Flat Earth Saved My Life

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

1. 0:00:14

   All right, we want to welcome everybody. Today we want to do just a short testimony video. Um I've been receiving some interesting emails. And we had a brother here, Jake Holdsworth. Is that Did I say that correctly? Jake That's correct. Jacob, I'm sorry. Visiting with us from Erie, Pennsylvania. And he was baptized this weekend and we just wanted him to be able to share his testimony as well. But before we do that, I want to read a testimony because of course as we have up here on the screen, flat Earth saved my life. You know, a lot of people think, even Christians think that this topic of flat Earth or what we call biblical cosmology, they think it's ridiculous. What does it matter? You know, I've heard a lot of many Christians say, "Well, you know, what does the shape of the Earth matter?" Um you know, what does it matter you know, if we believe the sun and the moon are close and and you know, and you know, what we've stated many times over is that truth is important. All truth is important. And I've tried to make this clear to Christians over the last few years that you know, God's word is true. Every every bit of it. And that the truth of creation, you know, Romans 1 tells us that the truth of creation is the greatest witness or evidence that there is a creator. And if, you know, if you look at the statistics and you even go out and talk to people, you find out that one of the for atheists and agnostics and people who don't believe the Bible is credible or true or divinely inspired, uh I mean, their biggest obstacle is that they believe science and they believe like the Big Bang theory and evolution and that they've believed the heliocentric model of the universe that we've been taught by science over the last 500 years and that that's discredited the Bible cuz the Bible tells a very different account of creation. And so as it you know most everyone knows it's familiar with our ministry here at Fire and Grace Church here in Opelika, Alabama and Dino Ministries. Of course I'm Pastor Dino Odell if you don't know who I am. Um but that you know God really there was really an awakening that kind of started in 2014 and really peaked huge got huge in 2015. There was just an awakening of people seeing that the earth really is flat when you can go out and test it across long distances especially large bodies of water with telescopes and high zoom cameras and and then people started doing you know high altitude balloon test. That's what we have the picture behind us is a high altitude balloon test without the fisheye lenses that creates the false curve um you know from the GoPro cameras and and some of the other you know sports cameras and stuff. All of them pretty much produce the wide angle lenses produce a fisheye effect that makes the the false curve but whenever you send up a high altitude balloon 100 110 120,000 ft um you see you get a perfectly you see a perfectly

2. 0:03:16

   flat horizon. There's no curvature. There's no bending away or falling away of the horizon. Um and so again the evidence is a flat earth uh started to get a lot of people who are not even Christians who are not even um they don't believe the Bible to be true. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in Jesus. They they hate Christianity. They don't they hate the church. I mean and people began to see this that we've been lied to and of course we've been lied to about a lot of things. So um you know Jake is going to share in a minute how you know he was atheist agnostic you know were you that way your whole life? Yeah, yeah, you Yeah, it's pretty much the same thing. Uh you know, people would you know, say there's a little just a smidgen difference in the two, but still Yeah, not believing, but but now he's a born-again Christian, loves the Lord, had a powerful experience, and and so he's going to share that in just a second, but I want to read this because I I received this email just last week right before you came, and then I shared it we the other night after church and he said the same thing cuz this guy, Richard, I won't give his last name, but he sent me an email from the UK. Um just a powerful testimony, and within this testimony he said flat Earth saved his life. And what he meant was brought him to know God and know the Lord Jesus as his Lord and savior, and saved him. He was going to commit suicide. I mean, this guy was at the end of his rope. So, I want to read that, and then I'm going to let you just share your testimony because I think it's powerful in the mouth of two or three witnesses. I get this testimony last week, then uh Jacob says, "Hey man, I want to come down and and will you baptize me?" And and we'd already been in communication. Um but um just a powerful story. So, um this I received let's see, what is the date on this? So, March 26th, so a little over a week ago. This is Richard, uh and he's from the UK. I won't give his last name or his hometown, but uh unless I hadn't got permission yet, but I know he doesn't mind me sharing this. But he said this, he said, "Hi Dean, I hope this finds you well. Um He said, "Richard messaging you all the way from the UK. Just wanted to let you know that all your work preaching the word and about our flat Earth creation has brought me closer uh to the Father. To God he's talking about. I have been having a tough time with life recently coming to terms with the oppression and the lies we are fed on a daily basis. Almost like I was being attacked by something external to me and since I have reignited my time in the word and listening to you share the words of the Bible, these feelings have subsided. Uh a bit about me, he said I'm now 41 years old and up until I was 39, I was an atheist. I was suicidal after losing both my

3. 0:06:16

   parents and my best friend and life going against me in general. I had no belief in Jesus at all, was 100% believer in science and the Big Bang until one day a stranger running past me while I was walking the dogs and he said and I was thinking about ending it all, he says here. Uh the man ran back and said, "Do you mind if we talk?" And I said yes and he proceeded to tell me that he felt compelled to speak to me for some reason. He ended up praying for me which I was apprehensive about as it, you know, wasn't what I believed. Nevertheless, the man was kind and very thoughtful and to be honest, in the mood I was, it came as a relief and I actually felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and had and I had light in my life. From there, he says, just receiving that prayer, this guy stopping to pray for him, that was just, you know, cool. What about flat Earth there? Or create, you know, the truth of creation. He says from there, he said, "I went on this obsessive truth mission which can only I can only say was something else guiding me on. I had some knowledge of conspiracies but nothing out of the box, if you know what I mean. I would wake up at 7:00 a.m. and go to bed about 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. He said something or someone, he said, "wanted me to know there's no way I would have had passion for this myself. Somebody wanted me to see something. And so this is I believe this, you know, after being prayed for, the Holy Spirit is just compelling him, pushing him, convicting him to search for the truth, right? And so he's staying up, you know, hours and hours, you know, searching. He said, "Then I got hit with what he said is the metaphorical steam train. It was the culmination of all the truths that had been revealed to me. And in big capital letters he wrote, 'Flat Earth' with exclamation points. He said, 'Literally broke down crying. It was like I saw and felt God the Father, the Creator. Flat Earth saved my life, my soul, and I have turned away from my life of old. I still struggle occasionally, uh, day, you know, on certain days and find myself still being imperfect and sinning, not intentionally, I might add. He said, 'But your preaching has helped me and will continue to do so. I feel like I am under attack as I write this. It is because of what I know. Please, Dean, could you pray for me?' And and and then he says, 'I I want to give everything to Jesus and feel as though I need some help.' So he was also saying, 'Hey, man.' He says, 'Thanks for everything. You are a special man. Blessings, brother. Kind regards, Richard.' So, you know, still struggling newborn believer, but, you know, here a guy was an atheist the 39 years of his life

4. 0:09:16

   and now at 41 years old seeing the truth of Flat Earth and the evidences and the truth of creation and how it is what the Bible describes of creation. He said it saved his life. It brought him to Jesus and salvation. So, if anybody out there saying, "What does it matter?" This is why it matters. Because the truth, Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free in John 8. And this truth is making more atheists and agnostics and ancient alien believers and, you know, just people with odd beliefs that just don't want to believe the Bible or have, you know, fell for the lies of science. I've seen more come to Jesus, more more atheists come to Jesus in the last four years than I ever have in my over this truth. So, we're going to let Jacob share, you know, his testimony about this cuz it's powerful. So, go ahead, brother. Take it away. Yeah, just listening to that testimony there, it is just amazing how many similarities that has to my testimony. I was I'm almost 41 now, so the age is real close. I was an atheist up until about 37 years old and that's when I got turned to flat Earth. It was in uh kind of late summer of 2015. I had up to that point been an atheist and I guess started off as a child. Uh my parents, my dad, his my grandparents, all atheists, no real uh background in Christianity or the Bible or any anything of that sort. My mom was brought up in the Catholic church and that really turned her against religion and that cuz that's the taste that she had was, you know, the Catholic, so she had a belief in God, but it was kind of her belief, her way, kind of, you know, not backed by the Bible and she didn't push it on I have one sister, so there's just the two of us. She didn't push it on either of us and we were kind of left, you know, to figure things out for ourself. She wasn't too sure in her beliefs. My dad didn't believe in anything, so yeah, we just kind of I mean, my parents were excellent parents. They brought us up good, but we didn't I mean, we had a moral background between right and wrong, but it wasn't backed by the Bible or God. So, uh Yeah, I just uh as a kid growing up, I knew my friends at a young age that had to go to church on Sundays, and I made sure I didn't spend the night at their house because I knew that involved on Saturday night, you know, you don't go to a friend's house that had to go to church in the morning because I had to get up and then either they would take me home or I'd get dragged off to Sunday school or church, and I I couldn't stand it. And so, that stemmed uh growing up just kind of you know, being kind of indoctrinated in

The complete timestamped transcript is published as a crawlable reading page so every sermon topic remains searchable without making this video page unnecessarily heavy.