Episode 54

In this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we interview evangelist David Sommerdorf and learn about his personal testimony. Join us as we hear about how the Lord saved him as a young Marine and put him into full time Christian ministry traveling the country preaching the good news of Jesus Christ with his wife and six children in tow.

I say this unreservedly this morning, you can get saved without a preacher. You can get saved without a prayer. I never prayed. When I got saved, the Spirit of God hung me over hell as a young Marine and showed me who I was and what I had coming and offered me out of reach the person of his son and all of his redemption. And that Monday night, I never prayed a prayer. But my heart that night jumped across and grabbed what Jesus Christ did for me 2000 years ago. And for the first time in my life, my faith found a resting place completely in the finished work of Calvary.

Thank you for tuning into the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m J and Meng and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross. This is Episode 54 of the Removing Barriers podcast, and this is a twelve in the series of how were your Barrier to Move? In this episode, we’ll find out how Brother Dave barriers will remove when he came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you have the desire to earnestly content for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints? Answers and Genesis can help. They provide biblically sound books, CDs, DVDs, homeschooling materials, VBS materials, online courses, digital downloads and the Answers magazine and more. Plus tickets to the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. Go to the Answers bookstore by clicking the link in the description section below. So you too can be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks the reason of the hope that is in you.

Retta, Dave, welcome back to the Removing Barth podcast. Good to be back. Mcg, Great. And you actually brave one because you’re sitting at the round white Tibet with I’m at headquarters here. This is good. This is good stuff. Good to be here. Good. This your top secret location? That is you don’t tell anyone. I’m not going to say at work will be glad to have your brother. So in this episode we just want to get your testimony. How are you bored to remove to tell us about Dave,

what state or country were you born in? I was born in the state of Minnesota. Minnesota. Tell us about the area of Minnesota where you grew up. I was born in south central Minnesota farming community and raised a farm boy on a beef operation. So was the oldest of four. I am a twin. I have a twin brother half an hour younger than me, and we were raised in a community of about 700. We were about 3 miles out of town, about a 160 acre spread of farmland with about 50 head of beef cattle. So just that family life was just a character life. We were disciplined and character. It was the all American family. It really was. Dad was a surveyor. Mom was a home economics teacher at our public school and small town USA and just learned a lot of good values growing up as a kid. Right.

So have you seen or have you slotted any Bull? Yeah. Well, we did about everything from the calves all the way up, and we didn’t do a lot of the slaughtering. The slaughterhouse would come and pick them up. But once in a while, we were involved in some of that. For the most part, it was just the growing of the herd, the feeding of the herd, the maintenance of the herd, the life and death that goes with that. You would lose critters. We call them critters. And the birthing of the little calves. And just it was a good Upbring. It really was. And my father, German, hard working, felt the answer to any of your problems. I just work a little harder, really kept us out of a lot of trouble. We were sometimes just too busy or too tired to do silly things, though. We managed to pull it off. It was somewhat rare. Yeah.

So what type of family were you born into? You said all American family was a Christian upbringing or. No, you know, we were moral but unsaved. We did not know the way of Salvation, but we were in Church every Sunday. It was a Congregational Church, and multi generations had come through that Church. So my great grandparents, my grandparents and now my parents. And so it was just what you did. You went to Church on Sunday. You probably never missed a Sunday morning service. That’s all we had was Sunday morning, unless it was duck hunting. And once in a while, dad would let you skip a Sunday. But it was so rare because he said that’s just what we do. We go to Church. We would ask him why. Well, that’s what summer does do. They go to Church. And so we went to Church. But we never heard of Salvation by Grace. I think growing up, I’ve very well represented probably a vast majority of young people that really believed you had to earn it. You had to someway somehow get more righteousness on one side of the scale and less unrighteousness on the other. And when you met God, he would evaluate how much good or how much evil you did. You know who you were. And if you could somehow get that right hand side to be wait here. The needle would go in your favor and you could enter heaven. That was my philosophy. It was basically an earning it philosophy. I think something really important, though, when you look at going through that Congregational Church, I don’t know how, but I came out of that with one thing. I knew the Bible was the word of God. You would have never seen me throw that in a trash can. I treated it with respect. I knew that it was a book of truth. And I knew that it was a book of truth. That was non negotiable. If you wanted answers to life, that book was not the word of men. I knew it was the Word of God. Don’t know how I got to that. But I had that one nailed, and you could never move me off of that. Even though I didn’t know what it really said, I knew it was the truth.

Do you remember the first time you heard the gospel? Because growing up near a Church that didn’t really preach Salvation by Grace, do you remember the first time you actually heard the true presentation? Oh, yeah, I do. And it wasn’t there. It was after I joined the Marine Corps. It was in Memphis, Tennessee, and I had been invited to Church by a buddy of mine. And I went and I heard the preaching of the Word of God. And it was the first time that I remember saying as I left Church that morning, I don’t know if I really like what I heard. And I remember thinking that I didn’t like what that guy said. But if I ever want the truth, these guys have it. I’ll never forget that thought. They spoke the Word of God with authority. They preached it, and the Holy Spirit of God used it to begin to deal with me. And I realized that that was truth. I heard from the Word of God, not a man’s opinion. So it wasn’t a religion. I realized they were talking about a relationship. And I walked away from that saying in my heart, I just said that was truth. And if I want the truth, if that’s what I’m really seriously after, these guys have it, and they’re going to give me the truth from God’s word, and I recognize the source.

So let’s start you bring it into this because you seem like your dad was a very disciplined kind of man. Absolutely put his son in order. When they go out of line, that help you. When you heard the gospel for the first time, without a doubt, without a doubt. I think when we look at the raising of children now at the time, I wouldn’t have liked it. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And I think that respect for authority is the number one thing that has to come into a child’s heart. And my dad put it there. There was a great respect for him and a great fear of the consequences. And because of that, he represented God to me without me even realizing it. So I call it the voice of reproof. And when he would reprove me, he would charge me a fault, and he would chasing me and correct me and rebuke me. And mom would back him up on that in many ways without realizing it. He represented this wholly invisible Father that was a God of order and absolutes, and he was Holy and had expectations for you. So I remember when I entered the Marine Corps. That was no big deal. I’d already been there for years with that. I mean, from room inspections to making your bed, you whatever you’re getting in trouble for, leaving a light on. I was there. So when I entered the Marine Corps, I was well prepared there. And then when I started hearing the truth of God’s word preached unbeknownst to me. God had used dad and mom, but dad, particularly to teach me who he was. He was a Holy God, and I ought to fear him not come to him with a low view, but have a very high view of who he was.

Okay, so hive view of God is one thing, but coming to the realization of your sin is quite another. Could you describe that was when you went to Church and that’s when you felt or realize the magnitude of your sin, or was it at a different time? You know, probably incrementally. I mean, I can remember, you know, the Bible talks about our conscience and our sin sensor is our conscience and the laws of God they’re written in our hearts. I mean, the universe says God is our conscience, says sin is. And I can remember probably at the around the age of eight or nine, when I recognized that I was a sinner, I wouldn’t have used that word. But I wasn’t totally good. I was bad. And I stole a Hershey bar and got what I thought. I got away with it. And while I unwrapped that Hershey bar sitting in the hay bales with nobody around, the Holy Spirit of God convicted me for that and said, You’re a liar and you’re a thief. And I’ll never forget that eight or nine years old, and I didn’t know who he was. He sent by God to reprove the world of sin and to point out where we’re wrong. So that was one of the first moments. And then incrementally as I went through life, probably. If you looked at me, I would have been considered a very moral kid. I was the All American boy, a letter winner and many, many sports honor roll student. All of that. But inwardly, I was very aware there were things I’d said, thought and done, that I was going to give an answer to whoever this God was. I was going to give an answer to him Monday. So I think you just incrementally through the spirit of God, working in my conscience to a father and a mother representing, you know, Holiness and order and expectation to the Word of God. Even in a Church like a Congregational Church, you would hear Bible and you would have things taught the Ten Commandments, where you begin to realize I’m not what I think I am. I have some issues and they need to be resolved. So I think it was more of a process over time between parents conscience and the Word of God, the laws of God that really brought me to that. You know, that Shin awareness.

Do you think we have lost that in our society? To you didn’t grow up in a Christian home where you said was a more home where the father, he was a heavy hand, and he keep the kids in line. The mother was their sweet, welcoming hand. Yeah. Do you think we have lost that in society today? So kids growing up, even all American kids like you maybe not have the conscience that can guide them and say, hey, that’s wrong. That’s right. Without a doubt, without a doubt. I remember at one point a number of years ago, before we got on the road doing what we do. We’ve been out there for over 20 years now in Evangelism. I remember just thinking of my parents thinking of my life and how I was brought up. And the question I had was, Why and how did lost parents raise better children than save parents do today? And I tuned on that for a while, and I prayed about it. And I began to go through Scripture. And I began to think about what my dad and mom put in my life as a youngster. And they weren’t even believers. They weren’t Christians. They got saved after I did. I was the first one to come to the Lord. But they gave us three character qualities, and I’ll never forget it. They gave us a respect for authority that was non negotiable. Not that there’s lost today. I can just throw this out. The greatest thing a mom and dad can do teach their children the fear of the Lord. That’s more important first than Jesus saves. That is a big deal, because Jesus saves you from what? He doesn’t just save you two. God. He saves you from God. And if you remove the fear of the Lord, you’ve removed the absolute reason someone needs Jesus to be saved. So they taught me to fear God. They taught me respect for authority. Then they taught me restraint that led to obedience. And then they taught me responsibility for actions. I mean, if I did the crime, I did the time mom and dad did not mail me out with the teachers. In fact, they sided with the teachers every time over me because I knew who I was. I called that the 3 hours of child Reary. They were character qualities lost parents put in their kids. And if you had asked them why, why do you raise them this way? They would have said, I don’t know. That’s just how you raise kids. Well, what it was was up until the Sixties, biblical principles for child rearing were woven into society. That’s how you raised them. We were a Christian nation founded on those values. But in the Sixties, got got voted out. And now the only place you’ll find those same qualities will not be society will be the word of God. I tell believers. I tell people all the time. If you’re looking to society to determine how to raise your children, their values aren’t what they used to be. God got voted out a long time ago. You have got to get your values from the Word of God. Society isn’t going to back you up on how to raise your children God will and were to raise them in a nurturing admonition of the Lord. So fascinating thought, though. Dad, a mom prepared me for Salvation and never realized it. You know what has come to my mind as well as this whole concept? I don’t want to go too much down this Robert trail. But BLM had this thing on their website called What We Believe, and they were pushing at the Village Raising the child. And one of the arguments I made when we did on this series of podcast we did on BLM was that The Village Connect Raise the child because we no longer have she and Malware values. My neighbors and many of us neighbors, we don’t believe the same thing anymore. So why am I going to take my child over to my neighbor, even to babysit? That’s exactly right. Because the country is so divided today. We don’t have the same values. And it’s amazing because you’re going back to your time growing up. Similar values were wove into society. And back in your day, probably. I don’t could discipline the charge. That was a given. I had teachers do it to me. And I learned real quickly, don’t come back and complain to dad about that, because then he gave you another one for embarrassing him at school. So you just took it and zipped. It very true. You know, it says except the Lord build the house. They labor in vain that build it. It never says except the government. Build your house. Except society. Build the home. No, the Lords, the builder, the home. It’s his values that we want. And you’re going to find that in the Word of God and the home is under attack today. There’s no doubt about it. So you mentioned how your parents, the way that they brought you up, prepared you to receive the gospel.

Was there any resistance on your part when you heard the gospel? Were there any barriers or did you just automatically receive it? And there were no struggle within you? No. That’s a great question. I think the greatest barrier that I had to receiving it was to somehow get beyond my own preconceived idea of how to be saved. The work Salvation mentality. And so when my Marine buddy first challenged me from the Word of God that I could know I could be saved, and I told him you couldn’t know. And then he read me first John chapter five that said, you can know you have eternal life. I realized, though I carried the Bible, I didn’t know what it said. And so I purpose to put myself under the preaching of God’s word. It’s an interesting little Sidebar, but I never was an evolutionist. Evolution began to be promoted in our public school when I was probably in about 9th grade, 8th grade, and our science teacher, who was a saved man, would put it was a film strip. Back then was an actual film strip. And he would stop that thing when they started telling about evolution. And I can still hear Mr Vern Eisenberg’s voice, Mister, I we called him say, Now, I don’t believe this is how we got here, but I’m required to show this. And then he would turn it back on and we would all smart and snicker about it. But I remember as a young student, junior high, senior high, when evolution began to be promoted as the model of how we got here. It wasn’t choice. It was chance. I remember at that point the laws of thermodynamics and one of the laws of thermodynamics was the law of entropy. That means if you leave something to itself, it’s going to randomize. It’s going to deteriorate. It doesn’t get better on its own. It gets worse, it rust, it corrodes it decomposes, it falls apart. And here was this theory called evolution that said, if you’ll just leave it alone to Mother Nature, Lady Luck and Father Time, it can evolve and become something better than it began all on its own. And I remember sitting as a science student going, Well, the law says that can’t happen. The law says if you just let it coast, it’s going to deteriorate. And here this theory says, if you let it coast, it’s going to become something better and eventually become a whole, more level of species. And I said, there’s no way the theory can Trump the law. The law is provable and replicatable and duplicatable there. So I threw evolution away. But I didn’t have a good answer. I still wasn’t a believer. I did believe God put us here. I just didn’t know who he was. So when I got challenged on that, the biggest hurdle for me was the bribing my way into God’s heaven through my works and righteousness in my obedience. That’s what I felt you had to do. And when I saw Scripture for the next two months, two and a half months, I just put myself under preaching, put myself in Monday night Bible studies. And the moment that I clicked was two and a half months later, on a Monday night where I heard, for by Grace, are you saved through faith? Amen. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast Ephesians two or say to night when I heard that and it was taught and it got preached. That’s where God just illuminated my mind to the utter futility of my righteousness in his eyes, I realized right there that everything I had been clinging to, that I felt would warrant God needing to let me into his heaven. It all evaporated in those two verses, and I realized I stood condemned and I needed a savior. That was an incredible moment in January, February of probably nine. It was 1980. So the Lord took Ephesians two eight, nine formed a narrow out of it and just pierced your heart exactly where it came down. And you trusted the Lord. It was the word of God that literally illuminated me. And faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It wasn’t somebody’s excellent. It was the word of God that lit me up and showed me who I really was. And the absolute error of trusting my righteousness to make a demand that God should let me into his heaven. That was it.

As a brother, I remember listening to a sermon that you were preaching and you said when you got saved, you never prayed to receive, right? That’s right. So I never did. Well, I guess my first question is it’s prayer necessary for Salvation, like a verbal prayer. If it is the mute go to hell, right? I mean, that’s the old farm boy. I mean, if it requires a verbal prayer, then a mute goes to hell, alright, because he can’t verbalize that. What I see in scripture is you’re not saved by praying. You’re saved by believing. Alright, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, that’s that total transfer all the weight of my hope and my soul to rest on someone or something. That would be a belief or faith is if prayer. If there’s magic words you can say to make you get saved, then I can just train people to say those words and give them a $20 bill and they’re in. But Salvation is of the Lord, and what saves us isn’t the prayer. You could say the prayer of faith. We can say that. But really, it’s the object that we’re trusting in is the one who saves us. And if all we’re doing is trusting in our prayer, we’re still trusting in something we’re doing. We have to look beyond that and we have to trust in the one we’re addressing. So Salvation is an act of faith and you’re saved by believing. You’re not shaped by praying.

So let’s dive a little bit deeper in that enrollment stand. The Bible says for us for show call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Yes, a lot of folks believe that that would call is actually prayer to that. You think. Well, and you see the inference, you go to verses nine and ten that if thou should confess with that mouth, the Lord Jesus and believe in that heart that got it raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart, man believe it under righteousness where the mouth confession is made under Salvation. A lot of ways to look at that, but I think the thing to realize is a lot of times a confession is something that’s an after the fact thing. Alright? And whose server will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I never discourage people from praying. I never discourage them from talking to the Lord, you know what I mean? But I’ve always very aware that their heart has to believe on what Jesus Christ did for him 2000 years ago, no matter what their lips are saying and doing. And so to me the greater emphasis is the heart believing on the Lord. The lips will follow, you know, whether that is a cry to God verbally or whether that’s a thank you to God verbally for saving them already. That’s how it was with me. My prayer life began after I got saved. It isn’t what made me saved. It’s what happened after I got saved. I now had a father to talk to and I would thank him for saving me. And so there was a lot of confession with my lips and with my mouth. But I’m a little concerned if we try to simplify it to just praying this prayer, because then what happens is we’re saying because the mouth said that that must be what the heart is and we don’t see that. I’ll give you this. This was a very teachable moment for me. And maybe this will help our listeners here. I remember I was probably saved for about three or four months. I had been trained to witness by getting people to pray the prayer. Alright. And that kind of confused me because I had never prayed the prayer. But, you know, I’m a new convert, whoever so called Pana, the Lord shall be saved. And so what I would do for my personal evangelism is on Saturdays I would walk the barracks and the barracks had open door. Sometimes the doors were open to the rooms and I would walk in. If I saw a guy, I’d say, hey, how are you doing today? And he’d say, Great, hey, can I come in? And he invited me in. And then, hey, gloves were off. I could witness. And there was a young Marine that I took that Saturday morning. I took the time to witness to probably spent 45 minutes with him sharing scripture. Following that, I said, do you want to ask Jesus to save you? He said, I do. I said, all right, well, you go ahead and pray. And I helped him pray when he got done asking God to save Him and asking Jesus to come in his heart. I remember I turned to him and I said, There now you’re saved. And when I said that I will never forget, it was like God was standing right there. And he said, That’s not yours to say, oh, wow, because I’ve been trained to say that the whole time I was doing everything my mentors told me to do. And these were good men. These were very Godly men. And so when I said that, and all of a sudden the still small voice rose up and challenges said, That’s not yours to say. That’s mine to say. I remember almost taking a step back with eyes wide open, going, Whoa, what did I just hear? What did I just sense? So what I did after that is I watched this guy for the next two to three weeks, and he was wicked. He who’s a Hor monger boozer. He is like, nothing changed. And so three weeks later, it’s a Saturday morning, and God said to me, Are you going to go over and get that right with that guy? Because I told him he was safe. And God said, That’s not yours to say. That’s for me to say. And I remember going back to his room, his door was open and I poke my head in. And he remembered me. I say, Can I come in? He said, yeah, come on in. And so I sat down, we talked a little bit, and I said, you remember three weeks ago when I came by and you prayed and you asked God to save you and Jesus come in your heart. Yes, sir. I said, remember I told you there now you’re safe. He said, yeah. I said, I’ve been watching you for the last three weeks. And there’s nothing about your life that says you belong to Jesus and that God saved you from your sin. And I just came over to tell you, I’m sorry for telling you you were saved. That wasn’t mine to say. What was his response? You know what is response? I’ll never forget it. To this day. Two words. Thank you. Wow. That was it. That was it. And I walked away from that, recognizing that maybe as a salesman, I could get people say and do whatever I wanted them to. But as an emissary of the gospel, Salvation was going to be of the Lord. It wasn’t going to be of me. And I didn’t need to have a spiritual scalp to brag about. I didn’t have to have some momentary visual things so I could come back and tell somebody how God used me. This guy prayed the prayer. I realized that God was going to have to get the glory when a soul got saved. And so my part was to control what I could control, which was sewing the seed, giving him the truth, listening to the voice of God and letting God be God because he loved him a lot more than I did. He butchered his son for him. I never did that for them. And I had to trust God to be the convicter and the converter, not me.

So where do you think this is? Belief is prayer to be saved concept come from? Because I personally believe that he has done a lot of damage, especially to children and even probably some adults. Where do you think this concept come from. And how can we fight it in all churches? I’m not really sure where it came from. I suppose any error and I do believe it’s. An error would come from. The devil would come from the heart of man. I think first of all, as Americans were very impatient people, we want to see it happen now. Second of all, there are people with good intentions. They’re not all bad intention people that would take a verse like Romans 1013 and just boil everything down to that one verse and disregard all the other verses that speak about the heart being the issue, not the tongue or the mouth. And I think sometimes it was driven by a false evangelistic. Focus of numbers. Child evangelism. If you talk to the old war horses, a lot of them will tell you years and years ago, decades ago, they never had child avenues. They kind of shied away from it because you can get a kid. They’re very easy to manipulate. You can get them to do anything. And they wanted God to do it. And so they would be patient. They would give the word, but they wouldn’t put heavy on kids to pray a prayer, ask Jesus into their hearts. I think maybe the root of it comes from various things, but a lot of times what I’ve seen in my personal experience is just a lot of pride. It’s just look what God is doing. We had so many saved, and it’s bragging rights, right? There’s no way God can be near something like that. He hates pride. It’s an abomination to him. It’s the number one sin he hates. And if the root of that stuff is just a meshed in pride, I think it has done damage. I think we are seeing a lot of people recognize that a lot more. That the one, two, three pray after me thing has been very damaging and very dangerous because it’s produced a whole bunch of people, a whole I met him. That when you go to deal with them and there’s no indicator of life whatsoever spiritually, and you tell them they need to be saved. You know what they’ll say? Well, I’ve already done that. I’ve already done that. And it’s almost like you inoculated with a weak version of the real thing. And now they’re automatically the box is checked. You have to get lost before you can get saved, and it’s hard to get them lost because they’ve already done that, especially really just people. Definitely.

So what is genuinely necessary for Salvation? Well, Acts 2021 tells us repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s the two sided coin of Salvation. One side is repentance, and that’s more than just changing your opinion about Jesus. You look at the two sons. The Father asked him to go to the fields. One said, I go and went. Not. The other one said, I go not, but repented and went. Which one did the will of the Father? See, repentance is more than just a change of heart in mind. It’s a change of direction and even activity and attitude. So it’s turning from and turning to so repentance toward God. That’s the side. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It’s recognizing your sinner and the wrath of God abides on you. You know what I mean? And you literally recognize you’re staying before God is bankrupt spiritually and repentance toward God. Is that turning from your sin? Just no conditions I surrender. I’m sick of my sin. I’m sick of myself. But then you have to rest somewhere. How many good people do I know? They’re sick of their sin, and they turn from it. And then they run to a Church and do religious things as they’re resting. They’re trying to find their justice. They recognize their center, and they are remorseful for their sin. And now they’re going to go do all these religious things. They got one side of the coin, right? But faith toward Lord Jesus Christ, they missed. So you get both sides of that coin. It’s a counterfeit. It has no value. And so you have to have a genuine contrition for sin. And that’s the work of the Spirit of God. And then you flee for refuge at Calvary, and your faith finds a resting place in Jesus Christ. Amen.

You listen to the Removing Barriers podcast. We are sitting down. We Brother Dave, and we are finding out how were his barriers remove? We’ll be right back. Sometimes, no matter how great the selection, you just can’t find exactly what you want. Design it yourself. Custom gift baskets solve that problem by allowing you to choose the specific products you want to include with your unique gift basket. And in addition to hand selecting the products, you can further personalize your custom basket by adding coffee, muds, stuffed animals, Mylar or even an imprinted ribbon. When you’re done, we’ll put it all together in a one of a kind, perfect basket and ship or hand deliver it directly to your lucky recipient. Click in the description section to design your basket today.

Second Corinthians 517 says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. By the Dave, one of the changes that were evident in your life after Salvation. Well, there were a number of them immediately. Number one, I had an appetite for the Word of God. I love the Word of God. It was in it constantly. Second of all, I love being with God’s people. Prior to that, they were kill. Joyce. They really messed up the party I was heading to or whatever I wanted to do. The last thing I want to do is bring somebody, you know, who is a religious person with me on my capers. And now I love God’s people. And I love the fellowship. I love going to the house of God. It wasn’t something that I had to do, something I wanted to do. I remember there was in sensitivity that before I would be remorseful for things I would say or do or think if I got caught. But now I just genuinely there was a sense. I remember working on a jet. I was probably about six months old on the Lord, and I had a big speed handle, and I was working under the tail of that jet. So I’m looking up at the tail and I’m taking off a radar, a little radar piece of the tail. And as I’m spinning that speed handle, that thing, the Phillips head came out of there, and that whole giant speed Hale came by and just, oh, man, it’s just hammered me on the side of the head. And when it did, I let out a curse like I always had when I was lost and no one was around. Nobody saw it, man. God smoke my heart for that. I remember right there on the hanger deck, just getting down on one knee and asking God to forgive me for saying those words. And that would have never happened when I was lost. So there was a sin sensitivity. There was a desire to be with God’s. People. I love the Word of God. God was very real. And Jesus Christ was my savior. And this personal relationship, when I would wake up in the morning, he’d be the first one I was thinking about. I go to bed at night. He’s the last one I was thinking about. That never happened when I was lost.

Do you think the way your buyers were removed would be effective to help someone who has a similar barrier that you have? Well, how my barrier was removed was just true. The Word of God. Absolutely. Absolutely. A solar went forth to sew the seat. Luke, Chapter eight and that is what removes barriers. The entrance of God’s Word, give it light. You know, the greatest barrier I had was my own philosophy, apart from God’s Word. And so God’s Word was what the Lord used to break that barrier down. And to show me that I was wrong. And God was right. And here’s how he operated. So faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And I would just say it again, any way we can sow God’s Word into the hearts of people today. What a difference that makes, because that’s how those berries get broken down. I do believe we have to go back further. I believe we have to start now in Genesis one one. The average person today in America doesn’t even know who God is as a creator, you know? And we have so much on our side when we give that, because creation, you know, declare the glory of God. Creation says one thing God is. And so we have so much on creationist videos. Creation materials. All the evidence is on our side. We’ve got the evidence. And the heart of a person sees divine order. And so we need to just let them know there is a got a divine order, and you’re the centerpiece of his creation. And then we need to deal with sin is that breaks that next barrier down, and that’s got to be the law. You know, I think a lot of times we think as Americans, everybody’s going to change for us. But there’s one person that never changes God. God is who God is. You can’t change it. He can change you, but you’ll never change Him. And he’s a Holy God. And the law shows His Holiness, and it makes us aware of our sinfulness, and we come short of the glory of God. So I think we have to start with Genesis one one. I think we have to go to the law and the Commandments and expectations of God to show people they have a spiritual need and that’s for forgiveness. And then Thirdly, Jesus is that answer. Then I really do think today. And I’m going to say again, I don’t think we should start with Jesus. I think we’ve got to start with the things God started with, and it all ends up there where Jesus Christ. That makes sense, definitely.

So we know that you are an itinerant preacher. You go from place to place, you preach the word of God in churches. And we know about the vehicle that you have decked out with is just a great evangelism tool. What are some other things that you’re doing personally on a day to day basis this week by week to get this message out to them, the word of God, putting it in their hearts, giving them something to think about. You talked about how in our country today, we’re culture that doesn’t have God at its foundation any longer. And so more and more people are growing up without even basic knowledge of him. What are some of the things that you do regularly Besides the preaching that you that you do every week to reach lots of people? Yeah. Great question. I’ve developed different tracks. Of course, the car you talk about, I have Trifled track on that my life story, as well as Stan Roaches life story. He’s a man who travels with the Vietnam vet, and we were polar opposites, and he was, in his own words, a demon possessed drunk. I was the all American boy, and we both needed the Lord. We both needed to be saved, and we’re both in the Ministry today. So I love that track because it literally straddles the viewer, the reader, with two extreme different lifestyles. But both of us needed the Lord. So they’re somewhere in there. So I developed that Trifold tracked his story, my story. I’ve got a DVD out there, 15 chapters story book, and the Premier 22 minutes portion of it would be how to pass final inspection. Military people understand that verbiage, if you will. And so I’ve got those materials. And then I developed a new one called Hello. My name is David. This is my story, and it’s very powerful. Two and a half years now, I’ve been giving it out to utter strangers, and no one’s ever turned it down. They’re just curious to know what my story is and why it has such a happy ending. And I get a lot of feedback on there. I put two verses in there to get them Scripture, because the faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God to prompt conversations. And I follow up with other things as well. And then I have developed care pocket tax for the military. I have one out now for the law enforcement, and I’m going to be working on first responders here pretty soon. But it’s a packet that probably has about seven items in it. That’s literature to be read that shows people who they are, who God is, and who the Lord is, who Jesus Christ is, and how to be safe. And one of them in there is the story of amazing Grace. That’s a him. Everybody knows that’s a real common him. Everybody knows amazing Grace. And it’s the background to how that him came about. So now every time they hear it, they’ll think of that John Newton and how he got saved and he was a very wicked man and how he needed Jesus Christ as Savior. So I try to put things in there that will have some connection with people military connection, him connection and so forth. And those pocket packs. Yeah. We get them out to the military and tell us about your Ministry again. So the listeners will know you have the summer do evangelist. Yes. Some of our family evangelistic ministries and been out there 21 years in our Ministry. Focus is a trifold focus. We want to go ahead and strengthen the local Church. We want to encourage the Saint, and we want to engage the unredeemed with the truth of the gospel. So that’s our focus. What about the military vet? Yeah. We have a Corvette called the Military Vet, and it’s got all the victims of 911 under the hood, 3030 by name, and then all the troops who died in the first ten years fighting the war against terror, 6318 and they’re all alphabetized under their branch of service. So easy to find the name. I know three of the guys on there myself. And that car is going to be going to Museum. It’s in Museum now, but we’re going to be donating it to the Museum on September 11 this year, the 10th anniversary of 911. And that Museum is up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, America on Wheels. So we’ve got a special ceremony at 1130 at a 1 hour ceremony where we’ll be assigning the car over. I’ll be the guest speaker there. We’re inviting a lot of people out and going to go ahead and turn the attention. It’s interesting to me. When 911 happened, there was not one single lawsuit filed against kids praying in public school. Teachers were asking him to pray when the towers came down, churches filled up quickly. And isn’t it interesting once we recognize or limited capacity as humans and we recognize how brief life really is and how tenuous it is that has a tendency to turn us to God. When we become weak, we look for someone who’s strong and ask the Lord. And so people knew the answers were found in the word of God in the house of God when 911 happened. And we’re going to kind of close out this 20 years with a focus back on him up there in that Museum and the staff there is for it. We’re going to sign that over. The car over, and it has a QR code. So people still get the truth long after we’ve signed the car over. As they come by, they’ll go to a website with their phone and get the truth that Jesus saves. That Jesus saves. Amen

So, we want to go into a bit of a fun section, but before we do, I personally believe that you married. I did. You married way out of your class. There’s no doubt about it. I outran my coverage. There’s no doubt about it. So tell me, how did you meet your lovely wife? I met her in Church. I met her in Church in Oak Harbor, Washington Bible Baptist Church. The pastor was Pastor Gary Pris, and I was newly saved. And one of the things the Church did was they had scripture, memory, treasure path, the sole winning. He had to memorize five verses a week. And then you had to quote them every week. And they were topical and their powerful versus some of I still have in my heart to this day. And there was a number of people you had to quote to. But there’s this little teenage girl that I had to quote my verses to. And she been saved longer than me. And she made me pause at every comma, and she wouldn’t let me off the hook on anything. And I never even realized at the time, but she would become my wife. So we met in Church. I was teaching Sunday school. She was teaching Sunday school. I didn’t really pay any attention to her. She didn’t pay attention to me. We were just chasing the Lord. But like two runners going through life. One day I looked over and there she was. Jason Lord running, you know, alongside of me, just chasing him. Like I was. I figured she must be the one she has 37 years now. The first time we kissed was our wedding day, and the Lord blessed us with six children, twelve grandchildren now, and all twelve or grandchildren, by the Grace of God, are in the house of God, and they’re being taught the Word of God, and we’re very grateful for that.

But what is your favorite scripture verse? Got a lot of them first. John 511 through 13 is one of my all time favorites. And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life. And this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son at life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things ever written to you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that she have eternal life, that you may believe on the name of the site. After that, your favorite first will be who’s ever find it the Wi Fi thing? Okay. Yeah. I can put that one in there in the horizontal view. Yeah, we could do that one. There’s a lot of good verses when I saw that question at that boy, this is a tough one to narrow down because there’s a lot of good ones. You want to think about another one, a 412. Neither is their Salvation and any other. So there’s none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And that puts such an emphasis on Jesus only. So I could go on and on. There’s a lot of verses. They’re just great. Great. Versus

what about your favorite biblical account? Many people call it a Bible story, but we know the Bible has no stories in it. It’s all historical accounts. What’s your favorite biblical historical account? It’s probably one that a lot of people like, I love David and Goliath. There’s just something about that scrawny little kid that had no business doing this, but he couldn’t handle letting his God get defined. Maybe it’s the underdog in me. A lot of times I was the smallest kid on the football team. There’s just something there that I relate to him. And is there not a cause? I love his spirit and attitude like a little terrier. He flings himself at that huge, huge Bulldog, the fire of his God. And he walked by faith. He’d learned to trust the Lord with the bear and the lion. And now Goliath was just one more. I love people who hazard their life for the Lord. I love somebody who doesn’t sit back there and just criticize. But he’s in the arena with a sweat in the blood. He’s got the bayonet fixed. He’s trying to make a difference. He doesn’t have time to criticize. His plate is full and he’s just taking a stand for the Lord. I’ve said it recently. Everybody’s going to die one day. What an honor to die in the service of the King. I mean, if I’m going to pick a way to go out, it should be serving the Lord. Everybody’s going to die. Let’s die serving Lord. So David catches all of that. There’s so much in his life I just love

do we have a script verse that is the most convicting to you. There’s one the Lord is speaking in Matthew twelve. He says this, every idle word the men speak, they shall give account there out in the day of judgment. Is that a sober? That’s sobering? Because I talk a lot. And it’s not always quoting scripture. And have you ever noticed, sometimes we can see what’s wrong in someone else and we don’t see what’s wrong in us, because he said, for by thy words, thou shalt be justified. And by thy words, thou shalt be condemned. I don’t think we’re just going to get judged by the word of God. I think God’s going to use our own testimony of our lips to show us we knew what was right and we knew what was wrong and what we require from someone else. We didn’t give him that section of scripture. Matthew 1236. That one still hunts me. It just keeps hunting me. It causes me to stay humble and not to be too quick to condemn and to show mercy wherever possible. Most comforting scripture verse to you. Yeah, there’ll be a lot. The 20 the Psalm is a package is always the farm boy in me. That’s very, very. The Lord is my shepherd. I like what one little girl said. The Lord is my shepherd, and that’s all that I want. So that’s a great section. And just John 316 is hard to walk away from for just comfort, you know, for God to love the world. That would be me. That he gave me his only begun son. If I would trust him, I wouldn’t perish but have everlasting life. That’s a comfort to me. That God would just love me to that degree. That he would Butcher Son for my son, become the sacrifice I could never provide. And that if all I did was just with my heart jump across and trust his son in entirety in what he did, my faith would find that resting place. And he would just wrap me up with eternal life. Very comforting. Such benevolence. He’s under no obligation to do so, except that he promised that he would. Why would he even care for worms like us? And he does so for that so true.

What about your favorite him of the face? Got two of them. One is my faith has found a resting place. I don’t know if you’ve heard that one. My faith has found a resting place. Not in device nor Creed. I trust the everliving one is wounds for me. Shell plead. I love that one. My plea is another one. Should I, at the gates of heaven, appear to answer the challenge? What claim has to here? What has to offer? What is the plea? With blessed assurance, my answer will be, all that I have is Jesus. I love those two hymns. And then there’s one that my daughter and I did. Kimberly and I did. He looked beyond my fault and saw my need. I did a trumpet piece and she sang and played as the soloist. And it’s to the tune of what silled World War to do do do do do do do do. Danny Boy. It’s to the tuna. Danny Boy Amazing Grace. She’ll always be my song appraised where it was Grace. I brought my Liberty. That song is maybe more of a contemporary song, maybe more modern than the old Hims. That one just always gets my heart.

Last but not least, your favorite giant of the faith. It might be the same as David since you mentioned how that story moves you. But he did. But it would be David beyond the David and Goliath moment, because David was the giant layer. You saw him take down Goliath. But then you see how he dealt with the giant of Saul and his refusal to touch God’s anointed his willingness to forgive. He genuinely wept when this man who made his life miserable, his willingness to slay the spirit of self justification. You know, when he had two chances to have him slain, and his men all said he was justified, but he wouldn’t do it. And then his own sin. Bahiba Uriah. Then later numbering the people. And I find David. It’s just that classic as you’re getting toward the end of life numbers the people and God goes ahead and gives them three choices. And David says, I’ll take the third. I’d rather fall into the hands of God. And so God begins to slay the people. And the Prophet says, God’s here by the threshing for of a run. If you get up there, make a sacrifice, you can stop this. And so he went up and he comes to a run. It’s such a moment because David just suffered incredible loss. You would think he would try to somehow recoup the losses by trying to do something convenient. And so Aruna offers him that threshing floor and everything for free. And David said, I’m not taking it. He said, I’m going to pay for that because I’m not going to worship my God with that which cost me nothing that’s powerful. He did not want to worship the Lord conveniently. He wanted to worship the Lord sacrificially. He just said, He’s that big to me. He’s that valuable to me. I’m not giving him the leftovers. I want to worship it. And it’s so opposite of the spirit of American believers today, because the attitude today is I want to worship the Lord with that which cost me nothing. So David gets my heart on every level you can imagine. He is worthy of the title a man after God’s own heart. He does have the exception list, save in the area of Yurity Hittite, God says. And I look at David’s exception list. I said that was actually a short list. I wonder what my list would be. You know, I please the Lord in all these areas. Except, you know, David had a short exception list, and he had a big heart for God. So he, without a doubt, is one of my heroes of the faith. So real.

Alright, brother Dave, so we have going on for a while listing at home. How can those barriers be removed in the life of others? How can other folks have their barriers removed with the Word of God, with a Word of God in the hearts and hands of people of God that are real? They literally when people see us, we give them the Word of God. They should see people that genuinely love them and genuinely believe Jesus is real. And we live out the Bible trees. We’re passing on to others, whether that’s our children, our workers at workplace, that we model this Savior who we represent because we’re written epistle known in read of all men. And so I believe giving the Word of God and living the Word of God as God’s people is the most effective way to getting the truth to others. Breaking down the barriers takes away their excuses. We have someone they need. They see it and they see joy that they cannot explain away other than they have someone I don’t have. And then they want him to rather.

Dave, thank you for joining us on the Removing Barriers podcast. You guys are blessing. Thank you for having me or bless you.

Thank you for listening to get a hold of us to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers. Go to Removing Barriers net. This has been the Removing Barriers podcast. We attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clay view of the cross.