Summary: Ever grappled with your true identity, burdened by guilt and the aftermath of mistakes? Pastor Rodney's intimate conversation reveals his journey from challenges and missteps to a life enriched by purpose alongside God. Hear about his triumphant emergence from struggles, as he recounts moments of despair, family conflicts, and battling the impact of harmful influences. Through it all, he found hope and a renewed sense of purpose in ministry, sharing his transformative path from rejecting a job opportunity aligned with his beliefs to navigating the pain of losing both ministry and marriage. This emotional journey unveils the discovery of faith-driven freedom and the imperative of facing doubt.

Tune in to witness Pastor Rodney's recovery and the unwavering love of God that perseveres. His narrative exemplifies the resilience born from faith, the liberation it bestows, and the profound concept of forgiveness attainable through Jesus. Whether a believer or not, Pastor Rodney's story emanates hope, resilience, and the profound potency of grace's transformation. Prepare for an episode that touches your soul and reinforces your faith.

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TimeStamps:
0:00 - From Death to Life
12:32 - Struggling With Identity and Faith
26:40 - Journey of Recovery and God's Pursuit
37:16 - Journey of Faith and Career Choices
51:39 - Finding Freedom in Christ
1:01:14 - Struggles With Family, Ministry, and Pornography
1:06:10 - Identity Struggles, Overcoming Suicidal Thoughts
1:12:46 - Ministry, Failure, and Redemption
1:20:56 - A Journey of Love and Redemption
1:35:53 - Navigating Frustration and Pride in Ministry
1:41:33 - Discovering Freedom in Christ
1:50:07 - Overcoming Worth Lies and Finding Freedom
2:01:09 - Freedom From Sin Through Faith
2:11:48 - The Power of Sharing the Message

Keyword

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Speaker 1: 0:35

The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can And that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is death to life.

Speaker 2: 0:55

After I turned eight and was moving into nine, one night I went to bed and I took out a pocket knife that my grandfather had given to me and I laid it on my nightstand and I said God, I don't know much about you, but if you don't show me a reason to live, I'm going to kill myself. In the morning And that night I dreamed that I was getting married. I couldn't see who I was getting married to, Didn't really totally understand that at eight years old. But what I did understand was that maybe somebody was going to love me.

Speaker 1: 1:27

Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and I was looking at these statistics for who listens to the Death to Life podcast And you know what? It actually tells me where people are listening from, and I was excited about that because I saw that there's people listening in Nashville Tennessee. Hey, if you're listening to this and you're in Nashville Tennessee, i mean holler at me. I want to know who you are, because I don't know who's down there listening. I live about 20 minutes away. Love to meet you. And if you're listening to this podcast from a strange place, i don't, i don't, i didn't mean for it to sound like that, like a place that is not within the United States or somewhere else. I want to know who's listening, and a great place to do that is on Apple, when you leave a five star review of the Death to Life podcast. That's where you can do that, because I want to know who's listening and where you are, where you're from And just like. Yeah, anyway, this episode is with my brother in Christ, rodney Long. I call him Pastor Rodney, and this episode has been a long time coming. It is wild, it is heartbreaking, it is not for kids, it is incredible, and I'm not even going to set it up, except to say it's been a long time coming to hear what God has been doing in this man's life, how God has loved him so well, and so you're going to enjoy it, you're going to appreciate it. Let's, let's listen to Pastor Rodney. I love y'all, appreciate y'all, buckle up, strap in. Yeah, where do you feel like your story?

Speaker 2: 3:05

starts. I think that we have to go right back to my birth, And the reason why is because you and I both know that, as we begin to grow in our Christian walk, one of the things that most people struggles with is identity or worth or value and things like that. And the old devil was ready for me from launch day, I guess you would say I was. I was born with a severe birth defect in my face And when I came out, the doctor wouldn't even allow my mom to see me. He told her. He says Linda, he says I'm not going to put you through looking at this boy. My advice to you at this point is to allow the state to take him And we will put him out in one of our state homes, because it's very likely that he will not be able to eat normally, talk normally, He definitely will not be able to communicate with people And it's probable that he won't live past the age of 18 to 21. And my mom, Where?

Speaker 1: 4:08

was this? What kind of doctor is this? A little town, marshall.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Missouri back in 1968.

Speaker 1: 4:16

That's wild, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:20

But my mom and my grand basically my grandma and grandpa they didn't want to give up like that And they immediately asked the doctor if he would call the University of Missouri Columbia and see if anybody down there would do anything. And after a few attempts because the doctor didn't even want to bother anybody down there he was like nobody's going to want to take care of this kid, nobody's going to want to really do anything with him, but if you insist, i'll call. So he calls down there. And whoever you got a hold of I don't know who that was And they were like no, i don't know that we're going to be able to do anything for him after your assessment. So he took that news back to my grandma. My grandma was like no, you call again. And so he called again. He got a different person and that guy said hey, get the kid down here and let us make an assessment and let us see what will happen with him. And the doctor said there's somebody down there that will see him And you need to get him down there. And so they asked if an ambulance would take me down there. And the old doctor said there's no sense putting him in an ambulance, just take him yourself. And so grandma and grandpa loaded me up in the back end of their 19, whatever it was, skylark and took me down the highway to Columbia, missouri, and I have my first surgery the next day, and started a journey with a doctor by the name of Dr Puckett who would walk me through my next 16 to 17 months, 16 to 17 surgeries that I would have on my face and taking different pieces of my body and putting up in there, which is a whole nother story for another day, but just a lot went on right there And you were a day old or two days old when you had this surgery. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and so I came back home after that and most kids drink out of a bottle and things like that. I drank out of a little whiskey shot glass. Grandma called it my whiskey jigger, and so that's how I drank when I was a little bitty baby. But the identity thing as I began to grow up, i began to notice that there was a chasm between my mom and my grandma, and one time, when I was three years old, they had thought that I was asleep, but I had snuck out of my room and I heard something that I didn't understand. But even though I didn't understand it, i found that it would pattern my life for the next 18, 19, 30 years, maybe even so much. And that was that my grandma told my mom that I was a punishment from God because of the way I came out for having an out of wedlock child.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Mercy.

Speaker 2: 6:53

Now I didn't know what that meant, but I did know what punishment meant. I know what getting in trouble And so as I grew up, in the three years old, four years of that was stuck in my head, and until I got to school, in kindergarten, and kids started making fun of me, then I began to understand what it meant to be a punishment from God, and so my identity was built around I am a punishment, and as I grew up, the school was rough on me, the kids were rough on me, and so, when I reached the age of approximately eight, i had two people that were close to me in my life, and that was a little girl by the name of Kathy and a little boy by the name of Steve Within. That same summer, between the seven year old and the eight year old time period, both of them left. They had their parents, got a job someplace else, they moved, and so I literally felt like I. No one cared for me anymore, and I can remember, laying on my bed in my bedroom, the pictures, those little square school pictures, of my buddy Steve, my buddy Kathy, crying, because, even though I lived with my grandparents, i felt I was a punishment and disappointment to them, and the only two people that even cared for me I thought had now gone away, and I didn't want to live like that. And shortly between, after I turned eight and was moving into nine, one night I went to bed and I took out a pocket knife that my grandfather had given to me And I laid it on my nightstand And I said God, i don't know much about you. I know that every once in a while I go to church on the weekends to get out of my grandma and grandpa's hair, but if you don't show me a reason to live, i'm going to kill myself in the morning. That's between the age of eight and nine. That's crazy. Yeah, that shouldn't even be something that enters into a kid's mind at that age. And that night I was in the middle of a house And that night and I know this sounds really silly, but that night I went to sleep and I had a dream, and in the dream I dreamed that I was getting married. I couldn't see who I was getting married to, but I did see the church and the wedding gown and all those things that have to do with the wedding. Didn't really totally understand that at eight years old, But what I did understand was that maybe somebody was going to love me, and so I got up that morning. The next morning I put the little knife away and I said okay, if I'm going to live, i can't live the way I've been living People bullying me and everything. Instead of living a life where I was going to come home and cry most afternoons, i decided that if I could make somebody laugh or smile during the course of a day, then I would think that I had a good day. It wasn't long after that I went back to school, and at that particular time I was going to a school that was very close to my home And I lived in a town where I could walk to school at that age without any issues. And I remember walking out of my house and this little girl comes up that normally never walked with me. She got next to me, we started talking about something and she started laughing. And she said you know what I always like about you You always make me laugh, you're funny. And it clicked. And it clicked, that's what it was going to be about helping people, right? So I went on through my years of grade school, middle school, high school, going to school with bandages and scars from surgery and being made fun of And just trying to tuck all that back in the back of my head. I got to a point where I was constantly trying to find somebody to love me, trying to find a girlfriend, in other words And I believed that I couldn't live without that. Now I mentioned something about church. I can tell you that basically, i was on church as a child and visited a lot throughout the weekends and Bible camps just to get out of the hair of my grandparents. But I had no real solid understanding of God or anything else, and so my life was patterned of how I saw myself And I got to the point where, yes, i could make everybody laugh. And here I am age 54, that was at eight, and I don't do math, but it's a long time And I've always been able to make somebody laugh every single day of my life, and so I've lived that and it's been good. But I really got to the point where I would avoid being hurt by people And as I was going with girls, especially in high school, even though I was not the prettiest thing that was walking the halls, i always was able to have a girlfriend And anytime I first thought that they were about to break up with me or hurt me, i immediately cut it off with them and hurt them before they could hurt me, all tied back to the identity Absolutely. And as I went through that time period of high school, you get to that point when you're in junior and senior and you just think you got the world by the tail, and definitely God was not any part of that equation, and I did things that I'm not happy about, like everybody did. But as I approached the age of 19, i met a young lady and she introduced me to the God that I was avoiding. And as I began to date this young lady, she introduced me to an evangelistic series, and so I went to this evangelistic series by this gentleman by the name of Robert Wagley And I went there and learned the ways of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And I tell you, every night I walked out of that and I was like, listen, i'm going to prove that wrong. I'm going to prove that God is an angry God. I'm going to prove God doesn't care about me. I'm going to prove that I am the punishment. And I went through the Bible and learned what I could, tried to prove the Sabbath wrong, all those things, and I couldn't do it.

Speaker 1: 13:07

And you were trying to prove that God was a tough God And in your mind this was a good thing, that he was a tough God. Or you were trying to prove like God isn't worth much And so I don't like him at all. Or you know, when some people come to evangelistic, they have different motives and they have different. One of them that God is tough. The other one that God is terrible. What was Why the motive of God is tough? Did that make him seem holier to you? if he was like? that Had nothing to do with that at all.

Speaker 2: 13:37

It was all about me and my identity. See, my identity was that I was a punishment from God. So if he was this great, loving, wonderful God that everybody said he was, how in the world would he send me to be a punishment to my parents and let me live as a punishment all of those years? So I wanted to prove that he was the punishment. I wanted to prove that he was the punishing angry God because, number one, it made me right And number two, it gave me reason to walk away.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Oh, so you were trying to prove that this isn't worth it in the first place?

Speaker 2: 14:14

Yeah, because if all of a sudden he becomes this loving God with you know, all of this compassion and caring and sacrifice for his human children, then I have to deal with my identity. See, that was not part of my identity. My part of my identity was that he was angry and punished my mom and my dad. That I never knew, you know. And so then if that part's wrong, that means I'm wrong And that means that I have to question everything for the last 19 years of my life that I've tried to do, and I really thought that I was a good guy. I really thought that I was a good guy. People loved me. I was the one everybody talked to get him through all the junk in their life. I was their little mini-counselor and stuff, and so I really felt good about who I was, despite carrying around this shadow of being the ugly punishment, the elephant man, as I was called by a lot of people. So I had to allow myself to believe that, and anything that was contrary to that would threaten my identity, and so that's why I went after it.

Speaker 1: 15:16

So you had what would be the way that you would describe the way you saw yourself. Would you say self-loathing? Did you really dislike yourself? or you tell me?

Speaker 2: 15:29

I disliked everything about myself on the outside My looks, my weight, whatever You name it. On the outside it wasn't good. On the inside, i saw myself as a chaotic mess who did the best that he could to live each day And at the same time, i saw myself with a lot, and I knew it A lot of unresolved anger and frustration that I hid so I could help other people, because remember back when I was eight, that's how I had to do it, and so to be able to do that and stay true to whatever I said I was going to do, i had to push everything back.

Speaker 1: 16:10

So was this an old-fashioned start off with the Babylon and walk through the history kind of evangelistic series? It was.

Speaker 2: 16:21

It was. It was your typical, i think, at that time. It was 27 nights, maybe 28 nights, and everything that you would expect an evangelistic series in 1989, 1990 to be.

Speaker 1: 16:35

Those were effective for a long time, man. They have the posters of the dragons and all that stuff and the free Bible. If you go to as many meetings like this amount of meetings, you get that King James version. I remember the one in the late 90s had like fire and brimstone and like a big hand or whatever. I don't know if it was the same back then, but you couldn't prove this guy wrong, huh.

Speaker 2: 16:56

No, at that time I didn't have the internet or anything. I had an old set of encyclopedias and I had the Missouri Valley College Library that I visited, but, yeah, it just couldn't. I couldn't do it and I was really attacking the Sabbath is what I was really trying to do And I just couldn't find it. So eventually, at the end of that particular series, i was baptized and, boy, i thought I was walking out of that water just as powerful as anything and I could defeat everything And I was energized, new life ready to roll. And now I hadn't dealt with my identity, but I was able. Through my life, i was able to oppress all of those things that were ugly, bad and yucky and just focus on all the really cool stuff. And immediately after that, i became a call porter and for those who may not know what that is, that's an individual who goes to people's homes after they fill out an interest card or something online now and they talk to them about Bible books and Bible stories, health books and things, and I would sell those. Well, i had been in sales and I was a rock star salesman. Let me tell you what. So I just knew I was going to have those books flying off shelf. And I learned a very valuable lesson that if you go into that ministry or actually any ministry now that I understand it thinking that it's going to be you doing it, you will fail. And I did horribly. I was a horrible failure So much to the point where I would leave the house, tell my wife at that time hey, i'm going to this town, here's who the people I think I'm going to meet with today, here's my goal for the day. And I would drive to that town, sit in the park and look at magazines I shouldn't look at.

Speaker 1: 18:40

Is it because you weren't selling books And so you were? or is it just because you weren't even interested in that? at this point, I wasn't selling books.

Speaker 2: 18:50

I was interested in it because I wanted to prove them that, hey, the boy who wasn't supposed to talk, the boy who overcame so much through his life, the boy who never was supposed to be able to say the alphabet, was out here now selling stuff, selling stuff to people and making sales left and right. And it was all me, brother, It was me. Rod can do this thing right. And when you're working for the Lord, it's not about what you can do, it's about what he can do through you, as you allow him to do it. I hadn't learned that yet And yes, i was very. I became very depressed and you have to understand every failure that I met in life. It just was another building block on the I'm a punishment, i'm unworthy, i'm useless on this, i'm that. And you can stack those bricks for a while, but eventually the tower falls over.

Speaker 1: 19:37

Yeah, nobody. You're 21, 22. At this point, nobody has to teach you how to feel sorry for yourself and how to be depressed. That's kind of locked in from jump street. And even in your new life you're excited about the Sabbath, you're excited about all this truth, but when it starts going sideways, like I said, no one has to teach you how to be depressed, and that just comes right afterwards.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Yeah, and unfortunately, at the time, i was attending a church that was more religion focused than relationship focused and was more about checking off the boxes and making sure they're doing everything right than it is about, than it was about loving each other and allowing Christ to build that church, and I couldn't even go to my church elders or the church people themselves and express my situation because it was always my fault And I didn't have to hear that. I knew enough of that And so that was a toxic.

Speaker 1: 20:31

You think they really would have, you think they really would have come down on you.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Here I'll just give you an example. Our head elder at that particular time would meet people at the door and greet them as they came in, which is nothing wrong with that. But he would say things like Hey, i think I saw you at hearties this week. What were you eating? Oh no, i don't think I have to go too much further.

Speaker 1: 20:55

God bless it.

Speaker 2: 20:57

Yeah, and it got to the point where, after a few years of failing miserably, we started going to church a lot less.

Speaker 1: 21:07

I get surprised sometimes And I know I shouldn't get surprised, But that I don't think that's a crazy story. For the early 90s I think a lot of our church was still coming out of extreme legalism and righteousness by faith. That all has always been and will always be trying to show itself for what it is. But this, I guess the baby boomer generation, I don't know, they came and it was heavy legalism for whatever reason, and religion was the name. So yeah, it sounds crazy now in 2023 when we say someone would question you on if you're having a cheeseburger. but I think that was the mindset back then. It wasn't too strange at all, probably.

Speaker 2: 21:55

Well, unfortunately and I agree with you, and unfortunately, even as we are in 2023, there are still many people with that mindset. And it all comes back to what's your focus, and if you're focusing on the dos and don'ts and the checkboxes of religion, you're probably going to lean that way. It may not be on food, but it may be on something else. And if you're focusing on the relationship with Christ, then you see things differently. You know what?

Speaker 1: 22:23

You know what, as there's this thing called what is the fad word for thinking about your spirituality or your religion, and you deconstruct or whatever that's the fad. But sometimes you, within new light, you look at things a different way And I think a few years ago I started really looking at Adventism itself and I was looking at it strangely. And as these years have passed, i have found that so much of the things that were bothersome before about Adventism because of the wrong lens or the wrong way people were talking about it, like the health message is a perfect example. While we all know that eating certain things and drinking certain things aren't great for you, if the dude is at the front door saying what did you eat at hearties, that's one thing. But now, as I'm growing and wisdom and I'm seeing things, i look at health stuff and I'm like, yeah, you know what? I think it's right that we shouldn't put certain things inside of our body, not because I will get salvation, because I abstain from eating a cheeseburger, but eating a lot of cheeseburgers just not great for me, it's not gonna be healthy, my mind isn't gonna work as well my body. And so, as I'm seeing it now through the lens of oh yeah, this is good. It's good to be healthy. It's just a completely different thing. So it wasn't the health message that was the problem, right?

Speaker 2: 23:59

No, not at all. It was the interpretation of how we get that out to the world. Too long we've lived in a Christian society that has attempted to do righteousness by me And we have forgotten that it is righteousness by faith in the works of Jesus Christ and the shed blood. And because we have that kind of skewed view of righteousness, we find ourselves finding the areas we're strong in and we do real well in, And then we find folks who need improvement in those areas and by our own grace we go out and we try to help them see their erring ways And unfortunately that's not the approach of Christ And but also, unfortunately, that is a lot of experience that people have had in various different churches.

Speaker 1: 24:51

Yeah, fortunately it wasn't what Christ did. Unfortunately it's what we try to adopt. And but what did he really? met people where they were at and met their needs And then just ministered to them, Depression setting in, not having a lot of success moving these books. Was this your career, doing the cold portering thing? Is this what you were moving towards in your future?

Speaker 2: 25:19

So at the time the goal was to do some cold portering for a while, make a little bit of money and then either A go into evangelism school or B go into union and try to work towards ministry. It didn't work that way at all.

Speaker 1: 25:37

Why did you feel this call to ministry? Was it just excitement over what had happened in your life?

Speaker 2: 25:43

Again I go right back to. I made a pledge, if you want to call it with God, that I would have a good day if I could make people smile and stuff. And at that eight, nine year age I really turned from loathing my life to focusing on helping other people, and one of the things that I thought was really a privilege was that if I could help other people see God in a different way, what a better deal could you ever have? And so I went into that thought process of going, okay, how do I get to stand up there and share? How do I get there? And at that point in time that's how you did it You either went through the evangelistic school or you went through union and on to Andrews, and none of that ever happened. So the thing that the two that I need to throw in here was that while that depression and stuff was just boiling inside of me and causing issues in my everyday life and how I saw things, i also was deeply involved in pornography and addiction of that, and so it became very hard to separate that from my real part of my life. And so, as I was going out to sell the books, i knew in the back of my head what I was doing at home And I had a deep struggle And it eventually made me feel so bad that I had let God down. That's exactly what I felt. I felt that I let Him down, that I walked away from it.

Speaker 1: 27:15

Addiction is a crazy thing because beautiful, sweet, hard Christians who get caught up in addiction. They can go either way where they can just decide oh, this is who I am and this is never gonna be. I'm never gonna be able to be broken of this. I've tried ad nauseam and it's still here, and so they're just like compartmentalize it and don't think about it too much. And if they ever hear about victory, they're just like and the roller eyes a little bit. There's one And then the other one is to become so depressed And it leads to more and more depression because you're like this is the worst, this is. I literally can't do anything about this. And the guilt, condemnation and shame that the enemy puts on you becomes so heavy. And we've talked about this before on this. We talk about it all the time on this podcast. Shame never changes anybody, guilt never changes anybody, and Jesus obviously did not come to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved. And yeah, that's the name of the game. So much of the time. And these beautiful, sweet people feel like they're. They are the Roman seven guy. It makes so much sense. They're the two wolves all the crazy garbage theology that we've heard through the years that have really positioned us in this terrible thing. It ends up all making sense and it has no victory as a part of it.

Speaker 2: 28:49

No, and actually that whole process you just mentioned just continually drove me further away from God and further away from the church, to the point where we weren't going to church anymore. I didn't really care, but the really cool part about it God never stopped pursuing me.

Speaker 1: 29:09

Mercy.

Speaker 2: 29:10

During that time period My mother-in-law was very instrumental in keeping God in front of me And she would often bring it up and so forth, and I've got to share a little story with you that will really amaze you. That just show you how God is so always pursuing his children. Now you'll remember that I said earlier about a dream that I had about the marriage that I would one day have When we were making plans to get married. We were gonna get married in a seven day Adventist church in another town, and when the pastor had asked the church if it's okay, they were like sure, fine, yeah, no problem at all. And so we had all the invitations printed, the announcements, all that stuff was ready to go, it had the address of the church And then somehow, some way, they found out that at that point in time that I was not a seven day Adventist yet I had not gone to Robert Wagley's series yet. And then, wouldn't you know it, one month before our date to get married, the church voted that we could not use their church to get married in Ruined everything, at least we thought. So I'm scrambling around. It's my hometown. I asked around some people And so one of my buddies. His dad was the pastor of the Presbyterian church there in town. Now, i'd never gone there So I really didn't know anything about it. And he asked his dad if he would do the thing. He said yeah, i know, rodney, he's a good kid, i'll do that. And we go there to talk to him for our first visit. And he's taken us on a tour of everything. He says now this is be where the ceremony's gonna be done. And so he opens up the church doors to the sanctuary And I'm telling you, brother, my hair stood up on the back of my neck, my jaw dropped, because everything I looked at in front of me was in that dream that I had when I was eight and a half years old. Oh, wow. It was amazing And it's so amazing that he walks down with my wife to be at that time and looking around. I'm still stuck back there at the door. I cannot believe what's happening And this is God right. I have to that moment, recognize that this is God. Now fast forward to the actual wedding. You'll see. If you ever saw the video of my wedding, i'm down there waiting for the bride to walk in the back door and stuff, and she comes in. I'm facing her and she comes up. I take her hand. We're facing the pastor And if you watch the video, i lean back and I look at the back of the dress, cause at that point I hadn't seen it yet. It was the same dress that was in the wedding. That was in the dream. Oh, wow. God was pursuing me, wow. And so now we go to about 10 years later, which is after everything I've just told you about we're at Worlds of Fun. Now, at this point in time in my life, i'm making really good money. I'm notarized very nice, excuse me. I am very notable in my field. I'm earning very good money for a person who had not been to college. And so we go to Worlds of Fun, my wife and I, and we end up parking. I'm not going to church, don't even think about it, not even thinking about it. We end up parking by a guy. Now we had been talking about buying a van. And so I get out. this guy is driving a brand new Ford, something, another van And I'm standing back there looking at casing it. Now, if you're in Kansas City and you're looking at somebody's vehicle, they could reasonably assume that you don't have good intentions. And so he comes firing out back. he's can I help you? I'm like oh hey, no, no problem at all. And I told him the story. he's oh okay, no problem, he sure, look around and show me. And he says I tell you what. if you end up going to buy it, go to this place and tell him Terry sent, you, remember this name. And so I'm like, okay, cool. And so all day through the park we'd see each other in different places. he'd say where are you gonna go? And I'd say, tell, i'd holler where I'm gonna go to buy it. And he goes. who are you gonna say? And I say Terry, right, even on a roller coaster he goes by and he goes, don't forget Terry, like this. And I'm like, oh, this is just hilarious. And so that stuck with me, right? It's about a month later and my wife at the time decides she wants to go to church. I'm not going to church, i'm working on Sabbath, i'm not going to church. She goes to church and with her mother. and they come back home and they said you remember that guy at World's Fun? I said that Terry guy. They said yeah, they said he's the pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I said you're kidding me. And they said no, we're serious, it's him. God was still pursuing me. What church was this? The St Joseph Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Speaker 1: 34:05

Okay.

Speaker 2: 34:06

And St.

Speaker 1: 34:06

Joe Missouri, all right.

Speaker 2: 34:07

Yeah, and I couldn't believe it. And it still didn't make any difference, right? But my wife continued to go And I'm like you just go. And she, everyone, she'll come back. Terry asked how you doing. Terry asked we're gonna buy that van, terry, this Terry. I'm like whatever. And so then it came time for Mark Finley, someone who is very well-known Adventist evangelist, to do a series called Net 96. And Net 96, my wife attended And I, at that point in time, went through a small health scare and they did some exploratory surgery that was enormously painful And I couldn't sit very well And my excuse for not going to the series was I couldn't sit that long. Right. One night she confronted me and she said listen, if you can go down to that furniture store and you can sit on your little pad there, you can sit on your little pad and listen to the Lord. And what are you gonna say? All right, what are you gonna say? So he's pursuing me still. And so I go there. And it happened to be the talk on the Sabbath. Now you remember what I tried to prove so wrong, yeah, so it's a talk on the Sabbath. And he began to use this illustration, and I don't know if you've ever had to experience where, when you're listening to someone, you begin to just zone in on what they're saying, to the point where you don't even realize what's going on around you. And so I listened to the story about this little lady in a shopping cart. She was a homeless lady And every day he was going to work he noticed her pushing that cart from one dumpster to the next dumpster And the next dumpster every day, as if that next dumpster was gonna be exactly what she needed. That resonated in me, because I would go from job to job thinking that everything I needed would be in my next good paying job. I would be able to do this. And so he makes a call that night, a virtual call. It says everybody, please stand. And then the famous line with your heads bowed on, your eyes closed, those that wanna give their heart to the Lord, would you come forward? I remember standing up and I remember closing my eyes in prayer. I do not remember walking down to the front of the church, but I did. And later my wife said yeah, you looked at me and said it's time and walked down to the front. And so when I opened up my eyes I looked surprised down there. And guess who I saw down there was Terry, and he said do you know why you're here? I said yeah, i do, cause I knew that God wasn't finished with me, even if I thought I was finished. Wow. It came time to be rebaptized And I had to make a decision about my job. At that point in time I was in a very good job, paid a lot of money for that time, and I told my boss I wanna have Saturdays off. And he said I don't think you can do that. I'm like just run it up the flagpole, see what you can do. He ran it up the flagpole. The vice president of the company. He says we've never done that with anybody, but let's try it with him because he's so good, he's done so much for the company. Let's try it with him. Whoa, boom, god moved. So there I was. I would take off. Sometimes I'd have to come in for an emergency. I remember the time I walked into church with my name badge on And I was so ashamed because I walked into church with my name badge on Cause I didn't understand things. But it came time for me to be baptized And I said I hope you've liked the experience that we've had, because now I'm gonna be rebaptized and I am definitely not going to be coming in a few hours on Sabbath anymore. And he says are you gonna give up this life and these earnings for your church, god? And I said I don't know if he's my church God, but he is my God. And I said yeah, i'm going to. And a day before I get baptized I get a phone call And the phone call says hey, i know how you've always wanted to be part of opening up a new region in this company. We'd like you to go to Oklahoma. We're going to give you a car. We'll help you out to get your first house. You'll have the largest store. We're going to help give you three other stores. You'll have a new name title. You'll have a new salary Two times what I was making at that time. He says are you ready to go? I said do I get my Saturdays off? He says you'll probably have to do one or two here and there. I said no, i'm not ready to go. He says you're going to give up all that Just because you want Saturdays off. I said no, i'm going to give up all this because you don't realize how important God is to me. And I lost my job January 1st 1997, i lost my job and had nothing to do And I was in a situation to where I didn't know what was next And so I ended up having a person in the church there that hired me to do odd jobs, and I guess it was actually January 1st 1998. Yep, and so I did those odd jobs and worked being a Bible worker, if you want to call it that. I went out and I handed out literature and I helped with this and I helped there And I did a little odd jobs around the church. I went up and I spoke in Albany Missouri church on alternating Sabbaths, spoke a couple of times in St Joe. It was really good. But everybody wanted me to go to college, to go to Union College, and I told them I don't think there's enough time. I need to be out doing the Lord's work And we didn't have the money to do that. I had just gotten a new grand pre-car that was so beautiful. I was out doing my Bible work and that thing And I loved that car. I love that I bragged about that car And I remember one day I thought you know what I deserve this car. I've been through a lot. It wasn't too long after that that I was stopped outside of the church waiting to turn in to get some more steps to Christ books. A girl comes up over the hill behind me, going 55 miles an hour, slams into the back of my car, throws it I don't know how far hundreds of feet down the road, knocked me out. All kinds of really cool stuff.

Speaker 1: 40:20

You were in the car.

Speaker 2: 40:21

Oh yeah, i was sitting there waiting to turn, yeah, and God used that destruction of that little mini idol I had made to give me enough money to go to evangelism school and to pay off all our current debts. He was still pursuing me And so I went up. I studied under Louis Torres for a little while Some people will recognize that name up in Rappasiti, south Dakota Hermosa. He had an evangelistic and health and wellness school up there. I studied there for about I was supposed to be there for I think it was 90 days somewhere in that neighborhood. After about a month he's like why are you here? I said what do you mean? why am I here? And he says you don't need this, go, you can do this And stepped out of there and did my first evangelistic series in Leavenworth, kansas, and ended up with one baptism, and it was phenomenal. But the thing that I wanna make sure people understand is, even though you may walk away, even though you may do some things that you're not very proud of and you may not think much of yourself, you may think that you are so far away from the hand of God, i want him to understand and remember that, through it all, he never, ever stops pursuing the love of his life, and that is you. And even at that point in my life I still didn't like myself, i was still a mess.

Speaker 1: 41:56

Was your identity turning from now going full-time into ministry? Oh, now, ministry is my identity. Now, if I have one baptism, cool If I have two. was it turning into that?

Speaker 2: 42:10

Yeah, after I did that evangelistic series, we decided we were gonna do a mission trip and we didn't know where we were gonna go. Well, i'm not sure how it fell into place, but we ended up going to Newfoundland, canada, and doing vacation Bible schools for kids all across the Eastern and Southern part of the island. And while I was there I met the conference president and just told him that little bit of the story. I told you And he was like do you ever think I'm coming up here and pastoring? And I told him to his face hey, that would be awesome. Let's see what happens, pray about it and see what happens In my heart. I was going ain't no way, ain't no way I'm coming to Newfoundland, Ain't no way. All right, so we go back home and immediately I sit down and I send out resumes to absolutely every conference in the continental United States and even Hawaii, and so I wait, and I wait, and I wait and I don't hear anything from anybody. However, newfoundland gives me a call and says hey, we are getting ready to have an executive committee meeting and we would be interested in having you come up here and pastor. Are you still open to it? My wife had said I will go anywhere with you, but I will not go to Newfoundland. I had said I'll pastor wherever you want me to pastor, but I'm not going to Newfoundland.

Speaker 3: 43:35

Guess where we went Newfoundland, newfoundland, there you go Newfoundland, I don't know how to say it.

Speaker 2: 43:41

Newfoundland, but Newfoundland And the way it all happened was a miracle too. There was a giant storm at the house, There was things that shut the phone system down at my house and all kinds of crazy things, but his phone call got through on the day. He offered me a job. But it wasn't supposed to And we went up there.

Speaker 1: 43:59

How old were you at this point?

Speaker 2: 44:01

Oh, how old was I? That's a good question. I don't know how old I was. I was born in 68, my first time in Newfoundland was October of 98. So I guess I was 30 heading into 31. Okay Yeah, 30 headed into the 30. Just a young man trying to figure it out. Yeah, i still didn't have it figured out And probably the best advice that was ever given to me in my ministerial career was when I landed up there. We went into St John's to the office and the conference president said what do you think You're an American up here with all of these Newfoundlanders, what do you think? I said I don't know what to think really. He says let me help you. He says I'm gonna send you down and I was privileged to go down to a place called Maristown, newfoundland. If you look it up on the map, you'll see that it is in what they call the boot, in the southern part of Newfoundland, and it was probably one of the most phenomenal God miracle, moving times in my life I'd ever seen with this church. But he told me he says I'm sending you down there and you're gonna be on your own, i'm not gonna give you any help, you'll have prayer and you'll have the phone. He said but other than that, it's you and God go for it. And I drove back that night thinking me and God go for it. What does that mean? I soon learned what that would mean. The place I was at had a very odd. Look at what the Seventh Day Adventist Church was all about. Matter of fact, as I was setting up my postal service, the lady said can I ask you a question? You said you were gonna be the new pastor down there. Is it true that you folks sacrifice live chickens on an altar down there during a service, mercy? I looked at her and I said what? And she said that's what I've heard. I've never been there, but that's what I've heard. I said let me tell you this If indeed that is what's happening down there, the last chicken has been sacrificed because it's over And we went on. They weren't doing anything like that, of course, but they just didn't get in the community. People didn't know And there was only just a handful of them there. Let's save you a whole bunch of time. I can tell you. I spent a lot of time in prayer with that little church And when I got there we were about six to eight strong. Sometimes on a really good week we'd have 12. Before I left there about a year and a half, two years later, year and a half actually later God had 30, 40, 50 people coming in attendance. We'd revitalize the church, we'd remodeled the inside of the church. We were even what would be equal to the state representative here in the United States. Up there it's called an MA, and even the MA didn't go to our church. But she loved our church so much that whenever I would see her in the stores or wherever I'd see her in town, she'd walk up and shake my hand, and inside her hand every single time was some amount of money that she says go spend this on your church. You're helping people And it was such a blessing to see how God moved. And then couldn't pay my bills with American bills, with Canadian money, and so we ended up coming back home And I thought my pastoral career was over, got a phone call setting in a barber's chair my last week in Newfoundland, elder Jim Hohen, the Kansas-Nebraska conference, called me. He says I hear you coming back home. I said yeah. He says how would you like to stay in the ministry? I'm like anybody else had me, i'll stay in the ministry. He says I'm gonna throw your name around at the executive committee. Would you take it if we call you? I was like sure. And he says okay, we moved back, had everything in the semi and friends were there helping us unload and everything. And I get the call to go to Shadron, nebraska for a five church district. So we turned right around, loaded up the center.

Speaker 1: 48:07

That's right on the border, near Colorado.

Speaker 2: 48:09

Right on the border of South Dakota and Wyoming. Okay. Yeah, northwest. And so I had that up there Five churches, five churches, yep right, all on a straight line And it was quite the deal. Probably one of the most influencing and impactful thing that was a detriment to me. I had gotten to the point, so I'm still carrying all this baggage about me and my identity, right, i haven't solved any of that yet. And so I get up there and I literally was preaching about the love of Christ, the homeland awaiting us all and believing in my heart that I'll never make it. But if I can help other people, then that's what I'm gonna do.

Speaker 1: 48:59

In your mind you weren't gonna make it because of just bad behavior, because of what was you're just like, i'm not fit for. What was the reason?

Speaker 2: 49:08

Bad behavior was part of it. Okay, Because I still had that problem going on in my life. So bad behavior was part of it. I still haven't resolved that I'm a punishment from God That's still in here And so now it has festered over 30 some years inside of me, right, and so it has basically built this belief inside of me that I am nothing more than a tool, which in some ways is correct, but I'm nothing more than a tool to be cast away when the house is built. Yeah, you're not a son, no, i'm not, and I would preach up there and with great conviction And God blessed, we had one of the biggest and best church revitalization stories in the union at one point in time. There's a little church called Crawford, nebraska Crawford church, and just huge. I can't tell you how they changed and impacted their town, so much so to the point that at one point in time the city was asking that seventh day Adventist church to handle the children's activities for their huge Fourth of July, because they did so well, right.

Speaker 1: 50:18

That's all of God thing.

Speaker 2: 50:19

Yeah, but yeah, I was very low.

Speaker 1: 50:23

No assurance of salvation.

Speaker 2: 50:25

Oh, the only assurance was that I didn't have it. That was the assurance.

Speaker 1: 50:31

You're preaching. You guys can. This is for y'all. Yeah, because you're not me. Did you know that for a fact like that you believe this stuff. Or was it just like hazy and maybe you didn't really, you didn't wanna even deal with that question? Or did you know for a fact? I don't believe I'm in. Oh, i knew for a fact.

Speaker 2: 50:52

Yeah, absolutely 100%. I would even talk to God about it. I rationalized, if you will, the prayer of Moses. You remember when Moses prays for his people and he says, lord, don't take out your anger upon them, take it out upon me. I had that same warped thought process in saying, lord, let me help get these people to the promised land, but it doesn't matter if I go, because I know I can't. And yeah, i believed it all the time And I shared it with my closest friends at that point in time And they said don't you feel like a hypocrite? And I use the same thing that you and I have heard numerous times, and that is if you really truly knew who I was on the inside, you'd understand why I feel the way I feel.

Speaker 1: 51:35

Sure, absolutely. It's a deceitfulness of sin right there that you if you didn't even you feeling bad, shows that your heart was qualified, because so many people would live that double-minded life and they wouldn't think twice about it. They go home and sleep like a baby. But just even that you were feeling bad shows what kind of heart that you had. And so the deceitfulness of sin will position you as out of Christ even after all this. That's why sin's still terrible, still. garbage still does what it does.

Speaker 2: 52:14

Yeah, one of the things that I'm so blessed with is now having the understanding that I have about what freedom in Christ is all about and that I am a child of God. I broke down like a blubbering idiot in my church last fall in front of my entire congregation and told them about my worth lie that I had since day one, that I can remember about me being worthless and how I dealt with it. And in the midst of all of that crying and so forth, it came to me that I am worth it. I am worth a lot, and it's just amazing that, if you will allow God to really talk to you and you will listen to him, there is so much that he wants to share with us that I believe, on a daily basis, we block out, either by purpose or by we just think it's not for us, and I live that life in the Chadron district and on to my other districts.

Speaker 1: 53:20

It's not when something. I heard this recently it just blew my mind When we pray for things and it doesn't work out, or we want something to happen, we talk to God and it doesn't work out, so many people will come quickly meaning, well, but that's, the road to hell is paved with those good intentions And they say, oh, you just need more faith. We just need more faith And Jesus is out here saying you need this amount of faith to move a mountain And you feel like you need a mountain-sized faith to move a mustard seed. you got it backwards. but it isn't faith We all have. we've all been gifted faith on when we believed. It's the unbelief. Yes. It's the unbelief. And the unbelief comes in so many different ways and in different areas, and so even our hearts are qualified we've been given the gift of faith but it gets starved out by unbelief And we think, oh, i just have to have more faith. I just have to have more faith. Yeah, your faith can grow, but maybe it's the unbelief that's the problem, Because, like when you started out, you get baptized, you believe in this thing and you're on fire. You're gonna go and turn the world upside down. You had that faith back then, mm-hmm. But then, through time and through the enemy and the deceitfulness of sin and all this stuff comes in and unbelief just comes in Unbelief, unbelief, unbelief. So much so that now we look back at when we first believed and we're like, oh, we were foolish back then. No, no, we weren't foolish back then. God is able to do what he could have done back then. He's able to do it right now. It's the unbelief that came in and got in the way of us seeing things clearly.

Speaker 2: 55:10

Absolutely. I wish that somebody would have come to me during that very early stage, in my very early 20s, and would have helped explain to me that when Christ died on the cross, it wasn't just for sin that he died on the cross. He took our shame as well, and we I'm gonna say we, i'll just say me I lived a life wallowing in shame. Had I understood that even the very worst of me was taken care of at the cross, even the shame was taken care of at the cross, and that if I would understand who I am now in him, that new creation that it talks about in Romans, that new creation in Romans six, if I could have understood that, then I honestly believe my life would have been different as far as ministry goes. With that said, the life I led, there's very little to be proud of, a lot to be thankful for, and there have been many people who realized that God is actually a friend of ours and not someone to be afraid of, because God used me in a lot of different places and a lot of different ways. Did I abuse my role? sometimes I did. Did I do things that I shouldn't have done? Absolutely I did. Did I live life the best way I thought I could for other people and help them. I did. But I oftentimes think back to the fact that here I am now, knowing what I know, after three years of fighting and wrestling with this topic of freedom of sin and freedom from sin and freedom in Christ. And now here I am and can share a message that is coming from a life that I did leave, leave right And all the yuck and all the stuff that was back there. I really think that it puts me in a place where God has the ability to use me as a light of hope to other people in a way in which some people can relate with more than others, and I find that a very big blessing.

Speaker 1: 57:24

And how merciful is God. How merciful is God As you're telling this story and I wanna get back to it, but I think this is super important is it reminds me of 1 Timothy, where Paul is telling Timothy that he was number one on the list of sinners because of what He said last for me. He said all these things were just against Christ. I forget the word he uses in ESV, but there's three different things that he had done against Christ. Yet Christ had given him this message. And when we read about, when we think about Paul, Paul was the kind of guy that if you were driving through his neighborhood on the Sabbath, he's gonna throw rocks at your car to stop you from driving. This guy was zealous in a way that we don't even see His zealousness. All hold the coats while you killed this guy because he is blaspheming And he thought he was in the right. And that's the thing about being wrong. When you're wrong, it feels just the same way as feeling right does, until the very moment you realize, and then you're like Oh, and that's the only time it switches. It feels just like being right all the way up until that moment you realize that you're in fact wrong, and then all of a sudden it changes And that's what Paul went through. I'm sure he felt right when he's holding these coats. I'm sure he felt it. And I'm sure you felt right in Chadron, where you're just like I hope this is good for y'all, but I know I'm not gonna be there. I'm sure you felt completely right.

Speaker 2: 59:09

I did. I felt like I was on the right crusade. If you wanna use something Paul would do, i was on the right crusade. I was out there spreading words to help the people, because the goal was to get as many people into the kingdom as possible and help them see that thing. But as far as me, hey, i'll wave at you, you guys go flying up, but I'm not gonna make it, and it was sad that I felt that way, but it did And really, in all honesty, i think it was a coping mechanism. I do. I think it was a coping mechanism for because there would be times in the silence of my own home where I would sit around going how can you believe A and preach B? Cognitive dissonance there.

Speaker 1: 59:50

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 59:52

And I would sit there and think and say to myself I honestly don't know. And there would be nights I would cry in my office and I'd say, god, i don't understand, i don't get it, i don't in many other words. And the reality of it is I looked back on it is maybe I didn't understand, maybe I didn't get it, but I think I didn't wanna get it Because I didn't think I don't think I was ready to deal with what it was God needed to deal with in me. And so I kept myself busy visiting people, i kept myself busy going and being the chaplain for the local law enforcement, kept myself busy helping do things and stuff. And it was not fair to my kids, it was not fair to my wife at the time. And then, guess what, we're gonna go now to a bigger church and 200 people in worship and down in Scottsville, nebraska, and things really went badly.

Speaker 1: 1:00:54

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Speaker 2: 1:01:49

My family was in turmoil. I was not the leader of my home. I did not like myself, I did not like a lot of things. We had adopted three girls at that time that were emotionally abused And it was a tall order For us to get into that. We had nothing to go off of And they were tearing the house up, tearing each other up, tearing us up physically, mentally, emotionally, you name it And the ministry suffered because of that And ended up having to step down and step away from that experience And, oddly enough, what ended up getting me in that situation was pornography.

Speaker 1: 1:02:29

So the church, you were spiraling and using porn as a coping mechanism or, and somehow it got out and the church found out about it.

Speaker 2: 1:02:40

Yeah, without going into a lot of detail because it is past, we had an individual who was watching our house while we were gone on vacation one time And I had not deleted some browser history And this individual had taken some liberties in our home that I won't mention, but he did look into the browser history And then, of course, he shared that with some influential people in the church And, unfortunately, i was confronted with that.

Speaker 1: 1:03:12

And when I was confronted, yeah, i don't know if we just had an episode where I'll just say this if shame was a problem before, it's gonna be a problem now. The enemy is just gonna be like, just putting it on you. And this is the thing about the accusations of the enemy. We didn't know this, but all of them are false accusations. Even if we participated and I'll say it this way Yes, of course we are on the line and we do have responsibility for our own actions. I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is, if we don't understand that there is no condemnation for us and we can actually run to our father instead of owning it and I am this thing Once it becomes, i am this thing like there's no end to where we could possibly go as we circle the drain.

Speaker 2: 1:04:02

And circling the grain is exactly what was happening. We didn't find out that this had happened for a little bit after we got back from vacation, and I remember I was called down to a pastor's meeting our annual pastor's meeting in Kansas, nebraska, and they called me into the office after the meetings were over and they said there is something you need to know. Oh, okay, this time, at this point, i'm clueless, right. And so then they tell me the story of what I just told you. But something else that totally got us in trouble about me in trouble was there was an individual we had hired as a secretary for our school. We had a school out there in Scott's block And this individual had been accessing pornography and saving it to the school computer. I stumbled on it one day by doing a check on the school computers and I'm like, oh no. And so I downloaded it all off of there onto a CD so we could talk to him about it. I had an associate pastor at the time And so I brought him in. I'm like, hey, this is what this individual has done. And I threw the CD into my laptop there and I spun it around and I said this was what was on our computer out there. It's not anymore because I wiped it. And he said oh no, what are we gonna do? And we bring him in, we talk to him, we counsel him. He admits freely to it, everything's fine right. So there's one small problem here. I didn't hit eject on the CD, and the same person that dug around in my house happened to come in to use the computer to print off some stuff. And they found that CD And so they took it to the elders And so they thought that this was also a part of your gig. And even though my associate pastor was like no, i'll tell you who that was because some stuff was found in my home. I was guilty by association, regardless. Sure, sure, when I found that out, i had been contemplating suicide for some period of time. This is before any of this. This was actually even before I moved down to Scott's Bluff. I had thought going to Scott's Bluff might solve my problem. You remember me going from dumpster to dumpster right As I'm coming home from Topeka. I began realizing who all are gonna be hurt when all of this comes out, even though half of it's not true. The principle is true, but the evidence is half of it's not true. And so I got to my hotel and I called my wife and then she said, yeah, they've come and talked to me already. The elders and some of the folks have talked to me. I'm like, oh no. And so that was gonna be my last day on earth. I had already devised how the best way to hit a bridge embuntment would be in the year car that I had, so that it would break the engine mounts off and shove the engine completely back into you and literally crush you to death. And so I was trying to find the right bridge embuntment to hit So you wanted to make it look like it was an accident. Yeah, i had to take care of my family Life insurance. Yeah, and no one knew any of this. Not even my therapist I was seeing at the time knew this And, as I've been go ahead, And this was just like I can't live this anymore.

Speaker 1: 1:07:24

I can't.

Speaker 2: 1:07:25

I've been living a lie on so many levels, i had been listening to lies on so many levels And now I'm right back to where I was when I was seven and eight years old, with everybody's gonna hate me And I can't do that anymore. And I was right back to that point where I didn't wanna live that way anymore. And so I didn't know this. But coming up from the conference, right behind me, was the president and the ministerial director. It was only God that did this. I called my therapist on an emergency call and I told him. I said, doc, i'm in my car, i'm in my expedition, i'm going this fast. I know I'm going to kill myself and I need you to do whatever magic you've got to get me out of this. And he was talking to me in the meantime. They called North Platte and said, hey, get a room. And he talked me into going to the emergency room because he brought my kids up. And I remember walking into the emergency room crying, shaking, barely able to walk, and all I could say was God, i'm so sorry. And from the entrance of the emergency room all the way back to the room, they put me in. I was this guy saying nothing but God, i'm sorry And crying. Once they figured out who I was, they knew what was going on. My ministerial director and president showed up within 30 minutes an hour. They were right behind me and didn't even know it, and we got transferred to the Scott's Bluff psych ward. I did, and then went out and talked to my wife and let her know that she had grounds to divorce me because I had indulgence in pornography and that they were going to put me on medical leave. I appreciate the fact that they did.

Speaker 1: 1:09:31

Did they try to comfort you or?

Speaker 2: 1:09:33

Oh, yeah, yeah, or in a spirit to you. They did what they could do. They were walking a very tight line. They were there for me, they were there for my family And at that point in time, really all that mattered was the fact that they were there for my family. And I spent, i think, three days out there and was able to come back home, had to deal with a lot of things. I had a lot of anger from a lot of people in high places in the Adventist church that I had ministered with, ministered for, been on committees with, and I'm telling you it was tough. It was. There wasn't a lot of love going around for a brother long. So you were still employed, i was still employed. I was on a medical leave.

Speaker 1: 1:10:20

Yeah, yeah. What was in your mind? what was the plan? Like I don't know that there was a plan, Yeah, going forward.

Speaker 2: 1:10:27

I really don't. I do know that I was still intent on some point, killing myself This time. I had thought about what I had titled My Last Run and I was gonna take some time during my medical leave and I was gonna go back home visit some old friends. Banah Marshall, missouri I was living in Gearing, nebraska. I was gonna go down there. I was gonna see some of my friends. I wanted to go see one of my pastor friends in Kansas. I was gonna go see my girls who at that time, other than one, was living in residential care treatment facilities, one in Lincoln area and one in the Council Bluffs area And I was gonna see them and then on the way back home I would take care of the issue. It was a rough couple of months of my life. It really was. I was in counseling in the early part every day and then it went to every week and I got past the wanting to kill myself.

Speaker 1: 1:11:22

How did that happen?

Speaker 2: 1:11:26

Probably my time with my therapist. She was a Christian lady, pointing me back to the things that I tell people, and I began to see it differently. I still had an identity problem, huge identity problem, and then we went to camp meeting over in Lincoln I'm still on medical leave And one of the things I used to do was I did the early teens, me and a couple of my pastor friends. We had so much fun. The kids loved it. The kids would all year long say, hey, are you gonna do it next year? You're gonna do it, and so we look forward. But this year I wasn't allowed to do it. And so finally the president said okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're not gonna put you actually in charge of anything. You can just show up And when you feel like it, do something, when you don't feel like it, don't do something. Oh yeah, that's cool. We were there, everything was going well, and he approached me and he said are you ready to get back in the ministry? yet? I said, well, yes, i am, i feel better And he says good. And he asked me if I would interview while we were out there And I interviewed for Capital View and New Creation And yeah, And to both of those many times. Yeah, and I went out there and I was absolutely transparent with them. I told them that I had a pornography problem. I had told them that I tried to kill myself. I had told them a lot of things Most people would never have shared. That Here's the thing. I'm tired of lying, i'm tired of trying to live two lives. What you're gonna get is transparency, and that's part of this, and so they need to know they're getting the baggage with the pastor, and so they unanimously hired me. I asked me to come, and it was a very beautiful time. However, satan wasn't done. Just as soon as we got things moving, trying some new evangelistic outreach at Capital View, sid I forget his last name the professor at Union College invited me over to talk about this new approach to neighborhood evangelism and meeting people where they were at, and so I was teaching a little bit of that and helping them out. New Creation was just going crazy, growing and cool and off the wall and fun. This is the early 2000s. Then, yeah, this was see, i lost my ministry in 2009. So it would have been 2006 through early 2009. Mike Menard and I, we had fun leading that church and we grew out of the little space we were in and then we began to build a fund for the place where they actually have the church right now. I remember Mo in that field thinking, man, the church here is gonna be so awesome And it was phenomenal. So, as things were growing and I mean we were growing at Capital View, we were growing in New Creation. It was just a good time. My marriage slowly but surely began to fall apart And it came to the point where some very unflattering emails were sent to my conference president. Accusations were made against me to where I had a meeting at the union office one day with ministerial director and president and those things were presented And I reacted out of anger. I will say that up front. I did And I said you've had something out for me ever since day one And it got a little ugly And I was in the middle of an evangelistic series actually at that time And they said we think it's probably time if you just step back, step down, take some time And I'm like what about the series We're growing? we got young people coming to Capital View and the ministerial director will take care of it. So in that moment I was cut off from my churches, never able to tell anybody anything. And so much speculation happened Over the course of the next few weeks. There were conversations to try to get things back on track again. Didn't work, and it got to the point where the conference even offered to pay to send us to a marriage retreat for a while, and that was not something that was taken lightly. I knew that was a big attempt for them to save us and help us and I appreciated that. I was willing to do it. But unfortunately it was not an amicable thing, and so the separation happened. The divorce became later that year And, as of June, i lost my ministry. Now I didn't get my ordination taken away or anything like that. It was just hey, if you don't step down, we're going to vote in the committee to remove you. And so I stepped down. I stepped down And once again I failed God. We were doing really good. I failed God again And I was spiraling once again in a situation where I just didn't actually understand what had happened And I was told that I couldn't attend either one of the churches if I stayed in Lincoln, because my spouse at the time had decided that the church she wanted to attend was new creation. So I could not And I didn't want to go back to Capitol View. It's hard to answer all those questions And so occasionally I would slip in the back door of the largest church there, college View, and I would sit down and I would listen to whomever was speaking And I would let everybody leave And then I'd get up and walk out. And one day that didn't work so well. My president happened to be there that day And he walked up and he sat down beside me And he says how are you? I said I could be better. And he said I got to tell you something. He said we realized way too late that a lot of the things we were told were all lies And we realized that we were a little swift. He says I can't put you back into ministry in Kansas and Nebraska. He says, but if you want to go someplace else, you tell me and I'll get you in. I'll get a good word in for you. And so I said I would pray about it, and I would consider it Sure enough that next week I get a call from a conference just to the north, and he had already heard everything that was to be told, and he offered me to consider a couple of churches. And so I did. I prayed about it, and I called him later and told him as much as I appreciated his faith in what I could do and what God could do through me, i didn't think I was in headspace to actually be able to pass your church and have to deal with the type of accusations people hurl at you when you have faltered. So I left Nebraska and went back to my hometown, and so I was out of the ministry from 2009 to, technically speaking, 2014.

Speaker 1: 1:18:40

And you were just picking up the pieces and what was God's view of you in these years? I was a failure.

Speaker 2: 1:18:49

That was his view of you. Yeah, i was a failure because he had prompt me up so many times to put me back in a usable space for him, and then I just failed him and failed him. That hey, boom, there you go, and it was later that year that I was reunited. Actually, i got to thank you for a second before I make a mistake. It was later the next year that I was reunited with a girl that I had gone out with in high school. She had lived in a small town called Bolliver, missouri, and I was in Marshall, missouri, and for those of you folks who listen to this podcast, you would recognize her name. Her name is Shanna Long. She saved me from me And God used her to do that. Even though she wasn't an Adventist, even though she was marginally going to church, she did.

Speaker 1: 1:19:45

Yeah, check out her episode if you haven't heard it. I forget what number it is, but it may be like seven or eight weeks ago. It's a powerful testimony. So we've been waiting on the edge of our seat to hear your testimony. But yeah, love Shanna's heart.

Speaker 2: 1:20:00

But, yeah, keep going, even though I had mentioned numerous times God was pursuing me and he was, and I honestly believe that God was pursuing me in my relationship with Shanna. This was a girl who I had broke her heart in her senior year. We had I lived about three hours away from her at that time And she would travel the three hours just to spend 20 minutes with me on my break and then drive back home. She was just crazy over me And I don't know why, but she was, and I broke her heart and told her that I couldn't take her to her prom And that was Because it was on Friday night, or something like that.

Speaker 1: 1:20:37

No, i wouldn't. No, this is before you were an Adventist.

Speaker 2: 1:20:40

Yeah, I just was one of them guys. Actually, what had happened was my grandparents told me that I couldn't travel back and forth down there because they were helping pay for part of my gas And they were like no, you're not doing this, So cut it off. So I cut it off. She happened to come see me a couple of weeks after that And unfortunately I told her I didn't have money for a prom. So she said she was going to drive up and tell me she would rent me the tux and take care of the gas money. But when she found me in the parking lot of my work, I had a tux in the back of my car because I was going to a local prom with another girl. So, yeah, that didn't work out very well. Just to be in the. She was right to drop you back, Yeah but, Drop me like a hot Yeah, but years past they did. Stuff changes. Things do change and I never knew that I meant as much to her as I did. And here we are now in 2010. It's July and I'm sitting in a hotel room in Mexico, missouri, traveling with my job at the time, and I get this Facebook message that says Hey, are you the Rodney Long that used to work at consumers in Marshall, missouri? And I don't really recognize who's sending it. I don't put two and two together. It's been a long time, right, and so I write back. I'm like it depends. What did he do? And she just laughed and she told me who she was. And I've you got to be kidding me? And so we talked back and forth and then we switched to the phone and talk. The next night. We talked for five and a half six hours on the phone and she was telling me how much she loved me, and I never experienced someone loving me for so long and so deeply that it changed their life. And I have to be honest with you, richard, and tell you that I sat in that hotel room shaking to believe that somebody could love me that much. Wow, i had to go check it out. And I remember I drove down and I drove to her house and she was standing out on the front porch And I barely remembered to put the car in park before I jumped out, ran up on there, grabbed her, we went in the front room and we stood there and just spun, holding onto each other, hugging and crying and all, and it was at that point in time I felt something inside of me just melt is all I could really say. And it was just a matter of months later We were married. She was going to her family church. They allowed me to preach every once in a while and somebody would often say Hey, why don't you, why don't you go to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and go there?

Speaker 1: 1:23:23

And I would always say they don't want me there, i'm not a good Were you bitter against the church at this point because of what had happened, or are you just more ashamed?

Speaker 2: 1:23:32

See, the thing you have to realize about me is anything bad that ever happened to me. I wasn't really bitter towards anybody except for what happened to me, the circumstances surrounding my divorce, and I was a little bitter about that, but you got to figure. I naturally assumed, because of who I was, that everything was my fault anyway and I deserved exactly what I got.

Speaker 1: 1:23:56

And yeah, no one's going to beat you up more than you, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:23:59

So when they would say, hey, you ought to go to the Springfield Church or you ought to go here, you ought to go there, i'm like, no, that's okay, because more than likely someone there would recognize me, because when I was on the Union Committee for small church revitalization I traveled a lot and helped a lot of churches. We did videos, we did all kinds of things. So people saw I went to camp meetings and taught, and for me then to go and somebody go Hey, weren't you the pastor? Oh yeah, what are you doing now? Now, i wasn't going to deal with that, so I avoided it. You may remember that I said that my mother-in-law at the time had really been instrumental in trying to keep God in front of me. Right, i'm not married to her daughter anymore, right, she writes a letter to a pastor in Springfield, missouri by the name of Hiram Rester. Now, what's in her?

Speaker 1: 1:24:48

Hiram, that's a seventh day Adventist name. Isn't it though? Isn't there a pioneer named?

Speaker 2: 1:24:51

Hiram. Oh, you better bet. And what's really ironic about this is when I was in Scott's Bluff, i had a young evangelist come out and do a series for me in which we had 21 baptisms. Guess who it was? Hiram, rester, hiram, and in a pen, yeah. And she wrote a letter and told him where I was living that he really should reach out to me and try to get me involved again. And so he did Out of the blue What a lovely lady to do that. Yes, that particular act was lovely. Yes, and he did. He reached out and we met and we ate, we fished and we did some stuff, and he took me on and using me as an advisory role for him to bounce things off of. And then he left and went to Tacoma and got a church out there and he invited me to go out there and do a church revitalization weekend. Now, that was the first time I had stepped back on to a Seventh Day Adventist platform to present in front of an Adventist community since May of 2009. And it was 2014. And I remember standing up there before anybody ever came to the church and I was standing there looking out there and I said Here we are again, lord. Hmm what am I gonna mess up this time? and So people came and to be honest with you was just a fabulous weekend. People just couldn't stop talking about it. Word had gotten back to springfield that, hey, you really need to have this guy preach. And So they offered me an opportunity to come and preach. Before I knew it, i was preaching there, was preaching in Nixson, missouri, preaching in Okra Heights. I was preaching in Branson. I was every weekend I was preaching somewhere, but at the same time I was going with my wife to her Sunday church too, and It was just a really awesome thing. And then and Walk Satan with my ex decided to send a letter to the good folks at one of the churches and Make some allegations that again were not true. Now Hiram had vetted me, he heard all those things too and he went right to the source, to the conference, and the conference said give the boy a chance. He was done wrong. And but Some folks didn't feel that way. I was asked not to preach and then they went on a crusade to get me out of every church in the area of preaching. One church knew horizons in Republic Said you come here, preach to us, and there was a pastor there that was instrumental in me getting back in the ministry and his name is Sam Watley wonderful guy, and I remember The backstory. I remember some of the elders that thought I was unfit to deliver the holy word Came and spoke to them and said you do realize who you have up there Preaching. He goes Yeah, he's told me all about it and you know what. He got re-baptized and The last time I checked, when you're re-baptized and you accept Jesus Christ anew in your heart, that stuff's all wiped away, it's gone, it's not there anymore. It's as far as the east is from the west and I suggest you boys leave it there. And they walked out and I continue to what now is going into my eighth year preaching the Republic as a lay pastor Every weekend. Now I'm Partially, i'm considered a Bible worker in the conference. I'm one of the oddest Bible workers that you're gonna come across as far as what I do and what I don't do. But Yeah, and that little church you know has seen tremendous growth. We've gone from the 12 that would show up to we've had as high as 75 Worshiping with us. It kind of ebbs and flows were in the 40s and 50s right now because people moving Sure. But God put me there So that he could develop me.

Speaker 1: 1:29:06

What are you preaching as You get this main gig here at Republic? What's the main? if I were to go and hear six sermons in the year 2017, i was gonna walk away with what was Pastor Rod preaching? there's hope.

Speaker 2: 1:29:24

There's hope, there's hope. Yeah, i was preaching, there was hope. I never was a person that preached the legalistic side of anything. I never believed that. I preached the God of love, I preached the God of hope and I preached What I felt was very clear and practical messages that people could use walking out the door as Were, were you starting to grab on to some hope? Yes, yeah, and that was because of my wife. She's the light in the background That would say, hey, you're not that bad person You think you are. You're not this hopeless individual You're. You do this, you're this, you're that. Your people love you, this, that or the other. And she would constantly remind me of How valuable I was to her family, my friends and to God. Now I was with her all the way, but only halfway with her on the God thing. But I could not deny, richard, that God continued to put me in place to be used by him to Spread a message. I could not deny that. I Also could not deny That God gave me messages to give. I Could not deny that God would afford me the opportunities of people to listen to that. So I had to ask myself Why would he do that If I was as bad as I really thought I was? And that began a couple of years really, of of Emotional churning, if you will, and mental churning inside, wrestling with all of that. When Jacob wrestled with with God on the mountain side, i likened my journey to that. I would wrestle with my value and my worth. I still saw my worth in the secular jobs that I could do because, in all honesty, people saw it after me for my leadership talents and the abilities that I had to train and teach people and I Nothing scared me to go out and do that. I could go anywhere and teach 5,000 people, or I could teach three, didn't matter. And when God continued to open the ministry door and then he settled me into a place that literally Shana walked into and within the first Time or two that we had gone there, she said this is our home, this is where we're supposed to be in Republic. Then I had to ask him why. And, and so he if anything improved during the early stages of my ministry in Republic was the conversation and openness I had to God Really improved. It grew exponentially And it became more about I would. I would approach the week and say okay, god, what are we gonna preach this week? When stood amigo and I know we need to preach about this and we need to preach about that, so I'm gonna put my calendar together here and I'm gonna have six weeks of this and four weeks of that, and I began to learn more about allowing the Holy Spirit to tell me what we're gonna preach. Right, and he would do that to me He would, and it became very funny. I Would write out my outline for my sermon. I'd have my little highlights and things that I want to do, voice and fleck dawn and all this right ready to go, and I'd get up there and I'd lay my notes down and I'd get about a Third of the way through the introduction and there wouldn't be anything on that paper from that point on the camera, my mouth right and after that happened about four, five, six, seven hundred times I felt I began to not even plan. I Would have a theme and I would make my little PowerPoint. I might outline a verse I want to use, and, and then I would go, and, and so it became such a rich experience with God that I forgot about the fact that I wasn't worthy enough to do that. Mercer, follow it. He's doing yeah. And then I lost my job. Oh, we've got a problem. I lost my secular job. That's where my identity was. Remember, i was a rock star. I Lost my job. I'd never lost my job before, never. When I lost a job, it's because I walked away, not because they told me they didn't need me anymore. And All the sudden the worth lies started again. You're not worth anything. Nobody wants you. Fortunately, i Got a job real quick. Oh, praise the Lord, i got a job real quick. So I'm a rock star again. And Then, a year later, they didn't need me and I collapsed. Because guess what happened this time? I Didn't get a job again And I didn't know what to do. And now I'm two months into this. I'm three months into this. Finally a friend comes to my rescue. I've got a job again. Okay, i'm back up again. I'm a rock star. I'm still preaching, everything's going good. The church is growing. We've put in an addition on to the church. Everything's rocking and rolling and hold my identities back. We boy good. I got my job back and then, nine months later, they didn't need me. The worth lies are back. The depression is back now and it's back more than ever. I'm getting turned down now with jobs That I know I can do. I'm the most qualified person for it. Ghosted, in the time period From August of 20, the end of August 22 to the end of December of 22, i Had placed in excess of 400 applications resumes. I had gone through About 30 to 50 recruiter conversations. I had been down to the last interview in the process with five and I was the frontrunner and all of a sudden, the Jobs stopped communicating with me. They never even said sorry, but they just. it was nothing and I began to have this quarrel on the inside of me God, what are you doing to me? Look what I've done. Look how this church is grown. Look at all of this out here that we're doing. Why won't you find me a job? Hmm and it was bad. It was real bad. It was back to the thoughts of suicide. It was back to the thoughts of worthlessness. I didn't treat my wife well, and guess what one of my Brainiac ideas was during this time period? Let's go off our depression meds. Yeah, that didn't work well at all. You and I have a mutual friend. He was a friend of mine a long time before she knew you existed. I knew her when she was a little bit old thing, jed Jadra Jadra Oliver, and if you're a follower of this, you probably know her name. To Episode three you go. Jadra Oliver came to our house Probably a couple of years before this event. I told you about and introduced this whole freedom and Christ thing and I thought she was a babbling little idiot and that she just was.

Speaker 1: 1:36:59

No offense, jadra, he loves you now. Hey, i told her this. I told it to her face.

Speaker 2: 1:37:03

She looks at me like like a dad figure and I look at her like a daughter figure, and it's just the way we was, she being Coherent or she was just saying like stuff was coming out.

Speaker 1: 1:37:11

You're like I don't even understand what you're.

Speaker 2: 1:37:13

Well, If anybody knows Jadra, she has this ability to be like a little puppy, get all excited and just spout off stuff, and then she'll come back with the Bible and then stuff and back it up and all of that. But she just she's got this positivity and exuberance that just gets in the room before she does. And I love her to death, so I really do. She's just phenomenal. But she introduced me to that and so I didn't discourage her. But I didn't encourage her, and so I began to read what she told me to read and people she told me to listen to, and And I was dealing with, though at the time. I don't need somebody to tell me about the gospel. I have been in the gospel work for 11 years. I was ordained for 10 of those years. You know, i know the gospel work, and so there were times I got really frustrated. You know people would go to her for answers instead of me for answers. I'm like she's not even a pastor. What in the world is going on here? And I got angry Why don't I, why don't I get that kind of recognition and so forth? and I let that consume me for a while. But what it really was, it wasn't the anger at her that I've come to realize It was the anger that I had missed this message and it was there all along.

Speaker 1: 1:38:29

So tell me about that, tell me when the message started to make sense, or Like that feeling where you're like, oh, she may be on to something, but you weren't happy that she was on to something.

Speaker 2: 1:38:42

Yeah, so it would probably been a year after that. I, my wife and I had been back and forth about this, because at the time she was now living down here and going to the church And was having Bible studies and all that stuff, and so we were exposed to it on a weekly basis And so there were little pieces here and there that I grabbed on to that. When Jesus went to the cross, it was for all sin, for all time. 100% agree with that, 100% agree, no problem. And then there was a part about that we are free from sin. And I'm like, yeah, we're free from sin. But Yeah, and so it was that kind of a thing. And so About a year later, like I said, i'm in here preparing the message. Go ahead, before you say this, i think.

Speaker 1: 1:39:31

What didn't help and I think this happens a lot of the time. It happened in In the time of the when Jesus was healing people like he would say now, be careful now, because Don't be going out and telling crazy stuff, because my ministry is not done yet, i need to keep going. But people get excited and I remember God bless him the olivers and Michaela And her husband, and, and they were all exciting. Excited because if you've heard the podcast up till nap night Michaela story and Shannon and Jadrin, all these things start happening And people are getting really excited and they start saying stuff That's just not true. Okay, it's just not true because, but it's like, they're very excited. And I remember having a phone conversation with you and you were pretty upset and I think I had come to preach at your church once or something like that, and, um, but you were upset and it was valid And in my mind I was like, pastor, we're a team, we're gonna, we're gonna get to the bottom of this, we're gonna, we're gonna minister to these people And I felt like I was walking you off the ledge a little bit. You were upset and I know I knew what I was saying wasn't really Doing what I wanted it to do, but I wasn't gonna go any further and I just remember saying, pastor, there's good problems to have and bad problems to have. Bad problems are that the olivers aren't even in your church anymore because they're divorced And they hate each other and they're doing all this crazy stuff. Good problems is that they're in your church And they may be saying some stuff that they don't quite understand yet, but at least they're in your church and you can minister to them and you can love on them And I hope that would came. I hope that it had come through, but I could tell That you were pretty irritated. I was with what do you call the freedom fighters? I did you told me, like I'm calling the freedom fighters Richard, that's right. And I was like and I was just trying to encourage you as much as I could, but I didn't. We weren't getting to the root of the problem.

Speaker 2: 1:41:41

No, and it the problem, and at that time was still not only what we talked about that particular day, but it was still mixed in with. I am the leader here, i am the one that should be teaching this, i am the one. If a revelation is going to happen, brother, it's coming out of this mouth a thing, and I really. It was a pride lie was a thing I was going through, right, and it was mixed up in the worst thing that I hadn't gotten through yet. And so, but one night I'm sitting here and I'm doing my, my message. Uh, getting ready to, i was putting the power point together. It was like one one thirty in the morning and all of a sudden I read back through roman 6, and I really don't actually know why I took the time to read back through there. I just did, and I remember I was sitting at this very desk. I read it It's on the screen here And I push back from the desk, i move the keyboard out of the way and I say I got it. I finally get it, and so I go running in where my wife's asleep. I wake her up. I said guess what? guess what, jader is not an idiot. I get it, i get it, she's right, jader is not an idiot. And I'm like she's right. You know what? we are a new creation. We are free from sin, praise god. And so I'm giving this a little mini sermon in the bedroom, right, yeah, and that was the turnaround moment for me.

Speaker 1: 1:43:15

What, what, what was it just? what was the lens that you were looking at, romans? Because this is how it works We have to see scripture through a different lens and before we didn't even know we were looking. I'll speak for myself. I didn't even know I was looking at it through a particular lens And some, most of it, i wasn't even reading. But then, when I look through the lens of, jesus has actually done what he set out to do And the way he dealt with sin in our lives is that we died. Sin still exists, we just. Old richard died, old rod died, old shana died, old jager died. How was this lens able to be put on at 130? what happened there?

Speaker 2: 1:43:56

So I was doing my PowerPoint and I was really stuck on what slide I wanted to come next and what image I wanted on that slide, and I had been tired of looking. I looked all night through different images And so finally I just was like I just need to get my mind off of this and just do something else. I had Bible gateway open, because that's what I used to cut and paste for my PowerPoints, and I was like, let's just do this crazy freedom thing and maybe I can just look at it a little differently because my mind is so fried with this other stuff. So I pull up Romans 6 and I start reading through it, and so what I do is I opened it up in three volumes. I opened it up in the new king James, i opened it up in the NIV and I opened it up in the message, which is oftentimes how I do things, you know. And so I'm reading along here and I remember reading the first couple, three verses And I could feel inside of me a resistance coming up. I could automatically feel that old feeling and I recognized it. I don't care what it says, i believe what I believe. And I remember saying to myself Not tonight, oh, wow. And I said okay, i am going to look at this as if it's the first time I've ever looked at it, but I have to be able to explain it to an eight year old, so I started reading. I would read a verse or two here, go over to the NIV, then I would go over to the message And then I would stop and I'd say, okay, what is this telling me and how can I make this clear to someone of a young age? And as I continued to go down through there, it kept coming out As you well know, and most people on this podcast know, it comes out repeatedly in there two things You're a new creation And you are free from sin. It just continually repeats it. And I remember getting down to the very end of it and I said to myself If he, if God, is repeating this through Paul so much, there's got to be a reason. So I read a verse from the NIV. There's got to be a reason. So I re-read it again. And that's when I got down midway through it and I said that's the whole thing. Right there, we are a new creation. And if we are a new creation, the things of the old are gone. They're dead, they're gone. If they're gone and we are a new creation, that's why we're free from sin, and the free from sin means that we're not ever going to do it again. It just means that the baggage is gone. It means that the sin that we would so easily oftentimes get into is not there, doesn't have the power, because we're different people now. We're not the old, wretched sinner, we are the new creation in Christ, and I bathed up and I'm like that's the key. I've got to tell people that And it changed me.

Speaker 1: 1:46:42

Yeah, the, the person who was a slave to sin Die. Yeah, the person who is a slave to righteousness Is here And we didn't know it. And I think because we were, we knew what righteousness was But we weren't participating in it. And then the deceitfulness of sin comes in and says And we fall for it. That's the unbelief that we're talking about. Where the faith is already there, the faith has been given. You believed for years. You've been preaching this out, but because of unbelief. You believed for years, but because of unbelief, you couldn't see the scripture For actually what it's Literally saying Romans 6, 11 Consider yourselves dead to sin And alive to God, and we literally do the opposite.

Speaker 2: 1:47:33

I preached a sermon a few weeks ago About Most Christians Only live half their baptism. Oh yeah, that's powerful. And I pondered across that And I think what we're talking about Right with Romans 6 Is the fact that we are all about The part of dying And getting rid of our sins. We're all about that. We want to get rid of our sins. We are so thankful That's what that represents, but we forget to live the new creation. We come up out of that water, we forget or we ignore Or we don't think it's for us The power that comes out of that water, or we live in the dead sin World, the yuck, the dark, the old sin, or I had all those sins. The key word is Wurr. You were Right. Now you come up out of that. You're a new person, you have a new, everything is new And the temptations that were there You don't have that draw to it anymore. It's lost its power. Sin has lost its power because of who you have become And it's time you live that. Why do we have churches that are dying? Why do we have churches that can't seem to grow, no matter what they are? Because we're living in half of baptism.

Speaker 1: 1:48:53

Yeah, in Romans 4 it says He was delivered up for our trespasses But then raised up For our justification. So in many ways Jesus didn't die So you could live, he died so you could die. He was raised up So you could live.

Speaker 2: 1:49:09

So you could live.

Speaker 1: 1:49:12

But we skipped that part Because The behavior doesn't match up. And so instead we try to match up Our The Bible with our experience, rather than our experience With the word of God. And it says it's so plain, and we're like how did I miss it? How did I miss it? It's easy to see How we missed it because of the lens That we were looking through. You yourself? Why do you think you started making this move mentally and being able to agree with? I have assurance that this is true for me.

Speaker 2: 1:49:49

Good point. After that aha moment that I just told you about, i began really to hone in and concentrate on how to make a series of messages that I could share with the world that would make it easier for them to accept it, because it was so hard for me to accept And that caused me then to have to read some things and to dig deeper into the Bible and listen to some things and so forth. And that process it led me to I want to say it was October of 2022. Maybe it was November, but I think it was October I had preached a message. Oh, by the way, since January of last year, i've been preaching some form of freedom in Christ since then and it's just been getting more intense and stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:50:42

I came to your church and that's when we had this conversation about your job because I knew you were struggling, because we're friends on Facebook, and so I was like is Pastor Rod going to make this connection that he's also free from anxiety, that he's also free from fear, that his identity doesn't have to be wrapped up in this thing? And we had the conversation and I think, like many of our conversations before, i don't think I gave you what you wanted to hear. It was more like, pastor, this doesn't have the final say over who you are. But I didn't say God's going to come and give you a job next week because he hadn't done that for me. That's not how it works. It's trials come, trials go. There will be trials. It's that he, now he has the final say, and his Lord, not the trials.

Speaker 2: 1:51:36

And so this August of 2022, god has had to hone me, he has had to shape me. I have had to be humbled, i have had to look at things differently and I had to get over the worth thing. I battled this all my life And he was really working on me, and this was a particular weekend that Jader had come back to visit because she had moved away, and she had come back to visit and we had a normal Sabbath. It was a really good message, i felt, and so did other people, and I'm standing down there on the first row because the church wanted to pray for Shana and I about the whole job thing. Right, they were going to lay hands on us, anointing and all this other stuff. And as I'm standing there, we're doing the final song and God starts speaking to me and he says you've got to tell the people about your lie. And I'm like, ah, whatever. And he's no, you've got to tell the people about your lie. And it became so intense in my head I almost screamed out loud no. I began shaking And finally the word was you have to tell them about your worth, why? So the closing song's done. I'm standing there just kind of numb and they say the prayer. They announced that they're going to have prayer for us. I go up to where they had the two chairs, my wife and I oh no, she hadn't even come up yet And I said wait. I said this is not planned. I said, but I got to tell you all something. And so I began to share with them about the lie I was believing and how long I had believed it, about how worthless I was and how, when these job opportunities kept falling through, it was a reinforcement of how worthless I was and how invaluable I was. And I just started crying, just almost uncontrollably, and Shanna came up and put her arms around me and she told people. She says you don't know how important this is, this moment. She said because he doesn't cry. She said it's been years since I've seen him cry. And here I am just sobbing, uncontrollable, about the fact that and I said I finally realized that I am valuable, that God loves me, even the mess that I am. I am worth everything And from that moment forward, i've never looked back on the worth issue.

Speaker 1: 1:54:40

Never. What hit you while you were standing up there? that what hit you was that it was a lie that you had been believing. I wish I had, or had you been wrestling with that lie. And then you're finally like no, i can't.

Speaker 2: 1:54:52

Yeah, i've wrestled with that lie ever since I was a kid And with not being able to get a job. That's in your face when you've got all these years of experience and leadership and you can't get it, so naturally you begin to think well, if it's not my qualifications, it's got to be because nobody wants me. And then that just is the trigger for worth lies. I've been dealing with it, i have been struggling with it And I wish I could very clearly tell you what was the catalyst that day. I don't know. Somebody told me afterwards that they have been praying that morning before they ever even came to church. That today would be a life-changing moment for me. So I'll give it to that because I can prove nothing else. I just know that when I stood up to sing that closing song and it wasn't a special closing song, it was one that we sing all the time that all of a sudden it came over me as a deep weight And the voice was so loud in my head you have to tell them about your lie. And so after it was all over, after they, everybody came up and prayed around us and they anointed us. And you do the pastoral thing where you go back and shake hands and I was still a mess. I can't tell you how many people came up to me and told me. That moment where I came clean about the lie I believed helped them understand that they're believing the same lie. I believe God used that moment to fix me and I also believe he used that moment to start the process and other people. It was powerful, probably one of the most powerful times. Even now, when I'm telling the story, i'm getting chills. It was one of the most powerful services I had ever been involved in, whether I was leading or watching it. And yeah, it was something else.

Speaker 1: 1:56:48

I got a bunch of text messages that day of people crying just asherad knows who he is. It's pretty much what they were saying And, man, my heart was just filled, and it's because it's nothing like those who have done much are forgiven much, right, and there's a lot of podcasts on this thing that are filled with similar stories of years in mind where the world said this and then our actions backed it up. And when you see how big it is for you, for myself, when I realized, man, all these lies that I'd been living in, and then you see somebody else receive it, there's nothing like it. You just want it for everybody And you want to tell the world. And if you got a pulpit, praise the Lord if you're going to be able to preach a verbal pulpit. As you have been going through this and been trying, you realized why it was so hard for you to hear it. And then you're trying to make messages so it's easier. Have you found that it's difficult, that it's easy? What are the roadblocks that you see in the way of people receiving this truth? in the way that there were roadblocks for you?

Speaker 2: 1:58:05

We're actually experiencing it in the church right now, and that is that, this series of truths, because there's the freedom from sin, there's the new creation, there is the forgiveness concept, there is the confession. There's just so many layers to the onion that you can develop and learn. But the problem is that most people have been taught different ways And because they have been taught different ways, those traditions run deep, sometimes many generations deeper, and when you begin to bring forth the gospel, the true gospel, it flies in the face of some people's traditional beliefs. And it wasn't that long ago that we ran into a situation where I was talking about that. I was talking about the difference between asking for forgiveness and confession and what the Bible says about asking for forgiveness and what the Bible says about confession and how forgiveness is actually given and the role repentance plays in all of those things together, and using the Prodigal Son story in Luke 2 to emphasize what it meant. It didn't go over well with some folks. One individual tried to correct me, actually in the service That was fine with me, i'm okay with that. I always tell people don't take what I say as the gospel. Go read it, go look at it and read it for yourself.

Speaker 1: 1:59:40

Fact check me, yeah fact I don't have a problem with that.

Speaker 2: 1:59:42

Matter of fact, i'm getting ready. This Saturday afternoon we're going to do a pastor's Q&A And I put out a box and asked people. We've been talking about a lot of confusing things for some folks for quite a period of time. Now Bring me your questions. And so we had 29 questions put in the box about freedom from sin. And if I'm free from sin, will I still sin? What if I do sin? And then how does not? asking for forgiveness is it biblical? How's in all of these things? we're going to go through it. I took a vacation not very long ago after I had been confronted by a few folks about the messages I was sharing. I took a little vacation sometime And one of the things that God really impressed upon my heart during that time period was I can't change the message to suit the people. I have to give the unadulterated gospel message God lays upon my heart. Whether people agree with it or not, that's not up to me. And so I came back after that vacation and I did a message. I did a message and I told the folks in the very beginning I said folks, i want you to understand something I'm here because I love you. I'm here because I want to help you see some of the hidden things that we don't see. I want to help you grow. I want to give you the keys that so many people miss. And I said I didn't take what I'm going about to share with you again lightly. I studied and fought with it for three years And you have to understand that I would never stand up here and present anything to you that I thought would lead you to harm, lead you to a poor relationship with the Lord, and that wouldn't be something that would draw you closer. And because of that I'm not going to change my message And I hope you understand. And we went into another layer of sin and what it means and freedom from sin and living the half baptism. And lo and behold, this week I broke for a Father's Day thing last week. This week we are going to get into I entitled it regret, guilt and shame, oh my. And we're going to talk about conviction and condemnation and how they're different and how guilt and shame work and what they are and what regret is and how you don't have to be, and then we're going to go back into in our afternoon session about the forgiveness and confession thing.

Speaker 1: 2:02:17

We've with the forgiveness and confession thing, we've in the way we've explained it. you know, we're growing and growing Because the whole point is to preach this thing clearly and biblically. And I tell people now, you know what, if you want to ask for forgiveness but know that it was offered, beforehand like my sister picked me up from the airport one time, or I picked her up from the airport one time and she's asking me about asking for forgiveness. And I said, miriam, asking for forgiveness, you can ask for forgiveness, but it would be like you asking me to pick you up from the airport And we were all the way by jack stack where we're going to go. We were all the way, I'm like. I picked you up. We're about to eat some barbecue. I've already picked you up And in the same way, if you read Colossians 113, colossians 213, colossians 313, forgiven it like he was laid up for our transgressions, and one of my favorite authors says is it possible that the blood would be spilled and yet you not be forgiven?

Speaker 2: 2:03:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:03:14

And he says no, it's impossible. Ty Gibson was here for camp meeting last week and he got down with the people and he just was like looking in the verizing. He said you are forgiven, like he wants people to understand. You are forgiven. And I don't know if you consider yourself a baby boomer. I know you're maybe on the edge of baby boomer or right into generation hex or whatever, but it is another extra generation of the traditional way we have heard it. So I don't get frustrated with anybody And far be it from you, like you have wrestled with this thing, so you can't look at anybody who's struggling with it and say, oh, i can't believe you're not getting it. Like anytime someone receives this thing, it's beautiful and it's from the Holy Spirit. And if we're just showing up to be right, if we're just showing up to proof text somebody And before you look at 1st John 1 9, don't forget 1st John 1, 7, 1, 8 and 1 10. And we're just proof texting them, then it's just going to be like all the proof texting on the Sabbath that hasn't brought anybody else to church on Sabbath. It has to come from the secret place, it has to come from the depths of the Holy Spirit speaking through us, or else it's just going to be another way that seems right to a man, the way that seems right to, because the truth is, of course people have used the gospel as an excuse for sin. But we cannot do it and we will not preach it and we can't and we won't. But have people done it? Sure.

Speaker 2: 2:04:45

And they're going to continue to do it all through the end of time, but that's not what this is about.

Speaker 1: 2:04:51

No for sure. So I got two more questions for you. At some point you just believed, because I think freedom from sin is a gateway drug to righteousness by faith right. And maybe it's not a gateway drug, it's just the beginning. It's then, you see, righteousness by faith. Oh, 2nd Corinthians, 5, 21,. He who knew no sin became my sins so that I might be the righteousness of God in Christ. Righteousness means I have right standing when that hit you. I have right standing with God because of what Jesus has done. All the puzzle pieces started to make sense with righteousness by faith. Actually, as for what we believe, it was reverse of that.

Speaker 2: 2:05:33

I believe righteousness by faith for ages. I preached on that. I was an 1888 pulpit pounder, but you just didn't have faith. Because you weren't righteous, i didn't believe it. For me, see, i did not associate righteousness by faith because I was an old, wretched sinner. And even though righteousness by faith is true, you can't get righteousness any other way other than faith in Jesus Christ and his work that he had done upon the cross. And for us, there's no other way. Right, but, see, there's that. But you know what? but means right, but means listen to what I'm about to say and forget everything I just said. But I was having a problem with the fact that I was still sinning. I was still that bad person, and righteousness by faith was this thing that I would eventually get to. It's like how we, some people, look at the resurrection. They see the power of the resurrection, but they don't relate it to their everyday life Now. They relate it to something that they will have in the future. See, that's just not it. Jesus didn't come and die, so we have to wait for that. Jesus came and died so we could have life and have it more abundantly right now. And that's part of the abundance, see. And when I finally got to the freedom of sin thing and the new creation, then it was like whoa, wait a minute. So the new created me. That is the righteousness that I've been talking about by faith all these years. And because I am righteous, whoa, wait a minute. How could I be righteous Because I'm that? no, wait a minute. I'm not that old sinner Because I am a new. The thing that did everything for me was the new creation, the words the new creation, when I started really applying what that meant throughout Romans 6 and applying it as he did all the way through there, and then thinking to myself I am a new creation And the problem with it is I was a new creation all along. I just didn't realize it. I was a new creation, i am a new creation, but because we live half a baptism, we don't live the new creation. And, brother, i'm telling you, when that got together and started talking to the righteousness by faith and they got the tango one with the freedom from sin, i'm telling you I was dancing on the golden streets, right. Then I got it. It's there. Let's go tell the world now, right?

Speaker 1: 2:08:19

And so now you have eternal life. Now, where before you were waiting for judgment day to find out if you had eternal life, and now you're like oh, he came to give it to me, now I have it now.

Speaker 2: 2:08:29

One of the saddest things we ever told Jader and she tells the story, a lot She made and told you was the fact that we used to tell her hey, as long as I, if I just have to be the doorkeeper in heaven or sweep the streets just so I'm there, that's all that matters to me.

Speaker 1: 2:08:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of these days. there's this quote. I love it. It's one of these days someone's going to pick up the Bible and they're going to believe it and the rest of us are going to be embarrassed. And for me, i'm like, not me anymore. I'm not going to be embarrassed. 2 Corinthians 517 says if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old is gone. Behold, the new has come And the new heart that you've been waiting for. You got it in Jesus Christ. Now live from that new, beautiful heart, the new motives, like Romans 6, i think 17 says that you can obey from the heart. He has given us that new heart. You are new And I think, if I'm not mistaken, they're preaching this at new creation in Lincoln. Nebraska, which is so ironic And you think of all these beautiful names of all these churches and you think of all the songs that we sing that disagreed with what we actually believed. And now we can sing these songs and blessed assurance. We have that assurance. We're in, like Flynn If Jesus is alive, i'm in.

Speaker 2: 2:09:57

You know they'll say, you know the critiquers of this message will say right there you're teaching once saved, always saved. And it's funny because you've said this a few times. I picked it up from you And this is what got me in trouble. One time, too, i'll say how many times do you need to be saved? Because, in all reality, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was once and for all, It was for everybody. Every time, all time You, it's done, it's over with right, past, present and future. And no, i mean you can lose your salvation If you really want to. You can walk away from the Lord and just keep moving, absolutely you can. But if you continue in your relationship with the Lord and you choose not to walk away, then, yeah, yeah, you know you are.

Speaker 1: 2:10:38

But in the unbelief playbook. The next move in the unbelief playbook is to bring up I die daily.

Speaker 2: 2:10:43

Oh yeah, baby.

Speaker 1: 2:10:44

But that's the next move, and I could see it from a mile away, but this is how. I want to wrap this up And I've been thinking about the question I was going to ask you. Let's say you run into a young man who is on fire for the Lord But, because of addiction, because of wrong unbelief, because of trauma and baggage, is now at a point where and you're the only one who knows this that he's considering taking his own life because he can't live this double life anymore. And you were able to pull this guy aside and just grab him. And how would you start with this kid? How would you say this sweet kid who doesn't know what has happened in Jesus Christ?

Speaker 2: 2:11:37

I think the first thing I would ask him is you ever heard of Jesus? And I would tell him that, whether you believe it or not, you're lovable. Whether you believe it or not, you are very valuable And the reason I know that's true is because there is somebody that, a long time ago, knew about you and, in hopes that you would accept it, he died to cover the things that you would eventually be tempted to do in your life, and he knew that you were going to come to this point in your life. And I want to ask you, if you knew that was true, would that change how you see things right now? Because I know, had I been given even a little bit of that message early in my life, especially around the Call Porter years, and been able to talk through that message of acceptance, i think I would also tell him don't measure your worth on whether or not society loves you or accepts you or finds you worthless or worth value. Don't measure it that way, because it's not right, it changes And we can all give examples to that. I think I would tell him that I will be your forever friend and, if you will allow me to, i want to introduce you to somebody who took me from right where you are, to a place where now I know that heaven doesn't want to exist without me.

Speaker 1: 2:13:28

You can't unsee any of this stuff, can you? It's pretty plain there. huh Very, It's better than we thought much.

Speaker 2: 2:13:35

And the change in my life and how I see things. Since that day I copped up that worth lie and began really understanding the epiphany moment I had. I can't even put it into words. My messengers have changed. I have changed, is all I can say.

Speaker 1: 2:13:54

I'll just tell you this You are a ministry and a testimony and a blessing to us. I think of Jadra and I'm sure Jadra is crying tears of joy to hear all of this. Jadra is obviously so important to me because there's one of the first people I ever was able to break through and explain this to. But on Sabbath afternoon I'll tune in and catch up and I'll listen to Jonathan's church in Hawaii. I'll listen to my friend, my friend Kessia Reigns church out there at Pleasant Valley, and I'll tune in to New Horizon to hear what you're preaching And I've just been blessed and just to see your life. You are a city on a hill. You are salt and light. I did send you that text the other day, where people are. They're receiving it. They're receiving this truth and it's changing lives And, just like Jesus told us, we're going to be fishers of men. We're cities on a hill, We're the salt of the earth. Praise the Lord that we actually get to experience it while we're still living.

Speaker 2: 2:15:02

And it's just going to be more right. Amen. One of the coolest things I think will happen is when we're in heaven and we're walking around and somebody comes up to us and they say, hey, i know you don't know me, but I heard you here or I heard you there And because of that, hey, i'm here today. I think it's phenomenal. Of course, we're going to give the credit all to Jesus, right, but I think it's phenomenal to be part of that tool, that network that God uses to send out the message to a hurting world, in a very decaying world, to say Listen, there's something better, there's something better.

Speaker 1: 2:15:43

Isn't that the way he wants it? It's truly humbling when somebody comes up and says, Oh, I heard an episode of the podcast and it touched my life, or I heard. It's humbling And Jesus is like all authority has been given to me and I'm giving it to you. So, brother, you and I are Christ's body on planet Earth And when we walk in the door it smells like Jesus because we represent him and we can't boast of it on our own, but we will boast that it is Jesus Christ, that he has actually done it, that he has accomplished what he set out to accomplish. And as long as I have a mic and you have a pulpit, we're just going to keep doing it.

Speaker 3: 2:16:54

It's only you, it's only me waking up to your memory. Your love is all I need. It's only you, it's only me waking up to your memory. Your love is all I need. I feel like you Giving me life, giving me life. I feel like you Giving me life giving me life?

Speaker 2: 2:17:44

Yeah, fast straight. It's broken body. I've been used mirror fit spirit's eyes.

Speaker 1: 2:17:51

I saw the power, you paid it out. I was blinded. Out of gold, out of gold, okay, okay, okay, try to see what the world has scheduled for me.

Speaker 2: 2:18:03

I know your ways are better for me and you are. How far rest is complete? no one else can complete.

Speaker 1: 2:18:26

I'm not a storm, heart-brazen on the nights.

Speaker 3: 2:18:29

I thought I wouldn't make it. Every time I lay it down, you'll take it. I feel like you Giving me life, giving me life. I feel like you Giving me life, giving me life. I feel like you Giving me life, life, life.

Death to Life podcast

#119 Free From Sin: The Struggles and Victory of Pastor Rodney Long

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