Ep.54 : The Epstein Files Pt.2

Welcome to "Ask Me Anything" with Frank Santora. This is the podcast where we give you biblical answers to questions that you may have on your mind, have wanted to ask, or have been afraid to ask. Here we talk about it all!

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

And here's the thing is some people will relish in it for some and not others. And that's good, and for them, it's gonna all be about what side of the political fence do they follow. And that's not why we should be relishing or wanting to see people have mercy. We should be happy that justice has been served, that some that an evil has been stopped, that a crime cannot continue to be perpetuated. But at the same time, we should still want for mercy to be shown because we all need mercy. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Ask Me Anything. I'm Frank Santori. This is my co-host, Ronald Julian.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_06 0:52

What up? What's up, man?

SPEAKER_04 0:54

How you doing? I'm feeling great. That's good. I'm glad to hear that. Excellent. Glad to hear that. Excellent taste.

SPEAKER_06 0:58

A lot of good things going on.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Spring is almost here, baby. Let's go. Can't wait. Cannot wait. A lot of good things going on. A lot of great things going on. Feeling very optimistic about the year.

SPEAKER_06 1:06

I think this is going to be a good year. Just in terms of how Mother Nature has been messing with Sundays. Yeah. To all my ETCers in Manhattan.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Talk to them.

SPEAKER_06 1:22

Two times I have been snowed out from coming to minister there. Back to back months. Two times, back to back months. But I'm coming in two weeks. Yes, you are. I'm coming in two weeks, and that's not getting snowed out. And I can't wait to come and be with everybody. I miss everybody there. But uh so Mother Nature has not been good. But I think the rest of the year is going to be wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:41

Um interestingly enough, even despite all the snow, we have had a ton of visitors come to church.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Really?

SPEAKER_06 1:46

On snow days.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Well, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:48

Like I'm like, these are visitors. That's awesome. Like the the regular folks, they're like, I ain't coming to church.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

I gotta tell you though, so uh I used to hear, being from the south, everybody knows I'm from New Orleans, so we don't know this whole snow world. So I used to always hear about people, business and life still happening, you know, even when it snowed.

SPEAKER_06 2:07

Well, that's that's on Monday through Friday. But if it snows on Sunday, uh yeah, like it's it's the difference between God and the world. Like if it's if it's your job, you go in. If it's your sports event, you go in. Yeah, but I would hear it. If it's your kids after school recital, you're going. If it's church on Sunday, you ain't going. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, what's up with that? The other day, uh, by the way, it was it was uh Friday morning. Was it Friday morning? No, it was Wednesday morning. I I had to go to Hartford to uh advocate for the charter school in Danbury. By the way, big shout out for the charter school in Danbury and all the good folks who are trying to get that passed. It was given approval in 2017, I believe it was 2017. And um it's all built, it's all ready to go to serve a thousand kids in the Danbury area, to give school option, right? The people who are running it are great, great people, you know, really have a heart to just help kids and everything like that. And and it keeps being blocked. So um Wednesday morning, they asked a bunch of us pastors to go down to uh Hartford, the Hartford Capitol, and and advocate for the opening of the charter school. And so we woke up and it was snowing. Two hours and 15 minutes later, with the roads in very bad condition, I walked into the Hartford Capitol to advocate for the Danbury Public School charter school opening. Um, and and I thought to myself, if this was Sunday morning, yeah, and most people ain't going two hours and 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Yeah, yeah, because that's an hour drive, right?

SPEAKER_06 3:44

Yeah, they're going like 20, 30 minutes to come to church, church. And so anyway, um I I'm not liking, I'm not liking Mother Nature this year. Yeah, um, it's having been good to us, but but despite that, tons of visitors, people, I'm like, you came today to visit our church?

SPEAKER_04 4:00

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 4:01

And I mean they had a hunger for God. Thank God for those people.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

Praise God, praise God. All right. So, yeah, besides Mother Nature and the weather, um, you know, I I bought a snowblower finally.

SPEAKER_06 4:11

I heard about this because I you were you were you were engaging um some some uh young help from what I hear. Engaging some young yeah, your workout partner told me that he was going over to help you with this snowblower type of thing. Yeah. We trying to get cheap labor?

SPEAKER_04 4:27

No, no, no, no. Listen, I don't listen, I wouldn't ask him to do anything. No. I just simply asked him to help me take it out of the truck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:36

Well, I'm surprised you need help because you know you look a little swall these days.

SPEAKER_04 4:41

Well, thank you. Um and and this is this is this is not this is not, you know, just optically pleasing. This is real work. This is real hard work.

SPEAKER_06 4:48

This is this is not supplementated. This is this is not supplementated.

SPEAKER_07 4:51

Supplementated. It's not supplementated.

SPEAKER_06 4:56

I gotta tell you, so I gotta tell you, um, you recently there's been this, like I had this like two-week span uh where just out of the blue, I start getting teary-eyed. And I'm like, teary-eyed? Teary-eyed. I look at my wife saying, say, honey, I feel like crying right now, and I don't even know why. Like, there's nothing bad going on.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

You've been watching a movie.

SPEAKER_07 5:18

No, no, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I'm thinking, man, it's my estrogen up. What's going on with this? Why is this happening to me? You know, you know, I mean, I'm a I'm a man's man.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

You know how the beautiful things happening about to be a grandpa. Yeah, any any minute.

SPEAKER_06 5:37

Yeah, any minute. I can't get interrupted right now, and that's it. So, so this led me to to research um TRT.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:48

And I thought to myself, well, maybe there's something off with my hormones. You know, because as you get older, you know, different things, you know, different things. You know, you stop stop being able to put on muscle, not that anybody would know by looking at me, but um, but but you know, that that and and you know, you you you you get on the couch and you just sleep. Yeah, like I'm I got a high motor. Like I I go, go, go, go, go. Like uh, I can I can just preach whatever, you know, uh if I'm playing a sport, like I just go.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yeah, but as soon as I hit that couch, within five uh within five minutes, I'm cutting Z.

SPEAKER_06 6:34

Yeah. You know, so I started researching TRT and I put in some information, and you know, I was chat was giving me this information, and chat told me that I would be the perfect candidate for TRT supplementation. Okay, and I said, I gotta talk to Ronald because I know he's doing something. You know, eggs, you know, I eat eggs for breakfast virtually every morning.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Okay, and I left.

SPEAKER_06 7:03

I eat, well, I have two. Yeah I eat avocado on a pretty regular basis. I mean I even make cookies out of avocado, cakes out of avocado. You know, I found ways to make all my treats with healthy ingredients, no preservatives, no garbage ingredients, um, and uh, you know, all real good stuff. And I so I have my I still have my brownies, I still have my my cupcakes, I have my cookies, I have my ice cream, I have it all. But like, man, I eat ice cream almost every night. I eat a whole big old pint of ice cream every night. And the whole pint is like 220 calories. All good stuff. Last night I had chia seed ice cream. Man, that was good stuff. Let me tell you what, it was good stuff.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

So, not to make this a workout intro, yeah, our health intro, but I'll tell you something that's even better for you.

SPEAKER_06 7:54

What's that?

SPEAKER_04 7:55

Um non-fat Greek yogurt. I put that in my ice cream with protein powder of your flavor choice vanilla. That's a way to make ice cream. Uh with chia seeds, oats.

SPEAKER_06 8:06

You told me about this, and almonds. Yeah, you hit this the other night.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

And a little, little, a little hit of a little tablespoon of zero sugar chocolate syrup.

SPEAKER_06 8:16

You're like, bam! Like emerald, Lagossi.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Bro.

SPEAKER_06 8:19

Listen to me. Here's the ice cream base. Ice cream base for everybody out there. First of all, you got to have a ninja cream eye. Okay. That's that's what you make the ice cream with. You take Greek yogurt, okay, and you put it with almond milk, sugar-free, sugar-free pudding mix of your choice. So if you want to have pistachio ice cream, pistachio sugar-free pudding mix. You want to have chocolate, you want to have cheesecake, you want to have lemon, whatever the case may be, put that in there. And then monk fruit sweetener. Okay. This is the base of the ice cream. From there, you can put other things in there. You could put sugar-free chocolate chips, you could put bananas, you sometimes I like to put apples in mine.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:00

Um, and bro, if you freeze that overnight, spin that in that ninja creamy on gelato setting, because you know you gotta be gotta be Italian. You you will be eating ice cream, healthy ice cream, every night of the week and never get fat. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 9:21

If it's working for you. It's working, bro. It tastes great. It tastes great.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Well, listen. So anyway. We're gonna dive into our conversation, our topic today.

SPEAKER_06 9:28

I haven't decided on the TRT yet.

SPEAKER_04 9:31

Well, you know, we'll we'll know. We'll we'll we'll know. We'll know.

SPEAKER_06 9:36

Listen, you would probably know if I wore those tight shirts. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not a tight shirt.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

This is listen, listen, my arms are just doing what my arms did. That's all, that's all.

SPEAKER_07 9:46

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_04 9:47

But listen, speaking of arms, it's not a segue.

SPEAKER_07 9:51

Yeah, where are you going with that? I don't know. Uh huh. Just rerun it. Let's wrap our arms around. Yeah, oh, there you go, there you go. You gotta you figured it out. That was a preaching pause, but he just said something and try to make it work.

SPEAKER_04 10:04

We want to kind of continue the conversation uh from last week um around the Epstein files. Here we go. The Epstein files. A lot, a lot, a lot of things going on, a lot of things coming out, things coming to light. Um, what do you do when powerful people, people in power, are doing evil, uh, horrible things. You know, how do you handle that? And last we kind of we kind of found a biblical precedence for that. We talked about David uh and and and Bathsheba and Uriah and that whole sort of situation right there. And but but how out of all of the things that David did, ultimately he found his way back to the feet of God and repenting, you know, and God honored that, but there were still consequences that he had to pay. So so let's talk a little bit more about kind of how do we position ourselves and guard ourselves? What are the disciplines that we need as leaders, as people, as men of God, as position of power, CEOs of industry, um, um, business owners, people who have influence in our communities. How do we guard ourselves against, you know, what are the disciplines to make sure that we position ourselves to operate with integrity and character?

SPEAKER_06 11:23

Um, so we talked a little bit about some of them last week, but I I think um sharing power is important um and and self-imposed accountability, especially where there isn't. Um for instance, one of the things I do here at the church is I don't touch any of the money.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:46

I don't touch it. I review it, I make sure all the reports are right and so on and so forth. But even on a weekend, if somebody comes up to me and hands me an envelope, I tell them, would you please go give it to one of the ushers over there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't touch it. I don't, I don't, I'm, I just sign the check after somebody else signs it. I'm not in charge of the book, so on and so forth. Self-imposed accountability, sharing responsibility, um, having good people around you that are high character people who uh have permission to speak into your life, have permission to uh check you if you need to be checked in a particular area. All of those kind of things are very, very important. David fell when he was in isolation. He was by himself on that balcony that night. And that's a dangerous place to be. And it's a place that you have to intentionally guard against because of the fact that the higher up you go, the more lonely it is.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:52

And so if you don't intentionally seek out um those kind of structures around you, relationships around you, accountability structures around you, accountability partners around you, all of that kind of stuff, um, things can happen. Um, we did our men's conference this year, and our theme was PMS. It's a man think power, money, and sex. These are areas that the enemy has been using to take mankind down ever since the beginning of time. Yeah. Matter of fact, if you want to fund study, do a little study on the Nephthalum. And do a little study on Noah's Ark and why God destroyed the entire earth by flood. Okay, without getting into like conspiracy theory, but you know, I mean, it's the Epstein file, so conspiracy theory kind of goes hand in hand, right? The one theological school of thought is this that the fallen angels inbreeded with human females and produced a line of people that was unrighteous, that was half-breeds, if you will, called the Neftalim.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:06

And that the reason why God destroyed, so in other words, there's sexual fornication that's happening. Yeah, right. And the reason why God destroyed the earth by flood is because the only humans, fully humans that were left were Noah and his family. And so when the Bible says that Noah was the only righteous one left, it doesn't mean that Noah was the only sinless one left. It means that he was the only right breed of human that was left on the earth. And so God sent a flood to wipe out the rest of everything so that he could preserve the human race rather than destroy the human race. And so it goes back to the beginning of time, power, money, and sex have been something that the enemy has always tried to use to pervert and destroy mankind, why wouldn't he also do that at the highest powers in the world? Wow. Wow. And so I think that uh the Epstein files, even though horrific and uh heart-wrenching because especially because of the kids, and um, it's it's it's the enemy's playbook. Yeah, it's the enemy's playbook.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

That's good, man. That's that's really good. But I gotta I gotta push, I gotta push and lean. I I definitely know, and I and I I think you you do a much better job. I'm still working on trying to because I'm I'm always like I'm I'm just a seeker of information, right? So but I and I think that there are a lot of people who are trying to figure out you you hit the nail on the head. You said there's been such a um a graying of the line between our faith, our Christian our Christian values, the word of God, and our political affiliation. There's been such a gray and on both sides, there's been such a graying of the line. And I think that most people feel stuck because they don't know how I should respond. Because using the story that you just gave us, um, where we see great immorality, but we also see great mercy from God. We see great repentance happening, right? But we also see justice show up. Yes. Right? And I think that there are some people um um that are trying to, you know, we're we're talking about kids, right? We're talking about little kids, and and we're saying, Lord, you know, I I I know that there this is this is spiritual, and we're gonna get into that in a little bit, but this is this is warfare, this is evil, these these are things. So what should be the position of the believer? Should we just kind of like act like it's not happening, like these files are not there, like we don't, you know, we're not seeing what we're seeing and reading what we're reading, and what should be our response? What should be, you know, should we cry loud and spare not? Should we, you know, should we just have outrage for the sake of outrage? Should we, you know, how can you know what what is accountability, what does justice look like?

SPEAKER_06 17:06

I think first of all, um I think you can have you can be a person of justice and mercy at the same time. And and I think that's who God is. Right? The great conundrum of the cross is that God is holy, therefore his holiness requires that sin be punished. Yeah, that justice be served. For God to to wink at sin and not punish it would mean that God is not just. And he is. He's a he's a defender of you know the weak. Yeah, he stands up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. He tells us to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. You know, as Christians, justice should be part of what we are for as Christians, yeah, right? But not at the exclusion of mercy. And so God is God is holy, which means that his he's perfect and he can't overlook sin. He must punish it, justice must be served, but God is also merciful. He doesn't want to give us the the the consequence of our actions, he doesn't want to pay us back for our sins. But he but so he's got he wants to extend mercy, but he's he has to extend justice. So how does he do that? That's the cross. Yeah, he sentences himself to die. Sin is punished, and you and I are able to go free. He does both, and so I think as we live in this world, justice, we should want justice to be served. We should want to see um those who have been involved in this, um they have to pay an earthly price for these things, but we shouldn't relish in it. Yeah, and and and here's the thing is some people will relish in it for some and not others. Yeah, and that's gonna and for them it's gonna all be about what side of the political fence do they fall on.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:10

And and that's not why we should be relishing or wanting to see people have mercy. We should be we should be happy that justice has been served, that some that an evil has been stopped, yeah, that a crime cannot continue to be perpetuated, yeah, but at the same time, we should still want for mercy to be shown because we all need mercy. Um, Nelson Mandela showed us this on the biggest stage, right? With apartheid in South Africa, you know, when he cr when he asked the nation to extend forgiveness.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:51

Right. Now he did make a distinction between forgiveness and and I'm paraphrasing and partnership, right? And in can in order for us to walk forward together, there there's gotta be some change that is taking place. Right. But but he realized that in order for the nation to heal, there was gonna have to be forgiveness that is taking place. And we've seen this play out on on huge scales across society for forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. We don't seem to learn the lesson from it, yeah. But even when we see it, change nations and and peoples at the in the biggest, most grand way. Yeah. You know, even today, you know, there's been talk, uh, I'm in these conversations a lot. You know, we have conversations like this a lot. I have conversations with other people about it. But even um, you know, people have said would would MLK be in favor of the kind of protests that uh America gets involved in today. Because his the cry of his his uh of the civil rights movement was, you know, hate can't overcome hate. Only love can. Right. And so he was big for peaceful protests. Right. Um now I understand that, you know, you can go through American history and you know, America itself, you know, happened was emerged through unpeaceful protests. Right, right, right, you know, the Boston Tea Party and you know, and all that kind of stuff. So, but but our Christianity demands that we have a balance in both of them and we don't sell out to one at the exclusion of the other.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Yeah, and I think you you also uh kind of spoke to this a little bit too earlier. Um, you know, a lot of times if we look at even the story of of David um in scripture, um all of this it gives us the opportunity to look at ourselves, to search our hearts, because the Epstein files exist, yes, and we know that there's some. very powerful people who have seemingly done some done some very dastardly and horrible things. Horrible things. But they are not they are not the anomaly. They are, you know, like at this level, right? At this level, we know uh what what what the some of the struggles that you know our humanness has without the billions of dollars, without the high high profile, right? And you know, being able to, to your point earlier, see this, properly place it, you know, properly place it, give it to God, but you know, have the outrage, have those human moments, but also like God search my heart. Because there are people that don't have millions of dollars who are struggling with same stuff. Some of the same stuff.

SPEAKER_06 22:50

Some same stuff. And and you know and and I get it um and I struggle with this myself and my humanity from uh well this is obviously the worst kind of sin because it's done to innocent children.

SPEAKER_04 23:04

Sure. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 23:05

Right? No doubt. And and and in fact and in fact I think there is even scriptural support for that. That Jesus said if you do this to the to one of these little ones it'd be you should have a millstone hung around your neck.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:24

You know um and so and and even when he talks about final judgment he's it'll be worse for you. Right. Right? So there is some level of um justice being met out to equal the crime so to speak but when we personally get involved in things that are ungodly I mean a man that commits adultery on his family to his children that's the worst thing that's ever happened. Yeah and we might not consider it to be on the level rightfully so of what's happening with the Epstein files but try to tell that five or six year old child that that's not the worst thing ever.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:11

Because it is to them. And so I think that again um the the bigger thing that God I think is saying through all this is that we can't save ourselves from sin. Yeah no matter how much money no matter how much power no matter how much influence and in fact that it's been said before right money um magnifies. Yeah it money itself is is neutral right the love of money is the root of all evil but what money does is it magnifies right and so if if you are philanthropic by nature money will make you more philanthropic right if you are if you are a whoremonger money will make you more of a whoremonger because it gives you access to do things on bigger scales. And that's why it's always see God's got this all figured out God knows that for instance money power all those things those are the that's the fuel on anything in life. And so what does God tell us to do with our money? He tells us to surrender it to him so that it it doesn't become fuel for you know adverse fires but it becomes fuel for the gospel fuel for good works fuel for all those things. And so it's very important for us when in any of these things happen for us to um yes be concerned on national level and and not put our head in the sand and and not say well let's just forgive everybody and justice doesn't have to be served because it does have to be served. Yeah yeah yeah you know but at the same time for us to to say okay what is what is God saying to me what is God saying to us what is God saying to the to the world because when things hit national news God is speaking to the world yeah he's not just speaking to to the individuals involved he is he's speaking to the world.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Yeah I think there's a there's a level of the Bible talks about hope deferred making the heart sick right and I think that this is a time um you know where people are really trying to juggle all of these feelings and all of these emotions the feeling of you know nothing ever happens to these people not you know that there's never you know there's never real real justice that occurs and and now we're talking about children. We can talk about you know you know maybe corporations or people stealing money at a high level but this is the the the lead the most vulnerable of our society you know and and and that sense of hopelessness this is where like you said we have to and it's and it sometimes it it it may feel like it's a cliche answer but we got to trust God in these moments.

SPEAKER_06 26:51

And you know and we have to this is where our where our Christianity and politics get hypocritical also in so many different ways right so you have one side saying that you know we ought to protect unborn life but at the same time maybe not wanting justice to happen when little ones have that happen to them. On the other side we don't need to protect unborn life but we need to crucify anybody who's done this to little ones. The hypocrisy is amazing to me because we want it to fit our narrative and and the narrative that we want it to fit is our political narrative and not the biblical narrative. And that's why it's so important for us to stay with the word of God no matter what because all the rest can be there can be all sorts of shades of hypocrisy in all of that. And I think it's just a call for us to be careful in how we approach these kind of things.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

Yeah yeah so and and really what you're talking about is you know both political machines the Democratic political machine the republican political machine they've got a whole marketing movement that echoes and reinforces talking points. And if you are not totally invested in biblical talking points spiritual talking points you'll be overtaken by those talking points. You know we see this in social media we see this even in AI it leans towards your political affiliation.

SPEAKER_06 28:36

But it's like what does the word what is it what are the I even ask AI sometimes I say it seems to me like you're being politically biased. And if it's like only facts here I'm like yeah sure only facts here. But it's it's it's it's what happens and it's almost like you know the whole thing in psychology confirmation bias.

SPEAKER_04 28:55

Yeah absolutely you see what you want to see.

SPEAKER_06 28:57

Yeah you don't you don't necessarily always see facts you see what you want to see in the situation.

SPEAKER_04 29:03

And this is and this is really the the the the dangerous part you know if I can just kind of maybe have a political you know future you know crystal ball you know this is where you see nations you know even historically start to fall apart when there is so much um confirmation bias where I am no longer critically thinking. I'm no longer um looking at it from um uh an objective lens and so now I become that much more aggressive uh you know to any party that it's against you know my my party or any person or any person who's against you know you and I we've had we've we've sparred about different things but we still walk away go get get get eat a steak together.

SPEAKER_06 29:50

You know, you know what I love about this you remember when we did that thing in in Washington and I was on the panel and I asked the audience six or seven questions that were on both sides of the political aisle and everybody in the room was in agreement. So what struck me in that moment is it's not so much the issues as it is the party affiliation. Yeah. And in the body of Christ at least in the body of Christ at least and that's where we've got to lift our eyes up to the hills as they say to whence our help comes from that's good. And I think uh with this this issue big issue horrible issue um still evolving um to be honest with you I don't know if there'll ever be a complete you know uncovering of the the truth or the facts um whether it'll be buried whether some people's identities will be hidden other people exposed you know I guess the sad thing about it is a lot of times it's about who's got the power. Yeah you know the one who's got the ultimate power sometimes is the one who gets to narrate the story the way they want it to but um I think there are some deaf definitive biblical principles that we can draw from it.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

Yeah two two more questions and then we'll and then we'll pivot um do you believe that uh exposure is a precursor to judgment or do you or is it a precursor to mercy?

SPEAKER_06 31:19

I I think it it it it depends it depends on the ultimate response of the individual um I think when when when something is exposed it puts the person the whatever in a position to choose and it's it's listen it's not an easy choice we we like to think it is human reaction to exposure is cover yeah everybody's human reaction because you know we'll sit here and we look at these people blah blah blah yeah but when somebody confronts you about a lie yeah I didn't say that yeah I didn't say that yeah but you did yeah look I got it on tape yeah but you but you really did but why'd you say you didn't yeah because you did when somebody confronts you well I I seen you at at the I seen you with with a woman at the restaurant that wasn't your wife no that wasn't me I saw you there yeah I saw you it was you type of thing or your even your kids right when you when you confront your kids with something I didn't do that yeah it wasn't me and you you got to get the whole story that's right right the human the human reaction to exposure is cover that's why repentance is a spiritual act yeah because it it it forces a humility it forces you to get into a place where you trust God because admission means that suddenly the control of the outcome is no longer in my hands. I'm now at the mercy of other people and so I have a choice and that choice is in my repentance am I going to trust God to work this out for me not necessarily exempt me from all consequences right but to get me right with him because at the end of the day God really cares about one thing more than anything else. When we take our last breath where are we going to spend eternity that's good that's what he cares about at the end of the day. That's good. And so I think the answer is it depends. I think judgment is also there's a re here's the reason for judgment and I guess there's two there's there's twofold first of all judgment is justice. Okay? But secondly judgment is meant to lead us to repentance right right that's the whole purpose of it right is it's not just for the sake of oh I want to do this it's meant to lead us to repentance whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth you know um and so that's what it's meant to do. So it depends on pen depends on the choice we make.

SPEAKER_04 34:00

Great last question um if someone in leadership is listening right now because there's somebody that is in a position of power may not be at the at that high level of what we talked about earlier um but they may be struggling with the double life right what would you say to that person to minister to them in this season that they find themselves in where they know they've got this this secret sin that they've been nurturing, they've been watering and they haven't dealt with you gotta make yourself accountable to somebody you gotta find somebody that is trustworthy enough that you can go to and say here is my struggle the scripture says that um confess your faults one to another so that you can be healed.

SPEAKER_06 34:55

Forgiven all you gotta do is ask God right but in order to be healed you need to trust somebody with your struggle and and that's that's where the the enemy gets us yeah you know and and darkness feeds the ability to continue to do yeah but but light it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be exposure to the whole world yeah you know and and that's not God's pattern either God's pattern is not okay you did this now I'm gonna expose it to the whole world no it's let's get this right and there God's preferable way is that nobody ever knows about your problems.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Right.

SPEAKER_06 35:35

Right God's preferable way is that you just get healthy in that area and so it's not a problem anymore. We got to trust somebody with it. That's good. And uh you know there are people out there that you can trust with it. There are there are I remember my spiritual dad told me one time he said and I know he means this he said there is nothing that you could ever tell me that will make me stop loving you. Nothing. And think about this if your if if Trip or Thiers came to you and told you something would you ever stop loving them? Absolutely not no way right no way and and there are relationships like that that exist in our world and and it doesn't mean you know the Bible says love covers a multitude of sins and so many people can get that twist to be like oh you're trying to hide something you're trying to do something no that's that's not really the issue. Yeah the issue is that the first action of love is always restoration. It's always to bring wholeness into somebody's life so that the problem is no longer a problem but that doesn't persist anymore.

SPEAKER_04 36:41

Good stuff. Good stuff. All right guys now we're going to transition to the next segment of our podcast where we uh get questions from you guys with this is our Ask Me Anything podcast.

SPEAKER_06 36:50

So we have our question here today and it goes a little something like this um what does this scandal reveal about the human heart not just their heart meaning the people who are in these files but our own heart the human heart is sinful at its core that no matter how good we may try to be that the fact of the matter is um our righteousnesses as filthy rags that if left to its own um I don't know what the right word is if left to its own devices that the human heart will always find its way to do wrong and to do evil. Yeah um if I told you today decide today you're never going to sin even though your intentions may be right eventually you'll you'll cave eventually you'll do something that misses the mark that dishonors God in some way shape or form. And that's why we needed a savior because we cannot save ourselves from our sin. We need, see, I I said this in Bible study the other night we like to use that slogan no perfect people allowed for church right so and we know what we mean by that and that's great right means no matter what you've done no matter what your background is you're always welcome here. But the truth of the matter is in heaven only perfect people are allowed.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:16

And so here's the conundrum well then how do I get to heaven? Well you can't do it on your own because none of us will ever be perfect because the human heart left to its own devices is evil. So what we have to do is we have to find our perfection in Christ when we give our life to Jesus Christ and receive him as Lord and Savior and the full payment for our sin, we become just as if we never sinned before our righteousness becomes his righteousness we become the right righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. In other words when God looks at us he doesn't see the imperfection anymore he sees Christ in us we become perfect and we're allowed into heaven good stuff.

SPEAKER_04 38:51

Good stuff good stuff all right now let's hear from our good AI friend who got saved recently clearly because he is on the role he's on the roll man let's let's just hear from Ralph every time we're here we go how do we reconcile the apparent delay of earthly justice with the certainty of divine justice without drifting into cynicism or apathy you know this is one of those questions that I think is is a real interesting one because I think that we don't realize that there are indeed eternal there is eternal justice Jesus made a statement he said it will be more bearable for you for for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you.

SPEAKER_06 40:00

Well that that indicates to me different levels of divine justice. Okay and and you know the old uh understanding of hell Dante's inferno by the way interestingly enough was a political satire yeah um where uh there were these I forget how many 11 or 13 different levels of of inferno in hell and depending upon where you were on the political spectrum you you went into each one of these different layers of eternal judgment. But I think the fact of the matter is that um there is indeed um uh justice in God's judgment and um it it's hard though to humanly put all of that into perspective yeah um especially when something horrific happens right um and the way that I've always uh tried to just come to grips with that is first of all to trust in God's sovereignty to trust in God's wisdom and and always to know that um none of us truly do want ultimate justice because if every one of us got ultimate justice I mean where does where does it end? Because ultimate justice would be judging even the thoughts and intents of your heart. So sometimes even if you never did anything bad if you thought it and it was evil there's a level of there's a level of judgment. Imagine if every evil thought you had every every wicked thought you had all of a sudden your spouse knew about it. So when your spouse is giving you the business and you're thinking to yourself and all of a sudden they could read your thought I mean and you got justice for that everything we we don't want justice for every single thing that we do. And so I think that we have to realize that we should be happy and glad that we are not in charge of delving out all justice because I don't think any of us would enjoy a world like that. I think we ought to be happy that there is mercy and justice.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:04

Now that's not to say people ought not to be be uh punished and have consequences because one of the things that the scripture says is that um the government the powers that be are there to punish evil.

SPEAKER_05 42:18

Right.

SPEAKER_06 42:18

Right that and and one of the reasons why we ought to surrender and submit to them is because they are there to punish evil. They are there as the the hand of the Lord because we do need rules and we do need boundaries in society in order to have a society that is livable.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Right.

SPEAKER_06 42:36

And so you know they are and whatever happens when somebody commits a crime or does something wrong um if justice is dueled out it it's a good thing for our society. I think the thing that we all struggled with is when it's not dueled out and when you know um if you have this or you're privy to that that you you know can get off with that and and you know somebody else can't and so on and so forth. And and I don't know exactly how that's all going to shake out at the end of time but but I do believe that God uh eternally is going to make sense of it all.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

Amen. Amen that's that's uh that's the hope that's our hope that's what we stand on that's what we believe. So uh this is another uh great podcast another great opportunity to kind of lean into um tough conversations you know um you know the world is becoming a more complex place by the game you know um you know we're gonna talk about AI next week you know and the intersection between you know think about what you just said the Bible talks about that if the time is not cut short that even the elect will be deceived.

SPEAKER_06 43:40

Yeah I could kind of see that already starting to happen can't you? Absolutely just in how in the way that people's just whole biblical center is being just morphed and crafted around cultural understandings and views and so on and so forth. And so you could see how the world is definitely coming to that place. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Stay prayed up, guys. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Listen, we're gonna get out of here, y'all. Um, make sure you like, share, and subscribe. Um, the Ask Me Anything podcast. We're doing some great things here. We believe that God is using this podcast to minister to people and to have a good time. You know, it's a nice, safe place to have a great time and learn a few things about uh help us.

SPEAKER_06 44:22

I think we're we we've we've gone over like 32,000 subscribers. So we're on the rise. So listen. We're on the rise. We're looking at 50,000. We want to get that's our that's our next goal. 50,000, help us.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

If we get to 50,000, Pastor Frank is going to uh don't don't you get some type of like um YouTube award?

SPEAKER_06 44:41

I think it's a good one. Maybe it's a hundred thousand. It's a hundred thousand. So we're way away from that. But let's get to 50,000 first.

SPEAKER_04 44:47

If we get to 50,000, Pastor Frank's gonna wear some special shoes uh and an outfit that I'll pick out for him to wear after he does his TRT. All right, we're gonna get out here. I'm Ronald Julius, Frank Santora. We'll see you next time when Ask Me Anything. Let's go.