00:00:34.000Hello, and welcome to Stay Free with Russell Brand.
00:00:37.000Wherever you are in the world, I hope that you are free and liberated and not tyrannized.
00:00:42.000If you're not watching this on Rumble, come over and watch us on Rumble right now.
00:00:46.000We've got some fantastic guests on the show today.
00:00:48.000Gabe Lyons, I'll be talking to you in a minute about sort of contemporary apologetics and how to address Christianity from a, I suppose, modern perspective, even though God is the Alpha Omega, unchanging, infinite, and outside of time, culture ever shifts, drifts, and moves around.
00:01:04.000So, how do we interface with the eternal in a world that wants you addicted?0.98
00:01:08.000Dumb, distracted, and totally controlled.0.99
00:01:10.000So, we'll be talking about all of that in a minute.0.97
00:01:14.000What's, like, but before that, Jake, we're just going to do some light high things, aren't we?
00:01:18.000To sort of establish a general ambience of peace.
00:02:17.000And Mel Gibson leaned in and went, My house is burning down.
00:02:23.000And first, I didn't know whether or not it was like, Yes, yes, Mel.
00:02:28.000In a way, all our houses are burning down because, yeah, we're attached to the body, but the body is just temporary.
00:02:34.000And the life force itself is burning through the material as we transcend into becoming, I don't know, the heavenly incense, the perfume of Christ.
00:02:42.000And while I was thinking all that, he.
00:02:43.000Showed me a video and just his house was burning down.
00:02:45.000I mean, it was the Malibu fires, is what was going on.
00:03:47.000Generally speaking, it seems to me that the primary function of media is to partner with deep, insidious power systems to ensure that their agenda can be met without too much resistance.
00:03:58.000You can see how pharmaceutical companies seem to benefit from selling products that are addicting and addictive and sometimes deleterious and detrimental, whether that's that cholesterol medicine or Johnson Johnson's baby powder that seemed to be carcinogenic, even though I can't say that because it was settled out of court, or them Pfizer files that were booted 75 years into the future.
00:06:34.000I mean, even if you believe in a flat out materialistic Big Bang theory, then you'd still have to say that whatever was compounded in that submolecular particle 13.8 billion years ago unfolded into kittens and rainbows and love and romance and the rules and laws of thermonuclear dynamics.
00:07:39.000I mean, even the word collapse has a wave particle inference that's available to us.
00:07:45.000I'm going to be talking a bit about when our Lord says in the book of John, before Abraham was, I am, there's a kind of allusion that, of course, to Yahweh saying to Moses, I am that I am.
00:08:08.000Able to strip away the layers of identification that you have, perhaps with where you're from or what you've been through or what you believe or what you're thinking right now or what you're feeling.
00:08:17.000Beneath it, do you sense a field of beingness, a field of beingness that Meister Eckhart, the great Dominican German monk, said, The eye with which I see God is the eye with which God sees me.
00:08:33.000I've got to tell you, before I became Christian, I didn't recognize that hidden in plain sight was a Deep, mystical, accessible way to overcome.
00:08:45.000There's a couple of babies in the audience.
00:08:46.000Let me just finish my thought and show those babies so people don't think I'm crazy.
00:08:50.000Like, it's all I think whenever there's a noise, you've got to cover it, Mertz, because otherwise, you know, like, I don't want people thinking there's babies in or around this place.
00:08:58.000I don't want people thinking we're like running some sort of trafficking racket.
00:09:03.000Like, continually available to you and to me is the presence of God.
00:09:09.000And it seems to me, and let me know what you think about this in the comments and chat.
00:09:12.000That the function of society and our culture is to keep us permanently distracted from the availability of God by laying before us false gods.
00:09:22.000Perhaps it's always been this way, but we can return to God whenever we want.
00:09:25.000Please, this is so that you can conceptualize my new friend and guest on the show, Gabe Lyons.
00:09:32.000Have a quick look at this introductory clip that will help you to understand who he is.
00:09:38.000We're being dehumanized before our very eyes, and the worst part is we're participating in it.
00:09:43.000The pornography, addiction, the advance of new technologies and AI that are going to make it even easier to do deep fakes, to confuse us, to advance propaganda, to leave us in a place where we don't even know what is true.
00:09:56.000This is the state of the world we're in.
00:10:00.000I do as Huxley in 1932 wrote a book called A Brave New World.
00:10:05.000He has this one quote in the book that I think is so amazing to read 91 years later.
00:10:10.000He says this we're distracting ourselves.
00:10:14.000As Neil Postman talked about it, we're amusing ourselves to death.
00:10:21.000Please welcome to the stage Gabe Lyons.0.96
00:10:27.000Thank you for coming on, you handsome maniac.0.96
00:11:05.000What I like about what I know of your content is your ability to communicate about Christianity in a way that is germane, pertinent, and relevant to the time.
00:11:19.000How do we ensure that we're able to talk about Christ in a way that's relevant and pertinent without compromising the timeless principles of Christianity?
00:11:30.000Because you know, when people go, oh no, this is the latest trend, even if it's a musical trend or a cultural trend.
00:11:40.000Well, I think having the confidence that the Christian faith has something to offer to every conversation that people are having, every question any generation has had historically and all the way into this moment, and the questions coming over the next few years.
00:11:53.000We don't even know what those questions will be.
00:11:55.000Understanding the Christian story that God had a design for things that's been corrupted, but there's a way back for redemption, and there's a way to live out our faith in a way that restores not only our human souls, but also the world that we live in.
00:12:08.000And I think that applies to every single topic, every single question.
00:12:11.000And when Christians can have confidence in that, which is the work that we do through our organization, Think, we help people know how to think well about these topics.
00:12:18.000And Christians throughout the ages, the smartest people, tend to become Christians, right?
00:12:24.000The older they get, the great scientists, Galileo and others, they come around to this because they understand that this is what is absolutely true about reality.
00:12:32.000We can't make this content without the support of our partners.
00:13:36.000See the description or visit rumble.comslash promo official rules for details.
00:13:41.000The problem might be then that along that, along the way, To the realization of his truth, there must be many points of potential departure.
00:13:53.000To your point on scientists, I found myself quoting frequently Heisenberg, who said, The first sip of the glass of physics may make you an atheist, but if you drain the glass to the bottom, there is God waiting for you.
00:14:11.000Why is contemporary Christianity so fraught with sometimes inanity, like seeming a bit sort of tepid and hopeless, and at other times seemingly fixated on cultural issues that don't seem paramount to me?
00:14:27.000I think, sort of like personal ethical choices made into campaigns.
00:14:32.000Where do you think we're missing the mark and not getting to that summit that you believe?
00:14:37.000I mean, we've lived in an age where commercialism, consumerism has dominated all of us.
00:14:43.000I think that's impacted the church to where the church starts to turn towards what is our culture wanting right now and how do we serve that up for them?
00:14:51.000And in some ways, getting away from the core basics of what is actually true about reality and the human heart and the human soul.
00:14:59.000And how do we keep talking about that?
00:15:01.000In ways that people can understand how it's going to relate to their life, their meaning, their purpose.
00:15:05.000I think the challenge is when churches try to stay relevant, meaning just keep up with the trend, many times the world starts to ask the very question that they've left behind.
00:15:15.000And so we want to keep going back to what are the ancient paths?
00:15:18.000What is the wisdom that every human being needs to receive from the Lord?
00:15:23.000And when we receive that wisdom, we actually start to live in a way where our lives flourish, the people around us flourish, our communities flourish.
00:15:30.000And that becomes quite attractive, I think, in this current moment to people who are longing for meaning and purpose.
00:16:13.000I think you're beautiful as you are, but I wouldn't want to limit you in any way.
00:16:17.000Where I've been most blessed, right, Gabe, is I've been like, I ain't been Christian very long, but I've been surrounded just by grace and chance and by the fortuitous hand of the Holy One, by Christians like Jake over there and Nikki over there and even Sarah who works with us now.
00:16:30.000They're much more experienced, they've been Christians all their lives, basically, or most generally speaking.
00:16:37.000What I've learned from them is probably like them guardrails you get on a bowling alley, because I would just be frying them bowling balls right down to the end of the alley.
00:16:46.000Anyway, but what I'm trying to say is that in my having come to the Lord late in life, I have been struck by these two things most of all, and I want your insights on them, so I'll stop talking eventually.
00:16:59.000And here they are one is the deep mystery of knowing Christ in the present moment right now, and how sort of strange and sort of psychedelic and bizarre that is, because I took a lot of psychedelics and.
00:17:11.000But there were bits that were quite good transcendent encounters with a reality that was extra sensory, I suppose.
00:17:18.000Firstly, the amplification of sensory information, and then information that seems to be traveling down different paths, not the normal sensory instruments.
00:17:26.000Secondly, that when I read scripture and studied it as best as I can as an autodidact on my own, something was Bible studies and hanging out with others and all that, it seemed to me the very thing that's concerned me, troubled me, nagged at me my whole life, that evil is in control of the world, is something that is.
00:17:43.000Elaborately and intricately described throughout scripture.
00:17:48.000Say, in the book of Kings, when you're reading about King Ahab and Jezebel, it sounds to me like them a lot are setting up some weird, like, poles to receive interdimensional frequencies, getting involved in human sacrifice and sex magic and giving up their kids for stuff like that.0.83
00:18:04.000Sounds like they're doing some super dark, weird stuff.0.60
00:18:08.000Now, I don't reckon that human beings have changed that much in the interim period.
00:18:12.000And we all know that decadence and hedonism in high places is.
00:18:17.000So I reckon that people in power are still doing that stuff.
00:18:20.000You know, I'm talking about the Epstein files and what they seem to suggest.
00:18:24.000So, what's really hit me hard since coming to crisis, all those things I thought, but from a socialist perspective at points, you know, really interested in socialism because I like overthrowing governments.
00:18:36.000Not when your country does it to mine.
00:18:38.000That's the one example where revolutions were bad.
00:18:42.000But what I wonder, mate, Do you think we do enough to ensure people recognize that we are in an interdimensional spiritual war?
00:18:55.000No, I think for the most part, most people don't want to go there because it's so disgusting to start to go down those paths and start to see the way sin is infecting so many areas of our institutions, the human heart, the leaders that lead these institutions.
00:19:19.000Sometimes frustrated with that because I want to compel people to not only be aware of those issues, but also understand how do we as Christians bring hope in these situations?
00:19:27.000What do we do to confront those things?
00:19:29.000How do we start to move forward in the world, embodying a different ethic and a different way of life so that those who are caught up in that, trapped in that, or they haven't even thought about it, they actually observe a Christian community living in a different way so much that they want to be a part of it.0.83
00:19:43.000They want to be a part of this parallel structure that we create in this world that runs opposite of that.
00:19:48.000But I will say, too, Russell, I mean, just.
00:19:51.000I do a Tuesday morning Bible study in Franklin with a bunch of men.
00:19:55.000And we were reading Deuteronomy 32 yesterday, which is Moses' song, where he's at the end of his life, 120 years into his life, and he's warning them before the next gen is going to go into the promised land.
00:20:05.000And he's saying, Look, here's the deal.
00:20:07.000You guys are going to end up probably turning to these idols, these idols that you've learned to turn away from.
00:20:11.000You've seen God's faithfulness, but there's something about the human heart that keeps turning back, right, to sin.
00:20:19.000That God says, You're going to do that, but I'm going to still be faithful.
00:20:22.000And when you repent and you return, I will draw you back in and I will be right there for you.
00:20:28.000And so there's something about the consistency of human history for me that both is wild to think about that human beings haven't learned a better way, but then also encouraging to know that God is sitting right there welcoming us back, just like in your own journey.
00:20:42.000Once you repent and return, it's like that.
00:20:45.000It's a warm invitation, it's not a confrontation.
00:20:48.000He's not sitting there ready to punish everybody in that moment.
00:20:51.000He's going, No, I've been sitting here all along.
00:20:54.000It sometimes seems confronting because it might happen to you in a moment of crisis and despair.
00:21:00.000It might come at the, in my case, it came at this sort of the exhaustion of the old way.
00:21:06.000That, like a good drug addict, I kept trying to reboot different models of, like, come on, let's try this way of making the material world sublime.
00:21:15.000Try to drag divinity and the sacred out of the inert and dead world.
00:21:21.000See this book that you've written, mate?
00:21:25.000So, evidently, plainly, you must think we're at some.
00:21:28.000Critical point of departure and change, and I feel it too.
00:21:31.000And I think most people feel that we can't continue in this way for much longer.
00:21:37.000There seems to be a sense in my country, the United Kingdom, of expiration, exhaustion, a kind of bureaucratic lacquering of individual and state power that's leading to a point where no one feels like they've got any agency or freedom.
00:21:53.000In your country, and it's something you alluded to when you first began speaking, Gabe, that it seems that Christianity in its robustness bears the inflection of the culture that wears it or carries it, i.e., Like, you know, with Constantine's conversion, there's the happy event of the Roman Catholic Church.
00:22:13.000But in your glorious country, the United States, there are so many iterations of Protestantism that it seems to me inevitable and demonstrable that the commercial culture that has made your country the most powerful country in the world has the inflections of that are borne out through, you know, you mentioned that at the beginning.
00:22:34.000Now, you know, what hits me here is the nations are a drop in the bucket.
00:22:39.000All government shall be on his shoulders.
00:22:46.000So these sort of phony cultural arguments that tend to center around political tribal identities have to somehow be put aside, do you agree, for if this collapse is to be successfully navigated?
00:22:59.000What do you suggest when it comes to political identification, national identification, racial identification, and identification around sexuality?
00:23:04.000And that's not just for people, you know, like my sexual identity was very important to me for a long time.
00:23:09.000I thought going around, sleeping around was.
00:23:11.000Terrific fun and what I was supposed to be doing.
00:23:13.000So, how do you address that in particular here, Mate?
00:23:17.000Well, I lay out in here a description of what the kingdom system looks like that Jesus did bring on his shoulders.
00:23:24.000It was a whole new way of life, a whole new set of rules for how human beings were meant to function together with one another amongst all races, amongst people who were different, amongst your enemies.0.94
00:23:34.000And in doing that, it was a direct confrontation to the Babylon spirit, the Babylon system that's existed from the beginning of time.0.93
00:23:42.000You see it in the Tower of Babel, probably most obviously, where humankind is sitting there building a tower.0.99
00:23:48.000And God looks down and he's like, Look, if I let them do this, these human beings will actually do it.
00:23:53.000They're incredible what they are going to be able to create.
00:23:55.000So he has to destroy that tower, he has to divide us up.0.97
00:23:58.000But since then, this Babylon spirit is always competing with the kingdom community that God's trying to address.0.99
00:24:04.000And that Babylon spirit shows up exactly how you're talking about it's in control, it's in creating fear, propaganda, it's in oppression, it's in lust, it's in greed.0.98
00:24:13.000So, all of those spirits are all just part of this one spirit, which, fortunately, we get to Revelation 14, you start to see, well, that Babylon spirit ultimately will be destroyed.0.99
00:24:21.000And the smoldering smoke that goes up from when it's destroyed, we will be watching forever, I believe, in the heavens.1.00
00:24:28.000Because what happens is it finally gets destroyed.
00:24:31.000But we're going to have to contend with it.
00:24:33.000And we contend with it in the spiritual realm prayer, spending time with the Lord, getting away from the noise.
00:24:39.000But then we also have to do it in human community.
00:24:44.000Giving of our things to one another, by serving one another, by finding ways to meet each other's needs.
00:24:49.000And so I think the collapse, the collapse I'm describing, is really a twofold collapse.
00:24:53.000One is this internal collapse, I believe the human being is experiencing right now.
00:24:58.000I mean, you just look at the data on our ability to critically think, that's gone down in the last couple of decades.
00:25:03.000You look at our health, you know, our life expectancy, what they call a healthy life expectancy, has dropped by a year and a half in the last 20 years.0.67
00:25:11.000So I'll just talk about longevity, health, we're going to live forever, transhumanism, all of these promises, they're not showing up in the real body.
00:25:22.000And so you have this internal collapse happening at the same time as the external collapse that you're describing, where we look out and you see the institutions we can't trust anymore.
00:25:30.000I think only a third of Americans trust the institutions anymore, whether it's media, government, and so on.
00:25:36.000You've got infrastructure collapsing, whether it's the supply chains, food supply, what's in our food, and on and on and on.
00:26:39.000I'm having that happen to me right now.
00:26:41.000We're probably playing this in October.
00:26:43.000And, like, see how when the Lord came and dragged me back out of that gutter I keep returning to?
00:26:50.000Like, in that moment, it was like a sort of a cultural identity, because I'm a famous person, collapse at the same time as a real intimate crisis of my son's health challenges.
00:27:02.000And these things have sort of continued over the last three years, actually.
00:27:30.000And that's why so much in our society, so many people at this point are starting to experience despair because they've lost meaning, purpose, connection to who they were created to be.
00:27:38.000I mean, you look at Gen Z data right now, 83% of Gen Z has either been given a medical health diagnosis or they would say, I believe I have one.
00:28:12.000Yeah, go to despair because what I want is you dead.0.97
00:28:15.000And the kingdom comes into that and says, no, no, no, through repentance, through return.
00:28:20.000And there will be practices, as you know, that you have to live out as a human being.
00:28:25.000It happens in the spirit, but you're going to have to live this out with different habits, different rhythms, different people.
00:28:30.000This is the journey back towards healing.0.99
00:28:32.000Yeah, you're a murderer and a liar from the very beginning, as it says in scripture.0.97
00:28:36.000And those that present themselves as most holy, the Pharisees, are those that are advocating most strongly for and bringing about the dark kingdom of the Prince of the air, the people that are claiming most authority, the people that are saying that they're righteous, the people that are in control, the darkest ones.0.99
00:28:50.000I sort of noticed since becoming Christian that there's sort of a tendency to elect certain cultural artifacts and individuals as evil without recognizing true deep systemic evil.
00:29:03.000Like, oh, this is a wrong practice, or those people shouldn't be doing that, or that nation's off key, rather than, no, man, it's deeper than that.
00:29:12.000It's bleeding in through the skin, and only his blood can cleanse that way.
00:29:16.000Now, one of the things you didn't mention when you were saying, like, our way out of the despair and this trend that might be being induced and birthed by this, the pang of this transitional moment that might be, you know, precipitous, it might be his return, which is no small thing.
00:29:48.000What I will say is if the book of Acts was written after Paul had had his head cut off, I think they should have put that in there.
00:29:58.000Like, you know, you read the whole book of Acts, like, yeah, then we've done that, then we've done that, oh my God, God's definitely real, we watched him ascend, this is blowing my mind, angels come, got us out of jail, hanging out with Silas, going fine, Barnabas, good guy, we're having a bit of a row, this is good stuff, we're conquering new territories, brilliant, love it, miracles, taking on false idols, even without our Lord.
00:30:20.000Present, we are demonstrably doing greater things than he shipwreck, survival, snake handling.
00:30:25.000It's like, if he had his head cut off, put that in the story seems to be like a pretty significant detail.
00:30:32.000So I don't know when Luke wrote that, but if Luke wrote that after Paul had had his head cut off and Peter had been crucified upside down, I think what are you waiting for?
00:30:52.000When the mark of the beast is provided, and we are told that we are going to be forced to either rely on this new system, which would be this Babylon system, that's going to say, hey, in order for you to operate freely within your society, get access to food, maybe access to health care, you're going to need to go ahead and be a part of this deal.
00:31:11.000And it's going to be very convincing to a lot of people because if you don't have another option for food, if you don't have another option to feed your children, what are you going to do?
00:31:19.000You're going to radicalize people quickly, Gabe.
00:31:33.000It is, because what Revelation says is those who do not conform to that and who patiently endure until the end, they will be rewarded.
00:31:43.000So, there's a sense that there's going to be a group.
00:31:45.000There's going to be people who are going to make the hard choice, the difficult choice, not to move into this control grid system.
00:31:54.000That are going to have to operate on their own, but they're going to have to be very patient and they're going to have to be enduring, and this is not going to be easy.
00:32:00.000And that's part of what I'm trying to convey to people how do you start to form that kind of resilient thinking and community now so that you actually, when you're confronted with that choice, you have an option?
00:32:10.000Because if you haven't started now building trust, learning how to supply your own food where you don't have to show up to a grocery store every day to get your food or get your digital currency to check off because you haven't had too many ounces of meat that month, like if you get to that point, you're going to be very tempted.
00:32:29.000That's been one of my problems, I suffer very badly, very badly from impatience.
00:32:33.000I know that patience is one of the fruits of the old spirit there, so I'm trying to work on it, or I'm trying to allow it to happen anyway.
00:32:41.000But my point is this that don't you, what it sounds like you described there, Gabe, is something I've been somewhat concerned about for a while now the implementation of a globalist imperialist system where we're all tethered to a digital grid and that our resources can be dialed up and down.
00:32:59.000In an instant, they trialed it a little bit with the Canadian truckers in the COVID protest, and the entire COVID protest seemed to me for a bit of a rehearsal for dystopia.
00:33:07.000How many people can we tell get in their houses and they'll just do it?
00:33:10.000How many people can we tell take this injection and they'll just do it?
00:33:13.000And now, do you see that in my country?
00:33:15.000It used to be that they piloted these things in Australia and Canada, and America and England could remain good friends.
00:33:22.000Well, now they're piloting it on us, is what's happening, because with the digital ID stuff, the facial recognition technology, the just the maximum creation of social unrest and bewilderment and disorientation, man, it's all kicking off in my country like real strong.
00:33:39.000So, do you feel as I do that, and indeed, don't you feel this?
00:33:44.000In Acts 2 and 3, the early part of Acts.
00:33:48.000Is it possible, Gabe, that we might be using some of this technology to establish communities that are food and energy independent and actually democratic in so much as almost socialist sounding in some points?
00:34:31.000But what I am saying is we're at a point where to build this parallel is going to require innovation.
00:34:40.000I don't think we have to become Luddites and not use technology or innovation.
00:34:44.000I mean, we can't go backwards, but we're going to have to move forward.
00:34:47.000In the midst of this land, in the midst of the technology we have, and start to develop our own types of infrastructure that can operate outside of that control grid.
00:34:55.000I'm concerned, as you are, about the way digital ID, even real ID in the U.S., ultimately what the uses for that could be.
00:35:42.000Catherine Austin Fitz is somebody who writes a lot about this in the digital control group, but she says, you know, keep using cash, which to most of us it's like, what?
00:36:16.000Well, you're going to have to go to the bank.
00:36:18.000Okay, I'm going to go waste an hour of my day.
00:36:20.000This is friction for me, but I'm going to go to the bank and show up in person because I'm not going to participate in your system as much as I can hold out.
00:36:27.000What I like is that your temperament is so.
00:36:31.000You believe the same things I believe, but your temperament is so different from mine.
00:36:35.000I play into their hands because I'm too short fused.
00:36:54.000Listen, I just want to say watching your journey the last, let's call it five years.
00:37:01.000I have just loved the way you've confronted control, the way you've exposed so many people to truth, the way you've helped your audience better understand that there's a better way to live before you converted, right?
00:37:12.000And then to now see it move from where you're not just confronting political institutions and oppressing institutions, you're actually now understanding sin and the human heart and the way it's a spiritual battle that combines with the temporal and what we have to live in is just a beautiful thing.
00:37:29.000And so, on behalf of so many other Christians, I hope.
00:37:32.000I know this audience thinks that, but the people listening, it's just been amazing to see what God's done and your availability.
00:37:38.000You've challenged me in my own walk with the Lord and how I can be more open and expressive.
00:37:44.000So maybe my temperament will button the shirt again.
00:37:48.000I'm buttoning the shirt, load up, get ready.
00:37:55.000That was really kind of you to say that because sometimes I'm very, very, very afraid.
00:38:01.000I'm very afraid and I'm being crushed.
00:38:03.000And being crushed, and it's sometimes beautiful because when the crushing pressure is him, and so I feel so intimately connected to him, but at other points, I don't like it one bit.
00:38:16.000Like, I'd sort of sometimes rather be dead, but like, as I understand, that is the ever present murmur of Satan who wants us dead.
00:38:25.000I liked it when C.S. Lewis said that thing, he doesn't want you at an orgy, like neck in tequila and bang at it on the yay, he'd rather you were just sort of sat in a room, like, yeah.0.97
00:38:38.000The thing he hates most of all is the libido, the life force, the power, the Holy Spirit, the crystal water running from the throne of God right down our spine, through our hearts, them trees of life.
00:38:49.000That continual, perpetual decision that we make.
00:38:54.000But for me, now obedience to him is the same as, and the reason I like your book, and as I already told you once, I can't keep saying it, even though you did give me a nice compliment, like you, is because, like, you understand that this is.
00:39:08.000And our rendering, but this is a critical point, a critical inflection point.
00:39:13.000And I suppose you must have the struggle that I have of reconciliation of this idea that it's grace and that we're being carried, and the evident and obvious fact that, like the early Christians and the Book of Acts Christians, we're being called into a sort of a conflict that's going to actually demand a willingness to die for what you believe in because you're already dead and reborn with Him.
00:39:42.000Opportunity that we're going to live in a time where we will be tested and challenged.
00:39:47.000And none of us knows, I guess, how we respond to that, but I think we're already practicing for that and we are responding.
00:39:53.000Like the moments now, it's not like five years from now when something more happens.
00:39:56.000It's like we have to be living this way.
00:39:58.000Now, I know in my own life, like I'm tempted towards distraction, towards, you know, picking up the phone and scrolling and not critically thinking.
00:40:06.000I had so much so this summer, I said to my wife, I need to get away and just have a moment.
00:40:10.000I did a monastic retreat, a silent retreat for five days, went to a monastery.
00:40:15.000I was scared to death to go just be quiet.
00:40:17.000You know, you don't talk to each other.
00:40:24.000But the way the Lord met me in that was so restorative and helped me get new vision for what He has for me and the simplicity, which I think in your own journey, as I've watched your story, you have practices like that that help you stay very grounded to Christ before you go out, before you have conversations like this.
00:41:45.000What are these frequencies and these signals and these patterns and these principles that undergird the realm of the senses?
00:41:51.000It would be dumb to imagine that the senses are exhaustive, that the five fishing lines cast into the abyss are sufficient to capture the many, many infinite number of fish.
00:42:02.000Especially when they kept catching all them fish, didn't they?
00:42:04.000Particularly when they listened to him and cast it down on the right side of the boat.
00:42:08.000We are right now in a vortex in the abyss.
00:42:10.000We are surrounded by angelic and demonic beings, even as we speak, but have not the sensory instruments to receive a man.
00:42:18.000And like my whole life, I've been dealing with it, as everybody has.
00:42:20.000And then you sort of collapse into whatever it is a bag of Doritos, watching pornography.
00:43:06.000So it's community, then it's sex, and then it's food and sweet and salty things.
00:43:11.000Like literally the human heart, if it doesn't have community and the meaning that's found through being with other human beings, being known in an unashamed way, being seen, known, and loved, absent of shame, then we go towards sex.
00:43:26.000And so I think in our own lives, that's why we need community because when I have a friend or like my wife say, hey, it seems like you're eating a little more right now than you used to.
00:45:27.000Can't say it's a vacation, but yes, the Lord has brought us here and we're in a new space, but it's not a new space.
00:45:33.000We've been in these almost in these exact seats before, except for I was sitting there.
00:45:40.000You might be able to find, Massey, a moment from when me and Laura, when Laura was launching her book, I believe, about homemade activities for.
00:47:25.000I mentioned your desire to start a bad breath clinic that would address all aspects of bad breath, whether it's from the gut.
00:47:30.000The throat, the tongue, the humble tongue, tonsil stones.
00:47:34.000I've got that almost Dr. Pimple Popper type infatuation with oral hygiene.
00:47:41.000You believe too that you like some kind of halitosis whisperer, some kind of plaque whisperer can identify on sight, like a sommelier of gut funk that you can identify.
00:49:16.000As Churchill said, I think when visited by Eisenhower, Eisenhower, I think this is potentially apocryphal, or forgive me if that word's loaded.
00:50:08.000Okay, so what's amazing for me is to be back in the place where Jesus found me and to be back in this place where, like, this sort of this free year in our little lives, this three year episode.
00:50:20.000Began with Herbie's health issues, the media material that ultimately led to the trial that commences tomorrow, Monday.
00:50:29.000Pray for us if you feel so inclined and let us know in the chat if there's anything we can pray for for you because we do read the comments and we love them and we love you and we're doing our best like you are.
00:50:40.000So being back here for me and going on those walks now without Bear with Coco, although Coco can't be taken on walks because she can't be trusted on a walk.
00:50:48.000She's not the same as Bear on a walk or in any, by any metric.0.99
00:50:53.000That shouldn't, other than German breed.1.00
00:50:59.000So, for me, being back here, obviously, there are great challenges knowing that however we shake this down, there are people that feel aggrieved and hurt.
00:51:11.000And my prayer is that this will be addressed in the coming weeks.
00:51:16.000And we'll do our best to respect the important restrictions that exist around court cases to ensure that truth and justice can be done.
00:51:23.000But our aim is to carry on doing Sunday service and.
00:51:27.000I suppose more than ever, when you are faced with times of challenge, that's when you have to find your footing and your grounded, your anchor, your God.
00:51:40.000You need to find your connection with God, your personal connection with God.
00:51:45.000And I suppose part of perhaps what Sunday service will be in the next few weeks will be a journey of how we're anchoring ourselves in faith and trust and loyalty to God.
00:51:59.000During the times that are difficult, I was just explaining to Russell that, and of course, we've had like, you know, I naturally got nervous before going to court the other day.
00:52:15.000Well, not really so much actually being in the room, but the nerves were actually that I'm not used to interfacing with, well, they weren't really necessarily aggressive, but when you get out of a car and there are, People and they're taking pictures, paparazzi press, reporters, onlookers, just even people stopping the street, and then they're suddenly like, oh, swept up into a moment because it's a moment.
00:52:39.000There's a moment where you get out the car and there's people there and they're taking pictures.
00:52:44.000And I was absolutely, and do you know what's funny?
00:52:46.000So I was just explaining to Russell about my sort of fascination with storms because we have been watching this storm coming.
00:52:57.000We can't, although it's got a different pronunciation, I will say that it's like Isaias.
00:53:02.000Isaiah, or whatever, but as Ron DeSantis said, we'll just call it Isaiah.
00:53:07.000It's we, when there's the storm and it's drawing everything in from its surrounding, when you look at it on a map, it's arrows, it's arrows, it's arrows all around, all around, all around.
00:53:19.000And you watch it and it'll say things like 12 hours till landfall, 180 miles per hour current winds or whatever.
00:53:27.000And it comes, goes, and it'll say it's going to make landfall in whatever time.
00:53:31.000And then When it hits the land, the eye of the storm is absolutely silent.
00:54:51.000I suppose that's because they have acclimatized to the idea that by their own position as primarily operatives within the machinery of media, because without mainstream media, shall we suppose there are no paparazzi, that they're an arm of them.
00:55:10.000And because the position of the media, I would say, is somewhat clear when it comes to me and when it comes to this trial, I hope I'm not overstating when it seems to me that they believe that I'm guilty and that this should be the rubber stamping and a process of my destruction.
00:55:27.000And the important thing, I would say, their position is, and on this aspect, I agree with them, is to ensure that anybody who's a victim of any crime is the recipient of the utmost reverence and respect.
00:55:38.000And perhaps even people that believe that they're a victim of crime ought to be treated seriously and with respect.
00:55:44.000So, they can't, if that is their position, like go, like as if they're outside that Nickelodeon show where kids get gunged at.
00:56:15.000And they wouldn't like people told us because we don't look at media.
00:56:20.000But people told us they said, 'Russell Brand was spotted, went into court supported by a mystery woman, like yellow.' It can't even grant that I'm married, like that's and that's where you know that narrativization is taking place.
00:56:36.000You can't talk about that because there's a predetermination to present information in a certain way.
00:56:41.000Again, as some years ago now, and a lot of the characters in this drama have changed.
00:56:46.000Andrew Maher, the British journalist who works for the BBC, interviewed Noam Chomsky way before anyone was talking about Epstein files or Chomsky's potential inclusion in those Epstein files, to whatever degree that is.
00:56:58.000Chomsky was then mostly known as primarily, well, originally a linguist of some skill and then a political commentator.
00:57:06.000Famously, he wrote The Manufacturer of Consent, in which he said, whilst society broadly seems to be consensual to the goals and aims of the state, Broadly, and I'm saying this in the UK at the moment, there's obviously great disruption and great fracture, and the United States has been somewhat divided 50 50 for the last, you know, well, perhaps always, who knows.
00:57:31.000But he claimed, Chomsky, that a state of consent, or at least compliance, shall we say, is created through the conditions of media, media and other arms and apparatus of the empire's power.
00:57:45.000By the empire, when I say that, I mean a set of institutions that are, Comparable in various nations with the shared intention of control, usually masked by the stated aim of protection, preservation, safety, and security of the population.
00:58:02.000Now, Chomsky said, you know, so famously had written, excuse me, these theses and treaties, the manufacturer of consent.
00:58:10.000So, naturally, when he was interviewed by a BBC journalist, Andrew Ma, Andrew Ma said, Hey, look, your general position is that journalists have been coached.
00:58:21.000And conditioned, and that mainstream media organizations, and remember, Chomsky's writing this from the left, because things were different 20, 30 years ago, and that mainstream media are controlled by centralized forces, and their function isn't to independently report information, but is to give a biased view to the population in order to create passivity, compliance, and control.
00:58:43.000And yet, continues Andrew Marr, and being Andrew Marr in this sketch, he continues, yeah, it's good, isn't it?
00:58:49.000He's a bit, I can't do the impression of him.
00:58:51.000It doesn't matter anyway, because most people watching this won't know or, Or care.
00:58:54.000So I could do if I want, I could do anything.
00:59:04.000But my simple point is that Adam Marr said to name Chomsky, I'm a journalist for the BBC, and I can tell you I've not been told what to say in this interview.
00:59:13.000I've not been instructed what my perspective is supposed to be on particular political issues.
00:59:18.000So I refute your idea that there's such a thing as manufacturing consent.
00:59:21.000And Chomsky said neatly, accurately, and famously, no.
00:59:26.000What I'm saying is, if you thought anything different and contentious, you wouldn't be sitting in that chair.
00:59:33.000How can you know that I'm self-censoring?
00:59:35.000How can you know that I'm self-censoring?