Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey, welcome to episode 98. Brian Phillips here with you today, the Gray Ops podcast. It's an honor to be here serving you with the biblical masculinity, this great culture that we've built for men to, to empower men to live upright. And today, I'm on this episode, uh, a discussion based episode with actually a, a good friend of mine, a friend of mine named Cliff Payne, who I met about 15 years ago in Dayton, Ohio, where our passion to study the word of God actually came, uh, brought us together as friends. And I remember, I'm, I'm in this place in Dayton, Ohio with like these scholar types, and I'm way outta my league. I mean, way outta my league. I remember the first question they asked. I didn't even understand the question, <laugh>, you know, I called my wife. I'm like, these people are smart, you know? And, uh, and then I didn't know that Dwight Pryor, the guy who I'd gone to, uh, to learn from, I, I came to learn a little later that Cliff Payne, who's my guest today, uh, on our Grey House podcast, is actually a close friend of his and was a lifelong type friend of his.
Speaker 0 00:01:02 And, and so it was really an honor. And I remember, uh, one of the first sit down meetings I ever had with Cliff was in the Cheesecake Factory, uh, out in Dayton, Ohio. You know, so here we are 15 years later, and Cliff and I have kind of stayed in touch on and off through the years, and I really appreciate him. He's the type of guy, um, I'll use words like my mentor or, you know, he's just, uh, a guy that I love to learn from. Like, he's one of those guys that when I'm on a phone call with him, I have a notepad, uh, or I'm typing if, and I always tell him like, Hey, if I'm quiet when you're talking, if, if, and I'm not responding, it's because I'm writing down what you're saying, <laugh>. So anyway, cliff, I have nothing but a crazy, uh, respect for you, the life that you've lived, the, the way you emulate our God in heaven. And the, and you, you're, you're one of those guys that draw people in, and you're definitely a guy that trains and helps people be sharper. So, um, welcome to the podcast, if you wanted to take a minute and just give us a snapshot of who you are. Um, and then we'll get into some content here.
Speaker 1 00:02:01 Well, uh, as you said, I was a good friend of Dwight Pryors. We, we'd known each other 50 years. Mm-hmm. And Dwight was my, my mentor, my father in the faith and cause of an encounter that Dwight had, it led me to go study in the land of Israel. I discovered that, um, so many questions I had when I was a kid that I could never get answered, uh, lie in the Jewish background to the New Testament, understanding the culture, the history, the language, uh, and, and the people, and understanding the mindset, the, the mind view of the people of, of the town, of Jesus. And it just opened up the Bible for me. It helped me understand it more. Hmm. And kinda my heart and passion has been, not so much academia, but the people that are in the pews that normally don't get taught very much. So I've just been a Bible teacher through the years. I, I work a secular job, and, uh, I write some, I've had a, a few articles published and some things like that. But so my heart is just trying to help, you know, the average Christian understand the Bible just a little bit better.
Speaker 0 00:03:12 Yeah. Well, uh, you have done, so you've been, you've had a job at Lexus. You know, that's what you've, you've done for how many years have you worked there?
Speaker 1 00:03:22 33 years. I've, I've been with Lexus from the very beginning. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:03:26 Yeah. And that's, that's really remarkable. And then you also, in those 33 years, you led a church for a few years, right?
Speaker 1 00:03:33 I did. I I pastored a church for three years. Um, we were part of a, a congregation that was really quite remarkable. It began what? It was quite remarkable.
Speaker 0 00:03:45 Oh, quite remarkable.
Speaker 1 00:03:46 Yeah. Yeah. This, this little church began with a couple that felt a call to start a church. And they had invited an evangelist from Australia named Chris Harvey. He was supposed to come for a weekend, wound up staying eight weeks. Wow. We, we had, and we heard about the revival, and we came to visit there. And in my early years, I had been a professional drummer for 14 years. And, uh, this little church didn't have a drummer, so I quickly became a
Speaker 0 00:04:14 Drummer. Did you say you're a professional drummer?
Speaker 1 00:04:17 Yeah, I was for 14 years when I was young.
Speaker 0 00:04:19 Yeah. What does that mean? What's a professional drummer?
Speaker 1 00:04:21 That's how I earned my rhythm.
Speaker 0 00:04:23 No way, <laugh>. That's awesome, man. Yeah. So you're, so you're also a rockstar.
Speaker 1 00:04:28 Yeah, I played in bands. Yeah. I played in bands for 14 years. That's how I
Speaker 0 00:04:31 You a rockstar, dude.
Speaker 1 00:04:33 I was full-time musician for 14 years. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:04:35 Wow.
Speaker 1 00:04:36 Um, so anyway, this little church, the outpouring of God's spirit there was so incredibly strong that to this day, I've never been anywhere where the manifest presence of God was as strong as it was in this little church for these eight weeks, and saw more miraculous things happen in a seven year period that we were at this little church than any time in, in my life saw the one remarkable, like I, I call it miracle, miracle like water in the wine, walking on the water type miracle. I, I told you that story many years ago. Uh, and that occurred while we were at this little church. And it, this revival went on for eight weeks from seven at night to one to three in the morning. And people would get up and come back the next, they'd get up and go to work, and then come back the next night.
Speaker 1 00:05:28 And then after that, uh, just kinda make a long story short, there was a point in time where the pastor left the church to, for another church and, and another state. And the Lord called me to pastor of the civil church, which I did for three years. Uh, very glad that I did because it gave me such a heart for pastors, because I understand what pastors go through. Uh, wound up going through an incredible betrayal during that time. So I know that feeling when someone you trusted with your very life essentially, you know, metaphorically puts a knife in your back, uh, when you didn't see you, didn't, didn't expect, you know, and so it, it, all of that gave me a real heart for pastors. So I'm a, I'm a big supporter of pastors because the average congregant really has no idea what a pastor goes through. Because if you're a pastor and you're really called by God, people are on your heart 24 7, that that never stops.
Speaker 0 00:06:29 Yeah. That's the truth. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:06:31 And, and, and people, people really don't understand that. They just think, well, okay, you speak for an hour or so on a Sunday morning, so you know how tough a job is that <laugh>,
Speaker 0 00:06:41 They work once a week. It must be nice <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:06:44 Yeah. Yeah. And so they, they have no idea the many, many hours of study that you put in, of listening to God to try to bring some spiritual nourishment to the people, and also the times when you have to hold someone's hand or, you know, when someone passes from this life or when someone goes through incredible struggles, whether it be financially or emotionally or, or whatever, whatever the case may be. Yeah. Um, and, and you're on call 24 7. I mean, you know, you can get a call at two o'clock in the morning and it's Oh, yeah. If you can't go, Hey, well, I'm off the clock now. Yeah. It doesn't work that way when you're <laugh>, you're never off
Speaker 0 00:07:20 The clock. Yeah. You wish you could. Yeah, sometimes, but, uh, yeah, you're always trying to be there for people. <laugh>. Um, yeah, I have nothing, but I mean, seriously, man, this is the greatest respect for you. I remember meeting you in Dayton, Ohio, and, and I feel like you're and i's friendship was one of the great blessings that God installed in my life as a younger leader back then. And, and, uh, weathered a few storms since then. But in these 15 years, just staying in touch with you, um, even just doing phone calls, it's been, uh, very strengthening. And it seemed like the Lord would, I don't know, use our, your relationship in my life to strengthen me, kind of like when I needed it, or help me see things from a different perspective, which is what you always do. And, uh, you know, with guys like you and the depth of your knowledge, I'm always like, you know, cliff's, Cliff's already forgotten more than probably what I'll ever learn in my life, <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:08:06 So, I mean, you are definitely methodical and you, you'd use, I I know from this last 15 years, you squeeze the best out of every minute of the day. I'm not saying you don't, you don't ever waste time, but I know that you're just so dedicated to the things that you are passionate about. So, you know, and we talk a lot over these calls, and I wanted to, you know, we kind of live in a time timeframe of history where, uh, hard times create strong men. You know, there's these cycles of history that we go through and, and I, I feel like there's a war on the masculine, and, you know, grace ops is, I don't believe is the answer, the, the end all solution for everything out there. But it's one of the many voices I believe that God's raising up in this hour to encourage men to, to rally men, to, to bring them into a brotherhood, uh, that champions values and shared goals.
Speaker 0 00:08:57 And, and, uh, we really are here to try to help men build community. And, uh, and it's going really well. You know, I mean, God's given us a great framework structure, a great strategy. We, it took us a couple years to build it. And in 2023, we're now ready to kind of put it out there. But I just love your wisdom and stuff. Like, what, what do you say in this hour, uh, to the, to the masculine? Like, what do you, what do you see? Like what, what do you see it as good or bad? Do you see an attack? Do you see, is it hyped up? You know, where, where are we at in that, regarding, what do you think men need right now?
Speaker 1 00:09:33 Well, men need strength from the spiritual. Men need strength that comes from God. When we look around at, at our world right now, there, there's uncertainty. There's stressful times. We see this thing where there's an attack on masculinity. You, you see people that cause the masculine, when, when we look at how God made us, the male is meant to be assertive or the female's meant to be receptive. It's one of the reasons I've learned to kind of trust sometimes women's intuition, because women by nature are receptives. So sometimes they hear from
Speaker 0 00:10:21 God. I just had a talk like that with my wife this morning,
Speaker 1 00:10:24 <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:10:25 She was intuitive on a decision I made, and I kind of bull bullied pastor her. And I don't, I've never done that in 25 years of marriage. I, but I was like, no, babe, let's just do it. It's a, it's a high risk. Let's go for it. And I, I had a talk with this morning, I think you were right, <laugh>. I went, would you forgive me? She was like, I already have <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:10:44 <laugh>. Yeah. Sometimes women, cause of the nature of being receptive, even to the physical level, you know, uh, it's, it's the way God made us. Because originally Adam was male and female, if you actually read the text, because God took the female out from him. And so we actually wound up being two half beings. And so in marriage, we come together and we form one being again. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. You know, our partner is our other half. And so we each have a role, we each have a job. Um, like th this is perhaps a little bit of a rabbit trail, but sometimes rabbit trails can be
Speaker 0 00:11:22 Helpful. No, take the trail, man. I love it.
Speaker 1 00:11:25 I I love to ask people why couldn't women be priest? And why is it that men were required to appear at the three Pilgrim feast, but not women. Women could come, but they weren't required. Okay. And the answer is, it's because of how God divided up our task. Anything that is time or space required, you have to be at a particular place at a particular time.
Speaker 0 00:11:55 Go ahead.
Speaker 1 00:11:56 Okay.
Speaker 0 00:11:56 We're watching these kids and he just came in here. <laugh>, Zeke, Zeke made a debut.
Speaker 1 00:12:01 <laugh>. Okay. Anything that requires you to be at a specific place at a specific time, women are exempt from, because they have babies. If, if you're the high priest and it's time to offer the day of Atonement, and you're a woman going into labor, you're not gonna be offering the offerings for the day of Atonement.
Speaker 0 00:12:25 Right.
Speaker 1 00:12:26 In other words, so, cause men and women are different, we're equal, but different. Hmm. So anything that's time and space required women are exempt from, because if we're one, whatever one does is for the other one as well too. So this whole thing, like in the Bible, there are women who are leaders. Deborah was Aist and a judge. Hodo was aist. You have offices of ministry in the Old Testament that are, are led by women, you know, but not anything that's time and space specific though that, that they're exempt from. And so it's not a matter of a male chauvinist thing, it's a matter of, of a real living practicality and how God made us. Well, cause men are designed to be the hunter of the gatherer. The, um, the one is that is the aggressor, so to speak, if you will, that puts pressure sometimes on men where they feel. And if they don't have the spiritual strength that comes from God, they can feel like this is too much. I think part of this is where you get all this trans, that that's happening mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that it's easier sometimes for the stress of life to be the one who's the receptive one, rather than one who has to be the
Speaker 0 00:13:54 Assertive,
Speaker 1 00:13:55 The proactive one. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:13:57 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:13:59 So, you know, and it's also the fact because of the way God made us and created us, there is an attack from the forces of evil against masculinity and femininity. Yeah. They want level it out. Oh, they, they, they're all the same. They're interchangeable. You can be anything you want anytime you want.
Speaker 0 00:14:19 Right.
Speaker 1 00:14:19 That's not how we're made. That's not how God designed us. That's not how God created us. He didn't create us to be that way. He created us to be male and female. So,
Speaker 0 00:14:32 So you bring that up, that's kind of crazy. You know, it's right where our culture is. That is, in my opinion, I, I don't know if it's the number one attack on our culture, but it definitely is a pressing one because it's working its way into laws, it's working its way into, uh, you know, it claim that whole movement claims to be, uh, tolerant, but it's the most intolerant movement on the planet right now. Ab
Speaker 1 00:14:56 Absolutely, absolutely the most intolerant.
Speaker 0 00:14:58 And, and I think there, you know, the ramifications of like what you've brought up is like, it is, it, it causes men to, um,
Speaker 0 00:15:08 It's, it's hard to watch, you know? I mean, it's in our school, so I mean, it does cause men to maybe check out. It's a lot of pressure. Um, I'm a man that did start a church, you know, I went down that path, I guess how God called me to live my life. And I've paid many, many, many, many prices to honor the word of God. And not to be rude to people. My goal is not to hate anybody, uh, but to just say, Hey, you know what? We don't get to decide. Our gender is like, like you'd think I'd set a bomb off because, and I'm talking with like even believer types, like believers get mad at me because they're more conditioned by the wor world and the world's system in the world's version of this whole love only and all that kind of stuff. Um, you know, there's no such thing as judging, don't judge or you'll be judged. It's, you know, there's such misunderstandings of those things. So, yeah, I think he brought some, you know, he brought something up that's really heavy. And so how does a man get strength from God to actually make it through these times and maybe even, maybe even lead through these times. Like what,
Speaker 1 00:16:15 Well,
Speaker 0 00:16:16 What would you say to a man?
Speaker 1 00:16:18 The Lord said the true worshiper is gonna worship in spirit and in truth. Okay. The truth, the word of God. Paul told Timothy, study yourself to be approved under God, a workman who needs not be ashamed cuz he can correctly interpret the word of truth. We have to be fed the word of God, the bread of life. Okay. Yeah. But then we also need an experiential encounter with the spirit of God. God did not make us just intellectual. He made us intellectual and emotional. We need, we need an actual experience with God, not just stories about God. Because when push comes to shove, if you only have stories about God, okay, if you only have the word, you won't have the strength to get through certain things because Satan will always come to you and say, well, this is all the stuff that's just made up.
Speaker 1 00:17:11 It's not really right. Anyway. And then if you only have an experience, but you don't have the word to stand on, then you don't have any rationale behind an experience of people. Oh, I was just crazy. People, people have crazy experiences all the time anyway. And, and none of that's really real. It's having the dual witness spirit and the truth that you know what you know, and you have a solid rock that you're standing on. Right. And, and, and it's really important. One of the things that I, I, this is a personal opinion of mine. Okay. So it is like, I like to tell people, okay, this is from the book of second opinions. Okay. <laugh>, uh,
Speaker 0 00:17:51 The book of second opinions.
Speaker 1 00:17:53 Think, I think what causes homosexuality, I think what causes transgender issues, I think what causes a lot of problems in the world is a, some type of trauma that happened at a very early age, I would say under the age of four. It's amazing that a lot of people that are homosexual or pedophiles actually were molested when they were very, very young. 3, 4, 5 years of age.
Speaker 0 00:18:25 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:18:26 It's Sigmund Freud said that all children are homosexual. What do you meant by that? Was if you just leave little boys and little girls alone, they congregate in their own little groups. Little boys go play with trucks or you know, whatever, and little girls play with dolls or whatever. And so it's, it's like you are learning who you are, your gender, and you're with those of your like type, okay. It's not that little boys and girls don't play together sometime, but to a large degree it's just an an it's a, it's, anybody can notice this if you just pay attention to kids. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:19:04 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:19:06 So what happens is if something, if there's a trauma that happens that causes a stunting of the emotional growth, little children aren't sexual. Cause a sexual drive doesn't come along until sometime between ages of 11 and 13. Okay. It varies with different kids, how, how soon that happens or how late that happens. But if the child has had an emotional trauma that caused their emotional growth to be stunted, they can find themselves when the sexual drive becomes active to be still same sex oriented, which creates homosexuality or transgender issues or, or this type of thing. Because especially those early teenage years, uh, when children, the sex drive is first coming on, they're very confused about a lot of things anyway. And so it's very easy.
Speaker 0 00:19:56 It's a hard time to grow up. That's hard. Those are hard years
Speaker 1 00:19:59 <laugh>. Yeah. And, and so if you've had something tra traumatic that happened at a young age that doesn't really surface and come out until the teenage years and then, and then these things, and now cause a child has always been kind of same sex oriented anyway, he goes, oh, well God made me this way. I've always been this way. And that alive the devil, it gives me great compassion toward those who have sexual issues or problems. Cause God didn't make them that way. The world made them that way. And they don't know it. They don't realize it. And these, these are deep hard issues. These are things that are very difficult for people to overcome.
Speaker 0 00:20:40 Yeah. I agree.
Speaker 1 00:20:42 And, and so I believe as, as Christians, I believe as a church, we need to have compassion on those that are stuck in these kinda lifestyles. But we can't say, this is how God made us. God wanted you to be this way. God made you this way. This is normal and the way God wants us to live, because it's not, that's not true. I have known people that have come out of these types of lifestyles. Right. Difficult, not easy, but, but it ha it has happened and can happen. But we still have to have compassion for those that may struggle a whole lifetime.
Speaker 0 00:21:19 I agree. Well, and I, and I, yeah. I
Speaker 1 00:21:22 Also, in their life, you know, it's an incredible stronghold in their life.
Speaker 0 00:21:26 And I, what I would add to that or expand that would be that what we're training little children in right now mm-hmm. <affirmative> cause we're train, we're training children to make these decisions. And we're making it, in some cases, it's already happening in Minnesota and in California, they're making it illegal for the parents to even be involved. So the chil the child can be a school deciding to change his or her gender and the parents, it's against the law for them to know about it. Like it's,
Speaker 1 00:21:55 I mean, it it is, it is a manifestation of such darkness that we would've not thought this could be possible. You know, I shared with you 12 years ago a vision, a night vision that the Lord gave me.
Speaker 0 00:22:11 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:11 About great darkness coming upon the world. And when I shared that with you, I had, I had to have shared that with you at least 10 years ago. And, and when I did, neither one of us could have imagined we would see the kind of things that we're seeing right now.
Speaker 0 00:22:26 Do, do you mind sharing that here? Is that, would that be something you would be cool with? Cause if
Speaker 1 00:22:30 We have, if we have time for that, I'll
Speaker 0 00:22:32 Yeah, we got time. Yeah. Alright.
Speaker 1 00:22:35 I was asleep when all of a sudden I'm conscious that I'm outside of my body and I'm looking down on my body in the bed. I, I mean, as real as like I'm fully awake. Okay. And to my right, I sense a presence. I don't see a form, I have a sense of presence, but I know it's God. And he takes me down deep into the earth and we're going through a passage in between walk walls and such. And it opens up into a huge giant cavern. And the, on the other side of the cavern was a black wall from floor to ceiling. When suddenly I saw blood start to seep through the wall about the height of your knee. And momentarily I saw water start to seep through the wall from behind the blood. And then the water started forming a little stream. And it came up at what the bottom of my feet.
Speaker 1 00:23:27 Then it got a little stronger and it formed a stream that was up to my ankles. Then it was up to my calf, then to my knee, and then it got to my thigh. And when it got to my waist, it started becoming a raging river and very deep, strong. And the Lord started pulling me up in the air and I heard him say, there is an anointing coming that cannot be withstood. Tell this the guiding life. And that's the church that we were a part of at that time. Suddenly I'm backing my body and my wife is shaking me really, really hard. But wake up, wake up. What's the matter with you? I've never seen you this hard to wake up and I'm a deep sleeper. Okay. Yeah. So all of a sudden I'm, I'm sitting on the edge of my bedroom going, what was that? <laugh>?
Speaker 1 00:24:16 I had never experienced anything like this in my life. It was way more vivid than a dream. But I know I was, I know I, yeah. At least my body was asleep. But I had never experienced anything like this. So I don't say anything to my wife. I'm just pondering. Cause I have no idea what it means. Right. We get to, we get to church that morning and that morning for the first time. And like, we attended this church for about 16 years. And at that time I'd been at the church for over 10 years, and this was the first morning the pastor was preaching on Ezekiel chapter 47. Wow. For those who don't know, Ezekiel 47, Ezekiel has a, a vision of the temple and water comes from the threshold of the temple on the south side of the altar. And it forms a little stream and it comes up at first, which the bottom of his feet, then it's up to his ankles.
Speaker 1 00:25:09 And then they go out and they measure a thousand cubits and it's up to his knees and they measure a thousand cubits and it's up to his thigh and they measure a thousand cubits. And it's a river that he had to swim in it, it was deep and over his head. And the water goes down to the Dead Sea. And when it comes to the Dead Sea, it makes the water alive. And there are fishermen along, its back banks. Wow. And there are trees and the leaves are used for healing. So what this is, it's a picture of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2 00:25:35 Wow.
Speaker 1 00:25:36 <laugh>. It was the same imagery. So I I'm thinking, wow, that's a coincidence. You know? Right. So I still have no idea what it means. And I was part of the praise and worship team. So when it came time for the praise and worship team to come back up on, uh, the platform, we entered from the back and I'm standing there praying. I said, Lord, if I'm supposed to share what I saw with this church, then I need you to make an opening because I don't even know what this means. And all of a sudden the pastor turned around and says, minister Cliff, do you have a words from the Lord? Wow. He had never done that before. And so I said, yes sir. I come up and I started sharing with the congregation what I've just told you as I'm sharing it, the Lord's telling me what it means.
Speaker 2 00:26:23 Well, I hope you enjoyed part one of our conversation, be between Cliff and I. Uh, cliff is a very wise man as you know, and well worth the time to, uh, allow him to speak into your life. And it's an honor to have him in the grace ops culture speaking into our lives. So I stopped at where I did to leave us ready to hear the dream on the next one. So part two's the last part of our conversation and we'll release next week. Have a great day. And until next time, live upright.
