Keep Believing is an Internet repository of biblical truth
>> Ed Vitagliano: Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano. And, welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues. Ed Vitagliano sitting in for Ray Pritchard. Today and tomorrow, I'm joined in studio by Fred Jackson. And Dr. Ray Pritchard is remote from some pretty warm place in Florida, regardless of, what he said earlier. Hey, Ray, tell our listeners little bit about, your ministry, Keep Believing.
>> Ray Pritchard: Thank you, Ed. Want to invite our listeners to surf on over to Keep Believing dot com, because, there we have an Internet repository of, biblical truth, of audio, of video of printed sermons. most of my books are available online for free. Can just download the PDFs, FAQs. We do a lot of preaching, a lot of traveling. I do a lot of work with Word of Life, teaching the next generation. But it all, I think, comes from what's there on our website. So, folks, surf on over to keep believing.com and, if you can find anything useful, just take my name off and put your name on and let's get it done. For the glory of God.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Amen. Thank you, Ray. Appreciate that.
Steve Jordal is an Internet repository of biblical knowledge
All right, Steve Paisley Jordal joins us, by the way, before the break, Steve, I called you Dr. Steve Jordal.
>> Steve Jordahl: Doctor. Yeah, thank you. It's an honorary degree, I'm assuming from Learning University.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes, There you go. Well, welcome to the program.
>> Steve Jordahl: Thank you. Good to be here. after Ray was introducing his ministry, I was just hearing Beach Boys music in my head the whole time. Surfing over here.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Surf on over. Now, listen, it's been a long time since I've heard the words Internet repository of biblical knowledge. that's about as erudite as you can get. Ray, Internet.
>> Ray Pritchard: M. I do not even understand the.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Word aerodynamic repository, on the Internet.
>> Ray Pritchard: I'm not even sure what a repository is.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I think. I think it's right. listen, every once in a while, you can throw big words into a conversation. It doesn't matter if you're smart or not. It just makes you sound like it.
>> Ray Pritchard: That's right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: But you, you are smart. You are one of the smartest guys I know.
>> Steve Jordahl: Actual doctor.
>> Ed Vitagliano: An actual doctor.
>> Steve Jordahl: An actual doctor.
>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, Steve, what you got?
Ray: Iran is the site of the fastest growing church in the world
>> Steve Jordahl: All right, I'd like to start with what's going on in Iran right now. And, there's a lot of political stuff going on. the United States has, started putting restrictions. They've started picking out people who they say are leading this insurrection or that are threatening the protesters. And they've been Putting, different kinds of, sanctions on these people. But I wanted to talk a little bit about what's, the church in Iran, because it is known as the fastest growing church in the world. I talked yesterday with Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs, and this is a little bit of what we had to say. This is, cut 12.
>> Todd Nettleton: Iran is the site of the fastest growing church in the world. Yes, the church is involved in this. Not in the sense that they have stirred up this unrest. What they're thinking and seeing is Islam doesn't work. We've been doing it the Muslim way and it hasn't worked. Look, we've got thousands of people who are angry, marching in the streets. I know there are Christians who are using this opportunity to say there is hope. Let me introduce you to him. His name is Jesus Christ. It is a pivotal moment in the history of Iran, and I pray that the Lord will bring good. I also pray that he protect our Christian brothers and sisters.
>> Steve Jordahl: There's an older generation in Iran that probably remembers the government under the Shah.
>> Todd Nettleton: The idea of a return to that style of government in Iran, or in the Middle east more broadly, is pretty earth shattering.
>> Steve Jordahl: Earth shattering is a good idea. Can you imagine, if you took Iran's influence off of the Middle East? They have tentacles everywhere. And, the church, would be allowed, if they were allowed to openly worship and everything. It would just be a game changer.
>> Ed Vitagliano: It would. And, it's interesting, I think, about the United States this way sometimes too, is that the United States in terms of culture is hugely impactful and influential around the world, and not for. Not really in a good way. Okay. In terms of the kinds of content that gets, quote unquote, shipped overseas, but those do open channels. And, and if you change, and if you're able to change the content from something that's harmful, talking not just pornography, I'm just talking about a lot of the ideology kind of inherent in Hollywood to something godly. Those channels can remain open and you can impact those same kinds of people. So to your point, Steve's excellent point, Iran has been a purveyor of, terrorism.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yes.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And radical Islam. And if it were to become open and not controlled by the mullahs and, allowing Christianity or even becoming a Christianity dominated country, then some of those same channels into other countries might be sending something totally different into those communities. Very interesting idea.
>> Steve Jordahl: It is, I know that, Todd and I talk a lot about the persecution around the world. And, the 1040 window is one which is. That's a geographic 10 by 40 longitude latitude. It's basically a rectangle that covers North Africa and all of the Mideastern,
>> Ed Vitagliano: Countries, Middle Eastern countries, on into, India.
>> Steve Jordahl: And, that basically it's the Muslim world, or at least it was back in the day when they coined the phrase the 1040 window. And it has been, huge in terms of persecution. And, there's a lot of changes going on right now which just could, game changers, as he said.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Ray, let me just pitch this to you. this is a very interesting. Listen. Five years ago, 10 years ago, when I first started to hear about Christianity growing, not just in Iran, but in other Muslim countries in the Middle East. I mean, we're talking about, testimonies by former Muslims, about seeing Jesus in dreams or, you know, these kinds of, kind of m. Almost miraculous ways of them getting the gospel. I have no way of validating those stories, or treating them as anything other than anecdotes. But from what the experts say, and by experts, I mean the people who study the progress of Christianity for the purpose of, targeting civilizations and countries and cultures with the Gospel, from a missionary standpoint, it does seem like something almost biblical is going on in Iran and some places in the Middle East.
>> Ray Pritchard: Okay, Bible students, what's the biblical name for modern day Iran? You know the answer? Persia. It's Persia. Right. And who came from Persia? Well, how about the Magi? the wise men? How did they know to come from Persia all the way to Jerusalem? Because I think their story was told to them by Daniel. Way back way. What would that be, 2500 years ago? I guess what I'm saying is there's a significant part of the biblical story that takes place in and around ancient Persia, modern day Iran. And wouldn't it be something. Wouldn't it be amazing, Ed, if, we saw the greatest move of the Holy spirit in the 21st century? If it didn't start in the US and didn't start in Brazil and didn't start in China, what if it started in one of the most Muslim countries on the face of the earth? What if it started in modern day Iran? I think it could happen. To say it another way, ed, you're 100% right. God's up to something. He's up to something big. And I've been hearing for years that the fastest growing church in the world is in Iran. And I myself have heard a number of the stories like you've Heard about the dreams and the visions, and I confess, given my own, I suppose my own, not just my background, but my own personality, tends to be a little skeptical about those things. But I've been to Africa. I heard those stories. I heard those stories, in a very personal way, when we were in India. Hindu converts coming out of deep allegiance to Hinduism, coming into faith, coming to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no doubt that many, if not most, of those stories are entirely true, that God used what we would call today supernatural means to open the eyes of the heart so that people steeped in religious tradition, in some cases just out and out idolatry, opened the eyes of their heart so that they saw their sin and saw the cross of Christ, ran to the cross, embraced him. Why should it surprise us that God uses supernatural means? Because, Ed, there's nothing more supernatural than a spiritually dead person coming to life through faith in Jesus Christ.
Fred: I have seen videos complaining that young people in Iran are turning to Christianity
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, let me just. One other thing, and then, Fred, pitch it to you. We'll get a last comment on this, and then Steve can move on. But I have now that we're talking about this, I have seen a couple of videos probably over the last ten years of, Muslim clerics complaining about the fact that in Iran the young people are turning to Jesus. It was kind of like an emergency session, and they were saying, we're losing these young people to Christianity. Might have been another country as well, but I do remember that. So apparently this is on the radar, at least of these individuals. and so we may have to get to heaven before we find out exactly what's going on. But this is kind of encouraging if it's, in any way true. Fred.
>> Fred Jackson: Well, guys, imagine, for a moment right now, there are people in Iran listening to us.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.
>> Fred Jackson: You know, there are a lot of problems with today's technology, but it's allowing things that we could not have dreamed of many years ago. I've had, the opportunity to travel with an organization called Trans World Radio, through the years in parts of Eastern Europe and other places. And, I've been in upstairs bedrooms where there are studios, and they are beaming the gospel in the language of the countries that are picking this up. just amazing. I had the opportunity to go to Cuba, back several years ago with transworld, and, we'd have to walk through the woods to a little church that was getting the gospel message from an island in the Caribbean so many miles away. So I love radio.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right.
>> Fred Jackson: I'm glad God called me into radio. But, it's exciting to just think about at this moment that God can use radio, whether it's American family radio or the gospel message coming through. I've heard the stories too, of people dreaming. In fact, on this program several years ago we had a missionary couple who served in that area of the world. And we asked them about these dreams and they said, yes, you're absolutely right. They are getting direct testimony from people. So God is on the move. And as Ray says, wouldn't it be fascinating, you know, the book of Esther, that part of the world, how you know, for such a time as this, maybe we're in one of those times.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Amen. Yeah. All right, Steve, good story. I like that.
>> Steve Jordahl: Thank you.
The NCAA wants to stop prediction markets from offering trades on college sports
the NCAA is asking a federal regulatory body. Yesterday, they asked them to stop prediction markets from offering trades on college sports until more safeguards are in place.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Explain what prediction markets are for.
>> Steve Jordahl: Our prediction markets are a way to bet on real world events. Yes. No. events. And it could be on anything. Will Congress pass? spending bill? Yes. No. And the number of people who believe one way or the other is the way they set the odds. And you can bet on. Yes. And if it passes, you may win.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And you can almost literally bet on anything.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah. And there's these things called prop bets that you can make up. And these are things like will LeBron James score three point shot before he scores a two point shot? I mean you can make it up basically. And there's ways that they calculate the odds. But gambling has not been good to college sports. In fact, there right now we're hearing about college players. More than 20, college, players, 20 men have been charged in a point shaving scandal involving 39 college basketball players on 17 Division 1 NCAA team. So where gambling is crime and crookedness, follows. So they're asking, NCAA is saying let's suspend if we can, let's suspend betting on college games. Because it's, it's we're finding people are shaving points. one of the prop bets is how many will so and so get more than 20 points. Well, if he knows he's wants to shade on one side of that proposition of the other, he can take himself out of the game early and his point production will stop and he'll be under.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I remember. And then I'm going to toss this to Ray, see what he thinks about this. I remember a video, I don't know, a month or two ago. I have no idea whether this was related to betting, but this just goes to show you how much this has wormed its way into the way people think it was. And I don't even remember it was an NFL game or a college game, but a football player was running down the sidelines. It looks like he was going to make it into the end zone and then he ran out of bounds. Now, it could have had something to do with some other kind of tactic, but I remember all the comments underneath were, oh, is this, you know, is he trying to keep a score under a certain, number so that he can cash in or his friends can cash in? It does, Ray, gambling does poison things. I remember writing a, an article probably 15, 18 years ago, talking about casinos because it was big around the country, where casinos would set up in states where they had never been before. The legislature said, oh, yeah, we're going to use, tax revenue from gambling, to help education. Okay, that same old line that we get on a bunch of different kinds of topics. But I remember the research I did showed that when a casino moves in, you get all these ancillary negatives that come in. Organized crime, drugs, prostitution, all people, people losing their houses, all that kind of thing. so this really is kind of a poison that seems to corrupt whatever it touches.
>> Ray Pritchard: Well, look, we've got the, NC Double A, the football, football championship coming up on Monday night. How many millions of dollars going to be bet on Indiana vs. Miami? And as you said, Steve, it's not just who's the winner, but who's going to score first, right? What the scores. You can bet on what the score is going to be in the first quarter, what it's going to be. Half, third quarter you can bet on, you know, you can bet on the temperature at half on the temperature, right? Okay, think about these two words. March Madness. You know, you have these office pools and people put in a dollar or five dollars and you know who's going to go through and make it to the final Four. I mean, that in March. That's a multibillion dollar business. But understand, what Ed said is true, friends. Gambling is dangerous because it is both addictive and it is exhilarating. It's so much fun to win. Sometimes the more you start losing, you start throwing good money after bad, right? And you can lose so much. all I can say is we ought to be able to enjoy college sports without the poisonous addition of gambling. I don't know, guys, how you can extricate. I don't know how we can stop it, but we can certainly warn people. You ought to be able to enjoy football and basketball at the college level without having to put down money, on the outcome.
>> Steve Jordahl: It's amazing how the sport has changed. You remember back in the 80s, Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball, for betting on games.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And now they weren't his games either. Or were they?
>> Steve Jordahl: That was kind of shady whether he bet. And he certainly never bet to lose.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right.
>> Steve Jordahl: he would always, you know, if he was betting, he would bet on himself to win. But, now every single pregame show you have, they have a segment on betting. These are the odds. These are what, you know, this is how I'm thinking this is going to play out. And these are my three best bets.
>> Ed Vitagliano: So they have these little toss, throwaway, ads. In the middle of a hockey game. There's a whistle and the teams are coming back, you know, to drop the puck. And the announcers will say, there's, there's some for the. I watched the Boston Bruins, some Massachusetts, you know, betting, company, I don't know, I don't know what you call it. And they say, hey, if you want to, if you want to bet on, you know, whether so and so scores before the third period, you know, go to this website. And I'm just blown away at how nonchalant they are.
>> Steve Jordahl: It is, it is addictive to the max. it is such a dangerous and corrosive habit.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.
>> Steve Jordahl: Ruining families.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Fred, you, against it or in favor of gambling?
>> Fred Jackson: What bothers me, as much, I'll put it that way. Our governments are involved. Yeah, yeah, our governments. I remember, in a certain state, not back 20, 25 years ago, we're going to take the money and use it to help, schools.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, my goodness. They say that for pot, legalizing pot.
>> Fred Jackson: All of that, all of that.
>> Steve Jordahl: Notice how much our, students have increased in their knowledge since then.
15 former NCAA players among those charged in alleged scheme to fix basketball games
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right. It's tanked.
>> Fred Jackson: Yes. So there you go. I mean, it's not just bad operators, that sort of thing. By the way, we have a story right now on our afn.net 15 former NCAA players among those charged this morning in an alleged scheme to fix basketball games.
>> Ed Vitagliano: That's on afn.
>> Fred Jackson: That's off afn just announced this morning.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, I will say this. I do want to give a shout out to our home state, where our flagship station is Mississippi. just the opposite has happened, in terms of education. I do want to give a shout out to where kids reading, levels have skyrocketed.
>> Fred Jackson: Yes.
>> Ed Vitagliano: In this state. It has nothing to do with whether or not there's gambling. Okay. Or. Or money coming into the state from it. this is because they went to, I think a more phonics centric.
>> Fred Jackson: Went back.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes, went back to it. So, I don't want to dog our school, our education system too much. There are people, when they do things the right way, they get the good results we're looking for.
>> Steve Jordahl: I believe the bet was 2 to 1 that, Mississippi students would pass 50%. I'm making tons of money on that one.
>> Ed Vitagliano: That's right. Yeah, that was, We all scored big. We bet on that, right? That's right.
Kamala Harris bought a $8 million Malibu mansion
>> Steve Jordahl: Hey, guess, who has a new home?
>> Ed Vitagliano: I have no idea.
>> Steve Jordahl: Kamala Harris has a new home, and Jesse Waters is talking about a cut 13.
>> Chris Woodward: Mamala just bought an $8 million Barbie Malibu dream house. Here are the highlights. Backyard, full kitchen, private putting green, and of course, a big, beautiful fire pit, because Malibu definitely needs more fires. It's been burnt to a crisp, thanks to Democrats. But not Kamala's new neighborhood. It's untouched. Nice going. So Kamala squandered $2 billion in donor money, didn't win a single state, made the DNC pay off her debt, wrote a gossip book and blamed everyone else for her losing, and then splurged 8mil on a Malibu mansion. Not a great look.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Okay, first of all, I got two quick questions.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yes.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And then, Ray, if you want to comment, we'll. We'll toss it your way. Did he call her Mamala?
>> Steve Jordahl: Mamala, yes.
>> Ed Vitagliano: What's up with that?
>> Steve Jordahl: Well, that's because that's the, That's the vibe that she puts out there, that she's the mama.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, okay.
>> Steve Jordahl: The Democrat party.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And then he also said Jesse Waters. This is a segment from his, show, that she didn't win a single state.
>> Steve Jordahl: I don't know what. As well.
>> Ed Vitagliano: What does that mean? she did. She did win. Talking about the 2024 election.
>> Steve Jordahl: She did do that. It might have to do with the, the non existent primary.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh. Oh, that's probably that. That's probably was to get the nomination. All right, Ray, listen, I personally. I personally don't. And we're coming up to the end of the show. I'm sorry to stick to this with you, but I don't have a problem with someone buying a. A nice home. But she's. How did she get so rich?
>> Ray Pritchard: Yeah. What did you say? Goes $8 million.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, it is.
>> Ray Pritchard: That's good money, folks. I don't have.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I don't have a clue.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah, more than twice what my house is worth.
>> Fred Jackson: It's a pretty nice retirement home for Kamala.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, man. Well, she's the Only one beating J.D. vance in one poll.
>> Steve Jordahl: I know.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Can you believe it? I. I can't imagine her getting the nomination.
>> Ray Pritchard: But no.
>> Ed Vitagliano: anyway, folks, listen, if you're a listener and you have an $8 million home, you might want to think about giving to American Family association or American Family Radio. We'll take it. and then, folks, if you make some money, don't gamble it away, please.
All right. Thank you. All right, Ray. Our thanks to you, sir. See you tomorrow
All right. All right, Ray. Thank you, sir. Fred Jackson. Thank you. Chris Woodward. Thanks to you. Steve Jordal. Our thanks to you, sir. Dr. Alex McFarland. Thank you, Brent Creely. Thank you. See you tomorrow. Fol.
