Cultish: Gwen Shamblin & The Remnant Fellowship, Pt. 2

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Is Protestantism Heresy? Pt. 3 - The Pope | Collision w/ Jeff Durbin

00:00

Welcome to the Weigh Down Workshop where you praise God by losing weight because if God hates one thing, it's fat people.

00:07

How about this food for thought? Pray. That's all the food you're gonna get. Every bite you take kills

00:13

Jesus all over again. So keep eating and he'll keep dying. Is that what you want?

00:19

Praise God. Satan is real and he's trying to make you believe that you need food to live.

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Out of all the people on this earth, God chose me. Look at me. Look at this. Gorgeous.

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God came down last night and he said to me, he said, Gwen, now I've had you preach for years that divorce is a sin, but you want to have one now because you found a hot new thing.

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So actually, I take it all back. Divorce is good and I think every woman in your congregation should actually have one.

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So go ahead girls, get rid of them. Get a new man, girlies. Our God is an awesome

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God. Don't eat or you will go to hell and rot in hell cuz you are too fat for God.

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Hey, I wrote that one myself. Original tune. Oh, look at this. I have a delicious cheeseburger.

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Hmm, smells good. I'm starving. I haven't eaten in weeks. But what's this over here?

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Oh, a delicious prayer. I could take a nibble on my prayer to God. Yum, yum, yum.

01:23

Dear God, I love you. Mmm, I'm full. I'm full. I need to sit down.

01:29

I'm weak. I'm tired. All right. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, Entering the

01:36

Kingdom of the Cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I am one of the co -hosts here. I am here joined by Andrew, the super sleuth of the show.

01:44

What we just played there was a clip from a very funny TikTok influencer, and she posted this in response to,

01:55

I'm assuming she watched the documentary The Way Down and thought she'd make some, her analysis of The Remnant and Gwen Shamblin and all that.

02:04

Andrew, just give me your initial gut reaction to hearing that. You've done the research. There's a little, obviously this is satirical.

02:12

Yeah. And yeah, it's a I would say it's a warranted serrated edge. What do you say? What's your initial reaction to that?

02:18

I say that's probably the most interesting cultish intro we have ever had, because there's a weird, there's a weird hilarity about it, but there's also a somber reality to the fact that there are people who believe these things, right?

02:33

And the satire is real, and it is a serrated edge that is needed at times, but there should always be an answer to the satire that doesn't make fun of salvation in general, but actually gives a hope with the gospel, right?

02:45

That you can only make sense of even the satire through the gospel. But my initial gut reaction was like, wow, this is, this is heavy.

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This is a heavy, heavy thing. Yeah. So the influencer, to give her credit, it was, I think it's Reen, R -E -E -N underscore machine.

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So I just want to make sure we grab it. That's not our content. We want to give her credit for that. So, but it definitely was creative.

03:08

We are joined, so anyways, we are joined back here with Edward, who spent a good amount of time in the

03:13

Remnant Fellowship, giving his perspective. Edward, how are you doing, man? Doing fine, thank you.

03:19

Good. What's your initial, just seeing that, it was funny because we're, we're playing that video, I'm just watching your, your facial reactions to it.

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I mean, it's, it's obviously satirical in nature, but she's saying like, it's funny because in a sense, comedy and laughter is an affirmation of truth.

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But seeing someone is this TikTok influencer, just sort of being funny. And if you've watched, if you're listening to this via audio, the influencer, she does the whole thing.

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She has her own little like Gwen Shamlin wig going on, and she has kind of all these little nuances.

03:51

We can even talk about this episode we talked in the previous episode. What's your initial reaction to that?

03:57

I mean, she was on point. I mean, it's kind of like what Andrew said, you know, it's, it was, it's, it was funny, but it was real at the same time.

04:05

I was like, you, yeah. I mean, she was funny about, you know, basically prayer instead of eating.

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That's the whole, that's basically the whole premise of, you know, the workshop was to pray instead of eating whenever you're hungry.

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So whenever you're hungry, you know, she would always say, you know, you know, thank God for the hunger. I mean, that TikTok was pretty much on point with that.

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Like, man, I'm starving. I'm going to have this nice, juicy prayer instead of a cheeseburger. Like, dang girl, you won't point.

04:34

Yeah, no, it's definitely the case. And I think what is, it's almost sort of a twisted sense of iron, a sense of irony of, you know, this, you know,

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Gwen, she spent this entire, really her, her entire lifetime really building a name for herself, uh, built with the remnant fellowship and her teachings and her really believing, you know, there's on this,

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I'm part of the central authority and believing I'm making a real difference. And this was part of God's church and really making a name for herself.

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And in some sense, like this is almost sort of a, now her legacy is this, you know, and this video has a good amount of views by this, by this influencer.

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So I think on some level, it's almost sort of just the foolishness of what she's being said, like the, of her teachings being made on display.

05:23

And what I think though, behind the jokes and the humor though, there is on a serious note, there is some collateral damage, a lot of collateral damage of these teachings of people who were in the group, you know, who, who are part of the remnant fellowship, who, like I said, the sociological aspect where you are putting on this perfect face and you can't keep it together because you're everyone's body weight fluctuates with all these different variables in play, depending on your age, a diet, you know, food allergies, whatever you, whatever you can and can't have.

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So with all that being said, maybe we can do this for as far as the second, the first part of this episode, maybe kind of, kind of give a personal note of like, how did you come out?

06:07

And you had mentioned that, you know, your dad said that you're in the cult, but eventually you, you came out of that and you, you came to the reality of the true gospel, like maybe kind of walk people through that journey and may, were there any challenges of that kind of giving what you're raised up on through the teachings of Gwen Chamblin?

06:27

Yeah. Um, so eventually I just got sick and tired of being preached at that.

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I was a sinner and I was going straight to hell at some point. I just realized, you know, I really don't care if I go to hell, I go to hell, you know,

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I, I was wrong either way. I did it cause I kept screwing up, kept messing up. There was no way I was never,

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I was never good enough to, you know, whatever, anything I did. And so finally

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I just got sick and tired of it. And then my wife actually was the one who kind of pulled me out of it and said, look, you need to go to God and let go of the anger that you have towards him.

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Cause that's not God. You know, you need to, you need to seek repentance. You need to see, you need to seek after Christ.

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And my view of Christ was very, Oh, he was just some, you know, whatever. He was a son of God, but that was about it. We celebrated him, you know,

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Christmas and everything, but never really was anything different. So I'd kept running from God for a long time until finally, you know, she said, look, you need to repent now, give it to him.

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And so finally I said, you know what, if he is God, fine. And so then after that,

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I, uh, uh, I repented my sin. I came to realization and through a series of events,

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I, uh, started to really seek after God. After that eye -opening experience, the more

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I kept spending time in the word and even going into seminary, uh, after I got my undergrad,

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I went in and I got my masters of divinity and just kept exploring more and more of the word of God and the truth that comes from it to a real understanding of Christ and him crucified that the all of life, all of our, all our lives just hinge upon giving

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God glory instead. And also realizing that, yes, we are sinful, infallible people, but there is grace and there is mercy for each person.

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And contrary to what the, uh, you know, contrary to what this, what Gwennan taught, um, you know, it was basically that whenever you hit, you know, the word is, you know, quote from a

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Romans 8, 10, what do you say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. Uh, that if we confess our mouth, that Jesus Lord believe in our heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for the heart one believes is justified.

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And it was at that point that whenever I came to the realization of who Christ is a real understanding of who

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Christ is was whenever I realized, okay, this is a complete and utter sham of a movement that is brainwashing so many people.

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And it just really made me just really upset me more. I looked at it.

09:12

So here's, here's a question for you. It might be a little bit of a loaded question, but I think it's going to be very helpful. You said something that hit me really hard at actually a remnant, maybe reminded me of back of an episode that we did, uh, with pastor

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Jeff on the Jehovah's witnesses, I believe it was where he said, well, it was never God to begin with. So like your wife was telling you, well, that wasn't

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God. So the God that Gwen Shamblin was presenting to her people, that was never God to begin with.

09:36

Right. So could you tell us, uh, who is Gwen Shamblin's God and who is the

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God of the Bible? What's the juxtaposition between the two? Shamblin in that movement, it's, it's basically all about what she says, because she's the prophet, the mouthpiece of God, the intercessor.

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She takes the place of Christ in that and kind of goes back to the, um, kind of going back to the, uh, um, where their false teachers in first John, where John is actually talking about these people that were trying to lead that rose up in the church and we're trying to pull people away from the church by introducing them to like Gnosticism and everything.

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Um, when Gwen in her teaching is where she basically is the mouthpiece and outside of her, everybody else is very sin is sin.

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Any other church is anybody that preaches a contrary gospel to hers is full of sin and wrong.

10:33

So I don't know if that kind of answers your question. You don't know. Yeah, it does.

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And so now, now, now tell me then what's the difference between the God of the Bible versus what

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Gwen Shamblin was present when Shamblin was presenting. So the

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God of the Bible is, is seen as a God that is only merciful to you when you do what she says.

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Basically, whenever you fall in line with, you know, your, your weight, you know, whatever it is, you're giving your tithes, whatever it else it is, you follow in play and you do that, then you are right standing and you're in good standing with God.

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And, you know, she'll let you know, or the people around her will let you know whether you are screwing up or not.

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I mean, they will, I mean, they'll pretty much point out, you know, well, yeah, you're messing up big time and that's why you're having these issues and you have to then

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I, what do you do? You start yourself again. Yeah. And speaking,

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I think one of the best things we can do as well too. And I think, cause we're talking about Gwen's teachings and really examining it is, you know, when, when people are looking, for example, in the

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HBO docuseries, and again, they're looking at the abuse that happened or these distortions, they're just, while they can, while they can make account of the fact that, you know, these were abuses that took place.

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I don't think they can give an ultimate accounting for why this is wrong to begin with, because all of this is a distortion.

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It's, there's a fundamental theology behind the abuse. As we mentioned, bad theology hurts people and they're not giving the producers while it's very well done of the way down.

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And we've seen this with a lot of other productions done by other different studios, similar to HBO, while it's really well done, they can't give an ultimate accounting as to why that was wrong to begin with.

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So there's a theology and the revelation coming behind it. And so one of the things that Walton Barton would always talk about is that the existence of a counterfeit predicates the authenticity of an original.

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So what we have here is we're going to do a couple audio clips here, and we'll have some fun actually kind of going through, this is one of Gwen's really last conversations before her plane accident, before her and everyone else passed away.

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And now there's, you know, we can probably talk about where they're at now, and which will be interesting too.

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But maybe we can take a look, take some of these clips, and then we kind of break them down so you can kind of give you a real tangible example of what she's saying, and then kind of match, you know, what you're saying in regards to how do we actually counteract that as someone who spent a good amount of time in the

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Remnant Fellowship. So let's go ahead and just play a couple of these clips, and here we go. Hey everybody, thank you so much for joining us with the

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Way Down virtual tour. And even though it was pre -recorded, I mean, I was encouraged myself watching that and being able to pick back up that there's just going to be no gimmicks, and we are going to totally look for the

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Spirit of God in everything. I mean, for us, hey, let's use this time. I mean, what a great time.

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I know it's wild what's going on, kind of everybody trying to be separated from everybody and keeping some of this virus under control and the spread of it, which is what's going on.

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But if we can just take advantage of it, instead of worrying, having fears, take this time to look inward.

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Okay, so just what I want to emphasize is that for most people who just look to Gwen, I'm assuming in adherence and reverence, that they just want to eat up every single word that she says, but not necessarily think critically.

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And most people won't, because what everything she's saying is part and parcel of the fact that she is in touch with the

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Source, or she's getting revelatory information from God, which is really who she is, what the

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Remnant Fellowship is all about. So there's two things that stuck out to me, and you actually put this in there, that stuck out to you as well, too, which you made emphasis on, two things that she mentions in the first minute.

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She says, look for the Spirit of God in everything, which just as a whole, any Christian should know that.

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That definitely sounds a bit pantheistic. But then she also says, look inward and not worrying about other people.

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So through the lens of someone who's loyal to Gwen's teachings and familiar with her theology, unpack that a little bit so people can understand what it's like to be under, explain

15:07

Gwen's teachings just from that little clip and those two things she said there. Well, kind of like whenever you're looking inward, you want to see where it is that you're having the issue with, because in this time, we know she was broadcasting this during the

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COVID lockdown. And so when more people wanted to be tempted with food or whatever else, and all of that, she was still trying to lock into that mentality, like trying to tap into that mentality of everybody's going to have this issue of going back to the fridge and having that soup, kind of putting in that essence of fear, so to speak.

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But yeah, she says, I love the Spirit of God. It's like you said, it's very a generic term that believers are supposed to have, you know, the

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Spirit of God in everything. But then she went on to say, worrying about others instead of ourselves.

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There's a very interesting verse, because she's teaching this to people in her congregation.

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Those are going to listen to her, because obviously, they had to click on her to get to this location. And so, but I mean, she has to amass these people that will just listen to her, like you said, holding on to every word that she says, and actually kind of reminded me of 2

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Timothy 4, verses 3 and 4. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears.

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They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

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And so I believe that she takes this into consideration, that these people are hungry,

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I'm going to use the word hungry, for every word that she says to help them get through this hard, this time of lockdown and panic.

16:53

Okay, wow. Good. That's a good analysis. So here's the next part. And again, this is just something you need to be like wary of most of the time.

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You hear someone you always want to just, there's always, they'll always, everything she says here, too, is important to note, is that it's all cloaked in Christian terminology.

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But when you unpack it, when you go on a deeper level, you know, there's times where it says, you know, you think about, in Christian terminology, it says, like, look inward.

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So you think about what Paul says, he says, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.

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Okay, that could be a biblical example of looking inward, of just examining your heart, you know, search my heart, you know, you know, truth in the in the inward parts as a psalmist says, so that would be a biblical sense.

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So but what she's saying is something that's completely not the case. And that's why, you know, you want to become familiar with the original so you can detect a counterfeit.

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Because that's all the hurt. If you watch the way down, this is where all all the hurt came from. It came from a distorted theology.

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So here's the next segments roughly around a minute in. So here we go. Don't let this stay at home and get isolated stuff, get you into the refrigerator where you're eating more and more and more.

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I want you to come out of this this thing and we're going to get out of it quick. I mean, just the president saying today, it's gonna be like a rocket ship, we're going to get right back out of it.

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But I don't want at the end of this time that could be used for rest and getting closer to God and getting ourselves really more under control with the

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Spirit of God to to open up a spirit of greed. So let's do this together.

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And how fun at the end of this, if we can all say, we're thinner, we're we weigh less, we are more in control with God's Spirit than we were before, then this would be a victorious time.

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What Satan's meant for bad, God means for good. So I think we just kind of put those clips together and kind of unpack that a little bit.

18:56

So just from what you hear there, like what sticks out to you from what she is saying? And especially in contrast to what you know now, because I definitely have some thoughts.

19:03

Andrew, I'm sure you have some thoughts as well too. Well, whenever she says like, you know,

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I don't want this, I don't want you, that's almost like a, like an authoritative kind of a tone saying, well,

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I don't expect you to do any of this. Like, I don't, I don't, you know, that's very like kind of pointing the finger at I have this expectation that you need to meet and that you're not meeting it if you do this.

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And so that was, that's one of the things that kind of stuck out to me. And also the whole thing about quoting

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Genesis 5020, you know, what God, you know, what the devil meant for evil, God meant for good.

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I mean, it's, it's, I mean, that's, it is true in that one sense, but in this, it's like, I'm trying to kind of connect the two.

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You follow me? I'm following you because I have a hard time knowing the theology behind Gwen Shamblin and this almost a health prosperity cult gospel that's being preached there.

20:05

I would see that she has have, she has to have an extremely hard time with trying to justify to her followers that are getting sick with COVID that they're getting

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COVID and people and getting COVID around them and dying because they're not obedient to God. You know what I mean?

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Like this is one of those real world examples of what's happening around her.

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That's showing that things happen in a fallen world. There are viruses, there are people who get sick that it doesn't necessarily have to do with their relationship with God.

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It's right. We live in a fallen world. Cause I'm pretty sure there's people in her congregation who are getting sick that look like they were the most obedient people.

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You know what I mean? Like how do you handle that? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know.

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It's, it's hard for me to see how she could get, she could get actually around that in her teachings. But I guess the, um, the poll would be, we'll say, well, don't, don't look at me.

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Don't look at the teachings to actually continue to look inside, uh, examine yourself by checking the scale and make sure you don't eat a bunch while you're isolated.

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Don't do this. Don't do that. Like you said, she's pretty much telling them how to live and, uh, continue to listen to me and follow me in tithe.

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So that's, that's kind of how I'm taking it. Yeah. Because if you don't, if you, if you get sick as a result of not doing that.

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So again, you didn't work hard enough in your salvation. Well, God's now punishing you because you overate or you did something or what contrary to what she told you.

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And so now, because you didn't listen to her teaching because she's the prophet, that's how you're going to get, that's why you're sick.

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That's why you get COVID because of that. No, that's really good.

21:47

So let's, let's go ahead and just, uh, play another clip and I'm just going to play till I can hear something else that kind of sticks out to you.

21:54

There's, there's just a lot of things in this, in these teachings, and I'm sure a lot of them are very similar, but it's just, it's good to be able to have a good understanding of what she's actually saying.

22:02

But also, again, I want to emphasize that for some people, even like the, the one who, the tick tock influencer at the very beginning, she's sort of making just of this.

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And again, there's levels against, you can sort of have a warranted serrated edge where you can kind of hit a point home of just how bad her teaching was.

22:23

But there, these are people, tons of people, even still to this day who take her teachings at face value and, and base their whole identity, their whole self -worth, uh, every aspect of their life and their spiritual and holistic wellbeing based off of their own body weights and their health and, and, and Shamblin's teachings.

22:45

And it's all contingent upon that. I mean, it's just such a, you talk about unjust weights and measures, but I mean, literally it's like, that's, it's literally your own body weight.

22:55

And again, it's a distortion ultimately of the physical and the spiritual that, you know, that is definitely distortion of that.

23:02

So let's go ahead and just play this clip and let's, let's see what else that Gwen says here. This is interesting. We are just so excited about everyone working together to get ourselves just in a place where we are obeying

23:18

God with all of our heart. And as you can see, it is not easy for us to get totally everything in place.

23:27

Like sometimes you get this going, but then this messes up and then this is going and then this messes up.

23:32

So today is going to be an awesome day because I'm going to tell you why. I'm praying that by the end of this day, we are so psyched up to like go on this march for keeping ourselves in the zone, keeping ourselves doing exactly what we need to do with no mess ups.

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We're going to go for it. We are going to get there and we are going to do it God's way.

24:00

And so I'm very excited we're going to like go back and review the basics here before we get to these questions.

24:08

I want, I want you to know this, when you get too complicated, if you've been messing up, if you feel like you just put on some extra weight, you've gone the wrong direction, and you feel discouraged at all,

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I want you to just stop all the movies and go in there and pray and go, God help me when my stomach's like hungry, growling,

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I will eat. I want a saucer. Go back to the basics or something small for your body size, something small.

24:41

Go back and eat until you're satisfied and then wait, wait, wait.

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So the next time you're hungry and you will reverse everything. We've got too many gimmicks going on.

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We've got too many plans for our food, too many like people, I mean, I want you to pre -plan knowing where your body, but you still, if you're, you're not hungry, you can't eat it.

25:05

And so the main thing is to get back into this just hunger zone for the eating.

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And so drinking, I mean, you've really got to put that in the category of still, you know, there needs to be hunger.

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It needs to be something in the context of a meal or something very, be careful. People out there seem to do drink too much.

25:26

Like God does not want that. You're going to find that in every way he does not want that. Okay. So a couple of things about this clip that are particular is that, you know, she's talking about, if I hold it up here, just so I have the timestamp here, you know, she's talking about, you know, we need to make sure that, you know, we are working, you know, we're always obeying

25:47

God in our hearts and that we, we always keep ourselves in the zone. It's all about works and you need to have like, not have mess ups.

25:54

So really like faith in the works is eating well, eating bad foods that make you gain weight. And it's just, it's just going back and forth.

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And I found amusing too, and you can jump into this too, is that, you know, she mentions that, you know, over drinking or having an overemphasis of alcohol, it's something that will affect your weight.

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And to the left of her is a giant case full of all sorts of different wines.

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And part of me is like wondering, is she really practicing what she's preaching here? Or I mean, there's an emphasis, you know, just if you look at some of the other areas of Gwen's life of just a huge amount of hypocrisy.

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And that's one of the things that you will always see in the world of the cults.

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There's there, it's always rules for thee, not for me, that you need to abide by these particular rules.

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These particular guidelines, you know, because this is my revelatory revelation, but for you, for, for myself,

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I've got a little more leeway. So I thought that was kind of interesting, this, that, what you said there.

26:56

I just, watching that, it was very ironic for her to, to say that when you're standing right next to a wine cabinet,

27:05

I mean, and not to mention the fact that there's a very opulent house that she's in. I understand a stage.

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I understand, you know, wanting it to look nice and everything. But when you're a showboater, you're making yourself look how successful I am, because I am a prof,

27:19

I want you to be like me. I mean, that's what she's trying to do. She's trying to, it's, it's basically just,

27:25

I want to, I want people to, you to look at me as your source of help because I'm the mouthpiece of God.

27:32

Yeah, not just that. I mean, the Remnant Fellowship is strategically placed. The area in Franklin, Tennessee is a very, very wealthy community.

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I mean, you look at all, every single property in the area, Andrew, we were driving by, they're multimillion dollar properties.

27:48

And so you, so you definitely have that variable in play, but again, there's just this emphasis that she is talking about, you know, if this is, if you were just looking at this from just pulling up this video, like, oh, this is just someone who's talking about eating well and eating healthy.

28:03

But for someone who's committed to the Remnant Fellowship, and it's just looking at the fact that, you know,

28:11

Gwen is talking, she's, she's connected to God. She's, she's the revelatory mouthpiece of God. And everything that she says,

28:18

I have to take at face value. And now I have to go and just eat all these different foods or, you know, sustained.

28:26

Basically, you're stuck in bondage to the very thing that it warns about in Colossians.

28:32

If you've died to Christ, the elementary spirits of the world, like do not submit yourself to such decrees as do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.

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So like, it's almost like her very gospel is the very thing that Paul warned about, like in Colossians.

28:47

It's just, it's, it's, it's saddening and it's heartbreaking. And yeah, I just, I just can't imagine just, just the pressure these, these people are under and are still under.

28:59

It's such an oppressive yoke. I mean, what are your guys' thoughts on that? Yeah. So when

29:05

I was, when I, one of the first things my ears were just like peeking to is where it's like, you need to love the Lord with all of your heart.

29:11

I know Jesus tells us, right? Love the Lord, your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. It's the full, it's the, it's the sum, the summarization of the law, essentially.

29:21

But then equating that with your diet, that, that's where I start getting the issue there where we have the

29:30

James issue. I believe it's in James chapter four, where James is actually telling Christians, do not judge your brother with a standard that is not actually in the law of God, because there's only one law giver and one judge.

29:41

But then when you start creating your own laws and holding them over your brother's head, you stand in condemnation before the

29:48

Lord because you've actually elevated your own beliefs, your own standards over what God actually has revealed in his word.

29:55

And I'd say she's doing that very thing there. Of course, it's good to help people with their issues on idolatry, addiction, and things of that nature.

30:03

But in terms of loving the Lord with all of your heart here, here's the truth. Here's what the law does.

30:08

The law shows us that we need Jesus. I can never on my own love the

30:13

Lord with all of my heart. I can't. That's why Jesus came because he did right.

30:20

Thy will be done. He was obedient to the father in full submission to him, even to death on a cross. Therefore, God, your

30:26

God has anointed him with the oil of gladness above all companions, like it says in Hebrews quoting from the from one of the

30:32

Psalms. Like, that's why we need Jesus. I can love the Lord with all my heart because of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ through faith that he did those things for me.

30:43

It's not an excuse for me to fail by any means. But what it also does is it sets me free to actually obey the law of God through the fulfillment and faith in Jesus Christ, not in portion control.

30:53

Right. I want more of the spirit. You know what I mean? Through Jesus Christ, not through taking less food.

31:01

Like you were just comparing as well in there, Jeremiah, in the book of Colossians. That's the point of Colossians, right? But no one passed judgment on you with regard to festival, new moon or Sabbath or food and drink right there in Colossians.

31:12

Like what we're seeing is the pain, the suffering, the bad theology that comes from people being biblically illiterate.

31:24

But I mean, that's what wolves feed on, right? That's what wolves in sheep's clothing feed on. They feed on keeping someone biblically illiterate and relying on themselves, the prophet, the person who's receiving revelation to actually interpret these things for you and tell you what you need so you can't think for yourself.

31:40

The Bible says otherwise. It says you can think for yourself, but only through the word of God because it renews our minds, right?

31:49

Right. And Andrew, you're absolutely right. The thing is, in that church, you will not hear the gospel.

31:56

You won't hear sin. You don't hear these things. And so you have people, like you said, they're just completely hinging upon this kind of teaching.

32:05

And it's so sad to hear that. But then when you hear the gospel, when you hear

32:10

Christ and you realize that, yes, I am sinful, yes, I'm going to make a mistake.

32:17

And that's why there is grace. First, John talks about it perfectly. He talks about we have an advocate, the Father, who makes intercession for us in the right hand of the

32:24

Father. And so when we know that Christ, whenever Christ died for our sins,

32:30

I mean, John even went so far as to even say, you know, guess what? Even that you will sin, you will mess up, but you have

32:37

Christ and He is our advocate for you if you believe Him. That church has to, and any church in general, has to preach about Christ and Him crucified.

32:47

But He was the propitiation for our sins because the issue is not the food.

32:53

It's not the things that we go through. It is the fact that we have a sin nature within us because of our flesh.

33:00

Our flesh is the manifestation of the fall from Adam in Genesis. Because of the fall in the garden, we amass this sin within us.

33:09

You can't go to somebody. That is a quick fix if you go to somebody like this. Well, I'm going to put a band on it, but you have to keep going back to that same person.

33:16

It's people that get caught up in these churches. Well, I want to go there because it makes me happy. But what is happiness?

33:22

Happiness is happenstance, is a fleeting emotion that is here one second and gone the next. But whenever you have a real understanding of the

33:30

Bible, of the gospel, of what Jesus did, then you have true joy, you have true happiness.

33:36

Because even when you will mess up later on, the Bible tells us you will sin because we are sinful creatures.

33:42

But we have that advocate for us in Christ. Wow, dude. Okay, so when you're quoting in Genesis there, you were just making me think, dude.

33:49

It was blowing my mind. So if we had Gwen Shamlin back there in the garden giving her commentary of what's going on between Eve and the serpent tempting her, literally it seems like Gwen Shamlin would be like, it is the physical apple that tempts her.

34:01

It's the food. When actually we see the sin issue that's going on is that Eve is questioning what

34:06

God has said. Did God say that? And then she's putting her standard above. There's a bigger heart issue at play, but it seems the issue with remnant fellowship with that, we would say, well, that's portion control.

34:17

You know what I mean? It's the apple that tempted her, the physical beauty of it, when really there's a bigger issue at play.

34:24

It's actually the nature of someone's heart before God. And again, just one other thing

34:29

I want to say too is that why we a lot of times, I'm sure there's going to be people who are excited because here's another podcast about Gwen Shamlin and they're going to get upset because all we're doing is talking about these

34:40

Bible verses and we're just another cult talking about cults. Well, here's the deal. We make the argument that biblical

34:51

Christianity isn't true by the definitive impossibility of the contrary. So what you're able to see though, biblically, is that when you're looking at what is happening, what is really happening about these people trying to do this portion control and trying to eat back and forth in order to try and be right with God?

35:12

What is really happening? This is basically they are living out

35:17

Romans chapter 2, where it talks about these are the people who are the Gentiles.

35:23

They do not have the law, yet they are becoming a law unto themselves. They're writing out their own rules and regulations and trying to follow that because they have

35:32

God's law written on the heart. They know they need to do good works and righteousness. And here they are. They can't keep it.

35:38

They can't keep their own law, their own law that made unto themselves. And thus they're condemned and they know that they're condemned and they're under this burden and they're under this weight.

35:47

So when you see the people in the HBO series that are in tears, that are just exhausted, that were just trying on every single level to keep their weight together, what you're seeing is them trying to clamor and grasp and try and find the righteousness of God that only comes through faith.

36:10

But instead, they're trying to get it through this law they've made unto themselves and they're condemned and you can see it in their face.

36:19

And that is why the biblical worldview is the only solution to the world of the kingdom of the cults that HBO now, as good as their production is, they can't offer.

36:30

Those people are under, they're condemned. They know it. The Bible gives us a precedent for it.

36:35

Romans chapter two is talking exactly about that. And ultimately they need to realize that it's ultimately the perfect righteousness of Christ that comes through faith.

36:46

It's not body, it's not portions. I mean, the food comes and goes and eventually, you know, we're all going to die anyways.

36:54

There's aspects where, you know, you want to be a good steward of the body that God has given you, but salvificly is the righteousness of God that comes through faith.

37:01

And that's why Jesus says, you know, come into me, ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

37:08

So that just, I feel like I have a little fire under my belly just because I just can't believe like this is, this is the truth.

37:16

You're claiming to be the true church on the face of the earth. This is your gospel. Eat your bird, cut your, cut your double double animal style and eight portions and eat it throughout the day.

37:27

That's the gospel. Really? I don't think so. So, uh, anyways, um, enough of me.

37:35

Let's just do this. Let's play this one last clip. And, uh, Edward, you made a point of this.

37:41

Uh, this is a, there's a bit of twisting of scripture, which you will always see. They always, cult leaders will always pay adherence to the

37:50

Bible. They will always do that, but they always use it as a means to pursue their own end of their own ideology.

37:58

They're not looking to exegete the word of God and see what was actually written.

38:03

Like, what did the apostle mean when he wrote Ephesians chapter five? No, this is about taking my ideology about how you're supposed to eat and how you're supposed to obey me unquestionably.

38:15

And so, yeah, so, and then, so we all want to show you, this is a, this is just a typical case study of how cult leaders twist scriptures.

38:21

And again, the apostle Paul warned about this. There's nothing new under the sun. There are people in the first century that he warned about people who had twist the scriptures to their own destruction.

38:30

This is an example that you would see, uh, in this particular example. So here we go. Here's Gwen, uh, talking about, uh, how she sees

38:39

Ephesians. And so the first one is that it really doesn't matter.

38:44

God doesn't care. And, uh, so, uh,

38:50

God's too loving to really cut me off from overindulging or whatever that, overindulgence and all that really doesn't matter.

38:57

So now what you have got to do is go back into the workbooks and go back into the, where the scriptures are, like in Ephesians, where it talks about Ephesians five, where it talks about no immoral or greedy person.

39:11

A greedy person for such a man is an idolater. When you understand that greed is idolatry, then you go back and look at all idolatry being forbidden from the beginning of Jesus' revelation.

39:26

Then you go in there and you realize, I can't do this. You know,

39:31

I can't do this. So like get in there and get through and write down your idolatry scriptures.

39:37

And that will really, really help. So explain, uh, what, like the, help people understand what she is trying to say.

39:48

She's quoting Ephesians five, verse five. And she's, she's, uh, and this is a verse, of course, that applies to, uh, sexual immorality and talk and then contrast

39:57

God's holiness and love. But she's trying to equate it. I'm assuming idolizing food, right?

40:05

Now, just give me your perspective on, on this. Cause this, you said this caught your attention just when you're going through some of the videos of Gwen.

40:13

Yeah. I mean, it really did because, I mean, you gotta think about it. If you go in the beginning of Ephesians five, he's talking about sexual immorality.

40:22

And I mean, the premise of it is based off of that, but she's talking about how idolatry is forbidden from Genesis to revelation.

40:31

I mean, obviously that is, but at the same time, it's like, but it's about the sexual sins that was going on in the church in this, in this time.

40:42

And so it just, it doesn't make any sense to me how, get in there and write down idolatry scriptures that will help.

40:50

Well, I mean, yeah, we understand that, but what's the catch? What's the, what's the fix?

40:57

What's the fix for the idolatry? Where's the help in that? I mean, if you don't have a Bible open to listen to this, to follow along or whatever, you're just like, you, you don't know what you're doing.

41:09

And so you just take it and listen to what she has to say, and it just keeps repeating a vicious cycle of just listening to her, but you keep falling into this stuff, but there's definitely a,

41:22

I mean, she basically, this is a very prominent issue.

41:29

Yeah. So, I mean, she's essentially just saying that go and look at the different foods that you're making an idol out of and make sure that you obtain your ideal weight to make sure that, you know, you can obtain your salvation for as long as you possibly can.

41:48

You know, but again, it's all contingent upon you. I mean, I just, it just baffles me like how, like how, like how this church sustains itself.

42:00

I mean, how do, and maybe we talked about, I just mentioned the first episode. So, I mean, I've seen, there's lots of children, you see in the videos, you know, there there's children in the remnant fellowship.

42:11

So there's people who are married or having babies. Anybody, you know, any woman who goes through a pregnancy, that's, there's a lot of weight fluctuations that happen.

42:23

And a lot of baby fat that happens often after you have the baby and this, and that changes you when you have, like, that's just part of life.

42:30

I mean, how do they, like, how do women in that mindset, like what's their mind?

42:36

Like, how do we even deal with this being under this weight of this, everything always being contingent by your body weight? I can't even begin to imagine.

42:43

Give me some ideas, just your perspective of what that was like. Well, like, if you had any, it goes back to the whole thing of any excess weight, even if you were, even if it was in childbearing, which is expected, you're still required to have this look about you, this very prominent look that if you did not, you know, appear this certain way, you weren't godly at all.

43:07

And you weren't, you know, walking with God. And so kind of like, well, it's on you to lose the weight.

43:15

It's on you to do all this. Well, you just got done having a child. So your body's not gonna be the same as it was before, because pregnancy puts a huge strain on a woman's body.

43:25

And it virtually is a, it virtually wrecks it, unfortunately. But the life that comes out of it is precious.

43:32

Instead of focusing on that, we're focusing on the, you know, how she looks to her husband, how she appeals to these people.

43:40

Because I mean, you look at the videos, everybody there is skinny in shape and smiles and all this other kind of stuff.

43:46

It's like step wives is my perspective. It really is. And so then you keep, you know, well, you know, you keep people from that perspective, like, well, you know,

43:55

I, you know, maybe I shouldn't be in there, you know, maybe this or that or whatever. And, you know, they basically, you know, the child was the one that caused you to get weight when the child caused you to gain all that weight.

44:06

And I'm like, not really. But, you know, there was a false woman to lose the weight.

44:13

So, is there ever like a cases that that you could think of where, let's say, a husband committed adultery on his wife, and the excuse that was would be used was that she was a little overweight.

44:27

In that sense, or does that is that happen there? And like, is it justified for people to make these, you know, to fall to sin because of someone's excessive weight or someone is falling in this way, so they would throw that person under the bus and try to use it, use it as a justification for their sins.

44:46

I could see something weird like that happening there. It very well probably did happen. Because when you can use a, you know, they gain weight as kind of like a catch all for sin.

44:56

And apparently, that's the, you know, the secret word that sets off the alarms, you know, weight gain. And that would then put the person under, you know, extreme investigation.

45:07

Why are you doing this? Are you doing this? Are you, you know, you follow in the books, you follow the protocol, you know, well, maybe you shouldn't eat so much, you know, maybe you should take away another plate of food, you know, hey, you're gaining a little weight, don't you think you should lose some of that?

45:20

And just completely making somebody completely paranoid and self -conscious of their weight. And when you get somebody who's so self -conscious about their weight, whenever they, you know, walk around and stuff, they're gonna be paranoid every which way.

45:31

And you go to a church where you're supposed to be in spiritually, you know, nourished and fed. And instead, you're worried about your body type and your physique, you're not going to listen to anything but what they say.

45:41

And if anybody tries to say anything different, you're gonna be so focused on your own insecurity, because that ideology enforces insecurity.

45:52

Yeah. Wow. And also, like, if you think about it, we need food and we need good amounts of food to be healthy for our immune system.

46:00

I mean, that's the way God made us. We should be able to eat and drink and actually enjoy the foods we eat. But also, what seems to happen is there's lots of portion control that could be really bad for your body, although you look okay on the outside, the inside might not be doing too good, get really sick.

46:16

And then when you're really sick, you can't take any medicine for it. On top of that, you're getting like this spiritual anorexia in a sense to where you're not being actually fed the word of God, but you're actually trying to feast on the words of Gwen Shamlin, which actually just starve your spirit even more.

46:32

Like, I can see that being at play with many people there, and that can cause you to not think straight.

46:39

You can't have good relationships with other people. But still, on the outside, you have to maintain that Stepford wife, essentially, or Stepford family look and appearance that everything's okay, but you can't even think straight anymore.

46:52

No, you can't. You can't do anything where you even admit that you have a problem because it's trying to aspire to this level of perfection that we're never going to see.

47:04

See, that's kind of like in the area of true salvation. At the point of salvation, we realize that we're broken, wretched sinners.

47:12

We hear the gospel, there's repentance, and then there's justification. Then comes the path of sanctification to glorification.

47:21

If you listen to that in the Remnant Fellowship, it's like you're already expecting the glorification of your body, like the perfection in it at that point.

47:31

But you're not going to see, as true believers, you're not going to find glorification until when you get to heaven and you reach your eternal reward.

47:38

That's what it is. Unfortunately, people aren't even going to get to that eternal reward because they're listening to, unfortunately, stuff like this that has them focusing on this world, this body, because when you die, you leave the body here.

47:50

And to be absent when the body is to be present with the Lord, so when you stand before him on that day to give an account, what's going to happen is that you're going to spend so much time wasting on your physical body versus your eternal reward with God.

48:10

You're not focusing on, you're focusing on the majesty of Christ. Yeah. So this is what

48:17

I just thought of too. That's a great point. Thank you so much for sharing that. Remember in the documentary,

48:23

I can't remember which medication it was. I think it was anxiety medication, but there was the one couple where I think she agreed to essentially take the medication, but it was kind of like a don't ask, don't tell.

48:40

Because she was basically, that was with her husband, who was part of the remnant.

48:46

And so essentially she had to put on a perfect face, like she was totally doing fine adhering to Gwen's teachings, but she wasn't dependent on the medication.

48:56

But the same time she was taking it, so she basically had to put a face, and you guys remember that part, that just made me, and you're talking about in the first episode about not being able to take, was it just being discouraged or just like no medication at all?

49:13

No medication at all. Even then, near towards the end of that part where they're talking to the woman, they were like, yeah, see, you didn't need that medication.

49:24

And so that's what they really taught. In fact, they told my wife that. My mom told my wife that.

49:29

She said, well, you don't need to take that medicine. I'm like, like I said earlier, no, they need that medication or they're going to die.

49:40

I mean, that's, it's the, you know, unfortunately, yes, you know, in a perfect world, you know, we all wish we didn't have these issues.

49:50

In a perfect world, yes. But that's the thing. We live in a fallen world. We live in a sinful world that is, that is, that we need to hear the good news of God.

50:00

We need to hear the gospel. We need it preached. We don't need to listen to get, get fit, get, you know, get fit, get fixed, this, whatever.

50:09

You know, God will fix your problems for you. God will fix your problems. And according to his glory and his goodness, it's all in him and his sovereign will and grace be done in our lives.

50:18

But you're not going to get that until you focus on him and the eternal word before him and go in pursuing after God and the eternal, not now.

50:30

That's heavy, bro. And like, in the beautiful thing about God's word, he is so gracious to us that he's preserved his text throughout time.

50:37

Even Jesus comes against the situation with the people who question him. They're like, why did this happen to this person?

50:43

Why was he, I could be butchering it. Why was he born blind? Was it something that sin that his parents did some wrongness that was done?

50:49

Or why did the tower fall on the tower Salome or whatever on the people? Jesus says these things happen so that the works of God could be made manifest today.

50:58

Jesus, he was born blind. Why? So Jesus could heal him. Not that your, your prayer life essentially is going to heal you and eating your food in a certain way.

51:08

It's, it's not because of your, your personal sin against God in every single situation is the point.

51:15

But what people are doing with the, with the medication and things of this nature where they're denying it, they're actually, they're, they're going against everything

51:22

Jesus says right there. Right. He's, he says, yeah, it says the opposite. It's not necessarily because of that man's sin.

51:28

Nope. It's just so I, he could be healed and that I can make the blind see because no other prophet has done that before.

51:33

I am the true and the best living prophet. Yeah. And just one, so one thing

51:40

I want to just state and comment too, as we move on here unless you, and I would let you know if you have any other thoughts as well too.

51:46

It's just that, again, we're talking about, you know, what is, what is the metaphysical nature of the, of the

51:52

Christian worldview and how do we make sense of who we are as, as beings? And you talk about, you know, we're tangible or physical or flesh, but we're also spirit.

52:00

So Gnosticism, one of the first heresies that the Christian church fought, there is an emphasis that the spirit was good, but the flesh was bad.

52:08

So, however, what came, the main aspect of how, why did the Christian worldview, why was it so adamantly at war with the

52:17

Gnostics? Because fundamentally it was the incarnation that Jesus Christ, who was perfectly

52:22

God, that was fully God, fully man. And it was a, it was a mystery. Subtraction by addition came and came and lived among us.

52:30

And the whole time, while he was fully human, had a divine nature in a humbled state, which is just,

52:35

I can't even begin to fathom that. And so what you end up really having here is really, again, just a distorted, almost a very

52:43

Gnostic view of the body. It's almost like a weird mishmash. You've kind of intermixed the two and you get them confused.

52:51

And what's amazing, though, if you look at the biblical worldview and understand that while we are fully, you know, we're fully tangible flesh, but we're also, we're spiritual, is that really the emphasis about who we really are as beings is really summed up.

53:06

You know, as we progress in this life is 2 Corinthians 4 .16. It says, and this is so we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away.

53:17

Our inner self is being renewed day by day. So in fact, it's not about, it's not about, there's two separate distinctions.

53:26

In fact, in spite of your outward body decaying, in fact, you know, I'm 40, I'm 40 now.

53:32

So I'm sure I'm, I'm starting to have a little more white in my beard, especially just from a couple of years ago.

53:37

If you look at some of the earlier videos, I think my, my beard's gotten a little grayer and wisdom, a little more wisdom, a little more wisdom.

53:43

So all that sort of stuff. But there's a distinction. I mean, so you're not, you're seeing the fact that, well, you know, there's other health problems, you know, you all of a sudden, you know, start parts of your body start to hurt and you're like, ouch, you know,

53:55

I forgot to stretch before I went to bed last night. Now that's why I'm all sore in the morning, you know, that's, that's what happens.

54:00

And, you know, and with all that, and with this, it's like this, this is really distortion and burden between the two that I just really observed.

54:07

So any thoughts you have on that Edward, before we kind of jump onto the next subject? Yeah. Um, like any type of where you're feeling some sort of pain or sickness or whatever, um, that's seen as disobedience because if you have any sort of pain, you disobey

54:24

God at some point and just really kind of also hits that you did, you messed up somewhere along the lines.

54:33

And again, there's no talk of grace. There's no talk of mercy. It's just complete.

54:38

Um, it's just complete. Well, you messed up, you've done this, you know, you should be able to, you know, you want to be like, you know, the phrase

54:47

I heard a lot was going to be like Moses, you know, and I'm like, okay, that's all fine and dandy.

54:54

There are other people on the Bible who died a lot earlier than Moses did. And so that's what

55:03

I've got. That's good. Uh, so the one thing I just want to also emphasize it maybe to get people to understanding it just because I think one of the aspects of just many people sort of coming to their own awakening, whether even if they don't find

55:16

Christ out of leaving a cult, usually the cognitive dissidents will be just seeing a level of hypocrisy, uh, in the church.

55:25

And so one of the things you notice at that tick tocker, she mentioned, uh, Gwen and her marriage.

55:32

She's like, I just, I just went away. I just went and left, left him for like another hunk or something of that nature. So she ended up marrying a guy, uh,

55:39

Joe Lara, who played Tarzan, I think back in the seventies. And he was a kind of unique character in the documentary.

55:46

In fact, one of the things I just observed, it was almost, you know, it talks about the role of a man, like as men were supposed to be productive and be the producers and be the people who produce and protect and provide.

56:01

And it was almost like he was really living completely antithetical his entire life to basically just being a freeloader and kind of going wherever he could, you know, just kind of finding and shacking up with different people and kind of doing whatever he could just so he could live his lifestyle.

56:16

It was very much, you know, someone who you would take advantage of people who would enable him, which

56:22

I found very interesting, but she had Gwen divorce her, her first husband and ended up marrying him.

56:28

But you said from your observation, being in the remnant, you just observed a lot of hypocrisy from your perspective.

56:34

And that was challenging for a lot of people. Share with us, talk with us about that. So if you ever saw her husband,

56:41

David, her, her first husband, he was very, he was overweight. And the documentary actually pointed that out.

56:49

Yeah, he was overweight, but then you never saw him that much because it was always her that had the stage. And he, from what

56:54

I can tell, he actually had a degree in theology as well, or he had a degree in theology. So he should have been the one preaching, but yet he wasn't.

57:08

And so, but she would just, you never see him, you rarely see him, if anything.

57:15

But then over time, you know, there was the divorce having to stay with your husband. And then all of a sudden, whenever she got, you know, her divorce, she, you know, married him.

57:25

Oh, boom, it's all good. Everybody can now, everybody can now divorce. And that's just the, that's one of the biggest things of hypocrisy in that is that you have this guy who, you know, just a few months prior to that, she divorces her husband, marries him.

57:41

And then you have the shows like Life with Joe and Gwen and going all over YouTube and showing, you know, you know, we're having, you know,

57:49

Life with God is, Life with God is so good, is what she would say. And how they would just showcase their life in these videos.

57:59

It's just this showing of opulence, of ad nausea, to, you know, look at all that we did, because we're this way, we're this body type, you know, we look this good, because we follow

58:11

God, and we give Him all the glory for the way our physique looks. And I'm like, this is just hypocrisy, because you just divorced your husband, and a few months later, you marry him, and you can go on YouTube and look at the marriage between her and Joe and the engagement, and you cannot, you cannot tell me that is not staged.

58:29

I could tell it just, it looked like a very, yeah, I watched the documentary, when they show the footage of that, and it just, it looked, it reminded me, was that one show, the reality show, was it

58:40

Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? Do you remember that? Yeah, there's a show,

58:47

I think it was called Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? It was just this guy who was supposed to be a millionaire, and all these women were competing to try and marry him, but apparently the guy who was the millionaire was fake, and he actually got in trouble.

58:59

Do you remember? Do you guys not remember that? I might have heard something, but yeah. It was just so, like, cliche, like, awkward, there's nothing about it, because when you see someone like Andrew, Andrew, hold on, when

59:42

I see you and Casey, when you're just being yourself, you know, there's that great saying that says, you know, behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.

59:49

You know, I see you just be yourself, and Casey's just like, she rolls her eyes, she looks at me, and she goes,

59:57

Jerry, I love him. You know, and you kind of see that, I see like the real, shout out to Casey, she's awesome, you know,

01:00:03

I just see, like, I see, man, like the real bond that you two have, and it's real, and it's genuine, it's something that's like grown through time, like something that's real.

01:00:12

Right. Versus something like this that's just, like, tangible. It's just, I think it's just, again, just to emphasize before you're going to jump in that just seeing that level of hypocrisy among the leadership,

01:00:22

I mean, just as human beings made in the image of God, we know when there's, like, real authentic love, when there's a real connection, and there's something that's tangibly there, and, you know, that's just something that is, you know, when you don't see that, and you're trying to portray that,

01:00:39

I think people deep down inside know something is up, something is off here. Yeah, I mean, it's innate within all of us, right?

01:00:45

Marriage is something given to us by God, right? Jesus Christ is the bridegroom, and we are the bride of Christ.

01:00:53

So I would say when you're seeing a situation that looks so over -the -top extravagant, so staged, all of these things,

01:00:59

I'd say that's actually a representation of probably her relationship with the true and living God as well, it's also staged. You know what

01:01:04

I mean? Like, true relationships and true marriage between a man and a woman, I would say, is fundamentally the most biblical way, right?

01:01:13

It's a miniature representation of Christ and his church. As Christ loves the church he gave himself up for her, so does the man give himself up for his wife.

01:01:20

Like, the Bible gives us the model of what a marriage even is. God performed the very first marriage ceremony in the garden between Adam and Eve, right?

01:01:28

So when we're seeing Gwen Shamblin divorcing, right, getting rid of Dave Shamblin, and marrying

01:01:34

Joe Lara, and then taking his last name, now being Gwen Shamblin Lara, and having this extravagant wedding ceremony that just looks absolutely fake, well, it was, you know?

01:01:44

Like, the true reason is because she doesn't actually probably have a relationship even with God at all.

01:01:50

She doesn't even have a relationship with Jesus Christ. She's not part of the bride, so what you gotta do is you gotta make it look as good as you can so people who are looking on the outside, only looking at outside appearances, will actually get their hearts pricked, right, get that burning in the bosom again and say,

01:02:07

I want some of what that person has. When she says she's trying to conquer greed inside of people, no.

01:02:13

She's feeding off of the greed of people. They see what she has, and they want that for themselves, but the only way that she's gonna say you can even have a resemblance of this life is if you give up everything that you have and follow me.

01:02:23

Jesus says, you give up everything that you have and follow me. You don't listen to Gwen Shamblin. You follow Jesus, and really, what we have to do is die to ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow

01:02:33

Christ, and believe in him through faith, whereas in Gwen Shamblin, it's, in the Remnant Fellowship, it's get rid of your mother, get rid of your father in terms of all the relationships that are around you.

01:02:42

Get rid of the local body and the local church that's invested in you within the last 15, 20 years of your life who's probably known you since you've been growing up, and go to the

01:02:49

Remnant Fellowship and have weight control, diet control, so you can actually obtain salvation.

01:02:55

I find that extremely interesting to me that she's all about killing greed, but what gets people to the Remnant Fellowship in itself is greed, so I find that very interesting.

01:03:04

I don't know. Went off a little bit there on a tangent, but what do you think about that, Edward? No, I mean, you're right.

01:03:10

It's like, you know, you watch the videos, and you go to the church, and you see this grand, this grander opulence.

01:03:15

You see this stuff that just draws people in. It's like you said, you know, wow, I want some of that. I want that, and whereas Christ teaches us to die to ourselves, like you said, it's like we have to, whenever we pick up our cross and we carry it, we're crucifying our flesh daily.

01:03:33

We're keeping ourselves in submission. Yes, whenever you do that, if you have this issue, if you have this addiction with it, I can understand that.

01:03:40

You have this problem. Identify that. But prayerfully, but you prayerfully go to God with the issue and realize it is a sin in your life of overindulgence, but it's not to the point of where you need to completely base your life off of this one sin.

01:03:53

There are multiple sins that we live because, as the Bible says, we are sinful. We are sinful creatures. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

01:04:00

And so when you see this opulence, you see this, it's just, it's completely contradiction to the word of God because it's basically showboating.

01:04:11

They look at how righteous and holy I am, just like the Pharisees did. You know, the Pharisees were the ones that said, you know, look at me for all the righteousness

01:04:18

I have done. And you have the tax collector back beating his chest saying, God have mercy on me, a sinner. What did

01:04:24

Jesus say? This one went home justified, right? Because he saw, because God says,

01:04:29

God, Jesus saw his heart. He saw that his heart was broken over his sin. Whereas the Pharisee didn't see any sin.

01:04:36

And that's the people that are in these movements where they see there is no sin. I don't see a sin with me because I'm listening to this leader who says,

01:04:42

I'm getting my information about the Bible from this person. And so when I get my information from them, there's less reading of the

01:04:50

Bible. There's less studying of the text. There's less thinking, like biblically speaking, there's less biblical thinking.

01:04:56

And so you're going to have these empty headed individuals that I say this in all love out of concern because I've been there.

01:05:05

I know what it's like. You have this empty hole where you're like, you're trying to fill it with everything else. But when you let the gospel, when you let

01:05:13

Jesus, when you understand what the word says and the Holy Spirit, you see, you may not read it initially.

01:05:18

You don't understand it, but the Holy Spirit guides us because that's the thing to act that kind of comes into us and opens up our minds to the word and the word comes in us.

01:05:27

And that's how that that's how that functions. That's good, man. That's that's good.

01:05:32

So one just one last thing as we wrap up here. So the documentary ended at.

01:05:38

Excuse me. It's been a long podcast. No, the documentary ended really on the fact of really

01:05:46

Gwen Shamblin's successor. I believe it's her daughter, Laura. And that was kind of it was interesting because you saw

01:05:53

Hannah. Yeah, it was. Is it Hannah? Yeah. Her new last name was

01:05:58

Laura because of. OK. Joe, Laura. OK. Yeah. So it showed her success.

01:06:03

Yeah. Showed her. And then it was just interesting because she's like a younger sort of caricature, a younger like carbon copy.

01:06:11

Now, just sort of doing the same thing. You know, now it's the same thing. And now she's going to be the one who's the revelator.

01:06:17

And it's going to be an interesting variable in play because historically, anytime there's a cult leader, whether it's the

01:06:23

Moonies or whether it's Joseph Smith or even some of the episodes we've done recently, there's always some level of fragmentation when the current leader dies.

01:06:34

So it's interesting, too, Andrew, that we ended up on the property roughly around three months after she passed.

01:06:41

And the fact that we're just there, I feel like watching the documentary on a totally side note reminded me of what's that meme of Leonardo DiCaprio when he is like from Once Upon a

01:06:49

Time in Hollywood. He's like pointing at the screen like, oh, I want to show the inside, like just the very beginning where she's she's talking behind that stage where that all that that that painting on the wall is like I was there.

01:06:59

I was inside the church and I was like, oh, oh, I know that place. I've been outside and we drove up to it.

01:07:05

So, yeah. But anyways, you know, it's just going to be interesting to see really how this evolves.

01:07:13

You know, there's going to be more people who will end up leaving. Hopefully, you know, by God's grace, this will people maybe hear this podcast.

01:07:20

Maybe they'll leave trying to put the pieces together. Maybe this will give them some hope of of the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:07:28

That's what we're hoping for. Jerry, can I say something real quick? Yeah. If there is anyone from the

01:07:33

Remnant Fellowship also listening to this and has heard our critiques, we want to let you know this. Number one, it's not that we're critiquing you as a person.

01:07:41

We're actually critiquing your prophet. OK, and I know that it may be hard because you've given up so much of yourself to put into yourself what she says to you.

01:07:52

Right. But you don't have to live that way. All right. You don't have to live that way. And we're not critiquing you as a person.

01:07:59

We want you to actually have a relationship with the true and living God. And it may be hard to hear these things because we love you and we care about you.

01:08:06

And if we didn't, we wouldn't actually give you the gospel. You know, so just I just wanted to say that and preface that real quick, because I can understand coming from that point of view, listening to anything we said, they may have turned it off like 30 minutes ago.

01:08:18

But if they're still here listening right now, it's because we love you. We care about you. We're not critiquing you. We're critiquing the prophet.

01:08:25

Yeah. And that's that was really my mindset, too, when we were there. And even talking with I came over there, two names of the two gentlemen we spoke with.

01:08:32

And our hearts broke for those. Yeah, I was sad. I was looking at these people that were dedicated. They're they're working on this children's playground to the left of the remnant property.

01:08:41

And I was generally sad. Like, I've seen I know it's like to be across the table talking with all sorts of different people who are dedicated.

01:08:48

They believe they're part of something bigger than themselves. And I'm sure the way this is going, there's there might be some very people that we met who are going to have that Morpheus, you know, holding up the

01:08:59

Duracell battery light moment. We're like, oh, no. What do I do? I'm in a cult like the same way that you were,

01:09:04

Edward. So so maybe as we wrap up here, you know, just give me your thoughts. And like, where do you where do you think the remnant goes from here in regards to the succession?

01:09:13

And then, like, what like what are your thoughts on that real quickly? Well, if anything, if she's anything like Gwen, then it's just going to keep going from there.

01:09:23

I mean I mean, you know, she lost a child. I don't know if you know that. Yeah, I talked about that.

01:09:29

Yeah. Yeah. And so that just completely changed because if you see the pictures from before she had the child till after, it's almost like a nine day difference.

01:09:37

You just tell like her soul is just I mean, I won't say this, but it just seems like her life is just like sucked out of her.

01:09:44

That like. No, I just want to say that was a part of the documentary.

01:09:50

That was for me. That was you could just see it. And that that was something that just was difficult for me to just to like to watch and absorb because you just saw her.

01:10:01

You know, everyone's happy and everything and just zoomed on her. You could just see it like tangibly. I mean, I just wish if you've seen the documentary, you know, we're talking about for sure.

01:10:10

Right. And it's just it grieves me that she hasn't had that chance to to mourn the loss to, you know, seeing as mourning is a sign of weakness.

01:10:20

And what does it say? Because, yes, he says, you know, say that, you know, there's a time to weep. There's a time to mourn.

01:10:26

There's there's a season for all of these things to happen. If you don't give into that emotion, if you don't.

01:10:32

Now, there's a difference between, you know, like basing things off emotion. And if you're really feeling something to listen to that, and if you have to grieve over the loss of somebody, there is a time to grieve for that.

01:10:44

But if you just if they tell you, oh, you know, just suck it up and move on, that's going to cause issues down the road.

01:10:51

I mean, you can't just soldier up and keep going. You have to acknowledge that and you have to deal with it before you can carry on.

01:10:59

No, definitely. And so then just as we were up here, just given your personal experience of being in the remnant and now being out and and really.

01:11:07

And again, I appreciate you taking the time to come on here for anyone who's still in the remnant. Maybe they're maybe they've left.

01:11:15

Maybe they're in it. They're just unsure about it or specifically anyone who's left. But they're kind of just feeling really jaded as a whole.

01:11:22

I mean, most people who come out of the world, the cults. I mean, you saw those people. And it just it's heartbreaking, indicative of ex -cultists who typically will leave a group like the remnant and they're just trying to pick up the pieces.

01:11:33

And then typically they'll end up atheist or agnostic, you know, and I'm sure you probably you had your own challenges for sure.

01:11:41

You know, having to leave Gwen's group and being part of that. Like, what words would you give to anyone who's either left the remnant or anyone who's still in?

01:11:50

Like, what where would you have for them as we wrap up here? Now, this is actually is actually kind of heavy.

01:11:58

Number one is that whenever you come out of this is to know that the

01:12:09

God loves you. And that because what you had to go through is not.

01:12:16

That's not God. God is that that is not him at all. And my prayer.

01:12:24

Is that. You'll come to an understanding of who Christ is and who he really is, because when

01:12:30

I found out when I heard of Jesus, when I heard the gospel that he died for my sins, that all the mess that I have done, all the things that I got involved in, that he forgave me my sins and made me a new creation.

01:12:43

When I heard that I was delivered and set free from all the bondage that I had accrued in this mindset of I'm not good.

01:12:52

I'm not I'm not anything. But it comes at knowing who Jesus is. And hearing him and hearing what he has done for me on the cross and taking my sins and dying for them, instead of listening to somebody who teaches something that lives a lifestyle that's completely contrary to what the gospel preaches.

01:13:14

When I heard that when I saw this, it was such an enlightening and eye opening experience to where I can actually say that this is the truth.

01:13:25

This is the truth. The word of God is true. And you can get out of that place. And there are people out there who will love you and will accept and will bring you in.

01:13:38

No, that's good, man. And I think that's that's the important thing, too, is like as a critic. And that's why we're here as cultists, is because we want to be able to bring those people in.

01:13:46

And, you know, we want to be like our passion, too, is to be able to help people get out of the cults and into the church, both out of the cults and into the gospel to have a true relationship with Jesus Christ and another living

01:13:59

God through him. But it's also to be able to see be under a good fellowship where it's

01:14:06

OK to be broken, you know, where it's like literally, you know, at our church, you know, if you have needs, you know, it says at the end of James, you know, like if there's someone who's sick, if there's someone who's in need, like let them come to the front of the church that you might pray for them and pour oil on their head.

01:14:22

Like that that is the church is a hospital for like broken people like that's the reality.

01:14:28

And I just want to say, too, if you've been through something like the remnant or similar, if you've been in the remnant or coming out of it, been a similar situation that that is a counterfeit and the counterfeit predicates the authenticity of an original like a true

01:14:41

Christian church. You'll see Christians who will pour into your lives, who should be pouring into your lives and praying over you and being in a place where you can be vulnerable and be broken.

01:14:51

I mean, the very first church that Apologia came out of just real quickly as we are finally wrapping up here was a drug and alcohol addiction recovery center.

01:15:01

And the very first time I came to this church to Apologia when

01:15:07

I was visiting and I've known Jeff for a long time, there are small little prayer groups and almost everyone out there was a recovering drug addict.

01:15:15

And I remember being part of a larger church where everyone's kind of putting on a face and everything was like, everything's great and praise the

01:15:21

Lord and that sort of stuff. And their biggest sin was like, I forgot to read. I didn't read my Bible as much this week. Or maybe

01:15:27

I just need to pray more. I mean, it was just a very surface level. And I remember this couple, this woman came up to me and said, could you guys, and she was like reluctant, but she pushed through it because we knew that we weren't going to judge or condemn her.

01:15:42

She said, could you all pray for my husband? He wanted to come here, but he relapsed this week and he was binge drinking and he feels really convicted about it.

01:15:51

And he's wondering if you could pray for him. And I was just so uncomfortable. And just be honest with you,

01:15:59

I wasn't even familiar with that terminology. And I pulled Jeff to the side who was a chaplain and I said,

01:16:06

Jeff, what's binge drinking? Like what exactly is that? And they explained that where someone who's addicted to alcohol will just guzzle down a ridiculous amount of whatever the substance is for a whole weekend.

01:16:19

And I didn't even know that was humanly possible. But the reality is that someone could fall to that level, that depth of sin, but be convicted about it, want to repent.

01:16:30

And we are there not to shame. We didn't do any effort to shame them or to shun them.

01:16:35

We were there to help them. Let's pray for you. Let's pray for him. Let's make sure he gets to a detox center for his own health.

01:16:44

All those sorts of things. That's the nature of the Christian gospel. You go in the same way that Christ went into the world with the broken to meet them where they were.

01:16:58

And that's what we really need to do as we wrap up here. So, Edward, again, thank you so much for coming on and for sharing this.

01:17:06

And I really am confident this is going to be a huge blessing. Again, thank you so much for sharing your heart behind this. And man, just praise

01:17:13

God. You think about where you are now in life. And I think especially now, too, the hope that you have as a

01:17:20

Christian is that now we have a catalyst for suffering to make sense of everything we've been through.

01:17:29

What other people may have meant for evil, God ultimately meant it for good. So I feel like you really emphasize that.

01:17:37

So thank you so much. Thank you all for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely. All right.

01:17:42

Well, if you guys enjoy this episode, this is a little extended, but go ahead and let us know what you thought. Go ahead and leave us a review on iTunes.

01:17:49

And I just definitely appreciate your thoughts on this very interesting movement and cult and ultimately a series that was on HBO.

01:17:58

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01:18:04

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01:18:13

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