A High Calling

00:00 - Speaker 1
Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

00:09 - Speaker 2
Everybody with us today in this very special podcast is a United States Navy chaplain, one who represents the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military realm. We're going to be learning a lot, and maybe you can play a role as well, so stay tuned. I think you're going to get a lot out of this.

00:29 - Speaker 1
You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbsc.om slash podcast Today. If this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five-star ratings. To us that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen.

00:58 - Speaker 2
Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Well, everybody, welcome to this podcast. We're glad that you guys are with us. This is a special podcast.

01:04
I say that every time that this is special, but I can preface it by saying this it's special because at the time of this recording today, right now, is June 6th and, tragically, many young people in our nation today they're not aware of what June 6th really stands for and really what it means.

01:22
Let's put it to you this way June 6th, there were thousands of people dying by the hour on the shores of France as the Allied forces at that time, the greatest armada, the greatest gathering of a military invasion in world history, invasion in world history where the US and the Allied forces were storming Europe to liberate Europe from the tyranny of Adolf Hitler.

01:51
I'm talking, of course, about D-Day, june 6th, and so I just want you to know that Many of you do know, some of you don't know, but this is a very, very special day, and it just so happens that we have with us the guest that makes this a special time together, and do listen carefully, because what he's going to be sharing is not only incredibly excellent, but you just might be the person that can fit the bill on this one and play the role that God has called you to be. I'm talking about, and to a brother that has been I can't remember when we first met, but it's been a long time but Captain Dennis Wheeler of the United States Navy. He didn't start out in the Navy exactly. He started out in the Marine Corps, but the Marine Corps is the Department of the Navy, but he has been in and protecting our freedoms for some 37, 38 years A few, yes, a few years.

02:51
It started when he was about four years old in the Marine Corps. But listen, you guys, it's a real honor to have this man of God with us and he's going to be talking to us today about chaplaincy In the United States Armed Forces. Where did it come from? How did that come about? What does it take to be a chaplain in the United States military? And, specifically, as he mentions and instructs us, if you're not that person that can step into that role, maybe you know somebody? I guess you know what we're looking for just a few good men, Men yes.

03:33
And so this is going to be a great, great time. It's always great to be with you. It's great to see you, pastor Jack, thank you so much for having me here today.

03:39 - Speaker 3
Appreciate that and just appreciate your support of the military, what you do for the government. Even I just want to say thank you for your prayer in Congress. I know you got a lot. I heard about it, saw a lot about it in the news but thank you for your strength and your courage to be able to go before Congress and to pray the prayer that you prayed. I know that you said this is just a normal prayer, that you pray but they needed to hear that.

04:06
I mean, this is a prayer that we would say about ourselves, about repentance and where we need to go ourselves, and that's where our country needs to go as well. So thank you, on behalf of Calvary Chapel chaplains and the military in general, for standing up for truth and for God and to bring it when it needs to be brought.

04:24 - Speaker 2
So, thank you, it was my honor and pleasure and I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the fact and you can jump in on this is the fact that I forget the exact year, but I was something like in the 249th or 250th year I think. It dates back, of course, before 1776, of clergy opening the gathering of the Continental Congress in prayer. And so this chaplaincy thing, this chaplaincy relationship there are chaplains in the civilian world and then there's chaplains in the military realm. Can you unpack the difference, the function of a chaplain, and then there's chaplains in the military realm. Can you unpack the difference, the function of a chaplain, and how those two are different?

05:10 - Speaker 3
Sure, to kind of go back to what you said about the history of the chaplaincy is that.

05:14
General George Washington, before he was president, as he's building the Continental Army, there was the establishment of the Army and their birthday, I think, is in August. Sorry, my Army brothers, I think it's August. The Marine Corps birthday is November 10th, everybody knows that one. But during that time frame, general George Washington said we have this Army, we have this Navy, we need to have chaplains, we need to have pastors that are a part of the military, and so we were established as a chaplaincy back in 1775, like you said, before the Constitution was even ratified, that's right.

05:47
And you know, and signed by the signers, that there was a chaplaincy from the very beginning of our country. That was part of the military system and so there's. You know the Army chaplains would go with their battalions. Navy chaplains were assigned to those very early ships. Yeah, battalions Navy chaplains were assigned to those very early ships and what they were told that you know what they were to do was to preach sermons on Sunday and then to teach as well. So they were the teachers on the ships during those time frames.

06:18
And so they were going out in the Revolutionary War on the ships and with those battalions on the land in the army, to be able to provide a sense of God's presence with them. In the book of Deuteronomy it talks about how the priests were to carry the ark before the army going out to war, and that was God's presence going with them and there was such a sense of God's presence, not just just to win the battle but to act ethically as well. And so, chaplains, I believe I use that all the time that we are to go out with our units before them, even into war, into the battle, to bring God's presence to them. We often, as chaplains, will be able to go into spaces that nobody else can get into, and some of those spaces are very chaotic and hectic, and when the chaplain walks in, there's actually a very visible change in the atmosphere that people are like oh, the chaplain's here, it's going to be okay.

07:21 - Speaker 2
Isn't that something?

07:22 - Speaker 3
And it's just an amazing experience to see people's attitudes change, not just that they're not cursing anymore, but that there's a sense of peace and like this is going to be OK for us.

07:37 - Speaker 2
Isn't that great, it's awesome. So we'll get into the things that we need to get into, but before we do, you mentioned General George Washington. A lot of people don't realize that he was once a colonel in the British forces.

07:51 - Speaker 3
Yes, yes.

07:53 - Speaker 2
The Battle of Brandywine. I mean, he was one of the very few guys that survived that Braddock. He was shot, killed. The losses were tremendous, but Washington saw the hand of God and early on it was Washington who was actually shot. He was shot. I say he was shot, I have to be careful how I say this. His undercoat had received I think it's five bullet marks and yet none of them hit his skin, and that later came out in history. That later came out where this was being talked about.

08:35
Washington was president. He began to recite where he was when that happened and it's quite remarkable. I can't help but believe that that had something to do with his dependence upon God, especially in battle, because, again you said it right, it was his genesis of we need chaplains. And then John Adams went and fought with Congress about funding. We need to have funding for those chaplains, they need to be paid. But the remarkable thing and it kind of gets to where we're going today the chaplains were not just some soldiers that were reading their Bibles or they happen to have gone to Sunday school. These were the most educated guys in the entire group because they had their doctorates or their ministry degrees from schools like William and Mary, harvard, yale, princeton and they were military chaplains and they were not some country bumpkin. But I find it remarkable that in an overwhelming vote Congress said yes, absolutely, we are going to fund this, we are going to have these chaplains.

09:49
A lot of people don't realize that Washington was a very deeply committed spiritual man and I say I've read his mail, I've read a lot of his own writings. It was important to him that they would rise at 5 am, they would break camp. They would often go 10 miles and then they would stop for breakfast and then service. They would have the reading of scripture and prayer and it was something that was and you know the terminology, I don't, but it was the general order of the day and people don't appreciate this today, I don't think. But you had to go. The general said you go and you go, but so many times he would be devoted to prayer, stopping for prayer.

10:45
There's that famous I have it in my office. There's that famous Freiburg painting where Washington there at Valley Forge is on his knee praying. And not only do we know that that took place, but there's a man spying on Washington who witnessed not only him praying, but that prayer is written down. It was actually written down by the man who heard that prayer, but that was Washington praying in private for the welfare of his troops. So the qualifications come from none other than our own General Washington and first president. So listen, the difference between a civilian and a military, yeah definitely the difference between a civilian I mean we do a lot of the same things.

11:30 - Speaker 3
I mean, the emphasis of a chaplain is built on relationships and so, just like a police chaplain or a fire chaplain, they are there in the station, they're there on ride-alongs with them to build that relationship with those police officers and with those firefighters so that when something happens there's not a stranger that they have to go to. They're going to go to, you know, mike, or they're going to go to Jason, or they're going to go to whoever they know and trust with this information.

12:04
But those people are able to go home at night into a civilian world, and they may be volunteers or may be paid, and so they have other jobs that they do as a military chaplain, we are commissioned officers, so we go through an officer candidate school or some type of officer commissioning program and we are active duty service members or reserves as well, and that's our life now. We go where the Army or the Air Force or the Navy tells us to go, and that's where we go. And we could go for two to three to four years to a duty station, and then we're done and we move to someplace else. And then we're done there, we move to someplace else, and so that could be our career for the 20 to 38 plus years. And that's our life.

12:49
We're not just in one place anymore, and so we live and eat and breathe with those service members, either on a ship or battalion, and we're deployed around the world. You know, if we're on a ship, it could be on an aircraft carrier or on a destroyer, and we're there. For you know, sometimes it's six, seven, eight months that we're on deployments, and so we experience when a deployment and this goes for the Army too, especially when Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were being extended month by month, by month, and so they're only supposed to be gone for six months- and then all of a sudden they're gone for seven months and eight months and up to a year timeframe that they're gone, and the chaplain is right there with them experiencing the same pain and hurt of not being able to go back to their family.

13:39
as just as much as that private is. And so we are you know we are members of the military.

13:46 - Speaker 2
What a powerful example, because Christ did that. He left home and he was here right with us. On deployment, cs Lewis put something in mere Christianity that we as believers have been deployed into enemy occupied territory is how he puts it. But so did Jesus. He came here for us and he's with us until the end, for us In this modern-day military that we're in. How is the chaplaincy program viewed and I'm sorry I asked the question just because I've been tainted by recent rhetoric and just the atmosphere of politics, by recent rhetoric and just the atmosphere of politics. Does much politics invade the military chaplaincy world, or are you somewhat?

14:35 - Speaker 3
insulated. We're somewhat insulated, somewhat isolated from that. I mean, there's the policies that you hear about, the DEI, the pride stuff that is put out there by the military or by the media, and I think you've talked about that, about how the media stirs up the pot a lot, but you know down, you know, even as a captain, a Navy captain, it doesn't really kind of get down to us. We don't see the DEI stuff a lot that is talked about of that.

15:06
And, yes, the military celebrates Pride Month, but there's other months that are celebrated too, and, as a chaplain, we are Title X law states that we are to act and provide according to our faith background, so I don't have to do anything that is not in accordance with my faith tradition.

15:28 - Speaker 2
Praise God, and that's in effect right now.

15:30 - Speaker 3
That's in effect right now. It's been in effect for a long time, nice, that's actually written into Title X law.

15:35 - Speaker 2
I love it.

15:35 - Speaker 3
So when people say, you know, are there issues Like yes, but not really, because we see them, but it's still not really affected to us, so we can pray in Jesus' name and not a problem. Do I do that all the time?

15:52
No, I know my audience and there are other names for God that I like to use in my prayers and in the name of our almighty creator and loving god yeah amen, yeah sometimes I'll use jesus if, if I know it's a specifically christian person, um, but I don't, you know, I don't feel like I have to end all my prayers in specifically those words, in jesus name yeah, agree, and in that I I don't know.

16:20 - Speaker 2
I'm sure you've thought about this, but the audience needs to know, know, I'm sure you've thought about this, but the audience needs to know that in your position, you're in some ways you're very much like a Joseph or or a Joshua, whereby you have been commissioned. You are there, but, like with Joseph, he's in a foreign environment daniel daniel, daniel, jeremiah, where you need to, uh, proceed with wisdom.

16:49
And you know, some people and I get it some people get stuck in the, in the, the groove of well, you've got to help, you got to have a crusade on the ship. It doesn't work that way. Friendship, evangelism is something that is actually much more difficult to establish, because you've got to allow those Marines or those sailors or those soldiers to see your life. When they see you going up and down the hallways or wherever you're at, they've got to see your life. They've got to see the consistency. Obviously they see your rank, which warrants a salute to you, but then they also see a set of crosses on you, and so that builds the moment, or that opens the door for the moment for them to come and say hey, listen, I just got a letter from my wife and she's got cancer or whatever.

17:40
You're very much not only a pastor on board or deployed, whatever. You're very much not only a pastor on board or deployed. But when we say chaplain, I know what the word means, but for me, when I hear it, it's evangelist, pastor, caregiver, counselor, comforter, so many things. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. Because if a young man comes to you and says Captain, I know that I'm going to be heading into wherever and I'm starting to think eternal thoughts. Can you help me? You immediately turn into a theologian. You're immediately an evangelist, apologist as well.

18:23 - Speaker 3
They come to us with questions of you know evolution and creation, and so we've got to know all of those things and be ready, you know, in season and out season to be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us at any moment, for anything that comes our way, and a lot of that is a reliance on the Holy Spirit. I mean, it's totally reliance on the Holy Spirit. You know it is an incarnational ministry that. You know. Jesus came in the flesh to us to preach the word and to save our souls and we are kind of that incarnation to them as well in bringing Jesus to them and where they're at.

19:04
One of the scriptures that I use a lot is Jesus when he was with the woman at the. Well, you know, we only have a little bit of a short story. I think there's a lot more to the interaction that happened with.

19:15 - Speaker 1
Jesus and the woman at the well. That's right.

19:17 - Speaker 3
And Jesus built upon a conversation with her, building up a relationship, bantering back and forth, before he kind of delivered the blow that really opened her eyes. And that's what we do too, is we build that relationship with them, we can banter back and forth with them so they're like oh, this is a real person, they're not just, you know, blowing smoke, that this is somebody that I can have fun with and if there's a problem, like you just said, I can go to that person or a question or a struggle that I'm having in my life.

19:48 - Speaker 2
I've got to ask you this, so curious about this Does it ever happen where someone who outranks you comes and consults you as a chaplain?

19:59 - Speaker 3
Absolutely Seriously.

20:00 - Speaker 2
Yes, so that wall, that wall for that moment goes down and this guy or this gal can come and we minister to everybody. It's all confidential, just like it is with my life as a pastor it's confidential.

20:13 - Speaker 3
And actually thanks for bringing that up. Our confidentiality level is 100 percent and again, that's in Title 10 law that we cannot share anything with anybody without the express and we'll say written permission from the person that we're going to. So even if they say that they've murdered somebody, or that they've assaulted somebody or that they want to kill themselves.

20:35 - Speaker 2
We cannot share that with anybody else, except by them telling us Truly clergy congregant protection, truly clergy congregant protection as it frankly always has been. But yeah, that's got to be something. When, hypothetically, the admiral happens to be on board and says hey, I'm having problems in my marriage.

20:57 - Speaker 3
Yes.

20:58 - Speaker 2
I mean, that has got to be an incredible opportunity that God brings. Incredible opportunity that God brings. But also this regarding the requirements I want you before we went on, before we started rolling the camera, we were talking about the requirements for a military chaplain and it's amazing. And yet I see the brilliance to it because, as I said in the opening, chaplains in the Continental Army, these guys were Yale and Harvard graduates.

21:32 - Speaker 3
They were equivalent to the officers, the senior officers, that were with them, let our audience know, begin and add.

21:46 - Speaker 2
And for this reason, everybody, what if you know somebody who qualifies, or maybe you qualify? We're going to make sure that at the end of this podcast that we have the links provided for you to find out more. But, captain, tell us, tell us, where does somebody begin? What do they need to be, Captain?

22:05 - Speaker 3
tell us, tell us, where does somebody begin, what do they need to be? So there's four basic things that somebody needs, and so that's a bachelor's degree, and a bachelor's degree can be in anything. You know, the Marine Corps likes to say I've got my bachelor's degree in underwater basket weaving, so it could be in anything.

22:22 - Speaker 2
That's where it came from.

22:23 - Speaker 3
So it could be a very, very simple bachelor's degree, but then you need to have a master's and 72 hours of theological coursework. But for Christians, they want you to have a master's of divinity and that can take a while. So those are the two educational requirements that folks need to have. And then for the church requirement is ordination you have to be an ordained pastor within their local congregation. And then the endorsement, and that's where we come into play, to be able to give them that endorsement. And the endorsement is the endorsing agency, is the bridge between the local church or the church organization and the government. The endorser is somebody who the government said we trust you to be able to find us qualified religious ministry professionals that have the bachelor's degree, that have their master's degree and they are ordained and they have the requisite number of years as a pastor to be able to come and be commissioned as a naval or army or air force officer and become a chaplain. And so that's what the endorsers do.

23:34 - Speaker 2
So this is the request of the DOD.

23:37 - Speaker 3
This is a request of the DOD.

23:41 - Speaker 2
To a ministry that's qualified to ordain, for example, calvary Chapel. But the beauty of it I love this kind of stuff the beauty is it's the Department of Defense I'm going somewhere with this a little bit of apologetic. It's the Department of Defense, a division of the United States government that is looking to a church. You know where I'm going to supply the Department of Defense qualified top shelf people, which is so consistent with our nation's history and not the rhetoric of the day. Whereas there's a separation of church and state, we don't, the two never mix. There's. I can't find an area where they where, where they're separated.

24:30
For, for example, you mentioned, you mentioned, my prayer in Congress. I was invited by a congressman to pray. That's the requirements. I had to check in with the Capitol chaplain. Why? Because there is no separation. Well, the separation, frankly, everybody. The separation is that government will not get involved in the operation and the conduct of faith in America. That's an extremely important thing. Regarding our First Amendment. But I just love this because people can chatter all they want about their theory or their feelings, but when life hits, people reach deep, they look for foundations and we've got such an illustrious history as a, as a nation, with chaplains and faith that it's refreshing to hear that the DOD wants, wants the best.

25:27 - Speaker 3
They do. And again, you know it goes back to law and the Constitution. I mean, the First Amendment is talks about the freedom of religion which you just eloquently said it's not from.

25:38
Not from. That's right For For For the freedom of religion, and chaplains are specifically requested by the government, by the military, to go and be those providers of that freedom of religion. So I mean we do have pastors and priests and ministers and we have imams Muslim imams, we have Jewish rabbis, we have Buddhist priests on Agadudin and what are their requirements, because I understand the Christian side.

26:08 - Speaker 2
If you get a doctrine in divinity or you need so much of theology, for example in Iman, I guess there's a requirement sheet for those guys. Right, it's the same thing.

26:19 - Speaker 3
Basically, it's the same thing they have to have a bachelor's, they have to have 72 hours of theological coursework, they have to be endorsed by their Muslim endorsing agency.

26:31
And they have to be. You know, whatever their religious qualification is, we call it ordination. Sure, whatever their religious qualification is, we call it ordination. Whatever their religious qualification is, they have to have that from their mosque or their religious system of worship. So it's no different from those religious organizations to Christian organizations. We all have to have the same requirements to come into the military to be able to provide. And you know, we provide for our own, we provide for Christians, but we facilitate for everybody else. And a lot of times people ask us how can you facilitate for a Muslim, or how can you facilitate for a Buddhist, or even Catholic? How can you facilitate? That's not us doing it.

27:09
That is us getting them in contact?

27:11 - Speaker 2
Giving them opportunity.

27:13 - Speaker 3
Giving them opportunity.

27:15 - Speaker 2
This is the. Allow me to interrupt. This is this is the first of all. We don't live in a perfect world, that's what heaven's for.

27:25
But I love the security of the security of our founding fathers. When they drew up the declaration of independence and the constitution and the Bill of Rights, they could have said ìEverybodyís got to be a Christianî. They could have Each of them from their own, by the way. They were Congregationalists, they were Anabaptists, they were Lutherans. They could have each fought from their corner and said everyone's got to convert to being a Lutheran before they can be. Nope, they were so secure in coming to the foundations of their belief of the Bible that they left alone the peripherals.

28:08
Now, don't think I'm not equating Christianity and Islam as a peripheral issue. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is this that our founders were so secure that they gave us a government where everyone has the same rights. This is remarkable because you don't have this in India, you don't have this in any other parts of the world or any other governments where our nation, our founders, were so secure in the fact that God Thomas Jefferson said the God of natural law where there's certain things written down within man that you cannot, you can't legislate those things out. Man will speak First Amendment and man will defend himself. It's natural law. Second Amendment but I love how secure they were in the founding of this nation and its laws, that even the atheist has the exact same rights as the Christian or the Muslim or the Jew.

29:06
Isn't that radical. That is awesome. You say, well, are you endorsing Islam? Of course not, but in America the Muslim has the freedom to preach his Islam. You say I don't like that. Well then, preach Christianity, but he gets to preach his Islam. Do I believe in Islam? Not at all, but I do believe in his freedom to preach it. Only an American can fight. I can go to war and fight for the Jews' ability to preach Judaism and the Muslim or the atheist. It's just such an amazing experiment that God has given us in this country. But I want you to. I think I interrupted you somewhere about the requirements, or did you get them all out?

29:49 - Speaker 3
I think we got them all out, but what I didn't get? Out was the chaplain candidate program as well. So that's to become a chaplain candidate program as well. So that's to become a chaplain. So maybe you're not there yet, but this is interesting to you. This is interesting to you and you're like I'm interested in becoming a chaplain, but I don't have any of those things. Where do I start?

30:07 - Speaker 2
Nice.

30:08 - Speaker 3
And so the place where you start is, you know, reaching out to us and we will help you on your path to become a chaplain. It can be a long process. When I left active duty in 1996 the Marine Corps I thought it was going to take me because I didn't have anything. I didn't have a bachelor's degree, I didn't have a master's degree, I wasn't ordained, and what is this endorsement thing? Not a clue, yeah, and so I thought it was going to take me. You know, four years for a bachelor's, three years for a master's degree. It's 90 hours and then two years of pastoral experience. That's up to nine years. God is so good. I completed in about five and a half that nine-year process Because of everything. Every door that he opened to me was just incredible. So you know people who know me like you did what and how long? Like it's God, yes, absolutely Totally God. So it's, there is a process to it, but if God is calling you to do it, he will get you through it. And as Pastor Chuck used to say, if it's God's will, it's God's bill. So that was my motto of going through school.

31:19
So the Chaplain Candidate Program you can start anywhere. You know, reach out to us get started in your bachelor's degree, work with your local church on becoming a part of the leadership and going through their training program that would lead up to ordination. And then, once you've completed your bachelor's and you get into your master's degree, that's when you can submit for the actual chaplain candidate program. And at that time all three services the Army, navy and the Air Force have chaplain candidate programs and you can become commissioned as a reserve officer in the military and go through your master's program and they'll send you through the chaplain school of that service and you get paid uh, military pay yeah for going off to that chaplain school excellent and you begin to accumulate points for retirement and you're an inactive, uh, reserve officer at that point and then, once you complete your Master's of Divinity and you complete your ordination, that's when you would come to us again.

32:23
Of course, we're going to keep in contact with folks all the time. See where you're at how things going. Do you need any help? And then you can submit for endorsement to on to active duty for your initial three years.

32:35 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so give us a day in the life of a Navy chaplain.

32:43 - Speaker 3
That would be kind of hard. I'll give you the general sense, because we've got chaplains with the Navy SEALs, we've got chaplains on ships, we've got chaplains.

32:52 - Speaker 2
So when we deploy some SEALs, there's a chaplain with them, or there's a chaplain that says goodbye to them as they go off somewhere.

32:58 - Speaker 3
There's a chaplain that's with them. Now they don't kick down the doors. That's not our job and we are noncombatants.

33:03 - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's something we need to talk about off camera. That's the part that stumbles me. I hope I don't. I'm just going to be honest. Everything you're telling me just sounds fantastic, but from what I remember is chaplains. They're not armed.

33:20 - Speaker 3
Correct, we are not combatants. That's the problem I have. I mean, if I'm going to go.

33:25 - Speaker 2
I mean, David had a sword. Man Give me one.

33:31 - Speaker 3
It's kind of like Jonathan and his servant, his armor bearer, and so we have armor bearers. That you know, even though, jonathan, you know he's the one that kicked butt. We can't do that and we're not going to be like, for the most part, we're not going to be put in those situations. But we have a religious affairs specialist or religious program specialist. That is our. You know, you take the church staff and you roll it up into one person.

33:56
That's our one person yeah and so they set up for services. They, you know, will do the bulletins. They do set up for services. I think I said that already. Um, they're the administrative support, but they're also our bodyguards, and so they're the ones that carry the, the weapons.

34:10 - Speaker 2
Um, but, but does the chaplain still go through all the rigors though, though, of being a sailor or a Marine? You got to do the same physical stuff, absolutely. Yes, we don't go through their boot camp.

34:23 - Speaker 3
We go through officer commissioning school, but it's still we've got you know. For the Navy, we still have Marine Corps enlisted folks. Yes, that will take us through our paces. Yeah, okay, you know. So it's not just you know knife and fork school, as they say. Yeah, you're gonna get the physical training and then, once you get out what we call out to the fleet, yeah then you better be training with your unit yeah you are like we said, we're it's incarnational if they're going through the mud, you're going through the mud

34:49
if they're, you know, jumping out of out of planes it's. It would behoove you to get your qualifications to jump out of planes too. Wow, that's amazing. So, yes, all the training we should be doing, all those things that they are doing.

35:03 - Speaker 2
There must be I'm guessing there must be an incredible level of respect by these other Marines or sailors who look at this guy and he's committed 100%, like you are, and he's going with you into battle, but he's there for your spiritual welfare and at least you have equipment to protect yourself with this guy's leaning on God, right.

35:28 - Speaker 3
Amen, yes, yes.

35:29 - Speaker 2
I mean it's got to be an incredibly moving fixture to have that individual near you or with you.

35:38 - Speaker 3
I would be so Absolutely, and it's credibility we call it building cred. You build cred credibility by doing those things that everybody else is doing. If they're in pain, you should be in pain If they're rejoicing, you know, as Paul says, you know, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We should be right pain If they're rejoicing. As Paul says, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We should be right there with them. Them seeing us like chaps, you're doing this. I'm like, yeah, I'm doing this absolutely.

36:06 - Speaker 2
Are there any other nations that have a military process like this, the same as the US Do, the Brits or the Israelis? Yeah, I mean the.

36:16 - Speaker 3
Brits have. A lot of countries do have chaplaincy and different variations of the same thing. The Philippines has chaplains, australia, new Zealand. Israel has chaplains it's rabbis, but they do have call them religious ministry professionals that are brought into the military to support their military members. So, yes, the United States is not alone. As a matter of fact, I've heard that Ukraine is now asking for our support.

36:48 - Speaker 1
And actually that's through to create a chaplaincy themselves to create a chaplaincy themselves.

37:02 - Speaker 3
So Wes Bentley's organization has been asked to go over there and provide help. I think Uganda he does Uganda as well. So there's a lot of countries that are out there that have chaplaincies that provide that spiritual if I can use that term fitness for their soldiers and service members that provide that spiritual if I can use that term fitness for their soldiers and service members.

37:27 - Speaker 2
I was. It's kind of interesting. Now I'm trying to put some pieces together. So I was in DC and it was just table talk no microphones, no cameras. I was in DC and it was just table talk no microphones, no cameras. There's a handful of guys Army, there's some Army guys around, there's some Marines around, and they got going.

37:46
I'm just listening and what you're telling me, the word that popped in my head was this camaraderie, this life unit, where this one Delta Force guy began to talk about what had happened to them. They were in the jungles of Central America actually at the time, and there was one of the one of the Rangers or one of the Delta was wounded, needed blood, and I was impressed because for them to keep that guy alive until help could come and maybe you know what this is called he said it, I don't remember, but they zipped open this sterilized packet. They stuck a needle in his arm Right. Of course, they've got the bleeding under control as much as they could, and his, his fellow soldiers, stood around him as he's laying on the ground and they each had, they each had their needle so these might make sure, but they're, they took their blood because they're standing up the elevation, the height, they're pumping their blood into him and they went around and they did that to him until help could arrive.

39:12
Yes, and I was so impressed because they were talking about oh, remember this, oh, remember when we did that. And I just thought how much should the church hear that kind of talk when you talk about laying down your life for your brother, each of these Delta. They were doing that by giving their own blood and I just thought, my goodness, that's just absolutely powerful. And who's to say it wasn't mentioned? But who's to say if there wasn't a chaplain in that circle giving blood on the spot to keep somebody alive? Absolutely amazing. So I'm curious in modern day news right now, with what's going on supposedly right israel, there's a very famous british general who has a I think he's on a prager you five minute video about israel's morality as a military, that it's the most moral military on on the planet. Now, look, I'm all for Israel, but I'm thinking I mean you mean second to America right.

40:18
Second to America. But of course can you speak a little bit, and I have to tell you, captain, I'm going somewhere with this. Can you speak into the morality of the US Armed Forces? Who are we as an airman or a sailor or a soldier? Who is that individual Military context, the morality that they've been taught before they're deployed?

40:47 - Speaker 3
Kind of a tough question. How can I answer this? So we are working with society.

40:59
Society is where we get our men and women that then go through boot camp and are then I hate to even use this word but transitioned from a civilian mindset to a military mindset, and so that's where they get to know the service and the values of the service, and in the service it is about honor, courage and commitment, but those can be also vague words in themselves. What does that mean? And so to be able to take them and to get them to understand what that means from a military context, and then how do you take that and live that out in your life, both before deployment and while during deployment? And so that's where chaplains are a great place, because we are not just religious but we are moral and ethical. Not just religious, but we are moral and ethical, and we try to instill or build upon that ethics and that moral that was established with them in boot camp. Now that morality, unless they went to church in boot camp, is just a military moral sense.

42:12
It's kind of like ethics. Ethics has been taken over by the legal system yeah and this is what is legally ethical to do, and so you can do all this. But really is it? You know, morally, yeah ethical to do as well.

42:28 - Speaker 2
So isn't that something um we are we are.

42:31 - Speaker 3
there is still a struggle going on to be able to get them to understand that it's more than just the legal. You can do this. Yeah, there's a higher law that we are to live by, not just the legal stuff, but there is a higher moral ethics that we should be living by.

42:48 - Speaker 2
Well, it's fascinating because I bring it up because Israel and the US, great Britain, you can be battling it out with your enemy and you got him, but, rather than you know, he's laying there wounded. Rather than walk up and put a .45 in his head, we call for a medic. Yes, for the enemy.

43:13 - Speaker 3
The moment that you shot him and he's not dead, you turn from combatant to friend.

43:19 - Speaker 2
Isn't that amazing? I mean, we are really the only ones that do that. Now we're going down a path this gets me excited. To me, that is a display of the nature of God. Hear me out. We're all against. We all look for the day that peace comes and there's no more wars. That's when Jesus Christ returns. In the meantime, we are to be equipping our military to be the very best at what they do, and I want to make this really clear. This is something that's very, very passionate in my heart, and I don't think it gets said enough, and that is we train our soldiers, our military, to be the best at what they do, to be effective, to be efficient at it and to get the job done absolutely, mission complete, and then come on home. That mission complete often deals with the absolute eradication of the enemy, the complete destruction of whatever is necessary to stop the war, and we're talking about morality, where we train our military to be lethal.

44:34
Listen, we train them to be killers. We're supposed to, because in war people are killed, because we don't often think about that. We've got people who, for example, ignorantly remember this happened during the Vietnam era. We trained these kids to go kill. They're supposed to. Then they came home and they were labeled murders. Now I was young but that caused my blood to boil and it still causes it to boil in this day and age still. When if today somebody were to say I'm an Iraqi veteran, oh, you mean, you're a murderer.

45:16
Look, that really tests my Christian witness, because there's nothing wrong In fact I think there's everything righteous righteous in training a soldier to prosecute warfare ethically to the fullest, and if that's killing the opponent, this is the theater of war which god has sanctioned. Don't ever confuse I know he doesn't people. Don't ever confuse the ten commandments and thou shalt not murder. Listen with thou shalt not kill. There are versions of in english the ten commandments out there that says thou shalt not kill. The bible never says thou shalt not kill. The bible says you says thou shalt not kill. The Bible says you shall not murder. It's actually the Ten Commandments that sanctions, by using the word murder, sanctions war. The God of the Bible sanctions war. You say how terrible is that? No, excuse me, how practical is that? Because God knows that wars will not cease until he returns. And so if you're being invaded, it is a godly thing to defend your borders. It's a godly thing to defend your family. God expects you to do that. So some people who have a I don't know what you call it a theoretical view of what peace looks like or what war shouldn't be like, they miss the whole thing that God says in the Bible If you do not provide for your family, you're worse than a non-believer. And because we live in the affluent West, we're so stupid in thinking well, I provide for my family, I bring them a check every week. That's not what he's talking about's. That's, that's a given. If somebody comes to your front door with a machete or a shotgun to take your family, the bible says there from that verse if you do not provide for your family, you're worse than a non-believer. That guy's to be taken out. Oh, I don't believe in that, brother. I believe in being passive. And you're going to let this person destroy your children and rape your wife? That's, there's nothing godly about that. So, as a culture, how do. Oh, you know how do you justify this. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

47:27
Jesus christ himself is the king of kings and lord of lords. The bible says that when he returns, israel's going to say where did you get these robes that are splattered in blood? And he says these robes that are splattered in blood I received alone, by myself there was none to help me as I tread out the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of almighty God. Exodus 15, verse 3 I believe believe it is says the Lord is his name, the Lord is a warrior. That shocks people who have this passive Newport Beach version of Jesus that he just goes surfing and then feeds people. There's this thing to righteousness that, until Christ returns, is found tragically in this thing called war. It's hard for us.

48:18 - Speaker 3
It is, and you know it's a struggle that we have to go to war at times because there is evil in the world and you can't just let evil do its thing and rampage across the world and not do anything. Right? He, like you said, he has established government for righteousness and when there is unrighteousness then the government has to take action. Talk about morality within the US, british and Israel, we go, and definitely Israel in this current war goes above and beyond trying to make sure that the accuracy of you know the information that they're receiving and the accuracy of their targeting, and then you know the actual implementation of the weapons is spot on. Yes, and that's why it's important to have you know theguided weapons that can do that when they are hiding within the civilian population. That's right. So the morality is there in a sense of that again, legalistic and even morality that try to only focus on combatants and not on the innocence that is in there. Focus on combatants and not on the innocence that is in there.

49:38
And so the chaplain plays an integral role in those planning sessions and in those meetings. There are chaplains in those planning sessions. We are there to be able to say can I just mention that there is these civilians here, or there's this mosque mosque here, or there's this church here, and if you do that, there's going to be some consequences, and I just want you to be able to think about that. So chaplains are in those high level meetings and planning sessions for the implementation of war so that there's not an excess that happens. And so we take care of folks before they go out, as they go out and then when they come back as well, that we are there to help them to put those pieces back together and to give an understanding and meaning to what they just did.

50:26 - Speaker 2
Yeah, because I would never want to have them confused with killing versus murdering.

50:32 - Speaker 3
And those are big conversations that we have. That's a huge deal.

50:34 - Speaker 2
That's a huge deal. That's a huge deal. An officer, a police officer in the city, takes out a guy who's got a dagger. I'm actually talking about something that has really happened with someone here at this church, where he was called onto a scene and there was a guy whose background, his religion and history it's he's got a scimitar to the throat of a young lady, hair pulled back, blade there. Wow, and he, he, he was in the authority to say listen, anyone has a clear shot, take them, but don't take them until you have a clear shot. And somebody had a clear shot and they took him out, saved that woman's life. That officer was given the Medal of Honor for that city.

51:34
That's exactly what our soldiers and airmen and our sailors are doing, and so I just don't appreciate a culture that mixes that up. We must never allow that to happen. That's something that we cannot. And so, military, I sleep at night. I can do what I'm doing right now Because there's men and women that have signed up to lay down their life, to be uncomfortable, to be in a foreign place, to be in a situation that allows me to do what I'm doing here right now. To me, that is, that is like being a follower of Christ. It's a life that's worthy of my life to give. Listen, if you're a young person today, I think one of the greatest things that you're lacking in your youth is that you don't have something larger than your life. Did you know that's an honorable thing To be living for a cause that's larger than your life? Did you know that's an honorable thing to be living for a cause that's larger than your life? And America's walking around these days with a black eye because we've punched ourself in the face. I mean who punches themselves in the face? But we've done that in our history, we've done that in our culture, and everybody that is yelling about how bad of a place America is, it's funny they're still living here and you know it's interesting.

53:01
I travel a lot. I get tremendous amount of respect. First off, because if people don't know, if I happen to be in some other part of the world and they don't know I'm a pastor, the first experience of respect that I get is that I'm an American. Oh, doesn't everybody hate Americans? No, actually they don't. No, that's media spin man Again today's June 6th, and a lot of you who are watching this in Europe right now, if it wasn't for this day in history, we would all be speaking German. Well, the world would have been reduced to two languages, japanese and German, if today didn't happen in history. And can I tell you something? Maybe it's kind of a little off color.

53:53 - Speaker 3
Go for it.

53:55 - Speaker 2
I was in London. We had about 45 people with us. We were doing street evangelism and we're helping out a brand new church plant just outside the city and there are some hooligans. There were some six or seven guys walking by and this was after the event, and so there was a handful of us walking, and there was the six or seven of them walking, and we passed each other. They could hear our accent and so, uh they. They said something about um, our um, you should get your American out of here. And I was twice the guys, twice their age, but I turned around and I said excuse me, excuse me, you guys got, hey, excuse me.

54:51
They came back and they got ready for a fight. I couldn't fight. I had my Bible. There were Christians around. God was watching. I walked right up to them, though, and I said my family, my dad, came from the America that you just cursed to see to it that you had the freedom to mouth off to me like you just did. My family laid their life down for you to not be speaking German right now.

55:27
And all of them said I'm sorry, sir, please forgive us, they immediately got their history lesson and somewhere, though, they remember, somewhere they were told and I had the honor of of listening to. Now he's in, he's in heaven now but congressman zell miller, and he was talking about how this is so cool, how, after 1944 45, we had the power, the united states had the power, to literally take over the entire world. No one could stop us nobody. If america's so bad, how come the globe still has nations? It's because we're not an occupier, we're a liberator. And I just thought, oh my gosh, that's so true. We had the atomic power, we had the willpower, we had the wherewithal.

56:32 - Speaker 3
The industrial might.

56:33 - Speaker 2
The industrial might to literally conquer the world. America could have achieved that which despots dream about. We didn't do it. No, we gave Japan back to Japan and we gave Germany back to the Germans. Yeah, you know, france isn't the 52nd state. It could have been, but it's not Closing remarks. How do people connect with you guys? It's fascinating, it's awesome. I wish I was younger. Do a pitch, get the word out there. I appreciate that. So, yes, if I may, two things.

57:12 - Speaker 3
One. We are making a pitch for chaplains and all those requirements that I talked about, but, as you were talking about the younger generation, we do need Christians in the military. So I know there's a lot of people out there that are telling their sons and their daughters don't go into the military because of what's going on. But I'm going to say just the opposite Because of what's going on, we need young men and young women who are strong in their faith to be able to come in and live that faith out. Certain things you can and cannot do, but you can live your faith out strongly in the military and be an influence. You can be a Joshua that is just a leader within the community and people are going to see it and people will notice it. And people are going to and people are going to see it and people notice it and people are going to come to you for that.

57:59
So we do need young men and women of strong Christian faith to come into the military. So where you can find us is we have a Facebook page Calvary Chapel Chaplains very simple, calvary Chapel Chaplains, and we respond to the Facebook messages all the time and can help you out there. But we also have an email address and that email address is Calvary Chaplains. You'll put it up on your site for us.

58:25 - Speaker 1
Absolutely, we're going to have it up.

58:27 - Speaker 3
I want to make sure I spell it out right at gmailcom, and those are right now, the only two places that we have. We're working with the Calvary Chapel Association to get a webpage, a specific tab, out there that is military chaplains, and so we're very hopeful for that, and that would be the third place to be able to come to. And Chino Hills has been very, very supportive and very helpful for us as well and get you in contact with us. Yeah.

58:52 - Speaker 2
Amen, Captain Dennis Wheeler, it's an honor brother.

58:54 - Speaker 3
Thank you for all your years of service.

58:56 - Speaker 2
I thank you for my freedom and for all that you're doing for the kingdom of God.

59:00 - Speaker 3
Thank you for all that you're doing for us in the military and for our government leadership as well.

59:04 - Speaker 2
We'll stand together.

59:05 - Speaker 3
Yes, god bless you, thank you.

59:11 - Speaker 1
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