Jose and John sit down with John's dad and discuss his testimony of getting reborn in the blood of Christ.
The B.R.O.S
Episode 058: Coming Back to Christ w/ Sean Hume
- Hey guys, welcome back to the bros. We're in the backroom of the sanctuary, where the conversation happens, where Jose and John and we are in the room today with a special guest, John's dad. - Hey, how you doing? - Hey John, John's dad, hey, would you introduce yourself and tell us who you are and what you do? - All right, my name is Sean Hume. I work for Southeastern, I'm a fabrication machine operator. I'm husband, father, Christian, I mean, that's pretty much what I am. - It's a pretty good list to go by. We are excited-- - Here we got extraordinary. - Yeah. (both laughing) - We are excited to be here with you. We are excited to have a conversation and, you know, whatever-- - Lots and lots of arguments. - Anything's on the table, anything's on the table to talk about, you know, we didn't really come prepared. I mean, we had a really good conversation before we even started doing anything. And I'm really excited about, I mean, if you want to share any of that stuff, we would be glad to talk more, I can, we can even get into more depth about that. - Right, right. - Go ahead and start your start with what you want to say and then we'll just go around there. - So yeah, I mean, before the podcast actually started, we were just talking about how God moves in mysterious ways and how God's moved and changed our lives, provided for us as Christians. And even in a lot of instances, I know for myself, provided when I was even lost in backslit on God, watching out for, you know, myself intervening when I could have actually lost my own life and lost my soul and went to hell lost. God had mercy on me. So, you know, God has an ultimate, a plan that's ultimately greater and higher than ours. You know what I mean? - I think in Jeremiah, he talked about, he formed you in the womb and he knows you. He has a plan for you from the beginning. - So I mean, from the beginning of your life, there was no malice on his part. There was no meaning for any harm for you. There was always a greater plan. There's always a plan for you to succeed. And I think that because we have a free will, because we can do whatever we desire to do, it's up to us whether we're gonna find ourselves in the will of God or completely stand against it and walk away from God. But I don't think that because the Bible says that he is no respecter of persons, he's not gonna just let you completely give yourself up and like harm you in any, you know, really bad way, he's gonna protect you. He's gonna keep you in his, in his mind. And I think that's what he did for all of us. You know, he did that for me, for you, for you, for Bill, who's not here right now and will be here, but not today. But yeah, he's a, he's a merciful God. He's very merciful, not really appreciated for that. - Jeremiah 29 verse 11 says, "For I know the thoughts I have towards you, "sayeth the Lord, thoughts of peace, "and not of evil to give you unexpected end." So even like when we're not saved, when we are lost, he's still looking out for us. He's still reaching and knows what he wants. - Yeah, look at Job, look at Job's life. I mean, that's, I mean, where can you, what example can you pull from Job that's not like something that he's taken care of us today? You know, lost his family, lost his, lost his everything. Like his living, you know, everything. And still never cursed God. - Though he slain me yet, shall I serve him, I think was what he said? - I don't know, you have to fact check that in the Bible. That's why we have the Bible app. I'm not gonna say which one, but it's a Bible app. - Yeah. - No sponsors yet. Until this day, you know. But yeah, I think even, yeah, what does it say? - Though he slain me yet shall I trust him. - Mm-hmm. - But I will me. - This is, yeah, will I. - Is that what I said? I thought that's what I said. - No, you said, yeah. - Say it again, say it again. - Though he slain me yet, will I trust him in him? - Oh, see, it sounded like you had a question yet. Will I trust him? - Yes. - No, but it was a yet. Will I trust him? Like I was, I will trust him. - Yeah. - I think that's what you were. - Yeah, yeah. - Like I'm not just asking the question, will I trust him? I'm saying I will trust him. - Yeah, it's just a statement. - Yeah, it's a statement. - Yeah. - This is for certain. (laughing) - Absolutely. - No matter what. - Absolutely. He's taking your job or whatever. - I got him from him. - Literally. (laughing) - Oh, he's the father of it. - Yeah. (laughing) - So, the joke there is for a while in the beginning, all I would say is like somebody would say so much, just be like, absolutely. And that was it. So on somewhere, I think it's on the laptop, there's a cut of me saying absolutely. So there was running jokes. Any time anybody says absolutely, they're taking my job. - From 20 minutes to 21 minutes on the phone. - Every episode, there's an absolutely, that I don't say in every episode as far as I know. (laughing) - Absolutely. - Yeah. - But yeah. I mean, so I don't know how much you want to get into about what we talked about earlier. 'Cause I don't want you to feel like you have to say anything that's personal, probably unless there's somebody on the table with what you're willing to be talked about, I mean from your perspective, but I mean, the Lord has been with you, no matter what. I don't even, I don't see you, the Lord's not with you. I feel the Lord has been with you on your side. - Oh yeah. - And, you know, kept you until this day. - Absolutely. - I think that's really, that's amazing. Don't laugh at him. We're in me laugh. (laughing) You know, John, I have a different job for you. - How about now? (laughing) - How about the guy who just-- - I just got off, man. - How about the guy that just sits here and just waits at the camera? Dad said you go, don't stop the camera. (laughing) - Come on. (laughing) - But yeah, so go ahead. You wanna go ahead and continue that. We'll have-- - Okay. - So, I don't know where to go. - Okay, so let me know if I'm getting a little too deep with what you're talking about, 'cause I do wanna talk about some of what you've said. - Okay. - But you mentioned about you leaving and you were talking about how you said, you were saved in 2000. - Right. - And then in 2014 or 15, that you-- - 15, yeah. - If you left the church. And I resonated with it a little bit because it was a little bit of a, like a charade, kind of, for me, because I personally have felt in my life where I couldn't, I couldn't present myself as a true, honest, like, Christian for myself. More of a honest Christian to everybody else. They only saw the outside of me. I had a mask on showing everybody else that I was doing everything they were doing. - Right, right. - You know, and for that, for me, it was more of a, of trying to fit in, you know? And then finally-- - I've been fit in or just hide amongst. - For me, it feels kind of more like hide amongst, like the wheat among the terrors. - Yeah, and honestly, to even say it that way, I remember an episode when I was talking to Brother Matheny, and I say, when I go out to prayer, and I go into the midst of all these people that are praying, I only can feel that I can really pray when there's a lot of people there, because I can hide myself. I can hide myself in the crowd. But when it's just me, I feel like all the attentions on me. And I can be seen through that. I'd rather be hidden in the crowd. And I think that was a problem where I fit in there, but I was hiding. You get what I'm saying? It was more of a trying to mask what I was, and I wasn't trying to be, usually when I'm trying to look in the crowd, I'm just trying to worship without everybody trying to get out over me. - What about being in the center of that? - Can you say that one more time, in general? Without being in the center of all the action, the main point of focus? - Yeah, because I see people praying, and I feel like there's people there's people there that are trying to get them to encourage them to pray, and then they're moving throughout, and praying with other people just with you. - Yeah, and then I feel like I'm not being authentic. If I'm not being authentic, then I feel like what they're doing is in vain, because I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to, I'm just doing it because I don't want it to look like I'm not. You know what I'm saying? I don't want to look like I'm just not interested in church. I want to be up there so that when people see me, they see me trying, but they don't see me really giving my all. But when they do come up and they pray with me, then I feel like I'm kind of giving them a, this is not a real true worship or whatever. And that was my problem, 'cause now I don't feel like I need to be in a crowd to worship. I feel like I can just step out and pray and worship because the Lord's giving me that boldness from receiving the Holy Ghost, I can in the previous youth camp of 2024, and I've been emboldened to just go ahead and just worship and not have to worry about what everybody else is seeing me do. But that mask definitely came off in a way where I'm not trying to fit in anymore. I am in not trying to step out and look like I am. I am in the service. - That's exactly like we were discussing before that it's easy to learn when to raise your hands, when to act like, you know, to look around, you know, and say, oh, well, you know, Brother Whiff and her sister Greer or sister Lear, whoever is getting in, so. - Exactly. - You get in, you know. - Time to stand up. - No, no, no, no. When you go from that to, you felt it, you followed it. - Yep. - And then you realize that you were in the same spirit with everyone else, it's completely different. - Yeah, exactly. - It's a night and day difference. But it's easy to get stuck in that in today's world. - For sure. - Not just in the church world, but in society as a whole, I feel like society as a whole is just sort of following the herd, which is shockingly themselves. - Right. - There's a couple of, there's a couple of sheeps and wolves closing. - Yeah. - Wolves and sheep closing. - Absolutely. - And we're all following that herd. - Yeah. - And unfortunately, that's what's gonna hurt us in the end. - Yeah, absolutely. - But you mentioned about looking at Sister Lee, looking at Sister Linda, and I remember that I told you about Brother Caleb that came here recently. And he said, really, to me, it was just really marvelous. 'Cause I was just like, I never thought of it that way, where he said that Peter was sitting at the fire of someone else's making, someone else made a fire, and Peter was being warned by it. And he said, he was being warned by someone else's work. They got the firewood, they got the tender, they got the fire layout, they just made sure that it was there to make a fire. And Peter was benefiting from that person. So if they were in today's society, in this world, if someone else was shouting hallelujah, praising God, and running around the altars, and giving praise and glory, then someone else would be getting that warmth and be benefiting from that same exact thing, but they weren't putting the work in, they weren't praying, they weren't fasting, they weren't looking to the Lord, they weren't getting the enrichment of the word and reading the word every day. And they were just benefiting from that moment. And the takeaway is if you're gonna try to get worn by a fire, create your fire by getting your wood, getting your tender, getting your stones to be around there, and sparking that fire. The Lord's gonna be there in it, and that's the amazing part. 'Cause Peter saved 3,000 people just by walking by. And that was his fire. His fire warmed 3,000 people. I'm pretty sure those 3,000 people made their own fires afterwards. - Oh yeah, true. - It's amazing to know that to sit out, the society today, you know, we are lacking in that. - Oh absolutely. - We're lacking in creating our fire. - Absolutely. And in that world, I mean, you think about 3,000 people got saved, and how many other fires did they start? How many other people did they bring in? And the world that they were evangelizing then was much less hospitable to following Christ. - For sure. - Than what we have now. - Yeah, because we're on our phones. We're looking at Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and everything like that. - People were dying left and right to follow Christ, literally, in those days. And in days to come, you know, when the Romans persecuted so many, if you ever read Fox's Book of Martyrs, they put Christians through terrible, terrible. I mean, literally boiling them in oil, taking their skin off of them, all kinds of stuff. Just so that these people would denounce Christ and they, instead of doing it, they all died as martyrs and never denounced Christ. - Wow. - Never turned their hearts away from following the Lord. You know what I mean? And in today's world, I mean, you know, our pastors are having to beg and plead for us to pay our tithes and do minimal, I mean, minimal things in the church. Whereas back then, it was nothing to do, to give your all, you know? As Scripture talks about how when the early Christians would sell all that they had and they had all things so that they had all things common. I mean, you imagine if our pastors expected us to sell all of our homes, our houses, our belongings and everything and have all things common? - Wow. - And just, and follow Christ by giving him everything we had? - That'd be crazy. - I mean, and we have to have a special service and prayer upon prayer for people just to give a little to missions work. - Yeah. - And when there's maybe one or two families that are given their entire life. - Yeah, we have literally people just stand up at the pulpit to give a message about an offering or about your tithes. And it's like pulling teeth. You know, the people just want to get in church and just benefit from the word rather than giving to the community of the church, you know? And you can't have a pastor of the church without having to have a living. - You can't have it. - The ones that are nurturing the people that are there. And if we're going to try to say that we can go to church and have that without giving our tithes, without giving our offerings, then what we're doing is saying that, you know, just we're not giving, we're not saying anything. We're not going to get anything from that. We're not going to get anything from giving nothing. You know, we have to give something to get something. And that was a minimalistic thing that got axled. It was 10%. - Yeah. - You know, he said 10% of it, a tite, which is a tenth of far then. - Right. - That was just, the 90% is yours. - Yeah. - The 100% is all his, but he's giving you 90% and all he's asking for is 10% back. - Right. - But we're sitting in a church and saying that no, someone else will do it. You know, just like, if I can't give my 10%, someone else is struggling to give their 30%. So it'll give three people's worth and a tithe. And if we're looking for that, we're looking for someone else's fire. - Yeah, absolutely. - And we can't look for that. We have to be able to give it, you know? I'm not gonna say here and say that my pastor is gonna be able to minister to a church, much less a community around the church, without me giving something to do that. - Absolutely. - She doesn't have a gas, have a car, gotta be able to, you know, go in the places that have fees for her to do that. You know, she has a ministry card, like a chaplain card, whatever they have to do to keep their stuff up. - Oh yeah. - Can't, can't, can't ask them to do that for free. - Yeah, that's not, just society today is not like that. - Yeah. - You know, and I feel bad that people try to take tricks for granted and not give back. - Well, absolutely absolutely. - If you're giving 100% of your money and God gave it to you, the least you can do is give the minimal offering of the 10% tithe. - Yeah, and let me add to that. Let me just jump right in there and add to that. That tithe is, you know, on Sunday morning, our pastor will say, we're gonna take up the tithes and offering. You know, so that tithes is that minimal 10%. - Right. - And that's the minimal. But you're not actually, that's, thank you, that's required. - Right. - You're not actually giving anything until you pass that. - Right. - So if all you're doing is paying tithes, all you're doing is what's minimally, minimally required and in doing that, robbing the church of more blessing and robbing yourself of untold amount of blessings. - Right. - You know, because you can't, our pastor says it all the time. You cannot out give God. - Right, no, you cannot. - And it's really unknown how much of a blessing you could get if you step out in just a little bit of faith. The Bible teaches us that with the faith of a grain, of a mustard seed. If you ever, I'll tell you, if you go to the store, go to the grocery store, find mustard seeds. They are very minuscule. They're very small. - They're like grains of sand. - Yeah, I mean. - If you have that much faith, God can move mountains with it. - Oh my word. You know what I mean? - And what I touched on that point about helping people out is there was one time I was gonna give some, I was in the middle of a crisis, kind of, not a crisis, but needed some help. And while I was asking for help, someone came over and gave me, like they would jump start my car. With the battery, you know, just jump started. And I was gonna give them a couple dollars to help me out. No, don't rob me in my blessing. - Yeah. - You know, I thought me giving them a couple dollars for that was a blessing to them. But I felt like when they try to help someone else, they are looking for a blessing from God to help them back. But if I give them a couple dollars or here and there, it seems like then they're taking it from the Lord rather than me giving it. So, you know, some people will be mad just because if you give them $10 for them helping you. And they want the blessing from God, not from men, not from cash. If they're stuck on the side of the road, they want the blessing, not just not somebody giving them cash, - Yeah, absolutely. - But there's also, that's different. There's a different way around it. You know, you can't just look at it saying that the blessing can only come from God. It can come from people helping you. - Absolutely. - You okay? - Fly buzzing around. - Okay. (laughing) We need to get a little something for that. But yeah, that, I mean, it's amazing how God reveals things to us, you know. We were talking about the lost coin. Just bring that up a little bit 'cause obviously, like I said before, about being saved and stuff, I didn't think that the lost coin parable meant what it did to me anyway. Because a lot of times we look at the lost coin parable and we look at people that the church is looking for a lost soul. A looking for someone who hasn't met God before, but when we received them, then we all rejoice. - Absolutely. - But the lost coin parable, she had all those coins. She had every single one. All them work her collection. - Right. - But she didn't have one of them because one of them, obviously, 'cause the little parable's name lost. It was not in her collection anymore. For a long time, my mindset was someone knew was found and we rejoiced. But no, no, no, no, the lost coin parable was she had it before. And when she swept around the whole house and found it, she rejoiced because she found what she once had. She found the coin that was in her collection, put it back in her collection and rejoiced and asked everyone to come and help her and rejoice. You know, today's day and age, I think we don't see a lot of rejoicing for souls coming back to the church. 'Cause we're looking for rejoicing for people that aren't in the church to come into the church and rejoice over that. I mean, obviously, our number is more. It's gonna be greater than the number four, you know? Write that one down. A number more is greater than the number four. For your Dr. Seuss book, remember that one. (laughing) - It's just a telling about that yet. - Oh, it was an, I thought we did, no? Okay, fine, just crash that. When you see this, edit it out. (laughing) But I think there's gratification in someone who has been backslid and enters the church back again because they were part of the church. They were in the hand of God, you know, they just slipped away. And now that they're found back, they come back and everybody in heaven is rejoicing. They're finding, they're giving glory to coming back. Like the portable son who had a father who had all his riches, who had everything that he could ever ask for. He was going to receive it, no matter what. He was going to receive it. But when he left and he spent all his riches and worldly things and came back and finally realized that I have a father at home who will feed me, who will give me whatever I need, I'm gonna go back to him, you know? He went back to him in the 99 sheep. You know, we talked about that one that was out of the fold. He was before in the fold, but he just got away. And the shepherd went and found the sheep and when he did, he brought him back and it was a rejoicing. I think there was a recollection, but a revelation of that, of, you know, it's almost like a backslid and a backslid person being rejoiced for being back and coming back into the church. I think that's a great message. I think we miss it. I think we miss that completely, you know? - In that parable of the prodigal son, when he first came back, you know, he thought he said that he would just be as a hired servant, you know? Not part of the family, not something that you just rejoice over, but just make me the lowest, you know what I mean? And the father wasn't gonna have that. That wasn't even an issue for-- - Exactly. - You know, it was get the best fatted calf, you know, put a ring on his hand, you know, bring him robes and everything. And it's easy to try to put that off, you know what I mean? It's easy, it's just easier, like we were talking about before, to just kind of go with the flow well then. And okay, I could just speak for myself. When I first, when I first now got saved again, when I got, when I came back to again again. - Yeah. (laughing) - When I was reborn, reborn, re-re-re-born. (laughing) - Sorry. (laughing) - You don't have that sound here. Bill, be here. - I felt like there was a lot of places we would go to different church meetings and stuff. And people would speak to me and, oh, hey, brother, Sean, it's so good to see you again. And I would always, I mean, time after time I'd walk away going, well, those people remember who I am. I didn't think those people would even remember me at all, you know, and, and John started making fun of me. He was like, I mean, I don't know if he was really making fun of me, but he said, you always say that. Why do you always say that? And it's like, I just didn't, I just felt like, you know, like when that prodigal came back, I just had, he had that mentality of just make me the lowest of the low. I'm just, I'm just down here, you know? But that's not how God sees it. - Mm-hmm. - You know what I mean? - We are, we are heirs and joint heirs with Christ. - Right. - And that's, and to be honest, for me, as having been backslit and then God saved me again, that's kind of hard for me to grasp in my own mind. - Right. - It's, I guess it's a trick of the enemy. - Oh, yeah, for sure. - To trick me into hanging onto that guilt myself, you know? Even though-- - Well, it's actually-- - Like you're responsible for everything that you've been through. Like you're the one responsible. - Even though God forgave me, even though he cast that sin as far as the East is from the West. - Amen. - I'm still trying to hold on to it. I'm still trying to carry it. - Mm-hmm. - You know what I mean? And that's robbing my own self in the long run. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? - I think the devil is very good at making us feel guilt for what we did, but we don't realize, or we should realize that the Lord took it to the cross. - Yeah. - And he nailed it there, went into the tomb and left it there. - Yeah. - It didn't rise up with him. That sin that you had, that he died for, is not there anymore. - Right. - You know, we always, we tend to think that because we are, we're the world's worst sinner or whatever. Even Paul said, "I'm the cheapest of all sinners." You know, but the Lord died for you that you would be for all of us. And I'm saying you, because there's people listening that they're, they're, they're hearing this, died for you. - Right. - You know, that you wouldn't have to worry about taking your own punishment. He did that for us. - Right. - You know, he took the punishment away so that the salvation wouldn't be so much of a burden more of a gratification that we don't have to take it. - Yeah. - You know, but it's amazing that we're not having, we're not having to deal with that. You know, he could take it away from us. - I want to go back quickly to the, the prodigal son. - Not quickly, please. - Well, no, I don't really do anything quickly, but I want to go back and talk about the prodigal son, when he came back and he put the ring on his finger, it was a signet ring. - So it was the, the family crest. It was like marking you as this is, you know, this is my son, this is my, my group. - Yeah. - You know, even, even with the prodigal son, even though he left, when he came back, he was still the father's son. So he put the, you know, he put the, the best robe and he brought the fatted calf, which was reserved for special occasions. Well, let's not forget the fact that when the prodigal son was coming back, he didn't have to knock on the door and ask for the father to come receive him. The father was waiting for him. - Yeah. - Outside, looking for his return. - He didn't even get there as far as I understand that. - That he was. - The father ran to him. - Right. So there was no trying to get the father's retention. The attention was already on him. Just was waiting to see him. I mean, how amazing is that? - Another, another thing that I just thought of is he had a, he had a robe ready. He expected him to come back. - Mm-hmm. We definitely lose that. - Yeah. - In today's church world. - For sure. - If there's people that are, you know, backslid out of the church. - You didn't like this little person. - Closer. - Yeah, just a little bit. - We have some, there are, there are members that, from our church that are currently out, you know, and backslid, and it's easy to get to the place where, well, that's it, they're gone, you know, Satan got another one, you know what I mean? It's, it's, I hate to say it, but it's easy to slip into, well, they're gone. We'll make the best without him, you know? And that's not, that's not, I don't believe that's God's plan. - No. - You know, he's not willing to, and he should die. And he should perish, excuse me. And I mean, Christ did not give up his life so that some could go. - Right. - So that we could just let some go. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's not. - You know, the ultimate plan or idea was when Adam and Eve both sinned in the gardens, that there was a plan for salvation there. Because once Eve and Adam took the bite of the fruit, did I say apple? - Is it fruit? - Okay. - Once Adam and Eve, Caddalim, believe is an apple. - I don't think the fruit exists anymore. - I don't, I think it's in heaven. I think that once even Adam took the bite of that fruit, that they opened their eyes to sin. And once they did, they've made it to where the rest of humanity that was born after that would be already heading into the direction of hell. - Yeah. - They were heading to hell already. I think that what God was doing was giving us an opt out of that direction. It wasn't toward hell. He gave us Jesus Christ, so we didn't have to ride the wave to hell. Once that price was paid, and once that opt that gift was given, we had to be able to take that and say, I'm not going to ride my way into a hell because we're all born into sin because of that sin that both committed in regard to reading. Once we do realize that we can take that option out of hell and go with God the Father up into heaven, that is the realization that we say, you know what, the sin's gone now. I don't have to worry about it. It's gone. - How far is the east is from the west? - It's in the grave. I'm going to heaven with, I'm going to heaven to rejoice. And by the way, that fruit I believe is in heaven because it was taken away from our garden view. I think it was in Genesis two. He said that he took it out of the garden and put it in heaven. But you could fact check me on that. I'm not going to. - I'm not right now. I'll look it up later. - I'm looking up later and let everybody else think, you know, I'll have to capture curiosity. (laughing) - Another little curiosity note. Do you think that the location of the garden beading is still here or the whole garden went up? - That's a good question, honestly. I mean, I think because it geographically is described as a place where three-- - Tiberius, the Tigris, and-- - The other one. - The third one. - Where they all met. So you would think that it would be a relatively easy place to find. - I was going to say that Nile, but I think I'm right. - At Nile's in Egypt, I know that. - I know. (laughing) - I'm actually glad you brought that up because-- - I think it's there. - No, I don't believe it is. - You don't think so? - Well, I actually looked on maps before and I found looking on maps that were in the back of my Bible that the Tigris and the Tigris and the Euphrates and the-- - Pichon, Pichon, Pichon, I don't know. - Pichon, I think I'm just gonna say-- - Pichon river. - Pichon. - But where the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers would meet, there's an area that's actually gone. - Really? - Yeah. - Oh, wow. - Yeah. - It's forward. - That's incredible. Because they said there was angels at about the gate and-- - With a flaming sword. - With a flaming sword to keep anybody else out. You know what? I think when the transplant of the tree was taken, I think that the transplant of the garden was taken too. Might have been. - It's probably still there, the whole section. - Yeah, but not the garden. Wow, that's impressive to think that way. That's crazy. Now, forever and now, I'm gonna think about the garden just being the place where the garden was gonna be just an empty vast of nothingness because God took it away. - You couldn't be there. The garden has no one to take care to tender it. - It was perfection. - Yeah, it was perfection. That's why I don't need that to get taken out. - And when sin entered the world, sin and perfection cannot live in the same place. It's the same with our body. We cannot-- - Sorry. - We cannot partake of sin and have the perfection of Christ. - Yeah, I think that, well, let's just say this. Now, my body is a temple of the living God, right? And the temple of the Holy Ghost. I'm not perfect. I've sinned in my life, but I am made perfect through the Lord, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, living, residing inside of me. That's my perfection is having that, having Jesus in the little Holy Ghost residing in me. - And I may not have said that the way I intended it to sound, but-- - I think it intended to sound the way you made it to sound. Yeah, I mean-- - I'm not the best with words when I was trying. - Yeah. (laughing) - I mean, you're not-- - In ourselves without Christ, we cannot be perfect. - Right, without Christ, we cannot be perfect. There would be no perfection. - We are called to be Christ-like. - Mm-hmm, which is what Christians are called. - First called an anti-ark. - Yeah. - An anti-ark. - Yeah. - It's a good fan fact. For they were first called Christian as an anti-ark, and that was Paul. Now this was Paul was talking to-- - Probably. - To come on. - To come on to King's name. - Same thing. - Same thing. King's name, come on. - No way. - What's King's name? - I can't think of it. - We're gonna have to get, we're gonna get fact-checking the comments. - We usually have, whether Google, which is Bill-- - Bill's not here today. - Bill's not here, so-- - And I can't fact-check well enough. - Well, too bad that you don't have the good fact-check stuff, but-- - Or I can't type quickly. - I can't type quickly, so by the time I get it typed up, we're already moving-- - I mean, we're staying here already, we're staying-- - I'm stuck on trying to find where these rivers were supposed to be. - Yeah, so am I. (laughing) - Is that what y'all doing? - The thing is, if you go on Google Maps and try to look it up, it's in Arabic, so you can't read it. (laughing) - It was meant to be that way. - Yeah, so like, that's been it. I've spent my belief that for the longest time, because you can find, I think you're looking there where that's the Tigris and the Euphrates meet there, but there's four rivers that meet in that area is a huge patch of water now. It's down here, where those two rivers meet. - Here's the Tigris and the Euphrates, and here's possibly, it has a pressure mark next to it, the other one that I've forgotten, how we decided to pronounce. - Aishan. - Aishan. - Aishan. - And so, from where the Tigris and Euphrates meet, all the way down there, that whole section of land is gone. - Is all water now, yeah. - So. - There is no-- - It was just like, there was no land there. - Nope. - It would've been then, it's gone. - If it was anywhere, it would've been in that area. - Hey, show the camera now. - Oh yeah, for sure. - Now, go to the camera and show it. Like, get up and go to the camera and show it. Like, show what you're talking about. So, there is some type of-- - Yes, you're gonna have to do the talking, but the Euphrates-- - Okay, the Euphrates, I can't, the camera can't see you. - Oh, so, you know, this is the camera. - Okay, the camera can't see you now. The way he's pointing to is-- - That's the Euphrates. - The Euphrates, and then the other side is here-- - Tigris? - No, that's the-- - Pi-Shawn? - Pi-Shawn. - Pi-Shawn. - But then, the fourth river-- - Which is-- - Connect anywhere, I don't know that. - It doesn't have a connection. So, all that water there is where the, where the Garden of Eden would be, but it's gone now. - Yeah, in that area. - Right, so, it's taken up. I think it's because it was transplanted up into heaven. I think that's what the thing is. Because when God said that he would take the tree out of the garden, he did it completely. - Yeah. - Yeah. - God does what he says he's gonna do. - Yeah, he's not gonna take back. I mean, he does repent of creation, right? - Yeah. - Or at least, a creation of man. - Well, because Noah, he flooded the hill earth. - Yeah. - And repented about the whole, I mean, I don't know if he repented about the whole creating man when it came down to Sodom and Gomorrah, but he burned that place down because of the sin that was there. He couldn't have that. He repented of that being there, you know, and it was gone. And when God makes a decision, it's final. - That's it. - It's final. - Yeah, there's no change in that. I mean, in that you brought that up, that was actually the only sin that we know of in Scripture that he felt that strongly about to completely annihilate those cities off the face of the earth. - Wow, yeah, that's true. - The homosexuality that was taking place in Sodom and Gomorrah. - Because it doesn't translate well for the word of God. You know, God is-- - It's the full rivers now. - The word of God is procreation. And there's no procreation with homosexuality. We cannot. - Right, right. - They say, oh, we can have, we can adopt, but that's not pro-creating. - Yeah, it's not. - That's taking in what creativity made, you know. And-- - That's what the full rivers that we're already eating look like now. - Wow, that's nowhere near what it was. - Not even close to it. - Yeah, that's crazy. But yeah, so when, like I said, God made it final. We did an episode about that, about Sodom and Gomorrah. And it was a very intense episode. It was one of those-- - It was the only ones we put a-- - Explicit thing or-- - Yeah, we put a-- - Disclaimer. - Disclaimer. - It was an audio form. There was no video. And Bill was so intently creative about it. He put a soundtrack behind it. - Yeah, we had a soundtrack. - And it was kind of like a movie-like. - Oh yeah. - You can literally play the movie in your mind. - Like he-- - While listening to it. - Like describing the way it looks. You know, the fire and brimstone come down from heaven and the way he describes it is it pulls back from that. And coming up the mountain, you could see Lot and his family. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - I mean, it was wild. - As she turns back and-- - Oh yeah, you can hear all of that. - I think that episode was one of the most intense as far as like visually and if not visual, you can visually see it in your mind. - Right. - But yeah, I think we're so far into the podcasting. We're like 50, 41. - No, we're-- - That says 41. - 41, 12 seconds. - We're 58 episodes into podcasts. - Oh, oh, episodes. - This is a 58th episode so far. - Wow. - And-- - Hurt smile. - How do we get this far? And, you know, it's amazing how far we get. - Being real? - I think we, honestly, let me tell you, we me and John talked last night. We were in the car and was it last night or night before? - Night before. - Night before? - No, I don't know. What night was that? - Thursday, yeah. - Thursday night. - Yeah, Thursday night. So we were-- - Had to think about what day it was last. - Yeah, so I thought-- - We've taken John home and I really felt this on my heart about this and I said, "John, "What are we podcasting for?" I said, "Are we podcasting for us "or are we podcasting for everyone else out there?" And, you know, the thought comes to mind. I said, "Hump, if we're podcasting "for everyone else out there, "then what we're doing is we're trying to keep an audience "and we don't know who we're trying to keep. "We're just trying to find out who's listening "and trying to keep them." But in the reality of it, if I'm trying to find, if I'm trying to record an episode and trying to keep any one of those people that I'm listening, then what I'm trying to do is I'm pandering to an audience. - Right. - What I wanna do is I wanna create a podcast episodes that are for us that we can benefit from that are our true selves, being who we are, laughing, making jokes, you know, talking about real stuff and all that kind of stuff mixed in and mingled with it. And what's gonna happen is someone's gonna find value in it. Someone's gonna find value in the content we're creating and think that it's the best content that there is and they're gonna listen to it and love it and like-minded people are gonna find it. So in the end, if we make content for ourselves, the people that have that same mind or at least find value in it are gonna listen to it. And there is no trying to keep an audience, just being ourselves. I think that's the biggest message that we have. It's trying to be ourselves, be our true selves. And ever since the Lord been giving me and John both the gift of the Holy Ghost, it's been amazing how far this podcast has been. Or, you know, 58 episodes, we never think that it would go this far. You know, we thought we would just do it for a year and then give up after a year and, you know, maybe reevaluate and if we wanted to go on for a second year, we're on the second year. - Oh yeah. - You know, this is the second year of the podcast and this is, we're in September now. By the way, I'm not sure when this will drop. So I kind of gave away dates. But, I mean, we're in September now and August. - I just dropped in two weeks. - We put two weeks, John. So it will be September still? - It will still be September. - Okay, so yeah, so it will be September. We dropped, we're first episodes in August of last year. - Oh yeah. - You know, I'm amazed that we got this far. We have a good audience, people listening to us. And I'm just grateful to the Lord that's given us a good blessing to do this. And I couldn't ask for anything else. I mean, it's a ministry that's gonna, people are gonna listen to and benefit from. So I'm grateful for it, you know? - Amen, that was good. - Yeah, I'm so glad about that. So, other, I'm gonna give you a quick question. And this is gonna be the, just, closer. Unless you have something else you wanna talk about. - Starting to rain. - Yeah, yeah, unless you wanna have something else talk about. - I can't think of anything off the top of my head and don't wanna have too much radio silence, so. - We just had like 10 seconds just down if you think of it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was too much. I don't wanna have more of it just going. You know? - So, yeah. All right, so brother. - We'll move on. - Let's get this question on the roll. There is this question on our podcast that we get to ask every guest. And it is, if you could talk to any biblical, character in the Bible, old or New Testament. - Or both. - Excluding, huh? - Or both. - Or both. - Whatever, use your answer. - Yeah. - Old or New Testament, who would you talk to and why would you talk to them and what would you talk about? - Excluding. - Excluding Jesus and Paul. - And Paul. - Oh, and Paul. 'Cause everybody wants to talk to Paul, I mean. - Well, look, I get that. - Yeah. - Well, I guess I've never. - Never had to think about that, I don't know. - Who I? - Never had to think about that. - I think brother Don said Daniel. - Yeah. We've had Peter, we've had Paul. - Peter, Paul, Elijah. - Elijah. - Yeah. - Not Melchilles of that, we never had him. (laughing) - No. - Yeah. - I wish he had a good one on that. I wish I could remember who it was. And go listen to the podcast and you find out. - So. - I would have to say probably Peter. - Peter. - He's the next one on the map. - We're gonna take him off. - We're gonna take him off next. - Okay. - I don't really know why a lot of people say Peter. - Yeah, I mean, because Peter and Paul's ministry are almost like similar because of their, you know, they've had their history, you know, like they've come to disagreements and also done many different missions in Bible. But they also are both apostles of Jesus Christ, who are going out to ministry to people about Jesus. And I mean, you cannot get more of the same characteristics from either one of the, I mean, sometimes even Stephen, but Stephen's not as close. I mean, you have Stephen before too. - Well, the thing about it for me is that, so Paul was a vile sinner, got saved. And from then on, he was steadfast in no issues. But Peter, you know, Peter denied Christ. After having actually known him and walked with him. - Right. - For a few years. - The reason I say Peter now, and if we'd had this discussion before I backslidden and left church, it would have been somebody else. - Right. - Because Peter was just another apostle to me. But now, at this point in my life, I feel like I can identify more with who Peter was because of the fact that, like I said before, the prodigal son's story was just that to me. It was just a story in the Bible. I understood the points of it. I understood why it was important and all that. But now that I sit in the place of that prodigal son, that one that not only did Christ have that he have mercy on me and forgive me initially. The Bible says that that's all he's required, is that one time. But he extended it to me again. And not just, oh, I watched a movie. I should've done that. No, no, no. I left my home, my family. I turned my back on the church on everything that the Lord had done for me. And my entire family, I'm sorry to say, my entire family suffered over that for years. And when he extended that mercy to me again, it's meant exponentially more than it ever did before. - Right. - You know what I mean? And I can feel like I identify with the way Peter's ministry changed. He was always the abrupt one. He, I forget the man's name, but in the Garden of Gethsemane, he cut that guard's ear off. He was quickly the sword, cut that man's ear off. - Right. - Jesus put it back on. You know, Peter denied the Lord after that. And then after witnessing everything that Jesus went through him, his ministry. - He didn't bother seeing him luck on water. - Seeing all that stuff. - Yeah. - His ministry became so strong, so unbelievably strong that it's just the inspiration to me. And when I read in the book of Peter, so since I've, since getting saved again in 2000, I've finished, I've read through the New Testament six, almost seven times. - Wow. Okay. Wow. - And every time I get to the book of Peter, I find a lot of inspiration and I find a lot of power as I'm reading through it. But every time I get to the book of Peter, I always find myself feeling like I'm on shouting ground because of the way Peter's book is just the power and strength that I feel from it. - Which Peter? - All of them. - Just two of them. - Just two, right? - All two of them. - But all both of them? - Yeah. - All both of them. (laughing) - Definitely can see a relation there because obviously, like you said, about all the ministry that he had and denying Jesus, we see Peter almost like trying to be right next to John as far as being the loved disciple. - Right, right. - And wanting to be there with him every day, every minute of the hour. And he saw Jesus coming up on the water, didn't know it was him and asked him, "If it's you, let me come." And he did and when he went out there, I believe that he walked in the water pretty good ways. - Yeah, he did. - But when he did finally took his eyes off of Jesus and looked at the storm around him, started falling and drowning into the water. And that's, and the reason why I think it was so far away because when you see, when you don't know who's away, have you been fishing before? It's deep, deep fishing? - No, never deep sea. - Well, if you're deep sea fishing and you can make out an image but don't know exactly what it is, it's pretty far away. So for someone to say, if it be you, Lord, bid me come. And when he heard him say, "Come," and voice travels in the water, you can be pretty far away from the boat and you can still hear somebody 'cause it travels over that water. He had to have walked so far to get to Jesus because when he fell in the water, Jesus's hand was immediately right there. He wasn't right by the boat or else Jesus would have walked into the boat. There's no reason to go and ask Jesus to go up to him if he's just two steps away from the boat. - Yeah. - You know? So he had to have enough faith to make it to him. And also because he denied Jesus three times and at that thing, at that fire. You know, Jesus gave him the opportunity to be repented of it. He said, "Peter, love is down me." And he said, "You know all things." - Yeah. - He says, "Feed my sheep." He said, "Peter, love is down me." He says, "You know all things." - You know I do. - You know I do. - Yeah. - "Feed my sheep." You know, and he kept asking it and he says, "Why do you keep asking?" - Yeah. - You know, and he said, "Feed my land." - And there again, he was getting like losing his patience when he was like, "Come on, what are we doing? Why do you keep asking me the same thing?" - Right. And it's marvelous to me because the three times that he denied Jesus, Jesus, that he denied Jesus, the three times he denied him, he received him three times and received a mission to feed the sheep, which is what made his ministry as great as it did because he didn't want to let Jesus down again. I know, and now I know he was under the, you know, he was looked as the underdog as far as like John's concern. He was always the one that denied Jesus. - Right. - But he was the one that made a difference. - Yeah. - You know, he was the one that made the difference. You don't see John's ministry saving 3,000 people at one time. You see Peter's ministry saving 3,000 people at one time. - Right. - And I mean, it's amazing what Peter has done to get so far and to be as, to be the next person that might be taking off the list is because if you, first of all, the reason why we took Jesus off is because you're talking to Jesus every day. - Right. - What have you not talked to him about that you want to talk to him now? And then also we took Paul off the list because he's done so much that I'm pretty sure everybody's going to want to talk to Paul if they can't talk to Jesus. - Yeah, yeah. - You know, and Peter's right up there with Paul. I think that's amazing to be one of the top three people. - Yeah, yeah. - That would be making a difference in people's lives. - Right. - Jesus being number one, you know, it's amazing. And I appreciate your answer, being so honest about it. And being vulnerable enough to just share that about your life, you know, people would be so afraid to just even mention that they've left the church and so afraid to say they've backslaved and not want to mention that or even confess, you know, because it's a shameful thing. People think it's not, it's not good. But I think truth makes more than a lie. - Absolutely. - And not giving something is just as wrong as a lie is. - Oh, yeah. - You know, the devil does it all the time. You know, when Eve said, you know, we're not to eat the fruit because we will die. The devil did not lie or the serpent did not lie. When he said, you shall not surely die because it was a deception. It was deceiving to her. Yes, they will surely die because they were meant to live forever, they're not alive anymore. They weren't, she wasn't gonna die at that moment. - Right, not like right then. - Not at that moment, she was gonna die spiritually and she was gonna die physically later on in life. You know, she hadn't given any birth yet. She hadn't been able to give any type of fruit for multiplication into the earth. - Right. - Wasn't able to do that. So she hadn't been able to do that later on. But deception, because if we don't give an answer to hide the answer, it's a deceiving way to lie. And, you know, hiding behind that is not okay. I think that being able to be vulnerable enough to mention that will help someone else realize, hey, he's strong enough to say it. He's strong enough to mention it. You know, why am I hiding behind this? And why can't I mention it and help someone else too? You know, I'm pretty sure someone's gonna get enough help to know that if they're backslayed and they're away from the church, you know, God loves you. God wants you back. - Absolutely. - He wants you to live for him and give a ministry. And you're gonna give up, you're gonna have a better life better than your best day as a sinner. - Absolutely. - Your worst day as a saved Christian, a saved child of God is gonna be better than your best day as a sinner in this world. And that's gonna, that's the ultimate thing here is, you know, living for Christ, living for God and giving you all. I appreciate you being honest today and I really love it. - And if you think that you've gone too far that God can't reach you anymore, just a little science fact, the observable universe is more than 46 billion light years in any direction from earth. So the diameter is 93 billion light years all the way around in diameter and our God made that. God that we serve can see 93 billion light years can make that. - And even more. - And even more. That's the observable. That's what man can see with our technology. - Right. - There's for sure more. - Infinite. - Yeah. - So our greatest thoughts are less than 93 billion light years of what God really is. - Wow. - So our little mole hill that we're stuck on, that I'm stuck on is nothing. - You know, there was a scientist. - There's been a lot of us. - And I'm gonna close here in a little bit. - Let's re-continue to close here. - Listen, the preacher will tell you a close time, a high 10 times before he closes. But there was a scientist who said that the highest peak on earth is non-evised. - Right. - The lowest is the mary on a trench. - Right. - Right. Huge. You can make, I think you can fit 13 or 18 Eiffel towers in the mary on a trench. - Yes, huge. - And probably more from the base of the Evers to the top. - I think the mary on a trench is deeper than Evers is high. - Yeah, it's way deeper, yeah. So, but that difference there, right? The deepest part of the mary on a trench is not even under the crust of the earth. The crust is below, more below that. - Yeah. - So if we were to say the crust of the earth, and all of its highs and lows, all together, and if we were to take the size of this earth and make it into the size of a golf ball, like not a golf ball, but a ping pong ball. - Okay. - You know how smooth the ping pong ball is? - Yeah. - Okay. So the ping pong ball is so smooth, they have to make it so that whenever they want to do some kind of trick shots, it can, you know, spin in the air and down some directions, right? The, if earth was miniaturized into a ping pong ball, it would be polished smooth, more polished smooth than a ping pong ball is. - Yeah, yeah. - It's how crazy it is. You know, it's amazing that we can see, we can see all of our molehills, our stuff that our problems have, you know, but there's nothing compared to the God who created it. - Yeah. - You know, we can have our problems on here and see a little thing here and trip up over something. And even a cable on the floor, we can see that and it can become a big problem for us. And I'm seeing metaphorically, that could be a problem as far as tripping over our past. - Right, right, right. - That's nothing compared to God. God has all control. He can see all these things. It doesn't, it's not anything to him. It's a smooth polished ball, a bowling ball, for instance, how smooth and polished it is. - Yeah. - It is so perfect. So know that God is great, God is huge. He can see all these things and it's all in control. Your life is not, is not how I say infant, it's not infant, just to be small. It's huge, he loves you. - Absolutely loves you. - And he wants the best for you. He even sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for your salvation. - Literally done everything possible to save your soul. - Right. And that's the message today is look to Jesus. He's to save you and he wants you. - So I want to just add before we end the podcast, you talked about how if you're back slid, he's not turned his back on you. I just want to reinforce that a little and I want to lean into that just a little bit before we go. If you're listening to the podcast and you are back slid, know beyond any shadow of a doubt that he's not turned his back on you. Satan wants you to believe that the way back home is so much further than what it actually is. And I can tell you for a fact because as I sat in the church services when I first started coming back to church and I knew God was dealing with me, I felt like I could never make it back. I can never get back through everything I've been through to get back to there. And honestly, I believe that the morning I decided on August 23rd that I was going to go down to the altar, I honestly believe that God met me just like he met that product of son. I believe he met me before I ever got to the altar. And he wants to do the same for every backslidden son or daughter out there. - Wow, that's a name. - Our pastor says, if you take one step he'll take two. - And that's not just a cute little saying or anything, that's I have seen that and experienced it and continue to experience it every day. - Wow, that's amazing. For all of you guys listening, I hope this is a message that you can take my heart. And just take it from him. He's telling you from his personal experience. So just know if you're backslidden, there's a way back home. And it's not as far as you think. - Hey man. - So thank you for listening. Hit the follow button on the podcast. Hit the like button. Give us a comment down below. If you want to see some other content, give us an email or a shout at www.thebrosepod.com. You can give us our ratings there. You can give us five stars. Please do us five stars. Give us wherever you want. And we hope to see you guys on the next episode. We appreciate you. See you next week. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)