How Personal Testimony Strengthens Christian Apologetics

Join us for this truly "around the table" discussion.  We talk true repentance...and encounters that last a lifetime.  

Some faith questions can be answered with study, but some can only be answered with a moment you can’t unlive. Around the table, we go straight into the tension between Christian apologetics and personal encounter, and why the “defense of the faith” feels hollow when it is separated from a real relationship with God.

Brother Ernie walks us through Scripture and story, connecting Paul’s conviction in Romans 1 with the humility of verifying revelation years later, and reminding us that God isn’t threatened by your mind. We talk about Isaiah’s “let us reason together” and why repentance is more than tears. A changed life requires an honest conclusion, a decision to turn, and a commitment that doesn’t fade when emotions do.

Then the conversation gets personal: deliverance from addiction, laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, and moments where the Bible later confirms what was experienced first. We connect Mark 16, Luke 15:10, and even details from the Old Testament to show how Scripture can anchor spiritual experiences without turning them into hype. Along the way, we share a practical challenge for prayer: stop treating God like Santa Claus, bring your needs, give thanks, then get quiet long enough to listen.

We also name a hard truth: ministry is not the same thing as intimacy with Jesus. To make it plain, we use the picture of marriage and the honeymoon, where closeness grows over time into something steady, safe, and real. If you’re hungry for deeper faith, stronger Bible understanding, and a more personal walk with God, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us what part challenged you most. (*Recorded on 7/20/2026)

Ways to Give at https://m3mi.org...Thank you for your seed!  :)

Transcript

Around The Table Welcome

unknown 0:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

I'm filtering. I'm gonna have a sister. Thank you so much for joining me and turning to the minute. So let me turn it. Let's open the water and see what Jesus has to say today. Welcome to Simple Supple Ship and Filter. I'm your host, Sister Diane. It's so good to be with you today. We actually are having an around the table experience today. Everybody's around the table, not in the back room, not anywhere else. And and you know, in the intro intro, I do I say, go get you a snack, grab you a drink. I can't even think about a snack right now, right? We just took in. I literally think we just ended. Let's repent first before we start this one.

SPEAKER_06 1:09

It was a meal worth eating.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

It was. It was. I'm glad that we get to celebrate the birthdays of uh brother Ernie and uh Sister Joyce and and Sister Audia did it again with the Ruben sandwiches and the homemade cakes, the socket toomie cake, and the pineapple upside down cake. And y'all just pray for us. Just pray for us. But we but we're and send Rolades. Yeah, for real. So we're grateful to have you joining us today. And and Brother Ernie had wanted to just do a round-the-table discussion on a specific topic. Let me introduce everybody and then we'll get going. We got Sister Audia here. Good afternoon, mama. Good afternoon, Brother Ernie. It's me, Sandy. I'm here, Tammy. Afternoon, Joyce, and Ann. Hello.

SPEAKER_07 2:03

And we are praying for testosterone to come to the meetings.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I've been praying it a long time. But we're grateful to have each and one of you here. Try to stay awake because um you get them carbs, that much carbs, you start nodding off, right? But um but I want what do you think, Brother Ernie? What is it that you want to take us into today?

SPEAKER_07 2:27

I

Apologetics And A Real Encounter

SPEAKER_07 2:28

wanted to talk to you all. Not everybody gets to go to Bible college and study a topic like apologetics.

SPEAKER_05 2:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:37

Which is a great study if you want to get into it on your own. You can find good literature on it.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

What you define what that is.

SPEAKER_07 2:44

But what we're talking about is defense of the concept of God, of our salvation, of the Bible being correct. And it's put together in a very scholarly form. Very scholarly and factual. Now, for me, I had never heard of apologetics, but I came to believe that the word of God was absolutely true because before I opened it up, I started experiencing what I could look at later and say, this is in the Bible. And so I wasn't losing my mind.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 3:28

And and so it's important for people that you have your own encounter with God to where you know that you know deep down in your knower. This is real. Yeah, you know, yeah. I I can hold hands with mama and she knows I'm here. You need a hold your hand experience with God.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

I thought you were gonna start singing that old song. Hold to God's unchanging hand.

SPEAKER_07 4:00

Well, no, but you you need tangible experiences with God. Why do I say that? Turn to Romans chapter one. And I don't have notes for this.

SPEAKER_05 4:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 4:22

So start reading and along about verse 14.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.

SPEAKER_07 4:35

Well then pay your bills.

unknown 4:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 4:39

Go ahead, sister.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

So as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.

SPEAKER_07 4:48

So Paul, his experience with God left him feeling indebted to the unsaved world to share what he and Jesus experienced. Hold on to that spot. You'll find in Galatians chapter 1, you can do this study later, that Paul talks about when he was on the backside of the desert with God. This is happening in Acts chapter 9. After he is saved, not long after he comes to Christ, he spends some time. And it's not written in 9, it's written in Galatians. That's why you need to read your whole Bible that this happened to him. So there was a time when he was there preaching in Damascus. He took off and went to get alone with God. And he came back to Damascus and he kept preaching. And it was so powerful they run him out of the city. They wanted to kill him, right? Okay. There he had a personal encounter with Jesus, apart from the other disciples, apart from the apostles. And in Galatians, he says, and I went back, I think it's 14 years later, he said, and I met with the apostles to verify that what I had received via revelation from Jesus was the same thing that they had been taught. Yeah. One-on-one. So he wanted to make sure he felt if my revelation that I that I have from Jesus, everything I experienced, if I'm right, if this wasn't, you know, pizza at night, if this was real thing, the apostle should be able to verify this truth. What you hear from God, the word should be able to verify.

Reading Scripture Like A Love Letter

SPEAKER_07 6:36

So if you're wondering, you know, is God in this? This is why you need to be familiar with the Bible. You can't memorize it in a year. You know, few people have photographic memories that do that. So how do you get familiar with it? You read it like an old love letter. I've said this many times. I saw my father-in-law reading his Bible, sitting in his big chair, and I said, Dad, what are you studying? He said, I'm not studying anything. I said you're studying something because you got the Bible. Because from the time I was delivered, I always read the Bible. As a student, I have to pay attention. I have to focus on it. You know, you're not reading it to enjoy it. You're reading this because it's good for you. And and dad says, I'm not studying, I'm enjoying it. It's full of good things, it's full of good stories. I just read it to enjoy it. And I don't know why I never thought of that before. But when I was raised in the Catholic Church, everything was about the disciplines of the Catholic Church. And so I guess I when I came to Christ, I just, you know, everything's about the discipline. You got to do it. It's you. But God through my father-in-law showed me, no, it's all about loving God, it's all about enjoying God. Don't you want to be with the ones you love? And so I began reading the Bible from a different perspective from that day on. We started when we first got married reading to each other. And we we read for fun. I never read for fun till I met her, until I met my wife, but I ended up reading James Fenimar Cooper and Jack London and Taylor Caldwell, Edgar Rice Burroughs, all uh just oodles of different authors. And I was able to read the Bible with the idea that this is going to be good for me and relaxing. This is going to be a place of release and pleasure. So every time I read the Bible, I'm not necessarily being studious. There are times I'm much more focused. But if you will just get into the Word of God and put it in your soul, it will begin to change you. But if you don't understand, this is God's love letter to you, and it's God's way of confirming to you things that happen in your spirit and in your dreams and encounters that you have that you wonder, was this really God? If you're familiar with the Word of God, then Jesus will use the Word of God to validate Himself to you. Jesus said, you know, when the Spirit of God comes to you, there'd be a time when you're before kings and examinations and stuff, and they're asking you questions. He said, Don't worry about what you have to say. The Holy Ghost will bring to your remembrance everything I've told you before. What if we weren't listening? What does the Holy Ghost anoint if we don't pay attention? So you have to pay attention to the word of God so that when the Spirit of God comes to anoint you and use your mind. Isaiah

Reason, Repentance, And Lasting Change

SPEAKER_07 10:09

1 and 18. Isaiah is prophesying to Israel the word that God gives him. And God says this come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Notice what God does. He appeals to reason. Come now, let us reason together. God is all about your intellect. Yes, we experience Him emotionally, and it's beautiful and it's wonderful. But repentance is all about intellect, understanding. I'm in bad shape. And coming to a conclusion. I need you God. We rationalize it. This is why people can come to the altar and cry and boohoo and get up and never have their life changed because there's nothing happening intellectually. It is all emotional. And God is trying to bring them to a place of repentance. Godly sorrow leads you to repentance. Don't get up until your intellect says, Oh, this is what God wants. He wants me to repent. He wants me to be committed to him. People just get sorry for themselves, they see their sins, say, oh, I'm a miserable wretch, and they never leave that place. That's a good place to visit. It's not a good place to stay. It's on the highway to intellectual decision. Remember, Billy Graham used to have that radio program, The Hour of Decision. It's all about intellectual communication with God because He's not a phantom of our imaginations. He is reality. So through the prophet Isaiah, he appeals to the nation of a wayward people and says, let's be reasonable. You know, you're the people of the covenant. You know. If you do right, it doesn't matter about your sins. I'll take care of that. You know, if you come to the place where you understand, you can admit you are wrong, you've done it wrong, you desired it wrong, you fulfill those desires. And if you can regret that and come to me apologetically, asking for mercy and forgiveness, you've just hit a home run. You've made it. Now, let's let's go into this.

Delivered From Drugs Through Prayer

SPEAKER_07 12:46

I believe the word of God very early on because of when God delivered me. I didn't know that things were in the scripture. They happened to me. Then later I found them in the word of God. I'm going to give you an example. The first time I was stoned out of my mind. Figured I should have been stoned, speeding my brains out, and that's methamphetamines, for another 19, 22, 23 hours. And I challenged these guys who were believers. I made fun of them for singing to the Lord. And and because you're singing to the there is no God, you're singing to uh something that doesn't exist. And I'd never met anybody with this kind of accent. And my mother's a Creole, and I've grown up around black people all my life. This guy sounded like he was from the TV, like from uh a Walt Disney movie, like Song of the South. Yeah, and he and I when I said there is no God, one guy freaked out and he said, Oh, Ernie, you you know, I believe in God, man. I don't do right, but my mother raised me to believe in God. And this guy looked at me and said, De Show is a God. And I thought, you just jump out of a cartoon. Remember, I'm speeding my brains out anyway. I said, No, there's no God. De Show is a God. I said, Well, prove it. So he says to me, What you want me to do? I'm a half-wit, you can tell. I say, I'm speeding my brains out right now. Make it stop. I had come away from my barracks, looking in my mirror in my room, and one eye was totally contracted like a pinprick, and the other one was totally dilated all the way. And for a while I was trapped by the mirror, and I couldn't pull myself away because it was so odd. Because usually your your eyes are either both really contracted or both really dilated. But at any rate, I went from that experience down there watching these guys. So he said, okay. And he stands up, we're in the Airman's Club. He puts his hand on my head, I'm sitting in a chair, and he starts praying loud. Loud in the Airmen's Club. Now, granted, most people are upstairs, but you know, people wandering around downstairs and things are happening. Some people are partying, some people are shooting, pool, whatever. And he starts praying at the top of his lungs. Ow, loud! Who's allowed? You know, you're loud, you know. And he says, take this here, speed out this here, man, biting. He's got his hand on top of my head. And he's praying like that in the name of Jesus. And I'm thinking, I'm going to jail. Air Force Police, you know, and I'm going, I'm going to jail. This idiot. Yeah. And and I get so I made up my mind, I'm just gonna get out of here. But I'm paralyzed. My my body will not respond to my commands. So, you know, the first thought is well, these drugs are not what I thought they were. And so I'm just like I can't move. And then he quits praying, he takes his hand off of me, and then I can move. So I'm sitting there and I I thought, I'm not, my pulse is normal. Like I then I felt it. Because it methamphetamine speed speed up everything. But my my pulse was good, it wasn't racing, and I thought, this is my imagination. And I got up, I left them, I went into the men's room, and I was gonna check out my eyes because they knew how crazy they were just you know 30 minutes before. I looked and they were normal. Wow. And I felt normal. And I didn't know what to make of it. And and I went up to the barracks and I laid down in my bed, and I thought, this is all make-believe. I'm gonna be awake for another 22, 23 hours. I ain't ever gonna go to sleep. Next thing I knew it was daylight. So I went out like a light. Now, what I didn't know, if somebody wants to turn to the gospel of Saint Mark, chapter 16, and start reading at verse 15.

Mark 16 Signs Made Personal

SPEAKER_07 17:21

Read loud now, loud and proud. You there, audience? Anne?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I'm here.

SPEAKER_07 17:29

Okay, and read it loud. I'll tell you when to stop.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

And he said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized, sorry, will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.

SPEAKER_07 17:51

Keep going.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

And these signs will follow those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.

SPEAKER_07 18:13

In my lifetime, I had never heard about laying hands on anyone. But you know, after that happened to me, in just a few weeks, I was reading that.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 18:28

And so I knew laying on of hands is right. Why? Because I experienced it.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 18:37

I experienced it before I knew it was in the word of God. Just like a week later, I'm I'm back at the club trying to tell people that Jesus has delivered me from my addiction and carrying on and not having any success, so I'm outside now. All I got's my little Gideon's New Testament. I hadn't even read Matthew what? But it always powerful because I'm not stoned anymore. And I hadn't really read it yet. And a guy that I knew, we we talked to each other every now and then, maybe played some pool or played some ping pong. He was in another squadron. He looks at me and says, Ernie, what are you doing? I said, George, I'm telling people about Jesus. He really wigged out. He said, You're what? I said, I'm telling people about Jesus. I found out God is real, man. I'm just trying to tell people. You? I said, yeah, that's what I'm doing. So he said, Okay, come with me. And we went back to his barracks, and they were trying to get him to re-enlist. So he had been given a room by himself and a first sergeant's desk, big, beautiful desk, and a big refrigerator freezer in his room. And he was going to get a reenlistment bonus, and they were just treating him. He hadn't signed up yet. So, you know, you get all that stuff. You sign the dotted line, all that goes away, you know. Oh yeah. But but at any rate, we go into his barracks room, and across that desk is paperbacks from one end to the other, and and two bookends holding them up. And he points to, I'm talking about five foot, six-foot desk. He says, Ernie, what you see here is all the known religions of the world. And I have read every one of these books looking for God, and I haven't found him. What do you have to offer me? And I'm thinking, Lord Jesus, why'd you send me somebody smart? Because I'm as dumb as a post. I don't know what to do. And so I just opened up that little New Testament like that, and I turned to this scripture in Mark. And I started reading it. And I said, They shall speak with new tongues. He said, Do you believe that? I said, believe what? He said, Do you believe that can you can speak with new tongues? I said, I don't know. What is it? So he starts telling me about it. Now I've seen all these books, and I know that he's a crack troop. He's a good man. And I mean he's not walking on water, but he's a solid human being. So I'm I don't know what to say to him. And so I look at him and I get this expression in my mind. I must have heard it, because I never had any redneck friends growing up, you know, but in the military it's different. I must have heard it from one of them. But in my brain, I said, it's either whole hog or none at all. So I looked at him and because I didn't want to be stupid, which was a foolish thing, that's all I could be, but I I I said, if that's what it means. I believe it because I knew I had him. I sat down on the bunk, and suddenly he jumps up out of the chair. He says, You you you need to take it easy. I thought I am take it easy. He's a black guy, and he got those buckwheat eyes, like the little kid in our gang. Yeah. They got real big and he He was getting real shocked, you know, and and he said, kick back. And I thought, I am kicked back. You need to relax. Take that. I thought I am. And that's all I thought, was I bleeding? So I looked down at my chest and I could see my chin. Now you look down and see your chin. And it was way out here and it was doing 360s. And I grabbed a hold of the bunk rail because I was afraid, because I knew, you know, is this drug still working or what? You know? And it's going around. And then suddenly all these words started coming out of my mouth. And then probably didn't last 30 seconds and it quit. And he is jumping up and down, screaming, that's it. That's it. And I'm thinking, I don't know what it is. I'm just glad it's over because this is not right. And so then he says to me, that's receiving the Holy Ghost. And what got him started? He had visited a little country church in Georgia and seen it for the first time in his life. He said he saw people getting the Holy Ghost and how excited they were. And the place was jumping. And he said, I felt something. He said, but I wasn't getting caught up in that mass hysteria. So I prayed. God, if this is real, I need to see it happen away from here. So it's not like a riot, like mass hysteria. And he looked at me and said, You're the answer to that prayer. Some two weeks later, he received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. I didn't know anything what was in the Word of God, but it was happening to me. And then it was being confirmed in the Word of God that I was reading. Okay,

Visions, Angels, And Bible Proof

SPEAKER_07 23:46

the night that I finally did repent and come to the Lord, I was stoned out of my mind. I was at uh the park in Alma Gordo on White Sands Boulevard, and I felt these like two big hands grabbed me by the shoulders and pile drive me down to the ground, but there was nobody there. And my hands flew up in the air. This was the day after that I had the experience where the guy prayed for me and I was no longer stoned. The next day I went to town. You know what I did? I got stoned right away. And I actually didn't even know what kind of psychedelic he gave me. I used to always say I never took acid, but that night I might have because I didn't know what it was. We were just looking at it, and he was, oh, it's got these speckles on it. This is good stuff. I got a bunch of it. You know, I'm gonna turn you on to one. Listen, when you're doing drugs, people don't turn you on to something unless they expect you to owe them later. But you know, fine. So I did it. So when I was hit my knees and my hands went up, and I didn't know why, and I looked up, and it's like somebody took a razor blade and cut a 45-degree angle or a 90-degree angle in the sky and rolled it back like wallpaper. And I saw what looked like a half a dozen angels with tambourines and the big funny trumpets you see in the movies about Robin Hood, you know, and that, and what I thought was a sitar. And they were jumping up and down and spinning around. And I looked down, I thought, oh man, it I don't know what this is, what I took. This is bad drug. And so I just held my head down and I looked up and they were still there, and I didn't know what to make of it. And I spent that night with what they called at that time some Jesus freaks. And I got up in the morning because I didn't have to go to work. I got up in the morning and I was sitting on the couch at the house with them. And in a corner where there is no sunlight, no light of any kind, no way for light to hit it, there is a ball of light about three or four feet big. And there's a little man in there. And he's got his hands out to me like this. And it's so real, there's a guy sitting next to me. I thought, oh, he's got to see this. So I nudge him and said, Hey, hey, and he turned around and said, Yes, and it disappeared. Last night is still with me, you know. Yeah, but I knew I'd seen something, but I didn't know, is this real or is this my imagination? Now the little man in there with his hands out, he had the craziest looking beard I ever saw. It grew longer at the right and the left corner down here, and back here in the back of your jaw, there and there. And that's the thing that stunned me about the vision when I try to remember what I saw. That stupid beard. Okay? So I'm in Vietnam and I'm finally reading the Bible, and Jeff is my mentor. Oh, we're gonna get there too.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

How how what was the time span in between the two?

SPEAKER_07 27:05

Probably six to eight weeks. All right, before we get to Vietnam, I went to my first Pentecostal church with some people. Guy said he'd been praying for me every day, go in his closet and speaking tongues and all that stuff. And I said, okay, fine. I went with him. I didn't want to hear anything about him when he first tried to witness to me. So I go to that church, and this, you know what the singing's like in the Pentecostal church. It's happening. It was the first assembly of God on the border of New Mexico. And, you know, I was the only little spot in there that wasn't white. And when you're the only one, you really notice. So I, you know, I'm just trying to behave myself and try to get out alive, you know. I know the people that brought me are real nice, you know. I know about everybody else. I know who's got a pointed hat at home, you know. But after church, I really enjoyed it. This lady comes up to me, she touches me, and she says, God told me to tell you something. Oh, no. You don't know how things are happening for me so fast. So I'm just trying to be polite, and I said, Okay, lady, that's nice. She said, I need to tell you, I said, okay, okay, you can tell me. She said, God told me to tell you. You're that guy from the park, right? I said, yeah. She said, there were angels at the park rejoicing over your salvation. I said, What do you mean? She said, they were on there were angels, they were there. God says they were there rejoicing. I said, Does that mean like having a party? She said, sure. And I asked her, is that in the Bible? Because I'm still not really familiar, you know. She read me scripture. Read it, mama.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Where?

SPEAKER_07 28:52

Luke. Oh, I thought you had it pulled up already.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 28:58

I think see Luke 6. Is it Luke 6? Where the angels in heaven rejoice over a single soul that repents. Google it, somebody. The angels in heaven rejoice over a single soul that repents. I waited too long and it disappeared. Okay, I'll do it. Forgive my memory, church. The angels in heaven rejoice over every soul that repents from the Gospel of Luke.

SPEAKER_08 29:32

The Gospel of Luke is chapter 15, verse 10. States that there is rejoicing among the angels of God over a single person who repents. This emphasizes how valuable heaven can be.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 29:44

The angels in heaven rejoiced over a single soul that repents. And she read me that scripture. I had told no one about the angels that I'd seen because I knew what my friends would say. Oh man, you don't know what I've seen, brother. I've seen some blue green men, I seen slime, I've seen traces, you know, I've seen all these colors. So I wasn't telling anybody that.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 30:08

But she showed it to me in the scripture. Wow. But it happened to me, and then I saw it in the scripture. In Leviticus, chapter 19. That little man I saw in the ball of light, I was in Vietnam reading through my Bible the first time from cover to cover, and I got here in Leviticus. And I read where Moses commanded the Israelite men, You shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shall thou mar the corners of thy beard. So they didn't cut their hair at the four corners. And Hasidics do something like that now, Orthodox, where they have the little curls. You didn't, the four corners and the four corners of thy beard. And I remembered the little man I saw in the light, and I suspected it was Jesus, but I didn't want to say it. But I knew he was a Jews Jew. So I knew he kept the law. So I knew he had the four corners of his beard. This is how they plucked his beard out by the fistfuls because there was beard to grab there. I didn't know that was in scripture, but I saw the vision. There it was. I had

Baptism Dream And New Identity

SPEAKER_07 31:23

to dream when I was praying about getting re-baptized in the name of Jesus. And I was studying it through the book of Acts. Jeff was helping me with this. And so then I finally decided, you know what? I see that's what they did. I mean, I got baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, in the integrity of my faith. But I'm going to do this again in the name of Jesus. So I got down. I was praying. I said, God, I want to do this. But I've seen too much. One day I was stoned, next day I was not. I got the angels up in heaven, and I got the little man in the cloud. Worse than that, I laid in my bunk one night and I prayed and I said, God, everybody's talking about angels. If you've read where Paul said some of us have entertained angels unaware, I'm telling you, we did it.

SPEAKER_03 32:15

Yeah, we did. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_07 32:18

And I prayed and I said, God, I'm hearing all these people talk about angels. I sure like to see an angel. I was by myself in the barracks. Did you sleep with siblings? Yes. I did too. You remember when they sat on the edge of the bed how you felt on the other side?

SPEAKER_05 32:35

My bed sunk behind me.

SPEAKER_07 32:40

And I didn't hear the door open. Nobody came in. And I had just prayed, God, I want to see an angel. And when my bed sunk like that and I could feel the weight on the bed, I was too scared to turn around and look. One of them in a snowstorm. And he wasn't out of the door 15 seconds. And we opened the door to call him back in, and there were no footprints in the snow. None.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Yeah. I've had a couple encounters.

SPEAKER_07 33:17

He stepped out and just disappeared. We have entertained angels unaware. We didn't know it when he came. And when he left, you know, we talked about it. He seemed so weird, you know. He had the world's biggest hands.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Why did he come to your house?

SPEAKER_07 33:39

Because we needed him.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

We just didn't know it. We needed him.

SPEAKER_07 33:43

Because what what he did for us, we didn't realize anything until he was gone. Then we knew this is the word of God come to pass. Angels unaware. You know? So, at any rate, I prayed, God, I want to get baptized in Jesus' name, but I need you to confirm this for me. So I dreamed that night. And I saw myself get baptized. And when the preacher said the word, Jesus' name, the water turned to blood. Wow. And I was standing there before he baptized me and looked like a man in a coffin. I'm watching it like on TV. Looked like a man in a first thing I thought, that that's like a dead man. And I came up out of the water, and I was on the edge of the pool there, and none of the blood ran off of me. I was covered from head to toe with blood, but my body soaked it up like it was some kind of super duper mojo diddly whopper sponge. Not a drop went to the ground. And I was standing there still, like a man in a coffin, and I couldn't look at the throne. It was too bright. But I could see the top of my head. It's the only place where I could still see blood, and it was in the shape of a cross. I woke up, sat on the bunk, and I immediately said, God, I'm gonna get and I started talking. You know, people walking back and forth to the shower. I'm just talking to God. I ain't got no sense. I said, God, I know you want me to get baptized in Jesus' name. I get it. But I don't understand the little cross on my head. So God says to me, You remember when you were in the sixth grade? That social studies lesson about European shepherds and sheep? I said, Yes, Lord. He said, Now, how do the shepherds know their individual sheep? Because they bring in hundreds of herds of sheep together. I said, Well, Lord, they they earmark them, they put a special cut in their ear, but the cut really means their name. This is why we're baptized in Jesus' name, because we're being marked with the name of the shepherd. Now, what three years later, maybe, maybe four, I'm in class.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Almost five.

SPEAKER_07 36:08

Five years later, I'm in class at Texas Bible College in Houston, Texas. They're in Lufkin, Texas now, owned by the United Pentecostal Church International. I'm in that Bible college. A.B. Keating is my instructor, and he starts teaching from Romans chapter six, walking through the first several verses of Romans chapter six about water baptism, how it is a burial. And I see my dream, the dead man.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 36:36

You're bearing the old nature. When I came up, it wasn't the old man, it was this guy covered with blood. Yeah, and I got a new identity. It was about my identification. It was stoned on my. He was teaching my dream. Wow.

unknown 36:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 36:54

He was teaching my dream, and I sat in that class. I don't know how I managed to sit still because my my brain was bouncing all over the place. I was so excited. Listen, I'm going to tell you something. I experienced some things in the kingdom of God before I knew they were in the word of God. And the way that God validated for me, these things are in my will, in my purpose. He showed me in the word of God. You may never go to Bible college. You may never get a doctorate, a divinity. Who cares? If you have an experience with God, yeah. Where you and Him. You know, just got a new book. It's so exciting to me. It's called Bridging the Testaments. So exciting to me. And we looked a little bit about it. And this guy who writes it, he's a tremendous intellect, loves God. Okay. But I was telling a buddy of mine, I said, This is so cool. I never studied apologetics like that. But I'm like a man who's reaping where he's never sown.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Is it talk about the 400 years? Yes.

SPEAKER_07 38:05

Bridging the testaments. Yeah. But but my point to you is this. I'm talking with my brother in the faith, Carlton Wirtz, and I'm telling him how, you know, I didn't go on to get a master's. I didn't go on to get a doctorate of divinity. There was a lot of education that I didn't get. I got my bachelor's. And I said to him, But Carlton, I don't feel like I'm missing anything. Not because that knowledge won't bless me, because I'm reading a book right now, I know it will. But because that knowledge cannot take the place of an experience with God. You know, somebody can come up, you have all the intellect in the world. But if they tell you you didn't burn your hand when you were 12 years old, but you know you did, they cannot erase that experience.

SPEAKER_05 38:57

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_07 38:59

This is why you need to be in the Word of God.

Prayer That Pauses To Listen

SPEAKER_07 39:02

This is why when you pray, you need to learn to pause and stop talking. And stop asking.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

So you know when Pat and I first we were dating and he came to the house and I was watching a program, and and in this program, the people were like slain in the spirit. And of course, you know his background. And so he was like, Oh my gosh, please tell me you don't believe in all of this. And I said, Oh, I absolutely believe in it. And he goes, There's nothing in scripture about it. And so, of course, we get into this theological thing about and and I and and he had been to seminary, and you know him, he has all that background, and and I was like, I said, I there's just some things I can't, I can't just say, here's a scripture for it. You gotta experience it for yourself.

SPEAKER_07 39:54

Yeah, you can show him in Daniel's life. I could.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

You could show him you know John the revelator. I said, I can tell you, I can show you this. I said, but some things you're not gonna understand unless you have the experience of it. And so later, like you know, after we got married, and and I and I tell this all the time, I pray I would lay hands on him every night. He's thinking I'm being lovey, but I was praying in the spirit over him, you know.

SPEAKER_07 40:19

You can lay hands on your mom anytime you want to.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Mama said, Stop. She's gonna lay hands on you. But anyway, I would lay hands on him and pray in the spirit over him for him to have that experience, that encounter, you know, because I couldn't convince him, regardless of what I thought scripture said. And so, you know, y'all know the story because a year and a half into the marriage, he finally has that encounter with the Holy Spirit, and it changed who he was. And then, and then the very first thing that happened after he got the Holy Spirit, I mean, within days, we went to see an apostle person in Oklahoma, and the apostle called him out, and he's just standing there, and the apostle doesn't even touch him, and he falls out in the spirit, yeah. And so, and I'm inside busting out laughing because you know me, because I'm like, because I because that was what I was saying. I can't tell you in the scripture everything, you know, that to make you understand it. You can see it on paper, but you like he said, he said, Well, I never read it like that. But it was there, but when you have the encounter to go along with the scripture, yes, all of a sudden the light goes on, and you're like, I I never saw that before. Yes, like you say, the thing that you had the vision of is what God showed you in the word.

SPEAKER_07 41:45

I mean, you're you having the vision first and then having the word validated, yeah. And then Paul had his vision on the backside of the desert, his revelation, and he wouldn't be satisfied with it. That's amazing. 14 years later, he says, I need to go back and check out this revelation I got and make sure this is what Jesus taught you. That's humility. That is, yeah. And he said, I came away from there, and they said, This is it. I know I'm on the right track. I did that. Let's after I myself, after all this preaching, be a castaway.

SPEAKER_05 42:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 42:20

So listen to me. Love God by talking to him, yeah, by honoring him. And when you pray, don't treat him like Santa Claus. God, give me this, God give me that. You know, I want this, you know, I want that. Go there to love him, go there to tell him how you feel. Go there to show your appreciation. Go there to say thank you, Jesus. It's all right for you to pray for your daily needs, but that's not the only reason you're there. He wants you to bring him your needs. But can you just be grateful and then just stop talking? And you know, Lord, I'm gonna sit here for the next five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, whatever. And if you want to speak to me, I want to hear it. You may not hear a voice then. You may never hear a voice. I've we've heard voices together. We heard God's voice speak. Another day we'll talk about that. But my point is, you can experience him. The scripture will jump off the page on you. Somebody will testify, and it'll be exactly the prayer you've been seeking God to answer, and they'll tell you how God did it, and you'll be alive to it because you've been listening for him. And and you'll find it in the word of God because you love the word of God and you open the word of God and you seek the word of God. This is how you go from faith to faith and glory to glory. Yes, yes, and I Jesus wants you to have his very best. And I'm not talking about a $30 million mansion and a bitly, come on, his very best. You know what? There have been times when mama and I didn't have nothing but a bowl of beans, but because we had each other, we was rich.

SPEAKER_05 44:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 44:08

It's not in the things you possess, it's in the relationships that you have that you can cherish. And you want that with God. You want to cherish your relationship with Him. But if you're not waiting on His voice, if you're not reading His word because you like it, and because you know it's from Him to you, a letter, you will miss so much. Because it's like the kid, you know, mother's talking to you, Daddy's talking to you, but it's gone in one ear and come out the other. The lights are on, nobody's home. We can be just like that after having committed ourselves to Christ and never really come to a relationship with him and end up with him saying to us, Cast Him into outer darkness, I don't know him.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

Oh my gosh. Isn't that a scary verse? I mean, that's the scariest verse to me is that the Bible says that there will come the day where they'll say, But didn't I do this for you, Lord?

SPEAKER_07 45:12

I did it in your name.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

And he says, Didn't I cast out devils? Didn't I?

SPEAKER_07 45:17

I was like, and he says, Away from me I never knew you. Why? Because it's not just about what we do, it's about how we love. How do we love God? How are we committed to God? Then the things that we do that come out of that love that give him glory, those are the things that are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Yeah. Because we don't do things like ministry, you know, especially people that are in ministry, they think, my ministry is my relationship. And it's two different things.

SPEAKER_07 45:48

No, it is not.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

It's two different things because if we don't have a relationship with him, then we're doing the ministry just so we can say we did ministry. But if I do it unto him, right? To bring him glory, to bring all the honor to him, then it's different than to say, oh, I got a ministry. Big deal.

SPEAKER_07 46:10

I could testify to you about the times I heard the voice of God, we heard the voice of God. Yeah. About when God called my name. She could tell you about when God called her name. But my my point is this all that doesn't help you if you don't cultivate a relationship of God because our walk doesn't make a relationship for you and Jesus. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_07 46:35

You make it.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 46:37

You know?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

And it's not even in studying the word or Bible studies or devotionals and all that. None of that is going to replace your one-on-one time with the Lord.

SPEAKER_07 46:49

I often

Marriage As A Picture Of God

SPEAKER_07 46:50

liken it to our marriage because God has taught me so much out of our marriage. We'll be driving down the road, and I'll say to mama, the best part of this trip is that I'm holding hands with you. Yeah. We might have been listening to gospel music or listening to the Bible or just listening to secular music. But the point God speaks of Israel not only as his servant and his son, but as his bride. Prophetically, the church is spoken of as his bride. What kind of relationship do the bride and groom have? See, the honeymoon is so powerful because it's just them. You're not out partying, going from partner to partner, woman to woman, man to man, trying to make a mark for yourself and have some. No, no. You're building something. Yeah. Something that's truly intimate is far more than physical. When you build something with God that's truly intimate.

SPEAKER_03 47:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 47:50

You you you build it with him.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Go into the other room, shut the door between you and God, and talk to him just like you would talk to a child or to your mother or your father. It's just or to your lover. Yes, yeah. And it's just you and him.

SPEAKER_07 48:10

I I I'll tell you. When you're alone with God, and if you haven't been able to experience that yet, just imagine. What are the honeymooners thinking when the door closes? Okay. I'm talking about beyond the physical. It's this this is something that we we just made this vow. We said till death do us apart. This is the beginning of till death do us apart. Think about how you how excited you are at that moment. It is so much more than the first night. Okay? And so when God calls you to be alone with him, you know that song. I don't know if you know that old that old song, The Great Speckled Bird. People don't understand it. You have to read about the speckled bird in the Bible. The idea is that we are spreading our wings for a journey. A journey we're gonna make with the groom.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_07 49:32

We're being called apart. So you start building the relationship now. I started loving mama before I said I do. I committed my life to her before I said I do. Listen, you're gonna have to be committed to him now, or there ain't gonna be no then.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 49:56

Make up your mind. Lord, I'm gonna learn what pleases you. I'm gonna say that. I'm gonna do that. More importantly, I'm gonna be that. Be that. I'm gonna be alone with you, Jesus. So much so that when I start telling people about you, they're gonna be impacted.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

That's right. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_07 50:18

Well, that that's what I wanted to talk about. Another day we'll talk about the voice of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Yeah. But I love that I love that when we get around the table and the and the Lord just begins to speak. But I love where you use the the analogy of, you know, when you're when you're first married on your honeymoon. Because that can be an awkward moment, you know, especially if you've waited for that, you know. And and but then as time goes on, you become better acquainted and things begin to be better because you begin to understand one another.

SPEAKER_07 50:53

You're beyond embarrassment.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 50:56

Because as you learn to love each other, yeah, suddenly that that emotion is becoming the cornerstone of everything that happens. Yeah. And then the relationship is really growing.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Yeah, so then you got like the time where you all the lights gotta be out to where you turn the lights on. I don't even care if there's a light. I don't even know me matter no more. That's what he wants. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Where it doesn't matter because you're together, and there's there's that bond that's growing, and and that's the same way with our relationship with the Lord is is to develop into uh what we're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_07 51:44

After loving mama for five years, I thought I knew what love was. Yeah, but now but now after 53 years, yeah, yeah. Now I'm really learning to appreciate her more than I ever did. And it is true. My mother-in-law used to sing, Sweeter gets the journey every day. Oh yeah, serving Jesus really pays.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Sing a little chorus of that if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_06 52:10

Sweeter gets the journey every day. Serving Jesus really pays. I get happy in this good old way. Cause sweeter gets the journey every day. Yeah. Oh, listen.

SPEAKER_07 52:31

My mother in law starts singing to Jesus, and you you you get caught up. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

That's right. I love that. Well,

Final Charge And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 52:38

thank you so much for learning. Thank you all for being around the table. And and uh, we're just gonna go ahead and close this segment out with our motto, it's our slogan, it's what we live by, right? Go ready? Go show some love, show some compassion, mercy, and go be Jesus today. Hey STU family. If you have enjoyed this podcast today, would you please like, follow, and share our podcast link? And we would love to hear your feedback and your podcast topic suggestions. To do that, simply go to our website at www.m3mi.org, scroll to the more tab, and select contact us. Also, if STU has been a blessing to you, you can also go to our website and select sew a seed. There are several ways that you can give, whether it's Zelph, Venmo, Cash F, or if there's an address to send a check or money order. All your gifts are tax deductible, and we thank you so much for sewing your seed with us. I want you to remember this. A last person once said that a person has given you their time, they've given you their most precious gift because they can never ever get it back. Thank you for sharing this day with me. We love you, we'll see you soon.