Open Q&A

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

We are back. Well, I say we, but really, me. I'm back. Drew, it is

I. I am back again. I was sad that I had to miss last week's episode, but I did listen to it, and it was really, really good.

So if you missed last week's episode with Mark Spence, I would encourage you, go back, listen to the episode.

It was absolutely wonderful. But we are back, Apologetics Live, and Andrew did tell me that he's going to try to come on.

He is on his way to his hotel, so he's going to try to get set up there at his hotel and then join us.

But Apologetics Live is a podcast ministry by Striving for Eternity where we seek to answer your questions about God and the

Bible. And of course, like Andrew likes to say, if you doubt that, then head on over to ApologeticsLive .com,

click the duck icon, make sure that your audio is connected, and join us.

But just remember, I don't know is a perfectly valid answer. In fact, it's actually my favorite answer.

People ask me a question, but on tonight's show, we are going to be having an open

Q &A, although I know Brother John Elvin probably wants to ask some Post Mill questions.

Maybe I'll entertain that some, but we did a whole show on Post Millennialism, so I don't know how many more questions he could have.

But Andrew did send me a text message, and he thought it would be good if I mentioned it here on the show.

Now, if you remember a couple of months ago, we had an interaction with a professed Orthodox Jew named

Benzion. Well, toward the end of that show, there were some other topics that were discussed, and one was the doctrine of the

Kinsmen Redeemer. And well, I think you should listen for yourself to what

Benzion said. Adopted in. That's not what the Torah says.

It says that it's your father. He's an adopted person. And with the

Kinsmen Redeemer, the older one would be adopted in, and the father would be the older brother.

So yes, it works out perfectly. That's not true. That's not true.

It doesn't say that anywhere. You're making something up with all due respect. Did you hear that?

That's not true. That's not true. You're making something up. Well, you guys know

Andrew. You know that he just, he can't let that slide. So he sent me this text from Deuteronomy, chapter 25, verses 5 and 6, which read,

When brothers live together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man.

Her husband's brother shall go into her and take her to himself as wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

Well, there you have it. Okay? Wouldn't you know it?

Right there in the Bible, the very thing that Benzion said was not there.

Now that exchange took place when we were discussing the idea of adoption and lineage or tribal affiliation, and Andrew mentioned the

Kinsmen Redeemer. And so I kind of came at the idea of tribal affiliation, lineage, from a different direction when

I was emailing Benzion, and I pointed out to him 1 Chronicles, chapter 2, verses 34 through 36, which read this way.

Now Shishan had no sons, only daughters. And Shishan had an

Egyptian servant whose name was Jarha. Shishan gave his daughter to Jarha, his servant, in marriage, and she bore him

Ateh. Ateh became the father of Nathan, Nathan became the father of Zabad.

Now here in this genealogy, it goes through the mother.

Remember now, Benzion kept saying it can only go through the father. Well here, it actually goes through the mother, the daughter of Shishan.

She married an Egyptian, and then the lineage picks right back up as though it goes through the father.

So between Andrew and myself, I think Benzion has been refuted.

But on tonight's episode, let's really start with some in the news.

And I think this is going to lead to some good questions, and I think it's really going to tie back to the episode last week on abortion.

Now this comes from thechristianpost .com. From an article that they ran on July 4th, and it's titled,

Nikki Haley Urges Republicans to Stop Demonizing, Find Consensus on Abortion.

Okay, let me read that again just in case you missed it. Nikki Haley urges

Republicans to stop demonizing and find a consensus on abortion.

Now this upcoming election for president, the topic of abortion is going to be a major discussion issue.

Now if you're not familiar with Nikki Haley, she is a former governor of South Carolina.

She's a former UN ambassador during the Trump administration, and she is currently campaigning for president for the

Republican Party. But just from this headline alone, from an apologetic standpoint, the first things that really jump out at me is that Republicans are not pro -life.

No matter how much they say that they are, they're actually not pro -life. And the

Republican Party does not equal Christianity. But in this interview on Fox News Sunday, not only did

Nikki Haley say that Republicans need to stop demonizing the opponents on the abortion issue, but she also criticized bills in some states that were seeking to put women in jail for having abortions.

Well, that's interesting, because why would a woman go to jail for having an abortion?

Could it be because the baby in the womb is a human baby, and to kill it would be murder?

Wouldn't that be a good reason to put someone in jail for committing murder?

I mean, does she even believe that abortion is murder? I mean, I know

I've heard her say that she believes that it's a baby. But does she even believe that it's murder?

But she would go on to say that her goal is to forge a national consensus in order to save as many lives as possible.

Now I'm just curious, just curious here. But if you had legislation in each state that criminalized abortion, wouldn't that accomplish the goal of saving as many lives as possible?

Because you would be seeking to save the life of every unborn baby? And wouldn't you also be seeking justice for those murdered babies in the womb if abortion were criminalized?

I mean, just spitballing ideas here. But why criticize bills that actually seek to save as many lives as possible?

That seek to criminalize abortion? Actually give equal rights to the unborn?

I mean, this is what blows my mind about the Republican Party, because they always tout how they're the party of pro -life.

They're the party of pro -life. They want to save babies. They don't like abortion. But then they say, well, we need to stop demonizing people who get abortions.

We need to just find a consensus. We need to find a happy place where we all agree.

But she does say that she would absolutely support a bill that legalized abortion up to 15 weeks.

Now in her own state of South Carolina, I think it's 20 weeks. And I think

Senator Lindsey Graham is trying to put in legislation that would make it 15 weeks.

But she's the one that actually signed the bill to make abortion legal up to 20 weeks.

Now there are currently, I think, 12 to 13 states that have six -week abortion bans.

And which, by the way, I also found this fascinating. Donald Trump said that Florida's six -week abortion ban was too harsh.

And he said this in criticism of Governor Ron DeSantis. Now Donald Trump, if you remember, when he ran for president in 2016, he said that his goal was to stack the courts with pro -life judges for the purpose of overturning

Roe v. Wade. And yet he says a six -week abortion ban is too harsh.

He just completely flip -flopped on that whole issue. Now let's take this idea of a six -week abortion ban.

They're also known as the heartbeat bills. Many pro -lifers would view these heartbeat bills that are passed, they would view them as wins.

But are those actually wins? Well, no, they're really not.

Because if we understand the law as a teacher, and Nikki Haley actually understands the law as a teacher when it comes to this.

If we understand the law as a teacher, we aren't only told when we can't kill a baby, but we're also told when we can.

So as long as you do it before this time, then it's acceptable. And that's one of the things – and I listened to several, several interviews with Nikki Haley talking about this idea of her views on abortion.

And she said, we need to come to a national consensus. We need to find a place where we cannot kill a baby.

Well, she didn't use the term kill a baby. She said we need to come to a consensus where we can have safe abortions, but then also where we cannot.

We need to know where we can't. How about we don't kill babies?

How about we do that? And here's my question. What if there was a national consensus that said we want complete bans on abortion?

Would you vote for that? And she was actually asked that question. And you know what her answer was?

It was a non -answer. She didn't give an answer, like a true politician.

But there is absolutely no place where abortion, the murder of a baby, is acceptable.

No matter how you slice it, it's murder, plain and simple. Christians should not be rallying around six -week abortion bans.

And we should take the position that we want to end abortion, not regulate it.

But the interesting thing about this idea of her saying that she wants to come to a national consensus or a federal consensus,

I heard her say several times, is that it seems she wants to have a federal law on abortion.

But with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I'm not sure that having a federal law would actually do anything.

And the reason I say that is because there are federal laws against abortion. Or not abortion.

There are federal laws against marijuana. So at the federal level, marijuana is illegal.

And yet, there are several states that have legalized marijuana. So those states have actually said, we're not going to listen to you.

We're going to make our own laws. And they're actually right in doing so because of what's called states' rights.

So Nikki Haley, she criticized bills in states that are trying to bring about a total ban on abortion and criminalize abortion.

And they have the right to do that because of states' rights. And the thing with Roe v.

Wade, what people don't agree or what people don't understand with Roe v.

Wade is that I hear a lot of liberals say, well, with the overturning of Roe v.

Wade, now they're going to ban abortions and we're losing our rights and all these things. Okay, first of all, you never had a right to kill your baby in the first place.

But all it does, all that the court did in overturning that decision was send it back to the states.

Now, each state can make its own laws regarding abortion. And some of these states have said, we want total bans on abortions.

We want to make abortion illegal, we want to criminalize it, and we want to prosecute the mothers who murder their babies.

What's wrong with that? I mean, what's wrong with that?

We should want to prosecute murderers. We should not be trying to fight to say, okay, we can kill our baby here.

We can kill our baby there. It's okay to kill my baby as long as I do it before this time.

No, it's not. Because their argument goes, well, it's not a baby.

And like Jason Cave says here, conception equals life, exactly.

Yep, from the moment of fertilization, it is life. Absolutely. And so some of the arguments go, well, it's not a baby.

It's this clump of cells. It's this, it's that. They try to call it anything but a baby.

Except if you look at every embryology textbook, they all say it's a baby.

From the moment of conception, from the moment of fertilization, it's a baby. Why? Because a human can only give birth to other humans.

We don't look at dogs and say, oh, well, I guess my dog is just pregnant with some kind of zygote.

No, we say my dog is pregnant with puppies. Or my cat is pregnant with kittens.

The only place we try to desensitize people is with abortion.

By calling it everything other than a baby. This just blows my mind at the party that says it's for pro -life.

And one of the interesting things about this, how I said the Republicans are not pro -life.

Really, a lot of people in the pro -life movement are not pro -life at all. And I want to give you an example.

So in Oklahoma a couple of years ago, they went to introduce a bill that would ban abortions.

And they had the Oklahoma National Right to Life president sitting right next to Cecil Richards, who at the time was the head of Planned Parenthood.

They were sitting together. And when they brought this, wanted to bring up this bill, it kept getting shot down.

The pro -life movement kept saying, we can't pass this bill because then it will undo all the work that we've done over the decades in advancing the pro -life movement.

Okay, well is your goal to end abortion? I thought that was the goal, to end abortion.

It seems like when something comes up that wants to end abortion, you don't actually want to do it. So is the pro -life movement actually pro -life?

No, they're not. Melissa Owen says, eagles are more protected than babies.

They really are. And if you look, just look at our country. Look at PETA.

Look at, just look at all the environmentalist people and whatnot, the kooky people.

They fight so hard to protect all of these animals.

They fight so hard to protect shellfish and scallops and just all of these little animals.

But yet they are all for killing babies, human babies.

I mean, this is without a doubt just the greatest evil that we face today.

People who want to kill babies, people who advocate for killing babies, people who come up with mantras like they did a couple years ago, shout my abortion, that is a level of depravity that,

I mean I don't even have words for it. When we reach the point that says,

I can kill my baby if I want to. And that's actually what they say at the abortion mills.

Go out to the abortion mills. I would encourage you, go out, find whoever locally is doing abortion ministry in your city that you live in.

Go out with them one day. Listen to all the people. They don't make the argument, oh, it's just a fetus, which by the way you can just say, well, fetus is a

Latin word for baby. But they don't say it's just a fetus. They don't say it's a clump of cells.

They don't say it's a ball of tissue. They don't say all these other things that people in the media are saying.

They actually say, I can kill my baby if I want to.

Let's see, Facebook user, they advocate for the murder of babies, a grievous sin, so they can continue to fornicate another gracious sin.

I think you meant egregious sin, grievous sin. Yep, there you go. But that, absolutely, absolutely true.

They want to be able to kill babies so that they continue living a life of fornication and a life of sin. So abortion now is just another form of birth control.

We need abortion. Why? So we can have more fornication.

I need to be able to do what I want with my body. That's ultimately why.

And look at the reasons that they give as to why they need abortion. Oh, well, they're going to be in poverty.

Okay, so what, we kill poor people now? Oh, well, they're not going to be fully developed.

They're going to have mental issues. Okay, so are we to kill people who have mental issues?

Oh, well, the mother's not going to be able to have her career and do all these things.

Well, I guess she should have thought of that before she engaged in the act that results in pregnancy.

Look, so many things, only so many things can happen. Yeah, here you go. Andrew Graham right here,

I want a career. Yeah, should have thought about that one before you engaged in the act.

Only so many things can happen when you engage in the act that results in pregnancy.

You get pregnant, you get an STD, or you get both.

It's not a disease that someone sneezes and you catch it. You know what you're doing.

You know what this act leads to. And so when you say, my body, my choice, yeah, you're right.

Your body, you made that choice. That doesn't mean you get to commit murder.

I mean, utterly ridiculous. And, yeah, they just want to fight for abortion so that they can continue living sinful lives of fornication.

Let's see, was lost but now am found says euthanasia will be the next thing, just like in Canada.

But one of the things that I always find interesting, and I don't know that a lot of people know this.

Really the idea of just, you know, how did we get to this point? How did we get to the place where abortion, murdering babies is viewed as birth control?

And it's viewed as an acceptable and moral thing. Now, some of you might not know this.

Some of you may know this, actually, but there were actually several Supreme Court cases that led up to Roe v.

Wade. So this wasn't something that just all of a sudden fell on the desk of the

Supreme Court and they made this decision about it. There were several court cases that led up to the decision of Roe v.

Wade. And I like what Andrew Graham, yeah, right here. Whoops.

Abstinence is a form of birth control. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

But actually with what I'm going to get into right here with some of these court cases is people were fighting against the idea of abstinence.

So the first decision, court decision, we can look at is Griswold v.

Connecticut in 1965. Okay, so now at this point, abortion was illegal, and contraception was actually illegal as well.

Many states had laws against fornication. Sex was viewed as something that could only be done by the wife in the marriage bed, and it was for the purpose of procreation.

And so in Griswold v. Connecticut, it was determined that married people should be able to decide whether they want to and when they want to have children.

So the court determined that contraception was allowed to be obtained by married couples only.

And this decision was made citing the 14th Amendment and implying, and that's actually an important phrase, implying what we know as the right to privacy.

So we're going to see that show up in some of these other cases. And just to be clear, the idea of the right to privacy is actually not in the

Constitution. It's an idea that is imposed on the text of the

Constitution rather than derived from it. And so what began really to form in the minds of people is this idea that sex should be sterile.

And that's another idea that's going to be important as we continue going through some of these arguments.

Let's see what Humble Clay says. Humble Clay says, How many abortion victims have had the cure for cancer disease?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Maybe write out in the comments what you mean by that.

I saw your other comment earlier. How many cures for cancer have have been aborted?

I'm not sure. Let me know what you're what you're getting at there. So with Griswold versus Connecticut 1965, contraception was allowed to be obtained for married people only.

And because the idea that sex should be sterile and they should be able to decide when they want to have children.

And it's the first time we see this idea of the implied right to privacy. So this brings us to our second case,

Einstein versus Baird in 1972. Now, this case was struck down by Massachusetts law, which prohibited the selling of contraception to unmarried people to prevent pregnancy.

So at this time, it wasn't that you couldn't get contraception. It was that you actually had to have it prescribed by a doctor.

So a physician had to prescribe it to you. And now William Baird, he was actually giving a lecture at Boston University to a group of young women on the importance of contraception.

So he actually had samples with him, and that was actually against the law to display samples of contraception.

And at the end of his lecture, he gave a woman a contraceptive foam, and immediately, deputy sheriffs who were waiting outside, they came and arrested him off of the stage.

Now, the decision that came from the court in 1972 was that single people engaging in sexual acts now have the right to contraception.

And again, here, they implied the right to privacy under the 14th

Amendment. And so here we have this idea, again, that sex should be sterile.

It's starting to take shape a little more. So now not only can married people have sex recreationally without the consequence of pregnancy, but now unmarried people are told that they can engage in this act and not get pregnant.

So here we start to see those formings of what would become in our country, right?

I mean, and at this time, what did you have? I think you had the sexual revolution in the 60s.

And this idea is really, really starting to take shape of just free sex for everyone.

And so after Einstein versus Baird, this takes us directly to the third

Supreme Court case. And the interesting fact about this particular case, so we had

Griswold versus Connecticut, Einstein versus Baird, and we're coming up to our third case.

Let me see. Hold on. Okay. So Einstein versus Baird was actually decided with Roe v.

Wade on the desk of the Supreme Court. Okay, so word phrasings show up, that show up in Einstein versus Baird, they show up in Roe v.

Wade. And so the third case is Roe v. Wade.

So it was handed down almost 50 years ago. Actually, I think, what is it, 2023?

It might actually be exactly 50 years ago now. The United States Supreme Court declared that abortion was a right granted by the

Constitution under, and here it is again, an implied right to privacy under the 14th

Amendment. And this decision passed by a vote of 7 to 2 with Justices White and Rehnquist dissenting.

Now what happened with Roe? In 1969,

Norma McCorvey, she used the pseudonym Roe, Jane Roe, she got pregnant with her third child.

Her first two children she gave up for adoption, but with the third one, she wanted to seek an abortion.

This took place in Texas, and the law was very clear that unless a woman's life is in danger, she could not obtain an abortion, which that's also a separate topic.

The idea of the woman's life being in danger, that she could die from having an abortion, that's a separate topic.

But she wanted to obtain an abortion, and Texas would not let her.

So once the case reached the Supreme Court, Norma had already given birth to the baby, and then that baby was given up for adoption.

And the decision handed down by the Supreme Court was determined by what we would call an artificial demarcation.

They determined what fetal viability was, and based off of that demarcation, they outlined rules as to when and to what restrictions could be placed on abortion depending on the trimester that the mother was in.

Let me see. Okay. So the decision that was reached was that no state had the right to restrict a woman from obtaining an abortion.

Now this is – okay, think about that. No state has the right to restrict a woman from obtaining an abortion.

It sounds like the Supreme Court is making law, which they can't do.

Congress can make law. That's their role, to make law. But the

Supreme Court cannot make law. I mean,

I'm sorry. Jason Cave says, what about states' rights? Yeah, I actually covered that,

I think probably before you got in, Jason. I covered states' rights. I was covering an article that was put out by Nikki Haley, and I covered states' rights in there.

But yeah, absolutely. You're on the right track there. Now with Roe v.

Wade, this case was unique because it set precedent.

So rather than referring to precedent, it set precedent. So you may hear this case referred to as a landmark case or a watershed case.

That's because there were no previous cases to draw from. So this case was unique.

And the court, they pulled, when you see all the other cases that I just laid out before you,

Roe pulled from those previous two cases. Griswold v. Connecticut, Einstein v.

Baird. And so they pulled from those cases as to what to do if contraception fails.

So since sex should be sterile, what do you do when sex is recreational and contraception fails?

Well, Roe now allows you to kill the baby. So that's how we actually arrived at Roe v.

Wade. Now, I want to kind of move on from, let's just move past Roe a little bit.

And let's go to another case called Carey v. Population Service International.

This was in 1977. They cited the precedent from Griswold v.

Connecticut in 1965 and Einstein v. Baird in 1972 on not restricting access to contraception.

The court determined that no state, listen to this, no state could restrict the selling and distribution of contraception to persons under the age of 16.

Okay, so let me rephrase that in case you missed it. The court is saying that minors should be able to have sex recreationally and not get pregnant.

Yet, should that happen, no worries because Roe v. Wade allows them to kill the baby.

That is how we arrived at this place where we are at in our society that says we can just kill our babies.

I heard that Roe claimed to be raped. Is that right or was that someone else?

She actually did make the claim. She did make the claim that she was raped, but later she actually recanted that.

She said that wasn't true. So she did make that claim initially, but then she ended up recanting that.

So just try to get this in your mind, okay? We have a society today that fights so hard to kill babies.

And why do they do that? Because they believe sex should be recreational, you should not have the consequence of getting pregnant, and should contraception fail, you kill the baby.

Yep, Andrew, this is Andrew Graham. Should you be under 16 and want murder, we've got you covered.

Yep. And people today, they actually pass this off as – they always use the excuse, well, what about if the child was raped?

Or what about rape? What about incest? What about life of the mother? One, if those happen, rape is absolutely vile.

And I believe if you rape a woman, you should be given the death penalty. I wonder if Nikki Haley would agree with that.

I wonder if she would agree with that. But when you look at the numbers of women who obtain abortions because of rape,

I mean it's less than 1%. So – but they use that as the majority of their argument.

They try to make less than 1 % of all abortions the strong point of their argument.

Okay, don't do that. That's just not going to hold up. But even –

I mean even in that, you have to look at the statistics for who gets raped.

Because while rape is evil, it is an evil, and it should be punishable by death, not everyone who gets raped gets pregnant.

You have to consider age, with childbearing years, but also the body itself has defense mechanisms.

The woman's body actually knows when these things – when it's being violated in such a way.

The body contracts. It begins – areas begin to shut down and not function properly in order to kind of stave off an attack like that.

Now that's just what I read in some journals. I read that in about two or three different journals about a –

I think it was last year when Roe was overturned. So if you're a doctor, and let's see, someone is getting blocked right there.

Don't come on the show and use profanity in any way. That's just going to get you blocked.

I don't put up with profanity. I don't put up with anything crass or crude.

Not on this show. Keep it away or you will just be blocked.

So it's – there was – let's see. That's not true about – that's not true about defense mechanism.

Okay. I mean if there's a doctor that wants to come in and talk about it, fine.

I'm just telling you what I read in some medical journals when Roe was overturned.

But let's see some comments that we have. Melissa, abortion is just as bad as the hormone replacement therapy for children who cannot even comprehend the long -term effects.

Yes, absolutely. People who make the argument, well, my child is transgender because I saw my four -year -old boy playing with my lipstick.

Okay. And so they quickly rush to get him hormone therapy and try to turn him into a girl when all he did was see mommy do it, and so he's just repeating it.

That doesn't mean he thinks he's transgender. That's actually child abuse. Quit doing that.

But yes, abortion is just as bad because you're – one, you're killing a baby, but then in the hormone therapy all you're doing is mutilating the body.

You're taking a healthy body and you are mutilating it. You're destroying it.

Why would we ever want to do that to our children? Why? Lots of stuff going on just in society today that –

I mean, we need to be getting out there. We need to be getting out there, evangelizing, and taking

Christ to a loss and dying world. I mean, when we have – and I said earlier that the

Republican Party doesn't equal Christianity. And one of the things that I used to make fun of for – now,

I'm a Southerner. Proud to be one. But being in the

South, we do like our Fox News. Well, Fox News isn't

Christian news. It's not Christian, but they also don't claim to be either. But Fox News has a contributor that they call

Caitlyn Jenner, whose real name is Bruce Jenner, a man pretending to be a woman.

And so Fox News, which is this conservative news outlet, has a man – a grandfather, actually – pretending to be a woman.

What are you trying to conserve at that point? What are you trying to conserve?

Because now, just with bringing on Bruce Jenner, parading him around as a woman, what's left?

Now you're saying it's okay. It's okay if you think you're a woman. It's okay if you don't feel like you're in the right body.

As long as you line up with us politically, it's just, yeah, we'll make you a contributor.

And let's see, Humble Clay says, Fox News isn't conservative anymore. I've kind of noticed that.

When Rupert Murdoch gave the company to his kids, I think his kids are very, very liberal.

And so I think they kind of took it in that direction, trying to get more center or more center left.

Andrew Graham says, let's not forget Fox sacked Tucker Carlson. Yeah, and the funny thing about that is when – did you see when

Tucker did his live? I think it was on – I think he did it on YouTube or something. But he did his live, and it got – at the same time that was his prime slot at Fox, and he got more viewers than Fox did.

I thought that was hilarious. But Tucker Carlson was very much kind of the reasonable conservative voice.

You kind of – when you listen to Tucker talk, you kind of hear some – almost some presuppositional apologetics in the way that he approaches arguments.

Kathy says it was on Twitter. Yeah, and I think Twitter is actually coming out with a way to do lives like that.

I think Tucker was probably the first one that they – that Elon Musk approached about doing that.

But yeah, so if you follow Fox News, I'm sorry for you.

They're not conservative anymore. They're not trying to conserve anything. And really the

Republican Party in itself is really trying to be their – uh -oh, hold on.

I think we got someone coming in. We do. I'm going to add him to the stream. Andrew Rappaport has joined us from his hotel room.

Hey, how are you? Oh, you know, we're doing good. We're talking about lots of things on here. Oh, good.

Miss anything fun? Oh, you know, we're just talking about abortion again, and I went through some

Supreme Court cases that – basically how we arrived at the place we do where abortion is now birth control, and people are shouting to protect their right to kill babies.

Yeah, we've had a very interesting reaction you're seeing with the

Supreme Court, because when the Supreme Court was ruling in favor of the left and basically against the

Constitution, they were all happy about that. And now, I mean,

Joe Biden's saying the court's not normal. It's like every time they don't get something that goes their way, well, we've got to pack the court.

We've got to do something. It's like they can't get along with other people.

If it's not their way, they can't handle it. Well, I came to this decision a couple years ago that really, if you look at Democrats and Republicans, there's really no difference because Democrats say we want to take your money now, and Republicans say we want to take your money, but we just want to do it over six years.

Yeah. Yeah. It is an interesting thing.

I remember when George W. Bush went through all the – using his political capital to get the tax cuts passed, but he only did it for 10 years.

So how much do you really believe in it, right? Because if you're thinking, well, it's only for 10 years.

I'll be out of office. And so he won't have to deal with the ramifications of it.

But if you really believe it's a good thing, then just push it to be made permanent.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, we do have an important question here from Melissa.

She says, Andrew, have they found the cause of you having double vision? No. I went to the eye doctor today.

He actually – so I went to an eye doctor, and he said, hey, because of the way it is, he said he thinks he can rule out that it's an aneurysm.

But he's not sure. He still thinks I should go get an MRI just to be safe. But I didn't have a lot of confidence in him because he was like, you know,

I haven't dealt with this since when I went to school. So I was like, you know what, I called my other eye doctor, the one

I used to have. And she was like, tomorrow call your primary, get an appointment, get a cardiogram, just make sure – rule out a stroke or anything like that.

But she was more forceful than he was. So, yeah, that's what

I plan to do. I plan to get some appointments.

I'm in the process of my health care change, so I'm in the fun part where I am changing primary care physicians.

It's always fun. But in February I made an appointment for the earliest possible appointment, which is next month.

So hopefully they'll – even though I'm not technically a patient yet, I'm hoping they'll see me.

Gotcha. Well, Melissa here says, sometimes double vision is caused by high blood pressure. So how's your blood pressure?

The blood pressure's been doing good. I mean, it's slightly high but not too high.

You know, I was – yeah, but it can vary. That's the problem. Like I never know. I sit down, take it, and it's like, oh, okay, 130 over 80.

That's not too bad. And then I could be like, you know, 160 over 90. Well, that's different.

Well, I mean, I know all I really got to do to get your blood pressure up is send you a clip of Andy Stanley saying something.

Yeah, yeah. So let's not talk about that. So, yeah,

I do know – I know some folks that were – or someone that contacted me saying he was going to come in this week, but I told him

I may not be on, so I don't know if he will. So I don't know.

What questions have we gotten today? Well, we actually haven't gotten any questions. So you've been rambling?

Yeah, I've been rambling. No, I'm – You're good at that. Of course I've got to be prepared just in case there aren't any questions.

But no, so what we kind of talked about so far is, of course,

I addressed the Bible verse that you sent me with Ben Zion where he said, you're just making that up.

That's not true. That's not anywhere in the Bible. I played his words of him saying that and then read the very scripture that you sent.

So we did address that. That was funny because that was just in my morning devotions, and I read it.

I thought of that conversation and was like, yeah, let me send this over to Drew because there it is.

I couldn't find – and I told him that. I couldn't find it at the time, but I'll have to mark that down so we have that for –

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so John is saying Andrew is having a good hair day, good lighting in the hotel.

Yeah. Yeah. The light is right here. It would be better if I could turn it like that.

There you go. Well, that was better. Yeah. But – You have to leave it like that.

So we went over that, and then we went over this article that I found on ChristianPost .com

about Nikki Haley and some of the things she has said on abortion and wanting to find a consensus, a national consensus on abortion where Republicans and Democrats can agree and stop demonizing one another.

And so then we went into just talking about abortion and kind of how we arrived at the place we have in the society going through some of these

Supreme Court cases from the 60s and 70s that led to Roe and then one that was after Roe that allowed contraception to minors.

That said, minors now have the right to contraception. So the idea, of course, with that is that minors have the right to now engage in sexual activity without the consequence of pregnancy, and if that contraception fails, you can kill the baby because of Roe.

So all these court cases are actually linked together. So that's what we've been talking about.

Trying to get some better lighting here for folks. Here is a question from Andrew. Drew, you may not know

Andrew Graham there. He's Down Under, if I remember correctly, from Australia. Okay.

Bluey is one of my favorite shows in our house. But he's actually had some really good comments that I've posted on here already.

So he's asking, what do we think about having the sex of the baby removed from birth certificates?

I think that's giving in to the insanity of our culture,

I guess. It amazed me. I think

I've shared this before on the show, the book 1984. Yeah. By the way, that wasn't an instruction manual.

I was just going to say. Someone in the White House is walking around going, oh, this is what we do next.

Yeah. Yeah. I like Matt Slick has a T -shirt that says, make 1984 fiction again. And the one thing in the book 1984 that I thought made no sense when

I read it back as a teenager was the fact that it was the new speak, that the government could change the language and everyone buys into it.

Right. I really thought there's no way that could happen. And I look at this birthing mother that, you know, this is just a few years ago.

I mean, I guess I first heard it was Kamala Harris. But you're talking, what, two years ago, three years ago?

It wasn't very long. It took less than a year for someone in my church who is pregnant to give birth.

And in the hospital, they looked at both of them and asked them, which one of you is the birthing parent?

It's like, you know, the guy was like the one in the bed and it's called a mother. It's like, you have to ask this now.

Which one of you is the birthing mother? Yeah. A birthing parent. But it amazes me how fast the language changed and everyone just bought into it.

Hospitals are like, oh, we're going to change this. So, yeah,

I wouldn't support the idea of removing the sex. I think that that just makes it easier for people to say, see, this is normal.

And we should not be looking to make these things normal. Yeah. Yeah. And just thinking about the idea that that was, what, two years ago, just how rapidly it's taken place.

And I remember a couple of years ago, James White just saying just how rapidly things are changing.

And I think it had to do with, they were talking about the homosexual movement. I think it was

James White and Dr. Michael Brown, because Michael Brown had just come out with his book on the sexual revolution or something.

And almost immediately after it came out, he said, well, now he's got to go back and update it because things have changed that much since it came out.

Well, if you go back on this show, back a few years, I think it was even back when

Matt Slick was on, when we first started it. And I was saying, and the atheists thought

I was crazy, but I was saying back then that whoever came after Trump, I thought

Trump would do eight years. But I said whoever came after Trump was going to swing so far to the left that it would make what

Obama did seem normal. And when you think about Obama, what he did made what

Clinton did look good comparatively. And so I think what you have is such a hard swing.

Now, granted, Trump was such a hard swing to the right. I mean, after the two

Bushes that were more moderates, that Trump really seemed like a really right wing.

But it's amazing because they never called Biden or Obama left wing. But I think

Trump's election was a response to Obama, to years of Obama.

And I think that, you know, with what

I had said years ago was that when whoever replaces Trump was going to swing so far to the left that they would make sure that they would swing so far that they have to do whatever it takes to to maintain power because they'll shift so far they can never go back.

And I think that's what we're seeing. You're going to see, I think, in this next election, whoever ends up running.

And I wouldn't be surprised if whoever runs is not Biden or Trump. I wouldn't be surprised with the

Sanchez versus Newsom. But I think that.

With what has gone on there, they they're going to go so far over one way, they can't they got to do anything, they do anything and everything to make sure they hold power.

Because you just think about what would happen if they went after Trump with these records, which, you know, they're the way they're trying to make it a criminal offense.

It's not actually a criminal offense because the position he had. But what they're doing is they're implying that he had criminal intent with the records.

And so that's how it becomes a criminal offense. And then this week we find cocaine in the

White House. And no one seems to be concerned about that.

I wonder how that got there. Yeah, I mean, it is quite interesting, because if you think about the sweetheart deal that Hunter Biden just got, part of that is that he has to stay clean for a certain number of years.

I forget how many. And so as you think about it, if that's Hunter Biden who had the cocaine, he violated the parole.

I mean, as soon as he gets the deal, he's violated it. Yeah. And would have to go to jail. You know, and it's just a strange story, because even

Secret Service is now saying that it's they founded it in a different place than it was reported. It was really found in some area where there were a bunch of workers and like so workers got in.

It wasn't in the main air like it was downstairs. Someone's going to be paid a lot of money to take the fall for that.

Yeah. Well, I don't think so, because it's kind of like who leaked the

Supreme Court ruling on Rovers. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah.

I mean, there's only 40 possible people and they can't figure out who it is. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing.

You know, you got 40 possible people. You figure even if it was 20, 20 conservative, 20 liberal, you know that it wasn't the conservatives that leaked it.

So that now down to like 20. It's just amazing.

Yep. Yep. So we have a guest in the back. I don't know who that is.

Do you know who that is? No, I don't know who Joe Son is and they're not on camera. We can bring them in and see if they're connected.

I don't know. When they don't have the camera, it's hard to know if they're really connected.

But let's bring them in. OK. Here, see? I'll add. Hello, Joe Son.

Hi. How are you? Can you hear me? Yes. All right.

Is your name short for something? Joe Son means something?

Joe is my first name. OK. And I just put my part of my maiden name in there.

I just I just wanted to remain private for. Yeah. No, no, no. I'll tell you why I ask.

Joe Son is sounds almost like a Cantonese word.

In fact, this word. You're breaking up.

Yeah. Andrew, you're breaking up. So my son's name in Cantonese is

Joe Son. I keep breaking up.

I mean, yeah, you are still breaking up. But just to I'm not Cantonese. I am

Korean. How are you? OK. Or Korean -American. OK.

Got it. There we go. So did you have a question? I was really just going to lurk in the background because like I just I don't know because this is

I didn't even think that I was going to get pulled into this. OK, well, do you want us to put you back backstage?

Jody, do you have you have any questions, you know, about the Bible? Or let me ask you this.

Are you you profess to have been converted to Christ? Yes. I mean,

I've listened to. Well, I've listened to Andrew, I've listened to your podcast for,

I think, the better part of like, I think starting this year,

I've been listening to your podcast more. But before you, I was listening to Dr.

Dr. James White from like 2017. And and then

I was and then last year I was listening to a lot of Justin Peters. And so basically, like and I've been buying more.

I've been buying books. Basically, I'm coming from like I basically grew up in a

Southern Baptist sort of in a Korean. I don't know. I have I still am working through a lot of issues because I grew up in an abusive household and was supposed.

And it's a this is a Korean. These are Korean parents who have very warped views about Christianity.

They like to use Bible verses to really.

And I know my experience is not does not is not projected upon all East Asians and other

Southeast Asians and Indians or anything like that. But I mean, I would say that like my experiences have been similar,

I guess. It's not I'm not I'm I just want to say I'm not the only one who probably has parents like this.

But like, I guess I've just been going through a journey of just like going from not really knowing theology in any great sense.

Just knowing that, oh, I can, you know, Jesus say Jesus saves me from my sins.

But then growing up in a household where my parents would lie, cheat, you know, just all these unbiblical things.

But then they would explain it away by saying, oh, well, this is OK. So kind of rules for the not for me kind of thing.

And they would just I don't know. I grew up with a very skewed view of Christianity.

I I basically hate was love and love was hate, things like that. I I went away from God during college and then

I went to medical school when and then during medical school,

I was like, I guess like God was just like, OK. I don't know. God was working my life in a way.

And when I went to into residency, I couldn't I couldn't hack it because it was just too difficult.

And I just didn't I don't know. And then and then

I resigned finally. And then like afterward, I went on this journey and I will preface this by saying that I did get into a charismatic branch of Christianity.

But I have since come away from that. There are like a few like maybe one or two tenets, maybe not tenets, but just little things that I still hold on to because and I actually and I guess this is a question like since 2015,

I've been really doing. And I know you guys may disagree with this, but this has helped me immeasurably.

I know Justin Peters has like a huge problem with this. So so I don't even and people in the comments can probably say that I'm heretical and such.

And or you guys can say that, too. I just I'm going to I've been since 2015,

I've been going through like an inner healing thing. And I know that's controversial because inner healing has so many.

It's such a weighty, like charismatically laden kind of term. But I mean,

I will say and I am going through biblical counseling right now with an ACBC certified counselor, a woman.

And she's been very helpful in giving me sort of like the broad strokes of Christianity and who

God is. Because, again, I have like a very skewed view of God still in some ways.

And I have to be reminded of his love and his grace, not just his truth and his justice.

Because it's like, you know, if we like because we're all we're all depraved and we're all you know, we're all dead in our sins.

And it's only by the grace of Jesus Christ that we are able to that we can go to God and, you know, seek redemption and have that redemption.

But with the inner healing, it's like it's helped me immeasurably get through like a lot of my a lot of the abuse from my parents.

A lot of the theology related issues that I was having, like, you know, why does

God allow evil in the world? Blah, blah, blah, things like that. And I've since reconciled with a lot of those questions.

I know that the Bible is inerrant. I know that it's sufficient and it is good for and it is good for all things.

I guess for me, when it comes to the Bible, I do struggle to find some things to pertain to what my past, my abuse, my wounds.

Like I it's like I need something more specific and to kind of really show me that, you know, what my parents did was wrong.

And I'm trying to proactively work to get myself in, get myself right with God, know the truth about him and know him and love him.

Because I have a very hard time loving others because of what I was brought up with. So and I have and I know

God is working on this with me. And I know like I mean, I'm trying. I'm reading the

Bible every day or I try to. I have three young children, so it's like it's a little hard.

But like I'm trying to pull as many theological, theologically sound resources and just trying to stick with good theological doctrine.

But then there's always that little part of the charismatic branch that has helped me.

And I know people like Justin Peters have a really hard, do not like charismatic, the charismatic branch.

And they don't consider that as part of Christianity, obviously. And I get that and I totally understand his arguments for it. But there are some things about it where I'm just like,

OK, this has helped me. I can't deny that. But I guess

I wanted to know what your thoughts were on that. Yeah, well, first, let me give you some of the comments that Melissa Melissa said.

This poor guest, I'll be praying for her. We have Jason Cave, who said, praying for you,

Joe. And then a recommendation is from was lost.

And now I'm found, says read the book Spiritual Disciplines by Morton Lloyd -Jones. And that is a very good book.

I think it's spiritual depression, spiritual depression. Sorry. What did

I say? Spiritual discipline. No, that's a different book. No, that's a good book, too. Yeah.

Spiritual depression by by Morton Lloyd -Jones is a good book. You know, let me say this.

Things will work. But it doesn't mean it's biblical. Right. So if things didn't work, you think about it, you look at, you know, the

Hindus or, you know, Muslims or, you know, they have things that, you know, even like if you look into and you study things like Reiki and some of that stuff, they have things that it looks like it works.

And so people people let their experience do the interpreting of the scripture.

That's that's not good to do. We can recognize that, yeah, there could be some benefit in certain things.

But just because there's benefit, you know, doesn't mean we do it now.

The real thing is you always want to get to the root cause of the problem. Right.

And. The the thing I would say is that clearly. Right. I mean,

I may know you, but don't know that I know you. But but, you know, as far as I know, we we've just talked this one time.

I don't know your parents that I as far as I know. And so, first of all, do your parents profess to be

Christians? Yeah, and I don't believe them because they don't show the fruits of the

Holy Spirit. And that's what I was going to say. Yeah. No, they do not show the fruits of the

Holy Spirit. And I mentioned in my in my in before that they they lie.

They get they they gas lit me like pretty much all through my childhood. They they basically made me sit at the desk at at my desk for 12 hours a day studying.

They they would yell at me. They would and they would use things like the ten commandments of thou shalt honor your mother and father.

And and they would always bring this up whenever I talk back to them or whenever I said, can

I please take a break? Can I please go out and be a kid? You know, it's just so there are just some things that I have to work through.

Yeah. About that. And so, you know, one of the things that there's a difference.

Did your parents grow up in America or in Korea? And if you're asking too much information, you can feel free to say

I don't feel like sharing. They my dad came here for to do his

Ph .D. when he was like, I guess when he was what, 28 or something like that.

Or my mom came. She my mom came to go to college and my mom came here and went to college here when she was like,

I think, 18 or something. Your first your first generation American. Yeah. Yeah.

And do you have siblings? I do have a sister, but I don't I don't talk to any of them.

You know, so one of the things is that and for some of the listeners, they may not understand the

Asian culture. You know, I don't know how much you follow me. My my my wife, you know, was was born and raised in Hong Kong.

And so I pastored at a Chinese church. So I understand not to the same degree, obviously, but I understand some of the

Chinese culture. And it's one of the things where there's a high, high value on education.

And, you know, something that you had said does does resonate with the changes we with my wife and I that we made is you wanted to be a kid.

You wanted to be in America. Kids are not their focus is not just education to get a job, which it is in other parts of the world.

And that's that's where it is in a lot of the Asian areas. And so that's what your your parents probably were raised with.

And that's what they know. So, you know, some of it is they may not know any different.

Right. Right. But that doesn't excuse to me. No, I'm not trying to excuse, but I am trying.

One thing we have to do is always be able to understand other people.

Right. And be able to to see why they do what they do, why they were why they did what they did.

Let me just, you know, Jason saying this to you, Joe, thank thank you,

Joe, for for openly sharing your faith journey. And I know you came in and we were having a more serious conversation.

Humble Clay says that you sound like you have some discernment. And and I think you do.

It's, you know, we have to be able to separate. The way we were raised from what scripture tells us.

And that's not always easy to do. Right. Depending on how kind of how emotional how much of our emotions play into our thinking process.

It can be really hard. And so I'm not making light of it at all. But what

I see, I see what I see what you're I'm sorry to interrupt. But, yeah, no, I see. No, I know that you're being careful with your words.

And I appreciate that. And I do appreciate people like saying positive comments and those praying for me.

I just I mean, I'm not here to like, you know, to like get into an argument or anything like that.

I'm just like I'm just I'm not saying that you were trying to start one. I'm just like I'm just I'm just trying to like like I I know what scripture says is vastly different from what my parents showed me.

I know that much. But there is. And I guess like for me, I'm still working through the wounds of like base.

I mean, because there because like with the way I was raised, I ended up like conflating that with God, with how he is.

And when I know intellectually speaking, he is not like that. And it's it's taken a little longer for that to reach my heart, to make my heart flesh.

And so I'm still working on that. And I hope and I hope to one day know

God and not just know him, but like to love him.

Because my greatest fear is that, you know, I'll be standing before him on that on that day and he will say,

I don't know you. And and that's my greatest that's one of my greatest fears. But like I don't and I'm trying and I'm trying to work to get to there.

So that's yeah. So anyways, that's just basically it. I mean, it sounds like we it sounds like like what

I've been using is like or at least some of the things that I still go with the charismatic stuff is is unbiblical.

So I'm going to have to pray on that. And well, I mean, I know I really have to really have to look into that just because.

Yeah, no, you should. Right. I mean, you shouldn't take my word for it because my words useless. So it's what

Scripture says. Right. But but I mean, Joe, isn't it so hard for us? Like we can we can know something intellectually.

Right. And we can know something we can like we get there's things we can know right and wrong. You already shared.

I didn't even have to. I was thinking of it when you were talking. But you know that,

OK, this is your parents. It doesn't reflect who God is. But and yet, isn't it so hard sometimes for us to emotionally separate things like that, even though we can intellectually go, yeah,

I know this is what it is. But then there's this feeling that seems to counteract it. Right.

But we're supposed but we know that the heart is deceitful above all things. And then only God only God can.

So you have to you have to get past like your feelings dictating what what you what you know, what your actions, the way you treat others.

You have to get past that. You have to go to God and you have to be like, OK, according to your according to your word, according to the

Scriptures. Like this is this is how this is what you're commanding me to do kind of thing.

And and I guess it's still hard for me because it's like like I like I said before,

I it's very difficult for me to love because because I was not loved growing up and just plain and simple.

So let me let me give you a son and I'm going to have I'm going to preface it and I'll ask you not to laugh.

But Drew, I know will laugh anyway because, you know, he likes to laugh at me. But I'm going to put it in a different situation.

I'm going to I'm going to use myself as an example. Before I married my bride, I I was

OCD. What would they determine OCD? I I could check the door of my apartment a dozen times, even though nobody walked in the door.

No one went out the door. I'm the only one in the apartment. But I like would get up.

I'd be working on the computer. I just have this feeling I'd get up and have to check that the door is locked. And there'd be things where if it felt like a certain way,

I had to keep like touching something because it felt a certain way. Even though rationally

I knew the door is locked. Like I would check to make sure the stove's off, even though I know that I didn't cook anything.

There's no reason it should be on. And I just checked it 30 seconds ago and it was off then. Right. Intellectually, I could understand that.

And it's a thing where, you know, like you'd look at that and say, gee, that's so stupid.

Like if you checked it and nothing's changed, it should still be locked. Right. I used to have trouble where like even my clothes that I would put in my closet had to be organized a certain way or drove me nuts.

And my bride when we got married and I started explaining to her, I was like, OK, if you're going to do the laundry, like this is how you have to lay my clothes out.

And she just looked at me and said, Andrew, I love you, but you have one of two choices.

You could do your own laundry or you're going to let me put the clothes any way

I want and you're going to learn to live with it. And and she would sit there and I would get up to go and check the door.

And and we had a by level. So we'd be on the on the top. And so I'd have to walk half a flight of stairs down to check the doors locked.

And she would be like, you just checked it. Like I would literally check it before dinner and halfway through dinner.

Like be like, I got to go check that the door's locked. And she would just sit me down, say, ignore the feeling.

And it's really it sounds so easy to say. There's if I had the

I don't have great internet. I switched over my phone because that's actually better than the hotel. But if you search on YouTube, it's search.

Stop it. And I forget who I think it's Bob Newhart. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

Just the same thing. Yeah. Search Bob Newhart. Stop it. And that's that was what my wife had to do with me.

Like just yelled at me. Just stop it. You know, intellectually. That the door's locked.

It's just a feeling. And what I discovered after many years was at first,

I got to tell you, son, Joe, it was a huge struggle. I mean, I would I'd literally sit on my hands sometimes to like as a way to get me to not get up and go check that the door is locked.

But that that would be painful to me. And eventually it would dissipate and usually dissipated as I realized

I better start doing something else. I can't just keep sitting here thinking about it. And so what I do is replace the thought of something else.

And over time, that became easier and easier. And it used to be that like I couldn't

I would check doors, even though we're in a habit of locking all the doors. In our house, it was it was a thing where I always would check them a couple of times before going to bed.

Now I can check them once and and it doesn't like it doesn't even faze me if my wife checks it and says the door is locked.

OK, I don't need to check it. But that took years to for me just to literally.

Say, I'm going to let my my my brain, my intellect rule and not my feelings.

And OK, so can I sorry, can I interject? Yeah. OK. So based on that,

I've been doing this since like 2015, like, you know, 2015.

I that was when I moved states and I'm currently and currently

I'm where I am now. And so since then, I've been working on this. And so, yeah, it's been it's it's taken a very long time for me to get to this place where I know

I sound emotional. But right now and I apologize for that. There's no reason to apologize.

Well, I mean, this is a lot. In fact, what Melissa says, she said, you can hear the hurt in her voice breaks my heart for her.

She said that a while ago. Right. Oh, thank you. No, I appreciate that.

I do want to point out, though, that, again, you and I, this is like our first, you know, me talking, you talking to me the first time ever.

And I just but you guys didn't know me in 2015. I tell this to my biblical counselor and basically like I was in a place where when

I was triggered and I know that's also a controversial word. But when

I was triggered or something like set me off, I would literally start screaming.

And to the point where my before he was my husband, he was he we would work together and like he had to lock the door to his office because I was in I was like raging, raging.

And he was actually he's like a six foot one big guy. And so and I'm just this five foot three, you know,

Korean girl. And I'm just like and he was actually afraid that I was going to do something because I was it was like all that rage of of being constantly controlled, constantly put upon, constantly.

Just nothing was ever good enough. And just constantly just running myself ragged to try and please, man, which were my parents and not

God. And they. Yeah. So it was just it was it was very hard back then.

And things are easier. Some things are easier right now. But I know I have to keep working at it. Yeah. You know, it's really amazing.

One of the things I find interesting is we have so many people that like, for example, when one of the things

I always used to do, you know, at least any longer than a decade ago now. Now it's a little different.

But if I had a hardcore atheist, I would I would ask them, what church can you grow up in?

And except for one time, and I probably did that hundreds, if not a thousand times, they always told me the church.

One guy didn't grow up in church that was a hardcore atheist. Nowadays, if someone's like really against Christianity and practices homosexuality or transgender, things like that,

I ask the same question. And it's amazing how many people, because of their upbringing, are really that's what they're reacting to.

I remember one one individual who I had said, you know, her whole life is in reaction to her father, who she doesn't like.

She just can't stand the way her father was. And I said, you know, it's really strange because you're saying you don't you don't like your father.

And yet your entire life is trying to hurt him, trying to be as opposite of Christianity as you can to hurt him.

I was like, you've actually defined your whole life by him. And she was like, I never thought of it that way.

You know, we don't don't let your your parents. Behavior. Define who you are.

Let Christ define who you are. So what I want to do, because there was something that really struck me, you mentioned earlier, and would it be

OK if I just ask you a couple of questions? Because you said your big fear is, you know, to find out if you're not like that, you face

Jesus and find out you're not in the faith. Would I be able to just ask you a couple of questions? Sure.

When we sin, we all sin, right? Yes. Do you do you hate the sin itself or or the consequences of the sin?

If you don't understand the question, I can I can explain it. I hate I hate this in itself.

But I also hate knowing what

I'm going to have to do to. And I know this is and this is like a workspace kind of thing.

So it's but this is like out of my out of my issues. It's like basically

I hate the sin, but I also hate that when I sin, I'm going to have to go around. I'm going to be like, oh,

I really screwed up. I need to apologize to people. I need to try and mend the relationships.

And and I hate that because my parents never did that with me. So, yeah.

Yeah. But yeah, that was that's one thing. So so I can understand that aspect.

I grew up with a father who even when I attempted to lovingly tell him that when he uses

Jesus's name as as foul language, that I find it offensive. He basically tried to knock me out.

And in his worldview, that was my fault. Not his.

So I've never heard him apologize, even when everyone told him he was wrong.

He he the closest I ever got to apology was we're both wrong. Right. I was like, what did

I do wrong? Was it my face getting in the way of your fist? Was that what I'm not sure what I did wrong here. Of course,

I didn't say that. That wouldn't have been wise to say at the time. Right. You would have gotten it from the other side.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I realized that my dad at 72 still had a really good right hook.

So but, you know, the thing is that there is an aspect of for a

Christian that we hate the sin because of what it represents. Right. This is what

Jesus died on the cross for. Yeah. And therefore, it's the sin itself we hate, not the consequences.

Now, an unbeliever, a false convert will hate the consequences. They love the sin.

They just don't want the consequences of sin. They may not want anyone to find out about the sin. But they they don't have an issue with the sin itself as long as they can get away with it.

So a false convert is OK with the sin. As long as no one knows, so they'll hide it.

Well, I can't be like that because I know God knows my sin and I have to repent of that one every time I sin.

And it's like but then and that's even that includes all sin that I do and sin in the privacy of my homes and sin in the privacy when no one's around me.

I have to repent of that still. And because I know that God knows that because he knows everything.

But like when it comes to sin, that affects that will affect others. And quite honestly,

I guess all sin does affect others. It's like I have to like I have to go and I know

I need to go and and and basically reconcile with other people and ask their forgiveness and try to amend that relationship.

Like I do this with my husband all the time because like I you know, he is very patient with me and I do overstep my bounds sometimes.

And I have to, you know, say I'm really sorry. This is what was going on.

But I know that's not an excuse. Can we start over kind of thing? And so he he's been very, very he's been very, very good about just being patient with me.

He's always shown me the love of Christ in our marriage. And I'm just grateful that God has put him in my life.

And so, yeah. Anyways, I'm sorry. That's probably a tangent from your question. That's fine.

You know, because you're you're it seems like,

A, you hate the sin, not just consequences. B, you've already expressed that you've been changing.

Right. You've been maturing. I hope. Yeah. Let me let me ask this.

When someone corrects you over over time in your life, as you look back in your life, when people correct you, are you less over time becoming less and less defensive and more willing to hear what they say?

And and even if you think they're wrong, maybe listen to it. Or when someone corrects you, are you quick to just justify yourself and explain why they're wrong?

In the beginning, I was super, super defensive because that's exactly I was basically mirroring what my parents did.

And I just, you know, you know, was doing that, was doing the exact same thing. And I was sitting that way.

But over time, yes. Like I, I don't fight.

I don't fight as much. I don't. I when my husband, like, snaps at me or because, you know, he's obviously human.

And and he has to put up with me. And when he when he does things like when he loses some patience, like he.

Sorry, I think I think I did a tangent. Sorry. The question was, do I. Are you seeing are you seeing a change in your life where you're more willing when corrected?

Yes, I think so. I don't fight against God as much when

God points out to me that, hey, you. This is it's like he definitely it's not a burning in the bosom or whatever the charismatic term is, but it's actually that's that's that's

Mormonism. But either way, it's not it's just this it's just this there's there's this,

OK, I did wrong. I did wrong or I or I usually nowadays

I kind of come from the OK, I screwed up somehow. I don't know how. Tell me how

I screwed up and let me let me try and work this out with with, you know, with myself and with you.

And then let me let me see where it is, where I went wrong kind of thing, because because basically that's what

I struggle with, because with the way my parents raised me, I have no social skills. I have I don't pick up on social cues.

I don't it's it's very weird because I things

I things I do like at second nature, other people would be like, why are you doing that?

Like what? Like, why are you even thinking this way? My husband has had conversations with me before of like, why are you why are you doing this?

And I'm like, I don't know. This is how I was raised. Isn't this how other people do it? I guess they don't. And because usually when he asked me that, he's like, why are you doing this?

I'm like, OK, this is obviously something that is weird and abnormal. And you need to tell me what the normal is, what what is the biblical way of like looking at things kind of thing.

So. So let me so this is why

I ask the questions I did. The first one, as I as I kind of already said, a believer hates their sin because they know what the cost was.

Christ died. The second thing, actually, you actually can

I go back to that point? Can you repeat that, what you said? So a Christian hates their sin because of the fact that they know the cost of it.

Right. This is Christ died for this. OK, so they know the cost of it. See.

OK, actually, I'm glad you said that, because I probably need to work on this with my biblical counselor.

Basically, like when I sin, I hate it because it means

I'm not perfect. And I have to do something to get back that, quote unquote, perfection, even though I know it doesn't exist.

But it's something that I've had to deal with. It's not. And I and I don't even think about what Jesus died on the cross for.

I know intellectually that's what he did. But the first and foremost thing is, oh, shoot. I made a mistake.

I sinned. Oh, OK, I'm I'm not perfect. Like, dang it.

You know, and just and then just there's this and then comes the self -loathing and comes the, you know,

I'm going to go to. If I basically it's the if I've sinned. There's I'm not perfect.

Oh, my gosh. If I were to die now, I go to hell and all this like thinking.

And I know it's not the right way of thinking. Yeah. This is this is what this is what

I struggle with a lot. Yeah. And so. Part of it, you know, the upbringing of trying to be perfect, there is, you know,

I don't know if I even have there's a message I've done on. Basically, you know, we know that we're saved by faith, not by works.

But for a lot of Christians, they act as if their sanctification is it works.

They have a workspace sanctification or it's just there's people it's like, well, if I had a good day, it's because I did my devotions today.

And if I had a bad day, it's because I forgot to do my devotions today as if God is keeping the scorecard.

And if you do if you didn't do what he wants, he's going to get you. That's not the way he works.

Right. But but we do have people that kind of think along those lines. So see,

I mean, work, you know, you want to work through thinking, OK, when I'm sinning, is it because I'm trying to be perfect and I can't be perfect?

But that's drilled into me. Or is it because of what Christ did on the cross? Like I hate it because it put

Christ on the cross. The other question I was asking was, you know,

I was looking to see growth. Right. Are you growing in the fruit of the spirit?

The only way I can think of and there may be other ways, smarter people than me may have other ways.

But when it comes to humility, how do we measure humility? Like, how do you know if you're humble?

It's really a hard thing. Right. And the best way I've come up with is to to look at it as.

OK, when we're corrected, how quick are we to defend ourself?

That's pride. Or how quick are we to to stop back, take a step back and say, you know, let me think about what they're saying.

Right. Right. And if over time you're you're growing more in the latter, that's shown a growth in humility.

Now, Andrew brought something up with something you said, and I was thinking the same thing.

Andrew Graham was asking if you have Asperger's. And the reason he asked that is because you don't have social cues.

And that's something that is that's common with Asperger's. I don't know if I have.

I don't I don't think it's that. I think it's more of that. It was not modeled for me.

Like I think I remember my mom always saying that I'm very tender hearted when

I was a when I was a little girl. And she and then she would follow that up with saying, oh, you're so naive kind of thing.

And it's just like it was a bad thing. And it was just I don't know. She would it was that's what she would do.

She would compliment me and then she would backhand me like with something like that. And it was just I just never knew what was true.

So but she always said I was very tender hearted. And so I think like and, you know, as a kid, you just you copy what your parents do.

And it's just and it's just I think I think right now it's like I mean, you know, it's possible.

It's possible I could be on the spectrum of some degree, but it's just like, yeah,

I don't know. I don't know. It could be, you know, that you grew up in a household or an environment where you you didn't have the enough of the interaction with others to pick up on that.

But, yeah, my parents basically isolated me from everyone. Yeah. So so it could be a couple of factors, but I think that it's something that you, you know, that you look at.

And I mean, it seems right that you're you're saying that there there may be some growth in the spirit.

Some some homework maybe for you would be to there's two books of the

Bible to read. One would be James. Read through the book of James, because what

James gives is about a dozen different ways of testing for genuine faith. You know, do you show preference to people?

Do you control your tongue? You know what your view of money, whether you have good works that not to be saved, but that come after you're saved.

So James is a really good book to read to see what genuine faith looks like.

What is the fruit of genuine faith? And the other book would be

First John. Now, that's a good book to say. First John. John is dealing with people who are basically living a sinful lifestyle, but claiming to be

Christians. Right. And he was saying, hey, if you're a Christian, this is the pattern of your life.

And so that's a real good book to help people have an assurance of salvation who are believers.

And it just kind of says, OK, if if you're a believer, this is what you're doing. Not saying you do it perfectly.

This is the pattern of life. It doesn't mean we don't continue to sin, but we should be changing more and more looking like Christ over time.

And that's really the thing. The longer you walk with Christ, the more you see some of that change. I mean, when

I when I first got saved, my language immediately changed.

I didn't even notice I got saved in the summer and I got to school in September.

And one of my classmates asked me what happened over the summer that my language suddenly cleaned up.

I didn't even realize I stopped using foul language. And there were other things that took longer, but there's going to be some things like that.

It's like a quick change. And then there's other things that are just going to take a very long time.

And so when you read it, you're reading First John and you're going, OK, you're realizing who he's speaking to.

He's being with people who are justifying their sinful behavior. So it can be very black and white.

But we realize that he's also giving us some ways of saying if I'm a believer that, you know,

I love I love my brothers and sisters in Christ. But if I don't like being around my brothers and sisters in Christ, that may be a concern.

If I don't see any growth in my life over a long period of time, that may be a concern. You know.

Yeah. Now that those are thank you for the recommendations. I'll KT is saying

Jesus, John MacArthur has a book called Saved Without a Doubt. So maybe that might be a good book to get a hold of.

Do you have a I know you mentioned that you you're getting counseling, but are you a part of a local church?

And do you have an older woman who is discipling you? No, that's kind of a well,

I do go to I do go to church with my husband. We try to go. We actually had to not go to church for five weeks because our children were sick.

And we didn't want to freak anybody out who was still under the covid madness stuff. And so it was very frustrating because we were like, we want to teach our children about church and about like at least about the the ecclesiastical aspect of that.

And it's just and we couldn't do it because we didn't want like nasty looks from other people.

So it was just it was just hard. But now now the kids seem better.

So I would it's part of the EFCA. And I've heard from John Harris on conversations that matter.

He's he was talking about like about problems that are arising in the

EFCA, such as social justice. That's like creeping social justice, critical race theory. That's like creeping in every denomination.

It's definitely present. It's like the SBC, I think, is too far gone. And I think like the

EFCA, it's not as big as the SBC, but it's like getting and now it's like has this stuff creeping in.

And I'm like telling my husband, like, we should probably change churches at some point. And he's like, yeah, well, good luck finding any church in Massachusetts.

And I'm just like, yeah, you're right. Well, actually, I do know of a couple of churches. They're probably too far from me.

Well, we could talk after. But I do know of a couple of churches that that would be able to.

You can always check the founders ministries website or or G3.

They both have networks and look for churches that could possibly be in your area.

One of the things I remember a couple of years ago, I was at G3 and I was actually talking to Ann Lawson, the wife of Dr.

Steve Lawson. And I was trying to ask her about proper ways to disciple my wife.

And the very first thing she said was, is she in a women's group with older, mature women who can speak into her and disciple her?

And I said, oh, no, ma 'am, she's not. And she basically put her finger in my chest and said, get her in one.

I said, yes, ma 'am. So I was in a small group, but it's like.

So the church that I'm in, like right now, again, it's part of the EFCA, but it's also

I call it kind of reformed light kind of thing, because they because.

And I do kind of wish that I went to another like, you know, reformed

Baptist or reformed some other reformed church, because every time like I go to church, it's like a sermon that I hear.

It's kind of like having an appetizer. It's not like an actual main course. That's why I call it reformed light, because I feel like if I hear, say, like a sermon from like Dr.

White or something like that or like Jeff Durbin. I know you guys have your have some differences with them, but like especially

Eschatolone. I line up with them perfectly. Well, I know Andrew is dispensational.

It's like anyway, sorry. But anyway, so it's just like when I hear something like that, that's like very needy and it's very and it's just like,

OK, that's what my soul needs. And my church is that my current church is not quite like that.

And and it's and and I was yeah. So I was part of a small group.

It was like it was like both men and women. And and there was a woman who

I was in contact with. But then she basically I don't know,

I fell out with her probably because, you know, my own issues and and because she didn't really want to hear about my past.

And she probably was kind of sick of hearing that. So it's that's why I say it's my fault, because like I was too feral for her.

And and so I didn't know how to how to rein in those things.

So that was sort of. So, yeah. It's like you've matured since then. Well, I well,

I mean, well, at least the maturing doesn't mean we get.

You know, one of the passages I love in scripture is in Philippians, where it says that Jesus is not only the the author of our faith, but the finisher.

I love that because he's got a lot of work to do on me. Yeah. I'm not going to arrive until the day that I die.

But until then, he keeps working. And I'm glad that he keeps working. You know, yeah.

Can you can you see the private chat? I'm curious. I see comments, but oh,

I see. OK, I see. So you don't have to announce that. But I just put in the private chat an address of a church that I know.

I know the pastor personally. OK. I don't agree with him completely. He's covenantal.

But but he would he would take very good care of you. If you if you were under him.

So if you're near there. I actually am near. That's actually more near to me than I even then, because most of the churches that have been have been more on the coastal line of Massachusetts.

So it's like it's been very tough because we're kind of like not we're like probably an hour, hour and a half away from those guys.

So. So this is actually closer. What we'll do is, you know, because I know we're going to we're going to and I see

Ravi just came in, but I know folks are encouraging him to come in.

But because we're going to end up wrapping up tonight. But but I want you to hold on, Joe. When we do wrap up, we go off the air, stick around so we could we could talk.

OK, Ravi, maybe you could come in next week a bit earlier.

I should have just stopped. No, actually, you're saying that.

Let me let me give you some of the comments that we saw that I saw coming through here was lost, but now found said,

I fully agree with you, Joe, son. I went through the same issues you have. My own parents have for a long time denied what they did to me as a child.

Melissa was saying, we are so grateful that you joined us tonight, Joe. Jed, Jed is saying, love the conversation edifying, you know, and then and then, you know, well, this is different.

But Jason was saying sanctification is a process. And so and I saw,

Ravi, you had posted this one saying I'd be happy to come in for the chat, as suggested last week. And I'm just saying

I don't know that we'll have time in the 10 minutes because I know he had a longer discussion.

And Jason, Jason is saying this. Is it is it that time? Is it is that a my pillow behind you,

Andrew? So, yes, let's let's examine that. Hold on. Don't you wonder whether I actually travel with my my pillow?

Here it is right here that I'll unwrap later tonight. But this is my my pillow. And so, yes,

I do travel with my my pillow. So for for those who were wondering, now you get an actual chance.

And if I could find where our our thing is for that, there it is. If you want to support our sponsor, my pillow, go to my pillow dot com and use promo code

SFE. That stands for striving for eternity. Or you can call 1 -800 -873 -0176.

Any of the products that they have, you can pick up and use the promo code SFE to get the discount.

So, yeah, I had the strangest audience here, folks.

You guys remind me if I forget to do a commercial. Most people don't like commercials. They don't like ads, but you guys kind of,

I guess, like the way that I transition to them. So or attempt to.

But yeah, I mean, I think the thing is, Joe, that, you know, with what Drew was saying, you know, getting in a good church would be good.

Hopefully we can help you with that. And, you know,

I think that, you know, it sounds like you've you've come a long way.

Since 2015, from your own testimony. So, you know, like like you said,

I mean, we just met. I mean, you know, I will I'll be back.

I'll be back up to Massachusetts in a few weeks. So maybe I could try to carve out time and we can get together.

But the thing that I want to leave you with is to remember that at least during the show portion, because I want to talk to you after.

But, you know, just remember that we are a work in progress. God is the one doing the work in us.

And if we are if he is doing that work, that's sanctification. He doesn't sanctify unbelievers.

And so if we see this change. So so in a couple minutes we have left,

I'll get a little bit personal as well. The last three years has been the most difficult three years of my life to the stress levels like I've never had before, to the point that I've been in.

I visited the ER twice due to due to high blood pressure and stress. You know, a strange thing is that I started realizing, you know,

I get so upset because I'm like, you know, my body doesn't work like I want it to.

Right now, I'm struggling with double vision and we don't know what has brought it on and whether it's serious or not, we don't know.

And I started to realize that what do

I actually deserve? Well, I deserve eternity in a lake of fire. That's what I deserve.

And if people mistreat me, if people slander me, if people do mean things to me,

I start to realize like that's nothing compared to eternity in a lake of fire.

All of a sudden, I deserve so much worse than God has given me.

And so whatever happened in my life, whatever is happening in my life, I realize it's far short of what

I deserve. And I thank God that, you know, if people are slandering you or abusing you or me, it's like, that's all.

That's all. That's it. Like, that's the worst. And then I have eternity with Christ.

And if my mind is focused on where I spend eternity, and this is the mindset behind the ministry,

Striving for Eternity, it's to have our mindset so focused on Christ and being with Christ that we end up realizing that the things in this world, you know, just kind of dissipate the more we want to be with Christ.

And the things we really struggle with here, I've really had a battle with issues of pride and things like that over the last three years that I really had to come to terms with.

And God's really humbled me in a lot of ways and things that I've had to deal with. And I would never want to do it again.

But I'm glad I went through it. And I sit and go, you know, this is something

I'm getting far more than I deserve. And all

I can do is give God the credit and thank God. It's a weird, I'll admit, it seems like a weird thing to me to be like, you know, to thank

God that, okay, I'm, you know, being attacked, but that's it.

Like, okay, that's, you know, what does it say in Matthew, you know, don't fear men for all, basically all they can do is kill you, but fear the one who can kill body and soul.

Right? So, you know, that's the thing. Carol here is mentioning some ministries that might be of help to you.

Susan Heck, who I've interviewed on my Rap Report podcast, she has a lot of good materials for women.

Michelle Leslie, both of those are good sources. Amy Springman has a lot of good stuff.

What's her name? Amy Spearman. Carol says, unfortunately, many churches, women's groups are lacking good discipleship.

And that's true. Well, that's actually, I want to add on to that. I did see her comment and I was like, oh, yeah, because with the church that I'm in, they do the

IF gathering every year. I've definitely heard John Harris talk about it.

And I've actually, and I think you've added, and I think she's actually just joined the

Christian podcast community. It's a, what is it? Melissa Wex. Yeah. Melissa Wex is actually an admin at the

Christian podcast community. Oh, okay. I just recorded a podcast with her today that will air sometime soon on her podcast on CRT, which

I explain stands for, you know, cultural racism training. People don't know what it really is.

They think it's critical race theory, but it's really cultural racism training. But yeah, so I was just going to recommend her when it comes to women's ministries and sources, because thoroughly equipped with Melissa Wex, she goes through.

And if you have the IF Gatherings, she has spent two years digging deep into the

IF Gatherings. Oh, yeah. No, I've been through her podcast and I'm like, okay. And then, I mean, the fact that I think one of her episodes on her podcast, she talks about how

Beth Moore was invited to IF Gathering. And I'm like, okay, that is a huge no. And I'm just like,

I mean. Beth Moore may be the most conservative from what I've been hearing. Oh, my gosh. That's crazy.

Because Beth Moore is just, she's insane, I think. So Melissa says, IF Gathering is bad news.

Praise God that Joe sees that. Since you listen to Justin Peters, I'll put it in Justin Peters' language.

Justin Peters would say, IF Gathering is bad juju. I don't know what he has against my people, the

Jewish people, that he always says bad juju. But I hope this has been helpful.

And I hope it's not the last time you come in. I hope that we can help you, you know. I mean, this is what this show is about.

We never know who's going to come in and ask questions. But we're really glad that you did. Well, thank you for taking the time to answer.

I think I answered one question. I asked one question. But yeah.

Did you get the answer? I think what you're saying is that it's basically unbiblical.

And I have to be like, all right, I need to look into that. And then just kind of, yeah, I'll have to reconcile with God on that.

Yeah. And so do that. But yeah. So, okay. Let me see.

What was there? So stick around. Don't leave. Oh, okay. Okay. And then so, Drew, anything you have for closing out?

No, I don't. I think you pretty much covered it all. You know, I was just sitting back here taking notes for things that you were saying,

Andrew, especially the questions you were asking, because they're good questions that you can apply to anyone that you're talking to who has kind of going through the same walk that Joe's going through here.

Because, you know, it's becoming very common, the idea of spiritual abuse, not just within churches, but within families and fundamentalist families and things like that.

And so I think we need to be able to know how to approach it, how to approach it biblically, how to extend the love of Christ in that.

And so, yeah, I was just sitting back listening, taking notes, and soaking it in, going, you know what,

I'm going to be able to apply this one day, I'm sure. So I don't have anything to add.

Well, you know, John has something that he would like to add. Yeah, I bet he would. He said, you know,

I prayed for you, Andrew. Tell Drew Post Mill is wrong. OK, God bless you all.

See you next week. You know, hold on. So I meant to send this to you last week or the week before, and I forgot.

But so the episode that we did, me and Darren and Jeremy did on Post Mill. Now, the goal wasn't to try to convert anyone to Post Mill.

We were just presenting the position and defending it. But if you go to the Striving for Eternity YouTube page, under that video, there's a comment.

And the comment says this. Wow, I am so thankful you gentlemen had this discussion.

I was a premillennialist and then a pan mill, but today

I joined the Post Mill Club. It actually gave me hope and confidence and encouragement.

Well, see, that's someone that obviously can't be a believer because the Holy Spirit wouldn't lead you into error. Let them out of error.

Yeah. Well, let me give one last comment from Jason. He said, great show is always gentlemen and lady.

God bless you all. Folks, we come in, we do this. I was glad that even though I knew

I was going to be late trying to get to the hotel. But I was glad that I could come in. And I hope

Ravi is trying to get in and he can't hear us, so there's some difficulty that he has.

Maybe we'll be able to connect him in next week and answer some of the questions that he had.

And so I hope that that. Kathy is saying, good show.

Drew did a good job at the beginning of the show. Andrew gave some wise counsel. So you did good.

I'll go back and listen to what you said. Thank you. But, yeah, we do this show really to help people learn how to do apologetics.

But guess what? There's more than just apologetics that goes on here. And tonight's an example. It's discipleship.

That's really what we wanted. I mean, this show is to disciple people to do apologetics. But the real heart of it is discipleship.

And so I hope it was helpful for you. I hope you guys learned something. And if you did, share it with others.

Share these episodes so that others find out about it. And so until next week,

I'm going to close this show out. I'm not going to play the video just so we can talk with Joe.