Have you ever pondered over how to activate the Holy Spirit's power in your daily life? Our candid chat in this episode offers insights into these questions and much more. We walk you through the importance of daily prayer, regular Bible reading, church attendance and fellowship with fellow believers, which we believe can fuel the Holy Spirit within us. We also focus on the crucial role of parents in discipling their children, urging them not to outsource this monumental task to worldly influences, but to take it up and lead by example.
We highlight how the media and online influencers play a significant role in shaping perceptions and why it's critical to embody biblical values in our everyday existence. We share personal transformation stories that underscore the importance of authenticity and intentionality in our influence as Christians. We also caution about the potential risks of creating cult personalities within the Christian community, urging listeners to direct others towards Christ, our ultimate defense against chaos. So, get ready to challenge and inspire yourself with this enlightening episode.
Have you ever pondered over how to activate the Holy Spirit's power in your daily life? Our candid chat in this episode offers insights into these questions and much more. We walk you through the importance of daily prayer, regular Bible reading, church attendance and fellowship with fellow believers, which we believe can fuel the Holy Spirit within us. We also focus on the crucial role of parents in discipling their children, urging them not to outsource this monumental task to worldly influences, but to take it up and lead by example.
We highlight how the media and online influencers play a significant role in shaping perceptions and why it's critical to embody biblical values in our everyday existence. We share personal transformation stories that underscore the importance of authenticity and intentionality in our influence as Christians. We also caution about the potential risks of creating cult personalities within the Christian community, urging listeners to direct others towards Christ, our ultimate defense against chaos. So, get ready to challenge and inspire yourself with this enlightening episode.
What's going on everybody? Welcome to the Parallel Christian Society podcast. My name is Andrew Torba. I'm the CEO of Gavcom. Thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 1:So my last episode. It really resonated with a lot of people. I got a lot of emails. I got a lot of people reaching out to me, someone up to me in church telling me they really enjoyed the episode and wanted me to sort of expand on it a little bit more.
Speaker 1:This concept of we are indwelled with the power of the Holy Spirit the same power that took Christ out of the grave is now indwelling inside of us and it's lying dormant in many Christians. And so how do we activate that? I think the big problem number one is that most Christians today are sort of nominal Christians, they're Christians in name only, and so maybe, if we're lucky, maybe they're going to church every Sunday, although in most cases they'll go to church on Easter, and they'll go to church on Christmas or Christmas Eve, and that'll be the extent of them going to church throughout the year, because in their minds they'll say to themselves I'm a good person, I'm a good Christian, I believe in God, I believe in Christ, and they're not actively living out their faith when you take up this calling of being a Christian and you live out your life for Christ. It's not something that is meant to just be only on Sunday or twice a year. We should be living all of our life for all of Christ. And unfortunately, many people who call themselves Christians are just simply not doing that. And so they may believe in Christ, they may call themselves a Christian, but they're not actively leveraging and using the power of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts that they've been blessed with in order to impact our culture and our society and the world for the glory of God. And I think this is manifest in just the reality of our society today, and they read the reality of our country, the reality of our culture. This is reflective of the situation.
Speaker 1:And so how do we change that? How do we get people to understand that they have this power dormant inside them? Well, it starts with the basics, the fundamentals. So if you're not praying, if you're not reading your Bible, if you're not going to church, if you're not in fellowship with other believers, well then you can expect the power of the Holy Spirit to remain dormant. All of those things right prayer and even fasting, going to church, fellowship with other believers, reading God's Word, most especially that one. These are all sort of like the fuel to the fire of the pilot light flame that is the Holy Spirit inside of us, and if we're not doing those things, then we certainly cannot expect that tiny pilot light to emerge into a flame. It's just, it's not. The stove doesn't start itself, right, you have to put in the work.
Speaker 1:And this gets back to what I was saying in the last episode, which is that people are fundamentally lazy. We have a society, we have this disease of laziness and it's the sin of sloth, right. And so people don't wanna put in the work, whether it's with discipling their children, and on that note, actually let me take a quick detour here. I saw this meme the other day and it was like, yeah, 15,000 hours, your kids are gonna be exposed in public schools to secular, demonic, worldly ideology. But hey, at least we'll have them color Noah's Ark, a Noah's Ark picture, on Sunday, and that'll be good, it'll be good, it'll be fine.
Speaker 1:And so the joke there is that it's not the church's responsibility to disciple your children. Parents, fathers in particular, listen up. It is not the church's responsibility to disciple your children. It is not your pastor's responsibility to disciple your children. It is not the youth pastor's responsibility to disciple your children. It is your responsibility to disciple your children. And if you're not putting in the work, you're not putting in the time, you're not doing it, then someone else, the world, will jump up and down to have the opportunity to disciple your children. They love nothing more than parents who refuse or who think that they can outsource the discipling of their children. And I'll tell you what they're not gonna be discipled in the biblical worldview. They're not gonna become disciples of Christ, they're gonna become disciples of the world, and that is.
Speaker 1:I watched this happen with my entire generation. Where we grew even those of us who grew up in the church we ended up getting into our 20s, myself included, and embracing the world and not holding fast and walking away from the church. And thankfully, by the grace of God, many of us have returned, myself included, and I see more and more coming back to Christ, coming back to the church. But there are so many more who are also lost and are still out in the world and have walked away from the faith. And what caused that? Well, there's certainly some environmental and cultural influences, without a doubt. I mean, I don't think that a lot of our parents were necessarily prepared for our generation being really the first generation to grow up sort of exclusively on the internet. So it was this massive, massive paradigm shift. But now, millennials, as a millennial parent, we don't have sort of any excuses. I think we can cut the boomer some slack. I think we can cut our parents some slack, because this was sort of unknown territory, right, the internet is this sort of game-changing, societal game-changing factor at play.
Speaker 1:But now that we know the dangers, we know the pitfalls, we've lived through them, we have overcome many of them. You know we have a responsibility to be stewards to our children and to help guide them and protect them, you know, from the influences of the world. And so how are we going to do that? Well, it starts in our own hearts and leading by example, right? So in order to be good stewards, in order to disciple our children, in order to ignite the flame of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit that is inside of us, you know, we have to start by looking in the mirror, right? So are you reading your Bible? Are you praying? Are you attending church? Are you engaged in fellowship with other believers. You know, are you spending time with God? You know he has given you seven days a week, right, twenty four hours in a day. And what do you give him back? Maybe an hour on Sunday out of the entire week? It's just not enough. You cannot expect the power of the Holy Spirit to be activated inside of you, and if you're not putting in the work and you're not doing the things that a Christian is supposed to be doing, so that's, it starts fundamentally by looking in the mirror, and that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people. You know, no one wants to be told myself included, by the way, I'm human no one wants to be told that they're not being a good Christian, right, whatever that, whatever that means. But no, no one wants to be told that they're missing the mark, I guess is the better way to say it, right, Uh, but you know, unfortunately a lot of us are. And, uh, you know, week to week, there's weeks where I'm guilty of this too. Listen, I'm a parent, three children, I run a business, I'm a lot going on, and it's very easy for the weeks to slip into months, to slip into years, and you know it's. It's like working out, right, if you're not going to the gym consistently, uh, if you don't use it, you lose it. Right it's.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing spiritually Uh, if you're not actively engaging with God, if you're not spending time with God, you're not spending time in His word, you're not spending time in prayer, in fellowship with other believers. You know how, how can you expect to be, to be sharpened, how can you expect to activate the power of the Holy Spirit? It's just not going to happen. And so you know what are the fruits of the spirit? Well, galatians 5, 22 to 23 outlines the fruits.
Speaker 1:For us, the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And you know, amidst the chaos of trash world, I think we need more of pretty much every single one of those things. And so, activating this power of the Holy Spirit within us, you know, we'll unleash the fruits of the spirit. We need more love, we need more joy in our lives, we need more peace, patience. Patience is a big one for me. I'm a very impatient person, my flesh is very impatient. And, you know, since I've been spending more time with the Lord in prayer and in my Bible and in fellowship, I've noticed that my patience level has gone up tremendously and that is one of the fruits of the spirit right, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. You know, we need all of these things because things are gonna get worse. And I need, I really need people to understand just how powerful the fruits of the spirit are and how much we're going to need them going forward, because things are going to get worse, like it's just inevitable.
Speaker 1:We are under judgment, righteous judgment. You don't just murder tens of millions of babies, you know, over five decades or so, and God is not just gonna turn a blind eye to that. Okay, you don't do all the wicked things that our country has done for so long. You know, really since and even a little bit before World War II, but really after World War II is when things got really really bad and we really turned away from God. And God is not gonna go, you know, unmarked, or he's not gonna be mocked and he's not gonna allow this to go on and he shouldn't. And so we're under righteous judgment right now and we deserve it and we have to be prepared. And the way that we're gonna be prepared is by getting into God's word and praying and spending time in fellowship with other believers and building one another up so that we could be good stewards.
Speaker 1:You know servant leadership. You know what does that mean? You know, I think, when I use the word right like we're gonna take dominion. I think the secular sort of worldly people, they don't understand this concept of dominion from a biblical standpoint. So true, biblical dominion, it's rooted in service and love. It's not domination or control. So Jesus taught us in Matthew 20, 26 to 28, that whoever wants to become great must be a servant. And this is the principle of servant leadership. It empowers us to influence society by example and by embodying the humility and the love of Christ. And that's the best thing that we can do to disciple our children and to influence others is lead by example.
Speaker 1:You know there's this concept of a medic theory which is by, you know, to Rene Girard, and the concept is pretty simple. You know, most people tend to just mirror what other people say and do, right, like most people sort of don't come up with their own original thoughts or insights or worldviews or whatever. They're really just sort of mimicking what other people are doing and other people who they look up to or who influence them in various ways. And so if you have any form of influence and we all have influence in our lives you know, if you're a parent, you have tremendous influence over your children, over your family, right? If you're a husband, you have influence over your wife. If you're a wife, you have influence over your husband. If you're a brother, you have influence over your siblings, over your parents, etc. You know, we all have some form of influence.
Speaker 1:And this concept of memetic theory, it's an explanation of human behavior and culture, and it was again. It was started by philosopher and literary critic Renee Gerard, and the name of the theory is derived from this concept called memesis, and it's a literary criticism and philosophy that basically means imitation, right, mimicry, the act of resembling right. And so, according to Gerard, he talked a lot about human desire, and he thought that human desire was not linear, but it was the product of the memetic process, in which people imitate models who endow objects with value, and he called this phenomenon memetic, memetic desire. And so here's a quote from him. It says man is the creature who does not know what to desire and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desires because we imitate their desires.
Speaker 1:And this is so obvious if you sit back and think about it, right, you ever have this conversation with somebody and they're talking to you and they'll bring up you know some sort of topic in the news and it sounds like they're repeating word for word what they heard on either Fox News or CNN and then presenting that as their own original thought or as their own opinion on that subject. Right, I encounter this all the time and you know they're talking to you about a certain topic and you start giving them sort of the red pill take on the news topic or you say I didn't hear about that or whatever. Especially if you say that, like if you say I didn't see that or I didn't hear about that news, or whatever. They look at you like you're sort of ill-informed or stupid or there's sort of this smug pretentiousness about the way that they engage with these topics, as if to say well, I'm informed, I watch the news and I know what's going on in the world, and you don't Right, that's sort of the look that they have on their face and it's like I don't watch the news, I haven't had cable in over a decade.
Speaker 1:I don't watch Fox News, I don't watch CNN and occasionally I'll see clips if they go viral or whatever. But I don't consume that content because I want to look at the world and I want to look at news and facts and I want to come up with my own opinion. I want to come up with my own insight. I don't want to be told what to believe or what is true or what isn't. Why some talking head on Fox News or CNN? So then I can then go and regurgitate that to my family and friends and feel like I'm informed or intelligent or whatever it's like.
Speaker 1:And there are not too many people that sort of think that way. The vast majority of normal everyday people out there get their opinions from the minds of other people, and this is sort of memetic theory and memesis in motion, and so, with that knowledge in mind, for those of you who maybe have never heard of this concept before, it's very obvious when you think about it, sort of it sounds like something that you'd be like yeah, well, that's just common sense, like, of course, but it's it's, it's something that we have to grapple with, because if that is the case, then the things that we're saying and the things that we're doing have tremendous impact. Right, because I hate the word influencer, but, you know, in the context of East celebrities and online influencers, but we all are influencers to some varying degree. Right again, if you have children, you're an influencer. You influence your kids. Right, we all influence other people and so, as Christians, we have a tremendous responsibility to influence people To Christ. It all needs to point back to Christ. That is what is fundamentally most important. And and so how are you doing that? You know, are you leading by example? That is the very best way for us to influence other people is to lead by example, you know.
Speaker 1:So in my case, like in in sort of online right-wing circles Like, especially like these, these trad circles and stuff, you'll see a lot of people that will talk a big game and, like I've met a lot of these people in real life and sort of this is sort of the unspoken secret that everybody in these orbits, these right-wing sort of East celebrity orbits, all knows is that, like most of these Tradcon, like you know, right-wing on, like extremely online E celebs, they live like very degenerate, not trad, lives in real life off the internet and that is like sort of the worst. I'm not. I'm not gonna throw around names, right. I don't think that's appropriate, it's not the right thing to do. But I think that that is sort of the worst possible case scenario because, number one, you're a hypocrite, right, if you're going around preaching trad values and Christian values and stuff and You're not living those values out in your real life, behind the scenes, when you're not on the internet, that's a big problem because you're a hypocrite and it sort of undermines the entire message, and so that is why I sort of don't hang out in any of those circles anymore. You know, I've sort of touched orbits with a lot of those circles and I got enough of a glimpse to say, like this, this is all fake and phony and like this isn't me, because, like I actually believe in these things that I'm saying and I'm actually living out these things that I'm saying, and it's not some facade for me, it's the real deal, like I'm living out the values, the biblical values and the Christian values that I'm preaching.
Speaker 1:You got to practice what you preach and unfortunately, you know, many, many of these people are just not, and it's sad. It's sad because if they were, you know their lives would be fundamentally better. Number one, they wouldn't be hypocrites. Number two, and the message would be that much more powerful and influential, right. And so, you know, if you want to push traditional Christian, biblical family values, like, live those out. You know, don't just talk about it, do it and lead by example. That is, that is the best way. Like, if you want to influence the next generation, as we certainly do, you know they need someone to look up to. That is actually successfully living out these values and showing them the way and showing them that it is possible and that you can, you can survive and thrive and, uh, and take dominion for the glory of God. And so these are the things that we need to be thinking about leading by example and not just talking about it, not just talking about Christian values and biblical values and family values, but like living them out. That is by far the best way and the most powerful way and the most influential way, uh, that we can influence people. And so I think that's why we need to be thinking about it, because when people see that we're thriving, we have beautiful families, you know we're, we're growing stronger in our faith, we're maturing, you know, I think I look back at like when I first started gab, like seven years ago, and I'm a totally different person.
Speaker 1:You know, I've grown, I've matured. You know I got married, I've grown in my faith and so I look back and I'm like, wow, who was that guy? You know and other people can see this. You know the people that have have been following, you know my journey for seven plus years. I can, I've talked to them about it. You know, they tell me you could they? People notice this transformation in your life and that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:If you start, if you start praying, if you start reading God's word, if you start engaging in fellowship with other other believers, you will be radically transformed. Like prepare yourself for it and it's. It's an incredible thing. I'm so thankful to God for it, because I've been radically transformed for the better. All glory to God. The Holy Spirit will do work in you and through you.
Speaker 1:But you have to be, you have to be willing to put in the work. You know you can't just let it sort of sit there dormant. You have to be active and again, through this process of mimesis, people will want to mimic that and they will mimic that and you know I've seen this sort of play out from my perspective right, where there are now like tens of thousands of people both on X and, of course, on Gab, that sort of post. The way that I post, like I'll see stuff pop up in my feet and I'm like I could have written that, or I did write that like three or four years ago, like I'd posted something like that. You know it's like it's a, it's a wild thing to see happen. You know sort of memetic theory. You know playing out in your life, you know playing out in action. But it's, it's a good thing.
Speaker 1:It's a good thing because we want people to be embracing the biblical worldview, we want people to be embracing traditional family Christian values, because that is the only way out of this mess. Christ period, he is the only way out of this mess. It's not going to be any politician there's. There's not going to be, you know, some giant awakening of people to the truth. It's just it's not going to happen. But we sort of have to hit. You know they talk about the great reset, right. Well, we have to sort of hit the reset button and the way that we do that is sort of generationally. And again, we have to think long term, long game, long play here. This is not something that is going to happen overnight. But if you're committed and you're willing to put in the work, we can and will influence the younger generations to return back to these values, back to these worldviews, because it's becoming very self-evident that the secular quote, unquote secular worldviews and these alien worldviews are just not working and that is why society is sort of collapsing all around us and people are paying attention to this, especially the young people.
Speaker 1:Young people are a lot more intuitive, they're a lot more intelligent than people give them credit for. I think it's sort of a tale as old as time. It's really easy for older generations to be very dismissive of younger people. They don't know anything, they haven't lived life yet, yada, yada, yada, like there's always been this sort of mentality, right. But what I see in the young people is a lot of potential and a lot of promise and the future and they get it. They fundamentally get it and they get it more than most people four times their age get it, and that is very white-pilling. It's a good thing. And they're receptive.
Speaker 1:They're actively looking for alternatives to trash world, right, like you think that these kids aren't going into school and they're being taught that they're evil because they're white or Christians, are all backwards, loony-tuned, idiots and all these things that they're being taught. And they look around at their family and stuff and they say, well, that's not how grandma is. You're talking about my family here. You're talking about my grandma. You're talking about the people that built this country, people that built Western society, and every single. You mean to tell me that every single generation prior to this was just evil and wicked and the most toxic people in the world. And men are evil and Christians are evil and white people are evil.
Speaker 1:Like this is what they're being taught for eight hours a day, every day, and so something's got to give right, especially like you're the white kid that's sitting there listening to this for a decade through middle school and high school, and you're going to be chomping at the bit for any alternative, for anybody that is pointing to any form of tradition or biblical values or Christian values or, most importantly, order. Right, we live in a very chaotic world and the young people recognize this and what is going to happen is they are going to demand order. They're not just going to ask for it. They're not just going to say please, please can we have a little bit of order? They're going to demand it.
Speaker 1:You know, history is sort of very cyclical, and so is human nature, and right now we're in a period of chaos, and the white pill here is that what always follows chaos is order, and we want that order to be God-given right. We want biblical order, god-given order, and if we point people to Christ and if we give them the tools and show them how to use those tools the tools of prayer, the tools of fellowship, the tools of the spiritual gifts that we're given, big things are going to happen and changes most certainly going to arrive and order will arrive. And so, again, I'm incredibly optimistic about the future. You know, I think things are obviously going to get worse before they get better, but we're going to be sort of refined like steel going through the fire and we're going to come out on the other side stronger than ever before. And so we just have to keep the faith and, most importantly, we have to lead by example. Don't be caught sitting on the sidelines. Put in the time, put in the work, put in the effort and lead by example so that people will want to mimic you.
Speaker 1:Most people mimic other people. So you want to be the one that they want to mimic, and the way that you do that is by mimicking Christ, because then they'll want to mimic Christ too. You see how that works. You know. We need to be pointing them back to Christ. We want them mimicking Christ. If they don't love Christ yet, they're going to be sort of attracted to you. They're going to want to mimic you, and when they do that, you need to say no, no, no, it's not me, I'm just mimicking Christ.
Speaker 1:If you want to be like me, then you need to be like him, and that needs to be the message. Right, don't? And that's the way that we win too is you know, we can't sort of have these cult of personalities, and I really I try really, really hard to sort of prevent this from forming around me. It's very difficult because of the amount of reach that I have. I've been blessed by God with a very large online platform. I reach a lot of people, but my message is always it's not about me, I am nothing, look at Christ. And we need to be sure that that is what our message is consistently.
Speaker 1:We don't want to create sort of cult of personalities, because I'm not always going to be here and centralized cult personalities are vulnerable. They're vulnerable to attacks from the enemy. But if we're all embodying and mimicking Christ and encouraging others to mimic Christ, they can't touch him. They can come after. They can isolate each individual, one of us. You know they could throw me in jail tomorrow, but they can't lock up Christ. They tried killing him already and look at how that worked out. That is, that is the trump card. Okay, you know, it's Christ or chaos and we need to be pointing people to Christ. Thank you, guys for tuning in. Remember to speak freely. Christ is King.