On The Road with The Holy Spirit! Featuring Ken Fish

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Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to this edition of the Strang Report.

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I'm so glad today to be able to have my longtime friend Ken Fish talk about his exciting book,

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Full Disclosure.

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I'm the publisher of this.

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I'm very proud of this.

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In fact, I had a small hand in twisting Ken's arm for how long to get you to write this

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because you have an incredible story and incredible ministry and you were able to get it down

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in writing.

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This book is called On the Road with the Holy Spirit, a modern day diary of signs and wonders.

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So first of all, let me welcome you and I'm glad we were able to work out all the logistics

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to get you on.

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It was a bit of an ordeal getting in here, but here I am finally.

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Here you are and we're glad to have you.

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I know because I was involved some and now I'm listening to the book, it's very interesting

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to listen to the book and the staff gave me some material and here's a quote, Christianity

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is more than religion.

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It's more than a belief system.

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It's more than a worldview.

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It's an invitation to go on an adventure with our Father both in this life and into eternity.

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I pray that this book will kindle a hunger in your heart to join that adventure and to

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experience life and a lifestyle marked by signs and wonders.

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You know, I just thought that struck me.

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It is just so well said and I had the privilege of knowing John Wimber fairly well and considered

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him a great man of God and of course you knew him better because you traveled with him,

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but how much did John Wimber influence you and also tell us about the Odyssey that you

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went through personally where you were in the corporate world and now you're in the ministry

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world seeing all these incredible things happen all over the world.

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Well John was a huge influence on me.

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I actually interned underneath him when I was in seminary and his thinking was, I don't

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know, formative for me.

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For a period of time I was his ghostwriter and put together a lot of the materials that

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he utilized in the 1980s.

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Of course that's a long time ago now, but anyway I was a young man and so I guess in

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some ways you'd say I was his amanuensis.

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And I don't know, I didn't just travel with him.

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I worked alongside of him in the BMI offices for quite a few years.

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I was with him all in about 13 years and then shortly before his death I moved to the East

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Coast and I was involved in my corporate career for a number of years after that.

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You know the things that I learned, saw and did when I was a young man with John never

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really left me.

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Even when I was a corporate executive I would do a lot of church retreats, special invitation

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events, things like that.

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And so I was often engaged on weekends or I would use my vacation time to go here and

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there, lead events, whatever it was.

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But anyway I stayed busy with ministry.

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And then in the last really big recession that the United States had things got pretty

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rough and rocky and a couple of my companies were acquired and so there's always layoffs

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when there's acquisitions.

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So I went through a couple of transitions and it all just sort of folded up at the tail

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end of the 2008 recession.

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And so I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do.

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I just assumed I was going to find another corporate job.

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And all of a sudden I started getting, and I literally mean this as I'm saying it, there

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was no effort made on my part at all.

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I started getting invitations from everywhere and they were coming in on Facebook Messenger

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and texting.

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And back then I still had a fax machine in my house so I got a few faxes, got some physical

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letters, got email.

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But however it was coming in I was getting invitations to come here, speak on this or

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help us think about what we want to do with our church or our movement going forward because

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I had a background from my corporate life in strategic planning.

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And I knew from talking with people who help executives in transition it's always better

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to be busy doing something.

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And so I thought, well, I will start doing some of that and that will tide me over not

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necessarily financially but at least in terms of being busy and not looking like I'm on

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the bench for good.

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That will tide me over until the next thing comes along and then I'll return to my corporate

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life.

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It's interesting how the Lord uses those things.

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I mean, look at all the tremendous things that have happened since then.

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And it wasn't that people were just looking for someone to speak at a weekend retreat

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at their church, you know, and they couldn't come up with anyone else.

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It was because of the incredible things that were happening with your ministry because

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even though we talk about signs and wonders, especially in the, you know, what we call

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the spirit-filled or sometimes spirit-empowered community, it happens way too infrequently,

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which was the whole message of John Wimber.

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It needed to be super, the supernatural needed to be natural.

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And that was his appeal.

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And he wasn't really the typical minister.

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He wasn't a rock and roller originally.

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He had quite an interesting story.

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And I had occasion, I was pretty young when I knew him, but I had occasion to meet with

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him, go to his conferences, interact with his ministry in lots of ways.

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In fact, he did some articles, I remember, for Charisma Magazine.

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You probably ghost-wrote it for him.

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I didn't even know it.

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But the first time I ever knew about you was Eric Metaxas.

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Eric Metaxas is one of your biggest fans, if I can say it that way.

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And he has incredible influence himself.

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He's one of the greatest thinkers.

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That he was so impressed with your ministry, I can remember, I mean, and I watch his show

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with some regularity, he always has interesting guests.

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Always.

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Yeah.

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But there was just something about it.

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You had such insight, I would say.

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But other than the fact I twisted your arm, I say that tongue-in-cheek, what motivated

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you to write this book and to finally put in writing, because it's remarkably detailed.

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You must have kept an incredible journal.

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And it was very honest, too.

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You would talk about some of these things and then say, I haven't been able to track

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these people down.

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They just kind of disappeared.

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But this is an accurate retelling of what I saw with my own eyes.

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So how did all that happen?

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Because I want to motivate people to read this book.

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This is not just a book is a book is a book.

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This is a book that will change people's lives, especially to understand more about the supernatural.

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Well, you know, the way this book came about, I was keeping a journal, as you say, and that

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happened really because a friend of mine in Australia gave me a prophetic word and he

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said, you should be writing down a lot of these accounts and things that are going on.

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Someday you'll probably want to write a book out of all this.

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And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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But you know, at the same time, I try to honor prophetic words.

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And so I started keeping that journal.

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And for a number of years, nothing really came of it at all.

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And in fact, there's a lot more there than what ended up in the book, because anyone

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who's ever written anything knows you have to edit.

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And so a lot of things had to come out because they were maybe too long, or they made the

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book too long, or, you know, for whatever reason, the the substantiation we wanted was

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not readily available at the time.

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We had one story in there about a visit to a corporate headquarters in Taiwan.

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And we held a meeting with all the senior executives of the of the corporation.

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One of them got healed of a knee injury.

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And that resulted in a breakout of the Holy Spirit in the whole place.

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And basically, everybody got smacked in a good way.

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But but we were trying to get a media authorization from them.

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And they have actually what they call a chief spiritual officer.

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So you think of a chief financial officer, chief technical officer, chief information

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officer, whatever chief marketing officer, they have a chief spiritual officer.

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And so we were writing there.

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And we wrote to the CEO, but we didn't get a we didn't get a release back in time.

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So we took it out, didn't make it into the book.

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You know, things like that kind of got in the way.

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But there were a lot of things left, as they say, on the cutting room floor.

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And then, you know, eventually, I guess it was about two years ago, when I started pulling

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all this together, I had a friend help me.

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And I decided it was time to do this in part because I was seeing a lot of things going

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on in the charismatic world that didn't look to me to be authentically supernatural.

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I mean, I think people want them to be but but somehow it was almost like fake it till

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you make it.

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And I didn't want that to be going on.

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And I thought we need to put some of this stuff on record.

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And the other reason I wrote the book candidly is because I wanted to write another book.

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And I thought this would introduce people a bit to some of my background.

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Otherwise, they'd say, Well, who is this guy?

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And why should we read his book?

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So So this is kind of my calling card that precedes the next book that I'm going to be

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working on.

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Well, because I was involved in the process, I know that you wanted to call the book, a

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diary of signs and wonders, which is the title that Maria Woodworth, editor, did a book and

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it had to be early 1900s or maybe the late 1800s that she did this book.

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And those who are history buffs, like my wife and I, we know that she was one of the maybe

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the first major female leader that came out of the holiness movement, early Pentecostal

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movement.

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But we landed on on the road with the Holy Spirit, a modern day diary of signs and wonders,

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which I think is a much more contemporary name, but tell me about Maria's influence

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on you and your thinking.

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Well, when I was writing for John Wimber and researching for him, he was of course known

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for being a modern science and wonders guy.

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And he taught a course at Fuller Theological Seminary back in those years, for which I

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was a teaching assistant.

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And it was called MC 510.

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And I can't remember what the subtitle or the actual course name was, something to the

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effect of signs and wonders in the world mission movement or something kind of like that.

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Anyway, MC 510 has been discontinued.

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It's no longer in the course catalog, but he taught that with C. Peter Wagner.

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And as part of preparing materials for that course, one of the source documents that he

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was drawn to, that I got drawn even deeper into, was Maria Woodworth Etter.

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And there were some others as well.

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John Alexander Dowie, John Lake, the writings of Amy Semple MacPherson, Catherine Kuhlman.

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There were a number of the prominent healing evangelists from the 1950s, Branham and others.

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And so anyway, I started reading all this, but I was particularly drawn to Maria Woodworth

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Etter because she lived in a time when there wasn't really anything that we would consider

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modern.

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She rode around on a buckboard, a wagon pulled by a horse, and there were no electric lights.

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Everything was still done by kerosene lamps or candles.

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And she would talk about the things that went on in her meetings.

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And she really considered herself more of an evangelist than somebody who was a healing

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minister.

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And at various points, she wanted to shut down the healing ministry because she felt

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that it was getting in the way of her evangelistic ministry.

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That's not a well-known fact about her, but it is true.

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And so I was just very drawn to this woman who was more interested in evangelism, even

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than in this very dramatic healing ministry that she had.

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And I mean, she had some tremendous healings in a time when virtually nobody was even talking

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about healing.

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And so maybe she was a product of her age, and that's why she had this singular focus

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on evangelism.

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But there was something about her and what she did.

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It really shifted my thinking.

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And I think in part, that's because she was around in the time...

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My grandparents were just right after her.

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They were born in the years after she really was at her prime.

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But my great-grandparents would have known something of her.

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And so there was something about the fact that she was a contemporary of family members

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of mine that kind of drew me to her.

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And I was just fascinated by her book, A Diary of Signs and Wonders.

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So as you said, I initially was going to call this a modern-day diary of signs and wonders,

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basically trying to knock off what she had done.

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But it was also my way of paying homage or credit to her for the influence she had on

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my thinking about God and his ways and what evangelism in a, shall we say, a frontier

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type setting really looks like.

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And I don't think it looks anything like our modern megachurch format.

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And yet she had a profound influence on frontier America.

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And many people who probably never would have come to Christ did because of her ministry.

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And so I don't know, there was something of that in me that I don't know, I wanted to

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reach out as it were and touch that.

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And it maybe somehow captures some portion of what she was or who she was and what she

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did.

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And that's really what the genesis of both the book's format and content as well as the

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title.

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Well, that's a good segue into my next question is, why did writing this book do to you and

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your ministry?

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Because I know that it took you quite a while.

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For one thing, you kept this journal over a period of time.

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But what happened to Ken Fish as a result of that book?

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And maybe my follow-up question would be, what kind of response are you getting to the

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book now in the three months since it came out?

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Well, what did it do to me?

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I found that writing a book, and you'd know this, Steve, because you've written books,

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it's a bit like giving birth to an elephant.

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You get into it and you start thinking about, do I want to say it this way?

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Does this need to be here or there?

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But the other thing that it did for me, and this was actually unexpected, because I've

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seen so many signs and wonders.

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And again, this is just a sub-segment or a sampling of what I had in my journals.

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But what it did to me was it sent me back in my mind, in my memory, to many of those

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moments.

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And I'd kind of forgotten about them.

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You say, how can you forget about those kinds of miracles?

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I mean, those are unbelievable miracles.

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But all I can say is, at the end of John's Gospel, he says there were many other things

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that Jesus did, and they're not all written down here.

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If the world itself couldn't contain the books that would hold them all, well, let's be clear

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here.

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I'm not Jesus, and I think you could actually write enough books to capture everything that

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I saw in those years.

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But the point is, there were a lot of those things that I had completely and totally forgotten

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about.

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And on more than one occasion, I would stop and I would, if you will, drop into a reverie

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and kind of reflect back.

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And I'd think, oh, I was in that place.

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I remember that night.

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This was the woman who blah, blah, blah.

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Or that was the guy who came with that, you know, whatever.

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And I would find myself back in a scenario that I had not thought of in years.

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And if I tried to call it up in my memory, cold, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

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And so this book kind of triggered in me a memory of things that had happened.

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And it made me hungry to go back into all of that all over again.

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And it's not like it stopped.

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But there was something about that era where I was freshly out of corporate life.

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And you know, everything was a brand new adventure.

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I was learning as I went.

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Jesus said, the Holy Spirit will be your teacher.

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He will be your guide.

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And he also said, there are many other things I would like to teach you, but I can't do

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it now.

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Essentially, my earthly ministry is coming to an end.

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There's no time for that anymore.

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But the Holy Spirit, he will teach you.

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And what I found was that many things I was learning, it sounds weird to the modern ear,

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but I was being taught by the Holy Spirit himself.

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And sometimes it was out of passages of the Bible that I'd not looked at in a particular

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way prior to that.

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Maybe I'd have a dream or a vision or something would happen and it would like shift my understanding

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of something.

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But what I started to see was that there were these increasing levels of breakthrough.

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And I realized that there is so much more available than what most of us are experiencing.

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And it was like I was on this class five Rapids whitewater rafting trip with God.

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And every day was something new.

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That's an interesting way to put it.

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And why do you think that people get out of your book or why do you want people to buy

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your book and read it?

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What is the one nugget, this takeaway that will motivate all these people who are watching

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to go to Amazon or wherever their favorite place to buy books to buy on the road with

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the Holy Spirit?

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You know, Steve, I have a Facebook group that's hidden, but it's called God is not a theory.

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I also have a podcast which is called God is not a theory.

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And I don't remember when I started saying this, but some many years back, I started

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saying in some of my sermons that for many Christians, God is a theory and an unproven

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one at that.

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And so they cling to what they call faith, but it's really hope.

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It's not faith.

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There's a difference.

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And they really hope that God is real, that the Bible is true, that there's no, I don't

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know, shock and jive here, that, you know, that the things that are represented in the

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pages of scripture are truly and actually right.

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But for many people, they've never seen God do anything.

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They've never had any experience like this.

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And so for them, God is very theoretical.

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It's like somebody who maybe lives, I don't know, let's say in central Nebraska, and they've

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grown up on a farm and they're good people.

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They work hard and they live their lives well.

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And they've heard of a place called China, but they've never been to China.

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They might have seen it on TV, maybe, but I mean, it's, they have no way of really gauging

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it and it has no direct impact on their lives.

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I think for many people who are Christians, that is a reasonable representation of their

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faith.

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And what I really hope that this book would do was to show people in huge letters that

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God is not a theory, that the things he says in his word are true and he can be experienced

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today.

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It'll be different stories, of course, mine are different from Bible stories, and yet

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there's a similarity to them as well.

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That they can experience that for themselves and that they would be drawn into that.

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And with it, that they would experience something of God that they've always longed to experience

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but maybe only dreamed of, maybe never actually encountered.

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That's what I want people to get out of the book.

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Boy, that's so well said.

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And I can testify that this book is very well written, very well researched, can't even

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refer to the lengths that you went to research the book and get permissions and all that

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kind of stuff.

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This book will really change you because you're right, a lot of people don't really have faith,

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they just have hope.

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Or maybe they don't even have that.

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They were raised this way or this is how they think a good person should be.

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And so I think that through all this clutter that we have in our lives, a book like this

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can really make a difference.

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And we only have a few more minutes left.

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And I want to give you the last word, but let me encourage people that are watching

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to be sure to subscribe to The Strang Report on YouTube and Rumble and your favorite podcast.

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Ken, before you came on, I was in Greece, as you probably know, and I got a notice on

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my phone that The Strang Report podcast was coming up live.

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So here it was, 11 o'clock at night, I was watching the 4 p.m. podcast live and I was

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somewhere in the Aegean Sea.

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It was just kind of surreal.

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And so when you subscribe, you're notified.

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That was my point in saying it.

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And also to get my Strang Report newsletter, which is delivered to your inbox every Tuesday.

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And you can find out more about me and my books at SteveStrangBooks.com.

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But having said that, which I say basically in every podcast, I'm here to encourage people

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to read your book.

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This is one thing that I can do personally to encourage people to read what I believe

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is a very important book, in which I hope will become a Christian classic.

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I mean, only time will tell.

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But this book has, this is just a lot of nice thoughts.

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There is a gravitas to it, if I can say that, even in the spirit.

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Because you're a deeply spiritual man, but you're also a thinker.

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And you're also very bold.

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You're not afraid of people putting you down or making fun of you.

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You wouldn't have gotten to where you are.

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You wouldn't have survived.

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You wouldn't have all these stories if you were like that.

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And I really think that you're a role model for other people.

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Partly like we've been talking about John Wimber.

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He was a role model for you, for me, for students in those classes in so many ways.

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I mean, he made a real lasting impact.

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And I believe that in a somewhat similar way, you are doing this with your book.

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So having said my piece, I want to now give you the last word.

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Well, you know, let me just say this.

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A few years back, the Lord spoke to me out of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 9.

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And most people know the first part of Isaiah 40, comfort, comfort my people says your God

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speak tenderly to Jerusalem and saying to her that her years of warfare are ended and

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her years of iniquity are pardoned.

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And so, you know, this is a new phase in Isaiah's ministry.

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And he's gone from being kind of the classical dower prophet to the one who's an encourager,

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one who's bringing hope and restoration.

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And he's prophesying a new era, a new dawn, if you will.

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But it goes on in chapter 40.

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And in in verse nine, the Lord says to Isaiah, get the up to a high mountain and their proclaim,

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excuse me, unto the cities of Judah, behold your God.

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And you know, in Isaiah's time, of course, they didn't have modern communications.

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There were no podcasts.

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There was no there was no webcasting.

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There was no broadcasting.

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There was nothing of the sort.

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I don't even know if they had newspapers, to be honest.

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But anyway, if you got up on a high mountain and you kept your hands to your mouth and

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you shouted, you could make your voice be heard and it could, you know, resound down

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the mountain and into the valleys.

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So basically what God was saying to Isaiah was that he should broadcast the goodness

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of God to the people of Judah, who had forgotten who their God was.

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And so the Lord spoke to me out of that.

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And he said, I want you to get up on a high mountain, which in our world means things

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like this, and say to the cities of Judah, which I would swap out the word Judah and

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say America, or we could say more broadly, Christendom.

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So say whether it's in New York or Miami, whether it's in Orlando, where you live, Los

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Angeles, where I live, whether it's in Athens, Rome, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Moscow,

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say to the cities of Christendom, behold your God.

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And I hope this book in some way does that.

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I hope it brings back to people who God is.

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I hope it shows them how kind and gracious he is, how willing he is to intervene in the

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affairs of their lives, but also how very serious he is about wanting them to walk in

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integrity and fidelity with him.

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This is not a one way deal.

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It's a, you know, we do our part and he does his part.

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That's what a covenant is.

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God wants to renew covenant with the whole of a civilization that has departed from him.

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And if this book in any way, you know, moves the needle a little bit towards that coming

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to be, then I will consider it to have been a great success.

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And I hope many people will read it and pass it on or buy copies for their friends and

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family.

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And that somehow it will stir again the flame of faith and confidence in God himself among

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the people of the Western world.

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Thank you, Ken, for writing this book on a personal basis.

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Thank you for your friendship.

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Thank you for taking time out of a very busy schedule to be on my podcast today.

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I want to thank my viewers and listeners for tuning in.

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Leave your comments below.

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Share this with others.

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You know, there are those who don't believe in the supernatural, who almost say you're

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00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,640
practicing medicine without a license when you talk about healing.

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You know, we are suppressed in a lot of ways, so we need your help to get out the message.

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00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:57,520
And remember to like it, to subscribe, to comment and to share.

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Thank you for tuning in to the Strang Report today.

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God bless you.

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