Eoisode 33 - Belief in God in America

Speaker 1 00:00:07 Hello, and welcome to the unveiling with your hosts. AJ, mark, and Tim three guys discussing the one true gospel. We hope you enjoy today's discussion. Let's dive right in. Hello and welcome to the unveiling with your hosts. AJ, mark, and Tim. This is episode 32 and we're titling it belief in God in America. And I guess the first thing I should say is the hosts today are really only mark and Tim AJ is our world traveler right now off on business. And a little bit of pleasure. So he's been unable to record with us, but mark, you and I are gonna try and fold and soldier on without him. Yeah, Speaker 2 00:00:51 I don't know if it's possible ma'am but we'll do our best. Speaker 1 00:00:54 <laugh> understood. So I said the title today was belief in God in America. And I am taking this from an article I saw on the hill.com, which is that's not an endorsement. It is a website where I get my political news from. And, um, they had this article, uh, belief in God in America is on the decline. And this was from a Gallup poll. So this article was put out there on June 17th, 2022. And this is something that I wanted to talk about a minute. Let's talk the, the very beginning of this, it points out that Gall's been asking this question of Americans for a long time, since back in the mid forties and between the mid forties and 2011, the consistent result of asking that question was a 90 plus percent rate of people saying, yes, I believe in God, at one point as high as 98%. Speaker 1 00:01:54 But recently that number has been going down and in our most recent Gallup poll that was taken in may of this year, 2022, the majority still a large majority, but the majority number became 81%. So that's been a decline in the number of people who claim that they believe in God. Now I think mark and I have talked about this. This issue is this issue in this podcast are gonna be a little bit different than others we've done, because there's gonna be a lot more of mark and mys opinion, a lot more just discussion and maybe a lot less scriptural backing for point, you know, for bringing things up because it's not like we're talking about the gospel specifically, although I I'm willing to bet it to make a guest appearance, but it's gonna be more about what we think and how, what we might believe about how this came about. So I feel like I've been talking for a long time. Mark, come save us, say something. Speaker 2 00:02:52 Okay. Well, one thing that jumps out at me when you take the question, do, do you believe in God, do you believe in the existence of God? That's a very nebulous question. That could mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Some people might say yes to that question. They believe in a higher power, or they may be, uh, ju you know, into Judaism or they may be Muslims. They believe that there's a God. So, um, the specificness, if that's a word <laugh> of this question leaves something to be desired, but I think the overall trend is interesting. Uh, and then the fir second thing that comes to my mind is there's a big difference between believing in God and being a Christian, being in Christ. Those are two completely different things. I mean, we live in a Christian society. Overall, the United States is a Christ, was a Christian nation historically, and was founded on biblical principles. But one could even argue that even during its founding, there were people that believed in biblical principles, but did not know the Lord Jesus Christ. So, but overall, this country was founded on biblical principles. So just getting a little bit of a, a context laid, um, the main blaring question is why, why is belief in God's existence going down? And I, that's a very complex, very complex question. And I don't think it's one you and I could answer to you, Tim. Speaker 1 00:04:41 I don't think we can possibly cover all the socio, uh, factors involved here, you know, and economics and things like that. No, I mean, and even, and we have to admit right up front, this is a fairly politically charged discussion as well, because, uh, in the article it does bring up some politics. Although we are probably not gonna dig into that. Speaker 2 00:05:03 One of, one of the things I would poit it's because of our type of education system, we are, we come from a skeptical approach on everything, you know, in, in science, in, you know, whatever you're trying to prove people come from trying to disprove something. Um, and, and when you have a skeptical approach to something it's like saying, I, I will not believe in God, unless I have laboratory evidence that he exists, but the thing people don't realize, at least most of them don't God, even though he created everything, he's not part of the creation. You can't experiment in soil samples looking for God, because he's not in them. He's not in creation. He created, and you could see his fingerprints and design great design, but you can't use the scientific method to prove for or against him. And when people use that method and say, well, if I can't prove he is here, well, then I'm not gonna believe in him. That skepticism, I think is gonna turn some people away. Speaker 1 00:06:16 Well, skepticism itself is not a bad thing. It's it is in the right place and the right use. I think it's a wonderful tool, uh, especially for forwarding intelligence about things, but God can work with skeptics as well. One of the people that comes to mind is the least robe, who was a journalist who, who very atheistic and he set out to prove there was no God. And in his research to write a book, he ended up becoming absolutely convinced. There was a God and actually became born again, Christian. And he ended up writing a book for the CA I think, was that the case for Christ? Speaker 2 00:06:56 Yes. Speaker 1 00:06:56 Yeah. Speaker 2 00:06:57 And I think that's a great point, but I wanna point out a difference as well throughout the ages. There have been great atheistic skeptics that have gone out to disprove the gospel and came to Christ through doing that just like Lee Strobel. I think on the program before I've mentioned William Mitchell Ramsey, who at the turn of the 19 or turn of the 20th century was the world's leading archeologist and historian on Asia minor, which was the area that the apostle Paul went to to do his missionary voyages and plant the gospel throughout Asia minor. He was an atheist who got funded by some of the top colleges, universities in England and in the United States with the premise of going out and proving that the apostle Paul never existed. And that Luke was the historian of the lowest rating. By the time he was halfway through that endeavor, it was a six year expedition. Speaker 2 00:08:02 He came to Christ and had to, uh, admit that Luke was a historian of the highest rank. So this has happened. Now, the difference is though these are people that were atheistic skeptics that went out and did their homework. They studied scripture, they studied archeology, you know, that's different than just having a skeptical attitude throughout life and never doing anything about it, using that skepticism to do your homework and search to see. So I would say that's a major difference between that type of that attitude of just being skeptical, but not seeing if your skepticism is warrant warranted, that could just lead to a lackadaisical. Well, I don't believe in God, you know, I'm skeptical of it. So, Speaker 1 00:08:53 So skepticism is one thing thing. It, it, in the classic term, I believe it means you're still open to being, you know, discussing and, and, uh, researching and finding out the kind of skepticism I see nowadays is I don't believe in God and nothing you say or nothing that anyone can say or do is gonna disprove that. And while, you know, I said, skepticism is healthy. There have been plenty of frauds in Christianity. I'm gonna put big air quotes around that word for the moment who have been, oh, I'm a faith healer. And it turns out they're, they're Bonko artists. And they're sure people who are doing teachings and leading people as stray for money. And so skepticism itself, isn't a bad thing, but continuing to research and find out and learn, Hey, if your mind is closed, I guess I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not gonna sit here and try and crack a tough nut, I guess. Speaker 2 00:09:48 Sure. Well, E even scripture encourages people to contemplate, to come in reason, uh, to test things, to, uh, get counsel, you know, even Jesus warn be careful because false teachers will come, you know, and we are to be wise, you know, Shrew, his serpent and innocent is do as dove. So, you know, skepticism can be a good thing when, when people do it, honest, it leads 'em to honest searching out seeking. So, yeah, I guess I'm just saying more of a pessimistic negative that kind of, you know, Speaker 1 00:10:29 Yeah. The other thing I wanna know from some of these people say, well, I'm not gonna believe until you can prove it to me. Well, what would you constitute as proof? There's an awful lot of archeological evidence that the Bible's history is correct. There's, uh, writings of people who claim to have been, you know, to have known Jesus, it's called gospels. Um, I mean, there's a lot of stuff out there that is pro Christianity, quote, pro Bible scripture, things like that. So what do you need, do you need, do you need, are you Thomas? Do you need to see the, the nail wounds and put your fingers in his hands inside? Well, Speaker 2 00:11:06 That, that's a good point. And you know, and when I just think about it off hand, there's a lot of reasons people give for rejecting Christ for rejecting the existence of God. Um, I mean, you hear people say, oh, look at all the evil in the world. How could God exists? Or if he does exist, he must be evil if he allows that. But I always found that to be a very weak argument on so many different levels. One I'll just add here that you never hear anybody mention is, well, if you're going to use evil as proof against God. Well, what about all the love in the world? And self-sacrifice, if you can use evil to say, there is no, God, you can use people sacrificing themselves, giving, helping others as proof for God. I say, neither one is proof for or against right there is evil in the world. Speaker 2 00:12:00 Even Jesus said that. Yep. I mean, that's the whole reason he came is cuz we all have some of it in us and we're not good enough to do it ourselves. So, but, um, we're kind of getting a little, uh, bunny trail here. So <laugh> um, that's us. So O one thing I, I always like to bring up on this show is J is that the world is filled with religions. Okay. And I looked up, I looked up the, uh, definition of religion today. Here it is. Okay. This is how Webster defines the word religion. He says a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs and practices. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:12:48 Yeah. Speaker 2 00:12:48 Geez. Sign me up for that right away. Won't you <laugh> and the thing is most that's how Christianity differs from every religion in the world. It's not a religion, it's a person. Christianity is Jesus Christ. He is the gospel. He is the good news himself that God loves all people so much that even when we're estranged from him, even when we're skeptical of him reject him or we're in that 19% there, that answered Gall's poll. No, I don't believe in him. He loves them so much. Even as they're telling the pollster that, that he said, I'm sending my son to save that person. And that's the message. That's the gospel. And to me, I've gotta believe that's one of the main reasons, not just in the United States currently or over the last 200 something years, but throughout the centuries, it's people are rejecting the Christian religion and people have tried to turn it into that, you know, throughout the ages, pastors and preachers and theologians have tried to make it about, as Webster said, uh, religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices, and not about Christ. So to me, people are rejecting Christ, but that's because they think he's something that he's not, they think he's some, uh, organized religion instead of the lover of their very soul that came for them that gave everything for them. And that's really what the unveiling is about. It's pulling back that veil of religion so that we can see Christ for who he is, contemplate him and be changed and transformed forever by that kind of love. Speaker 1 00:14:38 Yeah. And I gotta say that. I think some of that is reflected in the people that you would find in church, which most churches are very religious rather than relational. And I think that, you know, Christianity is relational, not religious, you know, they're, they, they can be condescending. They can be condemning, they can be cold, they can check people out. You know, the church is supposed to be as accepting as Jesus was. And he hung out with some of the, you know, big names and the, then the cast outs, he, we should be reflecting his openness to people, but people get turned away. They get judged, they get, you know, put down Maha, mag Gandhi said, I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike Christ. And I think, you know, if we could be more Christlike and show that love to people and not be the way they are. And I I'm sure, I'm not trying to point a finger at anybody because I've done. I've, I've lived through the organized religion of church in the past. And I I'm sure I've contributed to that in some ways. And for which I'm very, very repentant. Speaker 2 00:15:53 Well, I think our world views shape who we are. Okay. If you're sitting in a church that is preaching religion, we use, we use a lot of different words here on the unveiling for religion. We use old covenant law works of the law. We use performance, uh, behavior modification, living by rules and regulations do this. Don't do that, that type of belief system, that type of life, uh, full condemnation and guilt. And if we're always feeling guilty and condemned and shamed, we're gonna do that to other people that we don't think are towing the mark, where if, as Jesus said, those who are forgiven much love much. If we know who we are, that we fail so often, and that God loves us so much. Even despite that the word is grace, undeserved, unmarried unearned favor. That's what God gives us when we understand and receive that message that also changes us and has a fruit. Speaker 2 00:17:05 And unfortunately it seems like through the ages, the majority of Christians have been in the camp that are mixing the law religion with the gospel. And the apostle Paul said, Galatians, that when you do that, you're perverting the gospel. And unfortunately it's hard to find a church now where you can go and sit and hear the pure gospel being preached without any perversion by the law. I don't mean to be unkind, but that's my life experience. I've been not only going to church for many years, but working in churches as a worship leader. And so many of the pastors I worked for, they did not understand the true gospel of grace. I wanna give you a couple scriptures now that just beyond a shadow of a doubt, tell you what that gospel is. So what is the gospel? If it's so important to our society and to the world, that the message we bring is the message of God's grace, Christ, Jesus, and him crucified. Speaker 2 00:18:12 What is that? You know? So I wanna give you a couple scriptures there. This is Galatians one, six through nine. And the first three chapters of the book of Galatians are all Paul, just going basically ballistic because people are trying to pervert this gospel that he's giving his life for. And he says to the Galatians, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting. The one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all right there you have, what's called bibliographical proof. He's telling you that the gospel is living in the grace of Christ. And he says, they're turning from that gospel to a different one, which is really no gospel at all, because anything other than that is not the gospel. It's a perversion. He says, evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel, other than the one we preach to you, which remember he told us is living in the grace of Christ. He says, let them be under God's curse. As we have already said. So now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you, a gospel, other than what you accepted, let them be under God's curse. What do you think about that, Tim? Do you think he was kind of hedging his words there trying to just hint around at the subject? Yeah. Speaker 1 00:19:44 He, he didn't want to come on too strong or anything there. Speaker 2 00:19:49 Let him, let him be cursed. Yeah, he, Speaker 1 00:19:52 He, he did not mince words. Speaker 2 00:19:55 No. And, and he doesn't do that again here in acts 20, 24. So he spends the first part of that chapter going through all the good things he'd accomplished in his life before he came to Christ. And after that, he said, however, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task. The Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. So he's telling you there, he's got one aim in life and that's testifying to the good news of God's grace, that God is pouring out his undeserved unmarried unearned favor in love on all men and that's found in acts chapter 20. So he was very single minded and passionate. That was his driving passion. Um, one more acts 14 here talks about Paul and Barnabas, and that they were going from Jewish synagogue to Jewish synagogue preaching this gospel of grace. Speaker 2 00:21:04 And it said many of, many of the Jews and creeks believed, but there were some Jews who refused to believe and they started poisoning the minds of the people against them. So it says that they went on from there, continuing to preach the gospel through the countryside. Okay. So once again, we're seeing this gospel is God's grace. Uh, and then this is a very famous one from the apostle Paul. This is actually the scripture that changed Martin Luther's life and launched the great reformation who even secular historians say was the one event in history beside the original coming of Christ that changed the, the landscape and face of the planet. More than any other thing, this reformation, and this is the scripture that he couldn't get out of his mind, because at that time the church was nothing but pure religion. Paul said for, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God. That brings salvation to everyone who believes for in the gospel. The righteousness of God is revealed a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. That flies in the face of religion. Doesn't it where it's all about do this. Don't do that, give this much amount of money, pray this many hours a day, read this many chapters, you know, and so much energy has gone in to giving Christians tools <laugh> to do all the right things and not do the wrong things, Speaker 1 00:22:49 Which we've already been shown. We can't do. That's why we need Jesus. This is, this is the base of Christianity. We can't do these things only God. Speaker 2 00:22:58 Yeah. Why would you, instead of preaching Christ, try to give Christians tools to try to do what they can't do. Right? We, we can't do it. So we need a savior. So quit trying to help us do what we can't do. And we're never meant to do. We were meant to turn to Christ. Speaker 1 00:23:15 And those teachings tend to, uh, people tend to interpret those teachings as God doesn't always loves me. He only loves me when and fill in the circumstance or the act or the whatnot. It love is not conditional. God loved us when we were sinners. And we were at our worst when we were shaking our fist at him and, and, and telling him, you know, we hate you. He still loved us when we accepted him. Now that love can flow too on and through us without any condition whatsoever. There's no do this. Don't do that. That he'll, that he'll accept you more. He accepts us. He loves us. And he gave us a hundred percent of that at the cross. And then when, when we accepted it, Speaker 2 00:23:59 That, that, that is, that's the wonderful message that we are called to share. Now, there was a real famous Bible commentary named Matthew Henry from a couple hundred years ago. And to this day he said something that has stuck with me. And he said the old covenant prophet cried out to show people their sin, the new covenant in profit cries out to show people their savior. And I just love that. It it's such a guiding principle. It should be for every pastor and preacher out there. And we just encourage you, let go of showing people their sin, you know, show 'em how much God loves them, even while they're dead in that sin. And I used to be a worship pastor for a church. And one of the ladies there had been a Christian. She was in her eighties. Anita, you remember her? I think absolutely. But she stood up, uh, and said during one of a, one of our services that she spent her whole life trying to tell, bring people to Christ and to stop sinning and to turn from their sin and repent of their sin. She said she was so joyful. She just stood up and said, all I have to do is tell people how much Jesus loves them. That's what, you know, we need that message. We, especially in these days. Right? Speaker 1 00:25:27 Absolutely. And that's what I call the attractiveness of the gospel. The gospel is attractive. There's forgiveness and freedom. It's not about imposing more rules on you or more behavior modifications. It's about setting you free cleaning you and setting you free, Speaker 2 00:25:47 Right? And, and, you know, they always use all these Christian catch faces. You need to repent of your sin. Yep. Well, nowhere in the new Testament, new covenant, does it ever say to repent of your sin? It says repent for the forgiveness of sins. And repent has got nothing to do with you turning away from your sin. First repent is the Greek word, meta NOA, which means to rethink, rethink who Jesus is, rethink, how he feels about you and turn to him and all your sins are forgiven. It doesn't mean you better pull up your bootstraps, clean up your life. You better stop smoke and stop drinking, stop having sex with your girlfriend. Then come to Christ and he'll accept you. No, that's not what it means, but that's what people have preached. One more scripture, I, which is, I gotta say, this is probably my scripture of the year <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:26:42 And, and we've talked about it many times on the scripture on, on this, I'm sorry, on this podcast. And it's the apostle Paul in first Corinthians too. He writes this. He says, so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom. As I proclaim to you, the testimony about God for, I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling my message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power, what an all encompassing <laugh> chalk full of meaning little paragraph that was especially in the face of when you look at so many men who preach the gospel. Speaker 2 00:27:45 Now they're great public speakers. Oh, they are brilliant. They're funny, they're charismatic. And yet their message is without power. It relies on their own personalities and their own wisdom and eloquence and visual aids and videos. And, you know, and I don't mean to be unkind, but the apostle Paul said, he, he didn't say I don't have eloquence. We know that he was a very, uh, learned person and a very eloquent person. What he said was when he shared the gospel, he did not rely on his own giftedness, but his message that he preached was with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. And earlier he said that the guy, he wasn't ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God. The power is in the message, not the messenger and the power. That message is Christ and him crucified. That is the message of God's grace. That is the proof of God's love for you. And that's what we're called to share. Look how much God loves you. Look what he went through for you on the cross, the beatings, the flogging spit on mocked, a, a crown of foreigns. He went through so much for us. That's the message we bring. And he was motivated because of his love. Speaker 1 00:29:08 That's a great set of verses. And we did a whole episode on, uh, Jesus Christ and him crucify. I think that was episode 29. Yeah. Yeah. It is the heart of it. All. It, it really is. It's the cross and Jesus and the cross, everything is. Speaker 2 00:29:22 And, and when you ju, when we've talked about this little before, but I I'm coming up with a, just an idea right now, maybe it'll be a song. I don't know, but it's that God is a God of extremes in many ways. I, I guess that's another word for holy. When you think about it, he has an extreme love for you. A holy love. He's extremely powerful. You know, it's a holy power, but, but when you think about the fact of who God is, that Christ is the RA radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being. And yet, while we were in the midst of our transgression dead in transgression, while we were enemies of the cross, without God, without hope in the world, that's when God gave us his best. That's when he sent the thing that was most costly and precious was in the midst, not when we were living our best, doing our best deed. Speaker 2 00:30:20 You know, people think about Christ coming. And they're hoping that when he comes again, his return, that at that moment, they happen to be serving in a soup kitchen <laugh> and not like online with pornography or something. Yeah. You know, timing is everything, right? Yep. But when you realize it's not about what you do, good or bad, but that you receive God's love through Christ and that's all that we're ever gonna be judged on. Because when he looks at you, he sees the perfect righteousness of Christ and you know what the word gospel means. Good news. Literally the Greek is Evangelian good. Tinys good news. When we share the gospel with people, it should sound like not only good news, but the best news they've ever heard in their lives. So many of this 19% that are rejecting Christ are rejecting God, are they rejecting that good news? Are they rejecting the love of God? Or are they rejecting religion, do this? And don't do that. Here's what you're doing wrong in your life. Speaker 1 00:31:25 I do hear from a lot of people that I talk to, well, it's not that I don't believe in God, but I just rejected, organized religion and big capital letters and big quotes. And I mean, I guess I understand that we've, we've been in churches where, you know, how many, and I call, what do I call myself of? I'm trying to become a reformed Christian because all my life I spent in a performance based religion. Sure. Coming out of that into grace and finding the love, the joy, the freedom is just it's, it's freeing. It's <laugh> I don't not to use the same words over and over, but I mean, it is what it is. Yeah. But, uh, yeah. It's not about somebody in the public trying, trying to tell you what you're doing. Right. And what you're doing wrong and how you have to fix this and how you have to fix that. How many times did we walk outta church feeling beaten up or like, oh, I mean, here's another thing that I don't do, right. And God must not hate, you know, must not love me. He must hate me some days. Sure. You know, Speaker 2 00:32:25 You know, and you know, the cross is not meant contrary to what you hear many pastors, uh, teaching. And if you wanna hear more, unless you can go back to our debunking Christian mids series. When we talked about the cross being an offense, it's something that Paul wrote that people have taken 180 degrees out of <laugh> phase, from what it really means. The cross is not meant to be an, an offense to unbelievers. It's a symbol of God's grace and love for them and the sacrifice to make them his children. That's not, how is that gonna offend people? What the cross is an offense to is the religious, because the religious wanna earn their own righteousness. I can do it. Look at me. I'm gonna do all the right things. That's who the cross offends, because it is a symbol of grace, Speaker 1 00:33:17 You know, with a tip of the hat, to Matthew, Henry, I would say that a good way of looking at your church, if you are attending and determining whether they're, what they're teaching is, if they're teaching you about your sin and what you have to do to fix it, instead of teaching you about Jesus and telling you about how he's already fixed you, that's a really good indication. You may want to find another church that will teach the true gospel message. Speaker 2 00:33:43 As the apostle Paul said, when he was with the Corinthians, I resolved to know nothing but Christ and him crucified. And within that message is an ocean of meaning and things to contemplate and transform. It's not like the pastor's gonna run out of things. The day he decides we are going to shine a light on Christ and nowhere else, we're not gonna shine in on ourself, examining ourself for every little sin and peccadillo in way we fall short, we're gonna look to Christ and the Spirit's gonna transform us into his image. Speaker 1 00:34:20 Amen. Well, as usual, uh, we slipped off into preaching the gospel and we started off talking about an article, but that's all right, because one of the main reasons we believe that people aren't believing in God or attending church, as much as they used to is because they've received bad messages. They've received a message of sin and failure and destruction and Speaker 2 00:34:43 Condemnation, guilt, shame, you know, it's, Speaker 1 00:34:46 It's, you know, I wouldn't want to go every week for that either. And I wouldn't wanna be aligned with a God who made me feel like that all the time. And then he's not, he, won't not the true God. So, you know, um, we, we kind of did get off a little try. Is there anything else you wanna say about that, Paul mark? Speaker 2 00:35:04 Well, I'll just, I'm reminded of the apostle Paul's words when he said, whoa, unto me. If I do not preach the gospel. So I believe our conversations are always gonna end there no matter what we talk about, because all things relate to, God's love for us displayed on the cross. Every road leads back to there, no matter what the subject is. Um, and I, I want, I'd like to end with an encouragement, to any pastors or small group leaders, all, anybody who shares the gospel and that is hearken back to what Jesus said. Okay. He said that you don't put Jesus brought what he called new wine. Okay. He said, you don't put new wine into old wine skins. Okay. And what the church has been doing for so many years, first of all, they're offering old wine. They're offering the old covenant works of the law, religion performance behavior modification, living according to rules and regulations do this. Speaker 2 00:36:12 Don't do that. I could keep going on. There's so many words for it. That's the old wine. Jesus brought the new wine, the love of God in the cross that we are to receive him and he will come and, and make his home with us through his spirit. Um, so what we need in our church now more than anything is to bring the new wine and to put it in new wine skins. It's not changing the wine itself, but it's changing. What's holding that wine. What's holding the message. That's gonna change throughout every century. The, the worship music's gonna change. It's still holding the same new wine, the styles of, you know, church, whether we have a PA, whether we have lighting, these are all just wine skins. And I believe the church needs new wine skins now because people have such preconceived notions from being beat on by the Christian religion. For so many years, we need to bring that pure new wine and new wine skins where they can accept it. Speaker 1 00:37:21 If you think we get obnoxious about teaching the gospel here, you should hear us in our private discussions. Speaker 2 00:37:28 <laugh> well, I think what we're trying to do here, all three of us on the unveiling. And hopefully the people that listen is to put everything that we've heard from pastors, from TV, from books, our worldviews are all formed by everything. We experience everything. We read everything. We see, we're trying to put that all in a crucible and just turn the flame up until all we're left is with is the pure gospel truth. That's what we're looking for because that's the most powerful, valuable thing in existence. So me and AJ do go back and forth, uh, challenging what each other thinks, challenging our interpretations of scripture. And, you know, we, and we are skeptical sometimes of the things each other says, but that's good because you know, iron sharpens iron, right. Well, we're not trying to be obnoxious. We're just very passionate about how much God loves you that are listening right now. And we want you to receive all that he, he has for you, which the apostle Paul calls the riches of his glory, its inheritance. Those are all yours in Christ. Speaker 1 00:38:43 So mark we've, uh, we've reached the end of our usually allotted time limit. Uh, do you want to do a wrap? Speaker 2 00:38:50 Sure. Well, tonight, tonight was a very different than our normal more structured, um, theologically informed scripturally informed discussions that are on a specific subject, Tim and I just kind of tried to have a conversation going back and forth. But one thing hopefully that comes through is that we ourselves as have experienced just the joy, the, oh, you can't even put into words. Um, our relationship with knowing Christ, knowing God starting to get a glimpse of just how much God loves us, that changes you. And it puts a passion and a drive in you to share that with other people. And so we hope you got some, some of that out of there. Speaker 1 00:39:39 And I would like to encourage everybody listening, to continue to seek Jesus Christ and him crucified, the freedom that you're gonna have from that and the forgiveness and the complete changing of your life that will come about from no longer trying to chase against your sins, but rather chase for Jesus. We'd like to thank everybody for listening this week. And as always, we encourage you to send us comments and email, and we hope that you've enjoyed it enough to share with your friends and to subscribe through whatever podcast system you use. And we're gonna sign off for this, this episode and say, thanks for listening. And we'll talk to you again the next time we would like to thank you for listening to the unveiling. We hope you have enjoyed it enough to consider subscribing and sharing with others. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback. You can reach us via email at the unveiled gospel, yahoo.com or find our Facebook page at the unveiling podcast for AJ, mark and myself. God bless. And we will talk with you next time.