Episode Transcript
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Hey there detours family!
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This is Mike.
I am here with my beautiful wife Deb.
Hi guys!
And we are here for the official start of season number five.
Thank you so much for tuning into our special episode.
Yeah.
If you guys missed it, we did pop an exclusive episode on a Saturday here recently with a
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couple of special guests.
If you haven't had a chance to go listen to that, by all means, it's certainly a topic
that needs to be talked about and we hope we did it justice for sure.
But yeah, check that out.
But now season five is here and we're kind of doing this.
Deb, you wanted to do this with no structure this year, no theme to the season or anything.
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Let's just get on record.
I wanted to wing it.
Let's wing it.
We're wing it kind of people, so I think we're good.
Yeah, we do well without planning.
So we have one of our followers that sent you a message on Facebook that was a question
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that we're going to use as kind of the jumping off point tonight because we felt it was a
really good question.
It's an apologetics style of question.
Those that don't know apologetics is kind of playing defense.
How do you defend and how do you explain parts about your faith?
We thought it was a great question.
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It's a very common question.
I hear a lot of different answers on this one, but we have one that is rooted in scripture.
I definitely think there's different ways to interpret scripture, so I'm not 100% convinced
that this is exactly the way it will play out, if I can say it that way.
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Like an end times view, to me there's lots of different support for different end times
views and I think this is one of those where I know where I stand on it, but I do think
for me personally, if you come with the right scripture and the right explanation, I have
no problem.
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Receiving it.
Receiving that well.
Why don't you explain the question that was posed to you on social media?
I wish I would have had the exact phrasing of her question, but the gist of the question
is what happens to those who haven't had an opportunity to hear the gospel?
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What happens to those people?
When they die.
When they die.
I think it's a very common question and it deserves a thoughtful answer and it deserves
an opportunity to kind of dig a little deeper to what's the underlined question behind that.
I really think that question centers around, is God really good?
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Does He care about the guy that's in the jungle?
I think that's an important thing to address and I'm glad we have the opportunity to walk
that out with one of our listeners and a friend of mine.
She was a friend in high school, so we reconnected recently and it's nice to be able to take
the time to answer that.
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Yeah, and so where do we want to begin on this one?
I think the bulk of the position that I take falls in the Jeremiah 31 passage.
I don't know.
Yeah, well, why don't we do that?
Why don't we go with the Jeremiah passage and then we'll talk a little bit about some
of the things I also see and how I reconcile it in my own faith walk and then how you reconcile
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it.
So let's hear Jeremiah.
Yeah, so again, this is the apologetics question.
Basically if somebody never hears about Jesus, they never hear the gospel, they're never
given that opportunity to make a choice.
What happens to them?
They go to heaven or hell and be able to defend that.
So that's the question.
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Jeremiah 31 verse 33 is the meat of where it's at.
We'll get a little bit of a running start.
I'll start in verse 31, but verse 33 is definitely where we're going to park for a little while.
Verse 31 starts and I'm reading from King James.
Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
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and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I make with their fathers
in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which
my covenant they break, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord.
Verse 33, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.
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After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it
in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people.
So it may not make sense yet.
It's especially the second half of verse 33 that I think we need to pay attention to.
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But Deb, do you want to give a little bit of context here?
Some people will talk about, well, was this a promise just to Israel?
What's kind of going on here?
Do you want to give a little bit of context around this verse?
I always think when you're reading scripture, you have to know the audience.
And yes, it is spoken to Israel, but it is also a greater picture of God's character
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for His people.
And yes, the Jewish people are called His people, but we are adopted in by the blood
of the Lamb, by Jesus Christ.
We are adopted into that family and we are called a branch that's grafted in.
So you can take this scripture and look at it as an invitation for those that aren't
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Jewish as well, because God's character doesn't change.
And so when He puts law in their hearts, that's all of our hearts.
So that's kind of the context of that.
Yeah.
And that's the part that really starts to jump off the page for me.
Excuse me.
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For me is putting the law in your hearts.
Basically think of that as your conscience.
Right?
When the war was over with Nazi Germany, the Germans had to answer for what they did.
And they were brought to basically court in front of the entire world.
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And the crimes that were brought against them were crimes against humanity.
And the argument was basically killing people.
Everyone knows that you shouldn't kill someone.
Right.
That's part of who you are as a human being.
And so you denied that nature.
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And that's what was used to convict German soldiers of their crimes against Jews and
all the different people that they slaughtered.
Yeah, that they absolutely slaughtered.
The world basically said, hey, you know better.
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Every single person on this planet knows better than to take a life.
It's just a part of who you are.
It is a part of your conscience.
And you had to deny that in order to do what you did to these people.
So that's how I read verse 33.
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And so if we circle that back around to the original question, Deb, how would you kind
of combine those two, the question with verse 33?
Okay, so the person that's in the jungle or the bush is I'll call them the bush person
because those are the ones that we often think of as being unreached.
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The law of God, the conscience of humanity, God is gifted in the heart of all of us.
And we are going to, like you said, going to hold a, be held to that standard when we
meet God.
So God is reaching us by literally giving a part of His character into ours.
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You know what I mean?
We are a reflection of Him.
We are His creation.
So He's put that goodness in our heart.
Now, are we fallen?
Yes, but we know better.
We know it's, you know, we would no sooner murder a puppy than we would, you know, push
an old lady into a pool or like these basic things that we think of like that's wrong,
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you know.
We know what right and wrong is.
And so does the guy in the jungle.
That is kind of not necessarily the only thing that I land on when I think about the guy
in the jungle or the person that hasn't heard or even a person in another country that goes
up in another culture.
I kind of dance around with Romans 1.20, which is, since the creation of the world, His,
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God, invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by things that are made and
even His eternal power and Godhead so that we are without excuse.
So even in the attributes of creation, we can see that there is a creator.
Now, I know people do deny that, but you know, there are even atheists that are coming around
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to saying like, this is intelligent design.
And so someone can see that, wow, look at what God has done.
They might not call it God, but a higher power, you might say.
It's so evident that we are not alone in this universe, that there is a God.
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And I think that even in cultures that don't necessarily adopt Christianity, have a conscience
in them that says, I'm made from something, I'm made from God.
Well, not only that, but we've been created as eternal beings.
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You know, when I was in college, in late high school and college, I had a dog and I don't
ever think he put much thought into what happened after he died.
I guess I don't know that for sure, but as a human, I think about it all the time.
Yeah.
Because it's in our nature.
God designed us to be eternal beings.
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So we have that thought process.
Where do I come from?
What's my purpose?
And where am I going?
I think that's the heart of humanity cries that.
Yeah.
So if we go back to the conscience, I want to make it clear too that so many people think,
well, if I do enough good, I'll get into heaven.
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And that's not what this verse is referring to.
There is no scale at the end of the day where you put on all your good deeds on one side
and your bad deeds on another.
That's not how this works.
When you hear the gospel, when you hear the good news, you're given a choice.
You need to make a decision.
What side do you stand on?
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There's only what?
There's three sides.
Jesus is king, Jesus was a liar, or Jesus was a lunatic.
You really kind of have to make your decision on one of those three once you hear the gospel.
The gospel of John really draws the line in the sand and says you need to make a decision.
But for those that don't get that opportunity and don't hear, and they live their entire
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life not knowing, that is when verse 33 to me kicks in.
And all of a sudden what God has imprinted on you, do you honor that or do you not?
And I think you actually did some fascinating research on Helen Keller.
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Oh my goodness.
She's such an interesting person.
I need to study more because I'm so intrigued by her.
I'm so intrigued by her.
So who is she?
Yeah, let's walk the audience through.
They may not know who she is.
Helen Keller was born deaf and blind.
I think, I actually think she, wasn't she born with sight and then she got sick at a
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very young age I think.
Maybe with some sort of disease.
I didn't get to study enough.
You said I did an extensive study.
I'm like, oh, not really.
Yeah, I think she actually was born with it, but very, very young.
She got sick and became deaf and blind.
But yeah, go ahead and continue.
And here you are in like this world of darkness, right?
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She can't speak.
She can't see.
She can't hear.
And they bring in a tutor for her, Anne Sullivan, and they're trying to teach her how to actually
sign and what things mean.
And they would put something in her hand and then touch it and then sign something.
And eventually, you know, Helen Keller catches on.
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Oh, they're trying to give me words.
Like they're trying to tell me something.
And eventually, she winds up knowing how to sign and meets a reverend and the reverend
gives her the gospel, gives her Jesus, you know.
And she said, wow, I always knew there was a God.
I just didn't know his name.
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So even in her darkness and in a world we can't even wrap our brains around, God was
reaching her.
Like I always knew there was a God.
I just didn't know his name.
Like how incredible is that?
What a testimony, you know?
That's what it is.
As God was speaking to her in all that darkness, he brought the light.
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And someone that literally couldn't see or couldn't hear knew there was a God, knew him
personally, just didn't know his name.
Yes.
And that always gives me great comfort, great comfort, because it brings me back to lots
of verses that say, you know, God desires none to perish, but to come to eternal life,
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to come to repentance.
It's spoken of in Matthew, it's spoken of in 2 Peter.
And it comes down to the like, is God really good?
And I think you see that and I am very grateful that was not something I grappled with, whether
God was good.
And I know that people have, but the overarching message in the Bible, you can see God's complete
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relentless pursuit of humanity to love them, to nurture them, to be with them, and his
rescue over and over again.
Just it's amazing to me how much he pursues and how much he loves us.
And you can see that in so many different stories.
And when you start to really dive into the greater narrative and you look at it as a
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big long story, because that's what it is, you can see God's character show up over
and over again as being merciful, as being kind, as being full of grace, because mercy
isn't getting what you, you know, is not getting what you deserve, right?
Like there's a lot of things we've done and we deserve massive punishment.
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Grace is getting like blessings and blessings even though we don't deserve it.
Does that make sense?
So, you know, when you see God show up through his word as this incredible rescuer, I would,
I know he's got a plan for the guy in the bush.
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I know he's got a plan for the guy in another country.
I know him and I invite people to get to know him because I think that's really the heart
of the question.
Like, is he good?
Would he let that guy go to hell?
You know, and it's easy for someone to say, well, I guess so.
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I mean, he doesn't know who Jesus is, but like, he's got a conscience.
Eternity was placed in his heart.
He's got the creation narrative right in front of him every day.
And if God can get to Helen Keller who is blind and deaf and mute and have a relationship
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with this woman, he can get to the guy in the bush.
Yeah, and you know, it's, we can't wrap our brains around any of this, but at the end
of the day, whatever God's plan is, it's absolutely perfect.
And so, you know, this is our position and we have several Bible verses to back up the
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opinion that we're offering today.
I don't know if it's an opinion or perspective on the word.
I mean, opinion makes it sound like anybody, like, it's just my opinion.
It's not true.
I think there are people that may see it differently.
So it's a perspective based on the word.
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Okay, so, you know, maybe it's the wrong word that I use in that sentence, you know, but
I don't want to get caught up in semantics.
But this isn't like other things where we're 100% sure of an interpretation.
This is just what we personally believe is our interpretation of several of these verses
that we're reading tonight.
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But yeah, I would struggle with that question too.
If somebody didn't have the opportunity to make a choice, right, I think that's why the
Bible tells us that children automatically go to heaven because if they never reach an
age where they understand that they have a choice, it's not fair to hold them accountable.
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If a choice was taken from them.
So this falls in that same boat to me, like King David, when his son dies, he says, you
know, my son can't return to me, so I have to prepare to go see him.
And King David's little boy was a week old.
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He didn't have that opportunity to make a choice.
Right.
So he gets that pass because that choice was taken from him.
And I think if you're struggling with what about all the people that never had the opportunity
to make a choice?
These are the verses that you go to.
Our mentor, Pastor Bill, will often say when you don't know the answer to something, take
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what you do know and fill in as much of the story as you can with what you do know.
In Jeremiah 31, 33 and Romans 1, 20, those are the verses that we know.
And so we use that to kind of fill in what we don't know.
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But yeah, it's a great apologetics question.
I know a lot of people that wrestle with that question.
There's your top 10 questions for apologetics.
And this is definitely one that's in that top 10 most frequently asked questions.
Yes, for sure.
So it's a great question that has to be addressed.
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But I also think, basically, if you don't get to hear the gospel, I think there's also
the question of why is God so hidden?
If you take the Bible away from something, a lot of people would believe, if you took
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all religion out of the world and hit a reset button and let society develop over thousands
of years, that we would come up with all new religions.
Because it just depends on who's hearing from what God or this, that or the other.
I've heard that argument numerous times by atheists.
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And one of those arguments is, well, yeah, of course, they're going to come up with something
different because you never hear from God.
It's not like you can ask a question and get an answer, which I think is ironic.
But yeah, it's a common question.
And so as someone that's been saved for a decade, at least anyway, I have the other
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perspective of my gosh, God is everywhere.
How can you deny his existence?
I often think an Indian and a cowboy are sitting and looking at the Grand Canyon.
And the cowboy goes, man, that must have been a ton of water that just pushed its way through
here and bam, you got this giant canyon.
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And the Indian sits there and goes, oh, no, no, no, that was a tiny little bit of water
over a tremendous, tremendous amount of time, two totally different sides of the spectrum
while looking at the exact same thing.
So when somebody says, why does God hide himself?
I sit there and I go, holy smokes, I go for a walk and I see God in the trees and in the
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wind and in the birds and everywhere that I go.
I mean, I cross water every day to get to work and the sunrise this morning was so incredible.
I'm like, you're such a good artist, God.
And that's what it is.
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I'm going to butcher it, but C.S. Lewis has a quote that basically says something along
the lines of you believe in the sun because you can see the sun.
I believe in the sun because through it, I see everything else.
So I don't have to look up in the sky and look at the sun to know there's a sun.
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I look at the rest of the world and I go, it's illuminated, therefore there's a sun.
So to me, that's the heart of the answer to that question is how can you say that there's
a God for sure when he hides himself everywhere?
My response is, yeah, he's everywhere.
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You're trying to look into the sun, turn around and look at the world itself and when it's
illuminated for you, you go, man, there's no other answer other than God.
So yeah, I think that's something that people wrestle with and there's actually an author
out there named Mark Batterson.
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Oh, you like him a lot.
I do.
He's a pastor in the Washington DC area.
He has a great book out there.
What was it called?
Whisper.
Yeah, Whisper.
That's a great book.
I think it's seven different love languages that God uses besides the Bible.
So the Bible, of course, is the number one love language.
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That's the number one way he's going to speak to you.
And I think he touches on God opening and closing doors is a love language.
Just even think about, share maybe an example or two just from what we've experienced recently
with mom where we look back and go, wow, God was opening and closing doors when mom was
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in the hospital when we were trying to get surgeries and procedures done, just how he
stepped in.
And in the moment, you don't know what's going on.
But hindsight, 20, 20, looking back, we were like, man, God was with us the whole time,
even in the frustrating moments.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
He was able to put together something that was very difficult and allowed every piece
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of the puzzle to be put together in his timing.
It took longer than, of course, my human inpatients would have wanted, but she was able to get
two surgeries done and they did not let her leave.
And that was what we were concerned about.
We thought that there would be an infection in her heart if she left.
And God just kept bringing the people in and he allowed me to advocate for her and they
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listened and I definitely know that was his hand because they just do not do that.
Most companies do not do that.
Everyone was on vacation.
Yeah, all the doctors, all the surgeons, it was interesting.
They were on a conference.
Everyone was doing continuing education at the same time.
And it's like, how do you let a whole department go out to do community education at the same
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time?
But God opened those doors.
Yeah.
And we did a whole episode on us going over to Poland for the war.
And that was just so rapid fire.
God opening and closing doors as we were trying to deliver food, he would close doors so we'd
turn our attention to people and he'd open a door there and then he'd close that door
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and move us around.
And once you look back, you'll see the moment where God was truly with you.
Oh, for sure.
That's one of the languages that Mark Patterson talks about in Whisper.
Yeah.
I even think about my childhood.
I mean, I had a very rebellious streak in me and I put myself in some really dangerous
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situations and just the hand of protection over my life while I made these stupid choices.
And I'm sure there are people listening that can relate and just been like, wow, I could
have been long gone had God not protected me.
Yeah, me too.
I definitely can look back and go, wow, my life could have wound up so differently if
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God had just left me to my vices and allowed me to experience consequences far beyond.
I would have self-destructed.
Oh, totally.
Totally.
Me too.
Totally.
And some of those crazy moments was with my friend who asked the question.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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He protected us many times.
God also speaks through other godly people, you know, people speaking into your life has
been—I have a mentor that I love.
She's like my spiritual mom and she has literally pushed me in the direction towards God every
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time I have a problem.
She has been a sounding board and she'll always bring me back like, well, what does
God say about that, Deb?
Have you talked to God?
Have you prayed?
God uses that to speak to people all the time.
Yeah, he'll use different people in our lives.
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And you always have to filter through scripture.
You know, that's one of the things that Mark Patterson talks about in the book is when
you're reading the Bible, you're reading God's word.
There is no filter needed for that.
That is the filter.
But with all these other love languages and ways that God speaks, you always have to bring
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these back to the word.
Oh, amen.
So, you know, you can have a friend that offers bad advice.
You don't just take that and run with it.
You take that as advice and you filter it through scripture.
And scripture will show you is this good advice, is this bad advice, and God will speak to
you through scripture.
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Absolutely.
Well, let's be specific about what that means because that might sound, that's very common
in our language when we talk about God, but someone that doesn't know God, what do you
mean he speaks in his word?
Yeah, so it's, I can say there was only one time in my life where I might have heard a
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voice from God.
But I'll say all the time, God spoke to me.
So what does that translate to?
How do you get from point A to point B?
You can easily read through the Bible and you could be reading something that you've
read a thousand times before.
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But in that moment, it will jump off the page and God is giving you direction through the
characters, through the context, through what's happening in the story.
That is by far the most common way for me personally.
It can also come through prayer.
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Prayer to me is more me speaking to God where reading God's word is more him speaking to
me.
Yeah, I would agree.
It can, you know, when I pray, there are instances where God definitely puts a burden on my heart
for something.
So he does speak through prayer, but it's predominantly through reading his word, reading
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through the Bible.
And so, you know, if you don't have a Bible or if you've never done it, you know, the
Bible is one of those books that's a little strange and you don't start at the beginning,
typically.
You can.
You can.
You could start anywhere.
But I highly recommend starting with the Gospel of John or at least in the beginning of the
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New Testament.
But I think John's Gospel is the best place for a new person that doesn't know a whole
lot about the Bible to begin.
Yeah, it's an easier read than a lot of the other Gospels and it really highlights the
love of Christ for his people.
So yeah, I think it's a great starting point.
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And if you want to start off somewhere else, just know there's lots of great ways to read
the Bible.
So, but I like that recommendation a lot.
Yeah, I think it's our lead pastor at Surfside.
I think he said he started in the book of Isaiah.
Wow.
Which is just such an odd place to begin.
Like, holy smokes, what a book to begin with.
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Yeah, that's a hard book.
Yeah, but somehow that's how he got saved.
He was reading through the book of Isaiah and that's when it happened.
So yes, it can absolutely happen anywhere.
Yes.
But, you know, I think there's also in Patterson's book, he talks about desires and how God can
speak through desires.
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That to me is the trickiest one of all of them, because you can absolutely desire sin.
Sure, sure.
So desires have to really be filtered kind of extra, if you will.
Yeah, I mean, it has to, if your desire is contrary to God's desire, you know that it's
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not the right desire.
Even if you don't know, let's say you don't have a Bible and you don't know God's word
and you're sitting there asking, how do I know whether or not this desire is of God
or if it's just I want to do something.
Right.
If it's a burden from God, it's going to sustain the test of time and even potentially grow.
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Very good point.
So if you have, you know, we've spent our entire, my family, I've spent my entire life
serving sick children in one way or another because of my brother and that desire has
only grown over time.
I still wish, even though you and I had a conversation very early on in dating that
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we didn't want to have kids, I always knew that I wanted to be involved with sick kids
and helping them get what they need, get the medical attention, so on and so forth that
they need, helping parents that are overwhelmed, so on and so forth.
So I absolutely believe that that desire is of God because it's been in my heart for
40 years and it continues to grow.
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So that's one way is the test of time.
Time is always a revealer.
So that is one filter that you can put desires through is the test of time.
Yeah, that's very true.
But it's still, I still, you can't, I don't know how you do it without God's Word.
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Time, yes, is a great indicator.
Yeah, because you can desire something bad over time and still want it.
So yes, really the plumb line is the Word of God.
It's always.
Yeah.
That's the straight line.
How do you know whether or not your line is straight or curved?
You hold it up to a straight line.
Right.
And God's Word is the straight line.
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So yes, I'm not trying to talk anyone out of that, but time will also be an indicator
as well.
Yeah.
So.
I think that there are, one of the last two was dreams and visions and pain.
And I'd love to leave the one pain for last because I think no one ever thinks that pain
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is the way God speaks, but I would strongly disagree.
Dreams and visions.
I have not had any real like visions or, you know, dreams, but I know my son has and I
know people have spoken in great lengths to God literally showing them visions.
I mean, there's.
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It's the most common way he speaks in the Bible.
True.
And you know what?
It's through visions.
In dreams.
His, yeah.
He's reaching the Muslim people through dreams and visions.
I mean, there's tons of testimonies out on the internet of people like encountering Jesus
in dreams.
And so.
And having no experience whatsoever.
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No, I mean, we're talking about jihadist and stuff like getting dreams.
Yeah.
There's, there's been some really cool testimonies.
Maybe, maybe we can find them and link them on the show notes because they're just remarkable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think, yeah, God will reveal his plans for your life, direction, all sorts of things
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through dreams and visions.
It's the most common oldest story in the book is God speaking to people through dreams and
visions.
So, yeah, I think it's not as common.
I'm like you.
I've never had a dream or a vision, but your son has.
Yeah.
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He's been, for a long time denied Christ and still got those dreams, which is amazing.
I know.
Absolutely baffling.
He's pursuing him.
It's incredible.
But like for a kid that didn't want to, you know, I don't want anything to do with God
and he has these visions of preaching the gospel to large crowds.
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I mean, come on.
Like that's a dream.
All right.
And when he was kind of in his like pre, well, not preteen, but teenage years, he told me
and he had the dream more than once that he was looking up in the sky and realized everyone
was gone.
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And you know, he equated that to the rapture and he was left on the beach with his father.
He said, I could feel it in my bones.
Like it was a warning.
And I'm like, wow, like, holy moly, Anthony, you need to heed that warning.
Need to heed that warning.
And he had that dream more than once.
So yeah, God's got a remarkable way of reaching people.
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Yeah.
Which even brings us back to the guy in the jungle, you know, God could be giving him
dreams.
100%.
Yeah.
100% could be, but that conscience is there regardless, you know, on something like that.
Absolutely.
And you mentioned it earlier, one of the last love languages is the language of pain.
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Yes.
The gift that nobody wants.
Yeah.
It's an interesting one, but it's absolutely true.
Yes.
There's a really great quote and I think you've said it to me more than once that God speaks
loudest like a megaphone.
You know, you can deny a lot of things.
You can not hear his whisper, but he's like megaphone speaking when it comes to pain.
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Yeah.
And I think Mark Batterson puts it in a slightly different way in whisper.
It's something along the lines of you could literally have the Bible sitting on your nightstand
for days, weeks, months, or even years.
And if you're not opening it because you don't want to read it, you got other things to do,
it doesn't do you any good.
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And God can sit there and he can speak to you through other godly people and you may
not have time for them.
He may speak to you through open and closed doors and you're just not paying any attention
so you don't notice it, but there's nothing you can do to run from pain.
Pain comes for everybody in one way or another.
And that's a good thing.
Yes, it is.
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So many times people come to Christ in a valley where they have nowhere to look but up.
Oh, yes.
It's in the pain that we cry out and go, if there is no God, how could this be?
There has to be a God and God, if you're real, I need you.
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I need to understand what you're trying to do.
So many people turn to Christ in those types of moments.
Oh, yeah.
I was in the depths of my depravity where I was just like, I was sick of myself.
And I knew like this can't be it.
Just so much pain.
I mean, I think about some of the deepest moments in my life where I have been the closest
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to the Lord and it's when I'm dealing with the most amount of grief and pain.
I'm grateful for that.
I often remember Pastor Doug at Calvary Chapel had done a sermon on pain.
And that it truly is a gift.
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Like if you think about like a leper, they lose all sensation, like they lose the nerve
endings.
So they lose the ability to actually feel pain.
Hence the reason why they're always hurting themselves and their skin is, you know, like
it's like touching a hot stove and not getting that receptor to happen in your nerve endings
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and you don't know it.
And now you're in a lot of danger.
You're going to burn your hand off because you don't feel it.
And so God gives us pain as a warning sign and it is a gift.
And I often remember that because nobody wants that pain, but it's necessary for us to seek
Him.
It's necessary for our own safety at times.
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You know?
Yeah, there's a story.
It was on a show like 60 Minutes, something along those lines years ago.
And it was about a mother and her daughter and her daughter, I think there were only,
I want to say eight people on the planet that have the disease where they literally couldn't
feel pain.
And so her daughter was only maybe six, seven years old.
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And her mother was just talking about her daughter living life, not being able to experience
pain.
She said it's nerve wracking to let her daughter play any sport because she could go out playing
soccer, break a leg, right?
And just continue to run and all of a sudden she gets in a lot of trouble.
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And she was walking through all just the burden of her daughter not being able to experience
pain and how much that burdened her and her family.
And at the end of the episode, they said something, I don't know that they would say this, but
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it was something along the lines of if you could have anything you want, what would it
be?
And she said, I would want my daughter to feel pain.
I need my daughter to feel the pain the rest of the world does.
And it was a gut wrenching answer from her.
It wasn't just straightforward like I just said it.
It was the love of a mother going, I am terrified for my daughter every single day.
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She can't have a normal life.
She can't go play because if she cuts her foot, she's just going to keep right on going.
That can get infected.
She would keep right on going.
She would never know the difference until it's too late.
And yeah, so pain can, it's an indicator that nobody wants to feel, but man, it serves a
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purpose.
And it's a gift.
Think about it like, you know, God's a heavenly father saying you need to feel this pain so
that you know when to stop.
Yeah, you're feeling pain because you've chased after your own ways for so long, your
own desires, you've shown no discipline, whatever it may be.
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He's saying I had to allow this pain so that you would come to this moment and we would
have this conversation where I can point back and go see how you ignored it all.
Right.
Well, now you're feeling this pain and now you're willing to come to me and have a conversation
because you're in pain.
So okay, let's have that conversation.
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You know, be careful what you wish for.
Are you ready to have that conversation?
Because God's going to be pretty honest with you.
He may tell you things that you don't want to hear.
As a matter of fact, it's almost guaranteed that he's going to say that.
Yeah, that's true.
But yeah.
But it's also an act of love to do that for his children, that we need boundaries.
It's like you tell your kid, don't touch the hot stove.
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You tell your kid, don't stick your hand in the socket.
You tell your kid because you love them.
Don't cross the street when there's traffic.
Pain is that like that boundary of love, believe it or not.
People don't often think that it's God's love that they think, well, God must be mad at
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me.
God is in his own way beckoning you to come.
Come to me.
Come to me.
And we do that in pain.
We don't always do that in joyful moments.
We don't always do that in the victory in the mountaintop.
You know what I mean?
But in the valley, for sure.
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For sure.
Yeah.
And I also love the verse that God gives in Proverbs about like it's a glory of God to
conceal a matter and it's an honor of like kings to seek it out.
And there's this desire for people to get the joy of discovery, discovering him, discovering
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his character, discovering his goodness is an honorable thing.
It's a joyful thing.
It's like playing hide and seek with your kid.
You're not hiding because you really don't want them to find you.
You know what I mean?
It's like, come, come, let's discover.
Yeah.
It's very invitational actually.
Yeah.
And I think that's where like if you're listening to this and you're not sure where you stand
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as far as, you know, Jesus being God or is there a God even so on and so forth, if you're
truly genuine about that, if you're willing to put in 15 to 20 seconds worth of work every
morning, just simply pray the prayer, God, if you are, you know, Jesus, if you are who
you say you are, show me.
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Great prayer.
If you're willing to say that with a very humble heart every morning.
And I mean, how quickly did I say that?
I said earlier 15 seconds.
It wasn't even 15 seconds.
That was five seconds.
When you get up out of bed in the morning, you put your feet on the ground and you're
still in your pajamas in bed.
You're just sitting there to say, Jesus, if you are who you say you are, show me and go
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about your day and seek and you will find.
If you mean that statement, you will find him.
Absolutely.
You will find him.
But I think, you know, circling all the way back to the original question, you know, what
about the person that hasn't heard about Christ?
You know, it is that seek and find.
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It is that conscience that's in you.
Everybody has that voice that when you were five years old and you were in the gas station,
you put a pack of gum in your pocket, there was that inner voice that said, hey, that's
not a good thing.
Yep.
Listen to that.
There's a reason that that's there.
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If we came from a bunch of sludge due to comets hitting an earth planet and we came and we
evolved out of nothing, how would that voice be there and why does your voice say the same
thing my voice does?
That's a great point to evolution.
Yeah.
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Like you and I have never met, we've never talked, but that inner voice will say the
same thing to you that will say, put that pack of gum back and it will say the same
thing to me when I go to steal the pack of gum.
Put that pack of gum back.
That doesn't come from nothing.
It comes from something.
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That's what I think Jeremiah 31, 33 is getting at is why are these truths so evident to anybody
who's anybody on this planet?
That's true.
Don't kill somebody.
Everybody knows that.
Don't steal.
Everybody knows that.
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It's the people that suppress that, that don't die to self is the term that the Bible uses
when it says that.
Part of that is there's got to be a discipline within you to deny, hey, I don't have the
money for that pack of gum, so I'm going to live without a pack of gum because I'm
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not going to steal that item.
That's there for a reason, that voice and yeah, to that person that's never heard of
Christ, as long as that person heeds that inner voice, to me, the way I read Jeremiah
31, 33, that person will be fine and they will make it to heaven.
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Yeah.
And I love that you brought up if we came from sludge.
I mean, where does the evolutionist, like how do you explain that voice to someone who
believes in evolution?
I mean, animals don't have that voice.
They're, you know what I mean?
So I think that's pretty incredible.
And the fact that the voice is always the same for someone in China, for someone in
the United States, for someone in South Korea and for someone in London, don't steal the
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pack of gum.
Yes.
Good point.
So we don't have to corroborate stories on that.
It's just there.
So that's the tough part that, you know, I would struggle with if I wasn't saved trying
to explain that.
I don't understand how you can explain that with anything else other than God.
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Yeah.
We are made in his image.
That statement is something that you'll hear tremendously from Christians.
We're made in God's image.
That does not mean God has two feet, two legs, two arms.
It's not that image.
It's the spiritual image with the conscience, with knowing right and wrong.
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That's the image that God's talking about where we were made in his image.
His law was imprinted on our hearts and we may not know.
We may be Helen Keller.
We don't know that his name is Jesus, but we know.
Yeah.
And if you deny that knowing, and you even made a reference earlier, I love art.
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My mom's an artist.
Our studio, we have Art Up.
We can only love art and beauty because God gives us that.
You know what I mean?
He is the artist.
He is the creator.
But that to me, as an artist, that's the key is all Jesus is asking for is that you acknowledge
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that the signature on the piece of artwork is his name.
If there's a painting on the wall and I'm the one that painted it and you walked up
and you said, John Smith over there, man, he's a great painter.
Look at this painting.
You better believe I would be like, hold on a second.
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That's my painting.
That's my name right there.
And that's really all God is asking for is how is it possible to walk around in nature
and not go, this is art?
Think about what birds you hear birds early in the morning.
Birds sound pleasant.
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What if a bird sounded like a pig?
That would be rough.
You look at every aspect, food, what we need to nourish our bodies has the ability to taste
good.
That's a gift.
Instead of it tasting awful.
Right.
Like the variety of food, the variety of color, the variety of nature that we see, the variety
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of people, like we are all different shapes, colors and sizes.
Like, that's amazing.
Yeah.
And this is where it's hard for me to sit there and go, there are people out there that
don't know that God exists.
Yeah, they may not know his name, but that still small voice that's inside you that tells
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you right from wrong, that when you go for a walk and you sit by a lake, that you're
not just sitting there, you know, it's totally speechless and awe of the beauty that's in
front of you.
God is absolutely an artist.
And all Jesus is saying is just acknowledge that that signature on the corner of the painting
is me.
That's all I ask because I did paint this.
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I did make all of this.
I am the creator of this.
If you give that credit to anyone else or say that the painting itself is God, there
are people that worship nature and the process itself and just go, this magical painting
showed up with no artist.
It's a little bit of a crazy thought for me.
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But as an artist myself, when I create something and I put a signature on there, if you came
along you said it was someone else's signature or that it was randomly there, I would be
completely offended.
And that's where God's position is when he says he's imprinted it on our hearts.
It's hard to deny.
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So that second question of, well, why is God hidden?
Yeah, why is God so hidden?
I would sit there and say, man, don't stare at that sun.
Turn around and look at the entire world that's illuminated by that sun and then try and deny
that there is a sun.
His fingerprint is all over us.
(53:36):
Yeah.
So, yeah, I think these are great apologetics questions.
I love that she wanted to, and it was asked sincerely.
And then I was like, hey, see if any of your friends have any other questions.
And she did.
And it really boiled down to this question.
You know?
Yeah.
And it's a great question.
(53:57):
It is.
Apologetics.
There's a lot of great questions that I'm sure we'll eventually make our way to.
But we wanted to stop and take an episode to do this one because this message came across
on social media a while back and we always knew we wanted to address it.
And glad we finally did.
Me too.
So hopefully this episode was useful to people that we're struggling with or just curious
(54:21):
about the same things.
Hopefully we brought some light to it.
So again, the passages that we talked about today were Romans 1.20 and Jeremiah 31.33.
Deb made reference to Proverbs 25 to Matthew 18.14.
So just some of the ways that we kind of defended our thought process here in those verses.
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So certainly pay attention to those.
If you get a Bible, circle those verses.
Yeah.
Seek him out.
He can be found.
He can absolutely and will be found if you seek for him.
So thank you guys so much for joining us.
We appreciate you listening in.
We sure do.
And we will come back with our next episode.
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We're just winging it.
We don't even know what we're going to do for the next episode, but there will be another
episode in a couple of weeks.
So we will see you guys then.
Thanks so much.
Take care now.