Does The Bible Command Christians to Support Israel? - Season 3: Episode 9

Blurb: Does the Bible command Christians to support Israel? Who are the Palestinians? Is the conflict in Iran the end of the world? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Welcome into Live at Liberty. We are doing truth over trends right now. Let's people send in some topics, and we've got a this is this one's gonna take a while. It's you're gonna have to hang with it. So it's got multi multiple parts. The war in Iran. Does the Bible really call for America to support Israel? If you've seen the Tucker Carlson video where he's talking to Ted Cruz, there's been a lot of well, there's the Huckabee interview too.

SPEAKER_08 0:35

Oh bless. I missed that one. Yeah, because you know Huckabee's like ambassador to Israel. That's even more uh yeah. Uh-oh. Well I think it's more of the same, though. I was just saying. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 0:47

I think even without watching that, I think I know Yeah, it's all kind of really the same.

SPEAKER_08 0:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Yeah. So we're gonna talk about that. Who are the Palestinians? Is this the end of the world? And does it fulfill Bible prophecy? I feel like we need to. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

It's done. It's we've been doing that.

SPEAKER_06 1:07

We have like an excellent Spotify for this.

SPEAKER_08 1:10

Well, I was thinking like, does the CCLI license cover is the end of the world?

SPEAKER_05 1:15

It's a guy like whoa. What is it? Like intelligent thing in all of these different songs. Can we not make a Spotify development?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

This is quite the intro already.

SPEAKER_06 1:30

Welcome to Live Living.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

We're gonna talk about the war in the run as we know. You just have your energy. Uh no, I'm on medication for do it. This is for special.

SPEAKER_05 1:52

I love that.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

So Austin always has his awesome little coffee thing, right? And and for Austin, it's not as much about the mug.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

I'm a mug mod.

SPEAKER_08 2:04

Well, this is just because my other mugs were dirty. Okay, that's funny. This is not my preferred.

SPEAKER_05 2:10

So you care more about the mug.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

I like to get mugs from places that I go. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_08 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

So I brought this one because we're talking about the Middle East today, right? I'm a I'm a little bit invested in this topic. So, right, got an undergrad degree in biblical theology, got a master's degree in biblical theology, have had lunch in a Muslim mosque in Birmingham. They said you were the only pro we're not really Protestants, Babs. He said you're the only Protestant person to ever be. I wrote a blog article. It's called Lunch with Islam. So years ago in Birmingham, I did a ceremony series called Investigating Islam. They all came. Like the leadership of the mosque came every Wednesday night. I was doing this, and they invited us to lunch. And me and a guy named David Carmichael, we took them up on it, went into the mosque. Well, went with had lunch, went into the mosque, had a really fascinating discussion with this.

SPEAKER_09 3:02

That'd be interesting.

SPEAKER_04 3:03

Been to um a couple of different uh for invitations um to the Jewish synagogues to talk with the rabbis about what's going on in Israel and all that kind of stuff. I've had some fascinating conversations there. Have been to Cairo. Yeah. Have been to the largest Muslim mosque in Cairo, and I've been to Starbucks.

SPEAKER_05 3:21

Can we do like show notes and add those? I'd love to hear like read that blog.

SPEAKER_07 3:26

I wasn't expecting Birmingham to come out. He's like in Birmingham. I had lunch at the large uh mosque. I was thinking Alexandria or like somewhere over in like Syria. He's like Birmingham.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

But here's the interesting thing about this mug. You see, you know, you go to Starbucks and they always have those. I thought I can't remember what the series is called, but it's like like every city has a Starbucks mug, right? So when I was over there, we were there. This would have been 2018, maybe. But this whatever year it was, it was the year after the Arab Spring Revolution and all that kind of stuff. When I bought this mug in the States, it was worth like$200 and something dollars. Heck yeah. Yeah, because you couldn't get over there and get one. So I actually bought a couple of them. So if you ever get done, how you pay for your girls to go to school?

SPEAKER_06 4:13

Like you're just selling black market chiropas.

SPEAKER_08 4:16

I mean, obviously I haven't sold them because they're just really cool. I mean, speaking of the Iran War and gas prices, you might have to be thinking about that here sooner.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

I need to fill up my truck. Anybody want to buy this book, right? Yeah, limited edition.

SPEAKER_07 4:30

We are gonna talk about it. I know.

SPEAKER_05 4:33

I was just thinking, I was like, I love that you were in Cairo and you brought back a Starbucks. It's like when people look for the McDonald's. When you go overseas, it's like, really? You had all this access to great food and you found the McDonald's.

SPEAKER_08 4:43

That's the safest place to eat anywhere in the world is a McDonald's. Yeah, you can get like a swarm of.

SPEAKER_05 4:47

I say Mav did Burger King when we were in Rome. I was like, whatever, kid.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

I have been to the McDonald's in Moscow, the one that the first one they ever built that's got like like 50 cash register, but it did back in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

That's what y'all should do when you go to Romania. Just track down the McDonald's and take a group shot.

SPEAKER_04 5:02

Listen.

SPEAKER_05 5:03

And get a mug.

SPEAKER_08 5:03

I'm on a McDonald's kick right now. What? McDonald's?

SPEAKER_05 5:07

You're so like booty, and you're going to McDonald's?

SPEAKER_08 5:10

I know.

SPEAKER_05 5:11

It's and yes, that was judgment.

SPEAKER_08 5:13

Thank you. You're welcome. I appreciate it. I I receive. I okay. Here's the thing. Yeah, I need an explanation. When you're a kid, this is just the the arc of life here. Okay. But you're doomed to you're a kid, yeah. The golden arc. Oh, I love that. Okay. Uh anyway, thank you. I'm so sorry. You love McDonald's when you're a kid, and then like grew up, hated McDonald's. Now it's like, I don't know, it's just this weird full circle thing where I tried my wife's leftover Big Mac, like what she didn't eat the other night after we went and saw the Hoppers movie, which is uh a really good thing. Yeah, we're going Monday. It's good. Uh Return to Form from Pixar. It's funny. Okay. Anyway, um, and we got McDonald's after 11. And I'm always sick of going to McDonald's because there's like my kids always want it, and I'm like, there's nothing I can eat here but the fries. But I I like ate her Big Mac leftovers. I'm like, this is actually really good. I've always been so repulsed by the idea, but we had our discipleship greeting. I said you and Sunday, because Danny had it. On Sunday after church, and uh, you know, because I film part of the podcast after church on Sunday, and so Danny, I just sat in my card with him like, can you get me a Big Mac?

SPEAKER_06 6:24

Totally did. I mean, you I might eat one for lunch.

SPEAKER_07 6:26

I mean, you had a you had a 50-50 shot of either food poisoning or nostalgia, and luckily it was nostalgia. So that's so bad.

SPEAKER_08 6:34

I can't I can't justify it though. It is gross, but I'm just gonna go.

SPEAKER_04 6:37

So I remember having meals in the boxes when you actually got a little box, and then it was like 39 cent burger, 49 uh center. That's the tax now. That's not the case anymore. It's like a pyro mug. That's probably the last time I ate a McDonald's. I don't know that my daughters have ever eaten a McDonald's burger. They were chicken finger kids. Yeah. Yeah. That generation morphed into when I was a kid growing up, man, getting McDonald's was incredible. Big deal. Yeah. I'm kind of there now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:08

Another thing you and I have have in common.

SPEAKER_07 7:10

You've gone full circle, right? If they just had the ball pits back for you. Sorry, man.

SPEAKER_05 7:14

Could you imagine getting into one of those nowadays?

SPEAKER_04 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:18

Anyway, talk to us about the war. Speaking of getting into games, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Next segment. Hold that top. Oh my gracious man. We'll get lighter. Yeah, terrible.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Let's do some news and notes. Steven's gonna, Stephen Coigrin's gonna do our birthdays and anniversaries and our announcements. But uh let me end uh give some news and notes and tell a really cool story about Sunday. So uh some of the news and notes, congratulations, Jake Keener on passing his commercial commercial pilot license test.

SPEAKER_05 7:48

So cool. What achievement?

SPEAKER_07 7:50

He's been working hard for a long time on that.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

I told Jake, I, you know, and he's been flying a while, and I told him, Man, I love you. I I appreciate it. I'm not getting in one of them little planes with you. And it's it's nothing on him, it's more about the plane. Who okay? So who in here would fly a little plane? Not Jake. No. I see him. You do that.

SPEAKER_07 8:07

I mean, I'm I'm not asking for a ride or anything, but yeah, if he was like, hey, do you want to go have uh lunch at the largest mosque in Birmingham? I'll fly down there and it'll take you like 30 minutes and be like, let's go get a Big Mac, I guess. Or whatever. I mean, I'd wait. That's that's I'd have a sign welcome back.

SPEAKER_08 8:21

Trust my boy. I got you. Oh, I trust him.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

I just don't want to be in the air and I don't like small spaces. Mine is more about the plane size. It has nothing to do with his ability. It has everything to do with the size of the plane, not about that live.

SPEAKER_07 8:33

You're free to move it like you were in the air.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

I'm already stressed out. Like that is.

SPEAKER_08 8:36

You remember the little fly of planes at Lake Winnie that went upside the like super dangerous. I feel like that's what it would be like.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

That and that's the thing for me. I don't know if I'm as afraid of crashing in the ground. I just don't want to be sitting that close to a dude that long. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_05 8:52

I'm like, I've put off my MRI three times because the idea of getting into like the little thing, I can't do it. So but I've got a turn.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

This is awesome, man.

SPEAKER_08 9:02

That's my own mental illness. So if somebody offers you to ride on the back of their motorcycle, you decline pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 9:09

It's like Cody Malone is your opportunity.

SPEAKER_08 9:11

Like the number.

SPEAKER_07 9:14

I just pictured the back foot there.

SPEAKER_05 9:16

That is the I will rip you this suit if you do it. No. Cody Malone would totally get human.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

You talk about weird. There's a lot of guys here that you know that would probably be. Okay, whatever.

SPEAKER_05 9:31

If I can make that happen, is that you saying you'd do it?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

No.

SPEAKER_08 9:34

Okay, just that's that's me telling you I'd never do that. Be a great way to raise some money for like a mission trip. Is how much money would you pay to see? Ride a motorcycle by myself. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 9:44

Have you done that before? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:47

If Shannon was on the back of it, I'd be good with a different any other human. I'd just get off me.

SPEAKER_05 9:54

You can't, you can't.

SPEAKER_07 9:56

That's kind of why I don't want to do skydiving because you have to do it tandem the first two times, and I just don't want I just don't want somebody strapped to my back. That's a little weird. Oh, no.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

See?

SPEAKER_07 10:04

No.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

Okay, so we are crossing activities for the staff to do together for bonding.

SPEAKER_04 10:08

So Jake got his pilot's license.

SPEAKER_05 10:10

Congratulations, Jake.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Jumping out of an airplane, some dude talking to me, yeah, we're about to pull the no.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

No, talking like in your ear.

SPEAKER_06 10:16

I can jump out of Jake's plane.

SPEAKER_08 10:19

No.

unknown 10:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 10:20

I used to have vivid dreams of like being a paratrooper drafted in the army. My cousin didn't. It was like a recurring thing for a long time.

SPEAKER_07 10:27

Because you ate a rotten Big Mac one time.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

No, that was before I ate those.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

All right. I said all that to say this. Congratulations, Jake Keener. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 10:35

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

Yeah. There will be people flying with you. I'm probably not one of them until you get to the big jets. I'll get on there with you. All right. And we got a birth announcement, right?

SPEAKER_05 10:45

I keep pulling it up on my phone. If you see me looking away, um it is, we are super excited to welcome Miss Brooklyn Grace. She was born on March 1st at okay, this is kind of cool, at 1111. So she was born on the first at 1111. Um Jacobson family, congratulations on Miss Brooklyn Grace Jacobson.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

All right. We like them new little babies coming in. And then we got some uh new believers. This is really cool.

SPEAKER_06 11:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

So on Sunday we had baptisms 40 and 41, which is pretty amazing uh given where we are in the year. Uh Brandon and Lashonda Mitchell. And I told this story. I did not ask for permission. I told this story before they got baptized, and he did not come to me later and said, Hey, you can't tell.

SPEAKER_05 11:32

So I think because I don't know the story. I was downstairs, so I'm excited to hear.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

So um, you know, I think Laura uh teaches with Lashonda. I think that's the relationship. So Laura and Chandler invited them to church, and I can't remember if if they came a Sunday or two before this, but the first time I met them was at Deck the Halls. Okay of all the things for you to come to first, right? So if you don't know what Deck the Halls is, that's where we take a Wednesday night and we decorate the church for Christmas. So uh I remember standing on the stage and we're putting up some lights and I'm like meeting Brandon. I said, Hey man, what do you do?

SPEAKER_08 12:12

I remember when y'all were having this conversation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:14

He goes, I'm into logistics, transportation, like uh routing trucks and all that kind of stuff. About that time, uh Gabe Shady walks up and I said, Well, hey, this is Gabe, and he's big into that too. So I connected them, so they start talking. The next day, he lost his job. The next day, right? So here's a guy who's like, Man, I'm trying to get my life right, trying to live for the Lord. And and uh, and I I don't know the whole story of all this, but he just kind of has told me in the past. His story is one every time he really tries to live for the Lord, he just gets kicked in the teeth, right? So here you go. I'm gonna start going to church, and bam. So he starts coming to church, he has a wreck. You know, I mean, just it's been numerous things, right? So here we are first Sunday of March, a couple weeks ago. And they were at the prayer meeting, but we had the deacon ordination service, and so it was kind of compressed and couldn't bring them up. And but but uh so after it's over, everybody's going downstairs to get barbecue. So Laura and Chandler bring Lashonda and Brandon to me, and Laura said, she said, I told them whatever this church prays for in these prayer meetings, God does. That's why I brought them, right? And he needs a job. So I was like, okay, so let's get down here in the altar and let's pray about this. So we get in the altar and we pray, and in my prayer, I just felt the the boldness of faith to ask God, give them some news this week. Right? So Thursday, I'm on my way to uh practice with the CR band. He texts me and says, Hey, I just went for a job interview, got there like 3 30, left at 5 30. I start work tomorrow.

SPEAKER_06 13:57

Come on now.

SPEAKER_04 13:58

Yeah. So he got the job, he took that step of baptism this week, came to the prayer meeting. I mean, you just talk about just kind of God going, There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_05 14:09

Can I take your story one step further?

SPEAKER_04 14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:11

You know how we've been talking about the journals, y'all. Yes. I'm telling you, get in a group, okay, because Laura's in my group. Okay. We're going through John, and we just talked about the centurion and how he had faith in people to go before him and help him. And so because we talked about John and then we also talked about the comparing stories um in Matthew and in Luke about the son being healed, also. And so we talked about what does it look like in faith when you feel so bombarded when you have people go before you? Well, they had elders go before him, and then they had friends go. And so we were talking about that in our journal group about what does it look like when you have to link arms with people to when their faith is really being it's hard, it's hard, hard, hard. And you're being bombarded when you link up with other people and take them by faith into faith. And so I just think that's really cool that Laura and us, we just talked about that in our prayer thing. And then here she is linking up with her friends to go and just have prayer for that when they felt like I have nothing left, I am feeling so distraught. And she's like, Nope, I'm taking you where I know faith is existing. And so I just think that's cool that again, it's another full circle where guys community is just it's amazing. So that congratulations, Brandon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 15:31

I liked how you you had expectant, expectant prayer, expectant faith. Because when when she said last week on the podcast, hey, uh, I got some news. I'm not, I don't know if I'm not allowed to share or if I'm allowed to share or not, and you go, Oh, did did does it have to do with a bee?

SPEAKER_03 15:44

That's what I thought it was.

SPEAKER_07 15:46

I didn't have any idea what y'all are talking about, but you had prayed the other day, or you know, on Sunday, and then Tuesday, there was some news you're like, oh, I know God's working. Yeah, I was thinking, oh, he got a job. But he did on He did get a job, and that's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 15:58

And I'm hoping that next week I'll be able to follow up with what I was actually talking about because that's going down on Thursday. Going down on the first time. So see, prayer meetings working, journals, I mean community, and uh just I love it. I love it. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_08 16:11

I don't know what is. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

You know, we do um kind of a behind-the-scenes look here. We do two staff meetings a week. So we have a bigger one on Tuesday where we just kind of here's what's coming up. This that's really kind of the planning detail kind of a meeting. And then we do a meeting on Thursday that lasts no more than 30 minutes, and it's really just asking about five questions that we answer for the weekend. Um, but we had our our staff meeting on Thursday, and we were sitting there talking just about the baptisms and just about what's happening in the church, the 90-day tithing challenge is how the Lord's answering some things in that. Just seeing some real life change taking place. And, you know, I said in there that that God has really moved me as a pastor to lead more from a place of prayer instead of programming. And this has been a shift over the last several years in our church. And I mentioned in there, you know, there's so many things that we you mentioned that there's so many things going on right now that we prayed for like a year or two ago and had been just asking God to do. And now it's like really coming to fruit. And I mentioned in that it feels like right now there's really nothing going on in our church that you can explain any other way than God answering prayer.

SPEAKER_09 17:27

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 17:28

I had a pastor, um, I spoke at the pastor's conference a couple weeks ago, and he said, Hey man, I want to have lunch with you. And I, if you can just kind of put your strategy down on paper, and I said, I'm prayer. I was like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 17:41

Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Yeah, I was like, I d I can maybe put a couple things on it, but I'm I and I told him, I said, I don't I'm not trying to sound trite, but I'm telling you for real. We have just literally been praying and just doing what God tells us to do next. That's really just kind of it. So I think the the Brandon Lashonda story is another just golly. I mean, I I think there's there's a lot of reasons that per people go to church. I like the preaching, I like the music, I like the program, I like the student ministry, I like children's ministry. I mean, all those things have their place, I guess. But I'm gonna tell you, man, when you come to a prayer meeting and you prayed and and it just God gave you a job, that's one of those those mileposts of faith that goes into your life like nothing else does. Yeah. So anyway.

SPEAKER_07 18:28

You just said that. Well, you just sparked, you know, we we prayed for my brother for a long time. And just to to see his progress. Speaking of job, he uh he got a um well, he's he's been working at a temp uh temp service right now and making decent money and likes us usually works with and stuff like that. But um we'll have to talk one day about the the full circle job that he just secured with somebody that he met through Scott and how that worked out, and it just happens to be the kind of work that he was familiar with and said that he wanted to do before he even was looking for it. And you just it's one of those things, like you said, there there's no way to explain all the coincidences and all the all the pieces that fell into place other than just prayer and God just being awesome.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

Y'all think about this. Think about Benjamin that we mentioned last week. So we baptized Benjamin, he started a new job on Monday. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 19:18

He prayed a pretty bold prayer for me one time, but that's probably an all different podcast. Not touching. Um we'll be right back. Hey, you just did what the Lord told you to do.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

I I yes, I did, and uh maybe we'll reserve that podcast for another day, but you're sitting right there because of that prayer. And it was it was really just God, hey, this is what I'm gonna do, and pray it over him. And he did. So season five season four. There you are. Next season. All right. Well, let's kick it over to Stephen Cochran. We've got some announcements, some birthdays, anniversaries, some bowling scores to share with you, all the different things going on at Liberty. So uh here we go, Stephen Cochran. Tell us what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Hi, my name is Stephen Cochran, and I'll be doing your announcements this morning. Podcasts that we're doing for this month are suggested trends. So while we're in the Colossians Truth over Trends sermon series, we want you to suggest a topic or a trend or a question, anything that you might be thinking about, even conspiracy theories that you would like to see covered on the Live at Liberty podcast. We're still taking those suggestions. Our social Sunday for our life groups is gonna be coming up on Sunday, March the 22nd. So that's gonna be a great time to come in. If you're not part of a life group, you get plugged into one, and you get breakfast too, so it works out great for everybody involved. Our Easter Jam Run and Tell It Family Experience is gonna be Sunday, March the 29th, starting at 5 p.m. So keep that in mind. And we're still in the middle of our 90-day tithing challenge, and you've responded great to this little challenge, and we're what the Lord is really providing and really working in our church through this challenge. So I pray that you'll just keep that up. Our CR Golf Tournament. If you're interested in playing that, there's a link on the app to go in and register for that. You're doing four-man teams. It's gonna be held on April the 25th with a rain date of May the 2nd. So that's the two dates that they've set aside for it. April the 25th is gonna be the official date for the tournament. Don't forget our discipleship journals are here as well. So if you'd like to have one of those, the six by nine journal is fifteen dollars and the eight by ten is twenty dollars. So Liberty is sending a team to Arad Romania. That's gonna be on July the 10th. And they're gonna be helping with a VBS project for the church. It's gonna be a church of about 120 people. There's also an opportunity for some light construction projects if they're if we have the manpower. And if if you're interested, please join the Romania Tribune. 26 group on the Liberty app. The cost is going to be between$2,300 and$2,700 per person. And our spring car show will help offset some of the costs, but each person will be responsible for raising the needed funds. For our students, this coming up weekend is going to be Disciple Now. So that's going to start on Friday night, March the 13th through Sunday, March the 15th. If uh need any more information on that, see Levi or reach out to him and he'll answer any questions that you have about that. As far as a Liberty Sports update and bowling, Liberty One and Two had a rough week, but both teams are going one and three. Liberty One stands at four and four for the quarter, and Liberty Two is at two and six. So Mike Showtime Sparks continues to dominate the lanes with a high score of 212 and a 530 series. And Father Abraham led team two with a 199. Moving on to our birthdays and anniversaries. There's no anniversaries this week, but our birthdays, we've got on the 11th, we have Miss Uh we have Maggie James and Berdale Pritchett on March the 12th for this week. Grant Edwards will be having a birthday. March the 13th is Riley Chavez. March the 14th is Alan Pippen. So March 15th, we've got several on that day. Shane Levain, Derek Lumpkin, Floyd Pope, Harris Williams, and Bryson Williams. So wish all of you a happy birthday as you go throughout this week. Pray that you'll just the Lord will be blessing you and keep you safe for another year.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

Well, hey, welcome back. We've got a pretty big topic here for you. So I'm going to give you a um content warning, not in a explicit content warning, but in long content warning. Y'all, look, there is no way to really understand what we're about to talk about by watching a 30-second video. It involves a lot of people. It involves a massive history. It involves a lot of the Bible. So it's just really, you can't. So hang with it. The good news is now on the podcast, and I know you watch on video, but we can't we've got it on uh iTunes. It's a Spotify now, too. Okay. Spotify. So I that's the way I do podcasts. Kind of listen down the road. So here we go. Um, Christian Zionism, the war in Iran. Do we support Israel politically? Does the Bible tell us to support Israel politically? How does all this fit into prophecies? Kind of the the couching of the question. And so this is one of the most prominent issues right now that I see that fits into the category that Paul gave Colossians, diluting the plausible arguments that are diluting the people of God. This one very much um fits into that. And one of the reasons that this becomes a plausible argument that deludes the people of God is because I think a lot of our people are watching what people say is in the Bible instead of taking the time themselves to read what is actually in the Bible. And here when I say read the Bible, I'm not talking about reading one verse. This is what we're about to talk about is what is called the meta-narrative of scripture. This is the one story that brings the 66 books together. This goes from cover to cover. This is not three verses in Ezekiel or a prophecy in Isaiah. This is big stuff. And so it takes a lot of time to cover it. The other one that I would encourage you about is the people in your life that you invite to be experts. And I think a lot of people invite, they assume people that are influential on videos are experts. Um I think Tucker Carlson is extremely invested in politics. I think he is extremely knowledgeable about history. I think he has knowledge of the Bible, but I think you should also listen to a a person, a pastor who has studied these things their entire life, seen a lot of history unfold over 52 years, um, have been to the place.

SPEAKER_08 26:18

I was I was gonna say, uh, yeah, if if there's an advertisement uh where he's like trying to sell his own personal brand of nicotine pouches in the middle of uh like talking about these like really uh deep and and complex topics, probably not the first place I would go to form my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:38

Yeah. And I think you know, the other side of that, one of the things that just, and this is kind of an offshoot, one of the things I see that Tucker Carlson does in watching his videos is it's always semantics. He just he picks people's words so much. And I think sometimes we have to remember these are influencers, and the way you get money is to get clicks. They're not really I think they're more invested in being paid than they are in maybe informing you of things. Hey, by the way, we're not getting paid for this, right? So are you waiting are you are you talking about all the major news networks? Or are you talking about all of it, man? So golly. So, you know, it really, man, uh I I think you need to be listening to to people who care about you, right? Who who want the best for you. For some reason, Siri just picked up that slay on words.

SPEAKER_05 27:32

It's like they're trying to get you to join their clique.

SPEAKER_07 27:33

Yeah, or click.

SPEAKER_05 27:34

So whose clique are you in? Like, are you it's funny?

SPEAKER_07 27:37

Well, I just I just we just talked about that, not uh well, we talk about it all the time with uh with the students about not listening to to TikTok theologians and people trying to get clicks because they don't they don't know you.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. And hey, I'm gonna tell you, I you cannot explain a sermon in 30 seconds. No, but you can't have a bumper sticker that explains the meaning of life and it be accurate and yeah, I think that's what a lot of people are trying to do now, even with preaching. Let's just drop our truth bombs. Uh and man, I would I would just encourage people. Like, sometimes people are like, oh, that's so good. Um just ask a really simple question. What does it actually mean? And and how does it fit in the Bible? And you'll probably find it doesn't very much. All right, so let's get to the topic at hand. So let's talk about first of all, let's kind of orient ourselves geographically, the biblical world. When it comes to the Bible, there's no mention of America. There's no Bible verse about Mexico, right? There's there's no no South America, there's no Australia, there's no China, there's no Japan. So not to say that no more Cairo. There is uh Egypt. But there is no there there's it's not to say the Bible, you know, it's not to say the Bible's ignorant that those places exist, but that's not the by the Bible's concern, is those geographical places. The biblical world, if you kind of look in a map, you're going from North Africa, which is basically Egypt and Ethiopia, which in the Bible is called put, which I think is a super cool name. I think Ethiopia ought to go back to put. I just think that's cool. Solid syllables. It's a lot easier to spell, right? So if you so you go Egypt and Ethiopia in northern Africa, if you go across the Mediterranean to Europe, which is really Rome on the boot of Italy, there is kind of the the border of that. The Roman Empire, right? The ancient Roman Empire, when you work your way east, then it becomes more increasingly significant. Asia Minor, which is now modern day Turkey, a lot of the travels of Rome, a lot of the epistles are written to churches that would be in Asia Minor, which is modern day Turkey. Um then you keep going east, you get into the Middle East, the northern part of the Middle East is Syria and Lebanon, the southern part, which the Bible calls the negative, and also Sinai, which would be like modern day Jordan, modern day Saudi Arabia, and then you go further east, you then you get into kind of the Mesopotamian world, right? That when you were in school, they called that the Fertile Crescent, right? You should know that one. The dawn of civilization.

SPEAKER_08 30:22

You're giving me an anxiety attack right now. I feel like I'm in the ninth grade.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

Quiz papers, right? Yeah, this a lot of this is gonna feel that way. I'm sorry, but there's no other way to uh to cover it. I've healed. Yeah, there you go. So when you work your way east, you have um Iraq, and then you have uh, which is where Babylon, the ancient city of Babylon, was located. That's where Nebuchadnezzar was from. Um so and then that's also where Abraham came from, Ur the Chaldeans, right? That's that's uh modern day uh Iraq right there. So you then you have um Abraham travels into Canaan, which is is bigger than the borders of Israel. So that would be all kind of that area that's right around Israel right there. So and then when you work your way further east, you have uh Iran, Iran, however you pronounce that, which is ancient Persia. It's Persia, it's turn on them. So actually, um Iran was not called Iran until 1935, it was called Persia until 1935. It's a long time to be Persia. Yeah, it was Persia for a while, like centuries, right? So if you have ever seen um the movie 300, which is one of my favorite movies, where Xerxes comes down and they uh they fight, was it the Battle of Thermopylae, which I love Greek history and all that kind of stuff. Xerxes was the Persian king.

SPEAKER_05 31:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 31:46

The book of Esther.

SPEAKER_05 31:48

I say Esther.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

Yeah, there you go. Shout out high school guys in our life group class last two weeks. I hope I hope you're I hope you're seeing the connections. Okay, went into some Bible trivia right there. All right, so here we go. And then as far as the Bible is concerned, whenever the Bible talks about northwest, uh north, south, east, or west, Jerusalem is the center of the world. So Israel is the center of the biblical world, not America. Israel. Everybody needs to get that in mind. Can you say that again? Not America, not America, right? The the center of the biblical world is Israel. That is the Bible's primary concern, not only in geography, but also in the story. Not America, Israel. All right. So now let's talk about the genealogy. As we know in the book of Genesis, you have all these families that kind of begin to populate the earth. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, right? So Abraham is called to begin a nation of people in Canaan. So he makes his journey over there. Three really important scriptures that have the covenants God made to Abraham.

SPEAKER_05 32:56

Go talk to your doc kids. They know him and they're studying the genealogy of Jesus right now. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Even a better reason to come to liberty, right? So you got Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 14. If you're watching these videos on this subject and you don't read Genesis 12, 15, and 17, shame on you, right? You gotta read that. So Abraham has two sons. One, he has Ishmael through Hagar. We remember the story there. He knew that God's supposed to give him a son, but he's in his old age, and so he does what probably all of his uncles and his granddad and they used to do in Ear of the Chaldeans. We'll just take the handmaid and the handmaid will have a child, right? So he goes back into default mode. He has Ishmael, who he loves, right? And who, you know, that she they kind of get cast out, which I think is pretty amazing that Hagar goes out there and prays because she's been forgotten. God answers her.

SPEAKER_07 33:53

And Lord Caesar, he said.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Yeah. And so the Lord kind of tells her, hey, Ishmael will have a future, right? He will be a the people who come from him will be a wild donkey of a man, right? And that kind of, and I'm gonna talk about this in a moment. You can't really trace all the the Arab states and peoples in the Middle East back to to Ishmael and Esau, but I think the biblical prophecy and influence of of those things is there. So the conflict uh kind of goes into that. So um, so anyway, you have Ishmael uh through Hagar. Um Ishmael influences a lot of the Arabic nations. That would be the Jordanians, that would be the Arabs, that would be the Saudis, that would be the Arabs in Iraq and Iran. Um, and again, there's gotta there's a lot of ethnic missing mixing, so I'm not telling you it's a direct tracing, but there's a lot of influences there. And then you have Isaac through Sarah, uh, who carries the promise of the Messiah and the nation, right? So then the story develops, and Isaac has twins, Esau and Jacob. So Esau becomes the Edomites, the Jordanians. Um they have an influence in the Joshua story, but they're kind of like Ishmael, in that they just become more of the ethnic soup that is the Middle East. And again, we'll talk about more of that in a moment. Jacob is renamed Israel, and he has 12 sons. Those 12 sons, there's a little bit of a caveat um in there with Levi, who gets no land. Sorry. Sorry, Bob.

SPEAKER_07 35:32

He got to bring some priests into it. It's all right.

SPEAKER_05 35:35

Round two, you can't.

SPEAKER_07 35:36

He's a pretty wild dude, yeah. There's some crazy stories.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

Just be about the ministry, man. You get no land. Sorry, bro. Right. So and then Joseph is is segmented into two different tribes. But but uh basically, Jacob has 12 sons. These become the 12 tribes of Israel. And you've got to understand from cover to cover, the Bible is concerned with how God will fulfill his promises to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and later to David. Right? That is the biblical story of how it all holds together. Now, let's talk about the modern map. Let's take all that and bring it into modern day when you're watching the news and all the things that are going on. The Middle East is less driven by lineage and it's more driven by ideology. Some very strong ideologies. Um, Islam, Judaism, and a lot of Christian interests. Now, let's say this. Even within Islam, it's kind of like I guess people are people, no matter what religion you are. 100%. There are independent Baptists, there are Southern Baptists, there are Northern Baptists, there are Calvinistic Baptists, there are uh not as Calvinistic Baptists, there are many in Baptists. There are Bapticostals.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

There are free will Baptists, there are Bapticostals, yeah. They're tambourine rings.

SPEAKER_04 36:58

You know, no judgment. In Protestantism. Nothing wrong with a little flag every now and then. How many different Protestant things? You know what I'm saying? Even within Islam, there's a lot of different segments and a lot of the conflicts that you see, even in, especially like if you go back to um Iraq, there were different ideologies within Islam that were vying for control of that country. You're gonna see that happen in Iran, uh, even now. So um, you have a lot of strong ideology there. Now, geopolitics, it's about oil. There's a lot of energy for the world in natural gas and oil that is in that part of the world. And here's the other interesting thing going back to ancient times. Um, let's bring this into Murray County terms.

SPEAKER_08 37:49

Oh, bless it. Well, I was fixing to say if you're gonna say oil around here, you gotta say oil.

SPEAKER_04 37:54

Oil is oil, right? Isn't it? But talking about the ancient world, you know, everybody in Murray County, right down the road here, we have this place called Central, right? That's where 225 and Highway 76 intersect, and then a little bit further down, you have alternate 52 that intersects 225. It's like the middle of Murray County is in this little place down here called Central. Everybody has to go through it.

SPEAKER_06 38:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 38:19

The Middle East is to or Israel and all of these things is to the Middle East what central is to Murray East. So many people say. That's what he's talking about. If you go back to the movement of all the empires, if you go back to the ancient world conflicts, it always walks through the Middle East, through the corridor of Israel. I mean, it it that Middle East brings together Asia, Europe, and Africa, right? It it is a it is the central part of the world.

SPEAKER_07 39:01

It's almost like the biblical narrative is centralized on this place that's really uh that is the center of the world.

SPEAKER_04 39:08

Wow. There you go. Yeah, it's a pretty important place. Yeah. For your consideration. All right. So here's the other thing. Historically, this has been a very violent place. Yeah. A lot of conquering, a lot of movements, all those sorts of things. So when you trace the movements of the peoples, the history of the nations, the ancestries, and you're trying to keep score through the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Islamic caliphates, the Crusades, and the Ottoman Empire.

SPEAKER_05 39:40

So the Old Testament.

unknown 39:41

Okay, correct.

SPEAKER_04 39:42

No, that's all the way up through modern days. That's all the way the Ottoman Empire goes all the way into the early 1900s, right? I mean, so we're talking about millennia of time. Lots of movements of people. And here's the most interesting thing about this entire thing. In all of that, there has been one identity of a people that has remained, that has remained having an identity in all the movements of the nations. That's the Jews. That's and I heard someone say one time, one of the one of the proofs that they they felt like one of the most abundant proofs of the Bible is true is the preservation of the Jews and the existence of the nation of Israel. And if you really just think about how all the nations have been absorbed and lost, even go back as strong as the Roman Empire was.

SPEAKER_08 40:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:31

It it didn't it didn't endure time.

SPEAKER_07 40:34

Dude, I just found out that Iran was Persia up until like a couple years ago, like just now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:39

What's even cool too is like we've been talking um with the kids about how strong that tradition is because many of these people wouldn't have been able to write. They wouldn't have been able to, it's all through word of mouth, it's all through tradition, it's all through passing down what meant so much to them and preserving that. And I just think that's so cool because I could tell you a story and then you tell Levi, and it's like you miss stuff or whatever. And I just think that God is so great that He is able to see His people, but also keep that story alive and in truth. Um kind of like what he likes to call himself and John going through the truth. But um but I just think that's remarkable that you have so many people who would not have had access to the Bible or to uh the internet or any of these things. And yet that story, that tapestry is one thread. It is consistent. Um it's just it's really neat.

SPEAKER_08 41:30

Yeah, and I think this is a great moment to kind of jump on like one of the really hot uh topics of like around this conversation, which like if you have watched the Tucker Carlson thing, um, there there's like uh what what was the original interview that he did? Not the Huckabee one, but the other thing is Ted Cruz where they argued back and forth and he tried to bait him into you know this and that. But like for instance, Tucker is always on this thing about well, what does it mean that they have a r that Israel has a right to exist? Does everybody else not have a right to exist? And just picking apart the definitions and and just I I think the motive is not super pure there. It's it's obviously to cause controversy, right? Maybe sell some nicotine pouches, but like uh or both. But I I think what a lot of people don't see on sort of either sides of the argument when their purpose is to argue about this. Um and and I think a lot of people do just want to understand, which is hopefully why people are watching this podcast right now, is um there there is a spiritual and biblical precedent to the existence of Israel. And I think that's what like right to exist aside. I mean, we we tend to think about things like that through through like human means and and modern nations and how how and why they came to be and things like that. But when you peel all that away, it's like God has an enduring purpose and plan for Israel.

SPEAKER_05 43:00

I mean, don't you think like then our opinions are flawed if we're constantly getting new information and we can change based off of that new information? So it's okay. So you're changing your new research, you're getting new information we just learned about Persia. I mean, constantly, so it's being flawed in a sense. But then what we're coming back to is the Bible's consistent. There is a consistency here with that foundation. So why is our rhythm not, well, what does the Bible say about this? Why is our rhythm, well, let me Google it or AI or get on TikTok and see what they say? So I'm just really interested in seeing, because even me as just another person researching and asking questions, how do we help our rhythm change from biblical truth and biblical worldview and helping to not just go with what's easy? Yeah. Does that make sense? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 43:50

And and I think a lot of people ignore history. So let's go back to that point I just made, man. Israel exists despite having antagonistic neighbors all the way around them. I I think when the especially when we're about to get into this, the war in Gaza, everybody was talking about genocide. There's been no nation on earth, going back to even biblical stories, that has had more attempted genocide and persecution to eradicate those people than the Jews. They have been scattered around the world. They have been persecuted like no other, yet they continue to exist knowing their history, knowing their lineage, um, all those different things. And man, so talking about Egypt, right? When you go into the the uh Egypt Museum, so it's got like King Tuts mask and all that different stuff, there is a statue of Ramses that they say was it that stood in his palace or whatever, and you're thinking, dude, that thing had frogs on it when the plague was going on.

SPEAKER_05 44:52

He's talking about Moses because he's an Exodus.

SPEAKER_04 44:55

And when you're standing there and you're looking at that and going, if that truly was, if that's a statue Ramses had, and man, this is like happening that went through the plagues, and then you look at America and you're like, well, hey, we're turning 250.

unknown 45:09

Right?

SPEAKER_04 45:09

Yeah. I've been to Colonial Williams. Man, the things in that part of the world are old. I mean, really, really old. So yeah, so let's let's keep perspective here. All right, so let now let's ask a question: who are the Palestinians? And this is where it gets a little bit complicated. So the Palestinians genetically um share characteristics with populations of Europe, Central Asia, um, go back to the Hellenistic uh period, the Romans, the Crusaders. Um, the Palestinians have they are cousins with almost every group in the Middle East, with African populations. Um, and here's what's really interesting about the Palestinians, they even have genetic links to the Jews. Right? So Well, if it's all right there and go forth and multiply, I mean the crossroads of the world, you know, like from Africa and Europe and Asia and I think. Yeah, if you read, I mean, let's go back to the Good Samaritan story. We know that there is that those half, for lack of a better term, those half-breed populations that there was a very much antagonism against that, which is what makes the the um that story so remarkable in the world.

SPEAKER_05 46:24

The woman at the Well Samaritan going through.

SPEAKER_04 46:26

So man, I I said all that to just emphasize that part of the world. We talk about America as a melting pot. The Middle East is very much a melting pot of centuries of people movements and all these sorts of things. So genetically, the Palestinians are kind of a mixed bag of nations. In biblical times, that place was called Philistia. Does that ring a bell? Yeah, the Philistines, right? Now, the Palestinians are not, you it it's hard, you can't link them back to the Philistines. But it's interesting how much of that there's the sea coastal people that are a thorn in the side of Israel, and there's that that just this goes back to the Ishmael, Edomite, Esau kind of a thing, always that antagonism that God said was going to be there. So under Hadrian, um, it was Hadrian is actually the one that brought the Latin name from Philistia and called it Palestine. So that's that's not an ancient development that that area is called Palestine. And then it kind of lost that title, and the British brought it back in 1917. Okay. So the modern Palestinians, and let me say this: we always talk about who has a right to the land. The modern Palestinians are not indigenous to that land. It's it's a lot of sea people, a lot of people who came in to raid Israel uh through 1800 to 1200 BC and settled there, um, and those kind of things. So culturally, the Palestinians have taken on the identity of whoever occupied the land at the time. Um, an interesting note when Muslim armies entered Palestine in 643 AD, the most prominent ideology was Christianity.

SPEAKER_07 48:26

Really interesting. So I my my degree is in foreign language and literature, right? So I thought I was gonna be a Spanish teacher before God had his sense of humor with my life path. But even studying, you know, Spain, you study, you know, history and art and movies and all that stuff. Um, and it's crazy to see it's you know, it's right across the way from uh North Africa and the the Reynos Catholicos, the the Catholic kings and the the Moors. And then you say it again. You you can say anything in Spanish and make it sound like cool and romantic. I would believe you. Um but uh running joke, Astley and later is funny. Um I'm not romantic at all, but sometimes Spanish anyway. Um Catholic kings. Yeah, so it it's it's interesting to see the the history even of Spain, which you think you know, Spanish very much um one kind of culture, uh, but it's not, man. There were there were there were have been wars, and so they the the Moors came across from North Africa and took almost all the way up to the top of Spain, and so it was all taken over, and a lot of Islam and caliphates and things like that, and had there were battles in the crusades and stuff like that. Uh, and even in southern Spain now, there's there's so much of that that culture, architecture, and everything. Whoever was in charge, that's what everything was like. And so I just just tying all that together is crazy.

SPEAKER_04 49:45

And he and here's where we've kind of gotten into this revisionism that makes intellectually what you see in the videos dishonest. Let's go to the crusades. There's a lot of critical things about the crusades, and there needs to be. There, that was not a good motive, and and I don't think the crusades was the will of God, right? Um, but if you go back and you study the history of the crusades and also of the Islamic movements of taking over that area, you may not like that history, but you can't ignore it. Exactly. It influences that it it shapes the story, right, wrong, or indifferent, what's going on. And I think now we've got this mentality of if it was racist, if it was uh if it was genocide, if it was not a history I agree with, I'm not even going to acknowledge it. And that's not intellectual at all.

SPEAKER_05 50:34

They're so used to hitting the delete button and it disappears.

SPEAKER_07 50:37

Well, if you if you hear from a you know 23-year-old TikToker, it's gotta I mean you can it's gotta be true, I mean, and accurate.

SPEAKER_04 50:43

Slavery is horrible in the history of America, but it's part of the history of America.

SPEAKER_08 50:48

And that's why so many people just take the stupid angle of like, well, slavery was in the Bible, so the Bible must condone this. It's like not the same. The Bible is giving an honest account and a picture of the time.

SPEAKER_07 51:01

We talked to Zoe about descriptive Bible passages and prescriptive Bible passages when it talks about taking extra wives. That's a description of something that happened, not a prescription of what you should do.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

Just because let's kind of kick back to this, right? I mean, we could go all day on this kind of stuff. So when the Muslim armies entered Palestine in 643, there was a very diverse society, predominantly Christian, with a lot of Jewish population in that area. The next 100 years significantly shaped that region under the Muslim caliphates, Arabic dominance. The Dome of the Rock that is now on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was finished in 691 AD. Been there. Oh, that there you go. Cool. Ding. Did you get a cup?

SPEAKER_08 51:45

I did not get a cup, but I took a rock. Is there delete?

SPEAKER_03 51:51

Delete.

SPEAKER_08 51:52

I made it through security, so it's okay. I don't know what the strategic limitations is on this. It was very difficult. I was like, how can I get this I'm I'm trying not to make a chocolate steel?

SPEAKER_05 52:06

That's when you have to pay attention to it.

SPEAKER_08 52:10

It's and it's in the cabinet with my coffee stuff.

SPEAKER_04 52:13

So then you had a solidifying of Islamic influence under the Ottoman Empire that goes from 1299 until 1922. That's like centuries.

SPEAKER_05 52:24

My grandma, like we're not talking a long time ago. We're talking you knew people in 1922.

SPEAKER_04 52:29

And as we are moving to create a state of Israel in the 1940s, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_08 52:36

47.

SPEAKER_04 52:37

Yeah. Yeah. Like you're, you know, post-World War II, you're trying to I think it was official in 48. There you go. All right. So in the 1930s, kind of as a movement toward that, it's Great Britain who solidified the national identity of the Palestine, the Palestinians. So you have this melting pot of people. We're going to call them Palestinians. And that's kind of where we have the identity and the lingo that we have today was formed in the 1930s. All right. So when you're talking about the Palestinians, you're not talking about an ethnic or a national identity in the same way that you would the Chinese or the English or Hispanics or Africans. This is not like saying Egyptians or Americans or Israelites, right? This is a people who've always had a cultural identity in whoever was conquering the land in the time. Their whole history, they've been settling, been absorbed, been bringing in new people. But here's the key. Throughout their history, especially modern history, they've always been isolated. We're going to keep you right here. And that's that's what I want to kind of get into right here. So as people kind of investigate, here's three questions I would encourage you to do some history lesson on. How is the government of Palestine organized? I don't I'm just gonna throw this so we don't have to talk about this right now. Just just research it. How what's the government? Like, so we are a uh democratic republic uh republic. You have monarchies, you have what what what is Palestine? I just encourage people to look that up. Who's the ruler? When's the last time you heard him give a speech? Well, when's the last time he's on the world stage, right? Who who rules Palestine, right? And what is their chief export or economic engine? Like that's these are questions for national identity. When you start to investigate that, you're gonna find some really interesting things. Here's something so let's go into that last one right there. What's their chief export or economic engine? And this is what's interesting. I learned this, what I'm about to share with you, in a Jewish synagogue. All right, so here you go. The chief buyer of Palestinian goods is Israel. 85% of the exports of Palestine go to Israel. Before the October the 7th war in two in 2023, as many as 200,000 Palestinians worked in Israel. Now those permits were revoked, obviously, because of the war, right? Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Israel has shipped 200 million tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza since May of 2025, which is just months ago. 10,000 aid trucks have entered into Gaza with approximately 80% carrying food, 5,000 tons of baby food, more than 2,500 tons of medical supply, airdrops by 12 countries have delivered more than 2,300 food packages and distributed to serve over 2.2 million people weekly food distribution in Gaza, in Palestine, right? A lot of you don't see that on the news. Now, here's let's get into the rulers. So you've had the PLO, which is called the Palestinian Liberation Organization. You've had the Palestinian Authority, now you have Hamas who hasn't had an election in 15 years. Okay. So it's an authoritarian regime that manipulates aid that runs on the foreign aid of nations. The chief contributor to Hamas, Iran. Right? So that's that's how they they do this. Now, here's what a lot of the things you don't see on the news. Hamas takes a lot of the humanitarian aid and the infrastructure stuff and use it for terroristic activity, building tunnels, trying to tunnel into Israel. Um they use they will take water pipes and sewer pipes and use it for missiles. Um they'll cut off the water to parts of the city because they need that material in order to make more weapons. So Hamas will use ambulances to shield the transportation of terrorists. Um they use the population as human shields. This is why you're seeing the videos on TikTok. They're going like Israel's trying to is enacting genocide, they're bombing a hospital, they're bombing a school. The reason for that is it's it's almost impossible to strike their military and not hit near a humanitarian aid place because they shield the terrorists inside the schools. Yeah, they they inside the schools, behind the people. And and here's the thing they want that publicity of look at all these innocent people that you can. Yeah, there you go. So how did how did all this start? It's been starting going on for centuries, but what's the the most recent conflict? October the 7th, 2023, Hamas sent terrorists into Israel to attack festivals, to sack small border villages, and capture people. 1,200 people were killed that day. That's the most people killed as a persecution against Israel since the Holocaust in a single day.

SPEAKER_07 58:12

Not to say go watch videos and stuff like that, but there are crazy videos of like the music festival where people are like trooping in the house.

SPEAKER_04 58:21

Taking women, uh, just it's horrible. 251 people are taken hostage. Um, there is mounds of evidence. Go beyond the TikTok videos. There's mounds of evidence that Hamas will use the facilities designated for the UN to shield terrorism, to cash weapons. They do the same kind of thing in schools. And so there's very much a propaganda campaign that you've got to kind of cut through and and at least, hey, I just encourage me, see the other side.

SPEAKER_08 58:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:51

At least hear the argument from the other side.

SPEAKER_08 58:52

Well, and think about just the other side's position, too. I mean, like you you are fighting against someone that has no regard for life, no regard for morality or anything. And so that that makes a very difficult playing field when you yourself are are trying to preserve life and and trying to tactfully go about dismantling this horrible organization that just doesn't care whether even they themselves live or die for their own cause.

SPEAKER_04 59:19

Ask this question why don't the Palestinians just move to Egypt? Why don't they just move to Jordan? Why don't they just move to Lebanon? Here's the reason. They won't let them. And I talked about being isolated. Now I'm about to say something, and here's where you got to parse the statement of what I'm about to say. Let me build on a metaphor. So I went to seminary in New Orleans, right? We've all been to cities that have large homeless populations, right? Even Dalton, Georgia has a pretty large homeless population. Here's what's interesting that I see happening with homeless populations. Everybody just endures them until somebody needs them politically for leverage. Then all of a sudden, we get concerned about the homeless and what we're going to do for the homeless and around election seasons and all this kind of stuff. You see that, especially in these major cities. Well, what about the homeless? And we're going to do this for the homeless and all this kind of stuff. I see the Palestinians on the geopolitical stage treated very much like the homeless are treated in major cities in America. I'm not saying they're homeless. I'm saying that many times the Palestinians are used as political leverage. Nobody cares about them until they want to care about them to achieve another end. Buzzwords to get people to move how you want to do that.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:40

And then you got universities in in America holding protests and chanting things they don't even understand.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:47

Absolutely. There you go. All right. So now let's get into why why do we support Israel? Because man, there are some awful things going on in Gaza. I you can't deny that, right? So these videos, and obviously I need to go watch the Huckabee one because I haven't seen this one.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:02

Yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean, and I don't think it accomplishes a whole lot other than just depending on kind of what opinion you hold going into it, just making you more irritated after two and a half hours.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:17

So let me let me make a personal observation. I could be right or wrong in this, but somebody can correct me if I'm wrong and give me more perspective on it. So the way I kind of got sucked into this is so I mentor a lot of young men in Bible study groups and our man church group, all that kind of stuff. I have had an increasingly number of 20-year-olds, like 20-ish, we're right out of high school, now we're kind of caring about the world, who will come up to me and ask, why do we biblically support Israel? Aren't they and and they start regurgitating? And I look at them and I say, Man, all you're doing is tell me something in the video. What have you read? What have you studied? And this is where I may be wrong in this, but I think a lot of it, even in the influencers, is regurgitating a lot of Tucker Carlson's take on this. That's that may be oversimplifying the issue.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:11

Well, I think Tucker appeals to people who are incredibly patriotic, and you know, I mean that at the forefront of their minds is the America First.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:23

There's a pastor years ago, a guy named Shane Claiborne, who wrote a lot of books, a lot of people influential. I and and I know like that's where I kind of first heard this was from him, but he's and you know, when you're and this would kind of go back to my seminary days, he he just kind of represented, but I don't really think those young men who come to me under know who Shane Claiborne is. I really do think it comes much from the Tucker Carlson kind of videos, and then everybody regurgitates that.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:53

And and the it's so complicated and so complex too. And and from a standpoint of like wanting to like I I look at my family as like, okay, God bless me with my family. I have a wife, I have two girls, and I think my first ministry is to take care of them, provide for them, lead lead them well. And I understand, you know, being patriotic and caring about your your country and not wanting to see your country taken advantage of. Um but I don't think that that's necessarily the end to what's actually going on. But that's where people stop, and that's where people get angry and they don't hear anything after that. They don't research anything after just scrolling through the videos of like, okay, well, I should just be mad that you know my country is uh has this problem, yet we're concerned about this simultaneously.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:39

And then we let's get into labels, right? So the new buzzword is Christian Zionism. I've I've never heard that until recently. And if I ever heard it, it represented a very fringe, very small group of people. But one of the things that's happening right now is this Christian Zionist word is being applied broadly to a lot of people that really don't fit. And this is what I really want to speak to right here. So Christian Zionism, they say, is a religious ideology in which certain things in the world are influenced to hasten the return of Christ. That's kind of a simplified way of putting it now. And they say that there's a lot of legislators in Washington, D.C. who are Christian Zionists. Now, my first issue with that is start with Christian. I really, I really don't know how much the legislators in DC are reading the Bible to influence legislation. Because if they are, they're not reading the same Bible that I do, right? I I I think there are plenty of Christian people in the legislation, but I think as far as influencing modern day legislation, I'm not really sure the Bible, I'm not really sure we're standing in Congress going, well, the Bible says. So I'm I think what I think again, that's a small label painting with a broad brush. It blames dispensationalism. These are dispensationalists, and and so let me put this here. I am, if you want to put me in a camp, I'm dispensational, which means I believe there's different dispensations of the Bible that explain what God is doing in his activity to save the world at that time. But I don't see, let me say it like this. I don't see anything in the Bible dispensational, and I don't really know any dispensationalist in any conversation I've ever had, any reading I've ever done, any sermon I've ever heard, where a true dispensationalist goes, let's do this in order to hasten the return of Christ. So that's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:44

When whenever you see stuff in the Bible that actually is part of God's grand plan, it's it's not what you expect. You know what I mean? Like like Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael. There's no way that Abraham thought, I mean, it was already not a not a smart Move to go with Hagar and have a son outside of the promise. But I'm sure he had no idea the ramifications of the future of what that would be like. Or when when there's a trade of a birthright for a bowl of soup, you know, I'm sure there's no idea. So to say, I'm going to twist God's arm, I'm going to make I'm going to make Christ come back sooner by doing X, Y, or Z. It's it's not biblical.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:20

It's that has never, that mentality has never been a part of any of the study. Again, sermons. Okay, now here's what a person do. They're going to flip up a Greg Locke video where Greg Locke says, We're going to blow up the Temple Mount and bring about, you know, and I'll just tell y'all this right here. I don't think Greg Locke represents dispensationalism. Personally, I would not listen to Greg Locke if he gave me directions to the gas station. All right. So that just it's so fringe. And I think this is where people take that and paint broad brush, everybody else, where there's no nuance, there's no caveat, there's no deliberation, discernment, right? All right. Let's go Pete Heggseth. They use Pete Hegseth as something he said, and I just saw a very small clip. I'd like to see the bigger part. But if the small clip represents that Pete Hegseth is speaking for dispensationalists, he's wrong. He said something about blowing up the Temple Mount, hastening the return of Christ. That's not dispensationalism, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:07:25

Um It's just amazing how when some people just get a taste of power influence, like just the grandiose nature that they think they take on, as if they can literally control the timeline of the Lord.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:37

I mean, if you think about it in his name, it's not biblical, it's publicity.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:41

And we just talked about that earlier. If it's publicity, then how can we get more people? How can we influence more people? How can we get them to jump on our bandwagon? Oh, let's throw a Bible verse out there. And they use that to persuade. And then all of a sudden it is the end of the world. And now we do believe it. And if your faith is gonna be shallow, then and you're not doing your research and you're not getting into the word, you're gonna believe that little Bible verse. Because if you don't understand it, then they can use it. And so I would just, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:11

And I I'm I'm not gonna speak for Tucker Carlson here. I haven't investigated this thoroughly, but I think Tucker Carlson would fit into this given some of the things I heard him say. But there is a movement, and and I have heard about this all the way through my study. It's called replacement theology, where it Israel is replaced by the church. Now the church is the true Israel. I don't think that's true. And I'm gonna tell you why here in just a few moments. So the Tucker Carlson uh Ted Cruz video, he asked the question. Ted Cruz brings up the the verse, um uh talking to God talking to Abraham. Uh I will bless for those who bless you, I'll bless them. Those who curse you, I'll curse them. And Ted Cruz doesn't know where that is in the Bible. It's actually Genesis 12 3. Okay. So God is is is giving him that promise. Now, what does that mean? Does that verse mean that we carte blanche support Israel on every single thing they do? And the answer to that is no. Um this is where the videos give you a hot take and they lack nuance in conversation. They really don't represent a person who is and and here's why. So I would see that you could have the same opinions, the same hopes, the same feelings about Israel that God did. That Jesus did. Jesus had great hope for Israel. He he loved the nation. He came, this Messiah came to them first. Um wept over Israel. He wanted them to repent of the uh religiosity, the pharisaical legalism that was pervasive in the day. It grieved God's heart what was going on in Israel, but yet they hold to this identity and this promise for this people. God uh critiqued the kings. Um read Isaiah, the Christmas story. Ahaz, I mean, God comes to him and basically through the prophet Isaiah says, Don't make an alliance with all these other nations, trust me. And Ahaz, like, uh, I think I'll, I think I'll choose this over.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:30

Our father's Abraham and Jesus, like your father's the devil.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:34

And then we have this child who is born, Emmanuel, and all that, you know, that it's kind of again, go back and read the Bible to what's really going on, not just in in a Bible verse. God condemned unrighteous kings. I think you can be biblical, I think you can be supportive of Israel. I think you still fall within, I'm gonna bless Israel, not curse Israel, by going, you know what? That is an unbiblical thing the rulers of Israel are doing right now.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:00

Well, the best way that you can bless Israel is pray for Israel. I mean, that's I mean, how many times do we tend to just jump on and become, again, just experts on an issue on social media instead of our first reaction being to just pray?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:16

What is that saying? Do you pray about it as much as you complain about it?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:19

And boy, right here's a question you can ask to see kind of where you fall in this. Um, is your attitude toward Israel more like Tucker Carlson's or the Apostle Paul? Because you really don't and Tucker Carlson is very much America first and all this kind of stuff, and that's why I kind of set up the beginning of the episode the Bible's concern is not America first. And if that's Tucker Carlson's political leaning, that's world politics, fine, whatever. I mean, just flesh that out in your own place. But the attitude of Paul is represented in Romans 9 through 11. I would really encourage people to read Romans 9 through 11, and it kind of helps you understand the church has not replaced Israel. The church has actually been grafted into all the promises and covenants that God gave Israel. Romans 9, 4 and 5 says this they are Israelites, and to them belong adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises. To them belong the patriarchs from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. We don't have salvation without the Jews. I mean, that's our story, is we have to love them, appreciate them. Romans 11, 1 and 2. Ask the question explicitly. Has God rejected his people? The answer? Meganoito. By no means, right? So um we we have to be really, really careful not to reject or despise Israel, or to say that the church has replaced them. Romans 11, 17 through 18 warns us that if we despise them, hey, you who were grafted into the root, man, he can cut you right back off, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:13:11

The apostle Paul, I mean, he's the apostle to the Gentiles, and you you still hear him say things like, Man, I would, I would trade places with them. I wish that I could be a curse so that they could be saved. Like to have that attitude of they they need they need Jesus, right? The the world is blessed through the nation of Israel because the Messiah came through the Jewish people. And Paul, even though he's uh you know assigned by God to the Gentiles, has such a heart for them because they're his countrymen, so he can understand, you know, want to be patriotic, but yeah, also they're they're God's Paul.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:45

Paul is a perfect example of what Genesis 12 3 means in blessing Israel. He didn't carte blanche approve them of where they were spiritually, politically, in any you know, way, shape, or form. He sure didn't like where they were in the Roman world being oppressed at the time, right? And all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, they were his countrymen and he loved them and he wanted them to turn to Christ. And so I think Paul is the perfect example of how you can take a position with nuance, remain biblical, and you're blessing in uh Israel and not rejecting Israel. So um one of the passages that I hear in this replacement theology a lot is Galatians chapter 3, verse 28, where it says that in Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:14:33

Free nor slave, male nor female, male nor female.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

All right. Now, if you use that verse to say there really is no more Israel, then you also have to use that verse to say there's really no more male or female.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:46

Some people do.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:48

That is not what that verse is saying. He he's talking about favoritism in Christ. He's not talking about identities of sexes or nations, or he's not saying that all of that has been erased. That's so boy, you talk about plucking a verse and making it sound good on a video, not really understanding what it is. So read Romans 9 through 11, and I would encourage you that you will see right there in Romans 11, 25, and 26, God still has a plan for Israel. They are very much a factor in the end. And if you really want to understand the Bible, the things that are going to happen in the end do not center on America. They center on Israel. All right. So we have to be careful to investigate. Um one of the young men came to me, and three times he has used these words when we're talking about this. But have you read the Talmud? Have you read the Talmud? So a few times, yeah. Okay, I thought, and hey, listen, I he's probably gonna watch this and go, he's talking about me, and I think he would laugh too. I taught him in high school. I couldn't get him to read what I wanted him to read in high school. I promise you he hasn't read the Talmud. All right. So the reason I say TikTok has. Have you read the Kilimon number? Have you read the Talmud? You haven't either, right? The Talmud was written over a span of 300 years between third and fifth century A.D. It is oral law, it is commentary, it is recordings of legal proceedings, and it is recordings of debates. It is 20 volumes over 5,400 pages. I don't know anybody other than a Jewish scholar who's probably read the Talmud, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:16:30

Yeah, that's like a bill in Congress, like saying that did you read every part of the big beautiful bill?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:36

Let me put this in in modern cultural terms. That's way longer than Harry Potter. All right.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:41

So maybe your fan given.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:43

I still haven't read all those.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:45

And I got them in the third grade.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:47

Oh man. All right. So now here's the deal. He he brings it up and says that it calls for the killing and condemnation of Gentiles. And there are some videos that bring that about. Now, I think I've got my research right. I checked several sources on this. So remember, I said the Talmud is recordings of debates, legal proceedings, commentaries, all these kinds of things. It was written at a time of heavy Jewish persecution.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:13

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:14

So it is recording things people say, not necessarily prescriptive on what ought to be done. So let's let's bring this. So it says, hey, the Talmud, the Talmud tells them to kill Gentiles. Here's my question to you Who is more into killing innocent people right now around the world? Just, hey, look at it. It sure ain't Israel. Right? I mean, Iran is a terrorist state that finances terrorism all over the I mean, come on. If if you really, if you want to put maybe put your meat and potatoes into what's actually happening. So, right? So here's the deal. In 5,400 pages and in uh five volumes, the the statements, it's true that there are some statements about uh eradicating the Gentiles, it's five statements in 5,400 pages.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:05

And in that, is that in some like rabbinical midrash, like some conversations between two opposing rabbis or something like that?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:12

The conversation context is really important. Again, it's not prescriptive, it is descriptive of somebody's saying this in a debate. Okay. Just like the Bible records some things that God would not have us to do, but he's telling you, hey, this person said this, right? So very much in the same way. So man, let's just uh let's just really be intellectually honest. So let's land the plane somewhere. We gotta we gotta get off here because people are like, man, this is the last thing I want to do. So number one is this Israel is central to the Bible, America is not. That's just the truth. God will fulfill his covenants to Abraham, to David, and to Israel. The Bible is clear about that. The Bible is not clear on a lot of specifics on how all this will happen. Somebody might ask, is the war in Iran uh part of prophecy? Well, yeah, in the sense of there's wars and rumors of wars. Is this the end of it? Maybe. You don't know, all right? So that's even why I would go back to saying, you know, somebody who says a dispensationalist wants to blow up the temple mount and become a Christian Zionist. I don't know if you went over and blew up the Temple Mount right now that it would hasten the return of Christ. No man knows the times or the seasons. That's in the Lord's hands, not ours, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:19:32

Do you know what I don't hear in in all these conversations? I I hear Israel and I hear uh you know America and I I don't hear Jesus, right? Yeah because it the the it's not America's not the focus, and and Israel is a big part of it, but the focus is Jesus. Yeah, the focus is King Jesus. Redemptive history. That's that what is he doing to save people from their sin? The the covenant to Adam is about the Messiah who's coming. The the covenant to Abraham, he's he does talk to him uh you know about giving him descendants and he does talk to him about you know giving him land, but it's it's in that redemptive history. It's it's not just geopolitical, it's not just economic, it's not just clickbait and and whatever. Like we we gotta get back to to Jesus because if Jesus isn't in the conversation, then you're you're missing it no matter what it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:20

And put it in this context right here, because it's it's part of of human history. One of the reasons they rejected Jesus is because politically he would not do what they thought he should do to fix the world. Right. Instead of inciting a revolt, instead of blowing up the temple mount, or whatever you would do as a Christian Zionist now.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:41

It's almost like people are still doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:45

Nothing new under the sun, right? Instead of doing all that, you know, where the rub really came is instead of Jesus gathering all these people and telling them, here's how we're going to overthrow Rome, he said, the kingdom of heaven comes like this. Blessed are those who mourn. They'll be comforted. Blessed are the poor in spirit. That, you know, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And that was like, what? Yeah, repentance, faith, not revolt. So, you know, we we have to we have to land in that place, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:21:15

He didn't he didn't go to kick the Romans out of power. He went to the temple. He he he wept over Jerusalem and said, How many times have I wished to gather you under my wings like a mother hand and you wouldn't you wouldn't have me? It's it's not it's not about what everybody thinks it's about all the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:29

Um if you want to know anything about prophecy, uh, if you really read the Bible, you will see that peace deals are really important to all this. Not really conflict, but man, when you hear peace deals, that's what you really need to pay attention to. Um instead of geopolitics, uh be more interested in salvation history, more interested in the gospel, more interested in repenting of sin, turning to Christ, walking with him every single day. And I I would just end right here. Instead of watching videos, please read the Bible. Don't just take what somebody says the Bible says in a video, read it for yourself. And to really understand this, I go back to my first statement. This is the story cover to cover. You can't pluck and pick a verse. You gotta see the whole thing. So I've said a lot. Anything y'all want to kind of close out with?

SPEAKER_05 1:22:19

Can I piggyback on that? Because I parents, if you have access to this, your kids have access to this. And I think gone are the days of like, oh, that's not appropriate for us to talk about. But information is everywhere now for them. And if your kid has TikTok, they can get these videos too. And I know that they're like, oh, we have parental control. Does your kid's friend have the same parental control? The computers are like, and so I just really encourage you to not avoid conversation. And if they have questions, it's okay to say, Hey, I need to research that myself. Your mind doesn't have to work as quickly as the internet does. You don't have to respond to them, but they are listening to you and they're listening to what you say and they have access to the videos that you have access to. And your offline conversations mean so much more than your online conversations do at your house. And so make sure that if you are talking to your kids and they have questions, acknowledge that they have questions because if you're not gonna talk to them, somebody will. And so I just really encourage you guys, it's okay to not have all the answers. I didn't know a lot of stuff. I learned a lot today myself. And so don't be afraid to do the research. Don't be afraid to push pause on a conversation and say, hey, you know what? I need to go learn a little bit more, or you want to learn with me. But I would really encourage you guys to frame your conversations at home and don't just ignore it because they're going to find the answers themselves and teach them now how to go to the Bible first and not to a TikTok video to get their faith.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:50

Hey, one of the most intelligent things a person can say sometimes is I don't know. Let's find out. Yeah. That's an incredibly intelligent thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:57

Yeah. So anyway, just want to encourage that you guys can disagree, you can have other people have opinions, um, but you can also be really kind in the conversation and I and believe that people are also doing the same work that you're putting in. Um, you might not agree with it, but I just be careful with those babies.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:17

I would say the scripture scripture is forever settled. Like scripture doesn't change. The word of God is inspired, inerrant. We believe it. Um, and so there are lots of things that may be unclear biblical passages. So don't hold those as your as your dogma, as your doctrinal truths. Yeah. Interpret unclear scriptural passages with clear scriptural passages. What regardless of your position on Palestine or Israel, um, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself are are are not set aside because you have a certain position on that.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:50

And so on that, I would say this, and kind of to apply what you just said. I am dispensational. If you want to put me in a camp, I am pre-trib, pre-mill, return of Christ. I believe in a literal kingdom. I think obillennialism is influencing a lot of the replacement theology that we see going on right now, that the kingdom is not literal and all that kind of stuff. And I know kind of where I am, but at the end of the day, the Bible really doesn't, it's not incredibly clear on all the particulars. So all I can tell you is I think that's to me that it makes the most sense, but I'm not dogmatic as a hill to die on if that's the way it's gotta be. And I sure don't think that if you're not that, that you're not a true Christian, because that is not your eschatology, it's not the litmus test of whether or not you know Christ. 100%. Because the Bible's not perfectly clear on how it all plays out. Boy, there's there's some things that I read that Jesus says, especially in Matthew, that sound really mid-trib. I mean, so I'm like, whoa, you know, I mean, I hope it's not that way.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:55

But you know what he's clear on? That he's the way and the truth and the life. There you go. Nobody comes to Father but by him. Not not through Israel, not through America, through Jesus. Yeah, there you go. All right. Austin, I think y'all are really smart.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:07

That's what I thought you were gonna say, and that's bowling.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:12

It's all about bowling. Uh we miss you, Scott. Well, we'll try to get Scott on here next time. Yeah, that was Scott. Was it what is it? Well, you ended the segment. He said, and that's bowling right there. That was like my favorite quote of this entire podcast. Any season pick uh no, I mean, uh one thing that's just kind of rolling around in in my mind, and I we have sort of gone past this, but you know, just on the replacement theology kind of note, I mean, it's it's it's interesting that I mean there is still a physical concern, uh geographical concern in the Middle East. And if that were true, you know, if the church had replaced Israel altogether, there would not be this concern and this focus still geographically in the area that we see all this conflict and turmoil taking place. So, I mean, I think it's just really important to just take all this in and uh just really kind of know where you land in God's uh giant story and not to be overly prideful, uh to think too much of yourself and just you know know Christ. It's really I mean it's it's really the the center focus of all of these uh segments that we've had, all these podcast episodes is like um it it is important to talk about this, but like nothing is ever going to become more important than than knowing Christ and to repent of sin and to be saved. That's the that's the thing that you need to be the most certain about in this life. And maybe on the other side of eternity and in heaven, when we are physically present uh before the Lord, some of those things will be answered. But you know what? They're still gonna pale in comparison to his presence and his glory, and I would be. So much more concerned about making sure I'm there, making sure the people that I'm around day in and day out get to experience eternity with him.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:09

So free plug to end it for you. The Ask Pastor Brian section uh should be probably full of questions if you if you have any on this. But also those those videos about how to be saved are on there too. So share share those more than you do uh Tucker Carlson videos.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:24

There you go. I think that's a perfect way to end it, man. End of the day, most important thing is to repent of sin, turn to Christ, and be saved, right? We'll see you next time on Live at Liberty.