Hamilton: God has called us to be ambassadors even in this dark moment
Alex McFarland Darkness is not an affirmative force. It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
Brad Brandon This is the, Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
Alex McFarland It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite, delivering people.
Brad Brandon Out of the bondage of mainstream media and the philosophies of this world.
Alex McFarland God has called you and me to be his ambassadors, even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment.
Brad Brandon And now, the Hamilton Corner.
Alex McFarland Well, Good evening.
American Family Radio Network features guest Brad Brannon on Hamilton Corner tonight
Alex McFarland here. Very, very honored to be sitting in on the Hamilton Corner for my colleague and friend, Abe Hamilton iii. Attorney, pastor, broadcaster. And, we've got a great show because there's a lot going on in the world. And we're going to talk about the, mayoral election in New York City coming up. but we're also going to talk about persecuted Christians and spreading the gospel. And, we've got a great guest that you'll meet in a moment. But do you Remember in Colossians 4:18, where Paul said, remember my chains? Some translations say, remember my bonds. The Apostle Paul was frequently arrested and spent, time in a cold Roman jail cell. And he wrote to the church at Colossae, and he said, among other things, remember my bonds. Do you know, we as a church are, encouraged to remember those around the world that don't have it as good as us. You know, even for all of the troubles and foibles here in America, I mean, we're pretty blessed. I was speaking at a church earlier this week, and one night during a, special, series of meetings we were having, the air conditioning went out and it was a little bit uncomfortable. It wasn't bad. But several people were just, you know, really upset that the air was out. And I said, you know, this really is a first world problem. we have a building, we have a roof over our head. And even on our toughest day in the usa, we, we have it pretty good. We really do. And there are bodies of believers around the world, Christians valiantly serving the dear Lord Jesus, but they're persecuted. And, while the air conditioning might go out or we might get, late for the buffet at the nice restaurant on Sunday afternoon, here in America, at least so far, standing, up for Jesus doesn't put our life at risk, as it does for a lot of Christians around the world. So there's a lot to be grateful for. And, you know, really I'm excited to talk about, the ministry across Nigeria. We've got a guest with us, Brad Brannan and Not only are we going to talk about, the plight of persecuted Christians in certain parts of the world, we're going to talk about, the growing threat of Sharia law around the world. We're going to talk about the mayor election in New York City. But Brad is the founder and the CEO of across Nigeria. And for over 20 years he was a pastor. And then, he's been for a decade on Drive Time Radio with, Salem Communications. We've done a lot with Salem. And Brad, I have to say I'm a little bit envious because he's been published on the Daily Wire, and media m outlets like that. And I've tried to land a few op Ed pieces on the Daily wire. But since 2018, he's been actively serving on the foreign mission fields around the world. And he'll tell us about that and much, much more. But, Brad Brannon, thanks for being with us tonight on the American Family Radio Network.
Brad Brandon Alex, it's an honor to be with you. Thank you so much for having me.
Brad Fulani has been ministering in northern Nigeria for 10 years
Alex McFarland Well, you know, you and I both, as Christians and ministers of the gospel, we comment on current events, and I want to hear a little bit of your background, how God brought you to where you are in your journey. Brad.
Brad Brandon Yeah, so I spent over 20 years starting churches and pastoring churches. Eventually, I was called out to Connecticut to take over a church for a pastor friend that was retiring. And, I thought, this is my inner. This is great. You know, it was a bigger church. I had a corner office, windows on all sides, and I've arrived. And, I guess God thought that I had gotten too comfortable and, decided to call me to a part of the world, where more Christians die in Northern Nigeria than anywhere else in the world, due to persecution. I never would have thought that that's where I would be ministering. But I had gotten really complacent. I gotten real stagnant in my relationship with the Lord. And I just prayed. And I remember praying pretty consistently for about six months. Like, God, if this is all there is, then I'm just going to go play golf on Sundays. this doesn't interest me. And I had lost interest in church and ministry. And it was through those prayers and me really pressing into God and seeking his will, that I ended up in Northern Nigeria. And that's where I am 10 years later. And we're, witnessing to Muslims in Northern Nigeria. We are helping the persecuted there. these are all in areas that are controlled by ISIS and Boko Haram. So they're extremely high risk and dangerous areas. But. Yeah.
Alex McFarland Wow. Brad, how does the gospel spread in an area like that, in that sort of a context where talking about Jesus, or gathering, you know, corporately for church could be just tragic and deadly? How does the gospel spread?
Brad Brandon Yeah, you know, that's a great point about churches that we have a lot of underground churches that we've started in northern Nigeria. And, underground churches look a lot different than church does here. we can't really meet, you know, on Sunday mornings at 10:30 in the same place, same time every week. So what we do is we take our churches and break them down into small groups of about, five or six people. And they meet on different days at different times throughout the week. And it alternates, so they can never become a target or an easy target, for groups like Boko Haram and isoa. so that's just one way that the underground church looks a lot different. But to answer your question, how does the gospel spread? I'll tell you. It is truly the living and walking in the spirit of God. And here's what I mean by that, is the Bible talks about that when we're filled with the spirit, we produce something. And what we produce is the Bible refers to it as fruit. And, I've often kind of wondered, like, why does the Bible call that fruit? What's the significance of that? And then one day it dawned on me. The reason why it's called fruit is because fruit is the reproductive organ of a plant. If you cut open an apple, what's inside it's seeds. And so the fruit of a plant is how the plant reproduces. And so as we produce the fruit of the spirit, and it's described as love, joy, peace, long suffering, we produce that, in the fruit of the spirit. And the point of it is, is not really to enrich our own lives, although it does do that as well. but it's also to reproduce faith in the lives of people around us. So wherever we go, that's kind of the tenet of across Nigeria, is that wherever we go, we are bearing the fruit of the spirit, so that other people see that fruit in us and they see Christ. They see the spirit of Christ in us, and they want that. They taste of the sweetness of that fruit. and they want it, they want it for themselves. And we're there then to answer those questions and say, well, here's what produces that fruit. It's Christ in us. it's the Holy Spirit filling us. and then we teach them how they can have the same thing. Now, we do that through different avenues. We start schools. One of the ways we do it is we start schools in Fulani Muslim communities, and we actually use the Bible to teach their children to read and write English.
Alex McFarland And if you can write English, yeah.
Brad Brandon They are, we develop good relationships with Fulani Muslims. We have great relationships with hundreds of Muslim communities throughout northern Nigeria. This is a place where 12 states in northern Nigeria have implemented Sharia law. This is a place where radical Islam is running, far and free. And, we go into those communities, into those dangerous areas where there's been a history of violence, and, we just develop good relationships with them. What we do is, and I'm sure you've heard the old adage, people don't care what you know until they know that you care. So what we do is go into those communities and we show them first and foremost, we care about you. We're not here to get anything from you. We're not here to put a notch in our belt. We care about you. So we'll often bring in water filtration systems. We had one Fulani community where the river behind their village, had run dry and their well had run dry. We went into that Fulani community, we drilled a new well, and we built tanks for their cattle, to get water from m. And then we also ran a line into their vil so they had free access to water. Otherwise, that village would have died had we not done that. And so, again, that's just another way that we go into a village and say, we care about you. Everything else aside, all the violence aside, doesn't matter if you've attacked Christian villages, if you killed Christians. We're here to show you that we care about you and that we love you. And, that causes us to be able to develop phenomenal relationships with these villages. And then we ask them, what about a school? Most Fulani children, in fact, 90% of Fulani children in northern Nigeria don't attend school. The literacy, the illiteracy rate, is about 95% among Fulani. So we go in there and say, how about we build a school here and teach your children not only reading, writing and arithmetic, but we also teach them to read and write English. And, we've been doing that for ten years. we have about eight schools operating, ah, in northern Nigeria. Everywhere that we planted a school and developed a school, the violence in those areas has Dropped measurably by about 60 to 70%.
Alex McFarland speaks with Brad Brandon of Across Nigeria
Alex McFarland now are you with your American passport free to come and go as you want? Can you enter whenever you want and leave whenever you want?
Brad Brandon Yeah, I have a residency in Nigeria. I'm there most of the year. I spend, probably about six or seven months in Nigeria out of the year. And then I come back during the rainy season to do things like this, Raise awareness and raise funds at churches and things like that. but, yeah, I have a residency and I live, in Abuja. I have a residence in Abuja and, operate out of the capital city.
Alex McFarland and I would imagine you're probably being watched and, the powers that be know who you are and what you're about though, correct?
Brad Brandon Yeah, I was just. I was just informed recently that the, Central Intelligence Agency of Nigeria would be the equivalent of the CIA. Was. I was on their watch list. and then also, I have several contracts out on my life by Boko Haram and isis, in Northern Nigeria. So they're watching. They know what we're doing. Our group often gets sent, and I often get sent videos, from Boko Haram. these videos are often, videos of executions, gruesome executions, those types of things. They'll send them to our team and, and they'll send them to me. And basically what they're doing is sending a message, trying to scare us, to stop doing what we're doing. But that's not going to deter us because we're protected and we're called by God. And that's the greatest calling we could ever have.
Alex McFarland you know, folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking with Brad Brandon, of Across Nigeria. And, Hey, give the website, if you would, Brad.
Brad Brandon Yeah, absolutely. It's across Nigeria.org is the website across Nigeria.org.
Alex McFarland and, you know, even though they're like, you get these videos to, I guess intimidate you or frighten you, I would imagine. And I know this feeling myself, though you walk in the peace of Christ and you know the Lord is with you, don't you?
Brad Brandon Yeah. There's no safer place than being in the center of God's will. I've often heard that said, and that's absolutely true. we've had some of our pastors killed over the years. We've had some people who work for us killed over the years. but we walk confident in the sovereignty of God. And, we know that there's no Safer place in the whole world than doing what God has called us to do.
Alex McFarland Amen. Amen. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about the spiritual condition of, yes, parts of the world, but America. And I'm going to ask Brad about what he sees and senses here in our own nation. This is Alex McFarland. This is the Hamilton Corner. We've got a brief break, we're going to continue, and we're going to talk about the mayor's election in New York City and Mamdani. So stay tuned. We've got a brief intermission and we'll be back with more on the Hamilton Corner.
Hamilton Corner: I'm concerned about the current young adult Christian fiction genre
I'm very concerned about the current young adult Christian fiction genre. I read or started reading over two dozen Christian YA novels. Many never mentioned Jesus and many had empty or confusing Christian allegories. How can we offer our children real hope when we are simply repackaging what the world offers? Let's look to our creator, God to help us write better stories. Find the full article. Read Unweek by me. Joy Lucius on the Standard.
Brad Brandon Shining light into the darkness. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
Alex McFarland Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here. We're going to resume our conversation with Brad Brandon of across Nigeria in just a moment.
Alex Carland to speak at Cedar Falls Bible Conference in Iowa in August
But I want to make people aware of some exciting things that I think you'll find of interest, as we do the program. I'm en route to the COVID to the Billy Graham Training center in western North Carolina. And that event, is sold out. But I ask you to please pray. We've got people coming from all over, really all over the Western hemisphere for two sessions on revival and spiritual awakening. And please keep me in prayer for that. But I'm going to be in August, August 2nd and 3rd, I'll be at the Cedar Falls Bible Conference in Iowa. And this has been going on for over 100 years, in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It's just really amazing how the city fathers, they made provision for there to be an annual summer Bible conference and revival. And I've been before, great folks like Erwin Lutzer and John MacArthur have spoken there. And I am profoundly honored to be speaking at the Cedar Falls Bible Conference. And so if you happen to be in that part of the world, come see us. I would love to meet you. I know we have a lot of AFA listeners up that way and of course our Christian camps are going on. Please be in prayer for that. But finally, August 21st, I know that's a Ways out. But in MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina, August 21, I've got Charlie Kirk coming, and he and I will be doing a night of truth for our nation. And the website for that, My own website, alexmcfarland.com conversations, part of this summer speaker series we're doing. We call it Conversations that Matter. We're talking about God and country revival in the land. And, Charlie Kirk is just one of the most compelling speakers you'll ever hear. He's a great brother in the Lord, and I would love to meet you the night that he and I are together in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Also, a great colleague in the Lord is Brad Brandon. just getting to know this gentleman. And, Brad, for one thing, thank you for being with us here on AFA or the American Family Radio Network, this evening. But more importantly, thank you for what you're doing for the Great Commission around the world, and especially in northern Nigeria.
Brad Brandon Well, thank you, Alex, for everything that you're doing, and I appreciate you having me on.
Alex McFarland You know, as I'm hearing you, and you're taking the Gospel into, just places where they desperately need to hear about the Lord Jesus. I kind of envious, really. I want to go with you. I love to see God do miraculous works. My wife and I have, done a fair amount in third world countries. Although in recent years, the Lord's had us in the continental US Quite a bit. But we've been on the most remote mission fields of the world before. And I kind of hearing what God is doing through your life, it makes me hunger to get back into those unreached areas like you're doing.
Brad Brandon Yeah, that's awesome. It's truly a ride. There's no doubt about that. It's an adventure. but we have fun doing it. And, we see, as you said, we see God working miraculously all the time. I feel like the darker the room, the less light it takes to illuminate it. And it is very dark in northern Nigeria. Just spiritually dark. And, it doesn't take much light at all to illuminate the whole place. So that's what we're trying to do.
Alex McFarland Well, amen.
The secret of America's greatness and prosperity has been the Christian gospel
And, you know, I want to talk a little bit about, I know this might sound a little bit subjective, but about how it feels. And let me cue this up. In Matthew 12:30, Jesus said, he who is not with me scatters. And in America, we were obviously founded on Christian principles. I, would say the secret of America's greatness And resilience and prosperity has been not only, the Christian gospel, but the biblical moral foundation, the Judeo Christian moral code. That's the Ten Commandments. And that's been, ignored, forgotten, in many places suppressed. folks here this summer, ah, I got a pastor who told me that, and I'm not going to say where this is, but, in a part of America, you just wouldn't believe, they're winning people to Christ. But some local Wiccans, don't like it. Witches. And this particular pastor, their dog, their pet, was brutally killed, cut in pieces. And just the blood and the body parts put all over this pastor's front porch just as, like an intimidation thing. And besides being, you know, that's animal cruelty in the worst degree. But to try to intimidate this pastor, and I would argue as the gospel presence in America has, in some places diminished, what rushes in to fill that vacuum is darkness and demonic activity.
Brad: I think America has become more secular as a country
Now, all of that. To ask you this question, Brad, when you're in America, do you sense a spiritual darkness or a heaviness, like in Nigeria or places outside of America where the gospel is not present?
Brad Brandon When I'm in Nigeria, there are places that are so spiritually oppressed, you can almost feel the physical weight of it on your body. Yeah, that's the only way I can describe it. And so whenever I come back to the States, it is like a weight lifted off my shoulders. you're exactly right when you said that our country was built on, at the very least, Judeo Christian values. But. But we are a Christian nation from birth. Yeah. I think we've become more secular. But from our inception, we were a Christian nation. And that really is the bond that has glued our culture, our government, our communities together. take for example, in France, they had a constitution, they had a revolution. they ensured the rights of people. But they've had so many revolutions and rebellions that they were starting to name them after months of the year. And eventually it all just fell apart. It's because they did not base their culture, their constitution, on those Judeo Christian values like we did. And here we are. I think that we've become more secular as a country, but we're still riding the wave of what the founding fathers did and many of those after our founding fathers did to uphold those Judeo Christian values. So when I come here, there are parts of the United States that I go to, and I can feel that spiritual oppression. But for the most part, you can still see the light here in, the United States. As I often say, our money still says in God we trust.
Alex McFarland Amen. Amen. Brad, you're going to love this quote. have you ever heard of the historian Will Durant? Does that name ring a bell?
Brad Brandon Yes, it does, yes.
Alex McFarland you know, he's one of my favorite writers. And, Will Durant worked on for 50 years, worked on a set of books called the History of Civilization. And actually my mentor in green graduate school, Norm Geisler, who is a well known apologist, he, knew Will Durant. And that's exciting in itself. But will Durant in 1975 was being interviewed and he was not a Christian at that point. But they say before he died he did become a believer. But Will Durant said of our Christian founding, he said, that America was founded on biblical principles. He said, but today we're living on the shadow of those principles. And he said with every generation, the shadow seems to be less and less. He said, my grandchildren will be living on the shadow of a shadow. He said, but where will America be when that shadow is gone? And Amy, that was in 1975.
Brad Brandon That's a great way to put it.
Alex McFarland Yeah. And folks, one of the things we can do, and that's part of why, we endeavor not only to win souls, proclaim the gospel, but to spread biblical worldview. We, want the Christian presence restored, lest it be lost. Because, Brad, I think you're right. It is the glue. Not only is the gospel the message of salvation for individuals, but it's the glue and really the gasoline in the tank that has been America's secret. agreed.
Brad Brandon Yeah, I totally agree. And what I see happening, and I'm not trying to be critical of the church here in the US but what I see happening largely is the church has fallen asleep at the wheel. We've allowed consumerism to creep into our churches. And now we look at churches the same way we do a restaurant. you know, if it has good reviews and it has what we like, we'll go to. It doesn't matter if God calls us there or not, as long as they have the right programs. And, and then if something happens that we don't like, just like in a restaurant, if the food's cold or the service is bad, then we're not going to go back there again. We'll go to the restaurant down the road. And so that's been the mentality of so many Christians here in the United States. And I always tell people that church here in the United States is a place you go. And in northern Nigeria, in our, underground churches and among persecuted communities, church is not a place you go to. It's a community that you live in, that you have to live in that community in order to survive. And there's an entirely different mentality when you're looking at church as a community that you live in, as opposed to just a place you visit once a week.
Alex McFarland Let me ask you this, and I'm with you. I'm not being critical of the American church. I really love the church. and it's been my joy to preach in every kind of church you can imagine. All over the country. 50 states, 2,000 churches. And, I kind of jokingly say, Brad, I've been to churches where they sleep in the pews. I've been to churches where they jump over the pews. I love it. It's very endearing.
Brad Brandon: Many people are not aware that salvation is supposed to transform today
But, I want to talk about soteriology, which is salvation. when we invite people to put their faith in Jesus, let's talk about the full measure of what we're asking them to do. Because would you agree it's not just pray a prayer and then decades from now, whenever I die, I'll go to heaven. I mean, that's part of it. Being saved is going to heaven when we leave this world. But talk to us, Brad. What is the fully orbed message of salvation?
Brad Brandon I think the fully, orbed message of salvation is not just changing your final destination, but transforming your life as it is right now. it is the filling of the Holy Spirit in every believer. And when the Holy Spirit fills you, you are an entirely transformed being. You have a power at your fingertips that you never had before. When Christ lives in you, you cannot continue to live the same way you lived before Christ was in you. So it's transforming who you are today and in the life that we live now. I think you're exactly right. So so often we look at salvation in the context of, oh, now I'm going to go to heaven. That's part of it. But if you look at the New Testament, that is not the focus of Paul's writings to the church, although he of course mentions those things, but almost mentions those things in passing. His focus is that salvation transformed you. Now, today, it changed your life in the present tense. And so all of those changes have a ripple effect in our life. And we then impact the culture and community around us instead of the culture impacting us. And that's what we see happening in the church day. Because I think for the very reason, I think there's two things. Either people are not being given the proper gospel and, or they're not aware that salvation is supposed to transform them today. And so what's happening is the culture is being allowed to creep into the church and the culture is shaping the church instead of the church shaping the culture.
Alex McFarland Yeah. And again, folks, I say this. I passionately love the church. I respect pastors, and I'm, I'm so grateful for the. They say there are 500,000 ordained ministers in the USA right now. And I know they're doing incredible work and loving people and visiting the sick and doing what we pastors do. And I, thank God for them. But here's the thing. I think we really need to be up front with our audience. And we're not merely saying, believe in Jesus, you'll go to heaven one day. But we're saying, look, become a disciple. Jesus is offering you, to become his disciple. That's the gospel, isn't is?
Brad Brandon Yeah. And that's why the disciples were told to go out and make disciples. It wasn't just go out and preach the gospel, although that's part of it. That's part of making disciples. But the important part of it is, now go out and teach people how to be followers of Jesus Christ. And he uses the phrase in the Bible as you go. It's a lifestyle. it's not a change of final destination. It's a change of lifestyle.
Alex McFarland And sometimes the journey of the disciple can be quite hard and painful. Right?
Brad Brandon Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that we're not accustomed to. We think we equate pain with bad. If there's pain, then it must be wrong. And that's not something we find in scripture at all. one example of that is when Paul said that he was, delivered a thorn in the flesh by Satan to buffet him. the Bible says. And it's interesting that the Bible says that he Forgive me.
Alex McFarland Hold that thought. Brad, forgive me. we've got a break. We're going to come back more. Brad Brandon, founder of Across Nigeria. This is the Hamilton Corner with Alex McFarland. Stay tuned after this break. More. We're also going to talk about New York City, so you'll want to hear that. Stay with us. We're back after this break.
Brad Brandon Thriving families, a powerful military and a strong economy are the three pillars needed to rebuild our country. Psalm, 11:3 asks if the foundations are Destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Alex McFarland In the video Three Steps to Rebuilding America, Walker Wildmon addresses that question.
Brad Brandon If our military is not serviced, so to speak, it's not going to be ready to perform and it ultimately becomes ineffective. Find three steps to rebuilding America and.
Alex McFarland Much more at stream.aca.net.
Brad Brandon The Hamilton Quarter podcast and one minute commentaries are available at AFR.
Brad Brandon says water opens up people to Jesus through Jesus
Back to the Hamilton corner on American Family Radio.
Alex McFarland Welcome back to the program. we're talking about that most important of all subjects, Jesus Christ and our relationship with him. And you know, let me say that, every Christian and every church is supposed to have a hand in the Great Commission and seeing that the name of Jesus is taken to the very ends of the earth. You know, the Bible says in Habakkuk that one day the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. But you and I, we have the privilege of participating in that day, coming, helping people find Jesus. And somebody that God is using in just incredible ways is Brad Brandon. He's the founder and the CEO of Across Nigeria. And Hey Brad, earlier in the show we were talking about how you all drilled wells. And I know from being in Zambia, Samaritan's Purse has dug so many wells in Zambia for villages. And when a village gets water, I mean that is so transformative and it really opens up people to the gospel. I remember my wife and I were in Zambia and there was a place where hundreds and hundreds had come to Christ and out of kind of animistic and folk religion and superstitions and a lot of stuff. But basically, one of the tribesmen, he said Samaritan's Purse came and they showed us agriculture, growing food, they dug wells, we've got water. He said, basically it didn't matter. Whatever they said, we were going to joyfully, gratefully follow them. And of course it was the message of Jesus. But, water, and it's so pictorial, physical water, opens up people to the water of life through Jesus very often, doesn't it?
Brad Brandon Yeah, yeah, it does. like I mentioned, we drilled wells and I know this. Spending so much time in the Sahara Desert, when your body is short on water and you're dehydrated, when you get that first drink of water, you can feel it flow into your body. if you had a drink for a while, some, water for a while, and that you see the same thing in those villages is the moment the water starts flowing, smiles and laughter come back and the kids Start playing and just life comes back into the village just by having a well that produces water. Yeah, it's amazing.
Brandon: Where is it more difficult to make disciples in a third world
Alex McFarland You know, in the previous segment we were talking about, you know, being a disciple as, as blessed or as rigorous as it might be. We're called to be Christ's disciples. I have a question for you. Do you think it's harder to make disciples in a prosperous first world country or a persecuted third world country? Where is it more difficult to make disciples?
Brad Brandon I'm so glad you asked that, because I often tell people here, it is so hard to be a Christian here in the United States. And it's so easy to be a Christian in Northern Nigeria. Now, most people are complex. You know, they're just, they're confused by that statement because they would think, oh, it should be easier to be a Christian here in the United States. Harder to be a Christian in Northern Nigeria. It's just the opposite. it is so easy to disciple. Particularly former Muslims who come out of Islam. There is something spiritually transformative that happens in their life. They have a zeal and a hunger for the things of God. And I think it's because their whole life they've been starved of spiritual truth. And now all of a sudden they are flooded with spiritual truth into their life. They can feel the changes, they can sense the changes in their spirit. Finally, something that they've been hungering for their whole life. They didn't know where to find it. They're being satisfied spiritually, after being starved their whole life. And I could sit and teach the Bible for five hours straight. And they would sit there the whole time. And then when it was done, they would say, so when does the next session start?
Alex McFarland Oh, I know.
Brad Brandon Yeah.
Alex McFarland We were leading a pastor's, conference in, in, South Africa. And we were in a very rural area. And I had taught for about three hours. And, it seemed to be a really good time to kind of wrap things up. And one of the men kind of leaned over and whispered, he said, some of these people have walked many miles. you have to keep teaching. And I joke. I said, I appreciate it, but I don't know anymore, you know, but we took a break. But, going to church for three hours, I mean, that's just half done, you know. I mean, these people like you say, they're so hungry for the word of God.
Brad Brandon Yeah. And that's what we see. And a lot of times what ends up happening is we disciple them. And in Northern Nigeria, it's controlled by Sharia law. And under Sharia law, there's a doctrine called arima sharif, which means honor killing. And what that means is that under the apostasy laws of Sharia law, if you're a Muslim and you convert to Christianity, your family can legally kill you themselves or they can hire somebody to kill you. That's a common occurrence. I know to some of your listeners that sounds like a foreign concept. How could that possibly be? It's a daily occurrence. In Northern Nigeria, we have an entire refugee facility, ah, devoted to extracting people out of those situations and saving their life. but the reason I'm sharing that is because so many of the disciples that the people that we're discipling, they say train us in ministry, train us in evangelism, train us in pastoring, because we want to go back to our communities, the very people who want to kill them, we want to go back there and reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have evangelists that are responding to our radio programs in Northern Nigeria. They will go out, and not every call that we get from our radio program is sincere. So sometimes they go out and they get ambushed. It's a pretty common occurrence. And, they'll take two weeks and heal up. And guess what they want to do? As soon as they're ready, they want to get back out there and start meeting with people who call in from the radio program. I mean, they have a zeal that is unmatched. I've never seen anything like it. Nothing stops them. And they are constantly hungering for more.
Alex McFarland with the time we have left, we're talking with Brad Brandon, and knowing, the Islamic culture in Sharia, I want to talk about that in America.
New York City is about to elect an Islamic Marxist, anti Semitic mayor
And folks, briefly, let me remind you of something that happened. September 11, 2001. The Trade Towers fell in New York City. A plane hit, the pentagon. actually, 24 hours after 9 11, I was in the rubble in New York City. I'm not going to tell that whole story, but I was up there for two weeks in the immediate aftermath of 9 11, and as everyone knows, nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died in those Trade Towers. Well, the worldview, the belief system that prompted the terrorists to hijack planes and kill American citizens on American soil, the worldview that, birthed 9 11, is Islam. Now, how ironic, and I would say very demoralizing, is that New York City, which has the 911 memorial, is about, unless there's divine intervention, they're about to elect an Islamic Marxist, anti Semitic mayor. Brad, there's a lot we could talk about on this, but, Zoran Mamdani, who has very radical beliefs, very anti American beliefs. Metro New York, by the way, folks, is the 13th largest economy in the world. I'm not talking New York State, Metro New York. I was doing some research. okay, with 2.6 trillion. A bigger economy than Canada, a bigger economy than France, a bigger economy than Britain, the 13th largest economy in the world. Metro New York might be in the hands of a Marxist, who says there should be no billionaires. And yet there are 103 billionaires in New York. Very anti Semitic, anti Israel. Why would. And New York City is one of the most, densely populated, communities of Jews in America, and yet they're about to elect a very anti Semitic mayor. Brad, what are your thoughts on all of this?
Brad Brandon In his own words, he was asked three times on msnbc, Meet the Press asked, three times to denounce the motto globalize the Infetada. And he, would not do it. Three times he refused to denounce globalize the Infata. I think a lot of people don't understand the implications of that. Infitada is the, is the installation of Islamic rule, and with that is the installation of Sharia law. Sharia, law is an assault on human rights. if you look at women, women have half the testimony that a man has under Sharia law. A, man can divorce his wife simply by saying the word divorce three times, and the imam will approve the divorce. So he has unilateral control to divorce his wife. A woman cannot divorce her husband or at least has to jump through many, many, many hoops. And it almost makes it impossible to do so. So with human rights imbalance under Sharia law is, is completely against women and children. If you look at it, 35 countries that have Sharia law, the human rights watch list, all 35 of those countries are on the human rights watch list at high risk level. And Sharia law makes up about half of the countries that are on the, countries of particular concern for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. So even they've acknowledged that this is an assault on human rights. So why in the world the left has this attraction, and not trying to get too political here, but the left has this attraction to, radical Islam and Hamas and all of these groups, and yet they are assaulting human rights constantly. The 10 beliefs assault human rights to the point where international organizations who are not bastions of conservatism or biblical thought are looking at this and saying there's a real problem here. even the Council of Europe, because of what's going on in Europe under Sharia law, ah, issued a report and they said, we are greatly concerned about the installation of Sharia, in Europe. And the Council of Europe is by no means a conservative council.
Alex McFarland Sure, sure. Well, I mean there's just so much to say. And by the way, the American left, is so quick to not stand up for America. I mean, there's, you know, the globalists that you know, I firmly believe many of the globalist left, they want America to dissolve and become a subset of the UN or something like that. But then there's also just those that maybe in some collegial spirit they won't stand up for America. They just feel like, oh, you know, we have to have diversity and all of these worldviews, in seats of leadership, teaching classes, there is something unique about America, uniquely wonderful about our constitutional Judeo Christian representative government. But, I just think the left and this mayor and Sharia in parts of America, Dearborn, Michigan, the minarets blaring out the call to prayer five times a day like in Newark, New Jersey. I've been there, I've heard it. It's just horrid. it's basically contributing to the eradication of the USA if we don't rein it back in. Would you agree?
Brad Brandon Yeah, I do. I think that Judeo Christian cultures are extremely tolerant and that's great. And I'm all for tolerance. we tolerate a lot in northern Nigeria to bring the gospel to the people who need it. But I think tolerance ends when human rights and human lives are at risk. When the rights of others are being trampled on. our tolerance should end. And I think of the perfect example of slavery in the uk, was almost single handedly taken down by William Wilberforce.
Alex McFarland Oh yes.
Brad Brandon If he was tolerant and tolerance was the way to go at all times and by all means, then he would have just tolerated slavery and went with the status quo. It was his intolerance that he said, we can't, we're done.
Alex McFarland Well, it's conviction. I'm sorry, we're almost out of time. Brad Brandon of Across Nigeria. Thank you folks. Thanks for listening. Pray for our nation. Pray for New York stable. Stand strong, Speak truth and God will use you. Thanks for listening.
Brad Brandon The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Hamilton: God has called us to be ambassadors even in this dark moment
Alex McFarland Darkness is not an affirmative force. It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
Brad Brandon This is the, Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
Alex McFarland It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite, delivering people.
Brad Brandon Out of the bondage of mainstream media and the philosophies of this world.
Alex McFarland God has called you and me to be his ambassadors, even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment.
Brad Brandon And now, the Hamilton Corner.
Alex McFarland Well, Good evening.
American Family Radio Network features guest Brad Brannon on Hamilton Corner tonight
Alex McFarland here. Very, very honored to be sitting in on the Hamilton Corner for my colleague and friend, Abe Hamilton iii. Attorney, pastor, broadcaster. And, we've got a great show because there's a lot going on in the world. And we're going to talk about the, mayoral election in New York City coming up. but we're also going to talk about persecuted Christians and spreading the gospel. And, we've got a great guest that you'll meet in a moment. But do you Remember in Colossians 4:18, where Paul said, remember my chains? Some translations say, remember my bonds. The Apostle Paul was frequently arrested and spent, time in a cold Roman jail cell. And he wrote to the church at Colossae, and he said, among other things, remember my bonds. Do you know, we as a church are, encouraged to remember those around the world that don't have it as good as us. You know, even for all of the troubles and foibles here in America, I mean, we're pretty blessed. I was speaking at a church earlier this week, and one night during a, special, series of meetings we were having, the air conditioning went out and it was a little bit uncomfortable. It wasn't bad. But several people were just, you know, really upset that the air was out. And I said, you know, this really is a first world problem. we have a building, we have a roof over our head. And even on our toughest day in the usa, we, we have it pretty good. We really do. And there are bodies of believers around the world, Christians valiantly serving the dear Lord Jesus, but they're persecuted. And, while the air conditioning might go out or we might get, late for the buffet at the nice restaurant on Sunday afternoon, here in America, at least so far, standing, up for Jesus doesn't put our life at risk, as it does for a lot of Christians around the world. So there's a lot to be grateful for. And, you know, really I'm excited to talk about, the ministry across Nigeria. We've got a guest with us, Brad Brannan and Not only are we going to talk about, the plight of persecuted Christians in certain parts of the world, we're going to talk about, the growing threat of Sharia law around the world. We're going to talk about the mayor election in New York City. But Brad is the founder and the CEO of across Nigeria. And for over 20 years he was a pastor. And then, he's been for a decade on Drive Time Radio with, Salem Communications. We've done a lot with Salem. And Brad, I have to say I'm a little bit envious because he's been published on the Daily Wire, and media m outlets like that. And I've tried to land a few op Ed pieces on the Daily wire. But since 2018, he's been actively serving on the foreign mission fields around the world. And he'll tell us about that and much, much more. But, Brad Brannon, thanks for being with us tonight on the American Family Radio Network.
Brad Brandon Alex, it's an honor to be with you. Thank you so much for having me.
Brad Fulani has been ministering in northern Nigeria for 10 years
Alex McFarland Well, you know, you and I both, as Christians and ministers of the gospel, we comment on current events, and I want to hear a little bit of your background, how God brought you to where you are in your journey. Brad.
Brad Brandon Yeah, so I spent over 20 years starting churches and pastoring churches. Eventually, I was called out to Connecticut to take over a church for a pastor friend that was retiring. And, I thought, this is my inner. This is great. You know, it was a bigger church. I had a corner office, windows on all sides, and I've arrived. And, I guess God thought that I had gotten too comfortable and, decided to call me to a part of the world, where more Christians die in Northern Nigeria than anywhere else in the world, due to persecution. I never would have thought that that's where I would be ministering. But I had gotten really complacent. I gotten real stagnant in my relationship with the Lord. And I just prayed. And I remember praying pretty consistently for about six months. Like, God, if this is all there is, then I'm just going to go play golf on Sundays. this doesn't interest me. And I had lost interest in church and ministry. And it was through those prayers and me really pressing into God and seeking his will, that I ended up in Northern Nigeria. And that's where I am 10 years later. And we're, witnessing to Muslims in Northern Nigeria. We are helping the persecuted there. these are all in areas that are controlled by ISIS and Boko Haram. So they're extremely high risk and dangerous areas. But. Yeah.
Alex McFarland Wow. Brad, how does the gospel spread in an area like that, in that sort of a context where talking about Jesus, or gathering, you know, corporately for church could be just tragic and deadly? How does the gospel spread?
Brad Brandon Yeah, you know, that's a great point about churches that we have a lot of underground churches that we've started in northern Nigeria. And, underground churches look a lot different than church does here. we can't really meet, you know, on Sunday mornings at 10:30 in the same place, same time every week. So what we do is we take our churches and break them down into small groups of about, five or six people. And they meet on different days at different times throughout the week. And it alternates, so they can never become a target or an easy target, for groups like Boko Haram and isoa. so that's just one way that the underground church looks a lot different. But to answer your question, how does the gospel spread? I'll tell you. It is truly the living and walking in the spirit of God. And here's what I mean by that, is the Bible talks about that when we're filled with the spirit, we produce something. And what we produce is the Bible refers to it as fruit. And, I've often kind of wondered, like, why does the Bible call that fruit? What's the significance of that? And then one day it dawned on me. The reason why it's called fruit is because fruit is the reproductive organ of a plant. If you cut open an apple, what's inside it's seeds. And so the fruit of a plant is how the plant reproduces. And so as we produce the fruit of the spirit, and it's described as love, joy, peace, long suffering, we produce that, in the fruit of the spirit. And the point of it is, is not really to enrich our own lives, although it does do that as well. but it's also to reproduce faith in the lives of people around us. So wherever we go, that's kind of the tenet of across Nigeria, is that wherever we go, we are bearing the fruit of the spirit, so that other people see that fruit in us and they see Christ. They see the spirit of Christ in us, and they want that. They taste of the sweetness of that fruit. and they want it, they want it for themselves. And we're there then to answer those questions and say, well, here's what produces that fruit. It's Christ in us. it's the Holy Spirit filling us. and then we teach them how they can have the same thing. Now, we do that through different avenues. We start schools. One of the ways we do it is we start schools in Fulani Muslim communities, and we actually use the Bible to teach their children to read and write English.
Alex McFarland And if you can write English, yeah.
Brad Brandon They are, we develop good relationships with Fulani Muslims. We have great relationships with hundreds of Muslim communities throughout northern Nigeria. This is a place where 12 states in northern Nigeria have implemented Sharia law. This is a place where radical Islam is running, far and free. And, we go into those communities, into those dangerous areas where there's been a history of violence, and, we just develop good relationships with them. What we do is, and I'm sure you've heard the old adage, people don't care what you know until they know that you care. So what we do is go into those communities and we show them first and foremost, we care about you. We're not here to get anything from you. We're not here to put a notch in our belt. We care about you. So we'll often bring in water filtration systems. We had one Fulani community where the river behind their village, had run dry and their well had run dry. We went into that Fulani community, we drilled a new well, and we built tanks for their cattle, to get water from m. And then we also ran a line into their vil so they had free access to water. Otherwise, that village would have died had we not done that. And so, again, that's just another way that we go into a village and say, we care about you. Everything else aside, all the violence aside, doesn't matter if you've attacked Christian villages, if you killed Christians. We're here to show you that we care about you and that we love you. And, that causes us to be able to develop phenomenal relationships with these villages. And then we ask them, what about a school? Most Fulani children, in fact, 90% of Fulani children in northern Nigeria don't attend school. The literacy, the illiteracy rate, is about 95% among Fulani. So we go in there and say, how about we build a school here and teach your children not only reading, writing and arithmetic, but we also teach them to read and write English. And, we've been doing that for ten years. we have about eight schools operating, ah, in northern Nigeria. Everywhere that we planted a school and developed a school, the violence in those areas has Dropped measurably by about 60 to 70%.
Alex McFarland speaks with Brad Brandon of Across Nigeria
Alex McFarland now are you with your American passport free to come and go as you want? Can you enter whenever you want and leave whenever you want?
Brad Brandon Yeah, I have a residency in Nigeria. I'm there most of the year. I spend, probably about six or seven months in Nigeria out of the year. And then I come back during the rainy season to do things like this, Raise awareness and raise funds at churches and things like that. but, yeah, I have a residency and I live, in Abuja. I have a residence in Abuja and, operate out of the capital city.
Alex McFarland and I would imagine you're probably being watched and, the powers that be know who you are and what you're about though, correct?
Brad Brandon Yeah, I was just. I was just informed recently that the, Central Intelligence Agency of Nigeria would be the equivalent of the CIA. Was. I was on their watch list. and then also, I have several contracts out on my life by Boko Haram and isis, in Northern Nigeria. So they're watching. They know what we're doing. Our group often gets sent, and I often get sent videos, from Boko Haram. these videos are often, videos of executions, gruesome executions, those types of things. They'll send them to our team and, and they'll send them to me. And basically what they're doing is sending a message, trying to scare us, to stop doing what we're doing. But that's not going to deter us because we're protected and we're called by God. And that's the greatest calling we could ever have.
Alex McFarland you know, folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking with Brad Brandon, of Across Nigeria. And, Hey, give the website, if you would, Brad.
Brad Brandon Yeah, absolutely. It's across Nigeria.org is the website across Nigeria.org.
Alex McFarland and, you know, even though they're like, you get these videos to, I guess intimidate you or frighten you, I would imagine. And I know this feeling myself, though you walk in the peace of Christ and you know the Lord is with you, don't you?
Brad Brandon Yeah. There's no safer place than being in the center of God's will. I've often heard that said, and that's absolutely true. we've had some of our pastors killed over the years. We've had some people who work for us killed over the years. but we walk confident in the sovereignty of God. And, we know that there's no Safer place in the whole world than doing what God has called us to do.
Alex McFarland Amen. Amen. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about the spiritual condition of, yes, parts of the world, but America. And I'm going to ask Brad about what he sees and senses here in our own nation. This is Alex McFarland. This is the Hamilton Corner. We've got a brief break, we're going to continue, and we're going to talk about the mayor's election in New York City and Mamdani. So stay tuned. We've got a brief intermission and we'll be back with more on the Hamilton Corner.
Hamilton Corner: I'm concerned about the current young adult Christian fiction genre
I'm very concerned about the current young adult Christian fiction genre. I read or started reading over two dozen Christian YA novels. Many never mentioned Jesus and many had empty or confusing Christian allegories. How can we offer our children real hope when we are simply repackaging what the world offers? Let's look to our creator, God to help us write better stories. Find the full article. Read Unweek by me. Joy Lucius on the Standard.
Brad Brandon Shining light into the darkness. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
Alex McFarland Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here. We're going to resume our conversation with Brad Brandon of across Nigeria in just a moment.
Alex Carland to speak at Cedar Falls Bible Conference in Iowa in August
But I want to make people aware of some exciting things that I think you'll find of interest, as we do the program. I'm en route to the COVID to the Billy Graham Training center in western North Carolina. And that event, is sold out. But I ask you to please pray. We've got people coming from all over, really all over the Western hemisphere for two sessions on revival and spiritual awakening. And please keep me in prayer for that. But I'm going to be in August, August 2nd and 3rd, I'll be at the Cedar Falls Bible Conference in Iowa. And this has been going on for over 100 years, in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It's just really amazing how the city fathers, they made provision for there to be an annual summer Bible conference and revival. And I've been before, great folks like Erwin Lutzer and John MacArthur have spoken there. And I am profoundly honored to be speaking at the Cedar Falls Bible Conference. And so if you happen to be in that part of the world, come see us. I would love to meet you. I know we have a lot of AFA listeners up that way and of course our Christian camps are going on. Please be in prayer for that. But finally, August 21st, I know that's a Ways out. But in MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina, August 21, I've got Charlie Kirk coming, and he and I will be doing a night of truth for our nation. And the website for that, My own website, alexmcfarland.com conversations, part of this summer speaker series we're doing. We call it Conversations that Matter. We're talking about God and country revival in the land. And, Charlie Kirk is just one of the most compelling speakers you'll ever hear. He's a great brother in the Lord, and I would love to meet you the night that he and I are together in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Also, a great colleague in the Lord is Brad Brandon. just getting to know this gentleman. And, Brad, for one thing, thank you for being with us here on AFA or the American Family Radio Network, this evening. But more importantly, thank you for what you're doing for the Great Commission around the world, and especially in northern Nigeria.
Brad Brandon Well, thank you, Alex, for everything that you're doing, and I appreciate you having me on.
Alex McFarland You know, as I'm hearing you, and you're taking the Gospel into, just places where they desperately need to hear about the Lord Jesus. I kind of envious, really. I want to go with you. I love to see God do miraculous works. My wife and I have, done a fair amount in third world countries. Although in recent years, the Lord's had us in the continental US Quite a bit. But we've been on the most remote mission fields of the world before. And I kind of hearing what God is doing through your life, it makes me hunger to get back into those unreached areas like you're doing.
Brad Brandon Yeah, that's awesome. It's truly a ride. There's no doubt about that. It's an adventure. but we have fun doing it. And, we see, as you said, we see God working miraculously all the time. I feel like the darker the room, the less light it takes to illuminate it. And it is very dark in northern Nigeria. Just spiritually dark. And, it doesn't take much light at all to illuminate the whole place. So that's what we're trying to do.
Alex McFarland Well, amen.
The secret of America's greatness and prosperity has been the Christian gospel
And, you know, I want to talk a little bit about, I know this might sound a little bit subjective, but about how it feels. And let me cue this up. In Matthew 12:30, Jesus said, he who is not with me scatters. And in America, we were obviously founded on Christian principles. I, would say the secret of America's greatness And resilience and prosperity has been not only, the Christian gospel, but the biblical moral foundation, the Judeo Christian moral code. That's the Ten Commandments. And that's been, ignored, forgotten, in many places suppressed. folks here this summer, ah, I got a pastor who told me that, and I'm not going to say where this is, but, in a part of America, you just wouldn't believe, they're winning people to Christ. But some local Wiccans, don't like it. Witches. And this particular pastor, their dog, their pet, was brutally killed, cut in pieces. And just the blood and the body parts put all over this pastor's front porch just as, like an intimidation thing. And besides being, you know, that's animal cruelty in the worst degree. But to try to intimidate this pastor, and I would argue as the gospel presence in America has, in some places diminished, what rushes in to fill that vacuum is darkness and demonic activity.
Brad: I think America has become more secular as a country
Now, all of that. To ask you this question, Brad, when you're in America, do you sense a spiritual darkness or a heaviness, like in Nigeria or places outside of America where the gospel is not present?
Brad Brandon When I'm in Nigeria, there are places that are so spiritually oppressed, you can almost feel the physical weight of it on your body. Yeah, that's the only way I can describe it. And so whenever I come back to the States, it is like a weight lifted off my shoulders. you're exactly right when you said that our country was built on, at the very least, Judeo Christian values. But. But we are a Christian nation from birth. Yeah. I think we've become more secular. But from our inception, we were a Christian nation. And that really is the bond that has glued our culture, our government, our communities together. take for example, in France, they had a constitution, they had a revolution. they ensured the rights of people. But they've had so many revolutions and rebellions that they were starting to name them after months of the year. And eventually it all just fell apart. It's because they did not base their culture, their constitution, on those Judeo Christian values like we did. And here we are. I think that we've become more secular as a country, but we're still riding the wave of what the founding fathers did and many of those after our founding fathers did to uphold those Judeo Christian values. So when I come here, there are parts of the United States that I go to, and I can feel that spiritual oppression. But for the most part, you can still see the light here in, the United States. As I often say, our money still says in God we trust.
Alex McFarland Amen. Amen. Brad, you're going to love this quote. have you ever heard of the historian Will Durant? Does that name ring a bell?
Brad Brandon Yes, it does, yes.
Alex McFarland you know, he's one of my favorite writers. And, Will Durant worked on for 50 years, worked on a set of books called the History of Civilization. And actually my mentor in green graduate school, Norm Geisler, who is a well known apologist, he, knew Will Durant. And that's exciting in itself. But will Durant in 1975 was being interviewed and he was not a Christian at that point. But they say before he died he did become a believer. But Will Durant said of our Christian founding, he said, that America was founded on biblical principles. He said, but today we're living on the shadow of those principles. And he said with every generation, the shadow seems to be less and less. He said, my grandchildren will be living on the shadow of a shadow. He said, but where will America be when that shadow is gone? And Amy, that was in 1975.
Brad Brandon That's a great way to put it.
Alex McFarland Yeah. And folks, one of the things we can do, and that's part of why, we endeavor not only to win souls, proclaim the gospel, but to spread biblical worldview. We, want the Christian presence restored, lest it be lost. Because, Brad, I think you're right. It is the glue. Not only is the gospel the message of salvation for individuals, but it's the glue and really the gasoline in the tank that has been America's secret. agreed.
Brad Brandon Yeah, I totally agree. And what I see happening, and I'm not trying to be critical of the church here in the US but what I see happening largely is the church has fallen asleep at the wheel. We've allowed consumerism to creep into our churches. And now we look at churches the same way we do a restaurant. you know, if it has good reviews and it has what we like, we'll go to. It doesn't matter if God calls us there or not, as long as they have the right programs. And, and then if something happens that we don't like, just like in a restaurant, if the food's cold or the service is bad, then we're not going to go back there again. We'll go to the restaurant down the road. And so that's been the mentality of so many Christians here in the United States. And I always tell people that church here in the United States is a place you go. And in northern Nigeria, in our, underground churches and among persecuted communities, church is not a place you go to. It's a community that you live in, that you have to live in that community in order to survive. And there's an entirely different mentality when you're looking at church as a community that you live in, as opposed to just a place you visit once a week.
Alex McFarland Let me ask you this, and I'm with you. I'm not being critical of the American church. I really love the church. and it's been my joy to preach in every kind of church you can imagine. All over the country. 50 states, 2,000 churches. And, I kind of jokingly say, Brad, I've been to churches where they sleep in the pews. I've been to churches where they jump over the pews. I love it. It's very endearing.
Brad Brandon: Many people are not aware that salvation is supposed to transform today
But, I want to talk about soteriology, which is salvation. when we invite people to put their faith in Jesus, let's talk about the full measure of what we're asking them to do. Because would you agree it's not just pray a prayer and then decades from now, whenever I die, I'll go to heaven. I mean, that's part of it. Being saved is going to heaven when we leave this world. But talk to us, Brad. What is the fully orbed message of salvation?
Brad Brandon I think the fully, orbed message of salvation is not just changing your final destination, but transforming your life as it is right now. it is the filling of the Holy Spirit in every believer. And when the Holy Spirit fills you, you are an entirely transformed being. You have a power at your fingertips that you never had before. When Christ lives in you, you cannot continue to live the same way you lived before Christ was in you. So it's transforming who you are today and in the life that we live now. I think you're exactly right. So so often we look at salvation in the context of, oh, now I'm going to go to heaven. That's part of it. But if you look at the New Testament, that is not the focus of Paul's writings to the church, although he of course mentions those things, but almost mentions those things in passing. His focus is that salvation transformed you. Now, today, it changed your life in the present tense. And so all of those changes have a ripple effect in our life. And we then impact the culture and community around us instead of the culture impacting us. And that's what we see happening in the church day. Because I think for the very reason, I think there's two things. Either people are not being given the proper gospel and, or they're not aware that salvation is supposed to transform them today. And so what's happening is the culture is being allowed to creep into the church and the culture is shaping the church instead of the church shaping the culture.
Alex McFarland Yeah. And again, folks, I say this. I passionately love the church. I respect pastors, and I'm, I'm so grateful for the. They say there are 500,000 ordained ministers in the USA right now. And I know they're doing incredible work and loving people and visiting the sick and doing what we pastors do. And I, thank God for them. But here's the thing. I think we really need to be up front with our audience. And we're not merely saying, believe in Jesus, you'll go to heaven one day. But we're saying, look, become a disciple. Jesus is offering you, to become his disciple. That's the gospel, isn't is?
Brad Brandon Yeah. And that's why the disciples were told to go out and make disciples. It wasn't just go out and preach the gospel, although that's part of it. That's part of making disciples. But the important part of it is, now go out and teach people how to be followers of Jesus Christ. And he uses the phrase in the Bible as you go. It's a lifestyle. it's not a change of final destination. It's a change of lifestyle.
Alex McFarland And sometimes the journey of the disciple can be quite hard and painful. Right?
Brad Brandon Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that we're not accustomed to. We think we equate pain with bad. If there's pain, then it must be wrong. And that's not something we find in scripture at all. one example of that is when Paul said that he was, delivered a thorn in the flesh by Satan to buffet him. the Bible says. And it's interesting that the Bible says that he Forgive me.
Alex McFarland Hold that thought. Brad, forgive me. we've got a break. We're going to come back more. Brad Brandon, founder of Across Nigeria. This is the Hamilton Corner with Alex McFarland. Stay tuned after this break. More. We're also going to talk about New York City, so you'll want to hear that. Stay with us. We're back after this break.
Brad Brandon Thriving families, a powerful military and a strong economy are the three pillars needed to rebuild our country. Psalm, 11:3 asks if the foundations are Destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Alex McFarland In the video Three Steps to Rebuilding America, Walker Wildmon addresses that question.
Brad Brandon If our military is not serviced, so to speak, it's not going to be ready to perform and it ultimately becomes ineffective. Find three steps to rebuilding America and.
Alex McFarland Much more at stream.aca.net.
Brad Brandon The Hamilton Quarter podcast and one minute commentaries are available at AFR.
Brad Brandon says water opens up people to Jesus through Jesus
Back to the Hamilton corner on American Family Radio.
Alex McFarland Welcome back to the program. we're talking about that most important of all subjects, Jesus Christ and our relationship with him. And you know, let me say that, every Christian and every church is supposed to have a hand in the Great Commission and seeing that the name of Jesus is taken to the very ends of the earth. You know, the Bible says in Habakkuk that one day the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. But you and I, we have the privilege of participating in that day, coming, helping people find Jesus. And somebody that God is using in just incredible ways is Brad Brandon. He's the founder and the CEO of Across Nigeria. And Hey Brad, earlier in the show we were talking about how you all drilled wells. And I know from being in Zambia, Samaritan's Purse has dug so many wells in Zambia for villages. And when a village gets water, I mean that is so transformative and it really opens up people to the gospel. I remember my wife and I were in Zambia and there was a place where hundreds and hundreds had come to Christ and out of kind of animistic and folk religion and superstitions and a lot of stuff. But basically, one of the tribesmen, he said Samaritan's Purse came and they showed us agriculture, growing food, they dug wells, we've got water. He said, basically it didn't matter. Whatever they said, we were going to joyfully, gratefully follow them. And of course it was the message of Jesus. But, water, and it's so pictorial, physical water, opens up people to the water of life through Jesus very often, doesn't it?
Brad Brandon Yeah, yeah, it does. like I mentioned, we drilled wells and I know this. Spending so much time in the Sahara Desert, when your body is short on water and you're dehydrated, when you get that first drink of water, you can feel it flow into your body. if you had a drink for a while, some, water for a while, and that you see the same thing in those villages is the moment the water starts flowing, smiles and laughter come back and the kids Start playing and just life comes back into the village just by having a well that produces water. Yeah, it's amazing.
Brandon: Where is it more difficult to make disciples in a third world
Alex McFarland You know, in the previous segment we were talking about, you know, being a disciple as, as blessed or as rigorous as it might be. We're called to be Christ's disciples. I have a question for you. Do you think it's harder to make disciples in a prosperous first world country or a persecuted third world country? Where is it more difficult to make disciples?
Brad Brandon I'm so glad you asked that, because I often tell people here, it is so hard to be a Christian here in the United States. And it's so easy to be a Christian in Northern Nigeria. Now, most people are complex. You know, they're just, they're confused by that statement because they would think, oh, it should be easier to be a Christian here in the United States. Harder to be a Christian in Northern Nigeria. It's just the opposite. it is so easy to disciple. Particularly former Muslims who come out of Islam. There is something spiritually transformative that happens in their life. They have a zeal and a hunger for the things of God. And I think it's because their whole life they've been starved of spiritual truth. And now all of a sudden they are flooded with spiritual truth into their life. They can feel the changes, they can sense the changes in their spirit. Finally, something that they've been hungering for their whole life. They didn't know where to find it. They're being satisfied spiritually, after being starved their whole life. And I could sit and teach the Bible for five hours straight. And they would sit there the whole time. And then when it was done, they would say, so when does the next session start?
Alex McFarland Oh, I know.
Brad Brandon Yeah.
Alex McFarland We were leading a pastor's, conference in, in, South Africa. And we were in a very rural area. And I had taught for about three hours. And, it seemed to be a really good time to kind of wrap things up. And one of the men kind of leaned over and whispered, he said, some of these people have walked many miles. you have to keep teaching. And I joke. I said, I appreciate it, but I don't know anymore, you know, but we took a break. But, going to church for three hours, I mean, that's just half done, you know. I mean, these people like you say, they're so hungry for the word of God.
Brad Brandon Yeah. And that's what we see. And a lot of times what ends up happening is we disciple them. And in Northern Nigeria, it's controlled by Sharia law. And under Sharia law, there's a doctrine called arima sharif, which means honor killing. And what that means is that under the apostasy laws of Sharia law, if you're a Muslim and you convert to Christianity, your family can legally kill you themselves or they can hire somebody to kill you. That's a common occurrence. I know to some of your listeners that sounds like a foreign concept. How could that possibly be? It's a daily occurrence. In Northern Nigeria, we have an entire refugee facility, ah, devoted to extracting people out of those situations and saving their life. but the reason I'm sharing that is because so many of the disciples that the people that we're discipling, they say train us in ministry, train us in evangelism, train us in pastoring, because we want to go back to our communities, the very people who want to kill them, we want to go back there and reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have evangelists that are responding to our radio programs in Northern Nigeria. They will go out, and not every call that we get from our radio program is sincere. So sometimes they go out and they get ambushed. It's a pretty common occurrence. And, they'll take two weeks and heal up. And guess what they want to do? As soon as they're ready, they want to get back out there and start meeting with people who call in from the radio program. I mean, they have a zeal that is unmatched. I've never seen anything like it. Nothing stops them. And they are constantly hungering for more.
Alex McFarland with the time we have left, we're talking with Brad Brandon, and knowing, the Islamic culture in Sharia, I want to talk about that in America.
New York City is about to elect an Islamic Marxist, anti Semitic mayor
And folks, briefly, let me remind you of something that happened. September 11, 2001. The Trade Towers fell in New York City. A plane hit, the pentagon. actually, 24 hours after 9 11, I was in the rubble in New York City. I'm not going to tell that whole story, but I was up there for two weeks in the immediate aftermath of 9 11, and as everyone knows, nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died in those Trade Towers. Well, the worldview, the belief system that prompted the terrorists to hijack planes and kill American citizens on American soil, the worldview that, birthed 9 11, is Islam. Now, how ironic, and I would say very demoralizing, is that New York City, which has the 911 memorial, is about, unless there's divine intervention, they're about to elect an Islamic Marxist, anti Semitic mayor. Brad, there's a lot we could talk about on this, but, Zoran Mamdani, who has very radical beliefs, very anti American beliefs. Metro New York, by the way, folks, is the 13th largest economy in the world. I'm not talking New York State, Metro New York. I was doing some research. okay, with 2.6 trillion. A bigger economy than Canada, a bigger economy than France, a bigger economy than Britain, the 13th largest economy in the world. Metro New York might be in the hands of a Marxist, who says there should be no billionaires. And yet there are 103 billionaires in New York. Very anti Semitic, anti Israel. Why would. And New York City is one of the most, densely populated, communities of Jews in America, and yet they're about to elect a very anti Semitic mayor. Brad, what are your thoughts on all of this?
Brad Brandon In his own words, he was asked three times on msnbc, Meet the Press asked, three times to denounce the motto globalize the Infetada. And he, would not do it. Three times he refused to denounce globalize the Infata. I think a lot of people don't understand the implications of that. Infitada is the, is the installation of Islamic rule, and with that is the installation of Sharia law. Sharia, law is an assault on human rights. if you look at women, women have half the testimony that a man has under Sharia law. A, man can divorce his wife simply by saying the word divorce three times, and the imam will approve the divorce. So he has unilateral control to divorce his wife. A woman cannot divorce her husband or at least has to jump through many, many, many hoops. And it almost makes it impossible to do so. So with human rights imbalance under Sharia law is, is completely against women and children. If you look at it, 35 countries that have Sharia law, the human rights watch list, all 35 of those countries are on the human rights watch list at high risk level. And Sharia law makes up about half of the countries that are on the, countries of particular concern for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. So even they've acknowledged that this is an assault on human rights. So why in the world the left has this attraction, and not trying to get too political here, but the left has this attraction to, radical Islam and Hamas and all of these groups, and yet they are assaulting human rights constantly. The 10 beliefs assault human rights to the point where international organizations who are not bastions of conservatism or biblical thought are looking at this and saying there's a real problem here. even the Council of Europe, because of what's going on in Europe under Sharia law, ah, issued a report and they said, we are greatly concerned about the installation of Sharia, in Europe. And the Council of Europe is by no means a conservative council.
Alex McFarland Sure, sure. Well, I mean there's just so much to say. And by the way, the American left, is so quick to not stand up for America. I mean, there's, you know, the globalists that you know, I firmly believe many of the globalist left, they want America to dissolve and become a subset of the UN or something like that. But then there's also just those that maybe in some collegial spirit they won't stand up for America. They just feel like, oh, you know, we have to have diversity and all of these worldviews, in seats of leadership, teaching classes, there is something unique about America, uniquely wonderful about our constitutional Judeo Christian representative government. But, I just think the left and this mayor and Sharia in parts of America, Dearborn, Michigan, the minarets blaring out the call to prayer five times a day like in Newark, New Jersey. I've been there, I've heard it. It's just horrid. it's basically contributing to the eradication of the USA if we don't rein it back in. Would you agree?
Brad Brandon Yeah, I do. I think that Judeo Christian cultures are extremely tolerant and that's great. And I'm all for tolerance. we tolerate a lot in northern Nigeria to bring the gospel to the people who need it. But I think tolerance ends when human rights and human lives are at risk. When the rights of others are being trampled on. our tolerance should end. And I think of the perfect example of slavery in the uk, was almost single handedly taken down by William Wilberforce.
Alex McFarland Oh yes.
Brad Brandon If he was tolerant and tolerance was the way to go at all times and by all means, then he would have just tolerated slavery and went with the status quo. It was his intolerance that he said, we can't, we're done.
Alex McFarland Well, it's conviction. I'm sorry, we're almost out of time. Brad Brandon of Across Nigeria. Thank you folks. Thanks for listening. Pray for our nation. Pray for New York stable. Stand strong, Speak truth and God will use you. Thanks for listening.
Brad Brandon The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Guest Host, Alex McFarland, is joined by Brad Brandon, Founder & CEO of Across Nigeria
https://www.acrossnigeria.org/
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