Point of View August 19, 2026 – Hour 2 : Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kerby Anderson. Second hour today, we want to spend some time talking about something that I think will be very helpful in your spiritual growth, a book, kind of a devotional that you will enjoy.

[00:00:27] And it is written by Lieutenant Colonel Phil Cochran, who is a retired F-16, that'd be the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter pilot, and also a long time pastor, individual that has spent almost a quarter of a century as the pastor of Covenant Grace Church in Perkins, Oklahoma. New book out, which is entitled Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound. So Phil, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View.

[00:00:57] Kirby, thanks for having me on your show. I'm looking forward to it. You know, Adam McManus is a good friend and actually sometimes been a co-host on this program. I've known him. I knew his father back when he was a colonist. So I've known him for some time. So when he first talked about this, I thought, this fits very well for a couple of reasons. First of all, we're always talking about spiritual growth. Second of all, we broadcast on more than 200 radio stations, and I haven't visited all the radio stations, but of many that I have visited,

[00:01:24] there are times when I'm even broadcasting, and I know just down the road, and matter of fact, there's one church where there's a radio station where you can almost see a military installation. And of course, we have quite a number of people that are in the military that listen to Point of View. And whether you're in the military or not, but I certainly see this book as something I would love to hand to some of the people that have served this country in the military to really encourage them to grow.

[00:01:51] And those of us that have not been in the military can learn some vicarious lessons. So that's one of the reasons I got excited about your book. Well, thank you very much. I really want people to realize that the Christian life is not meant to be lived passively. Fighter pilots aren't passive people. You may realize we don't succeed accidentally. You know, we have to prepare, we have to train, we have to brief, we have to execute, and then debrief every mission.

[00:02:16] And in much the same way, God calls believers to live intentionally, relying on his grace through his ordinary means, his word, his prayer, the fellowship of the church, and obedience. But spiritual growth doesn't just happen by accident. It happens as we intentionally live for Christ and in accordance with his word. And that's what I want people to take away from my book. Let me just mention there's a couple sections. Section one is about Christ, our foundations, trust, identity, daily dependence.

[00:02:42] Then you have a section that also addresses sanctification and action. And that's, of course, discipline and dependence and determined perseverance. Section three on spiritual warnings and recovery procedures. And section four on living with eternity in view. And so quite a number of topics addressed.

[00:03:05] And one of the things you and I might share in common is we've certainly appreciated some of the great messages over the years that have come from some of the great preachers that have been engaged in teaching and all of the rest. And so it seems to me that one of those, of course, is Charles Haddon Spurgeon. And, of course, that gets mentioned as well.

[00:03:26] But let's see what we can talk about this for just a minute because whether you're flying an airplane or whether you're just going about a day-to-day life, you need to have faith under pressure. You need to be calm in the midst of noise and confusion. And so the lessons you've learned in the cockpit really apply to the Christian life, don't they? Amen.

[00:03:48] I found that as I was teaching the Word of God to my congregation and I would draw upon examples from my life as a fighter pilot and my life in aviation and apply that to the Word of God, you would think it would go over the heads of much of the congregation because who all really has a background in aviation and maybe an interest in fighter aviation. But what I found was is I had young and old, male and female alike coming up to me after the service call. And that really, really helped to anchor the truth of God's Word in my mind.

[00:04:17] It helped me to recall it throughout this next week. And I really love your analogies. And so I started incorporating those into my messages. And what I found was is that the people really appreciated it because it was an added level of reference that they could bring to mind to recall the truth of God's Word and apply it to their lives throughout the week. And I think that's really part of it, the application that so oftentimes needs to take place. You and I can speak and teach.

[00:04:46] I teach a Sunday school class. You, of course, preach. And then the rest is on the responsibility of the person to then in the congregation hear that and then not only be hearers of the Word but doers of the Word. And so that, I think, is helpful when you have an application. Let me just mention, too, some of you might want to listen to this interview again. But we've added one more. And that is you did an interview a while back with our good friend Janet Parshall. And so we've also posted and have a link there to Moody Audio.

[00:05:16] You are, of course, well aware of the work that we've done with our friends at Moody all those years. And that was an interview you did on this book as well. So if you find yourself saying, well, this would be perfect for a podcast or just something to listen to when I'm out walking or driving, that is another resource that we've posted on the website. But one of the themes that certainly runs through this is drift.

[00:05:40] And I've seen that illustration oftentimes used when we talk about a boat that sometimes I see people out there and they're letting their life raft or their boat drift away. But you're also talking about the fact that, again, drift is really important, whether you're in the cockpit of an F-16 or drift in terms of the fact that a lot of Christians really are sort of on autopilot, if I can keep that military illustration working.

[00:06:09] And so they don't go to church as often. They aren't really involved in the spiritual disciplines. And that's really one of the themes that runs through your book, isn't it? Amen. Yeah. Hebrews chapter two, verse one says, therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we've heard, lest we drift away from it. And you mentioned that like a boat losing its mooring.

[00:06:27] But when you fly a fighter jet at the speeds we fly and if you're flying a low level and you're flying a course that you need to maintain, if you're just one degree off of that course, just over a minute, just after one minute, you might not think that's very far. But you're a mile off course and take that over the length of time that we would often fly low levels, maybe 15, 20 minutes, 25 minutes.

[00:06:51] You wouldn't even be anywhere near the target area by the time that you needed to get your eyes on a target and employ ordinance. And so it was very important to keep our course under control because even a little bit of drift leads you astray. And as Christians, what are we accepting in our lives? What is the little disagreements with God's word?

[00:07:11] Maybe the little lack of proper application of God's word, the lack of obedience, the laziness, the little acceptances of the culture into our lives and into our habits that is causing us to drift off of the true course that we need to be on. And then take that multigenerationally over the years, even to our children and our children's children. If we are an example to them and if they're looking to us in our faith as an example of what to follow, ultimately, we all may be looking to Christ, right?

[00:07:39] But we all have those mentors, those ones that we followed ahead of us. What are my little inconsistencies, my little drifts? How is that going to affect my children or even my children's children over the years? Well, again, I just think you've got some great illustrations here. We do need to take a break. We'll come back and talk about it a little bit more. But let me just suggest for those of you that are listening, first of all, you may want to get a copy of the book. We have information about that on the website.

[00:08:04] Number two, you might think about if you would like to maybe even schedule Phil to come and speak about his book. I know that some of you are certainly wanting to have an outreach to the men, an outreach to the military, an outreach to maybe a military academy that might be located, or a variety of other ways in which you could use some of the resources that he has there.

[00:08:26] Because, again, he has so many lessons from the cockpit that I think translate directly into what it means to grow as a Christian. So, again, the book is entitled Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound. Come back. I want to pick out maybe two or three other very important themes right after this.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Already two Democratic Senate candidates are promoting the idea of having the government cancel medical debt. If this campaign promise gains any attention, expect other candidates to also propose the same government promise. The problem of medical debt is a major problem for Americans. Over 100,000 Americans carry a total of $220 billion in medical debt. Until a few days ago, I was one of those people.

[00:09:29] I may not have been in the total since I was paying off my debt to a hospital just over a two-month period. But some of these people with medical debt have significant obligations. About 14 million adults owe more than $1,000 with 3 million with a debt over $10,000. This is a level of debt that also affects their credit scores. Although medical debt is a problem, these proposals ignore the reason for them in the first place. As we often explain on my radio program, patients are disconnected from medical cost.

[00:09:59] I suggest that if my guests and I go out to dinner, their menu decisions would be influenced by whether I was paying for the dinner or each person was paying for the meal. If someone else is paying for the dinner, you pay less attention to price. Another problem is the sad fact that many government policies limit or even eliminate competition in the medical marketplace. Some government rules even grant insurance companies wider latitude to overcharge patients.

[00:10:24] This is a case where the government makes medical expenses higher, so the solution from these senatorial candidates is to deal with the symptom rather than the problem. If canceling medical debt becomes a fashionable campaign promise, perhaps we should ask the candidates to address the problem and not the symptom. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:49] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, talking with Pastor and, of course, Lieutenant Colonel Phil Cochran, a retired F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, as well as a pastor at Covenant Grace Church in Perkins, Oklahoma.

[00:11:18] And, Phil, I thought for just a minute we might talk about something in the second section of your book, Dealing with Discipline, Dependence, and Determined Perseverance. One of your particular lessons is about straying to stay in the fight. And, of course, the next one even talks about keep your wings level through the storm. The problem, I think, we have in the Christian life, if we're really wanting to grow, is that the Apostle Paul refers to us as living sacrifices.

[00:11:45] Trouble with a living sacrifice, they tend to crawl off the altar or, to use your military illustration, we're flying the plane and we decide to turn around and give up. And it does seem to me that one of the themes that also runs through your book is the need for us to stay the course, to stay in the fight, and to recognize that we're going to run into chaos, maybe even have an enemy's surface-to-air missile lock onto us.

[00:12:15] What do we do then? And it seems to me that that's one of the themes that runs through your book. Yep. Amen. You know, the Bible speaks to the fact that we are at war. We're soldiers. We're commanded to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ, not entangled in civilian pursuits. Satan is our enemy. We're equipped with armor. Paul speaks of the weapons of our warfare. We have a commander. We've been given orders with a defined mission. And we need discipline, just like it took discipline to fly the F-16.

[00:12:42] We had to obey regulations and tech orders. And even when it comes down to it, obey God's created order. Because I, as a fighter pilot, couldn't beat gravity. Gravity was always going to win. I had to work with gravity. I had to obey the principles of gravity if I was going to be successful as a fighter pilot. And so because of that, it's important for us to know our tech order, our manual, the word of God. And it's important for us to fly by that tech order, the word of God, if we're going to be successful as Christians.

[00:13:12] Not because it gains us any favor with God, but because we are soldiers at war and we need to be obeying our commander and flying according to his purpose and according to his will and according to his instruction. And so one of my devotionals talks, as you said, many of them talk about discipline, but one of them is talking about straining to stay in the fight that we, in 1 Timothy, it says, have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness.

[00:13:42] And when we were flying fighters, many people look at a fighter pilot, they think of Top Gun, Tom Cruise, you know, the glamorous image of the fighter pilot. But it's a lot of work. When you're pulling Gs and Gs, think of us sitting here right now at 1 G, I weigh 170 pounds at 1 G. We could pull up to 9 Gs in the F-16. That would make your 10-pound arm feel like it was 90. It would make your head feel like it was 100 pounds almost. All that pressing on your body.

[00:14:11] And it took straining to keep the blood up in the upper part of our body so that we could think and act. It was as much a mental game as it was a physical game. And that G strain that we would do is what helped to keep that blood up in the upper part of our body, to keep our brains working so that we could stay in the fight. And the Christian life really is no different. We're in a spiritual dogfight. We fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil every day, right? Trials, temptations, suffering, worldly distractions.

[00:14:41] Our danger is that we risk blacking out spiritually, of losing sight of Christ, of drifting from the truth and falling prey to the enemy. And so Paul exhorts us using that language to discipline and to training. And to train, you know, means rigorous ongoing practice. And that doesn't come by accident. Just like being a successful fighter pilot didn't come by accident. And so we need to properly strain in our Christian fight to keep the blood, keep our spiritual blood working for us in our brain,

[00:15:10] to keep our spirits locked on to the word of truth, and to defeat the enemy that's always trying to gain an advantage over us. Well, let's see if we can talk about that, because one of your sections talks about spiritual warnings. And, of course, you have a section on battle-tested wisdom. Also, don't get toned. That is, don't have a tone where you're going to get brought down. But it does seem to me that that's the other part of this, that we are not only wanting to buffet our body,

[00:15:40] and we want to do all we can to live the Christian life. We also need to recognize that we need to put on the armor. We need to recognize we're in a spiritual battle. And you have a whole section of your book addressing that issue as well. And as a fighter pilot, you know and need to know where the bogeys are. You need to know where the enemy is. And that's something we need to know in the Christian life, isn't it? Amen. And to do that, again, takes situational awareness.

[00:16:09] It takes being aware of our surroundings. It takes having God's word ready to recall at a moment's notice. When I was a young man, I was mentored by a – just before I got married, I got married at 18. My wife and I have been married for 43 years now. And he mentored me. He said, you need to have a battle plan because when Satan attacks, you don't have time to always look it up in the Bible and flip to the chapter and verse and read it and study it and such. And so you need to have a battle plan.

[00:16:35] And as I flew the F-16, we would always fly with a checklist on our leg, and that checklist could always be open to any problem. You could run down a list of procedures to hopefully resolve that problem. But there were certain things that would go wrong at critical times that you had to have memorized and ready to apply at a moment's notice. Critical action procedures is what we called them in the F-16. We had to have those memorized. We were tested on them regularly in simulators and in stand-ups, and we had to be ready to apply them.

[00:17:02] If you lose thrust in an F-16 at low altitude, you have very little time to react, and you needed to know that the solution was zoom, source, jet, eject. I had to zoom the aircraft, get away from the ground, jettison the stores, get the weights off the wings so that I can climb higher. And if I couldn't resolve it, eject. And so as Christians, we need to have those same critical action procedures. We need to have the besetting sins that each of us battles. Some are different for different individuals.

[00:17:28] We need to have the scripture memorized just like Christ in the desert. He didn't respond with the cultural wisdom of the day. He said it is written, and we need to defeat Satan in the same way with the same words. It is written, and apply the word of God to those critical times in our lives. How can people use lessons learned at the speed of sound? It does seem to me that, as I mentioned just a minute ago, people might want to, churches and leaders might want to have you come and speak to that issue.

[00:17:55] But just as an individual that wants to get a copy of the book, and of course we have information about that on the website at pointofview.net, and you can certainly get it in hardback as well as paperback and in Kindle. There are some resources there that we've already mentioned, but how can people maybe use that? Because you have quite a number of chapters, and also I think that it's written in such a way that we might get it in the hands of men, and most of the book readers are women.

[00:18:24] But I think this one actually might have a chance to make its way into the men and might be something that would really help them to grow. But what are your thoughts? Amen. I want to thank Church and Family Life for publishing it, and you can find the book on churchandfamilylife.com or on Amazon. They're a great ministry focused on building strong families and strong churches, so thank you to them. But I would say I have families that are using this in their family devotions. They're reading a devotional a day and talking about it. Each devotional has four questions with it called Lessons Learned

[00:18:53] that people can ask themselves and apply to their lives. So certainly as a family devotional, as a private devotional in small groups for church, and I would love to come and talk to a church about lessons learned at the speed of sound, about discipline, about leadership, about followership. Everybody being a good wingman is just as important as being a good flight lead. And I also think that it has a lot of potential, as God's word does, to be applied in business as well.

[00:19:23] To be successful in business, we need to be strong Christians. So it has a lot of potential, as you said, in those areas, and I'd love to help anybody I can get it in front of as many people as we can. Well, Phil, I appreciate you writing the book, and I appreciate you giving us some time today. And I certainly wish you well as pastor there at Covenant Grace Church. And I wish the book well. It's been out for a while, and we certainly do encourage people to find out more by going to our website, pointofview.net. And thanks for being with us today.

[00:19:53] Kirby, thank you so much for having me, and I really appreciate your time. Again, I would encourage you to find out more about Phil and find out about the book, and we have information about it. Let me also mention that we did post something. We don't do this every day, but this is where there was a great interview that Janet Partial did with him, and that was back in July. And so if you find yourself saying, well, I'd like to hear a little bit more from this individual, you can certainly find that as well on the website,

[00:20:19] just trying to do all we can to help you grow in the Christian life. Let's take a break. Let me just mention when we come back from the break what we're going to be covering tomorrow. It's going to be, I think, a very important series of conversations. But in this last half hour, I do want to get into a couple other issues that will perhaps be of help to you in the Christian life, but also just understanding what's going on in this world around us. So I'm going to get into a couple topics real quickly.

[00:20:47] And, of course, we did give you a brief overview of what happened in the primaries that took place the other day. We are headed towards the general election. And as you've already heard the conversation we had this last hour with Matthew Thayer, this is a very important midterm election. And this is why we will be producing a variety of different resources, including our Outlook magazine and, of course, the booklets on many of these topics and many of these issues that are going to be front and center. So let's take a break.

[00:21:16] When we come back, I'll just finish off the program today with a couple of other thoughts and insights. And you can find all of those particular articles on our website at pointofview.net. We'll be right back. At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer. And that is why we have relaunched our Pray for America campaign,

[00:21:41] a series of weekly emails to unite Americans in prayer for our nation. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of Americans started praying intentionally together on a weekly basis. You can help make that a reality by subscribing to our Pray for America emails. Just go to pointofview.net and click on the Pray for America banner that's right there on the homepage.

[00:22:11] Each week you'll receive a brief news update, a specific prayer guide, and a free resource to equip you in further action. We encourage you to not only pray with us each week, but to share these prayers and the resources with others in your life. Join the movement today. Visit pointofview.net and click on the banner Pray for America right there at the top.

[00:22:39] That's pointofview.net. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in our land. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:04] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kerby Anderson. Back once again, let me, as just a program note, mention that tomorrow we're going to spend some time, first of all, looking at a couple of very important pieces. One comes from John Stossel, pointing out that whereas before the SAT test was basically removed from most of the universities

[00:23:33] because that was white supremacy or it was a racist, that is making a comeback and I think a good illustration of how, in some respects, maybe some of the woke 1.0 is beginning to fade away and woke 2.0 maybe won't be as bad. But again, that I think is something we'll get into. And also, of course, because we are getting school started, we also have a very good piece by Larry Sand about escaping the educational industrial complex.

[00:24:02] So a couple of things that we'll be talking about tomorrow in terms of education. But also, we will, as I mentioned just before, we'll have our good friend Robert Knight, one in which he talks about how radical Democrats have been gearing up for woke 2.0 and what that means and how that's unfolded. And one that he also says that some of the candidates here are engaged in a liberal Greek tragedy.

[00:24:28] You, of course, have probably been well aware of the fact that Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, of course, has front and center of the Trojan horse. And he's suggesting that maybe we have a Trojan horse here in which these individuals who are very radical and really intend to do, I think in some cases, great harm to this constitutional republic, need to be exposed. And that's certainly one thing we will do with him tomorrow

[00:24:56] and certainly one thing we will be doing throughout these midterm elections. So that is certainly the case as well. If you go to the website, first of all, you're going to find some information, as we mentioned in the first hour, about the film, Can You Hear Me Now? Also, of course, information as well about this book, Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound. But I thought I'd also mention my viewpoint's commentary, which I just mentioned in passing, and that has the title Medical Debt.

[00:25:26] You have at least two Democrat senators, one in Texas, one in Michigan, that have already promoted this idea of having the government cancel medical debt. Now, again, two senators do not make a movement, but it illustrates, again, how some of these ideas that might actually sound good to a few individuals make no sense. First of all, let's acknowledge that medical debt is a problem for America.

[00:25:54] About 100,000 Americans carry a debt, a combined debt of $220 billion. Now, again, let's understand, though, that there are about 14 million with adults that owe more than $1,000, 3 million with a debt over $10,000. That's no small amount. But, again, the problem isn't that these people are overwhelmed with the debt. The problem is if the government decides to erase debt,

[00:26:24] there are all sorts of consequences. But I think it also just is a good illustration of how so many times we see candidates, and even members of Congress look at a problem and want to find a quick fix solution, which is, well, let's just have the government, which doesn't have any money. If you think the government is broke, the government technically is $40 trillion past broke, if you really want to be honest.

[00:26:52] We are borrowing money every single day. We're having to sell treasuries to even meet the interest payments on the debt. And nobody talks about it. We do on this program, but very few others talk about that. But the problem of medical debt is a problem. But how did it come about? Well, it comes about from a number of things. First of all, we have some very detrimental government policies that oftentimes limit,

[00:27:19] sometimes even eliminate competition in the medical marketplace. Competition is a good way to bring prices down. We have government rules that sometimes allow insurance companies and hospitals to overcharge patients. But the biggest issue, as I talk about in the commentary, is simply this. Patients are disconnected from medical costs.

[00:27:43] Even when I had a short stint in the hospital, I would sometimes say, well, do we even know what this is going to cost? Do we really need to do that? And at one point, somebody was going to do a test, and I said, I know we don't need this test. And I know you're going to run up the bill. And, you know, I want you to know I'm going to be paying a good portion of that because I think a lot of them think, well, you're old enough. Medicaid is going to pay for it. Well, that's not true.

[00:28:09] And so, nevertheless, when patients are disconnected from the medical costs, as the illustration I always use, if at the end of this program we said, okay, I'll take everybody out to dinner. I don't think we've ever done that, but let's say we do. And I say, well, I'm going to put it on the point-of-view credit card. Well, people aren't going to really be paying that much attention to price. They're going to look on the left side of the menu, maybe not even look at the right side of the menu.

[00:28:34] But if everybody is going and everybody is going to put it on their credit card or pay with cash, well, they're going to pay more attention to price. And this is the problem where, again, if we are going to be serious about addressing medical debt and medical expenses, then it seems to me that instead of trying to deal with the symptom, we should deal with the problem.

[00:29:00] And so, if nothing else, I'm encouraging some of these individuals who are running for office to at least give at least some kind of token comment or two about why we have a problem with medical debt in the first place and what Congress can honestly do about this problem rather than to simply say, we'll just strike a pen and cancel out all the medical debt.

[00:29:28] Of course, you know what will happen because then other people know that if they run up the debt, the government will step in and rescue them again. And so there are all sorts of very significant problems with an idea being used and being promoted right now in these midterms. So, again, just to attempt to look at a problem with a little bit more common sense, which seems to be less common than ever before.

[00:29:53] Let me also mention while I'm talking about the Viewpoints commentary that if you scroll down a little further, first you'll see my commentary about flock cameras and in our take action. And as I've mentioned before, these flock cameras have all of a sudden become very controversial, maybe even more controversial than data centers if that's possible. And again, these are AI-enhanced surveillance systems that include automatic license plate readers.

[00:30:23] Okay, got that? And again, this is something which has some benefit, especially if you have your truck or your car that's stolen. This would be a way in which law enforcement might be able to spot the thieves on camera before you even return home. That would be very good news. It could be helpful with amber alerts or silver alerts. So I'm not dismissing the possible value of them.

[00:30:49] But at the same time, the real concern is, as I've said before, one camera is a tool. 100,000, I think we're up to 120,000, are another layer of digital surveillance. And that means that every day, police, law enforcement, individuals that have access to that database can see where you go to work,

[00:31:14] where you go to church, where you go to school, where you go maybe to a store, whether you go to a political rally, whether you go to a gun store. You know, you start seeing how very quickly this could be used in a negative way and has. We've already seen that, the case. And these cameras, of course, then are reading much more than the license plate. They're also on a searchable database. And so the suggestion that comes from Keith Self, Representative Keith Self,

[00:31:44] and his Privacy Act is recognize, okay, there is the opportunity for the federal law enforcement and others to use it, but they should obtain a warrant before obtaining the data. That's a Fourth Amendment issue, and I certainly think that's important. Also, it would limit the retention of the data to a short amount of time, 30 days,

[00:32:08] unless it includes evidence for prosecution or a court order or something of that nature. And that's the problem. We have a Fourth Amendment that protects us from unlawful searches and seizures. But that seems to fade with surveillance technology, and we had Congressman Self on reminding us that our right to be secure in our privacy does not disappear just because of new technology or artificial intelligence.

[00:32:35] So listening to a talk show yesterday, which I mentioned before, in which an individual, one of the talk show hosts, was arguing with another talk show host because one was saying, oh, this is really good for crime fighting. The other one was saying, well, yes, but just imagine if you had a police officer following you around from one location to the next. You wouldn't put up with that. Of course you're not. And so in some respects, that's what we have, a sort of digital panopticon.

[00:33:01] If you're not familiar with that term, we've identified that before in some of my commentaries. And so it's just something to begin to think about in terms of this issue of privacy. So you can, of course, see my commentary, which came out on Monday. You can also see the take action item and a number of other resources. So let's take a break. We'll come back and get into a couple other issues. But if nothing else, just wanted to remind you that we have our viewpoints commentary, our take action commentary.

[00:33:31] Those are resources available to you. And if you aren't receiving my viewpoints commentary in your inbox, there's a place for you to sign up. Let's take a break. We'll be right back.

[00:33:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes. Let me just mention again that tomorrow we're going to spend some time talking with our good friend Robert Knight, also give you a little bit more of an update from what happened in some of the primaries. On Friday, we have Liberty McCarter as well as Aaron Smith. And I thought it might be good to spend some time talking about what is happening with the younger generation. We sometimes do that in our Next Generation Roundtable.

[00:34:25] But there are some issues that I'd love to bring to the table. And one of those is the remarkable number of people in Gen Z who now see sports gambling as, and this is their words, a long-term financial strategy. A majority of them, 52% of Gen Z, said that they have bet on sports at least once in the last year. And to hold this up, this is why I produced this booklet on a biblical point of view on gambling.

[00:34:55] Now, again, let's recognize that gambling has been around for some time. We've always had gambling in one form, and here I even talk about the different kinds of forms of gambling and how some of that has changed over time because of Supreme Court decisions and the rest. But the issue of sports gambling is something that is relatively new in terms of being online because there were prohibitions against it, and the Supreme Court has made some really bad decisions,

[00:35:24] and really one near the top of the list now is the decision that we cannot ban sports gambling online. So what you have now is a recent surge in young adults, Gen Z and even millennials, that are gambling. And I know why they're doing some of that, and that has to do with their concerns about economy and even affordability.

[00:35:53] And so one of the reasons they are gambling their financial future is opportunity. After the Supreme Court made it possible to remove what was a federal ban on sports gambling, if you watch any sporting event, but let's just take football because that's where it certainly has surfaced quite a bit, you will see all sorts of ads that are for betting platforms.

[00:36:19] And so as a result, users can wager literally minute-by-minute outcomes while watching the game live. And as a result, the payments are instant, and that's in some respects what makes them addictive. So they can begin to say, hey, I'm getting some bang for my buck here. And of course, the other one is I've already what I've alluded to, and that is the sense of frustration.

[00:36:42] Gen Z may be turning to sports betting because they have become convinced that traditional ways of earning a living don't work for them. And let's face it, oftentimes they have a higher unemployment rate. Most cannot afford a home. You have college graduates right now that are smothering under unprecedented levels of student debt.

[00:37:08] One of the writers for the Wall Street Journal referred to this attitude as financial nihilism. And again, I think if you start thinking that when investment strategies seem hopeless, many in this generation choose really the unlikely possibility of a quick return on investment. And you know as well as I do, if you bet against the casino, the casino always wins over time.

[00:37:37] Yeah, there's a few people that maybe are able to manipulate it. Maybe they have a little more information. Maybe they're a little wiser about sports than others. So maybe they do a little better. But overall, don't bet against the house because the house always wins. So if nothing else, sports betting, of course, is not the way to build a financial future.

[00:38:01] And yet I think we have a whole generation that doesn't really understand the benefit of dollar cost averaging. And that is the case. And so I have a commentary coming out on that next week. But I also then the next day even spend some time talking about why is it that this is a Gen Z group of individuals,

[00:38:23] more men than women, but still nevertheless, making what I think most of us would think would be a pretty irrational choice. But it's because they are convinced that the house and the game is really against them. And I don't completely disagree with that. But here's just a couple of numbers to think about as we are winding down the program today.

[00:38:48] Just last month, if you look at the official percentage for inflation, it was higher than the percentage for wage growth. Put another way, what it means is prices rose faster than your paycheck. And I certainly have argued so many times that that is not the exception. It's the rule.

[00:39:10] Back in 1970s, when we decided as a country that we would no longer tie our dollars to anything tangible, which was known as the gold standard, we had already abused that for some time through the 1960s. But by 1971, Nixon, President Nixon, closed the gold window. And as a result, now we have what's called fiat currency. It's not tied to anything.

[00:39:38] And as a result, it became easier and easier and easier to then just print more dollars. Well, let's just face another fact. The national debt last year increased $2.8 trillion. Someone calculated that's about $91,000 a second. Or put another way, if you listen to my commentary, which is a little less than two minutes, I just added $8 million.

[00:40:07] Matter of fact, just in the short time we've done this, we've added almost $50 million just in this segment. And you can begin to see what the problem is. And so we have a national debt of $40 trillion. Now, last Friday, we were trying to communicate what that was like. Given the fact that the federal government brings in about $5 trillion, but the federal government spends $7 trillion, I said, well, if you take away eight zeros,

[00:40:34] imagine somebody making $50,000 a year, but spending $70,000 a year, and has a national debt or a credit card debt of $400,000. You'd say those people are in really bad shape. That's the federal government. Now, because we can print money, we can make it look a lot better. Because we're the reserve currency of the world, we can make it look a lot better. But the bottom line is, in order to make that look better,

[00:41:03] we have to print more dollars, which means the dollars in your pocketbook, the dollars in your wallet, are worth less every single day. And thus, it takes more of those dollars to buy assets, and so as a result, we end up with this called a K-shaped economy. One letter of K goes up, stock market's at an all-time high, but the other goes down, and that's you.

[00:41:31] So in some respects, it looks like things are really working, because the stock market is at an all-time high, and housing prices are higher than they've ever been before. But you're having trouble making ends meet. So I am sympathetic to some of the plight of not only Gen Z, but everybody listening to this broadcast right now, and that's why we are talking about these issues,

[00:41:57] because a lot of people have chosen to ignore them, including many of the people that you are being asked to elect to Congress this fall. So I think you need to pay attention to some of those issues, and that's something we'll talk about. Again, I might just mention my book on gambling. If gambling is an issue in your family, maybe you want to get a copy of this booklet, but again, it's a reminder of something that has been unfolding for some time.

[00:42:24] And maybe on Friday, we'll talk about what is happening with Gen Z, what is happening with Gen Y, the millennial generation, how we can begin to turn some of these very significant issues around. And that's what we will dedicate ourselves to talking about on our Friday weekend edition. As always, I want to thank Megan for her help engineering the program. Derek, thank you for producing the program.

[00:42:49] I hope that you will take the time to learn about not only this great movie that is coming out, but called, again, the very important idea, Can You Hear Me Now? but also learn a little bit more about the book that we did an interview on. You can find all of that at the website, pointofview.net. We'll be back here tomorrow, right here on Point of View. Many years ago, they began saying that we live in the information age.

[00:43:18] Well, today, there is so much information coming at us from every direction. The hardest thing is to discern which issues are really important and how can I make a positive impact without wasting my time trying to figure out accurate information. Let me give you a suggestion to help with that. Visit pointofview.net. Look at the tabs across the top. Find the one named Viewpoints.

[00:43:44] Kirby Anderson and others on our team are constantly watching for news to identify those issues that you really need to know about. They boil things down in a brief summary, and then you can decide if it's something on which you want to learn more and get involved. Again, when you go to pointofview.net, click on Viewpoints, you'll see exactly what I mean. You'll see the issues that we are covering right now. And when you like what you see, I honestly think you will,

[00:44:13] you can slide on over, enter your email, and get them automatically sent to your inbox each day. That's it. Take a minute now. Be informed. Pointofview.net. Click on Viewpoints. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.