Entrepreneur Dies and Sees the Other Side | Steve Maxwell Ep. 004

Steve Maxwell was clinically dead for 25 minutes.
In this episode of The Defending Freedom Show, he shares the story of the widowmaker heart attack that nearly took his life, the miracles that brought him back, and the experience that changed the way he sees God, purpose, and eternity.

From business and family to faith and perseverance, this is a conversation about what truly matters when everything else is stripped away.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

What do you do when everything you've built? Steve Maxwell has lived a life of faith, entrepreneurship, and service-building businesses, and standing for truth in some of America's most challenging battles.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

But nothing could prepare him for the moment that changed everything, the damage was done. My kidneys shut down, my liver shut down, I wound up with equal amount of blood, the protocol and my results were to leave me alone. It is to plan for your life. Our job is to knock you to speak and don't quit, and all of a sudden the plan develops.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Steve shares the miracles that brought him back and why he believes America is standing at a crossroads. From boardrooms to battlefields of faith, from death itself to a renewed sense of purpose, this is more than a story of survival. It's a story about what happens when faith refuses to quit.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

You know, we gotta learn when it died.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Alright, everyone, welcome to this special episode of the Defending Freedom Show. And tonight my guest uh has an incredible story. Uh as a matter of fact, uh he was dead for 25 minutes, not not unconscious, not a near-death experience, clinically dead for 25 minutes, and his story's incredible, and it it was a game changer in so many ways. And I I'm excited, uh, you know, because before the success in business, before uh citizens defending freedom, before there were classrooms and courtrooms and legal battles, God was preparing this man for what we're about to talk about, for this moment in history. And uh, you know, the devil might have thought that he won, but God had other plans for his life, and I'm excited to uh get to talk to and have this uh episode of the podcast with uh somebody I consider a mentor and a friend, uh Mr. Steve Maxwell. So, Steve, welcome to the Defending Freedom Show, brother.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

It's an honor to be here, Colby. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Absolutely, man. Well, let's let's just dive right in. Um, you know, I want to talk about what happened to you. You know, you you were clinically dead for 25 minutes. Not a not a lot of people come back from that, but you did. You're sitting here, it's absolutely phenomenal. And uh so let's talk about that, man, before we get into the organization and all this other stuff. Let's talk about that experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yep. Well, uh, you know, we counted uh we've we're still counting uh the number of miracles. We're we're around 15 miracles that happened during this episode of my life. And uh, but you know, it happened uh November 11th of uh 24, uh uh early in the morning. Uh I had been having a little bit of uh uh pain in my left arm for maybe about four months, and I'd been going to the doctor, going all kind of tests, nothing showed up. Um but this particular night um it began to hurt more than usual. And we had finished, this is a Monday, early Monday morning. Uh we had finished our last round of tests the Friday before the Monday. So we'd made a commitment because my arm wouldn't hurt all the time, it's just every once in a while. I work out a lot, so I thought maybe it's just something that uh to do with that, because none of my tests were coming back any negatives whatsoever. Never had a day of high blood blood pressure in my life. And um, but we'd made the commitment on Friday. Look, there's one last test to do, and that's when they go in with the camera and check out your heart and all that kind of stuff. So we said, if if this thing flares up, let's just go to the ER and let's get that done. So that that was miracle number one. And uh so we laid down that night and um began to hurt, and it hurt more than usual. So Bev, my wife, precious wife, said, Well, let's get up, see if you can get to feeling better. Um she gave me an aspirin. I've never taken aspirin or a long time since I've taken aspirin. That's miracle number two. Um and we got in a chair, took my blood pressure, it was it was high. She took it again in five minutes, it was higher, took it again the third time, way high. So she said, I'm calling 911. We we gotta get she goes, I said, Well, won't you just drive me to the hospital? Nope. We'd already made the call Friday, you know, we're gonna go to the ER. She goes, No, I'm calling ambulance. Miracle number three. I didn't say no, you know. So 15 minutes they were here, and by the time they got here, Colby, the everything had settled down, blood pressure was normal, EKG normal, nothing. But we had made the call. Let's go ahead and go in. So they recommended a hospital that we don't trap we nor don't normally travel south, we travel north, and all the hospitals we know are north. But next miracle, we went to a hospital to the south of us. Turns out they're the number two heart center in the state of Florida. And um, so anyway, I I was feeling a pain, ambulance got here, walked to the ambulance. Um, they told Bev to meet us down there um uh later. She'd got things ready here, and so they just packed me up and we're heading out. And as we're leaving, uh I have a long driveway with a cattle guard at the end, and the last thing I remember, I remember thinking, uh, you know, we we we've got 50 acres, so we've got two of our older kids that are we're building homes here, building a little compound, you know. And I remember thinking, Lord, I'm grateful our our our family's close. I remember having that thought. And then we hit the cattle guard and we turn left to go to the to the um hospital. Next thing I know, I'm floating out of the amlets, I'm looking down. They haven't even realized I've coded yet, because they're just doing their normal stuff, and the attendants were and I'm floating in outer space. And um so that's what happened that night, it's how it all began.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Wow, and um obviously as you were having that experience, yeah, uh you mentioned your precious wife, uh Bev. Bev was on this side of it. Yeah and she was holding down the fort, and she was um she was going through this with you. Yeah. Um you want to talk about what she was?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, yeah. What happened, just to summarize very quickly, what happened was I c I had a widowmaker heart attack is what happened, but I I coded right then in the ambulance. And so I'm literally with the Lord. I'm I'm trying to figure out what's going on. And uh I don't know how much detail you want to go into, but the l I next thing I know there's I mean outer space, but there's a million I call them television screens, but they were like holograms. And uh as far as you could see, north, south, everywhere you looked was these screens and they were things being it was things events happening on Earth. And um and so that particular night I was working with our Intel team and they were they were working with some girls that were were k were um uh en route to the Middle East to in the sex trade. So we were working on trying to get some folks to help rescue them. And uh the next thing I know is the Lord is coming to me. Jesus is just like you've seen the shroud, you seen the pictures of Jesus in Sunday school, it was him. He's smiling at me, and he's coming from a distance, but he comes closer and closer. And in that realm, you don't talk with words, you talk with your mind. You you you know, so he's begin speaking to me, and the first thing he says is Steve, he knew he knew me by name, he says, Steve, I want to show you what's going on in the spiritual realm. And so he pulls one of these screens down, and it's these girls who are stuck in some dark room, and these three points of light come in the room, and they get the light room lights up, the girls are released and they just take off running, they're free. And um so that that's that was the beginning of what I was going through. Well, you can fast forward, uh, I coded. Um by the time I got to the hospital, they'd brought me back, but the damage was done. Um I wound up uh my kidneys shut down, my liver shut down, I wound up with E. coli, my blood, staph infection, my lungs filled with fluid, I had 105 degree temperature. But when I got to the hospital, uh there were two doctors there, and the protocol with my results were to leave me alone, basically. So my my lactic acid, for any nurses out there, doctors hit listening to this, they'll know this is high. Anything over four on lactic acid, they basically don't resuscitate, was the was the um protocol. I was at twenty.

unknown 8:38

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Okay, not not twenty and a half uh to be exact. Um so their protocol was, you know, this guy's gone. Uh no oxygen uh for that period of time. They were trying to give me oxygen, but they just figured I was brain dead. Um so when Bev gets to the hospital, she's 20 minutes behind us, you know. Uh so she didn't know what's going on. So the ambulance guys come in to see her, and they've got blood all over them. They've had to paddle me seven times. I mean, at five eppy shots. I mean, they were working it hard to get me back. So they've got blood all over them. The shirt tails are out. She just saw them at the house and they were perfectly normal, so she's trying to figure out what's going on. And so the doctor came to her, Bev saw me in the room. They basically I was in the room by myself, but I was I I just they just got me back. My heart was back to about 20%, just barely hanging on. And the one doctor wouldn't wouldn't really make eye contact with her, but the other doctor looked at her, she was a believer, and she told us later, she was asking, Lord, what do I do? What do I do? And um so she's talking to Bev, triaging her, trying to find out what happened, and she turned to my wife and said, Look, if you'll give me a chance, I'll try. They think it's a blood clot, I think it's a heart attack. If I if I go the blood clot route, the test I have to take, and it's not a blood clot, he's probably gonna die. If I go the heart attack route and it's a blood clot, he's probably gonna die. So you need to pray. But if you'll give me permission, I think it's a heart attack, I'll go in and try try to try to see what I can do. And she gave her permission. So she takes off in the room, turns out it's a widowmaker, took her a few minutes to find it, put a stent in, and that brought the blood flow back. And and the heart was now still beating only 20%. So that so what Bev was doing at that moment, all of a sudden, what do you do? And it's just a long story. There's podcasts out there, you can see the whole thing. But the bottom line is she began praying, my kids showed up, they had had visions uh weeks prior to this of something major happening. They knew this was it. Uh huh. There's a whole story behind that. Um we had some great uh pastors who came in. Uh Pastor John Freed is one of one of a good friend of mine. Bev had never met him. He drove two hours, was there at daybreak, and he gave her just the strongest uh message of what to do in this situation. And she with along with my two daughters, they began one daughter got on Instagram, one daughter got on Facebook, and we began they began praying every hour on the hour for my recovery. And um so Bev was she she went to battle for me as a wife, and she she'll tell you her story. She goes, I didn't get I wasn't scared. She goes, the Holy Spirit just came over me in a way I've never experienced. And I got mad because she knew we were doing damage to the kingdom of evil, and this was an attack. And uh so so Bev went to work. Um long story short, I was in a coma for seven days. I woke up a week later, um, and once I woke up, um, you know, first I'd been to I'd been with the with the King of King and the Lord of Lords. He showed me a ton of stuff. So I got to see heaven, got to see some family members in heaven. He showed me what he's doing on earth right now and what's about to happen. And the last thing he told me was, Why don't you go home and tell all your friends? And so I wake up and I'm asking Beb what happened. You know, I still had tubes in and all that. It was a mess, but I'm trying to figure out what happened, but I knew what happened to me. I just didn't know how I got there. So all of a sudden I'm back back home and um seven days in a coma, and seven days after that I walked out of the hospital, heart backed 100%. Everything was back except for my kidneys. Uh they thought I'd have to have a kidney replacement after being paddled that many times. So I had uh kidney outpatient kidney dialysis. Uh, but I don't I had four months of that, and then they were looking for a kidney transplant. And um after my fourth treatment, the first week uh first three treatments a week. So I went one week, and then the first treatment on the second week, the doctor came in and said, We can't explain it, but your kidneys were back to a hundred percent. So it's a complete miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle. So so that's the that's the story, and there's a lot more to it, but uh we're just grateful to be here and um we're on mission.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Amen, brother. Well, we're we're gonna come back to some of that because I I'd love to dive in more into specifically what the Lord showed you, you know. Uh but uh before CDF, but but before the heart attack and all that, um you know, who tell us about yourself. Like who is Steve Maxwell? You know, tell us tell us about your life. I know you're an entrepreneur, you've you've started businesses, you've uh been quite successful. Obviously, uh people can look at that from the outside and say, Oh, you know this guy, but they don't they don't understand the failure and the risk and everything that went involved with that. So talk talk a little bit about that, man, your your life as a as a businessman.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Okay. Well, born in an average home, my dad was a state trooper in Florida. My mom was a homemaker and she worked part-time for the county, and um and so uh just a normal life, but I was very blessed to be raised in a Christian home. I tell people I went to church nine months before I was born, you know. Uh so uh so I was raised around uh good good biblical teaching. Pastor Billy Sanders is my first pastor, he baptized me, um, and just rocking along, played football. Um was always bored with c college was not my thing. Um Bev and I are high school sweethearts. Um we've been married 43 years now. We just had our 43rd anniversary. We dated all through high school, but there was one year there where we broke up, and uh during that time, that's when I began looking at what I really wanted to do. I thought I just wanted to get a job and have a family and all that. And so I joined the U.S. Navy. My grand my grandfather, uh on my dad's side, was uh World War II veteran on a U.S. on a uh destroyer. So I grew up with all his pictures and stories of World War II. So I thought, you know what, if I'm starting over, I've lost a love of my life here, uh I'm gonna go. And I was trying to think of what's the highest paying job that does not require a college degree. I hated the thought of college, you know. So it was air traffic control. This is back in 80, 82, Reagan had 81, 82. Reagan had just fired all the air traffic controllers, President Reagan did. And uh so I thought, man, that'd be a great, a great deal to do. I could go serve the Navy and then get out and be an FAA air traffic controller. That was my game plan. So left for the military, uh, went to air traffic control school, and of 85 students, only 13 graduated. I was very fortunate to be one of the 13. Of the 13, I was the only one that got shore duty, and they sent me to a town called Beeville, Texas. I know exactly what I'm saying. You know where that is, right? You're a Texas boy. Uh so right before I got in the Navy, Bev and I got back together. So I I go through air traffic control school and we decided to get married. We got married in April of '83, and uh we moved to Texas. And uh so that's where I got my beginning. I spent uh uh seven years in the Navy and then got out, stayed in Texas, started our first business uh that didn't turn out so well, you know. And uh he was my next door neighbor, and we became best of friends, um helped lead him to the Lord, and uh once he became a Christian, we were till this day we're locked like that. He's got a ton of companies, we have companies together, and uh our mission, Colby at that time was at age twenty-four when we met, is we wanted to produce a hundred financially independent people before we died that were Christians that would give back the kingdom. So we were set about on that mission, only in America, right? Two college dropouts, we had that dream and we we just believed and went for it. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yep. He you talked about, you know, your first business. I'm sure there were other lessons learned along the way, failures there's risk involved, right? And uh, but man, what can you speak to some of those uh lessons learned, those failures? What what was some of the biggest lessons?

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I don't even use the word failure because you only fail if you quit. There you go. Right. So uh uh a hardship or a quote unquote failure is just a stepping stone, it's a learning curve. So I say I didn't go to edu I didn't go to college, I got my college, you know, school of hard knocks. So our first business, I was highly successful in it, it was one of the youngest vice presidents they had, but the company sold midstream, it was a franchise type business. I wake up one day, my income gets cut in half. I mean, the new owners had come in, and and it was just like, oh my gosh, everything we had built for for four or five years was gone almost overnight. So um I can remember um I had to send Bev back. We lived in San Antonio at the time, and I send Bev and we had one child at the time back here to Florida to stay with her parents, and I called John Durham, my partner, said, Hey man, I need a job. I couldn't find a job. This back in the 80s in Texas, and the oil industry had crashed. You probably heard stories about that. So there were no jobs to be had. So I called John, and uh John was just managing uh an oil refinery maintenance company at the time. He said, Hey, I'll come get you. So he comes up in a cattle trailer, put all of our stuff in it, go put it in storage, and I move in with friends and go to work, and I remember two things specifically in this period that really I hit bottom. Now you can hit bottom in different chapters of your life. This particular chapter, um, one of the pastors at our church, his wife was a secretary to Pace Picani sauce president, and I remember uh she said, I can get you a job at pace. And uh so I go, they take these aptitude tests. I've never been good at tests, that's a whole story. I didn't score high enough, Colby, on that aptitude test to get get a job screwing lids on pace bicani jar sauces, you know what I mean? So I remember driving home just crying, then Lord, what what are you doing? You know, what are you I what am I gonna do? I literally went straight home, I called my partner John, he said, I'll come get you. And so he puts me to work. They were doing some refinery work in Louisiana, and I wound up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with a prison crew working midnight shift for ten bucks an hour, ten or twelve bucks an hour. Um, and that's when I hit bottom. You know, you just you the the the failure. Um and I was young, you know, I was still very young, but I remember sitting in my bed at uh in the morning because I slept during the day and worked at night, um, thinking, okay, Lord, I want to start, what can I do? And I'll be uh even in that time I I began journaling. And I said, Okay, Lord, your Bible says you you give me the desires of the heart. This is what my desire is, this is what I want to do, this is what I need. And I just began praying and praying and praying and praying. We saved up enough money and came home to Florida and uh we started over. And we we I told Bev, we're gonna start over, let's start around family, all of our family, both our families were here. And so um that was our first our first failure. Now I haven't had that severe of a failure since then, but you still I I've got companies right now not making money, I got companies that make money, I got, you know, I mean it's always and when you're an entrepreneur and you got multiple businesses, there's always one doing good, one doing medium, one doing bad. So you're always working, and you always have the risk of failure. But that that was a a low point, and um I I I I I I share with people this story um because to me it's encouraging. Not that you fail, but how do you push through the pain to get to the other side? And uh to me it all comes down to your faith in the Lord and trusting that whatever you're going through, like Job said, though they slay me, I I'm gonna trust you, Lord. I trust you with my life. And what he did, he was moving us to Florida. That got me in the produce business. We f my mother-in-law got very sick with cancer just a few months after we got here. My wife ended up caregiving her, she was bedridden for seven years. We could have never done that if it hadn't been us getting he he was merciful enough to crush me to get me home. It set me on the path that I'm still on today. And it we were able to help my mother-in-law and my father-in-law during that time, very difficult time for Bev and her family. But here we were, God put us here. And that began a pathway that I'm still on today. So even though it looks bad, I tell people just have faith in God that He knows what He's doing and learn. And learn. And the number one mission in Scripture you'll find for the Christian is God's goal is to conform you to the image of His Son. And that conform thing has the idea behind it of powder and clay. And you gotta mold you and shape you, and and that means pain normally, right? Pain. So I I tell people look. Listen, don't let the pain get you down. Receive it. Take it one day at a time, one minute at a time. But keep trusting God. Keep trusting God that He is in control. He's got your life in control. He's got a plan for your life. Do not give up. And so you break out of that. Next thing you know, we've got another chapter going.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

It's awesome. I I I'm learning that the more I walk with the Lord in my personal journey of faith, right? And just even now being here, you know, I could have never done this on my own. This is a God thing. It's a God thing, absolutely. Just put your whole trust in Him and His plan for your life. And even though you don't understand it, right? He said, Lord, I'm going to trust you. And He orders your steps. Yep. He really does.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

You know, Kobe, I learned when I died, He's recording everything. It's the first thing he told me says, Steve, I see everything. He saw you when you were born. He created you. He took me into a mother's womb and showed me the DNA strand that was forming a baby. It's all God. It's all God. He sees, He knows every hurt, every wound. Okay? And He's there. Even though you maybe think He isn't there. But He is there. Everything's recorded. Right? He knows every hurt, every pain, but He also knows every joy. And He's He He There's a plan for your life. Our job is to knock and to seek and don't quit, and all of a sudden a plan develops. And there's all kinds of stuff that goes with that. But so yeah, it's uh it's a life is a journey. It's not a well kept yard. Okay. It's it's a forest. It's wild, it's woolly, it's a little bit dangerous sometimes, but it's beautiful. And so you just embrace you embrace b embrace it all with him in mind.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

But w is it something that was just instilled in you from your parents, or did you discover it on your own at some point in your life? Where would you?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

You know, I um that's a good question. I wasn't it was instilled, I d it's all I knew uh because I was raised around it, but I had great grandparents uh that uh that exemplified faith. I saw my my parents exemplify faith. And I just always believed that God loved me. I felt like I had a relationship with him. I met him in third grade. I had a real experience at age 19 where I really made a commitment to him. And don't get me wrong, guys. I mean I I I I I'm a sinner like anybody else. I struggle like anybody else. But I've always um I've always felt like uh I knew him and he was with me. And so I just believe. I don't know where it comes from. I just believe no matter what happens. You can ask Bev, even today, you know, she comes in, how's your day? If I've had a rough day, I don't say I've had a rough day. What I say is tomorrow's gonna be awesome. And that's code for hey, it was a rough day. But even the rough days, the next day's gonna be awesome. Yeah, yeah. Just always be excited, always it's it's just it's just believing that God's got it. He's got it. He's got it. So just don't quit. Just keep trusting.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Amen. I wanna I want to go back, we've touched on a few things. We talked, we talked about the screens, yeah. Everything's recorded, you talked about the girls being rescued, you talked about the the strand of DNA, right? God was in the what else did the Lord show you um when you were with him?

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Well, he you uh you shared with me that when when the three points of light came in the room, he said, Steve, when you joined me, we worked together to shine a light into darkness. And then he began talking to me about the glory of God and the energy of God, and the glory of God we cannot see. And I went back, it took me a few weeks when I came home to begin studying God's word and just matching up what I had experienced with Scripture. And one of the scriptures that came up was Hebrews chapter 1, where the Bible says that Jesus is the radiance of his glory. And he said, You remember Moses wanted to see my glory, my father's glory. And God said no. Right? God said no, he put him in a cave, he said, I can't show you my glory, but I can show you my goodness. Right? And if we see God's glory, we we perish. But God sees us through his son. Right? So he who knew no sin became sin on our behalf, that we may be made the righteousness of God through him. So when when we join Christ, we accept Christ, okay? God no longer sees us, our sins are covered, but he sees us through his son. So we work hand in hand with him. That's what he showed me. And then he went in a long dissertation about it's like I was in a classroom. Here's how light works, here's how energy works. I'm my my father's in everything, and I've created everything. And the Bible talks about that, 1 John chapter 1. Nothing was created without Christ. So you you think about we accept him. We've got the master of the universe, the creator of the universe, and the God of the universe who we're working with, teaming up together. So that was the other thing. We we after that scene, though, that was that was the first scene, then we fast forward. And you've seen these Star Wars movies, you know, with the stars going by. We've it we were fast. It was warp speed. Scotty, you know, and Star Trek. Um, and we stop and we're at the w you know, it it's the it's just a huge city, right? It's heaven, it's heaven. Huge, as far as I could see. And we come up to the gates of this, it wasn't really a gate, it was a wall. It was a golden wall. The city just glowed, it was just pure light. And here come all these saints. I saw my grandmother. My grandmother was to the left, she's the first one I saw. And then all these other saints, Kobe became coming to the wall, and they're all smiling, and they're all the same age, all young, and but they all had projects, and I I couldn't. It was like they all knew me, but I only knew, I only recognized my grandmother, but they all knew me. And they kept saying, Steve, he said, keep going, keep going, keep going. You know, he's uh we've lived, and again, they're talking in thought. We've lived our life. It's your turn. Keep going. Don't stop. And I I I reflect back on that night, Colby. We, if you recall, we were working CDF. We were, I was trying to help rescue these girls. That was pressure. We had the election the week before. That was a ton of pressure, you know. And we had the hurricanes going on. So remember, all of our pastors, we were shipping little semi-loads of products. I was up at Sam's Club at midnight loading trucks. So there was a lot. You know, I was tired. And I remember before all this took place, I just hung up the phone with with the the Intel team, and uh we're going to bed. I'm thinking, Lord, is this am I doing the right thing? And it was like this whole thing, in other words, why is this so hard? You know, here I'm giving you my pep talk about how I believe, but when you get tired and you get hungry, I mean, we all can falter. Sure. And so I just I was worn out. And um, and then this happened. It was like God, it's like it's like God was saying, Hey, I want to show you, let me show you these saints up here in heaven. They've already lived their lives. And that's what they were telling me, keep going, don't quit, man. This is your time. This is your time to do. But they all had projects, they were all happy. And what's interesting is I came to after seven days, and about four or five days, I was on no medication. I was recovering. Um, and one night, hospitals are cold. First time I've ever been in a hospital in my life. And uh so, and everybody left. I told Bev, come up here and jump in bed with me. I need to warm up. You know, I couldn't get warm. And so she's laying right here next to me, and all of a sudden, here's about 20 of these same saints came into my room. And they were smiling, and they just kept saying, Steve, keep going, keep going, keep going. And I turned to Bev and said, Do you see him? And she couldn't see him. But I wasn't under no drugs, no hallucination or anything. It was just they came back to see me one last time. I think it's just to to confirm what I'd experienced. Yeah. So um, so that was that was incredible. The light the last two things you want me to cover real quick. Um, we came out out of the scene of heaven. He begins speaking to me again. He said, and this is what he said, and he always started his sentence with Steve. As I thought back, he knows you. The Lord knows you, calls you by name. He knows me. He knows you, he knows us all, created us. He says, Steve, I'm about to expose all corruption and evil in the world. This is November 24. We've seen a lot of corruption since that day, right? The exposed. He said, and all nations, I'm calling all nations to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Found in Joel chapter 3. It's a valley of decision, a valley of judgment. He said, and everyone will either receive me. No, he didn't say that. He said, I'm bringing all nations to the valley of Jehoshaphat. And for those who reject me, I will deal with those people. But for those who receive me, I'm about to fill the portals of heaven with those people, and the final harvest has begun. And he said, Now I want you to go home and tell all your friends which what I've shared with you. And next thing you know, I'm waking up seven days later. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

And you you've been doing that.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

You We just promised the Lord while I was still in the hospital, two things. We're gonna write a book, which we're working on at, and and tell the story to get it to more people. And Lord, wherever you open a door, we'll go. Yeah. So I don't know, we've been forty, forty-five different locations from TCU university to a bunch of churches around the country. Came to our church. Came to your church, yeah, yeah. Uh so that's what we're doing. And of course, working our businesses and working uh CDF and all the other things that are going there.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Well, I want to ask you this experience when you came back. Obviously, Bev was by your side the whole time, you know, and uh but man, what what has this done to y'all's relationship since you've been back? What has it done to your marriage? You know, what is it like to have been through that as a couple? Have a spouse that stands by you, prays with you. I mean, I just I can't imagine I I would imagine that there's uh just a power in that in what it's done to your marriage, you know. You want to talk to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Yeah, absolutely. We've been married 43 years and uh and marriage is a chapter as well. You got different chapters in marriage. Right now you have young boys at home, our kids are grown, and there's tough times, there's good times, there's tough times, and so we've been gone through all of those. And um this was the most special time ever because we've been we've been close for the last few years. There's nothing like going to battle for a loved one. And uh when you you know, it took me a few days. Matter of fact, it you know, I I I woke up and I'm feeling better and I'm starting to walk and I'm ready to get home, I'm ready to get out of here, you know. And I remember about the third day, Bev said, When everybody leaves today, I've got to read you a bedtime story. Because she would not read the doctor's reports, we had like six doctors, and every single report, Bev would not read them. I have a daughter who's a nurse, so she would let we'd let Mallory read those reports, and they were gloom and doom. I mean, uh paladin care, if you know what that is. I mean, they were already he's probably gonna be brain dead when you wake up. He says, if he does survive, you know, you need to be prepared for this death. So Bev would not read any of those. Well, this particular night, this is like four or five nights after I woke up, and I'm at getting antsy, I'm ready to get home. She goes, I'm gonna read you a bedtime story. So that's the first time we began reading, you know, give you an iPad, you can read all these reports. And so the first time it dawned on me how serious this was. Other than the Lord, I'm not even supposed to be here. You know? So then I began seeing what the kids were doing and what what they were doing on Instagram and praying every hour on the hour, and and Bev praying like a prayer warrior, and uh and hearing the stories of the people, and then we had a ton of our supporters of CDF come to town from came in from Texas, came up from around the world. There were literally millions of people praying. I found out later. That creates a bond that I cannot express with words. It's a uh a deepness that an appreciation and gratefulness and humbleness. She went to bat for me, man. I mean, she invoked the kingdom of God. She refused to listen to any doctor, even the Palatin care lady came by. She wanted to talk to Bev, wanted to talk to Bev. Bev would not talk to her. And finally on Thursday, she says, I'm leaving for a long weekend, but if he when I come back Monday, we've got to talk. Because we gotta prepare for end of life, basically. And Beth said, You come back Monday and I'm gonna introduce you to my husband. I mean, she had so much faith, she was so strong, and you don't know until you're there, but she'll tell you and you can hear her side of the testimony, but the Holy Spirit just just embod em just emboldened her. And she went to battle. When you when you see that and someone you've loved since high school, and you've gone through life together, and all of a sudden, a few years ago, she was in trouble. I was able to help her out. Wasn't medical, it was something else, and now here I am, I'm in trouble. And buddy, she came in for I mean it just there's nothing no nothing's gonna break that up. And it's here I'm married 43 years, I'm 63 years old. It's just a beautiful thing. And so we're buds.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

We're buds. That's the word out there, we're buds. That's awesome. Well, let's uh let's shift gears, man. Let's talk about CDF. How did uh how did CDF get started?

SPEAKER_01 36:34

The way any other business got started, really, uh, as a business entrepreneur. Um of course, John and I, my partner, we've we've been together for all these years as well, and we're we're like-minded when it comes to the political arena. But uh November of 2020, we knew something bad happened. We couldn't put our finger on it, but something bad happened. And so I called him up, and um the only thing I've ever done with politics is talk to a politician and cut him a check, right? Basically, I was I was a vice chair of uh the Republican Party here in Polk County in 2010. I hated it, despised politics. I got I learned from it, but I just I said I'm not ever gonna get involved in that again. I for uh RNC listening to this, they probably don't like that, but I just I just found it just completely um impotent. Uh we had issues going on back then and they couldn't get her mind around it. It's even happening today. They can't even pass a stupid law to clean up the voting system, you know what I'm saying? So I was I was anti-politics, but I love America. And so um I called John and we began meeting. We uh had a meeting, I brought in a university president, I brought in the head of the Fellowship of Christian athletes here in our Central Florida area. We brought in a uh uh uh uh Dennis Ross, who was our congressman at the time, and a few other business owners. And we sat in my office one day and said, Okay, what just happened? And so we go around the room and and uh about the same window of time, this is right after the election, Colby, we were invited down to Mar Lago and uh and uh it was a it was a Charlie Kirk event, and but we were invited, we met with Rand Paul, Senator Rand Paul, and had about an hour and a half with him, and he let us know exactly what was going on. What we know now, he was telling us what's going on back then. And his final word was folks, we're not gonna fix this from Washington, D.C. We gotta, we gotta, we gotta get back to the grassroots, and we've got to start at one community at a time. It's always the country's gonna be saved. And I remember driving home, I only live about an hour and a half from there. Driving home that night just weeping. We're in trouble. The nation's in trouble. So then we began, before we ever incorporated, we started doing a study of our home county here. We have a great sheriff, does a great job. Um, but we got a uh uh a uh uh whistleblower, if you will, got a lead from inside of our school system. Um it was our charter school program here in our county. Um we launched an investigation. Took us several weeks to get it done, but we had a very wealthy um individual, lived in a very wealthy section here, had a winter home down here. This gentleman had had uh bought curriculum for the for the public for the uh charter school where my son graduated, that was had all the bad stuff in it, DEI stuff in it, all that. He had about a million dollars worth of curriculum. He hired a couple from the Clinton Foundation to come down here to implement it. Um and then, you know, he kind of buttered up the principal and had all kinds of money coming to her, buying her this and that, uh, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth and to implement it. But he didn't, he bypassed the school board, he bypassed the parents. But that wasn't bad enough. We saw that what's going on. So we we we captured 1900 emails, I believe, and uh about 200 plus attachments to those emails. Took us weeks to go through all that. But what we found is this guy is talking to people like him all around the nation. And they're having the same conversation. You know, we let's get this implemented, we've already got the big cities, let's let's look if we can hit these r rural red counties, we can we can take the nation over, basically, is what they were saying. It was a conspiracy big time. And that was the shell shock. That's when we said, Oh my gosh, this is happening in my county, you know, and so what do you do? So, in business, at least to my experience, is you find a need, right, and then you feel the need, right? So, what we found is we met and we met with Alliance Defending Freedom, Mike Ferris, he was a huge help. And so what we were seeing is what we've all seen now, what you you'll see this, say, uh curriculum going in or a DEI program going in, or uh parental rights taken away at a local school board, right? Right? So you've got two or three attorneys from the ACLU that's pushing Johnny going to Sally's bathroom, and the school board wouldn't stand up to it, and the school board attorney wouldn't stand up to it, and the only person standing up is a mom, three minutes and a microphone. So, okay, here's the need. What does that mom need to balance this out? And so that's where the whole idea came from. Really came from Mike Ferris. But we've got a lot of great attorneys that we work with, a lot of great Christian attorneys we work with, uh Matt Stavers won, Kelly Shackerford's one, I mean we ADF. But what what we what Mike Ferris shared with us is there was no grassroots, I mean, quick 24, 48 hour response time, not for lawsuits, these other guys handle lawsuits, but just to to push back immediately, to say, hey, wait a minute, we're here with this mom. You guys are breaking the law. Okay, ACLU says if y'all don't do this, we're gonna sue you. Now we can be there and say, wait a minute, you're breaking the law. If you do this, we're gonna sue you. So there's a counter. And that's what we found was the need, and that's how CDF started. And we found out later nobody's ever done this. And then we found out, you know, through experience that, okay, uh after after about, this is uh April of 21, we started, October of 22, after battling for a year and trying to, we first started up as a county, uh county citizen defending freedom. We found out very quickly we that was not working. We were winning lawsuits. I mean, we're over a hundred wins so far, you know, in the last five years, but we we were winning law activity when we were going to these school boards with the letters, but the fundraising and all that wasn't working. So we the last thing we did in October 22, Colby, was the biggest thing we ever did. We got on our knees at a board. We said, Lord, you've got to help us. How do we do this? Which again is another trait of a any any business owner worth their salt. They're humble enough to go, look, I don't know how to do this, I need help, and they go find the help, right? You seek and you knock. So we said, you know what? The answer, and my pastor was the one that told us in a meeting, he said, Steve, it's the church. We got the church is responsible for this corruption in our local areas. The church is responsible, the pastor's responsible. So we've modified our model to activate churches now. So inside that church is where we get a pastor that's on fire, he's ready to take a stand, and then we educate the members of that church on biblical citizenship, which none of us have been trained, our bib our biblical history as a country, and then we activate a small group inside that church. That model is working, is still working. And so that's where it all began. So it started with an idea, uh identifying the issue. Okay, how can we address the issue? Put a system in place that addresses it, and that's CDF.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Right. No, it's it's it's it's a powerful model. I mean, we it's in A hundred percent the shift. The idea is that now that church becomes the embassy in their community, right? Standing for God's truth, his word, and we come in, give them the tools and the resources, and they're like many citizens defending freedom. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

Right? And they're they're being salt and light and they're pushing back against this evil. That's right. It's taking over, trying to take over their local community.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

And witnessing in the process. That's there you go. We're fighting. There's two dark, there's a dark kingdom, there's a kingdom of light, right? God's kingdom. And they've been at war way before we got here. But the Bible tells us how we defeat the enemy. This dark kingdom. Blood of the Lamb, word of our testimony. Not afraid to die, not afraid to give it. So blood of the Lamb's already been done. The word of our testimony is standing firm for the kingdom of God in that local community. That's the church. Right? Now, what you're going to find is about 75% of the pastors have been trained through seminary or whatever. Do not engage. I mean, who thought of that concept? That's a pretty good concept if you're the enemy, right? But we've got about 25% of our pastors, they get it. They want to fight. They've never been trained to fight. I heard John Eldridge say one time, it's like dumping third graders on the beaches of Normandy. So you got a pastor, you got a congregation ready to go, ready to stand firm, ready to witness in the civic arena, but they don't know how to do it. So that's what we do. And we bring in the legal, we bring in Intel, we bring in media so we can gather around them, protect them, and give them the resources. And you guys are doing an incredible job at CDF to get those resources they need. It's a paradigm shift, right? And all of a sudden you start. What I love about it is people come to know the Lord in the process. I mean, that's that's the ultimate. So if we if we this is a fight. It's a fight. We're in a weight room. And I tell people, don't be discouraged, you know, when you watch all this negative stuff coming. When God gets ready to move, the first thing He does, He puts us in a very, very tough situation. Puts you in a wine press. He puts you in a wine press. He's gonna grind you down, right? So World War II, we talked about it earlier. My granddad, we got hit quickly in Japan and they bombed us, and what did we had to do? The nation, we've been fellafarting around, you know, not getting involved and helping England a little bit, and all of a sudden we got attacked. And what happened? We had to energize the nation, train the nation, recruit these guys, get them in, get everybody went to work. Everybody did their part. My one granddaddy was in World War II in the Navy. My other granddaddy, I've got his draft card. They declined him. Why? He was a farmer. He was an essential asset to stay at home. It eat him up his whole life because he wanted to go, but he had to stay home and fight. You know, my my my everybody did something. I even have a certificate where my dad, he was four or five years old. They gave the mayor gave him a 10 cent certificate he could cash in at the local uh, you know, soda fountain shop for candy because he helped uh gather rubber tires and a big tire drive, rubber drive for the war. So that's what we have to do as a nation. Not everybody, a lot of people in our nation are not friendly to our nation. I don't even know if they're Americans, but but the Americans have to come together. And uh and I can see it. So what does God do? He puts us in a bad situation. But then he puts it on your heart, and you gotta go fight, you gotta grind, and then you become that person you need to become for the success to come back. So I'm encouraged.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

Yeah, I am too. And it's uh I think I I've heard uh Rick Green say it quite a bit, but he's you know, that generation from World War II and the situation we were in, it's like hard hard times create hard men. Hard men create good times. Good times create soft men. Soft men create hard times. Exactly right. And we've kind of been riding the coattails of the blessings in this country, and I think that we've uh many of us uh have gotten kind of apathetic, lazy, we've been blessed, uh, we got a bunch of soft men. We need we need men, we need Christian men to step up, we need pastors, men of conviction and courage to to step into this this battle, this arena that that you were describing, and uh be bold, be bold witnesses for Christ, take a stand. We know our our founding fathers, they those are the type of men we need now.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

You know, that lineage, that bloodline to come and um you know And they're out there. No, they're out there.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

You know, we've got a minority in this country that you know we went to war over a three or four cent tax on tea. You know, but really it was the fact that somebody was telling us what to do. Think about the country right now. But we want to avoid war with our own country, obviously. But you're right. There's there's there's there's plenty of men out there. They just don't know what to do. Right. So this is this is what we bring to the table. We show them how to do it, and we're there to hold their hand and and and work with them and go to the courts if we need to. We'll we'll go do battle with them.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

And God always uses a remnant. Absolutely. Right. It's a pattern in scripture. Yep. It's even a pattern in history. Like when you think about George Washington and his his men and how his army had dwindled due to you know just famine and hunger and leaving and men giving their lives for this cause and dwindled down to it, I think it was what, 2,500? And it was like, thank God they crossed that river. Yep. Thank God they mustered up the courage and the conviction to say, you know what, this is worth dying for. Yep. Yep. And it was that moment that just it turned everything around. And God provided miracles in that. We can look back in the history of the fog and just everything. It was just It's called divine providence, you know.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

And I I tell people, you know, most people don't even know the definition of an American. Our last president couldn't define what an American was. And it's all found in the Declaration of Independence, it's our birth certificate. You know, and so what is an American? Well, for first paragraph, we're I'm paraphrasing. We're about to do what we're about to do because of the law of nature and nature's God. First paragraph, most people have no clue what that means. William Blackstone wrote that. What does it mean? The law of nature and nature's God means this. The Bible, right, is the law of the universe. The law of nature submits to Scripture. And then the law of man must submit to the law of nature, nature's God, or it's considered invalid. That's the first opening paragraph. That's the first belief system. Think about that. Think about all the laws, all the stuff we've done in this country, if we would have just abided by that. The second belief of American is our rights are given to us by God, not by man. The third, he lists all the bad things that King was doing. That's the reason why we went to war. Then they talk about we're about to do this, and we are subjecting ourselves, we understand that the supreme judge of the world will judge us on what we're doing. So there will be an accountability one day. And the last paragraph is divine providence, which means God steps into human history and will help us achieve his will if we're engaged. So there's your belief system. That's what an American is. So what we have today, we have Americans who believe like Americans, and we have citizens, American citizens, but don't have the belief. Does that make sense? So you got one, here's the belief system, here's the ones that American citizens don't have the belief system, and that's the clash. That's the divide. It's not white and black, rich or poor. It's not that. There's two different belief systems.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. You know, um, you know, our prayers is that this podcast goes out and it encourages people, right? That it it it reaches the ears of those that are wanting to get involved, want to engage. What would you say to those people that are that are hearing that? Where can where can they start? How can they what what what's the first kind of steps they can take?

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Well, my suggestion is you need to find a Bible-believing church with a pastor who's willing to take a stand. A pastor who's bold. Speak the truth in love, but that's the beginning point. If you don't go to church or if you don't know the Lord, accept him as your Savior. Surrender your life to him. Make him the boss of your life. It's real, real simple, but it's got to be serious. Lord, I've sinned. I'm asking you forgive me of my sins. I believe you died on the cross for my sins and rose from the grave the third day, and now you sit in heaven, and I'm giving you my life. And then once that's step one. Step two is find a good church where you've got a good leader, you're getting good word of God. And then uh start looking for ways to get involved locally. Okay, it's when you when you're looking out there at DC and all this stuff every day, and I get internet stuff and I get all the social media stuff too, it can be overwhelming. You can't um and when you're overwhelmed, it creates anxiety. So focus local. Focus local. Who's my city com commissioner? Who's my school board member? Um, what are the policies? And if CDF's active in that community, join CDF through your church and and and we'll show you how to do all that. We got we set up inside that church a very powerful uh civics, it's a civics uh ministry, basically, and uh you can get involved that way.

SPEAKER_02 53:44

Absolutely. And uh and if you are listening and you are those things, uh, and you are in a church with an with a with a bold pastor, you've given your life to Christ, um you you can reach out to us, man. We will come, we've got a system, it's plug and play, and uh we will work with you, work with your pastor to start doing the faith and action ministry in your church, and it is highly effective. We've seen it, uh we we we know it to be true, but we're we're serious. Like we we believe in God's word, we believe in this country, and uh and I believe that God's not done with this country, but it's gonna take a remnant, God's people to rise up and take action. Um, and so if you want to get involved, you can go to citizens defending freedom.com and hit the contact us button and we'll we'll reach back out and we'll we we want to connect with you guys. So no man, that's awesome. Um Steve, I'd appreciate you so much, man. I've come to really admire and love you as a brother in Christ. And um man, um this has been a great episode, but man, this whole I never would have imagined that God would have brought me here to this moment with citizens defending freedom. It's just been an incredible journey of faith, and I'm excited to see what God's gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

Oh, we too, and CDF just really getting started. And uh and you know, our nation, uh, I believe we're on the I believe the revival's already begun. You look at the 18 to 25 year olds, I I I credit Charlie Kirk with a lot of this, but they're coming back to the church in droves. We've got pastors standing up now, the American citizen is standing up. Um they just need an avid avenue to put their energy, hopefully they'll they'll work with us and do that. But but I just want to encourage people. This is not unusual. Okay, that a nation grows strong and then begins to slip, like you said earlier. It's just a natural flow. What makes America different than any other empire, if you will, is we were founded differently than any country in the history of human history. We're founded on biblical principles. And the Bible says, if my people who are called by my name, not the heathens, my people who call by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from the wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and I'll come heal your land. He will do the hard part. Right, right. So we just it starts with this I'm only coming for you, Lord. I have not been doing my job. I have not been paying attention to my local stuff, and I'm responsible. I want to stand for you in my family, I want to stand for you in my job, I want to stand for you in my community. Amen. And uh and it it'll it'll take off. I think we're gonna see a great revival.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

I do too. Yep, I do too. I think uh you're right, I think we're already seeing it, and it starts starts with humility. Yep. Humility before the Lord, right? Because pride comes before it fall. Yep. But well, Steve, thank you again, man. It's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 56:46

Thanks for what you what you all you guys are doing.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

Absolutely, man. So if you enjoyed this episode, I would encourage you to share it uh with friends and family and and just co-workers, whoever. Uh I think this episode was highly encouraging, and uh I'm excited about it. But what we're gonna do now is uh Steve's gonna join me over in the red zone. And this is where we go when we talk about things that are kind of off the record that we normally wouldn't talk about in the regular podcast uh episode. And so if you want to join us over and listen to what we're gonna talk about, I would encourage you to subscribe and join our Patreon account and become a member today. So, Steve, you ready? Just do it. Welcome to the ready.