Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#235 Arnold pt 2: The Gospel's Challenging Path
Arnold returns to share his journey of theological transformation and the unexpected challenges he faced after embracing the gospel message.
• Reflects on his previous understanding that salvation was a "group project" between humans and God
• Describes how reading Romans 6 as a historical fact rather than instructions completely changed his perspective
• Explains the resistance he encountered from church leadership when sharing his new understanding
• Details how he was prohibited from speaking, teaching, or preaching as the head elder
• Discusses the painful experience of being rejected by his home church of over 40 years
• Reveals how finding his identity in Christ rather than in being "right" helped him navigate the rejection
• Shares his new understanding of 1 John 5:3, seeing God's commandments as not burdensome because His love enables our obedience
• Explores the tensions between viewing Scripture alone as authoritative versus Scripture plus other sources
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The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 2:Well, you're right, I thought it was a big deal, and I thought it was going to be a big deal for the whole church that things were going to go crazy, because I expected people to see what I saw and change their mind because I was obviously wrong, we were obviously wrong, and what's the point of holding on to your old, wrong opinions? So I thought there was going to be a lot of changes and people were going to get excited about these things because this is really good news.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Death Alive podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is part two of Arnold Segoe. We had Arnold on the pod maybe two years ago and he has a crazy, beautiful story of how he went from death to life, and this is where we get to catch up with him. Just like so many other people, it wasn't all roses and donuts after freedom, and it's cool to see how God is guiding him and leading him and just giving him grace to walk this out. So you're going to love catching up with Arnold. He is one of the milk dudes. We love him so much and you're going to be blessed by this episode. So buckle up, strap in Love. Y'all, appreciate y'all. Here is Arnold.
Speaker 1:All right, we've been sitting around. I know you've been on the podcast since. Was it just one other time that you've been on the podcast since? Was it just one other time that you've been on the podcast when we did the Bible verse draft in a Justin's house? Yeah, we, we did the Bible verse. So you've you've been. You've been on the podcast a couple of times and people have been hitting me up in the background and they're like enough of this, we need Arnold's part two. Actually they've been saying we need Arnold's part two. Actually they've been saying we need Sharon's part two, but they'll be OK with Arnold's part two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah Well, we'll see. You know, my stuff is so much more boring compared to her stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, boring, exactly how I would put it. So if give me the three to four sentence, if we haven't heard your first episode, we should probably go listen to it. But if you don't have time, what happened up until now in your life, or up until the last podcast? It was what Since the last podcast?
Speaker 2:No, what happened?
Speaker 1:No to the last podcast. What happened before? Okay?
Speaker 2:the the notes of the last podcast. What happened before? Okay, well, I, I was a great, um uh, adventist, knew all the stuff. Um, people came to me for answers, uh, but it turns out I didn't really have any of the important answers, I know. Maybe, more importantly, I didn't even have any of the important answers. No, maybe more importantly, I didn't even have the right questions. So that's what I realized that I was just confused and I read the Bible with filters and I filtered out the good stuff, and so all I had left was, you know, all the stuff that I was supposed to do. And it turns out I'm not any good at doing any of that, but you were comfortable with that.
Speaker 1:You were like, oh, I got all this stuff to do, let me get cracking. And you didn't get very far.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I mean, I only spent, like you know, half a century doing it, so I didn't really go all the way, Right. But but yeah I I thought, okay, well, I just need to try harder, I just need to do this better. And you know, I felt comfortable. I trusted in my ability to get stuff done. So I just figured, whenever I failed, I just need to try harder, need to put in a little bit more effort and combine it with divine power, then it's going to work out okay.
Speaker 1:So you knew the scriptures right. What would you say? Would you say you knew the scriptures?
Speaker 2:I knew what the scriptures said, but it turns out I didn't know what they meant because I put those different puzzle pieces right If you can think of scriptures as pieces of a puzzle. I put the puzzle together wrong and it came out with a very different picture than what was originally intended. And that was because I had extra pieces that I needed to fit in. And that was because I had extra pieces that I needed to fit in.
Speaker 1:And forcing those other pieces in, with the real pieces messed up the picture. So I'm looking for this verse because it's almost like let me see Matthew 16, know the scriptures where Jesus is saying this thing, when he says that they know the scriptures but they don't know the power of God. And it kind of reminds me of your story a little bit, that that you knew the scriptures, yeah, yeah, but God had no real power in your life no, no, because, um, how, how the picture came out to me was that, uh, it all depended on on me.
Speaker 2:it's like you know, I I believe that god had power. I believe he had infinite power. I just thought that I was the spigot that would turn on that power Right Then, that if it wasn't for my efforts and my cooperation, then he couldn't really do anything. So it boiled down to to me it was on my shoulders to let him do his thing.
Speaker 1:And so that's just if you want to go. We can't do it justice. Go listen to the episode, Listen to Sharon's episode. It all comes to a head when my homie Byron invites me out to the Pasadena church. Seventh-day Adventist church. Church is very close to my heart and I go out there and preach this. It's like my first time doing a whole sermon series and preach this. It's like my first time doing a whole sermon series. I was there for, you know, seven days, preached every single day, eight days. I think you did two Sabbaths.
Speaker 1:I did two Sabbaths, which is wild, and the tension came up a little bit on the last day. There was some stuff before that, but not really anything big. But then on the last day that, arnold, you come up to me and you're like you want to do a q a, and I literally thought it was going to be like me, you and two other people in this back room doing like a q a over, but it turned out it was not that and it was kind of fun. But later I I learned that it wasn't a bunch of fun. But, um, we end up at matthew's house and all of us you know, there's this photo we're all together taking pictures and I thought it was an amazing week and I thought that we were just going to leave it at that, that a bunch of people got some gospel, got some freedom, and it was just going to be more goodness.
Speaker 1:Is that what happened? Approximately? No, well, catch us up, man. What happened? Let me say this when I was leaving California, I went out to eat with Byron and Ryan Millsap and I just really thought, man, I really think Arnold was getting it, I really think he was in, I really think he was down and maybe I knew Sharon was down and you still had some things, some rocks, overturned. You kept on saying I'm not sure I got to run that through, the thing I'm not sure. And then what? You went to Hawaii. Tell us what happened in the subsequent months following. All right, that was a July visit to Pasadena.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was July. That was like what year is it now 25?
Speaker 1:So that was like July of 25. Two years ago and some change Over two years ago.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you remember very well that in the middle of the week I wasn't really buying everything that you were selling, Because there was some stuff there that I thought, oh, this stuff is no good. This is like some Timu gospel.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure we're all going to get lead poisoning by my gospel, right?
Speaker 2:So I had a lot of questions and you had a lot of responses, and something that was, uh, I was impressed about was that all your answers came out of the bible, and, and it didn't come from anywhere else. You didn't quote anybody else, it's just all from the bible. And how am I going to argue against that? Right, I mean, it's in the bible. Uh, oh, you can do it, believe me, I suppose. I suppose you could if you really wanted to.
Speaker 2:Um, but a lot of my responses after reading the Bible verses and there were even some other Bible verses that I thought of myself that you didn't even bring up, but they were putting together a very different picture my standard response was I'll have to think about it some more I'll get back to you Because this was completely changing my worldview and how I thought things worked, and so it was very, very different. And I had to think about it. And you mentioned I went to Hawaii, and at that point I got to admit it was Sharon. Sharon was the one that was like oh, we got to go to Hawaii, come on, come on, do it. We haven't gone on vacation for a long time. Um, and I said fine, we're going to go there and see a bunch of strangers we don't even know, and there are a bunch of kids we're going to be the oldest ones there Um, but I, I saw the opportunity to maybe get some alone time with Jonathan and just ask some questions, questions that I would never bring up in an open group, right, um?
Speaker 2:And? And so I did so. So I went there. I wasn't fully sold on everything at that point. Do you remember the main questions you had? Um, well, it was basically about how do we get saved and, I guess, our participation in that. So I was still holding on to this idea that salvation was a group project between us and God, that God does his part, we do our part and if we all work together, nice, then it works out and we end up in heaven.
Speaker 1:I don't know how you did in group projects in college. If it's like how I was in group projects in college, then it's probably more like how I was in group projects in college.
Speaker 2:Yeah, group projects. Is you got the one that's?
Speaker 1:My name's on the paper and. I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's my name's on the paper and I didn't do anything but but that that's, that was my paradigm. I thought that there was something I needed to do for this thing to be true. And, in particular, you know you love bringing up Romans, chapter six. For four decades, I loved Romans, chapter six. I taught Romans. Six decades, I loved Romans, chapter 6. I taught Romans 6. I preached Romans 6. And every single time I preached it as a set of instructions that we needed to follow so that we can get the good news, so that we can get the good outcome at the end.
Speaker 1:Okay, so many people have come to me with this recently. Is this the common reading of it in our faith tradition, or were you actually not reading it? Because it doesn't say it describes our freedom. It doesn't tell us what to do to get free.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the mind-blowing thing. And why my brain was shorting out is because it doesn't actually say what I thought it said was shorting out is because it doesn't actually say what I thought it said. And my very first sermon, you know, in front of the church, you know 30-something years ago, was on Romans 6. And get this. I didn't even start on 6, verse 1. I started a few verses before in Romans 5, where it says that we are made righteous by Jesus' obedience, and then I went all into Romans, chapter 6, thinking like this is about my obedience so that I can become righteous, and basically I wasn't paying attention to myself and this is a pretty common interpretation in a certain segment of our faith community when I used to preach this at my various churches. Oh, they loved it because they all saw the same thing. And basically I would take Romans 6 and beat people over the head with it, and that's what they wanted. That's what what I wanted. I wanted to be reminded of what I needed to do so I can get this job done.
Speaker 2:Um, but it turns out, if you read it careful, you don't even have to read it carefully, just read it normal. But take, take away all the the baggage that you have, take away all the weeds that get in the way and just read it as is. And Paul was pretty clear. He was talking about a historical fact. It was a history lesson. He wasn't giving instructions, he was giving an FYI and that's what changed. But I wasn't quite sold on it. When I went to Hawaii and I hung out with Jonathan, justin and I had a bunch of questions and he answered a bunch of things I didn't even ask yet and basically just putting the whole picture together right from the book. We didn't read anything else, we didn't discuss anything else. Everything came out of the Bible and it was right there. It turns out that God has reconciled the world to himself through Christ. And I didn't help. He doesn't want my help because whenever I help, things go bad, and that's what it was before then.
Speaker 1:So that was probably the biggest change, and ever since then I'm just digging more into that idea that concept From July to November. How were things going at church? How were things going Like? This exciting news seems like it was saved so much. How was it going at the church?
Speaker 2:Well, there's some of us who are very excited about it, and every single time we got together this is what we talked about, right, it only takes a few seconds Say hey, byron, and then, bam, we go right to the verses. So, our little group Of believers that believe this message, we just fell in love with it. It was just so awesome, and our biggest problem Was that we did not understand it enough. So so we would continue to study and sometimes new ideas would bump into our old ideas at least you know some of our old ideas and, um, we would study, we would just dig and and try to figure out what's what. Now there were also some other people.
Speaker 1:Hold on before you get to the other people. Oh yeah, If we're going to take a view of this, let's go 20,000 feet up and we're just looking down. If we just read it, is it? Is it really? I know it's very deep, but is it super difficult to understand? Not with, like, take away the baggage for a second and you're just looking down at the news, the proclamation. Is it really difficult in your mind?
Speaker 2:No, no, it would be easier if you went and talked to somebody who had no idea about religion, no idea about you know, or previous ideas about how god worked, and they were like a blank slate. That'd be easier than than coming into somebody like me who I thought I knew what was what and so, uh, before you could plant the new seeds, there was a lot of weeds that needed to be taken away, so in essence, like seeing this as simple as it is was difficult work because of all of the things in the way of it being as simple as it is.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, there was a lot of junk in the way.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. So then you said not everybody was vibing at the church.
Speaker 2:Not everybody. Even while you were there, there was already a lot of talk happening in back rooms and all this. You know phone calls in the back text going on. Some people were not liking it, and some of those people you don't even know because they did not want to show up. They didn't want to see your face, they didn't want you to see their face, they don't want to hear anything you had to say, unless you know they might be contaminated or something I don't know.
Speaker 2:But basically, uh, you know, when you came, I was, I was coming into the meetings expecting to disagree with you because because what I heard about what you were saying just sounded like you know some of the dumbest stuff I have heard. Um, so it was crazy, but I was going to come in and ask you questions and see what you were saying. Some people didn't actually bother asking you any questions. They didn't even bother listening to what you had to say. They just went with whatever gossip it was that they heard from, wherever it was that they heard it from, and so they didn't like it. Some of them did come and listen to you and they didn't like what you had to say, and so there was a group of people that was very, very much against the, the stuff that you brought up. So so you have, you know, me and my group. We were very much in favor of it. And there's the other group that was very much against it, um, and there was a bunch of people in between.
Speaker 2:Actually, there were some people who, when you were there, they enjoyed the message, they loved the message. I remember one guy, he even, he even spoke up during that last q a session and he said hey, you guys, everybody, you should listen to this, because this is, this is good stuff. Um, but then, a few weeks after that, he changed his mind. He said, oh, that is the most terrible thing, and we all disagreed with it. Um, so so, uh, our memories are different. Uh, yeah, but but that's, that's how it is.
Speaker 2:So some people change their minds and I'm guessing, um, when this new message, right, at least new to us it wasn't new to paul, right, um, but this new message to us, as, as we played around with it and looked at it more closely, we saw how it was bumping into other stuff, some of our, you know, deeply held beliefs. And then you have to choose. Are you going to take the new stuff? Are you going to stick with old stuff? And some people took the new stuff. Other people stuck with old stuff and tossed away the new things.
Speaker 1:So, if we're talking August, September, October of that year, did you think that this was a big deal? Did you think, oh, this is gonna like maybe for you. You thought it was a big deal, Did you see? You know, a lot of stuff has happened since then and we'll probably share a little bit of it. Could you see that coming? Or were you like, oh, this isn't that big of a deal, Like, this isn't going to be that crazy.
Speaker 2:Well, you're right, I thought it was a big deal, and I thought it was going to be a big deal for the whole church that things were going to go crazy, because I expected people to see what I saw and change their mind because I was obviously wrong, we were obviously wrong, and what's the point of holding on to your old, wrong opinions? So I thought there was going to be a lot of changes and people were going to get excited about these things because this is really good news.
Speaker 1:Why do you think it was so easy for you to change your mind on this? Or maybe it just looks like it was so easy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe it just looks like it was so easy because all the difficulty happened before then. Right, um, I was ready to hear something new because by that point in my life, that point in my marriage, I had already realized that the way that I was doing it was not any good, and I knew the rules, I followed the rules and it didn't lead me to a good place. And, you know, it only took me 30 years to figure that out. But I was ready for something new.
Speaker 2:And in fact, maybe six months or nine months before you came, I ran across this verse that I had read so many times before, but it hit me a little different 1 John 5, verse 3, that we keep the commandments of God, because the commandments of God are not burdensome. And I looked at that verse and I thought my religion, my beliefs, even when carried out perfectly, if I followed the theory exactly, it is absolutely burdensome. It is burdensome by definition. This is how it's supposed to be if all my beliefs are correct. And so I realized then that my beliefs were incompatible with the Bible. And so well, what are you going to do? I needed to get rid of the Bible then, right, or I could get rid of my beliefs right.
Speaker 2:And so at that point, that's where I was wondering, and I was talking to Sharon and saying, hey, you know, is this possible, could it be? And so we were already thinking that there's got to be, there's something wrong with what we believe, and you came along and pointed out this like right in the Bible. It's not some kind of secret thing, right?
Speaker 1:I think I want to find out what that verse means at the end of this. So remind me to remind you on what 1 John 5, 3 really means. So, as you're going on, you thought something was going to happen and you were. Did you get outspoken about this? How are you deciding how you were going to move on this?
Speaker 2:Well, as those who know me know all too well, I don't sit quietly. I always share what I think is right. I'm not always right, and in fact I'm pretty adamant that. I'm very sure that not everything I believe is right, and in fact I'm. I'm pretty adamant that I'm I'm very sure that not everything I believe is correct. So I'm always open to learn. But whatever I think is correct, I'm not going to keep it to myself. I'm going to share it as often as I can, wherever I can. Whoever will let me uh talk, and in fact even the people who don't want to hear me, I will track them down and tell them too. So was I outspoken, absolutely, and that's probably one of the things that rubbed people the wrong way, because I was very outspoken about things that they did not want to hear.
Speaker 1:What do you think the main message you were preaching was? You were running the Sabbath school back then Arnold's Power Hour. I don't know what the name of your sabbath school was, but what was the main message that you and john and and uh, what was the the drum that you were banging? What was it?
Speaker 2:oh, let's see how. How do we distill this? That, at least for me, from my perspective, my main thing was, you know, back to 1 John 5, verse 12. He who has the Son has eternal life. And if you don't have the Son, you don't have eternal life. And so that was my main thing, that it was all about us receiving Jesus, have Jesus, accept Jesus, and if you do that, you have eternal life. So there wasn't a whole bunch of rules, there wasn't a list, you know a to-do list and a to-don't list. It was just have Jesus and things are good. Don't have Jesus, and it will be very bad.
Speaker 2:And of course, 1 John also says what does it take to have Jesus? You believe that he's the son of God, you believe that he is the Christ, you accept him. Jesus himself said If you believe the words, if you accept what I have to say to you and you accept me, you have crossed over from death into life. That was our only thing. I I can't even say that was our main thing. At that point. We didn't know enough to have more than one thing. That was the one thing it's like just accept him, just believe him. It turns out that when nicodemus was talking to jesus and jesus told nicodemus how to to get, and Jesus told Nicodemus how to get eternal life. Believe in me and you will not perish, you will have eternal life. That Jesus did not hold back some important piece of information. He gave a complete answer and that was our main thing, and that rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
Speaker 1:So what was the main thing that rubbed them Like give me their perspective. Why was it so abrasive?
Speaker 2:Why was it so Well, here's what I was told John, chapter 17. Right, jesus is praying to the Father and he says right, this is eternal life. If they know you and they know me, if they know us, they have eternal life. And later on in that chapter I believe it's verse 9, he says I sanctify myself so that they may be sanctified. And and people the other camp, you could say they take that to mean, as jesus was instructing us, that we need to sanctify ourselves so that we can become sanctified. Does that make sense? We make ourselves sanctified so that we can become sanctified. I know that sounds dumb, but because it is. But, but that was the thing. How do you do it? How do you do it? Well, you gotta try harder. You, you know the rules. I mean what?
Speaker 1:does sanctification mean like to them, sanctification means what?
Speaker 2:because scripturally it means set apart right. Well, yes, yes. But what they take it to mean is that you obey all the rules, obey All that the Lord has said. We will obey and do. That is their, you know. So all 613. Well, no, I mean that would be legalistic to go 613. They only go 10, right, just 10. Okay.
Speaker 1:That's it. That's it, that's that's. You just have to not murder your anybody and you just kind of not hate your parents, and then what should be the big problem with that?
Speaker 2:that that's it. Well, the problem is and I experienced this problem too, because I totally believe that concept for the longest time the problem is, when you're honest with yourself, you can't even keep those 10. Because right, don't murder. Well, jesus said if you are angry with your brother, that's murder. If you look at a woman lustfully, that's adultery. So it gets deep all of a sudden.
Speaker 1:I was good with the 10 until Jesus came along. Man, jesus comes along. He made it harder because I'll be honest with you, arnold, I haven't murdered anybody yet, like so far. And then Jesus comes along and he's like you can't even say such and such and I was like dang and I'm being completely honest, I have never slept with anybody else's wife. And then jesus comes along and he's like I can't even what, like where are we to do? What are we to do now?
Speaker 2:and that is that's the biggest thing. And that that really bothered me for the longest time Is that I knew that, even though I could keep my body from doing these bad things in my mind, there's a lot of bad things happening in my mind and I couldn't do anything to stop it. Really Even going to sleep wasn't always good enough, because in my dreams I would have bad dreams. So I knew that I can't do it, but somehow I got to try harder. Hopefully I can straighten out fast enough so that I can get to the finish line before Jesus comes back, because because at some point in there the door is going to close and I'm not going to be allowed in anymore if I don't make it in time. So I got. I got a deadline.
Speaker 1:So when you would explain sanctification, like like sanctification is to be set apart for God or to be set apart for a holy purpose, and you would try to walk them through that, was there still pushback or did they believe what you were saying?
Speaker 2:oh well, there was absolutely pushback. They did not believe that concept because there's, you know, other concepts of sanctification that's always going on in the back of their minds, or maybe even in the back of their minds, or maybe even in the front of their minds. That taking this idea that sanctification is God setting you apart for his purposes and removing you from your old fleshly purposes, that wasn't good enough. You have to actually make sure that your body is compliant with all the rules, and one of the verses that's used to support that if you could even say that it's support is when God came down on Mount Sinai and he told Moses hey, tell the people to sanctify themselves because I'm coming. And so I guess they take that to an eschatological level and say, oh well, god is coming, jesus is coming. We need to sanctify ourselves because he is coming. We need to be ready and it's up to us to get ready.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so there was a lot of pushback, this idea that no, no, no, the Lord sanctifies us, jesus sanctifies us, he does the sanctification. We are recipients of the sanctification. We are not partners, we are not co-laborers with Jesus in this plan, and that became a. Very well, that was a point of contention because they did not accept the definition. When you go into the Bible and you know that is partly because they get definitions from books other than the Bible, which I just laid aside I thought no, I'm just going to stick to the Bible. And doing that caused a shift right, basically in what I considered authoritative sources of doctrine. I only have one now it's just the Bible, and other people have the Bible plus other things.
Speaker 1:Well, if I don't accept the other things, are you closed off to learning anything from other things? Or is it just one, is like foundational bottom line and you can read, like, let's say, charles Swindoll, and you might take something, but it's not authoritative.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, as some of you know, I went back to school to get my master's degree in theology and I am reading all sorts of stuff, all sorts of writers, and so I'm open to learning from other people and other writers, even those from a different faith background. But now everybody gets filtered by the Bible and the Bible is the one and only filter, and I don't have anything filtering the Bible, right? I don't read the Bible through the lens of something else so that I can clearly see the Bible. I just trust that the Spirit who inspired the Bible also teaches me and guides me into all truth. So I'm reading the Bible and then I can read Chuck Swindoll, I can read NT Wright and I can get good stuff.
Speaker 2:But if they say something that doesn't match the Bible, as far as I can tell, I have no problem tossing them aside and say no, I don't need to listen to that part aside and say no, I don't need to listen to that part. So basically, they're useful to me in the sense that they point me back to what the Bible says. If I can find what they said in the Bible, then we're good. If they said something and I can't find it in the Bible. Then you know I can take it or leave, it Doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1:So the plan was that you were going to use that logic and people were going to see what you were saying and they were going to stop being mad at you.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I thought it was going to make perfect sense, because it made perfect sense to me. So what happened? How did it go? Well, it didn't happen that way. What happened? How'd it go? Well, it didn't happen that way. They didn't accept my logic, because my logic is based on having the Bible as the only authority. If you have any other authority, especially an authority that interprets the Bible for you, an authority that has the power to correct your interpretations, of the Bible.
Speaker 1:All right, we're dancing around it. Let's just say it. It's those little red books, right?
Speaker 2:I didn't say it, but you get what I'm saying. If you trust something else, if you give that other thing the power to interpret the Bible for you, I think now you're on dangerous ground. Now you're going to have problems.
Speaker 1:So before you used her as a lens and now she's not a lens, could you blame them if that was their lens? How do you talk about how? How would you maneuver around that?
Speaker 2:well, it makes perfect sense. Uh, when I was studying this, I was uh writing my my final paper on my class, uh, about this. And now, as I was doing my research and and remembering these, these different quotes that I knew very well, I can see very clearly why they wouldn't give that up. I can see why they had to hold on to it and cannot allow any change to happen, because the whole thing would crumble if they did.
Speaker 2:And if your identity is based on your beliefs being correct, somebody coming along and saying, well, that's not all 100% correct, some of it is wrong, that will mess you up. And so I totally understand why they can't accept it. And I'm guessing I could accept it because I had already come to the point where I knew that what I had was messed up Right. So it wasn't like when you came along, you had to tear down what I had and convince me that what I had was broken. I already knew it was broken.
Speaker 2:But they are still on that journey and they believe things are still going great. If only they can do better. So they're going to try harder to do better and things will turn out better. That their theological house is, by definition, is going to be terrible living in that house. So I had already moved out the house. I guess you know, using this analogy, I had already moved out of that house, or at least packed my bags, and I was like pretty much homeless and I like just I didn't know, um, because all I knew was this house that I had been in for half a century wasn't where I wanted to be, because it wasn't going to end up anywhere.
Speaker 1:Good you know, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of ideas about this, and Adventists lie all through the spectrum. And Adventists lie all through the spectrum. And let's say, at one end of the spectrum is that Ellen White is not the author of the Spirit of Prophecy or the Testimonies. It's actually the Holy Spirit and he used her. That's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is she is as inspired as I don't know Joel Osteen, I don't know. She's just as inspired as nobody.
Speaker 1:And there's Adventists, seventh-day Adventists, baptized Seventh-day Adventists, who are all through the spectrum. And you know, it seems like the ones at the end that say that, that the holy spirit is the author, they will look at the one end of the spectrum and they won't even call them adventists. Right, and the ones down here I'm not even sure if they care what the people at the other end of the spectrum say. They're like okay, I'm an adventist, but that makes it difficult. And like, can you be an Adventist? Like, where is there an actual line somewhere on the spectrum that, like this is an Adventist? And then, if you're on the other line and you're saying you're an Adventist but you don't believe you're not an Adventist. Is there a line on the spectrum? I don't know. You tell me, man.
Speaker 2:I would say yes, there is no, there are multiple lines. Um, and it depends. Sometimes people ask me are you an adventist? Uh, and strangely that question is one of the the questions that come soon after. If I get into some kind of discussion or debate with somebody and I'm only quoting the Bible, pretty soon after that they're going to ask are you an Adventist? Because I refuse to quote anything else other than the Bible. But didn't she say we're people of the book? We are, yes. Well, some of us are people of the book. All right, here, at Controversy, page 595. God will have a people on this planet who will have only the Bible as the basis for all doctrines and reforms. There are Adventists on one end of the spectrum who have the Bible plus other stuff. Right, so is there a line? Yes, there are multiple lines. For me there's. I like the line that Loughborough, john Loughborough, made, like way.
Speaker 1:You're always quoting him and I'm ignorant. Who is this brother?
Speaker 2:John Loughborough was, was one of our pioneers. He was, you know, he was a big wig back in the day and and in the 1860s, when they were wanting to form right to establish the denomination.
Speaker 2:He was the guy that said all right, this is the rule, this is how you join the denomination. And he had like a I don't know if you'd call it a vow or an assertion, an affirmation right, it says you affirm this right, your church affirms that you follow the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus, then you're a Seventh-day Adventist. I can go with that. Say what If that's a line, follow the commandments of God. It's not like I'm going around breaking the commandments of God, the faith of Jesus, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, taking a quick break. If you're listening to this, the day it comes out next week we're going to be in Denver. There are so many people that are going to be there it's going gangbusters but we are going to need you to sign up right away. We're trying to decide if we need to put a cap on it because there's so many more people coming. We don't want to do that. Because there's so many more people coming, we don't want to do that. So, if you can make your way over to Littleton on September 26 and 27, we would love to hang out with you, meet you and just worship with you, and that's going to be a great time. So hopefully we'll see you in Littleton on September 26. Also, these things are so wonderful.
Speaker 1:We've had people donate to get this thing going and, uh, when people donate, this is why we get to do this ministry Uh, we get to keep going because people like you partner with us, because we want people to hear good gospel. We want the gospel to change lives. If you want to be a part of that, you can go to wwwloverealityorg. Give and partner with us. Let's keep this thing going. Uh, love you. Appreciate y'all.
Speaker 2:Let's get back to the episode so, so that line was drawn back in like 1861, 62, somewhere there. Yeah, I'd go for that. And so if you're saying that, no, no, no, uh, commandments of god, impossible, can't do it, don't even want to do it, can't be a seventh adventist, if you say faith of jesus, no, no, no, I trusted myself no cannot be an adventist.
Speaker 2:But later on down the line, after the 1860s, more lines were drawn in the sand. So somebody comes out with a list of fundamental beliefs. There was like 25 on that first one. If I remember correctly, it was Uriah Smith that wrote that, published it. It was unofficial, he made it up himself.
Speaker 2:Now, uriah Smith was a scholar, he knew his stuff and so he said, hey, this is a list, not as a rule that everybody needs to follow. We have no creed but the Bible, but this is just a description of what we believe universally generally. Because people were asking what does it mean to be a Seventh-day Adventist, what do you guys believe? And so they found it useful to make a list. This is what we believe, not that this is what you must believe in order to become an Adventist, but this is what most of us believe in general, and we might change our minds later on. So that was a line with 25 points on that line. Later on it got adjusted 23.
Speaker 2:There was more adjustments later on, eventually 1980, it ended up 27, and that was actually the first time that it was voted on by the general conference. That's when it became official, and so that line then. That became very clear at that point when it was voted in by the general conference and and some of the the administrators at that time this is as I understand it from people who do history I'm not very good at history, but other people are some of the administrators were very happy to have this set of 27 beliefs so that they can determine who can stay and who needs to go as far as being a denominational employee. Oh, so they were going to use it in the HR department. Basically, so 27,. By the way, I heard this rumor. Do you know why there's 27? Why? Because it's three.
Speaker 1:It's three to the third. Power. Three times three times three. I don't know what. Three to the third is that? What three to that's?
Speaker 2:27. Three times three is nine times three, 27, because it's a trinitarian thing. Three is a complete number, so three to the third power. But now we have 28. Now we have 28. So totally messed up the math, right. But but now it's, it's, you know, four times seven, which means, like, you get four sabbaths every month. I don't know what it means.
Speaker 1:So the point of me asking you about this is that these are the things that we're dealing with under the surface. When it seems like we're having a conversation up here, let's say it's about sanctification, Underneath that conversation is all of this other stuff that we're not talking about. But these things are what is informing the conversation up here, and you can't just break that all the way down or you'll never leave the church, Like you'll go past pot, Like you'll go—any conversation that starts. And so we're discussing things and you're discussing things with these people, but it seems like you have a different worldview and yet you're an Adventist.
Speaker 2:And that is a fact of life. There are many different kinds of Adventists along this spectrum and, in fact, in my opinion, one end of your spectrum. You didn't go far enough. There are some Adventists on the other side of that edge of your spectrum. You didn't go far enough. There are there's some Adventists on the other side of that edge of the spectrum who are very much like. They don't like Ellen White. They're very much anti-Ellen White.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they believe that she's like a yeah, oh right.
Speaker 2:And can you be Adventist? Well, in my opinion, right. If you're a John L, you be Adventist. Well, in my opinion, right. If you're a John Loughborough Adventist. Do you keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus? Oh, okay, good.
Speaker 2:But if you have a list of things and you include fundamental belief number 18, that's the spirit of prophecy, fundamental belief and if you include that in your list of requirements, then there's a whole bunch of Adventists. That's not going to make it right. Actually, it might be that most of the Adventists, at least in North America, are not going to fit that mold. In fact, I was just realizing this the other day that I started Okay. So here's a question If the Bible says one thing and LNY says another thing and they don't match, what are you supposed to do? As a good Seventh-day Adventist, you're supposed to accept the bible, because the bible is our only creed. There's a but, but there's a but in there, yes, and the but, right. The but is, but she never. She never says anything that disagrees with the bible. Everything she says matches the bible. And then people say this without actually looking into the stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, she wrote 16 times more words than the bible. So she did like. The burden of proof is on on all of that.
Speaker 2:If there's one thing that she says that disagrees with the scriptures, we're in trouble right, right, and you've actually witnessed some of my discussions on this topic, right and when pressed. I haven't met anyone in my whole life who has read all of her writings and I've met a lot of people who were very much, you know, you never met anyone who's admitted like, yeah, I've read all of it, right.
Speaker 2:No one, because you know, even back in the 80s I met this this guy, uh, pastor ortega. He could quote you stuff without looking and back then we didn't have any apps, right, there was no cell phones in the 80s. We're even born in the 80s, but I was born in 83, okay, so 83. So you were born, you were a baby. He had books when he would do a bible study. I don't know if you guys have seen these things. There's spirit prophecy books, like each one is like the size of a, a big encyclopedia. When he would do a Bible study. I don't know if you guys have seen these things. There's spirit prophecy books, like each one is like the size of a big encyclopedia. And he would carry these things around and then somebody would ask a question and he'll say, oh, she said this, this, this, this, this at this point, and they'll open the book and point it right there Like he knew his stuff.
Speaker 2:If people think that Randy Skeet is impressive for quoting the King James, well, this guy could quote the King James plus a sphere of prophecy, right? So even he didn't say that he's read everything, because even if you've read all the published stuff, the white estate has all this stuff in the vaults that they don't let out, right, you need to be there physically to read the stuff. So I was actually talking to a friend of mine and we were talking about scapegoat, day of Atonement stuff, and she said you know, ellen White wrote this thing, but it's in the vault. They didn't publish it, it's hidden away. I said, well, okay, well, I'm glad you read it.
Speaker 2:I have not read it, but but, uh, the point is that there is that we say, if the bible and the spirit prophecy disagree, we got to take the bible, we're going to toss the spirit prophecy, but we also believe that the spirit prophecy never disagrees with the bible. We just, we just believe that. We've been told that many, many times. Um, and I challenge anybody who's watching this please just just do your own research. Don't trust what people have to say about anything, especially me. Don't trust what I have to say. You got the books, read it, look it up, so, so, anyway. So, so that is. That is the problem. But about 25 years ago over 25 years ago is when I started really seriously considering what if she was wrong about something.
Speaker 1:Why did you start?
Speaker 2:considering that I have no idea. It's just, I was driving around. I was there in the Philippines, in Palawan. I was driving around with Sharon and her sister in the Philippines, in Palawan. I was driving around with Sharon and her sister and I said, hey, what if Ellen White was wrong about something? What if we found out right? We're studying and we found that she didn't agree with the Bible, we'll take the Bible right. And both of them said, oh, yes, we'll take the Bible. But why would you even think that she was wrong? Like they couldn't even comprehend that. I was considering seriously that she was wrong about something, even though I had no particular point that I could say, no particular quote that I could say oh, this one's wrong. There was nothing, it was just a theory, a concept, and we Adventists have an aversion to the concept that she might be wrong. But once you seriously accept that, then you've opened the door to actually being one of those people of the book that has only the Bible as your sole source of authority, as your sole source of authority.
Speaker 1:And so back in, what was it? 2023, in the fall of 2023, into the spring of 2024, this is not in the forefront of your mind. The forefront of your mind is just the scriptures and they're giving you life, life and you're having discussions. You and I were talking in the background and I'm like you got to chill man, you're? I don't not sure you're going to convince them. I'm not sure. And you didn't believe me. Sharon, I think, was leaning heavy on you. Talk to me about that whole experience of you just kept going for it. You kept there like the hope that you had that this was all going to get resolved.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you could say you could, you could lay it out, as I had this hope that they would see the truth. But I think underneath it was just pride that I had the ability to explain it to them, to make it make sense to them, and so so I felt like, oh, if I could just explain it some more, right, give me another shot, I'm going to explain it better. Right, that if I could explain it sufficiently well that they would accept it. But it turns out that's the Holy Spirit's job to get somebody to accept, right. The Holy Spirit woos and he convinces and he gets into us and explains things to us in ways that words cannot express.
Speaker 2:I'm still recovering from that, so I can't say that I am completely there now, but these days I don't have as much of a need to explain to people and get them to accept whatever it is that I'm saying or whatever it is that I think is correct, partly because I'm not so proud anymore, thinking that my explanations are that wonderful, thinking that my explanations are that wonderful, and perhaps the bigger part is that now I don't believe like I used to. I used to think that we will be destroyed for lack of knowledge. If we misunderstand something, we could go to hell. And so there was this fear driving it that, oh, I got to explain it, because if they don't understand it, things are going to turn out really bad for them. And so I had this push that was driven by fear. But now I'm not worried anymore. Can you be wrong, can you misunderstand very important things and still be with God forever? I believe that now, because the verse says he who has the Son has life. It doesn't say he who understands everything the Son said has life.
Speaker 1:So you used to hold a lot of stuff with a closed hand, like this is truth, and now it feels like your hand is open a little bit more. Is there some stuff that your hand is closed on and a lot more that it's open on, like describe to me like what is like as you're going through this experience and trying to show people like what was was foundational, not going to shift, for you. Hmm.
Speaker 2:Something that is not going to shift. God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself. That's not going to change. And we are his ambassadors to implore everybody accept what God has already given. That's not going to change. So there are certain things that won't budge, and all of them are what God has already done, and this is one of those things that shifted.
Speaker 2:One of those big shifts is that the good news is a historical fact, the gospel is a historical fact, and so there's nothing I can do to help it, there's nothing I can do to hurt it. The only thing that I'm called to do is to live by it, accept it, believe it, obey it right. All these different words to say the same thing that I'm called to do is to live by it, accept it, believe it, obey it right. All these different words to say the same thing that I walk in the reality. Right, I walk subjectively in that reality that jesus has objectively made. Jesus did his, and there's a period at the end of that sentence when he said it's finished. He meant it, and now I'm just called to accept what he already did. So all these things that won't budge they used to budge because I used to loop myself into these things. Right, the good news is good if I accept it. Right, the good news is good if I accept it. The good news is good if it changes my life. It's good if it makes me a good father, a good husband, a good brother, a good son. Right, all of these things, it makes me a good person.
Speaker 2:Well, all that is true, but that doesn't impact the gospel at all. The gospel is what is, regardless of what I do about it. Now, when I accept it, when I accept God's love, then it's going to spill out all over the place. So, so that's, those are the kinds of things that that won't budge anymore. You know this, this thing that, uh, god loves us and accepts us unconditionally. I don't think that's going to change. He loved me even when I was terrible. He accepted me even when I was terrible. On my best day I'm a son of God. On my worst day I'm also a son of God. So that's all constant, and so everything on his side. It just is.
Speaker 1:I am just called to accept it. So how did it end up there at the old church? How?
Speaker 2:would you describe how it ended? There were discussions going on with different people at different times, but there was never a big meeting with everybody where the pastor says, hey, you know everybody who's concerned about this. Let's get together, let's hash it out, let's see what the Bible has to say about this and we'll follow God wherever he leads. So there wasn't anything like that. It was more like oh you know, pastor's going to meet with this guy and then pastor's going to meet with the other guy and then pastor's going to meet with another one and he's like the hub of all the information, and then he would take all of these complaints or all of these reports, whatever the case may be, and he decided what he was going to do and he decided that the message that our sanctification is based on my efforts plus God's power, that my salvation is based on me being sufficiently obedient by God's grace, that that is the way to go, that when I said that, when Jesus said, if you believe me, you have eternal life, that that is a complete answer, that he didn't keep anything from Nicodemus, basically that's wrong. At one point he said that you know, if that was all that was needed, then the Bible is going to be very small. It's only going to have John 3, 16, and we don't need the rest of it. But we obviously have the rest of it. Therefore that's not complete.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I didn't buy that and he didn't buy what I was selling, and so he told me that then I was not allowed to speak at church, I was not allowed to teach my class, I was not allowed to preach and I'm the head elder at this time. So I guess his idea of head elder accommodates somebody who just sits there and does nothing, says nothing, just comes in and attends and gives tithes and offerings and goes home and he's perfectly happy with that kind of head elder. But that's never been me. Whether I'm elder or not, I can be just you be just a normal everyday member, and in fact I don't even need to be a member. As long as I'm present, as long as you have a voice, as long as I'm not dying right, I'm going to be sharing what I believe is true. So that was a signal that this was not the place for me, like shake the dust off my feet and move on.
Speaker 1:Did it hurt your?
Speaker 2:feelings. Oh well, yeah, it hurt my feelings. This was the church that I grew up in, right, this is a church that I started attending when I was 10 years old, so this is my home church. It will always be my home church. Now, my home church doesn't want to hear from me. My home church doesn't want to hear from me. My home church doesn't want to have the good news that I can't stop talking about. Well, okay, I guess I'm like Jesus in that sense. Right, his home church. They kicked him out too. They were going to toss him over, so mine wasn't even that bad. So, yeah, but it didn't feel good. It did not feel good at all.
Speaker 2:It never feels good for somebody to say that that, oh what, what you're saying is garbage, or we don't want my identity from being right anymore. I don't get my identity from, whatever positions I have or whatever it is that I'm doing. My identity is right. This is my son, in whom I am well pleased. God said so. My identity is. Looks at me. I'm wholly blameless and above reproach. Okay, well, what if other people are blaming me or reproaching me? Well, who am I going to believe God or other people? I think I should believe God. So I think I took it much better than I would have taken it otherwise. I don't know if you know this, but I have been booted out of other churches before. This was not my first rodeo and it was basically a disagreement in theology. But back then my identity was wrapped around me being correct, and so when other people were saying I was incorrect, I did not take it well at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, but now, yeah, it doesn't feel good, but maybe the goodness of the good news kind of soothes that over, right. And I'm also thinking, hey, if I was such a bonehead for so long? I mean, all the stuff that they're preaching, I preach the same thing. All the stuff they're teaching, I taught those same things. Uh, in fact, I I think I can fairly say that I taught them better than they did, because I know more quotes. Um, so, uh, yeah, so so I can see if it took me this long to figure it out, if it took me having a totally messed up life, a totally messed up uh, you know personal life, before realizing that, oh, I don't know what I'm doing, then maybe it's going to take them that long also, you know, for them to go through life and try as hard as you can and then when you realize that it's all a big giant mess, then maybe you can look around for other plans. And the good news is, god has a plan.
Speaker 1:You know, as I think, if you know my story, I ended up getting fired back when I heard this, and I don't regret it.
Speaker 1:But would I do things differently now? Well, I would hope so. You know, with whatever I've learned in the last six years, if I was put in that position now and heard the gospel and with everything I know now, would I do things differently? Yeah, there would be certain things I would do differently, for sure. Does anything come to your mind now you know, two years out, that you would do a little bit differently.
Speaker 2:Oh well, yeah, certainly there are things I would have done differently. You know I have a tendency to come in hot all the time. Maybe I don't need to come in hot all the time, maybe, but you know, I still can't come in cold, I can't come in quiet. I can't, like you know, sneak around, so to speak. I can't, like you know, sneak around, so to speak, and not be open and honest about what I believe. But maybe I would not have slapped people across the face with it so much necessarily. Maybe if somebody says something that rubsubs me the wrong way, I don't need to say something about it all the time.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, some of the things for sure, like generosity and charity, and like I don't know how I could have done it differently knowing what I knew, um, um, that's the kind of thing is like you have to experience these things differently, knowing what I knew.
Speaker 1:That's the kind of thing is like you have to experience these things and you can listen to people and you know, when I was listening to what you were going through, my heart went out for you and Sharon and I was like man and I could say Arnold, you know, do it this way and do it that way and that's as good as it goes. Like you, you have to take that and then, and then whatever, if it makes sense, go with it, if it doesn't, don't go with it. Um, and I don't know if you have regrets, like I said, I don't regret, but I don't think I would do it the exact same way. What? What do you would you think is is one of the main kind of the takeaways from I'm going to ask you a little bit more about. You know what you've been moving in lately, but from that section of your life that you know however long it was a year or so, or maybe a little bit less than a year of you, you know, in that situation, Um, god, is your support?
Speaker 2:Like when David? Right, he was anointed king, but it didn't turn out as well as it could have, right? The current king did not like this news at all, right? So David's running around and then, at one point, samuel dies, right? The current king did not like this news at all, right? So David's running around and then, at one point, samuel dies right, the guy who anointed him, his mentor. He's dead and now he's on his own and he needed to learn to just rely on God completely.
Speaker 2:And I would say that's one of the things that I have been learning that my community does not support, does not hold me up. God holds me up and I don't hold up God either. He hasn't expected me to hold him up or to defend him or to do anything for him. It's all for me. He's working for me, right, he's, it's all for me. He's working for me.
Speaker 2:So right, looking around at your, your friends, your colleagues and the people who look up to you, they might all forsake you all at the same time for this one thing, which is basically what they did for me, right? It's like you know, there are these people that that I've known for decades, people that I have worked with. For all this time. They haven't called me on the phone at all, like in two years. Not a text, nothing. Why, I don't know. Maybe they think that I'm going to give them the gospel, which I probably would tell them something. Right, I'll figure out some way to sneak it in there. And maybe they don't want to hear it. I don't know.
Speaker 2:But you know, if my well-being was dependent on other people thinking I'm great, then I'm going to have real bad days. I'm going to have a really bad time. So that's one thing is just just To receive my identity from what God says about me, from how God looks at me, and not depend on other people who will fluctuate, right, and this includes Sharon. Right, this includes everybody. So if she's mad at me, it's not going to send me down a spiral like it used to, right spiral like it used to, so. So that's. I think that's that's very important, that we all need to, to learn this thing that we are held up, we are supported by God, and, um, it's great to have community, like right now we have. I have my, my small community who believes this kind of stuff, and we always geek out whenever we get together and so that's awesome, but again they don't hold me up.
Speaker 1:It's good to be encouraged and edified. The body of Christ is that we're supposed to. But Paul's in prison and he's writing letters to the body of Christ and he's like man. I'd like to be with you, but I can do all things. I can be content. I've been brought low, I've been brought high. I can be content. I've been brought low, I've been brought high. I can be content. Throughout Recently you've been going a little harder. You've been getting this master's degree. What have you been learning? What have you been seeing? Is your beliefs tightening up? Are they opening up? How would you say? God is ministering to you and what has he been showing you recently?
Speaker 2:I've only taken one course right, so it's not like I'm an expert at post-grad.
Speaker 1:But you're not a Csian or a Bsian, you're an Asian, so I'm sure you're doing all right in that class.
Speaker 2:The grades haven't even come out yet, I will let you know. You better not be a no see. I don't know I'm going to get kicked out of my house, but here's the thing, right. So I go to Fuller, which is not an Adventist institution. It's actually when I was looking for seminaries, I specifically looked for something that is non-denominational. I didn't want one that was tied to a particular set of beliefs from their denomination. I wanted a place where I could learn from different points of view.
Speaker 1:What is fuller Is fuller, non-denominational it is non-denominational, but not like a church, not like a non-denominational church.
Speaker 2:Well maybe interdenominational. Well, whatever it is, they're not tied to a particular denomination. So they have adventist professors there are at least one professor that I know. Yes, um, they have a lot of seventh-day adventist students. I don't know if they look at us funny, but we are there, um, so so there's like different points of view and in this one class, uh, like my classmates, we were all different denominations, but the stuff that we are learning is not based on any particular denomination.
Speaker 2:And now here's the thing Like I said, I only took one class and we haven't gotten into doctrine yet. So I'm pretty sure at some point we're going to get into doctrinal things and some doctrines that they're going to teach. I'm not going to accept, I'm not going to see it right which I'm told at Fuller they're fine with that, they're okay. You don't have to agree with a professor, and I thought that's the place for me, because I have a tendency to disagree with people. But one thing that I have learned in this class that I took, which is foundations of practical theology Basically it wasn't about theology, it's what do you do with your theology?
Speaker 2:So you have your set of beliefs. Well, what do you do with that? How do you manifest that with other people? How do you adjust that based on your life? So one of the new things that I'm still wrestling with is this idea that you can, you need to be able, to entertain discussions with people who are outsiders to you, people who are other from you. Does that make sense, people that don't belong to your tribe, and be able to engage them intelligently and respectfully and in a Christian way right and in a Christian way right not just fighting them, and yelling at them that this ability to engage other people who have a divergent point of view compared to your own is actually necessary for you to be able to engage with God.
Speaker 2:Now I just that's actually kind of a quote. I got that from a book and I just remembered it because I thought this is going to be on the test. I better remember this. But I've been thinking about this, you know, for a couple months now, and just recently, maybe a couple days ago, you know, as holy as God is, holy, then when I engage with him, there's going to be some kind of divergence there, right, there's going to be some difference.
Speaker 2:Some things are not aligning because I'm in some ways misaligned with God, and if I can't handle that misalignment and I cannot deal intelligently and in a positive way with that misalignment, then I can't even learn from God himself. The only way I can learn from God is if I am able to engage with somebody who is different from me and then, as I do that with God, then hopefully I am learning to align with him so that we won't be different. But at first, right, unless if I'm already perfect at first, we are going to be severely misaligned, and so that applies to God, that applies to people, and you know there are a small handful of people that I have done this with where our relationship is based on our misalignment and we discuss and we learn more about each other through our disagreement and we're good friends, right? Not everybody can handle that. That's a weird thing for many people. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, like we said, it's been two and some change. What does 1, john, 5, 3 actually mean now?
Speaker 2:Oh, maybe I should look it up right and stop waving my hands and quote it. Let's see 1 John 5.3. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. So this is the love of God. He's talking about the love of God. John has a thing about the love of God. He's talking about the love of God. John has a thing about the love of God, and it comes wrapped up or involves keeping his commandments. Now, I used to think what this meant was, if I love God, then I'm going to try really hard to keep his commandments, and that my love for God is reflected by my ability to keep His commandments, Because if I disobey, I must not love Him. Right.
Speaker 2:And so I need to try harder. I need to keep His commandments so that I can prove to God that I love Him. And I have no excuse to not keep His commandments because His commandments are not burdensome, they're easy enough. Anybody could do it, everybody could do it. That's what I thought for the longest time. And then I started realizing I thought, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Well, first of all, on that end part, his commandments are not burdensome. Well, I knew from experience that keeping His commandments was absolutely burdensome Because and I'm going to tell you, I'm going to frame it in my old theology because I had a sinful nature and if you remember, that was the thing that triggered me when you brought that up right that I had this sinful nature and my sinful nature wants to be sinful.
Speaker 2:My sinful nature wants bad things. But I need to follow God. So I need to suppress my sinful nature, I need to push that down and choose to do the good thing that I know I'm supposed to do and so difficult. And everybody who has tried this will tell you. And everybody who has tried this will tell you, nobody has actually succeeded in doing this. You know, reliably right, because even if you stop your body. You know your sinful nature is like inside you right your thoughts and your feelings. You have this desire to sin and this is part of the theology, this is part of a certain segment of our church. Has this theology that you have this innate natural desire for bad things and you have to fight against that desire because you have this other desire, you want to follow God. But I realized I don't know why it took me so long to realize. If that is happening, if you have the desire to do bad and the desire to do good and only one of them can win at any given time, that means, by definition, it will always be burdensome. You will lose in some way every single time. You're not going to get what you want.
Speaker 2:And then people bring up Romans, chapter 7, right, the last part of Romans, chapter 7. They say, there, that's what Paul is talking about. Well, yes, and what Paul said at the end of that chapter? He said wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? He admitted that this is a wretched condition. And I realized this is a wretched condition, this is absolutely burdensome, my theology does not allow me, is incompatible with 1 John 5.3.
Speaker 2:And then when I saw the light, then I didn't see 1 John 5, 3 as instructions for me anymore. I saw it as news from God. You know an FYI, he's telling me something. So this is the love of God. This is not my love for God, this is the love of God. Because of His love we keep His commandments, not because of my love. I don't keep His commandments because I love Him, because he loves me. That's how I can keep His commandments Right.
Speaker 2:And Ezekiel 36 comes to mind. He fills me with His Spirit and causes me to walk in His statues. So his love for me. Then I can keep the commandments and that kind of commandment keeping. That's not burdensome.
Speaker 2:Why is that not burdensome?
Speaker 2:Because his love for me actually frees me from that old sinful nature, that old, those bad desires, because, as Paul says, the flesh is crucified with its passions and desires. This is what God promises to do for us, that he actually he doesn't just inhabit us and becomes roommates with the sinful nature. And now we have the Holy Spirit and we have the flesh and they're all fighting with each other. And it's back and nature. And now we have the Holy Spirit, we have the flesh and they're all fighting with each other and it's back and forth. No, no, no, no. God fills us with His Spirit and there's no room left for the flesh. And so that old guy, that old man, has been crucified. When you crucify the old man, well, keeping the commandments now is the thing that you want to do. It's the thing that you desire. You can actually be so changed from your old way, you are converted, you are so united with God that when you're obeying Him, you're actually doing the thing that you want, and that is not burdensome. That is a party.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming on and sharing your story. It sounds like your life is a party. Sometimes in the party you know stuff happens, but it doesn't change it from being a party.
Speaker 2:Right, spilled drinks. You spilled the potato chips. Yeah, that's not the best thing, but it's still a party.
Speaker 1:Let's go. Thanks so much, man, I appreciate it.