20 Years of Guilt | REDEEMED

Redeemed joins Escaping the Chains for a powerful conversation about forgiveness, guilt, humility, and the freedom only God can bring.

He shares stories from a Holy Spirit-filled jail service, opens up about the guilt he carried after his father’s death, and reflects on how God restored him through surrender, deliverance, and the prayers of his wife.

This episode is a testimony of grief, redemption, and God stepping into the places we thought were over.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, it is Escaping the Chains Podcast. I'm your host, John Humphreys. Today we have a special guest with us all the way from Tennessee, Maryville? Maryville, Tennessee, yep. We have Redeemed. Redeemed. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_04 0:13

Man, I'm blessed to be here. It's an absolute honor to do this podcast with you guys, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Man, we are glad to get you here. This is something we have we've talked about doing for a long time. So I guess before we get started, you were in Monroe County jail last night. Yeah, man. Well, you want to tell me about that? First off, shout out to Impossible the Movement and the jail commander down there, Kyle. Like they're they're amazing.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Yeah, it was uh it was unique, man. You know, I've I've been in some jails and some prisons and done ministry before, but it was from the moment we got there, it was not just a commander, but like every single guard, every single person there was there to serve. It was how can we help you get stuff out of the trailer? What do we need to carry? And it was like, that's usually like not how it goes. So that was really it was cool to see that.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

When me and Zach went, it was just I I couldn't believe it. Yeah, like we were just in there praising God, looked up, and some of the COs are praising God with us. It was wild.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

That was really the coolest part because you don't normally see that because they're they're kind of on alert, they're on guard, you know, they're kind of making sure nothing. But man, in there, those guards were on their faces weeping right alongside the inmates. They were there was some guards praying for inmates. It was beautiful, man. That's probably one of the most um Holy Spirit-filled prison services that I've done to this date. It was really cool. It it really made a mark on me. I'm ready to come back already.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I know when me and Zach left, it was just like the whole ride home, like processing, like, bro, that really happened.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

That really happened. And it's it's cool. We'll have Kyle on sometime, but it's cool how one person deciding, like, we're not, you know, I mean, we're gonna do what we see as effective. And a lot of times with the jail stuff, we're not trying to so those of us that are Jesus followers, we're not trying to remove all of the other programming. No, we're what we're saying is try implementing this because we have seen. I can't explain to you. I wish I could show you, because all you have to do is show up, yeah. You know, and the the power of everybody worshiping together. And as a matter of fact, like we were having a conversation last night, and if you're cool with sharing it, like you had gotten a word. Um, can you share that part of the story? Because I think people need to hear this, like literally, you can do all of the negotiations, other countries with your enemies, all of this stuff, but an encounter with Jesus changes everything, changes everything.

SPEAKER_04 2:40

It does. Uh so we were, I was middle, I was just we had just got done doing a song, and I was just talking to the ladies. We were speaking to the ladies of the uh in the unit, and they had all came in there together. And what I was noticing is as I was speaking, I would see a couple people in the back, and I could see them looking and kind of plotting on other females in there, right? And and so like, and then I would I was looking to the like to the right side, and they're plotting a little bit, and I'm like, man, there's a lot of uh there's a lot of animosity in here, and there's some some unforgiveness in here. And man, I was like, I I heard the Lord say, Man, you need to speak on this unforgiveness and get it and break it right now. And so I did. I just said, I said, Hey, you guys are in here, and some of you aren't going anywhere for a long time. Some of you might be getting out tomorrow, but you're still in here, and you have to be in here. So why would you fill your day with hate and malice and not love on each other and be there for each other and lean on each other? And I use the analogy uh of the um the story in the Bible where the friends lower their their paralyzed friend down to Jesus through the roof. And I was and I said, the people in your circle, would they tear the roof off for you and lower you down to Jesus, or would they complain about you being too heavy and never lift you in the first place? And so that led into me saying, and I know that there's some heaviness in here today because I know I can feel it, that you there's some of you in here plotting against each other, you're in here talking bad about each other right now. I just witnessed it, I saw it. And I didn't point anybody out and I said, But I if if you have unforgiveness in your heart and you die when you walk out that door, the Bible says, if you do not forgive, he the father will not forgive you. And so if you walked out that door and died today, what would you what would he say to you when you got there? There's only one or two things he's gonna say, Well done, my good and faithful servant, or depart from me, you workers of iniquity. You know what I mean? And me and Jay Jay touched on that at another point, but like we really drove it home. I really drove, try to drive the point home, and then the Lord was like, Man, just stop and tell them to love each other. Yeah, so I stopped and I said, if you have any ill will or you have problems with anybody, go to them right now and tell them you're sorry and you love them and forgive them and you and and watch how good it feels. I said, I dare y'all. And the commander, commander Kyle looked at me and he's like, What are you doing? You know what I mean? Because these girls are like, you can tell there's some animosity in there. And bro, it was like four or five different women went and said they were sorry to other girls. But the one that really stuck out, there was these two girls in the front, and they this that like you could tell there had been some there there had been some beef there, you know what I mean? Yeah, and so when they did it, the whole pod like clapped and was like crying. I looked over the command, I'm gonna call him out. Commander Kyle was crying, everybody was crying in there, bro. We were all crying because it was such a beautiful thing to watch these two girls forgive each other in front of the whole pod. And what they did in front of everybody showed leadership. And I just wanted to make sure that they knew like God loves y'all, man, and he's proud of you for what you just did. And I told him, like, you guys have a chance to change this entire jail. Y'all showing love to each other can change the entire way that y'all are living in here. Women make things a home, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

But if you're all down each other's throats and trying to kill each other, you ain't making nothing a home. Y'all could turn this whole jail pot into a home.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:06

Where y'all could love on each other and show the love of Christ. I just thought that was really cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

So, yeah, that's that's amazing. And I think it's one of the things that we um run into a lot with um, you know, with the population that a lot of times we operate with is there's bitterness and unforgiveness, and there's these problems with each other, and it you don't know until you've learned forgiveness and forgiving quickly how much of a burden carrying that is. It makes me think of Saul, not so much from the um King Saul, from but not so much from the standpoint of like um unforgiveness, but he had this, it was time for somebody else to come up. And instead of like it's one of the it's one of the most heartbreaking stories when you truly read it, because we would we could be looking at King Saul today as the greatest mentor of all time, but instead we see him as the king that lost his mind, and you know, we love David. Yeah, you know what I mean? We love David, like he was the one that went after David, and you know, we we learned so many things about the two different ways you can operate, and um and it it always also blew my mind like that little scripture where it was like David playing the harp, Saul was losing his mind, he was so like so trying to control and hold on to what God said to let go of, it's not yours anymore, that he lost his mind. And a lot of times, especially when you deal with leadership things, so many times it's like you're losing your mind, like you're out of your mind trying to hold on to what God is telling you is not yours anymore or to hand off. And Saul, he was losing his mind, and the only thing for a while that would give him peace was David playing the harp.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

Yeah, and that's that's ironic, isn't it? Kind of like that, and and then and then later you're gonna kill him, you know, and you're trying to kill him because he's taking your position, and it's like I think a lot of times we see that uh man, even in Christian hip hop we see that, right? Like we we want people to do good, but it's really hard that we want people to do good and do better than us. Yeah, it's really hard. That's a hard part. It's like, man, I'm doing these songs with you, everything's good. And you start getting a little bit like, hey man, hold up now. Where are you going? You're supposed to be back down here with me. And and that I think that's just pride too. I think a little bit. I think it but pride, and I've man, I'm gonna I'm not gonna sit here and lie, like I dealt with a lot of pride last year, bro. I dealt with a lot. I got very uh I want I'm not gonna say I was puffed up and filled with pride, but I had prideful tendencies, right? Like I started looking at things like in a different light. Uh and I I started getting myself to this position where I'm like looking at the way other people are living, and I'm like, oh, he ain't doing this right, and he ain't doing this right, and he ain't doing this right. But instead of going and checking him or speaking to him like a brother, I decided to talk about people behind their backs. And because I thought, well, I'm doing everything, I feel like I'm doing everything right. And so they're supposed to be on, you know, people are supposed to be on this pedestal with we're we're all on these pedestals, people are putting us on this pedestal, and behind closed doors, you're not living right, you're not doing things the right way, and I know that. But instead of going and being a brother to you and being like, hey man, I'm worried about this. This is what this is what I'm seeing. Let's let's talk. I ended up talking about people behind their backs, and then when it got back to them, they were really hurt. Yeah, and so they in turn did the same to me. And then when I got wind of it, bro, I was wrecked because I realized, bro, you did all this to yourself. Yeah. If you'd have just kept your mouth shut and been a real brother, like you claim to be on these songs, you you wouldn't have had this problem, you wouldn't be going through this right now. And I learned a lot last season about ears open, mouth shut.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

And you would think after 40-something years, my dad told me that when I was like five years old, bro. And my dad used to say the smartest person in the room is the quietest one. Yeah. And so, you know, I had I learned that last year, man. And um, but the Lord restores, man, and he's restoring relationships as we speak. And so, um, but I just encourage everybody this year, man, to listen more and talk less. Yeah. Especially when it comes to our brothers and sisters in Christ, because whether you think you're doing everything right, I promise you you're not. No. I promise you're not. Because I I thought I was doing everything right last year. But then again, I was like, I was telling them guys yesterday, some of the guys were asking me, what does it feel like to have people singing your music and stuff? And I'm like, bro, sometimes I don't like it. Because my whole life I was kind of told you're never gonna be anything. You're too slow to play football. You you ain't tall enough to play basketball. You can pitch, but you're too short, you'll never get enough velocity once you get past high school, like all these things. And I got in the street and it's like, you're never gonna be anything but a thief. You're never gonna be anything but a junkie, you're never gonna be anything but a pillhead. Like all these things. And then all of a sudden, you fast forward three years and it's like, oh my god, you're the greatest. You're such a great singer. Man, we love your music. Your music's helped me so much, all this stuff. And it's like, man, it's really easy to let pride creep in. Really easy. Because my whole life I've been, and now all of a sudden, everybody, and then you start to think, like, yeah, you know what? I am kind of good at this. I I am doing the right things, but man, it's really the Lord was really quick to humble me um when when that certain situation happened, man. And uh, I just pray that now that we all can learn from that. That I I hope I know that I learned from it. I think everybody that was involved in it has learned from it. And uh just being to be able to grow and move move forward.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah, restore them gently. That's uh so this is one of the things that I talk about a lot. I think I've talked about on the podcast, but in private, in a lot of conversations. I was in line at the Methadone clinic, uh fitting all patch on my arm. I was invisible. Nobody cared about anything I had to say, and I say this to people all the time unless they caught me stealing. You know, so it was like I had my family loved me, but I was invisible. Then Jesus Christ enters my life, wrecks me, I get sober, and people start to hear my testimony. And what happens is people start to pour into your gift, and they're not worried about your character and your fruit. I don't want to say they're not worried about it. I'm not being judgmental. I understand, like you see a gift on somebody. That's one of my gifts is to see somebody's gifts and be like, oh, you know, let's let's cultivate this thing and you know, grow it. But the character has got to, so what would happen with me is like I'm getting invited places to speak. You know, this is before recovery guys were really speaking, you know, 14 years ago, 13 years ago. And what was happening was my gift, we were porn into that, so my gift is growing, my character stays the same. So I'm I'm this I'm this mentally a 19-year-old probably that has never had any, you know, it's been years since I've had any attention. Now I'm getting attention. And what started to get fed there was something that was separated, it was separating me from God. And eventually what happened was I started taking his praise.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Right? So it's not like not only am I kind of like I'm not necessarily I'm doing good things, but God can use a donkey. That's what should keep us humble humble. You know, like I'm saying, and people be like, You did really good. And instead of me laying that crown at the feet of my father, as soon as I got it, yeah, I started to wear some of them. Yeah, and and what happened was then I had a need for affirmation that probably drove the people around me crazy because Nathan could be like, John, you're great. How great do you think I am? You know what I mean? It was like I wanted to hear my praises being sung.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

And then one day, like this whole thing happened, and I'll get into it, you know, several years ago. And I sat for a year, and I'm still a work in progress, but I sat for about a year, and I was sitting there, my lifestyle, I still love pizza, but I was eating pizza every night. People were like, Are you okay? Yeah, I'm not isolating, I'm just, you know, processing. And and for a year straight, I read Judges or listened to Judges, the story of Samson, and I just cried because this dude, you know what I mean? He had the he had all of the anointing and could not follow the instructions, and that's where I was at. And so I'm sitting there eating pizza one night.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

With pineapple?

SPEAKER_00 14:35

No pineapples on that pizza. Listen, that's a side note. Redeemed eats pineapple on his pizza. Don't unfollow him, don't unfollow him, but we're gonna um we're gonna restore him gently after this episode. Amen. Um, so I'm sitting there eating this pizza, and I find myself saying, God, what do I have to do to get back into your good graces? Like, what work do I have to do to get back into your good graces? And I Holy Spirit, I don't know if you've ever had like Holy Spirit kind of chuckle at you, but there was almost like a laughter, and I heard, What do you think you did to begin with to get into his good graces? And I was like, Well, because he met you when you had no job, no car. What did you do? When did you start to work to where you were getting into his good graces? You've got it all confused, and my salvation, bro, my salvation was at stake, and I realized, bro, I I'm not in alignment with God at all. And all this grace that I preach to people and all this stuff I preach to people, the truth is I don't even know how to receive it myself. I've gotten so far in the way that I think that I need to go out and you know, lead 15 people to Christ, and then I've paid my penance, and then I, you know, I can be back in his good graces.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Yeah, it's checking a box. We we call it like checking the biblical boxes, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:00

Okay, I got up this morning, I prayed. Check. Okay, I got my Bible for an hour, check. Okay, I I'm I gotta find somebody to pray for. Okay, check. Okay, now I can do whatever I want to the rest of the day because I done read my Bible, I done prayed, I done prayed for somebody. I've I've I I've been listening to worship music. I've checked my biblical boxes for the day, and now I can go and do whatever I want. And I think a lot of times we do that as Christians, man. We we're like, hey, I did everything I was supposed to do today. And then you're looking at other people and like, I know she ain't read her Bible, I know he ain't read, I know he ain't prayed for nobody. Like, you know what I mean? And and and that's where that I I call it being a I used to call it being a hypochristian, and like then I found out, like then I literally became one. And I've been walking with the Lord for a long time, bro, 2016. And and and I had a radical encounter with him and been and and really been you know going in. And uh, and then I fell fell off for a little but fell out of church for a while, you know, and then came back in. But like I've been like really hardcore rocking with the Lord, walking with him since like 2021. And so to find myself full of pride and being the thing that I didn't like about the church ever, that was really hard, bro, to look in the mirror and be like, bruh, you are you can't you became a hippocristian and you're puffed up with pride and you out here singing all these songs and everybody is telling you how great you are, and you're like, Yeah, I sure am. And that dude, that that was very humbling to realize, like, because it wasn't just uh it wasn't just a realization like oh my gosh, people talked bad about me, I talked bad about people, and I feel bad. Like it was God looking at me and being like, bro, you are you are so far, you're you're further away, you're you're more lost in what you think. Yeah, you're further away from me than what you think. Yeah, I give you music and I and you write these lyrics and and and you do good at ministering, but you're not many, you you aren't you aren't taking anything on yourself. And I gotten to a point where I was like, read my Bible and stuff only on days that I knew I had Bible study.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

It's like, all right, I got Bible study, so I can't go in here and look like a fool. I gotta read my Bible today and get get knowing get get lean, and I gotta take some notes and I gotta do all this today. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I wouldn't pick my Bible up. And it's like, man, I had to get back into that. And that's when what I what also what I really noticed too, though, when I started doing that, the Bible study started to grow big time. You know, our Monday night Bible study, um, on it's called Acts 29. And we go verse by verse, word by word through the Bible. We we pick everything out every Monday night at nine o'clock. If y'all want the link, I'll send it. John can put it in the comments. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Uh in the book. Get into it. Get into a Bible study. Yeah. Because a lot of the stuff we're talking about is lack of lack of knowledge of what the Bible says. Yeah. So you get led astray. Yeah. And you were talking about like, so I checked my boxes as a Christian. That's that's the most dangerous. That that's so dangerous because I used to catch myself doing it. I've done X, Y, and Z. So I so I've done my spiritual obedience things. Now I can reward my flesh.

SPEAKER_04 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Right? It's like I've done so I've done I've done so good with X, Y, and Z. I read my Bible. I prayed for people. I did, you know, all of these things that are kingdom things. Now I can feed my flesh.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

You know, and it's like those that you you you can't. The reward, once you really start to understand it, the reward is the relationship that we have been given with Jesus Christ in eternal life. And we and I've I've done it. You find yourself like, oh, you know, I just need to get something out of my system or something. And it's like, and that first off, sin never gets out. You don't do, you don't just like, I'm gonna get this sin out of my system. It comes back on freaking steroids, yeah, ready to beat you down. It comes back with seven, seven more, and you're you're sitting there like, bro, I just, you know, I mean, I just tasted the apple.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Yeah, that's it. I just I just wanted, I just I just wanted to, you know, I just wanted to do this. I just wanted to feel good for this afternoon and like, bro, it can get you down quick. It can, and when it does, it wrecks you even more. Like you said, it it's so bad, it's so much worse the second time, the third time, the fourth time. But that's what sin does just a little bit at a time. It just takes a piece. But I also had said that before, like, the devil doesn't give you a chain, bro. He doesn't chain you up to your addiction. He gives you the first link and then he lets you continue to build those links and put those links on yourself. You build the chain yourself. He just gives you the first one. You taste it, you're like, Oh, that's good. Let me get another one. Yeah, let me get another one, let me get another one. Next thing you know, you're 30 links deep and you're chained to the wall.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Yeah. And there's no escape, man. You built your own chain. Back in bondage.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

Yeah, just like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

So I want to get into your story, but one more thing I wanted to touch about. Go going back to so this is to like if you um have a great, if you have a testimony that people want to hear, you're a public speaker, you do music, whatever it is. Saul, when he started to have beef with David, a lot of that came from the applause being louder for David than for him. He couldn't, and so we cannot, you know, I mean, if I can give you any advice, find somebody to disciple you. Yes. Biblical people to disciple you. Make sure that when somebody says, Hey, you did an amazing job, I don't care if you just have to say all glory to God, but you throw that crown at the feet of the Father. And um and never your value, your worth, you know, it it's not about views and all of that stuff. We pay attention to that stuff because like we have things that we're operating in. But but the the a crowd the crowd applauding, that's we have to give that glory to God. And if your brother's getting a big applause, that's great. But if you let that stuff start to impact you. Go stop this podcast if you have to and really read the story of Saul losing his mind. And that's what it was. He was not right in his head anymore. And that's what happens when you try to hold on.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

I can hear them really loud in my headphones. Hey Nikki, y'all gotta be quiet. We're echoing this y'all are echoing really loud in the headphones. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Echoes.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

It's like their first time or something. When the kids will play, boy. Daddy gotta get stern with them. Alright. But no, I think that the applause, um, we'll go back to that. So the applause getting louder for like we should be celebrating with our brothers, man. We should be celebrating. Like, man, one of the one of the coolest things last night for me in that jail was hearing all them people in there ask J Truth. Can you do Job's story? Can you do Job's story? I bet I heard that 50 times last night. Can you do Job's story? And every time he done it, you could see how special it was to every single person in there. They were holding on to those lyrics. They were holding on to his message. And so, as a brother in Christ, to see your brother being being loved on like that, like they love that song so much. We could have dob's story back to back last night for two hours, and they would have nobody would have said a word. Nobody would have said a word, and it would have been awesome. There would have been just as many people gave their life to Christ, the Baptist. There was nothing that me or Jay did. They were postured, their hearts were postured in that jail last night to receive. And one of the ways that they received was through that song that Jay had. And man, that was one of the best nights from things about whole last night was watching those people worship to my brother's music, man.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Because like the truth is, you poured in a lot to him, right? Like like if we're um He poured into me a lot too.

SPEAKER_04 24:05

Yeah. That I ain't got like that. That brother poured into me a lot too. He's in the building right now. Yeah, I ain't just saying that because he's standing over there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Jay's great.

SPEAKER_04 24:15

Yeah. I love we all love Jay Truth. I love that brother, man. And he listened that's what everybody always says. Like, you poured in so much, dude. Let me tell you something. Jay Truth taught me how to love for real. That brother went through something, and I saw Christ in a situation. I'm gonna tell you right now, I would not have been Christ-like in. There was a situation that happened in front of him that I would have, I'm gonna let you know right now, it'd have been it wouldn't have been, it wouldn't have gone that way if it was me up there. But I saw him handle that situation with humility and with love, and I watched God fix that situation for the time being. But that moment taught me like you ain't gotta be, you ain't it ain't gotta be all about how you feel. Feelings ain't everything. We get caught up in our feelings a lot, yeah, especially uh in the Christian rap genre. There's a lot of feelings involved because everybody feels that they're right, yeah, and nobody wants to be wrong. And there's a lot of arguing, there's a lot of negativity being spoken in Christian hip-hop, and most of it, embarrassingly enough, is between artists. It's artist to artist. It's not artists calling out the body of Christ for things that are being, it's artists calling out each other on public flat platforms, slandering each other. And bro, we are supposed to be a light in this world and we're supposed to love each other. And if we're out here ministering to all these people and they see us going to each other, what do you think they're gonna do? Yeah, and it that it breaks my heart, man, to see it. I see it all the time. But I I'm choosing in this season to be a peacemaker, yeah. And and and we're gonna work to try to bring some peace back to back to this community, man. And of the the Christian hip-hop community, yeah, because it's gotten out of hand here lately, and it's embarrassing and it's sad, bro. It breaks my heart.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Heck yeah. You were talking about, I think here's another thing is a lot of times I think we get to moving in the kingdom and we get busy and we don't like we we're not just we're not actually pouring into people and speaking life into them. And something you said really struck with me because it's happened a couple times in my life to where it's just like I'm going through motions and I'm feeling called to do stuff, it's just not working. And then something is so most recently I saw you know a woman posted her husband getting baptized, and I reached out to the dude, and I was just like, hey, you want to be on the podcast? I've talked to him every day since. Amen. So on the outside looking in, it looks like okay, John, you know, I mean, I had you know the some of the resources and stuff like that, but on the outside of looking in, it's like, oh, John did, you know, I mean, kind of, you know, put him onto Friday Night Fire and this other stuff. But what really happened was like I needed that, I could almost cry because where I was at was so stuck. You get what I'm saying? And then and then this brother coming into my life, like totally it changed the trajectory of where I was headed, the places that I've seen, the places that I've been because of that relationship, and I'm talking about OTG Zico, but it it it changed my life, bro. And a cool story is we did this thing called Recovery on the River. We're gonna do it again this year in Bluffton, and at that time, Zach had just started rolling with me, and I was up there, and uh I was plugging him. I was like, y'all go check out Zico. Um da da da da da da. It wasn't a month later that he was the one trying, you know, he was he was in the position to where he was plugging me. That's right. Like, like, and and it's been that way a lot more. But you get into the if you don't find people to pour into, you are in a pond that is gonna get stagnant, you know. I mean, bad things are gonna grow into it because that's what we're called to do. Like it's it the part of the commission is go make disciples. And if you're not discipling people, and and sometimes it's just a quick season and they become your brother, and you know, I mean, so they'll surpass you.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

But uh, it has literally changed my life, and I feel bad for them people because I see them, you get busy, and it's like I ain't got time to, you know, I mean, I ain't got time to pour into people, and we know because we've been discounted by people, and then six months later they're like, Hey, uh, can I get on that flyer real?

SPEAKER_04 28:42

Yeah, yeah, can I get yeah, and that's it? Hey, you've been there. I I know I know that that's big too. Yeah, that happens a lot. Uh that's what kind of like where where I was at um with Jay, that's kind of how it was with me and Jay Truth, right? Like he came at a time that I needed him, but he also needed me. And so we were able to kind of disciple each other for a while, and then it got like you said, we became really close brothers, and now we we we I I watched get to watch him, you know, do do other things, and it's beautiful. It's it's a big, it's it's awesome. And but in a sense, there's some times where I'm like, dang, man, like kind of want my brother back. You know what I mean? Like, but my boy, I ain't talked to him in you. Then I remember there was days me and J Truth talked 15, 20 times a day. Yeah, and my wife would be like, Yeah, we guess you on the phone with J Truth again. And now they're we're both so busy sometimes, there might be a day or two where it's just a text message. Yeah, and I'm like, man, so I want my brother back, man. And so, but then like you said, you gotta find other people to pour into, and you gotta find other people to pour because that's where you will find a lot of times too, man, that when you start pouring into somebody, you'll see that they begin to pour into you too. Because everybody's got a testimony and a story, bro, and everybody can everybody can help each other. But that's the thing we get in that we get in those spots sometimes where we feel like I'm here, and unless you're here, you can't help me. But man, I've learned more from people that I've been discipling than I have from the people who disciple me sometimes. That's wild, that's wild, man. But it's it's I think it's important that we remember that um that we can learn from everyone, we can learn from baby Christians, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

You know, uh and it's so refreshing. We have we have a friend who's newer in the faith, and it's so awesome to just talk to him because he's in the Bible, he's like, bro, Old Testament, God was He was a gangster. And then you remember, like, I remember going through that and being like, you know, you read Isaiah, you know, who shall I send? And I sit at the end of my bed and I'm like, send me, Lord. I didn't know what I was doing, yeah. But he sent me, and and boy, there was times like, bro, he don't send me, Lord, please.

SPEAKER_04 31:01

I ain't ready. And that's kind of where I got to that point too, is like I had to remember sometimes, like, you prayed for this.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

You prayed for this. And you can't lose that because that season I was telling you about, people were calling me out to share what God had done in my life, and I got to where it was almost like a burden to me. But I'll tell you what, like, when when those things start to they're not happening, you're like, man, I just miss telling people about my father. Like, you know, I promise I will never neglect those moments. And like when me and him take off, it really doesn't matter, like, if if it's you know, 600 people or five. Yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 31:45

Way more nervous in front of five. We were talking about that earlier. I get more nervous in front of five.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

The less people, the more intense. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 31:51

Yeah, it really is. Because they're all looking at you like, what you gonna say next, buddy? You know what I mean? They're just but and and I think that's like you were saying earlier, um, you know, you were kind of invisible, right? Nobody cared uh about you, you know, being in the methadone clinic line and and all that, nobody cared. But now that you walk for the Lord, they're just people are looking. They want they want a reason to be like, ha, I told you he wasn't doing what he was supposed to do. And what really got me, man, and and what really humbled me in that season where I was that I was just talking about is like when I realized uh that that's what I had became was now people are are seeing me for a different like there's so many people have seen a good side of me. Yeah and then I went and talked bad about people, and now people are seeing this other side, and I didn't like it. No, I did not like the way that made me feel, I didn't like the way it made me feel for myself or for them because I'm like, man, I've I've preached on not slandering your brothers, I've done all these things, I've said this, and then here I am the one that was doing it, and bro, it really humbled me, and and uh I repent I had to really repent, bro. Yeah, and and that's the thing too, I think, is understanding where we're at and really repenting and falling into repentance on that, and that is the is the way it has to be.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Repentance isn't a suggestion, no, you know, and it's not a one-time thing, and I think we've we've gotten so in some ways we've gotten away from the message of repentance. Yeah, I love Billy Graham. Oh, me too. Yeah, and I like but you you cannot listen to one of his sermons where he's not talking about repentance, eternal life, one way or the other, you know, and the cross. Yeah, and that dude could speak to theologians or people that have never even heard the gospel at all. Um, but that that repentance message is so important because if you're not repenting, you can't be right. You can't be in a line, you can't be in a hundred percent alignment with God, you know. So I know that um I want to dig into some parts of your story. All right. So um, so I know that you so when you were younger, you had a good life down in Florida.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

Yeah, really good life, best childhood you could ask for. Um, grew up fishing trips with my grandpa, lakes, the lake with my uncles, skiing, fishing, uh baseball. Every every my all my aunts and uncles are coming to my games. My grandma and grandpa never missed a game, mom and dad together, uh over 20 years of marriage, and like family, like fam liter, like a literal family get together. And I I like I remember taking some of my friends to family get togethers, and they're like, bro, you know, but like your family doesn't argue at all. It's like, no, man, we all like really love each other because my grandma and grandpa were rooted in Christ, man. And they love Jesus. And they uh I never got to see that the side of them that my mom and my mom got to see like my grandparents, my mom can remember. She told me a story about my grandma being mean, and I'm just like, no, my grandma would have never done that. You know what I mean? Like, I can't see that. But after they came to Christ, her and my grandfather, like they showed a love of Christ, and our whole family was loving and we were all together. And then we moved um in 1994, we moved to Townsend, Tennessee, and about a year and a half, two years later, uh my mom left my dad, and bro, it was just a just everything started to spiral out of control. So it was like divorce, something that nobody in our family had really done. You know, everybody in our family had been married forever, but it seems like after my mom and dad cracked that egg, everybody in the whole family got divorced except for one, except for my aunt and uncle, or my aunt Gail and Uncle Earl, they're still together, and they are the only ones in the family that are still married that were married back then. But it's like my mom and dad got a divorce, and everybody else was like, oh, it's okay for it's okay for us to do it. Boom, we're all doing it. And so, but I just started to get like go down this downward spiral. And then in 96, my dad committed or 98, my dad committed suicide.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

So let's go back to that a little bit because so what happened was uh were you living in Florida and then moved to Tennessee? Did your mom go back to Florida?

SPEAKER_04 35:54

So we were I was living in Tennessee. We had we were living in Florida when until I was 13, then we moved to Tennessee, and then when my mom um left my dad, she remarried and moved to Florida um in late 1998. So like she moved to Florida in April of 98, um, and I moved in with my dad when she moved to Florida.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

So, what was your relationship like with your dad? Because I've heard you tell your testimony before, and it was like you felt like um you felt like there there was a season there towards the end that you were actually starting to bond.

SPEAKER_04 36:25

Yeah, because so my dad wanted me and my dad had a really good relationship my whole life. Like, I can say this about my dad, bro, and this is probably something that I don't know many people can say, but my dad never whipped me once. Not once. I was terrified of him. He was really big, stocky guy, and I was like, he, and he ever told me, said son, if I ever whip you, you don't never, you won't be able to sit down for days. And so I'm like, bro, I don't never want to whip him from that guy. Now my mom, my mom used to tear my tail up with a fly swatter, bro, and like whoop me, like she would wear me out. But me and my dad's relationship was always really, really good. And then when my mom and dad got a divorce, he wanted me to move in with him so bad. And I was like, I'm going with mom because she's got these this dude. I don't even know this guy, like I ain't about to let her be alone. And so I went to her, I went with her, and so for two years, I did, you know, I was all about and I was a teenager, so I was 14, 15 years old, and I'm out running the roads, and and and and like my mom had really my mom worked night shift, so there was no curfew, there was nobody to watch me. So like when she would leave to go to work at two o'clock in the afternoon, I knew she wouldn't be home till like one or two because she worked an hour away. And so after about three or four days watching what time she came home, bro, it was over with. I'd walk in the door five minutes before she got there and act like I've been there all day long. And I was out running the streets at 14, 15, terrorizing, breaking into half-oh man, it was bad. But my dad was always like, You need to come stay with me. I know you're out here running around people telling me they're seeing you late at night, and I'm like, and I never would move in with him. And then when my mom says she was moving back to Florida, she's like, You going with me? I'm like, No, I got a life here, I got a girlfriend now, like I'm playing on the football team, like I got like things are really good. And my no, I'm not leaving, I'm not going. And so she left at the end of April, um, the last week in April. I moved in with my dad on May the 1st, 1998, and he committed suicide May the 6th, five days later.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Did he leave a note or anything?

SPEAKER_04 38:36

Was there no note? Um, there's a lot of crazy circumstances surrounding his suicide. I've never really talked about those. That would be a whole podcast in itself. Yeah. Uh but for a long time, I was like, There's no way he did it. There's no way. He made plans with me that morning. Like, there was no signs. There was there was nothing. Like, I can remember like he what he said to me. He was like, Don't lollygag after football practice. You come straight home after football practice because we got to go get you a suit for this weekend, and we got to um we gotta we gotta go grocery shopping. And he was like, So don't lollygag, come straight home because I don't want to be out till 10 o'clock tonight. And then they came and got me out of football practice seven hours later and he was dead. And it like it didn't make a lot of sense to me for a long time, bro. And I held on to that, like, what if I what what if I just would have stayed home that day? Like, what if I wouldn't have gone to school? Like all these things, what ifs, right? We had we ask ourselves those. But it was really, um, it was really like I didn't understand it. And so for a long time, I I I would make up things like man, I I I would look at certain circumstances around his death, and I'd be like, oh my god, somebody killed him. Like, this is 100% somebody killed him. But then I held on to all that stuff and and anger and and all this, you know, sadness and guilt set in over all the years of addiction and everything. So I went through deliverance. And when I went through deliverance, um it wasn't like uh exorcism deliverance, right? It was me just getting rid of stuff, man. The stuff that I that I didn't even realize I was holding on to. And one of the things that that I asked God for in that time, I said, Will you show me what happened that day? Like give give me a vision of what happened. And uh and and he did. And so I was able to kind of let go of some of that guilt. And um how long was that that you were holding on to that? 20 years. Twenty years, man. More plus. Uh I think I went through deliverance in like 2021. So and it happened in 1998, so 20 plus years I held on to that. And that's what I mean, bro. I I got so far down, like nothing could I would I was telling people in the jail last night, it's like everybody used to ask me, what's your favorite drug? All of them. Whatever I could do to mask it. I'd do anything, didn't matter what it was, I would do it just to mask that pain. But but but being set free from that and realizing like, man, I was 16 years old. I wasn't, I was living my own life. I had never been through anything. So to for me to even feel like his suicide was my fault, was all a tactic of the enemy. Everything was a lie from him. Once I realized that, it's like, you know, you get that moment where somebody's like, oh, you know, like maybe somebody will fool you, or you've been fooled, and you're like, Man, how did I get fooled like that? Well, imagine being like, Man, how did I get fooled like that for 20 years? Yeah. I'll tell you how. Because Jesus wasn't in my life. The moment that Jesus entered my life, the foolery stopped and the truth began to surface. And the truth was it was never my fault. My dad was broken. He never recovered from my mom leaving him. He also had immaculate degeneration in his eyes, so he was going blind. And so he never recovered. He never he knew who Jesus was, and I believed it. I believed that if he had enough time to beg God for forgiveness for pulling that trigger, because he shot himself in the chest, so I don't think he instantly died. I think he laid there for a few minutes and suffered. Uh so I think he had a chance to cry out to God. Um so I I think that, and and I think he had a chance to repent for it. But he was broken in that moment. And so once I realized that he was he was broken, and all he needed was Jesus, and everything would have changed. Then I got to realize that, hey, that's exactly what I need. Or I'm gonna end up just like him because suicidal thoughts was a big thing for me a long time. I fought that for a while. But when I got delivered and I got set free from you know, then those thoughts and everything started to go away. And fully surrendering that changed my whole life. Because I say all the time, like it's really easy to say I know who Jesus is and he was crucified on the cross for my sins, rose three days later. That's the easy part. Making him Lord over your life, over every situation, that's where it becomes tricky. Yeah, that's a whole different ballgame.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yeah, and it's something you gotta commit to every day. You know what I mean? Yeah. Every day. Man. So you get so when you got delivered, what was um so so you're married. Um which one of you got saved first?

SPEAKER_04 43:35

So I'm not sure exactly. So it it's kind of it's kind of wild how this happened. So I had a radical, we were going to church. My wife has been saved since she was a little girl. So I don't think that, and I don't think she ever truly turned away from God. I did. I was saved as a young at a young age, but I turned away. I don't think she truly ever. Turned away because even when we were in our addiction and stuff, she would still pray and mention God because it was such a staple in her life. But I had a radical encounter with Christ for uh in October of 2016. Gatlinburg caught on fire that night. I had a radical encounter with Christ because I was standing there watching Gatlinburg burn to the ground, Tennessee. Huge forest fire. Um it was late October, early November. Um it was basically it looked like the whole world was on fire. We were up there watching it burn because it was uh millions of acres burning, hundreds of thousands of acres burning up there. And so we're up there watching it, man, and I heard God's voice say, as I'm looking at this place burn, he's like, Is this how you want to spend eternity? And bro, I hit my knees right there in that gravel parking lot, and I rededicated my life. And you'd think hearing God's voice and all that would like change you, and you'd be, and I started, bro. I went to church, I was all in. I was like, I was in it, bro. I was leading Bible, I would not lead Bible subs. I was I was leading like um vacation Bible school, and I was doing with the youth group, and I'm in church every chance we got. We're knocking on doors and like going to you, like it was we were in there, and then I got church hurt, and I turned away again. Even after a radical encounter, I turned away. And I was like, see, I told my wife, I was like, I told you. I told you this was all fake. I literally heard God's voice tell me I was gonna burn in hell and I'm sitting here telling her it's all fake. You know what I mean? And so um she continued to go to church, and I did not. I got out of church and got addicted to video games. I wasn't on dope no more. I was sober, but I was addicted to video games. I might as well have been on because I was I was absent from her life. I was absent, like I wasn't, I was literally come in from work, working a 10-hour shift, turn on the Xbox and play Xbox for eight hours, sleep for four or five hours, get up, play Xbox until I went to work, go to work, do the same thing the next night. And I did that for a while, man, and then one night um I I had to go to the restroom and I took my headset off as I walked by and she wasn't in the bed. I was like, what in the world is two o'clock in the morning? Where's she at? You know, and it's like here I am, I ain't been in the bed at two in the morning in six months. But she wasn't in, and I, and so I was like, and I and then I looked and the closet light was on. I took my headset off, and she was in the closet praying for me to go to church with her the next morning. And I was like, Oh yeah, she don't know that I heard her praying. And so I'm gonna go to church with her tomorrow, and I'm going to sit there with her and make her look good. And then the next when we get done, and we're on the way home, I'm gonna break her heart. I'm gonna tell her that all that was fake, that I that God didn't hear her prayers, that I was standing outside the door and I heard her prayers. And uh boy, was I wrong. I got I I mean, I'm on the way to church, I have my arms crossed. I'm like, I ain't worshiping, I ain't praying, I ain't standing up, I ain't listening to the preacher, I ain't none of that. So we walk in, and there was a new preacher preaching that day, Pastor Chris Kitzman. And uh she was like, Oh, I had never heard him preach before. And I I'm I'm I'm thinking to myself the whole time he's preaching, yeah, right, you done told him everything I've been doing, everything he's saying, he's looking right at me. Like, what are you talking about? You ain't you ain't never heard, man. I know I I was like, she has definitely told him everything. But there was a point in his sermon, bro, where I just broke and I just went to the altar and rededicated my life, and I've been on fire for him ever since. And it's but it took me to get into a place to where like I wasn't happy with myself. I was gambling all the time, I was hooked on video games, I was dumping thousands of dollars into these video games a month and not caring any. I was just I was in it, I was lost.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

So you you thought, so she was praying for you, yeah. And and most people would be like, Well, that's sweet. Yeah, but you were like, I'm gonna show her God ain't real.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

I heard her praying outside. Like, bro, what an idiot.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

That's such an such an interesting angle to take. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 48:16

I'm like, oh yeah, because I was like, she It was one of them things where it's like, shit can't be that happy, bro. Like, and that's where it got into where I was miserable because I had broken my leg and I was at home for a while, and I was playing these video games, and that's what really got me started on a video game is when I was I was I had broken my shattered my leg and I was basically bedridden or couch ridden, and so I would just sit at home and play video games all day. Bro, she would make me a cooler with snacks and drinks and sit it beside my recliner, and I had everything I had everything I need. I didn't only time I had to get up was to go to the bathroom, and like and and that was a chore with a shattered leg, but like she would go to work and and then when I get home, I wouldn't even spend no time with her. I would just continue on playing the video game, and then I would go to bed and act like I was going to sleep, and as soon as she started to sleep, bro, I'd slide out that bed and it was over with. Then I'd slide back in about 6 30 in the morning with a broken leg. With a broken leg.

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Dude, you were a problem. I was a menace, bro. I was a menace, dog. Sliding it out of the bed, getting snacks made for you.

SPEAKER_04 49:25

It was wild, bro, and there was no respect for her, man, because and I was like, man, there's no way she can be this happy. She's happy all the time, she prays all the time, she reads your Bible all the time, and I began to get jealous of that. It's like, well, I'm just gonna play video games, man. All she wants to do is read her Bible and pray all the time. Bro, little did I know what he was shaping in her because she is a warrior for the kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

She is a warrior for the kingdom. When we see her, she's usually praying for people. Yeah, I don't if we don't pull up, listen, if we don't pull up to an event one time, which we usually don't, you see Nikki out there praying for people, like we're in the right place because there's Nikki praying for people, like real deal. Which is really a it's a cool thing because like the stuff you're doing's really cool too when people are in there to watch that and to catch her outside, you know, pray like that's how she spends a lot of that time.

SPEAKER_04 50:18

It's my favorite part of doing this watching her. Yeah, that's so cool. Like, because bro, and I tell this, she ain't gonna mind. She might, but it's all right. I stay in the doghouse, John. It's okay. She's in the room, so like I can feel her eyes. Like, what is he about to say? But I remember when she wouldn't pray over food, bro. I remember when she would be like, No, I don't know how to pray, you pray. And I would say a blessing over the food. And like, so to watch her now as a prayer warrior, bro, like it's cool as like, hey, where I people all the time they'll come up and they're like, Hey, Redeemed, how are you? And I'm like, good, and I'll go in there like, hey, where's your wife? Can we she pray over? So I'm like, sure, yeah, she's around here somewhere, probably playing for somebody, probably praying with for somebody else. And so it's her, it's it's it's our ministry, man. But her ministry is the the catalyst of what we do.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Um, and that's something if you're listening, this is I really want to touch on this because so many times you can kind of see on somebody, you'll be like, Oh, that's an intercessor. But then you get to talking to them, and they're they're like, Oh, I don't, I like, I don't pray out loud. Like, I pray for people in and out loud praying, like you know, I mean, my grandma was a prayer warrior, she prayed real quiet prayers, absolute, you know, I mean, savage for the kingdom, though. Uh, but you see it, and it's funny you say that because so many times it's like the ones, it's like you don't understand. Like you have like you have a voice, like you know, God is wanting to use you for prayer, and you know, and and it's just like you're kind of excited because like once it's unleashed, oh you know, that whole not praying over food thing.

SPEAKER_04 51:55

Now I can't let her now you take now.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

You take her out to eat and she's praying for your waiters.

SPEAKER_04 52:00

Yeah, and and I'm starving to death because of and the food's cold because she's still praying. It's been 20 minutes. Nah, I love her so much, but no, man, that it's so it is, it's so beautiful. Like, and that's one of my one of the greatest things that I love about her is it doesn't matter where we're at, bro. I have seen her pray for people and the Holy Spirit lay them out in the middle of a in the middle of a food city parking lot, and I had to direct traffic, and people were like, Do I need to call 911? I'm like, no, it's good. She just praying. Like, you know what I mean? But it's but it that is so beautiful, man. And to see, like, I remember what it was like when we were strung out. And like, bro, it was bad. So to see her walking out her calling now, bro, it makes my whole story complete. Like, my life is complete. Like, not only did God give me a woman that is a godly woman, but man, she is a warrior. And she don't mind telling me when I slip up, and I need that because they say you can tell a lot about a man by his wife and how she speaks about him and how she prays for him. And we pray for each other. She constantly covers, even when I'm frustrated, bro, and I'm like, I'm mad on the side of the road with a blown tire and all this thing is going on, and she's just like, Well, let's just pray. And I'm like, man, I really don't want to pray right now.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

But that's a real story because we were on the phone what two nights ago. We were talking on the phone sack.

SPEAKER_04 53:26

Who got a hold of you and said your tire? The lady pulled up next to me. She's like, Hey, your tire's sparking is smoking. I'm like, I was like, John, it's like you just told me about tire sparking. Let me pull over and see. Right, a tire went sparking. That thing was almost on fire. It was completely shredded, blown out the side. But it's like, you know, uh, and I was frustrated and I got angry and and and say, like, but she's so calm in those situations, man. She is so quick to pray and just be like, hey, let's pray. Nothing bothers her. Even when people came against her and slandered and badmouthed her and made fun of the way she prayed, man, she didn't care. She stood on business and stomped on the head of every serpent that tried to come against her. Praise God. And I thought, and and it's beautiful, man. It's it's been an awesome, it's been an awesome journey to be. I remember when we were in that little hotel in Panama City, you could literally pay for by the hour at this hotel and pay for like it, or you could pay for a day or you could pay for a week. Yeah. And we lived in this crack, it was a crack hotel. That's what it was. It was run-down slums, like awful. And I remember what it was like with both of us in our addiction, just being out of control. And I remember what it was like to pick up that one trash bag with our clothes in it and put it in the in the car and drive off to Tennessee to get sober. So to look back 10 years later now, 10 years later, is incredible, bro.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

What God can do. And so and sometimes we're reluctant. We're reluctant vessels, but what he can do. With a simple yes. With a simple yes, with a simple broken-legged husband that wants to prove somebody wrong.

SPEAKER_04 55:13

Full of pride.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

He played God played you on that.

SPEAKER_04 55:15

You know that played me big time. He's I know I I I feel like he's up. He was up there the whole time. I'm like, Well, you so stupid. Slapping the angels like this dude. Look at this guy. Y'all watch this. Watch what happens in like 30 minutes when he gets out of church. He's getting saved, he doesn't even know what's coming. They're all up there laughing, like, look at this dummy. Oh, praise God. But then they were all rejoicing when I hit my knees and went to that altar, bro.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Yeah, man. They really were. It makes no sense. I can understand why somebody on the outside looking in is like, this just makes no sense. Yeah. Because I can tell you right now, it doesn't. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't.

SPEAKER_04 55:51

It doesn't have to make sense, though.

SPEAKER_00 55:53

No, it really doesn't. But you just see it and you wake up and you're like, I tell people all the time, like, how did I get here?

SPEAKER_04 55:58

Yeah, you would tell me that story earlier, but how you didn't understand. I don't understand. He's like, You don't have to understand. Yeah. We don't. But man, we want to understand things and we wanna we wanna know how things work and why they work the way they do. But man, it's a you know, you hear the cliche all the time, the Lord works in mysterious ways. No, he doesn't. He works it his way. Yeah, we are the mysterious ones, bro. We're the ones that he shows over and over and over again how much he loves us, and we continue to bang our head on the wall.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:29

And say, Man, God, do you really love me? He's like, bro, look back at your life and look at all the things he's brought you out of.

SPEAKER_00 56:35

Man. And look what he did. Yeah. Like what like the whole sacrifice makes no sense. No. And I like people be like, well, what you know, what's the point? Like, that's the whole thing, is like it made no sense. It wasn't it, it wasn't on his end, wasn't necessary.

SPEAKER_04 56:48

He had to do that. Never one of us, bro. Could have smoked everybody on here, started all over, and none of us would have even known we'd have never we'd have never had to, but man, what he did that day, sending his son to die for us, man. And when you realize that your sins put him up there, that's when things change, bro.

SPEAKER_00 57:11

I it's easy for us to say Jesus died for your sins, but when I'm sitting in the mirror, you know, and in the studies, like so you can watch the passion of the Christ and it's brutal. It is nothing compared to what really happened there. I've seen studies where we will never know the pain he went through. No, like they they I've seen things where like he had you could see his, you could probably see his spine, his liver was probably lacerated. And it was me, you know what I mean? Nobody else, but it was me that put him in the situation to do that. And when you really think about it, that's that's what I tell him a lot on Friday nights. Like, if this does not get you a touch emotional, yeah, that's it. And if I never tell you another story out of the Bible, if this isn't enough, yeah, you know, then your heart is hardened, and you need to continue to pray because I just think about like if I was in the garden. And another sad thing is like sometimes, like, if you put yourself Jesus was alone, he was in the garden looking at his three best friends, like, come pray with me. And I used to read that, like, these clowns, yeah, you know what I mean. Like, but it's it was he's literally like this is it. You get what I'm saying? I have a few hours left with you in this way. Yeah, please come pray with me, wake up and pray with me. And they fell asleep, and he's in the garden by himself, you know, and he's looking around, and this is this comes back to that forgiveness thing of like the example he showed us. It really doesn't matter what you do to me, you know, because he had people spitting on him, ripping his beard out of his face, put a crown of thorns on him, strip him down, beat him. And he took that and he said, Forgive them for they know not what they do.

SPEAKER_04 58:59

That to me is the biggest uh that line. Forgive them for they know. I'm gonna let you know right now. If it's me up there on that cross, I'm like, I'm I'm looking at him like smoke these dudes, bro. They they have tortured me. Like I send them down, send the angels. Drop them. Yeah, drop them right now, drop a nuke on them right now.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Because how much can a human being like how much can a human being take in a day? Not only is there nothing left of me physically, yeah, nothing, just even being thirsty, the kind of thirsty that he had to be, you know, just being that thirsty, and having these people mock you and laugh at you and you're gonna be able to do it. Give him vinegar. Yeah, you know, do you know who I am? And with all of that, like uh now I got to. So with all of that, there is this love story, there's the like this love story that is written about when he's on the cross, and we have all of these people trying to dictate who belongs, who deserves to be in the kingdom, who is worthy, how do you get there? Do you have to be baptized? Do you have to do all of these things? And he's up there with two thiefs, and the and the thieves are making fun of him, and then one of them sees something in him, and he looks at the other one, he's like, Hey dude, uh, this is John Humphreys. Yeah, parent. Yeah, but hey dude, do you know who you're talking to, like who you're making fun of right now? We deserve to be up here. He doesn't, he saw something in him. Yeah, and this makes me tear up every time. Every time, because it's all it's all it's it was all gonna happen. It was all the plan. Yep. We start, you know, we start what we start the ministry, you know, the evangelistic stuff with the woman at the well. That wasn't a chance encounter, that was planned. All of the all of the things he walked through, it was all designed by God, and now he's on that cross with two thiefs that does that deserve what they're getting. And the thief looks at him, bro. And and and the thing is, is this is what I tell our people, you know what I mean? When it comes to addiction, the reason people don't want addicts in their house is because they're gonna steal something. We are the thief, and he looks at this man, we don't even know his name. Like we don't even know this dude's name. The only title he had earned in this life is the thief, and he's sitting up there and he he looks over at Jesus, man, like that this man who has gone through all of this stuff, and he sees something in the blood and all of that, like he's not he's not of us, uh uh. And and man, he looks at him and he was like, please just let me be a thought when you come into your kingdom. And if like if we're phrasing that today, he's saying, It would give me so much peace to know. I know where I deserve to go, and I know where I'm headed. But if I knew in this moment that I would be a thought in your mind when you get to heaven, that would bring me peace. And Jesus being Jesus over-delivered in that moment. Yeah, always it's always over-delivered. Overdelivered. He didn't he didn't go through a lot of stuff with him. He just says, Today, you're coming with me to paradise. Yeah. Today, you are coming with me to heaven. It wrecks everything, it wrecks you know, a lot of the theology. It just wrecks it all. Because this dude, how could you do that? One person, one person gets to go to on this journey. There's nobody else that can do it, there's nobody else that will ever do it. And it's a thief on the cross. We don't even know his name. And he went to heaven with Jesus. Yeah. And that wrecks me every time because every time I see somebody, because we were sometimes we write people off. You see that dude on the side of the road, and it was like, you know what I mean? Jesus saw this thief that just acknowledged that he was who he was, and he says, Today, I mean, what a powerful statement. What a powerful freaking statement to say, Today, today, you come with me to paradise. Yeah. He could have taken any preacher, any you know, prophet, he could have taken anybody with him. But his disciples were laying at the feet of him right there. Right there. Mary, Mary, and John are right there.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:12

All of them, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

They're all there was a man that donated the tomb. Like, you know, I mean, cool. Uh, but he took a thief on the cross, and that that is me. That is you, that is Zach. That's that's all so many people we encounter. It's like, you know, the world has bypassed them, and Jesus literally picked one.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

And said, This one's coming with you today. You know what I mean? He's he just said, Hey, Pops, make room. We're I'm having a sleepover and I'm bringing my homie home. I found the one I'm bringing with me.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:42

And that's man, it's so powerful just to think about you know what it would have been like as a thief, right? To hear him say, Today you're coming with me to paradise. Like, it would have been like, no, but you're kidding me, right? That's like, that's it's incredible, man. It's it's um, it's so powerful. And I think we forget that a lot of times. That we forget that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:05

I hate that I forget it because it's like, you know, it's the whole thing. Yep. I get mad at somebody, and then I'm like, he literally look at this, look at this moment. Forgive them for they don't know what they do. Why have you forsaken me? You're taking like Jesus went through so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

Just to be like, hey man, you're coming with me. You're coming with me to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:23

Appreciate you. Basically, he's like, I'm I appreciate you acknowledging that that I'm not supposed to be here. And it's your humble, it was that humility in that moment of that thief saying, Hey, I know I'm supposed to be up here, and you know you're supposed to be up here, but stop, stop, because this dude he don't deserve to be up here.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

And then acknowledging that you know that I'm the son of God. Yeah, boy. So y'all tell me that I get so tired of people telling me what Jesus can't do. Right. When I see over and over and over again what Jesus can. You can bring whatever argument you want, but you've been to you've been, you know, you're talking about the jail last night. I have seen the manifestation of Christ in the heart of people, and you cannot, I cannot deny that I've seen that. I cannot deny that change. It's not just change. When the Bible says it gives you new life, you you walk into that bathroom and you come out. You know, I mean that's a bigger switch up than Superman. It's like they they you know, I mean this ain't the dude that this ain't the dude that we left. So you have some exciting stuff going on. I could talk to you all day, and you know we're gonna have you back. But I did want to, I just did want to get a chance to just, you know, kind of real quick talk about you just look, you got a bunch of stuff going on. So like just share with us.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:34

Man, God is good, man. He's so good. Just uh the album comes out June 24th. Um, it's my first full length album, The Choices album. Um starts off with a powerful testimony song um about the night that my wife called out to God and uh I was laying on the bed, thought I was gonna overdose. Um it starts out with a song that details that entire encounter with God, and then it ends. Ends with a song called Glad I'm Home. And it takes you on a journey to what it's like. It kind of a journey of my whole walk with Christ up to this point. So we just had the album release party last Friday. It looks amazing. So many people came out, bro. Like man, we we got some good brothers, bro. Yeah. All of us, we got some good brothers. Yeah. So many of my brothers showed up and sisters too. And family was in the building. Some of my like my mom, my mother-in-law had never been to an event. Um, so she she came and she chose the right one. She chose the right one, yeah. And then um, like uh just so many, my my sister and my nephews, and then all my brothers, man. So many brothers came, bro. Like, and I didn't let anybody know that anybody who was coming until like a couple days before it kind of got leaked on the internet. I'm not gonna call y'all out, but y'all know you leaked it. I love you though. But like it got leaked out that and everybody's like hit me up, like, bro, are these people really coming? Yeah, and I just kept commenting eyeballs on everything, right? Like, I y'all, you'll see. But ASAP Preach came out, Nikki Gracious came out, J Truth came out, uh, Dre Day came out, um, B Cody, Aubrey, Hero. Man, it just the list just keeps it just grow, it just keeps going and going. And so many people were there, bro. And uh scene Holy Beards was there. Oh, Pastor TJ was there, Pastor Roy was there. Yeah, like bro, it was so awesome. Sold out, packed, and it was just an awesome night, man. We had over 30 salvations that night. Um, I think we did 16 baptisms that night, if I think 15 or 16 baptisms. Um, but it was awesome, man. So that's one of the things. The album release cut the party got new music coming on the album. Um that's exciting, but the most exciting news in my um walk right now, man, is partnering up with ASAP and God made music. And it's not a partnership between just me and ASAP, right? It's a partnership between me, ASAP, brother Bo, Big Yeet, like Adrian Butler. Like, bro, this is a partnership with some brothers that I know without a fact are moving right. They're moving right in all aspects because I've analyzed it, spent time with them. And I I say this to say, like, you can just like I like you, I was telling you earlier, you can find out a lot about a man by the way his wife looks at him, and by the way his wife treats him, and by the way his wife responds to the things that he does and stuff like that, right? You can find out a lot. And so after spending a lot of time with these brothers, man, like these brothers are they're really doing it. And my heart, like, man, being in that prison last night with J Truth, bro, I would have been I was happier in that prison than I would have been on stage in front of 20,000 people, bro. Yeah, because boy, we got to see the spirit fall. J Truth went to preaching in that joker, bro, and it was powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:04

It's a it's a totally different experience, and that's what they do. So awesome, man. ASAP preach is kind like that's kind of his battlefield, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:13

Yeah, so being able to lock arms with them. Um, I went down and spent a whole week with pretty much with ASAP and his wife. I think we spent like five days, four or five days down there, and um just seeing their heart and um watching how his kids react to him, man, and how his son looks at him and like uh the way he is with his wife, man, and how how they carry their ministry behind closed doors, how they carry their ministry in public is really awesome. So linking up with them brothers, man, and watching how they I've been watching how they move for a while. This wasn't just like, hey, Redeem, we want you to join God Made Music. Like, this has been two years in the making. Um, a lot of people don't know, but I almost joined God Made when I very first started. Um ASAP approached me when I very first started out, and it just wasn't the right timing for either one of us.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:01

But now that we've built this relationship that we have over the last couple years, man, to be where we are now and and for this journey to be taken off, dude. I'm excited. I'm excited for you. Super excited. Gonna be a lot of a lot of cool stuff come out of this.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

Yeah. ASAP, you're next. ASAP Preach.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:18

Come on. Calling Grant County, Indiana. I got this chair warm for you, big dog.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:23

Redeemer's gonna be getting a hold of you on my behalf. Hey, man. Come on. Praise God. God may, baby. Yeah, all right, man. Well, we appreciate you like not just coming on, you're one of the people that come through here, you know what I mean, to do the Friday service. It really means a lot to people, and we appreciate you uh, you know, like just your heart and be able to contact you and chop it up, but knowing that um if you can make it happen, you're gonna you know you're gonna come through, and we really appreciate you. We love you, bro.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:49

Love you too, man. Love y'all. And listen, man, if I can give y'all anything today, you didn't ask me the question, though. I'm going to. Okay. I'm going to. I've been waiting for that. I'm like, when's it coming? But if I can leave y'all with anything today, man, um talk to the Lord. But don't just talk to him. Listen. We want to talk a lot. But like I said earlier in this podcast, man, it's it you learn a lot more when you listen than when you're talking. So listen to God. Don't just talk to him. Actually, listen to what he's got to say. Spend some time alone with him in silence. It's hard to hear God when you got your phone in your hand. It's hard to hear him when you got the TV going, the radio on, when you're buffing redeemed, and J Truth and Zico. It's hard to listen to him. Put everything off and just spend some time in silence with him today.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:36

Amen. Praise God. If you could have a cup of coffee in conversation with anybody in the Bible and you can't save Jesus, who would it be?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:48

So this first off, what an amazing question. Because everybody's choice is gonna be Jesus. So to throw that whole little last part in there, uh but man, mine would be John the Baptist. Oh, I love John. And this is why. One of my favorite things to do in ministry is watch people go under the water and come back up free. But what I would like to ask him is, what was it like to put your hands on the head of Jesus and baptize him? And what was it like to know that you were preparing the way for the Messiah? And what was it like to have your head in that guillotine knowing they were fixing to chop it off, bro? Yeah. What was it like to be peaceful in that situation knowing that you were going to be with the king, bro? What was that like?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

Oh, John the Baptist. That's my boy, bro. He's gotta be one of my top ones, too, just because he was different too. So you know it's gonna be entertaining because the Bible calls him different. Yeah. So he's gonna show up to your cup of coffee and camel skin. You know what I mean? Camel skin. I mean, yeah, he was wild, bro. But but yeah, to like your whole life. And and I think that the beautiful thing about him is he displayed some, he displayed things that we don't talk about enough. Like his disciples were like, hey, they're down there baptizing everybody. And he and he was like, No, that's you know, and and when he's he, you know, he said there's one coming, and you know, like he the the humility he operated with. And if we're being completely honest, the way it sounds is his ministry was huge. Yeah, the Pharisees couldn't even come against him because he was he had such a big ministry, they were like, we can't, you know, it'd be an uprising. Billy Graham reminds me of John the Baptist.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:53

He he had a huge he that they couldn't that there would nobody could come against it. Yeah, even the ones that didn't like Billy Graham couldn't come against it. But John the Baptist, bro, he was he was radical. He was out there, he didn't care. I feel like John the Baptist would be a Christian hip hop artist. Yeah, no, I don't know. I know he would be wild though, bro. You know what I mean? Like he'd be wild at it. And I think there's there are a couple evangelists out now that that do remind me of of John the Baptist by the way you read about him.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:20

This dude looked up at the Pharisees that could kill him. Yeah. Didn't he call he referred to them as a brood of vipers? Yeah, like so that would be like like he's going like I know that you could probably kill me right now, but he he walked in so much authority from God. He was like, he called them what they were. And like he's just he's wild. Yeah. And I and I love it. And when I read about it, another thing I think we can take from that is this man had a very successful ministry. And the meet the minute the minute that the one that was supposed to come after him came, he handed it over like it wasn't anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

Here you go, bro. I got this for you. Yeah, your turn. Take off.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:05

That would be a really good cup of coffee to have one. To have one.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:08

That'd be one of them cup of coffees you wouldn't want to run out, bro. That'd be that'd be a had to be a venti.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:13

Oh, yeah. I'm gonna need a venti for that one. I'd be slow sipping it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:17

I need a venti and I'm slow sipping.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:18

Man for sure. And then great question. And then to be calling out the king and how you know how people are living and stuff, and and even though they had you imprisoned, you still did it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:29

Yeah. Yeah, you still did it. And man, it's so cool, bro. Like just to think about that. Like, that would be a really cool cup of coffee. But like that whole, I was just thinking, like, man, like we baptize people, and I can watch, I can watch them when they come up. I can see the joy on them, right? But imagine what it was like for John the Baptist to baptize Jesus. Heaven split open and the and the Holy Spirit like descends on him like a dove. It's like, okay, my work is done.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:54

And then God says, This is my son with whom I'm well pleased. Yeah, like what? Yeah, there had to be people on that beach, like, you know, I wasn't sure about this whole thing. But next. I got next. Yeah, I got running into the water for sure. Side note, that's something I've always wanted to do is go to the um go to the Jordan River and dunk in that thing. I I wasn't even saved a long time ago, and I would watch those little infomercials because I was up tweaking, yeah, and um there's one of John John Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter, and he's singing on the banks of the Jordan while he's standing on the banks of the Jordan. I'm like, that's it. I didn't even have to be saved and know that that was like powerful, yeah. So awesome. We have one for John the Baptist.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

Somebody wake up.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:25

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. Make sure you subscribe to our channels and follow us and give us reviews on all of the platforms. If you really liked what you heard today, share it with somebody that you care about. Thank you. We love you.