Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Modern, progressive Americanized churchianity. Yeah, that's the topic today. Welcome to episode 100. Welcome to the Grey House Podcast. 100 episodes. Man, this thing's cranking off the ground. We're really excited about all the developments. We'd like to encourage you to check out our website, like to see our email list grow. Cause we want to help your inbox have awesome biblical masculine type stuff showing up in it. So please go to our website, gray house.net, and, uh, join the email list. Stay connected to the culture. We'll talk a little bit of that in inside this episode, maybe towards the end. But I'm in the studio today, which is a nice studio. I'm actually at my kitchen table with a good friend of mine, pastor, fellow pastor, a friend of mine, colleague, uh, Steve Castle. He's been on the podcast many times, but it's good to have him on the podcast today. Steve, welcome.
Speaker 1 00:00:54 And I love it that you, how's going? That you brought the best. You brought your good friend pastor.
Speaker 0 00:01:01 I brought the best save, the best for last
Speaker 1 00:01:04 Pastor, Dr. Steve Castle. You brought him on your 100th episode. So I'm a centi
Speaker 0 00:01:10 The most important episode if, if we make it that far, which I, I I imagine we will, is we'll be episode 212, cuz that's the number of our Okay,
Speaker 1 00:01:19 Then I already,
Speaker 0 00:01:20 You'll have to come back in 112 episodes,
Speaker 1 00:01:24 <laugh> in 112 episodes. I promise to
Speaker 0 00:01:28 Be back, but
Speaker 1 00:01:28 This is awesome. Your audience will just be waiting on Batta.
Speaker 0 00:01:31 They, they're gonna just be coming in week after week, waiting for
Speaker 1 00:01:34 <laugh>. Is it two 12
Speaker 0 00:01:35 Yet? It's 112 episodes past yet. Has it been that time? No. Hey man, welcome to this episode. It is a big deal for us to break 100 episodes. We've been developing so much in the grace ops culture. I won't bore you with all that. Some of you know that stuff, some of you don't. But that's just the inner workings of taking something from conception to birth all the way, you know, just from visionary world into the actual real world. So we're excited about what we're doing, how God's given us grace and favor to run strong with it. And man, aren't these crazy days? I mean, the, the title of this podcast says it all. Modern, progressive, Americanized churchy entity. Um, some of the terms I've thrown in there and, you know, we're actually using terms on this, uh, podcast to get, probably to get canceled.
Speaker 0 00:02:20 <laugh> people probably not listened to this. Um, the people that we're going to be drawing in are, I know our culture will listen to it, but there's a war, uh, that's, that's raging. And, you know, some of the words I've thrown at it is also like Hitler's youth. You know, I feel like the propaganda that's going against our, our going into our schools is, is very much like prop like Hitler, propag, prop propaganda. And, you know, when you got school boards and they're talking about, you're either for the state or for the student. I mean, like, really like, you know, the, the, we live in a culture where our government wants to replace the parents. I mean, it, this is a big deal, my friends. And we were talking about this not because it's, it's, it's a nice catchy title. We're we, I wish we weren't talking about this. I wish this was so far removed from our culture that it was, it would be like, they're crazy. Why would they talk about that? Like, these must be conspiracies, you know, some, this is like real stuff on our headlines every day. And it actually causes grief, causes pain.
Speaker 1 00:03:21 And one of the things I think the world does a ton better than the American progressive modern church movement, um, that is seeker sensitive, is they're very dedicated, very committed to their message. They are committed to the point that they'll burn down, uh, plant, uh, they'll burn down, uh, family centers, you know, life centers, pro-life centers. They will go and march in a street. They'll burn down government buildings. They'll, they'll go to war over their message. And Americans in church, they, you know, they think that our responses to just love and we're just gonna sit here, uh, allow evil and darkness to take place around us because it's our job, right? To quote unquote be like Christ and do nothing. And they forget the context of the gospel was Christ came into a dark demonic. Satan ran double ran environment.
Speaker 0 00:04:24 Yes, sin infested and died sin infested.
Speaker 1 00:04:26 And it killed him to do what he did. But he won by putting his life on the cross by climbing the hill. You know, in today's world, you hear, you know, it used to be coming back on our day, especially in the business world that you and I came out of where, you know, you had to navigate that stuff and you'd say, well, you know, you know, when I used to manage managers, I'd say, you know, is that a hill you want to die on? Are you willing to go and die on that hill?
Speaker 0 00:04:55 Steve's from the south, he said hill. Yeah. <laugh>. So is that a hill you want? I'm just playing bro. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:05:01 So basically, you know, we would, we would try to tell our management team, you know, don't go into this fight. It's really not worth it. Don't go die on that hill.
Speaker 0 00:05:10 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:05:11 But we forget that Jesus climbed the hill of Gogo so he could die. So it was worth it to Jesus to die on that hill
Speaker 0 00:05:18 To die for his
Speaker 1 00:05:19 Messaging. Yeah. I think it should be worth it in the real kingdom version of the Elicia, which is the opposite of the tagline that you opened this up, modern progressive American Americanized church churchy. The opposite of that is the kingdom covenant elicia. And that is what Jesus died on the hill to give all of us.
Speaker 0 00:05:44 Yeah. And I think when they fight and they burn stuff or they riot, they also have, uh, not I would say entirely, but they do have a lot of the judicial system that pretty much, much gets 'em to get outta jail free card. Yep. Um, yeah. So it's just, we're up against some pure wickedness and I don't know, man, I I say these things quite often, but the, the, the sexualized agenda that's coming against our, our children through, uh, L G B T Q X Y Z, the
Speaker 1 00:06:20 Grooming public
Speaker 0 00:06:20 Schools. Yeah. And like, I'm not, I don't hate, you know, homosexual, I have homosexual friends. But the agenda when, when a movement that claims to be tolerant is literally the most intolerant movement in the globe. And at one time, I don't know if it's their website still says this, but at one time I read on their website, it said Until all comply. Yeah. I mean, that has nothing to do with tolerance. Yep. And so it's an iron teeth wolf. It's a machine that's chomping away at innocent children's lives where I think there's some backroom somewhere there's an angel somewhere building, um, millstones with people's names on it. <laugh>. Right? Like, like there's a, there's a whole drop it from Yeah. There's a whole container of millstones that are gonna be showing up one day, <laugh>. Um, cuz we're messing with innocent children's lives confusing them. We have grown adults. Confusing. I mean, it's just this in the modern progressive Americanized church is it, it it it's sinful because it doesn't honor the Lord. And what it does is it takes, uh, truths of scripture out. But when you isolate truth out of the Bible alone, it's like a toothpick. It holds nothing up underneath. Yeah. It does not hold the weight of actual truth. And it becomes your own personalized agenda.
Speaker 1 00:07:42 In, in the, in the churchianity movement that we have today, basically those folks love people more than Jesus <laugh>. They're, they're kinder than Jesus because things that Jesus did not love and the things that Jesus was not gracious and merciful to the church movement is merciful to, you know, one of my favorite scriptures, which is probably on nobody's refrigerator that's listening to this podcast is, uh, Psalm 97 10, which says, all you that love God hate evil.
Speaker 1 00:08:23 And basically, it, what it's showing is a, a legitimate doctrine, a theological doctrine that your love for God is exactly equivalent as your hatred for evil. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because evil, evil hurts people. Evil hurts God. And so if you love God and you allow, or even like some of these folks in church, even promote evil, I've talked to many pastors that are, that have a, an open and affirming viewpoint towards a lot of the stuff that is destroying people's lives. And if you are in that situation, either as a pastor or as a leader, as a man, even in your own children, if you are just allowing openly affirming these things, then you are partnering with evil to destroy. And that that cannot be ever called the love of God. That cannot be called kindness, that cannot be called mercy. Cuz that is not what the scriptures call it.
Speaker 0 00:09:29 Yeah. And that's one of the things that the scriptures point out. Like to actu what does it mean to hate evil? I mean, how do we fight evil? How do we hate evil? We do it with our good deeds. You know, that's the, the tightest two verse that we found at Grace hops on two 12. You know, the grace of God has come, has bringing salvation into the earth
Speaker 1 00:09:48 To renounce,
Speaker 0 00:09:49 To renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. Right. Renouncing these things which are basically renounce means to formally declare your abandonment to those things. Right. Like what you, what once had authority in my life no longer does because of Christ.
Speaker 1 00:10:05 And, and these concepts are sometimes lost in our, in our non covenant based society that we have today, this modern progressive church entity. It's, it's non covenant based. And so when you say the term renounce, you know, the, the average listener is gonna say, oh, okay, well I'm just going to, I'm going to say that I don't like this. That that is not the mindset of a, uh, of a biblical author or reader. Right. They weren't saying like, stand up in the middle of your living room, in your super plush, you know, middle class house in white America and say, I don't like this. Now you've renounced that is absolutely not the context of what that statement was. You know, it, it goes back to even the Shama, you know, a lot, a lot of people don't, I don't know how Hebraic oriented your audience is, but the Shama, which comes out a numbers chapter six, was something that three times a day, if you grew up in a Hebrew home, you said the Shama, or it was said to you or you quoted it with the person saying it, which starts off you. It's a very famous, you. They, they, you all know it. Which is hero Israel. The Lord thy God is one God. And thou shall love the Lord thy God with all that heart, soul, mine strength. That's the Shama. And they said it three times a day. And the reason it's called the <unk> is because the first word in that, uh, in those two verses is the Hebrew word Shama, which is the English word here.
Speaker 0 00:11:44 Right.
Speaker 1 00:11:46 And the, the interesting thing is, is in Hebrew, there's no word for obey. The word for obey in Hebrew is <unk> which is here. Yeah. Which, which God believes God interprets the concept behind. If a person really hears, then they really will have action. They really will have the obedience, the follow through to the
Speaker 0 00:12:11 Hearing and the proof that you heard.
Speaker 1 00:12:13 Yep. And every parent say, you, every father that's listening to me understands this concept because you've done this. Did you hear me son? Did you hear me? You weren't actually saying, did you physically hear me? What you're saying is I don't see the compliance to what I said to you in your actions. And so I'm reminding you that part of your hearing is the doing. Right. They're one concept together. Now we've separated it in American progressive Christianity, ch church, we've separated the two concepts. But in the Hebraic mindset, the hearing and the doing is one. And so in back to Titus two, you know when it says that you renounce, it's not saying like you just said some words. It's saying that you are declaring Yeah. Hundred percent in a Shama way. That these things not only in your, in, in your worldview, not only in your belief system, not only in your language, but in your doing, in the way that you walk it out, these things you are now at war against cuz you are renouncing them.
Speaker 0 00:13:19 Yeah. And so to take the shma and ti this tightest connection we're making, so for me to renounce, um, I think where the language helps me is I'm gonna set my mindset. So I'll tell, I'm telling myself, no, these are my goals. I'm renouncing this stuff. But the renouncing comes from like, if, if the Shama says hero Israel, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. That's how I renounce evil. So whatever temptation or what thing I partner with, whatever, whatever brings me down or sins, um, you know, I, I make fun of yoga pants a lot. That's not because it's, it's not because I read it somewhere or I I heard it in a good, it's because that's what I struggle with personally. Um, less yoga pants in this world would be great for me. But that's, yoga pants isn't the problem. The problem is what's inside of my heart. The problem is, so for me to renounce that area of winning the battle in my eye gate, I have to win it in my heart. Purifying my heart. A clean heart is the best filter you can have. Right. It's the best. I can't, if you need filters on your phones and you need help like that, then dude, filter it up. Spend the money. That's fine. Cuz if you gotta cut your right, you know, cut, cut off. What did you say? If your right hand guys pluck out
Speaker 1 00:14:39 Your right eye, cut your right
Speaker 0 00:14:40 Hand off, do all that stuff right. But at, even at the end of the day, that's not gonna stop you from mm-hmm. <affirmative>. The, the, the most, the greatest thing you can do is purify your heart.
Speaker 1 00:14:47 Yeah. One of the things that I tell,
Speaker 0 00:14:49 Uh, people, but, but, but, but that's the, that's the thing, right? Like, that's what we're saying. Right. If I want to renounce loss, let's just take one example and I don't wanna partner with that anymore like I once did. The proof that I'm hearing the Lord is that I'm increasing my love and devotion to him. And when those things come towards me, I'm in taking inventory of my life. And even in the grey ops culture, right. God built all of us for community. Yep. If, if you would get used, if you would build the discipline of like, when something's coming at you to, to uh, text a buddy, text a comrade head, need some quick prayer, man. Seriously, dude. And if you do that enough, the light will come in to that situation in such a mighty way. The light. Cuz light is way more powerful than darkness.
Speaker 0 00:15:31 Right. But we give it, we act like the light's like just this little thing, this little pebble that we gotta throw up against this mountain. It's quite the opposite, right? It's like the little pebble's taking you out sun. You know what I mean? Right. And you've got the mountain that can come cr crushing down on that little pebble. That's what the cross does. And that's what the community of Christ does. So anyway, you know, I I fully agree with you. I think it's in Deuteronomy six where Moses did this. It's the monotheism of Israel. It's like the, the here the Lord, the Lord that God is one. Right? Like, and it, and it was just pounded into these people's hearts and they still were stiff necked. They still messed it up. And so, um, you know, cuz titu, it goes on the end of that passage.
Speaker 0 00:16:12 I love it cuz it talks about renouncing ungodliness and really passions. And, and Steve and I are talking about doing this from a increasing, you know, it's the devotions of your heart. It's not that we don't struggle with things. Not that it's not that we don't ever stumble into sin, but we don't have to have the mindset. Like we, we may have more of the mindset that I can conquer sin cuz Christ conquered it. I can live a holy, I can live a holy life. It's not an impossible thing otherwise, why we got calls to it. You know? And then like it, because it eventually gets down in here about a, a people who are zealous for good works. Right. You know? And that's, that's kind of where it'ss
Speaker 1 00:16:47 Headed. And it, and it's Roman six, you. I do not believe that a person can be a successful, mature Christian without knowing what Paul delineated in Romans six, seven, and eight. They, they are, I think they are foundationally, uh, vital, critical to a living, successful and maturing Christian. But anything. Anyway, Roman six starts off with You're dead. Literally the entire chapter is written to you're dead to tell you
Speaker 0 00:17:23 That
Speaker 1 00:17:24 You, there
Speaker 0 00:17:24 Was this, it kind of picks up where Jesus was like, die tears. Yeah. <laugh> it,
Speaker 1 00:17:29 It, it ba the basically the entire chapter, I think it says 17 times in there, dead or dying or death. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. And it, and it literally says you're dead. There was this old guy, he was a jerk. He was a loser, he was a drunk, he was an addict, he was a whatever. And now you're dead. And now, now there's this new guy in Christ Jesus. And you know, Roman 6 16, 1 of my favorite parts, like really the hinge of Roman six, which just says, don't you know that to who you yield yourselves as a servant to obey his servant. You become, and then you become a slave again to the things that you've already died too, which is what you were going back to. Um, I I, I tell people all the time, like, Hey, if you, if I come into your house, if you're struggling like with alcoholism and I have to come into your house and pour out all your vodka, all I did for you was make you a dry drunk. Now you're just a dry drunk. Right. You can't drink. You want to drink. You think about drinking, you dream about drinking, you, you can taste the drink. You just can't get it because Steve poured it down the drain. That that is the equivalent of,
Speaker 0 00:18:41 And when Steve Lees, I'm gonna go buy more. Right. <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:18:44 Or, or steal it or, you know, I mean, it ha I mean there's a lot of things that people do. The better way to do that is kill the drunk. Yeah. It'd be better for me to come in here and stick a dagger in your heart and then resurrect you as a person who's not a drunk. Now you're a new creation, which is metaphor Christ what happens to us in Christ. Yep. Now you're a new creation in Christ Jesus. There is no such thing as a new creation that God made as a drunk. And so really the solution to drunkenness, or addiction, or, or lust or whatever is the actual revelation of you're a new creation. I used to be a man who his life was dominated by lust. And now I've died. Right. Christ killed me on the cross. Christ died on that hill for me to be free from lust. Yeah. What does that look like? What does a life that's not dominated by lust look like? And you pursue that? Because if you just tell yourself, okay, I'm not gonna lust today. Stop lusting <laugh>. Right. Okay. Don't think about something lustful right now. You know, if I do this long enough, I'll get every guy listening to this podcast to start thinking lustful thoughts. Which is, which is literally how the
Speaker 0 00:19:54 Enemy lu like five times.
Speaker 1 00:19:55 Right? Yeah. Which is literally what the enemy wants you to do. He wants you to concentrate on the lust because that's where your mind is gonna go. That's where your thoughts are gonna go. If you're concentrating on the lust, if you're thinking about the drink, the vodka that I poured down the drain, you're just gonna want more. Whereas thinking place in your mind. And that's why Philippians four eight is so important whatsoever. Things are true whatsoever. Things are honest whatsoever. Things are just whatsoever. Things are a good report. Anything That's lovely. Yeah. Think on these things. You put your mind on the things that you desire to have. Dude,
Speaker 0 00:20:29 You just, just stop. Right. I mean, no, stop right there. Cause cause this ties into our, like the title where we're headed, like Christianity is a, I've always said it's a self death movement, not a self-help movement.
Speaker 1 00:20:42 Right,
Speaker 0 00:20:43 Right. You know, and you're, you're talking about thinking on lovely things and pure things. Well, what's one of the greatest distractors in our world today is social media. Right. I mean, so many people are busy scrolling and just the noise in their lives, like that white noise, you know, it's like, turn all that stuff off. Can you even handle yourself? Some of us can't handle silence, violence. There
Speaker 1 00:21:06 Are some not only can't handle it, but have never
Speaker 0 00:21:09 Experienced it, like, kind of freaks some people up. So like, right. It does. Because like when I drive down the road, I, I have to remember to turn music on. Right? Like, I'll get halfway to my, I'm like, oh yeah, I, I should listen to that song I like, or turn on a worship song or listen to that audiobook. I just like silence. I like my brain. I like, I like quiet <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:21:26 Well, that's so the, remember that the way that the father speaks to us is in a still small voice. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the way the enemy can get the father's voice outta your head is to send in louder things. So av that's loud. A radio that's loud, a podcast that's loud at, obviously as we're saying this with a podcast, we're not saying don't shut us off. We're saying shut off all the stupid stuff. But the enemy knows that if you have meditative times, if you are legitimately concentrating on the things of God, setting your affections on heavenly things, that is where the voice of God pierces through all of the other noise and gets into our lives and our hearts. And it's the voice of God that comes to the inside of us and creates just like the voice in Genesis one created the universe.
Speaker 1 00:22:17 It's the same voice that comes into our life and creates the things that we are supposed to be experiencing as his children. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> post the curse. We're not supposed to be under the curse anymore. We're supposed to be brought back into being who we were created to be in the beginning. We're supposed to be re-embracing the iden age. We're supposed to be headed towards, uh, towards what Jesus told us to pray God's will in heaven on this earth as God's will is in heaven. And without thinking on those things and without having that creative voice piercing into and giving us an opportunity to rebirth that reality, we are never ever gonna embrace those things. It's, our life is just gonna be about, well, I should sin less, I should be more masculine. I should, you know, burp and fart more with the guys or something, you know, whatever that is. It's just gonna be an, an inauthentic plastic version of what God intended for it to be. His voice needs to be able to pierce all the other things.
Speaker 0 00:23:25 Yeah. And, and that's why meditation's important. Yep. Calming yourself. I think that's why SAB is important. Resting, you know, learning. I think one of the greatest plagues in our day is just the, just the business of our culture. Business of the land. And uh, you know, I think about, I I think on things like, like the phrase Black Lives matters.
Speaker 1 00:23:46 Oh boy. Here
Speaker 0 00:23:47 We go. No, I fully agree with this statement. <laugh>. I fully agree with the statement. Yep. Me too too. But I fully disagree with the, the agenda behind it. It, that, that's, that's linked with an agenda. I agree that all lives matter, right? I mean, I'm not purposely trying to go into this, but modern progressive Christianity is, is tipping things in these, these agendas that are, I believe so global and powerful, that it's coming against the church and for us to make it in this day and hour. It's never, it is never changed. I mean, if you think about Gods the same yesterday, today, forever. He's never changed the fact that we need each other. We need community. You know, you're talking about hearing a still small voice of God. Okay, well, you're gonna have to need some community. Absolutely. You need biblical fathers. You need, you need leaders. God put all these things in the earth. What is under the greatest amount of warfare? I mean, in my opinion, the Bible people who want to follow God according to the Bible.
Speaker 1 00:24:48 Um, the remnant
Speaker 0 00:24:50 You, you think of, yeah. The remnant you think of like the gathering of the saints. Well we just saw that basically obliterated through right Covid, right? Like how many churches?
Speaker 1 00:24:59 I had to go to war laws go to the Supreme Court, and now I wrote a book about it literally fighting for the bride. It's because nobody was fighting.
Speaker 0 00:25:09 And what's your book? Tell us about your book.
Speaker 1 00:25:11 Uh, so the, the title of the book is Liberating the Bride. And you can find it on, you know, on Amazon or you can go to WestBow. It was published through Zander van Thomas Nelson. Um, look it up under Dr. Steven Castle. P h e n. Um, and the point of the book was, is because when the lockdowns happened, and, and one of the reasons that, that Brian and I are so close is because when the lockdowns happened, we both had immediately our response was like, well, you know, you can lock some stuff down. I get all that, blah, blah, blah Iris. But, you know, hands off the church like this is God's property. This is God's house. God's people God's way. He's the, he's the head of the church.
Speaker 0 00:25:52 Real quick, when was the last time the church was supposed to be afraid of a plague? <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:25:57 Jesus. I'm sorry.
Speaker 0 00:25:58 But you know, Jesus literally give me a real
Speaker 1 00:25:59 Plague. His disciples to go heal the lepers. You wanna talk about a plague? Think about that. Think about biblical times. Leprosy,
Speaker 0 00:26:09 You have to go up with your hands and touch 'em.
Speaker 1 00:26:10 Right? Leprosy in biblical days, not leprosy. Today it's a different kind of leprosy. Leprosy in biblical times was 100% communicable when 100% mortal y If you touched it, you got it. And if you got it, you died. Now that's a plague. Not like, not like covid. That's 99.99999 that you get a head cold. Like if this was an actual real legitimate plague. And Jesus commanded, commanded his disciples to go heal the lepers. Literally the opposite of what the church did in 2020. The exact
Speaker 0 00:26:55 Opposite. Yeah. So there's, we're talking of this progressive, I mean, it, it is a, I believe it's gonna come to everybody's front door. I believe the, and I, and I hate to talk this way, but uh, to point it out, you know, but the greatest category that the L G B T movement has going for them is the heterosexual Christians
Speaker 0 00:27:20 That empathize, that have been conditioned by this whole love, love, love. Right. I mean, I probably have had during Covid, I don't know, man, I haven't counted from the beginning. I also run a church outside of Grey Ops. But, um, I'm sure most of you know that. But if you're new, you may not know that, uh, Steve runs a church. And so it's, so we're like in the game, we're like in the trenches of this stuff. And, um, I don't know how many families I've lost, but I know I could just say at least in the last year, I mean, because of some of the, what we're talking about, because I right lovingly stand against these things. I don't. Right. I don't, okay. Like I came out of pornography doesn't mean I haven't ever struggled with lessons I gave my life to Christ. Just like somebody could come outta homosexuality doesn't mean they won't struggle with same sex attraction. Right. You know, that doesn't mean that there's not compassion. I,
Speaker 0 00:28:11 I can't, it doesn't, doesn't mean that God's not so forced that he wants to build supp. It's, I can't look at the Lord and say, I'm bringing my playboy to the cross and I'm gonna read it after I read my Bible. Right. Right. Like, I can't, like, you're like, you know what, that's totally anti-biblical. Right? Right. Like, I have to burn the playboy and say, Lord, now take the playboy outta me. Right. I mean, and that's the message that this culture doesn't want to hear. Cuz we're all about feelings. But I think the number one category that is helping the enemy is heterosexual Christians that empathize. Cuz they just think, well, I, how many times have you heard, well, little Johnny was we little, we got this little Johnny in our family and he plays with Barbies and just kind of watched 'em struggle his whole life. So it's all gotta be what they're saying. Like, I've heard so many stories. Like, I'm like, it doesn't matter if it's all like, they're saying, what does the word say? You know,
Speaker 1 00:29:04 It, it ended up being a, a, a more, a softer version of what we all experienced in 2020. Because what they came out was, you know, two weeks to slow the spread. 15 days slow spread. You know, this is for grandma, do it, do it because you love people. We're all in this together. Think about all the language and think about all the messaging that they
Speaker 0 00:29:29 Used. The first time I ever heard the word social distancing that Right. I literally,
Speaker 1 00:29:33 Which is an oxymoron, I cringe. I'm like, no, you cannot social and distance
Speaker 0 00:29:38 Distancing. Like, I'm like, this is another, I'm like, just,
Speaker 1 00:29:41 Just like online church. There's no
Speaker 0 00:29:43 Such imagine. No. But imagine that the church was like, come in. So come into church with your mask on, mask yourself to worship the Lord, stay six feet apart and then stay and then spread the chairs out.
Speaker 1 00:29:51 I'm like, and then when you have three believers, six feet apart, you have 6, 6, 6. Think about that one.
Speaker 0 00:29:57 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:29:58 So, so this all happened. The, the context of the book was this all happened that shut down that said, Hey, shut down the church. And so, you know, guys like me and me and Brian, very few, but also not these national huge influencer guys we're just guys out here in the middle of the cornfield of Illinois just plugging away, trying to change the world, preaching the message that God called us to preach. And they come and say, Hey, shut down your church. You're, you're non-essential. Hey, body of Christ, you don't matter. And I said, well, there's two problems. I got Hebrews 10 25 that says that you do not forsake the assembly of ourselves together. And I have the first amendment that says the government cannot ever, no matter what, ever touch religious, uh, practices. And so I said no. And I just, uh, I just completely imagined out of my naivete, uh, out of my, out of my glowing amazing love for church in America. I just assumed that all the cool kids in, in modern progressive churchianity would back me up. Like, yeah, Steve, you're right. We're gonna support you
Speaker 0 00:31:12 Because we are, uh, tolerant and we we accept you even though you're a little different. Right. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:31:18 And, and then on top of it, I thought somehow
Speaker 0 00:31:21 Your version wast accepted. Was it
Speaker 1 00:31:23 Steve? And then on top of, I thought for sure, like all the cool Christian leaders, you know, the guys that have millions of dollars and millions of followers and huge churches and entire law departments and their, you know, legal departments and their corporations. I thought for sure these guys would come rushing in. Like, yeah, Steve, you're right. The government can't shut down the church.
Speaker 0 00:31:45 Nope. Hey, where crickets, I'm not gonna even bring up names, but where were, I've got some national hero types Ah, yep. That I still love and respect. Yep. But I feel like they
Speaker 1 00:31:54 Failed. I'm connected with some of these guys.
Speaker 0 00:31:56 I feel
Speaker 1 00:31:56 Like they, I called some of these minis. Some
Speaker 0 00:31:58 Guys are out there and on it, but Yep.
Speaker 1 00:32:00 I
Speaker 0 00:32:00 Feel I lot
Speaker 1 00:32:01 'em failed. Cause I have, I have friends in, in high places in Christianity and I called some of these, uh, ministries and I said, Hey, I'm suing the government. I'm fighting back against them shutting down the church. Will you help? It was crickets. I called some of these First amendment. Uh, you know, I won't mention names cause I don't want to do it. But, but some of these big huge law firms that are asking you to send them a bunch of money so they can fight for Christian values or, or conservative values or fight for constitutional rights. I called 'em all crickets. They didn't want to deal with this back in the beginning because they were all under the effects of the, the messaging of the enemy. It was, it was hide and maybe the virus will go away. Let's all hide. Just so you know, just so you know, grace ops, uh, men who are trying to change a culture, you will never deal with a problem by hiding in your basement.
Speaker 1 00:32:55 You will never deal with it. You always have to face, you have gotta face it, face on you always have to face it. And so I did, and I, and I ended up fighting alone. And I had guys like Brian, who's got no money, no lawyers, no whatever. And so he prayed for me, believed in me. We did the same messaging, but I, I mean, I was, there was two or three or four people that I was aware of in the nation that were bold enough to stand up for the Licia for the bride of Christ. And so the, the book that I wrote is that story and just like what, what you were testifying about, about losing people during that time when I started this fight, I lost half my board, half my staff and a third of my church. And these were all people that said, pastor, we'd take a bullet for you and you're our favorite preacher and we'll be here forever. And you know, all the stuff that that you hear Yeah. In ministry <laugh>. And these
Speaker 0 00:33:48 Were the people Yeah. From Covid to this day, I, well Covid days probably, we probably lost at least a third of our church. Maybe a little more. Yep. And that's the, but then we also gained, you know, that same back, you know, and then in, in, and I don't know how many times when you're talking about progressive messaging, modern, progressive, dominating social media, dominating the, uh, the how they're, how we're defining things today. Just the madness of it all in the simplicity of male and female. How that's almost like, yeah, you're, well you're old, so old fashioned now if you just think just, just two, you know, there's like, there's like 2000 now. Oh, I, I don't know what the number's up to now, how many different types of genders they've, uh, falsely created. But it's one of those things where I the most damaging is that it's the, it's the so-called Christian heterosexual couple or, you know, they, uh, they have a hard time with this conversation we're having that they, they that that it's, it's this type of conversation when I bring it up in some of my messaging that grates at them over time.
Speaker 0 00:34:58 And, uh, cuz I don't really care about politically right or left. I've heard it said very well that it's like the left and right arm are the same beast. Right. It's like it is, it's like
Speaker 1 00:35:07 It's the uni party.
Speaker 0 00:35:08 Yeah. It's absolutely insane what we're living right now. Um, so I'm not, I'm not like some big, I'm not promoting conservative this or that. It's just we're in the day and age where rivalry believe we need warriors. We need, you know, people who are actually gonna stand and fight and actually do what the biblical message says is the Bible says, speak with your enemy in the gate. Like you're supposed to go to these places of influence. We're supposed to, the bi Old Testament says you're supposed to possess the gate of your enemy. You know, and the way we do this through it's spiritual warfare, you know, you know, when Paul, there's a spiritual war going
Speaker 1 00:35:37 On. I was just reading this this morning, uh, before my day. And we, you know, to back up what, what Brian's talking about. We were so, we're so engaged with this. We started a, a Christian private school to rescue our kids out. That's right. Outta this public monster, this public school monster that's just trying to groom children into death. But, um, this morning I, I had to do chapel at our, at our Christian private school, and I was, I was thinking about the messaging that I wanted to deliver these kids. And so I was just going through the scriptures and, and one of the things that hit me is I, I reread the, the conversion of Saul de Paul and that encounter, and it just caught me a little bit differently this morning because what Jesus told Anais when he said, go lay hands on him, Anais is like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 00:36:26 Are you sure? Like the dude that's trying to kill Christians, you want me to go make it right? And the Lord's like, I got this. And he said to Anais, because I'm gonna, I want him to go and encounter kings and governors and leaders, you know, and, and we've turned, we've turned church Christianity, American modern progressive version of it. We've turned it into, you know, just be super quiet. Don't let anybody know at work. You know, keep it to yourself. You know, maybe wear a cross and people will pick up on your really subtle signs that you're no, Jesus literally showed up on the road and put Saul in the, in the choice of you either stop it or, you know, I believe that Jesus didn't show up, you know, to say, oh Saul, you're my favorite. I really want you in the kingdom. No, I believe that Jesus was like, stop persecuting my people. So your options are become my people. Or today's your last step. I really honestly believe that that was the encounter that Jesus meant. And, and God bless Saul in his humility, he responded and he said, who aren't thou Lord <laugh>? You know, he put the Lord on there since you
Speaker 0 00:37:42 Encount. Well, I think that's a good way to look at it because, you know, you could also, sometimes you could be like, is that borderline? Did God mess with free will? But he actually confronted Yep. The issues and gave, but Paul had the chance to respond.
Speaker 1 00:37:54 Right. Yeah. And thank God he responded. Right. I
Speaker 0 00:37:57 I like that. But
Speaker 1 00:37:58 I like that the thing was, and he was like,
Speaker 0 00:37:59 Enjoy your blindness for three days. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:38:02 Which was in, it goes into Hebraic thinking because he thought his eyes were wide open because of his doctrine, his belief, he was a pharisee of the Pharisees and they were, was always bragging about their eyes being wide open. He was
Speaker 0 00:38:14 The chief police of them all, you
Speaker 1 00:38:16 Know, and Jesus showed him, Nope, you're actually blind. And a had to have had to be healed by one of the very people that he was sent to kill. Yeah. Because he was sent to kill Ananias and then I Anais had to be the one that came in and rescued him. So it, it's, it's just the way that God does that with his version of I,
Speaker 0 00:38:33 He and I and then go to the, the Gentiles, Paul
Speaker 1 00:38:36 <laugh>. Yeah. And then he says,
Speaker 0 00:38:37 But you take the most hi scholarly type guy. Right. You wash you, you rinse, you know, you baptize him in fire and then you send him out. So he, cuz he can keep the gentile church in Hre moorings, you know, which is I think is a really cool thing because we don't want to divorce, we don't want to get too Greek, but
Speaker 1 00:38:54 Right.
Speaker 0 00:38:55 Yeah. We don't wanna get too
Speaker 1 00:38:56 Greco Roman church, you know, and we could say this, we could say modern progressive Greco Roman churchy.
Speaker 0 00:39:02 Oh, hold on. Which
Speaker 1 00:39:02 Is what they were up against. Just, you know, just so you know, that was the context of the scriptures. They were telling their, when they were writing those epistles in the New Testament, they were telling their people the exact things that were saying today. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:39:14 The Hellenism
Speaker 1 00:39:15 Reject Roman. Yep. Reject
Speaker 0 00:39:17 Babel Paganism Hellenism reject
Speaker 1 00:39:19 Yeah. Re reject Caesar's way of doing stuff and have a king. His name is Jesus. Right. And but back to the, to the influential part, you know, when Anais was sent to him, Jesus specifically sent Anais and told him the reason that Paul needs to be set free is because I'm sending him to kings, to leaders, to governors. And now we can't even take these things to our water coolers at work. Yeah, totally. Like Paul came out of that moment and he realized he was going to the top. He had to take this message all the way to the top, and if it killed him, it killed him. Another thing that Jesus said to Paul was, I'm gonna show you how much you must suffer for my name. Right. You know, how would you like to be born again with that? Hey, you wanna be a Christian? Yeah. That sounds awesome. That sounds like a really cool kid's club. Okay, well here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna suffer a ton and then be martyred. You're gonna die.
Speaker 0 00:40:16 Welcome to the club. Hey
Speaker 1 00:40:18 <laugh>, wonderful. I've been looking for something to suffer and die for. I can't to die. No. You know, when a man, you know, I think his, that's the
Speaker 0 00:40:25 Salvation message. But we've turned it into, you know, Jesus is cool and right.
Speaker 1 00:40:30 It is. You
Speaker 0 00:40:31 Know, he's our best,
Speaker 1 00:40:31 Best friend. That's the progressive, modernized version.
Speaker 0 00:40:34 He's still bored and he's holy and
Speaker 1 00:40:35 Yeah. It's come to our church and you'll get, you know, you'll,
Speaker 0 00:40:38 You'll make more money. I think when we, when Jesus and I stand in the same room, I'll be the one that's prostrate. <laugh>. Right. Not him. <laugh>. Right. We're not equal. Right. You know what I mean? Right. Like, yeah. He loves me. Yeah. I'm his son. I get all that stuff and I, I know he is my friend. I get all that. But I, I don't know, I still, he's
Speaker 1 00:40:55 The king. He's
Speaker 0 00:40:55 Still high and lifted up the Lord. Then he's still, you know, of
Speaker 1 00:40:59 Lord the most high God <laugh>. He is the one to whom all of heaven looks. And that should include us.
Speaker 0 00:41:07 So I feel like in the grace ops culture, like our values, um,
Speaker 0 00:41:13 The values we drive in this culture, biblical masculinity. Cuz I want, let's talk about solutions now. Like how do we, so yeah, we, we see the problem, we see the pain, you know, what are the solutions like, you know, our values honor, you know, li a a life and a heart that's built on the foundation of honoring the Lord, you know, affection being a person who actually is very tenderhearted, you know, being masculine. We don't want to be the, we don't want the broken masculine active in our lives. We want to kill broken masculinity. And we want to be in men who are in tune and actually have the capacity to show affection. You know, Christ had all kinds of affection, but he never divorced it from honoring the Lord. You know, liberty, you know, understand who we are and walking in that the purity of our salvation.
Speaker 0 00:41:58 What I love about the liberty of the cross, one of my favorite things is that we're not free for freedom's sake. We're free for kingdom's sake. We're, we're, the cross isn't setting me free. It's buying me, it's purchasing me. And it, if I understand it from that aspect, it, it, I come, I can come alive in a, an assignment that's super mighty and can keep me running strong until the end of my days. And then you got war. There's a war on being in the presence of God. So engage the spiritual disciplines and then valor, you know, like those are our five values of, you know, we want all them kind of lead to a life of valor. So what, what, what is some of the solutions we can put on the table for this progressive message? Because it is a tyrant. It is persecuting, right. It is devouring a generation.
Speaker 1 00:42:43 It's
Speaker 0 00:42:44 Trying to, yep. It's a po it's a, it's a problem. Massive problem.
Speaker 1 00:42:48 You know, in the temptation of Jesus. You know, if you, if you think back to that encounter, especially the Matthew Jra three version, you know, the enemy came and quoted scripture, which is a lot like what's happening in our, in our society today. The enemy is coming and they're quoting good. They're quoting love, they're quoting do it for grandma. Don't
Speaker 0 00:43:09 Judge.
Speaker 1 00:43:09 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:43:10 Don't judge or you'll be judge quoting, don't
Speaker 1 00:43:12 Judge. They're quoting, support your children in their, you know, whatever they're quoting, quote unquote scripture trying to convince us to allow them to win. And that was the exact same tactic of the enemy in the temptation of Christ. And Jesus responded by having a, a way better revelation and grasp of the scriptures so he wasn't thrown off. So he was a man of the word. So that when somebody tries to use the word against him, he easily defeated that tactic. But the second thing was, was that he understood his identity. He didn't have to be tempted with proving his identity because he was already solid in his identity. He was already solid in his relationship with the Father. He knew exactly what his destiny was. He knew exactly what his purpose was. He knew exactly where his strength came from. Yeah. He knew exactly who he was to his father.
Speaker 1 00:44:10 All none of those things were really in a way going to be a successful tactic of the enemy because Christ was already solid in the things that he needed to be solid. When the temptation come, and I tell people this in our church all the time, if you predetermine how you're going to respond in a temptation, then when the temptation comes, you don't have to have the fight cuz you've already had the fight. Right. If you can fight this out in your quiet time, in your, in your devotion time, in your meditation time, if you can fight these things out with, with Jesus encouraging you with those scriptures, encouraging you with the spirit of God, strengthening you, then when the actual temptation comes, you've already won the war. And so one of the things that we need to do to combat all these things, so a solution is we need to be people who really, truly understand the word of God.
Speaker 1 00:45:07 We understand the spirit of God living on the inside of us, that through our weakness, he is strong. And we need to go, we need to be very purposeful in our times of intimacy with the Lord, with the word and prayer. That we build up our mo we build up our inner man in our most holy faith by allowing these things to take place through meditation, through quietness, so that we can predetermine that we are going to defeat the temptations when they come. Because if you wait to start the fight when you've already mid battle, you're dead. Yeah. You know, if I, if I was to attack a person and I got 4 56 good hits in on 'em before they decide like they want to fight back, it's already probably two late dazed, you're punched drunk. Yep. You're done. I've already won. And that's honestly where a lot of, um, men in, in today's, uh, Christian culture, uh, they, they're, they're waiting for the enemy to get 2, 3, 4, 5 good licks on 'em.
Speaker 1 00:46:08 And then they're like, Hey, you know what? Maybe I should fight back against this. You know, after your kid is 13 and they're already five years into their transition, you don't get to say, well, you know, maybe it's not okay for my son to be called Stephanie like it that it's too late. You've already given the enemy way too much room. And it, and this is something that, that my wife and I do. So this isn't just a, a masculine thing. This is a Christian thing. Uh, kay And I will on purpose go to fight against something that we know is coming against us. The moment we recognize that it's coming against us, we go to war. Yeah. We don't wait for it to get a good stronghold, to get a good anchor, to get a good mind, you know, up plug in, give it a place to sleep every night in your head.
Speaker 1 00:46:51 Yep, yep, yep. The scriptures say give no place to the double no foothold. Right. Give no place. Which is exactly what Jesus did in the temptation. So he showed us how to, how to fight from a place of solid identity, but also fight from a place of intense temptation. Cuz both of those were true. And so he gave us the formula, so to say. He gave us the precepts about how we're going to go into this with this five, uh, with this five star charge and embracing these precepts that, that are a part of the, of the Titus two 12 culture. We have already had a warrior, a conqueror, a victorious one go before us and show us what that victory looks like. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, we don't have to come up with new strategies. We just follow the one that
Speaker 0 00:47:43 Has gone. It is that not so refreshing. It is a symbol, such a blessing, such a, you know, we said there a word earlier on the, on this episode, but we talked about the, we said the word mature, mature Christians like, and that's the, that's the goal. You know, so the solution we're actually talking about is not something you can come up, whip up in five minutes. We're talking about a life devoted to the presence of God, um, flaws and all right. Bring, come, come to Christ, uh, all of us. I'm not saying we all should sin and make mistakes. I'm just saying we all do. We all stumble in different ways. We're all growing. That's why you always hear me till I don't, till I don't breathe anymore. <laugh> you'll hear, you'll hear me talk about biblical community. Community is, uh, it is, it is a, it is very essential.
Speaker 0 00:48:28 We cannot do this alone. We, we have to have strength from one another and, and rooted in the scriptures. So yes, the power of the Holy Spirit in the word and the how power of the Holy Spirit in my life. Like I have to be connected to divine encounter, divine power. When I go to the gym and work out, I get results. I can feel stress coming off my body immediately. Like I get results right there. Right. And then I get the after results of that workout. Um, it helps me stay better on my nutrition that day. And then over the next day or two, that muscle area gets sore and I'm, and it's building, um, it's strengthening, you know? And so it's like that's the same thing and, and the, the spiritual realm, right? Like, I don't just need good Bible knowledge. Um, somebody just Facebook messaged me not too long ago saying, you know, kind of, and he, he didn't know he was doing this, but like misquoting the, the right, the scripture that said, oh, the truth was so you're free. You know, that's, but that's not what the Bible says.
Speaker 1 00:49:28 Absolutely not. I got
Speaker 0 00:49:29 A whole Bible.
Speaker 1 00:49:30 I've done that in my book.
Speaker 0 00:49:31 <laugh>. I mean, the Bible talks about you shall know the truth, right. You know, there's this relationship with truth, this crashing into the truth. This, I really like that word, knowing it's an in, there's intimacy. There's, there's costs, there's yeah. It's, it's uh,
Speaker 1 00:49:44 And the, and the verse before that
Speaker 0 00:49:46 Truth such, you know that.
Speaker 1 00:49:47 Yeah. And the verse before that, which is even more because it takes it in even more deeper context. It says, and Jesus said to those disciples mm-hmm. <affirmative> that were following him. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Romans 8 31 and 32. And what's interesting about that is that we love the throw around. Oh yeah. And you know the truth and the truth will make you free. That's first off, it doesn't say make it or it doesn't, uh, the truth will set you free. That's how most people quote it. That's not the word in the Bible. It actually says make that's a creative divine word. That's a strong word. That's a power
Speaker 0 00:50:26 Word. Well it's, it's the same word that Adam knew Eve and created king comes, comes from
Speaker 1 00:50:30 The same words. Well, that that's the knowing word. The knowing. Yeah. So that knowing, but what's really, you don't, I've never heard another preacher say this outside of me is the verse 31 connection where he said those words to his disciples in a way he pre-qualified the people that were gonna benefit from the intimate knowledge of the truth that is gonna have the creative power of freedom. It was specifically to the disciples. It wasn't a Joe Blow, it wasn't to the seeker sensitive guy sitting in the modern, progressive Americanized churchy entity version of Christianity. It wasn't that guy. It was the disciples that already went through some of the trials of the previous parts of those verses, which yeah, J John eight connects to John seven, which connects to John six. And in John six he said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you got no part in me. Right. And lost thousands of people from his mess. He literally, it'd be the same thing as me and Brian like preaching a message and everybody walks out in the middle of our message, except for our wife, the sound guy cancel and a couple of elders cancel. And we would be like, oh guys, don't go stay you missing, you misunderstood me. And Jesus did the opposite. He turned to his disciples, he said, are you guys gonna go?
Speaker 0 00:51:48 He's like, he's like, when are you leaving <laugh>?
Speaker 1 00:51:50 Yeah. And the disciples, and you know, they thought about it. At least Peter did because Peter said, where would we go?
Speaker 0 00:51:55 I was cross with that guy. He just
Speaker 1 00:51:56 Left. Well, Peter said, where would we go? Right. In other words, uh, I might, I might leave, but I really don't know where to go. So I guess we'll stay here with
Speaker 0 00:52:06 You. Well, I, and I also
Speaker 1 00:52:07 Believe, and so this was the preface to John, you know, John six was that, and so when you get to John eight and he says, and he looked at those disciples. Yeah. He's talking about people that already went through some war with him. And then he said to them, the disciples that were still following after all the terrible, he says, you specific group of people, you are going to have intimate experience with the truth and then the truth is gonna be able to set you free. Right. That's a radical thought. That's, that doesn't fit in today's everybody's accepted, you know, big tent version of Christianity that the, that is not covenant Christianity.
Speaker 0 00:52:50 No, I mean, it, it, we're not, it it, it lacks counting costs. It lacks really providing value. We're just giving cheap grace out.
Speaker 1 00:52:59 Going back to the community state.
Speaker 0 00:53:01 When Jesus is saying that in John six, I also, I've always, I have always loved that passage cuz when he says, what about you guys? What are you gonna do? Yep. I, I I believe he's driving the point home that all of us have to face with, with Jesus is that he's, he's going to come after your heart a 1000% effort. Yep. He, he's unrelenting. And he, he's saying, you know, at what point were you stopped a devotion, at what point were you stopped the intensity of your devotion to me? You know what, what can stop you? Because for these guys that all left, it was this, just this message just the simplicity of misunderstanding the message they left. Right? Like it was, they didn't stay to learn. They didn't stay to ask questions. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Jesus, they had their own, you know, and don't we do that? Progressive Christianity is doing it. We're making Jesus into our own, our own agendas. Yep. Which is turning him into an idol. It's an idol worship's.
Speaker 1 00:53:56 So Jesus always did this, you know, this band of brothers tagline that you have on, on gra the grace ops culture is, is really important because Jesus was kind of the original band of brothers maker because just like we totally, just like we went
Speaker 0 00:54:12 Through with John, well, all my ideas I stole from the Bible, <laugh>, good for you.
Speaker 1 00:54:15 <laugh>, just like Jesus, you know, basically took a band of brothers to, to do that freedom statement. And John chapter eight, think about this one. And then you just, you just illustrated John chapter six that it was kind of a band of brothers that was specific that made through that messaging. But here's another one, Matthew chapter 16, it, this is, this is really common language. Remember he went to Caesarea Phillip High, and this is the famous one that the Catholic church used to turn Peter into the first pope. But he's standing there at Caesarea Philippi and he says, who do men say that I am? And he's just with the 12, he's just with the 12. It literally says that he took the 12 and they went on this 40 mile march and they went to Caesarea Philippi. And he says, turns around while they're standing there, and he says, who do men say that I am? And it says, some of the disciples said that you're, you're John the Baptist, you know, reincarnated or whatever their language was, or you're one of the prophets, or you're, you know, you're, you're just an awesome teacher, you're a great guy. You know, and then Jesus looked at his 12, his band of brothers, and he says, but who do you
Speaker 0 00:55:27 Say that I am? Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 00:55:29 You know, it doesn't matter what Brian and Steve say Jesus is. Doesn't matter what Brian and I say that we've gone through and what we fight and our testimonies and, and how great we think this way of life is, it doesn't matter. It's, what do you say? What do you say? And Peter, God bless him, makes that famous statement, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And then Jesus even there didn't, didn't like heap metals on him and like, give him a, give him a trophy and a, and a fake plastic gold, uh, gold ribbon. He said, blessed are you Simon Barona. Flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you. You were tapped into something deeper. My father
Speaker 0 00:56:11 Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:56:12 That's right. In heaven told you these things. So even then, the one time that, one of the few times in scripture that Jesus literally like affirmed someone, what he affirmed about Peter in that moment was that Peter actually heard God. He didn't say like, Peter, you're my favorite. You're the best of the best buddy. Come ride, ride
Speaker 0 00:56:35 My unicorn
Speaker 1 00:56:36 Today, <laugh>, you're gonna come ride
Speaker 0 00:56:37 My
Speaker 1 00:56:38 Unicorn. It's gonna be so fun. He said, Hey, way to go. You actually heard God. You know. So Jesus affirmed the one of the few people that in all of scripture, that Jesus actually ba basically gave a little bit of accolades to, was Peter in this one singular moment and what he,
Speaker 0 00:56:59 Maybe he's the same guy that he rebuked and said Satan
Speaker 1 00:57:02 <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. And just a
Speaker 0 00:57:03 Few, the same guy that denied
Speaker 1 00:57:04 Him the few verses later literally said, get one those
Speaker 0 00:57:06 Behind me. Good moments here,
Speaker 1 00:57:08 <laugh>. So the first quote, unquote, the first Pope turned into the first Satan Satan possessed person in all of scripture because he said, said, get the behind me Satan, like right after he, and anyway, I, I don't wanna get into the religion of it, but the, the point is, is that in that, in that very, uh, powerful moment, that that scripture transformative moment that we've used to, to, to build some of the really important theology and doctrinal premises, that that undergird all of Christianity, that was another band of brothers moment. Some of these most, some of these most famous gospel encounters. Then all of the scriptures, if you drill down and you look really deep, it's going to be a band of brothers. It's going to be an intimate group. It's gonna be, even if you, even if you say, well, yeah, but what about like the Sermon on the Mount? You know, there was thousands and all, but it says, even in the Sermon of the Mount, it says that he sat down and then he turned and he spoke to his disciples. Right. He didn't have a problem with all the crowds being there, listening to what he was saying, but he was directing his language. He was directing the Sermon on the Mount specifically towards his band of brothers, his inside community. And,
Speaker 0 00:58:27 And when Peter's answering the question, who do you say I am? And I think this is very important as a solution to this modern progressive, uh, topic we brought up. He's, he's answering the question based on his knowledge of the, of the Torah and the prophets. And he's also answering it based on divine encounter. Yeah. Right. You know, and I, and I think that's so important. He's not just in, he's not just basing it off of a feeling or some type of messaging. Yep. He, he knew the word and he knew
Speaker 1 00:58:55 God and he had an intimate
Speaker 0 00:58:56 Relationship with God. Yeah. And in, in, in biblical masculinity, Christianity, the kingdom minded, you know, the kingdom movement that's in the earth, um, you could be one day in it or a hundred days in it, or you know, 50 years in it. And we're all gonna be working towards the same mindsets, right. The same hearts. It's all the same goals. Right. So it, so the community of the plural is not meant to control you. It's meant to keep you in the guard within the guardrails, you know, like spinning out or, you know, cuz Yeah. I mean it's a whole big road. We could go down with stuff, but I mean, I think just to keep, it's a sacred culture. Just to keep it simple. Yeah. It's like, you know, the answer that we need in this hour from men is, I love, I reread this Steve the other day.
Speaker 0 00:59:46 I reread Psalm 1 27. Yeah. I love Psalm 27. Yeah. It's only five verses. I love it. I'll probably write a book on it one day, but it's at the very last, I've been misquoting, one of my favorite verses, and I didn't even really realize it. I've been saying the word, when you stand with your enemy in the gate, when you stand with your enemy in the gate, when you, and it doesn't say the word stand with your enemy in the gate. I just put that in my brain. It actually says, when you speak with your enemy in the gate. And so I think for us men talk, you have to talk about these things. It's, you know, cause because I, I thought speaking was so much better than standing cuz standings, you know, uh, in psalm, in Psalm one, a war position in Psalm one standings not a good <laugh>.
Speaker 0 01:00:29 Yeah. It's not a good stand in the, in the, what is it? What is it? Walk, sit. Yeah. You or walk stand sit. You stand with the wicked, the digress, you know? Yep. And, uh, and so yeah. You know, the lord's like don't, yeah. You're not standing there. You're speaking. And we don't just speak through our mouths. We speak through our actions. And so we have, you know, to, to fight up against these things. I think you may not want to hear this, but you have to be willing to lose your job. You might have to be willing to, and I'm not saying you go to work and it's this, you know, we're, uh, what do they call it? What do they call it when they, what do they call that? I can't remember the word. Um, proselytizing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Evangelizing. We're not necessarily going to work to like proselytize.
Speaker 0 01:01:14 That's not, you know, if you're gonna work to get paid, you do abc, go do abc, do your job as the Lord opens doors. Be honorable. Yeah. Be honorable. You're not there to like make it your mission field, you know, but it is your mission field. You just gotta be wise. Bible says to be wise as serpents, harmless and stuff. Yep. So there the, you let the Lord move, but you don't make it a front agenda to be, you know, but if it comes down to it, like maybe you don't want to get vaccinated or you don't want to, you know, you don't want to do certain things, you have to decide, I need to honor God and maybe lose, lose a job and trust the Lord. Like, you know what I mean? So it's like, guys, we wanna be solutions. That, that is part of the biblical community is that in this community, the lost, broken, confused, dazed world that's just peppered with modern, progressive Americanized Christianity, that there would be a group of people who would be so loving and kind in a biblical way, that they could come and find truth, come find healing, come find.
Speaker 0 01:02:11 Cuz the answer that the world needs is not agreeing with them. And it's not hating them. It's to say, this is the way God created us to be. Let's, let's make, make the, these are our goals. We want to be, we want to live in his image. And, uh, I heard Francis chance say this once, not that this is interesting. He's like, if the Lord told, if the Lord wrote down that said Chinese people had to walk on their, their hands the rest of their lives to make it to heaven, he goes, I'd be walking on my hands the rest of my life to make it. He's like, we don't set the rules, we don't set the right, the, the king of the universe does. And so we might not like not getting our way all the time like a child, right. Like a toddler. Like we might not like it, but dude, when you actually go through it, you're like, it's so much better. Yep. That I did the
Speaker 1 01:02:55 Hard You don't like it at first <laugh>, but you end up liking it. No, nothing I've ever sacrificed for the Lord. Have I ever, uh, eventually gone back and counted like, I gave up this great thing for God. Just like Paul, Paul says, I count all things but dung
Speaker 0 01:03:14 <laugh>, but
Speaker 1 01:03:14 For the knowledge of
Speaker 0 01:03:15 The yeah.
Speaker 1 01:03:17 For the knowledge of the Excellency of Christ. Jesus. My Lord. He, you know, Paul gave up a ton of stuff. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisee. He sat at the feet of Gaal. He likely could have been one of the next either chief, uh, part of the, uh, part of the movement of Judaism. He could have been on the Sanhedrin, he might have even worked his way into a secondary high priestly role.
Speaker 0 01:03:42 Yeah, you're talking, he gave up all massive honor. Oh my God. Massive pay wealth.
Speaker 1 01:03:46 Like he could have been president of Judaism.
Speaker 0 01:03:49 And then what does he do? He follows Yeshua and he writes books to us from Third World prisons. <laugh>. Yep. Literally
Speaker 1 01:03:54 Third world prisons. Yep. Spends his, spends his last moment. You can read about a second, Timothy chapter four spends his last moments in basic obscurity in ho in, uh, in, uh, home prison. You know, they locked him in house prison, house jail. And he begs for his friends, his his few remaining friends to bring him a cloak and a Bible.
Speaker 0 01:04:20 Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:04:21 Like this is how the, one of the most influential people that ever lived his entire life. There, there are few, few people that have had more impact on the earth besides the Apostle Paul. There are 3 billion Christians on this earth. And most of them came because Apostle Paul wrote how Christianity works for Gentiles.
Speaker 0 01:04:42 Yeah. I
Speaker 1 01:04:43 Mean, he's, we wouldn't be here. Me and Brian wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Paul.
Speaker 0 01:04:46 He's, he's the majority of the new Covenant as far as he's the majority writer, majority author.
Speaker 1 01:04:51 Yep. And he died with the fewest number of Facebook friends.
Speaker 0 01:04:56 Canceled for sure.
Speaker 1 01:04:57 Yeah. Yeah. He total cancel
Speaker 0 01:04:59 Culture. Just show
Speaker 1 01:05:00 Up already. Yep. The Jews didn't like him. A lot of the church was kind of peeved at him. And, and he still ended up being the guy that probably had more impact on the world, the guy than any other person besides Christ himself. That's the goal. God's version of success is always way better than our version. Holy
Speaker 0 01:05:21 Progressive. This progressive churchy interview thing. They hate Paul.
Speaker 1 01:05:25 Oh yeah.
Speaker 0 01:05:26 <laugh>. They
Speaker 1 01:05:26 Hate Paul Hi him at all with all of his, uh, do at the Kingdom Way type writing. Like No, no, no, no, no. We're we're gonna do it all.
Speaker 0 01:05:34 No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1 01:05:35 No. Let, let's change Paul's words.
Speaker 0 01:05:37 Let's Paul's a bigot. Paul's a heater, right?
Speaker 1 01:05:39 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 0 01:05:40 Right. Jesus was a Jewish rabbi who would already by default, uh, disagree with homosexuality. But, you know, he doesn't have to talk about it <laugh>. It's already, if you're smart enough to know all that you're, you know, you're already, there's like some things that you know are assumed and Yeah. And things aren't deeply known.
Speaker 1 01:05:59 Paul went into a, you know, a Greco-Roman culture. He went into a gentile culture where a lot of this, you know, a lot of jacked up lifestyles still existed. That's why Paul wrote Romans chapter one that says, don't you dare get into homosexuality. And he, he, he had to go and confront some things that Jesus didn't directly have to deal with because Jesus was talking to a people of a different culture. In Jewish culture. When Jesus was ministering, they already knew they were gonna be a part of a nuclear family, cuz that's what God intended for him to be. One man who's a Virgin Marion, one woman who's a virgin, just like Jesus's mom and dad. That's how they did it. That was the culture that Jesus was ministering to. But Paul ministered to a different culture. He was ministering to people who were in polygamy, people who were in fornication. It was
Speaker 0 01:06:49 Crazy pagan,
Speaker 1 01:06:50 Which is why Paul had to use that language all the time. Flea fornication. Jesus never said flea fornication because he was talking to people that already in a culture, in the Jewish culture that he was ministering to, they'd already fled fornication. They'd gotten into a biblical version of sexuality. But Paul was talking to people who didn't have a biblical version. So he had to say, flee fornication, don't <laugh>, don't do the stuff that, that your culture is doing. Come into this biblical culture. Change your culture.
Speaker 0 01:07:19 Yeah. Well, hey man, it's been a great episode. Episode 100 was power passed 100. It might even be a hundred and hundred one. We'll probably split this up a little bit. But, uh, yeah. And I also wanna encourage us, as we kind of close this out, I wanna encourage all the men, um, to, to, you need to remember that your voice matters and the voice of a man, the image of a man in today's culture is, uh, more and more feminized and more and more emasculated and, and just torn down. But be who God's called you to be. And your voice matters. Your voice matters to your children, your grandchildren. It matters to, to, uh, I I hope you're in a good church. Um, a lot of you might not be because part of the progressive movement is it's killing the, the church that actually a a just a authentic man could actually go to <laugh>.
Speaker 0 01:08:07 So, um, part of the Grey Ops culture is actually a solution to that. And if you're, you're finding yourself lacking community or comradery, or you just want to increase that in a way, um, go click on our membership and we will introduce you to a very powerful, simple way to, to, uh, build that or to start that in your life. So we're here to serve you and to bring, bring this, this biblical, you know, vision and culture of what God has given to us. We're here to serve you with it. So it's been great to be here in the studio with Steve. And until next time, live upright.
