Hi, I'm Joanne Vickner, Memaw with It's Storytime Memaw, an answered prayer for stories that point children to God on the Truth Network for kids. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.
Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.
Well, welcome to If Not For God with Mike Zwick. We're back fresh off the NRB. How fun is that? I got to have Mike there this year. Very fun. And we're hot on the Romans 14 path, right, Mike?
We are, man. And you know, before we did that, you know, one of the things that I was thinking about with that may kind of tie into this is years ago, there was a movie that had this in there. And it was lady who said, she said, you know, I've got a joke. And what's the joke? She says there's there's a papa tomato, baby tomato and a mama tomato, and they're all running. And the little tomato, the little tomatoes lagging behind.
And so the father says, Hurry up, hurry up. And so the baby tomato kept lagging behind. So finally the father goes back to the baby tomato and he smashes him and he says, catch up. So which leads me into Romans 14, because instead of the father tomato helping the baby tomato, him smashing him completely ruined the whole thing. And so Romans 14, I think it's saying that we as Christians, sometimes when we attack each other, sometimes we're like that papa tomato who's smashing the other tomato and saying, catch up.
Well, he obviously can't catch up if he's catch up. Romans 14 says, receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to dispute over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak only eats vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats. For God has received him. Who are you to judge another servant to his own master? He stands or falls.
Indeed, he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand. One person is steams one day above another, another is steams every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it to the Lord, and he who does not observe the day to the Lord, he does not observe it. He who eats eats to the Lord for he gives God thanks and he who does not eat to the Lord. He does not eat and gives God thanks for none of us lives to himself and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or we die, we are the Lord's for to this end. Christ died and rose and lived again that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother?
Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And Robbie, when I when I kind of look at this, you know, there were there were some things that I thought about. And it says, you know, that we are not supposed to argue over disputable issues and that you and I know have talked about several disputable issues. But there are also some issues that are what we would consider a non disputable as well.
And some some non disputable issues. Number one, and you said this is that Christ is God, right? And he says, you know, he says, I and the Father are one. Another thing, you know that, you know, some people are saying this in the church and you say, well, this is liberal churches. Now, these are conservative churches who are now saying this, that there are many pathways to God.
You know, you can get to you can get to heaven through Buddha, you can get to heaven through Muhammad or all these different ways. But Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. So that is a non disputable issue. You know, it's the inerrant word of God, the inerrant word of God, you know that that God's word is true.
Um, so there are some issues that are non disputable that we we, you know, that we okay, we these are not a dispute. This is something that God's word says, and we need to believe this in order to, in order to be a Christian. As a matter of fact, one of the issues nowadays that seems to be coming up a lot is that, you know, throughout church history, they said, if you don't believe that Jesus Christ is going to come back, that you would not be considered a Christian even. And so there are now some Christians who have said, well, Jesus has already come back, he came back in the first, he's not coming back again. And so, you know, to me, that would be one of them.
Now, I'm not the ultimate judge. But, you know, what we what we really I mean, what I really see in this chapter are the the issues that are disputable. And what I hear, Paul, the Apostle Paul, who wrote this, right, Paul?
Right, Robbie? What he what he's talking about, he says, we're not supposed to argue over some of these disputable issues, because it's just it's it's a way that it just brings division within the church amongst amongst believers as well. But you actually had a story you said about Spurgeon? Well, they got two stories that are, you know, you got one, I got one. So these are urban legend, we don't know that they're fact, but they do make for a good example of what we're talking about today. So my story I've heard for years was that DL Moody, one famous, amazing evangelist started the Moody Church in Chicago, decided he wanted to go meet Spurgeon, which, you know, how cool is Spurgeon, you know, clearly, unbelievable man of God and great sound doctrine, both of them. No doubt about it.
And sound doctrine is a huge issue that's not disputable. But anyway, so Moody is kind of a heavyset guy. He shows up at Spurgeon's front door, knocks on the door. He's got a big cigar in his mouth. And when Spurgeon's standing there smoking on the cigar, you know, Moody gets offended. And he's like, I just can't believe that you Charles Spurgeon smoking a cigar, get that thing out of your mouth.
And he said, sir, I'll take the cigar out of my mouth, when you take this fork out of your hand. You know, there's a there's an issue there, you know, over gluttony. But again, it would be an absolute shame.
Don't know the truth of the story. But just think how it would break your heart that here are two of the most wonderful men of God, that that we've had in the last four or 500 years, that these guys wouldn't be the closest friends in the world. Because the closer you get to God, the closer you get to God, the closer you get to God.
The closer you get to each other, right. And so it's a beautiful thing. I like your story better, Mike.
Well, the Well, I like your story as well. Because from what I understand, Moody and Spurgeon were both Baptists, right? Yeah. So you would think, oh, they're gonna have agreement on many of these issues. But you know, many of the issues, the problems can come up between people of the same denomination. But there was another story. And I believe you said that this might have been Calvin and and Wesley and Wesley.
Okay, I got the famous Armenian, the famous Calvinist, right, right. So supposedly, somebody came up to it was a reporter who came up to either either Wesley or Calvin, whoever it was. And they said to them, they said, let me let me ask you, do you think that you're Do you think that you're going to see this other preacher who who has some different beliefs than you do?
Do you think you're going to see them in heaven? And I think it was Wesley who said, No, he says, I won't. And the reporter thought he thought they had him and they had a good story.
And they said, Really, why not? And they said, Wesley said, You know what, this other guy is going to be so close to the throne of God, I doubt I'll even catch a glimpse. I mean, it's, you know, it just is a beautiful example to me, you know, both show, you know, how, whether it was the cigar, both Moody and Spurgeon are both dead right now.
Whether they died of lung cancer, or they died of gluttony isn't near the issue of the lives that they live for Christ, and the sound doctrine that they did share on so many different occasions. That that here is just an absolute, absolutely wonderful thing that Paul does, in my opinion, because I can't tell you, you know, how many times I've seen, you know, good friends, you know, almost come to blows over crazy stuff that that would fit under the heading of disputable matters, like, and I've seen, because, you know, in certain areas of the state of North Carolina, there's a lot of seven day Adventists. And you want to see some firepower, man, when they start talking about you, you don't go, you know, you go to church on Sunday, when that's, you know, the Sabbath is clearly Saturday, and then off and off and off they go.
And, okay, there's a lot of stuff within those two denominations that could be divisive. But, you know, again, it's really good to know, what does this person believe? Did Jesus die for my sins? You know, it does he believe that, you know, God's coming again, like you said, you does he believe, you know, that the the word of God is, is, is, you know, perfect for teaching and rebellion.
And all these things, you know, I think that it's a beautiful thing in unity, that is critical. Well, emo Phillips actually told a story one time, and he said, once I saw this guy on a bridge, and he was about to jump, and I said, Don't do it. He said, Nobody loves me. And I said to him, God loves you. Do you believe in God?
He says, Yes. I said, Are you a Christian or a Jew? He said, a Christian. I said, Me too. Protestant or Catholic? He says Protestant. I said, Me too.
What franchise? He said, Baptist. I said, Me too. Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist? He said, Northern Baptist.
I said, Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist? He said, Northern Conservative Baptist.
I said, Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region? He said, Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region. I said, Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region council of 1912? He said, Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.
And I said, die heretic, and I pushed him over. That's an example. I think that's not what Paul had in mind there.
That's what not to do, right? But one of the things that we talked about was drinking in moderation. Now, some people are smoking. Yeah, I don't, you know, personally, I don't know that there's a passage that talks about smoking, you know, as Moody was standing there looking at Spurgeon, and yet, you know, there's the idea of your body's, you know, the temple, the Holy Spirit, and all these things, again, you know, what you find time and again is, oh, I've seen it, and you've seen it. That if Jesus catches them, he cleans them. Yeah, it's not our job to figure out, you know, where somebody's sin and all that stuff. It is our jobs to extort them, right, to bring them up to see where you see God's glory in them and speak well of them. I'm sure that we, those of us who have children, realize that there are certain things that are undisputable matters, like don't be putting your hand on that stove, right?
But there's other things that we do a whole lot better encouraging them than we do by, you know, what do they say that if a kid hears, you know, no 20 times to every yes, that, you know, you're crushing their little hearts? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, as a matter of fact, you know, one of the things that we were talking about a little bit was, there was a story about, you know, Billy Graham where he said there was a football player and he said he saw this and he said the guy picked up the football and he started running in the direction and he ran all the way down the field and he ran and he scored a touchdown for the wrong team. He ran in the opposite direction, he ran in the wrong direction and there are some people who say that, you know, whatever you believe, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere about it, then it's okay. And so that doesn't make any sense at all.
That guy, if you're running to get a touchdown, you have to go in the right direction or else you're going to get, I believe it's a safety. And so there are so many issues that are non-disputable that we can focus on that we don't need to focus on the disputable issues. So that's one of them.
And then the other thing is, you know, we've talked about this several times. There's a passage, probably one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible, it's Luke 18, where Jesus said there were two men who went to the temple. We don't know whether it was a Saturday or a Sunday, but a tax collector and a Pharisee – and the Pharisee looked at the other guy and he says, God, I thank you, I'm not like this man. He says I give 10 percent of my income.
He says I don't commit adultery, basically says I'm a pretty good person and the tax collector wouldn't even look up. He beat on his chest and he said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And Jesus said that the second guy, he went away justified and not the first. And Robby, you know, looking at this passage in Luke 18 and reading Romans 14, man, I hope I'm never the Pharisee in that situation. But unfortunately, I'm sure I have been sometimes. So from my standpoint, and I know yours too, Michael, to have grace for somebody is critical to what Paul is getting at here. And so, you know, you and I, we lived an example of this that's just unbelievable at the NRB. And it actually, I told you, it may be my favorite, it actually could be my favorite interview at the NRB that I did 47 of, but it's clearly in the top two. Because you'll never, you know, the grace of the mother that you'll hear here is what makes all the difference. If you review what the story you're fixing to hear and think back of what happened because his mother didn't judge her daughter.
And so... Laura Perry. Yeah. But I think before we get that, if you listen to this today, you know, you can cry out. Jesus is there for you and I think you'll see how merciful he really is.
Yeah. And we want to see you in heaven. If not for God? If not for God. This is If Not For God with Mike Zwick.
Today we've got my good friend Robbie Dilmore, who I do the podcast with so many times, and we've got Laura Perry, who wrote the book Transgender to Transformed. And Laura, you said you grew up in a Christian household. Is that right? That's right. Yeah. When I was in Christian school, we were in church every time the door was open, involved in every program, and I heard a lot about God.
But I don't think I really didn't understand the gospel, and I didn't understand having a relationship with God. Okay. And you actually know our good friend Nate Oilo, and I don't remember if you remember Robbie, but we did a show with Nate Oilo. Do you remember? Yep. I do.
Yeah. Nate has become a really good friend. And so, wow, you have an amazing story.
I mean, just amazing. Why don't you share with our listeners a little bit about, you know, kind of how that happened? You know, when I was really little, you know, I just had such a distorted view of God, I think. And I tell a little bit of my mom's story, and not to blame her at all. She tells this in her own testimony.
We speak together sometimes. But when I was—she had grown up in a very, very legalistic household, and then she had kind of the same thing where she used to say she felt like she was on this performance treadmill for God. And she could never be good enough for him, and she was just involved in everything she could—always trying to do more and more and more, trying to be more spiritual. She didn't understand having a relationship with God, and so it was like she would go to pastors and they would say, Francine, you just need to try harder. So she was so stressed out all the time.
She said she felt like she was trying to hold everybody together. So when I—I used to see such stress on my mom, and as a result, a lot of times it was like, go away, get off of me, leave me alone, just, you know. So I was pushed away all the time. So as a kid, I perceived that as rejection.
I didn't know. My mom was killing herself, trying to do things for me, trying to hold the family together, trying to work and do these things. But I was always pushed toward my dad, and I was—she was very close to my brother. So at a very early age, I was very jealous of my brother. I wanted to be my brother.
He was popular. He was very athletic and sort of had everything I wanted. So from a very young age, I began to believe that I should have been a boy too. And then throughout the years, I fantasized about that more and more.
I'd play video games with male characters and just begin to develop this sort of alter ego as this boy. When I got into high school, I was just really mistreated by men. I was giving so much away sexually. I was trying so hard to be fulfilled, trying to find love in all the wrong places. And after years of being rejected and dumped and abused, it was like—the reason this never works out, the reason I'm never happy in these relationships is because I was supposed to be the man.
If I was the man, I knew how to treat a woman. And so I began to pursue that lifestyle. And I took the hormones, I began to grow facial hair, I had a deeper voice.
I eventually had the breasts removed, I had a hysterectomy, I had the ovaries removed, all of it. And all that time, I kept thinking this was going to solve it, but it was like taking painkillers for a gaping wound. So the wound's just getting worse and worse and worse, and I'm feeling better in one sense, but there's still this underlying issue that's not getting resolved. And so I was just getting more and more desperate. And eventually I got to a point where it's like, this hasn't solved anything. There's got to be more to life than this. And I started to just, it's like there's got to be more answers, but I didn't know yet what it was. Yeah. And then you found the answer, you said in 2014?
That's right. And so God had been pursuing me this whole time, and it really was the prayers of my parents. I mean, I look back, God encountered me in so many ways, and I was having dreams about God and Him revealing things to me. There were times I just encountered the presence of God. There were times He'd speak to me over the radio.
I actually was listening to conservative talk radio, of all things. That's a bit of a long story, but God was revealing Himself to me. And then eventually, my mom asked me to do a website for her Bible study.
I didn't have any interest really in her or the Bible study, but she was going to pay me money. And I thought I would summarize the lessons just for the website, and God began to reveal Himself in a way I'd never seen before. Romans tells us it's the goodness of God that leads to repentance. And so God began to show me His goodness, His faithfulness, how trustworthy He was, all these things that He had done. And on top of that, I began to see this change in my mother. This was a huge part for me, because over the years, she'd really surrendered me into His hands and just began to pursue the Lord. She really began to lay her life down, and for the first time in her life, began to let the Holy Spirit do a transformative work in her.
So it wasn't her trying to do it for God. All of a sudden, it was God doing the work in her. And she was so transformed over those years that I saw this change in her, and I was like, I knew the gospel was true. This is real, because this isn't just an intellectual knowledge.
This is a transforming work that I had never seen. And so that's when I gave my life to the Lord, and I thought I was going to be a man of God honestly. And I was like, I'm just going to be—I was telling all my friends about Jesus, I was so on fire for the Lord. And I was like, God, you can have every part but this.
Like, if I had a deck of cards, you can have them all but this one. But God began to pursue me, and He began to draw me out of that lifestyle. And one day, I said, God, I want everything you have for me.
I don't want to miss anything. What do you want from me? And God said, if you stood before me tonight, what name would I call? I said, oh, God, that is not fair. I've repented of this. I said I was sorry, but I know I shouldn't have done this, but I can't do anything about this now.
I have these surgeries, and I have a partner, I have a job where I'm only known as male, I have a beard. And the Lord reminded me of John chapter one, and it says, Jesus Christ Himself is the Creator. He said, you can't claim to love me and yet reject my creation. And I thought I was being condemned because I was not going to go back to being female.
That was just not even an option. But in the most loving voice I've ever heard in all my life, He whispered to me, and He said, let me tell you who you are. And that's what really began to free me.
It wasn't at that moment. It was a very, very long journey. But it's like I knew that God understood something about me that I didn't, and I didn't want to admit that because it was so painful to think about being female. And really for a while, for a couple of months, I asked God to just take my life. God, I want to live for you, but I can't live as trans.
I hate to back you up, but I know all the listeners are right with me. When He said, let me tell you who you are, what did He tell you? Well, He didn't at that moment. You know, it was like, this was a journey and a process. I expected Him right then to just, you know, I mean, I knew that He was not going to call me Jake. I knew that He was calling me Laura. And I thought that was kind of the end of, you know, your Laura.
But over the years, it's been this unfolding as He peeled away the layers after I left that lifestyle in 2016, and really it was just to follow Christ. I was miserable. And I thought I was going to be miserable the rest of my life. I didn't want to be a girl.
I didn't feel like a girl. But honestly, as He peeled away the layers, as I began to forgive my mother, as I began to let go of all the bitterness and unforgiveness, as He began to remove the lies and replace it with His truth, and it was like I was just transformed over the years. So it was this many year process of Him revealing who I was.
So there was a moment where He sort of answered, I knew He was not going to call me Jake. But at the same time, it was this great revealing of something so much greater than I understood, that I was more than just female, and well, that part of me was so much more profound than I understood. It's almost like He knew, you know, just to summarize it, as I'm listening, you tell the story so beautifully that He kind of knew you weren't ready to hear Laura right then, was He? He knew that you had a way to go before you. And so, in spite of the fact, let me tell you who you are, but I'm going to reveal this over a period of time, which, quite honestly, He does that with all of us. I think if we knew who we were, right, Mike, right away, okay.
But wow, that's just absolutely incredible. And I spoke to you about this a little bit before, but you know, I remember growing up, and Robbie and I talked about this when we had Nate on the show, that, you know, if you were LGBTQ, it wasn't something that you talked about, and it was, you know, you were treated with such hate, I would even say in the church, that, you know, you definitely couldn't talk about it, and it was seen as this secret, but now, it's kind of, the pendulum has kind of swung to the other side. Does that make it more difficult for you guys sometimes, when you're trying to share the gospel with the LGBTQ? Yeah, sometimes, well, because there's still this belief among the LGBT community that the church hates them, and that's still propagated, but now they're finding these churches who are so, just celebrate them and affirm them and all of this, you know, and just welcome them with open arms, but they don't share the truth, and it's like, I'm so thankful that God drew me out of that lifestyle, I'm so thankful that people shared the truth with me, I'm so transformed and set free, and it's been a very painful journey, it's not like poop, it was all gone, but I'm so thankful, and like I mentioned earlier, now I'm getting married, God has completely redeemed and transformed my life, and I'm, you couldn't pay me enough to go back, so yes, in one sense, I thought I was happy at the time, it's like being on drugs or painkillers, I felt good, but the reality was, God wanted something so much greater for me, something so much more fulfilling, something so much deeper for me, and it's like, and ultimately, even if he had never changed the feelings, the reality is that I'm living for an eternal kingdom that's never going to pass away, I know that one day, we will all, we won't have a sin nature anymore, we will all be completely redeemed and transformed, so even if he hadn't taken the feelings away, it's still worth it, but as he peeled away the layers, the feelings begin to change with it. So the book, I hate when we're running out, I mean, we could spend probably about three shows, I mean, it's spectacular, because there's so much we can't get to, but listeners need to know about this, because I'm sure they're all going, I gotta give this book, I've gotta share this message with somebody, I gotta share this podcast, so what's the name of your book?
It's called Transgender to Transformed, look us up at First Stone Ministries, I'm a full-time staff member there, firststone.org, and also check out In His Image, a documentary from the American Family Association that is a biblical, compassionate response, and it's inhisimage.movie. Well, Laura, like you said, I wish we had more time, but I sure would love to have you on again, so thank you for coming on and sharing this. Thank you so much for having me on. Spectacular. Thank you. You've not forgotten? Not forgot.
