SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Faithful Warriors Podcast, where courage meets conviction. Each episode shines a light on the powerful testimonies of veterans, first responders, and godly men of faith who have walked through the fire and found strength in Christ. These are the stories of real life warriors on the battlefield and in life who share those journeys of struggle, redemption, purpose, and unwavering faith. Join us as we dive deep into the heart of what it means to be faithful in the fight and anchored in hope. And welcome to our next episode of uh Faithful Warrior Podcast. And man, I want to welcome old Soda Pop Shane. How you doing, brother? Man, I'm doing good. Doing good.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

How you been?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Man, blessed, blessed beyond all measures, man. I tell you, God's just been moving lately. And just things, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

You know how it is. Man, there's blessings every day, all around you, thousands of them. Just gotta watch for them. Man, I'll tell you what, it's been yes, this has been a great ride. I'm enjoying this. Like this is a this is a beautiful way to do it. I I love I love looking at life like this. I promise you that, brother. Promise you that, Kat.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

That's right, that's right. So, man, uh, you know, some of you some of you know old Soda Pop. He's he's got a social media following. Um, he does his uh Soda Pop sermons on there and uh he's got a ministry called uh Full Measure Ministries, man. And uh man, he's just doing a lot. God's really working in his life, man, and just moving in it, and uh, he's just reaching so many people. So, man, tell tell the tell the listeners, man, a little bit about Shane Swords, the the person that we call Noah as Soda Pop Shane.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Well, like you said, my name is Shane Swords. I live here in uh northwest Kansas in a little bitty town. My wife and I, sweetie Jamie, that's on here on my social media, and people follow her. Um we own a little convenience store, and um uh I started preaching, I guess, uh back in October, and I really started talking from the countertops. And I've I've been talking to people faithfully, but I had my come to Jesus meeting in August. And um I had a lady that reached out to my wife one day after I I preached to her quite a bit at the store. She actually stayed there and actually gave me a hug when she left and was crying, and she reached out to my wife and said that uh his countertop sermon really helped me today. And I had to like two other customers come in at the same time I was talking to her, and like I helped them and they stayed and listened. And it was the it was I was like, whoa, like somebody listened to me. That was cool, you know. And I got home and she had texted my wife and told my wife about it. And Jamie had said, Oh, yeah, you got your countertop sermons. I was like, Well, it was more of a soda pop. So that's how we got the name soda pop shame. And um, I started doing my soda pop sermons. And so as as it went along, I met a I met this group with you, I met you in and um Kingdom Connection, Shepherd's Light, you know. I met you and um this wonderful group that's helped me. And as I grew, I started putting them out, speaking them on advice from you, you know, as you we had talked before. I started I started speaking my sermons, and then I felt pulled that I want to start building a ministry. Because there's a lot of people out there in this world that are broken, man. There's a lot of people that are broken, you know that we've talked about it. There's a lot of people that walk into church smelling like alcohol, smelling like marijuana, that you know, reeking of BO, whatever. There's a lot of people get church hurt that way. And I'm trying to teach people that it's not about church hurt, it's not about it's about your relationship with God, not about your relationship with people that much. And I want them to have a relationship with the father as they do their own kids, like the relationship they want with their parents, their family. And I try to preach that to where people understand that a relationship is what's valued, and you have to spend time in that relationship. Don't you don't have to come clean, dirty, or cleaned up, right? You don't go take a shower before God don't tell you to get cleaned up before you come to Him. And I think there's a lot of people that need to be reached in those areas. And as you and I spoke, I I walk, if you listen to my sermons, I I've walked those areas, a lot of those areas in my life, and through alcoholism and drugs and things like that. Uh I think I can help some people with that story because there's one thing that pulled me out of that. That was God.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

And so I'm building full measure on that. And you know, I've got merchandise out there. I'm trying to build a brand, not a merchandise shop. Uh full measure. I've got shirts and hats, and I've got music out on all platforms. Um got a new I got a new release coming out the 30th of this month. So I'm trying to follow what God's pulling me to do, and it's you know, it's not about me. None of none of the light goes to me. It ain't about me. It's about God. About God. Amen. Yeah, so things are going great here, busy. You know, I'm trying to get to speak over at Fort Hayes State. I'm trying to work that out, and I'm trying to work out with a group over in uh Colby, Kansas to talk to them. So, and trying to get a local thing going here in town. So, not only we're moving on the social world, but I want to move in the real world too, right? Like outside of social media and the followings. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing, man. And I tell you, uh, just to jump on this just for a split second, but uh, you know, we we hear all the time about social media being a horrible platform, you know, it it's bad, but you know, we on this side of it get to see some of the good and of how we can reach so many different people around the world with the gospel. You're a prime example of that because on Sunday mornings, what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

I preach in Pakistan.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

You you say that one more time.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

So on Sunday mornings, I I have a group uh that I preach to in Pakistan of about 80 people, about 20 kids on Sunday mornings, and I've been preaching to them now for about eight weeks, I think, nine weeks, something like that. And it's actually going really great. There's some weeks where you have to put it off because of the heat over there, but it's it's wonderful to watch them grow. Uh, they've learned a song in English to sing to me on Sunday mornings, so it's kind of nice. Like it's like, you know, you you ever have that spot you just want to cry, but you're just like, I can't cry, but you want to cry, but then you end up crying anyway. Yeah, that's those spots. Yeah. So um full measures reached over there, and um the the people love me over there. And uh the pastor and I conversate back and forth quite a bit through text and uh talk, and I'm trying to reach other people. And uh I've I've reached a school in New Orleans, outside of New Orleans, there's a teacher and a bunch of classmates that follow me, and I get voicemails from them all the time, the little kids, and even when they get hurt on the playground and they want to call me and just tell me, Soda Pop, this hurt me today, you know, and they they just they'll go into a little story and I'll just tell them, okay. I'll send a little message back. Well, that's okay. You forgive them, now move on. That's in the past, don't live there. You know, and I give them a little message back. And man, these some of these kids are like young as two and three years old, yelling, love you, soda pop, love my big homie, because everybody that knows me and listens to me, I refer to our God as He's my G, He's my homie. And you know, before anybody says, Oh, that's disrespectful, I just want people to understand that that's the closest endearment I have to somebody because that means I'm not running. That means I'm standing beside you, thick or thin, become bullets, water, hot, fire, whatever. I'm standing beside you. And you don't you don't get closer than that.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

That's right. That's right. Yeah, man, it's amazing. It's just amazing to see God work and God move if you'll just allow him. Just allow him. I mean, you jumped on social media less than a year ago, and you're preaching around the world internationally now. It's it's absolutely amazing. So y'all check him out. It's underneath Soda Pop Chain, man. He's on uh on on Facebook and um on all that Instagram, Instagram, and YouTube, Jakey. We'll put the links in the um the show uh info for you. And y'all check him out and give him a follow up. Give him a follow for sure. Thank you. So, man, I tell you what, uh, we come on and and uh you know we started this a couple weeks, well, a while ago now, what time this one airs, and we've been talking about testimonies. And you know, testimonies have places and how they can reach people and people in the darkness and stuff. And you know, uh you and I have talked about this several times, and we we're just we're just nerds for history. Just nerd for history. Yes, I am.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

I am 100% nerd for history.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, nerd for history, man. And so then when when you're on fire for Jesus, man, and you start putting biblical history in there. It gets quite interesting. Oh my gosh. It gets quite interesting. And so um for this episode, uh, Shane and I talked about this, and we was like, let's let's think outside the box for a moment. Let's go. And we decided uh let's let's do some biblical history here, something very interesting. So um Shane's gonna bring something to us, man. He he he gave me a little bit of the taste of it, and I got to research a little bit. Oh, I can't wait. And man, I am so intrigued by this. So listen, if you need to run and use the bathroom real quick, you need to hit the pause button right now. You need to go get your your food or your drink because for the next about 30 minutes it's getting ready to get real good.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

So let's know what that's funny. You said that because I was gonna tell people better get your coffee, your sweet tea, your soda pop, whatever you need, because it's gonna take a minute, but you're gonna when this all comes around, I'm gonna blow your mind. So I want to I want to tell you a story about Baruch. Now, okay, the spelling is B-A-R-U-C-H, right? I believe that's how it's spelled. Man, I should have looked that up beforehand right now. But it is pronounced Baruch. Now, I pronounced it Baruch, Baruch, Baroch, Barucha. Like I said all kinds of names before I got started on this, and I had to look it up finally because I was pronouncing it all wrong. But I want to tell you about Baruch. Do you know who I'm talking about? You read about Baruch in the Bible? Most people skip it.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Or they see it and they just don't ever pay it no attention, right? But you're probably thinking like Baruch who? And I'm like, yeah, exactly. So I'm getting ready to blow your mind. Get ready. Everybody knows David, right? Everybody knows Moses, and everybody knows Noah, Daniel, Paul, Peter, all those guys. But Baruch? Let me tell you about dude. Huh? Who is Baruch? Baruch. Listen, most folks have read right past his name and never gave it another thought. They haven't. And I think it's a shame because if Hollywood ever really dug into this dude, they got a story. And I'd buy a ticket, y'all. I would. See, Baruch wasn't a preacher. He wasn't a king. He was a soldier. He wasn't a soldier. He wasn't he never killed a giant. He never parted a sea. He never called fire down from heaven, y'all. He didn't.

unknown 11:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Baruch was a writer. Bro, he would he wrote. That's all. He was a scribe. Now understand, don't let that fool you. A scribe was important. Being a scribe wasn't a little meaningful desk job back then. You weren't a secretary. Most people couldn't even read or write at this time. So if you wanted an official document, a contract or a family record or something like that, if the words of a prophet needed to be written down, you needed somebody like Baruch or Homie over there, right? Because he can write and read. He's educated, he's sharp, sharp-dressed man. He comes from a respected family. Historians, if you look it up and even believe his brother, and I will butcher this name, Sarah. It's S-E-R-A-I-A-H. Served under King Zebekai. Okay, now Baruch himself probably could have had a life under in a comfortable working environment in the government. He had connections and he had opportunities and he had a future. And then he met a guy named God brought to him by the name of Jeremiah. Ooh. Now let me tell you a little bit about Jeremiah, real quick. See, Jeremiah, poor old Jeremiah, if there was any preacher in this world that nobody wanted to listen to, nobody ever wanted to hear his words out of his mouth. It was our little preacher man, Jeremiah. Right? And matter of fact, preachers of today were graded by likes, followers, and invitations to things. Jeremiah would be at the bottom of that list, yo. The very bottom. Nobody liked his sermons, nobody wanted him around, and nobody invited him back after he showed up. Because he wasn't preaching what people wanted to hear, homie. Okay. Here's the truth. Let me paint you a picture. Judah was a mess right now, the land of Judah, right? It was a complete mess. It was like 590 BC. And in this time, somewhere around in this area, the people of the church, they still went to church, but they offered sacrifices and they still acted religious, and but their hearts were away from God, way far away from God, yo. Like, listen, they were they were worshiping God on Sunday, and they were worshiping idols during the week. Come on. Then they showed up at the temple like everything was okay and fine. Man, does that sound familiar to you?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Well, it sounds real familiar.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

See, the priests were corrupt, the politicians of the time were corrupt, and people cheated each other and ignored the poor. They lived however they wanted at the time, and it didn't matter to anybody. And at the time, every time God sent somebody to warn them, the people of the time just found somebody else to tell them what they wanted to hear. There were all kinds of prophets walking around in Jerusalem, y'all. There were all kinds of prophets walking around in Jerusalem saying, Oh, don't worry, right? God's never gonna let anything happen to Jerusalem. This is God's city. Man, this is this is a chosen people. Peace is coming. I can believe it. Everything's gonna be fine. Here come and then here comes old Jeremiah. Our old boy comes up here. Jeremiah, he says, Hey, look like he slept outside for weeks standing up saying, No, hold up, hold up. Babylon's coming, y'all. If we don't repent, this city's gonna fall. Like he's he's telling people this, right? Okay, so he tells them it's gonna fall. And if you had two prophets talking to you, one preaching, oh, everything's gonna be okay, right? Everything's gonna be right. And then one saying, if we don't change, judgment's coming, who you gonna listen to? Who are you gonna pick to listen to? Right? Not Jeremiah. Man, they laughed at him, they made fun of him, they called him crazy. They try they called him a traitor, they beat him. Dude, one time they one time they threw him in a cistern. This is no kidding. They threw him down a hole, a dry, muddy cistern. No food, no water. He was just left there to die. Just left there. Just thrown down a hole and left there. Only way he was looking up to God. Somehow he found his way out of that hole. I don't even know how he found his way out. I didn't go in that much into Jeremiah, but he found his way out, and he he probably he probably had a conversation with God about then saying, Lord, you sure you called the right guy?

unknown 15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

But Jeremiah never quit, y'all. This dude didn't quit. Neither did Baruch. Now here's where the story gets good, right? One day, Jeremiah, he was, he was told, Man, you can't go to the temple no more. You're not allowed back to the temple. Imagine that they banned him, y'all. They banned God's prophet from God's house. So Jeremiah could not go to the temple, but the message still had to go. So God told Jeremiah, he said, Hey, Jeremiah, write this down word for word. Right? And so Jeremiah's like, hey, I'm not a good writer, but my homie Baruch is, right? So he goes and grabs his cat Baruch and he says, Hey, I need you to write this down for me. Now picture, Jeremiah's walking back and forth, sometimes crying, sometimes his voice is raised real loud, and he's yelling and screaming, sweating, crying, praying, stopping to pray sometimes. And while Baruch sits there, he just keeps dipping that ink in his pen and just keeps writing. Yeah. Just keeps writing. Page after page, hour after hour. I don't know, and his story doesn't even know. Days, maybe months, we don't know. Every warning, every promise, every tear, every word God ever told Jeremiah, Baruch wrote it down. Word for word. And I wonder, I really do wonder this, if sometimes in the middle of all that writing, Baruch ever looked up and thought, I sure hope somebody listens. How familiar does that sound? And because he was sitting there just writing words, he was he was writing warnings, y'all. It wasn't just words, it was warnings. Warnings that could save a nation. Finally, the scroll was finished. Now here we're back to we're back, we're gonna jump back here. The scroll's done. They've got it all written, but Jeremiah still can't go to the temple, y'all. He can't. So guess what he has to do? He's got to send our old boy Baruch, right? So Baruch, all butterflies up in his stomach, scroll tucked underneath his arm. He walks in the temple gates, he stands in front of the crowd, right? And he's standing there, he takes a big old deep breath, and he unrolls this scroll and he starts reading. And I imagine at the time, if you know the history of the market at the time at the temple, right? Inside the temple, you bet you could have heard a pin drop because people, I bet people stopped talking. I bet they stopped walking around and shuffling, I bet they stopped what they were doing because this wasn't gossip. This wasn't politics, this wasn't somebody's opinion. This was the God, this was God's word, and some people listening knew it. That's the crazy thing, is this was serious. See back in the corner over here to the side, listening to Baruch read his scroll. There were some officials standing there listening to Baruch read, and they were like, Hey, did you hear what he just said? I heard what he said. Did you hear that too? Yeah, we better take this to the king, right? Uh uh. So here they go. They take it to the king. And now I can almost promise Baruch's standing there, and he's probably thinking, Well, maybe this is it. Maybe the king's gonna hear the warning finally. Maybe he's gonna be humble himself and he and say, God, I'm sorry. Maybe he'll call the nation to repent and everybody can change because that's what that's what he hoped for. That's what he prayed for, it's what he wanted. And the message wasn't written so you would feel guilty about it. The people wouldn't feel guilty. It was written so they would be changed. It was the message was written so God wasn't trying to destroy Judah, it was trying to save it, he was trying to save the land. God is always warned before he judges, right? He gives you a chance to turn around. That's the mercy of our Father, right? But those officials, anyway, anyway, so back to our story. Those officials, they take the scrolls and they take Jeremiah to the King King Jehokim's winter palace. Did I say that right? Jehochim. It's winter palace. Now, here, I found that interesting too. That's a tidbit the Bible gives you that most people don't pay attention to. They took it to the winter palace. You mean this king is not on a battlefield, he wasn't out there helping his people, he was up in a warm palace sitting beside a fire, get sitting all comfortable and fat and warm and chubby, right? While the nations around him was spiritually freezing to death. The souls were lost. So one official begins reading the scroll, right? The room gets quiet, and everybody's watching the king. And they're waiting to see what he does. Will he repent? Will he fall on his face and on the floor and say, God, forgive me? Will he call the people together and will revival break out? Like, what's gonna happen, right? A bunch of kids, like a bunch of little school kids standing around. And the official reads a few columns and the scroll starts to roll, and the king looks over, and he reaches over, and this is written down. He grabbed a scribe's knife. A scribe's knife, not a sharp thing, not a not a weapon. It's a little bitty tool to cut the parchment edges of the paper to make them sharp and to sharpen the quill to dip in. I did not know that. Did not but every scribe carried one, so his king reached over and grabbed his scribe's little quill, his little knife, and he cut the scrub. And he read it, and he looked at it, and he looked up, he waded up, he threw that in the fire. Nobody said a word. Officials kept reading, right? King's king listens, snip, and takes another section off right in the fire. Can you imagine sitting in a room watching months of work of Barack's faithful words disappear one piece at a time? Can you imagine that?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Man.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Can you imagine being the get the guy reading that going, man, do I stop? Do I keep going? What I'd be nervous and sweating, man. Listen.

unknown 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

But the Bible tells us, the Bible, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah. Does you you know what he's thinking in this moment? Because what hit my my head was real quick was I have been writing the words of God down, and this dude just balled it up and threw it in the fire. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

And like so, but the Bible tells us, right? Like the Bible tells us in in the book, it says they kept reading. And he kept cutting it off the scroll and throwing it in the fire until there was nothing left of the scrolls but ashes. And here's something. That amazes me, y'all. The Bible says something the king's own officials begged him not to burn that. The king's own officials begged him not to do it. Something told him it wasn't right. But Jehoiakim didn't care, man. He's like, I don't care. His heart had become so hard that he'd rather destroy God's message than let the message change him. And a lot of people still do that today, not by throwing their Bibles in the fireplaces, but by cutting the parts that they don't like out. Like I like it where I hear God loves me, right? I like it when God says he loves me. I don't want to hear about repentance. I like it when he tells me, don't I like it when he tells me you got I got I'll give you grace. Don't tell don't tell me about how to forgive, though. I like the idea of heaven, but I don't I don't want you to mention the word obedience to me. It's a different fire, but a same heart, right? Now imagine back in that day, Baruch's sitting there getting the news, right? Now, here, check this out. Somebody comes running up, imagine he's sitting there in the village just having his glass of wine, because they drank a lot of wine back then. And Baruch's sitting there and he hears Barook, Barook, they burned it, they burned it. And he's like, What? What are you talking about? He's like, they burned it, every bit of it. They burned it all. He imagine the feeling in his gut right then, those long nights, all those pages. Bro, every careful writing, every word of God, gone. Gone. See, that's for me, that's probably when I'd have sat down, you know, and I'd have had my hands in my head, and I said, What is the point? Why am I trying? Have you ever felt like that?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah, me too. Yeah. Me too. You know, you pour your heart into something, your like your marriage, your kids, your business, your ministry, and you give it everything you have. And you feel like somebody just throws it in the fire. That's where Baruch was at right then. That was his moment. But here it is, Dwayne. This is what I love about God. Listen. God wasn't playing up there pacing around in heaven like, man, oh man, they burned my word. Shoot, what am I gonna do? God wasn't surprised. Listen, nothing catches him off guard, right? The king turned up, the king burned the scroll, but he couldn't burn the truth. He burned the paper, but he couldn't burn God's voice. He couldn't silence it. He burned the ink, but he couldn't burn God's plan. Because then God speaks again to Jeremiah. And I love this. I really love this. He doesn't say, well, I guess we tried. He doesn't say we ruined it. They ruined it. Let's just go on. He simply says, Grab some more scroll. God told Jeremiah to grab some more scroll. Now imagine being Jeremiah walking over to Baruch, who was just told everything that he had spent writing, not speaking, writing. Right? And Baruch being in the position he's in, and he looks at Jeremiah, or he looks at Baruch and he says, Ready? Time to do it again. Now imagine Baruch was shaking his head and dip when he dipped that pen back in the ink and like, man, here we go. You know, here you go. I imagine that's what was happening. He's like, All right, let's go, God. Let's write this again. Now that right there should tell you that he was a man that never got discouraged. Neither one of them. Not Jeremiah, not Baruch. He didn't let somebody else's fire destroy him and put out God's calling. And here's the part that most people miss. That second scroll wasn't just a copy, homie. The Bible says God gave Jeremiah a rewrite of everything and added more words. You hear what I'm saying? The king that thought he was erasing God's message gave God a redo, not to subtract, but to multiply what he had already put on there. And that's just like our God, right? Every time the enemy thinks he's won, God rewrites another chapter of our life. Now the king wasn't laughing anymore, right? The king was mad. Now the king's mad because after the scroll was rewritten, God's warning still stood. We have to understand that at this time the warning was still real. Babylon was still coming, the clock was ticking, and there wasn't enough fire in that palace to stop the God, what God had already spoken into reality. Man. Now, like what like I said in the very beginning, if this was a movie, right, this would be awesome. Because you would think right there and then that would be where the credits would roll, right? The scrolls rewritten, the king's mad. No, homie. No, no, it's not stories. It's not that's not the end of it, it's not even close. See, Jeremiah, seeing Jehoki, how do you say Jehoke him? I can't ever say that name. But Jehokey, that's what we're gonna call him. King Jehoeche. He wasn't angry anymore. He wanted Jeremiah and he wanted Baruch. He wanted he ordered them arrested. And imagine that Baruch wasn't the preacher, he was just the writer. He was the he was he wasn't the one standing in the street shouting most of the time. He was just following, holding a pin. He was just writing it down. But that's how serious this was. And the king understood something most people don't. If you silence one written, the one writing the message, then maybe you can stop the message. If you stop someone from writing it down, maybe you can stop the message. So Jeremiah and Baruch, man, they disappeared. And I don't know if you found anything else, but I can tell you what the Bible simply just said. The Lord hid them. Now I now I went into a little imagination, and I think they they they don't I don't know where they stayed, but maybe it was somebody's house, maybe it was another village in the hills, moving from place to place. But I do know this. Wherever they were living, they lived every second waiting on the soldiers to kick in that door and come into wherever they were at. And imagine Barack lying there awake at night. I can imagine thinking, man, I could have had a comfortable life. I could have been sitting in a palace somewhere, could have had a nice wife and kids, but instead, I got into all this mess. And I'm hiding because I chose to stand beside a man who speaks for God. I chose this because I stood beside a man who spoke for God. Doing what's right doesn't always make it easier, right? Sometimes it makes it harder, but it I'd I'd rather have it, I'd rather have a God beside me in a cave than be empty in a palace without it. You know what I mean? So, anyways, time keeps marching on, right? Kings come and go, kings come and went, people still refuse to listen, and then one day the dust started rising on the horizon, and all of a sudden, those rumors, they weren't rumors no more, homie. Babylon was getting closer, and before you knew it, it was on Jerusalem's door. Nebuchadnezzar's army was right there on the doorsteps. Just like Jeremiah had been saying for years. Can you imagine sitting with Jeremiah and Baruch right then and watching them two look at each other, not saying a word, just both knowing that this didn't have to happen. This did not have to happen. The siege lasted for a long time. People and people got hungry, their families suffered, people fated. Finally, the walls broke through and Babylon poured into the city like a flood, y'all. They burned the houses, the gold was melted, they burnt that beautiful temple Solomon built to the ground and destroyed it. People screamed and families were separated, many were taken away to exile, and others, some never made it out. Everything Jeremiah had warned about that he had had Baruch right had came true. Every word. Not because God wanted to destroy his people, but because God they refused the chance God gave them to come home to redeem themselves with him. Can you imagine Baruch standing in the hillside looking at Jerusalem? I bet he wasn't crying because he was happy, thinking up there gloating like I told him, I told him. Yeah, I told him. He wasn't doing that. I bet he was up there like, man, we begged them, we warned them, we pleaded with our friends and family, but they laughed at us until there was nothing to laugh about now, you know? And I don't think Baruch cried because he was proven right. I I think he cried because he lost the people. The hearts of some someone he truly loves others. That's what they that's what Baruch had was the heart that of someone who truly loves others. And when he saw the people lost, it broke. Now here's the part of the story that most people have never heard. And this is the one that you're gonna dig, right? And you might have a few questions, you might have found a few more things than I did. So after all this, after the threats, after the hiding, after watching a nation collapse, Baruch finally hit the wall. He was exhausted emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And in Jeremiah chapter 45, God sends Jeremiah with a message, not to a king, not to a nation, but to Baruch. Isn't that something? Out of everybody in Judah, God stepped stops to encourage one little tired scribe. Baruch had been carrying more than the scrolls, y'all. He'd been carrying the grief of the country. Disappointment that nobody heard his word, fear, heartbreak. He had watched everything he knew fall apart. And he finally said, Man, I'm worn out. I have no rest. Have you ever been there? I have. That's a scary spot, right? And it's you're not angry, you're not quitting, you're just tired. You're so tired you don't even know how to explain it. And God didn't scold him, he didn't say try harder. God knew exactly what Baruch was. And he said, Son, don't seek great things for yourself. But I will preserve your life wherever you go. And those words are gonna mean a lot. In other words, in my words, Baruch's basically saying, Man, you ain't gonna be famous. You will never be celebrated, but I see you. And I'm gonna take care of you. Now Hitler, something gives me chills. This this gives me chills. The man whose words the king tried to burn are remembered, but the king, right? The king, most folks could tell, couldn't tell you anything about him. There's not much written about him, but Baruch, his name's still being spoken, yo. It still is, and it's great. It gets even better every time they find more things. Because see, about 2,600 years later, after this story took place, about 2,600 years later, in the same area, archaeologists came across the little small lump of hardened clay. Now, to most people, this would have looked like a normal piece of dirt just sitting there, right? But it wasn't. They cleaned it off because they noticed the inscriptions on it. And then that little stamp on that little piece of clay, it read, belonging to Baruch, son of Neri, the scribe. Now, scholars are will point out, and they're careful and quick to point out, this was not an archaeological dig site, right? It wasn't roped off, it wasn't quarantined. Some dude found this kind of like the dead scree scrolls, you know, just threw a rock at it. Well, he picked up a rock and he saw the writing. And that's what it says. And so there's some that say that, well, it it may not be the same because they had a lot of the same names back then. That was crazy. They all had the same names. There was a lot of the same names. It's weird. But maybe they didn't know that many names. I don't know. But whether it was his seal or not, one thing's for certain for sure, right? One thing's for certain. The Bible preserved this man's name long before anyone ever found that little piece of clay.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Now think about the irony in this. King Jehochim tried to erase Barak's work with fire. He thought the ashes would be the end of the story, and instead, God rewrote it. He preserved his word, and thousands of years later, thousands of years later, people still all over the world are still reading Barak's word. Baruch's word. The king's fire burned out, but God's word never died. And I thought a lot about Baruch Dwayne. I did when I was writing this and putting this story together. This cat never stood in front of crowds like Jeremiah. He never wore a crown, he never led an army. This cat never had people chanting his name. He just kept showing up, man, and he kept dipping that pen into the ink, kept writing, keep serving. And he kept believing his God, even when nobody seemed to listen, right? And maybe that's why I love this story so much. Is because the world celebrates the people standing on the stage. God also sees the faithful people behind the scenes. The ones nobody applauds, the ones who quietly keep doing what he's called them to do. And just maybe, may and just maybe, that's where some of the greatest stories are written, if you think about it. Not by people chasing the attention, but by the people who simply refuse to put down the pen. Isn't that something? A man who almost nobody remembers helped preserve the words that have changed millions of lives. I'd call that a life well lived. Man, chew on that one.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Yes. Man, that's pretty amazing to find a piece of that scroll 2700 years later. After all that.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

And it was the crazy thing, it was off to the side of an archaeological dig in front of the city that had been sacked and burned at one time. And I guess that, you know, through the heating of the clay, that makes it a stone. And that's what was inscripted on the stone. There's a picture of it. I I wish I'd have brought that picture. It was really cool. But I looked it up. There was a little picture of the inscription of how it was written. And I thought that was pretty neat what it said.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

You know, the fact that it just said that this is the seal of um exactly how I I love how it said. Let's go right back up here to where it said it exactly. Golly, I can't see in this dark. Anyway, it's the seal of uh Baruch, the son of I can't say the names right, so I I but described. I read that and and I just that to me amazes me. Like God told him he's gonna preserve his word.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

And there's just a lot of characters like that in the Bible, I think, that are fascinating. That if you do a little research, you can find out some interesting things. Yeah, and I thought it was cool that it was found here recently, too.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

So yeah, and it's gonna last longer ago. And you think about it. This is a person that that wrote down God's words. And we know that they're there by by the Bible, the empires have come and gone. Jerusalem fell, Babylon disappeared, yet 2600 years later, a fingerprint pressed into clay. A fingerprint pressed in the clay, 2600 years old. Come on, and you're talking about whether are are we living a legacy of faithfulness to the next generation? Because he was very faithful to the end, giving up.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Yeah, he he had every reason to be discouraged. Like, think about it.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

And a lot of people just overlook him, you know. A lot of people just look past his little short mention, you know, and a lot of people don't dig into why Jeremiah was so uh not liked when he spoke. Yeah. And it's kind of it's kind of fun to dig into him a little bit. And of course, I, you know, I have not been raised in the church. You know that we've had that conversation. I've I found the church a while back, and um, I've been faithful to it, and I'm growing in my walk daily. And so I read this from a total different aspect. So when I dig into it, I dig into the historical side and the biblical side, and yeah, you it's kind of like taking two kids' stories, you know, you can put them together and pretty much get the truth out of there, you know, but by the facts. So I think that's pretty cool. I think it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Very much so, very much so, man.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

And I tell you Thank you for trying to help me show my nerdy side, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

No, I don't mind at all. I've shown a little bit of mine too, because man, right, when you sent that to me, I was like, yes, this is the one. This is the one. So, but I look forward to many more of these too, though. Very much more to it. But uh man, just if you take anything away from this, just the faithfulness, just be faithful. And God always comes. You might not know what storm we're gonna be going through and why. It's not for us to know, it's just for us to have faith that He's got us and He promises us that. So that's awesome, man. I appreciate that very much. So I tell you, uh, man, uh we have some questions that we ask every guest. So I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask them for you. Come on with it. I like questions.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

So the first one I'll be as real as real as I can be. My favorite Bible verse is Isaiah 6.8. For I heard a voice of the Lord saying, Who shall I send? Send me. I think that voice means a lot to that verse means a lot to me because um I believe the Lord gave me a voice to speak. I believe my best way of speaking is free-range speaking. Uh, what I call free range speaking. Just start talking. You know, and um a lot of times it comes to me naturally, and I think he gave me that voice to use for him, and for 40 some years I didn't use it that way. And I plan on doing it every day from here on out.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Yeah, I like that verse too, man. I like that verse too. All right, so the next one. So this podcast podcast is called the Faithful Warrior Podcast, and you know, faithful warrior can mean a lot of different things. So, what does being a faithful warrior to you mean?

SPEAKER_01 41:10

I think being a faithful warrior means being real. It doesn't matter if you're man, girl, what color you are, that don't matter. You need to be real. 100% real with yourself, real with the people around you. You know, you can speak with can your compassion and caring, but still speak truth. And it's not to tear them apart, it's to build them up. And I think we have to, I think that's what I think you have to be a faithful warrior, you have to be real, you have to stay in your faith daily, you have to pray, you have to humble yourself and die to yourself. You have to understand this ain't about you. Everything you've got is a gift from God, and when you understand everything you got is a gift from God, I promise you you will take that gift and run with it, and you will enjoy the pleasures he gives you with it throughout that world. But understand he can take that away at any time, so be obedient. Follow his word. I mean, I I think that's what it means to be a faithful warrior. Follow his word even when it hurts you, when you lose family members, like when a daughter stops talking to you. You know, stay faithful to your word to his word. Because the fire will come and burdens will come. Yeah. I think you have to be staying strong in your faith. Yeah. That's it, brother.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

That's good. That's good. I love it. All right, so you know, and and here we we are 100% authentic, and uh you know, we're here to help people. And for for somebody who's out there battling right now, who's battling in the darkness, battling that worthiness of who they are and what and what they're doing in life, who's just just struggling right now. Just the the blue-collar worker out there just struggling right now, who's questioning. What do you say to him right now to give him some hope?

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Well, you do it with me. Do this, go like this. Lean into your mic. Yeah. Go. That's the best blessing you get all day, right there. You get to breathe. Somebody didn't. Why are you wasting it worrying and concerned about things you can't change? Do something with the chat your what you've got in front of you and start changing it. He gives you the tools to work with. Do the work. Put in the work, bust your knuckles. He will he will provide the way, but you've got to do the work and don't give up. The minute you let doubt creep in, the minute you let a negative thought come in your head, fill it with God. Kick it out and fill it with God. Because the minute that thought takes over your body, you're done. You lost that fight. You'll have to start over. Fight again. So don't quit. Don't stop fighting and breathe. Because that's the best blessing you got. Is you've got another second. As long as there is breath in your lungs, you have another second of redemption. So start. That's all I can tell you.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Good deal. I love it, man. I love it. Great words. Great words right there. So man, I tell you, I appreciate you coming on the show again. Man, it was great time. Man, time flew by before I knew it. And uh man, I tell you, if you like if y'all like this one, we're gonna have more, man. I've just been sitting here, my mind's been going the whole time, going, yeah, we're gonna do some more of the good stuff, man. So I just like that little nerdy stuff with it too.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

So but I'm all about it, brother. Anything I can do to help too. And man, like, listen, thank you so much. Thank you. What a blessing it is to have you as a part of my life. I want to thank you for the opportunity to share my nerdiness and my love for storytelling. I hope I did it justice. I hope you enjoyed the way it was told. Um, try to give you a little bit of history and a little bit of life in there too, mixed in with it, so you can understand it. They lived it. What I want people to understand, Dwayne, is they live the same lives we live today. And it's friends like you and friends like the group that we have, and the other friends I have in this world and around me here in this town that help me through my life daily. And somebody out there depends upon you just like you depend upon them. They they depend upon that daily interaction or that phone call or that wave or that hey, funny meme, or whatever they're called. I call them memes for a long time. Jamie made fun of me. I finally figured out why. But um, you know, the simple fact of it is is we have to go out and live this life. Like it's our last, homie. Like every every second. Like start repenting. Like if you screwed up, okay. Start over. What I'm breathing. I still got a chance. Like, listen, when I wake up in the morning, I pray to God, I thank him. I got a chance, I got another chance today. Thank him for the breath in my lungs every morning. I honestly do. I lay there and thank him. And then I get up and go get my stay started. Man, there ain't nothing better than starting your day positive. Start with the word, stay in it. Jam it in the morning, get ready, stay positive. And the ones that are struggling right now, man, don't confuse your destination with your location. That's right. I promise you. Like, you know, a lot of people have to understand that life's hard. It gets man, we get worn out, we get tired. Sometimes we put these videos out, you think to yourself, I I mean, I've told you this personally. I've sometimes I wonder if people even hear it hear it all the way through. And it comes to disheartening sometimes when you think people don't listen, or you can track that they don't listen all the way through.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

But the thing is, is I'm still here. I'm still showing up every day because God gave me a breath. That is the best blessing you got. If you're having a bad day, breathe. If you're having a bad day, breathe. If you're having a really bad day, stop trying to stop breathing and find out how bad it can really get. Like listen, take the blessing and breathe. Take a minute to breathe in his name. Calm your spirit, calm your heart, calm your mind. Breathe his name in for a minute. Realize what a gift you have, and I'm watching forward. Yeah, you failed, get back up. Man, if if I if I stayed down, I'd have been down a long time ago, homie. I'd have been down a long time ago. My G's got something planned for me, you know. I honestly believe that. I honestly believe that. Like I I honestly believe that if I if there wasn't a plan for me, I wouldn't have survived things I had. I wouldn't have lived what I had, neither would you. That's right.

unknown 48:07

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Man, just think about it. When you lay down at night, think you're gonna know you got a blessing right before bed. I got a blessing. Off you go. See? Gotta see them all. Gotta see them all. Man. Man, thank you though, and I love you very much. And I I love what you're doing here. And I nothing but support for you 100% and Shepherd's Light and the journey coming up. Um, I guess, you know, just keep doing what you're doing, man. You're touching hearts, you're changing people. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if it wasn't for you. Man. Like I wouldn't be where I'm at. That's honest. Like for you and Toby and a few of the guys from the group, like if y'all didn't push me to start recording it and putting it out here, I'd probably never got this stuff and done this.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

I just thought about it. And that's where I failed. See? Gotta pick yourself up.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

That's right. God's got you. God's got you. So yes, sir. Man, as we close, remember this. Being a faithful warrior is not about being the strongest person in the room. It's not about having it all together. It's about remaining faithful to Jesus no matter what battle you face. If you're walking through a difficult season today, don't quit. Keep trusting. Keep praying. Keep moving forward. God is not finished with your story. Until next time, stay faithful. Keep your eyes on Christ. And remember the battle is real, but so is the God who walks with you through it. We'll see you on the next episode of the Faithful Warriors Podcast.