(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hey guys, welcome back to the, welcome back to the, back from where the sanctuary. We're in the bros. (laughing) We already have a hard time, we'll build here. - Thank you. - Hey guys, welcome back to the bros. We're in the back from where the sanctuary, where conversation happens. That felt a whole lot better. We're hosts, Jose and John. Bill's not here today. We have, Brother Don, here with us today. He's been on a podcast before. You just didn't see him. We didn't have a video podcast before, but today's episode is gonna be about fear. (laughing) Before we get started, I wanna let you guys know that we have a follow button and a like button. So please hit that, make sure if you're listening to us on our audio platforms, get that so you can always hear us and see our drops every Wednesday. - Please don't be afraid of the like and subscribe button. - Yeah, don't be afraid of that button. And comment, let us know, give us some feedback. If you wanna let us know what we wanna talk about next time, that'd be great, we can take it into consideration and talk about that for a little while. - Yeah, eventually we are gonna run out of ideas. - I mean, we already have. - I got old book folks. - That's a good point. - That's a good point, that's a good point. So I wanna start, this little conversation with a quick question, has anybody ever felt fear and when did you feel this fear? It could be any point. I can talk, I can talk about my situation. So I had a point in my life where fear controlled a narrative for me. And it was, and I'm just talking about a little basic thing and not like some kind of existential fear or whatever, but it was just like something that held me down. And so roller coasters were a big fear for me. - I hate 'em, roller coasters. - Roller coasters were a big fear for me. - I hate 'em. - So at the age of, I wanna say maybe 10, 12, around that age, roller coasters seemed like the scariest thing because the way they strap you in and how they ride and the loopy loops and all that kind of stuff, those things look scary. I would never ride a roller coaster. I'd never touched one. I'd never got close to one. - I've been on two. - Yeah, and two's a big number for you. (laughing) - This many. (laughing) - Yep, many. (laughing) But every time the family would go, we would go to Disney or we'd go to Universal or we'd go to Bush Gardens or whatever theme parks we'd go to, they would be asking me, "Hey, do you wanna go on a roller coaster?" And I would cop out and say, "No, I wanna ride these rides over here." They look more fun. The water rides or the little teapots or whatever. Little kid rides or tilt the world or something real easy. And... - Yeah, I like the ones that stay on the ground. - Yeah, I felt like I was taking away fun from everybody at that point. I felt like I was taking away some of them. - Hilarious photo opportunities. - Yeah, so, but every time it would come up the top, opportunity for somebody to say, "Hey, come on, come on, come on. "We want you to come on with the roller coaster with us." It would hurt me because I'm just like, "You guys wanna have a good time, "but I'm afraid of this." One time I got on a ride, I mean, I didn't get a ride. I got onto the line and I was so like, "I'm gonna conquer my fear. "I'm gonna face it." I went to the front of the line and when I got there, the roller coaster came back with all these people on it. And they're off-loading. And as soon as our gates opened up, fear just came back in. Now I have to get in the roller coaster. I was brave before the roller coaster, but now the gates open and I'm getting so scared. I'm shaky. - Now that you're at the point. - Right, now Robert meets the road and I'm outta here. - So I get to the roller coaster, I step into the roller coaster and I'm setting down. Bars are up and everything's still up. Everybody's still getting in. And the guys coming down and pulling the lap bar down. I'm trying to commit. Before he gets there, I stand up and I say, "Nope, I'm getting out." I copped out right then. I'm saying, "I'm not doing this." I thought I could or I couldn't do it. - I'm sure they'd never see that in the line at the roller coaster. - Oh sure, they'd probably never do that. But I had to do to walk a shame, go all the way around. - That's not something to be a shame, bro. That's just some diligence. - Right, so totally I came to the second time, they wanted to ride it again and I'm just like, I got on the roller coaster, I touched it. - Good enough. - I touched it, I can claim that I've been on the roller coaster, right? So I said, "You know what? "Let me give it a second shot. "Let me see if I can actually ride this roller coaster." And then everybody got off the ride and said, "Let's do it again." So I went over with them and I got on the line, got to the roller coaster, same exact fear. Shook me up, the gate's open. I got in there, the lap bars getting ready to close down. Too late, I can't get up, I can't say I don't want to do it no more. Lap bars down. So now I'm scared. - Committed now. - Not committed but I'm scared. Rollercoasters, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. - Let me ask you this, what were you really afraid of? - So the fear. - What was the fear? - I had never been on it, so I don't know, I don't have any idea of what the feeling of a rollercoaster does to you. So it's like, I never, I've never been upside down and I've been swissed in, I've never, and also most, I mean, not most recently, but-- - But you had been, right, you hung through your knees on the monkey bars, you did something where you were upside down. - Yeah, exactly. - But he was in control of that. - Right. - That was it, it was a fear of not being in control of what was going on. - Right. - More than the fact that you were left in your right, in your upside down. - And I had no control of that. I didn't know anything about that. So, but as the ride's going up, click, click, click, click, there's suspense coming. Now, I am anticipating the worst possible thing ever. I get over the hill and you're the zero G feeling, the stomach butterflies, the whole way down and I'm just like-- - Like you're gonna fall out of the car. - I'm gonna fall out of the car. - Yeah, exactly. I feel like I'm gonna slip out of the bar. - Right. - Get to the end of the ride after all that. I'm exhilarated now. I'm like, even as bad as I thought. It wasn't that bad. - There's a point when your adrenaline kicks in. - And I think that's what it was. - But you survived it, but at the same time, the fear was still there. If it was really fear of not being in control, we're going a second time, third time, fourth time, doesn't change that. You're still not in control. - No. - Right? But now you know the outcome. So even if you are out of control and you don't have control over what's happening to you, you realize that, oh wait, that's not the end result is gonna be okay. - Mm-hmm, right. - And then you don't have the fear that you're not in control because you know the outcome is gonna be okay. - That's right. - Yeah, so I mean, typical. You don't, once you have the experience of it, I mean, you're still not in control of it, but you've been through it. - For me, the fear of rollercoasters, the fear of rollercoasters is a little different. I'm afraid of falling. Like that, that weightless zero G, that's what I don't like. - That you're just gonna fly out of the vehicle. - It's not even that. It's just, I know I'm not going anywhere. - Or the whole vehicle's gonna go off the road. - It's just weightlessness is terrifying to me. - Like your back is not on the road. - Yeah, the feeling of falling is what scares me. I can, I'm not afraid of heights. I'm not afraid of the fast turns and stuff. It's that weightlessness for me. That's what gets me. - Yeah. It's almost like, have you ever had a time when you were sleeping in that dream where you were falling? - I hate that. - You were just falling. - I hate it. - And all of a sudden you smack the bed, boom. - And wake up? - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. It's a common fear for everybody. - By the way, I think I'm not sure, but I think that when that happens, when your body jerks you awake like that, your body thinks you are dying. - I think that's what it is. - I'm not sure. - I don't know. - You might have to look that up. - Why don't you look that up? Let's get some, some- - Some Brother Grugal. - Fact check over. Yeah, let's get some Brother Grugal over there. Brother Grugal is not here anymore right now. He's gone. - So throw in the spiritual side on that statement and that particular fear, a lot of us feel like we're not in control of a situation, of a circumstance, of something that's going on in our lives and the lives of our family, whatever it is. And we get afraid. - Right. - And we don't have fear that we're gonna, you know, fly off the planet or anything like that, but we're afraid that something terrible is gonna happen to me or somebody else in this situation. And I have no control over it. - Right. - But then when I understand that that outcomes, if I have faith in God and I understand that the outcomes are gonna be acceptable, like when I'm gonna get off that rollercoaster ride of a situation that I'm gonna be okay, everybody around me is gonna be okay. - Right. - Then all of a sudden, I don't have that fear anymore. Right? And because I'm depending on God in my faith in God to make sure that I'm gonna be fine. - Mm-hmm. - And that this situation is gonna be fine, right? So we can combat our fears through our faith in God that he's in control, especially if you have a fear that you're out of control, you can depend on God, right? He is the rock of our salvation. - Right. - We can depend on him for those types of things. - Yeah, and one of the scriptures that I was looking up, as I was thinking about this topic was Genesis chapter 15, verse one, which you might've thought about that on your notes there. And it says, "After these things, "the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, "saying, fear not Abraham. "I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward." So, I mean, he's in control of all this stuff, you know? I mean, what is fear and what is fear in that statement? Like, it's not reverence. They're not talking about reverence there. They're not talking about fear of the Lord. They're talking about frightening. To get into like the, I know this is not typical for this podcast, or for this, yeah. The Hebrew word that was used in that scripture was Yare, which is basically fear. But it's like to revere cause edively, to frighten, like to be fearful. And this is like, almost like fear for your life, a fight or a flight fear. This is the kind of fear that we're talking about here. And he said, fear not. If he's in control, well, why worry about it? John, you keep dropping stuff. We're going to have to mute that. I'm afraid you're going to break your phone if you don't have your case on there. - I broke my phone a while back. - Yeah, you did. But yeah, but that fear there was told to us that he's in control of that, like you were saying. - Yeah, right, right. So. - Well, and the Greek word for that fear is phobia. Which is where we get our phobia word from. And it actually has multiple meanings in the Greek, but it's that fear that I'm afraid kind of thing. But it's also the respecting fear, like the fear of God, right? But in, like I think it's first John, he talks about perfect love casteth out fear, right? So obviously we're not going to cast out our respect for God, but we're going to cast out any fears or contentions or conflicts we have within ourselves because we are afraid of, right? So I went around when we started talking about that we were going to talk about this topic and I asked some people, I said, you know, what are some things that you're afraid of? And I got some really interesting answers. One of them was a lady I work with and she said, "I'm afraid of dying in a fire." "I'm afraid of being burned alive." - To the good thing you're afraid of. - It's like some of these answers have a lot of-- - Another one said. - The same thing. - Another one that said, "I'm afraid of," again, death in general, but suffocating, like being underwater and can't breathe. Kind of. - Yeah. - And I will, you know, dying in general is a fear that we all should have. - Yeah, John was just talking about what was talking about that. - Except when we have faith in God, right? Because through him we have eternal life. So we don't have to fear death. Even death is not something that needs to be feared. - Exactly. - The other one I got was fear for safety of our children. Right, I mean, and I'm a big one of that. I get very nervous when we had the kids when Bill and Laney were younger and we'd go places, different cities and whatnot. I was continually on alert all the time for trouble, whether it was cars driving crazy or whether it was, you know, people that looked a little sketchy maybe or anything. I was extremely concerned for their safety at all times when we were out. - I mean, look at things like today where we just had threats to our schools and children where they were talking about in the past week where 9/11 had just been, like, not occurred. But the memories of 9/11 happened and they were just talking about on 9/11 there's gonna be a school shooting in the school. Not knowing that the picture was not specific about what school, but mulberry school was there. - There were multiple schools. - Yeah, and not just here, but everywhere. Everywhere, nationally. And it's scary to send kids and I have brothers, I have my children, I have people that I know and love that go to public schools that I'm not sure I'm feel okay or safe enough to just let them go. I mean, obviously I'm gonna trust the Lord, which, you know, that's the ultimate thing, is trusting the Lord that He's gonna protect us and be there for us. But there's still a fear. I think there's still fear still there. But perfect love casteth out fear, right? So take it to God. We know a person that's got a terrible medical problem going on in their life right now. And their whole family has to be very, very afraid 'cause it's very, very serious, right? But perfect love casteth out fear. - Mm-hmm. - And in the end, God's will will be done if we seek Him out for what needs to come from this. - Right. - And again, we don't control the outcome of that, right? Casting all your cares upon Him for He careth for you, first Peter. So He wants to take control over it. He doesn't want us to fear about it. And I didn't look it up, but there's hundreds and hundreds of places where the Bible says fear not, fear not, be not afraid. - Right. - Over and over and over in every book of the Bible, I think it's somewhere in there. It's probably a thousand references. - At least, yeah. - To fear not. And it's because God knows that there are terrible things out in here for us, in this world. And there's the only thing He can, the only comfort He can bring to us is to tell us not to fear because I have overcome the world. - Right. - We don't have to fear death because Jesus overcame death in the grave. - Okay. - The phrase fear not appears 365 times in the Bible. - Five? - Two minutes, five times. That's a, oh yeah. - Same number of years. - Same number as days of the year. - Yeah. - I should have remembered that. - I remember we talked about that when Sister Li was studying fear not. That's amazing. But okay, so perfect love casteth out all fear. But is there any fear that is profitable? - Um, we should be afraid of the devil. We should be afraid of hell. Hell is real. - Mm-hmm. - It's a real place. People put it off and say it's some imaginary word. No, it's real. - Yeah, it's real. There is a judgment. We should be very afraid of that. - Right. - And as a result, we should be doing things that are righteous and honest and holy in front of God. - So the question stems from like, so we mentioned about not being in control. When you're in a roller coaster, you have no control of the roller coaster. You have no control of the ups and downs, the twists and turns. You can only anticipate. You can't control it. So airplanes, for instance. You have no control of the airplane. You're in a seat, you're buckled down. You have to have faith and trust in the pilot, but you have no control. - And the engineers that built the plane. - And the engineers. Yep. - And the companies of people that designed the plane and the different components in the plane. The person who designed the roller coaster, that it's not going to go flying off the rails. - Right, but no, you have no-- - Where is your trust? - Right. - Right. - And the fear that I'm coming from is, where there's one thing that you have control in, right? We drive, have you drove here? You drove to get here. I drove to pick John up. I drove to the kid's school. I was in control. I had control of my car. I had control left and right. I had control of communicating my directions of where I was going. I had control of a lot of things that was going on there. I have no control of the people around me. - Right. - Mind you, I have no control of them, but I have control of myself. - Yes. - Whereas in a roller coaster, you have no control for yourself. In a plane, you have no control for yourself. Other than the trust being a passenger in the car. - There's no controls. (laughing) - It's like, but when you have the fear, when you're driving a car, it causes you to slow down and to think about the next move, causing you to be careful about your next move. - In some instances, fear is a good thing. Like you said, when you drive, you should always be cautious. - Yeah. - Not so much afraid, but you don't know what the guy next to you is gonna do. That's always something you have to take into consideration. So in some ways, fear is almost a good thing. - Yeah. - I know exactly what he's gonna do. He's gonna cut right in front of me for no reason whatsoever. - I said some instances. - And I anticipate that every time, right? And then when he doesn't cut in front of me, I'm okay. - Right. - Right? - But I'm preparing myself, like you said. - Right. - You drive that. - Yeah. - I think, and so with, remember we talked about AI a long time ago, thank the first episode, probably your second episode. - Ah, what's that? - No, just kidding. - Artificial intelligence. - Just kidding, just kidding. - Just kidding, Alexa, it's a joke. - No, don't turn, don't turn. - Don't tell me a joke. - No. (laughing) - Knock knock. (laughing) - Well, we were talking about AI a long time ago, and the different things that AI can make it better. - Man, I was probably a year ago. - Right? - At least. Oh, more than a year ago. Well, a year ago. So we were talking about AI, and one thing that, in concern of what we're talking about with the traffic, is Tesla's. They have AI to be able to-- - Autonomous driving. - Huh? - Autonomous driving. - They have autonomous driving, and they also have a detection of cars and traffic in the road, would it? - One simple malfunction with that. - Exactly. - A little bit of mud on the camera. - Mm-hmm. - It's so easy for that to-- - But it's-- - The tail. - But it's anything. - I mean, one screw loose on the rollercoats. - Absolutely. - Mm-hmm. - It takes it out of the engineered specifications that they designed it for. - That will literally make you panic even more. - Right? - Yeah. - If you stop at loose screw. - But, you know, that's-- - Yeah. - One thing I stopped doing was, so I worked with the welders just enough at the company I work with to know what welds are supposed to look like. - Yeah. - I can't check welds in public, 'cause they're always so bad. - Yeah. (laughing) - Right. - I've seen that before. - Yeah. - Yeah, leaning on a hand rail on the third story, like, oh, never mind. - Oh, back up. - There's holes all the way through that weld. No, mom, don't lean on that. - Stay away. (laughing) - Be careful with the ones that you can't see. The welds that are seamless. - Yeah. - They've ground those down, so you can't tell. (laughing) They're not so-- - Right. - Yeah. But yeah, but this fear everywhere in the world that we go through, you know, and I just, I think this topic was something that brought, I mean, there's a lot of different scripture in the Bible, like, what you said. I mean, I'm sure you had lots of notes that you probably would wanna bring up. - I did a few. So, one point-- - At least do you remember to bring your notes? (laughing) - One point, you know, Jesus says that, you know, it talks about how, you know, our life, our existence, you know, he cares for every sparrow. - Right. - And how much more valuable are we than the sparrow? I mean, the sparrow is a fairly insignificant bird animal, nothing personal sparrow lovers out there, but-- - There's gonna be a horde of them, just go up front. - But we were made, are made, in the image of God. - Uh-huh. - Sparrows were not. - Right. - Right, and so, so God has a special place for the human race in his heart. Now, does that mean we're all perfect? Does that mean there's no evil in the world? No, doesn't mean any of that. But what it means is that he cares enough about us that he knows that he can redeem us from that evil, right? - Right. - Just the same way that he makes sure that the sparrows are fed and that the flowers of the field are nourished and grow successfully, he's gonna make sure that we have everything that we need because he cares for us. - Ooh. - And he cares for us so much more than anything else in his creation because we were made in his image. The whole purpose of us being created from the beginning was so that we would have a relationship with God and with Jesus Christ. - Mm-hmm. - And there are so many people in the world right now that don't, I mean, it's, it's, and even the ones that say they do, they really don't. - Mm-hmm, they trust in themselves. - Right, they might think it up here, but do not believe in it in their heart. - Mm-hmm. - And that's a big problem, right? And that's where most of the bad things that are happening are because people are not focused on the right things. - Right. - And the more we can focus on that and really make sure about what is it that we're afraid of. You know, and that's when I was asking the questions of people around me, you know, I started thinking about that and I was like, okay, Brother Don, what really are you afraid of? And there's a lot of things, but when I put them into contrast about do I, do I fear them more than I love God? - Mm, that's a good question to ask yourself. - You know, because the healthy fear or respectful fear of God is everything. Worldly fears are nothing. - Absolutely, yeah. - When you put them into comparison and contrast with God the Father and what, and how much He loves us, right? So much that He gave His only begotten Son to redeem us. - Mm-hmm. - Right? To take us out of that simple condition or have the availability of redemption for every soul. - Sure. I mean, think about one of the Psalms, Psalm 34 and four, David wrote, I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears. - Right. - You know, He delivered me from every fear that I, I mean, how many, it's a lot of that Daniel, David has gone through. - He had a lot to be afraid of, right? There were lots and lots of wars and nations up against Him. - He had a lot riding on Him. His own people, His own Son tries to overthrow Him. I mean, there was a lot in His life that He had a right to be afraid of, but eventually, right? - Right. - He delivered me out of Him. - He delivered me from all my fears. I sought the Lord and He heard me. - Not just the important ones. - All my fears. - All of them, every one of them. - They'll just say a few of them to all my fears. Select group, doesn't say select group. It says all, right? - A. - A double L. - A double L. - All. - I think that's inclusive. - Everything, you know. If I'm afraid of frogs. - Hey, personal. - Hey, I feel attacked here. - We didn't even, we didn't even. - No, no, I almost have a legitimate reason why. - I had one. - You're afraid of frogs? - I had one, a little tree frog and we were coming out of the house today to go to lunch and it jumped on me from the doorway. (laughing) - I screamed pretty good. - Listen, it's not the fear of a frog. I'm not, I'm like. - It's not the frog itself. - Yeah, you ever heard this thing. - You could leap on you at any moment. - The chance of a gang of frogs ganging on you to kill you is slim. But never enough. - Give it a threat, frogs. - But still, I'm not afraid of them like that. I'm afraid of the, of the jump scare. That's the scare, the jump scares will scare me. - That's what got me to do. - There was one, there's an instance, we were with Nehemiah. He was just born and we were at his house. We were living in one of the rooms. We were going in one late night. - I assumed that's pretty bad. - I assumed that's pretty bad. - I need to be clear it up in the people at home. - They were more specific. But at Don's house. And we were coming in one late night and I'm just putting stuff down so I can open the door, had the key getting ready to go into town. - Eyes are a little bit fuzzy. - Yeah, and I put the car seat down. And as I'm putting the car seat down, I feel something slap my back. And when I felt something slap my back, I just was like, what in the world was that? I mean, it didn't scare me then, but when I put my head up to see where it came from, I saw three frogs, big old ones, like huge toads on the door. And I'm like, they're gonna jump on me again. I'm getting in the house. I'm not ready, I'm not trying to get jumped on again. - You left me in my out in the yard in the car seat. - You did. - No, he was in the house. - Okay. - No. But there was a tree frog in the house in the doorway and they were trying to get it out. And I got scared and I was like, no. - You get the door open just enough at night, the frogs that lived right there, they'll just jump in, like they're inviting home. - Yeah, but it's a frog. - I know, but I'm not afraid of the frog in the sense that they're gonna hurt me. I'm afraid of the jump scare. - So, so I'm afraid of bees. - Yeah, are you allergic or is it just a fear of like a pain? - When I was a kid, we were out and we were catching lightning bugs. This is up in Maryland and jumped on the end of a fence. It was getting dark 'cause obviously you don't catch fireflies and it was a light. And you couldn't see what was on the fence, but me and my friend and my neighbor, we both jumped on this big white wooden fence. To go up, it had like beams on it, the fence rails that you could, and you could walk up the angle of it and get up higher. - Ah, right. - Get up higher and he gets to it. - And it's plenty of us. - Right. Well, all of a sudden we jumped on that thing and all of a sudden we heard this roaring kind of noise. We didn't know what it was. And all of a sudden we both just got lit up by hornets. - Ooh. - So there was a hornet's nest that was about three feet across that was on the end of the wooden fence that we couldn't see in the dark. - Oh, man. - Had no idea it was there. And our hornets, they sting you and the stingers, it's bad. And they pulled 50 stingers out of my friend's back. I don't know how many have pulled out of mine. - I don't know, hornets left their stingers. - Yeah, at least it hurt. - So really bad. - Yeah, so ever since then, into my neighbor's house, they had those big fat fuzzy bumblebees. - Yeah. - There and-- - The one that looked harmless? - Right, not quite. Oh, my, I lived in Terri. And my room was right next to their porch where all the bees made their abode. And so I was-- - So you-- - I would walk-- - I would walk close, and then I would run into the house, or their house to the porch, so I wouldn't-- - Your parents never had to worry about you sneaking out of your window. - Oh, no. (laughing) - Not a bee time, you know? - They just put a fake one on there, didn't they? - They just put a little claw, a mobile of little bees that would scare me to death. But no, and I called them fly bees 'cause I was a little kid. - And I go fly, bee, fly bee, and I get to get out of there. I was just terrified of bees. - Yeah. - I had no, and now I watch these videos of these beekeepers, and now they're just crawling all over-- - Yeah, nope, nope. - Makes me crawl a bit. - I am allergic to ants and wasps I know of for sure. I can assume hornets, yellow jackets, the whole family. - I went around and told people I was allergic to them. Just so it wouldn't just look like I was just afraid of them out of them. - Oh, yeah, right. - But it really wasn't, I'll just say, and just have to confess my faults. But yeah, it was pretty good. - I'm allergic to them. - No, no, I'm allergic, I need to stay away from those. - Yeah. - You take care of that, right? - Ah, I'm allergic to multiplesters. - We have these hummets we have to wear when we sandblast at work, and it's got a seal that goes around your neck. - Well, I did check it one day 'cause we were running behind and I just threw it on and there was a wasp in the seal. - Oh, oh, oh, oh. - I'm gonna get you. - Stung me three times, it bit me. I found out wasps can bite that day. I didn't know that. I thought they only, I thought they only stung. So yeah, it bit me, or it stung me three times across the back of my neck and bit me once. And then I moved the seal and it got out and flew away. And 30-ish minutes later when I took the helmet off, I was just pouring sweat. My throat was swelling and I was crimson. - Right. - I went to my boss and he didn't do anything about it. So I walked back to my dad's shop. He works probably 200 feet. I can see where he works in the front gate. When I got there, I stepped in and said, Dad's something's wrong and passed out. - You passed out? - He caught me on my way to the ground. I'm bigger than my dad by nearly 40 pounds. - Wow, that was a fun fact. - Well, well, I'm saying, as I'm falling, I'm slamming into him dead weight. That didn't go well for either one of us. - You know, what's crazy about this story, I mean, let me share one of those is my dad was very afraid of dogs. Any dog, Chihuahua's, Pitbull's, White Wilders, or... - Okay, any dog is crazy, but... - Any dog, no, any dog. So for a long time. - He probably has a dog now, doesn't he? - No, no, he won't have a dog. But he was afraid of them because he was bit by them. He got bit by dog and ever since then, any dog, because a lot of dogs, if you know the territorial, and if they're trained correctly to protect the home, they will keep up, they will stay up in the front door, and they'll make sure that no one intruding the house. And every stranger that they see, they will... - They don't like them. - Not that they won't like them, but they will confront them, and they will make sure that they're not a threat. - Yeah. - Well, if you don't know how to present yourself to a dog, the dog will perceive that you are a threat when you go down and pet it without it perceiving you as not a threat. So that happened, and ever since then, he will not touch a dog, and he will not go near a dog, right? It had to take him to break from that. But no matter where he went, where there was a dog guy, he'd keep it away. But that was a past experience. Those past experiences stay with you for a very long time, and you can't get broken from it because of the fear that was in you that day. And one of the characters of the Bible that had that happened to them was Elijah. Plenty of times where... And I'm not talking about in the bad sense, but every time that he needed deliverance from the Lord, the Lord delivered him every single time. But one time after he got, after he went to go and defeat the prophets of Baal, he went into hiding because he was threatened. His life was threatened. And when he went into hiding, they said, "What are you doing here? "What are you doing here?" You know, you have, I forget how many servants that have not bowed to need a bail. - Seven thousand. - Seven thousand people have not bowed to the bail. - That was 4,000, I'm really glad I didn't say it. - No, good thing you didn't. But the experience has been, you know, when you have a past experience of something traumatizing you, you don't wanna, you kind of almost don't wanna just let go of it so quickly. - Yeah. He's not a fair dog anymore. He's seen a dog got close to him and now he's petting him. - But, so, so there are rational fears and irrational fears. - Thank you for, I was gonna, that was, that's my, yeah. - So, Elijah's fear. - Was it rational? I mean, it was rational. - Kind of both. It wasn't because of experience though. I mean, he'd never, I mean. - He'd never been killed. - Just been on Ahab, though, has threatened him. - Yeah, several times. - Over and over again, right? - Kind of like a growing scene. - All of a sudden it became real, but he just had a huge victory over the prophets of Baal and Astra. - Right. - And he was on his peak, right? He called down fire from heaven and-- - That's a smooth. - He blew all these prophets. I mean, everything was going his way. And then all of a sudden, you know, the queen says, you know, by this time tomorrow, you'll be as they are. And he runs. And I mean, not just runs around the corner. I mean, he didn't just go to his room and hide. I mean-- - He went-- - He was like hiding in a cave. - A day's journey. - In the cave. - Right? He went way south. If you look, if you research this out, he traveled about 400 miles. - In one day? - No, over several days. - Okay. - And left Gaysa and went another journey. Left his servant and went another day's journey beyond that. - Mm-hmm. - And he went down to the juniper tree. You know, he was wronging. - Right. - And the war was saying, you know, what are you doing? - I protect him. - You got nothing to be afraid of. I just called down fire for mavening and slew all the-- What are you afraid of? - He was just fed by-- - He was just fed by-- - He was fed by-- - What are you doing? - This woman, what? You know, are you gonna trust me? Are you not? - Right. - Are you gonna have rational fear that I'm gonna help you? - Mm-hmm. - Are you gonna have irrational fear that they're gonna hurt you? - See, he trusted God in everything that he did, though. So-- - Except that. - Except that. Everything that he would did up until then. Like, when he came up to, at the brook, or was he gonna have enough to eat the crows fed him? When it was time to go to the woman's house and he had to be fed-- - The widow, right? - The widow, I think it was the widow. But, was that my right, the widow? - No, but when she made the cake, right? - Yeah, she made the cake and had the cruise of oil. He had to have faith enough for God to provide. - Yeah. - She was gonna say, I need to make my last cake and for us to die, you know? But he said, make me the cake first and then make yours. And then it would never fail, which it never did, you know? That was having, you had to have faith in God to do that. But at one time, every single time could have been a time of, are you gonna do it, God? Are you gonna do it? That fear of not knowing if he was, but to have the faith to know that he could, and he did, every single time. So why not have the faith to know that he could deliver him from Jezebel? You know what I mean? Those, I mean, so is it a rational fear or an irrational fear? And like you said, it could have been both. - A rational fear is something that is absolutely, it's completely logical that that could happen. - Like the fear of dying. - A fear of a beast thing in you, right? But the real reason that the beast on you was because it was trapped. It was just trying to get out. - It was trying to get away. - The whole reason that the dog snapped and him was not, because the dog just had some, no, the dog felt threatened. - Right. - Or that you were threatening his protection area. - Right. - And dogs are very protective of their owners. - They are. - And so it's fully rational to think that if you put forward something that looks aggressive or intimidating to the dog or the dog's owner, that the dog's in a snap at you. - Mm-hmm. - There's no reason to think the dog wouldn't snap at you. - Mm-hmm, right. - So, and sometimes though we have fears that we think are completely rational and we really start to peel them back and examine them, they're really not rational at all. - To some phobia, be irrational? - In some cases, a fear of death is because everybody dies. - Right. - Right, but to fear that event and to overcome that, really only can happen when you're really in tune with Jesus Christ. - Right. - Right, when you know that your soul is there, when you know that the day your lungs start pumping and your heart stops pumping, that you're still gonna live forever. - Mm-hmm, this body will go, but my soul goes. - That your spirit will live on with Christ in heaven. And that's a great thing to have in your pocket, right? Because there's nothing that the devil can do about that. But remember, and I said this in a sermon once that if you have a whole, the devil's got a whole box of tools and his favorite tool in that box is fear. - Mm-hmm. - And it's the one he uses the most often. It's the most well-worn, right? Because he uses it all the time. - Right. - Because it works. - It does. - It works on everybody, right? It doesn't matter how strong a Christian you are, he can use that in a certain way and push your fear button just like that. But you have to remember that perfect love casteth out fear and put your trust in him because that's how you get through it. That's how you get through these things. Are we gonna have to go through these things? Yes, right? We have to go through them, but with Jesus we get through them. - Yeah, just because I got stung by a wasp in the blast tunnel, it doesn't mean that I don't have to use the blast tunnel anymore. I just check it now. - Yeah, twice. - Yeah, this is the... Well, I've gone on every roller coaster that I've seen. - I've still only been on two. - Well, now, I remember a recent story about roller coasters. - You can say it if you want. - I mean, your son was very afraid of getting on the roller coaster. - And this... - With good reason. - I wonder where that comes from. - See, and... - Smart kid. - Is that implied fear? - Yeah, so let me put this down a little bit. I wanna say, I was very wrong for how I reacted. 'Cause I overreacted. I think the reaction to the fear or somebody else's fear is something that makes something worse. So Nehemiah was on a little baby bump roller coaster thing. It was like a pump track roller coaster. And it was one of those two-year-old roller coaster things. Well, he got up to the roller coaster. He had great faith that he was gonna be okay and get on the roller coaster. Much like I did on that one, right? And when he sat down on the roller coaster, he was fine. I have a picture of him being fine on the roller coaster. But when the lap bar came down on the first thing... - That was it. - That threw him into a tantrum. It embarrassed me a little bit. And the reason why it embarrassed me because he's doing that and I'm there to witness this, right? As I'm witnessing this, I'm like Nehemiah, it's going to be okay, you know? But his fear is not telling him that. His fear is telling him something completely different. I know what it's like to be on the roller coaster. So I'm giving him my instruction. - Yeah. - He doesn't have that same faith or trust in the machine as I did. So the reaction was... - Dude, today, I didn't then. - Didn't then, right? I know now, right? So the reaction to that was, am I going to force... Am I going to try to force someone to overcome a fear that they have, just so that they can face it? Or should I let them face it on their own and their own time? Because if I'm trying to force them to do it, I had to do it on my own time. No one can throw me in the roller coaster and pull the lap bar down and say, "You're going to do it." It almost seemed that way, but I had to sit down and be okay with the guy putting the lap bar down. But once it was down, for me, it was just like, okay, there's no going back. It wasn't somebody saying, "You're going to do this "and you're going to like it." You know, it was the option that I had. But once that option was given to me, I took it and said, "I'm going to take this "as a learning opportunity." Whereas this opportunity wasn't much of a learning opportunity. It was a forceful opportunity to say, "Hey, you're going to do this and you're going to like it "and whether you like it or not, "you're probably going to like it." - Well, and God gives us the ability to make those same choices and everything we do. We can either choose to be afraid of it or we can choose to enjoy it. It's totally up to us. We can choose to live our life in sin or we can choose to live our life in Christ. - Right. - Up to us. - That's right. - It's up to us. - And there's no temptation that hides the scripture, though. Basically, it's saying there's no temptation that you have that's not coming to me, but I'm not serving to be the other word. - But that he will, with that temptation, also make a way to escape. - Right. - My escape was facing it, going through it and eventually knowing that I wasn't afraid of it. - And there are some things there that, and I don't want to speak one way or the other, but the problem comes in is that people think they're, especially younger people, I'll just say it that way, they think they're bulletproof. - Uh-huh. - They think they can jump on the four-wheeler and go 80 miles an hour and not get hurt. The people that think that they can skydive and jump out of an airplane and not have a problem. - See, but that's also how much you owe it, you owe it. - But the Bible says, do not tempt the Lord thy God. - Yeah. - Right, when the devil had Jesus and was tempting him at the pinnacle of the high tower. You know, hey, throw yourself off and your angels are carrying away. Jesus said, do not tempt the Lord thy God. - I figured that was going to come out. - You got to be smart about it, people. - I figured that scripture was going to come up in this podcast because some people believe that rollercoasters, riding rollercoasters is tempting God. And-- - Oh, that's my new excuse. - There you go. - I don't feel that way, I don't feel that way. - Well, no, that's because you ride them now. - Well, no, okay, but if I was a skydive-- - You're still not a fear like John over here, you know? - The skydiving is a whole different story. That's, skydiving is what the devil tried to tempt Jesus with. - Oh, is that-- - Yeah, I'm not being skydiving. Throw him on that camera. - I'm not skydiving either. - We're bungee jumping. - No, I'm good. - I think the engineers have figured out the distance and I'm like, I don't know what school that guy went to. I don't know who it is. - Free falling. - I don't know that I trust that. I'll trust God, but I don't know that I trust-- - Yeah. - Sparky with the compact tractor, you know, and he's calculating the weight mass ratios. I don't know. 'Cause tempting the Lord thy God, I feel like it's saying, Lord, I'm gonna do something, but I need you to save me from it. - And that's not what he wants us to do. - But that's exactly what I'm thinking is. - Right. - 'Cause if skydiving says, Lord, this parachute doesn't work, you need to help me, right? There's no other way to get out of that. But if we use the idea that everything that we do, that is somewhat risky, like driving the car, could that be tempting the Lord thy God? Because they're-- - Driving a car or driving it too fast and weaving in and out of traffic or doing 120 on a motorcycle or more. - There's definitely a limit to what it is, right? - There's safely navigating what you're doing and there's risky daredevil type stunt making, right? But at the end of it, all of our lives, all of our souls are in the hands of God, right? Hebrews 10 and 31 says, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We can choose to do things that are sinful and do things that are evil. But it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God because it's someday, there is a judgment. - Doesn't mean. - And you can-- - You can be sure your sinful family-- - You can walk and you can make your choices on the left side and you can make your choices to go this way toward the worldly things and enjoying all the things of the world. But at the end of the day, there is a judgment. Whether it's the day you stop breathing, whether it's the day that Jesus comes, whichever it is, there is a judgment. And it's a fearful thing to fall into God's hands because He will judge this world. I talked earlier about hell is a real place. We can depend on that. We can depend that Satan is real and he's trying to corrupt our souls and get us away from God and keep us on that left, keep us out of the way and out of the righteous realm of God. And we can depend that in the end, God's gonna judge us on everything we've done. - Right. Good and bad. - That is, and you'll know how to go on from there. That's a great, I think that's a great way to close the episode, honestly. I mean, that right there, I mean, if you don't get a whole lot of, from this episode, definitely rewind 10 seconds. But we appreciate everybody that's listening and watching. Remember to hit the follow button, hit the like button. - Don't be afraid. - And don't be afraid to hit the comment section and give us a little feedback. We appreciate it. www.thebrozepod.com, give us some feedback there. Hit us five stars and if you want, if you like it. - As far as I know, we're still all five stars. - We're a perfect podcast. - I gave you six today. - Oh, wait. Now we're more than perfect podcasts. - I gotta invent a sixth star. - We appreciate you guys and. - Thank you for the invite, Jose. I appreciate it. - Oh, wait a minute. Before we go, before we go. - Lovely parting gift. - No, no, no, no, no. I didn't ask you the good old question and the last time you were here, so now I have to ask you the good old question. We didn't. - That's a good old question. - Who would you wanna talk to? Did I ask you that question? I didn't give you that question. So if you had the opportunity. - Well, we may not have been doing it yet. - Well, we haven't had a whole lot of guests that haven't done it already. So if you had the opportunity to talk to anybody in the Bible, new or Old Testament, besides Jesus and Paul. - Other than Jesus or Paul? - Other than Jesus and Paul, those are the very common. We're getting ready to exclude Peter. It's just like the most popular answers. - Sure, no, I'll come up with a go. So if you couldn't talk to, sit down and talk to any one of them, who would you talk to and why? - I'm wondering how long it's gonna take before somebody sits with those of them. - Are you saying I'm an old guy? - He's an old guy? - No, it might be a good idea to talk to an old guy. - He was around a long time. We probably knew a lot of people. - Right. - I would say Daniel. - Okay, that's a good one. - Daniel, and the reason is Daniel really trusted God in everything. - Oh, he said it. - And he faced some things that he should have been afraid of. I mean, he cast into the dens of lions, having all the princes and governors and all the people in control of the kingdom, trying to corrupt you and trying to plot against you and you're trying to hold up your end of God's program in a land that's not your home, right? You're an exile, you're basically a prisoner, but then you get exalted to the second highest placement in the kingdom and the kingdom at that time, if you understand the book with Daniel and what was going on, it was a very large kingdom. Okay, Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, they had very, very large areas that they were controlling. It says 120 provinces, right? - Right. - 'Cause they had a prince for every province. So huge amount of power, huge amount, but he never, even if it risked his own life, he never departed from what God wanted him to do. - Right. - And so I'd like to talk to him about how do you do that? In a world that's filled with sin and people that are trying to corrupt you and people that are trying to manipulate what you're saying into something else, how do you deal and shield that off to the point where you can have it and keep that going, keep that holiness in you. Because that's what I want for me and for my family. I want them to know and understand that the relationship of God is not just for now, but it's for eternal life, right? And so for us to really understand that and how to control it, we have to be able to fight off the things that the devil throws at us. - Right. - And he's gonna keep throwing until he stumbles us. And how did Daniel do it? I'd wanna know that. That's who I would wanna talk to and what I would wanna know. - I think his constant communication with God was something that had to do with it. I think if Daniel was to have occurred in today's day and age, you'd think he would have had the same strength, the same aptitude to still pray three times a day or however many times he prayed and without, because think of today, like they were talking bad about him and they were coming up with ways to put him away. But nowadays we have cell phones, we have ways to communicate long range. - Social media. I mean, look at all the people that are getting indicted already just for things that people want to storm away for, you know, he still have to have the faith today to do the same thing and to continue in that same walk. That's a great conversation to have if we could, but Daniel, I think he was still straight strong. I mean, he was the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather of Jesus. Oh, how many? Seven? Seven? Six generations. Four? Fourteen? Oh, it was way off. Yeah, a lot. I don't even think I said enough great, but... I can never remember the genealogy. How far it is. The parts of the Bible that are very boring to read, those are the parts of the Bible that have the genealogy that you're probably missing. When there's two different ones, people say they can flee each other, but they don't. One of them looks at the family tree from the Joseph's side of Jesus's family, and the other one goes from Mary's side. Right. So they're actually the same lineage. It's just you have to parse them apart and then piece them back together to get the entire picture. Right. But it's one of those things people point to to try to refute the Bible to make it. Oh, no, look, this is contradicting that. This says a whole different group of people, and I'm like, yeah, that's her side of the family. That's his side of the family. That's how family trees work. Right. Right. But, you know, I didn't know that. Right. You didn't know that because you didn't know. We didn't have the technology back in those days to figure it out. Writing it down was the best way. But thank you guys for watching. I appreciate you. See you guys next week for an awesome episode. See you later. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
