WWUTT 1050 Q&A Amber Guyger Trial, Smartphone Tongues, Piracy Again, and Women Deacons?

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Have you heard the gospel has been shared around the world during a murderer's trial?

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Do spiritual gifts still work while you're checking your smartphone? And can women be deacons?

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The answers to these questions, When We Understand the Text. This is

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When We Understand the Text, a daily study in God's Word, written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

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Tell your friends about our website, www .tt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. We're going to head to the World Wide Web to start things off here.

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I haven't heard it called that in forever. And for you millennials, that means www .www

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.tt .com. So if you type all those

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W's out, you've got five W's in a row. That's a lot of W's. The only letter of the alphabet that takes you more than one syllable to pronounce.

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You could actually spell out the word W, more than just representing it with a letter.

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Anyway, yes, the World Wide Web. I think I had it in my mind that when we were going to start the program,

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I was going to say we're journeying into cyberspace. That's what I was going to say.

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It came out World Wide Web. Yeah. It's because all those W's. Yeah, it was a lot of W's. Made me think of World Wide Web.

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So we're going into cyber, cyber, cyber, space, space, space. We're doing alliterations.

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And it is, well, the first story is one that, I mean, has captured national attention.

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Oh, yeah. Actually, both of these videos that I'm going to play here, to start things off, I think they both have not just national, but international attention, because where I got the second video that we'll get to, well, technically the third video.

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Anyway. What? You'll get the gist of that when we get to it. Okay. I know, now I'm just confusing everybody. Let's just get started.

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Yeah. But that video, that other video that I'm going to do, I got from the

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Daily Mail, which is a British newspaper, so it has international attention.

02:18

Interesting. But both of these stories that we're starting with here have attracted attention from all over the globe.

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For this first one, we go to Dallas, Texas, and a trial that just ended a couple of days ago involving

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Amber Geiger, an off -duty police officer who wandered into the wrong apartment. Yeah.

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I heard about that. She was on the wrong floor. Okay. And thought she was going into her apartment, but she wandered into the apartment of her downstairs neighbor,

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Botham John. Oh. And saw him, thought he was an intruder.

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Okay. She's still in uniform, as I understand it, pulls her gun and shoots him.

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Wow. Shoots him in the chest, kills him. Wow. Now, there are different accounts of what went on.

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You have Amber Geiger's account, you have the prosecution was saying the things that she said don't line up.

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Some of the details of the case were very difficult for me to get because every story that I read on it played the racial angle.

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Okay. Amber Geiger is a white, blonde woman, and she killed a black man.

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Right. And so there's always the racial angle in every story that I read, so it was very difficult for me to get just the basic details of the case without a lot of bias.

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So I'm sure it'll be a little bit later on when somebody prints like a whole summary of the story, which I have not yet found, but then

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I'm able to get some of the details of the case, like what she said, what the prosecution laid out in their evidence and things like that.

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I'll have to see all of that later, I suppose. But anyway, the trial just ended a couple of days ago with Amber getting a sentence of 10 years in prison.

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The minimum she would have received is five. The maximum is 99. And so there are some people that are upset at the fact that she only got 10.

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And so part of the... It's not like she got off scot -free. Well, right. I mean, yeah, she claimed to have made a mistake.

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She made a very tearful confession and said, I hate myself for what I've done. So she was very remorseful for what had happened.

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She gets 10 years. But what some people are arguing about is what if the roles were reversed?

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If she was black and he was white, would it have been a bigger sentence on her?

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So there's people that are making statements about how corrupt the Dallas Police Department is, how they discriminate against those who are black.

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Again, those are the extra details that get thrown into these stories that I read. And so it's difficult to get just kind of the basic details of the case.

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Yeah, you kind of have to sift through the opinions. Yeah. And I mean, whether or not those opinions are valid,

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I don't know. I'm not a Dallas citizen. And we don't know the exact details either of the case.

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So that would make a difference. At least some of those smaller details. Yeah. But this story has gained national attention because after Amber received her sentence, the jury sentenced her to 10 years.

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Botham's brother, Brandt, I almost said her brother, is Botham's brother.

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When you have like the family will make statements to the guilty party. Right. So he's on the stand and he forgives

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Amber and wishes for her that she would become a Christian, that she would turn her life to Christ.

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And that's why this trial, at least the results of the trial, have gained such international attention because Brandt's comments have been played.

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The judge's comments have been played. I'm going to go ahead and play the video. This is probably the clip that you've seen the most, whether it's on Facebook or Twitter.

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This is Brandt talking to Amber and forgiving her and asking the judge if he can give her a hug.

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Oh. And I wasn't going to ever say this in front of my family or anyone, but I don't even want you to go to jail.

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I want the best for you because I know that's what, that's exactly what

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Botham would want you to do. And the best would be give your life to Christ.

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I'm not going to say anything else. I think giving your life to Christ would be the best thing that both of them would want you to do.

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Again, I love you as a person, and I don't wish anything bad on you.

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I don't know if this is possible, but can I give her a hug, please? Please?

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Yes. Please? So that's Judge Tammy Kemp, who said yes there at the very end.

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So he's asking to give Amber a hug. The judge says it's okay for him to go over and give her a hug.

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They hug. There's a lot of sobbing, a lot of tears. That's probably the clip that you've seen, and I mean, it's been played on the news.

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I was listening to radio news just the other day, and they even played it there. Now, the clip that you haven't seen, though, this one is not as popular as that one.

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That's still a wonderful, heart -wrenching clip of Brant John forgiving

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Amber and even going over and giving her a hug. But the clip that you don't often see or have not seen as much is

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Judge Tammy Kemp then going over to Amber at the table where she sat as part of the defense's table and gives her

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John 3 .16 and explains the gospel to her and gives her her own

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Bible. The judge gave her the Bible and said, your sentence starts today.

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So sent her to prison with the Bible that the judge just gave her. So I'm going to go ahead and play this clip.

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This was on court TV. Now, there's a part of this you're not going to hear real well.

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It's the judge sharing the gospel with Amber. It's going to be difficult for you to hear it, but I'm going to go ahead and play the whole clip.

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And then what's going to happen is the commentators on court TV are going to break in and explain the gospel to the best of their ability.

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But they're going to be explaining what it is that Judge Kemp is then telling

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Amber. And this was all happening live on TV. So court TV is showing this live as it's happening with the judge going over and hugging

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Amber herself after Brant did and then sharing the gospel with her. That's amazing.

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Just amazing. Now you see Judge Kemp coming back. See the judge walking back into the courtroom and she's got a book.

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Maybe it's some statute or maybe it's a Bible. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Sorry, I didn't know what that.

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Yeah. I thought maybe it was a statue, but it looks like the Bible. Let's listen if we can hear.

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She's reading the Bible to Amber Geiger. Here we go. Right now,

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Judge Kemp is reading a Bible verse to Amber Geiger. And I am going to read what we believe she is reading.

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And that's the gospel of John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

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And that is a live look at the judge hugging the defendant, Amber Geiger.

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Amber Geiger, who has been convicted of murder in the first degree and been sentenced to 10 years for killing

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Botham Jean. Just look at the judge.

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We can't hear what she's saying. But Julie, can you just describe to us what you're seeing?

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Oh, most certainly. This is something like I've never seen before. The compassion being displayed by Judge Kemp here for this defendant, this convicted murderer,

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Amber Geiger. And she's kind of piggybacking on what we saw from Brant Jean, Botham Jean's younger brother, that Christianity.

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I mean, that Bible verse, that is perhaps the most famous, most quoted Bible verse.

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Well, if you don't mind, can you tell me what you know about that? Certainly. Certainly. It's a way of sort of summarizing the gospel and the central theme of Christianity, love and forgiveness, that God loved the world so much he gave his only son,

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Jesus. And if you believe in God, if you have faith in God, you won't perish. You will go to heaven and live in eternal happiness.

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That's what Christians believe. And this is John 3, 16. Sometimes you see it on T -shirts and things or people have key chains with it, just as a reminder of forgiveness and love.

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And Ted, you were saying you were very familiar with this. Well, it's the, you know, you watch a sporting event, people hold up the signs,

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John 3, 16. So it's something that people put out there. I'm just floored at this whole, you know.

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All of it. All of it. It's crazy. All of it. They're hugging again. Yeah. Look at this.

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And the way the judge hugs, you know how you have people who hug you and just like, hey, good morning, hug.

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This is like an embrace. This is like a comforting hug. Right. This judge is holding her up.

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Wow. And there, I believe she goes. Amber Geiger.

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So that was all happening live on Court TV. That's crazy. Isn't that amazing? That is.

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God would use Court TV to share the gospel. Yeah. That's pretty amazing.

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Putting the, even the commentators there in the position of having to explain what they knew about John 3, 16.

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Yeah. That is, that is just, I'm dumbfounded. Yeah. So this has been an amazing sort of a thing.

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The way that the Lord has used this to show forgiveness and love that was demonstrated by Brandt, John, and also by Judge Tammy Kemp.

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And Judge Kemp has taken fire for this. There are those that have been. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, she had to be.

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Well, yeah. There are. Now, by the way, Judge Tammy Kemp is also black. So Brandt, John, black.

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Judge Tammy Kemp is black. Amber Geiger is white. So there have been people that have been saying, you know,

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Judge Kemp never would have behaved this way if this was a black defendant and a white victim.

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But it's like, um, she's black. Yeah. What are you talking about?

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But she, I don't, I don't get it. Yeah. In fact, the whole critical race crowd has really tipped their hand on this.

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Oh, what do you mean? Oh, yeah. They've been saying stuff like, um, that this, this, they've said of Brandt, John, that this is post -traumatic slavery syndrome, that he would be so forgiving and want to go walk over to her and hug her.

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I mean, I mean, hitting. No, I'm not. So that's exactly the comment that I saw. Yeah, right. I know he was never enslaved.

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She's never been a slave owner. Or his parents. Yeah. But it's like, apparently he has some kind of disorder that would cause him to forgive this woman and walk over to her and hug her.

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That's called being saved. And it's called being a Christian. Yeah. You have, you have heard it said.

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If you're saved, then you are forgiven. I mean, you are to forgive how you are.

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God has forgiven you. So you must forgive others. Thank you. Yes. That is what I'm trying to spit out.

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Matthew 5, 43. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

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But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Right. So that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

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For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same.

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And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?

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Do not even the Gentiles do the same. You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

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This also goes into account on those who are doing the persecuting that we are to look at them and pray for them.

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That's right. Yeah. Even those that are saying these absurd, slanderous things about Judge Kemp and about Brant John.

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Yeah. We must also love them, sharing the gospel with them so that hopefully that they will repent.

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Right. But we can take from this. We can take from this trial. We can take from the words of Christ there in Matthew 5.

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Don't just love your brother. Don't just love your neighbor. Love the neighbor who killed your brother.

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Ouch. That's yeah. As Votie Bachman would say, if you can't say amen, you better say ouch. Yep. So yeah, as I mentioned,

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Judge Kemp has been criticized for hugging Amber Geiger. She has been, there has been criticism levied at her for the fact that she shared the gospel.

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That she, who is employed by the city, employed by the state. Right. Then walks down to the defendant, shares the gospel with her, the

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Christian gospel, which is the only gospel. Don't we swear on the Bible still?

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Or do you just swear under oath? I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm sure that differs. We used to swear on the

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Bible. I'm sure that differs from courtroom to courtroom. Yeah. I would imagine it's the judge's decision.

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Okay. The judge's courtroom, so she can say. Okay. Whether a person must swear either laying their hand on the

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Bible or just saying, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So help you

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God. In every courtroom. Right. Be swearing on the Bible. So, I mean, why wouldn't you share what's in it?

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And the reason for that, exactly right. You're going to lay your hand on it. I'm going to tell you what's in the thing that you had to lay your hand on.

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No joke. And the reason for that is because you are submitting yourself to a higher power.

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Who knows what is in the heart of man? Yeah. God does. Right. He knows exactly what every person is thinking and doing the motivations of the heart.

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And so may every person who steps on a stand and has to give testimony before a court of law.

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Speak the truth and nothing but the truth. And if not, there is a judge even higher than the one sitting on the bench next to you.

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Right. Who knows all of your thoughts and will judge you accordingly by his own righteous judgment.

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And so that would put the fear of God in a person's heart. That they would be all the more motivated to tell the truth.

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Knowing there is a higher judge than some state appointed judge.

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Right. Who is ultimately going to have the final say over your soul. Not just where your body is going to go, whether that be to jail or free.

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Right. So anyway, I think I'm amazed at the results of the trial.

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I'm still waiting to be able to see a more detailed summary of all of the things in the trial.

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But in the meantime, we need to be praying for Judge Tammy Kemp and for Brandt?

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Yeah. Brandt John. John. I didn't spell it right there on the page. And praying for them because they're being persecuted right now by everybody internationally, it sounds like.

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Right. That's not going to be easy. Yeah. Especially when you've got people that are supposed to be loving and supportive of you saying of you things like you're suffering from post -traumatic slavery syndrome.

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That's crazy. Yeah. That's crazy talk. Just stop. People just stop.

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This just shows how that critical race crowd, they really put the critical in the critical race theory.

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Yeah. But it just shows that they have no compassion. There's no grace in their hearts.

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Because there are some of these who are even professing Christians that have been saying this stuff about Brandt John and about this whole trial, about Judge Kemp.

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There is no end game to the whole critical race mess. They just want to watch the world burn.

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They want the whole world to drown in their tears of whining. It's really, really sad.

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But I don't mean to then take the wonderful joy that we see from this story and the gospel being shared.

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And now I'm just jumping over to the critical race side and making everybody mad. Right. Well, I mean, there's always good.

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I mean, bad with the good. And in this case, the good is great. That is fabulous that it has been shared.

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I hope that, yeah. So many times to so many people in so many homes.

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Internationally. That just would not get it any other. That is amazing. God is so good.

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And I hope that there are many people that just through that basic sharing of the gospel and seeing that demonstrated in that courtroom are going to make them go, boy,

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I need to know more about this. How do I get forgiveness and grace and love like that?

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See, the critical race. Oh, man, I just I can't even imagine being in that position. Yeah. That is just amazing.

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This is exactly the way the critical race crowd should be responding. Like, even if if we can be absolutely convinced that there is some sort of a bent in this nation toward white privilege, white people do have more privilege than black people or any other race.

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If you could prove that the whole systemic racism thing, if you could prove the whole deal, what kind of testimony would it be for the critical race crowd to then stand up and say, but we forgive you.

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But they won't do that. Yet. Yet. I mean, I'm sure there are some.

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Yes. Right. And like Becky said earlier, we should pray for them. We should share the gospel with them.

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We should love them. But nevertheless, I am going to show that this is a dangerous, dangerous movement.

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Nobody should ever be a part of it or be swayed by their rhetoric. Right. Because you turn into a graceless, unforgiving, bitter, hard hearted person.

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Yeah. There's no enjoyment in life. I don't understand how anyone critical race theory enjoys life. When you play the victim card and you think that everybody's just oppressing you, you've just got to be a miserable existence.

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You go, I mean, it takes me back to my moments where before I was saved, it was not saying that they're not saved, just saying, this is my really.

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The bitterness you had in your heart before you. Yeah. I had a lot of bitterness and it was moment by moment.

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You know, you go, whatever makes me happy right now. Well, that didn't make me happy enough. So I need to go find something else that makes me happier.

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Oh, this will make me happier. So you're just constantly going and finding that nothing fills that void.

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Except for the love of Jesus. And then that's it. So it's just this perpetual bitterness.

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Yeah. I know what it feels like to have bitterness like that. And I mean, totally self -inflicted.

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I probably did not have any legitimate reasons for me to be as bitter as I was.

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Me either. Look, there's always everybody everywhere is always going to go through some kind of circumstance in which you don't feel like you're getting a fair shake.

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And maybe, maybe you have a legitimate case. Oh, you might. A lot of people probably do have a legitimate case for, you know, this person's not giving me that.

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Or my life is so in this position, it's never going to get out of this circumstance or whatnot.

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But you still must in every and all circumstances, give glory and praise to God. Amen.

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Because he has given you life and he has given you salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Yep. And it's more than we ever deserve. Always. Ever. This world that you live in is, if you are in Christ Jesus, this world is the only hell you will ever know.

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But for those who do not know Christ, this world's the only heaven they will ever know. Very true.

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And so. Again, good with the bad. Yeah. Bad with the good. Commit your life unto

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Christ. Give glory unto God. Give thanks unto his name. Be obedient with what it is that the

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Lord has given to you. Make the most of those opportunities. And the Lord is with you.

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And what you will get at the end of this life is far more glorious than we could ever ask or imagine.

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Right. Oftentimes we start talking about this. My mind goes to Margaret Rainwater.

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Oh, yes. I loved her. She was a gal in our church. Korean woman.

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Her husband met her in Korea. I believe during the Korean War.

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Got married. Moved her back to the U .S. They started a family. He actually ended up going

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Pentecostal. They came to Junction City, started attending our church. First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City.

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He went to the cult church in town and got caught up in that.

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They actually told him he needed to divorce his wife because she wouldn't go to the cult church with him. And so that's what he did.

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She married. Another guy was not a very nice man, and I actually did his funeral when he died.

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And then she, several years later, had contracted cancer, and it was likely because her second husband was such a heavy smoker and she lived with that secondhand smoke for so long that she developed cancer from that in her lungs spread to her brain.

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She's dying of brain cancer. We, as elders from the church, went over to her house to do communion with her, and she is sitting on the edge of her couch, straight backed.

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She's got an oxygen tank attached to her, but she's showing more energy than we're showing in there, and we don't have...

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Our bodies are not wasting away from cancer. And one of the questions I had to ask her while we were there, just the reality of the whole situation setting in, but one of the questions

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I had to ask her was, what songs do you want sung at your funeral? And the first one she said was,

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I want amazing grace. My chains are gone. And I said, okay. And she said, not the regular amazing grace.

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I want amazing grace. My chains are gone. And she said, because my chains are gone and I've been set free, my

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God, my savior has ransomed me. And she said, I'm so ready to go home. Two weeks before she died, she came to church.

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Right. Right. And I went up to her. I'm like, Ms. Margaret, what are you doing here?

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And she said that this is where I want to be. I want to be with my church family before I go home to be with the

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Lord. And it was... You're making me cry. Stop it.

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Hand me one of those tissues. And just praise the Lord for putting her in my life, because any time

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I get into these situations where I've seen a lot of people complain or I'm tempted to complain. Right.

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I think about Margaret Rainwater. Yep. Who went through two horrible marriages, and it was because of one of those marriages, she even contracted cancer.

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Right. And yet in her last days, I never saw so much joy from one person with one exception.

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And that would probably be my own grandmother. Yes. Mimi had. Mimi. Just a ridiculous amount of joy.

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And she had an incredibly hard life too. But never complained. I never heard

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Mimi complain about anything. No. And I never heard Ms. Margaret complain about anything. No. I never even heard her say a single bad word about either of her previous husbands.

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When your focus is Jesus. That's right. You got nothing to complain about. That's right. The joy of the

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Lord is our strength. Yeah. And that was the case with Margaret. And she is a testimony to me for the rest of my life.

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I will never forget. Never forget her last days. And she was one of my most beloved congregation members.

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Yeah. Ever. I mean, what pastor. She was so sweet. What pastor wouldn't want the gal that just never complains about anything, you know?

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Stop being selfish. I know. I know. That's terrible. I love everybody in my church.

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But anyway, just her in particular. Just the testimony that she shared with me.

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Just that was convicting to me. And self -examining how much am

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I ready to quickly complain about my circumstances. Here this woman is dying of cancer. Yeah.

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And can't help but rejoice in God for the sins that had been lifted from her.

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The justification that she had received in her Lord Jesus Christ. And just wanting to spend that time with her church family.

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Yeah. You gotta stop. Okay, let's move on to the next thing then.

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I'm gonna start, you know, blubbering here. This is the next international video. And. Hit me again.

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This one won't make you cry. Okay, good. Unless it's tears of frustration. I'm not sure.

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Oh, okay. But this is a fella by the name of Perry Stone. And those of you who know Justin Peters' seminar.

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Or you have seen TBN. Or you know any of these name it and claim it guys.

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That are very common in the whole prosperity gospel movement. Prosperity theology movement.

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Okay. You'll know the name Perry Stone. Yeah. A regular on TBN. I'm not really into names.

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Yeah. But anyway, he's the guy that you're gonna hear in this video. Very charismatic dude.

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He's speaking in tongues. Okay. Hard to understand what it is that he's doing in this particular video.

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But this has also gained international attention. Oh. Like I said, this video

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I found through the Daily Mail. Which is a British publication. That's this one. Yeah. Okay.

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And there's a point that you're gonna hear in the audio. But you really won't be able to grasp what's going on.

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Unless you were watching it in the video. He's just kind of groaning. It's just like a monotone groan.

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Right. Well, while he's doing that, he's checking his smartphone. What? Are you kidding?

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So, he's going on and on in tongues. And then he starts checking his smartphone while he's leading his congregation.

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And speaking and praying in tongues. But he can't think of what to say in tongues.

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While he's also distracted by his smartphone. So, it just becomes this annoying groaning.

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Okay. Anyway, you'll hear it. Here you go. By the blood of the

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Lamb. By the blood of the Lamb, God. I pray. I pray. I pray. I pray. Healing. Healing.

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Healing. I pray. I pray. I pray. Deliverance. Deliverance. Deliverance. Deliverance. Deliverance. Yes, Lord.

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Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.

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Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.

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Have your way. Have your way. Have your way. Have your way. Hallelujah.

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Oh. Oh. Oh.

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Oh. Oh. Hallelujah.

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Hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.

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Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. God, touch this, touch this right now. Touch this situation. Touch this situation by the power of God.

32:21

Touch this situation by the power of the Holy Ghost. By the anointing, by the anointing, by the anointing, by the anointing.

32:29

Mirra, mandara, badada, dada, babishalo. So the Holy Spirit stops working when you're checking your smartphone.

32:36

Apparently. But even in your groanings, right, isn't that a

32:43

Bible verse somewhere? Yeah, it's Romans 8. Not quite the interpretation of that.

32:49

It is not applied. A friend of mine, a fellow pastor from Kansas, Pastor Bill, at that part where he's groaning while he's checking his smartphone,

32:58

Bill said, I've gotten a few of these texts myself, you know, the ones that just make you groan as you read them. That's terrible.

33:08

Justin Peters has said that very clip is already going to make its way into his seminar.

33:14

Good. And I think he's even preaching. It's very telling. Oh yeah.

33:20

It's very telling. All this is fake. Yep. Guy can't even concentrate to speak his mumbo jumbo while he's checking his smartphone.

33:28

So it just comes out as a groaning. I mean, that's really what checking our smartphones all the time turns us into.

33:35

Yep. It turns you into mush. Groaning zombies. I think Justin's even preaching this weekend and he said it's already going to be in the seminar this weekend.

33:44

Oh my goodness. He is on top of it. That's awesome. Okay, so it's

33:49

Friday. That's not to belittle an actual prayer that all you can do is groan.

33:57

That's not the same thing. Well, yeah, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

34:04

Right. It doesn't literally mean that we're groaning. While we're checking our smartphone. Especially then.

34:11

So being Friday, we take questions from the listeners and you can send your question to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

34:19

Before we get to this next question, which actually happens to be a question that I had on the list for last week.

34:25

And we just ran out of time. I didn't get to it. But I wanted to come back to this question that was presented to us by Kenechukwu from Nigeria.

34:34

Oh, right. And once again, I know I'm probably not pronouncing that name right, but he had the piracy question. Do you remember this?

34:40

Okay, yes. So he said that in Nigeria, a lot of the stuff that they get is pirated. Movies, music, television shows, even sometimes like the e -reader books and stuff like that.

34:53

Right. That they might get are all pirated content. So is it wrong? Is it a sin for him to be watching any of those films which are pirated when the laws in Nigeria are different than they are in the

35:05

United States? Doing such a thing could get you fined or jail time if you were to pirate that material and copy it illegally here in the

35:14

U .S. And so we had kind of taken that from the perspective of like the

35:19

Romans 14 principles that are laid down. But you were talking about this a couple of days ago.

35:25

Yeah. And you had a different take. I was thinking about it later the next day after we recorded this.

35:32

And it started like I remembering bits and pieces, and you know how you kind of put it back together.

35:41

And so when it finally, I don't know, became clear of what

35:46

I remembered of my conversation, and I did verify that tonight. Okay. Who it was you were talking with.

35:52

Yes. It was my friend Sonia, and she has been a missionary to all sorts of places overseas.

35:58

And when she was in Bulgaria, she would buy movies and TV shows.

36:05

And they would be pirated? They would be pirated. Okay. And so she would watch them. Not a problem.

36:11

And then she said that whenever she got back to the States, she was looking up on one of the streaming.

36:19

Like Netflix or Amazon or something like that? You were trying not to sell the brand, and here,

36:26

I just did it. But it wasn't that brand. It wasn't either one of those, which is ironic, but anyway, or interesting.

36:34

So she was watching, and she's like, oh, well, this one doesn't look that familiar.

36:40

Maybe I missed that or don't remember that well. And she found out that a lot of those things that she would watch on the pirated.

36:50

In another country when she's watching a pirated film. That it was different than the ones here.

36:57

That was the full thing. And so she said. So the pirated ones were edited.

37:03

They were edited and cut out a lot of the racy stuff and the really bad, bad stuff.

37:08

Bad language and stuff. And sometimes it would even skip whole episodes because the whole episode was bad.

37:13

Would be about something that would be more taboo in that culture than it is in ours. Right.

37:19

And so I'm like, well, in my mind, you're not really paying for the whole thing.

37:25

So that's right. Is that technically copying? I mean, how does that work? You know, where's the line drawn?

37:31

So I even wish just be careful if you do start downloading the real stuff.

37:39

You know, paying bucks and getting the real stuff. Be careful of, you know, do some investigating first and make sure that's what you want.

37:50

Right. You know, before you go and spend the bucko bucks to get that. Because what you got in your country was probably a heavily edited version of.

37:56

It could be. Yeah. This was Bulgaria. So it wasn't the same region, but it could be the same thing.

38:03

Right. So just be careful. I really wish that movies would come with.

38:09

Oh, that would be awesome. An extra version of it in there. Yeah. Like the TV version. Yeah. Back when we were growing up.

38:14

Yeah. When we were growing up. When we were growing up. Becky and I have. That was a lot different than what it is now. We'll get together and watch a movie some night and it'll be like some 80s film.

38:23

Oh, my goodness. That we remember watching when we were kids. I'm blushing, putting my head behind a pillow.

38:29

Like, don't. No. Stop. I don't remember that being in the movie. I don't remember that either. Because we were watching the

38:34

TV. And we'd turn it off. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. We're watching like the TBS or the TNT version. Right. Yes.

38:40

Didn't remember that being in the movie. Nope. Yeah. So, we got to.

38:46

Or all that language. Especially when it films from like the 70s and 80s, when it says PG on it, it ain't today's

38:53

PG. No. Oh. So, that. Yeah.

38:59

I can't even go by the rating. So, I've gotten a lot more adept at checking like the parental, parental guides.

39:06

Parental guides? Parental guides. Parental guides. Yeah. Yeah. Parental advisory things. Yeah. That they'll post online.

39:12

Uh -huh. Like, this is how many swear words are in it. Right. This is if there's any gore, nudity. Mm -hmm.

39:18

There's. What is. Nudity, it's an instant strike. So. What is that website? There's one specific website that is really reliable that does it to the nit, you know, nitpicking.

39:28

I don't know. I typically check IMDb. Oh, really? Because it's controlled by the people who use

39:36

IMDb. Okay. So, a person who is a, you know, an IMDb subscriber, they've got the, you know, an account set up with IMDb.

39:44

Mm -hmm. They can go into the parental guide thing and edit it. Okay. You know, there's this many swear words.

39:50

It's just, you know. However much stuff somebody wants to put in there. So. That's how I know what's in the movie.

39:56

So, I just. Yeah. Check that website. But yeah, there are some other sites that'll give you. You know,

40:01

I tried to use VidAngel and I don't know if I just wasn't very good at using it. I don't.

40:06

I don't know what the trick was. Yeah. I just couldn't ever get it to work. Huh. And it seemed like any of the movies that I wanted to watch.

40:12

Oh, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Any of the films I really actually wanted to watch weren't available through VidAngel. So, I was just like, well, okay.

40:19

Didn't really have any use for it. I've had plenty of people recommend it to me, but it wasn't useful to me when

40:25

I gave it a shot. Yeah. So, there you go. There's one of the other things related to that piracy question.

40:31

You got to be careful with what it is that you've watched in your country that was pirated because it was probably heavily edited from what we watched in the

40:41

U .S. It could be. Yep. This next question comes from Chris. Hi, Pastor Gabe and Becky. My name is

40:46

Chris. I'm from Iowa, 30 -year -old husband and dad to two girls and a boy on the way in October.

40:53

Oh, that's soon. Here we are in October. Yeah. Congratulations. See, I was supposed to.

40:59

Or soon. I was supposed to read this question last week. So. Right. We might have a baby by now.

41:04

Yeah. I don't know. I had a question regarding. Wait, we? I'm saying the collective general we.

41:11

Okay. We might have a baby right now. I'm just clarifying. Do we have a baby? Okay.

41:19

That'd be the way to break the news, Timmy. Yeah, no. While we're recording and. Sorry. I had a question regarding women and their roles in the church.

41:29

I know you touched on this today. I don't know which podcast this was now. I'm a new convert back in March.

41:35

Oh. Praise the Lord. Yes. Congratulations. And there we can offer congratulations. I applied for church membership at an evangelical free church that we have been attending for a few months now.

41:47

When I did my interview last night, I realized that the board of elders had two or three deaconesses.

41:55

I'll come back to that. Yeah. This was slightly concerning to me because I know what the Bible says about this.

42:01

And also, you talked about this on your Friday podcast that I listened to this morning. What do you think

42:06

I should do? Should this be a huge concern of mine? I'm confused. Please help.

42:12

P .S. Your show has been such a blessing to me and teaching me about the Lord. Thank you so much.

42:19

So, first of all, let me clarify before we get to this. We'll go back to first Timothy chapter three again.

42:25

But he mentions here that I realized that the board of elders had two or three deaconesses.

42:30

Well, that's not the board of elders. There are no deacons on the board of elders. The board of elders is only made up of elders.

42:38

So, you might be talking about the church's officers. Okay. There are two offices in the church.

42:44

There's the elder and there's the deacon. So, the board of officers would contain both elders and deacons, but the board of elders would only be the elders.

42:54

Okay. So, just clarifying that, first of all. So, in among your officers, you've got elders, which

43:00

I'm going to assume, based on what it is that you've stated here, all the elders are men. But among the deacons, there are men and two or three deaconesses, women, that are serving the position of deacon based on what

43:15

Chris has said here. So, is that okay? Now, I take the position that a deacon should be a man.

43:22

And here's the reason why. In 1 Timothy 3, we read the qualifications for elder a couple of weeks ago, verses 1 -7.

43:31

Here's the qualifications for deacon. Deacons likewise, so taking into mind the same instructions that were given for elders, and we're taking those instructions in mind also for deacons, deacons likewise must be dignified, not double -tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

43:52

They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and let them also be tested first, then let them serve as deacons, if they prove themselves blameless.

44:03

Their wives, likewise, must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober -minded, faithful in all things.

44:11

Let deacons be the husband of one wife, managing their children in their own household well.

44:17

For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves, and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

44:26

You see, a lot of the same qualifications for deacons that you see for elders. The one main difference between the elder and the deacon is that the elder must be able to teach.

44:38

That's not a qualification for the deacon, but it does say in verse 9, they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and let them be tested first, then let them serve as deacons, if they prove themselves blameless.

44:53

You have in verse 11, their wives, likewise,

45:01

I think I was about to say their lives, likewise, must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober -minded, faithful in all things.

45:08

And then verse 12, let the deacons be the husband of one wife, managing their children in their own households well.

45:17

Based on the instructions that we have there, I think it's pretty clear we're talking about the office of deacon must be limited to only men.

45:24

Especially when you take into consideration the context going back to 1 Timothy 2.

45:31

Before we get to the qualifications for overseers and the qualifications for deacons, we have in 1

45:38

Timothy 2, 11, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

45:49

Rather, she is to remain quiet. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

45:57

That seems to be pretty clear that Paul is saying that a woman cannot hold offices in the church.

46:04

She cannot be among the officers, the elder or the deacon. Though the deacon may not have that gift of teaching, or they might.

46:16

Stephen, the first deacon, which we're going to talk about that this next week when we get into Acts chapter 6, Acts 6 and 7 are coming up.

46:23

But Stephen, who was one of the first deacons, was also a preacher. He was an evangelist.

46:29

He went out and shared the gospel. He didn't serve in the position of elder, but he still did do some teaching.

46:35

It's not like deacons shouldn't teach, but they may not have the gift of teaching or have that administrative gift that might be required of an elder.

46:49

In which case, a deacon becomes a servant serving the physical needs of those who are in the church.

46:56

And the elder is serving the spiritual needs of those that are in the church. But it seems that what we have here in these pre -overseer and deacon instructions, it is first stated that a woman is to learn quietly with all submissiveness.

47:15

I do not permit her to have authority over a man. Then you get into the qualifications for overseers and deacons, which seems to be plainly laid out as he is to be a man.

47:25

And here's the qualifications for that man. Qualification for an elder. Qualification for a deacon.

47:31

And then the qualifications for their wives. And then the qualifications for their wives, right. In the deacons in particular, it doesn't really have that in the qualifications for the elder.

47:42

But it's likely that the deacon's wife is also going to be a servant.

47:49

She won't hold the title of deacon. She won't hold that position or that title.

47:55

But she can still serve. And I mean, at the very least, he's going to be gone serving and she needs to be supportive of that.

48:03

And then he will come into knowledge and she is not to use that as slanderous.

48:10

You know, that's right. She's not supposed to slander. Make sure that she's dignified, not slander.

48:17

But not slanderers, but sober minded and faithful in all things. Right. So, I mean, that's a high quality to come by.

48:26

Yeah. You think that the deacons in particular might be more entering into a person's home more so than the elder probably will.

48:35

Right. And doing that kind of service. And so, yeah, so like you said, they know kind of the inner workings of things that are going on in people's homes.

48:43

So there can't be gossips about that. The wives likewise must be trustworthy. But since you're talking about a gift of hospitality here, who's going to be managing hospitality in the home or even extending hospitality into somebody else's home?

48:58

But the wife. Right. She may have the gift for that more so than her husband will be. So the wife of a deacon is most definitely going to serve.

49:09

Right. But she just doesn't hold that title as an office. Now, does that mean, though, in Chris's concern, does that mean that he should not be part of this church given that the deacons are deaconesses?

49:26

Right. I am not as strict on that regarding deaconesses. Now, the office of deacon, we'll put it that way, simply because though a man will hold that position as a deacon, it seems to be evident here in 1

49:42

Timothy 3, 8 through 13, that his wife is also going to serve. She just won't be the one that holds the title of deacon.

49:51

Right. It just depends on how strict on that you want to be. There are people who are staunch complementarians that the elder in the church is only to be a man and women are not to have that position in the pulpit of teaching over a co -ed body.

50:11

So men and women. A woman can teach other women, and we even have that instruction in Titus 2.

50:16

But she's not to have the pulpit position over the whole church teaching men and women together.

50:22

That's not for the woman to have. So you have people who hold that strict a viewpoint, but they're a little more lenient on the deacon viewpoint.

50:31

We're just talking about a servant here. It's not a person who holds a teaching authority, so therefore a deacon can even be a woman.

50:39

And you would probably be surprised at some of the names of people out there who support women deacons.

50:46

That's one area that I don't really think we need to be as strict on it. Now, for myself as a pastor of the church that I teach in, we would not open up the deacon position to women.

50:59

Because we have meetings that are not just elders, but also the deacons get included in that.

51:06

And there's a reason why. It's just the men that are together and making those decisions for the church.

51:12

So that's a position that's not going to be open to women. And it is according to the instruction that we have in Scripture from 1

51:20

Timothy 2 to 1 Timothy 3. But is a church sinning in some way if they have women serving in those deacon positions?

51:31

I think that's a question really for you to ask of your own church. I think,

51:37

Chris, you should talk to your own elders. And I wouldn't say that given the circumstance that you've laid out for me, that this is a reason for you to go, okay, well, this is definitely not going to be our church and go find another one.

51:50

I would say if you're truly convicted in your heart over it, then you probably should consider something else if it's going to be a stumbling block for you.

51:59

But this is something you should talk to your elders about. So ask the elders to see if they have a biblical explanation that they can give to you as to why there are women that serve in the capacity of deacon.

52:15

And also as part of that, as you're talking to them about why is it that we have women deacons at this church.

52:22

Be very loving, be very gentle in the way that you ask that. Don't be coming in like with an agenda and you're ready to say this is wrong or you can kind of give off that vibe when you're talking to an elder about this.

52:35

But in addition to asking that question about why there are women deacons, you could also ask this question, in what capacity do they serve?

52:45

Like if I've got a need or a want as a man, am I going to be sitting before a panel of both men and women now together?

52:56

In which case you're almost bringing a woman in though she might be as a deacon, you might be bringing her in to a situation that should be overseen only by an elder and not by a deacon.

53:09

So is this going to be the sort of a situation where if I have a concern, a spiritual need or whatever that I'm now talking to both men and women about this?

53:17

When I really need to be shepherded by just a man? So you could include that in your questions as well.

53:23

Like in what capacity do these women who are part of the deacons, in what capacity do they serve?

53:30

Right. I mean, I could see a use for them if there was single women that needed help.

53:37

Yeah, definitely. You don't send a man, even a husband to go do that unless he takes his wife.

53:43

We had a situation once several years ago where there was an ailing woman in our church who had slipped and fallen in the shower and who she called was one of our deacons.

53:55

And obviously he couldn't do it. He wasn't going to go and pick her up out of the shower. So I think what ended up happening was we called the

54:02

EMTs because it was during a time of day. It was just difficult to get a hold of anybody. So an ambulance came and there was actually somebody that helped her.

54:10

But in that particular situation, yeah, you would want a woman to be able to be available to help.

54:17

I mean, if they have a lot of single women or if they have, I don't know, I don't know where you live.

54:23

So, I mean, it could be something as simple as that, that they have a need and that's what they decided to do to fill that need.

54:30

So there's that possibility. Yep. Just go in with grace. Yeah, be clear.

54:36

Yeah. Be understanding. Weigh these things according to scripture and don't come up with, maybe not come up with like an answer or a response in the meeting that you have with the elders where you're asking these questions about the deacons.

54:52

Meditate on those things. Write stuff down. Yeah. Say, okay, I'm going to go back and explore that, pray about it.

54:59

Be in good communication with your elders. Yeah. If you seek somebody else's opinion, like you're seeking a second opinion, be careful with it.

55:08

Don't be a gossip about it. But say, okay, I really do have this situation and I'm wanting some extra guidance or extra advice regarding these things.

55:17

Test everything. Yeah. And if your elders have grace, then they'll welcome the questions that are asked.

55:23

Right. And I mean, we can only go off of what little your email says.

55:29

So we really aren't a whole lot of help that will help. We can at least guide you in the right direction.

55:36

I'm a big fan of good communication. Yes. So don't take it to a whole bunch of other people before you've taken it specifically to those elders.

55:45

Yes. And ask them questions about it and giving them an opportunity to perhaps teach you according to what they understand the scriptures say about this particular issue.

55:54

Right. All right. Well, thank you so much for our questions today. I think everything that we did as far as question goes went right back to our last episode.

56:04

Yeah. Because we got the one question we didn't get last time. We played catch up. Yeah, that's right.

56:11

But if you would like to submit a question to the program, you can send it to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

56:17

We'll be back again next week, God willing. Yes. And then heading to the Truth Matters Conference in California the week after that.

56:24

All right. Let's pray. Yes. Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time together and we thank you for some of these current events that have been going on.

56:33

It's especially with like the talk about impeachment right now and everybody throwing their politics at one another.

56:39

What a refreshing thing it was to see the gospel presented not just nationally but internationally through this very tragic situation that had taken place.

56:51

And if there are things that need to be fixed in our government as a result of what had happened there, then

56:57

I pray that they would get fixed. But in the meantime, we have this wonderful presentation, this touching story of the gospel of a victim's family extending grace and forgiveness to somebody who was guilty of murder.

57:14

I pray for Amber Geiger and I pray that while she's in prison, she's using that time wisely that she would come to know the

57:22

Lord that Brandt had spoken to her about and even Judge Kemp had shared with her.

57:28

And I pray that many others have heard this testimony and have heard the gospel and they too are turning from sin to the

57:36

Lord of life who has forgiven us of everyone who would believe on his name and given us eternal life in his forever kingdom with him.

57:47

We thank you for the grace that you show us daily. Help us to be filled with this grace that we may show it to others.

57:54

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. What? Well that didn't get much better.

59:08

It's a lot clearer than that on my picture. Didn't it get photocopied? No. Looks like a photocopy.

59:15

Nope. Can you remove the grocery list that's on there before? It's not a grocery list.

59:21

It's actually the list of things that the kids needed to do. Oh. And Zej made four copies and didn't use a one of them.

59:30

He left them in the printer. Ah, that's great. Thanks for... I was like, Zachary, why did you do that in colored ink and leave it on the printer?

59:39

No joke. That was probably 85 cents a copy. It probably was.