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

Refusing to reach out to a band of brothers to help you when you're wounded or you've been captured by the enemy, that's not tough, that's stupid. We're going to be reacting to a viral video of a Catholic ceremony with a skull from a saint. If sparks are not flying, then the iron is not being sharpened. If there's not ever moments of friction or confrontation, then man, you're not being sharpened the person that God wants you to be. Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now, enjoy the podcast. Kick this bit. Okay. Dona un coup de pied à ces cochons. Or as we say in Bowling Green, let's kick this big. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. Were we recording like that? I was wondering. Yeah, we were. Oh, okay. Yeah. We're so glad you're here. My name is Carlos, and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham. Did you just almost forget my name? He did. He had a brain fart. I'm here with Pastor. This is not how we usually start the episode, so it just kind of threw me off. But we're coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. And today we're going to have a loaded episode. Ooh, it's spicy. We're going to talk about things Christians should not pray, or it is wrong for Christians to pray this. We're going to be reacting to a viral video of a Catholic ceremony with a story. It's a skull from a saint. We apologize in advance, Father Mike. His long-lost brother. How should Christians think about it? We're going to be asking, should Christians pray for vengeance upon our enemies? How to find a band of brothers and a band of sisters. We're going to be addressing the hidden gold in the quote-unquote boring list of names we find in the Bible. Bro, that's the thing I'm most excited to talk about. I'm excited to hear. I'm telling you, dude, there's gold in them there hills. And it's not just Carlos, Paul, and me. We also have our friend. Bro, I was going to ask you. The bear skull. This is a bear? Bro, that's a bear. What? So this is this. You got to be on YouTube to see this. So you need to see this. So we walked out of the podcast recording last week. And one of the, like, this is a very, like, this just tells you what kind of church Lake Point is. There's a guy walking around. He goes, hey, man. He listens to Live Free. He's like, I got a bear skull from this bear I killed bow hunting. So, by the way, not just hunting, bow hunting. Bow hunting a bear is impressive. So he kills this bear with a daggum. A bow. And he's like, y'all want it to put on a Live Free episode? And I was like, heck, yeah, brother. There you go. Live Free. Are we going to name it? Huh? Yeah. Hey, so help us name the bear skull. If you'll drop potential names in the YouTube comments, we will select the best name for the bear skull. We're going to pick the winner is going to win a hat because we do a weekly giveaway. Oh, that's a good idea. So go on Spotify or YouTube. Let us know what name you think we should give to our new friend over here. The bear skull. Now, wait. Carlos. But wait, do your little spiel and then I'll do the thing I'm going to do. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Setting them up. Wait, hold on. In addition to everything we said we were going to talk about, Pastor Josh is also going to give us a word on James Tallarico. Yes. And if we have time, or perhaps it might be a separate episode because we're testing this now, we're going to be addressing accusations against Philip Anthony Mitchell on charging money for podcast tour tickets. Yes. And more than that, what I want to do is help disciple people in how to think about podcasting. And I want to do it in a way that's not just about public accusations against pastors. Because, bro, I've been looking for the spot to do this for years. It's like there's dynamics that normal people have no idea are involved in that stuff. And I just want to like, I don't know, dude. I'm like, let me just pull back the curtain and show people what actually happens with that stuff. And it will send a chill down your spine a little bit, I think. No, wait, Carlos, before you go any farther. Oh, no. So he doesn't know this is coming. Oh, boy. Trinity, are you ready? Don't pull it up yet. All right. So, Carlos, you have been telling us, you know, you're a resident Marvel expert. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to play a little game. Oh, boy. And if you're on YouTube or Spotify, wherever you can watch it. I don't even know where they can watch it. So I want you to play along. Okay. Carlos, I'm going to play you a one-second clip of a Marvel movie. Okay. One second. I'll take it. And we're going to see if Marvel expert Carlos Arazo can guess the Marvel movie based on a one. One second clip. If you're on YouTube, prepare yourself and comment if you're going to get it. Okay. One second. That's all you get. And then we're going to test your Marvel movie acumen. Let's go. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. Let's go. I was not expecting this. Don't play yet. Drum roll. This is a big deal. Okay. Here we go. Let's see. Let's see if you can do it. Here we go. I am Iron Man. I mean. Man, that's the toughest one. You're fired if you get this wrong, bro. That was hilarious. That was not expecting. I was not expecting that one. That one is. From the movie Iron Man. Yes. You are correct. I'm probably the only person who thought that was funny. I've been waiting to do that all week. All week. I was expecting a really difficult one. But no, I know that one. That's for Josh. That's good. Because you were hating on Marvel literally like a week ago. It's not my thing. But then I talked to your kids and they said they love Marvel. They love it. So I said, man, finally, at least somehow or since appreciate the fine art of Marvel. The fine art. The fine art. The finer movies. Yes. My seven-year-old who pees in the yard. Loves Marvel movies. That's fine art. Something you all have in common. He knows a distinction between heroes and villains. And this is a movie about heroes. And play your favorite character, though. Doctor Strange. Oh, boy. We're going to have to table this conversation. All right. Let me do. Can I do the James Tallarico thing? Please do. So I just want to give listeners a heads up. From here, we won't do it every episode. But from here to November, we'll talk a little bit more about the midterms that are coming up. And let me just. Some people. I swear. Hey. I appreciate this. And so let me just explain this. And I'm just going to tell you our philosophy on this. And if you don't like it, you don't have to listen. So here's the deal. We built a website for this. I'm going to talk about that here in a second. The reason we're going to talk about this frequently is because there is not one square inch of the universe over which Christ does not cry, mine. All of the earth belongs to the Lord and the fullness thereof. And very frankly, we do talk about this. And we get. I get. You know, we. Whoever. We get crushed for it. But the reason that we do it is. I'll just say it like this. Politics matter because politics affects policy and policy affects people. And Peter, people matter to God. So the reason we talk about this stuff is I just want to keep, especially for the dudes that listening, you are determining the societal inheritance that you hand your kids and your grandkids in how you engage in society. You are. You are determining that. So to put this in perspective, and this is the kind of thing that drives me nuts, is because like you might say it like this, Muslims have a plan for how to make the nation Muslim. Marxists have a plan for how to make the nation Marxist. But Christians have no plan for how to influence the nation for Christ. And if you talk about it, then they're like, ah, we shouldn't get political. It's like, hey, bro, if godly people don't, godless people are and will. So, yeah, absolutely, man. We step in to that with zero apology or whatever. And to put this in perspective, especially if you're in Texas, there are 16 million, 20 million Christians in Texas. People are assuming that Texas' midterm race will be determined by five percentage points or less. So there are 16 million Christians in Texas. That race will be determined by less than 300,000 votes. So just to put it in perspective, like, honestly, if Christians vote, if Christians just do their job, evil loses every time. It's like that. So, and the reason we've done a podcast is, you know, honestly, I may be naive. I kind of think, I kind of think Live Free Nation can actually influence the dadgum thing. How many, how many downloads a month are we at? Anybody know? Yeah. No, just overall. Does anybody know? Just on Apple. So just on Apple last month, we had 3 million downloads on Apple. Total all platforms. We've got like 6 million. So, you know, just put that in perspective. Quite a bit. And we, hey man, I think we can move a dang needle. Yeah, I think so. So let me talk about this real quick. Here's what we're looking at. And I just want to shoot you real straight where we're at. So this is where we're at right now. This is Polymarket. These are the Polymarket odds for the current Texas deal. By the way, it doesn't matter what state you're in. Like, you need to engage. Like, if you're a Christian, like, let's do our job. Be salt and light in the world. Where we're at right now is James Tallarico, Synagogue of Satan, false prophet James Tallarico. We'll talk about that more here in a second. He's now on Polymarket, which, by the way, that's not a political poll. That's a market poll. That's a money poll. That's like a Vegas poll, which is typically more accurate. As of this week, he's projected to win at a 52% chance. Now, I'm just going to run through this real quick. Honestly, what's interesting watching this is I kind of feel like Satan shifted strategies in the last, like, five, ten years. And what I mean is you read the Bible, and it talks about false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing. And I think most Christians think about those people being in pulpits. I honestly think some of what's happened recently is Satan. shifted strategies from, hey, we won't put the false teachers just in pulpits. We'll put them in politics, one, because Christians aren't expecting them there, and two, just to be really honest, because pastors have been trained not to go there. So he's like, well, if I move the false teachers into the political realm and pastors have a deal with like, I don't get political, well, great, I can put false teachers over there and they're going to go unchecked by the pulpits. It's like, we're not going to play that game. So let me just show you something, and again, I just want to show people an example of what I'm talking about. So the Bible talks about, we're going to show you this video real quick, and this is the kind of thing that just blows my mind, because dude, it's a lot, when you look at the polling, it's a lot of like white Christians that are supporting this guy. So it's like insane, okay, and I'm going to show you why it's insane. So the New Testament talks about wolves in sheep's clothing. What that means is somebody that has a team Jesus jersey on, but they're actually playing for team Satan. That's a wolf in sheep's clothing, okay? So here's what you're going to see it in this clip. It's like, you never get a clip that's so like wolf in sheep's clothing mask off like what you're about to see. This stinking blew my mind. So the sheep's clothing is, hey, I'm a Christian. I act like a Christian, the Jesus thing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves. So dude, here's what you're always looking for. You're looking for the person who says they're a Christian, but they always, they hate Christ. They hate Christianity. They hate Christians and they oppose God's word. So whenever you find somebody that's like, I'm one of those Christians that hates Christians and tends to hate Christianity, it's like, well, that's wolf in sheep's clothing. Okay. So rarely do you get so clear a mask off example as this. Now I'm going to start, stop this a couple of times, but I want you to see this. So here we go. So here's what he's doing. He's getting asked by a more progressive news outlet about, um, the concept of, of having kids read the Bible in schools. So this is quote unquote, you know, ministry oriented, uh, James Tallarico preaches in his quote unquote church, uh, has been to a quote unquote seminary, you know, that kind of thing. And they're asking him about this. Now, now watch, watch what he does here. Now show this, show this here. One is, is maybe the most insidious. It was a new state curriculum that, that would teach Christian Bible stories as historical. Pause. So what's really insidious for the Christian guy is they're going to put Bible readings in schools and teach it as historical fact. This is what's insidious. Now watch what he keeps on saying. Check this out. Bible stories as historical fact, as the only truth to our youngest students. And I mean, kindergarten, first graders. Okay. Now, so he's saying we're going to teach. So here's what's insidious. We're going to teach the Bible as historical fact. We're going to teach it as the only truth. It is to our youngest students. Glory to God. Okay. Now, first of all, it's a, it's a little misleading what he's saying. Go ahead and toss that next thing up. The, the little, uh, yeah, this. So if you actually want to see the proposed Bible reading plan, actually all they're doing is they're trying to put a tiny amount of, uh, one, essentially one Bible reading in every grade. It's a, it's literally a few verses in every grade. I wish it was a whole lot more. And they're trying to teach them what the bedrock of American society has been. So like, and they're just being honest, like, these are the stories that have shaped our society. Go to that next one. You can see here, like it's like a kid's book about Noah's ark and you'll see it right there. Uh, a wordless and deeply detailed, uh, children's picture book that recalls a biblical flood. So this kind of stuff he's talking about now, keep going. Now, why is he saying that reading the Bible in schools is insidious? Watch what he says. These are kids who, who aren't able to, to think for themselves yet. Boss. Yes. That's why we need to teach them the Bible. Because if the word doesn't disciple kids, the world will also would just say this. Okay. So this is a guy and I'll get to this in a second, like very ardently has supported gender affirming care. So it's like, so his whole thing is we can't expose kids to the Bible because they can't think for themselves, Carlos. But you know what a kid who can't think for themselves can do choose to become a different gender. I'm like, bro, pick a lane. Yeah. Like pick a lane. Yeah. Pick a lane. All right. Now keep going. They haven't formed their own worldviews and push propaganda to push indoctrination on those youngest students, uh, is deeply immoral. Okay. There it is. So first of all, it's not indoctrination. There's a difference between indoctrination and teaching good doctrine. That's what forms actual disciples. And then I just want to key in on this. And then I just, again, all I'm trying to do, if you're listening is I want 0% of live free nation to be the type of person that's going to of people who are easily deceived by false teaching and false teachers. So I just want you to notice this. So what is he saying is quote unquote, deeply immoral teaching the Bible. Now let me just write rifle through what are things that he has publicly said would be moral for kids to be exposed to let's say, so the Bible immoral. So what are the things that he has publicly said would be immoral? Now I'm going to rapid fire these. And it's just going to be like getting waterboarded by the fire of hell. Okay. This is what you're going to get. So number one, here you got, he says, I'm co-authoring legislation to explicitly teach DEI in our schools. So number one, uh, DEI policies that would be very moral to expose kids to number two. I won't even read it. It's kind of gross. The glories of gay sex and that your kids can choose their own gender. Those are the actual, uh, the actual children's books in the church that he has been in, uh, in leadership or preached at before. Number three, what else would be moral, uh, that God approves of your kids being taught transgender ideology. This guy, he tried to stop. He tried to block the stoppage of gender reassignment surgeries for minors, puberty block blockers for minors and cross sex hormones for minors. So that stuff would be very moral to expose kids to, uh, next thing you're going to see right here. What would be very moral is teaching children that the 10 commandments are hurtful and unloving. This is what his statement was about the concept of the 10 commandments being posted on a Texas classroom walls. That would be hurtful and unloving to people who believe differently. Let's go to the next one. He really, really, uh, doesn't like the Bible being taught to children, but you know what he really does like trans children. That's what he really, really likes. Love seeing that next one. Um, what he would really like people to be exposed to is the highest form of blasphemy of one of them that I've ever seen that God is non-binary. That would be really great thing. That would be moral. The next one for children's sports in particular, what would be moral for him is that society should be restructured around the eraser of gender. You got it right there. Would also be moral. Go to the next one is the concept that there are six genders. There's not two genders. There are six genders. That would be very moral to expose people to. And of course the one that you're always going to run into. I can't show the entire clip. I'm just going to read the bottom. This is from a James Tallarico quote unquote sermon. Before we go further, I want to acknowledge that our trans community needs abortion care too. I have many questions. I don't want any answers. I have no idea what that even means. So I just want to point this out. You can't teach the Bible to kids, but we definitely want you to be able to kill them. In fact, just go to that next one, what you got right here. Again, where does he's going? Hey, teaching the Bible would be immoral to kids. What would be moral for kids? Last thing this is you actually, you can read this article or this letter yourself. He re he requested that Joe Biden put abortion clinics in every federal courthouse and national park. So essentially it's like, Hey kids, here's a playground and a place where you can feed the ducks. And here's where we can snip your spinal cord with sutures. This is what we want. Okay. So again, you could go all on this. If you just zoom out, basically what you see is if it's from team Satan, he's for it. And if it's from team Jesus, he's against it. That my friends is not a politician. That is a wolf in sheep's clothing who slithered out of the pulpit and into politics. That's what that guy is. Okay. Now here's what, here's what I'll say is, um, again, what you got is those. These, these midterm elections in particular, they're determined by like very small margins. So, uh, we're like actually, instead of just talking about it, we're going to be about it and do so here's what you can do. We actually personally paid to have a website built. The purpose of which is just to remind you to mobilize Christians, to like do our job in the public square. So, uh, here's what we're going to do. We're going to see if we're going to see if live free nation can shift an election. Okay. So you can text the word vote to the number 2 0 4 1 1. That will take you to a website we built that we have been told is the first of its kind where no matter where you live in the nation, you can just put in your address. No one is capturing your address. We're keeping no information on the backend. You can put in your address and it will tell you exactly where you vote in whatever county you live in. It will tell you when voting begins, midterm voting begins, wherever you are. And I think it also tells you. In your state, what you need to bring to be able to vote. So like it doesn't matter where you live, does all that stuff. And then last thing, it's going to send you one text to my knowledge and one only. Is it one or two texts, one or two? Yeah. Okay. Either one or two only that will just remind you the day of or before midterm voting, uh, before the day before voting, wherever you're at. Yeah. Yeah. It will just send you one text reminder, like, Hey, midterm voting starts tomorrow. So, uh, I don't know, man, let's see, we'll take crack at it and see what happens. I'm going to have fun doing it. Speaker 1: I mean, that's really helpful because it is weird, uh, for somebody that claims to be a Christian minister to be, for James Salarico to be continuously opposing everything that the Bible says. So it's this idea of tolerant about everything except the Bible, affirming of everything except Christianity, and inclusive of everything except Christians. That's right, dude. And so that's really helpful for you to share. I think it'll be great, dude. That's awesome. It's going to be great. It's good. Was there anything else we were going to celebrate? There's something we were going to celebrate, right? This last week. And we have a lot of people, a lot of new people coming into church this season. A lot of new people. Live Free Nation. People that are finding the church because of the podcast. They're literally like- Their stories are incredible. All over the place. It's dumb, dude. It's dumb. I actually won't, I will, details omitted for what will become obvious reasons. Let me tell one story. And then, what are we doing? Are we getting right into the word next? We're diving in, bro. We're diving into the word. I talked for a long time. I need like a 30 second break. It was great. So, dude, so this is going to blow your mind. So, and I'll explain more about that. As it comes, a guy shows up to one of our campuses, which shall remain nameless. First time ever at Lake Point. You know what story I'm going to tell? No. Bro, this is the best ever. It is. And his, I'll just say one of his children is in a correctional facility and will probably be in a correctional facility potentially for the rest of his or her life. And they started watching Live Free and Lake Point Bible teaching in prison. And let their dad know. And that had never happened before. My kid is watching Bible teaching. And so this guy stumbles into one of our campuses, this dad that hadn't seen his kid in 18 years. And he says that he came this week because for the first time in his life, he wanted to, quote, attend church with his child for the first time ever. So he was like, hey man, my kid is going to be watching this from a correctional facility. I want to go to church with my kid. I want to be in the same service they're watching so that for the first time in my life, I can, quote, unquote, go to church with one of my kids. Bro. What in the world? Like, dude, I think I can go to heaven now. That's amazing. I got to meet him that day. It was special. That's right, you did get to meet him. Yeah, I got to meet him. It was so special. It's one of those situations where you're like, God, thank you for using us. We ain't this good, but thank you for using us. We literally hear stories like literally every single weekend all across our different campuses. So again, if you're ever in the DFW area and you've never attended one of our physical locations, we'd love to have you. Also, we try really hard to help people in their discipleship journey. So people might not know this, but we actually have a daily Bible reading plan available for you as well, plus the weekly sermon, plus the Live Free podcast episode. You can get this in the Lake Point app. So to download it, you can text the word app to 20411. We just wrapped our week number three of Fight the Good Fight. And so Pastor Josh, great job with the sermon. Thank you, man. Hey, bro, you're a good preacher. It depends on the week. You should be a preacher for a living. I have a question. Bro, can I tell you something? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. So this is Jana. Like every week when I walk off stage after preaching the first service, Jana's always like, that was amazing. She does what you just did. There's this weird thing, dude. And what I've learned is most good preachers have this in them. I never finish a sermon and think that was a good sermon. So there's a weird thing, dude. Not even after preaching it like four times during a weekend? There is. I'd say, one out of 20 weeks, I'll finish like the fourth sermon and be like, you know what? That last one was pretty good. Okay. After a lot of tweaking, I'm sure. Okay, hang on. Can we just do a little insider baseball on preaching real quick? So we didn't plan to talk about this if we have a full podcast, so I'll make this quick. But I think it was Charles Spurgeon, Prince of Preachers, who he said something one time about the agony, it may not have been him, about the agony of preaching. And he was, he said, the reason that every great preacher finishes sermons and thinks the sermon wasn't good is because he knows what God put in his heart and no human mouth is good enough to express the message that God deposited inside his soul. And so you do, it's like after every sermon, honestly, dude, it sucks. It is not a good feeling. After every sermon, you get done and all I can feel is the gap between what I wish I would have been able to say. And what my frail, fallen human mouth was at. Dude, you know what it is? It's the preaching expression of O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing. Yeah, yeah. Explain what that is. So the lyric of that great hymn, I'll walk around my neighborhood and sing that one, you know, the O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing, my great Redeemer's praise. And there's a line in there about when this, what's the hymn when this poor lisping stammering stung? Oh, I'll look it up for you. Yeah, look it up, look it up. Which hymn is that? When this poor lisping stammering tongue, da-da-da-da-da-da. Uh, I'm almost there. That's actually a different hymn. Uh, there's a fountain filled with blood. Oh, bro. By William Cowper. Oh, yeah, how about that? Look up that lyric. Look up that lyric. William Cowper, he was the guy that struggled with depression his whole life. I was going to say, he struggled with depression. There's a fountain filled with blood. Find that lyric. I'm fatified to give you one second. You're good, man. We're good. Give me one second. We're good, man. When this poor lisping stammering tongue lies silent in the grave, then in a nobler, sweeter tongue, I'll sing my power to save. Bro. What a lyric. Oh, buddy. So, essentially, what he's going as a songwriter is he's going, man, I got this dang lisping stammering tongue, and I can never, I can never accurately get out the glory that's in my soul. And then he says, you know, then when I die and go to heaven, I get a perfect tongue, and then I'll sing my Savior's praise perfectly. That's what, that's what you feel every time your dad preaches a sermon. He's so encouraged. There are stories of Spurgeon where his deacons would have to drag him to the pulpit because he was so dreading to go out there. Oh, seriously? Yeah. I never heard that. Yeah, yeah. Just because it's that kind of a thing where he always felt incapable and unused and unusable and everything. So, sometimes he was so struggling that they'd have to drag him out there. I have never heard that. But then afterwards, he was still feeling adequate. But yet, man, God used him in insane, insane ways. And so, God's using you too, Pastor Josh. Thank you, man. That's right, man. Thank you. That's right. Thank you. People would probably agree in the comments. I can think of some people strongly agreeing with that. And speaking of your sermon, hey, can I ask you a question? I will allow it. What did it make you do the sermon? A lot. A lot. Okay, I'll just do the best stuff. You're going to do great, by the way. You're going to do great. Thank you, man. So, first of all, what we did this week is we preached the phone book section of 2 Timothy. So, I cheated. I cheated, and there was a reason I cheated. And I'll talk about that in a second. We skipped to the end of the book and at the end of all Paul's epistles, he does that thing where he's like, hey, tell that guy I said hey, and tell those ladies to quit arguing with each other and tell her household that they're doing awesome. And then Trophimus is bringing a cloak and he does all that stuff. And dude, here's my thing, bro. So, these passages, what they do is they show you, listen, listen, listen. All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, exhortation, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness. All. So, what you do is you start reading the phone book verses and you're like, all right, dude. It's like, you literally like, it's like reading a phone book. But if you sit down and like study them, listen, bro, there's gold in their hills. So, I'll give two examples from other ones and then I'll give you the gold from this one. So, first of all, and I, you guys have maybe heard me riff this before, but just pretend. It's gonna be awesome. So, dude, me and Chandler were talking about this on date night last night. So, Roman, here's, I'll give two examples, all right, about how glorious the phone book passages are. So, Romans 16, 23, I'm gonna read it. There's no way I'll be able to get through it without Maya sweating. It's one of those verses you're like, I don't even know why I read that. You know, it says, Gaius, who is host to me and the whole church greets you, Erastus, the city treasurer, and then he says, I love it so much. He says, and our brother, Cortus, greets you. You know where I'm going. All right, now, bro, listen. You read that and you're like, that's dumb. Why did I even read that? Okay. Because the glories in scripture are greater than you can possibly comprehend. That's right. All right, so, bro, when he says, Cortus, people don't know this. In ancient Rome, I just finished listening to like a four-hour Alex Friedman podcast on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. It was stinking awesome. But they estimate like 60% of the Roman population were slaves. And slaves were considered non-citizens. So, bro, if a child was born to a slave in the Roman citizen, they wouldn't give them a name. They just considered that a slave baby wasn't even worth naming. So what they would do is instead of naming the kid, they would just give them a number of what birth order they were in. So instead of giving you a name, you're not worthy of a name. They just go one, two, three, four. So when you're a slave, you read the name Cortus right here. Cortus just means four. Oh, wow. It means four. So what this is right here, bro, is this is a little kid who when he was born, he was the fourth kid born to some unknown, unnamed slave mama. And the entire Roman Empire looked at this little kid and went, not even worth naming. You know what your name is? All you are is four. That's all you are. But listen, but in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. And God looked at that kid and went, you know what, this entire empire thinks you weren't even worth naming. You're so valuable to me that I'm going to make sure for the rest of Christian history, people are going to be reading Cordes' name and he's going to be in the word of God for all eternity. Bro, there's stuff like that in all the little name sections. I'll do one more. Can I ask you something? Because people will hear this and they'll be like, that's amazing. Pastor Josh, how do you learn that? We get that all the time, by the way. Yeah. So there's a few ways. Like that one, I heard in a sermon probably 15, 20 years ago. And that's the kind of thing when you hear it, you're like, I ain't never forget that. Never. Yeah. I will say, and some people hate this. You'll hear about it in the comment section. I do this every day, every single day. I did it this morning. I was in Leviticus 8 through 10, and there was some stuff. I was like, why did Aaron say that? And I'll get. I'm on AI. And here's what I do. I'll say, think like a conservative evangelical Bible scholar. And I'll literally ask it. I'll be like, hey, what are 20 facts about this passage that most Christians don't know? And I'll say something like that are historical, that are historical, archaeological, cultural, theological. Or usually I'll say something like, or interesting connections to other passages of the Bible. And dude, I'll be. Now, I wait until I'm. Now we're talking about. How to have a quiet time. I'll wait until I'm doing my devotional reading. Yeah, that's good. And it's kind of hit my heart. And then at the end, I'll do that. But let me give you a heads up. You're better off if you can find a good commentary. Yeah. Because you cannot trust it. It has frequently given me stuff that I'll double. I double check everything now. Actually, I'll triple check everything now. And it'll give me stuff. I'm like, that ain't true. But sometimes, dude, it will. Yeah. It will. That's helpful. Get a good study Bible. ESV and NASB has some great ones. But then also, yeah, there's lots of good commentaries. Usually, it depends on the series. But a great just like standard one is Pillar Commentary. So Pillar has a great set of really good scholarship, but also conservative and readable. So just want to throw that out there. Now, I will say, the Pillar Commentary is ChatGPALC intellectual level. Oh, now, come on. I need things like the one volume John MacArthur says. You know, whatever. Hopefully, for a lot of people, Live Free Podcast can be a good, good starting point. There you go. That's what we're trying to do. Keep going, man. All right. Let me do one more. So here's another. Bro, it's these name passages. You're like, are you kidding me? All right. So here's another one. So Romans 16, 13. We're doing our little list of names. Okay. And he says this. He says, greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who's been a mother to me, too. And you read that, and you're like, Rufus? Why are we talking about Rufus? You know, that's all he says. Okay. And you ask the question, why does it say chosen in the Lord? He doesn't say that for any of the other names. He knows I'm going, this is thinking awesome, dude. All right. So then you do a little study, and you're like, now, wait just a second. I've heard the name Rufus before. So then you go over to Mark 15, 21. Jesus is going to the cross, and I'm going to read the verse. Bible nerds, you're going to remember this. Jesus is going to the cross, and he stumbles, has trouble carrying the cross to Golgotha. And here's what it says. A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of the Alexander, and Rufus, Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. Now, so again, there's levels to this, bro. There's levels to this. So when Bible scholars, when they look at it, all the gospels are written to different audiences. So, you know, it's kind of like Fox and MSNBC and then C-SPAN. It's, you know, it's like they're all, it's the same news reported from different angles. That's how the gospel is written. That's how the gospels are. It's like Manning cast versus Monday Night Football. It's like same thing, different angle is what it's doing. So Mark is like all throughout Mark, they're called Latinisms where there's little phrases that are like, oh, that's like a little slang term, or that's like a way that somebody would say it in Rome. So basically every Bible scholar is like, oh, Mark was written either in or to Rome. Okay. That gospel. Okay. So see. Now you start connecting stuff. Paul's writing the letter to the church where? At Rome, Romans 16, 13. It's like, and he's writing 20 or 30 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. I freaking love the Bible. He has stinking love the Bible. My mom doesn't like it when I say. So he's 20, 30 years after Jesus. Okay. So, and then Mark, the gospel account about Jesus crucifixion written to Rome. So then you ask the question, why does it not just say, why does it just say? I'm why does it say, um, why doesn't it say a man named Simon helped Jesus carry the cross? No, no. It says Simon. Oh, but a specific Simon, the Simon from Cyrene. Oh, and he's the one that has two sons, Rufus and Alexander. There's only one reason to do that. He's giving a footnote to everyone who would read the gospel to go, Hey, if you don't believe what I'm reading, there's that one guy that's in your church that's around the city. Still, you can go ask. Okay. So dude, then you get to Romans 16, 13 as, Hey, this is 30, 20, 30 years later, greet Rufus. Well, here's what apparently happened is apparently Simon who helped Jesus carry the cross. He goes on, becomes a follower of Jesus. And dude, he bends his knee to Jesus. He has two little boys, Rufus and Alexander. Apparently they become Christians too. Apparently this is what most Bible scholars think they become prominent in the Roman church. And so 20, 30 years later, probably after Simon of Cyrene is dead. His boy Rufus is still following Jesus, still a pillar in the church. And Paul's gone tell that brother, I said, Hey, and why did he say a brother quote chosen in the Lord? I think what he's doing is he's gone. Jesus picked on his way to the cross. He picked that kid's dad, not just because he wanted to save the dad, but because he wanted to save that little boy, Rufus and little boy. Little Rufus grew up to become big Rufus. And it changed when that, when Simon bend his knee to Jesus, it didn't just change his life. It changed his lineage and his legacy. Wow. So good. Rufus. Wow. So dude, there's all these name passages. They're stuff. Now I want to ask y'all before I get to, uh, specifically second, you guys got any name passage stuff, you guys got anything, if you don't got anything. I'm saving mine just because I think you and I might be going for the same one. So I'm going to save it just in case. You going Demas? Uh, I was going to do Mark, but I'll wait till after you do Demas. You do Mark. Oh, you want to do Mark? You do Mark and then I'm going to do Demas. This is in second Timothy. Um, I'll mention Demas briefly to kind of give context. Before you do it, let me read it, but yeah, read it. Let me read it. So this is the passage we preach. And again, this is the kind of stuff normal Bible reader just skims it and doesn't think anything important happened. All right. So here it is. Paul says, end of second Timothy, um, do your best to come to me soon for Demas. This is going to be a big deal here in a second in love with this present world has deserved. A man gone to Thessalonica, Crescens has gone to Dalatia, Titus to Dalmatia. He was picking up 101 dogs over there. Luke alone is with me. That's how I got to get the dad joke. Luke, Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you. This is what you're going to talk about. And then he says a little throwaway verse. You don't think it's a big deal. It's a real big deal. Get Mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me. And ministry. Oh, and then I'm going to stop right there. I'm tearing out as well. When I think of this, I don't know what it is. It just makes me teary eyed because you get multiple names right there, but three to highlight is you got Demas, you've got Luke, and then you've got Mark. Demas deserts Paul. So it's the story as you'll hit here in a second of abandonment. Luke is a story of loyalty. He's with them to the end. But then Mark is a story of restoration. And the reason I say that is because we also get a snapshot of Mark in the book of Acts. And it's from Acts 15, 37. Let me read this one for you. Now, Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, but Paul thought that he was going to take him with him. Paul thought best not to take them with him because he had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement. So they separated from each other. So Paul and Barnabas had gone on a missionary journey together. Barnabas really wanted to take Mark. And apparently at some part, Mark had left and deserted them. And Paul, when they were about to go on another missionary journey, Barnabas was like, hey, I want to take him with me. And Paul's like, no. No, he flaked. He flaked. I'm not taking with them. He's not reliable. And so it was so much of a disagreement that Barnabas and Paul, they were broke. Like, I mean, they were bros. They had to separate because of it. But then here we are all these decades later. And all of a sudden you see Mark's name again. And the point is that at one point there had been a restoration. That's right. And Mark at one point or maybe early on in his discipleship and early on in his walk with Jesus, he had flaked and was unreliable. God had done a work in his life. It made him useful for again. And they've been restoration. So it's just I don't know why it just it hits me. It just hits me the fact that, hey, a lot of times when we are discipling people and even looking at times early in my discipleship, be careful not to judge people by early failures or even failures in the middle of life. God is doing ongoing work. We've got to be so careful to remember that sometimes we catch people in the middle of a transformation journey that Jesus has them on. And if we freeze frame a failure, we're going to make a decision on their story that Jesus has not made. We have got to stop freeze framing people's failures and push play and see what God is going to do in them. Because God did a work in Mark. So at the end, at the end of Paul's life, Mark was one of the few. guys that was them and it was useful to him so just a reminder not to give up on people here's what i love about that mark thing yeah so two things one so uh when barnabas goes hey man you know so mark apparently flakes on the first missionary journey and paul's like hey man we're not taking along a flaker like why you know paul's i'll just say this and i pointed this out in the sermon we're gonna talk about the need to have like a band of brothers around you yeah and you know it's like especially men it's kind of like i don't need that it's kind of weak can i just say something to you bro you're not tougher than paul no i'm just like i'm just gonna tell you something like i don't care who you are if you're listening we got we got professional mma fighters that listen to this podcast you ain't tougher than paul no you are not tougher than paul paul literally walks 16 000 miles in his lifetime he's shipwrecked three times he's beaten within an inch of his life five times he's he's literally singing hymns in the stocks you know it's like a a torture mechanism he's singing him i mean it's like you're not tougher than paul and paul was like you know what i need i need a band of brothers that's right but paul also was like an alpha so whenever a guy flaked on his first missionary journey journey paul was like ah no we're not bringing flakers along this is this big boy stuff what are you looking at i thought light change or something yeah i don't know okay that was just the glory of the battle that's right that's right it's the gold in the text bro it's coming out i just i felt like a life change over here but no maybe not go ahead all right so then so do you check this out yeah whenever barnabas and mark go the different way bro that opens up two roster spots for paul oh good point guess who fills the roster spots silas and timothy wow if you had never had the moment where mark flakes and barnabas is like you know what sweet little mark i'm gonna go with mark i want to keep him encouraged if you had never had that moment the roster spots never open up for paul to pull in silas and timothy his disciples you so one you better watch it anything that happens in your life that feels like a wreck god can redeem wow so god redeems that moment and the breakdown but the other thing that i love uh that i love so much is i here's my theory so i'm gonna re you can see it uh right before the verses i read paul tells little tim in verse six he tells him the time of my departure has come so i think i'm gonna talk about this here in a second and i'll make your eyes sweat what it would have been like to be timothy reading this verse you open scroll for the first time and you read this that would have been a moment i think paul knows personally i think paul kind of knows i'm not going to see any of these people i really do that so then you have to ask the question why did he specifically say hey man go go get mark because he's very useful to me in ministry i honestly think one of the last things paul wanted to do is make sure that whatever wound had been created by their fallout way back in acts 15 the last thing mark ever heard from paul was hey brother hey brother you got what it takes yeah you got what it takes you're very useful to me in ministry and dude what that goes back to is whatever men or satan can wreck in your relationships god can redeem amen that's amazing that's amazing amen oh wait i got one more thing yeah let me do demas do demas not demons but demas demas d-e-m-a-s not to be confused not to be confused and you do not want this as your baby name no okay we're gonna i was gonna say it's available it's available but not useful if you name your kid demas you're making a mistake okay all right good good to know so all right dude so let me just set this up up the demas thing is another one of those things where bro it's the gold in the phone book passage you don't know is there all right so you just read the pastor's law says uh for demas in love with this present world has deserted me and gone to thessalonica and you just read it you're like okay why did i even read that who cares okay okay well here's i want to contrast two people uh i want to contrast um paul and demas okay and here's what i say now this is gonna make sense here in a second you just gotta let me set it up and if you're a bible nerd when i'm done to be like oh that's amazing okay so first of all remember what paul's saying here has he just finished going you know what i did paul goes uh hey i here's what i did i fought the good fight i finished the race uh and i kept the faith by the way in latin in the latin vulgate so marines their little uh motto is semper fi that is short for semper fidelis guess what that means always faithful what paul in the latin vulgate translation is passage what paul says about himself is i stayed faithful i was always faithful i was always faithful so what paul's saying to timothy right before he dies now remember this is a fatherless kid broken home that paul takes under his wing and goes i'm gonna make you my spiritual son paul is finishing his discipleship of timothy paul knows me timothy's functional dad is about to go to heaven he's never gonna see me again this out of glory so the last thing paul says is i fought the race i stayed faithful i stayed faithful i finished the race paul goes i was always faithful i was semper fidelis i finished okay so on the one hand i just want you to think about this imagine you're a little timothy you pit you open this scroll or the parchment and you're sitting down and you would have been reading this and you would have gotten to chapter four and you wouldn't have known until chapter four that paul thinks he's gonna die and then you're a little timothy who's been discipled and you get to this verse and you read the apostle paul say i am already being poured out as a drink offering the time of my departure has come fought the good fight finished the race kept the faith and i'm just telling you uh two things one if you're timothy there's tears streaming down your face because what you just read is my dad knows he's about to die but this other thing i think you you would have been if you're timothy is you would have been going like you kind of like this like that's my man that's my man like giving it laying it out on a table so paul finishes well here's the contrast i'm making now you read demas in love with this present world has deserted me now again let's bobble it out for a second let's go a layer deeper for a bobble nerd you're like wait have i haven't i heard the name demas before ding ding ding yes you have so let me read these other verses to you you heard demas's name in colossians and philemon colossians and philemon were written before second timothy so let me read them colossians 414 which was written during paul's first roman imprisonment he gets out and then this is the second one uh it says this luke the beloved physician greets you as does demas so apparently demas is with paul when he writes colossians second one philemon's 124 same time period it says hey i greet you as uh and so do mark aristarchus demas and luke luke and then he uses this word my fellow workers the greek word is sooner goss it's uh the from which we get the english word synergy so essentially he's gone these are the guys my inner circle these are my rider dies i got the most synergy with these guys what you're seeing is demas started well and then demas finished poorly he did not finish well so demas is here's what i would what i would just say he is especially if like you're a senior saint your age starts with a five six seven eight and then you're a senior saint and then you're a senior saint up demas is the warning amen it doesn't matter how you start matters how you finish and we need you to finish well so demas apparently it's that's what this passage hey man peep there will be people who start well they will be with you in christ jesus you're going to think they're going to be with you to the end heads up jesus had a judas paul had a demas probably going to happen to you too so it's a warning hey man we need we need you to finish well now kind of do one last thing i want to kick this back over to chad g paul c yeah so one bible teacher that in the last uh two three years that finished well was john macarthur you know there are you know i'm sure there are things that he'd look at and be like i wish they'd do that it was whatever that's fine man you love jesus i'm all in i still read the guy uh shortly before he died john macarthur wrote a essentially a farewell letter is what it reads as about demas and i did not have time to read it in a sermon but i would like to read a letter from a man who was in his 80s urging the saints of god to finish well using this verse from second timothy four about demas can i do that i'm gonna read this john macarthur shortly before he dies writes this the title of the letter was just finishing well and it's going to take me a second just hang yeah you can see it right here this is it when it was published uh just if you're listening just let this wash over you and let it be a charge to give all of your days to jesus and finish well here we go john writes sometime before i entered my 80s i began to realize that i am now in the final chapter of my life i want to finish well i was thinking much about what that means and why it is so important scripture and church history are full of tragic examples of men who showed great promise but they did not finish well demas was a fellow laborer with the apostle paul he is mentioned in the penultimate verse in philemon and in colossians 4:14 he served an important strategic distinguished role. But in Paul's final inspired epistle, the apostle mentions Demas in a different light. And here's the scary verse. Demas, having loved this present age, deserted me. Under the threat of persecution and the daily pressure of caring for all the churches, Demas abandoned his calling. Now, this is where if your age starts with a five, six, seven, or up, here's where the letter kicks in. There is a very real danger that someone who has lived and served Christ faithfully for most of his life might grow lazy, careless, fatigued, or lukewarm in the faith, and thus stumble to the finish. We all know of gifted servants of Christ who have fallen into shocking, disqualifying sins, discredited their testimonies, dishonoring Christ, and destroying their ability to finish well. And here is one reason this is such a problem. Listen, listen. Living the Christian life faithfully is no more trouble-free the older we get. Sanctification doesn't come any more easily with advanced age. The number and intensity of the fiery darts the power of hell aim at us does not diminish. The obstacles we face do not get easier to overcome. Furthermore, Scripture warns us, take heed that he does not fall. The Apostle Paul, steadfast as he was, was keenly aware of the dangers of falling. He wrote, run in such a way that you may win. I run in such a way as not without aim. I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. I love you, I love this so much. Watch what he says here. I want to follow Paul's example. Say, hey, let's semper fidelis. At the end of our life, let's be able to say, hey, man, I did it. It wasn't easy. I didn't do it perfect, but I was always faithful. I want every Christian to aim for that incorruptible crown, to run, to win, to finish well. And at the end of our lives, we want to be able to say what Paul said to his son in the faith in 2 Timothy. 4. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. And in the future, there is laid up for me that crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. Those were practically the apostles' last recorded words. He closed the epistle with some personal remarks, but this was his final statement of triumph. Paul had reached the end of his earthly life, and it was an eternally triumphant conclusion. He was standing on the summit of loyalty to his Lord, and he was bloody. I love this. He was bloody, but unbowed. There is no higher kind of triumph for any Christian. And this is the last sentence of the letter. And if you are an older saint, if you and we have people, we get these letters. If you're in hospice care and you're listening to this podcast, if you're somebody's praying grandma or grandpa that's still a prodigal grandson or granddaughter, and you've prayed every day for the last 30 years and nothing still happened, this last thing is for you. My prayer for you, dear reader, is that you too will fight the good fight triumphantly, that you will one day finish the course victoriously, and that you will keep the faith. Semper Fidelis, always faithful with unwavering devotion. The end. That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, hey, Live Free Nation, if you're ready to go deeper in your faith and build strong biblical community, Rooted is your next step. Rooted is our 10-week discipleship experience designed to help you grow in your relationship with God, understand your purpose, and build meaningful relationships with other believers. And so here's something that you need to know. Rooted is an in-person experience only. It's not available online because so much of what makes Rooted powerful happens when you're sitting around a table, having conversations, praying together, and growing alongside others. So if you live in the DFW area, Dallas-Fort Worth area, we'd love for you to come be a part of our Rooted experience at one of our Lake Point campuses. And so if you are ready to take that next step, just text the word Rooted to 20411 to learn more and get connected. And now let's go back to the podcast. Man, speaking of finishing well, what a lot of people probably don't think about is to finish well, you need a band of brothers and a band of sisters. Ain't no other way to do it. And so what we want to do right now is we want to help people get, we want to get practical right now. I read recently in 2024, artificial intelligence, most popular use was for gathering information. In 2025 and 2026, it's number one use right now. It's now for therapy and companionship and friendship. Bro, that is nuts. That is a disaster. Literally. Literally more people now are turning to AI for, uh, to fill that void of relationships in their lives. And so now more than ever, again, we just need to help people. Hey, how do we, how do we find a band of brothers? How do I find a band of sisters? Um, let's get practical right now. What would you guys say? Uh, Hey, now that you heard this is important, you, you preach about it this weekend. What do you do now? Yeah, well, let me just, you know, let me just start and then I can get over to you, Paul, because I got a couple of prideful things. Um, first of all, I just want to point this out again. Uh, man, uh, you ain't tougher than the Apostle Paul. You're not tougher than Paul. Um, and so I think what a lot of, especially men, it's like, oh man, showing need, uh, you know, needing, talking about needing a band of brothers, ah, feels kind of weak. And I'll just point this out. The Apostle Paul is able to go, do your best to come to me soon. I kind of need you. Yeah. You know? Wow. And so the thing that I would say is that refusing to reach out to a band of brothers to help you when you're wounded or you've been captured by the enemy, that's not tough. That's stupid. That's the big idea. And reaching out doesn't make you weak. That's how you fight the good fight. Yeah. So man, let me just say a couple very practical things. And, and then let's talk about real quick, because this is the most important, arguably discipleship step anyone will ever take. Number one, I would just say, uh, you, you, uh, you never hit a target you didn't draw. So dude, I got this little thing. I heard it from Joby Martin, uh, for the first time. There's that story in the gospels where the guy's friends, he's on the mat and he's paralyzed and his friends bring him to Jesus. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And he's got, here's what you got is you got four guys around the mat that when he was down on the mat, they were like, Hey man, you can't walk, but we'll pick you up and we'll drag you where you need to go. Yeah, that's right. What I, what I would say is everyone everywhere, you need four people. Let me just make it practical. You like literally in the sermon, I told everybody, here's your assignment this week. What are your four names? You need four mat carriers. Who are the four people who, when you're going the wrong way or you're wounded and you're not going anyway, who are people who love you and love the Lord enough to be like, Carlos, something ain't right, man. Come, come get around the fire pit. Let's talk. Hey man, you know, you're not doing this, but you need somebody in your life. Hey, Hey, Carl, Carlos is not doing this. I'm talking about anybody, but you need somebody who'd be like, Hey Carlos, you're drinking too much, man. Yeah. Let's talk. You need, you didn't got to be everybody. You need somebody in your life. You're like, Hey, Paul would never do this, but I'm just saying you need four people in your life. At least four. He can be like, Hey dude, that way you talked to your wife last time we're hanging out. Like that's like not how a Christian man does it. Like, can we talk real quick? I'm for you, dude. I'm for you. I just don't want your marriage to get all jacked up. So what I would say is you never get hit a target. You didn't draw. Who are your four mat carriers? The most important thing you do this week is you may sit down with a Bible, a pen and a piece of paper and realize I don't have four mat carriers. So I'm going to write an aspirational goal. Here are the six months. I want to be able to go. Those are my dudes. That's my ride or die. That's my band of brothers or my band of sisters. You got to have that. Now what I will say, let me just say something real quick. And then let's kick it over to you. One thing I did acknowledge, and we just need to acknowledge it. You know, the number of guys that listen to this podcast is, is very, is very high. So we're one of those weird churches who believe this weird thing that men and women are different. It's really weird. We believe this real weird thing at Lake Point. Good. Good for you to clarify it. I just want to get that out there. So I will just point this out. The whole like building a band of brothers, band of sisters, there's different obstacles for men and women and you can get mad at me all you want and get your feelings hurt. That's just how this is the reality of the world. It's like, let's put on our big boy pants or panties and just, okay, this is how genders work. Okay. So let me just kind of say this. You know, where's where women are generally going to struggle is struggle with building is, is it can almost become like a band of demonic mat carriers who is, and men can do this too, but it's different where, you know, women in general will move toward relationships that are only affirmation, never confrontation. That can be a little tough, tougher for, for different gender reasons. It's like, you know, and live free ladies are not like this. They're women of the word, but you know, you can, there are some women who end up building their entire relational circle was like, I, I don't go where I'm tolerated. I go where I'm celebrated slay girl. You know, it's like whatever the, it's all your woke pagan sections. the city, wind down Wednesday friends who will never tell you you're doing anything wrong. They'll just cheer on everything you do. Well, it's like, hey man, there are people who will affirm you all the way to the destruction of your marriage, your soul, and into hell. That's right. So you do, let me just, you do not want, a band of sisters is not a group of people who will just always tell you everything you're doing is amazing and everything you're wearing is wonderful. Yes, queen. Yes, queen. There's a verse in Proverbs and keep going. There's a verse in Proverbs where it talks about is iron sharpens iron. So one man, or we could say, so one person sharpens or another. Well, here's the thing about that. If sparks aren't flying, iron's not being sharpened. So I'll say it again. If I, if sparks are not flying, then the iron is not being sharpened. So it doesn't mean that every time you gather, that's all you do because you'll get to the other side. It's not all, but it is to say, Hey, if there's not ever moments, a friction or ever moments of confrontation, then man, you're not being sharpened to the person that God wants you to be. Bro, that's fantastic. Yeah. And I'll get, we'll get a little more practical here and say, the other thing I'd say, cause people struggle with this and it's the most important thing. The other thing I'd say is man, women, maybe just a little bit, not in general can struggle a little more with being proactive and building it. So it's like, you know, I hear this a lot. I'll be in the lobby, pray with people. And you'll have women who it's like, man, I stood in the corner all week and nobody came and talked to me. And I was waiting for somebody else. To ask was like, man, it's, you know, it's probably not going to happen. You know, it's like, it might, but you know, or maybe not. Yeah. But you got it. Hey man, you, you need to own. I'm going to send the text. I'm going to make the ask and women can struggle with that a little more. Now men will struggle with something different. Um, men, we all know men and women relate differently. Like if, if a man asked me, Hey Josh, do you want to come over on Thursday night, sit on the couch, look at each other and talk about a little bit about our feelings? No, I don't. Not even a little actually. And the fact that you just asked me makes me wonder about you. I don't know if I trust you anymore, but so, but here's what, is that what you say? No. To me, when I ask you to come and watch Marvel movies, is that, is that, I know that's a joke, but what men, here's what men will generally do is men will, and this is another little jobyism. I like this. You got to ask the question, are my relations. So here, but here, here's how men build relationships around activities. So how men build is literally how, like, like all of you, it's like how I became friends. It's like, you like to golf? No. You like to fish? No. You like to bowl? No. You like talking about the Bible or you know, you like, you know, you, you like whatever the thing is. Yes. Great. We're friends now. I just gotta, I gotta have a thing. Let's build something. Let's build a podcast. It's like, that's how you men become friends. Okay. So what, but what men got to watch out for is all your relationships. Yeah. Like relationships are rooted in hobbies and not in Christ. And then, so here's what you got. You, you got buddies. So I, I got golfing buddies, you know, or I got fishing buddies or I got hunting buddies. But what you don't got is you don't got a band of brothers that where the relationships are rooted around Jesus Christ. So here's I'll give one practical and then y'all chime in. Let's get practical. It's like the most important thing. Nothing will change your life more than this. That's right. And by the way, your family's life and your kids' lives, maybe that's a whole different conversation, but nothing will change it more in this time is I honestly think if, so I'll go option a option B option a, if you're a dude or you're a lady and you've got buddies, uh, that you think might be inclined towards the things of God, it, the easiest thing is if you can take a group of buddies and turn it into a band of brothers. Yes. So let's say I got golfing buddies or fishing buddies or hunting buddies or whatever the ladies are. If it's the kind of guys like, man, honestly, they all listen to live free. Mm. And so they, they kind of do seem to care about the things that you can just memorialize like, Hey dude, what, Hey guys, what if we did this? Don't want to be weird about it. And if y'all don't want to do this, you know, I hurt my feelings at all. What if we just all went, Hey man, we're listening to it anyway, let's listen to live free. Uh, let's do the little daily Bible reading plan that they got. And then, Hey man, just in between a couple of holes or maybe, you know, on the, uh, you know, on the turn after nine. At lunch, let's just all real quick. Hey man, what'd you see in a word this week? How can I pray for you? We're not going to be weird and emotional about it. We're just going to, okay, let's do it. Great. Awesome, man. If you can turn a group of buddies into a band of brothers, that's the easiest. That's great. Otherwise I'm gonna shoot you straight. You just need to change your friends. If you got people are pointing you away, you need to change your friends. By the way, you need to get into rooted. That's why we just pushed 4,000 people or 5,000 people into rooted. Yeah. So if you're at Lake point, I'm just telling you you're nuts and you don't have any excuse. Yeah. If you didn't get into rooted. Yeah. So it's like you need a text word rooted to the number 2 0 4 1 1. We're literally going to hand you a band of brothers or a band of sisters teach you how to be a disciple. In person experience. That's right. That's right. That's right. So, all right. Now I got tons of stuff, but I'm, I've been talking too long. What would y'all say? You got, I got a few things. I mean, I'm just, one thing for me, uh, I'm sure we've all lived this and this is just like one of the, probably one of the most underestimated things you can do to find the right people. Not just any person. Uh, man, it's just a prey. If you, uh, if you feel like, man, I have tried before and it seems a little daunting for me to actually go, you need to do all of that. Plus just pray. This is my all time favorite quote from CS Lewis on friendships. I'm just going to read it. This is what CS Lewis said in friendship. We think we have chosen our peers in reality, a few years difference in the dates of our birth and a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one school instead of another, any of these changes might have kept these friends apart. But for a Christian. There are strictly speaking, no chances, a secret master of ceremonies has been at work. He then says Christ who said to the disciples, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you can truly say to every group of Christian friends, you have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another. At this, at this feast, it is he who has spread the board and it is he who has chosen the guests. It was pretty good writer. What looks like a coincidence in your circle and your band of brothers and your band of sisters, it's actually God behind the scenes orchestrating everything. So you need to be reassured that as you go find the right person or the right group of people, you're praying and you're asking God, God, would you, would you lead me? He does. And he leads you to the right people at the right time at the right moment and for your good. And like you said, to change your life and your family and your legacy. So pray. I guess a few things. Number one, and it's really a play off of something that you said, that you're not going to be the friend you wish others would be to you. Be the friend to others that you wish they would be to you. And so it's like, Hey, if you just kind of sit back and just wait for people to come to you, it's like, Hey, you, you, you initiate, you initiate. And listen, if you're new to church or something like that, you're not connected. Like we just said, you get into Rooted if you're around Lake Point, if you're in part of another local church, man, have them help you get into that community. But then when you're there, be the friend to others that you wish they would be to you. And then with that contribute before you evaluate. So as you get into a community, so if you don't have it yet and you're getting it in before you evaluate and thinking, Oh, is this for me? Not contribute before you evaluate. Cause let me just tell you, if you go in there and you're just sitting there and you never say anything and then afterwards you're like, well, that was awkward and I didn't enjoy it. Well, I can tell you why. I can tell you why. Cause you just sat there and you didn't contribute. So contribute before you evaluate. And then finally, I would just tell people, it's like, man, build rituals. And what I mean is I don't mean anything fancy. I just mean, we're not talking about Catholicism yet. We're getting there. Don't build that kind of ritual. Don't build that. What I mean is I've just learned that, man, sometimes you do meet a group of friends that you just click immediately. Other times it just takes time. But what happens is, is if you're like, Hey man, we're just going to meet every Sunday, unless just an emergency happens. And it could be to play around the golf, or it could be to get together a coffee shop. If you're ladies, whatever, build rituals and then stick to it. And over the long haul, those relationships will click. I'll just be real with you. And I've told my, my Rooted group this, so this won't be surprising to them. And I did Rooted with my wife and we did with some other couples about a year ago. And that first week I was looking at the group. I'm like, I just don't know that this group is going to gel. Like I was leading the group and I was like, I just don't know. But this thing just happened as we were getting, no, I just didn't. They're very different types of people in the group. Wow, put stuff in my mouth that I did not say, no, I was just thinking they were very different types of people. And I was like, I don't know if they're going to click and gel together. And then sure, sure enough, those men, people told their stories. And as we met week after week and we go further in, by the end, we are a band of brothers and sisters. And then now we're an ongoing group and we text each other throughout the week. We've got a couple of this week that's struggling and we're just texting each other back and forth, just trying to encourage. So what I'm saying is it can take time. Keep, build rituals, build routines, stick to it. And you'll be surprised what God can do in you and your group together. That's helpful. Yeah. I got some stuff, but I will let you transition if you have any. Yeah. Are we, are we going to do the next thing? Yep. Oh goodness. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about this. Okay. So first of all, we'll just put the, we'll put a pin in that. Hey, again, I just want to say this. If you're part of Lake Point, you need to text Rooted2041. Get in your band of brothers, band of sisters. Okay. Now, Paul, I want you to talk about this. So a lot of people read passages like this. So here's what we're going to talk about. Things it is actually forbidden for Christians to pray. Yes. Deal with that. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. What things, Paul, are forbidden for a Christian to pray? Because people read passages like this and honestly, Paul feels a little savage. Yeah. He specifically says, where is it? Which verse is it? 14. 14. Yeah, 14. He says about Alexander the coppersmith, he specifically. May the Lord repay him according to his deeds. In other words, sick him, Jesus. Get him, Lord. Get him, Lord. So honestly, let's talk about this. And this kind of dovetails into like a mega viral thing that became just a smidge of a debate between Protestants and Catholics this week online. Paul, talk to us about things Christians should not never pray. Yeah, things we shouldn't pray. I'll start with we should never pray for the Boston Red Sox to win a World Series or for the Alabama Crimson Tide to win a national championship. Listen, if you're on Team Jesus, unacceptable. Just go to Leviticus. There's clear verses for this. I'm teasing. That's not World Start. No. Who's your baseball team? I'm a Cubs fan. I'm a Cubs fan. Jesus loves the least of these. So do I. So anyways, a few things that we should not pray for. Let's start with this. And we should not pray for vengeance on our enemies. But then if you just read that verse, like, well, wait a second. It seems like what Paul. Just said is what he just prayed. Let me start with the principle of learning to read the Bible well and of being a good theologian. Theologian sounds fancy, but a theologian is someone who has thoughts about God or says words about God. And that is every person on planet Earth. So if you're going to be a good one, here's a little tip for you. Don't build a whole theology on one verse alone. Instead, you have to ask, what does the whole Bible have to say about any given issue or question? And in this case, there are other verses about how do you pray for enemies? And how do you approach enemies? Let me read some for you. This is from Jesus in Matthew 544. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Romans 12. So this is the same apostle Paul that just said these verses. I'm going to come back and say actually what this means. I'm just trying to help you understand. Like, let's leave this verse for a second. See what other verses say and then come back to this verse. Paul in Romans 12 says, bless those who persecute you. Alexander was persecuting him. And here he says that he would say to bless Alexander. Bless and do not curse them or pay no one evil for evil. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. First Corinthians 4. When reviled, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. Then if you go even just kind of like it can almost sound here like Paul is saying, I hope this guy never gets saved. But we know that's not true. Because if you go to other places again in Scripture, Paul says the exact opposite. In 1 Timothy 1, he actually, Paul is referring to himself. He says, I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and violent man, and the foremost of sinners. And he goes on. He says, but Jesus. Save me so that he could show you that no one, no one, no one is too far beyond the grace of God and beyond his forgiveness. And in 2 Timothy, he actually says that God may grant our opponents repentance. So he's not saying here that, man, I hope this guy goes to hell and there's no hope for him. Instead, what he's doing is he's actually recalling language from the Old Testament that was often used when people were opposing God and the work of God. Are you going to talk about imprecatory Psalms? I'm going to hit some of them and some verses from a few. You get some verses in the Old Testament, like 2 Samuel 3, 39, where it says the Lord repaid the evildoer according to his wickedness. In the book of Psalms, you have verses that some people call the imprecatory Psalms, really praying against people. But remember, these are not people like, it's not like they cut them off in traffic and made them a little mad. These were people who were evil people who were opposing the work of God. And it says in Psalm 28, 4, for example, give to them according to their work and according to their evil deeds. Psalm 62, 12. You will render to a man according to his work. Paul alludes to these passages, not just here, but in Romans 2, 6, where he says he will render each one according to his work. Here's why that matters in Romans. In that section of Romans, Paul is making the case that the wrath of God is coming on every person because every person has sinned. And apart from Christ, they have no hope. But then in Romans 3, we see he says, but if you place your faith in Jesus, that changes. That no matter what you've done, you can be saved and you can be forgiven. So if you repent, you will receive forgiveness. And then you don't receive what you deserve. You receive grace and mercy. You receive something you don't deserve. But if you don't repent, you do receive what you deserve, which is God's judgment. So what Paul is doing here is not saying, man, I hope that Alexander never comes to know Christ and he spends eternity apart from him in hell. What he's doing here is saying that if Alexander keeps on this mode. And again, like what most people would say here. Is that Alexander was the one who turned Paul over to the Roman authorities. Yeah, I've heard that. I read that. He said, he did me great harm. Yeah, he did him great harm. And he testified against him. Yeah. So in other words, what you got is you may have a situation where this is the guy that results in Paul's death sentence. Exactly. And so, and then he says, hey, stay away from this guy, which by the way is wise. He's like, hey guys, stay clear of this guy. He's the one who did me harm. And he's saying, if Alexander keeps on this, he is going to have to face judgment and he's going to get what he deserves. But I would also say, Paul says, but hey, if he were to place his faith in Jesus, he'll be like me. Of course. I was the worst of sinners. I may disagree with you. And there's nothing wrong with that. So you do not think that it's appropriate for a Christian to pray an imprecatory psalm? Oh, no, no. I'm going to get to that. So here's what I was going to say. I was going to say, I do think there are times when it is appropriate for Christians to go, get them, God. Yep. So here's, I was going to say, let me clarify for people that don't speak fancy language. The imprecatory psalms. Okay. Imprecatory psalms. They're the psalms. That's good, Carlos. Thank you. Honestly, they're the ones that cause people. They cause people emotional problems when they read the psalms. It's things where David, I'm just going to say it. It's very aggressive. David says things like dash their children against the rocks, break their teeth. Now, that is, from my rudimentary study, it's been a couple of years, that some of that is, it's more apocalyptic language that was sort of generally almost euphemisms that would be used. But yeah, dude, you read six or, there's six or eight of them in the psalms where literally David's like, dash their infants against the rocks. Break their teeth. Kill all of them. I hope you do it. Yeah. Imprecatory means to call upon a curse or it's like a judgment over somebody. But yeah, that's great. So notice, let me get, I was about to get there. So what I say is we should not pray for God to take vengeance in the sense of saying, God, do evil against him and send him to hell and don't give him a chance to be saved. No, we should not do that. But what should we do in the case of if someone is persecuting us or persecuting Christians or opposing the faith? I say we should pray three things for them. Number one, we should pray for their salvation. Yeah. We should pray, God. Would you, would they, could they be like an apostle, Paul, where even though they're opposing us, you stood in the way and changed them. They became the greatest preacher of the gospel in this generation. We should pray for that. But number two, we should also pray for our and for others' protection. That is okay to pray. In fact, I want to maybe even walk through an example of how I prayed over this in the last year. How much, how many things are you going to go through? One more. Oh, you mean the other questions? The whole thing. Yep. Like the next thing we should pray for or like the other things we should not pray for? How many things do you have that we shouldn't pray for? I'll just give one more and we can go into the Roman Catholicism. Is that okay? Yeah. But on this one, I say, number three, we should pray for God's vindication. I mean, it's okay to pray for God's justice to be done in the world. Yes. And so let me kind of put all these together. Let me put all these. So we should pray for people's salvation, like the actual, the persecutors. We should pray for our protection and we should pray for God's vindication. So it's probably easiest to give an example. So when I saw the story last year of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, broke my heart and filled me with anger. And by the way, that's okay. Yeah, that's right. Like if I don't get angry at that, there's something wrong in me. And so here's what I pray. I say, God, the men. The men that are persecuting and killing these Christians and pastors and churches, would you save them? God, you saved me. You saved the Apostle Paul. Would you save them? But God, if they're not going to be saved, would you do whatever it takes to stop them, including if you have to take them out? That's exactly right. And I think I can pray both of those things. That's different than if I'd said, God, I hate those people. Send them to hell. Yeah. Because, oh, no, he had mercy on me. I want him to have mercy on them too. That's good. But it's like, God, does that make sense? That's what I'd say. So let me give you two and then the second one, that will be the thing that we can then talk about. I'll just say this real fast. You don't have to pray about something if God has clearly commanded you to do it. So I've done this before where it's like I've been talking to people about them taking a step of baptism. I'm like, I'll pray about that. And I've just got to the point where I'm like, you don't have to pray about that. You can pray about like winter or something like that, but you don't have to pray if you do it. You should just take, that's called a step of obedience, not a prayer that you need to offer. But here's one big one, and this is going to lead us to some of these other things. One thing that you shouldn't pray is you shouldn't pray to Mary or to saints in order to pray to God. Oh, he's going there. He's going there. Now that I've opened up back to the works, now we can get to the fun stuff. Okay, he's going there. All right. Wait, before we go there, Josh, did you have a different perspective on imprecatory psalms or like praying judgment or- No, I think he clarified it. Yeah, I know, I know. I do think it is completely appropriate to pray for the justice of God to fall on unrepentant sinners. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, in fact, we don't have time to do this, but if you want a really interesting Bible study, this is really, actually really interesting, Romans 12 and 13. You got to remember, there's no chapter, there's no chapter, Jesus didn't write the chapter distinction, so it's all one little thing. At the end of Romans 12, Paul says, do not take vengeance, leave room for God's wrath. Okay, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Well, if you're a reader, you're like, well, okay, leave room for God's wrath, how do I do that? Well, Romans 13 starts talking about the role of the government, which we talk about this frequently on the podcast, the differentiation between the role of the individual and the role of the state. Okay, so Romans, remember, now, so you're reading, you finished Romans 12, you're reading Romans 12, and you're like, huh, I wonder how I'm supposed to leave room for God's wrath and God's vengeance, okay? Well, Romans 13 goes, do you know what the role of the government is? To bear the sword, to be the agent of God's wrath on earth, yeah, to punish the evildoer, to bring vengeance, is what it's saying. So, in other words, you see how those two things play. Yeah, that's interesting. As an individual Christian, I'm like, no, man, I pray for that person's salvation. It's actually appropriate for me. In fact, one way you practice forgiveness is by going, I'm not going to take vengeance. I'm going to pray for you to bring vengeance so it doesn't leak out in my life. There you go. That's great. Paul, you wanted to talk about speaking of violence. I was going to say, there's a bunch of other things that maybe we can get to another time. But one thing I definitely think we should do, especially in light of a video that went viral this week, is we should not pray to Mary or to any other saint in order to pray to God. Okay. We're sorry. In one minute. What was that? I said we're sorry. Yeah, and this is not an attack on Catholics. It's just as it is. It's not an attack on Catholics. It's an attack on Catholicism. All right, let's talk. Okay, Paul, here we go. You want to show the video? You do it. Well, did you want to tell us why not to pray to Mary? Because this is a little bit different, but let's do your part. In one minute, Paul, tell me why I shouldn't pray to Mary. Man, here's a question. If I was like, let's say one of you guys was a Catholic, here's what I'd ask you. It's like, hey, what precisely is missing from my access to Christ that I have to go through Mary or someone else to make up for? So what does Mary know about my suffering that Jesus doesn't know? Does Mary love me more than Jesus does? Yeah. Is Mary more merciful? Can she inform him of a need I don't have? Can he, if meaning another saint, or she soften his disposition to me? What Scripture says is Christ loves me. He knows my needs. He sympathizes with my weaknesses. He died for me. He intercedes for me. He invites for me to approach him boldly. He tells me that I can pray in his name and because of that, I can approach the Father boldly. And so with that, why would I have to go through anyone else if I can go straight to God myself? There's other arguments that you could make. That we are, you know, if we had more time for. But here's what I would just say. What's absent and what's present. What's absent are any verses commanding me to pray to Mary or to a saint or showing people doing that. Yeah. You had James and Stephen die in the other parts of the church and nowhere after that is it so, oh, let's pray to James and Stephen out there with Jesus because they're closer to him than us. You never see any of that. There's no evidence in the early church before the year 250 of praying to saints whatsoever. Oh, interesting. 250 is one of the first time? Around 250, there's an inscription where it talks about. Peter and Paul intercede for some guy named Victor. You know, kind of a thing. But before that, that's the earliest one. Intercede, wait, wait. Peter and, oh, so. Peter and Paul intercede for Victor. About a dead Peter and Paul. Yeah, a dead Peter and Paul. Interceding for Victor. About 250 AD? Around 250, about 200 years. 200 years. 220 years after the time of Christ. Interesting. It's a while. So there's nothing in the New Testament. There's nothing for the first couple hundred years. That's what's absent. What's present is a mountain of verses about us approaching God directly. I won't read all these for time's sake, but you can go look them up. Matthew 6, 6. Matthew 7, 7 through 11. John 14, 13 through 14. John 16, 23 through 27. Philippians 4, 6. 1 Timothy 2, 5. Hebrews 4, 14 through 16. Just talks about us approaching God directly and praying to him, not praying to someone else to talk to him for me. I can talk to God directly. Okay. Isn't there like a one verse in the Deuterocanonical books that some Catholics might use to justify that? Yes, there is. In Maccabees, it talks about the idea of that being a possibility. We've done a whole podcast on that, so we don't have time. We'll get into it. What I would say to that is, again, number one, we shouldn't build a whole theology for something we just have one verse on. That's right. It's just a good general principle of life. And really quick. Yeah. The Deuterocanonical books, we've done a whole podcast on this, but those were not included in the New Testament, well, in the canon in general. Those are not included in the first sources do not include those. Yeah. The earliest Christian list of scriptures we have, none of them have them. You, Paul, shared a whole episode responding to Father Michael. We're going to include that in the notes, so you explain that. Yeah, but the idea is, is Jesus Christ literally laid down his life for me so that I kind of have access to God. Why would I then go through anyone else if he laid down his life to give me that access? Okay, so we're going to do a little experiment. So we want to, at some point, we want to test drive what would it look like to do an additional deeper dive, potentially for future free episodes. So obviously, there's a lot that you shared. So if somebody's listening right now, and if you're on YouTube or Spotify, if you have any questions regarding, any additional questions regarding what Paul just said, let us know in the comments and we want to review these and perhaps. Or anything from the podcast. Or anything, that's right, that's right. Any question you have, drop it in the YouTube comments. We may test drive, pick three to five and do a user response. An additional bonus episode. I want to show a video that went extremely viral for many reasons and I can explain why. And we're going to watch the video and then I'll tell you what it means. And then we can, we can talk about it. Yeah. Does that work? It's good. Let's do it. Okay. First of all, we're breaking like 30 Levitical cleanliness laws. I just want to point that out. Are you going to tell me what I'm looking at here, Carlos? I was about to explain. Yeah. Bro, there ain't no way. I'm just kidding. Team Protestant forever. I just got so Protestant, I can feel it in my toes. Okay, you can, you can probably, you can, okay, let me, let me explain what's going on. Wait, can I just say something? Please. Okay. If you showed that video to anyone that was alive in the Old Testament. No. Okay. image for any purpose that scripture portrays positively in the bible and in early history in fact the official endorsement of um icon veneration comes later in the second council of nicaea until the year 787 wow so all this to say um idolatry is not just a warning for uh catholicism it's actually a warning for everybody that's right we're all uh prone to do that uh the bible teaches that a good thing can become a bad thing if it becomes a god thing and so we are called to we're called to and invited to enjoy the things of god to remember those that have gone in the past but you want to be very careful that your heart only worships one god alone that's right open to your thoughts so i'll get so what but what hey but what about this but what about this carlos uh i'm gonna read what somebody said a catholic person said about about protestants objecting to this protestants on x are losing their minds over this video evidently they have not read the old testament which is full of references to the veneration of remains and objects connected to sacredness i'm about what are you gonna say about that paul yeah i'm about to lose my mind so like when i when i read this earlier like i think 50 minutes after you sent this to me i just like i was and got really angry and i was like okay are we kidding ourselves right here you're using as the group you're going to emulate old testament israel who is so idolatrous and who used unauthorized objects for idolatrous practices and unauthorized worship they were so bad at it that god used a pagan idolatrous nation to punish them for it that's who you want to emulate and copy okay this is absurd okay now now that's out of my system i'll be a little bit more calm all right here's what my response would be is there's a massive category error happening here you're confusing divine use with divine authorization oh that's great divine use with divine authorization god all the times all the times you're confusing divine use with divine authorization you're confusing divine use with divine authorization you're confusing divine use with divine authorization you're confusing divine use with divine authorization you're confusing divine use with divine authorization but that's not the same proposition as saying therefore christians should venerate those objects and gifts and do anything special to them ongoing so you do have examples in the old testament where god uses the bones of elisha accidentally by the way they just buried this guy with elisha's bones and obviously he comes back to life but you know what's missing is any then reference afterwards that oh now let's start taking and putting everybody in there to bring them back to life so you had a one off recurrence that then wasn't repeated you mentioned the brown serpent they eventually had to destroy because it was being used for that reason that's right but so many of the other places where we see god using physical objects what you don't see is then then venerating them and then using them to repeat that same practice over and over again so don't confuse divine use with divine authorization well also you know this is interesting paul because i was reading this too in acts 19 verse 11 to 12 let me help some people here and god this is i'm going to read it and god was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of paul so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick i have an answer to that but paul what do you what do you say to that exactly what i just said yeah god does extraordinary things like that all the time but one thing i would point out both in the time of acts and the time of the the new testament gospel was if you'll notice jesus like heals in a different way almost every time he heals he doesn't make it this form like oh if you will do this exact thing and do this every time then everybody be healed and i think one of the reasons is because he doesn't want people to attach this ongoing ceremony around the specific way he's like hey i can use anything to heal anybody any time but that doesn't mean that you then have to take that and repeat it forever yeah it's just one simple reason and what you don't see is uh nobody's venerating paul no nobody is bowing to him nobody's praying to him um like there's no command that this is like a thing yeah and so you're right and yeah the attention it does not go to the person it goes to their god i'm going to give one specific example and this might be a good place in terms of your objection to end at least on the objection is there's an example of this in the old testament where elisha with an sh takes the cloak of elijah and he strikes the water and it parts but if you actually go and read it in that moment he doesn't say elijah would your power cause this to depart he directly addresses god himself and in that moment what's really happening is he's basically trying to show i am picking up the anointing and the calling of elijah and i'm carrying it on but he doesn't go to elijah he goes to god himself again you don't have to go through others to approach god or through these weird i'll just call them these weird rituals you can go to god himself and speak to them him as the father he is bro i'll you know this this may have a bit bit of an edge and i'm just i will say um so historically protestants let's say this and well let's land a plan here historically protestants have sometimes and i do not think always unfairly um that wasn't mary but this frequently happens with mary yeah okay uh uh protestants have sometimes historically referred to catholicism as mariolatry or guilty of mariolatry instead of idolatry mariolatry and dude again if we define idolatry as putting anyone or anything in place of god okay that's what you get for we already got this there is one this is we got bible verses for this there is one mediator between god and man yes jesus christ one mediator so there why are we mediatrix leon that's like not not a thing yeah actually it's a pope called her that a long time ago and then uh recently the vatican's like yeah let's not stop doing that yeah they they it was good job because we have bible verses for that good job guys um but what i want to point out is dude i will say if you've ever been to the vatican there are times where for me as a protestant it was hard for me sometimes not to see uh dude honestly a not good a potentially not good spiritual influence that like honestly i think god is great with getting your eyes anywhere but jesus even if it's one degree off if i can get your eyes anywhere but jesus one degree off i'm good and dude if you got jan and i did this little tour it's called the vatican gardens have you guys been there okay so if i understand it right it's like basically the popes get to like uh conscript a statue of who they want to what do they want to memorialize and bro when you go i'm i'm grokking it right now so you can't trust this at all but you know when you're back there jan and i were walking around and it's like i think we saw one statue of jesus wow uh compared to dozens i don't know maybe 50 of mary and honestly man it was hard for me not to go satan is really really good yeah he's totally fine with your eyes being even one degree off jesus as long as you're not focused on jesus so you watch out man that's right fixing our eyes on jesus the author and perfecter of our faith that's your paul would you pray for us there you go yes and so on that note god we uh we thank you for the different people who have run the race before us even thinking that same passage in hebrews and have followed you faithfully god for sure by all means though would you we honor them but god would we become like them by not looking to anyone else but you for our salvation and for our daily strength and mercy god and so god would you help us to always set our eyes on you alone um lord i want to pray for everyone uh listening to this that lord if they have not found their brand of brothers and sisters lord would you give them the grace to find them and i pray lord that they would build a relationship that would sharpen them into the men and women you created and died and saved them to become lord for those who already have their people would i pray that you continue to help them grow in their relationships with other as they grow in their relationship with you god i pray that you would help us to be able to continue to grow in the relationship with you god i pray that you would help us to be able to continue to grow in the relationship to be able to continue to grow in the relationship to be like paul and to finish our race well and to take every step between now to be like paul and to finish our race well and to take every step between now and then with faithfulness we love and to take every step between now and then with faithfulness we love you and we pray amen hey man the and then with faithfulness we love you and we pray amen hey man the free brother you