151. Updates and Future Fun

I found my freedom in you I found a joy I can't lose And thank God it's true You wrapped your arms around me And heaven broke through From the moment you found me I found my freedom in you Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Safer and Brad Martin. Well, welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. Glad to have you back today. Glad to be back with you. We've been doing a lot of things here lately. We've had the conference, but we've just got done. And we've got a lot of things. We've got a lot of reports to give you. We've got a lot of announcements that we need to make. But we're just glad to be back in the saddle one more time. That's what's going on in my part of the country. James, what's going on in your neck of the woods? Yeah, man. It's been good to be back. It's been good to be home. Last week, my wife's uncle passed away. And so we drove to Arkansas on Friday. We got up and we had my son's first basketball game Friday morning or Friday after school. We hit the road Friday or I'm sorry, Thursday afternoon. We hit the road Thursday about 630 in the afternoon. That evening, I drove through the night and never done that before to Arkansas. So I drove the 14 hours. We landed in Arkansas at 630 in the morning. I took a two-hour nap, went to the funeral that was at 10 o'clock on Friday morning, went to lunch with her dad. And then we hit the road and I drove to John's house. He's halfway between Arkansas and my house. And so instead of driving the 14 hours back, we drove the seven hours to his house. Stayed at his house that night, got up, went out that next morning after breakfast and then got home Saturday about 5, 6 o'clock. So 48 hours, 30 of it was driving, a couple hours of sleep in between there. That was what happened at the end of last week. And so what a quick turnaround that was for us. Good to hang out with him and his family. My kids are roughly the same age of his kids. And so he's Uncle John. I'm Uncle James. The kids play. The adults hang out. So it's always a good time to get together with him. And so we had a great time. And then I got back and my vehicle starts messing up. And so we've been in and out of the shop this whole week trying to get my stinking vehicle working right. And it's just frustrating, Brett. And you know this as an adult but also a mechanic who changed old man. You figure out. You think you know the problem. You get it fixed. The problem still happens. So you go back. You get it fixed. You think you got the right answer. You go in. It still has a problem. And it's just the third, fourth time you go in. It's just frustrating. And so as I was praying with my kids last night, I said, Lord, give us patience. Help us to learn what we're going through, what we're going through. And so it's just a trying time. It's not that it's unmanageable. But it's just frustrating at times when you're busy. You're trying to get ready for Thanksgiving. Family coming in. And then these little things come up that just irk you. Here's what happened. And the mechanic knew what the problem was the first visit. That's right. And then he came in and said, look at this guy. Look at this sucker. I bet we can make a lot of money off of him. And they just keep on milking you. Yeah. Well, yesterday. And this is why, you know, sometimes I think that. But then two days ago when I brought my vehicle in and I've been going to the same shop. It's a new shop I was going to. But an old man was working on it. And I thought, man, this guy, he's pretty solid. I like old guys. They know what they're doing. And the second time I met him, I found out he was a pastor. And so I sort of threw out, yeah, you know, I'm a pastor too. And so, man, he's like, yeah, cut my labor in half, help this guy out. So he's been helping me out. So I appreciate that. He saved me some money. And I appreciate what they've been doing. So while you're going on your trips and everything this past weekend, I'm at an elementary school and an old abandoned elementary school that's been refurbished. And we're thinking about using this school for a crusade. So I meet there with the groundskeeper, pastor, First Baptist Church, Carthage. I meet there with the associational director of my county. And we're walking through. We're walking through, you know, saying, what do we need here? If we have the crusade here, we can bring in chairs here and we can turn these into overflow rooms. And we're videoing and we're doing the whole thing. And then I go to leave. And as I'm pulling out the end of the road, I make a it's a dead end and I make a wide left. And I just not to smooth knock over a mailbox, snap the post in half. And I really didn't even realize I did it at first until I got on down the road a piece. And I was like, I just knocked that mailbox over. So I pulled over and I went and I looked at my truck and not a scratch. I mean, I can't even see where my truck made contact. I know I did it. But there's not not one scratch on my on my truck. Now, I was never going to go off. I was never going to leave. Yeah. But man, there was something in me. It's like, you know what? If I left, nobody would know. I was like, oh, you know, you can't do that. What if they got a camera out there? So I turn around, went back, knocked on the door. And sure enough, there was a ring camera. It wasn't facing the mailbox. But she talked to me through the ring camera. Few days later, I was able to fix the post for her. Now, here's the thing. When I went to fix the post, she pointed to a camera and said, we've had this mailbox knocked over before. And I've got people on camera knocking it over and then leaving and saying that they didn't do it. That's why we got the camera. And so she said, I'm thankful. I'm thankful that you came back. And I was like, in my mind, I'm like, I'm thankful I came back, too. Because I was right. There was a camera on the mailbox. So a little side quest for you there. Yeah. And you have like 0% tint on your windows. I hope no officers are listening. But it's dark in your truck. Like, it's hard to see. And so I can definitely see. At night, when I come to a stop sign at night, I have to roll the windows down before I make a turn. It's that dark. Yeah. It's pretty dark. I thought you were going to say, as you were coming out of this old abandoned elementary school, a ghost came out from the side and began talking to you. And you just sort of had a conversation with them. That's what I was thinking you were going to say. I wasn't expecting you to go mailbox route. But, yeah, that's great. Hey, let's come down here. Let's get the keys. And let's do a nighttime episode. Spend the night in it. Yeah. Maybe we'll get some EMP. See if we can get some signal. Maybe we can get Greg Lott to come down and do a deliverance conference. Oh, yeah. Have him exercise the demon. There we go. Love it. Love it. Well, man, it's been a hot minute since we got on here. We had our RFP conference. And we dropped your episode of your sermon. We are still waiting on the man, JC, to get me my sermon so we can drop it. If it comes in, we'll drop it next week. And then we'll be rolling on from there. But, man, we've got some updates going on. We want to give you guys. We dropped an eight-minute episode a couple of weeks ago to be praying for Nathan. We were hopeful. But we were. I know for me, myself, we were hopeful. But we were very worried, concerned. It wasn't looking good for Nathan, to say the least. I'll just go ahead and tell you that I kept the last day of my vacation open because I thought I was going to go to his funeral. Yeah. I mean, that's how serious things were. Like, we were praying and we were asking God. But at the same time, you get near the end of the week. JC says he goes in the hospital and thinks that that's the last time he's ever going to see his friend alive. Yeah. I was like, well, we need to prepare for the worst. And it was only by God's grace and a miracle of the Lord. Like, I saw a picture on Facebook today of Nathan standing. Yeah. You know, and I never thought I would ever see Nathan stand again. And it's just a like when you get it, when you really get a hold of heaven and you really come boldly before the throne of grace, God can do miraculous things. And it's just a testament that we have a God on the throne that listens to us, that cares about us. And it was within his will to allow Nathan to continue to live. And we're just so thankful that that he's survived thus far. He's still not out of the woods. He's got some medical issues. And we're going to talk about that here in just a second. But the fact that he's still with us today is just nothing short of a miracle. Absolutely. I love what Carrie said on Facebook. She said, we're praising God that he answered our prayers. But even if he wouldn't, we would have still said that God is good. And that is the attitude that we have to have because there are times where life is difficult and things are uncertain. But it's good to know that God is still in control. I think as of this morning, Nathan went in for a surgery to begin this healing process of removing some appendages, some extremities on his body. And so just continue to be praying for him again for his kidneys to wake up, his liver and spleen to begin to regrow. He's on dialysis right now, from what I understand, twice a week or every other day. And so just continue to be praying for him, be praying for the family, his girls, his son, his daughter-in-law. And what else? Well, as far as the dialysis, for you to go every other day and sit eight hours in a clinic to go through dialysis is just torture. We are praying for his kidneys to come back to life. There is a little bit of renal function. But as of yet, they have not done that. Now, listen, I've heard of people. I knew a man that friends with a man at this church that had a dialysis machine at home and he was on dialysis at night when he slept. Yeah, I've known several like that. You know, and so that's a that, you know, that's keeping you from having to go, you know, to a clinic eight hours a day, three or four times a week. That would be where it's at. So hopefully if he doesn't get his kidney function back, something like that, like that can happen. And then, of course, you know, he'll lose some fingers and toes and things like that. And not sure when that's going to be. Let me tell you what the most compelling thing that Carrie posted that I couldn't get out of my brain. And it's you think about it. It's literally one of the most powerful verses in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. In his Job 1315, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. Yeah. That is just such a powerful, moving statement. Though he slay me, though he destroy me, though he take everything away from me. Like Peter, where else am I going to go? He's got the words of eternal life. He knows what's best for me. I trust that what he's doing for me comes from a place of love. I can't see over the hill and he can. And it's just a great, a great position to have. It's so great of faith that he gives us. It's so great of faith that the world knows nothing about. And so we're just very thankful. I think Nathan, they got Nathan in the hospital. He's got some liver damage and he's got his spleen isn't fully, you know, I think it's about three quarters damaged. So we still got some issues. And there are some other thing, medical issues that I can't remember right now. But just keep him in your prayers. We're praying for the comeback. We want to let you know about the shirts. Yeah. Where are the shirts at? I believe they're on Etsy. You can find them on the RFP fan page. And then you can also always give to help out with medical bills. You know, we're looking at almost three weeks now in the hospital, two weeks in the hospital, two and a half weeks. No insurance. Yeah. So just continue to help if you can. And the shirts are great. If you can help out with that, I think they're on Etsy shop or something. You may be able to search it. We'll try to find a link and put it in the show notes. If all of our listeners gave $10, he would have $20. So y'all think about that. Amen. Amen. Love it. Well, we do have an update for Israel. We are still planning to go to Israel. Got off the phone with Pari today, our lady in Israel. And we have decided to postpone our trip to Israel from 2025 to 2026. Still looking at a March date to go there in 2026. And so if maybe you were thinking, man, I really wanted to go, but 2025 was just too close. I know my aunt reached out to me and said, hey, I was wanting to go. Moving in another year is actually going to help me better. I'm going to start saving right now. I'm going to pay the deposit. And so by moving that, we're going to allow other people to be able to go. So all the information is still on our website. The cost is $5,000. That's everything out the door. That's money for spending money. That's money for your lunches. That is the cost of the trip. The five-star hotels and the food that is fantastic. All the sites that we're going to go to in Galilee area, the region of the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, all of Jerusalem, the several days there in Jerusalem, getting to see Masada, all the different locations. That is all included out the door. But it'll be March of 2026. It gives us a year and a couple of months, almost a year and a half to begin to look at that. We still want to go. We still think it'd be great for you to join us. And so if you're interested and you think, man, I really want to go, now would be the time to sign up. All you got to do is pay that deposit and then you can begin to make payments, save money back, and go with us there to Israel in just a couple of months in 2026. You know, we've got some people that have already paid some money and put some money down. And the way this company works, that money's not lost. It's going to roll over. It will always be there. It will always be there to go towards a trip. And I've talked to some of my people here. And, you know, we weighed the options. Do we want to go to Greece? Do we need to step to Paul? Do we want to do this, do that, and the other? And we, on my side, the people that are on my side of the trip have said, look, we were doing this to go to Israel. I mean, we might not ever do anything like this again. And we want to save it for Israel. Because, you know, something's happening in January, James. I don't know if you're aware of this. Yeah. Pretty popular news around the country. But something is happening in January that somebody's going to come in and put an end to the conflict over there. Yeah. I've been told that we're going to be unburdened by what had been. And so what had been is there. And we're going to be unburdened by it. And looking forward to seeing already some great cognitive positions with Donald Trump. And this is where I stand with it, Brett. Whoever would have been elected would have been the God-ordained president of the United States. And God would have put him there for a reason. And I'm thankful that God is still in control. And he's still on the throne. And we are in a country that is a free nation right now. It allows us to have elections. And so I'm thankful for that. And we're excited about the future of our country, the future of the podcast, and the future of what we've got going on. Hey, I know you've been practicing your Trump dance, right? Q-Y-M-C-A? Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. This isn't on video, so we're good. Oh, all right. But, yeah. So, like I said, we're still going to Israel. The Israel trip, Israel moved me so much. Yeah. And changed so much about the way that I pastor. Changed so much the way about I read my Bible. The way I'm a Christian. The way I think about, you know, things over there. And it touched me so deeply, more than I thought that it ever would. And so I will forever, as long as I'm here, as long as I'm physically able, and as long as I'm a pastor, I will continue to host trips to Israel. It's just something that's a part of my life now. And, yes, right now we can't do that because of things going on over there, but who knows how long that'll last. And it could be over very soon. And when it's over, we're going to be right back over there. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brett, I am excited about this next announcement. This announcement is something that me personally, I have, I don't want to say dreamed about, but it's been an opportunity that I've always wanted to explore. Whatever I wanted to be a part of. And this opportunity came across our desk a couple of weeks ago. We began praying about it. We began asking ourselves, is this something that we should be a part of or jump into? And so we have decided to pull the trigger and go with it. But 1689 Cigars, which is a Christian cigar company, is allowing us to make our own cigar through them. And so it's going to be the 4 Freedom Cigar Company. We're going to have three cigars that are going to be our brand. One is going to be Connecticut. One is going to be a Habano. And one's going to be a Maduro. And three Churchill-style cigars, which are the longer cigars, the bigger rim shank on the end. And, man, I am excited about it. We've already begun sampling some different ones and talking with them about our own specific line that will be curtailed to us and what we like. And we hope that you will jump in. The pre-orders will begin end of December and hopefully will be in your lap, in your office if you're a cigar smoker. By the beginning to middle of January is what our lead time is looking like. It does take time to produce these. This is a specialized A++ grade tobacco that we're going to be using. Very high-end stuff. We could be charging $20, $30 a stick for what we're going to be producing. But we're going to give it at a really great rate. We're not going to make a whole lot of money. But we're just excited about putting our name on a cigar. And we're excited about that. I do enjoy a cigar. I do enjoy smoking to the glory of God, as Spurgeon said he would do. And, Brett, we came together with some names. Brett is my wordsmith. Brett has put together a couple of names for our different line of cigars. Brett, why don't you tell us? Do we want to start with rejected names? No, I don't think we should do it. Let's not do any rejected because they may eventually come out as a cigar later on. Oh, okay. So we'll leave those in. Yeah, just in case. Okay, all right. That one that Allison voted for, we're probably not going to use. We could say that one. Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, we'll leave it then. Who knows? Yeah. All right. So here's what we've got. Here's the three that we have come up with. The first one is, oh, I've got to find it right here, is Sweet Elder. So this will be our light brand. This will be our Connecticut. And it's going to be a sweet cigar. It's going to be a cigar that is sweet-tipped and sweet all the way through. I'm a sweet guy. I like smoking sweet cigars. And so this will have a little more flavor. It won't be infused with acid, but it'll be infused with flavor and hints of sweetness. And so we're really excited about that. Our medium, medium area. Brett, I think this is your favorite one, right? Oh, is it that one? Okay. I'm confused. Go ahead and say which one it is. The Bishop's Blend? Oh, yeah. The Bishop's Blend, yeah. The Bishop's Blend will be our Habanero. I would say Habanero. It's Habano. Habano. And this will be our medium in between a light cigar to a dark cigar. It'll have some hints of coffee. I'm sorry. It'll have some hints of, yeah, coffee and pepper. And it's going to be a great line. I've already enjoyed one. And it's going to be great. And then our Maduro, our dark brand, our darkest one will be. This is my favorite name. Okay. This is your favorite. Yeah. This is my favorite name. And it's Pastor's Reserve. The Pastor's Reserve. That's a great name. Yeah. This one will be having hints of cocoa, leather, pepper. And it's going to be a great line. Great cigar. And so we're excited about it. Should be, like I said, coming out. Pre-orders will be coming out really soon. I'm sorry. Really soon. And then we'll be able to begin to launch and sell. And there's a couple events we're going to be doing. Some ways for you to get a hold of that. And we are excited about this opportunity. Man, it's sort of like a dream come true for me. I've smoked cigar since I was in college. And I just love my grandpa. He smoked pipes and he smoked a cigar all the time. It was just one of those things I just wanted to live through him. And we were born on the same day. I was born on his birthday. And so we had a special connection. And so this is sort of a lifelong dream for me. And so, man, I am pumped. I'm excited about this coming out. And I hope you guys will enjoy this journey with us as well. And so we're putting out some graphics on social media and ways you can order, ways you can get a hold of what we're going to be a part of. Absolutely. Can't wait. I'm excited about it, too. You told me about it. And we talked about it, went back and forth. And like you said, decided to pull the trigger. And I'm excited to be along for the ride. It's going to be awesome. Yeah. Well, hopefully next week, Brett, we will drop my sermon from the For the Thick of the Gospel Conference, if we can get that over from JC. We'll drop that next week. And that will be the last episode of 2024. 2024 is coming to an end. This is episode 151. Brett, it's hard to believe that you've been on the podcast for 51 episodes. It sure is. One third of the life of the podcast, you've been on here. And it's been great. Man, we've recorded some fantastic content. Speaking of recording content, we're going to jump into a series that you came up with. And I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. And I said, we're going to go through this content because we couldn't go through this when John was here because he just didn't want to talk about the risky subjects. He didn't want to talk about the risque, get your feet wet, get in the nit and gritty. And so we're going to be talking about freedom from wokeness and what the wokeness is in the world and how it's seeping into the church culture, the cancer culture and the the what will the cup of other? How many do we want to give? You just say them all. Let's give three. Let's give three. Okay, let's see here. All right. We're going to do freedom from cancel culture. Yep. We're going to freedom from social justice. And freedom from. Well, let's go freedom to love without compromise. Love that there. And there's a lot more. That's man. That's just the tip of the three. Maybe 10 to 12. It may go the entire next season. Next. Yeah. I mean, we've got 10 to 12 episodes right now in the works. So we're excited about this and we'll begin reaching out to some people that are specific in these areas. We may get a couple of interviews on this, but we are already beginning working on this next season of freedom from wokeness. And we hope that it'll be a blessing to you in a world that has gone crazy. We hope that this will help us out. And we're actually going to do a politics episode a little bit to identity politics. We've got. Oh, yeah. That's one of them. Yeah. Freedom from identity politics. That's another one. Also, we got a big name coming on the show next year. Oh, yeah. At some point. Forgot about that. Yeah, we sure do. We've got Alex McFarland. If you don't know who he is, he's got a show on American Family Radio. He's written several, several books. They interview this guy on the news. He's been on Fox News and other things. He's a cultural religious expert. And he's got, you know, his show, Alex, the Alex McFarland show, not only comes on American Family Radio, but also comes in form of a podcast. And this is a national big guy, big name. And he's going to be doing our podcast next year. And we're just, we're looking forward to that, too. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it has been great to get this last season over with. We have talked through some great things over these last couple of weeks. As always, if there's anything that we've ever said that you have a question about, reach out to us. Send us a direct message. We'd love to have some conversation with you. It's something that we shared as you were listening to two guys that got together on a mic and sort of talked. If it ever encouraged you or maybe it helped you, share one of those episodes. Share some things. We'll share middle of December our most listened to episode this last year. We try to do that every year. And we always appreciate you as a listener taking time to listen to us, taking time to give us an ear. We are excited about that and thankful for always for you taking time to listen to what we have to say. We don't take that for granted. We thank you for it. And we are grateful that we're able to be a little small part of your life. Brett, anything from you? We just also want to just, you know, thank the Lord for giving us an opportunity, to forgive us a voice, for giving us a platform to glorify him. You know, Jesus is at the center of everything that we do, everything that we are, everything that we stand for, all of our philosophies. It's about freedom in Christ, freedom in him. And so we are just thankful to get to be due here and do his will. And thank you for coming along for the ride. Amen. Well, until next time and until next year, to God. Not the pastor. Be the glory. I found my new name. I found that good grace. I found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning that has no ending. I found that second chance. I found my best friend. I found my forgiveness. I found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom podcast.rewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrew

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