Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and I'm excited today we have a man who is, I would say, kind of rare nowadays. A man whose faith is not hidden, who is open about his faith. It's right on his bile. We don't find that too often nowadays, let alone apply to the workplace.
And so I'm excited to get into some of those conversations here today. So, Mr. Ralph Estep, would you please introduce yourself for us? All right. Hey, thank you, Mr. Whiskey. And I'm, I'm glad to be on the program today. People ask me what, who am I, and I'll give you a list of who I am. I'm an accountant. I'm an author.
I'm a farmer. Yeah. I raise black Angus cows. I'm a father of two boys. I'm a husband and I'm a podcast host. I do a daily podcast host. And what I just recently figured out, and you mentioned here in the intro is I'm actually an evangelist. I'm a believer that the Lord Jesus Christ is Should be at the forefront of our lives and it doesn't matter whether I'm playing softball with my men's softball team Or if I'm talking to clients or if I'm talking on my podcast show I'm gonna always put that in front and I guess, you know turning 52 in September I just don't care what people think anymore Because I realized that the long term is I'm gonna be standing before him at some point.
He's gonna say Ralph What did you do with your sorry self? And I'm gonna say here's what I did. I was a vessel for you Amen to that. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't read the book of Ecclesiastes, I know I've been promoting that on a lot of my episodes and stuff, having a little Hevel fever, if you would call it, but so it's a great book, honestly, if you're wondering about the purpose of life it can be very depressing to read, definitely let me, left me a little heartbroken for two days there, and then I found great Joyful, heavenly satisfaction in it.
Now I got to ask you, Mr. Estep, before we move on any further. Me, Ralph, by the way, when you say Mr. Estep, I'm looking for my dad or my grandfather. So call me Ralph. We're friends now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ralph. Yeah. I there's no Mr. Whiskey before or after me. Well, I don't know. I can't speak for after me yet, but there's no, no one before me.
And so, I appreciate that title, but what I was going to ask, because I'm very curious, have you ever hit a home run during the softball? You know, I haven't but I got to be honest with you as I get older. Right. So now I just EH mostly, which is, which is about my speed because last year I was still playing first base and it was, we were just about a game before the playoffs.
And I was out there on first base because, you know, I could pretty much be a statue at first base. I didn't have to move too much. Well, somebody took a line drive, hit me right below the knee. And I'll tell you what, Mr. Whiskey is swelled up. And I said, you know what? Ralph's getting too old for this nonsense.
So I came back and played this year, but this year I just did some EHN and some first base coaching, which was, but, but I'm not a long ball hitter anymore. When I played semi pro baseball, when I was younger my last game I ever played, actually, I'd never hit a home run. I hit one hit a home run over in Pennsylvania, Jersey.
So yeah, that was the end of that career too. So, I guess I ended on a high note, but I do enjoy playing softball with my guys from church. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, definitely. At your age and any age if that had hit your knee instead of below it, wow, what it may have taken you out of commission.
I know I, I have some knee issues already and I'm still a young man. So take care of your knees, ladies and gentlemen, but that, that's awesome. Yeah, and you talk about having Jesus Christ at their front and center. And for those of us who aren't familiar with Evangelicus, what exactly differentiates that from a Christian, from a Catholic, from a Protestant?
What is the forefront of that compared to other denominations? Well, I don't necessarily think I'm taking up talking about a denomination. I'm just saying I'm an evangelist. And what I mean by that, I'm a Baptist basically. That's what I was. That's what I am now. I was raised a Methodist. I went to Catholic high school.
I studied world religions in college and I've kind of settled on the Baptist religion. But first and foremost, I'm a Christian, you know, and I believe that what an evangelist is is somebody that goes out there and promotes Christ, you know, goes out there and speaks to every opportunity they can because the mission field.
Is wherever you are, that's the thing that people don't realize is that your mission field, I don't care whatever you're doing, Mr. Whiskey, your mission field is right there at your microphone. And if we can embrace that, then that helps us get to our purpose because we're all in search of that why at the end of the day, aren't we?
And for me, that why is about being an evangelist. I call myself the podcasting evangelist. Yeah, it's funny you said it's at my microphone because the reason I started my other podcast, Radiating Faith, was because I was sitting here thinking to myself, how can I have The skills, the technology to produce a podcast and not spread the word of God as well.
And of course, I do that on my show with certain guests. It's not every episode, a couple of nukes. And I was like, I need to make a platform dedicated to that, you know, whatever it may be. And I think that's great. Yeah, I know my my good friend and mentor, Johnny T. He's host of Refuge Freedom Stories.
And it's a show about real lives changed by the power of God. And he always asks two questions, almost anywhere he goes, anyone he meets. Do you believe in God? And what can I pray for you about? And it's beautiful. That's how he starts the conversation. And I recently had a guy on my show where we talked about on a, we were talking about suicide prevention with Gen Z and millennials by introducing them to the faith through technology.
And he shared a story of how he just. You know, ask this waitress some questions and, and eventually led her to the Lord and healed her anxiety through the Lord. And what's great about that is, you know, a lot of people would be afraid to start that conversation, to have those conversations. They're afraid to ask because of rejection, because of harsh backlash.
But we're not called to have a spirit of fear. We're called to be righteous and courageous. And I know, I know. I had a friend of mine, very, very atheist, and I knew that. Still invited in the church, said no. You know? But that's fine. The thing is, we're called to ask and speak. And I love the book of Ezekiel, it's one of my favorite books, and in it he talks about how, Ezekiel, you're going to be the watchman for Israel, and it doesn't matter whether they listen or not, I'm telling you.
To tell them the truth, right? And whether they listen or not is up to them. But if you know the truth and you don't tell them and they perish, you will perish with them. That's blood on your hands. So I think it's so important for us because in accordance with the bible and it's just the right thing to do is to share that knowledge, right?
And whether people listen or not, that's on them then. But you have to give them that option. You have to, whether it's holding them accountable, teaching them about love, teaching them about a bible, whatever it may be. Or asking them about the faith, right? And I think one of the things I talked about, which I'm sure you can verify, is that some people don't want to have conversations of conversion because they want the instant result.
They want to be talking in the person's like, I believe in God, I'm saved X, Y, Z. But we're called to be farmers of faith, to plant seeds that may grow. In fact, The other day we said on my show a guest shared this beautiful quote to where we're creating trees whose shade we will never sit under that that's that's what it means to to be a believer and follower of Jesus Christ.
So, Ralph, can you tell us about your journey? You know, you talked about. This religious journey of jumping from denomination, denomination, you know, not, not by choice necessarily, but then researching it, you know, and finding your calling and your place and all of that. So tell us a bit about that journey.
I think it's one that could resonate with a lot of our listeners who are confused, who are in a denomination war, caught in the midst of it, so to speak. That's the thing that I've come to realize, you know, I've been working a lot on my why one of the things in life is, and I wish I knew this 30 years ago, the, the, the more that time that you spend looking for your why, the more likely you're going to find success because that's just the truth, you know, you got to figure out your why.
And with me, it's all been about the journey because what I, what I come to realize is that it's not about the destination. Because the destination is never going to put you where you want to be, but it's all about the journey. I talk about that all the time on my podcast. I talk about, it's all about the journey.
You got to learn to embrace the journey. So for me, it started when I was eight, mom and dad split up. And the last thing dad said is he was leaving the house. His son, you're the man of the house now. Okay. I'm eight years old, dude. I don't even, I don't know what's going on. Like I was a big fat kid and I was thinking about when's the next Twinkie coming, you know, and here, here, my mom is, is relying on me.
You know, I remember it wasn't a year later, she was out back cutting the grass, that lawnmower died. And here goes Ralph, man of the house, my man of the house came on out to save the day. A couple of years later than that, mom decides it's time to get a new car. Dad had always handed out to go to the car dealership with her.
Okay. I had no idea what the guy was spending my way. They were trying to swindle my mom, but guess what I did. I swooped in. I was the man of the house. But then I came to that actual conversion. When I was 13, I was over my grandfather's house and he was a guy, a Southern Baptist fellow, a common guy, electrician.
And back in those days, the preacher, the preachers from the local church would come visit people. They do, you know, do their calling. And I remember we're sitting at, sitting at the house. I think my grandmother had made some tea sandwiches or sipping some iced tea. And the preacher looks over at me and he says, Do you know where you're going if you die today?
And I said boy, you don't hold back you just call like it is don't you now? He wasn't he wasn't he wasn't abrasive like my aunt and uncle They had become missionaries about a year before this and they were on the good samaritan I'll never forget the first time they came back. It was christmas and my aunt and we weren't terribly close.
We were close enough I don't know where she found this religion, but it was cool. She was on fire Wayne when she comes in she sits down with me. It's christmas eve and she says do you know where you're going when you die? You So I'm going to give you a little bit of Fort, you know, play it back a little bit.
Yeah. And I said, I don't know. And when she goes, well, if you don't, if you're not saved, you're going to hell. I'm like, Oh, great. Now I'm in the house and I'm going to hell. So, you know, as it was Christmas Eve, I like, okay, that sounds good. Let it pass. But anyway, fast forward to the next summer, I'm sitting at my grandfather's house and, and I know what it was this whole time.
Mr. Whiskey is crisis. Like Ralph, I'm ready for you. I'm ready for you. So this preacher looks at me, he says, you know where you want to go? I said, I don't know. He said, do you want to know today? I said, I would love to know today. He says, I got real simple answer. If you ask Christ into your life, it's there.
You see, here's the thing I learned about Christianity and people get hung up on Christian. You mentioned it with your different face and all this stuff. Picture this. Christianity is really this simple. Christianity is Christmas morning. You know, when you were a little kid and you know, the, you, you, you, in my house, at least you'd have to wait upstairs to your parents got up for you and rushing down to the Christmas tree.
Right. And under that Christmas tree, there was gifts. They were all wrapped up. Well, here is Christianity. It's really this simple christianity as you walk up to the tree. There's a gift there and it's your choice to open it or not That is really christian. It's no more complicated than that because you can't earn it.
You can't work towards it It's a gift. Christ is giving you a gift. It's your choice whether you open it or not. So to be honest with you, I went to Catholic high school and I got something from that. You know, that was cool. I tried this church. I tried that church. And listen, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I have all the answers.
I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that yeah, every church, listen, we're all humans. We're all flawed. What's the Bible said? All have sin. But I think you've got to find that Christian community that works for you. And I've landed in that now with the Baptist church. And I'm not going to say that the Baptists are better than the Methodists are better than the Lutherans are better than the Catholics.
Pick one. The key is to have that core, that belief. Because there are churches that are leading people astray. I mean, in the end times that we're in now, there are people out there preaching false gospels. That's just the truth. It's what's written. It's absolutely right. And we're living in dark times. So you gotta arm yourself with the full armor of God, right?
And be very wary. My grandfather, like I said, Southern Baptist guy used to say one thing to me. He said, son, here's what I'm gonna tell you. Seek your own salvation. When you go to church on Sunday, write down what the minister's talking about. And when you get home, get that Bible open and start confirming what he said.
And so I've always looked for a church. That's a, it's a gospel preaching church is an honest church. I'm good friends with our pastor. His name is Pastor Josh. I help him with our podcast for the church, but, but I feel like I've really found a home there and I think that's the part of it because guess what?
This isn't our home. This is our temporary home. So as we are here in this temporary home, it's just, it's just going to be like, yeah. That quick, you know, it's going to be going that quickly. You got to surround yourself with like minded people And people that can help build you up in that christian community And that's the other reason I do the podcast my podcast is all about christian finance Now those two words don't often come together.
But guess what if you're going to be successful in your finances You're going to have to be successful in your faith. So that's why i've married those two things together Hope that answers your question on it's a long answer to a to a brief question. That's great I think it was great and same for all of y'all out there.
Who are new to the faith or trying to get into it or helping other people. And you had this question popping up there from other people or yourself. Well, what version of the Bible do I read on, on researching on Dr. Google and he's telling me this and that, I guess it would be Reverend Google in this instance.
Reverend Google is telling me this version is better than this or that. You got people like Mr. Whiskey telling me I got to read it in Hebrew and Greek, you know, but what I'll say, and I, I'm trying to learn those languages to do that, but yeah. A great pastor I heard said, whatever version works best for you.
And that's not saying, you know, go out there and find one that you can really twist upon people. Whatever one you connect with the most. You know, some people, we all know that King James Enthusiast, We all know him, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. People like that language. Some people like, I read the New International Version.
I've got people calling me you know, like a pansy for reading the New International Version. They're like, you need to, you need that baby talk. I'm like, no, it's just simple to read. You know, it gets the message across clearly. And it's, I like it because when you're preaching to other people, especially those who aren't familiar with the faith, it is easier for them to digest that than the King James Version.
For people of faith, like, like, Ralph and I, sure, I love when someone's talking in King James Version, like, listen to him talk, listen to that, that's some powerful stuff, but if I'm trying to help other people, I mean, you gotta give them the, the digestible version, the New International Version, you know, makes it simple, doesn't make it watered down, or, or stupid, now there are Churches out there, certain churches, certain religious speakers who are watering it down and kind of sugarcoating it.
And at the end of the day, unfortunately, that's not what we're called to do. We can't sugarcoat it because people's lives are at stake or people, and I don't just mean. Heaven and hell, when I say people's lives are at stake, I'm talking about their happiness, their financial freedom, their, their relationships with other people, with, with a wife or a husband, with their children.
When I say their lives are at stake, I'm talking about their lifestyles because all it takes is a single conversation to change a life, whether that's a faith based conversation or not, in one direction or the other. And so I think it's so important, and Ralph, we'll get into here. Because I want to highlight you, the guest, talk about finances and, you know, faith and putting them together.
I'd love for you to share with us some advice on that. If you have any books with a picture of yourself on it to show that you know, cover that subject. That would be great to share with us as well. Let me start with this. I just recently wrote this and this is something I'm giving to anybody that goes to my website.
It's ask Ralph. com. If you sign up for my email list, you can get this. And it's called how to escape the paycheck to paycheck bondage, because that's what it is. That paycheck to paycheck lifestyle is bondage. You want to get that freedom, but I do it through seven biblical principles. So Mr. Whiskey, let me lay them on you.
Does that sound good? Oh yeah. First principle, if you want to get your finances in order, seek God's wisdom first. That's where it all starts because guess what? You are never going to do this on your own. You might be the strongest he man or he girl, whatever you, the strongest person of faith you know, but guess what?
You're not going to do it on your own and that's where I think a lot of people foul up. You know, they think, well, I'm going to go do this. I'm going to go build up this bank account. Well, let me let you in a little secret, Mr. Whiskey. I'm 52 years old, right? And I, I did look, I've owned a Corvette. I've owned a Rolex watch.
I've owned a Breitling watch, owned a beach house, a driver Cadillac. I've had all those monetary things. And guess what I felt at the end? Empty. Because you can do a great job of filling your business and your, and your personal bank accounts, but you will be emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. Amen. And that's the thing that people don't understand.
They, they talk to these wizards about, Oh, I can make you very wealthy. I can be, yeah, that's great from human, from, from flesh things. Absolutely. But guess what's going to happen at the end of that, you're going to be empty again. So that's why I say one of the biblical principles of breaking free of that bondage is to seek in God's wisdom first.
Start off with that. If you, if you're, if your finances are in a mess, the best thing I can tell you to do is get on your knees and start praying for God to give you some wisdom. That's the place to start. The second thing you mentioned this work diligently. It ain't going to happen on its own. It's not going to be some magic bullet.
I'm going to pray and God's going to bless me. These clowns on TV, these televangelists, you know, send me this and you will reach reap the financial blessings is nonsense. It's all about being diligent. The Bible talks about not wanting to be a sluggard. That is some serious wording there, but if God said that don't be a slugger, what is he saying to you?
He's telling you to work diligently, you know But Proverbs 13 for says the soul of the slugger craves and gets nothing while the soul of the diligent is Richly supplied think about that you you want to lay in your parents basement or you want to lay around the house not doing anything You wonder why you're not getting ahead Well, go figure.
Yeah. Third thing I'm going to recommend you do. This is absolutely the truth here. Number three, and the people don't like this, but guess what? You got to learn to live below your means. It's not rocket science. If you've got X number of dollars coming in and you're spending Y dollars, you're going to find yourself in trouble.
I'm going to go to book of Proverbs again. 2120 says precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it. Think about that for a second. I can help you solve your financial issues by teaching you a very simple lesson and that is to live below your means. And that doesn't mean you have to live a lifestyle that's terrible, that you feel like you're, you're oppressed.
You feel like you can't get anywhere, but there might be a season of that. There might be a time when you've got to say, you know what? I've made some bad financial decisions. You know, I feel like I'm taking three steps forward and, and four steps back. And that's when you got to sit down and take stock of what you've got going on.
It's one of the biggest things I tell my clients, people I work with is take stock of where you are, because if you don't take stock of where you are, you're never going to have a plan to get ahead. That's just the truth. You got to start off somewhere. Number four thing, avoid debt. Now, there's good debt and bad debt.
If you want to break free from that paycheck to paycheck, you got to stop sending all your money to your creditors. Simple truth. Book of Proverbs again, 22 seven says the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is a slave to the lender. Now, I'm not telling you don't go buy a house and have a mortgage.
I'm not telling you to don't go buy a car and have a car payment. But you got to be very careful you can get yourself in way ahead. I've been there I've been in credit card debt so high I couldn't see over it because everybody wants to you know Because here's the biggest problem. I only have it on this paper, but it's the truth as a people We've got to learn and we weren't our country does a terrible job of educating kids on finance true It does a terrible job.
It's horrible on purpose Only thing we show them from the beginning is I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, and we live in a culture. If you go on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, pick it all. It's all about consumption. It's all, I gotta have that. I gotta have that. Hey, I'm guilty. I get it. Right?
But when is the last time you thought about what do I need? It is so easy to get caught in that trap of want, want, want, want, want, want, and never stop to look at your needs. And the way you end up filling those things is you go into debt. Once you go into debt, you're stuck. The Bible says it, you become a slave to the lender.
So you got to learn to avoid debt. The another thing you got to do, number five, it's all about consistency, but you've got to learn to save consistently. That's another thing our country doesn't do a good job of. We spend money as a country like it's going out of style when we need more and we just print it And nobody wants to take responsibility for that.
You know, we've got 50 percent of the U S population on some sort of government assistance. Clearly the system is broken, but the thing we don't teach our children, we don't teach young adults. And I can't blame them because their parents don't even understand it. You've got to start saving consistently.
Even if it's 5 a week or 2 a week or whatever it is, you've got to build, because it's not about the money so much, right? It's about that habit. It's about building that up because look, again, we'll go to Proverbs 21. 5. The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance. So if you've got that plan for saving, if you've got that plan for how to get to where you want to get to, then you're going to do it.
If you don't have a plan and you don't save consistently, how are you going to do it? Number six people get really aggravated when I talk about this one because they think i'm preaching at them and i'm trying to get Money, but guess what number six thing you got to do of the seven is give generously and people say Oh that that doesn't make any sense ralph.
You're saying to me. Wait a minute I'm living paycheck to paycheck ralph. How in the world do you want me to give money? I've had people say that to me a funniest thing. Mr Whiskey people come in to get I do a lot of tax work people come in to me and they'll say Yeah, Ralph, you know, man, we gave a ton to the church this year and I'm like, well, that's fantastic.
Can you give me a number? You know, we gave 200 and I said, okay, and at first I was real judgmental, you know, I was like, do you mean a week? Do you mean a month? Oh, no, no, we gave 200 for the year. Now these cats made 200, 000. Yeah, and they gave a lot too and I'm not judging them. Don't misunderstand me.
Let's see. Here's the thing. The book of Proverbs. I love the book of Proverbs. It tells us a lot of good stuff. It does. Chapter 11, 24 says one gives freely yet grows all the richer. Second Corinthians nine, six. The point is this, whoever so sparingly will also reap sparingly. And Luke six, verse 38 given, it will be given unto you because here's the little secret nobody wants to talk about.
It's not yours to begin with. It's not yours. It's yours. And when you come to a realization that God has given you these things, I'm not even going to use the word given, I'm going to say he's allowed you to have these things. And what's our responsibility? We need to steward them. And maybe you, you know, I'm not telling you to go give 10%, although I think that's the Bible says is the minimum, but maybe you haven't done it.
We'll start with 1 percent and then next month, try 2 percent and build up to that because guess what? The only person you're robbing is God and you're robbing your blessings because it's not yours in the first place. And let me give you number seven and this is one i've had to eat myself many times And that is learn to be content first timothy six six says but godliness with contentment is great gain Hebrews 13 5 says keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have And listen, I told you man.
I was at the listen. I thought I arrived I started my own accounting practice money was rolling in I went to the jewelry store. I bought a 24 000 rolex watch Mr. Whiskey, I thought I had arrived I put that watch on and I'm, I'm wandering around, looking cool, looking sharp, you know, I was a baller, as they say.
And guess what? I was empty, empty. I went, I had to get a new Corvette, right? Because you know, big guys like me, we riding in Corvettes, right? Sure. Try getting in and outta that when you get to be older. But I had to get that Corvette so I could ride up and down the streets. I basic go, oh, look at him. He's got a Corvette.
Guess what? I was empty. But see, our, our culture just works to, to cause us to get this, this, this, this insatiable desire for stuff, but the God is saying to us, be content in what you have. So if you want to find a way to break free of that bondage, learn to be content. Here's the thing I tell listeners on my program all the time, be grateful, be content every single morning before you do anything else, name three things and speak them to God that you're grateful for because what you will realize.
Is it, you've got a whole heck of a lot more than you think. That's just true. I'm going to give you one more bonus thing, and this again, people don't want to talk about this. Practice honesty in all your financial dealings. If you think you're going to get away with swindling people and you're going to be blessed by that You're in for another you're in for a rude awake.
I had a client in a couple weeks ago He said to me says ralph. He's I just can't seem to get ahead and I said, well, what do you think it is? He goes, I don't know man. He says i've been hitting some good ones I i've been i've been throwing these invoices at people 300 markups And they're paying it. I said, how's it make you feel?
He goes, well, it's great for my bank account. I said, so you're cheating them. You're taking advantage of them and you think God is going to bless that. So I've dumped a lot of stuff on your Mr. Whiskey. We want to unravel some of these things, but those are truly, if you want to see, if you want to get past the sleepless nights, if you want to get past that constant, where you want to get past that being feeling like you're trapped in a loop that no matter how hard you work, you just end up at the same spot.
This is what I do. This is what I help people with. And I'm not trying to stand here and promote myself on your show, but this is what I do every day. And there is a way to break free of that living paycheck to paycheck. And I get a little aggressive on that. Like I said, my evangelist comes out. Yeah.
Because I see how it wrecks people's lives. Because it leads to drug abuse. Relationships. It leads to broken relationships. You name it, gambling, everything. I had a guy, I did a show a couple weeks ago, a guy was putting gambling on his credit card. He was so far in debt, he said, you know what I'm going to do?
He said, I'm going to put money, I'm going to go to the casino and put it on my credit card, and if I win, I can pay off my credit card debts. Guess where he ended up? Worse than he started. Yeah, yeah. Well, like you said, you said a lot there to unpack. One, I got to thank you for teaching me the word televangelist.
It's not, it's not good to mock and judge people, but I do think that is a fun word to use in reference to people who are promoting falsehood. There's a lot of, I don't like to attack mega churches specifically, but that's where I see a lot of the. televangelist in the performances. I saw a mega church where they kicked the Bible like a football a field goal.
It's so much disrespect, but. And listen, I want to be clear. I'm not calling out every person that's on the TV screen. Oh, they're amazing ones. I'm not saying that all Billy Graham did a lot of that. And guess what? He reached people, but see, here's the thing that people need to understand. Once you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit indwells inside of you have this thing called discernment.
And if you will turn it on and let it work, it'll teach you. Like, I'm not going to call this person out. You people can figure out who it is, but he was asked on a, on a TV show. He said, you never talk about the blood. And he's, well, you know, I don't like to get into that. Cause the blood, you know, it turns people off.
I don't like to talk about hell. And But the funny thing about Christianity, it's all about the blood. Amen. It's all about Jesus taking our place on that cross for each one of us, those who had come before and those who go after. It was his perfect sacrifice. So you want to, you want to talk about Christianity.
If you're watching one of these televangelists, you're looking at somebody, look at what they stand for. Do they stand for the blood? Do they call sin, sin? Because the thing you got to watch out of the book of Revelation talks about the lukewarm church. Amen. Amen. And we are living in a time where there's lukewarm all around us.
If you go to a church and you don't feel like you got your head stomped in every once in a while, you're probably not in the right church because guess what? Everybody coming in that door is a sinner and everybody leaving that door is a sinner as well. And if you don't feel like you got stepped on, then you need to kick it up a notch and tell your preacher, start preaching the word because guess what?
If it doesn't convict you, It's probably not right. Yeah. And you know, not just television, what we've seen that we're kind of addressing is a lot of, some of it is selling out. Some of it is just the compromise or suppression of morals and beliefs for popularity, which is, I've seen a lot of influencers, social media.
And however you want to describe it, whether they're popular or not, who are trying to spread the word, but they are conforming to the world in a way that is changing the message slightly or watering it down. I love your example of almost babying the message because it might be gory or violent or disturbing.
You know, so many people haven't read the Bible, and they don't realize what's in there, and the reality of that, you know. And of course, you shouldn't go around yelling condemnation and all of this, you know. It is a message of love and of discipline, but like you said, if there's not that, it's hard to discipline and teach without showing both sides, right?
You can't teach only good without having a concept of evil. Now, You said the book of Proverbs is great. I agree. I actually, I had never read all of it before. I had read plenty of the quotes, because they are used quite, quite popularly, and I finally read all of it, and I was reading some of it today as well, and I read this quote just before, just an hour before we started recording, really, Proverbs 21, verse 6, A fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare.
And I loved it because it connected right with what you just said about making your money honestly. And, you know, there's, there's a trend going around for the blue collar industry called dirty hands, clean money. But I think it's a great example of that, you know, they're rather than clean hands, dirty money, doing drug deals or swindling people, however it can be.
There's a lot of scamming now. So I, I think that's, Great, you know, having honest and trying, I'm trying to backtrack. You said a lot there. Seven, I love that it's seven, you know, biblical number and a very powerful number. And I love studying all the numbers in the Bible. If you really study all that stuff, you can study it for days and days.
And I think that Book of Proverbs, ladies and gentlemen, if You're not going to read the whole Bible for wisdom, which I suggest you do. Definitely read the book of Proverbs. You know, it has some of the greatest, there are lines in there that are so powerful. In fact, I read one of my favorite lines today, discovered it for the first time.
You know, I always argue with my father. He is a religious cherry picker and weaponization of religion. And we've discussed it on my show. And I finally found a great defense for, he always justifies his alcoholism as not being a sin, this and that, and there's a lot of lines for it, I always refer to Galatians chapter 5 drunkenness is mentioned by Paul, I found one today that says, and I'll paraphrase, but pretty much on the spot Wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler.
Whoever is led astray from it is a fool or a sinner. And so there's just a lot of great wisdom in there, like you said, about finances, about relationships, about wisdom, about what you do, and it does talk about saving and whether that's food and oil in ancient times, you know, basically currency, or money today.
I love what you said about the country. You know, I think there's You know, I don't want to get too political, but so much money sent to Ukraine, but not to Hawaii after it burnt down, you know, we've seen uneven distribution you know, I've seen studies about how many times over homelessness could have been ended in America with the money from you that we sent to Ukraine, veteran homelessness, all of that.
So those stats are very sad. And the fact that you have so many people living on assistance. Yes. The large percentage of them are leeching off the system on purpose. But we've created a system that allows for that. So that's the issue. And you talked about giving generously, which is so important. It's something that I've only done more recently with, and it's hard nowadays.
I know there's a lot of scammers posing as homeless people. So it's, you gotta be discerning. And like you said, there's a spirit of discernment in us when we're believers to help us out with that stuff. But. Something that my father did even though he's a very stingy, selfish man, he always did this and it's something he passed on to me that I want to encourage you ladies and gentlemen, if you're stingy, if you're having a hard time, like Ralph said, saying, I don't have that much money to give, or, you know, I'm going to, you know, I had to, I'm in debt or whatever it may be.
And it's not as common nowadays due to, you know, the popularity of credit cards. When I was growing up, which wasn't too long ago, it was more cash though. I mean, that changed. Even though I'm young, the changes happening from year to year now are exponentially greater than in the past. So, you know, it seems like credit cards have blown up with now you can tap anywhere.
Heck, I went to a store the other day, you can scan the lines in your hand and it's connected to your bank account. So, insane, you know, Terminator level stuff. But the point I'm trying to make is, any money that my dad found on the ground, whether it was in the home or on the street, Was charity money. And so I used to practice that anytime I would find a 20 bill on the ground, a 100 bill, 5, 10 bucks in it.
Like I said, there used to be a lot more money just floating around on the streets, as crazy as that sounds. Now everyone has credit cards, it's not as common, but that was a good practice. What you're alluding to though, here's the thing, like you, you just step right on it. And that is, One of the biggest things you can do when you start to feel down and you start to feel depressed and you start to feel like you're not getting anywhere, go help somebody else.
Because what you're going to quickly realize is it's not as bad as you think. Go, go, go volunteer for service. What we do in this country to veterans is a doggone shame. It's terrible what we're doing to our veterans in this country. I see them as clients. It's horrible. Go volunteer. Go be involved. Go do something with your time.
That's another problem we have in this country. We've got too much idle time, too much time to think and surf and all that stuff. Yeah get involved in charity because guess what it's going to do. It's going to change your perspective Because then i'm you're going to see somebody that's worse off. You're going to go.
Wow It wasn't really as bad as I thought it was It's just the truth like, you know, and that's the honest to god truth You know, I see people they got too much idle time If you got time to sit there and scroll on facebook on hour after hour You got too much time. You got to go find something to do with yourself.
You're totally right It's true and it's selling you a lie. It's it's a complete book of lies Anyway, that that's a whole nother discussion for a whole nother day For sure. I totally agree though. You know what they say out of mind is the devil's workshop. You know, he's always prowling, always there, waiting to take advantage of any moment he can.
So I agree there's, and ladies and gentlemen, if you're like, well there's nothing to do, there's no volunteer work near me. There, there is. Trust me, there's, you haven't looked for it before. That's why you say that. So there's a ton of things you can do, and it's, it's great. You can start praying for your neighbors.
You can start praying for your elected leaders. You can start praying for people. That's something to do. Get on your knees, get flat on yourself and start praying for people because guess what? You will make an impact. That's a fact. There is always something can be done. Amen. And now, Ralph, I know you work as a business coach.
So, ladies and gentlemen, you'll find those links in the description below. But, Ralph, who should find you? Who specifically do you work with? And who would be the best, you know, client for you who could get the most out of it? So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna encourage you to check out my podcast.
It's a daily podcast and it's at AskRalph. com. We do audio, video, we do reels, we do all the YouTube shorts, the whole nine yards. I talk about all kinds of subjects and my clients are anybody that wants to get ahead financially. Whether you're an individual who's struggling, maybe you're a single mom, you're trying to figure out how to make ends meet, maybe you're a person that just got out of the military and I listened to one of your podcasts earlier and there's, you know, there's opportunities to start businesses and things like that.
Maybe you're a business owner. You're looking at how can I get my finances in order? I can't, I feel like every week I'm struggling to meet payroll. Maybe you're looking for ways to grow your business. I got over 30 years of experience doing this. And if I haven't seen it, I'm gonna figure out a way to help you.
And that's what I do. I work with people. The cool thing about zoom is don't matter where you're at. Cause I meet with, I work with people in Uzbekistan. I work people in India. I work with people all over the world. And my goal is to meet them one on one, come right alongside of them and develop a personalized plan for them.
But, but the bigger part of that is I'm going to bring their faith along with that. If you don't, if you, if you're not a faithful person, you're not going to be right fit for me. I'm going to be honest with you because everything I do is going to connect to that faith. I'm not going to hit you over the head with a Bible.
People think I'm this Ralph, the Bible thumper. I don't need to do that because the truth will, the Bible says the truth will set you free, right? And once I show you these financial truth, like these seven things we talked about today, Those aren't rocket science. It's not rocket science to seek God's wisdom.
It's not rocket science to work hard It's not rocket science to live below your means not rocket science to avoid debt. It's not difficult to want to save It's not difficult to give generously and it's certainly not give difficult to be content So if you find yourself, like I said, you're struggling that you got that money spent before it even hits your bank account I can help you I can work with you.
We can build a personalized plan for you to find that financial success. Here's the deal, Mr. Whiskey. Here's the, here's the secret of you ever heard of the hierarchy and needs? Yes. The hierarchy needs basically says, and if you're not getting those basic line, dumb bottom line things for clothing, shelter.
We live in a culture right now where people are struggling to get food clothing and shelter Well, how in the world do you expect to move up that hierarchy if you're not even getting your basic needs met? Yeah, that's just a fact. So what my goal in life my mission is my mission field My mission field is to help people get to that next level that level of self awareness That level of being able to ask the tough questions about why am I here?
What is my purpose? If you're worrying about how you're going to put food on the table for your kids, you are never going to get to that. You know, you want to be generous. Guess what? You got to get your own financial house in order. Cause here's the deal. You will never bless someone else until you bless yourself.
And the people that I've met, they're the most successful in life. I'll tell you a story. There was a lady, she's, she's deceased now, older client and she scrimped and she saved and she lived a frugal life. She collected her social security when she turned 70 cause she lived Below her means she lived frugally.
And once she turned 70, she started giving money to missionaries at her funeral. There were people that she impacted that she never met. She, she sent missionaries all across the world of people who never heard of Jesus. So this lady who lived below her means a simple woman who just did the right thing.
The blessing she was able to give extended out like a mushroom, dude, it was huge. And people came to her funeral to say, I never knew this song, but she impacted my life. I heard a missionary one day. I was sitting in a, in a ghetto in India. And I heard this missionary come from that. She was one of the supporters of that.
And like you said earlier, you know, we're not all going to have those aha moments. We're not going to have those altar calls or people come running up to the front. Yeah. Think about the kingdom impact you can make by doing the right thing, getting your finances in order. And then by the time you are able to supporting those things, maybe in your retirement, you know, you, maybe you've saved up a great nest egg, but what does that give the ability to do to bless others?
And then you can get to your purpose. But if you're spending every trying to figure out how am I gonna put gas in the tank? How am I going to put the food on the table, clothes on the kids, new sneakers on the, on the kids, you're never going to get there. And that's the problem is you end up running in place.
So to answer your question, I'm here to help those people. If you want to get past the needs of every day and get past those desires and those wants, I can help you. We'll sit down together. We'll do a personalized plan and I will help you get to that purpose and that calling. Because at the end of the day, here's what's going to happen.
You're going to stand before Christ and he's going to say, what did you do with your life? And what I want to hear him say is when you helped the least of mine, you helped me, Ralph. You know, Ralph, when you gave that lady that coat, when you gave that veteran that meal, When you did this, when you did that, you did it for me, you did it for me.
So come on in, do welcome home. That's that's, that's the goal. It's not how much is in my bank account. It's not how many houses I own. It's not how many cars I have. It's not how many watches or rings or all those accolades that you think are important. It's does God say, well done, good and faithful serpent.
It's really that simple. Amen. Yeah. So. One last thing I want you to leave us with which ladies and gentlemen if any of that spoke to you Again in the description you'll find those links and if it didn't speak to you Maybe someone popped up in your head someone, you know Be sure to send in this episode or you know, talk to them and share whatever you learned But Ralph one last thing you can leave everyone with If you had to pick one bible quote, I know there's so many great ones We all know it's hard to pick that but the holy spirit, you know God seems to give us all one special one in our heart that we like to preach more than any other one So what would that be for you few words be still wow because think about it We live in a world that is going a hundred miles a minute But how many times have we just said to ourselves be still because the s that is You And know that I am God be still and listen, be still and appreciate, be still and be content.
We had a preacher in our church yesterday, a guest preacher. And he said, he says, when those, Oh, no moments happen, you know, Oh, no, my mom's been in a car accident. Oh, no, this, Oh, no, that the first thing you can do, he's the word Salah S E L A H. Be still be still. And I'll tell you where it hit me. If you got a minute, I'll tell you this little story.
So I'd never been overseas. And my wife and I and my older son who's in the Coast Guard, Semper Paratus, right? He's in the Coast Guard anyway. He's a good kid. And we decided we're going to take a trip and I never been overseas. We took a trip to Germany and we went to Munich and you know, you can read a lot about what happened during the, the, the second world war and the Holocaust.
Go stand in Dachau, go stand in the concentration camp. Like I did. You want, you want to, you want to learn about what life looks like. Go stand in a concentration camp where millions of people were slaughtered, stand there, and then you will find what it means to be still. And it might sound harsh, dude, but look, it changed me.
Okay. It changed me because I thought of myself if I was standing in that yard, think about this, I don't know if you know this or not, those pokes in the concentration camp, if they looked up, they were shot. If they were the tallest in line that day, they were shot. If they were scrunched over because they were sick, they were shot.
The only thing they had was faith. The only thing they had was that moment to be still. And I think a lot of what we have right now could be answered with that simple two words. It was, it's what's on the back of my softball Jersey. A lot of people have, you know, the John three 16, I have been still.
The other one I have is Jesus wept because those are two things that I never want to forget. Amen. If the cell, if the, if the Lord God almighty wept, he wept. Think about that for a second. The most powerful being in all eternity wept. Think about the empathy that our savior has it. He wept and I'm a Swiss guy.
And I'll took you down down a tangent there. No, but I think that is the key to the whole thing is be still because guess what I started off by saying Is seek god's wisdom. Well, how do you do that? You're still be content. How do you do that? Be still? It's just the truth So if I can leave with anything else and that is don't take your life for granted If you don't know christ ask him into your heart right now And then just be still because guess what he's going to do.
He's going to talk to you. He's going to guide you He's going to The thing I pray at night is this it's really simple god, what will you have for me today? Don't worry about tomorrow not worried about yesterday. I'm worried. What do you have for me today? Because today is sufficient. I hope that's I hope that's the ending you wanted my friend because that's what it really comes down to Is be still and just surrender it all because that is the truth of life Is that once you do that and you realize that he's got it, you just have to surrender it to him And you will find more blessings.
And this isn't some prosperity thing. I'm not telling you, you know, you're going to get gold bars in the mail and your bank accounts going to fill up and all. Cause maybe that's not your calling. Right? Because I think in a lot of ways, God's kind of funny like that. Like he knows what you can handle. You know, so he might not let you hit that lottery because that lottery might send you down a dark path that you don't want to be going.
He might put you in a job that means you work hard, like you said, dirty hands, clean money. Because that's what God has for you. That is his purpose for you. But maybe that person working on the assembly line next to you is going to see how you live and go, wow, that dude is different. Because we're all in our mission fields, right, but be still and let God show you what his plan is.
It's really that simple. Yeah, I totally agree with you and for all the ladies and gents out there on the, on the dating apps and stuff, same. You know, I know there, there, you might not be at a point in your walk of faith where If you end up with someone who is pagan or ungodly, where you won't follow down that same path.
And yeah, you definitely did the switch and bait on me there, Ralph. You said two words, and I said, Jesus wept. And then you went, be still. So you definitely got me with a, a sneaky left hook there. And then brought it back to the, Jesus wept. So that was amazing. Yeah, I, I love that quote. And I, Could elaborate on it, but you know, I want everyone to be left with the be still, I think that is so important.
So ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't done that yet today, try that, do that. And Ralph, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate you coming on here and passionately sharing the word of God. That's what we need more of. So And brother, and I'm glad to do it. And if I could ever help you or help your listeners, you just reach out to me, ask Ralph dot com.
You can sign up for my newsletter there. I've got two books that I've written. You can get them right there. If you're interested in getting this, the seven biblical principles, just, you know, sign up on our website. I'll send it right to you. But every day I deliver a message of hope. I deliver a message of freedom because my goal is to get you out of that bondage so you can get to that next level in your life.
