Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 411 - When Comfort Becomes an Idol
Transcript
- 1:03SPEAKER_02: And you guys remember the moment where he has like this bag of sand and he's looking at the idol and he takes a little bit of sand out to make sure it weighs the perfect amount, and then he grabs the idol, and perfect timing puts the sand on the mechanism so that he can take the idol.
- 1:19SPEAKER_02: And what happens?
- 1:21SPEAKER_02: It's almost like the mountain comes alive in anger and it starts to shake and it starts to attack him and it starts throwing everything because it's taken.
- 1:31SPEAKER_02: Indy has taken its idol.
- 1:33SPEAKER_02: That is us.
- 1:34SPEAKER_02: When people are threatening the idol on our hearts, we shake with anger, with anxiousness, with uncertainty.
- 1:41SPEAKER_02: And so, for many ways, whether it's comfort or power or the praise of other people or control, a great litmus test for you is I think it's it's Luther that says, follow the breadcrumbs.
- 1:53SPEAKER_02: What makes you angry?
- 1:55SPEAKER_02: What makes you uncer anxious and uncertain?
- 1:59SPEAKER_02: What makes you unkind?
- 2:01SPEAKER_02: There's usually an idol being threatened behind that behavior.
- 2:10SPEAKER_03: Why do we do the things we do?
- 2:12SPEAKER_03: Ooh, why do we do?
- 2:14SPEAKER_03: Ooh, the things we do, ooh, why do we do?
- 2:16SPEAKER_00: Do do do the things we do, ooh.
- 2:21SPEAKER_03: Okay, so this song was inspired by something that I believe is absolutely reprehensible that human beings do.
- 2:31SPEAKER_03: And Mark, you've done it.
- 2:33SPEAKER_03: Don't deny it.
- 2:33SPEAKER_03: You've done it.
- 2:35SPEAKER_03: Turkey bowling.
- 2:37SPEAKER_03: Turkey bowling?
- 2:38SPEAKER_03: Remind me what that is.
- 2:39SPEAKER_03: What is that?
- 2:40SPEAKER_03: Turkey bowling.
- 2:40SPEAKER_03: Come on, you kidding me?
- 2:41SPEAKER_03: What is turkey bowling?
- 2:43SPEAKER_03: It's like the cool uh Christian youth group thing that they're doing.
- 2:47SPEAKER_03: They go and they buy these butterball turkeys.
- 2:50SPEAKER_03: Wait, this is the thing.
- 2:50SPEAKER_04: Oh, you mean they're not they're not alive.
- 2:53SPEAKER_03: No.
- 2:53SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
- 2:54SPEAKER_03: That would be way cooler.
- 2:55SPEAKER_04: I couldn't think how they could do that.
- 2:58SPEAKER_04: Grab that though.
- 2:59SPEAKER_03: What are the pins though?
- 3:00SPEAKER_03: Remind me with are they normal pins?
- 3:02SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know.
- 3:03SPEAKER_03: They set up, I don't know, crazy stuff.
- 3:05SPEAKER_03: But the the the insanity of it is that it's it gets all slimy.
- 3:10SPEAKER_03: You're taking it, you're throwing it, and they use like soap and whatnot, and they roll it.
- 3:14SPEAKER_03: I've never done it, but I've I've heard of it.
- 3:16SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I figured it was something you do regularly and you too, Oscar.
- 3:20SPEAKER_02: I have a question.
- 3:21SPEAKER_02: Can somebody reach out to the people who make avocados and ask them to change the toy that's inside?
- 3:26SPEAKER_02: I have so many wooden balls.
- 3:32SPEAKER_04: It's really funny, Oscar.
- 3:33SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's funny.
- 3:35SPEAKER_03: Avocados.
- 3:37SPEAKER_04: Oscar's still smiling in a.
- 3:38SPEAKER_04: Did you read that somewhere?
- 3:39unknown: I don't remember.
- 3:40SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 3:40SPEAKER_03: Okay, is there something you guys like but hate in a certain context?
- 3:46SPEAKER_03: Break up.
- 3:48SPEAKER_03: Break up for you.
- 3:49SPEAKER_03: I love avocados.
- 3:51SPEAKER_03: Hate guacamole.
- 3:53SPEAKER_03: That's weird.
- 3:54SPEAKER_03: That's crazy.
- 3:55SPEAKER_03: So you hate the seasoning.
- 3:56SPEAKER_03: You guys are insane.
- 3:57SPEAKER_03: What's wrong with guacamole?
- 3:59SPEAKER_03: The look.
- 3:59SPEAKER_03: You've just stopped there.
- 4:00SPEAKER_03: You can't break guacamole in your mouth before you swallow it.
- 4:03SPEAKER_03: No, but see, I put sugar with avocado in my display.
- 4:06SPEAKER_03: Of course you do.
- 4:07SPEAKER_03: Do you actually?
- 4:07SPEAKER_03: Of course.
- 4:08SPEAKER_03: That's the only way I knew how to eat it.
- 4:09SPEAKER_03: That's how I grew up in my Arab home.
- 4:11SPEAKER_03: Sugar on avocado.
- 4:12SPEAKER_03: It's only you not diabetic.
- 4:14SPEAKER_03: That's a good question.
- 4:17SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's very good.
- 4:18SPEAKER_03: It's very nice.
- 4:19SPEAKER_03: Uh time for a cool classy column.
- 4:23SPEAKER_03: This is from Caitlin Huddleston.
- 4:27SPEAKER_03: Kate Huddleston.
- 4:28SPEAKER_03: Hello, Franz, she wrote.
- 4:31SPEAKER_03: Is she English?
- 4:31SPEAKER_03: Franz Huddleston?
- 4:33SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 4:34SPEAKER_04: Is that English?
- 4:34SPEAKER_04: Probably.
- 4:35SPEAKER_03: Thanks, I.
- 4:36SPEAKER_04: It doesn't.
- 4:36SPEAKER_04: Kate Huddleston.
- 4:37SPEAKER_03: She said, I'm on episode 300, and my life has really changed for the worst.
- 4:43SPEAKER_03: I feel like I'm sitting down with you guys each time I listen to a new episode, although I'm constantly moving.
- 4:47SPEAKER_03: I'm a house cleaner.
- 4:48SPEAKER_03: But the Lord and your knowledge and encouragement keep me going.
- 4:51SPEAKER_03: I'm regularly sharing episodes with friends and family as it seems appropriate based off of conversations and struggles they're experiencing.
- 4:57SPEAKER_03: I've been notified the mug from which you can chug is back in stock.
- 5:02SPEAKER_03: And I ordered it for my husband's birthday, who introduced me to your podcast.
- 5:06SPEAKER_03: He got to the mail before I could, so he's already including himself each more, indulging himself each morning.
- 5:13SPEAKER_03: Including himself.
- 5:14SPEAKER_03: He couldn't have been more thrilled unless I opted for the treasure chest and some Bible tracts for him to help spread the gospel, maybe for Christmas.
- 5:22SPEAKER_03: He's listened to each episode twice over and is always waiting for a new one.
- 5:26SPEAKER_03: How crazy would it be if you read my email on the podcast and he heard it before I even knew?
- 5:32SPEAKER_04: So do you do we have the husband's name?
- 5:34SPEAKER_03: Uh we don't.
- 5:35SPEAKER_03: Oh.
- 5:35SPEAKER_03: Husband.
- 5:36SPEAKER_03: Husband.
- 5:37SPEAKER_03: Husband of Kate Huddleston.
- 5:39SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Kate.
- 5:39SPEAKER_03: What a Mr.
- 5:40SPEAKER_03: Huddleston.
- 5:41SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 5:41SPEAKER_03: And uh yeah, may God bless you and thank you for listening.
- 5:44SPEAKER_03: And Mr.
- 5:45SPEAKER_03: Kate Huddleston husband for listening twice through.
- 5:48SPEAKER_03: And today, believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest in our studio, our sister Sandra.
- 5:55SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Sandra.
- 5:57SPEAKER_03: Blessed to have you out here all the way from Atlanta, Georgia.
- 6:00SPEAKER_03: And she's a listener as well, and uh she got to be here in person.
- 6:03SPEAKER_03: So thanks for joining us today.
- 6:06SPEAKER_03: You've just entered the quality question section.
- 6:09SPEAKER_03: This is from Leigh Ann Harris.
- 6:11SPEAKER_03: I hope I'm saying it right, L-E-I-J-H, Leigh or Lee.
- 6:14SPEAKER_03: Uh and uh today Oscar Navarro's gonna respond to this question.
- 6:20SPEAKER_03: Hi, I attended Ambassadors Academy in 2026.
- 6:25SPEAKER_03: Now watching the podcast.
- 6:26SPEAKER_03: As an older woman alone and finding that no one from my church wants to work with me and actively reaching out to the community for Christ, I don't have the money to take someone out to dinner or pay for pizza after doing outreach.
- 6:38SPEAKER_03: Ideas and input from you is appreciated.
- 6:41SPEAKER_03: Oscadio Novadio.
- 6:42SPEAKER_02: Did she give a first name?
- 6:43SPEAKER_03: Uh Leigh or Lee, L-E-I-G-H.
- 6:46SPEAKER_02: Thank you for yeah, thank you for emailing.
- 6:48SPEAKER_02: Uh my first thing is I would encourage you out of in a humble, respectful way, if you can find a local church community that cares about evangelism that would support you in your missions.
- 7:00SPEAKER_02: Uh, I know that's not always possible, but I also know that sometimes we get comfortable uh with familiarity, even if that familiarity isn't a good thing.
- 7:10SPEAKER_02: And so I would encourage you, if possible, try to find a local church community that would encourage you and support you in your evangelism outreach.
- 7:17SPEAKER_02: You should not be the only person at your church that cares about the lost.
- 7:21SPEAKER_02: Um hyperbole there, but I think you get the point.
- 7:24SPEAKER_02: The second thing is it doesn't take a lot, you know.
- 7:27SPEAKER_02: Uh there's some pretty amazing ways in which we don't have to spend money, and yet we can still either spend time with an unbeliever to um to uh preach the gospel to them and to disciple them, uh, or to spend time with uh other people in our church to raise them up as feather fellow evangelists.
- 7:49SPEAKER_02: Um I can think about a time in my marriage where my wife and I, like we just, you know, we got a couple of new kids, we've got our first home, and like money's really tight.
- 8:00SPEAKER_02: Uh we couldn't afford to go out on a coffee date.
- 8:03SPEAKER_02: And so we would go on walks.
- 8:05SPEAKER_02: We would we would go to the lake and sit there and you know, bring a little bit of bread from the house and feed ducks.
- 8:11SPEAKER_02: And so, in that same way, uh, I think there are ways in which you can be creative in your own neighborhood, in your own cultural context in which you can spend time with people.
- 8:22SPEAKER_02: What's amazing is that you don't have to spend money to spend time with people, whether you're sharing the gospel with them or raising them to become evangelists.
- 8:30SPEAKER_04: I may be wrong, but I think her um mentioning pizza is where we've said if you can get a team to come out with you to share the lost, say we'll go for pizza afterwards.
- 8:40SPEAKER_04: And that gives them an added incentive to come out.
- 8:42SPEAKER_04: And maybe that's what she's referring to.
- 8:44SPEAKER_05: Yeah, could be.
- 8:45SPEAKER_05: Could be, yeah.
- 8:46SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
- 8:47SPEAKER_04: Anyway, she's a gem within the church, and the pastors and the eldership should realize what they've got.
- 8:52SPEAKER_04: Someone who cares about the lost.
- 8:53SPEAKER_03: Surely, thank you.
- 8:54SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I would say, look, at the end of the day, uh don't be held back if no one will go with you, right?
- 9:00SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know the gospel and there are lost people around you.
- 9:04SPEAKER_03: As much as it's helpful to have someone go out and help you to help those that are in need or that are ill, if you're a doctor, um at the end of the day, the need creates the urgency, and you do it.
- 9:17SPEAKER_03: And even if you find one person to team up with you and the church won't support you, then do that and and seek the Lord.
- 9:23SPEAKER_03: But I think Oscar put it well.
- 9:24SPEAKER_03: It is wise to try to find a church that that does care about that and we'll get it.
- 9:29SPEAKER_04: We'll go somewhere safe.
- 9:30SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 9:30SPEAKER_03: Amen.
- 9:31SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
- 9:32SPEAKER_03: All right, get ready for like Compton.
- 9:35SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 9:35SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 9:37SPEAKER_03: Get ready for a shout out from the Sheik of Shawarma, the number five top Christian podcast in Austria.
- 9:45SPEAKER_02: Oh, good day to you, mate.
- 9:50SPEAKER_03: We do that one over episode.
- 9:51SPEAKER_04: Yes, that's right.
- 9:51SPEAKER_04: One of our episodes.
- 9:52SPEAKER_04: When we went to Austria.
- 9:54SPEAKER_04: That's right.
- 9:54SPEAKER_03: Austria, not Australia, and the number 11 top Christian podcast in religion and spirituality on.
- 10:03SPEAKER_03: So that's exciting.
- 10:03SPEAKER_03: We've been to Austria and uh amazing Australia.
- 10:06SPEAKER_04: Is the Matterhorn in Austria or is that Austria?
- 10:08SPEAKER_04: What?
- 10:09SPEAKER_02: Matterhorn is in Switzerland.
- 10:10SPEAKER_03: Switzerland.
- 10:10SPEAKER_03: 13 countries in 13 days.
- 10:12SPEAKER_03: Are you serious, Mark?
- 10:13SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 10:14SPEAKER_03: What's that part of that?
- 10:14SPEAKER_03: Austria.
- 10:15SPEAKER_04: It's got long-term memory loss.
- 10:17SPEAKER_03: If you were just a part of an episode.
- 10:19SPEAKER_04: I had to wear Lederhosen.
- 10:21SPEAKER_03: That's right.
- 10:22SPEAKER_03: Is that a what is a leaderhussen?
- 10:24SPEAKER_04: They leather shorts.
- 10:25SPEAKER_03: No, they're things with the shorts with the suspenders and I gotta see a picture.
- 10:31SPEAKER_03: What lady?
- 10:32SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
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- 13:32SPEAKER_03: Never mind.
- 13:33SPEAKER_03: All right, and uh, what is that?
- 13:35SPEAKER_03: I said never mind that they can see us.
- 13:37SPEAKER_03: Yeah, never mind.
- 13:39SPEAKER_03: And today, friends, we are talking about when comfort becomes an idol for those of you that are inappropriately worshiping.
- 13:47SPEAKER_04: Ray Comfort.
- 13:49SPEAKER_04: Who chose this episode?
- 13:51SPEAKER_04: Uh the humble Arab cherub.
- 13:53SPEAKER_03: When comfort becomes an idol.
- 13:55SPEAKER_03: Ray, you have actually caused many problems in many homes, especially with uh wives, because their husbands listen to you a lot.
- 14:04SPEAKER_03: Haven't you had women say call you the other woman?
- 14:08SPEAKER_04: Yes.
- 14:08SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 14:09SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know who that was.
- 14:10SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we know.
- 14:11SPEAKER_03: So yeah, uh today when comfort becomes an idol.
- 14:15SPEAKER_03: We all love comfort.
- 14:16SPEAKER_03: We love Ray Comfort.
- 14:18SPEAKER_03: But uh not talking about me.
- 14:20SPEAKER_03: No, we're not talking about Ray.
- 14:21SPEAKER_03: Yeah, about the other kind of comfort.
- 14:23SPEAKER_04: Is it is comfort an adjective?
- 14:25SPEAKER_03: Comfort is a comment.
- 14:27SPEAKER_03: That's a word.
- 14:28SPEAKER_03: It's just a word.
- 14:29SPEAKER_03: Comfort.
- 14:29SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm living in comfort.
- 14:31SPEAKER_03: I guess it could be.
- 14:35SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, listen, guys, we live in the United States of America.
- 14:41SPEAKER_03: Oh, easy.
- 14:41SPEAKER_03: Good work.
- 14:42SPEAKER_03: You're moving.
- 14:43SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, just trying.
- 14:45SPEAKER_03: And boy, you know, I don't know if it's because I'm an immigrant that I'm in constant awareness of how blessed we are in this country.
- 14:55SPEAKER_04: Especially California.
- 14:56SPEAKER_04: Oh.
- 14:57SPEAKER_04: Abundance.
- 14:58SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 14:59SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 14:59SPEAKER_03: You know, the the things that we have as issues or problems people around the world would beg to have.
- 15:09SPEAKER_02: Did you see the World Cup videos of people coming to the United States and like are blown away?
- 15:14SPEAKER_02: There's one that I saw the guy's in a grocery store, and he's like in a cereal idol at a grocery store, and he's just amazed about how many cereal options.
- 15:23SPEAKER_02: He keeps saying, I no, I'm sorry, he's not at a grocery store.
- 15:26SPEAKER_02: He is in a uh gas station, like a Bucky's.
- 15:29SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he's just blown away that he's at this gas station with all these cereal options.
- 15:33SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there was one I was watching a guy, he was uh talking about oh, free ketchup.
- 15:38SPEAKER_03: Because you have to pay for it.
- 15:40SPEAKER_04: In New Zealand, he's his kitchen, that's five cents.
- 15:42SPEAKER_03: And he was in one place where they gave him like free peanuts or you know, all right.
- 15:46SPEAKER_04: That's right.
- 15:47SPEAKER_04: You get free refills on the five.
- 15:48SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, refills.
- 15:49SPEAKER_04: That was the big thing.
- 15:50SPEAKER_03: They can't believe that that there are you know free refills here.
- 15:54SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's wonderful.
- 15:55SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 15:56SPEAKER_03: So so guys, let's let's jump into it.
- 15:58SPEAKER_03: Um what what would you guys say are some of the subtle ways that Christians today idolize comfort without even realizing it?
- 16:08SPEAKER_03: Because that's that's the key, right?
- 16:10SPEAKER_03: It's it's not that we do it intentionally per se, some may, but oftentimes it's it's done unconsciously, and I think we're we're inundated in this.
- 16:21SPEAKER_04: Let's define the word comfort.
- 16:23SPEAKER_04: What does it mean?
- 16:23SPEAKER_04: Does it mean luxury?
- 16:24SPEAKER_04: Does it mean happiness?
- 16:26SPEAKER_04: Does it mean contentment?
- 16:27SPEAKER_04: When does comfort become bad?
- 16:29SPEAKER_04: Well, when God gets put on the back burner, that's when comfort becomes bad.
- 16:32SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's right.
- 16:33SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 16:34SPEAKER_03: It's not that the Lord doesn't issue.
- 16:35SPEAKER_03: Thank you for joining us.
- 16:36SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you for joining us for hands.
- 16:38SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, it's not that the Lord doesn't provide uh comfort for us in life, but it's it's when, of course, we get out of bounds and that comfort becomes an idol.
- 16:50SPEAKER_02: I think uh yeah, I I think that's a great place to start.
- 16:53SPEAKER_02: It's important also to recognize, since we're using the word idol, uh, what we mean by that, which is many scholars would point that idolatry isn't one sin among many, but idolatry is actually the first sin we commit, which then leads to other sins.
- 17:08SPEAKER_02: And they're, you know, they're pulling from Ezekiel 14 specifically.
- 17:12SPEAKER_02: And then Augustine comes along, and here's the answer to the question.
- 17:15SPEAKER_02: Augustine comes along and he defines sin uh not just as like a cosmic law that's been broken, though it is that, and it's definitely never anything less than that.
- 17:27SPEAKER_02: But Augustine comes along and he develops sin and he comes up with this phrase in which he says, sin is having disordered loves.
- 17:36SPEAKER_02: In other words, we ought to love God first and foremost.
- 17:40SPEAKER_02: And sin is when we love the wrong things in the wrong ways at the wrong times.
- 17:46SPEAKER_02: That means that we can even turn gifts from God into issues of sin or idolatry.
- 17:55SPEAKER_02: Calvin said himself, we are idol factories.
- 17:59SPEAKER_02: Then uh David Pallison came along in the 90s and he pointed out that ultimately those four, there's four core idols that we all struggle with, that you can almost root every sin that we commit in.
- 18:11SPEAKER_02: Uh he says, power, praise, or the approval of other people, control, and then the fourth one is comfort.
- 18:19SPEAKER_02: Um, Timothy Keller wrote Counterfeit Gods.
- 18:22SPEAKER_02: He dedicates a couple of chapters to the idea of comfort.
- 18:25SPEAKER_02: And I remember there was one illustration that he gave that was so valuable and helpful to me.
- 18:30SPEAKER_02: He said, you think of like the dad who's put his 40 or 50 hours of work in, and you know, he comes home and it's a Friday and he's exhausted and he hasn't had any time to himself.
- 18:44SPEAKER_02: And so he turns on TV and he wants to watch a college football game.
- 18:48SPEAKER_02: I think those are on Fridays, let's say Saturday, whatever those things are on.
- 18:51SPEAKER_02: He wants to watch the game, right?
- 18:53SPEAKER_02: And he sits down, he's on the TV, and he wants to watch the game.
- 18:55SPEAKER_02: Now, in one ways, you can say that like the Lord blesses him with comfort after he's worked really hard.
- 19:01SPEAKER_02: But now imagine his kids come in, they've been at school this whole time, they haven't been able to hang out with their dad in a while, and they want his attention and they're being a little noisy, and the wife is there and she needs a little bit of help around the house, and now he gets frustrated and he starts yelling at them, and he's like, Man, haven't I worked all week?
- 19:17SPEAKER_02: Can't I just get a moment of comfort to myself?
- 19:20SPEAKER_02: You see, in that moment, a good thing has become a sin thing.
- 19:25SPEAKER_02: When we love, when we have disordered loves, is when something like comfort becomes sin.
- 19:32SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's so good.
- 19:34SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh you know, Mark, God has given us all things to enjoy, right?
- 19:40SPEAKER_03: All things come down from the Father of Lights with whom there's no variation or shadow returning, James tells us uh every good and perfect gift.
- 19:48SPEAKER_03: But how do we distinguish between enjoyment and dependence?
- 19:54SPEAKER_03: Because I think that's the key, right?
- 19:56SPEAKER_03: Like we can enjoy, but when when does that line get blurred and something becomes something that we depend on and it takes a place?
- 20:04SPEAKER_06: Yeah, well, there's a good litmus test you can take, and that is what is your response when it's taken away?
- 20:10SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's good.
- 20:11SPEAKER_06: You know, you take away you take away that that house that you work so hard for.
- 20:19SPEAKER_06: It's okay to have emotions, but when that house is taken away, when that child is taken away, when that finance is taken away, when your health is taken away, do you now lose hope?
- 20:29SPEAKER_06: Because Christ, scripture says, when Christ, who is our hope, appears.
- 20:33SPEAKER_06: So our hope is not in anything horizontal, it's it's only vertical.
- 20:38SPEAKER_06: So when you remove that thing, you see that it is uh an idol inside of your life.
- 20:44SPEAKER_06: It says Demas having loved this present world.
- 20:47SPEAKER_06: Now we don't know what he was in love with with this present world, but we know that there was something about this world that he didn't want to have taken away.
- 20:54SPEAKER_06: And he loved this present world.
- 20:57SPEAKER_06: So I I think it's just that.
- 20:59SPEAKER_06: Take that litmus test.
- 21:00SPEAKER_06: Are you seriously okay?
- 21:01SPEAKER_06: So this is why it's good to take inventory, right?
- 21:03SPEAKER_06: That uh as you just start going through all the different blessings inside of your life, how how would you feel if that was taken, if your account was down to zero?
- 21:11SPEAKER_06: Would you say, Well, the Lord gives, the Lord taketh away?
- 21:14SPEAKER_06: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
- 21:15SPEAKER_06: Well, where is your heart in the midst of it?
- 21:18SPEAKER_06: Because oftentimes God is not after that thing, he's after your heart.
- 21:21SPEAKER_06: And if he's got your heart, he doesn't need to remove that thing, right?
- 21:25SPEAKER_06: Now, that thing, if that thing is a good thing, he you're going to have it because no good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
- 21:32SPEAKER_06: If if you think, well, I could really use this vehicle to serve the Lord, to to get back and forth to work, to whatever it is.
- 21:41SPEAKER_06: Lamborghini, yeah.
- 21:42SPEAKER_06: That Lamborghini that Ray has, or the helicopter that Easy has.
- 21:46SPEAKER_06: Submarine, Mark.
- 21:47SPEAKER_06: That Oscar has.
- 21:48SPEAKER_06: If you begin to think like that, yeah, if it's something that you could be useful for the kingdom, or that God is just calling you to do, He it's good.
- 21:57SPEAKER_06: He's gonna give it.
- 21:59SPEAKER_06: You have not because you asked not.
- 22:01SPEAKER_06: But when you do ask, maybe you're asking amiss so that you might spend it on your pleasures.
- 22:05SPEAKER_06: That's why you maybe you don't have a helicopter.
- 22:07SPEAKER_06: But for some people, there it very well may be that a helicopter or a private jet is a necessary thing inside their life.
- 22:14SPEAKER_06: No, we don't live in that world, but some people's worlds, that that is their world.
- 22:19SPEAKER_06: So, but would you be okay without that?
- 22:22SPEAKER_06: Right?
- 22:22SPEAKER_06: So there's the limits to that.
- 22:24SPEAKER_06: That's good.
- 22:25SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
- 22:27SPEAKER_03: Um you know, I think sometimes we look at comfort in connection with material means, right?
- 22:38SPEAKER_03: You you have a house, you have a car, you've got luxuries of all sorts, right?
- 22:43SPEAKER_03: And I think sometimes we're blinded to what really are luxuries because we just we take them for granted because we have them.
- 22:50SPEAKER_03: But um but besides the the material, there's the physical.
- 22:56SPEAKER_03: There are those that don't have the comfort of good health and that that struggle with pain on a Constant basis.
- 23:05SPEAKER_03: You know, I was talking to a brother recently who is in constant chronic pain.
- 23:10SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 23:12SPEAKER_03: What do you say to that person?
- 23:13SPEAKER_02: Stop listening to the podcast.
- 23:15SPEAKER_04: That's what's causing chronic pain.
- 23:18SPEAKER_04: So I'm a loss to what to say to some people.
- 23:21SPEAKER_04: You don't want to be flippant and say, grab Romans 8.28, all things are working together for good.
- 23:25SPEAKER_04: Just stiff up a lip.
- 23:27SPEAKER_04: Jolly good shit, old chat.
- 23:28SPEAKER_04: No, but you you gotta empathize and weep with those that weep.
- 23:31SPEAKER_04: So sometimes I find it very difficult.
- 23:32SPEAKER_04: One of the signs at the end of the age is men will be, or people will be lovers of excuse me.
- 23:39SPEAKER_03: I was emphasizing that.
- 23:41SPEAKER_06: He's coughing, he's yawning.
- 23:43SPEAKER_06: I'm wondering when we're gonna be done talking about it.
- 23:45SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 23:46SPEAKER_04: Right.
- 23:47SPEAKER_04: So anyway, this is how to get judging.
- 23:49SPEAKER_04: This is how to get great wealth, real easy.
- 23:51SPEAKER_04: Got your attention?
- 23:52SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 23:53SPEAKER_04: Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
- 23:55SPEAKER_04: Who would think that would be a sin?
- 23:57SPEAKER_04: Seriously, you go go back to your pre-Christ days before you're a Christian, when your understanding was darkened, and someone says, one of the signs of the end of the age is that people be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
- 24:08SPEAKER_04: I'd say, what's wrong with that?
- 24:10SPEAKER_04: What's wrong with pleasure?
- 24:11SPEAKER_04: And yet it's a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments.
- 24:14SPEAKER_04: Every pleasure we have comes from God.
- 24:16SPEAKER_04: And I love to challenge non-Christians and say, what does God require of you?
- 24:20SPEAKER_04: I said, Oh, be a good person.
- 24:22SPEAKER_04: No, this is what he requires of you to love him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
- 24:26SPEAKER_04: And love your neighbor as yourself.
- 24:28SPEAKER_04: One young lady I spoke to the other day said she'd never sinned once.
- 24:32SPEAKER_03: Not once.
- 24:34SPEAKER_03: Made me smile.
- 24:34SPEAKER_04: And I asked her that one question Have you kept the first of the ten commandments?
- 24:38SPEAKER_04: And I said, That's to love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength.
- 24:41SPEAKER_04: And she said, Yes, I have.
- 24:42SPEAKER_04: Well, the Bible says I said, There's none that seek after God.
- 24:45SPEAKER_04: So you've just lied to me about that, and you've just broken the ninth commandment by lying, and that shows me I can't believe anything you've just told me because you're a liar.
- 24:54SPEAKER_04: And she humbled herself.
- 24:56SPEAKER_04: She did.
- 24:56SPEAKER_04: It was it was really wonderful.
- 24:58SPEAKER_04: That's good.
- 24:58SPEAKER_04: But who would have believed in our pre-Christ days that God required that he be first?
- 25:02SPEAKER_04: I mean, what did God ever do for me?
- 25:04SPEAKER_04: Huh?
- 25:04SPEAKER_04: I've never seen a miracle, and yet the breath in our lungs, the eyes we see, with the brain we think, with the skin that holds everything in all comes from God.
- 25:13SPEAKER_03: Amen.
- 25:14SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Oscar, I'd love you to speak to this.
- 25:17SPEAKER_03: You know, I I think that comfort becomes an idol anytime that certain elements that are meant to be unconditional become conditional.
- 25:29SPEAKER_03: So, in other words, we're to give thanks always for all things.
- 25:32SPEAKER_03: That's unconditional.
- 25:33SPEAKER_03: We're to rejoice in the Lord always.
- 25:37SPEAKER_03: Right?
- 25:37SPEAKER_03: Uh we are to worship God constantly.
- 25:41SPEAKER_03: We're to pray without ceasing.
- 25:43SPEAKER_03: So anytime an outside element encroaches and now causes you to add a condition for you to maintain that which is supposed to be unconditional, that becomes idolatry.
- 25:54SPEAKER_03: What do you think of that?
- 25:55SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's very true.
- 25:56SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, would you praise the Lord in your discomfort?
- 26:01SPEAKER_02: Right?
- 26:02SPEAKER_02: Many people wouldn't.
- 26:03SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, if you think about the American dream, the way in which we're taught to live this life is we're pursuing comfort at all times.
- 26:11SPEAKER_02: And so discomfort then becomes an anomaly in the expectant life we ought to have in this day and age.
- 26:20SPEAKER_02: But that's not that's not usual for for, I mean, most people who have lived on this planet over the last you know thousands of years are not used to the kind of comfort that we are experiencing today.
- 26:33SPEAKER_04: Could you believe people didn't have air conditioning?
- 26:35SPEAKER_02: That's a great example.
- 26:36SPEAKER_02: How about the reality that like at one point um during Jesus' life?
- 26:41SPEAKER_02: I might be sloth off just a little bit, but at one point during Jesus' time, the average amount of I think the birth rate was like five or six children per family, but only one to three would make it to their teen years.
- 26:57SPEAKER_02: So the amount of people that would later race rest children was like that wasn't a normal thing.
- 27:02SPEAKER_02: And yet death is such an encroachment on our expectations and our experiences in this life today.
- 27:09SPEAKER_02: You know, there's another way though that I think we know when comfort becomes an idol, and that's based on the way in which we respond when it's being threatened.
- 27:23SPEAKER_02: Uh uh Paul David Tripp points this out.
- 27:26SPEAKER_02: He says, we are incredibly good at protecting the thing that's on our throne of our hearts.
- 27:32SPEAKER_02: And so when my wife and my kids are threatening my comfort, I lash out at them in anger.
- 27:39SPEAKER_02: When my financial circumstances are threatening my comfort, I get worried and anxious and uncertain, right?
- 27:46SPEAKER_02: It reminds me of uh we've all most of us have probably seen Indiana Jones.
- 27:50SPEAKER_02: I think it's the Temple of Doom or The Last Crusade, where the opening scene, it's so iconic.
- 27:56SPEAKER_02: The opening scene, you've got Indy like getting into this temple, and he finally gets to the middle of this temple, and there is this literally a golden idol.
- 28:06SPEAKER_02: And you guys remember the moment where he has like this bag of sand and he's looking at the idol, and he takes a little bit of sand out to make sure it weighs the perfect amount, and then he grabs the idol, and perfect timing puts the sand on the mechanism so that he can take the idol.
- 28:22SPEAKER_02: And what happens?
- 28:24SPEAKER_02: It's almost like the mountain comes alive in anger, and it starts to shake and it starts to attack him and it starts throwing everything because it's taken.
- 28:34SPEAKER_02: Indy has taken its idol.
- 28:35SPEAKER_02: That is us.
- 28:37SPEAKER_02: When people are threatening the idol on our hearts, we shake with anger, with anxiousness, with uncertainty.
- 28:43SPEAKER_02: And so, for many ways, whether it's comfort or power or the praise of other people or control, a great litmus test for you is I think it's it's Luther that says, follow the breadcrumbs.
- 28:56SPEAKER_02: What makes you angry?
- 28:58SPEAKER_02: What makes you anxious and uncertain?
- 29:01SPEAKER_02: What makes you unkind?
- 29:03SPEAKER_02: There's usually an idol being threatened behind that behavior.
- 29:07SPEAKER_04: Is that the movie where the great big avocado bull comes rolling?
- 29:10SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 29:11SPEAKER_03: That's exactly right.
- 29:12SPEAKER_04: Rangers of Lustar.
- 29:14SPEAKER_03: That is, you're right, yeah.
- 29:15SPEAKER_03: So good.
- 29:15SPEAKER_03: And isn't it interesting how relative that all is, right?
- 29:19SPEAKER_03: Because you may have someone who, if they had a million dollars in their bank account, would be like doing backflips.
- 29:27SPEAKER_03: But then you might get a multimillionaire who the thought of only having a million dollars in their bank account is is utter terror.
- 29:34SPEAKER_03: That's good, yeah.
- 29:34SPEAKER_03: And so we have to remember that it in all things, right?
- 29:37SPEAKER_03: It's not your circumstances, it's where your heart is at that that's that's key and huge and important.
- 29:44SPEAKER_03: Let me say this.
- 29:45SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it's tragic that unbelievers put Christians to shame when it comes to certain characteristics that we should have and can have because we know the Lord and don't because we're self-deceived or blinded.
- 30:01SPEAKER_03: You know, years ago, if you guys remember, we had uh Satanist come and be a part of our television program.
- 30:07SPEAKER_03: We interviewed him out here in the area, and I was in correspondence with this guy, and I remember Jack, what's his name?
- 30:13SPEAKER_03: Jack Melbranch, that's right.
- 30:15SPEAKER_03: Uh I remember being blown away by how excellent this guy was in his correspondence and in the the way that he uh arrived on time, he was ready, prepared.
- 30:29SPEAKER_03: And I remember he said to me in one of his correspondences, he said, as a representative of the church of Satan.
- 30:37SPEAKER_03: Like he actually said that.
- 30:38SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking this guy gets it.
- 30:40SPEAKER_03: He's he's talking about how he wants things to go in the right way because he's a representative of the church of Satan.
- 30:44SPEAKER_03: And it's so tragic that as believers, oftentimes we're not recognizing that when it comes to things like comfort and how we conduct ourselves in connection with having it or not having it, that we are representing the Lord to a lost and dying world.
- 31:01SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, you think about what it says in Philippians 2, 14 through 16, do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may be blameless and harmless children of God without fault, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world.
- 31:18SPEAKER_03: He's saying, listen, this attitude of not grumbling, murmuring, complaining is tied to the fact that you're an example to the world, you know.
- 31:26SPEAKER_03: And Ray.
- 31:27SPEAKER_04: I absolutely love that verse.
- 31:29SPEAKER_04: In the midst, among whom in the world.
- 31:31SPEAKER_04: That's where the Christian's supposed to be, not on a cozy clique in a monastery without walls or the vow of silence.
- 31:36SPEAKER_04: We're to be in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom we shine as lights in the world.
- 31:42SPEAKER_04: So we need to electrify the pews and get the church out into the world.
- 31:46SPEAKER_04: And I love what you're doing uh with the the table where you we answer questions that Easy and Oscar are doing, where you've you've got two pastors coming to that table.
- 31:56SPEAKER_04: I think that's just wonderful.
- 31:57SPEAKER_03: It is, it's a great idea, Mark.
- 31:59SPEAKER_03: A great way to get pastors involved.
- 32:01SPEAKER_03: And I think as as they experience it, they'll be overjoyed and realize, wow, it's non-threatening because you got Mark and Oscar there, or whoever's gonna with them.
- 32:09SPEAKER_04: If they can't answer a question, you guys can just take over.
- 32:12SPEAKER_04: It's not gonna feel threatened.
- 32:13SPEAKER_04: It's not like open-air preaching.
- 32:14SPEAKER_04: Pastor, come and open air preach, stand on the spot.
- 32:17SPEAKER_04: That's a little intimidating for a pastor.
- 32:18SPEAKER_03: I like the way you put it, Mark, recently.
- 32:20SPEAKER_03: And of course, once you said it's getting the the fish to jump into the net.
- 32:23SPEAKER_03: Right.
- 32:23SPEAKER_03: They're coming up and they're they're asking you questions and they want to engage with you.
- 32:28SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and that the banner, I have three senior pastors actually have signed up to go out with me.
- 32:32SPEAKER_06: And the banner is ask a Christian pastor anything.
- 32:37SPEAKER_05: Right?
- 32:37SPEAKER_06: And I didn't have to say, hey, I'll help you out if you mess up or whatever.
- 32:40SPEAKER_06: No, they're just like, no, this is exciting.
- 32:42SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
- 32:43SPEAKER_06: So uh let's come up.
- 32:45SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 32:46SPEAKER_03: So I I I wanted to share something in relation to unbelievers and putting us to shame.
- 32:53SPEAKER_03: I recently watched a video of Lady Gaga.
- 32:56SPEAKER_03: Um, you guys know Lady Gaga, famous for her outlandish costumes, at least in the past.
- 33:01SPEAKER_03: I mean, one time she wore like a dress made of meat.
- 33:03SPEAKER_04: She must have talent to have a name like Gaga.
- 33:06SPEAKER_03: Lady Gaga, yeah.
- 33:07SPEAKER_03: She is actually really talented.
- 33:09SPEAKER_03: But it was a video of her talking about her incessant chronic pain.
- 33:15SPEAKER_03: And she said, you know, there are times I find myself lying on the ground and in such intense pain, and yet at the same time, I'm asking God, and she I don't believe she's a believer, but she's talking about God in a general sense, what should I do?
- 33:30SPEAKER_03: And she said, I've learned to take my chronic pain and turn it into gratitude.
- 33:36SPEAKER_03: She said, I've learned to take this pain and recognize that God is doing something in me and He wants to do something through me, and He wants to take this pain and help me to help other people because I understand what they're going through.
- 33:50SPEAKER_03: And I shared this recently with a believer who's been just struggling with a lot of a lot of pain and intensity.
- 33:56SPEAKER_03: But but we need to remember that, you know, that we have the hope that can enable us when we don't have the comfort that we want to continue to press on.
- 34:08SPEAKER_03: Mark, how about how about when comfort hinders us from following the call of God?
- 34:15SPEAKER_03: This place is too dangerous.
- 34:18SPEAKER_03: These people might be too harsh or intense.
- 34:21SPEAKER_03: I might get humiliated or ridiculed.
- 34:23SPEAKER_03: How do we how do we count?
- 34:24SPEAKER_06: Yeah, remember that the safest place to be is the center of God's will.
- 34:28SPEAKER_06: So whether that is in the heart of Compton or whether that's in the belly of a great fish or in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the safest place to be is where God wants you to be.
- 34:39SPEAKER_06: Which would mean, the antithesis, the most dangerous place in the world would be, would be the exact opposite.
- 34:46SPEAKER_06: So if you think you're not safe in Compton, well, Beverly Hills, they they have uh fires and accidents and break-ins just as well.
- 34:54SPEAKER_06: Right?
- 34:55SPEAKER_06: So we want to be found uh in the center of God's will.
- 35:00SPEAKER_06: In Acts 14, verse 22, it says, Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.
- 35:08SPEAKER_06: You know, our culture teaches us to avoid discomfort at all costs.
- 35:14SPEAKER_06: You know, I have a like kind of a long-standing joke when I go before uh a doctor, a nurse, and they'll ask, Are you allergic to anything?
- 35:21SPEAKER_06: I say, Yes, pain.
- 35:22SPEAKER_06: I'm allergic to pain, right?
- 35:24SPEAKER_06: I'm allergic to uh bad food.
- 35:27SPEAKER_06: You know, my my my my discomfort is anything that will make me frown and not smile at the moment.
- 35:33SPEAKER_06: So when we talk about our comfort hindering us to go before God, it is a blessing from God to not have a lot of finances.
- 35:44SPEAKER_06: Who was it the psalmist that said, Don't give me too much that I forget you, don't give me too little that I curse you, right?
- 35:51SPEAKER_06: Give me what I need, you know, for the moment.
- 35:54SPEAKER_06: And there's there's a good word in there, there's a good thought, you know, in the midst of that.
- 36:00SPEAKER_06: If your greatest goal is comfort, you'll resist one of God's greatest tools for your sanctification.
- 36:08SPEAKER_06: The greatest tool that God will use inside of our life is that discomfort.
- 36:16SPEAKER_06: If you don't have finances and rent is due tomorrow, your prayer life has just increased.
- 36:23SPEAKER_06: If you have a wayward child inside your life and you've spent 18 years raising them and now they're wayward, you're fellowshipping with God like never before.
- 36:34SPEAKER_06: You've been given cancerous news, and now eternity is stamped on your eyelids, and you have six months to live.
- 36:40SPEAKER_06: Guess what?
- 36:41SPEAKER_06: You're coming early to church, you're staying late, you're you're now volunteering for things you never thought you would volunteer for.
- 36:48SPEAKER_06: You're getting rid of things that are just weights.
- 36:50SPEAKER_06: When they were weights for you earlier in life, you just didn't realize it.
- 36:54SPEAKER_06: So the greatest thing God can do is to give you what you need, not necessarily what you want.
- 36:59SPEAKER_06: And that's the greatest definition of love, giving somebody what they need.
- 37:03SPEAKER_06: And a true friend is somebody who walks in the door when everybody else walks out.
- 37:06SPEAKER_06: So when discomfort comes in, when that pain and that suffering comes in, when that tribulation comes knocking, we have to realize that we can look up.
- 37:14SPEAKER_06: You know, Van Sabner said sometimes God puts us on our backs so that we look up, right?
- 37:20SPEAKER_06: So it's it's time to look up.
- 37:22SPEAKER_06: We look up and let God do what he does best.
- 37:26SPEAKER_06: Prepare us for eternity and prepare us for him.
- 37:28SPEAKER_03: Ray, how does it feel to hear your name mentioned?
- 37:30SPEAKER_03: It's just weird.
- 37:32SPEAKER_04: Seriously, because you tend to perk up when you hear your name.
- 37:35SPEAKER_04: And I keep hearing it in vain.
- 37:37SPEAKER_04: It just it's meaningless.
- 37:39SPEAKER_04: We should call you discomfort.
- 37:40SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I get called down.
- 37:41SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say a good book title for you, Comfort in the Midst of Discomfort.
- 37:46SPEAKER_03: Ooh.
- 37:47SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
- 37:49SPEAKER_03: I'm not writing anything.
- 37:53SPEAKER_04: I just finished one and I was I was absolutely exhausted.
- 37:56SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you'll write more books for sure.
- 37:59SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, you know, you think about the value of sanctification.
- 38:07SPEAKER_03: Like this came to mind.
- 38:08SPEAKER_03: How valuable is sanctification to us?
- 38:11SPEAKER_03: We don't just pay for things monetarily, right?
- 38:14SPEAKER_03: We pay for things with pain and suffering and time and and losses and whatnot.
- 38:20SPEAKER_03: But how much are we willing to pay in those ways in order to receive sanctification, which means to become more like Christ?
- 38:31SPEAKER_03: I shared that analogy, that soccer player who got to meet Ronaldo and she was like going crazy.
- 38:35SPEAKER_03: And I said, What if every time she went through a hard time in life, she became a little more like Ronaldo?
- 38:40SPEAKER_03: How excited would she be, right?
- 38:41SPEAKER_03: Her hero.
- 38:42SPEAKER_06: Is that original?
- 38:43SPEAKER_06: Did you come up with that?
- 38:44SPEAKER_06: Uh pride.
- 38:49SPEAKER_03: Good.
- 38:50SPEAKER_03: But see, being prideful, Mark, sanctifies me.
- 38:52SPEAKER_03: So I'll pay the price.
- 38:54SPEAKER_04: So when she meets Ronaldo and becomes more like Ronaldo, is she wants to become a good soccer player?
- 38:59SPEAKER_04: Was that her idea?
- 39:00SPEAKER_03: Well, no, she was just, it was a video I saw and the thought came to mind because he was her hero and she was like crying as she met him.
- 39:05SPEAKER_03: She was like freaking out.
- 39:06SPEAKER_03: And I thought if she was told every time you went through a hard time, you'd become a little more like him.
- 39:10SPEAKER_03: Because he's her hero.
- 39:10SPEAKER_03: She wants to be like him.
- 39:11SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she wants a mustache and a beard.
- 39:15SPEAKER_03: Are you promoting transgenderism?
- 39:17SPEAKER_03: You heard it here on the podcast.
- 39:21SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 39:23SPEAKER_03: But Oscar, there's also the element of not understanding, right, that we don't understand.
- 39:33SPEAKER_03: I mean, the value of that, right?
- 39:35SPEAKER_03: A little two-year-old, mom takes him, puts him in the car, takes him out of the car, walks him into this strange building, puts him into the arms of a strange, maybe funny-looking, scary-looking man he's never seen, takes the child from her, takes a sharp instrument, plunges it into the child, and creates pain.
- 39:56SPEAKER_03: I mean, that that's all that kid is seeing.
- 39:58SPEAKER_03: Right.
- 40:01SPEAKER_03: He doesn't understand that he doesn't understand.
- 40:03SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 40:04SPEAKER_03: And it's like when the Lord strips things from us, takes things from us, it's for our good.
- 40:09SPEAKER_03: Right?
- 40:10SPEAKER_03: That child is being helped.
- 40:11SPEAKER_03: He has no clue and can't understand that he can't understand.
- 40:14SPEAKER_03: But it's like at least we need to recognize okay, I don't understand, but this is real.
- 40:19SPEAKER_03: God is doing something.
- 40:21SPEAKER_02: It's important to recognize you bring up sanctification, which is it's important for us to recognize that the aim of our lives is not comfort, it's not security, it's not the accumulation of things, it's not the approval of other people.
- 40:39SPEAKER_02: It truly is to become more like Christ.
- 40:43SPEAKER_02: And think about that phrase, because again, you you used the example of John 3.16 becoming bored to us, which how a shame that it would be.
- 40:51SPEAKER_02: Think about the reality to become more like Christ, to become more like the Trinitarian creator God, to become more like the most beautiful being ever, to become more like him, that he's shaping us to be like that.
- 41:08SPEAKER_02: You know what, what beauty is there in a stone?
- 41:11SPEAKER_02: It's just a stone.
- 41:13SPEAKER_02: But when a when a chisel gets put to it, you get a Michelangelo.
- 41:18SPEAKER_02: And that is that is what God is doing to us.
- 41:21SPEAKER_02: He is chiseling away our bits to get to our true selves, the ones made in the image of God.
- 41:28SPEAKER_02: And you used a great analogy.
- 41:29SPEAKER_02: It reminds me of, you know, I've said it before, like when my daughter Maddie broke her arm, uh, we had to take her to the emergency room, and we're sitting there waiting in the lobby, and she's worried, is this gonna hurt?
- 41:39SPEAKER_02: Is this gonna hurt?
- 41:40SPEAKER_02: We walk into the back, and I'm telling her it's not gonna hurt.
- 41:44SPEAKER_02: They're just gonna put a cast on it.
- 41:45SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I've told you guys the story.
- 41:47SPEAKER_02: We walk into the back, and there's this like motorcycle riding woman who's completely dislocated her arm, and the doctor's resetting it, and she is screaming bloody murder, you know.
- 42:00SPEAKER_02: And my daughter Maddie's like, oh, this is gonna be the worst.
- 42:03SPEAKER_02: He's gonna do that to me.
- 42:04SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, no, no, he's not.
- 42:05SPEAKER_02: And that same doctor walks up to us, like wiping his hands, like, all right, what's going on?
- 42:10SPEAKER_02: She was just about having a heart attack.
- 42:12SPEAKER_02: She thought she was going to be, you know, killed for no reason whatsoever.
- 42:16SPEAKER_02: And yet, and yet that doctor was so gentle and putting that cast on her to help her heal.
- 42:24SPEAKER_02: And in that same way, sometimes in the midst of the storms, in the midst of the pain, in the midst of our comforts being removed from us, as you pointed out, we can't fathom what the Lord is doing.
- 42:37SPEAKER_02: But isn't it possible that in the same way a four-year-old can't fathom the goodness of a doctor, that we can't fathom the goodness of God who is chiseling away at us for our good and his glory.
- 42:52SPEAKER_02: Wow.
- 42:53SPEAKER_04: You guys ever broken a bone?
- 42:55SPEAKER_03: Uh yes, when I was a little boy, my arms.
- 42:57SPEAKER_03: I've been meaning to get it fixed.
- 42:59SPEAKER_03: Get that thing out of here.
- 43:03SPEAKER_02: Have you, Oscar?
- 43:04SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, remember my foot.
- 43:06SPEAKER_02: You broke your foot?
- 43:06SPEAKER_02: I broke uh my sesamoid bones.
- 43:08SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's right.
- 43:09SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 43:15SPEAKER_04: It's the most important.
- 43:16SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's right.
- 43:17SPEAKER_04: Just like it.
- 43:18SPEAKER_03: Didn't Brian Regan do this.
- 43:20SPEAKER_03: That's right, yeah, yeah.
- 43:22SPEAKER_04: Who do you think you are?
- 43:25SPEAKER_03: You know, one of the most profound questions, I think, ever asked in the Bible, and and what a circumstance in the midst of which it was asked, and that was Job.
- 43:35SPEAKER_03: Right?
- 43:36SPEAKER_03: The guy loses everything.
- 43:37SPEAKER_03: And it's so it's so unrelenting because it says, and while he was still speaking, another came, and while he was still speaking, another came, one loss after the other until finally it culminated in all his children dying.
- 43:51SPEAKER_03: And then after that, right, God strikes him and and and or Satan really, God allows Satan, and he gets boils from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot.
- 44:00SPEAKER_03: I mean, like this is an intense pain.
- 44:01SPEAKER_04: Just boils.
- 44:03SPEAKER_04: There were sore boils.
- 44:04SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sore boils.
- 44:06SPEAKER_04: So they were not just boils, they were a special sort.
- 44:09SPEAKER_03: A special kind, yeah.
- 44:11SPEAKER_03: Intense and painful beyond description.
- 44:13SPEAKER_04: Never had a boil?
- 44:15SPEAKER_04: It's worse than a broken femur.
- 44:18SPEAKER_03: And and and what's his wife say to him?
- 44:20SPEAKER_03: Curse God and die.
- 44:21SPEAKER_03: That's nice.
- 44:22SPEAKER_03: Right.
- 44:22SPEAKER_03: And what's he say to her?
- 44:24SPEAKER_03: Shut up.
- 44:24SPEAKER_03: He says, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks.
- 44:29SPEAKER_03: I love Ray to interpret the Bible, the stuff he put in there.
- 44:33SPEAKER_03: And he said to her, Shut up.
- 44:36SPEAKER_03: You speak as one of the foolish women speaks.
- 44:39SPEAKER_03: Shall we accept good from God?
- 44:42SPEAKER_03: And shall we not accept adversity?
- 44:45SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
- 44:46SPEAKER_03: Like, you know what I'm saying?
- 44:47SPEAKER_03: Like, some people, yeah, shut up.
- 44:49SPEAKER_03: You have no authority with which to speak.
- 44:52SPEAKER_03: This is a guy in the midst of indescribable pain and anguish.
- 44:56SPEAKER_03: But in that moment, he saw with clarity Shall we like, oh, thank you, Lord?
- 45:01SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 45:01SPEAKER_03: Shall we accept good and not adversity?
- 45:02SPEAKER_03: And why is that?
- 45:03SPEAKER_03: Because it's a Attached to, at least in that moment, I think, some understanding that God has purposes, right?
- 45:09SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously we we see Job ended up becoming demanding and then God reproves him in the end.
- 45:13SPEAKER_03: But but before that entire sort of thing.
- 45:15SPEAKER_03: I sympathize with Job.
- 45:16SPEAKER_04: I think he did incredibly well to chapter 34.
- 45:19SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 45:19SPEAKER_04: To go 34 chapters and not whine, and then suddenly he says, Oh, I've had enough.
- 45:24SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 45:24SPEAKER_02: Now, where is God?
- 45:25SPEAKER_02: Have you guys heard the song Where Were You by Ghost Ship?
- 45:28SPEAKER_02: No man, it makes me weep almost every time I listen to it.
- 45:31SPEAKER_02: It's basically a summary of Job.
- 45:34SPEAKER_02: The lyrics.
- 45:34SPEAKER_02: Oh well, yeah.
- 45:36SPEAKER_02: I'll read them.
- 45:37SPEAKER_02: It says, uh, I said, God, I do not understand this world.
- 45:42SPEAKER_02: Everything is dying and broken.
- 45:44SPEAKER_02: Why do I see nothing but suffering?
- 45:47SPEAKER_02: God, I'm asking, could this be your plan?
- 45:49SPEAKER_02: Sin has taken hold of this whole land.
- 45:52SPEAKER_02: Will you not say anything else to me?
- 45:54SPEAKER_02: He said, Where were you the day that I measured, sunk the banks and stretched the line over all the earth and carved out its cornerstone?
- 46:03SPEAKER_02: Where were you the day that I spoke and told the sun to split the night open?
- 46:08SPEAKER_02: Calmed the morning dawn with the light to show, who shut in the ocean with stone doors, marked the reach of tide on those new shores, hung the day the waves rose and first broke forth?
- 46:20SPEAKER_02: Have you seen the springs that great sea walked the caverns carved in the black deep through the gates of darkness there on its floor?
- 46:29SPEAKER_02: Have you seen the armory I hold?
- 46:32SPEAKER_02: Snow and hail are stacked up in silos for the times of trouble and war and strife.
- 46:38SPEAKER_02: Can you raise your voice to the storm cloud?
- 46:41SPEAKER_02: Would the thunder answer and ring out?
- 46:44SPEAKER_02: Does the lightning ask you where it should strike?
- 46:47SPEAKER_02: Who has cleft the channels for torrents?
- 46:50SPEAKER_02: Rain to sprout the desert with forest?
- 46:53SPEAKER_02: In the wilderness that my hand has built, can you hunt the prey for your lions?
- 46:58SPEAKER_02: Can you use the cords of Orion?
- 47:01SPEAKER_02: Is this whole world being bent beneath your will?
- 47:06SPEAKER_02: And then it like gets real soft and it says, I spoke of things I did not understand.
- 47:11SPEAKER_02: Things too wonderful for me.
- 47:13SPEAKER_02: Although I had no right to ask, my God knelt and answered me.
- 47:19SPEAKER_06: Whoa.
- 47:21SPEAKER_06: Have you got a link for that?
- 47:22SPEAKER_02: I'll send it to you.
- 47:23SPEAKER_02: That's so good.
- 47:25SPEAKER_06: What is the name of the artist again?
- 47:26SPEAKER_02: Ghost Ship is the name of the artist.
- 47:29SPEAKER_02: Where were you?
- 47:30SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll send it to you guys right now.
- 47:31SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's good.
- 47:33SPEAKER_03: Um, so Ray, I I wanted I wanted you to touch on this a little bit because I know you you constantly pray for another kidney stone.
- 47:41SPEAKER_03: Um you know that visceral reaction is so real right there.
- 47:48SPEAKER_03: Ray, I I I would never wish what you went through on your worst enemy.
- 47:53SPEAKER_03: I I remember that.
- 47:54SPEAKER_03: I I'd never seen you like that in my life.
- 47:57SPEAKER_03: What what what did the Lord do in you through that season?
- 48:01SPEAKER_04: Because it was a total waste of time, and I don't want it to happen again.
- 48:05SPEAKER_04: Were you singing Refiner's Fire?
- 48:07SPEAKER_04: No, don't even think about it.
- 48:09SPEAKER_04: Seriously, it was what was called an impacted kidney stone.
- 48:13SPEAKER_04: That means it wasn't going to pass.
- 48:15SPEAKER_04: This wasn't this wasn't going to pass.
- 48:18SPEAKER_04: And I didn't realize that until I there were four operations, cost$100,000 according to the insurance company.
- 48:24SPEAKER_04: I remember just lying on our living room floor night after night, just crying my eyes out in pain.
- 48:28SPEAKER_04: It always lasted 40 to 50 minutes.
- 48:31SPEAKER_04: And what amazed me, that 40 to 50 minutes went really fast.
- 48:35SPEAKER_04: It didn't go slow.
- 48:36SPEAKER_04: I couldn't believe it was like five or ten minutes.
- 48:38SPEAKER_04: And it's because when you're busy doing something, time seems to fly.
- 48:42SPEAKER_04: But um, yeah, it was uh it was terrible.
- 48:45SPEAKER_04: But in in in the middle of it, there was an incredible highlight.
- 48:48SPEAKER_04: I remember Sue was driving me to the uh hospital because I was in such pain, and I just wanted to get out.
- 48:55SPEAKER_04: I said, Stop because I want to get out and just lie on the sidewalk.
- 48:57SPEAKER_04: Uh, I was dead serious.
- 48:59SPEAKER_04: I and this happened to my my uh daughter-in-law, she had a kidney stoner, wanted to lie on the ground because there's nowhere else to go.
- 49:05SPEAKER_04: It's just really weird.
- 49:07SPEAKER_04: And Sue got lost, taking me to the airport.
- 49:09SPEAKER_04: I mean, not the airport, to the hospital.
- 49:10SPEAKER_04: And she's got an incredible sense of direction, but she was so stressed.
- 49:14SPEAKER_04: What I was going through, we got lost.
- 49:16SPEAKER_04: And uh anyway, uh it did pass, and I I thank God, and the highlight, two highlights.
- 49:23SPEAKER_04: One was when Rachel heard I'd gone to the hospital, I drove myself there, I think, or did I get Jacob or Daniel to take me there?
- 49:30SPEAKER_04: I was in such pain in the waiting room that I went out and stood in the parking lot and just went and leaned against a tree.
- 49:35SPEAKER_04: And then I suddenly I don't say this without crying, I looked up and saw my daughter, Rachel, coming towards me, and I just fell into her arms.
- 49:43SPEAKER_04: And she came in and she advocated for me with those doctors.
- 49:47SPEAKER_04: She was like a mother bear that said, I've never seen my father like this.
- 49:52SPEAKER_04: You've got to do something because they wouldn't give you a room, you just sit there and wait.
- 49:55SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 49:55SPEAKER_04: You know, the the oil, the oil gets taken to that one which squeaks loudest, and I wasn't squeaking loud enough as far as they were concerned.
- 50:02SPEAKER_04: So anyway, they gave me a room, and I was sitting in the room, in comes a doctor, and this is a kind of paraphrase.
- 50:09SPEAKER_04: He said, How dare you take up a bed when you've got a kidney stone?
- 50:13SPEAKER_04: You go back to you?
- 50:14SPEAKER_04: Yeah, he kicked me out of the it was that that was a paraphrase.
- 50:17SPEAKER_04: Wow.
- 50:17SPEAKER_04: But it was like that.
- 50:18SPEAKER_04: It was like, who are you?
- 50:19SPEAKER_04: Just got a kidney stone.
- 50:20SPEAKER_04: Go home and pass it, not realizing it was impacted.
- 50:23SPEAKER_04: And so I just got dressed and went home.
- 50:26SPEAKER_04: And you heard about it.
- 50:27SPEAKER_04: Can you explain what you did?
- 50:29SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
- 50:30SPEAKER_04: It was just an amazing thing.
- 50:31SPEAKER_04: Uh in how to overcome the fear of death, this whole incident is uh in one of the chapters.
- 50:37SPEAKER_03: Well, if I knew that he he was that harsh with you, I would have even gotten more intense.
- 50:41SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I I I just know it's it's a crazy thing.
- 50:45SPEAKER_03: I just know how people can sometimes the world especially respond to outward appearance.
- 50:51SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so I said, no, no, that this this needs to be taken to another level.
- 50:54SPEAKER_03: So I I put on my best suit.
- 50:57SPEAKER_03: It's a pretty sharp suit.
- 50:59SPEAKER_03: I put it on, I go in there, and I walk in there.
- 51:01SPEAKER_03: And it was, I mean, to this day, I still can't believe the response.
- 51:06SPEAKER_03: I walk in all the hey, uh, yes, sir, yes.
- 51:08SPEAKER_03: And I remember, I think uh Sue, mom, they they gave her this crazy little chair to sit on.
- 51:13SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I walk in, the nurse goes, Oh, sir, let me bring this over.
- 51:16SPEAKER_03: They bring in one of those that reclines and like becomes a bed.
- 51:18SPEAKER_03: And she's like, please have a seat.
- 51:20SPEAKER_03: And and I said, Hey, you guys need to take, and everything was just like, okay, yes, sir.
- 51:24SPEAKER_03: And then as I'm as I'm walking out, I was talking to someone, and then one of the nurses looks at me and goes, Oh, wait, I'm sorry, sir.
- 51:29SPEAKER_03: Are you you're not a doctor?
- 51:31SPEAKER_03: So they thought I was a doctor based on the way that I was dressed.
- 51:35SPEAKER_04: It wasn't just the way you dress, it was the way you acted.
- 51:38SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you acted with a sense of authority, just the way you walked around, because you knew you looked cool.
- 51:43SPEAKER_04: And and and people could feel that.
- 51:45SPEAKER_04: It was quite it's like when you walk in this a dog will obey you just by your attitude.
- 51:49SPEAKER_03: Well, it's interesting you said that.
- 51:51SPEAKER_03: I I I remember uh Cesar Milan, he talks about how when you're interacting with with a dog, you have calm, uh a calm, assertive demeanor and the dog response to that.
- 52:01SPEAKER_03: We're not equating people to dogs, but there is something when you are though I'm pretty sure you are.
- 52:07SPEAKER_03: There is something about having a sense of calm but authority versus being frazzled or even worked up that that commands respect.
- 52:14SPEAKER_04: But then so what happened from that?
- 52:16SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so instantly they just they And they gave me an operation.
- 52:19SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they gave me an operation finally, and they said the doctor said uh we we can operate and do this thing, but I just want to tell you, I would not have this operation.
- 52:30SPEAKER_04: That's what the doctor said to me because it was too risky.
- 52:32SPEAKER_04: And I thought, well, I'm 70 something, let's just go for it.
- 52:35SPEAKER_04: And we went for it, and I'm still here.
- 52:38SPEAKER_04: And they got to and they got to keep the kidney stone.
- 52:43SPEAKER_04: I didn't even get the thing.
- 52:45SPEAKER_02: Well, Mark and I were already casting lots for your things.
- 52:48SPEAKER_03: Uh Ray, the the thing, the thing that uh should produce gratitude in you.
- 52:52SPEAKER_03: You you accidentally said, and Sue was taking me to the airport, the only thing worse than having a kidney stone is having one on an airplane, thousands of feet up in the air and having no relief.
- 53:02SPEAKER_03: So, but Ray, the Lord He He worked a refining gratitude in you.
- 53:07SPEAKER_03: Fire.
- 53:07SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
- 53:08SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh it this this seriously it brought it even changed my witnessing.
- 53:12SPEAKER_04: I could feel the tone when I witnessed to people.
- 53:15SPEAKER_04: I don't know what it was, but something happened.
- 53:17SPEAKER_04: And a sense of empathy, which moves from compassion to empathy.
- 53:20SPEAKER_04: Empathy feels people's pains.
- 53:22SPEAKER_04: I feel it.
- 53:23SPEAKER_04: You know, when someone's got a pain, I can feel it because I've been through it.
- 53:26SPEAKER_03: I remember years ago having a an indescribably anguish-filled, painful sore throat.
- 53:34SPEAKER_03: I I I don't know if it was strep or um I don't know, there are all these different things, but it was beyond just a sore throat, you know.
- 53:41SPEAKER_03: Man flu.
- 53:42SPEAKER_03: Man flu.
- 53:43SPEAKER_03: I I couldn't, I could I couldn't swallow without excruciating pain, like intense.
- 53:49SPEAKER_03: I just remember thinking about the the torments of hell and just the compassion it created in my heart, you know, as I thought of that.
- 53:56SPEAKER_03: And I just thought, what if Paul had a kidney stone?
- 54:00SPEAKER_03: That would be that's what he was talking about.
- 54:06SPEAKER_03: Mark, I'd love you to speak to this from MacArthur.
- 54:08SPEAKER_03: He said the church is most healthy when Christians are least concerned about comfort and most concerned about holiness.
- 54:17SPEAKER_06: Say it again.
- 54:18SPEAKER_03: The church is most healthy.
- 54:20SPEAKER_06: No, I gotcha.
- 54:24SPEAKER_03: Is it can I file a lawsuit?
- 54:26SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna do that.
- 54:28SPEAKER_02: Did he make you uncomfortable?
- 54:29SPEAKER_06: Very you know, in John 14, 27, it says, Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
- 54:39SPEAKER_06: You know, crosses were not symbols of comfort.
- 54:45SPEAKER_06: They are symbols of death.
- 54:48SPEAKER_06: You know, we've talked, I've heard you say it for many years.
- 54:51SPEAKER_06: You know, it's it'd be like uh people wearing necklaces with uh electric chairs, yeah, you know, around it.
- 54:57SPEAKER_06: Like you wouldn't do that.
- 54:58SPEAKER_06: You wouldn't see a little miniature guest.
- 55:00SPEAKER_04: Hang on, we should do that.
- 55:01SPEAKER_04: Be a great witnessing tool.
- 55:03SPEAKER_04: Oh no, here we go.
- 55:04SPEAKER_04: Next, say reach out, just touch this.
- 55:06SPEAKER_04: This is oh, yeah.
- 55:10SPEAKER_03: Is that is that where that's where I got it from, yeah.
- 55:14SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 55:16SPEAKER_06: Um you hear people say, you know, I'm just bearing my cross.
- 55:20SPEAKER_06: Yeah, but we have to remember that bearing your cross was was something a lot different than somebody unwillingly going through what they're going through, right?
- 55:31SPEAKER_06: Jesus willingly went to the cross.
- 55:34SPEAKER_06: For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.
- 55:39SPEAKER_06: So following Jesus, what does it mean, right?
- 55:41SPEAKER_06: It means dying to self, dying to plans, dying to your reputation, and sometimes dying to comfort, right?
- 55:49SPEAKER_06: That that's what it means, right?
- 55:50SPEAKER_06: So God is calling me to do these things.
- 55:53SPEAKER_06: And I think I think perhaps we look at the rich young ruler and and we look at what he did, and he went away sorrowful because he had many riches, but it doesn't say he didn't go away and do the things that Jesus told him to do.
- 56:11SPEAKER_06: He didn't.
- 56:12SPEAKER_06: We we don't know.
- 56:12SPEAKER_06: Maybe he didn't, maybe he didn't.
- 56:14SPEAKER_06: I'm not sure.
- 56:14SPEAKER_06: He could have been there on the day of Pentecost.
- 56:17SPEAKER_06: Right.
- 56:17SPEAKER_06: He could he very well could have been.
- 56:19SPEAKER_06: And it says that he went away sorrowful.
- 56:22SPEAKER_06: How many times have we gone away, perhaps sorrowful, but yeah, we did it anyway.
- 56:27SPEAKER_06: So it was a thing that we should have done.
- 56:30SPEAKER_06: No, you need to confess that, you need to do that thing.
- 56:33SPEAKER_06: And I think moms are good at this, you know.
- 56:37SPEAKER_06: It doesn't matter how you know, um, how much sleep a mom may lack when she has a newborn.
- 56:43SPEAKER_06: She's she's getting up in the middle of the night to feed.
- 56:46SPEAKER_06: Right?
- 56:47SPEAKER_06: It doesn't matter how how much she's in pain or how sick she is, she's gonna be taking care of that two-year-old, that one-year-old.
- 56:57SPEAKER_06: She's going to do that because a mom is not going anywhere.
- 57:02SPEAKER_06: She signed up for this and she's she's gonna she's gonna die like this.
- 57:06SPEAKER_06: Right?
- 57:06SPEAKER_06: So when we talk about bearing our crosses, we need to willfully uh walk in the work which God has prepared beforehand and recognize that does not always include uh beautiful plateaus with beautiful views, but that includes uh valleys and shadows and discomfort and pain.
- 57:24SPEAKER_06: And I have no idea what you what you had asked, but I just wanted to I wanted to say that before you said thank you for joining us, friends.
- 57:31SPEAKER_03: You know, I I I think that um that compromise is threatened when people recognize that it's gonna mean the loss of their comfort if they don't compromise.
- 57:47SPEAKER_03: So Mark, you and I recently did a table thing in Huntington Beach, and these young ladies came up and we were talking to them, and uh I challenged them.
- 57:57SPEAKER_06: I actually thought I had a good answer until I heard you speak.
- 58:00SPEAKER_03: And I went, wow, that was such a good answer.
- 58:02SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
- 58:03SPEAKER_03: You know, i I uh they they were lovely young ladies, uh, but I challenged them.
- 58:08SPEAKER_03: And why did why did I do that?
- 58:09SPEAKER_03: Because we live in an era where everyone thinks they're a Christian, because they said a prayer or they grew up in a Christian home or whatever.
- 58:17SPEAKER_03: And so I I just wanted to challenge these ladies in love.
- 58:21SPEAKER_03: And so I did.
- 58:21SPEAKER_03: And and my whole point was look, Jesus said, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, right?
- 58:26SPEAKER_03: Uh and I challenged them.
- 58:27SPEAKER_03: They profess to know God, but by their works they deny him.
- 58:29SPEAKER_03: Titus 1:16.
- 58:31SPEAKER_03: First John, I mean, how many verses there, right?
- 58:33SPEAKER_03: The love of the world, you don't love the father, James, you know, friendship with the world, enmity with God.
- 58:37SPEAKER_03: I mean, scripture's clear on that, you know.
- 58:39SPEAKER_03: So I lovingly did that.
- 58:40SPEAKER_03: I could not believe the scathing responses under that video.
- 58:44SPEAKER_03: We had thousands of views and and people, oh no, well, you know, look, this was just for the hypocrites who, you know, they cast out demons, prophesy.
- 58:52SPEAKER_03: Um, those who practice lawlessness, you know.
- 58:56SPEAKER_03: But I think the reason why people get so riled up at that, honestly, is because many of them, well, I think are unbelievers and those, so they're trying to justify it, but others are, they love their compromise.
- 59:06SPEAKER_03: And the concern is, no, no, no, we it doesn't matter how we live, it doesn't matter what we do.
- 59:10SPEAKER_03: Of course we're saved by grace through faith.
- 59:12SPEAKER_03: That's a given totally apart from our works.
- 59:14SPEAKER_03: But if we're born again, we'll bear fruit.
- 59:16SPEAKER_03: We're not talking about perfection, we're talking about a life that bears holiness, bears fruit, and that when we sin, we're grieved and we repent and don't live in it habitually in rebellion against God.
- 59:28SPEAKER_03: But I think that that's the idol.
- 59:31SPEAKER_03: It's it's my compromise makes me comfortable.
- 59:34SPEAKER_03: If you tell me I can't compromise comfortably and continue to walk with the Lord, I don't like that.
- 59:38SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna get every justification to say, no, no, it doesn't matter how we live.
- 59:42SPEAKER_04: So they were angry because you challenged their Christian walk.
- 59:45SPEAKER_03: The young ladies weren't, they were actually very delightful and were thankful, but it's people.
- 59:49SPEAKER_04: That's the irony.
- 59:50SPEAKER_04: You you you put a video up where the person said, Thank you so much for talking.
- 59:54SPEAKER_03: They were very grateful in the comments.
- 59:56SPEAKER_04: How dare you even question this person just because they murdered their grandmother?
- 1:00:00SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like that, yeah, you know.
- 1:00:03SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, man, it's it's so important that we recognize that the Lord is our everything, He is our sufficiency, and there needs to be that heart and mindset.
- 1:00:18SPEAKER_03: Mark, you talked about it earlier.
- 1:00:20SPEAKER_03: Like, what matters is am I in the will of God?
- 1:00:23SPEAKER_03: Doesn't matter where I'm at, doesn't matter what's going on.
- 1:00:26SPEAKER_03: If I'm living in communion with Him, in obedience to Him, that's what matters.
- 1:00:34SPEAKER_03: Amen.
- 1:00:35SPEAKER_03: Amen?
- 1:00:36SPEAKER_03: Amen.
- 1:00:36SPEAKER_03: Amen.
- 1:00:38SPEAKER_03: There you have it, friends.
- 1:00:41SPEAKER_03: Very, very timely laughter whenever I made jokes came again from our sister Sandra, who's here with us all the way from Atlanta.
- 1:00:49SPEAKER_02: Sandra, you've been to San Francisco.
- 1:00:53SPEAKER_03: I will never live that down, man.
- 1:00:56SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 1:00:56SPEAKER_03: So you shouldn't.
- 1:00:57SPEAKER_03: We'll have to tell you all about that one day, friends.
- 1:01:00SPEAKER_03: Don't forget the Ten Commandments scroll pen in English and Espanyol.
- 1:01:07SPEAKER_03: And don't forget to like, subscribe, and share.
- 1:01:10SPEAKER_03: Don't forget podcastlivers.com with your thoughts and questions.
- 1:01:13SPEAKER_03: Thank you for joining us, friends.
- 1:01:15SPEAKER_03: We'll see you here next time on the Living Manners podcast where we have no idea.
- 1:01:21SPEAKER_03: Except for our Sandra, Sister Sandra.
- 1:01:23SPEAKER_04: Saust Sister Sandra.
- 1:01:26SPEAKER_04: What we're doing.
- 1:01:27SPEAKER_04: That was evident.
- 1:01:29SPEAKER_04: It was