If you are listening to this the morning of its release, then this morning at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church in Dallas, Texas,

they are holding the funeral and celebration of life for one of the most important men ever, at least to me, in terms of Christian ministry.

And that's Vody Bakum. So Vody was born on March the 11th of 1969, and he went home to be with his savior, rather suddenly, at least to us, it seemed, on September the 25th of 2025.

So he is a husband, and he has seven children, and there is a link in the show notes to a give sin go to try and support his family because

it was a rather sudden passing. He had just moved back from Zambia, Africa, to Florida

here in America, to start his career with Founders' Ministry and to continue his preaching

and writing ministry, and all that has suddenly come to an end. But he is one of five giants of the Christian

faith that have gone home to me with Jesus this year. So the great Phil Robertson died in May,

John MacArthur died in July, James Dobson died in August, Charlie Kirk just died last month, and now we have Vodybockham.

And so, obviously, I've talked a lot about the Charlie Kirk assassination and what that's meant

for our country and for Christendom and the fact that I consider him a Christian martyr,

and I've talked a lot about the ministry specifically of Phil Robertson and John MacArthur. I wasn't as much exposed to James Dobson's career, but obviously I

understand the tremendous impact of focus on the family. But when Vody died, I was like, okay,

who's going to be the next Christian to giant to go down, right?

And I just kept thinking about it and thinking about it.

And I can't shake this feeling that God is preparing us for something.

Because nothing happens outside of his purview and his control and sovereignty. And so he's taking these men off the chessboard. He wasn't surprised by

their deaths. And so what does that mean? What does that mean for all of us? And so we'll explore

that a little bit. But today's episode is really unlike anything that we've done on the podcast

before. I'm going to do my best to encapsulate why Vody meant so much to me personally as I

draw you to his work and to his words. So, first of all, he's a guy, as many of you that have

followed me for a long period of time, you knew that I was trying to get him on the show,

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