The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life. So we are here for Glasgow University Mission Week. So I don't know how familiar people are with Mission Weeks in terms of university stuff, depending on where you're watching from, you might know about it or not. But most kind of universities around the country most, I don't really know actually.
SPEAKER_02I think like a hundred universities run some kind of events. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And these kind of a smaller bunch of them runs these events weeks. Right, okay. So the events weeks generally, because they get the unis and the Christian Union will put together a week of events. Generally, there's kind of lunch bars, so that's kind of free food at lunchtime with a kind of a thorny-esque question that's like our stuff. So they get the students along, people that, you know, Christian Union invite their friends, they fly people out in the uh campuses or they just control the student population.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Asking them, you know, why does God hate people so very much? Why has God such a genocidal maniac? And this lunchtime, Paul Feety will answer that question.
SPEAKER_00Yep, and then they drag him in, someone speaks to the question, and the questioning QA, QA. And then similar things in the evening, although not quite as controversial in the evenings, are they? They tend to be more.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the strategy is lunchtime, you address the questions that people have, and then in the evening you positively present Christ from scripture on the front foot a little bit more. And so last night we had a games night, and uh in the middle of that I got up and uh spoke about Jesus a little bit from John chapter one. And then tonight, uh an example. Dennis Jackson says we're blurry. It's much better that way, Dennis. You don't want to see this in high def. We put Vaseline on the camera, actually. It's just one of my tricks. Um sorry it's blurry for you. If it's blurry for you where you are, we would love to hear student accommodation. Student accommodation. They couldn't afford to have high definition. You don't want high definition with us, honestly. Um, no, that's good. Uh so uh yeah, so like this evening there'll be an acoustic night, and uh maybe maybe we'll do something. I don't know. Maybe maybe we'll get the get the ukulele out. Probably hoping for a higher caliber sun down, you sound and uh and I'll be getting up and talking about freedom. Um it is something about freedom, isn't it? It is freedom. I'm speaking, I should know what I'm speaking about.
SPEAKER_03Do you know what I'm speaking about? Liar and slave. Truth will set you free. The truth will set you free. He was working backwards from my big hook.
SPEAKER_02My big hook. Yeah. Um, isn't that good? That's good. The hook I've hooked you in because Jesus said the truth will set you free. So what's he what is he assuming? He's assuming that you're a liar and a slave. So let's hope that people hang in there and they just walk out. Um call them liars and slaves. And then uh stupid accommodate. Ha ha, yes. They they have accommodated us very well. Thank you, Ewan and Johnny. We uh we appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00They've finally given up their flat for us, so that's pretty good going for us, really. Yeah. And we've been raiding their supplies. Uh we've had They've got organic peanut butter. You know, it's quite high. Oh, really? I'm quite surprised. You know, it's quite high level for students. For me, it was just Tesco value, everything. Oh runs and cheese.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. And you'd borrow the soy sauce from someone upstairs, and uh that's a Ben Williams.
SPEAKER_00Hello, Ben Williams! Union Spain. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Ben Williams used to uh Feed the Hungry UK as it says on premier radio.
SPEAKER_00Every time it's the only time I hear his voice. Oh, there we go. There you go.
SPEAKER_02Uh he used to study with Paul and others on the Union Theology course. Uh if you want to do the Union Theology course, do get in touch with us at Speak Life. There uh there might be uh places available in September, but let us know. Um Brilliant. And so what what have you made, Adriel? So you're from Sydney, Canada. You you were born in Canberra, same as me. Yeah, I was, yeah. Was it Warden Valley Hospital back then or was it Canberra's? Same hospital. Could have been the same crib. Maybe. Maybe. It's probably all rusted up by mine's a little bit back in the 50s when I was when I was more I was born on the coldest day of like the decade, I think. June June 23rd, 1978. 24 degrees still. Yeah. Cold. It was like minus 12 or something when I was born. If my mum watching, she could she could let people know. Um, Ben's just reacted. And hello, Natalie Sprox. And Megan. And Megan, so born in Canberra, but you got out of there pretty fast, same as me. Oh, four years old. That's soon as I could think for myself. It's great for a four-year-old. I mean, if you're a four-year-old in Canberra, there's everything, you know. What's the oyster? The Napy Valley, they used to call like Tugranong. Seriously. Where I used to live, because it was just full of young families.
SPEAKER_03Sort of smell.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Napi Valley. Um and then you go down there to Sydney. Correct.
SPEAKER_03And did you grow up in a Christian home? What was going on there? No, I didn't actually. So it was kind of a mixed r religion home in some ways. So my mum being Muslim and my father being uh being Catholic, but uh, I think by virtue of their working relationship, also pretty open to the ideas of lots of religions being being true. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Alright, so you went to uni uni and what what were you studying at that stage of life?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was doing a degree, uh double degree in engineering, robotics, and I was also studying finance and in uh and economics, yeah, at the business school. Robotics. Do you ever put that into practice? Do you ever do like robot wars and that kind of thing? Oh, that was a dream. I think that was the allure. That was why I wanted to do it. In practice, I was doing a lot of circuit work and a lot of programming. I mean, it's very useful, very, very useful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But uh designing like a WAR-Entwood for an R2D2. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh it's not really.
SPEAKER_03You really gotta make it before you can do something like that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And you didn't make it, so that's uh so for you, instead of going into robotics, like what what what did you end up doing?
SPEAKER_03So entered the world of finance, actually, which is not an uncommon place for failed engineers and mathematicians. Sure. Yeah. Uh or people who who want to make a lot of money and think very little. So uh it was a very natural place for me to end up.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02So still at this stage, like if if we had done you're at uni uni south wales. Correct. Yeah. When my my grandmother um was the oldest um awardee of a PhD. Wow. She got on age like 81 or something. She's one of the mature age students. She was going to ask a lot of questions. Yeah. Very good.
SPEAKER_01Excuse me.
SPEAKER_02Out on Fresh's Week. You know, living the student life. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, Union New South Wales, if if we were to do if we had done a mission at Union New South Wales and we'd started talking to you about Jesus, what you what would you have said at that point?
SPEAKER_03Well, back then, I probably wouldn't have given you the time of day. But I remember that Christians were very public, very open, uh, very intent on reading the gospel with people. Right. Which I thought was crazy. Yeah. Uh but I really admired the candor, that's for sure. Yeah. Okay. Because they would say, let's sit down and read Mark's Gospel one-to-one. Yeah, they would flag you just like any other world vision salesman. All the societies. Yeah, yeah. Press it into your hands. Correct. They just seem like one of the many.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, and then you get out into the world of finance. And that's pretty like cutthroat. Oh, man, no doubt.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's a it's a different industry to to many. It's in terms of the competition and uh the number of of people who are are there with a variety of reasons, but basically all there to lop each other's heads off. Yeah. It's it's a very selling. Oh, completely, yeah. Catching checks and breaking necks. That's what they say. Yeah. Oh, yes, no scalps. But it's a tough environment for anyone, let alone uh a Christian, which I became shortly after having entered the industry.
SPEAKER_02So are you on the trading floor?
SPEAKER_03Are you like one of these guys who's like, you know, yeah, so that the days of open outcry are uh essentially long gone. They still exist in in certain pockets, but uh algorithmic trading has really become the the norm. Uh people are extremely concerned with best execution, and so a lot of that is done electronically, which means a lot of orders are compiled day by day, and orders are matched almost instantaneously with with buyers and sellers all around the world. So why do they need you? Yeah, so people have to determine what exactly they want to buy and sell, which is a big decision. Right. You hold their hands and sort of Well, yeah, yeah. So I was a portfolio manager, which essentially means that I'm managing accounts on behalf of uh either pools of clients or large clients and investing their money according to a particular uh design of the portfolio. So it might be uh particularly risky international securities or uh like a market-wide Australian portfolio. But even that you've got to make a lot of calls as to what stocks to buy and how much of and uh is it is it kind of Wolf of Wall Street kind of mentality?
SPEAKER_02I mean, obviously that's that's kind of the real world turned up to 11, but right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so uh thankfully the firm I was working for was a little more aligned with client interests. Uh but everyone takes their haircut, it's that kind of industry. Uh no one's doing the community service by managing other people's money. Right. Uh and so there's a bit of sliminess to it, I think. No matter where you go, everyone's got a particular view, a particular ideology, a particular product. Yes. And even if they don't think it's necessarily the most reasonable or sensible product there, if they can sell it, they're they're likely to. And I that sounds like a mischaracterization or like a bit of a a jaded kind of view. But it's it's it's really is the nature of the industry. So thankfully, the company I was working for, I think, was was very much concerned with uh providing products that were were reasonably priced and sensible investments for for a lot of clients.
SPEAKER_02So and so how like at this stage, so you just think Christians are a little bit weird, you know, nice, sweet, maybe, but so how do you go from that to thinking Jesus is Lord?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So uh in my teens, having been raised in this in this multi-faith household, uh our existence as a family when it comes to when it came to faith was sat at the nexus of of kind of Islam and and Christianity or broad Christianity. So we believed that there was a God. I grew up believing that, and we used to pray together as a as a household, which is really interesting. And I just found myself thinking, uh, who is this God that we are praying to? Wow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And who was that God that you were praying to? Yeah, just a faceless Santa Claus, I think. Yeah, okay. So if things were going well, uh God was happy with you, if things were going poorly, either you there was a tough lesson to learn, or or you weren't you weren't acting right. So uh it was deeply ingrained that my performance and my reality were inextricably linked, which led to a lot of, I think, uh a sense of performance really driving my sense of reality. And if I wanted to have a good life, then all I would have to do uh was overachieve. Right. Which is probably not an uncommon mentality. Sure. Uh, but it's it was I think it was really the definitive uh value set of my existence at that point. So who is it who's introducing Jesus to you?
SPEAKER_02How do you actually come to consider things differently?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so in my late teens, I started reading fairly widely, I was interested in all kinds of religions. My question was, why would anyone believe anything? Like there are all these different phase with contradictory uh claims, but surely there's one that is true, either one or zero, and hopefully that one is somewhat provable. My little sister at the time uh got invited to youth group from her friends in high school, and so she started attending, and I thought, well, uh, what better way to continue investigating than to go along to church with her and I'll just pick apart all the sermons and uh you know make jokes about the pastor and hopefully That's why I go jokes on you now, jokes on you, you are the part of the joke, my friend, uh, and hopefully come to uh a conclusion that Christianity's wrong because who wants to live like a guy who died on a cross? That just sounds silly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And what I found when I sat there uh were firstly my walls were up, and I was sincerely trying to be extremely critical of everything that I was hearing, but actually what I was hearing was was logical and it was was sober-minded exposition of the text, and people were living lives that were consistent with what the teaching was. Yeah, so there's got to be something here, yeah. So I think intellectually I dissented to Jesus being Lord at that point, even though that was maybe I was maybe 1920. Really? Yeah, so this is still uh just as I was wrapping up uni and uh I was I was not necessarily like excited about Jesus' lordship. I just agreed to it. I was like, okay, this is true, alright, wow, I'll come to church and I'm gonna be a model Christian. I'm gonna I'm gonna be the best Christian. Of course you are. Of course.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so pretty soon I found myself running running the music at my church. Right. And being extremely ambitious and zealous. And in the the few years where I was running music, I mean music just became extremely tight. Um, we were doing new songs all the time. People were excited about music, everyone in the church was excited about music, except the band members who are looking at you. Because I was cracking the whip, I was breaking their backs. Yeah. I was like Frank Zappa of my love. Play it again. Play it again. Play it right. Yeah, yeah. And I found myself thinking, wow, this is like this is backbreaking work. And Jesus is a tough taskmaster. Right. I don't get it, but one thing's for sure, I'm I'm not I'm not gonna live my life in a way that's that's gonna make me a candidate for hell. I want to be the Christian. Yeah, casualty. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. So that that kind of continued until I was 21, 22, right? Right. At which point I just burnt out. Yeah. I mean, I'd started working, I'd finished this long double degree, and I'd started working in a really competitive environment and was juggling, teaching, uh, like running music and doing Bible studies and uh being at work and what do you think your Bible studies were like? Like, what do you think you were actually teaching people? Yeah, I think they were very like Phariseal. Like I was I was all about application and not very much about, and I think this is still something I'm I wrestle with is uh all of our behaviors come from our beliefs. And I think Jesus is so loving in talking about our hearts rather than talking about what we do uh as the as the origin and end of our existence. And so once we realize that actually our hearts are the source of all that we're doing, um we sincerely just throw ourselves at Jesus' feet.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But if you don't know that, yeah, and you are a quite a legalist in the way that you're inclined.
SPEAKER_02But you can get away with it because you're like you're a competent guy and you know you've got high capacity, so it takes you longer before you kind of color.
SPEAKER_03Right. And it took someone really dear to me just saying, you know what? Something's not right here. Wow. Yeah. Someone who uh looked at me and said, I'm not sure there's a Christian joy here. There's a lot of Christian command and a lot of response to authority.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_03But actually, are you rejoicing? Are you are you delighting in Jesus? And that was a question that just stupefied me. Wow. Because you can't contrive that, you can't make it up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Damn behind the eyes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Completely completely. But I was still so hard-hearted and steely about that kind of line of inquiry. I was like, no, Jesus is the God of command, and I'm obeying commands. Right. But eventually I I just burned out. Right. And I was brought to my knees, and I realized that actually what I was doing was just trusting in myself. I was still Lord of myself. My ambition was my king. And I recall that Jesus said, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burden, and I will give you rest. Does that make is that what my life looks like now? Am I resting? Right. Am I constantly rejoicing? Right. I don't think so. Right. Oh, Jesus' commands burdensome? Yeah, I think they are. And it was in that time that I I just the shackles came off, I think. For me. Wow. And I felt liberated and I sincerely was able to say, Jesus, like I love you. Huh. Yeah, yeah. And doing music in light of that, I remember I s I was serving in band that that same week after this realization. And it was just like night and day. Yeah. I was singing songs that I'd sung dozens of times before, but it was as though I was singing them for the first time. Wow. And the band's like, what's going on here? Why is it why is it no longer like this icy environment trying to make music together? Um so yeah, and I never looked back by God's grace.
SPEAKER_02It's fantastic. And so obviously, you know, coming to Christ in a real way, you just you gave up the job in finance because it's either God or Mammon.
SPEAKER_03Oh yes, yeah. Well, yeah, it's that's very funny. I mean mischievous mischievous. Yes, yeah. Uh I think working in that finance environment was actually really timely. There was a a young guy who was attending our church, uh, who was a student at Moore College, which is a theological college in Sydney, and he was a guy who worked in finance for nine years. And I said to him, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. All I know is that Jesus is Lord, and I want to live in a way that's pleasing to him. Like I would love to get to know God's word better and be able to teach it. Like, I want people to have that the same love for him that I do and the same assurance that I do in in my future uh future eternity, you know? That's incredible. And he said to me, It's great here in finance. Uh your work is a mission field, yeah, and it's a long game. Right. So his encouragement to me was to stick it out for a time, and I think he knew that I was a new Christian. I was probably a bit overzealous at the time. Uh and so his counsel for me was to stay put for a time and and really experience what it was to be a Christian in that environment and and work for the Lord in an environment where uh it was particularly hard to what's lame name one challenge where uh you're called to live distinctively as a Christian and you know sometimes we problem, sometimes we don't.
SPEAKER_02But but what how do you live distinctively as a trader in in finance?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a good question. I think humility is something that is not common in that environment. Right. People are really concerned about their personal brand, and this is not uncommon, like this is this is every industry. Uh but I think being able to uh sincerely listen to people and and put their needs above your own, like that kind of humility was just unheard of. I remember being offensive to people. Uh if you did something kind just to someone else, I mean it was just the kind of thing that most people wouldn't even think about. But in that environment, people would immediately think, oh, you want something from me. Yeah, what do you want from me? Wow. Uh it was and it just took a long time for people to actually see uh that the way you live is is is a consistent kind of way, but it's coming from something that's genuine and and you're not following up some kind of kind gesture with some kind of supplication or demand invading the hook.
SPEAKER_02Yes, completely exactly genuinely offering, okay? Yeah, yeah. Good words. So um in the news, uh yesterday, terrible day on the stock market, the Dow Jones was down 4.6% in a single day. Yeah, what does that even mean?
SPEAKER_03Tell us. Yeah, so the the Dow Jones is a composite, it's a number of stocks, it's like a portfolio, uh, it's like a general indicator for how the stock market is doing in the US. So it's a mix of big stocks that people would tend to household names. Uh and so you can generally say if the Dow Jones is up, uh the broad basket of major US companies is either doing well or is perceived to be doing well. Yeah. So dropping 4.6% uh reflects broad investor expectations being being bearish or pessimistic. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Because what wages are up and therefore interest rates are going to go up. Is that is that the that's the logic.
SPEAKER_03So it's really tough to uh could the question of correlation and causation is is an important question to ask. I think a lot Analysts are a lot more concerned with causation, obviously, but there's so much conjecture and differing views. All they can do is correlate. But it does seem compelling that the uh improved employment figures in the US and wage increases would contribute to like a hawkish interest environment and therefore uh bonds being more attractive.
SPEAKER_02Which drives interest rates up.
SPEAKER_03Uh well, it's more the other way around, but it just means that the relative demand is no end.
SPEAKER_02That's yeah, that is the direct answer to a very different question.
SPEAKER_03Like it's more that the relative demand for equities or stocks would decrease. People want to be compensated for risk. Okay. Yes. Uh which means that if interest rates are going up, then actually, dollar for dollar, you might as well just keep it in a longer maturity bond in the debt market rather than going to equity. Everybody got that?
SPEAKER_02Good.
SPEAKER_03Good. So we've brought you financial advice.
SPEAKER_02We brought you Vino so high, you know. Share price is they go up or down. Past success is no guarantee of future learnings. Um Brilliant. Well, that well, we do we've just covered the news right there. So we've we've covered what's new. This is what we always try to do. We cover what's new, we've cover what's news. What are people saying on here? Um one person a lot of questions. Oh, have you seen Requiem on BPC One? Anyone? No. No. No. Question one. Um Robin Emmanuel, UEA C U misses you. That's the University of East Anglia Christian Union misses me. Oh, that's nice. That's nice. I uh you if you're having uh lots of uh universities are having um big outreach weeks this week. So we will pray for UEA this week, and uh you guys can pray for us here in Glasgow. I think Oxford's happening this week, isn't it? Uh is it happening next week, I think? Next week. I think it's next week. I think it's next week. And yeah, do pray for them because um their speaker had to drop out. So yeah. Um, but I'm sure they will find somebody. Um now the other thing we try to do uh on the live cast is discuss our thorny question. Uh Paul, what's our thorny question for this week?
SPEAKER_00So the thorny question this week was Is God real? So it was the first of a three-parter, really, off the back of a question that we got on YouTube on YouTube from Hannah. Um Is God Real? That was yesterday, and then we've got Can we trust God? Or is it which way? Yes, can we trust God is next? And then it's what do we do with our doubts? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So on the on the is God real question, I think I think like one of the one of the dangers is uh of casting God as though he is this like Bigfoot character or this Loch Ness monster, as though he is an item within the world, and if only we'd kind of analyze the world, and maybe he's maybe he's hidden up in Loch Ness. Given that we're in Scotland, let's use that example. And you know, and people often like talk about gods in exactly those terms. So like Richard Dawkins talks about, you know, I can't disprove the idea that there might be, you know, a teapot orbiting around Jupiter or something. You know, I can't disprove that. But but in the same way that I don't think there is a teapoting orbiting around Jupiter, I don't think that there's a God either. And it just goes to show that like so many people, when they say they don't believe in God, you've really got to interrogate which God are you talking about? Um, because mostly people are talking about a super being within the cosmos rather than you know the the source of all being um who is beyond this world. And uh you used uh an analogy in the video about Shakespeare. What was the analogy?
SPEAKER_00So the analogy in the video was that you know, so uh Juliet in Romeo and Juliet can say, wherefore art thou Romeo, but she can't say wherefore art thou art thou Shakespeare. You can't say wherefore I can't even say it. You know, she can't say it. She doesn't even exist. Uh we're saying everything actually around uh Juliet in the in the in the in the play is shaped by the author, but she can't see the author unless the author writes himself into the play in some way. And we're saying in this moment it's not like that with us, isn't it? That um God writes himself in um to it. But then you know, we we I suppose we we talk as well about Romans, don't we? Right. That is God writing himself in. So there there are different ways in which God writes himself into the play.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I find that one really helpful actually, that that yeah, we relate to God, not like I'm a character and he's a character in the same play. Like he is the author of everything, and he he is an inescapable reality in his world. So like when someone says, Is God real? Like one of the one of the answers is just like, well, he is the most real thing. He is the ground of all being. In him you live and move and have our being, as Paul says in the Areopagus in Acts chapter 17. He is this inescapable being that is pressing into you in every aspect of your reality. Um that's not really the way people often go in evangelism. Often they sort of say, you know, is there a God? And you say, Oh yeah, there's there's this bit of obscure evidence over here. And if you're really clever, you can paste together this, this, and this, and Bob's your uncle, and oh, it's Bob's giving a jump to God. Which is not, I don't know, that's not Romans 1, is it? You know, what may be known about God is plain to people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we were talking about this a bit yesterday, I think when we were walking to one of the events and saying, uh, because I think one of the questions that came up on one of the lunch bars was if there's so you know, if if there's so much evidence, why don't people believe? You know? Um and and I think it came out in that lunch bar, um, ultimately it's it goes back to sin, doesn't it? People are blinded, you know, that it is plain to be seen for those of us that are being saved. Right. Um, but like the message of the cross, you know, is foolishness to those who are perishing. Um but we suppress that truth. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, in the very same breath, we'll say, you know, you'll look at things and say, well, this clearly has a designer, this is clearly this. And then but then on the scale of everything, you know, looking at the world and everything, people go, Oh no, no. Yeah. They're completely just dismiss that idea. I think we were talking a bit, weren't we, about um uh going back to the image we used in our post-truth video about the football managers. Right. You know, the it's it you know, you can you could two football managers, controversial penalty decision, you know, one team goes on to win off the back of it. Two football managers look at exactly the same evidence, right? Uh but one wants to believe it's a penalty and one wants to believe it's not a penalty.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And actually your own desire, yeah, you know, cot then changes what you do with the evidence.
SPEAKER_02And I don't think it's uh even in that example, it's not as if, okay, I'm the Man United manager and you know we're playing against Liverpool, and it's definitely not a penalty. Like it's not as though that manager is seeing this like obvious event and then consciously reinterpreting it and saying I must change this. Literally, in the very way he sees that replay, he is saying something different, you know, and and like and and how much more is that the case on a spiritual level?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, and we were we uh it came out again in the lunchbars, didn't it? People don't in some sense people don't want to believe, right? You know, or in a in a great sense, people don't want to believe, yeah, because there are ramifications. You know, that people say, give me evidence, and then if you were to say, well, what about this evidence, they go, Well, I won't accept that evidence, I won't look at your Bible, right, um, yeah, and I won't listen to this evidence. And you're like, well, hang on a second, like is it that you're just putting up the bar it's not the evidence is the problem. Yeah, yeah, it's you.
SPEAKER_02So there's a g there was a guy who once said, I said, What would make you believe? And he said, Um, if the stars spelt out the Ten Commandments in the sky, like then I believe. And you might think that that is raising the bar to galactic heights in terms of like the evidence, you know, hurdle that you've got to get over. But then I I did the whole fine-tuning of the cosmos thing with it, which I don't ordinarily do, and largely I don't do it because of what then happened. Because I I then said, well, you know, are you aware that for instance, you know, if the cosmological constant that describes the expansion of the universe was, you know, one part in ten to the power like eighty faster, we would have flung out into heat death. Oh, my wife's calling. Decline! Sorry, honey. Um yeah, if the if the big bang if the big bang bangs like an infinitesimally uh uh an infinitesimal amount harder, then we would we'd have flung out into heat death. And if it bangs just not enough, we crunch back together. But we've banged just right. And we're in this Goldilocks zone of not too little, not too much, and that that Goldilocks zone is like, you know, it's one part in 10 to the power 80. And you know, you can do all sorts of like you know, illustrations of how ridiculously, you know, tiny that that number is. And I was trying to do all these illustrations with him about that. And to get him to the point where I was saying, okay, the fact that the stars are in their current arrangement and that you are here to observe them is a miracle, like orders of magnitude more improbable than the fact that those stars might spell out some Hebrew letters. Right? If they happen to also spell out some Hebrew letters, that would be a sideshow, like just piggybacking on this gargantuan miracle. Don't you see that? You're like, no, but I wouldn't spell out the Ten Commandments. And you're like, you know, so it's like it's not I think things like I think things like the fine-tuning argument can bring you to the point of showing someone it's not more evidence that they need. Right? There's motivated reasoning going on, there's confirmation bias that is going on, they don't want to believe. People don't want to believe, and they they're not seeing the world rightly when they're in that state.
SPEAKER_00And that but that's also not a throw out evidence side, is it? Because there are people for whom they all hear and they'll go, okay, and that's it just removes a hurdle for some people, doesn't it? Yeah. They hear it and they go, okay, I thought this was completely objectionable, yeah, but you've now told me something, yeah, and they actually I can see how that's reasonable. That doesn't make them therefore go, Jesus is Lord, right? But it can still be a helpful thing, can't it?
SPEAKER_02You know, there is a category in the New Testament for inquirer. You know, in 1 Corinthians 14, there is someone who comes into the Christian meeting and they're, you know, they're on the fence and that sort of thing. So so charitably, if I'm asked the question in a mission setting, you know, I should charitably assume this person is an inquirer, an inquirer and they genuinely want to know. But also I've got in the back of my thinking, actually, the the general human condition is that our objections to faith are actually smoke screens for unbelief.
SPEAKER_00I always used to say, like when I was doing youth work and teenagers would say, Oh, you know, people at school, they say this or they say that, or they ask me this question. And I'd always want to say, look, well, you could say this or you could say that back, you know, all the those kind of cosmological blah blah blah, if it was that kind of stuff, you know. Yeah. Um I said, but at the end of the day, you just want to talk about Jesus.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because people don't become Christians because they suddenly go, Yeah, this is quite improbable. Right. Jesus is Lord, you know, doesn't have that, you know, like it's a that's a leap in itself. And actually you just just preach Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Um how would how would you, if someone says, God, where is he? I don't see him, is he real?
SPEAKER_03How do you how do you start uh helping someone with that question? I think the only place you can really begin to go is getting into the word together.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Personally. Because any claims that I make about God are just gonna be speculative unless they're grounded in in what the Bible claims to be God's revealed word, not just the words of men, but the words of of God. So I think that's an important place to orientate the conversation and actually have a mutual grounding, but at least we're looking at the same thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And if if I'm sold, and this is the evidence for why I'm sold, um, then we can actually have a constructive conversation on that ground.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, very much so. We get into in the uh in the video, we talk about what if you're in a room, you don't know how you got into the room, you have no memory of how you got into the room, but there's no windows, no doors, no entrances, no exits. And within the room, a lot of theories come about what's the meaning of the room, is there anything beyond the room? And maybe hopeful Harry says, I've got a feeling in my gut, I'm just I'm just sure that somebody up there likes me. Or scientific Sally does the cosmological thing and she says, Oh, the room is very well designed, maybe there's a designer, and then skeptical Stephen says, Well, I don't know, I don't know what to you know compare this room to. This is the only room we've got, so let's just try and make this room as good as we can. And what always kind of wrong foots people is people kind of think that as a Christian I should be on Harry's side or I should be on Sally's side. And I think the Christian position is not Harry or Sally, and it's not Stephen, it's the someone comes into the room, you know, you know, bits of plaster come down and into the room comes a figure and he says, I'm from beyond, and I'm here to rescue you. Does that change the conversation in the room? And and I think that's the Christian position. There's been something that's like come into come into this world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I was just thinking, how many times I've must have heard people say, well, you know, if God's there, why doesn't he just show up? Why doesn't he show himself? And it's a bit like and it's like, well, he did. That that's kind of the point, isn't it? But don't so but it's like, you know, well, why doesn't God just show himself? Well, he did. He he literally became flesh, walked among us, and we and people go, oh yeah, but like did he? Like I'm not prepared, I don't actually like the evidence about that, so I don't I don't want to believe that evidence. Yeah. Um, why doesn't he do it here right now?
SPEAKER_02You know, did you read what we did to him last time? Yeah, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'd believe in God if he showed himself. Well he did, and we killed him. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02So which again goes so you know, what's the what's the heart of someone? Like like we don't roll out the red carpet when God appears. And that's that's not the natural state of the human heart. And like, yeah, so God actually showed up in fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies over thousands of years. He fulfilled all of them on the money, you know, he healed, he spoke as no one has ever spoken before. We've based civilizations on his teaching, he kept on claiming to be God. He actually beat death the way he said that he would beat death never to die again. He rises up again and says, You can have me forever for free. Like, if that's not God, just pack up and go home.
SPEAKER_00Like, but if but you know, if you could just rearrange the stars, I would just tip it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh but we've got good news. And and I think like so so often, like, the God from which people are running, it is kind of this is the kind of God who would rearrange stuff. Isn't that interesting? Like, God, if God exists, he would be the kind of God who would tell the cosmos to behave. Right? That would be his big message.
SPEAKER_00Thou shalt not. I hear it as more like God is there to you know it's like show us another trick, you know. And and then you get that in John's Gospel, don't you, a little bit? Like the people that seen his signs, but yeah, you know, Jesus said, you know, they believed in him, it says, but Jesus knew what was in the heart of men, and he didn't entrust himself to them, and entrust is the same word, it doesn't need to believe himself to them. Because I think they they've seen Jesus' signs and miracles, and they're like, ooh, yeah, like show us another trick, Jesus. Yeah, and Jesus knows that's not what he's there for.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um he knows what's in the heart of men.
SPEAKER_02And isn't that interesting? Like I said this last night in my talk that in John's gospel, his miracles are not known as miracles or wonders, they're known as signs, because they point to the kind of God that he is. And what is the kind of God that he is? He's not he's not this sideshow, like, you know, make a mountain blow at its top or make a donkey tap dance and sing show tunes. That's not the kind of God that he is. Like all his signs that point to who he is is he heals the sick and he feeds the hungry and he gives dignity to those with shame.
SPEAKER_00And you're like, well, isn't that a good like why why would you run from that God? And and also, I mean, like, the signs thing is good. If you go to, you know, if you go to the States and you're trying to find the Grand Canyon and you're following the signs of the Grand Canyon, you don't just find the sign and go, these signs are great. Let's have some more signs, but I don't need to get to the canyon itself. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The point is you want to get there, don't you? You want to get to the canyon, you want to get to Jesus. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's where that's where the good stuff's at. Yeah, that's that's the money. Awesome. Well, we hope that's helped you think about some issues when people raise the is God real um question. If you've got um some things that you do when you're answering that question that people ask, we'd love to hear it in comments. Uh Robin Emmanuel has said at uh UEA, our mission week went well. Thanks, lots of interest, we'll pray. Brilliant! Glad to hear that. UEA, I think I think I did their mission, was that three years ago, Robin? And then like the next year, it was amazing. Like they got this big marquee and it was just an insanely good. Like, after you. After me, yeah. Okay. Not when I was there. Good when I was there, but it just, yeah. Next, next level. Once you get rid of Scribner, you're you're off and away, you're running. Um so next week's live cast will be without Glenn.
SPEAKER_00Let's be with all our videos, all our Christmas videos.
SPEAKER_02All the best ones don't have me. It's just the truth. Um actually, next week we will be in, or I will be in St. Andrews. You'll be back at home on half term, and uh I'll be uh preaching the I'll I'll be preaching the gospel. I don't know why Paul's just gonna watch Netflix and frivolous. Um so yeah, stay tuned for next week. Um on Friday, our podcast. Um hopefully this is recorded well, and uh this will go out on the podcast on Friday. And uh this coming Monday, uh, we're not gonna have a for me question on Monday. We're gonna have a talk from uh this week in Glasgow on the Monday. And uh we hope you enjoy that. Are we recording all your all five nights? I don't know. Adrian was my cameraman.
SPEAKER_03Well um, do you have your camera? Not on me right now.
SPEAKER_00On you right now.
SPEAKER_03There we go. But you're not far away, are you? That's true.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say we could film them all and say what they are, and people can vote which one they want to see. Oh fight it out. We've got a phone number you can call. Premium rates. Yeah, yeah. That dates you phone calling people.
SPEAKER_02Oh that really dates me. Um brilliant. Well, I'm I'm off to give my Freedom talk. Um, calling people liars and slaves. And uh pray for me. Pray for them. And uh thank you so much for watching. Um still we've still got nine people and eight people, we're all gone. Going, going, going. Seven.
SPEAKER_00Eight! Any advance on eight? There we go. Sorry, sorry. This is the six hour live cast. It's just us, five hours of us just doing this.
SPEAKER_02The telephone.
SPEAKER_01We've gotta get to ten years.
SPEAKER_02No, we never will.
SPEAKER_01Nine! We'll never finish.
SPEAKER_02Alright, God bless, and see you next week. Take care. See ya.