Doomerang

00:00 Father, we honor you. It is a privilege to do what we do. And we don't take this lightly when we say we get to do this. We really mean it. Our hearts in what we're doing. We pray for our listeners today that they will be inspired and will be encouraged, will be motivated, maybe even challenged to think and rethink things, especially when it comes to their walk with you. We pray for those that are Christ curious, that are examining faith and examining what it might be to follow Jesus. And we pray for them to jump on in with us. So, Lord, we do what we do for your honor and your glory.

00:41 In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. It's Wednesday, September 30th, 2026. We get to do this. This is episode number 52. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is a gift. We get to do this. This is a chance we dare not miss. This is the life we get to do this. Well, hello. Get to nation. Hello, believers in Christ Curious. It is episode number 52 of We Get To Do This. Hello, my brother. Brother, man, we're just churning them out, aren't we? 152. It's happening. We've got a whole year, you know, it'll accelerate. In November, we're going to see if we can take even more of your time.

01:26 Come on now. Hey, I got plenty of time to spare. I mean, if we're going to do, if we're going to do Adam Monday, are you just going to do it at home? That's your Sabbath, man. How can I? I can't. No, you come up here. Really? Yeah. I like doing it in the studio. It's just more fun when you can see who you're talking to. It is nice. I agree. You know, just to start things off, during my quiet time, which every morning, you know, like you, I used to never set an alarm, but now I set my alarm every day, 6:30. I get up. It's before Tina gets up, before the dog is awake. You know, I do the coffee and everything. And I pray and I ask the Lord, I ask the Holy Spirit, you know, like whatever you show me today, let me recognize it as something that I need to look at or something I need to discard, you know, whatever's coming my way before I open screens and all that and get into the word and the devotional.

02:16 And something like, I've been thinking about this, you know, the, we talk about a biblical worldview. And we say that so easily. And we just, you know, and I don't know how many people really understand that if they're just curious, Christ curious, what does that really mean? And it hit me. There's this movie that was seminal for me in the No Agenda show over the past 20 years. It's called They Live. And it stars Roddy Piper, who was a professional wrestler. Remember him? Oh, yeah. You've probably seen the memes from this movie where you put on these glasses, the kind of like Ray-Bands, and all of a sudden you see the billboards.

02:59 They don't say, you know, buy this. It says obey. And you look at people and they look like robots, kind of metallic robots. Have you ever seen these memes? It's a movie people should really see because I realized it is the whole thing is a metaphor. And it's done by John Carpenter. This is one of his early movies. I think it was from 88. And actually much later, Roddy Piper, before he passed away, sent a note to Hulk Hogan in 2024 saying, you know, hey, brother, you know, I hope you find your walk with Jesus, which Hulk Hogan then did before he passed away.

03:38 And this whole movie was a metaphor for putting on glasses and having a biblical worldview. In this case, it was kind of you're seeing the robots who control everything and, you know, the new world order. But it's really the same concept of, and there's scripture about it too, you know, of seeing things that were unseen or actually, you know, you don't even see the unseen or believing in the things that aren't seen. Right. But this, I urge people to, it's kind of hokey. It's kind of a, I don't know. It's, you know, it's not a great movie, I'll be honest about it. You can probably find it on YouTube. That's how old and hokey it is. But it really, it hit me like, that is what it is.

04:21 Like you get saved and you are able to look at things with a different view, look beyond them, and sometimes see even what's not there. Does that make any sense? Yes, it does. Because that is having a biblical worldview. It's like putting on glasses, the Ray-Bands, as you said. Yeah. It's like putting on these Ray-Bands that now when you put them on, you see things different. Yes. And once you've seen, you can't unsee. So the signs that you see in the movie with these glasses on, you see, obey, control. consume, conform, no independent thoughts, stay asleep, marry, reproduce, submit, watch TV.

05:06 The money says, this is your God. Wow. I mean, think about the significance of that, you know, for you cannot serve two masters, just all of this stuff. I'm like, if you're wondering what it's like and why we sound so happy most of the time, it's because we have, they're not real glasses, of course, but once you see, you understand the invisible things like the steps, like in Indiana Jones, like I am going to step over. You've given this metaphor. Oh, yeah. I love that metaphor. I'm going to take this leap of faith knowing that I'm not going to fall down into the ravine, but there will be steps, you know, stepping stones that just appear and then I can walk on them.

05:47 And it just hit me like, man, if you want to understand what we're talking about with biblical worldview, that's literally it. It is. Unfortunately, not quite as simple as just putting some glasses on. Right. You see it right away. It doesn't quite work that way. Well, I mean, a lot of it has to do with understanding, not just understanding, but knowing the word of God in terms of reading it and spending time in it. Because, you know, whatever we consume, whatever we're dieting on, you know, whether it's, you know, the old giggo thing, garbage in, garbage out, you leak out what you're full of, you know, whatever you consume is what's going to come out. But not only does it come out in outcomes or behaviors, it comes out in the way you think and then the way you perceive, the way you see things.

06:30 So to change your worldview doesn't just mean studying more about the world. It's actually shaping it through the grid or the lens, putting on glasses, the lens of scripture. And that's what's changed my life is being able to read the Bible on a daily basis. And a lot of times it's like it's Miyagi. It's wax on, wax off. You're doing it and it is something that gives you something every day. But really, there's a bigger thing going on. It's reshaping the way you see the world. It's reshaping your vantage point or your viewpoint or your angle. Your line of sight changes. I'm doing two things this week.

07:12 I'm doing a wedding and a funeral. Those are two vastly different scenarios. And a whole bunch of baptisms. Lots of baptisms. Yeah. A lot of new life there. Yeah. And yet a celebration of life too, because the man that passed was very godly and was really a model for us all. So that's a beautiful thing. But those are very wildly different settings. No kidding. And yet, from a believer with a biblical worldview, I don't see those that much different. They're celebrations, both of them, of life. And so because this was a believer that passed,

07:55 sadly, it was a tragic accident that took his life at 74 years of age. Yet he was such a man of God and a man who carried Christ. He was a Christ carrier that it's a celebration. You can't help but celebrate. Of course we mourn, we grieve. That's normal. That's a gift from God. That's God's pressure release valve. And it's a gift, but it's weird when you're doing it. But there is a time to grieve, but there's also a time to dance, a time to celebrate. Ephesians 3. And Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes. I'm sorry. I'm just thinking birds. Whenever I hear that. You're at ease. Yeah. Just whatever easy name.

08:37 Yes. I just hear the seasons from the birds. Yeah. So, yeah, there's that. So anyway, to me, it's like my worldview helps me navigate both of those scenes with joy. When I heard of John's passing, because that's who we're talking about. Yeah. I had those emotions all at once. Like, because, you know, now distinguish because a lot of your friends are going to think John Dvorak, we're talking about. Thank you for saying that. No, this is about John who was in our church. And I know John has spoken to John, his wife, Kathy, but also they sit on the front row on the other side. So whenever I look toward the right, I would always see him. There's always a nod or a smile. He was quite distinguishable to look at.

09:21 But I had those feelings at the same time, like, oh, you know, mourning for Kathy, mourning just for his family, just the shock of it. But at the same time, like, I know where he is. And we have a glimpse. We don't know fully, but we know partially what he's seen, what he's experiencing. What we've heard from other people. Yeah. And this is really this, you know, death is what it's funny. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Death is the number one marketing tool, you know. Actually, I want to. won't get to that in a second because we got a call in between these two shows from friends of ours.

10:01 We've only known them recently. And they're in California. And they called up together, which was odd. And they say, we want to understand about this religion thing you guys are into. And we were like, so first, I'm on the phone, like, hold on a second. I'm going to put on a speakerphone. It was the first time that someone actually came to us with the type of questions that I had and that Tina had when we were just following on this path. And the feeling that gave us both was like, wow.

10:40 And, you know, what's coming out of our mouths is things that we had heard when we were just starting out, but also a little bit of wisdom, a little bit of things that we've learned over time. And I just can't describe that feeling, man. We were giddy for about two days. You know, like, wow, that was really kind of cool, wasn't it? It's a buzz. I didn't know that that was, that that's a thing. It is a thing. It was like, whoa, this is like an upgrade somehow. I think I said when you were, you shot me a text about it. I think I said, you got bit by the evangelism bug. Yeah. Because when you get a chance to share your faith and you know it's landing with somebody who's asking questions, then man, kudos to them, first of all, for them taking the effort and walking in humility to reach out to you guys and ask about it.

11:32 Yes. That's huge right there. That's half the battle right there. What was interesting is they're asking questions. They say, I'm sorry to push back. It's like, you're not pushing back. You're asking questions. Good question. Yeah, but that feels like I'm pushing back. His wife is a lawyer, you know, so she's, she didn't want to come up. I say, no, no, this is the questions are the questions. Good questions, yeah. And it was so interesting to hear, like, well, doesn't that just mean being good people? You know, all the things that come up in your, what do you answer when someone says, well, doesn't that just mean being a good person? Well, there is a snarky comeback on that one that, you know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

12:13 No, I didn't say that. I probably wouldn't do that either. That's kind of an insider joke. But, you know, even the devils, you know, knew Jesus. They knew who he was. Yeah. And they knew the word of God, but yet they just trembled. They didn't know him per se. But no, it's not just about being good. In fact, the Bible even says that our righteousness is as filthy rags before God. In other words, the best we can be on our own still comes up short. Because, you know, we're not talking about just bad behavior here. This isn't behavior modification 101.

12:53 This is actually having the sin issue in our life completely eradicated, dealt with, put under the blood of Christ, dealt with forever for eternity. And so it's kind of the wrong question, but it's well-meaning. I'm not dissing their questions at all. These are legitimate questions that people have, but the answers are on a different plane and a different line. It's almost like they're at zero feet and you're at 30,000 feet. Not that you're above them. It's just a different perspective. And so when someone's asking about, well, because my mom did that with me, she said, well, son, I'm a good person.

13:34 And I said, mom, good's not good enough. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. You can go to scripture on all that. But anyway, what? Great questions. And their openness is just amazing. And I found it interesting that eventually it comes around to eternal life. And this is a big one for me personally, but, you know, and that comes kind of back to the fear of death thing. Like, I don't really have that. I know where I'm going. I know what's going to happen. I may be in the upper deck in the nosebleed seats, but, you know, I'm in. Get in. Late to the party. Here I am.

14:15 And with that, I just realized how, because I come from marketing, you know, my whole career has been media. And death is always the number one way to sell something. You know, if you don't drive this truck, you will die an unhappy man. If you don't drink this beer, you will die a man who never had a beautiful woman on his arm. I mean, that's, and conversely, I don't have to tell you all the different things and how they market to women. Right. But I also noticed this, and there's been some convergence lately of both. both technology and faith, but actually not really faith, more of evil. And so, the big, we've talked about this, the biggest marketing push of the last

15:02 maybe 180 days has been AI is so powerful, we're all going to die. Which is, you have to look at it as marketing, you know. But it is when you bring up fear of death, everybody jumps on it. I can get clicks, I can get all kinds of garners' attention, I can get all kinds of stuff. So, I just want to play a couple of examples because they really start to bleed over into what I now consider our realm, which is faith and how people look at the world. And so, we'll start first with just listen to the words. The report is what the report is because, oh, yeah, we're all afraid AI is going to kill us.

15:42 All right, let's discuss the elephant in the room. Artificial intelligence is taking over. Public dialogue, that is, and maybe the world too. Are we screwed? Depends on who you're asking. I'm sure you've seen the headlines. There are industry experts that are warning that artificial intelligence could soon spiral out of human control and kill all of us. My kids really enjoyed hearing this last week. Others say that we have got about a year left to regulate it until dot, dot, dot. And it's not just coming from tech critics. Lawmakers in Washington, even AI leaders, seriously themselves, have gotten in on the end times chatter, too.

16:19 This caught my ear. Oh, we're now in end times. End times chatter. So now it's now you have my attention because I'm not afraid of the AI marketing. But what are you doing with this end time stuff? Do you believe, earnestly believe, that AI could kill all humans? And what percent chance do you think it is? If we take the right paths, then the chance of something going wrong is very low. If we take the wrong path. This to me sounded like you could turn right or you can turn left. I'm just hearing all these biblical metaphors start to pop up in popular culture when it comes to this topic. Then the chance of something going wrong could be even higher than that. No, I think AI, the potential danger of AI, is probably greater than nuclear weapons.

17:01 God forbid we have a chair normal over here. God forbid. That really causes harm to people. AI is no longer, AI reaches that point where it's no longer a tomb of human beings. It's an independent species. Wow. It becomes the terminator. Doomcasting on both sides of the aisle. It goes to show how widespread the concern is about AI. So doomcasting, doomerism, this is a real trend that is out there. People are talking about the doomers. Of course, that goes with the Zoomers and the boomers. Now we got the Doomers, we've got Doomerism. To me, it's like a doomerang. It just comes all the way back around. I got to write that one down.

17:45 Over and over. Hey, that'd be a good show, Tom. Yes, it would. Over and over and again. It's the same thing over and over again. The doomerang. So there's even this, you know, in statistics where you have a P number and the P number. It's in P in brackets, the letter P. That's like the variable that you put into a model. So now people are asking, what's your P doom number? You know, look, I'm here to bring what's coming from the outside, and that's what it is. Doomerism is a big thing. So Saturday Night Live, which I haven't watched in ages, me either. It got unfunny for a while, and also it's too late, honestly. And I got other things to do on a Saturday night.

18:27 They had one of the actresses did Dario Amadei, who was, you know, and it was appropriate for her to do it because she kind of looked like him. But then listen to how they portray what he was saying. Anthropic CEO Dario Amade recently stumbled through a press tour where he agreed with a former Anthropic employee's claim that there's a 10% chance of AI wiping out humanity within 10 years. Here the comment is Anthropic CBO, CEO, Dario Amade. You know, you know, you know, thanks for having me, Michael. I may have been alarming in my recent interviews, but I want to assure you that if we can pressure lawmakers to create guardrails, we will be able to stop me.

19:17 Dario, can you just explain how your company isn't going to kill us? So, so, so, so, so, so, so, that's a really hard question. It shouldn't be. You know, come on, Dario. Come on, Dario, you can do this. What's that? Is this how this guy actually talks? talks? Well, the so-so-so bits, but now the actor is doing a glitching or now doing a come on, Dari, you can do it. And then the devil voice from the UK says, okay, so you see where I'm going with this now.

20:00 Come on, Dario, you can do this. Just to reassure them. AI is the devil and I, its maker. What? No, well, so look, Sam Altman, myself, all the major AI players, we have talked about this extensively, and we are all on the same page here. We do not condone what we are doing. Wow. But this is, people listen to this, and it sinks in like, okay, AI is the devil. AI is the Antichrist. Now, this is where you get into a realm where a lot of people are talking about stuff like this.

20:39 And in fact, there's a book out now by Naomi Klein, not to be confused with Naomi Wolf, who was without her knowing it was instrumental in my faith journey. Klein is a professor. She wrote Shock Doctrine. I think she also wrote, let me see, I think I wrote it down. She wrote Doppelganger. She's been around. She's an annoying person to me personally, but the shock doctrine was actually pretty good. And the shock doctrine literally is how politics and marketing shock people into changing behavior, whether it's consumer behavior, behavior in the world, faith, all these different things.

21:26 So this is interesting when someone like this comes up with a book called End Times Fascism. Wow. Okay, there's a mixture of. Yes, and points towards AI. And again, we've got end times. Now, of course, fascism, just throwing some Trump hate stuff, but it's just a quick intro to that book. The CEO of Anthropic, one of the biggest artificial intelligence companies in the world, warned this week that if AI companies don't slow down their development and install some guardrails, rogue AI agents might be able to take control of the internet in six to 12 months. The warning has revved up a debate about whether AI or advanced AI could escape human control and literally threaten human survival, which sounds, again, like dystopian science fiction.

22:11 And yet here we are actually having that discussion. But there's something stranger happening than all of this. These dire warnings from tech leaders are growing alongside an increase in talk in fundamentalist Christian circles about whether we are entering the so-called end times. You know, the biblical doomsday prophecy of the end of the world leading up to the second coming of Christ. And thanks to today's politics. Which, by the way, somehow I don't think this guy knows what he's talking about at all. He just rattles off, you know, the end times, you know, and then the second coming of Christ. You know, you know, you heard about this somewhere. End times. You know, the biblical doomsday prophecy of the end of the world leading up to the second coming of Christ.

22:54 And thanks to today's politics, this isn't a fringe idea. It's being discussed by Vice President J.D. Vance. Take a listen to what the actual vice president of these United States said two weeks ago during an interview on a Christian podcast. While I wouldn't be shocked if we are living in the end times, what I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, okay. And if that leads to, you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I'm gone, that's great too. Kind of out of context, this clip, because he's saying something that I know you and I both agree with, but with that setup,

23:37 all non-believers will hear is, oh, yeah, it's end times. If that leads to the president leading us at the end time, I'm very worried that people are getting fearful and worried and like, what can I do to stop the end times? This is why I'm bringing this to my brother, Pastor Jimmy, to help spin us down from this horrible place of where we're all. And by the way, I've heard Antichrist end times throughout my career have always said, oh, yeah, totally possible Obama's the Antichrist. Totally possible that Hillary Clinton's the Antichrist. George Bush, probably the Antichrist.

24:18 The European Union, probably the rise of the Antichrist. End times, we're all going to die. Fire and brimstone. Help us, Pastor Jimmy. Help us now, brother. Well, first of all, from a Christian point of view, which is us. We've been in the last days since Jesus announced it in the New Testament 2,000 years ago. Yes. That that was the beginning of the the last days. Now, we don't know what that means. There's no way to tell because there's not a definition and it's not, and there's so much metaphor involved here. So it could be thousands and thousands of years. Could not. Who knows? Here's the deal: it's a win-win, brother. Yes. It is a win-win. If Jesus comes back at the end of the Bible, it says Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus.

25:02 Come quickly, Lord Jesus. You know, either way, it's a win, especially for those of us in Christ. But there's a lot of end time conversation built around some of the books that are apocalyptic literature, like the book of Daniel, book of Ezekiel, Revelation. These have apocalyptic, very cataclysmic, very fantastical metaphors talking about, you know, the end of the days or the prophecies that are coming. And we're seeing a lot of those things come to pass. It's pretty exciting time to be alive.

25:40 Now, here's. Just stay there. Yeah, yeah. Explain why it's this is what I think people who are listening to us who have no idea where, and it was not easy for me too. Even Revelation took me a long time to really start to kind of understand it. When you say it's exciting, why is it exciting? Well, it's exciting because it's we're seeing biblical prophecy come to pass in our lifetime, which is historical and precedent-setting. But it also does indeed say that it could be that we may be in the last of the last days, but that is not anything to fear. It's actually to be celebrated. It's exciting. Now, it's going to be wild. It may not be comfortable.

26:20 It's going to be bumpy. It's going to be a bumpy ride. Fasten your seatbelts, baby. But still, it means we're that much closer to beholding him face to face. Now, at the end of the day, the perspective here. I even mentioned this on Sunday. It's the last days for everybody. I'm in my last days, period. So if Jesus tarries another thousand years, it's still my last days. So there is an urgency in me. You and I have talked about this. We both feel an urgency to do more at the end of our lives than less. Yes. Retirement is like, what? Why would you want to retire? Don't you want to make a difference before you get out of here?

27:01 Don't you want to fulfill the commission that Jesus gave us called the great commission? To end well. And let's run through the tape and finish strong. So I see all of those as wins, and I see them as reasons to be excited. So all the fear-mongering that sells, because it is fear that sells. People are pushing books and pushing curriculum and pushing movies. And, you know, movies now have a lot of, you know, apocalyptic end time stuff. It always sells. And it does. People get, you know, like left behind series. You know, it was huge. But to me, it's like we need to be celebrating that we're seeing the Bible play out.

27:42 We're seeing it substantiates and affirms and validates what we've read in scripture for hundreds of years. Now we're beginning to see it come. Even this big, all of a sudden Noah's Ark's a big deal, right? Because of this formation close to Mount Harris. You know, there's whenever there's news stories about something, there's always an entertainment product. You know, there is a movie coming out about called The Ark, I think it is. Of course. It's on the way. There's several of those, actually. Evan Almighty, I mean, that was a great one there. You know, I'm just going to build a boat. I'm anthony. God told me to do this. There's some great lines from that movie, by the way.

28:22 But anyway, so to me, it's exciting. So as things are rolling out, biblical prophecies coming to pass, it just makes me that more excited. Now, if this ark thing turns out to be real, awesome. If it doesn't, awesome. I don't really care. It doesn't impact me one way or the other. I think it's fascinating, and I am kind of keeping up with it. But now, if you don't stay close to the source, it just gets weird. Now everybody's jumping on the bandwagon, which is making me less excited about it, to be honest. Kind of going, now I'm seeing it everywhere, you know, and all the aberrations. But anyway, this is a good time to be alive, brother.

28:59 So this is my concern. My concern is that people are using this to bring people to faith, but using it from the fear marketing tactic. Like the end times are coming. You want to be saved. And I just got to say, from my recent memory, that's been said to me for decades, and it never moved the needle. It doesn't work. If anything, people go, yeah, whatever. I see this a lot. I see, and it's not always intentional. Right. But I. I want to be wary of not doing that. So when these friends called, that was the one thing I was not.

29:43 I'm like, I'm not going to say, we're in the end times, brother. You got to get in now because the ship is leaving. You don't ride or get left. Turn or burn. You don't want to be here when it all comes down. Conversely, for believers, I think, and this is historically, I think, true, that when you get these apocalyptic predictions and books come out, you've mentioned this from the pulpit, 2008 or whatever it was. Wasn't that supposed to be the year when the end times and Jesus was coming? 1988. 88 Reasons for 1988. 1988 comes and goes, and people go, and I think that may weaken their faith.

30:23 Right. That people start to think, well, what is this? I'm going to leave or I don't believe or you know. Actually, what it does is it inoculates people from the boy who cried wolf syndrome, right? And so the scripture talks about when Jesus comes, it will be like a thief in the night. We will not be expecting it. Even Jesus doesn't know. Even Jesus doesn't know. The Son of Man does not know the day or the hour. And so it's so funny when we're, but it does say that you're to discern the times. You're to you're to there are signs of the times that the Bible gives. So it's like a hint forward, but he doesn't give us the absolute details.

31:03 Yes. And there are people who've built ministries and written best-selling books based off of their predictions, trying to put together the Greco-Roman calendar compared to the Jewish calendar and pars it all. Numerology. Oh my gosh. Give me a break. People have built entire numerology calculators with AI, and it's amazing what pops out. And my eyes go over. Personally, I thought J.D. Vance nailed it when he said, I'm just going to be found doing what I'm supposed to be doing. But it was out of context in the way he was. Yeah, I agree with that. But he was just saying, yeah, whether it happens or not, it's a win-win.

31:41 That's literally what he said, basically. It's a win-win. Yeah. But when you set up even our vice president, our very vice president of this United States United States. I heard that. So whether you're a believer or Christ Curious, it's all going to be okay. But there's so many. And by the way, just artificial intelligence. It hit me that, okay, or is the president now officially, by the way, he signed the document for officially super intelligence. You know, it's Lake America. It's super intelligence. I think he should have gone. I think he should have gone one step further. He should have just called it Trump intelligence. I mean, come on, man. You're slacking on your branding.

32:26 It's not wisdom. I don't care what kind of intelligence you think it is. It's not wisdom. There it is. Wisdom cannot come from pieces of silicon. There it is. So, and you gain wisdom, in my opinion, by getting in the word, discussing the word with other people and just thinking about it. And through lived experience these machines don't have. Correct. So I love pastor to pastor talk. When pastors are, there's actually a great podcast, which you can find in the Godcaster app. Get it from your app store called Pastor to Pastor. Focus on the Family Does It.

33:10 And I also love it when Josh Howerton does his pastor to pastor stuff. And I think everybody saw him with, I'm going to get his name wrong, Philip Anthony Mitchell. Got it. I think that's it. Who is just what an, I mean, the guy is, you cannot help but be drawn in by the voice. You don't even have to shoot everything. The intentionality of it. And so I know a lot of people in our church listen to that episode or watch that episode. And it was phenomenally good, particularly how these two young men, because, you know, let's face it, they're a generation younger than you and I are, how they were just discussing

33:55 their task in life and how they can get disappointed, how things worked out or didn't work out and what they wish they had from each other. I mean, the whole thing was just phenomenal. I have a question about something they talk about, and I have an observation because they did cross over a little bit into my field as well. And the first one was about his book, which is called Contend. And so I just pulled a couple clips from this. Here's why I want to ask you a question about this. That's a great, it's called Contend. You posted this on IG recently, and it's a quote from this book. book. For listeners, contend, he's quoting Jude, which is one of the most savage verses in the New Testament.

34:36 I think about this every time I preach. Contend for the faith once and for all, deliver to the saints. I didn't mean to ask, I don't plan to ask you this. What's the 60-second story of why you called it content? Obviously, it's born out of Jude, chapter one. And content for the faith would have just been too long to put as a title. So I just took the strongest part of that word. I just took content. Strong. Yeah. And you know, it's like for me, that's the imperative of the text, you know, so I just went with the imperative. Here's what you said about this. So you quote the verse. You said, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

35:23 And then you said this. Policies that could eventually muzzle the scriptures, satanic delusions running rampant on social media, a growing hostility toward Christians globally. And time is running out. Now is the hour to contend. So I like this a lot. And I went back and read Jude 3, and I got the NLT version because it replaces the word contend with defend. And so the word is, dear friends, it's Jude 1.3. Dear friends, I have been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people.

36:07 Jude 1.4 is the follow-up, which is important. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. They didn't discuss that in this particular piece, but I think it's important because the scripture says people have wormed their way inside. I like that worm their way inside from NLT. Boy, do we know that. We've got the rainbow churches.

36:45 We've got a senatorial candidate who has said all kinds of odd things. There's strange things happening at his church. This to me is the warning. Now, at the end, there, again, I kind of hear a little bit of Turner Byrne, brother. You know what I mean? A little bit of, you know, so I don't know exactly if he's trying to market to people using that. Didn't really feel like it. But where he really took it was what was interesting because AI is the Antichrist, or maybe it's something else. The ideologies that are hostile towards Christianity, Josh.

37:23 Oh, man, Josh. Josh, there is another monotheism that is almost an antichrist monotheism. It is one of the fastest-growing ideologies in the world, and there are fringes of that ideology that is radical and hostile towards Christianity. We can. Are you talking about Islam? Yes. I'm going to go there in a second. Okay. You and me. Yes. You and me say a lot of very similar things on this. Yes. You keep going. Right. So I'm talking about radical Islam. So that's not exactly in the church. So I'm not sure if he's connecting it to contend because of Jude 1.3.

38:05 I'm not disagreeing with him. But everything can't be the Antichrist. And I just don't know if that's the right framing for how we as Christians and believers should look at it. I'm just going to finish this clip and I want to hear what you think. And there are people who, for the sake of inclusion, think that we are doing people good by allowing that ideology to, can I use the word, infiltrate and invade our political sphere and our social fear for the sake of, let's just be inclusive and be loving. At the expense of, we will keep giving away seats in office.

38:49 Agreed. And we will keep giving away seats in various legislatures across the country until the day comes where that ideology has enough political power. Can we just be honest? Until that ideology has enough political power to introduce Sharia law in America. Right. Not disagreeing with what he says there. But the takeaway people have gotten from this is my impression is Islam is the Antichrist. I just want to say might be, might not be. Yeah. But people can respond very fearful to the. these types of things and then miss the opportunity to talk to these people about Jesus.

39:32 I mean, it's just, I think it bred fear. And that particular part of the podcast, I don't think that's really great, honestly. Yeah, I didn't hear that from that. But again, pastor to pastor. So I know where his drive in his heart's coming is that is to win as many people to Jesus as we can before the end comes. Now, and I agree too with what you said about him in terms of the principle that's happening here. So, and it's interesting because you framed it as that Islam may be the Antichrist or somebody has said that. But the Bible doesn't just talk about the Antichrist. It talks about many, many

40:16 John 2:18. Children, it is the last hour. This is a while ago he wrote. Think about when that was written. Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. So they were saying this 2,000 years ago. And we had world wars. We had a couple of things go down since then. Insanity. But it just tells me, do you go, well, then it's not coming for another 2,000? Or do we say it could come tomorrow? I mean, so that can go either way.

40:54 Right. And so, and then a few verses later in the book of John says this. He says, who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son. So he just brings a clarifier there. But there have been many Antichrists that have come even in that hour, which was the last hour. Right. Go figure. So I don't hear him saying, and I have heard others postulating that Islam could be. And, you know, I've even had just mental images. I wouldn't say spiritual visions, but just mental images of what some of the descriptions of the hordes of locusts and the plagues that are going to come in the book of Revelation.

41:42 I could see that being a horde of black hoods. I got to fix our screens at home. I'm just going, whoa, wow. You know, so anyway. Well, let me put it this way. The same thing that that news guy did with the vice president, clips with scary music is done with this. And I just want to thank you. You just said exactly what needs to be said. This last hour, God doesn't have a clock. He's not wearing a Time X. He's got his own completely holy time for anything he wants. And we don't have to get all spun up about it because that's what I'm seeing.

42:23 When you hear this guy's iconic voice, Islam is an Antichrist. And you put some scary music behind it and it's on Instagram, people lose their minds. Yeah, I don't think he was going for that. I think he believes that. You know what I'm saying? And that's okay. That's like for real. Yes. And so my attitude about being spun up, no getting spun up. We cannot think well when we think strategically when we're spun up. That's the problem. And that, if there is an attempt to the Antichrist in terms of strategy towards whether it's Christians or the world in general, is to get them spun up. Yes, exactly. Get them spun up so that they cannot think well.

43:06 And so to me, it's like, hear that, and I say, amen. Now, what are our action points out of this? So what do we do? Well, you'll hear throughout that whole podcast. We listen to it as well. They're talking about the gospel, gospelizing the world, getting Jesus out there. I mean, they'll arrive at that, but they're getting to that. But also, the prophetic pastor, the pastor's prophetic voice, there's a responsibility for us to call things out. And so when you get a bunch of pastors calling it out, some will do it nefariously or do it for more clicks and likes. Josh Howerton doesn't need more clicks right now. He's bigger than Rogan. Bigger than Rogan, yeah.

43:48 So he's not going for that. And I don't see him as the type. He's a guy of high integrity. But this is not what I'm saying. I know what you're saying. What I'm saying is how is the verbiage? And it's clipped and it's put with scary music and it's going viral. Very few people watch your music on that. No, because this is from the original original piece. But people have seen this with the past. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. I'll bring some examples next time. But I actually, I'm right in alignment with him in terms of, you know, there are things that. that are bearing down upon us as people. And I do believe Islam is one of those. Sure. Just looking at their history and their repetitive, their cyclical patterns.

44:31 And so we know that's here. It's not coming. It's here. It's kind of like the line from Twister. Yeah. It's not coming. It's already here. Yeah. It's already here. So, yeah, I'm in agreement with that. I listened to the same podcast and my heart didn't get up. My pulse didn't rise. Mine neither. I'm just saying, yes, it is true. Now, do I think they are the Antichrist? I think they are an Antichrist. So I'm in text groups with other believers, with men. This is perceived different than you perceive it or that I perceive it. This is perceived as, holy crap, you know, this is happening.

45:10 These towel heads, I mean, this is the kind of stuff that pops up from believers. I'm like, what is going on with this? Just one, and you brought a great clip from John Eldridge that we need to play. Just one factual bit that because the pastor brought in some stuff that I'm very aware of or aware that it's not happening. So just want in case people heard this, I want to put their minds at rest about this bit. There are talks right now about a 10-nation confederacy. This is just not true. And that's been out there a long time. For a long time. I've heard it. So I think about things like that.

45:45 There are talks right now in other nations trying to do what's called like an identity chip. There are nations right now talking about enforcing on their people a chip for identity. I mean, this is just categorically untrue. There is no embedded chip. There's no digital money other than the credit. I mean, you can go back and when credit cards came out, people were talking about this being the mark of the beast. I mean, this is nothing new, but he's kind of reading it as a headline, and it's definitely not true. It would allow you to watch buy, sell, and have commerce. And that without that identity chip, you will live like a nomad in society. There talks about that right now as you are sitting.

46:27 You and I sitting at this table. Right? So when I think about things like that, things that are clearly written scripture, things that are going to unfold in the end times as chatological scriptures that are in there. Josh, when I look at the news in the United States. Okay. So I just want to put people, because this flows right into data centers and flock cameras, and people get really whacked out about it. It's not true. There is no 10-nation, you know, Confederacy, Confederacy. I mean, we all have, yes, identity cards for sure. I rule the day when we'll have to use our digital ID to get on the internet.

47:06 I don't think that'll happen very easily in America. You know, they've been trying this for a long time, but I've been hearing this for 20 years. So when he kind of reads that as a headline, I'm like, no, I just got to say, no, that's not it. That's it. Otherwise, love this guy. Love Josh Howerton. But I, you know, he's number one. It's like people believe everything Rogan says too. And sometimes it's just not. It's that old, that old adage, keep your wits about you. Yeah. You know, and that's what we need to do. I love your description of hair on fire, lots of dumpster fires. I mean, because that is, we are called to be and live at peace.

47:47 We've not been given the spirit of fear, scripture says, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Yes. And I do keep coming, hearkening back to this because while I say amen to this, because, and I understand there are pieces of that that are exaggerated and/or just not, but they're, they're pieces of there is chip technology. Sure. There's policy being discussed around. I mean, all that's out there. But when we formulate that into a narrative, that's where we got to be careful. Well, the 10 nations is literally from Revelation. You know, it's like around forever. And the mark of the beast is like, how many times have I heard this is the mark of the beast?

48:25 Yeah. When some nightclub in Sweden gave people a lifetime pass if you embedded this chip in your hand for entry. Yeah, I get it. People go, there it is. There it is. We're there. Bitcoin is, you know, that's the mark of the beast. Like, no, in fact, we won't be able to buy and sell without a chip. Yeah, that's probably our way out, actually. But, you know, meanwhile, people are very happy to tap their phones to pay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there you go. It's so convenient. So, yeah, no, that's a good observation. But again, keep our wits about us. Yes. And stay off the text chains that are meant. I don't get it. I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but sometimes we are just

49:10 tools in somebody else's hand beside God. No kidding. And it just, it just. grieves my heart, honestly. And so, as a pastor, I have to waste time every service calming people down. I got a stat somewhere here. Let me see where it was. I think it was we read an average of 100,000 words a day online, of which, you know, five to seven hours of being online. Just think about, think about how much we're ingesting and how much we're writing. Tina and I always joke about it. Like, you could have written five books in a month with just, and me too, by the way.

49:53 I'm not excluding myself. Just the text that you're sending out. It's really quite amazing how much. But that 100,000, think about 100, how many words in the Bible? Do you happen to know? No, not off the top of my head. I don't. What kind of theologian are you? Right. I was like, one of those. Do you have the whole Bible memorized? Everyone knows these numbers. I'm like a microfish in my head. You know, 66 books, you know, 40 authors. Come on. It's like, everyone knows these numbers. You're looking it up now, aren't you? It probably depends on which translation, no doubt. But the, yeah, the amount of time we spend ingesting and,

50:34 you know, online, people are, you know, what is, I wrote this term down. Over 700,000 words, depending on the translation. So that's a week, a week of being online. You've basically, you've read the Bible. How about that? Wow. You know, people are ashamed of little and offended by a lot online. You know, true. And it's something in our, it's probably the enemy uses this. You know, what a great John C. Dvorak said, the phone is the Antichrist. And yeah, he's probably right, but probably one of the antichrists.

51:15 One of them. It was a great trend that I heard about on this clip, which, you know, actually, I saw, I like the UVersion Bible app. It's, it's, you know, it's one of the staples for me. And it may not be the first thing, but I'm always checking in because, you know, the guy who does the Dutch guy does the Project of Love. Yeah, yeah. He was on it the other day. Oh, that's cool. He was doing the daily. Well, that's awesome. Yeah, I was very happy to see him. But like a week or two ago, someone, because they're usually like, here's the Bible, you know, I'm really excited. It's a script. I'm really excited to tell you about this verse. This is one of my favorite verses. And they do the verse and they talk about it and give you an inspirational message.

51:56 One of, I forget who it was, one of the people who was the guest speaker on the U-Version app said, let's just pray. I had not seen that ever. Let's just pray. I'm like, wow, that was really impactful. And I picked up this clip and I was thinking about it in that regard. Hope Leo is here in France. You can see the crowds here in Paris gathering to welcome him. Catholic social influencers have been holding a prayer vigil talking about the recent rise in the number of people getting baptized here in France. How much do you think is social media pushing people towards faith? 80% of the people who are getting baptized say that internet plays a big role in their faith.

52:38 They call themselves digital missionaries and say their online prayer sessions are having an impact. I think this is something we need to investigate. Praying. Praying online. If you're doing Instagram things, I'm not. But that impacted me. I think that could be something really important. I don't hear many podcasters or influencers do this. No, in fact, when you asked me to start the show with prayer, the first couple of times, it was a little odd for me because I don't hear that either. Love doing it. Now I'm like, wait, we got to pray. I can't not do it now, but

53:19 it was unusual. It's not typical to click on a podcast and you're waiting for funky music or something, or scary, ominous music. The exercise files, that kind of stuff. But instead, you get a guy go, Father, Father. You hear the breath. Father. That's just not normal. And so I love that you asked me to do it. And at first, I thought, are we going to keep doing that? And you did, and I'm so glad we did. Me too. And I love doing it. It means a lot to me now. And I'm thrilled to do it. You know how many complaints I get about that? 7,000. Zero. Zero. Absolutely zero. I did get a nice note from somebody about that, actually.

54:03 It was really sweet. We got a couple. I appreciate it. A couple of notes. I want you to play this Eldridge clip because. because this is so seminal for what we've been talking about today. I think it really kind of wraps everything up before we get to thanking people. Okay. You want to just set it up? Yeah, John Eldridge, he wrote the book Wild at Heart, which was kind of his big seminal book, and then it took off after that. Now they have a ministry called Wild at Heart. Me and many friends have gone to their boot camp up in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains, beautiful. And it's just, he's a therapist who was called to ministry. So his background is LPC. He's lots of professional counselor. But he doesn't always talk like that. He talks more like a pastor, a minister.

54:45 So, but he has this thing where you're when you're dealing with, he says, we have these constructs that we build where you get an impression, you get an idea coming in an intrusive thought. And a lot of times we don't question those. It's just, I'm thinking this. And what we, another thing that we do with those, instead of actually saying, whoa, where's that coming from? Is this true? We just kind of take it as, yeah, I'm thinking about this. Oh, that makes sense. And then we will not always intentionally, but we will unconsciously agree with it. And agreement is the basis of covenant. It's striking a covenant.

55:26 It's when you agree upon the terms of something, like a deal, like making a deal. Yeah, you're shaking hands. You're in Hebrew sense, you're cutting a cow in half and walking between the parts, right? So you're a blood trail. So it's a serious thing. And he's talking about how we make agreements on an ongoing basis that we are, in a sense, making covenants with lies and untruths. And he's talking about this on a podcast with a guy named Ryan. I don't know his last name. It's called The Exorcist Files. So it's not, it's not what are you doing in your spare time, Pastor Jimmy? He's a guest. Well, I'm scraping the internet for clips. And I knew I'd seen him talk about this many times, but I wanted to hear him on this.

56:10 So anyway, what is your prescription for taking inventory of agreements? Because it sounds like this is not like, oh, I was open to agreements at one point. It sounds like our entire lives, we are constantly, you know, at risk of accepting things because it's being darts being thrown at us. So what's John's wisdom for taking inventory? And when should we stop and say, hey, is there anything I'm, you know, wow, that got me and I didn't even realize that. Yes. Okay. Let's first back for a moment to our worldview. You live in a love story set in a world at war. It is a love story. The centerpiece is the love story. But you are, you are surrounded by war.

56:54 You know, Revelation 12, and he went off to make war against her offspring, speaking of Mary, those who hold to the testimony of Jesus, right? So particularly if you're a Christian, you live in a world at war, folks. So that yes, this is going to be part of your toolkit for the rest of your life. It's very helpful. I would say, Ryan, a couple of things. One is pay attention to your inner chatter, right? Like tune in. Don't be oblivious to your internal world and the kind of things that you think. See, this is the other lovely thing is to realize not every thought that goes through your head is from you. That's actually a very freeing thing for most people to go, oh my gosh, this negative talk.

57:38 I mean, it's not all me. No, it's no, you have an enemy. But pay attention, but particularly notice, I'm going to give you three things. Pay attention to the internal chatter. Notice what comes out of your mouth when you blow it, when you look in the mirror, right? I mean, some people that look in the mirror and just go, oh, you're such an, you know, an expletives, you know, or you're just so ugly. I can't believe you. Or even self-hatred. I hate you. I just said eat you. Like, it'll come out of your mouth, folks, these agreements. But thirdly, and probably the most easiest test is: one of the things Jesus gave us is, you shall know them by their fruit.

58:20 Okay. You can test anything by this. Is the fruit love, joy, peace? You know, is it goodness? Is it intimacy with God? Or is it discouragement, despair, fear, anxiety-producing? Look at the fruit of it and just go, wow, why am I so afraid in this relationship right now? And then again, right? You have a shepherd, the shepherd and guardian of your soul, Jesus Christ. You can ask God, Lord, what are the agreements that I'm making with my enemy right now? And we'll take people through these exercises during our retreats. We'll take people, what are the agreements I'm making?

59:04 making against myself or against others or against you, God? What are the agreements I'm making against you? This is so good. This is really real where we live. You know, in his book, Waking the Dead, the book opens with, you were born into a world at war. So true. I mean, what a way to hook you in on the cook line. But it's so true. I want to read another quote by him from another book called Walking With God. This is John Eldridge talking about, because I want to clarify agreements so that people listening, maybe hearing this for the first time, I want to clarify.

59:43 By agreements, I mean those subtle convictions we come to, assent to, give way to, or are raised to assume are true. It happens down deep in our souls where our real beliefs about life are formed. Something or someone whispers to us, life is never going to turn out the way you'd hoped, or nobody's going to come through, or God has forsaken you. And something in us responds, that's true. We make an agreement with it, and a conviction is formed. And so this is where people live. They live in their mind. We don't live out in the world. We say it.

1:00:24 We're doing stuff. We're accomplishing tasks. We're checking lists, especially if you're married to Annette and Tina. We've got checklists, Easter egg, checklists that we're going through. But we don't really live there. It's what we do. Where we live is in our head. It's in our head space. And that's our soul. That's the whole of who we are. And so these agreements come in. Life's never going to turn out the way. Nobody cares. I'm never going to make it. I'm going to fail. All these come to us, and then we find ourselves responding, that's true. That's true. And it's literally, we make an agreement with it, and then it births a conviction in our soul.

1:01:05 And then we, unfortunately, when you receive a lie as true, you actually make it true in your behavior. It begins to come out because we leak out what we're full of. So if we've got these agreements stacking up where we've agreed with the mirror talks to us, right? I mean, some days it's pretty ugly. You know, it's like, dude, what happened to you? This is why I have dimmers. We need that. We need a mirror that has the filter from the white diamonds commercial with Elizabeth Taylor where she was fuzzy. I want one of those mirrors. But these are real. And this is where people live. Our listeners, and I know this because I live there too. I have to catch these things.

1:01:47 And you have to train yourselves to recognize these thoughts, these intrusive thoughts that come because they're coming at us so fast. You know, you make a mistake driving. You make a mistake. I'm always wailing on the guy who made him. But when I make one, I'm going, oh, you're so stupid. How could you do? Oh, what were you thinking? And inside. No good. Yeah, this inner dialogue happens, and I'm just making agreements. Yeah, you are dumb. Yeah, that was a dumb move. How do you break it? You have to break it by the same way you take it, is the same way you have to break it. That means you have to disagree with it. So I call it out. I recognize it because you've got to realize and recognize that it's going on.

1:02:32 This is happening. And what's beautiful, the more you do this intentionally, over time, it'll start to become natural to you. Realize and recognize. Just make a note. That's for your re-series. Realize, recognize. That's good. And actually, I'm going to go ahead and give away. This is total spoil alert for Sunday. Uh-oh. But I'm going to give the R's for R's. You recognize the lie. You recognize that that came in. And then you have to ask, is what I am believing, is this contradicting God's word? Is this what God believes about me? Is this true? I love what John was saying. Jesus wants to talk to you. He's listening. He's waiting. Just ask him, is this true? You'll get a witness.

1:03:15 You'll know. So you recognize the lie. Second thing you do is renounce your agreement with it. And to renounce means to push back. It means to cast away and to break a formal agreement. You renounce. So you simply renounce. I do it. I can do it driving down the road. I can do it walking down the hall here. I can do it standing in the bathroom. You know, just going, hey, man, that is not of the Lord. I renounce that agreement in the name of Jesus. I reject that. So recognize the lie, renounce your agreement with the lie, and then replace it with truth, with scripture. What does God say? God says, I'm holy, blameless, and above reproach in Colossians chapter 2.

1:03:58 He says, and in due Deuteronomy time. 27, he says, I'm the head and not the tail, above only, not beneath. Blessed coming in, blessed going out, blessed in the city, blessed in the country. That's what he says about me. What does the Bible say? It also says, I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Today, in my daily grind, I'll share this in a minute, but God's for me, not against me. If God's for you, who can be against you? So, what you do, you replace those lies. And then the last thing you do, the last R is resist. So, it's recognize, renounce, replace. And the last one is resist because the scripture says that we're to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. That's in the book of James.

1:04:41 I'm just laughing because we have this Al Sharpton, Reverend Al Sharpton. His big thing is resist. But this is a classic nine-second, no agenda, Al Sharpton bit. Sorry, this is not to detract from what you're saying, but it's kind of funny. Resist, we much. We must, and we will much about that be committed. I'm just saying, word salad. That's a healthy dose of Kamala right there. But resist we much.

1:05:21 Somehow that splits in my head. When you said resist, I'm like, resist we much. And that part is actually funny in a way that is kind of true. Resist we much. Must and much. Everybody should check out the bridgefbg.com, bridge church on YouTube. You can watch the sermon live, or of course, it's always recorded, the service, I should say. Heavy lifting last Sunday, I really went there. The title of the sermon is Renounce. I mean, it's pretty. So I laid the groundwork for week two, which will be this week. And it has already caused no small stir.

1:05:59 I bet. And I preach on this about two times a year where I preach on the enemy and spiritual warfare. The reason I don't preach on it much is because the enemy loves attention no matter what. He's like a bad politician. Any publicity is good publicity to the devil. Yeah, you even said something about this in the message. Like, you know, you don't really want to be investigating this stuff because that's what the enemy wants. Exactly. So I don't spend a lot of time on this. But again, we want to preach the whole counsel of God's word. And this is part of it. If you were born into a world at war, then this is the war. It is a spiritual war and it is real.

1:06:38 And we've got to know who the enemy is and how to identify him. And I hope for our listeners, our doers out there and get to nation. I got to learn to say that better. But anyway, I sound like Al Sharpton trying to talk about resist. But just tripping all over myself. Once you've heard that, you know, you can't hear it. That's for sure. I may crack up when I read that on Sunday because this is where I'm going on Sunday was the four R's. But I want to help our listeners understand that when these intrusive thoughts come to you, they are not necessarily your thoughts. And we tend to just assume they are. But there's a very real enemy out there, a very real enemy.

1:07:19 And I prove that in the first through scripture, in the first, angels are real. Demons are real. Satan is real. And I brought out some of the characteristics of those. We'll go back on this coming Sunday, and I'll retrace a little bit of that just to set that back up. But we're going to say, this is what you do about it. And these are the four R's, and this is how to do it. Nice. We want to help people because you don't have to live with those thoughts that are bombarding your head every day. You can actually arrest them. And in 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 6, it talks about we have the ability to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.

1:08:00 God's given us that ability to actually capture thoughts. So when these intrusive, negative thoughts come, don't agree. Capture them and put them under Christ. Place them there. I'm telling you, I learned that principle very early in my walk with Jesus. That's probably helped you a lot. Oh, man. It's still a go-to. I mean, it's no, I take that thought. It should be in like the toolkit when you come into church. Here's what you need. This is your, yeah, exactly. Here's your backpack. Here's all the stuff you need in it. Yeah, for real. Before we thank people, because we are value for value, if you get value from this, we'd love for you to send it back. And that can be in so many different ways. Time, talent, treasure, telling someone about the podcast.

1:08:43 All the scripture, by the way, that is mentioned on each podcast is in the show notes at WGTDT.com. I've got to thank Robbie the Robot pulls it all out. puts it nicely on the page for us. We do have a couple of questions that came in that I don't want to skip over. Rebecca Girl, Rebecca Gruhl. I saw that. She said, What is a deist? Because I'm one of the curious. She's Christ Curious, and she wants to know what a deist is. And just by definition. Now, you'll hear this in history. Like you hear, like they'll say, the founding fathers were deists, but basically it's someone who believes that God exists.

1:09:28 He created the universe, but generally believes that God does not interact or intervene with us. So there is a force out there. There is a God, you know, the universe, whatever. There's that, but there's not really any interplayer interaction. In other words, a deist kind of takes the safe ground of, oh, yeah, God's real. God's real. You just can't know him. Yeah. So that's deism. It's just a barely sticking your foot in the water. Is that a little bit like the old priest back in the Old Testament? Like, well, he's real, but you can't know him unless you go through me. Is it different? No, it's a little different. It's different because he's saying you can know him. You just got to use me to do it.

1:10:13 That's not the same. It's actually this idea that, no, God's real, but he's distant. He can't be reached. He can't be accessed. We have no access to God. Oh, we do through God. So we live our lives the best we can and hope for the best at the end. No. That's dangerous. Yeah, no. Another thing for the backpack. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it goes back to reasoning, intellectualism, intellectual assent. You know, we just use our brains. You know, hey, if God's real and he created all this, well, we just use what he gave us and he'll be happy with that. Dangerous. Cameron Knapp, who has supported us with his beautiful checks, he was like, I don't want to use these.

1:10:53 I don't want no fees. He sends us a check every single time. He said, you've mentioned this several times. What is the difference between a bot, an AI bot versus the chat bots? Muse, I highly recommend this. I highly recommend Muse. It is not trying to, a chat bot is trying to be your buddy, telling you you're awesome. You're great. It draws you into a conversation. It draws you in. Muse does not have a voice. You can talk to it, just like voice to text, but it just does helpful things. And I highly recommend it. I mean, it's good. You want to go to one level higher,

1:11:33 then you can use Grokbot, and there's going to be a lot more. Chat GPT, not to be less behind, open AI. Yesterday came out with dots. They got bots. We got dots. Oh, wow. And dots, I would stay away from dots because dots is talking to you. The minute you put a voice on to it, I get wary because it's so easy to get sucked into that stuff. And if it starts saying to you, hey, Adam, good morning to you. My car does this. I've turned it on. Good morning. I'll put my fingerprint on the game. Good afternoon, Jimmy. Yeah. And then some picture of me. I was singing. I was singing a song. I was singing along to Hello, Fred. It was, oh, gosh, what gospel song was it? It was,

1:12:19 oh, wow. It was like, I'm looking for a place. It was something like, I'm looking for a place. Oh, a place in the, yeah, Michael W. Smith, the King and Country. A place in this world. And the car goes, finding a place in this world. I'm not kidding. I found several places in this world. Would you like to go to them? Like, you're done. I'm turning you off. I know. Artists interrupts us all the time. And then I'll be talking and it thinks we called it. And it'll say, okay, navigating to, you know, this is no good. That is the definition of no good. That's what you, it's not helpful. It's just your car company trying to get along, go along, get along, no good.

1:13:01 Hey, we want to thank Stephen Beaver. He went to WGTDT Donations.com. He signed up for a full year subscription at $500. Man, thanks, Stephen. Thank you so much. Really, really, really appreciate it. Awesome. Hey, we got Robert Sikowitz from Port Republic, New Jersey. Got a big note here. This is cool. Great show. Keep it up. Adam, what a blessing it has been listening to your journey of faith. I was drawn to you the first time I heard you on Rogan and then grew even more impressed with the No Agenda Show before really being floored by your proclamation of faith on Rogan. One thing I find really inspiring is listening to you talk about your mission for the kingdom. It's not just talk.

1:13:43 The transformation is evident in little things like giving up weed, your drive for enthusiasm, as you see. steer people to Christ. I'm curious how your definition of success has changed over your life, specifically how it changed within you. You don't have to read this on the show. Too late. Sorry. Unless you and Jimmy find it interesting, which we do, by the way. We do. Thank you, Tyler Situitz or Kitchewitz. Is it Tyler or Robert? He says Robert up on the name and then Tyler in the note. I think it's Tyler Robert or Robert Tyler. Yeah. What is my definition of success? Yeah, how has it changed within you?

1:14:25 Wow. Success is such a weird, a weird thing to talk about. For me, it's just bringing people to the kingdom. At this point, I have only the commission is for me. I want to finish strong. I want to just, what do I have left? You know, we got people dropping down left and right. What difference does it make? For me, success is when I get into his kingdom and he says, well done, my faithful servant. Probably then I'll say, all right, that wasn't the mission was, I guess, a success. Love that. And I don't mind if I'm up in the nosebleed scene. Tin and I were laughing about that. She says, you know, we're going to have like paper crowns, you know.

1:15:07 Oh, wow. I don't agree. Not at all. We're joking around. Not joking around. Thank you, Tyler. Stephen Helm comes in from Leewood, Kansas, 8888. Pickles. Starts right off. After hearing about Bo's amazing pickles, that's LouisianaDillPickles at gmail.com. I reached out to the man, and I now believe the pickle-making legend himself to see how I could secure a jar or preferably a case of these incredible pickles. Sadly, I learned Bo cannot sell over the state line. However, in a wonderful act of pickle generosity, Bo graciously sent me some to both try and, more importantly, share with others along with God's word, which is on all of his jars and the lids.

1:15:50 Wow, what a ministry and powerful way to multiply the spreading of the gospel. Well, the pickles did not disappoint. Since I cannot pay Bo, the only right thing to do was send a WGTDT donation. That's so nice. So thank you, Bo, for the delicious pickles. And thank you, Pastor Jimmy and Adam, for such a meaningful and engaging podcast. It's a joy to hear your weekly insights, knowing how many seeds you are planting and watering which bear fruit, both seen and unseen. We get to do this. Sari. Thank you, Sari. That is beautiful. And by the way, I forgot to, on Tyler, he gave $100. I think I skipped right over there. And I guess Sari is Stephen's better half. It must be.

1:16:34 I think so. Hey, I'm glad she discovered those pickles, though. It's a game-changing. It's a life-changing. Those pickles are. They just change your life. There is something life-changing about those pickles. Man, for sure. All right. And then we have a letter, a book from War in Peace. David Holthus, Holthos. No location, 8165. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, WGTDT. Hope it's not too late to send in a note. Probably don't need to read all of this on the podcast. Feel free to edit accordingly. Donation. And then he says this. Oh, it says 8166. 8165. Yes. John 1633 times 5. Wow. Clever. I love that. That's clever. Clever, David. John. 1616 donation. Okay. We got it.

1:17:18 Cool. It's cool. He says, I really appreciate both your time, the biblical view of the world. I listened to No Agenda for a while after Adam was on Rogan. Look at that, Adam. Yeah. Look how that just spun things off. I think back in 2021, but fell away in that last year or so as I struggle with my feelings around news and just overall politics. I felt called to focus more on things that spoke to me deeper. Funny enough, around that time, I also started listening to a lot more sermons. But I missed Adam and your grounded takes on the world. So I was excited to hear you talk about this podcast. Even though I don't always agree with your opinion, your analysis. That goes for all of us. I grew up in church, but fell away through my 20s, although I always had a strong feeling I needed to come back.

1:17:59 Once I turned 30 this past year, I started going back to church and feeling more like I'm missing something. Good for you. I watch the church of 1122 sometimes. David Wicker's place. No preacher has compelled me like Joby Martin's sermons. Yeah, he can bench press you 30 times, too. But it's hard to connect a church that is remote. I also attend Life Church here in Kansas City. But again, the sermons are from a video, which always feels a little off to me. Hopefully I can find a church locally with an in-person pastor that also speaks to me. He just needs some prayers for he and his fiancé. I'm going to read ahead a little bit. I don't want to go too deep on that. So yeah, he and his fiancé just.

1:18:40 They need prayers for their walk. Yeah, their walk with Jesus. It says, Jimmy, but also. also read your daily grind devotionals. They always hit the right note for me. Didn't want this to feel so Adam heavy. Oh, I was feeling left out. Not really. Not. Sort of a rambling message, but I do appreciate you both on this podcast. The person who wrote in a couple of weeks ago talking about how she felt like she knew you all really resonated with me. I feel the same way, like I have a one-sided friendship with you both. Always reminds me of the Attached meme. Thank you both. I appreciate that because our heart is to be transparent and to be genuine. Yes. You're going to get the real us. Even on a bad day, you're going to get the real us. And I hope that you can find a group, even if it's a small group, doesn't have to be a church, you know, just a bunch of people or guys, you know, you can just do a Bible study with once a week or, you know, some regular basis.

1:19:31 That's church, too. You know, this is, we just happen to be fortunate enough to have this beautiful building that used to house classic cars. Yeah, yeah, no kidding. I mean, it's, you know, doesn't really. They ran horses and hot rods to this place. Horses and hot rods. Yeah, yeah, it's cool. So he has a note for you that's more techie. So I'll let you know. Yeah, he wants to know about my local LLM setups. I'm going to have to start writing about this. People are asking me, so I won't take up the time on the podcast to do that. But I'm going to do a primer just like I did hyperlocalpodcast.com. There you go. People always asking me, what gear do you use? How do I get started? Hyperlocalpodcast.com. That's Adam's official tool. Very cool.

1:20:12 Open source, man. It makes the world go round. There he is, Michael Anastasio. He is the OG Samonye of Curry and the Keeper, and he is now supporting us here. He's in Raritan, New Jersey. He comes in with 77.77, and it's the beautiful numbers we love on this show. And he says, keep on keeping on, brothers. And we will. Thank you so much. Beautiful. All right. John's name guest from email. John's Burt. We just covered John's. Hey, John's Burt. No note there. $50. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Brian Albright from Port Angeles, Washington, $50. Thank you, Brian. Paul Erskine. We know Paul. We've seen him several times. Lake Forest Park, Washington, $50. Ex-Vermonters. I've never received a note, but we got $50.

1:20:57 And just looking from the emails, how we think you're probably from Vermont. Ex-Vermonters. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. John Foley, we've seen John around as well. Nashville, Tennessee. Yay, I love Nashville. 33.33, the numbers. Thank you for the show. He leaves a note there. Yes, he sent that in through a check. Yeah. And the return address on the envelope said former Texan. Ah, there you go. Sorry for your loss. Or was that? No, actually, that was Gregory Stoddard. I'm sorry. There you go. That was Gregory Stoddard with 33.33. We love the 3333s. Come on back, Greg. We love you. You're okay. I do. And I'll get Mike Reganold, I think it is, from Collierville, Collierville, Tennessee.

1:21:41 Yeah, it's up around Nashville. $25. Thank you for your faithfulness and continued wisdom and encouragement. And thank you for your encouragement. We appreciate it. From Tennessee. Nicholas Stark with $5. Thank you, Nicholas. And Michael Mason with $3.18. This is a special numerology donation. He says, I'm Michael Mason, learned of this podcast from No Agenda. This week I'm donating $3.18 for Habakkuk 318 from the NIV. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior. So there you go, 318 Habakkuk donation. Look forward to your next podcast. Hope you can expand it to two shows a week. Gee, we were just talking about that.

1:22:22 If anyone's interested, I've made some Bible trivia videos at towardchrist.com. Oh, cool. I hope they're encouraging and entertaining. I haven't looked at them yet, but we will, Mike. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate that. And from Dwayne Spellman, $1.53, as promised. Every single podcast. I love it. Thank you. That makes the world go around. It does. Thank you all so much. WGTD Donations.com. Also, WGTDT.com just for the to sign up for the newsletter. It's a Substack, so you can also comment and post notes. And Lord knows what you can do on the Substack. My Substack app makes my eyes roll in the back of my head like there's so much to do here.

1:23:02 But also, we have the show notes. We give you the rundown and all of the scripture that's discussed. And thank you, brother. This was another enjoyable show. Love doing this. Love catching up with you because that's really all this is. We would have done this with or without microphones. That is true. But to be able to do it, and thanks to your support, to be able to do this is a great blessing. You want to close us out with your DG? I'm going to land with the Daily Grind. I'm going to actually pick one from two days ago. I was wrestling with this, but this one means a lot to me personally. And it's titled, This is the Daily Grind. And the scripture is Colossians chapter 4. 4, verse 2. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

1:23:46 And the title of today's daily grind is, What if you just prayed? As Paul wraps up his letter to the Colossians, he ends with practical counsel to continue in prayer, being expectant with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving leavens prayer so it doesn't become a wish list. My phrase for the year is: let's pray more. Today's verse captures that idea. I've prayed with many people this year outside of the four walls of the church, and I quickly realized that people welcome prayer with open arms. So today, ask someone if you can pray for them as the Spirit leads. Be brief, discreet, and respectful as you pray.

1:24:25 I like to ask, would it be okay if I prayed for you? By the way, in 43 years of being in ministry, I've never had a single person turn me down on that question. Prayer, here it is. Father, open my eyes to see those who could use a prayer of encouragement as I go about my day. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen, brother. And that's it for this. We get to do this. Please join us next week on Wednesday for episode 53. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is a gift we get to do this. This is a chance we dare not miss.

1:25:07 This is the life we get to do this.