Thank you, Colonel Travis. Colonel Travis is what I used to be, a badass, it’s over way over. My son told me the other day, I was out jogging, he said, you don’t even have a full speed anymore, Dad, and I, and I realized I was slower than I used to be.

You know, Christ said that Christians should be shrewd and they’re not. I’ve always thought the Christians overall were the most gullible people. They send around all the stupid emails, and I never seen stuff like this, but, you know, and it’s just, you know, you go to Snopes to check it out, and they’re like, are you joking? But Colonel Travis is shrewd. Before his troops deployed for Iraq, he had me come out to Camp Pendleton and I thought this is really shrewd leadership. Before we went into the auditorium where the Marines were, he gave me a little lecture in front of his core officers. See, they were witnesses. The Bible says, let the truth be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses. He said, now Chaplain Leachman, you’re associated with a national football league so you will have credibility with these Marines during your talk, sir. Now you could lose it, but you’ll have it to start. That was real.

He said by no means during your presentation, should you refer to these Marines as soldiers. That just ticks them off; they’re Marines. That made me a little nervous. Then he said, we’re about to deploy to Iraq. I’d like to think all these Marines are coming back, but you and I both know that’s probably not going to happen. So, if you start telling them about Jesus Christ, what the hell can I do about that, sir? Which is code for, tell them.

Now all the, I noticed his core officers, they were like, yeah, yeah. And I thought, what great leadership. We were walking into the auditorium, you know, you guys have given presentations, you ever give yourself a little self-talk, try to pump yourself up? And I’m thinking like, what’s the big deal. Battalion of Marines. Man, I’ve spoken to every NFL team, D-1 teams, you know, men’s men. Nothing’s going to intimidate me. I’m a veteran. I got down there and turned toward those Marines. I said, good morning, Marines. They were like Oorah! you know. I don’t even wear a toupee and my hair flew off. I thought, these suckers can kill you 50 ways. All I do is pick the number.

So I started to man up, you know, the Holy Spirit will communicate with you. And I thought I gotta toughen up. And the Holy Spirit kind of whispered in my ear, it can do that; I know it’s whispered in some of your ears. I hope it will today. And it said, don’t give them a drill instructor talk. They get enough of that crap. Talk to them like they’re your sons. Talk to them like they’re your children. And I said to the Marines, would you mind if I spoke to you as though you’re my own sons and daughters? And I could see the body language change immediately. They’re so young. So vulnerable.

He, Colonel Travis, allowed for 30 minutes after the talk and I shared Christ with them, and that entire group of Marines just stood to their feet, gave an ovation. And every one of them shook my hand, everyone. Then he said, let’s have a half hour Q and A with the chaplain. They all asked different questions at different times, but it was the same question. What happens when you die? How do you talk to a friend when you die? What do you say to your brother when you’re holding him in your arms, and he is dying?

Christ told a parable in Luke 12 about the rich young ruler. He made every provision for himself. He became fabulously wealthy, had to tear down his barns that existed and build bigger ones to store all his crap. He made every provision for himself, except for his soul. The angel of the Lord appeared to him one day and said, thou fool, fool, fool. This day, your soul shall be required of you. Now who will all let crap belong to?

I’m sure they had a funeral for that man and said business genius, pillar of the community, a wonderful philanthropist, maybe. Christ said, so it is with he who is not rich in the things of God.

Now my job here today is to love you and greet you as brothers and light a fire under your rear end to help us all focus on the things that matter. Richard said there may be some first timers. Are there first timers here? I’d like to see who it is. Well, God bless, you’re welcome. Good grief. You guys are going to take over and run us out of here. Welcome. I love Richard Simmons. He puts weapons in the hands of people like me with his books. Richard is humble. He’s smart, way smart, man, I wish I’d have set behind by you in high school. I could have been somebody. Most of my high school career, I kept getting busted by Coach Jones over there. Snoozy Jones is the last living coach of mine at Lanier High School. If you were drinking or smoking, he knew it. He was streetwise. I just asked him a minute ago. How’d you always know when we were doing bad things? He’s like, hello? You know, takes one to know one Jerry. I’d like to introduce my, our youngest son, Tucker Leachman. Tucker, if you could, stand up buddy.

Tucker’s a graduate of St. Albans in Washington, D.C. One of the great lacrosse players in the country. And he’ll graduate down at Auburn in one month, which is a dream come true. He told us a small child; he had a vision to go to the mission field one day. You know, you go through four stages with your kids. The first stage is survival. You’re just trying to keep them from drowning in the bathtub and falling down the stairs and drinking poison. And once they get through that and they get a little bit airborne the second stage you go through with your children, you’re an on-field coach, you’re coaching.  Now, a lot of them men miss that stage, because they’re too busy trying to validate themselves and be the man out in the world. But if you don’t coach them, somebody else will. And it’s probably going to be somebody you don’t want coaching them, but you’re an on-field coach. You can plan activities, talks, all kinds of stuff.

When they leave for college or the military, then you become a sideline coach. You got the headset on, you become their greatest encourager, and their prayer warrior. You’re on the sideline. Now you do get to coach them a little bit during the timeouts and half times. That’s when they come home for Christmas break or something like that, or a telephone conversation. That would be like a 30 second timeout in the NFL. That’s stage three. Survival, on-field coach, sideline coach. The dream, the fourth and final stage, if you’ve done your job and God blesses you, when they get grown and out in the world, stage four is best friends and mutual advisors. And I have that with Tuck. My boys are my best friends and now we are mutual advisors. Matter of fact, I take more advice from them at this point than they do from me because they know me and they’re not afraid of me. They’ll tell me the truth.

Now I’ve gotta tell you, we miss Southerners. I don’t hear anything about Auburn and Alabama up in Washington, DC. Not that they haven’t heard of Auburn and Alabama, but our town’s a pro town. All you hear is about pro teams, where we live, in sports. So, I love coming down here. I’ve only gotten to go to one Alabama game this year. It’s funny. A lot of kids from DC are coming down to the SEC schools, you know, good weather, SEC sports, smoking hot girls, you know, for half the price of Georgetown. Are you kidding me? And so, I got to see, of all games, Alabama play Wisconsin in Dallas. I have a buddy up there and he started three years for Tom Osborne in Nebraska, and he’s done fabulously well in business. He said, I want to see an Alabama game. He said, can you get four Alabama tickets? I said, yeah. He said, if you’ll get four Alabama tickets, I’ll get a private jet for us to fly out to Dallas in. I said, are you kidding? He said, no problem. I said, brother, it sounds like God’s working here. Sounds like the Lord’s in it. Man, that flying on a private jet, that’s a lifestyle I’ve grown unaccustomed to. If I ever get rich like that, I’m going to put people to work. You know, I’m going to buy one of those things.

My daughter and I, she’s a graduate of Auburn, dresses all our granddaughters up in Auburn cheerleader uniforms on game day, so, two of our three kids graduated from Auburn. Our other son went to University of Colorado but my daughter and I, we have a tradition, whoever loses the Auburn Alabama game has to immediately call the other one and congratulate him. I gotta tell you, I’m so surprised the way the seasons ended up, I called her in summer and said, I’m going to get this out of the way. I don’t know that guy, he plays checkers, Malzahn, you can’t stop it. I don’t know if we’ll beat Auburn until somebody nabs that guy. And so, congratulations. It’s really stunned me the way, but I guarantee it, we all know that Auburn and Alabama game is always up for grabs, but I will tell you, we pull for every SEC team where we live. I miss the South and I’ve talked to some theologians, they said, you know, the South may be one of the last strongholds for the United States of America. There are still people down here that love Christ and aren’t ashamed of Christ.

Now I’m going to give you a talk. And my co-speaker today will be Richard Simmons. This is a big boy talk. The air is going to be very thick in this room. A lot of the things that are destroying our country, the Bible says righteousness, exalts a nation, but iniquity is a disgrace to any people. There are a lot of things going on our country not even Christians talk about. It’s hard to face. It’s sickening in some ways. And this isn’t one of these Americas going to hell talks. And now let’s have a prayer. This is what’s going on and I’m going to mention a few things we can be doing that we better be doing.

So, if you’re not on the train right now, I pray you would open your heart to God. I don’t care where you are. You could even say, you don’t believe in a God. That’s all right. He believes in you. I had a guy tell me the other day. He said, yeah, I don’t even believe in hell. I said, well fine, you’ll be there three seconds before you entirely change your mind, buddy. Now he is following me around, calling me up. Can we get together?

Richard has just written a book called, Sex at First Sight. It’s a must read. We won’t have them in the back, but I’m just telling you, you need to get this book and you need to read it and you need to give it to your friends. It’s a book of facts. Richard’s writing style: he goes through reams of books. I’m not doing that. He does it and then he connects the dots. It’s such a weapon for me because I can go now to university presidents with this book. I was on Capitol Hill four days ago for several hours of meetings with people in The Loop there. And I gave them copies of this book. And I said, I want you guys to read it. We need to meet again. This needs to be part of our national discussion. Wouldn’t it be interesting if it started right here from Birmingham, Alabama, from our Richard Simmons? Brother, thank you for putting stuff like this in my hands. You just keep giving me this stuff and I’ll just keep kicking ass. We’ll be a team, alright?

This is about the hookup culture. It’s not an aberration, it’s the culture. I’m going to read to you several excerpts from Richard’s book and then I’m going to make a couple of comments.

“A hookup is simply when two people accept and participate in casual sexual encounters. That focus only on physical pleasure without any type of relational commitment or emotional bonding. In most colleges today, sex has become another form of recreation that you fit into your schedule like studying or exercising. Dennis Prager, a Jewish friend of mine from Los Angeles, who has one of the top-rated radio shows in Los Angeles, he’s Jewish, he said recently, universities have become atheistic seminaries. They really are. A hookup’s not merely one possible forum for sexual intimacy among college students, it’s now become the expected norm. Dr. Donna Freitas observes that students have learned to merely treat each other as objects existing for the sole purpose of providing each other a certain amount of pleasure. Furthermore, she says whether the young adults coming into our campuses want to hookup or not, they’ll be faced with the hookup culture the moment they walk on the campus gates.”

Did you guys see that picture of those guys with a sheet hanging over the dorm balcony about the freshman girl moms? Drop off your freshman girls? dot dot dot? Freshman girls are like the biggest targets on campus.

“One student explained that during a hookup, you can’t allow your emotions to enter into the experience because that violates what’s required in a hookup. Ultimately you will pay a painful emotional price. In essence, everyone is supposed to walk away from the sexual experience like it never happened. This is what’s expected. This is what the hookup culture requires. What strikes and disturbs me the most is that a hookup is to be purely physical, devoid of emotion, and here fore should have no sense, no purpose, no meaning, no beauty between two parties. Afterwards, you’re supposed to erase, or try to erase, the emotional intimacy otherwise, you will open yourself up to heartache. Now we know from the Scripture, that’s not really possible. There’s no such thing as casual sex.”

You know, I don’t hear a lot of ministers talking about this or spiritual leaders talking about this. I’m going to have you convinced by the end of this talk that this alone can take, can and is, taking our country down. Forget the terrorists, forget everything else. Oil, financial meltdown. This right here took down Greece, took down Rome, took down Babylon. Think we’re greater than them?

Paul faced it straight on. I love Paul. He had spiritual kahunas. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit”, this is from I Corinthians chapter six in the Bible, “will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don’t be deceived. Neither fornicators nor adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revelers, or extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, by the Spirit of our God, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I take members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Do you not know that he who is joined with a harlot is one body with her?” There’s no separation between mind, soul and spirit. It’s all connected together in God’s eyes. He’s the designer. “For the two shall become one flesh, but he is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality.” The word “flee” in the original language is a cop car siren blaring accelerator floored, light flashing that type of flee, “flee sexual immorality. Every sin that man does outside the body, he commits, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” There is always a lasting effect.

“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you? You have from God, and you are not your own. You were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

“Dr. Freitas also learned from scores of students she interviewed that the hookup culture requires students to become hardened to sex. Such hardening begins by forgetting about romance and the culture dictates if you’re a virgin, you’re expected to lose your virginity as soon as possible. This is supposed to give you freedom to enter the whole new world and forget about love, meaning, and commitment. You’re now liberated to have sex with whoever you want. No strings attached. As students become more hardened about sex, they become nonchalant about every other intimate sexual act. In Dr. Frieda’s book, End of Sex, a senior female student said kissing and oral sex are practically the exact same thing for most college students. All the students she interviewed, these were private anonymous interviews where the kids will tell the truth because their name is not going to be mentioned, they agree that oral sex is a common occurrence during hookup. Most girls feel they have to do it if they are really going to please a guy. Dr. Freitas said that it’s apparent that young men are deeply involved in pornography. It’s epidemic on campuses and this results in many out of the norm sexual acts. Kids don’t date there anymore. In one interview, a girl said, nobody ever dates here. Even today, the doctor lectures around the country, students complain about the lack of dating. Most young women conclude there’s no chance they’ll ever find a meaningful dating relationship while in college, therefore, they’ll follow the crowd hooking up with young men. Otherwise, they fear that their time in college will be a very lonely experience.”

You know, I can’t stand to watch the new is during spring break. What goes on in Panama City. It crushes me and I’m a pretty tough guy, but I don’t, I just can’t even stand to watch it. My wife and I are on the board for Young Life in the Washington area. After the Monica Lewinsky scandal, where she serviced the President, and people keep saying personal morality, doesn’t matter about leadership, they told us that oral sex spiked within one week after that story hit the news in the middle schools in Arlington County, imitating the president. Now, listen, I know these things are recorded. I really don’t care. I’m not an angry minister. I’m a funny guy and I’m fun to be with. But I say anything because I give every talk like it’s my last talk. My wife and I have our own 501c3, Leachman Ministries. It’s the little deal we operate through. People donate. We get paid and we go out. I fully expect they’ll close us down within the next year or two. The IRS is going to contact me and say, we’ve heard things you’ve said, and will you marry gay couples? Now I want you to know, I have nothing against gay people whatsoever. I’ve had many gay friends through the years that have been good friends of mine. I’m not letting them off the hook. They’re on that list in I Corinthians 6 that I just read to you, but I just want to tell you this up front. If you just want to run the numbers by the millions of people involved in sexual immorality, just numbers, headcount, if it was a big barrel of water, gay sex and whatever they’re doing, it’s a couple of drops in that barrel. All the rest is heterosexual sin. That’s why I told a couple hundred men in Washington the other night, listen, if you’re looking at pornography, if you’re involved in any sexual immorality, if you have any secrets that go against what Paul just instructed us in first Corinthians six, and you’re at your club or you’re at a restaurant and they start talking about all the gays, you shut up. You have nothing to say, nothing, because you’re on the list.

Now to get off that list, men, doesn’t mean perfection. We know that. It just means you don’t have secrets anymore. Right before the teaching in James 5:16, where it says, “The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” it says, “confess your sins one to another and it’ll bring healing.” Now we’re all sinful. But if you confess your sins, the moment you confess your sin, it has no more power over you. When you hide it, it has complete power over you. When you hide it, you become double-minded, and you have secrets, and it’s taking us down.

“Porn is quite obviously, over the past decade, widespread, it’s available. Twenty-five years ago, only a small minority of men in college would be considered regular porn users. Today, the vast majority of college campuses, of the males, they visit porn sites every day. Without realizing it, the young man’s view of sexuality becomes greatly distorted.

Another factor that has paved the way for the hookup culture is a change in how our society determines what is sexually moral and immoral. This is the teaching of spontaneous evolution that’s been going on for 30 something years in our school. You come from nothing, and you go to nothing. Now the educational institutions are not honest. They’ll teach you that you come from nothing, and you go to nothing, but in the middle, you have dignity. Save the whales.”

What the crap are you talking about? And kids figure that out. If you come to nothing and you go to nothing, what are you in the middle? Ultimately, Nothing. What ultimately matters then? Nothing. Nothing you say. Nothing you do. Nothing you feel. Nothing you love or hate ultimately matters. Have a nice day. So that’s why all bets are off on a moral sense. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. We’ve done it in this country.

You know, in 1963 is where it all started when they took prayer out of the schools. Where were the Christians in the street protesting? They weren’t there. Guys, it’s on us. Don’t be too self-righteous. We all need to repent. Now that’s the truth. It’s easier to look at some somebody else and point the finger, but it was ours to win, and we let it go. God told us again and again, you take the fight to them. A few did, but most didn’t. We wanted to be like the world, like that rich young fool. Now they’re bringing the fight to us, on their terms. You agree with me on that? You know it’s true.

Are there any, Richard says, and I have this underlined, “So, are there any sexual relationships that are immoral today? Are there any boundaries when it comes to human sexuality? For most of our country’s history, there has been one predominant world view, the Judeo-Christian view, which holds that the moral order has been dispensed to us by God.”

You know, I was sharing this book with a group of CEOs last week in Washington. One of them is the CEO of a software company, that provides, let me see if I can find his letter to me, this man’s company provides software to the disease control center in Atlanta and other organizations like that, that track, he told me, he said, this is a silent discussion right here and it’s taking the country down. Here’s the result of the things that Richard’s talking about in this book. Now this is cutting edge, because this is the guy doing it in DC. He sent this to me in response to the book. He said, “Thank you for sharing Richard’s book with us. I’m going to buy and give it to everybody in our company.” He said this, “In the U.S., every year, there are approximately 20 million new sexually transmitted infections, 20 million a year, new, half among them is from the 15-year-old to 24-year-old demographic.” That’s 10 million young people that would be in Richard’s book. “The direct cost to the U.S. health system for the STD, sexually transmitted diseases, 16 billion dollars a year. There are 1.2 million persons infected with HIV. That grows by 50,000 a year. This is just in the United States. 66% of HIV-positive individuals are not in care yet. That means they’re still infecting others. Lifetime cost to treat HIV positive for a person is more than $380,000 per person. In lifetime, the cost to treat just the people already infected by HIV is approaching a half a trillion dollars. One in 500 college students is HIV positive. For the first time, in 2014, incidents of chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhea, all increased. 50,000 women become sterile every year because of undiagnosed cases of chlamydia. A drug-resistant form of gonorrhea was identified in 2013 and that is spreading quickly. The U.S. public health system is becoming,” listen to this last part, this last paragraph he wrote me, “the U.S. public health system is becoming overwhelmed in dealing with this national crisis just as budgets to detect and treat are being cut. It’s our failure as a culture to have frank open discussions about this silent epidemic, just for the moment, putting aside the human cost, the financial impact to the nation is becoming devastating. It’s not just a crisis of sexual promiscuity, it is a crisis in our national health system. Jerry, I have to be honest and say that some of this discussion may not be appealing to you, and probably should be left with the health professionals, but all young adults who make the decision to have sex need to hear about the risks and the dangers. It’s taking us down.”

Just a couple of more comments about Richard’s book. I’ll expedite it and just quote it from memory.

“The girls that have been counseled that are involved in this, they are 33% more likely to be suicidal and 60% more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression. The boys that are involved with pornography, it’s the end of their sex life. Dr. Freitas has written a book called The End of Sex.”

Is that the correct title?

It literally changes their brain. Dopamine’s released with other chemicals. By the time they’re in their early twenties to mid-twenties, they cannot be aroused by an actual woman. They can’t relate to real women at that point sexually at all. They can only be aroused by an image on the computer, and eventually they can’t be aroused at all. People don’t realize, about half the Cialis prescriptions, or whatever you call it, are for people that age. It doesn’t work because that deals with the plumbing and what’s happened to them, they can’t, they have no ability to be aroused anymore, that happens in the part of the brain that sends the signal light game on. So, they’re destroying their own libidos. It’s a real mess.

All right let’s pivot. So where do we go from here? You know, there are some things that we can be about. One I’m going into my Rolodex at this point in my career. I’m talking to several of our journalists. I’ve given them this book. I want to get behind Richard. I called him and said, this is a prophetic book from where I sit. He doesn’t see that. He’s down here and Richard’s humble but this thing has to be part of the national discussion. He has summed it up in this book, humbly, by connecting what all the scholars and the experts and the researchers know.

And so, I have met on Capitol Hill. I’m trying to get Richard on national radio and not just Christian shows. I want to go to the culture. I think we have a real chance to get Richard on Our Round Table on NPR. I want to get him on interviewed by some of our journalists on national TV. And I have two universities in Virginia that I’m speaking with the presidents. I want Richard and his team to develop a killer multimedia presentation where we can go on campuses, and I’ll go with him. I’m going to let Richard present the facts and then during the question and answer, if some smart aleck kid gets up to talk, I got him.

We’ve talked about it. We want to team up. This will all be done by network. I have friends on Boards in Ivy league schools. I was at Princeton last spring with kids. Nobody’s telling them this side and I promise you; they want to hear it. And in all the private interviews the kids say, I want to be dated. I want to be loved. I want somebody who…don’t we all want to be loved?

I told Richard, I want to do a couple of trial runs in these two universities in Virginia where I have a lot of friends and connections. If we screw up, we’ll tweak the program before we hit the Ivy’s and the big leagues. We may not get anywhere, Richard and I. This may be the greatest failure of our life. Well, fine. Men, I still think God’s in business. We Christians, guys, we gotta get committed for real. Play time’s over fellas. I’m not raising money from you. I’m just parachuting in and parachuting out to tell you it’s over. Now, what’s God looking for? The Bible says the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah was a man of like passions with you. I’m glad they put that in there. Pink cloud didn’t float over him. He had the same temptations we had, but he prayed, and the rain stopped for three and a half years. He prayed again. It said it rained. And there was fruit in Israel.

We need an army of men who are prayer warriors, righteous men who can pray fervent prayers that availeth much. You know, trench warfare began to be used when the weapons and the rifles got better, because they were more accurate. You know, before that, even in the Civil War, they just put in lines and marched toward each other. At the end of the Civil War, they started trench war; we’ve got to dig in. These rifles are getting too good. That lasted through World War I, but it would make the war interminable. It just went on forever. I think a million people died in World War I.

You know what changed all that? The tank. Winston Churchill and his group of guys there in England put up some kind of a boiler body on a tractor, loaded it with guns and it changed everything. It could drive right over the barbed wire, it had tracks. Somebody invented a tractor in England with tracks because the tractors were always getting stuck. It rains over there all the time. The tank could go right through everything. It could come up to your ditch and kill all of you. Couldn’t stop it.

Do you know what our tank is? Prayer, but men, I want you to hear me. Don’t let anything distract. Just pray right now you can get understanding what I’m about to tell you. James, the brother of Jesus, the oldest book in the New Testament said, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not, but don’t let him ask double-mindedly. Don’t let that man expect to receive anything from God. God might throw you a bone, but don’t expect it.

You can’t have any secrets. You can have a private life, but you can’t have a secret life if you want to be a righteous man. A righteous man doesn’t mean you have to wear a gown and have a stick and light coming off your head. Righteous men are just normal guys, but they’re just not double-minded anymore. They confess their sins. Martin Luther said, you can have a bird fly over your head, but you don’t have to let it build a nest in your hair. Now, maybe you don’t want to be a righteous man who says fervent prayers. Fine. Then you’re not going to do anything. You’re part of the problem.

Now for the rest of the talk, I’m talking to guys that want to be part of the solution. It’s easily reachable for anybody here. You dads, you need to get on the job. You know, I wrote this out the other day. Men can demonstrate to their daughters how women should be treated. Men can model to their sons, on how to think about real women and how real men treat women. Women, even the most Godly ones, cannot do that like a man can, did you know that? Women can nurture. They comfort. They encourage and they’re powerful prayer warriors, but they cannot model for boys and demonstrate to young girls in the way men can.

Proverbs 22:7 said, train up your child in the way they should go and when they get old, they won’t depart. That’s not information transfer. That word in the original language, train up means create a desire within. That comes through a deep abiding friendship. I have that with Tucker. I have it with my other son, Josh, and my daughter, Virginia. We’re like the mafia. We talk every day. We’re on it. Now I have granddaughters. Just to give you a flavor, just to get your creative juices flowing, I have a deal with my grandkids. When they become a teenager, they get to go anywhere in the world with Pop Red. They call me Pop Red because of Alabama; they call my son-in-law’s dad Pop Blue because he played at Arizona. He’s a loser. The truth is your friend.

Now why do I have that deal? Now I’ll just give you an example. With our oldest granddaughters she’s 13, so, she’s up to bat for a trip anywhere in the world with Pop Red. I’m going to demonstrate to her what a Princess really is. I’m going to demonstrate to her what a Prince really is. She’s an artist. She’s not a jock. She’s an artist and she’s good. She paints like Mary Cassatt, or Degas, and Monet who helped start the impressionist painting movement with these beautiful bright colors. We’re going to Paris. I know it may not be the place to go now, but the trip’s planned for April and I have friends there who work for The Company in Washington. We all know what that is. So, we’ll be covered.

I’m going to put her in an art class. I’m going to watch her paint. We’re going to go up the Eiffel Tower and say prayers. We’re going to have the coffee out of those cute little cups and we’re going to talk about the Lord and life sitting on the sidewalk and then, I’m going to take a suit, and I’m taking her to Maxine’s for dinner. I’m going to give the pianist a hundred dollars. And I’m going to say, I want you to play “All the Things You Are” by Carly Simon. And I want me and my granddaughter to be the only one on the floor. And I’m going to dance with her. Now, do I have the money for that trip? No, but I’ll get it. Will I spend too much? Yeah. No. You think she’ll ever forget that trip? No. Do you think she’ll forget how she was treated on that trip? No, it has to be so over the top, it’ll be something you can never forget. Now my daughter wants all our grandkids to go to Auburn. Now, do you think when my granddaughter’s a freshman at Auburn and some loser, ragtag, butt kid wants to take a roll in the hay with her. What’s she going to tell him? You can kiss my derriere. I’m worth waiting for. I know who I am and I’m not giving myself to you, you, you, or you.

Now that’s doable, isn’t it? I have versions of that with my boys. Train up your child, create a desire. Men, you need to get on the job. Stop talking to your wife in a bad way in front of your kids. You demonstrate to them how you treat a woman by the way you treat your wife in front of them. You get her in private and say, we’re never going to talk sharply to each other again. We’ll settle our differences in private. In our family, I’ve told you this before, my boys are not allowed to sit at the table before, guess who, sits down. My wife. We sit down and pray. They can’t start eating until guess who takes a bite. Their mother. Now, when that happens, what does that teach my boys? How to treat women. What does that teach my girls sitting there? How women should be treated. Train up a child in the way he should go. I could tell you, give you a whole talk just on that.

And then prayer. Man, this is my prayer book. I’m down to four minutes. This is my prayer book. Go see that movie, The War Room. I’ve seen it twice. It’s about prayer. Now these are prayers I pray for myself every day. Get yourself a prayer book. Start doing it. Be a winner. Do it. Take responsibility. These are prayers I pray for myself every day. That’s my family, my wife, the kids, and the grandkids. Now they’re double and triple spaced. And I show that to them. You know why? Because that reminds me to pray for them in slow motion. I think the most important thing I do in the world is pray for my family. It’s our tank. I don’t care if I never give another talk again. I’d just go to Colorado, ride my truck around, spin on stuff. I’m good, but this is what I do. You know why? You know our family motto, winners take responsibility, loses blame others. Who else is on point to pray for my family, my wife, and my grandchildren? I’m on point. You’re not. I am. I accept that responsibility. I laid down my sex life and all my secrets for my family so I can drive a tank.

Now, I still have murder and lust and everything else in my heart, but it’s a bird over my head. It ain’t a nest in my hair anymore.

Now these are just friends and stuff. You see how many? They’re just all crammed in there. But this summer, just to give you one more idea, we gathered all the grandkids up and got them heavy duty prayer books. And we gave them and recruited them to be our prayer partners. And now they have all our names in there and we’re swapping. Now there’s our granddaughter headed to Paris that says, I showed her this with her own eyes. There’s why I’m praying for your prince. She said, what’s that? I took her to lunch, and I said, well, I’m praying for your future husband. She said, Pop, I’m 13. I said, I know, but do you like your dad? She said, my dad’s awesome, he’s a rock star. I said, I know. How old do you think your mother was when we started praying that she’d meet your dad? Younger than you. She said, okay, pop, pray for my husband. I said, well you are 13. You know, unless you’re going to rob the cradle and marry somebody, you know, over 13 years younger than you, you could do that, but at the service, the priest would go, do you solemnly swear…you know… and she said, Pop…. there again, she has a sense of destiny. God has somebody for her.

There are things that you can do. I want to close with one example. I used to travel with Chuck Colson, just to carry the great man’s briefcase. And we would do these seven country visits in six days. And Chuck would speak to the Parliament, one trip we made, he spoke to all the Parliaments across Eastern Europe. I love their time on the planes when I could just pick the mind of the great men. You know, when people get to certain age, they’ll go, “Did I tell you the one about…”, and it’s something they’ve told you five times before, but if it’s a good one, you’ll say, no, you didn’t tell me that because you want to hear it again.

You know the story Chuck used to talk about over and over again because we used to debate and discuss, is America still mathematically even in the running for God to send a revival? Or Chuck would say, have we crossed some kind of indeterminable line where now the clock is ticking, and judgment is now counting down. No revival. Now judgment. Now nobody knows that. Do you follow what I’m saying here? We could be in fail safe as the Air Force says. It’s too late to call the B52s back. They’re going. But he used to love to tell the story of Dunkirk. 330,000 men trapped on the other side of the English Channel, surrounded by Nazis, overwhelmingly surrounded. They were all going to be killed. How about that? 330,000 casualties. They had no chance, no plan. Chuck said they sent out a notice in England back when England used to pray. We used to pray here. And all the little parishes across England began to pray for those boys. Then the day came and somebody had the idea, let’s get in our boats, whatever you’ve got – fishing boat, maybe a little yacht, something, a sailboat. And they took all those little boats across the English Channel. And God miraculously used them in those little boats to get over 300,000 men off that shore. They ferried them out to the big ships and got them out of there.

But you know why they were able to do it and not get blown right out of the water? Hitler stood down for three days. Historians to this day don’t know why he did it. His officers told him. So, what, why did he agree? He was drugged up. Okay. God can use drug addicts even. Right? It was a miracle. Why did the Nazis stand down for three days? Men, Babylonia. You take Rome. I’ll take Babylonia. Babylonia is unparalleled to me of any culture in history. They fell in one day. One day, God took them down. Don’t lose your hope. Become a righteous man. Sacrifice your life. Say if I, by God, if I get anything else done with my life in this lifetime, I’m going to become, I’m going to be in James 5:16, and become a righteous man who can pray fervent prayers. I’m going to start driving a tank, stop playing with my Christian life, and stop having secret sin.

Now I’m telling you that today, God can do anything, fellas. It’s never over. Do you have any faith? The Bible says when Christ comes back, will there be faith? You don’t have to be a great educated guy to know how to pray. All you have to do is know how to talk. Men, I asked you to do this last time. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, but I want to get on the floor in front of God. This isn’t for drama. We need to humble ourselves before almighty God. I don’t want to give up. I’ve got grandkids. I love our country. I love this city. I love our state. If we’re not going to do it, who is? Everybody that got in the presence of Jesus in the Bible hit the ground.

Now I want us to kneel, and I want Richard to come up here and pray for us. And if you have ideas for us, how we can get in places, I want you to get in touch with Richard. Now let’s pray to the Lord as brothers, before we leave, let’s kneel.