Before You Leave...

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. We're interviewing you. Your agent said if you're going to talk to Todd on your national radio show, Stu, it's going to have to be a Chewie. So here we are. Well that's good, and there's a side note with Chewie. So if you know a Spanish person and their name is Jesus, they actually go by Chewie.

And Chewie, the mascot for this restaurant, is actually a fish. There's a lot going on there. So everyone, you're listening to some wonderful music. You're hearing the crunch of a chip. You know, I'm going to do a chip right now. Listen to this. Oh man, that's good.

Salsa Queso Guaca and a powerful book that you are going to want to read. We've talked to Todd before. Todd, statistics as high as 60, 70, 80% of our kids go to college. They lose their faith, drop out of church.

Some of them don't come back. You've been to a lot of schools. You've been educated all the way up to the doctoral level. You've been headmaster at schools. Our wonderful friends at St. David's for years, you were there in spiritual leadership. It's had different roles, headmaster, consultant. Why did you write this book?

Tell us, everyone, your passion right out of the gate here. Well, let's go back to the statistics there. 60, 70, how many walk away? I think it's misleading in that. I think so many of the young people really don't have the foundation in place. So we think they go to college, they look like a deer caught in the headlights, but the reality is many of them don't have much to walk away from.

I hear that time and time again. We can look at it as parents. I think we're responsible as parents to model what it looks like to follow Christ, to be in the Lord every day, to pray for and with our kids. And the reality is for a lot of us, even as Christian parents, we're not doing that.

We're not expecting that. We're not making this a priority in our own lives and therefore they're modeling what they're seeing. And sometimes we drop them off at youth group and we take them to the Christian school and expect them to decide we're kids.

Now it's a partnership. We need each other. It takes more than a village for each of our children.

So we've got to work on this together, but I think we've got to model that ourselves. But I've been so burdened by what I've seen in youth groups, Christian schools throughout the country. Certainly the college campuses, once they get there and then it says they walk away, they don't have as much to walk away from. And so I'm burdened by this.

I think that we've got a major problem on our hands. The universities are having more impact on our young people than the churches in many cases. Not always. There are some strong churches in Palestine and things like that. But then there are many that don't even have a minister that is called to work with the college age or the young adults. Yeah, like a faith community there.

So going back to what you said, a good friend of mine has always said this to me. Every child is homeschooled in a very real sense. Because the mom and dad have got to disciple their kids. That's a function of the family.

The church is building into the family, the function of the local church. And there are indeed godly Christian schools where the professors are very much a part of building into the kids and turning them into kingdom orders. But a lot of kids don't go to those kind of schools.

And even if they go to that school, they still need to be equipped and prepared. So your book really has a pretty broad audience. You just told me before we started the interview, turn the mics on here, that you have a Muslim student. Someone gave them your book.

Yeah, reading the book right now. I mean, people are curious. They're searching. I mean, look, you know Jesus Christ or you don't. Thankfully, we do.

We're ready for whatever comes our way. When he gave the Great Condition, he said, go and make disciples. He also said, I'll be with you always.

But in the middle of that, it's fascinating. I actually read this last night. He said, when he comes together, they're where he told them to be. And it said they worshiped him, but some doubted.

Now wait, wait a minute. So some of the most devout, closest followers of Jesus had doubts. Let's face it, when we see what's going on in the world today, sometimes we have doubts. Why did God let that happen? Why do you exist? If you're all powerful and loving, why did you allow it?

Do you care? Sometimes when we feel like our prayers are hitting the ceiling. So in this book, you know, I deal with how do we know the Bible can be trusted? What about the skeptics and the things that say this is some archaic, you know, work of literature that doesn't fit the culture, certainly doesn't fit our agendas for many of us, right?

And yet, it still has withstood the test of time. It's the best-selling book in the world year after year. But sadly, it's also the most delightful book, right?

Yeah. And that's what I love about your book, because I actually read your book to my daughter, Joy. And the more I got into it, the more I'm like, whoa, I said, well, we'll knock out a couple of chapters tonight real quick, you know, for bed. Well, she never really is like, you're going deep. You're going into anthropology. You're going into apologetics. You're going into presuppositionalism.

You're going into deep world. Textual criticism. Textual criticism. How we got the Bible. How can we trust the Bible?

What is the canonization process? Yes. And if you can't, you know, I really, I heard a speaker say recently, I think it was on the Truth Network, he says, look, all the people say, well, I don't trust the Bible. Half of them haven't read it. But you're taking people deeper in your book before you leave for college, career, and eternity.

Right. So really, anyone that picks up your book is going to have a, almost like a mini masters of theology or apologetics or, you know, biblical studies to help ground them in creation versus evolution. Atheism. What do you say to an atheist?

Yeah, absolutely. The second chapter deals with rejecting God. Why do people reject God? Well, did you know that some of the first Christians were actually called atheist? And the reason why is because in the polyistic Roman culture, you were to revere the emperor. Some saw the emperor as a god. But there were all these other gods. You know, Paul, in Acts, he stands there on Mars Hill and he says, men of Athens, I see you're very religious. I see this temple and that temple. He says, but let me tell you about the temple to the unknown God, Jesus Christ, who does not live in a temple.

Right. And I think it's important that we realize, you know, we do have doubts along the way, but I also think it's important for people to know that it's OK to not be OK. And you need to find people in your life that you can ask those tough questions and that are going to accept you, love you the way you are, meet you where they are, but then challenge you to get into God's work, but to study history, too, because the reality is if you study what God has done in Christ while he was alive on Earth, living this perfect, sinless life, dying, rising from the dead, overcoming, proving to us that our sin's been defeated, hell and death have been defeated, the same spirit that lives in each of us is empowering us. We shouldn't be afraid. We shouldn't be, like Paul said, you know, don't have a spirit of timidity. You know, God's not give us a spirit of fear or timidity, but a spirit of power and of a sound mind. And I was I spoke at a Christian school chapel, my kids' Christian school, Calvary, the other day. And the one of the professors, he and I were talking afterward about how important it is to know God, not just know about him. And with tears in his eyes, he said, you know, I'm dealing with a kid who's a former student, graduate, gone off to college, and they're really starting to embrace atheism and they're frustrated. Right. But he said they keep coming back and asking me questions.

That's right. He and I both right there in the moment just kind of had a little celebration, a little wink, a little nod that, hey, thank God that you, sir, are a safe person. I want kids to come to me and say, man, I'm struggling. I'm struggling with the issue of homosexuality. I'm struggling with agnosticism.

I'm struggling with what about other religions and what about these things? Because when they're asking those questions, they're giving us an open door into their life. Absolutely. And how many of us are being equipped? So you really fundamentally are equipping young people, parents, a whole culture to drill deeper into the truth of God's word because we are to be playing offense. And but we're also supposed to have a good defense. Right. For the faith that's within us. Exactly. Yeah. When you see that in scripture about being prepared in season and out of season, to give a defense that I hope to continue the faith that you possess, this is to do so with gentleness and respect. So I think we're to be bold.

Yes. And the spirit does empower us. But also sometimes we just need to listen. I've found with young people that they'll come and come into my office or they have this conversation. I just ask questions. I let them talk. And 20 minutes later, I haven't said much other than nodding. And they'll say, wow, you helped me so much.

I figured it out. And the reality is all I was doing was listening. And I think there's a ministry in listening and sometimes as pastors, but also as parents. As Christians, each one of us is a minister, is a missionary.

We need to listen, because if we're not listening to others, it might be long before we're not listening to God either. Wow. OK, we're going to we're going to hold on that. We're going to come back and talk to Todd Von Elms. His book, Before You Leave for College, Career and Eternity. I'm kind of enjoying.

I've never done my show from a from a Tex-Mex place, Chewy's. But we're in here. We got our mics on.

And this is heavy duty stuff, man. And I appreciate you being on. I appreciate you writing this book. Is there a Web site for us to learn more? A little more about the book?

You can go to Todd VonElms.com. You can get the book on Amazon. It's available wherever books are sold. Yes, really is a tool as a great graduation present or just a gift for a young person in school, out of school, anyone. And really anyone will enjoy this. And it is it is deep, but it's important.

It's accessible. Yes, I love it. And what do you say to an atheist who says to you, God doesn't exist? What do you say to someone that says, you know, more people, more blood has been spilled by religion than any other thing? Well, Todd has some strong opinions about that. Grounded in fact, when we come back, will you tell us about that, Todd? OK, more with Todd VonElms after this quick break in his book, Before You Leave for College, Career and Eternity. Eternal truths that you can hang your hat on with this man of God. And we're going to ask people who you are, too.

I want you to share a little bit about what you got used to. You're one of the smartest people I know. This is one of my buddies that I call when I'm stuck.

I text him and he always gives me some good advice. More on Truth Talk. I'm Stu Epperson right after this. We'll take a picture here with Chewies. And I'm with Mark, our awesome team member in the Raleigh-Durham Chapel area, one of the fastest growing areas in America, who handles all the Truth Network stations here. What a great man of God, too.

So we'll take a picture of all three of us here in a second. There you are in the classroom and the teacher gets up and says, you believe in God? Maybe they take the Bible and throw it on the ground, as I've heard happen before, and say God is dead. Quit wasting your time. Religion is just a weak, sympathetic coping mechanism. But Todd VonElms, that's not true. And you wrote a book called Before You Leave for College, Career and Eternity. What lit your fire on this? Because you've seen kids struggle. You have a heart. You've worked with young people at St. David's School all over the country.

You got kids of your own. Right. And I struggled with it. I remember at the University of Texas in Austin. It was a large state, secular school, 50,000 students. I walk into that classroom. It's the Bible, English and American literature. And this professor does come in. He slams the Bible on the desk and says, OK, all you Bible thumpers are holy rollers.

This is our textbook, and we're going to approach it as literature, not as the inspired word of Almighty God. And he said, how many of you in here are Christian? Half of us raise their hand. And he said, well, how many of you are Catholic?

How many of you are Protestant? He said, well, let's open the Bible, this Revised Standard Version that we've assigned as your text. So I open it up, and I hadn't even looked at it prior to that class. And he said, how many books are in your Bible? And so from what I remember growing up, I said 66.

He says, ah, but wait a minute. The Bible utilized by Catholics here has the apocrypha. It's those extra 13 or 14 books that were written during the intertestamental time period between the Old and the New Testaments. He said, so Protestants, you've got 14 more to memorize.

So we start there. Throws you for a loop, right? And I think that it's so imperative that we do know how the Bible was born.

When and by whom? Can it be trusted? What about the things that the critics say about it? Well, for many of us, we don't get into any of this until we get to Christ, right?

And that's kind of the battleground for the mind. Todd, who is Todd Von Elk? Answer that question. I'm a sinner saved by grace. Without the grace of God, I wouldn't even be alive, right? Sometimes people say, oh, I think God's punished me. And I said, no, he's not, because if that was the case based on your actions and sins, you'd be dead. Wow.

You know, think about that every day. His grace is new. So you came to Christ. Were you younger when you came to the Lord?

Tell us your testimony a little bit. I was, yeah. So I was eight years old when I came to faith, actually in a Methodist church, and the Baptist spread in there.

I was immersed, I was safe. So eight years old, so you never had the biker gang experience or any of that other stuff that we need to hear about? Not necessarily, but then in college, of course, you question everything, you dabble with everything, you're curious. So you went through kind of a crisis of faith yourself.

Absolutely. College really, really shook everything. So really, maybe you're writing this book before you leave for college, career, and eternity. You're writing it to a younger Todd Von Elms. You're writing it to when you were that age.

Absolutely. A lot of what I talk about is my own experience. When I thought, you know, I know God, I know the Bible, and I guess what, I really didn't. I mean, I knew a few scripture verses, I had the books of the Bible memorized.

I didn't know the context, I didn't know how to apply them to my life. Stuff you take for granted. So many truths that we taught. And we all do it, and we don't know, really, until it's challenged.

And C.S. Lewis says that you can't wholeheartedly believe something unless it's first been challenged. You've had those doubts and you've worked through them. And that's what I try to do with the book is I invite the conversation. There's questions at the end of each chapter to help people to go deeper.

Oh, and I deal with topics that are seldom discussed anymore. I mean, is there really a literal devil? It's not just a figment of imagination or a cartoon character or Dana Carvey's church leading character. We all have this education and this idea, but what does the Bible say? What is history of hell?

We hear sermons all the time about the veracity of scripture and the importance of family and discipleship. But what about the enemy opposed to all of them? Wow.

Right? Is it the angel of life described, or is it the roaring lion? It's easy to dismiss the roaring lion, those on the mission field, those in the portal cities where craziness is going on. They don't need convincing that there is a spiritual realm and there's a demonic. But what about those of us that are, you know, things are seemingly going well?

I mean, here is the last strike in America, and I think we're really being blinded or deceived. I think it's more the angel of life description that's there. And it comes. If you don't have to be depressed, lonely, whatever, to feel the temptation or whatever, sometimes it may come at the height of success. That's the thing that causes those to fall. How often do we hear even sadly about, you know, leading Christian figures or pastors that they have a moral absenteeism, right? And oftentimes it's because there was a lack of accountability. And sometimes people use that to try to discredit the whole faith.

Absolutely. And what you're trying to build, you're trying to build our faith with your book, going back to the foundation of scripture, of truth and solid polemics and apologetics. Now, we're going to pray. Tell everyone what just got said in front of you.

The sizzle you hear. We're at Chewy's, this restaurant in North Raleigh, the North Hills area. And I'm with Todd von Elms, his favorite restaurant. So I said, you know what?

His agent is like, if you're going to interview this guy, it's got to be a Chewy's. So here I am, Stu Everson, Truth Talk. So we thank the Lord for the food. Todd, real quick, tell us that atheist professor is staring you behind bespectacled eyes. He is attacking the faith. He's saying God doesn't exist. You guys are nuts. He's a full blown Darwinist.

What do you do? You do a whole chapter on atheism. Talk about that briefly. I don't want to give it all away. I won't be able to get the book and read it.

But what do you think? The story is not in the book, but it's something I heard recently by Adrian Rogers. Okay. Memphis pastor.

Sure. Something that he said was he sits down on a plane. He's reading a book. The gentleman next to him says, you know, what are you reading? He says, oh, it's a book about God. And he goes, he goes, I hate God.

And everyone's looking around. And the guy was really ignorant. And he thought, I'll just, I'll pull it.

I'll pray. I'll, you know, read some more, whatever. And then he thought about it. He turns to the guy and he said, you know, you said you hate God. And he said, you know what? I know that you really don't. The guy looks at him and goes, what do you mean you don't know that I hate him?

He goes, I know you don't hate him because I know you don't, you don't know him well enough to hate him. The version of God that I think that you're saying you hate, if you tell me more about this, he goes, guess what? I may hate that version of God too. And I think that's the reality for most people. When we reject, the people that reject God, they typically had a very negative experience.

Okay? We know there's all forms of abuse. We know that people sometimes manipulate the scriptures. We know that sometimes, you know, the scriptures abuse in a judgmental way to, you know, you do this and this and don't do that.

And there's little grace, right? And I think sometimes people had that bad experience because you think about your own life. And there's that comment or phrase I heard along the way that says only the Christians shoot our wounded. And sometimes the people that should be showing us the most love and grace and support are the ones that sometimes can come across as the most judgmental. And I think sometimes when we see these, you know, Christian leaders fall, you know, the thing I think about is not only we need to pray for them, but we need to also realize that could have beat us very easily. And at some point in life it may be, right?

We've all fallen in that. And I think sometimes with atheists, you know, you're trying to make sense of the world. They're humans. They have struggles. Right.

They may have had some abuse or some challenges in their childhood that led into this. But the flaw, the intellectual flaw of that, which you point out in your book, is starting to get around is that to say I'm an atheist means that I'm professing that I know everything there is to know. And I don't know anyone that would admit that everything epistemologically, epistemology, you know, the knowledge of everything. Right.

No one knows everything. So if I say I'm an atheist and I know everything in the universe to eliminate the existence of God. Right.

That's probably one of the most, I don't want to put anyone down, but it's probably one of the most ludicrous positions you could have, which is why a lot of folks go to the agnostic side. Absolutely. Which means, you know, I don't think you can do it. There is a possibility that we're making it.

Leave the door open. But your book tackles it all. I want to encourage everyone to get it.

We're out of time. You're a blessing. Thank you.

But I'm with Todd Von Elms. And I want to close with a quote from the great St. Augustine, who was not always a saint. In fact, he lived for anything and everything other than the glory of God.

Right. This guy was a hedonist times ten. I mean, he got into every religion. What a testimony he has. The concubine.

I mean, all this stuff. Right. And then God rescued him. God arrested him. And he said, oh, God, you've made us for yourselves. You've made us for yourself and our hearts are restless. And so they find their rest in me. And the reality of this, too, Mark, is that until someone comes to know Jesus Christ and who he really is, they're going to be restless. Wow. And they're going to define whatever defense mechanism they can, whether it's saying they don't believe or it's just that or whatever.

But once you find once you find Christ and you know him as his Lord and Savior, you're going to realize how much your treasure because he is your treasure. This is the Truth Network. One of our generous sponsors here at the Truth Network has come under fire.

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