The Truth About Ukraine

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast. Our show, Stories of Hopelessness, Turned into Hope. 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. This is the Truth Network. So many hearts are broken for, and so many people are praying for the people of Ukraine as an all-out war is being assaulted on them. Russia is attacking. There's a whole lot going on geopolitically.

There's a whole lot of talk of nuclear war from the Russians. There's what you see on TV, and there's what's really happening there. And I'm in my car with the founder of Lantern Rescue, Mark Smith, who is a lover of Jesus, who's the host of Lantern Rescue, amazing radio show, broadcast, podcast, heard all over the place, over 200 radio outlets, signals. Mark, first of all, why would Lantern Rescue be involved or just be excited about helping Ukraine?

You hear what you hear in the news, the media, you see it, but what's really going on there and what brought you into the engagement? Thanks, Stu, for having us on the show and just talking a little bit about what everybody's talking about. So first of all, Lantern Rescue is primarily focused on human trafficking and counter-trafficking, but we all have extensive backgrounds working in conflict areas and war zones and especially how do we help those in harm's way. And we did a lot of that and are still doing that even for Afghanistan. So when it came to this issue, we got a little bit ahead of the curve, at least recognizing this may happen and developed a network and then that network got online. And really what that is, that's incredible, incredible volunteers and heroes who are willing to drive into harm's way to extract people. And through our command center and our route evaluations and intelligence and just networking different people together, we have been moving people every single day from some of the worst positions that maybe you're seeing in the news.

Here's one of the things I'd say. A lot of people don't know how to feel about this war. A lot of people are scared, different things. First of all, don't get lost in the propaganda on either direction.

Don't get lost in the conspiracy theories that social media, superstars like to get your clicks on and all that. There's space for you to think. I'm not saying don't be a thinker and don't be an evaluator. Bottom line, end of the day, there are women and children who are dying and who are in harm's way. And so we have to do something. We want to save Ukraine and we want to save the world, but we've got to first save some people who are stuck in a really bad spot and they have no help. And so we're trying to be a solution to that.

I don't know who else is doing that. I'm sure there may be some, but we're just using incredible... I'm talking about 25-year-old girls who are willing to commandeer a vehicle that we gas up fuel up, which is a really hard task too, and are willing to drive in and get these people. And it's just been remarkable what they're doing. And yeah, we have relationships at higher levels, but I would say the most impressive group of people are the people who right now driving and going into harm's way, and that's going to evolve into something more. But we've moved a lot of orphans and a lot of women.

That's awesome. And I am driving, about to drive up through the Blue Ridge Mountains on our way to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention to tell more people that they can carry this awesome radio program, Lantern Rescue, with one of my other Christian Radio friends and colleagues and mentors, Mark Sanger. So we've got two Marks in here and we're doing this interview because both these guys are too hard to pin down. There is a lot going on. I saw this interesting maim for perspective, Mark Sanger. Someone posted, next time you go to complain about the price of gas, remember there's a small group of believers huddled in a bunker in a subway with no lights on their knees praying that their family will be spared. It's a little bit of perspective, isn't it, your first real problems?

Yeah, it sure is. It really is a sobering time when you realize that the creature comforts you have all the time are just taken away when something like that happens. And we want to try to blame or try to shift and say, oh, well, what if we did this?

What if we did that? But probably the biggest thing that's going on are those people praying and asking the Lord to intercede. And it's, you know, hopefully our compassion levels go up for us to try to do things and us to be involved. And I think being in the media, we're really trying to let other people know what is really going on. How do you decipher the truth in this world of fake news and all these other crazy things? Well, the first truth you got to start with is the scripture and start with praying and asking God for clarity and heard a good sermon recently on the smell test. You know, does it really, does the information you're learning from your pastor really meet the smell test? Is it really doctrinally correct? And then from that, you discern better in the world, what is the real truth going on?

Wow. So the smell test and one of the things that's not passing the smell test right now is why the United States of America is funding this war by being Russia's number one customer for oil. So our leaders are all saying, Mark Smith, Land and Rescue, our leaders are all saying, oh, we feel so bad for the Ukraine, our president, all these people, yet they continue to spend billions paying for oil and they won't drill our own oil. I mean, we have billions of gallons of oil underneath our soil, not trying to cut a rhyme there, but it worked pretty good there, didn't it guys?

And yet we won't drill for whatever environmental crazy reasons, yet it just seems like common sense. But the fact that we are sending billions of dollars to Russia every day for their oil, you're covering this on your news network, Mark Sanger. It's kind of, it's almost laughable. And again, I'm not talking about Democrat, Republican or independent or unrelated, but it's almost laughable that we still fund, that we're still funding this. Yeah, it's a travesty. It's not even laughable.

It's a travesty. We have all this oil. We were energy independent under the previous administration. And now all of a sudden we have to buy oil from everywhere else. We're going to be involved in Venezuela and just follow the money on what's going on here with the oil. Why are we buying anything from the Soviets?

Why? They will say, oh, well, you just don't understand. Your little small mind isn't big enough. Well, we understand what's going on. We're buying oil. They're buying munitions. It's pretty simple.

This isn't a difficult thing. We need to just cut it all. Oh, well then they're going to buy it from someone else. Well, we know they are, but they're not going to do it with our money.

Yeah. So in the meantime, that fuels their, no pun intended, their efforts to destroy one of the largest democracies in all the Slavic States, the Ukraine, which is, I'm just so encouraged by, you know, land and rescue, the ministry theme, the slogan is lighting the way to freedom. And so literally when that land and rescue bat phone goes off, Mark Smith, you try to help people, whether it's, you know, raiding a brothel in the, in the islands and saving a bunch of little girls out of a horrible in slavery situation, or whether it's in the Ukraine where there's, there's orphanages and other people that they need to get out, they're about to get bombed. Talk about how we can pray for your ministry and how we can be wise. We just talked about ministries raising millions of dollars. Now they're throwing the Ukraine flag up and they're saying, call this number and give us your credit card. But how much of that money is really going to helping people on the ground? Uh, Mark Smith land and rescue. Yeah.

It's always a question in my mind because I know what it costs for fuel. I know what it takes to move a vehicle from, uh, you know, Kiev to Lviv or to Poland or to, um, Moldova, Romania. Like I know what that is. And so, uh, for us, if you want to pray for us, and then if, if you want to be a donor to, uh, move somebody at this point, we can, we can do that. And I can, uh, you know, we can easily report that back to that donor.

So, um, I don't know when this airs, but that's how we're operating. I'm, you know, Landon doesn't make money. It's not, the money's in and out because we're just trying to move people. And I know a real cost of that. Um, that's as transparent as I can be, I'm, you know, and I don't know if others would be that transparent. I'm just telling you, um, we'll, we'll take your money.

We'll rescue somebody with that money. And then the, you know, we'll report it back to you. You're on back channel lines, uh, Mark Smith all day. You're not sleeping at night. Your phone's dinging every night. You just, it's just been nonstop. You're about to take a little cat nap here as we drive this drive.

I'm going to, we're going to drive real safely for you to sleep because you have, you are sleep deprived. We're grateful you agreed to this quick interview, but when you talk about what the price your team and people on the ground in the Ukraine are paying to rescue other people, they're laying their lives down. I think of that verse. Jesus said, greater love is no man than this, than a man laid on his life for his friends. Will you talk about that as we get out of here?

Uh, Mark Smith would land on rescue. Yeah, that verse is so key. And what's incredibly important about that verse is that you and I understand that verse is Christian Americans, right? But then I get to see it not only exemplified through our work and team, but I see it, uh, uh, a live example of it from somebody that maybe doesn't fully understand that verse too. You know, these are, these are people who just want to, to rescue somebody.

They're seeing their country destroyed and, uh, and it opens up the door. So I, then I get to tell them that verse, I get to say, you are a hero. You are our family. You are our brothers.

I call them that. I say, man, I love you. And I want you to know this. And I share that, that type of verse with them and they go, ah, I need that, you know? And so, um, I don't know if that's what you were asking, but you know, we, we get to, we get to introduce the gospel with our, our task force on the ground, these volunteers.

And, uh, because that's what encourages their spirit to do that, you know? And what's powerful about that guys, I will tell you this right now, Stu Epperson here, this is Truth Talk on the road, driving to the National Research Broadcasting Convention in Nashville. And we're broadcasting in the car. We're, we're redeeming every second of every day. We did a little devotion.

We did a little prayer. I'm with two of my very close friends, uh, Mark Sanger, who's the head of a, of a great, uh, radio network in North Carolina, kind of central North Carolina. And then, uh, Mark Smith, who's the founder and head of Lantern Rescue. You support people like Lantern Rescue Friends. Go, by the way, go download their podcast, listen to their radio program and get a, get a box of tissues.

I'm telling you ahead of time, it'll break your heart. They're talking to victims who have been saved, who are crying out saying, I didn't even know my name. I had no idea what was happening to me. And now I'm in a Christian home and God's delivered me. You listen to the stories, your donation to him, you're actually going to hear the testimony. You may hear the testimonies on the radio of how that money was used.

That's real. So be sure you support, whether it's Lantern Rescue, other great ministry, you know, Samaritan's Purse, they do a lot, other great ministries that are on the ground doing things. Be sure you support those and pray. Prayer is the most powerful thing. Mark Singer, take us home, pray for the Lantern Rescue team and all the different folks engaged in this battle and the church and the seminaries and so many believers and saints who are praying.

I saw a giant missile just embedded in the ground outside a house and with people around on their knees praying and it didn't detonate. And they're just praying and asking God for, it's like, we pray for our daily bread. They're praying for not to be daily blown up, you know? And so, Mark Singer, just close us out in prayer, will you?

Yeah, sure will. All right, everyone join us. Lord, we just want to come before you. We just throw all these concerns and all these worries and all these opportunities to you. And we pray for the discernment to know where to help and how to help. We lift up this Lantern Rescue and all the people that are part of it, Lord, just all the things you've seen and all the things going on on the ground there.

And this notion that people are sitting in a subway just praying or people are in holes in the ground just trying to survive. We just pray you'd help these people, help the people that are trying to help them. We just pray that you would just intercede in great ways and let you be glorified, give you the glory and allow you to shine across this nation of Ukraine and help these seminaries, help these churches, a lot of churches on the ground there, Lord, need you.

They need to see your hand and they just need that word of encouragement. They need the guiding light that only you give, Lord, through your word. We just pray you just bring them together and just lift up your word as they go through these trying times and help them to see a greater picture of glory that the kingdom to come is much greater than this one we're fighting for today. But I just pray for these folks, Lord, give them strength, give them wisdom, just give them safety in ways that only you can give. The stories that we'll hear someday of your hand, we just pray you'd help them and we just pray for Mark Smith here as he leads all these people that you'll help them to have that wisdom and discernment that he needs to use the resources wisely and allow him to just always be ready to give an account of the hope that lies within him, that this work is not his work, but it's your work, Lord, that is your work to bring other people into the kingdom. So we just pray you'd help us, Lord, help us all, help these nations, help our nation, bring the light of the world back in here, Lord, take away this evil that's just driving these crazy things going on. We just pray you'd help us, Lord, and we pray it in Jesus' name, the only one that can heal and save. We just pray you'd help us in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. What's the website for Lantern Rescue? LanternRescue.org, Stu. LanternRescue.org. This is Truth Talk with Stu Epperson. This is the Truth Network.