(upbeat music)
- Greetings and welcome to the Here We Stand
podcast,
right here in our studios at Providence
Baptist Church
on Hooper Road in the God's Country Central,
Louisiana,
actually in our four year right here
with our bookcase behind us.
I have here with me today my fellow elder
music leader,
all around IT man show producer, Roger Dale
Peters.
And also I have with me here today
my brother from another mother,
but the same father in heaven,
brother Kyle Abair.
Kyle, it's great to have you here with us
today
on the Here We Stand podcast.
Just to tell you a little bit about Kyle,
he is a bivocational minister, such as myself.
Kyle is the chaplain to the Livingston Parish
Prison.
Kyle also does the work release program at
Dell Tech,
out in Livingston Parish.
Kyle also does prison ministry at Angola and
Hunt,
soon to be a DCI.
Also, Kyle has now been called
to be the associate pastor of evangelism
at Salem Baptist Church.
And boy, we're excited about that Kyle,
to have you in the foxhole with us in that
capacity,
which is fantastic.
But before we get to Kyle,
I just wanna mention a few things, why a
podcast?
And I might've talked about this a little bit
last time,
but really, when you look at how many podcasts
there are out there on the internet,
and there are literally thousands,
maybe tens of thousands of podcasts,
what's important to us is that we can't have
enough podcast,
in our opinion, from a Christian worldview,
from a biblical worldview perspective,
from a sound doctrine perspective.
And that's something that we're trying to
accomplish
to the glory of God as one of our goals for
this podcast.
And you can watch our podcast by way of video
on Facebook and Twitter,
and by audio on Spotify, on YouTube, and on
Apple as well.
Now, to tell you just a little bit about our
conference,
before we get going, the Here We Stand
conference
is gonna be October the 25th and 26th
at First Baptist Church of Livingston.
There's going to be a Friday night,
the fellowship in between two sermons
with a dessert fellowship.
The sponsor churches that I'm gonna talk about
in just a minute are gonna bring desserts.
So you gotta eat supper before you get there.
And then Saturday morning, 10.30 a.m., October
the 26th,
there's gonna be a lunch fellowship in between
two sermons.
And those finger foods will be bought
by the sponsor eight churches.
And while I'm mentioning that,
I'd like to talk about our eight sponsored
churches.
There's Providence Baptist Church,
pastored by myself, Phillip Gaye,
Riverside Baptist Church, pastored by Larry
Hubbard,
Reformation Church, which is pastored by Rusty
Reed.
They're now meeting currently at Foster Road
because of a fire.
I'm gonna talk a little bit about that
towards the end of the podcast.
First Baptist Church of Livingston,
pastored by Brian Gunter.
First Baptist Church of Apollousis,
that is pastored newly by Kirk Alexander.
Salem Baptist Church,
which is pastored by Chad Chauvin,
where Kyle is fixing to begin his ministry
as associate pastor of evangelism.
Grace Covenant Baptist Church out of Monroe
with brother Rusty Grant.
And also Grace Bible Fellowship,
pastored by Mark Lacour.
All great sound doctrine churches.
And while I'm at it,
I wanna remind you about the distinctives that
we have
with, here we stand conference,
because this is what binds us together doctrin
ally.
We don't agree on everything.
We don't agree on secondary, third level
issues,
eschatology, different things like that.
But what we do agree on these things is very
important.
We all hold to a very high view of the
authority of scripture,
the inerrancy of scripture,
the infallibility of scripture.
Also, we all hold to all five points
of the doctrines of grace.
We also all hold to all five solas of the Re
formation.
And as I said on our last podcast,
when you do that doctrinally,
that gives you a very sound,
well-rounded, solid gospel understanding
of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
And inside of that,
you talk about all the distinctives
of the person and work of Jesus Christ
in the gospel, the need for an absolute
perfect righteousness
and lifelong obedience to Christ
in order to be right with God,
which necessitates the imputation of Christ's
righteousness
by God to us.
We are counted righteous, reckoned as
righteous.
And of course, salvation being by grace alone,
through faith alone and Christ alone.
And all of those strong doctoral distinctives
that we have in the gospel,
we're all around that orb.
We also all hold to believers baptism.
We're also all cessationist
and all of us are verse by verse expository
preachers.
And so if you're looking for a sound church
in any of these areas,
whether it be in Livingston, in Monroe,
in East Baton Rouge Parish,
we invite you to come to any of our churches
as we're all in this boat,
rowing in the same direction together.
And let me say a word about our speakers at
our conference.
We're gonna have Brian Gunter, Chad Chauvan.
Dr. Joe Nesum is gonna be with us
from First Baptist Jackson.
I'm especially excited to have brother Joe
come.
He's so graciously accepted our invitation.
He's been around a long time up there
at First Baptist of Jackson.
And we're very excited to have him.
And also we have coming to us all the way
from Christ's church in Lafayette,
brother Brandon Neely.
Now Kyle, let me tell you a little bit
about how Brandon Neely got invited.
Brandon Neely is a Presbyterian.
And even though they don't hold to believers
baptism,
those guys hold to all the other distinctives
that we have.
And so what we wanted to do
is include them in the preaching schedule.
And how that came about is,
I went to the Tactics Conference
that they had at Christ's church last year.
And I've known Brandon for a long time.
And I first met Pastor Stuart Amidon,
who is pastor of Christ's church Apollousis.
And he led some Psalms at this conference
that really got me fired up.
Now they had beer and Psalms, Kyle,
over there at this Tactics Conference.
Now we're not gonna have beer and Psalms
at the Baptist Conference,
but we will have Stuart actually come with
Brandon.
And he's gonna help us to learn
one of those Psalms that I sung with those
guys over there,
which is kind of like going to battle,
get ready for war kind of Christian hymns
from the Psalms that I was really fired up
about singing.
And so I asked Brother Stuart to come over
and lead us in one of those.
Acapella, by the way,
which really, I mean, hear the voices, it's
really great.
But I wanna mention that Stuart
is having his second conference of the Tactics
.
You can go to TacticsCon.com.
This is gonna be January 24th and 25th.
He's gonna have Toby Sumter from CrossPolitik.
If you're familiar with that podcast,
he's gonna have George Grant.
And I may mess this name up, Urie Brito, or Br
ito.
I'm not sure how to say his name.
He's gonna be there.
They got some other speakers possibly planned
as well.
And you can also go to the TacticsCon podcast.
And kind of what I'm trying to do, Kyle,
is bridge the Eastern Front with the Western
Front
in sound doctrine churches
and inviting those guys that agree
with those distinctives with us to kind of get
them in.
They come over to our conference
and hopefully some of our guys will be able to
go over
to their conference as we can share together
because look, as we see right now in the world
,
what's coming?
What's coming for the church?
It's hard to get away from the thought
of possible persecution of the church
like we've never seen in America in our
lifetime.
And we need as many of us together,
binded together by the word of God
and these strong distinctives doctrinally
that we have together as we go through
whatever is coming up.
Now, also, let me explain just for a moment
about another goal with this podcast,
which is we want to interview everybody
that is a sponsor church pastor
as well as a preacher that preaches
at the Here We Stand conference.
Now, I can't remember, Kyle, 'cause my memory
's fading.
Did you preach last year or year before?
- It was year before.
- Year before last you preached at our
conference.
So he is one of our alumni
and he will be definitely preaching again.
But as we were talking earlier,
one of the reasons for giving these bios
is my people here at Providence know me
because I pastor the church.
But when you come to a Here We Stand
conference,
you don't know the other pastors
and the other preachers that are gonna be on
the podium.
And through this podcast,
when you come to the conference to hear them
preach,
you get to know them a little better.
And that's also one of the goals
that we have for our podcast.
Now, today, I'm gonna use this opportunity
to give my bio and Kyle's gonna give his bio.
And as we were talking earlier,
who would have thought, Kyle?
- It's a miracle.
- That us two would be together on a Christian
podcast.
Kyle said earlier, maybe a podcast from Angola
,
but not a Christian podcast.
And you're fixing to find out why in just a
moment.
One of the reasons why Kyle and I have a bond
is what you're fixing to hear.
I would venture to say, Kyle,
that you and I, amongst all of our preacher
friends,
have the kind of testimonies
that only you and I have.
- It's only us.
- It's just, we're-
- Me and you.
- Yeah, we are walking miracles that we're
even alive.
Much less preachers today and pastors.
And so what I would like to do,
and let me say this one thing before I go to
you, Kyle,
is this, when Kyle and I give our testimonies,
we're not doing it to bring glory to us.
We're not doing it to say,
hey, look at what we did and now we've changed
and we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps.
There's no bootstraps that we had to pull
ourselves up by.
I mean, everything about our testimony,
all of the glory goes to God.
All of the glory goes to Christ,
who plucked us as brands from the fire.
And what we hope though is that through our
testimony,
what will happen if anybody is out there
struggling
with drug addiction and the kind of life
that Kyle and I had before we came to Christ,
that we might be able to help you to see
that there is hope for you in the gospel of
Jesus Christ
to overcome drug addiction, alcohol addiction,
or whatever it is that you're addicted to.
So Kyle, let's start out
and you just kind of start from the beginning
and give us your bio where you were born
and take us through and then I'll take a turn
and then we'll talk about some other things.
- Well, I'm so grateful to be here
and it's a privilege and an honor
and just a sweet, sweet, sweet blessing
to be here with you, Philip.
And it's humbling in all glory to the Lord.
You know, I'm born and raised.
Y'all may be able to hear the accent.
I'm not from Livingston, Paris.
Blessed to be here, grateful to be here.
Y'all gonna really see why in a minute.
But I was born and raised in Chalmet,
a little town south of New Orleans, about five
miles.
And I was born to a very moral family, not a
Christian home.
My dad was an engineer, a man's man.
He taught me to be a man.
He taught me various vocational skills.
Mom, a school teacher, she was tough as nails
but loved really hard, but they was not
Christians.
And I had a brother 10 years older than me.
He was not close until later on.
But my dad and I was super close.
And you know, one Thanksgiving, 1970,
my mother wanted the house remodeled.
And my dad, being a good husband, listened to
his wife.
- Amen.
- And he proceeded to remodel the kitchen,
redoing the countertops and whatnot.
And I always wanted to be close with him.
Well, that remodeling time really turned
into a destructive atmosphere.
He left the pilot light on the gas stove
and the glue that, the adhesive for the Form
ica glue
was highly flammable.
And I'm five years old.
I'm sitting there just enjoying my dad's
company,
my mother's outside with my little chihuahua.
And thank God for that.
My brother was sleeping at a friend's house.
But air fume mixture with that flame did not
work well.
And the whole kitchen went off like an atomic
bomb.
And so that, that ordeal sent me to the
hospital
with third degree burns, three quarters of my
body.
And I had to have 46 major operations, a lot
of scrubbing.
My dad had to be in there about eight months.
Mom had, you know, cause she came in
and pulled me out the house while my dad ran
outside,
got the hose, came back in and put the house
out.
Well, let me tell you something that that
created a,
you know, I'm already born with a sin nature.
We're going to talk about that.
However, this, this ordeal caused me to be a
very angry
young man, five years old, going through all
of this,
you know, scrubbing and pain and,
and medications and whatnot.
And finally, when I would come out of the
hospital,
even worse now, I'm back in school.
And, you know, kids can be cruel, you know, I
'm burned up,
I'm scarred, I'm disfigured, I'm healing,
I can't be with the rest of the kids.
I'm sitting in the classroom by myself
where I'm not accessible to, you know, germs
and whatnot.
And that, that was for about eight, 10 months.
And the kids would look in the window and gawk
at me.
And I used to always sit there.
I'd get so angry.
I can remember to this day, Philip,
I would get so angry that I would actually
smell blood.
And I used to say to myself,
now this is a five, six year old kid say,
when I get out this room, the next time
one of these kids look at me,
I'm going to punch them in the face
and I'm gonna make them where they either look
like me
or they'll never talk and say anything to me.
And, you know what, guess what?
That just happened.
That's exactly what happened when I got out
the room.
So I'm fighting, you know, every day
and my mother being a school teacher.
And of course I'm at CF Raleigh School in Chal
mette.
You know, all these teachers are close with
one another.
Their answer, play sports.
But what I really needed was a savior.
What I really needed was the Bible,
but that was nowhere around in my family
or my father didn't understand
about being a prophet, priest and king of his
household.
I mean, he was dead in his trespasses, just
like I was.
So sports was it.
And guess what?
It did work for a while because--
- Some of that aggression.
- The aggression.
I could hit people without getting in trouble,
legally.
Something I didn't realize or even cared about
.
I just wanted to, you know, play the game and
hit people.
But it also caused me to, I had to make the
grade.
So in their mind, it was a win-win.
So, and I did.
- It is a benefit of football.
- It was a great benefit, but, you know, the
gospel.
So, but during that period,
it was about football and making the grade.
And I would do that all the way through high
school.
And my dad, I can never remember a time
my dad not being at a football game, at a
practice.
And, you know, just being there.
Really being the, you know, a father to me
in the sense of, in the king role,
taking care of, you know, his family
and providing, being the provider.
And so-- - Hard worker.
- Hard worker taught me a lot of vocational
skills.
That would benefit me later.
But, you know, I get to Chalmet and, you know,
I want to break in, you know,
the majority of the Russian records.
- Amazing.
- Running back.
- You running back.
I had a couple of thousand year old seasons.
- And they retired you, Jersey?
- They did, as a matter of fact,
we just recently took it out of retirement
'cause I don't want anything pointing to me.
Like you said in the beginning, this is not
about Kyle.
Anytime we start with me,
it becomes a man-centered theology.
And this is about Jesus Christ.
This is God the Father through God the Son
and the Holy Spirit.
And this is about him and his sovereignty
'cause he worked all this together for his--
- So you gave the Jersey back.
- Recently, 'cause I went down and spoke to my
high school.
You know, I was able to go back and, you know,
it was a time of, you know, being now
a minister of reconciliation, you know,
with Sheriff Jim Bo Poman, you know,
he invited me down there with one of my mente
es
from Angola when Joseph Landix, he's out now.
We both got, he's living down there,
but we both got to go speak at the school.
And I stood before my peers and was able to,
you know,
I had the DA on one side
and I had the sheriff on the other side
and we cleared, you know, we cleared
everything up.
- The air got clear.
- The air got brilliant, yeah.
So yeah, you know, the turning point, you know
,
I was, you know, carrying a 4.0 grade point
average,
UL was looking at me and everything.
And I was gonna go to UL, you know,
and I wanted to go to UL for forestry
and it's amazing how, you know,
the sovereignty of God worked and all of that.
But I wasn't big enough to play at LSU
and I didn't wanna ride the bench.
So I was gonna go to a smaller school.
So UL was perfect for me.
But I lost my dad my senior year.
The last game of the season, 1983
and my world flipped upside down 'cause he was
my idol.
I didn't understand, I didn't even know God,
wasn't looking for God, didn't care about God,
didn't understand him.
I was blind, I was dead in my trespasses.
I wasn't just dead, I was stinking dead.
Couldn't not see, couldn't not hear anything
spiritually.
So instead of seeking the word
because I didn't even know what the word was,
I saw everything in this world.
That's where I started drinking and drugging
in my life into a downward spiral.
My poor mom, she could not handle me.
And so I started, you know, running with the
wolves per se,
riding with motorcycle gangs and fighting
and, you know, just being in the world,
womanizing, drinking and drugging.
And between 1983, Phillip, and 1999,
I would accumulate 98 arrests.
And five felony convictions.
The last one in 1999, August 19th, 1999,
I would commit an attempt first degree murder
charge
on my family.
It started at layman's bar in Chalmet
and I brought the fight home.
And I pled guilty to that.
And, you know, my life, you know, was--
- So you were sentenced right then?
- Oh yeah, 'cause I had pled guilty.
But, you know, prior to that last conviction,
I'm gonna tell you, people were coming to me
and begging me, hey man, you know,
you really need to get involved in AA and NA.
Look, I didn't wanna hear, you know, 98
arrests
and five felony convictions.
I don't wanna hear nothing about no AA or NA.
Only thing I knew was the DA.
- Quite well.
- Quite, you know, he got tired of me, you
know?
So the 40 years was offered.
And what happened was that night of arrest on
all,
death was definitely arrested.
'Cause I went from fighting the police to
being arrested
and putting a backseat of a police car at
peace.
- At that final arrest?
- At that final arrest.
The Lord grabbed the hold of my heart.
And now, and not only did he grab my heart,
removing the heart of stone replacement
with a heart of flesh and giving me his holy
spirit,
I now had a desire to seek him through his
word.
- Everything changed.
I've never walked an aisle.
I wasn't looking for God.
Didn't know God.
- He was haunting you, though.
- Was he haunting me?
In his sovereignty, and me and Sheriff Pullman
just spoke about this.
I mean, that night, and he would,
this is what he just told me and I never
thought about this.
He said, Kyle, do you realize why I showed up
at all your arrests?
'Cause he was there.
We were close, me and Sheriff Pullman.
He played football for Promised Land
and I went to Chalamet.
I almost went to Promised Land.
They were trying to get me down there to play.
But I went to Chalamet 'cause I wanted to play
at a higher level, 11-quad-a-football.
And really, the colleges were looking at us
and it was all for self.
But he said, Kyle, the reason I showed up
was to make sure that nobody killed you.
So the Lord was using Sheriff Pullman
and such a man, even to this day.
- And you didn't even know that at some time?
- No, no, and he just told us--
- You were looking at him as the enemy.
- I did, but he was a friend.
I'm gonna tell you, I love Jimbo and Sheriff
Pullman,
but I'm close with him and he was that,
he's the boss, he runs the parish but very
humble.
Loves Jesus to have a Christian--
- We need a lot more of them in the Sheriff's
Club.
- And we do and I'm grateful for Jimbo
and we just had that talk.
But yeah, I'm grateful for him.
So I wound up with the 40 years deservingly
and lo and behold, eight months in the parish
jail
and then I went to hunt for two weeks.
It was maybe eight, 10 days.
And having a 40 year sentence
would not have necessarily sent me to Angola
because we know Angola is theoretically a lif
er's camp.
But lo and behold, in God's sovereignty,
he would put me on a precious journey
to the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
And as you enter the front gates,
anyone who's ever been to the Louisiana State
Penitentiary,
when you go right through the guard shack,
right in the front, those gates,
you look at about, I don't know, maybe one,
two o'clock,
you look that way and as a sign,
it says the land of new beginnings.
And Angola would become most certainly
the land of new beginnings.
- That is amazing.
- Yeah, to lo and behold, my heart death was
arrested
on August 19, 1999, not Kyle.
And so, and when I landed in the parish jail,
I now had eyes that were opened to the people
who were bringing me the Bible,
who wanted to teach me the word,
who were loving on me, praying for me.
Whereas before I was blinded to all of that,
I was blinded to sin in my trust.
- You didn't want to listen to it.
- No, I couldn't hear it.
But the Lord grabbed the hold of me
and set me on a trajectory
through the Louisiana State Penitentiary,
which will become the land of new beginnings.
And all those trades and all those vocational
skills
that my dad taught me would come to use
immediately
because straight off the bus,
Warden Brocane and Warden Darryl Vanoy needed,
they came to me and they was both in need of a
,
an air condition duck work mechanic.
One that could bend metal.
- So you go straight to trustee.
- I went straight to trustee.
- Tell us how unusual that is.
- It is very unusual.
It's a miracle.
There's another miracle.
God's sovereignty turned in the heart of the
king,
whichever way, like rivers of water.
It takes 10 years.
10 years.
- And you go straight in.
- I go straight in.
I get my trustee status.
And Warden Cain told me, and Warden Vanoy,
Warden Vanoy really became like a father to me
.
You know, I was close with Warden Cain too.
And, you know, the man gave me,
you know, where I'm here today
because that man utilized, you know,
his faith in that prison.
And his, the main gist of his message was this
,
the prison is not for nine old men, but for
predators.
And he knew the difference immediately.
And so gave me a life, you know?
And so I got my trustee status and I went and
bent metal.
And he said, when you finish this job,
I'll put you anywhere you want.
So, you know, the main prison, you know,
everybody's telling me it's like Jerusalem,
you know,
that's where all the programs are.
And, you know, the church and everything.
The church, you know, he's putting in every
camp.
The building that is, the church was flour
ishing already.
But they had a Bible college there
in the Wallens Baptist Theological Seminary
that was in the main prison.
And I wound up being, my first year there,
I wound up being the maintenance man in the
Bible college.
So here I am, I'm listening and seeing all
these professors
coming in and these students are bouncing
theology
off the wall and I'm studying the word.
I'm going through experiencing God.
And meanwhile, I get a letter in the mail
and it's from a girl that I don't even know
who she is.
I see the name Melissa.
I said, man, who's Melissa?
Well, come to find out.
It was a girl that I had met while at spring
break
right before I cut her.
- Hello.
- Panama City.
- Was it?
Panama City.
- Been there, done that.
- Oh, fill up.
And it was a one night stand and got her
pregnant
and came home and got arrested August 19th.
Well, Melissa, you know, not a Christian.
This is, you know, you're going to hear God's
sovereignty
through this old story.
- I'm hearing it constantly right here.
- Touched her heart and she allowed me to be a
part
of our son's life.
And the only thing I knew unlike my dad
was to raise my son in the word.
And so I did just that.
- From prison.
And was provided by a friend of mine, another
inmate.
His sister provided the funds.
She wanted to be a part of what I was doing
in my son's life where I could make phone
calls
because it's expensive.
- Oh yeah.
- But the Lord took care of that.
- Made it happen.
Kim, you know, she poured into my life, my son
's life
and made a way where I could visit with him
where, and he lived in Florida, you know?
And of course, you know, writing letters,
stamps,
and then of course the telephone calls,
but we stayed in the word.
And in May of this year, I am blessed to say
that Matthew just graduated from Wheaton
College
in Wheaton, Illinois.
- Wow.
- So, you know, anyone out there listening to
this
and, you know, my son, you know, God's in
control.
My son told me recently, he said, you know,
dad, you was in my life more,
even though you wasn't in the, under the same
roof,
but you was in my life more than my friends
whose dad lived under the same roof.
- What a testimony.
- Yeah, and it's all through Jesus Christ, you
know?
So, yeah, you know, I landed an angle.
I'm raising my son to Bible college.
You know, my second year in Angola, Dr. John
Robson,
you know, we got real close.
He's the director and, you know, we still,
I text him every morning.
It's like you get your little script.
Yeah, he gets that too.
And Dr. John Robson pulled into my life
and he saw something in me that I didn't see
in myself.
And first thing he told me, you got to get
over yourself.
And, but I was invited, you know?
I didn't even, you know, I didn't see myself
on a Bible college, but the Lord invited me in
.
And so I would go through the seminary four
years,
get my BA, and then five years later,
I would get my master of divinity.
- Wow.
- And so it's been an amazing journey.
I was not supposed to come home till 2034.
- Right.
- Under Governor Edwards, a law was passed
and a sweet lady by the name of Natalie LeBord
,
who is number two in Department of Corrections
and loves the Lord.
We was all, you know, talking about this act
and getting parole eligibility, you know,
she really didn't think, you know, it was
gonna work.
And she's an attorney, you know?
And she's a smart attorney, but she loves,
she loves the offenders and she is pro-off
ender.
And she wants to see people do right.
And let me tell you, she became really a
sister to me.
I'm just gonna be honest.
You know, Miss Natalie is family.
And lo and behold, the Act 122 passed
and I was on the first parole board.
And that was in December of 2021.
And I made parole, Miss Natalie, you know, was
right there.
- So out of 40 years, 23. - I served 23.
- Right at 23.
And along with her brother, Thomas,
those two really, you know, stepped up
and helped me with the transition.
And once I, you know, I went to parole project
, you know,
that's Andrew Huntley and Kerry Myers,
two blessed brothers of mine that, you know,
I was able to stay there while I was getting
my knees done.
But let me tell you, eight churches that you
mentioned,
each one of them poured into my life
for me to have a successful transition.
And of course, you know, Larry Hubbard's
church,
you know, Riverside was already in Angola.
So that's where the doctrines of grace was
introduced to me.
You know, we are, we're studying Dietrich Bon
hoeffer,
you know, Jonathan Edwards.
- Yeah, I'm sure Larry was telling you
about Jonathan Edwards.
- Oh, I already knew about the five souls of
16,
you know, the 16, and non-confession.
- Right, you getting drilled on that, huh?
- You know, I just laugh because of joy, you
know?
- Yeah, absolutely.
- And then here we stand.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So yeah, and so I'm home and now, you know,
Sheriff Art, you know, comes in and Mark
Carroll,
and now it's, it used to be Warden Ben Ballard
,
now it's Chief Ben Ballard, you know?
Oh man, I love these guys.
They all invited me aboard
at the Livingston Powers Detention Center,
and, you know, wanted me to do the re-entry
program.
So we built, you know,
through Brother Mark Carroll, the FAIR program
,
you know, it's family approach to inmate re-
entry,
you know, and rehabilitation.
And so, you know, that's, I'm in my second
year with that.
We've had, those who have been,
went through the entire 16 weeks, that is, and
graduated.
We've had zero, zero percent recidivism.
- Wow. - Nobody's came back.
- Wow.
You're catching these guys before they get
to the point-- - Absolutely.
- To the bigger prisons.
- Absolutely, and we are addressing the faith
base,
we are addressing social skills,
and then, of course, the addictions, you know,
which we're gonna talk about,
and which it's not a disease, it's sin,
and there's only one cure of that, Jesus.
- Amen, that's right.
That's the only thing that works.
Now, I would be remiss, though,
if I didn't ask you about this,
because in the '90s, we had a reformed res
urgence,
and the internet played a large role in that.
And the big three pastors that had worldwide
ministries
that played a large role in that reformed res
urgence
as the internet was coming of age were John Mc
Arthur,
R.C. Sproul, and John Piper.
Now, tell me a little bit about your
interaction,
because sometimes when I see Kyle,
I don't know whether to shake his hand or ask
his autograph.
This man's been on 60 minutes,
but you had some, quite a bit of interaction
with these three men.
- I did, Phillip, you know, to this day.
I'm very close with Dr. McArthur.
I do FaceTime with Dr. John Piper.
They came to Angola, Warden Cain, you know,
invited them,
and I was a part of the Angolite,
which is the prison magazine.
And so I would get to cover these events,
but it became more personal
when Dr. McArthur heard me speak.
He's like, "Man, you've reformed."
And he, right away, I'm like, you know, I told
Larry,
"Well, man, McArthur told you, you're reformed
.
"You're reformed, man." (laughing)
So, yeah, personal, you know, I got to spend
time.
Matter of fact, I brought Larry and his crew
to have a personal time with an all glory to
the Lord.
I'm nothing.
It was just, it was the Lord connecting the
dots.
And then, you know, today, desiring God,
you know, pours into my ministry.
And, you know, Scott Anderson, you know, was
the CEO.
He's now moved on to heritage books now.
But Dr. Piper, you know, was there with all
his books
that he wrote and was sending them to my son,
you know.
So my son got a taste of desiring God, you
know,
and his teachings, and then R.C. Sproul.
We had both of them, the father and the son at
Angola.
So I got to meet both of them.
Now, of course, you know, I've got Mike DeWalt
,
who is the CEO of Ligonier, and Ligonier.
And he pours into my ministry was the Lord's.
It's not mine, you know, I'm not even gonna
use that word.
And so we get to do, you know, the granddaddy
of them all,
you know, the holiness of God.
And then, you know, and there's so many
teachings,
but he has opened, you know, his heart to give
me
whatever teachings that I'm the assurance of
salvation.
And these are things my guys in Livingston,
they go through and watch the DVDs and I got
the books.
And so they get the, you know, they get fed of
truth.
Doctrally sound truth, biblical truth.
And it's about, the only thing can change
is Jesus Christ's word, and it's the power.
The power's in this word.
We don't have to lower the bar.
I'll just give him the word.
- Exactly, and that's Romans 116.
For I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
For it, the gospel is the power of God and the
salvation.
And that's what changed you and I.
- Yes, sir.
- And so I want to give a little bit of my
testimony
because look, Kyle, now that was a gangster.
I was a wannabe gangster in my testimony.
But what we share in common is the culture
that we came out of before the Lord got ahold
of us.
I started out born and raised in North Baton
Rouge,
kind of the wrong side of the tracks here
in the Baton Rouge area right next to Howe
Park
for from fourth grade on the 12th grade.
My dad was a musician still to this day
is playing right here every Sunday
at Providence Baptist Church,
his bass, amazing bass player that he is.
And, but coming up, I went to Catholic school.
I was raised Roman Catholic, baptized,
confirmed the whole nine yards.
And as I got into those junior high years,
the same story you hear so often with so many
teenagers,
I wasn't fitting in, wasn't with the cool kids
and couldn't understand that.
You know, I thought I was pretty cool kid,
but it wasn't working.
But the neighborhood kids, man,
those are the guys that I grew up with
that I developed bonds with when we were
younger.
They have a big cement canal that runs through
Howe Park
and we would go through the tunnels in there
playing football every day, basketball, riding
bikes.
We would ride our bikes all the way
to downtown Baton Rouge, run around.
But at the age of 14, marijuana came into the
scene
and for all of us.
And, you know, that's the gateway drug, man.
And it really is a star smoking pot at 14.
And that progressed through junior high and
high school
into the time by the time I was in senior high
,
I was doing cocaine.
And really, just like you, living only for
self.
And people do drugs for a lot of different
reasons.
Some are trying to escape pain,
just get away from some kind of traumatic
event
they went through or different things.
But some people do drugs out of just pure
pleasure,
wanting pleasure, and that is a form of escap
ism as well.
But that was my deal.
I wanted to get high and party as much as
possible
every single day.
So that progressed for me to IV drug use,
which when you get to shoot and dope,
that is another level from just partying
and snorting coke and drinking and everything.
I was shooting dope, shooting,
they don't even have it anymore,
but they were called sets, tees and blues.
They were sold out of Edie Park.
And they used to steal the tall one in Benzed
rine
out of the charity hospital in New Orleans
and bring them up here to Baton Rouge.
And they would sell them on the street corner
for $10.
There was a yellow pill and a green pill
and you crush them, pills up, water them down,
heat them up a little bit,
pull the rig back to 99 CCs.
It was lime green in the rig.
And man, you shoot that and I always say,
when you got high on them sets,
it was kind of like a synthetic form of heroin
.
I mean, we would ride around in the cars
in the neighborhood doing like 10 miles an
hour.
A bullet could come through the window
and you'd be like, wow, man, look at that
bullet going by,
you know, that kind of thing.
He smoked weed on top of that, shooting coke,
LSD, ecstasy.
You and I talked about, we were in some
of the same clubs back in the day.
- In Lafayette.
- Yeah, in Lafayette and Bro Bridge at the
Kingfish,
which was a rave club, got into all of that.
- Ecstasy.
- Ecstasy, LSD, all of that stuff.
I amassed over the time period from 1986
to about 1992, six arrests and three different
parishes.
Two DWIs, one in the car, one in the boat.
Possession of cocaine with intent,
felony theft, simple burglary,
possession of controlled substances.
I went through that kind of living.
And it only progressively got worse.
I worked some at a window shop
and then there came a point
where I just wasn't even working anymore.
You know, just out hustling, living in an
apartment
with some guys.
And after living that kind of life,
and I had been to treatment three different
times,
drug rehab, none of that did any good for me.
As a matter of fact, I got kicked out twice.
I smoked weed in the treatment center
when the guy smuggled some in.
Was in a halfway house for 30 days by court
order.
The probation officer told me, son,
if you get kicked out of this deal,
I'm coming straight to Lafayette.
It was where I was at the gate house.
And I personally take you to do the five years
you have a suspended sentence over.
And yes, sir.
And so I managed not to get kicked out of that
halfway house
because I sure didn't want to go to prison.
'Cause I never did any prison time just,
and it would always be my mom and dad
who would come and bail me out.
They were the only ones.
And you know, by the time I got to my mid-20s,
they didn't know what to do with me.
They just had no idea.
I had been, I overdosed one time on six hits
of LSD
and wound up on a psych unit for a week.
Thought I lost my mind forever on that deal
at the Gremel Springs Hospital.
And of course, we're keeping things brief here
,
but they're, you understand, you're just
getting the gist.
We have tons and tons of these types of
stories
of the things that we put ourselves through.
- Oh, absolutely. - We put ourselves through.
There's nobody else. - It's the problem.
- You're right, we were the problem.
There's nobody, we don't blame, I had a great
childhood.
My parents were great.
They always took care of us, loving home,
whole nine yards.
But we were the issue for sure.
And so the last time I got arrested
was for a possession of cocaine
that I tend to distribute.
And my mom and dad, I stayed about five days
in Paris, prison.
I really didn't even want to call them.
I'm back on the line, just really dreading
making that call.
Because I knew that, man, what are they, you
know?
And so I did.
I mean, nobody wants to stay in jail for any
more time
than you have to if you can get out.
So I called them and they came and picked me
up.
And I'll never forget this.
They had a handy odyssey van when they,
the little electric door opened it up and got
in the car.
We start, I start all my lying and excuses,
what my stuff, I was just riding in the car.
And for the first time, I mean, I didn't hear
nothing.
And it got silent in the car.
And I had the sense enough to shut up.
And so we just rode in silence to the
apartment.
I was living on Fifth Street, downtown.
And we had like 10 stolen guns we were holding
for somebody up there.
And I did not know this then, Kyle,
but kind of like your situation,
the drawing of the Holy Spirit started in an
unusual way.
There wasn't a preacher standing there.
But when I got out of that car, my mom and dad
told me,
see you later, Philip, call us if you need us.
Car drove off.
And I looked up at that apartment building
and for the first time in my life, a thought
hit me,
and this is gonna sound crazy,
a thought hit me that never had hit me up to
that moment.
What are you doing with your life?
It ain't crazy to think about, you never
thought about that.
- Right.
- Because I'm so focused on partying and
running and doing
and women and drugs and alcohol and all of
that,
running the clubs and all of that.
And it hits me and I say, I gotta get away.
I gotta get away from this crowd.
And I immediately went up and said, hey, guys,
I gotta move out.
I moved out.
I got on my own.
And long story, real short,
I just, I went back to a place that I worked
before,
Wayne and Philip Leonard, great brothers
that had a window company.
They would kind of take us young street urch
ins in.
They had a heart for that in North Baton Rouge
.
And then they moved off to South Choctaw.
And if you were willing to work and sweat
in their window shop where we built storm
windows,
they would take you home.
But if you messed up, you're out the door.
So I think I did three tours in duty
when they would fire me and take me back.
But they took me in and I started going school
at night
just to give me something to do, just to get
away.
And long story, real short,
I began to, in that time period,
living by myself, not going out or doing
anything,
I started to have these bigger thoughts of
life,
a bigger picture.
I knew there was a God because of my Catholic
upbringing.
And but who is he, you know?
And so I meet my wife, my beautiful wife,
Christy at the Texas club on the Wednesday
night
before Thanksgiving, which is the traditional
night
that a lot of people go to the Texas club
for whatever reason, I don't know.
I was actually supposed to meet a girl, my mom
, a nurse
'cause I was starting to moralize.
I was starting to straighten up.
Hadn't got anywhere near Christianity yet,
I was starting to moralize.
And I told my mom, my mom's nurse was a nurse
for 35 years,
nurse administrator, great career at the Lady
of the Lake.
And I said, "Mom, maybe I need to meet a nice
girl
"and really think about like selling down with
one girl,"
which had really been a problem for me
all during those years.
And so she said, "Well, there is one."
And my dad was playing at a place on the other
side of town.
He said, "Well, look, we're gonna have the
nurses night.
"Why don't you come?"
And I go and she doesn't show up.
She has wisdom tooth or who knows what the
real deal was.
And mom says she's not here.
And so, Providence of God, cold night in Baton
Rouge.
And my friend said, "Well, look, it's tomorrow
's Thanksgiving.
"Everybody's gonna be at the Texas club."
So I was like, "Okay, I'll go."
And so I go and that's when I saw my wife.
Wow, all right, let me get them digits.
Had to get them through my friend.
I didn't have the courage to ask her directly.
And anyway, long story short, all that works
out.
We start dating and we're shacking up,
but I'm continually having these thoughts
about the God and the bigger picture.
I start reading these strange new age books,
the Celestial prophecy, anything that can
spiritual, right?
You know, because all I had, again,
was that Catholic upbringing.
And I actually started going to Mass every
morning
as Christy and I were living together
in a little apartment off of North Sherwood.
But it just wasn't doing it for me.
And I would literally go at like six o'clock
mass
in the morning before I'd go to work.
And it just wasn't getting it.
Now, here's where it gets really crazy.
My dad's still playing on the weekends.
And he would get off the gig at two o'clock
and then be riding home after they tore
everything down.
And so it's three o'clock in the morning.
He's riding home and he tells me one day,
"Man, you gotta listen to this radio program.
It's wild.
It comes on from like midnight to like four in
the morning.
It's called Coast to Coast with Art Bell."
He said, "Dude, they talk about flying saucers
and werewolves and Bigfoot and time travelers
."
And I was like, "Really?"
And the reason why that piqued my interest
was because it was something supernatural.
And because I was having those types of
thoughts.
And so I decided I was gonna give it a listen.
And man, I listened to it and I loved it.
They're talking about ghosts and all this kind
of stuff.
And I would actually record it at night
and listen to it in the morning.
And so my sister had gotten saved.
And she had been praying for me.
And she found out I was listening to that
program.
And so one day she says to me,
"Hey, Philip, there's a man coming to a church
on the other side of town.
And his name is Dave Hunt."
And he's not a preacher because she knew
that I had a disdain before Protestant
preaching
because when I was doing 30 days in Blue Wal
ters
in that drug rehab up at East state,
that's when Jimmy Swagger did his "I Have S
inned"
and he's crying and none of us bought it
'cause we could tell.
And I just didn't wanna hear anything
from a Protestant preacher.
So my sister was quick to say, "Not a preacher
.
He's a Christian author."
And he wrote a book about a Christian response
to UFOs.
And I said, "Well, I've been listening to that
program."
And I said, "UFOs, man, that sounds
interesting.
I think I will go."
So it was at First New Testament church
over in South Baton Rouge.
And I'm not exaggerating.
I got there late.
The last seat available was right in front of
the speaker.
I'm talking like from here to that wall.
I mean, he's right there.
- But God. - Man.
And so he gets up there
and he doesn't say a word about a UFO.
He gives the most intelligent, articulate
defense
of how you can trust that the Bible is the
word of God.
- Yes. - And I had never heard
anything like it.
He went through prophecy.
He went through archeology.
He went through all of those proofs of
scripture
that I didn't know existed.
I had that kind of view that the Bible's a
word of God,
but man had his hands in it all down past.
So there's good things in it.
And I never really even thought about it
to be that very deeply.
But he gave such a stunning defense.
And I'm telling you that there was that
drawing period
where I was going through all these wild,
spirituality thoughts, but I'm thinking bigger
picture.
But it was right there under the preaching of
the word of God
where the Holy Spirit really got ahold of me.
And I will never forget what he said at the
end.
He said, in Paul's missionary journeys,
he would go around to the different synagogues
first
in the towns and he would present Christ
from the Old Testament to the Jews.
And it says in Acts that when he got to Berea,
the Bereans were more noble than the rest
for they searched the scriptures daily
to see if these things are so.
And so he challenged us and he said,
"I don't want you to take my word
"for anything that I've said here tonight,
"but I want you to be like a Berean
"and go home and search the scriptures daily
"to see if these things are so."
And long story short, Kyle, that's what I did.
And I just poured into the Bible, reading it,
and I'm gonna try to shorten the story up here
.
I went home and told my wife,
"Look, I don't wanna go."
She was raised Mormon, I was raised Catholic.
I said, "I wanna go to a church
"where like this guy preached."
So I saw a friend in the Winn-Dixie
told him kind of the story a little bit.
He invited me to a Baptist church out here in
central
and Christy and I started attending that
church.
And that's where we met Rusty Reed,
pastor of Reformation Church,
who was the Sunday School teacher at that time
.
And Rusty started to explain to me
in the Sunday School class a concept
that I'm not kidding, I never heard before.
- Wow.
- Grace alone through faith alone in Christ
alone.
- Thank you Jesus. - And not by works.
Nobody had ever explained that to me.
And so that after a clear explanation of the
gospel
is where really I believe I was saved
because I can remember praying
about a couple of mornings in a row,
"Lord, I don't know if I'm doing this right."
If they would have knew who they had in the
church,
they probably would have, "Let's get this guy
out of here."
So I'm like a fish out of water, man, big time
sitting in this church.
But I pray, Lord, I'm a sinner
and I know I deserve to go to hell.
I've broken all of your laws many times over
and Christ is the only answer.
And so I'm surrendering to the Lordship of
Christ.
And I prayed that prayer.
And by about morning four, I figured he got it
.
And so that began just a deep desire to study
the word.
And then Rusty gets called to Brookstown
Baptist Church
to be an interim pastor.
And he said, "Hey, would you like to come help
me?"
Because I'm feeling the call to teach Christy
's grandfather
was Mormon and he had sent some Mormon mission
aries
to the house to try to convert me over that
way.
So I did a lot of study of Mormon theology
and actually learning that compared to the
Bible
is what really helped me learn sound doctrine.
And so I went over there to teach a class
on how to evangelize in that way.
And Rusty and I started together
and then he got called to Friendship Baptist
Church.
And I kept hearing Dr. MacArthur on the radio
and Martin Lloyd-Jones, they played on 89.7 FM
.
I listened to that at night.
And I kept hearing these calls from these,
we need men with spines to get in pulpits
and preach the word of God
as it's supposed to be preached line upon line
,
precept upon precept, expositional preaching.
And I'm feeling that call, I'm studying.
I don't feel I deserve to be a senior pastor
in any way.
I don't have any seminary or anything like
that.
But Rusty asked me to be his associate pastor
to go help out over at what was then Friends
hip Baptist Church.
And that was in 2001.
And I just felt an overwhelming desire
because of how grateful I was
that God had saved me out of that wretched
life
that I had, when I was left to live life for
myself,
what a mess I had made for myself
and a lot of people around me.
And out of gratitude, I just wanted to serve.
And I wanted to serve in whatever way
God put opportunity in front of me.
And so I served over there with Rusty
for three years as associate pastor.
And then I went to sit under Brother Huey Moke
,
who's now in heaven, he just recently passed
away.
And I spent four years with him learning.
I tell people, Foster Rowe was my seminary
and Brother Moke was my seminary professor,
godliest man I've ever known.
And he allowed me to preach in his pulpit on
Sunday nights.
He allowed me to teach Sunday school.
And I'll never forget I went to him and asked
him,
I said, Brother Moke, really,
I need you to be real honest with me
because people can be nice, older people,
especially when a young preacher's up there
trying his best to preach.
And they pat you on the back, oh, you did a
good job.
And I was like, but I really don't know.
And I said, I need you to level with me.
Do I have the ability to do this
or should I just do something else
or just teach Sunday school?
And I'll never forget what he said.
He said, ability, yes.
He said, opportunity, that's the question.
He said, now you've had some opportunity here
to preach and teach.
He said, but you pray for further opportunity.
And I did that.
And it was wild.
He would sometimes send me to different places
.
I actually did at a drug rehab church for a
little while,
like a little interim.
And then out of the blue,
a guy called me to do a, what do you call it?
Fill in supply, preach at it.
And I just went over there thinking
I was gonna fill in for the Sunday morning
service.
I had some material, I had sermon ready to go
and I preached.
And then they asked me to come back that night
.
And I said, okay, I'll come back that night.
And then shocker, I got down off the pulpit
and the people asked me, would I be their
pastor?
And I said, whoa, wait a minute, dude,
look here, we need to have a meeting.
Get your committee together.
And I sat in there and told them everything
about me.
And I was like, you need to know who I am.
No seminary training, basically self-taught,
sat under a very solid pastor for four years.
That was my training.
You need to know what you're getting.
I'm not your grandma's pastor, okay?
And lo and behold, they wanted to call me.
- Praise God.
- And I thought about what Brother Moe said,
opportunity.
And there it was.
And so I served there for two years, long
story, very short.
Out of that, there was some things that went
down
that really weren't great at that church.
And I won't get in all that 'cause we don't
have time.
But out of that ministry,
we planted Providence Baptist Church.
That was over 14 years ago.
- Thank you, Lord.
- And we've been in various locations
till we got in this beautiful building
that God has given us here on Hooper Road to
stay in.
And so like you, I was totally wrapped up in
self,
totally wrapped up in pleasure.
And then God, the hound of heaven, the Holy
Spirit,
came after us and arrested our thinking.
And then what's amazing, and if you're like me
,
I still haven't gotten over it yet, the desire
change.
- Absolutely.
- I'm still bewildered by it
because the things that I used to want to do
more than anything else,
I no longer have any desire to do.
- That's beautiful.
- And the things that I thought I would never
desire to do,
that's all I wanna do.
And I still, every Sunday when I drive here to
this church,
I promise you, I'm like, I can't believe I do
this.
- At all.
- I can't believe I'm doing this all the way
to this day.
And I realize, I don't deserve,
I heard MacArthur preach one time,
not only do we not deserve to have the
privilege
of preaching from pulpits every Sunday
and pastoring God's people, but it's a mercy
to us.
- It is a mercy, ministry is a mercy.
- It's a mercy to be able to serve the King of
Kings
with your life.
And the purpose and meaning that it gives you
is just so overwhelming,
especially when you come from our position.
- Absolutely.
- Of how much we know we don't deserve to be
here.
And yet, he's gotta have a preacher.
How will they hear if they don't have a
preacher, right?
- Thank you Lord.
- And that's what they do.
So before we close out though,
I wanna talk just a little bit about this.
Kyle and I have been in certain situations
with people where we have explained,
and this is a controversial for some,
but it's our position that really,
while AA and NA, which is Narcotics Anonymous,
it has helped people.
- It has.
- There's no question about that.
It has helped people to get off of drugs and
alcohol,
but the majority of time, the rate of return.
- Yeah, the relapse.
- The relapse is, I mean, you can just go look
at it
statistically, is unbelievable high percentage
.
- It is.
- And so from our position,
what we would like to say to you today,
if you're struggling with drug addiction,
or if you have a family member or a friend
that's struggling with drugs and alcohol
addiction,
our answer to that problem is only one.
And that is surrendering to the Lordship.
- Amen.
- In Christ, in saving faith by believing in
his gospel.
And then your desires change.
And he gives you, takes out, as the Bible says
,
the dead heart of stone,
and puts in that heart of flesh.
And makes you spiritually alive.
- Amen.
- And everything changes.
And Kyle, that's the answer.
- As that is the answer, and you said it
already, Phillip.
You know, I began when the Lord imputed
himself in me,
removing the heart of stone,
replacing it with a heart of flesh,
causing me to walk in His ordinances
and to obey His commands.
It was done out of delight, not duty now.
A, A, and N, A are all work-based.
It's out of duty.
I gotta do, do, do, do, do.
Our stance, through the righteousness of Jesus
Christ,
is a done deal.
- Amen.
- He comes in, and it is all Him.
The imputation of Himself.
I now hate the things that I used to love,
and I now love the things I used to hate.
- Isn't that crazy?
- Namely Him.
- Yes.
- So it's about Him.
So He comes in, and cleanses house,
and now we are now walking in the Spirit.
- And He gets all the glory.
- All the glory.
- 100% of all the glory.
- All the glory.
And so there is a work,
but it's the result of our faith, not the
cause.
- Yes.
- And when we do get off that path,
He will chastise us.
- Yes, He will.
- And thank the Lord for His chastise.
- You better believe it.
- We're now positionally perfect,
yet practically raggedy.
And that's where that great doctrine
of sanctification comes in.
- Amen.
- And He guides us, and He will use trials and
tribulations,
and He will cause us to be set apart wholly.
This is about holiness, set apart.
We're no longer running with the wolves.
We're no longer in the world, of the world.
We're in the world, but not of the world.
- Right, right.
- And so, but I could go on and on.
It's Him.
- Well, as Dr. MacArthur says,
it's not about sinless perfection.
- No.
- It's not about the perfection of our life.
It's about the direction.
- That's right.
- Christian, what's the little bumper-stickin'
slogan?
You know, Christians are not perfect, we're
just forgiven.
And I would add to that, we're imputed
with the righteousness of Christ.
- Amen.
- That is not ours.
- No, it's His perfection.
- And it's His that He attained while He was
here,
perfect obedience to the law.
- Amen.
- That actual perfection, and He lived the
perfect life,
that perfection is imputed to us.
- And that's the only thing that makes us
right with God.
- The only thing.
- And when we understand that,
that's what makes us so grateful.
- Absolutely.
- That's what drives me to serve to this very
day.
- That's right.
- And I know it does for you too.
- Absolutely.
- And so, we want to use our testimonies
to be able to reach out to people
and say, "There's a way to get out of that,"
as they say in Pilgrim's Progress,
one of my favorite books of all time,
that slew of despond that you're in,
that you feel you can't get out of,
that if you come to faith in Jesus Christ,
He'll give you new desires,
and you won't want to do those drugs anymore.
- You won't want that drink.
- It'll change your life forever.
And if you ever want to talk to Kyle and I
about that,
come to one of our churches.
As I said, Kyle is fixed to be called
as Associate Pastor over at Salem Baptist
Church.
Is it Denim Springs or is it, it's kind of in
the rural area.
- It's in Walker, it's on Highway 63.
- Okay, okay.
- Wies Road.
- On Wies Road, and Chad Show Band Senior
Pastor over there.
Or you can come here to Providence Baptist
Church
at 10440.
Providence is on Hooper Road in central,
right on the corner of Lovett and Hooper.
Our website is pbcbr.com.
You can join our Facebook page
at Providence Baptist Church of Baton Rouge.
We have video and audio sermons there.
You can follow me on X Twitter at b-r-o-g-u-a-
y.
I put Christian content out there.
We're doing this conference and Kyle,
it has just been a joy to,
I've heard your story multiple times,
but I always enjoy hearing everybody's story.
But especially yours because it's such an
incredible
testimony and we tried to be as brief as we
could,
but we got a lot of story to us.
And so it's hard to condense all of that for
us,
but we wanted to try today to do that
for the benefit of those who need it.
And I wanna say one more thing.
One of our, here we stand churches, Re
formation Church,
recently had a devastating fire
in which the building was, it wasn't burned to
the ground,
but it was burned to the point of total
destruction.
And in fact, I talked to Rusty last night,
we had a great men's meeting here last night
with Nicholas Brown, who did a talk on trans
humanism,
which was extremely fascinating.
Guys got together, we sang.
It's always great when we have those men's
meetings,
but he told us that the insurance company
has given the okay to tear the building down,
but there's stuff inside that building
that they wanna get out.
So Saturday, September the 28th at eight o'
clock
in the morning, any of you guys out there
that wanna come give a helping hand,
always some danger with Rusty,
whenever you get involved with him.
I know you worked with him like I did doing
glass block,
you never know what you might get into.
And so we're gonna try to go in there
and retrieve some of the things that are
retrievable
before the building comes to the ground.
And so that Saturday, September 28th at eight
a.m.,
Reformation Church, you can look them up,
Google them, go their website.
I can't remember their address.
They're right there on the corner of Black
water and Comey
is where they're located here in central,
right around the corner from here.
So Kyle, thank you, brother, so much.
- It was an honor, I love you too, Phillip,
privilege and just a humbling blessing.
Thank you for having me.
- Absolutely, and you will be being asked to
preach again,
but this time it won't be testimony.
It will be just straight word.
- Praise God.
- Kyle can bring the fire, so you wanna be
there
whenever he preaches next that here we stand.
We thank you for watching or listening today.
Until next time, God bless and have a great
Lord's day
coming up the next Lord's day.
God bless.
- God bless.
(orchestral music)