Transcript
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The topics and opinions express in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
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explicit or implied shall be extended to W four CY
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Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
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should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
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choosing W FOURCY Radio.
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Well, hello, glad you could join us. Bill Martinez here
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if you're ready, and even if you're not ready, get ready.
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We're going to do a deep dive into the Bible.
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Okay.
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Our next guest, Matthew Mark mcwarter, and i'll tell you
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more about him in just a moment, has written quite
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a book called Canon Crossfire. Does the Protestant Bible blow
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up the case for Christianity? And I'll tell you, like
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I said, put on your seatbelts, because you know, as
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we see evil erupting across the globe and revival sweeping
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the streets of America, millions are turning to Christ with
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burning questions. But what if the answers they seek aren't
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found in the pages that most churches preach from. Good question, well,
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what if the key to defending the resurrection lies in
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the very books that were left behind? Well, Matthew McWaters
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I mentioned he's a retired corporate attorney, former atheist, and
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author of Cannon Crossfired. Does the Protestant Bible blow up?
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The case for Christianity is going to be joining us?
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And after a near death experience, Matthew launched a courtroom
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style investigation into scripture and what he discovered is going
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to shake your assumptions from the Apocrypha to the resurrection.
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His findings are bold, evidence based and spiritually electrifying, and
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you can learn more at his website Cannon Crossfire dot com.
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So buckle up, buttercup. This is one of these conversations
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that you won't forget and you'll be glad you joined
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us for Matthew, welcome the show.
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Good to have you with us.
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Thank you very much, glad to be here. God bless hey,
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God bless you.
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I'm so excited to talk to you because you know,
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although when we first talked, I'd mentioned that you were
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I you know, you were an atheist, but you said
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not exactly an atheist, but kind of an atheist. I
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don't know, small atheist, I guess. But you know, it's
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interesting because after your near death experience, you thought, okay,
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maybe I had to check out this Jesus stuff. And
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you went into this with a legal background and wiring
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in your legal training to make sure that you just
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weren't getting duped because up to I guess I got
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to imagine up over the years, you know, whenever any
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discussion of the Bible or Jesus Christ came up, you
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just probably your brain just shut it off and said,
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you know, I'm just not I'm not buying it. But
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you know, maybe in part you did it out of
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durance because you didn't have the whole truth nothing but
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and you hadn't studied it. But all of a sudden,
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after this near death experience, it was time for you
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to do a deep dive.
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Is that fair to say?
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Yeah? I mean literally, the only reason I read the
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book was because my name's Matthew Mark a quarter I
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was named after it.
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So I at least at least two parts of the gospel.
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Matthew Art and your.
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Mom should have added Luke and John to really get
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make me.
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I have been bitter my whole life because whenever people
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ask me where is Luke and John, I'm like, where
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is my twin? Why did I not have a twin?
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Right right exactly?
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But I read the book. I actually there were other
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books that you know. There was something by a collection
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of four Western stories from Dane Gray that my grandfather
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had given me, and they were all the same bucket list. Like,
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I didn't Hickley select religious books to read. It was
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just all the books I hadn't read yet. Yes, so
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that's what happened. I just started reading it started wondering.
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I'm told a lot of pastors say this that lawyers
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convert more frequently than other professions because we're used to
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seeing guyewitness testimony. We know what that looks like, That's
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what the Gospels are, We recognize that, and then the
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question becomes, well is this true eyewitness testimony or fake
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eyewitness testimony? And from there forward it was It was
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just an investigation. And it went on for several years
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of merely a mechanical exercise of me being curious. Before
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I started really believing and started moving into a natural
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religious sphere. I was as you say, a small a atheist.
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I didn't hate religion. I just didn't care. And part
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of that not caring was I didn't even know why
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people went to church. So I kind of converted myself.
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You know. There was no church converting me. There was
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no person converting me. It was just a pile of books.
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And along the way in the conversion, I had to realize,
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oh wait a minute, I have to go to church.
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But that came later, Like I didn't. I originally sort
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of thought of Christianity without a church. You know why
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bother I got other things to do on Sunday.
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So anyway, that was a big part though, foundationally about
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our faith is that it is a personal relationship exactly.
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That's where it starts, and that's why it's so important
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that you honor that relationship, those those initial depths that
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you take into your faith. So when you decide to
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plant your feet in a body of Christ a church,
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that you're careful about where you plant your seed.
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Right, yeah, absolutely, and that that is the spiritual risk,
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religious Christian way of looking at it. To be honest,
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as an outsider, I was, I ain't joining your cult
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until you know, like you got to prove it to
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me first. So that's why it was such a written thing.
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So either way, whichever side of the coin you're looking at,
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it's a crucial part of the decision as to you know,
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what what religion is. That it's that personal relationship, also
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that it's corporate, that it's it's collective and communal and social,
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you know, that comes through the Bible. That and it
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all leads to the same place. But there's there's many
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ways of looking at it, in ways of pointing you
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to the same same destination in the end, which is
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to go to the right church exactly.
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And I got to imagine for you, first of all,
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being an attorney. But the other thing is that you
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put years, lots of years in time into really making
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you know, coming to make this commitment. Many people, it's
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it's almost like we used to say in California, because
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I grew up close to the beach, it.
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Was like surfs up.
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You know, It's just it's a surfs up emotional kind
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of thing, and and so and and in some ways
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that can tend to be a little bit surfacing, they're
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really the depth of somebody's relationship with God. As a
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former pastor, friend of mine used to say is about
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as deep as a dime. And that's unfortunate because in
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those situations, especially if you happen to run into them
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in church and you think, hey, this is a fellow believer,
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and you know, all of a sudden you go, well maybe.
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Not yeah, absolutely, and I I but trying. You know,
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this whole experience of me writing the book and talking
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to people about it and having readers, et cetera. I
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am such a strange person. I'm not like other people
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in many ways, and one of them is exactly that
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kind of journey of it. Never once occurred to me
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to just have a you know, flash and all of
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a sudden it was there. But to me it was
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a long intellectual exercise and that is not normal, but
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part of it because I am that kind of person.
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The way I came to it. I think that's why
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I did all this work, and why now that I've
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done the work, it's so easy for anyone else to
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see the points that I'm making and learn about what
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I'm doing. But somebody had to be so interested in
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this question that they would go to the depths that
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I went, and I guess that was me.
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Well, you know, you've done a lot of the hard work.
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You know, for some of us that would not would
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not do that. You know, our relationship and our wiring
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and the way God designed us, just like he designed you.
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He knew that you were going to go and do
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the deep dive that I mean, he he designed you
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that way.
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And so that when he held off. I think part
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of the reason why I wasn't Christian my whole life
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is God saying I needed He wanted somebody, and he
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picked me to wait until they had a lifetime of
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skill and a reason to do all this research and
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to look at two questions at the same time without
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really caring what the answers were to either of them.
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One is Christianity true? And the other one is which
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Bible am I supposed to be reading? And it was
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looking at that at the exact same moment that let
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me see this cannon crossfire that my book's about. And
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I don't know how many people would have seen this
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or have seen it over time, and it's just such
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a crucial part of how I looked at things, and
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as I said, led me to do all of this work.
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I feel like God had a reason for everything that
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he did.
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Well, just like he had a reason to bring two
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knuckleheads together like.
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You and me.
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I have this conversation with all due respect, I mean,
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because I'll tell you I mean. I have considered myself
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a theologian. I graduated from Bible College. I study the.
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Word of God.
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I'm in it on a regular basis. I took Jesus
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for his word, and when he said that man does
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not live by bread alone, but by every word that
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comes from the mouth of God, I figure if Jesus
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said that, I'm going.
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To take note here, So.
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You know, I took him at his word, and I
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look back experientially in the journey that I've been on
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that God, in his grace and mercy, has allowed me
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to take.
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I'm grateful for it.
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I did not ask that question, and I appreciate and
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respect that you did, because it really takes us down,
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you know, an important and critical road that I think
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it's gonna bless people who are tuning in and who
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will watch this segment, because it'll cause them to ask
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other questions, like you know what. I had that question
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in the back of my mind. I didn't ask it,
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but I'm gonna ask it. And Matthew has encouraged me
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to do that. But look before we get into that,
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for just a moment. A couple times now we've talked
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and I've mentioned your near death experience.
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Do you mind telling us that story?
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Yeah, I was a successful attorney, prime on my life
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forty three I think when it all started. And then
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one day my father got cancer. So I was told
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to go get my own test. And I assumed I
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would find out twenty years from now that I have cancer,
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but that right now would just be a warning about
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it for now that I had cancer far worse than
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my dad.
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Oh wow.
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And so they played an operation to deal with the cancer.
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Days later. This all happen. Within a month, I had
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what's called a widow maker heart attack. It's the most
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dangerous heart attack. About ninety nine percent of people die
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die right there on the floor from it immediately.
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Yeah, they measure They measure that in seconds, I think, exactly.
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And it's just a rush to see how fast you
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can get to the hospital. Among other things. That I
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got lucky or God was looking out for me, however
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you want to look at it was. This all happened
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in Houston, Texas. And I can assure you if it
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had happened in the afternoon, i'd be dead because there's
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no way you're getting a hospital at a time. But
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luckily traffic alone will kill you in Houstone exactly. And
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this happened in the middle of the night. I managed
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to get to the hospital in time. They performed the operation,
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saved my life. But then the cancer treatment's delayed, you know,
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all the stuff. So it's you know, shocking numbers of
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shocking percentage chance that I had to stay alive, and
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yet somehow I did. And that's amazing.
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I mean, here you are, You're dealing with a cancer diagnosis,
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and as if that's not enough, hey, let's throw in
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a little widow maker heart problem right.
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Exactly, And all for a guy who had just passed
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a physical like right beforehand. I mean, like it's crazy,
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but you know, as I learned, those physicals are not