Cultish: The Secret: Exposing the Cult of Toxic Positivity, Pt. 2

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

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Hey what's up everyone, we are super excited to announce that we will be making our first appearance on the road in Simpsonville, Kentucky July 28th and 29th at the

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Called to Freedom Conference. If you are disentangling your faith after experience in a hyper -fundamentalistic or legalistic church group, this event is for you.

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There will be panel discussions, table discussions, inspiring testimonies, all from Christians who have rebuilt their faith, and even a game night guys.

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It's a weekend of rebuilding theology, rebuilding community, and rebuilding faith through God's words.

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So definitely check that out. Also Jerry and I are going to be speaking there and we're also super excited to meet you in person.

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You can register for the conference today at bereanholiness .com forward slash conference. That's B -E -R -E -A -N holiness dot com forward slash conference.

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Also until May 31st you can use the promo code CULTISH in all caps at checkout for $50 off the purchase price.

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We hope to see you there. Now back to the episode. All right.

01:03

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I am one of the co -hosts here. Andrew the superstar of the show is not alongside me.

01:13

As I mentioned, he, uh, during the time of this recording, uh, he has taken some time off as he had a brand new healthy baby boy, him and his lovely wife and the kids are doing well.

01:23

They're just taking so much time off to adjust to their now, uh, four children, family of six now, including them.

01:29

So, uh, shout out to Andrew and he'll be back on the podcast soon. Joined back again by John Clash, uh, make sure it is spelled correctly.

01:38

As I said, uh, it is my friendly reminder. If you download clash of clans, uh, nothing wrong with playing the game, but it also, if you do, it means that you probably typed in the wrong keyword and now you're down totally different rabbit trail.

01:50

Uh, speaking of rabbit trails, we've gone down quite a few of them, but we definitely have unpacked quite a bit.

01:56

Uh, one area that we did want to get into specifically was talking about, um, uh, the law of attraction and how it has infiltrated the

02:06

Christian church. Let's talk about that. How, how has it done? Let's give us something. We have a list. Uh, let's go.

02:12

Yeah. So it's, it's, it infiltrates in, in the way anything infiltrates the church is it starts small.

02:20

Yeah. So we're talking about how the new age has infiltrated the church. We have had a guest on like Steven bank cars when he was on the podcast, talked a little bit about it.

02:30

He also talked about it in his book, second coming of the new age, but, um, but yeah, you have written a book about it yourself a lot of speaking about the law of attraction.

02:40

What areas do you see it really kind of infiltrating the church and people are saying, oh, this is harmless.

02:47

This is, I can incorporate this into Christian living. Yeah. So it infiltrates, it infiltrates different churches in different ways.

02:55

Right. So, uh, I would say a church that is not necessarily a law of attraction church, which we'll get into what that is, um, in a bit, uh, they could be a, a real

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Bible believing church and real Bible believing Christians. And then you have a few people who stumble upon the secret and just start introducing it to different church members.

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And because it's presented in a way, or, you know, the law of attraction is presented in a way as, as it being neutral.

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Now you start having people participating in practicing it and then going to, you know, certain scriptures that they will use to justify that it is biblical, that they can be practicing the law of attraction.

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And so that's one way that it can infiltrate a church is just through like members that are, that are participating in it.

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Also, you know, churches bring a whole bunch of people from different walks of life that bring their baggage with them. So that's one way.

03:49

But then you have churches who's, who the law of attraction is built into their theology, right?

03:56

And it's just not called the law of attraction. So one of the things that the law of attraction says is that you can speak things into existence, right?

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And in speaking things into existence, it's, uh, you know, because your words have vibrations and you know, they activate the frequencies of the universe.

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And then when it's on that frequency, it's bringing it, bringing it back to you. Well, there are churches that are considered under the word of faith umbrella, right?

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And you'll recognize people like Kenneth Copeland, um, you know, Benny Hinn, uh, you know, people like that who actually teach this stuff.

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And it's not just like, so the other day, Mike Todd, who's, who's a pastor in, um, in Oklahoma, he, he tweeted something saying like,

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Oh, be careful what you say, because you know, your words go into the atmosphere and that shapes your life or something like that.

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And, uh, uh, I'm, you know, given grace and thinking that he probably just said that in like a, uh, trying to sound profound or, or whatever.

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Um, so I don't think that that's necessarily a part of maybe that church's theology, but a, an actual word of faith church teaches in their theology that when we put our faith in Christ, we not only, you know, get, uh, forgiveness for our sins and everything, but prior to the fall of man,

05:21

Adam and Eve were able to speak things into existence. And when we put our faith in Christ and we now, uh, become born again believers, we now have access to speaking things into existence again.

05:37

Right. So we kind of like re get that back and that's in their theology. Right. And then they say that your thoughts and what you say, uh, activate the faith force.

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Right. So, and when you're thinking positive things and speaking positive things, you're activating that faith force and that faith force is bringing the blessings of God to you.

06:02

And these blessings are obviously material. Um, and so it sounds very similar to the law of attraction because it is, because everything is the same.

06:14

There's nothing new under the sun. Everything is the same. It's just repackaged differently. The word of faith movement is the law of attraction, just repackaged as Christianity, you know, instead of after everything that they say in the new age, they say things like, and so it is well in, in the word of faith, they say in Jesus name, you know, you'll, you'll see, um, everybody for the most part has seen that clip of Kenneth Copeland, you know, grabbing his head saying hair grow, you know, speaking to your hair to grow.

06:45

Right. And I wish that that worked. I really do. But this is, this is the kookiness that it leads you to believing this stuff because you can speak these things into existence.

06:57

Right. Now it also filters its way in through the prosperity gospel, right?

07:03

Because the prosperity gospel, it's similar to the word of faith movement, which actually before we jump into the prosperity, the word of faith movement, um, was created by, um, or influenced by,

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I'm going to ruin his name, but I think it's like EK something, but that guy totally, no, no, no.

07:24

So that guy was, we're talking about the word of faith. So that guy was actually influenced by Phineas Quimby, who is the father of new thought.

07:36

Right. So here you have, uh, and then also Phineas Quimby, um, was involved in the law of attraction and S and stuff like that.

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So if you, um, like just trace it all the way back, it goes back to the new thought and the new age movement.

07:53

Right. So here you have people like Kenneth Copeland, like Benny Hinn, like some of these word of faith, um, preachers that are really just preaching new age spirituality, except in, in Jesus form, if you could call it that.

08:08

Right. Yeah. Um, and then you have the prosperity gospel, which is more subtle. Right.

08:13

So I'll give you a prime example of how, um, the prosperity gospel kind of creeps in as well.

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I was going to, um, a church in Connecticut, not the good church I was telling you on the last episode, but there was another church that was by my mom's house and they taught a bunch of biblical stuff that was, that was real.

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I still know to be true today, but they, um, there was this Thanksgiving service, right?

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And this, the word of faith and law of attraction also goes into, you reap what you sow.

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They twist that scripture right into being, um, you know, if you sow good words into the universe, you, you know, you reap good back.

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And also if you sow seeds into the ministry, you're going to reap that back and seeds being financial seeds, you reap that back, um, financially.

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So I was, I went to their Thanksgiving service and in the Thanksgiving service, they had a whole bunch of testimonies on stage.

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Um, and as I'm listening to the testimonies, I was expecting to hear, you know, how God renewed a marriage and God saved someone from addiction.

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But this was apparently their fundraising, um, their fundraising season, right.

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And which I'm cool with fundraising. I'm 100 % cool with it. I think that anything that is ran on donations needs some fundraising.

09:35

Exactly. And so. Tell me about it. Yeah. Yeah. So by the way, guys, make sure you donate to Coltage.

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They do a lot of good here. Of course. But so I'm sitting there listening to them speak like all these different church members that they brought on stage and they're saying, yeah, you know,

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I, I never, I never knew, you know, how good God could be until I decided to sow a seed.

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And you know, I thought that I couldn't afford it, but I was like, you know what, I'm just going to give it anyway. And then I was blessed with 20 times more than what

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I gave. And it was story after story after story of that. And I'm sitting here like, what is going on?

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And I'm a baby Christian at this point. Right. And so the, the, um, the, the feeling that I got after sitting through that was of disgust.

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I'm like, this is, this is not right. Something just is not right here.

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And then little did I know was that this was a church that is under the branch of Joel Osteen.

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Right. So I had no idea. And how does this tie back to the law of attraction? Joel Osteen has a book called the power of I am right.

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And in that book, he teaches, you know, these affirmations that when you, when you say

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I am, whatever follows it is shaping your life. So if you say I am fat, you'll get more fat.

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If I am broke, you'll get more broke. But on the flip side, if you say

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I am wealthy, I am healthy, I am living in abundance, and you, you just start saying these affirmations.

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Now you're, you're activating God's blessings by speaking well of yourself. And that goes back to activating the faith for us.

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And that goes back to speaking it into existence. It all ties back. And then it also goes into little

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God theology. You know, Kenneth Copeland teaches that we are little gods, right?

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Who else teaches this? Creflo Dollar teaches that we are little gods, meaning we are actual gods, right?

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Not gods with apostrophe S. Yeah. God's no apostrophe S. Like, yeah, we jumped into some of that stuff with the, when we did our episode actually with Van Kars and the word of faith movement back in 2020.

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Speaking of Kenneth Copeland, I think it's interesting. I was trying to find the, I was Googling here for a second ago, is that I was trying to find the transcript of everything that Kenneth Copeland is known for, his executing judgment on COVID -19.

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Yeah, yeah. COVID -19? Like if 2020, like everything that happened in there, like this was one of the cherries on tops.

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Like the world is, the world is getting stranger, but you know, with all the, you know, there's like the remixes and people are doing all the different -

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That was a fun time for that. There was, yeah, there's a couple, you know, silver linings in 2020, like that and Tiger King was kind of interesting.

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But anyways, you know, but when you look at even like a lot of what he said, you know, it came from this worldview of like the word of faith or the law of attraction where he's saying like, you know,

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I execute judgment upon you. Like somehow he had the power to, like he literally, like he meant that, like it wasn't a joke to him.

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He thought that this virus at that time, like literally no one, no one knew what it was. We just knew something was weird was going on in China.

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Stuff was starting to shut down. It's working its way over here. Stuff is starting to shut down over here and here he is believing that this 80 year old man is saying he has the authority to execute judgment on something that came out of somewhere out of China.

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And like he meant that, like, and then of course he went over and did the dramatic blowing and yeah.

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Yeah. And like, but, but even though the joke when he's like, I blow the wind of God and all those things, like it's, it's all meaningful for sure.

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But like, there's real, there's a real tangible like worldview that came behind that.

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So even when you're saying like, I blow the wind of God, like he's literally saying that he, he has the power to like take the force of God to like push back against this.

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And he literally thinks he was doing the right thing, like to help people, I guess.

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Like who knows? I don't know what was going on. I don't know what he's thinking. But you understand the worldview that was coming behind that quote.

13:51

So it's interesting because, um, you know, this, this is another way that it bleeds into the church as well.

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Kenneth Copeland is, uh, you know, he believes in deliverance as well. You know, as far as deliverance ministry, he has these mass deliverance things where he walks around and he touches people and they fall to the ground and all of this stuff.

14:08

Right. Let's, let's, let's go, go ahead with what you're going to say and we'll play the clip actually. What, um, what

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I was getting to is that in that world as well, um, there's, there's one teacher

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I remember when I was going down the, the, the path of trying to deliver myself from demonic strongholds, uh, there was a book that I, I read where it said you, you should not pray your fears out loud.

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You should say them in, in your head because if you say them out loud, demons and the devil can hear you saying it.

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And if they hear what you're afraid of, then they'll use that against you. So it's kind of a twisted way of saying like,

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Hey, don't, don't say anything negative because then you're activating negative forces that will come back.

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So it's just interesting how Kenneth Copeland believes in all this like deliverance and you know, word of faith stuff.

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And then you have other deliverance ministers that are telling you to not even pray your fears to God out loud.

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Imagine that, you know, and uh, so it's just, it all ties back. The law of attraction infiltrates in, there's people who are promoting it without even realizing that they're promoting it.

15:12

Yeah. Uh, so let, let's, let's just give an example and then we're going to, uh, I want to challenge you on a couple of different verses.

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But here's, here's a clip from Kenneth Copeland, uh, talking about, uh, we're going to decipher this language.

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Uh, let's go ahead and play this and uh, yeah, here we go. Times like this through Victorython that you made all of this available to start with.

15:36

And that's the reason that Gloria and I pray for you. Uh, we pray for you every meal.

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I mean, we hold you up before the Lord all the time. We think about you and we pray about you and pray for you.

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And in the name of Jesus, I declare the power of the Lord is on you now.

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I declare you well, I declare you, I declare you strong, not just heal.

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I declare you well, divine health from now until Jesus comes or the time of your departure.

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Long, well life. So be healed and be well and understand this, that God loves you and we love you and Jesus is

16:22

Lord. I agree with him on that last part. Yeah. Um, right. So there's a couple of things. He makes a distinction between, uh, between, uh, is well and what else he differentiated between.

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He said strong, not just well, strong, not just well, but he specifically declared it.

16:39

Yeah. He's the one declaring it. I declare you this, I declare you that he's, he's not asking

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God for an answered prayer. He's, he's saying it as if he has the power to tell

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God what to do. Right. You know, and that's, that's the difficulty when it comes to declaring, because this is also law of attraction stuff too.

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You declare the things that you want to be as if they are, you have to live in that. You have to live in that, that mental state.

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Cause part of the law of attraction is, um, you know, you, you not only say it, but you have to feel like you already have it.

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So to say things like, I declare this, you know, over you, all right, well what if that doesn't happen?

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You know, what, what if, what if you declare me, you know, not, not only well, but strong and then

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I'm, I'm, I'm unwell and weak. Yeah. What's that say about your power? Right.

17:32

Another question too, is that, I mean, one of the things he says is that I declare you well until your departure or until Jesus comes.

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So in other words, you are to be the best place as a Christian should be, um, that God wants you to be.

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According to Kenneth Copeland, at least from my understanding, um, I mean, if Kenneth Copeland watches this and wants to send me this to re -clarify,

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I'd be more than happy to hear from him, but I doubt that'll happen, but declarify if you can declarify, right.

18:00

Um, well yeah. So in other words, you know, are you supposed to be perfectly well, uh, without any sniffles or anything like that until all of a sudden one day you just drop dead out of the blue?

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Like, and if you have anything else, I mean, there's one, like, uh, I think Walter Martin during LA, he had this one lecture, he said,

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Hey, there's one thing he's talking about the errors of positive confession, which is actually a great, great message. You should check it out.

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But he said, there's one, there's one disease none of us will ever be cured from. That's your last one. Right.

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So all of us, you, most people when they die, they usually come down with someone like, uh, Mike Heiser right now.

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He's, he just made that post, which is heartbreaking. You know, he's going to be the Lord soon and he is not, you know, he has, is a cancer is not in remission anymore.

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And so like what's going on with someone like him, like, is that because of, he wasn't faithful enough, like didn't pray enough, he wasn't declaring it over him, uh, over himself enough, or maybe he didn't have

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Kenneth Copeland come lay hands on him or he wasn't delivered from the cancer demon or something like that.

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You know, and that's, and that's what's like destructive is that there's tons. And this is why I like imagine we'd say bad theology hurts people is that like,

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I believe that like if God wanted to, he could heal Dr. Heiser and I've seen times where the

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Lord does heal like, uh, pastor Jeff, like their adopted son, like August, his son, they had, when they adopted him, he was a spine that he was going to be a, the mom initially wanted to do an abortion and then she chose not to.

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And all the documents, all the medical documentation, all the things showed that he had spina bifida and there was going to be like a real challenge.

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I mean, anyone who knows who's raised a child with the, with that symptom knows that's a real, real challenging thing to do.

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And when August was born, it was a miracle. Like he had no symptoms whatsoever and they were like in tears.

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And it was like this amazing area in which God moved. So sometimes God will move in that area where that's amazing. You give glory to him.

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But there's a lot of times where like God will put us on, but the best way for us to learn is to be put on our back.

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Yeah. Right. That's where I learned the most. Yeah. Yeah. And so even like an example, when you look at it, even stories like in the Old Testament, like Nebuchadnezzar, when he gives his whole story, like there are some times where it's like God has to sort of put you on your hands and your knees and eat grass to be humbled, you know?

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And, and like, that's such an amazing passage of scripture. And so like the idea that somehow, you know, this is, you have to be this particular way.

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It's so, it's so destructive. It's such a distortion. It's also what, you know, what do we consider well, you know, to be well,

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I would say that I would much rather have everything falling apart in my life and a real connection with God, you know, a real relationship with Jesus Christ, you know, that so prime example of, of when, um, you know, you're saying how sometimes

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God takes you low. When I had the rug swept out from under me and my business fell apart, relationship fell apart, all of that stuff.

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That's when God brought me to him in a real relationship, not just me putting my faith in Christ as, as my, you know,

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Lord and Savior and getting into heaven, right. But really digging into a relationship and me understanding who our father in heaven actually is and what his nature is like and in the ways he loves us, because it's, it's not real love.

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If he just gives us every single thing that we want in, in our, in our lives, you know, that's not love that's spoiling somebody, you ruin them.

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And we also have to keep our eyes on eternity. You know, if, if our lives are perfect in this one, right.

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We go to the next one. Um, what do we have to compare? You know what

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I mean? Like struggle in this life, uh, I believe can, can help, help us understand how blessed we are to have

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Christ, you know, for an eternity. Yeah, no, no, for sure.

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So let's, let's do this because a lot of times, you know, people will, uh, look, I mean, you think about all the different ways the new age has infiltrated the church.

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And like I said, whenever we make a post about the Enneagram, the, you know, there's that seems to be like a hot topic, but again, that's something where, you know, like I said, you look at the origins of that, like we're not doing the genetic fallacy.

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Like the people who put it together, we're literally doing automatic writing a spirit contact. It's when you get into it, it's, you are playing all sorts of gymnastics to try and get around.

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It's like Jesus calling that, uh, that devotional Jesus calling like that, that woman did automatic writing and she admitted it.

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It's like, she, she said, this is what I did to write the book. So this is, this is an entity either pretending to be

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Jesus that's writing this book. Well, or, well, so it's crazy is that, um, I had no idea what

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Jesus calling even was. And I was part of this thread where just a couple of people and this one girl who's part of the thread would send

23:01

Jesus calling. And all of a sudden I just saw every single devotional. If I remember, it would like wrap up where it's like,

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Hey, I just want you to bring you into the piece of my presence. Yeah. Seek my face. Right. But it was all, it was all kind of like into this like esoteric, like out of, like woo, woo sort of thing.

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Zen garden. Yeah. Then it's like, but there's nothing really about sin, repentance, understanding the cross of Christ.

23:28

Like you compare that to something like Oswald chambers, like my utmost for his highest, which is just like rich.

23:34

Like this guy only lived a short amount of time. And like, I like walked with God, but you could, but anyways, like the, so you could see, um, with like Jesus calling, man, it's just one, it's so out there.

23:47

It's definitely another Jesus, another spirit for sure. Uh, not only that, when you talk about like a moneymaker, there's been like 15 versions of it.

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I was just at Costco the other day and there, and there's like the latest version of it. And I'm like, there it is again.

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And this is just like lapped up because of the thing is too, is that people are attracted to that because there's nothing in there that talks about their sin or the holiness of God.

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The fact that we're going to stand before a Holy God, it's all me, me, me, me, me. Like that. Those prayers are so they're not

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God focused. It's all Jesus calling the me. Yeah. Like this is not, this is for me.

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No. All he cares about is me and how I feel. And that's, that's why these secret friendly churches.

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And, and I, I, I'm not saying that it's a complete net negative with, um, you know, with that stuff.

24:34

But if you, uh, um, you know, if you get into like the Stephen Furtick and stuff like that, it's like when

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I was going to those types of churches and into that stuff, I was never really told about my sin in the way

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I was needed to be told. That was, you know, they, they spoke about it, but they didn't go into like specifics, you know, and, and really holding up a mirror of how bad you are.

24:59

Yeah. All right. Big time. All right. Yep. We're going to put a couple of, uh, uh, versus proof texts that people might use to prove the law of attraction in the mirror.

25:07

So we're going to do a drum roll and see what you answer. Let's, let's take a look here. Um, all right, let's just have some fun with it.

25:12

Uh, so this is also an example too, is that cults and wealth, the new age, the sortation, they'll take the

25:18

Bible, they'll take verses out of context because it's all about, you know, you're a conversation. They're hearing what they want to hear.

25:24

I mean, people never do that online. Do they ever like a YouTube comment session? People, people read what they want to like your comment, your, your comment made me feel this way.

25:33

It doesn't know. It's not about what you said. It's how it made me feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just drama.

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You open a Facebook now, just drum. That's the thing too. Like since I've been married, I've been hardly even on the Facebook grids, but nice anyways.

25:44

Uh, so let's take a look here. So here's a proof text, Matthew 21, 22. And I'm like, but hold on,

25:50

John, it says, but, but Gia said, and all things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing you shall receive.

25:57

Yeah. Like that's, that's the law of attraction. That's biblical, right? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Read, read the next verse, you know, read, read the verse before it.

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Whenever, whenever somebody, um, just pulls something out of the middle, you have to read before and read after, you know, one of the stipulations is forgiveness.

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He goes on to talk about forgiveness and you also have to take, take into context. You have to, you have to take into the, into consideration, the context, who is he speaking to, right?

26:24

He's speaking to the people who are following him right then and there. Right. So if we're going to take this and give it a blanket statement over, yeah, look, if you just ask and believe you'll receive, right, you have to ask, well, who's

26:40

Jesus talking to? This isn't talking to non -Christians. This isn't talking to new agers.

26:46

This isn't talking to everybody. You have the before and after. Yeah. So, uh, let's take a look here.

26:51

So when the disciples say, yeah, um, when the disciples saw it means that there's a previous context, they marveled saying, how did the fig tree wither at once?

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Then Jesus said, truly I say to you, uh, if you do not have faith and do not doubt, you will not, uh, only do what you would has been done to the fig tree.

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And even if you, uh, and even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and be thrown into the sea.

27:17

And if it happened, and it will happen, but whatever you ask in prayer, you shall receive if you have faith.

27:24

So there's a little bit more context there. Yep. Keep reading. Yeah. Oh. And, uh, then verse 23.

27:30

And then when he entered the temple and the chief priests and the elders and people came up to him and he was teaching and he said, by what authority do you do these things?

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And who gave you this authority? Jesus said, I will ask you one question.

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And if you tell me the answer, then I'll tell you by what authority do you do these things?

27:50

Well, I always love that. Jesus always does that. He's not, so this wasn't a Kenneth Copeland declaring, you know, yeah, that's what a shocker, but anyway, so whenever, whenever we, we have a text like that, that just,

28:03

I always tell people read before and read after, because you're going to gather some context, you know, in this one, you, you have the before of like, these were, this was his disciples asking him a specific question, you know, and he's talking to his disciples.

28:18

Whenever new agers take that whole, you know, uh, what you ask and you believe you'll receive, they'll say, see, look, the

28:25

Bible teaches it. That is not a blanket statement for every person in existence. He's not talking about activating the faith force and, and, and, uh, getting on the frequency of the universe.

28:38

He is talking to his disciples. So let's just say that Jesus is.

28:44

You know, not just specifically talking to those disciples right there, but he's talking to all followers of Christ after that would still mean that if the, this does prove the law of attraction, that it is a limited to us

28:56

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29:09

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29:45

What about Romans 12, two, and it says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

29:51

So isn't shouldn't that saying, well, hold on. Well, that's saying I should actually, the Bible says egg having a positive mindset and renewing my mind to, to bring the things in life that I want to bring that the

30:03

Bible affirms that though, right? I would say that you're, that you're adding, you know, you're, you're saying, see, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

30:09

It doesn't say be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you can attract everything that you want in your life, right?

30:18

What does the Bible want us to do? Become more Christ like right in our walk. So being transformed by the renewal of our mind, what are we putting into our mind?

30:27

The word of God, right? And in putting into our mind, the word of God, we are growing deeper in our relationship with Jesus.

30:35

And you know, that's not activating the face, the faith force. Yeah. Um, that's good.

30:42

Okay. Uh, Proverbs 23, seven, but hold on. It says, for as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

30:47

I mean, I was watching the secret and that's basically what they said. I mean, isn't that kind of like, and even they send the secret, this, this is something that is practiced.

30:57

Like every faith has this principle. This is the secret. And this is the secret revealed in Proverbs 23, seven.

31:03

Yeah. So one interesting thing about that is if you read before and after, there's context to that as well, but just on a face, uh, like on a, on a face level, right.

31:14

A man thinks in his heart. So is he, this does not equate to, if you think about it, you will attract it.

31:20

Right. This is talking about, uh, you know, the desires of, of our heart and who we are, what you think it impacts, um, you know, good input, good output.

31:33

Right. So it impacts what it is that we would do in our lives. Right. Um, and if I'm trying to remember the exact wording that become, that comes before that, can you pull that up?

31:46

Because I would really like to see it. Yeah. Pull that up. Let me see. Because I remember studying this one and being like, man, this is so jacked up.

31:56

Yeah. Well, once, whenever we hit the major big, big times and we can actually afford our own assistant, like Jane, like Joe Rogan.

32:02

Hey, pull that up right there. Pull it up. Pull it up. Like it was like, pull it up, Jamie. So the verse before and verse afterwards.

32:08

Yeah. Oh, so Proverbs 23 verse six. And this is, Oh, I get to read in King James. I feel very elitist.

32:16

Shout out to all you King James only people. We'll be doing an episode about that very soon. We love you all.

32:21

Uh, eat thou, eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye. Neither desire thou his dainty meats.

32:29

I like that terminology. Dainty meat. I'm actually kind of hungry after all this thing. We had a sandwich full of dainty meats today.

32:36

Um, uh, anyways, for as he think is in his heart, so is he eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee.

32:47

But the morsel which thou hast eaten shall not, shall thou vomit up and lose and lose thy sweet words.

32:56

So this, this is why I wanted you to read the whole entire thing, because this is not as you think.

33:02

So you are, this is talking about a specific person, right? And he's saying that as that person thinks, so is he.

33:11

He's talking about don't eat with that person. Yeah. You know, don't, it's really coming down to who are you surrounding yourself with?

33:17

He's giving you advice on, Hey, don't eat with that person. Because as that man thinks, so is he.

33:23

So he's a corrupt man and in being around him, you will be corrupted.

33:30

Right. Um, Oh, so here's, here's another one. Well, I mean, there's a context to the funny, the funny thing.

33:37

And this is actually a, uh, uh, I actually just Googled, I found a website that's like pulling up verses to prove the law of attraction.

33:44

Here's one, Joe, 22, 28. You will decree a thing and it will be established for you.

33:53

Well, one, I would just say, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm going to take it. I'm going to take the phone. I'm going to take a swipe. You took it on the last three.

33:59

Well, one. Okay. What's the whole story? Let's let's, this is like the

34:05

Google, this is what I'm saying. Like this, this is like the Google mass, where this is like zooming into like the back alley of like somewhere in LA.

34:12

And now it's like, you got to zoom out and see like all of LA. And now like all of California, like that's the context of Joe.

34:19

So the whole story of Job is that Satan, uh, and like God says, have you seen my servant

34:26

Job? And, and he, and Satan says, well, let, let me bring all this trial and tribulation on him.

34:31

He's going to curse your name and God gives Satan permission. He removed the, the hedge of protection.

34:39

No more hedge. No more hedge. Yeah. So, I mean, this is basically just like the tsunami of like suffering.

34:44

It's like all these things happen. His servants get destroyed, his sons and daughters die. And, you know, every single time it's like, there's some servants, like only

34:52

I've escaped to tell you. And it's just a tragic event. So it's like, it's dealing with the laws that really wasn't in his control.

35:00

Like Joel was doing what he was doing. He wasn't manifesting anything. This is something completely outside of himself.

35:06

He was, you know, he was convinced that he was really a good servant of Christ. Yeah. I mean, of God, you know, so if, if, if the worldview is going to,

35:16

I'm sorry, I cut you off, but if the worldview is going to, is going to, you know, be consistent, right. Putting good out, doing good things, you receive good back.

35:24

Job's doing everything by the book. You know, he's doing everything right. He's, he's, you know, he even starts complaining about it.

35:30

You know, he does everything right, yet bad stuff still happens to him. Where was the faith force? Where was activating, you know, the universe being on the right frequency, you know?

35:39

And it's, it's interesting when, uh, you know, they, they pull that, that one scripture out of context and completely ignore everything.

35:49

Who is saying that to who is he saying it, you know, and why is he saying it? Yeah. These things are so important when, when looking at scripture pulled out of context.

35:59

Especially if you, then if you go on to read Job 38 through 40, then you kind of realize there's a whole, that really puts that in perspective.

36:05

Okay. Here's, here's a, here's another one we'll knock out of the park. This would be a fun one, but hold on, hold on, hold on, John. I'm still,

36:11

I'm still fighting you on this. I'm still fighting you on this. So the secret, I'm going through Proverbs and here it is again,

36:17

Proverbs 29, 18, but where there is no vision, the people perish, but he had to keep them a lot happier.

36:23

So you see, I need to be able to do to manifest, to visualize, to do vision casting, to do vision boards.

36:30

And therefore I'm going to write and be like, what was the guy in the, in the documentary? He's like, I was a, he found his own dream home and accident.

36:37

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Proverbs 19 like this is no different. This is no different was talked about in the secret.

36:43

Yeah. Well, I would say using your logic, right. If we just take it at a surface level, people with, uh, you know, uh, those without vision perish.

36:54

Right. So does that mean that everybody who's not doing vision boards are just going to perish? Right. Everybody who's not visualizing is going to, is going to perish and die.

37:03

If we're taking these literal, like absolutely to its literal conclusion, does that mean that anybody who is not practicing the law of attraction is 100 % going to perish and die?

37:16

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point. But also let's, let's read, let's take a look at the context. So here we go.

37:22

I'm going to do ESV because that's, I love the Kings English, but it's such a battle to read.

37:27

I did not speak like that anywhere else. Uh, despite what people may say. Um, here we go. So this is a, what was it?

37:34

Proverbs 19, nine, 20, uh, 29, 18. So here we go. Um, let me take a look here.

37:42

So it says, uh, this is just one discipline, your son and he will, let's just, let's just backtrack a couple of verses.

37:48

The rod and reproof give wisdom. This is proverbs 29, 15, but a child left to himself bring shame into his mother where the wicked increased transgression, transgressions increase, but the righteous will look upon their downfall, discipline your son and he will give you rest, but he will delight.

38:08

He will be, he will give delight to your heart where there is no prophetic vision. People cast off restraint, but, uh, he who blesses the law, but blesses he who keeps the law by mere words, a servant is not discipline for though he understands he will not respond.

38:26

Right. So it just, it's giving like specific wisdom. Also look at the difference in the translation, right?

38:34

They always pick a specific translation, right? Right. Uh, what, what version is this that they're, that they have, or does it even have it?

38:41

That's a good question. It's um, because it's completely different in the ESV and ESV is,

38:46

I'm actually wondering if this, this is a, cause this is a website called the subconscious servant .com. So you can tell just by the title name is probably a little new agey.

38:53

Yeah. Right. So here's maybe the message. I think this person might actually be like toying around like with the

38:59

Bible. So like, check out this out. And I was like this, I skipped this. Oh, this one goes like, there's no way that there's no real translation.

39:04

Right? So this website says Hebrews 11 one. Now faith is confidence of that.

39:10

We hope for what will actually happen. It gives assurance about the things we cannot see.

39:16

There's no translation that says, I think this is fitted in. That's, that has to be worded in.

39:21

That's, that's pretty interesting. Unless it's, it's the passion translation or the message or something like that.

39:29

I'm curious. I got to look into that. So like, this is the thing too. And even if this is taken off,

39:34

I pulled this website is that a lot of times culture, even new age teachers, cause a lot of times they'll be on stage talking, which there's a lot of speaking events and they'll, and I do it sometimes too.

39:43

Like I'll paraphrase something, but they're doing specifically to misquote. Cause if someone looks at Hebrews 11 one, they'll say, do you understand that one, the entire book of Hebrews is about telling people a section of Christian of Christians who are under persecution.

39:59

They want to go back to Judaism. And they're saying, no, don't leave. Don't forsake the faith. Like Christ is all things are passing.

40:06

The old covenant is passing away. Christ has completed the sacrifice and he's making this whole case like not to apostatize.

40:12

And then he gives the whole example of like faith wasn't. So faith wasn't this arbitrary thing that you use to manifest this power that you have.

40:21

This was faith in the God of Abraham. Then it gives us whole faith hall of fame.

40:26

This is a precursor to talking about all these people in the old Testament, how God used their imperfections.

40:32

Um, they like talking about how Moses, how he forsook the pleasures of Egypt to suffer with God's people to suffer with God's people, not enjoy the suffer to suffer with God's people.

40:43

Right? So according to your own logic, if you're going to use Hebrews one to say that this is what you have to do to visualize and then add to it, they visualize and then add to it.

40:54

Then you have to say that, well, Moses was talked about later on this passage.

40:59

Well, what's happening. You're not, he's now actually violating the very, the whole chapter.

41:06

The art, the author is actually giving a continued argument is giving a continued rhetoric or argumentation about what the fulfillment of the new covenant is.

41:17

So if one, if he's going to make defined faith as the author, if the author actually intended this to mean this, then it is nonsensical to bring in Moses because almost every single person that he mentions in the faith hall of fame went through suffering, went through suffering.

41:34

That's a, that's a really good point. And to, to piggyback off of that in, in the secret, they talk about how

41:40

Jesus was a millionaire and Moses was a millionaire and, and you know Jacob and Joseph and Isaac and Abraham, they were all millionaires and they were, they were not only millionaires, but they were prosperity teachers.

41:54

Right. And it's just, it's such a manipulation of scripture.

42:00

It's ridiculous. Even Jesus himself says, you know, when, when I forget exactly what scripture it was, but he was talking about how he has no place to lay his head.

42:10

You know, the son of man has no place to lay his head. He's essentially telling you, Hey, if you follow me, you know, I'm homeless, bro.

42:16

So, uh, how does that equate to Jesus being a millionaire? Right. If, if he doesn't even have a place to lay his head, right.

42:24

Jesus preached, you know, on, on other people's boats. Like he stood on other people's boats. He, he, um, you know, just traveled the land and stayed at other people's houses.

42:34

And it's, uh, it's such a ridiculous, um, twisting of history, right.

42:43

Let alone just a scripture out of, uh, out of context, but like history period, what we know to be true about the historical

42:50

Jesus is it, it doesn't line up to the nonsense that these people teach.

42:55

And whenever, you know, going, going through these things, why it's so important to read before and after is we have to understand that scripture wasn't written in verses.

43:05

Like there was no, uh, you know, verse one, uh, chapter one, verse three, that was added, uh, to help us find our place in the

43:16

Bible. Because imagine, you know, teaching from, uh, you know, saying, Hey, turn somewhere in the middle, you know, in your

43:23

Bible. So, uh, whenever we see some of these scriptures just completely cherry picked, sometimes they don't even cherry pick the whole scripture, the cherry pick a half a scripture, like, uh, uh,

43:34

John 10, 10, where he says, I've come that you should, that you will have life and have it more abundantly. They don't, uh, they don't add the first part where it says the, you know, the devil has come to steal, kill and destroy.

43:45

You know, I have come that you may have life and you may have, they may have life and they may have it more abundantly.

43:52

It's like a comparative. They completely ignore the first half and then just say, see, he wants you to have an abundant life, which means rich, healthy, and wealthy.

44:01

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44:09

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44:16

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44:24

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44:30

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44:37

Now back to the programming. No, that's good, man. So, uh, this is, we've covered a lot here.

44:42

I mean, where, where do you see yourself as we kind of rub up here? I mean, I, you know, you're up and coming, you've got a

44:48

YouTube channel, you got around 13 ,000 subscribers, you've got a couple hit videos and you've done this like where, where do you kind of see yourself with all it means?

44:56

It's really cool to see like all that's happened with where you've come from and now you've got this YouTube channel. Now you're on the podcast.

45:02

Like where do you, where do you see yourself in the next year? What do you want to like, how do you see like God using you?

45:07

And I don't know, where do you, I just want to learn more. Yeah. You know, that's, that's really it. I'm not an expert in anything, you know?

45:16

And um, I think that we live in a world where everybody's an expert about something and uh,

45:21

I'm just somebody who, who loves God, you know, and I just really want to learn as much as I can.

45:28

And um, I wish I could do the whole matrix thing where you could just plug something in the back of your head and download all the info.

45:34

Yeah. No Kung Fu, no Jesus Kung Fu. Um, but you know, that's, that's really it.

45:39

I just, I just want to keep learning and uh, I want to keep growing in my relationship with Christ. Whatever happens with the

45:45

YouTube, whatever happens with the book, whatever happens with, you know, social media or whatever. I'm glad that God uses it to, to, you know, reach people.

45:52

But for, for myself, I just want to learn. And uh, that's, that's why

45:57

I appreciate coming, uh, you know, talk to people like you. Uh, I have a group called the Why Jesus Network and you know, there's people in there that are so much smarter than me.

46:07

So like, so incredible at apologetics and theology and you know, we, we're going through these scriptures and like,

46:15

I have to dig into my memory, uh, to, to remember the context and remember all this stuff. You read some of these scriptures to some of them and they'll be like,

46:21

Oh yeah, that's this, this is what it says before it. This is what it says after it. This is the complete context of it. And it's just like, it's beautiful to be around people like that.

46:31

So my goal for the next, you know, year, two years, 10 years, I just want to keep learning and uh, come from a place of understanding that I don't know everything, but I do know that Jesus is

46:42

Lord and uh, people need to know at least that part. No. Awesome, man. I think that that's a big part of it is just to stay humble.

46:49

It's very challenging, especially like in this whole niche of sort of being somewhat of a online persona to kind of like get those attentions and all that stuff.

46:57

But honestly like that stuff is so overrated when it comes down to it because a lot of the likes, the notifications and all that is like,

47:04

Hey, it's overrated. But at the end of the day, like there's, there's always like people that are impacted by, you know, even like the stuff that we do, the stuff that you do and it's, it's making an impact.

47:14

So you just, you just have to be, you have to just be faithful and just make what's on your heart and use the Lord's doing you.

47:19

So I just want to encourage you, man. I've really loved the content that you've put out and it's extremely encouraging.

47:25

So I just want to just keep on doing that. So I appreciate you coming on, man. Thank you for having me.

47:30

Yeah. So just one last time, uh, John Clash on YouTube and like I said, uh, make sure it's

47:36

J O N Clash. This has sort of been like a sort of pseudo sponsorship for like Clash of Clans.

47:42

All of a sudden there's going to be like, send me a check. There'll be like a hundred, there'll be like a hundred people who actually download the app and start playing.

47:49

Wait a second. This is, where's John on this game? They're just a bunch of Vikings or whatever the heck.

47:56

But, uh, awesome man. Uh, well I hope you have a good time with, uh, the guy, what's the guy's name for inspiring philosophy?

48:03

Uh, Michael Jones. Michael Jones. Yeah, I'm excited to meet that guy. I know, I know. You got to say hi to him for us and we want to get him on Cultus and talk about, talk to him, debunk it.

48:11

We want to debunk, we want to be his cultish agent. We want to have, we want to have a response in coming to a lot of different stuff.

48:16

So yeah, it'll be awesome. Uh, very cool. Well, I appreciate coming on man and thank you all for listening.

48:22

Uh, and one last reminder that cold just cannot continue without your support. So if you want to support a ministry, please go to the cult to show .com.

48:29

You can go to the donate tab. Uh, you can donate one time or monthly. Uh, all that being said, thank you all for listening in.

48:36

We'll talk to you all next time on cultish where we not manifest where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.