You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome to another episode of Q&A with Koloff, The Devil's Nightmare. With me today, I'm excited to have this young man, Lance Bacon. Welcome to Q&A with Koloff. Awesome to be here. Thank you for the opportunity, my friend. Well, great to have you, Lance.
And of course, we're no stranger to one another. You're pastoring a church up there in the Hampton, I guess, technically. Is it officially called the Hampton Roads, I guess, area?
Or what do they call it up there? Yeah, the region, they call it the Hampton Roads area. It's the seven cities. Most people, the nice slang they like to throw out, they call it the 757. That's our area code, so it goes by many names. I was going to say the 757, so I'm like, wait a minute, yeah, that is the area code.
I remember that. So there's multiple, obviously Norfolk, Virginia, Chesapeake, so it's just they kind of encompass all the towns in the area? Yeah, it's the whole southeastern region there that's right on the water. And I mean, it's pretty eclectic. We've got, I think it's 11 military bases. You've got like five universities. And it's just, it's a melting pot, I'll tell you. Wow. I didn't realize, I knew there was military presence up there.
I didn't know it was that prevalent. And of course, I knew there were some universities up there. Of course, the Hampton Roads Coliseum comes to mind, as does the Norfolk Scope. Now, do you have wrestling memories as a youngster growing up at all?
Oh, absolutely. Now, I wasn't here during those days. I have attended some wrestling events there at the locations you said. But when I was growing up, I was born in East Tennessee, and my grandpa used to take us over in Johnson City, Tennessee. Freedom Hall.
And, you know, I would go as a young kid and see Ivan, among others, but the Claw and all those classic regional and even some Memphis stuff coming over. And that was back in the day, you know, I had that grandpa that would jump up on the side of the ring and hit you with his cane because he didn't like how it was going. Because he thought it was real, didn't he, lads?
He thought it was real. Come on, right? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, Freedom Hall, if I'm not mistaken, Johnson City, Tennessee. That's right. Great, great memory.
That's right. Freedom Hall. I had a lot of classic matches in there.
Of course, one, I had Rick Flair and I, he defended his world heavyweight title. And I think it might have been, I think we might have been on tour with one of our great American bashes, you know, over the 4th of July timeframe. And so how, how, how fitting to be in Freedom Hall, you know, over the kind of the 4th of July area timeline. But, well, that's pretty cool. Of course, you know, Memphis, you're referring to Jerry the King Lawler, I think.
And, and so that, well, that's pretty amazing. Now, you are up in, you've been in Hampton now for 25 or so years, right? Yeah, we've been in Virginia for 25 years. My wife and I pastored near Fredericksburg until 2012. And then we came down to Hampton Roads, but we've been in Virginia for that long. Yeah.
Man. So, so I love history. And you mentioned Fredericksburg. That was a, that was a pretty famous battle back to the day in Fredericksburg.
Phenomenal battle. Yeah, absolutely. And we lived on part of the battlefield when we lived there.
No way. Yeah. Fredericksburg is just a, if you have a chance, if you've not been there, go there.
It's a phenomenal town with a lot of great, as you can still see in the downtown area, you know, Mary Washington's house is still there. And you could still see buildings that, that have cannonball holes in them and bullet holes from the battle. Yeah, absolutely. No way. Oh my gosh.
All right. I just got to put that on my bucket list. I mean, I just love stuff like that, right? I love stuff like that. And well, that's amazing. And so I know you quite a number of years. Of course, I've been up to your place, the Greater Discipleship Center there in Hampton in the past and done lots of things, right?
Conferences and breakfasts and sermon, you know, Sunday sermons, et cetera. And which, you know, been honored to do that for you. And let me ask you, before you were led into ministry, I do know you spent some time in the military, right? Yeah, I spent eight years in the Marine Corps. Eight years in the Marine Corps. And you had the opportunity to, I guess, like many do, travel the world and see some of the sites? Yeah, absolutely. And that was my goal when I entered in.
I was like, I want to see the world. And when you request that coming to Marine Corps, they will honor that request. They're like, we got one. They look at each other, the recruiting guys, and go, we got one.
We got a good one here. Yeah, there's a whole lot of guys that are like, oh, let me stay in your home. Let me go to this easy spot. I was like, I want to go on a deployment. They were like, come up to the head of the line, kid. Oh, come on.
Come on. That's amazing. And I know from prior conversations, you had felt early on, how young were you when you felt, you know, the expression is, you know, a call to ministry. For those who are listening and watching and may not know what that means is you just felt like God was directing the God of the universe who created you, who has a plan for you and for all of us, felt the tug to go into ministry. But I know you were kind of like a Jonah from the Bible, right?
Go to Nineveh and he went the other way. You kind of went the other way. But how young were you when you kind of first felt that tugging and then fast forward to when you finally submitted to God's call? Yeah, I was as early as nine, 10 years old. I was having a desire to really just teach, share the word, et cetera, et cetera. I was really solidified in that, probably around the age of 13. But then I had a very unfortunate situation with church hurt and walked away.
You know, I was young. I didn't understand yet that my thought was, if that's God, I want nothing to do with it. I didn't understand that's not God. Broken people, right?
Broken people. Yeah. And it was a very important learning lesson that I think has shaped a lot of the ministry that I do now. But suffice it to say, it could have gone a lot worse had there not been people praying for me in God's hand on me. And then if we fast forward, so you were about what age when you're like, all right, God, I surrender. I like use a military term. I surrender.
Right. And answered that call about how old were you? So I was in my late 20s by that point, and I had fallen into every kind of vice imaginable trying to find my self-worth, my purpose, happiness, peace. And, you know, I started dating a beautiful young Tar Heel.
And first place we went on a date, she took me to church. And from that point, God just started working on my art. And eventually I was actually in Fredericksburg when I tapped out.
And the beautiful thing was, even though I tapped out, when I stood up, God raised my hand and I have been running with him ever since. That's amazing. Now, Tar Heel, for those who may not know, seems like you're making a reference to North Carolina.
Yeah, that would be the case. I was born in East Tennessee, but raised in Illinois. My wife is, she is Tar Heel through and through. She's from North Carolina and she is one of a kind.
Well, bless her and bless you as well. I know you've got several children and several grandbabies, too. Four children, four grandbabies?
That's correct. Yeah, we just welcomed the newest. Dallas was born two days ago and right at the same time you're welcoming number 13. So, we are growing by leaps and bounds, brother.
Leaps and bounds. And I just want to say to all you out there, maybe Lance just made reference to church hurt. Like maybe you're out there, you know what, maybe you've been hurt by the church in the past. And I just, I want to say this, make sure you go into the Man Up podcast archives.
So, go to the Truth Radio Network archives, Man Up show. And I want to encourage you to look up the full interview that I did with Lance over there. Because we talk a little bit more in depth about that, about church hurt and that sort of thing. And the Lord, of course the Lord helped to heal and overcome those sorts of wounds and hurts. And he's a God of second chances.
And especially if we run and use that as an excuse to run from him. And so, I want to encourage you to go do that. So, well, Greater Discipleship Center is, how many years have you been there, Lance? We've been there since 2012.
So, we've got a solid 12, almost 13 years. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. If you are a business owner and would like to advertise your company or product on the Man Up show and or Q&A with Koloff, contact me directly.
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They're in Hampton, Virginia, and of course if you're in the area or passing through on some Sunday or looking for a church to go to, I can certainly encourage you to check out Greater Discipleship Center. Well, it is Q&A with Koloff Lance. Of course, I've asked several questions, but I did want to give you a chance to, an opportunity to ask me a couple questions. So, and I have no clue what you're going to ask, what you might want to know, but let's go ahead and transition into your first question for me.
All right, let me ask you one. We were talking a little bit about church hurt, and I think this kind of applies to it, but I'm blown away by Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter one in the Bible. He opens up that letter and he says, blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercy. He's the God of all comfort. He comforts us in our affliction, so we may be able to comfort anyone who is in similar affliction in the same way we were. So I'm curious to know, was there a time in your life or a situation that we might call affliction that you might at the time be praying, oh God, get me out of this, why me? But looking back on it now, you realize, oh man, I want to help other people who have been through that because I've been through that, I know how it feels, and it's kind of being used to good now.
Yeah, great question. I mean, there's a number of things that come to mind. I guess let me first address the question by addressing that particular passage, which I've used many, many, many, many, many times. I remember the first camp I went to was in March of 2006 in South Texas, which is where I really first understood even the whole meaning of that script, the God of all comfort who comforts, the way I say it is who comforts us in our time of need so that we can then comfort others in their time of need. And I certainly needed to embrace that at that camp experience at that time from things that I had just experienced, whether it was in childhood or even through my athletic days, when I had suffered injuries and thought life was over as I knew it. And so there's a number of different examples I could probably give as far as taking those same hurts and pains and God healing me and comforting me so that I could then turn and comfort others.
The example I'll specifically give is one of my daughters, I raised four girls, and one of them, we were visiting my mom up in Minnesota one time. And she walked in one morning, Lance, and she just had this look on her face. I'm like, oh, boy, what's going on? She just kind of melted in my arms, and she started crying, and I'm like, what's up? And I guess she had been on the internet that morning and saw her boyfriend at the time, no longer with that guy, but interacting with some other girls and saying some things. And of course, I had some rough relationships over the years of my own that I was able to overcome some real hurts from past relationships. And so what I did that morning, Lance, was I didn't try to fix, which a lot of guys are fixers, right? They just want to go in and fix the problem. Well, here's what you need to do, honey.
You tell him or you do that kind of thing. I'm like, nah, she didn't need that that morning. You know what she needed? She just needed her daddy to love on her, to wrap his arms around her, to love on her, and then to, here's the key, speak comfort to her. And I couldn't tell you the exact specific words, but you'll get the idea. And I just said things like, honey, I'm so sorry that he hurt you like that.
Honey, I'm really sorry that you had to find out that the guy you're dating is just not a real man of character, that he would do that to you. You know, so those sorts of things. And Lance, that really calmed her. It really calmed her down.
And they just held her and just loved on her. And I get the lesson, especially for us guys out there, the lesson is, you know, whether it's your wife or a daughter or even a son or somebody comes to you, you know, and has had a painful experience and one you can relate to because maybe you've been through something similar. It's not necessarily just to fix it, but to exercise that scripture in 2 Corinthians 1 that the God of all comfort who comforts us in our time of need so that we can in turn comfort others.
And the last thing I'll say before we move on to your next question is, you know, sometimes we, and I don't think there's anything wrong with asking the why question. You know, Jesus on the cross, you know, God, why have you forsaken me? But what I've learned, Lance, more than asking why when things do happen is what? Lord, what do you want me to learn from this? There's an obvious lesson or a learning experience in this.
It's happening. I don't necessarily need to know why, but if you'll tell me what I need to learn and how I can apply it to my life and the life of others, then I would embrace that even more. And so that's kind of the approach. That's a great question. Nobody's ever asked that before.
Great question. So I hope that helps. I hope they help somebody out there listening.
So indeed, no doubt it will. You got another one? Let me throw you one that I was actually chatting in addition to pastoring here in Hampton Roads. I'm a professor at Regent University, and so a lot of the students here when talking about our chat today, you know, they have the questions that I'm sure you hear with frequency. Who would you have wrestled that you didn't get a chance to, or who would you wrestle today in the current cadre?
Who would you like to go against? And those are fair questions. I think people are interested in that. I'm sure you hear it a lot. But then there was one that a young man raised, and I thought, man, that's a great question. He said, my guess is, because he knows your background and your faith in God, and he said, my guess is the greatest opponent he ever faced was himself. And so what was the hardest match within yourself when you came to God? What was the thing about you that needed the Russian sickle that you had to put it down for the count once and for all? And how did God bring you through that to overcome? Two-part question.
Okay. So, again, another great question, and certainly, you know, I remember when I got saved in 17 October 1993 and first started reading the Bible, and I'm reading about, you know, one of my favorite scriptures, Ephesians 6, you know, 12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. I'm like, yes, wrestling's in the Bible.
How cool. And then the Old Testament, let's go back to the Old Testament, and he wrestles the angel all night and injures his hip. And my joke is, nothing fake about that. He walked with a limp the rest of his life, right?
Nothing fake about that match. But so all that to say, what pops in my head, here's how I want to address that question, is, and it's been a lifelong journey. And what I mean by that is, I tell people salvation is instantaneous. But then when Paul said, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, you know, we spend the rest of our waking moments, the rest of our life, until we breathe our last breath of working out that salvation into our soul. What I mean by that is our mind, will, and emotions, the renewing of the mind, and submitting of the will, and just saying, tapping out, or saying, uncle, you know, old school. Uncle, I give, God, I give, okay, I give. But what immediately pops in my head is the scripture, you know, not to love the swirl or anything in it, and is the love of the flesh, I mean, excuse me, the, oh, just help me out, Les, I just went by, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
Thank you, there we go. Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, flesh, and the pride of life. And, you know, full transparency, I've not arrived. I mean, I'm no saint by any stretch of the imagination. That's not to say I'm some, you know, some morbid sinner.
I'm not saying that either. What I am saying is that the more I've run after the heart of God, and he's exposed, you know, some of maybe my old life from the past that I'm able to confess and repent and be healed and set free of, it's only by drawing closer and closer to him as he shines the light more and more that maybe something from way back when pops up, and I'm like, oh, that's not good, or I say it this way, Les. So, you know, the Bible, Romans 12, too, talks about the renewing of the mind, right? Don't be conformed to this world any longer, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Well, full transparency. I mean, there's times like, you know, I might wake up in the middle of the night, and I say it this way, and there's some cesspool stuff that floats around in this brain of mine, you know, and I'm like, well, that's not godly or of God, right? And so, then I've got an option there. I can exercise the scripture of pulling down that stronghold or that vain imagination and casting it to the foot of the cross. And so, I've nowhere yet arrived at the destination. I'm on that path. I am on the straight and narrow path. I'll go as far as to say, I tell people, I don't live a sinless life, but man, the closer I've drawn to the Lord, I sure sin a whole lot less, you know.
Because I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. That's not making any excuses, but I think that struggle, just like Paul himself, the apostle Paul, struggled with, well, the things I want to do, I don't do, and the things I don't want to do, I do. It's that whole internal battle of the flesh versus the spirit, right?
And the Bible is clear that one opposes the other. So, the challenge for me, Lance, and it really, I would go as far as to say for all of us is, is to keep our flesh in check and allow the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and direct each day in every decision we make, which is easier said than done, right? So, yeah. So, I hope that kind of answers, addresses the question.
Two great questions. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you again here down the road. Hey, and again, one more time, Greater Discipleship Center, Hampton, Virginia. Give that website one more time, Lance, before we sign off here.
Yes, greaterdiscipleship.com. Greater Discipleship, all one word,.com. So, check it out, Pastor Lance, Bacon. Hey, come to a men's breakfast we do up there sometime, and hey, maybe we'll serve you some bacon or something.
I don't know. I love you, my brother. Love to your family. Thanks for being a part of Q&A today. Blessings to you as well, my friend.
All right. To all you out there listening, Lance, spread the word, Q&A with Kolov. If you ever want to be on it, go to kolov.net and message me, and you'll get a personal phone call from the Russian nightmare himself, and spread the word on the Man Up show as well. God bless you.
Have a wonderful day. Go to kolov.net and donate today. If you are enjoying Q&A with Kolov, would you help us spread the word?
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