Christ’s return // SO8E5
Are we leaving out part of the story? When we teach or children about Christ, why do we stray from ever teaching them about what he will do in the future? Today we speak with pastor and author Jake McCandless about the need to raise our kids up knowing about the trials that may lie ahead but also the glories of Christ’s return. We want them to be prepared for whatever the evil spiritual forces will use against them, and, if it be in there lifetime, for Christ’s return.
Guest info and links:
Jake McCandless is the Executive Director of Stand Firm and lead pastor of Epic Church NWA in Springdale, AR and multiple award-winning author, Jake has a B.A. in Bible and Pastoral Studies from Central Baptist College, and an Advanced Masters of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He now is a weekly contributor for Israel, Islam, and the End Times and Armageddon News. He has authored books such as the, award-winning Spiritual Prepper, award-winning devotional books, Invincible and For Uncertain Times, and the ground-breaking children’s book, Jesus and His White Horse. He is also a regular guest on national and international radio and streaming web shows, along with hosting his weekly live streaming program Talking Stand Firm and the brand new podcast Stand Firm Parents.
Links: https://www.standfirmministries.com/
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AJake+McCandless&s=relevancerank&text=Jake+McCandless&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1
Verses from His White Horse:
Revelation 19:11, Matthew 10:34-36, Deuteronomy 6:6-9
“You know, we get to hear them wrestle with their, you know, wrestle with their faith, wrestle with truths. And so, I mean, you know, as parents should freak us out, you know, hearing conflict at the same time, that’s what we need. That’s what we all need to grow in our faith. “
Jake McCandless, The Pantry Podcast, His White Horse
“Like a Deuteronomy 6:6-9 is how it says, you know, these are things that we should be teaching our children, you know, these commands, what, who God is, what God is. Not just a certain aspects of God, but the full encompassment of God.”
Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, His White Horse
“And the more conflict you go through and allow Jesus to lead you through it, the more you learn how to navigate it. And you might not see it as a conflict next time, because it’s not the same.”
Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, His White Horse
Annotated Transcript:
Shea: You’re listening to the pantry podcast, part of the spark podcast network. Now playing on the Edify app. Hey, I’m Shea
Michelle: I’m Michelle, and this is the pantry podcast. Season eight road to Revelation.
Shea: We’re here to help you crave a healthier spiritual diet by teaching you to ask the right questions, seek the right answers in the right place. God’s word and break free. The junk food. The world wants to shove down your throat.
Michelle: We live in a broken world. We can fall down in despair or rise up for our wedding day. This season, we’re looking at what it really means to be the bride of Christ in the end times. And the many things we can learn from the book of Revelation that will guide us today, tomorrow, and to the end of time.
Shea: Join us and fellow listeners in 47 states and 66 countries. As we marinate on the word of God, clear the junk from our pantries and feast on real everlasting food.
Michelle: Support the show by sharing this episode with two friends that need a godly snack and becoming a partner at patreon.com/the pantrypodcast for as low as $5 a month.
Shea: And now let’s dig into the meal.
Shea: Hey, what’s up?
Michelle: I’m good. I’m doing really good today.
Shea: Yeah. I’ll tell you what. I’m excited to be here, man. It is so good to be here with all of our listeners. I want to shout out Abby Shibley, a good value listener who always gives us feedback. Thank you so much for listening to the show. It is awesome that you’re here with us. It’s awesome that y’all are joining us. We’re here just to dig into the word of God, to get some good facts towards how we should raise children. I think this episode is called white horse, right?
Michelle: His white horse.
Shea: Oh, his white horse. Oh, you know what? That is awesome. Because watch this revelation 19:11 says, then I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and makes war. I think we, this, this verse just is going to encapsulate what we’re going to hear today. What we’re going to hear from our guests that we have on it’s going to bring us to another side of our king. Because I think sometimes we hear the fluff. We hear that, oh, the grace, the mercy, the peace, the love. And, and I’m telling you that is 100%, but sometimes we don’t understand that he comes riding on a white horse. And I think that sometimes we don’t allow this subject to kind of filter down into our lower ranks. And when I say that, raising our children up to serve the Lord, and today we just have an awesome guest.
Michelle: Yes, yes. We just wrapped up Christmas a couple of weeks ago. And I think people are very familiar with, you know, the kids’ books about Christmas and about Easter, but there’s one very important part of Jesus’s timeline that we’re going to be talking about today with our special guest. His name is Jake McCandless and he is the executive director of Stanford ministries and the lead pastor of Epic church in WA in Springdale, Arkansas, and multiple award-winning author. He’s got a BA in Bible and pastoral studies from central Baptist college and an advanced master’s of divinity from Southwestern Baptist theological seminary. He’s now a weekly contributor for Israel, Islam and the End times and Armageddon news. He has authored books such as the award-winning spiritual prepper award-winning devotional books, invincible, and for uncertain times, and the groundbreaking children’s book, Jesus and his white horse. He is also a regular guest on national international radio and streaming web shows along with hosting his weekly live streaming program, talking stand firm and the brand new podcast stand firm parents. So welcome Jake it is awesome to have you
Shea: Awesome to have you brother.
Jake McCandless: Hey, it’s awesome to do this. This is going to be a fun topic. I love this intersection because typically I’m just doing prophecy stuff and talking about, but we’re talking about teaching it to kids and which is definitely on my heart.
Shea: I think that that’s one of the key aspects of this. Cause I mean, so we come from a church that they teach the Bible. I hate that I have to claim that, but it’s like, even, but even when we talk about our daughter, you know, the things that she’ll come out of the nursery with the knowledge of, and that’s because, you know, they don’t hold back the punches. And I, and you know, when this book came across my lap, I’m sitting there, I’m like, yo, this is awesome. This is like the war torn, Jesus. You know, it’s like, he’s going to come, not torn, I guess torn is a bad word cause he’s victorious. But you know, it’s kind of this, that phraseology, we’ve used for this world. And it also makes me think of verses along the lines of do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. And so you see this embattlement and this cry, so where does this bring you into all of this? And why would you write a children’s book that really empowers Jesus as the king and not just the fluff?
Jake McCandless: Yeah. That’s a long story about how that it ended up. I mean, mainly I want to try and teach it to my kids and there’s no resource out there. So I’ve got two daughters and we’re wanting to teach them the whole story. You know, Christmas just ended. My family tries to make a list of all the Christmas shows we’re going to watch. And, my favorite is Elf the, the will Ferrell show. And in the show, it has a children’s book publisher who is on the naughty list, but it shows him like printing these books and they leave off the ending. And they’re talking about these kids are gonna be left, not knowing what happens to whatever was in that book. And I feel like that’s where we are in teaching the Bible. You know, our kids know Jesus in the manger they know Jesus on the cross. They know Jesus raised him from the tomb. They know walking on water, right. Riding the donkey, those things, but they don’t know he’s coming back and riding on the white horse. That picture is not there. And so it really felt like it, we were trying to just tell the rest of the story and really just kind of fill in the blanks. And, you know, I really, our heart is where the journey started for me was Matthew 24:10, that many will turn away. And you know, whether we’re in that time or not, we’re definitely seeing that happened. And it’s supposedly happening to young people as they hit that high school, young adult age and it’s so it began, how, what can we do? And, I think a big part of that is, is telling them the whole story, giving them the end, cause it’s like, we leave them out. Like they can’t handle it. And so, I mean, that’s really kind of the short of where Jesus on the White horse came from.
Michelle: No, I, I love, I mean, honestly for our listeners, this is why we even wanted Jake on the show because of this book. And then we learned all the other things that we’re gonna be talking about today that you, that you’re a part of and the reasons behind that, but you’re right. The end is where honestly, where the hope is. And what’s funny is when you leave out his return and the millennial age and his forever kingdom, a new Jerusalem, when you leave all of the Revelation portion out, you kind of are left with this. It would make sense why the prosperity gospel would, would peak like bump up because like he died so I can live the end. Great. I can live, I can live great. I can be great. Then I get to go to heaven and keep being great. Great. And yet revelation shows that no matter how far or how advanced or how many Christian content creators are out there, the world keeps getting worse and worse because there’s an inevitable antichrist that’s coming, but we have hope and it shows our own works aren’t, aren’t a thing, you know, and I love, I love that. And I, and I’m curious, you know, what have the children that you’ve been around that have read this, but like, what has their response been? And have you seen a change in how they view Jesus after they know, I guess this quote, unquote ending or the beginning of the…
Jake McCandless: That’s been the beautiful part. So I started my writing journey in like 2016 and the first book was spiritual prepper. And then so never had on the radar doing a children’s book. But you know, once I wrote it, I’m like, okay, 450 words versus 50,000 words. This is, this is the thing I want to do this moving forward, but know that the critical part is, getting to get the pictures of kids, reading the books, you know, hearing the stories, hearing those things, but really in the process. So it was really more of this. Could we do it? Could we tell this story to kids? And I mean, that’s where it started and then what came out? I mean, wasn’t necessarily on purpose. It’s just kind of where it ended up it, where it should end up, but it really, I think for all ages, you read it and the return becomes a positive thing. I think for most of us that the return is negative. And I know someone’s out there going to say, but there’s judgment with it. Yeah. Well, yeah, but for the believer it’s the beginning of everything. I mean, it is the Lord coming back for us. And so one just all ages, it’s positive. I mean, it’s this positive, oh, this, this was a positive thing. So that’s been a big one, but it’s really crazy that the responses we get is our kids just want to hear this over and over. and it’s the book. My kid just goes and grabs all the time. And I’m not saying that to sell them because it’s been this weird phenomenon, that it’s something that attaches to the two kids. It’s weird. I mean you wouldn’t necessarily think it, but that’s the story we get over and over. And one of the cool things is it’s connection with boys. And so when I’m speaking somewhere and we’ve got the book table, you know, it’s typically the boys are running up and it’s not just the boys, you know, boys, we get feedback from, but you know, it’s something that, you know, that Jesus is a warrior, Jesus with a sword in his hand, you know, that kind of changes things which goes back to, you know, kind of the loss of manhood, you know, and the masculinity of the gospel and those types of things that we say. And so I think that’s a by-product that’s happened, but my wife had talked about that she’s an elementary school teacher. And so, you know, a lot of the direction of how to do this stuff has been helped the parent. And it’s, it’s just like this weird phenomenon where like, why are kids latching onto this story in such a way that they just want to hear it over and over? So it’s, it’s, it’s cool. I mean, I can’t explain it, but I’m glad.
Shea: I know from our own experience. So Calia, two years old, and I mean, we’re already throwing this stuff in front of y’all. I’m sorry. You can judge me how you want to judge me, but she doesn’t know about bad people. She knows about demons, but, and so we throw this book in front of her and it’s like, and I remember I was scared and she would go away from it. I scared. And then like slowly but surely she comes around and now there’s new vocabulary in her at two years old. Now she’s like, Jesus is king, Jesus fights, you know? And it’s just so awesome to see our two year old go from like the scary book. Cause I mean, there’s some cool stuff in this. I mean, okay, I call it cool. And like, some people might sit there, go, whoa, is this right? But it is, I think it is right. I think that when, you know, like a Deuteronomy 6:6-9 is how it says, you know, these are things that we should be teaching our children, you know, these commands, what, who God is, what God is. Not just a certain aspects of God, but the full encompassment of God, because I think we miss the mark sometimes as a society and in training our kids up because I am training my daughter up. And I don’t know, maybe we can just talk about this for battle. Yeah. Because I mean, if you, if you look at society today and what we’re going through today and where we’re going, because this is another, we’re going to jump over probably into another portion of your, your ministry to: End times. Because I mean, we definitely know from Matthew 24, that we are in the beginning of sorrows. And so I want to prepare my child. I don’t want my child just walking down the street saying, oh, I’m good. You know, I want her to be, I want her to be discerning. And so how do we move forward in this? How do we move forward in this discernment towards the, in times and, and preparing our children for this?
Jake McCandless: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s several different layers, you know, with that. you know, we talked about the, not giving the story because it’s scary or something like that, but every book, our kids read fairytales, they have a villain and they have a resolution with the villain, you know, every cartoon, everything that they watch, every movie it has that yet we think that can’t handle it in scripture. I mean that’s crazy. And that when we’re giving them an unresolved story, you know, for a lot of things, I think that creates a lot of confusion. I mean, my, my girls, we just, we, we introduced, you know, this story to them and, and spiritual, like you said, demons and Satan and those things. And it just seems like they’re able to deal with difficult, bad things in the world with more of a fuller understanding, I think with that. But it’s talking about, you know, preparing them for what lies ahead. You know, I think, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, we’re talking about theoretically, you know, how do we do that? but it’s happening in other places in the world. I mean, there’s families are having, having to have conversations that, you know, as a believer, we’re wanting, we’re having to meet, you know, underground, you know, our brothers, sisters in the middle east and those things. And, and that was really kind of one of the starting points for me. And so we started with this just to point people leaving the faith. And of course that got into the challenges of persecution. And when you face difficulty, you know, God allowing things to happen and all of those things. And so a lot of my speaking early on was on, you know, persecution and, and understanding.
Cause there was a lot of us when ISIS was rolling through the middle east and those things, I remember when daughter, she was at one of the, you know, totally messed up kids, you know, having to come here, these prostate talks with their dad, you know? And, and so we’re, we’re driving and she’s in the back of the backseat of the truck and she’s, she’s like, daddy, do you know, people want to kill Christians? And I was like, oh, you’re listening. You know, I think she was like five or six at the time. And then we have a conversation about that. I mean, just talking about it. I mean, you know, it sounds hard, but just including it. And, but really when we do that, it begins to show that we’re holding onto something that has value. And I think by not, not talking about the difficult, it’s not talking about the struggles, not talking about persevering, our kids miss the value between within the gospel verses, you know, places where there is persecution, where it is restricted. they’re seeing their parents live it out, you know, with their life on the line. They’re seeing the value of that. And I don’t think we show the value. I think it’s one aspect of that.
Michelle: Yeah. I would agree. Comfort can become very detrimental. I think what we were talking about this yesterday in our life group, about the way that we have a tendency to want to insulate our kids from all of the stumbles and the falls, and we know better than to do that in the physical, we know that falling down and getting a cut knee, we’ll help them figure it out if they, we don’t want them to touch the stove, but we know that if they do touch that stove, if we do not stop them that one time, you know, if we were moving too slow, they’ll learn. They’ll never touch it again. But when it comes to the spiritual, some of the most gung-ho believers are the ones who had to break before they really accepted. They might have grown up their whole life in church, but then they really, it went from being this thing my parents do to the thing I do when they broke. And with our kids, I think that you bring up an excellent point. I remember when, when I was pregnant, I was paying attention to what parents in other countries that had it rougher than us in a lot of ways, how do they raise their kids? What is, what are their kids capable of handling and doing? And also what are the parents that have like six kids? What are they still care about on the sixth kid? Right? That was how I figured it out. I was like, first time moms freak out more than everybody else. So let me pay attention to like third and fourth. But when it comes to the spiritual life, bringing up the real shows, the real value of Christ. That’s so key for everyone listening to grab a hold of. Don’t just try to insulate your kids from what Jesus delivered us out of and protects us from and lets us bounce back from. But instead be very real from the beginning cause kids can handle real
Jake McCandless: They can, and when it comes to the like going back to just telling them about the end times, not necessarily the, you know, the struggle they’re facing a lot of times, we, and I see this where we do discovery Bible study groups, around our region. And so it’s just open the Bible is walked through it. And so everybody’s bouncing all kinds of stuff. And of course, you know, with me, we’re looking at some end time stuff and and people get freaked out. They’re like, how can we have this displayed as a discussion with this, but just read the narrative, just read it as a story as it is. And I think with, with kids, I mean if you just keep reading the narratives, they know the narrative, they may not know all the details. We don’t know all the details. I don’t know all the details, you know, but they know that narrative part of it. I think that goes a long way, but you’re talking about struggle. So you, you mentioned in the bio that I’ve got a new podcast coming out called stand for parents. And so the whole idea is we’re helping families build a faith that lasts. And I guess I’m gonna give away one of the shows that we’ve recorded. But, I had my literary agent on just to talk about story because one of the things that I think it all comes down to is telling our kids the bigger story, making Christianity bigger, and then helping them live that bigger story. And so I had him on it. I wanted him to tell like all the parts of the story. And so I was expecting, you know, these characters and these journeys, you know? And so I asked him what makes him good, because he gets books from all over the world, you know, from everybody has to read and decide what’s good, what’s bad. And he tells me the number one thing is conflict. And it really kicked me, threw me back because, you know, we’re trying to project this to raising kids and he’s telling me if we’re gonna give him a bigger story, they’ve got to have conflict. And it really is. And I’m still kinda reeling from that interview because it’s like, God flick, allow my kids have conflict. I’m trying to shelter them. But it’s, it’s in that. I mean, they really have to struggle, like you said, to grow faith. And, and one thing that in, in our, discovery Bible studies that we do, I mean, we’ve got people from different faiths coming in, trying to hear the word. And so, you know, our kids have been exposed to different things like that. And you know, at first we were kind of scared and then we’ve kind of stepped back and we’re like, wait, we get to walk through this with them. You know, we get to hear them wrestle with their, you know, wrestle with their faith, wrestle with truths. And so, I mean, you know, as parents should freak us out, you know, hearing conflict at the same time, that’s what we need. That’s what we all need to grow in our faith.
Shea: Yeah. That’s, I’ll tell you what mama, she lives with us in the house, her mama. And she doesn’t necessarily appreciate the fact that we just kind of literally roll too. I watch her. But sometimes she’s too humble. You got to just like stand back and be like, okay, you’re gonna, you’re going to see this. And you know, I know there’s conflict. She’ll receive from outwardly as well. But I’m saying just within her own, you know, learning how to do things. She comes across these moments where, I mean, look, she falls, you know? And then she’s like, ah, but now she jumps around and couches and like goes all over it. Mama is downstairs. Like, you’re going to stop my heart girl. You’re making me go gray fast. But, but you know what? That’s good for mama. I’ll bet Mama is downstairs. I know mama. See, she’s a prayer and I’ll bet she use down there in constant prayer. As that child jumps around the living room.
Jake McCandless: Yeah, no, no doubt. No doubt. I remember, were with friends and so, you know, I’m girl, dad, I got two girls, your experience as well. And so you know we were babying them, all that stuff. And they had a boy about the same age and like he’s fallen off stuff like his head on concrete. And they’re not even like, look in or like worried. I’m like, I think he’s hurt. And they’re like, we want to, we want him to be tough. We want to let them do that. You know? And I was like, oh, okay. And sure enough, he jumps up just goes on like nothing, you know? So yeah. I mean, once you face conflict and go through it, it’s going to help propel you for that next struggle you face. Cause we’re gonna face struggle. Let me, Jesus said, when he’s saying, you know, each day has enough trouble on his own, he knew the human condition, and it does.
Shea: He said, tomorrow has enough trouble for itself. Right? In other words, I’ve got control of this. Don’t don’t, don’t worry about tomorrow. Don’t worry about what’s going to happen. And she, I mean, fortunately, unfortunately I don’t know. It depends on what kind of parenting style you might have, but our little girl has an army daddy. And so I’m like people like, oh, she’s going to melt you. I’m like nah I’m gonna build her up to be a warrior.
Michelle: I think also as she gets older because of… she remembers, we all remember as a psych major who studied the brain. I tossed out all the junk right when I came to Christ. But what remains is that we tend to focus on what has brought conflict in our life. To go back what you were saying about conflict and the most powerful part of the story that dictates the fight or flight response that’s in us. And the more conflict you go through and allow Jesus to lead you through it, the more you learn how to navigate it. And you might not see it as a conflict next time, because it’s not the same. But when you are operating strictly relying on yourself, you might say, I got a run or I got a fight and it’s the wrong move, but you’re doing it on your own. And so fear comes and grows so big, you know, but when you’re, when you’re falling down all the time is that you learn how to move your feet. Not like she’s like a little athlete already at two and a half. So, you know, I’m excited to see that. But as far as revelation as a whole, I want to know, and you were about to say something. So say that first, I do want to know
Jake McCandless: Our ministry, helping people remain faithful. And so we looked at ministries that were doing that across the country. And one of the number one things we found here in the west here in America, it’s when difficulty comes in your life is when people like, oh, God allowed this how could he allow this. And that’s when they’re gone. And we talked to a ministry that was just come and listen to people, tell their struggle. And it’s like, once they got to tell their struggle and they said, we don’t have to answer them. You know, the holy spirit will kind of work in that, but it’ them wrestling with that with truth. And then I met a ministry, I think out in Philadelphia called, reimagine faith and their ministry was for young adults just to get them in a room and allow them to ask all the questions I wanted. And because a lot of times they’re just struggling. How does this real life stuff fit in the small box of faith I was given as a kid. And so, you know, letting that difficulty rise up and talk about.
Michelle: You actually segwayed perfect. Cause the question was, what is the struggle in your life that reading and really diving into the book of revelation actually saw that that led you and propelled you down this road of ministry where it was going to be a focal point?
Jake McCandless: Yeah. Well, well, it didn’t start all that spiritual. It started, so we have our first child, my wife wants us to school, teach you. He wants to stay home. I’m a pastor living in like the parsonage provided by the church. And we’re just like, I’m freaking out over bills. How are we going to make it, you know, how are we gonna make it with you not working. And, and so I like, so I took this paper out at night. So pastor by day paper, boy by night that I needed like nine bucks after doing that for a while. And so then I’m like, oh, I’ve always felt called to write. I’m going to writet. So I’m like, oh, that’ll fix everything. No, still didn’t fix anything. But it got me doing what God had always put on my heart. And so in that I’m writing about when I call it overlook prophecies and you know, we think processes, we think antichrist, we think, you know, all this stuff, which is true, but there’s also prophecies. Like, like I mentioned, many will turn away. There’s also like what, 2 Timothy 3:5, the people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money and lovers of this, you know, that people turn from the truth and just, we can say, Hey, these, these are prophecies as well. And they’re describing where we’re going to be. And it was in that, that I just got captivated by that many will turn away part. And so as a pastor, I’m standing up before my congregation, like, okay, this is saying the majority of who’s here, professing would be gone and what have I done to prepare them? And then I realized all my conversations, I have everywhere. It’s the same thing, pastor I used to be in church. I used to love the Lord. And then this happened. And it bothered me so bad. I just quit. We left just to speak it and write on it. But you, so at the beginning talking about, okay, how do we prepare for these challenges? Well, it’s like the Bible has what the challenges are going to be. You know, even if we’re not to that point yet, we’ve got the trajectory that we’re on. And so that led me to, through studying revelation. And so one of the things that begin to realize is when we talk about the book of revelation, people don’t read it. I mean, we’re just relaying what we saw in a movie or what a preacher said. We’ve never read it for herself. I haven’t. And I was actually teaching a lay seminary class that I was directing at the time. And I’m teaching through Daniel and Daniel to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar. And it was always a certain way that I’ve viewed this. and I get in the weeds here and people are gonna shut down here. But, you know, it’s, it’s a session of empires that rollover the land of Babylon. And I mean, to me, it shows a timeline for Daniel’s life through the return of Christ. And so you find yourself in that. I mean, we know we know everything, you know, where we’re at. And, and typically it’s always, Rome is considered these legs and we will always talk about Western Rome. We talk about this, revival of, you know, Roman empire. And so I’m going to class to teach that and all the way there, I’m like, wait a minute, there was Eastern half of Rome that lasted like a thousand years later. And I’m like going to class like, holy cow, how come we’ve never talked about this? How come I’ve never heard anybody say that? And so the whole class was just me like look, I don’t know. I don’t know now. And I leave that class, drive an hour away to see somebody in the hospital. And while I was teaching the class, it was like midnight and driving back and listen, don’t judge. I listened to Michael Savage and he has a guest on their teaching from revelation 17, which is really parallel to Daniel 2. And he begins to give them another option. They’re talking about the Eastern half, crazy. I mean, it was just like, boom, boom. And I’m leaving the next day on a trip. I just quickly downloaded a book on it and it was from there. I just began to realize I don’t study it and read it for myself. Even though I’d done my undergrad in Bible and seminary and been pastoring, leading a lay seminary and all that stuff, I just really hadn’t read it for myself. And it began to really change things. And so then it began okay to prepare people for challenges. We need to know these things, but we’ve made it so difficult. We’ve made it so complicated. And so I went on a mission, just say, how can we simplify it? So how can we get it down? Just the bare minimum? How can we just get it down to that? We can say, we know for sure these things and that’s enough for us to understand the scenario. And, and so we began ministry actually started as it’s called proxy simplify. So I’m doing these seminars on prophecy, boiled down, and then it was a reminder, Lord just put it on my heart. It’s not about just teaching this head knowledge. It’s about helping people remain faithful. And, you know, this is, this is just a component in it. And so that’s where we would come back to the Stanford side because long story there, but it really began with how do you help people remain faithful? We got the answers, we’ve got to know, you know, and people say, well, we’re not there yet. Maybe not, but we’re on that trajectory. I mean, this is where we’re headed. And so we should be able to know a lot. And what’s amazing when you dig into it, when you, when you take off all your presuppositions and you, you just, when I say, put your heart and mind in neutral and just let the scripture move you around, it’s a, it’s amazing what’s there.
Shea: I think that’s an awesome direction to go in the sense of, okay, so I can study these things. I can, I don’t have to panic about these things. It’s not a fatalistic idea. This is just me preparing. Maybe not necessarily me, but I’m preparing the next generation. I think that we forget to speak these things. I think we forget to speak. The other day. We’re like, okay, so we’re looking at parasites. I’ll just, this is just a analogies. So, we’re looking at parasites. We’re looking at worms. We’re looking at deworming and we’re looking at how society in the US has moved away from deworming and we’re sitting there trying to understand it. So you asked my mom, I go, okay, mom, well, do you do, do you wear them now? She goes, no. And I said, well, did you ever do warn us? And she said, no. I said, what did your mom do? Deworm you? And she said, yes, she used to make us eat garlic and bread, you know, once a month or once every couple of months. And that would was one way to Deworm kids.
Jake McCandless: Oh, I’m just getting freaked out. I’ve not been dewormed!
Shea: We won’t talk about what happened when we did it. We’ll leave that for another episode. Demons y’all demons, no just kidding. So I saw him, saw him sitting there and I’m looking at this and it gives me that, that idea of, of the Bible and how we’re supposed to raise up generation to generation, to generation. And we’re failing even on the deworming of a piece of garlic in a piece of bread. And I’m like, okay. So we study these things because I think that the smaller prophecies are very important because I can sit there and say, well, there’s nothing new under the sun, but when you get in 2 Timothy 3:13, and it says that the evil men will become more evil and be more deceiving. It’s like, okay, wickedness is going to grow. The amount of wickedness is going to grow. Now, this is not new wickedness. It just means it’s going to more widespread, widespread, more people. And so these little things are very important, especially because we don’t know. I don’t know what tomorrow brings. I don’t know if they’re going to shut us down. I don’t know if tomorrow I’m going to turn on the internet. They’re gonna be like, yo, Christian, we don’t, your Bible is hate speech. And we don’t want, you know, we don’t want this hate speech up on our platform anymore. And so I just don’t know, but I really don’t know for my child. And so when we were teaching her now, that’s why, you know, okay, y’all you can say what you want, why we say, okay, there’s demons. We talked to her very real at two. We are very real with her. She’s very, but she comprehends it well, but it’s important for them to understand that this is not a battle of flesh and blood, but this is a battle of the principalities and the air. And it’s a spiritual warfare and I need her to her heart to be prepared for that. And so I think that what you’re saying is beautiful. What your ministry is doing is beautiful.
Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. I’m I want to know, like, I, I kind of have a love, hate relationship with these kinds of questions, but I would say like, if there’s, if there’s one thing that you have found, like the most, not even effective, but the thing you’ve seen, like click in people’s heads the most, or wake them up the most, like, if they’re like, I don’t really get why this is applicable or whatever. Like, but that thing that you say, or that they realize that really helps it click and become more relatable because I got saved off the book of revelation. It’s the first book of the Bible I ever read from back to front. I’m one of the few. And I saw God’s grace and love in it because I read it annotated. I can tell you, I knew to look up annotated. Cause I was not going to figure it out on my own. I didn’t have the holy spirit, how was I going to do? And but most people are like, Ooh, that’s just, that’s just too this, that or the other for me to understand. And so, so what has really helped people realize and, and made it click for them, that the book that has yet to fully happen is very relevant for them.
Jake McCandless: Yeah. That’s so I can’t just give one answer because it’s, it’s been a few things for different people. and I will say it’s so important to what you said about generation. So, because we feel like there’s five areas that we’re not telling kids the full story the End times or relationship with Israel, God’s plan with Israel, the unseen world demons, a spiritual warfare, and, and that we’re meant to just completely follow Christ. I’m sure there’s more, but that’s the five week we focus on with kids and parents. And so we may not be that generation at the end, but like you said, a generation is, and we’ve got to keep passing down the truth. And so I think the big deal first, you look at people why we should teach it before things that that’s just really clicked with folks. I think one is, and we see this as we’re doing like home Bible studies is just treating it as, I don’t want to say story because it’s, it’s not a story, but don’t just argue about who the two witnesses are. Let’s just say, Hey, there’s two witnesses in this deal and go on, you know, let’s just stick with the, just know the story. And so that’s brought relief from one area that we see. One of the biggest starting points though, for people I think beginning to really question if they’ve just taken a packaged peel of the end times and not just read it for themselves. I think it’s the Daniel 2 at who this final empire is. One of the great reads out there is Joel Richardson’s book, Islamic antichrist. To me that was a tipping point for a lot of folks just to say, well, let me reevaluate some things. So I mean, those two, I think are so, you know, just treating it as a story. I think that particular doctrine is a place to start. But really what has seemed to click the most is I do a seminar called Your Here. And we look at where are we in this prophetic timeline? And we talk, I talk about all the signs that we hear you, we can’t measure them. You know? I mean, yes, it is going to increase, but how much, you know, what’s the quota, you know, there should be earthquakes, what’s the quota. But I think Daniel 2. I think if you, if you figure out where we are in that timeline, it’s a little more measurable. I think the return of the Jewish people, which happened right before our eyes is, is measurable to a certain degree and just talk and looking at that point, that’s really been the point for someone to say, oh my goodness, this really is something we need to take seriously. That worked for my wife. So my wife is extremely supportive, but she’s like this prostate thing when we started down this journey, she’s like, I just really talking about some positive. Now she’s just full on. I mean, she’s not going to listen to other shows or, you know, she’ll listen to this one, but because we’re talking about kids and you guys are cool, but she’s not gonna listen to, you know, a full thing of mine, but I read one of the books of her community, but, she’s like, okay, I see the point now. I mean, this is, this is something we didn’t talk about. So I know that’s like not, not an easy answer, but I think again, like go back to just consider it part of the story. Let’s, don’t just get in the weeds, just see the big picture. If someone wants to jump in and dive a little deeper and let’s look who is this empire and Daniel 2. But then I think seeing, seeing the timing and we do have that video, you are here. We have actually have that on our YouTube page. So somebody check that out.
Shea: Yeah. Yeah. That’s when I look at revelation, when I look at, end times, when I look at the progression to where it’s, or the road to revelation, there you go. Let’s shout out our, our season, season eight, what? Road revelation. It doesn’t discourage me. It encourages me, but what does that encourage me to do, to do what God has called me to do to share his message? you know, people can look at it in a whole, whole bunch of different ways, but at the end of the day, for me personally, it drives me because where the world is going without Jesus has a huge impact on my heart and really like just it’s saddening and it, and it, and it’s like, I don’t want people to go there. And I granted I know that people will, but it’s, but that’s a driving force for me. And it’s always been that way. So I know people I’ve been called fatalist. That’s why I kind of threw that word out there, but, it’s okay. Because I think that we we’re, we’re not fatalist, we’re, we’re optimistic and it’s healthy and we have hope. And so on that, I just, when, and we always ask this question, what is, what is that one thing? And we kind of said, you said, there’s multi points, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna go ahead again. One of the most important things in your family that you instill into your children. And I mean that you just really, that, that is your, I know prophecy is your thing, but what is that one thing that you’re just like, we’re not going to bend here.
Jake McCandless: Yeah. Because prophecy is just part of it. I mean, it’s the whole counsel of God. I mean, as you guys would agree well, as I’ve done all the interview, I cannot do just one thing. I would, I would say to one your regular time with the Lord for us, I mean, our family, it’s the quiet time. So in 2014, I mean, after being in ministry for 15, 16 years, me and my wife just made this commitment, no matter what we’re going to get in our daily time with the Lord, no matter what. So as, you know, stay at home, mom, she’s got kids crawling, you know, it gets crawling on her and she’s getting any. And as a pastor, like things may come up, but it may be four o’clock and I’m not, I’m not quitting. I’m still going to get this in and really building that habit. I mean, because we need to hear from the Lord, you talked to persecuted countries and those believers, they’re like, it’s a matter of life and death that we hear from the Lord and we’re walking in the spirit and, and you can’t walk in the spirit without the word. So I’m able to throw a third one in there. So number one, and I always like to say, parents, you want your kids, you want to get caught. You want to get caught in the act of doing a quiet time, doing devotional time and our kids. I mean, it’s the journals prayer journals are like the most sacred thing in our house. But the other part of it is, is getting omission. I mean, like you’ve said, I mean, being motivated and so finding within the household and I’ve talked about it forever, and we’re just now kind of really diving in after I’ve been doing this for quite a while, as a family, one is, is have some type of way that you’re able to get people in your home or get to their home. I mean, you know, some, you know, we, we feel like churches need a structure in which you’re going to do the great commission. Not like it’s a weird thing you add in. And so, you know, we were doing it through multiplying home groups. We’re also as a family, it’s just, we, we just talk about, Hey, we’re gonna talk to people, you know, we’re just, you know, we’re gonna put ourselves on the path of people know our kids are, you know, you know, sometimes they’re like with that. and then we, we just, something that we’re hoping to bring in through Stanford parents is, is family mission trips. And so we actually are going one on a family this summer, and we’re going to take some others with us. And it’s kind of like exploratory how this thing gonna look, but we’re hoping down the road, we can partner families with missionaries and that they’ve got this ongoing relationship that really connects because I mean, we, we get, if we get our kids in the mission, I mean, they see it, they see a real, it is I see the Lord work. And I think that fixes a lot of things that we’re trying to do in a lot of different ways.
Shea: Awesome. Awesome. I love it. And if you guys ever want to come up this way and learn what rejection is, oh, we got, we got, we got a room. We got place for you to stay. You can just call that your little mini mission.
Michelle: I was literally about it invite the same offer. Yes.
Shea: But also let us also let us know what you’re doing because who knows Watson’s might jump in on that and figure it out. Plus, plus we got, we might have some ideas for you.
Jake McCandless: Yeah, yeah, that would be awesome. Were in the early stages. We reached out to one visit mission agency and they’re like, let’s do it. can you, can you, can you lead it, you know,
Shea: And just think we’ve got 744 churches globally. Greater Grace does that. You could tap into and then always love to have people come and visit.
Jake McCandless: Incredible. That would be incredible.
Shea: Absolutely. But Hey, I love what you’re doing, brother. Love the book, love everything that you’re. I mean, there’s nothing I can even say right now. I was just so excited. I think we could probably go another three hours on this one, but, I’ve really enjoyed having you on and, and hearing everything that you have to say and the direction that you’re taking kids. Not just kids, but people, parents showing parents how to do this, how to raise their kids, kids up in a way that we’re not holding back from them, that we’re actually giving them the full, the full biblical gospel, the full Bible. You know, we’re not just staying in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. No, we’re, we’re, we’re venturing out into leadership and, and prophecy and all of these awesome things that the Bible gives us. The reason I think I agree with you. We should be reading through the Bible. Y’all I’m going to say it, I do it every year. And it’s awesome because every year it has a different season and it means something different. It shows you something different and it enlightens your world to the knowledge of God and what he wants in our lives. But thank you for being on the show, brother.
Jake McCandless: Hey, thanks for the opportunity. It’s been, it’s been fun.
Michelle: We should do a live. We, we, we kind of parked on that for a little bit, but I think in 2022, we’ll, we’ll jump back into lives and, and have some live discussions about this with some Q and A’s and all that fun stuff. But yeah, no, thank you so much. All the links to all your stuff is going to be@thepantrypodcast.com under this episode’s show notes so that you can go plug in, get all the books, the cover art on some of these books is so legit by the way, guys. But you can go ahead and support Jake, his ministries, his books, and also take part in those resources. So until next time.
Shea: Bye
Michelle: Bye.
Jake McCandless: Bye!
Michelle: Thanks for listening to the pantry podcast. Subscribe to the show, wherever you listen and check out other great shows on the Edify app and eternity ready radio.
