Scripture before Screens

00:00 Father, what a privilege. What an honor. What a joy to come before you today. In the middle of a week that's hectic and busy and harried, and yet we still have this attitude. We get to do this. So, Lord, we lay all this before you. We thank you for our friends that are listening and joining us, and our prayer for them is for your grace to be more than enough, to be absolutely sufficient in their lives. We thank you for the testimonies that are coming back from people who are engaging their faith and engaging their walk with you. Some of them re-engaging and some for the first time stepping into this. So, we pray for grace upon them.

00:45 And, Father, as we do this, we always want to honor you in everything we say and do. Thank you for our families, our friends, our fur babies. And we thank you for this time in this podcast. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. It's Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025. We get to do this. This is episode number seven. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is against we get to do this. This is a chance we dare not miss. This is the life we get to do this. Hey, brother. How's it going, my friend? It's going good. It's good to be in the house of Pastor Jimmy and the five Brians.

01:32 That is so funny. That'll make me laugh for a long time. I'm just checking out your hoodie today. Yes, I got iron sharpens iron. That is awesome. Proverbs 27, 17. And I love that. That's one of my faves right there. I live by it. I live by this. And Ephesians 6, 12. I just can't figure out the tattoo. For Ephesians? Ephesians is really difficult because, you know, you want to do whole armor of God. It turns into like a knight of shining armor, shield and sword. I'm looking for the perfect cool. Yeah, I haven't quite found it. You know, no one thinks about tats until you decide to get one about

02:13 how hard it is to pick out a design or design it. Because it's like a sweater you can't take off. I mean, it's automatic. Once you do it, it's done. It's in your body. So, yeah. So you're kicking around the Ephesians. Well, you know, as I'm saying that, I'm thinking to myself, what is the number one emoji we use? The swords. The swords, the iron sharpness. Maybe I need to not be so critical and go for the swords. There you go. I like it. It's been 61 years, man. So I haven't gotten a tat yet. So 61 for you. It was, I think, 58 for me. Oh, really? When I got these.

02:53 Yeah, Titalistai. Yeah, and Freedom Deed, which I'm going to be preaching on this very passage on Sunday. I'm talking about, you know, Pastor Brian did a great job bringing about, you know, national, local freedom based out of, you know, the Bible, which impacted, obviously, the Declaration of Independence. He did a phenomenal job with that. So I'm taking a different tack. I'm coming in from personal freedom and spiritual freedom. Yes. So we're going to talk about freedom on those two levels. And then Dr. Rick Scarborough will be with us the following week. Oh, he's a legend. He's going to preach. Yes. Oh, fantastic. Super excited about having him.

03:34 He's pumped. And he'll be bringing freedom from more of the geopolitical thing. I mean, really, really just kind of his story of how he stepped into that space as a pastor. And of course, I'm going to have him tell this story about his daughter. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's a great story. That story is the message. It's a good story. Does he just go around the country speaking at churches and rallies? I mean, what does he do? You know, he's way past retired, but in his retirement, he's retooled himself and re-upped. That's cool. That's cool. So instead of leading a church as a pastor, he now speaks, does engagements, but he does a lot of training for pastors in terms of cultural engagement.

04:20 Right. That's his big, that's his big thing. That's his big rock. It is. It is the big thing. You know, actually, I was going to start with something else, but that cultural engagement. Let me see. Because I did bring a couple of clips. Great. And this one, now, who is, in my life, who is the biggest non-believer that you can think of? Really? Oh, yeah. Chess it out loud? Yeah. Joe Rogan? No. Oh, I'm not. Who I work with all the time. Oh, I'm not going to say man. I don't do that. None of them will be. None of them will be upset. No, no,

05:02 you say it. I'm not. John C. Devorah. I know. I love John. He calls himself a lapsed Catholic. Lapsed Catholic. Now, ever since I was saved, proclaimed Jesus as my Lord and Savior, we've never actually even talked about it. We don't talk outside the show. But he has chided me. He makes fun of me, you know, which is. I've heard him. First of all, it's expected. It's expected. But something interesting has started happening. And so, you know, when he sends in clips, I don't look at him on our Thursday and Sunday show. And I saw he had something about NPR and faith and religion in America.

05:45 I'm like, oh, brother. Okay, this is going to be interesting. So I didn't actually bring those clips. I brought his analysis of these clips because he's, and it goes right into the cultural engagement. So the story was, of course, some professor from like the Christian Islamic Jewish Institute, like, okay, that's not a broad swath, but okay. And how the churches are diminishing. And I think what they were really focusing on is how, you know, there's been church splits, splits in, I think, the Methodist Church. Now the Anglican Church. The Church of England. Yeah, I just heard about it. Yeah, big deal.

06:23 So they're not going to recognize the, was it the Archbishop of Canterbury, which is like, whoa, that's a big deal. And so they were kind of going into, and he has this long-standing thing. We both agree that social media is a problem, particularly with young kids. And he just launched into something and was more about the church and then it kind of morphed into music. I just wanted to share this because this gave me so much courage and encouragement for what's going on. And it has a lot to do with our church right here. Great. That's why I think it's interesting that your church has a number of little factoids that it pulls off that I think.

07:08 I just love little factoids that it pulls off. I love it. I use that word all the time. I love it. When he says it, though, somehow it doesn't feel good. I don't know what it is, but it's just incredible. I love it. I'll go back. That's why I think it's interesting that your church has a number of little factoids that it pulls off that I think which will create a revivalism, I think, which is the socialization thing. Yes. Which is a lot of churches become social. And I came up with this thinking about this because I did a hit on Chanel's show on Friday. Oh, I missed it. I hit a Chanel hit. That's Chanel Ryan, the One American News. Oh, right. He goes on. He talks about he shows TikTok videos of crazy liberals.

07:54 But I guess he's getting into deeper material with the Chanel. Yes. And this discussion was about this Country and Western guy who's a left-winger and how about Country and Western is, you know, they're trying to move in on it. But she said she made the comment that there was a large, the country and Western music is the largest genre that is growing the fastest and asked me if I had any idea of why this might be. And I said, maybe it's because Country and Western at least has to do with relationships and, you know, boys and girls.

08:30 And the idea that you can, you know, there's love songs within the country and western genre as opposed to shooting somebody or bitching about immigration status in a song. And so you end up with this kind of the need for socialization. And I think the churches that do well are the ones that are pushing that part of it. They have their message, but they could, but the idea that kids in particular, young ones, the Zeds, they, you know, they haven't been, they don't have date. Whereas there's a big story that was going around all this last week on the mainstream media about one of the high schools that cancel all their dances.

09:09 It's insane. Because nobody was going to go to the dances. And it's like, that brings back my old point about the sock hop. And so I think churches have their opportunity to help kids socialize because it is a place where you can meet people. And I will say that more. So yes, non-denominational churches, I think, are doing quite well. And they're growing. And they also have very young pastors. When I say young, I mean 40s. And this is a very different breed, a very different genre.

09:47 And the music is actually much closer to Country and Western. It's all Nashville. All of the Christian contemporary music comes out of Nashville now. And they're Ann Wilson, traditional country artist. Boom, moves right over to Christian Contemporary. Jellyroll. You know, this guy is the furthest thing from Christian contemporary music. Has a number one hit with Brandon Lake. Never heard of any of these. No, I know you haven't. But in the legendary words of Lonnie Frisbee, there's a whole generation out there just looking for God, man. So I thought this was really interesting that he pegged that the churches who are socializing and becoming centers of the community again, which is exactly what you and Annette have done here with Bridge Church.

10:32 I mean, we're here all the time. There's always something going on. That's our heart. You know, I grew up unchurched completely. I mean, like, until I was 18 years of age. Right. So when I stepped into this world, it was a foreign, it's like stepping on the moon. It's a lunar landscape. I didn't know what was behind the next crater or behind the next rock. And so I had to learn a whole new world, you know, as a young person. And I was met with grace. I was met with old people that love me. I call them blue hairs because they all had blue hair. And so they were so sweet to me. And so, but what I realized too is

11:12 as I began getting to serve churches and begin getting involved in ministry. And while I was going to college, we would serve a lot of small churches all around central Texas, tiny churches out in the country. And they would have these old pavilions out there where they used to have, it was the center of the community or the center of the county. And I would hear stories about how that everything was about around the church. That was the community center of the church. You didn't have a separate community center. You had the church fellowship hall, was the community center. And I remember just sitting around with these precious folks as they told those stories. And I got to serve in a small town in central Texas called Comanche, Texas.

11:56 I think there's around 4,000, 5,000 people there, small churches. You feel like you're a bit in a time warp, but it's good. Yeah. You know, Mayberry RFD, you're feeling it, right? You're feeling Barney Fife and the sheriff and all that. And it's like there's something Americana and good, and some of that has not been lost. We are in town. It's just small. We're 12,000 people, but we're connected to Austin, San Antonio. We're in this sort of weird vibe where we get more influx from larger cities. So we're large on the weekends, back to normal during the week, except for during touring season.

12:37 So our heart is to have the church become a flourishing place again to where any day of the week you drive up, there's cars in the parking lot, there's people going in and out. I call it the buzz factor. The louder it is in the halls, the happier I am. Because that means people are here and they're seeing their church as a connector for the community. And you're doing that with a Godcaster. I mean, that's the heart of that. It is. And did you hear the report from Mindy, by the way, about the battery plant? I did, actually. That was fascinating. Yeah. So, you know, that's like, now she wrote it and I turned it into a report for her.

13:18 Right, right. Because there's this big. I wondered if it was Armindi. It is Armindy, but that's the voice. I know. I get Armindy's voice. I get it. Exactly. But it was pretty much how she wrote this message to the women on a text group. I'm like, can I put this on Hello Fred? Because I think it really, it does. It does become a ground. It's a connector. And notice what Dvorak said there. He said, this is where a revivalism, he said revivalism, I think. He did. Because he meant, first, he's a very smart guy and he studies history. He knows about cycles. And I mean, he's said in the past, you know, we're due for another great awakening, which I agree with, of course. Absolutely. But what a fantastic observation because we have the Catalyst group here on Wednesday nights.

14:01 I mean, can we do more? We should be, it feels like we should be, we got the women's ministry, we got the men's breakfast, Tuesday night Bible study with Tommy Hayes. That's right. We're looking at introducing another one or two that may meet on a Thursday night because we want to compete with each other. We want to make opportunity where literally you could be up here a lot. And the goal is not to pull families apart. That's the danger of having so much going and having this huge menu of opportunities. We've got to make sure that the family is always the center of it, not just everybody goes their separate direction. So we're trying to create opportunities where we're together, like on Sunday mornings, the kids, at least the junior high and middle school,

14:44 not in junior high. That boy, I really did my middle school and high school stay in the service. through the worship and even the announcements. We feel like that's important and through communion. We want them to participate in that. Then we dismiss them to more age-appropriate things. But the idea is that this becomes a hub for the community. Yeah. And I mean, we're doing like shooter training, active shooter training, which not everybody agrees with. We had one family leave the church calling us hypocrites because we don't trust God. I'm like, what? Where do you live? Hello. So, anyway, weird stuff like that. But anyway, so we're trying to say, what can we do that's needed in the community that we can fill that gap, you know, meet those needs?

15:28 Yeah. And so, anyway, that's what we're doing. How about the idea of a sock hop? I'm just saying. I know. I know. I had little things running through my head. Of course, I was in high school, 76 to 80. And of course, Smoky and the Bandit came out, you know, what, 79, 80? Yeah, it did. It did. Yeah. That was the show we, okay. So for prom, they rented the high school gets the community center. Right. Okay. In my big town of Post, Texas. And they showed that movie, Smokey and the Bandit, at that to keep us from all going out and getting drunk. Right. And it worked. I mean, I stayed in. We had a great time. And I'm saying it created something.

16:08 From my own history, when we moved to a very small village, 900 people south of Amsterdam when I was a kid, we literally had three digits on our phone number exchange. Our number was 771, and I had my own line, 445. Wow. It was very small. These are big Rotary phones, by the way. And we had a village, it's called the Dorps House. So it's a village house, which is kind of like a community center. It's where the school did their gym practice, and they had this hall. And on Sundays, they showed movies, obviously.

16:44 But the one thing that I always loved, and I would love to see this come back. And I'm not saying it's for the church specifically, but there were dance classes where you learned how to dance the classic dances. And by default, you were forced to dance with a girl or with a boy. And I just wish that would come back because I think that's so good for kids to interact with each other that way. May not be church appropriate, although, man, it would be great if we had something like that. Well, hey, we don't rule anything out. Here's my go-to, my standard response to people who bring ideas. I know what you're saying. There's a lot of ideators. Your assigned response is: let me pray on that and I'll get back to you. No, I don't say it like that.

17:27 I say it like this. I'm just missing it. I will put that before Jesus. There you go. And we will do the next thing he says. I hold to that. Yeah. Yeah. So when we introduce new things, it may be an idea that somebody brought that we put before Jesus. Yeah. And we, as a team, a staff, I love that. Felt like that was the Lord. It was a green light go. I love that. So, so, yeah, we got several things we've got on the on the hopper, in the hopper, so to speak, that we're just praying about. And when he says green light, go, we go. If he doesn't, we don't. So it's that simple. Well, I'm real excited about getting the podcast studio started. And we already have the young and faithful with Jonah and his, I guess, semi-permanent co-hosts. It looks like Jay is awesome. They're doing great. And I'm looking forward to more of that.

18:10 I really am. I'm so excited about it. So we'll be moving into the Life Center, Annette and I will move our office into the Life Center. And then this will be a dedicated studio. And during the days, it'll be an opportunity for people to need to meet. You know, we have meetings and stuff. It'll be used for that. But this will become an operational room, a hub, if you will, where we can have even more podcasts. I feel like there's lots of them in us. I feel like the people that are in our church, we've got people in public office. We've got people maybe going to, I can't let this one out of the hat yet, maybe about to run for public office.

18:47 So we've got opportunity here, and then we've got the place to do it where we can get good word, good messages out there into the world wide web. Yes, I'm very excited about it. The interweb is somebody who's looking forward to being the interweb. I'm looking forward to being very busy helping people get. I just ordered a new piece of gear. Zoom came out with this wonderful little guitar stuff. Very simple box. We just plug stuff in. It has like, you know, your sound, everything. It's all kind of pre-programmed, and it just works. Nice. We use the Roadcaster, but I can just see that being a little daunting for people.

19:27 I just want them to come in. Hey, a little computer. Yeah, hit the button, and you're good to go. You're recording. Nice. So I'm hoping to integrate that here. Very cool. Yeah, it just came out. I just heard about it this morning on pod news. I'm a bit of a gear nerd, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. So we've been talking about so. social media a lot. How have you been doing on your social media? Brother, I've got a touchdown to report. I have been, I don't know what's going on right now, and I'm not missing out on anything. Isn't it amazing? Somebody brought something up to me this morning, and I was, have you heard about it? And I'm like, no, no. Oh, but it had to do with Candace Owens going down the wormhole, you know, and something.

20:11 And I said, nope, haven't read that. And even Annette, here's an Easter egg for Annette. Even Annette, you know, she's laying in bed. She's got her phone out, and I've got mine out for about two seconds, and then it dawns on me. I've got it, so I'll put it away. Right. And I've got my Bible beside my bed, so I'm picking that up. Or screen down Bible up. Sometimes I'll use my tablet because it's got all my translations on it. It's a mini. It's easy to hold on. It's a mini. It's like a book. So she's been saying, hey, did you hear about this? I'm like, no. Hey, did you read about this? No. Hey, did you know? And it feels good to say, no. Exactly. I don't know about that. It does feel good. And it does. Increasing, you know, for my work,

20:56 I need to know a lot of things, but I have now just cut it off. I cut it off until like Saturday night if I do a little bit of prep or just Sunday morning early. Turns out everything I need to know, I can pretty much get within one hour. I really can. Now, I'm reading emails from people, and so I get a vibe of what they're thinking about, what's going on. I don't click the links. I'm just like, no. And I think my show has gotten better. Come on. It really has because it's just like, no, my mind is not. I'm really good at segregating stuff. You know, it's like I can receive stuff. I codify everything. That's what I do. You categorize. You can, you can, what's the word? Compartmentalized. Compartmentalized. In a healthy way.

21:40 There's a healthy compartmentalized. And the way I do it is I take it in, I put it into my system. I have a system on my phone and in my computer, and it just categorizes it, and it's easy to find and search. And even for this show, the tag is WGTDT. It's like, oh, oh, okay. I know what that is. Whenever I have a thought, I can just put it in real quick and then I flush it out right away. You have to. You have to flush it out. And it has really made a big difference. And there's been a couple of things that have been going on. And I'm seeing increasingly how I think I've told you the devil's playground. Right. How this social media in particular,

22:25 it's so unhealthy when people are getting into it and going back and forth. And I had a thought that I wrote down this morning. Okay. Because I've got something I want to share on this topic. So keep going. I was thinking if you're on social media and you get that comment, you get, you know, or whatever, because, you know, I go on X to look at just my inbox, my mentions, because that's where people, it's like, it's literally like email for me. Someone will send me something. Okay, that's the link I got to save. But of course, there's always the, you've been a Christian for five minutes.

23:01 You think you all this stuff. And I've turned this into a forgiveness practice tool. Good. Good pro tip there. And it's really feeling good. So I don't respond. And I certainly am not going to say, I forgive you. That's like you might as well just poke someone in the eye. But I meditate on it and I'll probably give it a heart. Just so I saw you because there's nothing else to do. There's an or thumbs up or whatever, you know, on X is just a heart. And I purposefully stop and I think, okay, Lord, I'm forgiving this person. And it's really working for me. It really feels good because immediately that

23:46 adrenaline or whatever it is that when someone says something to you that you can't help cortisol. Yeah, cortisol. You feel that right away? I'm like, no, no, no. Stress. And I've gotten, I can do it within like three seconds. I can do it almost with my eyes open. Forgiveness practice tool. Wow. So on that very thing, we've been talking about this in our staff meetings. We've talked about some social media issues. We've talked about this. And I've used the term radical forgiveness. Yeah. And I think I brought that up in our podcast did on the platform. You did. Yes. We got to practice radical forgiveness. That's one of our core values. But I like adding the word radical to it because it pushes the edge.

24:29 When we talk about forgiveness, it's kind of, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, people just rush you along. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Finish your sentence. But when you talk about radical forgiveness, it takes a whole new tone. And radical forgiveness is where you don't have limitations or categories. You just forgive no matter what. Yes. That's radical. I forgive you, but I forgive you, but we want to add that little butt on the end, but this is like, I forgive you, period. Yeah, you can't put a butt in a sentence because that negates everything that came before the butt. It's just no good. I love what you're doing. And I actually started doing that when I got blitzed a couple of three weeks ago.

25:10 I think it's part of that encouraged and helping me. Yeah. Because I started doing that. I didn't at first. I received the cortisol dump. I was like swimming in it. And just feeling that weight on my chest. Like, man, why is this getting to me? It's just social media. I don't know any of these people and they don't know me and have no context, but yet I still felt it. But when I shifted gears, because we talked about this, and I had talked about radical for you guys, I need to practice what I preach. So I started looking at their names. And once I have their name, I'm like, thank you very much, so-and-so. And calling them for.

25:49 Yeah, yeah, whatever it is, whatever their handle is. And just using that as, oh, thank you for giving me your name. Now I can call your name before the throne of grace. Yeah. And the Bible says in Hebrews 4 that we're to come boldly before the throne of grace. And it says, There you will find mercy and grace to help in your time of need. So I'm like, I want to present these names before the throne of grace so that they can find mercy and grace to help in their time of need. Obviously, something triggered them. They're upset about something. Yeah. They've probably got trauma in their own lives or whatever's happened.

26:25 Wherever they are. Why else are you there? Exactly. So now I get the privilege of calling practicing radical forgiveness, calling their name before the throne and then releasing it, going on. And that's how I was able to get over it. And then I started laughing about it after a while because it shifts your whole perspective. Yeah. Wow. Thank you for all you people giving all 44,000 people giving your names. Yeah. And I got to read through them. And I quit reading what they were saying and just calling their names. And of course, always remember: the less you send, the less you receive. So the less you post, the lesson. That's a good pro tip. That is a good pro tip. It works in all media. I'm getting very few texts here lately.

27:05 And it's only because I've quit sending out texts. I quit trolling. I quit throwing the line out in the water. I've been considering talking to Tina about doing, you know, a day of the week. Now, Saturday may not be the easiest one for a lot of reasons. In fact, there's a lot of reasons why it's not easy for both of us. Right. I would love, you know, I think that if we just had our phones on, you know, do not disturb, except for our kids, basically, you know, you could set that up so that those do come through. I've been thinking about talking to her about doing it for myself, too. Because it's not just social media. Like a 24-hour deal or a 12- all-day, whatever. Whatever, all day. Just do a day.

27:46 And just no phone. Just no phone. Just put it over here and just leave it alone. Because it's everything. It's text. It's all kinds of stuff. It's not says to say social media is the problem. It's not. It's the whole deal. It's, oh, how old is Mark Carmen on NCI? Yes. How tall is he? Because I need to know that. There's that. I need to know how much he weighs. I mean, it's crazy. We just get into this information crave. I do. I'm an information junkie by nature. So we're jumping online. What are everything? What is scripture? Does scripture talk about that at all? About need the need. You don't need to know everything or

28:28 not knowing everything is necessary. Oh, I love this. He's going into his system. I don't even know what. Are you using the Chat GPT? No. Not Chat GPT. Perplexity. Maybe. It's okay. It's a valid use. I'm okay with that. It's a great search tool. It is for that. Oh, it's fantastic for searching scripture. I do it all the time. Like, okay, let me find something about this. And it will come up, usually comes up with, I do go back and make sure what it spits back is the right scripture. I do too. I'm very careful. Yeah, not sure that it's always doing the right thing. You come up with anything?

29:10 I prompted it with: does the Bible have scriptures that speak to needing to know more information? And it's nothing specific. You know, you've got a lot of general stuff. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Meaning, reference for gaining true understanding. Maybe that's where you need to look: what is true knowledge? What is true wisdom? What is the wisdom and the knowledge you really need? I like where you're going with this because. because, again, I call them pro tips. These are like little pointers. Like, here's something I'm doing that's helping me. And I love that. I love where you're going with that. One of the things that's helping me in the morning is I get up, I have this little saying in my mind now. And I say, I say, scripture before screens. Just so simple.

29:53 Scripture before screens. Because my habit has always been to open my computers. I'm sitting down with my cup of black rifle coffee. Mr. Chevy's begging to get up in my lap. And so as I'm settling in, I tend to sit down and open my screen. Of course, you're hit with all kinds of notifications, all your new emails. Important, important. Look at me. Look alert. Alert. Breaking news. All that hits you in a nanosecond, right? You've taken my put your screens down, pick up your Bibles to the next level. Scripture before screens. That's my morning. It's my morning thing. And so I love it. I sit down and I let that run through my mind before I open this up.

30:34 So I'll reach for my Bible. Now, I might sometimes pick up my tablet. It just depends only because I don't have notifications on it. I just go right to the Bible on it. Or I've got various versions of the Bible sitting on my desk all over. Now, do you needle drop when you pick up your Bible? Sometimes I do. It's like, boom, I'm sorry. Sometimes I do. One of my favorite Bibles that I've had for, gosh, 30 years now, it's got so many marks and big pages. So like I can flip through it, and man, it just comes alive with ink, you know, highlighters, all different colors, circles, notes. And I'll thumb through that and things will always pop up because it'll be something I wrote, you know, a reminder. Why is that important? I look, oh, I remember that, you know, back from 1997. You know, that was cool.

31:19 So I'll do that. So I'll needle drop like that, especially through the New Testament. There's several things I do. There's verse of the day on my, I use, what's it called? Something tree. Oh, it's the Bible search thing. Oh. Anyway. You got to search for your Bible search thing. Well, I've got a Bible search program. Instead of using Logos like a lot of guys use, it's super complicated and really cumbersome. I use this. I'm trying to remember the name of it. Anyway, it'll hit me later. But what I do, it's got a verse of the day every day.

32:00 So I'll pick that up and I'll click on it. And if it's something that speaks to me, I'll roll with that. If not, I'll just do some needle drop or I'll just stop. I'll ask the Lord, Father, what do you want to say? What's on your heart today? Yeah. And so I'll go with that. But this idea of scriptures before screens has been a helpful reminder. I have another pro tip. So that's my first one. My second one is this. I heard this phrase a while back, and I didn't incorporate it into my ongoing. You can read something and it hits you, but it's up to you whether you really implant it in your soul, right?

32:37 Whether you go, this is important. And so I came up, stumbled upon this phrase, and it just stuck with me. And if I can push something aside and four days later, it's still pinging, it's probably God saying, Hey, listen, listen up, God tap. So here it is. And it read like this: I don't negotiate with weakness. Now, that was how it was written from whoever wrote it. I don't even know who it was. But I actually, in my mind, I drew a line. I didn't mark out weakness. I just put it off to the side and I drew a line. I don't negotiate with blank.

33:16 And what it has done for me, this has been something that's really powerful for me. I looked at, I found a scripture that really fits for this for me. 1 Corinthians 16:13 says, Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men. This has been a daily grind. Yeah, yeah, it has. I've used that verse before, but that speaks to me. I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Do it again. No, no, no. No, no. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. So I started a list, and I started this a couple of days ago, and I'm just finding it keeps going. I don't negotiate with weakness. That's how it was written. And I like that because weakness can be proneness to temptation, proneness to

34:01 do something when you should be doing something else, you know, proneness. So I just started filling in the blank. I don't negotiate with sin. I don't negotiate with time wasters. And that principle stuck with me because we're going through the unseen war with Victor Marks and his team. Yeah. And we're on session seven out of eight on the videos. And there's this mentality of you don't negotiate with demons. No. You don't talk. You don't have a conversation. You. You interrogate them, but you don't negotiate. And you command them to go. We're also big fans of NCIS. Season 21 out of 24 seasons is how far we've gotten off. That's amazing. But you know the saying from the government.

34:45 We don't negotiate with terrorists. Yes. So, you know, that's kind of that same spirit. Good one. So I'm using this for me. I don't negotiate with sin. I don't negotiate with time wasters. I don't negotiate with temptation. Here's one you'll appreciate. I don't negotiate with social media trends. Boom. I don't negotiate with demons. I don't negotiate with the flesh. I don't negotiate with the need to be liked or accepted. That's it right there. The need to be liked. That kind of gets to the root. That's the one. Yep. Sure does. I don't negotiate with past trauma. I don't, because all these want to negotiate with you.

35:25 They want to talk to you. They want to be in your head. Boy, the enemy uses all those negotiations, all the inner dialogue. A couple more, a few more. These are good. I don't negotiate with critics. I don't negotiate with dark spirits. I don't negotiate with procrastination. Now, that's what I'm working on. So I put that on the list on purpose. Let's move to the top of my list. That's more of a goal than a reality for me right now. We won't get there. I've been negotiating a lot, so I put that there on purpose. Here's another one: I don't negotiate with lust. I don't negotiate with the need to be, with the need for likes and clicks.

36:05 Yes. That's helped me a lot with social media backing away and pushing away. And a couple, two more. I'm going to keep the list going. This is just what I came up with this morning. I don't negotiate with pain. I'm not going to allow pain points in my life to cause me to compromise or to do something I normally wouldn't do just because I'm in pain. This is so good, Jimmy. I love this. This is a pro tip. I don't negotiate with worldly compromise. That's where I got so far. That's just from this morning. That is good. I just started writing these out, and it just hit me how we let these voices get in our head, and we think it's us. Sometimes it's the flesh. Sometimes it's the devil. It's the enemy.

36:48 And we'll let that negotiation. And we know by the nature of the devil. Let me just share this scripture with you. This is going to my Bible now. And I'm going to pull it up in this translation, John chapter 8. And this gives us the nature of the devil himself. John 8. Here it is. That's the best silence I've ever heard. Oh, no. I'm just looking for it. No, I take your time. I love silence on the podcast. People look down. They think their podcast player has stopped. They fiddle with their speakers. What happened? What went on? Why didn't I hear anything?

37:32 So this is talking about the enemy of our souls. And this is bothering me. I'm going to find it. Here's where AI is helpful. Bible verse. I'm going to give you my prompt. Bible verse that says, the father of lies. What's so beautiful about that is he'll give the verse right to me. Yep. John 8:44. No wonder you couldn't find it. It was 44. I skipped right over it. It was there. I've scrolled through it. Here it is. Oh, there it is.

38:13 This is Jesus talking to the Pharisees, and he says this: Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word. You are of your father, the devil. Boy, who says that Jesus is always nice? Nope. Hello. That's kind of crazy. All these guys out. He says, You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of it.

38:52 So now. And did the Pharisees respond well to this message? No, they rarely responded well to Jesus. That is good. That is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They go on into a dialogue. But what you're saying is so good because how often we all have this. You wake up, and I always, the minute I'm conscious, I'm still in bed. I do the Lord's Prayer right away. It's like, let me just do this. And it says, but sometimes. Do you do your own version of it or do you do the classical version? Sorry to interrupt. It's a high. hybrid. Okay. I always think about our father, which art in heaven, which is your version. No, that's the King James version. King James version. Thank you.

39:37 Okay. That's the version. That's King Jimmy. That's King James. There you go. They're different. And I always think about heaven, and I stop there and think about how big heaven is all around us and the stars and everything. Hallowed be thy name. You are holy, Lord. You are holy above all holy. And I know that this is the command. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then give us this day our daily bread. Lord, give me guidance and provision. I'm not talking about provision, like money, like give me provision for the things that I need. So if I get through that, I'll get to the temptation part in a moment. So I do that, and then I'm usually set. But if I don't, you can wake up and there's that thought in your head. There's something going on.

40:20 And I can feel, it's, I mean, this has been 60 years that I've not figured this one out. Like, oh, he's trying to get in my head. Right away, he's trying to set the tone, set it straight, which is where you're the weakest. That's why scripture before screens, if you pick up the screen and there's a weakness already going on and one thing hits you, you are done for the rest of the day. It's very hard to pull yourself out. Sets the tone for the day. Yes. Yes. Back to yours. Well, and this leads into a clip because we talked about it. Cool. And lead us not into temptation, which could you explain that? Because I think a lot of people are like, that's kind of weird. God's going to lead us into temptation.

41:04 Can you just? Yeah, the way I say it, because I personalize mine as well. I'll do the traditional version and then I do my version. Right. Wildly different sometimes. But two things on that that's important, but let me get to that point. The way I phrase that, because sometimes the Greek language or Aramaic doesn't always translate well exactly like English. You just don't parse out the same. So some scriptures can be kind of confusing like that one. That's a good example of a confusing scripture. Because why would he lead us into temptation? Well, he wouldn't. So the way I say it is, Father, I thank you that you never lead me into temptation, but you do deliver me from evil with the evil one.

41:47 That's it. It's just a simple twist on the words, but it actually is more accurate to the actual original language. And to today's way we understand. Father, thank you that you never lead me into temptation, but you do deliver me from evil and the evil one. So let's talk about the temptation that is coming our way. It is coming to a chat bot near you. This is a big one, and I think we just have to just talk about it for a minute. Chat GPT will soon be able to write erotica for adults. This update was announced by OpenAI boss Sam Altman, who said users who verified their ages would be able to access a wider range of content. He said OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, had previously made the chatbot pretty restrictive and that it was less useful slash enjoyable for users with no mental health problems.

42:31 But new tools meant those restrictions could soon be relaxed. OpenAI was sued earlier this year by the parents of US teen Adam Rain, who took his own life. The lawsuit showed that Adam had discussed his suicidal thoughts with the chatbot. In a statement given at the time, OpenAI told the BBC it was reviewing the filing. Both in the UK and the US, there's concerns about what this update will mean for child safety. Written erotica does not require an age verification in the UK under the Online Safety Act. And in the US, there's calls for more regulation at all levels. OpenAI did not respond to our request for comments. Okay, so this is... Is that an AI voice? No, that is a woman from the BBC. But there was a lot of chopped up. Did you have to chop it up? No, that's how they posted it. Okay. Yeah. Which I thought was.

43:14 I mean, I have another one which I've seen. Now, I heard the same story highlighted on SRN. Which the reason I was listening to the only reason I heard it is because I was on the Godcaster. And there it is. Hello, Fred. I wasn't on social media. I was on the Godcast. I heard news, relevant news. Get the Godcaster app, everybody. You get all of these great podcasts on it. Hello, Fred. So first of all, there's a couple of things. The classification of erotica is what a load of bunk. I know. That was bizarre from the beginning when they said that because I'm going, wait a minute.

43:54 Erotica is like, okay, you just mean porn, smut, nasty, dirty talk. And the part that really stuck out to me is, well, for those who don't have mental health problems, flash news flash. That was an odd statement. We all have mental health issues, every single one of us. That's exactly what we've been talking about for the past 40 minutes. These are mental health issues. It doesn't mean you're sick. You're human. And this stuff, I mean, it's going to, it is going to start slipping in. So we just have to identify because you're going to be talking to your chat bot, no matter which one it is. It'll be Grok. It'll be, I'm sure, Perplexity, Anthropic. All of them will have this because this is the product.

44:39 We've talked about this, like personal chat bots, and people want to be really personal. What will it take for the chat bot to go, well, this person is verified of a certain age and seems to have no mental health issues. So I'm just going to slip in a word or two and see if, and then you can be led down the path. We need to arm ourselves against this because it's going to happen, particularly men, particularly young men. This is not healthy. This concerns this really concerns. It is very concerning. It concerns me a lot. I just added to my list. I don't negotiate with Chat GPT. There it is. It's just going to be a, there's no, I'm going to draw that line in the sand.

45:21 Yeah. Will not go there. And I will not refuse. So, but here's the tragedy is that the temptation, now that they've made this grand announcement, now we've told everybody it's there. What if people didn't even know? Yeah. That's the hard thing about news. Sometimes, for example, when we watch NCIS, I know, just said it again. Annette was like, every time they blow something up or they have an attack on the government, Annette goes, they're just giving people ideas. And I'm like, honey, you think people don't already have ideas? Well, I don't think they're giving them anything, but yeah, you know what they said. That's her thinking. If a news report isn't making someone mad, it's propaganda.

46:03 So this is actually a PR message. This is a PR message. And Elon Musk did the same with Grok and his little animated character. This is all get the app, pay $20 a month. You're going to love it. Are people paying for that now? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think lots of people are paying $20 a month for something. And, you know, right now, we're in this period where $1.3 trillion of investment has gone into AI. They're going to need another trillion before it pays off in enterprise and workplace. But we still need to have the customers. So how do you get the customers? They have a perfect product. The product is the chat bot. And we had friends at the house. And my buddy, he's just like, you know, we're talking something.

46:48 He just talked in his phone. So he's not even typing anymore. He's actually talking to the phone. It's going to become an auto-response. Exactly. That's scary. I mean, he's pretty level up. I know who you're talking about. He also sells AI to enterprise. Okay. But still, he's a musician. He's making music with it. I mean, we've had long conversations about this. Vic will be okay. But still, it's that next step. I'm like, wow, you're in that next step. That's interesting. So we just need to be aware of it for our kids, but for ourselves. I mean, really, it's so easy. This is big temptation.

47:30 And not just erotica, all kinds of ideas. We mentioned this last week, but I think it's worth mentioning again for those who didn't hear the podcast or maybe you're new. But we talked about the fact that people are so lonely and so broken and so isolated, you know, because now you can live on a screen. And we have a generation of young people who this is all they've known socially is a screen. And so the temptation for that, now that the screen will talk back to you, you know, like Hal 2000 or whatever, you know, it's so easy to do that and so tempting to, because, hey, I'm by myself. I feel alone, but oh, what a nice voice here on Chat GPT.

48:12 You know, she makes me feel affirmed and she's positive. And you start down that track and I can see Annette and I tested it out together and we were laughing about it a lot because I've got it to, I triggered it to keep saying something. Yeah. It had to get the last word. It's sycophantic and it's continuously building you up and have a great day and be good. And I'd say, oh, thank you. Oh, you're so welcome. If you have anything else you'd like to know and talk about, feel free. And I said, well, I really appreciate that. Well, I appreciate you too. And I was like, this could go on for an hour. I mean, literally, I think it would get the last word no matter what. So it just hit me is maybe the lesson here is that we need to be reaching out to our, as believers, reaching out to our brothers and sisters, just saying, hey, how are you doing?

48:57 Want to go grab a coffee? Want to go to lunch? Can we invite you over? But as you know, that involves risk. It does. And we're risk averse. We do not want to take the chance of someone turning us down, ghosting us, rejecting rejecting us. us. And so the chat bot will never reject me. So, how much? So now it's easy. And we know what soft times make. Yeah, soft men. That's right. Soft men, weak men, hard times, hard times, strong hard men. Yeah, I mean, so we're living in that where now I don't have to have a bunch of outside relationships.

49:37 I can just, I've got my bot. I may have several versions of a bot. I'm assuming you can do that. I don't know how this works, but I'm assuming you can have several conversations going on. And it'll remember where it was with you. So I'm also saying, let's make sure we don't let others fall into this. Let's get them out. Let's go somewhere. Let's take a walk or grab a coffee or anything. Outside, we did a two-mile power walk this morning, and it was so beautiful. You could hear the birds singing, sun coming up through the hill country, and a little light fog. And I was like, why wouldn't I want to be out here breathing this air and waving at our neighbors as they drive by, you know, wishing they were walking instead of going to work, but whatever.

50:25 We've got to do something. We've got to, it's almost like we need to hearken back to a time that was before all this. If you want to stay mentally healthy, yeah, you've got to. You've got to do it. Absolutely. Wow. Last thing for me is this no kings protest that took place, which whether it was $7,700,000, or $70 million doesn't really matter. But I noticed a couple things that I wanted to bring up because I listened to a lot of podcasts. The Godcaster gives me all these different faith-based programs. Some of them are more conservative, news-like, but they all come from

51:08 believers, from faith-based perspective. But I'm really not exactly happy with what I'm hearing. And the first thing is how this was set up. And I like Mike Johnson. I think he's doing a good job. I don't like what he did before this came up, which was a strategy. I think it came from the president, which I don't like either. This was the messaging and the strategy about the no-kings protests. Thousands of people are expected to descend on the nation's capital for a no-kings rally. Peaceful movement seeks to send a message to the Trump administration saying that America does not put up with would-be kings.

51:48 This week, multiple Republican leaders called next week's event. I hate rally. This hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18th. The Antifa crowd and the pro-Hamas crowd and the Marxists, they're all going to gather on the mall. This is about one thing and one thing only to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold, as Leader Scalise just commented on, a hate America rally in D.C. next week. And then October 18th is when the protest gets here. This will be a Sorrel's paid-for protest where his professional protesters show up, the agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully, it'll be peaceful. I doubt it. Okay.

52:32 None of this happened. None of this happened. In fact, what I saw was American flags, people, there's always going to be someone yelling something, but mainly handmade signs. If anything, it was, I don't like Trump rally. That was very obvious. These were not hate America people. I just get heard that. I thought that was a leap. Again, we talked about running down the hill. You're going to run 30 feet down the hill. Are you going to take a step? And I keep hearing this from both sides. This is not a left blue thing or a right red thing, but these

53:14 everything is so inflammatory right now. Every word, every sentence, every post. But this is what I like so much about what I saw. I saw people who only really hate President Trump because they've been told to. They just have a different media diet. And I see it. I can literally hear the words coming out. Oh, I know exactly where you got that from. This nickname that came from that podcast. This slur that came from five different hosts on MSNBC. But I don't like that I see the same from the quote-unquote other side.

53:54 And a lot of this, these losers, they're Marxists. They're not hate America people. They are, in fact, we're so much closer after this No Kings rally. These people are being patriotic in their way. way. Yeah, they believe that which is the right, of course. And they're saying it is very American to protest. I agree with you. Yes, it is absolutely American to protest. And there were American flags. This is the first time the American flag was almost persona non grata. If you had an American flag on your car on your truck, Republican, Nazi, that ended with this.

54:35 Something really beautiful happened. And I'm not hearing the other podcasters in the universe really picking up on that. In fact, I have just a short clip of someone interviewing a no-kings protester. And what you will hear is that she didn't really, she was just protesting because it's American to protest. No Kings Day. And why specifically are you out supporting No Kings Day? I think protest is important. Why are you protesting? How much time do you have? A couple minutes. What's the main reason you're out here protesting, President Trump?

55:15 I agree with a lot of the decisions that are being made. Is there any decision in particular you disagree with? Okay, so I would start with. Well, I don't even think, I don't even think it's appropriate for me to have this interview. So she had a brain freeze because she realized, like, oh, wait a minute, what am I? I don't actually know. But I would like us to take this opportunity to see our fellow brothers and sisters for what they are. They're patriots. They love America. You know what? You hate the president. I can agree with that. That's fine. You hate him. I don't hate him.

55:59 That's why we voted. And, you know, you'll get to vote another person in three years. But I saw a lot of opportunity and I don't see people picking up on that. You're hitting something here, I think, that's really important because over the last few weeks, I've been sensing something in me, a shift to where be careful how I say this because so many of my friends on the far right have become so disparaging of anything that doesn't align with everything they think or believe. And they'll even say, you're not a Christian if. Really? And I'm struggling with that.

56:45 I'm like, wait a minute, let's we need to be careful with that. We are not judge, jury, executioner for who's a Christian and who's not. And what's happened is, is people have made these political alignments. The thing that's the deal breaker on whether you're a Christian or not. And I'm struggling with that right now because, and I think I should struggle with it. I need to struggle with it. I don't want to just take things because I have friends or I'm part of a group or whatever that are running down a certain track. I think we've got to have voices of dissent or we will not have the boundaries or the anchors or the accountability.

57:28 Absolutely. We think we can just say anything. Our country was built on that. It's not just the left. It's so easy to be on the right and point across the aisle and just disparage and say, you can't say that. How dare you say that? But then I look over on the right and they're saying something categorically catastrophic and disparaging too. So it's like, man, it's like there needs to be a checkup that's level across the playing field here because I'm having to just watch myself and I'm trying to be more careful with my words. Trying to be more wise. I'm trying to think more biblically as opposed to just, it's so easy as a pastor to stand in a pulpit and say something and get a rise out of a crowd.

58:13 It's as a politician, podcaster, politician, you name it, whatever, whatever your podcast, there it is, but a new category. Whatever your platform is, it's easy to want to get, again, going back to I don't negotiate with the need to be liked or accepted. Yeah. I'm refusing that right now. And it could change not just what I say, but the way I say. I'm trying to be more careful and not just be inflammatory because it gets out of boys. And you know what I mean? Class. There was a clip and I heard it and I thought I marked it and I didn't. And it was a woman, she was a no-kings protester and she said, hey, we're one nation under God.

58:56 And it hit me so hard. I'm like, oh, yes, we're one nation under God. Doesn't mean we all have to agree. And I don't know what her belief. belief is, but when she said it, I'm like, yeah, we are one nation under God. We're not intended to always agree with each other. But, you know, all I heard was, well, it wasn't really 7 million. Oh, you know, this. It's just like, get over yourself. I saw flags. I saw flags, a lot of flags. I love what you're saying here because it's actually kind of confirming what I've been feeling, sensing deep inside of me.

59:32 I don't know what that's going to look like yet. And I don't have to know what it's going to look like. I just want to be in alignment with his heart, with God's heart, not just a certain persuasion's heart. It's part of my pushback on social media. I just got sick of reading it. Yeah. I just got sick. Because, you know, I hit things that key in the algo. So now everything that drops in a news feed is just that amplified. And it seems to just get louder and louder to where I've just got to push back, close the screen, pick up my Bible, and just go, okay, I need a break. I even told Annette, she keeps asking me, hey, did you read this?

1:00:11 I'm like, no. I said, I'm actually taking a break. I'm pushing back on that. I don't think it's even landed with her yet. I'll know if she listens to this. If there's big egg here. The wives. But really, I'm doing it intentionally. Here's what I'm finding. I have a lot more peace in my soul right now. Of course. I'm not spun up. I'm not mad. It is well. Even on the No King stuff, I did not go down the rabbit hole. I did not chase news. I didn't click a single link. In fact, I've hardly looked at all. And I just thought, what you said, it's their right to protest and to dissent.

1:00:50 Our Constitution guarantees it. And the moment we think it's only one side's right to do so, and then we're going to casso everybody else. Or that they're lesser than because they disvalue. So I mentioned this on No Agenda, and I got. Oh, I bet you did. I got all kinds of emails. Yes, they do. They hate us. They want to kill us. Link to video. Hey, of course, if you put a thousand people on the street, someone's going to be, you're going to find the one guy with the sign that says, kill all Nazis or whatever. But that was not the, that was not what I saw, brother. That isn't, you know, even Dvorak is like, well, this is like, you know, the same as pussy hats without the pussy hats.

1:01:34 No, no, it was not. I saw American flags everywhere. People had them in their shirt pockets. People were walking around with their waving them. That got my respect to such a degree. And I think it was overlooked by almost everybody. Good catch. Good catch, Adam. I mean, really, you're saying something that needs to be said. It needs to be said in our camp. It needs to be said out loud so that we're not just becoming one more part of the problem where we're escalating people. And what happened to the forgiveness bit? Yeah. What about radical forgiveness? Yeah. Man, I know this is going to, this needs to come up. This conversation needs to happen

1:02:20 among friends and brothers and sisters to say, you know what? And I said this back five, four years ago. If we would pray for our enemies, and I was thinking in terms of the last administration, if we would pray for them as much as we castigate them and disparage them, maybe things would change. Maybe it would make a difference. Just maybe God would hear our prayers in heaven and heal our land, just saying. And I think, honestly, if I was to say it out loud, I don't think the change would be in them as much as it would be in us.

1:02:56 Yes. That our hearts would shift instead of us being so easily triggered and being hooked with clickbait right and left. This took me a year to realize this. And it happened the last time. Maybe it was a year ago or maybe you're way ahead of me, brother. It was six months ago. And we had people here in Fredericksburg protesting outside City Hall and with flags, all American flags. And I remember I can't, Tina mentioned that she went around and I'm not quite sure if there was words, but then the person said, well, God bless you. Have a good day. I don't care who says that to me. It's how I receive it, not how they say it.

1:03:37 That's good. And I truly believe we have a moment. We have a real moment here if we can reflect on it and let's just all agree on our flag. Flags are important. That's why, you know, wars are fought. We're fighting a war over a flag, over a rainbow-colored flag, which has no authority. authority. Our American flag has authority. And if you're going to fly that flag, I'm going to respect you. I'm going to respect your difference of opinion. I'm going to respect you. Wow. Thank you for bringing that up, Adam, because that's something that's been working inside of me.

1:04:14 And honestly, the more I push back on social media and close my screens, the more that's rising in me to where I'm like, can we find something we have in common just for five minutes? Just have a civil conversation that's about something we agree on. Because what we've done, and I have found myself go down this track, just to be very transparent, to where I'm angry at people that I disagree with. And I didn't used to be that way. I've fallen off into some hole. Well, the amplifier of social media does that to you. It's very normal. That's very normal. Brother, let's leave it here. Let's stick a big pin in this one because I want to come back to that because it's important.

1:04:59 And this is the first I've discussed. Well, I talked about briefly on No Agenda, but this is really the conversation I wanted to have. I don't get that from other places I am. And it's important that you guys hear on this and in this genre, as brothers in Christ, talking about radical forgiveness, talking about what we don't negotiate with, this is important. And this could be part of the conversation that brings healing to a nation. I hope so. Man, I not only hope so, I pray so. I'm with you. Scripture before screens, brother. That's the way to go. Thank y'all for listening. Check us out on the Godcaster app.

1:05:38 We'll be back next week. We get to do this. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is a gift we get to do this. This is the chance we did not miss. This is the life we get to do this.