Guest Host, Alex McFarland, is joined by Brad Brandon, Founder & CEO of Across Nigeria

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

1. 0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
2. 0:02It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
3. 0:06This is the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.
4. 0:10It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
5. 0:15Delivery people under the bondage of mainstream media.
6. 0:18And the philosophies of this world.
7. 0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
8. 0:23Even in this dark moment.
9. 0:26Let's not miss our moment.
10. 0:28and now the Hamilton Corner.
11. 0:31Well, good evening.
12. 0:33Alex McFarland here, very, very honored to be sitting in on the Hamilton Corner for
13. 0:39my colleague and friend Abe Hamilton III, attorney, pastor, broadcaster.
14. 0:45And we've got a great show because there's a lot going on in the world and we're going
15. 0:49to talk about the mayoral election in New York City coming up.
16. 0:55But we're also going to talk about persecuted Christians and spreading the gospel.
17. 1:00And we've got a great guest that you'll meet in a moment.
18. 1:02But do you remember in Colossians 4 verse 18 where Paul said, remember my chains, some
19. 1:09translations say, remember my bonds.
20. 1:12The Apostle Paul was frequently arrested and spent time in a cold Roman jail cell.
21. 1:21And he wrote to the church at Colossae and he said, among other things, remember my
22. 1:26bonds.
23. 1:27Do you know we as a church are encouraged to remember those around the world that don't
24. 1:33have it as good as us, even for all of the troubles and foibles here in America.
25. 1:39I mean, we're pretty blessed.
26. 1:41I was speaking at a church earlier this week and one night during a special series of meetings
27. 1:48we were having.
28. 1:49The air conditioning went out.
29. 1:50And it was a little bit uncomfortable.
30. 1:52It wasn't bad, but several people were just really upset that the air was out.
31. 1:59And I said, you know, this really is a first world problem.
32. 2:02We have a building.
33. 2:03We have a roof over our head.
34. 2:05And even on our toughest day in the USA, we have it pretty good.
35. 2:11We really do.
36. 2:12And there are bodies of believers around the world, Christians, valiantly serving the dear
37. 2:18Lord Jesus, but they're persecuted. And while the air conditioning might go out or we might get
38. 2:27late for the buffet at the nice restaurant on Sunday afternoon, here in America, at least so far,
39. 2:36standing up for Jesus doesn't put our life at risk as it does for a lot of Christians around the
40. 2:43the world. So there's a lot to be grateful for. And you know, really, I'm excited to talk
41. 2:48about the ministry across Nigeria. We've got a guest with us, Brad Brannon. And not only
42. 2:56are we going to talk about the plight of persecuted Christians in certain parts of the world,
43. 3:02we're going to talk about the growing threat of Sharia law around the world. We're going
44. 3:07to talk about the mayor election in New York City.
45. 3:11But Brad is the founder and the CEO of Across Nigeria.
46. 3:15And for over 20 years, he was a pastor.
47. 3:18And then he's been for a decade on drive time radio
48. 3:22with Salem communications.
49. 3:24We've done a lot with Salem.
50. 3:25And Brad, I have to say I'm a little bit envious
51. 3:29because he's been published on the Daily Wire.
52. 3:33And media outlets like that.
53. 3:35and I've tried to land a few op-ed pieces on the Daily Wire,
54. 3:39but since 2018, he's been actively serving
55. 3:43on the foreign mission fields around the world,
56. 3:45and he'll tell us about that and much, much more.
57. 3:48But Brad Brennan, thanks for being with us tonight
58. 3:52on the American Family Radio Network.
59. 3:54Alex, it's an honor to be on with you.
60. 3:57Thank you so much for having me.
61. 3:59Well, you and I both, as Christians and ministers
62. 4:05of the gospel, we comment on current events. And I want to hear a little bit of your background
63. 4:11how God brought you to where you are in your journey, Brad.
64. 4:15Yeah. So I spent over 20 years starting churches and pastoring churches. Eventually, I was called
65. 4:23out to Connecticut to take over a church for a pastor friend that was retiring. And I thought,
66. 4:30This is my end. This is great. It was a bigger church. I had a corner office, windows on all sides,
67. 4:37and I've arrived. I guess God thought that I had gotten too comfortable and decided to call me
68. 4:46to a part of the world where more Christians die in northern Nigeria than anywhere else in the world
69. 4:54due to persecution. I never would have thought that that's where I would be ministering, but
70. 5:01I had gotten really complacent and I got in real stagnant in my relationship with the Lord.
71. 5:09And I just prayed and I remember praying pretty consistently for about six months. Like,
72. 5:15if this is all there is, then I'm just going to go play golf on Sundays.
73. 5:20I just, this doesn't interest me and I had lost interest in church and ministry and it
74. 5:28was through those prayers and me really pressing into God and seeking his will that I ended
75. 5:34up in northern Nigeria and that's where I am 10 years later and we're witnessing to Muslims
76. 5:43in northern Nigeria.
77. 5:45We are helping the persecuted there.
78. 5:48These are all in areas that are controlled by ISIS and Boko Haram, so they're extremely
79. 5:52high-risk and dangerous areas.
80. 5:55Wow.
81. 5:57Brad, how does the gospel spread in an area like that, in that sort of a context where
82. 6:06talking about Jesus or gathering, you know, corporately for church could be just tragic
83. 6:15and deadly?
84. 6:17How does the gospel spread?
85. 6:19Yeah, that's a great point about churches.
86. 6:22We have a lot of underground churches
87. 6:24that we've started in Northern Nigeria.
88. 6:27And underground churches look a lot different
89. 6:30than church does here.
90. 6:32We can't really meet on Sunday mornings at 1030
91. 6:37in the same place, same time every week.
92. 6:39So what we do is we take our churches
93. 6:41and break them down into small groups of about five
94. 6:44or six people.
95. 6:45And they meet on different days at different times
96. 6:48throughout the week and it alternates.
97. 6:51So they can never become a target or an easy target
98. 6:55for groups like Boko Haram and ISIL.
99. 6:58So that's just one way that the underground church
100. 7:01looks a lot different.
101. 7:02But to answer your question, how does the gospel spread?
102. 7:05I'll tell you, it is truly the living
103. 7:11and walking in the spirit of God.
104. 7:14And here's what I mean by that is the Bible talks about that when we're filled with the
105. 7:18spirit, we produce something. And what we produce is the Bible refers to it as fruit.
106. 7:24And I've often kind of wondered like, why does the Bible call that fruit? What's the significance
107. 7:29of that? And then one day it dawned on me. The reason why it's called fruit is because fruit
108. 7:34is the reproductive organ of a plant. If you cut open an apple, what's inside? It's seeds.
109. 7:41And so the fruit of a plant is how the plant reproduces.
110. 7:47And so as we produce the fruit of the spirit,
111. 7:50and it's described as love, joy, peace, long suffering,
112. 7:55we produce that in the fruit of the spirit.
113. 7:59And what the point of it is,
114. 8:02is not really to enrich our own lives,
115. 8:05although it does do that as well,
116. 8:07but it's also to reproduce faith
117. 8:09than the lives of people around us.
118. 8:11So wherever we go,
119. 8:13that's kind of the tenant of across Nigeria,
120. 8:16is that wherever we go,
121. 8:18we are bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
122. 8:21So that other people see that fruit in us
123. 8:25and they see Christ.
124. 8:27They see the Spirit of Christ in us and they want that.
125. 8:32They taste of the sweetness of that fruit.
126. 8:34And they want it.
127. 8:37They want it for themselves.
128. 8:39And we're there then to answer those questions and say,
129. 8:42well, here's what produces that fruit.
130. 8:44It's Christ in us.
131. 8:46It's the Holy Spirit filling us.
132. 8:49And then we teach them how they can have the same thing.
133. 8:52Now we do that through different avenues.
134. 8:54We start schools.
135. 8:56One of the ways we do it is we start schools
136. 8:59in Fulani Muslim communities.
137. 9:01And we actually use the Bible to teach their children
138. 9:04to read and write English.
139. 9:06And if you are there, you might be English.
140. 9:08Yeah, they are.
141. 9:09We develop good relationships with Fulani Muslims.
142. 9:12We have great relationships with hundreds
143. 9:15of Muslim communities throughout Northern Nigeria.
144. 9:18This is a place where 12 states in Northern Nigeria
145. 9:22have implemented Sharia law.
146. 9:23This is a place where radical Islam is running far and free.
147. 9:29And we go into those communities,
148. 9:31into those dangerous areas
149. 9:33where there's been a history of violence.
150. 9:36And we just develop good relationships with them.
151. 9:39What we do is, and I'm sure you've heard the old adage,
152. 9:42people don't care what you know
153. 9:44until they know that you care.
154. 9:45So what we do is go into those communities
155. 9:47and we show them first and foremost, we care about you.
156. 9:51We're not here to get anything from you.
157. 9:53We're not here to put a notch in our belt.
158. 9:55We care about you.
159. 9:57So we'll often bring in water filtration systems.
160. 10:00We have one fluony community
161. 10:02where the river behind their village had run dry
162. 10:07and the well had run dry.
163. 10:09We went into that phuotty community,
164. 10:10we drilled a new well and we built tanks for their cattle
165. 10:15to get water from and then we also ran a line
166. 10:19into their village so they had free access to water.
167. 10:24Otherwise that village would have died
168. 10:26so had we not done that.
169. 10:28And so again, that's just another way
170. 10:30that we go into a village and say,
171. 10:32we care about you, everything else aside,
172. 10:34all the violence aside,
173. 10:36doesn't matter if you've attacked Christian villages,
174. 10:39if you killed Christians,
175. 10:40we're here to show you that we care about you
176. 10:43and that we love you.
177. 10:44And that causes us to be able to develop
178. 10:50phenomenal relationships with these villages.
179. 10:53And then we ask them, what about a school?
180. 10:57Most Fulani children, in fact, 90% of Fulani children
181. 11:02in Northern Nigeria don't attend school.
182. 11:04The illiteracy rate is about 95% among Fulani.
183. 11:12So we go in there and say,
184. 11:13how about we build a school here and teach your children
185. 11:17not only reading, writing and arithmetic,
186. 11:20but we also teach them to read and write English.
187. 11:23And we've been doing that for 10 years.
188. 11:27We have about eight schools operating in Northern Nigeria.
189. 11:31Everywhere that we planted a school and developed a school, the violence in those areas has dropped
190. 11:38measurably by about 60 to 70%.
191. 11:42Now are you with your American passport free to come and go as you want?
192. 11:48Can you enter whenever you want and leave whenever you want?
193. 11:51Yeah, I have a residency in Nigeria.
194. 11:54I'm there most of the year.
195. 11:56I spend probably about six or seven months in Nigeria out of the year and then I come back during the rainy season to do things like this.
196. 12:04Raise awareness and raise funds at churches and things like that.
197. 12:08But yeah, I have a residency and I live in Abuja. I have a residence in Abuja and operate out of the capital city.
198. 12:16I would imagine you're probably being watched and the powers that be know who you are and
199. 12:25what you're about though, correct?
200. 12:27Yeah, I was just informed recently that the Central Intelligence Agency of Nigeria would
201. 12:34be the equivalent of the CIA was on their watch list.
202. 12:39And then also I have several contracts out on my life by Boko Haram and ISIS in northern
203. 12:46Nigeria.
204. 12:47So they're watching. They know what we're doing. Our group often gets sent, and I often get sent,
205. 12:53videos from Boko Haram. These videos are often videos of executions,
206. 13:00gruesome executions, those types of things. They'll send them to our team and they'll send them to me.
207. 13:06And basically what they're doing is sending a message trying to scare us to stop doing what
208. 13:11we're doing. But that's not going to deter us because we're protected and we're called by God.
209. 13:16and that's the greatest calling we could ever have.
210. 13:19You know folks, if you're just tuning in,
211. 13:22we're talking with Brad Brandon of Across Nigeria
212. 13:26and hey, give the website if you would, Brad.
213. 13:29Yeah, absolutely.
214. 13:29It's acrossnigeria.org is the website, acrossnigeria.org.
215. 13:37And even though they're like you get these videos
216. 13:41to, I guess, intimidate you or frighten you,
217. 13:46I would imagine, and I know this feeling myself, though, you walk in the peace of Christ and
218. 13:52you know the Lord is with you, don't you?
219. 13:54Yeah, there's no safer place than being in the center of God's will.
220. 14:01I've often heard that said, and that's absolutely true.
221. 14:04We've had some of our pastors killed over the years.
222. 14:07We've had some people who have worked for us killed over the years, but we walk confident
223. 14:13in the sovereignty of God.
224. 14:15And we know that there's no safer place in the whole world
225. 14:19than doing what God has called us to do.
226. 14:21Amen, amen.
227. 14:23We're gonna come back.
228. 14:24We're gonna talk about the spiritual condition
229. 14:26of yes, parts of the world, but America.
230. 14:29And I'm gonna ask Brad about what he sees
231. 14:33and senses here in our own nation.
232. 14:36This is Alex McFarland.
233. 14:37This is the Hamilton Corner.
234. 14:39We've got a brief break.
235. 14:40We're gonna continue.
236. 14:42We're going to talk about the mayor's election in New York City and Mom Donnie.
237. 14:47So stay tuned, we've got a brief intermission and we'll be back with more on the Hamilton
238. 14:51Corner.
239. 15:00I'm very concerned about the current young adult Christian fiction genre.
240. 15:04I read or started reading over two dozen Christian YA novels.
241. 15:08Many never mentioned Jesus and many had empty or confusing Christian allegories.
242. 15:14How can we offer our children real hope when we are simply repackaging what the world offers?
243. 15:19Let's look to our Creator God to help us write better stories.
244. 15:23Find the full article Read on the Way by me, Joy Loosius, on the Stand.net.
245. 15:29Live into the darkness, this is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
246. 15:42Welcome back to the program, Alex McFarland here. We're going to resume our conversation with Brad Brandon of Across Nigeria in just a moment.
247. 15:49But I want to make people aware of some exciting things that I think you'll find of interest.
248. 15:54As we do the program, I'm in route to the Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center in Western
249. 16:00North Carolina.
250. 16:02And that event is sold out.
251. 16:04But I ask you to please pray.
252. 16:06We've got people coming from all over, really, all over the Western Hemisphere for two sessions
253. 16:12on revival and spiritual awakening.
254. 16:15Please keep me in prayer for that.
255. 16:17I'm going to be in August, August 2nd and 3rd, I'll be at the Cedar Falls Bible Conference
256. 16:24in Iowa.
257. 16:26And this has been going on for over a hundred years in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
258. 16:31It's just really amazing how the city fathers, they made provision for there to be an annual
259. 16:38summer Bible conference and revival.
260. 16:41And I've been before great folks like Erwin Lutzer and John MacArthur have spoken there
261. 16:47and I am profoundly honored to be speaking at the Cedar Falls Bible Conference.
262. 16:53And so if you happen to be in that part of the world, come see us.
263. 16:56I would love to meet you.
264. 16:57I know we have a lot of AFA listeners up that way.
265. 17:01And of course our Christian camps are going on.
266. 17:04Please be in prayer for that.
267. 17:05But finally, August 21, I know that's a ways out, but in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, August
268. 17:1321, I've got Charlie Kirk coming.
269. 17:15And he and I will be doing a night of truth for our nation and the website for that, my
270. 17:21own website, AlexMcFarland.com slash conversations.
271. 17:26Part of the Summer Speaker Series we're doing, we call it conversations that matter.
272. 17:31We're talking about God and country, revival in the land.
273. 17:36And Charlie Kirk is just one of the most compelling speakers you'll ever hear.
274. 17:40He's a great brother in the Lord and I would love to meet you the night that he and I are
275. 17:45together in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
276. 17:48Also a great colleague in the Lord is Brad Brandon,
277. 17:52just getting to know this gentleman.
278. 17:54And Brad, for one thing, thank you for being with us here
279. 17:58on AFA or the American Family Radio Network this evening.
280. 18:02But more importantly, thank you for what you're doing
281. 18:04for the great commission around the world
282. 18:06and especially in Northern Nigeria.
283. 18:09Well, thanks you, Alex, for everything that you're doing.
284. 18:12And I appreciate you having me on.
285. 18:14You know, as I'm hearing you and you're taking the gospel into just places where they desperately
286. 18:22need to hear about the Lord Jesus, I'm kind of envious really, I want to go with you.
287. 18:29I love to see God do miraculous works.
288. 18:32My wife and I have done a fair amount in third world countries, although in recent years the
289. 18:39The Lord's had us in the continental US quite a bit, but we've been on the most remote mission
290. 18:47fields of the world before.
291. 18:50And I kind of hearing what God is doing through your life, it makes me hunger to get back into
292. 18:55those unreached areas like you're doing.
293. 18:58Yeah, that's awesome.
294. 19:00It's truly a ride.
295. 19:01There's no doubt about that.
296. 19:03It's an adventure.
297. 19:05But we have fun doing it.
298. 19:07And we see, as you said, we see.
299. 19:09God working miraculously all the time. I feel like the darker the room, the less light it
300. 19:19takes to illuminate it. It is really dark in northern Nigeria, just spiritually dark.
301. 19:26And it doesn't take much light at all to illuminate the whole place. So that's what
302. 19:31we're trying to do.
303. 19:32Well, amen. I want to talk a little bit about, I know this might sound a little bit severe
304. 19:39objective, but about how it feels. And let me queue this up. In Matthew 1230, Jesus said,
305. 19:48he who is not with me scatters. And in America, we were obviously founded on Christian principles.
306. 19:58I would say the secret of America's greatness and resilience and prosperity has been not
307. 20:06not only the Christian gospel, but the biblical moral foundation, the Judeo-Christian moral
308. 20:14code that's the Ten Commandments.
309. 20:17And that's been ignored, forgotten, in many places suppressed.
310. 20:22Folks, here this summer I got a pastor who told me that, and I'm not going to say where
311. 20:30this is, but in a part of America you just wouldn't believe they're winning people to
312. 20:38Christ, but some local wiccans don't like it, witches.
313. 20:44And this particular pastor, their dog, their pet was brutally killed, cut in pieces, and
314. 20:54just the blood and the body parts put all over this pastor's front porch just as like an intimidation
315. 21:02thing. And besides being, you know, that's animal cruelty and the worst degree, but to try to
316. 21:08intimidate this pastor. And I would argue as the gospel presence in America has, in some
317. 21:17places diminished, what rushes in to fill that vacuum is darkness and demonic activity.
318. 21:26Now all of that to ask you this question Brad, when you're in America, do you sense a spiritual
319. 21:34darkness or a heaviness like in Nigeria or places outside of America where the gospel is
320. 21:43not present?
321. 21:44When I'm in Nigeria, there are places that are so spiritually oppressed, you can almost
322. 21:52feel the physical weight of it on your body.
323. 21:56That's the link where I can describe it.
324. 21:58And so whenever I come back to the States, it is like a weight lifted off my shoulders.
325. 22:05You're exactly right when you said that our country was built on at the very least Judeo-Christian
326. 22:12values. But we are a Christian nation from birth. I think we become more secular, but from our
327. 22:23inception we were a Christian nation. And that really is the bond that has glued our culture,
328. 22:30our government, our communities together. Take for example in France. They had a constitution,
329. 22:40They had a revolution. They were, they ensured the rights of people. But they've had so many
330. 22:47revolutions and rebellions that they were starting to name them after months of the year.
331. 22:54And eventually it all just fell apart. It's because they did not base their culture, their
332. 23:02constitution on those Judeo-Christian values like we did. And here we are. I think that we become
333. 23:09more secular as a country, but we're still riding the wave of what the Founding Fathers
334. 23:15did. And many of those after our Founding Fathers did to uphold those Judeo-Christian values. So
335. 23:22when I come here, there are parts of the United States that I go to and I can feel that spiritual
336. 23:28oppression. But for the most part, you can still see the right here in the United States.
337. 23:37As I often say, our money still says in God we trust.
338. 23:42Amen.
339. 23:43Amen.
340. 23:44Yeah.
341. 23:45Brad, you're going to love this quote.
342. 23:46Have you ever heard of the historian Will Durant?
343. 23:49Does that name Ring the Bill?
344. 23:50Yes, it does.
345. 23:51Yes.
346. 23:52You know, he's one of my favorite writers and Will Durant worked for 50 years, worked on
347. 23:59a set of books called The History of Civilization.
348. 24:02And actually my mentor in graduate school, Norm Geisler, who was a well-known apologist,
349. 24:09he knew Will Durant and that's exciting in itself.
350. 24:14But Will Durant in 1975 was being interviewed and he was not a Christian at that point, but
351. 24:22they say before he died he did become a believer.
352. 24:26But Will Durant said of our Christian founding.
353. 24:30He said that America was founded on biblical principles.
354. 24:34He said, but today we're living on the shadow of those principles.
355. 24:41And he said, with every generation, the shadow seems to be less and less.
356. 24:47He said, my grandchildren will be living on the shadow of a shadow.
357. 24:51He said, but where will America be when that shadow is gone?
358. 24:56It's gone.
359. 24:57I mean, that was in 1975.
360. 24:59That's great.
361. 25:00That's great.
362. 25:01And that's great.
363. 25:02Yeah.
364. 25:03And folks, one of the things we can do, and that's part of why we endeavor not only to
365. 25:08win souls, proclaim the gospel, but to spread biblical worldview, we want the Christian
366. 25:15presence restored lest it be lost.
367. 25:19Because Brad, I think you're right, it is the glue.
368. 25:23Not only is the gospel the message of salvation for individuals, but it's the glue.
369. 25:29and really the gasoline in the tank that has been America's secret agreed.
370. 25:37Yeah I totally agree and what I see happening and I'm not trying to be
371. 25:42critical of the church here in the US but what I see happening largely is the
372. 25:47churches falling asleep at the wheel. We've allowed consumerism to creep into
373. 25:53our churches and now we look at churches the same way we do a restaurant.
374. 25:58If it has good reviews and it has what we like, we'll go to it.
375. 26:03It doesn't matter if God calls us there or not, as long as they have the right programs.
376. 26:07And then if something happens that we don't like, just like in a restaurant,
377. 26:11if the food's cold or the service is bad, then we're not going to go back there again.
378. 26:16We'll go to the restaurant down the road.
379. 26:18And so that's been the mentality of so many Christians here in the United States.
380. 26:25And I always tell people that, you know, church here in the United States is a place you go.
381. 26:30And in Northern Nigeria and our underground churches and among persecuted communities,
382. 26:37church is not a place you go to.
383. 26:40It's a community that you live in, that you have to live in that community in order to survive.
384. 26:46And there's an entirely different mentality when you're looking at church as a community
385. 26:53that you live in, as opposed to just a place you visit once a week.
386. 26:59Let me ask you this.
387. 27:01And I'm with you.
388. 27:02I'm not being critical of the American church.
389. 27:04I really love the church.
390. 27:06And it's been my joy to preach in every kind of church you can imagine.
391. 27:12of the country, 50 states, 2000 churches, and I kind of jokingly say, Brad, I've been to
392. 27:21churches where they sleep in the pews, I've been to churches where they jump over the pews.
393. 27:26I love it.
394. 27:27It's very endearing.
395. 27:29But I want to talk about soteriology, which is salvation.
396. 27:36When we invite people to put their faith in Jesus, let's talk about the full measure of
397. 27:42what we're asking them to do.
398. 27:45Because it's, would you agree?
399. 27:47It's not just pray a prayer,
400. 27:50and then decades from now whenever I die,
401. 27:52I'll go to heaven.
402. 27:53I mean, that's part of it being saved
403. 27:55is going to heaven when we leave this world.
404. 27:58But talk to us, Brad.
405. 28:01What is the fully-orbed message of salvation?
406. 28:06I think the fully-orbed message of salvation
407. 28:11is not just changing your final destination, but transforming your life as it is right now.
408. 28:19It is the filling of the Holy Spirit in every believer. And when the Holy Spirit fills you,
409. 28:27you are an entirely transformed being. You have a power at your fingertips that you never had
410. 28:36before when Christ lives in you, you cannot continue to live the same way you lived before Christ
411. 28:45was in you. So it's transforming who you are today and in the life that we live now. I think
412. 28:52you're exactly right. So often we look at salvation in the context of, oh, now I'm going to go to heaven.
413. 28:59That's part of it, but if you look at the New Testament, that is not the focus of Paul's writings to the church.
414. 29:07Although he of course mentions those things, but almost mentions those things in passing.
415. 29:13His focus is that salvation transformed you now.
416. 29:18Today it changed your life in the present tense.
417. 29:23And so all of those changes have a ripple effect in our life.
418. 29:28And we then impact the culture and community around us
419. 29:33instead of the culture impacting us.
420. 29:36And that's what we see happening in the church today,
421. 29:38because I think for the very reason,
422. 29:40I think there's two things.
423. 29:41Either people are not being given the proper gospel,
424. 29:46or they're not aware that salvation
425. 29:52is supposed to transform them today.
426. 29:55And so what's happening is the culture
427. 29:57is being allowed to creep into the church,
428. 30:00and the culture is shaping the church
429. 30:02instead of the church shaping the culture.
430. 30:06Yeah, and again, folks, I say this,
431. 30:08I passionately love the church.
432. 30:11I respect pastors, and I'm so grateful for the,
433. 30:16they say there are 500,000 ordained ministers
434. 30:20in the USA right now.
435. 30:22And I know they're doing incredible work and loving people
436. 30:26and visiting the sick and doing what we pastors do.
437. 30:30And I thank God for them.
438. 30:32But here's the thing.
439. 30:34I think we really need to be upfront with our audience.
440. 30:38And we're not merely saying,
441. 30:41believe in Jesus, you know, we'll go to heaven one day.
442. 30:44But we're saying, look, become a disciple.
443. 30:47because it's offering you to become his disciple.
444. 30:54That's the gospel, isn't it?
445. 30:57It is, yeah.
446. 30:58And that's why the disciples were told to go out
447. 31:00and make disciples.
448. 31:03And it wasn't just go out and preach the gospel.
449. 31:06That's part of it.
450. 31:07That's part of making disciples.
451. 31:10But the important part of it is now go out
452. 31:12and teach people how to be followers of Jesus Christ.
453. 31:17And that's he uses the phrase in the Bible as you go. It's a lifestyle
454. 31:22It's not a change of final destination. It's a change of lifestyle
455. 31:27And sometimes the journey of the disciple can be quite hard and painful, right?
456. 31:33Yeah, yeah, and that's something that we're not accustomed to we think we equate pain with
457. 31:40Bad if there's pain then it must be wrong and that's not something we find in scripture at all
458. 31:47One example of that is when Paul said that he was delivered a thorn in the flesh by Satan
459. 31:54to buffet him the Bible says.
460. 31:57And it's interesting that the Bible says that he...
461. 32:00Hey forgive me.
462. 32:01Brad, forgive me. We've got a break.
463. 32:04We're going to come back more. Brad Brandon, founder of Across Nigeria.
464. 32:08This is the Hamilton Corner with Alex McFarland.
465. 32:10Stay tuned after this break more.
466. 32:12We're also going to talk about New York City.
467. 32:14So you'll want to hear that.
468. 32:16Stay with us, we're back after this break.
469. 32:30Thriving families a powerful military and a strong economy are the three pillars needed
470. 32:34to rebuild our country.
471. 32:35Psalm 11-3 asks, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
472. 32:41In the video, Three Steps to Rebuilding America, Walker Wildman addresses that question.
473. 32:46If our military is not serviced, so to speak, it's not going to be ready to perform
474. 32:51and it ultimately becomes an effective find.
475. 32:54three steps to rebuilding America and much more at stream.afa.net.
476. 33:00Quarter podcast and one-minute common
477. 33:07territories are available at aFR.net back to the Hamilton
478. 33:11Quarter on American Family Radio.
479. 33:16Welcome back to the program.
480. 33:17We're talking about that most important of all subjects,
481. 33:22Jesus Christ and our relationship with him.
482. 33:25And let me say that every,
483. 33:27Every Christian and every church is supposed to have a hand in the Great Commission and
484. 33:33seeing that the name of Jesus is taken to the very ends of the earth.
485. 33:38You know the Bible says in Habakkuk that one day the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
486. 33:44But you and I, we have the privilege of participating in that day coming, helping people find Jesus.
487. 33:53and somebody that God is using in just incredible ways is Brad Brandon.
488. 33:58He's the founder and the CEO of across Nigeria.
489. 34:02And hey, Brad, earlier in the show, we were talking about how you all drilled
490. 34:07wells. And I know from being in Zambia, Samaritan's purse has dug so many wells
491. 34:17in Zambia for villages.
492. 34:19And when a village gets water, I mean, that is so
493. 34:23transformative and it really opens up people to the gospel. I remember my wife and I were
494. 34:29in Zambia and there was a place where hundreds and hundreds had come to Christ and they are
495. 34:36out of kind of animistic and folk religion and superstitions and a lot of stuff. But basically
496. 34:44one of the tribesmen, he said Samaritan's Purse came and they showed us agriculture growing
497. 34:51food they dug wills. We've got water. He said, basically, it didn't matter whatever they said,
498. 35:00we were going to joyfully, gratefully follow them. And of course it was the message of Jesus.
499. 35:06But water, and it's so pictorial, physical water opens up people to the water of life
500. 35:13through Jesus very often, doesn't it?
501. 35:16Yeah, yeah, it does.
502. 35:18Like I mentioned, we drilled wells.
503. 35:20And I know this spending so much time in the Sahara Desert
504. 35:24when your body is short on water and you're dehydrated.
505. 35:28When you get that first drink of water, you can feel it flow into your body
506. 35:34if you had a drink for a while, some water for a while.
507. 35:38And you see the same thing in those villages is the moment the water starts flowing,
508. 35:44smiling, smiles and laughter come back and the kids start playing and just life comes back
509. 35:52into the village just by having a well that produces water.
510. 35:56Yeah.
511. 35:57It's amazing.
512. 35:58You know, in the previous segment we were talking about, you know, being a disciple as
513. 36:07blessed or as rigorous as it might be.
514. 36:10We're called to be Christ's disciples.
515. 36:11I have a question for you.
516. 36:14Do you think it's harder to make disciples in a prosperous first world country or a persecuted
517. 36:22third world country?
518. 36:24Where is it more difficult to make disciples?
519. 36:27I'm so glad you asked that because I often tell people here it is so hard to be a Christian
520. 36:37here in the United States and it's so easy to be a Christian in northern Nigeria.
521. 36:43Most people are
522. 36:45You know, they're just they're confused by that statement because they would think oh it should be easier to be a Christian here in the United
523. 36:53States harder to be a Christian in northern Nigeria. It's just the opposite
524. 36:58It is so easy to disciple
525. 37:02Particularly former Muslims who come out of Islam
526. 37:06There is something
527. 37:08spiritually transformative that happens in their life.
528. 37:12They have a zeal and a hunger for the things of God.
529. 37:17And I think it's because their whole life,
530. 37:20they've been starved of spiritual truth.
531. 37:24And now all of a sudden they are flooded
532. 37:26with spiritual truth into their life.
533. 37:29They can feel the changes.
534. 37:31They can sense the changes in their spirit.
535. 37:34Finally something that they've been hungering for,
536. 37:37their whole life.
537. 37:38They just, they didn't know where to find it.
538. 37:40They're being satisfied spiritually
539. 37:45after being starved their whole life.
540. 37:47And I could sit and teach the Bible for five hours straight
541. 37:55and they would sit there the whole time.
542. 37:57And then when it was done, they would say,
543. 38:00so when is the next session start?
544. 38:02Oh, I know.
545. 38:03I know.
546. 38:04This is done, yeah.
547. 38:05We were leading a pastors conference in South Africa, and we were in a very rural area.
548. 38:14I had taught for about three hours, and it seemed to be a really good time to wrap things
549. 38:21up.
550. 38:22One of the men leaned over and whispered, he said, some of these people have walked many
551. 38:27miles.
552. 38:29You have to keep teaching.
553. 38:31I said, I appreciate it, but I don't know anymore.
554. 38:35But we took a break, but going to church for three hours,
555. 38:41I mean, that's just half done.
556. 38:46I mean, these people, like you say,
557. 38:48they're so hungry for the word of God.
558. 38:51Yeah.
559. 38:52And that's what we see.
560. 38:53And a lot of times what ends up happening is we disciple them.
561. 38:57And in Northern Nigeria, it's controlled by Sharia law.
562. 39:03And under Sharia law, there's a doctrine called
563. 39:05Arema Sharif, which means honor killing.
564. 39:08And what that means is that under the apostasy laws
565. 39:11of Sharia law, if you're a Muslim
566. 39:14and you convert to Christianity,
567. 39:16your family can legally kill you themselves
568. 39:19or they can hire somebody to kill you.
569. 39:21That's a common occurrence.
570. 39:23I know to some of your listeners,
571. 39:24that sounds like a foreign concept.
572. 39:26How could that possibly be?
573. 39:28It's a daily occurrence in northern Nigeria.
574. 39:31We have an entire refugee facility devoted to extracting people out of those situations
575. 39:37and saving their life.
576. 39:40But the reason I'm sharing that is because so many of the disciples that the people that
577. 39:46were discipling, they say, train us in ministry, train us in evangelism, train us in pastoring,
578. 39:54Because we want to go back to our communities, the very people who want to kill them, we want
579. 39:59to go back there and reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
580. 40:03We have evangelists that are responding to our radio programs in Northern Nigeria.
581. 40:08They will go out and not every call that we get from our radio program is sincere.
582. 40:14So sometimes they go out and they get ambushed.
583. 40:16That's a pretty common difference.
584. 40:18And they'll take two weeks and heal up.
585. 40:22Guess what they want to do as soon as they're ready
586. 40:24They want to get back out there and start meeting with people who call in from the radio program
587. 40:29I mean they have a zeal that is unmatched
588. 40:32I've never seen anything like it. Nothing stops them and they are
589. 40:38Constantly hungering for more
590. 40:41With the time we have left we're talking with Brad Brandon
591. 40:46I will and
592. 40:47Knowing the Islamic culture in Sharia. I want to talk about that in America and folks
593. 40:54Briefly let me remind you of something that happened September 11
594. 40:582001 the trade towers fell in New York City a plane hit the Pentagon
595. 41:04I actually 24 hours after 9 11. I was in the rubble in New York City
596. 41:11I'm not going to tell that whole story, but I was up there for two weeks in the immediate
597. 41:16aftermath of 9-11.
598. 41:19And as everyone knows, nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died in those trade towers.
599. 41:24Well, the worldview, the belief system that prompted the terrorists to hijack planes and
600. 41:32kill American citizens on American soil, the worldview that birthed 9-11 is ill-being
601. 41:41Islam. Now how ironic and I would say very demoralizing is that New York City, which has
602. 41:48the 9-11 memorial, is about, unless there's a divine intervention, they're about to elect
603. 41:57an Islamic Marxist anti-Semitic mayor. Brad, there's a lot we could talk about on this,
604. 42:06But Zoron Mamdonny, who has very radical beliefs and very anti-American beliefs.
605. 42:16Metro New York, by the way, folks, is the 13th largest economy in the world.
606. 42:22I'm not talking to New York state.
607. 42:25Metro New York, I was doing some research.
608. 42:28Okay.
609. 42:30With 2.6 trillion, a bigger economy than Canada, a bigger economy than France, a bigger economy
610. 42:37than Britain.
611. 42:38The 13th largest economy in the world, Metro New York, might be in the hands of a Marxist
612. 42:47who says there should be no billionaires, and yet there are 103 billionaires in New York.
613. 42:55very anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and New York City is one of the most densely populated
614. 43:04communities of Jews in America, and yet they're about to elect a very anti-Semitic
615. 43:12mayor. Brad, what are your thoughts on all of this?
616. 43:16in his own words. He was asked three times on
617. 43:23MSNBC meet the press asked three times to denounce the motto
618. 43:30globalize the infatata and
619. 43:32He would not do it three times. He refused to denounce globalize the infatata
620. 43:38I think a lot of people don't understand the implications of that
621. 43:42Infatata is the installation of Islamic rule and with that is the
622. 43:49installation of Sharia law. Sharia law is an assault on human rights. If you look at
623. 43:57women, women have half the testimony that a man has under Sharia law. A man can
624. 44:04divorce his wife simply by saying the word divorce three times and the imam will
625. 44:10approve the divorce. So he has unilateral control to divorce his wife. A woman cannot
626. 44:17divorce her husband or at least has to jump through many, many, many groups and it almost
627. 44:21makes it impossible to do so. So the human rights imbalance under Sharia law is completely
628. 44:30against women and children. If you look at it, 35 countries that have Sharia law, the
629. 44:39human rights watch list. They all 35 of those countries are on the human rights watch list at
630. 44:46high risk level. And Sharia law makes up about half of the countries that are on the
631. 44:54countries of particular concern for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
632. 45:00So even they've acknowledged that this is an assault on human rights. So why in the world the
633. 45:07The left has this attraction and not trying to get too political here, but the left has
634. 45:12this attraction to radical Islam and Hamas and all of these groups.
635. 45:21And yet they are assaulting human rights constantly.
636. 45:27The ten believes assault human rights to the point where international organizations
637. 45:33who are not bastions of conservatism or biblical thought, are looking at this and saying,
638. 45:40there's a real problem here. Even the Council of Europe, because of what's going on in Europe
639. 45:46under Sharia law, issued a report and they said, we are greatly concerned about the installation
640. 45:52of Sharia law in Europe. And the Council of Europe is by no means a conservative council.
641. 45:59Sure, sure. Well, and I mean, there's just so much to say and by the way the American left
642. 46:06Is so quick to not stand up for America. I mean, there's
643. 46:12There's you know the globalists that you know
644. 46:17I firmly believe many of the the globalists left they want America to
645. 46:23dissolve and become a subset of the UN or something like that. But then there's
646. 46:30also just those that maybe in some collegial spirit they won't stand up
647. 46:37for America. They just feel like, oh you know we have to have diversity and all
648. 46:44of these worldviews in seats of leadership, teaching classes. There is
649. 46:51something unique about America, uniquely wonderful about our constitutional Judeo-Christian representative
650. 46:59government. But I just think the left and this mayor and Sharia in parts of America, Dear
651. 47:09Board Michigan, the minarets blaring out the call to prayer five times a day like in New
652. 47:15New Jersey. I've been there. I've heard it. It's just horrid. It's basically contributing
653. 47:23to the eradication of the USA. If we don't reign it back in, would you agree?
654. 47:29Yeah, I do. I think that Judeo-Christian cultures are extremely tolerant. And that's great.
655. 47:37And I'm all four tolerance. We tolerate a lot in northern Nigeria to bring the gospel
656. 47:43with the people who need it.
657. 47:44But I think tolerance ends when human rights
658. 47:49and human lives are at risk.
659. 47:51When the rights of others are being trampled on,
660. 47:55our tolerance should end.
661. 47:56And I think of the perfect example of slavery in the UK
662. 48:01was almost single-handedly taken down
663. 48:04by William Wilberforce.
664. 48:06Oh, yes.
665. 48:07If he was tolerant and tolerance was the way to go
666. 48:10at all times and by all means,
667. 48:12Then he would have just tolerated slavery and went with the status quo.
668. 48:17He was intolerant.
669. 48:19He said we can't.
670. 48:21We're done.
671. 48:23Well, it's conviction.
672. 48:24I'm sorry, we're almost out of time.
673. 48:26Brad Brandon of Across Nigeria, thank you.
674. 48:29Folks, thanks for listening.
675. 48:30Pray for our nation.
676. 48:31Pray for New York.
677. 48:32Stay bold.
678. 48:33Stand strong.
679. 48:34Speak truth.
680. 48:36And God will use you.
681. 48:37Thank you for listening.
682. 48:40The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American
683. 48:44Family Association or American Family Radio.