CODE RED - Steve Maxwell Citizens Defending Freedom

[00:00:00] Speaker A: So we were seeing where the federal government was coming down and they would say, okay, Title IX policy, we're gonna let Johnny go to Sally's bathroom. They would bring an ACLU attorney or two or three. And the school board's shaking in their boots because they don't want to be sued, right? So the ACLU says, hey, you're gonna do this, we're gonna sue you. And so the school board attorney shaking in his or her boots because they don't, their job is to keep them out of a lawsuit. The only opposition was a moment, our dad with three minutes and a microphone and we said, okay, how do we counter this level, this level of playing field? And that's where CDF really was born. [00:00:43] Speaker B: In this episode of Code Red, we have an amazing conversation with Steve Maxwell. Steve is the co founder of Citizens Defending Freedom, a grassroots effort that is making massive changes in communities across the nation. He is also joined by his wife Beverly. Recently, Steve had a near death encounter where he saw Jesus Christ and was able to see the portals of glory. And so you'll hear that amazing story and the work of CDF across the nation in this episode of Code Red. Steve Maxwell, welcome to the Code Red studio. It's an honor to have you with us. [00:01:42] Speaker A: It's an honor to be here, Pastor Zach. [00:01:44] Speaker B: Well, you and I have met on a couple of occasions and talked about what the Lord's doing through cdf. What I was explaining to you off camera that you may be aware, may be well aware of, is that not your personal reputation, but your reputation as an organization here in Nassau county precedes you. You guys are in the local media pretty often, probably at least every week, if not more often, alluded to or something. And what I hope to do is introduce you kind of to our audience and let them see a real person's face and a brother in Christ that personally, I just want you to know I have great respect for you and the work that you're doing. And it blows my mind how you've been able to affect what's happening here locally from another part of the state. So welcome. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Well, it's an honor to be here and I look forward to talking to you about really how this all started. And in our heart, you know, I try to look at the condition of the heart, the condition of the opinion, where's this opinion coming from? And I think, you know, the fact that we're in the news and probably more negative than positive is a reflection on the folks writing the report, not necessarily the community. And that happens around the country. So we're all over the country. But when we put this thing together, we realized that we as Christians have a voice as well. And in many instances, the church just didn't have either the courage to do it or didn't know how to do it. And so that's the reason we were born in the first place. [00:03:25] Speaker B: So take me back to the very moment, if you can narrow it down to a specific time when you kind of had the light come on and say, we've got to do something. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I can tell you that fact. You know, I'm a business entrepreneur, first of all. Me and my partner, we met at age 24. We're busy doing what we do. We just love, we love our country, love free enterprise system, we love God, we love, we're Christians, raising our families like everybody else. So the 2020 election really was an eye opener for us after that. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Prior to that, had you been, had you ever run for office? [00:03:57] Speaker A: I had never run for office. I had been involved at one time with the Republican Party, but I was so disillusioned by that group. You know, we're non partisan. We tell people we're going to represent the kingdom of God to the best of our ability and that's who we report to. But other than that, that's pretty much it. I sat on a city council, I filled in for a guy that got ahead of health issues way back, but I'm not normally the politicians would come see me and wanting money and things like that. So that's about my extent to politics. [00:04:29] Speaker B: So 2020, the election happened and was the fraudulent things involved. [00:04:35] Speaker A: It was just the awkwardness of it. We knew something was not right. So I just get on the phone with my partner who lives in Texas, and business partner, and we said, we got to, we got to check this out. So at the same time, we got invited down to Mar a Lago to meet with some business people and Rand Paul, Senator Rand Paul. And we had about an hour and a half with Rand Paul and we were trying to get him to tell us what's really going on. And he finally did. And what we see today, I mean, right now, as you see the Doge and all the exposure of the corruption and all, he shared that with us then and he told us that night, there's no way we're going to save the country. From the top down, it's got to begin from the bottom up. We need a revival, we need a reformation, really. And it's got to start at the bottom and work its way up by the bottom. [00:05:27] Speaker B: You meant the grassroots. [00:05:28] Speaker A: The grassroots. The local. Right. So that was the moment that the light bulb clicked on inside of me as I'm driving home. It's about a two hour drive. And I literally just broke down and started crying, thinking about our grandkids, thinking about, okay, how are we going to do this? So I didn't know what needed to happen, but I knew at that moment something had to change. [00:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah. We tell our people often here that, you know, it's the national elections that get all the press, and that's kind of what everybody's talking about on Monday morning. But if a pastor goes to jail, it's going to be the sheriff. [00:06:04] Speaker A: That's exactly right. That trust in his house. That's right. [00:06:07] Speaker B: And so local matters. [00:06:09] Speaker A: Local matters. Your local sheriff is the most powerful person in the county. The feds can't even come to your county without his permission. So, yeah, the sheriff and your local, your local politics. Your local. I don't even like to use the word politics. It's local leadership and local decisions. Who's making those decisions and do they align properly or not? You know, and what's the standard that we're going to measure by. So it's all local. And you're exactly right. That's the biggest impact. [00:06:36] Speaker B: So your laboratory for just testing the possibilities out was in your backyard. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Exactly, yeah. We're in a very conservative county. Polk County, Florida. Sheriff Grady Judd is our sheriff. Good friend. [00:06:48] Speaker B: I've heard of him. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Yeah. He's America's sheriff. Hard to avoid, Grady, but I actually went to his office and began talking to him about the situation. We launched a study of Polk county and found that year that there were 29 separate George Soros funded organizations within Polk County. [00:07:12] Speaker B: 29 separate, separate organizations. These are NGOs. [00:07:16] Speaker A: NGOs. Exactly. [00:07:18] Speaker B: Wow. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Simultaneously, word was getting out locally that we were going to do something. And really what we looked at, Pastor Zach, is we said, okay, we've got a lot of things coming in. Let's say there's a lot of things going on. Let's just take the school board, for example, or maybe a city commission or something like that, or a county commission. So we were seeing where the federal government was coming down and they would say, okay, Title IX policy, we're going to let Johnny go to Sally's bathroom. They would bring an ACLU attorney or two or three, and the school board shaking in their boots because they don't want to be sued. So the ACLU says, hey, you're going to do this, we're going to sue you. And so the school board attorney shaking in his or her boots because they don't. Their job is to keep him out of a lawsuit. The only opposition was a mom or dad with three minutes and a microphone. And we said, okay, how do we counter this level of playing field, this level of playing field? And that's where CDF really was born. What does that mom need to help her case? And she needed attorneys. She needed our own media department. We could create our own narrative, but we needed real intelligence behind the scenes what was going on. So that's really where CDF was born to create. I'm a business guy. You find a need, you fill it, right? So that was the need. And here's how we filled it. This. [00:08:35] Speaker B: This may kind of nerd out a little bit, but I'm just curious about this. So when you, when you, you had the meeting with Paul, you look locally and see the issues. How did you come to the number? I'm assuming you built a team out, but how, what was on that team to figure out? There were 29 Soros funded organizations. [00:08:55] Speaker A: We actually, we hired a group of interns from Turning Point usa, Target, Kurtz Group. And we said, we need this homework done. And at that time we hadn't put our intel team together. So they became the first information that we got in and they did a great job. [00:09:09] Speaker B: So these are young people. [00:09:10] Speaker A: These are young people. I can't find this stuff online, but they found it all. And we were shocked. Simultaneously, the local community began to get word that we were going to be doing something to combat what was going on. So we get a tip. So we had people inside the school system that actually gave us a tip. Hey, you need to look into this. And this was another big eye opener because we were originally just going to do this in Polk county and in my partners in Nueces county in Texas and be done with it, going about our business. But this particular moment in time really opened our eyes to the fact this is big, it's nationwide. So we had the minority owner of the Boston Red Sox, who had a winter home in our hometown there in Polk County. And as it turned out, he had bought a million dollars worth of curriculum from the Clinton foundation and had hired the Allgoods, which were working with the Clinton foundation, moved them to our county and they began implementing this woke curriculum into a local high school, which was a charter school. No one knew about it at the school board, no one. None of the parents knew about it. The principal knew about it because they buttered her up with a little slush fund. And so this was all going on. So we, we did a public information request. We got 1900 emails, 264 attachments from all these different characters. And it took us three weeks to go through this. And all of a sudden we realized, wait a minute, this guy is talking to 20 other people around the nation and they're bragging about the fact they're going into these red counties and they're going to turn them blue and they've already got the cities and, and all of a sudden, wait a minute, this is a plan. And so that was the second really big light bulb moment. And that's when we said, okay, we've got to put something together. Then God put people in our lives out of the blue. That really came in and helped us form our mindset. One was Mike Ferris and I'll talk to you about him in just a moment. [00:11:05] Speaker B: So what was happening in Polk County, Florida? Did you have any indication, Was that targeted? Is that unique? Was that happening in counties all over the. [00:11:16] Speaker A: I could. We didn't find any uniqueness about it, except it was almost like, hey, let's go hit. It's a conservative county and we got a conservative sheriff and if we hit them there, it'll hurt them hard type thing. Right, okay. But it was all over the. They were talking to each other, different people, like minded people around the country. So it was just an orchestrated effort to infiltrate, you know, the flyover counties and the rural counties. [00:11:43] Speaker B: So when you're tackling that particular issue with the school board, what are your steps? Are you wanting to see the curriculum? [00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah, we began with our volunteers. We began studying curriculum. Believe it or not, most of our insight comes from good people inside the system. They'll say, hey, look at this or look at that. And we have the capability of going through kind of like a mini doge. You see now with Elon Musk, what he's doing. We were doing that, but in a very, not as a sophisticated scale. But most of our insight came from people on the inside. They had nowhere to go. They knew it was wrong. So for example, library books. You hear a lot about library. Oh, we're burning library books. Our mission is to protect the innocence of children. Why? We're Christians now. That burns a lot of people. They don't like that. But we are citizens as well, and we have a right to stand for righteousness in our community. And so we don't apologize for that, but we're Going to protect that young child that's being exposed to sexualized material that they're not prepared for. And parents should also be protected from that. But in that case, with the library books, what we found is we begin doing the studies we taught the school board members. Well, they weren't even familiar, didn't know anything about it, any of them. So then we studied. Okay, how did they get in here? And for the most part, the books come in, they're free, they're thrown in. [00:13:13] Speaker B: So you make a large order for curriculum. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Exactly right. [00:13:16] Speaker B: And these are tacked onto it, put in the library. [00:13:19] Speaker A: So what you got, you got. And this is not everywhere, but in a lot of places around the country you have the American Library Association. Okay, who are these people? They were formed in the late 1800s. Great group. I mean, it was all, you know, good intentioned things. Today the Hewlett family has taken over that organization, Hewlett Packard. Okay. And if you read their foundation, you'll see they're pro, you know, pro abortion, they're lbgt, pro all that. They're pro wokeness altogether, they're pro population control. Okay. So they're the ones now that are funding the majority of the dollars and placing people in those organizations. Now you've got this sinister thing going on where nobody really knows what's happening, but they're going to slide their agenda in. And so what we do once we find that, we expose that to the light and it gets shut down, basically. [00:14:12] Speaker B: Who shuts it down? [00:14:13] Speaker A: Well, the local officials who are responsible. Once the light is shined on it and they realize I'm responsible, they take care of it. [00:14:21] Speaker B: The school board. [00:14:22] Speaker A: School board or there may be a committee of school board or. Every, every state's different. Every, every county sometimes is different, but the folks who are responsible and like in the case of a school board member says, I don't know how these books are getting in here. And once they realize that they, they put their foot down, for the most part, yeah. [00:14:39] Speaker B: So we locally in Nassau county, we love our school system, we love our teachers, they're serving our students and all that. But we had heard that as it happened all across the state, that there were some books in our local libraries that were highly questionable and there were lawsuits over that. So if a teacher or a librarian or volunteer, whatever it may be, sees this material and then they go through the process to try to get it removed, they're not getting anywhere. There's talk of lawsuits, all of this. At what point do they reach out to you Guys for help. Would you do it at the beginning? Would you. How would you. [00:15:24] Speaker A: As soon as they find it, we can give them great legal counsel. We've got thousands of attorneys nationwide that work. We have access to. We have our own attorneys. So the earlier in the process, the better. Because a lot of times there's things we look at the law and we say, okay, well, this actually skirts the law. There's nothing we can do. So what we're going to do is flip that to our legislative branch and we're going to start lobbying Tallahassee. We need to change the law or modify the law, but it may be a blank against the law. And so we jump right on that immediately. And that's one of our, One of the things we found out was missing in America today. There's a lot of legal firms. Matt Staver's a good friend out of Orlando, does a lot of the top line lawsuits. He's in front of the Supreme Court often Alliance defending freedom. Great friends, great people. They do the good, good people. But what was missing was at the grassroots level, at the, what we call the ordinance level, when they're, when they're having hearings to make a rule or make a change, they're bringing in our enemy's, bringing in these attorneys to put pressure on, to put the right rule in. And we had no counter to that. So that's what we do. I'll give you a quick example. A few weeks ago, the inauguration happened. Fredericksburg, Texas. You get no more conservative than Fredericksburg, Texas. One schoolteacher who taught civics to 10th graders played the inauguration. One student had her set of. Parents were upset that the teacher showed that they filed a complaint and walked down to the school. They removed the teacher, put her on disciplinary action for showing the inauguration. So the question, okay, what do you do with that? The administration was wrong. They broke two Texas laws in the process. But this woman went to church with Pastor Jimmy Pruitt, who's one of our Women alliance churches. And he called me immediately on Wednesday night. This was Tuesday. Wednesday night, he calls me. She had shared with him what happened. By Friday, this woman was reinstated. And you know, there's two lawsuits going against the administration because they did not act properly. In the past. We didn't have that counterpunch. Therefore, okay, we can get away with it now. We stand in that community to do the right thing. We're not, we don't hate anybody. We love everybody. We're going to hold everybody to the proper standard. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Well, and we tell people locally, you know, we wish that we lived in a world where that was not necessary. You know, that'd be great if we could just all sit down and have a cup of coffee and work this out. But at times that's not possible. And when it's not possible, God has given us a legal system. [00:17:53] Speaker A: That's right. [00:17:54] Speaker B: And you know, honest person who sits down in front of a judge is just saying, hey, we have our perspective, they have their perspective, help us decide. And the judge is applying the laws and figuring out what's the proper course. [00:18:08] Speaker A: That's the system that we work under. That's exactly right. But to me it goes back bigger picture. This battle we're in is spiritual. It started before man was ever created. Now the atheist is going to say, I don't believe in all that. Well, our book says don't put an atheist in charge. A fool has said at his heart there is no God. We believe there's God. And when you read the scriptures, it's very clear. We have an enemy and he hates us. Right. And you see that. So I try to find the motivation when that hate comes. I just. Okay, I know it's my enemy, right? The spirit. I'm not talking about the individual, but the spirit behind it. So I don't worry about it because my job is to represent my king in his righteousness and we've been commanded to extend his kingdom on this earth while we're here. We're only here 4,000 weeks and then we're out of here and another crop comes in, right? So that's what we're doing. And part of that is standing firm, especially when it comes to children. How can you, you know, we just saw it the other day in the speech that the president gave where a 13 year old boy with cancer has overcome that cancer and they acknowledged him and honored him. And there were a group of people in that Congress that would not even clap for that. That is a cold heart we're not even dealing with, you know what I'm saying? I know. So in the whole. And it's all out everywhere, it's local too. But our job is not to worry about that. We're gonna stand for truth to the best of our ability, stand for righteousness and witness for our king in the process. [00:19:41] Speaker B: So, okay, you begin the process there in Polk county and you're tackling some of the local situations going on. As an entrepreneur, you want to build that out. And your, your, your goal is national, is that correct? [00:19:55] Speaker A: That's correct. [00:19:56] Speaker B: How many states are you in currently? [00:19:57] Speaker A: We're in four now. We're about to enter three more states. [00:20:00] Speaker B: Okay, you're in Georgia, you're in Florida. [00:20:02] Speaker A: Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Texas. [00:20:04] Speaker B: Okay. Are you in Alabama? Yeah. [00:20:05] Speaker A: Not. Not in Alabama. We're looking at North Carolina, Virginia, New Mexico and Arizona. Okay. Be our next four. [00:20:12] Speaker B: So you've. You're trying to. To franchise this out, so to speak, into all the different counties. That seems like a herculean task to just identify who to work with from Polk county to Nassau County. So help me just as a curious person that is fascinated with growing something like that, how did you go about that? [00:20:36] Speaker A: That's a great question. So as an entrepreneur, I'd already had experience of how to start a startup company, which I tell young entrepreneurs that want to go in business and do a startup, don't do it for the money, because you're not going to see money for a long time. Right. You got to do it for your love of heart. So we took that similar approach. I just began asking, who do you know in Texas? We saw my first trip to Texas. I was shocked. Texas was in terrible shape and for a lot of different reasons, we don't have time to get into. But we had to get there. We had to get there fast. So I began flying to Texas and I would literally ask my pastor, ask friends, who do you know in Houston? Who do you know in Austin? And that's how we started. Literally would bring people in a room. I landed fortunate enough to have a private plane. I landed a private airport. We'd have 10 or 15 people in the meeting room. Tell them what we're doing. This is what we're setting up. I'm coming back in three weeks. The next meeting has 50 people. The next meeting has 200 people. [00:21:33] Speaker B: And by that point, how big is your team back home? [00:21:37] Speaker A: We were. We probably had about, I'd say, five people at the time. [00:21:44] Speaker B: Roles were they. [00:21:45] Speaker A: Well, we have different divisions. So we had someone heading up Election Integrity had someone heading up. We had called to follow the money, but we had someone heading up Intelligence, someone heading up the faith division, and we had an executive director. So that was the five people inpoke. That's all we had. [00:22:03] Speaker B: And were you working with other networks that had maybe grown a little more? [00:22:10] Speaker A: I try to find as many advice, as much advice as possible, which I've always done in business. I'm not that smart of a guy, but I'm not. I don't have enough pride to say I won't ask questions or ask for help. I've Always asked for help. I've always read a lot of books, so I did the same thing here. So I asked for help. One of the biggest helpers was Mike Ferris, who at the time was the head of Alliance Defending Freedom, which was a God appointment we had with him. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Now, they were instrumental with Roe versus Wade turning that over. [00:22:43] Speaker A: That's correct. [00:22:44] Speaker B: And people may be aware of that, may not be, but that is a historic, monumental task that I honestly did not believe could happen in my life. [00:22:54] Speaker A: And that was years in the process. That was several suits going through different circuits. And I mean, it was a well designed plan that Mike did. As Mike Ferris. Mike also is the attorney who got homeschooling legalized in all 50 states. He started Patrick Henry College. Be a great guy to have on your podcast. He's just a warrior for the kingdom. So just so happened one of our people. Well, he was the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in our local area there, Mark Wilson. Mark said, steve, we're going to need good lawyers. So he reached out to Mike's team and Mike called me and said, look, I haven't traveled for a year, my wife's been sick. I'd love to come down and see you and let's talk. So he spent two days with us and just laid out what we're doing. He said, if you can accomplish this, if you can get the legal aspect of this at the grassroots level, no one else has been able to do it. But if you can do it, you're going to win nine out of 10 times. I promise you, you'll win at least nine out of 10. We're four years down the road. We're undefeated. We haven't lost anything yet. [00:23:55] Speaker B: Wow. [00:23:56] Speaker A: 130 different, not necessarily trial cases. A lot of those were trials, but most of it just legal action. He was right. So again, it goes back to how did we get here? We got a church on every corner. We got Christians everywhere. How did this happen? It's because we weren't set up properly at the grassroots level. [00:24:15] Speaker B: That's so true. And I think about. You've seen Moneyball, the movie, you know that story. So what's going on in the civic arena and government is so similar to what was taking place in baseball. It was almost mystical. You know, when Christians get around politicians, there's almost a fear factor there that they don't believe they deserve a seat at that table. And when it comes to winning an election, of course you want a guy that the Lord put on your heart, that you believe has an Anointing on his life, all those things. But there's math that comes into play, especially local elections. [00:24:55] Speaker A: Local elections, yes, sir. [00:24:56] Speaker B: But nobody was doing the math. So who on your team figured out the math? I've heard some of the stories and it's fascinating. [00:25:04] Speaker A: It's not hard. You just go to your local, latest local election, they've got it by precinct turnout percentage. [00:25:13] Speaker B: Tell us about the turnout percentage in that first. [00:25:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Polk county, our church is in Lake Wells, city of Lake Wells. So Jack Hilligoss is our pastor. And we have a system, we call it the Remnant alliance system. Remnant alliance churches, where a pastor goes to a 20 hour course, learns about things he didn't learn in seminary, about the Bible and how to engage in the community. And then we train the members of the church through biblical citizenship courses. And then we start a volunteer group inside that church. So Jack had gone through the first step and God called him into the mayorship. And so. [00:25:54] Speaker B: And if I remember right, with Jack, he began. He was appointed, wasn't he, to a. [00:26:00] Speaker A: Position prior to that? He appointed. He was appointed to the commission when someone had to step down. [00:26:05] Speaker B: And then. [00:26:05] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you what happened. We had a commissioner that was elected on a 9% turnout, who a few weeks after elected, turns out she was a felon and the governor had to remove her. [00:26:18] Speaker B: She was arrested. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Arrested for a felony. I forget what it was. I don't want to say it on podcast. I may be wrong, but it was a felony and that was because the people weren't engaged. We got the wrong person on the board. [00:26:30] Speaker B: And you said it was a 9% voter turnout. [00:26:32] Speaker A: 9%. So Jack decides to run for mayor. He's on the board, he's going to run for city commission. He's going to run for mayor. We take it from 9% to 67% turnout in one precinct. [00:26:43] Speaker B: How did you do that? [00:26:44] Speaker A: We actually used it as a ministry for our church. Many of our churches are doing this. They take a precinct, go knock on doors and say, hey, we got this going on at church. We got this going on at church. We got this ministry. We'd love to have you come to our church. And by the way, are you registered to vote? And then we begin meeting in communities. Okay. And bringing the neighbors in. Just old fashioned fellowship, grassroots. Everybody bring a potluck and let's pray together. And by the way, Jack's running for office and we need a good. Our city was sliding downhill, so we needed someone with some good Christian principles to come in there and so that's how it all started. So we had that 67% turnout. He won in a landslide. At the same time we put commissioners on at that time, the next go round, we put another commissioner on. So we had a majority of the board, of the council and we had the mayorship. In our town, mayors has a lot of influence. [00:27:39] Speaker B: So at what point he gets elected, you have some commissioners elected. At what point do you see the next layer of the onion, which is your bureaucracy of appoint non elected positions that are running these cities? [00:27:56] Speaker A: Many times, well, they stick their head up pretty quickly. So what you're talking about, you have the elected officials, but a lot of bureaucracy. Even in a local city, we found that 92% of the funds were approved by bureaucrats, even in a small town of 20,000 people. So Jack began interviewing and identifying and finding out who you know in the community will tell you who's doing good, who's doing good. And so he began removing those people and then he would assign people to those slots that were more growth friendly, if you will, and just common sense. And so, you know, in two election cycles, we replaced 16 positions in total and 13 of those positions came from our church. [00:28:42] Speaker B: Wow. [00:28:43] Speaker A: So it was a dramatic shift from the way the city was going. And it's been really good, but there's been opposition. People don't like it. [00:28:52] Speaker B: How long did it take the opposition to realize that you guys posed a serious threat? [00:28:58] Speaker A: It didn't take long because the first thing that Jack did. We believe strongly in the founding documents of this country. We believe in the Declaration of Independence. The first paragraph talks about entitled position. As citizens, we are entitled to go against the King of England because the law of nature and nature is God. So Jack used that law, that first. [00:29:21] Speaker B: Law, the higher law. [00:29:22] Speaker A: The higher law. We are to obey God's law over man's law. And it's very duplicatable in the Bible, I mean, that's what Daniel did, what Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, all these guys. So that's what our founding fathers did. So Jack used that and said, we are going to. We are going to. June will no longer be Pride Month. It will be Fatherhood responsibility month. So that was his first month in office. And so you can imagine what happened. I mean the opposition is organized and they brought them in from all over huge meetings. [00:29:54] Speaker B: How do you even oppose? Because that was so kind of pushed down our throat. It's not like we got together and voted on Pride Month. I think it was Obama that initiated that and we wake up one day and there's rainbow flags and there's propaganda everywhere and someone else is in power. They make a unilateral decision to make it. [00:30:15] Speaker A: You said fatherhood, Fatherhood, responsibility month. [00:30:19] Speaker B: How can you even oppose that? What is their ground? [00:30:23] Speaker A: Well, that goes back to the question of intent, the intent of the heart. Why is it such a big deal? We're not going to promote. We're going to promote procreation. We're going to promote pro civilization and we're going to the law of nature and nature is God. That's what we're going to promote. That's what we choose to do. And so that was a local decision and the local board commission stood behind it. Now, the day that it happened, when the vote came, There was probably 600 people showed up, bused them in from. [00:30:51] Speaker B: All over the city council. [00:30:53] Speaker A: And the enemy brought their attorneys. But we had our attorneys right there with the mayor and we won. Now what's interesting is that year we were the only city out of 17 that actually said, we're going to change. We're going to promote healthy families. The second year, year after that, seven out of 17 cities in our county said no. This year, 15 out of 17 cities said no. We're going to stand for family too. And the school board said no. And the commission said no, county commission. So one brave soul and all of a sudden there's a ripple effect. And it's just a great story of how. And we're Christians. But I tell people, look, you don't have to be a Christian to enjoy the principles of Christian are. And by the way, it was Christians who formed the governments early on. It was the church that formed the government. The government didn't form the church. Right. All the colonies, they wrote their own. The churches wrote the constitutions. [00:31:52] Speaker B: Most of the founding, the first colonies had a state church. [00:31:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:31:56] Speaker B: In each one of those colonies. [00:31:58] Speaker A: That's right. [00:31:58] Speaker B: I think it was like 13 all the life. [00:32:00] Speaker A: That's not good. [00:32:01] Speaker B: No, it's not good. We're not for that. But it's just, you know, the people that would say that God had nothing to do with our founding. That's ludicrous. [00:32:09] Speaker A: That's a lie. It's a lie from the pit of hell. [00:32:11] Speaker B: I know that you're well read in that. Did that precede cdf? What gave you the passion to dig into? [00:32:21] Speaker A: No, I mean, I thought I was educated in that realm. And what I found out is I was way underperforming in that realm. Which when it comes to education, I've always been in that realm, but I did not know that. I thought I knew a lot about our founding. I knew nothing. And that's why what we're doing, so much of what we're doing is educational because our people perish for lack of knowledge. The Bible says we have to understand our Christian heritage once you do and get the truth out there. Because our secular world does not teach this matter of fact. They're doing away with it, they're trying to hide it. [00:32:57] Speaker B: So true. [00:32:57] Speaker A: But once you get it and you get it in your mind, you can't unsee it. And you say, wait a minute, wait a minute. This was built on Christian principles. And I tell my non Christian friends, look, would you like a trial by jury if you had to go to trial? Yeah. Would you like freedom of speech? Yeah. Do you like freedom of assemble and all these. That's all Christian principles that were put in. [00:33:16] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:33:16] Speaker A: So you don't have to be a Christian to enjoy the freedoms. But the Christian thing, what it does, you cannot have true freedom without self governance. And self governance is saying, I'm not the boss. God, you're the boss. But once I submit to you, now I'm free. And we live in a country where I can be free to pursue my dreams, pursue my happiness. The Declaration of Independence says, what does that look like? I don't know, you tell me. What does it look like to you? Right. As long as we're submitting to that one God that we're going to do it his way. And it's interesting, I studied William Blackstone during the early part of this. And for those in your audience who don't know William Blackstone, he's a godfather of our legal system. But he wrote the commentaries of the Law laws of England in the 1750s, right in the middle of the Great Awakening. 1730s, 1760s, Great Awakening, here he comes writing about law. Nobody had written about law since the Roman times. And what does it say? He's the one who came up with the term the law of nature. And nature is God. And I'm paraphrasing, but you can get his commentaries, they're right on Amazon. And I challenge every pastor especially to read his writings, because it is the founding, it's the foundation of our legal system in America, even today. U.S. code, Volume 1. Here's what it says. There's God's law, which is the scriptures, then there's the law of nature, which follows God's law. Okay, Submits to that example a pregnancy okay, who is telling those cells as they multiply that you're a toe and you're a tongue? That is a law of nature. That's God's nature doing that, Right? And then there's a third type of law. It's man's law. Man's law must submit to the law of nature and nature's God or it's considered pretended law. And we have a right and it's our duty to resist and go against it. So that is the core of our. [00:35:16] Speaker B: Legal system and it's the foundation of the revolution. [00:35:19] Speaker A: Now think about that. That's why the Congress, one of the first acts they had was to have a Bible. This is 10 years later. We've got to have a Bible in every home. Why? Because the American people needed the citizen to be free. They had to understand what I just described. Once you submit to God now you've got a self governance that will allow you to live free. Freedom is not doing anything you want. Freedom is really a discipline to know what to do and do it and know what not to do and not do it. It's a self discipline. And that's the whole key. [00:35:53] Speaker B: And that is. So it's not only not taught in our public school system. It's hidden, it's obscured. I had a Catholic priest say to me one time that the reason that they began educating their children was because the public schools in America were so Protestant. There was a day when Christian principles would have been taught in every public school. [00:36:20] Speaker A: And you go back and study Pastor Zach. And it's all by design, right? Which. The enemy's always working. I'm talking about Satan. He's always working to get. What's his goal? His goal. He wants to drag as many of us into hell as he can. And so he does that through different systems and different plans and schemes. But the Bible was taken out of the public school system in 1962. But the Supreme Court ruled, I think three times, don't quote me on this, that the Bible was the founding document of our country. I mean, Supreme Court rulings early on. So it slowly melted away because the intellectuals and the globalists and all those folks that were behind the scenes were purposely. They had to get rid of God. They had to destroy the family. Why? So they can ultimately get down to a communistic system where a few people control everybody. That battle's been going on since the Tower of Babel. [00:37:12] Speaker B: Well, and as believers who believe in the right to life, you know, the enemy wants to extinguish that in the Womb. But if he doesn't win in the womb, if that baby's delivered and has a fair chance at life, then the next level of attack is the school system. [00:37:32] Speaker A: That's exactly right. [00:37:33] Speaker B: Many times. And so the battle cannot stop with life. That's right. It's got to carry through that kid's life until he can join in the battle. [00:37:41] Speaker A: Think about it. This child, how did we get here? You know, this child now at 12 year old, has been influenced by media or influence, maybe at school, but all of a sudden I have these different feelings, which we all have different feelings when we're teenagers, especially young teenagers. I think I want to go from a boy to a girl, vice versa. Now there's people in the school system that'll feed that. And now there's a parent or a guardian or system that says, you're right, you need to come on in, we need to. There's things we can do to transition. You think about the evil of that. This child is not even old enough to make their own decisions and we're allowing them to destroy their lives. That is not of God. That is not of God. And we will stand as CDF and we will preach it. We are not ashamed. We are going to stand for the innocence of these children. We're going to stand for our king and his kingdom and damn the torpedoes, as we say in the Navy. I'm an old Navy guy, full speed ahead. [00:38:36] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Because I'm going to report to my king. Everybody's going to report to God one day, whether you believe it or not. And we'll talk about that in just a moment. I know for a fact when you leave this body that you're going to be meeting your creator. And so we owe it to our children and to our king. [00:38:53] Speaker B: We had the opportunity. There was an event in D.C. back in Trump's first term where pastors from Florida were invited up. And so Julie and I were up there and we'd flown through dc. I think I may have done a couple of things up there, but had never spent a lot of time in the city. But I said, julie, you know, if Satan, if I were Satan on this planet, I'd probably be in dc. This is probably where he's hanging out. He's not omnipresent. He can't be everywhere at one time. He's probably either here or Beijing or London. You know, he's in one of the capital cities, the world, probably. If he's not in dc, it's probably one of his top aids. Right. So I expected going into D.C. to see something pornographic, something, you know, strip clubs on every corner. It wasn't that way. It was a clean city. It was. It was a family friendly city in that way. We went into some of the. The museums, and every display in practically every museum was about evolution, how this came through years and years and years of small changes and evolution to get us where we are today. And I said, I told her, I said that was a brilliant approach of the enemy. Because if a monkey can transition into a man who says that a man can't transition into a woman, and he's laying his foundation over the long haul, that is diametrically opposed to everything that Scripture teaches. [00:40:28] Speaker A: Sure it is. Sure it is. [00:40:29] Speaker B: But the logic makes sense, that if you can evolve from one thing to another, why can't you evolve from one gender to the other in the face of science? That school children across America are not only being taught this, but the numbers of little boys and little girls. There's always gonna be a percentage that wrestle that have a predisposition towards certain sins, and there's always gonna be a small percentage that, when you were a kid, you saw it. I saw it when I was a kid. Some people struggle with same sex attraction, but suddenly that's gone from like a single digit percentage to like 30% who are identifying as same sex. Attracted homosexual. LGBTQ in the fourth grade. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:20] Speaker B: And it's that. That didn't happen by accident. [00:41:23] Speaker A: No, that's all. You can influence a child. You know, if you're around cops all day long and you're a child, you're gonna want to be a cop. My dad was a cop. I would argue with people in first grade that my daddy's police car would run faster than your race car at Daytona. You know, knowing that wasn't true. But that was my daddy, his police car. Right. No, it's. This is so critical in the Bible. So the problem is we've gotten away from truth. Right? So truth says, you know, you need to be careful how you influence these little ones, because if you influence them the wrong way, I'm holding you accountable. That's what the Bible says. Right. So again, it goes back to, is there a higher authority in my life? Well, there is one, whether you won't realize it or not. But when you submit to that, then you. You're less apt to write books about it or talk about it if you're a teacher in that school system. But when you pull that out and all of a sudden everything makes sense. What's Interesting to me is the global warming thing and even evolution. When we discovered DNA, you realize evolution flew out the window. [00:42:26] Speaker B: It should have. [00:42:27] Speaker A: Because you've got to have two ingredients of your DNA has to be produced simultaneously. So there was no evolution there. Right. It's just, it's a mockery of God. And so that should be stripped out of every book. The evolution cannot be true. [00:42:42] Speaker B: Well, and the way that I've observed, you know, in order for what's prophesied to happen in scripture of a one world dictator, the Antichrist, to lead a one world government, a one world religion, there has to be a common point of worship which has become science and then a common enemy. And so whether it's global warming, whether it's Covid, there has to be something that every nation under the sun can agree. That's the problem, that's the enemy. And increasingly that's becoming Christians along the way. [00:43:18] Speaker A: That's exactly right. Yep. And you know, you can see very quickly when the rapture does happen, Christ comes redeemed to redeem this church. This place will fold so fast it will make your head spin. As far as going to that one world globe, they are going to be looking for that hero. You can see it happening. I am just proud to be here right now. I am excited to be on earth right now because these are the last moments. I believe that. And so we have the opportunity to shine forth. And the darker it gets, the brighter the light is when you turn the flashlight on. [00:43:49] Speaker B: Well, we are glad you are on the right team. [00:43:51] Speaker A: Amen. I'm glad you're on the right team. We're together. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Well, amen. Amen. And I know that a lot of our people watching, many are already engaged with CDF or a similar organization. If they want to learn more and get plugged in, how do they start the process? [00:44:08] Speaker A: Go to citizensdefendingfreedom.com citizensdefreedom.com all our contacts are there, all our information is there. You can sign on and, and help us out. We'll be growing this nationwide. [00:44:19] Speaker B: There are local chapters. I know in Nassau county you've got them. [00:44:21] Speaker A: Actually, what we've done, we have a church model now instead of we're in a county, but we're going deeper now. So we've started what we call the Remnant Alliance. You can go to thereminentallliance.com and get all this information. But we have pastors similar to you that are saying we're ready to take a stand. How do we do it? We provide those tools. We provide the legal protection and the intel that that community needs. So. So we're doing it church by church now. So we're actually deeper than the county, and so we're into the grassroots here locally, and we want to stand for righteousness as best we can. [00:44:54] Speaker B: Well, I don't. I've joined so many groups along the way, I don't know which ones I'm in, and I'm not. If I'm not, sign me up. [00:45:01] Speaker A: Okay, you got it. [00:45:04] Speaker B: So I want to turn the page a little bit because all of this went to a new level for you, and we almost lost you. And so I want to invite your wife, Beverly, to have a conversation with you. [00:45:16] Speaker A: She's my treasure. [00:45:17] Speaker B: And let's talk about what's happened in recent days. [00:45:19] Speaker A: You got it. [00:45:20] Speaker B: And so we wanted to invite Ms. Beverly to come in and join us. Welcome. First of all. [00:45:25] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you. [00:45:26] Speaker B: And we appreciate all that you've sacrificed and that you've done to make CDF possible. But recently you went through one of those moments in life that is unforgettable. And so we want you to just unpack from the first moment that you got, knew something was not right. Give us an idea of what you've been through in recent months. [00:45:52] Speaker C: Yeah, we've been on quite the faith walk journey over the last few months. [00:45:57] Speaker B: But start us out from when you first got the indication that something medically might be going on. [00:46:07] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, the weekend was great. We started. We went to church on Sunday morning. We had a normal day. This was in November. Came home. Steve was working the phones, working on several things, A lot going on about that time. And we had gone down, watched the sunset that evening, which is our custom. We do that every opportunity we can. We try to catch the sunset if we're home. And we had come back and getting ready for bed. This was on November 10th. And we laid down, and he was just restless. He had been having some discomfort in his shoulder over the previous months. We'd been having tests run just to make sure it was nothing. Everything was coming out great. The tests were all coming out good. We had even gone on our own and had some testing done that the scans were all good. But this night, it was different. And something just prompted me to get up. I said, let's get up. Let's move around a little bit. Let's see if we can get you to feeling better. And for some reason, I gave him an aspirin. I said, why don't you take an aspirin? I've never done that that was miracle number one. Miracle number two. I says, why don't we just check your blood pressure, which is usually always normal. So we checked his blood pressure and it was not normal. And I took it again and it was worse. And I took it again and it was much worse. I said, get your shoes on, I'm calling 911. And he didn't give me any grief about it. [00:47:44] Speaker B: Ask was there. I know life is, you know, you're kind of built for stress in the sense that you've been through a lot. But was it more stressful than normal? [00:47:56] Speaker A: To me, it wasn't because I thrive on it. We had been, you know, 16 hour days, had been 20 hour days for about three weeks. We're working really hard with the hurricane relief as well with our churches from North Carolina all the way down to Florida, Venice, Florida. So we were loading semis at midnight, getting them out to hurricane victims. So that was an added stress. This particular night, you know, we have an intel department with CDF and from time to time, and this is a group of intel people, Christian people, awesome men of God. But they from time to time get human trafficking leads. And this particular night we had many, I mean, over 100 girls that we had found and they were calling me for financial. We were getting the finances lined up to get the boots on the ground to go rescue them. So that was the added piece. That particular night, the election was actually over. The week after the election, that was a lot of work. But this particular night, that was the big one. [00:49:00] Speaker B: I don't think people know one that you and CDF are engaged in those kind of real life. It's not just elections. [00:49:08] Speaker A: That's correct. [00:49:09] Speaker B: But engaged in real life situations. But I don't think people realize how much civilians are active. We've seen the movies, but it really happens. I know a number of men that when not only in the States, but when things are happening and you have children who are suffering, that they literally and sometimes physically get involved in it. [00:49:35] Speaker A: You know, Pastor Zach, I tell people, if you, you knew how many good people in this world, in this country that were doing so much work behind the scenes, you'll never know about on this side of heaven. [00:49:46] Speaker B: That's right. [00:49:47] Speaker A: The night of the election, I can tell you right now, is because these people did the right thing and headed off some things, nefarious things that were happening and we'll never know about it. [00:49:58] Speaker B: Oh, and so often the government doesn't want to get involved. [00:50:01] Speaker A: No. [00:50:02] Speaker B: You know, they don't have the resources or the. The interest to get over it. [00:50:07] Speaker A: Or if you have, if your government's been infiltrated with the people who want to see the destruction, what do you do then? Right? We've got a lot of that inside of our system right now. That was the added lever, I guess, if you will. [00:50:21] Speaker C: A little bit of stress. [00:50:23] Speaker B: Yeah, go figure. [00:50:24] Speaker C: He does live in that lane. But this was. [00:50:27] Speaker B: How do you deal with that? [00:50:28] Speaker C: This was all over the top. Well, he's been this way. [00:50:30] Speaker B: Tommy. Do you carry the stress? [00:50:33] Speaker A: So she'd been around me a long time. [00:50:37] Speaker C: I take. I literally take pauses all day long and give it back to Jesus. And that's the only way I can. Amen, you know, because we weren't meant to carry these things. And Jesus says, my burden is light. Give it to me. And that's how. That's how I do it. [00:50:56] Speaker B: So that night, the levels weren't adding up. Did you call the ER? How did you. [00:51:01] Speaker C: I called 911 and yeah, they got there and they were triaging him in the living room, hooked him up to an ekg. Nothing showing up. Everything was okay, but he was in some pretty good discomfort. So we said, you know, we're just going to go ahead and take you in and get you checked out and figure out what's going on. And the. The young man looked at me and said, well, where do you want to go? And I just am looking at him with a blank stare because he's so healthy. Where do I want to go? And he suggested, why don't you go down to Advent Health in Sebring? They're the closest, and they have a heart center. Well, I didn't even know that because we're usually going the other direction when we travel. So I said, sure, let's go there. So Steve got up, walked to the ambulance under his own power, crawled up on the gurney making jokes with the guys. Is this a comfortable gurney? You know, that kind of stuff probably. [00:51:57] Speaker B: Probably thinking about man ers can be so slow. [00:52:00] Speaker C: Yes. All that blew me a kiss. Said, I'll see you down there. The EMT looked at me and said, Now, Ms. Maxwell, take your time, button up your house, get your stuff in order. We'll meet you down there. I said, okay. So I was about 15 minutes behind them. So I pull up to the hospital, to the ER to check in to a hospital I've never been to before. And they brought my husband in on an ambulance to be checked out, and he wasn't in the system yet. So I did have a small Moment of panic, wondering, am I in the right place? You know? But about that time, I look up, and two of the gentlemen that had just been at my home working on my husband come walking around the corner, and they have a bead on me, and they're coming straight for me. Only this time, they don't look the same. They look like they've been through a war. They're disheveled, they're sweaty, they're tired. One of them's got blood on his shirt, and one kneels at my feet, and one sits down beside me and says, Ms. Maxwell, we just need to let you know what happened before you go back there. They said he coded on the way to the hospital. We had to pull over and try to get him going again. Got back on the road, but we got him back about five minutes before we got to the hospital, but he was gone for over 15 minutes. [00:53:18] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [00:53:20] Speaker C: Yeah, they had to shock him over five times in the ambulance. In the ambulance to get his heart, you know, seven times. Matter of fact, seven times is actually how that. The report said five, but the EMT said seven. So they rushed me back to the ER at that time, and I got to see Steve, and that's something that I can't unsee. [00:53:45] Speaker B: Was he awake? Was he. [00:53:47] Speaker C: He was moving, but not there. You know, he was. He was in bad shape. [00:53:53] Speaker A: About 20% heart usage at the time when they got me going, it was only about 20%. [00:53:57] Speaker B: Was there a blockage? Is that what was going on? [00:54:00] Speaker A: There was a. It turned out to be a widowmaker. [00:54:03] Speaker C: What they call artery that beats. The heart was completely. Had become completely blocked. Just quickly now, you know, nothing had shown up on any tests. I found out that that may not show up on a test. So, anyway, there were two surgeons in there working that night, a male and a female. And the female began to triage me quickly. And I'm telling her, well, we just had all these tests run. And she goes, well, this could be a pulmonary embolism, but I think it's a heart attack. We need to act quickly. But she goes. He said, you see these numbers right here? And I said, yes, ma'am. She goes, these numbers are not sustainable for life. His pH was 6.99. His lactic acid was 20. She says, Most doctors would tell you there's nothing they can do. And I looked over at the other surgeon, and he was just looking down, but she pulled my face back to her. She goes, but if you give me permission, I will try. And I said, try and she was gone. And I was in this room alone. [00:55:06] Speaker B: Did you know her? [00:55:06] Speaker C: No, did not know her. Did not know her. [00:55:09] Speaker A: Turns out she's a Pakistani Christian doctor about this tall. [00:55:12] Speaker C: She's a believer and one of the. [00:55:13] Speaker A: Best in the world at what she does in a small hospital down in Sebring, Florida. [00:55:19] Speaker C: She was a miracle. She was just a miracle. They were so good down there. So I'm in this room processing what just happened in the last five minutes. Five minutes. And I say this to you with all humility, that at that moment, I was not afraid. Something came over me, and I was not. It was not fear. I was mad because I knew in my heart that this was a spiritual attack. I just knew it because of what he had been working on, because of all the things that y'all have talked about previous with cdf. I knew that this was disruptive to the kingdom of darkness. And I just knew in my spirit that this was going to. This was. This was an attack. And I'll share this with you because this is another way that I was so confident is that two weeks prior to this event happening, my son came in on his way to work. He woke, you know, was going to work that morning. He said, mom, I just had the craziest dream. I said, and he was shook up. I said, what is it, bud? And he said, well, I woke up, he said, in the house. The room was full of smoke. He said, I thought the house was on fire. He said, I jumped up and I started grabbing my stuff. He said, and then the smoke just kind of began to dissipate. He said, but I fully expected to smell like smoke, it was so strong. And I said, well, that's kind of weird. You know, I'm glad it was just a dream. You know, Have a nice day. Good. Good luck today. So didn't think much about that. And then a week later, my daughter had the same dream in a different house. And she said, it was so vivid. Mother. She said, I woke up from a dead sleep as if someone had put a torch under my face. And this. The stench was just overwhelming. She goes, I just. The room was full of smoke. I got up, and it just dissipated. [00:57:14] Speaker B: Are they the type of people that. That happens to often, or. [00:57:17] Speaker C: No, no, no, never. No, we are. [00:57:21] Speaker A: She came over to see me grounded, if she could be, and just. Dad, you know, is there anything in your life you need to, you know, confess? [00:57:29] Speaker C: I mean, what is going on? [00:57:31] Speaker A: What's going on? [00:57:32] Speaker C: She's a Christian counselor, and she works through our church, so she has a network of friends and colleagues in that, in that world. So she just put the word out, said, listen, this has happened in our family. Is there anyone that can speak into this, that has a word to this? And there was a woman through a series of people networking that got in touch with her and she says, yes, Megan, this is a message. It is from God. It concerns your family. It is urgent. She goes, the word is your family is about to walk through a trial by fire, an all consuming fire, but you're going to come through and you're not going to smell like smoke. So we had been praying after Megan had had the dream, you know, just, just. I know God does warn people. I mean, never happened to us before, but just to make sure that we were trying to hear if we were supposed to be hearing something. So when this happened, at that moment, alone in that room, I just knew. And I began to pray against this out loud. I just began to say, no, devil I was not tonight. [00:58:49] Speaker B: This was at the hospital. [00:58:50] Speaker C: This was when I was. I had just been told, you know, he's gone back for surgery and I'm alone. [00:58:55] Speaker B: And the dreams that happened days prior, weeks prior, did that hit you at that moment? [00:59:03] Speaker A: You knew it. That's what it was. [00:59:04] Speaker C: I knew at that moment that that's what this was. I just knew it. And it's like something fell on me and. Yeah. So I just began to pray against it. Right. And Steve has always been so good with me and with our children to teach us and to practice memory stones in our life. When God does something for you and shows up for you, then you know it's him. Because we all go through things, right? And when he delivers or he provides or he shows up or you bump into him, you mark that and you remember it so that when you're in a situation that looks dire, okay, God, you did this. You did this. You did this. This is what your word says. These are your promises. That is what I'm gonna stand on. So that's where my prayer, I was just crying out to God and rebuking this foul thing that was just not believing that this was going to end that way. So shortly, my kids show up with some lifelong friends of ours, and my son and my daughter look at each other and they said, this is it. They knew too. They just knew immediately. This is, this is the fire. This is the trial. So we began together at that moment, organically praying every hour, on the hour, in agreement, just believing that this was going to be okay. We're Going to walk through this, and we're going to walk out of it. You know, we're going to walk our way through it. So that's how it started. [01:00:35] Speaker B: Let me pause you right there. So this is going on. I know you had an otherworldly experience. Do you believe that that was happening simultaneously or do you think that happened later? [01:00:49] Speaker A: Actually, the only way I can figure is I died. You know, I flatlined for over 15 minutes. [01:00:55] Speaker B: So, okay, so that that had happened or was happening while she's in. [01:00:59] Speaker A: That had already happened. So my way en route to the hospital, which is about 20 minutes away, they. They lost my heartbeat. [01:01:06] Speaker B: Okay. [01:01:07] Speaker A: So they had to pull over. Another miracle is a fire destroyer truck came back, and the fireman on the fire truck, on his own initiative, said, I'm going to go with the ambulance. And that was the extra hand they needed because they had to hook up oxygen, had to hook up CPR and all the meds. And so that 15, 16, 17 minute period is when I died. [01:01:28] Speaker B: Okay, What I'd like to do is hear what happened to you during that time. And then I want to pick up, once you share that with us, backed how she got through until you were back. [01:01:39] Speaker A: Well, you know, I got a big pep talk when I was. [01:01:42] Speaker B: So literally, the last thing you remember was what before? [01:01:46] Speaker A: The last thing I remember we have a long driveway with a cattle guard at the end, you know, to keep cattle from walking across. So you hear that, you know, you cross it. So the last thing I remember in the ambulance was going across the cattle guard and him accelerating to pick up speed. The next thing I know, Pastor Zach, is I literally stood up and I walked into a new dimension where the Lord was waiting for me there. I never saw his face. I knew it was the Lord Jesus. And he literally placed his hand on my shoulder like this. And he said, steve, I want to show you what's going on in the spiritual realm. And then he began to show me. The only way I can describe it is if you had as many flat screen TVs as you could see. But as far. I'm in outer space now. And so as far as high down, left and right as you could see were these scenes that were going on in heaven and the message. And you don't speak in words in that realm. You speak by thought. And so he said, the first thought was, I see everything. I see everything. And then he showed one particular dark scene to me. And there were three points of light that came into that dark scene on that screen. And the darkness Fled. Then he didn't say, you're the light or anything like that. He just showed that to me. And then he began talking to me about light and about the glory of God. And I go back afterward and I'm going through scriptures, and it's amazing. Everything lined up with the. Exactly like, for example, Hebrews chapter one. But he talks about God. He talked to me about God's glory. We can't see God's glory. We can't come close to God's glory. Moses tried to come to God's glory. He said, you can't see my glory. Why? Because it's too holy. He's too holy. He's holy. And if he were to see us in our sinful state, we're dead. But when we receive Christ, Hebrews chapter one says that Jesus is the radiance of his glory. And he shared with me, when we receive him, God's glory enters into us. And the three points of light that I just saw that disbanded the darkness was Christ in us. And God partners with us in this battle against good and evil that's in the world. It was just the neatest thing, by the way. Total peace, total love, no fear. I mean, it was like, wow, this is great. [01:04:16] Speaker B: I think you said, both of you kind of indicated that you missed. You yearn for that sense. [01:04:21] Speaker A: It's what we all yearn for. It's that vacation feeling, I call it, where, oh, man, we're here. It's beautiful. It's that same feeling, but only multiplied, you know? And then the next scene was. There was a dissertation about light and how light works and how God is light. And, you know, when you study light, when you measure light, it acts one way. When you observe light, it acts one way. When you don't observe it and measure it, it acts totally different. Light is alive, and God's light and energy is in every part of our being, even down to our DNA, every tree growing out there. So it was just a powerful education about his glory and how that glory enters into us. The next scene was the most beautiful. It was heaven itself. I didn't get to go into heaven, but he showed me the portals of heaven. And it was as far as the eye could see. Pastor. But he was showing me all the saints. The saints were just joyous. They were glowing. They were, like, golden. They had smiles on their faces. Everybody had a purpose. Everybody had a job and they were working. But they were talking to me saying, keep going, keep going, keep going. And it's that cloud of witnesses. The Bible Talks about, we have a cloud of witnesses that are encouraging, rooting for us in the heavens that have already gone before us, and we have a purpose here. We have a purpose with our time on Earth, and our job is to find that purpose that God sent us here to do. And so that was a beautiful scene. Matter of fact, that scene came back after I woke up almost a week after I was. I was in a coma for, what, seven days? So, like a week after, after that, those same saints came and visited me in my hospital bed. And I told Bev, she was with me. Don't you see them? She goes, no, I don't see them. [01:06:13] Speaker B: Were they. Did you know them? [01:06:14] Speaker A: I did. I knew my grandmother. I saw her. But the rest were just. They were far away, but I knew them, but I didn't know them. I couldn't identify them. Right. It was so encouraging that we've got this host of witnesses that are just rooting for us, and our days are numbered, but we have a purpose for being here. And then the next two scenes where God took me, he was talking to me about the valley of decision in Joel, chapter three, that he is exposing now the world to all corruption and shining light on everything. This was way before Doge and way before the fires in LA and all that. But he said, I'm going to expose the world to the light and the corruption, and every nation will have to choose between me or choose against me. And then the last scene, the last thought process, was, Steve, I'm about to fill the portals of heaven with my people, and the last harvest has begun. Now go and tell your friends. And the next thing I do, I'm waking up, and this one's right in my face talking to me and said, honey, can you hear me? Can you hear me? So that was seven days later. [01:07:26] Speaker B: And it seemed like a moment. [01:07:28] Speaker A: There's no time there. There's no time. It's just. I don't know how to explain it. It's just there was no time. [01:07:38] Speaker B: Now, during that seven days, do you want to tell us about the pastor coming in? [01:07:45] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah. There were so many pastors that came in, by the way, and Steve and I, I want to thank you for the opportunity of letting us say thank you to you for praying, everybody, for praying, because it was the prayers. Prayer is a powerful defense, and it's a powerful weapon, and I am here to testify for that. Steve said, when we. Soon after this happened, we said, we want to be that one leper that comes back and says thank you, because we Know that we were supernaturally touched. [01:08:17] Speaker B: Absolutely. And he totes went out that day. [01:08:19] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:08:21] Speaker B: The local CDF people were texting pastors and church members. We immediately put it on the prayer list. And that Wednesday night we had a special prayer with you guys. [01:08:32] Speaker A: I'll tell you real quick as a side note, another thing that happened that we don't get to explain all the time, but Bev has a distant cousin that we don't get to see very often. But she goes to church with my brother and my mom. She had a vision the night all this happened. She had no idea that it happened. And she said, I got to get this word to my mom. And her vision was that Satan had come after me. I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to all this stuff, but the angel Gabriel was In the room, 15 foot tall, wings covering my bed. Now, Beth says it wasn't Gabriel. That's too high ranking. But so she got that mom. We found that out even later, you know, that she. And then two days later, she had another vision. Angels are gone. The enemy had come after me again. But the prayers of the saints were holding him back. And that's why we're here saying thank you, because every prayer added up. [01:09:31] Speaker B: I think people in our culture, in our churches, they don't realize how tangible and real these things are. [01:09:39] Speaker C: So I wasn't. [01:09:42] Speaker B: When you talk about light earlier in third world countries where they have a theology developed about this thing, you have God and you have natural science, but there's a whole world between the two that they've thought more about and explained more fully when they speak of light. I'll tell you off camera a couple of stories about when, when the Lord took possession of somebody that had belonged to the enemy. That what the servants of the enemy see is just unspeakable light. Yes, they see this. It's real. And so when we talk about light, well, it's a metaphor. It's not a metaphor. [01:10:27] Speaker A: No, it's real. [01:10:28] Speaker B: There's a real tangible presence of God. [01:10:32] Speaker A: It's alive. [01:10:33] Speaker B: And when we pray, things are moving, things are happening. [01:10:36] Speaker A: That's exactly right. [01:10:38] Speaker C: It activates the spiritual realm. [01:10:42] Speaker A: I tell you, when I came home and things settled out, I was in my quiet time. The Lord laid on my heart that morning. It's the first morning I was home. And you know, you hear that still small voice. He said, steve, I sent the angels to protect you until the word got out. But once the word got out, the prayers of the saints are enough to hold back the enemy. So I want to just testify that that's exactly what happened in this case. So thank you for your prayers and thank your church and all the people here in town that prayed for us. It made a difference, and it will make a difference in their lives, too. [01:11:20] Speaker B: Amen. So I want to hear. You told me a little bit about it earlier, a pastor that he. I don't. You knew of him, but he was not your pastor. [01:11:30] Speaker C: He had been working closely with Steve on some hurricane rumors. [01:11:33] Speaker A: He's a Roommate alliance pastor. [01:11:34] Speaker C: He's a roommate alliance pastor. I had seen videos of him. I had never met him personally. And he came to the hospital, drives two hours down. Yeah. To see me and to see Steve. And he walks in the room and, you know, introduces himself and everything, and he prays for Steve, anoints him, has a sweet time there. And then he turns to me and he begins to refresh my memory and tell me the story of Mark, chapter five of Jairus daughter, which is the young girl that Jesus raised from the dead. And he. He went through that whole. That whole scripture with me. And he said when they came to Jesus in the crowd and they said, jairus daughter has died. Jesus looked at the religious leader that was with him and he said, do not be afraid. Just believe. And made his way to Jairus House. And when he got there, he said there was a crowd of people gathering outside the house, and they were wailing and carrying on and causing a commotion. And Jesus looked at him and said, why are you causing this commotion? She's not dead. She's asleep. And they laughed at him. And it made him mad or he didn't like it. And he cleared them out. He sent them all home. And he got the mom and the daddy, a couple of disciples and the preacher, and he went in there, religious leader, and he took her by the hand, said, little girl, get up. Instructed everybody to give her something to eat and not to say anything. And then he was off. And he looked at me. Pastor John looked at me. He said, now, Beverly, he said, people who believe live like they believe, because that means you need to get up, you need to present yourself well, you need to be joyful, you need to eat, you need to drink, you need to lay down at night in peace, believing that you're going to walk through, believing for this to end well, for this to be all is well, you know? And it just pierced my heart. [01:13:44] Speaker B: Were you at that point believing? [01:13:46] Speaker C: I was. Well, remember in the room, I knew that this was a trial, but this gave me a stake, a scripture. I could stake out. And that became my family and everyone's mantra. We had T shirts made. Just believe. We were only believing that this was. And this was the scripture. He came in and just confirmed that it was a gift from God that he walked in and said that to me that day. And then I invited him to go out onto the lobby because there was a large group of people gathered out there all the time. People were so wonderful. We had 35 to 50 people in the waiting room most times. And we were praying every hour on the hour, in agreement. And he walked and I had invited him to pray that hour. And he introduced himself and he said, the Maxwells are so glad that you're here, and we thank you for your prayers, but we're going to just ask if there's anyone here who has any unbelief who does not believe that this is going to end well, that you're not believing for the miracle that we're asking for, we're asking you to leave. And there was a moment he said, go get yourself a Snickers bar. Go buy a Coke. Figure it out. Come back or not. We love you, but we're only believing here. So that's what we're asking. And then we joined up and prayed. And it was as if a cool breeze just blew through that whole hospital, the entire hospital. It changed. And from that moment, it just solidified the agreement that we are only believing. We are only going to speak life, no matter what, no matter how it looks, no matter. We're just going to speak life. And that's what we did. And we marched forward through that week, which, as you know, as a pastor is full of ups and downs. Our prayer was that every day ended in a net positive somehow. My daughter was putting out on Instagram, my one daughter put updates every hour with specific prayer requests for what was going on. And my other daughter was on Facebook at the end of the day wrapping everything up. And there was. The night that pastor came was probably the belly of the well. It was early on and nothing was good. There was no good data. I wasn't reading the medical reports because it didn't matter what they said. We were just believing. But I knew what they were thinking. They kept sending palliative care in to talk to me, and I wouldn't talk to her. But she came in. She came in on Thursday. This happened on a Monday. She came into me on Thursday. She says, bev, I'm going home for the weekend. She says, and when I get back on Monday, you and I are going to have to have a conversation. And I said, okay, you come back on Monday and I'm going to introduce you to my husband because he's going to be awake. You got to understand, at the time, his kidneys had failed, his liver was not working. He had E. Coli and staph in his lungs and his blood, because of being intubated and aspirating, he had pneumonia. He had fluid buildup on his lungs, had 105 fever. He was on an ice blanket packed in ice. You know, it was. [01:17:06] Speaker B: It's almost like, is he going to be here Monday? [01:17:08] Speaker C: Is probably what she was thinking. Yeah, she probably thought she might not have to have that conversation. But the good news is she was there on Monday and she got to see him awake. And it wrecked her in the most beautiful way. So she got to see it. [01:17:25] Speaker B: We try to tell people this and beg them to believe it, but when those times are coming for people, they happen in life. Life has storms. That's part of the fall. We're east of Eden. We deal with things like that from time to time. You can't at that moment decide to get spiritual. You either have the people that love you from your church community that are there supporting you, pastors walking in, speaking truth, or you don't. But that's not the time to put it together. You have children who believe or you don't, but you can't disciple them. Suddenly you do these things, you fold into a community. You engage with your church, you disciple your kids, and it's there in those moments. But thank God you had that community around you. You didn't have to go through the valley alone. [01:18:22] Speaker C: You know, there's also in the Book of Mark, chapter two, I believe, where it's the paralytic that his four friends are dropping him down through the Just so he can get to Jesus. Because they knew Jesus could heal him. And Jesus saw that and he looked at the man because of their faith. He said. He said, get up and take up your mat and walk. Because of their faith, you were healed. So it matters who your circle is. [01:18:47] Speaker B: Oh, it does. [01:18:48] Speaker C: It matters who your friends are, you know, and we are testimony. We are testifying to that. And again, just saying thank you to everyone that whispered the slightest prayer for us because he went from literally being a dead man to seven days later, he woke up seven days later. He was actually discharged from the hospital because of technicalities. We didn't get out for a couple of days later, but heart was 100%. [01:19:19] Speaker A: Everything was back to. [01:19:21] Speaker C: He has no brain damage. [01:19:23] Speaker A: That's questionable. [01:19:25] Speaker C: No. Yeah. And his heart is back up to normal function. And the final and probably the biggest miracle of all was that his kidneys came back online. You know, because he had been on dialysis in the hospital, they fully expected he would need a kidney transplant because the electric shocks and the being out for so long. But he came home with four months of outpatient dialysis prescription. And after four treatments, the doctor said, you're done. Praise the Lord, you're done. [01:20:00] Speaker B: And he's completely through that with my father. And dialysis is no joke. I mean, it's a journey. [01:20:09] Speaker C: It is. [01:20:13] Speaker B: And I'm sure you've had to make some changes in life, diet and that sort of thing, but you have not. Your mission hasn't changed. [01:20:21] Speaker A: Our mission's probably intensified, and it's become more clear. I know that. I know. So when I am speaking to pastors or groups, I can speak, I believe, with absolute authority. Going across the other side for a little while. But, yeah, diet. She's always been a great cook. We've never really eaten bad, but I'm really having to watch it now. And I work out six days a week. Always worked out three to four days a week. I've gone to six. And my pace is a little different. I'm really bringing in some people to help take the load. And I'm trying to focus on the main thing, which is getting in front of these pastors. We had 43 churches that signed up in the last five days with the Remnant alliance, and every church is an embassy in that community. So that's the mission. [01:21:15] Speaker B: Let me say this on behalf of the pastors that I know that have dealt with cdf. We've been impressed. That one. Everybody says we can't do it without the churches. We can't do it without the pastors. But very few of these organizations really build their organization as if they meant that dependent on the church structure. The way that you guys follow things like going first in private. [01:21:42] Speaker A: Yes. [01:21:42] Speaker B: You know, this is not clickbait. This is not something that we're trying to Gotcha people. But giving them an opportunity to do the right thing, you know, sitting down and just having an honest conversation, treating people the way we would want to be treated. That's right. [01:21:59] Speaker A: That very thing happened. Just. I mentioned to you earlier about the lady in Fredericksburg, Texas. We were geared up and ready. Let's go. But our. Our policy is no, first go quietly and see if we can get it settled. And it all got settled without having to do anything. Just a simple letter from God. [01:22:17] Speaker B: That's how it should be. [01:22:18] Speaker A: That's the way it should be. Because our mission is not to bash somebody over the head. Our mission is to show the grace of God. And also, we've lost this appeal before. The good news is good news. There first must be bad news. The bad news, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. The bad news is the wages of sin is death. The good news is he made him who knew no sin become sin on our behalf, that we may be made the righteousness of God through him. And that's how we get this glory into us. So this whole thing we're doing is just a platform to give the gospel message, because the enemy we're fighting is Satan. And John told us in chapter 12 of Revelation, he's defeated by the blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony. And we're not afraid to die. We have courage. That's it. [01:23:09] Speaker B: Well, and that's not a. We all say we need the Lord. We all say we're about kingdom progress and souls being saved. Steve, I've listened to several of your talks, and I've been in private meetings with you, and that's a consistent message. You really believe that? That's the key, that it's not about a party winning. It's not about policy change. Ultimately, the heart has to be changed. [01:23:38] Speaker A: When you go back to the founding Fathers and, you know, forget about the naysayers and the other side, but when you truly go back to the truth, what were they really trying to do? Create an environment where the kingdom of God can be spread perpetually until the end of the earth. That's why we have all these freedoms. That's why you have freedom of speech, freedom to assemble. Freedom of what? Because this is the main mission. It's not United States of America. God blessed those things, and we became a great nation because of that. But that wasn't the main thing. We got to get the main thing. The main thing, and all these things will be added unto us. That's how it works. [01:24:17] Speaker B: When we planned this podcast and this episode, I was looking forward to meeting you. I really was. I'm very curious about how movements happen and that sort of thing, and so I expected to scratch that itch, and I have. What I didn't expect was that when this is all said and done, I'm a little jealous of your experience. You know, I think I want to see that. The good news is we can and we will, if we know Jesus Christ. [01:24:48] Speaker A: Exactly right. [01:24:49] Speaker B: So thank you, guys. [01:24:50] Speaker A: And I close this. You know, the Bible says, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Now, we don't think of ourselves as a saint, but if you have Christ in you, you are a saint. Biblically, you are right. Not on our merit, on his. But your greatest day on earth will be the day you leave this earth. I guarantee you that. [01:25:09] Speaker B: Amen. Amen. And until that kingdom comes, and this is a new earth and new heaven, may God bless your efforts. [01:25:17] Speaker A: Amen. [01:25:18] Speaker C: God bless you, too. [01:25:19] Speaker B: Thank you for being on the program. [01:25:21] Speaker C: Thank you for having us sa.