Government CONFIRMS ALIENS?!| CRNRSTN Collective - Episode 34

In this episode, the host, J, along with co-hosts Angus, Gage, and Javan discuss the confirmation of UFOs and alien sightings being documented since the early 1950s by the US government. The four of them then compare this to perspectives from pastors that label these extraterrestrial incidents as contact with demons and give a Biblical reason behind it. Additionally, the group takes a look at some incredible human achievement such as several sub 2 hour miles at the London Marathon, a woman named Rachel Entrekin setting the new 250 Ultra Marathon record, and scientists constructing human masks out of DNA left on sidewalks in New York City. There also is some disturbing news on the horizon with South Korea and Japan being at risk of running out of fuel due to some of the oil blockades happening from ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The squad also look at some of the testimonies from artists like Suicideboys and Michael Jackson as well. They also talk about some of the incredible advancements in technology with China's BYD constructing their own carrier ship and giant mech robots being available for public purchase. Lastly, the group give some insight on the incredible importance of community engagement and the importance of serving your community of faith in order to strengthen the Body of Christ overall.

#podcast #opinion #ufos #aliens #uaps #government #cia #classified #technology #michaeljackson #marathons #japan #usa #southkorea #jesus #christ #christian #church #trending #news

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello friends, and welcome to the Cornerstone Collective. My name is Jay Brown, your host, and with me today is Angus McLeod. Hey, hey. As well as Javen Brown. Hello, hello. We're talking about these seven C's of culture, and those are commitment, community, communication, competence, creativity, compassion, and celebration. Today we'll start out with a scripture from Nehemiah.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Now I was the cupbearer to the king. Nehemiah 1 11.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

We were talking about recently in our theme of Moxie about Nehemiah stepping up and having his heart broken for the people uh for his people and for the people of God to return to worship him him worshiping him in the correct way, and how he gave up his position, which was something notable in his day, I mean a highly regarded position, to go and do this hard work. And so we've been talking about what it means to be someone who has the moxie, the f to face the fear, to praise the Lord, to stand for the Lord, to be someone that goes and stands and fights and does these things on God on behalf of the Lord. And when we talk about fight, we're not talking about physical, we're talking about in the spiritual realm and praying to the Lord. So a powerful thing for us to start out about is our identity in Christ. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

So fun stuff, friends. We uh got kind of a an interesting drop of information of the UFO release by the government recently, where the government made reports saying they were going to release documents and then did uh this past Friday for our time of recording. They released a whole bunch of old classified documents having to do with UFOs and uh UAPs and things that had to go with that idea, saying that they've had these records for all this time and it's a bunch of sightings, it's a bunch of videos of things. Guys, you had a chance to take a look a look at this stuff?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

I didn't get a chance to look at the actual documents, but um, but I've been hearing a lot about the the stuff, you know, it starts to get real when the government starts to admit to it, you know. Um and so I I think this is actually a really important topic, especially for Christians to be aware of, because we're gonna see more of this, not less. Uh, and I think that the there's gonna be momentum picking up around this topic. Uh, and it's really important that we have things figured out before it starts to hit, because if uh if you're not rooted in Christ, um it's one of those things. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. And this is one of those things that I think that if if we don't know where we stand on this before it happens, you're gonna be in the middle of the battle when you're trying to come up with a battle plan.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah. That's a good statement. I appreciate that. Um, I did get a chance to download some of the documents. Um, you can go right on there, it's um the links that they give you to.gov, and you can go right into there and actually has one of the tabs you can pull down as UFO. And essentially there's a whole bunch of documents you can just download them one after the other, and it'll show you actually it's scans of documents and things that are stamp classified and a bunch of other stuff from all the way back in the 50s and all the way forward. So very insightful to take a look at some of that data dump. Jay, what do you think about this uh UFO news?

SPEAKER_06 2:56

I mean, I think it it definitely is noteworthy, like Angus was saying. It's also uh worth questioning why they decided to release it all now and why it's primarily all information that's seeding back from far from like really back in the 50s, like even up till now. Even though they say they're releasing everything, we know that the government's notoriously lied about a lot of things in the past. So to any extent of like new knowledge that they might have, or like whether or not they reclassify it as something else, like jumping from a UFO to like actually naming it something, could just be like a uh what do they call it? It's um like a syntax thing that they get you on. That's why they're not releasing it or whatever. Um, it is interesting, and especially because of some of the response that we've seen uh government officials have, like even NASA astronauts that we talked about in the past be like, oh yeah, aliens that we've known for the longest have existed are likely demons or spiritual entities of some sort that have like uh biblical and spiritual roots to yeah, all these like religious things that people have talked about for millennia and centuries. So it is interesting, like the fact that this is all kind of coming to light now and there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes with it, and especially with like this coming right after the Epstein files, the fact that this is all like pushed forward, is it like a front for something? It's there's a whole lot to unpack with it.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

So definitely interesting, especially as like the government is not kind of saying this, and connected to this realization is that there were uh kind of stories being out there um from Pastor Perry Stone, who said that there was government meetings with pastor groups that were telling them that all these plans are being unveiled, that actually um aliens are the ones that seated us here, and there was not a creation narrative in the sense of uh of us coming, you know, the Big Bang Theory in the way that's taught, like in schools and in science books, but instead that there is a creation narrative, but that creation narrative is that we were dropped here by aliens and seated in that way, and that our faith doesn't have connection in the way that we would understand it from a creator God. So they're saying all these things, making accusations and how it's gonna upset people's faith because of the content of these revelations. To me, I think it's a bunch of misinformation, and I think it's one of these things where they're trying to skew things to this direction, or if they have been communicated this narrative, it's definitely from a spiritual entity that's not in alignment with us. And so it's like the you know, understanding that they can come as an angel of light, says Paul, do not receive the message that they have. And so that's a really interesting thing. And we see how because of this alien release stuff, a lot of been pastors have gone on and started talking about this context. Obviously, we've talked about it for a while now, kind of on this podcast, but one of those that's a very popular following is Pastor Josh Howarton. He was talking about it, and his his whole take is what we've been talking about is that aliens are demons. So that's been an interesting thing. Angus, what you think?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, I think that uh before you jump off into this, you have to have your foundational stuff. That's true. And so the way I see it is Satan is the original deceiver, you know, uh, he's a liar, and we know that. And so uh we also know that the very first people on this planet were deceived. Um and so the the other thing is he's had a lot of practice at lying. And so uh to think that we as mankind are smarter than the the the first ones who actually spoke to God uh not only is it uh arrogant, but I think that it we're deluding ourselves if we think that Satan's gonna change, you know, his methods and tactics and stuff. He's a master at packaging and messaging and and all of that stuff. And so to think that our leadership around the globe is not being deceived yet again, and we're calling, you know, the sky green and and all those things, you know, I he's been doing this a long time. You know, and uh you can go into real deep rabbit holes and stuff and and look at how Hollywood has kind of painted aliens to be one way, right? You know, if you take a look at any of the alien movies, they're not here for friendly things.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

But then, you know, we're talking about how these are gonna be benevolent beings that come and say, Oh, we're the ones who uh we seated you and we gave you all these religions to kind of keep you occupied and all that, it still doesn't explain Christ to me. You know, why would they give us all these religions that that are in conflict with the one? Correct. You know, because uh because of the law of non-contradiction, they can't all be right. Right. You know, and so Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and the light, you know, uh, and so but with that being the case, you know, why would they give us conflicting religions and all of that? Um you know, the the thing that hasn't changed is the Lord is he's truth and he's been speaking truth since the beginning. And so what we have to do is keep our eye open for the deception. So I think that's that's really what we have to remember is that these people who are releasing documents, they are just as apt to be deceived as the rest of us are. Absolutely. And so um for them to say that no, we know the truth, you know, uh again, it it doesn't it doesn't all add up. You know, once you spend a little bit of time thinking about this.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, that's true. You know, it's interesting as we start to talk about faith and aliens. We believe in a creator God who's created many beings. We talked about in the scriptural narrative that there were other beings beyond what we were uh what we understand ourselves to be. Obviously, angels are in that narrative. We see later um mixes of people with these heavenly beings that we know as Nephilim within the story. And so there's a lot of pieces that are tied to that. And so, you know, them or people understanding these spiritual beings as aliens is not far-fetched. And for my mind, it's actually it's a it's a really easy way for them to be mistaken and very easy thing for that spiritual being to say, Oh, I am this thing, to kind of put themselves in a narrative that people would understand that are non-religious. So to me, it makes sense that these are all in alignment. Javen, what's your take on from Josh and his response? I mean, yeah, it makes complete sense.

SPEAKER_06 8:38

Like to think that Satan wouldn't present himself as one thing would be extremely ignorant of everything that's happened in the past. Like he appeared to Muhammad as the angel Gabriel, or said he was at least, and then gave him a different description and depiction of how the end times would go, but also how um the Trinity was presented as a whole, and saying that there's only one faceless God that you never get to see until the day that you go to heaven and denies the divinity of Christ whatsoever. And then same thing thinking about someone like Joseph Smith, where he where there's a being that appears to him and like two or three other people that are with him in the middle of the woods that has these golden tablets that only he can read, right? And suddenly there's a revelation that's given to him within that sense. Um, yeah, I mean, and to think especially that he would target like the higher people within some of the most influential countries in the world would only make complete sense because if you can convince them to follow a higher power that leads them further away from what the truth is and gives power to evil spirits, then they themselves once again just can control everything around them. If yeah, if you have the highest politicians in the world following a demonic order, then everything suddenly turns towards a demonic order because everybody's perverted and thinking that's the ultimate truth. Um so yeah, I mean it's just like a logical thought process that's been going on for millennia now, ever ever since the first fall happened. So yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Very, very interesting. It's something that we're definitely gonna be taking note of as lots of these plans and lots of these uh accusations about what the government is actually doing are starting to come to light. Obviously, some of those are very much dun dun dun put on your tinfoil hat, are all insider stuff, and there's all you know, all these big um plans that are trying to upset things and make it a one-world order, and we've talked about that a bit, and we'll talk about it in the future. But what we know is that in the end, Jesus is victorious. And so that's where our hope and our and our understanding lies as we read the scripture. We very much see that he will come and rule and reign, and our alignment is with him and with nothing beyond with him first. And so that's where our heart is at. One of the things that we saw was interesting as we've been talking about commitment is people that have been committed to what they're doing. One of those things is really impressive is that we had multiple people break the marathon marathon record time of sub two hours. A marathon in sub two hours, which is amazing. You had several guys beat it. Um, I think two of them were on the same kind of team, same kind of connection and stuff. And one of the people that that did that is he broke the record as he went home uh to Kenya. Like they had this real big welcome of him, and it was this amazing moment. And I was like, wow, dude, this is incredible. These guys are just cranking that multiple people broke the previous record, which is huge. Yeah. So what an amazing thing. Do you guys get a chance to see that?

SPEAKER_01 11:19

I I think that it's incredible just that you know, we are always progressing and stuff, but it just makes me tired thinking about the not. I mean, because you know, we've talked uh, in fact, in youth recently, we talked about how you don't just do a hundred push-ups, you know, you have to work your way up. So to run a marathon in sub two hours, that takes a lot of training. So that's more than just the actual race. There's a lot of preparation that goes into it. And I think that that really speaks to that that idea that if you want to do something great, don't expect to just snap and have it done. You have to prep.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

A lot of work that goes to it.

SPEAKER_06 11:56

Absolutely. Jamie, what do you think? Uh I'd I think it's incredible. I think like the the limits of human willpower are constantly being tested, and most of all with like endurance things like that. So to have a record like that be broken several times over, just it speaks to the testament of how much we're evolving just as human beings in general. And I think I saw this before. Did they have um marker runners with them that were supposed to run like at five-minute times or something like that? Yeah, they were blown. Besides them, yeah. Well, okay, because I'm I just like mentally, it would be extremely difficult for somebody to mentally be able to keep like the five-minute pace up for that long without having like a visual marker of doing that. And I think I read before that they would use like dogs and stuff to do it as well, like that there was like a truck that was trailing or something that they needed to go after or something like that. But um, either way, yeah, it's still impressive. I mean, they like physically were able to go that fast.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

So yeah, incredible. One of the other things that just happened in as far as talking about commitment was that uh Rachel uh in Treken, I think is her name. Uh she just won the ultra 250 mile marathon and and became first place, which is the first that a female has ever done that in an ultra, and she beat the record time for everybody 250 miles.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Ooh, la la.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah, I think that it's it's pretty cool to think about how the impossible, yeah, because that's that's kind of what records are is somebody achieving something that was previously impossible, and then they we push past it, you know, and I think that that's uh just something that we all need to keep in mind is that it's it's impossible until it is possible. That's right, you know, and so um so these records are meant to be broken, and uh and just because you haven't seen it done doesn't mean it can't be done.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Yeah, exactly. Well, to that point, Javen was just talking about it, and your point is exactly made. I remember when they were breaking the five-minute mile, the first one to do it. I think he was like someone who is that's not his full-time gig. He like changed that a jeans and like ran it, whatever, and made a five-minute mile, and you're like, or sub-five-minute mile, which was like a major barrier. You never get to this marker sub two hours without doing the five minute mile thing. Because that became the new thing that everyone started breaking it that year. Because now it's not like it's impossible to do it in your head. No, it's like, no, someone did it. I can do it. Yeah, and so then everybody started doing it, and then it started the numbers started getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and they started doing it multiple miles in a row. Yeah. Crazy. So amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

I have a friend, uh Stevie, he's he has a record for uh for balancing on a ball. Oh, right. For I think it was 26 hours. So crazy. Which the previous record, I I think was 12 hours.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

So he doubled.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

And so, yeah, uh, he he met some guy on the street who was like, Hey, how long have you been able to do that? And he just this this guy that he had never met put the idea in his head, you know, and he had never thought about a world record or anything like that. And so he started to research it and found out that um that this was the previous. He's like, Oh, I could I could do that. And so he trained and trained and trained and and blew it out of the water. And one of the things he's working on is he wants to do I I think two or three days. That's his goal. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Man, um back in the day when Celeste and I, uh it was when our daughter Amelia was only one, we actually went up to Vancouver just for a haul for a time, her and I together for our anniversary. Took our littlest with us. Um, Jav and Sister Shiloh stayed with uh my folks or her folks. Anyway, we went up there and on the plane ride up, we were talking to these ladies. It happened to be her and Celeste and I, and then one of the ladies, and then three others across the way from us. All of them were ultra-marathon runners, all of them were running up and down the canyon, and then they touched the other side, come back down and back up. And so we were talking about this, and it was like incredible. That was like this lady Rachel, like they were that kind of ladies, they were just like super skinny, just like racking miles. Like it was a hundred-mile race or 150-mile race. And I'm just thinking about that in the vertical challenge, like it's a crazy feat. And I'm like, man, this is just what they're doing. They just get out there and run like crazy. Yeah, yeah. Run like the wind, folks. Okay, Janae. This is going, man. Worst version of a basketball suicide you've ever had in your life. Okay, we're now running it and running 250 miles. You're like, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

What did you just say?

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Do what?

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Exactly. I mean back like this is like high school when we were doing wrestling. You know, I didn't understand how much running was in wrestling. I should have played soccer.

SPEAKER_05 16:12

No kidding.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Because I grew up playing soccer and I got shifted into because of just interest. But uh, yeah, one of those things where I'm like, dude, why are we running 10 miles in practice today? Why? It's because you need to have endurance. So it all translates to when you're fighting for your, you know, trying to not get pinned, you need to have the endurance to do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

So you know how many dogs it would have to be chasing me for me to run 250 miles? You'd have to switch dogs out.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

That's true, man. You know what's crazy? Uh I just got back from a trip to Florida, shout out SEU um where I'm doing my doctorate, but uh as a PhD candidate. And it's it's crazy. I I went there and flew in, and I flew in with special forces guys. So they were all on the plane and they got on with their dogs. So there was the I sat with the guy right at the bulkhead. So, you know, within earshot of first class, but on the other side of the curtain. Yeah, you know, with the with the plebs. But we were down in plebesville, but he was there, and at the my feet was sitting, you know, this fur missile, this crazy melon wall, fur missile, which like goes and kills people at command, and he's like, this guy's like tier one operator, like looks the part super, you know, like not like super jacked, but like you could tell, like he just uses muscles all the time, it was like real tied in, very tactical looking. We ended up talking and talking, striking up conversation. He sent me pictures of like the dog jumping out of the plane with him and stuff on his chest, like so sick. He's showing videos and has all this CQB footage. I'm like, dude, this is wild. So it was really cool. The way home, I end up sitting with Frankie Muniz, which is like an actor who was in Malcolm in the Middle. He's racing for Ford Racing in the NASCAR series. Wow. Tries to he has to schedule a last-minute flight, couldn't get in first, but sits up with me. Super cool guy. Super cool. Supposed to be a Christ follower, but it's really neat to connect up with him. It's like, man, you never know who you're gonna meet on these on these planes. And I mean a famous actor that who was famous my whole life. You know, he's like a little bit younger than us. Uh, he's in his like 40. Yeah. So he's like in that era, same, same age group. And so, like seeing him, see this other tier one operator guy. I'm like, dude, these are hardcore crazy people, man. He's been grinding. I talked to him and I was like, What's what's your how long are you in a run for? He's like, I'm not sure. You know, they want to extend, and you know, do I want to do it? My wife kind of pushed the other way. He's got like a five-year-old. So we're talking about that. Really cool guy, very humble. Um, he's like, Man, I've been going since I was eight. I was like, oh, marathon, baby. Going since you're eight. So, you know, shout out to Frankie, shout out to the tier one guys that are fighting for freedom. Yeah. And shout out to Rachel for crushing 250 miles on the record, man. That's amazing. Congrats to you and your commitment. And we like to welcome Gage Lee to the podcast. Gage Lee, Gage Lee, Gage Lee. Hey, um Can I do that for myself? Yes, of course. Uh Gage is getting in with us. We're thankful for that. Hey, we're talking about Christian college and our commitment to Christ. One of the things that's been kind of a long-running joke in the Christian college community is this idea of ring by spring. They say that sometimes people go to college not for their degree, but for their MRS or their MR degree, their Mr. or Mrs. degree. Uh-oh. And they're trying to get that ring by spring so in their first year, find someone, get connected, get married, and not spousified.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

Not have to refrain from being living the college life without the restrictions.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

One before the look. But they're uh Hulu, true to everything in all of media, they came up with this show called Ring by Spring. It's essentially taking Christian college kids and putting them in a Paradise Island situation, so very much like the you know, Temptation Island kind of thing, and they're gonna see how they do with their Christianity and also and they're connecting to other people and of whether or not they're gonna choose. So it's a mix of this. What's this new show where they don't see the person, they fall in love without seeing them. You've seen this as Love's Blind, I think. Yeah, it's Love is Blind. So you have Love is Blind with Temptation Island with like a Christian spin. So I don't know, man. Interesting. My thought was we get Javen on the show, obviously. No, I'd be I'd be the only one to survive on that show.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

He's like a dedicated Lord girl kick rocks. Yeah, my future wife's in Cuba, dumb.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Yeah, there you go. Christian Shakira, she's still down in Colombia.

SPEAKER_06 20:15

I gotta go back down there. Uh they I think they tried this not exactly with like they didn't specifically select like Christian or Mormon people, right? But I think they had it was a show, it was like it was, I think it's like called like 20 virgins or something, and most of them just happen to be like Mormon or or Christian, okay, and they all go on this island and they're supposed to like mingle and see if they can like try and find somebody to like date or something, but they're really awkward because none of them have really dated anybody before. No, not at all. It's just like I I think because they grew up like that, um, so many of them are like pushed to stray away from something like that. So when it comes time to like actually try to date or try to like court somebody, they're like really awkward and it feels like it's just painful to watch.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Like, I don't know, but yeah, it's a lot of high-necked high-necked uh dresses with doilies.

SPEAKER_06 21:06

No, not even like they're wearing normal stuff, they just don't really know how to communicate with each other. It's like I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

Maybe it's just the level of communication in the environment that they're placed, right? Because I feel as though in like community social structures that they're like well like assimilated with, yeah, they're probably super easy going and easy to talk to. No. But you stick them on an island where you're like, hey, I'm gonna label you as one of the 20 virgins. You see the 2D passage and giving you faces that I mean, like, even we're all both like no.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

No, they're all just weird. Uh it's it's honestly, it's just it's walking through. It's walking through. Uh, you know, you need to kind of, and this is not a hit against anybody who homeschools and stuff like that. I understand people need to make a right choice for their family, or even Christian school or private school, whatever it is. But I'll say this unless you have a good opportunity for you to get socially enacted in your junior high years when everyone's awkward and weird, unless you have that opportunity, you skip the everyone's. Awkward, everyone's weird, it's totally fine. Because by the time you get to high school, a lot of people figured it out. And so they actually have really good social skills and they treat people like semi-adult. Whereas the if they've missed that and they're still awkward, that'll just shift right into their early 20s, man. And we've seen that a lot. And that's not always the case, like because if they're real connected and have friends and stuff, it's a different story. But those are more the anomaly. I think it's what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

I 100% agree. I was an RA in college, and you could always pick the kids who hadn't been exposed to a lot of stuff. Because uh, so I mean we went to CAC, which is a dry campus, but it's it's kind of a university experience on the community college level. So it's right there in Casa Grand, and um so it's you go and you get your AA. There are people for who come from all over the world because it's a an Olympic training site. Um but uh because of it, it's just very unique. It has dorm rooms and everything like that. It's a dry campus because most people are under 21. Right. That doesn't stop people from going to the desert and doing what they're gonna do. Right, sure. You know, and again, all of these you've got you know, I don't know if we're shouting that out.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

No, we're doing that shout out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

But now you've got all these kids who had very structured lives that now all of those rules, uh the parent influence and all that stuff is gone. And so um it again, the the students who aren't rooted in something, if they don't know who they are, it and that kind of stuff. Man, I remember this one girl that she she I remember her on registration day. She was super cute, she's from the Midwest and and all this, very like homely and and all of that. Yeah, within a semester, she was around the track team. You know, and uh gotcha. And and so it was like you could just watch, you could watch people who weren't grounded, who it's kind of like Rumspringer for the Amish, you know. They live this this life, and then when they're they're introduced to the world to see if they want to uh come back and live the Amish lifestyle for a lot of them fall away because they've never been exposed to this kind of thing. And I think that's very similar. If you're not exposed to that awkwardness, if you're not exposed to the the reality of of the protection outside of your home, yeah, um, then it it can be really dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

For sure. And I'm not saying you need to like expose your kids to stuff that's not appropriate. That's not what I'm saying, because we don't believe it. That's a good clarification, but yeah, that's a real big thing, and so I'm not saying that at all, but it's the opportunity for them to mix mix with you know people of the opposite sex and figure out awkwardness and conversation and all those other things that if you don't figure out, then it's a problem. That's why I'm like, hey man, you know, Javen's got all those skills, so let's get him on here and get him a couple wives. I mean one wife, just one, just one. That's crazy. It's still, I think that's crazy. It's a little bit corner still. A couple is crazy. The couple is crazy. OT? I'm just I'm joking. It's a joke. I don't want a Celeste to show up with a pointing knife. She's like, and pokey pokey, and now you have holes in you.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

I'm like, great.

SPEAKER_04 24:53

That's anybody's wife on this podcast. Like, what are you encouraging around here, Mr. Brown?

SPEAKER_03 24:57

100% joking.

SPEAKER_04 24:59

So, Javen, you're trying out then.

unknown 25:00

No, no.

SPEAKER_06 25:01

It's like I I think you and I talked about this the other day. It's it's so strange because people, even if they go to Christian college, still have that drive that every other freshman at like a public or private university that's like secular will go to, where you just want to like yeah. What was that? Yeah, I didn't I didn't say anything, but I think you get the connotation for the horizontal yeah, be or horizontal. We'll leave it at least horizontal refreshment. I think that's why like so many people will just get engaged so quickly. Like, I think about not appropriate, not appropriate.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

We gotta click.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

We gotta clip the married people before the Lord only. Let me say it clearly.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

For the Lord. Where are we going? We're going to Jesus. Yeah, come on. Perhaps quicker than we thought if Celeste shows up.

SPEAKER_06 25:48

Oh my gosh. Go ahead. Oh, but still, like it's just it's a mess because I think, in some sense, if you start like trying to date in your freshman year at a Christian college, people are like more desperate than they would be at like a different university because they're in a phase of their life where now that they're not grounded by like what their parents are saying or they don't feel like they have eyes on them at all times, they're just trying to do what they want to do. Yeah. But then because they like are under the assumption that, oh, we have like and they want to be grounded and like we have to get married before we do this, they just speed up the process exponentially. So it's like you're married within like what you're saying, ring by spring. Yeah, you're married within like or you're engaged within like five months of meeting the person and married by like a year within knowing them. Yeah. And it's like and yeah, even like not just Christian circles, but BYU is like notorious for this dude. I was thinking about that. Yeah, guys who go and ask the questions. Oh, yeah, no, I know a ton of people that will come back like from mission and then they're engaged by the time they're like 21, but they've only known this person for like less than a year. And it's crazy. I'm like, dude, I I could never do that personally. Like, I don't know. But no, I did that.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Anybody put a timer on it? So we just go ahead and check. Next year May 300. I'll hold my hold of my ground. Don't worry, don't worry. Don't worry. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 27:02

Well, I mean, to your point, that is kind of what you experienced a little bit. Oh, that's 100% what I experienced. I mean, here's the thing we neither one of us were walking with the Lord whenever our relationship started or played out. Um, it wasn't until I think like a year and a half. My wife will 100% when she watches this, tell me that I put you the timeline. Yeah, that's all right your dad's told me this timeline. He's like, his timeline is not right. It's okay. Um at some point after we had gotten married is whenever we had come to Christ together. Um but before that, you know, like we'd we'd started running around together, we're doing a lot of drinking, we're, you know, always on the motorcycle or running around doing crazy stuff with crazy people. Right, right, right. And I happened to lock her down, right? I trapped her with my with my seed. Yes, you had a child together. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, Lord be praised. And so shortly after that, I had to make a decision of like, I'm not, I'm not not gonna be in my kid's life consistently. And that like I love this woman, right? She's a wonderful, intelligent, like strong-willed, independent person, somebody who I'd be happy to, and I've I had seen her as a mother because of her oldest child. Right. And so, like, I was like, this is this is about as good as I'm ever gonna get. So, you know, we we did the deed, went out to Hawaii, and I think it was we had first gone on our we had gone on our first date in December of whatever year that was, because I'm not even gonna and then we got engaged September of the following year. Okay, and in a month's time, we were getting married October in Maui.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Crazy.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Crazy. Yeah. Uh I'm gonna say we do it in a different order, yes, as unto the Lord. So just throw that out there to you. Um, you know, what we we've talked about this often is that people make this mistakes, they make all sorts of decisions that aren't in alignment with Christ, but what we can do is move forward from where we are going forward. So, you know, in in the case with you know, with Gage and his wife Jenea, you know, they figured out where they were at and they move forward with Christ from there. And we have that conversation often.

SPEAKER_04 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

One of those is about, like, for instance, people that find themselves being pregnant. We hold life at conception, so we very much evalue a child in utero and and believe for that child and and want to protect that child. But at the same time, a person making a decision that caused a child to be born is not one that we're just like just because you got them pregnant, that they should go and get married necessarily. Now, if they're committed and want to do all the things right and be aligned before God, yes, they definitely should. But they don't need to compound those things. If they weren't in a relationship, they weren't come together, they don't need to go and jump into a relationship in order to try to solve the problem. Yeah, because that's not gonna help them. What they do is make a commitment to each other for the child and then figure out, okay, where are we at in our relationship together? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_04 29:38

Oh, yeah, 100%. And I think what happened was is you know, us living in the world at the time and my infatuation with my wife, it now wife, Lord be praised. Lord be praised. Uh the whole relationship was built on sand. Right. And and you know, a lot of that was living for and of the world at the time. And you know, our circumstances have only taken us to where we are today because of the grace of God, right? And part of getting there was breaking down that previous sand foundation that honestly a lot of it was built by me, that sandiness, and was taking it, breaking it down, and then rebuilding the foundation on Christ. Right. And only through that were we able to find like true satisfaction in our marriage and with each other. Sure. Um, so like none of it, yes, we went about it in a very interesting way, not to say that that's the right way in any shape or form. Right, right. But Lord be praised that we have a God who redeems and you know doesn't leave or forsake us. And we were able to find uh a lot of a lot of restoration and um salvation in that.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

So I love your analogy because you're saying, you know, you're talking about how Christ is now the foundation for your your life, for your relationship, for your family, for personal, for you and your wife together uh as an entity and then together with your your sons. And so I think that's an amazing thing. I think it's powerful as an example of how you can realign and get into alignment with Christ, even whenever it didn't start out that way necessarily. And I can say that's the same in my own story, I think it's the same in many people's story. You know, they made decisions that weren't the best decision, but God redeemed their story and we're able to change it. And I think that has everything to do with it. So my hope and prayer for all these young Christians that are out here there in Paradise Island or wherever they are, is I pray that they have um the tenacity, the moxie to stay in the way of Christ and uh not be infatuated and trapped in by the hot people that are walking around there. Amen. That they just give it to the Lord. Um yeah, it makes all a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Well, and I pray that they they're just good representatives of Christ because that's when when these kinds of things come up because there's such a vast uh spectrum of Christianity and where you fall and and what you believe in all of those things. And unfortunately, a lot of times we don't come off looking very good. We don't we don't paint a very good picture of Christ. And what happens is people will uh assume that Jesus isn't good because we're not good. Correct. And that's that's where I really have a hard time with with things like this, is just that it's like, look, I mean, they're just representatives, and they're at the end of the day, they're broken just like everybody else. Yeah. And so um I just hope that they're good representations of who Christ is.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

That's so true. The whole the whole thing is designed to be a mockery, you know, like putting people who are then willing to be in those circumstances. I feel like it's all just around the concept of like watch with the intention of seeing these people flop.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Yeah, I think in part it is kind of like hate watching it. Some people it's more like, you know, the enticement of like, you know, they're they're not in committed, you know, if we're talking about like Simbis saving your marriage before it starts, you're talking about like resolved relationships versus somebody who's more like they're more like in a fairy tale. And so I think this goes with more of the fairy tale thought process of of love that's like there's a magical person out there for everyone. It's like, yeah, there are people out there for you, but it really has to do with your character. You know what I mean? Not whether or not they look hot at the time. That's kind of what you're talking about, is like you guys, you know, you're good looking folks with charisma and coolness and all that. And you can build a short-term thing on those things, but those things aren't eternal, so they're not gonna last. And eventually, you know, like you know, even though you if you're cool your whole life, which it probably will be because your parents are both very cool, and so you're cool your whole life and your wife is cool her whole life, is all good and fine, but that's not enough to continue and carry you through. It's gotta be something that's actually eternal, which is only found in Christ. Come on. So that's my hope and prayer for those guys as well. And Javen in the future is he goes to Columbia and finds his wife or something else.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

I'll wait until he puts himself back on camera so he can get a good reaction.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

There you go. There it is. Okay. Hey, uh, one of the things that we've been talking about uh is things that are happening around us. Um, we've talked about all the advancements that have been happening in South Korea and Japan, but they're running into an issue is that with the new blockades that are happening in Iran and other places, that these people are running out of fuel big time. So the sources by which they got their fuel, and because Japan really came off of nuclear because of what happened with their nuclear facility during the tsunami, um, they've really parled that back. So now they're really in trouble. So they're starting to cycle when people can drive in Tokyo and when people do certain tasks because of the power outage. And are you talking about a city of like 35 million people in Tokyo? It's it goes forever. Jamie, you've been there.

SPEAKER_06 34:20

What would what would Tokyo be like without lights? Oh, dude, like just to think about it, the whole enticement for people go out during the night is because of how grand it is with all these like neon lights and flashing colors. But if you lose like that whole tourist part, then people stop coming and then people stop feeling like it's Tokyo that they've known forever. But it's just kind of sad because especially for a country like Japan, this is kind of where the math says they were gonna be headed anyway because they're not having kids. They really don't have a generation to come in and fix all these problems, just old people that are dying off and need healthcare the whole time. As sad as it is to say. So it's like when you're losing the fuel that the entire country runs upon, and you don't have a foundation of young people that are willing to go out and do the hard, dirty work, then it's like, what are we gonna do? We have to find like that's why they had their whole footsteps in an electricity thing. Yeah. And even then it's like that's only a certain percentage of people that are gonna be walking around all the time, and it's only a certain light in certain areas where you can put that infrastructure in. So it's like, dude.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Um by footsteps electricity, it means that physically you stepping and walking actually generates the pressure to actually fund the lights and turn things on. Which is crazy. Which you know, I've been to Japan quite a few times and had experiences all those times we went as a family running around, you know, down. Yeah, and hanging out and doing this stuff. And guess you and I were in South Korea. You've seen it how built up and crazy it is, man. Can you imagine that place with no power? It is, it's wild.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Uh yeah, uh it it it makes me think of like where North Korea is. For sure. You know, the lights are out of because they've got all of this grandiose uh and and incredible technology and all that stuff, but it it it's just a giant paperweight once the electricity goes out. And so uh, you know, my heart goes out to the people because it gets cold there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

For sure. No, for sure. You know, they're running into summer and it can get warm there too. And you think about all those things when you don't have that power, man, and you're used to having it and cranking it for whatever you want, it makes a big difference whenever it changes. They're not like us, they don't have the ability to get kind of solar the same levels as we are because of where they're at, you know, their altitude or their or their where they're at in their latitude. So it's a different story, man. They're gonna run into some issues and you know, praying that they figured those things out.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Yeah, well, and I think that you know it it it's having the lights on is one thing, but then realizing that the water pumps also run on power and and all of the things. You know, their electricity is so uh vital to uh to our to our world that once that goes out, you know, you start thinking about the initial things like well now it's dark and now it's hot or you know, now it's freezing, but the the larger implications are well, where are we gonna get our water from? How are we gonna get our food? You know, all of those things. And and that's where it's like, you know, this is this is a pretty serious issue.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

And they've been early adopters of electric cars, and it's hard to to support that kind of infrastructure when you don't have the power to charge those vehicles. So and they're using fossil fuels to charge their make generation of electricity, so they're still tied to fossil fuels. So yeah, it's a very interesting thing that they're dealing with. So praying for those guys to have the right wisdom and figure out where that looks like, especially for brothers and sisters in Christ that are living there. Hey, um, we know that, you know, Gage, we know that you very much uh love your wife and that you're dedicated to her. You know, we know that you'd sacrifice everything for her. Lord be praised. Um, you know, in China they have they have a Disneyland at Shanghai, and there are actually lots and lots of Chinese men that are pushing their wives around in strollers. Would you push your wife around in a stroller like our gentleman in China?

SPEAKER_04 37:43

I think it's um a wild concept. I think what would have to happen is I'd have to get one of those like choo-choo train style, like yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 37:53

Where they link up and I'd probably just pull them. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 37:56

You're just in front, like on a You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 37:58

It'd be like the dual trailers where you got the extra swinging hitches and they would just follow me around in curves and stuff. The Clydesdale or the big work horse in front pulling everybody. On the Budweiser horse pulling my family. I simply do it. I said this to you guys. Did you guys see it?

SPEAKER_01 38:13

No, I think it's kind of backwards though. I mean, because I've worked around a lot of I've worked around a lot of kids. I'm not gonna kill you. I'm not gonna think kids are an endless source of energy. Oh, good point. I mean, they they go and they go. I I think that that could be the solution to the energy crisis. Just put some hamster wheels on generators and put them in the schools. You know, the the kid who can't sit down and pay attention to them, just let him stand, let him let him go a little bit on the hamster wheel and generate the power. You know, similarly.

SPEAKER_04 38:44

I feel like that has to break some kind of child labor law. Definitely.

SPEAKER_06 38:49

But in Southeast Asia, it probably won't. So I mean it depends.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Depends on country.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

But I mean, they've got all the energy in the world. Why are the kids not pushing the parents around? They want to direct they want to direct where we go anyway. So, I mean, if if the kids say, I want to go over there, well let them walk you over there. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

So Agason's not telling his wife to push him. He was telling his children and young daughters to push him.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

That's why I have children. I mean, it's just one extra reason. I mean, children are great and everything, they're they are a blessing from the Lord, but you know, you utilize the thing. There shouldn't be a butt there. There shouldn't be a but there. No, but I think that in addition to enjoying the blessing, we should utilize and we, you know, uh it's gonna make them stronger. Hey, come on. Uh we've got in the city. So you're academic of very large children in this country. Come on. You know, I mean, why not give them some exercise?

SPEAKER_04 39:45

Yeah, you're just advocating for the physical, healthy well-being of the young generation. Now, here's the issue that I propose. Yes, I believe that in China or you know, Southeast Asia, these places the average size of a person is probably a little bit smaller than over here. Because like I wouldn't I bro, I don't think I could hire out Carson to pull me and the family. No.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Not initially, but we were talking about the training that goes into it. You know, he could push you around. The first day, you may get to your destination a little slower, but by week, you know, 12, they're they're gonna be able to get you there. And and by this point, they're gonna have the motivation. If the faster I get dad there, the the quicker I get to stop pushing. Yeah, you know, and so I I think that that over time it's not an issue. You know, we're just building a stronger generation.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

I like I like where he's going. I missed out. I should have had Javen pushing me this whole time instead of pushing you. Exactly. So, you know, I'll say this we we had Prams or whatever, we had strollers. It's American Pram. Pram is very much British, uh trolley, you know, whatever. We'd use all these terms because we're talking about living as internationals for like over a decade. And as we did, we had little kids. Um, Shiloh was born in Paris, and then we, you know, Amelia was born right after we got back from Europe and lived in Egypt with us. So all these guys grew up around the world. We had a stroller, and we had these like kind of bougie strollers, and we took them everywhere, man, kind of living them. But a classic true to form, you know, Shiloh was little, she's like a year and a half, two years old. She starts walking in, wants to start running. She wants to get out of the stroller and run all the time. Javen, who's three years older than her, he's like five. He's like, I'll sit in the stroller.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Proving my point.

SPEAKER_03 41:23

He figured it out real quick. Yo, yo, I'll get in the stroller. And so I was like, You've always been smart. I've always been smart. So we have these pictures of him like sitting in this stroller where I was, you know, shy just running. Maybe that's also why he has the weak knee, though. No, no, I don't think so. I think that's from playing whatever 15 years of soccer in a row.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Well, you know, I think it also preserved the parents' knees and joints. You know, I I think there's a lot to be said about it. Yeah, you know, I mean, as long as the parents are still getting some sort of activity. But uh, I think that it'd be a good thing for the kids to do that. Lower costs of health care?

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Yeah. There's something to it for sure. Hey, one of the things we also saw was an art exhibition about litter in New York City. I think it's New York City they're doing this, where they took DNA found on the street from wrappers, from from gum, from cigarette butts, from drinks. They took this DNA from trash on the street and they used it to build out the mask of the person's face built on their DNA. That's wow. Which is crazy as a concept. And they had these silicon masks that they built out based on this concept. They had had them on display, and it was a surreal thing to see like this wall of humanity, you know, every different shape, size, color, whatever, ethnicity, they're all like represented in New York City. And it was like this whole wall of them using the DNA from dropped items.

SPEAKER_04 42:49

So it's wild.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Reverse engineering double bubble, you know.

SPEAKER_04 42:52

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Yeah, I'm thinking about like where, you know, if you have a piece of gum, you're not done with it. You might want to really want to think about where that thing goes so someone doesn't try to clone you indirectly.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Well, I mean, you think about the take take some of these things to the extreme, right? With social credit score and things like that. Yeah, yeah. You know, if uh if you're caught littering, maybe you don't have to be caught so much anymore. That they just find your cigarette butt, they they go around, they collect all the things and use AI recog facial recognition on them. They know who you are, now they can write you a ticket, they can dock your score. You know, I mean, it as cool as it is, it has real implications, I think, or it could potentially but I think that it's it's wild. I don't necessarily that's why throw your trash away.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

For sure. You wouldn't want to walk by that place and be like, ooh, I'm on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

I don't know that guy.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Exactly. You'd be like feeling all sorts of way.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

It's my twin.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

What's up, Twain? What's up, Twain?

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Hey, one of the things we'd be talking about is our testimony and our commitment to God in that way. Um, interestingly, this group Suicide Boys, which have been very flagrant and kind of aggressive and all these other things, recently were talking about their faith in Christ, which is a huge thing, talking. About their sobriety. This is a major moment. Have you seen Suicide Boys? You know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_04 44:04

Yeah, yeah. I had a lot of friends who are pretty deep into Suicide Boys. What's your take with them and it and the heart change that's there? Oh, I think it's amazing, man. I also know that they had split up as a band. They had decided to do kind of like their own different avenues as they were pursuing this. Um, I think it's amazing to have their testimony, right? Living for the world in such a secular way and like saying all these negative things about Christianity and Christ, and then coming into this new place where they're able to openly profess in front of all of their fans. Right. And then now they're gonna independently pursue this avenue of like proclaiming Christ to the world in their own individual way. And I think it's super exciting to see what comes next. The only thing that I I I've like I have this concern about almost is I know a lot of the secular world will see this and go, oh man, here we go. Right, right. Right, what's what what's coming next? And I'm hoping that some people will stick along for the ride just to see what does come and have an open heart and mind about it.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Yeah, be connected in that way. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense to me as well. And I think that's you know, my heart is that way. Um, relevant magazine was talking about how you know, a new uh just because someone's popular doesn't mean that you need to give them a microphone, you know, to whenever they become a Christ follower. It's like actually it's better for them not to have a microphone so they can just walk this thing out a little bit. I wasn't sure if Suicide Boys were doing this like as a hoax, like because they've been so vocal anti like religion that they weren't like trying to sucker people in and then do something, but yeah, yeah, and just be like, ah, you thought whatever, you know, just the son of thing, which would be like would be in alignment with their fans and kind of trolling and all that stuff. So I wasn't sure, but it was seen one of those things where I was like, you know, the after hearing them, it was like, no, I was fighting sobriety and all stuff, and I found you know, the it found like a real story. So I was like, no, that's pretty pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_04 45:43

Yeah, Lord be praised. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

One of the things that we saw recently, which is very interesting, was that on The Breakfast Club, which is a very popular show, an interview show out of New York City, uh hip hop show, uh, one of the people that was directly connected to Michael Jackson said that two weeks before he he he he died um by accidental uh mixing of his medicines and things like what later uh you know the doctor got convicted of, um, said that he gave his life to Christ, which is that was shocking, very surprising. Uh Jamie, what's your take on that?

SPEAKER_06 46:12

I mean, it's it's kind of crazy because if that is true, first off, that's amazing. But then second off, it also kind of plays into this really big narrative that people have been talking about for decades of whether or not he actually did a bunch of the things that people said he did, and like just all the evidence that the industry was like intentionally trying to convict him of that to deplatform him and a tons of things like that because of where his subject matter was moving towards like um more political reform and like a greater sense of equality, but they just wanted more like pop music to go out, like that wasn't about positive subject matter, which is interesting in and of itself. But then the fact that, yeah, with the whole doctor and everything, and now that they had this movie that comes out that paints him in a really positive light, right? It's almost like our generation or the generation before it's like millennials, is trying to repaint the life of Michael Jackson and tell like the actual story of what he was going through and all like these mental things that were happening versus what the rest of the world has kind of historically said about it. So if this is like the perfect end uh kind of like the greatest artist of all time that was just kind of done over by the system, but then also realize that all of his source of uh joy, but also success came from a creator God that we understand, and that'd be amazing. So I I hope it is true, and I hope that to that end, all the stuff that people have been talking about, Mike, hasn't been true, and that this was really just him battling through yeah, just what the world had against him.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

I would say this too, in alignment with that, which I agree. I hope that it is true that he made this decision for Christ. But if these other things about actions that he had taken with minors and other things are true, his decision to go to Christ does not negate him having to answer for those things. So I'm not always want to make sure we say that very clearly. Uh it is our hope that those things are not real and that they're actually built up by somebody else. But a lot of accusations have been made about of a lot of things. Some of it kind of unveiled that there wasn't stuff that happened, others that they was stuff. So who knows about those things? It's hard to say. And I, you know, I wish there was a better clarity that he would have lived to be able to have that clarity come out, but it's hard to say. I hope this is the story that he gave his heart and life to Christ. Man, what about the mercy of God in the last hour? Pretty powerful, Angus.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Yeah, and you know, I think that that's that's what's really cool about all of these uh these influential people who are coming to Christ, because uh, you know, I just saw Alice Cooper's testimony. I saw the the lead singer of corn, you know, and it's really cool because just because you save doesn't mean you're still rough around the edges, and you may pop off and you know and fall back in old ways and you know and not be a good representative like we were talking about before. But what it also shows is that nobody's outside the reach.

SPEAKER_02 48:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

And um and I mean there are so many people who they discount themselves and they say, Well, God, God can't love me, you you don't know me, right? You know, but but God does. And you know, again, regardless of whether the the allegations are true or not, we do serve a just God and we will answer for everything. Um and but that's what also gives us the hope is that just because we've messed up in the past, you know, and we we classify sin as misdemeanor, felony, right, you know, worthy of the death penalty. That's not how God sees it. Right sin is sin and it all separates us from him. And so so it doesn't matter because gossiping is just as bad as murder, it's just as bad as some of these other things, you know, and so uh I think there would be a lot of Christians who would be surprised to see Michael Jackson up there when they're headed the other direction because they they decided to gossip and you know about brothers and sisters or co-workers or whatever. Right. You know, and so I think that that's what we have to remember is that just because you messed up just doesn't mean that you can that uh if you don't come to Christ, you don't accept his redemption because that's why he died. Of course. He died for our mistakes, he died for all of those things, and so it's really important that that we don't be too judgmental and and say, well, you know, it's great that he said that, but he's outside the reach of God because of this, this, and the other thing. Right. Because that's not how God sees it.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

No, the sin separates us from God holistically, you're right. He's a holy God, we are not, and that's exactly where that that lies. So the Lord help us to be those in alignment. Amen. Yeah, period. Uh one of the things that we did see was interesting was that a woman who was an ex-witch who has become a Christ follower starts to explain what it was like for her, is they would do these incantations and she would do what she called like astral projection, where she would go and actually um be away from her body in like kind of a spirit realm or spirit form, and that they would actually use that from the from from her testimony that they would go and attack Christians and try to try to do things to upset their life, and she found that Christians that were praying could not be targeted. And I thought that was really powerful. She said she she explained it as as if there was a bubble that was over them. And I was like, wow, what a powerful thing. Imagery to think about with a protection like that. Gage, what do you think? We talk about we pray for our kids and pray for our family all the time for that kind of exact thing.

SPEAKER_04 51:06

Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's you know, it's it's just like whenever Paul was walking down the street or any of the disciples, right? And they're they're not talking what what's what's the scripture that I'm thinking about where you know he talks to the spirit instead of the person that's following him. And it it just it's a great representation of saying, like, the battles that we're fighting in the world aren't always in the flesh, right? Yeah, we have some fleshly battles within ourselves, but it's all spiritual, man. And I was listening to a podcast today where he was talking about like once you start to understand that the spiritual problem is your problem, it gets a lot easier to work on the problem. Yeah, it's gonna be because you you stop worrying about all these things of the world and battling these different you know areas in your life that you're thinking you have the power or the you know you need to change. Rather, you need to go to the spirit and ask the Lord to intercede for you on behalf of the you know, on behalf of you in these areas of your life that you're struggling, surrender and he'll take care of it. But uh, you know, with the praying the protection over your kids, and you know, I've heard multiple different people who have been in this occult like lifestyle talking about astral projections and all this other stuff and how they would deliberately go and try to attack people, and there was always something about these Christians who were praying protection over either themselves or somebody that they loved that was in their in their world um impenetrable. Yeah, something that they were never able to get through. And in the spirit, you know, there's a reason why it says that when we call on his name, he's there. Amen. You know, and I think that's exactly what it is. It's just uh it's a testament to the scripture saying that when we call on the father, when we call on the son, he's there, and he will he will deliver us up from the hands of the enemy.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Yeah, amen. So that I think that's so powerful, and it goes right in line with everything we talk about in praying over our family, praying for our kids, praying over ourselves, putting on the whole armor of God. And we talk about that, Angus. You talked about that with your family, about how you guys have done that, and I think it's some of those models. It's one of the things that we would do with our family is pray the Lord's prayer, pray over everyone in our family on the way out, you know, and recite those things aloud so that we're in alignment with what he wants to do. His kingdom come as well be done. So the Lord help us. There you go. One of the things that we talk about is creativity, and in talking about creativity today, one of the things that brings us to is AI and our interaction with us as faith people, people of faith and and Christ followers. And it's a question as what should we include in our AI agents or our AI clients? Like, what should we include in uh AI agents that we're using? Many of us we have moved kind of past uh using AI as just like a calculator, like, oh, I just want an answer to this problem, to being someone that's more like a partner. Many people are starting to work with their AI, meaning they're starting to train their AI and questions they're making. We have examples of that here within the way we've worked. We've used AI for a few years here. We'll take our own content, use AI to break it back down and give us maybe an outline or a video idea or some other things and use that as a as a way to jump off. So we're the originator of the content, and then it's summating it and giving us a new option for us to do new content with it, which is an interesting s way to what use it. But what should be included with your AI agent, what do you think would not? Jamie, what do you think, man?

SPEAKER_06 54:13

I I mean I think like slowly but surely we kind of just have come to the conclusion, or at least people that have like really been paying attention have come to the conclusion that it should just only be for utilitarian purposes. Okay. But with that, there is something to be said for certain decisions that you're making as far as like um whether or not you should take like a business deal or if you should fire an employee or something like that, based off of like only numbers. And if you make everything sh like entirely objective, then you skip like a whole element of like loyalty to whether or not somebody's been at your business for like 15 or 20 years. Um, like the way that you're supposed to appease certain people. There's there's certain intangibles that we have as human beings that go into really important decisions that even if we program AI with still requires like a little bit of morality. So I think it's like eventually we're gonna have to set in stone, especially for these large corporations that are like integrating their own AA clients and things like that, of where we shut it down. And I think it's gonna have to be as soon as it runs all the numbers, you don't have it involved anymore and you entirely make it a people thing, and like only hot like physical human beings talk about important decisions like that because the minute that you start taking an AI client that's being fed all this information or driving from one point or another, it's just gonna spit back out like it's a biased human at some point, but it has a lot more access to information that than you would, and it also isn't impenetrable as far as the internet because anybody can put anything anywhere nowadays. So that's a good point.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

I'll say this, and this is interesting aside, and we'll go back into it. But as you're talking about what should be with your AI agent, we don't know who the person is that built the client. So you're using Gemini, you're using Groc, you're using whatever, you're Claude, using these different these different um tools. You're not sure what has been put into that client as far as source code and as far as like its algorithm and how that works. So as you're building a client on top of or you're building an agent on top of that client, it's very interesting to think about how you uh what you put into it and how you feed what you're doing, your work, your workflow, and all those other things, because I agree there are gonna be at times where the person that puts the automation into a place, they're gonna be responsible for what the agent does. So there's always gonna be that connection. And I just got back from a residency we were talking about earlier, um, and one of the people that was talking about this at uh at Southeastern University was Justin Rose, and he's someone who uh works in this field and is actually implementing um technology uh university wide and other places, and that's a really interesting idea because he's starting to say how do we put the parameters on it? Because you can take it in something that would have taken a team of us uh weeks to do, they can do it very quickly and turn out that information, which is more like you said, giving it a specific thing to do versus making it make decisions on who to hire, who to fire, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

So Angus, what do you think, man? Uh I think uh drawing the lines and the boundaries is is super important, and so um again, knowing where where it starts off from is is really important. Um to be honest, I don't quite know. Um because I the the whole thing is kind of I'm trying to grasp it, but it's just a little bit outside of my uh my realm right now, and so uh so I don't even know where you would begin. You know, how do you teach a computer morality and uh and how do you determine what's moral? Because again, going based off of different faith systems, they they find different morality in different places, and you know, if you belong to us, it's one rule, if you don't belong to us, it's another rule. That's true, you know, and so uh so even drawing the boundaries is really is really tough because I mean where do you start and where do you end? Um I think that the the really big thing is regulation. You know, how do we how do we regulate this before because I mean there are so many regulations on humanity and and just us operating in our own society, yet we've got very little regulation right now on these other things that are far more capable of of harm and doing things than we are. You know, and so um so I think that with that, you know, those regulations have to be built in so you know as fail fail-safes.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

That's a good point. It's interesting. Gage, you know, as we talk about AI, and obviously we've talked about it in as far as like robots taking over jobs and things like that, but this is a different thing. We're talking about more on the the AI side and the operational side of it. It's actually the brain power and thinking power of that. What do you think you'd use it for that would be something that you're like, oh, this would be something I could actually use this for be a really good task.

SPEAKER_04 58:41

Um, like I've seen uh in in different applications throughout you know the times that I've used it vaguely, right? It's like um coordinate, like my my wife has used it for you know, coordinating color schemes and stuff throughout the house. Oh yeah, just ideas, right? Nothing definitive, it's not making decisions for anybody in the house. Right. Nothing's you know locked in or set in stone that now we have to do this specific thing. Another thing is like budgeting. Right. I've seen a lot of people use it for budgeting. Um I used uh well, I say I used my neighbor, actually works for Microsoft, and so he used Microsoft Copilot to run some numbers for solar at my house and it you know spit out some really informative stuff that helped us to make better decisions on what we wanted to do, more knowledgeable decisions. Right, sure. Um as far as like what would go into it, I mean the the biggest thing I would have as an ask, right, is like whatever it takes to bring the gas prices down. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I'm I'm in the same boat, I think, as Angus to where I just I'm really not I'm not savvy enough with it. I'm not plugged into that that realm enough to know, and I just I trust it so little that I don't find myself having it in application in parts of my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen areas where people have used it and it's worked for the good. Um, I just I don't want it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

I don't want it. I don't want it. I think there are a lot of people that are hovering around this same conversation, and as you know, we're kind of voicing it from different perspectives, even within our so we have lots of things in common between the four of us, but you know, and even friend groups that are around us, even within us, we vary on what we would want to participate in or what we would allow it to do or what we want to use it to do. You know, I might be someone who's like, well, I'm gonna buy 15 Mac minis and like put up a fleet of these things and my own, you know, my own deal of agents working together into you know a system and working into a network, whereas you guys are like, no, you know what I mean, and like flare away. So I don't think there's a a moral line on this yet, but I think it is very much on the decisions you do with the dis with the content that's given to you. So it really still comes back to the person as the decider, as the person that's making the choice. And I think that's probably the alignment with which we would need to do as far as faith people who are making decisions. We still need to make a decision from a faith-based perspective. Because it is not going to make a fake decision one way or the other. We still have to decide. Yeah. So I think understanding what is motivated by will help us in our decisions for alignment or not. So interesting. Hey, China has been building some amazing things. One of the things they recently built was um BYD, which is a big car company in China, one of the biggest actually on the planet. They have not just built their own uh automated electric cars which self-drive, they actually have built the boats that make them deliver the the cars. Amazing. Yeah. I saw them pull the boat, it's BYD, so it's its own boat, so it's not made by some other big, you know, big one out of at other place like Mayersk or someone else. No, they have their own boat. They literally pull up, they drop the dock, the first set of cars rolls out, and they're just in a line, and they just all turn on and they drive themselves out onto the dock and into the place that they're supposed to be in holding. It is incredible, man. I was like, no people in the cars, automatic unloading of the stuff. You get a chance to see it, Angus?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

I didn't see this exactly, uh, but I did see, you know, now they've got robots building robots and and all of this stuff, uh, which is kind of it's not a far cry from from this. Uh as far as the efficiency and all that, it's very cool. But again, I see I see jobs. You know, that that disappear. Hey, I mean, sorry about your future, Jamie.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:15

And you were just talking about the population loss. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

Yeah, so I mean it's it's really cool uh and all that, but um, you know, I'm just waiting to see to see how this pans out.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

Yeah, absolutely. Jamie, what do you think, man? These uh self-driving cars doing this stuff, pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:31

No, I mean it's it's awesome. And I think for for large operations like this, it makes a hundred percent sense why they would try to automate it because then the only people you have to pay who now earn a substantial like greater salary because of their skill set being so specialized is people that work hands-on with the software and also coordinate systems to make sure that everything's going correctly and like there's not obstructions on their path or anything like that, or there's not like, I don't know, someone trying to hijack or intercept the tank or something like that, which would be crazy. Yeah, yeah. Then that also could be something to worry about in the future. That's true. Yeah, digital pirates. Exactly. But everything then just kind of becomes like it is for war right now, where everything's like fought from or fought remotely. Well, fought remotely for wars, but then like for um transmission of of cars or for transporting it like from China, if they need to go to Japan, China to Korea, or even China like back to the US, then everything just becomes like you're just sitting in a monitor waiting for something to appear. And it's almost kind of like you have your own intelligence scheme for UDY. So it's it's pretty or BYD, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:32

So it's pretty pretty wild to think about. It is very interesting. And I mean, as we've talked about, you know, how they have dark warehouses, meaning it's all robots running in there, no humans. We've talked about that for a long time in China. We have it in states now too, with uh different Amazon warehouses and talking about what that takes. So I think this stuff's gonna ramp up, not go back down the other way. Um, and yeah, we'll have ships of all sorts of stuff rolling up to the dock and unloading, so that'll be interesting. Very interesting. Hey, one of the things that we talked about is creativity, is talking about things like painting. Uh, we love the art and different pieces of what that looks like. Um, one of the things I thought was really funny was they're talking about Michelangelo. And for those of us that have been to the Sistine Chapel in Rome, if you've ever been, it's a beautiful thing. It's painted there in the chapel. It's where they decide on the Pope for the Catholics in the world and in the room, which there are none but on the podcast if you're listening. So that's where you choose for the Pope. But the idea is if you've ever been in the room, it's amazing. You have to watch your pockets because they say pickpockets come to church. It's a sign that they have in the Sistine Chapel. That's okay. Because you're everyone's looking up. So everybody's like, whoop, whoop, borrow your pockets. So it's really interesting. But uh they said that Michelangelo, I didn't know this, that he painted one of his critics. One of the critics didn't like Michelangelo. He painted his critic into the scene of hell in the Sistine Chapel.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:47

Savage. Pretty savage. That's the right. Savage take, dude. We think, Gage, um, you know, you and I have a little bit of tattoo art. We think, man, you get him immortalized in this.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:59

Dear heavens, bro. Talk about dropping hot coals on a hater's head. You know what I'm saying? Hilarious. Because you know it's not gonna get painted over. I mean, come on, man. It's you're painted it for the Pope. You know what I mean? I'm saying, dude. Can you imagine being that critic and just walking in like, really? Yeah, yeah. You see your face up there? Yeah, it's like worse than the pope.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:20

That's a good point, actually. I thought about it, like, you know, the way with we talked about the NYC masks, and like, you know, it's like this is way worse. Oh man, it's way worse. Way worse. Seeing seeing him immortalized in hell.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:32

Javen, anybody you'd put into hell. No, it's a painting.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:36

Uh it is funny though, because this reminds me of um Dante has a book called The Inferno. He does something very similar where any pope or like church official that he disagrees with that's not from forget what part of Italy he was from, but there was like a huge debate between how the Catholic Church should function at that time. Right. He just put into hell for like a whole plethora of reasons. And they typically ended up being towards the lower part of it, like and face greater punishment. Yeah, exactly. For heresy and things like that, which I thought was hilarious because it's like people kind of just make art in whatever form they want, like their own personal fantasy of how they view. They make themselves judge during execution. Of course, which Dante would do too. Yeah. Which is really funny. And it kind of just speaks to like the idea of infallibility of like a person just being the stupidest thing in the world. Because it's like, dude, we've literally seen this play out for thousands of years. Like people will just throw whatever they want into their own art and then be like, oh no, this is definitely how it goes. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:29

Well, in a lot of art, I mean, you know, as we've lived around Europe, traveled around Europe, seen art in Europe, in a lot of that art is like, yeah, I've seen this painting before that you say is Mary and the Christ is actually just really a retelling of you know Aphrodite and blah blah blah. You know, like you'd see all these same kinds of yeah, it's like, oh no, no, this is Mary. Well, why is Mary naked?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:48

Isn't Mary a virgin of this boy?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:50

And it's like, yeah, no, she needs to be naked. Yeah, or like it doesn't make any sense. Joan of Arc being destined by God to beat the British people whenever like she's given a I don't know, like some divine intervention. It's like, yeah, come on. They burnt her at the stake, her own people, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:04

And then later revere. And then they reclaim her because they're like, Oh yeah, we won.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:07

Yeah, later you walk into like this is before obviously the fire at Notre Dame and everything. But we'd walk in when we lived in Paris, and it's beautiful. I mean, rose glass, you know, the rose windows are amazing, stained glass is awesome. All the all the art that they lost is so so heartbreaking. But one of them was this big statue of Joan of Arc, where she's like, this is like she's looking upward, and there's like this anointing look on her, like, oh, this is whatever God set her apart to beat the British, etc. etc. To Javin's point. And it's so funny. I'm like, did you also have the one where you guys killed her? Do you guys have that statue anywhere?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:35

No. You guys have it no nowhere, it's not in the garden.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:38

They don't like to record and publicize the mistakes, right? I think nor do we all, but yeah, especially for those who are making statues. I think they is like the royal they. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like the royal we like me in the mouse in my pocket. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:50

I got it. For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:53

Hey, one of the creativity things we've talked about recently is humanoid robots, kind of have that as a theme kind of recurring because a lot of things are popping up. Did we talk about this before? Which I thought was amazing. Was uh we were talking about how they're controlling these robots, and one of the things that that's happening with these robots is that uh they're doing it with mocap suits. We talked about how this guy was kicking himself. Did we talk about this? Yeah, yeah. Dude, hilarious, hilarious, hilarious. Yeah, but I've seen other of them doing too where they're controlling the thing and they're doing the other stuff. One of the guys recently built uh a humanoid robot that looks like Johnny Five from Did you see this? Yes, yeah. All right, this is a deep take, probably too old for Javen and for Gage. But Johnny 5 was from a show called Short Circuit. And the idea is this is in the early 90s, maybe late 80s. Yeah. And it's a a uh tank track looking robot. So it's a it's a humanoid robot on top with these big kind of binocular-looking eyes that have like kind of gates on them, like you would use for lighting, and then he's got tank tracks for legs, and then they have like a rocket or laser on their shoulder, and then they have hands that move. The movie is that one of them gets electrocuted and comes to life. Right? He becomes self-aware. He's some aware. So he's Johnny Five, and he's like, and Johnny Five is alive, and he's like talking to the girl.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:07

No disassemble.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

Yeah, and they're like, disassemble. He's like, No disassemble. So he's trying not to be disassembled because the government's trying to kill him. That's the narrative of the movie. Right. There's a guy who built a full-size remote control version. It is so, so dope. I would love to have one of the things. Yeah, but can it kick him in the nuts? Oh, dude, you would break your foot. Oh, because there is a no no private parts on this thing, and two, it's tank tracks making it.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:29

No, I'm saying, can it kick him?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:30

You know, oh no, no feet, but definitely smack you. Yeah, for sure, for sure. What do you think, man? What would you use your your Johnny 5 for?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

Oh, I I remember from the movie he read books really fast. And so that would be that here, read this for me and you know. Give me some information, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:44

Spark. But then maybe you'd send him in to like get your children up in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:48

Yeah, well, what I liked about what I loved about that movie is because he was created to be a war machine, and once he becomes self-aware, he realizes he doesn't want that. He wants to be he wants to be a gentle robot and all these things. He wants to benefit humanity instead of destroy it. And so uh so I mean it's just such a fun movie. The short circuit one and two, dude. I watch those every day. I love those movies. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:09

That's a deep cut. If you haven't seen it, it's it's worth a deep dive and checking it out. Some some really funny things uh about him joining a Hispanic gang at one point. He's doing he does all sorts of stuff. It's very the narrative is very LA. It's hilarious. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

So I also saw in China they now have uh there's a company that started uh they created some mech droids. Yeah so just like that you can get inside of, and just like in gosh, any number of movies, but like uh in in uh The Matrix and stuff, where we actually we're gonna talk about this on the next podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:40

We can talk about it right now. Either $650,000. Yeah, I'm selling my house, I'm gonna buy one.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

That'd be so cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:47

They're a giant mech suit. You literally get in it, it's like the Pacific Rim robot fighting kind of size. It's big, dude. They're like crazy. 12 feet tall. You sit in a big cage with legs underneath you, arms out like this. Dude, I'm like, let's find a way to get one.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:01

And it can also go into all fours and be like a robot duck, dude. I'm just thinking of all the applications around the church here that we could use it for.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:08

I mean just walk right over people in traffic, bro. So sick.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:13

Trimming the trees would be so much easier.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:16

Pick the tree up.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:17

Oh, yeah, all the things.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:19

So cool. Crazy. It's a full mech suit. That's right. You sit in the suit and you you drive it like you think. It's really crazy that they rolled this out.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

Yeah. Yeah, and that you could buy one. That's what's wild to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:30

What do you think? Lambo or Lambo? I would I definitely wouldn't do a Lambo as like a trade-off. Oh no, man. The the mech suits and all of it, it all just kind of starts to sound like a a new age babble.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:43

Oh, interesting. Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:44

I think we're we're all fighting for something to be the next latest and greatest and show that we're you know, we're capable of far more than we were created to be, and we can extend our reach through this, that, or the other. Okay, yep. Um, so I don't know. And I that thing looks so dumb. That thing looks to me huge and crazy to me. It's tall, it's tall. It seems like it's got a little bit of dexterity. I mean, you can't really grab anything. Cool, you can fall on your back and walk on fours. I mean, there's there's potentially some interesting applications that you could use it for, right? Like moving debris throughout your yard if you're living in like um a rural setting, you know, where you got trees that are falling and stuff like that. But I mean, yeah, we got tractors, you know. I mean, John Deere's cool, bro. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:31

Hello, ma'am. JBo, what do you think, man? Mech suits? I mean, it's just another version of who is the best at killing other human beings and like what you mean they're not built for building places humanitarian efforts. Same thing for drone swarms, same thing for all these massive metallic missiles that can shoot from the sky. The rot the what is it called? The rods of god. Yeah, rods of god or something. Tunston rods that are just dropped from space. Yeah, those things are crazy. At terminal velocity. Yeah, I mean, it's just like a competition of who can kill humans the the best or the coolest, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:01

So it's a little bit that there. That is a true thing. Still want one though. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

That would be you wouldn't need your kids to push you around in a stroller.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:12

Nah, dude, mech suit, bro. You skip all the lines of Disneyland. So cool. Just walk to the front.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:19

It's crazy. Oh man, that's really funny. Hey, one of the C's that we talk about is competence, and we've been talking about um how we can refine ourselves in our life after God. One of those books uh is from Rob Ketterling. He's a pastor out of Minnesota and very influential in helping uh people uh in their walk after God and accepting change in their life, but also someone who really has a heart for the kingdom of God and supporting missions. So he he's really helped people with this concept of kingdom builders. Rob's one of those big proponents for it. One of the things that he talks about here in this idea of keep the change is the idea of virtue signaling that people are doing things for the optics of them instead of doing them for real. What do you think about that, J-Bo?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:58

Oh, I mean, uh I forget where this is. It's literally in the Bible about or where Christ says whenever you pray and fast, don't be like the pagans who do it for the sake of like the look. Yeah, exactly. Because that's your reward. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, like, this is just kind of like virtue one-on-one. Like most people just think about it for the sake of the way that people view them. It's like a PR stunt, but like constantly that they're doing it's uh like to put it in modern terms, it's like LARPing all the time, which I think is really funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:28

It's live action role play for those that are following along. Yeah, it's where people go and dress up like people from mythical lands or the past or fight each other with film swords.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:37

Yeah, exactly. But then it got rebranded into just like literally doing anything that you don't naturally do, which I think is really funny. But um, yeah, I mean, like if for a bunch of people someone's someone doing something good, but they don't really mean it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:51

Yeah, basically, like if anybody thinks that the ultimate reward of doing something good is for the sake of how other people view you, because they're oh my gosh, you're such a benefit to everybody around them, and they're like, they're really nice looking. I want to be around that person. Right. If it's all self-fulfilling, then that's like the best you're gonna get out of it, and then you're never really gonna get satisfaction from it. But doing it for the sake of doing it for the benefit of other people is really an act of love, and that's what we're called to do biblically is like love your neighbor as yourself. There's a reason it's one of the two greatest commandments that the Lord condenses the entire Mosaic law into. Um so yeah, I mean, like I think that's a really hard reality for people to come to, especially nowadays. Everything's about um like your personal brand or everything's about like what you have or what people perceive you to be, is like being really authentic and doing things for the sake of benefiting other people rather than yourself, is how we're called to live as servants. But until people make that realization and they're just chasing the wind.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:46

So whenever you tried out for ring by spring, was that something what you would consider LARPing, or were you actually trying to be authentic?

SPEAKER_06 1:15:51

No, no, I was trying to be authentic in that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:53

But if you're a part for yeah, you know. Pretty good. Uh Angus We think, man, virtual signaling. It made me think of Tom's shoes. Remember Tom's? They were something that uh people started if you buy a pair, we give a pair to someone need, and they're a lot of that model, but people started wearing them, they weren't that comfortable. Shoes, they were nice kind of as a slide-on shoes, kind of like wearing flip-flops. But I mean, there was there's no like security for your foot or anything else. I mean, it's like closest to like barefoot walking I've ever done. I don't get barefoot shoes, but you know, it was like it almost became a thing where it's like, oh yeah, I got my toms on, oh yeah, I got this, you know, I'm supporting. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:30

What do you think? Yeah, I think that uh we have to be really careful with that kind of thing because it's like, well, now that because I because I bought these, I'm a good person because you know, and uh, and so it's it's just as Javen was saying, you're chasing vapor, you know, and so like what is your motivation behind doing these things? You know, I mean, like I my I immediately went to Mr. Beast, you know. I mean, that's kind of how he gained his platform was by going and and doing these benevolent acts, but ultimately he he's rewarded way more than any of these other people, right? With the views and with the momentum, yeah, and and so and then the money comes in from that. So there's there's kind of a fine line because you know, in this world that's so dark, you want to be able to show some good stuff, but but why are you publicizing it? Right, you know, and uh and i is it about self-promotion? Where is the reward? You know, what what's the motivation behind it? And I think that that's where you know, uh you get into real sticky territory.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:28

Yeah, it's a good example with Beast actually, because I think he really does have a heart to help people. I mean, is this whole philanthropy thing philanthropy thing that he's been doing, which is doing a lot of good around the world, a lot more than other really big nonprofits, actually, because he's so streamlined and he can do things efficiently. But you know, it is being shown and it is for views and all things. That's how it's funded. So it's a hard thing because you're like you are showing people you can do good and that does inspire people, so that's a good thing. But the other side of it too is are you doing this just for a clout? Is it virtue signaling or not? And I think it has to go back to the person, you know what I mean? Because a lot of us on on the face would all be like virtue signaling. But really, it's gotta be down to the the matters of the heart. Very interesting. Gauge, we think.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:10

Don't let your left hand see what your right hand is doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:12

It's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:13

Um I think you know that this all breaks back into walking by the spirit so as not to gratify the desires of the flesh.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:20

And if our intention is strictly to chase after the spirit, all of these good things are byproduct of that relationship.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:26

That's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:27

And that's it. You know, if if you're walking outside of that relationship, like Javen was saying, and trying to seek this self-gratification from these acts, I mean, that's where you get uh Paul talking about, you know, these good deeds, these works, they're filthy rags to the Lord. They mean nothing. If you're walking outside of the spirit and doing these things as some way to like build yourself up, whether it be a clout, right? Or, you know, in your um position within communities or whatever, politically, however it is, that's your reward. That's that's the best you're ever gonna get out of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:00

It's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:00

It's all empty, right? But if you're chasing the spirit, I think that all of those things do come out as a byproduct of having that direct relationship with the spirit. It's it's works that the father fulfills through you, not something that you fulfill on your own.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:16

That's good. I like that. That's a really strong piece. So let it be let us be those that do keep the change that God is doing in our lives and in our character, that we be those that pursue the spirit and doing things for real, authentic, as Javen pointed out, and are people that are doing it with the right reason um and not doing it for any other virtue signaling reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:34

Yeah, I think it should be the motivator should be well done, my good and faithful servant. You know, and if if that's what you're pursuing, who cares if somebody videos you and shares that? That's you know, I think that's fine. But it's you know, i you're not gonna hear well done, good and faithful, if you're doing it for the you know, for the views, for for all of that stuff. I think the motivation and the heart behind it is so important.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:57

Man, it's really good. That's for any of us and anything that we're doing. That we do it is unto the Lord. Okay, one thing, one word to leave the podcast occasionally change. I like that, Javen. Conservative like that. Angus? Foundation. I like that. And I'm gonna say anointing. Thanks so much for being a part of the collective. We love you very much, and much love to you wherever you are.