We Get To Do This - The Uncomfortable Truth

0:00 Father, we honor you today as we come before you as sons, excited about what you have for us, what you've put before us. So Lord, we consecrate our conversation to you. We ask that you touch it, that you anoint it, and that Lord, you breathe on what we're doing here today because our heart is to help people. It's to honor you first and help people second. So Lord, for our friends and our new friends that will be listening to this podcast, would you bless them today? Would you encourage them today? And Father, we always say this and we mean it from the bottom of our heart. We get to do this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. It's Wednesday, October 7th, 2026. We get to do this. This is episode number 53. We get to do this. Well, hallelujah, believers and Christ curious. Okay, you caught me off guard. All across Get To Nation. Hallelujah. The doers are here.

1:12 I'm trying to think, you know, what can we say? And he goes, good morning, good afternoon. How about hallelujah? I'm channeling my Tommy Hayes here. Hallelujah. Oh man, yeah. You got to get your hand up in the air. There's something about it though, because I was recording here with Jonah last night for Young and Faithful, new episode. Find it on the Godcaster or Bridge Radio. and I'm walking by, Tommy has his class. I love our church because there's always somebody here, something going on, and I'm walking by and all I hear is, hallelujah. I'm like, yeah, there's Tommy. That's our boy. I love him. He's fantastic. He's an elder now. Yeah, we made him an elder of the church. We meet once a month as elders to pray for the church and pray for our city, pray for revival. I mean, that's our heart. This is the first time in my professional church career, where I've had elders where our primary purpose was to pray and to seek God's face. Because I didn't get a bunch of businessmen doing it. I was going to say your previous experiences might have been, here's how you got to run the church, here's how you got to run the business. Yeah, yeah, it's always that. But that's what we have a board of directors for and it works out great and beautifully. So we handle all that on that level. But I just love being able to get together with these men. to pray, seek God's face, and pray for revival. Nice. Yeah. Hallelujah! Tommy's one of those, and he always says, hallelujah.

2:41 He gets excited. He does. My grandfather used to do that a lot. Oh, did he? Sometimes he'd just go, yahoo! He'd just cut it off, hallelujah down to, yahoo, yahoo! Wow. So we've been getting a lot of feedback on the substack wgtdt .com, which takes you right there. A lot of emails, adam at wgtdt .com, psjimmy at wgtdt .com. And just some feedback on the AI chat bot stuff that people have been sending because I have two opposing emails, which I wanted to share. The first one is from, let me see, this is from Shelly. And she says, I want to send you a note about Muse.

3:24 And I've gotten a lot of these people saying, oh wow, this is kind of interesting. This is different from what I thought AI would be. I'm a homeschooling mom and a theater teacher. I also run a very small business building props and puppets for other theaters. All of my work is very hands -on and I hate admin work. After listening to you bang the AI drum, I decided to check out Muse. As a homeschool mom, I uploaded digital copies of physical curriculum, ordered my bot, thank you, to find the other stuff online and set up my kids homeschooling assignments for the week. That normally takes me about three hours. Bam, three hours back in the bank. Nice. Took it a step further, asked it to find some more in -depth activities and voila, it spat out near perfect spreadsheets with exactly what I asked for because this is a robot you command.

4:11 It's not your buddy, it's not your chat bot, it's not your friend. It's not your spiritual advisor. Thank you. In my prop business, I've been stalled for about a year because digitizing the patterns that I've made is tedious and Adobe is a pain in the butt. Tell me about it. I laid out the pieces on a mat and within 20 minutes, Muse had put together a mostly correct pattern package so that it's sellable. Even better, it also created a program like Adobe that allows me to edit any of its work on these patterns. It's a game changer and the software building component is particularly interesting on so many levels. So this is the main difference between a chat bot and something like Muse or Grok bot is it has its own computer which is Well, technically not yours. It's owned by somebody else. So there's a downside risk always But I think that will change in the future And it can indeed create software programs for you to actually make you know to do things. So it turns I call it the dream build loop. You know, it tightens that so you can dream up something and then you can make it. So I just love hearing that. And I've gotten a lot of this from people saying, you know, I was really confused, worried about it going to kill me, going to make me kill myself.

5:27 I mean, this is all the stuff that we've heard. Now, conversely, I got a note from Bill. He says, no, you're much more tech savvy and most likely more intelligent than I am. Thank you. I wouldn't say that. You're a professing Christian and I'm a professing born -again Christian. I mean, isn't that kind of the same? I mean, I was born again, so I'm not going to nitpick over it. I see data centers as a groundwork or mainframe software or hardware. You know more about systems terminology than I do. The Holy Spirit is leading me to see data centers as a necessary component for the one world beast system. digital currency, reference in Revelation 13, 16, 17, and 18. I'm curious if your thoughts about the coming beast system linked in any way to this insatiable desire for data centers. I don't believe data centers are for chat bots or any publicly stated purpose.

6:26 I apologize if this note is convoluted. Just wanted to say hi. Thank you for the many months and obviously I will gather my thoughts about brevity warmly. Your brother in Christ, Bill. We talked about this, I think on the last show, or the show before, about the pending doom. And I encourage people to go back and listen to that, because the first thing is, you don't really have to be afraid of any of it, right? I mean, what are we afraid of? I mean, have you watched the Chinese Olympics with the robots? I mean, that right there takes the fear right away from me. I mean, it's hilarious. But seriously, I'm joking, but I'm just being lighthearted, but I have no fear. I mean, there is no fear. I see how prophecy lays out the end times, the last days, which we may be. We're closer than we were yesterday. For sure. But as far as seeing AI as a part of the great rebellion or whatever, the great delusion, all that. The jury's out for me. I'm not going to postulate on that because I am Very focused on what's in front of me. Yes, like who can I share the gospel with today and If we're in the last of the last days, you're gonna find me wondering Who can I share with the gospel with today? Yeah, I'm gonna be working

7:58 until it's time to go But I'm not gonna overthink in terms of new technologies. You know the church in general This is a very broad stroke statement, has always been fearful of new tech. Every time something comes out, every time there's an advancement. The internet, that was seen as a satan incarnate. It's the Antichrist. Yeah, the Antichrist is here. You know, the Antichrist is now Islam. No, wait, it's China. No, wait, it's North Korea. I mean, no way. What do you mean? It's Hillary Clinton, man. Yeah, I mean, so, and I'm not disparaging what Bill's saying. I mean, I know he's pouring his heart into that. He's feeling led that way. But as far as fear goes and being spun up about this could be the great beast deceiver, I don't see it, but that's just me. I'm one opinion in a million, so billions. Yeah, but I think that that's the right attitude. It's like, it's coming no matter what, no matter what form. It's not like we can stop it. I think people have this idea, I got to not use it because then I can stop it from happening. Right, right. That's what I feel. And that's not going to happen.

9:03 It's here. It's not going away. It's kind of like the web when it came out, you know, when it came online, what, early 90s? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all of a sudden it was like, oh, this is exciting. Oh no, this is awful. You know what I mean? It's like aspirin, it's medicine, it's a gun. I mean, those can be used for good or bad, protect or kill. So I see this as the same way. It is a tool and I'm excited about it. Not because I think it's a thing, a person or it's personified. I just think it's a good tool to save time. And there's very few things that have come forward in the technology world that actually save time. If anything, they take more time. Oh, yeah. No, they totally. Being one. It steals time. Yeah, yeah. The dark, the dark hole. But so I see it as. As long as you're using the tool and the tool's not using you, and that takes ongoing discernment, but that takes ongoing discernment with anything. Driving a car. Protein shakes.

9:59 I mean, come on. You use discernment no matter what and for what. If it will help people with things that are repetitive, you know, actions, repetitive things that they do that are time, you know, they just eat up all your time and you can automate that, I think that's actually a very good thing. And just on the data centers, just to explain, I mean, people probably have never been inside a data center or they've seen pictures that look really intimidating. But just to give you an idea, if you're using Muse, but even if you're using Chad GPT, there's at least one computer, a virtual computer being run for you in that data center. The actual, the model, as they call it, the large language model that Runs the queries that that little computer that you're using That could be like a hundred times or maybe even a thousand times your computer at home So now of course these sizes are much different But you can already start to imagine how much space that takes up how much energy that requires Which you know data centers will and should be providing that for themselves or at least paying for it So it's not like it's a big, you know devil in there filled with all of your information. That's already in another data center. It's been there for 10 years. It's called iCloud. It's called X. It's called Instagram.

11:25 It's called Facebook. It just looks like a big scary box, but they've been in our lives for me. I told you I built my first one in 2002. Well, one of our guys here in our church has been working for a company that does this for 15 years. This is like no big deal to him. He's like, why is this all of a sudden a thing? Midterms. We need bells in here. We need bells. We need a snare drum and a hi -hat. So I was on an airplane two weeks ago, coming back from Nashville. And I thought to myself, huh, I should be able to use Grok on an airplane because it's not using my computer. This is not my processing. Boom, I was doing research and finding, I blew me away.

12:11 You know, this is where you have a aha moment. It kind of sounds silly, but I'm on an airplane and I'm getting processing speed, just light year speed. right there in my hand on an airplane, flying in a tube in the air. It's a flying seat. It's mind -bending. Because I know I've said something. I always joke with you saying all your bots are like burning up. They're humming. They're making noise. People are mad. They're picketing. But now you're seeing it yourself. The power of it. Everyone I talk to, I got 10 hours back. When people start talking like that, I get time back. My only question is, Are you filling that up with more work? That's good stuff.

12:52 There you go. So what are you doing with that other time? And I actually am about to go and ask Pastor Russ if I can help with the screen here, because I got time back. Wow. I have time now, and I want to spend that wisely. Interesting how we talk about time as currency, isn't it? I want to spend it. I want to save it. Time is money. Exactly. Well, time is time, I guess. Time is life. So we got some fun things to talk about today, but there's a couple of things in media that I want to help our our doers out there and get to get to nation understand how things work and This is really predicated by Tina and I going back and watching the West Wing From episode one. We're now in the said there's seven season. This is season six and I got hooked on well, first of all It's very tame. There's not a lot of, you know, there's not a lot of graphic stuff. It's about politicking and inside politics.

13:55 Nothing really new, but the thing that keeps surprising me, now you have to understand the premises. This is a democratic White House. Jed Bartlett played by Martin Sheen. He's the president. Good guy, of course. Only good people around him, but they're shenanigans. The thing that keeps amazing me is he, behind these closed doors, they're talking about and talking the same way President Trump does. Like, we should run for a third term. We've got to bomb Iran because they, you know, and they actually do. I mean, it's all these different things that President Trump says out loud. And of course, media is very different now from when this series started in the early 2000s. But what caught my eye, and there's a thing called pre -programming and media is very influential on how we think and why we think. And it's always done for Well, for two reasons. One, to promote some other entertainment product. So, you know, UFO is an alien. Oh, there's Steven Spielberg with a UFO movie. Noah's Ark.

14:53 No. Well, I mean, it's used by lots of people for lots of things, but certainly Hollywood has always been very politically motivated. And this is a political show. So this is a play that this is in March 2005. And it is set in the so -called Democratic primaries and Republican primaries of 2006. So now we just had an election in real life in 2004, and it was President Bush against John Kerry. And man, that didn't turn out good for John Kerry. We had the swift boat scandal and all that stuff. And of course, it was a wartime president. But if you recall, At the 2004 Democratic convention, there was a very important speaker.

15:43 Do you remember who that was? No. Barack Obama, a senator from Chicago who no one had ever seen. Young skinny man, looks like a basketball player. He got the big spot to speak. And of course, four years later, he was elected president. This was a meteoric rise. He didn't actually run for the Senate seat. He was appointed because of a sex scandal with the previous senator. We always looked at him like, hmm, isn't that interesting? Came out of nowhere. How he got in there. So this series, these particular episodes were written by, what's the guy's name, from MSNBC. Let me get this for you. Where is he here? Lawrence O'Donnell. You might have seen him MSNBC's kind of the gruff older guy and he's always, you know, Republicans are no good. So he actually wrote this series and the consultants on this were two political operatives. One of them was David Axelrod, who was the guy who literally managed Obama's presidential run. So now we're in the primary, the democratic primaries for the presidency and there's two candidates. One is played by Alan Alda, and he's Vinick. He's the Republican candidate. And he was supposed, and it even state,

17:13 the producer said, this is supposed to be McCain, who of course later did run for president. Jimmy Smits, you know him from NYPD Blue. So he's the Democratic. candidate, and he was completely modeled after Barack Obama. So this is already pre -programming for an election coming up in 2008. And I'm not going to spoil who wins, but you can kind of imagine how the show goes. So there's this scene. And the scene is with the current Democratic president. He only has two years left. And this is Martin Sheen Bartlett. And Alan Alda comes to visit him as the front runner of the Republican Party. And so now they're just talking, eating some ice cream in the White House kitchen at night. And I just wanted to listen to some of the things that were being pre -programmed into this hit show and millions of people watching it. Whatever happened to separation of church and state? It's hanging in there. But I'm afraid the Constitution doesn't say anything about the separation of church and politics.

18:16 So already? This is untruthful. Wow. So whatever happened to separation of church and state, as we know, there is no clause of no such thing. And now it's already been turned to from church to religion. Faith never comes up. So this is kind of the premise of where this is going. And President Bartlett, the Democrat, is a Catholic boy. And it's interesting because he's going to mass. You know, things happen. He goes to the church. So he's very faithful, maybe religious, certainly. You're saying that's a good thing? saying it's the way it is, always has been. You think the voter really needs to know if I go to church? This is the Republican who hasn't been to church in six years. And he's asked about it. And he says, well, you know, I got TV interviews on Sunday. So this is a little bit of a bump in his campaign. And so now he's asking, why do people even care about this? This is the Republican.

19:10 Imagine this, how this is played out 20 years ago. I don't need to know, but then I'm not going to vote for you anyway. It's not up to us to decide what the voters get to use in evaluating us. I don't know how you plan to handle this religious thing in the campaign. Yeah, well, that makes two of us. I could find a way to let it slip. I think a candidate's religion or how often he goes to church is not relevant to choosing a president. So here's a Democrat saying this, okay, but what is the Republican gonna say? You're gonna say that on the way into church? Are you accusing me of politicizing church -going? You've had an awful lot of photo ops on the church steps. I went to mass every Sunday long before I went into politics. I did too. Why didn't you stop?

19:53 One Christmas my wife gave me a very old edition of the King James Bible. 17th century. It was a real find for a book collector. It was a thrill just to hold it. Then I read it. You can't take it literally. Yeah, well that's what my priest friends kept telling me. You can't take the Bible literally. This is already to me in my eye. I never would have heard this if I had watched it back then. I'm like, okay, okay. But the more I read it, the less I could believe. I could not believe there was a God who said that the penalty for working on the Sabbath was death. I couldn't believe there was a God who said the penalty for adultery was death. I'm more of a New Testament man myself. Wow, break this down for me right here because this already like so here's the God I got this old King James Bible like that doesn't include the New Testament somehow and like I could not believe a God who you know says the penalty for adultery is death and Then Bartlett says I'm more of a New Testament guy myself. You can't separate these two. No, can you? No, no You have to take the Bible as a whole.

21:02 It's a narrative. It's a story arc and you have to take it as a whole The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. So they work with each other. In fact, and I agree with this, when we had Todd McDowell here, he said, you literally cannot really understand a biblical worldview from a New Testament perspective if you don't know the Old Testament, if you've not studied and not not gotten into the history of how things happened. Because worldview is not built on a paragraph. It's not built in a moment. It's built in the cumulative knowledge and understanding of a particular situation. And the more understanding and knowledge and content you get on a situation, you get a better, clearer picture of it, right?

21:53 This is a hard thing for new believers, for anyone who hasn't been in the Word for a while, to really... kind of grasp what you just said there. Yeah, it's a lot because it requires time and it requires effort. Most, let's be real, most people in our day and time, not all, but most, are biblically illiterate. And yet we're asking them to have a biblical worldview. Right. So we're going to be doing a seven -week series on biblical worldview, the pillars of biblical worldview, because we realize we're asking people to do something they're not ready to do. Yeah, not here, but Bridge Church. Bridge Church, not here. Don't panic. We'll talk about it. We'll bring it up. But anyway, all that is, is because whatever you're studying, reading, understanding about history, events from the past, they inform your worldview. So bringing that to something like what he was talking about here, say capital punishment, for example.

22:52 Yeah, we're going to get there. you have to have a worldview and an understanding of both old and new. So let's clarify that based on this statement. You can't just be a New Testament Christian. Or just an Old Testament. There's no such thing. Yeah. So now, I'm going to skip the rest of that. You already get kind of the gist. Now, the Republican guy goes out and makes a statement about his faith, lack of faith, his church going, etc. And this was completely meant as programming people's minds about how to choose a candidate for president or vice president, etc. On the debt ceiling bill, we will pass it within the hour and send it to the president for his signature before midnight. What about the minimum wage amendment? We've agreed to have a separate vote on the minimum wage increase tomorrow. Is it going to pass? Yes, it will.

23:46 I'll vote for it, and I guarantee you it'll be more than enough bipartisan support to pass it. Senator, are you going to reconsider Reverend Butler's invitation to his church this weekend? I fully respect Reverend Butler's position. I mean, I appreciate his invitation. And, uh, look, I respect Reverend Butler. And I respect his church too much to use it for my own political purposes. And that's exactly what I'd be doing if I went down there this Sunday. Because the truth is, it would just be an act of political phonings. I may be wrong, but I suspect our churches already have enough political phonies in them. Senator, do you or do you not? Let's see how we can have a separation of church and state in this government if you have to pass a religious test to get in this government. And I want to warn everyone in the press and all the voters out there, if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to. They won't all lie to you, but a lot of them will. And it'll be the easiest lie they ever had to tell to get your boats Notice the music. Oh get your nervous system going.

24:52 Yeah How about that? That is the exact opposite of what? Believers should be doing and this is being set up like oh if they tell you they're men of faith They're lying to you. How about that? Yeah. Yeah, I mean this is we've seen this play out through the decades. Mm -hmm, you know when you hear people talking about their faith, like Barack Obama. Really? Are you Christian? Really? Are you Muslim? Well, it depends on who he's talking to. You could read that both ways. This is nothing new, and this is what, 2001? 2005. 2005. And we're still seeing these things. I would say with our current president, He's a God -fearer. I'm not sure how deep in he really is in terms of the weeds, so to speak. But he holds nothing back in terms of allowing platforms for Christianity. And he says that he does it based on the founding of our nation, that there's precedent for this. So that's why he has no problem or qualms with it. Whether he's all in or not, I think he definitely is. built friendships with people who are, and so that's been a huge influence.

26:10 But he's harkening back to our foundations of faith. what I hear, was that Alan Alda? I could totally recognize his voice. He won an Emmy Award for that role, specifically that episode. Interesting, interesting. And so interesting too, because you get that famous line, the separation of church and state, which is not in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence, none of that. And it was a complete aberration of a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association, assuring them, that there would be no state -sponsored church, because that was the biggest fear. Because that's what they ran away from. That's why they came here.

26:56 And so it was actually the very opposite, and yet it's been reinterpreted now, the opposite of what it was actually meant to say, what it said in context. So even hearing him quote that with the music in the background and all, everybody, oh yeah, yeah, the separation of church and state, isn't that in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights? Which amendment is that? So, I mean, people really think that's in our founding documents, and it is not, which is mind -bending how that got twisted. And I really bring the pre -programming part up because the subversive messaging about voting for someone with biblical values is much more sophisticated. And in fact, if you look at here in Texas, Tallarico, it's all being inverted.

27:46 And it's very sophisticated. And so discernment is... In fact, I would say, I don't know if you heard Josh Howerton's bonus episode on Tallarico's appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. No, I did not. It's so good, we couldn't even replicate it. He did such a... And we're pretty good. He did such a good job of breaking down the lies. This was In Your Face. Like, listen, stupid people, if you're voting for somebody based upon him going to church, he's lying to you. You know, it's like, wow, okay, separation of church and state. All misinformation. There's no articles about it. I don't see any churches complaining about it. You had 15 million people watch this show.

28:32 Wow. So politically motivated, here comes the capital punishment, which I... pretty much believe this will be in debates for the midterms. It's being played that way. And this is the Christa Pike failed execution. Right. Now this is not the October surprise, is it? No, I don't think it's the October. Is there something coming? Who knows? It's only the 7th of October. Anything can still happen. A lot of room. No, but it's interesting how the media has taken this story. And here's just, this is CNN, I think, with a little background on what happened. Krista Pike, a woman on death row in Tennessee, survived two doses of a lethal injection intended to execute her. But the drug used in the failed execution has a controversial past. Pentobarbital is a sedative that depresses the central nervous system.

29:27 But critics of its use in lethal injections say that it can lead to a buildup of fluid in the lungs and create a feeling of suffocation. The Biden administration raised questions about whether Pentobarbital causes, quote, unnecessary pain and suffering as a single drug lethal injection. Notice already harkening back to the Biden administration's, you know, so just just so you know, it's this is Republicans, Republicans doing this rescinded its use as part of the protocol. In April, Attorney General Todd Blanch called Pento -Barbatel, quote, the gold standard of lethal injection drugs and said the US Department of Justice secured a source of it in 2019. And that gets to one of the big issues with drugs used for lethal injection. Pharmaceutical companies over the past decade and a half have largely tried to block their products from being used to kill people. So states and the federal government have had to seek alternative sources, leading experts to question the potency and quality of the drugs they acquire. Now, we still don't know why Pike survived the execution attempt. Some experts have suggested it could have been an error in administering the drug.

30:28 And for decades, groups like the American Medical Association and American Nurses Association have opposed or prohibited members from participating in capital punishment, which makes it unclear who is involved in administering these lethal drugs. The Death Penalty Information Center says that one of the main reasons for botched lethal injections is an inability to insert an IV. Pike's attorneys say they had warned the court that Pike already had vein issues. Now they're asking Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence. Okay. A lot going on here. Yeah, that weird backing track. It's all meant to subvert your nervous system as you listen to it. It's mysterious.

31:09 So what I'm hearing in this is killing people, bad, it's botched, Republicans, the administration. So, well, we got the gold standard. Maybe she should go free. What I don't hear in any of the reports, and this case took place in 1995, do you know why she was convicted of murder? That's what I want to know, but I haven't heard that yet. You have not heard this anywhere, which is why I suspect this is going to be a midterm issue about death penalty. It's going to come right back to, that's why we need to talk about capital punishment. You crazy right -wing Christians, Christian nationalists, want to kill everybody, but yet you don't believe it. What would Jesus do? This is all coming down. I can feel it and I think we're already hearing it in our own personal circles and friends Like well, what do you think about this? You know, did God save her? Was she is she a witch and she couldn't be killed and these are literally the questions Wow So let's go back and find out what she did from stories from WB IR in 1995 which you will not hear in today's reporting other than She killed somebody and tortured her. Maybe you didn't even hear the torture part Let's listen to the reports from this is now, what, 30 years ago. The brutal murder of 19 year old Coleen Slemmer created fear and speculation among students and staff Friday. Knoxville police quickly dispelled any myths about the case with a break in their investigation.

32:35 It did not involve a university student. It did not occur on the bike trail. It was not a random or a stranger to stranger incident. A tip led authorities to Knoxville's Job Corps, where 18 -year -old Krista Pike and 17 -year -old Terrell Shipp were arrested around 2 o 'clock Saturday morning. Police say the murder suspects were close to the victim. The motive of the crime appears to be a love triangle. It appears that both of the females involved had been involved with a 17 -year -old male. Investigators say the suspects led their victim to this isolated area of campus on the premise they'd smoke marijuana together. Instead, she was brutally stabbed and beaten. The victim's partially dressed body was found in this brushy area Friday morning. An autopsy confirmed she was slashed repeatedly with a meat cleaver and some other small cutting device, perhaps a razor blade or box opener.

33:32 Authorities say she was then beaten over the head with a large chunk of asphalt from this pile. News of the arrest was quick to circulate around UT. I'm glad it wasn't a student, but still it's kind of, it's still frightening that it would happen over here. You just don't think it would ever happen to you. You think, well, you know, I'm 18, it's not gonna happen to me. I can walk and I know self -defense, but that really makes you stop and think. While the murder was not directly linked to the university, other than location, authorities say students and faculty should always exercise caution, especially at night in areas like this. So now you have the background. Let's hear the actual details of the torture. It's getting a little bit gruesome, but I'm surprised from a news media where if it bleeds, it leads, and the more gruesome, the better. They want to show it all. They want to talk about it. They're not doing that right now, but they did 30 years ago. A choice Christa Gale Pike made more than 30 years ago is the reason she's said to die by lethal injection. In January 1995, Pike was 18 years old, a student in the Knoxville Job Corps. Pike suspected fellow student Colleen Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend to Daryl Shipp. Shipp and Pike invited her to plans that night. Investigators say the suspects led their victim to this isolated area of campus.

34:49 On the premise, they'd smoke marijuana together. A rainy night. That would change. all of their lives. The young woman's badly beaten body was found in a remote area of UT's ag campus. For at least half an hour, the pair tortured their classmate. The victim's partially dressed body was found in this brushy area Friday morning. An autopsy confirmed she was slashed repeatedly with a meat cleaver and some other small cutting device, perhaps a razor blade or box opener. Shadala Peterson was present. Well, she was there, but she had no part in this killing. Slemmer told them she'd move back home and tell no one, if they let her go. A pentagram, a five -pointed star, a symbol of Satan, was carved into her chest. Pike dealt a final blow, breaking her skull with a piece of asphalt. Peterson went on to say Pike took a piece of Slemmer's skull and put it in her pocket. The next morning, she showed off the skull fragment to friends. OK.

35:47 Does that change your mind about this case, maybe? Wow. Man, yeah, that's intense. So this is satanic, but we're not hearing that. So what's going to happen is we're going to have a debate over capital punishment. And so how do we, as believers and Christ curious, what is the biblical worldview? Because you have government, you have the person, and this is a complicated one. I want to be... ready for when someone asks me about this. Because you believe in God. You don't believe in killing people. God, you can't do that. Or does God say, you got to kill them? Well, let's clarify. First of all, no one is to take revenge and take a life. Just get that out in front because people, they just say death is death no matter who does it. But that's not true. A person, an individual cannot revenge or avenge any wrong through the killing of another human being, period. So, end of story. Well, then capital punishment's evil.

36:54 No, that isn't what I said. I said an individual cannot do that, but a government can. In fact, governments are directed by God, both Old and New Testament, to take care of evildoers, to punish them. And I've got some scriptures here, Genesis 9, 6, talks about... Let's just talk about the sanctity of human life, right? So, the biblical argument is this. This grounds the issue in the image of God. So biblical argument is not that life is cheap. It's that human life is so valuable that intentionally taking innocent life is treated with the utmost seriousness. So I'm taking this back a little bit because I'm going to give you a worldview, not just to try to answer. Second thing, personal vengeance and civil justice are different. That's what I was saying from the beginning. So we're talking about two different things. We're talking in this case, civil justice. This has been through a court system, it's been planned, all that.

37:49 And it's based on the horrific nature of the crime. So there's context and evidence and all those things that come into play. And admission in this case. So Romans 12, 19 says this, Christians are not to avenge themselves. So we don't take or exact revenge on anyone. But Romans 13, the next chapter, says that governing authorities are responsible to restrain evil and do not bear the sword in vain. So they bear a sword. They do bear a sword. And so the Bible separates personal revenge and vengeance, which is forbidden from civil justice, which is authorized. Okay. So we're not talking about personal revenge in this case and capital punishment or in any capital punishment case. It's not about that. It's about civil justice being authorized by God and by scripture to to deal justly to exact justice upon the criminal of the crime. Scripture recognizes crimes worthy of death. There's many of them, several. In the book of Acts, Paul says this in Acts 25 -11, if I am an offender or have committed anything deserving of death, I should die. I do not object to dying. This is Paul saying, look, if I did something that's worthy of that or deserving of it, then I should die. Paul's argument was not that capital punishment was inherently wrong. His argument was that he was innocent of the charges. But he was using that as case precedent, right? And then here's another

39:21 one. Biblical justice demands a very high standard. The Old Testament required witnesses, evidence, and distinctions between murder and accidental death. So there's an issue there. So if government has the authority to take a life, it also bears an enormous responsibility to get the judgment right. So there's that plays in. But how does this work when we shouldn't be electing our politicians based upon their faith? Right. You see where I'm coming from? Oh, I do. Which is why we were told that this grand experiment called the United States would not work unless you had a religious and moral people. Yes. That's right. Right. So let's go back to the beginning, right? Capital punishment should never be about rage, revenge, politics, or mob justice. So, that's it. That's forbidden by God. So, here's a simple summary.

40:10 My position is that capital punishment can be defended biblically as a legitimate function of civil government, especially in cases of intentional murder, which we already have admission, proof, everything. But the biblical argument is rooted in the value of human life, not vengeance, okay? Christians can support justice, demand due process, and at the same time, pray for the repentance and salvation of the guilty person. Now, this is where we come in, where we say, okay, civil government has already said that there are crimes that are worthy of death. A crime worthy of death has been committed, it has been admitted to, it has been proven, due process has happened.

40:51 And now 30 years later, we're talking about it. But it's not about vengeance, it's about, for us, praying for that life of that person. I mean, I pray for evil people all the time. This is what we do as Christians because ultimately our goal isn't punishment, it is redemption. We want to see people redeemed. Now, there are natural logical consequences to the things we do. There are civic consequences to the things we do. There are spiritual consequences to the things we do. And you've got to parse those out. And so at the end of the day, we can support justice. demand due process, and at the same time, pray for repentance and salvation of the guilty person. Justice and mercy are not opposites. Got to realize that.

41:41 Mercy works because of justice. Mercy is not a free pass. It works because justice exists and it's needed. And at the cross, we see both punishment of sin, capital punishment, and mercy. So, the shortcut for people is God gives those decisions and power to government, and we pray that we elect the right governing leaders who we were supposed to pray for anyway, no matter who we elected, or if someone is elected who we didn't vote for, that is continuously our duty. See, that's, I think, the step that people don't realize. They don't because we see things on such a just face value. We don't think about what's behind that thought, what's behind that action. That's why a biblical worldview is so important to understand is that God set up governments.

42:41 God ordained family. He ordained government. He ordained these things. So they're there. And in Romans chapter 13, it tells us straight up, they are there to execute judgment. on evildoers, but also to bless those who aren't, those who do right. So it's there to bless and to exact punishment. And I'm not even sure that this was a botched thing, to be honest about it, brother. Really? I'm not sure what the circumstances. Canada has no problem. If you want to die, they'll kill you in one minute and 30 seconds. They have, it seems to work all the time with their assisted death program. So what are you thinking? I mean, what do you? Midterms. I don't put anything past the enemy brother. I don't put anything past these people. This could have been a complete intentional. Very possible. I mean, why didn't it work? That's just weird. Is she? Well, I'm hearing all these like, oh, your platelets. Is she debilitated now? I mean, no, no, she's now speaking. Wow. She's she's come back. So now we give her a free pass. Well, tell me. Pastor, I don't think we should. The conviction was in.

43:51 This is going to be the next question. Well, if she survived it, shouldn't she live? Is there a law? Is there precedent on this? This is government decisions. This has happened in the past, yeah. And typically they execute the prisoner afterwards. That's the precedent for it. So people are all compassionate because it didn't take this cruel and unusual punishment, which is an issue. And that's why we didn't hear the actual crime. Thank you for that, because that actually informs even the way I see this thing. Now, I felt compassion just because, yeah, I'd rather just be done. I mean, I hate that she had to go through all that and not die. That's weird. I've never heard of this happening before. No, it's happened several times. Wow. Yeah. This is new to me. And then the sentence was carried out. Yeah. Okay. So there's precedent. There's precedent for it.

44:43 But that's why I don't trust this reporting because we didn't hear the original reporting from 30 years ago. This is a heinous crime. And then like, look, I got a piece of the skull showing it to the students the next day. Come on now. Anyway. No, that's good. Good boy. But I hope that helps people from a biblical perspective see that, yeah, God exacts punishment. He inacts justice. And then He puts that in the civics realm, the government realm, which He ordained. And so, yeah, there's justifiable. And I'm pretty sure it's meant to confuse people. The way this reporting is done is to scramble your brains.

45:27 And it's a weird bridge to make, but not only your message on Sunday, but Pastor Russ '… I mean, he was doing the communion, which is typically… you know, you set it up, you talk about the blood of Christ, the body of Christ. It's a lead into our donation segment. But he stood up there and he had the podium and he had the lectern and everything, and he just like put into such simple terms as like an opening act for your message about the lies that we tell ourselves. And this comes back to your four Rs, which a lot of people responded to from the last episode. We have to Talk about that again. Yeah. Yeah. Let's unpack some of that. Well, first of all, what are the four Rs and why are they even this? Why would people even be interested in them? So let me just read them to you straight up. Four Rs. One is recognize what? You're recognizing the lies that come. Love the way John Eldridge puts it when he talks about how things come to us. Lies come to us. False things come to us. False thoughts.

46:40 unhealthy, wrong thinking, all that stuff that the mind war that we have. I'm no good. I'm ugly. I'm a loser. It's never going to work out. I'm not going to happen. I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. Yep. Yep. I'm never going to make it. Never going to move forward in my career. All of that. And man, it gets more, it gets uglier than that if, and anyone who's looked in the mirror can tell you that they've got their own mind wars going. So, but how do you combat that? And first of all, do you recognize this might not be me thinking this? That's what I like so much about this. That's what's critical. Eldridge, we showed a clip from John Eldridge where he made this comment. He said, in fact, we played on last program. This is very good.

47:21 This clip's good. It's a good setup for helping people understand the four Rs. It's a podcast by Ryan. I got it. I got it. I got it. Yeah, this is good. It took me a second. What is your prescription for taking inventory of agreements? Because it sounds like this is not like, oh, I... I was open to agreements at one point. It sounds like our entire lives, we are constantly, you know, at risk of accepting these things because it's being dark, it's 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. OK, let's first come 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 surrounded by war. 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...

48:36 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. You mean, it's not all me? No, it's not. You have an enemy. But pay attention, but particularly notice, I'm gonna 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 look in the mirror and just go, you're such an, you know, and I. expletives, or you're just so ugly, I can't believe you, or even self -hatred.

49:35 I hate you. I just hate you. 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. You can test anything by this. Is the fruit love, joy, peace? I just want to stop there. That's so good. The fruit itself, is that literally the nine? Yes, fruit of the Spirit. So it's love, joy, peace, goodness, godliness, kindness, faithfulness. You're close. Patience and self -control. I have nine. They may not be the right nine. Yeah, yeah. Godliness isn't in there. Goodness is, though. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self -control. So those are the nine fruit of the Spirit, not of the flesh, of the Spirit.

50:23 OK, let's continue because he only he did like a couple there like, hold on a second. I got to get them all fruit. OK, 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? So if it's not one of those nine, or let me, I guess, self -control, I mean, I don't know if you look in the mirror and you have self -control, but if it doesn't fit in any of those nine, then it's definitely not from me. Well, actually it could be, because we can also disparage ourselves, but realize there's a higher influence going on, and that's the liar. The Bible says, Jesus was very clear in John chapter 8 that the devil, he's talking to the Pharisee, the religious rulers, and he's really reaming them out. He's saying, you are of your father, the devil. And then he says who the devil was. He was a murderer from the beginning. a liar and the father of it. I mean, that's how Jesus describes the devil. A murderer from the beginning, a liar and the father of it, of what lies? The father of lies. That's why you hear people say, oh, the devil is the father of lies. That's his nature. That's his character. So that's how he responds to everything.

51:50 So when things are coming into your mind, it may be you, because we can disparage ourselves. We can talk bad about ourselves. But he's saying, look at the fruit. If what's coming into your mind is goodness, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, love, if it's that, oh yeah, man, that's good, that's God. But if it's anything else, like he said, disparaging, despair, fear, anxiety, all those things, sometimes it's us. But more often than not, it's demonic in nature.

52:32 And this is truly where it came down for me. It's like if there's evil in the world, there has to be good. I started with the evil part. But the spiritual warfare is what is real. There is a real devil. There is a real Satan. And I just need to say it out loud so people can hear me say it. There's a real Satan. There's a real God. There's an unseen realm. That was what Michael Heiser called it, the unseen realm. And then Dr. Jack Taylor later years before that even said in his great book called The Hallelujah Factor, he said this, he said, the spiritual realm, the unseen realm is actually more real than this realm. We're stuck. I mean, we're so limited here, right? With matter, gravity, force.

53:23 We're stuck. We're very trapped in a very real way. But in the spiritual realm, there's complete freedom and it's a whole other world, another realm. It's called the kingdom of God and it's different. And in that realm, there's not that limitation. It's actually more real than what we're living in now because we live in a fallen world. We live in a bad copy of what it was supposed to be, like a fax of a fax of a fax. After a few of those, you can't read anything, right? And so that's what he's talking about. So the enemy traffics in both the natural realm and the supernatural realm. And boy, can he ever whisper things into your mind, whisper things.

54:11 You're no good. You're not going to make it. You're a loser. Okay, so we got recognized. So that's probably the hardest part. First one, recognize the lie. In fact, you can literally pray. I like to clarify right here. What am I believing that contradicts God's Word? So if you're hearing, you're not going to make it. Nobody loves you. What am I believing about that that contradicts God's Word? We got to know God's Word. And here's the key. This is why biblical illiteracy is so dangerous. Because you have to work the Word. The Word works, but you have to know how to work it. And if you don't know the Word, you can't work it. And if you can't work it, you're in trouble. You won't be able to discern a lie from the truth. It goes way back there. So recognize the lives. And once you recognize, and I always ask this question, Jesus, is this true? Yeah. Is this true about me? Am I what this voice in my head is saying I am? And I'll 99, I have a hundred times, oh no, oh no. Now I don't hear a voice. He didn't talk to me that way. He'll show me something in the word of the scripture or I'll remember a scripture. He says, wait, the Bible says I'm his beloved. The Bible says I'm above only, not beneath. The Bible says I'm his son. Son of a

55:42 king. Yeah, wow. The Bible says I've been adopted by him. The Bible says I am above reproach. Colossians 1 .22. I'm afraid to quote scriptures because your boss is going to correct me all day long. That was hilarious last time. Anyway, I digress on that. You go back to God's Word. So recognize the lie. What am I believing that contradicts? That's number one. Number two, now you've got to do something with that. What do you do? You renounce it. To renounce means to formally disagree, to formally disengage. It means to push back. It means to reject. Casting it away. It is pushing it back. You're pushing it back. You're pushing it back saying, oh no, so renounce your agreement with it in a simple way to do that in words This is this will help anybody. This is how I do it in Jesus name. I reject and renounce that lie And sometimes I'll just say what the lie is I read I renounce and reject that lie that says I am not blank blank I just want to give you some data just to back up the the the recognize Queen's University in Canada, we have about six thoughts a minute, about 8 ,640 a day. Up to 80 % of daily thoughts are negative. 95 % are repetitive. It's the brain's negativity bias.

57:07 So we have about a little under 7 ,000 negative thoughts during the day versus 1 ,700. That is very telling. Boy, I mean to have scientific study behind that. But what it also reminds me of is why we need to know the Bible. That's why we've got to get familiar with the Scriptures, because that way we've got something to combat that with. The Bible tells me this. It says, I have the mind of Christ. So if if my natural mind is getting bombarded with all this and getting assaulted with all this negativity By the way happens all I mean think about seven hours a day being on social media you're getting assaulted all the time constantly and Yet if I know the truth and the truth tells me I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus I have the mind of Christ I don't have a spirit of fear but of power love and of a sound mind the ability to think well Then I'm gonna engage that how do you do that by faith? I just say it, Lord, by faith, I engage the mind of Christ. Thank you for giving me the mind. Thank you, Lord, for giving me a sound mind and the ability to think well. And so Lord, with that, in Jesus' name, I reject and renounce that. That is a lie. That is not the truth. And I don't have to keep it. Another principle of that is found in 2 Corinthians, where it talks about, in chapter 10, it talks about taking every thought captive and submitting it to Christ, making it obedient to Christ. So, there's scripture that backs every one of these. So, recognize the lie, renounce your agreement with it. What

58:38 is an agreement? That's when a lie comes to you and you say, yeah, that's true. Or you do something and you go, I'm so stupid. I remember there was a line, Kersi Alley used to say it on Cheers all time. She said, I'm just too stupid to live. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she said all the time. I remember thinking, Oh, that even before I was a Christian and I saw that it made me, I didn't feel good about that. I was like, that's a horrible thing to say about yourself. And she said over and over and over and over and her life did not go well. I'm not saying that's the only reason. So when you're looking at Instagram, you're seeing beautiful influencers with filters, et cetera. I mean, it's very normal to think, Oh, especially for young women. I'm never going to look like that. I don't look like that. I'm no good like that. I mean, think about how destructive that is from literally this for our sequence.

59:31 It's brutal. And so you renounce your agreement with it. Because when we make an agreement, it's like we're shaking hands with the devil. We're shaking hands with something that's bringing something horrible to us. And we're going, yeah, I agree with that. I mean, it sounds absurd, but we do it automatic pilot. Sure. We don't picture ourselves. Just picture yourself shaking hands with the devil. That might help. Ouch. Disparage that a little bit. His hand's a little hot. It's pointy. It's pointy fingernails. So renounce your agreement with it. Then number three, then third R is replace. What do you replace it with? Truth. Scripture. Right. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth. So you replace it with the truth. And this is where you've got to know, and it doesn't mean you got to memorize the Bible.

1:00:15 You just got to know where to go. That's your reference point. So it's like I don't need to know how a computer works. I just need to know how to access things to make it work for me, right? Scripture. I don't have to memorize the whole Bible, but I need to get familiar with it and put some markers, put some Post -It notes somewhere so that when these things come to me, I can replace it with the truth. Can you give them some examples? Yeah, Colossians 1 .22. I mean, if I make an agreement that I'm worthless and I'm no good, that I'm condemned, I can say, no, the Bible says that I've been made the righteous of God in Christ Jesus, Colossal 1 .22, I am holy, blameless, and above reproach. That's what the scripture says. It literally says it. You're holy, blameless, and above reproach in His sight.

1:00:59 But you know, you can't take the Bible literally. Even my priest friend said that. Sorry. A little call back to the West Wing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what I was like to hear Alan Ola saying that. So you take the scripture and you repeat it to yourself, say it, replace the lie with truth. So, you know, when you disagree, when you renounce something, you know how to fill up and replace the space that took up in your brain. Wouldn't it be great if you're reading something, you're seeing a picture on social media and you think, oh man, I'm never going to look like that, that your computer recognized that and just popped up and said, what are you talking about? That's not true. Here's the truth. Here's the truth. Wouldn't that be great? Oh, that'd be awesome. But you know what? You can train your mind to do this. Boy, the thing about neuroplasticity, right? I mean, we can train.

1:01:47 God wired our brain to be trained, and we can train it in positive ways, just like it's already trained in negative ways. So we replace it with scripture. We say, oh, this is the truth. And I'll even say things like, okay, devil, let me tell you. First of all, you're reminding me of my past and what a mess up I was. Let me remind you of your future. You're bound for a lake of fire. You're going to be bound, gone, and you think you're going to rule in rain down there? No, you'll be a slave just like everybody else. So I'll get sassy sometimes, but that helps me be stronger with what I'm saying. And then I'll just remind him of my future. Right. I've been raised up seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. My gosh. Far above all principality, power, might, dominion. That's Ephesians 2. Yeah, all because I've memorized this stuff. I have the ability to use it. You've got a toolkit. A toolkit, exactly. But if it's not memorized, you can write it down. You can print it off. You can have it in front of you. You can have it on your phone on a note. You know, what do I do? What does the Bible say about me? Number four, resist.

1:02:51 So, recognize the lie, renounce your agreement, replace it with Scripture. Number four, resist. Now, what does that mean? And why is that even in there? What's based out of Ephesians chapter six, James, where it says, resist the devil, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. So, I don't have that right in front of me, but it is in the book of James. And so, taking that, we resist when the lie returns because the enemy doesn't give up that easy. He'll after a period I had a guy come up to me in church Between during the meetup and he came came to me goes passion me. I had to tell you something happened It's interesting you're preaching on this because this last week There was a thing in my life that happened years ago and it was a it was a repetitive thing And I got past it.

1:03:39 It's gone. I mean I dealt with this years ago Just this week it revisited me and I had to fight it as hard as when I fought it the first time. He said, what is that? And I said, that's you having to resist. I said, that's what scripture tells us to do. We resist. I said, because the enemy can't handle that. Well, and he catches you off guard. He catches you comfortable, catches you with your guard down, catches you in a vulnerable moment or in an emotional moment. We usually do a lot of bad things when we're emotionally spun up. That's why you and I are always trying to spin people down, right? We make terrible decisions when we're spun up. And so the enemy always tries to come back and re -present things to you. And you have to say, no, no, no, no.

1:04:26 No, that's dealt with. Not today, Satan. Take a hike. So resist. And Ephesians 6 .13 says this, having done all, stand firm. And then it says, having done all to stand. It says, stand therefore. And Nathan talks about putting on the full armor of God. Yeah, that's that passage. So there it is, recognize the lie, renounce your agreement with it, replace it with Scripture, resist when the lie returns. That is so good. Boom shakalaka. Not just I, but Tina, and I saw other people walking out lighter on Sunday than when they came in. I got people emailing me from around the world. This was amazing. I didn't really understand. I didn't have the formula. I didn't have the formula. And now I have it. Sometimes we just need a little help, right? Just something.

1:05:17 I'm that way. I like to have something in front of me that helps me walk through something. Annette and I, we read our prayers. We read them out of a little book called, Prayers That Avail Much. And it's by Jermaine Copeland. And it's a lady, she had a prayer group, and they started writing down scriptures in prayer form. And then they began to put them under topics. Oh, yes, I know this. Of course we do. We do that every night. I read about Israel last night because today is October 7th. That's right. Three -year anniversary of horrific evil that was perpetuated against those precious people. 1 ,200 plus lost, 200 plus taken away. And so we prayed for Israel last night. We prayed the peace of Jerusalem, but there was also a prayer in this book. So sometimes we use something that's already written down that that helps us walk through these things.

1:06:12 What's the name of that book again? Prayers That Avail Much by Jermaine Copeland. That'll be in the show notes. That's an excellent resource. You can go to the contents and it lists the prayers by topics. Right. Yes. We got this a long time. It's time to bring that one back out. We do that every night. There's a prayer for going to sleep. I'll pray that prayer over us. It's all from Scripture. So you're basically praying the Bible, and you're putting it in prayer form, and they do it for you. So it's very helpful. So they're using the Scripture in the prayer itself. Yes. Oh, that's so cool. That's excellent. Yeah. Every night. I don't get much farther than, you know, like, your will be done. Okay, I snuck in some Scripture. See what I did there? Hey, but that's good. You're starting. Well, I hope these four hours will help people because it does give you a tool for fighting the mind war. that's coming against you. We have some clips here. Do any of these fit in at this point? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and do a Pakluta on, why don't you do the one on salt, light, gospel, and Amsterdam?

1:07:17 Yeah. I want you to speak to this. I will. That's why I captured this. I will. I'm like, this experiment has played out right in front of us all the time. Just open our eyes and use logic. God is amazing. I mean, you can, you know, Jesus said we're salt and light. Where Christian values are lived out, society has thrived. That's right. There was the chief bureau for, man, what was it? It was in Beijing. They studied the success of the West. And they said, at first we thought it was your economy, and then we thought it was your military. And we've actually found out it's your religion.

1:07:59 And where missionaries have gone over here, opium, has declined, opium usage has decreased, and the people had more money. They were wealthier. And it's not the prosperity gospel, it just turns out, hey, you use less opium, you have more money, you know? And they were saying, hey, this is actually what has caused the success of America. It's your Christian values. You move away from those Christian values, you're going to see decline. Where, you know, in Amsterdam, there was what was called the Golden Era. It was known for these beautiful cathedrals, like beautiful church buildings where people would go to worship God. Now, Amsterdam is known for secularism and sex trade, and a lot of those cathedrals are now skate parks and museums. It's even worse than that. They are WeWork, offices, office buildings. But we just had some... Some people come over for dinner last week, and he's Dutch. He's Dieterich. He wrote the screenplay for Young Washington, his wife Kelly, and she is the CEO of Wonder Project.

1:09:12 So we met on an airplane. We've always been wanting to get together. We had a wonderful evening. Great movie by the way. Yes, it's a good one and did very well. And, you know, so we were a lot of talk about faith and Dieter was actually a pastor's kid, but just before he was born, his dad and his mom went complete 1960s hippie nuts and completely, you know, just he went to protests and demonstrations and, you know, sleeping in the tent in the Volkswagen van. But he really came to his faith when he was back in America or when he came to America and he became a citizen, but he said, Even having faith at any point in and he's a little bit younger than I am not much In the Netherlands was a shoot, you know, it's like you're a weirdo. That's really Strange.

1:10:07 What are you talking about? And what and that is still this way unless It's Islam Then it's groovy fantastic and awesome. That is what and it's not just Amsterdam. It is all of the Netherlands. It is a large portion of France, of Germany, of Scandinavia. I fear it may be irreversible. And so what you're seeing now, and I see this with many younger people who I know, my daughter lives there, my granddaughter lives there, is people are moving towards a spiritual thinking, but it's about, and you actually mentioned this specifically, manifesting. Intentions. Intentions.

1:10:59 I think people have moved beyond the crystals and the singing bowls a little bit, but tarot cards are still there, astrology is still there, so that's people who are... searching, but they're afraid, Jimmy, they're afraid to even use the word God. And I know, because we did this silly reality show, which is more situated around my daughter and the baby, and Tina and I were a part of that, and I'm like, we're gonna pray at dinner, and I could see the, because there's a company producing this, they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's zoom in. You know, they're praying. And we are holding on to Christina's belly, praying over the baby. And of course, I know how these things work. And I wanted to make sure that there was some good promotion for Jesus and for the show. And so we made sure that we cut that with Adam and all of his guns shooting whiskey bottles. And so it froze people's brains. Like, how can you be a Jesus lover and light guns. You know, I knew that would happen, but what it brought is it brought, this guy's not ashamed of his faith, nor is his wife, and his daughter seems to tolerate it okay. And that was my personal mission. I really wanted that to take place. And I've gotten a lot of feedback

1:12:29 from that. People saying, hey, that was really great. Now I feel like I can talk about it. This decloaking is where we need to go, man. People are afraid. Be bold. Be bold. Everybody else is. Why can't we? Yes. It's so easy to go along to get along. Nobody's doing that anymore anywhere. That's old news anyway. Jesus is trending. Go look at your timeline. Come on. I'm telling you. Get strong. Get bold. Don't be ashamed of the gospel. De -cloak already. Be strong. Yes, de -cloak. Yeah, that's good. Well, I appreciate Jonathan Percluta. He's a evangelist. He does this thing called the porch. It's connected with Baylor University in Waco, Texas. They have thousands of young people, college students come to these services. He preaches and teaches there, but he's also part of the Unite US revival movement.

1:13:19 Oh, the Go Around All the Colleges? Yeah, he's done hundreds of those. I mean, he's on all those campuses. So he's that guy. But I have another quote by him I'd like for you to play. And it's on his, this is Switching Gears, but this is so important. I'm trying to give our listeners, a picture of Christianity just from different angles. So this is a guy who preaches and teaches. He's teaching at a school, a seminary, for Christian students getting ready for ministry. He decides, I'm going to confess something that happened in the hotel last night before I preach. There is times I still have to confess before a sermon, hey, I did something last night that I would ask you not to do. And to be clear, to remove any mystery, what I mean by that is like, hey, I slowed down on a reel. On Instagram, I was looking and something caught my eye and I looked lustfully at an image and I want to confess that because I... don't want to hide it. You know, what you hide will take you out. That's what you said, obviously, 10 plus years ago. That's right. I remember. And I'll tell you another part of that story is then a seminary had asked me to come and speak on how to reach the next generation. And I told that story because the punchline is that night, it didn't have anything to do with the sermon. I prayed and then I preached a sermon that had nothing to do with that. And then that night was the longest line, and the security had to shut us down because at 11 p .m., we were still there meeting with people and nobody wanted to talk about the sermon. They were like, hey, I'm struggling too. Hey, how do I get free? How do I find free? I'm struggling.

1:14:51 Me too, me too. And so I was like, had those conversations. And so I said that at a seminary who asked me how to reach the next generation. I said, they want somebody that's going to be real with them. And the feedback I got afterwards, because they filled out comment cards, was like, hey, how dare you? use the word pornography in a mixed gendered audience, and you have to present to be holy. I remember one said, you have to present to be holy. And I was reading these comic cards, and I just started weeping, like weeping hysterically, because I was like, they'll never reach them. Who said this? It was people who were preparing to be pastors, and they were at the seminary, and they wanted me to talk about, train them on how to reach the next generation. And they were saying, hey, you need to present to be holy. I was like, you're never going to reach the next generation. So, who were the people who were lined up that were just students? They were students, because it was a seminary, so they were students from all kinds of disciplines like psychology students. It's not just ministry.

1:15:46 It's various things. And so they were all being touched saying, wow, this is my… They were like, I need to talk about this. So much so that at 11 o 'clock they had to close the place down. all the proper students becoming pastors and ministers. How dare you do this? You've got to present holy. Wow. Yeah. Wow. That's the problem. And see, that is why the church made itself irrelevant to the world, because we quit talking about what was really going on. And now, of course, all that's getting blown up. So it's kind of like Netanyah, we have a saying, no secrets, no leverage. Yeah. Man, if there's no secrets in our lives, then the enemy has no leverage on us. I think he said it, I hope I can remember how he said it, but he said, what we hide... Will take you out. Will take you out. Yeah. Yeah. What we hide will take us out. Boy, isn't that the truth.

1:16:41 It is so true. I mean, gosh, look at Robert Morris, 30 years later, the secret he kept for 30 years blew his whole ministry and life up. He's out. He had one of the largest churches in America, but it's something he hid. The reason I brought that up is I appreciated Jonathan's honesty and transparency. We need more of that in the church where people will just say, man, I had a bad day. I had a bad night. I messed up. I made a mistake, but here's the deal. But because I outed that, there's grace. God's grace is sufficient. It's enough. It's interesting because on Sundays, everyone's like, hey, how you doing? I'm great. I'm great. How you doing? Oh, fantastic. Everyone's great. But then you go to men's ministry and it gets real. I'm like, okay, man, here's what I'm struggling with. Here's what I'm dealing with right now. Different atmosphere. And it's kind of crazy. By design, we designed the men's ministry to create safe spaces because you do need a place. You need a place to live up in a down world. high -five each other. But you also need a place to get real, and that's what that's for, by design. A couple of quick pieces of feedback. Justin says, thank you for the podcast, the commentary on culture and media, something vital that the church needs to engage in more.

1:17:58 I'm not sure if you've heard of the new faith -based film that was released, Beyond Belief, set in the 1980s about a teen who forms a Christian garage band. Have you heard about this one? Yeah, yeah. It has to do with the band Petra. Oh, is that Petra? Well, he wanted to become a part of the band, Petra. So it's not their story. Totally. Oh, okay. Part of it. Streaming now is that I don't know but I want to see it because I didn't see a trailer for it. Yeah, excellent That's what I want to see Marion Marion passage of me now and thank you for yet another fantastic episode I'm excited to dive into wild at heart as it sounds incredibly enlightening. Yes, so I wrote her back and said it's a dude book I said, but there's a female version called captivated that Stacey Stacey Eldred Rote, his wife. Oh, okay. And Annette's read that, loved it. So, it's the counter. It's the other side. Connie from the Netherlands. Adam and Pastor Jimmy, thank you for your show. And I love it. I love that the Bible verses are mentioned. We also put them in the show notes at WGTDT .com. I am Dutch, so I don't always recognize them, but I can look them up in my Bible. God bless you, Connie. Beautiful. Beautiful, Connie. And that's why we're putting them on there. Yes. That's why we do it. And I guess, yeah, now we need to thank some people who have supported us, value for value, as that is the engine that drives us, besides Jesus, obviously, wgtdtdonations .com. While it's still relatively few, that means that we can thank everybody personally, and it's

1:19:29 a joy to do that. I'll kick it off with Marco Mack, who comes in with $88 .88. We really appreciate that. That's great encouragement. says, thank you, Adam and Pastor Jimmy, for being there. I look forward to connecting with you in Fredericksburg on October 17th at the meetup. Unfortunately, you and Damon will not be there because you're going to a funeral. We'll be at a funeral in Nashville. But I will be there, and I'm pretty sure Tina the Keeper will join me. And he will be extending his stay so we can join our 9 a .m. Sunday service. Cool. Jill Price. Also, 8888. Jimmy, you want to take that one? Yeah, yeah. McKinney Texas, yay. And hope she's holding it down for Christianity there. McKinney's on the map right now for some not good reasons with Islam stuff. But in the morning, Adam and Pastor Jimmy, I'm sending a separate note. In the morning, oh, she says it again. I started listening to you after JCD's passing and have tried to go all the way back to the beginning. It has been good for me to hear your insight on what is going on politically. and how to look at it and pray about it from a Christian perspective. I have a massive request. A friend of mine's son, Jack Maloof, needs major prayers. He's a 20 -year -old young man from Austin attending Austin Christian.

1:20:43 He drove into a lake. He dove into a lake in Austin last week. The water was shallow. Oh my gosh. This is bad. He has a spinal cord injury that as of right now has paralyzed all four limbs. their current prayer is for him to be able to breathe on his own. Wow. I'm going to for you the GoFundMe page. But what she's asking for is prayer that even our get -to nation would just take this on as a prayer. So let me get his name again. It's Jack is his name, Maloof, God knows who he is. And this is from Jill Price. So man, just all the army out there, all the nation, let's keep him in prayer. and hold them up and just pray for a breakthrough. So let me pray right now. Father, I lift up Jack Maloof.

1:21:32 Just such a heartbreaking story here and event that has happened. We pray for a breakthrough in his life that you would touch him physically and his family, Lord, and his friends, just the ripple effect of people that have been impacted by this accident. We pray for a breakthrough. Holy Spirit, we ask you to do what only you can do in this situation. she would bring healing where it doesn't seem possible. You'll make a way where there seems to be no way on Jack's behalf. Again, we lift up Jill, their family, his family, and we just put our faith together and ask you, Lord, to do something that's miraculous in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Wow. Dame Teresa Martin. Now, this came in as a check. through the PL box, which you can find at WGTDTdonations .com. 7777, we love this. Dear Adam, Pastor Jimmy, I'm loving WGTDT! It's wonderful to get the media deconstruction from a fully Christian worldview here. God honored throughout, and I come away so encouraged. I still enjoy No Agenda, but this podcast resonates more fully with my soul. Sincerely, Dame Teresa Martin from Camarillo, California.

1:22:41 Just have a PS. Adam, thank you for calming me down about AI. I downloaded the Muse robot thing. Yeah, there you go. Call it the robot. And I've found it a very, very useful tool for my tasks and chores. It frees up my time by working quietly in the background on the mind -numbing busy work in a day. Excellent. It's what it's for. Love hearing that. Man, that's great. Dame Teresa. All right, we got $51 .99 from Ryan Albatron, Albaton, Albritton, Albritton, Albritton, Albritton, and no note. Marian Roman O 'Brien with $50, and oh, there's Ryan again with $50. Oh, another $50. Hey, we'll take it. And now we know where he's from, Greenville, Greenville, North Carolina.

1:23:24 There you go. Justin Zetzer with $50, thank you. From Batavia. That's interesting. I don't have these on my spreadsheet. I've got them on the PDF. Shelley Carpenter from Mooresville, North Carolina. We know Shelley. $30. Thank you, Shelley. I feel it's only fitting to give y 'all instead of Zuckerberg for the news tip. I appreciate that, Shelley. That's cool. Love that. Can you do the rest, brother? Because I don't have the location. Yeah. So, Andrew Bader from Brookheaven, Pennsylvania, 1111. Cool. Fear is not sufficient for salvation. Only faith is. Thank you for trying to encourage believers to not take the bait.

1:24:05 A fearful Christian either isn't or is immature. Sorry. A fearful Christian either isn't or is immature. God has already won. Indeed, brother. John's Creek Studios LLC, no location there, $5 .65. Nicholas Start, no location, $5 .00. Dwayne Spellman Jr., $1 .53, faithful as always. And Michael Mason, $1 .21. He says, this week I would like to donate $1 .21 for Jude 121, NIV. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you eternal life. Have a blessed week." So, I want to get him in the Psalms because there's 150 of those. That would bump up his donation considerably.

1:24:55 Hey, Michael, get into the Psalms, brother. Hey, so appreciate that. I love the correlation with Scripture there. That's cool, Michael. Just messing with you. That's it. Thank you all so much for supporting us. Value for value, time, talent, treasure. The best thing you can do is tell somebody about the podcast. Get them subscribed to it. Go to WGTDT .com. That's where you can subscribe to our sub stack. You don't have to pay for it only if you want to. And we have a donation page, WGTDTdonations .com. Pastor Jimmy, please take us out with a daily grind. All right. Well, this is the daily grind and today's scripture is Matthew chapter 9 verse verses 37 and 38. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. The title of today's Daily Grind is The Gospel Cannot Stay Silent. As it was in Jesus' day, so it is today. The harvest is plentiful.

1:25:54 However, we must have laborers who are willing to freely and readily share their faith. It's not the harvest that's the issue, it's the harvesters. I sense the Lord is imparting the spirit and gift of evangelism to those who are willing to step forward and say, here I am, send me. If the gospel really is good news to you, then step out into the fields and let's bring in the harvest. So for today, look for opportunities to share your good news story today. It doesn't have to be an hour long presentation, simply remind someone that Jesus loves them and has an amazing plan for their life. And here's today's prayer. Father, here I am. Send me into your harvest fields.

1:26:36 I trust you will give me what to say as I step out in faith to share the good news of Jesus. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.