November 27, 2023 • 40 mins
Granger Smith Podcast Episode 216: Join me as I discuss this topic and more on this week's podcast!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Bible does not say that drinking is a bad thing.
What's up, everybody, Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you
for being here with me. I am going through these
(00:20):
questions and I'm just I'm continually blown away by how
many people reach out to ask a question for this podcast,
and it's encouraging for me the wide variety of questions
that we get, and that allows me to pivot around.
As you can see on this table if you're watching,
(00:42):
I don't have any notes, I don't have any books.
I'm just walking through whatever comes to my mind, which
sometimes means that I might look back on some of
these episodes a year down the road, several months down
the road and go I would have answered that differently. Now,
if I had thought about it a little bit more,
I might have answered it differently. So take that with
(01:04):
a grain of salt. As I answered these questions, which
you could email me, by the way, podcast at grangersmith
dot com. Podcast at grangersmith dot com. That's the email,
And as you email me, just keep in mind that
you're asking me as if you're just asking a friend. Hey,
I got a question for you. Could you could you
(01:26):
give me some advice? Can you tell me what you
would do in this situation. Maybe in all those instances
we're going to talk about it. Like you and I
are just sitting in the cab of a truck, or
sitting around the campfire or hanging out on a porch
swing and it's like, hey, Granger, I got something going on.
Let me let me run it by you. And I'm
going to answer top of my head first thing that
(01:47):
comes to mind, walk it through as I would on
the fly with a friend. That's the basis of this podcast.
The first question I have says this, It's from Jamie
and it's a hello, Granger. If I may start up
by saying, how your YouTube videos and podcasts have been
such a blessing in my life. I've watched you evolve
and grow in this new season of life, and all
(02:08):
I could say is, Wow, look what the Lord has done.
Amen to that. In an episode of The Smiths, I
watched you prepare for a message and you chose not
to lead the Sinner's prayer. You said it's not biblical.
I think I understand your belief regarding this, but would
you mind elaborating on this. I would love to hear
your biblical perspective. Thank you, Jamie Wow. Was not expecting
(02:32):
that first question. So what she's talking about is, there
was an episode of The Smiths and that's our YouTube channel,
that's our family of log and sometimes a lot of
times it's completely off the cuff, and I'm going to
take you on the adventures that my family go on.
And in this particular adventure, I was on a televangelist
(02:52):
show in Dallas. It's like the heart of televangelism, and
the guy says, and I actually had the camera sitting
on the table recording the whole converse, and he caught
me off guard by saying, after you finish your your
conversation with us, we're just going to interview you. After
we finished the conversation, I'd like you to lead everyone
in the Sinner's prayer. And I said, no, sir, I
(03:14):
don't want to do that, and he and this has
happened a couple of times to me where the person
will then say, oh, it's not that big a deal.
We could tell you what to say, and I'm like,
I know what you want me to say. It's not
that it's not a lack of me knowing what you
want me to say. Uh. And then this one guy
(03:34):
followed up by saying, well, brother, let me help increase
your faith. And it's like, Okay, that's not that either.
It's not me not knowing what to say. I know,
you know, I've heard Joel Olstein say it a thousand times.
And it's also not a lack of faith. It's not
like I need more faith or confidence or boldness to
(03:56):
be able to step out and say it's not It's
not either one of those. The reason I hesitate with
what we have called, now in modern evangelism, in the
last hundred years, what we have labeled as the Sinner's prayer,
which says something along the lines of repeat after me,
(04:16):
Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I am
a sinner. I want you as my lord and savior.
I want you as my lord Savior. I want to
turn to you and give you my give you my everything.
I'm want to turn to you and do you my everything.
Come into my life and take my take my soul,
take my life as yours taken what comes in Jesus name. Amen.
(04:37):
And then, like some people will say, if you just
repeated that prayer with me, then you are now a Christian,
you are reborn and so welcome to the family. And
so it's it's fascinating that we have gotten away with
this in modern evangelism in a way that we have
(04:59):
now created. Did this turnkey system where you just say this,
you set you repeat these words, these magical words like
genie in a bottle, and then suddenly you are granted
access to the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven because
you literally repeated a prayer which is not in the Bible.
(05:20):
There is not a time in the Bible or anybody
a prophet or an apostle or Jesus or a disciple
or an apprentice of an apostle. There is not a
time when someone says, repeat after me, say this, and
you'll be saved. That doesn't happen. And so it's scary
to me to put that kind of responsibility on me.
(05:41):
So why why why, Granger? Why does it matter? Like,
why do you if it's not in the Bible, but
it's still something that is helpful? Possibly, why would you
be against this? Granger? Maybe your question is because I
don't want to be responsible. Is someone who who loves
the Lord and loves the lost and wants to speak
to those who were lost, and desperately wants people to
(06:04):
hear the gospel, and desperately wants people to realize their
own depravity and to be saved. Is someone who desperately
wants that and also knows that it's the Lord that
does it. It is the Lord that opens their hearts.
In fact, I'm preparing for a message right now. And
if you remember Lydia from Acts sixteen, when Paul and
Silas and Timothy and Luke go into Philippi and they
(06:28):
go to this they go next to this river. It's
just top of mind because I'm about to preach this.
They go to the next to this river, and it
says they they preached the gospel to the women there
at the riverside where they went to pray, and one
heard them, and the Lord opened her ears. To what
Paul was saying, the Lord did it. The Lord turned her,
(06:48):
The Lord opened her ears, the Lord opened her heart.
Salvation belongs to the Lord, the Bible says. So I
don't want to manipulate that the Lord's power in salvation
and snipulate it and say you are congratulations, welcome to
the family, You're saved. Here's the keys of the Kingdom
of Heaven, have fun, enjoy yourself. I hear there's good
bass fishing here. I don't want to do that and
(07:10):
then give them a false sense of assurance so that
then they could just go live their lives and go. Yeah,
I checked the box. I remember one time with Granger,
I checked the box. He asked me to repeat a prayer,
and I repeated it. So I'm good on the religious thing.
What else does life have to offer? Because I got that?
What else could I do? That is scary to me?
(07:31):
And I don't want that responsibility. So Jesus, in his
great commission, told the disciples to go forth to all
nations preaching the gospel, teaching them to obey everything that
he said, making disciples, which really means walking through life
with them. So it's not just one prayer done, Maam,
(07:52):
we're good. It's a walk. It's a lifelong walk to
make disciples, to show them, to reveal to them the Gospel.
And that's that's why I don't. I don't. That's why
I don't agree with the sinner's prayer. I don't. I
don't judge or look down on people that do it.
I don't. I don't I just don't want to be
(08:15):
the one responsible going, yeah, I gave that person a
false sense of assurance. So instead, I want to preach
the gospel and let the word, the gospel itself, do
its work through people through hearing, and then I want
to walk through that. I want to say, let me
just let me walk through life with you. Let me
continue to answer questions like on this podcast. Let's continue
(08:37):
this journey together so that I could learn with you.
We could learn together as we walk down this road.
And that's why I don't look down on people that
ask for people to repeat the sinner's prayer. But I
just don't want to do it. Look look at it
this way. If someone if a man committed adultry on
(08:59):
his wife and you came to him and said, look,
we could make this right with your wife. Follow me,
we'll go. We're gonna go talk to her. And you
go to her house and she answers the door and
you say, hey, we're here to tell you something. Ma'am.
Repeat after me, wife, wife, I am I have messed up.
(09:25):
I have messed up. I am so sorry that I
have done this to you. I'm so sorry I've done
this to you. Forgive me for what I've done, and
come into my life as my wife, forgive me for
what I've done, come to my life. Okay, great, congratulations,
you guys are good. You see that. That's that's what
it feels like to me to say the sinner's prayer
(09:46):
to Jesus. It's like, no, that wasn't that. There was
no heart to that. There could be Okay, let me
say that to let me let me just drag this
question out a little bit longer. There could be hard
to and people could genuinely be saved through that at
an alter, at some service that someone might have done this.
(10:08):
In fact, I know people listening were saved through something
like that, so absolutely it could happen. It could, but
I don't want to be responsible for those that it
tricked them into thinking that it was and it wasn't,
you know what I mean. For instance, if I take
the guy to the house, so to the guy to
the wife's house and we say it, he could mean
it and she could take him back, but it also
(10:30):
just as likely could be not sincere at all and
she doesn't take him back and he doesn't even mean it.
That's why it's a good question. I appreciate you asking,
and I'm sorry that I drug it out just a
little bit. This podcast is brought to you by Better Help.
You know, Amber and I, when going through a lot
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(10:55):
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(11:59):
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(12:22):
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All right, next question here email to podcast at grangersmith
dot com. Says, Hey granger, what are your thoughts on
alcohol and the culture of getting tipsy drunk being a
(13:04):
good thing? Also, I have friends that enjoy casual drinking
and I can't help but getting internally upset or uncomfortable
with it. Any thoughts or advice would be great. Thank you.
This comes from John, twenty years old from Illinois. Yeah, man,
thanks thanks for the email. John. So, first of all,
underage drinking twenty and below is illegal in most places
(13:29):
in Illinois at least, so there's that we could start
with that, but that's not what you were asking. And
that's surely not to say that I didn't do it
when I was twenty sure, Okay, so let's get that
out of the way. What are your thoughts on alcohol
and the culture of getting tipsy drunk being a good thing?
(13:51):
That's an interesting question that the way that you worded it,
What are your thoughts on getting drunk as being a
good thing? The Bible says that's not a good thing, right,
so we'll just we can go right to it there.
The Bible does not say that drinking is a bad thing.
(14:11):
It says that getting drunk is getting tipsy is numbing
yourself is by any means, not just alcohol. Could we
could use this with anything, any substance at all, and
including caffeine if you're using it in that way, if
you're using caffeine in a way to forget or to
(14:34):
numb a feeling, or to dull your senses in a way.
I'm just using that as an extreme example. But anything
used in that kind of addictive manner to to habitually
forget or numb, or dull or or soften the realities
of the world is a sin. That we could go
(15:00):
deep into that, but we probably shouldn't. I think that's
pretty clear. I think it's clear if you followed me
in my life. A lot of you have followed me
for many years, it's clear that it took me a
long time to see that. But not in a legalistic way,
not an moralistic way, like, hey, you do that, you're
(15:21):
going to hell. It's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying, when you become a Christian, when you have
new eyes to see, you should start hating things that
God hates. Does that make sense? So instead of just
saying alcohol is bad, forget it, You're going to hell
of you. I'm not saying that. I'm saying a good fruit,
(15:44):
a good outcropping overflow of an evidence of a saving
faith should be that you start to see things that
the Bible says is defeating to you, is corrupting to you.
You should start seeing those things more and more, maybe gradually,
sometimes all at once, sometimes you wake up all at once,
(16:04):
but you start. You should start seeing them as things
that you want to rid yourself from. And you don't
necessarily because none of us are perfect, so you don't
necessarily rid all of it at once. But you the
desire that I believe is God breathed into you starts
begins to cultivate, a rejection of things that the Bible hates. You. Go, man,
(16:31):
I just I used to like drinking. I used to
hang out with my buddies, And this is a this
is real for me. I used to hang out, used
to used to enjoy it. And slowly, as I became sanctified,
which that's what that word means, we start to be
made new. We start to be made clean and renewed
in the image of Christ, our King, our creator. Once
(16:53):
we're a slave to sin, and then we become a
slave to Christ. And so as we once we're like sin,
we looked like sin, we smelled like sin, we tasted
like sin, and then we were reborn from Christ through Christ.
By Christ, through the Spirit, we become more like Him.
We start looking and smelling and tasting more like Him.
(17:16):
And as that happens, that process that's shedding away, it's
called sanctification, and we start to look at the old self,
the old slave that we were to sin, and we
go I don't like the taste of that anymore, metaphorically
or physically. With alcohol, I don't like the taste anymore.
Not that it's bad to have a drink, a glass
(17:38):
of wine, a mixed drink with your wife on her birthday,
things like that, not that that's wrong, but it is
wrong to get drunk. And so when you start having
two or three or four more, you start getting close
to this danger zone. Why risk it? Because I'm in
seminary right now and Amber is as well, have any
(18:00):
So there's that, And if I continue on this path,
it's been over a year now since I've had just
even a drop of alcohol. Once again, not legalistic, not moralistic.
I'm not pushing any kind of moralism on anybody. I'm
just saying that's where I am, that's where I stand,
(18:21):
and you've probably have noticed that over the course of
years as my conversion to Christianity has been very public.
Let me get to the second part of your question here.
I have friends that enjoy casual drinking and I can't
help getting internally upset or uncomfortable with it. Stop that.
Stop that. That's when you're getting legalistic and you're pushing
(18:44):
moralism on them. If you are truly reborn, if you
are a Christian, if you are a believer, if you
are saved by the blood of Christ, then that's you.
You are now what the Bible would metaphorically call a sheep,
and if you're not, you're metaphorically called a goat. So
don't try to tell goats how to be a sheep.
(19:08):
Don't force sheepism on a goat because it doesn't make
sense to them. It just comes across as judgy, right,
So don't do that. Instead, we tell him the Gospel.
We tell him, we tell him how we were saved,
We tell him what God did for us, what we
tell him the beauty of the Gospel. We tell him
that we were covered, that our that our guilt is covered,
(19:29):
our our shame, our sin is forgotten by God, remembered
no more. But not because of anything we did, not
because we stopped drinking alcohol, but because what He did
for us. And in gratitude for that kind of that
kind of saving grace, that saving faith that is gifted
to us from gratitude, we then look back and go,
(19:50):
I am so thankful for what he did. I don't
want to touch that alcohol. I don't want to I
don't want to do that. I used to do it,
I don't want to do it anymore. So you see,
there's a difference between that what I just said, I
keep hitting this microphone what I just said, and then
a difference between telling your friends, Hey, y'all shouldn't be
drinking that alcohol. Many y'all shouldn't be getting drunk. The
Bible says, don't get drunk. Play very safe with that.
(20:15):
Don't try to tell goats how to be sheep. Instead,
tell the goats about God, tell them about the Gospel,
tell them what Jesus did on the cross, and let
him drink while you're doing it. Let them drink while
you're doing it. Now, if they're saved, if they are
believers and they're getting drunk and they're in your church.
Now you have a right at this point to say, brothers, brothers, listen,
(20:41):
you're in sin. Right now, bring other people from the
church with you. Brothers, you're in sin. Let us help you,
let us encourage you, let us walk you out of this. Right.
Hopefully I painted that picture in a way that sounds
biblical and sounds not humanly universally. Judgee right, Thanks for
(21:05):
the question, John. Next question here is from Lindsey, and
she says, Hey, Graandar. My name is Lindsay from Oklahoma City.
Love listening to your podcast every week and keeping up
with the Smiths on YouTube. I'm a follower of Jesus
and truly believe he is our sole provider and everything
happens within our lives according to his plan. I'm curious
what your thoughts are on manifestation. I feel like a
(21:29):
common idea I hear on other podcasts and social media
recently is that the idea of manifesting it into existence.
If you want something bad enough, or desire something to
happen in your life, all you have to do is
manifest it or speak it into existence. This has been
on my mind recently, and I would love to know
your thoughts on this idea. Do you believe it's possible
to manifest something into existence? Thank you for reading this,
(21:50):
look forward to hearing your response. Lindsay, Hey Lindsay, thanks
for the great question. I appreciate you and I too,
hear a lot about this and I absolutely believe in
speaking something into existence. I absolutely believe in manifesting one
hundred percent because Genesis one says it happens. God spoke
it into existence. He spoke his word, and he spoke
(22:14):
creation from nothing x neilio is what it's in Latin.
X neilio means it came from nothing. He created from
nothing with his word. He spoke and it happened. There
was there was chaos, then there was order. There was nothing,
then there was something. He spoke it. He manifested it
(22:37):
just from a word. It's amazing. Can we do it? No,
we cannot do that. No, that's a joke, Absolutely not.
There is a that is a joke. To think that
anyone says I want to manifest it into existence like
it it didn't happen, and then you speak it and
it does is horrible philosophy. And and I think you
(23:01):
could just better. It's better just to sum up that
idea with work, hard work, ethic, work for it. Go
get it. Don't don't say you're gonna manifest it. You're
gonna like you're like you're a little god, lowercase G.
You're just gonna create something by speaking into existence. No,
you're gonna you're gonna look at a You're gonna look
(23:23):
at a piece of property that you want little farm
and you go, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna work. I'm
gonna work for this piece of property and I'm gonna
build a farmhouse on this property. Not because I'm speaking
it into existence or manifesting it. But I'm gonna start
slowly saving some money. I'm gonna work a second job,
i might pick up a third job. I'm gonna make
(23:44):
some smart investments. I'm gonna stay smart with my funding.
I'm gonna sell that expensive pickup truck and get a
cheaper one, and I'm gonna slowly save and slowly put away,
and then when the time comes, I'll be able to
buy that property. And then i'm gonna start talking to
some builders and we're gonna create a budget, and I'm
gonna work hard, and then we're gonna start building a house.
(24:06):
Not because I'm manifesting or speaking into existence, but because
I'm made a plan. And I talked to an advisor
and a banker and a CPA, and I covered it
all in prayer, and I said, Lord, if this is
your will for me to be on this property and
build a home here, give me the desire for that.
Open the doors that we need to walk through, and
(24:26):
close the ones that we don't. Right, So you put
all the trust in him and then you work your
butt off, and that's how you get it, or that's
how you don't get it. Either way, it's in the
Lord's hands. We prepare the horse for battle, but victory
belongs to the Lord. The Bible says, trust in Him
and work hard and forget about manifesting all right. Next
(24:48):
question is from anonymous. It says, Hey, Grangeer. First off,
I just wanted to say I enjoy listening to your podcast,
as you've answered some questions I've always wondered about. I
feel closer to the Lord now because of it. Praise
God for that. My question involves raising my kids. I
have friends who don't allow their kids to watch Disney
movies such as Princess Ones because they involve witches and magic. I, however,
(25:10):
let my kids watch them, but still teach them that
magic is not real or that witches are real, and
I tell them that God doesn't like those things. So
to me, I feel like my friends are my friends
not letting them watch those movies, are sheltering their children
from learning what is right and wrong. It's just a
little kid's movie. You could teach them that it's okay
(25:31):
to watch it, but remember that it's not real life.
I get annoyed when I see people letting their kids
wear the dress up clothes for the movie, yet can't
watch the movie itself. Am I wrong in feeling this way? Okay?
Thanks Anonymous, Thanks for the email. Brother, Yeah, this is
It's kind of kind of okay that you're worried. It's
(25:57):
bothering you that other others and sisters in Christ are
being are raising their kids in a certain way apart
from you, and you have to understand, and I don't
want to go too deep into this, but you have
to understand that everyone is going to raise their kids
(26:21):
the way that they feel is right, the way they're convicted,
but that also shouldn't let it bother you. So, for instance,
take the question about alcohol a few questions ago on
this podcast. That's like saying, Look, I've got a brother
from church and he doesn't drink at all, alcohol at all,
(26:42):
and I like to have a glass of wine on
the porch swing with my wife on Friday nights, and
he doesn't. And I'm sick and tired of him living
this life of not drinking and now can acting like
he's better than me. Right, that's kind of what you're
saying about this. Hey, I'm sick and tired of these
(27:04):
families not allowing them to watch Disney movies like they're
all up, and he taking the moral high ground and
looking down on me down here because I let my
kids watch princess movies and I tell them that magic
is not real and witches are not real and God
doesn't like those things. Brother, if that's what you want
(27:26):
to do, that's how you want to raise your kids,
then go with it. But don't worry about what the
guy down the street's doing. He's raising his kids the
best way he knows. How. You're raising your kids, Lord Willen,
the best way you know how. I don't see a
problem either way. I don't know on this podcast. If
you want me to say I agree with them Disney
(27:47):
is bad, or I agree with you forget all those
people Disney's good. I'm not going to take either one
of those positions. I'm just gonna say, let people be
convicted on their in their own sanctification that word we
talked about earlier. Let people be convicted on their own
and live a life that makes Jesus look fantastic. That's
(28:08):
our purpose. Live a life glorifying God, meaning live a
life that makes Jesus look as magnificent as he is.
And the result of doing that. One of the results,
I should say, not the result. One of the outcroppings
of that is you feel joy, You don't worry, you're
(28:29):
not anxious about how your neighbor is raising a kid.
Not that you are, but I want to kind of
put that barrier up before it gets to that point,
because those kind of things could start kind of kind
of disintegrating the friendship that you might have built up. Okay,
(28:51):
next question comes from Stephanie, and she says, I have
a question about the new Heaven and New Earth. My
understanding that is, once Jesus returns, we will be welcome
into our heavenly home to live with our Father. I'm
assuming at that point we will be made perfect without
any evil desires, jealousy, etc. But can we be assured
(29:11):
that there will never be another fallen angel that turns
out to be evil like Satan did? Was the first
heaven imperfect to allow such a being to come into existence?
Where in the Bible does it assure us that this
will never happen again? Thanks for all you do, Stephanie. Stephanie,
good question. Thank you for it. And I don't have
(29:31):
any notes in front of me or a Bible in
front of me for stuff like this, but I could
still answer the question without that. What we have to
understand is that God's plan did not fail. Let's start there.
God's plan when he breathed and spoke existence right, spoke
(29:53):
the universe into existence, the heavens and the earth in
Genesis one. There was not a problem with that. There
was not a Oh No, I accidentally made it imperfect,
and then Satan and his hooligans wrecked it and went
down there to the garden and then screwed up Adam
and even oh Man. So hopefully the next one I
(30:16):
build the new one will be perfect and won't have
that problem. That's an incorrect idea of who God is.
What we know is revealed in the Bible, and I
don't have to have it in front of me to
give you specific examples. I could tell you through sixty
six books, through the whole Council of God, that what's
revealed to us is He is providential, he is sovereign,
(30:37):
he is all planning, and from the beginning of time,
this was part of the plan. Even the fall, Jesus
going to the cross as a substitute for sin, that
was part of a plan. So the fall leading up
to the sacrifice on the cross at Calvin by the
(31:01):
sacrificial lamb, the son of God, Jesus, the fall and
everything leading to that was all part of the plan,
and redemption was all part of the solution to the
original plan and the redemption that Jesus accomplished for us.
(31:21):
When he says it is finished Teedleste, it is finished.
When he says that, it means done, accomplished. Plan was made,
it was carried out, and it was finished accomplished. There
will not be another fall. There will not be any
kind of fallen angel or corruption ever again. In the
(31:44):
new heavens, the new Earth, all of that is finished.
So take it as what Jesus says from the cross,
it is finished. Take that as your assurance that what
has happened before that, and the fallen angels and all
this stuff you're talking about was supposed to be. Think
about that. Dwell on that, but not too long, and
(32:06):
then go back to the Gospel and look at what
that blood from Jesus accomplished for you in your belief
for him, so that he could reconcile you a sinner,
a rebel, just like the fallen angels, reconciled back to himself,
so you could be with God, the creator, the one
that breathed everything, everything into existence. Dwell on that. Think
(32:30):
about that. That'll fill you with so much excitement and
so much joy and so much gratitude as you'll start
thinking about, Oh, I wonder if God's gonna let us
down in heaven and angels might fall again. Don't worry
about that. It's a good question, though, please don't think
of don't think of my answer as being is making
(32:52):
yours sound like a not a good question. Next one's
anonymous and says, I am twenty years old and I
live in Canada, and in the next week I will
be asking my girlfriend of almost two years to marry me.
This is a huge step and I'm so excited, But
I have a problem. Ever since I've made the official
decision to ask her, I seem to notice other women
around me more like I see a random girl and
(33:14):
instantly I'm attracted to the way she looks. I try
to keep reminding myself that the girl I have is
so much more than I even deserve, but that doesn't
get rid of the thoughts. There's nothing wrong in my
current relationship that should make me want something different. My
girlfriend is beautiful and God honoring. Do you think this
is temptations from Satan to sidetrack our goal of having
(33:37):
a biblical covenantal marriage? And do you have any suggestions
on what to do? Is prayer the way out? Just
looking for your thoughts. Thanks, that's so interesting, Anonymous. It's
a good question, brother. I appreciate you asking, and I'm
not laughing at you. I'm joining you in all of it,
(34:00):
listing going yep, that sounds that sounds right on track.
First of all, you say, do you think this temptation
is from Satan to sidetrack our goal of having a
biblical covenantal marriage. Well, I'll say absolutely, that's not that's
not a far off assumption at all. Because Satan hates marriage.
(34:22):
He hates the love of a man and a woman
in a in a biblical marriage. He hates that. So
of course he's gonna do everything he can to sidetrack it,
to destroy it. I think there's also so there is that,
and I think through that you're also just feeling a
bit of human panic that now you're gonna all of
(34:43):
a sudden be with one woman the rest of your life,
and you it is now a problem for you to
be attracted to others in that kind of way, because
you're gonna have a wondering eye and there is no
way out of it forever. So I think there's just
a natural feeling you're going through. And if you asked
her to marry you, I believe a couple of things. One,
(35:07):
I believe this is a natural feeling that you're now
looking at other girls and going, oh, she's cute. Look,
It's kind of like when you go buy a truck
at a dealership and hypothetically you drive off of the lot,
and as soon as you sign that contract at the
dealership to drive off with that truck, there is a
(35:29):
buyer's remorse that comes along with it, and part of
the buyer's remorse is, oh, man, I'm stuck with this truck.
And don't get me wrong, I love this truck and
it drives great, and I worked hard to earn money
for this truck, and this is the truck I researched
over and over, and this is the one I wanted,
but it's the only one I get. And you look around,
(35:52):
you go as you're driving out of the dealership, and
you see other trucks, and then you go to the
first stop light, and right right across from you and
the other stop another truck pulls up. It's a different color.
The one you're driving's blue, and you see a red one.
And you haven't quite seen that red color. In fact,
in all of your research and everything you did to
buy that truck, you hadn't really thought about red like
(36:13):
that because that dealership didn't have red ones. It only
had blue and gray, silver and black and white. But
you haven't quite seen red. And there's a red one.
And then your heart starts beating and you go, Man,
did I do that? It make a wrong decision? It
doesn't matter. I'm stuck. I already signed the paper. The
contract is done. I have this blue truck and that
red truck is beautiful, and I'll never get it. Okay.
(36:36):
So that's all analogies break down eventually. So that's not
a great analogy, but it's a little bit of the
human feeling that you have when you get engaged. So
I'm qualifying that. I'm saying, Okay, your feeling is normal.
But then I'm gonna say this. Here's the second thing.
I'm gonna say, kill it. You have, through the Gospel
(36:57):
as a Christian, a god and able ability to kill it,
to kill sin, to destroy it, to pull it out
from its root and throw it away into the fire.
You have that ability. Don't deny the idea that the
Bible tells you. You have the ability to pluck that
sin out from the root and throw it out before
it grows any further. And here's my assurance to you
(37:21):
that as you do pluck that sin out and you
realize that it's natural, there's a human tendency, there's nothing
wrong with you besides your sinner. Like we all are,
but there's nothing different about you. So you pluck the
root out that the weed, and you throw it away
from the root, and you throw it in the fire,
and you continue to move in. My assurance to you
is that as you walk down the road with your
(37:43):
new wife, with your blue truck, as you continue down
this road, and then she has your first child, Lord willing,
and you go through some problems and you make your
way out on the other side. And then Lord Willing,
yet you have another child, and then you work through
some other problems. Maybe somebody in the family gets sick,
(38:06):
maybe your dad, And then you work through that side
by side, way through wife, and you come out on
the other side, and you continue every time. You walk
through these trials, and you walk through these joyful moments,
and you build these memories and you have you have
Christmas mornings together, and you you stand side by side
at funerals, and you hold hands at someone else's wedding,
(38:26):
and you remember your own as that happens, and you
walk through life like this, your love grows and grows
and grows, and in a way that a bond that
grows so much in a way that you don't even
think about that red truck anymore. It's like that's somebody
else's truck, and they might enjoy that truck, But I
have gone through the fire with this blue one, right
(38:50):
That's what happens. That's my assurance to you is that
the love you have right now is great, but it
will grow and deepen and thicken and strengthen through life
as you walk it together with her. So pluck it
at the route, get rid of it. Know that it's normal,
and also know that you have an assurance that as
you walk with her, it's going to be it's going
to be better and better and better. I appreciate the question, ch'all,
(39:15):
and this has been a fun adventure because you email
me podcast at grangersmith dot com at Man my producer
who also produces After Midnight with granger Smith, my radio show.
He sources these questions and throws them into a file
so I do not see them as I sit here
and read these. This is the first time that I've
seen any of these questions today. Because I want you
(39:37):
to get I want you to hear and feel and
see and listen to my instant reaction to the question
the same as you as you're taking it in for
the very first time as well. So that's what this
podcast is. I hope you enjoy it. We have new
things that we're going to kind of spin into this
into the future, so hang with us and share it
with a friend if you can. I love you, guys,
(39:57):
and thanks for being here. See you next Monday. E
thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate
all of you guys. You could help me out by
rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe
to this channel, hit that little like button and notification
spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video.
YII
The Bible does not say that drinking is a bad thing.
What's up, everybody, Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you
for being here with me. I am going through these
(00:20):
questions and I'm just I'm continually blown away by how
many people reach out to ask a question for this podcast,
and it's encouraging for me the wide variety of questions
that we get, and that allows me to pivot around.
As you can see on this table if you're watching,
(00:42):
I don't have any notes, I don't have any books.
I'm just walking through whatever comes to my mind, which
sometimes means that I might look back on some of
these episodes a year down the road, several months down
the road and go I would have answered that differently. Now,
if I had thought about it a little bit more,
I might have answered it differently. So take that with
(01:04):
a grain of salt. As I answered these questions, which
you could email me, by the way, podcast at grangersmith
dot com. Podcast at grangersmith dot com. That's the email,
And as you email me, just keep in mind that
you're asking me as if you're just asking a friend. Hey,
I got a question for you. Could you could you
(01:26):
give me some advice? Can you tell me what you
would do in this situation. Maybe in all those instances
we're going to talk about it. Like you and I
are just sitting in the cab of a truck, or
sitting around the campfire or hanging out on a porch
swing and it's like, hey, Granger, I got something going on.
Let me let me run it by you. And I'm
going to answer top of my head first thing that
(01:47):
comes to mind, walk it through as I would on
the fly with a friend. That's the basis of this podcast.
The first question I have says this, It's from Jamie
and it's a hello, Granger. If I may start up
by saying, how your YouTube videos and podcasts have been
such a blessing in my life. I've watched you evolve
and grow in this new season of life, and all
(02:08):
I could say is, Wow, look what the Lord has done.
Amen to that. In an episode of The Smiths, I
watched you prepare for a message and you chose not
to lead the Sinner's prayer. You said it's not biblical.
I think I understand your belief regarding this, but would
you mind elaborating on this. I would love to hear
your biblical perspective. Thank you, Jamie Wow. Was not expecting
(02:32):
that first question. So what she's talking about is, there
was an episode of The Smiths and that's our YouTube channel,
that's our family of log and sometimes a lot of
times it's completely off the cuff, and I'm going to
take you on the adventures that my family go on.
And in this particular adventure, I was on a televangelist
(02:52):
show in Dallas. It's like the heart of televangelism, and
the guy says, and I actually had the camera sitting
on the table recording the whole converse, and he caught
me off guard by saying, after you finish your your
conversation with us, we're just going to interview you. After
we finished the conversation, I'd like you to lead everyone
in the Sinner's prayer. And I said, no, sir, I
(03:14):
don't want to do that, and he and this has
happened a couple of times to me where the person
will then say, oh, it's not that big a deal.
We could tell you what to say, and I'm like,
I know what you want me to say. It's not
that it's not a lack of me knowing what you
want me to say. Uh. And then this one guy
(03:34):
followed up by saying, well, brother, let me help increase
your faith. And it's like, Okay, that's not that either.
It's not me not knowing what to say. I know,
you know, I've heard Joel Olstein say it a thousand times.
And it's also not a lack of faith. It's not
like I need more faith or confidence or boldness to
(03:56):
be able to step out and say it's not It's
not either one of those. The reason I hesitate with
what we have called, now in modern evangelism, in the
last hundred years, what we have labeled as the Sinner's prayer,
which says something along the lines of repeat after me,
(04:16):
Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I am
a sinner. I want you as my lord and savior.
I want you as my lord Savior. I want to
turn to you and give you my give you my everything.
I'm want to turn to you and do you my everything.
Come into my life and take my take my soul,
take my life as yours taken what comes in Jesus name. Amen.
(04:37):
And then, like some people will say, if you just
repeated that prayer with me, then you are now a Christian,
you are reborn and so welcome to the family. And
so it's it's fascinating that we have gotten away with
this in modern evangelism in a way that we have
(04:59):
now created. Did this turnkey system where you just say this,
you set you repeat these words, these magical words like
genie in a bottle, and then suddenly you are granted
access to the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven because
you literally repeated a prayer which is not in the Bible.
(05:20):
There is not a time in the Bible or anybody
a prophet or an apostle or Jesus or a disciple
or an apprentice of an apostle. There is not a
time when someone says, repeat after me, say this, and
you'll be saved. That doesn't happen. And so it's scary
to me to put that kind of responsibility on me.
(05:41):
So why why why, Granger? Why does it matter? Like,
why do you if it's not in the Bible, but
it's still something that is helpful? Possibly, why would you
be against this? Granger? Maybe your question is because I
don't want to be responsible. Is someone who who loves
the Lord and loves the lost and wants to speak
to those who were lost, and desperately wants people to
(06:04):
hear the gospel, and desperately wants people to realize their
own depravity and to be saved. Is someone who desperately
wants that and also knows that it's the Lord that
does it. It is the Lord that opens their hearts.
In fact, I'm preparing for a message right now. And
if you remember Lydia from Acts sixteen, when Paul and
Silas and Timothy and Luke go into Philippi and they
(06:28):
go to this they go next to this river. It's
just top of mind because I'm about to preach this.
They go to the next to this river, and it
says they they preached the gospel to the women there
at the riverside where they went to pray, and one
heard them, and the Lord opened her ears. To what
Paul was saying, the Lord did it. The Lord turned her,
(06:48):
The Lord opened her ears, the Lord opened her heart.
Salvation belongs to the Lord, the Bible says. So I
don't want to manipulate that the Lord's power in salvation
and snipulate it and say you are congratulations, welcome to
the family, You're saved. Here's the keys of the Kingdom
of Heaven, have fun, enjoy yourself. I hear there's good
bass fishing here. I don't want to do that and
(07:10):
then give them a false sense of assurance so that
then they could just go live their lives and go. Yeah,
I checked the box. I remember one time with Granger,
I checked the box. He asked me to repeat a prayer,
and I repeated it. So I'm good on the religious thing.
What else does life have to offer? Because I got that?
What else could I do? That is scary to me?
(07:31):
And I don't want that responsibility. So Jesus, in his
great commission, told the disciples to go forth to all
nations preaching the gospel, teaching them to obey everything that
he said, making disciples, which really means walking through life
with them. So it's not just one prayer done, Maam,
(07:52):
we're good. It's a walk. It's a lifelong walk to
make disciples, to show them, to reveal to them the Gospel.
And that's that's why I don't. I don't. That's why
I don't agree with the sinner's prayer. I don't. I
don't judge or look down on people that do it.
I don't. I don't I just don't want to be
(08:15):
the one responsible going, yeah, I gave that person a
false sense of assurance. So instead, I want to preach
the gospel and let the word, the gospel itself, do
its work through people through hearing, and then I want
to walk through that. I want to say, let me
just let me walk through life with you. Let me
continue to answer questions like on this podcast. Let's continue
(08:37):
this journey together so that I could learn with you.
We could learn together as we walk down this road.
And that's why I don't look down on people that
ask for people to repeat the sinner's prayer. But I
just don't want to do it. Look look at it
this way. If someone if a man committed adultry on
(08:59):
his wife and you came to him and said, look,
we could make this right with your wife. Follow me,
we'll go. We're gonna go talk to her. And you
go to her house and she answers the door and
you say, hey, we're here to tell you something. Ma'am.
Repeat after me, wife, wife, I am I have messed up.
(09:25):
I have messed up. I am so sorry that I
have done this to you. I'm so sorry I've done
this to you. Forgive me for what I've done, and
come into my life as my wife, forgive me for
what I've done, come to my life. Okay, great, congratulations,
you guys are good. You see that. That's that's what
it feels like to me to say the sinner's prayer
(09:46):
to Jesus. It's like, no, that wasn't that. There was
no heart to that. There could be Okay, let me
say that to let me let me just drag this
question out a little bit longer. There could be hard
to and people could genuinely be saved through that at
an alter, at some service that someone might have done this.
(10:08):
In fact, I know people listening were saved through something
like that, so absolutely it could happen. It could, but
I don't want to be responsible for those that it
tricked them into thinking that it was and it wasn't,
you know what I mean. For instance, if I take
the guy to the house, so to the guy to
the wife's house and we say it, he could mean
it and she could take him back, but it also
(10:30):
just as likely could be not sincere at all and
she doesn't take him back and he doesn't even mean it.
That's why it's a good question. I appreciate you asking,
and I'm sorry that I drug it out just a
little bit. This podcast is brought to you by Better Help.
You know, Amber and I, when going through a lot
of trauma in our lives, turned to therapy to be
(10:55):
able to sort through all the kinds of different conflicts
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say this year round but especially during the holidays. If
you're looking for a gift for somebody last minute, maybe
(11:59):
someone that has everything alrighty, you can't think of anything
for them, but maybe they're a fan of me or
this podcast or my music, or my family or any
of my YouTube channels. Have you ever thought of cameo
dot com? What that is is it allows me to
shoot you a quick video message about a minute long,
just saying something that you need me to say to
that person getting the gift. It could be happy Holidays,
(12:22):
Merry Christmas, a word of encouragement, maybe a happy birthday. Hey,
just thinking about you. And what happens is I get
my phone and I read your message what you suggest
for me to say in bullet points, and then I
take my phone and I record a selfie video and
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(12:44):
at cameo c am eo dot com slash granger Smith,
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me Grangersmith. Again, that's cameo dot com slash granger Smith.
All right, next question here email to podcast at grangersmith
dot com. Says, Hey granger, what are your thoughts on
alcohol and the culture of getting tipsy drunk being a
(13:04):
good thing? Also, I have friends that enjoy casual drinking
and I can't help but getting internally upset or uncomfortable
with it. Any thoughts or advice would be great. Thank you.
This comes from John, twenty years old from Illinois. Yeah, man,
thanks thanks for the email. John. So, first of all,
underage drinking twenty and below is illegal in most places
(13:29):
in Illinois at least, so there's that we could start
with that, but that's not what you were asking. And
that's surely not to say that I didn't do it
when I was twenty sure, Okay, so let's get that
out of the way. What are your thoughts on alcohol
and the culture of getting tipsy drunk being a good thing?
(13:51):
That's an interesting question that the way that you worded it,
What are your thoughts on getting drunk as being a
good thing? The Bible says that's not a good thing, right,
so we'll just we can go right to it there.
The Bible does not say that drinking is a bad thing.
(14:11):
It says that getting drunk is getting tipsy is numbing
yourself is by any means, not just alcohol. Could we
could use this with anything, any substance at all, and
including caffeine if you're using it in that way, if
you're using caffeine in a way to forget or to
(14:34):
numb a feeling, or to dull your senses in a way.
I'm just using that as an extreme example. But anything
used in that kind of addictive manner to to habitually
forget or numb, or dull or or soften the realities
of the world is a sin. That we could go
(15:00):
deep into that, but we probably shouldn't. I think that's
pretty clear. I think it's clear if you followed me
in my life. A lot of you have followed me
for many years, it's clear that it took me a
long time to see that. But not in a legalistic way,
not an moralistic way, like, hey, you do that, you're
(15:21):
going to hell. It's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying, when you become a Christian, when you have
new eyes to see, you should start hating things that
God hates. Does that make sense? So instead of just
saying alcohol is bad, forget it, You're going to hell
of you. I'm not saying that. I'm saying a good fruit,
(15:44):
a good outcropping overflow of an evidence of a saving
faith should be that you start to see things that
the Bible says is defeating to you, is corrupting to you.
You should start seeing those things more and more, maybe gradually,
sometimes all at once, sometimes you wake up all at once,
(16:04):
but you start. You should start seeing them as things
that you want to rid yourself from. And you don't
necessarily because none of us are perfect, so you don't
necessarily rid all of it at once. But you the
desire that I believe is God breathed into you starts
begins to cultivate, a rejection of things that the Bible hates. You. Go, man,
(16:31):
I just I used to like drinking. I used to
hang out with my buddies, And this is a this
is real for me. I used to hang out, used
to used to enjoy it. And slowly, as I became sanctified,
which that's what that word means, we start to be
made new. We start to be made clean and renewed
in the image of Christ, our King, our creator. Once
(16:53):
we're a slave to sin, and then we become a
slave to Christ. And so as we once we're like sin,
we looked like sin, we smelled like sin, we tasted
like sin, and then we were reborn from Christ through Christ.
By Christ, through the Spirit, we become more like Him.
We start looking and smelling and tasting more like Him.
(17:16):
And as that happens, that process that's shedding away, it's
called sanctification, and we start to look at the old self,
the old slave that we were to sin, and we
go I don't like the taste of that anymore, metaphorically
or physically. With alcohol, I don't like the taste anymore.
Not that it's bad to have a drink, a glass
(17:38):
of wine, a mixed drink with your wife on her birthday,
things like that, not that that's wrong, but it is
wrong to get drunk. And so when you start having
two or three or four more, you start getting close
to this danger zone. Why risk it? Because I'm in
seminary right now and Amber is as well, have any
(18:00):
So there's that, And if I continue on this path,
it's been over a year now since I've had just
even a drop of alcohol. Once again, not legalistic, not moralistic.
I'm not pushing any kind of moralism on anybody. I'm
just saying that's where I am, that's where I stand,
(18:21):
and you've probably have noticed that over the course of
years as my conversion to Christianity has been very public.
Let me get to the second part of your question here.
I have friends that enjoy casual drinking and I can't
help getting internally upset or uncomfortable with it. Stop that.
Stop that. That's when you're getting legalistic and you're pushing
(18:44):
moralism on them. If you are truly reborn, if you
are a Christian, if you are a believer, if you
are saved by the blood of Christ, then that's you.
You are now what the Bible would metaphorically call a sheep,
and if you're not, you're metaphorically called a goat. So
don't try to tell goats how to be a sheep.
(19:08):
Don't force sheepism on a goat because it doesn't make
sense to them. It just comes across as judgy, right,
So don't do that. Instead, we tell him the Gospel.
We tell him, we tell him how we were saved,
We tell him what God did for us, what we
tell him the beauty of the Gospel. We tell him
that we were covered, that our that our guilt is covered,
(19:29):
our our shame, our sin is forgotten by God, remembered
no more. But not because of anything we did, not
because we stopped drinking alcohol, but because what He did
for us. And in gratitude for that kind of that
kind of saving grace, that saving faith that is gifted
to us from gratitude, we then look back and go,
(19:50):
I am so thankful for what he did. I don't
want to touch that alcohol. I don't want to I
don't want to do that. I used to do it,
I don't want to do it anymore. So you see,
there's a difference between that what I just said, I
keep hitting this microphone what I just said, and then
a difference between telling your friends, Hey, y'all shouldn't be
drinking that alcohol. Many y'all shouldn't be getting drunk. The
Bible says, don't get drunk. Play very safe with that.
(20:15):
Don't try to tell goats how to be sheep. Instead,
tell the goats about God, tell them about the Gospel,
tell them what Jesus did on the cross, and let
him drink while you're doing it. Let them drink while
you're doing it. Now, if they're saved, if they are
believers and they're getting drunk and they're in your church.
Now you have a right at this point to say, brothers, brothers, listen,
(20:41):
you're in sin. Right now, bring other people from the
church with you. Brothers, you're in sin. Let us help you,
let us encourage you, let us walk you out of this. Right.
Hopefully I painted that picture in a way that sounds
biblical and sounds not humanly universally. Judgee right, Thanks for
(21:05):
the question, John. Next question here is from Lindsey, and
she says, Hey, Graandar. My name is Lindsay from Oklahoma City.
Love listening to your podcast every week and keeping up
with the Smiths on YouTube. I'm a follower of Jesus
and truly believe he is our sole provider and everything
happens within our lives according to his plan. I'm curious
what your thoughts are on manifestation. I feel like a
(21:29):
common idea I hear on other podcasts and social media
recently is that the idea of manifesting it into existence.
If you want something bad enough, or desire something to
happen in your life, all you have to do is
manifest it or speak it into existence. This has been
on my mind recently, and I would love to know
your thoughts on this idea. Do you believe it's possible
to manifest something into existence? Thank you for reading this,
(21:50):
look forward to hearing your response. Lindsay, Hey Lindsay, thanks
for the great question. I appreciate you and I too,
hear a lot about this and I absolutely believe in
speaking something into existence. I absolutely believe in manifesting one
hundred percent because Genesis one says it happens. God spoke
it into existence. He spoke his word, and he spoke
(22:14):
creation from nothing x neilio is what it's in Latin.
X neilio means it came from nothing. He created from
nothing with his word. He spoke and it happened. There
was there was chaos, then there was order. There was nothing,
then there was something. He spoke it. He manifested it
(22:37):
just from a word. It's amazing. Can we do it? No,
we cannot do that. No, that's a joke, Absolutely not.
There is a that is a joke. To think that
anyone says I want to manifest it into existence like
it it didn't happen, and then you speak it and
it does is horrible philosophy. And and I think you
(23:01):
could just better. It's better just to sum up that
idea with work, hard work, ethic, work for it. Go
get it. Don't don't say you're gonna manifest it. You're
gonna like you're like you're a little god, lowercase G.
You're just gonna create something by speaking into existence. No,
you're gonna you're gonna look at a You're gonna look
(23:23):
at a piece of property that you want little farm
and you go, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna work. I'm
gonna work for this piece of property and I'm gonna
build a farmhouse on this property. Not because I'm speaking
it into existence or manifesting it. But I'm gonna start
slowly saving some money. I'm gonna work a second job,
i might pick up a third job. I'm gonna make
(23:44):
some smart investments. I'm gonna stay smart with my funding.
I'm gonna sell that expensive pickup truck and get a
cheaper one, and I'm gonna slowly save and slowly put away,
and then when the time comes, I'll be able to
buy that property. And then i'm gonna start talking to
some builders and we're gonna create a budget, and I'm
gonna work hard, and then we're gonna start building a house.
(24:06):
Not because I'm manifesting or speaking into existence, but because
I'm made a plan. And I talked to an advisor
and a banker and a CPA, and I covered it
all in prayer, and I said, Lord, if this is
your will for me to be on this property and
build a home here, give me the desire for that.
Open the doors that we need to walk through, and
(24:26):
close the ones that we don't. Right, So you put
all the trust in him and then you work your
butt off, and that's how you get it, or that's
how you don't get it. Either way, it's in the
Lord's hands. We prepare the horse for battle, but victory
belongs to the Lord. The Bible says, trust in Him
and work hard and forget about manifesting all right. Next
(24:48):
question is from anonymous. It says, Hey, Grangeer. First off,
I just wanted to say I enjoy listening to your podcast,
as you've answered some questions I've always wondered about. I
feel closer to the Lord now because of it. Praise
God for that. My question involves raising my kids. I
have friends who don't allow their kids to watch Disney
movies such as Princess Ones because they involve witches and magic. I, however,
(25:10):
let my kids watch them, but still teach them that
magic is not real or that witches are real, and
I tell them that God doesn't like those things. So
to me, I feel like my friends are my friends
not letting them watch those movies, are sheltering their children
from learning what is right and wrong. It's just a
little kid's movie. You could teach them that it's okay
(25:31):
to watch it, but remember that it's not real life.
I get annoyed when I see people letting their kids
wear the dress up clothes for the movie, yet can't
watch the movie itself. Am I wrong in feeling this way? Okay?
Thanks Anonymous, Thanks for the email. Brother, Yeah, this is
It's kind of kind of okay that you're worried. It's
(25:57):
bothering you that other others and sisters in Christ are
being are raising their kids in a certain way apart
from you, and you have to understand, and I don't
want to go too deep into this, but you have
to understand that everyone is going to raise their kids
(26:21):
the way that they feel is right, the way they're convicted,
but that also shouldn't let it bother you. So, for instance,
take the question about alcohol a few questions ago on
this podcast. That's like saying, Look, I've got a brother
from church and he doesn't drink at all, alcohol at all,
(26:42):
and I like to have a glass of wine on
the porch swing with my wife on Friday nights, and
he doesn't. And I'm sick and tired of him living
this life of not drinking and now can acting like
he's better than me. Right, that's kind of what you're
saying about this. Hey, I'm sick and tired of these
(27:04):
families not allowing them to watch Disney movies like they're
all up, and he taking the moral high ground and
looking down on me down here because I let my
kids watch princess movies and I tell them that magic
is not real and witches are not real and God
doesn't like those things. Brother, if that's what you want
(27:26):
to do, that's how you want to raise your kids,
then go with it. But don't worry about what the
guy down the street's doing. He's raising his kids the
best way he knows. How. You're raising your kids, Lord Willen,
the best way you know how. I don't see a
problem either way. I don't know on this podcast. If
you want me to say I agree with them Disney
(27:47):
is bad, or I agree with you forget all those
people Disney's good. I'm not going to take either one
of those positions. I'm just gonna say, let people be
convicted on their in their own sanctification that word we
talked about earlier. Let people be convicted on their own
and live a life that makes Jesus look fantastic. That's
(28:08):
our purpose. Live a life glorifying God, meaning live a
life that makes Jesus look as magnificent as he is.
And the result of doing that. One of the results,
I should say, not the result. One of the outcroppings
of that is you feel joy, You don't worry, you're
(28:29):
not anxious about how your neighbor is raising a kid.
Not that you are, but I want to kind of
put that barrier up before it gets to that point,
because those kind of things could start kind of kind
of disintegrating the friendship that you might have built up. Okay,
(28:51):
next question comes from Stephanie, and she says, I have
a question about the new Heaven and New Earth. My
understanding that is, once Jesus returns, we will be welcome
into our heavenly home to live with our Father. I'm
assuming at that point we will be made perfect without
any evil desires, jealousy, etc. But can we be assured
(29:11):
that there will never be another fallen angel that turns
out to be evil like Satan did? Was the first
heaven imperfect to allow such a being to come into existence?
Where in the Bible does it assure us that this
will never happen again? Thanks for all you do, Stephanie. Stephanie,
good question. Thank you for it. And I don't have
(29:31):
any notes in front of me or a Bible in
front of me for stuff like this, but I could
still answer the question without that. What we have to
understand is that God's plan did not fail. Let's start there.
God's plan when he breathed and spoke existence right, spoke
(29:53):
the universe into existence, the heavens and the earth in
Genesis one. There was not a problem with that. There
was not a Oh No, I accidentally made it imperfect,
and then Satan and his hooligans wrecked it and went
down there to the garden and then screwed up Adam
and even oh Man. So hopefully the next one I
(30:16):
build the new one will be perfect and won't have
that problem. That's an incorrect idea of who God is.
What we know is revealed in the Bible, and I
don't have to have it in front of me to
give you specific examples. I could tell you through sixty
six books, through the whole Council of God, that what's
revealed to us is He is providential, he is sovereign,
(30:37):
he is all planning, and from the beginning of time,
this was part of the plan. Even the fall, Jesus
going to the cross as a substitute for sin, that
was part of a plan. So the fall leading up
to the sacrifice on the cross at Calvin by the
(31:01):
sacrificial lamb, the son of God, Jesus, the fall and
everything leading to that was all part of the plan,
and redemption was all part of the solution to the
original plan and the redemption that Jesus accomplished for us.
(31:21):
When he says it is finished Teedleste, it is finished.
When he says that, it means done, accomplished. Plan was made,
it was carried out, and it was finished accomplished. There
will not be another fall. There will not be any
kind of fallen angel or corruption ever again. In the
(31:44):
new heavens, the new Earth, all of that is finished.
So take it as what Jesus says from the cross,
it is finished. Take that as your assurance that what
has happened before that, and the fallen angels and all
this stuff you're talking about was supposed to be. Think
about that. Dwell on that, but not too long, and
(32:06):
then go back to the Gospel and look at what
that blood from Jesus accomplished for you in your belief
for him, so that he could reconcile you a sinner,
a rebel, just like the fallen angels, reconciled back to himself,
so you could be with God, the creator, the one
that breathed everything, everything into existence. Dwell on that. Think
(32:30):
about that. That'll fill you with so much excitement and
so much joy and so much gratitude as you'll start
thinking about, Oh, I wonder if God's gonna let us
down in heaven and angels might fall again. Don't worry
about that. It's a good question, though, please don't think
of don't think of my answer as being is making
(32:52):
yours sound like a not a good question. Next one's
anonymous and says, I am twenty years old and I
live in Canada, and in the next week I will
be asking my girlfriend of almost two years to marry me.
This is a huge step and I'm so excited, But
I have a problem. Ever since I've made the official
decision to ask her, I seem to notice other women
around me more like I see a random girl and
(33:14):
instantly I'm attracted to the way she looks. I try
to keep reminding myself that the girl I have is
so much more than I even deserve, but that doesn't
get rid of the thoughts. There's nothing wrong in my
current relationship that should make me want something different. My
girlfriend is beautiful and God honoring. Do you think this
is temptations from Satan to sidetrack our goal of having
(33:37):
a biblical covenantal marriage? And do you have any suggestions
on what to do? Is prayer the way out? Just
looking for your thoughts. Thanks, that's so interesting, Anonymous. It's
a good question, brother. I appreciate you asking, and I'm
not laughing at you. I'm joining you in all of it,
(34:00):
listing going yep, that sounds that sounds right on track.
First of all, you say, do you think this temptation
is from Satan to sidetrack our goal of having a
biblical covenantal marriage. Well, I'll say absolutely, that's not that's
not a far off assumption at all. Because Satan hates marriage.
(34:22):
He hates the love of a man and a woman
in a in a biblical marriage. He hates that. So
of course he's gonna do everything he can to sidetrack it,
to destroy it. I think there's also so there is that,
and I think through that you're also just feeling a
bit of human panic that now you're gonna all of
(34:43):
a sudden be with one woman the rest of your life,
and you it is now a problem for you to
be attracted to others in that kind of way, because
you're gonna have a wondering eye and there is no
way out of it forever. So I think there's just
a natural feeling you're going through. And if you asked
her to marry you, I believe a couple of things. One,
(35:07):
I believe this is a natural feeling that you're now
looking at other girls and going, oh, she's cute. Look,
It's kind of like when you go buy a truck
at a dealership and hypothetically you drive off of the lot,
and as soon as you sign that contract at the
dealership to drive off with that truck, there is a
(35:29):
buyer's remorse that comes along with it, and part of
the buyer's remorse is, oh, man, I'm stuck with this truck.
And don't get me wrong, I love this truck and
it drives great, and I worked hard to earn money
for this truck, and this is the truck I researched
over and over, and this is the one I wanted,
but it's the only one I get. And you look around,
(35:52):
you go as you're driving out of the dealership, and
you see other trucks, and then you go to the
first stop light, and right right across from you and
the other stop another truck pulls up. It's a different color.
The one you're driving's blue, and you see a red one.
And you haven't quite seen that red color. In fact,
in all of your research and everything you did to
buy that truck, you hadn't really thought about red like
(36:13):
that because that dealership didn't have red ones. It only
had blue and gray, silver and black and white. But
you haven't quite seen red. And there's a red one.
And then your heart starts beating and you go, Man,
did I do that? It make a wrong decision? It
doesn't matter. I'm stuck. I already signed the paper. The
contract is done. I have this blue truck and that
red truck is beautiful, and I'll never get it. Okay.
(36:36):
So that's all analogies break down eventually. So that's not
a great analogy, but it's a little bit of the
human feeling that you have when you get engaged. So
I'm qualifying that. I'm saying, Okay, your feeling is normal.
But then I'm gonna say this. Here's the second thing.
I'm gonna say, kill it. You have, through the Gospel
(36:57):
as a Christian, a god and able ability to kill it,
to kill sin, to destroy it, to pull it out
from its root and throw it away into the fire.
You have that ability. Don't deny the idea that the
Bible tells you. You have the ability to pluck that
sin out from the root and throw it out before
it grows any further. And here's my assurance to you
(37:21):
that as you do pluck that sin out and you
realize that it's natural, there's a human tendency, there's nothing
wrong with you besides your sinner. Like we all are,
but there's nothing different about you. So you pluck the
root out that the weed, and you throw it away
from the root, and you throw it in the fire,
and you continue to move in. My assurance to you
is that as you walk down the road with your
(37:43):
new wife, with your blue truck, as you continue down
this road, and then she has your first child, Lord willing,
and you go through some problems and you make your
way out on the other side. And then Lord Willing,
yet you have another child, and then you work through
some other problems. Maybe somebody in the family gets sick,
(38:06):
maybe your dad, And then you work through that side
by side, way through wife, and you come out on
the other side, and you continue every time. You walk
through these trials, and you walk through these joyful moments,
and you build these memories and you have you have
Christmas mornings together, and you you stand side by side
at funerals, and you hold hands at someone else's wedding,
(38:26):
and you remember your own as that happens, and you
walk through life like this, your love grows and grows
and grows, and in a way that a bond that
grows so much in a way that you don't even
think about that red truck anymore. It's like that's somebody
else's truck, and they might enjoy that truck, But I
have gone through the fire with this blue one, right
(38:50):
That's what happens. That's my assurance to you is that
the love you have right now is great, but it
will grow and deepen and thicken and strengthen through life
as you walk it together with her. So pluck it
at the route, get rid of it. Know that it's normal,
and also know that you have an assurance that as
you walk with her, it's going to be it's going
to be better and better and better. I appreciate the question, ch'all,
(39:15):
and this has been a fun adventure because you email
me podcast at grangersmith dot com at Man my producer
who also produces After Midnight with granger Smith, my radio show.
He sources these questions and throws them into a file
so I do not see them as I sit here
and read these. This is the first time that I've
seen any of these questions today. Because I want you
(39:37):
to get I want you to hear and feel and
see and listen to my instant reaction to the question
the same as you as you're taking it in for
the very first time as well. So that's what this
podcast is. I hope you enjoy it. We have new
things that we're going to kind of spin into this
into the future, so hang with us and share it
with a friend if you can. I love you, guys,
(39:57):
and thanks for being here. See you next Monday. E
thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate
all of you guys. You could help me out by
rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe
to this channel, hit that little like button and notification
spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video.
YII
Host
Granger Smith
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