BraveMen S3E47: Rage, Rescue, & Redemption: The Dramatic Story of Sean Smith

I had heard of Sean Smith, but I hadn't really seen him in action, so I went to his website. It's called Point Blank International, and clicked on the video, and all of a sudden I found myself about a minute into the thing going, man, this is awesome! This guy was bringing it, talking about reaching his area where he lives in the Bay Area, in San Francisco and Oakland Bay Area, talking about reaching that area for Christ, but man, Sean is all over the world, and I am so excited for you to meet him today on Brave Men. I'm sitting here with Chris Shields, we're in the studios here in downtown Coliville, Texas, and wherever you are in Coliville is the downtown. Exactly. Yeah, because there's no defined. I guess maybe where the library is, I could be the downtown or something, but you knew about Sean, you told me about him, and you go, man, this guy is awesome, so I went to his site and went, oh my gosh, man. Yes, I'll never forget, I heard him preach for the first time at Christ for the Nations, and it was just powerful, because you have so many different, you have people that speak, and then you have people that have demonstration of power, and when he spoke, you could see the difference in the room where the Holy Spirit just released through the words that he was speaking, and I was just like, man, this is someone that I want to tailor my ministry after, this is someone that I want to follow, and just learn from, and that's why I was like, A. Paul, we have to. And I also want to marry a wife that preaches. Like this wife, yeah, this Christa is amazing. She's a powerhouse, and that's a power couple. Yeah, I get totally psyched up. We do christians network around the world, we're in over a hundred nations, and I get so psyched up, and I meet men who are younger than me, like this guy, who are raising up the next generation, also. So what is he probably in his 40s or something? Yeah, I would say probably late 40s, early 50s. So, dude, you can't say early 50s about a guy who's in his 40s, that would be really rude, that was. So Chris, you're about to get fired again. Anyway, so, but man, he's raising up the next generation. A bunch of young guys travel with them, they do stuff. It is Sean Smith's amazing. My name is Paul Lewis Cole, and we are here doing brave men, because not just because we want to introduce you to brave men. The desire really is that we impart something that helps us become brave men. Exactly. Man, and you nailed it, Chris, when you said, you saw that guy, and you go, I want to be like him. Exactly. And that's what the writer of Psalms, David said, I'll bring the godly of the land to my home, and make them our heroes. My dad practiced that when he would bring men to our house, and I'd be like, dude, I want to be like him. Yes. You know, I want to be a missionary like him. I want to preach like him. See, and another thing that really, you know, stands out is when you meet your hero. Oh, yeah. And how they respond to it. And I'll never forget when I met Sean Smith, one of the humblest people that I've ever met, because I mean, I've got the honor of privilege of meeting a lot of well-known people, but then there's certain, there's different levels of well-known people, the people that care, and the people that want you to care about them. Yeah. You know, it's a big difference. The people are well-known and love being well-known. Exactly. You know, Proverbs 27, which was when we were taping this on the 28th of the month, but the 27th yesterday reading Proverbs 27, one of the scriptures that and I used it in something we talked about yesterday afternoon was it says, if you want to check a man's character, let him become somewhat famous. Yeah. So good. You know, it's like, let him have a little bit of fame. Exactly. Proverbs 27. So, yeah, but this guy is the real deal. I'm so excited for you to meet him to meet Sean Smith today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. Hey, I'm with Sean Smith with Point Blank International, and I love that title. It feels like you know, like a Clint Eastwood movie, man. Point Blank, man. It's like, you're about firing the gospel, Sean, and I've seen your stuff. We have mutual friends, and your heart burns for revival and renewal, man. Where did that stuff come from? Yes. You're just thing like, you're traveling all over the world, speaking, you're ministering, looking at your website, Point Blank International, Sean Smith Ministries, and this is fantastic, but I mean, that's just didn't just happen. Where'd that come from, Sean? I think two places, you know, right when I got saved, I had an encounter with God. I mean, people are led to Jesus by friends. Maybe they're mom and dad. I was led to Jesus by Jesus. It blows people away, but I woke up in the middle of the night after a night of immorality and parting and everything, and Jesus is in my room. He speaks to me audibly. So I'm radically, dramatically safe. This is the key. All revivals begin in encounter, because when you encounter Jesus, it's not about religion. It's about this relationship, but when you get a taste of that dimension, that person, that glory, it's not enough. It's addictive in a holy way, you know, you want more. And then shortly thereafter, somebody handed me the book, Why Revival Terries by Leonard Ravenhill. I later, it's been a weekend with him. He had marked in Lindell, Texas, but when I read that book, it burned. And what it began to do in me is I wanted to see, first of all, as many saved as I could possibly be a part of. And too, I wanted to see geographies lit with the glory of God. I wanted to see Jesus's name made famous on the lips of a generation. And I wrote it up one of my first Bibles. I will give my life for this. And so the Lord burned this thing inside of me, Paul. It was rather solid. You know, it's, it sounds to me like an Emmaus road experience. True. For those guys in the King James version, the guys turned to each other after Jesus appeared. Which again, I love, I love our Lord and Savior Jesus. But his earthly thing is he's like a real guy. Like he just shows up and freaks these guys out. And they go didn't, and when he leaves, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that was him. And then one the other one turns, says, didn't our hearts burn within us? Like we felt something when you talk about an encounter. See, you can argue theology, but you can't argue the fact that my heart changed. It's right. You know, how do you argue with Lazarus? Kid. Hey, dude, I was dead. I wasn't just dead. I was dead dead. I was like three days, four days. Right? Not just dead as they say New Jersey, you're dead dead. That's right. So you had an encounter with Christ. Now, how old were you when this happened? I was 21. I was the graduate, graduated from college. So that's 21. Yep. So you were where were you in college? I was at the University Pacific in Northern California, Stockton, California. Okay. And so you're in Stockton, California, University Pacific. So I mean, you're a, that's a nice school, man. So obviously you grew up, you know, in a pretty nice area. No, I grew up in the hood. Okay. I grew up in the hood. There's hood and then there's hood hood. Yeah. I grew up in West Oakland. Wow. And I grew up, grew up in a challenging situation. My mom and dad, they were not married. They met at a nightclub. I didn't see my dad until I was five. And tragically, my dad was murdered when I was nine. He didn't commit a crime. He didn't look like anyone committed a crime. I was proven, of course, rationally motivated. He was murdered by police officers. And so there was awards, money given that can only be used for education at that time. They set that stipulation. And so I majored in one at the major and did in computer engineering. So I went to the University Pacific at that time, like I want to stay on the West Coast. So, but it was providential because it was there, of course, two things happened. One, you know, I had this incredible encounter that I talked about. But it was while I was there as well that there was an awesome campus ministry. I was able to be disciple because I'm a big discipleship guy. And a lot of people that can have an account with God or make a commitment. But if you're there's not discipleship an ongoing place where you can be cultivating in terms of your character and all that stuff. A lot of times you fail to stay in that place. You need to be with the Lord. Wow. You know, I want to come back and hit that. You grew up in West Oakland. And you grew up in era where it was, you know, I mean, it was, there were a lot of gangs. And I mean, you're still as everywhere. But I mean, it was in the era of gangs. It was the era of the black, the free speech movement, the black panthers. I mean, all right. I mean, in my so there's just turmoil everywhere around you as you're growing up. Yeah. It was. It's funny to say gangs. I used to run through gangs. I told people in my neighborhood, you either were part of a gang or you ended up running track in high school. I ran a track because I'm running through gangs because even though my dad is not in the house, I'm raised as a great line. I was raised by a southern black grandmother from Dumas. I saw she did not play. I told people, if you don't know my grandma, just think of Medea of Diary of a man black woman. That was my grandmother. And she was not playing. She had a profession. It was a disciplinary. So in other words, your grandma would make Tyler Perry look soft. No doubt. And so my grandmother, early on, she was alcoholic raising me. But when I got to high school, she went to a small storefront, kind of cost a whole in this church. And Lake Merit got saved, came back broke all her alcohol bottles. Wow. So that that transformation, what put this seed inside of me, that man of Jesus could do that. He's real. He's powerful. That's care about my family because that was one thing that I wanted for my grandmother. You know, she was never abusive to me. Quite the opposite. She was very functional. But I'd have to come home and help her to bed or clean up or or whatever because she would she make sure I'd take care of this. She would drink and pass out. That happened every day. But when she got saved, she never drunk. And she prayed for me, prophesied over me, laid in hands on me. And I think that's the reason why I got saved. You know, that's the that's the Timothy thing, you know, who was raised by his mother and his grandmother and Paul comes along and and becomes a mentor and a ministers into his life. So you didn't have somebody like that, right? Then you had your grandma who prayed for you and and you saw her life radically change. I saw my grandma's life right in front of me. She walked, caught the bus, came back, broke all our alcohol bottles. I looked at her and I'm, you know, I'm in high school. So you're a junior in high school. You think you got the cure to cancer, you know? Yeah, right. Yeah. So I'm thinking, okay, grandma, you probably need to do a 12 step. You're probably going to go back. It's a fact. If she looked at without me saying a word, she said, Grandma don't need to take 12 steps. Grandma just need to take one step to Jesus. She set me free. And I watched her life. And from that moment on, my heart was warmed towards Jesus and the things that God, because growing up, two things when people said, Father God, Father was like very foreign to me and it wasn't a good experience. So that concept, it wasn't a concept of environment. And when they said, Father God loves you. Everyone said they love me, either died on me or walked out on me, except for my grandma. And so she Jesus flipped the narrative in my grandma and so man, now she's an amazing woman. And she would, she would pop herself in me. She'd speak over me. She said, Boy, you're going to be a preacher. And I'm like, Oh, no, I would say that to her because I didn't want to disrespect me. She would, she'd pick up a biscuit now and hit me up somewhere here. But, you know, she was right. She was right. Thank you. Isn't that something? You know, it's, it's amazing how much impact we have on people's lives when, when we don't even realize it. It's a kind word, a strong word, a, you know, like, Hey son, you know, you're, you know, it's a, I've got a, a dear friend, close friend, Dwayne Pickett, who pastors a New Jerusalem church in Jackson, Mississippi. We were talking about the attack on young men of color and of the enemy trying, you know, just, there's this like concerted like your dad getting shot, you know, and it's a racially motivated police shooting. And that stuff happened when Dwayne was going up, growing up all the time. And you know, Dwayne and I were talking about that. He said, one of the issues in, in the culture and the urban culture today is that it used to be grandfather's on the front porch. And it used to be grandpa's, it said, Hey son, come here. And they would, they would take interest in each other. And he said, today, the grandpa still want to be players. You know what? Wow, that's, that's, I said, Dwayne, that's the Viagra syndrome. It's a, it's a chemical thing, man. They think they still got it. You know, so, so you grew up going to University of Pacific, but then now this, I want, this one I would come back to see grow up in this tumultuous thing. I mean, you know, I, I mean, you were there in the Richmond riots. You were there during stuff that happened all through Oakland. You saw stuff happen in San Francisco, all that, that whole Bay area, San Jose crazy, which is actually, if I'm not mistaken, that's where your dad got shot, is that right? Right, San Jose, California. Yes. So all the tumult of the 70s and 80s and in every, all the changes and things that were going on, you grew up in that, your University of Pacific Christ meets you there. Right. Then, but then somebody began to help you reframe your world. What does that look like to help somebody do that? What happened to you? And how do we do that for men today, Sean? You know, I think it's so important because I think you can have an encounter. You can make a commitment to Christ, but without discipleship, you know, Ecclesiastes better than one. For that we receive a better reward for their labor. But then it goes on to say that if one falls down, the other one can come up. And I think in life, life comes at you hard and hits often. And so you need to have some people that can lift you up. But in addition to that, I think, you know, you think about it. We train our bodies. We work out. We train our minds. We go school, get degrees, certificates. But then when it comes to the things of God, we become kind of, you know, casual. We're not as intentional. But I think the discipleship is about having an older believer, speaking to your life, challenge you, help you to grow. And kind of like, you know, we see people that have business mentors, we see people that have their industry that they may have industry mentors. We need to have people that are able to walk before us and to see the blind spots in our lives. You know, you're driving your car, Paul, and you have the side view mirror, rear view mirror. And you have a side mirror. But in that little panel in the back of your car, it's called the blind spot. You could have an 18 wheeler there. And sometimes Jesus needs someone to turn around and go, Oh, no, man, don't go in that lane. And we need some, we need some people like that that will care for ourselves. So I had a guy, by the name of Donnie Moore, I used my campus faster. And he would sit down and we would probably three times a week, we'd sit right across from me, the middle of the studio, and we'd open up the Bible, we'd pray, and he would kind of just go right through scripture and show things and speak it on my life. And to this day, I've got an accountability guy that we ask each other those questions, how are we doing? Are we walking in purity? How are marriages are doing? And to know that I'm going to get on a phone with a brother weekly, if not bi-weekly, you know, or twice a week, I should say. Yeah. It helps keep me straight. And you know, you have to answer with somebody and look somebody in the eye, you know. Man, no kidding, man. That's, you know, sometimes people go, well, accountability, you know, that's a man. That's too harsh. And it's, man, it's like, no, no, that's called freedom. Because now it's my, it's brotherhood. That's right. Really what we're talking about is brotherhood. And, and, and it's, and it's, here's what a brother does. Hey, man, how you doing? And our normal response as a guy is, I'm good. And then a brother says, no, how are you doing really? Right. And then the art of conversation is actually in the listening. It's right. So, man, to listen, but he took you to the word and he walked right through the Bible. Yeah. Because he's taught me. Yeah, here's first John one nine. Here's what that means. Here's, I mean, just the basics, right? Here's the Roman road. Here's this. And then probably as important as any of those things. And I think a generation is missing that because I think in North American church is missing the component of discipleship. And we've gone away. And, and I think in an effort to make our churches more user friendly, we've kind of unplugged, you know, Sunday schools, Wednesday nights, Sunday nights, discipleship. And I think what happens is my discipleship, as important as it was, he pulled out the word and prayed for me. He modeled something. And I saw something in his life that made walking with the Lord walking and holiness and purity. I attractive. I saw a model of a guy that would witness to anything that moved. You know, I saw a guy that was generous and would give. And I didn't understand generosity, you know, coming up. It was all about you getting what you can, you can, what you get. Yeah. Yeah. And so he modeled that, you know, it's second Timothy 2, 2, Paul said, Timothy, things that I've done before you, trust these things of faith will may also be able to teach others. So it was four generations of intentional discipleship. And the one of the early church exploded because it wasn't so much they had a user-friendly approach to a message. It was that they knew how to disciple and plant the seed where now we didn't just catch fish. We taught you how to be fishers of men, which is what Jesus said, the Peter and the boys. The scientists. Yeah. You know, we've got one of our board members, Pastor Eddie Leo in Jakarta, Indonesia. He calls it the one another lifestyle. Oh, he says he says we're called to love one another. He said so it's one another. That's how we live. He said before God was anything else. He was God in community. And you know, I look at this. I've got a friend who who said this to me while back. He said, you know, we re, you know, we re-engineered our churches. You call it user-friendly. Some people call it seeker model. I have no problem with that in one sense, but I think that model has to shift again because I don't think men are seeking. I think they're running. Yeah. I don't think most men are seekers in our day and age. I think they're runners. Oh, that's good. And so they're finding all these different distractions to assuage the fact that they'll never become what the core of their hearts said they should become so good. So they're dealing with the shame and the pain of not measuring up. And what do you do then? Well, you either back off and at the age of 40, you become just an old man who's never going to do anything else except a job. Do you never want in the first place, but you only got the job because it was a friend of yours who had it who knew about an opening. So they're 20 years. Now you got no other place to go. So you just go there. Your heart dies. You know, and that's where Jesus is so amazing, Sean. I love what you guys are doing with them. I want to get into this. I am your sign because this is a joint of things. One of my favorite cats. Hey, this is Chris. Let's take a moment real quick in the middle of this great conversation to remind you how to get in touch with Paul and Christian men's network and the Global Fatherhood Initiative. You can find all the resources for mentoring and fatherhood at cmin.min. That cmin.min. Christian men's network does special events across America and around the world. You can find all the information at cmin.min. Click on events. We also have tremendous resources for churches with special discounts for groups on that website. Everything a church needs from A to Z to mentor and disciple men of all ages and backgrounds. Now let's get back to this powerful interview between Paul and Sean Smith. Point blank international is Sean, son Smith ministries.com and you can get the tools. In fact, there's a very cool video. I want to, in fact, I want to edit that on the back of this. Is that all right with you? Okay, sure. Absolutely. So when David edits this, we'll stick that on the back because that thing's hot. Man, it talks about what kind of nation is this and you know, get a heart not only for America but for the world, but man, I'm telling you until that guy comes along and the fact is is that when the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear as sort of an Eastern thing. I don't think that's true. I think the teacher has to go find some guys. Hey, I like that. Jesus did. Yeah, Jesus chose him. He prayed all night. In fact, here's the other thing Sean about that. I love is he didn't just take whoever showed up because no, no, no, no. Here's the guys. You, you, and it shows the guys that he was going to disciple and they were jacked up. I mean, they were, dude, they were, I mean, the book of Acts, right? They were so racist. If you were Gentile, you could not get in, right? And really until the church blew up in the late 60s, 69 AD when Jerusalem got ransacked, they still had issues and then they all had to meet just before that and they had this meeting. You know, but God used, God used regular people. Sorry. He changed the world and that's your message, Sean. Now your wife is involved in this also in your children. You've got two kids. Yes, I got two kids. Brandon and Brittany and my son is he does two things. He's a youth pastor down in Southern California as well as a junior varsity basketball coach. And then my daughter is the assistant events coordinator for Jesus culture, which is a church. They also had a worship team with their church in Sacramento. So both of them and then my wife, Christa, some of she travels, she preaches, she's finishing a book for ladies, actually, for she's actually writing a book to singles in general. So actually not ladies, there'll be something later, but so really enjoy, enjoy that. And here's something Paul that I think it's kind of this thought of my college years discipleship of revival. Yeah. We sometimes get words twisted because they're synonymous, but in the uniqueness of each word is something very, very clear and something that sometimes could be watered down. Let me give you an example. The words normal and typical. You go to a doctor, check your throat, you step a scope cough, you got a fever, you're coughing. So they say, what you have is normal. Well, that's not true. What they're saying is what you have is typical of someone that has your condition. It's not compared to a healthy person. Wow. It's like what discipleship did being exposed to a man that was going out hard after God and then other people, Barbara Rillo and others that took me is that I began to see a new normal. And that's what I really think this whole season of what God is doing in the midst of COVID-19 is God has given the church a reset button and a new normal. So here's what I'm saying. We look around at how people walk out their Christianity and we go, oh, that's normal. No, it's not normal compared to the Book of Acts. It's normal compared to North American or other nations that have maybe watered down a standard of Christianity. And I'm not a negative person said, I'm not taking a big huge ride. But it's typical. And so what God does in revival, he gives us a new glimpse of what normal ought to look like because we've lost sight. And so what the Book of Acts was was life on life transmission. So they were immediately exposed to this is Book of Acts apostolic standard Christianity. And so Christian was never meant to be a vacuum. It was never meant to be a. It's just me and God we're doing our own thing. Hey, find find your truth. It's my narrative. All these modern euphemisms get away from the fact that churches about community and it's about a normal, it's about a standard. And there's a gap between our visible reality and the biblical reality available. And the gap in between is what I believe the incentive of all revivalists, a hunger of every revival say, this is my visible reality. This is the biblical reality of what is available. I can't stay here. There's something in me that burns to go to this place of the fullness because I can't stay back in what I've got more is available to me. That's I'm just I'm taking notes, man. But when I preach this sermon, I'm going to look like a genius, bro. Come on. So I got once you, man, about to be raised by but this whole thing a new normal man, that thing's hot. Yes. That's where we have to be. I was talking to Larry Osborne the other day and we were talking about the Book of Acts and he said is it all these pastors that he leads and they all said, I want a book of Acts church and then he goes, you know, the most of them got killed, right? You know, you know, most of us guys lost everything. You do know that, right? You know, you want that. But a new normal is a passion for Christ that actually takes on Christ, his holiness, his love for others, his compassion, his inner strength, because Jesus Jesus was a hey, here's a here's one. I just thought of this, man. Jesus was a West Oakland guy because that's what Nazareth was very true. Nazareth Nazareth was a city on a on a freeway. Nobody stopped only stopped in Nazareth in order to get supplies and stuff. It was on a major trading route and that's exactly what Oakland was. Oh man, right? I grew up, I grew up into some apartments right next to the 580 freeway so you speak in my language, man. So that's what so Jesus grew up in a West Oakland setting, right? Yeah. He grew up under terrorist occupation. He had all these things. His dad passes away somewhere in his youth. He takes over the family business. He wasn't a carpenter with, you know, a little finish hammer and some nails. He was a stone mason. That's that's what that was in those days. They didn't have woodhouses. They were made of rocks and he's a husky guy with calluses and that's right. So so my Jesus man, you know, it's I think about that was a LD locket. Was it lockets? That's my that's my king. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I think of that but my Jesus like this guy beat up guys in church straight up, right? And I think it happened more than twice. They recorded twice and if you read it parallel, it's not the same occasion. So it happened more than once. So I think maybe that's why you had a treasurer. And so there's there's there's that Jesus with the same guy that same strength, inner strength of him was the one that able with those with those tough hands able to be compassionate to a woman caught in sin. Wow, wow, right? So that's that's the Jesus that you're preaching is that fully orbed and and Jonah, your guy, Jonah, I am your sign, which comes from Jonah saying, they say, what's the sign that you come from? I am your sign. That's right. You know, it's funny. These Pharisees and sages, he's not going to catch Jesus like those dudes never learn. They're like the old school wily coyote, but you're not going to get roadrunner. Give it up. He's too fast for you, but they thought they would catch him in a trick. So they said, show us a sign. Well, Jesus just got finished healing a guy who was blind and mute. So imagine the worst life in the world is you can't lead yourself around. By the way, he's also demonized. Wow. You can't tell anybody about it. So there's no intercourse in terms of dialogue in terms of sharing with anyone. Jesus sets this guy free. He's right next to Jesus as these guys were saying, show us a sign. So people have are honestly taking that passage and said that we shouldn't believe for the miraculous. No, that that wasn't a statement when Jesus said no sign of evil. What he's saying is is that if a sign was all it took for you to believe, you would have believed. So what you're saying now is that you don't want a genuine sign to come to fate. You aren't wriggling brother of Marvin Bailey's circus. I'm not going to give you that. But he says every generation we'll get this sign. He says it says in a loop account is Jonah was in the belly of the well. So should the son of man be in the belly of the earth. But I believe Jesus could have likened himself to Moses and Israel coming out of Egypt, Daniel coming out of the lines, then why Jonah? And then just reading this whole thing and kind of the crux, Paul of I am a sign is simply this. I've always I used to always believe that the book of Jonah was just about a rebellious prophet that finally got his act together. And of course, a severely wicked barbaric civilization and then the vites get saved. But then I begin to realize, no, the book of Jonah is really more about the heart of the father to say that I'll take rebellious vessels and a hardened people and still bring about my sovereign purposes of revival and awakening. And it's amazing. And when Jesus says no sign of a given, the whole premise of the book is I believe the God will bring that type of catalytic witness to every civilization, to every nation. Come on. And I'm convinced there will be a third great awakening. I'm convinced the greatest number of people that will ever give their life to Christ are about to give their life to Christ. I believe the greatest signs are one there's era that the church has ever seen is about to go off like in the night Disneyland fireworks. I mean, we're going to see it all. And that's not just like the thing to say that just to kind of get high. It's it's biblically based. I mean, I feel like I've kind of in my heart developed a theology for revival and harvest. It's so I'm convinced of this thing. And I believe we're going to see it. You and I are going to see this. I think we're going to see it. I think the greatest churches haven't been built yet. Here's my extension with academics and theologians because I do agree we live in a postmodern world. And and you're I mean, you're a graduate student. You you know, you understand the greater concepts of stuff. And we live in a postmodern modern durnity is what it's called. Yes, and a postmodern world. But but most people also couple that with postmodern post Christian. And frankly, how could you be post Christian if never been Christian? Oh, I love that. That's good. We never lived in a Christian nation and we lived in a nation in which there were people who understood moral law. And that came out of the great revivalists of of England that broke away from the dogma of an institutionalized fair sequel church. So now they break away. They stop and say, okay, we got to have moral law. And so America where you and I live in the United States is is built on the sense of moral people will uphold these laws. And but if we don't have a moral center, then we no longer begin to uphold the laws, which is where the nation's breaking down. So I don't believe we're postmodern post Christian. I think we're postmodern pre Christian. Oh, I love that. I think Sean, because of men like you and your wife, Christa and your son and and daughter, I believe that the greatest days of the church are ahead of us. And in fact, you know, people pray Maranatha come Lord Jesus, but I'm saying Maranatha come Lord Jesus, but wait a while. Yeah, because they're not enough people saved. Not enough of my neighbors. Now all the neighbors, I live around that with all they're all followers of Christ now. So so that's awesome. But but there's too many neighbors. There's too many people who who aren't. So why would I say come Lord Jesus? Because I'm in. Right. How selfish is that Sean? Right. So it's like come Lord Jesus, but but put Sean on YouTube in front of 20 million people, man. You know what I'm saying? That's that's my prayers. God, you know, you gave us this stuff. Look at what's happened with this coronavirus crisis. It's right. It's right. Joel Osteen. I talked with his executive pastor yesterday. I'm speaking for their leadership team on Saturday. Awesome. Joel Osteen had for Easter. Check this out, man. Joel Osteen had 30 million people watch his services over a three day period. That's crazy. One out there. I said to one of every 11 Americans. Well, they were around the world, man. Right. Right. Right. Much less the the ones that watched peer duplicity and watched you and watched this church and that church and all of our great friends who have who are pastors and I every pastor I talked to goes do this unbelievable, man. I got all these people and Mike. I got a guy in a little friend of my Mike in Elma, Washington. I don't know how many people in Elma might be 1800, 1600 in his city. And it's not like in a metropolis area. It's out of the country. And he's got he didn't have any production. He's got an iPad and he stands in front of the iPad and preaches true story. And his music team's back here on the on the platform. They do music in the sound system. This plays into the iPad. And then Mike preaches and they've had people say it and they've had like 2400 people come through their services. Wow. Wow. You know, I'm telling you, man, God gave us this stuff, Sean. And I love, man, you are so captivating on video, dude. I watched your video and your wife's like she was like, where did you guys meet? Man, you read it and it took me. It's gone. Lou Engle does these. I know, Lou's called the call. Yep. Great friend of mine. I was on staff with him. He did a the call, a separate Cisco at Candlestick back in the 49th to play in Candlestick for they moved to Levi Stadium. Yeah, I was there. And well, he asked me to pray for the purity of men in the Bay Area. He asked Christa to pray for the purity of the women in the Bay Area. And then a good friend of ours, Pastor Charles Stock, out in Harrisburg, asked him there kind of as a former Bay Area guy. He kind of was a pastoral covering and father. And he kind of repented a little bit of the sins of the hippies. But he got caught up in the jeez people movement at awesome weight. And so we met at a prayer concert, sort of speak. And it was fantastic. But it just grew our friendship. And then God, you know, did the thing. You guys met on the stage. So you guys met on the stage of the call? Yeah, that's incredible, man. Yep. Hey, Sean, unbelievable stuff, man. Thank you so much for taking time and for spending time with us together here. It's absolutely fantastic, man. And we pray every place that you put your feet as holy ground and every place you think you put your hands to a prosper. And that you and Christa will be kept deep in the favor of his love. And I thank Lord for your ministry. And you've got books, materials, Sean, Sean Smith ministries.com. Yep. And the ministry international dot org, either one of those and point blank international dot org. Okay. Yeah. And we'll find it. Hey, we're going to stay connected, man. I got your phone number. I got your D2. Oh, good, good. Awesome. Let's do that. Paul, man. This is great. Thanks, bro. Hey, appreciate you, man. Bless you, man. We'll see you. I love the transparency of Sean Smith. He's just the real deal. Yeah, no kidding. He, you know, and the books he's written, the things he's done. He is a real deal. But he's lived it now. And I mean, his story is remarkable. And where he's come from, where he is today. You know, just everything. You just look at that and you go, okay, dude, this is what what I want to see happen to young men out of the cities. You know, we look at the stuff happening across America, whether or not, you know, something's happening when you listen to this podcast. There's always something happening. Exactly. You know, but in the midst of all that and the midst of chaos, it's so good to have the hope and to have the sense that you know what? This is what can happen to young men. Exactly. And young woman, you know, come in young women, come out of there and just go, you know what? You know, I've got it. I've got a new hope. I've got a dream. You know, I love that whole picture. Yeah. And it shows that we, one, we need more people like him. Wow. And two, the reality of what Bishop Dale Browner was saying yesterday, too, about the reality of the difference between a teacher and a father. And you see Sean Smith as a father because you see his heart walking around in other people. Yeah. Paul the Apostle said this. He said to the church of Corinth, he said, you have 10,000 instructors, but not many fathers. Exactly. And the difference is an instructor gives you what he knows. Yes. But a father gives you who he is. Exactly. An instructor will kind of send you out, but a father walks with you. Exactly. You know, so yeah, that's what I mentioned right to start, man. That's what I love about what's happening with this guy's ministry. I'm behind it, man. I'm supporting this guy. And this is why we do Brave Men. I had a call the other day from my friend Mike Mueller up in Elma Washington. And he had just listened to the Jim Garlow episode. Yes. And he just called. He said, man, I just have to tell you, you know, I've been listening to these podcasts. And it is absolutely stirring me up. Exactly. Give me fired up and and get me cranked up. And we've had so many great men on and so many guys that we've got coming up in the future. Exactly. I really am excited about it. Me too. And I'm just excited about seeing the impact. You know, and it's like you look out nowadays and you see dark days, but we can sit here and be confident, believing in faith that light days are coming, you know, bright days are ahead of us, you know. Yeah, you know, Chris Brussard, you know, our friend that's with Fox Sports, he was with ESPN. And but with Fox Sports insider with the NBA, get the national radio and stuff. But you know, at the end of the day, being a brave man isn't just doing it in public, but it's raising his daughters. So good. Yep. Right. Private. Talked about, yeah, private philosophy determines public performance. Exactly. What a man is in private is what he becomes in public. And you know, we've talked about it before. You know, that prayer in private makes you bold in public. Exactly. You know, and Sean Smith is indicative of that. It is. And I appreciate that. And that's where you and I as men and those of us listening to this need to go. We need to go after, you know, the fight, be who we're supposed to be, become everything God wants us to be and press in man. Let's go after this thing. I want to thank you for being a part of brave men today. Hey, please do this. Please hit the subscribe button somewhere on your device. And then also share this with others because every time I get a new person that writes into Chris or I, they're like, man, I didn't, I didn't know this before. You've already got 50 some episodes out. I hadn't heard it, but I'm so excited to find it now. So share it with somebody. I would also encourage you to write a review. Tell us. Oh, yeah. What you, how this is impacting your life, but only a good review. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can handle both. Who's this Chris guy? We can handle both. And in fact, if you go to our Facebook, Paul Lewis Cole or you go to Krishmonds Network and you write something on there that's a question, we'll answer it. Yes. And if it's a critique, we'll answer that. Yes. And if it's swearing, we'll pray for that. We'll pray for you. And then we'll delete that one. We have deleted some f-bombs, but hey, you know, that comes with the territory. I'm good with that. Hey, thanks for being with us today on Brave Men. You know, hope is alive. Hope has a name. Hope's name is Jesus. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.