October 19, 2023 Show with Marcia Montenegro on “The Testimony of a Former Astrologer” (Part 2)

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October 20, 2023

October 19, 2023 Marcia Montenegro, former astrologer who was saved by the grace & mercy of Christ Jesus & founded CANA (“Christian Answers to the New Age”), who will address: PART *2* of: “The TESTIMONY of a FORMER ASTROLOGER”

March 8, 2024 Show with David Reece on “The 5 Solas of the Reformation & the TULIP” (Part 3)

00:03: Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of Founding Father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer
00:11: George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend
00:16: Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,
00:24: Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.
00:31: Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:38: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:50: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57: And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
01:10: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
01:15: Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.
01:21: This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 19th day of October 2023, and I'm so thrilled to have back on the program a guest that I began interviewing yesterday, and the conversation was so fascinating and was so packed full of information that we ran out of time before we actually were able to cover the main theme of our discussion, which is the testimony of a former astrologer.
01:56: I'm talking about Marcia Montenegro, former astrologer who was saved by the grace and mercy of Christ Jesus and founded
02:04: CANA, which stands for Christian Answers to the New Age. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for part two of our discussion,
02:14: Marcia Montenegro. Hi. Hi, Chris. Thanks so much for having me on again.
02:20: Well, thank you for taking the time to be on for two days in a row. And, by the way, I just wanted to get this clarified.
02:27: Do you nickname your ministry CANA or CANA because it's spelled
02:33: C -A -N -A as far as the acronym is concerned? I say CANA. That's how
02:39: I say it. Yeah. I came up with that because that Jesus, his first recorded miracle was performed at the wedding at CANA.
02:50: Yeah. Right. So that was Christian Answers. That's how my acronym. I wanted my acronym to have, you know, to have something to say the new age, but also to be connected to scripture.
03:01: Right. And the actual website is ChristianAnswersNewAge .com. Right. Correct.
03:07: Correct. Well, for any of our listeners who want to get more of the details of the journey that my guest,
03:16: Marcia Montenegro, went through, which led to her becoming an astrologer herself, please listen to the recording that should be posted fairly soon of yesterday's interview.
03:31: That was on Wednesday, October 18th, where we had part one of the testimony of a former astrologer.
03:40: And today we are entering into part two, and we don't want to repeat too much of that information because we want to venture into uncovered territory and want to give you some new information that we had not yet already discussed.
03:59: So let's at least start right now, Marcia, with a working definition of astrology.
04:09: And I know some people mistakenly make astrology and astronomy synonyms, but they're not, obviously.
04:18: So why don't you tell our listeners about astrology? OK, sure. And let me say something about astronomy, because actually that seems to be a very common mistake
04:29: I have run into quite often. So I do want to say astronomy is a study of space and heavenly bodies.
04:41: And it's done, you know, by looking at data from outer space and researching that.
04:49: So it's not based on a spiritual belief system. It's like based on actual observation and coming to conclusions.
04:59: Astrology uses some of the same data in order to make calculations.
05:05: But what astrology does is give an interpretation to the planets, the zodiac signs, and the position of the planets at certain times.
05:16: So the astrologer is seeing a meaning behind these things, which, of course, the astronomer does not see a meaning.
05:26: So that's the difference. And when you see a meaning, when you give a meaning to something where there is no obvious meaning, you're reading a hidden meaning into something that is divination.
05:38: So astrology is a form of divination. So in other words, all people who would call themselves astrologers would believe in divination and perhaps you could even define that more clearly.
05:52: Okay, yes. Let me do that. Divination is one of the three components of the occult, which are sorcery, spirit contact and divination.
06:02: Those are the three areas of the occult. Things can overlap. So something can be divination and spirit contact or sorcery and spirit contact.
06:13: But those are the three areas. And divination, which is sometimes called fortune telling, which
06:19: I don't think is really a very good word, is actually getting information beyond the natural, either by reading hidden meanings into creation or into numbers, into shapes, into pictures, or it is getting information supernaturally that you believe is going to inform you about the past, present or future.
06:47: So a psychic is doing divination. A psychic who they have different views on what they think, where they think they're getting the information, but they're not getting it from natural sources or in the natural manner.
07:00: You know, you're not using your five senses, you know, reading about it or something like that.
07:06: It's coming supernaturally. So when you're doing that kind of thing to get information or reading a hidden meaning in something, you're doing divination.
07:16: Now, when you were a practicing astrologer, what else did you do other than inform people about what they can expect in their futures because of their zodiac sign?
07:33: Did you do palm reading? Did you do tea leave reading? Did you do seances? And many of these other things that you will even see on signs, on people's either their homes where they practice these things or their storefronts or what have you.
07:51: There are a number of them in the area where I live, where you drive around and you'll see these signs out front that have astrologer, have palm reading, have all kinds of things like that on the signs.
08:07: Is that like a jack of all trades kind of a thing or are there differences amongst astrologers who may be more narrow in their practices, etc.?
08:18: Okay, I'm really glad you asked about that because everything you just described, the storefront thing, is a completely different category.
08:26: It is not what I did. What you described are the con artists, the scam artists.
08:32: And those are probably, you know, that fortune tellers that would probably apply to them because that tends to be a very derogatory term among new agers who do things like astrology and tarot card reading.
08:46: And so you could say with confidence that all of them are con honors.
08:51: Now, let's make our listeners understand what we're saying here. We believe all of this is from the pit of hell.
08:58: Yeah, we believe it's all satanic. But there are some people who are actually involved in satanic, occultic, supernatural practices and experiences that are real.
09:13: But just because something is real does not mean that it is good. Like, for instance, we have biblical evidence that the
09:23: Witch of Endor may have actually brought
09:30: Samuel to the presence of Saul in the
09:37: Old Testament. It never says that it was a fake apparition or anything, but that doesn't mean it was a good thing.
09:44: It was something that was condemned of God, in fact, punishable by death in the Old Covenant. So we're not saying, just because we're saying some of these things are real, we're not saying that they're good.
09:54: But anyway, I've interrupted you. I think that God brought Saul up and the medium or the witch was surprised.
10:02: You mean Samuel? Samuel, I'm sorry. I don't think she expected to see Samuel. Right, right. I think what she saw was not what she usually saw.
10:10: But I think she probably did bring spirits who were fallen angels, you know, maybe pretending to be the dead.
10:19: That's what I think mediums do today. But yeah, there are people who are seriously into this.
10:25: It's usually part of their spiritual belief system, like it was for me and all my friends and all the astrologers, tarot card readers, psychics, mediums, et cetera, that I knew.
10:35: Then there are the other classification. And I don't I'm not wanting to say con artists in a derogatory way.
10:44: Like, is there any other way? Well, you know, I don't want to sound like I'm I'm not trying to say that what
10:51: I did was like superior or that the people who do it seriously are somehow superior to the con artists.
10:58: They're they're both they're both wrong. You know, both categories are wrong in a way.
11:03: What the serious people do, like what I did is worse because we're actually into it.
11:09: The con artists who do it usually don't really know that much about it, but they're good at reading people and conning them.
11:17: And that just happens to be the way they con them. You know, there are different kinds of cons and you can do money schemes and all kinds of cons.
11:25: And we know on the Internet that's very pervasive. We know the Nigerian emails and all that stuff that is to be around a lot.
11:33: So there are different ways to con people. And one way you can con them is to convince them you have this information on them.
11:40: Just give me twenty five dollars. And for 15 minutes, I'm going to tell you about your life right now.
11:46: There are people who do this by phone, too.
11:52: Yes. Yes. Exactly. Like the psychic hotline. Now, some of the people who do that may actually know enough that part of what they're doing is authentic.
12:04: So I don't rule that out. I think some of them may actually know some stuff and they're actually doing it.
12:11: But I happen to know that a large number of these people who do it are the Roma people, which we usually call gypsies.
12:18: But that's a very derogatory term. My sister was a missionary to the Roma people for a really long time.
12:24: So I'm real sensitive to this. And she told me that, like I even know around here, there's one family that owns several psychic places and it's run by one family and they're
12:39: Roma people. And they do this as their way to get money from the. There's a word they use.
12:46: I think it's the goal. No, that's the Jewish word. There's a word like that where Jews use for non -Jews.
12:52: There's a word the gypsies use for non -gypsies. I've heard them say that and I don't remember what it is either.
12:58: I don't remember it either. But that's their way to make the money off of the non -gypsies. My sister told me they a lot of them don't believe it.
13:06: However, they do have their own superstitions and may actually have occult views about things.
13:15: So I'm not saying they're completely separate from it. But what they're doing when they're reading poems and, you know, looking into a crystal ball or something is all kind of a con game.
13:27: And so that category is totally distinct, different kinds of people.
13:32: And the two categories never cross paths. I mean, they're completely separate.
13:39: So are you saying that the Roma people predominantly are when they are practicing these things are charlatans or knowing charlatans?
13:49: They're not. OK. My sister told me they do not do it on each other.
13:54: They only do it on the non -gypsies. Now, that's according to my sister. So I'm going by her authority.
14:03: But I you know, they don't do it on each other. So this is like a business for them. This is a business.
14:10: And of course, not all of them do that. I'm not trying to you know, we know not all Roma people are like that. But that there are a lot of them do it.
14:16: Now, of course, there are people who are not Roma who also do it, who are just playing con artists. And you're always reading these newspaper stories, you know, psychic arrested.
14:25: You know, she got, you know, $80 ,000 from this this woman who gave her all her savings.
14:32: And often it's, you know, you have to give me your money because there's a curse on you. And I can remove the curse if you give it your.
14:40: And I'll melt it and remove the curse and all that kind of stuff. So that's a totally distinct, separate category.
14:46: So what I'm talking about is people in the New Age and the occult who do astrology or palm reading or numerology or tarot cards very seriously.
14:59: Now, some of them do more than one. Like there might be somebody who does astrology and tarot cards, or they might do tarot cards and numerology.
15:09: I only did astrology. I had I took classes yesterday when we we left off.
15:16: I was I had just gotten to the part where I said I took or I took classes in astrology and psychic development and I took other classes like numerology.
15:26: I took palm reading. I took past life regression and a few other things. I didn't take tarot.
15:31: I don't think they had a tarot card class, but someone gave me tarot cards and I had a book and I taught it to myself.
15:38: But I never did a reading on anybody with it. I just did readings on myself, which actually you're not supposed to do.
15:45: But I did. I'm not a lot of them. I was much more into astrology.
15:50: So everything else paled in comparison to me. You know, tarot cards, numerology, all of that stuff seemed very superficial because it didn't have the complexity of astrology and the complexity and the difficulty of astrology is what fascinated me and what kept me with it.
16:14: What you know, it kept me staying in it because you can never finish learning like you.
16:20: You can just do it for years and you never know everything that there is to know about astrology.
16:27: So that was one thing that really kept me in it. And I found it so to be so accurate that, you know, why would
16:36: I want to try something else? So I didn't I didn't bother to spend time on the other areas, even though I knew about them.
16:45: And I could do, you know, numerology. I did a little bit of numerology on some people for fun. But where you take their name and birth date and you convert it into these numbers and then it means something.
16:56: But I still found that very superficial. And so I was an astrologer.
17:03: I didn't read palms. You know, I didn't. I have a lot of people who ask me when I tell them
17:08: I was an astrologer and they'll say, oh, you know, they'll put their palm out and say, oh, read my palm.
17:13: You know, and I know that's not what I did. And of course, I wouldn't do that anyway.
17:20: So it's good for for Christians to know that there's this category of the fortune teller con artist type.
17:27: And then there's a serious and a serious category. People may advertise in publications and they may have business cards like I did, but they're not going to have a sign on their on their home and they're not going to have a storefront.
17:41: Now, they might have a business, you know, legitimate business they're running, but it's not going to be what we call the storefront type things.
17:49: You know, Madam Zora reads your future, that kind of thing. And of course, using the term legitimate for it is somewhat debatable.
17:56: Well, yeah, yeah, it is. And what I'm trying to say is it's not it's not set up to con people.
18:02: Right. I never. You believed what you were doing is real. I totally believe that.
18:09: In fact, in one sense, it was real, but it was evil. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Now, what did you what did you when somebody looked up your name or found it by chance in a magazine, a newspaper word of mouth, they contacted you?
18:24: What exactly happened in your meetings with these people? Did you go to them? Did they go to you? And what what exactly happened?
18:32: OK, initially. I mostly went to people's homes.
18:38: A few times I went to their workplaces and we did it on their lunch hour. I and a few times if it was during the day when my son was at school and my husband was at work, they they would come to my place actually quite a few times.
18:55: It was kind of a 50 50. So if they could come during the day, they would come to where I lived.
19:01: If they couldn't come during the day and it was in the evening, I would go to where they lived. Other than a few times,
19:08: I went to their workplaces during lunch because they couldn't get away long enough to come to my place. So it was a mixture.
19:16: And oh, and the other place I did it was at that place where I was the resident astrologer that I mentioned yesterday.
19:23: If they got if somebody came to them and said or called them and said, I want an astral astrology chart done, they would call me and then
19:32: I would call the person we would arrange to meet there. It was called the Foundation of Truth. I know you're going to love that name.
19:42: What's the name of it? The Foundation. That's where I took my first astrology classes, psychic development, numerology, palm reading.
19:51: And it was run mainly there was a board of people who ran that organization.
19:56: They were mostly all psychics and mediums. Some of them were my teachers.
20:02: And so they they rented a building. The building was owned by the Daughters of the
20:07: American Revolution, and they rented the building to the Foundation of Truth. The Foundation of Truth did not own that building.
20:15: And we had all our classes and our meetings and the Daughters of American Revolution building, which had all these paintings of these historical people in the revolution.
20:25: It was very bizarre. It was such a bizarre setting for what was going on, you know.
20:32: And so I would go there to that building, which was a very nice building. And I would do a reading with a person.
20:39: The way I did this was I would get the data ahead of time from the person.
20:45: I would have the chart done. There was a place at the time you could send off for it. This is before people had computers.
20:53: And you could calculate it yourself because I had to learn how to do that for the test. But it's very time consuming.
21:00: It takes a fair amount of time to do that, and you don't want to make a mistake.
21:05: So there was a place in California where I could send the data and $2, and they would send me a chart like three or four days later.
21:15: So that's how I got the chart. Then I would have arranged a time with the client, and then we would get together, whether at my place or their place or another place.
21:27: And I would look at the chart. I would have already looked at it before they came. I would have just kind of looked at it to see what jumped out at me, to look at Maine, anything that seemed interesting or important in the chart.
21:41: Because there are certain places you look for that. And when I was first doing this,
21:47: I spent more time looking at it before I saw the person because I was more nervous about it.
21:53: But once I had been doing it for a while and I could, I could just look at a chart and start reading it really without any preparation at all.
22:02: But I usually did look at it before I saw the person. And then they would sit there and I would record it and we would start, you know,
22:09: I would start talking. So that's how I did it. Most of these people were people
22:15: I did not know or I knew very slightly. I didn't know them well. I actually did not want to do charts for people
22:24: I knew well because I felt that it would, it would bias me.
22:29: It would, I would know things about them and I would, that would interfere with me just reading the chart.
22:34: So I actually didn't want to do charts for people I knew well. I did do for a very few, but usually
22:40: I did not do that. So mostly I didn't know these people. So these charts, they are specifically regarding the birth date of the individual who you are doing, for whom you are doing a reading and the alignment of planets and stars and how that's supposed to be all connected.
23:04: Is that what I'm hearing from you? Yeah, it's the birth date and birthplace. The place is very important because if you're born at, you know, 3 .04
23:14: p .m. in Los Angeles and somebody else is born at the same time on the
23:20: East Coast, which would be, you know, I guess 6 .04 p .m.
23:25: But that's still the same time. The charts are going to be very different because of the location.
23:33: Because what you're looking at is the, where the planets are in a fixed zodiac belt, a fixed zodiac belt, which is an important point because actually the zodiac has shifted.
23:48: But most astrologers use the fixed zodiac belt in relation to the place the person was born and the time they were born.
23:58: And just a few minutes can shift it. So that, it's very important to have as precise a birth time as possible.
24:06: And most people had their birth time. It was on their birth certificate or something, or somebody in the family knew.
24:14: Sometimes they didn't know. And in that case, the astrologer can do something, which is a way to find out the time or the approximate time by asking about major things in their life.
24:28: It's very common. I'm not going to get into it because it's very technical, but there's a way to do that. I didn't like doing it because it's mathematical and it's kind of difficult.
24:37: I was terrible at math, by the way. It was my worst subject. It's a wonder I passed any of my math courses at all.
24:44: It's just a wonder because I cannot do math. But I had to learn it to pass the astrology exam and I had to use it in my practice.
24:55: So there's a way where you can figure approximate time for a person and you just go with that.
25:02: But in most cases, people knew. Now, other than the information that you've given, that many people look in their local newspaper for an astrology section and so on and what their astrological sign is.
25:29: Other than this stuff that almost seems like bad math or fake math.
25:35: It's real math. The math is real. Okay, well, what I mean by that is you're taking an equation involving information and coming to a conclusion that can be completely false.
25:49: But what I'm trying to get to, though, is where does the actual supernatural come in where you're getting information from spirit guides or anything else that would be involving perhaps necromancy?
26:06: And, you know, things that are condemned as crimes punishable by death in the
26:14: Old Covenant that are involved in sorcery. What is going on in these meetings that involve those things?
26:21: Oh, well, there's no contact with the dead. That's not part of astrology.
26:27: Well, first of all, you're doing divination. And when you're doing divination, you're opening yourself up to spirit guides.
26:37: I mean, I already had my spirit guide from that guided visualization that we talked about yesterday.
26:44: But I had other spirit guides that I felt were guiding me through the chart. So already, I believe all serious astrologers, anybody, they don't even have to be an astrologer, just being in the new age.
26:57: If you're in the new age for a while, you'll have spirit guides. If you're in the occult, you'll have spirit guides.
27:02: And these spirit guides are talked about openly in that community of people. Everybody's aware of it.
27:09: And, you know, one of my psychic development teachers even went around the room and told us and said she looked at each of us.
27:18: And then she told us who our spirit guides and who she saw around us as our spirit guides. So right away, as soon as you do an occult practice seriously, you have opened the door to the supernatural because you've opened the door to guidance from fallen angels.
27:34: Then you're doing divination, which is condemned by God very heavily in several passages, even in the
27:44: New Testament. In Acts 16, you have the girl, the slave girl that Paul encounters, who is, it says, possessed or she has the spirit of the python, which was connected to divination.
27:59: Now, I also I always I point to that to show a New Testament example, but I also try to explain to people this does not mean everyone doesn't mean that people who do this are possessed.
28:10: I think the the point of that passage. Well, there's probably several points, but one of the points of that passage was to show that at the root of divination, because it said she had the spirit of divination, which which literally was the spirit of the python.
28:29: And so I think what God was showing us is that at the root of divination is is is demons, is
28:37: Satan. In other words, it's demonic to do this kind of thing. So, you know,
28:44: I don't think I was ever possessed and I don't think any of my friends were possessed. And I don't think that's a necessity to do these kind of things.
28:52: You just have to be under the influence and open to the guidance of the spirit guides.
28:58: So part of it is that's a big part of it that makes it the supernatural and that makes it fall into the category of the occult and the practices forbidden by God.
29:10: So you have divination going on now. You have spirit contact because of the spirit guides.
29:16: But astrology itself is not technically something it's you're not trying to have spirit contact.
29:23: You're not doing something to contact a spirit, but it just happens automatically. And the other thing that happens that's very important to know is that I would usually automatically go into an altered state of consciousness while I was doing the chart reading.
29:43: Now, this is the same same state of consciousness that you go into when you do
29:49: Eastern forms of meditation, which are now very popular in this country. And sometimes they're called stress relaxation there.
29:58: And they're actually based on the process of doing Eastern meditation, which, of course,
30:05: I had done because I had learned the Tibetan Buddhist meditation. And then I learned
30:10: Zen Buddhist meditation. And prior to that, I had done other kinds of meditations
30:15: I learned about that were I don't know what you'd want to call them, just new age or occult forms of meditation.
30:22: There are many, many ways to do these meditations, but all of them will put most people into an altered state of consciousness.
30:32: And when you're in that state, your mind is open to any information or influence that wants to come in.
30:44: And you are suggestible. Your mind's very suggestible to things. So it's really it's basically a light hypnotic trance state.
30:55: And when I say trance, I don't mean you don't know what's going on. So it's probably not a good word. It's a light hypnotic state.
31:01: And you're completely aware of your surroundings and you're talking to the person and, you know,
31:09: I'm looking at the chart and analyzing, but I'm in this altered state where I am open to the guidance.
31:18: So I think that some of the information I got, not all of it, but some of it was from my spirit guides most of the time.
31:30: Others, other information was just me analyzing the chart based on the principles of astrology.
31:41: I mean, in fact, let's let's pick up where you left off because we have to go to our first commercial break. OK, but but let me just say one thing that I find
31:49: I've always found fascinating about the the slave girl who was the medium.
31:57: She kept repeating something that was true.
32:04: She kept saying, these men are bond servants of the most high God who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation.
32:12: Now, the incorrect thing there was a way of salvation, not the.
32:18: But Paul commanded her in the name of Jesus Christ, commanded the spirit to come out of her.
32:28: It was he was shutting her up, even though she was saying something that was true. Right.
32:36: And I'm sorry. Well, let's go to the let's go. Let's go to the first break and you can say what you wanted to say then.
32:43: OK, if anybody wants to ask their own question, send it immediately.
32:49: Chris Arms in a Gmail dot com. Chris Arms in a Gmail dot com. Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.
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35:35: That's 718 -353 -3355. Or visit securecommgroup .com.
35:43: That's securecommgroup .com. This is Brian McLaughlin of the Secure Comm Group, joining
35:49: Chris Arnzen's family of advertisers to keep Iron Sharpens Iron radio on the air.
36:02: When Iron Sharpens Iron radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the
36:08: New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the
36:16: Iron Sharpens Iron radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the
36:21: NASB. I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina.
36:32: And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the
36:38: First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
36:45: I'm Pastor Anthony Methenia of Christ Church in Radford, Virginia, and the NASB is my
36:50: Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jesse Miller of Damascus Road Christian Church in Gardnerville, Nevada, and the
36:57: NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmerville, Long Island, New York, and the
37:06: NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in Southlake, Texas, and the
37:14: NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York, and the
37:22: NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep
37:28: Iron Sharpens Iron radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?
37:34: Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron radio.
37:42: Go to nasbible .com, that's nasbible .com to place your order.
37:52: Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We're devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.
38:04: Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.
38:10: We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God, so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.
38:24: We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt
38:30: Christ. This is Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.
38:35: Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.
38:44: Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com
38:51: Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing sixth grade.
38:58: Do you know what they all have in common? They all require training, assessments, and certifications. But do you know what requires no training at all?
39:07: Becoming a parent. My name is A .M. Brewster. I'm the president of Truth. Love.
39:12: Parent, and host of its award -winning podcast. I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s.
39:18: And what I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in their homes.
39:25: That's why Truth. Love. Parent exists. We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents
39:31: God called and created them to be. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness.
39:43: Please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com We here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio praise
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41:23: Sterling Vandewerker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife, Bronnie, his business partner and manager,
41:31: Brian Wilson, and the entire family, thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
41:43: We're now back with our guest today, Marcia Montenegro, who is a former astrologer who was saved by the grace, mercy, and blood of our
41:55: Lord and Savior and King Jesus Christ. And we are discussing part two of her testimony that we began yesterday.
42:03: If you have any questions, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And when we went to the commercial break,
42:12: I had mentioned the interesting fact that in Acts 16, the slave girl, who was a medium, was saying something that was largely true, with the exception of one word.
42:32: She was repeating over and over again that these men are bondservants of the one true
42:43: God who are showing a way of salvation, and of course that's the false aspect of it, a way of salvation, who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation rather than the way of salvation.
43:01: But, and I was just saying though, it is interesting that the demonic realm did not provoke her to say, avoid these men, don't believe them, they are liars.
43:15: She actually said something that was largely true, which is a reminder to us that when the devil masquerades as an angel of light, he is not going to be necessarily just lying about everything, as he did in the garden, he mixed truths with falsehoods.
43:37: But anyway, and you wanted to say something, and I told you to wait until we came back. Oh, right.
43:43: Yes. That passage is very interesting, because as you say, she's not telling people not to listen to Paul, you know, or, you know, or she wasn't calling out to worship some other
43:56: God or something. Right. She was saying something that sounded very good and affirming, you know, they're bond servants of the most high, and that sounded good, and they're proclaiming, even though she said a way and not the way, that was still not terrible.
44:12: I think in that culture, there were so many competing philosophies and, you know, different cities had different gods.
44:20: And so, you know, people didn't really expect, you know, they didn't they didn't think it was unusual, probably that somebody was proclaiming a way.
44:29: So everything she said sounded good. And I think part of that is because if she had been saying something against Paul or against Christ, immediately, he would have immediately maybe noticed that or taken action at that point.
44:51: But because she was not saying anything like that, it actually went on for a little while, apparently, before he did anything.
45:00: And whatever caused him to do that, I don't know. Maybe, though, you know, the Holy Spirit said,
45:05: OK, this you need to stop her. Probably didn't. He probably wasn't associated with her because he knew that she was immediate.
45:13: And that was another thing, too. Yes, he didn't want you don't want something that you don't want affirmation for your what you're saying as far as when it comes to salvation and Jesus Christ, you don't want affirmation from a source of evil.
45:31: You know, you don't want to be because, like you said, that would associate him with her.
45:37: And that would be that could be not only confusing, but very deceptive. And that's part of what the deception is today, is that a lot of things in the
45:47: New Age and even the occult appear to be good or appear to be Christian and Christian terms and things are used.
45:55: And that makes it more deceptive. Yeah. In fact, let me throw this out there. And I know I'll be really offending some people, but for years
46:05: I have been conducting debates with evangelical theologians and Roman Catholic theologians.
46:15: And I remember years ago in the 90s when I was still doing this on Long Island, where I'm originally from, a friend of mine,
46:24: Roman Catholic friend, said that one of the reasons he knew that the
46:30: Catholic Church was real was because of Mary's appearance at Fatima.
46:37: And I said to him, well, how do you know that was Mary? And he said, because Mary was telling people to believe in Jesus and follow him.
46:47: I said, that's no proof. And I brought up this very text about the slave girl who is saying something that included very true things that were pro -God, but she was still a servant of Satan.
47:06: So people have to be very careful just because they think something sounds like it's from God doesn't mean it necessarily is.
47:13: But perhaps you could tell us also, so you said that these astrological readings involve divinations.
47:26: What are you actually experiencing? Is it something that you are seeing, hearing?
47:33: How do you know that these so -called spirit guides are giving you information and all that kind of thing?
47:41: I should say in past tense, of course, you're not doing it now. Right, right. Well, you know, it's hard to explain.
47:52: It wasn't a physical thing, but it was a sort of awareness.
47:59: And it was I felt what I often used to say, even when I did astrology was that I felt tuned in to the chart.
48:07: I was I was connected. I felt connected to the chart. And it was almost like an invisible link came up and and snapped into place, you know, and and there
48:20: I was. I was connected to the chart. And then as I looked at the chart, you know, certain parts of it would kind of seem magnified to me.
48:30: Not physically, but just, you know, in terms of what got my attention. And I would just start there.
48:37: And then I would it would lead me as I once I started somewhere and kind of got into the flow of it, it would just kind of flow.
48:46: It would just it would all start coming to me. It would all be connected.
48:53: And I and I often thought I didn't know for sure, but I often thought this was some of this was guidance from my spirit guide or guides or connect.
49:05: It was guidance and combined with my own interpretations and analysis.
49:10: But sometimes what often happened during these readings is I would get what
49:16: I call psychic information, either in the form of a picture in my mind or words that would come to me that I did not think were connected to the chart.
49:30: They weren't connected to astrology. It was more like what would happen maybe if you're a psychic and you're doing a psychic reading.
49:38: You know, you get certain pictures in your mind or certain words come to your mind that are connected to the person, to the client.
49:46: And that's what would happen to me. So that also happened. Now, it did not happen every time
49:53: I did a chart, but it happened a lot of times. And so when these things came to me,
50:01: I often often they were very specific and I just knew I knew they were true.
50:07: And so I would say this to the person and they would usually be surprised and say, oh, yeah, that's true.
50:16: How did you know that? So, you know, there were several times things like that happened.
50:24: And sometimes it starts off with something vague and it became specific. So one time
50:29: I was looking at this woman's chart and I was looking at something that had to do with her childhood.
50:35: The fourth house in the chart has to do with childhood. And influence of parents, among other things.
50:42: But that's one of the primary things. And because of the planets there and their connection to other planets,
50:48: I saw something very negative about her relationship with her mother and something that indicated to me she had been separated from her mother for a while.
50:59: And so I told her that. And I said, I feel like your mother had some kind of illness or something, and she was she was not around all the time when you were growing up.
51:11: And this woman said, I was very surprised that I knew that. And she said, yes, that's true.
51:20: She's she and then she told me her mother had had mental illness and at certain times in her childhood had been in some kind of institution and was not around.
51:33: So what I said to her was true. Now, I didn't say specifically her mother had been mentally ill and had been in an institution.
51:40: But what I saw was a problem with her mother, something that might have been connected to illness, and that it separated her from her mother.
51:50: Now, I didn't know if she was physically separated. You know, it could have been a separation where the mother just did not interact with the daughter very much.
52:00: But in this case, in the case of this woman, it was really true. There had been a physical separation.
52:07: So lots of things like that happened when I was doing the reading. Now, I attribute that if it is not coincidence, which some of them might have been,
52:17: I attribute to the guidance, you know, the information from the spirit guides, which
52:25: I'm going to repeat again, they're fallen angels in case anyone has just tuned into the program.
52:30: And they're wondering, who is she talking about? Who are these spirit guides? In fact, let's return to that when we come back from our midway break.
52:41: Send in your questions to our guest, Marsha at ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com.
52:48: Don't go away. We're going to be right back right after these messages from our sponsors. One of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.
53:07: One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what ChrisArnson is doing is
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54:46: Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor.
54:58: Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.
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56:19: Oh hail the power of Jesus' name.
56:27: This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.
56:33: Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support
56:38: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers, which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our
56:54: Lord Jesus Christ. And of course the end of which we strive is the glory of God.
57:01: If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe ten minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some
57:14: Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.
57:24: Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.
57:32: This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our
57:37: Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ, today and always.
58:02: This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our
58:19: Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ, today and always.
58:34: I'm Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, and the NASB is my
58:40: Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck Volo of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, and the
58:47: NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Steve Herford of East Fort Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and the
58:54: NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Roy Owens, Jr. of the
59:00: Church in Friendship in Hockley, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
59:06: Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew
59:12: Bibles tattered and falling apart? Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
59:23: Go to nasbible .com, that's nasbible .com to place your order.
59:34: Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing 6th grade.
59:41: Do you know what they all have in common? They all require training, assessments, and certifications. But do you know what requires no training at all?
59:49: Becoming a parent. My name is A .M. Brewster. I'm the president of Truth, Love, Parent, and host of its award -winning podcast.
59:57: I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s. And what I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in their homes.
01:00:07: That's why Truth, Love, Parent exists. We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents
01:00:13: God called and created them to be. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness.
01:00:26: Please visit us at truthloveparent .com. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.
01:00:37: If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.
01:00:48: And besides that, they feel so good. I'm so delighted I discovered Post -Tenebrous
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01:01:55: That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.
01:02:16: Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,
01:02:24: Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.
01:02:34: One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.
01:02:42: Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.
01:02:51: Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
01:02:56: Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.
01:03:02: Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the
01:03:08: Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great
01:03:17: Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the
01:03:25: Reformers. Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone.
01:03:31: Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity. For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit
01:03:38: HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. That's HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com.
01:03:44: Or call 678 -954 -7831. That's 678 -954 -7831.
01:03:52: If you visit, tell them Joe Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, from Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland, sends you.
01:04:09: I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.
01:04:14: I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,
01:04:21: Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.
01:04:28: It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim
01:04:46: Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.
01:04:53: I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.
01:05:02: For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to HopeReformLI .net.
01:05:09: That's HopeReformLI .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.
01:05:17: That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
01:05:39: Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.
01:05:47: He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.
01:05:55: You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the
01:06:01: Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.
01:06:14: Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting books for all ages.
01:06:22: We invite you to go treasure hunting at Solid -Ground -Books .com. That's Solid -Ground -Books .com
01:06:30: and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.
01:06:36: Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
01:06:41: And please don't forget, folks, Solid -Ground -Books .com is experiencing a sales slump in their book sales, so please go to Solid -Ground -Books .com
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01:07:21: We depend upon that to exist. So please help Solid -Ground -Books .com
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01:07:35: Solid -Ground -Books .com a favor by purchasing books from them, and you're not only going to be doing
01:07:41: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio a favor by keeping one of our most important advertisers happy, you're going to be doing yourself and anyone for whom you are purchasing books from Solid -Ground -Books .com
01:07:52: an enormous favor of incalculable value because they bring back into print and publish for the first time nothing but the very finest in Christian literature dating back to the 16th century
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01:08:10: James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. That's Solid -Ground -Books .com. Visit that site frequently and purchase generously.
01:08:18: Always mention that you heard about them from Chris Aronson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to our guest today,
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01:10:13: Go to IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a
01:10:20: Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, no matter where on the planet
01:10:26: Earth you live, I may be able to help you find a church, just as I have done with many people in the
01:10:31: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience globally. Sometimes, even,
01:10:37: I have been able to find churches within minutes from where these people live. Even if they are from different parts of the world.
01:10:46: So, that may be you. You may be without a church home that is biblically faithful. So, send me an email, no matter where in the world you live, and I may be able to help you find a church.
01:10:57: Send the email to ChrisArnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. And that is also the email address where you can send in a question to our guest today,
01:11:06: Marsha Montenegro, and we are talking about her former life as an astrologer before she was saved by the grace, mercy, and blood of Jesus Christ.
01:11:15: ChrisArnson at gmail .com gives the first name at least, city, and state, and country of residence.
01:11:22: And, Marsha, we do have a listener in Fredericksburg, Maryland, who has a question, and I want to make sure
01:11:32: I get some questions from our listeners in today, because we did not get any listeners' questions read on the air, and I will be including some or all of the people that sent in questions yesterday.
01:11:47: I will be including their questions. But I want to read one first that came in today, because it relates to your comments before the midway break.
01:12:00: We have Kat in Fredericksburg, Maryland. I'm going to assume that's short for Catherine.
01:12:07: I don't know that. Kat in Fredericksburg, Maryland says, how do you know that these were fallen angels that you were in contact with?
01:12:21: You are muted, Marsha. Oh, sorry. Yes, I'm back.
01:12:27: Sorry about that. During the break, I did that. Okay, that's a good question.
01:12:34: This is how I answer that question. First of all, I was involved with something that God forbids.
01:12:42: I was involved, and these spirit guides that I call fallen angels, I had encountered my first one, or the main one, through that guided visualization, which
01:12:54: I discussed yesterday, and this was done by a group of people, a class that I was in, and they were teaching, basically, principles that are against Christ and against God's word.
01:13:08: They were teaching ideas that have to do with you, on your own spiritual path, deciding things for yourself.
01:13:19: There never was any mention of God. There was never any mention of Jesus Christ by these people, and that's where I was introduced to this spiritual master or spirit guide.
01:13:31: Later, I believe I had other guides, according to some psychics that I talked to, but these were all in the context of occult and New Age teachings.
01:13:47: Everything I was learning and every person that I was following and learning from was opposed to Christ.
01:13:53: All of these people have beliefs that are in opposition to the truth and to the true
01:14:00: Jesus, and that was my spirituality at the time, and I know that I was opposed to the true
01:14:07: Jesus, and I was opposed to the idea of who God is in the Bible. Well, I didn't really understand who
01:14:14: God was, basically. I had a very vague New Age God, and because I was following those teachings, and that was my spiritual path and the path of all the people
01:14:25: I was learning from, and I was engaged in an occult practice, astrology, which is a form of divination and forbidden by God, therefore, no angels who are good and serve
01:14:38: God are going to help me do something that is opposed to God. God will not send an angel to help you do something against him.
01:14:49: You know, he's not going to serve the purposes of those opposed to him, which is what
01:14:56: I was doing, because I made astrology look good. I believed it. My clients thought
01:15:03: I was really good, and they were getting good information, so it helped them believe in astrology. And so basically, that's the answer, is that no good angel would be involved in such practices.
01:15:17: Well, let me follow up with my own question. How do you know that this was actually genuine manifestations of the spirit world, the supernatural?
01:15:28: How do you know that it's just not something that was being conjured up in your own mind due to the power of suggestion, just like when studies are done with medicines, and they use placebos that are nothing more than sugar or whatever, they're putting in the capsule that they're giving the people involved in the experiment.
01:15:52: How do you know that it's not something that was just in your mind, that it was actually genuine manifestations of the dark world of the spirits?
01:16:05: Well, I think because of some of the accuracy and some of the things that I saw that I was talking about earlier,
01:16:12: I would get pictures in my mind. I didn't give all the examples, I just gave one. I had other examples that were more specific and concrete.
01:16:20: Can you hear me, Marcia? Yeah. My mic is on.
01:16:28: You're frozen now. I think something's wrong with the internet. Maybe it's an internet connection,
01:16:38: I think. Sometimes it's interrupted. Yes, but thankfully the interruptions are brief.
01:16:45: But continue speaking. Okay. Yeah, so because of some of the very specific knowledge
01:16:53: I was given, and not just during astrology readings, but other times when I was not doing astrology, because something happened after I was saved.
01:17:08: But during the time, I can't prove there was anybody guiding me.
01:17:16: I can only tell you what I experienced, what the Bible says about angels. We see in the
01:17:22: Bible that angels do watch humans. They are around, fallen angels and good angels.
01:17:30: Jesus himself referred to unclean spirits, which are the fallen angels. And we have been warned in the
01:17:38: New Testament about doctrines of demons, which I believe in that passage relates to false teachings, because Satan and the demons are behind deception, and they try to deceive people through teachings that appear to be
01:17:54: Christian but are not. So I think that we know the reality of the angelic world, and we know the reality of deception according to what
01:18:03: God tells us. So if anything supernatural was guiding me and giving me information, it was a fallen angel.
01:18:10: So I'll put it that way. I don't claim to be able to prove it. But that's why I say they're fallen angels, in order to answer her question.
01:18:20: Let me just very quickly ask another question of my own before I go on to another listener question.
01:18:25: I've asked a number of people this to get their opinion, and I know nobody can be 100 % sure that they're giving me an accurate answer.
01:18:35: But during a period of my life when I was backslidden and fell off the wagon after 18 years of sobriety and began being involved in habitual drunkenness,
01:18:49: I was going to bars and drinking heavily. And at least on three, could have been more, but at least on three separate occasions, in three separate bars,
01:19:07: I encountered three different people who said to me, hey, you're that pastor, aren't you?
01:19:15: And I would say, no, I'm not a pastor, never been a pastor. I'm a Christian, but I'm not a pastor.
01:19:21: Oh, yes, you're a pastor. And I kept saying, no, I'm not. I don't know where you got that information, but I'm not a pastor.
01:19:27: Oh, you're that pastor, all right. And they said the same thing every time, these different people in different places.
01:19:35: I've always wondered if these people were demonically influenced, and because of the fact that demons are not omniscient, they can get information screwed up.
01:19:47: But for some reason, they always mentioned, they always called me a pastor. And the fact that is the thing that makes it more eerie to me, because if they had just said, aren't you a born -again
01:19:58: Christian? That could have been something that they heard anybody say, oh, that guy goes to this and this church, and so on.
01:20:05: This guy is well -known as being a born -again Christian in his town. That could have been something easily found out by somebody.
01:20:14: But because of this mistake being so specific and repeated with different people, it made me wonder.
01:20:21: Well, I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that. I don't know. I don't really usually like to comment on things like that because I don't feel like I should be the person who would know the answer.
01:20:32: You know, other things I can comment on, when I know a situation really well, or the person's involved in the occult, or the
01:20:40: New Age, I'm really good with my insights on the situation. But this is so random. I can't even remember if you said you were a
01:20:47: Christian at the time or not. Yes, I was. I was backslidden. Yeah, but if this was demonic, what was the purpose of it?
01:20:55: I think that maybe even God was using these demonically inspired people to embarrass me.
01:21:05: Well, that could be. Because God uses the devil as His tool. The devil doesn't do anything without God's permission, just like with Job.
01:21:14: Right. Well, it could be God was trying to convict you, make you feel embarrassed that, you know, here you were a
01:21:21: Christian, but you were not acting like a Christian, and here's this person saying, well, aren't you a pastor?
01:21:28: You know, that would kind of make you think, no, I'm not a pastor. But then your immediate thought probably for that was, but I am a
01:21:36: Christian, you know. And then you're thinking, and then that should convict you, because, hey, I'm a Christian, but look how
01:21:41: I'm living, and look where I am. You know, I don't know. I mean, that's, yeah, I agree with you.
01:21:46: Maybe it was to convict you. But I don't know. Hopefully you are going to come back.
01:21:52: Oh, yeah. No, no, you're fine. You're fine. We have Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.
01:22:00: Greetings, Chris and Marcia. I recently heard an interview discussing the United States government's funding of a remote viewing program, where one of the end goals was seeing into a hostile nation's military works.
01:22:15: Is remote viewing related to astrology and the occult, or could it be a legitimate scientific endeavor?
01:22:21: Yes. I actually think maybe that's from several years ago, although I could be wrong. My understanding of that is that they did start that program in response to the fact that Russia supposedly, or maybe the
01:22:35: Soviet Union, was using remote viewing. And then supposedly the government, the
01:22:42: U .S. government, said they were going to implement it. I forgot where I read it, and I feel like I read it quite a while ago, so I don't know if they're still using it.
01:22:50: But remote viewing is basically, I would call it a form of using psychic abilities.
01:22:58: So it would be either seeing something, you know, distantly in a psychic way, or perhaps claiming that you could actually travel there out of your body and see things.
01:23:11: But I think in the case of remote viewing, it was mostly seeing things in your mind. So it would be like a psychic claiming that, you know, they could see what's happening, you know, in some house in another country or something.
01:23:27: Right now they could see it. I didn't actually know any psychics who claimed anything like that.
01:23:33: But if anybody did claim it, that would be a supernatural ability, and so therefore it would be classified as an occult activity.
01:23:42: And it would be, yes, condemned. It's condemned by God. Any psychic, any supernatural ability like that is part of the occult, and that would be definitely evil.
01:23:57: Now, something similar goes on sometimes with police departments, and perhaps even the
01:24:04: FBI, although I'm not 100 % certain about that, where you have a missing person, perhaps even especially a missing child, and the police will hire someone who believes that they can clairvoyantly find these missing people.
01:24:20: Is that all just bunk? They don't hire them. No, this is what happens, especially when you have a missing person.
01:24:28: All these people will give their ideas or whatever to the police, and some of them are psychics who will say, oh, you know,
01:24:38: I had a vision and I saw where this person is. From what I've read about this, and I looked into this quite a bit because of that program that was on TV a number of years ago that was very popular, based on a true psychic in Texas who supposedly helped the police.
01:24:55: So first of all, people should know the police cannot turn down anybody. You know, if I called the police today about a missing person and said, hey,
01:25:05: I had this dream that that person is in a ditch by the side of Highway 42 in, you know,
01:25:12: Farmsville, Iowa or whatever, they would have to follow it up or they would at least have to consider it.
01:25:20: So they have to accept anything. That doesn't mean that they are asking psychics. They don't ask psychics for information, from my understanding, and they don't pay them, that's for sure.
01:25:30: So these people could even be either eyewitnesses fraudulently claiming to be psychics or they could be the perpetrator themselves, the actual kidnapper or murderer.
01:25:40: I don't think it's ever been shown they're the perpetrator. I think they're just either psychics who maybe genuinely think that they know where the missing person is and genuinely want to help the police or they want to draw attention to themselves, perhaps, in case what they say to the police turns out to be true, then they can say,
01:26:00: I helped the police solve this case. Now, what I've been told, actually, there's a very good article I read several years ago by a man who worked for the
01:26:11: FBI for like 20 or 30 years. He was an FBI profiler. I don't remember his name.
01:26:17: He said there is not a single case, not a single case he knows of and all the time he was at the
01:26:24: FBI where a psychic helped the FBI solve any case at all.
01:26:31: He said they got a lot of information that was offered by psychics and that happened just like that.
01:26:40: The police get the same kind of thing. It happens with the FBI as well. You know, like somebody's kidnapped and they don't know where they are, that kind of thing.
01:26:49: He said nothing any psychic ever said helped them solve a case. And I think this is probably true for the police.
01:26:57: And let me give you an example of how it can sound like it's true. A psychic can say,
01:27:02: I had a vision of this person and let's say, especially somebody who's been missing a long time and is probably likely to be dead.
01:27:12: The psychic will say, oh, I see this person in the wooded area and there are shrubs, a lot of trees around them and you can't see them.
01:27:22: Well, the chances are very good that somebody who's been killed, if the killer wants to hide the body, has buried them in woods or thrown their body in the water.
01:27:32: So maybe they'll say, I see a body of water. And so the so -called clues or the information they give out are sometimes so broad that it's going to actually fit a lot of cases just by coincidence.
01:27:47: They never give specific information. If they could really give something useful, if supposedly psychic powers were that good, then they could say, all right, it's off Route 305 and goes five miles east on this road and then go 50 yards and you'll find the body.
01:28:08: Okay, you do that, then you've got something to brag about. But so far, that's never happened.
01:28:15: As far as I know, that has never happened. No, and by the way, I just wanted to let you know why I brought up the possibility of somebody making a clairvoyant claim about a kidnapping who might be an eyewitness or the perpetrator.
01:28:35: That's what I meant by that. Well, yes, I mean, in the case where they maybe know of a connection between that person and the person who's missing or whatever.
01:28:44: Yeah, that might be. I think if they think there's anything to it, they would follow it up.
01:28:52: But that's another matter. That's a matter of police procedure, which I'm not an expert on, even though I love murder mysteries.
01:28:58: But that's another story. So I would say that and some people might be wondering, well, if you got accurate information when you were doing charts, then why aren't some of these psychics seeing where the missing person is?
01:29:15: And my answer to that is that I don't think God allows these spirit guides to.
01:29:24: They aren't omniscient, of course. And I don't think he allows them to get that information because it's not going to allow
01:29:33: Satan to be somebody who gets his work, you know, given some kind of credibility.
01:29:43: So I think maybe even if Satan maybe happens to know where the missing person is, that maybe
01:29:51: God would not allow the psychic to get that information. Okay, we have
01:29:58: Brody in Sherbrooke, Canada. And Brody asks, are there any famous psychics or astrologers that you are aware of, perhaps those that have become
01:30:13: TV personalities, who you think are the real deal and not total fakes and charlatans?
01:30:21: All right, well, I have to go back to what I said earlier about the con artists. The people who do, is he saying anybody on the media?
01:30:31: Yeah, like a famous person. Even Jean Dixon, for instance. You mentioned Jean Dixon yesterday.
01:30:38: Who actually made astrology a very palatable thing for an average
01:30:43: American home. Well, my understanding is she was a psychic, not an astrologer.
01:30:49: And how much astrology she knew, I don't know. You don't have to know a lot to write the horoscope column. But let me bring up somebody more recent that people might know, a number of years ago, a very famous medium psychic who was always on that weekly program that man had whose name escapes me now.
01:31:11: And the other, John Edward, who's written a lot of books and got famous because of his program on TV and then wrote a lot of books.
01:31:23: And James Van Praagh, who's a medium and has a lot of bestsellers. Okay, I've read books by all three of these people.
01:31:30: I think from what I've read, I think they are genuine about their beliefs and what they are doing.
01:31:39: Now, sometimes if they're doing it and it's on TV or something like that and they aren't really getting information, they might try to guess just because they don't want to say they don't have the answer.
01:31:54: So in some cases, they might be guessing from their imagination. But I think they are genuinely involved in occult practices.
01:32:05: John Edward and James Van Praagh and Sylvia Brown all talked about their spirit guides.
01:32:12: Sylvia Brown even told how she met her spirit guide and she was eight years old at the time.
01:32:18: And that's when she encountered her spirit guide whom she called Francine. And she said 95 percent of the information she got about what she called the other side, which is where you go after you die.
01:32:32: She said 95 percent of the information she had on that came from Francine. So I think sometimes if they are guessing and not actually using a psychic ability in public, it's because they're not getting the information psychically or supernaturally.
01:32:51: But I think they're all genuine. I don't think that I don't think they're fakes all of the time.
01:32:58: Let me put it that way. I don't think they're just con artists. I think they actually believe in what they're doing. You know how how they're doing it all the time.
01:33:07: Maybe sometimes they're, you know, fudging or whatever. But I would not put them down as just a con artist is what
01:33:14: I'm saying. So I think that and unless you know otherwise, when you see people like this on the
01:33:21: Internet or on TV or whatever assume I think it's better to assume they're genuinely involved with this and they have spirit guides because you don't want to even watch or listen to these people.
01:33:34: There's no reason to listen to them. Any message they give is going to be against Christ. And even if they they try to sound
01:33:43: Christian. I mean, John Edward was Catholic and so was James Van Praag. And John Edward used to even do readings for nuns.
01:33:51: He said nuns came to see him. Now, I think he eventually left the Catholic Church eventually.
01:33:58: James Van Praag, I'm not sure. James Van Praag actually went to seminary to become a priest. And then while he was in seminary he had this experience and he left he left seminary and went into his career as a psychic medium.
01:34:14: But I think most of the time I and I don't deny there are con artists and frauds out there.
01:34:21: But I think most of the time that people we're seeing are genuinely involved in the occult. Mm -hmm.
01:34:28: Let's see here. We have Trish in Watertown, Connecticut. And Trish says,
01:34:37: I have seen demonstrations of people on television that amazingly seem to be correctly guessing details about the lives of people randomly pulled out of the audience regarding the death or illness of close family members and other things.
01:34:56: But then later these people have in some ways proven to be charlatans. How are they doing these tricks?
01:35:04: I don't know who she's talking about. The only person I can think of that I know of is actually not a psychic but was a and he's still around Popoff, his name is
01:35:16: Paul Popoff or something like that. Oh, he was a false evangelist, right? A Pentecostal evangelist? Well, he's back.
01:35:21: Apparently he's back. And he was he was exposed because what he did he would yes, he would give information to people, you know, like, oh, you know, somebody here has heart disease.
01:35:32: And I think her name is, you know, Mary or something. And then there would be a woman there named Mary who had heart disease.
01:35:39: Apparently he his he had people getting information from people waiting in line and he had something in his ear, some kind of microphone.
01:35:50: And then somebody who knew about the person was giving him the information. And that was
01:35:56: I think that may be he was exposed it maybe even before I became a Christian. I'm not sure.
01:36:01: But he was exposed as a complete fraud. And he's the only person I know of like that.
01:36:06: Now, maybe other people have been exposed, but I just I don't know about those situations. So, yes.
01:36:11: And like I just said, there are people out there who are frauds. But in this case, this person
01:36:17: I know about was a so -called Christian evangelist. But aren't there people who do know how to do tricks to manipulate certain information out of strangers?
01:36:30: But that's not that's not my field. That's not what my ministry deals with. I don't I don't deal with that.
01:36:37: That's another. You go to to Randy, James Randy or whatever his name is. Oh, the amazing
01:36:42: Randy. Yeah. The amazing Randy. He's the one who tries to expose those people. He thinks all of them are doing tricks.
01:36:49: I don't. In fact, he also investigate that. Huh. He also denounces
01:36:55: Christianity and as well. Yeah, yeah, he does. He does. Now, some of the people he exposes may be fakes.
01:37:03: You know, I wouldn't doubt that. But he doesn't seem to recall the natural. So I seem to recall and I can't remember for the amazing
01:37:11: Randy was a part of it years ago. The amazing Kreskin was on David Letterman and David Letterman made sure that that that his team on his show very rigidly controlled everything involved with the so -called performance of clairvoyance that Kreskin attempted and he failed at everything.
01:37:43: You know anything about Kreskin because that goes back to I just know I just know his name, but I've never seen watched him.
01:37:50: I've never read anything. I just I you know, I know the name and that's pretty much it.
01:37:57: I think that, yeah, this there was a spoon bending guy. Oh, yeah. Hopefully I think was exposed because he was spending spoons with his mind that was exposed as a trick.
01:38:06: So what you have in that cat, that's a category basically like magicians pulling rabbits out of hat.
01:38:13: And so there are people who have tricks who can do those kind of things.
01:38:18: But what I'm talking about is the people who are getting information supernaturally, not doing tricks.
01:38:25: I'm not talking about people bending spoons. My my area is the people getting information through divination, through spirit contact and that kind of thing.
01:38:34: And I think that while we recognize there are the tricksters out there and the con artists, we have to recognize there's a real supernatural element because there really are fallen angels.
01:38:46: And I believe there are examples of this in scripture. So I think that.
01:38:53: You know, and we also see at Revelation talks about the, you know, the antichrist or he's called the beast seeming to recover from a fatal wound and performing signs and wonders.
01:39:11: You know, now, is this trickery or real? We don't know. But I do believe that some passages do show it's real.
01:39:21: And I do believe that we have that. I don't see how a Christian cannot believe that people can have help from fallen angels to me.
01:39:31: I have just a given and I'm assuming that you would say that any time a person goes to a medium or has is involved in a seance that the people identifying themselves as a deceased loved one, that's just a fallen angel masquerading.
01:39:53: Yes. Yes. I believe that someone going to contact a dead relative that the medium would, you know, do they go through a process of I have been in seances.
01:40:05: You mentioned seance much earlier and I was in seances because some of my teachers were one of them in particular was a psychic medium.
01:40:17: And one of the things she did her main thing really was she would go to places where supposedly dead people were haunting the place and she would make contact to get them to leave.
01:40:27: And that that was one of the things she did. And she used to do seances. Our class would go down to the basement where it was darker and the lights were dim and we would be sitting in a circle and we did seances for the purpose of contacting dead relatives of the class members.
01:40:49: And so they go through a process of this and then I think they, you know, they see or hear somebody.
01:40:57: And I believe that that is, you know, a demonic entity. I believe that's a fallen angel.
01:41:03: Now, I was in that seances that we did. I even got, you know, sitting there.
01:41:09: One time I saw a in my mind. And I felt that this was the presence of the person in the circle.
01:41:17: You know, the certain person and I described, started describing what I saw. And then somebody, you know, one of the other people in the class said, oh,
01:41:25: I think I know who that is. You know, that's that's my uncle, you know, uncle
01:41:31: Gerald, you know, who died, you know, 18 years ago or whatever. Right. So, you know, that kind of thing would happen.
01:41:40: And I think, you know, in some cases, maybe, you know, people are just imagining what they're seeing or hearing.
01:41:46: In some cases, it's a fallen angel. See, that's the thing. We can't really always know for sure.
01:41:52: Right. And, you know, that's that that's the deception of it. This is we're dealing with a realm that is unseen and that God has not given us very information on, which is probably a good thing.
01:42:05: And so how it all works and operates and how these fallen angels do these things, we don't really know.
01:42:11: And like I say, I think that's a good thing we don't know. And I don't have to speculate too much on it either.
01:42:18: OK, we have to go to our final break. Don't go away. We'll be right back. OK. If you love
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01:45:41: Pink. A .W. Pink was, before he was a Christian, was involved in the occult.
01:45:49: In fact, it was the Theosophical Society in England, and he said that he witnessed supernatural experiences of the demonic realm that you could not write off as parlor tricks, that they were convincing, very convincing to him, were the real thing.
01:46:11: So I just wanted to throw that out there, because there might be some people who just totally think that all we're speaking about today is nonsense.
01:46:22: If you could, this is a very important part of our interview, what was it that happened in your life as an astrologer that brought you to the point where you said,
01:46:31: I gotta bring this to an end in my life, I've got to repent of this, this is from Satan, and I need
01:46:37: Jesus Christ, I need his atoning blood. How did this all happen? Oh yeah, well that actually takes a while to do, and we're not gonna have very much time for it.
01:46:47: That's really a long story, but we were answering questions and stuff, which is good. So I'm gonna have to sum it up.
01:46:56: I started feeling, and this was when I was still president of the Astrological Society, I started feeling a compulsion to go to a church.
01:47:06: I didn't know why or where this was from, and I ignored it. It was very strong, it wouldn't go away.
01:47:14: This started around April and then it continued through the summer.
01:47:19: During the summer I went to an astrological conference in Oregon and spoke there.
01:47:25: I did two workshops, I was around other astrologers and some Wiccans and psychics and other people, a well -known numerologist who had written books.
01:47:37: That was the second time I'd gone to that conference. I came back to Atlanta where I was living at the time, and I still had the compulsion.
01:47:46: So I decided that it probably came from a past life as a Christian. I did believe in reincarnation and I believed
01:47:53: I had lived as a Christian in previous lives. And so I thought, well this is probably from a past life and it's something that's unresolved.
01:48:02: So I decided to go to this large church downtown. I had driven by them before and I knew they had a soup kitchen, and so I kind of chose them for that reason.
01:48:15: And because they were large and I didn't think anybody would know me, so of course I could have gone to any church and nobody would have known me because I wasn't going to church.
01:48:25: So I went into the church, I sat in the back at the end of the aisle, because the end of the pew, because I wanted to leave early and I actually decided
01:48:38: I would leave after 15 or 20 minutes. And the service began with music and everyone stood up and they had a procession from the back of the church with a young boy carrying a cross.
01:48:51: And as he passed me, I felt what I call a waterfall of love.
01:48:57: I didn't think of it as that at the time. I didn't really know what to think, but it was this love pouring down on me, coming from what
01:49:08: I believed to be a personal God. Now it's important to know I didn't believe in a personal
01:49:14: God. Okay, God was a force, was an energy that we all came from. I had this
01:49:19: New Age idea of God, so I didn't understand this personal God and who was basically telling me he loved me.
01:49:29: I was kind of shocked by this and I actually started crying and I ended up staying for the whole service.
01:49:37: And then I decided to come back the following Sunday, not because I expected anything to happen, but I just wanted to be there where it had happened.
01:49:47: And so I started going to that church, which was, by the way, a very, very, very open -minded
01:49:55: Episcopal Church. Open -minded in a good or a bad way?
01:50:02: Because we know that the Episcopal Church is off the charts in the left -wing area. Well, yeah, that's what
01:50:09: I mean. I mean, they were open -minded in the sense of not sticking to doctrine. I mean, they did in the service kind of,
01:50:17: I guess, I don't know. But anyway, they were open to other views, let me put it that way.
01:50:25: Probably even the astrology. Well, yeah, actually a few people that I met, when
01:50:31: I told them I was an astrologer, asked for my business card. But I also had clients who were
01:50:39: Methodists, and I actually spoke to a Methodist Sunday school when I was an astrologer. But I'm gonna get off track here if I get into that.
01:50:47: So I thought it was okay to be there because I thought, but I started very, within a few short weeks,
01:50:59: I started getting an impression from this personal God, and this is the only way
01:51:05: I know how to express it, an impression that he did not like astrology. And I didn't,
01:51:13: I just kind of ignored it, of course, because I was an astrologer. So I ignored it. And within a short time after that,
01:51:20: I got this impression that God was telling me to stop. Now, I didn't hear a voice.
01:51:26: It was just this impression. God was telling me to stop. Of course, looking back on it now as a
01:51:31: Christian, I think this was the Holy Spirit working on me. And so I resisted that for a while.
01:51:39: A lot of very strange things happened during this time that I will have to skip over for the sake of time.
01:51:46: Very unusual things that I think showed that God was working on me. And so what happened was the night before Thanksgiving, I decided to give astrology up.
01:51:59: This was after I went to see the rector of the parish and told him more or less what was happening, not in detail.
01:52:07: And he said to me, okay, let me read you some things. And he got out the
01:52:12: Bible and he started reading these passages in the Old Testament about divination and how
01:52:18: God condemned it and how they used to read the liver of animals. So that's what he told me they did. And I was sitting there thinking, why is he telling me all this?
01:52:26: You know, because I don't read the liver of animals. So I wasn't totally getting it. But it kind of it kind of sunk in that this was what he was telling me was that it was in the
01:52:39: Bible that I shouldn't be doing astrology. That was kind of the message. And I thought, well,
01:52:45: I guess I'm really have to give it up. And I actually made the decision to give it up. Now, I was not
01:52:50: Christian. And so there was a time period there where I stopped being an astrologer.
01:52:57: My clients were calling me. I told them I couldn't I couldn't do charts for them because I didn't just do a birth chart for people.
01:53:04: I usually did updates on their charts. So I would see them maybe every six months or a year.
01:53:09: And I also did relationship charts and marriage charts. So people would come back to me for those kind of charts or to do charts for their children.
01:53:19: So I had, you know, clients who would come see me several times, not just one time. And so I told them
01:53:26: I can't do astrology anymore. And I would give them the name of another astrologer. Now, some of them asked me, why can't you do it?
01:53:33: Some of them didn't ask me. Some said why. And I said, well, somehow astrology separating me from God.
01:53:40: And they would say, how is it doing that? And I would say, I don't know, because I didn't.
01:53:47: So that was it. And they would be like, okay. So that was the end of the conversation. And so during this time period,
01:53:54: I'm still going to the church. I don't know what's happening. I haven't been able to tell you about the job that I got from one of my clients to actually give him astrological information on the employees.
01:54:06: And so I was getting paid for that. But I couldn't tell my boss I wasn't doing astrology anymore, because he was on this app, the sleeve of absence until January.
01:54:16: And now we're into after Thanksgiving, and he's still gone. So I can't tell him.
01:54:22: So during this time, I decide I stop astrology, I do my last three charts,
01:54:28: I decide to start reading the Bible. And I started with Matthew chapter one, verse one, because I'm very organized person.
01:54:37: And so I said, I'm going to start in the very first book of the New Testament, I did not want to read the Old Testament, which was a big mystery to me.
01:54:43: And I started with Matthew. And I'm reading a little bit every night. And the thing that really struck me was how pure the words were, they were very pure.
01:54:53: And that's the only way I knew how to describe them. I thought, this is not like any book I've ever read before, because the words are pure.
01:55:02: And I get to Matthew chapter eight, and I'm reading the account of Jesus on the boat, and the storm that comes up, and the disciples get scared, and Jesus rebukes the sea and the wind.
01:55:13: And that account, just grabbed me. And I kept reading it over and over again.
01:55:20: And as I was rereading it, God opened my eyes. And I saw who
01:55:25: Jesus really was. I had a new age Jesus, a spiritual teacher, like Buddha.
01:55:31: I saw who Jesus really was. I knew the story of the cross, because I had gone to church and Sunday school.
01:55:39: I knew he died on the cross, I never got it. At that moment, I understood why he died on the cross.
01:55:45: I understood I had been going on a path completely opposed to God my whole life, that everything
01:55:51: I believed was wrong and was false. And I realized
01:55:56: I needed Christ that I needed a Savior. So I just basically turned my life over to Christ at that moment.
01:56:02: And I immediately, this all happened very fast. I knew that I was a
01:56:09: Christian, and I knew I was a new person. Basically, it's like I knew something major had happened, and I was a new person.
01:56:17: And so from that moment on, of course, my life dramatically shifted. I eventually had to tell my boss,
01:56:24: I couldn't do it anymore. Also, of course, then I really had to cut my ties with astrology and everything.
01:56:35: At first, this is very weird, Chris, I couldn't go near my books. I had a bookcase with astrology and occult and new age books on it.
01:56:43: And I couldn't go over to my bookcase for about two or three weeks. I just couldn't,
01:56:48: I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to go near the books. And I couldn't in the bookstore,
01:56:55: I couldn't go near those books either. I just couldn't go near them. So there was lots of things going on.
01:57:02: I found out, but I do need to say this, because I was still at that job, because my boss gave me busy work.
01:57:08: There was a young man there who was a Christian. And he came into my office one day.
01:57:14: Now I had told him in January, I had, or just maybe December that I become a Christian.
01:57:19: I became a Christian very right before Christmas. So I gave astrology up the night before Thanksgiving, I became a
01:57:26: Christian four days before Christmas. This young man I knew was a Christian.
01:57:31: And when I told him, he didn't say anything. But a few months later, in April, he came into my office.
01:57:37: And I said, Jeff, it is so hard for me to believe that a few months ago, I was an astrologer.
01:57:43: And now I'm a Christian. And I didn't even want to be a Christian. And now I am a Christian. And he's got this little smile.
01:57:51: And he said, maybe somebody was praying for you. And I said, No, I said,
01:57:56: I don't know anybody who would pray for me. And I'm looking at him. And he has this little smile. And I said, Oh, wait a minute, were you praying for me?
01:58:04: And he said, I've been my young adult fellowship group at my church, and I have been praying for you for over a year.
01:58:12: He had been praying for me all during that time when I had the compulsion to go to the church, and all those things happened.
01:58:19: They were praying for me. They met every other Tuesday night, and they were praying for me. And praise
01:58:24: God for that. And that's where we have to end it. We're out of time. And I want to make sure I want to make sure that our listeners have your website.
01:58:31: It's Christian answers new age .com. Christian answers new age .com. I want to thank you so much for being such a fascinating guest.
01:58:39: I want to thank everybody who listened. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater