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Answering Brett Keane's Questions For Christians | GodTVRadio LIVE · Brett Keane and Eve Show

1:20
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please?
1:28
The show starts in 987654 321 Go.
2:10
I want it to silence my pain but it screamed even louder.
2:20
I'm falling and sinking in the blood of my own estate.
2:28
I'm falling and losing, falling, falling and begging.
2:36
Are we too far to go back or is there still sight?
2:46
My darling, my last. Do you still Remember Me, or
3:07
have I become a ghost in your memory?
3:10
Are you too far away to hear me, or have you forgotten me?
3:16
I'm falling. I'm thinking Kronos and Lay.
3:23
I'm falling. I'm losing.
3:23
I'm losing rolling. Where?
3:59
Is redemption. My darling, my last breath give
4:30
me redemption. My darling, my last breath give
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me redemption. My heart rise down for the end.
4:48
Will I be left here? Where are.
5:03
You. I feel the weight that's pulling
5:37
me down. I whisper, but there's no one
5:43
around. The silence echoes in my mind.
5:49
I'm trapped inside, with no way to find the light to guide me
5:55
through the endless night. I know I can close the door if I
6:00
close my eyes and ignore if I let it fade.
6:17
Don't close your room, we're almost there.
6:40
Don't give up, we're almost there.
6:41
The shadows grow. I stand still, but I feel
6:46
something deeper will awaken in the void I see.
7:15
Don't close your eyes. Almost there,
7:41
falling angels at my face, voices with wait, that's as
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beard, but I won't fall. I rise, I stand, I hear the
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cold. She beckons me.
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Should I come down, or has my hands come?
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I leave behind the past I know and find you.
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Don't give, don't try it. Don't want your eyes almost
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there. The shadows grow.
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I stand for the light is lost, but I won't drown.
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The shadows call. I stand for through the pain I
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can see I won't drown. Don't let the we're almost.
10:16
There, Hello there everyone, welcome to GOD TV Radio I of
10:19
course I'm TTOR and we have over here Brett Keene Say hello Brett
10:24
Weather. Well said.
10:30
And as John Lavelle noted about the second song, what a crazy
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song lol. And in case you guys are
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wondering who that was, I was playing there for the music in
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the intro, that was Isla Chan, one of the up and coming YouTube
10:46
musicians that uses AI for their content.
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More specifically, they use AI for the visual elements.
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It's unknown how much of the music uses AI, but they're great
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songs and I just couldn't help but play them for you guys.
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So if you're wondering where you can find Isla Chan, as soon as I
11:04
enable screen sharing, you will know exactly where you can find
11:08
the Isla Chan. So you can see Isla Chan on her
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YouTube channel, which has over 16,000 subscribers already.
11:18
Even though she's only been uploading since late last year,
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you'll find she's got her albums, she's got her covers of
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older popular songs from pop culture, just great stuff.
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She's also on Spotify and she's also on Apple Music.
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So if you're looking for someone who does awesome heavy metal
11:38
style music and also does covers of older songs, well then Isla
11:43
Chan is probably someone you would be interested in.
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But the music doesn't just stop with the intro, because I myself
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have been inspired to join in on this wonderful craze of using AI
11:57
to make music. And so for the first time ever,
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you guys will see a song by TTOR using AI.
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And it's a little bit of a silly song I made about my parents dog
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Buddy. But I think for the more
12:11
lighthearted among us, you guys will enjoy this.
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Let's take a listen. But he wakes me up with a wagon
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tail. He's a king of the park, Never
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gonna Chasing squirrels like a pro.
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He's on the run with his goofy smile.
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He's my #1 Heroes held the plane.
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His spirit's so bright. With Buddy by my side,
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everything feels right. Rock star in the sky, every
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little fuck you open eye you feel feeling so free forever.
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My buddy, just my dog and me. We hit the trails exploring the
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wild. He's my furry buddy and he's
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always smile and in every adventure, toothache and fan
13:33
with a bark and lean ready to win.
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Man, it's just love. It's the fuel, the lights of my
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days with bloody around lobster. Joyful man.
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No, nobody or rock star in the sky.
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With every little part you open my eyes, running through the
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field, feeling so free. Whoever, my body, just my dog
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and me. Raise a toast to you, my loyal
14:55
friend Buddy by my side of fun. Never it.
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And there you have it, my dog Buddy.
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Or in the words of John Lavelle. Yeah, Buddy, Buddy, you rock.
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He does. You know what the funny part
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about that song, Brett, is That I gave almost no prompts to the
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AI and it gave me all that. Got the random going up.
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Yep. Turned out good and that dog is
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cute. Oh, he is.
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I saw him today, He's happy as a clam.
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Basically all I did was told the AI to make a song about my dog
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Buddy, and then I told him to have male vocalist and it had to
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be in the rock'n'roll genre. And then I just hit Create and
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they gave me all that. The crazy part is that the
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song's actually mostly accurate to what the dog is like, even
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though I didn't put any of that in the prompts.
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Well, you described the dog, didn't you?
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Nope. Didn't you?
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Didn't say it was about your dog.
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Oh, I did, but I didn't say anything about what the dog
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does. Not fair enough?
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Fair enough. Well, it turned out well, and
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the dog is adorable. Yes, he is.
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And we had put the radio in GOD TV Radio tonight, but now we're
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going to get to the main event answering Brett Kane's questions
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for Christians that he gave in a YouTube community post about
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almost a month ago. But to really set the scene for
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these questions, I think the cool thing to do, the
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appropriate thing to do actually, is to read a post by
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Thick Shades or Uncle Sam. I am regarding Brett Keene's
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post because lately he's been kind of going at Brett Keene
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regarding various community posts that Brett has made.
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And I just wanted to read this particular response because as
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we go through Brett Keene's questions, you're going to
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wonder where Thick Shades is getting this from.
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You really will. But this is what he actually had
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to say here about six hours ago. At the time of this recording,
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he said, Brett, let's bring it from the top.
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Since your memory seems as slippery as your integrity.
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You posted 50 questions, not questions born from the spirit,
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but ones you later admitted plagiarizing scrapes put
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together by AI. You claim they came from your
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heart, but then you confess they weren't yours.
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That alone says everything about your honesty.
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Still, I took the High Road. I actually began answering them
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carefully, sincerely, point by point, until it became obvious
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that this wasn't a mutual exchange.
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It was a trap. You weren't interested in
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testimony or fellowship. You were interested in control.
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You made it clear from the start.
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Answer your list or be declared fake and cut off.
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That's not love, that's manipulation.
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That's not discernment. That self importance trying to
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pass his spirituality. Then I realized something else.
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You never answered the questions yourself.
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You demanded transparency but offered none.
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You handed out a test you couldn't pass and pretended that
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gave you the right to judge who belongs to Christ.
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So no, I didn't quiver, I didn't run, I simply stopped playing
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your game. You aren't my judge, and you
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sure aren't the standard of what it means to walk with Christ.
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As for calling me a poser, let's be honest Brett, you've worn
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more masks than anyone out there.
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Atheist, agnostic, Christian, flip flop Pete.
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You don't defend the faith. You orbit whatever personality
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gives you clicks, then betray them the moment your ego gets
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bruised. The truth is, you were never
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looking for a spiritual conversation.
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You were looking for someone to bow to your imaginary throne.
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So block me, smear me, pretend you're doing God's work from
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behind your keyboard throne. But the Spirit knows the
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difference between the witness and a wannabe.
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And in case you haven't looked lately, the fruits not in your
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favor. Your whole performance didn't
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expose me, it exposed you. So yeah, that's that's what he
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wrote, with my own emphasis on certain parts, basically.
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He claims that this. List of, I think this list, he
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thinks this list of 50 questions that I'm about to start
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responding to is a trap. And somehow this is a control
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mechanism that Brett Keene is doing because Brett Keene is
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somehow the gatekeeper of the Christian YouTube community.
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You see. And by doing all this stuff,
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Brett Keene is basically trying to how do you phrase it again,
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answer the list or be declared fake and cut off.
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Problem is, you'll see when we go through the post is Brett
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didn't say that. He didn't say Christians answer
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my questions or I will cut you off because you're all fakes.
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Never happened. It never happened.
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As a matter of fact, once you see all these questions, you
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will ask the question that I've been asking since I read this
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post and looked at Brett Kane's questions list.
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Where is the trap? But let's look at the actual
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questions list in question, which is on screen, right,
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Brett, yours. Yes, but I also had told you
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earlier that although I had come up with a majority of the
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questions, it is true that I did ask AI if it could come up with
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some more interesting theological questions for
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Christians. I wanted to make the interviews
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as optimal and interesting as possible, and with some people,
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sometimes I might even throw in some curves and ask them just
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right there in the middle of the interview.
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However, what he failed to tell you, which I told everybody in
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interviews, I'm going to say right now, if there's any
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questions that you feel are uncomfortable, you are welcome
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to say pass and move on to things that you think that are
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more up for what you want to discuss.
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So how can it be a trap if I'm telling you can walk right over
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different questions, right? Right, exactly.
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And with that being said, let's start going through these.
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I'm going to answer Brett Keene's questions to the best of
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my ability, but if Brett Keene wants to just to show thick
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shades that he really doesn't know what he's talking about,
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Brett is welcome to respond to any of his own questions if he
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wants to. So let's.
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See I will point out before we get into this, a lot of these
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questions I have actually answered.
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You've known me for a very long time TTR, so you'll know this
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for a fact. I've done countless videos where
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I've told my testimony. I've always been an open book
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and as far as jumping and flip flopping I was a Christian
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whenever I was a kid but I don't really count that because I was
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just an ignorant child and then in my teenage years I became an
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atheist and then I became a Christian.
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Now as far as philosophies is still held the position but I
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did change and upgrade my different positions like last
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year year and a half ago I held the philosophy of Mal Theism but
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that changed. That didn't mean Christianity
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changed, it just means a thought process on one of the fields of
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philosophy within the theology makes sense.
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Yeah. And that's also one of those
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that's also I, I should point out, that's also one of those
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issues that people to this day still hold against you even
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though you no longer hold to the position.
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Well, of course they do. It's called an agenda.
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Yep, for sure. But anyway, let's go through
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Brett Keane's questions. No more delay.
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Question number one, Can you share a bit about your
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upbringing and how you were first introduced to
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Christianity? Well, in my particular case,
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it's not all of that inspiring. I grew up in a Christian home.
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My parents have always been Christians from my birth till
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now. And I grew up going to church
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and so I knew about the Bible a bit and knew about Jesus and
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knew about God. But I didn't make the personal
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decision to have my own faith in the Lord until I was about 15
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years old. And then at that point, I
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started my walk and I went through high school and went
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through college. And and then, yeah, that led to
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a whole another season of growth where I started getting into
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Christian apologetics and making videos for YouTube and other
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websites. And that eventually snowballed
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until we got to where we are today.
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But yeah, I definitely grew up in a Christian home, and I
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definitely converted to the faith of my own accord when I
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was 15. And I understood what that
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meant. And yeah, I've been walking that
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road ever since. Were you wanting me to answer or
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respond? Well, you can't.
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You can't if you want, but you did just kind of answer it as
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well before I did because you've said before in past videos you
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grew up in a Christian home and then struggles in your personal
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life. Things that happened, events
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that happened, caused you to get angry at God and be an atheist
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for 10 years. Is that about accurate?
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That as well as also I was influenced because I will say
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this, I've only spoke this a few times, but when my mother became
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sick and my grandmother died from cancer, I would eventually
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end up in foster care system and I was in a lot of foster homes
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and every one of them was Christian.
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The only difference was was denomination and their way of
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looking at theology. They all believed that Jesus
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Christ died for them and resurrected.
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But you know, I dealt with Pentecostals, Baptist, you name
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it. I've, I lived in a lot of
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different homes for a while there until I was old enough to
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get out. So I was influenced by a lot of
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people, a lot of different views.
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And it's probably one of the reasons why I'm so open to many
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different ideas is where other people freak out when engaging.
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That's all I got on that. Go ahead.
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All right, question number 2. Was there a specific moment or
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event that led you to embrace your Christian faith?
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I wouldn't say a specific moment or event, but around the time
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that I made the decision to convert to the faith to have my
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own personal saving relationship with Jesus.
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I was going through a bit of a depression at the time, to the
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point where I actually had suicidal thoughts, even though I
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never came within 1000 miles of acting on them.
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But I knew as soon as I started having the thoughts, I was like,
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oh, that's no good. I guess it's time to embrace
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faith in God and a personal saving relationship with Jesus
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so that way I can deal with this.
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And as soon as I did that, as soon as I had a genuine
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conversion to the faith, I stopped having those spots and I
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haven't had them since. Do you mind if I throw in a a
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curve and ask you something? Why did you feel that way about
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your? Why did you feel that way about
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yourself? You as far long as I've ever
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known you, you've always been a great guy, a good person and all
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that. Why would you have those kind of
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thoughts? Well, a lot of people can
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probably relate to this, but loneliness is a huge factor.
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And that's something that even though the suicidal thoughts
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went away after conversion, the loneliness is something that has
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been a more constant battle, especially when I was younger
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and it seemed like everyone around me was in a relationship
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or married except for me. So I mean, a lot of guys that
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are in that position, they can understand the kind of angst
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that can cause, the kind of many depression, I guess you could
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say that causes. Because then it feels like, you
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know, you're alone and there's no one for you and makes you
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wonder if you are doing something wrong or if there's
28:14
something wrong with you. Or in my case, where I knew
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there wasn't really anything horrifically wrong with me,
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makes me wonder why, why? Why am I going through this
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season as a single man? So yeah, I think a lot of that
28:31
is what was going on when I was 15.
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And then there are probably other things as well, but my
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memory is not the best. But that's the one definitive
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thing I can remember. One last question for you, Have
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you made it easy for people to be able to understand,
28:50
especially when you were younger, when you're available,
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or that you're even interested? Because one of the big problems
28:56
younger men have is they don't let people know.
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And then people feel weird or or uncomfortable with just throwing
29:03
it out there. Did you ever say, look, I am
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single, I am interested and this is what I'm looking for?
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Did you try that? No, I did not try that.
29:17
I was really, really shy back then, so the idea of doing
29:22
something like that towards a girl I was interested in was way
29:26
too scary for me back then. Now as an adult, that's
29:31
different. I'm more likely to do that.
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But yeah, back then that could not have happened because I was
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way too shy. But I, I've gotten less shy over
29:42
the years and more normal. I've, I've been able to be in
29:47
dating relationships since then, even though none of them have
29:50
worked out so far. But yeah, it's something that I,
29:55
I've struggled with being shy and I've been working hard to
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overcome with moderate success. So yeah, that's probably the
30:04
gist of it. Well, I'm really glad that you
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were able to persevere in the struggles and deal with the
30:10
issues because I don't know what life would be like without a
30:14
TTOR. You've been a really good
30:16
friend. You've been loyal, honorable,
30:18
all that, totally respectful at all times.
30:21
So I'm really glad that you made it through.
30:24
You do contribute to the world. Anybody that could meet you and
30:28
actually talk to you and get to know you would say the same
30:30
thing if they just give you a chance.
30:34
Oh, thank you, Brett. I appreciate that.
30:37
And yeah, that is definitely something that being in my 30s
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now, being a established content creator has helped me establish
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my little corner of the Internet.
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And I feel like at this point in my life that I really am doing
30:53
God's work and really doing a service for people who are
30:57
seeking the truth about a wide variety of topics, especially in
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today's crazy world where the wokeness has spread to both
31:05
sides. So I'm hoping in the next season
31:09
of time that my channel can be a stable point of truth for people
31:14
who are trying to swim through this ocean of wokeness.
31:18
Would you have a problem TTR with me posting up people's
31:21
comments every once in a while throughout the discussion?
31:25
Sure, I won't see him for a while, but.
31:29
We got one person here, says Brett King.
31:31
Still alive. Actually, I was dead for a
31:33
while. I just recently resurrected.
31:36
There you go. Responded to that and there we
31:40
go, Miss Smokey St. says TTOR. We've had our differences.
31:44
But please let me be the first one to say I'm so sorry you had
31:49
those thoughts and I'm glad you're still here.
31:51
Suicide is never the answer. Christ heals all.
31:55
I think that was a beautiful comment.
31:58
Yes, thank you, Miss Smokey. OK.
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I think the next question is up. How has your relationship with
32:09
God evolved over the years? Well, I would say that the way
32:16
it's changed over the years, especially over the last 13
32:21
years, but definitely be knowledge of the Bible because
32:26
even though I've always from the beginning have placed the Bible
32:31
in the ultimate place of authority as far as my beliefs
32:34
go, as far as my faith goes and doctrine goes, I haven't always
32:38
believed everything that the Bible is clearly taught because
32:41
I was ignorant about what I really taught.
32:43
Like for example, origins. When I started getting into the
32:49
faith, I did have older of creationist beliefs.
32:52
And when I started getting to Christian apologetics in 2012,
32:57
no, it was actually 2013. That's right, 2013.
33:01
I, I had older of creationism beliefs at the time, but I
33:07
didn't make videos during that time until 2015, which by that
33:12
time I had become a younger creationist.
33:15
And so there's a lot of people who, if they've known my entire
33:19
Internet history on YouTube, they will think that I was never
33:22
an older of creationist at any point.
33:24
But I actually was up until about, I want to say a few
33:29
months before I started making videos on the Internet.
33:32
I used to be an older of creationist and I really thought
33:36
that I knew what the Bible taught about origins and that
33:39
younger of creationists were ignorant about many things.
33:42
The usual things that older of creationists say, you know,
33:45
ignorant about Scripture, ignorant about writing styles,
33:48
language, hermeneutics and all that.
33:51
Of course, as I actually started to study the Bible on that
33:55
topic, and I actually started to look at the arguments that young
33:59
earth creationists were making at the time and comparing it to
34:02
what old earth creationists were saying, I quickly began to
34:06
realize that, oh man, they were right about that, the young
34:10
earth creationists, and I was wrong.
34:13
And so I made that change from old to young earth creationism.
34:17
And what I found since then is that because I allowed the Bible
34:21
to interpret itself when it came to origins, and I accepted it,
34:24
then for me it started unlocking other parts of the Bible because
34:28
other parts of the Bible follow the same process.
34:31
You accept the straightforward contextual reading of what the
34:34
scriptures say on whatever topic it's talking about, and that's
34:38
the truth of what it says. And so for me, that opened up
34:42
the Bible to better understanding other topics,
34:45
like, for example, so dealing with all the anti-Semitic people
34:50
in today's modern age, the same methodology that I used to
34:54
arrive at young earth creationism being taught by the
34:57
Bible is the same methodology I use to figure out very quickly
35:02
that the replacement theology beliefs taught by a lot of these
35:06
anti-Semitic people are false. And a lot of these other false
35:10
teachings that come up for various Christian cults of
35:13
personality. I use the same process of
35:17
analyzing Scripture on those topics that I did origins.
35:21
And that's how I'm able to figure out that a lot of these
35:24
people are either liars or heretics or at least severely
35:27
misled. So I would say that knowing the
35:31
Bible a lot better has strengthened my relationship
35:34
with God because it allows me to be able to analyze and
35:38
effectively dissect things that aren't true, that people claim
35:42
are true and come from God. And I wouldn't be able to do
35:45
that if I didn't start studying the Bible.
35:50
Well, it's always good to study and do some research.
35:53
As far as the Internet connection goes, If you have
35:56
several tabs open in that video background that you got, even
36:00
though it's very sexy, very smexy, that could be causing
36:04
trouble because that's more processing power on your
36:07
Internet, Just to let you know in case you're worried about
36:10
that. OK, I'm actually going to go
36:14
ahead and change that just to see if that's true.
36:19
Let's go back to. JPEG image or something?
36:22
GIFs aren't terrible, but Jpegs are better.
36:27
So like point. You notice that your Internet
36:33
suddenly bounced up to two lights on that.
36:37
Yes, I did. OK, Well, I will remember that
36:40
going forward. Let's get back to the magical
36:44
power of screen share. OK, Now where were we?
36:54
OK, yeah. Next question.
36:56
Were there any significant people, family, friends, mentors
36:59
who influenced your faith? Well, the answer to that one of
37:04
is, of course, yes. Growing up, I went to the
37:09
Cottage Grove Faith Center, which is a Foursquare church in
37:11
Cottage Grove, OR. And at the time of my childhood,
37:15
all the way up through my college years, our pastor was
37:19
Jim Jenkins, who ended up becoming a personal friend of
37:22
mine. He has a doctorate.
37:25
He taught classes at Eugene Bible College for a long time.
37:29
He also is a military chaplain and he's actually one of the
37:33
first military chaplains who was on Ground Zero shortly after the
37:37
9/11 attacks. And in his later years he
37:40
actually wrote several books dealing with postmodernism and
37:45
the attacks on the Bible that come from so-called Christians.
37:49
But then he also made a whole book detailing his experience
37:52
going to Ground Zero at 911. And his book even got promoted
37:57
by some of our local news outlets back in the day.
37:59
So he's someone who was very instrumental in influencing my
38:05
faith when I was younger, especially as I started doing
38:08
Christian apologetics and dealing with the same kinds of
38:11
issues that he was. Let me think.
38:16
I'd say, yeah, he's one of the biggest influences.
38:19
And then if you look at the Internet in particular, I say in
38:25
my early years of apologetics, I found people like people like
38:31
Frank Turek to be very influential, even though later
38:34
on I figured out where he falls short by a lot.
38:38
And that's putting it mildly. But then I found some guys who I
38:43
also was influenced by who are still going rock solid and
38:45
steady. Guys like David Wood of Acts 17
38:49
Apologetics or Doctor Thomas Kendall, who's a very well
38:53
spoken, really intelligent young earth creationist apologist who
38:58
has put out many presentations of various creationism
39:01
conferences over the years. I also was influenced somewhat
39:07
by my friend Doctor JD Mitchell, who runs well.
39:10
He ran a creation engineering ministry up in the Portland, OR
39:16
area for a long time, and I think he now runs out of
39:19
Washington. But he's somebody who actually
39:23
has written some of the best creationism apologetics books I
39:26
ever read, including the only fossil guidebook on the planet
39:31
that is written from the young Earth creationism perspective
39:34
and not the evolutionary billions of years perspective.
39:39
So those guys I all found to be very influential with my faith
39:43
and my apologetics and really understanding where some of the
39:48
key battles lie and all these areas.
39:50
And I kind of just took it from there and it's gone down my own
39:54
path. But those guys definitely
39:56
influenced me. What about you, Brett?
39:58
Have you had any significant people who've influenced your
40:01
faith? Well, some of the people that
40:04
you mentioned, actually, Frank Turek, I started seeing him
40:09
after his debate with Christopher Hitchens back when I
40:12
was a former atheist and I thought the guy was brilliant.
40:15
I thought that he walked all over Hitchens, even though I was
40:18
a non believer in actually rooting for Hitchens at the
40:21
moment. William Lane Craig, I find him
40:24
fascinating, though obviously he's got some views that
40:28
disagree with both of us and some of our philosophies.
40:31
I understand. And, and also David Wood, I
40:35
remember the first time I checked him out, he was doing a
40:38
subway train video where he was sharing his testimony about
40:42
family issues and all that and coming to Christ and jail time,
40:45
that kind of stuff. And I thought it was one of the
40:48
most phenomenal creative videos I've ever seen in my entire
40:52
life. It was just brilliant.
40:55
But I do have to ask you, you can't leave us sitting on the
40:58
edge on this. You mentioned Frank Turek, but
41:01
you then said but he fell short and some stuff.
41:04
This I got to hear guy. Well, back on my old YouTube
41:09
channel, it's no longer Up, I actually did several videos
41:13
exposing his fallacious arguments towards young Earth
41:17
creationism and in support of old Earth creationism that he
41:21
used to do. And it turns out that he
41:23
actually has a very low view of the Bible when it comes to
41:26
origins, and he reinterprets it in light of evolution, billions
41:31
of years, and Big Bang cosmology, even though he knows
41:35
he's not supposed to. It's a problem that William Lane
41:38
Craig suffers from too. So things like that really
41:42
bothered me and I just couldn't roll with someone like that as
41:45
far as following them after a while.
41:49
Is it? Do you feel like they somehow
41:51
belittled your views in some kind of way, or was it just
41:55
simply disagreement? Yeah, like William Lane Craig,
42:00
Frank Turek is very dismissive towards young Earth creationism.
42:04
He always tries to frame it as a side issue that should only be
42:09
talked about among Christians, but then when Christians try to
42:13
talk to him about it, he doesn't want to talk about it.
42:16
So yeah, I, I find that to be very dismissive and arrogant and
42:22
very dishonest in terms of his rhetoric.
42:25
Now, there are times where he does pay lip service to young
42:29
earth creationism and he says it could be true.
42:31
But the reason why he does that is because he knows the Bible
42:35
teaches A6000 year old earth and universe when it's read in a
42:39
straightforward and contextual manner.
42:41
That's why he has to pay Idlib service.
42:43
I mean, it's such an obvious truth that as I showed in my
42:48
recent video, even all of the Silicon Valley based AI programs
42:52
out there understand this to be true as well.
42:56
I mean, those same AI systems will tell you young Earth
42:58
creationism's not true and that evolution in billions of years
43:02
and Big Bang cosmology is true. But when it comes to the Bible,
43:05
even the AI systems will acknowledge that, yeah, it does
43:10
teach a young earth when you read it in a straightforward,
43:12
contextual manner and you don't stretch the the text,
43:14
reinterpret the text. So yeah, that's the kind of
43:18
stuff that causes people like Frank Turek to pay lip service
43:22
to young earth creationism, even though he then turns around and
43:26
tries to avoid talking about it all together.
43:29
That's the kind of thing that I found to be incredibly
43:33
disingenuous back in the day with not just him, but with also
43:38
people like William Lane Craig who said the same things at
43:41
various points. And so I, I tend to just stay
43:45
away from guys like that, even if they have good arguments on
43:48
other things. And I just try to find people
43:50
who are more in line with what the Bible says that also say the
43:55
same thing. So people like Doctor Thomas
43:58
Kendall, for example, or a great example of that.
44:01
They can tell you all the same stuff and they don't compromise
44:04
on the Bible's origins account. That's fair enough.
44:10
I can understand that and I would suggest for Christians,
44:14
you might listen to the show later, try to be open minded and
44:17
try to be understanding of other people's views.
44:19
There's reasons why people think the way they do.
44:22
Christians instead of being divisive and fighting against
44:26
each other, discuss it, hammer it out, sharpen iron, that kind
44:30
of thing. Don't just, you know, completely
44:32
refuse to have a discussion with somebody because you think that
44:36
their ideas or views are lower than yours.
44:38
Kind of things. I've always been open to many
44:41
different views and I even go so far as going outside of my
44:46
position to hear what other people have to think because
44:49
sometimes people come up with clever ideas, you know, It
44:52
happens. Yeah.
44:56
Now this next question, though, boy, people could tell some
45:00
stories about this one. Have you always been part of the
45:04
same Christian denomination or has your affiliation changed
45:08
over time? Now, I did say earlier in the
45:13
live stream that I used to go to a church that was a Foursquare
45:17
church. Foursquare is a denomination of
45:20
Christianity, or at least a denomination of churches within
45:24
Christianity, but I personally have never held to a particular
45:29
Christian denomination. For me, it's always been the
45:34
Bible is what determines your faith in terms of doctrines,
45:38
beliefs, creeds, and nothing else.
45:42
So I was never tied to a particular Christian
45:45
denomination. Of course, you go on the
45:47
Internet and you find Christians arguing with each other over
45:50
their denominations all the time.
45:52
And there is a lot of different Christian denominations to the
45:56
point where Catholics like to make fun of those Christians for
46:00
all their different denominations.
46:03
But yeah, I've never been part of 1, but the denomination wars
46:08
I personally find to be very distracting because what happens
46:11
is people get distracted from what the Bible says on topics,
46:15
and they start tying themselves down to what their denomination
46:19
teaches on topics and what the leaders in their denominations
46:23
say on topics. And they start arguing with each
46:26
other over whose leaders are more correct than the other and
46:29
stuff like that. And after a while, it's just
46:32
divisive and it doesn't really accomplish anything.
46:34
It just distracts people from the main issue, which is the
46:38
Bible. Well, I'm a what?
46:41
About you, Brett. How do you go ahead?
46:44
I was going to say myself, I would call myself denominate and
46:48
denominational homeless. I'm not in any kind of
46:52
denomination. There are ideas from each
46:55
denomination that I may agree with, I might even support, but
46:59
I have never found a denomination IA 100% agree with.
47:03
As far as theatrics, though, I like the Phantom of the Opera
47:08
thing that the Catholics got, and I like the yelling and
47:11
screaming and fire and brim stone and the charismatic
47:14
Baptist preachers. I like the yelling and the
47:17
punching of the podium. It gets me excited.
47:19
Like I'm at a rock concert. But as far as the green with
47:23
their flossies and views, I'm different.
47:26
Especially when it comes to hell.
47:28
I'm an annihilationist, remember?
47:30
Yes, I do remember. So am I.
47:35
Exactly. But but anyway, that is an
47:39
excellent answer. And then the next question is
47:42
what role did your family play in shaping your spiritual
47:46
beliefs? And to that, I would say my
47:49
parents, in particular, my mom and dad, played a huge role in
47:54
shaping my spiritual beliefs. Because as much as I learned
47:58
from my church groups growing up, you know, going through Kids
48:02
Church, Cosgrove Faith Center, going through the middle school
48:05
group at Cosgrove Faith Center, going through high school group
48:08
at Cosgrove Faith Center, and then sitting in the pulpit with
48:12
the other adults in the main sanctuary at the Cosgrove Faith
48:15
Center. For a couple of years before
48:17
Pastor Jim retired, my family was my primary influence in
48:23
shaping my spiritual beliefs. Because, you know, I go to
48:26
church once a week, maybe go to a couple of camps during the
48:29
summer, but at home seven days a week.
48:33
Most of the time I'm with my parents.
48:35
And my parents were instrumental in teaching me about the Bible
48:39
and Jesus and God and helping me to have some kind of a solid
48:43
foundation that I could fall back onto on my own later.
48:48
And then basically from there, I basically grew my own foundation
48:52
and just added on to what they had taught me.
48:56
But they were very instrumental in getting my initial footing in
49:01
the Christian faith as far as teaching me what the biblical
49:04
worldview says during a time where I was biblically
49:08
illiterate. So I'd say they were very huge
49:11
in shaping my spiritual beliefs in those early formative years.
49:18
I guess what I would throw out there, ladies and gentlemen, is
49:21
I do believe that Christianity and religion eventually is
49:26
something that is taught and helps children to be able to
49:29
process and understand what their instincts and senses tell
49:32
them. According to science, we are all
49:35
born with an innate belief that there is a higher power, but I
49:40
think that our parents actually help us adjust and adapt and
49:43
understand and comprehend what it is that we're sensing, if
49:47
that makes sense. Yeah, that's actually something
49:51
I've made many videos about in the past talking about how child
49:56
psychology studies have shown that even in secular societies,
50:00
children are born with an innate belief in intelligent design and
50:04
a creator God. They just don't know much about
50:07
this God. They just know based on what
50:09
they see in reality that he exists because they realize or
50:13
recognize, I should say, design and reality.
50:16
And we saw in the last decade that evolutionists have
50:19
basically been publicly talking about, well, since these beliefs
50:23
of theirs seem to be intuitive from birth, we need to figure
50:26
out how to override those early intuitions.
50:29
And so that's when they start talking about indoctrinating
50:32
your children before they can form and fully develop their
50:35
cognitive abilities so that they can disrupt those early
50:38
intuitions and get them to be atheists, get them to be
50:42
agnostic, get them to believe in evolution.
50:45
And billions of years. It's a very calculated, sick
50:49
plan by those people. And the fact that they have to
50:52
do this proves once and for all conclusively that nobody is born
50:57
an atheist. Atheism is something you
51:00
literally get indoctrinated into.
51:03
That's what child psychology studies have proven.
51:07
Right, there's some people. The only argument I've heard
51:10
against the innate design and understanding comprehension of
51:14
children is, well, even children will believe in monsters like
51:18
that. Some kind of joke or something
51:20
funny. There are monsters in the world.
51:22
Ladies and gentlemen, this research, the Holocaust and
51:25
Adolf Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, go ahead and continue on.
51:28
Good answers, by the way, that you've been given towards the
51:30
questions. Proud of you.
51:33
Thank you and if you guys are watching from home, watching the
51:36
live stream, can you comment and ask and tell me where the trap
51:40
is and all these questions? Thick Shades really seem to
51:43
think there's a big trap here, but I don't see it yet.
51:46
But anyway, let's keep going. OK, that that.
51:53
How do you describe your personal relationship with Jesus
51:57
Christ? Now there's a doozy of a
51:59
question. I think the way I would describe
52:03
my relationship with Jesus is actually a biblical image.
52:08
I'm the sheep. He's the shepherd.
52:11
I do my best to understand what he's saying and follow it and
52:15
implement it into my own life. I try to do the things that he's
52:19
called me to do. But there are times where I'm
52:22
going just a little bit of stray on something like, you know, an
52:27
action or maybe I'm thinking about making a video that I
52:30
think is a good idea, but it really isn't.
52:33
There are times where, metaphorically speaking, and
52:37
spiritually speaking as well, you can almost feel the Lord
52:41
putting a crane around my neck and basically just redirecting
52:45
me in the direction that he wants to go.
52:47
Just like how if a sheep starts to wander off and wander astray,
52:50
the shepherd will hook his crane of his cane around the sheep's
52:54
neck and guide it back to where it needs to go.
52:58
That's the relationship I have with Jesus.
53:01
He is definitely my shepherd. And he lets me do what I need to
53:06
do when I'm going in the right direction.
53:08
But when I'm not going in the right direction, he is not shy
53:11
at stepping in and redirecting me to where I need to go.
53:15
So I'd say the sheep shepherd analogy is the best way to
53:19
describe my relationship with Jesus.
53:27
I'm the I'm sitting here listening to you and eating
53:29
dinner at the same time. Good answer.
53:33
No wonder there is dead air. Brett's eating.
53:35
I apologize. It's fine.
53:38
It's fine. But yeah, the sheep shepherd
53:39
analogy is also interesting because one of my friends, Josh,
53:44
seeking the truth as you know him on the Internet, Brett, he's
53:48
talked about for years with me, like behind the scenes and
53:52
whatnot, about how just so many people out there believe so many
53:56
false things and that people are basically just sheep.
54:00
And when he would tell me that, I'd think to myself, you know
54:04
what? He's almost there.
54:06
Because when God talks about what human beings are like and
54:11
compares them to an animal, he compares us to sheep.
54:16
Even the smartest and the greatest of human beings are
54:20
nothing but sheep to an almighty, all powerful, all
54:24
knowing God who is omnipresent. So yeah, I think the sheep
54:29
analogy not just as a good description of my personal
54:32
relationship with Jesus, but it's actually a good description
54:36
of humanity in relation to God. We are all sheep to him.
54:44
And people should also keep in mind the fate of a sheep.
54:47
Usually sheep are extremely intelligent animals actually and
54:51
they for some reason some people downgrade them for whatever
54:55
reason, but according to science, they're actually smart
54:58
animals and they and they stay together which makes them
55:01
stronger and they're able to defend themselves better.
55:04
It's when they stray away and they don't listen to the
55:07
shepherd. Whenever they get out by
55:09
themselves and don't have that extra force or mechanism, they
55:14
end up becoming food for wolves. So when God jumps in like you
55:18
were talking about earlier and says, all right, dear buddy
55:21
can't do that, it's not because he's being mean.
55:23
It's because you don't want you to become dinner.
55:27
Exactly. Great analogy and point.
55:31
Now the next question is an interesting one, and this one
55:36
might actually make some people laugh.
55:38
Was there a time in your life when you questioned your faith?
55:41
How did you navigate that? Believe it or not, there was one
55:46
time, very briefly, where I did question my faith, and it was
55:51
the first time I came across the theory that none of the Gospels
55:57
or the New Testament or the Bible were written by any of the
56:01
people that the Bible claims they were written by.
56:04
It was all just a bunch of Romans making up this false
56:07
religion to basically mind control Jews and mind control,
56:11
you know, the Christians. Basically.
56:15
The first time I heard that theory, I was very panicky for
56:20
about like 3 minutes, like, Oh my God, what have I done?
56:25
What is this faith I have embraced?
56:27
And then once the panic kind of wore off after three minutes and
56:30
my brain turned back on, I'm like, wait a minute, wait a
56:34
minute. We got Roman historians who
56:37
wrote about Jesus in the early Christians, and not only is what
56:41
they wrote about those people congruent with what the New
56:43
Testament says, but you look at the language used to talk about
56:48
them and relation to the rest of the documents that they're from.
56:53
The Romans did not have a very high opinion of Jews and
56:57
Christians. They rarely ever address them as
57:00
individuals, and they would often address them in a
57:03
dismissive, brief way as people groups.
57:07
So the fact that they singled out Jesus by name to talk about
57:11
in their documents is actually pretty significant because they
57:16
otherwise didn't care about Jews.
57:18
They didn't care about Christians all that much, other
57:22
than when it was time to blame them for something the emperor
57:25
did, and then, oh, that's OK, then it's OK to kill them all.
57:32
But yeah, that was the one time that I kind of sort of
57:36
questioned my faith for like 2 minutes until my brain turned
57:39
back on, and then I realized really quickly how stupid it
57:41
was. But go ahead.
57:43
I've actually heard that view before where people said things
57:47
like that, that the Romans may have done this and that.
57:50
But the problem is, is besides the Bible, I also admire and
57:54
enjoy reading about history. Yeah, at least most of it, I
57:57
believe, is true. I do think some things in
58:00
history have been twisted a little bit.
58:02
You know how it does winner gets the right history kind of thing.
58:06
As far as the Romans, they considered themselves the most
58:09
civilized and the most sophisticated and they look down
58:13
on Jews as though they were primitives, primates,
58:15
troglodytes, cave dwellers type of thing.
58:18
They did not respect the Jews. Only reason why Pontius Pilate
58:22
listened and had any order whatsoever is because he would
58:25
have been thrown into the Colosseum or gotten killed in a
58:29
very slow terrible way had he went against the Empire.
58:34
Well, and the other problem was that he was literally dealing
58:37
with an angry mob at that time with the Jews, because they were
58:41
literally forming an unruly angry mob to pressure him into
58:45
crucifying Jesus. And so he gave in to their
58:48
demand because he was trying to appease them.
58:51
I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Risen.
58:54
It's about a Roman soldier investigating the resurrection
58:58
of Jesus. One of the things that's
59:01
historically accurate in that movie is that pilot.
59:06
I believe it is. Or is it?
59:07
I think it's pilot that the main character interacts with
59:11
basically is talking about how the emperor's coming in a short
59:15
amount of time and, you know, Jerusalem and Israel is in
59:18
chaos. And we have to have order.
59:20
We have to, you know, squelch all this stuff.
59:23
And we have to have, you know, a unified society where none of
59:26
this rebelling is going on. And that's literally the
59:30
environment of the time of Jesus that the Romans were dealing
59:34
with. Pilot being in the position of
59:36
power he was in Jerusalem, was not an enviable seat.
59:40
It was actually seen as not a good thing, him being there
59:44
because of how chaotic and how inciting towards violence a lot
59:50
of the Jews were. So when he had Jesus crucified
59:53
on the cross, that was literally to appease an angry mob.
59:58
But if you remember, he also, he also did it to humiliate the
1:00:02
Jews as well. A lot of people don't realize
1:00:04
that, but whenever he said, I wash my hands of this man's
1:00:08
blood and it's all on you, he basically said it's because of
1:00:11
your filthy decisions why this happened.
1:00:14
He actually questioned Jesus and gave Jesus an out.
1:00:17
But Jesus did as God will go ahead.
1:00:21
Oh, I, I was meaning to. I was meaning to ask you
1:00:24
something real quick. I'm sure some people would want
1:00:28
to know this and it's not in the questions, but why do you, why
1:00:33
do you believe as well as some young Earthers believe that it's
1:00:37
a salvation issue on old earth, Young earth?
1:00:40
Just curious. The reason why I believe it is a
1:00:46
salvation issue is because anything that is clearly taught
1:00:51
by the Bible is a salvation issue.
1:00:55
Like for example, Jesus being God that's all over the place in
1:00:59
the New Testament. Jesus himself in John 858
1:01:03
literally says that he is Yahweh when they were questioning him
1:01:08
about ha ha, you know you, you're alive and 50 years old
1:01:11
and you've claimed to have seen Abraham.
1:01:13
And what does Jesus say in response before Abraham was
1:01:16
born? I am, I am is the shorthand form
1:01:22
in English for Yahweh. It's literally the same words we
1:01:26
see God call himself in Exodus chapter 3 at the burning Bush.
1:01:32
And yet, despite all of that clear biblical evidence that
1:01:36
Jesus is God, believe it or not, there are some Christians out
1:01:40
there who will insist to their dying breath that Jesus not only
1:01:45
is not God, but never claimed to be so young Earth creationism,
1:01:51
the 6000 year timeline that we get from the genealogies and
1:01:55
time spans provided by Genesis and Exodus and 1st Kings chapter
1:02:02
6 verse one, we Add all that together, which that timeline
1:02:07
when you Add all that information together ends about
1:02:09
940 years before Jesus was born. And then it's been 2000 years
1:02:14
since Jesus was born. And so that's how they get the
1:02:17
6000 number. But most of that information
1:02:20
comes from those three places in the Bible and it is clearly
1:02:24
taught. And in I believe it's Numbers
1:02:27
chapter 12, God himself, when he had the whole showdown with
1:02:32
Moses, Aaron and Miriam, and they were challenging Moses's
1:02:36
authority as God's spokesperson, God himself literally told them
1:02:40
to their face. With some prophets, I speak to
1:02:44
them in dreams and visions, but not so if my servant Moses, with
1:02:48
him, I speak face to face with him.
1:02:51
I speak clearly and not in riddles.
1:02:55
So God is literally himself saying that when he revealed his
1:02:58
revelations to Moses, He did not reveal them in some kind of
1:03:03
coded language that, you know, thousands from years from now we
1:03:06
would finally be able to properly decipher and figure out
1:03:09
its real meaning. Now God said that what He had
1:03:12
Moses reveal is what God said. That's it.
1:03:16
He's not playing games with us. He's telling us the bare basic
1:03:19
facts and all that information about the young Earth
1:03:24
creationism timeline of history. Almost all of it is found in
1:03:28
Genesis and Exodus 2 of the books that were written by
1:03:31
Moses, which are revelations he got from God, as well as some
1:03:37
other sources that he put together as an editor.
1:03:40
And those sources, since they were written by Moses, the
1:03:45
proper interpretation of those sources is the straightforward
1:03:49
reading. There's no reinterpreting those.
1:03:52
What it says is what it means. And so that's where the number
1:03:55
genealogies and the time spans all get added together and you
1:03:59
get the 6000 year timeline that young earth creationists have.
1:04:04
And because it's as clearly taught as Jesus's deity, it's a
1:04:09
salvation issue. A better way to put it in like a
1:04:15
logical form is that basically biblical authority is a
1:04:22
salvation issue. That's premise 1.
1:04:25
Premise 2, if you reject biblical authority, if you
1:04:30
reject something that the well, premise 2 is that if you reject
1:04:33
something that the Bible clearly teaches, then you're rejecting
1:04:37
biblical authority. Premise 1 and 2 is premises that
1:04:41
no old earth creationist or young earth creationist would
1:04:44
disagree on. But the third premise is 1 where
1:04:47
the disagreement happens. The Bible clearly teaches a
1:04:51
young earth, A6000 year old earth and universe.
1:04:54
And so if all three of those premises are true, if biblical
1:05:00
authority is a salvation issue, if rejecting anything that the
1:05:04
Bible clearly teaches is a rejection of biblical authority,
1:05:09
and if the Bible clearly teaches A6000 year old earth and
1:05:12
universe, if all of those premises are true, then the
1:05:15
logical inescapable conclusion is that young Earth creationism
1:05:20
is a salvation issue. That's the logical formula for
1:05:25
that question, if you want to have it put that way.
1:05:28
I feel like you you communicated that quite well and you got some
1:05:32
good points. But doesn't it put us both in a
1:05:35
dichotomy here, The old earther and the young earther?
1:05:40
And what dichotomy are you talking about?
1:05:42
Because even though you believe that the Bible teaches 6000
1:05:46
between 6010 thousand years old and here I am going along with
1:05:50
what I've been indoctrinated in by science and the public school
1:05:54
system. If I if someone were to come in
1:05:57
here and ask me, well, how old do you actually think the
1:05:59
universe of the earth is? Brett?
1:06:01
I don't know. I'm not a, you know, geologist.
1:06:05
I am interested in cosmos, but I wouldn't be able to give a down
1:06:09
to the minute down the week down to the second deal.
1:06:12
And I suspect that the people who are young earth creationist,
1:06:16
although you have a rounded off number that you believe that the
1:06:19
time frame will be in probably a limited some kind of point on
1:06:23
how long God's going to let this go.
1:06:26
You don't know the day you're down to the second or week
1:06:28
either. Do you just kind of have a round
1:06:30
off number so it puts us both in a a deal if it's that strict.
1:06:35
Am I correct or or do you have a different way of looking at it?
1:06:40
I forget the name of the guy who did that who had the creation
1:06:45
date at 4004 BC. I'm blanking on his name, but I
1:06:49
know who you're talking about and I'm not exactly sure how he
1:06:54
got such an exact date and time for when creation happened, but
1:06:57
I just know from basic what the Bible teaches.
1:07:01
The earth and universe is roughly 6100 years old, but the
1:07:04
Bible itself doesn't actually give a specific day or time that
1:07:09
the creation occurred at. We just have the general time
1:07:12
span provided by the data. And so I tried to not go beyond
1:07:17
that. Now a lot of younger
1:07:19
creationists, they will go beyond the biblical text to try
1:07:22
and answer some of those details and questions, and they are free
1:07:26
to do so. We all have freedom of inquiry,
1:07:29
especially academic inquiry. But for me personally, I don't
1:07:35
dwell too much into those because the safe place to stay
1:07:40
is when what the Bible says. And the Bible definitely
1:07:43
provides a clear timeline of roughly 6100 years between Adam
1:07:48
and Eve and the universe and Earth being created and us
1:07:52
today. So I stick with that and any
1:07:56
speculation beyond that. I tend to let other creationists
1:08:00
just go ahead and inquire all they want.
1:08:05
Fair enough. Well, I don't want to continue
1:08:08
to interrupt you because there is a lot of questions there and
1:08:11
I appreciate you going in it. I would like to do a show with
1:08:15
you sometime where we talked about some of the studies or
1:08:18
discussion that Russell Humphrey, I believe I brought it
1:08:21
up with you yesterday about his time dilation idea and and see
1:08:26
what your thoughts are on it if you want to.
1:08:29
Yeah. Well, I'd have to find because
1:08:31
I'm pretty sure I have a book on that somewhere in my apologetics
1:08:35
bookshelf. So I'm going to have to find
1:08:37
that book and then reread it to basically get myself back up to
1:08:41
speed. And then once I'm up to speed,
1:08:44
then we can probably do something like that.
1:08:47
But anyway, where were we? Can I offer you a suggestion so
1:08:53
you don't lose your place? Simply take your mouse and
1:08:56
highlight the latest question that you've answered, and then
1:08:59
when you go back to answer, you'll.
1:09:01
Know whatever this is where we're at.
1:09:05
What does being a Christian mean to you on a day-to-day basis?
1:09:10
Now that is a good question because it's one thing to
1:09:14
profess faith, it's another thing to act it out.
1:09:16
So for me, being a Bible believing Christian means that I
1:09:22
have to believe anything that the Bible clearly teaches.
1:09:26
And that means if the Bible clearly teaches how I'm to act
1:09:30
on a day-to-day basis, then I have to follow that teaching.
1:09:35
And because I believe in the Bible, I believe that all
1:09:39
knowledge and wisdom comes from Jesus, which is what Colossians
1:09:43
teaches in the New Testament. And so when I think about that
1:09:48
passage, when we talk about things that are true in reality,
1:09:54
I tend to look at things as the truth can never contradict
1:09:58
itself. So if I come across, you know, a
1:10:02
scientist or a group of scientists who are teaching
1:10:06
things about reality that contradict what the Scriptures
1:10:09
say, I'm going to go with the scriptures on that.
1:10:12
But if they're teaching things that are obviously true and
1:10:16
don't conflict with the Bible at all, I'm going to accept those
1:10:20
as true, at least providentially, because there's
1:10:23
no reason not to reject them at that point unless it comes up
1:10:27
later than I would. But you kind of have to navigate
1:10:32
the waters, so to speak. But the important thing with
1:10:36
being a Christian on a day-to-day basis is that you
1:10:38
have to view everything through the lens of what you read in the
1:10:42
Bible. A lot of people will interpret
1:10:45
the Bible through the lens of what the world tells them, which
1:10:48
is where we get a lot of this divide between conservative
1:10:52
Christians and liberal Christians, older versus younger
1:10:55
creationism. The lens you interpret the world
1:10:59
through is what's going to determine how you interpret the
1:11:03
world. So when you interpret the world
1:11:06
through the Bible instead of the other way around, you're going
1:11:09
to come to much different conclusions than people who
1:11:12
interpret things the other way around.
1:11:14
It's just a fact. It's the way it works, and
1:11:18
there's no shame in that. If you find yourself on the side
1:11:22
that doesn't conform to what the Bible says, first and foremost,
1:11:26
people have to grow in their own way and their own time.
1:11:29
And over time, people who are truly saved and meant to be
1:11:34
saved, they will eventually come out of their false beliefs and
1:11:38
their false faiths, and they will submit to true faith and
1:11:41
true beliefs, but they have to have the freedom and space to do
1:11:45
it. And he's gone.
1:11:55
No, I'm still here. I just don't want to hold it.
1:11:57
Up. I just kidding.
1:11:58
I know, I know, that's OK. I'll just go right to the next 1
1:12:03
then. I think I just scrolled up too
1:12:07
much. How do you feel your faith has
1:12:10
shaped your identity? Well, I kind of just answered
1:12:14
that question too, because I interpret the world through the
1:12:18
lens of what the Bible says when it's read in a straightforward,
1:12:21
contextual manner. So like, for example, on the
1:12:24
whole origins debate, we got the scientific and academic
1:12:28
community telling me that the world was made through a
1:12:32
designerless naturalistic process called evolution over
1:12:36
the course of billions of years. And I got my Bible telling me,
1:12:42
no, actually it was spoken into existence by God over the course
1:12:47
of six ordinary days 6000 years ago.
1:12:50
So when I interpret what they're saying through the lens of what
1:12:54
the Bible says, I'm going to reject evolution.
1:12:57
I'm going to reject billions of years, I'm going to reject Big
1:13:00
Bang cosmology. Or let's try another biblical
1:13:03
belief when they tell us that dead people don't rise from the
1:13:08
dead, and therefore Jesus couldn't possibly have risen
1:13:12
from the dead. And yet I got the Bible in front
1:13:15
of me, specifically the New Testament Gospels telling me
1:13:19
that. Yeah, Jesus did rise from the
1:13:22
dead, and that's why it's a miracle, because dead people
1:13:25
don't rise normally. I'm going to go with the Bible
1:13:29
on that one. You know, stuff like that.
1:13:33
Set some. I have my I have wireless
1:13:35
headphones are and I'll be listening then I got to use the
1:13:38
rest area, but I will listen OK, right, cool.
1:13:44
So the next question is what spiritual practices, prayer,
1:13:48
Bible reading, worship, etcetera, are most important to
1:13:52
you? Now this is a good question
1:13:55
because the answers are different for different people.
1:13:59
There's some people who are really into worship or they're
1:14:02
really into prayer, or they're really into Bible reading, and
1:14:07
they have different prioritizings when they come
1:14:11
when it comes to those things. But I would say for me, the most
1:14:15
important spiritual practice you can have is Bible reading.
1:14:20
Because if you don't know your Bible, then you will not be able
1:14:24
to discern true spirits from false spirits when they tell you
1:14:27
things that are true or false. But if you know your Bible and
1:14:33
you know what it says, then when this evil spirit or some kind of
1:14:38
satanic spirit comes along and tries to slip deceptive lies
1:14:42
into your head that contradict the Bible, you'll recognize it
1:14:46
immediately because it doesn't jive with what the Bible says.
1:14:50
But then when a spirit comes along that says things that
1:14:55
agree with what the Bible says or fall right in line of what
1:14:58
the Bible says, you'll recognize that too.
1:15:01
Because you know your Bible so well, you'll be able to discern
1:15:04
which spirits are telling you the truth, which spirits are
1:15:07
not. When I say spirits telling you
1:15:09
the truth, I could be referring to angels.
1:15:11
I could be referring to other messengers.
1:15:13
God has I I don't know how else to put it without making it more
1:15:18
awkward than it already is. But however you want to
1:15:21
interpret it, knowing your Bible is key because you will be able
1:15:26
to discern those true thoughts from those false thoughts, those
1:15:29
true teachings from those false teachings, etcetera, etcetera.
1:15:33
So I would say knowing your Bible is the most important one,
1:15:37
not just for me, but the most important one in general,
1:15:40
primarily because one, it's the one that people neglect the
1:15:44
most. It's been an issue for most of
1:15:48
my life that the Christian community at large is biblically
1:15:52
ignorant. They don't actually know what
1:15:54
their Bible says on a wide variety of topics.
1:15:58
And I also find that if you know your Bible, other things will
1:16:01
fall into place for you in terms of theology and beliefs, and
1:16:06
prayer and worship will also fall into proper alignment for
1:16:11
you once you know your Bible. So I would say Bible meeting is
1:16:15
the most important one in general.
1:16:18
Next question is how do you make time for prayer or meditation in
1:16:21
your daily routine? Well, the good news is I work
1:16:26
full time at a church, so we have a prayer room in the same
1:16:31
building where my office is. So if I ever need to break away
1:16:35
and go pray or break away and spend some time reading my
1:16:38
Bible, I will literally just go into the prayer room for a bit
1:16:41
and I will pray. I will read my Bible and get
1:16:47
that spiritual nourishment that we all need, and then I go back
1:16:51
to work. And of course, I do that at my
1:16:53
home as well. But the bottom line is that's
1:16:57
the way I make time for prayer and meditation in my daily
1:17:01
routine as well as my Bible reading.
1:17:03
Next question. Is there a particular Bible
1:17:06
verse or passage that has been especially meaningful to you?
1:17:11
Why? Well, there's a lot of really
1:17:15
cool Bible passages that have made an impact on me as well as
1:17:19
made an impact on others. But I would say the most
1:17:21
important one is Matthew 7, verses 21 through 23 where
1:17:28
people come to the Lord and they say, Lord, Lord, we did all
1:17:31
these amazing things in your name, in your name, we drove out
1:17:35
demons in your name. We did all these miracles and
1:17:37
mighty works. And Jesus's response to them is,
1:17:41
I never knew you away from me, you evil doers.
1:17:45
This passage indicates that they're going to be a lot of
1:17:49
people who seem like good, godly, Bible believing
1:17:53
Christians who don't actually have a saving, personal
1:17:57
relationship with Jesus. And they are going to go to hell
1:18:00
along with the rest of the world.
1:18:02
They're going to be tossed into the lake of fire and cease to
1:18:06
exist along with everyone else whose name is not found written
1:18:09
in the book of life. And because this is the case,
1:18:13
because of that verse, then it makes you really sober and makes
1:18:17
you really analyze yourself like, hey, am I really jiving
1:18:21
with what the Bible says? Do I really have saving faith?
1:18:25
It's one of those humbling passages that makes Christians,
1:18:28
you know, really check themselves at the door and make
1:18:31
sure they have a true saving faith because no one wants to be
1:18:35
that guy who thinks he's a saved Bible believing Christian only
1:18:40
to find out from Jesus's own mouth on Judgement Day.
1:18:43
No, actually, you're not. I never knew you'd go away to
1:18:46
the lake of fire with you. No one wants to be in that
1:18:49
position, really. So yeah, that's how I would
1:18:54
address that. Now, we kind of touched on this
1:18:58
next question earlier. How do you approach reading and
1:19:01
interpreting the Bible? Well, the Bible was meant to be
1:19:05
read in a straightforward and contextual fashion.
1:19:09
And I say contextual because the Bible is not all historical
1:19:14
narrative. It's not all poetic form, it's
1:19:19
not all this or that. There are different writing
1:19:22
styles in different books of the Bible.
1:19:25
So the key to interpreting the Bible is to accept the
1:19:29
straightforward and contextual reading.
1:19:33
And by contextual reading we take into account language.
1:19:36
We take into account writing styles and hermeneutics and all
1:19:40
of that. But also when interpreting a
1:19:43
verse or a passage, you have to look at the verse or passages
1:19:47
before it, the verse or passages after it.
1:19:50
You have to look at the context of the book.
1:19:52
You have to look at the context of the Bible as a whole when it
1:19:56
comes to interpreting what the Bible is saying in a particular
1:20:00
passage. So that in particular is the
1:20:05
approach I take when it comes to reading the Bible.
1:20:08
The same approach that I take to determine that the Bible teaches
1:20:13
A6000 year old earth and universe is the same approach I
1:20:16
take to determine that the Bible teaches that Jesus is God.
1:20:21
It's the same approach I take when determining that
1:20:24
replacement theology is false. It's the same approach I take
1:20:28
when determining that Jews and Gentiles alike will be Co heirs
1:20:34
in the Kingdom of God because the Gentiles will be turned into
1:20:37
spiritual Jews by accepting the gospel.
1:20:40
Which is when Galatians 326 through 29 teaches.
1:20:45
I apply the same methodology when it comes to Bible
1:20:48
interpretation, to all those topics.
1:20:51
And then wherever the chips fall, that's where they fall.
1:20:54
That's what I go with. So that's my approach to reading
1:20:58
and interpreting the Bible. Now the next question is, what
1:21:03
role does worship play in your life, whether in church or
1:21:07
personally? And I would say that even though
1:21:10
I have no musical abilities whatsoever, I can't play an
1:21:14
instrument. I Can't Sing to save my life.
1:21:17
I can't. I literally can't carry a tune,
1:21:20
which is unfortunate because my dad can carry a tune very well
1:21:23
and he has sang in church in the past and he's actually on my
1:21:26
church's worship team now, and he's still got it.
1:21:30
So yeah, I don't have any of those abilities, but I do like
1:21:33
listening to Christian rock music.
1:21:37
I like listening to certain kinds of Christian music in
1:21:41
general, and it's important to listen to lyrics and songs that
1:21:47
are uplifting in a spiritual way, because the stuff you put
1:21:51
into your head, well, that can influence the decisions you make
1:21:56
in the life you live. And if you're putting junk in
1:21:58
your head, if you're putting satanic stuff in your head and
1:22:00
you're going to be dealing with those kind of thoughts all the
1:22:02
time, and it's going to make making good decisions in your
1:22:06
life all that much harder. But if you're putting things in
1:22:10
your head that are uplifting spiritually, things that don't
1:22:13
contradict the revealed Word of God, well, then you'll be fine.
1:22:18
You won't have the same kind of struggles in your thoughts if
1:22:22
you're putting uplifting, spiritually mature things into
1:22:26
your head via worship, via music.
1:22:30
Well, as far as. Next question.
1:22:32
Well before before you continue, I was going to say, although you
1:22:36
don't give yourself much credit for singing and vocals and and
1:22:40
music and all that, you do have a pretty high station.
1:22:43
I would stay say if they actually indulge what it is that
1:22:48
you're you're capable of doing video editing and the kind of
1:22:52
work you're doing is extremely difficult and challenging for a
1:22:55
lot of people. And I'm sure a lot of your
1:22:58
Christian members in the church would even say so they wouldn't
1:23:01
know what to do if they had to do the kind of things you're
1:23:03
doing. And also the fact that you're
1:23:05
sowing seeds and social media as well shows that you're an
1:23:10
extraordinary part of that church.
1:23:12
So don't get that down on yourself and realize what you're
1:23:15
capable of. Thank you, Brett.
1:23:19
And yeah, you are right, video editing is definitely not for
1:23:22
the faint of heart, whether it be for, you know, a social media
1:23:25
site like YouTube or Rumble or Facebook, or if you're making
1:23:32
stuff to air on TV. It's all a very laborious,
1:23:37
tedious process because it's not just like the one action that
1:23:42
you do to make an edit. It's the fact that you often
1:23:45
have to make the same types of edits repeatedly over and over
1:23:50
and over. Especially if you're doing
1:23:52
weekly programs like I do for work.
1:23:55
You're basically doing the same kind of tasks for the most part
1:23:59
in every project you put together.
1:24:01
So that kind of tedious repetition turns a lot of people
1:24:06
off. I actually had someone, I've
1:24:08
come through my ministry at the church recently, who was
1:24:11
initially interested and being a part of the television ministry
1:24:15
and helping put together programs and putting together
1:24:18
content for social media. But then once he realized all
1:24:22
the tedious, repetitive work that goes into that, he lost his
1:24:26
drive to do that and he ended up going off to do something else.
1:24:30
So I know through personal experience that the kind of
1:24:33
content that I make for my job and the kind of stuff I do here
1:24:37
on the Internet is definitely not for the faint of heart.
1:24:40
And it's not something that just any old person can do.
1:24:43
You got to be really committed and driven in order to do this
1:24:48
kind of thing for a living like I do.
1:24:51
Right. If you'd if you were not doing
1:24:53
the video editing and engineering of it and producing
1:24:57
it, then the show would be it would look garbagey.
1:25:00
And also if you weren't in control over being able to edit
1:25:04
the audio as well. It doesn't matter how
1:25:06
professional someone sings or how great they are musically, if
1:25:10
they're not properly produced and video and dubbed with it,
1:25:15
it's going to all sound like this absolute garbage.
1:25:18
So you do play a huge part and I hope that people up there are
1:25:22
praising you for that. I get some thank yous for from
1:25:28
time to time in my church, but yeah, I, I appreciate that,
1:25:33
Brett, very much. I don't.
1:25:34
Mean praising you, like getting on your knees, worshipping you
1:25:37
or anything I'm saying. I know what you mean.
1:25:40
Giving you kudos, you know what I mean?
1:25:43
Yeah, I do know what you mean. Where were we?
1:25:46
Oh yes. So how do you discern God's will
1:25:48
or guidance when making decisions?
1:25:51
Now, this touches on what I was saying earlier about the Bible
1:25:55
and how to interpret it and how to determine whether or not
1:25:58
you're being told the truth in your thought life.
1:26:02
Basically, you need to know what the Bible says.
1:26:06
Because when you know what the Bible says, then when his God's
1:26:09
messengers or his angels are telling you things or the Holy
1:26:13
Spirit is telling you things, you'll be able to recognize
1:26:17
their voice because what they say will line up with what the
1:26:21
Bible says. And you will know, hey, that
1:26:23
voice is to be trusted. That thought is to be trusted.
1:26:27
That idea is to be trusted because I know where it comes
1:26:31
from. And if you know your Bible and
1:26:34
you come across a thought or an idea in your head that
1:26:38
completely contradicts what the Bible says, then you will know,
1:26:42
hey, I should reject that thought or idea.
1:26:45
I'm not going to go with that. So that is the kind of, that's
1:26:56
the kind of discernment you need to exercise when you're trying
1:26:59
to figure out God's will or guidance when making decisions.
1:27:02
Because knowing your Bible will make that so much easier.
1:27:07
Because if you don't know your Bible and then you have all
1:27:09
these conflicting ideas and thoughts in your head that are
1:27:12
put there by angels, by the Holy Spirit, by by demons and by evil
1:27:17
spirits, then it will be really, really difficult to discern
1:27:21
whether or not what you're being told is true or not.
1:27:25
And as you know, Brett, evil spirits and demons, they are
1:27:29
very good at putting a lot of truth in with a little
1:27:33
devastating lie in order to get you to accept a lie.
1:27:37
So it's really important that we all know our Bibles because
1:27:41
that's how you can discern God's will or guidance when making
1:27:44
decisions. As far as the next question
1:27:50
goes, what are your thoughts on the go ahead I?
1:27:54
Was going to say I agree with you.
1:27:56
Unfortunately, and I brought this up with you a long time ago
1:27:59
when I was a former non believer getting into discussions and
1:28:03
debates. I found that a lot of religious
1:28:05
folks, they weren't reading their Bible cover to cover.
1:28:08
They weren't even trying to understand and they would say
1:28:10
they were too busy to do any research or study.
1:28:13
A lot of them would justify it by saying, well, I believe in
1:28:16
Jesus and that's it. That's all I need to do.
1:28:20
And I tried to explain to them kind of the same thing that you
1:28:22
did. And unfortunately, almost every
1:28:25
time they lost debates, discussions and everything else
1:28:28
because they simply had no foundation to work from.
1:28:31
And we're surprised when things were brought up in the Bible
1:28:34
they'd never read about. You see what I mean?
1:28:37
Yeah, I do see what you mean. I appreciate that.
1:28:43
And then let's see, Oh yes, this is a fun question 'cause we know
1:28:48
some people on the Internet who talk about this all the time.
1:28:51
What are your thoughts on the concept of grace and
1:28:54
Christianity? Oh boy, oh, all the free grace
1:28:58
people just said, huh? So grace and Christianity is not
1:29:06
like a blanket pardon 'cause there are some people who think
1:29:09
that you can just at one point in your life profess faith in
1:29:13
Christ, but then almost immediately completely backslide
1:29:17
and basically being unsaved heathen the rest of your life.
1:29:21
And because you made that one profession a long time ago,
1:29:25
you're saved regardless of the fact that you had no fruit in
1:29:28
your life to show that you were saved.
1:29:31
Whereas when it comes to good works, and we're kind of
1:29:35
addressing the follow up question as well, how do you
1:29:38
view the balance between faith and works in your Christian
1:29:40
walk? The grace that we are given by
1:29:44
Jesus is what enables us to do any good work.
1:29:48
So when you repent of your sins and you bow your knee to Jesus
1:29:52
and you enter into a personal saving relationship with Him, if
1:29:57
that was genuinely done, then what's going to happen
1:30:00
eventually is that you are going to start in some way, shape or
1:30:04
form, doing good works. And it's not the works that save
1:30:09
you. The works are the fruit that
1:30:13
prove that you're saved. It's kind of like how an apple
1:30:17
proves that an apple tree is an apple tree.
1:30:20
You know it's an apple tree because apples are growing on
1:30:22
it. Well, that's the same thing in
1:30:24
Christianity. You know that you're saved
1:30:27
because you're doing the good works that come with being
1:30:31
saved. So it's not that the works save
1:30:34
you, it's that the works prove that you're saved.
1:30:38
You know what I mean with that analogy.
1:30:42
I do. Unfortunately, I'm having a tiny
1:30:45
bit of delay and that's the reason why it takes just a
1:30:48
moment for me to respond. That's OK.
1:30:52
What does forgiveness mean to you and how do you practice it
1:30:55
in your life? Well, forgiveness has to run
1:30:58
deep in the lives of Christians, especially in our day-to-day
1:31:02
lives because human beings are sinful.
1:31:06
They make mistakes, they burn you, they sin against you.
1:31:10
It's inevitable, happens to everyone, and you have to be
1:31:13
able to forgive them because as the New Testament teaches, God
1:31:17
has forgiven us much and so we are therefore obligated to
1:31:22
forgive others when the opportunity arises.
1:31:26
And Jesus had parables where he talked about people who accepted
1:31:30
forgiveness from the Lord, but then were refusing to offer that
1:31:34
same forgiveness to people who had committed lesser crimes
1:31:38
against them. And then the Lord gets mad with
1:31:40
that person and punishes them for what they've done and what
1:31:44
they did to the other person. So being able to forgive people
1:31:49
is important. It is a must.
1:31:52
If you're a Christian, you have to forgive people.
1:31:55
Now, it won't always be easy. Sometimes it might take you a
1:31:58
while to forgive someone, depending on the severity of the
1:32:02
sin or the crime they've committed against you or against
1:32:04
God. But you do have to be able to
1:32:07
forgive them at some point, and the timing is all in God's hands
1:32:12
when it comes to that. But forgiveness is absolutely
1:32:16
essential. You can't go, you can't get away
1:32:19
from it. You can't go around it.
1:32:21
You can't skip over it. Forgiveness is incredibly
1:32:24
important, and so when people have wronged me in my life, over
1:32:29
time, I've had to forgive them. And I do forgive them.
1:32:33
I especially at one point used to harbor a lot of resentment
1:32:37
towards my old basketball coach from high school because me and
1:32:41
my teammates were a really talented team for our
1:32:44
classification in Oregon back in the late 2000s, and we had all
1:32:49
the potential in the world to run the table and win a state
1:32:52
championship. But our coach, unfortunately,
1:32:55
for reasons I don't understand, hated when his best players
1:32:59
succeeded and he would not put my teammates and myself in the
1:33:03
best position to succeed. And so even though we still
1:33:07
ended up having a great team in my senior year, we never reached
1:33:11
the potential that I knew we had.
1:33:13
And I used to hold that against him for many, many years.
1:33:18
And it was only when I got into like my mid late 20s where I
1:33:22
eventually just forgave him because I couldn't hold on to
1:33:26
that kind of resentment anymore. That was something I had to
1:33:30
really just process for a long time and not really address it.
1:33:36
And it kind of just took care of itself.
1:33:38
But forgiveness in general, though, is really important, not
1:33:42
just to me, but it's important to being a Christian in general.
1:33:47
The next question. Is I had no idea that you played
1:33:51
basketball and you were good at it.
1:33:53
I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.
1:33:55
Good man. Yeah, I was.
1:33:59
Since you brought it up. I was third team Allstate and
1:34:03
first team all league in my senior year in high school, and
1:34:08
I was playing in a league where most of the top 25 players in
1:34:12
our classification in the state of Oregon were in.
1:34:15
So guys who would go on to play college football, guys who would
1:34:19
go on to play college basketball in some way, shape or form.
1:34:23
The Oregon State athlete of the year was actually one of those
1:34:26
guys. He was a guy who was like first
1:34:29
team all league in football, first team all league in
1:34:32
Allstate in basketball, He was first team all league in
1:34:35
baseball. And he actually ended up walking
1:34:37
on at the University of Oregon and being on their practice
1:34:40
squad for a couple of years, which if you know Oregon
1:34:43
football from the late 2000s, early 20 tens, that's when they
1:34:47
started hitting like primetime college football and they became
1:34:50
a national power. So to even be on the practice
1:34:53
squad at a program like that is a huge accomplishment.
1:34:58
And I had to play against guys of that kind of athletic level
1:35:02
on the regular in my senior year.
1:35:04
And yet I was one of the better players in the state in the
1:35:08
league and I did a lot of great things.
1:35:10
And I in retrospect, I can look back on it.
1:35:14
I had such a big impact on my team that I was literally the
1:35:18
difference between my team being a top ten team like we were and
1:35:22
being an also man that was a total dumpster fire.
1:35:26
Like I was literally the glue holding my team together.
1:35:29
For reasons that I don't quite understand but also reasons I
1:35:34
can think of that makes sense. Mainly my height and my ability
1:35:39
to play defense down low and score inside and draw a lot of
1:35:44
double teams and make life easier for my teammates.
1:35:46
But yeah, I was really good at basketball.
1:35:50
I actually played a year of college basketball at Linfield
1:35:54
University before I ended up getting cut and then focused in
1:35:58
on my academics the rest of my college time.
1:36:01
But I was really good at basketball.
1:36:03
I used to be in really good shape.
1:36:05
Now I'm like 3035 lbs over my playing weight and I don't have
1:36:10
any stamina for running. So I would suck at basketball if
1:36:13
I tried today because of that. That's fair enough.
1:36:18
How about have you ever thought about doing A, at least for your
1:36:22
church, maybe doing like a where you, you're the the guy, you're
1:36:27
the coach and you teach young people how to do it, or actually
1:36:32
a coach inside of the school? Yeah, I have thought about that.
1:36:37
I think I actually did apply for a coaching job once, but I never
1:36:40
heard back on it. And as far as doing that within
1:36:44
my church, I wish I could. There just currently is not
1:36:48
enough time to do that. I'm the only TV producer we
1:36:52
have. And so basically I do
1:36:55
everything. I do all the filming, all the
1:36:59
editing, and I film all the sermons on Sundays.
1:37:04
And there's just, it takes so much time just to do the things
1:37:08
we do every week with live streams and making programs that
1:37:11
there's just no time for me to do all that and do something
1:37:15
extracurricular like basketball with the church and then do all
1:37:19
this stuff that I do on the Internet.
1:37:21
You know, something's got to give.
1:37:22
And unfortunately, the basketball part is the one that
1:37:26
can go the easiest. Well, I hope, you know, for you
1:37:30
and I, it's second nature to do a lot of video editing and stuff
1:37:34
because we've been doing video for years.
1:37:36
But I hope the church is actually not considered that
1:37:40
they're in it like some kind of charity.
1:37:42
I hope you're getting paid. There's people get paid
1:37:44
thousands of dollars to do the kind of work you're doing.
1:37:49
Yeah, I, I get paid pretty solid.
1:37:52
I mean, I get paid more than I ever did when I work as a
1:37:56
caregiver for 11 years. So there's that.
1:38:01
And I got an increase in my pay around the time that my house
1:38:06
was being renovated because I told them about my living
1:38:10
situation and all on their own. My church decided to increase my
1:38:17
pay so that I could have an easier time paying my bills and
1:38:21
I didn't have to worry about that.
1:38:24
That's good. I'm just saying I I wouldn't
1:38:27
want people to devalue what you're doing, what the kind of
1:38:30
work you're doing is worth thousands of dollars.
1:38:33
Go ahead. Yeah, I, I, I don't make like I
1:38:37
don't make 6 figures, but I make, I can make a good amount
1:38:40
per year on my current salary. So I'm definitely not lacking.
1:38:45
Just as long as you're able to afford a Big Mac and a chocolate
1:38:49
shake every now and then. There you go.
1:38:52
Yeah, I, I just load up on my local Winco grocery store where
1:38:56
things are really cheap. So I actually like making my own
1:39:00
food now and then. So, but anyway, OK, so we kind
1:39:06
of went through those two. We went through forgiveness.
1:39:08
How do you stay grounded in your faith during busy or stressful
1:39:12
times? Well, one way is knowing your
1:39:16
Bible and reading it on a consistent basis.
1:39:19
That is the best way to stay grounded in your faith because
1:39:22
then it's fresh on your mind at all times.
1:39:25
But prayer is another way to stay grounded in your faith if
1:39:28
you don't have time to do any kind of Bible reading in
1:39:31
particular. So like, for example, this
1:39:34
fireworks season I just went through with my church, we're
1:39:37
talking 4 weeks, no breaks, no days off.
1:39:41
We're talking 1215 hour days most of the time.
1:39:45
And yeah, and it was basically, for the most part, just me and a
1:39:49
couple other people at a big old fireworks tent we were running.
1:39:53
So I'm so tired by the end of the day when I finally go home
1:39:57
that there is no time for me to just sit down and read the
1:40:01
Bible. So, you know, you find times
1:40:03
during the day when you're at down times at your tent or you
1:40:08
find down time at home right before you go to bed to engage
1:40:11
in prayer and engage in staying grounded in your faith in other
1:40:16
ways. So that's a way that you can
1:40:20
stay grounded. Next question is actually very.
1:40:24
Well, I was going to point out something real quick.
1:40:26
As you know at the beginning of our conversation, the answering
1:40:29
the questions, Mr. 6 shades and said, oh, this is all a trap.
1:40:34
I wanted to inform you that there is another reason why I do
1:40:38
this, not just for social value and learning, but it helps me as
1:40:42
a Christian myself. I do go through major depression
1:40:47
all the time. Even in my adulthood.
1:40:49
I have severe depression issues and I try to find different ways
1:40:54
and outlets and ways for me to be able to adjust or get through
1:40:57
this. And the belief in God and all
1:41:00
that actually does help me very much.
1:41:02
I was going down in a downward spiral as an unbeliever.
1:41:06
So listening to Christians tell me the kind of things that they
1:41:10
do and advice or suggestions that they do for themselves,
1:41:14
some of it works for me, some of it helps.
1:41:17
So I consider it a huge beneficial thing to do.
1:41:21
These things I learned from people.
1:41:23
And you know, I also just found out that you were pro
1:41:27
basketball. That's awesome, dude.
1:41:29
I did not know that before. Well, if you're talking about my
1:41:36
basketball past, then yeah, I was able to play college ball,
1:41:39
but I definitely was not a pro. I'm just good at the basketball
1:41:44
to other because I I have been to a couple of NBA games in
1:41:48
person. You know where the real pros
1:41:50
are, all those monstrous people walking around to play
1:41:52
basketball. Well, I weren't.
1:41:55
Very good. Michael Jordan or Larry Bird?
1:41:57
Or something like that. I'm.
1:41:58
Just saying you had skill, probably still do if you were
1:42:02
to, if you were to put some time into it, but the end.
1:42:05
If I was in shape, yeah, yeah. If I was in shape physically, I
1:42:09
I still have my basketball skill.
1:42:11
I just don't have a body to utilize it.
1:42:15
But you. Understand what I was saying
1:42:17
about the aspects of the questions though, and how it can
1:42:20
benefit me personally as well as I think help others.
1:42:24
And I, I, I really do think it's very educational and plus it
1:42:29
gets people to be able to engage conversations and talk about
1:42:32
things and learn things about each other they may not have
1:42:35
known. So I, I think that it's good for
1:42:38
common ground type of things in educational.
1:42:41
That makes sense. Yeah, Now the next question is a
1:42:45
fun story because I'll have to do a little self censorship due
1:42:50
to some of the words that YouTube still likes to censor
1:42:53
you for. How did you find your current
1:42:56
church community and what drew you to it?
1:42:59
Well, the church that I work at now, I actually started
1:43:03
attending back in 2021, back when we were going through those
1:43:08
dark times with the EIU and people were forced to wear masks
1:43:14
basically everywhere they went. And the current church I go to
1:43:18
now, I start going to in 2021 because I didn't have to wear
1:43:24
one of those in order to walk in the door and participate in the
1:43:27
service. And so I started going and then
1:43:31
I just went for a couple of years.
1:43:32
And then my predecessor in the TV ministry left.
1:43:37
And since my father was good friends with the pastor and
1:43:41
always talking about me as well as, you know, other things in
1:43:45
general, my pastor remembered that and went.
1:43:48
So what does Justin do again? Because he knows that I do all
1:43:52
this stuff and have been doing all this stuff since before I
1:43:56
started working there. So yeah, I was on boarded in May
1:44:00
of 2023 at my church to be the head TV producer and it's just
1:44:07
been gravy from there. It's actually very interesting,
1:44:11
Brett, when you're a part of a church and you get to see what
1:44:16
things are like behind the scenes.
1:44:17
Like what goes into putting together a Sunday service?
1:44:21
What goes into putting together outreach ministries?
1:44:24
What goes into putting together fundraisers to raise funds for
1:44:28
all that outreach stuff? What goes into putting together
1:44:33
like a kids camp or a youth camp for middle school, high school
1:44:36
students, or putting together a Valentine's Day banquet for a
1:44:40
community? Or like we do every Thanksgiving
1:44:43
the day before anyway, our own Thanksgiving dinners that we put
1:44:47
on where basically the whole community is opened up to our
1:44:51
doors and able to share a Thanksgiving dinner with us,
1:44:54
especially if they don't have family to do that with.
1:44:57
So being there for the last couple of years has really shown
1:45:00
me a lot about the behind the scenes stuff of what goes on to
1:45:05
make church stuff happen in a church that is legitimate and
1:45:09
trying to honor God. And it's very eye opening,
1:45:13
especially when you see how it impacts the community and how
1:45:16
much they appreciate what you do for them.
1:45:18
Because our church puts out food boxes 3 weeks a month where we
1:45:24
have food boxes that have like a month's worth of food.
1:45:28
And we have like a drive through station set up in our parking
1:45:31
lot. And what we do for 150 to 200
1:45:34
families a week, every week we're open is that they come
1:45:38
through the drive through, they get their box and they drive out
1:45:41
with a week's worth of food for free.
1:45:44
And they go on and they're able to make it through whatever
1:45:48
they're going through. Because a lot of the families
1:45:50
that come through are not necessarily poor, but they're
1:45:53
just poor enough that they're kind of stuck where they are.
1:45:55
And if they are able to not spend money on food, they can
1:45:58
focus that on other things that will help them to get ahead and
1:46:01
get beyond that situation. And so that's the primary
1:46:06
audience of people that are food boxes benefit.
1:46:10
As a matter of fact, the guy who cut my hair yesterday at the
1:46:13
barbershop, he actually a few years ago used to be one of
1:46:17
those people who relied on our church's food boxes to get by
1:46:22
while he improved his, you know, position in life so that he
1:46:25
could be more independent and buy his own food and not have to
1:46:29
rely on such outreaches. But he used to rely on our
1:46:33
church's outreach with our food boxes.
1:46:36
And so when I was telling him about the fireworks season and
1:46:39
how our food box ministry was funded by that, he was like, oh,
1:46:45
I used to get those food boxes. That makes a lot of sense now.
1:46:50
So, yeah, you get to see a whole new world when you work at a
1:46:54
church and you see what goes on behind the scenes, especially
1:46:56
when you're at a church that does a lot of community
1:46:58
outreach. It really opens your eyes to
1:47:01
what the world is like and what people in general and the real
1:47:04
world are concerned about. And then it gives you
1:47:07
perspective when you go back to the Internet and you look at all
1:47:10
the things that people on the Internet are focused on arguing
1:47:13
about, etcetera. But that is how I found my
1:47:27
church. Have you had all that?
1:47:31
That ties into the next question.
1:47:33
Have you ever served in a leadership or volunteer role in
1:47:35
your church? What was that like?
1:47:37
I am in a leadership role because I run their television
1:47:41
ministry. I'm not like a pastor that, you
1:47:44
know, counsels people and does all the stuff that our main
1:47:47
pastors do. But I literally run a ministry.
1:47:51
And that ministry is all about putting our content on the TV
1:47:55
and on the social media and the Internet.
1:47:57
And so that's as involved in a church as you can possibly be,
1:48:03
especially when you're the only one doing all of it.
1:48:06
So every week I am putting together new TV programs from
1:48:10
our Sunday sermons. And I'm running prayer service
1:48:13
live streams on Tuesdays. I'm running announcement live
1:48:16
streams on Wednesdays. I'm filming announcement videos
1:48:19
that are aired on our youth group and on Wednesday nights
1:48:22
and that are Sunday services. And I'm filming and live
1:48:25
streaming those Sunday services and it's just, that's a lot of
1:48:29
work. And I'm also maintaining and
1:48:31
updating our website and also keeping our social medias up to
1:48:36
date, which for our church, we use Twitter, Gab, Getter, True
1:48:39
Social and Facebook as the way of putting our stuff out there.
1:48:44
So yeah, I do a lot of the same things I do for TTOR as far as
1:48:49
social media goes. I do that as part of my workflow
1:48:53
at work. But then at work I do so much
1:48:55
more. Honestly, there's more work to
1:48:57
do in a week at my job then I'm capable of doing.
1:49:01
It'll be nice one day if I had someone else who could do what I
1:49:04
do, because then we could get stuff done quicker and put out
1:49:08
more. But yeah, I'm as involved in my
1:49:11
church as you can get. I'm at all the staff meetings
1:49:16
and I do all that stuff during the weekend on Sundays.
1:49:19
So yeah, I'm as involved in a church as one can possibly be.
1:49:24
You guys got a flyer board? I don't have like a graphic to
1:49:30
throw up on screen, but I can't throw up.
1:49:35
No, no, no, no. I mean like a flyer board at the
1:49:37
church. I like a like a like a bulletin
1:49:43
board. Yeah, somewhere you can post up
1:49:46
if there's any young adults that are interested in video editing
1:49:50
or know anything about it or have you.
1:49:52
I don't know if you know everybody in your church, how
1:49:55
big it is, but there might be some younger people who actually
1:49:59
do YouTube and their own videos and understand some amount of
1:50:03
editing. Maybe you can train a, you know,
1:50:06
a young Jedi. What do they call it?
1:50:08
A power or something like that? Padawan.
1:50:12
Yeah, an apprentice. There you go.
1:50:15
Yeah, that is a great idea. Unfortunately, we do not have
1:50:23
such people in our church at the moment.
1:50:25
Like we have young people, but they're not into that kind of
1:50:28
work. They have a lot of the, and I do
1:50:33
know a lot of the adults at the church too, and unfortunately,
1:50:38
they are not that interested in doing the kind of work that we
1:50:42
do that I do, I should say. So a lot of people at our
1:50:47
church, they'll get on board for helping out in youth groups.
1:50:49
They'll get on board for helping out in kids ministry or the
1:50:52
nursery or getting involved with the Bible studies and all the
1:50:57
other stuff. But yeah, the television
1:51:00
ministry is not a huge draw at my church for volunteers because
1:51:04
of the professional nature of the work.
1:51:08
Are you allowed to work with people online that you trust?
1:51:13
Do you have any Christian brothers and sisters that's
1:51:16
really good at editing? I mean, you could send it, send
1:51:20
the footage of people and have them clean it up.
1:51:22
Only people you trust, obviously, and then they can do
1:51:26
it back and forth with you. I've actually worked with people
1:51:29
musically like that, where you send them something and see what
1:51:32
they can do with that. Send it back and tell them you
1:51:35
love it or extinct kind of thing.
1:51:38
Right, that is something I'll have to look into and see what I
1:51:41
can do. Sounds good.
1:51:45
Because I have tech people who can help me with tech problems
1:51:48
when they come up, but I don't have anyone like that currently.
1:51:50
So that's something I'll have to look into in my own time.
1:51:55
But let's get back to the question list.
1:52:03
So yeah, how has being part of a Christian community impacted
1:52:09
your faith? Well, I would say that being
1:52:14
part of my church community in particular has had a big impact
1:52:19
on my faith because for the most part we function like a big
1:52:24
church family. Which kind of ties into some of
1:52:28
the next couple of questions is basically we do a lot of things
1:52:35
together in terms of not just like the services we do and the
1:52:39
things that I produce, but like all the outreach events we do,
1:52:42
the fundraisers we do. I've had to run video for a lot
1:52:46
of different funeral and celebration of life services.
1:52:49
I even got to film a wedding at one point and I got to film a
1:52:53
rock concert on New Year's Eve a couple years ago.
1:52:57
So that was held in our church. So I, I get to be a part of a
1:53:03
lot of, we get to be a part of a lot of things together.
1:53:06
And basically we act like a family and we have each other's
1:53:10
back. And when issues come up, we try
1:53:13
to work through them. We try to do conflict resolution
1:53:16
when conflict comes up. And we just do all the things
1:53:20
that we do to try and keep things running as smoothly as
1:53:23
possible and make sure that we're all in as good of a
1:53:26
relationship with each other as we possibly can be, because
1:53:30
that's how a church family is supposed to be.
1:53:33
Now, no one in our church is perfect.
1:53:36
We all have our flaws and issues that we deal with.
1:53:40
But it very much is a family where at the church that I'm at,
1:53:45
especially with the staff and all the stuff we do together to
1:53:50
make things happen during the week, during the months, during
1:53:53
the year. So yeah, I would say it
1:53:56
functions very much like a family.
1:54:00
What about social media? Christian Community.
1:54:06
Not so much of A family. Now, granted, you know, there's
1:54:10
people like you and I who get along fairly well, and there's
1:54:14
other Christians that get along with each other fairly well as
1:54:17
well. But then as you know, there's a
1:54:19
lot of people out there in the Christian YouTube community who
1:54:23
basically they feed off of drama, they feed off of feeling
1:54:28
important. They feed off of their own ego.
1:54:32
They have a dopamine addiction that comes with getting views,
1:54:35
getting Subs, getting followers and all that stuff.
1:54:38
So a lot of times those kind of people will do anything they can
1:54:42
to keep the dopamine flowing. So they'll get really wacky and
1:54:46
outlandish with their theatrics, with their behaviors, with the
1:54:50
things they say and do. I mean, you know all about that.
1:54:54
I know all about that. But yeah, that's definitely not
1:54:58
a family. It's kind of like a it's kind of
1:55:02
like going through a mosh pit full of half the people being
1:55:05
murderers. There's always someone looking
1:55:08
to stab you in the back on the way through.
1:55:12
I agree with that. If it wasn't for guys like you
1:55:15
TTR and a few other people I could mention, I I don't know
1:55:19
how I would have been able to get through some of the
1:55:22
aggravation and nonsense. And some of these people are
1:55:25
real bastards. I really I could be in a room
1:55:28
filled with half Christians and half atheists and I wouldn't be
1:55:32
able to tell the difference. Oh yeah, I've.
1:55:34
I've been there. Yeah, been there, done that.
1:55:44
OK, I kind of addressed all this church community stuff.
1:55:49
Do you, how do you connect with other Christians outside of
1:55:52
formal church settings? Well, unfortunately, I don't get
1:55:56
to do that very often, mostly because our church does so many
1:56:01
outreach events and stuff that we very rarely have that
1:56:05
opportunity to do anything outside of a formal church or
1:56:09
formal fundraiser setting. But you know, if Christians like
1:56:13
you and me who are states apart and can't possibly meet up in
1:56:16
person, we get on the Internet and we do live streams together.
1:56:21
We DM, we share posts, send us emails.
1:56:25
I mean, you know, we have lots of ways of communicating online
1:56:28
outside of our church families, but.
1:56:31
Unfortunately, I hope you realize that if you ever are
1:56:35
given the opportunity to come visit me, you wanted a few I'd
1:56:38
allow to my home and I'd feed you some BBQ if you like it.
1:56:43
And if you ever come visit me, there are several really good
1:56:46
restaurants I'd treat you to. And by good restaurants, I mean
1:56:51
good food, not necessarily five star, you know?
1:56:55
There you go. Well, I'm not really into the
1:56:57
whole fancy push paw kind of stuff.
1:57:00
Anyway, I like a good burger, some fries and a good time.
1:57:05
Go ahead. Oh I I know many places like
1:57:07
that in my area. You'd love them.
1:57:10
Where are we? Oh yeah, we were right there.
1:57:14
Have you participated in mission trips or outreach programs?
1:57:19
What were those experiences like?
1:57:22
Well, I've never been part of like a missionary trip to
1:57:24
another country. But as far as outreach programs
1:57:28
go, because I work at my church, I get to see some of our
1:57:32
outreach programs first hand, like with our food box drive
1:57:36
that we do 3 weeks a month. I see what that's like and I see
1:57:41
how many people come through there and how that benefits them
1:57:44
and just how much food they're really getting.
1:57:47
And you know, I go to the kids camps and the high school camps
1:57:50
to get videos and pictures so that I can make highlight videos
1:57:54
of the camps. And you know, I get to see first
1:57:57
hand just just what those experiences are like for the
1:58:02
campers and for the counselors that are there.
1:58:04
And I know from my own experiences growing up going to
1:58:07
church camps, that church camps can either be really life
1:58:11
changing and get you going on the right path for the rest of
1:58:14
your life, or at the bare minimum, they can be a really
1:58:18
fun time that gets you away from the normal rhythms and routines
1:58:23
of life and can help you do like a reset mentally.
1:58:26
Whichever one it is, I think there's very little downside to
1:58:30
people going to kids camps, going to youth and high school
1:58:34
camps. And so when I see those as
1:58:37
someone who's capturing it all on video and picture, I feel
1:58:40
like we're really making a difference in kids lives.
1:58:44
Because some of the kids that go to these camps, they come from
1:58:47
families that actually can't afford to pay the fees for their
1:58:52
kids to go. But their kids often during,
1:58:56
like our fireworks season, for example, that we just did, are
1:58:59
able to fund their own way to camp by helping sell raffle
1:59:02
tickets at the tents. And a lot of kids end up paying
1:59:06
actually for their entire camp funds because they did such a
1:59:10
good job selling raffle tickets. So to see those kids go to those
1:59:15
camps and get to enjoy the times that they have there.
1:59:19
And I know for a fact that, you know, they earn their way there.
1:59:23
It's just it's a really special thing to see it as an outsider.
1:59:31
The next question is how do you share your faith with others,
1:59:35
whether through words or actions?
1:59:38
Well, I tend to share my faith when the opportunity prevents
1:59:43
itself, but I usually wait until the other person asks or in the
1:59:48
rare occasion the Lord prompts me to ask first.
1:59:52
But generally speaking, I tried to figure out where people stand
1:59:57
and why they believe what they believe.
1:59:59
So that's why when you see me engaging with people like Smokey
2:00:03
St. or you see me engaging with the atheists I've engaged with
2:00:07
over the years, or the other Christians who have had beef
2:00:10
with me and decide to confront me head to head, I often try to
2:00:14
let people talk as much as possible.
2:00:17
Because many of those people. I don't really know where
2:00:19
they're coming from other than what they're saying to me in a
2:00:22
lot of video or on a live stream.
2:00:24
And so basically getting them talking to understand where
2:00:28
they're coming from and what their thought process is like
2:00:31
and whatnot. That's all very important for me
2:00:35
when it comes to sharing my face.
2:00:36
So I like to be able to let them kind of set the stage to where
2:00:41
they're at mentally and spiritually and emotionally.
2:00:45
And then what they say determines how I approach them.
2:00:48
So sometimes you approach them intellectually, sometimes you
2:00:52
approach them from a sympathetic, emotional,
2:00:55
spiritual support level, which is you got to really get an idea
2:00:59
of what the person's like and what they're going through in
2:01:02
order to determine which approach is best for sharing
2:01:05
your faith with them. And that's something that takes
2:01:08
time and experience and discernment.
2:01:12
On myself, I've discovered personally that I get people who
2:01:16
I don't know anything about I I don't know where they're coming
2:01:21
from and I'll get mentioned and I'll go look at their videos or
2:01:24
read their post and they come off really hardcore at me.
2:01:28
And this is religious people as well as non believers.
2:01:32
And I say to them every time I say why didn't you just approach
2:01:36
me? I do live shows all the time.
2:01:38
You have 100 different ways to contact me.
2:01:41
Why don't you ask me the questions instead of assume?
2:01:44
And why can't we just have a chill conversation and we'll get
2:01:47
to know each other? Instead they just seem like they
2:01:50
want to. It's right for kill mode, you
2:01:52
know, right for the throat instead of just chilling out
2:01:56
having an adult conversation. That's really odd.
2:02:01
Yes, that is very odd indeed. The next question, though, is
2:02:05
very interesting. It is what's your perspective on
2:02:10
the role of the Church in addressing social issues today?
2:02:14
Oh boy, talk about a loaded question.
2:02:17
Because that can mean all kinds of things a lot of people don't.
2:02:22
Like the it's a trap, Luke, it's a trap.
2:02:26
That's where the trap is. Just kidding.
2:02:31
All right, All right. Thick shades.
2:02:32
We found the trap. Just kidding.
2:02:36
So, yeah, it really depends how you go at it.
2:02:41
Like, you know, most of our lives, you know, the world has
2:02:44
basically told the church that on the cultural issues of
2:02:49
abortion, homosexuality, climate change, etcetera, that you need
2:02:53
to either conform with us or you need to shut up.
2:02:56
That's basically the message that the church has gotten for
2:02:59
many, many years, for most of my life.
2:03:01
And we see many, many churches do exactly that.
2:03:05
They either shut up on these issues, or if they talk about
2:03:08
these issues, they accept what the world says and try to
2:03:11
integrate it with the biblical worldview, which is like mixing
2:03:15
together oil and water doesn't work.
2:03:18
But if you're talking about the church addressing the social
2:03:22
issues, exposing the harms and the evils of things like
2:03:26
abortion and homosexuality and transgenderism and climate
2:03:30
change and, you know, all this Christian nationalism stuff and
2:03:36
all of this, you know, cultural stuff that they don't want
2:03:40
people to criticize, when the church takes a role in
2:03:44
criticizing those things and exposing them for what they are,
2:03:47
that's very important. And that's something that needs
2:03:50
to happen. It's a bare minimum really in a
2:03:52
lot of ways. So that's my perspective of the
2:03:55
role on the of the church in addressing social issues.
2:03:58
Basically, they have to avoid going woke and they have to
2:04:01
speak the truth about those issues.
2:04:03
It's basically the church's job. Next question, What's been the
2:04:08
biggest challenge you faced in living out your Christian faith?
2:04:13
I'd say the biggest challenge I've faced is probably people
2:04:20
tuning me out and disregarding anything I have to say.
2:04:24
As soon as I say, Oh yeah, I'm a Christian, or, Oh yeah, I'm a
2:04:28
young earth creationist, there's so many people who I'll be
2:04:32
talking with and we'll be talking about things and they're
2:04:34
like, Oh yeah, that guy's really smart and he's got great
2:04:38
insight. I like this guy.
2:04:40
That is, as soon as they find out I'm a Christian or they find
2:04:42
out I'm a young earth creationist, it's like, never
2:04:46
mind, forget all that. Total moron, disregard
2:04:49
everything he says. He's low IQ.
2:04:52
I deal with that a lot. I dealt with that a lot,
2:04:55
especially in the last, you know, 10 years doing content
2:04:58
creation. And that's something that's
2:05:00
tough because it makes spreading your spreading your message
2:05:05
hard, spreading what God wants you to spread and makes it hard.
2:05:08
But I just keep plowing through and trust God to help me reach
2:05:12
the people that he wants me to reach and who need to hear it.
2:05:16
But yeah, that's. The biggest challenge?
2:05:17
The bullet. Sounds like you dodged a bullet.
2:05:20
I know it might come off aggravating for you, but have
2:05:23
you ever thought of it as you dodged a bullet?
2:05:27
There are some things I thought of as dodging a bullet,
2:05:29
especially when I see where those things go.
2:05:31
It's like, oh wow, glad I didn't get hitched onto that.
2:05:38
Speaking of which word, have you ever experienced doubt or a dark
2:05:43
night of the soul? How did you work through it?
2:05:45
Well, we kind of already addressed that with the whole
2:05:48
Romans made-up Christianity thing, so I think we'll skip
2:05:51
that question. How do you handle situations
2:05:55
where your faith conflicts with societal or cultural norms?
2:05:59
Actually, this is a really easy question.
2:06:01
If the societal or cultural norm conflicts with the Bible, the
2:06:06
societal or cultural norm is out on the chopping block.
2:06:11
John does not take any precedence in my life if it
2:06:15
conflicts with the Bible. So that was an easy question to
2:06:19
answer. Have you ever faced criticism or
2:06:22
misunderstanding because of your Christian beliefs?
2:06:25
How did you respond? Well, that one's an interesting
2:06:29
one. Because of the fact that I am a
2:06:31
young Earth creationist, there's a lot of people who
2:06:34
automatically think that I don't understand hermeneutic language
2:06:38
or anything like that when it comes to contextual reading,
2:06:42
when it comes to text. And there's a lot of people who
2:06:45
automatically assume I reject everything in biology and
2:06:50
geology and astrology and astronomy and all that stuff,
2:06:55
that I reject everything about every form and field of
2:06:58
knowledge because of my creationism beliefs.
2:07:01
And sometimes, you know, I really talk about with people on
2:07:05
that stuff and they find out that, oh, he actually doesn't
2:07:09
reject everything that, you know, we say in order to come to
2:07:15
his beliefs. He actually does accept science
2:07:18
to a degree that's reasonable. He actually does accept evidence
2:07:22
in other fields of knowledge to a reasonable degree.
2:07:26
You know, there's a few people who have figured that out about
2:07:29
me after initially misunderstanding where I really
2:07:32
stand. And then I think you were
2:07:35
talking to me yesterday about how Smokey St. did his live
2:07:39
stream yesterday, I think it was.
2:07:41
And he somehow was under the impression that I really wasn't
2:07:46
a younger creationist and I was just pretending to be 1 to
2:07:49
aggravate him. In my early years, I used to get
2:07:52
that a lot, a lot of atheists, when they weren't, you know, bad
2:07:55
mouthing me on my channel, they would come into my comments
2:07:58
section and they would act like I was one of them pretending to
2:08:01
be a younger creationist. And they were like, yeah, man,
2:08:04
that's excellent parody. Because, yeah, for some reason a
2:08:09
lot of people think that I'm just faking it.
2:08:11
They think that I'm just pretending to be a Christian,
2:08:14
pretending to be a young Earth creationist just for
2:08:17
entertainment or for engagement on the Internet.
2:08:20
But I'm a real deal real Christian, real young Earth
2:08:24
creationist, never once pretended otherwise.
2:08:26
So that's kind of where I stand on that.
2:08:31
I think people are starting to get more accustomed to it due to
2:08:34
guys like Ken Toven being out there and some of the other
2:08:38
folks who are young earthers that are up there.
2:08:41
But it's it's hard to determine if somebody's trolling nowadays.
2:08:44
The internet's full of the dopamine thing that you were
2:08:47
talking about and people wanting to be theatrical, so don't take
2:08:51
it personal. Yeah.
2:08:55
How do you cope with unanswered prayers or when life feels
2:08:58
unfair? Well, for me personally, when I
2:09:02
have unanswered prayers or when things happen in life that suck
2:09:06
and just don't seem fair, I have to remind myself that God is in
2:09:11
control and that he will work everything out to my good in
2:09:16
accordance with His will, not mine.
2:09:19
And when I do that, that helps me get through that kind of
2:09:23
situation and it helps me to get back on track and doing what I
2:09:27
can do and controlling what I can control within what God has
2:09:30
allowed me to control. And then I just, you know, plow
2:09:34
forward and let God sort it out basically is my philosophy on
2:09:39
that. What's a lesson God has taught
2:09:42
you through a difficult season in your life?
2:09:45
Well, I would say going through the fireworks seasons is
2:09:48
difficult in my church because for the most part I don't do my
2:09:52
job as ATV producer at my church.
2:09:55
I basically air some reruns during that season and I spent
2:09:59
almost all my time, like 12 to 15 hours a day, you know,
2:10:02
setting up these firework tents, you know, working at these tents
2:10:06
for two weeks for sales and then a week to tear everything down.
2:10:10
Usually really long days, with the exception of this year.
2:10:13
This year we managed to cut our days down to like 9 hours thanks
2:10:16
to the modern technology of forklifts.
2:10:20
But anyway, when I go through those brutally hard seasons that
2:10:25
take a physical toll on me for obvious reasons, that's when I
2:10:33
really have to take hold of the lessons that God is teaching me
2:10:36
in terms of perseverance and working unto the Lord.
2:10:41
And then him just opening up my eyes to how the things we do
2:10:44
with selling fireworks, not just, you know, funds all of our
2:10:48
outreach programs at church, but also how it impacts the
2:10:51
community directly because we sell is by Oregon standards in
2:10:56
accordance with Oregon laws. We sell the best fireworks in
2:11:00
the state and our tents and the stuff that we put out, people
2:11:05
come in droves to get at any one of our locations because they
2:11:09
love it. They love all the fountains,
2:11:12
especially the really big ones. They especially like all the
2:11:15
assortment bags that we put together that usually are like
2:11:19
hundreds of dollars worth of products sold for half or more.
2:11:24
And they love coming for other things that we sell as well,
2:11:27
like the smaller stuff like sparklers and smoke balls and
2:11:31
whatnot. But so the community really
2:11:33
loves and appreciates all the fireworks that we sell.
2:11:37
And a lot of them either will light them all off, you know,
2:11:39
that night on July 4th, or they buy a bunch of stuff and they'll
2:11:43
light it off on New Year's or they'll light it off the next
2:11:45
July 4th and just get all their product a year in advance when
2:11:48
it's on sale. But they really love and
2:11:52
appreciate those fireworks. That's a really good time for
2:11:55
them and just to see the joy when they're coming through
2:11:58
tents and looking for products and you're providing adequate
2:12:02
customer service. When you're, you know, helping
2:12:05
them check out and bag all their stuff.
2:12:07
And sometimes having to help them get stuff down from shelves
2:12:11
or help them take their stuff to the cars and they got just too
2:12:14
much stuff to do by themselves. You can really see in the
2:12:18
immediate moment how you're benefiting your community.
2:12:22
And so God is really open up my eyes to that through all of
2:12:27
these fireworks seasons that I've done.
2:12:29
And I'd say each year that I've gone through that he's opened up
2:12:32
my eyes to it just a little bit more.
2:12:34
I mean, really this particular season we just finished was
2:12:38
really eye opening for me personally just to see, wow, the
2:12:42
community really, really appreciates what we sell them.
2:12:46
Because part of the reason why we had such a huge boom at the
2:12:49
tent I was at was because a lot of people from Eugene and
2:12:54
Springfield who I would thought would have gone to a tent closer
2:12:58
to them in town, like in Springfield, they chose to come
2:13:02
all the way out to my tent because getting that product was
2:13:06
important. There was even a on July 3rd,
2:13:09
there was a period of time for like 40 minutes where all of the
2:13:14
sudden our card readers went out, like our debit card credit
2:13:17
card readers went out for like 40 minutes.
2:13:20
And we were panicking because we were afraid a whole bunch of
2:13:23
people were just going to leave and go get fireworks somewhere
2:13:26
else because, you know, they didn't want to wait, you know,
2:13:28
that long to be able to pay for with their card.
2:13:32
And fortunately for my intense, we didn't really have that kind
2:13:35
of walk out. We had, like, one person walk
2:13:37
out who was going to buy like $300 worth of stuff, and they
2:13:40
didn't come back, but everyone else stayed.
2:13:43
Either they already were planning on paying with cash,
2:13:46
and so we could pay them, we could get them through.
2:13:49
Or they left to go get cash from their bank, and then they came
2:13:53
back and bought their fireworks. Or they just waited to pay with
2:13:58
their cards until our card readers were working again,
2:14:00
which they started doing later. And fortunately, yeah, we didn't
2:14:05
really lose much business during that time.
2:14:06
But when that happened and I realized how little we lost from
2:14:11
that horrible delay, it's like, wow, the community really
2:14:16
appreciates and loves what we're doing for them with these
2:14:19
fireworks sales. And so that's one of those
2:14:21
things that really opens your eyes to just let people in the
2:14:24
real world are like and what they value I'm.
2:14:34
Right. OK.
2:14:37
Next question, how has your faith helped you overcome
2:14:43
personal struggles or hardships? Well, when you know your Bible,
2:14:48
you know what the Lord says, you know what his nature is, you
2:14:52
know what His will for you is, generally speaking, as far as
2:14:55
his general will for you. And so when you're going through
2:14:58
personal struggles or hardship, your faith is very important for
2:15:03
keeping you grounded and keeping your eyes on the prize as far as
2:15:07
the bigger picture goes. And so when you are able to keep
2:15:11
your eyes on that prize, which is Jesus, it makes the stuff
2:15:15
you're going through that's hard seem secondary.
2:15:19
And I think that's the way I look at that.
2:15:23
Now this next question. How do you approach
2:15:25
conversations with people who hold different beliefs or world
2:15:28
views? While we kind of already touched
2:15:30
on that earlier, basically you got to see people where they're
2:15:33
at mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and see how they
2:15:38
think and how they talk and understand where they're coming
2:15:40
from. Because once you do that, then
2:15:43
you can know how to talk to them in an attempt to converse with
2:15:48
them or convert them. And if you do that, then they're
2:15:52
more likely to listen to you because they know that you
2:15:56
listen to them and you understood what they were saying
2:15:59
and you in a sense, validated what they were saying because
2:16:03
you understood why they believe what they believe after
2:16:06
listening to them talk. So I think when it comes to
2:16:12
conversing with people of different world views, it's
2:16:14
important to hear people out and see where they're at.
2:16:17
That's something that the atheist Internet community
2:16:21
really struggles with. They almost refuse to level with
2:16:26
Christians and see where they're coming from and why we believe
2:16:29
what we believe before they try to deconvert US.
2:16:32
Basically, they mock us, they insult us, they browbeat us,
2:16:35
they make no attempt to humanize us when they're putting together
2:16:40
their contents. That reminds me of the time I
2:16:44
did a video response to the Utah Outcasts, and they were
2:16:48
basically what one of the hosts called me a liar on the basis of
2:16:53
the fact that I was a younger creationist.
2:16:55
And then most of the video was the whole panel of the Utah
2:16:58
Outcast arguing among themselves about whether or not it's really
2:17:02
a good idea just to accuse a creationist of being a liar
2:17:07
simply for being a creationist. It was one of those hilarious
2:17:10
things that I saw that was really funny.
2:17:14
But yeah, the way you converse with people who have different
2:17:19
beliefs will determine whether or not they'll even be receptive
2:17:23
to what you have to say. And so I think it's important as
2:17:26
Christians to really hear out non believers in terms of what
2:17:31
they believe and why they believe it and why it is they
2:17:35
don't believe in our faith. You really got to hear them out
2:17:38
before you can attempt to converse with or convert them.
2:17:42
That's how I try to approach it when I have the chance.
2:17:50
Wow, we we almost got through all the questions, Brett.
2:17:54
Sweet, and it sounds like an effective way to handle people.
2:18:00
Ah, yes, I see some new comments up here, A lot of new comments
2:18:07
Yeah, I. See Kevin there.
2:18:10
Hello, Kevin. Good to see you.
2:18:18
Music by Brian I have a question if someone or two people choose
2:18:22
to lie everyday about their identity, for instance being
2:18:26
Joshua Nathan Marks rebel, is it fair to assume they're not
2:18:30
actually a Christian? So I think he's referring to
2:18:35
Smokey St. here. Yeah Smokey St.
2:18:40
I would really question his salvation in Christianity, but
2:18:45
it's more than just that. It's the fact that he just
2:18:48
treats people like garbage. I mean, even if he wasn't lying
2:18:52
about his identity, even if he never had done what he did to
2:18:56
that girl when she was 13 years old and he was 21, even if he
2:19:00
had done none of that. Just the way he treats people
2:19:03
like garbage, like subhuman animals that he can just be
2:19:07
rayed and Rage Against all day, every day.
2:19:12
That alone makes me think he's not a real Christian.
2:19:15
So yeah, I did all the other stuff.
2:19:17
And yeah, it's obvious. Captain.
2:19:21
Let's see what else we got here, boy.
2:19:32
Yeah, he had other things to say.
2:19:36
I'll just let that one sit on the air.
2:19:40
I know he's calling out Miss Smokey for, you know, not
2:19:44
affirming that Smokey St. is Joshua and Nathan marks her
2:19:47
bell. But I really have no, I really
2:19:50
have no beef with her. I really don't because I don't
2:19:53
know her, never met her. She has made some comments
2:19:57
towards me on social media, but I I don't know her at all.
2:20:02
So I don't really want to even bring her into that discussion,
2:20:07
at least not now. Not while I'm sure she doesn't
2:20:10
know much, but you know, she does kind of strike me
2:20:15
potentially as someone who, if Smokey shows his real colors to
2:20:19
her, she could end up getting out of that situation in a real
2:20:23
hurry. Wouldn't be the first time
2:20:26
that's been done. Boy.
2:20:39
She well, I know that's how you feel.
2:20:42
And in a sense it's true. But you got to realize that
2:20:47
women like that are very devoted to their men.
2:20:50
You know, women who are Christians and are serious about
2:20:54
it. They're going to be faithful to
2:20:56
the guy that they hitch their wagon to, especially if they are
2:20:59
going to get married and spend a life together potentially.
2:21:04
Loyalty is a big thing. So yeah, I wouldn't expect her
2:21:09
to do anything but defend Smoky St. in public while she's with
2:21:14
him. I wouldn't expect anything else.
2:21:19
Wow, we have been going on so long.
2:21:22
Let me see how many questions we got left.
2:21:27
Jeez, that's that's quite a lot, Brett.
2:21:32
There's a few, but we got through most of it.
2:21:35
So if you want to, we could finish up some stuff later on
2:21:39
the next show if you want. Yeah, I think that's why it
2:21:42
originally planned. I just didn't realize time wise
2:21:45
where we were at. So I'm going to go ahead and.
2:21:49
You also got to realize you extended it whenever you said at
2:21:52
the beginning, hey Brad, if you'd like to answer some of the
2:21:56
questions and I think that you asserted that one because you're
2:22:00
interested in hearing what I think would appreciate any other
2:22:03
thing is you were wanting to show thick shades that he's a
2:22:06
wire as useful and I get that. Well, mission accomplished, but
2:22:13
I think Brett is right. We will have to finish up the
2:22:16
questions on his post in the next live stream that we do.
2:22:20
So thank you all of you who tuned in and watched and listen
2:22:25
to us answer these questions. I hope it was in educational and
2:22:30
informational. And what's the word not
2:22:37
lethargic, but it's a cathartic basically.
2:22:44
I hope this benefits you guys in some way in that regard.
2:22:48
Hopefully it helps you with your own lives and your own walks
2:22:51
with God. But anyway, we're going to call
2:22:54
it good here. And we will see you in the next
2:22:57
GOD TV Radio live stream where we will go through the rest of
2:23:01
Brett Keene's questions. And then we will probably just
2:23:04
have a big open panel. So see you guys in the next one.
2:23:10
Peace out.