Life and Death or Right and Wrong

[Music] Ian, we're back again. Wow. [Laughs] Look, this time we're going to be talking about life and death. But life and death as compared to contrasted with right and wrong. Okay. Right. Now, I know that you've got some, it's a history with this. This has been with us for a while, isn't it? Most people think what are they going on about here? There's a bit of history here, so let's get that in first. Okay. So, I was at a kind of, I don't know what you would call it, kind of ministers, pastors, leaders, kind of gathering, round table kind of thing. And a guy called Ed Delph was there. By the way, I'm going to make a disclaimer now. I'm going to quote Ed, but he doesn't have to own anything else we say. [Laughs] You're not responsible. So, don't blame Ed. Disassociated with. I'm not affiliated with you. But it was such an incredible, it had such an incredible transformation in my life. And we talk a lot about that, right? But these transformational aspects where you have these, these watershed moments. And for me, this was a watershed moment. It wasn't initially, it was a watershed moment in the sense I didn't believe it. I thought this is rubbish. What's he talking about here? So, but anyway, so he's talking away. And he says, you know, because the issue is we have to move from a paradigm of right and wrong to a paradigm of life and death. Because Jesus lives in the life and death paradigm, not in the right and wrong paradigm. And I'm thinking to myself, I just, that's rubbish, isn't it? It's my first response is, well, like, that's just wrong. You know, and immediately, I've been the right and wrong. Yeah. Jury, I mean, in that paradigm. Anyway, I came home and I was thinking, but he troubled me. And I knew that there was something in it, but I couldn't quite grasp it. And then I started, as I was reading the scriptures, you know, just do my normal devotional kind of stuff. I started coming up, I gained story after story of where it wasn't about right and wrong. It wasn't that Jesus wasn't working on a right and wrong paradigm, but he was working on a life and death paradigm. So the most stark, probably easiest one to, to get is the woman caught in adultery, right? So, um, so if you read the story, woman's caught in adultery, they bring her to Jesus and they say to him, okay, what should we do here? Should she be stoned, right? Um, just a little side note here, not only should she have been stoned, but the guy she was caught in adultery was, should have been as well. That's a, that's a whole nother aspect to that story that we could explore sometime, but not now. Um, but he, so, so they, they brought Jesus. And obviously, if it was a right and wrong paradigm, she should have been stoned, because the law was clear. Caught in adultery, you get stoned, right? That you, you're dead, you're, you're killed. But Jesus did something totally different. He bent down, he started writing in the sand. I would love to know when he wrote in the sand, but we don't know. We could speculate, but I'm not going to, right? But he, whatever he wrote, they, it says, one by one, they peeled away, because, and then he said, those who, I've sinned, who have not sinned, yeah, those who forecast the first stoned, right? Yes. So, so, so, and then one by one, they kind of peeled away. That's so good. That's what he wrote in the sand there. And so it's just heard in Jesus' left. Where are your accusers? Yeah, we're, we're, we're, are they now? And then he says an interesting thing to hear. He doesn't condone his sin, right? He doesn't say, oh, it's okay. Don't worry, adultery's fighting in my book. He doesn't say that. He says, no, go and sinned, no more. So he is at that point giving her the choice of life and death. Because what he's saying in that statement, if you continue in this behavior, you will die. It will bring death to you. Yeah. But if you choose not to, you will find life. Yeah. Right, so, so it really started for me a whole process of, of, of starting to try and develop a nurture within myself, an attitude and a mindset and a paradigm of life and death rather than right and wrong. So when him, no, no, no, sorry, I just hit my microphone. Sorry about that, listeners, but, but, it made me start to think whatever situation I'm faced with, rather than asking, is this right or wrong? Yeah. What is the right thing? What is the wrong thing here? Is how can I help bring life to the situation? Yes. Because, you know, when Jesus gives us the choice, I don't think he wants to choose death, but he's bringing, he's bringing her into a place where she can find life. Right, I think that, that's all, I think that's always God's heart, is for us to find life. Yes. Right? So, so for me, it started, I started to, starting to really try and apply that as, as a, as a kind of way of working, a way of thinking, a way of operating. And it's totally changed the way I, in which I approach certain things now, things I would be very black and white of in the past. Yeah. I'm not, no longer, black and white about them, you know, and not, I'm not as judgmental as I used to be. Which is, you know, many people say, "Really? Can't imagine what that was like." But, you know, that, that kind of idea, or of that. So, that's kind of, that's where this came from, for me. And, and it's been, it's been amazing. And it bears fruit wherever I go. Often the first response is the same as my response. Particularly if I don't backfill, you know, because sometimes I just throw it in just like Ed did that day. You're just throwing it in there. Well, God, you know, God does not operate in a, in a right and wrong mode. He, he, it's a life and death mode. It, it's, this is a really interesting one, isn't it? Because we, we, we recorded the podcast on Kingdom. And if anyone's listened to that, and still, still listening to us, the principle in it was, find out what God is saying and do it. Now, a right and wrong mindset is a case of, well, we don't need to find out what God is saying because we're hardwired. We know what's right and wrong. Right. Yes. So, we default to a code, an institutional requirement. A, a, a, a, a prejudice, a tradition. Something else, anything else, or even fear. I was thinking about this in a, one of the big gods I, a struggle with, is fear, the God of fear, who, when I choose, what I do here, instead of hearing the creator, I hear fear. Oh, you've got to back off and close down and not go there because, and you're not listening to God. And, and so, if we're, we're functioning out of one of those other sources, then this is not life. Actually, it brings death, isn't it? And Jesus said, I am the life. And one of the things to connect this back to is, there is the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden. Whatever the historicity or reality of those, but there's the truth of them is this, is that we operate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil when we choose right and wrong. And we, and therefore, we always end up bringing death by doing, even by doing the right thing. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Which is a paradox, isn't it? But that's, that's, that's why, and also, if you think about the law and salvation, right, you know, how, can we, can we find salvation through a bay in the law? Yeah. Right and wrong. The law's right. Right. Yeah. But, so, it's either we do right or we're right. Yeah. But, but actually, it's about faith. It's about finding life in him. Right. And this isn't that the law in itself is evil, because Paul makes that really clear, isn't it? Yeah. But it's actually God is working on a higher truth and a higher plain. And what's it? The law was given to show what is right and wrong. So we have, we have a conscience, we have an understanding. But actually, when we come into Christ, we, we, we, he fulfilled the law, didn't he fulfilled the requirements of the law. And the only law that got passed on, I think, at the Council of Jerusalem was to keep the marriage bed holy and not to eat food sacrifice to idols. And I think you said even Paul, Paul overdoons that later on. The second one gets pinned anyway. So, so the requirements of the law, the century are fulfilled in Christ. For, for Gentiles. For Gentiles, yeah. But what's the point? I believe it. We're called not into the law into right and wrong. We're called into something else, life and death. Jesus said, I am the life. This is a person we're working with now, not a creed or a, well, well, even you know, you're thinking about fear, right? Well, what, what does it say is the antidote to fear? It's not courage. It's love. Yeah. Perfect love cast out fear. Well, what is that? That's life, right? What, what gets rid of our fear is actually connecting with the life. Yes. Yeah. And with the heart of God, right? So, so, you know, when we talked about the kingdom, we were talking about about, you know, how do we hear God and all the rest of it? You know, often, often, when we are wanting to hear God, we are looking for two things, right? We're looking for His mind and His will. I would say we need to look for His heart as well. So how does God want this to be expressed? Very good, right? Rather than, because, you know, I feel all kinds of like, like, prophetic words and stuff about the love of God that has sounded very, to be honest, anything but the love of God here, because somehow the truth, God loves us. That's the truth. But how it's communicated is really important, right? I can say to my wife, I love her. But if I'm beating her, she doesn't think I'm loving her. Oh, love is very twisted. Right. Exactly. My love for her is very twisted. I want to control her. You know, we see these in the kind of films and that, hopefully my wife would say that, I don't do that, right? But, but, but, you know, we see this in the, all the films and stuff, you know, where I really love you and then they beaten them, but I love you, Jeremy and, or, or they're controlling, but I love you. You know, and, and actually, I think sometimes that's how we see God. You know, we see God with this, with this, this kind of idea that He loves us, but He's got a big stick waiting to hit us when we get it wrong. Yeah, yeah. Right. And this is, there's a fundamental shift here as well to be aware of. And people may not make this jump easily, but I'll make you aware of it. Entie right. As identified, three fundamental problems with modern Christianity. One of them is that we see our humanity is basically a moral problem that we've moralized our humanity. And that'd be maybe because of our inheritance or certain ways of looking through the Victorian era and so on. That, that we primarily come up against this, you know, she's committed a adultery. Why should we not stone her? It's a moral response. And, and it's not wrong, but it's not life. There's something bigger going on. And this is why, you know, to work with Jesus beyond in spaces where we've not worked before in ethical situations, which are incredibly complex. The answer is going to be wisdom, which is a person. And it's going to be life, which goes beyond the right and wrong code. And it's going to be tailored, particularly for what God was to say in that moment. And possibly also, can I suggest, it may be tailored to how God likes to work with you, because he's brought you into this situation. So the way it works with you will be different how you might work with someone else brought in. So there's no code or creed or rulebook that's ever going to give you the solution for any moment where you're walking in one of these ethically complex, difficult moments. It will be what is he saying right now? What is the life, the source of life saying? And so therefore, there is no guidebook. If we want to see Jesus working out into these spaces, in these dark spaces, we're going to have to be prepared to go in among the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the lepers, the adulterers. We will be called sinners. He feasts with sinners. Drunkers. Yeah, these people are drunkers and all that stuff. When you get get involved with these people, and there is not going to be a rulebook, because you can't bring the law in, because if you bring the law and you kill them all off upfront. And if we want to see life come, and the rule and reign of Jesus come in the whole earth, and it is going to come, and it will come in this way, because this is Jesus' way, I suggest. Then we're going to have to learn to become comfortable in responding to situations with what he is saying now, rather than a code, something written. It's not a written word. It's going to be the preceding word right now. Yeah. That's really interesting, isn't it? I would suggest even that we can have scriptures like Ephesians 2, for instance, where it says, "We were enemies of God." Right? Yeah. But he still loved us. Very good. Even when we were enemies of God, he still loved us. Right. Well, if he's a right and wrong paradigm, we're his enemies, and we're his enemies because of sin and disobedience and going our own way. Right? So that's the right and wrong code at that point. But he still loved us because love overcame those things and gave a chance for life. And I just want to, I do want to emphasize that. It's a chance for life. There's still a decision we have to make to walk into life. Yeah. But it's about having that chance for life, that choice to choose life or death, just like the woman caught in adultery, go and sin no more. In other words, go and do it. If you do this, you will die. If you don't, you will live. I have given you a chance for life now. Right? And at some point, that choice becomes concrete. Right? But at the moment, it's not concrete. It really isn't. Do you know what I mean? If I die tomorrow, it's concrete. That's where it becomes concrete. Right? But at the moment, it's not. Is it? Yeah. Do you know? And that's why, you know, again, we mentioned in the in the last podcast about the tears in the wheat, the sheep and the goats. It's all separated at the end of time. Yes. When that choice becomes concrete. There are real consequences. We are not universalists. No. Right? At a point in time, there will be real consequences. But at this point, there's not. We're in the year of the Lord's favor, not the day of His judgment. All of those things, I think we often struggle in that. And I think that's because we're often living in this right and wrong aspect. Well, they're wrong. They're, you know, therefore, they need to be. Rather than know, how do I find ways of speaking life to get to them and give them the choice to choose life? Yeah. Yeah. Rather than death. That was really good. Another dimension of this is that if you come into a situation, Jesus said, I only say what I hear the Father saying. But He also said, I only do what I see the Father doing. Now, why is He telling us that? He's telling us because He's discipling us and showing us how we're to walk. So we're to walk by showing up into a situation and only doing what the Father's doing and only saying what the Father is saying. Now, how do we know what He's doing? Well, you've got to look for where's a life here? Yeah. What's life going on? So you may be dealing with this situation. Let's say with people who are inverted commas unbelievers because I think that's a very complex piece and I think it sits badly across the categories of in and out and so on that we've talked about in the past. But these people, they're not explicitly following Jesus. And they may have made some really bad choices and they may be in a bad space and bad things going on. But there may be some life somewhere. And what does Jesus do? Jesus comes and He works with that life and He builds on it and He talks to that. He speaks to that. In other words, if you come to a field and you see one green shoot, the whole field is brown, but it's one green shoot. The thing to do in that field is take a bucket of water over there going weed around it, going fertilize it. That's what Jesus did. He said, I see what the Father's doing and that's where I work. And that's an instruction to us, isn't it? In these spaces, how do we find what to do? Well, it's not the, you know, all those brown shoots that have died. You can't work on those unless God's told you to raise them from the day. But work with that one, you know. And that means you can always work in situations where you may be in a situation where there's divorce and there's addictive behavior and there's disengagement with relationships and disconnection and things are in a mess and it's just a catastrophe. But there's a piece of life in it. Well, let's start there because that's what Jesus does, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And so thinking about like the, you know, I hear a lot of debate around the story of the 10 lepers, right? It's a 10 lepers. Jesus meets 10 lepers. He heals them all, right? Go to the priests, let them declare you're and you're clean, right? One of them comes back to him. Now, you're a lot of debate about that, right? Well, what happened to the other night? Yeah, well, they probably got, I've heard people preach, they got the leprosy back, they got all of that kind of stuff, right? But I don't think that's true. I think they walked in their cleanness at that point. I think Jesus, no, I can't prove that anymore than the people who said, but knowing the nature of God is important here, right? So, but the one that came back didn't just receive his healing, he received much more than that, right? Because he received a portion of life, his gratitude, his acknowledgement, all of those things would have brought all kinds of other aspects to his life at that point, you know? And I just, I just, I just, it's that whole aspect of it. You know, Jesus gave an opportunity for them to have real life, not just healing, real life, to really connect with God, to really come back only one of them chose to do that. Right. So, so for me, I'm just I'm just thinking there's so many stories like that where if right and right and wrong, they didn't come back then they should, you know, send them to hell or whatever, but Jesus didn't choose that, generally it's it's it's and I just think there's something, but they were still walking. Who knows? Perhaps they they found a way. So, he thought, man, I should have gone back to Jesus, I didn't, but you know, one of them melt down by the side of the road and did I, we don't know, but what I'm saying is is that is that whole aspect of the paradigm of right and wrong against the paradigm of life and death gives you that ability to be more generous. Yes. To be to have a redemptive mindset. Yeah. Very good. Right. So, to look how do I nurture that, what, you know, in other words, I am what I'm in a situation now, I'm not looking is this right or wrong? Yeah. How do I judge it? Yeah. I'm looking how do I bring life to it? How do I redeem this? How do how do I allow God to use me to redeem it? Yeah, better way, better way, put it in that, right? So, so I just think that this whole aspect of developing that mentality of life and death rather than right and wrong. Now, you know, other things are right and wrong. Of course, there are. It's not that that's we've done away with right and wrong. You know, it's all you can do whatever you want. It's like grace, you know, we talk about grace. Grace is God giving us what we don't deserve. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And people go, yeah, but that, you know, even even in the Bible, you know, Paul in Romans six talks about that. He says, you know, he says that I preach grace and then you ask me, therefore, should I sin the more? So grace might abound more. Yeah. Yeah. And he said, don't be so foolish. It's like, it's like, no, no, that isn't what it's about because if I receive that life, it teaches me to say, notice it. That's what tightness to teach us. Right? So in the same way as if I give people the opportunity for life, it teaches them to live in life or not in death. Totally. I'm just saying, you know, the greatest parable of all unquestionably is the one about the ill-named prodigal son. The prodigal son illustrates us in a good way. Yeah. And we go straight to where? Because the older brother satisfied right. Yeah. He hadn't done the wrong stuff. He did the right stuff. The younger brother done the wrong stuff, not the right stuff. The younger brother receives life. But the older brother, because he's done right, ends up cutting himself off from life until the father, it doesn't say, but the father rebukes his logic. He doesn't rebukes the son. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Your understanding is false and limited. Okay. Everything I have is yours. Now the younger son had clocked onto that and come home for it. The older son had said, by right, I've earned this. And the problem is when we do write, we can get into a self-justification, a self-righteousness. And that puts us in a tragic position where we cut ourselves off from the generosity and the richness and the abundance of God, because Jesus came to give life, life to the full, not, you know, you're not even giving me a goat to sacrifice with my friends. It's a sort of party with my friends. But the father's response, that's interesting as well. You could have had whatever you asked for. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just to say, so by being satisfied with right, he missed out on abundance. On abundance. There's a story. And you know, and it comes back to that, you know, the John 10, 10 thing again, you know, I've come to give you life in all its abundance. You know, we talk about Jesus giving this life all the time as those who have given themselves to Jesus, who are following Jesus, abandoning to Him. If you're like, you know, however we want to talk about that, we talk about, is it a wonderful God has given this life? But actually, it's not just life. We shouldn't satisfy, be satisfied just for life. But abundant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not talking you're prosperity gospel and I can have my Mercedes car. I'm not talking about that. I might be true. I might not be true. But it's about being able to find gratitude in the midst of anything. You know, one of the things me and my wife have talked about the other day, you know, we look at the younger generation, we definitely get old people now, you know, oh, this younger generation, you know, and we were just talking about that. But they I think they often struggle to find gratitude and fulfillment in the little things. Yeah. They have these highs and then they have huge lows. And you know, and a part, but part of that is that they can't find that that smaller thing, you know, that the gratitude in a beautiful sunset. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm using kind of bad one, you know, kind of poetic ones, if you're like, but but what I'm saying is is that if we can't find abundance in the small things of life, right? Because that's abundance. It's been able to be grateful. It's like when we did the Christmas special, you know, and we're talking about Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob Cratchit. Bob Cratchit. And you know, he didn't have much, but they made the most of all that they had. Yeah. Or Mr. Figgy Wiggle or whatever his name is. Fizzy. Fizzy Wiggle. It's a good job. You've got him in your mind, isn't it? You know, and you know, the ghost actually says to to scrooge at that point, you know, but he didn't do much. Yeah. You know, it wasn't a big, it wasn't like the the fatted car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but he said, no, but it didn't have to do much. And really what he said, he didn't have to do much because it was full of love and life. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, so you find that all the way through. So when we're looking at abundance, it's that finding abundance in whatever situation we're in because we found life and love. And that's that's the tragedy of scrooge, isn't it? Yeah. He didn't learn that lesson from Fizzy Wiggle at the time, which was you can have abundance with not a great amount. Yeah. And he went off on a journey where he gathered abundance or he gathered an abundance of material wealth. And he lacked abundance in his life as a consequence of it. And that's that that's the tragedy. Yeah. And in fact, in sorry, you have to go back and listen to or listen to Christopher Carl if you missed it. But in the beginning, he has his conversation with his nephew where he says, well, you're poor enough. You know, how can you be cheerful? In other words, he's got this right thing. I'm right. I've done the right thing. I've worked hard, saved my money, stripped my pennies. You know, these idiots going around saying merry Christmas. Well, they haven't got anything to be merry about it. Yeah. It's a poor old scrooge. I'm saying it's a trash. Scrooge's life was a tragedy that God wanted and did redeem. God wanted to redeem and did redeem. Yeah. There's one other element of tragedy here is that I'm just thinking about particularly. And this is this is going to require some willingness to repent. And if you don't make it and you can't do it, God bless you anyway, you know, but if you can, it will be life. It's this is that if there are situations you're facing that are years and years old and they just haven't moved, it may be because you're doing the right thing. You know, and I was thinking about this as well as one of the values virtues we have as Christians is faithfulness. But to slowly break this, these words down, what if our problem is we've become faithful to a teaching but not faithful to a person. So we defend the teaching. We defend this understanding. We defend this way. We say because that's the dad. But actually, we missed the point. We weren't called to be faithful to a teaching. We're called to be faithful to a person. Paul said, I knew nothing among you except Christ Jesus. I taught nothing among you except him. And it is the gospel of Christ Jesus, not the gospel of Christianity or the gospel of a certain theology or even the gospel of salvation. These things are all smaller than that. If we do the right thing, we'll end up trapped there. And the tragedy of a lost opportunity, lost life, lost relationships, decades that the locusty is the consequence of it. And I believe the grace of God transcends that in a much bigger way, but we still lose. And it will fall to another generation to bring life where we didn't. Now, I'm just saying, if there are things that are just stuck and they just never worked, never broken out, it could be because you're doing the right thing, but you're not doing life. And I think truth, you have to find the truth, the life in the truth, right? So I know a lot of people who preach the incredible doctrine of grace in an incredibly faithful way. for. it's not gracious, normally, unfortunately, but in terms of, you know, in the depth of the theological understanding, but they've never found the life of it. So they live legalistically, preaching a gospel of grace. Now, so many of us are like that. So we can be, it's about believing the right thing and not allowing the right thing to experience the power of it. You know that? The versed 8 John where it says, "If you hold to my teaching, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Right? So it's really interesting that because the idea in that verse is that we hold on to the truth. So we experience the power or the life of it and then it sets as free. It does not, knowing it in your mind, knowing it theologically, does not set you free. In fact, I know so many Christians that know truth, that know doctrine, but are not free because they've never experienced the power of it. They've never experienced the life of it. They haven't sought to find life. They've just thought to be theologically right. You've gone for understanding. Exactly. And it's a tree of knowledge again, you know. So, so I just, I know, those are difficult things. Actually, they're difficult because often they're kind of subjective. But I don't mean the truth is subjective. I mean, our experience or not experience of it or knowledge of it, you know, is our understanding or our lack of understanding. We have knowledge but no understanding. That's another aspect. I think of the right and wrong life and death paradigm. So if we are holding on to a truth and we're not seeing fruit from it, then we have to ask if we found the life in it yet. That's very good. And Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life. Those three words gather in him. They come and they're working him. Absolutely. And and therefore, we have to find him. He is the word, right? Yeah. He is the word. It's not the word. It's he is the word. It's a person. So if we are not finding him, we can find as much truth as we want. But if we can know as much of the written word as we want. But if we are not connecting it with the person of Jesus, it will not set us free. That's the reality. That's we will be right theologically and so wrong in experience life. So you can be right but be so wrong. Or rather, you're right, but people experience you as death. Yes. There's no wonder people have stopped going to churches, is it? Yeah. You know, church attendance is is trailing. Maybe one of the factors in that is this that people are getting right, this, you know, they get the right, but they're not getting that life. And I think that the key here is that what we're talking about is not, I think there's a fault, we get into false polarities, a false difference or options. It's a false, we're talking about, you either have grace, we have extreme grace, which is sin. So it's basically a law or you're either complying with a law or you're not actually, what's that boils down to? But we're talking about something. Actually, you know, true grace transcends that. It brings them, you know, in the same way the truth and life come together in a person. True grace is not sinful. It brings us, the grace God leads us to repentance, doesn't it? Yeah. And the goodness of God leads us to repentance. It transcends it. And if in fact, at least definitions, the definition of sin, Romans 3, 23, all have sinned and what? What was the consequence of the sin? They fell short of the glory of God. They have, they're short of his nature. So actually, the antidote to sin is not to do the right thing. The antidote to sin is to, is to manifest the glory of God, which is his nature. So manifest his nature, which is our created condition. We were created in his image, the restoration of his image in us. Doing the right thing, not committing adultery, doesn't make me a glorious creature, but being full of love, joy, peace, faithfulness and goodness and gentleness and kindness of him, is that life restoration, which is the opposite of sin actually. So in all these things, we're talking about a transcendent reality, overright and wrong, not a kind of, right and wrong, don't work any more. So we just get rid of them as categories. No, we're looking for something greater and bigger and higher, which is what Jesus says. Because it's not that we're saying that, you know, the right thing is not to commit adultery, right? So it's not saying, therefore, we can commit adultery. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is if I find life, if I find the life of that truth, I won't want to commit adultery. No, no, no. Right. If I, if I, you know, so many people know that God is good, but it doesn't lead them to repentance, because they know it here, but they've never experienced his goodness, because they've never allowed themselves to experience his goodness, because they have a view of God's goodness that actually is a little bit perverted to be honest. Yep. Right. So, so it's because it's all about judgment and the big stick and, you know, it's all back to that house. I know God loves me, but does he really? Yeah, you know, I'm afraid, I'm afraid if I do one thing wrong, you know, I will get a beating. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Or I will get dissu- you know, we use our or kinds of other words for it. We, I will get disciplined. Now, you know, God disciplines those he loves. That's true. I'm not, I'm not saying God doesn't discipline us. Yeah. But we shouldn't be fearful all the time of his discipline. We shouldn't encourage his discipline, because he does it in a loving way. That's what I generally, there's all, but you see, that's the difference between right and wrong and life and death. Yeah. Or, or even if it just draws us back a bit, a God who loves and disciplines is for us. A God who punishes right and wrong is against us. He's, he's like, you either make it or I hit you. Yeah. That's, he's not for me, and that's why we withdraw from him. And, but the one who loves us is someone who's for us, and therefore we can open up and respond to him. That's a very interesting question. There's lots in this and there's lots of application. Lots of questions to be raised. Again, look, this isn't the the final word on the subject. This is probably a very poor representation of it. It's just a discussion, but we found it helpful. Hopefully you, you have as well. It might give you some openness. Yeah. So we just, just to finish up this podcast, we just want to encourage you to start to nurture that life and death aspect, that paradigm, and he will take some time to do that, but just to do that and to, and to see whether it brings a new release of life for you in the community around you. So, Ralph, what's inspiring you? This one's going to be a who? Who's inspiring? We, our family had, we were fortunate enough to have a wonderful holiday over December in South Africa, three weeks, and Christmas Day, we did a game drive, and we were picked up at our hotel at five in the morning by the, by the lady who did the drive, and she took us around all day, but if I just stepped back into talk through her day that she did to take us through this game park, to pick us up at five, she must have been, she must have left her place at four or something like that. So she would have been up to get everything ready and out the door by four to get to us for five, pick us up, drive us to the game park, which is about 45 minutes, you know, take us through that, and basically that there's, she just talks and, and describes the animals, and she's got all the knowledge where to go, where to see them, and what the animal behaviors and interesting points are, and so on. Then she stops about seven or eight o'clock in the morning, we all have a breakfast and one of the encampment, which she puts together, and she's prepared the night before us, I'm not that, and she feeds us on packs it away. Then we go on for another few hours, taking us a big drive around this is a large game park, lunchtime, she puts on a bri or a barbecue for us, we had a lunch, which she puts together for us, and then we carry on driving it, we're back at our hotel by three in the afternoon. At that point, she must have been going for 12 hours, and then she's still going to go back to her place or drop the vehicle off, and I thought, wow, that's a lot of work in a day, and so she's a younger woman, I believe she had kids at home, so somebody would have to look after those, and that would all be sort of an organised, she works for this Safari tour company, she's looking at setting up her own business, which is her own game drives, so she'd have to get vehicles and all the equipment and marketing to do that, and she's doing it against a background in South Africa where they've got rolling power cuts, so you have like four hours of power and four hours off, which if you're running an online service, basically your website's down or you're not [BLANK_AUDIO] email for four hours because the servers are all dead and it's kind of thing, with your website's down. So she's, she didn't mean, I thought, wow, this is inspirational. We all carry our own responsibilities, we've all got our own workloads as on, but to see someone like that working that hard and doing a high quality job, really looking after us and making our Christmas day really work for us, very inspiring, you know, to her and many other women out there like that doing, you know, doing really hard work to keep it all together and make the world a better place. Wow, thank you and very inspired. Excellent. Ridiculous, you all like it. Ridiculous. What can I say? Jerry, what do you do with?