Dead Men Walking Podcast Jason Hamlin Returns! Episode 3

Dead Men Walking

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Exploring Theology, Doctrine, and all of the Fascinating Subjects in Between, Broadcasting from an

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Undisclosed Location, Dead Men Walking starts now. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Dead Men Walking.

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Thanks for listening. Thanks for joining us. Well, we have our special guest back by popular demand.

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We've done an episode with him already, but people wanted to hear that soothing, deep voice.

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Hello ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. Jason Hamlin is here in studio with us, and we're going to be talking all kinds of...

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This is kind of going to be a COVID -19 maybe special. I know some podcasters and some people are kind of shying away from talking about it, but we're going to get into it a little bit.

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We're right in the middle of the coronavirus quarantine. We live in the state of Michigan, so we just...

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Great Lake State. We just had the governor extend our stay at home executive order, and then also said you can't buy certain products and you can't advertise certain products.

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So if your car sales, if you own a car dealership and you want to advertise on a radio station, you can't do that right now.

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Wow. Because cars are non -essential. Isn't that insane? You can't even advertise? Nope. You can't buy gardening supplies or advertise for it.

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I mean, it's just... Look, that's a whole other subject that we're going to get into what's going on up in Lansing right now with the governor and executive orders, and even like how

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Christians respond to that, you know, Romans 13, Matthew six, but we were going to kind of dig into Matthew six,

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I think first. But before we do that, I just wanted to check in on Hamlin over here. How are you doing in the

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COVID -19 quarantine? Yeah, you know, this is a wild time. I'm not sure if I can move my furniture around many more times, but you know, we'll see.

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Every time I vacuum at least three or four times a week now, you know, you're bored.

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So you're just like trying to find certain things to do. And yeah, every time I'm looking at a chair,

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I'm like, man, maybe I could go in that other corner. And he's just like, stop, stop moving the furniture.

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Right. It's funny because I had a lot of people ask me, they went, yeah, how are you adjusting to this life?

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And I went, well, I have an office at my house. I work from home. We homeschool our three young children. Nothing has changed for me.

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I still got little rugrats running around. I'm still doing work in the office and my house is still a mess.

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This is amazing, by the way, if this is your life, I love it. You know, I see all these posts online, people are like,

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I'm so sick of my kids. I got to be a parent now. It's like, oh, geez, stop it, you know?

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And then, oh, I'm tired of my wife. I'm like, man, I love my wife to death. So you know, it doesn't, it doesn't even,

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I mean, I love this. I'm about to retire and try to live off of $800 a year when

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I cash in my 401k. There you go. I mean, that's where I'm at with this whole thing. You know, that really, yeah, it kind of makes me sad when you see those type of posts and especially see them from believers and people, you know, you don't want to judge, but at the same time you go, why would you say something like,

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I can't stand my kids or they're getting, yeah, look, if you're a parent, of course, kids can get on your nerves.

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There's only so many times that, you know, I can play Uno in a row with my five -year -old before you just go, oh my gosh,

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I want to, you know. But at the same time, to publicly say that, I don't know. I love hanging out with my kids, teaching them stuff, trying new stuff.

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We're just out shooting the airsoft pistols two days ago, 65 degrees here in Michigan. Now it's hailing and you know, 30 degrees, it works, but that was wild.

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But I'm kind of taking advantage of this because I'm classified as a real estate broker as non -essential.

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So although I can list homes, no one's really looking at them. You can't really take anyone to go see a home or finish a transaction.

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So I do have a little bit, I said it hasn't changed at all, but at the same time, a little less priority.

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I have more time for the kids, more time for homeschool, that kind of thing. But I'm enjoying it.

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I'm blessed to be in a position to where it's not hurting too much financially. I would like to see this come to an end.

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There's a lot of small businesses out there that are just suffering so hard. I've got three locally that said they're not opening their doors back up.

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That is crazy. One guy owned the business for 18 years, but he's in a business where it's day to day.

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Then the other gentleman, it's seasonal. He goes, look, in January, February, and March, I take out a $200 ,000 loan and then pay it back in April, May, and June.

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And now we're going to be going into May and I'm closed, I don't have revenue coming in. I don't know if I can open the doors back up.

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And you just go, wow. Isn't that crazy? By the stroke of a pen, I mean, the government can do this.

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It's crazy and some would say maybe not even legal. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, we're in a wild time, man.

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And you wonder, how long will this go? Will they open our doors back up for us?

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And then all of a sudden pull us back into our home, tell us that it's not time yet, that too many more people are getting it, or how all this is going to pan out?

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We still have no idea. Well, I had someone tell me, he said, when the government can shut down a private business with the stroke of a pen, who really owns the private business?

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You or the government? And I went, yeah, that's something to think about. But we want everyone to be safe.

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I don't want anyone getting sick or dying or anything like that.

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You always have to preference it. I was just talking to a gentleman earlier today, and it says, you know, if you say anything against the narrative of total shutdown, total quarantine, boy, people say, oh, you hate old people, you hate nurses and doctors, and you want everyone to be sick.

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And I look at it more as I would like everyone to approach it with common sense. The big issue with me was people complaining about washing their hands, and I'm saying, who's not washing their hands before this pandemic?

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Oh, man, I work with all of them. Every single human that doesn't wash their hands.

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They're all at Ford Motor Company, I'm telling you. I mean, oh, my gosh. You're like, wait a second, didn't you just come out of the store?

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Wait, sir, sir, you forgot soap. No, that's kind of a rule in our house, especially with little ones.

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You don't know what they're getting into. It's like, you wash those hands before you touch that Nintendo Switch controller that I just touched, you know, or that you're handing to me.

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But so it's kind of a crazy time. And here's the big issue is watching believers respond to it.

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I've seen such an array of responses. I've seen measured responses. I've seen fearful responses.

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I've seen stuff down the middle. I've seen extreme on both ends. I've seen I'm not going to listen to this, and we're going to worship and do what we want.

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I've seen churches say, hey, we're shutting down, and whatever the government says, we're going to obey it. And then you start thinking, well, what is the proper response as a believer to something like this?

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I mean, this is a once -in -a -lifetime thing. You know, my kids will remember this as, you know, when they're older or telling their kids, oh, yeah, we lived through the shutdown of COVID -19 in 2020.

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So it's something that's this huge. What is the proper response for Christians, and how do we frame it, you know, in what we believe and in our doctrine and theology?

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And I know you had brought up Matthew 6, which is a great, great text.

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I believe it was Matthew 6, 34. I think it's in the 30s. Should we start in 20, maybe 24?

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Is it 24? 24, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

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You cannot serve God and wealth. I mean, that's a great text. Sure. But we have, where's the worry and anxiety?

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So down in 25, it says, therefore I say to you, don't worry about your life, what you'll eat or what you drink, or about your body, what you'll wear.

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Isn't life more than food and body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don't sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns, yet your heavenly

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Father feeds them. Aren't you worth much more than they are? Who among you, by worrying, can add one single moment to your life?

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And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don't wear themselves out with work and they don't spin cloth.

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But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn't dressed like one of these. If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it's alive today and tomorrow, it's thrown into the furnace, won't

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God do much more for you, you people of weak faith? Therefore, don't worry and say, what are we going to eat or what are we going to drink or what are we going to wear?

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Gentiles, long for all these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

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Instead, desire first and foremost God's kingdom and God's righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.

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Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble for its own.

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Man, that's such a good text. It's powerful. If I can just give a little testimony of my own.

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Sure. I mean, there's been many times in my life where I was just broke, you know?

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I mean, spiritually, health, my finances weren't in the right spot.

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And, you know, a lot of those times I was just, I don't know, I would just get really anxious about what was going to happen.

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And especially financially, if you can't pay your bills, if you're going to get evicted or somebody's going to come repo your truck or whatever, it's like, man, that could really weigh down on you.

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But, you know, I mean, I always have had the Lord there.

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I mean, the Lord has always been there in the midst. And we did talk about in that last podcast just Him being there during those times of struggle and just knowing that He's always going to get you out of it.

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And, I mean, and it's not that He's just going to hand you 500 bucks to pay a truck payment, but, you know,

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He does use those moments to strengthen you, to help you learn something and to grow.

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And I think for me during this time, it's been slow and steady just because I went through so many trials before and the

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Lord has been there. And I know that He's going to have me no matter where I'm at in my life. So that's kind of where I'm at and where we're at in our home is just, you know, not worrying as much as maybe we would have in the past.

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So, yeah. And this has a verse that, you know, as we go along in these podcasts, you'll hear me refer to it as Christianese, which are these verses that are kind of famous within the

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Christian circles. Yes, and we've said them so often and so many times that they kind of lose their meaning.

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And everyone's heard, you know, seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. And, but it's really prioritizing the priorities in your life.

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Excuse me. And He's saying very clearly, yeah, all these things that you worry about, clothes and food and friends and all the like in these material things,

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God will handle that. Uh -oh. I'm coughing during the

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COVID -19. No, I'm just kidding. I'm fine. Got a little tickle in my throat. But He's setting the priority right there.

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Seek first the kingdom of God and then all those other things that are inconsequential compared to seeking the kingdom of God will be added onto you.

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And I really think what we see when we see a fearful response it's okay to be fearful.

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But I think when the fearful response is greater than the trust in your

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God, I think that really shows you where your priorities are at. Now, I'm not saying don't have common sense.

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I'm not saying don't be logical and have discernment and be wise and things like that.

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I'm saying when fear drives your decisions or your motivation, that's a real issue if you're a believer.

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Because God has not given us the spirit of fear. Right. But of peace and love and sound mind. And that sound mind is directly relating to Proverbs when he's talking about a man of sound mind that is not wishy -washy, that yes is yes, no is no, isn't tossed to and fro in the sea like a wave.

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Someone who says yes one day, no the next. I do believe this is going to happen. I don't. I trust in the

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Lord, but oh no, now this circumstance comes up and I don't. So when he's saying he's giving us the spirit or the mind of sound mindedness, he's really comparing it to Proverbs and saying the fool versus the wise, he gives you the spirit of the wise in that situation.

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And sometimes it, I don't know, it just really concerns me to see good friends and to see other believers and to see fear go right to the top.

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You know? Yeah, and a good story straight out the Bible is when they were in the boat, storm showed up.

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Jesus was chilling in the back. Yeah, I think he was sleeping, right? He was sleeping. Taking a nap.

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You know? And here these guys are just, you know, they're scared, they're worried, they're thinking that they're gonna die and Christ gets up and rebukes the storm, you know?

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It's like, why were they so fearful anyway? They've already experienced so many things with him and here they are, you know, fearful of dying, you know?

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And maybe at that point, maybe it wasn't registering yet, you know, of who Christ was, you know?

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But, you know, it's, yeah. I mean, I think all of us have those stories of just worry and just where we are just in so much fear over something and a lot of those times in life, you look back and you don't even remember those times.

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Like, you know, the fear that you had during that storm of your life. You know, I've had so many storms in my life but,

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I mean, a lot of times when I look back, I mean, I don't remember half of them. And, you know,

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I mean, we have anxieties, we have pressure but I don't know. The Lord is always there and he's always ready to teach and comfort us in those storms.

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I find it amazing that in life you very rarely remember the fearful times but you always remember the goodness of God.

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And then when you're saying, you know, why didn't those disciples, why didn't they believe that they'd already seen so much?

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Anyone who comes to me and really promotes miracles and signs and wonders as a means of evangelism,

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I just say, well, just look at the disciples. If you think miraculous signs alone save people, look at the 12 that followed

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Jesus every day and saw miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle and up until the point where they saw him die and then ascend, then it almost clicked.

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I mean, the fact that Peter said, you are the Christ, Jesus was like, he did backflips. He was like, that idea is what

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I'm gonna build a church on. You're finally understanding who I am and you understand what my church is going to be built on.

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So having a knowledge of God, right? Theology, theos, knowledge of theos,

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God, is so important in the Christian walk. One of the reasons why I wanted to do this podcast as well, because, you know, money, things, blessings, miracles, those don't save anyone.

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I know a lot of unbelievers that have seen miracles. It's only the knowledge of the

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Holy One, as A .W. Tozer said, that will draw people onto Christ.

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And it's too bad because sometimes you put the cart before the horse. You know,

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God does heal. He does do miracles. But he saves through the cross.

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He saves through the work on the cross. And so I have a little bit of empathy for the disciples because you know how many times the

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Lord has done something for me or spoke to me, moved something on my spirit, and then within the next day

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I either forget about it, ignore it, or go on with my day? Right. And, you know, and I've seen the good works of the

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Lord. Yeah. So I think we're all a little bit, you know, have short on memory. Right. When it comes to those things sometimes.

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It definitely does make me think of a few different times in my life where, you know, the

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Lord really spoke and moved and, you know, yeah. I mean, that word hits me.

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That's good. I was just thinking about something else, man.

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Why does this always happen to me? What's that? Right in the middle of a podcast. We're talking, we're flowing, and then all of a sudden

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I'm like, what was I just thinking about? Something different or did you just? I don't even know, man.

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No, it's okay. I'm having a coughing fit. Stop coughing, bro. I'm having a coughing fit over here for some reason.

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I think it's that. I think there's some water over there. I think it's a candle I'm burning or something. I don't know. Maybe. My wife does not like the fact that I like candles.

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She has a very sensitive nose. It's like strong smells really get to her.

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And I'm the exact opposite. Like the stronger, the more pungent, more like smacks me in the face.

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I'm like, yeah, light up a candle, you know, air freshener, the whole thing. So you have vanilla aroma in your car.

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Oh, so. The tree. I was just going to say. Oh, no, I do that sometimes from time to time too.

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But as the old joke goes, you know, my wife doesn't really care for candles.

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I do. So, of course, we don't have any candles in the house. Yeah. Happy wife, happy life. I guess. Oh, yeah.

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Yeah. But yeah, the response to this on COVID -19 and like I said, being quarantined and social distancing and hashtag alone together.

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I mean, all this stuff coming out of this, which is so new and never really before experienced in my lifetime.

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And heck, I don't even think in the last time we had something like this. I think they said it was the 40s.

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So, you know, maybe my grandfather experienced it as a teenager. Well, we're two, three generations removed from anything like this.

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It's a really crazy time. It is. And I think it's really going to test faith. It is. It is. And two,

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I mean, you see certain, I don't know, just certain

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Christian. Am I trying to say right now? Oh my gosh.

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Just like love your neighbor as yourself. You know, I mean, and here we are, you know, everyone is getting out there and taking groceries to the neighbor.

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Sure. You know, taking groceries down the road. I'm helping people out with anything and everything, checking on their health.

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You know, it's like, oh my gosh, people are actually coming together through this. And, you know, you see a lot of people that are not

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Christians that are doing this. Sure. And it's awesome to see, you know, and I, and I continue to pray for him for sure.

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And, but yeah, this is, it is a weird time, man. Yeah. Even if you say,

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I don't like to say silver lining. I don't really like that term. But if you say, you know, the silver lining of this is seeing just that is seeing gospel love being worked out and carried out in our community by both

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Christians and non -Christians alike, which, you know, a lot of people would call a common grace, having that type of seeing someone in need and wanting to help them, that seared into our conscious, having that morality.

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Right. Because we do have a measure of morality of good and evil in us from birth given to us by the

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Lord. That's why the majority of us aren't ax murderers and things like that, or, you know, committing horrible crimes.

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Now, some of that has to do with law as well, which is, which is another subject that I find very interesting.

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I heard someone once say, if they took away the penalty for stealing tomorrow, you can steal whatever you want, whenever you want, no penalty, still wrong to do it, but no penalty even if you get caught, what do you think the percentage of stealing would go up in the, in the, in the world or in this country?

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It'd probably go up exponentially after a while. Because really the only reason for fallen man to do something moral is because of the consequences of the law.

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You know, Romans 13, which we were talking about before we started here briefly, says that those type of laws were instituted by God, governments were set up by Him.

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Now, when I read Romans 13, I don't see, you know, I don't see anywhere where it says we blindly follow government laws.

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If it supersedes the word of God, we actually are called to not follow it as Christians. But the fact that laws were instituted for the righteous, meaning they protect the righteous.

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If you don't break the law, there's no consequences. If you do break the law, there are. I think that just shows yet another common grace of God, because we naturally all want to do evil.

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And when I say evil, people think of horrible things. Like even I said, like ax murderer, you know.

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But the fact that you, you know, if you cheat someone or take a little extra or say a lie here or there,

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I mean, those things are sin. They are evil in the sight of God. They are selfish and narcissistic.

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And really the only reason why a lot of people don't do minor crimes is because of the, the retribution of consequence.

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Which then, when you liken that to the Old Testament, that made a whole lot of sense. You know,

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God was saying, I have a covenant with you, the Jewish people. You are my people. Here are your laws. You're to obey those.

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You know, and then you even look at the Ten Commandments. You look for like, you look at eye for an eye, for instance, right?

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You have so many non -Christians and non -believers and maybe even people who don't really exegete that too well.

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And they say, look, look at that. Look at that verse. Eye for an eye. You do something to me.

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I do something back to you, you know? Well, what God was saying in that law, you have to realize, you know, 10 ,000 years ago, if you, you know, if you were caught stealing bread as a peasant or as a, you know, someone who could not feed themselves, you just get your arm cut off.

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You could be thrown in debtor's prison for life. You could be, you know, taken to the tribal king and, you know, either excommunicated, which meant death or be put to death for a minor crime.

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So then the Jewish God comes along and he says, oh no, no, no. Equal punishment under the law, meaning an eye for an eye.

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The crime has to fit the punishment, which is something that we've carried through to this day in our country.

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That's 10 ,000. That was the first time a group of people actually said, hold on, we're not barbarians.

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You steal bread. You might get a small penalty. You pay it back. You murder someone.

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Well, yeah, there's going to be more consequence. So God comes along and even under that law, which, you know, some

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Christians now look back and, oh, we're not under the law. We're under grace and under the spirit. But what

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God was doing was he was setting apart his people and he was saying, in this fallen world, and if you're following me, this is the best, best circumstances

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I can give you until this covenant is fulfilled through Christ, my son. So even something like that was revolutionary back then, to have equal punishment under law, to have the punishment fit the crime.

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That was something insane back then. I mean, you literally were able to, you know, like I said, throw someone in prison or kill them for a minor crime.

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And God comes along and he says, oh, no, my people are going to have equal punishment under the law. And then Christ comes, and what does he do?

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He fulfills it. He says, oh, you've heard it said, right? You've heard it said. He goes, oh, you're the people, you

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Jews, me and you, we're all Jewish. We set the standard back then. You've heard it said, eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

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But I tell you, if you even think in your mind or even if you want to do this in your heart, you've already cheated your neighbor.

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You've already committed that sin. So he's now fulfilling it, saying now it's personal. Now it's the spirit.

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Now the spirit that dwells inside you is your measuring stick. It's no longer just the law, which

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I'm not saying Christians don't obey good laws. Please do that. Don't speed.

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But he's actually upped the ante and said, now you just don't have an excuse. Oh, because the law says that I can't do it.

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Now there's a personal conviction because you are the temple of the Holy Spirit living inside of you.

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You've been crucified with me, raised up with me. So now I fulfilled that law. That law just kept you in line and did make you a better person because of it.

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But now the law has been fulfilled and it's been stepped up to personal conviction, which

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I just find absolutely beautiful when you see that progression and that fulfillment. Because I believe exactly what

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Jesus said. He did not abolish the law. He fulfilled it. And when we talk about the law, there's ceremonial law, religious law, and governmental law.

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And you'll have a lot of people who will throw verses at you. Well, if you believe in the

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Old Testament, you can't wear two different types of wool and polyester together because the

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Jewish law, well, that was a ceremonial law. That wasn't a governmental law. That was something totally different. There's different types of law in the

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Old Testament. And it kind of gets under my skin when someone hears a soundbite like that.

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It's called a soundbite argument, I call it, for Christianity. And then when you explain it to them, they go, oh, yeah, that does make sense.

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Or I didn't know that. It's like, well, try not to use those arguments if you don't know what you have.

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Right, right. I mean, there's innocence in certain verses and in certain people trying to use a verse in the right way.

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But there are also the snarky side of, hey, this is what this verse says.

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But it's like, hey, all right, let's read what the verses say above it.

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Let's read what the verses say below it. And is it in the Synoptic Gospels?

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Or is it in the Old Testament? I mean, can we read further into this than just a little snippet, judge not lest ye be judged, where there's a whole teaching on that entire passage where it's not just, there's a judgment within that.

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No, absolutely. Yeah. But yeah, no, there's definitely some verses out there that definitely get into the

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Christianese life. Yeah, there's so many that just drive me up a wall.

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Excuse me, man. I'm trying to get rid of this cough. Let me check your temperature. No, I'm fine.

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Just a little dry. I'll get a glass of water here in a minute. I'm sorry. Even the, you know, where two or more are gathered in his name, you know, and you hear preacher after preacher and sermon after sermon and prayer leader after prayer leader, use it as where two or more are gathered and they're making a request to the

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Lord, then it shall be done. Well, first of all, that's just ludicrous. The Lord answers prayers with one person, you know, all the time.

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And then on top of that, what if the two people are just nuts and asking for something that. Let's ask for a Ferrari right now.

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Right now. Yeah. Well, there's two of us, right? Yeah, there's two. Yeah. I'll tell you what, I'll take it in the summer. You take it in the winter. No, we're going to each ask for one.

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Oh, together. We're together. So we might as well ask for anything we want. When in fact that verses, you know, you just read up four or five verses and he's talking about church discipline.

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He's saying when you go to the brother and you call him out on something, you say, look at this as an issue in your life.

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And you're a church member, you're part of the body of Christ, or maybe even in leadership. He's saying we're two or more there are doing that in my name.

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I am there too. I'll be in their midst. Yeah. Because you're doing it correctly. And you're calling out a brother in love and respect.

29:57

And you're correcting an issue within the body. And that's a beautiful thing. Isn't it? And it's a, you know, it's such a beautiful principle of God.

30:06

And we've taken that Christian ease and we've just twisted it into, Oh, there's two of us here. Let's ask for something.

30:11

God will give it to us. Yeah, exactly. Which is such a misrepresentation of what Christ was saying.

30:18

But that, that one is, that, that one's probably, I just had one recently. And tell me, tell me what you think about this is where John the

30:26

Baptist says, I must decrease. Christ must increase. Right. Right. So I get that.

30:32

He was saying my popularity needs to go down. Right. And Christ needs to become more popular, you know, quote unquote.

30:40

But, but if I say it in a prayer, you know, before I'm, you know, maybe if I'm about to preach or, or be on a podcast, like I'm, I need, you know,

30:52

Lord, you know, I must decrease. You must increase during this time. You know, it's like, I don't really think there's anything wrong with saying that, you know, and it's not like I'm John the

31:02

Baptist, you know, super popular. You know, everybody knows who I am, but it's, it's like the two, you know.

31:08

Have you had people say, you shouldn't say that? Yes. I just recently had a couple of people say, yeah, like that.

31:14

That's, that's not what he was saying, man. No, I think. I was like, wait a second. That's exactly what he was.

31:20

I think it has a double and triple meaning. I think he not only was saying, I must decrease so you can increase, meaning my ministry must decrease because yours must increase because John the

31:29

Baptist was very clear on what his ministry was, which means I'm just preparing the way for the one who is to come.

31:36

And not only that, but his life in general. I mean, he knew where he was headed, right? I mean, he was calling out the

31:43

King and he was calling out Rome and he was calling out Jewish leaders and his life must decrease.

31:49

Meaning, you know, short six months later, his head being served on a platter to Herod. Was it

31:54

Herod? Yeah. Yeah. To Herod. So, you know, when I hear someone say that, that's a whole nother thing.

32:01

It's like sometimes you have to define your terms because when I hear someone saying that, I hear them saying it in a way of my pride must decrease.

32:10

My stature must decrease. It's not about me, but it's about you, which is essentially what

32:15

John was saying. So anyone that says, oh, that's not, you know, that's, I don't know. I think that's getting a little too nitpicky in my opinion.

32:22

Right. Right. Because that's exactly what he was saying. If you're using it that way. Yeah, exactly.

32:28

Because, you know, it's not that I was using it and, you know, I didn't say it in a prayer and somebody pulled me aside and said, hey, wait a second,

32:35

Jason. You know, it wasn't anything like that. Okay. You know, like I wasn't talking to God. Prayer, please. But, I mean, well,

32:41

I guess I was talking to God, but it wasn't in a prayer, you know. But yeah, man, it's, yeah, it's just wild.

32:48

I mean, and even, you know, calling people out in the church, I mean, you know, it's not that, it's not that you're sitting around,

32:58

I'm not the type of person, and I'm sure you're the same way, you're not sitting there just staring at someone, just picking them apart and just, you just want to pounce, you know, on something that they're saying.

33:11

But I think there is, there should be dialogue within the community and we should have people that, you know, within the body that actually, you know, care enough to pull a brother aside and say, hey, maybe that relationship that you're in isn't, you know, from the

33:32

Lord, you know. Right. Maybe going to the local watering hole isn't exactly where you need to be with maybe something that you've dealt with in the past or whatever.

33:46

I don't know. But, of course, that is within the body I'm talking about. I'm just saying, like,

33:52

I don't think that there's anything wrong with Christians speaking to Christians like they're

33:57

Christians. Oh, no. Right. If that makes sense. Hopefully, you know, that sentence didn't go too far out there for y 'all.

34:07

No, the, and here is the issue. Anytime I'm saying, well, you know, this grinds my gears or this, you know, gets underneath my skin,

34:17

I'm saying it from a place of I just want people to know the truth. I don't, I'm not upset.

34:22

I'm not saying it because, oh, I, you know, you might seem smarter or, you know, I know better.

34:28

I know something you don't know. The issue is, is you see time and time again where these little sayings and these little snippets of theology burrow down into people's lives and then become a basis for a, for a very immature type of relationship with Christ.

34:48

And we don't want to build our foundation on sand. We want to build it on the rock.

34:55

And so the only reason, you know, I bring these things up or when I'm talking to people and say those is because, look it, we all want to know the truth.

35:04

We want to make sure that we have a right relationship with the Lord. I've been corrected so many times.

35:10

I can't even tell you because there'll be things where I'll either take it out of context or put it through my kind of my own worldview and someone will say, well, what do you think about this?

35:20

Or this is where the word says that. And then we wrestle with it. You know, you introspect, you wrestle, you take it to the spirit, you pray about it, you measure it against the word of God.

35:29

And there's times where I've been corrected and I'm so grateful for that. I don't take it as, oh, well, you got one, one tally mark on your side because you found something that I was wrong about or not clear on.

35:41

I want to be corrected if I'm in error. It's one of the reasons, you know, like Paul said, be like the

35:47

Bereans. They don't mind being corrected. They're searching out their scriptures daily, trying to figure out where everything lines up, make sure they're right, don't want to do anything, you know, against the gospel.

35:58

So when we talk about these things too, I want people listening and watching to understand that it's only because I have love for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

36:10

And hopefully they would have enough love for me to tell me the same thing if they see an error in my ways or theology or doctrine or anything like that.

36:17

I recently heard a quote. It's, I know everything, but I'm willing to change my mind.

36:23

I mean, you know, it's, it's so true though. I mean, you know, we, we do get set in our traditions.

36:30

We do get set in our ways. And I mean, he, I think we brought up eschatology about 20 times now within the past few times we've met.

36:40

But, but, you know, I mean, like pre -trib man, if anybody messed with that,

36:45

I was just like, you don't have any clue. And then somebody walked through Matthew 24,

36:53

Gary DeMar, I think Gary DeMar, he walked through Matthew 24.

36:59

And I mean, my, my eschatology got, got turned on its head. I mean, I was, I was literally just like, wait, what, wait, you know, and then you start reading into history, like church history.

37:10

You start reading into 70 AD and you're like, wait a second. Okay. So why did

37:17

Jude and John never bring anything up about 70 AD and as horrific as it was, you know, and you just, you're just thinking to yourself, maybe the

37:28

Bible was written before 70 AD. You know, and I, and I mean, I don't worry if you, if you can, if you can call in or call me,

37:39

Hey man, get ahold of Greg. You can get ahold of me. You can tell me how wrong I am and it's okay. And we can talk, but, uh, but man, there, there are different ways to look at scripture.

37:49

Um, but yeah, in, in love for sure. And, but you know what, we are supposed to make sure that the, that the, uh, that the snakes and the, and the people that are just out here trying to do something crazy, like sure.

38:02

Blowing a COVID -19, you know, I mean like, come on, man. Like we should probably talk about that.

38:10

Yeah. Yeah, man. We should probably talk about that. You know, I mean, that's, yeah.

38:15

What's, what's, you know, how, how is, how is Christianity being presented? And yeah.

38:22

Yeah. Uh, have you seen, yeah, you, you sent me, I think the video.

38:27

Did you see the remix yet? Oh, there's a pretty awesome remix. There's a metal one. Oh, I saw the hip hop one.

38:33

The hip hop one, the rap one where they, uh, you know, where they break down the COVID -19 you must flee.

38:39

COVID -19. COVID -19. It's, it's sad because, you know, two days after he released that video, there was just,

38:46

I mean, I got bombarded, uh, from people. And I mean, there was a famous comic that did a, that did a thing and just was like, you idiot, basically.

38:55

And said some, you know, other choice words about him. And I, and I, and I had the same thought you had, what a misrepresentation of the faith.

39:03

Um, and this isn't to, uh, you know, just dog on one person like Kenneth Copeland, although there isn't anything he said in the last 40 years that I think

39:13

I would agree with theologic, you know, uh, doctrinally or theologically wise, but I said a word theologically wise, theological.

39:22

We'll do that. We'll just go with it. I like it, but it's, it's, it's so sad because I mean, he's broadcasting to a world that is just ready to mock and to discredit and to rebel against the word of God.

39:42

And he's doing it, doing it, the word of God, no justice with videos like that.

39:48

Yeah. Um, I mean, well, and even, uh, you know, Creflo, Creflo dollar.

39:54

Um, and I, and I'm sorry, I'm using these names on the, on the podcast. No, go ahead.

40:00

I, I, I just, you know, I think with them saying, you know, let's get another private jet.

40:07

It's like, what, what are you, what are you telling people? You know, what are you saying to people within the

40:12

Christian, your Christian circle? You know, the, the, the people that, that you're speaking to, um, are you, are you really representing

40:21

Christ like that? Like, like, is that really the representation that Christ wanted, you know, through the gospel?

40:29

Do you see it? You see that, you know? Oh yeah. I mean, we could have, we could have a podcast episode just on the prosperity gospel alone and how dangerous, how anti -Christ it truly is.

40:42

Um, for anyone listening that, that believes that way, feel free to reach out to me and we'll, we'll have a discussion over coffee.

40:49

Uh, nowhere in the Bible are you promised health, wealth, blessings, or riches.

40:55

Yeah. Just no, nowhere. You can't find me one, you can, you can, you can find me verses.

41:01

You can twist something. You can twist something and you can find me verses about how much God loves you and you know, his mercy and his grace and, uh, you know, all those things and how he takes care of you.

41:11

Like we just read. In fact, the verse we just read said, don't even worry about clothes, food, where it's going to come from.

41:17

Yeah. Put the kingdom first and then all those things will be added onto you. Seek, seek the kingdom first.

41:23

Yeah. And the kingdom, uh, of Christ is, uh, it's, it's not fun.

41:29

Most of the time. Right. It's going to be a lot of mocking and spitting and, and, uh, in other countries, torture and imprisonment, lose your friends, lose your house, lose your marriage.

41:40

Sometimes, man, it sounds like a country song. Yeah. Yeah. Lose your dog. Let's do this. Lose your truck. Yeah. There you go.

41:48

But it just blows my mind that you can take something that's so anti -biblical and then twist it into something and not only, uh, you know, essentially mislead believers, but then make millions and millions of dollars from it.

42:04

Um, you know, I, I told, who did I tell? I can't remember. Oh, I think

42:09

I know who it was. I told someone about two years ago, I said, you know, if I was just a little, just had a little less conscious and the

42:16

Lord hadn't gotten ahold of me when he did, I could probably be very rich as like a, as a

42:21

Bible teacher, I could probably take just about anything and twist it to make a couple bucks. Right. But, uh,

42:27

I don't want to stand before the Lord when every knee is going to bow and say, oh yeah, you know,

42:33

I just a little too much conscious the Lord laid on me to, you know, my grace is sufficient. Yeah.

42:39

And you know, it's like, I don't know. I mean, and, and, you know, we're not saying that there's anything wrong with having health, you know, being wealthy, not at all.

42:50

We're not saying anything like that. It's, it's just when, uh, that's your idol, you know, you're, you're bringing that to the forefront and that's all you think about.

42:59

You might want to just look into that, um, a little bit. Here's the thing we take, we take principles or we take things, uh, the

43:07

Lord said, or the Bible says, and we make them very extreme. And legalism basically says it's a yes or no.

43:16

So, you know, I knew people that, uh, didn't borrow money because the

43:21

Bible says not to borrow money. It's a sin to borrow one, not to owe anyone. Yeah.

43:26

Right. When in fact, what Proverbs actually says is the borrower becomes slave to the lender. So what that proverb is saying, it's not admonishing, borrowing money.

43:37

In fact, Christ talked about borrowing money. He had parables about people borrowing money and investing money and all these different things.

43:45

But what Proverbs is saying is you must realize that if you take on this debt or you take on this burden, there's responsibilities that come with it.

43:55

Because as a believer, you now have a duty to the person or the entity you borrowed money from.

44:01

And I would tell young Christians this in my twenties, I said, look at, I bought a house. I now have a mortgage.

44:06

Um, I, if someone were to come to me right now and say, Hey man, we want you to pick up and go across the world to go on missions.

44:14

I couldn't just pick up and go like some of my friends could because they didn't have a mortgage in a house.

44:19

I would have to say, well, I got to sell the house. I got to figure out how to pay this off or all these things, because I've now have a responsibility.

44:26

Is it bad to borrow money? Is it a sin to borrow money? No, but you have to go in with your eyes wide open and say, as, as a kingdom

44:33

Christian, you have a responsibility to them. You just can't walk away from it. So then that does then limit some of your options and how you can serve in the kingdom when you have car payments, house payment, whatever the case may be, you're borrowing money for.

44:47

So it's a real world application that Proverbs gives us, but legalism says,

44:54

Oh, you can't do it. Yeah. And then, you know, hyper grace and kind of prosperity gospel says, ah, borrow away and the

45:01

Lord's going to bless you anyway and bring you all these riches. So it's this really weird thing where you have two extremes when in fact the

45:09

Bible is just teaching discernment, wisdom, and what I would call common sense, which isn't too common anymore.

45:14

Christian common sense. Well, there was a, a great philosopher out there that said more money, more problems got to move carefully.

45:24

Wow. That's why I invite you here for the, for the comedy. Hey man,

45:30

I did write a ton of comedy. When, before, before I, yeah, when

45:36

I was in a different part of my life. Yeah. It was a different part of my life and a lot of it was really funny, but, um,

45:41

I couldn't say 99 .9 % of it on the show.

45:48

So, yeah, no, that was probably one of my biggest struggles and continues to be one of my biggest struggles is

45:54

I love comedy. Uh, and sometimes I like it too much, even if it's like, uh, like a derogatory or crude or if it's smart.

46:06

Yeah. Like, I just don't like it if someone calls you stupid. Right, right. But if it's smart and well thought out, I have a soft spot for that, but it's, that really isn't glorifying to God in any way.

46:15

And I really struggled with that. Just like, I just absolutely love comedy and especially good comedy.

46:22

Are you into the office? That TV show? Yeah. Oh yeah. Do you like the office? Oh yeah.

46:27

Okay. No, that's good stuff. So we, so we watched the office repeatedly, man.

46:33

I mean like, you know, it's one of those things you get on Netflix and you're like, let's watch something new. And you start scrolling through everything and it takes you an hour and a half later.

46:43

You're like, all right, let's just turn the office on. I'm about to go to bed anyways. You know, but yeah, man,

46:49

I love the office, but, uh, you know, Mitch Hedberg, I mean, I used to love Mitch Hedberg.

46:55

Oh, he's one of the best. Yeah, man. Just those one, those quick one liners. I mean, you know, and Jim Gaffigan, man, he's, he's great.

47:02

He's great too. He is. I mean, you know, there's, there's a lot of really good comedians out there. Uh, what was, uh,

47:09

Mitch Hedberg when he said, I laughed so hard when he said he was sitting in his hotel bed, laying in his bed and he thought about something really funny, but the pen was across the room.

47:19

So now he has to convince himself what he just thought of wasn't funny. If that isn't like a standup comic and like, you know, uh, in a nutshell or that, you know, uh, he saw, he saw, um, uh, escalator and it said, sorry, out of order.

47:39

And he said, but an escalator just becomes stairs. He says, sorry for the inconvenience. He goes, now I'm should say escalator out of order.

47:45

Now stairs, sorry for the convenience. But, uh, yeah, that kind of stuff, uh, is hilarious.

47:53

But what I was more talking about is when you get sucked into like some of those roasts, you know, and they're just so harsh.

47:59

Right. Yeah. And you get, I get about three minutes into a YouTube clip and I'm like, yeah, I probably shouldn't be watching this.

48:05

I'll just swipe off of that. Right. But, uh, when it's, when it's done intelligently, right.

48:11

Oh, it's just, it's such, it's so attractive, intelligent comedy like that. Yeah. Yeah.

48:16

I mean, I, you know, and I'm, I'm also into really, really stupid movies, um, as well.

48:22

Yeah, I guess it goes both ways for me too. Dumb and Dumber and the Tommy boy. And I was in that generation. Those are rod.

48:28

Have you ever seen hot rod? Oh, what's hot rod. Andy Sandberg. I mean, that was just ridiculous. Oh yeah. Where he's a, he's a stunt guy.

48:35

Yeah. And I mean, you know, it's just, well, it's, it's, it's just ridiculous and you know, you shouldn't, you know,

48:41

I mean like anchorman. Yeah. Yeah. I mean so many one -liners in that 60 % of the time it works every time.

48:52

I had to, I had to drop that for you. That's, uh, that is awesome.

48:59

Actually. I think that was a preacher talking about universalism. Oh yeah. Here we go. Prophecy.

49:07

That's Kenneth Copeland prophecy. 60 % of the time it works every time. Sorry for everyone out there.

49:17

Uh, yeah. Uh, we just lost. I know everybody. All 18. Five people that were, yeah.

49:27

Uh, but, uh, yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Getting back to that. Well, prophecy.

49:32

I mean, that's, that's another thing we can go out. We can go after, you know, get these. No, I'm joking.

49:37

Um, uh, you know, the one thing, the one thing that, uh, really throws me off and, uh, about prophecy,

49:46

I, having a, having a convention where everyone is learning how to do prophecy that, and I'm going to,

49:59

I'm going to put a two for here. And if someone says to a new believer, you know, you have a great calling on your life.

50:08

You have the biggest call you on your life. And, uh, and you're going to do great big things.

50:16

It's like, man, you know, how do you, how do you even take that?

50:23

You know? But then the, the, the, the guy saying that to you, prophesying that to you, you know, he just kind of walks away.

50:29

He goes about his life and then you're just like, Oh, when's this supposed to happen? You know, I'm working,

50:35

I'm working at Walmart right now and I'm supposed to do great big things, you know? And all of, you know, when am

50:41

I going to be the CEO of Walmart? You know, it's like, you know, and then they're looking for this thing and then, you know, 10 years pass and they're just upset because this guy said this, you know, it's like, man, we have to have context, you know, with, with what we're saying with, uh, yeah.

50:56

Well, what I've seen too is especially, especially in the last 15 to 20 years,

51:04

I would say is we're misusing the word prophecy and we use it for words like encouragement for, uh, exhortation, testimony, but we just say prophecy too.

51:18

So although some of it I believe is nefarious and it's intentionally misleading and there's, uh, believers air quotes, prophesying and making millions of dollars, uh, from it and leading a life of sin, but still, you know, bringing 20, 30 ,000 people to gatherings and, you know, once again, air quote, prophesying over them.

51:39

Um, some of it I think is just a lack of, of, of, of misidentifying the term.

51:48

Like I've literally been in a church service and, uh, I heard a pastor say, I just want to prophesy over you right now.

51:54

I want all of you to, you know, go in peace and have a great week. And he was basically giving like, you know, uh, an end of sermon, you know, have a good week.

52:04

And I went, well, that's not prophecy. That's, that's, I feel like those old ladies, like, that's not how this works.

52:11

It's not how it works at all. You know, have you ever seen that? Like on Facebook, she's clicking, right. And I just sat there and I went, no, you know, so defining terms and understanding what prophecy is,

52:22

I think for most of the churches that use that term, that way would be very beneficial. Uh, two, um, you know, there's a lot of secular people who make a lot of money and, and have very good livings off of doing exactly what most of these church prophets do.

52:41

Right. Uh, once again, air quotes, meaning, you know, I can speak to you and give you words of encouragement, uh, godly principles, um, with certain things to do in your life that will help you, uh, grow your wealth and help you with relationship and help you with your marriage and help you raise your kids.

53:01

I mean, that's called counseling. That's called motivational speaking. And there's a lot of talented secular people that are legit that, you know, like the

53:08

Ramsey well, Ramsey's a Christian, but the Dave Ramsey's the Tony Robbins, the Gary Vaynerchuk's Oprah Winfrey.

53:15

How dare you say that name on this podcast? Sorry. Not a fan of Oprah. No, no.

53:21

But, uh, yeah, Oprah Winfrey, if you will. And they, they don't, they don't proclaim to be a

53:28

Christian at all. Right. And they're saying the exact same things that these so -called prophets are. Uh, but they're claiming that they come in the name of the

53:35

Lord and that's disingenuous at best. Man. I remember seeing an interview with Joel Steen on Oprah, uh, the

53:43

Oprah Winfrey network or whatever it is, um, uh, that she has now. And they lined up so much together with what both of them were saying.

53:54

You know, she was saying, talk to the universe. Yeah. You know, and Joel was, and Joel was not

54:01

Larry. Yeah. I mean, Larry, I, I, I do say if you just ask it, it will come.

54:07

Larry. Now, Larry, let me finish. Now. I didn't say that. It was so funny because, okay.

54:12

Not to interrupt you, but my favorite, my favorite clip, someone mashed up these two clips and it was

54:18

Joel Osteen on Larry King live. Okay. And, and you know, you know how Larry King would interview. He's like,

54:24

Joel, I'm a Jew. You're a Christian. You say Jew goes to hell. If I die, am I going to hell? Go. Yeah.

54:29

Yeah. And he's like, now, Larry, now Larry, I don't judge. I don't judge Larry. What I do, what

54:34

I do. And that's between you and your maker. He's like, yeah, but I'm a Jew. Am I going to hell? Go. Right. He's like, but Larry now, and he's getting so nervous.

54:41

His curly hair is starting to sweat. You know, Larry, I don't judge. Right. And then the very next clip, uh,

54:47

Larry King and had Bono on, uh, like two weeks later. Okay. And he's like, Bono, I hear that you're a

54:54

Christian and that you, you heard that you believe in prayer. What do you say about that? And he's like, yeah, I do believe in prayer.

54:59

And he's like, how can you believe in praise? Like, I believe in angels. I believe in Jesus Christ. And he just starts like laying out the gospel for Larry.

55:05

And he's like, Oh, Oh no. Like, yeah. Angels protect me. And the Lord speaks to me and his spirit lives inside of me.

55:11

And I believe in the gospel. And Christ was the only, was the one true son. And I'm like, and he's like, Whoa.

55:17

Okay. We'll be back after this, you know, and the clips are mashed up. And I went, okay. The mega pastor.

55:22

Yeah. Can't even can't even, uh, you know, say what he articulate.

55:28

Thank you. What he believes in what the gospel. And then you have the rock star who everyone says,

55:33

Oh, he's just out, you know? Right. Whatever. He probably has a certain stigma because he's a, you know, rock musician and he's just straight laying down fire on the gospel to Larry.

55:42

And I went, Oh, the world is upside down, you know? And Larry was so surprised.

55:48

I love old Larry King, man. He's just, he's insane. But the fact that, you know, man,

55:54

Joe, I, in that interview with Joel Osteen is from at least 15 years ago. Oh, serious. Oh, at least.

56:00

Huh. And I don't think I've seen. I remember being a young Christian on that before. I saw MacArthur on Larry King before.

56:07

Yeah. Panel, you know. Oh, they got him on a panel. He was good on, um, Ben Shapiro's Sunday night.

56:13

He was, uh, just a few months ago. Sunday evening special. 20 minutes of just Isaiah 53.

56:19

I mean, just laying out, laying it out. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. To an Orthodox Jew. Oh, it was awesome, man.

56:25

I love it. Yeah. But yeah. So yeah. So when I bring, when you bring names up like that, like Joel Osteen, it's once again, it's not because I want to sit here and bash on one name or one person, but when you have a consistent ministry that consistently just preaches things that are not gospel.

56:44

Right. That aren't biblical. At some point you have to play the stupid or liar game.

56:49

Yeah. He's either lying. He knows what he's saying is untrue and he's lying or he's ignorant of the truth and he's stupid.

56:55

Yeah. Yeah. And I know a lot of people don't like when I play that game, but it really comes down to those two things.

57:03

When you have someone who seems, you know, he seems intelligent. He seems like he can, you know, he knows his way around the

57:09

Bible. 26 ,000 people that show up at his church, what, for three services?

57:15

Is it three services? And then every one of them are packed up. I mean, I don't, yeah, it's, it's wild, man.

57:21

It was crazy when someone lifted $627 ,000 from the tithe that one of his three services on a

57:27

Saturday. Yeah. They had to report it and it got traction in the news and everyone's like, oh my gosh, someone stole from Joel Osteen's church.

57:35

They just basically took the whole tithe. Wow. And then the next day it was like, hold on a minute.

57:41

He's raking in six and a quarter in one out of three services and he's doing that six times a week.

57:49

I mean, what's the quick math on that? That's almost $4 million a weekend in tithe.

57:55

I mean, I, look, you know, Larry, let me finish. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

58:01

Right. Like God, God has him in that position, you know what

58:07

I'm saying? And I have no idea where they put their money.

58:13

Yeah, right. Why he does. Yeah, you caught me there. But I have no idea where, you know, they put, they put that money, you know, like what ministries they put it into, you know, how they're helping the community, how they're helping the world, you know, but, but I just couldn't,

58:33

I couldn't. They put it in the locks for the front door for when floods come from Katrina. Do you remember that?

58:39

Yeah. Was it Katrina? No, I don't know what it was. It was one. It was a hurricane. I remember. He says that the township there that he's in told him not to let people in.

58:48

So I don't know. I'll give him a pass on that one. But it was funny. The headlines on that. He's locking his doors and people are banging to get in because they need shelter.

58:54

He's like, hold on. I never see Jesus helping poor people in the Bible. He's only supposed to bless us and give us money.

59:03

Yeah, you did something wrong or you must, you're an unbelief. You don't have enough faith. Yeah, you have no faith.

59:08

Why didn't you curse that storm? Tell it to go the other way. Man, we got to stop.

59:15

We can't. We got to watch ourselves. None of this is airable. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say.

59:22

None of it's going on to the podcast. We are two dead men walking for sure.

59:28

Oh, man, we're in trouble. Yeah. So kind of get back to the top of the subject at the top of the podcast.

59:37

Hour. Hour. I think we're at about an hour. Sweet. But yeah.

59:42

So. So like what's your response to this whole thing? The whole COVID -19 quarantine.

59:49

Like your biblical response to it. Oh, I have no fear.

59:56

Jesus is here. Philippians 5, 2. Yeah. There's not a fifth chapter to Philippians.

01:00:03

I'm just saying. Yeah, I agree. It's like improv. Yes and. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Just go with it. Yeah. Yeah.

01:00:09

Oh, gosh, that reminds me of the office where he goes into the improv class and they just can't stand it because everything that he does, he throws a gun in on it.

01:00:18

Oh, yeah. And he's taking improv lessons. Michael. And then at the very last scene, he's like, but do you have a gun?

01:00:25

He's like. Yeah. He whispers. He told me that he had a gun. He told me that he had a gun.

01:00:32

No, I mean, like, I don't know, man. Or what is the Christian response to this?

01:00:38

Let's just put all the pressure on you to give us the Christian response to the pandemic of 2020 right here on Dead Men Walking podcast.

01:00:46

Everyone listen to what Jason says. Stay in your homes. Right. Get a bunch of pasta.

01:00:53

Don't leave. No, I mean, it's I think it's just it's be smart.

01:01:00

I mean, sure. Wash your hands. I mean, I don't know how like how this got to a point where someone has to tell us to wash our hands.

01:01:09

Sure. You know, it's like, I mean, everyone should have been doing that already. I mean, you know, you touch you touch a cart at the grocery store.

01:01:17

Yeah, it's probably gross if you didn't wipe it down before you start walking around. Yeah. So, like, you know, don't go home and put the groceries away and just start eating a sandwich, you know?

01:01:29

Yeah. So meet me. Naturally, I'm a realist. I don't like to say I'm a pessimist because I'm not negative or cynical, but I'm a little both, but I'm a realist.

01:01:38

Yeah. Meaning I look at a situation. I say, look at I'm not going to sugarcoat the negatives or the positives.

01:01:46

Let's be real. So I look at situations like this and through the lens and worldview of the

01:01:53

Bible and I look and I say, okay, what is God doing to make himself glorified in this situation?

01:01:58

And some of the things we've talked about, I mean, I look at this and, you know, you see all these churches doing all this, you know, home ministry and taking food to people who need it and delivering goods and services and really reaching out to the community.

01:02:14

And I know my first response and your first, I think, and hopefully I'm not speaking for you was, well, shouldn't these churches be doing this anyway?

01:02:22

Exactly. Like everyone's on Facebook and live video and this and that. Look all the stuff we're doing.

01:02:27

And I'm scratching my head and I'm going, that's great. But that's our call from the gospel every single day.

01:02:33

Every single day. Right? So I look at it and I go, okay, God's being glorified in that. But I'm really hoping that this really kind of turns a switch on a lot of churches and goes, oh, this is what we should be doing.

01:02:43

You know, when this subsides, when we get back to everyday life, God willing, when the

01:02:48

COVID -19 settles down, that churches can go, oh, what we did during that time is what we should be doing all the time.

01:02:56

And it gives maybe leaders, shepherds, churches, a new heart to say, that's what we're supposed to do all the time.

01:03:05

Right. Not during times of crisis, because I'm going to tell you, the secular world does this.

01:03:10

We have Red Cross. We have Goodwill. We have, you know, right here in Monroe, MCOP and Goodfellas and Nodfellows and, you know, all the different organizations and charities that do this all the time in their secular groups.

01:03:26

And I think it's a shame when the church only steps up in time of crisis or very rarely steps up outside of crisis when you have secular groups doing this all the time.

01:03:38

That's what we're called to. It's our job. And the sad thing is we have advocated our duties to the government and to nonprofits.

01:03:47

The church has. You know, in 1945 and 1950 and 1955, up until the mid -1960s, okay, if you didn't have a job and you were down on your luck, you could go to tens of thousands of different Catholic charities where they would put you up, feed you, teach you a life skill, and then after a couple weeks, put you back out into the world, maybe help you with family financials, things like that.

01:04:14

Didn't even have to be a believer. Now we can say anything we want about Catholics or whatever doctrine we disagree on.

01:04:20

But that was a church taking the role of the good Samaritan and not only just feeding and housing, but also teaching, you know, life skills and things like that, getting them back in the workforce.

01:04:31

And we had all kinds of nonprofits and churches that did that back in the 50s and 60s and before.

01:04:37

Then with the New Deal and the social welfare and all this stuff, churches have slowly stepped away and said, okay, government, you take care of our needy.

01:04:47

You take care of our underprivileged. You take care of our poor. You take care of those that can't take care of themselves.

01:04:52

The church is here for preaching and worship. And we want a nice building and nice seats and a good light show and, you know, all these things in a nice smooth parking lot and a fog machine.

01:05:03

And, you know, if you're Bill Johnson, hopefully some glory dust shows up on that Sunday, let you know you're doing it right.

01:05:08

But we've advocated our duties to the government, to the secular government.

01:05:15

When in fact, and part of that is because the government has put us, the church is under attack as well too, you know, through certain legislation, which that's, you know, this is an issue that I bring up with legislatures and elected officials that say they are

01:05:29

Bible believing Christians. Hey, we need to address us advocating this duty and essentially being federally mandated to do certain things that we can and can't do.

01:05:39

We have freedom of religion in this country. We need to get back to serving the underprivileged, the poor, the needy, those in need, not the government.

01:05:47

It's not the government's job. It's our job as the church of Christ. And I really feel that, you know, 60 years removed now, is it 60?

01:05:56

Yeah, geez, 50, 60 years removed now from that, from the, you know, early 60s. We just have generations of young pastors, generations of young believers that just go, oh, well, you know, we do our outreach once a month or once every couple months or, you know, we take flowers to people or we'll set up a, you know, a pancake breakfast for the homeless a couple times a year.

01:06:18

And it's like, that's not the call of Christ. That's not the call of the kingdom. We'll let the government take, you know, they've got bridge cards and food cards and, you know, unemployment and all those things.

01:06:27

When in fact, it's our job to disciple. And disciple is not giving someone a meal.

01:06:33

Discipleship is not taking someone, your old clothes that you don't wear anymore. That's not discipleship.

01:06:39

The world does that. I mean, the Bible says even the world knows to treat other people with respect.

01:06:46

We're called to a much higher standard. The gospel actually tells us to not only give up our coat, but give up our cloak as well.

01:06:54

And then on top of that, if it's your enemy, to love them. So the standard is so much higher.

01:06:59

And I feel, and I'm hoping that, you know, maybe this kind of reset something within the church.

01:07:06

Because I'm seeing a lot of churches that didn't really have that outreach call or that gospel call of outreach starting to step up a little bit.

01:07:15

And boy, if that carries over into when things get back to normal, I think that'll just be one more way that God can be glorified and use this for his glory.

01:07:24

Right. Yeah. Amen. I like yours more than my wash your hands. Wash your hands is good too.

01:07:33

It's not in the Bible, but cleanliness is next to godliness. Yeah, exactly. We should do a whole podcast episode on things people say that are in the

01:07:42

Bible that aren't. That aren't? Yeah. Because that happens a lot too. Oh, I'm sure. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

01:07:47

What goes around comes around. All these things, none of them are in the Bible, but you know, we just kind of slip them in there.

01:07:56

So, washing your hands, not living in fear. You said, you know,

01:08:01

I'll be watching this too as an elected official, locally elected official. I'm watching it as well because I have a real issue.

01:08:08

Romans 13 does tell us that governments are instituted by God for the righteous. But at the same time, we have to look and make sure we're using discernment in what orders we obey and disobey.

01:08:21

You know, I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm not, hey, I'm going to, you know, if I were a pastor, you know, open my church and have people come.

01:08:30

I'm also not, hey, I'm going to listen to everything the government says 100 % without running it, you know, past the word of God first.

01:08:37

I'm somewhere in that middle. And Doug Wilson talks about this a little bit too, kind of being in that middle where it's, you know, our ultimate responsibility is to God.

01:08:49

Is to God, yeah. And we are called to obey the laws, but if examined and they supersede and they go against the word of God, then that law is now just merely a suggestion.

01:09:01

Because ultimately we have to answer to God. We don't answer to a representative or a senator, a governor or a president.

01:09:08

Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that, gosh, I love Doug Wilson. You know? Yeah. I mean, I mean,

01:09:14

I don't know if you heard about this, uh, this church down in Mississippi. I think it was.

01:09:19

Um, but they had a service where all of them were in the parking lot and they were listening to the pastor inside the church and they all tuned into this, a certain radio, you know?

01:09:32

Oh, like a drive -through type deal. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Drive -in. Yeah. Yeah. But all of them were in their own vehicle, social distancing, whatever.

01:09:40

And a cop came through, started writing everyone in the parking lot a ticket. Oh, man.

01:09:45

Everyone in the parking lot a ticket. And it's like, wait a second. They're, they're not, they're not breaking any kind of law here.

01:09:54

Law, yeah. You know? I mean, I don't know. Maybe they could say, well, you're not on your way to work. You know, you're, maybe you're all non -essential workers.

01:10:04

I don't know what, what the rule, rule was exactly that they said that they couldn't do that though.

01:10:09

That's messed up though. Because I mean, around here. Was it just one officer? You know? Man, I skimmed through it.

01:10:16

I just, I just saw that there were 500 people. Because sometimes. Or $500 tickets.

01:10:22

That's what it was. $500 tickets. Because that's the misdemeanor. Yeah. In Mississippi. That's wild, man. You know,

01:10:27

I'm hoping that that was just, um, you know, some people, people have to realize too.

01:10:32

And me working with the sheriff's department. Sometimes one officer can make 70 officers in a whole office look bad.

01:10:40

Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. Wow. Still got the cough going. Great. But, uh, hopefully that's just one guy that.

01:10:48

I don't know. He just walked up and he was like, oh, we're going to hit our quota today, boy. I'm getting some new

01:10:53

SWAT gear. $500 a pop. Yeah. You know? And they were all elderly.

01:10:59

No. Mainly elderly. I'm just like. Yeah. Leave these people alone. Yeah. I mean.

01:11:05

Trying to listen to a sermon. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, make an example of a 70 year old, 80 year old, you know?

01:11:12

Yeah. Well, here's the other thing too. I think that I, I hope, uh, comes out of this and glorifies the

01:11:18

Lord is there's going to be, hopefully this opens the eyes to Western Christians that don't understand how good they have it here in this country.

01:11:29

Right. The freedom of religion, personal liberty, the liberty they have in their religion, uh, and how the government treats them right now is probably some of the best that Christians have ever been treated in the history of the world in any country.

01:11:44

Right. And the fact that you're starting to see just a little bit of that. I mean, the fact that that's a national news story that someone got wrote a ticket for trying to go to church that tells you how good we have it right now.

01:11:57

Isn't it? Wow. Wow. Okay. There's a pastor that was arrested in Florida and then de

01:12:02

Blasio said that if you get together in your church, we're going to shut your church down.

01:12:08

And so did the, the, uh, governor in Virginia, um, said the same thing. Like, I mean, but, but yeah, go ahead.

01:12:15

So, so we do have it well, but how quickly it can change. Yeah. Let me tell you something. Politicians, they'll give lip service to God if it gets them a few more votes.

01:12:25

Yeah. I mean, I, I've saw presidents and governors and even state legislature leaders that will literally say,

01:12:33

God bless the United States, this, that, and the other. And then out of the other side of their mouth, I want nothing to do with you.

01:12:39

Those idiots, those believers, you know, so don't, don't have deplorables. You remember that?

01:12:45

Right. Yeah. And I mean, she's, you know, she says she's a Bible believing Catholic and, uh, you know, whatever.

01:12:51

Yeah. Uh, that was Hillary Clinton you're referring to. But, um, don't think for a second that when times get tough, that the secular government or that, that non -Christians are your friends.

01:13:02

Or going to stick up for you or gonna, you know what I mean? Like they're in your corner. Like they're in your corner.

01:13:08

Yeah. And that's going to be, I personally believe that'll be part of the great falling away. It'll just be

01:13:14

Christians in name only who don't understand what it truly means to follow

01:13:19

Christ. Right. There's going to be some tough decisions, uh, coming up over the next few decades when it comes to, do

01:13:25

I serve man or do I serve Christ? And when I say tough decisions, I mean, separation of family, who are we going to be able to eat or not?

01:13:34

Um, I mean, just things that are real life struggles. Right. And right now we have a good, as Christians, as much as, you know,

01:13:44

I do rail on, uh, you know, religious liberties and all those things. They're, they're pecking away at it.

01:13:49

They're chipping away at the wall, but I mean, something like this can really just flip it on its head overnight.

01:13:55

And I'm hoping that this situation kind of opens up the eyes to some of these leaders. I mean, I've had, uh, private conversations with pastors that will not preach on certain subjects and fear of losing, losing certain statuses.

01:14:10

No, not losing tithe, just losing their status. The IRS has put into place some things that say,

01:14:17

Hey, if you're, uh, classified as a certain 501 three C we have.

01:14:23

And, uh, and you itemize, uh, certain things, uh, for expenses and things they can actually come in and say, well, we want to see what you're talking about, what you're telling people.

01:14:35

And that's all written into the hate law speeches that have come up over the last five or seven years to where, you know, a decade from now, if a pastor standing on the stage and they refer to someone as a certain gender and they're not right, you could possibly be shut down, lose your status as a nonprofit.

01:14:55

And that goes away. I mean, we're not very far off from that and that's not conspiracy theory or anything like that.

01:15:00

That's like someone like me who's actually read the laws and see it happening in different states and, you know, and had private conversations with pastors that say,

01:15:08

I won't, I won't talk about certain things because I'm, I'll lose my status. And I just walk away shaking my head and just feeling so discouraged that, uh, what, what's more important, right.

01:15:20

The truth of the gospel or keeping a tax exempt status. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

01:15:27

I don't know. I mean, and, and to, you know, we run into, uh, uh, the, the people that say, this is the end of the world.

01:15:34

Sure. This is the end of the world. And it's like, well, wait a second. Um, we are, you know, we have, we have roofs.

01:15:42

Most of us have a roof over our head. Yeah. Most of us have food in our belly, you know, um, uh, a job to go to.

01:15:50

Uh, most of us, I say, um, I mean, this is, this isn't even close to the end of the world.

01:15:56

If, if you're still living, you know, in that, in that mindset, you know, um,

01:16:02

I mean, you hear about these pastors overseas that are getting arrested, you know, and putting in, put in jail for having one page of the

01:16:11

Bible. Yeah. They're found with one page in the Bible. It's like, oh my gosh, we, you know,

01:16:16

I think I have seven or eight Bibles in my house. And, uh, I mean, it was, you know,

01:16:23

I'm, I'm just fine. You know, I'm, I'm getting a cold drink out of my, out of my refrigerator. Yeah. You hear those guys that like, uh, oh, who was it?

01:16:30

They memorize like each one will memorize a chapter of a book because it's illegal to actually possess the

01:16:38

Bible. And then you go, oh, that's what Jesus meant by hide my words in your heart. Yeah. Cause we just take it for granted that, you know,

01:16:46

I literally, I probably have nine or 12 Bibles in my house right now and go down to any store and go to gas station and find a

01:16:52

Bible, you know? And, uh, there's some people in some countries you can't do that.

01:16:57

Right. And I'll tell you what, it's, uh, sometimes too much blessing is a bad thing because we do so have it so well.

01:17:06

My brother always tells a funny story. His wife, um, and I hope I don't get in trouble for telling this story, but it's, it's in love.

01:17:14

Uh, when he, when we first started hunting up North at our property in Northern Michigan, his wife go, do you really have to go up there every year?

01:17:22

You know, wasn't really giving him a hard time, but just kind of questioning a little bit. He goes, babe, listen, it was less than a hundred years ago.

01:17:30

Men had to go out, kill something, skin it, dress it, tan it, you know, process it and then eat it.

01:17:37

He goes, now we just walked down the aisle of a store and we go, oh, I think I'll have some pork. I think I'll have some hamburger.

01:17:42

Oh, look at fresh fruit. And he goes, uh, although we can do that now, that DNA of like beast mode has not left me.

01:17:52

I'm still that guy. A hundred years ago. I have to go out and kill something, dress it, process it, bring it home and provide for my family.

01:17:59

And she was like, oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. But just the way he told me, I said, it is so true because I mean, just one, just one century ago, just a hundred years ago.

01:18:10

I mean, you would still go out even in the night up to the 1920s and thirties. I mean, hunting was part of regular life to provide meat.

01:18:19

Um, and now you just, you just walk down the aisle and you say, oh, I'll have some of this and that. I feel like sushi.

01:18:25

I feel like, you know, smoked salmon. I feel like steak. And we have so much blessing and so much convenience.

01:18:32

You know, we turn on a tap, fresh water comes out, we flush a toilet that goes down. I mean, we literally just throw away stuff, drag it to the end of our driveway and it disappears.

01:18:43

Right. And then we just take back an empty can and it just all just kind of works. And if that gets, if that is taken away from us either overnight or over a period of time, there's going to be a majority of Americans that just lose it.

01:18:59

Right. Right. That will lose it. I mean. Because we depend on the convenience of the modern world.

01:19:05

And I'm not saying, you know, go hole up in the upper peninsula or out in Minnesota somewhere.

01:19:11

It'd be pretty rad though. It would be pretty awesome. You know, turn into Grizzly Adams. Right, right. Just, you know.

01:19:16

I'd totally be able to do that. But at the same time, I think bringing,

01:19:21

I'm going to bring this home now. Okay. Bringing it home, I'm saying, seek ye first the kingdom of God.

01:19:29

And then all those things are added onto you. Don't seek the convenience. Don't seek, you know, the nice furniture and the comfortable bed.

01:19:38

And those are fine to have those things. But know that they're temporary. And know that they're not necessary.

01:19:44

Okay. I've been homeless before in my life where I've slept on a sidewalk. And I've slept in a car, you know, that wasn't my car.

01:19:52

And it wasn't running at the time. So it was, you know, just kind of sitting in someone's yard and I slept there. So those things are, those conveniences are temporary.

01:20:00

I mean, this life is a vapor. We're here for a minute and then we're in glory. So we have to make sure that the conveniences, the blessings, the wealth that we do have in this country doesn't become an idol.

01:20:12

In fact, that Christ is first in all that we do. And then if we position our mind that way, and you live that way every day outside of pandemics and COVID -19, when things like this happen, there's absolutely no fear.

01:20:26

Because you've already been living in the mindset that I'm seeking the kingdom first. Christ is my all in all.

01:20:32

All these other things aren't important. You could take them from me tomorrow. It doesn't matter. So then when you do get into a time like this in a valley, in a pandemic, whatever, it doesn't affect you.

01:20:41

And I'm really hoping that this is a reset for a lot of believers that will hopefully have a renewal of the mind and say, you want to know what?

01:20:52

All these things aren't that important to me. In fact, Christ is the one that's important to me. So do you have any parting words for us?

01:21:00

We'll wrap it up here. Yeah, I got one. Just one word?

01:21:06

Jesus. I think last time you said Jesus is real. Yeah, let's go with this one. Christianity is real.

01:21:16

Is this the running theme you're going to do? Every episode you're on?

01:21:22

By the way, God saves. Are you doing the, what is that called when they like scratch the microphone and ASRM or something?

01:21:33

You know what I mean? With these, I don't know what that is. With these so far, since we've done two of these though,

01:21:40

I keep feeling like SNL. Oh, the ladies.

01:21:45

Yeah, I won't say what it's called, but it's just like, they were just very, you know.

01:21:53

They did a radio show, right? Yeah, it was. And they would say, yeah. Well, thank you.

01:22:00

Yeah, ASRM is where they take, like they rip paper and they like. Gotcha.

01:22:05

Dave Grohl's really into it. Okay. Oddly enough, it's just people who, are really affected by very specific sounds.

01:22:15

Like it either soothes them or it's like, it makes them feel good basically.

01:22:21

And what's it called? I think it's called, I might be saying it wrong, but I think it's ASRM. It has to do with, or someone will just, if you

01:22:29

YouTube it, there's people who have millions of followers and they'll just whisper in the microphone. You'll just play the video and it goes,

01:22:38

I'm just talking to you. And you're like, what is this? Or some girl was just ripping paper.

01:22:43

She's like, or she'll take her water bottle. And she'll say, say, no, just listen to this. Are you serious?

01:22:51

And they make millions. I don't know if they're making millions, but there's millions of people watching it.

01:22:57

I was one of them. I have heard six videos. And I'm like, what is this? Right.

01:23:02

I don't know what this is called, but some type of weight loss program where people will watch someone eating a hamburger or watch someone eating chips or a candy bar on YouTube because that way they're, somehow it satisfies their brain somehow.

01:23:24

And they don't physically do it because they're weightlifters or they're really in shape.

01:23:30

Oh, it's like a real thing. Like, hey, I'm going to watch this person eat a hamburger. So I don't eat it.

01:23:36

So the craving's gone. Psychologically. So there's people out there creating content. Well, I think

01:23:41

I just need to become that. I know. Eat like a pig and be like, hey, throw the camera on, honey. About to eat 15 pancakes.

01:23:49

For this weightlifter. He might eat those. Carbon up. Yeah, it's probably more of the fitness ladies.

01:23:57

Yeah, there's just about anything on the internet. If you look long enough, you can find it.

01:24:02

And you can find us on the internet as well. You can find us on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram at Dead Men Walking Podcast.

01:24:11

Jason, thanks for coming. Thanks for having me, brother. We're going to have you another time. I think you're going to be back often.

01:24:17

Guys, thanks for listening. As always, if you have any questions, concerns, feel free to reach out and we will see you next time.

01:24:25

Later. You're not David. I said, you're not