The Scariest Passage in the Bible?

Some of Jesus’ hardest words are not aimed at atheists, skeptics, or people who openly reject Him. They are aimed at people who say, “Lord, Lord.”

In this episode of Black, White, & the Red Letters, Ed Grifenhagen and Camy Arnett unpack Matthew 7:21–23—a sobering warning about false prophets, empty religious language, real obedience, and what it means to actually know Jesus.

They talk about fruit, motivation, lordship, false assurance, and why saying the right words is not the same as living in a real relationship with Christ. This is not a message meant to drive true believers into fear; it is a call to honest examination, deeper surrender, and abiding in the One who redeems, restores, and makes us new. 🎙️🔥✝️

#BlackWhiteAndTheRedLetters #HardSayingsOfJesus #Matthew7

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Two guys, friends, brothers, pastors, Jesus freaks.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

One's Lily White and formerly a Jewish guy. Yeah, and he's still recovering from that. And the other one's a Haitian-born actor who spent many years in Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

So yeah, I'm thinking this ought to go well.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Yeah. I'm Camille. And I'm Ed. And every week we sit down and talk about real life.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

And we do it without turning it into a Sunday morning sermon. We're talking culture, faith, purpose, scripture. And race and truth and the stuff that most people avoid. And we're running it all through the words of Jesus. Dude, those red letters, they just don't play. No filter. And no pretending. No churchy cliché. We're just having real conversations about a real savior. This is Black White and the Red Letters.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

We are here once again, Black White, and by the way, I'm the white one. And the red letters. We are both abiding within the red letters of Jesus because what we have to understand is that Jesus is speaking. You know, we read the Bible, and we have to understand that that the Father God sent his son, and he's speaking straight up to us. And some of what he says is hard to deal with. It's hard to perceive, but it's right. It's good. And if we will just abide in it, you know, it'll bless us. Let's let's take a look at some of these. Because I know you've run across some of this stuff before, and you've kind of like maybe you know scratched your head, or maybe you've read it and it hasn't bothered you at all. And maybe we'll talk a little bit about that. It's fixing to. Yeah, we're fixing to it's fixing to bother you. It's fixing to, because we want to bring understanding to it. We want to see what is he saying here. All right, Matthew 7, uh, verse uh 21 to 23. We're taking a look at that. He says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. See, that's a mouthful. I don't know about you, but Ed this thing scares me. It's the scariest passage in the whole Bible to me. This is, yeah, one of the things that makes me, you know, pause every single time that I either read it, think about it, because I look at my life and I think of, okay, commune, why are you doing this? Why do you believe this? Why, you know, because again, we said before in in times past and in this podcast, your why is extremely important. And so he says, first of all, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, and if in order for us to become saints of God, in all in order for us to become um Christians, Christ-like ones to begin with, we have to understand that this is how we become children of God, by declaring, by confessing that he's Lord. So I would assume that he's talking to you, and you tell me I would assume, Ed, that he's talking to us who has already who have supposedly already received him as Lord. So why would he say to those who have received him as Lord, quote unquote, not many who say to me, Lord, Lord.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

How does that how does that work? Well, I would I would think like most scripture, whatever you're reading, wherever it is, if it's in, you know, the the Old Testament, in the prophets, or whether it's in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, or Paul's letters, or wherever, we gotta read stuff in context. We gotta look at the original writer, whoever that may be, in this case Matthew, um, and and look at the original audience and and what did the writer write, in this case it's Jesus' words, and what did the hearer in that at that time, what did they hear? Well, and part of that context is looking what's around the passage, and if you in this frightening four or five verses, literally, I'm shaking when you were reading it, back up just a few verses to 15, and and Jesus is talking about um false prophets, and and he says, starting in verse 15. And remember, this is part, again, two weeks ago, we were looking at a verse and some uh verses around it, passages around it in Matthew chapter 5, and we said that's the Sermon on the Mount. And so this is Matthew 7, the last chapter of the Sermon on the Mount. And so again, he's talking about kingdom people, and he's talking about life in the kingdom, and what does that look like? And so he says in verse 15, he says, uh, and this is Jesus saying this again. The letters are read in my Bible, so I know that it's Jesus. He says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits, are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. So every healthy tree, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree can't bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that doesn't bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, thus you will recognize them by their fruits. So arguably, that is talking about believers and unbelievers. If the believer is a good tree, gonna bear good fruit. And if an unbeliever is a bad tree, or in in uh the ESV translation, diseased tree, it's gonna bear bad fruit, and everybody on the planet, people that love God, people that hate God, will be able to recognize both buckets by those fruit, and then bam, he says what you read.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Right. So you're dealing with the fact that you can sound good, you can look good, you could, you know, do the good actions, but that doesn't mean that you are good. It does mean that you are known by God. And I think what happens is that, you know, we talked about this before again, and we we we keep going back to that core of you know, love as a person, receiving him as Lord and Savior, and those kind of things, because we we're dealing with the fact that your motivation, your why is crucial because you're dealing with here the good and bad fruit, but the we we brought up last time that in Galatians we're talking about the fruit of the spirit, which means that in order for you to even be considered by God to have fruit, that fruit must come from the Holy Spirit. And so there's a relationship there. There's a there's a uh a change of venue, if you would, from the that of the world and that of Satan to that of the Holy Spirit and that of heaven, uh kingdom, you know, and so unless you are motivated, living upon the foundation of and fulfilling these things, even what looks good is not good.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

So this good tree that he's taught, excuse me, healthy tree is clearly a believer, a human being that is indwelt with the Holy Spirit. And if you are indwelt with the Holy Spirit, you will bear love, joy, peace, pain, you will bear fruit. That's right, good fruit, that's right, love, and then from the love, joy, peace, patience, and all those things. And if you're not bearing those things, if those aren't attributes, if those aren't things that flow out of you, brother, you better look in the mirror.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

And I mean, I'm not throwing the the you ain't saved dart. Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah, we're not here judging somebody's salvation, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

No, I mean I have do not have not been given the ability to do that. Right. But I know that you you gotta just kind of look in your mirror, have a little come to Jesus moment and figure out where am I at? You know, where am I at spiritually?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

You gotta at least be able to inspect fruit, you know, because I mean look at this. Look with what you read, beware false prophets. Think let's let's just start there for, let's put a pen in that for a second, because he's telling you, beware false prophets. But we call everybody a pastor, a teacher, right? And the reality of it is that he's saying, beware false prophets, which means that he doesn't call them the thing that we call them. The reason why we kept we keep on getting took and being led astray and everything else is we won't, you know, there's there's a there's the saying, game recognise game, you know, that which means that if you are a born-again Christian filled with the Holy Spirit, you ought to be able to recognize a true prophet from a false prophet. And you shouldn't be calling a false prophet a prophet. Because that's also what gets us in a bind, is that we're not able to stand and stand with Jesus, stand with the red letters, right? And call a spade a spade, as they say. You know, we're not able to stand with Jesus and say, wait a minute, that's wrong, that's right, that's not good, that's okay. You know, all of those kind of things come into this process, and he's we're being told here that you ought to be able to recognize the fruit. The question is, do you recognize the fruit out of your own life? Because again, I think the pro the issue is for me, Ed, is that I have to be able to, I can discern the Christ in you by the Christ in me. You know what I'm saying? So if I don't have the Christ in me, there's I there's no discerning factor. And so why are we maybe it's a uh it just pops into my my brain. Why are we following false prophets? Is it something that's really not correct in us?

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Oh, I'll tell you why. And you can back up because the the false prophet, false teacher thing, that ain't a new thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

It's not a new thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

And it wasn't in the New Testament, it wouldn't be a new thing. It wasn't a new thing, right? You know, you're talking about in the Old Testament, in in 1st and 2nd Kings, and 1 and 2nd Chronicles, and man, and the prophets in Jeremiah and Micah, Zechariah, and many, many books in in the Old Testament mention false prophets. And and really most all the time, the the the one who is named and called and called out as a false prophet are guys who claim to receive messages from God, but they prophesied only what the king and the people wanted to hear.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

And so the reality, man, false teachers are, and I'm not calling out, I don't, I'm, I'm not sitting here naming names, but false teaching is surely prevalent today. Oh, sure. It was prevalent yesterday, yeah, a thousand years ago, and 2,500 and 3,500 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

And he says to us, be be mindful, be careful, because many will come in my name. I mean, you talk about false prophet, to the point where you actually think that you're the Lord Himself, able to talk to people in the name of it. It it is so mind-boggling. But this is where the I never knew you, as we talked about before, right? This is where all this kind of stuff comes from. So he's saying to here right here, beware false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, inwardly, which means that there is no Holy Ghost abiding. No, what's what does he say is in there?

SPEAKER_01 13:13

A wolf, a wolf, a wolf, a ravenous wolf, yeah, and and different translations, ravenous or or ferocious, the NIV says a ferocious wolf. And that's scary.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

And it's it's it's scary. And so if that's in the pulpit, and the the followers are uh allowing themselves not to have a relationship with the written word of God, not to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit of God, then you know, everybody falls into that ditch, you know, and so we're being warned here and we're being told that you have to be able to discern and recognize the fruit within those that are around you. And so for us, I mean, for me personally, this is something that, you know, I I had a conversation with a guy, and I was saying, look, man, when you when you are in seventh grade and you have a seventh grade teacher, that's great. You you're in seventh grade. But when you go to college, when you graduated, now you're in college. If you find yourself under the tutelage of your seventh grade teacher, that's on you. You ought to be able to discern that there's a difference between the seventh grade and being, you know, a junior in college. And if not, then that's an issue. That's because there's something that you have, you you may have matriculated through what we call education, but you didn't learn anything, obviously. And so we're being told here to beware. So that means that you have to have some kind of astuteness within yourself. Because it's not like the false prophet's gonna come and point to himself and say, hey, look, I'm a false prophet. I'm here, yeah. You know, I'm a ravenous wolf. No, you have to be able to discern that, which means that you have to have the fruit that bears witness that either it is or it isn't.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

And I think Jesus is saying, obviously, to watch out for uh the false teacher. He's saying to watch out for those whose words sound all spiritual, but their motivation is drug, sex, and rock and roll. I'm joking, but it that their motivation is money, it's usually one of three things money, fame, or power. There you go. And if that you've talked about the why so much in pre even in previous podcasts, if the why is money, fame, or power, they're a false prophet.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

That's right. Well, you go, you you end up making merchandise for the people, you end up doing whatever. That was good. You know what I'm saying? Whatever it is that that that it takes to get to the accolade that really is motivating you. You'll you'll you'll beg, borrow, still, you you'll do whatever you got you have to do. And you have we we have to be able to recognize that for the good of, you know how what what what did uh uh uh what what what the what's the word say? You know, uh uh Paul said for the these people came in stealthily, but we did not give ourselves to them one hour that we can keep the purity of the word. And so there was incumbent upon uh a responsibility upon Paul himself not to need someone else on the outside of him to be able to discern that. And it's the same with us. We're not any different, and Paul's not any better or given a responsibility that we don't have. We have to have a relationship that we can bear the responsibility of recognizing that for the sake of keeping the gospel pure, but also for the sake of protecting one another. And that's important in this, in this, in this process here. And so you said you recognize them a good tree is not gonna bear bad fruit, and a bad tree is not gonna get where uh uh uh uh bear uh good fruit, but you yourself have to be, we ourselves have to be the good tree that bears good fruit, and that we can also see what's good or bad inside the life of another. We have to be able to not just follow the words, but the lifestyle of someone that's around us.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

And you know, um in the Old Testament, there was tests for whether someone was truly a prophet or not. They would not contradict previous revelation from God that was truly prophetic. They, if they promoted any sort of rebellion against God, that brother was the death penalty. And you would say if someone is a prophet, is their bat and average 700 or 800? No, they are never wrong. If it is a message from God, it will never be wrong. Like I freak out today when you read, when you read or you hear in a podcast, or you read something where somebody claims the gift of prophecy and they're putting a date down that you know the Lord's coming back on blah blah blah date or Friday the 13th. Yeah, like I freak out. I'm like, I'm running away.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Run, run. But Ed, the Bible tells you that no one knows, not even Jesus' son, he don't know. He said, not even the son knows. And so uh it is it, is it out of out of being gullible, is it out of just being rightly just blatantly uh uh uh um um disobedient that causes us to instead of following what's written by the Holy Spirit on these pages to decide that uh that maybe God didn't Jesus didn't know what he was talking about.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

I think we are all on a need-to-know basis, and we don't need to know the date. And we've got our marching orders. Yeah. The end of the Gospel of Matthew and the beginning of chapter uh or the verse eight of the book of Acts of chapter one, there's the we know what we're supposed to do. Yeah, the commander's intent is crystal clear, black and white. Go share me with a lost and dying world. Well, when are you coming back? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Just go do what I said to do. Well, when's the world coming to me? Establish the kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

When are you going to Don't worry about it? That's right. When's the rapture? Go share the gospel, go make disciples of all men. And see, that's the whole thing. And and again, uh, to to uh the the audience out there, those of you who are listening, understand that we're not talking at you. We're talking, you know, and we're we're we're we're taking this medicine too. You know, this is this is you know, commie talking to Kami, Ed talking to Ed, Ed talking to Kami, Camille talking to Ed, and you just happen to be outside there listening because this word has to uh grow us. You know, we get we get no credit for speaking this word to you, but the word itself does not, you know, uh take root in us. It's not about teaching the word, it's about being the word that you're teaching. And so understand that we're not talking at you, and so all these things that Jesus is saying here, that's why we call them the hard words, right? Because all these things that Jesus is saying here, all of us are, you know, we read them and then it's like you you uh uh uh uh wipe the sweat off your brow because this is deep.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

And so in this passage that uh that we read, the very beginning uh of verse 21. 21. When he says, not everybody who says to me, Lord, Lord, not everybody who says to me, Lord, Lord, so that is not everybody who professes to be a Christian. That's what he's saying. So saying the right words is not the same thing as knowing Jesus. That's right. And I'm not saying knowing who Jesus is, the devil knows who Jesus is. Knowing him, being in an intimate, saving relationship with him, having the right words is not the same thing as that. So so if we just look really look at the words that he says in verse 21, the issue is not that they called him Lord. The issue is not that I call him Lord or Camille calls him Lord, or you, if you're listening, call him Lord, because that is the right word. Yeah, is it not? Like it's the right word. But the problem is that there, the people he's talking about in this passage, that their confession did not match their confession.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

You know, the the the apostles, right, are in the boat and water is coming all inside the boat, and Jesus was over there, you know, reclining, sleeping on a cushion, and they're talking about Lord, Lord, don't you care that we're gonna perish? But still they're saying the right words, but their words don't match what should have been in their inner core. Because he gets up and he says, wait a minute, peace be still. Hey, where's why you at why are you faithless? Right? Because he expected in them the same thing that they had been watching him. Because again, disciples watch their master, right? And and and duplicate their master. So he expected in them the abilities to come out to do the same thing. They should they should have all pulled pulled up a uh uh a cushion and went to sleep too. Because he's in the boat, and that's what's happening. Would you have? Today I would. Today I would too. Today I would. No, but you know, no, not then, but today I would. I hear you. Because, you know, I I I say I say to myself, there are things that happen in my life, because you know, everybody has a, you know, when we talk about you know, uh uh walking on water and all that kind of stuff, everybody has a moment in time in which you have you you you have that process or that place where you must walk on the water with Jesus. Because for me, when I tell people about the whole acting thing and people look at what I've done, you know, all these films and series and blah, blah, blah, and the, you know, the, you know, all these accolades of celebrity, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff, people don't understand that the only reason that I'm doing this, that I'm in this field of endeavor, is because he made it abundantly clear, this is what I want you to do. Because I did not want to come back into this. And so it was out of obedience that I said yes. And so, in the process of now living and what and watching him be so faithful and confirming his word, I would be embarrassed not to believe him. And so that's why I say now I would, because when you when you start making the God decisions, when you start doing things because of him and by him and in him and through him, and and and also uh saying no to things because of him, by him, you know, you you start you start living out the faithfulness of God, you start seeing how faithful God can be if you are obedient, then it becomes almost embarrassing, and um you would have no kind of recourse as to why you wouldn't. You'd have to just deny him altogether. And so I think I truly believe that now I would, but it it it took, it's taken years, and and and I realize that the reason why it's taken years is not because of God, it's because of me.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Of course, of course, you know, if you had said otherwise, we would have ended this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

We need another host. You know what I'm saying? And and so you realize that, you know, it's it's up to you the day that you decide not to be your own false prophet, not to be your own bearer of bad fruit. You know, it's up to you to actually now mean Lord as opposed to just say the words Lord. And so what happens for me is I I at a certain point I I realized that I believed in God, but I didn't believe God. And so you can believe in God, but you live your life for the rest of your life not believing God.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

I had a teacher one time, an instructor, that said, Do you believe that what you believe is really real? And when you do come to a place that what you that you believe that what you believe is really real, that's a game changing.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

It's a game changer. Because because all your actions, everything, everything from that point on really changes because you start living according to what you believe. And until you are actually living the life that shows your belief, you don't really believe yet. Until your your life is a demonstration, you don't believe yet. You're just, you know, it's it's something that we all say.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

It's like Harrison Ford and Raiders of the Lost Ark. If you remember that there's a chasm, he's on one side and there's a chasm, and he needs to get to the other side. I don't even remember who was chasing him, somebody chasing him, and there was an invisible bridge, and the bridge didn't show up until you took the step. Yeah. And I'm like, well, you would say that he really believed the bridge was there because he took the step. That's right. Um, that's exactly that may have been a terrible thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

No, no, that's that's that that'll preach right there. You know, because it's the truth, you know. Uh when, you know, it's like what uh uh Abram, go into go go go into the city that you know that I've given you whatever. Where am I going? I don't know. Just go. You know, I'll tell you when you get there. I'll tell you when you get there. You'll know when you get there. But that's the whole thing here. So we're we're being told, you know, if you if you're just gonna say Lord, Lord and not mean it, if you're not, if you're gonna say Lord, Lord, but you're in inside your ravenous wolf, if you're gonna say Lord, Lord, and you're following ravenous wolves, all these kind of parts and pieces here, you will never experience, never enter, never see the kingdom. And the whole point of Jesus coming is not just to take us to heaven, but to instill within us a truth that allows us through our belief system to experience the kingdom of God on earth.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

And you know the the everyone in verse 21, not everyone. Well, who is the everyone? The everyone is the people that he talks about in verses 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19. The false prophets. He's not warning atheists, he's he's not warning agnostics, he's warning the um quote religious people that have all their right words in their mouths, but the wrong posture in their heart. It's the it's it's the people who had the correct vocabulary and they and they knew what to say, and they knew how to look all in our world, how to look all churchy. They they wear the right church clothes, and they maybe they read the right books and they they listen to the right worship music. Oh, I would never listen to the any of that other devil music. I listen, I only listen to worship music. You know, that's who he's talking to. The the false prophets from that uh little passage um before that to me is what makes it so unsettling, what he what he says in the latter part of our passage. That these are not people that are saying we reject you, Jesus, we hate you, Jesus. No, they're the people that got they're saying, like they're saying all the right things. Lord, Lord. It's it's those people they sound convinced and convincing that they belong to him, and he's saying, Get out my face. I never knew you.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

And and and you when you we when you start understanding, really uh also in the in the process of who these people are, because we we've I I all of what we say, we end up getting to the core. Every once in a while, we get back to the core lordship, you know, uh ownership. We get back into the whole process of your why and all these foundational aspects. But see, these ravenous wolves, and you have to watch this within yourself too, because the truth of the matter is there this is good news. The kingdom is good news, which means that there's an exchange, life for life, as we talked about before, that happens. And when when you enter the kingdom, when you see there's benefits of of being a kingdom individual, a kingdom person that that that that stems from the motivation of the love of God and see what happens with these ravenous wolves, with these with these false prophets, and what you have to watch from within yourself, ourselves as well, is that why you are doing what you're doing, because there are all these little outside aspects of what we do, is not just to get the benefit thereof of other people. You know, when you're talking about false prophets, you know, prophets have power over the mentality and the lives of other people. So these are people that are also taking advantage of the relationship that should be a right one between a prophet and a convert, if you would. But they also take that advantage that that that uh rips the life from those who are following them, and yet they're calling him Lord, Lord. You know, here you are, you know, we we you know we talk about you know the prosperity gospel sometimes, and you you'll hear all this stuff. You know, the entire word of God will prosper you. So there's always there's prosperity in the word of God, and that's why you have to be mindful because some people come in to the congregation of God because of the ability and the power that it gives them over other people to prosper over them, to lead and and to govern over them. And so, and yet they do it in the name of Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

They do it in the name of Jesus, sometimes for material wealth, for the wealth for control, that's right, you know, for fame, and that's the problem. I mean, even Paul even told Timothy in one of the letters to uh that Paul writes to Timothy, he says, and again, this is the Ed translation, he says, Brother, the day's coming where people are going to be looking for uh someone to scratch the itch on their ears. And there will be all too many men that will do just that, that are willing to give you exactly what you want to hear. And that is what the false prophets that are are really condemned all throughout the Old Testament. That was what they were condemned for. Again, the prophet is batting a thousand. Whatever he says, if it is a message from God, then it is true. 90% true? No, a hundred percent, a hundred percent true. And to your point, um, and you said a minute ago, you said some sometimes it always we always turn it back to lordship. Well, Jesus is after obedience, he's not after performance. The latter part of verse 21, when you when you read verse 21, when he says, Not everybody who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. That doesn't mean that we earn salvation by obedience, but it does mean that real authentic faith produces obedience.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

It's a it's an image of of the of the results of being in a saving relationship with the creator of the universe.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

It's the natural byproduct. Okay. So you have a the the natural what follows him being truly Lord, savior, and king is all of this fulfilling the will of the Father. You know, your your delight now, your pleasure is to do exactly what God wants. It that just comes out of being that new creation. And you have to, but but I I would say Ed that part of what God wants in the process in the and and when we're taking a look at these scriptures right here, part of what God wants for you as a new creation that is in love with God, that is motivated by God, that's obedient to God, is to be able to be aware of the false prophets.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

And that is is like I personally do not, I am not a very discerning person. I wish I was way more discerning than I am. But so that statement that that Camille just made, it that ain't always easy. No, but you will know them by their fruits.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Yeah, and sometimes you have to watch fruit for a while before you really determine. Because don't be too too quick to call somebody right, you know what I'm saying? Don't be too quick to call somebody a false prophet, don't be too quick, you know, to to label folk, but you have to be able to, you know, use part of your fruit, which is long suffering and pain, you know, if they're patient, and just be able to see what's what, because like you said, if it is a true prophet in time, you'll know. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

So kind of at least beginning to wrap this up, this passage, while clearly frightening, really should produce examination, yeah, not despair. Oh, not at all. So let me ask you a question, and and we can we can maybe we can end this on your wise answer to the question that I have not even told him what it was. How should a genuine believer, uh uh somebody who really is a believer, how should they respond to this passage without just spiraling into fear or false assurance?

SPEAKER_00 36:33

First of all, recognize who's speaking. You have we have to realize that the purpose of Jesus is always to redeem, to reconcile, and to restore. He is always making better, he is always growing, he's always for the good. He's all so that means that even though there are words that he says that are hard to understand, hard to do, you know, if you you gotta drink my my my blood and eat my body, all of that may be said, but you have to realize who's speaking. Because if you start with the right question, you get the right the right answer. And when you start thinking that there is a word that Jesus can say that would bring condemnation or bring you to the wrong place, that's because you've put him in the wrong place. There's never anything ever, ever, ever, ever that Jesus will say that won't be for your benefit, your encouragement, your growth, and the won't have the power within it that if you will obey it and allow the reverence of him to be built in you by it, that won't grow you and make you even more and and give you even more than you would ever imagine or that could you could ever do for yourself. That will say that's the first thing. And then by what once you do, once you once you have that right perspective of who's speaking, I guarantee you the spirit of God that is within you will guide you into all truth.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Copy that. Well, let's end on that, y'all, and we will thank you for being here and uh hanging out with us for 30, 40 minutes on black, white, and the red letters, and we will see you next week.