EP: 468 The Church is Afraid of the Supernatural with Jon Moffitt

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He and his buddies are out dirt biking and on the other side of this mountain, it's just three of them, there's this bright light. So they're like, whoa, I know there's a military base, so let's go see what they're doing. He's like, I can't describe to you what we saw. It's this see-through orb. It's like massive in the sky. And it just started moving towards us. No noise, no nothing. And then just shot out. He goes, I've never told anybody but my wife. He's held onto that for, I think, almost 20 years. He's like, I don't know what to think about that. In light of all this stuff you've been talking about, like, you know, the Nephilim and the government, like whatever, he goes, what do you think about that? What happens when you grow up in the church and you read things like the divine counsel, spiritual powers, principalities, the angels that sin, and you don't have any answers and you go looking for them? Today, our friend John Moffitt, Reformed pastor, joins us on Blurry Creatures to talk about how taking a supernatural view of scripture has changed his faith and also embroiled him in controversy in the Reformed church. And why is this so controversial? We read supernatural stories in the Bible all the time. But when you start preaching them from the pulpit or you start believing them and writing them in your books, it becomes a problem. And we're going to talk about reading the Old Testament. John argues we should read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus. Go to blurrycreatures.com slash membership. First, become a member of the podcast and get access to so much more. Yeah, do you want early episodes, unreleased members-only episodes, exclusive discounts on merch, early access to tickets for live events, all that and so much more, including your own private Blurry Creatures communities. Blurrycreatures.com slash members. Check it out. Keeps the lights on. The history of our earth is so different from what we can imagine. The Smithsonian, if they found out about a large skeleton somewhere, was to go get it. I'm going to assume at least one person is right, because if one person's right, it busts the paradigm. It all goes back to the fallen cherub. And the problem with the modern-day church, they have a very truncated view of the supernatural. This backdrop that's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning associated with this Mount Hermon event. And this guy defects from the kingdom. That's a big deal. We had Faces for Radio. Now we're on video. Welcome back to the Blurry Basement. We've got John Moffitt in the house. You're a pastor, theologian, and you're a podcaster as well. There's probably a lot of things you do, but we'll leave it at that. We'll let you tell us more about yourself. But your brand new book is out today. The Bible According to Jesus. How Jesus teaches us to read the scriptures. And you've been in the news lately. A lot of things have been in the news lately. But a lot of the topics we talk about here, we bring up stuff that sort of kicks the bee's nest. Every episode does. And we joked offstage back last year. Last year. Yesterday. When did we do that? Backstage. Or off camera is what I was trying to say. But if you don't like our show, just wait a week because we have another episode coming. You know what I mean? I like the line. Yeah, but you got people turning on you because of talking about blurs. Blurry stuff. And obviously there's certain sections of the Christianity in the Christian world who don't like the blurry verse. And they don't like. And you were talking pre-roll about re-enchanting the scriptures in the Bible. And welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for coming on. You have your own podcast. You know how this goes. You know what we do here. What are your thoughts on Bigfoot? And welcome. Yeah, well, I got that from my kids. So I got to represent. Bigfoot, he likes to stay hydrated. Yeah. Watch the book right there. So it's funny. I could care less about Bigfoot until I started listening to Blur Creatures. And then. Tell Kirk Cameron. So then it became. He had a hard time about Bigfoot. So I listened to you guys and I thought it was funny. So then it became a joke in my house where I was trying to convince my kids that I believed in Bigfoot. Well, what I didn't know was I convinced my 14-year-old daughter who started convincing her Christian friends of Bigfoot. And she came home in tears one day because everybody was making fun of her. And I was like, oh, what have I done? But over time, listening to a lot of stories, then yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm telling you, it's like that. I'm at a point now, I've seen enough stuff over the last two years and I've heard, there's some people of some stories in my church, not related to Bigfoot, but just like alien stuff. Yeah. Where I go, I don't know. There's enough people who've seen stuff. And if, what's the phrase? If 1% of them are right, that's enough for me to know that, okay, there's probably something there. Yeah. And that's, yeah, that's kind of how I'm. So yeah, I think, yeah, I'll tell you what. If someone says, I know we're a Bigfoot, as you want to go see him, I'm going to say no. Yeah. Because it's probably true. Who told it? Was it Dave Bryan told us that he would take us to the top mountain? We'd go with him to Mount Shasta to meet a Bigfoot? Yeah, I'm not going. He never went. Was that the guy that does the Reese's peanut? Who's the guy that does like the Reese's peanut bread cups? E.T. No, what? What? No. Who? E.T. There's some story about this guy feeding, like they love Reese's peanut bread cups. Aliens and Reese's. I don't remember which one that is. They claim a lot of stuff, like apples and people leave out, what was the gun guy leave out bottles, the little bottles of booze for the little people. I can't even remember. But there's a lot of it. We got fuzzy memories. But I have a theological answer for you. Yeah. What? So the Bible, the way it works, the way it's written is that it gives you, it assumes knowledge, right? So like it never tells you what a donkey is. It never tells you, like it just describes things. So in my opinion, I think the Bible describes about 5% of the spiritual realm, just enough for you to know, like here's how you got to work and here's what you need to be aware of. So if you, if you think about that, if it's telling you 5% of what the world probably has to tell you, then I can think in a realm of 95% of what I don't understand. Yeah. The Bigfoot could exist. Well, it's funny because we ask everybody this question and every once in a while, there'll be a new thing that pops into my mind that I haven't heard about Bigfoot. And yesterday, interviewing Ryan Peterson, there was a little bit of that happening in my mind. Oh, this is new. This is a little nugget maybe towards the Bigfoot paradigm trying to figure that out. That whole thing out. But he has the same thing. I'm always up for a documentary though. Well, I, to our yesterday's conversation, that was the main thing is just between verse one and two in the Bible. There's this gap theory and there's all this, like you said, 95% of stuff going on that. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know what happened between that. And so, yeah, it's loaded. You just got done preaching on Genesis six, which we were talking about at lunch. And that's the same paradigm. It's the same story. It's all of the knowledge there and this backstory is all implied. Like, when Moses is writing that, he goes, you know the story. You know how this all went. You know, I don't have to explain, you know, all of this and the angelic rebellion and all the stuff we get in the Enochian tale. We don't have to explain all that because you know it. It's like, you know, it's the old analogy. Like we don't, we'd say the Superbowl, you know what that is. You know that all the teams play, if you're an American, you know that all the teams play a full year and then they play a playoffs and you get there and they wait a week and all these things and then they play the big game for the big trophy. But all that's implied cultural knowledge. And we've gone through that with Dr. Michael Heiser and all this. But this is fun. I mean, we didn't plan to do this on the day your book came out, which is really. No, we had to reschedule because of the snow. Yeah, because of the snow. I was the Lord of the Flies here in Nashville for a while. What's that? It was Lord of the Flies here in Nashville for a while. Especially if you wanted to get anything in the grocery store, it was gone. We ran out of, so we've only had, so I have a generator and the power went out and we only run it during the summer because it's the tornado season, right? Yeah. It blew through our gas faster because of the heaters. So I live on a massive hill, like taller than this building. So I had to slide in my truck all the way down to the bottom so I could get more gas. Let's just say there was a lot of praying going on the way down that hill. Yeah. It was a scary, that was a scary moment. John, this is a, yeah, I would say that we're not here because your book is out. We've been wanting to do this for a while. Yeah. And, uh, we want to get into the drama. Well, I mean, so you're, people don't know you. Um, yeah, you are great friends and also partnered with, you know, one of our great friends, uh, Doug Van Dorn. And, um, you know, he's been a staple on the show since the beginning. We just did an episode, two episodes with him the last, in the last week or so. Um, but you're a reformed pastor. You are, you are, we always say Doug is a unicorn in a sense, but also you are of the unicorn unicornian race in the reformed spaces. Um, is that your new church brand? The unicorn reformers? Yeah. I don't know how many people are going to show up for that. Yeah. It's like a whole new, uh, offshoot. Yeah. Denomination. Yeah. The reformed unicorns. Let's talk, let's talk a little bit about this. Cause this is something I wanted to want to bring, cause there's a bigger conversation here than this, just than sort of what you went through. But, um, you are, I'll let you speak for, for you but I know that based on the book and our conversations off offline, that you are a, you know, a divine council, um, enchanted worldview, if you will, which is kind of what Michael Heiser talked about. There's a chapter in the book here where you talk about how you can't, you can't separate that. The Bible is not a moral code. It's not written as a, as a list of rules or just try harder. There's a whole realms where blurry creatures exist that that interacts with and sometimes it governs the things that happen here and God governs all of it, but I'm just saying that that realm influences. And it came for you. Yeah. It came against you. Yeah. So you, you've got a podcast, you did reform friends with Doug and. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I guess the short story is, so, you know, I grew up super strict fundamental Baptist, so, uh, very legalistic and then just kind of got burned out by that. Um, my dad died when I was 21. So I had like a crisis of faith, right before I became a pastor. And, uh, I stopped praying, like just didn't, like, I prayed so hard for him to be healed. He didn't get healed. So that kind of wrecked my faith for a while. And so I got to a point where I was kind of rebuilding everything. Like I need to rebuild my faith because whatever I was raised on feels off. You heard about Upwork. I haven't heard about Upwork. Yeah. 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That's Upwork.com to connect to top talent, ready to help your business grow. That's Upwork, U-P-W-O-R-K.com Upwork.com. Nate, they're sending kids back to school earlier and earlier every year. Back when we were kids, we were free. We rode our bikes down to the store. There were no cell phones. Mom and dad just had to believe you were where you were and you were out there just tearing it up on those BMXs. We were locked into contracts back then, Luke. And nowadays it feels like you're stuck in some contract, but if you want freedom, have wireless. Well, summer still means freedom and sort of the end of summer here. And Mint Mobile's got a summer sale. Right now all of Mint's plans are $15 a month, even unlimited. So free yourself from big wireless and switch to Mint Mobile for high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with big wireless and they made it right. 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high-speed data, unlimited talk and text. 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And yeah, so the more and more I studied the Bible, the more and more I saw that like the creeds of confessions made a lot of sense to me. So kind of dove into that for the next, you know, I got a seminary degree, became a pastor, but just continue to see things that just didn't make sense to me. Like I saw people blow up their life. I saw like just things I couldn't explain, like stories. And then there was like this darkness that just, I was like, how do you explain, like theology doesn't, the theology I'm being taught doesn't fully explain the darkness. Like, yeah, everybody's born a sinner. I get that. But there's a darkness here that I don't understand. So I was in a pretty dark place in my, this was probably about five years ago. In my, in my just pastorate, the church was tiny. We were barely surviving. The man I had, I've been mentored under blew up his life and I was preaching the Lord's prayer and I get to the, I'm prepping for my sermon and I keep looking at the last phrase and it keeps saying deliver us from the evil one. I thought to myself, who in the reformed world preaches a sermon on that? Like I need to find somebody who's, who preaches a sermon. That is a, that is an interesting thing for Jesus to, to end a prayer. Like, I don't know about you guys. I was taught this is the daily prayer. Is that really controversial in the reformed world? It's not controversial. It's just not talked about. You know what I'm saying? It's like, if I say that no one's going to be like, I can't believe you believe that, but no one talks about it. That's the difference. You see what I'm saying? Why? Why do you think they don't talk about it? I, my, well, I think there's a, I could do a whole episode on that, but I think that the reformed world is so afraid of the charismatic world. They don't want to sound anything like it. And so we tend to avoid topics that could be like, oh, that sounds charismatic. So it's like a knee jerk to be like, we've got to stay away from that. We can't even have like a. A sense of, or a hint of any, anything that would, could be associated with a charismatic movement. Yeah. Or I don't know about you guys, but I was like, well, be careful if you focus on that demon, Satan stuff, you know, it could, it could lead you astray. That was kind of the warning I got all the time. Really? Oh yeah. So they're afraid of it. Yeah. Oh yeah. So it delivers from the evil one. And so I started going down a rabbit hole of like trying to find anybody and everybody that I could to like, I need to know who's took this, like who's wrote on this. That is a serious theologian. And I found a guy by the name of Donald Gray Barnhouse who wrote a book called the invisible war. And it was the first time I had heard of the gap theory and of divine counsel. And I was like, what? I couldn't put the book down. I think I read it in like 24 hours. I just, it was mind blowing. So I started sharing it with all my friends. And then one of my friends, his name is Caleb. He's like, dude, you should listen to this podcast. It's called boy creatures because there's this guy by the name of Doug Van Dorn who is reformed. Yeah. And he's talking about the same stuff you're talking about. And I was like, no way. So I found Doug started like, you know, reading, listening to all of his stuff. And then I just sent him a Facebook message and, uh, he and I became friends immediately. And, but this, uh, well back up a little bit. Um, I had Michael Heiser's book on my shelf that I was like, I'm not reading that book. That guy's a cook. So then I was like, well, that's not fair. I, I, you know, I would never be at the place where I am today. So I read it. I didn't like it at all. And then I read, um, Donald Gray Barnhouse. And I was like, Barnhouse is saying the exact same thing as Michael Heiser. So Barnhouse wrote it in 1960. Now he wasn't not as explicit as Michael, Michael was. Michael was like very, very explicit. Anyway. So at that point I was already primed and ready to, to like, okay, now that I've read Barnhouse, Michael Heiser's makes a lot more sense to me. So I, uh, was deeply impacted by this because it helped me make sense. It's looking at the spiritual realm, what's going on with Ephesians six. Like everybody reads Ephesians six is like, oh yeah, principalities power is like, yeah, you gotta, gotta be careful of that. And we just kind of move on. But I'm like, no, I think this Paul's like stand in the strength of the Lord. And Jesus is telling me to, uh, deliver us from the evil one. Peter's telling me to watch out for the roaring lion. And we're over here acting like there's not a problem. Yeah. That's, that's not okay with me and my faith. So, yeah, this is when, uh, I started. Uh, building a friendship with Doug and he and I were just having phone call after phone call, like almost every day of the week. Just, and I finally said, what if we as reformed dudes did a podcast on this from our perspective? Like there's a bunch of reformed people out there that needs to know, like, there's another way of thinking about your Bible and we don't have to ignore these passages at the same time. You know, we don't have to become wackos. Like we can be serious Christians and take all of this. So, um, we did, we started this podcast called kingdoms on. Failed and eventually we turned it to reform fringe and we were just walking through like, Hey, what's the divine council? What are our thoughts on Michael Heiser? What are our thoughts on Nephilim? And so we were just kind of walking through our faith from our perspective and in introducing what we would say is so like, if you look at the creeds of confessions, which, you know, I, I think Michael Heiser gets a bad rap and he also gets misquoted a lot. Yeah. Michael didn't say he didn't like, or didn't use the creeds of confessions. That's not what he said. He was saying, uh, which is important because you go back and read his book because that's, that's what I was hearing. It's like, Oh, he. he's a denier of the creeds of confessions. No, he's not. All he's saying is that those creeds of confessions don't tell us everything we need to know about the Bible. And they're not the only grid in which you can understand scripture, which I completely agree with him on. So what I was introducing to my church through preaching and through this podcast that we were doing was just helping, I would say, re-enchant people's faith. Like there's a lot more going on in our world than what we're being told in the media and what we're being told in Christianity. Because like most of the people in my church probably wouldn't have heard of blurry creatures. They're not really thinking about Bigfoot. They're not thinking, you know, all this stuff. They're just not. And so we ended up having this thing called blurry nights where I would have guys that would hear me preaching and they're like, hey, I've got some questions. Have you heard this podcast called blurry creatures? And I would just kind of chuckle. I'm like, why don't you come to my house tonight? Well, it got out blurry. That was called blurry nights. And people in the church thought we were getting drunk. I'm like, no, no, not blurry. In the spirit, bro. Yeah. No, like blurry, like blurry animals, blurry creatures. Like, oh, okay. So it was really impacting our church. I started having church members come to me and it really opening up about like horrible experiences they had. And they didn't know how to, like, they were thankful that a pastor was willing to talk about them, about supernatural things, experiences. Their child having a demon possession moment at the age of eight. Like just, you know, how do I process this? So I started to see a lot of really great progress here. Well, I thought, man, this has been so beneficial to me in my faith. It makes a lot more sense. This war we're a part of, like what's going on in the government and all this deception. And you start thinking about how, you know, the, these fallen angels are manipulating government. I mean, it just makes a whole lot more sense. And the preaching of the gospel is the only way in which you're going to ultimately fight back and win. Because every time Paul, like sets you up to be afraid, he goes, now here's your weapon. It's Christ. It's preaching Christ. Like this is how you fight back. So I just, you know, I thought this is, this is really important. I think, I think we need to go more public on this. So that's when I started the Reformed Friends or King's Unveil, it got more popular than I realized it would. And a lot of the world, so I have Theocast. Well, I'm about to expose a lot of stuff on here. So here we go. So Theocast is a, is a pretty good size, podcast in the Reformed world. We're one of the, as far as like a Reformed Baptist. And there's a lot of people who support what we do and they're really excited about what we're doing, but I am in the no-no zone now. And so I started getting warnings of like, hey, you need to stop this. You're causing problems. You're causing division. You're causing confusion. So there's a lot of like private conversations that were happening. And a lot of it was, in my opinion, confusion of things I wasn't saying. In other words, you know how this happens where you'll talk about a topic. So they just assume you mean this. It's like, that's not what I'm doing. They're welcome to blur. Yeah. There's a lot of assumptions on our end. I'm like, well, you believe this, you believe that. And I'm like, no, we had a talk. We had a discussion about it. Exactly. Nate and I actually rarely talk about what we believe or think about things, but we say, well, this is all about the gospel ultimately and getting people to have an encounter with Jesus. And, and if they could do that by exploring some things that happened to them or some of the things they can't explain or their pastors, unlike you, John, don't have answers for them. Then this is a place to have those discussions. And we've said millions, hundreds of times that like, you know, we don't know. We don't believe or agree with everything on here, but we believe these discussions are worth having because most churches and places in Christendom aren't having them. And so I don't please understand it because they'll say blurry believes this and blurry says that. And I'm like, we had a guest who we interviewed and you know, it's, it's okay to like chew the meat and spit out the bones. It's okay to actually question your own paradise. What do you mean being an adult? Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, I bring it back to like free speech is that is my best example, which is like in the, in the economy of ideas, the way free speech is supposed to work is that you talk about everything and the best ideas come to the top, right? It's like, it's like the great, well, the great philosopher of our, of our age, the macho man, Randy Savage said, the cream rises to the cream rises to the top. Yeah, there it is. There you go. You know, but he's done that. There you go. Okay. Yeah. Upwork gives businesses like blurry fast access to highly skilled specialists, deep expertise. Upwork is the place to find it with business. We've got AI powered shortlisting and you can create a curated shortlist of top freelancers matching our goals. That's right. So if you have a project, you have a business, you have a company and you're trying to find somebody that can help you, Upwork is the place to go. And it's free to sign up. That's right. And posting a job is easy. So visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork, U-P-W-O-R-K.com, Upwork.com. Yeah, we were. Did we? We rode our bikes down the road. Mom and dad just had to believe you were where you were. And you were out there just tearing it up on those BMXs. And nowadays, it feels like you're stuck in some contract. But if you want freedom, have wireless. Well, summer still means freedom. I'm sort of at the end of summer here. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 a month, even unlimited. 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Yeah, and I feel like oftentimes it seems like these principalities and powers want to stay hidden, and so anything exposing that or anything that kind of gets them off in the weeds, it sort of kicks the bee's nest, and they come out, and they get mad, and they come out in the form of, most of the time, other Christians. That's right. It's not like random people outside of the Christian circle that most of the people don't even know what's going on in our little circles. Like, what are you guys talking about over there? Yeah. But, you know, it's other Christians turning on the people trying to awaken, re-enchant, the scripture. I think at times, and they don't even know they're doing it. A perfect example from scripture is when Jesus looks at Peter and was like, get behind me, Satan. Like, Peter didn't even know he was getting used, because Peter had a, because what Peter's thinking, like, oh, let's go get the sword, let's bring Jesus in as king. He's like, you're not paying attention, man. I'm talking about a heavenly spiritual kingdom. Wow. Say that again. That's good. That's good. I have a lot of sympathy for some of the Christians that came after me, because I literally look at this and I go, I think they're being duped. Yeah. Like, they don't. They don't. I don't. I've heard a lot of your guys' story, and through the past, but I think sometimes you have to have, I hate to say it this way, but you have to have like an experience that causes you to go, wait, I think there's more happening. There's more going on. And now you're willing. If you don't have something that causes you to go, I need to question reality or my understanding of reality. So, what they were hearing me, it basically introduces, you know, oh, John, you're. Well, the accusation was you're trying to make money, you're trying to get popular. And I was like, trust me, dude, this is not making me popular. I can tell you this right now. It's quite the opposite, yeah. Yeah. And so, a lot of Christians, they feel threatened because you are. This is the reality because I had this conversation with my own wife. She's like, this is the reality I grew up with, and you're challenging everything that I've ever believed. I said, but wouldn't you rather want the truth? And this is where. And you guys. You guys do this all the time where you could go back into scripture and say, yeah, but this isn't like some ancient teaching or this. I'm not going to give you my experience. This is what the Bible says. This is literally from scripture. So, there's a difference between. Like, experience is extremely powerful. We get that. And then eyewitness accounts is. But when it's scripture, it's at that point, everything kind of gets washed away. Do you think it's unlearning? It's like that there's this like. When you begin to challenge the things that you've created your own personal dogma around. Oh, yeah. The. Obviously, the knee-jerk is to throw it out because then you have to unwind and unlearn. And to your point, I think that's when you should. It takes humility, but you should embrace because we're not talking. As you said, it's not experiential. We're talking about what's in the scripture and not ignoring things for the sake of their uncomfortable. Yeah. I mean, and I think that's. And you were kicking the hornet's nest in some ways, but you were kicking it with scripture, which is. I think people need to hear that that's. That's what we should be doing. Right. So, as you know, like my calling as a pastor, I. I'm here to shepherd people. That's my job. Yep. And I specifically started a second podcast, entitled it and instructed it saying, hey, this is a side gig where we're going to discuss these things and kind of flesh them out. And that's exactly what it was. And that's the thing where, in my opinion, like everybody made it sound like, well, that's all John's ever doing now. He's only talking about blurry stuff all the time. But if you go back and listen to my sermons or you go back to what I'm writing or what I'm doing on Theocast, I'm not. And so it just got really weird. And there was a lot of interesting accusations. Long story short, Doug and I had done a series on the angel of the Lord, which is so good. So great. Like his book is phenomenal. Like we've done it with Doug. It's amazing. Yeah. Well, there were, there's a debate in the reform world on how you should understand the nature of the angel of the Lord. And I, I started a church planning network about four, four or five years ago. And so I'm the vice president of it. And there's like 22 something churches in it. And there were several guys in that church that basically just, I didn't know this. They had beef with Doug and this particular topic. And basically came to me and says, you, you need to disown Doug. And you basically need to say that everything you guys have been talking about is extremely dangerous. And if you don't do that, then we're going to boot you out of the, of the network. You're no longer going to be in the, you're no longer a BVP. And I'm. I'm just like, whoa, what made it? Maybe I missed something with Doug. Like, this is wild. I'm not sure what happened. So anyway, I did a bunch of research, took it to the leadership team on my church. Like, do you guys see anything wrong here? Like, do we need to call Doug out? Like maybe, maybe Doug's a heretic, you know, who knows? And we read it and we're like, no man, there's nothing wrong here. And so I just went back to him. I'm like, look, I, I think this is a witch hunt. I think people don't like what Doug's doing, what he's, what he's for. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna throw him under the bus. I don't have a problem with it. So that kind of started the. The, the, the train of basically I got, I got blackballed by the reform world as being the way they described it was that I was denying basically who Jesus was in his person. And so God called a heretic. Yeah. So that was rough. Heart of my family, heart of my church. So that was back in November, but I, in the, during the, during all of this, I had just finished this sermon series. And I thought to myself, probably right now is the best time. I have to write this book because like I need one, I need to focus in on Christ number two, this is really, really fresh in my mind. And so I need to be, I'm going to go ahead and just, so instead of going online and reading all the dumb comments that were out there, I just started writing. Yeah. And one of the chapters I put in there, it's a chapter five, which is a really, really important chapter to me. It's called the cosmic view. So what I'm trying to do is help people read their Bibles from Jesus perspective. Like if you were to sit down and be like, Jesus. Help me understand the Bible. I think the Bible does this. Jesus gives you all of these tools and says, here's how to understand the law. Here's how to understand like all the covenants, like mosaic, Noahic, all that. Here's how to understand that. Here's how to understand context. Like, you know, Satan is brilliant at quoting scripture. Exactly. Like he quotes it exactly the way it should be. It's kind of like every single ecosystem kind of has its rules and it's like faux pas. Don't do this. Don't do that. You know, if you're. A professional wrestler, you got all these little inside rules. Let's go. But if you are even in our space where the first 10 episodes of our podcast, we brought on new age guy. We brought on a native American who was not a Christian, brought on an ancient aliens guy. And then we brought on a couple of theologians. Right. And then we never, ever, ever wanted to be in a space where you couldn't have a conversation with somebody because we thought each of those dudes have a piece of this puzzle. And the rest of maybe what they've come to, the conclusions they've come to isn't right. But we need, we need to understand this from 50 different perspectives. Sure. And sometimes I think Christians, they want to go to the soda fountain and they just want to get Mountain Dew or they want to get Dr. Pepper. And Luke's like, get the suicide. Just do all the flavors. If Baja Blast is out, don't skip it. And it's like every, every like denominator has a piece. Yeah. And it's like humans have a hard time putting them all together. Yeah. No, I think you're right. Well, just, I think this is before we started recording, but I tell this to people all the time. Like you, you don't go to the Bible to do health issues. Like if you've got a health issue, you don't go to the Bible. Where do you go? You go to a doctor. Right. And the doctor needed to get that information. You go to Dr. Josh Hacks. Well, we did Jordan Rubin. Biblical diet and healing leaves. There you go. They went to the Bible. If you've got a car issue, you go to a mechanic. Sure. Right. So what's interesting about the spiritual realm is that Peter says it this way. Everything you need for life. And godliness has been given to you in scripture. So think about it for a moment. So what we need to do to love God and obey him, that's what the Bible has given to us. What it doesn't say is everything you need to know about the spiritual realm is in the Bible. Or reality or everything. Right. Or science or nature. To your point though, is like you're bringing in all these people and they're adding in perspective. And it's okay to do that because as far as what I need to do for God and what I need to know about to obey him, that I have. But as far as how this world works. Some of that is observable. Like you're going to have to observe that and make your conclusions, which is why, you know, when I always laugh when Timothy Alvarino is on here and people are always like, oh, it's a demon. And he gets really upset about that. Yeah. But I think he's got a point though, because of like, if you, if your conclusion is, well, the demons are the ones who are causing all the problems in the Bible. So it must be a demon. Well, it's like, well, it might be a cold. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, fair. Right. It might be a flat tire or it might be an alien. Like, so my point. Well, Paul doesn't say, you know, we struggle. We struggle against demons. End of the verse. Fair point. That's not what he writes. He goes on, he categorizes many things and he doesn't even narrow down those categories. And this is the conversation we had over lunch, John, which is like, I feel like the longer that I am in church and the longer that we've done the show, the more I've come to the conclusion that everybody wants a zero sum game. It needs to be a zero sum game. It has to, it has to be, the government is lying all the time. Every time they lie, it has to be, everything is, is demonic. Everything's a demon, everything's a demon case closed. That's the way that I have to rationalize my reality. And, and what we were talking about is it like reality is way more nuanced than that. And nothing is really a zero sum game except for the gospel, right? That's the thing. That's like, this is the thing. This is it. That's right. But the rest of our, our experience with reality, with the supernatural realm and I think maybe this is what you run into too, is that people really. Yeah. Pearl clutch, these, these things and these paradigms and these boxes that make them feel very comfortable and they want it to all be a zero sum game, but, but, and when it's not, or they get challenged in that, in that reality, then there's, there's it's unleashing of, of oftentimes in the church's vitriol and it's like, and it's accusations ad hominem. It's like, which is, which is what's been so, I mean, it's so sad the older I get to see the things that Christians fight about the hills they die on. The tertiary things that they decide are primary. Um, and I, and I, you know, I got to watch what was that, what happened from the outside and it was, it's hard because knowing Doug Van Dorn and knowing you somewhat, but knowing Doug, like a friend and be like, there's not a better person that I know that also isn't completely in love with the scripture and teaching the scripture and humble and, you know, and to see that, that him get dragged is like, was like, well, wow. I mean, yeah. Yeah. blasted. You know, they, they, you know, we get blasted. I mean, we're used to it because we kind of, every, every episode is it's like its own, it invites its own set of trolls to come out. Well, I asked him the other day, I was like, how's that episode going? Well, you know, what's funny is when you describe like introducing a supernatural element to the story and people turn on you, you can replace the words with something like Bigfoot. The Bigfoot community, instead of the reformed church, will turn on people in the Bigfoot community. If you say Bigfoot is supernatural, it happens. You can just replace the words and the same exact behaviors go on. And then as Christians, we go, well, we're above all that. It's like, no, you're acting just like every community. That's right. Yeah. Well, that's, we heard about Upwork. Yeah. You can fill critical skill gaps. You can launch projects, and you can scale support up or down. Upwork is the place to find it. With Business Plus, you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. We've got AI-powered shortlisting, and you can create a curated shortlist of top freelancers matching our goals. Thousands of growing businesses, Nate, are using Upwork to hire highly skilled freelance professionals for everything from one-off projects to ongoing support. And there's over 170,000 freelancers holding five-star ratings you can hire with confidence right now on Upwork. That's right. So if you have a project, if you have a business, if you have a company, and you're trying to find somebody that can help you, Upwork is the place to go. That's right. That's Upwork.com to connect to top talent ready to help your business grow. I think what you're getting at, though, is that people, like, all right, in the Bigfoot community, they have done all their thinking, and they've done all their research, and so they feel safe with that knowledge. And you're going, hmm, there's another person. And you're going, hmm, there's another paradigm, possibly. And they're like, you can't do that. Can't. And for Christianity in the United States, I mean, this is why I remember when Heiser wrote that in his book. He was like, I'm probably going to lose all my friends in my career and i was like whatever and now i was like whoa he's right like people don't want to hear this i and i i think it's changing there's a lot more people who are definitely open to it which is why i think your guys podcast is doing so well i mean you guys are good looking that's there's that too but that's a tertiary that was definitely not on the marketing spreadsheet but hey yeah if that's what people think out there sure but this is what i will say and i appreciate what you guys do and you at the end of the day like when things are wild and crazy you do pull it back to christ like okay look as crazy in a while as it might be the one foundation that we know does not shift and the one truth that will not change is christ and him crucified like yeah we can trust the fact that christ is going to not only save us but sustain us there's no greater power than him there's no other god there's no anarchy that's gonna like that part as wild as things might get that's where i do appreciate and this is what i'm trying to bring to my church like i think things are getting wild we're talking about this at lunch and i want the people to know that we're talking about this at lunch and i want the people to know that we're talking about this at lunch and i want the people to know that we're talking about this at lunch and that's right well i think it's because a lot of people want christianity to be a movie trailer they want it they want it to be two minutes of the highlights and it's done and i think the blurry creatures is the extended cut in three movies it's like no just get all of the information in there and then there's some parts of the film you'll be like it's not as interesting to me it's like they should have an extended edition of water world that would have been like it would have won all the academy awards but i think it's because a lot of people want christianity to be a movie trailer but it's like you you we just said there is just more to the story yeah there is more characters right and then you understand oh christ is is is a bigger it's a bigger story that's right okay yeah i'm getting it well one of the things i put out in the book and this is all right i'm gonna like not go into preacher mode here but one of the things that irritates me about what we ignore in scripture genesis 3 you know how like when you're watching a movie or a fantasy whatever and it sets the world's tone of like here's how this world works right genesis 3 says uh this world from day whatever day that adam and eve fell is now under a curse and the curse brings death well that is a really important aspect to it like even when jesus was on the earth and he's breaking the curse a little bit here and there meaning like he brings health back to people they all still die everybody that was blind or deaf or dumb poor lazarus is like are you kidding me i gotta die again yeah that sucks you know like i don't want to do that so for me like when you realize not only is the world like the world itself is cursed like paul says in romans like the earth is groaning and we're all groaning we're waiting to get out of here well that helps me go i don't you can't fix the world only jesus he's the one who breaks the curse so the curse remains until he comes back so then what do we do well we we set people free from lies like that's what we're because like what's interesting about blurry creatures and when i listen to them i'm like oh my god i'm i listen to you guys is that you're you're challenging the paradigm of what is true that's what you're doing and when you do that it people don't like this because i'll tell you this right now the greatest fantasy that satan ever convinced the world of is that our world and its current cursed state can be okay and you go talk to parents either i have full in my church parents who have lost children to cancer who are i mean i'm not gonna go down the list but everybody has this where it's like you know i'm not gonna go down the list but everybody has this where it's like you know i'm thinking of tony merkel yeah you know there are people who have it's just really hard and painful things and for me when i look at it and go okay the cursed world is part of that narrative and yet times god does in his mercy bring healing and it's powerful and it's encouraging it's like hey god does heal and that is a part of the story but at the end of the day it's not the final thing because the final thing is not until he comes back right right as long as he doesn't this is the my the conversation with mike heiser when we last episode we did with mike before his last podcast did episode he did anyway and i'm like oh my god i'm not gonna go down the list because i'm where we asked him about that you know i remember i don't know if it was on the show or not i was asking like you can't pray for it he's like everyone's prayed for me he's like i have friends that have had the same thing i had they've gotten healed and i just haven't i don't know why but i trust god and in his plan and his sovereignty and you go that's a that's a heck of of a perspective it is because yeah how do you how do you make that make sense like that's right god heals this one and you have this this really theological giant for a lot of people and and spaces and guy who really like shifted things for for folks and bringing people into the kingdom right and god's like he's just didn't decide not to heal mike and you know yeah i don't know how you well i see i faced that reality almost 30 years ago when my dad died yeah so i was 21 he was a he was my best friend he was a pastor faithful man like very faithful man and so i had i had to come to that question a lot but then i'd seen people like crazy miraculously healed yeah you know what i mean because it wasn't like oh i don't believe in healing that's not i i saw stuff i'm like oh my god i don't believe in healing that's not my god that's god i just don't understand why him and you know i think i called you a while back luke and i was like uh because you guys had we were an episode on uh healing i think not long ago and i started thinking about this and the way i thought about it is all right so paul says you're in a war and you're wrestling against you're not wrestling against flesh and blood but principalities well those those principalities they want to do one thing they want to corrupt truth at the end of the day uh-huh right because if they if you don't trust jesus and you don't trust his truth so that's why that's why paul says we tear down strongholds yeah and i think that's a really good point because i think that's a really good point because i think so i think this is just my yeah conclusion that it's right and healthy to go before god i mean let's imagine the three of us are in the trenches and they unfortunately get shot and we we cry out hey lord we need nate like he's he's in the fight with us we need this guy here where you're protecting when you heal him and if you don't we understand that you have a plan we cannot see but we really believe you can and we really want you to and when he doesn't we we weep with those who weep but we don't lose faith right because we understand that we can't see the big picture you know mike passing away it was almost like i mean he's passing on the mantle like we like i know in my life 20 you know this is what is it 25 years later now 26 years later that my dad had passed away i don't think i'd be sitting right here with you guys if my dad was still alive because it wouldn't have shook me enough to change like i need to think about changing so that has been healthy for me when i see different people suffer like you think about paul i don't know about you guys he's probably the greatest christian to ever live and the dude got the beat he got beat up yeah how many times and i think to myself i'm like if paul was such a prayer warrior why why does he keep getting beat up he's hanging out in the wrong places right and all the disciples die yeah and it's all brutal except for john and our trench analogy of course the ginger dies first this is the way things work and in the movies yeah but the ref i am resurrected exactly well john i mean so chapter five the cosmic view right so if we're talking about the bible according to jesus where do you where do you go with with with jesus talking about the enchantment the re-enchantment of or the or the cosmic realities of of our supernatural dimension whatever you kind of want to whatever semantics you want to do that yeah and you make it really you open the chapter by asking youth group students if the bible's magical that's how you start it and they look at you like you're crazy yeah but there's a bigger picture there that like a lot of christendom church has lost sort of a lost into the supernatural or spiritual dimensional understanding of not only our faith but our reality right i mean we don't have the tools to do it i don't have the tools to see it we also we often need to be a swiss army life but we're just a one-trick pony in terms of how we read things that's right yeah so i put the so there's basically six tools in the book and i really wrote this for like a high school lesson i wrote this for like a high school lesson i wrote this for like a high school level like i did it's not a theological deep book at all they can read that maybe maybe so there's six tools and uh the reason why i put the cosmic one on number five is that like the other tools really kind of set you up it's i do it this way on purpose so that when you get to the supernatural section you can't deny that it's there so like the first the first tool is like and no one ever really argues with this but the bible this is why the cover is like all the arrows are pointing to jesus what is the point of the bible it's jesus yeah like flat out that's what i mean he is he created the world and he's the one who tells the gospel in chapter three to adam and eve like hey the seed's coming and it's me but they don't know that right so i go and show you know jesus dies who rise from the grave um this is the road to emmaus and these he's cloaked like they don't know it's jesus and they're there's two disciples and they're distraught like i can't believe he died and so jesus it says he goes through all all the old testament and points out the passages that are about him and so he's basically revealing to them you misunderstood the old testament the old testament is about me have you not heard have you not heard have you not heard that's right but not specifically like oh there's a man coming it's everything that jesus became he's the prophet priest and king um there's an aspect of the gospel that i think is often lost where it says that he transferred us out of the kingdom of darkness put them to open shame and transferred us into the kingdom of light so jesus's salvation message like his personal life and his personal life and his personal life and his personal life and his personal perspective of the world is that he's freeing you from your sin and he's freeing you from satan this is really important to understand if you're going to read the bible because we what do we emphasize all the time forgiveness of sin like forgiveness of sins that's what we emphasize and paul's like no he not only delivered you from satan he made fun of him and he mocked him and he made himself this is you don't want to convince me of genesis 6 of the giants was i was preaching uh first and second peter and it literally says that jesus goes down into hades and proclaims victory to the world and he's free from satan and he's free from satan and he's free from satan the angels who are chained up there because of what they did in Genesis 6. so all of this is jesus's perspective so when he goes and he starts talking to you about his worldview and the bible you'll start if you start paying attention he's explaining to you your physical problem and your spiritual problem so here's the like john 10 10 he's talking about like i'm the way the truth and the life right and but then he says but there's an opposition to me and it's not it's not your body only he goes but the thief has come to steal and to kill like and destroy that's right yeah i would tend to there you go so you have uh then later on this is luke 22 verses 31 and following he's he's looking at peter and peter is doing the same thing we do he's stuck in the physical and he looks straight at peter and he says simon satan is going to sift you like he's got you twisted up in your head because you're thinking about a physical kingdom only what's fascinating to me is that jesus says but i prayed for you you are like what did you pray he goes that you wouldn't lose faith oh fascinating yeah not that not that he would be freed from satan not that satan would leave he was like i prayed that your faith would be stronger than his deception which is super fascinating that is really interesting which then goes back to what we were talking about earlier when he's talking about the lord's prayer yeah he starts spiritual our father who art in heaven that's how he starts and he ends with the spiritual realm on earth and he's like and deliver us from the evil one so in my mind i'm thinking just logically every day jesus wants me to pray that and if i don't pray it what does that mean i just i just toss it out there to anyone who loves their bible and you're a theologian if you don't pray and deliver us from the evil one and jesus is the one who tells you to pray what does that mean ultimately if he's saying he's a he's a thief he's a liar he's a manipulator that means according to jesus there's a supernatural protection that comes upon you as you pray this prayer i don't know how else you interpret that i'm either going to trust jesus to protect me from the manipulation or i'm going to trust myself and we all know that's not going to work out yeah right so all these are examples that i give in the chapter of how jesus is giving you his worldview of how he thinks and then he starts he'll pull passages from the old testament and start interpreting him this way but even like uh like uh john john 844 it says he's so he's dealing with false teachers right right yeah i so want to be there for this this moment and he looks at him and he's so angry he goes your father's the devil yeah yeah which is just a but what is he saying what's coming out of your mouth has been given to you by the one that he's controlling you that's jesus's perspective john paul has that same perspective what is it ephesians 2 it says you were dead into trespasses and sins you're following the course of the world in other words satan creates a course and you're following it it's the same kind of language where you know jesus talks about throwing out seed and satan comes behind and picks it up and throws it up like the seeds of the gospel so the whole chapter is designed to kind of one jesus setting up his worldview there's a physical reality your sin there's a spiritual reality your imprisonment yeah there's a the physical things that you need to do there's the spiritual things that you need to rely on yeah so i always love this question so jesus dies and uh he raises from the dead and he spends 40 days this is acts one he spends 40 days on the earth and it says he spends those 40 days teaching them one thing do you guys know what it is total trick question what does he spend 40 days talking to them about nothing right no he does it could be you could say evangelism holiness um you could say you know whatever you want it says he spent 40 days teaching them about the kingdom and what does he say my kingdom is not of this world it's a spiritual reality he spent the last 40 days of making sure they understood how to live in a spiritual conception of the kingdom before he focused on yeah so that's what this chapter is about i do go into like um genesis 6 and some of the stuff that's in there but the idea of it is is that you know i always say the old testament is really confusing there's a lot that's going on there the best commentator on the old testament is the new testament what does the new testament have to say about it and if jesus is telling us how we should think about it i'm gonna go with that that's wild because we just literally this rhymes that yesterday yeah we just said yeah i would the best commentary in the old testament is the new testament that's right and understanding what's happening in the i can understand why the reformed church kind of gets more into a fear of prophets or because you know jesus is saying there are false prophets right but there are also prophets that are telling you the truth yeah and like let's think about that minor prophets nobody's gonna like your impact nobody likes a prophet whether he's telling you the truth or he's telling you a lie nobody likes him so if somebody comes along and says hey there's this weird thing we got to pay attention to everyone's like ah no you know what i'm saying but so it's like because there's a fear of someone's going to tell us a lie and then we'll build this kind of non-relational version of christianity yeah and we'll forget that it's all about a relationship but relationships are messy that's right so well how do you operate yeah i mean to your point though it's like if that person's prophecy goes against what scripture says we know we're not we know what to do it's like yeah the reaction's the same you know yeah i agree i agree because it's like oh oh no there's gonna be a famine either he's telling the truth or it's a lot you know it's like we don't like that no we don't like knowing what's gonna happen tomorrow before it comes that's right right and so i think a lot of people that have come on this show do that internally for people yeah and they listen they go oh this this this is this is hitting my paradigm i can't i don't like him i don't like that and i understand that sometimes it's not i mean you can't do a show like this and not make an error you're gonna make an error you're gonna you're gonna put stuff out that isn't like everybody you're trying to report the news you're trying to create a channel you're trying you're gonna have you know but when you intentionally try to do it i think that's what a lot of these swings into a very rigid view of scriptures comes from because what we've seen what happens when we swing over here so let's swing all the way back and protect so no deception can get in right yeah i mean our american culture has seen this so much right you've got dead orthodoxy and then you have revivalism and then some of the stuff that happened in revivalism it's like oh drinking and smoking is of the devil and so you're gonna go to hell i mean it's like there's always we got prohibition yeah yeah yeah i still can't believe there's dry counties in this it's wild well you know what's weird about that is when you go back and actually watch like the prohibition doc that uh homeboy did ken burns yeah people were drinking 200 plus the average american was drinking 200 bottles of whiskey a year i mean it was it was so bad it was bad it was insane so you can understand why they swung all the way the other way it was a extreme exactly michael jordan drinking you got it all the time that's crazy right which is like well i always say i don't think they were wrong everyone was an mj yeah they were like wow we're all goats around here yeah it's just like booze and booze hounds so they had to do something well there's always the extreme right you've got the same thing in this world it's like oh well there's a lot of you know bad things that can happen in the charismatic slash you know world yeah yeah and so oh we're gonna come over here and we have nothing like neither one of those is appropriate and i think it's that's what's so hard about trying to i don't i hate saying a balance because it's like you don't want to balance yourselves on the extreme you want to you want to find out what the truth is right and that's that that's what's i think has been so refreshing for me is at the end of the day no matter what the criticism is i can point back to the text and say like this is what the bible says and i mean i feel safe there and i'm gonna be okay like and what one of the things i did kind of going back to this whole uh reform thing is that this isn't actually new to the reformed world i wrote a whole document that shows 500 years of the divine council worldview and the supernatural worldview through reformed authors and i put it up on my website so if you're a reformed person you're listening to this just go to my website john moffitt.com you'll see it it's there and when i did that research i had a lot of people that stepped back and was like if they're still with us i'm impressed i'm just gonna say this is true maybe they're jumping in now yeah you're still here you know welcome welcome to the weirdo but yeah so you're looking at something that's like this again right this is the conversation we we were having john just offline is like people treat things like a supernatural worldview of the bible or could kirk cameron on recently like kirk's just questions about hell whether it's conscious eternal torment or annihilation they take the idea of annihilation as a new idea and they take it as a new idea and they take it as a new idea and they take it as a new idea but you look at it you go that's not church fathers talked about this and you go 500 years of reformed authors are talking about this idea this this theological truth i would say if at this point and and but i think people treat these things like they're new to new to this new the block and you're like these are not new ideas yeah genesis 6 this is a this is the one this is the new idea is it's sons of seth and there are no giants right and this is 500 years before that came out right i mean yeah that the new the old idea the original idea what the implied yeah story has to do with an angelic incursion and and angels physically procreating with women that's humans right and it's not a new idea but i i think that that's it's weird how we're prisoners of of of the moment often um yeah and that moment can be the last 50 years the last 40 years depending where you land theologically but i yeah i mean i i love that you went to the time because what do people do i mean how do they refute any of that they're like oh wow okay yeah so john isn't crazy right that's what that's what bigfoot did to me like i know you're being serious what did bigfoot do to you nate that's what it did to me that's a bigfoot what did bigfoot do to you look what bigfoot did to you look what you did you little jerk i was a blonde before i met no but um but uh you know it people don't understand uh a lot of why we talk about this creature like we're not out looking for them you know we're not out in the woods we're not obsessed with the creature we use that as a thing to say we don't understand how to believe things we have a we have a we have like a belief problem not that we don't believe in stuff but we don't really know how to believe in something and like jesus says you know i love that what you said about i was praying you wouldn't lose faith faith is a constant struggle that's right so none of us are gonna figure it out that's right but i think we want a theology that says i don't have to have any faith yeah i'm gonna put faith on the shelf i have these creeds and this doctrine stick to that and every day that it gets hard nope can't do that that's right i see a ghost i see a sask no angel encounter no you don't have those and no one has i don't want to have to actually struggle in faith that's that's that's a temptation for a lot of us i don't know what your guys experience is but listening to you say this i think there's a lot of well i know for a fact that a lot of people have experiences they're too embarrassed and ashamed to tell people yep yeah because they don't want to be mocked like oh you know he's he's woo now he's lost his rocker whatever yeah now that people know that hey i'm whatever you want to tell me come i won't laugh let's talk about it yeah bro i have had i'm trying to figure out how to tell you guys this story without like exposing my friend but there's a i've known for like like in high school you know like my first year in college is what i met him and this guy is okay i gotta say this without like this anyways this guy is a businessman yeah he is extremely smart very high up in the corporate world and uh i was telling him about one of my church members who's like convinced that his uncle had a he was abducted and has a chip in his arm and i've heard the story and i'm like dude that is a crazy story and i i think he's right so i'm telling him this story thinking like he's gonna make i'm testing the water right like he's gonna make fun of me and he's just looking at me like dead straight he goes i have a crazier one than that and i thought he was going to tell me about his friend it was his story long story short he and his buddies are out dirt biking in the desert in uh the the dry lake beds in california and on the other side of this mountain it's just three of them there's this bright light and so they're like whoa that i know there's a military base so let's go see what they're doing so they crawl up there and long story short he's like i i can't describe to you it's like massive in the sky and it just started moving towards us no noise no nothing and then just shot out like we never like out of sight couldn't see it anymore and all three of us look at each other like you saw that right like we didn't hear it he goes i've never told anybody but my wife well dude that's the kind of thing that's starting to happen where i'm like he's held on to that for i think almost 20 years yeah and it's those kind of things where he's in light of all this stuff you've been talking about like you know the nephilim and the government like whatever he goes what do you think about that and i was like i don't know the bible doesn't talk about that interesting interesting you know not to make it about us at all but you know when i started hearing about bigfoot was like 2012 the podcast didn't get even created until 2019 like at the beginning of it but it wasn't a twinkle in your eye yeah well well it's like during that time right i don't know if i'm partial brain damage or retarded or something but i i i felt like people just i didn't care at a certain point it was like i don't care i don't care yeah and and and one by one my friends were like dude this guy's gonna talk about bigfoot blah blah blah i just was like no i'm whoa okay you guys are all wired a little different than i am like i at this point in my life i just don't care yeah and to luke's to like luke's credit when i called him i had been so on this rabbit hole for so long i was like dude you want to do this podcast and i felt like in my mind and my gut i was like he's gonna go no i got too much to lose bro being associated with the big guy i got some friends uh you know people kind of maybe maybe know me and no i'm not gonna be associated with this and he's like i'm in and i was like okay we were we either both very dumb or there's a part of us that just doesn't care ultimately right what people think about us care right like we care about people we're higher on the empathy side i would say but we also are like i'm gonna do what i want to do and if i want to talk about this creature i'm going to but most people don't want to be looked at yeah in their community as the wacky guy that's right or the weird guy or the off guy and luke's in and i was like this is this is this is gonna happen because you can't often get two people who kind of have that same thing but i'm gonna do what i want to do i'm gonna do what i want to do and we're gonna do it anyway but you guys talking about it before is that like nice there was a running joke i've told this on the show before not to you but there's a there's like a running joke in my family because we were watching um finding bigfoot and they never find him which is part of the joke my mom i loved that show because it was just fascinating i'm from northern california yeah i lived in the pacific northwest as a kid and i just thought the idea was interesting and fun um so my mom would like buy me like a bigfoot shirt or socks or something every year and it was kind of like a bigfoot shirt this running joke um but you know it's more of a nuanced story for me like i've talked about on the show as well like just the idea that maybe you didn't know how weird it was no but i mean i grew up in our church when it was fairly charismatic so i saw i got exposed to a lot of things and a lot of it made me very skeptical and i rejected a lot of it i thought like these people have fallen down and it didn't happen to me yeah and then i watched people in ministry that were adjacent or close to the church fall like i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die like abuse kid like crazy stuff and you're like never like shook me of faith at all because i ended up having this whole crazy experience going to ywam and and going to the going out to out to the out to the nations if you will i got to southeast asia and seeing people get healed and demons cast out and i was like man i know this is all real i was there i stood there as i watched someone get a paralytic stand up and walk there's no there's nothing right you know we weren't at a mega church where someone was playing this was somebody who was laying in a hut was actually healed by god i saw maybe both sides of the of the spiritual sort of the the spiritual gifts and the good and the bad right you know they're sort of like the the fake it's like the the pursuing the gifts and then also like when god does what he wants to do he does it right but this is like people who can't even tell their best friend this is people who can't tell their wife for 30 years this is people who can't even they they even block it out emotionally and mentally yeah like they don't even know that they had the experience until like later it comes out that's the amount of of pushing back against the blurry verse that people are willing to so is that like your motivation like when you start like you said you didn't want to you weren't starting a christian podcast it was a motivator i think you know certain there's two different types of people there's people that'll give up if someone says you suck and then there's people who will go i'm gonna show you i don't suck right and i'm gonna go harder into the paint right and i'm kind of motivated i just you know started putting content of my own on the internet in 2004 music and stuff yeah and immediately the haters come i'm gonna work harder you know it's like it's a motivator so people tell me all the time everywhere i go bigfoot is stupid i'm like you're stupid no we're i want to go yeah i want to go into this wait whoa yeah like this is an exploder yep this explodes people yeah a creature in the woods it's like you're offended by this come on come on and i but i didn't know i'd pay the price for like you know my marriage blew up a lot of friends don't talk to me and i think doing this was a big part of that like you're gonna lose a lot if you go this route and i'm not saying it was all because of this sure but it's definitely didn't help no definitely doesn't help your pr campaign definitely makes you look a little bit wacky and uh just this and like getting people like nt ride and kirk cam all these people coming on the show and big theologians from our pat dude we had we thought these people would be like reject this yeah it's weird it's like when you step out and just go hmm i'll be the i'll be the village idiot sure if i'll be the fool for christ i guess i don't know what else you could do is to talk about bigfoot and try to catch your faith that sounds pretty foolish well i mean that's the proverb says right like we make our plans but god directs our path i just laugh at your guys podcast because it's like you started a bigfoot podcast yeah and do you talk about it sure like what what every 15 episodes if yeah i mean not even that yeah right but my point being is that there you never know what god's going to do and i think that's where i get i get excited going all right i don't know what god's doing with all of this the two things i do know is that i'm in christ yeah and that the gospel is his power yeah and that that gives me comfort because i i do again i keep circling back to this if i do think things are getting dark yeah and i don't think most people aren't questioning that anymore yeah what i get nervous about is the solutions that are being offered yeah and i just go that's not not going to work. I think, I think what I'm trying to say is, you know, we've had a lot of on just success that we didn't think would happen in this space. It's definitely not as big as a lot of the spaces that podcasts blow up, but everybody out there, you're having a, you have a blurry podcast. You know, you have a conversation with a friend or your five dudes that come over your house or somebody out there listening has a cousin or uncle or somebody in their life that they can't share a story. So we're all having it. It's just degrees of how many people are listening in on that conversation. There's a few more listening to this one, but you're having the same, you have that same experience in your church where you're like, okay, I'm going to introduce something weird and strange here. I don't know how this is going to go down. I guess we just created a podcast around that whole phenomena of like, no one's going to, no one likes having these conversations, but if we flip it, maybe everyone will come to it. Um, so I guess that helps. Yeah. You know, what I'm saying is like you, you started a Bigfoot podcast, had no idea that it was going to turn into like the fact that you have all these theologians come on your podcast, which is wild. And I just laugh because I'm like, neither of you guys have theological degrees and these guys are excited to be on your podcast. I'm like, that's like, that's God. But at the end of the day though, is that like, again, what I get excited about when I listened to you guys episode is that you do keep pulling it back to Christ. Because at the end of the day, you're like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And as things get weirder and weirder and wilder, you need something, some kind of foundation that goes, I'm okay. Right. I'm like, I'm going to be okay. I've been abducted. I'm going to be okay. Right. Yeah. Like I've, I've had this experience that no one believes me about like seeing Bigfoot. Right. Yeah. God puts it like a Christian in the ufology space. He puts a Christian in all these different, these rabbit holes and parent, and you're kind of bringing some of the Bigfoot flavor into the reformed world. Yeah. And of course, people are going to be mad at you about that. What are you doing, bro? Don't do that here. Well, my church, thankfully, they're great. They love, they love me. They love the message. And they know at the end of the day, all I care about is Christ. So. Yeah. Well, you wrote this book. So I want to, there's a couple of things I want to ask you about this. I mean, one of the things is that if we are reading the Bible according to Jesus and you know, like we, we know the end, like, I mean, how does that change how we read everything that proceeds up to it? Because this reminds me of, I think you used the example of the book. It's the story of a woman who was, well, either Google or want to watch the last episode in a series. So she doesn't have to worry about having anxiety of what's happening or that's how she does. How Amy operates. That, and what does that, how does that change how we look at, at the way that the scripture is unfolding? Like, and, and, and to our point, when we said earlier, like when Jesus says, I'm gonna pray for your faith, like how does that play into this story? Yeah. Yeah. In the Old Testament, we're talking about the story of Isaiah and Isaiah, right? And then eventually Hebrews says they were looking for a city beyond the city, the city without walls. And you know, Christ says things like this all the time where it's like, lay up your treasures in heaven. Or Paul, when he's talking about, he says, set your mind on things above and not on things in the earth. So we know that Christ wins. Like, I don't care what denomination you are. I don't care. Like you talk to any Christian, every, every Christian will say Jesus wins and he's coming back. That's really good. The problem is Satan doesn't want you to focus on that because if you, if you have a hope beyond the world, then you're like, ah, like, I'm not going to let the world bother me because this is not the end of the story. Because if it's the end of the story, guys, what does Paul say? Drink and be merry for we die. And that's it. Like there is no resurrection. Right. So, um, for me, what has been helpful is that I don't need to get so entangled in what's going on in this world. And I'm not, I'm not an escapist and I'm not like a doomsday. That's just not what I'm saying. But like my fulfillment and the protection and the safety that I long for, like, I know that this world's crushed and that I'm going to die. You're wrong. All three of us are going to die from something. I mean, it's probably not going to be pretty. That's what about Bob? You are going to die. I am going to die. What else is there to be afraid of? Oh, there's Tourette syndrome. Yeah, that's right. So when you start, okay, so this is, so this, so this is where everything has been going for me when I'm sitting across the table from a parent and their child just died from cancer and that child now is with the Lord. Yeah. Right. Helping them have a super. Natural worldview actually allows them to cope for the rest of their life because they know they're going to see their child, that Christ has them and that Christ didn't make a mistake. Like Jesus didn't make an oopsie. This is Romans eight. He was like, he works all things together. You can't see it now. It's the jumbled mess down here, but from above, he knows what's going on. When you don't have a supernatural worldview, all you can do is look at what you can see in front of you. And that's the conclusion that you make. So what I'm trying to do in this particular chapter, when we're talking about like at the worldview, when going to the end, we need to talk about the end a whole lot more because Christ wins and he restores. Like my opinion, I think we're going to play golf in the new heavens and the new earth and drink bourbon and laugh. Hopefully I'll play a little better than doing this one, this side of it. But there's everything that like, if you look around this world, it feels at points, it feels right. Like it's beautiful. And we have relationships. And then there are points you're like, that person just died. And that person was abused. And that person was trafficked. That's wrong. So that's the end of the story part where like, you've got to go to the end of the story. He wins. He's coming back. What does he tell us to do before now and then? Love others and set them free with the truth. And that's, I don't know how else you survive. Like for me personally, I don't know how else I survive. How does that, let me ask one more thing. How does that change your, as a pastor, how does adopting that worldview and a worldview of re-enchanting the Bible, how does that change how you pray? Preach, right? Because one of the things we beat our drum about is that a lot of Christianity is, is, is, is reduced to moral, moral code, moralistic teachings. Like, you know, we all, we all have our Goliaths and giants that we need to, we need to tackle in this life or, you know, you know, just waiting on your, was it Ruth and Boaz or whatever, just waiting on your, on your sweetheart to show it becomes this sort of like, here's a book of like some fun stories that are all about you. Yep. And they're all moralistic. Moralistic, therapeutic. Well, yeah. Deism, basically. And it becomes, and it really does become like self-help instead of, and I don't think that, I know that's not what, what Jesus was about. It wasn't. Nope. So in our church, what I tell people is that, so in the reformed faith, we use this concept called a means of grace. And what we mean by that is that when you sit down there on Sunday and we all stop and say, okay, we are now gathered underneath God's word. Well, we believe that God's word. It's supernatural. We believe that. So prayer, singing, all of this is we are now engaging in a, in a spiritual act that brings to us the presence of Christ and that brings to us healing and comfort. And so Paul says that the gospel is the power of God, not only for salvation, but also for life and hope and joy and changing. So every Sunday when I step up, I know I'm, I'm entering into a supernatural act. Like I know this. And so when I stand if you're not preaching Jesus from all of scripture, then you're probably not giving them any power. You're giving them moralism. Here's how to be better. So what you need to hear is Christ wins over your sin. Christ wins over your flesh. Christ wins over the principalities. Christ wins in creation. Christ wins everywhere. I just preached the arc where he sends out the dove. Dude, it's epic. So Genesis in creation, verse number two, says the spirit hovers over the water in chaos. And then the dove goes out in the chaos and doesn't find anything and then eventually brings back a knowledge branch, which is a sign of peace. And then what does it say at Jesus' baptism? The dove that came down like a dove and rested on Jesus. Like the chaos is over. The waiting is over. The spirit says, this is the man. This is the man. So I believe that every time, and we take communion every Sunday in the reformed tradition, we believe that the presence of Christ is there. And Paul says it this way, when you take the table, the blessings of Jesus supernaturally are transferred to you. Guys, you show up on Sunday and it's like, all right, preacher, give me something good today. That's a different experience than I'm about to be spiritually encountered. This is about to be, I don't know, I'm gonna stay in bed for this one because Jesus is about to come and spiritually encounter me and give me hope. Like I might be dying of cancer, but I have hope. My soul has rest, right? Like when Paul says, I cried out three times, Lord, help me. And Jesus' response was, my grace is sufficient. That grace, he says, is power. So in my opinion, when you re-enchant your faith and re-enchant the Bible, when the, like right now, in my opinion, what's happening here is a supernatural thing. Like I have the spirit in me. You have the spirit in you. And we're talking about Jesus. You don't tell me that we're all three aren't gonna be encouraged by this and that there's something special. Because you know how it is when you meet a stranger and then you find out they're a Christian. You're like, oh, this is like, we have some, we have something in common. Like this is encouraging. Brother. Brother. But for me, every Sunday is a spiritual encounter. And that's what's changed for me in the last five years. When I stand up on Sunday and I open up that book, I'm not thinking I need to be winsome. I need to be clever. I need to be convincing. I think to myself, Jesus promised in his book that if I tell them the gospel, his power will come and encourage them. And those who aren't saved will save them. That's a different way of thinking about Christianity. Way different. I mean, do you think that the flip side of that coin, like what happens sometimes and, in a lot of our Western churches is harmful then like the, like, like to just give a moralistic message. Dude, be better. Doesn't ever help anybody. Yeah. Because that's where I line your own power, right? It's like, just be, just try harder. Yeah. You know, be better, sin less. Good luck. Yeah. Do you feel like John, like some of the, the, the reactions you've had over the last year is that people are mad that they're not told everything. Oh man. The amount of people have come to me and probably told you guys the same thing. How come no one's ever told me this before? I've heard that a lot. I know we're also saying though, but yeah, there are a lot of people who are kind of like, Hey dude, the system works. Don't mess with it. Is that what you're meaning? Just like the Bible is not, it doesn't go into detail enough to where we can't put debate aside. We have to still debate no matter what life is a mystery. The Bible is still it's, it's clues. Yeah. It's a lot, but it's not, it's not, um, Encyclopedia Britannica. It's not 16 volumes where we got every answer to every question. No, that part I agree with. So it's like, it's like, don't remind me that I don't know everything please. And that's more of the reaction than you said something they don't agree with. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think, I think so. Yeah. There is a, you know, reform theology in the United States is pretty, it's, it's grained in the American culture. Yeah. Um, and so when you start challenging the norm, uh, I mean, you guys get this too. I mean, who cares the reformed faith, dude, Christians, Christians, you guys are messing with Christianity. They don't like it on either side. Well, just Genesis six, you know, you, it's like, uh, she just preached on, we were talking about that. Yeah. Three part series. Do you have a trilogy on the, the amount of mental gymnastics to turn it into like the sons of Seth is a great way of, of describing it. It's like, dude, you are like, you are like introducing characters. You're introducing colors that aren't even in the painting, you know, what do the, so my, uh, there's a third chapter in there. It's called context. Yeah. Do you know, I, I mentioned this early. Do you know, so Satan perfectly quotes scripture. You know, when he was out in the desert. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And he quotes verbatim the old Testament and Jesus looks at him and he, he quotes to him, the context. He goes, you just took that out of context. He goes, doesn't the Bible say that you could just cast yourself down a cliff? It does say that. And then Jesus quotes the context of how he got it wrong. So context is so important. And so this is why, like, I think in the context of Genesis six, you talk about gymnastics. It's insanity. Like the Seth, I like, listen, all my brothers and sisters told the Seth, I view, I love you. And we can totally disagree on that. And I'm okay. But you need to like, just ask, yourself, why did the first 500 years after Jesus, the church only held that it was the supernatural view. That was it. Right. Yeah. Like, like not, not some, but the majority of them. Right. And it's because the context really forces you to do that. So there's, for me, I think that I get, I get really frustrated when I listen to a lot of people online and they'll, they'll read passages or, and they just, they just pull it out. They just pull it out of context. Like they don't know what they're, I hate to say it this way, but they don't know what they're doing and they don't have any tools. And man, you put a, you put a hatchet in a kid's hand, he caused a lot of damage, but you put a hatchet in a kid's hand and he knows how to chop down a lamb. You can do a lot of help. Right. Yeah. So to your point is that I think people have been programmed to see their Bibles, in my opinion, with no supernatural lens, like it's gone. You know what they can accept for whatever reason they can accept creation. Jesus walking on the, on the water and Jonah in the whale like that, they have a category for, because those aren't threatening to them, but Jesus walking on the water and Jonah in the well, it's not threatening to them, but Genesis six and fallen angels and principalities of powers. That's right. Conquest of Joshua. I mean, there's a lot of things that become vastly uncomfortable without, without a cosmic or re-enchanted worldview. Right. Because you just are like, and then we had this conversation, we've got this conversation a few times with just, you know, a genocidal God, how could we do, you know? And you go, well, there's a, so much, there's a context there that you're just missing. I don't know how do you read it? I don't know how you read it. Okay. So like when I was a kid, um, I was just texting with Michael W. Smith about how, when I started thinking about angels and demons was because of him and there was this play and he did it. And there was a song he wrote called Ashton and it was the, everyone said, Oh, it's about, it's an angel battle between, but it's actually a song about his son. And I was like six, seven, six year old kid. And I'm thinking about angels fighting, you know? And I'm like, and my sister's, she's in this play. And I'm like, I, and then when you read the Bible, you're like, Oh, okay. I get this story. I don't know how people just omit the characters. It has to, it's a certain type of stubbornness. Yeah. There's certain people who just they're, they're okay in the gray space. Yeah. They hang out in the gray space. Sure. I'm in the gray space, whatever it's saying, you know, but people, I don't know. There's certain temperaments wiring. I don't know. They don't want to. I agree. Angels and gen, no, humans, angels, they're just non-compatible. And I will go to my death fighting this, just this point. Right. So, well, I mean the whole Dan, for me, I remember the first time I read that story with open eyes about Daniel and the messenger comes in his 21 day battle. Yeah. And I read that and I read it again and I was like, I've been reading the Bible for 20 something years. Why have I never seen this story? Like, and I think we have blind reading. Like in my opinion, I never, I was a college pastor for 10 years up in Nashville. And the students every year, they would always ask me about two things, homosexuality and Genesis six. And I was like, oh, we can do with the one that matters. Like the Genesis six, I'm like, I don't know. It doesn't really, I, for 10 years, I blew it off. And that's when I, when I was reading, um, Donald Gray Barnhouse's book, and he has this whole section on it. And I was like, well, if Barnhouse thinks it's important, maybe I should, maybe I should pay attention. Yeah. But that's how I was trained. Like these parts of the Bible don't matter. Like just don't, you don't have a, like you guys said all the time, preachers weren't trained to preach on it. I went to seminary to a very, actually, do you guys know who John MacArthur is? Yeah. So I went to John MacArthur seminary, which is pretty decent seminary. I was not trained at all to think about the supernatural or like demons and angels, any like when he said you get a class. Yeah. That's, I didn't even get a class. So to, to your point though, I think I tend to be a little bit more patient with people. I think one, they need, they need to tip their toe in it, or they need, uh, some experience or like I need to rethink my life here. Then they're willing to talk to you about it. It's wild. I mean, uh, you know, growing up in, in various pockets of Christianity, you know, we all kind of adopted sort of the, the culture of that time. And I think, you know, we said this a lot on, on the show is just, I think maybe blurry kind of started from being exposed to all different types of Christian circles. And there was never like a cohesive we've got it all figured out over here. And so for me, it was just, I don't want to, I don't want the topic of Bigfoot to force me to lose my faith. I think it fits in there. There needs to be some kind of devoted lane to these things because I mean, what a sad situation where someone could be a Christian graze in the church. They have a Sasquatch encounter and then they go, I don't believe in God anymore. It's exactly right. And it happens. It does. I don't believe in God. Anyway, this whole thing I've been told it's all fake. And it's like, whoa, whoa, wait, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yeah. Go back and read that book again. And like, think there's many blurry encounters in that book. - There's a lot of deconstructing into the new age right now. - Yes. - Big time. - Yeah. - Yeah. I mean, but it's the cool thing about the podcast is it's brought about a lot of those people back into back into their, the kingdom of heaven. - Yeah. You guys probably get a lot of emails like that. - Yeah. - Well, I mean the new age becomes, becomes enticing for people that are deconstructing because it doesn't require anything of you. It's there's no responsibility. It's spirituality without. - But it scratches the blurriness of life. - But it's still spirituality. - But really at the end of the day, it's a cultism because it really is just do what thou wilt. Like do whatever you want and have a spiritual experience. And you go, that's exactly what Crowley said. That's interesting. Like, and I think that's again, like the Ecclesiastes paradigm, there's nothing new under the sun. We're just, you know, we're looking at, at the repackaging of, of paganism and, and the cultism. - Well, we tried the no God thing in America. - Yeah. - And it didn't work. And so unfortunately, I don't think people are going back to Christianity. They're going, they're going. - To other gods. - A lot of things. Yeah. - Lower G gods. - It seems like Satan's, the way he works is neuter Christianity and then gender confuse the spiritual realm. And it's like, okay, we were, we were a created man and woman. We have a sexuality. We have, we have there's a way this works. Let's figure that out. Like it's, it's biological for us to, to ponder, to question, to want relationship and to search and seek. And if we can't, just cut them off and be like, we're not that we're not made that way. It's hard. I mean, it is, it's more work. It's, it's, it's grinding through it. It's tension. Everyone who has a relationship with someone they love, it's, it's, it's not, it's a, it's a grind off, you know? So. - Well, I do have a one thing for you guys. - Yeah. - I got a family in my church who is at my church because your podcast. - Let's go. - I told that Luke, I think you guys are turning people reform. And I guess maybe that'd be like one of my last questions John would be like, do you, you know, I don't, I think a lot of people think that like the confessional reformed theology and robust supernatural worldview that are not compatible. No, they're not conflicting actually. Yeah. So that's what, so like, if you think about it, um, reformed confessionalism and creeds, they're dealing with, uh, the person, the nature of God and then like sin, salvation and the church, it doesn't really handle the supernatural stuff that we're talking about. And it's not designed to, it's like, Hey, if the three of us, let's say we're all three from different denominations, but we all need to partner together. The creeds help us do that. Like, well, you believe in the Trinity, you believe that Jesus died and rose again, and you believe that he's eternal. Great. We can all work together. Cause if you don't believe one of those, we're in trouble. Right. Um, so what, what ends up happening though, is that people say, well, that's the only thing you should talk about. And I'm like, well, that's not the only thing the Bible talks about. Yeah. A lot of weird in there. So what I have tried to trumpet in my tradition is that let's, believe the confessions and creeds, what they're designed for unity and structure, like protect us. This is good, but they're not in the, they say it at this, like the confession says as itself, it's just not cover everything that's in the Bible. So that's all I've been trumpeting is that I think the reformers did us a favor of like, Hey, we probably don't want to run off the cliff here. We've already made those mistakes in the past. You know, like we want, we want to believe in the Trinity guys. And we want to believe that Jesus died and rose again and that he was a real man. Cause otherwise you're a heretic. Like I'm thankful for that. But they didn't tell us everything's in the Bible. So that's where the fight has started. And thankfully through Doug and I, a lot of people are like coming out of the woodwork and they're seeing it and they're loving it. They're, they're, they're being helped by it. So, yeah. And then what, what about, and what about writing this book? And what was maybe the most, what was the most profound aha thing was you're reviewing the Bible and through a lens of Christ, like, and I know you've talked about the Lord's prayer, which I think is super profound. But like, yeah, for me personally. Um, I am floored about like, I can't go a chapter without their, it's like Jesus being exposed to me in ways that I'm just floored. Like if you go back and just listen to my sermon I did on Sunday where, uh, no, I don't know how many people connect, you know, coming off the ark, like, oh, he just came off the ark and then he made a sacrifice, whatever. It's like, no, that whole encounter is preparing you for Jesus baptism. Like the whole old Testament. Um, is just one big, like glorious illustration so that you can just see how loving, kind, gracious, powerful, and amazing Jesus is. Once you learn that reading the old Testament, it's a blast. You can have the worst day of your life. You could be like, I think I'm going to die from cancer tomorrow and open up your Bible and be like, but Christ is awesome. He is, he is with me. He has never, like, he has cast my sins as far as the East is from the West. He hears my prayers when I don't pray correctly. He prays for me. Like all of this comes to me from the Bible. And, but most of us have been trained to read it. Like, well, I'm going to go in there and read, read out what I need to do. And then there's like this weird thing about all these genocides. I'll just throw this in there. You guys have had this before, but no, that is, that is God cleaning out these hybrids that are messing up creation to keep the Messiah from coming. You read that part and you're like, that's why Jesus goes down into prison. It was like, you failed. He pumps the fist like you felt. So when I read that my day, my. Maybe the worst I've ever had, but I can go into scripture and go, you know, a lot of people suffered and a lot of people died and a lot of people felt discomforted. But the one thing they all had was hope. Yeah. And the hope was Christ. So that's what changed my mind over the last five years. Like when I dive into preaching or when I dive into podcasting, or when I read the Bible myself, I'm always like, he's the hero of the story and why not learn about how he did that? It's, it's, it's really encouraging. That's awesome. Cause my circumstance may not change. And he told me why he goes, yeah, you're in a cursed world, but I'm not gonna leave you without comfort or purpose. You have purpose. You have comfort. I'll pray you have more faith. This might be the most cheesiest joke I've ever made, but behind you is a board game called crossfire. And I think the Bible is, is, is a lot of that. It's like caught up in the, in the crossfire between the two, the two wars and then the stories are explanation of that. The cross. Oh, got it. That joke. That joke. I got that for Christmas one year. And I remember getting that game for Christmas. But to your point, people don't read the Bible that way. It's not, they don't read it that way. Genesis three introduces the two, the fight king, two seeds, right? The seed war. The seed war. Yes. Right from the beginning. Chapter three. Heaven and hell's going back and forth. I mean, we see this in the skies. People send us weird blurry videos. It seems like it's going on to today. You got creatures coming out of the deep. You got the underworld. You got heaven and earth colliding. It's just, it's. You got angels showing up on the scene. Yeah. You got fights, battles, wars, killing. You got resurrection. It's, it's just. It's. You got the gods of old returning. Just bananas. Yeah. Which is, which is wild. I mean, if you, I mean, this is a total side, but like, if you even have somewhat paid attention to some of the Epstein file drops, you're realizing that like, you know, he has a bank account named bail. You know, these, these things, these things don't ever go away. They haven't gone away. Think about it from this perspective. If it gets like super wild, like fantasy world wild, you know why that's good for us as Christians? Yeah. Because God says like, when the gospel is proclaimed, I work, well, that's good for us because the gospel is a supernatural. It's not physical. Yeah. Like Pete Yorn says it already is. You're on a roll. You're on a roll. It's Mike is smoking. That's right. And thank you for coming on. There's not many dudes in your space who would probably want to come on blurry creatures. Yeah. I was honored. Being a friend and. Yeah. We'll pay your attorney fees. My sponsor. Yeah. My sponsor. Yeah. And my speaker fee. Yeah. Well, John, the book is out today. Where can, where can they, where can they find it? I know john Moffat.com is. Yeah. Theocast.org. Okay. Yeah. That'd be the place to get it. Or Amazon. And you've got the podcast going. So. Yeah. If you want more of like, I don't, I don't dive into the stuff that they do. Right. But if you want a supernatural perspective of Christianity and how does that work out in your everyday life? That's what Theocast is about. Love it, dude. Get the book. And you're, and you're a local here, which is, it makes it fun. Yeah. And you can hang outside the studio, which is, which is cool, man. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for being kind to us reform people. Doug and I appreciate it. Hey. You're helping. The best. Yeah. You're helping. Yeah. They, they didn't like us from the beginning, but some. If they're still with us. There's more and more listening. Let's go. Yeah. Bring them back. Until then. I think there's like an underground, like just an underground reform world that like secretly. Like back to prohibition. They're like, we're all going to get together and listen to blurry together. Totally. Or whatever, whatever non-reformed thing. You got to sing out the crossfire theme song. It's going to cross fire. Oh, wow. I remember. I remember that commercial. And the two little boys. Do you remember the microphone? We're going to win it in a crossfire. Yeah. Yeah. I'll see you next time.