Travis welcomes Karl Payne to the show! There are so many questions that Christians have in regard to spiritual warfare and so much misunderstanding. In fact, the subject has largely disappeared from most churches. Why? What has been behind the shift? And what can be done to help Christians understand and engage in spiritual warfare? Many Christians would rather ignore the subject altogether, hoping it goes away, while others want to hand it off to the experts to do battle. Spiritual warfare is not for the spiritual elite, but for the everyday believer! We need to know and understand how to battle rightly and Karl Payne is here to help us.

Karl is an author, pastor, frequent guest on Moody radio, and was the former chaplain for the Seattle Seahawks. It's a truly fascinating and enriching conversation and one that you do not want to miss!

Get your copy of Spiritual Warfare.

Learn more about his ministry Transferable Cross Training.

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Working with demons does not have to be a circus. It's only a circus. If you don't know what you're doing,

It's watering time, everybody. It's time for Apollos Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming, and I am your host. And today in our show, we're having another one of our Deep Conversations.

Have you ever had one of those moments, you know what I'm talking about? The one where you've encountered someone and said to yourself, they're acting really weird. It, it seems to go beyond any medical diagnosis or even mental illness. As if there is something that's way off and you don't know what it is.

As a pastor, I've encountered people from all walks of life, from those dealing with mental illnesses, drug addictions, to those who seem to have something greater at the root of their problems. I'm not just talking about trauma, but I'm talking about the subject of demonization. If you've been listening for any length of time to our show, you know that we believe in the Bible.

In fact, the faith is revealed in the word is one of the four pillars of our ministry. Here's the thing, demonization is in the Bible, so we have to talk about it. We can't skip over it because it's inconvenient. We are all too aware that there are lots of excesses out there, but personal excesses can't dismiss spiritual realities.

Let me say that again. Personal excesses can't dismiss spiritual realities. On the contrary, it may be the devil's way of getting us to dismiss the subject altogether By getting people to be obsessed with it, it makes people go the opposite way. The fact is, if we do believe the Bible, then we need to deal with the realities of the spirit world.

We believe in the sufficiency of scripture and in the need to have a Christian mind, but neither one of those dismiss the realities of the spirit world. It's actually the opposite. The more of a Christian mind you have, the more you do believe the realities of the spirit world. It's not an either or proposition, but a both/and this isn't new territory for us at Apollo Water.

In fact, we've talked about it a lot. We've talked about it as far back as episodes 36 and 38 with Scott Moreau. We delved into the unseen realm with Michael Heiser in episode 77, and as recently as about a month ago with Marcus Warner. In today's conversation, we're talking with pastor, author, frequent guest on Moody Radio and former chaplain for the Seattle Seahawks Karl Payne. I promise you won't want to miss this very important conversation. And one last thing. I do have to warn you a bit about Karl's audio. We had a lot of challenges capturing this episode, but the content is too important to let them keep us from sharing it with you. You may have to work a bit harder than normal to listen, to hear, to understand, but I guarantee it will be well worth the effort because this conversation is really important.

Happy listening

Karl Payne! Welcome to Apollos Watered!

My brother, it is very good to be with you. God bless you man.

Are you ready for the fast five?

Probably not, but we're going to find out I guess cause you are going to throw them at me jack, so here we go.

Here we go. Number one, the best coffee in Seattle is...?

It's sure not Starbucks. That's the worst. That's just make the most money at it. I would say, I would say probably Pete's.

Pete's Coffee. Is that national? Is that national? Where is that?

Well, I would say that they're more local. They started out kind of even-steven with Starbucks and then Schultz took theirs all over the world. And the other just continues to make coffee. But around here more, more of the people that, like coffee would say's, one is burned and taste terrible but you drink it because you are supposed to and the other is actually pretty good coffee. There you go.

Now you were the chaplain for the Seattle Seahawks for how many years? 22 years?

21.

21 years. Okay. Here's the question.

Yes sir.

The, the best quarterback in Seattle Seahawks that they've ever had is...?

That would depend on who you're talking to on any given day.

That's a politically correct answer you gotta give a real answer!

You see I'm still friends with, with, all of them and, uh, at least I worked with a lot of Christian quarterbacks and, uh,

I didn't say which one was holiest. I said which was is the best one?

When Matt Hasselbeck was hot, he was as good as anybody when, um, Johnny Kitna was probably the strongest in the, in the, uh, in the locker room leader.

Uh, honestly, I can't even say that. I mean, Russ was a leader, uh, Hasselbeck a leader. Johnny Kitna is a leader. There are so many, I mean, Warren Moon, you know, it was the end of his career. He really, they can all win. Trent Dilfer, man you talk about he used to get teased before he came to us cause they'd say he always wins, but he wins ugly. I would say from a players point of view as long as you win is all that counts. I was at a game.

Right. That is right.

And I, I, I'll get this pretty close, but I was at a game when we were, uh, we were playing Denver. I remember. Trent, Trent was, uh, quarterbacking. He'd come over from the Ravens, they'd won that Super Bowl. We were up on a game we were supposed to be losing. There was a guy behind me that was just cussing like crazy and, you know, Dilfer this, Dilfer that, just swearing.

Well, he didn't know that Trent's wife was sitting right next to me and three of his kids and, and he was just drunk of his mind and she was great. His wife's a spitfire, neat, neat lady. But she turns around, she says, "Do you think you would talk to Mr. Dilfer like that to his face?" He said, "Probably not." Then she said, "Then why don't you shut up?"

All the people around us started clapping , and I think at that time, counting the Ravens record and what he'd done with us, I think he was 20-1 or 20-0 or, or something like that. It was a long, long streak. And I thought, no one is gonna put him in the, "he's the greatest quarterback that ever played for our team." But when you've got a string of wins like that, I go, As long as you're winning. Johnny Kitna he was a winner. Matt Hasselbeck a winner. They were godly men. They are godly men. Obviously the, the guy that just, you know, Russ, just got traded to Denver, you know, he wins games. So I had the blessing of being around a whole lot of quarterbacks. Brock Huard- loved the Lord. Travis Brown- loved the Lord. So many of them.

So, see, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna answer your question except to say that they were all good and I am a cheerleader for every one of them.

Okay. Okay. , I thought, I, I thought I would get you. The best thing about living in Washington State is...

Um, well this will surprise you cause I was 19 years between Sacramento and San Diego and everybody that's San Diego especially. I got tired of being unable to water my, uh, couldn't water my lawn at all. Uh, you know, every other day we had stuff going on, everything brown and ugly, except downtown where all the tourists were, uh, Sacramento was even hotter.

So I guess what I like about Seattle is you can walk outside, whether it's raining or whether the sun shines out, and wear a sweatshirt, pair of sandals, a pair of shorts, and you'll fit right in. And, uh, it just never too hot and never too cold. It's just very nice. So I like the weather much more than I, I gotta figure this way, Travis.

I gotta figure. It's the people from Seattle who don't want people from California moving up here that tell everybody how horrible the weather is and it rains every single day and it's ugly and dreary cause they're just trying to talk them out of moving this way. The newest thing we had was Chopper-Chaz in downtown and no police involved at all.

You wouldn't wanna come up here anyway because downtown Seattle has turned from a gem to a jungle. It's ugly. And now this is a brother in Christ trying to be halfway serious. If you are gonna make Seattle your destination, uh, for a, uh, a vacation, go somewhere else. Do yourself a favor. Or else make sure you're going to be on the islands. I mean if you are going to be on the islands, you'll still be ok. But if you think you're going through downtown Seattle and having a wonderful time, and you got kids with you. You are in for a shock. This place is a dump.

That's not what I was expecting (laughter)

Well, I helped you on this question after I dodged your question on quarterbacks.

Let me get to my fourth question then, maybe. We'll, how about this one? What is your, what is your strangest or funniest cross-cultural experience?

When I first came to our church, our church, Ken Hutcherson, he's with Jesus now. Black, starting middle linebacker for the, uh, Dallas Cowboys replaced Leroy Jordan at a time when, when he said to me, "You weren't supposed to be able to be black and play middle linebacker or quarterback cause we weren't supposed to be smart enough to do that." So, uh, Ken's brilliant. He was brilliant man, and he played ball and he could, he was a thinker. He had a photographic memory. You hear about him. I worked with one, he was a buddy of mine. I said, It's not fair. You just flip pages and then say, let's talk about the book.

I have to work through those things and underline them and dog-ear 'em and all. But, uh, at any rate, I knew I was coming into a church where, we called it "black and white in a gray world" is still what we say about Antioch. It's black and white and a gray world. But, uh, one of the very first Sundays I had, I'm sitting in the back, I've probably been introduced, I don't remember.

And I see this, uh, black brother who's in a pair of white shorts and flip flops and I dunno what you call a t-shirts. I like my, my, my dad used to wear 'em. Kinda when I was cut and playing ball, I'd wear 'em just to show off. But you know, the little kinda spaghetti t-shirts. So he's wearing one of those, it's, it's a white shorts and pair of flip and he's sitting up front and I'm sitting back in the back and I thought, "Man, Kenny is right. There are people here with multimillions of dollars and there are people here that have nothing." I mean that come in a pair of shorts and little of flip flops. And I go, This is so refreshing to be in a church where. Not a lot of sacred, uh, cows. And no one cares whether you black or white or red or yellow.

It's just like we're we're, uh, we're black and white in the gray world. I thought that is so cool. You know, so as we're walking out service ends, I walk out and this guy has this great big white sheep-dog you know, the kinda with the long, long hair and I don't know which kinda Porsche convertible it was, but it was a nice looking ride, jack.

And the top was down and he hops into that Porsche with this big dog, big shep sheep dog, you know, looking at him. And he gives in a scratch and he starts that up. And the Porsche has the sound that only Porsche's have. And I am sittin' here going. I am all-in on we're brothers and sisters in Christ's let's go. And as soon as I saw the flip-flops and the pair of shorts, I'm thinking, "This poor cat, I had better invite him out for lunch, or something," you know. When I watched you hop into that convertible Porsche with that big old dog, I just thought, man, you have done exactly what you don't like people doing. You know, you, you, you take a look at something, you size it up real quick and you think you understand what's going on.

And boy, you couldn't have been more wrong on this one. That brother's got money coming out the ying-yang, but he just doesn't care. I mean, he's. He's just coming in his shorts and enjoy and he's enjoying church, so I, I guess that would be one where I was kinda of embarassed.

Here's your fifth and final question. If your life were to be put into a book, the title of the book would be...?

Something by Dr. Seus probably.

You know, I am happy to say that the sneetches got really quite smart on that day. That day they decided that sneetches are sneetches and no kind of sneetch is the best on the beaches. That day all the sneetches forgot about stars and whether they had one or not upon thars.

Something by Dr. Seus, all the places you'll go?

Here's the title I don't want. You ready for this? If the title of the book is "He had such potential." Now that, that would be a tragedy, you know?

Amen. I love that. Well, let, let's continue on that. Tell us about the Karl Payne story. Where, where are you from? And how'd you get to where you are today?

Oh boy. Um, well,

The short version. The short version.

Oh, by God's grace, I'm still breathing. My wife says, "There's no way you should still be alive."

We grew up in two kind of homes. Mine was with three brothers. Mom would say when we're fighting, "if you break any of the lamps you're in trouble." So if you're start anything that's glass outta the room or just take it outside. My wife grew up with knitting and cross-stitching and she loves to play piano. And it was kind of, "Lady and the Tramp," and you know which one was the lady and which one was the tramp. I'll tell you a fun story. You said, I, I'll, I'll, I'll truncate the rest.

But this was, this was learning for me. In fifth grade, my first day of school, I still remember the teacher, I won't say her name, in case she's still alive although I doubt it.. But at that time I told, I've told kids there's no special education cause everybody's in the same room back when we were going school. Right? And so they would divide it up, they call one, twos, and threes. And ones, those are the kids you think are sharp. Twos that are somewhere in between.

And then three were the kids, that we then we called them "retarded." Didn't mean it mean. Just, you know, now I guess they call physically or mentally challenged try to do something we don't sound like you're trying to be mean. But that's, we're all in the same room. And so, uh, she's going, Fred, Ed, Ted, you're a one, you're two, you're three, whatever.

And I'm watching this go on and I, we've just moved in from Oklahoma. Kids told me I sounded funny when I talk. I said, "I don't sound funny when I talk. Ain't nothing wrong with my talking.". But, but at any rate, she looks at me and she says, "Karl Payne." And I said, "Yes ma'am, that's me." She said, "You're a three go. The three side."

Remember I'm little, I'm 10 years old, so you know, I mean, but I said, "Ma'am, I'm not retarded and I am not going to the three side.". And she said, "What?" And I said, "I'm not going over there." And she told the kid behind me, she said, He had a book. And she said, "Please read for me, Karl." So I started reading the book and after I had read for a minute or two, she said, "Okay, you go over to the number ones."

And I, I, I'm 10 years old. And I realized the only reason you did that was cause I'm the only kid in the room. You know, pink, butch wax and a flat top. You don't, you don't like the way I talk? Cause I, I don't think I have any kinda southern now. I mean, I think I just, I'm, I'm a mongrel. I just fit in anywhere.

But I just thought you took one look at me. You knew nothing about me. Now I'll make it go even better. We had our first recess. We go out now I've already been playing tackle football in Oklahoma. You start tackle football in fourth grade. That's why those boys can play. In Sacramento you play flag football until 10th grade. So Midwest has a definite advantage over the west coast, you know, there, there have no doubt about it. So I go out and they're picking teams for football and even though we weren't supposed to play tackle, that's what we played. And a couple of the monitors were really cool. They just turned their back and walk away, you know, So we really like them for that. But any rate, they're picking teams.

Fred, Ed.... and I'm not making this up at all, it's down to two kids. There's me and a little, he was a Christian brother and I didn't know it then. But, uh, named Bobby. And Bobby had polio and Bobby had metal, you know, uh, braces, leg braces on both legs. Braces, So they take Bobby and then the last, I'm the last one standing there.

Okay, we'll take him. So, I'm first. I mean, a couple of my buddies since then, we've laughed. My first recess when they gave me the ball, I just flattened three or four of those kids. And the second recess, they asked me if I wanted to help pick teams, but I looked at the same thing I thought. First I got a teacher sending me the number threes because of my flatop.

And that. And then I guess for the same reason, the kids don't even want me on the team. I'm the token, the last one taken. And I was mad enough about it. I flattened those suckers. And then there was, And then they just said, "Well, you're an Okie." And I said, "What's that?" And they go, "I don't know, but that's what they say you are."

So my introduction in California was less than that probably. Although for me it was good. Cause I never forgot what it felt like to feel like you're on the on the outside . On the outside looking in. I felt that way, and I thought, as a Christian, as a pastor, I do not want people feeling like they're on the outside looking in.

It's God made us in the image of God, I got it figured this way, Travis. The price for my soul and the price for your soul was the same. It was the death, buriel, resurrection of Christ. If the price for our soul is the same, then the value of our life is the same, at least in God's eyes. So if someone else wants to tell me someone has more or less value cause of, you know, whether it's gender, whether it's ethnicity, whether it's income, whatever, its, they can say it.

I just don't believe it. I don't buy that anyway long. The short was, I became a Christian my senior year of high school. Didn't know any Christians. I knew some ni I just had it. They're nice people and there's not nice people. I had never, I never connected. My dad was a mathematics professor, you know, he was, my dad was a really, really bright guy and so was my mom.

And, uh, I've told people Christianity wasn't good or bad in the world I grew up in. He was just out there. But it, it wasn't relevant. My dad would just say, uh, "you do your job and someone else's, you'll always have a job. You make sure that your, your yes means yes. You make sure your no means no. You tell the truth.

You stand up for people, you know, And it was just very pragmatic. Again, with my dad, that's part of where I come from, but I never connected it with anything Christian. So, you know, when I became a Christian, you know, I was 17 years old. Kid came up to me my first day of school, high school, right? Like I, I, when I became a Christian and uh, I had a Bible underneath my arm and I had a shirt that said, "Smile, God loves you."

And, uh, some of the kids walked up. Cause that was a little bit of news, you know, when I'd become a Christian. Cause that no one was really expecting that. And, uh, I wasn't either. Through Young Life. I just say people want me to make fun of Young Life cause they're so shallow. I say, "No, they reached out to people like me that no one else was reaching out to." So I won't make fun of, I've spoken at a conference for them for free. I've donated time. Just saying, "You know what, I'll never forget that you were there when no one else was there."

A kid walks up and he says "You became a Christian?" I said, "Yeah, I did. What was the giveaway?" He said, "You want to come to church with me?" and I said, "You go to church?" And he said, "Well, yeah." I said, "You're a Christian?" He said, "I've been a Christian 12 years." I said, "Really? I said, So we went to school every day, seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade. Now 12th grade. I'm wearing this shirt and carrying this Bible and you're inviting me to church." He said, "Well, yeah." I said, "Why didn't you ever tell me about Christianity?" He said, "Well, I didn't think you'd listen. You, you, you, you seemed like you had so much going for it. I didn't think you care." And I said, "You didn't gimme a chance to turn you down. I said, What if I had died when I was doing some of the dumb stuff?" He says, "Well, you're gonna come to church with me?"

And I said, "Well, did they teach you? Being a Christian is like you've been living around me?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "Then I'm not going." And I didn't. Which again was, you know, maybe, maybe now as an adult you word it. But to me I just go, "Man, if you're what they teach you to be, we we know each other six years. I never had a clue." see, I wanted people to know I'd become a Christian cause I wanted them to become a Christian.

I came before his throne. He touched my lips and made me whole. All I can say, Holy is He.

Let's talk about the spiritual warfare a bit. You wrote a book and it's been about 11 years now? Is that right? Since the book came out? Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization and Deliverance.

What are the, I I didn't know it was redone, which is awesome actually. But what were the two chapters you added?

11 and 12. What happened over the years, I've had so many people call me, um, whether it's pastors, missionaries, Uh, in state, out of state, uh, butchers, bakers, candle stick makers, people that recognize, you know, there's, uh, this stuff is real.

Uh, a lot of them grew up the way I did. I think it puts them a little bit at ease. When I say one of my chapters, how did an ordained conservative Baptist minister get involved with spiritual warfare? I've had people invite me into speak, so I want you to speak just cause you don't fit. You don't fit the normal bill of what we think of with circuses and I "feel," and "in my heart I believe," and you're actually really, really direct about Bible and such, but, uh, I got so many questions, Travis, about interviewing from people who had either wanted to work with this or people who had worked through it. And now saying, I I've worked with more pastors and missionaries than you would ever guess.

I was surprised. I figured most of the people I'd worked with would be drug addicts and alcoholics and, you know, that kind thing. I, I worked with more pastors and missionaries, uh, real solid Christian people, leaders. And it makes sense. You ask , you ask, well, you didn't ask "why?" But I am going to tell you why. But I'm gonna say you asked why? And I'm saying if you were a very smart enemy, you would keep you a best ammo for the people that could hurt you.

And people that are already so far out of it, they're not gonna bother anybody for the cause of Christ. Why wake them up? Just let to keep throwing their life away if they think they're a Christian that's paddling out in a, in a little boat out in the ocean. Cause uh, you know, you should be the fourth member of the Godhead cuz there's nobody quite as spiritual as you.

Uh, you're not affecting anybody. I mean, you've got a high opinion of yourself or the other side of the coin. You feel like you've failed God so many times. You know, you've just given up to her. You just isolate yourself. I'm going, if I'm the other side, I'm saving my best ammo for Travis' types that are actually wanting to stand up for their faith, cuz they're the ones that can hurt me.

The ones that have removed themselves and isolated themselves are already doing what I want. So why do I have to waste good ammo on someone that's moved themselves outta the picture, anyway? So I say I have worked with more church leaders than you would ever guess. That is just absolutely true. And so I kept getting questions about, "okay, in your interview process, what are you looking for? And how do you tell the difference between demonization and people are just psychotic what you looking for?" Cause you don't work with everybody you interview. So I wrote a chapter on just some tips for if you're working with this and you're interviewing people trying to, uh, where are they coming from? You know, what, what, what is going on? Is this spiritual?

It may be, is it physiological? Surely could be. Is it mental? I try to make a, the point in that book, I believe all three are real, and I believe people can be impacted by all three. So I don't blame it all on the flesh, which was my schooling. Everything's the flesh. You can ignore the, the spiritual. That's just where the crazies don't know their Bible most of their time, you know, making stuff up.

Um, Uh, but, you know, uh, the world very real as an opponent. The flesh, chapters four, five, and six. How do you recognize the world as an opponent? How you respond to it? How do you recognize the flesh as an opponent, how you respond to it? Chapter six, how do you recognize the demonic archers and respond to it?

I, I wanted to be able to have people say, instead of saying, "I'm really good at one of them, but I get clobbered by the other two." I'll say, "How about you just learn how to recognize and respond to all three, and then it really doesn't matter which one you're having to deal with or the people you're working with?

So, chapter 11 became how you recognize that. Chapter 12 became, if you're in the middle of working with someone who is demonized, they really involved with demons, and then this happens. What do you do? And then that happens. What do you do? And in other words, I got so many questions over the years, people in the middle of it that would call me and say, "We're working with this, and this happened," and I thought, "why not just put it in the book?"

So the first 10 are the same 10. Plenty adequate for being able to recognize world, flesh, and Devil. And plenty adequate Chapter 8 for saying, "if you're actually working with this, you can take step by step and work through chapter 8. And guess what? If the people are for real and you know what you're doing. Demons, you can make demons leave."

Chapter 11 and 12. The two new ones became if you're already practitioners, you're working with this stuff, and brother, I don't care about your denomination. I, I've approached that the same way I did as a chaplain in the NFL for so many years. I'll say, I don't care what the label on the bottle is, all I care about, what's in the bottle.

So you can tell me you have a charismatic background, a high church, a low church, a free church. I, I don't care. I'll just say again. What can you put on the table. That's, that's what I care about. Obviously, I understand doctrinal distinctives. I know where I come from. I'm pre-mil, pre-Trib, but someone wants to understand that. I'm not a cessationist, if they want to understand that. 99% of the people don't know what any of that means.

They just, "I, I love Jesus and I'm supposed to be doing great. And yet in my mind, my body is a prison. Instead of a temple. And I don't get it. And it's always been that way and I am now suicidal, I'm thinking about killing myself. But if I told my pastor, I told a friend, uh, they didn't believe me, thought I was just making it up, whatever, I don't know where to turn."

Just more depressing. I got so used to that stuff and then pastors and missionaries and such, calling me saying, "Will you walk me through your interview process? Will you walk me through when you're actually working with someone?" So I put those two chapters in there and the feedback I've got from practitioners is, "Man, that was really helpful."

When we, whenever we talk about spiritual warfare, and I think you've kind of, uh, alluded to this in the chapter. Most people, especially in the tribes that we've been in, have a tendency to kind of kick it to the curb because they're afraid of people thinking that they're crazy. Uh, and we know of people that have abused things where they can find a demon in every single event and thing their, their front tire. There's a demonn for everything. Of course the devil does that too, where he actually does get people to go to the extreme forms. Then he, then they ignore the right forms because they're so afraid of going too far. And yet you have drawn attention to this subject and rightly so, because as we talked in the pre-show walkthrough, there was a period of time where everything was demonic that we would look at, and then we had nothing with the mental, the emotional, any of that.

And now the pendulum's gone the other way where everything is mental and emotional and we've gone away from the spiritual warfare part. And in some ways they're all kind of interconnected with one another. And it's hard to d to differentiate between one or the other. But let, let's go back for a moment. I wanna know what precipitated you writing this book?

I was youth pastoring in first full-time vocational church in Spokane, Washington. I've been there a couple years. And I had somebody from the church. I did not have any question about their salvation. Their parents had both been vocational Christian workers with Campus Crusade for Christ, clearly knew the gospel.

He had been the chairman of our board, you know, on occasion, but an elder. No, just I, I just saw 'em as a very solid family. And, uh, one of the kids would occasionally come over to my, uh, we live fairly close together and, uh, been in the, in the youth ministry. And one of would come over and just, I, I had said she's weak- willed. And, uh, she would come over and we would talk and I'd point her back to the Bible and the sufficiency of scripture and prayer and memorization. She would be just fine. And then, I don't know, three months, six months, whatever it was, later, uh, she would come over to the house. She was stoned on speed. Um, she would say, "I failed God again. I failed my family again. There's something that pushes me and makes me do this, and no one understands that." And I would say, "no, you're right. I don't understand that either. You make choices every day. Good choices, bad choices. Bad choice to take speed. Uh, let's go back to the sufficiency." In other words, you could just repeat that for a couple of years, probably, I don't remember how long it was.

One day she comes and knocks on the door again and soon as I saw her I thought, "okay I know what's gonna said because, you know, I, I know what a person loaded up on speed looks like," and, and, uh, um, she, uh, person came in and I just said "I would approach this a little bit different." And Travis, I have no idea what I was doing, but I just said, "I've just assumed you have a weak will and just need to get you in the scripture."

"But you do that for months at a time and you're fine. And then this happens again and you keep saying something pushes you and I don't believe that. I don't think something can push you. You're a Christian, you're just choosing to do this." And so, uh, I said, "You care if we do something different?" She said, "Sure, it's fine." And so I got out my Bible and I started reading from 1 John 4:1-6 about test the spirits. You know they are not all from God, you know if they profess Christ has come in the flesh, etc, etc. And I got about halfway through that, Travis, and this person who I would call a friend, my wife and I would've both said they were friends from ministry, but the whole family was a friend.

Um, went down on the floor, foam started coming outta the mouth. Fingers got, I mean, just like you would think outta Hollywood, started screaming. Their name was a name that wasn't their name. I bent down to try and talk to them and was told to get "eff-ed." I was told Jesus was an F and this and that, that we are ignorant and don't know what we are doing. "You are never going to help this girl because you don't know what you're doing." That young lady. Oh, I just said, "young lady," I was just trying to keep it generic. That young lady, grabbed my Bible and just started shredding my Bible.

My Bible. I try, I'm a big guy. I tried to pull my Bible back cause I didn't like my Bible getting shredded. I couldn't get the Bible back. And I'm watching pages of my Bible go all over from someone that then lays down fetal (position), fingers all contorted, eyes rolled back in the head. And I just said, "No, this, this isn't happening. This, this can't happen. This is something that missionaries work with. Or this is something for someone in a psychotic hospital somewhere. But this doesn't happen to people in our church that I've known for several years and very nice Christian people." And so I have said, "I, I did not go looking for this."

I felt like God allowed this to come to my door. And at that time I decided for all of the sincerity, uh, both Bible school and seminary, and that as long as you read scripture, as long as you memorize scripture, as long as you pray, you'll be just fine. Don't waste your time on this spiritual stuff. It's just a cop out from people that don't know how to take responsibility for their own sin.

Some of them aren't saved. Uh, some of them are just doing it to get attention. Some of them have just had mental breakdowns. You, you just stay focused on people that wanna grow in Jesus. I realize that as sincere as that was, it was incomplete. Because I had people who, as far as knowing the gospel and responding to the gospel. Brother, I told you I've worked with pastors and missionaries. I've worked with Pastors from megachurches. I've worked with pastors that I have books in my library from them.

You know, someone calls me and says, "I told my board I'm on a missionary, uh, fishing expedition." I go, "What?" "Well, I, I told 'em I'm going fishing. I said, If I, if I said I was coming to talk to you about demons, I would get fired. So since I don't understand it, I kind of am going fishing, right?" I go, "Yeah, I guess." So I just told him, "I'm going on a trip for, I'm going fishing." And I said, "Well, I'll keep your secret. I, I won't blow your cover." Big, big church, multiple thousands. You would, you would know him if I told you. And there's not just been one in missionaries, and yet they'll just say, "there's a war going on in my head that even though I can write books, I can preach. I constantly get hit with stuff like, you know, 'you're ugly. Uh, Jesus doesn't love you. You're a failure. Your prayers bounce off the ceiling. Uh, no matter what you get outta your Bible, you're not getting enough. So read it again. So then I read it again.'" And I said, "Let guess where that goes. Uh, you spend an hour reading, you won't get very far. Why you waste time? Christians are supposed redeem the time. You spent two hours, you, you know, you are still no further on your sermon than you were before." "Yeah, first I get chastised. I'm not doing it right. So I start all over and then after enough times, look how you waste time and a real Christian wouldn't do that." "Confess your sin, it didn't start in Jesus' name." "Oh my goodness, maybe I didn't. Okay, Lord Jesus, please forgive. Uh, why do you pray a second time about what God answered the first time? Unless you don't really believe God forgives your sin. Now you need to confess. Your unbelief is said, Oh God, I guess I did do that. Well, forgive me now you're wasting time. Confess you're wasting..."

In other , , it's, I feel like this hamster on a wheel and it goes round and round. And I am telling you there as many pastors and missionaries probably that go through that as there are people where you might be a little, little more suspicious.

So, brother, my, my walked into my front room. I just had to admit my, my education was not wrong. It was just incomplete. You know, I, there were parts of it that were right with it, but part cuz there are people that make it up. There are people that are drama queens, there are people that have mental problems and they blame it on demons.

There are people that have physiological issues, they blame it on demons. But what my camp was doing was blaming everything on the mental and the emotional and ignoring the demonic. So I had to get an education, brother. And so God chose to give me an education. And I have figured when I croak, unless Jesus comes back before that happens, I want other people to have what I've learned so that they don't have to be feeling like me.

And starting from scratch and not feeling like there's very many people you can reach out to or call. And, and I have said, I, I say in the dedication, they put part of the dedication that the very first person, "I just said, I wish I could have met you 10 years later when I knew what I was doing. Instead of you being the very first person, I was a young pastor. I meant well, I just had no idea." And so I basically apologized to that person in the dedication that, uh, you were a good trooper. But, but I wish I could have met you later because working with demons, Travis does not have to be a circus. It's only a circus if you don't know what you're doing.

Why have so many Christians responded so negatively? And let me, let me put a little caveat on that. We had Scott Moreau, who's the Dean of Wheaton graduate school, come on the show, and we got into a conversation of spiritual warfare. And Scott said to me, he said, "Travis, I have worked very hard to not be the demon professor at Wheaton." He said, "because you get that label and then everybody kind of comes after you a bit." But he said, "at the same time, whenever a another professor encounters an issue, with a student like involving spiritual warfare, they send them to me." And I thought, "What is it that we're missing in some of the premier Christian college institutions that we feel that this is an issue that gets pushed to the periphery?" It's almost as if we're ashamed of it. What has led to that mindset?

I, I spend a little bit of time trying to address that in the book. I'm not saying that as a cast off. I am just saying, it's comes up enough that I thought it needed to be addressed. I'll give you some of my best guesses. Some of my best guesses are #1 is fear. Uh, "I don't know what I'm talking about. And yet as a pastor, I'm expected to know what I'm talking about, least are about Bible and spiritual. And rather than say 'I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm afraid to go find out much about it, cause if anyone found out I was taking it halfway serious, they would say, "Oh no, you too? I thought you were committed to the Bible? Are you becoming one of those feelings oriented people that you know, you lead with your heart? You, you know, "God told me." And it doesn't matter whether it contradicts scripture or not.'"

So there's a fear of association. There's also a fear of looking like, I'm really not competent. Maybe I'll lose my job if I, you know, admit. How do you get through school with something that Jesus talked about, the disciples talk about. I, I, I mean, it's talked about repeatedly. I, once I started working with this, I was amazed how much I found in scripture about this. When I had been told that "if it was a big issue, then the Bible would talk about it and it doesn't talk about it." Well, I was, I was seeing what I wanted to see. So I would say fear, fear of association, part of it, I would say tied in with that. The other side of the coin is pride. I do not want to admit that maybe I was wrong on this. I wanna be a champion of the faith of the fathers.

And, uh, if anyone, again, thinks that I would be moving away from that by, by taking a step into, uh, you know, a theological territory that is not associated with the disciplines in the school I've been around. You know, what, what would happen? What would they think? So it's just easier. To just ignore it. I mean, I can give you one on yours.

I, I had a pastor from an institution that we talked about earlier. I'm not going to say it. You know, you know what I am talking about whose children had gotten involved in this. Adult children. And asked me if I would work with those adult children, which I did. They were thoroughly demonized. That pastor came to me and draped his arms over my shoulders, and wept. And I remember he kept saying, "I've got my daughter back., I've got my daughter back." And after the daughter, there was a son and then son-in-law, "I've got 'em back. This stuff is real. This is real."

Right? That same church would say, "Karl,, when you come over, you just can't talk about anything demonic anytime you're speaking, because our elders just wouldn't understand that. So you just have to leave that topic alone. And I am baffled because I am thinking, 'you know this is true. You've watched 180 degree change in your family, but you are so fearful of the association.'"

This particular pastor said to me, "If I allow that to go on in my church, or even be talked about. I'll lose a good friend." I said, "Brother, I have lost a lot of friends. You have to decide. You know, you, you decide what you're gonna do on that." But the fear and the pride, they just scream. Now I would give it a third one. And that's just poor teaching. Because you've seen people that, what you already said, there's a demonn under every bush until it's a joke or everything is, is mental and can be taken care of or pills.

Cause even though I say I'm a Christian counselor, my training was humanistic. And so I, I prescribed the same things. I, I, the, the, see, I understand why the humanist, the atheist would, would say, "it's all mental or physical. Cause God's not real. The devil isn't real. Demons aren't real. Angels aren't real. That's all your imagination."

If that works for you and it helps make you a, you know, function, then that's fine. But if you can't function, then we go after the real situation. And, and it's usually. Um, you know, "you were potty trained too early and we can take care of it, you know, with some, you know, with some kind of of prescriptions," when the Christian is the one doing exactly the same thing.

I'm saying you are a theist. You do know that Jesus dealt with this. You do know that the disciples dealt with this. You do know that people who weren't disciples were dealing with it. Um, you know, Luke 9, you know, John and Peter say, "Should we keep this guy," uh, Luke 9, 9:50? "Should we tell him to quit dealing with the demon stuff? Cause hes not part of our group, he's not one of the 12." Jesus could said, "they're doing what? Don't they understand this is just a figment of people's imagination? Or don't they just know that when the, in the Matthew 4 when I was being solicited by the devil, I was just accommodating. Cause I, I wasn't really, so I'm all knowing, so I know it really wasn't the devil. We're just primitive people and we just couldn't think of ways to verbalize what's going on, so I just went along. I mean tell those people to knock it off." His response was, "leave them alone, and let them do what they're doing."

when the 70 returned in Luke 10, what about the people involved in, in Luke 9 that weren't part of the 70 and they weren't part of the 12. I just go, "Are you so afraid?" "Well, this is what I've always been taught. So I just say part of it is I'm sticking to my guns of what I've always been taught. What I've always heard, or part of it again, is I've seen where some of this hysteria goes with crazy looking people. I just don't wanna touch it. I just wanna be able to see people come to Christ and be discipled and as long as I stick to scripture and memorizing scripture and praying, we'll be just fine. That's what I heard in both Bible school and seminary. And the other one's, I'll just send them to a missionary or I'll just send them to a counselor.

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Isn't it strange though to me that a lot of the people that are dealing with this are not the... It's not just the Bible students, Bible students all have an opinion on everything. Um, you and I, you know, and I both know this, we talked about this in the pre-show walkthrough, and we've been there, we've both been as those students at one time, but it's those who have been through the ringer, those who have been through situations where they tried those approaches and they found them to be insufficient.

And as you and I mentioned, you, you, we were talking about a teacher who really influenced kind of both of us in understanding this. And so many people came against him at one time, but now, after years of ministry have come back and said "they were right. They were really right. We've seen it happen. We're experiencing it." Do you find that people are becoming more open to the stu subject of understanding demonization and deliverance now? Do, do you find people more receptive to you or less receptive?

Yeah. Let give you three answers. Hope I can keep the three in my mind.

I, I gave you one question and you're giving me three answers?! Man, you are a pastor! (laughter)

I've never had a \missionary tell me it's not real. Never once. I've always had missionaries say, "We, we live with it. We're just trying to learn how to be, you know, more. More effective with it. And, and we sure like to talk." So it's not the missionaries that are saying, uh, you know, "this is, this is silly."

That's, that's, that, that would be number one. And see, in taking off on number one, I forgot the gist of your question. So as afraid if I said three, I might do that to you.

I, I resonate with, with, with when people will say that the brother you and I were talking about, I don't care if you say his name or not, I've been in conferences across this country, when people come up and say, "I went to Moody." That's zeroed in there. "I ignored this guy and now I wished to God, I'd been listening to him because this stuff is real and he was right all along." I go, "Yeah, yeah, he was. He was right." What's the gist of your question again?

So, okay, so, so the question is, is do you find, because we can say his name then, if that's fine. Yeah. So Fred Dickason. Fred Dickason wrote a book called Angels: Elect and Evil and Dickson taught at Moody for 34 years and held a position that. Talking about spiritual warfare, I think everyone acknowledges, at least from a cursory standpoint, that spiritual warfare is real.

The question becomes, what about the subject of demonization? And this is where our terms become very important. There is a difference between possession and demonization, but being oppressed by a demon. And, uh, because terms, terms really, really do matter here. However, when Dickason came out with his, his, his position, there was a pushback because people felt that they were questioning the sufficiency of scripture and they really, he was really condemned. I mean, he was pushed to the periphery. Um, there was a, a large group of people that came against him, but as time has gone on, people have come back saying, "no, he, he was right." Because we're seeing a lot of Christians are, are carrying this unbelievable guilt. They're wondering why they're not seeing victory. And yet churches don't wanna address the issue of spiritual oppression or demonization because they really don't have a place for it in their ministerial lexicon, if you will. They, they just don't have a place for it. And it becomes very imperative that we do understand this. As you and I talked in the pre-show walkthrough, yes, there are mental, yes, there are emotional, yes, there is abuse and trauma and all of these different things.

We're not denying any of these things. But nevertheless, there are terms in scripture and descriptions such as we see in Ephesians that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, powers, authorities, and, and the, and the powers in the heavenly places. And yet Christians give a tacit nod, will recite the verse and then go on because they have no idea how to interact with a spiritual power.

So, so my question for you, uh, Karl, is this, since it was so controversial years ago and, and pushed the periphery where there was no even ability really to dialogue, uh, about it without fear of reprisal. Today though, I think you're seeing a shift where people are seeing such the, the gospel shift in that you're seeing the, the western church. Slowly, the numbers don't lie. There, there is some massive crisis going on and yet, there are those voices out there like myself. God has brought the nations to us for a variety of reasons, either one, to reach us because many of them are Christians or two to be reached, and they're coming from worldviews much closer to the worldview of Jesus had in the first century. So this is not something theoretical for them. This is something very real. That's something I think they can teach us because they're, they're bringing us back to the word of God. So my question is, is do you see people, a revival of this in main, more mainstream circles?

Yeah. Okay. Thanks for bringing me back. This time I just jotted a note. Instead of trusting my brain and putting you through that. I'm sorry. Maybe you can edit out my stupidity if got a chance.

Nobody has all the answers. You can keep running. Lemme, lemme see if I can pick a couple of these up. You bring you back. First. Yes. I think there's a real uptick. Uh, I'll give you two, uh uh, an example and then a reason. I'll give you the reason first. Now, this is my opinion. I can't prove this one, but you cannot go one single day of the week between the television programs, between the cable programs, between the movies and the all, that you don't have this thrown in your face.

I mean, it's witches, it's mediums, it's walking dead, talking dead. You know, you, you name it, it's there. I think that, uh, we have, as we've moved away from a, a theistic Christian worldview, uh, I, I, I believe that you have more and more people fascinated with this stuff. They're curious about it initially. I work with lots of people where they got involved outta curiosity until they got so scared cause it was there and over their head. And then they gimme a call and say, "Man, I didn't mean for this to happen." But now some of them, they like the power, they just keep rolling with it. But I think one of the reasons, yes, it's being talked about more is we were able to ignore it because people, even outside the Christian Church, If you started talking about the occult and practice in the occult and, and movies and you name it, all the shows, they just said, "Come on, let's just stupid. Let's just get back to real life." You know, You know, don't, don't let your imagination play games with you. If they're not Christians, Christians would've said That's not a good plan. Uh, you know, once you get stuff in your head, it's hard to get stuff outta your head. So just don't put the garbage in head in the first place.

Then you won't get the garbage coming back out, typically. So would've hesitancy to one. Now it's wide open and now it's all around you, and now you have. Particularly the younger ones, you know, I don't know, say 12, 13, up to 30, 35. I mean, it's all about information in me. You can find anything you want and since, and since "Christianity is wrong and all Christians are terrorists and we're on a bunch of fakes and there's nothing about religion that's true", they go find something else anyway.

So I think the culture, you know, I am reminded of Ephesians 2:1-2, who is the boss down here, at least on a leash. And, uh, you, you read one and two and three, you see world, flesh and devil and the Prince of the power is the one in charge. I'd say, "He's, if you look around and say, who's winning right now, somewhere else would say he's doing a pretty good job with the short reign that he gets."

The non-Christians not getting it. I understand that. The Christians who are buying into it, I don't understand that. I get questions all the time on radio programs, you know, "Do you think it's a good idea for my son, my daughter, whatever, to be playing with?" I go, "No. I don't think it's a good idea. I, I, Why would they wanna do that? Why would you wanna do that?" "Well, I wanna look progressive and, and, and like a loving parent. So, you know, should I, should I allow them to set up a Satanic altar my house even though I'm Christian?"

What?!

That is not make believe.

Are you serious? Someone actually asked you that question?

Yeah, no, actually they were, what?

That's nuts.

Yeah, they said that and then they said, I said "no." "Was I wrong?" I said, "No, I think you were right." Why would a Christian have to apologize? So first, what I'm suggesting is it's all around you. For a pragmatic answer I would say, we were talking about this earlier, but I have been invited back in now speaking Bible schools and seminaries to institutions that 30, 40 years ago didn't even want hear about this much less bring somebody in to talk about it.

"We've got faculty that wanna talk with you. We've got students who wanna talk with you. Would you be willing to come in?" So I think at least in part. Uh, one for sure God's grace. You know, instead of us, Jesus, keep getting beat up. God's saying, you know, I've had people, I've had the Fred Dickason's, I've had the Mark Bubeck's, I've had the Tim Warners, I've had the Marcus Warners, I've had the Dean Vander Meys, I've had the Mike Shields.

I've had different ones that understand this, but you know, you didn't wanna admit that. You know, so maybe you, maybe you need to do some reading and, and, and really try to educate yourself instead of just kind of bombastically, make statements when you know, you dunno what you're talking about anyway. But bottom line is, as I see us inundated, Travis, with this stuff, and as parents you're inundated, you're scared for your kids.

Sometimes the kids are in it. Think you passage media such it's hard to control it. They get it. And they are asking questions. You don't have any answers, cause many of the churches...charismatic churches by and large would be willing to talk about it. But they were the ones that also would get the, the, the hit that, you know, that's all you wanna talk about, that the non charismatic churches didn't wanna talk about it in the first place. So when that comes up, it's just like, "oh boy," kind of rolling the eyes. And, and so we demonize people inside the faith, which is a mistake.

I'm suggesting that Satan becomes more, more obvious in this world. I, I called it like entropy. It works with physics, right? Things are running downhill. I think we're seeing the same thing with morals and ethics. I go, maybe if we get attack from Mars, maybe Christians that are really born again will start pulling together, you know, instead of fighting each other, particularly if it's not over something major.

You know, if you're, if you're pre, I'm pre-trib, well, you pre-trib, mid-trib, no trib. I'm not losing a friendship over that. You know, you, you're reformed in your theology. I'm dispensational, I dunno, if you are or not, I'm, I'm not losing a friend over that. I just go, "if we're right on who Christ is and so salvation, you know, by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone," I'm not gonna say, "Oh, you're one of them and I think we've been too. You know, we, we, we've been uh, we've been too committed." We've, That's exactly right. So, so "do you see more of it around?" Yes, it's raising the need. "Do you see more people, uh, whether it's institutions, whether it's missionaries, whether it's pastors saying, 'I better get a little bit up to speed on some of this.'

I'm certainly seeing that. I'll give you a quick story that I, well, a true on. I'll use his name cuz he would let. So a lot of times I don't. In my book, I change names, cities, states. I don't want people to ever think if they share something with me that's gonna come back and bite them, you know, kinda thing because we do live where Christian people think it's okay to bite people over this some.

We became very, very dear friends. Earl Radmacher, and if you wanna talk about someone who was a stickler with his hermeneutics and you keep it contextual and so good with the Greek and so good with the Hebrew, no one was gonna argue. He, he, he always kept an eye on me, you know? And at that time, when I first started working with this, when I was in Spokane in '82, he gave me a call and he said, "Man, don't touch this."

And I said, "Don't what?" He said, "Don't touch this. Uh, he said, You established yourself as a pretty darn good Bible teacher and you're gonna throw all that away. Cause people are gonna associate you with quack jobs. So he said, I'm just telling you, step away from this."

And I used to call him Dr. R. I said, "Dr. R, if I can step away from it, I gladly will. I already have tried to step away from it, but it's like, it just seems like, excuse me, God isn't allowing that. I didn't look for this, I didn't want this. But there's more here than what people understand and there's more here."

So back to Radmacher, he says, "Get rid now." I'm going through another degree program "later, 10 years later, and, uh, I happened to, you know, fly into the same town that Earl lived and he said, "How come you're at a hotel why are you wasting money?" he said, "You stay a hotel Radmacher." And I said, "Well," that, like I said, we, we were, he would say we're friends by then I've, and, uh, just, just colleagues, but he just said, I got outta car, had a taxi, whatever it was, take me over and a rental car, whatever it was. I had my bag in my hand. He said, "You were right. I was wrong." And I looked at him and I said, "I, I don't, Earl don't even know what you're talking about." "You were right. I was wrong." "What are you talking about?" And he said, "Pleroo." And I said, "Okay. My five years of Greek, don't touch your lifetime of Greek and Hebrew. And my Hebrew, Dr. Alexander and Dr. Allen would be ashamed of me now. Cause I wouldn't know an aleph anymore if it saw me and if it bit me. I just, I've kept up with, with, with my Greek some, but I, I didn't keep up my Hebrew, but I said, "All I know what pleroo is to fill control." He says, "It's used in Ephesians 5:18, we're to be filled with the spirit. Uh, not, not filled with booze, filled in control.

Yeah. Galatians 5:16 walk controlled by the spirit. You won't care about the strong desires of, I get it. He says, "That's the same root word that's used in Act 5 with Ananias and Sapphira when Peter says, "Why have you allowed Satan to fill your mind to your heart?" And he said, "You know, I don't play games with scripture." I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Well, I was on the side that, you know, you just walk away from this and Christians don't have to worry about this. But he said, I was reading those scriptures and I thought, isn't it interesting that God uses the same word about filling and controlling of a believer who's walking in obedience in Ephesians 5 and of a believer who is walking in deception, in disobedience in Acts 5.

He said, "the word means to fill or control." So he said, "I believe now I said, uh, the notion that demons can control a non-Christian." "Yes, but also can control Christians if a Christian is foolish enough to allow that to happen. So he said, "just keep doing what you're doing, I'm telling you. You were right, I was wrong." Now, that hit me big time. Cuz ,most of us haven't had seminary presidents that admit they're wrong about anything.

And that, that, that doesn't mean to me as mean as that sounds cause there's some godly, godly people, but students aren't used to hearing that. You know, from someone that they haven't. And, and again, it was one of the reasons I esteemed him so highly when he was right, he would fight for, but if he didn't think he was right, he wasn't above saying, "You know what, keep after that. I think you were right." So it's around us, Travis, and people are recognizing it and it's time. We can either use the fear and use the pride and hide from it one way or another. Or we can say, What if my education was just incomplete? And as you're right, that whole idea about, well, there's oppression. Well there's oppression, what is this demonization?

Cause it doesn't mean the same thing. You're right. And why don't I get educated instead of just being bombastic? I don't need to do that.

We, you've had, you mentioned the names and I'm looking through it cuz he and he, he endorsed the book,

so, so did a lot of real good. Yeah. Yeah. You looked at some of the people Clint Arnold endorsed that.

Yeah. Well, Erwin Lutzer endorsed that.

Erwin Lutzer of Moody Church. Randy Alcorn and Ergun Caner. And who else is endorsed the book?

Oh, there's been so many of them. Uh, you know, it's, it's fun. Uh, Joel Heleman, Greek teacher at Talbot. I love it when people say, "Well, Karl, if you knew the original languages, you would understand."

I said, "No, don't go there. Don't go there. That's not the battle. There's too many people. Good on both sides." Um, Bubeck, you mentioned Bubeck endorsed that Dickason endorsed that, uh, Marcus Warner, you mentioned endorsed. Um, Dean Vander Mey from Set Free Ministries. He might expect he's really good with this stuff.

He, he knows what he's doing there in, uh, there in Michigan, uh, the former president of, of, uh, Lockyear, Multnomah, he died, but he, he endorsed it. In other words, there've been, I got people from the sports world, I've got lots of counselors and I've got theologians. I just wanted a real cross mix of people to go find people that are very solid, that you have great respect for who say, "I don't wanna talk about this."

And you can find other people who've got all their credentials, they've gone to the same schools and they say, "This is actually real. I do wanna talk about this." So since I came out of the background, I did, where usually you run from it, you ignore it, you rejected. I thought I was very happy to have some of the people that were willing to, uh, Janet Parshall, you mentioned her, you talk about a straight shooter that loves the book.

She, she said, "I'd love to endorse that thing." Um, you, you'll see there's, I went from, uh, seven in the first edition to, I don know how many there are now about 60 now. I think of people that, people that said in that latest edition came out in '21, and they represent butcher's, bakers, candle stick makers, moms, dads, older, younger, professional athletes, mDs, doctors, uh, psychologists, psychiatrists, theologians. I think what they're saying is it's okay to check this out.

Again, sorry for the audio, but this was a really important conversation. Karl Payne is not exactly an out there kind of guy. As he said. He's a conservative Baptist pastor. What the Bible says matters to him.

Look, we all know he knows. That there are people out there who are crazies, but when person after person who didn't want to deal with this. Normal Bible- believing, completely orthodox people, people you may even go to church with, and professors and pastors are inquiring of him, when all of them are recognizing that there's something real here, we all need to pay attention.

I read Karl's book over a decade ago, and like you heard in the interview, I was surprised that a new version was out. We'll put a link in the show notes for you. It's really worth the read, and frankly, I want to copy for the new chapters. Next week we'll finish our conversation with Karl. If this or other episodes have watered your faith,, can you do us a favor? Can you post a review on whatever platform you're listening from? It really helps us to get the word out to others. Thank you. If you know someone whose faith could use watering, please point them our way. I want to thank our Apollos Watered team of Kevin, Melissa, Eliana, and Rebekah. This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from Apollos Watered. Stay Watered everybody!