Episode Transcript
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[00:00:48] Speaker B: And so December 14th, the last day of deer season, we went hunting.
I was so excited. I was a little kid. My dad's breaking the trail down through the woods. And we followed in my dad's footsteps. And he dropped my dad and my grandpappy off at a stand and then dropped me off and then went down over the bank. And as I was watching his flashlight go through the woods and it disappeared. I didn't realize, but that was the last time I'd ever seen my dad alive.
And.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Mark Twitt, welcome to the Code Red Studio.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: So glad to be here.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Pastor Zach, this is. This is different than how most guests are because we've known each other in other mission fields before. And you were in my church back up in North Alabama.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: I was.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: When did you come there? Do you remember?
[00:01:50] Speaker B: I was there, I think maybe 10, 15 years ago.
And it was an amazing church. We really enjoyed teaching there, taught Sunday school.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: We reached a lot of people. And it's during that time that really you began to step into ministry yourself?
[00:02:09] Speaker B: It was.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: So before we talk about the details of that, tell us a little bit about or a lot about your story that God is using in such a dramatic way to bring people to Christ.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Well, I grew up In Pennsylvania, about 20 miles from where the plane went down on 911 in Shanksville, Stoney Creek.
Had a godly father who taught Sunday school, was a deacon, he was a high school teacher. And then my mom was a stay at home mom with four of us kids.
And in our family we had two traditions. One was church, one was hunting outdoors. And church with my parents was not a religion, it was a relationship. They lived their faith seven days a week. And so we saw that. And then my dad was just a big hunter, loved to hunt and fish, if I remember.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Was he a teacher also?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: He was. He was a high school teacher and he was a lay minister. So on weekends he would speak at churches and we'd get to go with him when he did that.
But he loved hunting. And unfortunately, in Pennsylvania, you have to be 12 years old to hunt. So I would watch my older brother Dan and my dad go hunting and bring game home. And then Finally, I turned 12 and was able to hunt. And unfortunately, that year, we had a storm of the century and the roads were all closed. Hunting season was pretty much shut down till the last day.
And so on December 13, my dad said, well, we're going hunting tomorrow. I didn't realize it, but we grew up with a very poor family. My dad made $3,500 a year supporting six of us. And I thought we had a wealthy family because my parents spent time with us.
And so December 14th, the last day of deer season, we went hunting.
I was so excited. I was a little kid. My dad's breaking the trail down through the woods. And we followed in my dad's footsteps. And he dropped my D and my grandpappy off at a stand and then dropped me off and then went down over the bank. And as I was watching his flashlight go through the woods, and it disappeared. I didn't realize, but that was the last time I'd ever seen my dad alive.
And just. Tragic hunting accident. He went down, got nestled underneath a hemlock tree.
Got daylight, no deer were moving.
A couple hours later, I walked back to my grandpap's house. I got cold. And another family came in, started trying to drive deer and moving deer. And a guy looked over and saw movement under this hemlock tree.
My dad had an orange vest on. He was the first hunter killed wearing fluorescent orange in the state of Pennsylvania. A million hunters. And he saw movement under this hemlock tree. And there was a stump between him and my dad, so he couldn't see his orange vest, but he saw black. And it looked like a deer's nose, and it was my dad's long, black sideburns.
And as the snow melted off the tree, it popped, and it looked just like antlers. And the guy convinced himself it was a buck. And he watched my dad for 10 minutes, took careful aim, and shot and hit my dad in the left temple. Killed him instantly. And he went running over, pulled the tree back, and thought he had a deer laying there, a big buck. And there was my dad.
That was tough.
That was tough.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Mark, I know that you're a man of faith, and you have strong faith. And how do you process that, knowing God could have moved that bullet?
How do you process that?
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Well, Dan and I, when we speak and share testimony, we were taught that God didn't make mistakes and that God is love.
And we had the Most godly father.
And we had two neighbors that were not really nice guys at the time. One was an alcoholic, one owned a bar. And we looked at God and said, God, you made a mistake. You should have taken one of those two men.
If anybody should die, it's one of those two guys, not our daddy. And for years and years, Dan and I got very bitter, got very angry with God.
Through a set of circumstances, we moved to Virginia so I could go to Liberty University with Dan. My mom and my dad always wanted to teach at a Christian school, and my dad didn't get to do that. But when I graduated from high school, mom said, we're moving to Virginia. You guys are going to Liberty University. And so I went there for a while, and Dan would go back to Pennsylvania to visit my grand.
And one day, he goes back 10, 15 years later, and there on the porch is the bar owner, Paul.
And he said, dan, could you come over here? I want to talk to you. And Dan walks up, and he looked at him, and he thought this. He said, you actually should be dead right now. He said, not my daddy. He didn't say it, but he said he thought it. And Paul goes, dan, I want to tell you something I've never told you before. And he goes, what's that? He said, have a seat. So Dan sits down. He goes, dan, your dad never missed an opportunity to share Christ with me. Every time we'd be out our gardens butted up against each other, he said, your daddy would go, paul, I want to tell you about my best friend, Jesus Christ. He loved you so much. He died on the cross for you. He made a way for you to spend eternity in heaven. And Paul goes, don't. I want to hear it. Don't want to hear it. He said, I'm a young guy. I got plenty of time. And he said, you, dad just loved on me for years and years and years. Never condemned me for owning a bar, selling alcohol to people. And he said, I came home that day, and my wife said, you know who got killed today? Walt Whit was killed in a hunting accident.
And Paul's like, I can't believe it. If that had been me, I'd be in hell right now. And he said for a few weeks, the Holy Spirit started dealing with him. And he said finally couldn't take it any longer. And he went in and knelt by his bed. He said he'd never been in church before, never prayed. And he said, God, I don't know what to say, but I want you to be my Best friend, like Walt's best friend. And I want Jesus to be my Lord and savior. And he said he saved me that day.
And he said, I knew I couldn't keep the bar. I got rid of the bar. He said, I was visiting my mom in a nursing home one day, and I. All these old people are in there, and I'm thinking, I wonder if anyone's ever told them about Jesus. And he said, I started sharing my faith. He said, I didn't know how to. I just did. Like your daddy did. Let me tell you about my best friend, Jesus Christ. He loved you so much. He paid for your sins. He makes a way for you to go to heaven. And he said, I did that for years. Four nursing homes, every weekend. He said, I was watching the news in China. You can't have Bibles. And I thought, well, that's not right. How are they ever going to hear about Jesus? So Paul started smuggling Bibles into China.
And then he became a pastor of a small church there in the community, all because of my dad's hunting tragedy. And we realized at that point, if God had given us our wish, Paul would be in hell right now.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: And others as well.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Others as well, yes.
And Paul, most of his family, and Clyde, that drank most of their families, all became believers because of my dad's faith in his hunting accident. And so I tell people, God doesn't make mistakes.
He is in control. He's sovereign. And I tell people when I speak every week, I want you guys and ladies to meet my daddy in heaven one day. But more importantly than that, I want you to meet Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior because he makes a way. He'll either be your Lord and savior or he'll be your judge. And it's a free gift, and it's an opportunity that God opens to everyone. So through this hunting tragedy, our story was featured in Field and Stream magazine.
What year was that? Was 2011, 2012. It became the number one article in any outdoor magazine. It's won more awards than any other article. It's the longest story ever put in Field and Stream. And a few years later, Field and Stream said they'd sell it to us. So we bought our story back and we published it into this magazine. And this is the reprint of the Field and Stream article, and we hand those out. I do prison ministry. I speak at schools. I've taught Sunday School for 40 years.
I love teaching young people. Dan and I do wild game dinners.
And actually, the day my dad was, the day my dad got killed. He was working on a sermon he was going to preach the next day at a church.
And the pastor asked him. He said, I'm doing a series on the Book of Revelation. Would you continue? And so my dad was working on a sermon on Heaven, and it was entitled, Will youl Be There? And I found my dad's notes 15, 20 years later.
And when I got called into the ministry and started being an evangelist and speaking to churches, I finished my dad's sermon.
And it's entitled, if you were to die today, where would you spend eternity?
And my daddy has led more people to the Lord after his death than he ever did in his life.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: I remember my grandfather, you've probably heard me talk about before, was an unbeliever.
He was a Christian unbeliever. In a sense, it was a Christian God that he disbelieved in or chose not to follow.
He really believed the facts and the claims of Christianity, but he didn't trust him with his soul, and he knew he wasn't doing that. And so when I came to Christ in 94, he was on my heart. I reached out to him and I said.
We called him Papaw. Papaw. If you died, where would you spend eternity? He said, son, I know I'm not a Christian. I know I'm not ready. One day I will, when I get ready to obey and follow and all that. Long story short, I prayed that evening that whatever it would take that the Lord would save him. And I really thought it was my death warrant, you know, only child, only grandchild. And I figured, well, that would probably get him.
And we found out within a week that he had lung cancer.
And, you know, within months, he was with the Lord. But he did come to faith after that.
And I've wrestled with it so often, if I would have prayed that knowing he was going to die, and I think knowing that he would come to Christ, I would rather have him forever than for 10 more years and him die and go to hell. And so your father, just to get some bearings, how old were you when he died?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: I was 12 years old.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: And what year was that?
[00:11:46] Speaker B: 1974.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: 74. Okay. And then when you had the or, Dan had the conversation with the gentleman who had owned a bar. When was that?
[00:11:56] Speaker B: That was probably 12 to 15 years later.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Okay, let's talk about the time between those two events.
How did you process it? What did God do to prepare you for kind of accepting the reality of it and to recognize what you saw. After the conversation that Dan had, what did he use how did your mother shepherd you through this? How did the church step into your life?
[00:12:25] Speaker B: My mom was and she still is. She's in a nursing home, but she's the most godly woman.
My dad talked her into going back to college after we all got in school.
And she graduated on December 13, Friday, with her teaching degree. So we were going to have two teaching. And dad's like, well, this is great. We're going to double our salary.
My dad was killed the next day after she graduated.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: And on Sunday, she went and met with the 21 year old guy who shot and killed my dad and forgave him.
And I saw that and I saw her godly example throughout my whole life. She and dad taught us devotions, prayed with us every day, and she lived her faith in front of us. And people ask me, Dan's aha moment was when Paul was telling him how dad had impacted his life. I believe mine was years later. I was sitting in church and the pastor said, hey, we need a second grade Sunday school teacher.
And I raised my hand. He goes, well, thanks, Mark, for volunteering. And I looked and I'm like, whoa, no, I didn't raise my hand, no. He said, you're going to teach second grade Sunday school. And I was petrified.
I remember walking into this second grade Sunday school class with these seven year olds and I was sweating and I was nervous. It was one of the greatest decisions I ever made in my life.
And you start talking to young kids and you find out the problems they have where their parents are getting divorced or they've lost a young brother or sister, or their dad's lost their job.
And you start realizing, man, everybody's got all these problems. And you start praying with other people and young kids.
And I remember the first time a kid told me their dog died, like, big deal. And it was like, no, it was a big deal.
It was like losing a family member.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: It's the biggest thing he had faced.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And it changed my life. Teaching young kids, it's one of the greatest decision. Like I said, I've done it for 40 years and God's got me out of my comfort zone. Going into prisons and speaking to men's group like I did this weekend with your church or getting up and preaching. I just, I love going into schools and telling young people about Christ because they're so open to it and it's so easy. And even to this day, when I preach and when I teach, people come up and say, mark, you realize that's the clearest plan of salvation I've ever heard. And I said that's because it's for seven year olds. You know, the adults are just going along for the ride. Because I figure if a 7 and an 8 year old can understand it, we adults can.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Well, and in our culture, so many people have sadly only processed that much of Christianity as a 7 year old May have processed. And so if you've got a 50 year old man, he may not have thought about the Lord much more than that seven year old boy had. Maybe not as much sometimes. And so it has been remarkably successful.
I'm curious. I can do evangelism.
I can do it from stage, I can do it better than the average person.
I've learned ways of approach, how to build rapport, all these kind of things.
But I don't believe I have the gift of evangelism in the way that you have it.
People who don't have that gift, it seems really special and really interesting.
When did you discover that God was. Because you're a very bright person, you're an engineer, right?
[00:15:51] Speaker B: I am.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: And so one would expect that you would be teaching the deep things of the faith, whatever it might be. And I'm sure you could do those things. But obviously he's gifted you as an evangelist. It's one of the New Testament offices that we're given.
What clued you in that that was your calling?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Well, when Dan and I started doing wild game dinners after our story came out in Field and Stream magazine, we started getting calls from all over the country, in Canada, hey, come speak at our wow game dinner. And we're like, what is that? We didn't even know what one was. Well, you just come and share your story to a bunch of rednecks. And I think you told me years ago that Dan and I were just your missionaries to rednecks. Because we do wow game dinners and it's amazing as we go and speak. And one weekend a pastor said, so who's preaching tomorrow? And I was a little slow on the draw. And Dan goes, Marcus, or next week, or whenever it was a couple weeks later. And so I started working on sermons. I'm, I'm kind of dense. I need God to knock on the door and say, mark, you're an evangelist. And he's never done that.
And I started sharing the gospel and people started getting saved. And Dan's like, mark, you have the gift. And I said, well, I'm still waiting for God's call. And I don't know, a couple months later, a pastor Said, you realize you have the gift of evangelism. Dan goes, there you go. That's two of us who said it now, and I do.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: We're the fruit.
Did it click with you? Wow. People don't get to see this like I do.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: It happened. We have spoken in churches where half of the church gets saved. Sunday morning crowd the sermon that I preach, if you were to die today, where would you spend eternity? It's on the rich man and Lazarus. One went to heaven, one went to hell. And I've had pastors telling me, driving us back to the airport on Sunday, if I preached that sermon, I'd get fired.
I'm like, did I say something wrong? They're like, no, I just couldn't preach on hell. And I'm thinking, that's so sad, because most people are going to hell, and if you never tell them about hell and heaven.
And so people started getting saved.
And I've had people tell me, you know, what? My mom has told me, what you just told me for the last 10 years. And I never got it until today. And it clicked.
They've heard it before, but it's just a different way, I guess. And it's not me. It's all the Holy Spirit. And Dan and I both realize that we just get out of the way and allow the Holy Spirit to move. And our story is very real. I mean, most of the times we end up tearing up while we're telling about it, because I talk about. My dad was buried right before Christmas. He was killed December 14th. And I had never been to a funeral before.
And I had these dreams that my dad had died in a hunting accident. And I'd wake up, and it was a couple weeks between the time he was killed and the funeral. And I'd wake up, and I'm like, that's just a dream. And I'd run over to my mom's bedroom and dad. And I'd open the door, and I thought for sure my dad would be laying there and he wasn't and be my mom holding my little baby sister. And that happened for days and days. And finally we come to the funeral, and I walk into the church and it's packed, and I didn't know what to expect. And I looked down front, and my dad was laying in a casket, had his arms folded across his chest, and it was an open casket, and he looked like he was sleeping. And I got really mad, and I go running down to the front of the church, and I reached in and I grabbed my dad's Hand. And he yelled, wake up.
And I asked people, I said, have you ever touched a dead body? And some have. And I said, I recommend you don't ever do it if you haven't, because it's like a block of ice. And I said, I tell people, at that moment, I knew my daddy was dead. I'm looking at him in the casket. But I said, I knew one thing about my dad. I knew I'd see him again one day. Not because he was a great father, a great husband, a Sunday school teacher, a deacon, a lay minister. He was all those, but not for one of those. Just because he loved Jesus Christ and he had trusted him as his Lord and Savior.
My dad was a lay minister. He would fill in for pastors in our community. And it was always great. One of us four would get to go with dad. And it was the highlight of the week. And I can remember many times I'd be sitting down front, five, six, seven, eight year old, and my dad was six foot four, and he's up there preaching. And every sermon, no matter what he was preaching on, he would stop in the middle and get real quiet. And he goes, there's people here today who are going to miss heaven by 18 inches. And I'm sitting down there and I'm going, wow, that was so close, you know? And people are like, how do you miss heaven by 18 inches?
It's this. The distance from your head to your heart.
You can have the head knowledge all you want. And if there's never been a point where you've trusted Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior, Bible says you're going to hell.
And my mom told me years later, she said, do you know why your dad always said that? I said, I have no idea why. And she goes, because your daddy almost missed heaven by 18 inches. And I only knew my dad as a godly man. And I said, mom, how's that possible? And she said, mark, when we got married, your daddy and I joined a church.
Your daddy got baptized. Your daddy was tithing because he was told that's what you should do. He's given 10% of his income. He started teaching Sunday school. He's doing all these things, and he thought it was the scales. And his good works were over here and his bad works were over here. And he was a very moral person.
A friend of his came in one night, Bob Furrell, who is a friend of his in school, and said, there's one way to heaven. And my dad gets his list out, and he has hundreds of Things he's done. He's like, well, wonder what one it is. And it wasn't any of those. It was like the thief on the cross. You turn to Christ, you repent of your sins and say, jesus, save me. And my dad had never done it. He had it up in his head, and he almost missed heaven by 18 inches.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Well, thank God for that, man.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: And I think sometimes we forget to not presume that because somebody joins the church or surrounds themselves with Christian things. I think it was Billy Graham who said, we can inoculate ourselves from the truth and have so much good around us that we presume is in us.
And Bailey Smith used to say, there are people who have done everything in church but be saved.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: That is it. That is exactly right.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: And I'm sure I've seen people. I've seen ministers come to faith, I've seen deacons come to faith, and frequently I've discovered that it's a good place to hide from God, you know, because nobody, if you're up in this pulpit on the stage, no one presumes to have those conversations with you. And so a lot of people that rather than running into the bar or the nightclub, they run into the pulpit or the choir or Sunday school class thinking that they're safe. And so thank God for a man who would reach out that way.
Much of your ministry has been.
I don't want to limit it because you've reached a lot of people in prisons. You've reached a lot of people who are just invited to an event, but you've reached a lot of people in the church.
And every generation, as you look back for hundreds of years, there have been ministers, evangelists, who really have a gift for preaching the gospel to church members.
And I think of Bailey back in the 80s and the early 90s, he would come in and preach wheat and tares, and he would see a lot of people, you know, the tares were among the wheat.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: And he would just have that frank conversation with them and cause them to face something they've never faced before, that you really may not be ready. You know, have you seen. Have you been surprised at the people that have given their life to Christ under your ministry that. That everyone assumed was saved?
[00:23:15] Speaker B: We have seen pastors get saved. We've seen deacons, Sunday school teachers. A couple weeks ago, I was in another state speaking, and lady came up and goes, mark, I'm the oldest lady in this church. I said, how old are you? She goes, I'm 89, and I gave my life to Christ today.
And Satan wants people believing that they're on the right road.
And you told me this. I don't know if you remember it, many years ago. You said, mark, it's easy to get somebody saved. It's hard to get them lost.
And so almost every time I speak, at some point of my message, I'll ask this question.
How many people here today believe if you died today you'd go to hell?
Everybody believes they're going to heaven. Very few people have ever raised their hand. I mean, I talked to mass murderers.
You've murdered three people. Goes, yeah, but he's murdered 10 now. He's definitely going to hell. I'm only murdered. I'm like, what's the cutoff? I'm like, I don't know. But it's true.
And we see almost as many people on Sunday mornings get saved as we do on Saturday night with guys and ladies who never come to church.
Because Satan wants everybody on the wide road because it has a sign above it that says heaven. And everybody believes they're going to heaven.
And I've heard people say, it doesn't matter what you believe. Just be sincere.
And I go back to 9 11, when the terrorists flew the planes into the towers.
Their faith told them, kill infidels. They were sincere. They died for it, but they're in hell.
And I said, and so I use my engineering degree because I'm very visual when I'm talking to show who's on the wide road and who's going to hell and who's on the narrow road, which is very few people, which I can remember. When my dad told me that, it just blew my mind that most people were going to hell. How can that be? I passed 20 churches getting here today.
Just because you go to church doesn't mean you're going to heaven.
And Satan loves people going to church every Sunday. I'm okay. You're okay. You know, I throw some money in the offering plate. I've been baptized. I do these things. And it's not based on works. Because Ephesians 2:8 9 says, we're saved by grace, not by works. Because if I could be saved by works, I could brag about it. And why would Jesus have died if I could somehow earn it?
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Well. And the enemy doesn't care where you go to hell from.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: No.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: You know, it doesn't make any difference to him. From everything I can tell in scripture and observation, if you go to hell as a drunk passed out in the street somewhere, he's fine with that if you go to hell as a deacon and Sunday school teacher, as a preacher, it doesn't matter to him. If anything, he may get more mileage out of you in the church than he does in the world.
Because in the world, people know you're lost. You know you're lost in the church. There's a lot of things that could be confused and deceived there.
You know, in this day and time, probably I just turned 50.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: How old are you, Mark? 63.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: 63. So you'll remember this.
There was a day when the title evangelist was fairly common.
It was something that ministers prayed for and hoped that they would have that gift.
When I came to faith, our home church would have a spring revival, a fall revival, something like a Bible conference or a youth camp. In the summer, right after Christmas, they would do something, and all of those employed evangelists.
So in the spring or fall, we would bring in.
J. Strack was one they used often Kelly Green back in the day, Bailey, different ones in Southern Baptist World.
And somewhere along the way, my first nine years of ministry was in the evangelistic work.
And somewhere along the way we had our second kid. And I noticed that churches had stopped doing Sunday through Wednesday revivals. They were doing one days more and more.
And then it seemed to go from that to where very few churches are employing. And by employing, I mean like they're bringing them in because they don't have that gift in their congregation.
But very few churches are bringing in people with the title of evangelist.
And so the fact that you're staying extremely busy speaks highly and is encouraging to me as a pastor. But I wonder, theologically, what would you say to the church and what have you processed as far as that office goes, the calling to be an evangelist?
[00:27:42] Speaker B: I. As an evangelist, I don't ever assume that anybody is a Christian, because everybody believes they are. Most everybody does.
I always share the plan of salvation. I try to do it the clearest way possible.
And I think that's where maybe some churches are failing. Because some pastors talk over everybody's head when they're preaching.
Some people, they just assume that if they're in the church, they're saved.
I mean, when you see a Sunday school teacher get saved or a deacon, and they've attended the church their whole life, and they're like, I almost missed it.
And that's. Like I said, they're not intentionally. They actually think they're saved.
And I have a friend who tells me, mark, if you're a Christian, you know it. I said, no, if you're a true Christian, you know it. But most people believe they are. And I think as an evangelist. And that's why we produced a track called Mistaken Identity. And studies show that most people who are Christians or claim to be Christians never share their faith with anybody.
They just. They never have. And so we try to encourage them. So we've produced 350,000 of these. And I say, look, when you hand it to them, and you say, hey, we have some friends of ours whose dad was shot and killed. Can I share it with you? The shock factor itself almost would make them want to take it. But when you put it in their hand, you've just shared Christ with them. And that's all God asks us to do.
But so many people have never done that.
They've never heard of that before.
And I tell people this. It kind of shocks me. Sometimes I'll be talking to somebody and sharing Christ with them, and the person will look at me and go, well, I'm a pastor.
And I look at them and just for a second, I think, why aren't you sharing Christ with me?
I've never had a person share Christ with me outside of church. And I was in a prison a couple years ago, and I told a guy that, and I said, do I look like a Christian or why would somebody not walk up? Because most people don't share their faith. And so every time I go into the Limestone Correctional Facility, this guy walks up to me and goes, mark, I want to ask you a question. I said, what's that? He goes, if you were to die today, do you know where you'd spend eternity?
[00:29:43] Speaker A: I've had one person outside of a church context to walk up to me cold and just.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: Isn't that amazing?
[00:29:49] Speaker A: Yeah, one person. I haven't thought about that in quite some time. But I'll tell you this. When I came to Christ, so he comes up, I was in Decatur and I was at the mall, and I was a teenager just out gallivanting, doing whatever it was we were getting into.
And he was a few years older than me. I knew him from school. He came up and he shared his faith. And he just asked me very jovially, hey, are you ready for eternity? And had a conversation about Christ.
Of course, like you said, I presumed I was. I said, oh, yeah, man, I've made a decision, prayed the prayer, done all that stuff, and Jesus didn't mean anything to me.
At the time, I assumed I was in the South Bible Belt. I must be a Christian, must be a Christian. And in 94, which is probably two years after that event, I sincerely trusted Christ and was born again.
And I wanted to join the church where that young man went.
Yes, because he wasn't a minister.
He was just a college student that cared about souls and shared his faith. And I was able to be in church with him for a number of years.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Do you find when a person.
I've had people push back and say, well, it would confuse so many people if a person is a deacon and God's dealing with them about their eternity, and they'll say, well, you know, so many people would be confused. It just couldn't be God.
I'll never forget what a pastor told. One time I was preaching and this deacon came after the service. He said, man, I was really under conviction. I can't remember ever sincerely being born again. And I just don't know. I'm a deacon. Wouldn't that just mess the whole church up if I got saved? The pastor said, a brother, a friend, he said, you'll be a better deacon if you get saved. Yeah, all things being equal, deacons are saved, you know, a whole lot better. But you mentioned the track 350,000 you've printed.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Let me encourage you. Keep printing those tracts. I find tracts that God's still using, people coming to faith by tracts. But I'm going to tell you what I believe of this.
This episode will be shared by so many people. The way tracts used to be at each generation, like the printing press during the time of the Reformation was the new tech, and it was used by Protestant evangelicals as a missionary tool. Right.
Well, a few years after that, really right after the Great Awakening, tracts began to be printed at Mass.
And it was like you said, it takes, it consolidates it. It's easy to share.
And I'm convinced today that the main tech that we're seeing people share their faith through is by forwarding episodes of gospel centered podcasts like this. Can you imagine all the people who are going to get this, who's lost their father, the people who've tried to process forgiveness that are, you know, they're going to watch this, they're going to forward it to somebody that they know is going through that, and you've unpacked your story and you've shared Christ through this.
If somebody does that and they're forwarding this episode to someone who's struggling with unforgiveness, and unforgiveness can keep as many people from Christ as deep sin, that we would classically understand. It as, how did you get to the place that you could do what your mother did and not live a life of just anger against the man who shot your father?
[00:33:31] Speaker B: I.
Years later, when our story was coming out, Field and Stream interviewed us, and they said they were going to talk to the guy who killed my dad. And I said, before you do, I want to talk to him.
Because I was real young, there was a lot of different conspiracy theories going around, that they were drinking, my dad didn't have orange on, whatever. And so I called this guy up and said, hey, Charles, my name's Mark Witt. I don't know if you're the right guy or not, but my daddy was shot and killed the first time I hunted with him. He goes, mark, I'm the guy who killed your dad.
And I'm listening to myself talk to this guy. And I said, charles, I said, I want you to know I forgive you for killing my father. And at that moment, it was like I was above looking down, going, what on earth are you doing?
And only because of the grace of God could you do that. And I think that's part of the reason Dan's and my testimony is so impactful on a Friday, Saturday night, is because we got really bitter and angry with God and we stuck our finger up at him. And he can handle it. You know, people are like, well, how can you question God? I'm like, he's a big God.
He understands. He understands our hurt. And people can see two adult guys who are still hurting after all these years and still feel the pain, but realize that God does forgive. God doesn't make mistakes.
God is there.
He's the father to the fatherless.
And so as I travel, I ask kids, how many of you are growing up without a dad? Most of the guys in prisons didn't have a dad. I said, you guys are in the same boat as me. I said, I knew mine for 12 years. And I said, but God has been there every step of the way.
And I said, if you had a bad father, I apologize for that. But God's the perfect father.
And through our story, and I think people seeing the hurt that we have, and maybe they've been told it's wrong to question God.
It's okay to question God. He understands that, and he hears and he understands our anger and our bitterness.
And through me teaching, Sunday school and Dan teaching and us getting out and talking to people and sharing our story, it started a healing process that still continues to this day. Day, when we spoke at your church the other Night, you feel the pain.
You can see people who are crying while we're speaking because their wife's left them or their dad died when they were little. And God understands that. I mean, he watched his own son die on a cross, and he turned his back when he did that.
He loves every one of us that much that he sent Jesus to die for us.
He says, I'm the one way to heaven through me.
And so we get to share that good news every week with people.
And I know I'm going to see my daddy again one day. And that's the reason we do what we do.
I have an opportunity in April to go to Pakistan to speak. And our ministry is now becoming worldwide. We're getting invited to foreign countries.
They're translating the track into their languages.
And it's so amazing because there's nothing special about Dan and me. We're from a little town in Pennsylvania.
But God uses people. And one thing I learned when I went to Liberty University, Dr. Falwell always said, the best ability anybody can have is availability.
So I wake up in the morning and say, God, I'm available. And then I hang on for dear life because he'll take you places you never would have imagined.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Dr. Falwell is a good example.
He was in Jacksonville. There was a youth minister in a church that I was able to get to know fairly well as a minister, and he was the man who led Jerry Falwell to Christ.
So we preached a funeral together, and I was able to pick his brain about Falwell. And I said, tell me about him. I'm like, did you know early that he was going to be so influential? And he said, zach, he was influential as a lost person, and he stayed influential as a saved person. He said, one week we were looking out, and he was leading these what they would consider gangs back in the day.
And all the boys would follow behind Jerry, you know, and then when he came to Christ, he was just leading those same kids right into the church, you know, and youth group blew up because Jerry came to Jesus. You know, it's always exciting. You have to wonder.
I think this weekend we had 50, 60 people give their life to Christ under your ministry. Who knows where that will lead?
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: But it's generational.
It's powerful.
And I want to encourage pastors who are watching and laymen who are watching.
He gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be pastor teachers, some to be evangelists.
And that gift was never taken back.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: It wasn't.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: And so what we consider a missionary. What we consider somebody that's gifted in sharing their faith is what scripture calls an evangelist.
And some of those are going into the foreign field and planting churches. Some of those are being used in the home field from our perspective and doing as you guys are doing and going around the world.
And so I want to sincerely challenge my brothers in the ministry to consider if they are effectively using that gift. It's a gift not to Mark.
It's really not even a gift to the lost people. It's a gift to the church.
And so if God has given us a gift to strengthen our church and expand our reach, I've always said if Celine Dion came to Christ, I would let her sing a special.
And if Mark Witt is in my church, I'm going to let him preach.
We've tried to, in every church I've been a part of, recognize the gifts God has given us.
We've got a gentleman named Rich Turner. I don't know if you met Rich. He was there, so he heard your ministry. He's my Mark here in many ways, but he is gifted as a teacher.
So, you know, we just put Mark up there and let him go. And his class has exploded. Hundreds of people coming to hear Mark every week. And we work together on a commentary to produce a commentary of the minor prophets. Again, it's just saying, you know, we've got to recognize God gave us people like Rich and Mark to strengthen the church. And it's not going to hurt our ministry if we empower their ministry.
And so if that's the case, if somebody says, okay, I'm interested in bringing Mark and Dan or Mark into our church, whatever it might be.
What does that look like?
What would a partnership with your ministry look like?
[00:40:14] Speaker B: We're a very unique ministry. When a church asks us to speak, we don't charge a speaking fee.
We ask the travel costs be covered. And even that doesn't have to be. We have partners that have come alongside our ministry that donate and make all of our ministry possible.
I've never asked for a cent. When we hand out tracts, I'll hand out three or four thousand of these at an expo on a weekend, free of charge.
And it's the greatest thing in the world.
We love to.
When we travel, we love to spend evenings with the family or with the pastor. We don't have to be put up in hotels. It's so great. And when I travel, I'm a type aa, I think, is what Dan said. So I like to get into prisons. I Like to get into churches. I like to preach and teach and do a lot while I'm in town.
And so we love to do wild game dinners. A lot of people have never heard of that, where they cook all kinds of exotic meat and things like that. We do a lot of men's events. This weekend was a great fishing tournament.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: We had people in the event that have never been in our church before, but they had such a good experience.
Many of them were back today, others are going to be back. It was great for our congregation to connect with those guys. It was.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: And men are a little bit harder to get pulled out to do things like that. But once you get some that are fired up, it catches.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: And if a church or pastor has never done a wild game night or a hunting event for evangelism, you guys are pretty well equipped to give them a playbook that they can execute.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: We are.
Years ago, I was in Georgia at an expo handing out tracts, and this pastor came up to me and said, mark, I believe your ministry is the only way my brother will ever come to church and step foot in a church to hear a bunch of rednecks talk about hunting stories and things like that.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: And we will.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: We'll tell hunting stories, but we're going to share the gospel.
And so he calls me up and he said, I've never done one of these. Would you come over and meet with our denomination leaders and show us how to do one of these? And so I drove over to Americus, Georgia, and talked with, I don't know, 20 pastors.
And I explained the whole process of how it works. And I said, some churches, their first time don't do wow game. They'll do steak and potatoes or barbecue or fish or like you guys did. And it works the same way. And if you offer door prizes, guys will come out of the woodwork. I often recommend that they make it a family event because you have as many women and kids that hunt fish as you do men. But churches do it the way they want. But anyway.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: And we did a fishing tournament around ours. You did, And I golf, skeet shooting and fishing.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: And I had ladies come up at church this morning, said they'd love to do the skeet shoot next year. I said, well, I'm trying to get you that way.
A lot of churches have a lot more women's events than they do men. So the churches want just men. So I understand that.
But we walk them through what works really well, what doesn't work well, as far as door prizes, invitations, and it's usually better if you have multiple churches get involved, because it is a lot of work. And so the first one we did at this church in America, they were sold out, I think, at 6, 600 people. The guy was just blown away because it's a small county.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: Did you ticket the event?
[00:43:33] Speaker B: We recommend that you ticket the event because that way you can know how many people are coming, you know, because you make enough food and things like that.
And then some churches buy tables. And so a deacon or Sunday school teacher leader in the church will buy a table for 25 people and invite his friends, because we encourage them to make it an outreach thing, not just for the church, like you guys did this weekend. There was a lot of visitors there, people who weren't regular members who get to hear about Christ and also the church members. And so we encourage that.
And we're starting to get booked out into next year already for churches that want us to do that. And they're hosting it.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: I had a moment where I was overhearing a conversation between one of our laymen, Committed Christian, godly guy. But he was asked, just spur the moment. We were. We were talking about the event, and he said, oh, can we bring our wives to it? And he didn't miss a beat. And he said, nope.
And I thought, that's odd for our people because they're very inclusive. They want to get as many people in there as they can. But it also showed me that there's something going on in our men that really wanted something that they owned.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: And we have emphasized our ladies, they can win the world by themselves, but our men, we've not really facilitated a ministry there. And so it really was interesting to me just to see that confidence and that, nope, this is ours.
Don't bring the girls. Our ladies helped out tremendously to put the event together, but it really showed me they wanted something well.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: And men can let their guard down a little bit when their wives standing there.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: And when there's other women not there.
And so guys were very open. There was a lot of really good friendships made this weekend on a boat and out on a golf course and at a skeet shoot. And it was so nice to see that. Even at the awards banquet last night, where a father and son got the award, the boy had never shot a shotgun before.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: That was awesome.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: And he shot 12 or 13 skeet. And I'm like, man, what a way to get him started early. Absolutely. Spend time with your dad.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Tell us about maybe. I know you're still an avid hunter.
And what has been your favorite story to share from hunting?
[00:45:50] Speaker B: My favorite story to share from hunting would be my son Zachary was probably 8, 9 years old, and I took him youth hunting, turkey hunting, and I love turkey hunting.
And so we were on Redstone Arsenal turkey hunting, and he's sitting beside me and he's holding a shotgun, and I'm videotaping with a GoPro and walk in, two big gobblers. And I said, okay, Zach, shoot. And he goes, which one, Daddy? I said, either one. They're both long beards. Well, he shot and he missed, which is rare for him. And they flew up near, and then they land. And so I'm reaching over and I have one shell left, and I eject the shell and it comes back and hits him between the eyes. And it's kind of funny, but not really. And so anyways, I load the gun and I cock it again. And I'm holding, and I'm calling the turkeys. And I said, okay, shoot. And he's like, I'm not shooting, Daddy. I'm not shooting. I'm like, no, son, you're shooting. And he goes, no, I'm not. And when he shot, his shoulder hit the tree, and it scared him. And I pretty much yelled. I said, shoot. And so he pulls up and shoots. And when he shoots, he blows the head off of my decoy. It goes flying up in the air, and he gets the turkey, and I go running over. It was. It was the most exciting hunt I've ever been on. And I run over and he comes over and he takes the mask off and he's shaking. He's, daddy, thank you. Thank you for making me shoot. I said, son, I said, I think I got that all on. On video. And he goes, not audio, just video. I said, no, I think I got the audio, too. So you can hear it when you're. No, I'm not shooting. Shoot. I'm not shooting. And people are like, how'd you do that? And I'm holding a camera, holding a gun, trying to, you know, call him with my mouth. And it just.
And when that happened with Dan and me, with my dad, it lit a fire under us. We were hooked. I haven't been able to hook my son yet because there's too many different distractions with him, with the videos. And he's into bodybuilding now and things like that.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: He's really into bodybuilding.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: He is really into bodybuilding. And if I could take him hunting and he'd get something every time he'd like it. You know, it's not catching. It's called fishing. But he wants it every time.
And so he'll go with me. And we spend time in the tree stand together, talking.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Well, I can't remember what year it was. He was not where he is now, but he had grown a lot.
And he followed on social media somewhere and saw Zach Witt, and I'm like, wait a minute, that can't be that little skinny kid that I remember. And now I think he's competitive.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: He is. He works for a company that sells all this bodybuilding outfits and stuff. And he is very, very into it. And so is Cameron, my youngest daughter. She's into it.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: That's neat to see when your kids kind of find their niche, what they're gonna do. Cole. Cole's moved up to Nashville and he's pursuing the music and he's working for a campaign marketer up there. And that's his day job. And then he's got the music at night. So it's kind of neat to see him developing in that. And it's cool to see him close to home, back up around Alabama.
Are you still doing the engineering or you still have a day job?
[00:48:43] Speaker B: No, I retired in 2019 and I went into the ministry full time. So I'm a full time evangelist. And so I took an early out with the government, said I'd already worked 31 years and Dan just retired last month.
And so we're blessed that we have a retirement that can pay our bills and. And then when we travel, we have ministry partners who have come alongside of us.
And it's just. It's so great to see God work.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Following our father.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Followingourfather.com is our website.
[00:49:16] Speaker A: And you have a 501C3.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: We are. We are a nonprofit 501C3.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: So if someone wants to send a check, they're able to do that?
[00:49:23] Speaker B: They are.
[00:49:24] Speaker A: And get a deduction for that.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: They are. And our website has the ministry address. It has videos of where I speak, in prisons, where we share testimony, where I preach.
It has feedback from pastors around the United States who have heard us and recommend us, and school teachers and principals, things like that. It has our bio, it has a short dvd. I was interviewed on another podcast and it's on there. A copy of that podcast is on our website.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Well, I can say you're a friend. We've known each other for years. But I can also say from then to now, I've always found you to be an evangelist with integrity and I mean that not just financially, but integrity in the sense that you share the gospel with integrity. I've heard some renowned evangelists that never mention Jesus. And you can't do evangelism and not mention Jesus. And so you've always been faithful to do that. You've always given a.
An ethical altar call. It's not been the kind of thing where you try to get everybody to come forward and then bait and switch them. It's always been a real straightforward. They know what they're doing. I'm not. When you're gone, I don't have people come back and say, man, I feel like he pushed me into that or something. It's not pushy.
So it's been a. Just as a satisfied customer, so to speak, I would say to the people watching who maybe think, thinking about booking you for us. I used you at my last church. I've used you at this church. I've heard nothing but raving reviews from people who thoroughly enjoyed it, said it was the best they've ever heard of the gospel being presented. And these are people who know.
These are people who hear it every week.
So for what it's worth, if anybody's praying about this or considering it, they can reach out to me. They can certainly reach out to you through the website. Can they order the tracts and the booklets?
[00:51:19] Speaker B: They can. If you contact me through email following our fathermail.com or through our website, I'll mail these right out to you. We have the booklets and we love to mail them out. I have people ordering tracts every week.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: Well, we'll put a link to all that in the show notes. And I'll say this, none of this. You didn't know what we were going to talk about. You've not asked me to promote anything or anything like that. So I'm saying what I'm saying just because I think it's a good idea.
Churches, if you believe that the gift of evangelists is real, then they really should be supported in the way that missionaries are supported.
That means if you have, as we do, a missions budget, then to put evangelists in your missions budget and take some of the stress of coming up with the travel budget and all those things off of the evangelist so they can focus on what it is that God's called them to do. And we'll all benefit from that.
Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for serving our church locally and the big C church, and I hope you reach a lot more people for Christ.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: Well, thank you for your continued friendship and the advice you gave me years ago.
I love you, brother.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: I love you, man.
