, in, in sheer. It really don't matter. I mean, I'm going and be terrified. I mean, I have no idea here. Here's what I do know. There's one place where there's no laughter and I'm not going there. That's right. And Jesus has made sure of that. That's right. Okay. That's that's what I can tell you. And I love to laugh. Anybody that knows me knows that I love to laugh. I just yeah. I've never really met a person that I didn't like. Now, I've met people that I didn't like in the moment. You know, but I've never really met somebody that I didn't like or that I didn't, that I didn't love and try to see them the way God sees them. I mean, I think that, I think that's what it means to have a heart after God's, is to love what God loves and hate what God hates. And there's not a whole lot that God hates. There's some things that God truly hates. There's a whole lot that God really loves, you know, and, um, so I think we should go through life loving, you know, and, um, that doesn't mean overlooking things, right? Um, it means you have to have awkward, tough conversations sometimes.

WES: 1:45:56

So, Brandon, let me ask you this question. Do you think you can be a better Christian if you know your salvation?

BRANDON: 1:46:09

Yes. I do. Uh, and the reason for that is how can we give a reason for our confidence and our joy if we don't know, you know, and it comes back to. Where, where is my confidence?

WES: 1:46:29

How can you share that with somebody else? If you're not confident, if you're not certain,

BRANDON: 1:46:35

and I'm not going to say like, there's not aspects I question. Like it's not, it's like you, what you said about heaven, I 100 percent guarantee you the end times heaven, all of that is going to be different than what everybody thinks it's going to be because up to this point, God's done nothing like we thought he was going to do it. Um, so there's certainly things that I question. There's certainly things that I wrestle with, that I don't understand, but what I always encourage people with, there's so many things that we don't understand, but focus on the things we do. Because if you just focus on the things that we do know, God's good, how do we know that? The cross. All right? And I tell people this, the cross is that pinnacle of God's goodness that rises higher than man's calamity. Period. Like, with all the evil and bad in the world, you look at the cross, you can't come away thinking that God's not good. The other thing is He's sovereign. So He's in complete control. Third thing, He's faithful. He's gonna do everything He's promised. He can do everything He's promised because He's sovereign. So if we know He's good, He's sovereign, and He's faithful, then we can trust Him. And I'll tell you where that came from. I was preparing one night to do the funeral of a 17 year old boy. Who had died. Um, and I, I'm young in, in ministry and here I am trying to find words to say to a family who just lost a 17-year-old. And I had a friend text me and say, where do you find peace in this? And I really started just asking God myself, like, how, what am, what am I supposed to say to this family? What am I supposed to say to the people who are here tomorrow? And that's when I felt like the Lord put that in my heart and I've said it a million times since that, that, that night is I can't answer why my dad had the motorcycle wreck he had. I can't answer why his life and our life were changed. I can't answer why my cousin died at 16 from lymphoma. I can't answer why my wife, when she was 15, had Hodgkin's lymphoma. I can't answer why my mom had breast cancer. I can't answer. I don't know. I don't know. I know it's a result of a fallen world, but I don't know. But what I do know is that every morning that my feet hit the floor, God is good. God is sovereign. God is faithful. And I can trust him. It ain't easy. And sometimes it's through tears. But at the end of the day, I can trust him. And that includes salvation. So, um, Yeah. It's simple. It ain't always easy.

JOHN: 1:49:23

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I want to share one last quote and we'll, we'll wrap it up here. Uh, this is, uh, by E. W. Tozer, who was, uh, uh, a man from another time. Um, and he said in the early day when the Bible exercised a dominant influence of American thinking, men conceived the world to be a battleground. Our fathers believed in sin and the devil and hell as constituting one force. And they believed in God and righteousness and heaven as the other. They believed that you had to choose sides. You could not be neutral. It was a choice between heaven or hell. And they knew if they chose God's side, the battle against his foe would begin. It was real and deadly. And it would last as long as life continued here on this earth. The Christian soldier never forgot the world he lived in. It was a battleground. And I think that that's the heart of what our discussion is today, is if we'll, if we'll look at the world for what it is, if we'll look at this, this, this, this struggle between good and evil, between right and wrong, and realize that we have been completely saved from that, and we can be sure of it, It changes everything. I'm sure it

WES: 1:50:48

does.

JOHN: 1:50:49

It changes everything. It changes how we look at every part of life. Yeah. Absolutely changes it. It changes how we treat somebody else. Changes how we act, you know, in our relationships with our neighbors, how we act in our relationship with our children, with people that we don't know, with people that we do business with. It changes everything. And we're still gonna make mistakes, and when we do, we need to own it, you know, we need to say, man, I, I made a mistake, I screwed up, I, I didn't do this the right way, and, you know, just the act of, just that humble posture will change most people's response to you,

WES: 1:51:33

right? I mean, I've been, I've been taught two things that I can put my finger on. When you're wrong, say you're wrong and go and apologize.

JOHN: 1:51:42

Yeah.

WES: 1:51:43

Stand up and go and apologize.

JOHN: 1:51:45

Yep.

WES: 1:51:45

And be on time. Ha ha ha ha ha

JOHN: 1:51:48

ha. That's great. Yep. That is good. That is good. Alright guys, well let's wrap it up there. Thank y'all, uh, for being here today. Dubb, we appreciate you being here. You were really about it when we were talking about, you know, mechanical broadheads being what sissy shoot and stuff and You didn't like appreciate that too much, but it's all right. We'll bring you around. It's no big deal Like I said, you can say whatever you want to on here. Nobody's ever gonna listen to this man Nobody nobody's ever gonna listen to it All right guys, thanks, thanks for joining us we go