Brett Mason Show
Forty-Two: Faith And Sacrifice
Today I examine the fundamental philosophy of Christianity. That is the idea that the only way anyone can be forgiven is Jesus just have died, resurrected , they must personally believe that. There is no other way.
Jesus sacrificial death and resurrection is required for absolving sin. Without blood sacrifice there is no remission of sins.
Your faith. And your belief that Jesus lived, died , and rose again is the only way to be forgiven.
Nobody else can have faith for you.
1 Corinthians 15:17,18
For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
Romans 1:4; 4:25
And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead
Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
1 Peter 2:24
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
Hebrews 9:22
And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.
Paralyzed man
Mark 2:3-9
3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four.
4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.
5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
6 But there was certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts,
7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?
8 And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?
9 Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?
Matthew 9:1-8
Luke 5:18-26
- Duration:
- 46m
- Broadcast on:
- 30 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
5280 Exterior's James Hardy sighting is a low-maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels wood-borne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free, rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole-house sighting. That's installing additional insulation behind your sighting, or free, but only for the month of July. Call today for more details or visit 5280exterior's.com. 5280exterior's.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor, 5280 Exterior's, the altitude of quality. Hello, welcome in to another episode of the Brett Mason Show. I'm the aforementioned Brett Mason. I'm so glad to have you along for another episode today. We're going to get up from the weeds again today. This episode won't be for everybody. Luckily, we don't have that many listeners, so it's not that big of a deal. I have received, since the last episode posted, I have received more questions about my deconstruction. I received more questions about my thoughts on the Gospels, on the death and resurrection of Jesus, on forgiveness of sins, on this concept of eternal life, and on and on we can go. So this episode is going to be a hodgepodge. It's not a hodgepodge. It's going to be, I'm going to take a theme that'll cover nearly every question I was asked. We're not getting into heaven too much. Not getting into hell. I'm not getting into heaven or hell at all, or mainly when we're talking about forgiveness, sacrifice, remission of sins, healing, faith, faith and belief, I guess probably the two main things. So let's jump right into it, shall we? So the fundamental core of Christianity, which has many branches today, I mean, there's so many, it's hard to even say, but you have your branches of Christianity that are off shoots of, I guess, the original, honest thing, you have that, then you have the Catholics, then you have church, Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, Amish, I guess, you know, several off shoots. They all have several different beliefs and things, but the one thing that they all hold common is this, every single brand of Christianity out there holds this one thing common, and that is that you must be forgiven of your sins. The only way you can be forgiven of your sins is to believe that Jesus lived, died, and rose again, is the Son of God, died for remission of your sins. He came as a sacrifice of flesh and blood to take the penalty for your sins. He bore the penalty of your sins bodily, and without this shedding of blood, without this sacrifice that is for mission of sins, this hope of eternal life, none of that is possible. You can't do any of that. It's all foundational. So again, this, this is the one core thing, there's not a ton of things that branch across all different branches of Christianity. They all start to branch out of very widely after that, but the one core thing they all believe on is this. It's a very fundamental set of beliefs. Jesus' sacrificial death and resurrection is absolutely required for absolving of sins. Without blood sacrifice, there is no remission of sins. And finally, your faith and your belief that Jesus lived, died, and rose again is the only way to heaven. And I guess as a sub component of that is like nobody else can have this belief in faith for you. Like your momma can't do it for you, your daddy can't do it for you, your grandma can't do it for you, you have to have faith and believe in this life, persecution, death, resurrection of Jesus for remission of sins. Now I'm going to bring some scriptures out of the New Testament to just briefly touch on this and confirm that this is true, but there's so many references to it. I shouldn't have to justify this like if you're a Christian and you don't agree with what I just said, then you just disagree with a lot of the Bible. So I'm a similar agreement. We'll throw some scriptures out there at you. We'll start 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, around the 17th, 18th verse. It says, "For if the dead rise not, I'm using King James, by the way, because most Christians I know think King James is the only way to go, even though it is hands down, verifiably the worst translation of the old Greek text you can find. It's just the worst, but I'll use it because that's what people said you got to use. Alright, 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, like 17th, 18th verse, "For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised, and if Christ be not raised," right? So first he had to die, then he had to be raised, but if he'd not be not raised, your faith is vain, you're yet in your sins. So if Jesus had not died for your sins and he had not rose again for your sins, your faith is in vain. Your faith in him is worthless, it's meaningless, and you're still in sin. You can't get out of sin. There's no way to get out of it. Like I don't think you can be more clear about it. Romans, chapter 1, verse 4, and it's told about Jesus, "Declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead." He was declared to be the Son of God with power. How was he declared to be the Son of God with power? The power to save. By resurrection from the dead. The resurrection was required, which means the death was required. Romans 4, 25 says, again, talking about Jesus, "Who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification." There had to be a sacrifice. There had to be a death and there had to be a resurrection. This is just repeated over and over and over again, like we'll keep going. Verse Peter 2, 24, "Who in his own self bear," are talking about Jesus again, "who his own self bear our sins and his own body on the tree," in other words, he took our sins. And until he died on this tree and bore our sins bodily, we still were stuck with them and couldn't get rid of them. "Who's own self bear our sins and his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live into righteousness by whose stripes you were healed." So this one goes a step further in this, again, growing up in church, I heard this verse a billion times by a stripes you're healed, goes back to an Old Testament verse as well. We're not going to dig that one up, but not only was it required for him to bear your sins on a cross where he hung and died for forgiveness and righteousness, not only was that required, you can't be healed without it either. Pretty clear. So Hebrews 922, and almost all things are by the law, that's true. The Jews before Jesus came along, it was all prescribed in laws. It was the longest, complicated, most insane grouping of laws ever. Unbearable laws, by the way, which we could find verses about that but I'm not going to. Hebrews 922, and almost all things are done are by the law, purged with blood and without shedding of blood, there is no remission. I don't think it would be more clear than that. It is impossible for remission of sin. There can be no forgiveness. There can be no salvation without blood being shed, blood sacrifice. We could go on and on about how Jesus is the Lamb of God. He is the new human body form of the mirror of the Old Testament sacrifice of the Lamb. We could go on and on about this. This is talked about all over. I can't quote every scripture, but if you're a Christian and you have some of you other than the one I've just shared, you disagree with everybody else in Christianity and you disagree with basically everything in the New Testament. So why aren't we talking about this today? Why aren't we talking about this? Well, I've just had so many questions about my deconstruction of faith. I've had so many questions about how did you go from believing to unbelieving? When did you believe that maybe this wasn't right or this wasn't accurate? How do you make that leap when it was hard, by the way? I've been very honest about it, very difficult. And then even after I decided mentally, I'm like, okay, it still was hard to move on because you're terrified, you're scared, it's been drummed into you, and it's like it's a long journey. But interestingly enough, in the same Bible that gives you all those same scriptures I just gave you, the very same Bible that gives you all those same scriptures I just gave you, there's passages of scriptures and not one, not two, but three gospels. Not one, not two, but three gospels, the gospel of Mark, the gospel of Matthew, the gospel of Luke. All three of them have the same story, the same passage, and it is impossible for this part to be true and all the things we just covered over various verses across the New Testament to be true. It's impossible for them to align. So you hear this story a lot, like there's certain stories in the Bible you hear a lot. This is one that is certainly popular and this is the story of the man with palsy, a paralyzed the guy. He was a guy who was paralyzed, he couldn't walk. His friends carried him around on a cot, right? And I heard Jesus was healing people, which was one of his claims to fame, right? Jesus walk around, he would teach and multitudes would gather and then when he went from little town to town, he would just raise people out of their beds and just heal them and this, you know, this is what drew a big crowd, this is how he got crowds to come. So look, there's three versions of this story. I'm going to read the one that I think gives the most detail, like there's two of them that give the most detail and then one of them leaves a few of the details out. I think this one maybe gives the most detail. We're going to go with the Mark II and we're going to be verses three through nine. So, Mark chapter two, verses three through nine if you'd like follow along with the Bible reading home game. 5280 Exteriors James Hardy sighting is a low maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels woodborne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole house sighting. That's installing additional insulation behind your sighting for free, but only for the month of July. But today for more details or visit 5280 Exteriors.com, 5280 Exteriors.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor, 5280 Exteriors, the altitude of quality. And they come into him bringing one sick of the palsy, which was born of four. So he's one of four kids. He was born paralyzed. He had palsy, born paralyzed. And his friends brought him, right, why do they bring him? Well, they heard Jesus was healing people. That's why they brought him. Now, obviously, if Jesus is making people stand up and walk and doing all these crazy miracles and saying all these crazy things, the crowds were huge, we have much documentation in the Bible of how these crowds were huge, were huge, 5,000 houses being packed, shorelines, water shorelines being packed, sides of the mountain being packed, like it's always packed. So, verse four picks it up of them trying to help their friend out. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, so again, just the worst translation ever, let's translate it correctly. When they couldn't get close to him because there was so many people, they uncovered the roof where he was and when they had broken it up, so they broke through these poor people's roof. When they'd broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. So they chopped open a hole in this roof, a fat roof, I assume, the way they're describing it. And they lowered this guy down into the house on a cot or a stretcher, whatever. Presumably right next to Jesus, they just plopped him right in through the roof of the house. Verse five, when Jesus solved their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy son, thy sins be forgiven thee. What? Okay, we got to back up. We just got to back up like this one verse out of the Bible just ignites a stick of dynamite on all that stuff we just read. It blows it all up like he's like, what? So what do we know? What do we know that's repeated endlessly throughout the Bible? Number one, without blood, there is no remission. It said it right in and we read it. Without sacrifice, death and resurrection, there can be no remission of sins. There can be no forgiveness of sins. There can be no salvation. It can't happen. The Bible said it's impossible. It can not happen. Well here's Jesus alive as can be. There's been no sacrifice. There's been no bloodshed. There's been no death. There's been no resurrection. There's been none of that stuff has happened yet. None of it. And by the way, the way you could get an absolution of certain things and not all things by the way, like people who don't read and study the Old Testament don't understand this, but all sins and stuff wasn't absorbed by sacrificing goats and sheeps and stuff, right? Some there were specific circumstances where it was true, but they didn't do that all the time for absolution of all sins. It just didn't happen. Thanks to Rabbi Tovius Singer for educating me on the Torah and that's because it's pretty deep. You need a person who's entire family for their entire lives and to Jew and speak the Hebrew language and understand it, but that being said, if you believe that, that's another way that he could have sacrificed coming out of sheep for something. There was no sheep sacrificed either. There'd been no sacrifice of blood in any way, shape, form or fashion. None of that has happened. So that's the number one thing to understand, right? Here's the number two thing to understand. They let the bed down wherein the sick of the palsy lay. So their friends in the bed and his friends lowered him down. Another mind-blowing revelation is about to happen. When Jesus saw their fate, not his, not the guy who was paralyzed, when Jesus saw their faith, he said into the sick of the palsy, his son, thy sins be forgiven thee. What? Literally nothing that the New Testament claims is required and mandatory and foundational to Christianity, aligns with this, none of it aligns with this. Not any of it aligns with what happens in this passage of scripture and it's not in just one gospel. It's in three of the gospels. Number one, there's been no bloodshed. There's been no sacrifice. There for there can be no remission of sins. Number two, it's your faith. Your faith is what will your faith and belief. It's the two things. You got to have faith and you got to believe. They're the same thing, I guess, different wording though. It's your faith and it's your belief, right? That didn't happen here either. Jesus didn't say, "Young paralyzed man, your faith, I'm going to forgive you because of your faith and your belief." No, no, no, no. By the way, wouldn't he have said that if the guy had faith and belief, wouldn't he have addressed the guy, no, no, no, no, no. When Jesus saw their faith, their faith, the friends that let him down through the roof, when he saw their faith, he said to the sick of the palsy, "Son, thy sins be forgiven and it's going to get a lot. We're not done yet. It's about to get another step, we're going to go another step or two further." Now of course, out of where Jesus went, these scribes and people, you know, people actually of the Jewish religion that went to church, you know, studied the Torah, book Hebrew and all that stuff. They're always falling around to see what kind of craziness he was saying. So they were there and they started reasoning in their hearts. It says, that's verse 6, verse 7, "Why does this man speak blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God only?" So they have a good point. They're more than only God could do it, but number two, there's been no sacrifice. We first got to have the sacrifice. Before they were sacrificing sheep and stuff and goats and stuff and then God, well, okay. So one, the people who, you know, these are the people in the church of the time, the Jewish church, the Hebrew church. They understand the Torah. They understand the law. They know that one, a man can't forgive you. Two, there must be some kind of blood sacrifice. There has to be, there can be no forgiveness without it. None of that has occurred. Of course, they're questioning that what kind of blasphemy is this. Only God can forgive sins. And that's when Jesus, who of course knows everything, you know, they didn't say it out loud. They just perceived it in their heart. He knew exactly what was going on and he stepped in the Sodom straight and he said into them, this verse 8, "Why reason ye these things in your heart?" No, why are you thinking this? Well, I mean, if he's the son of God who wrote all the laws and all the Old Testament, he should know why they were thinking it, but okay, he asked them anyway, which again, to me brings up a whole ton of questions. Like if he were a reasonable, I hate to say person because, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to offend anybody, right? I don't, I don't want you to take anything I say in an offensive way. But if he is God manifest in the flesh, if he is the son of God, why would he ask them such a sarcastic question? He knows exactly why the reason those things aren't because they're Jews. They grew up learning the Torah. They know what the laws are. They know how sins is forgiven. They understand these things. Why would he be such a, you know, a smart aleck about it for lack of a better phrase? Like, why would he go them like, why reason these things in your heart? He knew good and well why they reason those things in his heart. And then he goes on to say something that is truly fantastical. He says, is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy that sins be forgiven or to just say, arise and take up your bed and walk? Jesus said that forgiven sins was just as easy as healing somebody, one just as easy as the other. And he did both of them. He didn't just do one of them. He did both of them. So this begs the question and we've arrived. Okay. We've arrived at this time. We'll talk about it. Let's talk about it. This begs the question, why was this whole rigmarole necessary? Because clearly it wasn't. Clearly no torture was required. No blood needed to be shared. No virgin girl magically impregnated. No hanging on the cross, no dying, no going to wherever he went for three days, no coming back in residence. Clearly none of that was necessary to claim that it was necessary is a straight affront to this verse that is not one but two but three New Testament gospels is an affront to this. Like these two cannot it coexist. The only way you can make them coexist is to make excuses either for this story or make excuses for all those other verses that I read, not just those, there's many, many more. You have to do some kind of logical cognitive leapfrog jumping thing to make this work. Like you have to in your mind go, well, it's got to work. So I got to figure out how to make it work because you can't read it in at work. And again, this happens in the Bible all the time. When the people say the Bible has no inconsistencies, has no incongruencies, that everything in it aligns up with everything else in it, the way that happens is anytime a believer runs across a scripture that does not agree with some other scripture, they just assume that the scriptures must agree. They go on the ensemble, the scriptures got to agree. So I got to figure out how to make them agree. 5280 Exterior's James Hardy sighting is a low maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels woodborne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole house sighting. That's installing additional insulation behind your sighting, or free, but only for the month of July. Call today for more details or visit 5280exteriorrs.com, 5280exteriorrs.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor, 5280 Exteriorrs, the altitude of quality. The Dakono Music and Spirits Festival returns to Centennial Park Saturday, August 3rd from 2 to 10 p.m. and it's free live music from the Warren Treaty. Chris Daniels and the Kings is Cally and More. Enjoy a spirits competition, Kid Zone and fireworks presented by Oxy and the City of Dakono. Admission and parking are free. The Dakono Music and Spirits Festival brought to you by Breckenridge Brewery and City of Dakono. Go to thecityofdakono.com for more information. Pastors do this. Your normal church to go where does it. It's on you. This is what happens. You're like, "Well, it's on me. I got to make... Clearly, I'm in the wrong." I got to change one of them. I had to change my interpretation of either this one or I got to change my interpretation of the other one. I got to figure out some way to jump through some hoops to make these two contradictory things align with each other. And the entire foundational teachings of Christianity are at odds with this passage of Scripture. Literally, everything said and done in this passage of Scripture flies in the face of everything that Christians today are taught to believe. One, there has to be a sacrifice. There has to be a blood sacrifice. When many Bible verses went past that, it's not just the blood sacrifice, there also has to be the resurrection. There also has to come back for that. If they don't, there's no remission of sins, there's no any of that stuff. Two, you got to believe it. Nobody can believe it for you. Well, clearly that's not true because this guy was sins were forgiven and he was healed because his friends believed. And lastly, according to Jesus, it's so easy to forgive sins. It doesn't require hoops. It doesn't require nonsense. It doesn't require blood sacrifice. It didn't require trial. It didn't require him being, you know, turned on by Judas. It didn't require him being hung. It didn't require him being suffering. It didn't require the crown of thorns. It didn't require him being laid in grave. It didn't require him going to wherever he went for three days. They didn't require him coming back and being resurrected. None of that was required because it's so easy to forgive sins. It's as easy as just healing somebody. Both are easy. I didn't, I didn't make this up. This is in the Bible. This is in the Bible that everybody believes. Now here's what I know is what is going to happen and I understand it. I'm not, I'm not downing anybody. Look, I don't, I don't have animosity towards believers. My mom was a believer and she's the person I loved most in this world. I respected her more than anybody. I respected in this world. I trusted her more than anybody I've ever trusted in this world. So let's just get that right out the gate. I ain't coming at nobody. Believe what you want, you know, again, as long as you don't try to force it on me, I don't care what you believe. But understand this, you to make the fundamental concepts and aspects of Christianity, jive with these passages of scriptures, you have to take some mental leaps. You have to jump through some hoops. You have to make some allowances. You have to somehow make this not say what it says for it fit. And there is no two ways about it. Now you'll say, well, no, you don't have understanding. You are carnal. You are not guided by the Holy Spirit and all these things. Well, I understand English. I understand that if you're going to write the end all be all answer to salvation, why would you make it so hard to read and understand and be so complicated and convoluted that people who need to read it, in other words, people without the Holy Spirit, they need to read it and believe it and understand it, you may get so hard, you may get impossible for them to understand it because they don't have the Holy Spirit. What kind of nonsense is that? Well, here's the book. Here's the road map. Yeah. Well, I think it says this. Nope, it doesn't say that says something different. You can't understand it because you got to have the Holy Spirit. Well, now I got to take your word for it. I no longer am taking the Bible's word for it. I'm now having to take the word of the person telling me that it means something different. You understand how insane that is? No longer am I believing in the Bible because the Bible clearly says something different right here. Just as clear as day it says it. So for me to make the leap that this jives with all those other scriptures in the Bible that says this is impossible, I know how to trust you, a human, not God, not the word of God, not God's Bible, I have to trust you when you tell me that the reason I don't get it because I ain't got the Holy Spirit, but you do and that's why you can understand it because it's complicated. That is why would an all knowing, all powerful God make something so convoluted and complicated and that supposedly his creation, that he wants more than anything in the world to have a relationship with. Why would he make it to where it's incomprehensible? Why would he do that? That makes no sense. I love you. I want us to resolve our differences. I want to enter in into a relationship with you again. And here's what's required of you for that to happen. I'm going to write it down in this book. And then you read the book and you're like, well, the book, don't add up. Well, you need a Holy Spirit for to add up. Well, for me to get the Holy Spirit for to add up, I got to believe what the book says first. It's the old egg chicken trick. By the way, this not the only time this happened, by the way, it's not an isolated incident. It also happened on the day that he was crucified as he hung there. So one guy next to him, who was a criminal, said, Oh, God, you know, cried out to him. And he said, today you will be with me and paradise. How was he able to obviously had to forgive him of his sins? You can't go to paradise. It'd be a sinner. He had to forgive him of his sins in that instance. How was he able to do any of that when he hadn't been died and resurrected from you? You might say, well, he was bleeding, you know, they've been blood sacrificed, right? Well, it's more to it than that. You can't, you can't throw out the baby with bathwater. If you go back to first Corinthians 15, for if the dead rise, not then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain. Or yet in your sin, if Jesus hasn't died and been raised yet, it don't matter how much faith you got. It's useless. It's in vain. Didn't matter what that the thief on the cross said or wanted or believed that none of that mattered irrelevant. Moments went for according to the spirit of all this by the resurrection from the dead. He was declared the son of God with power. How is he declared the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead? He was not declared the son of God with power until that happened. How is he transporting people into paradise? How is he granting remissions of sins? How is he bringing people over into this place that's only reserved for those who have faith and believe in something that hasn't happened yet? None of it makes any sense. It's a hodgepodge of stuff that doesn't add up. You're like, "Well, your nitpicking this. I can go through the Bible and find a hundred of these." The reason that most people don't believe exists is because when they don't read your Bible, they only hear the verses that the preacher brings up from the pulpit on Sunday and Wednesday, or how many days you go because of what church are in, but they're not bringing up these verses. They're not bringing up the ones that don't jive and you don't read your Bible at home. I read the Bible more times than I can count. I've studied the Bible more hours than I can count. Back in the day when these revelations started coming to me, I was on my hands and knees are in the floor, in the church at 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, midnight, one o'clock at morning, two o'clock in the morning because that's how my mama taught me to do. I was praying and seeking guidance and wisdom and direction and the Holy Spirit to help me understand the words, to grow deeper in the word and understand the word. The more I did that, the more I read, the more it become apparent to me that there's so much stuff in here that doesn't make any sense. At some point I had to literally stop believing it and I had a friend of mine, I snuck really friends, cointons, but I mean, I've known him for a long time, but I mean, I'm not a lie. We're not friends. He's a cointons and he asked me not too long ago, how, how can you stop believing what's right there in the word of God? I'm like, just reading it is what did it? All I had to do was read it. All I had to do was stop listening to the few scriptures that the pastor preaches on and drives home on a regular basis and understand that they're way more than the Bible of that and then once I started diving into it, I started finding there's all kinds of tomfoolery of foot and all kinds of stuff that makes any sense. And I'm like, what? Well, I ain't ever seen nothing like that. Yeah, I know because you ain't read the Bible with it. You spent all day watching Fox News or something that, you know, your free time was spent on Fox News when you should had your Bible open, when you should have been fasted. When the last time you fasted and prayed and read the Bible for two, three days, when's the last time instead of going to the lake on you three days off, you stayed home and you got your prayer calls it and you fasted for three days and you stuck your nose in the word of God and you read the word of God and you prayed and you fasted for some understanding of the word. When's the last time you did that? Well, I ain't ever done nothing like that. And don't become telling me that I don't know something about the Bible because I've done that. I've been there. That's how serious I took it. You want to tell me that my understanding of it is wrong? That's how serious I took it. I took it serious. I wasn't taking it half-heartedly. I wasn't taking it on some kind of a whim and then you want to tell me that I'm wrong and I don't understand it. Like I'm confused and I need this, that, and the other. I was, to the best of my knowledge, right, to the core of my being and all my beliefs and feelings and evidences and signs and everything else that you could possibly come across. I was forgiven. I was baptized. I was born again. I was filled with the spirit. I was all, I had met all the qualifications and I'm reading them by, well, how, how, how does that happen? Well, because I read my parts, the Bible nobody else don't read. I'm not sure as much else I can say about this, again, I don't want to be antagonistic towards anybody that believes me. If you believe and that's what gets you through, I'm for it. If believing in the Bible and believing in Christianity and, you know, all this stuff gives you hope for tomorrow, it gives you a level of confidence that everything is going to be all right. It gives you a sense deep within your being that things mostly work themselves out if we have patience and we hang in there. If that's what it takes for you to reach that level of confidence about life, then I'm all for it. I'm not, however, for you pushing the other stuff you believe on me. I've arrived at a place where I believe that mostly things work out, that patience and time fixes things that knows that the grindstone will fix things, that being diligent about trying to accomplish whatever your goals are will eventually pay off it may not be today next week. I do believe that we all go through times in life where times look grim and dire and generally speaking, we all make it through it. Now, not always. Sometimes we don't make it through it. Well, I just understand that that's life. That's randomness of life. Sometimes in life, it doesn't work out 100% of the time for everybody all the time. It's not how life works. Life is a bunch of randomness thrown in a bunch of random people in a random way and so that works out great for some people, it works out okay for some people, it works out in some people and then there's a group of people it works out horribly for us. It's just randomness of life. How you deal with this, what important can you make the best of it? Can you have one foot forward? Can you muster up to suck as much enjoyment and satisfaction and fulfillment out of whatever life you've been given that whatever days you have are okay? Can you do that? And if you can't do it without a Bible, then I'm all about the Bible because I want us all to stay on track and have a level of confidence. Some for it, but don't come tell me how low my sleeve's got to be. Don't come tell me that my wife and again, I'm not married, I'm speaking in general a term about men all across the country. Don't come tell my wife, my wife can't get medical treatment because you don't believe a doctor can perform abortion. Don't tell me that abortion's wrong and so doctors can't do it at risk going to jail and a woman who's fetus has died inside her is forced to carry that fetus which makes her sick, which makes her start bleeding out, which brings her to death door and she by some craziness managed to get medical attention and survive that. If you had to try pushing this nonsense about killing fetuses and zygotes and stuff which are not humans, it's a clump of human cells that has the potential to be human, but it's not a human yet. If you want to pass that on so that we have to sacrifice actual humans, people who are actually here and alive and needed that abortion, like this woman, that was okay, actual case happened in Texas, then no, I don't support your belief because you're now causing harm to people over some, in my opinion, nonsense, again, I don't mean I don't want to be hurtful to you by calling it nonsense, but to me it's nonsensical. The whole thing is nonsensical and that's from a guy who was raised in it and had his butt in a pew easily until I was like 13, I would say, I had a butt in the pew four to five services a week, that's how much we was in church. You're talking about a guy who hit a hard time and fell into that and dove into the deep and did the fasting and the praying and the reading and did it all, you know, to a crazy level. That's the guy you're talking to, like I'm not just some guy that has showed up, like I don't believe that, it's crazy, no, I put in the work, put in the effort, I approached it as genuinely and honestly and as faithfully as anybody could approach it and still manage to arrive at this conclusion and you say, well, one day you'll find out you're wrong. You know what? I can't say that I want. That's the one thing, you know, people say, well, you're non-believers, boy, you just don't. Look, non-believers doesn't mean I, non-believers is exactly that. If I would say I believe God doesn't exist or the afterlife doesn't exist or hell doesn't exist and that would by definition mean I'm a believer, I believe something, that something is a negative but I believe it, I don't have a belief on that because I've not been convinced of any of it. I've not been convinced that this God of the Bible exists or does not exist. I've not been convinced that there's heaven or hell that's taught about exists or doesn't exist. I've not been convinced that there's blood sacrifice and salvation and remission exist or non-exist. You're not convinced of any of it. Um, again, does that mean it's not possibly that it's true? Sure, anything could possibly be true even no matter how nonsensical it looks. I guess it's possible. So but what am I going to do? Pretend to believe it and pretend to have faith and pretend to be saved to try to fool him? Well, that's, I can't do that. You can't. They're like, well, you need to start believing now or you're going to, that you can't believe something you don't believe because somebody told you you need to do it. I believe there's what I believe. If this God that everyone worships exists and he is just like everyone claims and he is merciful like everyone claims, he will have the knowledge to understand that it is physically impossible for a human to believe something they don't believe. I would say it was his, it would be his fault for not presenting a more coherent, well thought out, non-contradictory set of rules and evidences because the only evidence that I see is I believe, like you talk to people, they're like, well, I just believe I feel it. I feel this. I've experienced this. Well, maybe you did, I ain't, you know, there was a time when I thought I did and I know as time went on, I realized that what I experienced was something, but it wasn't what claimed. It was easily duplicatable, I don't think is a word, but I still don't know what it's going on. But I saw it duplicated over and over and instances were, for sure not real or anything on the grand nature that it's claimed it is and I'm like, no, just, I mean, I just don't believe it. But my held accountable for not believing something that I don't believe that I haven't found compelling evidence proof for. And then as a matter of course, I've actually found contradictory evidence for like, I, you know, if God is just a merciful, as everyone claims if this judgment, they happens, I hope that he will continue to be just a merciful guy. You know what? I'll let you down on that one, man. I gave you a bunch of contradictory stuff in a book. It was very complicated. People can't understand it, you know, people studied their whole lives and at the end of it didn't understand it. And it was wrong of me to try to give you a salvation plan and supporting evidence that's so complicated and unbelievable, like I should have done a better job. And they'll go, okay, like, I don't know, maybe you don't go get living the mansions and live on the street of gold, but I tell you what, I got this closet space and we'll throw a mattress in there for you and you can eat crumbs from everybody else's table because, you know, you don't deserve to be crispy forever. It's like you weren't, you weren't deliberately defiant about something you believed. You just didn't believe it. Like if you were, if you believed it, you were deliberately defiant against them, then, yeah, we're going to send you down to the crispy space. But you know what? You weren't the firm believer and you weren't sold on it and I get it. That's my fault. So here we're going to stick into the morning's closets and throw you some crumbs every now and then we'll keep you alive and we won't torture you. Like, I think that'd be the least decision he would be, she should come to, right? I should be like, okay, we'll at least do this. That's just me and you're, and some people are saying, well, all this stuff you say in his bluffs, man, it'll be very, I mean, maybe I don't know. I don't see how it could be, but, you know, if you're thinking this thing I showed the days in isolation, it's not. This stuff is all through the Bible. It's just, it's just contradictory, nonsensical, makes no sense claims of things that are impossible. Things of things that don't make sense. Things claims of things that align, that don't align and it just goes on and on and on and if you read it, you will discover it too. So I'll just warn you with this. If you want to be a believer, don't read and study your Bible. Not in a real way. Do it, do it in a tertiary way like most people do. Take the, yell a highlighter, highlight the few verses that the preachers preach the sermon on 800 times already. It's about to preach that sermon for the 800 first time and he's going to go to that same scripture, you know, they'll read those, but will they dive in and actually read the Bible? No, most don't. I want to wrap it up there. I don't have much more to say about it. Just understand that I love you and I care about you and I want the very best for you. I'm not antagonistic towards you. I don't think you're foolish. I don't think you're dumb. I don't think you're ignorant because of your faith and your belief. I was a person who had faith and believed just as you one time and I wasn't a dumb. I wasn't stupid. I was still a good person. I was still a smart person. So you know, wash that out of your head and don't feel bad and don't feel like, well, I can't talk to him. He thinks I'm stupid. I don't. I think you believe in something and I think it's, you know, the way belief works is the more it's ingrained in you, the more it sticks and that's how they get you as how they get you. Anyway, we're going to wrap it up here. I'm glad you're joining and we'll talk to you on the next episode. 5280 Exterior's James Hardy sighting is a low maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels woodborne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole house sighting. That's installing additional insulation behind your sighting for free, but only for the month of July. Call today for more details or visit 5280exteriorrs.com. A James Hardy preferred contractor, 5280 Exterior's, the altitude of quality. [BLANK_AUDIO]