Seal Attacked In Huntington Beach

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Hey everybody, you might find this to be a very interesting podcast sitting down with a U.S. Navy seal, having spent as time for our freedoms. And now he's out and about fighting a new fight and it could very well involve you. So stay tuned. I think there's gonna be awesome. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com 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. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Well everybody, we have a great guest with us today and I've actually looked forward to this because to hear what he has to say and to see what he has to do before him is something that is just in his willhouse. It's always something that God has put upon him to be a doer of what is right, what is good. And we're going to be talking today to Chad Williams. And we're excited. The Chad is awesome to have you here. Thank you so much for having me on. So what I want you to do, I want the people to get to know you on several fronts. I mean, just globally and we'll talk about that. But by the time we come to the end more specifically, what I would say locally. Of course, you know what I'm talking about regarding this. But give us a little bit first introduction. Who in the world is Chad Williams? And with that, I'll just tee it up. If anywhere that you miss something, I'm going to say, but tell them this. Okay. But who's Chad Williams? I think probably one of the big highlights of former US Navy seal. And most people watching probably know it a Navy seal is, but there was a time where back home a girl asked me if it meant that I worked at SeaWorld or something as she put it. But my most might know, it's actually an acronym and it stands for our areas of operation. We operate in the sea, in the air and on land. And the last deployment I was involved in, we're out in Iraq and we were given the task of hunting town men that make suicide vests and roadside bombs. And these are real awful characters. You know, oftentimes the guys that manufacture these suicide vests aren't very motivated actually be the one to strap it on themselves. In fact, they have such a difficult time finding somebody to volunteer to raise their hand for that position. And one instance, they couldn't find anybody. So what they resorted to doing is they went and they found two mentally handicapped women and strapped these vests onto them as they pushed them off into a crowded marketplace. And they watch from a distance as they set it off with the remote killing these women and obviously so many more. So it kind of gives you an idea that type of characters that were up against. And I remember the last operation I was ever involved in. We're going after a man that was an Iraqi police been by day, but bomb maker by night loading up the vehicles. And I'm kind of going all the I know over all the I knows the checks in my mind. I know where this guy lives. I know how we're getting in. I know my weapon is headspace and time. I got the 50 caliber machine gun in front of me. And for those of you that might not know, let's just say that's a weapon that could really reach out and touch somebody that will. Yeah. Looking through that green little world. And then I thought to myself, and I also know this is it. This is the final operation, which also means just a matter of days from now, I'm going to be back in my hometown, Huntington Beach, California, surfing in the ocean. But what none of us really knew about that night was that we were actually being set up the entire time to get thrown into the absolute worst circumstances we'd been in on this entire deployment as we found ourselves set up on an ambush. And now suddenly we're engaging in this gun battle for our lives. And it truly was the sweet was it was it was it late or did somebody expose your operation? It was the source of information that we believe that told us about that Iraqi policemen they get paid for that information. We I think that we saw he saw an opportunity to maybe double down on that. And he perhaps back channeled the information around to that Iraqi policeman that hey, they're they're coming for you. So he was set up with his buddies. He was waiting for us and we're taking effective fire from three different direction directions, meaning the rounds are being very effective. We're in this gun battle for our lives. And it was the team's ability to operate as united front to shoot, move, communicate, do what we do best that led to a pretty obvious conclusion. I'm I'm here. I'm standing alive before you. Sit in alive before you. But it's also worth remembering that it doesn't always work out that way. That's right. You know, we need to remember that our freedoms aren't free. And when you consider the costs, what are they paid for in one could save paid for in the currency of our our soldiers blood on the battlefield. Right. And they're certainly spiritual truth and application to that as well, because we know eternal freedom isn't free. It's paid for in the currency, the safest blood at the cross. Amen. Wow. You know, this is crazy. I wasn't going to mention this, but what you just said, I just finished today a new book and it goes off to the publisher now. In the last closing argument that I make as a commissioning in this book and the book is entitled or I think I think the title of the book will be something like bold faith. But I end and I was inspired driving out of San Diego over the bridge to Coronado. I looked to my left and there was the USS Michael Montsoor heading out. Yes. And I saw that and that was actually the inspiration for the end of the book that I just finished today. And I went through his last few hours of his life. Right. And Ramadi and how it was nothing for him in an instant trained as a seal to cuddle that grenade that they threw up under the roof and it hit him in the chest. He dropped to the deck. He curled up around it, took that blast and saved his navy seal brothers and a couple of Iraqi soldiers as well. But the point is in the end and you just said it is that selfless love is exactly what Jesus Christ did for us. There's a part of the divine. People often think about that that when you're in battle like that you're giving yourself to the point. You're in a foreign land you're wondering if anybody knows where you're at on the planet and it's very selfless because you are engaged to not only hopefully walk out at the end of the day alive but to preserve the freedoms of your nation. Very few people realize that they, you know, you said in the matter of days you'd be back home surfing at the pier. Right. A lot of people don't realize that for people to be serving at the pier today or to being at the mall or going to work or are having a day off is because there have been people just like you. It's very easy to take for granted. I certainly did at a young age surfing at the pier as a kid. I think the wake up call for me, it took you know, junior year in high school. That's when 9-11 happened and that's when I began to realize that freedom isn't just some built into life. This is just the way it is. Default position. That there really is evil out there that lurks. It's a spirit of evil. You know, it's that desire to steal, kill and destroy. It's the desire of the terrorists. It's those that just sometimes want to watch things burn. And one of the things about Mikey's story that some people don't know, Michael Monsour, the one that jumped on that hand grenade, is that he had the opportunity to save himself. That's right. I read it. He was closest to the exit. It was just a step pivot away. But he could have saved himself. He yelled out grenade to those guys so that they could take some form of cover as he threw himself over the top covering it absorbing the blast on himself. And I think that's a picture of what Jesus did at the cross. You know, Jesus was never in trouble or in the crosshairs of God's judgment. You know, we were really in the impact zone of where the consequences of that shrapnel is coming. You know, but Jesus, in a sense, he didn't cover a hand grenade, but what he did cover, he covered the consequences of our sin at the cross, you know, so that we could live. So that grenade was never Mikey's problem. It was all the other's problem. And sin was never Jesus's problem. It's always our problem. But what a picture of John 1513 greater love has known than this one that lays down his life. First friends. Absolutely. Yeah. I think, again, I think it's divine like even though we are fallen creatures, I like to, I like the way CS Lewis looks at it is that there's still enough residual of God's of God's image in us where there is this act of selfless response. You know, it's amazing. People might you might be thinking, I don't know if that's true or not. You know, I mean, if you're at the beach, for example, and you see a little 10-year-old out there drowning, you're going to get up and go. You're just going to get up and go. I can't imagine anybody sitting on the shore, you know, letting this little guy drown. There's just something within us. Well, that's something. Think about it. That's something is what we got from our God. I mean, he from the beginning predetermined that when man would fall, he would die for us. That's right. Absolutely epic. Think about this too. It's actually criminal, if you sit there and watch somebody drowns, to praved indifference. That's right. You know, you have the ability to do something about it, but you don't. And kind of in a similar way, there's even been, you know, self-aclaimed atheists that have noticed there's something similar about that in Christianity. Penn Gillette, he made a video, gets the revival. And he says, you know, look, I'm not a Christian, but he questions Christians. He says, how could you believe that there's a heaven and a hell, or that some people could get everlasting life and others might not. And you think it's not really worth telling them about this because it might make things socially awkward. He says, how much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them about it? And he says, if I believe the truck was coming at you and you don't believe the truck is coming at you, he says, there's a certain point where I will tackle you. And he says, and this is more important than that. So we say, hey, look, Christian, I don't believe what you believe, but if you believe it, wow, that's right. How much do you have to hate somebody? Because if we take Jesus' words at face value, we are looking at a drowning world. And a lot of them don't even realize the current that they're in. But we know that left to their own, they are going to drown, they go down. And we have the life-saving message. We could be those life guards to share that message. It's exactly right. You know, I'll help one day. God doesn't say any of us are guilty of that depraved in difference. And I think the principle is there in Ezekiel 3 where he talks about the son of man. He says, when I give you a word to warn the wicked, to flee from their wicked way, and you don't share it, they will still die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. But if you do share it, and they don't turn, at least your hands are washed. You're exactly correct. Blow the trumpet of warning. So HB being home growing up on the coast, in the waves, in the water. I'm just curious, I'm asking this, how much of that childhood played into you being a successful seal? I think it was extremely helpful because I was very comfortable in the water. You never get comfortable with the cold, but you know, nothing about being tossed around in big waves like that. That's my playground right there. And I had the opportunity to be mentored by the most extraordinary Navy seal there ever was. I mean, I'll say Scott Helvinson. He's the youngest man to ever make it through seal training. He completed the program at 17. He's a world champion penathaly. He's the fastest seal on the seal training obstacle course. He was the only man to beat the beast on a TV program called Manverse Beast. He raced a chimpanzee through an obstacle course and pulled ahead of this monkey on the monkey bars. I mean, you can't make it up any better. In normal cases, that's not a big deal. Let's say I beat a monkey, but this is a big deal on monkey bars. Oh, yeah. I took the monkey bars from the monkey. And so you could imagine what it's like for him to be mentor. I mean, he really took me under his wing. Well, it was kind of a funny setup. It really was supposed to be something that was intended to discourage me from going after becoming a seal because it makes sense. You know, I literally dropped out of junior college. I told my dad bad news, good news, bad news is I'm failing all my classes. And of course, he wants to know his dad, okay, what's the good news? Well, I'm snapping my fingers saying, that's all right, dad. I'm going to be a Navy seal. And he's looking at me thinking, all right, you know, he's talking to me, saying, son, you know, you haven't, you haven't shown the discipline it takes to make it through the local community cars. And now you think you're going to go be a Navy seal. And I'm like, yeah. So he ended up contacting Scott Helvinson. I don't know how he got a hold of him. He tracked him down. He found them. But the request was I want you to meet up with my, meet up with my son. And if you're willing, you know, I'm asking you to please just beat this desire, becoming a seal out of him. He has no idea what he's getting involved in. And so he replied and his reply was an email. And this was the only thing that I saw before I went and met up with Scott for the first time is this email. My dad says, hey, so you want to be a seal? I'm like, yeah, dad, I want to be a seal. He goes, great. I set up a workout for you with the Navy seal. Check out my computer screen. And all I see in the email is can Chad come out and play tomorrow? So I'm thinking like, hey, like dad, you met some guy off the internet who says he wants to play with me. And now you're arranging this meeting in a beach parking lot in Oceanside. Yeah. And he goes, he's a seal son. So I go meet up with them. And I mean, he looks the part, he looks like something Michael Angel, look carved out. You know, he's pointing his finger me, you Chad, like, yes, sir. All right, Bubba, I was Bubba from that point forward that day. Get on over here. Long story short, he sends me off on a run out into the wetlands and says he's going to catch up with me. Well, about the time when he should be catching up with me, he's not there. So I start thinking of myself, maybe I'm too fast for this Navy seal. He can't catch up on the run. How old are you? I was like 19 at the time. That's a typical thought of a 19. I can take that guy. I was thinking the names of my friends, I was going to be bragging to that day, how the Navy seal never caught up, you know, my buddy Brian, my buddy Mark. But I look back over my shoulder and then it's like a scene out of Terminator 2. I mean, he's got the knife hands coming down this trail after me. And there's no keeping that distance. He closes in like a K9 lit out of the back of a squad car. And as he brushes past me and I think that's it, he's going to leave me in the dust. That's where he turns around. And he basically just knocks me into the dust of the ground. He's punching me in the stomach. I've got the wind knocked out of me, dirt poofing up all over. He's jumping on top of me and just ragged all of me. He's got me by my shirt. And I still have that sound in my head of just the threads of my shirt, ripping and feeling the spit fly out as he screaming in my face. And you got to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. You know, the only Intel I'm operating on at this time is some guy. My dad met off the internet. I'm thinking human predator like this guy's got me in the yeah, yeah, you want to come out. So I'm just thinking just survive live. But then he said these words that really changed everything for me. I would say in life. He says, you want to be a Navy seal. You better stay three paces behind me. Something about that moment, everything just clicked. It was like time stopped. And I got this clarity of thought. Like this is it. And this is for real. And this is one of the most defining moments in my entire life. If I quit right now, I will forever be a quitter. Like the way I respond here is going to affect the trajectory of the rest of my life. That's awesome. And so I felt it just well up in my heart. Like I rather die than quit. That's right. You got up. He said it one more time. Three paces, turns, takes off. And I'll just say what took place on that trail for the next handful of miles. Looking back after having gone through seal training, which you suffered greatly in seal training, I've never suffered so much as I did on that trail in a singular workout. I shouldn't even call it a workout. It was a beat down session. Then this encounter with this Navy seal, Scott Helvenston. But I hung in there. And when we finally got to a point where he wrapped it up, he circled it up. I mean, he looks like he wants to fight me. I'm thinking no direct eye contact. I don't want to set this guy off. I'm just use your peripherals, keeping him over there. He breaks his really awkward tension by pointing at me and saying, if we would have gone another mile or two, would you have stayed with me? And I just told him what came from the heart. I told him, Scott, I'll die before I quit. And it was from that moment forward. I mean, everything changed. He's going great. You want to meet up again from the workout tomorrow. And I'm thinking, buddy, are we going to address the flashback you just had on the trail? What was that all about? But I found out over lunch two months later, him, my dad and I about the whole setup. I learned the back story that that was all intended to really just kind of break me of that desire of becoming a seal because it didn't seem like I was taking it seriously. It's kind of like Christianity. If you can be talked into Christianity, you can be talked out of it. Exactly. In fact, whenever I meet a young guy that wants to be a Navy seal, I try and talk him out of it. And if I could talk him out of it, it's really not for him. If I give him all the reasons not to do it. And he's still like, no, I still want to do it. Then I'm like, all right, let's start getting together and train. That's awesome. Yeah. So you served on seal team one and seven. You did that from 2004 to 210. Yep. It all started in no four. By December of 2005, I was getting that trident pendant of my chest or the happiest, most fulfilling moments of my life. There was really a lot on the line in terms of becoming a Navy seal. One of the things that happened along the way was really a conversation with my mentor Scott as he was taking an opportunity to go overseas one last time to Iraq. It was only going to be a couple of months. He was leaving about the same exact time I'm leaving off for boot camp. He's leaving just before I leave. So on this phone conversation, he says, all right, junior, I'm about to go do this thing. He's referring to going off to Iraq. And he says, I want you to know something though that I've never told anyone I've ever trained before. He says, I know you're going to make it through seal training. That ended up being the last conversation that Scott and I would have with each other. And just a handful of days later, he was on a TV screen. But this time he's not competing on Manverse Beast. It's a smiling picture of him. And I remember just kind of rubbing my eyes trying to figure out what Scott doing on TV right now. I thought he's an Iraq. And that's when I see in the lower third of the screen, his birthday, followed by a dash. And it says March 31st, 2004. And before I could process the obvious meaning of that, it switches from a smiling image to graphic video footage. It's him and three others that are lifeless in the streets of Fallujah with the burning vehicle in the background, which was the vehicle he was in. And what it happened was his group was set up on an ambush. And these insurgents had videotaped everything that they were doing to him and these others. As I'm watching these scenes now, being played of him, you know, having rope wrapped around his legs and dragged through the streets hung upside down from the Freddy's River Bridge. And then this mob is chanting and celebrating in Arabic. They're chanting with English subtitles. Fallujah's the graveyard of Americans. Fallujah's the graveyard of Americans. Needless to say, I'll never have the words to describe what that moment and all the surrounding moments were like one of the things in our seal creed though is that it says that we are forged by adversity. And that is something that I've continued to live by. And I think there's biblical truth to that as well is that you don't get to pick the adversity that you go through like Joseph and the Old Testament never is like, yeah, I'll sign it for that one. Have my brothers abuse me and then throw me into human trafficking. And then yeah, falsely accused throw me into prison. You know, but his duty still is to remain faithful instead fast to the Lord. He never allowed those things to knock him down in such a way to where people just point their finger and go, wow, yeah, he's out for the count. He's never resurfacing. We don't get to choose the adversity or the storms that we go through, but we always have a choice in terms of how we respond. Do you allow it to be a weight or a wing? Will it sink you or will you find a way to get back up or what we call in the teams to be forged by adversity? It's very case by case, but I'll just say in that particular case, that forging process began for me when I remembered my mentors last words. It became so much more important to do this in honor and memory of him. So I wrote his name on the inside of my hat as a constant reminder and a motivation to make it through. And that's really part of our seal creed as well. In the worst of conditions, I'll rely upon the legacy of those who have gone before me to steady my resolve to guide my every deed. We think of men like Mike Montsoor, I think of my mentor Scott. And that's true for the Christian life because we could look to the cross and consider what Jesus did, you know, on our behalf. It's amazing. Paul told Timothy, you need to prepare yourself on paraphrasing Timothy because you need to wage the good warfare. No man putting his, putting his gear on and moving forward will ensnare himself on the affairs of this life. Nobody, nobody takes on the battle with their Xbox in their hand or, or, you know, Rubik's Cube or Plato. It's about life and death. Isn't it amazing? What if the Christian community globally? What if the church today took that kind of seriousness that what you're speaking of because what we're talking about is actually even more serious. We're not just talking about somebody losing their life. We're talking about somebody losing their eternal life without Christ. That what the church is fighting for and against is this incredible battle that's fought out in the invisible, but it's manifested in the physical. I just think that it's a tragedy that we live in an empathetic age right now, just like you said where people don't understand where their freedoms come from. Our, our faith is a verb, it's active Christianity does, it doesn't talk, it does. And there's so many lessons that, or parallels that what you're saying is the Christian life. So, so we made it through the teen part, this was the baptism into the pursuit of the seals. So you went down, you, you went and signed up. I mean, you just don't sign it to be a seal. You went and signed up in the US Navy or the Marines. Which one was it? The Navy. And you go down the recruiters office at that time. They had a program called the seal challenge program. They don't promise you make it, but they promise you a shot at it. And so that's kind of how it is. I mean, the majority of people don't make it. It's a win-win I think for the Navy because if they want to get recruits into the Navy, if this guy doesn't make it through seal training, it's fine. We'll get them on a ship somewhere. We'll put them somewhere that he's needed. And if we do produce a Navy seal, then we just produce a Navy seal. Yeah, so it's a way to, you know, many are called, you know, in a sense, you are chosen. You know, Nero is the gate and difficult is the way. So out of 173 guys in my class that all said, I'll die before I quit. Only 13 of that original class number is still standing there for graduation day. And I remember looking up thinking, you know, Scott, we did this, you know, because I had his name written on the inside of my hat as a constant reminder and a motivation. And my thought process was, you know, when I was suffering and having to dig deep in hell week, you know, you're up for five and a half days. You get four hours of sleep. That's not per night. That's it for the five and a half days. You're running over 200 miles. You're hallucinating. I grew up watching Ninja Turtles and I'm seeing Donatello in the water and places and, you know, you're just, you're going through it. I would look at his name and I think to myself, you have to take me out of here in a body bag before I ever have voluntarily get up and quit on that name. And people that quit, they have to ring a bell three times in front of all of their peers. It's just not happening. And so it didn't happen. And that day did come where I graduated and became a seal. And, you know, it was one of the happiest, most fulfilling moments of my life and so many more lessons to come after that. You know, one of the lessons that I learned soon after is, says a quote by Christian philosopher. He says, one of the loneliest moments of man will ever experience is when he's achieved that which he thought will deliver the ultimate. And in the end, it lets him down. And what he's referring to right there is something I believe every listener or viewers familiar with, at least to some degree, it's just that human condition, that idea that I'm not quite fulfilled with where I'm at. And, you know, what do you want? I guess I just want a little bit more. Always a little bit more. Yeah. So we just, we bind to this belief that we are lacking something. But if I could just accomplish this goal or this achievement, the status, then I'll be satisfied or fulfilled. And it's a constant chase. It's like a vicious cycle. You get to a moment where you taste success. You eat it up. You're satisfied. But then you get hungry again. You chase it more. You're thirsting after something new. You get there. You drink it up. You're satisfied for a moment. You get thirsty all over again. And then there's those that finally get to a point where they can't conceive of a next thing to do because they've arrived at the last run of the latter. There's always I could always go up from here. You know, but a certain point you can't say I can go up from here because you're at that last run. You're at the peak of the mountain. And so many have come to this conclusion. I think of, you know, even Jim Carrey, you know, he says, I wish that people could become rich and famous and have everything they ever wanted so that they would know that it's not the answer. I think C. S. Lewis nails it though and he points out that if I find within myself desires in which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I am meant for another world. And Jesus put it best. He says, what's a prophet of man if he gains the whole world, but in the end loses his soul. I had my version of gaining the whole world to becoming a seal, but my soul at that time was not oriented correctly. It wasn't right with the creator. Right. And so I mean, the lesson here is that if you don't have any peace with your creator, you'll never experience any peace while you're here. It's possible. So I'm a member of seal team one. And on the outside, it seems like I really got it all together. But inwardly, I think I was probably more miserable at that stage of my life than I've ever been. Isn't that something? Which, by the way, Wall Street, for example, the higher the building, the corner office, the greater chance of suicide. I did not know that. Well, all the money, all the status, everything I've gotten in that same exact feeling. It's human nature. Without Christ, we're absolutely emptied. And so at what point did you come to Christ? How did that happen? March 14, 2007. Night I'll never forget. Greg Laurie was sharing the message at night at a second Kings chapter five. Second Kings chapter five, Old Testament text. So this is all over it. So you're a see of the viewers act to do the Navy seal. Yeah. You said 2007. Yeah. So you're an active seal. You go to a Bible study. Member of seal team one. I'm going to get to the Bible study. Only to make family feel better. There you. Okay. Yeah. At that time, I was there was if anyone ever accused Chad Williams out there on the streets of being a Christian, there's not enough evidence to convict. You know, I would claim to be a Christian. That's my label on the outside. That's on my dog tag. Nothing about my life, you know, was evidenced by it. And so family was getting concerned, you know, because I was going out and drinking into an oblivion, you know, black out and just real foolishness. It's personal robbery. But I would look at it at that time as if it was something to laugh about and brag about. And everything really just came to a head one night where I needed to get 26 stitches and my knuckles for a thing I don't remember. So I'm being confronted by family saying, look, if you're going to come back home to Huntington Beach, which I was coming back home often, because, you know, Coronado is not that far away. They said, you're not welcome here anymore. And so it was some tough love that I needed. And better to break your mom and dad's heart. I mean, they're precious people. They're always praying for me. I would hear them praying for me. And this is just where my heart and soul was at that time. I would interrupt them. I would hear them in their room praying for me. And I'd throw the door open and back, what are you guys doing? You don't need to do that. Don't worry. I'm not an atheist. I believe in God. Okay. Me and Jesus were good. But the truth was I wasn't at all. And so they're like, we're worried for you. You need the Lord. And I was convicted by that. But I wouldn't ever let them see it. Of course. Yeah. So I had regret over sin, but I wasn't repentant of it genuinely. I had no intention of really stopping. And so one night it all really came to a head where they're confronting me. They're saying, look, you're not welcome here anymore. I was coming into the house and the truth is I had a keg of beer stashed in the garage that I was getting ready to go get that I'd stolen with some friends from a beer fest, just a couple nights before. So I thought I'll play my cards. I don't want to force my way through. I'll agree to go with them to this church thing that they want to go to. It's a midweek thing that's happening at Calvary Coast to Mesa. It was supposed to be a throwback to the big tent revival at that time. They're renovating the main sanctuary. So there's no chairs in the sanctuary. So they had a big tent out with chips on the ground. I remember the worship music was a little different than I recall church being like, because it was a guy Dennis Acajini and dressing all black finger stuff, you know, pickin' and I'm like, this is kind of interesting, but I'm still looking at my watch. I just suffer through it. I'll get through this. I'll punch my card in to go into some church thing. It's like they did it through the seals. I can do it to you soon. And it'll be over and then my folks will go to bed and I'll fall off their radar. They'll be so happy I went and then I'll go out and I'll do what I really wanted to go do that night. Go party. Go drink with some friends. Second Kings chapter five, the story of a soldier by the name and name and I'm thinking great. Well, if I met some church thing, at least I get to hear a story about a soldier. It's interesting because like Jesus, he says, you know, if you knew the scriptures, you would know that they testify of me. It's obviously talking about, you know, the law and the prophets here. The gospel message is all over this. I got saved by an Old Testament text. And so, name and he's this commander. He's had great success in battle. He's got this entourage of men that highly respect him. He's really got it going on. It sounds like he could have been a seal. Had there been a seal during his time, but he had leprosy. And Jesus specifically looking back said, nobody during the time of name and it had ever been healed of leprosy. That's right. And so now circle back and picture name in life like this, if you would so much for all that success. And there's a little girl telling them, you should go, there's a river. Yep. It is real. She's the unsung hero. She's the evangelist in this story that had the boldness to speak up and say, if only my master were with the prophet, it was in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy. It's almost like I think like hearing about an experimental treatment. Like doctors have tried everything. We're so sorry. But there is this one experimental treatment. Like all your help grabs onto that. And you don't care what it costs. Like let's give it a try. If it's for a loved one, I'll empty out the bank account. I think that's name and mentality. He has to ask his king. If it's okay if he goes, he gets a letter. He says, go. It's any me occupied territory, 150 mantra. He's bringing the equivalent of millions upon millions of dollars in gold, silver, peril. He gets there to the door and he doesn't even come to the door. Just sends a servant that relays the message. It says, go dip yourself in the Jordan River seven times when you come up. Your flesh will be restored to you. You'll be clean. Well, what happens is his name and does not do that. He's proud. He becomes furious. He's turning. He's leaving in a rage. He's venting out loud. He wouldn't even come to me to speak to my face. And that's what his expectation was. He should have come out. And it makes sense. I mean, you watch. The flesh is sane. Yeah, I get it. It's almost proportional to the more important of a person you are back then, the farther they come out to greet you. I mean, the welcoming party at least should have been on the porch. You know, for Jesus, it was outside the city gates when they thought the Messiah kings come in at least for a name. And they should have, you know, this guy won't even give him a face to face. So he could probably just about have his head. And before he does something like that, he's leaving in a rage. But the thing is, if he leaves in this rage and continues in that direction, it's terminal. He dies. And his real issue isn't the leprosy. That's just a surface he's symptom of a much deeper issue going on. It's the pride. That's what's really killing him and his men that he's with. They come running up to him. They're pleading with them. They're saying, name and look, you know, if this guy came out and give you some big, great thing to do, you would have done it. But to him, it seemed like foolishness. And they're great wisdom from his men and they loved him. They spoke that no doubt because they loved him. They care about him. They cared about him. And it seemed foolishness to him. And that's kind of how the preaching of the cross says to it says in the New Testament, the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing. He looked at that water and thought, I got better water than I'm from. If I could just wash it off when I go wash it off back where I'm from. Exactly. But something that those guys said, God uses it. It gets through. And that's how it is. I think for us is, well, I've had people say things to me. You know, my parents praying right behind their door, or I've had little remarks made by Christians, when I wasn't a Christian, that set off almost like a butterfly effect in my heart and in my mind, things that I couldn't put my head on my pillow at night without thinking about it obsessively. And if things that God used, and I go back to those people, I think of one Navy SEAL, he's a Christian ministry now. His name is Jeff Bramsted. I tried to get him to recall that he told me once that God will not work with you until he, you give him an empty template to work with Chad. That rocked my world. Well, I go back years later to let him know just what an effect that had on me and how that played a part in my salvation. He goes, I said that. Like, yeah, you said that. Are you sure that was me? Like, I know exactly where we're standing when you said that. He goes, that doesn't sound like something that I, I want to put it that way. I'm like, dude, that was you. Apparently, that's what God did with your mouth. That's right. And so God could use it so powerfully. God's using so powerfully these words of these men that care about naming. Come on, name and look. I think this is where God began to get through and name and realizes it's not the water that's going to fix me. It's true. I do have cleaner water on from. But what's going to fix me here is it's going to be the God of Israel. He's going to do the heavy lifting. If I simply am faithful, if I'm just faithful and go out and dip those seven times, he'll be faithful. Brown water, he's going to do his thing. He comes up that seventh time and then the Hebrew, the picture is he had brand new skin like that of a baby. Yeah. And I remember just having my world rocked by that, listening, relating with name and then it got so personal as it's pointed out that, look, just his name and as a certain man on the outside, who are you in front of your friends? Who are you in front of your co-workers, your family? And that was me. I wear the armor of being a seal. But at that stage of my life, inwardly, I felt like I was more miserable than I'd ever been. But I don't let that out. I don't wear that on my sleeve, just like you cover up any kind of vulnerability. I'm sure name and covered up his leprosy. But it felt like, man, I'm just being totally exposed right now. I am this dead man walking like name and the real issue here is this pride. I put everything into becoming a navy seal thinking that's going to deliver the ultimate and only God can really deliver the ultimate because he is the ultimate and anything else you put in that place is really just an idol and it will leave you hungry and thirsty for more. And so this condition, name and had this leprosy spiritually speaking, all of us apart from God are like spiritual lepers. We're all spotted and blotted and blemished in sin. And just like name and couldn't do anything to get the leprosy off of himself, there's nothing that we can do to get sin off of ourselves. But if we're faithful, God will be faithful to do the heavy lifting, not by dipping into a Jordan river. But what God did is he dipped his son down into the world. That's Jesus to live that holy perfect sinless life. So not for one split second that he ever sined. So he's holy. He's pure. He's without blemish. And the picture that really hit me that night was that Jesus at the cross traded skin with you and I pictured it the leprosy, the spiritual sin. He took it all on himself so that I could be switched and lavish with God's grace and mercy, died in my place at the cross and conquered death, rising again, you know, which was his vindication that he's no blasphemer. He truly is who he claimed to be the son of God. And it just clicked. I got it that night and it hit me and I responded and all I could say is the scriptures are true. If any man being Christ, he's a new creation. You know, old things pass away, behold, all things become new. And my outlook, one of the things I immediately understood is while I still am a seal and I will finish out this time as a seal on the seal for Christ, but also I want to be a part of sharing this message because while I might be able to save somebody's life on the battlefield, perhaps if we're fortunate enough, eventually that person will die. But if you save somebody's soul, you save them for all eternity. So this is the much more important battlefront is getting involved in ministry as silly as it might seem to the rest of the world. You know, I want to go all in on this over here. And so from that point forward, I was all in, you know, for Christ. Well, let's let's do this. The battles, the battle is not over. It's a different battlefield right now for you. And you don't quit. You are watching the soul of your country, the soul of your state, your county, your city in the crosshairs of an enemy, ideology. And you're you've prayed and you've decided to do something about the next chapter of your life. Tell us what is it? So that hometown I'm always looking forward to get back home too. You know, while overseas hunting to Beach, California, surfing in the ocean, it's not only the town I was born and raised in, but I'm raising my kids there now. And you start paying attention a little bit more to your surrounding environment, you know, when you're raising your kids up. And I've come to the realization that unfortunately, you know, a lot of these pastime favorite places, what makes hunting to beach so great, they're beginning to a road away. And it has everything to do with the leadership, not only at the city council level, but then even beyond that, you know, the leadership in our state. And, you know, California, unfortunately, is kind of the laughing stock. It's a joke. I travel the nation and I tell people I'm from California and you can hear the grounds in the crowd. Chucky lane. But I'm proud to say that I'm from Huntington Beach because Huntington Beach is almost like a light that shines in the darkness. And I think of, you know, the gospel of John, how it talks about, you know, Jesus being the light of the world, how he came into the world, the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness could not overcome it. There's a little spark in Huntington Beach, California. And there is a metaphorical darkness in California that is trying to extinguish that light. And it comes down from the state, you know, from Sacramento, from the governor. Right. He's trying to extinguish that light, but it seems like for such a time like this, we have our community taking a stand. Yes. And for me in a big way, I mean, this is part of the mandate of being a Christian, it's Jesus Sermon in the mount that we're supposed to be salt. And we're supposed to be light. You know, meat, if it's just left to itself, what's going to happen? It's going to rot. It's going to decay. But the salt is a preservative. And the Christian is supposed to be that preservative in the world. We're supposed to be active. This is part of loving our neighbor as ourselves. Yeah. And so opening my eyes to the erosion and the rot that's happening in Huntington Beach. But I don't want this for my children. Well, it's not time to take off. Nothing against people that do that leave the state, you know, like governor Newsom is the number one U-Haul salesman year after year. He left it off, but it's an absolute fact. It's very true. Yeah. I think it's a joke. It's for it's for real. Those words hit one day downtown where I just kind of saw how things are just really falling apart in Huntington. The words that that go, you know, all that's required for evil to try it is for good men to stand back and do nothing. I got hit with that and I thought somebody should do something about what's going on here. And it wasn't long before I put myself in the crosshairs of those words like, oh, you think so. Well, how about you? And it wasn't a very big logical leap from, you know, I served my country. I'm willing to do some civic duty, you know, as well. And I'm willing to do this for the sake of family and friends and for the sake of faith, faith family and friends. Those have always been, you know, really my motivators that that thing that gets uncommon desire really working in my life. And so it really sparked right there for me that day when I saw just the drastic changes in erosion. And then completely unsolicited and just past her joe pedic from Calvary Chapel, the harbors. He calls me and he wants to pray about something. I don't know what it's about. I'm already thinking about running for city council. And he says, I want to pray about you considering running for city council. And I'm like, who put you up to this? He goes, what do you mean? And I'm like naming names. It's so-and-so or so-and-so. They say something. Did they tell you to do this? He goes, no. This is just what the Lord said on my heart. And it was after we went into a little private prayer room and we prayed about it. That was really the beginning of it right there. Just going into it full swing. And so I'm running for city council in Huntington Beach. And what we're trying to do is, you know, we're trying to take a stand for righteousness in that town and we are up against really the state on it. You know, it's true. The state has come after you, the city, the city. For those of you who don't know, Huntington Beach, there are pockets, believe it or not, in California that are little gems of freedom and love and faith and flag. And Huntington is one of those places. It's a unique place. But it was incredibly targeted by Gavin Newsom during the COVID circus. And it has continued to be, as if I remember right, the state tried to mandate low income high density housing. Huntington Beach said, wait a minute. We have a, we've got a persona here of the city that is legendary. And we're not going to have some outside cowboys come on in. And the city stood against the state. They're still standing against the state, which is one of the reasons why I love that city. But you're running and you're running with several other guys with Lord willing to take the city council. And this is your fight. This is your battle. Listen, elaborate, but they tried to discredit him. Chad sent me photos of his, his signs being vandalized. He's being hated by some really messed up people, which tells you that you should vote for Chad. If these crazy balls are against him, then that tells you how to vote. But what can people do, Chad, give us, give us some, what can we do initiatives for us, motivate us? Right. So number one, you know, if you live in Huntington Beach, I need your vote. And not just myself, but those two others that I'm running with. So it's easy to remember. We're, we're referred to, we've been coined the HB3. So it's Don Kennedy, butch twining and myself, Chad Williams. We also have a city clerk that will operate as our air support. That's Lisa Lane Barnes. Awesome. So it's so important that we get her elected as well. The way that my team got set up on that ambush, it had everything to do with back channeling of information around to the enemy. There you go. As we speak right now on our city council, we have three that are not friends. They are foes. They are friends with Governor Newsom. They don't advocate for Huntington Beach in Sacramento. They advocate for Sacramento in Huntington Beach. And they know strategically what our city attorney is going to do before he does it because that information that he has to share is obligated to share with the council gets back channeled from those three up to Sacramento so that they could keep hitting them off at the past. And it's like we're being set up on an ambush. And so we need that united front on the council. That was what led to mission success when my team was set up on an ambush. We had the united front. And so right now we have these three traitorous foes that are sharing this information. So we have an opportunity. Here they are. They're trying to sell us out. We have an opportunity on November 5th to vote them out. And so if people love Governor Newsom, hey, these, these three, they love Newsom. And so you could remember them. They are the Newsom three some. They go with them. But if you don't have love for Newsom and his policies that have destroyed California and you really want change, you know, like we're not politicians. We're hometown patriots. hometown boys. That's right. And we're trying to take a stand for righteousness. You're not amazing about what you're saying. And please everybody get this. And you might say, I'm watching from St. Louis. It doesn't matter. The very same similar scenario could be playing out in your town. What are you going to do about it? That's why for us to preserve, listen, some go to war and some don't. But we all go to war for truth when we vote. Okay. This is, and by the way, it is a gift given to us in this republic that we live in. That we have the Christian I'm talking do has the responsibility to vote because people died to give us that freedom to vote. And we cannot take an opportunity or a talent given to us by God and bury it. Read the Gospels. Read what Jesus says about that. It doesn't go well. When you have a chance to make a difference, you have to do that Christian. Don't sit it out. So the thing is, here's Huntington Beach, a bubble of liberty and freedom. In fact, one of the most amazing things, I mean, there's so much about Huntington Beach. But one of the one of the things, I don't know if you're aware of this, you probably are. But the air show, Ashkosh, Wisconsin air show was the biggest air show in America forever until the great Pacific air show and Huntington Beach, California. It's epic. It's just the spirit of that city. Now, here's the thing. If you live in that city and Chad, his name and butch, twining and Don Kennedy, and the HB three show up on your ballot. You should vote to preserve and to advance this hometown spirit that is Huntington Beach. If I remember right, you guys have the biggest 4th of July parade west of the Mississippi, right? That's right. And it's old school awesome. It's incredible. But what do people, where do they go to support you to help you? You've been sued. You've been attacked. That's right. They're trying to do everything to stop you. I've had to spend about $10,000 in court, go to Superior Court three different times, just simply defending the dignity of the fact that, I am a Navy SEAL veteran. They wanted nobody to know that I have anything to do with being the SEALs. And so they've tried to sue me over it. They used a guy that is convicted of so many crimes to be the proxy to sue me so that I can't really fire back because he has no assets to go after. It's law fair and it's happening on a local level. And so here's the biggest help that you folks can really perform on is the big difference maker of outcomes when my mentor was ambushed and my team was ambushed. It's the same in put SEALs. It's an ambush. The difference of outcomes had everything to do with the resources that we had behind us. Unfortunately for my mentor, when they were supposed to have armored vehicles because of budget cuts and money reasons, they didn't have armored vehicles. They're supposed to have heavy weapon machine guns, but because of money reasons, they didn't have the heavy weapon machine guns. All these things they should have had, but they didn't have, while they're out there on the front lines. So you have the skill set there, but they don't have the armory, the weapons behind them to actually allow them to shoot, move, and communicate to perform to their ability in a very similar way. That's kind of what's taking place on this sort of battlefield in Huntington Beach is that I'm going to the front lines of the battle. My SEAL team, when we are ambushed, we had all those things that we needed. We had the heavy weapon machine guns. We had the armory, and it gave us the tools for success. So we're going forward to this front lines battle and folks that are watching right now that aren't from Huntington Beach, you have the opportunity to function as that armory. You could provide the resources. You could provide the ammunition as it were by supporting the campaign so that myself and my teammates have what we need in order to fight that fight, so that we could be that united front that fights to victory. And so you guys could go to my website. It's pretty easy to remember. Hopefully we'll get a little lower third here. It's Chad4hb.com. If you go to Chad4hb.com, you'll find a link that you can click, says donate now, and that would really be the biggest support. And I really do need that help. Like I said, my opponents, they have outside help. They have unlimited help coming from the outside and really hurting me and hitting me hard, taking me to the courts. And so if the Christian community stands up, you know, it gives me that help. It would just really provide what I need to fight it out on the front lines of that battle. Yeah, absolutely. Everybody want to encourage you. And you don't have to be a citizen of HB to help. In fact, if you're a veteran, I think you ought to, you ought to help this guy out, man. But I tell you what, locally, please make sure you register to vote. Please make sure you do vote and vote early. I do believe in California. Voting begins October 8th. I think it is early October start and vote early. But by all means, make your voice count. This is how, you know, we change governments in this country by the stroke of a pen. We don't use bombs and guns. At least it's been like that for 250 years. I don't know how much longer it's going to stay like that, but we live in crazy times. Man, we got candidates getting shot at. I mean, this is a wild, wild world, we're in right now. We need to take back our God-given freedoms. Now, look, you and I hope Jesus Christ comes back today, but we're fighting like he's not coming back for 100 years. And by doing that, by the way, we stay ready and trained up to expect him. And at the same time, doing the right thing. So the website again, chad4hb.com. And this is a war that we're in. I love CS Lewis's quote. He says, enemy occupied territory. That is what this world is. But Christianity is the story about how our rightful king has landed. You might say in disguise. And now he's calling us all to take part in his great campaign of sabotage verbatim. Good job. He just, he just nailed Lewis verbatim. And that's perfect. Excellent. So you guys get out there and vote, vote hb vote for chad. And go to his website, please. So, God bless you guys. 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