The Tucker Carlson Show - Rev. Billy Cerveny： Satan’s Attacks, Transgenderism, Seeing the Supernatural &Hearing God’s Voice

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00:00:30.000 we've uh been close friends for almost 40 years 39 years since the mid 80s

00:00:39.100 and uh i would say you were the i didn't imagine you as a priest i would say that makes two of us

00:00:45.180 then about a month ago your god fathered one of my children you performed the wedding ceremony

00:00:51.320 for that child awesome one of the great moments of my life how did you get here like i don't

00:00:58.660 really know anybody who's had more jobs, vision. I thought you were going to be a philosopher,

00:01:04.600 a country music star. Well, brother, if you had told me when we met and we first started hanging

00:01:12.320 out that I'd end up doing what I'm doing now, I'd have told you you got hit in the head. Oh,

00:01:16.660 I'm aware of that. But, you know, God has a sense of humor and a profound sense of irony.

00:01:21.760 and uh you know over the years i'd spent it's true though it's true and uh it's a picture

00:01:30.240 of his grace you know i i spent a lot of my years as a journalist as a yes and most of my

00:01:37.100 professional life in the music business but i was living in atlanta years ago when i just

00:01:43.840 started playing music you remember these those years and i was living in this sort of converted

00:01:49.580 greenhouse, a 400 square foot apartment that the floor was still slanted to where they'd water the

00:01:55.560 plants and the water would still run out. And I remember I had just gone into the music business.

00:02:00.300 I'd given up a lot to do it and I was not in a good place and really asking a lot of questions

00:02:07.120 like, God, what is this? Like, who am I? What is this supposed to be? And I remember that room

00:02:13.040 became a monastery in my life and god sort of grabbed me by the throat as i like to say and

00:02:20.620 just kind of peeled back the curtain and just just began to reveal things to me that about who he was

00:02:28.060 and who jesus was that that i'd heard my whole life but they just never made sense i mean i grew

00:02:33.540 up in the church my father was a priest i was a bishop he was a bishop he was a bishop of florida

00:02:39.400 and uh you know it's like you know it's like walking around your parents house and you see

00:02:47.220 fine pieces of furniture that you just walk by so many times you don't notice them anymore that's

00:02:50.900 kind of what faith became to me as a young person I at least the language of faith and words like

00:02:56.900 grace and forgiveness and I just heard it so much I just couldn't couldn't understand the

00:03:04.800 implications of them until i went off into college and uh you know that's where we met but uh

00:03:11.840 and those were the prodigal years man you know and uh fair yeah very fair the prodigal was a wimp

00:03:18.480 we uh we really went for it no but we uh really did and uh but god was faithful in all that time

00:03:24.180 but through the journalism and into back up to atlanta i remember living in that in that apartment

00:03:30.760 and falling on my knees and just saying,

00:03:35.680 Lord, either you are who you say you are,

00:03:39.380 or this is the biggest lie perpetrated on humanity.

00:03:42.880 And I'm gonna go with the you are who you say you are.

00:03:45.340 And he began to teach me the truth of forgiveness

00:03:48.980 and the truth of grace

00:03:50.300 and what it meant to walk in Jesus

00:03:54.180 and that what it meant to be saved

00:03:55.800 and what it meant to have a relationship with him

00:03:59.000 And to have a soul that was worth far more than trying to satisfy it with success in music or success in whatever field it was.

00:04:09.360 And I remember sitting there thinking to myself, God, you're this good?

00:04:15.120 Like, are you this good?

00:04:16.680 Are you this good?

00:04:18.400 And just feeling him in my heart just nodding silently with me.

00:04:24.620 And I knew in that moment my life was different.

00:04:26.820 I didn't know what it was going to look like.

00:04:27.940 And then when I moved to Nashville, I played music for a bunch of years after that.

00:04:32.840 But during that time, the Lord just kept taking me deeper and deeper.

00:04:37.240 And I started getting involved to use the music to go into ministry.

00:04:40.620 And I did a lot of work with a ministry called Young Life.

00:04:43.620 And I did a lot of summers talking to kids about the gospel.

00:04:48.160 And during that time, I met my wife out in Colorado.

00:04:52.860 And it was obviously a life-changing experience.

00:04:55.860 And she's wonderful.

00:04:57.160 and we began asking a question like,

00:04:59.620 hey, what does God have for us?

00:05:02.780 Like, where is he taking us?

00:05:04.300 And the concept, the idea of seminary for me,

00:05:07.760 I mean, it's like I said, you knew me

00:05:09.440 and that was completely not in the cards.

00:05:14.420 No, and the context is even bigger

00:05:16.180 from an outsider's point of view.

00:05:18.540 Like you are the son of a great man,

00:05:20.040 of a well-known man, a big figure.

00:05:22.520 I was at his funeral this winter and it was packed.

00:05:27.160 packed cathedrals like yeah he's a big big man you look exactly like your dad which is also kind

00:05:31.960 of weird i hear that and now you are dressed exactly like your dad so it's like true that's

00:05:36.480 kind of a i don't know it's weird to be the son of someone like that and you don't think you're

00:05:41.360 going to wind up being that thing right yeah no he was a great man and i i uh but that is part of

00:05:47.980 it you know to to grow up in that and just to to watch my dad you know he was a bishop so i'd watch

00:05:54.020 my dad processed wearing a miter and all that kind of you know but he was just my dad yeah you

00:05:58.720 know so people say what was it like growing up under that i i don't know i i didn't know any

00:06:03.100 different and uh but i do know that you know spiritually uh as i grew and you know my father

00:06:11.560 you know like any son no cobbler son has no shoes right exactly you think you know i'll figure it

00:06:17.600 out on my own and you you you leave and uh but as i do what i do now and i look back i'm humbled

00:06:23.640 by the life he lived and the wisdom he had.

00:06:27.840 I love my dad.

00:06:28.600 And as you mentioned, he died a number of months ago.

00:06:32.400 And I have such tremendous respect

00:06:35.360 for what he went through now that I'm in ministry.

00:06:37.940 I look back and I'm like, how did you do it?

00:06:40.560 How did you pull this off?

00:06:41.960 How did you hold a family together?

00:06:43.800 How did you sit in the chair that you sat in

00:06:49.040 and lead a church in the way that you led a church

00:06:51.120 with all the things pulling on you?

00:06:53.040 And, you know, when you have an adult perspective, it brings a lot of humility, right?

00:06:58.740 Have you retroactively assessed your childhood and said, oh, I wish I'd been more grateful?

00:07:04.900 Well, you know, the thing about, you know, so my father was an Episcopal bishop and the Episcopal church is very eclectic, right?

00:07:10.180 And so my house was this revolving door of different people.

00:07:13.880 So like one weekend we'd have, you know, a monk come stay in our house.

00:07:18.720 And the other week we'd have some high church bells and smells Anglican.

00:07:22.720 And then another week we'd have some, you know, charismatics, you know, praying in tongues on our floor.

00:07:27.100 And I remember, you know, sort of getting older and becoming a little self-aware and asking the question, like, what are we, man?

00:07:34.500 Like, what is this?

00:07:35.460 You know, but it was this beautiful picture in hindsight of the family of God and just how diverse it was and how many expressions that was.

00:07:44.380 And that was an invaluable experience.

00:07:46.440 And my dad, he loved people very well in that way.

00:07:50.580 He led people very well.

00:07:51.720 and i don't i i tell you this there's very few times in my life or many times in my life i should

00:07:58.920 say that i would be somewhere and i would introduce myself to someone it was not uncommon some some

00:08:05.460 of them to me go your last name's servity and they pull me aside and say your dad you know

00:08:09.560 telling me something that he did for me and i'd be in some random state or my mother who was you

00:08:14.920 know partner in ministry with him who's an exceptional exceptional yeah one of the rare

00:08:19.460 people in the world this is true and uh but that really really impacted me just thinking

00:08:24.500 one from my own lens that we want to live lives that are impactful not just things that we we

00:08:32.820 don't want to just accumulate we don't want to just you know try to attain whatever mental

00:08:39.480 picture of success is but what does it mean to leave an impact that where you leave a place or

00:08:44.320 you leave a person or you that you say hey man these people are impacted with the gospel and

00:08:48.400 my dad did that for sure how would you ever wake up and put on your collar and think wow i i've

00:08:54.720 like i guess all middle-aged men realize i've become my dad but i mean you literally have

00:08:59.120 there's a lot of times where i will it's again it's surreal you know i think being a priest or

00:09:07.060 doing this i think he probably had the same experiences you're never there's never a moment

00:09:11.880 where you're not at least i hope not you're struck by the irony of it where you you you know what i

00:09:16.840 me you put your collar on and and you you think to yourself like lord you really are calling me

00:09:23.960 to do this because i know me you know i know i know the way i am i know my you know the internal

00:09:30.240 realities for me i know where i've been but that's you know much like my dad i think that was very

00:09:35.620 much in front of him most of his life too he would always say you know what he did and where he was

00:09:41.060 was just a was a poster of god's grace you know he was a poster child for god's grace and i never

00:09:47.480 fully understood that until as now that i'm as an adult as a minister i'm thinking to myself

00:09:51.760 absolutely it's a picture of grace it's got to be one of life's greatest blessings to really come to

00:09:58.120 understand your own father that's something that most men never get it's true it's uh that's

00:10:04.640 something all men carry is oh yes the it's been a lifetime wrestling is the relationships with

00:10:10.300 their dads and who was this man who was the center of my world yeah who this reference point and i

00:10:16.260 think the you know we all of our lives especially as little kids you grow up looking at your dad

00:10:21.400 as these superheroes and these guys that wear kind of a red cape and then there's this moment

00:10:26.220 that you catch up with them and then you realize them and you and then you see your parents

00:10:30.580 humility or humanity yeah and you look at your dad and you see that oh you're you know you're

00:10:36.080 you're this paradox of of of greatness and brokenness and i think the real where the

00:10:44.000 coin dropped for me was when my dad began to be able to share like these were the struggles of

00:10:49.580 my life this is where it was hard and this is where god met me and this is where uh he just

00:10:56.200 owned his humanity in open ways and and uh directly to you yeah that's pretty wonderful

00:11:02.420 it is wonderful and i think that'll that's a really freeing experience for a son it's a rare

00:11:07.340 experience very rare experience oh yeah it's good i think that you know as father you know as you

00:11:14.180 have children as well and especially when you have a son uh you know looking at your son it's like

00:11:21.960 staring in a mirror and there's moments where they look at you and you realize oh they're looking at

00:11:26.520 me asking me what it means to be a man and you have those moments these sort of moments of

00:11:32.260 existential horror where you're like I'm not sure I know myself yes right and so most of us do our

00:11:38.260 best imitation of what we think manhood looks like and then we come to this place where you

00:11:44.140 know I believe that you know to be a true blessing is is you know we're not our job as parents is not

00:11:49.620 to create this picture where our children have to draw this perfect representation or duplicate

00:11:56.460 what your version of manhood is. But the best thing that we can show them is, hey,

00:12:01.740 this is my version of manhood. And this is where I've screwed it up. And this is where I've erased

00:12:08.580 it. And this is a picture of God's grace. My job as a dad is not to show my son what it means to

00:12:14.380 be a perfect man. It is to be, to show him what it means to be an imperfect man in relationship

00:12:21.320 with a God of grace and to walk in ways that are, that are, I think, hopefully nobly and honorably

00:12:29.840 and that reflect the goodness of God, but also the reflect the humility of someone that knows

00:12:36.080 what it means to need a savior and to say, look, we're not perfect. And let me show you, like,

00:12:41.380 this is where God has stepped in and moved in my life.

00:12:44.340 This is where I've blown it.

00:12:46.000 And this is where I've done okay.

00:12:47.780 But at the end of the day,

00:12:49.260 you know, we all fall on the mercy of God.

00:12:53.940 And I think that is a gift that we can,

00:12:55.800 like I said with my own son,

00:12:57.020 that's a gift that we can give our own children,

00:12:59.760 you know, in the same way my dad gave to me

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00:14:18.080 you check out and after you purchase feel free to say you heard it here it's i i think it's the

00:14:22.580 heaviest most complex relationship in any man's life with his own father oh i don't think anything

00:14:28.620 comes close you know that we always talk about or i always talk about how difficult it is for men

00:14:33.040 and women to understand each other because they they think so differently and they express themselves

00:14:36.960 so differently and it's the great joy and frustration of marriage trying to figure out

00:14:42.160 what the other person is saying yeah but i don't think it compares to the father and son relationship

00:14:47.060 and that is hard and poignant the communication there i think it's you know as men we all we have

00:14:56.260 these sort of core longings that god hardwired into our hearts you know one of them is you know

00:15:01.580 be part of something that's a story that's bigger than me or to be in relationship with other men

00:15:07.520 or to you know feel known or seen and loved but one of them is i think foundationally is this

00:15:13.120 idea that we were created to receive the blessing of a father yep period you read the story of jacob

00:15:19.160 like jacob and esau where jacob steals steals the blessing of his brother and the whole picture of

00:15:25.000 his life is him going on this journey, trying to, to satisfy a heart that has been denied this

00:15:32.620 blessing of his father that would, you know, who showed preference to his older brother.

00:15:35.920 And he had stolen the blessing, which, you know, that was meant for his brother and it ended up

00:15:39.900 poisoning his life. And he goes and he amasses wealth and he gets wives and he comes back and

00:15:44.840 there's that famous scene in the book of Genesis where he he's sitting in the woods and the angel

00:15:50.620 of the Lord comes out and he begins to wrestle the angel of the Lord and they go and, you know,

00:15:56.860 Jacob pins him and the angel reaches out and dislocates his hip with just the touch of the

00:16:00.920 thigh. And in that moment, he realizes that I'm not, I'm not wrestling a person here. And, uh,

00:16:07.860 but he's also realized that this is, this is a picture of unrestrained power. And rather than

00:16:13.140 him giving up, he says, I'm not going to let you go until you bless me. I would rather,

00:16:18.920 paraphrase i would rather be torn limb from limb than to go from this moment without the blessing

00:16:23.640 of a father and he you know that's where he changes his name to israel but i think it's

00:16:28.740 a picture of our hearts that like we have we we need that in a way that is foundational totally

00:16:34.900 agree you know and the problem is the rub is the problem for my children and yours and all of our

00:16:40.380 children is that you know i'm an imperfect man i can't i can't provide that blessing in the full

00:16:45.340 way you know i can't provide the fullness of it but like i was saying earlier that's part of the

00:16:51.160 part of the way we do bless them is that we let that we encounter them as adults and as they get

00:16:55.820 older we begin to show them the realities of our humanity and we point them towards jesus and we

00:16:59.880 do that together and that becomes a profound gift to our kids as they encounter the blessing of god

00:17:05.520 the father i know that approval is just part of a blessing but it's it's the part that people

00:17:11.000 understand immediately the approval of your dad like good job son oh yeah that's like everything

00:17:17.820 it's true well done good and faithful servant amen amen so um speaking of wrestling there's

00:17:26.340 a phrase that you hear a lot you never used to hear um until about maybe six or seven years ago

00:17:32.300 and now it's on the lips of every podcaster and that's the spiritual war you know the famous

00:17:37.120 ephesians quote we fight against not you know flesh and blood but against principalities and

00:17:42.000 you're the preacher you know the quote yeah uh what is that and what are its manifestations

00:17:47.980 the spiritual war yeah that's a small question um i like to start narrow yeah thanks yeah uh

00:17:56.040 you know we live you know on this side of a curtain you know we live in this temporal world

00:18:03.120 you and me and in the rooms we're in but you know we all think of ourselves as spiritual beings

00:18:09.560 that's a real common thing that people say but you know we were fashioned by god as spiritual

00:18:15.200 beings to be in relationship with him and there really is this this curtain that behind which

00:18:22.280 there is an entire unseen realm that is god and the host of angels and all that and the

00:18:31.420 um much like here it's a it's it's a world that is in rebellion as well and you know the irony is

00:18:39.840 that the world we experience now was was never meant to be separated from that when god created

00:18:44.720 all things he created heaven and earth to overlap he wanted to walk with adam during the cool of

00:18:49.900 the day he wanted the man and you know as his his image bearers were to be in relationship with god

00:18:57.180 in a very tangible way.

00:18:59.520 But because of the way,

00:19:00.700 because of sin

00:19:01.480 and the brokenness of the world,

00:19:02.660 there's this separation that occurred.

00:19:05.560 But I think now there really is a spiritual battle.

00:19:08.260 And as you quoted-

00:19:09.000 Wait, but you said behind the veil,

00:19:11.760 behind the curtain,

00:19:12.720 the things we can't see,

00:19:13.520 the unseen realm is God and angels.

00:19:17.580 But it's not a civil war.

00:19:19.800 I mean, there's turmoil there.

00:19:21.420 It's war, right?

00:19:22.340 It is.

00:19:22.960 That's the way scripture describes it.

00:19:25.100 And so who is the war between?

00:19:27.180 I think it's between God and, you know,

00:19:30.160 the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit,

00:19:31.400 and you have to create a God.

00:19:32.900 I think it's just in the way that God spoke all things

00:19:35.580 into this world, into being,

00:19:37.020 he also created a heavenly host.

00:19:40.300 And you read that story in the book of Genesis

00:19:41.780 with the serpent in the garden, right?

00:19:43.460 You know, Genesis was where heaven and earth overlaps

00:19:46.060 and man walked with God, as we said a second ago.

00:19:50.200 But you see this,

00:19:51.200 you see the beginning of a divine rebellion there.

00:19:54.080 You see this sort of mysterious serpent figure,

00:19:56.680 which is you know we later learn is this the satan figure and he rebels against god because he's he's

00:20:02.920 he's prideful he want to be equal with god and if he's going to attack god if he wants to unravel

00:20:08.000 god what's what's what's the first thing he's going to do he's going to attack his plan but

00:20:11.540 he's going to attack his image bearers right and that plan that you yeah people and that plan that

00:20:17.780 you see that he hatched in genesis 3 it's still a plan that's happening now there's a you know we

00:20:24.260 Our war is not against flesh and blood, but it's against these principalities and these powers and these things that come and they weigh heavy on us.

00:20:32.740 You know, he's a deceiver and Satan, Satan and his henchmen, his demons and the demonic forces.

00:20:43.480 And it's very real.

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00:21:59.900 we're in the same college class um i didn't grow up in a world where that was considered real at

00:22:05.280 all and most people i mean you probably did because you're son of a bishop but i'm not a son

00:22:10.240 of a bishop and i i just never even imagined any of that was real thought god was real but i didn't

00:22:15.840 think there were actually like evil forces floating around unseen impelling people toward

00:22:20.900 self-destruction i just didn't believe that now it's like the most obvious thing ever it's obvious

00:22:26.200 to you i think it's obvious to like everyone i talk to but self-selected group of course but

00:22:31.100 sure i mean what is what is the old quote you know the greatest trick the devil played is to

00:22:36.680 convince humanity that he doesn't exist yes and i think that's part of especially in america you

00:22:43.960 we don't live in a very you know we live in such a binary you know uh culture where you know we

00:22:50.440 don't we don't think in terms of that generally speaking we do more recently but uh materialist

00:22:57.160 culture yeah materialist culture well said and uh but how does that play out yeah what are the

00:23:02.520 manifestations of it i mean you can see even on a large scale you see it in the destruction of

00:23:07.720 marriages you see it in the you know pornography you see in you see it in you know addictions you

00:23:14.620 see it in things like that you're i find that i see those kind of attacks happen in the areas

00:23:22.080 most egregiously and those areas that god values most so you want to know what god loves the most

00:23:28.420 watch what satan attacks the most aggressively and what does god love the most you look at you

00:23:32.880 look at the creation story and all those things that god set in motion in the beginning marriage

00:23:37.020 and ideas of masculinity and gender

00:23:40.260 and, you know, the role of humanity in the world,

00:23:44.160 us being, you know, God's image bearers

00:23:46.760 to create a kingdom that reflected his glory.

00:23:51.700 Wait, I'm gonna ask you to pause.

00:23:53.600 So let's just go kind of through the list forensically here.

00:23:57.760 So you said marriage number one.

00:24:00.580 I mean, these aren't in a certain order,

00:24:02.080 but I'm just kind of riffing about marriage.

00:24:03.440 Yeah, but the ones that come to mind.

00:24:04.360 Yeah, marriage.

00:24:05.480 And then that's explained

00:24:07.460 as part of God's creation in Genesis.

00:24:09.200 Yeah, it's part of his creation mandate,

00:24:11.520 you know, be fruitful and multiply.

00:24:12.820 He created, you know,

00:24:14.100 when you read the story of God creating man,

00:24:17.200 he creates Adam out of the earth.

00:24:19.220 And, you know, it's, and he, you know,

00:24:22.520 he empowers him and he brings all the animals

00:24:24.960 in front of him.

00:24:25.860 And, you know, after each creation day,

00:24:27.300 you hear God say, he says, what?

00:24:28.600 He says, it is good.

00:24:29.540 It is good.

00:24:30.320 It is good.

00:24:31.480 And the only thing that you read about

00:24:32.840 in the creation story that God says wasn't good,

00:24:35.040 was man's aloneness he says it's not good that man be be alone and so what he so what does he do

00:24:41.180 you know he he brings all these animals and there's there was not a helper that was suitable

00:24:44.900 for him no so he the dogs came close i think i don't know maybe a close second but yes then he

00:24:50.540 puts him to sleep and he pulls the rib and he makes and he makes woman he makes eve and there's

00:24:55.780 the you know you hear this is the the first song ever ever written in creation anytime you read

00:25:00.700 the old testament and you see you read the text and all of a sudden you see everything's indented

00:25:04.640 it's either poetry or a song yes and the first words out of adam's mouth were bone of my bone

00:25:09.940 flesh of my flesh i mean he he was smitten but this was god's you know marriage was not a human

00:25:17.900 invention we say i say that at every every is part of our liturgy is the first thing i say and

00:25:22.100 as i'm explaining marriage at a ceremony in our liturgies it wasn't a human invention it was god's

00:25:27.460 idea and it's something that you know honored cross-cultured christian or not people you know

00:25:32.880 it's it's something that's played out but it's it's it's the it's the seed from which you know

00:25:39.280 so much goodness flows children and family and you know a missional uh relationship into the

00:25:46.320 world where you love others and all that kind of stuff so yeah it was god's idea he loves the idea

00:25:51.400 and he loves it so much that that you know the marriage image is used throughout scripture even

00:25:58.840 the second, when the new heavens and the earth come together, we finally, God rolls up the

00:26:06.740 script and the end is consummated. He describes it as a wedding banquet. And it's a beautiful

00:26:13.260 picture. He talks about marriage as this picture that he gives us to be a picture of Christ's

00:26:20.140 relationship with the church and the way that husbands are to love their wives, the way that

00:26:25.740 jesus loved the church and the wives to respect their husbands but it's this it's this beautiful

00:26:30.480 image so to say god uh that's something god values would be one of the vast understatements

00:26:38.280 of the decade and that is why i think satan attacks it so viciously so you see it

00:26:44.760 constantly because you're obviously a priest you give sermons

00:26:49.560 do the eucharist but you also are a pastor to your congregants yeah people in your church yeah

00:26:56.960 and you talk to them a lot so in general terms how is marriage under assault

00:27:05.040 i think uh

00:27:10.000 marriage is marriage is well to begin with marriage is hard because you have two fallen

00:27:15.800 people that come together and and you know make all kinds of demands on each other but i think

00:27:20.980 it's under assault and the idea that just just the idea of marriage is under assault yeah yeah

00:27:24.960 oh that's right i mean just the notion to if you look at europe or i don't even know what the

00:27:29.140 percentages are but people aren't even getting married over there yeah um the divorce rates are

00:27:34.460 are off the chain uh you know and then just the idea of what marriage is i don't think people

00:27:41.220 see it in light of the larger story that we were just discussing, but that's sort of on a macro

00:27:46.760 level. But when you talk to people, you talk to people who desperately want their marriages to

00:27:52.180 work, to be happy, to continue, but they're struggling with it. What are the things that

00:27:57.120 you hear? Where are the moments where you feel like this is a spiritual attack on husband and

00:28:02.760 wife? Yeah, I think a spiritual attack, it takes, you know, I always say this is, you know,

00:28:09.860 satan attacks us in all sorts of ways uh but the most nefarious ways is when he he seeks to deceive

00:28:18.060 us right but the most nefarious ways that he whispers in our ear is most of the time he

00:28:24.120 whispers in our own voice right and he whispers to us and we we it's this self-talk that we engage

00:28:30.800 in and you know again i don't understand the mystery of how this functionally works and

00:28:35.000 but it, and it, it stokes the, the, the embers of selfishness of our pride, you know, is, you know,

00:28:42.860 to steal a quote from Tim Keller so famously said that, you know, if you want to know what the,

00:28:48.340 your biggest problem in your marriage is, is selfishness. And it's always going to be that.

00:28:52.980 And it's this journey of two self-oriented people learning what it means to die to self

00:28:59.000 and what spiritual attack looks like in that. It's, it's through selfishness and it's through

00:29:03.920 our own pride and that can bubble up in a lot of ways it can bubble up through uh adultery or it

00:29:10.080 can bubble up through people having you know secret lives or pornography addictions or just

00:29:16.880 people losing sight of each other you know and it's so easy i mean you know you have kids you've

00:29:21.860 lived a life you know how how difficult it is in marriage to stay connected and how uh people can

00:29:28.700 you can stop talking or people and that's part of the just part of the discipline and part of

00:29:34.760 i don't know how people do it i mean people with kids at home once once kids leave you're like i

00:29:39.280 don't know how we managed to stay married no matter how much you love the person you don't

00:29:43.540 have time to talk yeah yeah and it's it's it's a it's a challenge man it is a discipline one of

00:29:50.180 the more common things when people come in i do a lot of marriage counseling people will come in

00:29:54.460 And, you know, inevitably, one of the things they'll say is, you know, we just have a hard marriage.

00:29:59.500 And I'll sit and I'll listen and I'll say, dude, you just got a marriage.

00:30:03.920 Like marriage is hard.

00:30:05.100 Again, it's two fallen people learning to come together and find out, you know, what does it mean to love you and to pursue you and to lay down my life for you and love you more than I love myself.

00:30:17.800 as it said in Ephesians 5

00:30:19.840 you know what does it mean

00:30:21.020 you know husbands love your wives

00:30:23.620 like Christ loved the church

00:30:25.420 well how did Christ love the church

00:30:27.660 it wasn't

00:30:29.640 you know clinging to his

00:30:32.000 you know his

00:30:33.700 authority and you know hammering

00:30:35.600 his points home though you know

00:30:37.800 there were moments right but it was really

00:30:39.800 laying his life down

00:30:40.820 and it's a great picture that we think of like what is love

00:30:43.860 and marriage

00:30:44.460 well it's a lot of things

00:30:46.680 but one thing it's not it's not fair right if you want fairness go get a business partner

00:30:51.900 but if you want to love someone in marriage the question is hey how do i when i feel wrong or i

00:30:59.480 feel hurt or i feel in a place where i feel unseen like what the world would tell me is i have every

00:31:05.680 right to not love you anymore until i get what's mine but what the christian call to marriage

00:31:11.220 especially for husbands, is no.

00:31:13.980 Yeah, you play hurt and you continue to love

00:31:16.520 and you still move forward

00:31:17.580 and you still wash feet.

00:31:20.400 You still love your wife.

00:31:21.520 And that's the call.

00:31:24.860 And it's a call, again, to lay your life down.

00:31:28.240 And it's ironic talking about marriage

00:31:31.580 and speaking about it in any authoritative way

00:31:33.960 because it's topics like marriage or topics like prayer.

00:31:37.600 They're topics that you riff on,

00:31:38.980 but you never really feel like you have a handle on it.

00:31:40.920 right right like sure let me tell you about my wisdom on marriage but it's it's because i'm like

00:31:45.560 i you know you're always daily because and that's how you i think you keep a a humble posture but

00:31:51.600 i've never had any problem with humility having three daughters but um it just kind of is baked

00:31:57.780 in you know no it's true but you know but you never feel like you have you can wrap your arms

00:32:02.420 around it fully um because it is a mystery and uh and it constantly requires a humility which

00:32:08.260 you know you've known me a lot a lot of years and that's not something i come by naturally and

00:32:12.980 most people don't but but it's also god's i would say uh the profound gift of marriage is it is the

00:32:21.300 crucible with which you uh god uh transforms your lives if you let it you know and ironically it is

00:32:30.420 those those moments of of brokenness and restoration where those transformations come

00:32:38.500 from uh have tend to happen the most of course it's the crappy things you're grateful for

00:32:44.960 and it's those places too that you know i've seen marriages

00:32:49.060 i've seen marriages shattered by adultery

00:32:55.660 that have, because of the willingness

00:32:59.060 and humility of the two people

00:33:00.760 to invite God in the middle of it

00:33:02.260 and to listen and to walk.

00:33:03.940 I have seen those people emerge with marriages

00:33:07.840 that they'd only dreamed they could have.

00:33:10.640 Actually?

00:33:11.280 Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

00:33:13.120 Like full-blown cheating?

00:33:14.360 Yeah, no question.

00:33:17.200 And they would both sincerely say under polygraph,

00:33:20.240 I'm happier in my marriage than I've ever been.

00:33:21.900 No question.

00:33:22.820 Really?

00:33:23.480 Yeah.

00:33:23.700 god works all things together for the good of those who love and if you let them if you're

00:33:30.220 willing to do it i'm i'm don't don't don't let me sugarcoat it it's it's a brutal and i would

00:33:37.500 never suggest that as a journey no one wants to go there no one wants to go there but for those

00:33:42.920 that i've seen marriages heal in ways that you couldn't imagine for so such egregious pains and

00:33:50.620 so many agrees and i've seen marriages disintegrate for far less because people aren't willing

00:33:55.120 to walk in and uh with humility and and look at themselves and they're just too busy pointing at

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00:36:04.740 one run. Then Dale tried to console us with the quote, winning isn't everything. Well, Dale and I

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00:36:30.980 plant boy that is just the story of all of our relationships with other people it's like it's

00:36:38.400 always someone else's fault that's like the default setting and most and certainly in me

00:36:42.460 yeah like i'm just you know all that you know i can't believe they did that it's just the

00:36:47.420 idolatry of our hearts and then part of that idolatry is my own self-image and the thing

00:36:51.580 about idols is this you can never see your idols until they're smashed and there's no better place

00:36:57.240 to smash the idolatry of self than in a marriage.

00:37:01.060 Because, you know, where you're like,

00:37:02.300 well, I think, and, you know, no.

00:37:03.940 I mean, your wife knows your,

00:37:06.160 your wife is the most dangerous person in your world.

00:37:08.900 That's for sure.

00:37:09.680 Because she knows you.

00:37:11.000 And you're the most dangerous person in her world

00:37:13.240 because you know her.

00:37:14.260 You know her wounded places.

00:37:18.100 You know where she's strong.

00:37:19.660 You know where she's weak.

00:37:20.480 You know her insecurities.

00:37:21.440 You know her sense of humor.

00:37:22.340 You know all the things.

00:37:23.360 So you can either, you know, a few words from you, I mean, if you came to me and said, you know, insulted me in some way, you know, it might hurt my feelings.

00:37:33.760 And I mean, we're, we're really close friends.

00:37:35.780 So it might not, you know, it would kind of.

00:37:37.360 I think it'd wound you pretty bad.

00:37:38.740 But, but if my wife said the same thing.

00:37:40.840 Oh dude, I'm with you.

00:37:41.700 I would be, I wouldn't, you know, it would destroy me.

00:37:44.380 You can't get out of bed, right?

00:37:45.280 You're, you know, you were coming in.

00:37:46.440 I'm the same way.

00:37:46.700 You know, so, but it just shows the power you have over each other's lives.

00:37:51.760 No, she's got a loaded gun.

00:37:52.760 there's no doubt but you also have such a tremendous power to bless one another

00:37:56.620 and to raise one other way i always say like you you see the glory self and the other like what

00:38:03.160 does it mean to see who god is trying to call forward and to draw them forth and that's hard

00:38:09.040 man that's especially hard in conflict where you're sitting there and you're you're at odds

00:38:13.060 and you you know you're angry or something like that and of course when you're angry you feel

00:38:17.060 justified or otherwise you wouldn't feel angry right that's the that's kind of the the foundation

00:38:21.100 of anger is our self-justification but the discipline and the spiritual maturity in that

00:38:26.680 is how do I still reach in there and and see that glory self of that person and and and draw them

00:38:33.640 forward and to see them as a child of God as someone that I actually love as someone who's

00:38:37.740 precious and it's very hard to remember I have a picture of my wife I have a picture of my wife

00:38:44.060 of her she's probably three years old it's cute kid beautiful and it's stuck in my Bible in Psalm

00:38:49.760 139 which is the psalm about you know you're fearfully and wonderfully made when i wove

00:38:55.200 knit you together in your in your mother's womb and it just talks about the glory of creation and

00:38:59.940 i do that on purpose because that's what i i need to remember in our marriage it's the thing that

00:39:06.020 that at any moment because i love her deeply and uh i want to love her and i want to and

00:39:13.260 And it's really important that in order to do that well, you need to consistently see the value and the glory of this person that you're inextricably tied to at this point.

00:39:27.080 Amen.

00:39:27.820 Yeah, I agree.

00:39:28.560 You mentioned pornography as a threat to marriage.

00:39:31.420 It's like one of those things I think we're just like maybe 10 years too old to really under, or speaking for myself, to really understand the magnitude of it.

00:39:38.400 how often does pornography arise in marriage counseling as a huge problem

00:39:46.340 oh man

00:39:49.160 i i think it's hard to overstate how pervasive it is now if i meet with a man like take marriage

00:40:01.340 counseling out of it just just men in general i i assume that's in the mix until proven otherwise

00:40:10.660 actually yeah and that's not an indictment but i just it's so pervasive i'm safer to assume that's

00:40:18.160 the case that that's somehow part of the narrative then uh then then it's not because it's it's you

00:40:27.600 know we walk around with these little you know apple porn boxes that people have in their hands

00:40:32.480 you know and they and you know could you imagine being a teenager now a teenage boy growing up

00:40:38.500 where you know the the greatest you know temptation in your life is literally three

00:40:44.220 button clicks away at any moment and what that's doing to the hearts and minds of young men and

00:40:51.040 what it's doing to their concept of marriage and what that's doing to their concept of sexuality

00:40:54.520 you know we're gen x you know we're something like you and i came along you want to do something

00:41:01.120 you had to work for it you know that's not like that it is literally force-fed to these young men

00:41:07.220 but you're only telling one half the story the other half is tim cook's a billionaire so there

00:41:10.720 has been a big upside to this yeah yeah if you're tim cook yeah no it's crazy we haven't had a

00:41:16.400 revolution um i pray it's coming but i don't think that will ever happen apart from revival

00:41:22.340 i think that's right because it's gotta and it's it's it's a uh it's again not to belabor the point

00:41:30.440 but i think what that does i think we going back to what is spiritual warfare you know what is how

00:41:36.680 does it play out on practical levels i think that's a profound evil it's trying to a you you

00:41:42.880 know anything's you know the earlier you can damage someone sexually just think about what

00:41:47.580 that does so real it's so real totally just the way that plays out you get stuck in patterns that

00:41:52.440 men do anyway i don't know about women in human sexuality it's malleable right it's what it's um

00:41:58.500 yeah it's not assigned at birth yeah yeah well it is and it isn't in the sense that it is is that

00:42:04.140 what i mean is our sex you know our sexuality as we live it out you know our sex is assigned

00:42:09.420 our gender is assigned it's obviously a god-breathed you know holy call and you know when

00:42:15.640 talk about things like pornography and the abuses of pornography and things like that it's really

00:42:20.680 easy to get to start get get your wheels caught into this sort of dark melancholy aspect of it

00:42:25.880 but you know you got to flip it over and first see like you know the glory of what god designed

00:42:30.480 when he designed human sexuality when he when he called people and created man and woman to be

00:42:35.620 sexual beings together right it's a it's a glorious it's a beautiful thing it's a it's this

00:42:39.860 in fact you know people often criticize christians as saying oh you have such a low view of sexuality

00:42:45.140 I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

00:42:47.340 We have such a higher view of sexuality than the world.

00:42:53.240 It's a fire, but it just needs to be kept into the fireplace.

00:42:56.260 Right, it's not a consumer product, however.

00:42:57.660 No, it's not a consumer product.

00:42:59.000 It's not an adult playground that we just go and-

00:43:01.760 Yeah, that make Tim Cook rich.

00:43:03.140 But it has profound spiritual impacts for us

00:43:06.660 if we cut against the grain of how God designed us for that.

00:43:11.040 So when we talk about what you said,

00:43:13.180 what you were asking about,

00:43:14.920 like how does that spiritual warfare play out

00:43:17.860 in our world and our life

00:43:20.920 from practical boots on the ground level?

00:43:23.360 Like that's a perfect example.

00:43:26.240 It's the assault on what God values,

00:43:29.240 the marriage and human sexuality

00:43:31.700 because it knows that A, if you can twist that,

00:43:36.040 it will turn us fully inward.

00:43:38.720 It turns us, we become full blown consumers.

00:43:41.440 We become a slave to appetites

00:43:43.060 And I think, again, going back to the beautiful thing that you see is that when the Lord heals in that place, you see so much, you see just the power of redemption and watching men and women be restored and feel like they're washed clean, that they're not shameful or objects of shame.

00:44:13.060 It's a beautiful thing that God has blessed me to be a part of as I walk through that.

00:44:17.720 So pornography was sold, internet pornography.

00:44:22.440 I mean, I kind of remember this.

00:44:24.580 I was married by the time the internet arrived, but I remember.

00:44:27.860 Yeah, we're old.

00:44:28.960 Well, you're old, but I feel fairly young.

00:44:31.420 Yeah.

00:44:31.920 Spry, thanks to my consumption of ALP nicotine products.

00:44:35.140 Product blood.

00:44:37.660 No, we are old.

00:44:38.760 and but there is some advantage in that and that you sort of remember how things were sold

00:44:44.160 when they first arrived on market and i remember people saying well this is going to be the end of

00:44:49.600 rape and sexual assault because there's a healthy outlet for sexuality in the in the form of

00:44:55.300 pornography people said that i mean i remember when they said that that's the dumbest thing i've

00:44:59.520 ever heard i i don't remember that but i just but that is well the internet would make us free and

00:45:04.660 inform us when actually people, like, don't even

00:45:06.760 read anymore and, like, we're surveilled

00:45:08.620 constantly? We're going to put this fire out

00:45:10.620 by pouring gasoline on it. No, I

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00:46:13.400 Recently, our company's softball team lost the big game by one run.

00:46:17.780 Then Dale tried to console us with the quote,

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00:46:44.900 Hungry now.

00:46:48.140 Now.

00:46:50.300 What about now?

00:46:52.380 Whenever it hits you, wherever you are,

00:46:54.860 grab an O'Henry bar to satisfy your hunger.

00:46:58.980 With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts

00:47:02.460 covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge

00:47:05.540 with a chocolatey coating.

00:47:07.440 Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today.

00:47:10.300 Oh, hungry, O'Henry.

00:47:14.760 But I just didn't really think about it at the time.

00:47:19.200 And at all, but, or really about anything

00:47:22.840 we're thinking about at that time in my life.

00:47:24.620 But anyway, fast forward 35 years,

00:47:28.100 like what damage does it do?

00:47:30.320 so you're a married man who's got a porn habit why is that bad like in practical terms how does

00:47:37.280 that divide you from your wife and family we could spend the next three hours talking about this

00:47:41.900 but just give me five minutes in simple terms one it twists your view of of sexuality and it twists

00:47:50.420 your view of your spouse and what i mean by that is you know people say oh it's the objectification

00:47:56.100 to women people say that all the time but it truly does do that and you know women you might

00:48:01.460 not know this women's sexuality is very different than a man's what yeah that's right and uh you

00:48:07.000 know they don't just get drunk and horny and like hook up with random people they're not big dumb

00:48:10.160 animals right they're they're they're and uh it doesn't mean it's less important for them i agree

00:48:16.060 and god fashioned it for and that's another cliche that people say you know sex just means more for

00:48:20.920 man than it does for women actually that's not true it's not more important for a man than it

00:48:24.040 is for a woman men just go about it differently and and for a man to understand the value of it

00:48:30.340 for a woman it requires us to slow down and to to have that conversation and understand it and to

00:48:36.320 listen in a way that we aren't naturally wired to do or we don't feel like we can do in our right

00:48:40.420 yes you agree with that so i agree with that more than almost anything i've ever heard it requires

00:48:44.980 us to slow down that's number one absolutely and my father always said that slow down your dad was

00:48:50.480 a wise man but uh that topic he was wise yeah i am so um but yeah so the first thing that it does

00:48:59.520 is it twists that right you begin it presents this these women as these caricatures of male

00:49:05.820 sexuality and i think that's not fair i think it does a tremendous amount of of of damage that's

00:49:11.520 one two and i'm getting this is not an exhaustive list but two it it's it pushes men into isolation

00:49:18.340 and you know porn pornography addictions or hidden sexuality these are things that men you know they

00:49:23.800 don't do out in the open they they they you know they do in in secret they do it in and uh they do

00:49:30.100 it in private and they don't tell anybody about it right and the number one tool that satan will

00:49:35.960 do use is isolation yes he will push men into the shadows because what happens there that's where

00:49:43.240 shame can grow unfettered and that's where you know people feel broken more you know more perverse

00:49:53.100 and where they become more broken and become more perverse which makes you feel more and it's this

00:49:58.120 vicious feedback loop that it begins to occur so men you know uh they think they're you know it

00:50:06.360 always you know it's interesting that always starts with oh i can handle this and it becomes

00:50:10.260 this sort of, you know, I'll smoke a cigarette a day, but the, you know, pornographic version of

00:50:15.020 it. But before they know it, it becomes a consuming, a consuming thing in their lives.

00:50:20.860 And so it, that's, it drives them into the shadows, which creates isolation, which creates

00:50:25.760 shame, which creates, you know, a, you know, a false sense of self as you walk into marriage.

00:50:33.220 And what is marriage? Marriage is, as it was designed, you read, you know, Genesis chapter

00:50:38.240 two what does it say he he made right after the passage of him you know bone of my bone

00:50:42.340 flesh of my flesh it says they were naked and unashamed that they stood before each other

00:50:47.460 that's about sex but that's also about a spiritual heart posture that man and women have in front of

00:50:52.760 each other that is all that i am all that i you know seen and unseen i am i am here before you

00:51:00.800 that's right and pornography goes to war with that and pushes men into the shadows and women

00:51:07.560 too by the way this is this is not i mean it is certainly more more dominated by men but what

00:51:14.280 we've seen over the years is that this is something that women contend with as well um easier for me

00:51:19.240 to talk about because i'm a man and you know probably holds more credence but it's uh but

00:51:23.960 it's very real so you know creates caricatures of what sexuality is creates character caricatures

00:51:32.200 of women it screws up your sex life doesn't it it yes so it and then the other thing is is what

00:51:38.640 we said again you know our human sexuality our you know our sex drives they're malleable right

00:51:45.400 and you feed that into those sort of those you know perversions or those you marinate in that

00:51:55.520 kind of stuff it will take you places you don't want to go my father when i was little said to

00:52:01.740 this is so over the top but i'm just gonna say it it was my favorite line ever i never say it

00:52:05.780 because it's so over the top but i remember driving the car with him and he was telling we

00:52:10.060 were like eight and ten or something and something about pornography came up because yeah it's a

00:52:14.560 really bad idea it makes you perverse and he said your sexuality is like a grain of on of wood so

00:52:23.640 if you take your fingernail and run it along a kitchen a wooden kitchen table it gets deeper

00:52:27.600 with every pass and he said if you get into that my father's very pro-sex like very pro-sex but he

00:52:33.220 goes it's a dark road and you keep getting it gets weirder and weirder and weirder and the next

00:52:40.120 thing you know you can't get it up unless you're wearing a chicken costume that's what he said

00:52:45.040 i have no idea what that means but it stayed with me for 45 years like a chicken costume

00:52:51.900 your dad had a chicken costume i don't know no he did not have a chicken he's very proud of not

00:52:56.980 having a costume but i understand that's hilarious i think he may have phrased it that way it was

00:53:02.360 just so evocative that it like never i wish my brother was here he would confirm this like i

00:53:06.320 never stopped thinking i knew your dad i believe that a hundred percent i know your dad was awesome

00:53:10.220 your dad was awesome you can't get it up unless you're wearing a chicken costume anyway uh so but

00:53:14.540 that's the kind of what you're talking about i do i think it takes you again it takes you places

00:53:19.960 it's it's the law of diminishing returns right so you know what it's it's it's like okay you

00:53:26.700 need a this amount of heroin to begin with and before you know yes you know you quadruple the

00:53:32.120 dose and it's it's all about the dopamine hit you know you it's the same our sexuality is no

00:53:36.600 different that it when it's taken out of context when it's taken into those places when it's used

00:53:43.380 in a way that god did not intend it like god god's design for it is not to be prudish and to

00:53:49.320 keep you from having a good time like of course right i mean and it's the idea of like how can

00:53:54.260 this flourish and become something that doesn't, that is life producing and literally, but also

00:53:59.680 that breeds intimacy between a man and a woman that breeds a connection between a man and a woman

00:54:05.340 that breeds a sense of just wonder and, and awe and just beauty. Right. And that was his design

00:54:11.080 for it. And when you step out of that boat, man, like it does everything I just described,

00:54:18.020 it does the opposite of that. You know, if there's one thing I could tell young people,

00:54:21.840 It's protect that with all that you are

00:54:24.420 because the world is lying to you.

00:54:27.300 It's lying to you about, you know, the frivolous,

00:54:30.120 oh, it's no big deal.

00:54:31.180 No, it is a big deal.

00:54:32.660 It has profound spiritual implications for you.

00:54:35.440 It has, it can take you places that one day you wake up

00:54:40.240 and you say, I don't wanna be here

00:54:41.640 and I don't know how to get back, right?

00:54:44.500 There is, and the good news, I'll say this,

00:54:46.320 if you have, they have been there

00:54:47.680 and I've seen this over and over again,

00:54:49.260 you know oh you know it's i'm damaged goods now no you're not like this is god uses the broken

00:54:55.980 things of this world that's right and he is i mean i i the places i've been the places you've

00:55:01.280 been the things we've done in our lives like we're the god god is all about the prodigals

00:55:06.960 and there's no there's no one that is beyond redemption and healing and god loves to restore

00:55:13.400 that because god loves that right it ain't fun right it's not a place you want to go but if

00:55:19.620 that's where you are and that's what you've done it's okay there's a god of grace it and that the

00:55:24.580 reason you know jesus doesn't see that and that's why jesus steps back from the table actually

00:55:30.500 that's the reason jesus came because we misuse sexualities because we you know we we're bathed

00:55:38.000 in our own shame because we we make bad decisions because we're so committed to our own self-destruction

00:55:42.440 that's why he calls himself self-destruction that's why he calls himself a savior and not a

00:55:46.640 you know a self-help guru because because i need a savior i need someone to reach out and pull me up

00:55:52.600 and and save me from me yeah right it's not just yes there's a on a theological level he saves me

00:55:58.960 from sin and he washes me clean and my you know my standing before god and all of those things which

00:56:05.040 is deep and profound and eternal and you know worthy of reflection for you know thousands of

00:56:11.940 years but when you boil it down he really came to save me from me yeah you know from my own

00:56:21.540 devices and where i would go i mean you think of the number of things that god has saved you from

00:56:29.100 that you're not aware of right yeah there's a long list of things i am aware of right right but so

00:56:34.840 think about how dramatic the thing how dramatic the list is that he saved you from that you didn't

00:56:39.020 even get to see right and and you know even the way he's restrained your own appetites in those

00:56:45.700 places that you didn't even know you know and uh so yeah going back to your question i do think

00:56:52.940 pornography it's evil and it's done so much damage and you know as you said i think there's

00:56:59.080 going to be a i don't know the word you use like a revolution against it but i don't think that's

00:57:04.660 ever going to happen until we have an actual revival again which man do we need that but

00:57:10.820 we have to we've lost the plot and you lose the plot and sexuality you're talking about that you

00:57:17.380 lose the plot of the the gospel story the creation story of you and your story just kind of becomes

00:57:22.540 about your narrative of my sex life then you know it it becomes a very dangerous thing but when you

00:57:28.520 read it in light of like what we're talking about you you took you know we've just kind of touched

00:57:32.100 on it but you read the genesis story and god's creative intention for that stuff all of a sudden

00:57:36.620 you become invited into into this larger epic tale that becomes about something so much more

00:57:42.620 and what your again your soul is of so much more immense value than you ever imagined it was and

00:57:48.640 it's to be to be a part of something that's so much more incredible than anything that

00:57:53.840 you could ever cobble together on your own why wouldn't you want that right

00:57:59.100 you're the person who put the gender stuff in context for me when this first happened

00:58:07.760 people questioning whether gender is real you know sex distinctions are real yeah it's been

00:58:13.480 going on for 70 years of course it's the core premise of of uh second wave feminism that

00:58:21.200 really there's no difference between the sexes so i obviously rejected that but then it became

00:58:25.400 much more radical 10, maybe 10 years ago.

00:58:28.780 Doesn't it strike you, but even in every context

00:58:31.380 that, you know, be it secular or in church context,

00:58:36.920 when people argue, you know,

00:58:38.700 there are no gender distinctions,

00:58:40.780 you know, you can make theological arguments,

00:58:42.700 you know, biblical arguments, whatever,

00:58:43.980 but just simply saying that like,

00:58:45.760 hey, before 70 years ago,

00:58:47.960 literally no one agreed with us.

00:58:50.260 Like you can't really find a place that we're...

00:58:54.300 In all human history?

00:58:55.800 In all human history.

00:58:56.540 So I'm not going to even argue I'm right or I'm wrong,

00:58:58.760 but doesn't that make you want to pump the brakes a little bit?

00:59:01.480 No, because we have atomic weapons now.

00:59:04.120 And let me just indulge my theory,

00:59:06.480 which I can't control myself from talking about.

00:59:08.860 Run, baby.

00:59:11.120 You've heard it before, but I just think,

00:59:13.120 I think nuclear weapons,

00:59:16.240 which I don't think were created by people, sorry.

00:59:19.600 I don't care how many movies they make about it.

00:59:21.240 I don't believe that.

00:59:21.940 You didn't see Oppenheimer?

00:59:22.440 Yeah, okay.

00:59:23.180 wouldn't watch that crap wouldn't let that into my head for one second but anyway because it's all

00:59:26.900 lies but anyway sorry now i'm getting really crazy but it's all true what i'm saying is true

00:59:31.060 i think once man possessed the power or believed he possessed the power to destroy everything

00:59:37.380 that's alive i think that he rejected god like that is kind of like that's rejection of god and

00:59:45.360 like everything changed after that people became convinced they were gods and that's when the true

00:59:52.100 craziness started. It's not the 60s, the 60s or the, you know, Obama years or whatever you want

00:59:59.220 era. It's like post nuclear weapons. That's what I believe. So anyway, but the gender thing kind

01:00:05.440 of exploded maybe 10 years ago with this, like, really, we're going to assign the child a gender

01:00:10.360 or let him choose his gender or whatever. And I was like confused by, I thought it was so crazy

01:00:14.520 that I just didn't take it seriously at all. And you're the one who made me take it seriously.

01:00:17.960 And you said, I'll never forget it.

01:00:20.340 You said, this is a direct attack on God's design

01:00:23.040 as described in Genesis.

01:00:26.040 So can you flesh it out a little bit?

01:00:27.620 This is not like an accident.

01:00:28.840 Like this was always going to happen

01:00:30.280 is basically what you said.

01:00:32.300 Yeah, well, when you read the Genesis narrative, right?

01:00:36.940 You know, again, God, you know, in the beginning,

01:00:40.500 God creates the heaven and the earth.

01:00:42.280 And you have this picture of this sort of chaos

01:00:44.840 that happens and it's God's spirit

01:00:47.280 it hovers over the water, you know, the Hebrew, it's, it's, it's the, it's the hovering is almost

01:00:52.200 like a mother bird's wings hovering over the chaos. And he begins to speak things into order.

01:00:57.800 And, you know, you've got day one and he creates light and he still, you know, as it grows, he

01:01:01.680 separates the land from the, from the waters and he throws the stars in the sky and he shoots this

01:01:06.160 fish in the sea and the animals come. And then each time you see each created order or each

01:01:12.920 creative day, what you're watching is it grows in glory. It grows in complexity, but it grows

01:01:19.240 in glory. And each time God is, it's good, it's good. And then you get to day six where God creates

01:01:25.940 humanity. And it's this sort of crowning explosion of creation, the largest expression

01:01:34.600 of his glory. Actually, the crown jewel of creation was the last thing which was created.

01:01:39.500 and that was those were women that is the final most glorious creation and and that's certainly

01:01:44.960 how i feel yeah and that's the way the story needs to be read right so if people just side

01:01:50.400 notice you know women always it's and i i have some i have sympathy for it for the there's much

01:01:57.080 the church needs to apologize for for the ways that they've hurt women over in the past but i

01:02:01.680 can tell you from from as a as a bible nerd i can tell you that that is the fault of man and not of

01:02:07.400 god because the the biblical story elevates women in a way that that that the world never would

01:02:13.500 they would anyway so back to our point so in this crown jewel of creation with humanity

01:02:19.240 he could have expressed it in any way and he and he and he created man he created man and he created

01:02:26.340 woman you know they are they are they he created masculinity and he created femininity this is not

01:02:32.320 a human construct. It is not a social construct. Of course, there are things that, you know,

01:02:37.740 cultures and, you know, cultural moments can shape the way those are expressed. But generally

01:02:43.440 speaking, masculinity, as we understand, it's not just, oh, you're a dude. It's a holy calling.

01:02:50.900 It's a holy calling. And as God says, you are his image bearer in this world. And women are

01:02:57.160 his image bearers that come together to create this fuller image of what God is to be expressed

01:03:04.000 and rolled out into the world as their image or we, it would behoove us to understand what is

01:03:09.380 this thing called masculinity that I've been saddled with, or I've been, I have been called

01:03:14.840 to. What is femininity that I have been called to? And as, as men, uh, I think, well, to your

01:03:23.440 point. I think that's A, that you cannot, there's many people that make theological arguments against

01:03:29.540 what I just said. You can make many theological arguments and say, you just can't make a biblical

01:03:35.060 argument against what I just said. You just can't read the scripture in any just intellectually

01:03:42.180 honest way and just not see that that's just the way it is. And also experientially.

01:03:47.220 Well, I know it's true experientially because God also doles out punishments for eating the fruit.

01:03:52.700 And he says to Adam, you're going to live by the sweat of your brow.

01:03:57.520 It's going to be hard for you to make a living.

01:03:59.180 You've got to work.

01:03:59.800 Dorns and thistles, futility, yeah.

01:04:01.680 And he says to Eve, two things.

01:04:04.320 One, childbirth is going to be hard for you.

01:04:06.500 And two, your desire is going to be for your husband.

01:04:08.560 Rule over him.

01:04:09.560 And he's going to rule over you.

01:04:10.760 And those are the things that men and women resent, I've noticed.

01:04:15.340 You know, men need to work.

01:04:17.040 They derive satisfaction and self-respect from work,

01:04:19.660 but they also hate to work because it's hard.

01:04:20.940 women of course most women love children but they they fear childbirth and that is suffering and

01:04:27.040 there is a sense in which women resent men hate work and women might resent that stuff we can we

01:04:35.280 can do that but when we lose the plot but when we step back into the story right when we went through

01:04:42.080 you know when we encounter god in a real way through the through the through the gate of

01:04:45.880 jesus we go through and begin to see the redemptive story but when we see the creation story and the

01:04:50.920 creation purpose, like we just described, and you realize, wait, this is a holy calling.

01:04:55.160 I'm actually, what was God, when God called Adam, work was, work didn't happen after the fall.

01:05:03.220 God's purpose was work for Adam. He said, I want you, again, what we said, again, God created

01:05:09.560 Eden, which was this holy place, but the rest of the world wasn't like Eden. And when he says to

01:05:16.060 Adam, I want you to exercise dominion, what he's saying, it's not just I'm putting you in charge,

01:05:20.100 what he was saying is I'm giving you a job

01:05:21.740 and I want you to take what is in Eden

01:05:23.780 and I want you to take it all around the rest of the world.

01:05:27.060 I want you to turn the world into this.

01:05:30.620 I want you to drag the realities of this out

01:05:32.940 and create, go be ruthlessly human

01:05:36.020 in relationship with God.

01:05:37.060 Go create cities and art and cuisine

01:05:38.900 and all these things that become,

01:05:41.600 build out the kingdom of God, right?

01:05:45.460 And when you see that,

01:05:46.620 when Jesus came talking about the kingdom of God,

01:05:48.740 it wasn't plan B.

01:05:50.100 he's grabbing plan A and just saying, we're re-instituted.

01:05:54.080 It's all about that.

01:05:55.560 And so when you see in Revelation chapter 21,

01:05:58.080 which is the end of the story where it says,

01:05:59.880 behold, I see the new heavens and the earth are coming down

01:06:02.880 and behold, I'm making all things new.

01:06:05.220 And it's this glorious picture

01:06:08.440 of the consummation of all things.

01:06:12.120 That holy city that's coming down,

01:06:14.020 that was the city that Adam was supposed to have built.

01:06:17.680 And all of a sudden where Adam failed,

01:06:19.780 jesus is the second him he succeeded and he came and he made this happen why does that matter how

01:06:24.140 does that go into to our uh this question about man being working and you know uh in all the sense

01:06:31.720 of futility not only is masculinity a holy calling but the work that we're we're to put our our hands

01:06:39.120 to when we have now of a gospel lens when jesus says the the kingdom of god is at hand we get to

01:06:45.460 be participants now in the original mandate, to how do we bring and build the kingdom of

01:06:52.460 God here and now, and all of a sudden animates.

01:06:55.500 I don't care if you're a plumber or you're a lawyer or you're a baker or a candlestick

01:06:59.780 maker, that all of a sudden we are now participants in something that God is doing, that we get

01:07:04.880 to bring the realities to bear in our world.

01:07:08.100 And that sense of futility, I think when we can maintain that perspective, I don't think

01:07:14.020 our sense of futility can stand, it goes to war with our sense of futility. Does that make sense?

01:07:20.540 It does make sense. Can I add one liner note? Please. Eden was what physically? It was a land

01:07:28.020 of rivers and trees. Great question. I'm a Genesis nerd, so I'm going to go here. Rivers and trees

01:07:34.160 though, correct? Rivers and trees. Okay. So Eden was also, I believe it says in Ezekiel,

01:07:38.980 It describes it as on a mountain, which is kind of a lost fact.

01:07:44.200 So rivers, trees, and mountains.

01:07:46.460 And a place where God, the divine, and the human overlapped and dwelled together.

01:07:54.000 So maybe there's a reason that when people are in office buildings, they feel differently from the way they feel when they're next to rivers.

01:08:03.840 Hanging out in Maine, yeah.

01:08:04.860 Yeah. And maybe anyone who destroys rivers and trees is on the wrong side.

01:08:10.440 The Lorax might have had a point.

01:08:11.960 I really believe that. I believe that. I believe that trees are really important. They're all over the Bible.

01:08:18.040 I think Cedar has a special place in God's plan.

01:08:21.980 It's true, but when you read, again, going back to the creation story, each creation's day after God made the trees, and what did he say?

01:08:29.660 he says it's good it was good in and of itself because he found pleasure in men not just for

01:08:34.700 its utility not to but it's also um and not just for its utility that's not just for its utility

01:08:41.240 it's for and so we're when adam was to exercise dominion it wasn't like what are you going to

01:08:46.160 kill and cut down it was how are you going to nurture exactly how are you going to take with

01:08:50.480 this and bring it everywhere well and that's why when people get in that kind of relationship with

01:08:56.560 nature they feel a deep satisfaction and a peace oh man clearly from god 100 so when you deny people

01:09:04.320 that that is when you deny them beauty when you destroy beauty god's created beauty that is not

01:09:10.560 good i just preached on this the other night but is it the idea um of redemption and the idea of

01:09:19.080 recreation when you genesis think it's 317 where it says talking about you know thorns and thistles

01:09:24.080 and we'll push back one of the lines is it says cursed is the ground because of you yes god's

01:09:29.780 speaking and what he's saying there is because of your sin you adam who i've put in charge of

01:09:36.380 the created order as my vice regent because of your sin now it is it has paid forward and it

01:09:42.760 has corrupted the the creation so the the earthquakes and the the the fallenness of this

01:09:50.160 world as a product of the fallenness of man so when you read in romans 8 it talks about

01:09:55.880 the creation groans and the way the creation groans because you know scripture tends to

01:10:02.420 personify you know the birds and the mountains and all yeah and it says the creation groans

01:10:07.640 right yeah of course uh in psalm 19 you know all the creation sings of god's glory but

01:10:14.180 the creation groans but in the same way it is it the redemption of creation is going to be tied

01:10:21.260 to the redemption of man and the redemption of humanity so as we are are have been recreated

01:10:27.500 and are living out that recreation and one day we'll stand in the full realities of our recreation

01:10:32.880 so will the world it is tied to when jesus came to redeem all things he wasn't just talking about

01:10:39.200 people all things the cedars as you just said the trees and the rivers and the and i can't wait for

01:10:47.420 that day i agree with that but on the way to that day we i think i know because i experienced this

01:10:53.680 morning so watch the sun come up you can get flashes of it that's right all around us and it's

01:11:00.900 our it's it's and we can we can participate in that that's you know behold the kingdom of god

01:11:06.320 his hand what is what is jesus doing in those moments when in in the new testament when he

01:11:11.400 we talked about this last night when jesus is every time you see jesus doing a miracle

01:11:16.840 like what is jesus doing in that moment is he just doing a trick is he trying to

01:11:21.360 sort of flex his like god muscle and show him like this is what i'm capable of is this a proof

01:11:25.920 i mean there's some of that where he's like pulling back the curtain and revealing his

01:11:29.680 divinity and and who he is and where people sit back and he stills the wind in the waves and

01:11:35.900 people aren't just quit asking, like, who are you?

01:11:39.120 They're now asking, like, what are you?

01:11:41.040 Yeah.

01:11:41.460 Right?

01:11:41.840 But when Jesus, one of the things that he's doing

01:11:43.960 in those moments where he is, you know,

01:11:46.520 where he heals the hemorrhaging woman,

01:11:50.060 or he raises Jairus' daughter from the dead,

01:11:53.740 or he calls Lazarus out of the tomb,

01:11:55.580 what he's doing is he's reaching forward

01:11:57.660 and he's grabbing the realities of the new heavens

01:12:01.200 and the new earth that we will one day live

01:12:03.100 in the full experience.

01:12:03.920 And he's planting them in the moment.

01:12:05.900 And he's giving people a foretaste of like,

01:12:08.400 this is what the kingdom of God is.

01:12:10.260 This is what the kingdom.

01:12:11.160 So, you know, the journey of redemption and recreation

01:12:16.540 is not about how do we get man out of earth into heaven.

01:12:22.680 The journey and the ultimate consummation

01:12:24.260 is how do we get heaven and earth back together?

01:12:27.720 And those miracles that we begin to see,

01:12:30.320 the miracles we were just talking about,

01:12:32.300 is Jesus doing that very thing.

01:12:34.320 And to your point where you say, well, I stand out there and I see pops of this, we now get to participate in that.

01:12:41.820 So we get to bring the realities of the new heavens and the new earth.

01:12:45.560 How does that look?

01:12:46.460 Well, here's the new, when, when we bring, when we bring comfort to someone who is lost in grief.

01:12:52.780 when I sit with a couple who is shattered by adultery

01:12:59.860 or their marriage isn't,

01:13:01.220 or someone is on their deathbed

01:13:02.840 and they are scared and they feel alone

01:13:07.200 and you sit and you pray with them

01:13:08.720 and you're bringing those realities to bear

01:13:11.360 when you feed the hungry,

01:13:13.020 when you love the very difficult to love.

01:13:18.760 You know, that's our call.

01:13:19.580 When you plant a garden, right?

01:13:22.120 i know these are kind of oh come on no really when you plant a garden like what are you doing

01:13:27.120 that's it's an ancient call i mean that's what adam did you know that's what noah did

01:13:32.200 you know he was a vent he was a you know he he was a farmer he grew grapes you know this is

01:13:38.740 but we are participating in the in the anyone who doubts that anyone who would mock the idea

01:13:44.280 of garden planting as a profound act is just not hasn't lived long enough yeah i'm not very good

01:13:49.680 at that i'm i watered my wife's garden the other night she had to go and she's like we watered my

01:13:53.680 garden took me like 40 minutes by the way but by the end i was like man that was like amazing

01:14:00.840 that was amazing all i did was water the garden i'm exercising my dominion with a hose i'm with

01:14:07.660 you man that's it um so the gender the question of whether god created male and female

01:14:17.280 this is not some minor question no and liberating people from the constraints of gender

01:14:26.400 is probably not actually liberation is that what you're saying no it's i think it's it's a it's a

01:14:32.420 confusion it's sad you know and in fairness let me let me uh take it from a non-political kind

01:14:39.960 of lens of it because it's like i know that's a cultural movement just take it down to a you know

01:14:44.840 are people that and i have a deep heart for that people that have profound confusion in that place

01:14:49.800 for sure and and brokenness in that place and that feel very lost in that place and feel very

01:14:56.040 and the way christians talk about it in a sort of argumentative way right you know like oh you're

01:15:01.720 right we're wrong i'm like dude that's that you know we can fight a sort of air war a theological

01:15:07.080 war and have these kind of debates but at the end of the day you got to remember like we're talking

01:15:10.120 about people here right right and there are legit people that are hurting and asking real

01:15:14.600 questions in this place that have and a lot of them yeah not a small number that's right and

01:15:20.160 and i think one of the disservices in the church that we can do is because we get so consumed in

01:15:26.140 the theological debate that you know we we lose the trees and see the forest right and when you

01:15:36.960 look at the trees these are people and they come up the question around what would you say to

01:15:42.240 someone who was in your care, just another human being, your neighbor, as defined by the New

01:15:50.280 Testament, who was questioning his or her gender? What would you say to that person?

01:15:57.520 Presumably, you don't want that person to question and you don't want the person to

01:16:02.700 take the next steps, but you love that person. So you're probably not screaming at the person.

01:16:07.700 so what do you say well i'll tell you the first thing i would say is um well the first thing that

01:16:15.680 i would walk with a profound humility because i know that i'm stepping into a story that has

01:16:24.220 uh that involves a tremendous amount of shame and a sense of isolation because this is something

01:16:33.720 this person undoubtedly had been contending with far longer at a far younger age than in solitude

01:16:42.280 in solitude which is heartbreaking to think of a child asking theological questions for which they

01:16:49.440 shouldn't be asked to contend with like am i going to hell am i this am i like that's that's

01:16:55.320 Like I could, I weep thinking about that.

01:16:59.840 And so my heart posture in that

01:17:02.680 is one of deep and profound compassion.

01:17:07.900 Because they didn't ask for that.

01:17:11.140 And it is, and for those that sit on the opposite side

01:17:15.700 of a theological fence to just come at this

01:17:17.860 with hammer and tongs, like you might win an argument,

01:17:20.800 but bro, you are shattering people

01:17:22.920 and you're winning no hearts in that place.

01:17:24.660 that's right it is the it is the god's it is god's kindness that leads to repentance

01:17:32.340 and we would excuse me we would be wise to remember his kindness to us before we ever

01:17:41.180 step into a conversation like that so what would i say and by his kindness to us you mean

01:17:48.720 they're no better than than me exactly i'm no better than them that's exactly right

01:17:53.860 hey what what what lottery i mean i'm saying like do i know what you're saying we were talking last

01:18:00.100 night we single this issue off dude and it's like like okay but i will like somehow wink at greed

01:18:06.320 or somebody's right or my own you know or bloodlust or bloodlust or whatever it is and we can wink at

01:18:12.340 all these things but like you know all those things keep me out of like i i deserve i deserve

01:18:18.940 hell for all those things right no i get it is but for the grace of god period and we talk about

01:18:24.340 the things that god saved us from that we don't like like and the malleability like why aren't

01:18:29.600 you dealing with that why am i not to like i don't know i'm not and i'm thankful i'm not but

01:18:34.620 it's agree so how do you so how do you walk into it what do you say you don't say anything first

01:18:39.900 you listen man but and you earn the right to be heard you earn the right to be heard you you sow

01:18:47.100 seeds dude and you listen and the way you sow seeds is you non-judgmentally listen and you

01:18:55.080 invite forward who are you man because that doesn't define you and you and you become a

01:19:02.520 safe place and a trustworthy place not with an agenda so you can eventually pull this judo move

01:19:08.100 to show them how they're wrong because this is not your job right it's god's job to to move

01:19:15.200 someone's heart it's god's job like when jesus ate with sinners what did he do did you think he

01:19:19.940 sat around and because he just sat around and he ate with the tax collectors and the drunkards and

01:19:24.660 the prostitutes did he sit there and the conversation was him going around the room

01:19:28.020 telling them where they were wrong and he was right like no that would be a very short hang

01:19:32.620 right that's not a good party but no it's because they liked him yeah and why did they like him

01:19:39.060 because he probably listened really well and he probably sat with him and he earned the right to

01:19:43.980 be heard and as a profound that is a a wonderful philosophy of ministry as you step into places

01:19:53.540 like this with the broken and the bruised and the the the bruised reeds and the smoldering wicks

01:20:00.500 as scripture says and and you listen and you and you and and hopefully they come out of the shadows

01:20:07.280 and begin to talk about the struggle and you and you honor it and you love them and you let you

01:20:13.020 know you let the lord steer it like if i i would be doing a disservice what do you say like i don't

01:20:19.140 know it depends how who i'm talking to and whatever but i know what i i know what i wouldn't say and

01:20:25.220 i know what i wouldn't do and it wouldn't lead off with a with a moral lecture on what because they

01:20:30.580 they know they've contended with those arguments they could probably shape those arguments better

01:20:35.440 than i ever could because they've dealt with them far longer and far more personal ways

01:20:39.100 so yeah i love him well and and then uh you know i think again what does it mean to to to do the

01:20:48.980 work of god in places like that it's the same thing in anywhere else a bunch of years ago

01:20:54.600 someone asked me this question i was working with doing some chaplaincy work with the soccer team

01:20:59.180 and he was joking about what is it like to do the lord's work and i kind of like i thought it was a

01:21:05.600 kind of a weird question.

01:21:07.100 And I thought to myself for a minute,

01:21:08.580 I was like, you know what, man?

01:21:11.440 I'm not doing the Lord's work.

01:21:13.360 The Lord is doing the Lord's work.

01:21:15.600 My job as a priest, as a pastor, as a Christian, as a man,

01:21:21.180 is to cultivate a heart that knows what it means

01:21:26.740 to listen to the Holy Spirit

01:21:28.240 and to see where the Holy Spirit is moving

01:21:30.800 and just agree with it.

01:21:34.260 And just agree with it.

01:21:35.600 right how do we learn that how do we cultivate that we learn it through

01:21:38.440 reading the word we learn it through prayer we learn it through worship we learn it through

01:21:42.980 doing these conversations we learn it through our relationships with other men

01:21:46.640 our women and our marriages but we tune our hearts as the hymn says we lord tune my heart

01:21:54.420 to your grace so i know i can see it when you're doing it and i can just agree with it

01:22:00.500 and the doors you open cannot be shut the doors you closed can't be open just help me not beat

01:22:07.980 my head against those doors that won't open and when i'm dealing with a human heart it's the same

01:22:12.740 question how do i what doors are you opening there and how do i talk to them in a way that

01:22:16.520 they need to hear this not the way that i can be right yeah people have an overwhelming need to be

01:22:24.860 right or desire to be right i do it's hard man i don't but i no i know you don't i look at you

01:22:33.400 with pity and concern yeah i understand you imagine you need to be right need to prove your

01:22:38.180 point um well that was a beautiful uh description of how to actually love somebody rather than

01:22:46.680 i mean because i know where you're coming from which is you want to see people genuinely liberated

01:22:51.900 and not led into their destruction

01:22:54.980 by any of these things, you know?

01:23:00.080 But we're all fighting against our desire to be right,

01:23:03.360 really, is what it comes down to.

01:23:04.800 Oh, yeah, 100%.

01:23:07.360 Can I say one thing, though, that I can't resist?

01:23:10.540 So Jesus, there's this moment where he says,

01:23:13.920 you know, woe to anyone who leads the children astray.

01:23:18.920 And you do feel like when you're looking at people

01:23:21.400 who were beset by any of these agonies with, I mean, if you're, you know, you look at them

01:23:29.040 with compassion, but then you think like someone lied to them and got them here in the first place

01:23:34.620 and I feel less compassion for that person. I'm just going to say that. There's a lot of voices,

01:23:39.080 man and i would there's a lot of people that will vehemently disagree with me and that's okay

01:23:47.740 but uh i would just say that as people ask those questions about their own life and they're going

01:23:56.640 through like you you can easily find someone to affirm the path that you're going down to oh yeah

01:24:03.720 Right. I mean, there's so many different flavors and denominations and expressions of that. Like you want someone to prop up your lifestyle and give you theological and biblical justification. Like you don't have to scratch, scratch very deep to find someone to do that.

01:24:18.040 but that's why i think it's so important that that we that's why i'm like i said i'm a bible

01:24:24.340 nerd and i think it's so important that that that it's scripture alone man we have to we have to go

01:24:31.280 you know we have to go to scripture and test it everything against measure everything against

01:24:37.920 what we're hearing in the world what you're hearing from me what you hear from you know

01:24:42.400 the church and leaderships. Like I'm not, I'm not scripture, right? I'm not like, what's right?

01:24:48.260 What's wrong? Like who gets to answer that question? Who gets to be the one to answer

01:24:52.040 that question? Do I get to answer that question? No, God gets to answer that question. Okay. So

01:24:56.900 that's, we can all agree. Most people will stack hands. God's the one that gets to answer that

01:25:00.360 question. Okay. How does God answer that question? Does he answer it through me? He answers it

01:25:06.080 through his word, right? He answers it through that. That's how God has taken a knee and he is

01:25:11.480 it written this redemptive historical sort of incredibly rich dynamic gift to us that's called

01:25:21.740 the bible and if if we are people that want to understand what it means to to ask these questions

01:25:29.400 to move in these directions and do it with any any truth and integrity we have to measure what

01:25:36.140 we're hearing against this you know yes it's you know be transformed by the renewing of your mind

01:25:41.240 through the scriptures it says in romans and so we can test in god's good and perfect will we can

01:25:47.300 test it is this god speaking to me or is this some you know new fangled cultural moment that's

01:25:53.960 just trying to like you know vie for air dominance right now or whatever you know you know i'm saying

01:25:59.940 of course yeah so addiction has been a feature of human was described in the bible so it's you know

01:26:07.860 it's been around since people have been around i think but it does seem like a bigger factor

01:26:14.380 in the lives of americans than 40 years ago i mean i know that it is because there's just a lot more

01:26:20.080 ways to get addicted and there's less cultural resistance to addiction than there's ever been

01:26:23.600 and so like entire generations are getting destroyed by it more things that are more obvious

01:26:28.200 things to be addicted to that aren't just substances exactly yeah so how big a presence

01:26:34.360 is addiction in your experience of counseling i mean it's it's just part of it you know and uh

01:26:43.240 it's a you know doing what i do obviously you encounter you know when people come into my

01:26:50.520 office and they knock on my door very rarely it is like hey i have a question why in the book of

01:26:55.720 numbers did so and so you know why did moses hold up a golden you know serpent or whatever it's

01:27:01.160 rarely questions like that it's more like are you psyched when it is though yeah actually that's a

01:27:05.920 lot easier right it's a lot easier because uh but it's people are coming in with it you know they

01:27:12.940 can't keep their cheese on their cracker man and they're saying hey i'm addicted to this or my

01:27:18.260 marriage is coming apart and um so addiction is it's a it's a you know again you've got

01:27:24.920 substance abuse you got alcoholics you got people that you know opioids now which is insane you've

01:27:30.120 got these things you know the the list is endless gambling pornography gambling pornography gambling

01:27:37.360 is huge that is god that scares me because of just the online stuff you see that uh i don't i have

01:27:43.860 seen it it's not something that i have faced but i know a lot about it i know a lot of people that

01:27:49.140 have gone that journey and that is one of the most nefarious and hard to beat addictions is

01:27:54.260 gambling. And, uh, but all that to say, uh, but to those that, that contend with addiction,

01:28:02.840 you know, the one thing that I can say, and then I can say this unequivocally is there is so much

01:28:07.880 hope for people. It's not a path that you ever want to walk down, but my, my favorite people

01:28:13.920 that I deal with are my friends in AA or my friends in, uh, you know, that are in NA or

01:28:23.280 that have gone through recovery,

01:28:25.500 that have had all their self-righteous pretenses

01:28:29.020 stripped down,

01:28:29.980 that have been brought down to the studs

01:28:32.160 who have blown up their lives.

01:28:34.760 So they don't have anything to prove.

01:28:37.360 And they've been on this redemptive journey.

01:28:39.080 I always talk to these people,

01:28:39.800 I always say, would you please come and join my church?

01:28:42.940 Would you please come and be a part?

01:28:44.800 I'm like, we need this.

01:28:46.080 Like the church needs to be a hospital, not a showcase.

01:28:48.600 I've never been to a church as Christian

01:28:50.480 in some AA meetings I've been to.

01:28:52.020 I agree with you.

01:28:53.280 And it's, you know, church needs to be a place where we can get blood on the walls. And you know what I mean by that? We can, we can tell the truth. You know, church is not designed to be an AA meeting and AA meetings are not designed to be church, but there are aspects of it where.

01:29:06.840 the humility and the honesty, the humility, the honesty to where people can come in and walk

01:29:12.480 through the doors of a church and say, this has, this is populated by people that I, that I could

01:29:17.920 sit in a room full of men or a room full of women, room full of couples, and I could have a human

01:29:24.340 yard sale of what I've done and who I've been in my life. And I would be met with love and grace

01:29:31.380 and people looking at me and saying,

01:29:35.720 I want to hear more of that.

01:29:37.220 That when I show you the most wretched parts of me,

01:29:40.600 it doesn't push you away,

01:29:42.360 but it draws you closer

01:29:43.500 because you're able to look me in the eye and say,

01:29:45.200 yeah, I get it, man, me too.

01:29:48.360 And that's, that is, you know, that's,

01:29:51.640 because what that does, it does a lot of,

01:29:53.560 our biggest, most, you know, with addiction, especially,

01:29:57.700 and, you know, be it pornography, gambling, alcohol,

01:30:00.700 all whatever it is you know sweets or whatever you're addicted to it's no i don't think it's

01:30:06.000 fair to put sweets that's it might that might be a little that might be a little too much but

01:30:09.000 it's it is a it is it breeds so much shame yeah i know right it breeds so much and that's what

01:30:16.520 sin does it breeds shame you read the story in the garden when adam eats of the tree of the

01:30:21.700 knowledge of good and evil he runs what's the first thing adam does is he run and he hides in

01:30:26.700 the bushes yes he hides and then god comes in and he asks a question he says adam where are you what

01:30:33.020 do you what do you why are you hiding a little pro tip anytime god asks a question in scripture

01:30:38.700 he already knows the answer he does but he what he needed adam to see is he needed adam to see

01:30:43.820 the answer and adam comes out and he says what he says to him he says why were you hiding and all

01:30:49.920 right adam's in the garden there's one rule in the garden don't eat of this tree of the knowledge of

01:30:53.360 good new and adam's broken that rule sin enters and he hides and when god asks him why are you

01:30:58.000 hiding the logical answer is i just broke the one rule that's not what he says though he says

01:31:04.400 i was naked and i was ashamed and to paraphrase that he he was saying i wasn't hiding because i

01:31:12.340 have done something wrong i'm hiding because i am something wrong yeah and i could not bear for you

01:31:18.300 to see me and if you saw me you would reject me and i would be alone and that is the most

01:31:23.520 foundational cry of the human heart which it was the cry of jesus on the cross when he became sin

01:31:29.720 when he truly became like us and he absorbed the sin of humanity and he quotes the psalms and he

01:31:35.240 says my god my god the cry of dereliction why have you forsaken me he could have said anything in

01:31:39.820 that moment but it was this cry of our deepest longing don't leave me like this this shameful

01:31:45.920 thing that I am. So going back to the AA, the biggest poison that leads to addiction and it's

01:31:51.460 this, this, this shame engine that, that drives us. And I don't want to feel it. So I drink and

01:31:58.180 I feel more shame and I, so I drink more and it just becomes a cycle. But when you get into these

01:32:02.640 rooms and you're able to have, like I just said, like you have a yard sale and you'll be able to

01:32:06.220 say, this is what I am. I'm Billy, I'm an alcoholic, or I'm Tucker and I'm a this, or I'm whatever it

01:32:10.640 is. And you can lay that out in front of a group of people and they sit there and they don't run

01:32:15.760 away and they don't give you the rejection that you think that you deserve that pushed adam into

01:32:22.060 the bushes it does it just sweeps the knee of your shame and all of a sudden the thing that

01:32:28.460 that satan meant for evil god means for good and it the the place of your greatest destruction

01:32:34.540 your greatest fears your greatest self-sabotage becomes a place where life grows like tell me

01:32:42.680 there's not a living God tell me there's not a God that that is that is using uh the tools of

01:32:50.360 the enemy against him right that makes us more than conquerors right that's beautiful and so

01:32:55.900 do I encounter addiction yeah and when I find guys that have been through recovery I love them

01:33:01.240 me too I want more of them I feel exactly the same way yeah yeah yeah I couldn't agree more

01:33:10.240 so you made um i think in the most profound thing you said was the core human fears don't leave us

01:33:20.160 alone and that the first thing that god saw that was wrong with creation was adam's solitude it's

01:33:26.720 not good for man to be alone it does feel like people are more alone oh we're isolated especially

01:33:35.680 as men why as men because we are scared to be found out you know men we live in the same way

01:33:49.520 you know that that that description i just said of adam he's like you know there's something that's

01:33:55.000 that's you know i'm not something right it said adam on this course that i have to become so it's

01:34:03.140 it's on me. I've got to become this ruthless quest for validation. And that's the sort of

01:34:08.980 spiritual genetic heritage that we've all received. I think it's all men. We are born

01:34:15.260 with this idea of that I'm incomplete and it's on me to be enough. And I'm terrified that one is,

01:34:29.260 but you know as a man i've spent much of my life too much of my early life terrified that people

01:34:35.640 would see that i don't have it all together like we we all like have two things in common

01:34:43.860 one none of us have it all together and the second is we we all want everyone around us to think we

01:34:49.720 do of course right and the idea and the fear of that is if i let you see that the same fear that

01:34:57.360 Adam had, that you would see something that you found undesirable and you would abandon me

01:35:02.400 and I would be left alone. So as men, we have become so artfully skilled at working side by

01:35:11.780 side and doing acts of, you know, working side by side and, you know, playing golf together and

01:35:20.440 doing all these things, but just know nothing about each other's lives. I think that's right.

01:35:26.960 but if I could just be the liberal for a moment

01:35:28.980 and blame society also

01:35:30.160 I think the structures have completely

01:35:32.900 changed in the world around us

01:35:34.960 and I think it is more and more difficult

01:35:36.820 for men to find

01:35:38.120 the chance to be with other

01:35:40.960 men. Yeah. Just men.

01:35:43.080 I mean that is total, well by the way it's measurable

01:35:44.880 Well it's an

01:35:46.580 ancient problem. I think one of the great

01:35:48.860 unspoken miracles in scripture

01:35:50.840 is that Jesus as a man in his

01:35:53.060 mid-30s had 12 best friends

01:35:54.880 right like how many men in their 30s like the last most men i spent a lot of time ministering

01:36:02.140 with men i love it it's one of my favorite things is that one of the one of the last times that men

01:36:09.100 remember having real relationships was back in college i know there's last time and then they

01:36:15.040 step into the workforce they get they get married which is wonderful they have children which is

01:36:18.440 wonderful but they lose sight of the importance of male relationship they lose sight of uh they

01:36:26.600 lose sight of the value of why you need men around you and this is something that i mean jesus

01:36:33.220 demonstrably demonstrated that in his 12 disciples with his 12 disciples that was

01:36:38.280 uh you know he illustrated a lot of things with that but on a most basic level it was just hey

01:36:43.300 we need that. You read Mark chapter two. What is the story where Jesus is in Capernaum and he's

01:36:49.220 there and he's teaching in the house and it's packed and there's people like hanging in the

01:36:53.560 windows and no one can get in or out. And there's a man who's been paralyzed and they want Jesus to

01:36:59.480 heal him and they can't get to him. So his friends, his four friends or however many friends it was,

01:37:03.840 they pick up the mat and they grab the corners of the mat and they carry their friend and they go

01:37:09.440 to the roof of where Jesus is teaching in this house

01:37:13.320 and they begin digging and they tear the roof off.

01:37:15.680 You can imagine Jesus just feeling the chunks coming down

01:37:18.560 and he's like, what's going on?

01:37:20.340 And they're like, our friend is hurt.

01:37:24.040 My friend needs you.

01:37:25.320 And they lower this man down.

01:37:29.280 If I were to go down the street,

01:37:30.880 how many men do you think, and I polled randomly,

01:37:34.200 how many men do you think would have mat carriers?

01:37:37.460 I do.

01:37:38.480 I do too.

01:37:39.440 thank you for being one of those mac errors yeah well we saw this coming 40 years ago

01:37:46.060 you saw it coming no i just knew that men in there because i saw it among men i knew and

01:37:52.080 respected and loved they would get you know to middle age and then old age and they had no real

01:37:57.660 male friends and so we decided five of us in college we're just not we're not not gonna let

01:38:03.160 happened and we set up a pretty complex structure to maintain that friendship um

01:38:10.440 and we did we sure did and uh for you know 40 over 40 years now and uh so that really one of

01:38:18.520 the profound things in my life but i just know i really feel like i'm one of very few 57 year old

01:38:24.920 men i know who has like four best friends for real though not not kind of academically my best friends

01:38:32.200 but like people I see regularly

01:38:34.140 who are the godfathers of my children,

01:38:35.580 who we travel somewhere in the world every single year,

01:38:38.200 who I talk to all the time,

01:38:39.620 who I've relied on consistently for 40 years for advice

01:38:43.620 or if I needed it, money or whatever I need.

01:38:47.300 And I will say, not to brag,

01:38:49.560 but it's not bragging, it's just the nature of it.

01:38:52.360 Of those four men, five men,

01:38:54.780 all five are still happily married.

01:38:56.560 That's true.

01:38:56.920 All five have children who respect them.

01:38:58.500 All five are just basically happy.

01:39:01.260 Yeah.

01:39:01.480 And I think it's the, in part, the results of those friendships.

01:39:06.000 Oh, that's been one of the single most profound gifts of my life.

01:39:11.740 You've been one of the most profound gifts of my life.

01:39:15.280 Partly, you know what's funny about that group of, our group of five guys, is you couldn't find five more different people.

01:39:24.380 Yeah.

01:39:24.620 right and the the beauty of it was the commitment and the covenant where we pushed that's exactly

01:39:31.840 we were 20 years old we didn't know what we were saying and we pushed in and we said all right we

01:39:37.200 we will not break this this this covenant this vow with one another until we die until we die

01:39:43.640 and no we have not and we will not but the thing about it is you think about all the seasons of

01:39:48.740 life where we've been through with all the incarnations of birth and births and deaths and

01:39:54.780 you know all the transitions and you know all the tears that have been cried and all those

01:40:02.280 things that you know we've won and we've lost and uh then and the how the world has tried to

01:40:09.440 conspire to pull our relationships apart just by proximity but we've really held to that and for me

01:40:15.920 I know personally, I'll just say, knowing in those dark places that I could always just

01:40:22.960 reach out and just knowing that you're there and knowing that the other guys are there

01:40:28.380 is, it's been such a gospel expression. The number of times I talked about earlier,

01:40:35.580 you remember we're saying about how, you know, Jesus comes, he saves us from our sins. He saves

01:40:39.840 us from, you know, breaks the back of sin and death, but, you know, foundation, he's saving me

01:40:44.600 from myself. And the reason, one of the reasons I love our friendship is the number of times you

01:40:50.560 guys have stepped in and kind of saved me from my, my own decisions. Been there. Right. You know,

01:40:55.880 just being able to speak like, Hey, I wouldn't do that. Or, you know, just loving each other

01:41:00.080 through hard times. And I mean, you know, losing, I remember my dad died. I will never forget it.

01:41:06.660 It was last January and walking into that church was packed and turning around and seeing you guys

01:41:12.620 all sitting on the row it just just shattered my heart man in a beautiful way it was a huge gift

01:41:18.480 to me man yeah it used to be yeah no it's been absolutely incredible yep i could go on i could

01:41:25.780 write a book about it never will never talked about in public before but the only reason i'm

01:41:28.860 saying that is not to brag but just to say because it's not anything you know i've just been the

01:41:34.420 beneficiary of it but i think it's worth saying it out loud that like in some sense it's it's

01:41:42.720 different obviously totally different from marriage but it's the same in the sense that

01:41:46.020 it's the product of a covenant of a promise yeah to other people that you're just going to abide by

01:41:53.180 and like when you have like a six month old and your buddies are like you know this year we're

01:42:00.600 meeting in barbados or wherever we're meeting hartford connecticut and your wife is like what

01:42:06.020 yeah you know come on now you've got three kids and i'm breastfeeding cost you something to be

01:42:11.360 there big time yeah and you have you say them something for a lot there a lot and i think

01:42:16.640 they've paid up many times all five of them support it because they see its fruits but

01:42:20.680 but to say to your wife i'm sorry this is a commitment that i made and she's like and you

01:42:26.040 never want to make your wife mad especially when she just bore your child and and you do it and

01:42:32.180 like that so it does take some sacrifice not small sacrifice no tremendous and it's so essential but

01:42:39.240 the the dividends are are so exponentially more i mean going back to what we're saying like the

01:42:44.720 importance of male relationship in that is the problem is you know in the same way we talked

01:42:51.380 about pornography or addiction one of the things is is it pushes you in isolation like isolation's

01:42:55.580 a bad thing yes and for us as men as masculine beings you you lose perspective on your own

01:43:04.740 masculinity and your own sense of self and your own role as a husband and your own role as a father

01:43:09.700 and it's essential that you have good healthy men that can serve as mirrors and reflect and

01:43:17.380 just kind of play catch with you a little bit on these ideas and exactly or you you get in your own

01:43:22.720 one-man echo chamber and you start feeling crazy and then you start feeling the shame i'm not doing

01:43:27.720 this right or i don't know and then you start living out a caricature of what you think you

01:43:31.300 should be versus what you kind of really are and the next thing you know you want to talk about

01:43:35.840 like how do marriage problems start like men you know there's a great spot a great place and for

01:43:41.820 i think having those healthy relationships for men certainly for me has done a tremendous amount

01:43:47.960 and helping me have a healthy marriage

01:43:49.680 because it's helped me regulate my sense of self

01:43:53.620 and also just like my sense of,

01:43:57.220 my vain sense of self.

01:43:59.180 I got famous in my 20s.

01:44:01.180 I didn't expect to be famous.

01:44:02.640 I got famous.

01:44:03.620 It's been-

01:44:04.160 I would not have handled that well in my 20s.

01:44:05.420 Well, I don't think I did,

01:44:07.460 but if it hadn't been for you guys,

01:44:08.920 I think I would have been totally off the deep end,

01:44:12.380 completely off the deep end.

01:44:14.200 And our wives, for sure,

01:44:17.200 we marry good women yeah for sure but you know i know a lot of married men who

01:44:21.300 your buddies are a little different from your wife because your wife is thankfully

01:44:26.060 no i think it's harder for your wife to be like oh stop it but you go see your buddies and you're

01:44:33.620 like uh who's the cable television show they're like cable they don't care at all this is true

01:44:40.140 so good yeah so important it's so and i think what i you know i think this this was

01:44:47.180 kind of baked into the cake with us.

01:44:48.660 Cause I mean, we met when we were 17 or whatever, right?

01:44:51.480 And we met, you know,

01:44:52.620 we were very unimpressive at that time.

01:44:55.160 Not that we're very impressive now, but what happens is,

01:44:59.520 is that, and I think one of the values of this friendship,

01:45:03.940 and I think it's values of any male,

01:45:05.660 if I could just elevate this one aspect of it,

01:45:07.400 is that we love each other and we respect each other,

01:45:10.740 but we're not overly impressed with each other.

01:45:12.800 Not at all.

01:45:14.720 This might be hard for people to understand,

01:45:16.220 But like, when we get together, we will rag on, you know, we will bust each other's chops in a way that only people that have that kind of relationship can do, right?

01:45:24.660 That's the beauty of it.

01:45:25.020 Yeah, you, you, we, you know, lovingly humiliate one another.

01:45:28.840 Continuously.

01:45:29.420 Continuously, yes.

01:45:30.640 And so, but I think there's, there's a huge value to that.

01:45:33.280 And so for male relationship, what I'm talking about, it doesn't have to be some giant therapy session.

01:45:38.340 It just has to be men that see you, that have the ability and willingness to speak that truth into you and say, you know, no, dude, you're not all that.

01:45:48.920 Dude, about 10 years ago, I was, you know, I decide, one of my children's like, you've got to get off nicotine.

01:45:54.660 And I was like, I knew that was, it was obviously it's wrong to get off nicotine.

01:45:58.220 Were you on nicotine?

01:45:59.900 So I get bullied by this.

01:46:01.220 You love nicotine more than anybody else.

01:46:02.140 I really do.

01:46:03.200 Always have.

01:46:03.860 But anyway, this one child's like, it's bad for you.

01:46:06.160 Okay.

01:46:06.880 Which it's not.

01:46:07.340 But anyway, I get off nicotine and immediately go crazy and get fat.

01:46:12.220 And I kind of knew that I was crazy, but I didn't quite realize how fat I was because no one in my world said one word to me about it.

01:46:18.780 And I was like, man, I think my pants shrunk, whatever.

01:46:21.220 We go skiing and I'll never forget it.

01:46:24.180 We get off the tram in Jackson, Wyoming, and the five of us, whatever, were skiing.

01:46:31.300 One of us lives out there.

01:46:32.640 And so anyway, I get off and one of them turns to me and goes, dude, you're fat.

01:46:38.540 And I was like, I don't think I'm fat.

01:46:40.500 What?

01:46:41.240 He goes, look at you.

01:46:42.240 You're fat.

01:46:42.940 It's disgusting.

01:46:44.500 And I was like, I'm not fat.

01:46:46.640 You've got your own weather system, man.

01:46:50.640 I'm on TV every day.

01:46:51.900 I don't think someone would tell me if I was fat.

01:46:53.520 He goes, dude, you're fat.

01:46:54.980 Someone is telling you.

01:46:57.720 That's hilarious.

01:46:58.440 I remember this.

01:46:58.980 I went and bought a tin of Copenhagen that night and immediately, you know, lost some of the weight.

01:47:03.920 But the point is, I was the only person who would tell me that.

01:47:08.540 And so gently, too.

01:47:10.300 I think everybody else noticed.

01:47:12.380 I mean, obviously, everyone else noticed.

01:47:13.620 But now one person said one word.

01:47:16.280 Yeah.

01:47:16.520 Isn't that interesting?

01:47:17.320 But you know, do you know why he did that?

01:47:20.460 Going back to using that phrase, he had earned the right.

01:47:22.880 Oh, yes.

01:47:23.940 He was a saint.

01:47:24.420 Because you knew he loves you, right?

01:47:27.120 and he knew you knew he cared and you know godfather to my son yes no i know no i know

01:47:32.460 you're talking about i yeah you've met him yeah he's kind of fat too i agree um anyway yeah what

01:47:39.880 an incredible blessing and i hope that this conversation doesn't make other people feel

01:47:43.520 well i don't know it's just true and so i'm glad we it is true i say that i think i hope

01:47:50.140 other people hear it they hear this as an invitation right they that whether you're

01:47:55.560 young or especially young people like lock in man find your find your find your you know your

01:48:02.240 your mat carriers yes find your mat carriers man and uh because you're gonna need them

01:48:06.880 because you're gonna because one day you're gonna be carrying that the mat for that guy but i promise

01:48:11.440 you your day is coming where you're gonna be on the mat and you're not gonna be able to get up and

01:48:15.020 they're gonna need to carry you to where you need to be and it is true it is true it is true as sure

01:48:19.920 as I'm sitting here.

01:48:20.940 And for people that are older,

01:48:22.140 I don't care how old they are,

01:48:22.960 there are men that are,

01:48:25.240 and if you don't go to a church

01:48:27.100 or you don't have a place

01:48:27.780 where people can do that,

01:48:29.440 then you don't have a community,

01:48:31.200 then either look deeper in your church

01:48:33.920 or find another one

01:48:34.740 because it is so essential

01:48:36.680 and it's so available.

01:48:39.500 Yes.

01:48:39.940 And it just is.

01:48:41.120 And it just takes the risk

01:48:43.820 of being able to step in

01:48:47.140 and a willingness to just tell the truth

01:48:49.880 and also to be a willingness to be the kind of person

01:48:53.440 that can step in and hear someone else's

01:48:55.940 as they tell you the truth about their life

01:48:58.280 and you love them anyway,

01:49:00.280 whether it's said graciously

01:49:01.680 or they are telling you you're fat

01:49:03.560 in a very unceremonious way,

01:49:05.520 but it's done with love.

01:49:06.700 And I just think it's, I hear it.

01:49:09.200 I just, I say that as an invitation, man.

01:49:11.920 I think it's good.

01:49:12.860 Well, I hope it is

01:49:14.180 because it's one of the most important things

01:49:15.900 I've ever done after my marriage,

01:49:18.120 the most important thing.

01:49:18.800 so um last question and i i think it's something i think about a lot but your answer when i asked

01:49:24.640 you what would you say to someone to anyone who was thinking well maybe i'm trans i thought your

01:49:31.840 answer was was wonderful because you approached the person with love so i want to ask a related

01:49:38.080 question about something that's a kind of trend now among people who are really hurting some of

01:49:43.600 of whom i i think are wonderful people veterans and it's the use of like very very heavy duty

01:49:50.320 hallucinogens famously ayahuasca but they're a bunch of ibogaine there are a bunch of them

01:49:55.200 yeah to heal them and and the reason that i've never really talked about it is because i want

01:49:59.920 to approach it with that same spirit because these are like some of the best people i know

01:50:03.840 and also some of the most hurting people and they've done what they were asked to do in some

01:50:07.840 cases it meant killing other people and they've been deeply damaged by it that's my read we spend

01:50:12.960 a lot of time talking about how bad it is to be killed. I think we spend almost no time talking

01:50:17.900 about how bad it is for someone to kill, but it is bad. And I know a lot of people who've done it

01:50:22.540 and it's hurt every one of them. So in that pain or out of that pain, many of them go to

01:50:29.800 hallucinogens, very heavy duty hallucinogens. And I should just be totally honest, I've used

01:50:36.160 hallucinogens as a child and I was totally convinced like, that's not for me. That's bad.

01:50:40.940 i was afraid of it um i did it a lot and i was really afraid of it i'm very opposed to it but

01:50:47.360 i want to be open-minded and loving because i know that they are suffering so much so that's

01:50:53.260 the preamble my question is what what's your view of that um taking that in pieces i would say

01:51:01.960 first of all you know medically speaking like i you know i don't know like the right i know

01:51:09.180 I've got people that I know that had medication-resistant depression that had done experimental

01:51:18.340 but medically directed use of certain things that really helped them and with their depressions and

01:51:25.080 things like that. But I don't know enough to speak about that. I would say to someone who's

01:51:30.460 suffering from a PTSD to that level of what you're talking about, first of all, in the same way,

01:51:35.960 uh what would i say i wouldn't say much in the beginning because i think there's just so

01:51:41.160 the the trauma of that is something they never asked for and if i could distill it down you know

01:51:49.320 the here's the great tragedy of it is i would say it's it's not your fault like it's not your fault

01:51:56.760 in the sense that you know you may have done things but to have those experiences and you

01:52:01.000 be thrust into a context where it's unwinnable where you're being you know you're in war or

01:52:06.220 whatever the context may be and i know they're nuanced and varied but like it's not your fault

01:52:11.240 that you have you bear the the sort of intellectual or or not or the the psychiatric wounds and those

01:52:18.220 are real like those are neuro pathways that are like legitimately carved right so i don't wink

01:52:24.260 at that like it's a real thing ptsd is a real medical reality um it's not your fault comma but

01:52:33.000 sadly and this is the tyrian of it's now your responsibility so now what are you going to do

01:52:37.760 how do you choose to step in these directions and insofar as you know there's a range of

01:52:43.240 treatments i'm not an expert on that so i'm not going to speak to that but as far as like

01:52:46.100 hallucinogens and you say hiawaska or dmt or where all of a sudden you are meeting figures

01:52:51.680 in the spiritual realm.

01:52:53.000 This is where I have-

01:52:54.820 That's what I'm specifically talking about.

01:52:56.060 Okay, this is where I have strong opinions.

01:52:57.740 And my strong opinion is that

01:53:00.400 much like I talked about earlier,

01:53:02.540 we live on a side of a curtain.

01:53:08.420 And there are thin places,

01:53:10.720 as we talk about when I minister to someone

01:53:13.140 by their bedside,

01:53:14.100 it's a thin place.

01:53:15.420 You can almost feel that they're crossing over.

01:53:19.440 and that's what the celtics would call a thin place it's like yeah the heaven and earth or

01:53:23.780 the divine or the supernatural the unseen realm and the seen realm are beginning to touch right

01:53:28.480 and that's real yeah and what jesus says in john 10 he says that you know there there is that inside

01:53:35.940 and there is that but i'm the gate and if you want to go into this that you want to go through

01:53:41.860 the unseen realm where it produces this life and god there's a way to do this and it's through me

01:53:47.080 I'm the gate. And if you try to climb over the walls and you try to get in any other way,

01:53:53.280 you're doing that, guess what? You're a robber and you're a thief. And you're trying to gain

01:53:57.400 the things of God without God. And you're trying to gain access to the divine and the unseen and

01:54:04.200 all the, you want the cookies in the cookie jar, but you don't, but you're not going through the

01:54:08.700 gate. And what I would say is you read stories about DMT and you read people, and I've never

01:54:16.800 done it. But I know people that have dabbled in that quite a bit. And I know that when you hear

01:54:24.240 encounters that I've crossed over and I've had this encounter with all these beings and there

01:54:30.020 was this, a purple woman that I talked to and I developed this relationship. It was like I was

01:54:34.460 there for years, but I was almost there for 10 minutes. And then somebody else goes and has the

01:54:38.780 same trip and goes in and he comes back and says, hey, I met a purple woman who knew your name and

01:54:43.940 was asking about you which that's documented reality i know people that many people right

01:54:49.540 so what i'm telling you is there this isn't just some psychiatric mind-bending exercise you're

01:54:55.320 actually crossing you're you're crawling you're not going through the gate you're crawling

01:54:59.300 crawling over the fence but in your real pad into a real into a real place that is demonic

01:55:05.520 and those are you are you are encountering uh i think it's a demonic experience and i think it's

01:55:12.500 a dangerous one because what's so dangerous about it and this is true it's not your imagination

01:55:16.580 that's what you're saying it's not your imagination so when jesus so you read in you know the book of

01:55:19.580 deuteronomy or another place it was says you don't practice necromancy don't do magic don't get

01:55:24.680 involved in you know tarot cards or all that kind of stuff what he's not saying is there's no power

01:55:29.820 there what he's saying is actually the reason it's a warning is there's a lot of there's a lot

01:55:34.900 going on over there and it's but it's really dangerous and it's not of god it's not of jesus

01:55:39.700 and it's dangerous and it will and what's so dangerous about it is that it the people that

01:55:44.860 encounter this generally speaking and people this isn't i know for as many people there are

01:55:49.500 different experiences but when people step into those places and they have these encounters

01:55:54.380 they have these this profound sense of enlightenment they feel special they feel

01:56:01.240 seen they feel good they feel oh and it's just like it's like a taste they get it's like the

01:56:06.980 crack dealer, giving the taste on the playground. And then the kid just gets deeper and deeper.

01:56:12.280 And what they think is giving them life is really hollowing them out from the inside.

01:56:16.940 And I think what's happening in those experiences is the deeper you go

01:56:21.000 and you will one day wake up and discover that you have been dabbling in a demonic realm

01:56:32.160 that promised you life,

01:56:35.580 but is an insight and progression and enlightenment,

01:56:39.280 but it has really been hollowing you out from the inside,

01:56:42.420 taking you away from the source of light,

01:56:44.800 taking you away from the source of forgiveness,

01:56:46.960 of redemption that is only in Jesus

01:56:48.640 and distorting the image in which you were created.

01:56:55.060 And I think it's a dangerous place.

01:56:56.300 And that scares me for people that do that.

01:57:00.200 now where people especially those like i have a lot of compassion for people like ivergain or

01:57:05.480 people that are in ptsd and again if there's a medical shallow end of that pool that has some

01:57:10.720 that's not you know running through the you know the unseen realm and so i mean i you know i don't

01:57:17.400 know but if there's but people that do that recreation they go on they're on the some

01:57:21.240 spiritual safari to go into that place i'm like man i would just i would i would caution you

01:57:26.680 against that there that's one place you don't need to go to know you don't want to be there

01:57:31.580 amen the reverend billy servany a phrase i never get tired of using

01:57:37.920 the one that still feels ironic god bless you god bless you man i love you good to see you

The Tucker Carlson Show - August 17, 2026

Rev. Billy Cerveny： Satan’s Attacks, Transgenderism, Seeing the Supernatural &Hearing God’s Voice

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