Ever wondered about the mysteries tucked inside the genealogy of the book of Matthew or the cryptic narratives of the Bible? Get ready to take a deep plunge into the biblical accounts of Jesus' birth, his upbringing, and the pivotal role played by John the Baptist. We'll tackle topics from the enigmatic Wise Men to the controversial 'Slaughter of the Babies,' probing the challenges of recording history during that era and its implications today.
Imagine the daunting power dynamics when a new, superior king is announced. Let's ponder over the reactions of King Herod and the Wise Men, drawing parallels to modern leadership dynamics. We'll also discuss the strong influence of John the Baptist, the symbolism of baptism, and the courage it takes to challenge religious leaders - a theme as pertinent now as it was then.
What about personal prayer and denominational baptism? Don't worry, we've got that covered too! And as we commemorate this journey with over 7,500 downloads, we express our deepest gratitude to you, our listeners. As we continue to share the wisdom of the Bible and its application to our lives, we extend an invitation to you to engage with us. Leave your questions, share your reviews, and keep the faith alive.
Email: findingfaith.losingsleep@gmail.com
Twitter: @FindingFaithPod
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
It's time to wake up and pray up here.
On the Finding Faith and LosingSleep podcast, episode number
19,.
Title to Be Determined.
I think that's the best thingto do is title to be determined.
We're going over Matthew again.
We've kind of been working ourway through the beginning of the
Bible, genesis, and then jumpedover into the New Testament and
Matthew.
So we're going to talk aboutMatthew 2 a little bit and then
(00:29):
3 a little bit, kind of do anoverview here.
I think this was a gooddirection to take it in, because
everything in the Bible seemsto be pertinent nowadays and it
could be applied in manydifferent directions and areas,
no matter what the headlines areout there in the world or
anything.
We could just kind of go withthe flow.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's true.
It's true, the thought processis to kind of just jump back and
forth between the Old Testamentand the New Testament and just
kind of talk through thecircumstances in the Bible
itself and relate it to today'ssociety, today's world, because
that's ultimately it's todaythat we know that keeps us awake
(01:05):
this night and helps us to kindof go through this whole
Finding Faith battles.
But I also want to just pointout I'm proud of you for getting
the episode number right.
I think that's the first timethat you've actually got the
number right.
So congratulations, Wes, Proudof you.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Well, you know, 19 is the legal age for a lot of
things.
I don't know why I just 19stuck in my head.
That is Pierre.
He is the executive producerextraordinaire here on the
Finding Faith and Losing Sleeppodcast and we are always joined
by his wife, michelle, atGoPackGo411 over on Twitter is
what her handle is and Michelle.
(01:41):
We got to make sure we pointout early on in this episode
early on, that we are nottheologians.
I was totally butchered at wordand everything theologians.
We are not some big, studied,astute kind of people on the
Bible and we haven't gone toschool for a million years.
We're just regular, everydaypeople just try to work out our
salvation while we're here onthis earth.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
So true, wes, and I think that's like we've talked.
It's really helpful for all ofus who do have such different
backgrounds to just kind of beable to talk through things and
to, you know, understand thatit's okay to agree, to disagree
sometimes, and we still loveeach other and that's important.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That is important.
And, of course, pierre, theexecutive producer.
All the hate mail goes over tohim, or all hate Twitter stuff
goes over to him at Peewee31,over on Twitter, and listen.
I just want to get this out ofthe way.
I would like to thank everybodyfor their votes and I do accept
this award for having one ofthe most accomplished podcasts
that has shown up on the scenehere on whatever listening
(02:44):
platform you're listening on.
So I extend a gracious thankyou to everybody who voted and
gave me that award.
I should do that right away,right, pierre?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
You should not.
We actually didn't make thefinals of the award, but it was
nice to be nominated, so we dothank those for nominating us.
We did not make the final slate, but the only reason we were
even a part of it is becausesome of you listeners went out
and nominated us.
So a big thank you for doing so, from the bottom of my heart
(03:15):
and I'm sure, from the bottom oftheirs as well.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
No, no, it really seriously.
Thank you for voting for us andnominating us and everything I
just wanted to give people anupdate on some.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
No, no, no, wes, it's not a vote, it was a nomination
.
Don't forget Technicalities,all right, technicalities.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's what I said, but we do appreciate that and I
know we're doing Old Testament,new Testament stuff.
You know what I would love tohave?
I would love to have a question, a question episode, where
listeners either send us aquestion via email or over on
Twitter or even on the listeningplatforms that they listen to
(03:51):
it on.
It just takes a couple ofseconds to leave a question or
to leave a review, whateverlistening platform it is.
It helps us beat the algorithmsa little bit and gets the show
out there a little bit more,which is always, you know, I
want to say it's important.
Maybe the show will helpsomebody, maybe they'll be able
to hear something that we sayand it'll be an encouragement to
them.
So I want to encourage peopleto leave those comments, leave
some kind of review, leavesomething it just takes a couple
(04:15):
of minutes to do.
Should we take a moment ofsilence and allow people to do
that right now, pierre?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
I'm not sure what a moment of silence is going to
accomplish on a recorded podcast.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
It works for you.
Well, I mean, if we could, justwe could talk about nothing
which is almost what the show isabout anyway and then just
allow people to go out there.
They won't miss anything.
If we just kind of meanderthrough the, tell them what the
email address is, that'll help.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
You can hit pause Findingfaithlosingsleepgmailcom
Now.
You're usually authorised thisearly on, so appreciate your
pages there.
I can also hit us up on Twitterat findingfaithpod.
So on Twitter atfindingfaithpod, email is
findingfaithlosingsleepgmailcom.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And we're on iTunes, so you can leave it there on
iTunes.
So, listener question.
I want a listener question.
I think it'd be.
So iTunes, we're on the Googlepodcast, right?
We're on Google podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
We're on all directories.
We're on Spotify, iheartradio,we're on all of them.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I'm not on all of them but that's cool, you're
part of Weezy.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So we are, we are there, we are not.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
You can find me over on atlophonet on Twitter.
I'm on atlophonet on Twitterthere now.
That gave people time.
It gave people time to leave areview.
If you still haven't read thereview, just hit the pause,
leave a question, leave a review, whatever you want to do, so
just unpause it now.
And we are picking that up inMatthew chapter two.
How about that?
That was good, was that not agood segue?
He says it Fantastic.
(05:44):
We talked about Matthew onelast time with all those little
funny names in the genealogy,and I know I surprised both of
you by being able to have kindof a podcast about the genealogy
of Jesus Christ.
But I thought it was fun and Ithink it's cool to be able to go
back and look at those OldTestament stories and to find
out all those stories that werein Jesus' lineage.
(06:04):
And look, it doesn't stop there.
It keeps going in Matthewchapter two with the visit of
the wise men, and those guyscame.
Now, how many wise men werethere?
Three, oh, just three.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
My impression is three.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I think that probably .
Well, I think it was at leastthree, yes, but it could have
been more.
These wise men, I think thatthey had money, you know what I
mean.
Like some of them, even there'sold stuff that thinks that
maybe they were kings to somedegree from far off countries
and that they traveled, probablywith more than just the three
of them, crossing the desert,going thousands of miles on
(06:43):
Campbell's backs or whatever,however it was.
But there was probably more ofthem.
There's just more of them.
So there could have beenmultiple people going that
direction.
But isn't it weird?
We talked about the star alittle bit and how that star was
there.
What do you guys think aboutpeople's horoscopes and stuff?
You ever go over there and readwhat your horoscope's going to
(07:04):
be, or anything?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I haven't done that in a while.
I think I did so in high schooland things along those lines.
But there are times where itfelt like things were a little
bit accurate and there weretimes where it was way off, and
so don't really get into thatanymore.
I think the Bible even speaksto horoscopes and psychics and
things along those lines as well.
No, not too much.
(07:28):
I know I'm a Gemini and I knowit's like a twin sign and that's
about as far as I go these days.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You know what else.
You know what I am, Pierre.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
A mess.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I'm a Gemini also.
Maybe I'm your twin and y'all.
That explains a lot.
I'm your twin.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Olivia is also a Gemini and I'm a Virgo, so it's
fun yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
You know, I read a study one time and I tried to
find it again.
I couldn't find it again.
I read a study one time where acollege professor, when talking
about this topic, would giveeach of the students and he
turned it down turned the pieceof paper down in front of the
students and he said to flip itover to read their horoscope.
And they were like, oh, that'sme exactly.
You know, all of them were likeoh, that's me exactly.
(08:14):
And then he said, okay, nowpass it over to the right.
And so they passed it over tothe right and things were
changed just enough in the in itto not be exactly like that,
you know, like like the originalcopy that was laid down in
front of them.
And then they were all like, ohno, this one is exactly me.
And he just kept doing that andhe was just trying to show that
(08:35):
you can be very vague in kindof horoscopes and different
things like that, but make itsound like that's exactly me.
You know that's talking aboutme and my day and my life and
everything on my past.
So horoscopes and all that iskind of tricky, tricky stuff
Makes sense to me.
Did you know that?
Maybe this is.
This is cool.
(08:56):
I was doing a little research onthe whole mad guy, mad guy,
magician, the whole wise manthing.
Casper, I'm going to put youthis name both, both the czar
and me, quark.
Do you know who they are?
Nope, they were.
They were possibly the threewise men, that's what I was
going to say.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, I figured, we were bringing them up.
That's what you were going tosay.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, and I was going to give you like, a, like a
question or something like thatto see if you could guess who
they were before we even started, and then I blew that.
I totally messed it up.
I was, I went off in adifferent direction, and do you
know that?
Maybe?
Maybe I'm not saying it is Okay, nearly, they're getting used
to it.
Okay, really, that's whathistory tells us, that's what
(09:42):
Lour tells us, that's whatpossibilities are.
Wouldn't that be weird to lookat that and to see?
Maybe you know the, the, youknow it just could be anybody's
skulls, I guess.
But still, it's a littledifferent.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I mean there's, there's history throughout,
though, and so that just kind ofbrings up.
You know, a good point is youfind like different type of
archaeology and things that takeplace over the years that you
know uncover.
You know things, and even whenthings being uncovered and you
know folks assuming something,something or something's not,
you know, there's just a lot ofhistoric evidence throughout the
(10:16):
world that probably is stillleft uncovered, and so the same
could be the same for these magiand I know like in your
explanations.
So I went to Aladdin I don'tknow if you're familiar with
Aladdin, the Disney cartoon, butI think about when he kind of
comes in as Prince Ali.
You know there's a bunch ofdifferent kings, as you stated,
(10:38):
coming in the to meet theprincess Jasmine.
So now I'm just thinking in myhead love magi being like a
prince, like Aladdin, likePrince Ali coming in, and camels
and elephants and all thesethings with their majesty.
I guess you could say.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Now they first went to the Kings palace right, king
Herod's palace because they werelooking for a king.
They were kind of followingwhat some of the Old Testament
stuff was written about, the newking that was going to be over
the Jewish people, over God'speople, and so they went there
and they asked about them and ofcourse we learn about Herod's
trickery and all this.
(11:14):
And I love the reaction of thewise men and how they went to
and what they did.
And I think there's severaldifferent reactions.
One I think you can see Herod'sreaction and all this, because
he went and he started askingwhat the Pharisees, the chief
priests, about this and theytold him what the scripture said
(11:35):
about everything.
And then, whenever that happened, you had those chief priests
going and they were kind ofindifferent to the whole
situation.
I don't know if they wereindifferent because they were
afraid of what Herod would do tothem if they all of a sudden
got excited because the new kingwas maybe in the area in the
vicinity and maybe there wasgoing to be a new kingdom that
(11:55):
established there.
So maybe they just they lookedindifferent to me.
All right, and Herod of course.
Look whenever I turn on the oldtelevision in my head when I
open up the Bible and I readthis story, he kind of looks
nervous and mad and angry all atthe same time.
And Herod had a terriblereputation of being that kind of
guy who did not mind spilling alittle bit of blood.
(12:18):
Right, that's just what Herodwas like.
So I see those two differentreactions.
But what about the magi?
How are their reactions in allthis, do you guys think?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Well, I'm sure you're right that some of it was
caution for one, knowing whoHerod was and, ultimately, the
fact that he was asking allthese questions because he felt
threatened.
And I think part of the part ofthe belief for me when it comes
to Jesus in the Bible is abouthow these rulers and those in
(12:53):
power and control react to thethought that they might be
overthrown or that there mightbe another king coming that's
stronger than them.
And I think that plays out herewhere he's asking all these
questions for his own benefit.
And if you're a magi, I thinkyou would kind of pick up on
that some and you would benervous because again you
(13:17):
mentioned, like him, being okaywith having blood on his hands
in those situations.
So now you're being questionedby the same person, you would
try to limit your excitement andeven limit the amount of
information you provide, becausewhat's the motive?
What's this king going to do?
How's he going to react?
Because clearly he's botheredby the thinking that the Messiah
(13:41):
is coming and on his way tobeing born.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Really, what do you think, Michelle?
What did the wise men do?
How did they react towardsJesus?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Well, first, I think that Pierre is probably like you
guys are probably right.
If you think about it, like, ifyou know that somebody has a
different opinion than you,sometimes you kind of temper
your words as to what you'regoing to say, or maybe you won't
bring up certain topics.
So if you're being questionedabout it, like, I think he would
(14:11):
be very careful, especially ifit's somebody in power, right.
So I mean, I don't know, Ithink that's tough, I think they
had to have been ridiculouslyexcited, but I don't know, it's
hard because you think about itin times.
Now, I think, if and when Jesuswere to return, now we all want
(14:38):
to think that we would be soexcited and, you know, just not
have fear there and want toshare that with everybody.
But would we really and I meanI think that really begs the
question of us to really lookinternally and ask ourselves
that very question?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I don't know if I'd be shared with everybody If I
knew like he was coming.
If you got 15 minutes, I don'tknow if I'd be sharing it with
everybody or cleaning out acloset somewhere.
You know what I mean.
I don't know.
No, I'd be sharing it witheverybody.
But yeah, so I do too.
I think that they were excited.
Not only did they seek afterthat star, but they went to it.
You know, they didn't just lookfor something, they actually
(15:20):
had actions behind the looking,and they went to that star,
Probably at great cost too.
You think about how far theytraveled there's great cost by
the lives in danger at somedifferent, you think so crossing
some kind of deserts andmountains and all those things,
and then approaching King Herodand finding out it's not his.
So now you get a little nervousin that.
And even the religious leadersthat Herod had talked to about
(15:44):
all this, the wise men, didn'tget discouraged by their
reaction either.
They kept pressing on to findwhere this little king was, and
so they kept going.
And then you think about whatthey did to whenever they
finally found Jesus which, bythe way, I think when they found
him he was probably a toddler,because you think about Herod.
(16:04):
He asked the age and then heended up, you know, putting to
death all the little boys twoyears and younger in Bethlehem.
So you would think that Jesuswas not just a baby whenever
they arrived on the scene, buthe was probably diapers, I
imagine.
One two years old, that's stilldiapers, right, that's diapers.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, I mean it depends on the pie train back
then.
But I think all your talk is thewhole baby concept is what
we're talking?
Because you got the manger andall those things, yeah.
But I mean, who knows that agerange, like a baby is a wide
range where there's still a baby, whether it be a newborn, you
(16:47):
know fresh out the wound orwhether it be you know a year or
so in advance where they'restill a baby.
But yeah, they could still bein, you know, your diapers or
loincloth, whatever you want tosay there.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, loincloth, I guess Pampers loincloth is
coming arriving.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I'm guessing like Pampers are one of the things
you know you're guessing.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I was trying to.
I was trying to think ofsomething.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I don't know.
That's why I said loincloth.
I don't know if it's aloincloth, but that's.
There's not going to be Pampersback then.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I was trying to think of what kind of diapers they
use back then, If they even usediapers.
And then when you said thepotty training thing, I'm like
yeah, they probably just likewent out behind the shed a lot
or something.
I don't know what you do.
What do the kids do?
They take wool.
They take wool from a sheep,Well.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I know.
So what?
The following of the star andjust the excitement.
I kind of think it like theamazing race.
I don't know if you've seen likethat, I'll be sure where
they're basically pushing forusually for like a monetary type
prize or something on thoselines but the things they go
through and push through to tryto win that race and so put put
(17:57):
into the situation thecircumstance that you believe a
Messiah is on the other end ofthat, the child, the person
that's coming to save you,humanity, your people, I mean
you push through to witness that, to see that I feel, and I
think that's where the themagi's kind of was, whether it
(18:17):
be desert, you know the heat Ifyou're doing it for monetary
value.
If there's something or someonethat you think's truly about to
change you know your life forthe better.
You're going to want to witnessthat.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And I think that goes to even today, like when you
first get that little taste ofthe Messiah, you know what I
mean.
When you're like I think I'mgoing to change my life around,
I'm going to do this.
Well, it's good to think aboutit, but if we want to learn a
lesson from the wise men, theydidn't just think about it, they
acted on it, you know.
And then when they finallyfound it and I'm just going to
(18:51):
put this in a church environment, right they find a group of
people that they have aninterest with.
They arrived and then theyentered.
You know, they entered intothis place wherever Jesus was,
they entered and then theykneeled and bowed down and
worshiped.
So I could learn these lessonsfrom the wise men here, how they
(19:14):
worshiped him.
And then they even broughtsomething to.
They brought, and these werephysical gifts that they brought
.
But it doesn't always have tobe physical gifts, it doesn't
have to be monetary, it doesn'thave to be anything like that.
You can enter, you can worshipGod and you can bow down to him
and offer yourself.
I think that's the greatestthing that you could offer.
(19:36):
And we see this by theirexample a little bit, as we read
this story and see how they didthose things, and we could be
encouraged to try and do thesame ourselves a little bit more
.
Maybe find a place where he is,go in, enter, worship and give,
(19:56):
give yourself to whatever thatis.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And our most recent sermon at church was on prayer
and how important that is, likeyour prayer life, and how
important that is to have arelationship with God, that if
you expect God to show up inyour life and to speak to you,
it's not going to happen if youdon't have a prayer life with
(20:21):
him.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
and to build that relationship, yeah, I mean
because often the conversationlike who in any world or any
life can you can communicatewith if you're not actually
having a conversation and youcan talk about your spouse Like,
if you are not talking to yourwife, things aren't going to go
(20:42):
very well If you're just givingher the silent treatment you
know, not taking the time tohave that conversation with her.
I don't mean myself to havethose situations because I
honestly don't like to talk.
I'm not a big talker, but youknow it gets me in more trouble
with hot water when there arecertain things I won't talk to
talk through because I'm notwilling to have.
(21:03):
You know the communication, andwhen you look at prayer, that's
what it is.
It's an open communication, youknow, to the Savior.
And so if you're not taking thetime to have that communication
, what makes you think you'regoing to?
You know, hear him, hear him inreturn, what makes you think
he's going to talk back to youif you're not even taking the
time to talk and outreach him?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It actually goes better around my house whenever
I don't speak to my wife forsome reason.
I don't know what that is.
There was a lot of speculationthat in history here at
slaughtering the babies inBethlehem is not really a
historical fact, and so I waslike huh yeah, because I Googled
(21:44):
it just to see like how many,how many babies was it?
You know how many things werethere.
I know it fulfilled thescriptures is kind of what
Matthew says and that's what theMatthew is all about.
Is Jesus coming in andfulfilling the scriptures,
entering the king has entered,kind of a thing to fulfill all
the prophecies of the OldTestament.
And there really wasn't anyhistorical stuff for Herod doing
(22:05):
this.
But I think there's good reasonfor that.
After doing a little bit moreresearch, the population around
Bethlehem was probably only 1400.
So there wasn't a lot ofpopulation there, and
speculation is that there may be, if only, maybe, if it's only
like 14 babies, 14 kids.
(22:26):
Now, to me that would be a lot.
If it was my child, don't getme wrong.
All right, don't get me wrong,but as far as a world
encompassing thing goes, themortality rate of children back
then wasn't very high.
So like the death of 14children or so however many it
was probably just wasn'thistorically recorded because it
(22:48):
was almost like an everydaything.
So I say that just because Isaw some some stuff where people
were like, oh see, that's howyou know the Bible is not true,
because there's no record ofthat in history and really it
just seemed commonplace at thattime for something like this to
happen.
Plus, with Herod's reputation,it really wasn't a surprise to
anybody that something like thiswould happen or that Herod
(23:10):
would do this.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Okay, wait for clarification sake.
You said mortality rate wasn'tvery high, but you mean it was
typical thing.
What's that you said thatchildren yeah, that it wasn't
very high but, then you saidthat it's kind of it would have
been kind of a typical thing.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
A lot of children passed away.
Did I say that?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
right, okay, I got you now.
I just wanted to make sure wewere clear.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah, well, and I'm glad you listen, because I don't
listen when I speak but therewere a lot of children passed
away during that time because itwas back then.
You know, it was just back then, so there wasn't as much clean
drinking water.
There was a lot of accidents,different things like that that
happened and occurred.
And, like I said, herod wasjust a loose cannon, so it
didn't surprise anybody that hewould do something like this, so
(23:58):
maybe it just wasn't recorded.
I just thought I'd throw thattwo cents in.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Oh, and even so, like part of the, the obstacle with
things this far back is likethings that we use to record
just didn't exist.
We don't have, like the newsoutlets, we don't have, you know
, cell phones that all havecameras and stuff on it.
You know certain positions,occupations.
(24:22):
They weren't, they weren't,they weren't a thing.
And so how do you, how do yougo about kind of saving history
or or even transcribing history,when those things hadn't come
into existence?
Speaker 1 (24:36):
existence yet, no that's great, great point, all
right.
So they, they went to Egypt.
They ended up in Nazareth iswhere Jesus kind of was raised,
I think, and and grew up therein Nazareth, and so that's it's
cool to see.
He was fulfilling like he was a.
He was a Nazarene.
So you know, nazarenes weresome of those people who didn't
(24:57):
cut their hair.
I don't know if he practicedNazarenean.
I don't know if that's where Ijust make up words, I don't know
if you practice it long here.
And we talked about his parentsbefore, but they didn't drink
and stuff like they didn't doany of those things.
So he grew up around those kindof people though you know what
I mean Like those.
Those were the, those were hissurroundings, and so I think
about who did who did Jesus growup around, who?
(25:20):
He grew up around some prettyrighteous people.
It's pretty cool to be able tothink about who he grew up
around, compared to who I grewup around, I guess, and I
appreciate if I grew up aroundbecause they made me who I am.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
I'm sure there are some some rough around the edges
then as well.
Like throughout history, youhave good and bad.
You know folks have beensending throughout the beginning
of time, ever since the Gardenof Eden, so I'm sure there were,
there were still, culpritsthere.
They may not be mentioned muchin the Bible, but I wouldn't say
(25:53):
that that Jesus didn't still gothrough some of the surrounding
hardships that we did.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I would think so too.
Matthew leaves off right aboutthere, I would want to say
around the age of toddlerism.
I don't know what toddlerism is, but he leaves off there and
then picks up around when he waswhat most historians believe is
around 30 years old, right, andhe picks up with his cousin,
john the Baptist.
(26:20):
Now, john the Baptist is notthe John who wrote any of the
books in the New Testament.
He's not one of the apostles orthe disciples or anybody like
that.
This is John the Baptist, whois Jesus's cousin, and I think
what was it?
Mary was related to Elizabethis what it was, and Elizabeth
was John the Baptist's motherand Mary, of course, was Jesus's
(26:42):
mother.
So that's how they were kin.
That's what we say down here.
I say kin up there in Indiana.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
No, I've heard kin yeah, kin kin folks.
So yes, I've heard it.
I say no.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Pierce says yes, I haven't heard it, it's just not
typical.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Maybe it's not true.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
What's the TV?
Yeah, is it?
What's the TV inside your heads?
What's the appearance of Johnthe Baptist to you guys?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Well, honestly, most of my images now come from the
chosen TV show.
It helps me relate because,honestly, I didn't watch a lot
of the older, like 10Commandments and all those type
of things.
They just kind of bored me, ifI'm being honest.
So, being kind of tied into thechosen and enjoying that show,
(27:30):
I got the image of that actorthat plays him.
So there's a longer hair,longer beard.
You know, little bit crazy.
It comes to the message there,but that's just kind of the
image that goes for me.
So if you're curious, look upthe chosen and John the Baptist
there.
And for all the listeners,that's the one that comes to
(27:51):
mind for myself.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, and what I have to say, like for me it's the
same, because you know I'm hereand I've talked about this
before and I think we've eventalked about it on here as far
as the chosen goes, and we'lljust throw a shout out to them,
but the before, for whateverreason, like if I read books, my
brain just automatically triesto put into a picture what the
(28:14):
characters look like.
Or if I'm on the phone withsomebody and I've never met them
, my brain automatically triesto form a picture of what they
look like.
But for some reason, like inthe Bible, I've never other than
Jesus, I guess, because of allthe pictures I'd seen my whole
life.
You know, cool Jesus, I neverreally tried to form pictures
(28:37):
really in my head of what thedisciples or anybody really
looked like.
And then all of a sudden, alongcomes the chosen and even
though I'd seen so many other,like movies, you know, or
Christian based things, none ofthose characters really stuck.
But all of a sudden, you know,watching the chosen, it's
brought those characters orthose people to life for me and
(29:02):
help to create this picture andto put a picture in my mind, and
I've really appreciated thatbecause it helps to make it a
little more relatable.
So I think Pierre probablyfeels the same way.
But for whatever reason, those,those images have really stuck
and it's appreciated.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
That's cool and I think that that's the image I
get to, like a rough and tumblekind of guy who lived off the
land, his food was locust andhoney and his clothes were camel
hairs what the Bible says.
So it's not necessarilysomething that is extravagant
and he just lived off the land,kind of thing.
You know, you think aboutsomebody's appearance like that
(29:40):
and I don't know what he, whathe appeared I'm just telling you
what the Bible says.
But he had to be such a goodspeaker, such a powerful speaker
, because people came out to seehim and they were persuaded to
be baptized by him and reallyall he kept telling them was
repent, for the kingdom ofheaven is at hand.
You know, he had that.
He had that, that time periodthat he was making the path
(30:02):
straight.
For when Jesus came on board tokind of preach the same message
as what John was saying, he didit in a different way.
And John the Baptist, thoughthe way he said it, when he saw
the Pharisees and Sadduceescoming one time he called him.
He said oh, you brood of vipers, your snakes in the grass, who
(30:23):
in the world told you guys tocome out here?
These are the religious leadersyou know.
So this guy's got some gustoabout him.
I think that's kind of coolwhenever you think that.
But he says to him who told youto come out here for to be
baptized, you, brood of vipers?
Who warned you to flee from thewrath to come?
Therefore, bring forth fruit inkeeping with repentance, and do
(30:43):
not suppose that you can say toyourselves we have Abraham for
our father.
I say to you that God is ableto raise stones up and to make
these children to give himchildren of Abraham, which is
kind of cool, because it wasimportant for those people, to
Jewish people, to be children ofAbraham, to be kind of known as
that, and it was kind of theirbadge of honor kind of thing.
We're children of Abraham.
(31:03):
And he's saying look, if youdon't sit there and repent from
these things, all the thingsthat you're doing wrong, god
will just look at this stone andraise up children for himself.
And it's just the words.
He had, the powerfulness thathe had whenever he was talking
to those people and he didn'tmind trying to persuade
religious leaders to do theright things.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Which I mean it takes .
It takes guts, and I mean evenin today's society, I think that
would that would take guts todo so with some of your, your
bigger religious leaders intoday's world.
I mean, everyone's human, noone's perfect, and you know
they're.
They're up there sometimespreaching, you know, to focus on
(31:45):
laws and rules which you knowJesus even spoke about himself.
And so who, who could beconfident enough and boisterous
enough to kind of have some ofthose conversations, to kind of
put them on blast, to use aslanger type term.
And so I just think about thattoday and like kind of what that
would look like, and you canjust almost kind of picture
(32:08):
someone just being boisterousand having followers of, just
curious, who is this personthat's willing, you know, to to
not back down to some of thesereligious leaders but also still
speak, you know, of repentanceand things on those lines that
they also speak about, butoppose them at the same time?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Truth and love, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, this goes to a baptism discussion, I
think, because of course he'sbaptizing, you know, and I came
out of a denomination at onepoint in my life where they
taught baptism for salvation.
And it's tricky because I wouldI'm going to, you know, steal a
phrase from here and therearound, but it's probably a
(32:51):
phrase that we've always, that alot of us are familiar with,
where baptism is an outward signof an inward grace, right so,
and you're getting baptized toshow the world that.
But in this denomination I wasit you're baptized actually for
salvation, like if you weren'tbaptized, you weren't saved,
period period and maybe even anexclamation point, all right.
(33:14):
And when I was, when I wasyoung and impressionable, I
thought, okay, yeah, that makessense, because there was a lot
of scriptures that do talk aboutbaptism and baptism now saves
you over there, and what 1 Peteror 2 Peter says baptism now
saves you and a lot of themessages that the apostles had
ended with baptism and you see abig baptismal services
(33:35):
afterwards whenever they endedup preaching the gospel or
anything like that in the bookof Acts.
The apostles mentioned a lot.
But here was the question, as Ikind of became a little bit more
seasoned Christian and look ifbaptism, if you got to be
baptized to be saved, do it.
You know, if it bothers yourconscience, if it's keeping you
(33:56):
up at night because you aren'tbaptized, do it.
You know they just do itbecause I do think baptism is
important, I do.
I think you have to be baptized, I really do.
I think that if you're sayingI'm not going to do that because
God, but if God asked you to,you should do it right.
You should show the outwardsign of the inward grace, if
that's the way it wants to bephrased in whatever you know
(34:17):
realm or this denomination thatyou're in, Do it because it is
something that God hasencouraged.
Even here in John the Baptistdays, we see Jesus getting
baptized.
We see people getting baptizedall throughout the New Testament
and there's something specialabout that moment.
(34:38):
It's kind of very similar tothe wedding right, where people
are making a commitment to eachother and you're making a
commitment to God and it'sputting yourself in a vulnerable
state for somebody that hasdone a lot for you and put
themselves in a vulnerable stateas well.
What do you guys think?
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Exactly.
I think you hit the nail on theproverbial head Wes.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, once in a while it's definitely an outward sign
and even if there's not a bigaudience, like it's a a
commitment to yourself, to God,in my opinion, like regardless
of who the spectators are,whether there's a bunch of
people around witnessing it orif it's just you and the pastor
(35:24):
kind of walking you through thebaptizing itself, it's really
important.
It's a declaration I don't knowthe word I'm looking for but
you're basically is making thatchoice outwardly to get baptized
.
I think John does a good job ofkind of prefacing.
He only does it in water.
(35:44):
There's someone coming behindme that is gonna do it baptize
with the Holy Spirit and fireand all these ordeals and I
think it's important to kind ofprepare the way.
And John kind of had a reallybig part of that.
And I often think of likeconcerts almost sort of speak.
(36:04):
So when you go to a concert youtend to go mostly for the
headliner.
You wanna see the main artist,the main event, but leading up
to that there are some otheracts that kind of get you warmed
up for that main event that'sto come.
And I think that's what therole that John kind of played he
(36:26):
was, that opening act that gotyou warmed up, got you loose,
got your vocals ready, got yourdancing feet a little bit ready,
got you loosened up for themain event to come, which was
Jesus.
And I think we gotta appreciatesome of those opening acts a
little bit more in our lives,that not just from a concert
standpoint but just in livechanging standpoints.
(36:49):
Those people that kind of plantthe seed and kind of start that
foundation that help us growinto the main event in our own
personal life.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
I think that's a good point.
I mean, if you think about it,there are many things in life,
like you said, concerts, butlike movies, there are previews
and even in like, typically inrelationships, you have other
relationships that help you seewhat you should shouldn't do in
a relationship, what did anddidn't work and things you can
work on on yourself.
(37:20):
And even once you're in yourestablished marriage, like,
there's still things that yourecognize okay, this might not
be working in my relationship.
So I think those opening thingsare really important and like,
even if it's just you're fromchildhood, like, you have your
parents typically most people,not everyone but oftentimes you
(37:43):
have your parents to help youwith all of those opening things
to get you to your main eventof living on your own.
So I mean, I agree with you.
I think that those things areimportant to help you form who
you are.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, I do too.
I think one of the things thatI don't wanna say bug me about
baptism nowadays, but it's thatthere isn't a lot of importance
put on it Like, okay, oh, youwanna get baptized?
Okay, we'll do it in a coupleof months.
You know, let's strike whilethe iron's hot.
That's kind of what I have afeeling about whenever I think
(38:18):
about it.
I wish we wouldn't put it offnearly as much as maybe
traditionally we've gottenaccustomed to.
Well, okay, we'll do it.
We'll set up the filming foryour testimony before the
baptism at two months from now.
So you got time to write itdown and then we'll overview it
and we'll see what it is andwe'll kind of go through it.
(38:39):
I'm not gonna say it feelsrehearsed, but it kind of feels
rehearsed.
It's not like the old dayswhere somebody would decide to
change their life and then afterchurch everybody just walks
down to the river and baptizesthe person or something.
There was a genuineness aboutsome of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Well, shout out to our church because they still do
that.
Called the river, called theriver.
But they have, like, set datesin place.
But, honestly, some of the mostamazing days are just
spontaneous baptisms, wheresomeone fills the spirit and we
have a tank ready.
It's ready at all the times andthere were times where, like
(39:20):
services like we got threeservices at our church that we
go to and there was a time wewere working the door and just
spontaneous baptisms kepthappening.
There were like 10 to 11 in oneservice, to the point that the
third service was late, whichwas pastors like who cares?
Oh well, you're gonna have towait because lives are changing
(39:41):
right now.
So I do appreciate the fact thatour church does a really good
job of still allowing thatspontaneous baptisms to take
place and I think it just movesothers.
When that's the case as well,like you stated, it can tell
it's not rehearsed, there'ssomething moving in them.
So why not now?
Why not do it right at thismoment?
(40:03):
And I mean, you've seen itthroughout the Bible as well.
I can't remember who was in thecarriage, but they got out of
the carriage and whoever got inthere with them kind of taught
them what they were reading.
Maybe it was Philip and say,hey, there's water right there,
let's do this now.
Boom, let's do it now.
I don't hesitate becausetomorrow's not promised.
The two weeks that you havescheduled isn't promised, so do
(40:27):
it while the doing's good.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
I guess you can say it was Philip and the Ethiopian
eunuch.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yes, yeah, you got Philip right.
Boom, look at me go.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
It's good, and don't ask me why.
I know the Ethiopian eunuch,it's just a name that has stuck
in my head right there and Ithink about that too.
Like the waiting period there.
I'm not comfortable withwaiting period.
I'm glad Now.
See, it was Thursday.
We had a gospel meeting, and soon a Wednesday night the gospel
(40:56):
meeting, I think, ended on aThursday at the church and the
guy had asked me some questionspersonally and stuff, and I was
sitting there thinking aboutthem.
I decided that Wednesday nightthat I was done.
I was done.
I was done with the old West, Iwas going to be a new West, and
so I actually prayed that nightand had my first conversation
with God in a different way.
I'd always used them as abailout project.
(41:18):
You know what I mean.
Like, oh, please don't let mego.
Oh, I promise I'll never drinkagain.
If you just oh, you know, justthat kind of thought process is
what I always did.
If you help me pay my billsthis one time, I'll never.
You know, just stuff like that.
But it wasn't like that thistime.
It was an apology, it was anapologetic prayer, it was a
sorry for doing all this stuff.
(41:38):
I shouldn't have ever, you know, and it was just getting all
those things out open between meand him.
I wasn't running from himanymore, it was between me and
God.
And that night I mean honestlythat night I remember it it was
clear as day.
And so the next day I went tochurch.
It was a gospel meeting, so Iwas kind of used to this going
on.
And the Wednesday night waslate, I was late at night and
(42:01):
stuff.
So the Thursday I said allright, gospel meeting, I'm gonna
get baptized, I'm gonna getbaptized.
And so we have.
You know, the sermon was there,the invitation song is what we
call it, invitation song and Iwalked forward, I brought I was
so proud that I brought my combbecause my hair was gonna get
wet, right.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
So I was gonna be able to comb my hair so proud.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
And then, one of the things I didn't know our baptism
, baptismal place was broken.
It was broken and it's oldwater.
So we had to drive 35 minutesdown some old country roads to
go to the nearest church that wehad a key to or something I
don't know.
I was a new fella in all thisstuff.
(42:44):
We had to drive 35 minutes downcountry roads to get there and,
I'll be honest with you inhindsight, I was scared, because
baptism now saves you, not theremoval of dirt from the flesh,
but an appeal to God for a goodconscience.
So if I was baptized in thisdenomination, I was going to
hell and I didn't wanna go tohell anymore.
Yet I had to drive 35 minutesbetween here and there to get
(43:06):
under water and I was like youknow in hindsight, I'm sitting
there going wait a minute, uh-uh, that wouldn't happen.
So I asked questions like tosome educated people, like okay,
what would have happened if abig 18 wheeler chicken truck
were to come over there and hitme in my lane and I died?
Would I go to heaven?
That's a good question, right,mm-hmm?
(43:30):
Well, and this was the response.
This was the majority of theresponses I got.
Well, you know, we have amerciful God who knows where
your heart was and knows whatyou were trying to do, and so I
think that he would be merciful.
And I'm sitting there thinking,huh, what if I would have died
(43:50):
the night before, you know, inmy sleep, after I've said that
prayer.
So I was just thinking about,you know, the baptismal part and
how baptism now saves you andthe necessity of it.
And I do think it's necessity.
I'm glad I did it the nightbefore or the night after,
because it was something that Ifelt energized to do and it gave
me energy to do other thingsand to talk to other people.
(44:11):
So I'm glad I did it and I madethat commitment and I didn't
feel like it was a spontaneousthing or anything like that.
It was just it was the rightthing to do, because that's what
God had asked me to do.
So I don't know I wanted to putthat out there a little bit.
Maybe somebody struggling withwhether or not they should be
baptized and why they should bebaptized and the reasons that
you should do it, I would say tomake it a spontaneous baptism
(44:36):
on a Sunday, just to trip peopleout.
If they say let's wait twomonths, say nah, I'd like to do
it now.
Just see what people say.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
That's what I would try, if you're ready.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
That's right.
It's your baptism, not theirs,though.
If not, then find someplacethat will do it.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Mm-hmm, what do you think about the whole fire thing
that baptizes you with the HolySpirit and fire?
What do you think that's allabout?
I?
Speaker 2 (44:59):
don't know.
I think people honestly go tothe physical fire of like a
burning, but I'm not sure that'swhat that's speaking to.
When John is kind of speakingwith that it could be like an
internal fire, I think, and justlike a burning inside to be
(45:21):
changed, you know, kind ofburning away the old you for the
place and room for the new youto take place.
Obviously the Holy Spirit, youknow, is an advocate that we
know now is, you know, come inand can live within us.
So I think part of that atfires is not a physical fire in
(45:42):
my own mind, but to kind of burnaway some of the the old,
unclean parts of yourself inorder to make you new.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Yeah, I never.
I never thought of it like thatreally.
I always just kind of thinkabout Acts, chapter two, and the
apostles getting baptized therewith fire from heaven and the
tongue sitting on top of theirhead as a fire and stuff like
that, and I think about thegifts of the Holy Spirit that
were imparted on them and howthey were able to do miracles
there in the book of Acts andfrom what's recorded and stuff.
(46:16):
So I kind of look at that, Isee it.
I see it that way too, with theHoly Spirit and stuff that was
breathed on them by Jesus andstuff like that.
So that's kind of how I?
Yeah, all right, that's good.
What about the baptism of Jesus, michelle?
When you look at the baptism ofJesus, anything just jump out
at you that you look at and yougo, wow, that's pretty cool that
(46:38):
that happened.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
I mean, I think the overarching thing is just for
all of us to realize that youknow, like you said, if somebody
has questions, that they shouldbe baptized or not.
Like you said earlier, evenJesus was baptized right Like.
So if he saw the importance ofit, why shouldn't we?
So I think, first and foremost,that's the thing that sticks
out to me is to say you know,jesus saw the importance of it,
(47:03):
he understood why it wasnecessary, even in his life, and
he was perfect.
So I don't know why we wouldthink that we are the exception
to that rule.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
So I like it where Jesus comes down to him from
Galilee to the Jordan River.
I mean we have from other theLuke's and everything there, and
Mark and everything where Johnthe Baptist, if he saw Jesus, he
just said behold the Lamb ofGod who takes away the sin of
the world.
You know, that's just how Johnis.
(47:38):
He's just going to talk abouthis cousin like that.
But Jesus came down there to bebaptized by him and John said
whoa, whoa, whoa, slow your role.
I think that's exactly what hesaid.
He said look, I need to bebaptized by you and you come to
me.
And Jesus said to him permit it.
This time is fitting for us tofulfill all righteousness.
(48:00):
And so then he permitted him.
It was to fulfill Jesus'righteousness and we were
talking about a sinless man hereand he's trying to be obedient
to God and I think he's tryingto be a good example as well,
possibly.
But it was a must do thing, itwasn't optional, it wasn't
(48:22):
something that if anybody couldhave said later or hey, I don't
need to do that.
You know, I'm Jesus man, I wantto get baptized.
Come on, I don't need to thinkabout all this luscious hair.
How's it going to all get wet.
It's going to kind of be aninconvenience.
I'm going to get my feet wet,the sandals here, the dirt, it's
(48:43):
just going to be a mess.
I just don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
But look at the sound that we talked about two
different parts of this smallersection.
But what happened when he cameup out of the water, like, for
me, that's the, that's themoment that sticks out.
The heavens open, you know, andsaw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove and thelight on him and a voice from
(49:07):
heaven said this is my son, whomI love.
With him, I am very wellpleased.
So that's a, that's a wowmoment for me and I think about
myself and for me, like you hearthe stories, you hear like
folks kind of given their, theirtestimonies as they're about to
(49:27):
get, you know, baptized.
But the part I enjoy the mostwatching it, and what I enjoyed
myself is coming up out of thewater, just getting lifted up
out, and I just imagine thatthat's the, that's the reaction
that that God has for foreveryone.
This is my son, this is mydaughter.
(49:49):
With them, I am pleased.
There's like a being pleasedthat we went through, you know,
that baptism and that we're,we're willing to change our
lives and try to change ourlives around.
You know, for him that's just,I know, that's just a special
moment for me, knowing thatJesus got that.
(50:10):
Yeah, we're not Jesus, but Ifeel like we get that same type
of Joy and celebration fromJesus when we go through it
ourselves and that he's he'svery pleased with our decision.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
No, I absolutely love that.
You said that, because it is.
It's a refreshing thing to bebaptized and the people have a
glow about them you know what Imean Like there's a serious glow
about them and and whatever.
I was reading this this timewhen it talked about the Holy
Spirit descending on them like adove and I was thinking about
(50:44):
people who get baptized.
I did, I thought about the.
I don't know if it's a relief, Idon't know if it's a clean
conscience, like you know, theBible does tell us it's a clean
conscience toward God, and Idon't know if that's what it is,
if it's the commitment, if itlooks like a bride on their
wedding day to some degree.
There's just, there's just aclean cleanliness about it all.
(51:06):
And in Romans, chapter six, iteven.
It even tells us and I'm goingto read just for a minute here
what shall we say then?
Starting verse one Are we tocontinue and sin?
That grace may increase?
May it never be.
How shall we who died to sinstill live in it?
Or do you not know that all ofus who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus have been baptizedinto his death?
(51:27):
Therefore, we have been buriedwith him through baptism into
death in order that, as Christwas raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, we toomight walk a newness of life.
And if we become united with himin the likeness of his death,
certainly we shall also be inthe likeness of his resurrection
, knowing this, that our oldself was crucified with him,
(51:48):
that our body of sin might bedone away with, that we should
no longer be slaves to sin, forhe who has died is freed from
sin.
Now, if we have died in Christ,we also believe that we shall
also live with him.
I just love that part of Romans, romans chapter six, where it
talks about baptism and how itis a death, a burial and a
(52:08):
resurrection, as close as we'regoing to get in our physical
form, you know, and it's, Ithink it's more of a spiritual
form, but it is a representationof that death of Jesus in the
ground, in the tomb, and thencoming out a new person, and so
it's a wonderful illustration ofthat, and even our Savior Jesus
experienced that from hiscousin John the Baptist.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Absolutely.
It's special and I've got towitness a few myself be on stage
for one or two and you're justso proud of that person In that
moment you can sense how proudthey are of themselves.
I've just ultimately gonethrough with it and there is a
sense of just renewal beingrenewed and you know, I feel
(52:55):
like that that can only comefrom something bigger than us to
have that feeling.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
So true and, like I know, this will be very shocking
to you and anyone who knows me,but it makes me cry every time.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
I knew it was going to be.
So I guess we didn't make itthrough a whole episode without
Michelle talking about crying.
Hey, we did.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
Oh, we generally.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
So we need to take another pause here to allow
people to review and comment andleave a question.
Do we need to do that again?
Speaker 2 (53:27):
I don't think so.
I just think we need to just bethankful for the show, thankful
for the listeners, obviouslythankful for for God that puts
these conversations on ourhearts.
And if you feel the need toreview or ask questions, you
know we're open or inboxes areopen.
Finding Faith LosingSleep atgmocom.
(53:48):
Also find us on Twitter atfindingfapepotcom.
I want to kind of messagejudgment individually.
I'm at Pee Wee 31.
We got Michelle at go pack go411.
And we have Wes at loafing itLoaf like the bread at loafing
it on Twitter as well.
So we thank you for listening.
Thank you for taking the timefor each episode that comes out.
(54:11):
You know to take time out ofyour day to hear us talking to a
microphone about some of thethings we're going to do, we're
going through in life andtalking through the Bible and
circumstances and context andall things we're trying to do as
we kind of live life together.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Definitely, pierre.
You said it better than I did Icould probably.
I'm not going to say for surethat you did All right, we're
too gemini, so we probably thinkalike is what.
I'm thinking no, we doappreciate that and thank you
for going along on this journeywith us because it has been a
journey.
Pierre, you said we hit amilestone.
I don't know you put that onTwitter.
I can't remember exactly whatit was.
I said there was a milestoneand I was like, really that many
(54:48):
people Come on, man.
So we do appreciate you sharingthe show with other people and
listening to it and going backand listening to those past
episodes even that's important.
We're not doing this for allthe downloads or anything.
I know I make fun of that stuffand I'm just being light.
I'm being lighthearted a littlebit on it.
I'm not serious at all.
I do appreciate it all becauseit is encouraging to us to know
(55:12):
that hopefully people arelistening and being encouraged
themselves and we would love tohear from you if you are.
But it was like 7,000 downloadsor something 7,500 was our
latest.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
So that's pretty impressive, given we're only 19
episodes in now.
So what has just been?
18.
And I mean, there's someepisodes that have done really,
really well and some thathaven't done as well, and it
doesn't matter, we're justtalking through it and again,
for each one you decide tolisten to, we're very
appreciative.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Yes, because our whole goal was to reach one
person.
So if we've exceeded that,we're incredibly thankful, and
I'm sure you do both of you dotoo but before we even start
recording, I always pray to justlet God speak through me.
I'm certain both of you do aswell and so we pray that our
(56:05):
words aren't.
You know, it's not of us thatwe're sharing our stories and
what we feel about things, butultimately we want God to be
able to use us as vessels toreach people, for them to hear
what they need to hear.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah, up here, I would tell you that you may need
to pray for me a little bitmore, michelle, before the show
kicks off.
Just stop, it's an executiveproducer, I think.
Oh, we do appreciate you alldoing that, and not only do we
pray for each other before theshow starts, but I also pray for
you and I also ask that youpray for us as we go through
this journey together.
It's time to wake up and pray up here.
On the Finding Faith and LosingSleep podcast, episode number
19,.
Title to Be Determined.
I think that's the best thingto do is title to be determined.
We're going over Matthew again.
We've kind of been working ourway through the beginning of the
Bible, genesis, and then jumpedover into the New Testament and
Matthew.
So we're going to talk aboutMatthew 2 a little bit and then
(00:29):
3 a little bit, kind of do anoverview here.
I think this was a gooddirection to take it in, because
everything in the Bible seemsto be pertinent nowadays and it
could be applied in manydifferent directions and areas,
no matter what the headlines areout there in the world or
anything.
We could just kind of go withthe flow.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's true.
It's true, the thought processis to kind of just jump back and
forth between the Old Testamentand the New Testament and just
kind of talk through thecircumstances in the Bible
itself and relate it to today'ssociety, today's world, because
that's ultimately it's todaythat we know that keeps us awake
(01:05):
this night and helps us to kindof go through this whole
Finding Faith battles.
But I also want to just pointout I'm proud of you for getting
the episode number right.
I think that's the first timethat you've actually got the
number right.
So congratulations, Wes, Proudof you.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Well, you know, 19 is the legal age for a lot of
things.
I don't know why I just 19stuck in my head.
That is Pierre.
He is the executive producerextraordinaire here on the
Finding Faith and Losing Sleeppodcast and we are always joined
by his wife, michelle, atGoPackGo411 over on Twitter is
what her handle is and Michelle.
(01:41):
We got to make sure we pointout early on in this episode
early on, that we are nottheologians.
I was totally butchered at wordand everything theologians.
We are not some big, studied,astute kind of people on the
Bible and we haven't gone toschool for a million years.
We're just regular, everydaypeople just try to work out our
salvation while we're here onthis earth.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
So true, wes, and I think that's like we've talked.
It's really helpful for all ofus who do have such different
backgrounds to just kind of beable to talk through things and
to, you know, understand thatit's okay to agree, to disagree
sometimes, and we still loveeach other and that's important.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
That is important.
And, of course, pierre, theexecutive producer.
All the hate mail goes over tohim, or all hate Twitter stuff
goes over to him at Peewee31,over on Twitter, and listen.
I just want to get this out ofthe way.
I would like to thank everybodyfor their votes and I do accept
this award for having one ofthe most accomplished podcasts
that has shown up on the scenehere on whatever listening
(02:44):
platform you're listening on.
So I extend a gracious thankyou to everybody who voted and
gave me that award.
I should do that right away,right, pierre?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
You should not.
We actually didn't make thefinals of the award, but it was
nice to be nominated, so we dothank those for nominating us.
We did not make the final slate, but the only reason we were
even a part of it is becausesome of you listeners went out
and nominated us.
So a big thank you for doing so, from the bottom of my heart
(03:15):
and I'm sure, from the bottom oftheirs as well.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
No, no, it really seriously.
Thank you for voting for us andnominating us and everything I
just wanted to give people anupdate on some.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
No, no, no, wes, it's not a vote, it was a nomination
.
Don't forget Technicalities,all right, technicalities.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's what I said, but we do appreciate that and I
know we're doing Old Testament,new Testament stuff.
You know what I would love tohave?
I would love to have a question, a question episode, where
listeners either send us aquestion via email or over on
Twitter or even on the listeningplatforms that they listen to
(03:51):
it on.
It just takes a couple ofseconds to leave a question or
to leave a review, whateverlistening platform it is.
It helps us beat the algorithmsa little bit and gets the show
out there a little bit more,which is always, you know, I
want to say it's important.
Maybe the show will helpsomebody, maybe they'll be able
to hear something that we sayand it'll be an encouragement to
them.
So I want to encourage peopleto leave those comments, leave
some kind of review, leavesomething it just takes a couple
(04:15):
of minutes to do.
Should we take a moment ofsilence and allow people to do
that right now, pierre?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
I'm not sure what a moment of silence is going to
accomplish on a recorded podcast.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
It works for you.
Well, I mean, if we could, justwe could talk about nothing
which is almost what the show isabout anyway and then just
allow people to go out there.
They won't miss anything.
If we just kind of meanderthrough the, tell them what the
email address is, that'll help.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
You can hit pause Findingfaithlosingsleepgmailcom
Now.
You're usually authorised thisearly on, so appreciate your
pages there.
I can also hit us up on Twitterat findingfaithpod.
So on Twitter atfindingfaithpod, email is
findingfaithlosingsleepgmailcom.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And we're on iTunes, so you can leave it there on
iTunes.
So, listener question.
I want a listener question.
I think it'd be.
So iTunes, we're on the Googlepodcast, right?
We're on Google podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
We're on all directories.
We're on Spotify, iheartradio,we're on all of them.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I'm not on all of them but that's cool, you're
part of Weezy.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So we are, we are there, we are not.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
You can find me over on atlophonet on Twitter.
I'm on atlophonet on Twitterthere now.
That gave people time.
It gave people time to leave areview.
If you still haven't read thereview, just hit the pause,
leave a question, leave a review, whatever you want to do, so
just unpause it now.
And we are picking that up inMatthew chapter two.
How about that?
That was good, was that not agood segue?
He says it Fantastic.
(05:44):
We talked about Matthew onelast time with all those little
funny names in the genealogy,and I know I surprised both of
you by being able to have kindof a podcast about the genealogy
of Jesus Christ.
But I thought it was fun and Ithink it's cool to be able to go
back and look at those OldTestament stories and to find
out all those stories that werein Jesus' lineage.
(06:04):
And look, it doesn't stop there.
It keeps going in Matthewchapter two with the visit of
the wise men, and those guyscame.
Now, how many wise men werethere?
Three, oh, just three.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
My impression is three.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I think that probably .
Well, I think it was at leastthree, yes, but it could have
been more.
These wise men, I think thatthey had money, you know what I
mean.
Like some of them, even there'sold stuff that thinks that
maybe they were kings to somedegree from far off countries
and that they traveled, probablywith more than just the three
of them, crossing the desert,going thousands of miles on
(06:43):
Campbell's backs or whatever,however it was.
But there was probably more ofthem.
There's just more of them.
So there could have beenmultiple people going that
direction.
But isn't it weird?
We talked about the star alittle bit and how that star was
there.
What do you guys think aboutpeople's horoscopes and stuff?
You ever go over there and readwhat your horoscope's going to
(07:04):
be, or anything?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I haven't done that in a while.
I think I did so in high schooland things along those lines.
But there are times where itfelt like things were a little
bit accurate and there weretimes where it was way off, and
so don't really get into thatanymore.
I think the Bible even speaksto horoscopes and psychics and
things along those lines as well.
No, not too much.
(07:28):
I know I'm a Gemini and I knowit's like a twin sign and that's
about as far as I go these days.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You know what else.
You know what I am, Pierre.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
A mess.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I'm a Gemini also.
Maybe I'm your twin and y'all.
That explains a lot.
I'm your twin.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Olivia is also a Gemini and I'm a Virgo, so it's
fun yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
You know, I read a study one time and I tried to
find it again.
I couldn't find it again.
I read a study one time where acollege professor, when talking
about this topic, would giveeach of the students and he
turned it down turned the pieceof paper down in front of the
students and he said to flip itover to read their horoscope.
And they were like, oh, that'sme exactly.
You know, all of them were likeoh, that's me exactly.
(08:14):
And then he said, okay, nowpass it over to the right.
And so they passed it over tothe right and things were
changed just enough in the in itto not be exactly like that,
you know, like like the originalcopy that was laid down in
front of them.
And then they were all like, ohno, this one is exactly me.
And he just kept doing that andhe was just trying to show that
(08:35):
you can be very vague in kindof horoscopes and different
things like that, but make itsound like that's exactly me.
You know that's talking aboutme and my day and my life and
everything on my past.
So horoscopes and all that iskind of tricky, tricky stuff
Makes sense to me.
Did you know that?
Maybe this is.
This is cool.
(08:56):
I was doing a little research onthe whole mad guy, mad guy,
magician, the whole wise manthing.
Casper, I'm going to put youthis name both, both the czar
and me, quark.
Do you know who they are?
Nope, they were.
They were possibly the threewise men, that's what I was
going to say.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, I figured, we were bringing them up.
That's what you were going tosay.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, and I was going to give you like, a, like a
question or something like thatto see if you could guess who
they were before we even started, and then I blew that.
I totally messed it up.
I was, I went off in adifferent direction, and do you
know that?
Maybe?
Maybe I'm not saying it is Okay, nearly, they're getting used
to it.
Okay, really, that's whathistory tells us, that's what
(09:42):
Lour tells us, that's whatpossibilities are.
Wouldn't that be weird to lookat that and to see?
Maybe you know the, the, youknow it just could be anybody's
skulls, I guess.
But still, it's a littledifferent.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I mean there's, there's history throughout,
though, and so that just kind ofbrings up.
You know, a good point is youfind like different type of
archaeology and things that takeplace over the years that you
know uncover.
You know things, and even whenthings being uncovered and you
know folks assuming something,something or something's not,
you know, there's just a lot ofhistoric evidence throughout the
(10:16):
world that probably is stillleft uncovered, and so the same
could be the same for these magiand I know like in your
explanations.
So I went to Aladdin I don'tknow if you're familiar with
Aladdin, the Disney cartoon, butI think about when he kind of
comes in as Prince Ali.
You know there's a bunch ofdifferent kings, as you stated,
(10:38):
coming in the to meet theprincess Jasmine.
So now I'm just thinking in myhead love magi being like a
prince, like Aladdin, likePrince Ali coming in, and camels
and elephants and all thesethings with their majesty.
I guess you could say.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Now they first went to the Kings palace right, king
Herod's palace because they werelooking for a king.
They were kind of followingwhat some of the Old Testament
stuff was written about, the newking that was going to be over
the Jewish people, over God'speople, and so they went there
and they asked about them and ofcourse we learn about Herod's
trickery and all this.
(11:14):
And I love the reaction of thewise men and how they went to
and what they did.
And I think there's severaldifferent reactions.
One I think you can see Herod'sreaction and all this, because
he went and he started askingwhat the Pharisees, the chief
priests, about this and theytold him what the scripture said
(11:35):
about everything.
And then, whenever that happened, you had those chief priests
going and they were kind ofindifferent to the whole
situation.
I don't know if they wereindifferent because they were
afraid of what Herod would do tothem if they all of a sudden
got excited because the new kingwas maybe in the area in the
vicinity and maybe there wasgoing to be a new kingdom that
(11:55):
established there.
So maybe they just they lookedindifferent to me.
All right, and Herod of course.
Look whenever I turn on the oldtelevision in my head when I
open up the Bible and I readthis story, he kind of looks
nervous and mad and angry all atthe same time.
And Herod had a terriblereputation of being that kind of
guy who did not mind spilling alittle bit of blood.
(12:18):
Right, that's just what Herodwas like.
So I see those two differentreactions.
But what about the magi?
How are their reactions in allthis, do you guys think?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Well, I'm sure you're right that some of it was
caution for one, knowing whoHerod was and, ultimately, the
fact that he was asking allthese questions because he felt
threatened.
And I think part of the part ofthe belief for me when it comes
to Jesus in the Bible is abouthow these rulers and those in
(12:53):
power and control react to thethought that they might be
overthrown or that there mightbe another king coming that's
stronger than them.
And I think that plays out herewhere he's asking all these
questions for his own benefit.
And if you're a magi, I thinkyou would kind of pick up on
that some and you would benervous because again you
(13:17):
mentioned, like him, being okaywith having blood on his hands
in those situations.
So now you're being questionedby the same person, you would
try to limit your excitement andeven limit the amount of
information you provide, becausewhat's the motive?
What's this king going to do?
How's he going to react?
Because clearly he's botheredby the thinking that the Messiah
(13:41):
is coming and on his way tobeing born.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Really, what do you think, Michelle?
What did the wise men do?
How did they react towardsJesus?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Well, first, I think that Pierre is probably like you
guys are probably right.
If you think about it, like, ifyou know that somebody has a
different opinion than you,sometimes you kind of temper
your words as to what you'regoing to say, or maybe you won't
bring up certain topics.
So if you're being questionedabout it, like, I think he would
(14:11):
be very careful, especially ifit's somebody in power, right.
So I mean, I don't know, Ithink that's tough, I think they
had to have been ridiculouslyexcited, but I don't know, it's
hard because you think about itin times.
Now, I think, if and when Jesuswere to return, now we all want
(14:38):
to think that we would be soexcited and, you know, just not
have fear there and want toshare that with everybody.
But would we really and I meanI think that really begs the
question of us to really lookinternally and ask ourselves
that very question?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I don't know if I'd be shared with everybody If I
knew like he was coming.
If you got 15 minutes, I don'tknow if I'd be sharing it with
everybody or cleaning out acloset somewhere.
You know what I mean.
I don't know.
No, I'd be sharing it witheverybody.
But yeah, so I do too.
I think that they were excited.
Not only did they seek afterthat star, but they went to it.
You know, they didn't just lookfor something, they actually
(15:20):
had actions behind the looking,and they went to that star,
Probably at great cost too.
You think about how far theytraveled there's great cost by
the lives in danger at somedifferent, you think so crossing
some kind of deserts andmountains and all those things,
and then approaching King Herodand finding out it's not his.
So now you get a little nervousin that.
And even the religious leadersthat Herod had talked to about
(15:44):
all this, the wise men, didn'tget discouraged by their
reaction either.
They kept pressing on to findwhere this little king was, and
so they kept going.
And then you think about whatthey did to whenever they
finally found Jesus which, bythe way, I think when they found
him he was probably a toddler,because you think about Herod.
(16:04):
He asked the age and then heended up, you know, putting to
death all the little boys twoyears and younger in Bethlehem.
So you would think that Jesuswas not just a baby whenever
they arrived on the scene, buthe was probably diapers, I
imagine.
One two years old, that's stilldiapers, right, that's diapers.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, I mean it depends on the pie train back
then.
But I think all your talk is thewhole baby concept is what
we're talking?
Because you got the manger andall those things, yeah.
But I mean, who knows that agerange, like a baby is a wide
range where there's still a baby, whether it be a newborn, you
(16:47):
know fresh out the wound orwhether it be you know a year or
so in advance where they'restill a baby.
But yeah, they could still bein, you know, your diapers or
loincloth, whatever you want tosay there.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, loincloth, I guess Pampers loincloth is
coming arriving.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I'm guessing like Pampers are one of the things
you know you're guessing.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I was trying to.
I was trying to think ofsomething.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I don't know.
That's why I said loincloth.
I don't know if it's aloincloth, but that's.
There's not going to be Pampersback then.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I was trying to think of what kind of diapers they
use back then, If they even usediapers.
And then when you said thepotty training thing, I'm like
yeah, they probably just likewent out behind the shed a lot
or something.
I don't know what you do.
What do the kids do?
They take wool.
They take wool from a sheep,Well.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I know.
So what?
The following of the star andjust the excitement.
I kind of think it like theamazing race.
I don't know if you've seen likethat, I'll be sure where
they're basically pushing forusually for like a monetary type
prize or something on thoselines but the things they go
through and push through to tryto win that race and so put put
(17:57):
into the situation thecircumstance that you believe a
Messiah is on the other end ofthat, the child, the person
that's coming to save you,humanity, your people, I mean
you push through to witness that, to see that I feel, and I
think that's where the themagi's kind of was, whether it
(18:17):
be desert, you know the heat Ifyou're doing it for monetary
value.
If there's something or someonethat you think's truly about to
change you know your life forthe better.
You're going to want to witnessthat.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And I think that goes to even today, like when you
first get that little taste ofthe Messiah, you know what I
mean.
When you're like I think I'mgoing to change my life around,
I'm going to do this.
Well, it's good to think aboutit, but if we want to learn a
lesson from the wise men, theydidn't just think about it, they
acted on it, you know.
And then when they finallyfound it and I'm just going to
(18:51):
put this in a church environment, right they find a group of
people that they have aninterest with.
They arrived and then theyentered.
You know, they entered intothis place wherever Jesus was,
they entered and then theykneeled and bowed down and
worshiped.
So I could learn these lessonsfrom the wise men here, how they
(19:14):
worshiped him.
And then they even broughtsomething to.
They brought, and these werephysical gifts that they brought
.
But it doesn't always have tobe physical gifts, it doesn't
have to be monetary, it doesn'thave to be anything like that.
You can enter, you can worshipGod and you can bow down to him
and offer yourself.
I think that's the greatestthing that you could offer.
(19:36):
And we see this by theirexample a little bit, as we read
this story and see how they didthose things, and we could be
encouraged to try and do thesame ourselves a little bit more
.
Maybe find a place where he is,go in, enter, worship and give,
(19:56):
give yourself to whatever thatis.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And our most recent sermon at church was on prayer
and how important that is, likeyour prayer life, and how
important that is to have arelationship with God, that if
you expect God to show up inyour life and to speak to you,
it's not going to happen if youdon't have a prayer life with
(20:21):
him.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
and to build that relationship, yeah, I mean
because often the conversationlike who in any world or any
life can you can communicatewith if you're not actually
having a conversation and youcan talk about your spouse Like,
if you are not talking to yourwife, things aren't going to go
(20:42):
very well If you're just givingher the silent treatment you
know, not taking the time tohave that conversation with her.
I don't mean myself to havethose situations because I
honestly don't like to talk.
I'm not a big talker, but youknow it gets me in more trouble
with hot water when there arecertain things I won't talk to
talk through because I'm notwilling to have.
(21:03):
You know the communication, andwhen you look at prayer, that's
what it is.
It's an open communication, youknow, to the Savior.
And so if you're not taking thetime to have that communication
, what makes you think you'regoing to?
You know, hear him, hear him inreturn, what makes you think
he's going to talk back to youif you're not even taking the
time to talk and outreach him?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It actually goes better around my house whenever
I don't speak to my wife forsome reason.
I don't know what that is.
There was a lot of speculationthat in history here at
slaughtering the babies inBethlehem is not really a
historical fact, and so I waslike huh yeah, because I Googled
(21:44):
it just to see like how many,how many babies was it?
You know how many things werethere.
I know it fulfilled thescriptures is kind of what
Matthew says and that's what theMatthew is all about.
Is Jesus coming in andfulfilling the scriptures,
entering the king has entered,kind of a thing to fulfill all
the prophecies of the OldTestament.
And there really wasn't anyhistorical stuff for Herod doing
(22:05):
this.
But I think there's good reasonfor that.
After doing a little bit moreresearch, the population around
Bethlehem was probably only 1400.
So there wasn't a lot ofpopulation there, and
speculation is that there may be, if only, maybe, if it's only
like 14 babies, 14 kids.
(22:26):
Now, to me that would be a lot.
If it was my child, don't getme wrong.
All right, don't get me wrong,but as far as a world
encompassing thing goes, themortality rate of children back
then wasn't very high.
So like the death of 14children or so however many it
was probably just wasn'thistorically recorded because it
(22:48):
was almost like an everydaything.
So I say that just because Isaw some some stuff where people
were like, oh see, that's howyou know the Bible is not true,
because there's no record ofthat in history and really it
just seemed commonplace at thattime for something like this to
happen.
Plus, with Herod's reputation,it really wasn't a surprise to
anybody that something like thiswould happen or that Herod
(23:10):
would do this.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Okay, wait for clarification sake.
You said mortality rate wasn'tvery high, but you mean it was
typical thing.
What's that you said thatchildren yeah, that it wasn't
very high but, then you saidthat it's kind of it would have
been kind of a typical thing.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
A lot of children passed away.
Did I say that?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
right, okay, I got you now.
I just wanted to make sure wewere clear.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah, well, and I'm glad you listen, because I don't
listen when I speak but therewere a lot of children passed
away during that time because itwas back then.
You know, it was just back then, so there wasn't as much clean
drinking water.
There was a lot of accidents,different things like that that
happened and occurred.
And, like I said, herod wasjust a loose cannon, so it
didn't surprise anybody that hewould do something like this, so
(23:58):
maybe it just wasn't recorded.
I just thought I'd throw thattwo cents in.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Oh, and even so, like part of the, the obstacle with
things this far back is likethings that we use to record
just didn't exist.
We don't have, like the newsoutlets, we don't have, you know
, cell phones that all havecameras and stuff on it.
You know certain positions,occupations.
(24:22):
They weren't, they weren't,they weren't a thing.
And so how do you, how do yougo about kind of saving history
or or even transcribing history,when those things hadn't come
into existence?
Speaker 1 (24:36):
existence yet, no that's great, great point, all
right.
So they, they went to Egypt.
They ended up in Nazareth iswhere Jesus kind of was raised,
I think, and and grew up therein Nazareth, and so that's it's
cool to see.
He was fulfilling like he was a.
He was a Nazarene.
So you know, nazarenes weresome of those people who didn't
(24:57):
cut their hair.
I don't know if he practicedNazarenean.
I don't know if that's where Ijust make up words, I don't know
if you practice it long here.
And we talked about his parentsbefore, but they didn't drink
and stuff like they didn't doany of those things.
So he grew up around those kindof people though you know what
I mean Like those.
Those were the, those were hissurroundings, and so I think
about who did who did Jesus growup around, who?
(25:20):
He grew up around some prettyrighteous people.
It's pretty cool to be able tothink about who he grew up
around, compared to who I grewup around, I guess, and I
appreciate if I grew up aroundbecause they made me who I am.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
I'm sure there are some some rough around the edges
then as well.
Like throughout history, youhave good and bad.
You know folks have beensending throughout the beginning
of time, ever since the Gardenof Eden, so I'm sure there were,
there were still, culpritsthere.
They may not be mentioned muchin the Bible, but I wouldn't say
(25:53):
that that Jesus didn't still gothrough some of the surrounding
hardships that we did.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I would think so too.
Matthew leaves off right aboutthere, I would want to say
around the age of toddlerism.
I don't know what toddlerism is, but he leaves off there and
then picks up around when he waswhat most historians believe is
around 30 years old, right, andhe picks up with his cousin,
john the Baptist.
(26:20):
Now, john the Baptist is notthe John who wrote any of the
books in the New Testament.
He's not one of the apostles orthe disciples or anybody like
that.
This is John the Baptist, whois Jesus's cousin, and I think
what was it?
Mary was related to Elizabethis what it was, and Elizabeth
was John the Baptist's motherand Mary, of course, was Jesus's
(26:42):
mother.
So that's how they were kin.
That's what we say down here.
I say kin up there in Indiana.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
No, I've heard kin yeah, kin kin folks.
So yes, I've heard it.
I say no.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Pierce says yes, I haven't heard it, it's just not
typical.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Maybe it's not true.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
What's the TV?
Yeah, is it?
What's the TV inside your heads?
What's the appearance of Johnthe Baptist to you guys?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Well, honestly, most of my images now come from the
chosen TV show.
It helps me relate because,honestly, I didn't watch a lot
of the older, like 10Commandments and all those type
of things.
They just kind of bored me, ifI'm being honest.
So, being kind of tied into thechosen and enjoying that show,
(27:30):
I got the image of that actorthat plays him.
So there's a longer hair,longer beard.
You know, little bit crazy.
It comes to the message there,but that's just kind of the
image that goes for me.
So if you're curious, look upthe chosen and John the Baptist
there.
And for all the listeners,that's the one that comes to
(27:51):
mind for myself.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, and what I have to say, like for me it's the
same, because you know I'm hereand I've talked about this
before and I think we've eventalked about it on here as far
as the chosen goes, and we'lljust throw a shout out to them,
but the before, for whateverreason, like if I read books, my
brain just automatically triesto put into a picture what the
(28:14):
characters look like.
Or if I'm on the phone withsomebody and I've never met them
, my brain automatically triesto form a picture of what they
look like.
But for some reason, like inthe Bible, I've never other than
Jesus, I guess, because of allthe pictures I'd seen my whole
life.
You know, cool Jesus, I neverreally tried to form pictures
(28:37):
really in my head of what thedisciples or anybody really
looked like.
And then all of a sudden, alongcomes the chosen and even
though I'd seen so many other,like movies, you know, or
Christian based things, none ofthose characters really stuck.
But all of a sudden, you know,watching the chosen, it's
brought those characters orthose people to life for me and
(29:02):
help to create this picture andto put a picture in my mind, and
I've really appreciated thatbecause it helps to make it a
little more relatable.
So I think Pierre probablyfeels the same way.
But for whatever reason, those,those images have really stuck
and it's appreciated.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
That's cool and I think that that's the image I
get to, like a rough and tumblekind of guy who lived off the
land, his food was locust andhoney and his clothes were camel
hairs what the Bible says.
So it's not necessarilysomething that is extravagant
and he just lived off the land,kind of thing.
You know, you think aboutsomebody's appearance like that
(29:40):
and I don't know what he, whathe appeared I'm just telling you
what the Bible says.
But he had to be such a goodspeaker, such a powerful speaker
, because people came out to seehim and they were persuaded to
be baptized by him and reallyall he kept telling them was
repent, for the kingdom ofheaven is at hand.
You know, he had that.
He had that, that time periodthat he was making the path
(30:02):
straight.
For when Jesus came on board tokind of preach the same message
as what John was saying, he didit in a different way.
And John the Baptist, thoughthe way he said it, when he saw
the Pharisees and Sadduceescoming one time he called him.
He said oh, you brood of vipers, your snakes in the grass, who
(30:23):
in the world told you guys tocome out here?
These are the religious leadersyou know.
So this guy's got some gustoabout him.
I think that's kind of coolwhenever you think that.
But he says to him who told youto come out here for to be
baptized, you, brood of vipers?
Who warned you to flee from thewrath to come?
Therefore, bring forth fruit inkeeping with repentance, and do
(30:43):
not suppose that you can say toyourselves we have Abraham for
our father.
I say to you that God is ableto raise stones up and to make
these children to give himchildren of Abraham, which is
kind of cool, because it wasimportant for those people, to
Jewish people, to be children ofAbraham, to be kind of known as
that, and it was kind of theirbadge of honor kind of thing.
We're children of Abraham.
(31:03):
And he's saying look, if youdon't sit there and repent from
these things, all the thingsthat you're doing wrong, god
will just look at this stone andraise up children for himself.
And it's just the words.
He had, the powerfulness thathe had whenever he was talking
to those people and he didn'tmind trying to persuade
religious leaders to do theright things.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Which I mean it takes .
It takes guts, and I mean evenin today's society, I think that
would that would take guts todo so with some of your, your
bigger religious leaders intoday's world.
I mean, everyone's human, noone's perfect, and you know
they're.
They're up there sometimespreaching, you know, to focus on
(31:45):
laws and rules which you knowJesus even spoke about himself.
And so who, who could beconfident enough and boisterous
enough to kind of have some ofthose conversations, to kind of
put them on blast, to use aslanger type term.
And so I just think about thattoday and like kind of what that
would look like, and you canjust almost kind of picture
(32:08):
someone just being boisterousand having followers of, just
curious, who is this personthat's willing, you know, to to
not back down to some of thesereligious leaders but also still
speak, you know, of repentanceand things on those lines that
they also speak about, butoppose them at the same time?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Truth and love, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, this goes to a baptism discussion, I
think, because of course he'sbaptizing, you know, and I came
out of a denomination at onepoint in my life where they
taught baptism for salvation.
And it's tricky because I wouldI'm going to, you know, steal a
phrase from here and therearound, but it's probably a
(32:51):
phrase that we've always, that alot of us are familiar with,
where baptism is an outward signof an inward grace, right so,
and you're getting baptized toshow the world that.
But in this denomination I wasit you're baptized actually for
salvation, like if you weren'tbaptized, you weren't saved,
period period and maybe even anexclamation point, all right.
(33:14):
And when I was, when I wasyoung and impressionable, I
thought, okay, yeah, that makessense, because there was a lot
of scriptures that do talk aboutbaptism and baptism now saves
you over there, and what 1 Peteror 2 Peter says baptism now
saves you and a lot of themessages that the apostles had
ended with baptism and you see abig baptismal services
(33:35):
afterwards whenever they endedup preaching the gospel or
anything like that in the bookof Acts.
The apostles mentioned a lot.
But here was the question, as Ikind of became a little bit more
seasoned Christian and look ifbaptism, if you got to be
baptized to be saved, do it.
You know, if it bothers yourconscience, if it's keeping you
(33:56):
up at night because you aren'tbaptized, do it.
You know they just do itbecause I do think baptism is
important, I do.
I think you have to be baptized, I really do.
I think that if you're sayingI'm not going to do that because
God, but if God asked you to,you should do it right.
You should show the outwardsign of the inward grace, if
that's the way it wants to bephrased in whatever you know
(34:17):
realm or this denomination thatyou're in, Do it because it is
something that God hasencouraged.
Even here in John the Baptistdays, we see Jesus getting
baptized.
We see people getting baptizedall throughout the New Testament
and there's something specialabout that moment.
(34:38):
It's kind of very similar tothe wedding right, where people
are making a commitment to eachother and you're making a
commitment to God and it'sputting yourself in a vulnerable
state for somebody that hasdone a lot for you and put
themselves in a vulnerable stateas well.
What do you guys think?
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Exactly.
I think you hit the nail on theproverbial head Wes.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, once in a while it's definitely an outward sign
and even if there's not a bigaudience, like it's a a
commitment to yourself, to God,in my opinion, like regardless
of who the spectators are,whether there's a bunch of
people around witnessing it orif it's just you and the pastor
(35:24):
kind of walking you through thebaptizing itself, it's really
important.
It's a declaration I don't knowthe word I'm looking for but
you're basically is making thatchoice outwardly to get baptized
.
I think John does a good job ofkind of prefacing.
He only does it in water.
(35:44):
There's someone coming behindme that is gonna do it baptize
with the Holy Spirit and fireand all these ordeals and I
think it's important to kind ofprepare the way.
And John kind of had a reallybig part of that.
And I often think of likeconcerts almost sort of speak.
(36:04):
So when you go to a concert youtend to go mostly for the
headliner.
You wanna see the main artist,the main event, but leading up
to that there are some otheracts that kind of get you warmed
up for that main event that'sto come.
And I think that's what therole that John kind of played he
(36:26):
was, that opening act that gotyou warmed up, got you loose,
got your vocals ready, got yourdancing feet a little bit ready,
got you loosened up for themain event to come, which was
Jesus.
And I think we gotta appreciatesome of those opening acts a
little bit more in our lives,that not just from a concert
standpoint but just in livechanging standpoints.
(36:49):
Those people that kind of plantthe seed and kind of start that
foundation that help us growinto the main event in our own
personal life.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
I think that's a good point.
I mean, if you think about it,there are many things in life,
like you said, concerts, butlike movies, there are previews
and even in like, typically inrelationships, you have other
relationships that help you seewhat you should shouldn't do in
a relationship, what did anddidn't work and things you can
work on on yourself.
(37:20):
And even once you're in yourestablished marriage, like,
there's still things that yourecognize okay, this might not
be working in my relationship.
So I think those opening thingsare really important and like,
even if it's just you're fromchildhood, like, you have your
parents typically most people,not everyone but oftentimes you
(37:43):
have your parents to help youwith all of those opening things
to get you to your main eventof living on your own.
So I mean, I agree with you.
I think that those things areimportant to help you form who
you are.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, I do too.
I think one of the things thatI don't wanna say bug me about
baptism nowadays, but it's thatthere isn't a lot of importance
put on it Like, okay, oh, youwanna get baptized?
Okay, we'll do it in a coupleof months.
You know, let's strike whilethe iron's hot.
That's kind of what I have afeeling about whenever I think
(38:18):
about it.
I wish we wouldn't put it offnearly as much as maybe
traditionally we've gottenaccustomed to.
Well, okay, we'll do it.
We'll set up the filming foryour testimony before the
baptism at two months from now.
So you got time to write itdown and then we'll overview it
and we'll see what it is andwe'll kind of go through it.
(38:39):
I'm not gonna say it feelsrehearsed, but it kind of feels
rehearsed.
It's not like the old dayswhere somebody would decide to
change their life and then afterchurch everybody just walks
down to the river and baptizesthe person or something.
There was a genuineness aboutsome of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Well, shout out to our church because they still do
that.
Called the river, called theriver.
But they have, like, set datesin place.
But, honestly, some of the mostamazing days are just
spontaneous baptisms, wheresomeone fills the spirit and we
have a tank ready.
It's ready at all the times andthere were times where, like
(39:20):
services like we got threeservices at our church that we
go to and there was a time wewere working the door and just
spontaneous baptisms kepthappening.
There were like 10 to 11 in oneservice, to the point that the
third service was late, whichwas pastors like who cares?
Oh well, you're gonna have towait because lives are changing
(39:41):
right now.
So I do appreciate the fact thatour church does a really good
job of still allowing thatspontaneous baptisms to take
place and I think it just movesothers.
When that's the case as well,like you stated, it can tell
it's not rehearsed, there'ssomething moving in them.
So why not now?
Why not do it right at thismoment?
(40:03):
And I mean, you've seen itthroughout the Bible as well.
I can't remember who was in thecarriage, but they got out of
the carriage and whoever got inthere with them kind of taught
them what they were reading.
Maybe it was Philip and say,hey, there's water right there,
let's do this now.
Boom, let's do it now.
I don't hesitate becausetomorrow's not promised.
The two weeks that you havescheduled isn't promised, so do
(40:27):
it while the doing's good.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
I guess you can say it was Philip and the Ethiopian
eunuch.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yes, yeah, you got Philip right.
Boom, look at me go.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
It's good, and don't ask me why.
I know the Ethiopian eunuch,it's just a name that has stuck
in my head right there and Ithink about that too.
Like the waiting period there.
I'm not comfortable withwaiting period.
I'm glad Now.
See, it was Thursday.
We had a gospel meeting, and soon a Wednesday night the gospel
(40:56):
meeting, I think, ended on aThursday at the church and the
guy had asked me some questionspersonally and stuff, and I was
sitting there thinking aboutthem.
I decided that Wednesday nightthat I was done.
I was done.
I was done with the old West, Iwas going to be a new West, and
so I actually prayed that nightand had my first conversation
with God in a different way.
I'd always used them as abailout project.
(41:18):
You know what I mean.
Like, oh, please don't let mego.
Oh, I promise I'll never drinkagain.
If you just oh, you know, justthat kind of thought process is
what I always did.
If you help me pay my billsthis one time, I'll never.
You know, just stuff like that.
But it wasn't like that thistime.
It was an apology, it was anapologetic prayer, it was a
sorry for doing all this stuff.
(41:38):
I shouldn't have ever, you know, and it was just getting all
those things out open between meand him.
I wasn't running from himanymore, it was between me and
God.
And that night I mean honestlythat night I remember it it was
clear as day.
And so the next day I went tochurch.
It was a gospel meeting, so Iwas kind of used to this going
on.
And the Wednesday night waslate, I was late at night and
(42:01):
stuff.
So the Thursday I said allright, gospel meeting, I'm gonna
get baptized, I'm gonna getbaptized.
And so we have.
You know, the sermon was there,the invitation song is what we
call it, invitation song and Iwalked forward, I brought I was
so proud that I brought my combbecause my hair was gonna get
wet, right.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
So I was gonna be able to comb my hair so proud.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
And then, one of the things I didn't know our baptism
, baptismal place was broken.
It was broken and it's oldwater.
So we had to drive 35 minutesdown some old country roads to
go to the nearest church that wehad a key to or something I
don't know.
I was a new fella in all thisstuff.
(42:44):
We had to drive 35 minutes downcountry roads to get there and,
I'll be honest with you inhindsight, I was scared, because
baptism now saves you, not theremoval of dirt from the flesh,
but an appeal to God for a goodconscience.
So if I was baptized in thisdenomination, I was going to
hell and I didn't wanna go tohell anymore.
Yet I had to drive 35 minutesbetween here and there to get
(43:06):
under water and I was like youknow in hindsight, I'm sitting
there going wait a minute, uh-uh, that wouldn't happen.
So I asked questions like tosome educated people, like okay,
what would have happened if abig 18 wheeler chicken truck
were to come over there and hitme in my lane and I died?
Would I go to heaven?
That's a good question, right,mm-hmm?
(43:30):
Well, and this was the response.
This was the majority of theresponses I got.
Well, you know, we have amerciful God who knows where
your heart was and knows whatyou were trying to do, and so I
think that he would be merciful.
And I'm sitting there thinking,huh, what if I would have died
(43:50):
the night before, you know, inmy sleep, after I've said that
prayer.
So I was just thinking about,you know, the baptismal part and
how baptism now saves you andthe necessity of it.
And I do think it's necessity.
I'm glad I did it the nightbefore or the night after,
because it was something that Ifelt energized to do and it gave
me energy to do other thingsand to talk to other people.
(44:11):
So I'm glad I did it and I madethat commitment and I didn't
feel like it was a spontaneousthing or anything like that.
It was just it was the rightthing to do, because that's what
God had asked me to do.
So I don't know I wanted to putthat out there a little bit.
Maybe somebody struggling withwhether or not they should be
baptized and why they should bebaptized and the reasons that
you should do it, I would say tomake it a spontaneous baptism
(44:36):
on a Sunday, just to trip peopleout.
If they say let's wait twomonths, say nah, I'd like to do
it now.
Just see what people say.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
That's what I would try, if you're ready.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
That's right.
It's your baptism, not theirs,though.
If not, then find someplacethat will do it.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Mm-hmm, what do you think about the whole fire thing
that baptizes you with the HolySpirit and fire?
What do you think that's allabout?
I?
Speaker 2 (44:59):
don't know.
I think people honestly go tothe physical fire of like a
burning, but I'm not sure that'swhat that's speaking to.
When John is kind of speakingwith that it could be like an
internal fire, I think, and justlike a burning inside to be
(45:21):
changed, you know, kind ofburning away the old you for the
place and room for the new youto take place.
Obviously the Holy Spirit, youknow, is an advocate that we
know now is, you know, come inand can live within us.
So I think part of that atfires is not a physical fire in
(45:42):
my own mind, but to kind of burnaway some of the the old,
unclean parts of yourself inorder to make you new.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Yeah, I never.
I never thought of it like thatreally.
I always just kind of thinkabout Acts, chapter two, and the
apostles getting baptized therewith fire from heaven and the
tongue sitting on top of theirhead as a fire and stuff like
that, and I think about thegifts of the Holy Spirit that
were imparted on them and howthey were able to do miracles
there in the book of Acts andfrom what's recorded and stuff.
(46:16):
So I kind of look at that, Isee it.
I see it that way too, with theHoly Spirit and stuff that was
breathed on them by Jesus andstuff like that.
So that's kind of how I?
Yeah, all right, that's good.
What about the baptism of Jesus, michelle?
When you look at the baptism ofJesus, anything just jump out
at you that you look at and yougo, wow, that's pretty cool that
(46:38):
that happened.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
I mean, I think the overarching thing is just for
all of us to realize that youknow, like you said, if somebody
has questions, that they shouldbe baptized or not.
Like you said earlier, evenJesus was baptized right Like.
So if he saw the importance ofit, why shouldn't we?
So I think, first and foremost,that's the thing that sticks
out to me is to say you know,jesus saw the importance of it,
(47:03):
he understood why it wasnecessary, even in his life, and
he was perfect.
So I don't know why we wouldthink that we are the exception
to that rule.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
So I like it where Jesus comes down to him from
Galilee to the Jordan River.
I mean we have from other theLuke's and everything there, and
Mark and everything where Johnthe Baptist, if he saw Jesus, he
just said behold the Lamb ofGod who takes away the sin of
the world.
You know, that's just how Johnis.
(47:38):
He's just going to talk abouthis cousin like that.
But Jesus came down there to bebaptized by him and John said
whoa, whoa, whoa, slow your role.
I think that's exactly what hesaid.
He said look, I need to bebaptized by you and you come to
me.
And Jesus said to him permit it.
This time is fitting for us tofulfill all righteousness.
(48:00):
And so then he permitted him.
It was to fulfill Jesus'righteousness and we were
talking about a sinless man hereand he's trying to be obedient
to God and I think he's tryingto be a good example as well,
possibly.
But it was a must do thing, itwasn't optional, it wasn't
(48:22):
something that if anybody couldhave said later or hey, I don't
need to do that.
You know, I'm Jesus man, I wantto get baptized.
Come on, I don't need to thinkabout all this luscious hair.
How's it going to all get wet.
It's going to kind of be aninconvenience.
I'm going to get my feet wet,the sandals here, the dirt, it's
(48:43):
just going to be a mess.
I just don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
But look at the sound that we talked about two
different parts of this smallersection.
But what happened when he cameup out of the water, like, for
me, that's the, that's themoment that sticks out.
The heavens open, you know, andsaw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove and thelight on him and a voice from
(49:07):
heaven said this is my son, whomI love.
With him, I am very wellpleased.
So that's a, that's a wowmoment for me and I think about
myself and for me, like you hearthe stories, you hear like
folks kind of given their, theirtestimonies as they're about to
(49:27):
get, you know, baptized.
But the part I enjoy the mostwatching it, and what I enjoyed
myself is coming up out of thewater, just getting lifted up
out, and I just imagine thatthat's the, that's the reaction
that that God has for foreveryone.
This is my son, this is mydaughter.
(49:49):
With them, I am pleased.
There's like a being pleasedthat we went through, you know,
that baptism and that we're,we're willing to change our
lives and try to change ourlives around.
You know, for him that's just,I know, that's just a special
moment for me, knowing thatJesus got that.
(50:10):
Yeah, we're not Jesus, but Ifeel like we get that same type
of Joy and celebration fromJesus when we go through it
ourselves and that he's he'svery pleased with our decision.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
No, I absolutely love that.
You said that, because it is.
It's a refreshing thing to bebaptized and the people have a
glow about them you know what Imean Like there's a serious glow
about them and and whatever.
I was reading this this timewhen it talked about the Holy
Spirit descending on them like adove and I was thinking about
(50:44):
people who get baptized.
I did, I thought about the.
I don't know if it's a relief, Idon't know if it's a clean
conscience, like you know, theBible does tell us it's a clean
conscience toward God, and Idon't know if that's what it is,
if it's the commitment, if itlooks like a bride on their
wedding day to some degree.
There's just, there's just aclean cleanliness about it all.
(51:06):
And in Romans, chapter six, iteven.
It even tells us and I'm goingto read just for a minute here
what shall we say then?
Starting verse one Are we tocontinue and sin?
That grace may increase?
May it never be.
How shall we who died to sinstill live in it?
Or do you not know that all ofus who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus have been baptizedinto his death?
(51:27):
Therefore, we have been buriedwith him through baptism into
death in order that, as Christwas raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, we toomight walk a newness of life.
And if we become united with himin the likeness of his death,
certainly we shall also be inthe likeness of his resurrection
, knowing this, that our oldself was crucified with him,
(51:48):
that our body of sin might bedone away with, that we should
no longer be slaves to sin, forhe who has died is freed from
sin.
Now, if we have died in Christ,we also believe that we shall
also live with him.
I just love that part of Romans, romans chapter six, where it
talks about baptism and how itis a death, a burial and a
(52:08):
resurrection, as close as we'regoing to get in our physical
form, you know, and it's, Ithink it's more of a spiritual
form, but it is a representationof that death of Jesus in the
ground, in the tomb, and thencoming out a new person, and so
it's a wonderful illustration ofthat, and even our Savior Jesus
experienced that from hiscousin John the Baptist.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Absolutely.
It's special and I've got towitness a few myself be on stage
for one or two and you're justso proud of that person In that
moment you can sense how proudthey are of themselves.
I've just ultimately gonethrough with it and there is a
sense of just renewal beingrenewed and you know, I feel
(52:55):
like that that can only comefrom something bigger than us to
have that feeling.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
So true and, like I know, this will be very shocking
to you and anyone who knows me,but it makes me cry every time.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
I knew it was going to be.
So I guess we didn't make itthrough a whole episode without
Michelle talking about crying.
Hey, we did.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
Oh, we generally.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
So we need to take another pause here to allow
people to review and comment andleave a question.
Do we need to do that again?
Speaker 2 (53:27):
I don't think so.
I just think we need to just bethankful for the show, thankful
for the listeners, obviouslythankful for for God that puts
these conversations on ourhearts.
And if you feel the need toreview or ask questions, you
know we're open or inboxes areopen.
Finding Faith LosingSleep atgmocom.
(53:48):
Also find us on Twitter atfindingfapepotcom.
I want to kind of messagejudgment individually.
I'm at Pee Wee 31.
We got Michelle at go pack go411.
And we have Wes at loafing itLoaf like the bread at loafing
it on Twitter as well.
So we thank you for listening.
Thank you for taking the timefor each episode that comes out.
(54:11):
You know to take time out ofyour day to hear us talking to a
microphone about some of thethings we're going to do, we're
going through in life andtalking through the Bible and
circumstances and context andall things we're trying to do as
we kind of live life together.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Definitely, pierre.
You said it better than I did Icould probably.
I'm not going to say for surethat you did All right, we're
too gemini, so we probably thinkalike is what.
I'm thinking no, we doappreciate that and thank you
for going along on this journeywith us because it has been a
journey.
Pierre, you said we hit amilestone.
I don't know you put that onTwitter.
I can't remember exactly whatit was.
I said there was a milestoneand I was like, really that many
(54:48):
people Come on, man.
So we do appreciate you sharingthe show with other people and
listening to it and going backand listening to those past
episodes even that's important.
We're not doing this for allthe downloads or anything.
I know I make fun of that stuffand I'm just being light.
I'm being lighthearted a littlebit on it.
I'm not serious at all.
I do appreciate it all becauseit is encouraging to us to know
(55:12):
that hopefully people arelistening and being encouraged
themselves and we would love tohear from you if you are.
But it was like 7,000 downloadsor something 7,500 was our
latest.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
So that's pretty impressive, given we're only 19
episodes in now.
So what has just been?
18.
And I mean, there's someepisodes that have done really,
really well and some thathaven't done as well, and it
doesn't matter, we're justtalking through it and again,
for each one you decide tolisten to, we're very
appreciative.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Yes, because our whole goal was to reach one
person.
So if we've exceeded that,we're incredibly thankful, and
I'm sure you do both of you dotoo but before we even start
recording, I always pray to justlet God speak through me.
I'm certain both of you do aswell and so we pray that our
(56:05):
words aren't.
You know, it's not of us thatwe're sharing our stories and
what we feel about things, butultimately we want God to be
able to use us as vessels toreach people, for them to hear
what they need to hear.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah, up here, I would tell you that you may need
to pray for me a little bitmore, michelle, before the show
kicks off.
Just stop, it's an executiveproducer, I think.
Oh, we do appreciate you alldoing that, and not only do we
pray for each other before theshow starts, but I also pray for
you and I also ask that youpray for us as we go through
this journey together.
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