"Steve Coded for 15 Minutes and Saw What Few Have Seen"

All right. So good to have you guys here today. What a night last night with Adam and Tina Curry, my wife and Ned, and we all went out for some steaks and amazing conversations. So glad you guys are here. Oh, my goodness. Revival in the restaurant, Sopra's Grill in Bernie, Texas. And we had such a good time, and I'm still buzzing from it, actually. I had a hard time going to sleep. Annette just conked right out. She's tired. Same thing happened to Bev. She conks out. I'm

up with my eyes wide open. I almost felt like I had a spiritual release. Oh, totally. I don't know. Okay, Adam and I on the way back, Adam sat in the front seat with me and Tina rode in the back seat. So they're talking, we're talking. Adam kept saying, there's something special about Beverly. There is something on her. He said, the Holy Spirit is all over her life right now. And I'm like, I know. She had the, remember that commercial, the high pro glow, you know, the

dog food commercial? You've got that glow. I mean, literally the Holy Spirit. And it's really cool. We were talking about how, and we'll get into this in a minute, but, you know, this is all just pre -show. But y 'all's perspective, just hearing each of your perspective, y 'all are coming at the same thing, the same experience, which we'll get into. from a completely different angle. And to hear both of you tell it and see your visceral, physical reactions, it's beautiful.

It's a beautiful thing. So we'll get into that. So I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to spend a weekend with us. Anytime we can get to Fredericksburg, Texas, we're going to move every mountain we need to move to get here. Somebody's got to suffer for Jesus, right? Somebody's got to suffer for Jesus. That's what I say. We lived in Nashville before. Somebody's got to suffer. And then we live here. Somebody's got to suffer. Stop Hawaii.

I don't know. We'll see what happens. Let's go ahead and get a word of prayer. Love to always lift up our listeners, too, and those who are watching and joining us online. So let's pray together. Lord Jesus, Abba Father, you are so good to us. You continually keep our minds blown by your goodness, your mercy, your grace that is so real, so true, so powerful. Father, you know our heart and our desire to see faith, family, and freedom exalted in our nation and across

the world. But Father, even more than that, to see your kingdom expanded in our time, this sliver of time that we get in this world. And however long you tarry before coming back, we get an opportunity to move the needle of the kingdom. And so, Lord, we literally, we pledge our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor to this cause. And that is the cause of truth and the cause of the kingdom of God. Holy Spirit, we welcome

you into this conversation today. You would lead us and guide us, would literally help us navigate the conversation. We want to go where you want to go. And we want to do the next thing you tell us to do. So thank you for Steve and Bev getting to be with us this weekend and getting to be here today for this podcast. And for our listeners, we want them to be encouraged. And they'll learn how to live up in a down world, look up in a down world, and learn up in a down world. They'll

look to you, the one true king. We say all these things in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Thank you, brother. Cause the last will be the first. Well, we want to welcome you to Living Up in a Down World. We are excited that you're here today. Annette is not with me today. I promise she'll be back. I don't know if I'll ever get her on camera, but we'll get her back on the audio podcast for sure. But she had another thing going today. But I have some very special guests with us today.

And just two people who have become some of my favorite human beings. And we have Steve and Bev. Is it Bev or Beverly? I know it's Bev from him, but I want to make sure we're not encroaching on your... Okay, all right. Well, Steve and Beverly Maxwell, we are so thrilled that you're here today. I'm just honored that we get to sit at this table and have a conversation about what God's up to in the world. So welcome to Fredericksburg.

Thank you for welcoming us. We are excited to be here with one of our favorite towns in all the world. But same to you and your friendship as God has put us together and we're developing all sorts of cool stuff we're going to talk about today. And so we're honored to be here. We truly are honored to be here. There's a lot of things happening right now. I mean, we get to do this stuff and we get to do it together. What's exciting, you know, I'm 63. I just turned 63 this year

and that's about to in another week. And at this age in my life, in this stage, I'm more excited about life than I've ever been. You know, I've got friends who've gone into this stage of life. We call it leveling up, level six, you know, moving to 60. And they just start to coast towards retirement. Retirement's not even in my vocabulary. It's not even a biblical concept. And so let's

do this. How do you retire with everything that God has given us and putting us here at this time in our nation's history and world history? I don't know. I don't know how you do that. And why would you want to? Well, I turned 63. Or am I 63? I can't remember. Well, you're born. But I don't even have that thought, you know, because we've got to keep moving forward. It's an exciting time to do that. It is. There's so many things. We all have our... fingers in a

lot of pies. I mean, not only am I involved in the church world, but I'm involved in the carnivore world, the health wellness world. I'm involved in podcasts on that and speaking at events for that. Then also, the Lord has opened doors for me to be involved in Austin and our capital, the state capital, and be connected there. I was there this last week, got to pray to open the Senate session, which is my third time to

do it. And this time I said, I'm praying in Jesus' name, and if you don't want me to come back, That's okay. I'll still pray outside, you know. I understand. And they had no pushback, no problem. And by the way, our Latunic governor, Dan Patrick, he gave me the green light. He said, I want you to pray. You pray like you pray. And so there was a script, but I didn't have to stay on script. Oh, absolutely. He's an ordained minister. He's a fire. He's a firebrand for God. So we've got

great people in the Texas capital. I know in Florida, the two last free states, right, in the United States, but more coming online right now. Did you know that I saw this just recently, the Ten Commandments. As of a week and a half ago, there were 12 states that have come online. They're putting forth bills now to get the Ten Commandments back in our schools, public schools. Now 15 states have come online. It may be more

than that by now. Interesting you say that. We were in some meetings this week in Houston with Matt Staver, which Matt's a great attorney for the freedom of faith and all that. But the Supreme Court has had like three critical rulings in the last couple of years that allows the church and God's people to stand. for righteousness in the community. And for example, the Ten Commandments,

that's all legal now. And so what he's saying is, it's like we've been under this, you know, when you buy, you have a dog and you got the invisible fence thing. And we've been under this window of time where we've been punished for our faith. And now the Supreme Court's ruled, no, you can go. Like the coach, Coach Kennedy, we prayed on the field and they reversed all that. Right story there. So what's happened is

the church is... God's people are just now becoming alive again, but we still have that invisible fence. Yeah. It's time to go on offense. There you go. The kingdom of our enemy has been on offense. It's time for the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. We are to be on offense. Absolutely. And it's all good. It's all good. And for those that don't like it, they don't like righteousness. We've got a problem. You

know what I mean? Wow. You want to do the right thing in your communities, in your neighborhood. and bring forth that righteousness. Absolutely. That's why you're here. That's why you have a church. Absolutely. And I want to ask you a question along that line. I don't know how long ago it was, but this began to get on top of you. You begin to feel this, we've got to do something. We can't just sit back and watch our nation slide

off the cliff. And then you and some other guys got together and developed this amazing organization that now we're thrilled to partner with you on and do what we can to get you guys out there even further. CDF, Citizens Defending Freedom. Tell us a little bit about how that started and came about. Exactly right. After the 2020 election, first of all, I'm a business guy. I'm an entrepreneur. My business partner is here in Texas. We spent

almost 10 years here in Texas. I was in the military out here and got out of the military, and we stayed a few more years. So Texas has always had this connection with Texas. We love Texas, but we moved back home back in 90. So we're busy building businesses, but it's almost like it didn't matter. Our generation, we've seen a lot of good people. that were elected as our leaders that did good things. But it just slowed the progression down of sliding down this slope.

So when the wrong party got in that believed in the wrong things, it just sped the process up. Right people get in, it slowed it down a little bit, but it still progressed downward. You notice that? I did, absolutely. So that was the backdrop. But then the 2020 election really, okay, what happened here? This was unusual. And just... God ordained several meetings there in the next 60 days that really put us on this path. And one of them was we met with Senator Ron Paul.

And in Mar -a -Lago, we were at a meeting down there. Rand Paul, not Ron. Rand Paul. And after about an hour and a half of talking to him, he finally told us what we know today. You see the Doge stuff today. He was already doing that. Yes, he was. No one was listening. But he was doing it. Exactly right. So he said, Steve, these guys couldn't get a job as a janitor in most places. He said, I can go back to Kentucky and become a doctor and feed my family. These guys

can't. This is the best job they ever had. And here's why. And so we've come out. He said, the only way we're going to rebuild the country is going to be a revival, a reformation. It's got to start from the bottom up. There it is. So that's what we went home with. And we're going, oh, my gosh, how do we do that? Second big meeting just a few weeks later with Mike Ferris. Mike was running Alliance Defending Freedom. They'd

been in this fight for a long time. For those that don't know Mike, he got homeschooling legalized in all 50 states. He started Patrick Henry College. He's an incredible warrior for the kingdom. Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade. He was a big part of Roe v. Wade getting overturned. That was his crowning achievement. He didn't retire. He's doing other things now, but he stepped away from ADF. But a great man of God. But Mike came and met with us for two days. In fact, he had not traveled

for a year because his wife had been sick. Somehow we get a hold of him through another God connection. He comes to my office and he spent two days with us and said, Steve, here's what needs to happen. Nobody's been successful at building. And what it is, let me just give you a quick illustration. So what was happening is our government agencies were going, they were all the way down in the weeds, all the way down into your school boards,

into your local governments down here. And what they were doing were forcing these things that went against the will of people and definitely went against the will of God. For example, DEI or Title IX, Johnny going to Sally's bathroom. So the ACLU, for example, would come into your local school board, these attorneys, and your local school board is part -time. They're not in this world, but they would come in and attack

and threaten them. If you don't let Johnny go to Sally's bathroom, we're going to sue you. The school board attorneys there, his or her job is to keep them out of a lawsuit. So they kept sliding back. The only opposition to this giant in that local school board meeting was a mom or a dad with three minutes and a microphone. So the question became, as an entrepreneur, I'm saying, okay, what does that mom need to counterbalance

that? And what she needed was real intel, real information inside that, what was really going on. She needed her own little media outlet where she could get her little story out there. But more importantly, she needed her own attorneys right there. Yes. So what we did, we built a legal entity, really, where we're in the grassroots. Now, ADF and Matt Saver, I mentioned earlier, those guys are up here. We work with them hand

in hand. But what we needed was someone who could be at the policymaking level in the legal world to counter. And so that's what we did. Wow. That's where CDF came from. And I can tell you today, I think we're 130 -0 in four years. We win, and that's what Mike told us, didn't he? Mike told us, Steve, if y 'all can put this in place, you'll win 9 out of 10 times. It's just we haven't been there. Right, that's it. So that's where CDF

came from. Wow. And so then as we progressed and began looking at the whole fundraising world and how that worked, our board began getting on our knees and said, Lord, this is not, we've got to do this your way. So we got in the word, and what we kept hearing back from God was just go to the remnant. Just go to the remnant, the remnant church. The promise to heal a nation goes to God's people, not the heathens, right?

The promise to do all these things, God said, if you'll get right with me, I will make it happen. So we started going to looking for pastors. You're a rare breed, brother. But we only need a remnant, right? Yeah, there you go. That's right. Gideon started with 30 ,000 and trimmed it down to 300. Absolutely. God never uses a majority to take over anything. He takes five loaves and two fish and feeds 5 ,000 people. That's right. So that's what we started doing. So the church now becomes

this embassy. And you know that because you're doing it here. You've seen the effects of that. So we take it upon, the pastor takes it upon himself to educate that church. on our Christian heritage, and then we set up a biblical citizenship group, and we just keep an eye on everything. And CDF comes to town, we're just your partner, right? We're your ministry partner to help provide what we provide when the time comes. Y 'all have

been a massive blessing to us. I met you, I don't know, a year and a half ago, maybe, something like that. I'm not good with time. Annette would know the date. But to the moment. So I remember meeting when y 'all brought a Remnant Alliance group, four guys came and spoke. Rick Green was another. Kay Carl. What an amazing guy. And of course, Pastor Rick. I mean, what a man. What a man of God. And you came as well. And you spoke and you lit my fire. I mean, it was already lit,

but I didn't know where to go with it. This is what it was. And this is what I'm finding out. A lot of pastors, I meet with a group of young pastors. They just don't know where to go, and they don't know. They're where I was, and it's like, I've got this fire. I know I need to do something, but I don't know what to do. What's my first step? And, you know, most people, I mean, you remember back in high school, they give you an essay and you had to write a thesis

sentence. It would take me a day to write a thesis sentence. And once I had that, I knew where to go. You're going to manifest something here. That's a bad memory there. Trigger. But we need that on ramp. We need that. And that's what you guys provided for me. And also, you provided for me something that I know you maybe don't hear this enough. But when I knew that there was somebody in my corner, it emboldened me. I had grown up under always respect authority,

always yes, sir, no, sir. I'm a West Texas kid. Grew up with all of that. Well, that went for government, too, where I had this high respect, high value, as we should. And yet our government had gone a direction that they were not earning. They were not honorable, honorable, as I say. They were not honorable, able to be honored. So at that point, so when y 'all came and said. You can step into your pulpit and basically say exactly what God has told you to say. And we

got your back. And I believed you. This is a fundamental that I think our seminaries have really messed up. Yeah. And so because most pastors have that thought process and they've never been trained. Okay, how do I engage? Right. How do I do this? That's what we do. That's our ministry. And so we teach them how to do that. But the main thing, we want to be there behind you to stand with you. And to protect you as you do it. Because there's plenty of enemy out there

that doesn't want to do it. But when you study the Bible, I'm a lay guy. I'm not some seminary grad preacher somewhere. Doesn't matter. I love Jesus. And I look at Daniel. That's probably a bonus. Yeah, probably. Maybe. Some days, definitely. But, you know, Daniel, you can't pray anymore. Man's law came down. You can't pray anymore. You have to pray to Nebuchadnezzar or whatever. Daniel, there's only a... Wall, by the way. Did you know that? It was only a 30 -day law. Interesting.

Most Christians would say, okay, I'll go hide for 30 days. I'll go back to bed. No, Daniel opened the windows, opened the doors, and he said, basically, watch me. I'm not going to obey man's law if it supersedes God's law. God's law comes first. We call that civil disobedience. Well, civil disobedience. The founders called it the law of nature. There it is. You understand William Blackstone and all what that means. God's law comes first. Nature follows God's law, which

God's law is the Bible. Literally. Word of God. This is legal 101 U .S. and the U .S. founding, right? And then man's law comes third, but it must follow the law of nature. Yes. Or it's considered pretended law. Yes. We are entitled, the Declaration of Independence, entitled to break that law. Exactly. Declaration says you are mandated to do so. You must do so. So look at what our founders did. They came in and said, no, the king is doing these 27 things. It's against God's law and nature's

law. We're going to fight against it. We will not comply. And we signed our death warrant. Just like Daniel did. Just like Rahab did. Yes. Just like Esther did. She signed her death warrant to go before the king. Just like Paul did. He ends up stoned, left for dead on a road, and he gets right back in the game. So how are seminaries missing that? Yeah. I don't know, but I got a feeling Satan's involved. I have a feeling, too, because there's been some indoctrination on their

part. So I was fortunate to go to Howard Payne University here in Texas, and they have the Douglas MacArthur Academy of Freedom. They were teaching us how to engage. Our poli sci department was get involved, get engaged. So I got mixed messages. I come out of that school and I did a crossover program with them. So I come out like ready to go. And it was in my DNA to engage. I've never been one to set back on anything. And so, but then I go to seminary. It's exactly the opposite.

They're telling us, you know, in these church growth classes and these seminars, and they're saying, you know, don't ever go there in politics. Don't ever, you know, you need to protect your congregation because of this bogus 1954 LBJ bill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is bogus. I don't even use the word politics. It's called leadership. It's called decision makers. We are commanded in God's word to find our own decision makers. Yeah, yeah. And it started in Exodus. Yes. For

Jethro, a sheep herder. And Father -in -law Moses, when he said, here's what you look for when you find a leader. You've got to have decision -makers below you that can handle a lot of these decisions. And what do you look for? Fear God, trustworthy, which means they do the right thing behind the scenes when nobody's looking. They don't take USAID money, right? Right. And they hate dishonest gain. We as Christians, that's who we're supposed to be selecting. There's a difference between

selecting and electing. Electing is popular content. We select our leaders. There you go. So how that, anyway, I get all fired up about it. No, no, I get it. It's a bunch of bull. Yeah, it is. It's a bunch of bullcrap. It is. And what's happened, though, is it's happened so slowly over a long period of time. It's Frog McKettle syndrome. So we've got a complete culture going, waking up. Thank God for COVID. I mean. Thank God for COVID. Thank for that cold. Thank God for that

cold that got blown out of proportion. The plandemic. But here's the thing it did. It opened our eyes. You know, that happened, and then the 2020 election happened. All those things were eye -openers. I heard a speaker say not too long ago, he said, we need to thank God. That was our wake -up call. That woke up America to not everything is as it appears to be. I talked to our Senator Rick Scott. I have his personal cell. We talk often,

and I was sharing with him. A few weeks back, I said, Senator, you guys, you better, I'm just going to caution you. You need to get this right because I think of the people we lost. I've lost family members. We've all lost people during COVID. There was a lot that went wrong there that was pure evil. Now we're seeing all this exposure of Doge. And I'll get to what God shared with me, you know, in the story later. But you've got one time to get this right. It's a miracle

we're not protesting big time right now. The American people are watching. They are saying, you better get this right. Yeah. Because it opened up. Yeah, it did. Yeah. It'll close. But God turned it for good. And it is now affordable. People can see. Yes. Maybe what we couldn't see. It was not. It had it not. And I've used that

same language. I just say there's a window open, and we don't know how long that window will be open, which means this is not the time to rest, sit on our laurels, you know, rest and sit back and go, oh, okay, go get them. Go get them, Elon. Go get them. Go get them, President Trump. Go get them, J .D. No. For God's people, our mission is not to save a country or save a city or save a county. Our mission is to extend the kingdom of God. There it is. He is returning soon. It's

a race to the rapture, I call it. Wow. So our mission, what family member do I have that does not know the Lord? It's a race to the rapture. Because the next time I believe this thing implodes is when God sucks us out of here. Yeah. And there's no more resistance to this. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Once the salt is gone and the light's gone, it's going to get nasty. It's exciting to be here.

It is. We've got to put the pedal down. In this season of history, in this season of time, we get to witness and be a part of what people have prayed for, believed for, sought God for, this end -time harvest that's already beginning. We're seeing revival breaking out across the world. My goodness, college campuses blowing up. I mean, it wasn't that long ago before college campuses were holding up Hamas signs and anti -Israel signs, and now that has been so overwhelmed.

You know, remember during the election season, he said, too big to rig? Well, it's kind of a similar thing. There's such an overwhelming move of God across the world, but especially the United States right now, that it's overwhelming all these little voices that are out there, these little handful of groups showing up. What we're finding is these little voices had a megaphone. Yes, they did. It was like the Wizard of Oz.

Yeah. It's this big smoking mirror, but really we've pulled the curtain back and there's a little weaselly little man pulling all the leaves. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's what we're discovering right now. There it is. So we're in the midst of a game changer on the planet. Oh, it's exciting. And more people are waking up to it now. Something that's hot on my heart and yours too is to wake more pastors up to it. Pastors have lived in such fear for so long. To their defense, we mentioned

it, but they were taught not to go there. And so they didn't. So now you're 55, 65 years old. You've been leading a church. You've never stepped into the arena before. Not long ago, it's probably been three, four years ago, BLM was going crazy. And I saw this photo online of these guys in hoods and all standing around somebody they just beat the snot out of. I don't know, the guy may have even died. And they were standing there with their phones filming it. It was horrible.

Smoke in the background, fire. It just went all over me. And I had not stepped into the arena. And I posted one little post while Annette and I were on a little getaway. I posted it, closed my computer. I was saying, I cannot believe this is happening. I just said it out loud. We came back. I had hundreds of comments. I thought, wow, that's cool. I'll start pulling them up. They were all negative. They were all saying, who do you think you are? You don't know what

you're talking about. And these were white people defending BLM, right? And I'm going, and I had one attorney, one girl, she's training to become an attorney. She wrote, you're in my house now. She wrote this threat like. Like, how dare you? You need to stay in your area. You're in my house now. That lit my fire. We first started CDF. We were taking a stand with the books and all the stuff in schools and stuff. We were getting

riddled. George Soros, Media Matters is his organization, and they were ripping us all kinds of stuff. I told you we had access and can find ways to really look at who's writing all this stuff. What we found out is most of that is all generated. It's all paid for. They could be real people, but they're paid to do that. You know what I mean? Yes. Even that's a fake world. I've come to the conclusion, my partner says this all the time, my business partner, the only thing I trust

anymore is God's holy word, period. There you go. Because everything else is some kind of slide. Everything. Everything's leaning. One way or the other. Absolutely. Taking truth and adding elements of truth, but with, with deception and you mix the two, it never comes out right. The math doesn't work. Yeah. And what people, you talk about, I'm sorry. You talk about the revival and what's happening. There's a, there's a, God tells us in his word, he puts, he puts this yearning

in us. Yeah. You know, Bev and I were talking last night that we went home after dinner, but. Everybody is yearning for something. It may be a marriage that's struggling. It may be a child that's struggling. Everybody's got something. It's by design. Yeah. Because this is not our home. And if this became heaven for us, we wouldn't thirst for heaven. Yeah. So that thirst is for

God and his love and acceptance. you know that purpose that he gives us the way i say that is is our dna remembers eden but our spirit longs for heaven and in the meantime we're stuck here in this fallen world That's that's in the process of redemption, but it's not there. And we're told in Romans eight, it's going to there's going to be a day right now. It's groaning. It's crying out. And that's OK. When we have that perspective of there's something in me that remembers Eden.

There's something that knows there was a better time before this. But there's also my spirit that longs for heaven. And so I'm going to use that as a little segue into what you've recently experienced. You know, I've gotten to know you and. And now, thankfully, getting to know your way better half. I call mine my way better half. I always say I'm married up. My stock always goes up when people meet me. Come on, brother.

I feel it. I'm with you there. But getting to hear some of your story, and we were on this text group, and then during Hurricane Helene, you were just mobilizing. I mean, you were moving things and getting things set up, and I was on those. So you are giving us great prayer points and prayer targets, prayer flares, we call them. And so we were involved in that, and then all of a sudden, I mean, something happened, and it was a game changer for a lot of people, but

especially for your family. So who would like to tell us that experience and what happened? I'm going to turn that over to you. Oh, yeah, we've been on a journey. As you stated, you know, the hurricanes. And Steve was real involved with so many pastors and people that were helping for the hurricane relief on that and the election. Just a lot of stuff going on, right? And in the midst of all of that, he was working 20 -hour days, literally. I knew that. Four -hour sleep

might be overstating some of this. And that was

going on for weeks and weeks. And during that time, he was having... he just wasn't feeling great he was having some discomfort in his shoulder he hurt his elbow so he thought it was radiating from that but we went to the he went to his doctor was getting checked out going through some things it was just going slow and i said steve why don't we just self -pay go over to tampa have that scan thing done check it all out and be done we did and everything was fine checked out fine

his heart numbers were better than mine everything was great um So we're rocking into November. It was November 10th was a Sunday, the day before Veterans Day. And we'd had a great day. We'd gone to church that morning and we'd come home and had a nice afternoon together. He had been working. He was working the phone. There was a lot of things going on in his world at that time. And he can talk more to that. I really

am not even qualified to talk to that. But it was some pretty things that were very disruptive. to the kingdom of darkness that he was working on. It was a big deal. It was life and death rescue stuff. We had gone down, watched the sunset that night, which is our custom. Every opportunity we can, we'll catch a sunset, and we'd come back. Anyway, he was working until about 11. We went to bed, and he was just restless, couldn't get comfortable. And he leaned up. He goes, oh, my

Lord. I said, what is it, honey? He said, I just can't. I've got this feeling again. And I don't know what hit me. Something came over me, and I popped up out of that bed. And I said, well, let's get up and move around and see if we can't get you feeling better. And while you're at it, why don't you take an aspirin? I've never done that before. And we go in. I said, well, let's check your blood pressure. His blood pressure is always normal. And it wasn't normal. And I

took it again, and it was worse. And I took it again, and it was worse. I said, get your shoes on. I'm calling 911. Which we'd already decided this Friday before I'd done a big scan test. Right. And this shoulder thing would only come up every once in a while. So I said, well, if that does it again, let's just call 911 and get it done. Because I had one more test to do where they put the camera. Right, right. Let's just get in the hospital and get that done. So this

is the Monday after that Friday. So anyway, called 911 and ambulance and fire truck showed up. They were triaging him, hooked him up, EKG, everything was fine. And the EMS guy looked at me and said, we'll take him in. We'd agreed, get him checked out and see what's going on, see if they can figure out anything. So you weren't on a gurney. He got up and walked to the ambulance. He told you to get your house together and shut down and then come on. You walked to the ambulance.

She came later. He said, Ms. Max, we'll take your time, button up your house, we'll meet you down there. So he left, blew me a kiss, and I'm... Get in my house. I'm 15 minutes behind him. And the EMS guy had said, where do y 'all want to go? And I'm processing, looking at him. Okay, where do we want to go? And he said, why don't you go down to Advent Sebring? It's the closest, and they have a heart center, which I didn't even know that. I'd never been to this hospital.

It's the other direction of where we normally go. I said, okay, let's go there. So I load up, and I head down. to the hospital, and I get there. I'm here to, you know, they brought my husband in to be checked out, and he wasn't in the system yet. I had a moment of panic. Am I in the wrong place? I've never been here before. But about that time, two of the EMTs that had just been at my house come walking around the corner, except this time they don't look the same. Oh, boy.

They're disheveled. They look like they've been in a war. Blood on their shirt. What is going on? And they're walking to me with a beat, just had a beat on me, and they weren't smiling. One knelt at my feet. One sat beside me and said, we just need to let you know what happened before you go back there. He coded on the way to the hospital in the ambulance. He was gone for over 15 minutes. But we got him hooked up, got back on the road, and we got him back about five minutes

from the hospital. So the next thing I know, I'm being whisked back. to the ER to meet with the doctor. And there's two surgeons back there, a male and a female. And she begins to triage me. I see Steve not good. You know, I don't know what I'm looking at, but I knew it wasn't good. Right. She whisked me into another room and she just starts drilling me on what, what's going

on. And I, so I told her about the test. I told her the numbers and she said, you know, this could be this, but she goes, I think it's a heart attack. She goes, but do you see these numbers right here? I said, yes, ma 'am. She goes, these numbers are not sustainable for life. Wow. His pH was 6 .99. His lactic acid was 20. Wow. She goes, he's probably not going to survive the procedure. Most doctors will tell you there's

nothing they can do. And I looked over at the other surgeon, and his body language was completely closed. He wouldn't even make eye contact with me. And in his defense, he probably thought the merciful thing to do is to do nothing. Right. But this girl was a believer. I found out later. And she took my face in her hand and she says, if you give me permission, I will try. Wow. And I said, please try. So she was the miracle that

she gave God room, you know, on it. Two o 'clock in the morning on November the 11th, she just happened to be there in this place we knew nothing about. Wow. God just took us there. And the fact that he coded in the ambulance, you know, I think only 12 % of the people that have the Widowmaker, which is what he had, survived. Wow. So at that moment, she's gone. I give her permission. I'm alone. I'm alone in this room. Five minutes.

Everything has just changed. But if you'll allow me to tell you the story of what, at that moment, I was not afraid. And I see that with all humility. No, there's no arrogance in me. So I was not afraid. I was mad because I knew, I knew at that moment, so many dots were connected. God had been telling me, he had been warning me. He had been preparing me for this moment. And I knew it was a spiritual attack. And I began praying. against it out loud, then no, devil, not tonight.

This is not how this ends. This is not where this ends. We're going to walk through this in Jesus' name. We're going to do this. And the reason I'm so confident, there were so many things. I can't even begin to tell you all of them. But two weeks prior to this heart attack on November the 11th, my son had come in on his way to work and said, Mom, I just had... He goes, it wasn't a dream because it woke me up. He said, I just had this vision. He goes, the house was on fire.

I woke up and the house was on fire. There was smoke everywhere. My room was full of smoke. He said, I smelled it. He said, I'm looking for a fire. He said, but as I'm up and walking around, it just began to dissipate. He goes, but I fully expected to smell like smoke. Well, I didn't know what to make of that. I said, well, honey, I'm glad it was just a dream. You know, have a nice day. Didn't think, I just didn't think that much about it, right? I didn't know what

to think. A week later, my daughter had the same dream in a different house. She goes, Mom, it's as if someone struck a match, a torch under my nose and woke me from a dead sleep. She goes, and I raise up and the room is full of smoke. She said, I can't see the nightlight across the room. Wow. And as she begins to get up and move around, she goes, the smoke began to dissipate. Well, she's a Christian counselor and has some colleagues and friends and a network of people.

And she just put the word out. She goes, listen, is there anybody that can speak into this? This is what's happening in our family. This is, you know, is there, has anyone got a word? Through a series of networking and people, this woman in South Florida contacted Megan. And she goes, yeah. She goes, This is a word from God. This is a message from God. It is urgent. It is for your family. Your family is about to go through

a trial by fire, an all -consuming fire. She goes, but you're going to walk through it, and you're not going to smell like smoke. You're going to come through and not smell like smoke. And in that room at that moment, the Holy Spirit fell on me. In a way I have never experienced before. And I knew that I had to contend for my husband. I knew it was not a time to cry. It was not a time to be fearful. It was a time to contend. My children began to come in. They

look at each other. They realized what it was too. And I'm so proud of their reaction. And with the people that were there at that moment, we began organically every hour, only hour, in agreement to pray, contending that this was a trial by fire. We were going to come through this, and we were not going to smell it. We were going to walk through it. There it is. We were just believing. There it is. And that continued on through the entire process. And the people

that God sent, the prayers. Your church, Steve and I are on a thank you tour. We made a promise to God that any door that opened, we were going to be that one leper that comes back and says, thank you, because we know we were supernaturally healed. We get to see what prayer does on the other side. Yes. The night that I got that text, I'm on a text group with a lot of pastors that you're connected with. And immediately I called out to Annette and I said, Annette, you got to

see this. And I said, we both knew immediately it was a spiritual attack. I mean, because we knew what you're into. We know what you're doing and how you're moving. And I began to pray. We began to pray. And I said, Lord, not this one. He can't. He's too important. And he's such a pivot point for a lot of different things. Because I know you've got your finger in a lot of pies, but they're all important. And they're all. at one level or another, and we just begin to contend

on that level. And I announced it to the church on Sunday and said, we've got to pray for Steve Maxwell. We prayed for you guys by name, calling your name out, and we put it on our prayer list. We have a prayer chain that goes around, and we put that on that list. And there's something to be said for contending when Jesus told that story of the persistent widow. It's almost an annoying story. I mean, somebody standing at your door, banging on your door, waking your

whole household up. They all slept in a big room together. And he said, you've got to be like that persistent widow. Until you get what you came for, which harkens back to the Jacob story at the River Jabbok when he wrestled with the man, capital M, all night. He said, I will not let go of you until you bless me. In other words, he would not let go until he got what he came for. Now, he walked with a limp the rest of his life, but don't we all? Hopefully. Oh, don't

you know? Absolutely. Some of us walk with two limps. We've both been down that track. Of course, we fall. followed along with all that. We paced along with you guys. And when we began to hear of just the hope and the miraculous little things and the movements and, of course, your kidneys shut down, there were so many things happening. I mean, you were really in a fight for your life. When I came out of this, you know, seven or eight days later, of course, I didn't know what had

happened. I'd gone. So back up. I'll tell my side. Back up to where you were in the ambulance. I did not realize. Now I'm rambunctious. I'm ready to get out of there. I'm saying, good, let's go. And so about the third night I was awake, fourth night, I was best at it. When everybody leaves tonight, I'm going to read you a bedtime story. And the doctors do a report every day and give an assessment. I had five or six doctors working on me. And she began reading these assessments

from day one. And that's when it hit me that I was supposed to be dead. They'd basically given me up for dead. No hope. Brain damage. But my kidneys had shut down 100%. My lungs had shut down. They were full of fluid. E. coli had gotten in my bloodstream and my lungs. Staph infection. Staph infection. The liver shut down. I mean, I was in bad shape. And I think the second night, the Tuesday nights, when it all came down, you've got to tell about Pastor John Friedo and what

he did and what really helped set the pace. And then I'll talk about where I was. That's okay. But you've got to tell them about how God brought all these people out of the blue to help you and our children during that time. It was amazing. Just to confirm and to encourage, you know, God would send somebody. He sent someone every day in a miraculous way from, oh, to encourage me. This is my story. This is what they told me. Don't you believe it. You keep believing. You

keep believing. You keep believing. Just story

after story. had an infectious disease doctor because the day that was really the belly of the whale there was no good data you know like apollo 13 the guy said well what do we have on the spaceship that's good right there wasn't anything that was good except that he was still here that was um that was a miracle in itself and we were just you know but the doctor um Steve had been intubated in the field, and he had aspirated, and his lungs were full of E. coli and staph

in his blood. And he had a 105 fever and, you know, packed in ice. And one of the infectious disease doctors came in and sat down, and he told me the stats. And then he sat down next to me, and he took my hand. He says, but I feel like I need to tell you something. This was a young, good -looking specimen. I mean, he looked like the picture of health. And he said, two years ago, that was me. And I said, what? Wow. He goes, yeah. He goes, I had strep throat, and

it went to my heart. And I was intubated, and they had called my family in and blah, blah, blah. You just keep praying. That sort of stuff. Wow. You know, that sort of stuff that people would share with me. It was just crazy. But this one particular day, the belly of the well, Pastor Freed from Lakeland, who I had never met, but had been working with Steve on hurricane relief. Yeah, Remnant Allowance Pastor. And he came up to the hospital and, you know, came in, prayed.

prayed over Steve, anointed him, and put an anointing cloth on him, and had a really sweet time of prayer. And then he looked at me, and he began to tell me the story, remind me of the story in Mark 5 of Jairus, Jairus' daughter. And he went through that whole story with me and how Jairus is with Jesus in this crowd, and it's just this throng, and there's so many things happening at one time. And the messenger runs up. And says, Jairus' daughter has died. And

Jesus just turns to him. He was a religious leader. He was the synagogue. And he says, do not be afraid. Just believe. And he started walking towards Jairus' house. A couple of the disciples went with him. And they got there. And the Bible said that there was a crowd of people. And they were wailing. carrying on. The Bible says causing a commotion. And Jesus walks up and said, why are you causing all this commotion? The child is not dead. She's asleep. And they laughed at

him. And he cleared him out. He told him to go home. He said, don't need you here. Leave. And he took a couple of disciples, mom and dad, went in the room. Little girl get up. She was 12 years old. She started walking around the room. He looked at everybody. He said, don't tell anybody. Give her something to eat. Let's go. And then that pastor looked at me and he said, now, Beverly,

people who believe live like they believe. He goes, that means that you get up, you present yourself well, you eat, you drink, you lay down at night in peace, believing that God's got this. Beautiful. It was as if... That just pierced my heart. I was already doing that in my own feeble, imperfect way. But that gave me a scripture. That was not an ask from Christ. That was a command to me. This is what you do. Here's your, stake

this scripture right here. Beautiful. So. We were praying every hour on the hour, so I invited him. It was time to come out and lead the prayer this hour. So he went out into the lobby, which was full the whole time. I mean, with 30 to 50 people, the outpouring was probably the most unbelievable of anything, of people that would come and pray, earnestly pray. So he goes out and he addresses the group and he says, thank

you for being here. The Maxwell's are so grateful that you are here and for your support is, but we're going to ask something because if there's anybody here that does not believe, if there's any unbelief in this circle, we love you, but we're going to ask you to leave. And you just let it. I love that. I know exactly where he's going with that. Go downstairs, get yourself a Snickers bar, get a Coke, figure it out. Or

not. We're still going to love you. Yeah. But if there's any unbelief here, you're not helping. Yeah. We need you to leave. That's good. Because we are only believing. And in agreement, it's like a cool breeze. Oh, yeah. You could feel it. And when we joined hands that hour in agreement to pray, it was different. And it was different the rest of the week. It affected the entire hospital. Yeah, it was powerful. From the security guards all the way. That's what revival does.

The water level rises everywhere. If it only happens at one church, I'm going, that's not real revival. It may be awakening for that church, but real revival spills out into the streets and the water level rises everywhere. You know, during a flood, everything's touched. Y 'all know, you've been there, done that. Living in Florida, you've been there, done that. Everything's, nothing is left untouched when the water rises.

And so that's what revival does. So whether you're in a hospital, It doesn't matter where you are, whether you're at the Austin Capitol. Something unusual happens, and everyone knows it. They may not be able to tell you what it is, but something happened. Wow. John Freed, Pastor Freed, we've been to his church. There were so many pastors that came. And they all bring different things,

right? Whether it's a Baptist or Pentecostal or everything in between, they all bring something and they're all part of the tapestry of the body of Christ. They bring something. Yes, folk life. Yeah, it's beautiful. Every one of them. Beautiful. Several supporters here in Texas. You know Kyle. Yeah, yeah. They all flew out and prayed over me. It was just an incredible outpouring for us personally, but the Spirit of God, how the Holy Spirit came into that. Yes. It's fundamental.

I don't know if I was supposed to do a commercial for Advent Health. I think they're going to do a video. They want to get this out to the entire community. Beautiful, beautiful. So God continues to move there. There were so many, there were pastors, Latino pastors from Texas that would send me audio prayers. Oh, I love that. And I would just pray them out in the room on my own.

Oh, love that. What a great idea. You know, and maybe I had experienced this in degrees, but the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit, just the comforter. Yes. I don't have words to articulate what I felt, but it is as if I was standing in a fire, a literal fire, but I was completely insulated. I could almost hear the flames. I could hear the noise. I could feel it, but I was completely insulated. I felt joy. I felt

joy. As bad as this was, and I wouldn't wish it, I wouldn't take a million dollars for it. Because of what I experienced and how that deepened my faith in a way that really nothing else could. It's not natural. It's supernatural. And that's what people need to understand is that. You can live up in a down world. I mean, it's the name of our podcast, but that's not just some cute name. I came up with that in college when I wrote a paper. I was charged to write a paper on any

topic I want. And I just, Lord, what should I write on living up in a down world? Okay, I like that. And I went with it. It's sort of a Zig Ziglar type thing. Over the years, it's stuck with me. That's why we call this podcast that, because we can. We can live above the line, above the fray. Everybody's losing their mind. I always get a picture of when the flood started, when the rain started coming, and everybody's beating the doors of the boat to get in. And Noah's going,

you had a chance. But it's all above the noise, all above. What you felt. So the Greek word, the Koine Greek word is the parakletos. That's for the Holy Spirit. And it means the one called alongside to help. But it also means comforter, counselor, intercessor, friend. All of those. And you got to experience those. facets and more, I'm sure, many more of that. Those are just some of the names that go along with that word parakletos or paraclete in the Greek. And so you experienced

Him. You experienced not only the power, and everybody gets enamored with the power of the Holy Spirit, but not many people get as enamored with the person of the Holy Spirit. He truly is a comforter. He's a counselor when you need Him to be. Our pastor at church had been leading us into a better understanding of the Holy Spirit, which I didn't have a great understanding of that. It's almost like he's the ignored person in the Trinity. But I had been really trying

to dial into that and praying for that. Beautiful. Wow. Did God answer my prayer? Wow. Did he ever? You know, did he ever? Whatever he chose, whatever that was. Yes. I'm grateful. I'm just grateful because I feel like he is not a stranger. No, he is not. And I can see that on you both. And it's interesting because Annette and I were actually wondering because we didn't know your spiritual background. We're like. You know, I wonder if they believe in the Holy Spirit. They believe,

because some don't. I taught on six months on the Holy Spirit in this church to Lutherans and Catholics and Baptists and Presbyterians. This is Fredericksburg, Texas. That's right. And we're in the belt bug of the Bible Belt here in the Hill Country. But I taught it biblically. And I said this, the Holy Spirit's not weird. People are weird. And the people that are weird with the Holy Spirit were weird before they had the Holy Spirit. So don't blame the Holy Spirit for

weirdness. It's not a fair. It's a bad label. But what happened is the enemy has taught people, Pavlov's dog response, that if he can expose you to negative, bizarre, weird people. that claim the Holy Spirit, then it inoculates you from wanting, isn't that genius? What a great, if he can cut off the very source you need, you know, Acts 1 .8, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power and you shall be

my witnesses. Starting here in Judea, Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, other parts of the earth. So the very thing we need, we get inoculated to. And we see that in the... We see that in the government realm. We see that in the cultural engagement realm. The MO of the enemy doesn't change. He's actually quite predictable. You know, as a Christian businessman, I think the arena up until this moment, believe it or not, that most reflects the Holy Spirit, the Spirit

of God, is the business world. Why? Because the entrepreneur knows the risk that has to be taken. There's always risk. You talk about pastors having fear. Think about that. Think about that phrase. A pastor has fear. We all have them. I'm not condemning here. But in business, you have fear. But if you don't overcome that fear, you succumb to it and you go out of business. So that's why I love the entrepreneur. I love the business leader because there's a connection there. And

for the pastor that's out there like you. You have that connection with business people. It's an instant connection because of the risk. It is. You overcome that risk. So the Holy Spirit in our business life has guided us so many times. We could have a whole podcast just on that. We will. Another time. We could get a partner in here one day and talk about how God did this and God did that. We heard this and we heard that. We're totally against what the world says

to do. We did it God's way, and God showed up in a mighty way. And that's what the journey we're on is. It's not about comfort. No. It's not about comfort. He doesn't really care about our comfort. This is an awakening for me when I realize he cared more about my character than my comfort, and he'll do whatever it takes to get my character sharpened, and the comfort may or may not come. Romans tells us God's mission for you and me as his believers is to be conformed

to the image of his son. Digest that. He left the pearly. Yes. Yeah. Philippians chapter 1 talks about how he let go and did not hang on to divinity, to his divinity. He let it go. Amazing. Yes. Oh, I thank the Lord the Bible gave us that human side. Don't you? Wow. Mm -hmm. Because he loved us, he loved his daddy. He wanted to please his father. That's what I'm supposed to do. So that word. Yeah, whatever. That word. It cost me everything. Oh, so you got to hear

this. I'm nerd out on Greek. So when it says that he, for the joy set before him, he despised the shame. The word despise means to step over. It literally means. So when you despise something, you step over it. And it says he despised the shame. He stepped right over the shame. I mean, like it wasn't even there, not even a speed bump. He steps over it because he's looking to the cross. He sees, and the beauty of it is he saw what's on the other side of the cross. On the

other side of our obedience is victory. It's this abundant life that John 10, 10 talks about. You know, when people quote John 10, 10, they quote the first part of it more than the last. First part is the enemy seeks to steal, to kill and destroy. Everybody's, oh yeah, it's terrible. But Jesus flips the script and says, but I came that you might have life, have it more abundantly, have it to the full. That's what he saw. And on the other side of our, when we, when we despise.

When we despise the temptation, despise what he despises, we step over it. And that to me is what Jesus did. He simply stepped over it like it was a speed bump. I mean, just kept going. Beautiful. Yes. Step over it, despise it. Yeah, we've, you know, we've redefined some words differently. But when you get back and you start mining out the jewels of the word of God, that's one of those jewels. And I go to Revelation 12 too all the time. You know, John's looking down the portal

of time to our generation. And he says, they defeated him who's Satan. That's who we're fighting. Yes. By the blood of the lamb. Yeah. It's been done. But the two thirds of this equation is on me. Yes. Blood of the lamb, word of my testimony. Yeah. What does that look like? Well. Personally, I need to have my life clean and straight and all that. But in my community, I'm just standing for righteousness. That's it. That's it. In his

kingdom. And then they did that courage. They did not live their lives so much that they shied away from death. Dude, that's how we win. That's it. You see it beginning to work. There's countries coming alive. You're seeing people. Yes. Well, I've got to ask you a question because along that line, you've got to give us a little bit of what you saw on the other side of the veil.

on the other side of the threshold. Well, the last thing I remember before waking up to this beautiful girl in my face eight days later was we have a long driveway, and we have cattle guards, and cattle can't get in here. So I remember going through past the last cattle guard, and the ambulance turns to go toward the hospital, and the engine is ramping up. And, Pastor, the next thing I remember, I literally come up out of the gurney, out of the bed and the ambulance, and there's

no light. I just walk right into the presence of the Lord, and I'm in outer space. And Jesus himself, I didn't see his face, but my spirit identified it was him, comes to me and puts his arm around me just like this. He says, Steve, I want to show you what's going on in the spiritual realm. And the next scene is we're in space, and I was sharing with you last night, I don't know how to describe it except think of flat screen TVs because there were breaks in these

things. But as high as you could see in outer space, as low, as far as you could see everywhere were these scenes of things going on on Earth. And some were good and some were not good. And

you speak by thought there. and the thought came was i see everything i see everything and then the next thing is a darkened scene uh and it was that night i've been working bev mentioned it earlier i've been working on raising some funds we're trying to get rescue some girls we'll call them sex trafficking and that was a scene and there were three points of light that were coming into that scene and the darkness had to flee and that's the thought that darkness must

flee and then i go into another classroom setting you know in in same outer space and and he begins to share with me the glory of god and how powerful it is and how moses wanted to see it but he said you can't you see my goodness you can't see my glory wow because it's so holy it will we will evaporate in his presence wow but hebrews chapter one Chapter 1 says that Jesus is the radiance

of God's glory. So what he was sharing with me is when you have Christ in your heart, you become those three points of light entering that darkness. Beautiful. Working with me because now we're together. Yeah, co -laboring. We're co -laboring together. So that's what you're doing. You're working to push back darkness and the darkness must flee. Wow. And I could go on and on about that, but it was just, it was like, yeah, the coach is taking me up. Get ready to get back

in the game. And the next thing was a pep talk. He shows me the totals of heaven. And there's, again, as far as I could see, there were millions, millions, millions of saints, saints that have gone on before. And they all had jobs. And they were looking at me with a smile on their face and said, go, keep going, keep going. It's like, man, when you get up here, you can't do any more down there because there's a lot more to do up here. But keep going. We're watching you. You

know, we're behind you. The Lord's behind you. You know, that wasn't me. It was for all of us on earth that had the light. It was a beautiful scene. Matter of fact, about, what, three or four days after I came to and I was totally back in the game, that same scene came to my hospital room. And that was with me. I had her in bed with me because I couldn't get warm. And so that night, I said, honey, do you see them? Oh, my goodness. But I believe you see them. I said,

honey, they're right there. Wow. It was all the saints just smiling. And you know they're here right now. They're here. That's what I want to share with people. The dimension of the spiritual realm is right here. It's right here. But here's the thing. People tend to lean towards the negative. So they, oh, there's demonic activity all around. As though that's bigger than what's going on than this. It's a theater full of people. You

know, I heard a pastor say this this week. Actually, it was Art Alley that said this at a function this week. He said, he gave this illustration. He said, let's say you're a football fan. I mean, an avid football fan, Texas or whoever, Aggies, whatever. You're an avid fan. They're in the championship game. And you find out Saturday night at the championship game, your wife says, hey, we've got an appointment we've got to make. We cannot get out of it. You go, golly, we've

got to get out of the championship game. Okay, honey, so you go, and while you're there, somebody slips up and says, hey, your team won. What are you going to do if you're an avid fan? You're going to go home. You're going to watch the game. So you're home watching the game. You already know you won. So if you're down by 21 points at halftime, does that worry you? Not a bit. And the illustration was, that's how we should

live as Christians. This enemy is defeated. Isaiah tells us there's coming a day we're going to look at Satan, and the world's going to go, is this the guy we feared and troubled? This is a joke. That's exactly right. We have the power of Christ is in us. We have the power. He is supposed to be on defense. The gates of hell. That's it. That's it. We're supposed to be on offense. Yeah. And somehow we'll miss it. I think that's coming back. I do too. He's afraid of

us. Yes. So those saints are up there and they are rooting us on. Oh, man. I saw one family member I knew. The rest of them were just, I never got to go in. I just got to see what they were doing. And Jesus then turned to me. He said, Steve, Joel chapter 3. He said, I'm exposing the light to all corruption in the world. And I'm calling the nations to the valley of decision. Wow. Joel chapter 3. And those who have a choice, they can receive me or they can reject me. But

here's the challenge. Here's what I'm here to talk about today. The final harvest has begun. I'm about to fill the portals of heaven with my people. I could tell your friends. Yeah, that's it. That's the message. That's the message. Two perspectives. Yeah, we're not here. This is so beautiful, though. Yours was having to... Get past your own fears and fight through your mind wars because you were in a mind war. The Spirit's saying, be at peace, rest. He's bringing people

along to tell you that. Your mind's trying to tell you other things, and you had to really fight and contend for your peace. Every thought, every thought to the obedience of Christ. So you were fighting your own war while you are getting surgery of some kind. I mean, I'm not talking about, I'm talking about spiritual surgery. The Holy Spirit took you and Jesus to show you some things so that you could come back and tell us to not be afraid. Don't be afraid and don't

quit. Don't quit. Stay the course. I've only gotten one verbal word from God. I mean, I've got friends that hear God all the time. I'm like, how do you do that? You know, one time it was after a really hard crisis. I'm driving out 87. I'm beating my steering wheel. I'm mad. I'm like, Lord, why? This is. I trust you, but, you know, this is really hard. It was heart -rending. And I heard these words, stay the course. Three words, not complicated, something I can actually remember.

I'm a simple guy. So I'm just like, that's it. And that was all I needed to hear. That was about four years ago. And I hear that word 10 times a day right now. I hear it just as though I heard it that moment. And that's what you got. When the Lord so impacts your life. He implants something that will never go away, can never be shaken, can never be taken. No one can take it away from you. You know what he said to you, and you know what he said to you. I know what he said. That

means we never have to be afraid again. That's right. Another interesting story in all this is Beth had a second cousin that we don't see often. She's a believer. She goes to church with my mom. She had a vision as well. The day this happened, I believe, the day all this happened, she didn't know what had happened. But she got a vision. She had to get a hold of my mom. She went to my brother -in -law, my sister -in -law to do that, where the enemy had come after me,

was trying to take me out. The vision is me in a hospital bed, hooked up to all this equipment. But an angel, a 15 -foot tall angel, said she felt it. The angel felt the entire room. It had its wings over me protecting me from the enemy. Three days later, she has another vision. The angel's gone. The enemy come back to get me again. But the prayers of the saints held him back. So we're here to say prayer works. We've seen

prayer work. Don't quit praying. Beautiful. Pastors that listen to this or anybody in the name of Jesus doing any work for his kingdom, do not give up. Continue on. It's all a part of this tapestry that he's working out. When I came home, the first day I was home, I have a private Bible time every morning for years. And I was just pondering that whole scene. And I'd say it humbly. Now, Beth says, her second cousin said it was

Gabriel. Beth says, no, I rank him. But that little voice told me, Lord, the Spirit of the Lord said, Steve, I sent the angels to protect you until war got out. Once the word got out, the prayers of the saints are enough to hold back the enemy. So that's a message I want to give to people. Don't give up your prayers, your prayer life. The fervent prayer of a righteous person availeth much. We saw that happen, not just in I didn't die, but the fast recovery in

one week. Oh, yeah, miraculous. I'm walking out of the hospital. You're dancing out of the hospital. Yeah, dancing. It was a bad dance. I get it, but it was a dance anyway. But how did that happen?

My heart was. back to 100 my lungs were clear that night i had 105 degree temperature it went down to zero by daybreak and you regained your kidney function you regained kidney function 100 they're talking about kidney replacement wow shock seven times five shots directly in the heart with epi shots they said there's no way seven shocks from a paddles you're gonna survive your kidneys will not survive that they survived everything survived so the miracle was

not only I was saved from being killed, but there's no damage, no brain damage. Still questionable. But no brain damage. I feel better than I've ever felt. Brother. And so we're just saying, Lord, just show us where to go. Yes. Give it our all and don't fear anything. That's it. That's it. We've got bracelets for the girls using that phrase. All my daughters and my soon -to -be daughter -in -law. And we put that scripture on there, Matthew 536. Do not fear, just believe.

That's Beth's message. Do not fear, just believe. And a pastor said, man, I fear maybe this. Do not fear, just believe. Just believe. Do what God tells you to do. Get in the lion's den. Because there are souls to be saved in the community. There's a righteousness to stand up for. We're going to face him one day. And he's going to say, well done. There it is. And I'll close with

this because I love this illustration. Because in one day that week, that same week, I studied the Matthew 7, I think it is, where the Bible says, Jesus tells these supposedly pastors, depart from me, I never knew you. And they said, what do you mean? We cast demons out of you. What do you mean you don't know us? And the next day I studied Rahab. Rahab. She made it to the faith hall of fame. How does a pastor not make it into heaven? Yeah. By not knowing God. Yeah. And Rahab

is on the front row hall of fame. And I think I come to a layman's conclusion. Rahab risked her life. Brother, you got it. Right? Yes. Does that make sense? Yes. I'm looking up something while you're talking in the scripture. These people in the hall of fame, they all risked their lives. They all laid down their most precious everything, whatever it is. They feared, but they overcame it and said, I fear and love God more than I love myself. That is the message

to everybody out there. We stand for righteousness. We stand for the king. The enemy is defeated. We put him first, his kingdom, his righteousness. All these things will be added unto us, including saving a nation, including your children coming to know the Lord, including being healed. Wow. It's interesting in Revelation chapter 21, listen to this verse. Jesus himself is speaking to John on Patmos Island, right? John's just like, he's having, he's seeing that open outer space probably

like you did. And he says, I saw a holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. He goes on and on. And he says, he'll wipe away every tear from their eyes. Just such, whoa, life, right? And he says, he who is seated on the throne said, behold, I'm making all things new. So we know there's a massive restoration

coming. He says this, the one who conquers will have this heritage, that inheritance of all he just said, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But now he turns the corner. He flips the scripts in verse 8 of Revelation 21. But as for, and he begins to lead, give a list of those who will not inherit, those who are going to perish. The first out of the list, let me just tell you some of the names on the list.

The faithless, the detestable. As for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. But you know what the number one is? But the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable. Number one on the list is the cowards. The cowards. Exactly. Right there, Revelation 21a, number one on the list is coward. When I read that, my wife treated me to this verse one day. She

said, have you read this? She said, we cannot be afraid. This is my wife. She's fire. She's dynamite. She is. And she's a woman of faith. I'd probably read that scripture at some point, but I wasn't swimming in Revelation 21 no more than I swim in Lamentations. So I was like, no, I haven't seen that. And we begin to really think that through and how the first thing on the list is the cowardly, the timid, the fearful. What

is he saying about following Jesus? And what is one of our greatest marks of being a follower of Jesus? They love their lives, not unto death. No fear. No fear because they understand this is a pale shadow. This is a bad copy of the real thing. Exactly. This is just boot camp right here. This is getting us ready. The real thing comes later. I remember Dr. Jack Taylor saying that this is not real. What we're experiencing now has massive consequences for your eternity.

You've got to get that right. But this is a bad copy of the real thing. And the enemy's been trying to replicate and counterfeit it ever since. But I'm telling you, there's something coming and you got a glimpse. And you've given us a glimpse in our mind's eye or sanctified imagination. And, you know, turning, I think it's easy growing up. And now looking at our societies today, it's so easy, especially in the Western society, to get distracted from what's really important.

Yes. You know? And so we wind up, there's a great essay I think I wrote many years ago, it's called The Tyranny of the Urgent. And the urgent things get in the way of the important. Yeah. The important is seeing things through the prism of spiritual

eyes. And what we're seeing In our country today, I believe it's all orchestrated by God, but I share with several people at the meeting on Tuesday, but when you have a president give a speech and recognizes a 13 -year -old cancer victim, and you see faces in the crowd that can't respond to that, what that is is a soul that's been given over to a depraved mind. Yes, absolutely. Reprobate mind. We live in a spiritual world. And so seeing it in spiritual eyes becomes the important. Yes.

All of a sudden, maybe it's not me rushing to get, I'm using a stupid example here, get in front of the line of food at your church. It's understanding that maybe that person right here needs to hear a comforting word or the waiter needs to know we're praying for her. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. Every day. We all can do it. A friend reached out to me this morning and said, pray for me. I'm feeling very impatient right now about things. We've got so many things

on our schedule. I can't get to the things I feel like I need to get to. And I said, you know, what if I just threw this out. What if those interruptions. are the preparation you need for what you're trying to get done. What if those interruptions are the will of God in that moment? Of course, he wrote me back. Great perspective. Thank you. He didn't get sympathy, but he got

just maybe a different perspective. Could it be those interruptions and those things that we think are not important are actually the important thing, whether it's a person, a situation, circumstance? Same thing. It's a mindset. One sidebar to this whole journey that we were just on. And that just illustrated it beautifully is that as the body of Christ, we don't have to do this alone.

You know, in Mark chapter two, when the four friends lowered their paralyzed friend down through the roof to see Jesus and Jesus saw that and he looked at the man, he said, you know, your sins are forgiven because of their faith. It matters who you circle. Yes, it does. Well said. Because you have a circle that is praying for you, that is holding up your arm, you know, that is with you. And that is the Holy Spirit. Yes.

Getting all that together. And that is one thing that I feel like this whole experience really brought to life to me, that this is spiritual. Yes. And how woefully unprepared I was to my own. I'm disappointed in myself. But God put me on a fast track. Yes, that's His mercy. It's His grace. And I was telling you this, but just a little bit of time I've spent with you and your wife, and the nuggets that you've spoken to me, I can't articulate to you how the Holy

Spirit has taken that. It's blooming, and I am so grateful for people who have courage. to speak out and to love people because people are messy, right? We're all a mess. We're all a hot mess. We're all a hot mess. We're all a mess. I think there's a great awakening happening. It's just such a beautiful tapestry. As I travel the country now, of course, we're sharing this story now. There's so much thirst, and I know we're going to speak to your people tomorrow. I'm excited

about it. I'm so looking forward to it. And what I found, and I don't know how many times we've done this now, 14 or 15 times now, but her message that God's given her is the most profound. Mine is encouragement. You know, mine's real easy. Precious in the sight of the Lord. Your best day on earth is that day here, right? But her message, and don't fear. But her message just resonates somehow. And I think it's because there's an old Chinese proverb that says, when the student

is ready, the teacher will appear. Oh, wow. And I think our nation is ready. There's a thirst. And God reacts to the hunger and the thirst. He's attracted to it. He's attracted to it. Yes. He shows up. James 4 .8 is so simple. I'm a simple man, so I like simple things. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. One verse. Just a few words. Draw near to God. He's asking for

us to initiate movement. And however that looks, maybe humming a hymn, it may be putting on Godcaster and listening to worship or in the car, turning your cab into a cathedral, right? I mean, just your shower into a temple. I mean, we're just with Him. And that praying without ceasing, which we talked about at the beginning of this. I love what Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach. did that little booklet called Practicing the Presence of God, The Practice of the Presence of God,

where it's an ongoing conversation. I don't say amen hardly anymore because it doesn't stop. I go to bed in the middle of a prayer. I guess I keep God on hold all night. I wake up and go, and as I was saying, Lord, usually it's good morning, Holy Spirit. Good morning, Abba Father. Good morning. And as I was saying. You shared with us last night about grace in a way I'd never heard in my entire life. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you know, there's a lot of, there's a movement

in grace right now. Grace movement. Grace is cool now. You know, it's trendy now. And unfortunately, it's an aberration of biblical grace where it's turned into this, you know, I'm okay, you're okay. It's very humanistic. I mean, it's got that whole secular humanist bent to it. But biblically, grace is literally God's power. God's strength, God's ability, God's authority, and God's favor to do what we cannot in and of ourselves do.

And the reason I came to that conclusion, I did a deep dive study years ago and found various, there's an amalgam of definitions that I pulled from. But also realize this, the Bible says that Jesus was full of grace and truth. And most people define grace as... undeserved favor. It's just unmerited favors, the classic definition. And I remember hearing that thinking, that is so one -dimensional. It's got to be multifaceted like a diamond under a halogen light. When you

turn it, you see the facets. And that's why I went into this deep dive study of grace. And I realized that more often than not, grace is power. It's God's power. It's God's dunamis. We get the word dynamite from that. It's explosive in nature, and it's the power for working miracles. It says that in the early chapters of the book of Acts, it says that the disciples were working great miracles and signs and wonders. It says, and great grace was upon them all, not unmerited

favor. Power, ability, authority. They were walking in the grace of God. Once I learned that definition and did that study, I never saw grace the same. Now when I use the word grace, it may be in a mixed crowd and they may be thinking one thing, but I'm thinking power. I'm thinking authority, our authority in Christ. Oh, grace is not soft. Grace is what God's riches at Christ's expense. Which is great. There's a facet. There's a facet. That's good. It is true. And authority and ability.

He enables us through grace. You look at Ephesians 2, verse 8, classic. We are saved by grace through faith, right? Or by faith through grace. But it's by grace through faith. The only thing that can save and change a human heart is the power of God. The grace of God. Not unmerited favor. power of God. That's what changes the human heart. So, so I do want you to read that word different. Now, when you see that word in scripture, think of this other definition and it will begin to

expand that one verse. Yes. Brother. You're required to do that. It's the same grace, the same power, the same dunamis that raised Jesus from the dead that works in us, it's scripture says. You have firsthand, brother. You're a Lazarus, brother. That's the power that helps you forgive the unforgivable. Absolutely. That's the power that helps you overcome

the addiction. Absolutely. tempts us are the things that we love we love those things and that grace gives you in the flesh gives you the power yes to turn away from that yeah you know practically speaking yeah well the word ability also means to be enabled so it enables you to overcome to say no to sin to say no to unrighteousness and to say yes to godliness the scripture says and so now forgiveness is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. It's not something our flesh

can do. When I hear humanists and psychologists and people, therapists, talking about forgiveness, it's at such an elemental level. True forgiveness means not only do I forgive my neighbor, On the surface, I also now begin to pray for them. And you move from contempt to compassion. Where that person you were so angry with and all your friends were telling you you're right to be so. Do you know that for every step you take away from the cross, you have 12 people patting you on the

back saying you have a right to be mad. You have a right to feel that way. But when we turn back to the cross, I say, I don't have any rights. I died. Dead man has no rights. I died, and I've now been raised up and seated with Christ in heavenly places, so I don't have any rights. All I have is permission. All I have are privileges. No entitlements. Yes, Lord. Okay, I get to do this? Okay, we go. There it is. There it is. And we can let go. Release. The old let go and

let God. I used to think that was a silly little cliche. Now I'm like, that is real. There is a letting go. That's called trust. And really, doesn't it all come back to that? And it's a spiritual daily discipline. Absolutely. For me. No, for all of us. For me. Everybody. It's a daily. How many times have I said, Lord, it's yours already, but I'm letting go. Yes. I'm releasing it and acknowledging that this is under your control. First Thessalonians chapter five says

this, it says, pray without ceasing. That is a mandate in the actual, it's an imperative in the language, which means it's a command. It's not an option. Pray without ceasing. And that is how we walk in that grace. That's how we live in it. So that when you're walking through the store and people are smiling at you and looking at you unusually, why? It's because there's something on you. You've put on Christ like a garment and you're walking in through H -E -B or Walmart

or Publix. We had Publix in Tennessee. You're walking through the store in aisle four and people are just looking at you and smiling. Why? Because there's something different. You're attracted to it. Wow, we could go all day. We got a workout to get to, brother. We're going to go pump some iron. Well, listen, I want to thank our friends for staying with us. We went so long, we wore out our cameras. We lost batteries on two cameras, but our middle one's good to go. And we want

to say thank you for being with us today. And go to livingupinadownworld .com. There you can get all things Living Up. And really, you can get this podcast. You can get our audio podcast as well. and our archives. And you can like us, you can subscribe. I also want to say thank you. There's some folks donating to this project, and I want to say thank you for that. That means so much to us. Value for value. You're saying if this brings value to you, then I want to bring

value back. And so thank you for doing that to our friends that watch, that listen, that support, that come to meetups that we get to do and get to meet people. And we're so happy to do it. We're here for you. That is... Mine and Annette's heart is to help you live up in a down world. And when I say down world, I'm not putting the world down. I'm simply recognizing that we live

in a fallen world, according to God's word. And we get to live up in it and make a difference and be those points of light that you talked about, Steve, to be that life giver, to be salt and light in our world, speaking out. for the things of God. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for being, I literally could do this all day long with you two. Iron sharpens iron. We did it. We did it. We get to do it again

twice tomorrow. Iron sharpens iron. So as iron sharpens iron, the countenance of one friend sharpens another. And when we get together, so what you were talking about in the hospital. We just sharpen one another. So again, thank you. If you like this, hit subscribe, like, all

that stuff helps us. But also send it to friends who might want to hear a little bit about heaven and a little bit about what it means to live this thing out in real life with the person and work of the Holy Spirit active in our lives. We love you. God bless you. Have an amazing day on purpose. All right, I'm going to stop there. I'll let you do the tag on. Yeah, that'd be easier than just trying to hit a cue. Oh, gosh.