Demon Hunters & Field of Dreams: Finding Truth in Unlikely Places

This week on HOTLCast, Pastor Matt, Ryan, Cody, Mark, Nick, and the crew dive deep into a conversation sparked by two very different "At the Movies" sermons — K-Pop Demon Hunters and Field of Dreams. Despite preaching at separate campuses with no coordination, both messages independently landed on the same passage: Genesis 3:1, where the serpent asks Eve, "Did God really say that?"

From there, the conversation expands into a candid discussion about spiritual warfare — why the American church often avoids the topic, how Satan works through subtle deception rather than dramatic theatrics, and why knowing God's truth is the only way to identify a lie. Ryan shares frontline perspective from his work with Save a Warrior, the guys unpack the difference between avoiding hell and genuinely pursuing Christ, and they reflect on how movies — even controversial ones — can reveal deep biblical truth when viewed through the right lens.

Whether you're a longtime believer or just starting out, this episode will challenge you to stop burying your head in the sand and start engaging with the harder, more honest conversations of faith.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello and welcome to this week's hodl cast. We are here with myself, Pastor Matt, and Ryan, and Cody.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

And Mark.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Mark is always here. Yes. We love him. He's here.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Well, Nick is actually here too. It should just be the Nick and Mark podcast with special guests.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I mean, you're not wrong. We should just do that. It's just like a rotating group of people that kind of come through.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

But they're the ones who are they're the hosts every time. Every time. Nick, it's you. It's you. He can't. You can't see because he's behind the camera, but he's waving. He's definitely. And man, is he good looking. You guys could see. He's handsome. We have the best view in the house. So we're I think it's really a tragedy that the best looking person in the room is actually behind the camera. I think that's actually I don't think that's right. But anyways. I did that on purpose. You're not editing this out. He's like, I'm gonna try and take this out. Um so, anyways, yeah. So we did uh we did a what I would say is has been a both very uh culturally popular, but also a little bit controversial movie for people in the church.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

That's fair.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

We did K-pop Demon Hunters, and and I uh uh I Matt, why don't you I'd love to hear your perspective on the messages that we did at both campuses because you you told me I thought it was really funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Well, here's the thing for the last two weeks, and this is just how God moves and how God works sometimes, is uh for the last two weeks, we've been doing completely different movies at both campuses. Like that's just the way that it goes sometimes. And we've also been set up in such a way where the themes of the sermons, we don't really talk across you know, campus to campus as to what we're doing, how we're doing it, stuff like that, more often than not. There are some times that we do, but for Hotlewood or at the movies, that's not really something that happens.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Well, I mean, and even in our sermons in general, there's a lot of autonomy because we I uh one, I believe that even from the top down, I think Kyle, myself, you, Ryan, Mark, any of our pastors all believe that like we should be preaching what God has put on our heart within what we've already established, but what God has put on our heart. So it's not like you're sitting there going, like, okay, I've got to make sure I'm let no, you're figuring out what works for the campus and the people that you're serving, just like we would here.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah, as God leads, exactly. And it just so happened that this week I had used Genesis 3-1, you had used Genesis 3-1, and we were talking about it basically from the same context. Yeah, the same context. And it was funny because yours was with K-pop Demon Hunters, which is definitely modern, recent, it's animated, it's high energy, it's a musical, and I did Field of Dreams. It was 2025 versus 1989, which is kind of a hilarious dichotomy that as we're going through this, we still landed at the same point where we were talking about how when the devil kind of had gone to Eve, that it wasn't just the idea of, you know, well, I'm gonna, you know, completely buffalo her and fool her with, you know, eat this food, it's fine. It was, did God really say that? And that was a kind of driving point for mine and for yours for both sermons, which it's amazing when that happens because we're able to see how God is working collectively through each of us and also through each of the churches as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

And I I too think I think it's something that both of you and I are pretty passionate about in general. Like, and I and I know like just as far as like like our church and our dynamic, our culture, like one of the things that I think, you know, we when we talk about spiritual warfare, we have talked about it at our church quite. And um it can be daunting because, and I I think you agree, I think you I don't know if you guys agree or not, but like for me, I go, people who don't know church, they're gonna walk away and go, that was weird. Okay, like because when they hear that, I think a lot of people go to the cultural references, like they're they're thinking like the exorcism, right? The exorcist, or or they're thinking about these, you know, these movies that have portrayed paranormal activities and stuff like that, yeah. And it's like it's like, okay, let's can we strip all that back and understand why understanding about spiritual warfare and the context matters just as much as what you like it matters way more than what you've seen on TV because it it's actually completely different and even a little bit more scary without all of the theatrics, yes. Because the idea is that in the Bible, the Bible tells us in Revelation, like at the end during in the end times, right, that that good will be bad and bad will be good, and that people will go to their own means to determine what source of good is. And it's like, but that's the opposite of what we're called to do as followers of Christ. We're supposed to go to God's word, identify what God has already established as truth, and cling to it. And when we cling to it, it tells us it tells us that when we resist the devil, like he'll flee. And the idea is that like we have to cling to that truth. And like with you saying the same thing, like Satan didn't come out and like Satan's a deceiver, yeah, right? He's the father of all lies, and he's crafty. And like I think that's so important in that in that verse and in Genesis 3 when when it's talking about the serpent was more crafty than all the other creatures in the garden. And it's this idea that like, listen, you're not even people who are vigilant in their faith are going to be subjected to crafty arguments and lies that take us away from what God has designed for us, and it's our responsibility to cling to truth and work towards what God has designed us for.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Well, and I think back to, and I would I almost use this in my sermon, but because I'm planning on doing a series on it later this year, I didn't. But I look at Nehemiah, and whenever you read through that, you see how Sanbalot and the others are trying to kind of pull him down off of the wall to just keep him from focusing on the work that he's trying to accomplish. They're not just, you know, trying to get him to stop building the wall, they're trying to distract him. And because you're able to kind of see that and sort of draw those parallels, the fact that we were able to come up with that same sort of mentality in two movies that could not have been different more different from one another if you really look at them. It's awesome to just kind of see that if God's laying that on your heart for here and my heart for there, that clearly there's something going on where God's like, hey, this is something that you know we need to revisit, we need to talk about this. And you guys have done different spiritual warfare things before. You've done armor of God before. Like we've talked about these issues at length, but to be able to fit something like that into a series that most people are looking at as okay, well, it's summer, we do a fun series, we pop popcorn, we have fun, we do all of these different things, but we're still covering heavy topics of things that need to be discussed. So there is still biblical teaching and preaching that happens, even in the midst of something where we're pulling out, you know, different movie clips and talking about stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Well, that's what's interesting. You know, I'm listening to you guys talk because I listened, I I I was I heard you heard you talk on Sunday. Matt, I haven't heard I haven't listened to your sermon yet. But uh one of the main scriptures in my sermon that I'll be giving next Sunday is Genesis 3, Genesis 3, 4, is where and so it's just interesting how how you know I don't really believe in coincidences. So kind of kind of kind of interesting how God works like that, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Yeah. And I I mean, I think the reason, I mean, for me, it was actually like a cool thing because I it's something I'm pretty passionate about. And it's this idea that like we don't really talk about it enough. Like, I mean, I'm not saying enough, like as in like, hey, you know, uh, we we don't heart of lakes doesn't do this well. I'm really saying it more like I think the church in general, like just the global the Americ I would say really more the American church. Yeah, the American Evangelical Church doesn't really talk about spiritual warfare in a way that I think it practically resonates with people. And so what I think is most times people end up with way more questions than answers. And it's like if we just go back, if we just go back to Genesis, right? If we just go back to Genesis 3 in the fall, spiritual warfare can be answered for us in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Right? Like the like j from what it causes. Like, like we we always go to like for the wages of sin is death. Yes, we're we're all in agree that is the wages of sin. But the byproduct of lies are sin that come from a place where we don't fully understand what God's truth really is, right? And so when we're it's it's kind of like you need all the information, right? You need to have the you need to know what truth is to identify what a lie is, right? If if you were colorblind and I was like, this wall back here is blue, right? You go, oh, okay, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

You would accept because you trust the person who is giving you the information.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

But I my my information, if my information's wrong, like then we have to go back to the source.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Well, okay, you know because you could also be colorblind and you're trying to get it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

So, you know, the colorblind leading the colorblind. So, you know. Yeah, so but I mean it's it's stuff like that. It's like we we have to know what God's truth is for us to identify what things don't fit. And I use the like one of these doesn't belong here, you know, like the the old like Sesame Street adage, you know. It's like that that's really important for us as we're like identifying the things, you know, that are important.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Well, I mean, you and I had a conversation years ago, and this is going all the way back to Grace Chapel. You were really into the idea at the time of generational sin and how there are connectivity issues that kind of exist from one to the next, like all the way down. And I think that there are things that we end up as Jesus followers, we don't like the weird stuff. Like we just don't. Like if there's something that is supernatural or it's beyond our ability, or something that we can't stop, we can't control, or we like it too much. Yeah, exactly. Right, yeah. We like to kind of bury our heads in the sand and say, yeah, we know that that exists, but we're just not gonna talk about it. Exactly. But I think that everything in scripture should be open for examination and talking about and discussing, and even if it makes you kind of cringy and feel weird and uncomfortable, it's still something that needs to be brought up. So I I think maybe the next question, Ryan, is for you. As you're hearing this and thinking about it from some of the things that you've witnessed through either Save a Warrior or your time in the military or whatever, surely there have been moments where you've looked at stuff and you're like, oh, well, that person's just like they've God has not yet gotten a hold of them in the way that he needs to, and they're just kind of living according to their own thoughts, their own beliefs, whatever. Have you come across people that you looked at and you're like, man, they are so trapped in their own sin that they just can't even find their way out?

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Every day.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

I have phone conversations every day. You know, the language I have for that is they just don't know what they don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

You know, there's people traveling through life and they don't know what they don't know. And and and, you know, so many people, especially new people on a path to healing that maybe know something now, or maybe have a little bit of connection with God. The first thing they want to do is like grab the Bible and just start, just start dumping them with it. And and and in my experiences, people that don't know what they don't know, the reason why they don't is because they're not done suffering. Yeah. Right? They're not they're not open to to change. They don't want to change. They're on some level addicted to to feeling like garbage. And and so, yeah, yeah, all the time. I mean, that's what I do. That kind of feels like what I do with Sable Warrior is is try to meet people where they're at, try to try to act like Jesus, show up like Jesus, be the best example as I can. And then when they ask the right questions, I I see the door open where maybe they are, because it's a sense of being closed, right? It it people that are close to the possibility of God moving in their life, you can't do nothing with that. And so you so all you can do is show up and and wait and be patient and and offer that when when they when you see that glimmer, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

And I mean, I think that goes right back to what you talked about with K-pop demon hunters and the way Rumi kind of addressed her own life, where she wanted to just keep all of her, you know, warts and scars and pain and everything that was all of her sin issues just so covered up and hidden that nobody really knew what was going on. There was nobody to kind of come along and surround and embrace and say, hey, listen, you know, yeah, you've got these sin markers, I've got these sin markers, I've got this, you've got that. And there's so many times where I've heard this saying over and over again throughout ministry. I don't even know where it originated, but somebody said something to the extent of, if you don't want to see my scars and my warts, I don't really care to show you my trophies. And it's so true that we go through life in such a way where we're typically people who don't want to talk about the bad stuff that we've lived through, the horrible things that have happened to us, the negatives, the, you know, the things that are sometimes embarrassing, but we're only too happy to say, Oh, well, look what I accomplished over here. Well, that's a shallow relationship. It really is.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah, well, well, I think most people it brings light to their own shortcomings, right? Like they we we got a saying that says, like, you know, for some people in my life, like my healing is not in their plan. Like my connection with God is not in some people in my life's plan. And and and those people have a tendency to either either their life gets transformed or they they phase themselves out of my life. And and I and I but I I do think that's a that's definitely a real a real dilemma.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

I mean I think there's a spiritual warfare to that even in in general as well. Right? Like how many times does somebody go like okay, I'm coming to Christ, and now like my friends they don't they don't like they're mean to me now or like they're they make fun of me like because I came to Christ, and like well, it's like we all know, like if we understand the love of Jesus and the truth of the gospel, then we know that that's gonna happen. But more so we're prepared for it and we don't hold those people liable for it. They don't know what they don't know what they don't know, and we go, that's sin, not them. Like, because what sin is gonna convince those people of is well now that they got their act together, we don't now they're gonna be all judgy or like or it's just another way for Satan to you know use lies to influence and connive and and work against us like well now I'm not gonna have any friends. It's like the best community I've ever had is in the church. Like the best, I've never had closer friends than what I have in the church. Like I just don't. And so when it comes when it comes down to like the body of Christ, what it means for us to embrace that truth, like it's not always gonna come to us directly. It's I in fact in my experience, uh it's mostly it comes out of left field, right? Like it's like, oh my gosh, like where did that even come from? Because that's I think the way like the scheme like Satan's schemes are to throw us off enough that we will embrace the lies that he gives us, right? To throw us off enough that we embrace whatever that lie is. If that lie is I don't have value, if that lie is the sin isn't that big of a deal, if that lie is well totally once, that lie is, you know what I mean? This is yeah, the doubt or like how these things that we don't talk about. I mean, there's all sorts of sins that we have that that are nobody really cares about, right? Oh, it's no big deal. Well, I mean, the God's truth, like the truth of scripture is that we're always supposed to be refining that, becoming more like Jesus, uh committing ourselves to a life that looks like Christ inside and out. And like we're we're given grace because we're never gonna be able to do that. Wes Huff said this in an interview. I don't know if you guys know Wes Huff. He's a you know ancient world scholar, follower of Christ, um, pretty advocates pretty heavily for you know the proper interpretation of scripture. But what he was talking about is the law, right? See the Old Testament, we had the law, right? And he said the law was like a mirror that you held up to show you that you needed God, like that to show you all the things that you were gonna do wrong. Yeah. And that you needed God, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

That you couldn't ever measure up.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

That you couldn't ever measure up. And he's like, so the law was not intended, right, to be this thing that we, you know, that we clung to as a uh a marker of oh, here's all the things we do right. It was intended to go, you're never going to measure up. And he's like, and what the Pharisees did was they it's like tried to wash themselves with the mirror, right? It's like you can't wash yourself with a mirror. Like you're not gonna follow the law well enough that you're ever gonna be perfect. That's why grace exists, right? So what we need to understand is what is the root behind it and how do we continuously strive towards it? And like that when we talk about you know spiritual warfare, the lies, what whatever, if we don't have an awareness of what God has designed for us, we're gonna miss it because we're not gonna we're not gonna know how to identify what's not being designed for us, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah. And I think too, how many times do we see people kind of walk down this this path where it's I I I kind of do better for a little bit, and then the minute that I, you know, fall back or stumble or whatever, they just don't stop beating themselves up over it. Like they look at it like, okay, so I've started this walk, I'm on fire for the Lord. I mean, for example, we've got all of these people, all of these students that have gone through camp over the last couple of weeks. They're gonna come out of that environment that is so supercharged and energetic and ready to go for serving God. They're gonna then be dropped back into reality and they're gonna have to start living out the things that they heard at camp. Like you talked frequently about burn the ships, you know, that there is no going back, there is no ability to turn around and kind of go back onto the boat and you know, board and go all the way back across the seas. That once you're there, you're there and you just have to keep moving forward, that back is not an option. But they often don't realize that there's still gonna be falling down moments on that ver on that forward progress, that you're gonna stumble, you're gonna fall, you're gonna scrape your knees, you're gonna have to dust yourself off and get back up and moving again. And I think that that's one of the things that in church, for a new believer, we make allowances for that, we give space for that, we give clarity and expectation for that. But I think that sometimes for people who have been a Jesus follower for 10, 15, 20, 25 years, that we stop giving that expectation or that allowance for, hey, you're still gonna have issues, there's still gonna be problems, there are still things where you're gonna be marching forward and eventually something's gonna trip you up. It could be an illness, it could be, you know, loss of a loved one, it could be whatever. It could still have the potential of tripping you up, and it's like we don't leave enough allowance for that anymore.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Yeah, I would agree with that. I I like the I heard uh I can I can't remember some podcast with a pastor talking about um the fear of God, right? And talking about the fear what the fear of God really means. I've heard I mean I'm sure you guys have heard it all sorts of different ways. It means respect, or no, it means fear, like and it'll be schmited out of existence. And like he put it in such a he he's a Jewish scholar, and he said the fear of God was much more yes, it was a reverent respect, it was an acknowledgement of God's power, but more than anything, it was the fear of damaging the relationship you had with God. Like so this fear of God was the fear that even when nobody's watching, the things I do God is paying attention to. And if I want to be in the right relationship, then my heart should be that I'm trying to honor the Lord at all times. And when I find out that there's something I'm doing that doesn't, I should work to fix it immediately. Right. And that in that so that when it talks about the fear of God, I'm like that, I like that as a as a moniker. Like I should be fearful of what how I'm gonna damage my relationship with the Lord. Yeah, not fearful of the repercussions, not fearful of getting caught getting caught. Like I my I always I mean we we grew up in a in the you know church in the 90s and the early 2000s. Like like my thing is like I always really struggled with the idea that we would preach a message of salvation based on the consequences and based on avoiding hell rather than living for Jesus. And and to me, I feel like that is just such a cheaper view. Like, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't talk about consequence, but what we really should be talking about is how can you fall in love with Jesus in such a way that that your whole life is changed and your reliance is goes to him. Because if you make Jesus Lord over your life, the idea of hell is just it's an erase of it. Like, and you all you want is for people to have the same experience you have in loving Jesus and having a relationship with Jesus. And because I feel like when when we do these things based on fear of the consequence, we're not doing it from a heart that genuinely wants to have that relationship. We're doing it from a heart that wants to avoid consequence. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:23

There's a difference between avoiding hell and pursuing Christ. Yes. Like it comes from the direction that you're facing and that you're looking at. Because I know as somebody that like fear has easily gripped the decisions I make, the wisdom is not there when I'm fearful. The wise choices are not there when it's like, oh, I'm just trying to avoid the problem. Oh, I'm just trying like in like in school, I'm trying either I'm trying to pass this class and do the best I can, or I'm just trying not to fail it. Like if you're just trying not to fail it, you're gonna do just enough to cross the line. If you're trying to pursue it and be a good steward of it, you are trying to do the best you can with it and get the best outcome with it. And so, like it it's the same direction, but it's very different with how it actually plays out when you think about it.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Yeah, no, I I would agree. Yeah, and I mean there um to to get back to you know, like we were talking about with Hollywood, you know, the reason that we do these movies and some you know, any any movie that Hollywood's produced, uh I I would never, you know, I would never communicate is like always gonna honor the Lord, right? Right. Then that's we're not like for these movies, just because people like them or have watched them or people have a pit, because everybody has an opinion about every movie, right? We're not we're not condoning or endorsing these movies, that they're they're these amazing movies that you should go see. What we're saying is we believe that when you I when you watch them through the lens of God's goodness, that maybe you'll pull something else out of it rather than what maybe even what Satan might have intended you for pull out of it, right? Like the even in that spiritual warfare aspect, like but when we identify those things and we see God's truth, we should celebrate God's truth and uh use it to learn because Jesus used stories, right? Like Jesus didn't just come out and say things, he used stories to help people identify the deeper truth that was existent there. And in the same way, there's a lot of movies, especially the ones that we've carefully curated and picked, that we feel like have really strong ties uh and really good biblical themes that we can pull out. And so, you know, when we talk about that stuff, like no matter how controversial a movie is, we should be willing to look at it and go, What is God, is there something God is trying to teach me in this that aligns with scripture and that affirms something that God already already has? And can I, you know, what can I glean from that?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah, and this week at Jackson is going to be Home Alone. Ryan's gonna be up there preaching that one. This week at Brooklyn is gonna be He-Man.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

So I mean, as a kid who was born in the early 80s, like I remember He-Man, uh, not super well because it was kind of on that tail end, but I remember He-Man, it was great. So it's gonna be an exciting time. Hopefully, everyone's able to get out and listen to what we've got going on.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

So I would agree. Yeah, well, until next time, uh, tune in. If you're listening to us and you don't have a church, go find a church. Uh, get get connected to a local community of believers. And uh, if you're if you're in our community and you're listening, we'd love to have you. And if you're for part of our church, uh keep serving, keep loving, loving God and loving people. So yeah, yeah.