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119. Freedom In the Church - Abuse · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:04
Welcome to the For Freedom podcast.
0:10
I found my freedom of you. I found a joy I can't lose.
0:19
Thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me
0:24
and heaven broke through from the moment she found me.
0:28
I found my freedom in you. This podcast exists to bring the
0:35
freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with
0:38
everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James
0:42
Seyffert and Brett Martin. Welcome back to the Four Freedom
0:48
Podcast. What a great time to be a part
0:51
of the family of God. And we're so glad that you're a
0:55
part of the family of the Four Freedom Ministries.
0:58
And we are here to expose legalism and give hope and help
1:03
to the gospel through Galatians 6/1.
1:07
And so for freedom, Christ has set us free, and we are excited
1:11
to have you here with us and a part of what we've got going on.
1:15
We are in our In the Church series and excited about going
1:20
through this man Brett. We've had some good feedback
1:23
from our last week episode and looking forward to this week and
1:27
also next week with an interview and man great interviews coming
1:31
up and so excited about what we've got in the future.
1:34
But Brett, we are in the middle of in the middle of man, Time is
1:40
flying by in the end of January and I don't know how the weather
1:44
is where you're at, but we had 14° weather last week, two weeks
1:49
ago, and we had 70° weather at the end of last week.
1:54
And then today, this morning, I get up at this 14° again.
1:57
So as you can hear from me, I'm congested, weather's changing,
2:02
allergies are coming back, my body doesn't know what's going
2:04
on, whether it's spring or if it's summer.
2:07
But man, it's been crazy. How are you guys doing?
2:10
Are y'all staying healthy? Are y'all staying good in
2:13
y'all's End? Well, I'll tell you what this
2:16
you're right about the weather. It's just going back and forth.
2:19
It's just killer on the allergies.
2:21
It's killer on the sinuses. Like a few weeks ago I got over
2:26
strep and then as soon as I got over strep, I got into the
2:29
little virus that affected my inner ear.
2:31
And then now I've got sinus issues.
2:34
And on top of all that, you know, is January's coming to a
2:38
close. But another thing that's
2:40
affecting me is my New Year's resolutions, which so far I have
2:45
been faithful to. I have been going to the gym
2:48
every day, lifting heavyweight to failure, really put in the
2:54
work there, intermittent fasting, stop eating at 3.
2:58
And when I do eat salad, you know, just try my best to get in
3:02
shape, get healthy. Got a lot of stuff I want to do.
3:06
And if I want to put more mileage on this body, it's got
3:08
to get right. But I have just had a time
3:11
trying to adjust. You know, I've, you know I've
3:15
had some you know, headaches and whatnot.
3:17
Of course that's going to happen when you're you change your
3:19
whole whole routine. Your body's got to get used to a
3:22
a new way of living to get used to eating healthy and all that
3:26
bad stuff that you used to eat. And so we're we're you know
3:30
working through that and then like you said about the weather,
3:33
you know it's it's you know it's 30° one day and then the next
3:38
week it's in the right now it's in the 60s and and another week
3:41
it's we're supposed to have another freeze come through and
3:44
just that temperature changing back and forth is just really
3:48
heck on you know our bodies and stuff.
3:51
And so it is taking some getting used to.
3:53
Yeah, I've if you've watched our live stream at all, which I'm
3:58
sure most of us haven't, our music lady hasn't been there.
4:02
And so I've been leading music and preaching and this last
4:06
week, with congestion, man, I got to the end.
4:09
And I I mean, I legitimately was like whispering almost.
4:13
It felt like because I didn't have a voice left, voice was
4:16
blown out. I know my wife shared on
4:19
Facebook. I play the bass and I enjoy.
4:22
It's a it's a hobby of mine. I've played it since I was a
4:24
teenager. And so I don't go out and tell
4:27
everyone I play the bass, but I thought, you know, this week
4:31
because I've been playing a little bit at the church, just
4:33
giving some extra sound there. I thought, you know, I'm going
4:36
to play and lead at the same time.
4:37
I'm a, I'm a huge Mark Trummell quartet fan and I've been a fan
4:41
of Mark Trummell my whole life. And so getting up there and
4:44
having the base and leading and singing, it was just great.
4:47
And my wife snapped a picture of it and put it on Facebook.
4:50
I'm like, what are you doing? But it was, it was great, man.
4:54
It was, it was fun to have. It was fun to be in church, man.
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I I just love when you can go to church, have a good time and be
5:01
around people that love Jesus, love each other, and it's just
5:06
such a good atmosphere to be in. And yeah, we.
5:10
We had some visitors Sunday and just had a great day and a great
5:15
time and love nothing more than being in church, you know?
5:18
Yeah, yeah. Outside of that, before we get
5:21
started, Super Bowl's coming up. We've got the Chiefs and the
5:25
49ers, and so we've got the the Red Bull all about the old old
5:32
Montana's teams playing against each other again, that you got a
5:36
prediction for that? Man, I don't know.
5:39
I think the winner of the Super Bowl is going to be Taylor
5:42
Swift. Like I know you're a Swifty.
5:44
Oh, big time. Yeah.
5:46
He need to calm down. So, you know, but I don't know.
5:50
I was, I was, you know, who I really wanted.
5:52
I wanted the Lions. To go Oh, I did too.
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I wanted it so bad. Lions to be there and before, up
5:58
until halftime, man, I thought they had a shot.
6:01
Man, that was that was a rough watch they got the second-half.
6:05
I was. Watching video of that game and
6:08
as the Lions fans were walking up leaving the stadium, the
6:13
49ers fans felt so bad for him that they were patting him on
6:17
the back. And then, you know, they were
6:19
being nice to him and they weren't getting in their face
6:23
because even the 49ers fans like, man, this is bad for them.
6:27
But that's what I wanted. I wanted Chiefs and the Lions,
6:30
but I, you know, Taylor Swift, decide.
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I think this I think the Chiefs might win.
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Yeah, so I I think the 49ers are going to win.
6:41
I think they're playing really good football, even though they
6:44
had a horrible first half. There's something special going
6:47
on at the 49ers right now. So I'm.
6:49
I'm going 49ers. Something about the Lions.
6:53
We'll share this. I know this has nothing to do
6:55
with our podcast, and you could skip forward 2 minutes if you
6:58
want to, but the last time the Detroit Lions won a playoff game
7:03
on the road was in 1957, OK? And in 1957, they played the San
7:11
Francisco 49ers. The Lions trailed 24 to 7 at the
7:17
half The Lions did. Yeah, they stormed back to win
7:23
the conference title and would go on to win the national
7:26
championship that year, defeating the Browns 31 to 27.
7:31
Wow. OK, so they were down by 14 by
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17, just like the 49ers were. 49ers come back in the
7:41
second-half, They came back. And I mean, it was a repeat of
7:44
1957 almost to the exact score down to when they scored in each
7:51
quarter from the 1957. You can see that if you ever go
7:56
to a Wikipedia or whatever. But that popped up the other day
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on my news feed and I was blown away.
8:00
I'm like, dude, that is insane. If you're a Lions fan for life,
8:04
you'd have known that. I'm not, I'm not.
8:06
I'm a Dolphins fan. So, yeah, So.
8:09
Well, Ben, we've got a lot of good things in our church.
8:12
We've got a marriage conference coming up in the end of the 4th,
8:16
17th in middle of February. And so if you're in my neck of
8:20
the woods, we'd love to have you be a part of It's free.
8:22
We'd love to have you come out. We've got the RFP meet up coming
8:27
up in November down in Catoosa. Excited about that.
8:31
I hope you guys are already making plans asking off work.
8:34
We'd love to have you down there.
8:36
And then Brett, we are going back to Israel.
8:39
One year ago today, this week, we were there.
8:42
We were in the Holy Lands. Crazy going through my memories.
8:47
Yeah. All the days that we were 'cause
8:51
this whole week we were in Israel.
8:53
And it's weird because you'll get half the the end of because
8:56
of the way that the days work. You'll get half of the end of
9:00
one day and the beginning of the next day, cause I've got time
9:04
hop on my phone. Oh yeah, And that's that's how
9:07
it how it does. So going back to these memories,
9:10
man, it just gives me a taste for it.
9:13
And I want, I mean, if it wasn't for this, we we'd already be we
9:17
fixed it and you know I'll be over there in a couple weeks.
9:20
But I'm just, it's just giving me an appetite to go back, man.
9:24
I just can't wait. Yeah, we're I'm so excited.
9:27
I just just posted on our on my personal page about have an
9:31
interest meeting and already had a couple people in our church
9:33
say you know they're interested in going.
9:35
And so we're looking at that having a great group when we go
9:39
in March of 2025 and so about 14 months away, plenty of time to
9:43
start saving. If you're interested in going
9:46
with us man, we'd love to have you go.
9:49
Our website will be active here real soon.
9:50
It's so active. We just haven't shared the new
9:52
link. We'd love for you to be a part
9:54
of that and to sign up to do it. So Brett, any other
9:59
announcements, any other things we can need to talk about to?
10:02
I think that's pretty much everything.
10:04
You know, we've got a Catoosa coming up for the sake of the
10:07
gospel and then Israel and I think that's just about all the
10:10
announcements we've got to go. We're in our new series about
10:14
being in the church, freedom in the church.
10:16
And I'm I'm enjoying before the be started recording me and
10:22
James talked through a couple of subjects that we're going to
10:26
couple new subjects. We've added to the list.
10:29
We've had several listeners contact us, suggest things, and
10:34
that's what we want you to do. We want you to contact us.
10:38
We want your feedback. If you've got if you got an idea
10:42
that you'd like to share with us, feel free to share that
10:46
idea. You know, we we are.
10:48
We're always looking from input for our listeners, so don't be
10:52
afraid to contact us with that stuff.
10:54
But I am. I'm I'm really liking the
10:57
direction that this series is going to go.
11:01
Yeah. And you know it's it's been
11:02
evolving a little bit as we begin talking about it last year
11:06
and begin playing and praying about it.
11:09
It has evolved into almost the complete first half of the year.
11:16
So we we traditionally do from January to May and then we take
11:21
the summer off, June and July and then we do August to
11:24
November and we take December off.
11:26
And so right now, Brett, as I'm looking at the schedule, we have
11:29
everything lined out and except the last, all the weeks of May.
11:34
So four weeks, we've got everything lined out except four
11:37
weeks. So if there's four topics that
11:38
you are thinking about that you'd like for us to do, let us
11:41
know. We'll research them, We'll go
11:42
through it. And man, we'd love to have four
11:46
more topics or two more topics with some interviews to fill out
11:49
this entire calendar year and just go through things in the
11:53
church. We're going to be talking about
11:54
music, dress translations, Bible versions, preaching styles,
12:00
outreach, COVID. We're going to talk about COVID
12:02
in the church, Parachurch Ministries, service and
12:06
structure, just some great things that we're looking at.
12:09
And so if you want to be a part of that, let us know, help us
12:12
out and we'd love to continue on with that.
12:17
And so with that being said, Brett, let's jump into today's
12:20
topic, Freedom in the Church talking about abuse.
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What is abuse? What?
12:27
How does abuse hurt us? How does abuse in the church
12:31
look like? And work with one verse that has
12:34
stood out to my mind as I've been studying through this
12:37
Romans chapter 8, verses 35 through 39.
12:44
Such a great mass, great passage of Scripture.
12:47
Yeah, I'm going to read it. It says.
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Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
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Well, tribulation will distress, persecution, famine, nakedness,
12:59
peril, sword, as it is written for you for your sake, we are
13:06
killed. All the day long we are
13:09
accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
13:13
Yet none of these things we are more than conquerors through him
13:19
that loved us. For I'm persuaded that neither
13:22
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
13:27
things present, nor things come, things to come, nor height, nor
13:31
death, nor any other creature shall be able to separate you
13:36
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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When we think about abuse, one writer says that this is Satan's
13:45
silent assassin. This is what Satan wants to do,
13:49
to destroy our mentality. He wants to destroy us
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physically, emotionally, spiritually, verbally, sometimes
13:57
to abuse. Satan has his different weapons,
14:01
his different daggers, looks different than every single
14:04
person. But all of a sudden, abuse comes
14:07
in. Abuse begins to work in our
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lives, work in other people's lives.
14:12
And there is a real victim here. And we're going to look at abuse
14:16
in in several different ways. Again, we're going to use this
14:19
as a broad topic because abuse can be mentally, it can be
14:26
physically, it can be sexually, it can be spiritually.
14:30
Those are really the BIG4 categories that that you can go
14:33
through when it comes to abuse. And so instead of us addressing
14:37
each one of those four categories, our goal today is to
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sort of give a talk through what abuse is and then how we can
14:46
work through abuse, how we can work through if we have been
14:50
abused or if we know someone in the church that has been abused
14:55
and how that looks in our life. And so, Brett, what what are
14:59
some of your opening thoughts as we begin to go through the
15:02
thought of abuse? Like you said, there's so many
15:06
different forms of abuse, A physical, sexual.
15:10
But then, you know, people don't realize the the emotional abuse
15:15
that can be put on someone, the spiritual abuse that can be put
15:20
on and you know, some put on people.
15:23
You know, sometimes when a a victim comes forward, it could
15:28
be years after the abuse happened.
15:32
And when that happens, people's knee jerk reaction is to say,
15:37
oh, well, that's not real, It didn't happen.
15:40
Why didn't you say anything while it was going on?
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Well, The thing is that an abusive situations there's fear
15:48
in there. There's there's fear that you
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know you know if if this comes out it's going to ruin my life.
15:55
If this comes out you know it's going to make the situation
15:59
worse for me. And other times there are people
16:02
that are in abuse and they're so indoctrinated.
16:06
And this goes especially with with church spiritual, emotional
16:11
abuse. They're so indoctrinated in the
16:13
church that they're in that they don't realize they're being
16:16
abused. And this is kind of the some of
16:20
the things that that I went through in my situation is I
16:24
didn't. I thought I was being treated
16:27
the way the Bible said I was supposed to be treated.
16:29
I thought I was being treated normally.
16:32
And I didn't realize that I was being emotionally abused and
16:36
spiritually and verbally abused. I didn't realize that until I
16:40
had got out. Hindsight 2020.
16:42
I look behind and say, man, all that stuff that I went through
16:46
that was wrong. I don't need to emulate that.
16:49
I need to speak against that. And so you know what?
16:53
You need to be real careful on victim blame.
16:56
Because you know sometimes fear is a fear is a big thing, you
17:00
know. And it when you when you put on
17:04
that badge of OK, I guess I survived this well that stays
17:08
with you and or some people can feel it'll stay with you the
17:11
rest of your life. It doesn't have to define you.
17:13
It doesn't have to become your identity.
17:16
And this really is Satan's silent assassin.
17:20
Abuse is a big deal. It's something we got to talk
17:22
about. It's something that the church
17:24
and Christians have swept under the rug for too long, and we
17:29
have to bring awareness to the situation so other people can
17:32
realize, Man, I'm in a I'm in an abusive situation.
17:36
I need to get out of it quick. Yeah, absolutely.
17:40
And I think you hit the nail on the head when you said one thing
17:43
you said manipulation. Often times manipulation is a
17:49
way that is a the term that we've heard recently in the
17:54
political years of print pit prid A prid quo quo.
18:01
Right. Yeah, we're this for that.
18:03
You do this and you'll get that and all that is, is manipulation
18:08
is you know I'm going to give you this and in order for me to
18:12
give you this, I'm going to need this in return.
18:16
We do this as parents all the time without even realizing it.
18:20
You know go clean your room and I'll give you a cookie.
18:22
Go go do this and we'll and all of a sudden we are
18:26
indoctrinating and and programming our kids to respond
18:29
to manipulation. And then all of a sudden they
18:32
get into the real world, they get into a situation where
18:36
someone uses manipulation. Well, they're used to it.
18:41
Right. We've trained them to be
18:43
accepted to manipulation and often times we we're gonna use
18:49
the term grooming. We're grooming our kids to
18:52
accept this manipulation that happens in the real world and it
18:58
falls back on us as parents, as we must parent, right?
19:01
We must lead well and one of the things that if you are a parent,
19:06
if you are wondering, you know how do I know if my child's been
19:10
abused, How do I know if my friend has been abused or if
19:13
there's something there. One, one way to do this is is
19:16
observe what's going on around them and how they are.
19:20
Watch for changes of moods. Look at their activities.
19:24
Look at what they're participating in.
19:26
Are they withdrawing from things?
19:27
Where is their? Are they just apathetic about
19:31
life? Do they not care anymore?
19:33
All of a sudden these symptoms begin to come up.
19:36
They begin to be absent from work or school.
19:38
They begin to not be a part of things they once were a part of.
19:43
And so you can begin to say, OK, why is this?
19:46
Is this a red flag? Is this just someone going
19:49
through rebellious state or is there a legitimate red flag that
19:53
is popping up that you can begin to address and be there to ask,
19:57
be there to be that person to go to and say, hey, why are you
20:01
withdrawing? Why are you pulling away from
20:03
people and you be proactive, step in there, be their
20:06
advocate, step in and say what's going on and begin to have
20:11
compassion, show grace. And ultimately, if you think
20:14
there's abuse there, report it. Go to the authorities.
20:18
Go to the police and say, hey, I've got a legitimate concern
20:21
here. It may be wrong, maybe there's
20:23
something, maybe I'm not right, but I would rather err on the
20:26
side of caution and something's not looking right in this
20:29
situation. Will you investigate it?
20:32
Nine times out of 10, the police are going to investigate it.
20:36
You have to remember that, you know if you're seeing these
20:40
signs, you got to remember that these this person is getting
20:44
beat up, you know, if not physically, verbally,
20:48
emotionally. In our schools, bullying is
20:51
bigger now than it's ever been. And so you have to be aware.
20:57
And you when you you have to give the opposite attitude, you
21:03
got to give love, you got to give compassion.
21:06
You know, your concern for this person has it come across loud
21:10
and clear And what you said I think is just so important and I
21:14
just want to be an advocate for this is just you've got if you
21:18
see think something's going on, especially some kind of child
21:21
abuse or some kind of physical sexual abuse, you have to report
21:26
it. You, you know you are mandated
21:29
reporter especially if your pastor or anyone that's dealing
21:33
with any type of abuse. When you hear that, you have to
21:37
report it to the authorities. And so that's just something
21:42
that that we have to do and a lot of times people want to
21:45
blame the victim that you know it it's it's your fault.
21:50
And part of my testimony, and you know, I'll probably have
21:54
mentioned this on the podcast already, but I'll go into it
21:57
again, is, you know, I was, you know, physically abused as a
22:02
child. And my dad found out that I was
22:07
being physically abused. And he, he kept me, didn't send
22:11
me back home. And so then we got the lawyers
22:14
involved. We went to court and I went back
22:18
to my situation with my step dad at the time, and he not my
22:25
current but my one, I had to and said if you get up on that stand
22:29
and you tell the truth, they're going to take you away from your
22:32
mom and they're going to take you away from your dad, which
22:35
was a straight up lie. I was being manipulated.
22:38
And so I got up there on the stand and you know, I have these
22:43
adults with their eyes on me. You know, I'm just a a little
22:47
kid and I've got these their, their eyes on me.
22:50
And so, you know, I said to ask the lawyer to to send the adults
22:56
out of the room. And the reason why I wanted the
22:59
adults to go out of the room was because I knew my dad was going
23:04
to be in there and I didn't want to look at his face when I lied
23:07
on the stand because they he had manipulate, he had manipulate my
23:12
step. Dad at the time had manipulated
23:15
me into thinking that if I told the truth, I wouldn't see either
23:18
one of my parents. And so I wanted my dad out of
23:21
the room where I could lie. And so all the adults left the
23:25
room. I lied to the judge.
23:28
I told the judge that my mom had had spanked me, that it wasn't
23:32
him. And it, you know, it all, yeah,
23:37
I'd I'd straight up lied to the judge because I was being
23:39
manipulated to do so. But I've been through that.
23:43
And so there's one thing I can't stand is threatening a child,
23:46
manipulating a child, That physical abuse.
23:50
I've I've had a taste of that in my past and it's just not
23:54
justified when you manipulate children like that.
23:57
Yeah, I hate that. I hate to hear that.
24:01
One of the things that I'm going to say later, but I'm going to
24:04
say now because you brought that up, is if you say nothing,
24:09
nothing can be done. If you say nothing, nothing can
24:13
be done. If you know that someone is
24:16
abused, if you know that something is going on and you
24:20
don't say anything, no one is going to be able to do anything.
24:24
Because you didn't speak up, You didn't, you didn't do your duty
24:29
in protecting that other person. And I'm going to say that later
24:33
in another area, but again, I want to say it now to to help us
24:37
as well. One of the things that as we
24:40
talk to abuse, whether it's current, recent or took place
24:44
even years ago, victims often believe and you'll hear this so
24:48
often if you watch documentaries.
24:50
I watch documentaries all the time.
24:52
Brett, you will hear people say, well there's something that I
24:56
did wrong that had that is the reason this happened to me or or
25:01
it's my fault. I if I if I wouldn't have went
25:04
to that party, if I wouldn't have done that thing, then this
25:07
wouldn't have happened to me. And often times that's not the
25:11
case. Often times the case is the
25:14
abuser was doing things to this person and making them feel like
25:20
it was their fault. I was listening to a podcast
25:24
just this week and thinking about having them on here.
25:29
Don't know if I'm going to endorse them yet.
25:30
I'm still listening to them, but one of the ladies that's on this
25:36
podcast said if it's a minor, it's always wrong because minors
25:44
can't consent. Minors cannot consent to
25:48
anything sexually. And so whether a minor comes on
25:52
to you or not, it is always the adult's fault because a minor
25:57
can't consent. And often times that adult will
26:02
make it feel like it's the child's fault they did something
26:05
wrong and so they're getting punished or that that's what
26:08
they need to do. And so they will often times
26:13
victimize someone in order for them to feel right.
26:17
But abuse is never biblically justified.
26:22
And so we have to understand that when we go through abuse,
26:25
we have to understand that there is grace in God's word.
26:30
And we're still going to transfer over to this at this
26:33
point of, OK, what if you are being abused in church?
26:37
What if it's spiritual abuse? What if it's physical abuse?
26:40
What if it's in a school, public school, but it's in a workplace?
26:45
You're being abused as an adult? How do we handle abuse?
26:49
What do we do and how do we respond when abuse happens?
26:55
Brett, why don't you start with the first one?
26:56
We got six things here that we've looked through and that
26:59
we're going to talk to them here.
27:03
I want to I want to say a quick word or.
27:04
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, Yeah.
27:06
I want that to somebody who may be going through abuse right now
27:09
and just kind of feel like there's no hope.
27:13
And I want to say words. You just say there's always
27:16
hope, you know, And some people, when they, they have this sense
27:21
of hopelessness, they want to resort to desperate measures.
27:25
And you know, that's when we need to point them to the love
27:28
of Christ. You know, it's the Good
27:30
Shepherd. And I want to say don't make
27:35
permanent decisions based on temporal circumstances, you
27:39
know, it's that there's always hope.
27:42
Christ is our hope. And I think the first thing
27:45
that, you know, we need to, you know, remind somebody who's
27:49
going through this is that look, you know, receive God's healing
27:55
and grace. That's the first thing you need
27:57
to do as an abuse victim. God's healing grace is, is is
28:02
there for you. Abuse.
28:05
Abuse shatters the heart, but grace heals hearts.
28:10
You know, Psalm 147 Three says. Who?
28:14
God who healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their
28:18
wounds. Well, you know healing.
28:22
You don't get healed overnight, you break your arm.
28:24
You're not going to be good to go the next day.
28:26
Healing takes time and and there are many factors that depend on
28:32
when a person heals and that you know the kind of abuse it was,
28:37
how long the abuse went on, the nature of the abuse.
28:43
But we have to keep turning to God for His grace, because God
28:47
will never turn away from us. He'll never, he'll never turn
28:51
away from you. Hebrews 13-5 For He has said, I
28:54
will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
28:58
God is our refuge and strength of very present help and
29:01
trouble. Psalms 46.
29:03
One you know, listen, God's grace will heal you, but that's
29:08
where you need to have faith. The avenue to God's grace is our
29:14
faith. OK, faith is a good thing.
29:17
But faith, just for instance, faith doesn't save you.
29:21
It's Jesus that you put your faith in.
29:23
It's the foundation of your faith.
29:25
Well, how you get God's grace. The avenue through that to get
29:31
God's grace is your faith. So you got to have faith that
29:36
God's healing grace will be there for you, because he's got
29:39
plenty of it. Absolutely.
29:42
I like what a friend of mine said at a funeral the other day.
29:46
Grab hold of God's amazing, abundant bowl of grace.
29:53
It's like this Jethro bowl style, family meal, massive
29:58
bowl. It's like the the bottom never
30:01
runs dry. When you're eating at grandma's
30:03
House of her big old bowl of mashed potatoes or Mac and
30:07
cheese, it's like it's just never ending.
30:10
And that is God's grace. Like it's never ending.
30:12
It's always there for us. It's never going to run out.
30:15
It's never going to stop being good.
30:17
It's never going to stop being fresh.
30:20
It's always there and it's always for us.
30:23
We just have the opportunity to reach out and say, am I going to
30:26
take a hold of that grace? Because God's given it to us for
30:29
so freely? That's what we'll look at, is
30:32
God's love is unconditional and unchanging.
30:36
God's love is unconditional and unchanging.
30:40
He loved us while we were yet sinners.
30:43
I tell this to my kids all the time.
30:44
My my love for you doesn't change.
30:46
It's not going to end. And God's love is so much
30:49
greater than that. He loves us even when we were
30:53
sinners. Listen to Jeremiah 31 three.
30:55
The Lord has appeared to the age of to me saying, yes, I have
31:03
loved you with an everlasting love.
31:07
Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn you here.
31:13
You Satan's going to try to get us to doubt God's love.
31:15
Satan's going to try to get us to say, you know what?
31:18
God's love you. He doesn't love you no more.
31:21
You screwed up. You've messed up.
31:22
You've really done something wrong.
31:24
You don't deserve what What God's going to give you.
31:27
God hates you. You.
31:28
You don't deserve this. Look.
31:29
I mean, look at the life of Job. What did Job's wife say?
31:33
If God really loves us, why don't you just curse God so you
31:35
can go ahead and die? Look what you're going through.
31:38
And God said no. No.
31:39
Job said no. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
31:42
He gives and he takes away. He reigns on the just and the
31:46
unjust. And when we begin to understand
31:48
that Satan is a liar, Satan is not telling the truth.
31:53
Satan is trying to again manipulate us so that we'll
31:57
believe that God doesn't love us, that God's love is is
32:01
unchanging or changeable. But when we remembered, even in
32:05
an abuse situation, nothing can separate us from the love of
32:10
God. That's why I started out by
32:11
reading Romans 8, because that is such a powerful passage.
32:16
When we begin to think through, how much does God love me?
32:20
Neither life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
32:25
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor
32:29
death, nor any other created thing will separate us from the
32:35
love of God. God's love is so much bigger
32:38
than we can ever ask, think or even imagine.
32:42
It's just us grabbing a hold of His love and saying, God, I need
32:45
that God give me more of your love and he wraps his arms
32:49
around us like only he can and gives us the grace that we need
32:53
in that situation. So, So remember, as as Brett
32:57
said, understand that God gives healing grace, but he also loves
33:02
us unconditionally. He doesn't need us to change
33:05
because he's not changing. And so God comes and He loves
33:09
us, and he cares for us as a father loves his child.
33:14
You know, just to reiterate what you just said, you know Satan's
33:18
MO. You start from Genesis.
33:21
You read through the Old Testament.
33:23
You read through the Gospels all the way to the end of the Bible.
33:27
Satan's MO is to call God a liar when he's the liar, but he calls
33:34
God a liar. He says God left you, God
33:37
abandoned you. You went through this because
33:40
God allowed it to happen. But what he doesn't show us and
33:45
what we need to think about and remember is all the good things
33:49
that he's, that he, that he has done for us.
33:53
Now I think about, you know, my family that I have and my kids,
33:56
and I think about the situation that I'm in right now and the
33:59
church where he has me at. And these are all good things
34:03
that God has has given us. But on even going further than
34:07
that, he has done something good for you, because he died for
34:11
you. He gave his Son, Jesus shed His
34:15
blood. He died on a cross.
34:16
He rose again. We have salvation for eternity
34:20
in heaven. We have all the fruits of the
34:23
Spirit, Lovejoy, peace, gentleness, kindness, meekness,
34:26
all of these things that we have access to.
34:30
So these are all good things that God has done for us.
34:33
So never think that y'all where is God?
34:36
He hasn't done anything for me. He has.
34:38
He's done all these things for us because he loves us right
34:44
now. Another thing.
34:46
Go ahead. No.
34:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
34:49
Another thing that we want to mention, another help here in
34:52
the situation is do not remain in a place of danger.
34:58
You know if if there's a current physical situation or sexual
35:02
abuse situation that that you're going through right now, you
35:07
really need to remove yourself from that situation.
35:11
And and what can sometimes keep us in these situations is, is,
35:17
is, is guilt and things such as that.
35:20
If you're and if you're aware of abuse happening especially to a
35:24
minor, you have to report it. We've already mentioned that
35:28
even abuse you know towards you that took place in the past, you
35:32
may spare other victims by reporting the abuse to someone
35:36
who can prosecute. You said if you like you said
35:39
earlier if you say nothing, nothing can be done.
35:43
And listen I know I'm a pastor and I preach the Bible and I
35:46
know our stand on divorce. Now there are there are biblical
35:53
exceptions for divorce. I understand that.
35:57
But we're I'm talking specifically, but you know
35:59
probably the abuse situation between never advise somebody to
36:04
stay in an abusive situation ever.
36:08
I will never advise that. I'll never say Oh well he's your
36:11
husband so you need to stay there and you need to pray for
36:15
him. And if there's a a a physically
36:17
abusive any kind of any kind not just physically but any kind of
36:21
abusive situation. I'm never going to advise
36:24
somebody to stay in that situation.
36:26
I'm going to say look we'll figure it out later.
36:28
You know you need to remove yourself from the situation.
36:32
Then we'll reassess and and and go from there.
36:35
We'll look at the word of God, we'll figure it out.
36:37
But me personally, I'm never going to advise somebody stay in
36:40
an abusive situation. Absolutely.
36:43
And you know, one of the things and you hit on just for a second
36:45
there, I want to hit before I go to the next point is when we
36:50
report an abuse, whether it was 5 minutes ago or whether it was
36:56
50 years ago, the likelihood that I'm sure I can find the
37:01
statistic for it, I've heard it somewhere.
37:03
The likelihood of an abuser only having one victim is so small.
37:09
When we report something and we say, you know what, this person
37:14
at work abused me 50 years ago. I just want to tell the police
37:19
that, OK, it's on the police's radar.
37:23
They're going to start looking into it and all of a sudden
37:25
they're going to begin to look into it or or someone else now
37:29
who maybe they abused 5 minutes ago.
37:32
It begins to have comfort moving forward.
37:33
Now there's a pattern, There's a track record.
37:35
We can begin to put the pieces together of how many actual
37:38
victims there are. But when we don't say anything,
37:44
we allow that abuse to continue to perpetrate.
37:48
We allow that abuser to continue to have more and more carnage
37:52
behind them because we didn't step up and say something.
37:57
That's why it's so important to stand up and that's why it's so
37:59
important to say yes, this person abused me.
38:02
Yes, this happened in my life and and don't be afraid of the
38:06
of the pushback or the blowback because you are going to help
38:09
someone else out by you coming forward.
38:14
And so that's why it's important to come forward the next thing.
38:18
Often times, Brett, we're going to want to take matters under
38:21
our own hands and we're going to want to say I want to get
38:25
justice. But biblically, we must trust
38:29
God to bring justice. One of the most horrific things
38:32
that we can do is is have abusive injustice.
38:37
And Satan's going to say, well, if you go to the authority,
38:41
they're not going to believe you anyways.
38:43
Again, Satan's a liar. He's going to try to get you not
38:46
to go to turn this person in. He loves lies.
38:48
He's going to tell lies all the time, and all of a sudden
38:51
they're going to begin to have us believe in our mind that
38:56
God's not going to be bringing justice.
38:58
I've got to take justice in my own hands.
39:00
The truth is, God will always, always bring justice in His
39:04
time. He loves you.
39:06
He always has. And it's impossible for us to
39:09
understand why Evil seems to triumph.
39:12
But what we do know is that it's beyond our understanding.
39:16
We can trust God to bring justice.
39:17
We can know that He brings justice.
39:20
A scripture here. First Peter 223 who, when he was
39:25
reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened
39:30
not, but committed himself to do do to him Sorry, sorry, but
39:36
committed himself to him that judged righteously.
39:41
Recompense, Romans 12. Recompense no man evil for evil,
39:45
dearly beloved, avenged not yourself, but rather give place
39:50
under wrath, For his written vengeance is mine.
39:52
I will repay, saith the Lord. We must trust the Bible to be
39:57
true if the Bible is true about our salvation.
40:00
If the Bible's true about God's Son coming to this world and
40:03
being born of a virgin and and dying for our sins and then
40:07
rising from the dead three days later and the church being
40:10
started in the upper room. And if the Bible is true about
40:13
all those other things it's also true about God taking his
40:20
vengeance out on those that are evil.
40:23
And he says vengeance is mine, I will repay.
40:27
God's vengeance is a whole lot different than my vengeance.
40:30
It's going to look different than my vengeance.
40:33
But when I trust the Lord, the Lord brings healing.
40:39
The Lord brings grace. The Lord brings comfort and it's
40:43
trusted in him to take care of those things.
40:46
You know I I've I've never I've never been in this situation
40:49
where and and you know we live in a depraved world.
40:52
We live in a sinful world. And I'm sure one day I'll this
40:55
will, I'll have to come face to face.
40:57
But I've never been a I've never had a child abused.
41:00
I've never had a a drunk driver kill one of my kids.
41:03
I've never never had this. But I think one of the beautiful
41:07
pictures of grace and mercy that's shown is that mother
41:11
whose son was killed by a drunk driver.
41:15
That mother whose son was killed by a drug addict or something
41:18
that some some bad story that happened and they've got the
41:22
video of of that that person being sentenced and that mother
41:26
standing up and giving her advocate statement.
41:28
That mother looking at that person and saying I forgive you,
41:34
You took the greatest thing from me and I forgive you because the
41:38
Lord forgave me of my sins and I care about who you are, man.
41:43
When you say it tears me up, I'm I'm I'm coming to tears just
41:46
thinking about it right now because I'm I'm thinking about
41:49
my own kid. I'm thinking about if this
41:50
weren't happened to my kid, could I forgive that person?
41:53
I should be able to. God's forgiven me, why can't I
41:57
forgive them? But to see that, and then to see
42:00
the person that did that evil, horrible act, see that
42:05
forgiveness and see their life changed in that moment, It's
42:09
just such a great picture of what God's done for us.
42:13
That type of forgiveness you're talking about, that kind of
42:18
forgiveness, does not come naturally.
42:21
No. Because.
42:22
Because so many people can look at somebody that does that.
42:25
I've seen those videos and say there's no way that I could do
42:30
that. And and they're right.
42:32
There's physically, humanly no way that you could do that.
42:36
Because that type of forgiveness just is not natural.
42:39
That type of forgiveness is supernatural.
42:42
That type of forgiveness only comes through the Holy Spirit.
42:47
Now listen to me. Bitterness is a cancer.
42:53
Bitterness will consume your life.
42:56
Bitterness makes you a slave to your abuser.
43:01
If you are bitter at your abuser, then you will be their
43:05
slave and they will control your life for the rest of your life.
43:11
You only have freedom to if you forgive them.
43:16
Now, I'm not saying to ever trust them again, because even
43:20
Jesus didn't trust certain people and it says that in the
43:23
Gospels, but but forgiveness frees you from that bitterness
43:28
that will destroy your life. You have to remember, just like
43:33
James, what you said earlier. I want to reiterate, we can look
43:37
all through the Bible and we can see that God keeps his promises.
43:43
Every promise that he has made us up to this point has come
43:48
true, and that gives us faith that the promises that he's made
43:52
for our future will also come true.
43:55
And I think the promise of all promises past our salvation,
44:02
past our assurance, the promise of all promises is in in his in
44:07
the end, where it says he will wipe every tear away.
44:12
And to me, what that phrase means, I will wipe every tear
44:16
away. What that means is God will come
44:19
in like a superhero, that he's going to right every wrong,
44:23
Everybody that that will, that that the abuser will be judged,
44:29
the abusee will be exalted and uplifted, and God is going to
44:33
come in, wipe every tear away, right, every wrong.
44:38
And as Christians, we have faith beyond human comprehension that
44:43
God can do these things one of the next.
44:46
Counseling helps. That we have to go over today is
44:50
listen, just some advice. Study the lies and the impact of
44:53
people in Scripture who've experienced abuse.
44:58
The Bible is our guide, our manual.
45:02
It you know, if you've been through it, chances are there's
45:05
somebody in the Bible who's also been through it.
45:09
Listen, your abuser does not have the final state say in your
45:12
story. God is the one that has the
45:15
final say in your story and all through the pages of scripture
45:20
we see God overriding the evil purposes of an abuser and using
45:25
a victim as a special part of God's plan.
45:30
There are a few examples in the Bible.
45:32
Joseph Joseph was abused by his brothers and and Potiphar's wife
45:40
and the jailers and and God used that in his life to exalt him
45:45
and glorify God. The Israelites were slaves in
45:49
Egypt. Naaman's wife's maid was a slave
45:53
a Jewish slave. She didn't even have to say tell
45:57
Naaman about the prophet who could kill his leprosy.
46:02
Daniel brought just as a slave into a foreign nation, made a
46:08
eunuch to serve the Kingdom and but you know all this abuse but
46:14
God used Daniel in a mighty way. Esther the apostle Paul whenever
46:19
everything that Paul went through and Paul talks about all
46:23
the abuse and beatings that he received for the cause of
46:26
Christ. And of course the best the
46:28
biggest example of all is Jesus Christ.
46:32
Jesus is just our example of suffering and and abuse.
46:38
But listen, He could have escaped it, but yet he chose to
46:43
endure it because of his love. You know, for me and you.
46:48
And listen, this is what I love about the Bible.
46:51
It's what I love about the Scripture is God didn't just
46:55
doesn't just record the good things about people.
46:58
God didn't just record the, you know, the great things, the good
47:02
things, the clean things. God records the dirt.
47:06
God records the bad. God records the embarrassing.
47:11
He knows we're not perfect, and I believe that's why the people
47:14
in the Bible aren't perfect either.
47:17
That's exactly right, man. Brett, that's so good you can't
47:20
see it on. You're not watching the video
47:23
anyways. But on my bookshelf over here to
47:25
my my far left over here, I've got a bookshelf just of most of
47:30
them by Chuck's Windall of just biblical characters.
47:33
David, Esther, Joseph, Jesus, a couple other book studies of
47:38
just characters of the Bible that are helpful for us just to
47:41
go through. Just to be able to look at their
47:43
life and say, OK, how can this person's life help me?
47:47
That's such a such a great point.
47:48
And the last thing we're going to look at is this.
47:50
Find joy through an eternal perspective.
47:53
This may seem impossible, OK? And your moment of hurt and your
47:58
moment of pain. And your moment of abuse.
48:01
It's impossible sometimes to think through the eternal plan
48:08
that's laid out, but it frustrates the devil.
48:13
The devil knows what's going to happen, and he knows what the
48:18
future holds as well. And when we begin to think
48:20
through the future, we begin to think through what happens in
48:25
the future. I mean, think about Paul and
48:27
Silas. In Acts 16, the Philippian
48:30
jailer beat Paul and Silas. They were bloody.
48:33
They were put in jail. They were prisoners.
48:37
They were abused. And yet they sang praises to
48:42
God. They they they worship the Lord
48:45
in jail. Dirty, beat up, hurt, bleeding
48:50
in pain, they still worship the Lord.
48:54
They still found a way to think through the eternal perspective
48:58
and say God's greater than this, I'm going to worship him.
49:02
And what was the result? The jailer and his entire
49:05
household came to know Jesus, which is why Peter, or why Paul
49:12
began to go to Philippian by went to the Philippian place was
49:16
because this is the Philippian jailer.
49:18
OK? Peter encourages Christians who
49:20
are persecuted in many different ways in first Peter like this.
49:24
Yet if any man suffers as a Christian, let him not be
49:29
ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf.
49:34
Because through Christ we can give God the glory through
49:37
everything we go through. So important to have this
49:40
eternal perspective of knowing that God's plan will work out
49:46
differently than what we had maybe scripted out for our life.
49:49
OK, the abuse are going to suffer.
49:53
I'm sorry the the abuse you have suffered may not be directly
49:58
related to the persecution for the sake of the gospel, but it
50:01
enables us to endure suffering in a massive, massive way.
50:07
Want to read one last passage of scripture, 2nd Corinthians 4 and
50:12
just sort of encourage us with this?
50:14
For which 'cause we faint not, but though our outward man
50:18
perish, yet our inward man is renewed day by day, for our
50:22
light of flexion, which is but just for a moment worketh for us
50:27
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look
50:31
not at the things which we have seen, but at the things which
50:34
are not seen. For the things which are seen
50:37
are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
50:42
I want to encourage us to yes, if you're abused, get away from
50:46
it. But don't live as a victim.
50:50
Don't live in a life that is perpetually a victim in that
50:55
mindset. I've been there, Brett.
50:58
My mom left. She, she did some horrible
51:02
decisions. Left my dad, went through a went
51:05
through a nasty divorce. And I was the victim for two
51:11
years of bitterness. And I lived in that bitterness
51:14
and it ate me up. It ate me a live bread.
51:17
I couldn't function. I couldn't, I couldn't forgive
51:20
my mom. I said things to my mom.
51:21
I wish I could go back and and take back.
51:23
I can never take them back. I'm sure she's forgot that I
51:26
ever even said them. But I'll never forget that I
51:29
said those things to my mom because I lived as the person
51:34
that was the victim of a divorced family.
51:37
And I lived in it. And I I embraced it.
51:40
And I said this is my life now and often times until until
51:44
God's help, God's working through scripture and
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understanding what bitterness is in my life.
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That's when I began to see healing and forgiveness because
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I was able to work through through scripture, through help
51:57
of other people, working through not just focusing on the here
52:01
and now, but focusing on the eternal and focusing on what God
52:04
has done for us. And when we can get that in our
52:08
grand scheme of things, we begin to see God's glory work in our
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lives. We begin to see that God is
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gracious and merciful to us even in our deepest place.
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And God has a way of healing for us.
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We don't have to stay and live where we're at.
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We have a step forward of healing that Christ can offer.
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Amen. Amen.
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Such a good word. One final thought that I'd like
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to give, and I want to say a word to the Christian right now
52:38
who is suffering? Or you've suffered abuse in the
52:41
past, or you're suffering abuse right now, #1 God, of course,
52:48
has a way of escape for you. But listen the reason why you're
52:53
suffering. I want to tell you that your
52:55
suffering is not God's will. OK, but what you have to
53:00
understand. According to scripture, we live
53:04
in a fallen world where humanity has free will and God knows that
53:11
suffering is going to happen. But here's the thing about
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Christianity. In Christianity, suffering isn't
53:20
pointless. Suffering has a point.
53:25
Suffering has a purpose. When you suffer in any capacity,
53:31
you take part in the suffering that Jesus went through on the
53:36
cross. He can, he can relate to you
53:41
because of your suffering, because he was abused and he was
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torn apart and he was destroyed. And here's one more thing that I
53:50
want you to think about. When you suffer, you get a
53:56
master's degree in suffering. So you can take that suffering
54:02
that you went through, and you can reach out to somebody else,
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and you can pull somebody else out of an abusive situation.
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You can pull somebody else out of the pit.
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You can you can bring God's grace and God's salvation and
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God's love to another person who's suffering, because you now
54:22
have a master's degree in suffering that you can use to
54:27
help somebody else. Because our God is that
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powerful. He can take something bad and
54:35
bring good from it, and in this world, that's something that we
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desperately need. So listen, if you've suffered
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this type of abuse and you've come out of it, praise the Lord.
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But just don't forget it's not pointless.
54:49
It has a purpose. And maybe the purpose is so you
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can help other people who've been through what you've been
54:56
through. Man, that's so good.
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Love that. Love that.
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Love that. Hope we've helped you today.
55:01
I hope you're enjoying this series as we getting started in
55:04
the in the church. Next week we'll be having an
55:06
interview with Jim Neuheiser an old friend of ours and looking
55:11
so forward to that and we Brennam.
55:13
I'm working on another interview as well, possibly having told
55:16
you this about abuse and so just trying to give some good
55:20
information here and help us out in so so many ways and so until
55:24
next time to God, not the. Pastor.
55:27
Be the glory found. My new name found that good
55:32
grace. Found that healing.
55:34
And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning.
55:39
That has no ending. I found that second chance.
55:41
Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness.
55:42
Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since I
55:44
found my freedom. Thanks for listening to the For
56:01
Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do
56:05
us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our
56:08
podcast on whichever podcast platform you use.
56:12
Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom podcast.