Deconstructing Conventional
Welcome to Deconstructing Conventional, a show fascinated by one simple question: How did we get here? How did what we call “conventional” come to earn that title? Is there a better way, and if so, what would it look like? This show is about deconstructing two things: Our individual biases, and the systems that run (or attempt to run) our everyday lives.
We do this deconstruction with an eye for where we can reconstruct something better that leads to flourishing societies, and robust physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. In short, this show is about questioning our assumptions and practicing systems-level thinking.
I’m your host, Christian Elliot, I’ll do my best to stay curious and humble. You do the same and we’re both bound to learn something. Welcome to the show. Prepare to have your thinking stretched.
Deconstructing Conventional
Mark Grenon: The Unseen Realm - A Missionary's Journey Reveals Biblical Realities
What if the strangest parts of the Bible aren't myth but documented reality? Mark Grenon's journey from skeptical to global missionary reveals archaeological evidence and supernatural encounters that make Scripture's most controversial passages suddenly plausible. Mark's story begins with a life-altering encounter with believers who could answer his deepest questions from Scripture. Within months, he abandoned his construction career to attend Bible college, eventually pastoring a thriving church before feeling divinely called to Nigeria.
The evidence Mark encountered during his decades of ministry would challenge anyone's skepticism. In Israel, he touched olive trees in Gethsemane that were already ancient when Jesus prayed there, drank from Jacob's well that still flows with cool water, and found sulfur balls in the ruins of Gomorrah that burn at an inexplicable 6,000 degrees. In Ecuador, he witnessed a 35-foot giant skeleton that aligns perfectly with Genesis 6 accounts of Nephilim. These aren't religious claims but archaeological realities that mainstream education systematically ignores.
Perhaps most compelling are Mark's supernatural encounters—from demonic manifestations in Nigerian markets to angelic messengers who appeared and vanished in Boston after delivering specific guidance. His near-death experience during heart surgery gave him a glimpse beyond the veil that separates our physical world from the spiritual realm. Through it all, Mark discovered that Scripture isn't just spiritually inspiring—it's historically precise in ways that defy coincidence.
Whether you're a committed believer or a thoughtful skeptic, Mark's experiences offer a challenge worth considering: what if we've been given a sanitized, two-dimensional version of both history and spirituality? His firsthand accounts might just be the evidence you need to reconsider the Bible not as mythology, but as the most accurate historical document ever preserved.
- Grennon's GiveSendGo
- Grenon's Books, E-Books and recommended documentaries
- Number of Biblical prophecies fulfilled
- Giant skeletons in Equador?
- Noah's Ark Location?
- Pharaoh's Buried Army in the Red Sea?
- The Real Mt. Sinai?
- The Universe Next Door - Sire
- Another Gospel - Childers
Reverse Any Chronic Health Condition in Three Steps - The Simplest Path to Healing You've Ever Seen
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- Compare our Detox Programs
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Hello everyone, welcome to episode number 52. This is part two of my conversation with Mr Mark Grennan. If you heard my last episode, you know that Mark has been in ministry and missions since 1978. In our previous conversation we focused on his work helping people heal physically using chlorine dioxide and other methods, and he told his shocking story of persecution and imprisonment for doing so. And, by the way, if you can support Mark by ordering his books or contributing to his Give, send Go page, please do. I'll have links for you for that in the show notes.
Speaker 1:In this episode I wanted to give Mark a chance to let his experience as a minister and missionary be the thing that stretches your thinking. So he has seen and experienced things most of us only read about, and Mark has dedicated his life to sharing his faith, and that involved going to some of the poorest and roughest countries in the world to do so. But, as you'll hear, mark didn't go to the mission field with a megaphone. He went with willing hands, looking to meet real needs and after spending time with him, I can say he is one of the purest hearts you have ever met. So it is an honor to know him and I'm excited to give you all another chance to hear more of his life story. So anytime you can hear from someone like him, it helps expand your view of the world. So what he has experienced brought the Bible to life in so many enriching ways, sometimes shocking ways, and it's likely what you're about to hear are some stories that will make you say what Seriously. So let me see if I can set us up for a fun, open-minded listen here. So first of all, as you have probably heard me say before, I'm not really here to talk you into or out of anything in particular. What I hope to do, as always, is give you an interesting and insightful frame through which to see the world and give you a chance to walk around with that frame and see if it doesn't make more sense of the world we live in, and if it doesn't, you can discard it. So you are about to hear two Christian guys who have done a fair amount of traveling to the lands of the Bible.
Speaker 1:We have been studying the scriptures and apologetics for most of our lives and I wanted to record this episode for two reasons One is just to capture Mark's story for history and second, like I said, I wanted to give you a frame of reality, a biblical perspective on history, and leave you to ponder the questions what if the Bible isn't a collection of fairy tales and moral teachings? What if it's really history? And what if it is divinely inspired? So to get you to ponder that thought? For those of you who don't know, depending on who you talk to, there are between 200 and 400 prophecies in the Old Testament, so written hundreds or thousands of years beforehand, that were perfectly fulfilled in Jesus, in other words, in one person. So if you include the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the Old Testament, the number of fulfilled Bible prophecies is between 2,000 and 2,500. Friends, I invite you to ponder the odds of that without divine intervention. So let me put it to you this way People can win the lottery against fantastic odds by guessing six numbers, right? Imagine having to win the lottery by guessing hundreds or thousands of numbers, right? Good luck.
Speaker 1:So, for context, mark and I discussed some of the weirdest parts of the Bible, our most epic parts of the Bible. We talked about the angelic and demonic realm. We talked about the reality of evil and the possibility of giants, noah's Ark, the Exodus and where the real Mount Sinai is. And hint, it's not in Egypt. We talk about our travels to the lands of the Bible and some of Mark's divine appointments along the way that make it hard to dismiss the record of scripture. So, talking to Mark, I feel in some ways like I kind of got the sanitized 2D, black and white, almost felt board version of the scripture during my time in seminary, while Mark was out getting the 3D full color, immersive version of scripture. And I'm just playing catch up interviewing him. So, okay, before I play the interview, one other frame I want to open here is to rewind the last few years, kind of like Mark and I did in the last episode.
Speaker 1:If, like me, covid caused you to ask a lot of questions and I've mentioned this in various interviews that it was the blatant censorship here in the US, with no repercussions, that caused me to start deeply questioning things. I was baffled that they could just de-platform the sitting president of the United States from social media and there was no consequence to that and the people didn't even get a slap on the wrist for doing so and censorship just got worse. I didn't realize at that point that the Constitution was simply a suggestion and that humbled me and I realized how much I misunderstood how the world really works, and what I couldn't get my head around was the shocking level of worldwide coordination of nearly every government agreeing to shut down their economy and tell us there's nothing else we can do, and we need to wait for a liability-free injection with mysterious ingredients made by companies that are convicted serial felons, and that is our only hope. And yet somehow they pulled that off, and so I get it now, and if you want to hear my answer to how they pulled it off, you can go check out episode number 32 about deception and control. But in learning what I learned, it also caused me to step back and say, okay, what else have I been lied to about? Or perhaps on a shockingly grand scale I've been lied to about, and it freed me to entertain questions I probably otherwise would not have entertained. So, like me, the tyranny we lived through during COVID may also have caused you to ask jeez, where is the hope?
Speaker 1:And, not surprisingly, that level of coordinated evil we have witnessed has woken up a lot more people and made conversations about faith and history, or I guess what we could call the curated, sanitized version of history. It's made that conversation a lot more interesting, and watching the last few years unfold has caused me to put my nose back in the Bible and the last five years what wasn't shaken, what was actually deepened, was my faith and Mark would say the same thing, despite going to prison for taking a stand for truth. So we both had that in common and what we have a deep trust in is the Bible. So we recorded this episode with the hope that it will fill your sails with perspective and thereby hope and give you a craving to explore the Bible and see if it doesn't actually come alive and make the world make a lot more sense. So what I hope this conversation leaves you with, at a minimum, is at least an intellectual understanding of a Christian or biblical perspective on both the unseen realm and on human history. If nothing else, you'll have a fun historical and archaeological set of data points you can look up if you're interested and you'll understand how people like Mark and me see the world. So, to zoom out to a high level, not surprisingly, there has been an explosion of interest in the Bible and spirituality since COVID kicked off, and as humans we crave meaning, especially when the world doesn't make sense. So I don't think anyone can honestly review human history without appreciating that we have always craved meaning and sought to understand the world, the unseen realm and our role in the universe, and that longing is hardwired into us, whether we admit it or not. We all have a sense that our lives have to be about something more than the day to day, and we have this innate sense that what we see can't be all there is, and so, not surprisingly, there's also been a hunger for quality films that explore these concepts from a faith perspective. So for those of you who may want to explore the Bible and history and spirituality through film, a few things I've found that are very faith affirming have been the hit series the Chosen, which is about the life of Jesus, or the fantastic new show called the House of David, which is about King David from the Old Testament. I think both shows really help just kind of create this craving to go back and see the biblical source material. Both of those shows are based on and you can find both the Chosen and the House of David on Amazon. And the House of David talks about the Nephilim and giants, which Mark and I discuss in this episode Another example of a film that does a great job laying out a biblical worldview which includes the angelic and demonic realms and how that unseen realm influences humanity today.
Speaker 1:If that's interesting, you can check out the movie Nefarious with Sean Patrick Flannery, which has Hollywood quality acting. It is really well done. But I'll warn you, it is a heart-wrenching movie. It's not physically graphic, but boy do they paint a picture to help you understand the malice of the demonic realm that delights in evil and what motivates evil spirits to do what they do. So I think it will help you understand the world we live in and understand our need for the gospel of Jesus who, by the way, gave us dominion over that realm. So for those of you looking for maybe more of an intellectual or philosophical feast to stress test the veracity of a Christian worldview compared to all others, you can check out the book the Universe Next Door by James Sire. If you want a more approachable book that helps you kind of see real traditional Christianity and distinguish it from, I guess, what I would call the watered down new age moral relativism versions of Christianity popularized today by people like Aaron Abke, you can check out the fantastic book Another Gospel by Alyssa Childers.
Speaker 1:One last minor detail during the interview Mark was talking about the ancient city of Gomorrah and he said Red Sea, but what he meant was Dead Sea. So, anyway, I just wanted to clean up that detail for those of you who may want to look up where Sodom and Gomorrah used to be they were by the Dead Sea. I'll also have some other fun articles and videos in the show notes if you want to take a look at more of the evidence behind what Mark and I talk about, including Mount Sinai. Okay, without further ado, here is Mark telling his story of meeting his wife, coming to faith in Jesus, feeling called to ministry, and the wild ride that ensued from there. Being the hands and feet of Jesus is what Mark is all about. So buckle up for a set of stories you definitely won't hear on mainstream media.
Speaker 1:All right, enjoy my conversation with the one and only Mark Grennan. All right, hello everyone. Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Mr Mark Grennan. All right, hello everyone. Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Mr Mark Grennan. So in the last episode I got to tell you more, or he got to tell you more about, kind, of the James Bond version of his story, and in this episode I wanted to give you a chance to talk about just the larger picture of your work as a missionary, which, and like I said, reminds me kind of of the New Testament book of Acts from time to time. So, in the backdrop of your work as a missionary, you're also a father of eight and you homeschooled all your kids, and I have six kids and I thought that was a lot. So, wow, well done. So welcome back to the show, mark, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2:It's good to be back. Well, I'm done with the homeschooling. Oldest is, the youngest is 20, let's say 26, and he has his own company. So I guess homeschool it's back. The boy that's 36, 37, he uh was in jail with me. He works for him, so they're like do technical work for computers and stuff. So he's been homeschooled. My oldest son writes programs for Apple and has three companies.
Speaker 1:Dang.
Speaker 2:Home schooling.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm homeschooling for the win here, like I've only gotten one graduated so far, but I'm excited to uh continue the journey for the rest of them. I can't imagine doing it any other way now well the reason why we did?
Speaker 2:because we were missionaries and we basically had to. They did, but she was also doing it before we came to be missionaries, we were also homeschooling. So I'm a skeptic at heart, even with this chlorine dioxide that I went to jail for. With the Bible, I was 19 years old really 17, hitchhiking around the country with my buddy from school, high school, and we went from Boston to Florida, florida to California, california to Washington State, working fan power, picking apples, doing whatever we could do, trying to find ourselves, doing whatever we could do, trying to find ourselves.
Speaker 2:And I'd run into a few people, christians, and would say to me look at the Bible. I said, well, I grew up as a Catholic and my family switched to Mormonism. They seemed to study more, but it wasn't the Bible, it was the Book of Mormon and the Bible. So I was just kind of like, yeah, I'm not religious, I'm still not religious. So when the person asked me after hitchhiking around the country if I knew for sure where I would be spending eternity, I told them I don't, I hope and basically pray. I wasn't a prayer, prayer, although that's not true. I should back up a little bit because this is wild.
Speaker 2:I got married from hitchhiking. I mean, after I was hitchhiking I met my wife, my brother's wife's best friend. Okay, we all lived in the same town, we all kind of knew each other, went to school together, but she was in the cheerleading jock area. I was in the you know hippie yeah, you know group, even though I liked football, played sports, but I was more hippie she was. So we met, set us up to meet, we met, really hit it off. Six weeks we were married. I was thinking maybe that's what's missing in my life. I need to get married, have a family. I've traveled all over America, so I guess I'll get married. So I got married and this is what's wild.
Speaker 2:I said to my wife and I'm not a prayer I said you know what? You kind of get spiritual when you get married. You kind of get spiritual when you get married. I said every night hon, let's get. Before we go to bed, let's pray and ask God to guide our lives. That's all we were doing and I prayed because it was the last church I was part of. I prayed to the Father in heaven and I ended in Jesus' name, okay, and asking God to guide us. Not going to church, not religious or nothing. But the Bible says you seek me, you shall find me when you search for me with your whole heart. And I was doing it with an honest heart, my wife and I. So God put some Jesus freaks right across the hall from us. Okay, I called them Jesus freaks back then. Every time I walked out the door and they saw us. Hey, mark, they were Puerto Ricans and I loved Puerto Rican rice and beans, so they'd make me some Puerto Rican rice and beans. My wife came a little friendly with her, and so one day I was asked to go to church. Church, hey, sunday, man, I work all week in construction. I am going to relax and watch football, have a beer and chill out because I work monday. So they ended up. They ended up keeping asking us nicely. So, no, no, thank you.
Speaker 2:So one day I come home from work, my wife's all dressed up. We had had a fight. This is like a month after we were married. We had had a fight of stupidity. I want to go out with my friends, just to go be with my friends, because I lived down where I grew up and she didn't want me to. So it was a stupid fight. Anyways, I come home. That day I went to work mad thinking I wonder if I should stay married. I don't know this marriage stuff. Now she's restricting me. You know this ain't right. I wasn't doing anything bad. So I come home, my wife's all dressed up, beautiful, has a beautiful spaghetti dinner for me. Like what's going on? Because I'm sorry we're fighting with you. I should have never did that. You should be able to go out with your friends, okay, okay, never did that. You should be able to go out with your friends, okay, okay, thanks, hon, we sit down. We as reading. She goes, well, she goes. I gotta tell you something happened to me today, like what she goes. When you left, I was thinking I'm gonna divorce this bum. I'm not gonna. This is what she's thinking. On the front straps, crying of the apartment building. She's thinking that, but I'm thinking that too, I'm gonna divorce. Yeah, it's ain't worth it.
Speaker 2:The lady, the jesus freak lady, comes out of names of amy. What's the matter, barb, amy, what's the matter, barb? She tells the story. Come on in, have some tea. She was in there for four hours. Amy started showing her. The Bible is what you need, barb. This will straighten you out. This is the history of the world and it's funny, it's called history, it's called his story. Think about it, the word history. You could hyphenate his story, story of who? God, right? So anyways, to make a long story short, bob said every question I had, no matter what it was, she'd open the Bible and say look at this truth, look what God said about this. She goes to the point where, when Amy asked me, bob, do you have peace in your life? Not really. Do you want to know God and him to know you? Yeah. Do you want to know when you're going to spend eternity? The Bible says you can. Yeah. Do you want to know when you're going to spend eternity? The Bible says you can. Yeah. That day she got saved. She prayed, so she was telling me Mark, I don't know the ins and outs of it, but I asked the Lord to save me. And now it makes sense Christmas, you know, crucifixion. That makes sense to me. Now God had to do that and to pay our penalty, because we couldn't pay it Like, well, that's cool, give me my beer and you buy spaghetti. I forgot all about it. But she changed, Forgot all about it.
Speaker 2:Two weeks goes by, my dad calls me and my brother. We had a construction refinishing our company. He calls me from missouri, springfield, missouri, says why don't you guys come down here? Stop working in 19 below zero weather and doing siding and house roofs and doors. Come down here. It's a mild winter. So me and my brother said you know what, we're sick of this too, let's move. So this is what gets crazy. We asked the people across the hall to come by because we were leaving. Bob was getting friendly with us. We're leaving within a week to go to Missouri and because we owned our own company, we just finished our last job. We took off. So they come over and Bob made them spaghetti. They were eating. We're talking, so they go. So where are you going? We're going to Springfield, missouri.
Speaker 2:I saw her and her husband look at each other like they saw a ghost. They didn't say anything. Why Springfield Missouri? My father? Oh, okay, we ate. They went home. We left.
Speaker 2:A couple days later, dfield, missouri, started working. We took off because we are workers. The guys would go fishing, skip work. There was like 10 teams at this siding, gutter, window replacement, home improvement company. Within four or five months we were the number one crew. Everybody wanted us to do their house. We bent metal. We were really good while we did.
Speaker 2:Anyways, after six months Bob gets a call from that lady, amy. They moved to Springfield Missouri Out of all places on earth. They had been praying. There was a Bible college there called Baptist Bible College, and they were praying whether they should go. God, show us a sign if we should go to Springfield Missouri. And that night when I told them we're going to Springfield Missouri, they're like that must be the sign the girl that just got saved is moving down there. We need to talk to her husband. Let's go to Springfield Missouri, let's go there to Bible College. So they invited me and her, my wife, over for Puerto Rican rice and beans. Sure, I'll be there.
Speaker 2:We started eating, talking just about what we're doing, what they're doing, until 3 in the morning. But after a couple hours they brought out the Bible and I was more of a pain in the neck than my wife. I was like wait, what about this? What about that? What about this? What about that? What about this, what about that?
Speaker 2:And they were like really good in the Bible, like well, bible says this. I'm saying so. You're telling me that book knows everything about everything a man could want to know and the answers for it. Yep, you're telling me, if I come, because they explained the gospel, explained what Jesus did, how we could never pay our price, how he was the lamb of God, and explained a lot. It wasn't just quickly.
Speaker 2:I said you're telling me, if I bow my head right now and accept what he did for me, he'll pay for all my sins and I had a lot of them from high school and all my sins and he'll write my name in the Lamb's Book of Life and I'll be accepted by him, not because of what I'm doing, my works, but it's a gift he'll give me. Yes, I want that and I prayed. My prayer was something like Lord, if you'll take me, I want that and I prayed. My prayer was something like Lord, if you'll take me, I want you. I believe what it says. If the Bible's true and I'm speaking rhetorically, if that's your word, and I learned later that what things we're going to talk about, how real it really is, I want that, I want that. So I bowed my head, praying, and I felt like almost like Pilgrim's Progress, when Pilgrim had that weight fall off his back at the cross. I don't know if you remember that scene? I felt like wow, I just feel different. I feel different, I feel relieved.
Speaker 2:Didn't know the ins and outs of it.
Speaker 2:But we went. We didn't even go to sleep that night. We went to the International House of Pancakes. It was called back in 1978. Before it was called IHOP. We just sat there just like amazed. I was amazed, my wife was excited.
Speaker 2:How did they find us? How did they know it was crazy? So little did I know. My wife had sent a few letters to him so they had our address, they tracked us down. But I'm like we got to tell our family.
Speaker 2:This book is what I never really knew was in it. This book is really what it says. What's in it. Everybody needs to know about this. So we went home with the bed you know, slept. But that Sunday I was it because my dad, my sister, my brother, his kids, my wife we'd have Sunday dinner together Because none of us went to church. We'd have Sunday dinner. I love my family's cooking. I stood up at the table and so I got to tell you guys something. They're all looking up what. They thought. My wife was pregnant. That's what they told me later. I gotta tell you something really important. They're all looking at what.
Speaker 2:So this week, and I told them that story, this is what happened to me and I was a punk kid growing up. My dad had a lot of. My mom had a lot of problem with me. My brother was the good guy, never gave him or my sister any problems. I gave him all the problems. So my dad goes good, mark, I'm happy for you. Everybody's like good, let's eat, so we ate. But there was a burning in my soul. I gotta tell more people. My family needs to know.
Speaker 2:First of all, I found out later, jeremiah 20. Jeremiah tells the Lord you deceived me. I'm done. I'm never gonna speak about your word again, cause every time they beat me up they throw me in prison. I'm going to shut up. And then he said it was like a fire in his bosom. He couldn't shut up. And that's what I was like. We'd be out working and I'd be telling the homeowner hey, you know what happened to me. I couldn't explain a lot of stuff. You know what happened to me. I'd tell him this. I couldn't explain a lot of stuff. You know what happened to me? I tell them this.
Speaker 2:And then I started going to church because of the people that showed me Said now, come to church. I go. Yeah, I want to go to church now. I want to go to Sunday school. I want to learn this book. I want to go Sunday night, I want to learn this book.
Speaker 2:So I was learning and learning and God's put it in my heart I want you to teach and preach the word of God. I'm like Lord, that ain't going to happen. I stumble, I fumble, I'm not going to. My voice isn't too strong. I'm not going to preach. I'll be a good believer, I'll help others, I'll tell people. But he kept burning me, burning me, burning me. So one day I told my brother I want to quit and go to Bible college. He goes. What? Why? Because I have to quit. Because if I don't quit I can't work. I'll go to Bible college One or the other. What are you going to do for work? No idea. I quit.
Speaker 2:So I rolled in Bible college without a job. I had a little money saved up because we did pretty good. This company only liked our to hire people from that Bible college because they were honest, they wouldn't steal from them, we would make it. It's a woodworking plant. So they hired me. I was there the whole three years I was at Bible college. Now I got a job and I had the third shift so I could go to school, sleep a little bit, go to work by 11. Come home at seven, keep, run across the street, go to Bible college, sleep a little bit, study a little bit, go back to school.
Speaker 2:I did four years of college in three and every course I took Bible Bible. Other people are thinking you know philosophy of Christian college, I took Job, I took all Bible courses. I want to know this book. You know I took Job, I took all Bible courses. I want to know this book. You know I took history, biblical archaeology. I took everything I could took that would show me that this book is real.
Speaker 2:Plus, I'm going to church learning, listening to missionaries come. This church was huge, it was like 3,000 people. I started driving a bus inviting kids to come to church. We had 600 kids who were taking to church on buses. So, and little kids would come and their parents are drunk, I'd dress them up and you know, because the parents knew me, take them to children's church. I'm growing.
Speaker 2:God says to me about a year after I want you to be a missionary. What Missionary? Now I'm teaching, even in Sunday school class. So that's my salvation experience in my Bible learning. So God tells me, go back to Massachusetts and start a church, because I grew up there never hearing the word of God. Now I don't know the whole Bible, you know. I don't know what you, how you feel, but every time I read this book it shows me something else. This book is alive. People go. I've heard this saying it's not original by me. It's not how many times you go through the Bible that counts, it's how many times the Bible goes through you that counts. And I found a church. Really it was only six months old.
Speaker 2:There was a guy that went to the same school as mine in Massachusetts. He had this little group of like 15 people. Right, he goes, come up here, get a job and I'll help. You know, we'll help you but we can't pay you. I said, good, at least I'm in Massachusetts, I go up there, I get a job and I start going out on Saturdays and Sundays talking to people bringing their kids to school, to Sunday school, right. In six weeks the church grew about 100 people right, because people are getting saved. And so he goes hey, I want you here full time with me. You stay here and it looks like there's enough money. You're not making much money. This was 1979. No, sorry, 82., 82. I was making pretty good money as a woodworker. But they said I think we can pay money as a woodworker. But he, they said I think we can pay you rent and stuff like that. So we did. Year later he leaves and I become the pastor and it's the fastest growing church in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2:Cause all we did Christian was teach the Bible. No philosophies, nothing, just that book. I had MIT professors coming, I had doctors, I had state troopers, I had ex-hookers. Some of them might not even be ex-hookers. I'm just saying we had everybody Drug addicts, they just wanted to learn the Bible. I'd have debates. I'd have the Jehovah's Witnesses come in. Tell us what you believe. Then I'd open the Bible and show the church. This is what the Bible says. I'd have Mormons, catholic priests, everybody come in, because I wanted people to be able to use that book.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we got involved with missions. We wanted to help missions get around the world. The last thing Jesus said as he ascended into heaven on Mount of Olives and I've been there is go into all the world and tell them you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, judea, Samaria and the other most parts of the earth. And God says to me, both in Jerusalem, judea, samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. And God says to me go, I got a big church, he goes, I want you to go. And what happened was we started sending this track ministries. A little track is a little pamphlet with the word of God in it. Right, and I distract ministries to get them around back from the whole world.
Speaker 2:I accepted the Lord and it's from Uganda or Nigeria different places, but a lot were coming from Nigeria. So we started sending them the book of John and the book of Romans, two books of the New Testament and a little Bible course so they could start from those two books. Bro, we had 40,000 responses from Nigeria in a year. So I got to go. I mean, we have about 10 people that stood out. They were going through the Bible courses really quick. So we picked those 10 out and I told the church I need to go over there, visit these 10 people and see what's going on, see if it's a scam. So me and the guy that's the pastor now because I left there, black guy I figured, oh, he's going to be called there, he's a black guy going to Nigeria. We get there, we find some good people, really stunning, even trying to start churches. We're like, wow.
Speaker 2:So as I'm coming back, god says to me go to Nigeria, resign the church. I'm like what? We're thinking about? Buying a piece of land, building a building Church? We went from 15 people to 600. We're growing like crazy. Lord, are you sure Back here? You sure right? Are you sure Go? All right, lord, I'll tell you what I got to go preach at this place when I'm all right, driving home. Listen, I was in a mission conference. They wanted me to preach what we were doing. So I come back and I said, lord, I'll go if my wife doesn't give me any problem whatsoever. We just bought a house, we got three kids and we're living okay, not rich, but good. The church is good. If she says, when I tell her that I want to go to Nigeria, she just says, okay, let's go, I'll do it. And I'm thinking, good, I got him, I don't think she's going to say that.
Speaker 2:So I'm up in the morning. I come back to this. I'm really, really perplexed, would be the word. I'm sitting out in the living room, two in the morning, thinking I don't know, lord. I'm thinking of all the reasons why not to go. I'm going to leave these people. You're going to buy one Stu. You've been training men. They'll Took away all my excuses. Then my wife walks up, walks out, feed the baby. She goes. Why are you up? I go. I got to tell you something. She's feeding the baby. I go. God called me to go to Nigeria. I think she goes, okay, wherever God wants us. I'm like, oh man, I didn't want to hear that.
Speaker 1:I did not want to hear that from her Commission, right then.
Speaker 2:So because I knew so many people that wanted me to preach for them and knew a lot of people in Massachusetts and New England and around the country, because I went to school with a lot of people in Massachusetts and New England and around the country, because I went to school with a lot of people, I raised the money to go to Nigeria in three months. I raised $4,000 a month in three months just making phone calls because they knew me, knew what I was doing. Yeah, we'll back you it. Who's taking the church? Told walter. Sure he's a good guy, all right. So in like four months I was in nigeria. That's how quick it happened. Okay, now let me tell you some wild stuff that happened in nigeria well, let me let me have that interject here.
Speaker 1:Well, you're just you. I've heard a few different of your interviews lately and you have some of the experiences that make some of the weirdest parts of the Bible make sense, and they're not just fairy tales. Some of the stories you told. I paused the video and pushed my chair back. I was like what, wow? So I guess I want to. If you can start with these stories that you've got or the things you've experienced, we'll kind of frame a biblical worldview from a high level first. So talk about, I guess, your understanding of heaven and the angelic and demonic realm and just to give people some intellectual pegs to hang some of the stories you're about to tell them on.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, because it's a spiritual book. And you go to Isaiah 14, go to Ezekiel 28, you're going to read about. In fact, I'm writing a book right now about a king in his kingdom called the Government of God. There's only one government, as it says in Isaiah 9, 6. The government shall be upon his shoulder, it says. A child will be born, a virgin shall conceive and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, the Everlasting Father, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. So the only government that really exists, that's eternal is God's government. Ok, so there's a spiritual realm. The only government that really exists, that's eternal is God's government. Okay, so there's a spiritual realm. It started out with God's creation. Before him there was nothing, because he always existed. There was no creation, he existed. Then he said you know, I'm paraphrasing because I'm going Genesis 1, I'm going to make man in my own image, and that's interesting in itself. We're the only creatures created by God that can love, speak. We're made in his think, build, design. You know others creatures do limited things. You might get a.
Speaker 2:I was with a guy. This is a story I never told you. I was with a guy in Ecuador a guy named Patrick Flanagan. For six months he was a genius. At 13 years old. He taught dolphins, he learned their language and taught the military how to talk to the dolphins so they could go look for mines. I mean, bro, crazy. Yeah, there's a whole story in that. I had breakfast with him every day for six months. He was a believer and he knew chlorine dioxide too. But I'm getting off the track.
Speaker 2:So you got Lucifer Beautiful, got Lucifer beautiful. Lucifer beautiful cherub above the throne of God. The music was made in him. God made music come out of him. It's the first time you hear about music. Lucifer and pride got into his.
Speaker 2:It says, because he was so beautiful, you'd walk into the throne room of God and you'd see God. And God looks like us, or we look like him Beard hair. It says it many times throughout the scriptures he's sitting there. People come into the throne, people what, come into the throne, throne, and you see this beautiful thing above him that I'm sure even the angels would look up and go spectacular, right, spectacular. He covered the throne of God. God made him to look spectacular. He, through pride, says hmm, I'm going to sit upon that throne, and a third of the angels say yeah, we think you can do it.
Speaker 2:Well, he's not the creator. It's a long story short. He says he cast him down to earth, to hell. He made a hell for him and cast him down to earth Simultaneously. You got Adam there. Adam's going to be on the scene, satan's fallen and that's the creation and the problems that we've had.
Speaker 2:And you know that the Bible says in Romans, chapter 2, that God put in every man and woman the word of God. It's called the conscience. That will accuse or excuse you and say put it in us. And that's why he can make the declaration in Psalm 19, say the Word of God is all over the world, no matter where it goes. Everybody can see creation and speak. There's no language where God's voice is not heard. And he put it in Psalm 19. It says it's in the testimony of a man too. So all men are without excuse because they can see creation.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you a story in Nigeria because this will follow right what I'm talking about. I came into a village going to help another missionary deliver a bunch of material. I come up to this village and it's dark and there's no lights in the jungle, just my Volkswagen bus. I call it the Jesus buggy. Right it said missionary, on the front so they wouldn't harass me. I come up to this village and we're lost in this jungle Right and he's like 20, 30 huts. People are on a fire out front and in Nigeria a lot of people speak English, majority speak English, but they have the tribal tongue. So I said my name. You got to speak slow. My name, you know. Missionary, I want to talk to you for a minute.
Speaker 1:No listen.
Speaker 2:They'd let me come to a school in the morning and open up in prayer and speak to them about the Bible, 15 years before school, any school, any time in Nigeria, right? So they'd stand, they'd sit there, come in. They call me O'Ebo, come in, o'ebo, white man. So I come up and I always have a microphone because my voice right. So I start telling them I go, look up. They all look up, see those stars, see that moon. Who made that? Who made that? They're like creator, god, and they're not religious people. But you know, I go.
Speaker 2:Okay, how about that palm tree, banana tree, this and that, that chicken, chickens walking around and God? Well, let me tell you a story about what God did and I tell them about how God became man, dwelt among us, became flesh, and I teach them that story, bro, the whole village, when I asked them would you like to have him save you? Would you like to have him be part and accept what he did for your sin? We're all sinners, everybody. The whole village, yes, yes, and they did it. So the whole village, yes, yes, and they did it. So the Bible says that the Bible, about itself, is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword. It pierces to the soul and spirit and the joints of marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our heart, not our head, our heart which is tied to our heart okay, well, so talk about.
Speaker 1:I remember hearing you tell a story about um, seeing a giant skeleton. So then the book of genesis, chapter six, and then you also mentioned the book of enoch. There it talks about this angelic realm coming down and there's this essentially incursion, there's this mingling of the angelic realm and the human realm. And so talk about those three, the Genesis 6, the Enoch. The giant skeleton. You've seen, where were you? What was that like?
Speaker 2:Crazy. Genesis 6 is a book called the book of enoch, which I think is an extra biblical writing that could really be true. Um, written by maybe enoch, that the, that the fallen angels came down and the bible talks about them. They had physical relationship. Remember the? The angels might even look like us, and every time you see an angel in the Bible it looks like a man. Okay, at least one of the forms of the angels. And so they had a relationship.
Speaker 2:These giants came up. So I like history, I like studying, and so I started finding giant skulls, pictures of them from around the world, and I'm talking about skulls that were three feet tall. Skull, just a skull. So in relationship to the body, these giants could have been 35, 40, 50 feet tall, and the Bible says when they came out of the spies that went into Canaan, they came back. They said we were like grasshoppers in their sight. So if a man standing next to a grasshopper, that thing he's looking at could be 50, 60 feet high.
Speaker 2:Well, in Ecuador, there was a statue there that a priest was hiding, and it's called the Valley of the Giants. Weird this area called Vilcabamba and there's a mountain that looks like a giant laying down. Okay, I mean crazy. Well, they found this statue. You can even not statue, excuse me, skeleton. You can even look it up, loja, l-o-j-h. Ecuador, skeleton. It's 35 feet tall. They put it back together After this priest died. He had it. They put it back together. It's in a museum, museum. It's 35 feet tall. You can see it in loja, ecuador.
Speaker 2:Now also the smithsonian institute. Smithsonian institute was established by mr smithstone to study two things the, the hollow earth, and giants. They had all kinds of skeletons and they used to be all again pictures of them. But they destroyed all the pictures and they destroyed all the skeletons in the early 1900s because they didn't want people to know what was going on there. But all over the world you can look them up. You can find giants, giants, giant skeletons to know what was going on there. But all over the world you can look them up, you can find giants, giants, giants count. They found femurs that are six or seven feet. So if a femur is six and seven feet long, that means a giant's 30 or 40 feet tall.
Speaker 2:Remember the mythology Jason and the Argonauts, where they had the one-eyed giant. Those things are real and that's a good way of explaining how those rocks got on the pyramid, those guys could pick those. A few giants could just pick them up, or four giants, it doesn't matter how. These guys are strong, right? So maybe that's the excuse for that. So I believe what those things talk about the Bible is God always give you evidence. Let me give you another thing Babylon, right, babylon, it was there. They know where it was. These are historical sites. They know where it was. These are historical sites. The Bible says in the last days, where the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers are, there's four angels chained up and one day it's going to dry up and, by the way, it's almost dried up. In the last days, it'll dry up and there's four angels under the Euphrates. Guess what they're hearing? Now you can go on YouTube and you can hear the screams of it sounds like screams in the caves. Are they those angels?
Speaker 1:I have not heard that one. How about?
Speaker 2:this In Russia. They dug, they wanted the biggest, they wanted to see how thick the crust was, so they dug the deepest. Well, not a well, but whole borehole. It went down 23 feet, I believe, in Siberia, right, and they hit it like a cowbird. They pulled it up. When they pulled it up, the drill bit was glowing red. So they hit a fire, right. They said we got to punch through this, there's nothing we can drill with now. But one guy had the idea and these were all engineers, all atheists. They had an idea let's put a microphone down there. So they did. They put it down and it only lasted 15 seconds because as soon as it hit, the real hot pot had melted. But for 15 seconds all they could hear was screaming. You can listen to this on YouTube the screams of the damned in hell. It was on a newspaper article in Russia. They capped it and they all became believers. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1:wow, I had not heard that one either yeah, it's a historical site in siberia. There's newspaper articles about it, so these things are real yeah, well, another one that I've I've known about for a while now. You got to go to Mount Ararat and see Noah's Ark. So that's a. I didn't go, you didn't go, okay.
Speaker 2:I didn't go. I'm sorry. I have the newspaper article. The guy that went, I have all the facts. He wrote a book about all the pictures. I was going there before they arrested me.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay, that's what it was.
Speaker 2:It's a museum. You can look it up. You can see the boat. It's the exact same dimensions as it's described in the book of Genesis Exactly. There's chambers inside that were big enough to house everything. Remember this they didn't take a full giant excuse me giraffe. They didn't take a full elephant, they took babies. This is why the ark could could handle all those. They didn't take a full eye lion and probably ate them. They took compass. They only. They're here and you raise a cop, they won't eat you. They love you. You know people raise them, so it's plenty of space for all the animals on Earth at the time in their young time period of growth. Right, young, not babies, but small, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's there that comes up. Since high school, I've been fascinated by that one. Since high school, I've been fascinated by that one, and I would challenge people listening to this to consider the archaeological record or the geological record through the lens of what, if that was true and the best example would actually be the Grand Canyon. So just entertain the idea of a whole lot of water in a little bit of time, rather than a little bit of water over a really long time, and see if the evidence doesn't make you scratch your head and think differently about it. Anything else you want to add on that one?
Speaker 2:Well, the thing is, you got evil, you got good. Everybody knows that. You don't have to talk to anybody. That is bad and is good. You can tell the difference. Well, why would the evil of this universe, this world, want evidence that the Bible's true out? They wouldn't, so they suppress it. You don't hear about it, right? Give you another one.
Speaker 2:When they crossed the Red Sea. I haven't been there either, but I've got all the articles, I've got all the pictures and I was headed there and they arrested me. This is the places I'll tell you, the places I have been. So they found from Egypt to Saudi Arabia. It's 3,000 feet deep or more in the Red Sea, but in this one section called Nebulous Beach I think I'm pronouncing that right it goes up to 900 feet and it's like a mile wide and it goes all the way across to Saudi Arabia. Solomon, do it. Solomon put a post on either side and they found those posts and they even said on those big columns that what happened there? Okay, but they dove there, and not at the 900-foot level, but going down they found chariots, swords, bones, gold chariot. They found all that stuff. So that's where the crossing was Right. Why won't they tell us about that in high school. Right, they get on the other side, they.
Speaker 2:He goes to this. Well, I mean, excuse me, these palm trees and with this poison water that's still there, they go. He goes to mount sinai, gets the 10 commandments. That mountain is burnt. All the other mountains are fine. You can look this up on Google Maps. It's burnt. The Bible says the top was burnt. He comes down. They have an altar to the golden calf and there's an altar there with all kinds of bulls inscribed on it and it's fenced in by the Saudi Arabian government. It says do not come here trying to find gold. It says in English and in Arabic right, the wells are there, excuse me, the columns they set up for the 12 tribes are there? The rock that Moses hit? It's like 30 feet tall. It's split right in the middle and, like this, water came out of it. No water now, but you could see where it washed away the limestone all the way down to the valley. Those things are there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why I was?
Speaker 1:on that one, like in high school, and I've seen different pictures of it Because at one point probably I don't know know five or ten years ago, I had the thought I wonder if you could see this on google earth. So I went and looked at it yesterday to see what was there. So years ago what you're talking about was all over. You could click. They had pins all over in the geology or the pictures of that from space, however, however high they were, and those pictures it had. Here's the altar and you can see it. There's golden calves inscribed on it. It had the split rock which has burnt rock. Right next to it it has the summit, it has the cave, it had the boundary markers and all of it was mapped. And now it's all that scrubbed and you get a link to Wikipedia that basically says this isn't the real Mount Sinai. Some weirdos just think it is. Of course they would. That's what they would do. They would take all of that evidence away and not make it easy to find now. Would you do?
Speaker 2:that this is what they did to me in court. They didn't show any evidence that would make me look good in court. That's what a lawyer does, prosecution does. They don't want you to be right, they want you to be wrong. So now I'll fast forward to 2019. That's what I had in my head before. My son, john and I and he's still in prison for nothing Him and myself and our wives we go to Israel. What do we do? We go there. We rent a car. We open our Bible no tourists. We know our Torah guide or anything. We know the Bible. We're going to go and check these places out. Okay, one of the places we go which is really cool is a place called Masana. This is a history where in 70 AD.
Speaker 2:They ran there to basically their last survival as the Jews. The Romans are going to attack them and this is the last stronghold. They ended up building a bridge took them two years. They end up. Before they get there they slit their throat. But I don't know if you know this. The verse that's there is out of Ezekiel that they would come back in the land, ezekiel 36. That's the verse they found at Masada. Now, when you're up at Masada and you look down, you're looking right down on Gomorrah. That's the city of Gomorrah, right there. Sodom is south right. Then you got Amnon is a boring. They're all four cities next to the Red Sea part through a crisp. Okay, so me and my son John, we go down there. We don't listen to any signs. It says don't come here. We go in there, walk in. There's a sphinx at the beginning of all those cities A sphinx, you know it looks like Egypt and a pyramid which they call a ziggurat, at the beginning of all the cities.
Speaker 2:We go over to the sphinx and we're because now this is all ash. You could touch it, it's just ash ash and really it's the chemical name of it is sodium sulfate, right? So we're hearing other people. We knew this, a guy named Ron Wyatt that discovered a lot of stuff. Man, I wish I knew about. When I knew about chlorine dioxide we probably could have eradicated the cancer. He probably got the cancer from doing all the radiation when they were looking for Noah's Ark because they used these ground radiation things where they could find everything. That's probably where he got his cancer.
Speaker 2:But anyways, we start chipping into it and we find balls about this, big, different sizes, and I knew it because I saw other people do it. I got to get these and we get about 10 or 15 of them and we cut them open and it's sulfur that's 95 to 99% pure. It only exists in those four cities, nowhere on earth. The closest um concentration you can find, a percentage of sulfur you can find, is 45 to 50. Near a volcano these are 95 or more when you light them. It's crazy how they light. You can only change limestone which those cities were made of into calcium sulfate by something that burns at 6,000 degrees. And that's what pure sulfur burns at 6,000 degrees.
Speaker 2:So we're at Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, we're at Gomorrah, in evidence, god came out of heaven, burned the city to ashes, burned it 6,000 degrees. And there's another evidence you could go, we walked over to. I went to a Hebron, hebron, right, we want to go to Hebron when Abraham, isaac, jacob, jacob, was married, married, not buried, buried, not married, buried, and their wives, except Sarah I mean Rebecca, rachel, excuse me, rachel she was buried Outside of Bethlehem. So we go there and Hebron, and you looking in this cave, the cave that they bought, abraham bought, and you look down and that's where those guys are buried.
Speaker 2:Wow, then I hear in town, there's the place where the angels met Abraham when they were going to Sodom and Gomorrah with the Lord to burn Sodom and Gomorrah, those cities. So really, there's an oak tree there, it's called Abraham's Oak. Where is it? I'm telling you, we got a guy that's driving us, because we did get a guy, because you can't drive a rental car that has Israeli plates on it because they'll stone you, they'll throw stones at you. So we got a Palestinian Christian guy from Bethlehem named Joseph drove us there because he has Palestinian plates.
Speaker 2:So I go, we find a place, it's closed, it's a holiday, but I had a telephone number. I go, joseph call. He calls. The guy says no, we're closed today. You know whatever they're talking about. And I'm talking like an Indian, not a Arab. And he goes listen, I can tell him I'll give him $100. He opens the gate in 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden the car comes down right, opens the gate. We go in, locks the gate and go over to Abraham's Oak 5,000-year-old tree, right 5,000. Then it's got two other ones next to it. It just died the week before we got there. But right out of the middle of it is a new sprout coming out of it. So we took pictures, did a little interview there about it 5,000-year-old tree and he gave me a piece of it. I got a piece of that oak tree that's 5,000 years old.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, there we go to Jerusalem. Right, the Garden of Gethsemane. Is the God of Gethsemane. Here's the garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane means the oil press. It's kind of, you know, jesus being pressed there. They pressed oil there. So there's a 2500 year olive tree there, right there. That was 500 years old when Jesus walked this earth. That tree we got a piece of that too. It was all chained up and everything. But the God really liked our beautiful wives because they're Colombian, and they asked, hey, could you get us a piece of that tree? Oh sure, and he gave it to him. That's a good lesson to always have a beautiful life with you when you're in Israel.
Speaker 1:That is a good lesson to remember is to have your beautiful wife with you wherever you go. Very nice, all right. Well, any other Old Testament related stories where you've seen some of these sites where it's just kind of blown your mind, like the stuff that you would think maybe the Bible wasn't true here and you found out, sure enough, I've been there, I've seen it, I know it is now.
Speaker 2:Well, I went to the place of the skull. You probably went there, right, you saw the.
Speaker 1:Calvary, golgotha, or okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Golgotha. Yeah, yeah, the skull. It looks like a skull, just like they said. There was a road to Damascus, right and right outside, right next to that, you go through a little garden. There's a garden and there's a tomb there that's carved out of rock, right, no one's ever been. Only one person's been there. The Bible says it was Jesus, and it's never been occupied. Since you go in there, it's right by Bogotha, in a garden too. There's some more evidence. We went underneath through some 200 feet to the river, the aqueduct system that the Romans made back then. That's still there. All the stuff the Bible talks about is there. We went to Capernaum, right? Oh, I'll give you a really good one. We went to the Valley of Elah. Okay, yeah, that's where God, david and Goliath were. We went to the Valley of Elah right, we're standing there and there's a river that goes right by. It's called Lachindron. I'm blank for a minute.
Speaker 2:Anyway, the river where David picked four, five smooth stones out of we went down to the river. Guess what? Every stone in that river were round and smooth.
Speaker 1:I did one of them. Yeah, I've been there. It's like huh.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're like huh. Okay, you're like whoa. Okay, you got the battle there. You got a place where David was. You got Capernaum where Jesus walked. Nothing's been built up there. Jesus walked. There's a natural amphitheater type hillside where you could sit on the seashore and speak not with my voice, right, all those things are there. The place where the maniac of Gadara, they come out of the tombs, that cemetery's there. The Jordan River's there, where they crossed over from the Jordan when they came out of the wilderness, that stone thing they set up is still there. Jericho that fell down is still there, fallen. I mean, we went to, oh, we went to the Shechem where Moses went, made his no Moses, where Moses went, where Abraham went to make his first sacrifice and then Joshua went, where you have the two mountains, geshurim and Ebal. The altars are still on top of those mountains and guess what? Joshua's bones are?
Speaker 2:Downtown we drank out of Jacob's well Jacob's well. There was a big tour group there. They built churches over all those places, which is good because it preserved them right. So we get there and no one is there. They're eating lunch in the tour group. We go down to the basement where the Jacob's Well is and there's an old guy there selling trinkets. Again, he's looking at our wives because they're beautiful and I go hey, can I drink out of the well? Let's do whatever you want. It's about 300 feet down. We took it. Oh, it was delicious cold water. Jacob's well is exactly. His bones are there In Jerusalem. We drank out of David's well. David's tomb is right there. Everything is there, bro the lions. Now Jerusalem has been built up many times to being destroyed and rebuilt. So you're not walking on the originals, but you can go down to the original places, right, but David's Well is still David's Well because it's 100 feet down below the original Jerusalem right now. We went so many places. You go to the place that's called Capernaum.
Speaker 1:No, I mean.
Speaker 2:Caesarea, where Paul was held. Caesarea, the amphitheater where Herod dropped dead and turned into worms. The amphitheater is there, all the things that it says about Paul there, where else did we go? Caesarea, philippi, where the gates of hell is an opening there and they say that's where the gates of hell, everything that hasn't been built up, like, you know, metropolis, it's still countryside. It's exactly in the same form it was when Jesus walked this earth proving the Bible. Now, another place I went to was Qumran. Did you go to Qumran?
Speaker 1:I did, I went there too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was found in 1948. Some shepherd's boys throwing rocks into a cave they had thing. They climbed up and they find these clay pots in just that cave but later climbed up and they find these clay pots in just that cave but later on found many more with animal skins in it that didn't get bad or destroyed or rot because of the climate there and they found 5,000 manuscripts in those manuscripts, 2,500 years ago, from the Old Testament, say the exact things that are in the Old Testament today. God, not only God we have his word but he preserved his word.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the complete scroll of the book of Isaiah, which is a long book. The whole thing was there too. It's just remarkable the amount of detail and preservation of some of these Go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, just the fact that, after saying all that and there's more- no, there's so much After saying all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just recently got back from Greece and. Turkey just hearing or just walking in the footsteps of Paul, and so much of the archaeology. The last hundred years has unearthed so many references to things that are the only record we had was in the Bible, and now we know exactly where that was. Now we have the record of Herod and Pilate and other people who we just didn't have much the seven churches of the book of Revelation.
Speaker 2:All in Turkey. Seven churches, yeah, all there. All in Turkey. Seven churches, yeah, all there. All there Corinth, athens, mars Hill, all that stuff's there yeah.
Speaker 1:That was remarkable.
Speaker 2:And why is it being suppressed, except for people that are seeking for it? Why isn't they teaching this in schools? Why isn't they teaching this in schools? Because they don't want people to know that the Bible is not only saying things about God, but it's been preserved by God and it's the history of the universe from the beginning to the end. Why? Because the more people that hear that, the more people are going to say wait a minute, I think this is true, I want that, yeah, and they're going to get in the word of God. And it's still the number one bestseller on earth. You know what number two is?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You know, in the Pilgrim's Progress. I didn't know that A guy named John yeah, John Bunyan wrote it. A guy named John Bunyan wrote it right and how he wrote it was amazing. He was drunk one day walking down in London, drunk, not a believer, nothing, and some guy had thrown a little Bible track and said I have some sinner pick this up.
Speaker 2:Lord, he picked it up, read it Could say he became a believer, born again, whatever term you want to use regenerated, accepted the Lord. He picked it up, read it became a believer, born again, whatever term you want to use regenerated, accepted the Lord, whatever you want. And he started preaching. Right, he starts preaching and they throw him in. He said you start preaching, we're going to put you in a dungeon. He spent 12 years in a dungeon and he's writing that book in London. It's the second most best-selling book earth wow, I didn't know that everybody should read that book, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, all right. Well, fast forward a little bit during like so new testament wise, or some of the stuff that we see at least in the new testament. You had a couple stories I heard of seeing experiencing people who were possessed, like there's a. There's a lot of exorcisms in the New Testament where demons have possessed people and get them to do amazing things or crazy things. Tell us about your experience of seeing some demon-possessed people in the mission field.
Speaker 2:In Nigeria I was. On the weekends we'd go to the open market, buy stuff. With the same token, we'd not only buy stuff, but we'd pass out Word of God inviting people to church, right. And now this is Nigeria, 500 miles north of the equator. In the summer it gets up to 130 degrees. It is so hot, bro, on the sun, so hot in Nigeria. So I'm walking through and they all have these lean twos. You can get some shade while you're buying your thing. I got to this back part of the market and it got cold. What's going on here? What's going on here? And I'm standing in front of this. What would you call it in English? It's really weird when you learn. Like a little shop, okay, and in the beginning of it it's a bunch of bones. It's a bunch of bones Like huh weird. Why are you saying bones? Well, they got see. See.
Speaker 2:Juju is what voodoo came from. In in nigeria it's called juju, so they practice juju. I even talked to a king. There was a cannibal in uh in my town gave him a bible and he was educated at Oxford. He went to Oxford. England drives a Mercedes and he's a cannibal, still leads people. When he became king, he ate his father's brain. He ate his father's heart to get the heart and the heart and the intelligence of how to lead his people.
Speaker 2:So I'm in right by the palace, by the way. I look at it and I see this person in the back, because it was kind of dark. I walk in and I go hey, I'd like to give you this Growling at me. It was a little old lady growling at me, I mean like a dog, not like a woman, trying to make the noise Growling like a dog. And in Nigeria they see a lot of the guys guys I know that are completely honest have seen people switch. The witch doctors of the juju switch from a person to a leopard or a panther. They said I saw it right before my eyes. It's really wild. But anyways, this lady looked like a 100-year-old lady growling at me, right, so I leave, I go. Okay, god bless you. Jesus loves you. The blood of Jesus Christ. She's screaming. So I leave the track by the bones and I go away. Next week I read in the newspaper where I was is where they sold all the meat of humans and they were human bones. They're cannibals in that part of the market. I had no idea.
Speaker 2:Another time I was in Boston and in Boston. Not in Boston and in Boston. You know, not in Nigeria. I'm going around talking to people. I'm giving people tracks. I go hey, god bless you. He starts to mouth, his face changes. I hate you. This is wild. The sounds they make sound like you're in a Pentecostal church. People speak it in tongues. It's the same guttural Whoa, whoa. This is wild. And he wouldn't talk to me Nothing. That guy was possessed.
Speaker 2:Then I was there, on the good side of it, I was there Christmas time in Boston in a place called Haymarket Square, at Faneuil Hall. I was singing about the youth. They're singing Christmas carols, inviting people to church. It's really like 30 miles away from Boston. So you know, people could be coming into Boston easily, be near us, inviting people and just going through my mind. I was by myself, going through my mind. People were spread out, were passing out, inviting people to church. God bless you.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking in my head Lord, I don't know if we should build a building. We only pay $100 a month and then we can have it for the rest of our life as a church. We're fitting 600 people in there. Why do I want to go in debt. I'd rather put all our money into mission work and getting the word of God around the world. I'm thinking about that. Right, we stay in the Italian Social Club Right about then these two guys they look like they were six, seven perfect haircuts, not robots, but just clean cut Marines or something right, come up to me I go.
Speaker 2:I go, hey, come up to me, I go. Hey, sir, merry Christmas, god bless you. We're already redeemed. No, they said we are redeemed. That's weird. I've never had anybody answer me like that. That's kind of cool. And they look at me and say stay in the Italian social club, right, and I go, because I was just thinking about it, right. So I'm thinking, well, I didn't think about what I was just thinking about, but I was just thinking about it. So I turned and I swear it was like maybe 10 seconds at the most. And I turned back and this was a big open area at the most. I turned back. This is a big open area. I mean it would take you at least 30 seconds to walk to any of the edges of it, to get on the street or whatever. It's a big. What do they call those places? Open air. I used to know a lot of vocabulary in English.
Speaker 1:Open air market or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, but it was all the open area, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, but it was all open Okay. No buildings, nothing, okay.
Speaker 2:Nothing. So I turned back around quick, like what, what do they mean by that? And they're gone. I'm thinking, wow, that's weird. Was that just those angels that said to me stay in the Italian Social Club, and they disappeared. Is that what that was, look. So, guess what? We stayed in the Italian Social Club and we're there to this day. That church is still there. So I mean I've had things happen to me.
Speaker 2:The Bible says in the book of Hebrews beware, pay attention, because you will entertain angels unaware, like Abraham did. That was the Lord and that was angels, like others, through the Word of God, have done. So I believe in that spiritual realm. I talk to people that, before they got saved, were involved in what they call astral projection. They would come, they'd go to this seance, take these drugs and everything. And I believe drugs. Let me say this before I tell you this story I believe drugs open doors because in the book of Revelation, the word for sorcery sorcery, all the sorcery is going to deceive the world is the word pharmakia. They get the word pharmacy from, so they open up the pharmaceuticals, open up doors. So what was I talking about? The this one blank.
Speaker 1:You were talking about astral projection, I think.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, thank you, I get sidetracked. On one Astral projection they said, mark, when we get out of the body we look at it. We could see our body, but you could see all kinds of things in the spiritual world. You could see ugly, evil looking spirits, you could see gargoyles. You could see all kinds of stuff. But you could also see among the people. You could see um, benevolent, like angels. That wouldn't be evil. So the spiritual realm was real. How about? How many times? I know a pastor friend of mine. I'll tell you what happened to me last year. He had a near-death experience. He left his body right he's looking at seeing them walking on him in an emergency and he died. They said he died for like six minutes. He went to see the Lord and the Lord said basically and you hear this a lot not done yet go back, because he wasn't dead. He was dead, but he wasn't. The Lord had something to do. He came back and he said, mark, I did not want to come back.
Speaker 2:I did not want to come back. What happened to me last year when they stopped my heart during my operation was I went through this veil. It was like red, yellow and green. It was like an this veil. It was like red, yellow and green, but it was like an electrical veil and it's just like when I was on the other side. I didn't really see much because I was just on the other side of it, but it was so peaceful, no pain. I was just like, oh, I want to stay here. And I got zapped back in. What I found out was well, you want to stay here. And I got zapped back in. What I found out was it happened twice. They stopped my heart twice during my heart operation Twice, but like seconds, it wasn't a long time, and so I personally experienced that myself and I even told the surgical team listen, if I don't wake up, don't worry about me, I'm going to be with the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm happy.
Speaker 2:So in fact, I told them I was a little groggy. In fact, maybe break it, so I don't wake up, okay, because I don't really care. There's nothing in this world. Everybody I love is going to be there with me one day. So I was preaching to them as they were putting me out and that's what happened to me. Wow, personally, I'm not making it. No, I didn't go to heaven, I didn't talk to Jesus, nothing like that. But I did go through a veil and I did feel a little peaceful Like po veil, and I did feel a little peaceful Like poof and I came right back.
Speaker 1:Dang. What a story.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there's a spiritual realm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, part of why I wanted to do this episode was just to be able to talk to somebody who's got a long run of life, of ministry, of travel, of seeing experiences, of finding evidence. That just— I challenge people if they have doubts about the Bible. I'm like see if you can prove it wrong like that stress test. I forgot one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is cool. In 1970, before the Iron Curtain fell, we were involved in smuggling Bibles into Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and West Germany, but mainly those areas where the van that had fake walls put Bibles in it. So we had just come back from Yugoslavia not with Bibles but with equipment for the printing press, because they wanted to start printing them in Yugoslavia. We're going into Czechoslovakia, which is now called Czech Republic. We're crossing bradislava, right. No gps's. Back then it was 80, it was not 90, it was 86, 85. And so we're going to find this, this family of a guy that preaches on transworld Radio. He escaped and he preaches in the Czech language to Czech Republic, czechoslovakia. We're going to go see his parents and give him some money as well as say hi, and his brother and a couple people. And so we crossed. I mean, they search you under the car. The iron curtain was still in. Where are you going? We're going to this place called Piestani where they have hot springs. It's a health place, so they let people go in there as tourists and that's where his parents live in Piestani. So I thought I knew what I was doing.
Speaker 2:Hour later I'm lost man. I am found out later. I'm like an hour and a half from the wrong direction right. So we stopped the car, me and my wife. It's summertime, the windows are down, we're praying Lord, we're lost, we can't speak this language. We don't know what to do. I don't know what we should do. I don't even know if we'll find our way back. Help us, lord, help us. We hear faintly singing, so I pull up. I tell my wife, is it getting louder? We got maybe an eighth of a mile up and it was as loud as we could hear it. We parked the car, rolled up the windows, walked down this sidewalk.
Speaker 2:In Europe, in these communist countries, they make a lot of houses that look, to say we'd say, like townhouses, but they were for communist control. Anyways, we walked down a little bit. We could hear a singing a little louder. I stopped at the door that I thought it was at. I knock on the door that I thought it was at. I knock on the door, music stops. I go, because you're not really supposed to have at that time a church.
Speaker 2:We went to underground churches in East Germany, near Berlin. That was an incredible spirit of God. Listen, that's another story. Anyways, we knocked at the door. No one comes. Knock again A little harder.
Speaker 2:A lady opens the door. She's speaking in a language I don't know Anything Christian, jesus, jesus, you know, I knew a little German, mein Vater, but I'm in czech republic. How would, how would they know what german is right? Jesus, jesus, appointing up, slams the door like well. But when she did open I noticed some pews in there, like it was a church service. So maybe 30 seconds later this guy comes to him and he spoke a little English, little German, really broken. I go, you know in German a little bit. Fine, brother, my father, my Peter, jesus, jesus, he goes, coming. Couldn't shut the door now.
Speaker 2:I had a Bible. I figured I'd have a Bible, okay, and so he could come in. He goes. You got to be quiet because we were singing too loud even, and he's telling me he's in broken English. I go, well, I'm looking for. I gave the guy's name, he goes. That's my brother. I'm only here today because they are preacher. They asked me to fill in for the pastor, but it's an hour and a half away and I came on a bus, spent the night. That's my brother. So we have a car, we'll take you back and he goes. Wonderful, so he finished the service. We didn't understand anything. We drove back and, on the way he tells me he goes, they told me at the border you have to stay at this hotel and you have to have your passport checked. And da-da-da-da-da-da right, he tells me. I'm the manager of the hotel, I'll stamp your passport and you can stay with my parents the whole time.
Speaker 1:Now, tell me that ain't God. Wow, how could that?
Speaker 2:happen Right.
Speaker 1:No, that's just like one of vanilla stories for missionaries you guys have. You all have stuff like that. Like yeah, I was just doing this thing and all these weird turns and it ends up being a divine appointment. And then it's just, it seems like par for the course with so much of what you do to tell you to wrap it up, baby.
Speaker 2:This book is real. This book is history of the. With so much of what you do.
Speaker 1:To tell you to wrap it up, baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, this book is real. This book is history of the world. Yeah, more specific than any other history book on earth. Yeah, it's been preserved by God and anybody listening to this would do well to get yourself a Bible and start. I mean, there's a lot of Bibles. I'll tell you this.
Speaker 2:I don't know what Bible you use and it's irrelevant to me right now, but I use the King James Bible. Why? Because you're an old guy. You like these and those. Well, there's something pretty important about these and those because it's the first, second, second person singular and the third second person plural. That that's why you have these and those.
Speaker 2:You can't say that in english. You is you. But besides that, the manuscripts, the people that died, had the texas receptors in their hands. They died for that. And guess what? Guess what? In the last days, the last book, english book, the last big revival around the world was with English language. And again, where do you find perfect time? Greenwich, england, zulu time. Where do you find perfect latitude? Zero meridian, zero latitude, zero longitude right in England. It seems the reason that God says I want that book that's going to bring and it went for like 200 years revival around the world with that text. Okay, that text, the Texas Receptors. That's why I use it. Because I studied Greek, studied Hebrew. That's why I use it. Now, am I telling you every other book is bad? No, I can show you how to get saved in a Book of Mormon. There's enough gospel in there, right? But this is why I use the King James Bible. They have a new King James Bible. They have an NASB. They have many that are really 95% that book, but that's why I use that book.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you for that little history lesson. So let me I'll maybe wrap up with this question or maybe play devil's advocate just for fun. But if, if you were to guess how much of our current reality is sanitized or curated, and if you could just snap your fingers and make you know humanity have one major set of blinders fall off, what would you? Could just snap your fingers and make humanity have one major set of blinders fall off, what would you want people to see or know?
Speaker 2:That what I just said, that if you seek me you shall find me. When you search for me with your whole heart and he's talking about seeking him in the word of God and seeking him from your heart you first have to seek him in your heart before you'll ever find the word of God and seeking him from your heart. You first have to seek him in your heart before you'll ever find the word of God, because he is the word of God, he is the word of God, and so you have to have the word of God. The blindness, I would say, was for you to seek him. You'll find him. If you start asking the Lord, say Lord, I want you in my life, I'm seeking you with all my heart, honestly, not like a trick, honestly. I need you and I want peace in my life.
Speaker 2:He's going to direct you to that book. It's like he did me, and you're going to know. Then you're going to have to make a decision, because the decision's yours. It's a gift that you have to receive to as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God. And the power of God is in that message of how Jesus died according to the scriptures, was buried according to the scriptures and rose. And the day that he rose from the dead, the day that he died on the cross, the temple veil rent and the Jews recorded. It happened in the Talmud, the Jews. It was 30 AD. They said the temple ripped right down from top to bottom. Why from top to bottom? Because God ripped it from heaven down to earth and gave us access that we can come boldly unto his throat through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what I'd want them to be asking, and opening would be their hearts and minds to God.
Speaker 1:To that book? Yeah, minds to to god. Yeah to that book? Yeah, no, it's. It's a accepting that there's, that the bible's true also implies that you accept other things that, like evil, is real and that there's a creator who has the right to say what good and evil is. And and often in our culture we don't like to talk about or give lip service to the reality that evil exists. And if you can't accept that, then a lot of just what we see just won't make sense. But your story, or your, especially even our last episode where we talked about what has been done to you or it has been done to people who try to get the truth out it's hard to argue that. So any final thoughts on just wrapping up about One final thought what's that?
Speaker 2:It really helped me too. In my books I give the definition of science being observation and repeatability. Okay, now, if you observe something, somebody can repeat it over and over again. It goes from a hypothesis to a theory, to a law and the laws of science. God created gravity. You can look at the atom. Right, you got protons and electrons, neutrons. They should fly apart, but they don't. Why they're? They're reverse polarity. Why? Because it says in Colossians, by him. He holds all things together and the things that are not, that we see, are made things from we don't see, from Adams. If God took, took his presence off the universe, everything would fly apart, because everything is made of Adams. He holds everything together, and that's science. Okay, science proves the existence of God. Yeah, not disprove it.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, people that think science and faith are mutually exclusive just haven't thought as hard it's that science is.
Speaker 2:It's just one other ology to study theology to study the one that made it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, okay. Well, mark, thank you for leaving a record of your life experience. Thank you for leaving a record of walking a faith journey and the breadcrumbs that you found and all of us have limited perspective on everything, but you found so many things throughout your travels and your life and your experiences. And one thank you for standing up for truth, for talking about it unafraid, and even the weird things about possession and giants and all the other crazy things that, um, the Bible talks about. There's, there's history there and there's something to learn from that. And so thank you for standing up for what you believe and tell. Any last thoughts on where people can go to find you support your mission, your book's coming out, anything else you want people to know.
Speaker 2:Well, you said you have all the links to my books.
Speaker 2:I really encourage them to give my books, because they're going to learn a lot about practicing self-care as opposed to health care. We practice self-care and the bible talks about our temple being our bodies, and then we should keep them clean and not defile them, because when we defile them it's going to kill you. So so definitely clean out, learn how to detox the body. Learn the foods to eat. Learn how to detox the body. Learn the foods to eat. Learn how to get the toxins out of your body and the toxic relationships stress. Start with God first. Yeah, you really need to get that toxic relationship out of your life. If it's with God, believe me, Because he'll give you peace. Like he said, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth unto you.
Speaker 2:It's not like the world's peace. It's peace that passes in the hospital room, having your chest opened up in the jail, being thrown in jail for nothing. That peace is what you want. That will make you happy and that's the peace is what you want. That will make you. That will make you happy and that's the peace that he talked about.
Speaker 1:I know All right. Well, thank you so much for the time today. We'll look at those links in the show notes. And you guys make it a great day. Thank you, god bless you, you too.
