June 10, 2025 • 19 mins
Full Interview with Andrew Bustamante - https://youtu.be/EDU_Gjbp5as
In this episode of the Radio Coffee House, host Clint Armitage takes listeners on a journey through the complex interplay of good and evil, inspired by an insightful interview with a retired CIA spy. Clint explores the intriguing metaphor of Satan as a Rottweiler, illustrating how the enemy operates within a world that is ultimately under God's control. This vivid imagery sets the stage for a deeper discussion on the nature of humanity, the inputs that shape our actions, and the spiritual battles we face daily.
Listeners will be challenged to consider their own responses to life's temptations and how our inherent tendencies toward evil can be influenced by external circumstances. Clint emphasizes the importance of understanding the spiritual realm, where the battle between good and evil unfolds, and how recognizing our vulnerabilities can empower us to navigate life's challenges with faith. Through a biblical lens, he draws upon various scriptures to highlight the sovereignty of God over the forces at play in our lives.
As Clint delves into the concept of inputs and outputs, he invites listeners to reflect on their own experiences and the moments that have tested their character. He discusses the role of the Holy Spirit in transforming our responses and guiding us toward righteousness, reminding us that we are not alone in this struggle. This episode serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of staying attuned to God's voice amidst the distractions and temptations of the world.
Join Clint for this engaging exploration of faith, temptation, and the dynamics of good and evil that shape our lives. Discover how embracing the Holy Spirit can lead to profound changes in our actions and reactions, ultimately guiding us toward a life aligned with God's purpose.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Clint Armitage (00:01):
Welcome M to another edition of the Radio Coffeeh House
show, where Jesus meets coffee meets talk
radio. And the next one starts right
now.
Hey, how's it going, everybody? Clint Armitage with the Radio Coffee House.
Thanks for coming back and thanks for listening in.
All right, so I'm on a mountaintop. I don't know, it was
(00:23):
just hailing a little bit ago, so it was raining pretty hard. You could
hear it. I don't know if you'll be able to hear it because it's. It's stopped
right now. But if it starts again and you start to
hear the rain and the hail, then you know I'm in
it again. Anyways, we got a good show for you today. So
today's show, we're going to be listening in on
an interview of a CIA
(00:43):
spy that he's retired
now, but he talks about a couple of things
that I thought were really interesting. There's two takes
that he has in this little audio clip that we're going toa listen to.
And he says Satan is a
Rottweiler. He kind of gives that take on how
Satan controls things in this world and who God is in
this world and how we have to navigate through that.
(01:05):
Then he talks about another thing in regards to
how people are. And he says that we're basically
evil. And, uh, then we have some good qualities or good
characteristics sometimes. Right. I
actually believe that as well. And we're going to take a look at
what the Bible says about that kind of stuff. But the thing that I
really want to point out is when he talks about
it, he supports it with this term, these terms. He
(01:28):
says it's all about inputs and
outputs. And I like the way he put that there.
Inputs and outputs, that determines
what people will do and what people are capable
of. And that's why he says we're evil mostly
and we'll do good sometimes, because the interviewer
thinks a different way and kind of refutes
that. However, if you look in the Bible, he's
(01:50):
kind of right about it, you know, and if you look at yourself and look
back at any past issues you've had
and what has set you off to do something you never thought you would
have done, but something set you off.
An input which produced an output
that you weren't ready for, or that you weren't planning on, or
that you never even thought you were capable of.
(02:11):
And until we understand the devil,
sin, our tolerances, and who we are
inside, we're not going to understand how things work in this
world. Because remember, There's a physical realm, but
there's also a spiritual realm that we don't even
realize is going on around us and tempting
us and leading us and guiding us, and
depends on if you know who you're supposed to
(02:33):
be following. Like Jesus says, my
sheep know my voice. Do
you know his voice? And are you listening to his
voice? Because there's other voices out there
that get in our ear and then we start listening
to them. So anyways, let's get into this
podcast and let's start off with the clip with a, uh,
CIA spy.
(02:54):
Let's do this.
>> Andrew Bustamante (02:59):
My time at CIA made me that much
more confident in my faith because
I saw the principles of the Bible
lived all over the world. I
Can you explain that? So one of the things, uh, one of
the things that you learn in the Bible is that, you know, we live in a fallen
world. We live in a world that's controlled by Satan.
(03:20):
We live in a world that. Where the enemy is the most
powerful being on the planet, right?
God is waiting for us somewhere else. The
Holy Spirit is here with us to help,
like, guide us and lead us. But God doesn't
claim to control the Earth. He has
sent His Son so that our. That His Son
can have cleaned our. Our sin forever.
(03:43):
God is not really interested in the earth. God is
interested in the universe and the individual souls that choose to
join him. Right? There's,
uh, it may have been Ian. Ian.
Ian. Or somebody else that helped me
on my faithful journey. And there were three or five of them that were really
important in my faithful journey at the, uh, at the Academy once explained
(04:03):
to me this idea of, you know, the Earth
is a ball and Satan is a
Rottweiler, and Satan controls that
ball. We are his plaything, right? The
enemy, if you will, but the Rottweiler'on a
leash, and the leash is held by God.
So he gets to play with the earth as much as God lets him
play with the Earth. But otherwise we're just stuck on this
(04:26):
thing, right?
>> Speaker C (04:27):
God lets him do it becausee God.
>> Andrew Bustamante (04:29):
Is theest in ultimate control.
>> Speaker C (04:31):
And what do you think of that?
>> Andrew Bustamante (04:31):
Uh, for me, it's very liberating because for me, it shows
me how small I am. It shows me how big the enemy
is, which is what I need to know. Because guess what?
95% of my day is filled with temptation to do
the wrong thing. And everybody listening is in
the same boat. Y that's what fills our day.
Y Temptation to do the wrong thing, not motivation to
(04:52):
do the right thing, right? So it Makes sense.
I like that visual understanding of, oh, big
scary dog. I'm on a ball. I can't beat that
dog. Dog's gonna do whatever the hell it wants to with me.
But life doesn't end here. There's something bigger than
the dog, right? So when I get chewed, swallowed,
and shout out the back end of that Rottweiler
(05:13):
like that'that's the end. That's when I have the chance to actually
join the Father. For me, it's a very comforting
idea.
Traveling, operating,
meeting people around the world. You learn very
fast. The world is a fallen place. You learn very
fast. Satan is in control. You learn very fast.
People accept, adher,
(05:33):
follow, uh, obsess with. Satan's
in control with their. With
their temptations, right? You find that
everywhere you see it, it's crystal clear. You
can't fight it. You. You have to accept it. And then you,
you learn a lot about yourself by seeing all the villainy
of the world. The world is an evil, villainous place,
(05:54):
right? It's full of people who do things that hurt other
people. That's what it isah.
>> Speaker C (05:58):
You've said this before. You're like, human beings are not good.
No, but like. And my comeback to that
is, yes, there are evil people in the world and there
are more than we would like to think. There's no doubt about that. Whatever
got them there, it's a separate story. But, like, that's a real thing.
But then there are also good people, too. And you seem to
think that. You seem to operate from the assumption, and correct
me if I'm wrong here, that, like, no, that's not really the case. Most of them
(06:21):
are just bad and they're going to be more likely to do bad things.
>> Andrew Bustamante (06:23):
It's just a matter of what
inputs will push them to a bad place. That's
all it is, right? What inputs would
get you to a place where you'd kill another person? What inputs
would get you to a place where you'd steal from somebody else? What inputs
would get you to a place where you would lie.
>> Speaker C (06:39):
All right, let's run. Let's run that example real fast. Our mutual friend
Matt Cox talks about this threshold of committing crime.
And he learned, because he never committed a crime t until he's 30 years
old, he learned that he has a low
threshold.
>> Andrew Bustamante (06:51):
Correct?
>> Speaker C (06:51):
Right. But he's like, everyone has a threshold.
And what I mean by that is if you're the mother of
an infant and the infant starving, you'll steal
some bre. But that to
me, is that Good. Is it good to
steal? No. Is it, is it technically? Like
if you're looking at it purely objectively, like
good versus evil, the evil option to do. Sure.
(07:14):
But like if you're a mother trying to, trying to, you
know, give sustenance to your starving child
and you're taking one loaf of bread.
You understand what I mean? Like that's not an evil thing to
me. It's not ideal.
>> Andrew Bustamante (07:27):
But like the fact that you said it's not
evil to me.
>> Speaker C (07:31):
Subjective.
>> Andrew Bustamante (07:32):
Ye shows that it's subjective. You know who it is evil to? The
court system. And the court system will say it's black and
white. So you have to look at it through a term, through
consequences, inputs and consequences, inputs and outputs.
Right. You have to look at it through that lens
because whether somebody has good
intentions or evil intentions, you know, positive or
destructive intentions, whatever the you wanna call it,
(07:54):
you can always create predictable outcomes based
off of predictable inputs. That's the world we have to
live in.
>> Clint Armitage (08:00):
Okay, so that was an interesting take, right? He talks
about the
devil being a Rottweiler.
And the Rottweiler is
playing with a ball, which is the earth, and
he could do whatever he wants with the ball, but then the
Rottweiler is on a leash because God is in
control of the Rottweiler.
(08:23):
Interesting take. I actually see where he's coming from
with that. So I agree with that explanation.
Now the Bible doesn't talk about the devil being a
roeiler, but uh, it does talk about him
being in control of things. And the
first verse I could think of is in Ephesians
Algh. Ephesians chapter two. Let's
start from verse one. As for you,
(08:45):
you were dead in your transgressions and sins
in which you used to live when you followed the
ways of this world and of the ruler of the
kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at
work in those who are disobedient. Allgh.
Uh, let's look at the next verse that supports
that. You know, Satan is kind of in control of
(09:05):
this world system and this world, but
only to an extent because it's limited by that leash,
by God. Right. Controlling that leash. Okay, let's move
to John chapter 12 and we're gonna look
at right around verse 30. We'start Ah, at verse 30.
This is where Jesus is talking about, you know, he's predicting his
death and the glory that comes from that. And he said
(09:26):
this in verse 30. He said this voice was for
your benefit, not mine. Now is the time
for judgment on this world. Now the prince of
this world will be driven out. And I,
when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw
all people to myself. He said this to show the kind
of death he was gon toa die. So he's
(09:46):
predicting his death here. But Jesus does say these
words. He says, now the prince of this
world will be driven out. Which basically means that
Satan is the prince of this world. He kind of runs
things in this world. We see corrupt governments, we
see corrupt media, we see corrupt
people. We see a system that
is corrupt. We see a system that is taken
(10:09):
advantage of. We see things
that are evil and violent and
crude and rude. Let's look, uh, at one more verse
that supports that, you know,
Satan is in control of this world. Let's
go to 1 John 1 John 5:18.
We know that anyone born of God does not
(10:30):
continue to sin. The one who was born of
God keeps them safe and the evil
one cannot harm them. We know that we
are children of God and that the whole
world is under the control of the evil
one. We know also that the Son of God has
come and has given us understanding so that we may know
him who is true. And we are in him who is
(10:52):
true by being in his Son, Jesus Christ. He
is the true God and eternal life. Okay,
so you see what it said there in verse 19, it says that the
whole world is under the control of the evil one.
So that makes it pretty clear, right, who's in
control of this world. I mean, that verse right there
actually says it. But we have to understand
(11:13):
that he's not in full control of everything
because he's not sovereign. God is the
only one who is sovereign. So God is in
ultimate control. And we figure this out by
reading Job. The book of Job tells us
how much power Satan has versus how much power
God has. Uh, now sometimes people will mix up the
(11:33):
ranking. Like, Satan is the equal to
God. He's the. He's the evil to God being
good. But that's totally incorrect
because God is way, way
above Satan. Remember, Satan was an
angel. So if we were to compare Satan to
anybody else, a good versus evil thing, it would be Satan
versus, say, Michael the Archangel. Because
(11:55):
remember, Satan was Lucifer the angel, the
worship leader. And once we understand that
he does not have the power that people think he has,
now he's powerful. He's a powerful being, and he's more powerful
than us humans. But he can't overcome
God. And so we'll find this out when we read through Job.
So let's go to Job. Okay, we're in Job one here
and we're going toa start a few verses down. We're
(12:18):
going to start in verse six. The verses one through five
talks about how much things Job had
and that he feared God and he did what was right,
how wealthy he was. But, uh, in verse six, it goes like this.
The angels came to present themselves before the Lord
and Satan also came with them. The Lord said
to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered the
Lord, from roaming throughout the earth, going back
(12:41):
and forth on it. Then the
Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant
Job? There was no one on earth like him. He is
blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.
Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan
replied, have you not put a hedge around him and
his household and everything he has? You, uh, have blessed the work of
his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread
(13:03):
throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and
strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you
to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well then,
everything he has is in your power, but on the man
himself. Do not lay a finger. Then Satan went out from
the presence of the Lord, okay, And then all these things happened to
Job and it was Satan actually doing those
(13:24):
things. He was the one putting the boils on him.
He was the one that, you know, took his children. But
remember, he wasn't in total control. The Lord
had to allow Satan to do this. He kind of
tried to, you know, play this game with the Lord. And the Lord's
like, look, he's blameless and he's upright. He
fears God. He shuns evil. And Satan's like, oh, that's
(13:44):
because you know you haven't done anything to him. So the
Lord allowed it. He said, very well then, everything
he has is in your power,
but on the man himself, do not lay a finger. That
shows the sovereignty of God. So we can't
take this stance that we have to fear
Satan. Yes, he does evil things. Yes, he is
(14:04):
more powerful than we are, but we can't be scared of him. We
can't have fear. God is in control. God
is sovereign. We have to let go of our fear and
anxiety. All those negative things that hold you back,
like fear and anxiety and
doubt. They're all the tools that the devil
uses to get you away from God, to
separate you from the truth. You already know that
(14:27):
God is in control. You already know that God loves you.
You already know he has your back
and he has his plan that is good for
you. But we start listening to the devil, right? And this is what
Andrew Bustamante was talking about when he says that Satan
comes with temptations, and that's how he
rules people, these temptations. And then
people fall into it. So we have to avoid that.
(14:50):
And the way we can avoid it is continue to realize
in Andrew Bustamaantte's words here, that
God controls the leash
on Satan, that Rottweiler. Although we're on that
ball that Satan can play with, he is not in
ultimate control. God is.
All right, let's move on to that second thing that
he spoke about that I was interested in talking about here.
(15:12):
We have the capacity to do evil
things. It just depends on the inputs. And
depending on the input, we will have an output or a
consequence because of that input. And I agree with this
wholeheartedly, too. Sometimes we think that we are
righteous and we're good and we're holy
until a certain button is pushed,
(15:32):
until someone says something that's
disrespectful, until someone cuts us off in
traffic, until someone cuts in the line at
DMV or at the post office or in the
grocery line, until someone steals something from
us, until someone hurts someone we love.
See, it depends on the input. We
will react humanly with human
(15:54):
nature to those inputs that are given to
us, and then they come with consequences, right? We will
react to that. And if we don't have the Holy Spirit
helping us, if we don't have God with us,
we will make decisions, not necessarily
impulsively, but will react in a human
way. It'll be a human response. And the
human response is normally revenge,
(16:17):
violence. It's some type of retaliation.
When we believe we've been wronged, verbally,
emotionally, physically, whenever we have
a chance to retaliate, we'll take it because
we do it with our human nature. But if we have the
Holy Spirit running our lives and we're following
him and doing everything he is leading us to
(16:37):
do, then we're going toa hold back from
retaliating. We're going to hold back from
reacting in a human way. And so I agree with
him when he says that inputs and outputs
really affect our capacity to do
evil. And so when we talk about allowing things to
get under our skin or we think about how these
temptations can overtake us, like, we
(16:59):
can't do this in the human realm. We can't do this
with our own strength and our own power. Matter of fact,
it says in Galatians that there's
a battle, there's a constant battle. Going on Algh. In
Galatians 5, Paul is talking about life by the
Spirit. So we'renn we're gonna start at verse
16 and go through a few verses goes like
(17:20):
this. So I say walk by the Spirit and you will
not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the
flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit,
and the Spirit is what is contrary to the flesh.
They are in conflict with each other. So
that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are
led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And then
(17:40):
it goes on to the acts of the flesh, which
are a whole bunch of different sins. But
that's what Andrew is talking about here,
is those temptations that we can fall under
the inputs and outputs. Well, if we are dealing with the
flesh and our desires, we're going to be
opposite of the Spirit because it's contrary to the
(18:00):
Spirit and it's a constant battle. See, Paul's
saying that it is in constant conflict
with each other, the Spirit versus the flesh.
And we can't just do whatever we want. Well, what we want to
do is whatever our flesh wants us to do. That's
our impulse, that's our immediate go to, that's
our default. But Paul is saying here we have to be led
(18:21):
by the Spirit. The Spirit will lead us to do the
right thing. The Spirit will give us the strength,
will give us the understanding, will give us the wisdom
to do the right thing. So we have to be led by the
Spirit. We cannot be led by our flesh. So
no matter what the inputs are, one of the things that we add
to the equation is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
(18:41):
will disrupt that equation of
inputs equals, uh, outputs. Because
now with the Holy Spirit involved in that equation, the
outputs are totally different. Then you would think from
a certain input, we will not react the way we
want to react as long as we have the Spirit leading us.
So hopefully you have the Holy Spirit. If
not, pray the Lord get saved and accept
(19:04):
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and you will have the
Holy Spirit. Uh, and once you have the Holy Spirit, you can start learning
from the Holy Spirit. He will start teaching you and then you
can start to gain an understanding of walking in
the Spirit, living life in the Spirit
and with the Spirit. If you do that, then we can
avoid all these temptations that'll bring us
down when we act with the flesh. Well, I hope that
(19:27):
helps you and thanks for listening. This is the Radio
Coffee House with Clint Armitage. And until next time, stay
safe and God bless
Thanks for joining, uh, us for another episode of the Radio Coffee
House show where we're all about Jesus, coffee and
(19:48):
radio. We'll see you next time. Time.
Welcome M to another edition of the Radio Coffeeh House
show, where Jesus meets coffee meets talk
radio. And the next one starts right
now.
Hey, how's it going, everybody? Clint Armitage with the Radio Coffee House.
Thanks for coming back and thanks for listening in.
All right, so I'm on a mountaintop. I don't know, it was
(00:23):
just hailing a little bit ago, so it was raining pretty hard. You could
hear it. I don't know if you'll be able to hear it because it's. It's stopped
right now. But if it starts again and you start to
hear the rain and the hail, then you know I'm in
it again. Anyways, we got a good show for you today. So
today's show, we're going to be listening in on
an interview of a CIA
(00:43):
spy that he's retired
now, but he talks about a couple of things
that I thought were really interesting. There's two takes
that he has in this little audio clip that we're going toa listen to.
And he says Satan is a
Rottweiler. He kind of gives that take on how
Satan controls things in this world and who God is in
this world and how we have to navigate through that.
(01:05):
Then he talks about another thing in regards to
how people are. And he says that we're basically
evil. And, uh, then we have some good qualities or good
characteristics sometimes. Right. I
actually believe that as well. And we're going to take a look at
what the Bible says about that kind of stuff. But the thing that I
really want to point out is when he talks about
it, he supports it with this term, these terms. He
(01:28):
says it's all about inputs and
outputs. And I like the way he put that there.
Inputs and outputs, that determines
what people will do and what people are capable
of. And that's why he says we're evil mostly
and we'll do good sometimes, because the interviewer
thinks a different way and kind of refutes
that. However, if you look in the Bible, he's
(01:50):
kind of right about it, you know, and if you look at yourself and look
back at any past issues you've had
and what has set you off to do something you never thought you would
have done, but something set you off.
An input which produced an output
that you weren't ready for, or that you weren't planning on, or
that you never even thought you were capable of.
(02:11):
And until we understand the devil,
sin, our tolerances, and who we are
inside, we're not going to understand how things work in this
world. Because remember, There's a physical realm, but
there's also a spiritual realm that we don't even
realize is going on around us and tempting
us and leading us and guiding us, and
depends on if you know who you're supposed to
(02:33):
be following. Like Jesus says, my
sheep know my voice. Do
you know his voice? And are you listening to his
voice? Because there's other voices out there
that get in our ear and then we start listening
to them. So anyways, let's get into this
podcast and let's start off with the clip with a, uh,
CIA spy.
(02:54):
Let's do this.
>> Andrew Bustamante (02:59):
My time at CIA made me that much
more confident in my faith because
I saw the principles of the Bible
lived all over the world. I
Can you explain that? So one of the things, uh, one of
the things that you learn in the Bible is that, you know, we live in a fallen
world. We live in a world that's controlled by Satan.
(03:20):
We live in a world that. Where the enemy is the most
powerful being on the planet, right?
God is waiting for us somewhere else. The
Holy Spirit is here with us to help,
like, guide us and lead us. But God doesn't
claim to control the Earth. He has
sent His Son so that our. That His Son
can have cleaned our. Our sin forever.
(03:43):
God is not really interested in the earth. God is
interested in the universe and the individual souls that choose to
join him. Right? There's,
uh, it may have been Ian. Ian.
Ian. Or somebody else that helped me
on my faithful journey. And there were three or five of them that were really
important in my faithful journey at the, uh, at the Academy once explained
(04:03):
to me this idea of, you know, the Earth
is a ball and Satan is a
Rottweiler, and Satan controls that
ball. We are his plaything, right? The
enemy, if you will, but the Rottweiler'on a
leash, and the leash is held by God.
So he gets to play with the earth as much as God lets him
play with the Earth. But otherwise we're just stuck on this
(04:26):
thing, right?
>> Speaker C (04:27):
God lets him do it becausee God.
>> Andrew Bustamante (04:29):
Is theest in ultimate control.
>> Speaker C (04:31):
And what do you think of that?
>> Andrew Bustamante (04:31):
Uh, for me, it's very liberating because for me, it shows
me how small I am. It shows me how big the enemy
is, which is what I need to know. Because guess what?
95% of my day is filled with temptation to do
the wrong thing. And everybody listening is in
the same boat. Y that's what fills our day.
Y Temptation to do the wrong thing, not motivation to
(04:52):
do the right thing, right? So it Makes sense.
I like that visual understanding of, oh, big
scary dog. I'm on a ball. I can't beat that
dog. Dog's gonna do whatever the hell it wants to with me.
But life doesn't end here. There's something bigger than
the dog, right? So when I get chewed, swallowed,
and shout out the back end of that Rottweiler
(05:13):
like that'that's the end. That's when I have the chance to actually
join the Father. For me, it's a very comforting
idea.
Traveling, operating,
meeting people around the world. You learn very
fast. The world is a fallen place. You learn very
fast. Satan is in control. You learn very fast.
People accept, adher,
(05:33):
follow, uh, obsess with. Satan's
in control with their. With
their temptations, right? You find that
everywhere you see it, it's crystal clear. You
can't fight it. You. You have to accept it. And then you,
you learn a lot about yourself by seeing all the villainy
of the world. The world is an evil, villainous place,
(05:54):
right? It's full of people who do things that hurt other
people. That's what it isah.
>> Speaker C (05:58):
You've said this before. You're like, human beings are not good.
No, but like. And my comeback to that
is, yes, there are evil people in the world and there
are more than we would like to think. There's no doubt about that. Whatever
got them there, it's a separate story. But, like, that's a real thing.
But then there are also good people, too. And you seem to
think that. You seem to operate from the assumption, and correct
me if I'm wrong here, that, like, no, that's not really the case. Most of them
(06:21):
are just bad and they're going to be more likely to do bad things.
>> Andrew Bustamante (06:23):
It's just a matter of what
inputs will push them to a bad place. That's
all it is, right? What inputs would
get you to a place where you'd kill another person? What inputs
would get you to a place where you'd steal from somebody else? What inputs
would get you to a place where you would lie.
>> Speaker C (06:39):
All right, let's run. Let's run that example real fast. Our mutual friend
Matt Cox talks about this threshold of committing crime.
And he learned, because he never committed a crime t until he's 30 years
old, he learned that he has a low
threshold.
>> Andrew Bustamante (06:51):
Correct?
>> Speaker C (06:51):
Right. But he's like, everyone has a threshold.
And what I mean by that is if you're the mother of
an infant and the infant starving, you'll steal
some bre. But that to
me, is that Good. Is it good to
steal? No. Is it, is it technically? Like
if you're looking at it purely objectively, like
good versus evil, the evil option to do. Sure.
(07:14):
But like if you're a mother trying to, trying to, you
know, give sustenance to your starving child
and you're taking one loaf of bread.
You understand what I mean? Like that's not an evil thing to
me. It's not ideal.
>> Andrew Bustamante (07:27):
But like the fact that you said it's not
evil to me.
>> Speaker C (07:31):
Subjective.
>> Andrew Bustamante (07:32):
Ye shows that it's subjective. You know who it is evil to? The
court system. And the court system will say it's black and
white. So you have to look at it through a term, through
consequences, inputs and consequences, inputs and outputs.
Right. You have to look at it through that lens
because whether somebody has good
intentions or evil intentions, you know, positive or
destructive intentions, whatever the you wanna call it,
(07:54):
you can always create predictable outcomes based
off of predictable inputs. That's the world we have to
live in.
>> Clint Armitage (08:00):
Okay, so that was an interesting take, right? He talks
about the
devil being a Rottweiler.
And the Rottweiler is
playing with a ball, which is the earth, and
he could do whatever he wants with the ball, but then the
Rottweiler is on a leash because God is in
control of the Rottweiler.
(08:23):
Interesting take. I actually see where he's coming from
with that. So I agree with that explanation.
Now the Bible doesn't talk about the devil being a
roeiler, but uh, it does talk about him
being in control of things. And the
first verse I could think of is in Ephesians
Algh. Ephesians chapter two. Let's
start from verse one. As for you,
(08:45):
you were dead in your transgressions and sins
in which you used to live when you followed the
ways of this world and of the ruler of the
kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at
work in those who are disobedient. Allgh.
Uh, let's look at the next verse that supports
that. You know, Satan is kind of in control of
(09:05):
this world system and this world, but
only to an extent because it's limited by that leash,
by God. Right. Controlling that leash. Okay, let's move
to John chapter 12 and we're gonna look
at right around verse 30. We'start Ah, at verse 30.
This is where Jesus is talking about, you know, he's predicting his
death and the glory that comes from that. And he said
(09:26):
this in verse 30. He said this voice was for
your benefit, not mine. Now is the time
for judgment on this world. Now the prince of
this world will be driven out. And I,
when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw
all people to myself. He said this to show the kind
of death he was gon toa die. So he's
(09:46):
predicting his death here. But Jesus does say these
words. He says, now the prince of this
world will be driven out. Which basically means that
Satan is the prince of this world. He kind of runs
things in this world. We see corrupt governments, we
see corrupt media, we see corrupt
people. We see a system that
is corrupt. We see a system that is taken
(10:09):
advantage of. We see things
that are evil and violent and
crude and rude. Let's look, uh, at one more verse
that supports that, you know,
Satan is in control of this world. Let's
go to 1 John 1 John 5:18.
We know that anyone born of God does not
(10:30):
continue to sin. The one who was born of
God keeps them safe and the evil
one cannot harm them. We know that we
are children of God and that the whole
world is under the control of the evil
one. We know also that the Son of God has
come and has given us understanding so that we may know
him who is true. And we are in him who is
(10:52):
true by being in his Son, Jesus Christ. He
is the true God and eternal life. Okay,
so you see what it said there in verse 19, it says that the
whole world is under the control of the evil one.
So that makes it pretty clear, right, who's in
control of this world. I mean, that verse right there
actually says it. But we have to understand
(11:13):
that he's not in full control of everything
because he's not sovereign. God is the
only one who is sovereign. So God is in
ultimate control. And we figure this out by
reading Job. The book of Job tells us
how much power Satan has versus how much power
God has. Uh, now sometimes people will mix up the
(11:33):
ranking. Like, Satan is the equal to
God. He's the. He's the evil to God being
good. But that's totally incorrect
because God is way, way
above Satan. Remember, Satan was an
angel. So if we were to compare Satan to
anybody else, a good versus evil thing, it would be Satan
versus, say, Michael the Archangel. Because
(11:55):
remember, Satan was Lucifer the angel, the
worship leader. And once we understand that
he does not have the power that people think he has,
now he's powerful. He's a powerful being, and he's more powerful
than us humans. But he can't overcome
God. And so we'll find this out when we read through Job.
So let's go to Job. Okay, we're in Job one here
and we're going toa start a few verses down. We're
(12:18):
going to start in verse six. The verses one through five
talks about how much things Job had
and that he feared God and he did what was right,
how wealthy he was. But, uh, in verse six, it goes like this.
The angels came to present themselves before the Lord
and Satan also came with them. The Lord said
to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered the
Lord, from roaming throughout the earth, going back
(12:41):
and forth on it. Then the
Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant
Job? There was no one on earth like him. He is
blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.
Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan
replied, have you not put a hedge around him and
his household and everything he has? You, uh, have blessed the work of
his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread
(13:03):
throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and
strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you
to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well then,
everything he has is in your power, but on the man
himself. Do not lay a finger. Then Satan went out from
the presence of the Lord, okay, And then all these things happened to
Job and it was Satan actually doing those
(13:24):
things. He was the one putting the boils on him.
He was the one that, you know, took his children. But
remember, he wasn't in total control. The Lord
had to allow Satan to do this. He kind of
tried to, you know, play this game with the Lord. And the Lord's
like, look, he's blameless and he's upright. He
fears God. He shuns evil. And Satan's like, oh, that's
(13:44):
because you know you haven't done anything to him. So the
Lord allowed it. He said, very well then, everything
he has is in your power,
but on the man himself, do not lay a finger. That
shows the sovereignty of God. So we can't
take this stance that we have to fear
Satan. Yes, he does evil things. Yes, he is
(14:04):
more powerful than we are, but we can't be scared of him. We
can't have fear. God is in control. God
is sovereign. We have to let go of our fear and
anxiety. All those negative things that hold you back,
like fear and anxiety and
doubt. They're all the tools that the devil
uses to get you away from God, to
separate you from the truth. You already know that
(14:27):
God is in control. You already know that God loves you.
You already know he has your back
and he has his plan that is good for
you. But we start listening to the devil, right? And this is what
Andrew Bustamante was talking about when he says that Satan
comes with temptations, and that's how he
rules people, these temptations. And then
people fall into it. So we have to avoid that.
(14:50):
And the way we can avoid it is continue to realize
in Andrew Bustamaantte's words here, that
God controls the leash
on Satan, that Rottweiler. Although we're on that
ball that Satan can play with, he is not in
ultimate control. God is.
All right, let's move on to that second thing that
he spoke about that I was interested in talking about here.
(15:12):
We have the capacity to do evil
things. It just depends on the inputs. And
depending on the input, we will have an output or a
consequence because of that input. And I agree with this
wholeheartedly, too. Sometimes we think that we are
righteous and we're good and we're holy
until a certain button is pushed,
(15:32):
until someone says something that's
disrespectful, until someone cuts us off in
traffic, until someone cuts in the line at
DMV or at the post office or in the
grocery line, until someone steals something from
us, until someone hurts someone we love.
See, it depends on the input. We
will react humanly with human
(15:54):
nature to those inputs that are given to
us, and then they come with consequences, right? We will
react to that. And if we don't have the Holy Spirit
helping us, if we don't have God with us,
we will make decisions, not necessarily
impulsively, but will react in a human
way. It'll be a human response. And the
human response is normally revenge,
(16:17):
violence. It's some type of retaliation.
When we believe we've been wronged, verbally,
emotionally, physically, whenever we have
a chance to retaliate, we'll take it because
we do it with our human nature. But if we have the
Holy Spirit running our lives and we're following
him and doing everything he is leading us to
(16:37):
do, then we're going toa hold back from
retaliating. We're going to hold back from
reacting in a human way. And so I agree with
him when he says that inputs and outputs
really affect our capacity to do
evil. And so when we talk about allowing things to
get under our skin or we think about how these
temptations can overtake us, like, we
(16:59):
can't do this in the human realm. We can't do this
with our own strength and our own power. Matter of fact,
it says in Galatians that there's
a battle, there's a constant battle. Going on Algh. In
Galatians 5, Paul is talking about life by the
Spirit. So we'renn we're gonna start at verse
16 and go through a few verses goes like
(17:20):
this. So I say walk by the Spirit and you will
not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the
flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit,
and the Spirit is what is contrary to the flesh.
They are in conflict with each other. So
that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are
led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And then
(17:40):
it goes on to the acts of the flesh, which
are a whole bunch of different sins. But
that's what Andrew is talking about here,
is those temptations that we can fall under
the inputs and outputs. Well, if we are dealing with the
flesh and our desires, we're going to be
opposite of the Spirit because it's contrary to the
(18:00):
Spirit and it's a constant battle. See, Paul's
saying that it is in constant conflict
with each other, the Spirit versus the flesh.
And we can't just do whatever we want. Well, what we want to
do is whatever our flesh wants us to do. That's
our impulse, that's our immediate go to, that's
our default. But Paul is saying here we have to be led
(18:21):
by the Spirit. The Spirit will lead us to do the
right thing. The Spirit will give us the strength,
will give us the understanding, will give us the wisdom
to do the right thing. So we have to be led by the
Spirit. We cannot be led by our flesh. So
no matter what the inputs are, one of the things that we add
to the equation is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
(18:41):
will disrupt that equation of
inputs equals, uh, outputs. Because
now with the Holy Spirit involved in that equation, the
outputs are totally different. Then you would think from
a certain input, we will not react the way we
want to react as long as we have the Spirit leading us.
So hopefully you have the Holy Spirit. If
not, pray the Lord get saved and accept
(19:04):
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and you will have the
Holy Spirit. Uh, and once you have the Holy Spirit, you can start learning
from the Holy Spirit. He will start teaching you and then you
can start to gain an understanding of walking in
the Spirit, living life in the Spirit
and with the Spirit. If you do that, then we can
avoid all these temptations that'll bring us
down when we act with the flesh. Well, I hope that
(19:27):
helps you and thanks for listening. This is the Radio
Coffee House with Clint Armitage. And until next time, stay
safe and God bless
Thanks for joining, uh, us for another episode of the Radio Coffee
House show where we're all about Jesus, coffee and
(19:48):
radio. We'll see you next time. Time.
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