Ep. 19 - Precision and Purpose - The Bowtreader Podcast

Episode Transcript
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JOHN (00:07):
Hey guys, John with the bow trader podcast here.
Wanted to thank you for joiningus on the podcast.
We are starting off a brand newseason, the 2025 podcast
recording season.
Uh, we're going to be droppingepisodes on a more regular
basis.
We're excited to get this backgoing again, and it's going to
be much the same as what we'vedone in the past.

(00:27):
We're going to be talking aboutArchery hunting.
We're going to be talking aboutshooting bows, setting up new
equipment.
We're going to be talking aboutwhat it's like getting out in
the field, how to interact withothers.
Interacting with God in ourvertical relationship with Him,
the creator of the universe thatwants to have a relationship
with each one of us.
So those are the things we'regoing to be talking about.

(00:48):
We're excited that you'rejoining us.
Exciting that you're, thatyou're listening.
Uh, we want you to, to share,share your feedback with us.
Let us know what you want tohear, what topics you want us to
cover.
And we're just super excitedthat we get to share this time
with you.
So buckle up, enjoy the rideAlright, so, let's, let's, uh,

(01:13):
let's go around the table,introduce everybody.
We got some familiar voices inhere.
Um, Dub's here with us today.
Dub, step up to the mic and say,hello, everybody.

DUB (01:23):
Hello.

JOHN (01:24):
He doesn't listen.
Not nearly as good as I do,right?
Yeah.
And then we got Brandon, ofcourse.
Brandon, say hello.
Hello.
See there?
That was on cue.
Perfect.
Then we got Wes Chester sittingover here.
I'm here.
He's here.
Ready to go.
Wes has been in here in the shopshooting his target bow and it's

(01:46):
like, I mean, a glorious thing.

WES (01:51):
It's taking some time, but we got it together.

JOHN (01:52):
I love it.
I love it together.
Yes, sir.
All right So we're gonna betalking about shot placement
today Specifically with archeryhunting.
I mean most of the time that'swhat we're talking about.
It's archery hunting I mean wewill get into talking about
chasing birds and stuff likethat but we're gonna we're gonna
really dive into this idea ofshot placement today and I think

(02:14):
I think one of the things that,that I have learned and, you
know, for a lot of you guys thatare going to be listening to
this guys and gals, whoever'slistening to this, some of the
things we're going to talkabout, you're going to be like,
well, duh, John, we know that,but some people don't, you know,
and I mean, especially whitetailhunting, which is 95 percent of

(02:35):
what I do with a bow is, youknow, really thinking about.
Not just where you're trying tohit the deer, but where that
arrow is going to come out.
I mean, to me, I think you needto be aiming for that more than
anything.
You know, I mean, you'll, ifyou, if you run in, in any kind
of archery circles whatsoever,you're eventually going to hear

(02:58):
somebody saying, aim for yourexit.
And I mean, and that is theabsolute truth.
Because if you aim Um, if you'rehunting from, you know, if
you're 20 feet in the air andyou take a shot on a deer and
you're like, all right, I wantto hit this deer right behind
the shoulder, chances are itain't going to end well, right?

(03:20):
Right.
And why is that?

WES (03:23):
Well, it depends on your angle, depends on the deer's
angle, depends on your distance.
And I know Dub's going to likethis one.
It depends on your broadhead.

BRANDON (03:35):
There you go.
I've already been rebuked onthat one.
Rebuked.

JOHN (03:41):
Yep.
Now tell me about, let's startwith distance.
We'll start there.
Now, how does distance going toaffect the shot?
Anybody, whoever

BRANDON (03:51):
wants to go.
I think one of the biggestthings is that just how's the
deer going to react?
Yeah.
Um, travel time with the arrowis one thing, you know, and
considering that, I know a lotof people say that, you know,
they, they aim low.
Um, because of planning for adeer to drop, you know, um, and

(04:11):
you hear different stories and,um, uh, you know, I think
everybody's probably got anopinion on that just like they
do broad heads and other things,but, you know, how's the deer
going to respond?
Sometimes it may be even.
Um, noticing the deer'sbehavior, how they're acting
before you shoot, are theyjumpy?
You know, like we talk aboutthese does all the time that are

(04:33):
on edge already and it'll

JOHN (04:35):
pick you off from a hundred yards away.

BRANDON (04:37):
Yeah.
Are they jumpy?
Are they just cruising throughand not, not paying attention?
And so I think that's one way Ibelieve distance affects a shot
for sure.
Um, is how's the deer going toreact?

WES (04:51):
What is your confidence from that distance?
Absolutely.
Sure.
Yeah.
And do you know what thedistance is?
Yes.
You know, uh, I work really hardat judging distance because I
don't want to have to pull out arange finder and see how far he
is and then put the range finderup and try to find him.
I hook my release to the string.

(05:13):
So first thing I do when I getin the tree is I will arrange
distances.
So I know where he's at, youknow, um, and, and are you
confident that that distance?
I mean, sure.
Basket rack, eight pointer at 40yards, but what if it's a 140
inch 10 pointer at 55,

JOHN (05:33):
right?

WES (05:34):
Do you want to let him walk because you're confident at
distance or you're not are youjust man?
I might not ever get anotherchance.
I gotta try it.

JOHN (05:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about you dub?

WES (05:43):
I shoot long

DUB (05:44):
distance So

JOHN (05:45):
you practice long distance.
Let's clarify

DUB (05:48):
practice long distance.
So I feel like a 60 and undershot for me is a lot easier than
most people.

JOHN (05:56):
Well, I mean you you We got a Let's clarify this.
West will practice dub.
Alright, let's let's fix this.
John Wesley is dub.
Wes Chester is Wes.
Alright, now, but dub willconsistently habitually practice
at 100 yards.

(06:16):
Yeah, if not further.
I mean, like we've got a targetoff our back porch.
That's I think right now, 131yards.
There you go.
131 yards and he will send 0.
2.
If you wanna be specific.
Okay.
And he did that without arangefinder.
See, I can't see 131 yards 0.2.
It's a, it's a big target.
It's, see the target in therange down there?
It's, it's one of those, so you,I've only

DUB (06:38):
missed it like a few times.

JOHN (06:41):
And now in the early days, he'd miss it a lot when he's
shooting, you know, 50 poundstoday, uh, you know, he's
drawing 80 pounds or whatever.
And, and, you know, he'll rip itdown there, but early on, nah,
there was more, there was moremissing than that.
These targets, they have alittle piece of wood at the top
and at the bottom.
And there are numerous arrows inthat top piece of wood.

(07:03):
And they are not all mine.

DUB (07:04):
The, well, how it's set up is the target, it's downhill, so
the arrow arcs, and it'll hitthat plywood, just,

JOHN (07:11):
poof.
Yeah, it just, zing, it's gone.
Zips right off of it.
Yeah, it's gone.
Gone.
If you, you'll hear it, I mean,it's, you know, foam is home,
right?
Yeah.
And you'll hear it, and it'slike, you shoot, it used to be
he would shoot, and it's like,you could just sit there and,
you know, drive theMississippian back, and then his
arrow would hit, you know.
That's great.
And now it's, it's, funk.
Yeah.

(07:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, now it's pretty quick, butyeah, so he'll, he'll practice
it extremely long distance,which makes that, which makes
that 40 yard shot like a chipshot, but still,

DUB (07:44):
and it makes a 10 yard shot like a

JOHN (07:46):
Um, yeah, yeah, but still, you know, even with that,
you're, you still got to contendwith a white tail deer and they
are super jumpy and I listen, Idon't, I, I obviously talk to a
lot of people that, that bowhunt, I mean, working a bow
shop, that's, that's the peoplethat we talk to on a daily basis
and everybody has their idea ofhow much a deer is going to drop

(08:10):
or where you should hold orwhatever.
And I, I just, I don't know.
I'm not comfortable with, withholding low.
I really don't.

WES (08:17):
Yeah.
Well, there's, there's too manyfactors.
If that deer hears that bow gooff, he's going to drop.
Sure.
Yeah.
So if you've got a 20 mile perhour wind, blow it in your face,
he's not going to hear that.
He's not going to drop.
Yeah.
If he's
on edge.
Yeah.
If he's alert.

(08:38):
And he hears that bow go offnow.
He's gonna hit the groundalmost.
I mean, I've seen some of thesevideos that is just amazing how
much they can drop when theyturn to leave.

DUB (08:48):
Yeah, um, me and dad were hunting in a ground blind.
There was a squirrel over thedeer shaking limbs and dad shot
at the deer.
That deer dropped like two feet.

JOHN (09:00):
Oh, it was crazy.

DUB (09:01):
Hit the dirt.
Bolted su

JOHN (09:03):
super light arrow.
Super fast bow.
I mean, it was, it was like wehad three

DUB (09:08):
15.

JOHN (09:09):
Three 15.
What

DUB (09:10):
is what your bow was shooting.

JOHN (09:12):
That's pretty fast.
Kids.
He's all, you know, big andproud right now because he shot
his bow through the chronoearlier with like a 200 grain
arrow and it shot, oh my

DUB (09:25):
hunting arrow shoots.

JOHN (09:27):
Um, three, three 30 that that's fast.
I'll give you that.
That's fast.
But anyway, yeah, I mean thisdeer, I mean, and it was, it was
a flat shot at 20 yards.
I mean, a layup, right.
And these squirrels were up inthe tree, you know, playing in
it, like it was a dang junglegym or something.
And so the deer were super edgy.

(09:48):
They had no idea we were there.
The wind was blowing towards us.
You know, we had black on and itwas, it was just a really good
setup.
And I shot and I was like, Iturned to him, I said, Hey, were
you videoing?
And he was like, no, the camerawouldn't work.
You know, you just had this, myphone or whatever.
This is before he had a phone.
And, uh, I said, man, I thinkthat deer got out of the way.

(10:12):
I mean, and sure enough, wewalked down there and the arrow
was, you know.
25 yards behind where I shotjust laying on the ground, you
know, I mean, I saw it becauseit skipped in the dirt and I was
like, man, I think that deerjust completely ducked out of
the way and which was crazy.
And then, you know, of coursethe squirrel start laughing at
you, you know, cause you made abad shot, which is, it's not a

(10:36):
good way to stay alive.
I'll just put it that way.
But anyway, so, so we've got,we've got this idea of should,
should we.
Should we aim a little bit lowor not?
Let's, let's, let's put thatpart of the conversation to the
side and go back to that ideaof, um, so we talked about
distance a little bit.
Now let's talk about the angleof the deer.

(10:58):
Right, and where we're gonna aimto hit.
So, so when we're, when we'rewhitetail hunting, when you're
hunting anything, you, you wantto make a shot that's gonna kill
the animal.
The whole point, if you're, ifyou're gonna shoot an animal,
shoot it to kill it.
Right.
You know, just, if you're tryingto kill something, kill it.
You know, don't, don't make asport out of putting a hole in
something.
If you're gonna shoot it, killit.

(11:19):
So you're looking for lungs oryou're looking for heart.
You're not looking for aheadshot.
Although those do sometimeshappen, right?
A couple years ago, um, Wes washunting and, uh, Dub, Dub was
hunting.
And, We've all seen it, youknow, a deer will turn and like

(11:39):
scratch their, underneath theirhead, underneath their, their
jaw with their back leg.
Well, the deer, as he releasedhis arrow, the deer turned and
did that.
And caught that arrow rightbetween the eyes.
And of course, you know, it washis first buck, so I posted it
on social media.
I didn't care.
Dude, we got freaking flamed forthat.

(12:01):
It was, you know, and I didn'ttake it down.
I didn't care.
I mean, people didn't know thestory.
I wasn't going to go back andtell the whole story.
You know, I was proud that hekilled a deer.
I didn't care how it got to theskinning rack.
You know, but everybody waslike, well, would you do that?
How could you, what you'retelling me is you'd never made a
mistake or something like thathas never happened.
Well,

WES (12:20):
the same thing happens with gun hunting.
A hundred percent, you know,the, the shots that we take
where we hunt are usually 60yards or less.
Oh yeah.
Way less.

JOHN (12:33):
Are you talking about gun hunting?
Gun hunting.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
So

WES (12:36):
my shot is in the neck.
I mean, the deer drops, there'sno tracking job, and there's no
wasted meat.
But you get roasted by some ofthese people for being an
unethical shot.
Yeah.
I mean, so it doesn't matterwhat you do, kill the deer.

(12:56):
They let them think what theywant to think.
Yeah,

JOHN (12:59):
that was the, that was the position we took on it.

BRANDON (13:01):
I think the biggest thing, man, I love what you
said, Wes, is are youcomfortable with the shot?
To me, that is the number onething.
When we were getting ready to goout to Colorado and you were
helping us get ready with ourbows to go elk hunting, um, you
know, we were shooting 80 yardsconsistently, you know, you get

(13:23):
out there, you got a hugetarget.
So it's a lot different, but Igot really comfortable shooting
80 yards.
And, uh, it's kind of like whatyou were saying, Dub, um, we,
uh, we, we got reallycomfortable with that.
So coming back and deer hunting,you know, 40 yards felt very
comfortable.
Whereas the year before 40 was,Oh, I don't know, but I think

(13:46):
ethical is what, what isrealistic for me.
And what am I comfortable takingthat shot?
And given all circumstances andcertainly it happens quick, you
don't have time to think abouteverything.
But what am I comfortableshooting?
Um, whether it's a rifle or abow to me, if you have a high

(14:09):
level of confidence, not Not aconfidence, not, not a wish,
right, but a true confidencethat this is a shot I can, I can
consistently make, then takethat shot.
But stuff happens, you know,it's one thing to make a
mistake.
It's another thing to take ashot that you know is a high

(14:33):
likelihood of wounding a deerand not killing it because you
think I'm not going to see thatdeer again.
This is just like you talkedabout the one that went under
the tree.
Mm hmm.
Oh, yeah.
You could have taken a shot atthat deer.
Yeah.
But you knew, like, there's no,there's no high probability of
me killing this deer.
Yeah.
And to me, that's, that's whereit matters is we're going to

(14:56):
make mistakes.
Look, I track deer.
Um, I track, you know, probablyclose to a, between 60 and 100,
at least a year, depending onthe year.
And Most of what I track ismistakes, and that happens.
Um, but I think there's adifference in that and just
making a bad choice.

JOHN (15:16):
Yeah.
You know.
Yep.
I would agree with that.
You know, and, and then goingback to that idea of, or that,
that, that question of what'sthe position of the deer?
You know, if you've got a deerthat's quartered away from you.
I mean, you got to get, you gotto get way back on your entry to
go through something thatmatters and way high and way

(15:38):
high, man.
I'll tell you, I shot a deer,uh, three years ago now.
And, um, when I shot him, he wasat like, I don't know, five
steps or something from thetree.
And so when I shot him, I waslike, I was probably two or
three inches from his spine.

(15:59):
Where I went in, right, goingdown, he was, he was, he was, he
would've been, he, I guesstechnically quartered away from
me, uh, but he was walking rightpast my tree.
I

DUB (16:12):
think the correct term is directly underneath.
Yeah,

JOHN (16:15):
I mean, he was, he was very, very close and, um.
Wound up going through a lungand going through his heart.
And I mean, that was, it wasgame over.
The only thing, I don't evenknow how he ran after that, you
know, I knocked him down and hegot up.
And probably

DUB (16:33):
because he was 200 plus pounds.
Yeah.

JOHN (16:35):
He was, he was big, big deer.
Um, but yeah, that was, that wascool.
Had a lot of fight in him.
Yeah, for sure.
Um, and then, you know.
I'd say this as much as youpractice at a long distance
practice at a super closedistance too Because that one
will will kill you, you know,we've done um 3d shoots And

(16:56):
we'll always set up a targetsuper close.
I mean like three yards And itis hilarious to watch people
walk up to that target.
They're like, they'll, they'll,they'll look at it and, and, and
you almost just like step itoff, you know, cause they don't
trust their range finder becauseit's so close and then they'll
go to shoot it.
And I mean, and it'll be atarget, like a raccoon or

(17:17):
something, you know, somethingreally small and, um, they'll go
to shoot it and they're like,you'll look at them and they're
like trying to look down theirarrow and stuff.
And it's like.
You're going to miss.
I mean, and then we watch himjust completely miss.
Well, I had a guy asked me oneday, he was like, why do you,
why do you set the target up soclose?
You're going, your target'sgoing to get shot out.
I was like, dude, people missthis thing nine times out of 10.

(17:39):
They'll miss, you know, becausewhen you're shooting a target
that close, you know, from a 3dstandpoint.
You need to shoot like a 60 yardpin, you know, to be able to do
it.
And, and, you know, most people,the, the 3d shoots that we have
traditionally done have beenjust fun shoots.
It's not like, it's not a, it'snot a part of a club or anything

(18:01):
where people are coming out andtrying to make a certain score
or something.
So it'll just be a group ofbuddies that hunt together and
they'll just come out and shoot.
And they have no idea how torespond to that target at three
yards.
And it's hilarious, you know,and they give each other a hard
time.
And then the next guy will comeup and he'll, he'll miss or
he'll clip the, you know, thetop of it or whatever.

(18:21):
So in that little raccoontarget, there's actually a
scoring ring, like right in themiddle of his head.
And, uh, so that's what the onethat everybody goes for is right
in his head.
And it's, it's a challenge.
It's, it's funny to watch it.
Um, but anyway, all right.
So let's say you've, you've shota deer.
So, you get down.
What's next or or let's beforewe even go that far.

(18:44):
You've shot a deer.
What's next?
What do you do?
You've shot a deer.

WES (18:48):
Calm down.
Yeah.

JOHN (18:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Typically for me, when when ithits me is after the shot.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.

WES (18:55):
Absolutely.

JOHN (18:56):
Before the shot, getting it done, everything, I'm
typically fine, you know, andthen after the shot, it's like,
man, is I have this, thisadrenaline dump that happens and
I'm like.
It's like having to hold ontothe tree sometimes, you know, I
mean, I've never gotten like,you know, Luke, Brian excited.
I mean, we've all seen thatvideo down, but, but maybe

(19:20):
close, but anyway, um, but yeah,I mean, you, you take that shot.
Usually the deer is going to runoff, you know, with, with
archery hunting.
I mean, most of the time wedon't just knock them down and
boom, they're dead.
Like with a rifle, we don't havethat much energy that we're
working with.
So what do you do when you, whenyou take that shot?

BRANDON (19:40):
Man, you'll have to gong me or something on when you
start talking about this stuffbecause this is something, this
is what I love, right, is thetracking aspect of it.
Um,

JOHN (19:49):
well, I'm talking about before the tracking.

BRANDON (19:50):
Yeah.
Well, I think the biggest thing,and I tell my boys this all the
time and, and it seems like, andother people too, but it seems
like we can't get this downbecause we're so excited.
The first thing I think is oneexactly what you said, Doug, is,
is calm down.
Yeah.
But man.
Mark where they were.
Yeah.
You know, like one thing thathappens with me, um, with a lot

(20:14):
of people is I'll go and, and,and I may be hunting with them
and I'll say, where was thedeer?
And they're like, and, and, andthey'll call me, I'll drive an
hour and get there and I'll say,well, where was the deer when
you shot?
I'm not a hundred percent sure.

JOHN (20:28):
Yeah.

BRANDON (20:29):
And, and one of the first things I think before you
ever get out of the tree.
Um, I think the number one thingfor me is know where the deer
was at, you know, I think forme, that's one of the things,
you know, that's, that's huge,um, because I will go track a
deer if somebody thinks thatthey hit that deer and they are
very confident, which everybodyis, because a lot of times it's

(20:49):
wishful thinking, um, I'll gohelp them, but at least know
where the deer was, you know,give me, give me something to

JOHN (20:57):
work with and the thing, so here's what I'll tell you to
do when you take that shot, Youneed to collect yourself really,
really quick and watch andlisten.
Let's see if you hear the deercrash.
If you don't, that's fine.
Don't freak out, but just listenand try to figure out what, you
know, which way the deer isgoing.
Cause I mean, yeah, sometimes.

(21:18):
Especially for us down here,we're hunting in some pretty
thick stuff.
So, I mean, the deer could run10 yards and then you not be
able to see it anymore.
Yeah.
Or run or here or here.
Yeah.
I mean, you, you may be superthick where you're at and then
there's an opening, you know, 20yards away.
And as soon as they hit thatopening, man, you might not hear
a leaf crack, you know, at all.
And that deer bust right throughthere.

(21:39):
So stop and listen and try towatch, you know, where the deer
goes, try to watch and see whatthe deer's reaction is to the
arrow.
Because that'll give you areally good indication of what
you hit when you hit the deer umAnd then the other thing like
you said really Try to pinpointwhere that deer was standing

(21:59):
because i'm gonna tell you rightnow when you get down out of
that tree Everything looksdifferent.
Yeah.
Especially in the dark.
Yeah.
Especially in the dark.
But even if you have the goodgrace of shooting a deer, when
you still have plenty of light,everything is still going to
look so different when you getdown and being able to go and,

(22:20):
and, and figure out where thatdeer was standing.
And listen, you know, You maynot go to where the deer was
standing and see bloodimmediately.
And that's not unusual.
Absolutely.
You know, I mean, hopefully,hopefully you can go and find
your arrow.
You know, our goal is to punchall the way through.
It's really nice to have twospigots dumping blood.

BRANDON (22:47):
It's a whole lot easier to find something that way.
And going back to earlierconversation of where we aim.
If the deer is closer and you'vegot a steep angle and you don't
get a pass through, a lot oftimes it takes a while for that
deer to bleed.
The cavity has to fill up withthat

JOHN (23:04):
blood before it comes out that entry hole.
You know, that's one thing Ilearned with hunting out of a
ground blind.
You know, you're, you'retypically making pretty, pretty
flat shots.
And man, you got to watch andsee where that deer goes because
it might go 30, 40, 50 yards andyou not even get a speck of
blood.
Right.
Yep.
You get nothing.
Yep.
Um, so.
Um, and I know Dub, you likehunting pretty high.

(23:25):
I know that you like gettingpretty high in the tree.

DUB (23:29):
16 to 25 feet is very common for me.
Yeah.
I typically don't go higher than25.
I just get where I feel is, Idon't really get cover.
I hate trees with cover.
I don't know how to explain it,I just don't like it at all.
So I get to where I think thatthe deer will not be able to see

(23:50):
me as good, but I still have areally good shot angle.

JOHN (23:52):
Yeah, um, but typically hunting from an elevated
position, you're gonna have, youknow, a high entry and a low
exit, and that low exit is whatmakes all the difference in the
world, right?
Um, I mean, regardless, if youdon't have a low exit, you're
still gonna, the deer's stillgonna expire.
I mean, if you punch through adeer's lungs.

(24:13):
Those those bags can't fill itwith air anymore.
It ain't going far, right?
But it still can be a challengeto find it so I always say Stop
and listen, and then don't movetoo fast.
Like don't get down and start,okay, I know the deer went this
way and go straight from yourtree, straight to where you

(24:35):
think the deer went.
Always, always, always go towhere you shot the deer.
Um, and then start from there.
Try to find your arrow.
Hopefully your arrow is sittingright there.
You can look at your arrow andsee what it looks like.
If it's green, you know,probably go to the truck.
You know, I mean, yeah, yeah, Imean, it doesn't mean that deer

(24:56):
is not going to die.
That deer is probably gonna,gonna die, but you need it to go
to its first bed and stay rightthere, you know, and let it
expire right there.
It's going to take a little bitlonger.
Or if you go to go to your arrowand it's got super dark blood on
it, you know, like real deepcrimson red back out of there,
just as quiet as you went inback, back out of there.

(25:18):
You know, because you probablygot in his liver again, he
probably ain't going to totethat, right?
But if you bump him out of thatfirst bed, dude, he's gone.
I mean, he'll be in the nextcounty.
Yeah,

WES (25:28):
when we're in Kansas, you know, everybody's waiting for
that text that you shot one.
And unless you saw that deerfall, you stay put where you're
at until somebody gets to you.
Yeah.
I mean, which is usually 30, 45minutes.
Oh,

JOHN (25:42):
sure.
Yeah.
So, which is pretty good timing.
Yeah.
It is.
Um, I had a friend up inMissouri that went hunting this
year and he hadn't done a wholelot of, of hunting.
He's done, he's done a lot ofshooting, uh, shooting 3d stuff
and things like that.
And he's, he loves archery.
He's really into it.
And, uh, he shot a deer and, uh,sent me a picture of his, of,

(26:07):
you know, that he just shot,shot a deer or whatever.
And I said, dude, don't move.
He said, what are you talkingabout?
It's like three o'clock.
I want to get down and find thisdeer.
I said, don't move.
Just wait.
Just sit there, you know, andbasically said everything I've
been saying right now, just overtext message, you know, and he
was like, can you, can I callyou?
I was like, no, I'm in a tree.
Don't call me, you know?

(26:28):
And, uh, so anyway, um, and, andlike when, when, when Dub
killed, um, that buck that hekilled this year, yeah, I was 45
minutes away.
I said, don't move till I getthere.
He's like, dad, you're like anhour away.
I said, no, I'm not that far.
I'm, I'm getting ready to leave.
I was in Sylvania.
And I said, just, just sit, sitthere until I get to your tree.

(26:49):
So you, so, so because it wasgetting dark and I said, you sit
right there and then I'm goingto walk to where that deer was
standing when you shot it.
And then we'll go from there.
And I got there and we still hada little bit of daylight.
And, um, yeah.
I got, I walked to where thedeer was standing and sure
enough, I mean, it was, it wasin a creek bottom, so it was wet

(27:11):
and you could see where the deerjumped when he, when he shot
him.
And I found the arrow a few feetaway.
And when I bent down to pick thearrow up, I saw through, you
know, the underbrush, um, I sawthat white belly, but I didn't
say anything.
I let him, I said, all right,come on, get down and come over
here.
And, you know, I stuck his arrowin the ground right where it was

(27:31):
standing.
He got up there and looked at itand he was looking at the arrow.
And he's like, Dad, I think Imade a really good shot.
And I said, buddy, I think youmade a great shot.
I said, but, you know, fineblood.
This is this is it.
You know, this is the way we doit.
And, uh.
You know, so he started lookingand found some blood, then he
went this way and was trackingthe blood and everything and,
and, uh, you know, the wholetime I, I actually stepped back

(27:52):
because his mom was there to,you know, she was all excited
and wanted to go down in thewoods and I stepped back and I
said, the deer's right overthere and I said, it's, it's
cool.
We got this.
And, uh, so she started to saysomething, I said, don't say
anything, just let him, let himfind it, you know?
And anyway, um, so.

(28:12):
Looking at what the blood lookslike, looking at what your, what
your, uh, what your arrow lookslike, if you can find your
arrow, if you got a passthrough.
If you shoot a super lightarrow, you probably didn't get a
pass through.
Okay.
Here we go.
I knew I'd fire him up withthat.
If you shoot a super light arrowand a mechanical broadhead, man.
You don't have a chance.
You've got no chance in theworld.

DUB (28:34):
One thing for you, dad.
How many did you kill this year?

JOHN (28:36):
None, man.
Here we go.
Here we go.
I shoot those heavy arrows andfixed blade broadheads, I didn't
kill anything.
I didn't even take a shot.
He knew you didn't have achance.
I knew, I was so, I was so, youknow, I lacked so much
confidence, I just didn't eventake a shot this past season.

(28:57):
Which is terrible.
Oh, and he's crying now.
Ha ha ha.
But, um, But yeah, I mean, so,think about the broadhead that
you were shooting.
what, what kind of hole it'sgoing to put in a deer.
Um, you know, so there arebroadheads on the market that
are, um, mechanical broadheadsthat are, that, that open from

(29:21):
the front, which means that asit goes into the animal, it
pushes it open.
And I have had so many people

DUB (29:28):
such as a schwacker or a grim reaper.
Yeah.
I've had, I've

JOHN (29:32):
had so many people that, um, will tell me that they
picked their broadhead up on theother side of the deer and it
wasn't open.
Wow.
So they think that it didn'tdeploy.
Yeah.
Which is not.
Not true.
Snap back closed.
Yeah, just snap back closed,right?
And, um, And then they would belike, well, we didn't even look
for the deer.
And I'm like, what do you meanyou didn't look for that deer's

(29:55):
dead, dude.
I'm telling you, if you, andthen I look at the arrow and
it's got white hair all over it,I'm like, nah, it didn't open,
you know, typically if you gotwhite, white hair on your arrow,
you know, and you say yourbroadhead didn't open, you
probably like shot through thebrisket or, you know, right up
under the belly or somethinglike that.
And, and chances are, yeah, you,you probably didn't harvest that

(30:17):
one.
Um, But, you know, continuing onthat, what, what does it look
like, you know, are therebubbles on the, on the arrow?
What does that mean if you gotbubbles all over your fletching,
Wes?
Dub, dub, excuse me.

DUB (30:38):
Sometimes lung.

JOHN (30:39):
Sometimes lung.
Most of the time lungs.
But not always.
That's where those bubbles areat usually, right?
It looks kind of pink andbubbly.
That's probably a dead deerpretty quick

BRANDON (30:54):
Yeah, I'd say look at the color more than bubbles.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what I would say

DUB (31:00):
Bubbles can come from other places.
Not just lungs.

BRANDON (31:03):
Yeah, if it's pink and bubbly then I think you got a
really good chance that it'slong and You know, you're
probably gonna find him prettyquick.
But if you just have bubbles andit's bright red blood that can
come from It can come fromanywhere really.
Yeah, bright, bright red cancome from anywhere.

(31:24):
Yeah, it's just, it can comefrom a leg.
It just means it's arterial,right?
You can hit any muscle, heartmuscle or any other muscle and
it can be bright red.
Yeah.
Um, like you said, we, I found alot of deer that are, with
rifles that were shot throughthe brisket.
The dogs end up finding thatdeer, usually not dead, but they
find it.
Yeah.
And, um, but it's one of thosethings where that they bleed and

(31:47):
bleed and bleed and peopleequate a lot of blood with a
fatal shot.
And it's just not true.
There's nothing that bleedsprobably more for three or 400
yards and a leg that's blownoff.
blood.
You know, and but you get tothree, 400 yards and you quit
finding dropping blood.
You start finding smeared blood.
Oh yeah.
And it's just because it's justrubbing off on stuff.

(32:09):
And so a lot of blood bubbles,all that stuff.
I think a lot of that getssometimes blown out of
proportion just because evenclots, people see clots.
Oh, that's gotta be long orthat's gotta be hard.
Well, like clots.
So it could be, I mean, I founda lot of clots that were busted
legs.
And so.
Um, you know, you just don'tever know in those, in those

(32:32):
cases, but it just, the thing Iwould say is don't draw a false
conclusion because of thosethings, bubbles, clots, bright
red blood, whatever.
And my thing would be when indoubt, back out.
Like if you have any question,like you're not gonna hurt the

(32:54):
situation.
By giving it a little bit moretime, you know, so that that
would be my encouragement isjust Make sure what you're
looking at, you know And ifyou're unsure get somebody to
come look at it That's moreexperienced or whatever and you
know, a lot of times peopledon't find deer because pride
gets in the way And so beingwilling to ask for help

(33:19):
sometimes is the best thing Like

JOHN (33:22):
when do you make the decision to call somebody in
with a dog?
Um,

WES (33:28):
I would say, you know, if you've done the proper things,
if you found your era, if youfound blood, depending on what
kind of blood, how much blood,um, I mean, you, you should
start looking at making thatdecision right now.
Yeah.

BRANDON (33:48):
Yeah.
For me, I really encouragepeople that if it's, if it, if
you're serious about finding itand you have not found it.
and 150 or so yards.
Just get out and call somebodythat can come in and help you
find it.
Um, but if, if you find a darkblood green stuff on your arrow,

(34:11):
especially if you find a liquidydark blood, um, you're going,
that's going further and furtherback.
Dark, dark blood, Is probablyliver.
Mm-hmm Green is probably stomachli uh, liquidy.
Dark blood is small intestines.

(34:32):
And the further back you go, thelonger it's gonna take that deer
to die.
A busted stomach, bustedintestines.
Deer's going to die.
He's going to septic.
At some point he's going to die.
But like you shoot a deer, evenwith a rifle sometimes with, um,
in the small intestines.
And unless you've got dogs thatcatch that deer.
That deer may live 24 hours.

(34:53):
And so the further back you go,the, the longer you need to give
that deer.
And, um, but now I've seen someterrible shots too, that, I
mean, I can't tell you how manydeer I've found that didn't run
anywhere, hardly, that were shotin the rear end.
You know, and like

DUB (35:14):
this arteries back there, they just,

BRANDON (35:16):
yeah, I mean, I'm talking, I had a buddy, it's
kind of funny story.
I had a buddy that took huntingone day and he was new to bow
hunt.
And I said, look, if you'regoing to miss, miss, don't miss
forward, miss a little bit back.
Right.
I'm thinking two, three inches.
I'm not talking about shootinghim in the rear end.
Right.
Well, he's in the stand about 30minutes and he texts me and he's

(35:37):
like, Hey, I think I took whatyour advice to literally And I
was like, what do you mean?
He's like, I just shot this deerin the butt.
Well, I'd gotten another call togo track another deer, um, that
was supposedly hit in the lungsand ended up showing back on
camera later.
Um, we, we looked for that deerforever thinking that his would
be the hardest one to find.

(35:58):
Well, we looked for that deerforever.
We finally get back and, um, weput dogs on his and it went
literally 70 yards.
And so.
The one that he shot in thebutt.
The one he shot in the butt.
I had another one this year,went about 200 yards, shot in
the rear end, um, you know, ithappens, but if you find that

(36:20):
green blood, dark, dark blood,liquidy blood, man, you know,
you gotta get out of there forsure.

JOHN (36:27):
Yeah.

DUB (36:29):
Well, my first deer, the arrow, I mean, I don't know, I
pulled it up real quick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know how I woulddescribe that.

BRANDON (36:41):
Yeah.

DUB (36:42):
A little bloody with some stomach matter.
Yeah.
Went 40 yards?
50 yards?
Nah, he didn't

JOHN (36:48):
go that far.
I mean, not even close.

DUB (36:51):
But then I shot this deer.
Never found it.

BRANDON (36:56):
Yeah, so, you gotta think too.
Think about the, the entry andexit.
Mm hmm.
Because if the last thing thatarrow goes through is gutty
matter, then it's going, you'regoing, it's going to look more
gut shot, right?
went

DUB (37:09):
in like quarter to right in the shoulder and came out right
here.

BRANDON (37:14):
Absolutely.
So it went

DUB (37:15):
through everything.

BRANDON (37:16):
Yes.
So you got to consider what wewere talking about earlier is,
is angle and shot placement,right?
So the reason you had guttymaterial is because that's the
last thing it went through.
Um, but now take the oppositeand you know, You're gonna know
a lot different if he'squartering away and you go
through some good and then youhit heart and it comes out.

(37:40):
That area looks very different.
I would be willing to bet theone that you had that had all
the blood on it that you neverfound was probably hit high.
Um, it happens a lot.
You know, you kind of got thatnose on between the vitals and
spine and we get a lot of thatwhere there will be a lot of
blood.
We'll track the deer for a mileor more and yet you don't find

(38:04):
it and um, because there's no,it just doesn't hit anything
vital.
I would say if you're going tomiss, I'm not talking about
shooting in the ham.
If you miss a little miss alittle bit, it's a little bit
back and if you're going to misson the deer, I would say at
least lower half, if not lowerthird, because that's where all
the good stuff is really, um, atleast from what I've seen.

WES (38:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
I know you guys have seen thisproduct where it's a 3D target
and you shoot it and it comes upon a screen and shows you where
the arrow would have gonethrough the deer and where it
would have exited on the otherside.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Delta McKenzie target.
Yeah.

JOHN (38:45):
It's pretty cool.
They've got, um, they've got,uh, these targets that they have
these little QR codes on them.
You go, you shoot it and you goup to it and you scan the QR
code and then it, it, um.
You know, you're able to see theanatomy of, of the, of the deer,
uh, and they have, they startedwith a white tail and then
they've added some other thingsnow.

(39:06):
And um, yeah, it's, it's a, it'sa pretty cool thing for sure to
be able to see that and, um,have an idea of, all right,
where'd that, where'd that arrowgo?
What did I go through on thatshot?
Right.
Give you, give you a betterindication of, of, you know,
practicing, uh, to get.
To get ready to, to go to thefield and to see what's going

(39:27):
on.
So the other, the other part ofthis, you know, we hunt in
Georgia, uh, a lot and most ofour deer season is pretty hot.
Yes.
You know, so I would say just asimportant as making a good shot
and getting, um, you know,recovering the deer pretty quick

(39:48):
is.
Getting that thing opened up andgetting that heat out of there,
you know, I mean, when we kill adeer in September and it's 90
degrees outside, man, I mean,within with, with, I don't, I
don't want to put like a, a timeframe on here, a time reference
or whatever.

(40:09):
But I mean, pretty doggonequick, you want to get the guts
out of that deer and get thatthing opened up and get some air
in there, uh, because that meatwill go to spoiling really fast.

WES (40:19):
Well, that's an absolute known fact that the second his
heart stops pumping, that meatstarts deteriorating.

JOHN (40:28):
Yeah.

WES (40:29):
I mean, it just depends on how long you want to let it
deteriorate.
Right.
Some deterioration, 30 minutesis not going to kill you.

JOHN (40:36):
Yeah.

WES (40:37):
But if it's not got blood pumping through it, that thing
is starts to ride it around inthe back of the truck and
showing your mama and yourbuddies.
No, no,

JOHN (40:44):
that's a bad idea.

WES (40:45):
Send them a text with a picture, but get that thing
opened up.

JOHN (40:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I, you know, that timeof year we kill a deer, it's,
it's happening wherever we findit.
Right.
I mean, it's, I mean, we'll,we'll, we will completely field
dress one.
We won't, we'll never go to askinning rack.
I mean, it's, it's done rightthere.
And like, we're, we're, we'reskinning out shoulders and hams
and hanging them in the treeand, you know, letting that

(41:08):
airflow get all around them andeverything, and then getting all
of that to a cooler as fast aswe can.
Yeah.
Um, you know, because we, wewant to preserve as much of it
as we can.
And then I'll say something elseis going to be controversial.
I do not like.
Putting deer meat on Directly onice.
Yeah, I hate the idea of I don'tknow where this came from.

(41:32):
I Don't like bleeding My meat.
I don't like doing it.
I think, I think there is adistinct difference in the
flavor, you know, and, and, youknow, I mean, there may be
disagreement here at the tabletalking about this, but, you
know, I, I was at a, um, I wasat a men's breakfast a week or

(41:52):
so ago, and, uh, one of the guystalked about how they don't like
Wild turkey, they said it's toogamey and I'm like, man, that,
that is, that is it.
That is the flavor.
That's, um, that's way betterthan anything Butterball's got
to offer.
No offense Butterball, but I'mjust telling you to me, a wild
turkey or, um, wild hog orsomething like that.

(42:14):
Man, I'll take a wild hog over afarm raised pig in a, in a
minute.
Um, just depending on what itis, right?
Um, just, I just think

BRANDON (42:22):
the flavor is so much better.
So what you're saying though isbasically we'll never be saying
Bow Trader Podcast sponsored byButterball.

JOHN (42:29):
Probably not.
No, I probably, I probably justsolidified that right there.
Yeah, I probably, I probablysealed that envelope right
there.
But I have,

WES (42:40):
I know what you're talking about.
I got so many buddies.
They quarter that thing up, theypull out the back straps and the
tenderloins and they throw it ina cooler with ice and they just
keep putting more ice on it andthey let it soak four or five
days.
Yeah, it looks like a bale ofcotton.

JOHN (42:54):
Yeah, it's nasty, man.
And it's like, so when you havemeat like that, you know, you're
not going to go to the store andbuy.
A rib eye steak that looks likethat.

WES (43:08):
My grandmother would always look for the ones that were half
off because they had done turnedbrown.
She said, that's the best cut ofmeat there is right there.

JOHN (43:19):
Yeah, she, she remembers the depression is what it is.
Listen, I'll never forget Wescalling me one day and he said,
Hey, we just had some peoplemove in down the road here from
Michigan.
And she wanted to know if Iwanted some canned deer meat.
I said, Wes, what's canned deermeat?
He said, John, I don't know, butshe's bringing me some.

WES (43:39):
And guess what?
We did not eat it.
It was in a jar.
They, they canned deer meat likewe canned green beans and stuff.
Yeah.
We call that spam,

JOHN (43:48):
right?
Yeah.
It didn't look like spam.
It was, man, it, uh, But I

WES (43:53):
guess that's a staple up there.
I mean, that's the way they keepit in a jar on the shelf in the
pantry with green beans.

DUB (43:59):
In Stephen Ellis cookbook, his first one, he said that he
would, his dad would keep a, um,like a milk crate full of those
in the back of his truck, andthat's what he'd have for lunch,
is he'd have an onion, cut it,pieces of bread, canned deer
meat.

JOHN (44:13):
It's just, I don't know.
And he grew up in Michigan.
Yeah, he grew up in Michigan,that's right, yeah.
So, there's a

WES (44:17):
great, great guy that I watch, he's on Facebook, he's
called the Bearded Butcher.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Man, he's got an experimentgoing right now that he's
showing where they killed adeer.
And, uh, they were, they weretaking pieces off of the back
strap at a day old, and then hetook a piece off at a week old
and then he, I mean, he's justdry.

(44:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JOHN (44:39):
But it's not in water.
No, it is not hanging.
It's hanging in there.
Cooler.
Yeah.
I've seen some of that stuff.

WES (44:45):
And then the next one will be at a month.

JOHN (44:47):
Yeah.
That's pretty wild.
But yeah, I mean, you, you wouldnever go, you would never go to
the store to the, to the grocerystore and buy a ribeye and then
take it home and put it inwater.
No.
Yeah, you wouldn't do that.
You know, and I mean, so why do,why do we wanna do it with our
deer meat?
It's that that meat is porousand it is absorbing all of that

(45:08):
stuff.
You know, it's absorbing flavorsthat you don't want to eat.
Ha ha.
Yeah.
And, and, you know, so maybesome of the gamey, quote gamey
flavor that you're tasting ispart of not handling the meat
like it should have beenhandled.
You know, um, I mean, to me,there's, I mean, I, I, it's
just, I love it.

(45:28):
I love deer meat.
I love wild turkey.
I, you know, the only thing I'mnot a huge fan of is.
Um, large mouth bass.
They can taste like seaweed.
Yeah.
I'll eat them but you know, I'dmuch rather have a flounder or a
crappy.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(45:48):
Um but anyway, so those are someof the things Brandon go ahead.
I was just going to say or acrappie if you're from Michigan.
Uh or a white perch white perch
white perch.
Those are some of the things that that we You know,
think that, that you should lookat, you know, when you're
deciding if you're going to takea shot, you know, if, if you're
going to take that shot, like,like Wes said earlier, you know,

(46:11):
you're going to take somethingthat you would say maybe is a,
is a lower percentage shot, alonger shot than you would
normally take because it's a,it's a big buck and you, you
want, you want to, um, A shot atthat big buck and you, you know,
you're, you're hunting somewhereand you don't think you're going
to have that opportunity again.
And I mean, yeah, those are,those are all the factors that,

(46:34):
you know, have to go throughyour mind in, in a very short
time frame, you know, about whatyou're going to do, how you're
going to respond.
What, if you're going to, ifyou're going to try to harvest
animal or not, and then what todo after the shot, uh, all the
way down to.
What, what to do with the meat,you know, and we'll, we'll get
into, you know, how to cook meatand stuff like that.

(46:56):
Um, at some point on a podcast,cause that's something that I
really like to do.
Um, you know, because obviouslythat's, that's the whole goal
here.

WES (47:05):
Yep.
I want to break in right hereand say something, you know,
you, you said I may take thatmarginal shot because I don't
know if I'm going to see thatdeer again.
I encourage you now that deerseason's over and it's freshly
over.
So, invite your neighbors,invite the people that hunt with
you, and y'all sit down and justgo over your season and make

(47:30):
sure everybody's on the samepage.
Listen, if you kill that eightpointer, if that's what you
wanted to kill, I got no problemwith that because that is legal.
But what gets me is the guy whokills that little six point
basket rack and then complainsbecause he don't ever see any
big deer.
No.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So we, we, and our little group out there and hope you

(47:51):
like it.
We're going to go and we'regoing to sit down and we're
going to have a meal and I'veencouraged everybody to bring
their trail camera picturesbecause It still baffles me at
the people who don't run trailcameras, who don't know what's
in our woods.
Right.
Yeah.

JOHN (48:07):
Yeah.
I mean, cause we do have somepretty big deer.
We've

WES (48:09):
got

JOHN (48:09):
some

WES (48:09):
great deer.
You know, our deer, this is awhole nother podcast.
Where, when they reintroducedour deer here in Georgia in the
sixties, they were fromWisconsin.

JOHN (48:19):
Yep.
Yep.
Well, Wisconsin and Texas.
Yes, there were some Texas inthere.
And some from Ohio.

WES (48:25):
So, if you've ever seen those deer?
Let, let a Georgia deer get tofive and a half or six and a
half years old and buddy, yougot something.

JOHN (48:34):
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.

WES (48:36):
And the guys down in Southwest Georgia have figured
that out and that's where thebig deer come from.
Yeah.
Besides, besides themetropolitan area.

JOHN (48:45):
Yeah.

WES (48:45):
But anyway, get with your buddies.
Y'all get on the same page.
Talk about it.
Hey, maybe that, maybe that sixpointer, maybe he is five and a
half years old.
He needs to go, but y'all needto know that.

JOHN (48:55):
And don't fight about it.
Don't

WES (48:56):
fight about it.
For goodness sakes.
It ain't worth fighting over.

JOHN (48:59):
It ain't worth losing friendships over.
But I just think

WES (49:01):
there's so many people that hunt here in Georgia, even in
Bullitt County, that don'trealize the quality deer that we
have.
And the last thing I'll say,please kill those does.
Please kill

BRANDON (49:16):
the does.
You know something too that Ithink is important and I think
if if everybody's in agreementon it in your area It can be
really good too is you know Ithink it's easy for us who've
been hunting for a long timewhen we bring the next
generation along with us is tobe so set on Don't shoot this

(49:36):
don't shoot that don't shootthis don't shoot that don't
shoot a doe during Rudd or whatyou know, you get in a lot of
that stuff But if you've got ayoung kid who never gets to
shoot

WES (49:47):
Let him, they're never, they're

BRANDON (49:49):
never going to love it.
No, you know what I mean?
And it just to go and sit, Imean, they're never going to
love it.
A lot of kids get a pass.
Yeah.
Finding, finding some balance inthat, but being on the same page
with that too, I think that'shuge because we want the next
generation of hunters to loveit.
Like we love it.
But the reason I love it isbecause I used to shoot deer

(50:12):
and, um, and as I got older, um,began to want to kill, you know,
bigger, older, nicer deer.
But coming along, um, especiallyat a really young age, that's
kind of what got me hooked, youknow?
So I think that's reallyimportant as well is, but I
think being on the same pagewith your neighbors and

(50:34):
everybody having the same goal,it's huge.
Nothing worse than having Youknow, one person in the middle
of everything, he's shootingeverything and everybody else is
letting it, letting them walk,you know, so,

JOHN (50:46):
yeah, but I mean, that's still gonna, it's gonna happen,
you know, and, and like I said,there's no reason to fight about
it and get upset and losefriendships over it and
everything.
I mean, it's.
At the end of the day, it is a,it is a wild animal, it is a
resource, you know, that we, we,we have the opportunity to go

(51:08):
out and harvest, you know, and,um, you know, I don't think we
need to be doing things that aregoing to, they're going to hurt
that, um, there are, we, we knowall of us sitting at the table
right now know people that yearsago, uh, They would never see a
deer track in Bullock County.

(51:28):
I mean, they wouldn't even seeone.
They'd have to go down to one ofthe islands, even see what a
deer track looked like.
And the same thing is true withturkeys.
You know, I mean, there was atime where we didn't have
turkeys.

WES (51:39):
I wish I could find it, but I stole, excuse me, DNR please
don't come and write me a ticketnow, but in the Ogeechee river
swamp, they put up sheets ofpaper that said, Warning, 5, 000
fine for shooting a turkey.

JOHN (51:57):
Oh my gosh.
This

WES (51:58):
is when they first started restocking those things.
Like, so

JOHN (52:02):
that would have been, like, late 70s?
Uh, yes.
Or early 80s?
It would have been early 80s,yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
That's pretty cool.
And to go and, and read thatstory, um, to learn about that.
So, like, um, National WildTurkey Federation, their, their
big conference is coming up herein, uh, February.
If you have the opportunity, goto that, uh, I think it's really

(52:24):
cool, but, um, they have somestuff up there about, uh, the
people who were so instrumentalin, um, helping, um, repopulate
the Southeast, basically, withturkeys, and, uh, just really
cool stuff, uh, the, the guythat started, uh, Mossy Oak, his
dad was really involved in that,and, um, Yeah, they, it's, it's

(52:47):
just a, it's such a cool story.
They put out, they put out amovie last year about that.
Yeah, I think it was Mossy Oakdid like a Yeah, Mossy Oak did a
documentary about it.
So definitely look that up.
It's, it's worth the, the 90minutes or so to watch it.
It's so cool.

DUB (53:01):
I don't remember the name of it.
It was like the Fox, somebodyelse.
I don't remember the name.
Yeah,

JOHN (53:05):
so, so Toxie's dad is, uh, calling the fox, I think is kind
of how that all went down.
Uh, but anyway, it's pretty,pretty cool stuff.
Have you

WES (53:14):
ever seen the documentary where the guy found a turkey
nest?
And he took the eggs andincubated them.
Oh, yeah.
He stayed with them for a solid

JOHN (53:24):
year.
That was here in, in, uh,coastal Georgia.
Yeah, it was close somewhere.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was pretty cool.

WES (53:29):
That was pretty cool, too.

JOHN (53:31):
Yeah, he, uh, showed the thing where the snake came in
there and got one of them.
Yep.
And then got stuck in the penbecause he couldn't get back out
after eating the turkey orwhatever.
Yeah, it was pretty cool.
So he

WES (53:39):
was the surrogate mom to that whole little brood of
turkeys.
And I don't know, they startedwith 10 or 12 and I think really
only, Three or four of themmaybe made it.
It's probably reality in the, inthe real world.

JOHN (53:51):
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's, that's good stuff.
That's good stuff.
So I got another question fory'all, um, that I want to talk
about today.
And that is what's the meaningof salvation and how do I know,
or how do you know that you'resaved?
You know, we always have avertical part of of our podcast,

(54:14):
and that's one of the that thatis the question that we want to
focus on today.
So what do you think about that?

BRANDON (54:23):
You just cross your fingers, right?
No,

JOHN (54:25):
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't think that's something.
That's it.
I think, I think we can have alittle good

BRANDON (54:31):
way to bet on your eternity.

JOHN (54:34):
I think we can have a little more assurance than that.
Doug, what do you think?
This isn't your turn to besilent.
Uh, that's a look of panic, deerin headlights.
I just made a bad shot.
I can't do anything.
I should have shot that fig'sbroad head.
Uh, so, so I read a quote thisweek, um, And it said that, uh,

(55:01):
this was in the, um, in a book,uh, called, um, How to Be Sure
You Are a Christian.
It said, um, My experience incounseling thousands of students
and laymen through the yearssince I met Christ personally
has convinced me that there areliterally thousands of good,
faithful churchgoers who havereceived Christ in prayer, but

(55:23):
who are not sure of theirsalvation.
And that was, uh, that waswritten by Bill Bright, and he's
the founder of Campus Crusadefor Christ, which is now called
CRU, and they have, they havecampus ministries all, all over
the country.
Um, but what, I mean, what doyou guys think about that?

WES (55:43):
Well, the first thing I did was looked up the definition of
salvation.
Okay.
The state of being saved fromharm, danger, or loss.

JOHN (55:53):
Okay, alright, alright.
So what harm, danger, or lossare we being saved from?

WES (56:03):
I'm being saved from being dangled over hell by a stinging,
uh, stick, stick and string.
Yeah.
Dangling over hell with a rottenstick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was the

JOHN (56:14):
part of the conversation we had earlier.
So why, so, so let, let's,let's, I guess, Since we define
salvation, let's define the needfor salvation.
Who wants to take that?
Who wants to talk about the needfor salvation?
We're all looking at dub andhe's like, man, he's just

(56:34):
backing away.
He's doodling with

BRANDON (56:36):
a Sharpie hoping we're not looking at him.
So, well, so where does thatcome from?
What's the idea behind that?
I just think, you know, it goesback even to what we talked
about with the, what I wouldcall the horizontal part, right.
shot placement.
Um, to sin literally means tomiss the mark.

(56:56):
And so you think about Romans 323 where Paul says all have
sinned and fallen short of theglory of God.
In other words, we've all missedthe mark.
Just like we were shot shot outof a bow and we didn't hit the
right place.
Um, wasn't because God couldname.
It was because Uh, we couldn'tlive out the life that God
called us to and, and rebellionpretty quickly in our creation.

(57:20):
And so, um, uh, what we reallyneed to be saved from is, is our
own rebellion against God.
Um, and that separation thatresulted in that, you know, and
I know we talked about before westarted that, that referencing
hell and this and that can, Canpolarize people a lot of times
and people a lot of times I getthe question of how could a good

(57:42):
God send You know somebody tohell and um, you know, and then
you go back you really look atit Well, God's never sent anyone
to hell.
That's that was their decisionand I actually heard someone say
this one time talking about howIt's actually an act of mercy on
God's behalf because if youdon't want to spend it spend
time with God now Why would heforce you to do it for eternity?

(58:06):
And so when we look at this,it's really, um, we're being
saved from ourselves.
Um, and, you know, God gavehimself, uh, to save us, um,
from, from our own iniquities,from our own trespasses and from

(58:26):
the spiritual death, really,that came from that.
And so, um, I look at it as, Youknow, we were never intended to
be separated, but we are andwhat we have to find is a way of
reconciliation back to the lifegiver if we really want to have
life

JOHN (58:46):
and that's something that we can't achieve on our own,
right?
Right?
There's there's no way that wecan.
So, so let's let's back up alittle bit further.
So, I'll share a little bitabout what I believe.
And I believe that there is acreator, right?
Let's, let's start there.
I believe that there is acreator that is, if you're going

(59:07):
to create something, like if I'mgoing to, if I'm going to make
this box right here, this bottleright here, I'm not a part of
that bottle, right?
I'm going to create it.
I'm going to create it usingmaterials to do that.
So God is apart from creation.
And he created everything and hedid it in order and he did it
with a plan in place, right?

(59:28):
And based on the evidence that Ican see in scripture and in a
lot of historical documents, Ican say that Jesus Christ is who
he said he was, right?
So if I believe he is who hesays he was, Then that means I'm

(59:49):
also going to believe that hedid what he said he was going to
do, which he came here to bridgethat gap that I could never
bridge on my own to bring meback into a right relationship
with God.
He, he literally came here topardon me, you know, and I use

(01:00:09):
that word because that's a wordthat unless you're hiding under
a rock somewhere.
Um, the, the, the idea of havinga pardon in the U S is everybody
can understand that right now.
It's pretty popular.
I mean, it's, it's, it's, uh,it's probably the number one
Googled thing right now.
You

BRANDON (01:00:25):
know, you, you, you can go Fox news, CNN, MSNBC.
Whichever one you subscribe to,they're all,

JOHN (01:00:32):
they are all talking about it to some degree or another,
uh, from one angle or anotherright now.
And yeah, I mean, so, so I waspardoned not because I was even
seeking God, right?

WES (01:00:44):
Yeah.

JOHN (01:00:44):
Um, he did that out of his immense grace and mercy towards
me.
Um, because he wanted arelationship with me, he made
this creation for me to have a,uh, a domain to live in.
And so that's, that's the basisthat, that I'm the, the, the
starting point, the beginningpoint of this idea of salvation

(01:01:07):
and needing salvation and, andwanting to be in a right
relationship with God.
And to think that, all right, toget back to the question, how do
I, how do I know that I'm saved?
And Why, why do we even strugglewith that?
You know, what causes us tostruggle with that?

(01:01:29):
And what does it look like tobecome saved?
I mean, how do, how do you getto that point?
You know, first you have torealize that there's a problem.
You have to realize there's adanger, right?
If you, I mean, you could begoing through life and never
know that there's a problem.
All right.
So here's the problem.

(01:01:49):
You came into this worldseparated from God because of
your inherited sin.
All right now You can look atthat brand new baby boy or brand
new baby girl.
You just brought home and youcan think they're perfect and
wonderful It won't take long foryou to think that they are full
of sin Absolutely.

(01:02:10):
I've got a friend right now whojust brought home.
I think two weeks ago broughttheir little girl home and I
talked to him, uh, I talked tohim Monday and he's sick.
Their whole house has been sick.
And he's like, John, this hasbeen the hardest week of my
entire parenting life.

(01:02:31):
You know, bringing this babyhome, you know, And it's not
because she's trying to make hislife hard.
She's just trying to surviveright now, buddy.
And unfortunately, you know, asickness came into their home
and now they all got it andthey're, they're all going
through it.
And, you know, when a baby getssick, the last thing they think
about doing sleeping when youwant to sleep, you know, and,

(01:02:53):
um, you know, it's just, it's,it's, it's difficult, right?
So we get into that, that ideaor that realization that, man,
I've, I've sinned against God,you know, because I, I haven't
lived a perfect life and that'sthe standard, you know, anytime
we're going to look atsomething, we, we really need to
define what the standard is andwhen we're, when you, when you

(01:03:17):
think about a standard, the, themost distilled version of a
standard is going to be thetruth.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I know I am persuaded thatwhat is recorded in scripture is
the truth.
I've, I've looked at theevidence.
I've investigated it because Iwasn't sure.
And I have, I'm persuaded.

(01:03:38):
I am certain that what is inscripture is the truth.
Every part of it.
I can't find a singlecontradiction.
If you can come find me and showit to me.
Yeah.
And we'll talk about it.
Yeah.
I don't think it's

BRANDON (01:03:50):
there.

JOHN (01:03:51):
You

BRANDON (01:03:51):
just need more a little more investigation and context.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You think so?

JOHN (01:03:55):
I mean,

BRANDON (01:03:55):
if you, if you find a contradiction.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's

JOHN (01:03:58):
exactly right.
That's exactly right.
But um, but what do you, what doyou guys think about this?
I don't want to, I don't want torun over everybody and talk
through this and, and be theonly one talking here.

BRANDON (01:04:11):
I'm trying to do, not do the same thing.
Cause I was thinking throughthis today.
I would, I was probably moreexcited about this podcast and,
um, Um, any of the others, whichI thought last week was our best
one.
Um, we've done two, so, um,we're just getting better and
better.
You got a

WES (01:04:31):
50 percent chance of it being the best one.
Hey, that's exactly right.
I was really

BRANDON (01:04:35):
excited about this one.
Um, because it's something, youknow, my mother in law passed
away, uh, getting close to ayear ago.
And we had so manyconversations.
very topic.
Um, she believed she knew, butman, she struggled because it
was so hard for her in her mindto be able to say all the stuff

(01:05:03):
I've done and it's just gone.
And we have such a mindset ofI'm only going to get what I've
earned.
And it's like you said, wecannot earn that salvation.
We can't, we can't do enoughgood to wipe out the bad.

(01:05:26):
And God does not look at it as ascale.
Where if I can stack more goodchips than bad chips, then I'm
okay.
But we, we, we believe thatbecause of the world we live in,
that um, If I can do more goodthan bad, then hopefully I get

(01:05:47):
in, you know, um, and you thinkabout it too, like, what is our
standard?
What's the standard that we goby?
Typically it's the person nextto us or the guy we know.
And we look at it and go, well,at least I'm not as bad as that
guy.
And if we think that we don'tneed a savior, or if we think
that we meet the standard isbecause we're comparing

(01:06:09):
ourselves to the wrong one.
And the standards perfection,and we've all missed the mark,
you know, and so the great newsis God did for us what we
couldn't do for ourselves.
Um, well, he did for us what wedidn't even know we needed to
do.
Yes, like unaware of it, likethe worst thing and you know,

(01:06:32):
people like this, I'm sure wholike consciously incompetent or
unconsciously incompetent.
It's like the worst place youcan be.
It's like the emperor with noclothes on you.
You don't even know it.
And like, that's how I know.
That's how I was before I gotsaved.
I had no clue.

WES (01:06:51):
Well, I hear you.
I hear it.
I'm sure you, everybody hearsit, but I'm a good person.
Yes.
I'm a, I'm a good person.
You know, I, I help give tocharity and I do this and I do
that.
I'm a good person and, andpeople think that that's the
ticket.

BRANDON (01:07:08):
Yeah.
I tell our folks all the time,look, God didn't send Jesus to
die to make you good, he died tomake you alive.
And, um, you know, if he can geta hold of your heart, then he's
going to change your life.
And so a lot of times we get waymore into behavior modification
than we do heart transformation.

(01:07:29):
And I think that's one of thethings that happens so many
times is, as you talked about.
John would just, he created usfor relationship, and it's not
like he was needy, like he's gotperfect relationship within
himself with the Father, Son,and Spirit, but just a
relationship of love and thatbrings him glory.

(01:07:52):
I mean, the original command wasto fill the earth, and we were
created in his image, fill theearth and rule over it in a way
that brings him glory.
But that was forfeited becauseof sin.
And now, man, what an incredibleguide, um, to do what he did for
us, that we could once again,regain the ability to fulfill

(01:08:16):
our original commission.
So, yeah.
We're not on video.
So just to give you a littlecommentary, that was John
hitting Dove with a Diet Cokebottle, an empty Diet Coke
bottle.
So it wasn't,

JOHN (01:08:37):
you know, wasn't that bad, but he apparently he's looking
up something to tell us, Ithink.
Oh, no, he's not.
He's, he's looking at mechanicalbroadheads.
He's, he's checked out, probablytexting somebody, probably his
mom and saying, Hey, y'all doneor what are y'all doing up
there?
Um, you know, to, to get backinto that idea of, of not

(01:09:02):
knowing if you're saved or not.
Um, so my daughter.
Recently had a conversation withsome, some peers of hers.
She, she's, she's 19 and she hada conversation with, with some
peers and they were talkingabout, um, Um, how would you
answer the question?
Are you, are you going toheaven?

(01:09:23):
And, um, you know, some of themsaid that they would say they
didn't know or they weren'tcertain of it.
And she was like, What do youmean?
You know, like, what do you meanyou're not certain of it?
You've, you've accepted thisfree gift of salvation that
Jesus has made available to you.
You've accepted Christ intoyour, into your life, and you've

(01:09:44):
made him the Lord of your life.
What keeps you from being 100percent certain from saying that
you're gonna, you're gonna spendeternity with him at this point?
Because that's what he paid for.
Yeah.
You know, he paid for You to beable to, to be in right
relationship with God, you know,and, and our behavior should

(01:10:05):
follow and there should bebehavioral things that change,
you know, if we go from being anorange tree to an apple tree,
well, we should stop droppingoranges, right?
And we should start droppingapples.
Um, and I know that's kind of aweird way to look at it, but I
mean, if you're, if you're goingto be altogether new,

BRANDON (01:10:22):
um, And I use that example one time in church, and
this is just, let me just bringyou into my world here.
Hang on, let me take my shoesoff first.
no, no, no.
I use that example one time inchurch and somebody came up and
they were like, well, you know,they actually did do a hybrid.
So you can, and I'm like, areyou serious, man?

(01:10:44):
I'm like, so you can have applesand oranges from the same tree?
I'm like, just, just look, everyanalogy breaks down at some
point.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
But anyway.
But, but what you're saying isexactly true, right?
If the, if, if the tree changes,if the root changes, um, there
ought to be something different.

WES (01:11:02):
So let's go back.
So why would a person not know?
Why would they not know?

JOHN (01:11:09):
I don't, I don't know.
Uh, Tony Evans, who's a pastorout in Texas, he calls it ADD
assurance deficit disorder.
You know, I don't know.
I mean, at, at worst.
You're making really little ofthe cross, right?
Like worst case scenario,you're, you're saying, you know,
what Jesus did didn't, wasn'treally effective.

(01:11:33):
And that's a pretty, that's apretty bad place to be.
And then at best you're saying,you know, I question if, if, um,
I question if I actually didaccept what he, what he gave to
me.
Right.
I mean, maybe, maybe at bestyou're, you're putting it on

(01:11:55):
your shoulders of, you know,maybe I made a mistake.
Maybe I misunderstood.
Maybe I didn't see personally.
I don't question

WES (01:12:03):
because I, I remember the night.
I mean, I, I remember, Iremember getting dunked under
the water.
I remember it.
Yeah.
The question that I have is, amI still worthy of that?
Yes.
You know,

BRANDON (01:12:17):
and I think that's the issue for a lot of people.
Right.
Um, is we, like every Sunday,every Sunday I get up to preach,
I don't feel worthy.

JOHN (01:12:29):
Yeah.

BRANDON (01:12:29):
I mean, I, I went into our prayer team two Sundays ago
and I'm like, y'all got to prayfor me.
And they were like, why?
I was like, I do not feel worthyto go out there today.
I mean, I'm preaching throughIsaiah six about the glory of
God, who am I to stand up andtalk about the glory of God.
If you think I'm perfected inthe glory of God, go ask my wife
and kids.
Right.
And I know my own heart and Iknow how simple my heart is.

(01:12:52):
So I think it does a lot oftimes comes back to this
worthiness and everything in theworld tells us that you get what
you've earned.
If you're worthy, you get it.
If not, if you earn yourpaycheck, you get your paycheck.
If you don't, you get fired, youknow, and that, that workspace
mentality of the old covenanthas, has caused a hybrid gospel.

(01:13:17):
That we believe in the cross,but it still takes my behavior
and I've still got to earn itand if I'm good enough, then
I'll get in.
If I

JOHN (01:13:28):
don't mess up.
Exactly.
Then it'll, then it'll still begood.
Right.
And when in reality, you know,um, our pastor, Dr.
John, he, he tells the story,um, I'm going to mess this up.
I know I'm not going to get itright.
He's his storytelling abilityis, is, is incredible and his
memory is incredible, but hetells a story about going, um,

(01:13:51):
with his dad, like to a hardwarestore and he got a nickel to go
to the hardware store where,cause he was going to get a
piece of gum.
Well, when he got to thehardware store, he didn't have
his nickel anymore, so he wasn'tgoing to be able to get a piece
of gum.
And he said, you know, and hetold some more parts of the
story and maybe his dad gave hima nickel or something.
I don't remember that, all thatpart, but he said, you know,

(01:14:14):
with our salvation, you know,for him to get that piece of
gum, he needed to hold on tothat nickel.
It was his responsibility tohold on to that nickel, but it's
not our responsibility to holdon to that salvation.
Yeah, that is in.
He's in the hands of Jesus, andhe's not letting go.
We can, we can count on the factthat he's not going to let go of
our salvation.

(01:14:34):
He, he paid a price for us andhe's covered us with his blood
and with his righteousness.
And from that point on, when Godlooks at us, he sees the
perfection of Jesus.
Right.
From, from a, from arelationship standpoint.
Yeah.
We are now, we have now takenon.

(01:14:56):
The, the, the relational statuswith God that Jesus has, that's
what the Bible says.
That ain't what I say and, and Idon't, I'm not going to sit here
and claim to, to completelyunderstand that and, and, you
know, you talk about being anIsaiah, Isaiah 55 says that
God's ways are higher, higherthan my ways.
And I, I, I can't

BRANDON (01:15:18):
understand it.
Yeah.
I mean, and, and the thing is,and I would ask you guys this
question of.
The people you know who aresaved, like, like, well, let me
back up.
We don't know anybody's heart,right?
Like we, we can't judgesomeone's heart.
Only God can do that.
But the people that you wouldsay, man, they are the most

(01:15:40):
solid in their faith.
Or, you know, if I had to, youknow, look at someone and say,
yeah, they're a believer.
They have the attributes ofthat.
I would still ask this questionthough, do they live more like
they're under the old covenantor the new covenant?
Okay.
All right.
So tell us more about that.

(01:16:02):
So do they live free fromcondemnation?
Do they live like they're, thetruth has set them free?
Um, do they live as though theyhave, um, unimpeded access to
God?
Um, or do they live more like, Ihave to fulfill this law, and

(01:16:26):
the first thing on my mind isfulfilling the law and being
good, or is the first thing onmy mind my love for Christ and
what He's done for me?
Um, do we still look for someoneelse to go to God for us, like
the Israelites at Mount Sinai,when they didn't want to hear
the voice of God, and yet theysaid, Moses, you go talk to God,

(01:16:48):
and you come tell us, because.
To me, a lot of times that'swhat Sunday morning is, is
people show up and very well,many of them are saved, but it's
almost still this mindset of,you know, Dr.
Waters or Brandon or whoever,you go hear from God and come
tell me what he says.

(01:17:10):
When we're missing the bestpart, which is, man, I get to
go.
I get to go in that tent ofmeeting now.
It's not just Moses that gets toexperience the glory, right, of
God.
And so, what I find is, eventhough we have been taken out of
this Old Testament, Old Covenantmodel, we tend to still live as

(01:17:35):
though we're still in it.
Um, we still live with a mindsetof, Fulfilling the law in my
ability.
We still live with a mindset ofI'm not really sure if I can go
boldly before the throne ofgrace to receive grace and mercy
in my time of need.

(01:17:56):
It's still based on how I feelabout me, not what the Bible
says about me.
So what is

JOHN (01:18:02):
driving that?
You think it's, I mean, Youthink it's, uh, I don't know.
I know God's forgiven me, but Ihaven't forgiven myself kind of
thing, kind of mentality or,yeah.

BRANDON (01:18:15):
I mean, I, I, I, I think that's some of, I think
we're a product of ourenvironment, so, and, and I'm
actually going through a serieswith our, our college students
right now called A Better Story.
Um, I wrote this book, um, Ireally did.
I know.
I'm like you, I probably soundlike I'm half.
Literate, but I actually didwrite a book called a better

(01:18:38):
story.
It was number five on the NewYork time kidney.
It never was.
I don't know.
It's um, actually it's, it'sreally funny because I did write
this book and every now and thenI'll check my bank account and
it'll say content distributionand it'll say like 2 and 30
cents.
And I'm like, somebody bought abook.

(01:19:00):
But, but we're going through itand it's, it's named after the
book and the whole book is myjourney to get out of this place
of living in condemnation, whichalmost literally almost killed
me.
And the problem with it is weare a product of our
environment.
From the time we're born, we're,and I heard somebody say this
one time, this is so great.

(01:19:20):
From the time we're born, we'remeasured.
I mean, what did, what did theydo?
Well, no, no,

JOHN (01:19:24):
no.
Yeah, we measured like a fishwhen we're born, you know?
Yeah, yeah.

BRANDON (01:19:27):
So, he's 21 inches, 8 pound, 8 ounce.
I mean, and we never stop beingmeasured.

JOHN (01:19:32):
Okay.

BRANDON (01:19:32):
And so, think about this, man.
Everything in our life isperformance based, you know?
Um, why does, and I use theseexamples all the time.
Why does Patrick Mahomes makethe money he makes?
Because he's the bestquarterback.
Well, Arguably the bestquarterback in the NFL.
Maybe Lamar Jackson, is that whoyou're thinking?

(01:19:54):
Josh Allen.
Josh Allen.
Oh, now, now we'll get him totalk now.
Here we go.
Yeah, yeah, Josh Allen.
I mean, but why do they get paidwhat they get paid?
It's because they perform.
Why does Taylor Swift get paidwhat she gets paid?
Because she, she's a goodperformer.
Why?
You know what I'm saying?
I don't know.
The reason I say Taylor Swift isShe's the only one I know.
And the only reason I know heris because she dates Travis

(01:20:14):
Kelsey.
Oh, we, we know, we know you'rea Swiftie.
It's okay.
I am.
I was trying to hide it, butit's just all over me.
I know.
Um, but you think about why dothey get paid where they get
paid?
They get paid where they getpaid because they perform.
Um, and so that's been driveninto us and into our minds from
day one.

(01:20:36):
And so it's hard for us to cometo the gospel all of a sudden.
And go, Oh, this is free.
That makes sense.
Well, I don't have to earn it.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's completely makes sense

JOHN (01:20:47):
on the same token.
You know, we don't want to takeit to the other extreme either,
where it said, you know, wherewe say, well, I mean, I've been,
I've been, I've been saved, I'vebeen, I've been made right.
Check that box is good.
Absolutely.
I can go on living however Iwant to, I got my fire

BRANDON (01:21:02):
insurance, right?
Yep.
And I think the thing is, ifsomebody can say, I checked the
box, now I can live how I wantto, then they haven't actually
experienced grace.
Because one of the ways I thinkyou know you're saved is you
don't want to live the way youused to live.
I mean, it makes youuncomfortable.
Well, and, and, and like, I gofrom being bent away from God to

(01:21:25):
being bent towards God.
It said Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31.
where God takes out the heart ofstone.
He gives us a heart of flesh.
He's no longer writing it ontablets of stone for us to
fulfill, but he says, I'm goingto put a new heart in you and
I'm going to write my decrees onthat, that heart of flesh.
And I, and if you go readEzekiel 36, I don't think it's

(01:21:46):
like verses 22 through Oh, Idon't know, 36, something like
that.
And you look at how many timesGod says, I will, he doesn't say
you will.
He says, I will.
And he's doing it all for theglory of his name.
And he says, I will take thatheart of stone.
I'll write these on your heart.
I'll move you to follow mydecrees.

(01:22:07):
I'll sprinkle you with cleanwater.
And you look at those things andit's such a move of God.
And one of the ways I think weknow we're saved is.
All of a sudden, I go from beingbent away from God to being bent
towards God.
I'm not perfect, but I'm not thesame.
And if somebody can just gothrough life and say, Well, I

(01:22:30):
prayed a prayer.
Now I can do what I want to.
Then, I don't think they've hadthat encounter with the grace of
God.
Because, you're never the sameagain.
And it's like you said thatnight with us that you, you went
under the water, you came out ofthe water, you knew you were
different from then on.

(01:22:52):
I can remember April 1st of2000, I always joke around
because I got saved on AprilFool's Day.
Um, I hope I don't get there andhe's like, gotcha, you know, and
so, but I look at that and I'mlike, I remember standing at
Tattnall County campground undera streetlight.
Um, well, not a street light,just a light because there's no

(01:23:13):
street there, but under a lighttalking to some of my friends
and the people who were there onthis retreat with me and telling
them I'll never be the sameagain.
And then telling me, I'll giveyou four months, you'll be right
back the same like, no, youdon't understand.
I will never be the same again.
They didn't believe me.

(01:23:34):
I didn't know if I fully trustedmyself with it.
But I knew something wasdifferent and again, so far from
perfection, but it's not thesame.
So anyway, I did what I didn'twant to do.
I just totally hogged.

JOHN (01:23:49):
No, you're good, man.

BRANDON (01:23:50):
You're good.
So it's good

JOHN (01:23:51):
stuff.
Dubbs went over there hoggingall the airtime.
That was me patting him on theleg, saying that was the atta
boy, Pat.
Now move on up to the microphoneand let's hear your take on it.
Cause you've got a completelydifferent, you've got a
completely different take onthis, right?
Because you're 16 years old andyou're going to look at it

(01:24:12):
differently than what we do.
So we want to hear what yourtake is on the main dude.
We're just having aconversation.
It's just the four, four of usguys sitting here having a
conversation.
That's all this is.
You know, and so, so let me givesome more, some more background
on what I talked with yoursister about.
So she said that one of thethings that one of the one of

(01:24:32):
her peers said was, um, youdon't want to come off as, you
know, I think it's prideful tosay that I know that I know that
I know that I know that I'mgoing to heaven.
I think it's prideful to saythat And I'm like, well, yeah, I
mean, if it was, if it was basedon something you did, absolutely
right.
If it, if it was based onsomething you did and you know,

(01:24:55):
Like if if if if you were totalk to somebody and or if
somebody were to come to me andsay John How do you know that
you're going to heaven?
And if I started listing off thethings that I've done,

BRANDON (01:25:04):
yeah

JOHN (01:25:05):
I you know, I'm really taking the wrong attitude
towards it, right?
I mean because If I startlisting off the things I've
done, I'm telling you everyreason that God has to say.
Mm hmm Yeah, this is why I hadto send Jesus.
Yeah, you know was because ofall the crap that you've done
because of You know, where youfell short on this and where you

(01:25:26):
fell short on that, and youthought you were doing good
because we, we have this insaneability to create this idea of
truth in our own heads that isso far from truth that it's, I
mean, it's, it's, it's really,it's scary, you know, I mean,
we, we have, we have the abilitythat no other part of creation

(01:25:48):
does, and that is the ability todeceive ourselves.
Oh man.
And I can deceive myself intothinking that I'm doing right
when in reality, I'm doing thefurthest thing from right that
could be done, you know, and,um, you know, I think that that

(01:26:09):
I think we need to look at that.
And I mean, so how did, how didthis, how did these college age
people get to this point where,how I mean, there was like a,
uh, you know, there was severalof them together and there was a
consensus that this was, yeah,this is the way we should look
at it.
We shouldn't, we shouldn't justtell somebody, yeah, I'm certain
that I'm going to heaven.

(01:26:30):
How did we get to that point?
You know, and I think, I thinkyou can look at our, our
society, our culture, if youwill, and we're told to accept
everything, you know, likewe're, we're told to accept that
there's 462 genders.
And not anymore.
Right.

(01:26:52):
And we're and we're told toaccept, you know, that You know,
whatever.
I mean, I don't want to pisspeople off by saying some of
these things, but I mean, it'sjust like we're told that
everything's okay.
Men can

WES (01:27:06):
play in women's sports.

JOHN (01:27:07):
Yeah.
I mean, they can

WES (01:27:08):
go in women's bathrooms.
It's okay.
You know, don't get a bit out ofshape about that.
No, that's, that's wrong.
That's crazy.

JOHN (01:27:14):
I mean, I don't even know.
I don't, I don't understand howany of that ever.
I mean, how do you write thisdown and say, now, this is a
good idea.
It's

BRANDON (01:27:21):
what you said.
It's deception, right?
Yeah.
And Jeremiah also says that ourhearts are deceitfully wicked
above all things who canunderstand them.
Right.
And so certainly we look atthings and, and it's easy for us
to be deceived and we have thesame blind spots.
They might not be as obvious.
Right.
And, and certainly, um,

JOHN (01:27:42):
yeah, cause we're not perfect.
Right.
I mean, You know the way Jesussaid it was well before you go
removing that speck from yourneighbor's eye You need to pull
the plank out of your eye

BRANDON (01:27:52):
first, right?
Yeah Yeah, and and I would goback to the reason that those
college students probably feltlike that which one let me say
this I love crew Our crewministry here or at Georgia
Southern University, Jay'sBosley, all those, those folks
that run that, man, Matt, MattWise that does the athletes in
action, you know, Matt, um, is agood friend of mine.

(01:28:15):
I wish I got to see more than Ido, but Matt, Jay, that whole
group, man, they are sodiscipleship mind is
discipleship focused.
I love that ministry, but Ithink all of us fight the same
battle.
The reason that I think.
Those students may have beenunwilling or a little gunshy to

(01:28:37):
say, yeah, I know I'm saved isbecause it still comes back to
that idea that I have somethingto do with my salvation.
And so in an effort to behumble, they're saying, I don't
want to say, yeah, I'm savedbecause I don't want it to look
like I'm saying I'm that good.

(01:28:58):
But it kind of is that samemisunderstanding, I think, of
the gospel to where when werealize that it's a God centered
gospel and the only way that weare glorified is when we think
we did it.
But when it's God centered, itbegins and ends with Him, then
He's the one who gets the glory.

(01:29:20):
But I don't think it's, it's,it's I think it all resorts back
to the same thing, and it is,Satan has built a system that's
based on performance and thatcauses us, he's blinded the
minds of unbelievers, secondCorinthians four four, and we

(01:29:42):
have a hard time seeing thelight of the gospel because we
are brought up in a performancesystem.
It's drilled into our head.
And then God says, I'm offeringyou life freely.
I'm offering you change freely.
And we cannot wrap our mindaround it.

(01:30:03):
I will say this too, and I knowwe've, we've kind of picked it
up over here a little bittonight.
But, you know, I asked him howold he was when the shop
started.
Um, and I knew he was probablylike eight or nine.
He said nine.
And I can remember the firsttime I walked into the shop and

(01:30:23):
this little kid comes up to meand he's like, can I help you?
And I'm like, I doubt it in mymind, you know, I'm like,
there's no way.
And then, you know, he had morebow knowledge at nine years old
than, than I ever have.
And that was kind of my firstintroduction to him and my first
introduction to you too, John.

(01:30:46):
And, and.
The longer I've been around, Ikind of got out of bow hunting
for a little while was I wasraising my children, but then
once we got back in, I got tostart coming back into the shop,
um, and seeing him grow up andseeing the person, the young man
he's becoming and to see how youinteract with your family and to

(01:31:08):
see those things has beenextremely powerful.
Um, to me, because that to me,it kind of goes back to last
week's episode, but that'sreally what it's all about is
you're instilling that in them.
And I see it in him, even ifhe's Mike shy a little bit, but
I see it in him from watchinghim grow up just in the shop.

JOHN (01:31:32):
Yeah.

BRANDON (01:31:32):
And I think that's so powerful.
And I think that is the power ofthe gospel too.
Right.
You see the change, you see whathappens.
And, um, man, when you can'tfake it, you can't fake it.
You can't, you either.
It is kind of one of thosethings.

(01:31:53):
What's Kirby Smart say?
Uh, you either you lead oryou're not.
Oh, yeah.
Um, well, you, you kind ofeither have it or you don't.
And I think that, uh, that's oneof those things for us that.
You can tell.
And I think the challenge for usis the renewal of our mind.
God gives us a new life.

(01:32:13):
He gives us a new heart.
Um, but he says our mind has tobe renewed.
And we don't think in the oldways.
And I think a lot of those oldways are what keeps us from, uh,
really living in the freedom.
Jesus said, if you hold mycommands, you'll know the truth.
The truth will set you free.
And, uh, man, there's so muchmore freedom, I think, in
Christ.

(01:32:33):
Um, and what we oftentimesexperience because we hold on to
a lot of the truths of theworld.

JOHN (01:32:39):
You know, we're, we're, we're, we're lulled into
thinking that we're not in abattle, that it really doesn't
matter.
You know, we just kind of goabout our workaday lives and you
know, we want to, we want to gohome tonight, have something to
eat, go to bed and have a goodnight's rest somewhere safe, get

(01:33:01):
up and do it again tomorrow.
You know, and we're often, youknow, we're okay with that just
kind of being it, I think, youknow, and man, the worst kind of
chains are the chains that youdon't even realize are holding
you down.
Yes.

BRANDON (01:33:22):
The chains that you don't even realize are there.
Yeah, there's a, there's adocumentary about the church in
Iran, um, how fast it'sspreading.
This has been out for a fewyears now, but it's called Sheep
Among Wolves.
It was, at the time it came out,I think it was a two part
series.
And a lady and her husband hadmoved from Iran.
They were Christians.
They moved from Iran to theUnited States.

(01:33:44):
And she actually asked herhusband if she could move back
to Iran.
Um, because she felt like theywere being lulled to sleep by a
satanic lullaby.
And, you know, it is easy, um,when you have everything to miss
the thing you need the most, youknow?

JOHN (01:34:03):
Yeah.
And, and, I mean, when you, whenyou look at our founding
documents, um, it says thatevery man is endowed by his
creator, right?
And that we should be able tohave life.
Liberty in the pursuit ofhappiness and we get so hung up

(01:34:27):
on that pursuit of happiness.
I Mean, I wish I Almost wishthat that part would have never
been put in there.
Yeah, because we're so hung upon being happy that Will will
trade happiness for holiness ina dang second I'm talking about
in a New York second, and that'spretty quick.

(01:34:49):
Yeah, that's what I hear.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know and I mean to thepoint that we don't even we
don't even approach life likethere's I mean, it's just one
side and we're all happy to behere and, you know, we don't
want to get sick and we don'twant to, we don't want to have a
financial struggles and we don'twant to have marital struggles

(01:35:10):
or anything like that.
We just want life to be prettyeven keel and be able to go
through life and be happy and,and, and everything's good.
And then, and to the point thatwe wear, we wear happiness and
busyness as badges of honor.
Like you'll see somebody, a man,how you doing?
Busy.
Busy, we're just busy.
What the heck does that evenmean?
You want to be busy?

(01:35:32):
Like you, you just want to bebusy all the time?
I'm getting it.
Nah, I'm, that ain't, that ain'twhere I'm at.
What'd I tell you last week?
What'd I

WES (01:35:40):
tell you I was doing the night it was snowing?
Uh, what was that time

JOHN (01:35:44):
time?
Some fishing.
That's right.
And I said what?
And you said you're going.
That's right.
You're going.
And I'm going.
Okay.
I'm going.

WES (01:35:51):
Can't be so busy.
You're not going to catch somesheep.
You got

JOHN (01:35:54):
that right.
You got, even though I'll nevercatch one because they got them
little teeth and they'll justbite the crab off and leave the
hook.

WES (01:36:01):
Well, you know, I, I tell the story all the time that I've
been fired from one job.
Yeah.
And that was the biggestblessing of my life ever.
Um, you know, I was tied to ajob that I worked 12, 14 hours a
day.
Wow.
Um, I had a newborn at home andI felt like I had to be there.

(01:36:25):
I mean, it couldn't run withoutme and I got fired and I went
home and my wife said, you know,gosh, what are we gonna do?
And I said, I'm gonna traindogs.
And she started crying rightthere and she said, we're going
to starve to death, you know,and we've never looked back and
just the job itself has affordedme the opportunity to never miss

(01:36:48):
a basketball game.
That's so

BRANDON (01:36:49):
good, man.

WES (01:36:50):
Never miss a football game.
You know, when those kids aredoing, I can go, if the teacher
needs something at school, callme, I can come, I can go, I can
do what I need to do.
So the busy part.
I get it.
I mean, I get it.
I see so many people and I tellmy buddies all the time and I
should have told you the samething.
All work and no play makes Jacka dull boy.

(01:37:11):
I've heard that.
You've

JOHN (01:37:12):
told me that plenty of times.
I've heard that.
Oh yeah.
Man.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's, you know, there has tobe balance in life.
You know, I talk about God, thecreator God, and how he did
things in order.
You know, he is not a god ofchaos, right?
And busyness is just another wayof saying chaos.

(01:37:32):
You know, if you're justconstantly busy and you can't
stop, like if, if you, you know,let's, let's go a little bit
deeper in this.
How am I going to have arelationship with God?
Well, I got to spend time withhim, you know?
And if I'm only spending timewith him on Sunday, man, I don't
have a real good relationshipwith him.
You know, really?
I mean, now, now, granted, I'vegot some friends.

(01:37:53):
Two years ago, I lost a reallygood friend of mine.
He had, he had cancer and, uh,he, he graduated to glory and,
and he was one of those peoplethat there'd be times where we'd
talk every day and then there'dbe times where we would go
months.
I mean, we'd go two or threemonths and dude, we'd pick right
back up where we left off.
We just kind of had that kind ofrelationship.

(01:38:15):
And I remember having aconversation with him about his
faith.
Yeah.
And it was just out of the blue,you know, I mean, he, he became,
he became a mentor of mine.
I had a tremendous amount ofrespect for him.
He loved the Atlanta Braves.
He loved Georgia Bulldogs.
He loved his family and he lovedplaying golf.
Yeah.

(01:38:36):
All right.
He taught me that I needed tolove my family.
He taught me I needed to lovethe Braves, win, lose, or draw.
And we know which one it is moreoften than not.
He taught me that I don't reallylike bourbon, you know, because
he, he would golf and then hewould have bourbon or whatever.

(01:38:58):
And I'm not, I'm not a huge fanof that, but you know, he taught
me these things.
And then I remember asking himone day and, and like, you know,
We've talked about the man hugbefore, right?
I'm, I'm big on the man hug whenI, especially if I see a real
good friend and I hadn't seenhim in a while, you know, go up
and you, you, you shake handsand he just bring it on in,

(01:39:19):
right?
You get, get that good hug.
And, and, uh, so.
So, he and I, we, we got, everytime we'd see each other, we'd
hug each other.
Yeah, and then you just hold itfor a while just to make it a
little awkward, right?
Don't ever give Brandon a manhug is what I just heard.
Anyway, but, but I rememberhaving a conversation with him
about his faith and, you know,just talking through that and it

(01:39:40):
was, you know, I thought it wasgoing to be awkward and then I
was nervous about it andeverything, you know, because
here this guy, I mean, he was, Imean, I'm telling you, he was a
mentor to me.
He was, he was.
He was like, um, he was 35 or 40years older than me, you know,
and he took me under his wingand, and, you know, we just had

(01:40:02):
this, this great relationship.
And I remember having thatconversation with him, um, about
what he believed and why hebelieved it and everything.
And it, it was.
You know, it wasn't like Ididn't walk away from it
thinking, man, I wish I'd havenever done that.
I didn't really walk away fromit really understanding where he
stood on things either, youknow, I mean, like I didn't, I

(01:40:24):
wasn't like, man, we're going tobe in heaven together one day
and we're going to, God's goingto have something really cool
for us to do and we're going toget to worship him the whole
time but we're still going toget to do really cool things
because that's what heaven'sgoing to be like.
Oh yeah.
In case y'all, in case you'rewondering, okay, yeah, Jesus
came and he saved us and gaveus, put us into a bright
relationship with God and we getto have a relationship with God

(01:40:45):
here and now, right?
And then also we get to spendeternity not a separated, not
separated from God, okay?
Which means we get to be withGod.
And these, these cartoons thatyou see of people floating
around on a cloud playing aharp, that ain't, that ain't
what it is.
Yeah, we don't have wings.

(01:41:05):
Uh, nah.
We don't turn into angels.
Or flowers.
We're not looking down, youknow, at, at our, at our kinfolk
down to see what they're doingand making sure they're doing
right.
You know, grandma that's gone onbefore you, she's got way more
important things than to lookdown and make sure you're doing
right.
Okay.
Is there

WES (01:41:23):
duck hunting?

JOHN (01:41:24):
I don't think so.
I don't, I don't, I don't evenknow that there's fishing
actually, but.
I'm pretty sure there's I don'tknow.
We'll find out.
Okay.
I'm going.
Oh, yeah.
I'm going just I'm going

BRANDON (01:41:38):
So real quick story, yeah, I'll tell you the story
and this is gonna be the longestpodcast ever.

JOHN (01:41:43):
That's fine Definitely not the longest ever Joe Rogan goes
for like eight hours That's trueAnd nobody's ever gonna listen
to this so we can say whateverwe want

BRANDON (01:41:50):
to say.
By the way listen in next weekbecause we do Have Donald Trump
I'm kidding, but Joe Rogan gotto do that, so we're not Joe
Rogan, but yeah, anyway, we, weused to go to the Geechee River
and do baptisms, and uh, it wasreally cool, we kind of caravan
from, um, whether we were atthis little blue building we
used to meet at over behindBurger King or the high school

(01:42:11):
we met for about four years, andwe caravan out to the Geechee
River, and it made me thinkabout you asking about the duck
hunting, but we get out there,and you never knew he was going
to be there, right?
And so we go to this spot, wealways baptize and there'd just
be tons of cars pull up andthere was this guy, you know,
just, just, just a girl boy.
He's out there working on histruck right there by the river

(01:42:32):
landing.
And you hear him banging and I'mover there talking about baptism
and you hear like, clank, clank,clank, clank, clank, clank.
You're trying to crank histruck, you know.
Um, about that time, he finallygets his, his, uh, truck to
crank and the song blaring onthe radio and you can't make
this up, right?
Was if heaven ain't a lot likeDixie, and we're right in the

(01:42:57):
middle of baptisms and so itcouldn't have been more perfect,
but yeah, so anyway, I just tookus completely down on, you know,
you think about

WES (01:43:03):
stuff like that, but there's a, there's a country
song where the guy.
He talks about heaven and hetalks about, you know, he's,
you've been promised streets ofgold, but he would gladly give
it up for a little farmhouse.

BRANDON (01:43:17):
Yeah.

WES (01:43:18):
I mean,

BRANDON (01:43:19):
well, if you build your theology on country music, I'm
telling you, man, um, becauseyou know, uh, was it, uh,
propped me up beside thejukebox, you know, want to go to
heaven, but I don't want to getan eye.
That's right.
Um, Uh, you know, and I thinkyou mentioned Luke Bryan
earlier, you know, that mostpeople are good.

(01:43:41):
I'm like, nah, I don't believethat either.
Yeah.
Um, I think so.
It's one of those things whereman, yeah, it's, it's, it's,

WES (01:43:50):
the, the, the point was it makes you think what is heaven
going to be like for us?
Right.
You know, I mean, you know, it'sgoing to be good, but is your
heaven going to be differentthan my heaven?
Is it going to be different thanyour heaven?

JOHN (01:44:03):
Yeah, I think, yeah.
I mean, I think maybe what myperception of what heaven's
going to be is, I mean, it'sprobably going to be different,
you know?
I mean, I think that likeIsaiah, when he walked into the
temple, you know, with whaty'all are going through in, uh,
in your teaching right now, whenhe walked into the temple
thinking he was going to, tomeet with God and then, you

(01:44:25):
know, He walked into the templeand he met with God right there.
I mean, it was this real thingthat happened.
Um, I mean, I, I think, I don'tknow, you know, I don't, I don't
know, like, like the song says,I have no idea.
I don't know if I'm on leap forjoy.
I don't know if I'm going toshout out and, and, and worship
or, or if I'm just going to falldown and, and, you know, fall on

(01:44:48):
my face, you know, in, in sheer.
It really don't matter.
I mean, I'm going and beterrified.
I mean, I have no idea here.
Here's what I do know.
There's one place where there'sno laughter and I'm not going
there.
That's right.
And Jesus has made sure of that.
That's right.
Okay.
That's that's what I can tellyou.
And I love to laugh.

(01:45:08):
Anybody that knows me knows thatI love to laugh.
I just yeah.
I've never really met a personthat I didn't like.
Now, I've met people that Ididn't like in the moment.
You know, but I've never reallymet somebody that I didn't like
or that I didn't, that I didn'tlove and try to see them the way
God sees them.
I mean, I think that, I thinkthat's what it means to have a

(01:45:31):
heart after God's, is to lovewhat God loves and hate what God
hates.
And there's not a whole lot thatGod hates.
There's some things that Godtruly hates.
There's a whole lot that Godreally loves, you know, and, um,
so I think we should go throughlife loving, you know, and, um,
that doesn't mean overlookingthings, right?

(01:45:52):
Um, it means you have to haveawkward, tough conversations
sometimes.

WES (01:45:56):
So, Brandon, let me ask you this question.
Do you think you can be a betterChristian if you know your
salvation?

BRANDON (01:46:09):
Yes.
I do.
Uh, and the reason for that ishow can we give a reason for our
confidence and our joy if wedon't know, you know, and it
comes back to.
Where, where is my confidence?

WES (01:46:29):
How can you share that with somebody else?
If you're not confident, ifyou're not certain,

BRANDON (01:46:35):
and I'm not going to say like, there's not aspects I
question.
Like it's not, it's like you,what you said about heaven, I
100 percent guarantee you theend times heaven, all of that is
going to be different than whateverybody thinks it's going to
be because up to this point,God's done nothing like we
thought he was going to do it.

(01:46:55):
Um, so there's certainly thingsthat I question.
There's certainly things that Iwrestle with, that I don't
understand, but what I alwaysencourage people with, there's
so many things that we don'tunderstand, but focus on the
things we do.
Because if you just focus on thethings that we do know, God's
good, how do we know that?

(01:47:16):
The cross.
All right?
And I tell people this, thecross is that pinnacle of God's
goodness that rises higher thanman's calamity.
Period.
Like, with all the evil and badin the world, you look at the
cross, you can't come awaythinking that God's not good.
The other thing is He'ssovereign.
So He's in complete control.

(01:47:36):
Third thing, He's faithful.
He's gonna do everything He'spromised.
He can do everything He'spromised because He's sovereign.
So if we know He's good, He'ssovereign, and He's faithful,
then we can trust Him.
And I'll tell you where thatcame from.
I was preparing one night to dothe funeral of a 17 year old
boy.
Who had died.
Um, and I, I'm young in, inministry and here I am trying to

(01:48:04):
find words to say to a familywho just lost a 17-year-old.
And I had a friend text me andsay, where do you find peace in
this?
And I really started just askingGod myself, like, how, what am,
what am I supposed to say tothis family?

(01:48:24):
What am I supposed to say to thepeople who are here tomorrow?
And that's when I felt like theLord put that in my heart and
I've said it a million timessince that, that, that night is
I can't answer why my dad hadthe motorcycle wreck he had.
I can't answer why his life andour life were changed.
I can't answer why my cousindied at 16 from lymphoma.

(01:48:47):
I can't answer why my wife, whenshe was 15, had Hodgkin's
lymphoma.
I can't answer why my mom hadbreast cancer.
I can't answer.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I know it's a result of a fallenworld, but I don't know.
But what I do know is that everymorning that my feet hit the
floor, God is good.

(01:49:07):
God is sovereign.
God is faithful.
And I can trust him.
It ain't easy.
And sometimes it's throughtears.
But at the end of the day, I cantrust him.
And that includes salvation.
So, um, Yeah.
It's simple.
It ain't always easy.

JOHN (01:49:23):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, I want to share onelast quote and we'll, we'll wrap
it up here.
Uh, this is, uh, by E.
W.
Tozer, who was, uh, uh, a manfrom another time.
Um, and he said in the early daywhen the Bible exercised a
dominant influence of Americanthinking, men conceived the
world to be a battleground.

(01:49:45):
Our fathers believed in sin andthe devil and hell as
constituting one force.
And they believed in God andrighteousness and heaven as the
other.
They believed that you had tochoose sides.
You could not be neutral.
It was a choice between heavenor hell.
And they knew if they choseGod's side, the battle against

(01:50:06):
his foe would begin.
It was real and deadly.
And it would last as long aslife continued here on this
earth.
The Christian soldier neverforgot the world he lived in.
It was a battleground.
And I think that that's theheart of what our discussion is
today, is if we'll, if we'lllook at the world for what it

(01:50:28):
is, if we'll look at this, this,this, this struggle between good
and evil, between right andwrong, and realize that we have
been completely saved from that,and we can be sure of it, It
changes everything.
I'm sure it

WES (01:50:48):
does.

JOHN (01:50:49):
It changes everything.
It changes how we look at everypart of life.
Yeah.
Absolutely changes it.
It changes how we treat somebodyelse.
Changes how we act, you know, inour relationships with our
neighbors, how we act in ourrelationship with our children,
with people that we don't know,with people that we do business

(01:51:10):
with.
It changes everything.
And we're still gonna makemistakes, and when we do, we
need to own it, you know, weneed to say, man, I, I made a
mistake, I screwed up, I, Ididn't do this the right way,
and, you know, just the act of,just that humble posture will
change most people's response toyou,

WES (01:51:33):
right?
I mean, I've been, I've beentaught two things that I can put
my finger on.
When you're wrong, say you'rewrong and go and apologize.

JOHN (01:51:42):
Yeah.

WES (01:51:43):
Stand up and go and apologize.

JOHN (01:51:45):
Yep.

WES (01:51:45):
And be on time.
Ha ha ha ha ha

JOHN (01:51:48):
ha.
That's great.
Yep.
That is good.
That is good.
Alright guys, well let's wrap itup there.
Thank y'all, uh, for being heretoday.
Dubb, we appreciate you beinghere.
You were really about it when wewere talking about, you know,
mechanical broadheads being whatsissy shoot and stuff and You
didn't like appreciate that toomuch, but it's all right.

(01:52:09):
We'll bring you around.
It's no big deal Like I said,you can say whatever you want to
on here.
Nobody's ever gonna listen tothis man Nobody nobody's ever
gonna listen to it All rightguys, thanks, thanks for joining
us we go

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Ep. 19 - Precision and Purpose

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 19 - Precision and Purpose