So my dad is starting a podcast.

Your dad is starting a podcast?

Yes.

What?

Yep.

It's crazy.

So his Instagram, which I was a follower of, his Instagram, notified me that he had posted for the first time in a while.

So I was like, alright, let's see what's up and thought maybe I'd see a cool picture.

Nope.

I saw his new podcast.

He's changed the name of his Instagram and everything along with.

It's got a Facebook page.

I think he's gonna have Patreon.

Like he's like starting with the whole thing.

It's a firefighting podcast.

Well, yeah, it's going to be launching in June and I'm kind of excited to see how it's going to go, seeing that it's going to be firemen.

And I doubt it will always be we'll call family appropriate, maybe not even work appropriate, but I will say I.

Doubt it's going to be family appropriate.

It's definitely not gonna be appropriate for.

Kids starting out especially because I believe he's looking to do like the raw truth of like what it is to be a fireman and some of the stuff they've been through and such.

Like, it's gonna be neat to see how it plays out.

But yeah, it's called Firefighter.

Wtf.

Well, there you go.

The name says it all.

I mean, well, where's the fire amongst with other thing.

He has a bunch of.

He has a lot of clever names to fill the wtf.

But I mean that's also purposeful.

I honestly can imagine.

I really can.

I mean.

Yeah, well, you.

Both of us are firemen kids.

Right.

So, you know, I want to see how it gets going and shoot.

Maybe one day we can tele in and like jump in as guests for dead retired.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What it is to be fireman kids, huh?

How long did he do it?

Oh, my whole life.

Well, no, not my whole life.

So he was in the fire department before I was born and then I was graduating high school and then he retired, I think right after that.

But he actually retired earlier that he intended to because on a call somebody dropped a ladder on his neck, messed him up.

They fixed him mostly and.

But he had to retire.

So always either do that or ride a desk.

And my dad's not a desk rider, so.

Yeah, mine either.

Although he does thoroughly enjoy driving them pumper.

He's.

He really does.

Yeah.

So I mean, so that's cool.

With a ladder truck or whatever truck he drives.

Yeah.

But I mean he's gonna Take all that knowledge and all this stuff.

I mean, he was chief in one.

In the.

In the.

In the county, and he was lieutenant in the city.

Baltimore city.

And so it was like.

Okay.

I mean, he's got the experience.

He's got to know how he's.

He's always talking to other people that are living that life still or have.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, so might as well use all that stuff for possibly something really cool.

You say my dad was assistant chief for a while, and then he became fire chief, and all the politics was a mess.

Yeah.

Did you get it?

Did he get to drive a cool chief car?

I mean, I don't know what you'd call cool.

It wasn't, like, a car car.

Oh.

So we.

I don't know if he.

I think they only had captain's vehicles.

I don't remember him having, like, a chief's vehicle.

Maybe he did.

I don't remember.

We had what looked like a red version of a cop's car.

Chief car.

It was kind of cool.

Like, which one?

Like a car car or like the suv?

Like the old Crown Vic.

Okay.

Yeah.

Red lights on top.

That's cool.

Yeah, it was kind of neat.

I mean, it was hot.

Didn't really have good air conditioning.

So, like, if we rolled up to a scene and we were in the backseat and dad had to run out and do something, we're, like, sweating bullets.

He's doing his thing.

It's a different time back then, dude.

Yeah, but he'd have gotten fired for it nowadays.

Oh, my goodness gracious.

Yeah, but, I mean, it was.

That was the life back then.

But I'm.

Like I said, I'm kind of.

I'm interested to see how this goes.

Has he kicked it off yet?

Do we know a date?

June is all I know.

He's got, like, a teaser up on YouTube.

It's gonna be on YouTube and on, I guess, your podcasting channels.

Yeah.

Firefighter.

WTF.

So, I mean, it goes without saying that it's probably proceed with caution, but.

Yeah, it's for anyone who's been a fireman or.

Oh, yeah.

But it's probably gonna be awesome.

My dad is.

He's got so much.

You know, he's probably knows everyone, so.

Yeah, Go, Dad.

So, yeah, that's something that's in the news.

Hey, maybe I could talk my dad into getting a hold of him and talking to him.

You never know.

You never know.

I'm waiting to see how it goes.

He's done a lot with the.

With the.

All the chemicals.

And the suits and the foam and all that.

My dad's been a big part of all those court cases and stuff, so.

Yeah.

You know what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

Okay.

So in other news.

Other news.

Other news.

The Pope died.

Yeah, the Pope died.

Pope Francis.

Right, Francis.

Yeah.

The Vatican is a mess.

I mean, it's always been a mess.

I was kidding.

I meant, like, is he really the one that runs things or.

I mean, I don't know, is it.

Like, the United States where the President actually doesn't run things?

I don't know how any of that works right now, but, yeah, he's.

So we're in that state of.

They're getting ready to.

As we record.

They're gonna have the viewings and all that stuff.

And don't they do, like, smoke signals or something?

Yeah.

When the Pope dies, a particular smoke comes out of the chimney.

Right.

And then they go into.

What is it called when they're all locked in?

Is it conclave?

I don't know what it is.

It might be conclave.

Maybe.

Maybe I sound cooler because I.

Maybe I know.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I'm so wrong.

Conclave is a cool thing.

It sounds like cool things.

It's not cool, but it's a cool name for a very boring, could be animated situation.

I don't know.

So anyway, they're gonna have.

All the cardinals are gonna be locked in a room where they'll be.

There's like 150, some of them, and they'll be locked in a room where they're gonna.

They'll put square circle in there, right?

Yeah.

They'll pray and vote on a new pope, and then another smoke gets released once they've found the Pope or decided on who it is, you know, and.

Yep.

And then that person becomes the Pope.

I mean, that's about as much as I know about it.

Sounds awfully.

Sounds like a political system just like any other.

Yeah.

I mean, prayer and political.

Maybe.

Maybe political system.

I don't know.

It's interesting.

This process is at least interesting to watch.

Yeah.

You know, we've seen it once before in our lifetime, for sure.

I don't know if we've seen it more than that, but I know that at least once.

Yeah, we were in high school.

I was in high school.

Well, you would have been out of high school at that point, probably.

I don't even think about these things anymore.

I know that I have some Catholic friends who, you know, are very interested in who the next person will be.

They have hopes for the direction of the church, maybe.

Maybe it's that kid they made a saint.

That would be weird.

I don't know what all the rules are.

I'm sure there's more rules than that.

They've probably been like, must look good in white.

I don't know.

Oh, must be white.

No, not.

Must be white.

Must look good.

Wow.

Don't.

Don't do that.

Oh, my goodness.

No, I don't.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know either.

I mean, who controls.

I'm sure there's, like a range of stuff.

The Vatican, you know?

You know, like.

No, they've probably been.

They've probably been groomed several.

There's probably several people who have been being groomed for this their whole life or something.

Honestly, they probably been having this conversation for a while anyway, considering that his health was in such disarray for so long to where he was in and out of the hospital.

And, you know, apparently the last thing he was able.

One of the last things he was able to do, he penned.

That's what they said online.

He penned a address for Easter, but then he passed away.

So it's kind of crazy, the whole thing, but Catholic Church getting a new leader.

Didn't Vance meet with him just recently before he died?

Honestly, I can't remember.

I can't remember.

I'm sure I saw that somewhere.

Usually for.

It's just wild.

Yeah.

For a funeral of a Pope, though.

All the high people in the Catholic Church are going to be there.

They all fly in.

But then I think world leaders.

I mean, I think they even expect Trump to fly in.

If I'm not mistaken.

That could be a crazy situation.

I don't know.

Like it, you know, all eyes on the Vatican.

Well, it's usually.

I mean.

When is it supposed to happen?

Like, I feel like it's like the.

Funeral is starting today or whatever.

By the time this comes out, it may have already happened.

Okay.

But.

Yeah, I don't know the full schedule.

I was just kind of lightly reading on it and just thought, oh, that's interesting.

I mean, it's a current event, so to speak, so, yeah, maybe they'll have a new pope by the time this comes out.

Maybe they won't.

Speaking of the Catholic Church, what if someone said to you, I don't believe in God?

How would you answer?

Wow, we talked about this.

Kind of.

No, we didn't.

Kind of.

No, we did the opposite.

That's what I'm saying.

It pairs really well with the.

You Want me to draw a new card?

Well, what did.

I'm trying to see what was the card.

That was heaven.

Now, I feel like we talked about something like this recently.

We did.

We talked about.

How would you tell somebody that he.

Sure.

It feels like a very similar card.

Oh, man.

Where is it?

I know we talked about it recently.

Can you find it?

Apparently not.

Okay, well, that's.

Whatever.

Anyway.

Fine.

Yeah, we're gonna need picking up.

This is the first time.

This is like, live stuff.

If you were watching live, this is coming out later, but I'm not gonna cut it, so you're gonna see this.

Yeah.

And I was just kidding about the whole Catholic thing.

I mean, this is one we talked about a little bit before.

This one actually could technically go with this, but it's a good bad, and it's not bad.

How do you make sense of bad things happening in the world if God is loving?

Oh, how do I make sense of it?

Hmm.

Well, you know what I think.

I think we should get into that after the break.

Oh, you're gonna do that, huh?

Yeah.

Okay.

We're gonna get into it after the break.

After.

After the break.

So check out.

What is it?

Firefighter.

Fighter.

Fighter.

Wtf?

If you're into those things, if you're into firefighters or if you live that life, that might be for you, or.

If you want a quick glimpse into the life of a firefighter, you might have a quick glimpse in and then out.

But there may need to be explicit material might happen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's one thing about firemen that everybody probably doesn't know, but should know, is that, well, it's.

You know, they live a colorful life.

They do.

Yeah.

Takes a certain kind of wiring to run into a fire when everyone else is running out.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So check them out.

It's gonna be right now.

He just has the teaser out.

Yep.

But in June.

June.

He's about a month away.

He'll be launching this bad boy and go check him out, support him and let us know what you think.

Leave some comments for him.

Yeah, he needs comments.

He needs comments.

So.

Yeah.

Cool.

Welcome to the Truth Response.

I'm going to go ahead and pray today.

Father, thank you for just everything that you do for us.

Thank you for the things that keep us busy and yet the things that fulfill us.

Allow us to just continue to work for you and to work through us to better your kingdom.

Allow this podcast to reach more people and to make a difference in this world.

Hopefully very positive and one that blesses you and praises Your name and your kingdom in Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.

Okey dokey.

So back from the break.

I love that.

Teaser the break and reread the question, please.

All right, so we are kicking today off with how do you make sense?

How do you make sense of bad things happening in the world if God is loving?

Okay, how do I make sense of it?

Bad things happening?

Well, I mean the easy answer, we broke it.

I mean that's the cheating answer.

Yeah, it's cheating a little bit.

It's also truthful.

I mean, yeah, you're right, here's truthful.

But that's the route everybody goes with it is because sin is in the world.

Well, yeah, but I mean, let's think about it.

Let's think about this logically, right?

God stopped all the bad things.

That would not be a loving God because then he would not love us enough to let us live with our own consequences.

What do I mean by that?

Sin is not a one time bad decision.

It is something that echoes forward.

So we can see that evident in the Bible.

So for instance, first time Adam and Eve sin, that is now, we are now in a fallen world and fallen nature.

We are under a curse, whereas we have, you know, we're just being tempted all the time where we're constantly sinning all the time.

Their kids, you know, kids, kids, kids all the way up to us.

And so these things, they don't just go away.

It's not like if you go to a deli and you're like, should I get the soup or the sandwich?

I'll get the soup.

Ah, I should have gotten the sandwich.

It's not something that simple.

These are something that it doesn't go away once you've sinned.

That stains the world and doesn't go anywhere.

So imagine if you would, if you were looking at a crystal clear pond, right, and you could see your own reflection.

It looks like a mirror and then you throw a rock in it and the ripples start moving outward, ruins the reflection.

Now eventually, if you let it sit long enough, the pond waters will settle and it'll start to look crystal clear again.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work the same way for us.

The only thing that cleanses us of our sins is the blood of Jesus.

That being said, in a world where our bad decisions and our sin are constantly making an impact, a negative one at that, we have to live in that.

We have to live with all the consequences.

And the consequences don't necessarily mean it's just going to affect us singularly.

Me Putting a sin into the world doesn't necessarily mean it's just going to impact me singularly.

It could be impacting those around us.

Those down the road.

We don't see it.

And so as these things come back and as we live in this world that continues to be broken and sin continues to come back forward, there are certain things that just have to play out.

And a loving God, and it sounds counterintuitive, but it really is.

Loving God has to let a lot of these consequences play out, therefore giving our actions real meaning.

If he were to just wipe it.

All away all the time, even when we asked about it, he wouldn't be all loving because his justice system would be lopsided.

We wouldn't actually have to live with the bad choices.

And that's not a loving God, because then we can't learn anything from it.

But this, I think, is even taking a step further and being like, well, why wouldn't God just remove our bad choices?

Well, because he's given us the free will.

We have the ability to not only choose him, but choose his will for our lives or not choose his will.

To live by his way or our way.

You know, and so there's a lot.

Of people that challenge that too.

They say that there's no such thing as free will.

Yep.

I would say that that's crazy.

But why?

I would say that's crazy because obviously.

I can go out and I can make a decision right now.

If I want to go play in traffic in the middle of the road.

Or if I'm going to stay safely.

On the sidewalk, I can make that decision.

But is it you making that decision?

No.

I mean, because that's the argument, right?

Like that's the argument against free will is it was already predestined in all.

I think that our God is bigger than our decisions.

I think ultimately he's got a plan that is way greater than our decisions.

He is the kind of.

He's greater than the greatest chess player, if you ever played chess and you start to react to the other person's moves so that you can continue to plan your attack right.

And defense.

So he is greater than even that.

He can see us making right and wrong decisions and still use them to his good and still use the bad things we do to his good and ultimate full plan.

You know, sometimes we have make so many decisions and if we don't have salvation, we're going to have to live with them.

You know, I think one of the most amazing things is that God gives us the ability to make the ultimate choice, which is to either choose him or choose not him.

Reject him.

And he loves us to the point.

Where he's going to honor that decision.

As much as it's going to hurt him.

A selfish God could.

Look, I'm not going to let that happen.

I'm going to just excuse you from all your wrongdoings.

That's a selfish God.

That's not a just God.

That's not a loving God.

A loving God's got to let you.

Make your own decisions.

He's got to let you choose.

Who wants to be forced to love.

Someone for eternity that wouldn't be loving someone.

Can you imagine?

I'm gonna force you to love me.

No, that's not how it works.

And anyone who's ever been in the.

Love scene knows you can't force someone to love you.

You know, there are people that have tried such things.

It doesn't work.

Love has to be an open choice.

It has to be something that is.

Just grown organically and naturally.

And so.

To that extent, if we.

Are making bad decisions or if we're making good decisions, they need to play out accordingly.

And so a loving God has to allow these things to happen.

It's kind of like when you have kids and you know that they're getting ready to make a mistake, right?

And you know that if you stop them from doing it, they could either make this mistake again later in a worse situation where you can't do anything about it, or you can let it play out.

They learn something, we heal, we move on.

You know what I mean?

And sometimes you just have to let them make a mistake and it sucks.

But sometimes that's called failing forward, learning.

From the things that we do that are stupid.

Wisdom doesn't come with being right all the time.

It sometimes being wrong and knowing that it was wrong.

Yeah.

You'Re pondering it.

I am.

I really am.

You know, people, like when you look.

At the Book of Job, for instance, you know, Job was considered in the Bible a righteous man.

Does that mean he was perfect?

No, but it means that he was mostly living by the way that God wanted him to live.

And maybe it was like David and was the man after God's own heart.

Maybe he was trying to live a good life under how God wanted him or willed him to live.

And yet he still fell victim to bad things happening to them.

And his neighbors kept trying to convince him, well, you must have done something wrong.

But he stood against him and said.

No, it's nothing I did Right.

Well, I mean, bad things in this.

World can be confusing because we see people who have cancer and we're like.

But they were such a good person.

Might not have been their mistake.

But yet we have things in this world, for instance, carcinogens, things that we know that cause cancer, chemicals, whatever it is.

Sometimes they're introduced by other human beings.

Who are making a mistake they don't realize is a mistake.

In fact, they might have had the best intentions with them.

And yet it was a mistake, and.

Now it's out there and it's going to hurt people.

And if God just wiped that away.

No one would learn from that.

And that's a really hard truth.

Yeah.

I mean, if you look at, like, even our health systems.

Right.

Is a good example of what you're talking about.

Absolutely.

Like, plenty of things that we've given people over the course of history, including, not limited to, prescription of cigarettes at one point.

Right.

Like, obviously, cigarettes cause cancer, but at one point in time, it was used as something that was.

By health professionals prescribed to help, you know, cure other things.

We used to have coffee syrups with drugs in them.

We had.

There was all kinds of things that we've done on medical basis or even our food, we think about.

I mean, the FDA just banned a bunch of colors.

Right.

Artificial coloring.

They're to be removed from the shelves because they found out that they cause damage in different ways and they cause different reactions in different people.

Mostly negative.

Now, were they.

Were they actually to be removed from the shelves or stop being produced?

Maybe it's both.

I don't know the exact wording.

Last I had heard, they were talking about doing.

I don't think they're gonna.

They may not remove them from the shelves, but I know they need.

They need to stop making food with them in it.

Right.

So.

Yeah.

And then they're supposed to have them all off the shelves.

Last I heard, by a certain.

Yeah, there's a time frame, something like that.

Yeah.

Because they want to clean up the food and so that we're not poisoning ourselves, basically.

But at one point, this was seen as a perfectly fine thing to do.

And here's the really trippy thing about that specific one, is that they're making it already the other way.

Yeah.

For plenty of countries that want it like this is true.

They're already making it without that stuff.

And so, like, you'd think it wouldn't be hard to just shift.

That almost makes you wonder if bad things are happening because there's people in the world that aren't so great.

Maybe.

I mean, who knows what's all behind this thing?

But it all goes forward and we don't know.

We don't know.

You know, we need to.

If we're going to be a healthier society, we need to make better choices and we need to research them more fully, I would say, until we put things out in the market.

But sometimes it's a great idea and we're so excited about the idea that we throw it out there and we get things on the market before we fully realize what it is and we find out that certain products that we use to kill weeds in our lawn, not good for us.

Go figure.

Certain things that we use as deterrents, not good for us.

I remember when Det.

The D E T, isn't it?

Right.

The stuff that they were trying to use.

Yeah.

Deet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That stuff's not good.

So, like, there's stuff that one point's like, oh, this is what you need.

This isn't what you need.

Here's one for you.

This one's gonna be a hot, hot button for these guys.

I mean, maybe.

We'll see.

What do we got?

You know, birth control.

Oh, you know what I mean?

We could go there.

That's somewhere I am willing to go.

I know we don't have a woman on here.

Please understand.

I have talked this extensively over with.

With my wife and others.

I'm with you.

But, like, it messes women up.

I've been told.

I've been told and I've been told by people that I know that this is one of the most dangerous times to have a baby.

And I think, well, that's kind of crazy and.

Because this is probably the safest time medically, you know, for us to have children, because medical advancements and all, and somebody mentioned.

Well, but there's a higher number of miscarriages now.

Well, okay.

I mean, we probably didn't start tracking that super early, you know, just probably within the last couple.

But I got up somewhere.

I'm going with it.

So hang in there.

Yeah.

And so I got to really thinking about it after they were talking about how many miscarriages are had.

And I got to thinking about the fact that, well, I mean, most women as teenage girls start on birth control to curb their period.

Right.

And the effects thereof.

And then, of course, it trains your body to flush it all and to not have children.

Right.

I mean, that's essentially what it's doing.

Right.

Okay, let's ride this.

So if that's the case, then whenever you come off of it and you decide you want to have a child.

Right.

You've had years and years of being on this thing that's constantly telling your body, don't.

Right.

Yeah.

That now you're finally wanting to have a child, and your body is naturally used to fighting off all of that.

And so, like, I don't know.

This is just some.

It's an interesting thought.

Well, here's what I.

I know that certain things.

I mean.

I mean, there are lots of different kinds of birth control out there, but I know that there are some that do do damage to some women.

My wife could not.

Could be on it.

It messed her up.

There's a lot of women that.

It does certain things to their hormones, to all kinds of things, and so they just can't even be on it or they don't know it until it's caused a bigger problem there.

It's.

We're playing with things that we really didn't have any, like, right to do.

Like, we started saying, oh, we're.

We got a better way.

You know, God designed a system to work a certain way, and he.

And he gave us rules on how to use that system.

And we decided we don't like your rules.

And because we don't like your rules and we want to play by our rules, we're have to come up with a way to.

So that we can play by our rules.

And that's what we.

I want to push this step further.

I want to make people mad at me today.

Okay, well, hold on.

You can get mad.

Okay, you can get them mad.

You can get them mad.

But, like, I knew a guy that was a mentor of mine.

He said that he basically, God had told him that the reason that two.

Of his kids.

Weren'T born was because of the birth control that his.

His wife was on at the time.

And, like, this is a guy that God spoke to him many times and all the other things were legit.

So I'm going to have to say that I can believe that this is what he heard and what kind it was.

Don't know.

But I mean, like I said, my biggest thing is that, you know, we were given a design and our whole systems, our bodies were.

Were designed to work certain ways, and we like to screw with that, and then we get surprised when things start acting up.

Right, right.

I've got a theory.

Go ahead.

All right.

And it's.

I mean, things can be said about guys, too.

I know we're talking.

Talking the women route right this second.

So, I mean, I'm just gonna make everybody mad at me real quick.

So what the reason the.

That a lot of teenage girls start on birth control is to curb some of that pain and stuff, right?

Some of them.

Some people get it really bad.

Some it's regularities trying to keep it regular.

Some birth controls actually stop the period for a period of time.

Right?

Yeah.

So my thought processes on it is that isn't that shirking the Kurds?

Isn't that trying to get around the curse that was given to us, given to women in the garden, given to Eve?

Oh, interesting thought because, like, that's trying to alleviate something that was placed there as a reminder.

Well, okay.

You know, I'm just thinking, not going.

To like that at all.

There's a lot of women that aren't going to like that.

But I'm honestly open to just the conversation.

I'm not.

So I'm not saying, like, it's a sin to have birth control, but maybe.

I don't know.

It's interesting we got conversation.

Yeah, it's interesting we got on this subject because, like, you know, to me, like, I.

We corrupted something.

Yeah, we can.

We continued to corrupt something a step further.

And so, like, going back to what was the original plan?

The original plan is one man, one woman come together.

They become one flesh.

And as they do that, they have the ability to multiply.

Right.

They are able to have children and populate the earth.

And it's good, and it's good.

And everything that goes with that, when it's done the way it was designed to do, is good.

But we have taken that and we have corrupted it in so many different ways.

Considering I had a conversation with one of my students.

The student had gotten to a relationship and what society would deem very, very, very minor things happened in any physical form, mainly like kissing and stuff like that.

Our current society would go, oh, that's nothing.

But here's the thing.

He came to me and those images in his brain, those experiences were haunting him.

Sure, they were playing over and over and over again.

And I said, see, that's the whole point.

I said, we treat these things as if they're not a big deal.

We treat these things as if they are okay to be pursuing in different people until we find the right one.

But these don't leave us.

These images, these experiences, they stay with you.

They will haunt you and possibly even taint or ruin future relationships because we have now comparisons and we have, you know, it's amazing what we don't realize.

We're doing to ourselves, to the people that we're with.

We don't know what they're carrying forward.

They don't know what we're carrying forward.

You know, and it wasn't supposed to be that way.

It was supposed to be the one and the one.

And then that everything about that relationship, everything that's physical and it was now.

Shared and it was supposed to be not just holy, but, like, exciting and fun and enjoyable.

Like it.

More like women that are listening.

Right?

Men too.

Well, yeah, but women specifically.

Imagine for those of you who are mothers, childbirth being enjoyable.

Right.

Like, none of you can imagine that because I'm sure you all.

Well, I mean, it was rough the.

After I watched it and I was scarred.

So, like.

So I'm just saying.

Blue.

Why do they come out blue?

I don't understand.

Anyways, for guys who, you know, aren't dads yet, they come out blue.

Some of them.

I don't know if all of them do mind games or whatever.

Anyway, so more than anybody wants to talk about whatever, I don't care.

But can you imagine that?

Like, even to the extreme of that, like, it's all supposed to be this exciting and enjoyable experience?

Yeah.

Okay.

But I'm also talking about just the aspects of the relationship itself.

That's what I'm talking about.

All of it.

Even down to the painful things.

If every intimate moment was intimately only with the person that you were supposed to be with.

Right?

And there was no, well, this person kissed me like this, or this person held me like this or anything else.

I mean, there are probably people listening that could go and think, well, this person, this person, this person.

Maybe not everyone, but you can think about the people you quote, unquote, dated and the relationships you had and the physical moments you had and those intimate things that you did and those kind of stay with you.

And most of the time, what we try to do is disregard them or push them down or try to convince ourselves they're not there until they are.

And we taint ourselves.

You know, we're not supposed to be going from person to person.

That's not the design.

And we're definitely not supposed to be sharing the bed like we do as a society.

It is deemed normal to go, oh.

Now you're gonna make people mad at you.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

As a society, we are not to be dating like that.

We are not supposed to be going and just having what?

What?

Sex?

And as well flippantly as we are, it's like, it's okay.

Well, you know, And I've heard our kind of arguments.

In fact, I will be honest, I used to make some of these arguments myself, you know.

Oh, well, you know, how do you know if you're gonna even like the person like that, you know, if you didn't like, try it out or if you didn't like.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

That is such a selfish, self indulgent thing to think about.

And I used to think like this.

Like we, we have no right to be going from bed to bed and be so casual.

Casual hookups and sex is, is such a terrible thing for us.

First of all, it takes a piece of you and your soul and it connects it to someone else that you have no regard to be with at all.

At all.

It's.

It's such a terrible thing that we do.

And that stuff stays with you, man.

It stays with you.

And you know, no matter how many times you say there's no strings attached, that there's strings.

This, this.

It's like melted cheese, yo.

That's like, that's so stringy.

That's so weird and kind of gross.

But it's kind of like it's not meant to be.

It's not meant to be that way.

We're supposed to have a person that we dedicate our lives to and enter in a covenant with and everything that comes with that, all the kissing, all the hugging, all the holding, all the intimacy, all the stuff that we.

That we would deem X rated or anything like that, that all within that covenant, within that holy marriage is a holy act and it is good.

And that's how it was supposed to be.

And all of that should be sacred and wonderful and celebrated.

But yet we try to celebrate going outside of the original plan, outside of God's design, and saying that it's okay.

And this is just.

We're just cracking the circus here.

And so that's why we came up with things like certain birth controls and stuff.

Think about it.

Not only do we not want that, we want to be able to go and do these things like go bed to bed and stuff like that.

And this is a problem for not just guys, but girls.

But then we want to be able to control being able to do that without making children.

So that's with both guys and girls, quite literally.

They've got a pill called the day after pill.

Yeah.

Which is terrible.

Which is an encouragement.

Yeah.

This kind of stuff, it diminishes how the design was supposed to be.

It completely attacks what God had originally put in place.

And we Accept it because it's the norm now.

When you talk about how things used to be and should have been.

Oh, that's just old talk.

That's not.

Whatever.

It's not like that anymore.

They didn't.

No, they actually had it right.

And that's what's wrong now is that we don't.

And then once you open up these holes, these wounds and you start fracturing the system further and further and further.

I mean, it makes sense then that you have this other sexual deviant behavior out in the world where it is so destructive not only to single people, but to marriages.

And people have been convinced in their mind's eye that they can live however they want.

And selfishly, if they're not getting what they feel like they need, instead of trying to work on fixing it and bringing Jesus into a relationship, they just go looking for it somewhere else and have told themselves that they are entitled.

To do such things because of happiness.

I'll tell you what.

You want proof that the enemy is winning in our world, that he's getting some ground battleground for us.

It's the fact that we can't live our lives the way we were supposed to.

We are living it in a way that we weren't supposed to.

And we're calling it perfectly normal.

Yeah.

That is.

Can't I just be happy?

Don't I deserve to be happy?

That's the idea that we understand what we should.

What we need to be happy.

That's once again taking it into our own.

Seem like we know what happiness actually means.

Well, in order to be.

So I tell you what.

For me, happy.

When it comes to being happy in my life, obviously it starts with knowing my creator and being in a relationship with him to where I'm trying to live my life in a righteous way so that not just this life is going to be by his guidance, but also my eternity is in place.

From that, it's a wife that I can be faithful to and that she can love me.

Beyond the fact that I don't think I deserve to be loved by my wife the way I am.

And I'm so grateful that she loves me that way.

And I just want to love her that way right back.

And then it's the fact that we get to raise children together and going on an adventure of life together that to me that's happiness.

That's the key to life is when you can go and you're.

It's not about.

I'm not talking legacy.

Some people think children and they think legacy to Me, that's not that it's a privilege to be able to have these experiences in my life where I get to have someone, a partner, I like to call it my partner in crime, but my adventure partner in this life, to go through it with and serve God together and watch these kids and raise them and encourage them and help them build their life.

That's an amazing thing to be able to do.

And then also, I mean, of course, this is just me, but I also get to work in ministry where I get to not only help my own family, but encourage those that God sends into this building.

Like, wonderful.

That's amazing.

But yet other people's idea of happiness is what they're being allowed.

They're allowing themselves to accept that it's idols.

Well, you'll be happy when you have this stuff, when you do this thing, when you have that person, when you do.

Like, they're not willing to accept God first and that he might have a plan of blessing your life with the different things that can really make it something special instead.

Well, we're told this is what you need.

And we accept that.

We accept.

Well, you need to have a great job and makes good money and you gotta have a house and you gotta.

Have these cars, and that's what success is, right?

And successful.

And you'll find happiness until you have it and you realize you don't.

And so you go out and then you get told by magazines and the media and what the perfect partner is.

And this is for both men and women.

Women are told what to look for in a guy, and guys are told what to look for in a girl.

And so we now go, and how.

Dare you look for.

For anything else outside of that?

Like, how dare you look for if you're not a 10, how dare you look for a 10?

Or, you know, all of the different things, right, People?

I honestly.

And this is obviously some of this is my own beliefs, but I honestly believe that there are people that fit other people.

Is there a one person, perhaps?

Okay.

I believe that.

I have no problem believing that God designed my wife for me.

I call her my rib.

Okay?

She is my rib.

I love that woman.

I could not have designed a woman more perfect for me.

That being said, I believe that there is at least one person that is designed to partner with every person on the planet.

At least.

Maybe there's a few options out there and it's just a matter of where you find each other.

God's probably got a greater plan in place.

I'm not trying to think I know everything that he's got in mind that would be impossible for me, but I know that I one time thought I needed to find this person, and then one day I didn't find them.

They just were there.

When I got into a relationship with my wife and I realized the difference, the difference of trying to make something work and something that just worked, it was life changing for me.

You know what I mean?

So we need to go and put God first in our lives and let him lead us and then bless us and learn to live life the way he had designed for us.

The more we bucket, the more we try to go around his plan or try to alter it, I think the more trouble we're going to be in.

And then all these bad things that we're talking about are going to continue to happen.

And we're going to keep asking ourselves, why is it happening?

Well, because once again, we did it to ourselves.

That easy answer at the beginning comes back into play.

Yeah, but Matt, the heart wants what the heart wants.

The heart is deceitful.

Do you know where that's at?

That's scripture.

Jeremiah 17, 9.

There you go.

And it says, the heart is deceitful above all things.

Desperately sick.

Who can understand it?

Yeah, I was trying to put the.

I said it and then I just.

Like, where's that at?

Give me the number.

Sometimes I can do that really well.

And sometimes I'm like, no, I just know it's there.

Yeah.

I mean, that's why we're told to guard our heart.

Right.

And so, like, it seems like such a.

I don't know, seems so square.

Right?

Seems so old school and not political, but conservative.

You know, like that whole to say, don't even kiss before you get married.

Don't do it.

You know, when I was talking to my daughter about these things, she doesn't like it when I talk to her.

About stuff like this.

Okay.

So for instance, one day I was out and we were getting pizza somewhere, and I looked over and the table across from us, what appeared to be happening was some grandparents took either their grandson or their granddaughter and their date out for their date.

And I was like, that's how it should be.

And my daughter was like, what?

I said, I think the grandparents are chaperoning the date.

I think that's how it should be.

That's called courting.

That's, you know, you're getting to know each other, but you're doing it with.

You know, with a good example.

Right.

It was so great.

I mean, like, courting is Going, going and being together, learning about the other person with a good example of what that's supposed to look like.

Presentation with you.

Oh yeah, and supervision, that helps.

And some people don't like being supervised.

But the thing is this is like privacy can lead to temptation.

Supervision is great because it keeps things on up and up and it keeps away that voice of temptation that's going to be like, it's okay to do the little bit more, whatever it is, but it's a great way to like really learn.

If you want to spend time trying to figure out who someone is, bring them around your friends, spend time as a group.

It's not that hard in today's society to do.

It really isn't.

But people like that little to be alone and do the privacy thing.

When I first showed this to my daughter, she thought I was absolutely outside of my mind.

Especially because when you read books and any media, any television shows and not even just secular stuff, even this stuff gets portrayed whether they intend it to be good or not in even more, what we would consider more Bible based shows, they're still dating and stuff like that.

In times where people are alone, I'm like, that's not how it was supposed to be.

But you know, they're trying to, at least I get it, meet them halfway.

But the thing is these young girls and these young boys are like, that's how it is.

Right.

And so then I introduced the idea.

I was talking to my wife and I had her, we were just kind of talking to her about, well, you know, honestly, this and this and this should be safe for marriage.

And we said honestly, quite honestly, even kissing really should be.

And she was like, why are you trying to take something away from me?

And I was like, what do you mean take something away from you?

I'm not trying to take anything away from you.

I said, I'm actually trying to save you in a way that you don't even realize that you were kissing.

From getting that taken away.

Yeah, because that, that, that's 100%.

Why are you trying to take things away from me?

Something away from me?

We're not, we're trying to protect you from getting that thing taken away.

Yeah.

The thing is, is that, you know, they think that this is like once.

The thing is they think it's normal.

They think it's something to then chase after, you know, especially as they see it in movies and TV shows, they, they see it portrayed in these little romantic scenes.

And like that's, I mean, I get that's what they want, but they don't realize that they should wait for it.

They need to make sure everything else is fine first.

One of the most amazing things God did for my wife and I.

And I was not a perfect person.

I was not a quarter or anything else prior.

Okay, this is all part of my testimony.

But when my wife and I got together, we were going to go about our relationship in the same way.

We had always gone relationships, and very much.

But then God was pressing on our hearts to take a step back from that and to not be intimate with one another.

And it was such a weird thing that both of us felt this, like, you need to not do that.

You need to hold out.

And I thought, I mean, I want to serve you, Lord, and I want to do what you want me to do.

And I also want to do this other thing.

Well, and it's almost like I can imagine, like the whole.

But right.

Yeah, but I've already done it.

Yeah, I've already ruined that.

Like, I've already had all of those firsts.

The things that you never forget your firsts.

Yeah, you do.

But here's the thing.

Even in that situation, my wife and I decided, all right.

And as much as, like, there was a large part of us that didn't want to do that, we thought it would be better to listen to God.

And so we decided to pull back from that and try to behave ourselves.

And what was amazing about that is that was what we did up until we got married.

When we got married, it was now the most amazing bonus I could ever receive.

I realized at that point that.

That time leading up to the marriage, we learned how much we could really love each other and what our relationship could really be based on.

And it had nothing to do with the physical stuff.

It was everything to do with the fact that we were right for each other.

And so that when that stuff was added on, oh, my goodness, praise the Lord.

You know what I mean?

Everybody listening at home, yes, praise the Lord.

But he had to teach me that in the midst of my own depravity and the fact that I admit I did not.

I thought growing up that these things were normal.

I thought it was an endeavor to endeavor to do these things and for God to slow me down.

And thank God he gave me the woman he designed for me to do this with.

But to slow me down and go, all right, back up a little bit and see what I've got going on.

And then you'll learn why I do this.

And it made me regret everything else beforehand That I didn't wait because it would have made it even better.

You get a taste of something good, you're like, this could have been better.

This could have been even better than this if I'd have just done these things.

There was a girl that I worked with for a long time, and I am so proud of her because she did.

She waited.

And I.

When I first met her, I thought she was crazy.

I don't know.

I can't remember the things I might have said.

And I wish I never would have said anything that sounded even remotely negative.

I remember the things I used to think about it when I heard that she was doing such things.

And I thought, that's just in this day and age.

Who.

What.

Why would you.

You know.

But she found someone who wanted to wait with her.

And I hope God is just blessing upon blessing upon blessing that not only that marriage, but that marriage bed, because that is now something special and holy and wonderful.

And it's just theirs.

It's just theirs.

No one else has a part of that.

Just them.

It's amazing.

But yet, going back to these other things, we have this society that tells you that if you're not having all these things both inside and outside of serious relationships, then you're not happy and you need to go find them, and you need to go find them somewhere else.

And so you have people getting in and out of relationships and hurting each other and scarring each other and breaking marriages and all the things that come with it.

And all these bad things are happening in the world.

And why is God allowing it to happen?

Because he has to let us make the mistake.

If he stopped this, we definitely wouldn't have free will.

Yeah.

If you want proof of free will, to me, it's the fact that we can mess up because the Bible tells us he does not wish anyone to fall.

Yeah, I agree.

And I think that.

I think we've slowed down in our listening to God calling us to rise up and stop some things.

Like when bad things come about, when bad people come about.

I mean, a lot of people are like, well, why didn't.

Why didn't God just stop Hitler before he ever started?

Right.

Well, maybe.

Maybe God was calling for somebody to rise up and teach Hitler the right way and they didn't step up to their calling.

No.

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe you're.

Well, I mean, I think about this a lot because I think about all of the spiritual that we disregard.

Right.

You know, demon possession, like, we just completely disregard that in the United States, in the Western culture, That's like, ah, that doesn't happen.

We can explain all that as mental illness.

Like, we disregard any kind of healing and anytime somebody is healed, it's just disregarded as, oh, it's one of those crazies.

Like, it couldn't have been done.

Right.

And when you think of healing in the church, you think of like the whole, like blowing on somebody and they're blown backwards and now they're healed and can walk and all these different things.

You know, that's the image that people get.

And so, like, I just.

What if you're not stepping up and doing what God is calling you to do right now?

And that's why bad things happen.

Can you imagine if as a society we started to look at things and the things that we consider perfectly normal, which, by the way, using the word perfectly in that sentence is just an idiot.

But like, but things that are just normal and fine and stood up and said, as a society, if we stood up and said that's not how it was supposed to be, and decided we're going to reject that, the world would shake at the fact that we were to do that.

It would be amazing.

I mean, the world would take notice in a way that it would probably be one of the most jarring things you've ever seen in your life.

The fact that we could, as a nation go, I mean, and it could be anything.

It could be how we view, you know, you talked about birth control, we talk about that.

It could be how we talk about dating and marriages.

If we stood up and said, nope, we're as a society, we're done with that.

No more dating.

We're going to do this the correct way.

The world, I mean, there's businesses, corporations, millions and billions of dollars that are based on the depravity of relationships would suddenly be like, what?

The world wouldn't even know what to do with it.

The enemy.

I mean, I would probably send people into tantrums.

Like, it would.

Who knows what would happen.

You know, when you think about, like the porn industry, there's millions if not billions of dollars in the sex industry.

There's certainly billions.

It's easily billions, billions of dollars.

And there's probably billions of dollars in porn alone, not even talking about the human trafficking behind it.

Can you imagine if just the United States now.

And of course these are, unfortunately, I feel like they're pipe dreams of my own pipe dreams.

But like, can you imagine if the United States was like, that's what, we're done, we're done.

That's like imagining a unicorn, dude.

Like, yeah, like, it.

I can't even imagine that happening.

Imagine the United States saying, not only we're done, but you're all done too.

Oh, we'd be.

We'd be wiped off the planet.

Like.

Well, no, but I mean, like, dude, I mean, I know some guys who.

Who.

That's been.

Part of their job at times is to stop some of that, you know, go into other countries and.

And stop that.

Especially, like the child trafficking and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, okay, like, that's.

That's even a deeper depravity than you can think of.

But it all starts, right?

It all starts.

As dumb as this sounds, the sexual depravity all starts with a kiss.

Well, even if we go.

A thought, a desire, even if we.

Were to go, let's get away from the sex and stuff like that right now.

All right, where are we going now?

Let's think about the depravity of our hearts when it comes to how we should view each other.

Like, when you think about the fact that, you know, biblically speaking.

Biblically speaking, we're all relatives to some degree, right?

We're all family to some degree, right?

Yeah.

So the fact that we sometimes are so indifferent to one another, we've been taught to just focus on ourselves, and who cares what happens to anyone else?

You hear people say you do.

You.

You hear people say, live your best life.

And the fact that we can hear terrible things happening around the world and people could just not care at all, and then people get angry, and instead of having the time to sit down and actually talk about it and try to make peace, we allow anger and violence.

And then things happen around the world.

You see people willing to take other people's lives, no matter how you want to.

Look at 9, 11, that was a terrible show of the depravity of the heart of human beings who are willing to take lives.

I don't care if you're.

If you see it straightforward as the history books are recording it, or if you're a conspiracy theorist thinking it's this or that doesn't matter.

No matter what you're thinking and how it happened, there's a depravity of the heart that was willing to take human lives.

And in not only human lives, but the people.

I know it messed my dad up because he watched his brothers going back to the firefighter thing, his brothers and sisters out in the field being destroyed through this process because those buildings fell on them.

You know what I mean?

Like this was a calculated.

No matter who was behind, an act of not just terror, but human heart depravity.

And you wonder how one sin can lead to another sin.

And we ask, well, why couldn't God stop that?

He could have been trying to stop it.

He could have been trying to send people there.

But when other people around the world have become indifferent, when we start to tune God's voice out in our lives.

Yeah, let's get it personal.

Because not when other people.

When we.

No, when we.

When we allow ourselves to not care.

When you guys, this person's mad or that person's mad or.

Or they're upset or they're hurting and.

Or they don't understand and you don't care.

You know what I mean?

That's when these things start to snowball on you.

And if he just stopped it, we wouldn't know any different.

We would.

There's something called the butterfly effect.

Oh, we just watched that movie with the kids.

The movie.

I don't necessarily.

Which, don't watch it with your kids, by the way.

No, I don't recommend the movie.

I mean, it's.

I watched it with my kids that.

Forgot that there's scenes they shouldn't watch.

The concept of the.

The movie, though, is the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world causes a tsunami or something on the other side of the world.

And the idea that everything is connected with every single choice that's made by every single person.

And so if one person changed one little thing, it would change everybody's outcome.

And so my challenge to you guys, because we're wrapping up, my challenge to you guys is we can't change our past, right?

We can ask for forgiveness.

We can ask for God to help us to move forward from it.

But what thing is God calling you to right now?

That little choice, that tiny, itty bitty.

What you might think is an insignificant choice.

What is God calling you to do in this little bitty choice that's going to affect your.

Our entire future?

Yeah.

I mean, because every.

Every little thing matters.

Every little thing matters.

Everything.

And so, so my challenge, I guess, is like, start striving to live like every moment matters.

Right?

See each other as beloved friends and family, like as God sees us, right?

And start now changing other people's futures by loving people that you come in contact with, by stepping up, even when it sounds and feels uncomfortable.

Because God calls us to uncomfortable things.

Throughout all of scripture, God called people to uncomfortable things.

Things that had to have.

They had to have had in their mind, am I really being called to do this right now?

Like, and that is so relatable to us.

If we just think a moment.

We've all had a situation where it's like, is God calling me to do this?

Yeah.

And whenever you shake that off doesn't always mean that that's a yes.

But when you just shake it off as though it's nothing, that's a big deal.

I do want to say one more thing.

When it comes to.

So I brought up the idea of 9, 11.

That's an extreme example.

Sure.

But I also want to point out some things.

Yeah.

Okay.

If we're talking about this as a snowballing effect.

Right.

And it snowballed into something terrible.

But.

There'S evidence that God was still in it in positive ways.

There were people that were supposed to be there that weren't there that day.

I wish God probably in his heart wanted to get everybody out of there, but he was able to stop some people from being there.

I know someone right now who is actually a life coach, believe it or not, who would have been there had her morning gone differently.

I know somebody in our church who literally the day before flew out of the same airport that the planes left from.

Yeah.

So, you know, God still.

His hand is still in the things that even are terrible.

We got to be opening to see that he is there.

You know, there's still.

He doesn't.

It could be worse.

God's still holding back how worse it could be, you know?

Yeah.

He has to let some bad things happen in this world, but he can work in it and still through it and from it.

And so how can we take our part into getting the world back on track?

I mean, it's never going to be fully back on track, but how can we make the difference in this world today?

Yeah, that's solid.

So that is a start at making sense of the bad things that happen with a loving God.

Yep.

That's.

That's.

That's a start.

I mean, it's such a big thing and could go down so many rabbit holes, but really, it's the fact that he loves you enough to let you choose.

Yeah.

He's not forcing you and he's gonna honor you.

It's funny, a lot of the same people, the same people that.

That get so upset about, why would God let this thing happen?

You know, this bad thing happen.

Why doesn't he just step in if he's so loving?

Are the same people that are so upset that God would send people to hell.

And it's like, you don't understand.

Like, the answer is literally the same.

He's doing it because it's your choice.

Yeah.

He's told you the.

Here's the consequences, here's the outcomes.

You know it all.

Yeah.

Actually, the reality is the reality of our situation when it comes to God's not sending people to hell.

We send ourselves.

He's the one that has a hand reaching out, trying to save us from it.

And if we're willing to accept that help, we're out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, y'all.

It's been fun.

It's been real.

Don't forget about the challenge from last week.

Message us.

Like, subscribe, do all the things.

Sign up for Patreon.

Yep.

You're so, so blessed.

Let us know what you hated.

Let us know what made you mad.

Let us know what you loved.

And honestly, all of the things we're talking about, if it made you mad, like, it's obviously something you're passionate about, and we're willing to have a conversation.

I mean, that's.

We're obviously only able to do one side of something.

Sometimes we have two different sides, but we're only able to have one side of things a lot of times.

And so, hey, we're just letting you know what we see and making sense of the chaos and hopefully, hopefully giving just a glimpse of clarity in the midst of the chaos of the world today.

So we love you guys.

We thank you so much.

God bless.

Hey, thanks for joining us.

Make sure to subscribe and give us a like on itunes and Spotify so that you will never miss a show.

And while you're at it, check out our Facebook and Instagram pages and make sure you tell your friends about this show.

You don't want them to miss out on the truth, because we are all about the truth here.

Thanks for joining us this week, and God bless.