Producer Mike for the Alex McFarlane Show, listen to this. Alex is the Christian voice we need right now. I love listening to him, and the guests he has on the show are just amazing. I highly recommend his podcast. Great words, Alex.
Well, we give God the glory. We thank the listeners for kind sentiments like that, but we give God all the glory. But folks, please listen in, spread the word. You're spreading the gospel. Tell others about our programming, and we sincerely thank you.
U The spiritual condition of America, Politics, Culture, and Current Events Analyzed Through the Lens of Scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. Welcome to the program. Alex McFarland here. We have got a fantastic show, some incredible things that you need to know about from Kevin and Sam Sorbo.
And I'll introduce them more properly in a moment. But the noise you hear in the background is a beehive of activity called National Religious Broadcasters. And so we're at a very exciting convention. Ministries from around the world are strategizing about sharing Jesus in so many creative ways. But I'm very privileged.
About a year ago on our television program, I had the great privilege of interviewing Kevin Sorbo. You know him. You probably first became aware of him as Hercules and his great film career. And he and his wife Sam are just being used by God in so many great ways, so gracious with their time. Thanks for being with us, guys.
I really appreciate it. It's great to be here.
So thank you. It's amazing. And this conference has just grown gangbusters over the past several years. It's just amazing.
So people are hearing all of that noise. I urge you to come out to the conference if you get a chance. It's just amazing.
Yeah, the sound you hear is the Great Commission. There you go. I mean, really, isn't it? Yeah.
So I invited friends here. They're not even in the industry. I invited them here a few years back and they're members now. They just can't get enough of them. They come to every one of these.
And we keep bumping into them in the hallways and stuff. And next year, if I understand right, we're going to have it in Washington, D.C., correct? I believe it is. I want people to know that could come next year as well. Yeah, and it's so exciting.
I'll tell you what, and I want to hear y'all your story. But last night, very, very late, long day, everybody's doing interviews and such. But there were prayer huddles up in the lobby. And all these people, many.
Well-known Christians. Many radio, TV, people, and people were just praying. You see it on the floor here. If you just walk the floor, you'll see prayer hubs. And there's like this spirit of revival and the Holy Spirit moving.
It's very, very beautiful. But we're talking with Kevin and Sam Sorbo. How did you guys meet? How did you come to the Lord? I want to hear the journey.
Go ahead, Sam. I played a princess. She came down to Hercules. She came down season four to do an episode of Hercules. Cool.
I made the move right away. Yeah.
She said, laughed at me, said, I don't date actors. But I wore her down, got on a date about 10 days later, and. Yeah, we kind of both knew at that time something was happening.
Now, where did you film the majority, the Hercules movies? I filmed 100% of the majority in New Zealand. That was home for me. I lived in October, New Zealand for seven years. Initially, it was going to be five two-hour movies.
That was all it was going to be. And I got the great honor of doing a whole year working with Anthony Quinn, who played my father Zeus. Oh, yeah.
So the stories I got from Recloom for a Heavyweight, Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, I mean, it was just amazing. We were dear friends up until his passing eight years later. But. It was halfway through the third movie that Universal Studios said, we like what you see. And we went right into the one-hour show.
And I know this is a sin of pride, I apologize, but by halfway through season three, we became the most watched TV show in the world in 176 countries. Congratulations. And to be part of that was kind of cool. And then we met just a year after that. And I wore her down.
Yeah.
Well, I think most of us guys that are so blessed to have a spouse, that's what we have to do. I know in my case, I had to be pretty persistent. Our first date was 30 years ago, and here we are. Amen. And on our first date, he says to me, I know where I'm going to get married.
Because that's first date conversation, naturally. And I looked at him and I was like. Where? And he said, There's a little chapel in the Swiss Alps. And I said, In Gamish?
And he said Yeah, how do you know that? I said, well, I have a frame picture of it on my wall that my grandfather gave me. How bizarre is that? And he said, he goes, that is really weird. Anyway.
I'm having three kids, boy, boy, girl, in that order. And I said, that is weird, because that's what I'm having: boy, boy, girl. And that's what we had. We had boy, boy, girl in that order.
So it was pre-destined.
Now, this is the first date. First date. That was our first date. I've never talked that way to a woman before in my life on a first date, trust me. I mean, I may have had some relationships that were two, three years long that you get into that eventually.
But I shot a commercial pre-Hercules years in the Swiss Alps at Garmish. I saw the church at 14,000 feet. And I skied over to it and I got out and walked inside this beautiful little church built into the mountains. It only holds maybe 40 people. And we ended up getting married, not there, but Pacific Palisades.
and a small little church like that, and that little church survived the fires. Everything burnt down around, that church still stands. Wow, wow.
So tell me that's not God. The first date goes well. Yeah, it was pretty good. How did you propose? It was within six months.
Yeah.
Because I think she was on the second to the last episode, right? Because I did one more episode with Catherine Bell, who went on to do JAG after that for many years. And then I went to, I flew to Bratislava, Slovakia, and I shot a movie for three months in Slovakia and Croatia called Cull the Conqueror. Cull was the pre-Cullocor and the Barbarian. I remember.
This is my first big budget. It was like a $30 million budget movie over there from Universal. And I invited her over. She was on the series called Chicago Hope at that time. That Chicago ER were competing at that time.
And I called him and said, hey, I want to fly you over here. I want you to visit so we get to know each other more. And I said, and don't be worried about what my plans are. I'm flying my father in at the same time, so you can meet my dad. And so my dad did something, we had a three-day weekend or something, went into Vienna, because from Bratislava, Vienna is only about an hour drive.
So we went over to Vienna and we're walking through all these different places, and my dad was going to leave the next day or something. And he hugged her. My dad never has done that to any girl I ever dated. And he walks up and he goes, She's a keeper, Kev. Your dad hugged me when he met you.
But he hugged me when he met? Yes, I'm sure he hugged me when he met. That's right. He just pulled me into a hug. I know.
My dad never does that.
So, did you see it coming? The proposal? Yeah, because I kind of knew after our first date. Yeah.
After our first date, I kind of knew. I called my girlfriend, I said, I think I'm in love. She goes, With the Hercules guy? And I said, Yeah, he's just like me, only Male. Yeah.
So, were you guys Christians yet? Yeah.
Yes, yeah. Yeah.
That's great. Yep. We had that in common. He liked country music. He was Christian.
He was conservative. The three C's. I was. We talked that first date, and I said something. She goes, You conservative?
I go, Yes, I am. I don't hide the fact in Hollywood. And then I said, Oh, you're Christian? I said, Yes, I am. And then, oh, because I had country music on the car when I picked her up.
And I said, It's only country music station New Zealand, but I like all kinds of music. I'm not a rap guy, but she goes, No, I love country music.
So after we had these three C's, she says, Country music, Christian, and conservative three C's. I think I'm in love with you, Geoff. Wow, well, hey, we've got to take a brief break. Onis is that they have a tour of Greece coming up in the fall of 26. This is amazing.
The footsteps of Paul. I mean, can you imagine going to Greece and Mars Hill and Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi? This is amazing. So join us at September 23rd through October 5th. Go to sorbocruise.com, sorbocruise.com for this fall.
We're bringing our whole family. We did it last year. It's amazing. You're going to walk in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, and you'll learn the Bible will come more to life. Trust me, this is going to be an amazing trip.
Everybody here should sign up right now: SorboCruise.com. Thessalonica, Berea. It's amazing. Plus, more about the big movie coming out on Noah. Stay tuned.
We've got a brief break. We're back after this. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland, a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Hey, producer Mike here for the Alex McFarlane Show, and I'm here with Alex in the studio.
Alex, I was just thinking about the Cove and the great time I had last summer out there with my wife. It's coming up again this summer. What's going on? Oh, wow, Mike.
Well, thank you. We love the Billy Graham Conference Center in Western North Carolina. It is beautiful. The presence of God is so strong there because, you know, Billy Graham and his wife, they prayer walked over those hillsides, and a visit to the Cove will change your life forever. I'm going to be there July 17 through 19 teaching Bible prophecy.
Then I'll be back July 27 through 31 with world-renowned scholar Gary Habermas teaching apologetics how to defend the faith confidently in any situation.
So go to the website thecove.org, T-H-E-C-O-V-E, theCOVE.org, make your reservation, and we'd love to see you there in the summer of 2026. Uh He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show. Hey, welcome back to the program. Alex McFarlane here.
So honored to be talking with Kevin and Sam Sorbo on the floor of the NRB, the National Religious Broadcasters. It's noisy, just bear with us. This is the sound of the Great Commission going forth, really. Amen. But, you know, in the first break, first segment, rather, you told us how God brought you guys together.
And I so, I love to hear people's story. But, Sam, you're big on something very near and dear to my heart, which is the education of young people. And I used to warn people about Public schools. I don't use the term public schools. I use the term government schools.
Right? And I really think Christian parents have. I use the term child prison. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
It covers the whole gamut.
So, did you have the boy, girl, boy? I mean, the boy, boy, girl. Just like that. My son Brayden's here right now. He's in the movie Jesus Freaks, which are advertising quite a bit.
So he's walking around right now. By the way, I'm so glad that you're doing that movie because the Jesus movement of the early 70s, that was one of the great awakenings God has given this nation. And by the way, on that note, did you see the Greg Laurie film a couple of years ago? Jesus Revolution. Jesus Revolution.
That was a great movie.
Well, it was a good timing because we are having a Jesus Revolution again right now over the last three, four years, there's no question. We really are. We really are. And the reason is because the children who have grown up. our our understanding.
that they've been lied to. And they were lied to in the schools. Yeah.
And so they're waking up to that and they're trying to figure out where truth is. And so they're turning to religion. Yeah, they really are.
So how did you guys get into homeschooling and being advocates for that?
So we moved our house for a better school, a better public school. It was a lovely little public school, so-called. And um Mind you, at this time, we're still in California, so it's tough to find a good public school.
Well, these were highly rated. This whole sort of where we moved to, very highly rated. And Braden went to first and second grade. And at the end of second grade, I said to Kevin, I think I could fail at homeschooling him, and he'll still be better off. I had a lot of trepidation.
I did not know what I was getting into, but I did not like what was coming home from the school every day. I was very involved in the school. And I wasn't even getting papers that he turned in backgraded. They weren't even giving me any kind of feedback or anything. And so I was just very disappointed with what I thought should be education.
Because at that time I thought education was purely academics. Of course it's not. Learning. If you read the Bible, you understand that education has very little to do with academics, and it's much more about character formation. But that's neither here nor there.
I said to Kevin, I think I could fail and he'll still be better off. And so I said to Kevin, we'll just try it for a semester. And I tried it for a year and a half. And after a year and a half, I had, my second child was remedial and reading. And it was just, I was just clearly an abysmal failure.
He was very good in math. He finished his first grade math. Workbook. on Halloween of his first grade year. It took him two months to finish first grade.
and he moved into second grade. And so by the time he was halfway through second grade, he was in fourth grade math. And I brought him to this school. Little tiny private school, and she tested him. And she came back and she said, okay, so he's in second grade?
I said, yeah. She said, well, he's doing fourth grade math. I said, yeah, I know. He's like awesome at math. She said, but he is reading at a fifth grade level.
And I looked at her and I said, So I'm the one with the problem? She goes, yeah, kinda.
So My point is, I was already doing a decent job, and I still left him there. And that's my message to parents: you think you're inadequate because the school has taught you that you're inadequate. This is what our schools are training our children to think of themselves: they're unable. I gotta say this, because she told me this, and I love this story. That she tells parents that, okay, you don't feel you're capable of doing this, you just went through K through 12th grade, and you're saying that you're not capable of teaching a first grader.
So, what has that public education done to you that you feel you can't handle a five or six-year-old? That's right. By the way, I want to mention there's a great movie coming out called Educated for Liberty. Yeah, you and I both are in that movie. I know, yeah, because do you know, I grew up in a church in North Carolina that really was one of two churches that started schooling in North Carolina.
There's a Buffalo Presbyterian church on the Buffalo Creek. Yes, there were Buffalo in North Carolina at one point, 275 years ago. Then there's a Quaker church near Chapel Hill called the Cane Creek Meeting House. And what's so cool. And my mother grew up in the Quaker world.
My dad grew up Presbyterian. But these churches in the 1700s, 1800s, were teaching the rural children, black, white, teaching kids to read. the Bible.
So they could read God's Word. And they had so many little satellite schools all over North Carolina. This is the irony. the church schools became the public schools. Right.
Sure. Yeah.
And which are very godless. Yeah, because the church, big time. The church said, oh, the government's going to help us. Yeah.
Okay, come on in, government. Not realizing that that was the worst possible decision they could make. I like to remind people, our founding fathers were homeschooled. Their book was the Bible. Abraham Lincoln was homeschooled.
Pretty bright people. Exactly. But when Stephen McDowell called me about this film that they were going to make, I said, Look, come down to my home state of North Carolina. I've got to take you to some historic places. And you know, one last thing, and I'm going to change gears.
I've got a photograph from. Oh, I don't know, 1900. of a horse-drawn farm wagon. with two dozen children on it. black and white and they're being taken to This church to be taught how to read, the farm kids, black and white, all God's children, learning literacy so they could read the Holy Word of God.
And we hear so much about inclusion and diversity. The family of God was way ahead of the world on this. Hey, let me ask you guys this about, well, the homeschooling. Sam, what would you say to the parent out there who just says, you know, I don't know, this is too big. I don't know if I can do this.
Yeah, I'm sorry that you were so abused by your own schooling to think how incapable you are. We ought to have a mindset of how can I do this? Yeah.
I get it. You don't know how to do it. And there's so many different things. I've heard so many people say to me. Right, and I've written several books, so there's lots of resources on our website.
But I have so many people say to me, I could never. And I ask them, okay, what is it that you can't do? And they go, well, I don't know. I don't know the first thing about it. And I well, then how do you know you can't do it?
Do you see what I'm saying? Sure. They're not even, and that's a product of our schooling. We're not even willing to explore to see if maybe we can do it. And I say to them, your children are too important for you to take this not seriously.
Amen. We've got to take a brief break. We're going to come back more with Sam and Kevin Sorba here live from NRB. Don't go away. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland, a religion and culture expert.
Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Mike Segovia here, producer of the Alex McFarlane Show. Here's Alex talking about prayer. You know, folks, our nation needs a spiritual awakening so desperately. We need the Holy Spirit of God to sweep across this nation, and prayer is the key.
Please, if you would go to alexmacfarland.com slash united in prayer, we'll send you a weekly devotional. We'll help your family, your church start praying with power. Alexmcfarland.com slash united in prayer. Would you invest a financial contribution to see young people saved? People give their lives to Christ, and people care about God and country.
If you would please make a donation securely online, you can give at alexmcfarland.com or please mail a check to TNG P.O. Box 485 Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, 27313. Your gift will be faithfully handled, fruitfully used, and we thank you in Jesus' name. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show.
Welcome back to the program. We're going to resume our conversation with the Sorbos, a dynamic Christian couple being used by God in some amazing ways. Hey, please go to alexmacfarlane.com. We've got seven summer camps. We'll have over 1,200 youth in summer camps, a big youth rally at the end of the year, a total of about 2,500 teenagers that were teaching the gospel, not only biblical worldview, but patriotism.
So much more, so many resources at alexmacfarlan.com. Guys, before we lose all the time, I want to thank you for being with us. Thank you for what you're doing.
So many things to talk about. Homeschooling, right here in the audience is a very valued colleague, Ray Moore. And there's so many resources, moms, dads, you can do it. Say to all the parents listening, if you're a Christian. The stewardship of your children's mind and soul.
That's probably the most significant area of stewardship God entrusts to us. And so, amen to that. Choose carefully. And it's easier than you think. I just want to tell people: I just gave my first TEDx talk.
Okay. And the point of the talk was. We're forgetting that children are naturally curious. because when they go to school, that curiosity is beaten out of them. And if you just allow the child's curiosity to drive his learning, he will learn everything far beyond what you can imagine.
So go to sorbostudios.com to get any information from me. I do email with people, I regularly coach people and stuff like that. I'm happy to help. But we are also here to talk about our new film. I know, last night at a dinner, we saw the trailer.
How'd it look? It was awesome. Hey, look, man, no flattery, no embellishment. That was great. It's a movie about Noah, I love film.
We saw the trailer and Kevin, you're going to play Noah. Yes, sir. This is the real Noah story, not the fake hot story. This isn't like the Russell Crowe one where it was Water World's Transformers. It's not that one.
Yeah, yeah. You know, and several years ago, don't see it, we don't recommend it. They really twisted up the story of Noah. This is the real Noah. That movie lost $190 million.
Word of mouth killed it by week one when it did very well, because all the Christians said, great, a great story about Noah and the flood. And word of mouth killed it. It dropped 64% from week one to week two. But this film is called The Flood, and it's actually like the world almost like it is today without electricity, basically.
So it's Noah's time, but with all of the sort of politicking that we have today.
So Noah gets sued because his boat is a religious symbol and they don't want religious artifacts around. It's so offensive. It's so offensive. And you've got like strippers in front of children and all of the debauchery and everything. And so it's sort of a warning story.
Like, hey, people, God wiped humans off the face of the earth once because they got so evil. Yeah.
And it's looking pretty bad right now. He said, why did I leave a rainbow as a sign I would never do this again? I said, I do this every couple hundred years. Guys, we were at this dinner last night. I don't know, there was 500 people maybe.
I don't know if you could see it, but while that trailer was playing, I looked around. Everybody was riveted. I love that. I love that. I'm telling you.
October 2nd, please support the movie. This is the thing. We need word of mouth to get things out there to compete against Hollywood. They put out this bolt in this thing, doesn't want to watch, seem to want to go away, the movies they keep putting out there. That's true.
So we need churches to band together, work together, churches for crying out loud. You know, it's the same God. And we need people to support these things and show up opening weekend because theater owners don't care what they show. They want to sell popcorn and sodas.
So we need to make sure we compete against what Hollywood's doing. It's also difficult to advertise because the platforms are also against the films. Yeah.
Really? And yes. Yeah, they want Bad Bunny. They don't want the Eagles. If you know how Zuckerberg came out and said, oh, I'm sorry, my bad.
I was actually censoring people. They're still censoring people. Sure. They have no shame. And so it's hard to get the word out.
So we are making an appeal to everybody. Please talk about the movie with your friends. Go see the trailer. Go to sorboostudios.com and help us get the word out. And as we get closer to The release.
The release date is when? October 2nd. We are going to pump this thing hard. And listeners, you know, I don't issue many like calls to action, but I'm asking all of the churches, all of America's 100 million Christians, support this film. Kids love it.
You know, there's no saying if you want somebody to know the truth, tell them the truth. But if you want somebody to love the truth, tell them a story. Tell them a story. Tell them. And this is.
Because they're going to remember stories. Yeah.
They'll remember stories. Before time fleets away, I want to ask about you did something with The Apologist, John Lennox. John Lennox. Awesome.
So before we go there, the Noah movie. It's fantastic. The cinematography, I saw the trailer last night, but What was it like, I mean, as you go into a role like this, I mean, a very key biblical figure, how do you prepare to do that? You know, a lot of it comes from the script. Tim Che wrote a very script, our director wrote a very wonderful script.
It really comes from what the story is being told more than anything else.
So to me, it's just, it's a let go and let God's situation is what it comes down to. Because when I did my first really faith-based movie called What If, directed by Dallas Jenkins, I've done over 90 movies. What if in my book is Better Than God's Not Bed? It's the same writers that did both those things. But once again, it comes down to that word of mouth.
How do you get, how do you, you know, you don't have a $100 million advertising budget for a $2 million movie. And they have a $100 million advertising budget for the 300 million avatars and avenging whatever. Or the wokes know why. Exactly, yeah. That lost 170 million.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But, you know, that's what they're going to keep doing, and they're going to keep rewriting history. And then, you know, it's, to me, we've got to keep fighting a good battle. But it's called the flood. It's called the flood, yeah. The flood.
I didn't know what the plot was. Yeah.
The flood. So with John Lennox, we spent three weeks. For those who don't know John Lennox, he's a world-famous apologist. He's a retired math professor from Oxford University. Brilliant.
I think he holds six doctorates, speaks five languages. He. He was really front and center in some of the debates I had in God's Not Dead when I played the atheist college professor, which I'll say as we've done that, just say college professor, you're pretty much covering it. And when I debate the college student. And his name is brought up.
So that's how I got tied in with John. He wanted to work with me in his documentary. Three weeks in Oxford, two weeks in Israel. It's called Standing Against the World. It's out right now.
It's a documentary, it's wonderful, it's got a lot of clips from his debates against famous atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens and Singer, but it's us walking through the land of Jesus, basically, and I just ask the questions. John is the real star of this thing, and he's unbelievable. Please check it out, Against the World, it's streaming on Amazon right now. Wow, great. And folks, don't forget the tour to Greece, amazing.
All the biblical cities you've read about, like Athens and Corinth and Thessalonica, you guys are going there. We went last year. You're going to stand on places that have the carvings, the Bible talks about, and dates right. You're standing right where Paul was standing. It was amazing to do this trip.
How about Mars Hill and it was just 17. You kind of go, this is just unbelievable. And they keep finding more and more things. Hey, we're out of town. I got to ask you each this before we wrap.
If you had a prayer for America, Kevin, what would it be? If God said, name it, I'll do it. What would be your prayer for our country? To stop letting fear rule your world and your lives. Governments love using fear as a weapon to control us.
Showed up big time in COVID. Stop being fearful. The only place you're supposed to fear is God. And that's really about it. Sam, same question.
I would hope that the nation would start loving children again. We need to love our children. Amen. Folks, thanks for listening. Sam and Kevin Sorbo.
Hey, God bless you, folks. Please share this with your friends and remember. Jesus is as close by as a prayer. Hey, this is producer Mike. You just heard another great interview with Kevin and Sam Sorbo that Alex conducted at the NRB conference a few months back.
this conference was a special opportunity for Alex to sit down with a variety of high profile guests who are truly making a difference in the world to day. If you missed any of these interviews, you can visit alexmcfarlane.com and click on the Alex McFarlane Show tab to catch up on these past episodes from NRB. Happy listening! Alex McFarlane Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth.
Learn more and donate securely online at alexmacfarland.com. You may also reach us by calling 1-877-YESGOD and the number 1. That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarlane Show.
Do you have a desire to deepen your faith, better understand Christian apologetics, or to get a biblical perspective on current events?
Well, I've tried to make it simple for you to do just that. On my website, alexmacfarlane.com, there's a new section called Ask Alex Online. It's simple, it's clean, and you can read my answers to common questions about God, faith, and the Bible.
So visit the website, alexmacfarlane.com and look for the section that says Ask Alex Online. Mm.
