Should Christians PRAY to Saints!? (Pastors REACT To Viral Video) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Refusing to reach out to a band of brothers to help you when you're wounded or you've been captured by the enemy That's not tough. That's stupid We're gonna be reacting to a viral video of a Catholic ceremony with a skull from a saint If sparks are not flying then the iron is not being sharpened There's not ever moments of friction or confrontation then man You're not being sharpened the person that God wants you to be Well, hey live free nation before we jump into the episode this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas But the live free nation is spread all over the country and all around the world So if you've been watching and thinking man, I wish I could be part of something like this We want to invite you to take a simple next step and that is join us for church online Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube Facebook in our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service There are a live host in the chat prayer teams ready to stand with you and people all around the world worshiping together in real time And so whether you're exploring the faith coming back to church or just looking for a place to start Church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now enjoy the podcast Okay, don't know I'm cool to be a psycho show Welcome back to another episode of the live free We're so glad you're here. My name is Carlos and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham This is how we usually start the episode so it just kind of threw me off But we're coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. And today we're gonna have a loaded episode Spicy, we're gonna talk about things Christians should not pray or it is wrong for Christians to pray this We're gonna be reacting to a viral video of a Catholic ceremony with a skull from a saint we apologize in advance father Mike How should Christians think about it We're gonna be asking should Christians pray for vengeance upon our enemies how to find a band of brothers and band of sisters There's we're gonna be addressing the hidden gold in the quote-unquote boring list of names. We run in the Bible That's the thing I'm excited to talk about I'm telling you dude, there's gold in them their hills and it's not just Carlos Paul and me we also have our friend. I was gonna ask you the bear skull Bro, that's a bear what? You got to be on YouTube to see this So over you need to see this

So we walked out of the podcast recording last week and one of it like this is a very like this just tells you What country's Lake Point is there's a guy walking around he goes. Hey, man Free he's like I got a bear skull from this bear. I killed bow hunting So by the way, not just hunting bow hunting guy got a brown bear. Yeah, so Bear with a daggum bow and he's like y'all want it to put on a live free episode and I was like heck. Yeah, brother live free Are we gonna name it? Huh? Are we gonna name? Yeah Hey, so help us name the bear skull if you'll drop potential names in the YouTube comments I don't select the best name for the bear skull. We're gonna pick the winner It's gonna win a hat because we do a weekly giveaway So go on Spotify or YouTube let us know what name you think we should give to our friend you friend over there school now Wait Carlos, but wait do your little spiel and then I'll do the thing. I'm good. Oh, yeah Wait, hold on in addition to everything Pastor Josh is also gonna give us a word on James Tallarico And if we have time or perhaps it might be a separate episode because we're testing this now we're gonna be addressing accusations against Philip Anthony Mitchell on charging money for Podcast tour tickets. Yes, and more than that What I want to do is help disciple people in how to think about public accusations against pastors Because we're all I've been looking for the spot to do this for years There's like there's dynamics that normal people have no idea are involved in that stuff And I just want to like I don't know dude I'm like, let me just pull back the curtain and show people what actually happens with that stuff and It will send a chill down your spine a little bit. I think no wait Carlos before you go any farther Oh, no, so he doesn't know this. Oh boy. Are you ready? Don't pull it up yet. All right, so Carlos You have been telling us, you know these you're a resident Marvel expert So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna play a little game. Oh, you're on YouTube the or Spotify wherever you can watch it I don't even know where they can watch it. So I want you to play along. Okay, Carlos I'm gonna play you a one second clip of a Marvel Marvel movie. Okay one second I'll take it and we're gonna see if Marvel expert Carlos

Can guess the Marvel movie based on a one second clip if you're on YouTube prepare yourself and comment if you're gonna get it Okay, one second. That's all you get And then we're gonna test your Marvel movie acumen. Let's go. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. Let's go. I was not expecting this. Don't play it yet. Drum roll. This is a big deal. Okay. Here we go. Let's see if he can do it. Here we go. I am Iron Man. I mean. Man, that's the toughest one. You're fired if you get this wrong, bro. That was hilarious. That was not expecting, I was not expecting that one. That one is from the movie Iron Man. Yeah. You are correct. I'm probably the only person who thought that was funny. I've been waiting to do that all week. I was expecting like a really difficult one,

but no, I know that one, Pastor Josh. That's good. Cause you were hating on Marvel, like literally like a week ago. It's not my thing. But then I talked to your kids and they said they love Marvel. So I said, man, finally, at least somehow or since appreciate the fine art of Marvel. The fine art. The finer movies. Yes, my seven-year-old who pees in the yard loves Marvel movies. That's fine art. Something I'll have in common. He knows a distinction between heroes and villains and this is a movie about heroes. You play your favorite character though, Doctor Strange. Oh boy, we're going to have to table this conversation. All right, let me do, can I do the James Tallarico thing? So I just want to give listeners a heads up from here. We won't do it every episode, but from here to November, we'll talk a little bit more about the midterms that are coming up. And let me just, some people absolutely hate this. And so let me just explain this.

And I'm just going to tell you our philosophy on this. And if you don't like it, you don't have to listen. So here's the deal. We built a website for this. I'm going to talk about that here in a second. The reason we're going to talk about this frequently is because there is not one square inch of the universe over which Christ does not cry, mine. All of the earth belongs to the Lord and the fullness thereof. And very frankly, we do talk about this and we get, I get, you know, we, I, whoever, we get crushed for it. But the reason that we do it is I'll just say it like this. Politics matter because politics affects policy and policy affects people and people matter to God. So the reason we talk about this stuff is I just want to keep, especially for the dudes that listening, you are determining the societal inheritance that you hand your kids and your grandkids in how you engage in society. You are, you are determining that. So to put this in perspective, and this is the kind of thing that drives me nuts is because like, you might say it like this, Muslims have a plan for how to make the nation Muslim. Marxists have a plan for how to make the nation Marxist, but Christians have no plan for how to influence the nation for Christ.

And if you talk about it, then they're like, ah, we shouldn't get political. It's like, hey bro, if godly people don't, godless people are and will. So yeah, absolutely, man. We step in to that with zero apology or whatever. And to put this in perspective, especially if you're in Texas, there are 16 million Christians in Texas. People are assuming that Texas midterm race will be determined by five percentage points or less. So there are 16 million Christians in Texas. That race will be determined by less than 300,000 votes. So just to put it in perspective, like honestly, if Christians vote, if Christians just do their job, evil loses every time. You know, it's like that. So, and the reason we're doing a podcast is, you know, honestly, I may be naive. I kind of think Live Free Nation can actually influence the dadgum thing. Okay? How many downloads a month are we at? Anybody know? Yeah, no, just overall. Does anybody know? Just on Apple. So just on Apple last month, we had three million downloads on Apple. Total all platforms, okay, like six million.

So, you know, just put that in perspective. Yeah, hey man, I think we can move a dang needle. Yeah, I think so. So let me talk about this real quick. Here's what we're looking at, and I just wanna shoot you real straight where we're at. So this is where we're at right now. This is poly market. These are the poly market odds for the current Texas deal. By the way, it doesn't matter what state you're in, like you need to engage. Like if you're a Christian, like let's do our job. Be salt and light in the world. Where we're at right now is James Tallarico, synagogue of Satan, false prophet James Tallarico. We'll talk about that more here in a second. He's now on poly market, which by the way, that's not a political poll. That's a money poll. That's like a Vegas poll, which is typically more accurate. As of this week, he's projected to win at a 52%. There's at a 52% chance now. I'm just gonna run through this real quick. Honestly, what's interesting watching this is I kind of feel like Satan shifted strategies in the last like five, 10 years. And what I mean is you read the Bible and it talks about false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing. And I think most Christians think about those people

being in pulpits. I honestly think some of what's happened recently is. shifted strategies from, hey, we won't put the false teachers just in pulpits, we'll put them in politics. One, because Christians aren't expecting them there, and two, just be really honest, because pastors have been trained not to go there. So he's like, well, if I move the false teachers into the political realm and pastors have a deal where like, I don't get political, well, great, I can put false teachers over there and they're gonna go unchecked by the pulpits, okay? So like, we're not gonna play that game. So let me just show you something, and again, I just want to show people an example of what I'm talking about. So the Bible talks about—we're gonna show you this video real quick, and this is the kind of thing that just blows my mind. Because, dude, it's a lot—when you look at the polling, it's a lot of like, white Christians that are supporting this guy. So it's like insane, okay? I'm gonna show you why it's insane. So the New Testament talks about wolves in sheep's clothing. What that means is somebody that has a Team Jesus jersey on, but they're actually playing for Team Satan. That's a wolf in sheep's clothing, okay? So here's what you're gonna see it in this clip. It's like, you never get a clip that's so like, wolf in sheep's clothing, mask off, like what you're about to see. This stinking blew my mind. So the sheep's clothing is, hey, I'm a Christian, I act like a Christian. Jesus thing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves. So dude, here's what you're always looking for. You're looking for the person who says they're a Christian, but they always—they hate Christ, they hate Christianity, they hate Christians, and they oppose God's Word. So whenever you find somebody that's like, I'm one of those Christians that hates Christians and tends to hate Christianity, it's like, well, that's wolf in sheep's clothing, okay? So rarely do you get so clear a mask-off example as this. Now I'm gonna stop this a couple times, but I want you to see this. So here we go. So here's what he's doing. He's getting asked by a more progressive news outlet about the concept of having kids read the Bible in schools. So this is quote-unquote, you know, ministry-oriented. James Tallarico

preaches in his quote-unquote church, has been to a quote-unquote seminary, you know, that kind of thing. And they're asking him about this. Now watch what he does here. Now, show this here. One is maybe the most insidious. It was a new state curriculum that would teach Christian Bible stories as historical facts— Pause. So what's really insidious for the Christian guy is they're gonna put Bible readings in schools and teach it as historical fact. This is what's insidious. Now watch what he keeps on saying. Check this out. ...Bible stories as historical fact, as the only truth, to our youngest students, and I mean kindergarten, first graders. Okay, now, so he's saying, so here's what's insidious. We're gonna teach the Bible as historical fact. We're gonna teach it as the only truth. It is. To our youngest students. Glory to God. Okay, now, first of all, it's a little misleading what he's saying. Go ahead and toss that next thing up, the little, yeah, this. So if you actually want to see the proposed Bible reading plan, actually all they're doing is they're trying to put a tiny amount of essentially one Bible reading in every grade. It's literally a few verses in every grade. I wish it was a whole lot more. And they're trying to teach them what the bedrock of American society has been. And they're just being honest. These are the stories that have shaped our society. Go to that next one. You can see here, it's like a kid's book about Noah's Ark. And you'll see it right there, a wordless and deeply detailed children's picture book that recalls a biblical flood. So this is the kind of stuff he's talking about. Now, keep going. Now, why is he saying that reading the Bible in schools is insidious? Watch what he says. These are kids who aren't able to think for themselves yet. Pause. Yes, that's why we need to teach them the Bible. Because if the Word doesn't disciple kids, the world will. I also would just say this, okay? So this is the guy, and I'll get to this in a second, very ardently has supported gender-affirming care. So his whole thing is, we can't expose kids to the Bible because they can't think for themselves, Carlos. But you know what a kid who can't think for themselves can

do? Choose to become a different gender. I'm like, bro, pick a lane! Pick a lane! Alright, now keep going. They haven't formed their own world, and to push propaganda, to push indoctrination on those youngest students is deeply immoral. Okay, there it is. So first of all, it's not indoctrination. There's a difference between indoctrination and teaching good doctrine. That's what forms actual disciples. And then I just want to key in on this, and then I just, again, all I'm trying to do, if you're listening, is I want 0% of Live Free Nation to be the type of people who are easily deceived by false teaching and false teachers. So I just want you to notice this. So what is he saying is quote-unquote deeply immoral? Teaching the Bible. Now, let me just rifle through what are things that he has publicly said would be moral for kids to be exposed to? Let's say, so the Bible, immoral. So what are things that he has publicly said would be immoral? Now I'm gonna rapid fire these, and it's just gonna be like getting waterboarded by the fire of hell, okay? This is what you're gonna get. So number one, here's what you got. He says, I'm co-authoring legislation to explicitly teach DEI in our schools. So number one, DEI policies. That would be very moral to expose kids to. Number two, I won't even read it, it's kind of gross. The glories of gay sex and that your kids can choose their own gender. Those are the actual children's books in the church

that he has been in leadership or preached at before. Number three, what else would be moral? That God approves of your kids being taught transgender ideology. This guy, he tried to block the stoppage of gender reassignment surgeries for minors, puberty blockers for minors, and cross-sex hormones for minors. So that stuff would be very moral to expose kids to. Next thing, you're gonna see right here, what would be very moral is teaching children that the Ten Commandments are hurtful and unloving. This is what his statement was about the concept of the Ten Commandments being posted on Texas classroom walls. That would be hurtful and unloving to people who believe differently. Let's go to the next one. He really, really doesn't like the Bible being taught to children, but you know what he really does like? Trans children, that's what he really, really likes. Love seeing that. Next one, what he would really like people to be exposed to is the highest form of blasphemy, one of them that I've ever seen, that God is non-binary. That would be a really great thing that would be moral. The next one, for children's sports in particular, what would be moral for him is that society should be restructured around the erasure of gender.

You got it right there. What also would be moral, go to the next one, is the concept that there are six genders. There's not two genders, there are six genders. That would be very moral to expose people to. And of course, the one that you're always gonna run into, I can't show the entire clip, I'm just gonna read the bottom. This is from a James Tallarico quote-unquote sermon. Before we go further, I want to acknowledge that our trans community needs abortion care too. I have many questions, I don't want any answers. I have no idea what that even means. So I just wanna point this out. You can't teach the Bible to kids, but we definitely want you to be able to kill them. In fact, just go to that next one, which you got right here. Again, he's going, hey, teaching the Bible would be immoral to kids. What would be moral for kids? Last thing, you can read this article or this letter yourself. He requested that Joe Biden put abortion clinics in every federal courthouse and national park. So essentially, it's like, hey kids, here's a playground and a place where you can feed the ducks and here's where we can snip your spinal cord with sutures. This is what we want. So again, you could go all in this.

If you just zoom out, basically what you see is if it's from Team Satan, he's for it. And if it's from Team Jesus, he's against it. That, my friends, is not a politician. That is a wolf in sheep's clothing who slithered out of the pulpit and into politics. That's what that guy is. Now, here's what I'll say is, again, what you got is these midterm elections they're determined by very small margins. So we're like, actually, instead of just talking about it, we're gonna be about it. So here's what you can do. We actually personally paid to have a website built, the purpose of which is just to remind you to mobilize Christians to do our job in the public square. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna see if Live Free Nation can shift an election, okay? So you can text the word VOTE to the number 20411. That will take you to a website we built that we have been told is the first of its kind, where no matter where you live in the nation, you can just put in your address. No one is capturing your address. We're keeping no information on the back end. You can put in your address, and it will tell you exactly where you vote in whatever county you live in. It will tell you when voting begins,

midterm voting begins, wherever you are. And I think it also tells you, in your state, what you need to bring to be able to vote. So like, doesn't matter where you live, does all that stuff. And then last thing, it's gonna send you one text, to my knowledge, and one only, is it one or two texts? One or two, yeah. Okay, either one or two only, that will just remind you the day of or before midterm voting? Before. The day before midterm voting, wherever you're at, it will just send you one text reminder, like, hey, midterm voting starts tomorrow. So, I don't know, man, we'll see. We'll take a crack at it and see what happens. I'm gonna have fun doing it. Man, that's really helpful, because it is weird for somebody that. claims to be a Christian minister to be, for James Tallarico to be continuously opposing everything that the Bible says. So it's this idea of tolerant about everything except the Bible, affirming of everything except Christianity, and inclusive of everything except Christians, and so that's really helpful for you to share. I think it'd be great, dude.

Yeah, that's awesome. It's gonna be great. It's good. Was there anything else we were gonna celebrate? There's something we were gonna celebrate, right? This last week. We have a lot of people, a lot of new people coming into church this season. A lot of new people. Live Free Nation. People that are finding the church because of the podcast. They're literally like. The stories are incredible. All over the place. It's dumb, dude. It's dumb. I actually won't, I will, details omitted for what will become obvious reasons. Let me tell one story, and then, what are we doing? Are we getting right into the word? We're diving in, bro. We're diving into the word, yeah. I've talked for a long time. I know you've had a 30 second break. It was great. So, dude, so this is gonna blow your mind. And I'll explain more about this as it comes. Guy shows up to one of our campuses, which shall remain nameless. First time ever at Lake Point.

You know what story I'm gonna tell? No. Bro, this is the best ever. It is. I'll just say, one of his children is in a correctional facility, and will probably be in a correctional facility, potentially, for the rest of his or her life. And they started watching Live Free and Lake Point Bible teaching in prison, and let their dad know. And that had never happened before. My kid is watching Bible teaching. And so, this guy stumbles into one of our campuses, this dad that hadn't seen his kid in 18 years, and he says that he came this week because for the first time in his life, he wanted to, quote, attend church with his child for the first time ever. So, he was like, hey, man, my kid is gonna be watching this from a correctional facility. I wanna be in the same service they're watching so that for the first time in my life, I can, quote, unquote, go to church with one of my kids. Bro, I'm like, what in the world? Like, dude, I think I can die and go to heaven now. That's amazing. I got to meet him that day. It was special.

Yeah. That's right, you did get to meet him. Yeah, I got to meet him. It was so special. It's one of those situations where you're like, God, thank you for using us. We ain't this good. We ain't this good. But thank you for using us. Yeah. We literally hear stories, like, literally every single weekend, all across our different campuses. So, again, if you're ever in the DFW area and you've never attended one of our physical locations, we'd love to have you. Also, we try really hard to help people in their discipleship journey. So, people might not know this, but we actually have a daily Bible reading plan available for you as well, plus the weekly sermon, plus the Live Free podcast episode. You can get this in the Lake Point app. So, to download it, you can text the word aptu20411. We just wrapped our week number three of Fight the Good Fight. And so, Pastor Josh, great job with the sermon. Thank you, man. Hey, bro, you're a good preacher. Nah, depends on the week.

You should be a preacher for a living. Depends on the week. Okay. I have a question. Bro, can I tell you something? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. So, this is, Janna, like, every week when I walk off stage after preaching the first service, Janna's always like, that was amazing. She does what you just did. There's this weird thing, dude, and what I've learned is most good preachers have this in them. I never finish a sermon and think that was a good sermon. So, there's a weird thing, dude. Not even after preaching it, like, four times during the weekend? There is, I'd say one out of 20 weeks, I'll finish, like, the fourth sermon and be like, you know what? That last one was pretty good. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. After a lot of tweaking, I'm sure, of, you know, after. Okay, here, hang on. Can we just do a little insider baseball on preaching real quick? So, we didn't plan to talk about this. If we have a full podcast, I'll make this quick. But I think it was Charles Spurgeon, Prince of Preachers, who he said something one time about the,

it may not have been him, about the agony of preaching. And he said the reason that every great preacher finishes sermons and thinks the sermon wasn't good is because he knows what God put in his heart and no human mouth is good enough to express the message that God deposited inside his soul. And so, you do, there's like, after every sermon, honestly, dude, it sucks. It is not a good feeling. After every sermon, you get done, and all I can feel is the gap between what I wish I would have been able to say and what my frail, fallen human mouth was. Dude, you know what it is? It's the preaching expression of, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. Yeah, yeah. Explain what that is, but I don't know. Oh, for the lyric of that great hymn. I'll walk around my neighborhood and sing that one, you know. The, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise. And there's a line in there about when this, what's the hymn, when this poor lisping, stammering, stung. Oh, I'll look it up for you. Yeah, look it up, look it up. Which hymn is that? When this poor. Lisping stammering tongue That's actually a different him

There's a fountain filled with blood. Oh, bro, William Calper Struggle with depression there's Find that lyric. I'm terrified to give you When this poor lisping stammering tongue lie silent in the grave then in a nobler sweeter tongue I'll sing my power to save bro Essentially what he's going as a songwriter is he's gone man I got this dang lispring stammering tongue and I can never I can never Accurately get out the glory that's in my soul And he's and then he says, you know, then when I die and go to heaven I get a perfect tongue And then I'll you know, I'll sing my Savior's praise perfectly That's what that's what you feel every time you don't preach this sermon You just don't courage their stories of Spurgeon where his deacons would have to drag him to the pulpit because he was so dreading to Go out there. Oh, seriously. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Just because it's that kind of a thing where he always felt incapable and unused and unusable and everything So sometimes he was so struggling that they'd have to drag him out there I have money out there, but then afterwards he was still feel inadequate be it man God used him in insane insane ways. And so God's using you to pastor gosh. Thank you. That's right, man That's right. Thank you. People would probably agree in the comments. I can think of some people Strongly agree with that and speaking of your sermon. Hey, I can answer your question. I will allow it What do you make it to the sermon a lot? Okay, I'll just do the best stuff. So first by the way, you're gonna do great. Yeah So first of all, what we did this week is we we preached the phone book section So I cheated I cheated and there was a reason I cheated because you know, and I'll talk about that in a second We skipped to the end of the book and at the end of all the at the end of all Paul's epistles he does that thing where he's like Hey, tell that guy said hey and tell that tell those ladies to quit arguing with each other And tell it tell her household that they're doing awesome And you know and then trophimus is bringing a cloak and you know, he does all that stuff, dude Here's my thing, bro. So these passages what they do is they show you listen, listen, listen all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching

exhortation correcting rebuking and training and righteousness all So it's like so like so what you do is you start reading the phone book versus and you're lying All right, it's like you literally like it's like reading a phone book But if you sit down and like study them listen brothers golden in their hills So I'll give I'll give two examples from other ones and then I'm gonna I'll give you the gold from this one so first of all, and You guys have maybe heard me riff this before but just pretend it's gonna it's gonna be awesome So did me in general we're talking about this on date night last night. So Roman here's I'll give two examples All right about how glorious the phone book passages are. So Romans 16 23. I'm gonna read it There's no way I'll be able to get through it without my a sweating It's one of those verses you're like, I don't even know why I read that, you know, it says Gaius Who is host to me and the whole church greets you? Erastus the city treasurer and then he says I love it so much He says and our brother Cordis greets you You know, I'm going yeah, no bro. Listen you read that and you're like, that's dumb. Why did I even read that? Okay Because the glories in Scripture are greater than you can possibly comprehend That's right. So bro when he says Cordis people don't know this in ancient Rome I just finished listening to like a four-hour Lex Friedman podcast on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire was stinking awesome but they estimate like 60% of the Roman population were slaves and Slaves were considered non-citizens. So bro, if you if if a child was born to a slave in the Roman citizen They wouldn't give them a name They just considered that a slave baby wasn't even worth naming So what they would do is instead of naming the kid they would just give them a number of what birth order they were in So instead of giving you a name, you're not worthy of a name. They just go one two, three four So when you read the name Cordis right here Cordis just means four. Oh, wow. It means four So what this is right here, bro Is this is a little kid who when he was born he was the fourth kid born to some unknown unnamed slave mama

And the entire Roman Empire looked at this little kid and went not even worth naming You know what your name is. All you are is four. That's all you are But it listen, but in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free And God looked at that kid and went You know what this entire empire thinks you weren't even worth naming? You're so valuable to me that I'm gonna make sure for the rest of Christian history, people are gonna be reading Cordus' name and he's gonna be in the word of God for all eternity. Wow, bro. So it's like, bro, there's stuff like that in all the little name sections. I'll do one more. Can I ask you something? Because people will hear this and they'll be like, that's amazing. Pastor Josh, how do you learn that? We get that all the time, by the way. So there's a few ways. Like that one, I heard in a sermon, probably 15, 20 years ago. And that's the kind of thing, when you hear it, you're like, I ain't never forget it. Never. Yeah, I will say, and some people hate this. You'll hear about it in the comment section. I do this every day, every single day.

I did it this morning. I was in Leviticus eight through 10 and there was some stuff I was like, why did Aaron say that? And I'll get on AI and here's what I'll do. I'll say, think like a conservative evangelical Bible scholar. And then I'll literally ask it. I'll be like, hey, what are 20 facts about this passage that most Christians don't know? And I'll say something like, that are historical, that are historical, archeological, cultural, theological, or usually I'll say something like, or interesting connections to other passages of the Bible. And dude, I'll be, now I wait until I'm, now we're talking about how to have a quiet time. I'll wait until I'm doing my devotional reading and it's kind of hit my heart. And then at the end, I'll do that. But let me give you a heads up. You're better off if you can find a good commentary because you cannot trust it. It has frequently given me stuff that I'll double, I double check everything now, actually I'll triple check everything now and it'll give me stuff I'm like, that ain't true. But sometimes, dude, it will, it will. That's helpful. Get a good study Bible, get a good study Bible, ESV and NASB has some great ones.

But then also, yeah, there's lots of good commentaries. Usually it depends on the series, but a great just like standard one is Pillar Commentary. So Pillar has a great set of them, really like good scholarship, but also conservative and readable. So just want to throw that out there. Now I will say, the Pillar Commentary is chat G Paul C intellectual level. Oh now, come on. I need things like the one volume John MacArthur's thing, you know, whatever, so that. Hopefully for a lot of people, Live Free Podcast can be a good starting point. There, that's what we're trying to do. Hey, keep going, man. All right, let me do one more. So here's another, bro, it's these name passages. You're like, are you kidding me? All right, so here's another one. So Romans 16, 13, we're doing our little list of names. And he says this, he says, greet Rufus chosen in the Lord and his mother who's been a mother to me too. And you read that and you're like, Rufus. Why are we talking about Rufus? That's all he says, okay. And you ask the question, why does it say chosen in the Lord? He doesn't say that for any of the other names.

He knows everyone. This thing is awesome, dude. All right, so then you do a little study and you're like, now wait just a second. I've heard the name Rufus before. So then you go over to Mark 15, 21. Jesus is going to the cross and I'm gonna read the verse. Bible nerds, you remember this. Jesus going to the cross and he stumbles, has trouble carrying the cross to Golgotha. And here's what it says. A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Rufus. Interesting. Was passing by on his way in from the country and they forced him to carry the cross. Now, so again, there's levels to this, bro. There's levels to this. So when you, Bible scholars now look at it, all the gospels are written to different audiences. So it's kind of like Fox and MSNBC and then C-SPAN. It's the same news reported from different angles. That's how the gospels are. It's like Manningcast versus Monday Night Football. It's like same thing, different angle is what it's doing. So Mark is like all throughout Mark, they're called Latinisms, where there's little phrases that are like,

oh, that's like a little slang term or that's like a way that somebody would say it in Rome. So basically every Bible scholar is like, oh, Mark was written either in or to Rome. Okay, that gospel, okay. So now you start connecting stuff. Paul's writing the letter to the church where? At Rome, Romans 16, 13. It's like, and he's writing 20 or 30 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. I freaking love the Bible. He has stinking love the Bible. My mom doesn't like it when I say it. So he's 20, 30 years after Jesus, okay? So, and then Mark, the gospel account about Jesus' crucifixion written to Rome. So then you ask the question, why does it not just say, why doesn't it just say Simon? say, why doesn't it say a man named Simon helped Jesus carry the cross? No, no, it says Simon. Oh, but a specific Simon, the Simon from Cyrene. Oh, and he's the one that has two sons, Rufus and Alexander. There's only one reason to do that. He's giving a footnote to everyone who would read the gospel to go, hey, if you don't believe what I'm reading, there's that one guy that's in your church that's around the city still, you can go ask him.

Okay, so dude, then you get to Romans 16, 13 and say, hey, this is 30, 20, 30 years later, greet Rufus. Well, here's what apparently happened is apparently Simon, who helped Jesus carry the cross, he goes on, becomes a follower of Jesus and dude, he bends his knee to Jesus. He has two little boys, Rufus and Alexander. Apparently they become Christians too. Apparently, this is what most Bible scholars think, they become prominent in the Roman church. And so 20, 30 years later, probably after Simon of Cyrene is dead, his boy Rufus is still following Jesus, still a pillar in the church. And Paul's going, tell that brother, I said, hey, and why did he say a brother quote chosen in the Lord? I think what he's doing is he's going, Jesus picked on his way to the cross, he picked that kid's dad, not just because he wanted to save the dad, but because he wanted to save that little boy, Rufus and little Rufus grew up to become big Rufus. And it changed when Simon bent his knee to Jesus, it didn't just change his life, it changed his lineage and his legacy, Rufus. Wow, that's amazing. All these name passages, they're stuff. Now I wanna ask y'all before I get to specifically, second, you guys got any name passage stuff? You guys got anything?

If you don't got anything, you're good. I'm saving mine just because I think you and I might be going for the same one. So I'm gonna save it just in case. You on Demas? What are you doing? I was gonna do Mark, but I'll wait till after you do Demas. You do Mark. Oh, you wanna do Mark? You do Mark and then I'm gonna do Demas. This is in Second Timothy. I'll mention Demas briefly to kind of give context. Before you do it, let me read it. Yeah, read it. Let me read it. So this is the passage we preach. And again, this is the kind of stuff, normal Bible reader just skims it and doesn't think anything important happened. All right, so here it is. Paul says, end of Second Timothy, do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, this is gonna be a big deal here in a second, in love with this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Dalatia, Titus to Dalmatia. He was picking up 101 dogs over there. Luke alone is with me. That's how I gotta get the dad joke. That guy is hilarious.

Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you. This is what you're gonna talk about. And then he says, a little throwaway verse. You don't think it's a big deal. It's a real big deal. Get Mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me in ministry. I'm gonna stop right there. I get teary eyed as well when I think of this. I don't know what it is. It just makes me teary eyed because you got multiple names right there, but three to highlight is you got Demas, you've got Luke, and then you've got Mark. Demas deserts Paul. So it's the story as you'll hit here in a second of abandonment. Luke is a story of loyalty. He's with him to the end. But then Mark is a story of restoration. And the reason I say that is because we also get a snapshot of Mark in the book of Acts. And it's from Acts 1537. Let me read this one for you. Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, but Paul thought best not to take them with him because he had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement

so they separated from each other. So Paul and Barnabas had gone on a missionary journey together. Barnabas really wanted to take Mark. And apparently at some part, Mark had left and deserted them. And Paul, when they were going on another missionary journey, Barnabas was like, hey, I want to take him with me. And Paul's like, no. No, he flaked. He flaked. I'm not taking him with them. He's not reliable. And so it was so much of a disagreement that Barnabas and Paul, they were bros. Like, I mean, they were bros. They had to separate because of it. But then here we are all these decades later and all of a sudden you see Mark's name again. And the point is that at one point there had been a restoration. And Mark at one point, or maybe early on in his discipleship and early on in his walk with Jesus, he had flaked and was unreliable. God had done a work in his life. It made him useful for again, and there'd been restoration. So it's just, I don't know why,

it just, it hits me. It just hits me the fact that, hey, a lot of times when we are discipling people and even looking at times early in my discipleship, be careful not to judge people by early failures or even failures in the middle of their life. God is doing ongoing work. We gotta be so careful to remember that sometimes we catch people in the middle of a transformation journey that Jesus has them on. And if we freeze frame a failure, we're gonna make a decision on their story that Jesus has not made. Bro, bro. We have got to stop freeze framing people's failures and push play and see what God is gonna do in them because God did a work in Mark. So at the end, at the end of Paul's life, Mark was one of the few guys that was. with them and that was useful to them. So just a reminder not to give up on people. Here's what I love about that Mark thing. So two things, one, so when Barnabas goes, hey man, you know, so Mark apparently flakes on the first missionary journey. And Paul's like, hey man, we're not taking along a flaker. Like, you know, Paul's, I'll just say this, and I pointed this out in the sermon, we're gonna talk about the need to have

like a band of brothers around you. And you know, it's like, especially men, that's kind of like, I don't need that, it's kind of weak. Can I just say something to you, bro? You're not tougher than Paul. No. I'm just gonna tell you something, I don't care who you are, if you're listening, we got professional MMA fighters that listen to this podcast. You ain't tougher than Paul. No. You are not tougher than Paul. Paul literally walks 16,000 miles in his lifetime. He shipwrecked three times. He's beaten within an inch of his life five times. He's literally singing hymns in the stocks. You know, it's like a torture mechanism. He's singing hymns, I mean, it's like, you're not tougher than Paul. And Paul was like, you know what I need? I need a band of brothers. But, Paul also was like an alpha, so whenever a guy flaked on his first missionary journey, Paul was like, eh, we're not bringing flakers along, this is big boy stuff. What are you looking at? I thought, life change or something. Is that me? I don't know. That was just the glory of the podcast.

That's right, that's right. It's the gold in the text, bro, it's coming out. I just thought like a life change over here, but no, maybe not, go ahead. All right, so then, so do check this out. Whenever Barnabas and Mark go the different way, bro, that opens up two roster spots for Paul. Oh, good point. Guess who fills the roster spots? Silas and Timothy. Wow. If you had never had the moment where Mark flakes and Barnabas is like, you know what? Sweet little Mark, I'm gonna go with Mark. I wanna keep him encouraged. If you had never had that moment, the roster spots never open up for Paul to pull in Silas and Timothy, his disciples. So one, you better watch it. Anything that happens in your life that feels like a wreck, God can redeem. So God redeems that moment and the breakdown. But the other thing that I love so much is, here's my theory. So I'm gonna read, you can see it right before the verses I read. Paul tells little Tim in verse six, he tells him, the time of my departure has come. So I think, and I'm gonna talk about this here in a second, and I'll make your eyes sweat,

what it would have been like to be Timothy reading this verse. You open the scroll for the first time and you read this, that would have been a moment. I think Paul knows, personally, I think Paul kinda knows, I'm not gonna see any of these people. I really do. So then you have to ask the question, why did he specifically say, hey man, go get Mark, because he's very useful to me in ministry. I honestly think one of the last things Paul wanted to do is make sure that whatever wound had been created by their fallout way back in Acts 15, the last thing Mark ever heard from Paul was, hey brother, hey brother, you got what it takes. You got what it takes. You are very useful to me in ministry. And dude, what that goes back to is whatever men or Satan can wreck in your relationships, God can redeem. Amen. That's amazing. God can redeem. That's amazing. Amen. Oh wait, I got one more. Yeah, let me do Demas. Do Demas.

Not demons, but Demas. Demas, D-E-M-A-S. That's right, not to be confused. Not to be confused. And you do not want this as your baby name. No. I was gonna say it's available. It's available, but not useful. That's right. If you name your kid Demas, you're making a mistake. Okay. All right. Good to know. All right, dude. So let me just set this up. The Demas thing is another one of those things where, bro, it's the gold in the phone book passage you don't know is there. All right, so you just read the passage. It says, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. And you just read it and you're like, okay, why did I even read that? Who cares? Okay. Okay, well, I wanna contrast two people. I wanna contrast Paul and Demas. Okay, and here's what I say. Now, this is gonna make sense here in a second. You just gotta let me set it up.

And if you're a Bible nerd, when I'm done, you're gonna be like, oh, that's amazing. Okay, so first of all, remember what Paul's saying here is he just finished going, you know what I did. Paul goes, hey, here's what I did. I fought the good fight. I finished the race and I kept the faith. By the way, in Latin, in the Latin Vulgate, so Marines, their little motto is Semper Fi. That is short for Semper Fidelis. Guess what that means? It means always faithful. What Paul, in the Latin Vulgate translation of this passage, what Paul says about himself is I stayed faithful. I was always faithful. I was always faithful. saying to Timothy right before he dies. Now remember, this is a fatherless kid, broken home that Paul takes under his wing and goes, I'm gonna make you my spiritual son. Paul is finishing his discipleship of Timothy. Paul knows me, Timothy's functional dad, is about to go to heaven. He's never gonna see me again this side of glory. So the last thing Paul says is, I finished the race. Paul goes, I was always faithful, I was semper fidelis, I finished, okay? So on the one hand, I just want you to think about this. Imagine you're a little Timothy, you open this scroll, or the parchment,

and you're sitting down, and you would have been reading this, and you would have gotten to chapter four, and you wouldn't have known until chapter four that Paul thinks he's gonna die. And then you're a little Timothy who's been discipled, and you get to this verse, and you read the apostle Paul say, I am already being poured out as a drink offering. The time of my departure has come. Fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith. And I'm just telling you two things. One, if you're Timothy, there's tears streaming down your face, because what you just read is, my dad knows he's about to die. But this other thing, I think you would have been, if you're Timothy, is you would have been going, like, you know, kind of like this, like, that's my man, that's my man. Like, laying it out on a table. So Paul finishes well. Here's the contrast I'm making. Now, you read, Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me. Now, again, let's bobble it out for a second. Let's go a layer deeper. For a bobble nerd, you're like, wait, haven't I heard the name Demas before? Ding, ding, ding, yes, you have.

So let me read these other verses to you. You heard Demas' name in Colossians and Philemon. Colossians and Philemon were written before 2 Timothy. So let me read them. Colossians 4.14, which was written during Paul's first Roman imprisonment. He gets out, and then this is the second one. It says this, Luke, the beloved physician, I greet you as does Demas. So apparently Demas is with Paul when he writes Colossians. Second one, Philemon's 124. Same time period. It says, hey, I greet you, da, da, da, da, as and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke. And then he uses this word, my fellow workers. The Greek word is synergos. It's from which we get the English word synergy. So essentially he's going, these are the guys, my inner circle, these are my rider dyes. I got the most synergy with these guys. What you're seeing is Demas started well, and then Demas finished poorly. He did not finish well. So Demas is, here's what I would just say. He is, especially if you're a senior saint, your age starts with a five, six, seven up. Demas is the warning, hey, man, it doesn't matter how you start, matters how you finish, and we need you to finish well. So Demas apparently, that's what this passage,

hey, man, there will be people who start well. They will be with you in Christ Jesus. You're gonna think they're gonna be with you to the end. Heads up, Jesus had a Judas, Paul had a Demas, probably gonna happen to you too. So it's a warning, hey, man, we need you to finish well. Now, can I do one last thing? I wanna kick this back over to Chachi Palsy. So one Bible teacher that in the last two, three years that finished well was John MacArthur. You know, there are things, you know, I'm sure there are things that he'd look at and be like, oh, I wish they'd do that, whatever, that's fine, man. He loved Jesus, I'm all in. I still read the guy. Shortly before he died, John MacArthur wrote a, essentially a farewell letter is what it reads as about Demas. And I did not have time to read it in a sermon, but I would like to read a letter from a man who is in his 80s, urging the saints of God to finish well using this verse from 2 Timothy 4 about Demas. Can I do that? I'm gonna read this. John MacArthur, shortly before he dies, writes this. The title of the letter was just finishing well. And it's gonna take me a second, just hang out, you can see it right here, this is it, when it was published. Just, if you're listening, just let this wash over you

and let it be a charge to give all of your days to Jesus and finish well. Here we go. John writes, sometime before I entered my 80s, I began to realize that I am now in the final chapter of my life, I want to finish well. I have been thinking much about what that means and why it is so important. Scripture and church history are full of tragic examples of men who showed great promise, but they did not finish well. Demas was a fellow laborer with the Apostle Paul. He is mentioned in the penultimate verse in Philemon and in Colossians 4.14. and he served an important strategic distinguished role. But in Paul's final inspired epistle, the apostle mentions Demas in a different light. And here's the scary verse. Demas, having loved this present age, deserted me. Under the threat of persecution and the daily pressure of caring for all the churches, Demas abandoned his calling. Now, this is where if your age starts with a five, six, seven or up, here's where the letter kicks in. There is a very real danger that someone who has lived and served Christ faithfully for most of his life might grow lazy, careless, fatigued or lukewarm in the faith and thus stumble to the finish. We all know of gifted servants of Christ who have fallen into shocking, disqualifying sins,

discredited their testimonies, dishonoring Christ and destroying their ability to finish well. And here is one reason this is such a problem. Listen, listen, living the Christian life faithfully is no more trouble free the older we get. Sanctification doesn't come any more easily with advanced age. The number and intensity of the fiery darts, the power of hell aimed at us does not diminish. The obstacles we face do not get easier to overcome. Furthermore, scripture warns us, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. The apostle Paul, steadfast as he was, was keenly aware of the dangers of falling. He wrote, run in such a way that you may win. I run in such a way as not without aim. I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. I love this so much. Watch what he says here. I want to follow Paul's example. Say, hey, let's Semper Fidelis. At the end of our life, let's be able to say, hey man, I did it. It wasn't easy, I didn't do it perfect, but I was always faithful. I wanna follow Paul's example.

I want every Christian to aim for that incorruptible crown to run, to win, to finish well. And at the end of our lives, we wanna be able to say what Paul said to his son in the faith in 2 Timothy 4. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. And in the future, there is laid up for me that crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day. Those were practically the apostles last recorded words. He closed the epistle with some personal remarks, but this was his final statement of triumph. I have kept the faith. Paul had reached the end of his earthly life and it was an eternally triumphant conclusion. He was standing on the summit of loyalty to his Lord and he was bloody. I love this. He was bloody, but unbowed. There is no higher kind of triumph for any Christian. And this is the last sentence of the letter. And if you are an older saint, if you, and we have people, we get these letters. If you're in hospice care and you're listening to this podcast, if you're somebody's praying grandma or grandpa, that's still a prodigal grandson or granddaughter,

and you've prayed every day for the last 30 years and nothing's still happened, this last thing is for you. My prayer for you, dear reader, is that you too will fight the good fight triumphantly. That you will one day finish the course victoriously and that you will keep the faith semper fidelis, always faithful with unwavering devotion. The end. That's amazing. So good. That's amazing. Well, hey, Liver Nation, if you're ready to go deeper in your faith and build strong biblical community, Rooted is your next step. Rooted is our 10-week discipleship experience designed to help you grow in your relationship with God, understand your purpose, and build meaningful relationships with other believers. And so here's something that you need to know. Rooted is an in-person experience only. It's not available online because so much of what makes Rooted powerful happens when you're sitting around a table, having conversations, praying together, and growing alongside others. So if you live in the DFW area, Dallas-Fort Worth area, we'd love for you to come be a part of our Rooted experience at one of our Lake Point campuses.

And so if you are ready to take that next step, just text the word ROOTED to 20411 to learn more and get connected. And now let's go back to the podcast. Man, speaking of finishing well, what a lot of people probably don't think about is to finish well, you... need Bandit Brothers and Abandoned Sisters. Ain't no other way to do it. And so what we want to do right now is we want to help people get, we want to get practical right now. I read recently in 2024, artificial intelligence most popular use was for gathering information. In 2025 and 2026, it's number one use right now. It's now for therapy and companionship and friendship. Bro, that is not, that is a disaster. Literally more people now are turning to AI for, to fill that void of relationships in their lives. And so now more than ever, again, we just need to help people. Hey, how do we, how do we find Abandoned Brothers? How do I find Abandoned Sisters? Let's get practical right now. What would you guys say? Hey, now that you heard this is important, you preached about it this weekend. What do you do now? Yeah, well, let me just, you know,

let me just start and then I can get over to you, Paul, because I got a couple rightful things. First of all, I just want to point this out again. Man, you ain't tougher than the apostle Paul. You're not tougher than Paul. And so I think what a lot of, especially men, it's like, oh man, showing need, you know, needing, talking about needing Abandoned Brothers, ah, feels kind of weak. And I'll just point this out. The apostle Paul is able to go, do your best to come to me soon. I kind of need you, you know? And so the thing that I would say is that refusing to reach out to Abandoned Brothers to help you when you're wounded or you've been captured by the enemy, that's not tough, that's stupid. That's the big idea. And reaching out doesn't make you weak. That's how you fight the good fight. So man, let me just say a couple very practical things. And then let's talk about it real quick, because this is the most important, arguably, discipleship step anyone will ever take. Number one, I would just say, you never hit a target you didn't draw. So dude, I got this little thing. I heard it from Joby Martin for the first time. There's that story in the Gospels

where the guy's friends, he's on the mat and he's paralyzed and his friends bring him to Jesus. And he's got, here's what you got, is you got four guys around the mat. Then when he was down on the mat, they were like, hey man, you can't walk, but we'll pick you up and we'll drag you where you need to go. What I would say is everyone everywhere, you need four people. Let me just make it practical. Like literally in the sermon, I told everybody, here's your assignment this week. What are your four names? You need four mat carriers who are the four people who when you're going the wrong way or you're wounded and you're not going anyway, who are people who love you and love the Lord enough to be like, Carlos, something ain't right, man. Come get around the fire pit. Let's talk. Hey man, you're not doing this, but you need somebody in your life. Hey, Carlos is not doing this. I'm talking about anybody, but you need somebody who'd be like, hey, Carlos, you're drinking too much, man. Let's talk. You didn't gotta be everybody. You need somebody in your life

and you're like, hey, Paul would never do this, but I'm just saying you need four people in your life who can be like, hey, dude, that way you talked to your wife last time we were hanging out, that's like not how a Christian man does it. Like, can we talk real quick? I'm for you, dude, I'm for you. I just don't want your marriage to get all jacked up. So what I would say is you're never gonna hit a target you didn't draw. Who are your four mat carriers? The most important thing you do this week is you may sit down with a Bible, a pen, and a piece of paper and realize I don't have four mat carriers, so I'm gonna write an aspirational goal. Here are the four names that in six months I wanna be able to go, those are my dudes, that's my ride or die, that's my band of brothers, or my band of sisters, you gotta have that. Now, what I will say, let me just say something real quick and then let's kick it over to you. One thing I did acknowledge, and we just need to acknowledge it, the number of guys that listen to this podcast is very high. So we're one of those weird churches who believe this weird thing that men and women are different.

It's really weird. We believe this real weird thing at Lake Point. Good for you to clarify it. I just wanna get that out there. So I will just point this out. The whole building a band of brothers, band of sisters, there's different obstacles for men and women, and you can get mad at me all you want and get your feelings hurt. That's just how, this is the reality of the world. Let's put on our big boy pants or panties and just, okay, this is how genders work, okay? So let me just kinda say this. You know, whereas where women are generally gonna struggle is women generally will struggle with building, it can almost become like a band of demonic Mac carriers and men can do this too, but it's different, where, you know, women in general will move toward relationships that are only affirmation, never confrontation. That can be a little tougher for different gender reasons. It's like, you know, and live free ladies are not like this. They're women of the word, but you know, you can, there are some women who end up building their entire relational circle with like, I don't go where I'm tolerated. I go where I'm celebrated, slay girl. You know, it's like whatever the, it's all your woke pagan sex. the city, wind down Wednesday friends

who will never tell you you're doing anything wrong. They'll just cheer on everything you do. Well, it's like, hey man, there are people who will affirm you all the way to the destruction of your marriage, your soul, and into hell. So you do, let me just, you do not want, a band of sisters is not a group of people who will just always tell you everything you're doing is amazing and everything you're wearing is wonderful. And no, dude. Yes, queen. Yes, queen. There's a verse in Proverbs, and keep going. There's a verse in Proverbs where it talks about is iron sharpens iron. So one man, or we could say, so one person sharpens another. Well, here's the thing about that. If sparks aren't flying, iron's not being sharpened. Boom. So I'll say it again. If sparks are not flying, then the iron is not being sharpened. So it doesn't mean that every time you gather, that's all you do, because you'll get to the other side. But it is to say, hey, if there's not ever moments of friction or ever moments of confrontation, then man, you're not being sharpened to the person that God wants you to be. Bro, that's fantastic.

Yeah, and we'll get a little more practical here in a sec. The other thing I'd say, because people struggle with this, and it's the most important thing. The other thing I'd say is, man, women, maybe just a little bit, not in general, can struggle a little more with being proactive in building it. So it's like, I hear this a lot. I'll be in the lobby praying with people, and you'll have women who it's like, man, I stood in the corner all week, and nobody came and talked to me, and I was waiting for somebody else to ask. Well, it's like, man, that's probably not gonna happen. You know, it's like- It might, but you know, or maybe not. Yeah, but you gotta, hey, man, you need to own, I'm gonna send the text, I'm gonna make the ask. And women can struggle with that a little more. Now, men will struggle with something different. Men, we all know men and women relate differently. Like, if a man asked me, hey, Josh, do you wanna come over on Thursday night, sit on the couch, look at each other, and talk about our feelings? No, I don't. Not even a little, actually. In fact, red flag. And the fact that you just asked me

makes me wonder about you. I don't know if I trust you anymore. But so, but here's what- Is that why you say no to me when I ask you to come and watch Marvel movies? Is that, is that? No, it's not, dude. I know. That's a joke, by the way. I know, I know. But what men, here's what men will generally do is men will, and this is another little Jobyism. I like this. You gotta ask the question, are my relationship, but here's how men build relationships. Around activities. Yes, yeah. So how men build, it's literally how, like, all of you, it's like how I became friends. It's like, you like to golf? No. You like to fish? No. You like to bowl? No. You like talking about the Bible? Or, you know, you like, you know, you like, whatever the thing is, yes.

Great, we're friends now. I just gotta, I gotta have a thing. Let's build something. Let's build a podcast. It's like, that's how men become friends, okay. So, but what men gotta watch out for is all your relationships are rooted in hobbies and not in Christ. And then, so here's what you got. You got buddies. So I got golfing buddies, you know, or I got fishing buddies or I got hunting buddies. But what you don't got is you don't got a band of brothers where the relationships are rooted around Jesus Christ. So here's, I'll give one practical and then y'all chime in. Let's get practical. It's like the most important thing. Nothing will change your life more than this. That's right. By the way, your family's life and your kids' lives, maybe that's a whole different conversation, but nothing will change it more than this, though. Is, I honestly think if, so I'll go option A, option B. Option A, if you're a dude or you're a lady and you've got buddies that you think might be inclined towards the things of God, the easiest thing is if you can take a group of buddies and turn it into a band of brothers.

So let's say I got golfing buddies or fishing buddies or hunting buddies or whatever the buddies are. If it's the kind of guys like, man, honestly, they all listen to Live Free. And so they kinda do seem to care about the things of God. You can just memorialize like, hey dude, hey guys, what if we did this? Don't wanna be weird about it. And if y'all don't wanna do this, you're not hurting my feelings at all. What if we just all went, hey man, we're listening to it anyway. Let's listen to Live Free. Let's do the little daily Bible reading plan that they got. And then, hey man, just in between a couple holes or maybe on the turn after nine at lunch, let's just all real quick. Hey man, what'd you see in the Word this week? How can I pray for you? We're not gonna be weird and emotional about it. We're just gonna, okay, let's do it. Awesome, man. If you can turn a group of buddies into a band of brothers, that's the easiest. Otherwise, I'm gonna shoot you straight. You just need to change your friends. If you got people who are pointing you away, you need to change your friends. By the way, you need to get enrooted. It's like, that's why we just pushed 4,000 people

or 5,000 people into Rooted. So if you're at Lake Point, I'm just telling you, you're nuts and you don't have any excuse if you didn't get into Rooted. So it's like, you need to text the word Rooted to the number 20411. literally going to hand you a band of brothers or a band of sisters to teach you how to be a disciple. In person experience, that's right. In person experience, that's right. All right, now I got tons, but I've been talking too long. What would y'all say? You got it, you got a few things. I mean, one thing for me, I'm sure we've all lived this, and this is just like one of the, probably one of the most underestimated things you can do to find the right people, not just any person. Man, it's just to pray. If you feel like, man, I've tried before, and it seems a little daunting for me to actually go, you need to do all of that. Plus, just pray. This is my all-time favorite quote from C.S. Lewis on friendships. I'm just gonna read it. This is what C.S. Lewis said. In friendship, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years difference in the dates of our birth and a few more miles between certain houses,

the choice of one school instead of another, any of these changes might have kept these friends apart, but for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. He then says, Christ, who said to the disciples, ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, can truly say to every group of Christian friends, ye have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another. At this feast, it is he who has spread the board, and it is he who has chosen the guests. Bro. So. That's fire. C.S. Lewis could write well. He was a pretty good writer. What looks like a coincidence in your circle, in your band of brothers and your band of sisters, is actually God behind the scenes orchestrating everything. Bro. So you need to be reassured that as you go find the right person or the right group of people, you're praying and you're asking, God, God, would you lead me? He does. And he leads you to the right people at the right time and the right moment and for your good, and like you said,

to change your life and your family and your legacy. Bro, that's fantastic. So pray. Go ahead, what you got? I guess a few things. Number one, and it's really a playoff of something that you said is, be the friend you wish others would be to you. Fact. Be the friend to others that you wish they would be to you. And so it's like, hey, if you just kind of sit back and just wait for people to come to you, it's like, hey, you initiate. You initiate. And listen, if you're new to church or something like that, you're not connected, like we just said, you get into Rooted if you're around Lake Point. If you're part of another local church, man, have them help you get into that community. But then when you're there, be the friend to others that you wish they would be to you. And then with that, contribute before you evaluate. So as you get into a community, so if you don't have it yet, you get it in. Before you evaluate and thinking, oh, is this for me? Not contribute before you evaluate. Because let me just tell you, if you go in there and you're just sitting there and you never say anything,

and then afterwards you're like, well, that was awkward and I didn't enjoy it. Well, I can tell you why. I can tell you why. Because you just sat there and you didn't contribute. So contribute before you evaluate. And then finally, I would just tell people, it's like, man, build rituals. And what I mean is, I don't mean anything fancy. I just mean build routines. Hey, bro, we're not talking about Catholicism yet. That's a joke. We'll get there. We're getting there. We're getting there. Don't build that kind of ritual. Calm down. What I mean is build routines. And so I've just learned that, man, sometimes you do meet a group of friends that you just click immediately. Other times it just takes time. But what happens is if you're like, hey, man, we're just gonna meet every Sunday unless just an emergency happens. And it could be to play around the golf or it could be to get together at a coffee shop, if you're ladies, whatever. Build rituals and then stick to it. And over the long haul, those relationships will click.

I'll just be real with you. And I've told my rooted group this, so this won't be surprising to them. And I did rooted with my wife and we did with some other couples about a year ago. And that first week, I was looking at the group, I'm like, I just don't know that this group is gonna gel. I was leading the group and I was like, I just don't know. But this thing just happened. They're all so weird. That's what you thought? No, I just didn't know. Very different types of people in the group. Wow. That's a joke. I'm kidding, bro. Put stuff in my mouth that I did not say. Go ahead, I'm kidding. No, I was just thinking, they were very different types of people. And I was like, I don't know if they're gonna click and gel together. And then sure enough, those people told their stories. And as we met week after week, and we go further in now, and by the end, we are a band of brothers and sisters. And then now we're an ongoing group and we text each other throughout the week. We've got a couple of this week that's struggling and we're just texting each other back and forth,

just trying to encourage. So what I'm saying is it can take time, keep, build rituals, build routines, stick to it, and you'll be surprised what God can do in you and your group together. That's helpful. Yeah. I got some stuff, but I will let you transition if you have any. Yeah, are we in the next thing? Yep. We're going here, okay. All right, let's talk about this. So first of all, we'll put a pin in that. Hey, again, I just wanna say this, if you're part of Lake Point, you need to text ROOTED2041. Get in your band of brothers, band of sisters. Now, Paul, I want you to talk about this. So a lot of people read passages like this. So here's where we're gonna talk about things it is actually forbidden for Christians to pray. Yes. I'll deal with that. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Paul, are forbidden for a Christian to pray because people read passages like this, and honestly, Paul feels a little savage. He specifically says, which verse is it? 14.

Yeah, 14. He says about Alexander the coppersmith, May the Lord repay him according to his deeds." In other words, sick him, Jesus. Get him, Lord. Get him, Lord. So, honestly, let's talk about this, and this kind of dovetails into like a megaviral thing that became just a smidge of a debate between Protestants and Catholics. This is Week Online. Paul, talk to us about things Christians should not never pray. Things we shouldn't pray. I'll start with we should never pray for the Boston Red Sox to win a World Series. Or for the Alabama Crimson Tide to win a national championship. Listen, if you're on Team Jesus, unacceptable. Just go to Leviticus. There's clear verses for this. I'm teasing. That's not World Star. No. Who's your baseball team? I'm a Cubs fan. I'm a Cubs fan. Jesus loves the least of these, so do I. So, anyways, a few things that we should not pray for. Let's start with this, and we should not pray for vengeance on our enemies. But then if you just read that verse, well, wait a second. It seems like what Paul just said. It's what he just prayed. Let me start with the principle of learning to read the Bible well and of being a good theologian. Theologian sounds fancy, but a theologian is someone who has thoughts about God or says words about God, and that is every person on planet Earth. So, if you're going to be a good one, here's a little tip for you. Don't build a whole theology on one verse alone. Instead, you have to ask, what does the whole Bible have to say about any given issue or question? And in this case, there are other verses about how do you pray for enemies and how do you approach enemies? Let me read some for you. This is from Jesus in Matthew 544. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Romans 12. So, this is the same apostle Paul that just said these verses. I'm going to come back and say actually what this means. I'm just trying to help you understand. Let's leave this verse for a second, see what other verses say, and then come back to this verse. Paul in Romans 12 says, bless those who persecute you. Alexander was persecuting him, and here he says that he would say to bless Alexander. Bless and do not curse them. Repay no one evil for evil. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. First Corinthians 4. When reviled, we bless. When

persecuted, we endure. Then if you go even just kind of like, it can almost sound here like Paul is saying, I hope this guy never gets saved. But we know that's not true, because if you go to other places again in Scripture, Paul says the exact opposite. In 1 Timothy 1, he actually, Paul is referring to himself, he says, I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and violent man, and the foremost of sinners. And he goes on and he says, but Jesus saved me so that he could show you that no one, no one, no one is too far beyond the grace of God and beyond his forgiveness. And in 2 Timothy actually says that God may grant our opponents repentance. So, he's not saying here that, man, I hope this guy goes to hell and there's no hope for him. Instead, what he's doing is he's actually recalling a language from the Old Testament that was often used when people were opposing God and the work of God. Are you going to talk about imprecatory Psalms? I'm going to hit some of them and some verses from a few of them. You get some verses in the Old Testament, like 2 Samuel 3.39, where it says, the Lord repay the evildoer according to his wickedness. In the book of Psalms, you have verses that some people call the imprecatory Psalms, really praying against people. But remember, these are not people like, it's not like they cut them off in traffic and made them a little mad. These were people who were evil people who were opposing the work of God. And it says in Psalm 28.4, for example, give to them according to their work and according to their evil deeds. Psalm 62.12, for you will render to a man according to his work. Paul alludes to these passages, not just here, but in Romans 2.6, where he says he will render each one according to his work. Here's why that matters in Romans. In that section of Romans, Paul is making the case that the wrath of God is coming on every person because every person has sinned. And apart from Christ, they have no hope. But then in Romans 3, we see, he says, but if you place your faith in Jesus, that changes. That no matter what you've done, you can be saved and you can be forgiven. So, if you repent, you will receive forgiveness. And then you don't receive what you deserve. You receive grace and mercy. You receive something you don't deserve. But if you don't repent, you do receive what you deserve, which is God's judgment. So, what Paul is doing here is not saying, man, I hope that Alexander never comes to know Christ and he spends eternity apart from him in hell. What he's doing here is saying that if Alexander keeps on this mode, like what most people would say here is that Alexander was the one who turned Paul over to the Roman authorities. Yeah, I've heard that. I read that. He said, he did me great harm. Yeah, he did him great harm and he testified against him.

Yeah. So, in other words, what you got is you may have a situation where this is the guy that results in Paul's death sentence. Exactly. And so, and then he says, hey, stay away from this guy, which by the way, is wise. He's like, hey guys, stay clear of this guy. He's the one who did me harm. And he's saying, if Alexander keeps on this, he is going to have to face judgment and he's going to get what he deserves. But I would also say, Paul says, hey, if he were to place his faith in Jesus, he'll be like me. Of course. I was the worst of sinners. I don't know. disagree with you, and there's nothing wrong with that. So you do not think that it's appropriate for a Christian to pray an imprecatory psalm? Oh, no, no. I'm going to get to that. So here's what I was going to say. I was going to say, I do think there are times when it is appropriate for Christians to go, get them, God. Yep. So here's... Let me clarify for people that don't speak fancy language. The imprecatory psalms. Oh, sorry. Okay. The imprecatory psalms, they're the psalms... They're angry. That's good, Carlos. Thank you. Honestly, they're the ones that cause people emotional problems when they read the psalms. It's things where David... I'm just going to say it. It's very aggressive. David says things like, dash their children against the rocks, break their teeth. Now, that is, from my rudimentary study, it's been a couple years, that some of that is... It's more apocalyptic language that was sort of generally... It's heightened emotional language. ...almost euphemisms that would be used. But yeah, dude, you read six or... There's six or eight of them in the psalms where literally David's like, dash their infants against the rocks, break their teeth, kill all of them. I hope you do it. Yeah. And imprecatory means to call upon a curse or it's like a judgment over somebody. But yeah. Exactly. So let me... I was a little about to get there. So what I say is we should not pray for God to take vengeance in the sense of saying, God, do evil against him and send him to hell and don't give him a chance to be saved. No, we should not do that. But what should we do in the case of if someone is persecuting us or persecuting Christians or opposing the faith? I say we should pray three things for them. Number one, we should pray for their salvation. Yeah. We should pray, God, would you... Could they be like an apostle Paul where even though they're opposing us, you stood in the way and changed them. They became the greatest preacher of the gospel in this generation. We should pray for that. But number two, we should also pray for our and for others' protection. That is okay to pray. In fact, I want to maybe even walk through

an example of how I prayed over this in the last year. How many things are you going to go through? One more. Oh, you mean the other questions? The whole thing, yep. Like the next thing we should pray for or like the other things we should not pray for? How many things do you have that we shouldn't pray for? I'll just give one more and we can get into the Roman Catholicism. Is that okay? Yeah. But on this one, say number three, we should pray for God's vindication. It's okay to pray for God's justice to be done in the world. And so let me kind of put all these together. Let me put all these. So we should pray for people's salvation, like actually the persecutors. We should pray for our protection and we should pray for God's vindication. So it's probably easiest to give an example. So when I saw the story last year of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, it broke my heart and filled me with anger. By the way, that's okay. Yeah, that's right. Like if I don't get angry at that, there's something wrong in me. And so here's what I pray. I say, God, the men that are persecuting and killing these Christians and pastors and churches, would you save them? God, you saved me. You saved the Apostle Paul. Would you save them? But God, if they're not going to be saved, would you do whatever it takes to stop them, including if you have to take them out? That's exactly right. And I think I can pray both of those things. That's different than if I'd said, God, I hate those people, send them to hell. Because, oh no, he had mercy on me. I wanted to have mercy on them too. But it's like, God, does that make sense? That's what I'd say. So let me give you two and then the second one, that will be the thing that we can then talk about. I'll just say this real fast. You don't have to pray about something if God has clearly commanded you to do it. So I've done this before where it's like, I've been talking to people about them taking a step of baptism. Like, I'll pray about that. And I've just got to point, like, you don't have to pray about that. You can pray about like, win or something like that, but you don't have to pray if you do it. You should just take, that's called a step of obedience, not a prayer that you need to offer. But here's one big one, and this is going to lead us to some of these other things. One thing that you shouldn't pray

is you shouldn't pray to Mary or to saints in order to pray to God. Oh, he's going there. You can approach God. He's going there. Whoa, whoa. Now that I've opened up back doors, now we can get to the fun stuff. Okay, he's going there. All right. Wait, hold on. But before we go there, Josh, did you have a different perspective on in purgatory Psalms or like praying judgment or? No, I think he clarified. Yeah, yeah, no, I know, I know. I do think it is completely appropriate. To pray for the justice of God to fall on unrepentant sinners. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so in fact, we don't have time to do this, but if you want to, a really interesting Bible study, this is really actually really interesting. Romans 12 and 13, you got to remember there's no chapter. Jesus didn't write the chapter distinctions, so it's all one little thing. At the end of Romans 12, Paul says, do not take vengeance. Yes. Leave room for God's wrath. Okay. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Well, if you're a reader, you're like, well, okay, leave room for God's wrath. How do I do that? Well, Romans 13 starts talking about the role of the government, which we talk about this frequently on the podcast, the differentiation between the role of the individual and the role of the state. Yeah.

Okay, so Romans, remember now, so you finish Romans 12 and you're like, huh, I wonder how I'm supposed to leave room for God's wrath and God's vengeance. Okay. Well, Romans 13 goes, do you know what the role of the government is? To bear the sword, to be the agent of God's wrath on earth. Yeah, to punish the evildoer, to bring vengeance is what it's saying. So in other words, you see how those two things play as an individual Christian. I'm like, no, man, I pray for that person's salvation. It's actually appropriate for me. In fact, one way you practice forgiveness is by going, I'm not going to take vengeance. I'm gonna pray for you to bring vengeance so it doesn't leak out in my life. There you go. Yeah. That's great. Paul, you wanted to talk about speaking of violence. There's a couple of things that maybe we can get to another time, but one thing I definitely think we should do, especially in light of a video that went viral this week, is we should not pray to Mary or to any other saint in order to pray to God. Okay, in one minute. I said we're sorry, Father Mike. Yeah, and this is not an attack on Catholics, it's just as it is. It's not an attack on Catholics, it's an attack on Catholicism. Yeah. All right, let's talk about this.

Okay, Paul, here we go. You wanna show the video? You do it. Well, did you wanna tell us why not to pray to Mary? Because this is a little bit different, but let's do your part. In one minute, Paul, tell me why I shouldn't pray to Mary. Man, here's the question. If I was like, let's say one of you guys was Catholic, here's what I'd ask you. It's like, hey, what precisely is missing from my access to Christ that I have to go through Mary or someone else to make up for? Yeah. So what does Mary know about my suffering that Jesus doesn't know? Does Mary love me more than Jesus does? Is Mary more merciful than Jesus? Can she inform him of a need I don't have? Can he, if meeting another saint or she, soften his disposition to me? No, like what scripture says is Christ loves me, he knows my needs, he sympathizes with my weaknesses, he died for me, he intercedes for me, he invites for me to approach him boldly, he tells me that I can pray in his name and because of that, I can approach the Father boldly. And so with that, why would I have to go through anyone else

if I can go straight to God myself? There's other arguments that you could make that we are, you know, if we had more time for, but here's what I would just say, what's absent and what's present. What's absent are any verses commanding me to pray to Mary or to a saint or showing people doing that. You had James and Stephen dying in the other parts of the church and nowhere after that is it so, oh, let's pray to James and Stephen now that we're with Jesus because they're closer to him than us. You never see any of that. There's no evidence in the early church before the year 250 of praying to saints whatsoever. Interesting, 250 is when the first time? But around 250, there's an inscription where it talks about Peter and Paul intercede for some guy named Victor, you know, kind of a thing. But before that, that's the earliest one. Intercede, wait, wait. Peter, oh, so. Peter and Paul intercede for Victor. About a dead Peter and Paul. Yeah, a dead Peter and Paul. Interceding for Victor, about 250 AD? Around 250, about 200 years. 200 years.

Actually 220 years after the time of Christ. Interesting. It's a while, so there's nothing in the New Testament. There's nothing for the first couple of hundred years. That's what's absent. What's present is a mountain of verses about us approaching God directly. I won't read all these for time's sake, but you can go look them up. Matthew 6, 6. Matthew 7, 7 through 11. John 14, 13 through 14. John 16, 23 through 27. Philippians 4, 6. First Timothy 2, 5. Hebrews 4, 14 through 16. Just talks about us approaching God directly and praying to him, not praying to someone else to talk to him for me. I can talk to God directly. Okay. Isn't there like one verse in the Deuterocanonical books that some Catholics might use to justify that? Yes, there is. In Maccabees, it talks about the idea of that being a possibility. We've done a whole podcast on that so we don't have time to get into it. What I would say to that is, again, number one, we shouldn't build a whole theology

for something we just have one verse on. It's just a good general principle of life. And really quick, the Deuterocanonical books, we've done a whole podcast on this, but those were not included in the New Testament, well, in the canon in general. Those are not included in the first sources do not include those. The earliest Christian lists of scriptures we have, none of them have them in there. You, Paul, shared a whole episode responding to Father Mike. We're gonna include that in the notes. So you explain that. But the idea is Jesus Christ literally laid down his life for me so that I can have access to God. Why would I then go through anyone else if he laid down his life to give me that access? Okay, so we're gonna do a little experiment. So at some point, we wanna test drive what would it look like to do an additional deeper dive potentially for future Lit Free episodes. So obviously there's a lot that you shared. So if somebody's listening right now, and if you're on YouTube or Spotify, if you have any questions, any additional questions regarding what Paul just said, let us know in the comments

and we wanna review these and perhaps. Or anything from the podcast. Or anything, that's right, that's right. Any question you have, drop it in the YouTube comments. We may test drive, pick three to five and do user response. An additional bonus episode. So here's what we're gonna do. I wanna show a video that went extremely viral for many reasons and I can explain why. And we're gonna watch the video and then I'll tell you what it means and then we can talk about it. Yeah. Does that work? It's good. Let's do it. Okay. First of all, we're breaking like 30 Levitical cleanliness laws. I just wanna point that out. Are you gonna tell me what I'm looking at here, Carl? I'm about to explain it to you. Bro, there ain't no way. Protestant forever? I just got so Protestant I can feel it in my toes. Okay, you can probably, you can, okay, let me explain what's going on. Wait, can I just say something? Please. Okay, if you showed that video to anyone that was alive in the Old Testament, the first thing they would say is, oh, that's one of your false gods. Yes. There is no other possible response to someone from seeing that. So I'll just point this out. What is idolatry? Idolatry is putting a created thing in place of the Creator. That, we're putting crowns, there are Bible verses about His royal diadem. We are kissing body, Russ, this is thinking weird, man. We're putting created dead things in place of our living

Creator. Ladies and gentlemen, that is called idolatry. Another form of idolatry is basically when you go to something else besides God to get something that only God can give you. Yes. Let me read you a quote to see if you think this was to Jesus. Through you forgiveness is granted to the guilty, and through you grace is conferred to the just. Sounds like something you would address to Jesus, right? Yes. That's actually from a song about Mary. Yeah, yeah. Going to someone to get something that only God Himself, yeah, can give you. Idolatry. So what you just saw right there, it is a Catholic ceremony in remembrance of the relics of Saint Agatha, who was a Christian martyr a long time ago. And basically in the video you see this, he's a cardinal who's in charge of the ceremony, and he's bringing this literal skull of Saint Agatha that's over a thousand years old and putting it on top of the statue, basically a bust, and crowning it. And then this is a moment of celebration, and obviously in that moment he bowed, he prayed, and the whole point is to take it to the people and they can do the same. So let me just give you a couple of thoughts on this. Number one, the reason this went viral is because objectively, no matter what you believe, it is just very bizarre and odd. It's just an odd video. No matter what you believe, it's just an odd video. So one, it's going to go viral for that reason. But this is what Catholics would call relic veneration. So this is not a deviation of Catholic theology. This is just, this is what they believe. This is just part of their core beliefs. So let me, real quick, Pastor Josh, you mentioned some things. Let me just help you add a little bit of color to that. This might be obvious for some people, but it is obviously not. So Exodus chapter 20, verse 45, this is what it says, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord, your God, I am a jealous God. So what some Catholics would say when they see this, they say, Hey, that's not worship. That's veneration, which is just another form of higher honor. And so a couple of things that I would say, number one, uh, worship is a heart issue. Um, I don't know your heart, but God does. And he says, Hey, be careful because I am a jealous God. And we can use different names to say this is this or that. Um, ultimately in practice, it comes down to man, what's really going on in your heart. That's number one. And number two, um, when you have this ceremony with sometimes like thousands of people coming together, elevating this image, and there's a literal skull on top of this statue that is filled

with gold and jewels and people are bowing to it and praying to it and parading it and everybody's cheering on it. Man, with all due respect to our Catholic friends, whom we love deeply, man, it is very hard to see something like that and just not conclude something related to Exodus 20, uh, about worship. It just seems like it fits the exact description of what the Bible says. Now, I will say when I share this on my social media, I was actually surprised. A lot of Catholics agree. Like I've never actually seen this, like a lot of Catholics, including Catholics here in the U S and in Latin America, which by the way, we are famous for being Catholic. We're very Catholic. Um, they agree. They said, Hey, that's actually, we don't like that. That's, that seems extremely odd. That's too much. A lot of people said to, they reminded them about witchcraft and centuria, which is just, again, uh, it's, it's not something they want to be a part of. Um, other people would say, well, man, that's just honoring the saints and the people that have gone before. Isn't that okay? And to that, I'd say, uh, Numbers 21, this, we find this story where, uh, Moses, uh, is instructed by God to build this sculpture of a bronze serpent and put it in a pole. And then God uses that to bring healing. And it was like a big deal. Like God actually mandated that. But what you see later in scripture, it's a centuries later in second Kings, King Hezekiah, he actually sees that thing and destroys it. Why did he destroy it? Because at some point this became this, this went from being this relic of like, Hey, this is what God used in that time to becoming something that resembled a little bit more of worship. And God said, that's right. You need to get rid of that. And so, um, here's the point when you also read scripture, there is not one single example of somebody bowing down to an image for any purpose that scripture portrays positively in the Bible and in early history. In fact, the official endorsement of icon veneration comes later in the Second Council of Nicaea until the year 787. Wow. So, all this to say, idolatry is not just a warning for Catholicism, it's actually a warning for everybody. That's right.

We're all prone to do that. The Bible teaches that a good thing can become a bad thing if it becomes a God thing. And so, we're called to and invited to enjoy the things of God, to remember those that have gone in the past, but you wanna be very careful that your heart only worships one God alone. That's right. Open to your thoughts. So, I'll get, so what, but what, hey, but what about this? But what about this, Carlos? I'm gonna read what somebody said, a Catholic person said about Protestants objecting to this. Protestants on X are losing their minds over this video. Evidently, they have not read the Old Testament, which is full of references to the veneration of remains and objects connected to sacredness. I'm about to lose my mind. What are you gonna say about that, Paul? Yeah. I'm about to lose my mind. So, when I read this earlier, like I think 50 minutes after you sent this to me, I just like obviously got really angry. And I was like, okay, are we kidding ourselves right here? You're using, as the group you're gonna emulate, Old Testament Israel, who was so idolatrous and who used unauthorized objects

for idolatrous practices and unauthorized worship. They were so bad at it that God used a pagan idolatrous nation to punish them for it. That's who you wanna emulate and copy. Okay, this is absurd. Okay, now that that's out of my system, I'll be a little bit more calm. All right, here's what my response would be, is there's a massive category error happening here. You're confusing divine use with divine authorization. Oh, that's great. Divine use with divine authorization. God all the times, often works through a physical object, but that's not the same proposition as saying, therefore, Christians should venerate those objects and gifts and do anything special to them ongoing. So you do have examples in the Old Testament where God uses the bones of Elisha, accidentally, by the way. They just buried this guy with Elisha's bones and all of a sudden he comes back to life. But you know what's missing? Is any then reference afterwards that, oh, now let's start taking and putting everybody in there to bring him back to life. So you had a one-off recurrence that then wasn't repeated. You mentioned the bronze sermon. They eventually had to destroy because it was being used falsely. For that reason, that's right.

But so many of the other places where we see God using physical objects, what you don't see is then venerating them and then using them to repeat that same practice over and over again. So don't confuse divine use with divine authorization. Well, also, this is interesting, Paul, because I was reading this too in Acts 19, verse 11 to 12. Let me help some people here. And this is what I'm gonna read it. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick. I have an answer to that, but Paul, what do you say to that? Exactly what I just said. Yeah, God does extraordinary things like that all the time. But one thing I would point out, both in the time of Acts and the time of the New Testament Gospels, if you'll notice, Jesus heals in a different way almost every time he heals. He doesn't make it this form like, oh, if you will do this exact thing and do this every time, then everybody will be healed. And I think one of the reasons is because he doesn't want people to attach this ongoing ceremony around the specific way. He's like, hey, I can use anything to heal anybody anytime,

but that doesn't mean that you then have to take that and repeat it forever. It's just one simple response. And what you don't see is nobody's venerating Paul. No. Nobody is bowing to him. Nobody's praying to him. Like, there's no command that this is like a thing. And so you're right. And yeah, the attention, it does not go to the person. It goes to their God. And let me give one specific example, and this might be a good place in terms of your objection to end, at least on the objection, is there's an example of this in the Old Testament where Elisha, with an S-H, takes the cloak of Elijah and he strikes the water and it parts. But if you actually go and read it, in that moment, he doesn't say, Elijah, would your power cause this to depart? He directly addresses God himself. And in that moment, what's really happening is he's basically trying to show, I am picking up the anointing and the calling of Elijah, and I'm carrying it on, but he doesn't go to Elijah. He goes to God himself. Again, you don't have to go through others to approach God or through these weird, I'll just call them these weird rituals. You can go to God himself and speak to him

as the father he is. Bro, I'll, you know, this may have a bit of an edge. Please. And I'm just, I will say, so historically Protestants, let's say this, and let's land in plan here. Historically Protestants have sometimes, and I do not think always unfairly, that wasn't Mary, but this frequently happens with Mary, okay? Protestants have sometimes historically referred to Catholicism as Mariolatry or guilty of Mariolatry instead of idolatry Mariolatry. And dude. Again, if we define idolatry as putting anyone or anything in place of God, okay, that's what you get. We already got this. We got Bible verses for this. There is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. One mediator. So, why are we calling her Mediatrix, Leon? That's not a thing. Yeah. Actually, a pope called her that a long time ago, and then recently the Vatican's like, ah, let's not use that term. Let's stop doing that. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good job because we have Bible verses for that. Good job, guys. But, what I want to point out is, dude, I will say, if you've ever been to the Vatican, there are times where, for me as a Protestant, it was hard for me sometimes not to see, dude,

honestly, a not good, a potentially not good spiritual influence that like, honestly, I think God is great with getting your eyes anywhere but Jesus, even if it's one degree off. If I can get your eyes anywhere but Jesus, one degree off, I'm good. Dude, if you got, Jan and I did this little tour. It's called the Vatican Gardens. Have you guys been there? Mm-mm. Okay. So, if I understand it right, it's like, basically, the popes get to like conscript a statue of who they want to, what do they want to memorialize? And bro, when you go there, I'm grokking it right now, so you can't trust this at all, but you know, when you're back there, Jan and I were walking around, and it's like, I think we saw one statue of Jesus, compared to dozens, I don't know, maybe 50 of Mary, and honestly, man, it was hard for me not to go, Satan is really, really good. He's totally fine with your eyes being even one degree off Jesus, as long as you're not focused on Jesus. So you watch out, man. That's right. God is on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Amen. Pastor Paul, would you pray for us? There you go. Love to. Yes. And so, on that note, God, we thank you for the different people who have run the race before us, even thinking that same passage in Hebrews, and have followed you faithfully. And God, for sure, by all means, we honor them, but God, would we become like them by not looking to anyone else but you for our salvation, for our daily strength and mercy, God?

Amen. And God, would you help us to always set our eyes on you alone? Lord, I want to pray for everyone listening to this, that Lord, if they have not found their brand of brothers and sisters, Lord, would you give them the grace to find them? And I pray, Lord, that they would build a relationship that would sharpen them into the men and women you created and died and saved them to become. Lord, for those who already have their people, would I pray that you continue to help them grow in their relationships with the other, as they grow in their relationship with you? God, I pray that you would help us to be like Paul, and to finish our race well, and to take every step between now and then with faithfulness. We love you. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.