Searching For Truth #TRB Episode 23- Michael Arrango

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider with your
host, kathy Chastain.
Christian-based psychotherapistand Redeemed Backslider.
This podcast is dedicated tothose who have wandered but are
ready to return to thelife-changing power of grace and
the freedom found in Jesus.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
I'm your host, kathy Chastain.
I am a Redeemed Backslider andI'm also a Christian-based
psychotherapist.
With me in the studio today isMichael Arango.
Michael attends church with meand he also serves on my board

(00:43):
for my nonprofit, and so I knowa little bit about him.
But recently his wife shared abit more of his testimony and I
thought, oh, I've got to havehim in the studio and hear the
whole thing.
So welcome to the studio,michael.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
I'm glad to be here, thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, so your lovely wife told me that you came from
the occult world.
So how long have you been inchurch?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
So I have been in church.
I got into church in 2009.
Okay, and I actually got in.
I was in for about a year and ahalf more about a year, and
then I came across.
Now, mind you, prior to this Iwas already, I had already been,
you know, in the occult andcoming to know the Lord.

(01:34):
It, you know, pushed me, itpulled me away from that, but I
had some information that I cameacross as a Christian and I was
unable to have it answered.
um, efficiently enough for meand so I actually kind of backed
out.
And this is about 2000 2010okay and um, and maybe just a

(01:57):
little bit before that, I backedout and actually got deeper
into the occult.
Okay after that.
Okay and um I had you know aturning point in my life and
came back to the lord and youknow, everything was way more
clear than it was ever okay,ever since then.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's about 2000, uh, late 2010, 2011 so tell me, like
tell me about your childhood.
So, 2009, how old would youhave been?
Because you're, you're fairlyyoung.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
I was 23 in 2009.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
23,.
Okay, how long had you been inthe occult?
What age were you when you gotinto the occult and how did you
get into the occult.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
I started getting into it probably when I was
about 21.
Okay.
And prior to that, you know,going back into my childhood, we
can talk about that.
But I had different, mixed kindof religious things going on

(02:53):
from being a child in myhousehold and my family, so
there were certain things that Iwas naturally attracted to when
I started to dabble into theoccult of witchcraft and whatnot
stuff like that.
I was, I wasn't yeah, I wasn'tunfamiliar with the idea of
witchcraft.
Well, we can go back to my, myfamily and my mom's side.

(03:14):
They were from louisiana andthere's a lot of like voodoo and
witchcraft, right, um, as wellas catholicism.
So, right, there's a lot ofthat mixture.
You know, I don Sure.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
And so growing up Santeria, right Santeria is a
Spanish cult based onCatholicism.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
And it's all that voodoo type of stuff and hoodoo
and it's all very similar.
But the idea of the spiritualrealm was already something that
I had known about since I was achild I hope I'm being loud
enough and so getting into theoccult, hearing certain things,
certain words and stuff, it wasa natural comfort zone for me.

(03:56):
Okay.
And it actually started when Iwas in San Diego, I believe.
When I was in San Diego, Ibelieve one of the first things
that got me to spearhead intothe occult and just for those
who are listening occult, theword OCCULT, it just means
hidden.
It's not like a cult, the ULT.

(04:17):
Right.
It's the occult means hidden,so it's esoteric knowledge.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Enlightenment and spirituality.
Yeah, that is not common to theaverage person, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
And so getting into that, one of the first things
that I started to get into wasaliens, actually.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
My father had passed shortly before I was starting
something new in my life, on myway to San Diego.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
How old were you?

Speaker 3 (04:47):
I was 21, I believe.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
When your father passed away yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
And one of my best friends.
He said that I can go stay withhim down there, you know.
So I wanted to leave everythingout here and just start a new
life.
And on our way there we talkedabout all kinds of stuff and he
brought up his experience with aUFO and how it would change his
life, and it just becamesomething fascinating.

(05:13):
I never really thought about it.
I was always curious about it,but I didn't really think about
it too much until that moment.
Then I started to.
Once we got there, startedlooking on the internet.
And this is back in 2020 or,I'm sorry, 2007, excuse me.
And so from that, um, gettinginto the idea of aliens, you

(05:35):
start learning about ancientalien theory, um, and that stuff
is just all drenched with newage like philosophy and concepts
and whatnot.
And, um, I started to learnabout I don't know if you've
heard, I'm sure you have the lawof attraction which is, yeah,
the secret.
Yeah, the secret um, actuallythat's one of the one of the

(05:56):
things that I that I got into,is I watched the secret in the
documentary.
There's also a book by rondabyrne, and then I read a book by
Rhonda Byrne, and then I read abook called Think and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
It's a big, it's a best-selling book.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
It is, it's one of the number one sellers.
Pretty much all the financialgurus out there.
That's one of the first onesthey start with.
Well, it's completely saturatedwith the occult ideas.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Do you think the average person who's read that
book recognizes that, thatthere's occult language and um
and principles, philosophies inthat book?

Speaker 3 (06:34):
I don't think so.
Um, I don't think that to me,the average person really
recognizes the occult when, whenit's around you know, um, it
almost takes somebody that'sbeen in it to see it.
Yeah.
Um, otherwise it just soundslike you know anything that
pleases the flesh.
It sounds wonderful, it soundsgreat.
And who doesn't?
want that, right, right.
So anyhow, um, that was one ofmy, one of the springboards that

(06:58):
got me into into the, into theoccult, into the new age, and
from then on it got heavier andheavier into chakras and
meditation and hallucinogenicsand all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
So, Michael, you were from Visalia originally then no
, no, actually.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
Well, my father was military.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
So I was actually born on the base.
Okay.
And I moved to the Bay Area SanJose when I was um very young.
I must have been three okay um,and then I I left the bay area
about seven years old and Imoved down to lamar okay um, and

(07:38):
I pretty much grew up there inlamar.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Okay then, so your mom was it, her relatives and
family from Louisiana or sheherself was also from there, but
her family, her mother's side,my grandmother, they're all from
Louisiana.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
And, like I said, growing up, my mom would always
tell us how she's a witch and wehave witches in our family.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
My grandma's a witch and so your mom told you that
she was yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Not necessarily seeing her practice, any of this
stuff, didn't really see it,but the language and the, that
was all there, you know and itwas something that everybody was
comfortable with that conceptRight, so I didn't really know
anything else, anythingdifferent Right right right and
you know talking about spiritsin the home and our relatives.
You know watching over us in ourhouse and you you know seeing

(08:43):
things move or getting knockeddown, um smelling my, my
great-grandfather's pipe, um, inrandom places in my house was,
you know, it would happen andthat was something that we were
comfortable with.
And my mom telling us herfriend I forgot his name but he
would, supposedly he wouldalways come and visit us and do
stuff in our house and it was acomfortable environment.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Never scared, you never felt the fear of the
random incidences.
But you bring up somethingbecause I've only heard of one
other person kind of talk aboutthis but smell, have you
experienced smell very much inthe supernatural.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Well, not really.
Like I said, smelling mygreat-grandfather's pipe was
probably the only one that I canrecognize from my past, but is
that something that you hearabout a lot?

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Well, I've experienced it myself in a
couple of different situations,and then I've had someone else
talk about it.
But for me, I was in my car oneday at an intersection and this
, I think, is so fascinatingbecause I believe it's the way
the enemy works against us.

(10:01):
But I was in my car at anintersection.
I was heading home and Istarted to smell cigarette smoke
really, really strong, and mywindows were up.
And so my first thing is likewhere is this smoke coming from?
I looked at the crosswalk tosee was there anybody getting

(10:22):
right across the street that wassmoking?
There was no one there, so Ilooked at the car next to me to
see if they were smoking andtheir windows were down.
I mean, it was that strong.
The windows were up, no one wassmoking, and immediately before
I crossed the intersection Ibegan to crave cigarettes and
I'm not a smoker.

(10:42):
So it took two days.
I recognized after a fewminutes that that was a spirit,
and it took me two days toresist that before it went away.
And so I, when those kinds ofthings happen, I always take
that to the Lord and I'm likeokay, lord, what are you wanting

(11:04):
me to understand from this?
And then one day I was sittingin my house, I was in my front
room, I had worship music on.
I was just going about whateverI do in my home and all of a
sudden I smelled lilies and ofcourse I didn't have any fresh
flowers Sometimes I do, but Ididn't have fresh flowers in my

(11:27):
house and the smell was sostrong and the scripture Lily of
the Valley, you know, sweetRose of Sharon and Solomon Song
of Solomon, I believe it's injust immediately hit my mind and
I just started weeping becausethe presence of the Lord was so
strong.
But it came to me and smell andI've since heard people talk

(11:50):
about being in the shower andsmelling marijuana and different
things, so when?
you said that, I thought oh, Iwonder, you know, I wonder how
many people have experiencedsmell, because it works with our
senses.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
I was curious about that.
I haven't, like I said, that'sall I can remember.
But now that you mentionedsmelling marijuana at random,
there has been those times whereI always count it off as a
skunk or something how did youknow it was your
great-grandfather's?
Pipe?
Well, I don't believe that itwas.
Now, however, he had a verydistinct tobacco that he smoked.

(12:33):
Mm-hmm.
And he always smelled like that.
You know, every time you'rearound him, he always smelled
like that.
He was always smoking that pipe.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
Right.
So it was something that— itwas familiar already to you.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, you already knew he was around when he was
smoking it yeah.
And, mind you, that's in SanJose.
I'm living in Lemoore now.
Right.
And you know, years later andthis is when this is going on,
so it was something that werecognized.
Oh, that's Papa.
We know Papa's here, you knowyeah.
Say hi to him, even though he'snot really there to see Right

(13:03):
right, but you know Right.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
So did you grow up as a kid?
Did you have nightmares, didyou?
What was your childhood like inthe supernatural when you look
back at it now, the experiencesthat you had.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
I've had.
I remember nightmares frombeing three years old Crazy
stuff.
I remember seeing you know, andI'm three.
I remember being in outer spacein my dream, seeing enormous
demonic faces, like talking tome, feminine demonic faces.
I remember.

(13:39):
I remember jumping out ofwindows in my sleep not really
doing it, but I mean I'm a childat this point and then going
into like different realms of ofthe past.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
So Like time time travel type things as a kid, as
a child, and so at the time youdidn't understand what any of
that meant, but it sounds like.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Probably as you got into the occult did you go back
and look at all that stuff yeah,and I started to get into lucid
dreaming um which is where youbasically like learn how to
control your dreams um is thatlike astral projection?
No, that's not necessarilyastral projection.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
No, that's not necessarily astral projection.
Lucid dreaming is more like youare in your subconscious mind.
You're able to recognize thatyou're asleep Right, and so you
can start to control theenvironment around you and do
whatever you want to do you know, versus not realizing.
You're dreaming.
You wake up in a panic ifsomething happens.
You know your brain doesn'trecognize that it's not real.

(14:45):
It knows that your, your senses,are taking it in as it's real
information but, lucid dreaming,you find out that you actually
are dream or you're dreaming,and you learn how to control it.
So, um, and you can go dowhatever you want to do.
Um, like I said, you can travelin the past.
You can go fly, um and dostupid stuff like do spider-man
webs this?

(15:06):
Guy yeah, I bet you did yeah,um, and then the astral
projection.
That's another, another thing.
I've done that before as welltoo michael.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Um, so what was your teenage years like then?
Did you have any interactionwith christianity in high school
or with friends, or what was,what was teenagers like for you?

Speaker 3 (15:30):
so well.
I actually I, my parents weredivorced when I was very young,
so I grew up in a split homekind of back and forth, and
there was times where I was withmy mom and times where I was
with my father and I kind of gotto run amok as a teenager.
I got started on this drinkingand smoking really early and

(15:52):
doing all the stuff you canthink of.
I think I was about 11 when Ihad my first cigarette.
I probably had my first drinkat like 10 years old.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
So you were really empty, recognizing you were
looking for something yeah, Imean you probably didn't
recognize it.
But yeah, you don't realizethat's very young.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Yeah, yeah, um, you know, trying to find a place,
you know to fit yeah and um, Istarted smoking weed when I was
13 and that's pretty much where,like the real drinking started
and everything else you knowstarted from then on.
So I don't recall exactly whatage I was.
There was, there was a point inmy life, maybe maybe 15 years

(16:37):
old, when my father he, myfather was an alcoholic and he
had an awakening.
He felt that God was callinghim.
So he had actually changed hiswhole life around, like I said,
when I was about 15.
And he didn't know anything.
My father was from the streetsof Brooklyn, new York.

(16:58):
He grew up running amok.
His father was an alcoholic aswell, out of his life.
His mother died when he wasvery young, young so my father
he didn't have a very goodupbringing himself um
and the only figure of god thathe remembered was when he was
little.
His mom used to take him to acatholic church.
So that's really that's wherehe, uh, he went and he told us

(17:22):
hey, we're gonna start going tochurch when you guys are here.
So we started going to startgoing to church when you guys
are here.
So we started going to aCatholic church when I was about
15.
Now, mind you, as a child therewas some of that mixed in.
Not my parents, but my greatgrandmother was a devout
Catholic.
So when I would go visit her inthe summertime, I would go to
mass with her.

(17:44):
Not really understanding what itis, I didn't really have a
concept of God or Jesus or muchanything you know at all.
Right, but I knew that a churchwas somewhere where people went
to pray or talk to God, and soabout 15, like I said, I started
to go to this Catholic church.
It really wasn't nothing to me,I was still doing, you know,
the dumb stuff and I wasactually, um, there was this

(18:05):
girl that lived across thestreet from me who got this
really old, uh, like ancientwicked book, and we started to
read on how to like, summondemons and stuff like that.
We were doing ouija boards and,um, still, though, my father was
, you was still going to thischurch, and he met a woman who

(18:27):
was going to a church inFarmersville.
She wasn't a Catholic, she wasa Protestant and so he actually
started to go to that church.
After a while, he startedrealizing the differences in his
faith and he started to bringus to that one, and so I did
have a small encounter with God.
I was probably about 16 or 17years old.

(18:48):
We went to this thing.
It was like an event calledAcquire the Fire I hope I'm
talking loud enough and it had,you know, the live music and
then the sermon.
It was like a three-dayconference type of thing for
youth, and I had a feeling there.
I remember I stuck my hand inthe air and I was just asking

(19:08):
God, you know, if you're real,just show me.
And I felt, I feel like I feltlike a hand touched my hand and
I remember I was bawling, I wascrying, and that was like my
very first encounter with God.
Other than that, before that itreally didn't mean anything to
me.
Other than that before that Ireally didn't.
It didn't mean anything to me,and that was probably the
biggest experience I had as ateenager so and so then you just

(19:33):
grow up, your dad, does he getmarried to this woman?
Does he?

Speaker 2 (19:36):
stay yeah, does he stay faithful and then?
So how did you start to getdeeper into the cult?
Where did you go from there?

Speaker 3 (19:45):
So from there let's see, Like I said, my father
stayed in and he married thiswoman and he started to go to
this church and he actuallyturned his whole life around.
He was a faithful man of God.
He repented and he stoppeddrinking, quit smoking
cigarettes and he just turnedhis whole life around 180.

(20:07):
And everything that came out ofhis mouth was about Jesus and I
remember just being hounded byhim, not like pressured, but it
used to get on my nerves thatevery conversation we had, no
matter what it was, he alwaysended up having to bring the
Lord into it and it was alwaysas a kid you're like why?
It's annoying, you know.
Yeah.
And I remember one of the lasttimes I saw him I was going to

(20:30):
this thing called the CaliforniaConservation Corps like a
government program.
A lot of troubled kids go andthey go there and they kind of
live on this government facilityand do environmental work for
the state.
And he gave me a CD.
It was John MacArthur, it wascalled the Way to Heaven and
that was one of the last thingsthat he gave me, probably maybe

(20:52):
the fourth or fifth of the lasttimes that I actually talked to
him before he passed away.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
So his goal was like To make sure you would be saved.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
Yeah, I want my children saved and I want them
to be in church.
Yeah, I want my children savedand I want them to be in church.
Yeah, so from there, I actuallylived in Humboldt County, where
there's a lot of hippies outthere, so the new age mindset is
everywhere out there.
So, you talk to people and youhave things in common with them

(21:21):
and you get to kind of pick upoff of what they're saying.
You know back and forth, and Iactually, like I said when I
went to San Diego this is a fewyears later that's when I
started to get into the occult,really big and, um, I didn't
actually come to know the Lorduntil, like I said, 2009, to

(21:45):
really like having to have arelationship with God.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
So when you went to San Diego, it was right after
your dad died.
You were just trying to get away.
You fall into this conversationabout aliens.
You already sort of had someidea, but it probably opened up
a different window for you downa different path into the spirit
realm.
Was there the spirit realm Ialways think you know, like the

(22:15):
supernatural stuff, the demonicstuff, the angelic stuff.
Where did aliens fit into that?
And how is the occult differentin terms of?
Because I know the occult is alot of new age and that is the
yoga, the chakras, the kundalinispirit and all of that kind of
stuff.
So can you kind of break downhow all of that piece of it and

(22:39):
the alien piece differs from theprophetic realm and the demonic
realm?

Speaker 3 (22:46):
can you kind of, yeah , yeah, yeah.
So break that down.
So with the new age, with theoccult, the idea is that, um,
the universe, everything is onewith the universe, right?
it's all it's all this, thisconsciousness so it's not about
a particular god it's more about, as you said, consciousness and
enlightenment okay, which isironic because in the garden the

(23:10):
very first lie was right, wasenlightenment to be like god,
right?
So in the new age, or in theoccult, you basically are god,
you're becoming god, becomingone with the universe, which is
god, because all everything isone.
And so within this, within theuniverse, you know you have
galaxies and you know, youunderstand how space works.

(23:30):
So the idea of um otherentities having these, these
realizations and theseenlightenment experiences, um,
it's very big on them.
Oh, we're going to bring it toearth and we're going to
enlighten mankind to be like us,to stop nuclear war and stop
killing.
We just have to break out ofthat consciousness and be who we

(23:52):
were meant to be.
And so it's very big in the NewAge, this idea of aliens.
And when you start getting intothe ancient alien theories,
where they believe that alienscreated man, you start to just
eat this stuff up like new agersand ancient alien theorists.
They love to take biblicalverses too and that's another

(24:14):
thing.
Is they like to touch littlepieces of history to make it
make sense for them?

Speaker 2 (24:18):
right, including always a thread of truth into
every lot.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
Yeah, yeah and the bible's a very big you know they
won't go to the Quran for itSometimes they will, but mostly
the Bible.
They love picking out the Bibleand they'll reject the gospel,
of course right which everythingreally points to the gospel.
Right but they'll pick out thelittle things that make their
theories make sense to them.
And that's what they'll use.
A little bit of lies here.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well, that's what the devil did, even with Jesus, all
throughout the Bible.
He sure did.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Absolutely, and so, like I said, with the New Age,
that fits very well into theidea that there's creatures all
around the universe that are allon the same path to
enlightenment becoming one withthe universe right.
Okay, Ascended masters.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Is that like Luciferianismiferianism?

Speaker 3 (25:06):
luciferianism.
Yeah, um, so the luciferianaspect it is, it's very, it's
all one in the same.
It might be packaged slightlydifferent um if you read about
helena blavatsky, she's like oneof the ones that made the
luciferianism, the new ageconcept, pretty big um her, a
woman named alice bailey I knowalice bailey, yeah, and alice

(25:26):
bailey was actually helena'spredecessor.
Okay, so anything that alicesays, she probably got it from
helena.
Um, and anyhow, you start tosee that they believe in lucifer
.
That lucifer is.
Is this symbol of enlightenmentthat the serpent?
in the garden actually set manfree from a cruel, vindictive
God and was holding him captive,not allowing him to be who we

(25:50):
were meant to be.
Right, and that is actuallywhere it all starts, right there
.
But the New Age is more of alighthearted package.
It's like a different rapper,right.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Right right.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
They don't want to dig into the aspect of Lucifer
Luciferianism, but it is thesame.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Very covert.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Very much so.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Because otherwise anyone that knows the Bible
would be able to see rightthrough Luciferianism.
How do I say it?

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Luciferianism.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Luciferianism, yeah, but there is a big movement, I
know, in the elite culture,Hollywood culture.
That's pretty big.
So when you were in it and yousaid you got into meditation and
yoga and chakra, so did youhave experience with kundalini?

(26:39):
I've been told that thekundalini spirit, which is a
serpent spirit, um, is veryclose to what we experience as
the holy ghost, but you know,obviously it's of a different
spirit.
But, um, what did youexperience in that?

Speaker 3 (26:58):
so I've seen break it down for, yeah, so uh, the
kundalini, like, like you said,it's a serpent, it's a coiled
serpent and it has to do withwhen you start to open your
chakras up, which you don't knowwhat chakras are.
They're basically just likecenter points of energy.
It comes from Hinduism.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
In our body, throughout our spine up to our
head.
Yeah, all the way from the baseall the way to the crown.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
And you open these center points, um, these center
points of energy with throughmeditation and you know
different.
They have different meaningsand different reasonings for
them.
But Kundalini is that one Um,and I've been told about the,
the imitation of the Holy spirit.
Um, personally I've never gotto that point but I did

(27:44):
definitely try to and I would doa lot of mushrooms to try to
get into a different realm, alot of meditations with
mushrooms.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
And.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
I would do salvia different hallucinogenics, lots
and lots of marijuana at thattime.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
And the goal was to what, michael?
To get into a different realm,your third eye.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Okay, I guess getting into a different realm would be
a good explanation ordescription of that.
Open your third eye to whereyou can see.
You know things for what itreally is.
Um it's.
It's an enlightenment factors,what it really is.
Um and and and being in that,to be honest with you, seeing

(28:31):
the Kundalini and seeing what'sgoing on in churches and stuff,
it's pushed me back before tokind of like you know, I see
stuff, I've seen New Age.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Enter the church.
We hear that a lot, yeah, andpeople that aren't familiar with
it.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Like if you can't see something in the Bible, then
you got to really question isthis really of God or is it
something else?
Right, you know what I mean,Because it can, mimic it can,
and it does.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
It tries to obviously .

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah, and it creates its own stuff too, and it might
sound biblical, it might soundgodly, but if we don't find it
in scripture, it's reallydifficult to determine whether
that's from god or if it's fromyou know the enemy and um.
That's another thing.
That that I noticed is I do seethis in in churches you know,
it's big and charismatic inpentecostal churches.

(29:26):
A lot of people don't realizeit, but it really is, yeah it's
because the spiritual aspect ofthose movements it's very in
tune with the spiritualexperience.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
I've heard some other people that have come out of
the occult and specifically comeout of devil worship talk about
mixture that exists in thechurch and this, sorry people if
this is kind of deep or, youknow, on the fringe, um, but I
do think it is much more common,especially in churches like

(30:02):
Pentecost, where we are spiritfilled and we really pursue the
spirit realm, the spirit of God,right To operate in the, in the
fivefold ministry and in thegifts of the Spirit.
I think a lot.
I think church overall inPentecost has been very careful

(30:23):
when it comes to the gifts ofthe Spirit, because it can be
such a slippery slope.
But there is a lot of mixture.
I've heard that and it's BrotherClark, who was one of my
mentors, would say oh, theychanged angels, like someone can

(30:46):
be speaking and change and moveinto a different spirit that is
dominating at that same time.
Does that make sense Because ofwhat they're saying or the way
they're operating from adifferent place, without even
realizing perhaps?
Anyways, that might be sidebar,but I've heard that.

(31:07):
You know, and I've paidattention over the years in
Pentecost as there's been sortof a rise and then a back away
of the hungering for thesupernatural in churches.
So it'll be interesting to hearwhat you have to say about that
.
So what you said earlier thatyou know at 23, in 2009,.

(31:32):
You sort of came into church.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
So what made you leave the occult and sort of
come to church.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Okay, yeah.
So at this time I was reallyinto this alien idea.
Right, you know, you just wantthese beings to come down, and
these beings of light is whatthey were called to.
Just, you know, give you thetruth and just reveal themselves
.
And at this point I remembereven not believing the Bible at

(32:01):
all, I remember I just thoughtit was a book written by men,
just completely denial of it.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
And my brother, Was that part of the teaching?
Did they in the occult?
Were they really trying todownplay the relevance of the
teaching?
Did they in the occult?
Were they really trying todownplay the relevance of the
bible, or was that just yourpersonal?
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (32:16):
that was just my personal opinion, um, probably
because of the people that Ihung around with um.
But you know, I was lost, I wassearching and, um, my brother
at that time was up here.
I, I was in San Diego and hewas getting into some trouble.
He was following, you know, thepath that I was on and, um,

(32:37):
somewhere in there he ended upgoing to my aunt's church Now my
aunt.
She started going to thislittle apostolic church in
Lemoore, um, and so he startedto follow her there to go there.
And my cousin was going theretoo.
I didn't realize it.
My cousin's my best friend, andmy brother called me, or I was
talking to him on the phone andhe was just telling me oh, you

(33:00):
know, telling me about the HolySpirit and being baptized.
And you know how it is whenyou're first into the church,
you just want to tell everybody.
And I just didn't kind of likeman, well, what about this?
And I started telling aboutthese aliens and stuff.
And that's really where what Iwas concerned with I thought it
was, you know, fascinating andum so long story short, I end up

(33:22):
not being able to stay at thatplace anymore and I had to move
back.
And when I got here I don'tremember if if it was a man, I
know there was a Jehovah'sWitness that came to the door
and at this point I didn't evenknow what a Jehovah's Witness
was and he would come there andhe would talk to me.
I believe his name was Bart.
He would come and talk to me.

(33:43):
I was staying at my buddy'shouse and it was here in Visalia
and we would just talk about.
You know, he would talk aboutthe Bible.
It was very knowledgeable andthey're not very revealing of
who they are when they come andtalk to you, but they just want
to talk about the Bible, which Iwas cool with that you know,
and I started to remember whatmy brother said and I told

(34:04):
myself you know, I'm just goingto go to church on Sunday with
him.
So he invited me and I went, andthat very day I don't remember
the sermon, anything really Iremember I was high.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
When you went to church.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
Yeah, and after the sermon was over, there was a
brother in front of me namedMark Cross.
I told him hey, bro, I justwant to get baptized.
I was like, just in case, youknow, in case my brother's right
, I just want to get baptized,just in case he's like praise
God, brother.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Get you baptized.
So actually they filled up thehorse trough.
The pastor talked to me.
I wish that they would havetalked to me and explained the
gospel to me to have a betterunderstanding.
But I understood the concept of, you know, washing away my sins
and, uh, you know, I wanted tobe clean and so they baptized me
right there and that from thatmoment on, like everything kind

(34:58):
of just opened up to me.
I just I didn't want anythingto do with the occult, just
naturally wanted to put it down.
Wow.
And um I, I started to go tochurch there and immediately was
a hunger for knowledge again,like being in the cult.
You just want to know things.
You just want to absorbknowledge, and that's what the
whole idea of enlightenment isabout.

(35:18):
Right, it really gets you.
But this was a godly desire forknowledge and I wanted to know
more, and know more about theBible and know more about you,
know God, and after you know, Igained a good amount.
Um, I started to wonder aboutother religions around me, like
why are they wrong?

(35:39):
What about what I'm saying?
How do I reach them?
And so, naturally, I started tostudy, uh, these different,
different beliefs, different, um, religions, and these different
beliefs different religions andI got into studying the
Jehovah's Witnesses verythoroughly.
Because that guy talked to youabout the Bible and the Mormon

(35:59):
Church, the Church of Latter-daySaints.
I really started to dig intothem and at first it was almost
like I wanted to debate themrather than just like hey, let
me give you the truth and letyou be saved.
I wanted to prove them wrong sothat they can be saved.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
You know that kind of mindset which is the wrong way
to go about it but I was brandnew.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Right, and so that hunger for enlightenment was,
was on, full fledged, you know,but a godly way Right At that
point I was 2009.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
And you said that there was something that drew
you away because you had aquestion about something that
you couldn't get answeredCorrect.
So what was the question?

Speaker 3 (36:37):
So I really want to be sensitive to the audience.
There's a lot of informationout there that can confuse you,
that sounds legit and it canreally really make you question
your faith, the legitimacy ofyour faith, um, and so I I'll
talk to anybody that wants totalk about it afterwards.
I don't really want to put thatinformation out there, but it

(37:00):
really shook my faith.
It shook everything that Ibelieved.
It was real to me, and Ibrought it to the pastor and he
really couldn't answer it.
So he kind of passed me on to asister in the church, an elder,
and she invited me over to herhouse and you know, she wanted
to see what I was talking about,which these are older people.

(37:22):
The internet is full ofinformation that they never had
come across before.
And so me presenting to herwhat I was struggling with I'm
sure that it was shaking to hershe didn't know how to answer it
and so she kind of just passedit.
Oh, you know, the devil's aliar.
Okay, I've heard that a milliontimes.
That's not enough for me, right, right.

(37:42):
So I think that at that point Istarted to realize like these
people can't even answer thequestions that I have.
So this seems a little bit morereal than what they're trying
to give me, right, right.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Okay, so it was an idea about something that seemed
legitimate to you.
Yeah.
And there was no, and I thinkthat's a really good point,
though I remember when I was inStockton, I, when I got back in
church, I was my cousin pastorand I both moved to Stockton and
went to CLC and I did all thethings, all the standards wore

(38:18):
dresses, no makeup.
I did all the things because Ihad grown up in church and I
naturally just did everythingthat I knew to do as a kid
growing up.
And I was working at Costco andone of my really good friends
who, by the way, just got theHoly Ghost this last week, on
the 15th, yes in her own home,anyways, we worked together at

(38:40):
Costco and she asked me one dayshe's very eager, she loved the
Lord, she was very eager tounderstand what it was I had and
what the Holy Ghost was about.
And she asked me one day why doyou wear dresses?
Why can't you wear pants?
And I said what I said my wholelife.

(39:00):
It's against my religion, and Icould not answer her.
I just said, well, it's justsomething that we don't do.
Girls wear dresses.
I didn't have an answer for her, her, you know.
I just said, well, it's justsomething that we don't do girls
wear dresses you know.
Yeah, I didn't have an answerfor her and I remembered the
scripture that said to make sureyou can have an answer for
anyone that asks about thisfaith that we have right yeah

(39:21):
first peter and from there,because I was still very new.
I had been a backslider for along time and I was still very
new.
I did not at that time, knowwhy I did what I did.
I was just trying to go back towhere I met the Lord and where
the Lord was real for me.
So I started wearing pants andI went to church and at that

(39:45):
point I started to just try tobe where I was and I started
wearing pants again and startedwearing makeup and just all the
things that I had already givenup, because I didn't understand
the reasons we did what we did,and so it took a very long time.

(40:06):
And, coming back to church withPastor, I sat down and I said,
okay, I need to know, and um,and he didn't give me some
scripture and he didn't tell meuh, you know, it's wrong and
it's sin.
and he just said you know, kath,the universal symbol for a

(40:27):
woman is a dress, and everytrans person that you see, the
first thing that they do is theyput on a dress and I thought,
now that is something I canembrace.
And then I had a choice to.
I would want to be morefeminine.
So, anyways, I've had to kindof work through that, but your

(40:49):
story is a very good example ofwhy we have a relationship with
God and not just a religion.
And the things that we chooseto do and choose to live comes
from a place that we have aconviction about and we know
what we believe.
You know what I mean, becauseclearly for you, thank goodness

(41:11):
you found your way back, but Ithink all of us could stand to
learn that lesson.
The things that I do today, Ican tell anybody around me why I
chose to do them and how Ichoose to live.
I agree to live, and, and, andstill the things that I am not
all the way upc ish with youknow, but I'm I'm beginning to

(41:36):
learn more and and I feel likeum, I feel like god is teaching
all of us in our own way, butanyways yeah, I digress um.
So you left at that time andyou said I got deeper into the
cult.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Tell me about that.
So, yeah, I got deeper into it.
At that point I had alreadybeen filled with the Holy Spirit
, I had already been really,really into church, I had my
Bible highlighted and all thisstuff, but I feel like it was
Because you were digging yeahRight, and I was going to every
Bible study I could, but it wasalso.
It was also the like all thisstuff was being pressed on me

(42:13):
too, so it's like, oh, this isthis and this and this, and I
recall going there.
Mind you, I had had smallexperiences with churches before
going into this place.
I had never been in a placewhere they were just like making
it a regular thing to likeknock other beliefs, knock other
kind of christians, you knowbashing their faith right like

(42:34):
getting up behind the pulpittalking about the baptists or
the catholics.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Right, there was a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
There can be, yes and I noticed that and it was kind
of weird at first but I startedto.
I feel like I started to absorbthat you know and um, in a way
that you became judgmental ofothers or that it was negatively
affecting Like this doesn'tfeel right in a way.
Well, I think I felt like I hadto like kind of join in on it,
but there was something in methat felt wrong anyways, and

(43:04):
little things like that.
Not being able to get answersthere was, you know, excuse my
language, but there was a lot oflegalism going on in there and,
um, this particular place youweren't allowed to.
Well, I had taken it as youweren't allowed to date, unless
they were in that you knowchurch or unequally yoked.
Yeah, yeah and so it was.
It was kind of like there wasreasons why it kind of led for

(43:27):
me okay, I can comfortably walkaway from this after you know
going there for a year was it aupc church and it was actually a
paw.
I don't know if you knowanything about that.
If you want to look intopentecostal history, um it's a
split off from the upc itactually was one of the first
ones in that of the movement.
It's the first, uh, one of thefirst oneness movements from the

(43:48):
pentecostal.
So okay after azusa street,there's all these little
organizations that started up,and that was one of the very
first ones okay that.
Uh, bro, when they decided wasit gonna be oneness or it's
gonna be trinity, that divisionstarted right there okay that
was one of the very firstoneness pillars, which later on
upc came in 1945 and all that,so, so okay.

(44:09):
But, it is.
It is from the same vein right.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Gotcha.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
And there's thousands of them Okay, really there's
like thousands of them.
So they all have little bits,of little differences here and
there.
Yes.
Some are more straight.
You know how that goes.
So, anyhow, I left that and Iwent back to the world.
I went back to drinking, backto smoking.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
You just put God down .

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yeah, I didn't want to be one foot in, one foot out.
I was kind of like you knowwhat I'm already out, this is
what it is, and I started toreally really get into doing
MDMA, ecstasy, cocaine and moredrugs.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
And Michael.
Were you doing that?
I mean this sounds like a sillyquestion, but in light of your
desire for enlightenment, wereyou doing all those drugs for
the high just to have fun withfriends, or were you doing them
because of where they took youin your mind and allowed you to
open up more?

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Some of them pretty much both.
Some of them were fun, like thecocaine stuff that was for fun,
the MDMA that was for fun.
But when I would do mushroomsor when I would do salvia, and a
lot of times when I would smokeweed, which that was the
biggest one I had been smokingsince I was 13,.
So it was a regular part of mylife, aside from being in church

(45:30):
and, um, yeah, sometimes Iwould, I would do that for for
that reason, for the meditationreasons and whatnot.
So, but anyhow, I got into it,started digging even more and I
really really started to believelike, hey, um, you know, I'm
going to be good, I'm going tobe my own God.
I started to believe like, hey,I'm going to be my own God.

(45:53):
I started really meditating alot.
I ended up.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
What does that look like?
Tell me what that would looklike for you.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Meditation.
It would just be in a silentarea.
I would be out in nature.
I would find myself in the park.
I might light a couple ofcandles, get some water going so
I can have my elements.
I would just be on my salvia ortake some mushrooms.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Just sitting quietly, but in nature, yeah, in nature.
For how long at a time wouldyou do that?

Speaker 3 (46:20):
You know, you kind of lose track of time.
You know, maybe an hour, maybe30 minutes at a time, but yeah,
it would be like a frequentthing and I would go out there
and you try to open up yourchakras and you know clear
energy and when you're doingthat, I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
I'm not.
I'm not asking for, you know, ahow-to book, but are you
purposely getting your mind oncertain parts?

Speaker 1 (46:46):
of your body, because I.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
I just think that, in comparison, you know, when we
try to pray and we shut ourself,we shut the world out in order
to focus on the lord.
You know, there takes it takesa little effort yeah to kind of
get your mind and your heart andyour thoughts on god yes and I
would think it would take thatsimilar type of effort into

(47:10):
meditating, opening up yourchakras.
Yeah, it does.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
It's very, very focused energy in and and, like
I said, there's seven thatyou're focusing on, so you're
literally like pinpointing yourmind on each one at a time that
you're trying to.
You know, get to that point andhonestly, I don't even think
that it is real, that it reallyworks I think it's all in our
mind, but yeah, that's what Iwould end up doing.

(47:35):
And there was a point where Iactually ended up homeless and I
was living in San Diego.
I went back in San Diego thisis all within like a year and a
half from leaving.
I went back to San Diego.
I was living on the beach withmy buddy and we were just kind
of selling weed out of our, outof my trunk and we were getting,
you know, doing our mushroomsand having fun and doing all

(47:58):
that stuff.
And I remember at night mybuddy was off doing something
and I was, you know, high onmushrooms and I just felt
something in my spirit, likewhat are you doing to yourself?
I don't want to say it was avoice of God that was talking to
me, but I mean, the Holy Spiritcan really get into our hearts.

(48:19):
And I remember going into my carand I don't know any radio
stations down there.
I just turned on the radio andI was just looking for, you know
, a Christian sound and I foundsome worship music or some.
I don't remember what it was,it was Christian music, ccm.
And I just remember, just lostit.

(48:41):
I just started bawling and likewhat am I doing?
You, you know, you've had this,this joy before and you threw
it all away and for what?
And I felt like somethingletting me know that I was going
to move back up, I wasn't goingto stay there, like that wasn't
where I was going to, where Iwas going to stay.
And the next day, um, I had, Ihad an old Bible, my old Bible,

(49:04):
and I decided to open it up andI was just reading in Matthew
and there was a verse in there,in Matthew, chapter four, where
Satan was tempting Jesus in thewilderness and he told him to
bow down and worship him.
And I can't recall if it's inone of the Gospels right now,
but maybe I just saw it on avideo or movie where he added

(49:28):
are they not mine to give you?

Speaker 1 (49:31):
If you bow down and worship me, I'll give you the
kingdoms of the world, are theynot mine to give?

Speaker 3 (49:34):
you.
Yeah, it's in the— it is right,it's in one of the— Okay, so
that really woke me up like whoa, All this time, this lie that
had pulled me away.
He has been in control of thesethe whole time, All the
kingdoms that had been tellingthis story that I had been told
from ancient history.
It was all the lie, that wasall the way back in the garden.

(49:58):
I don't know if you've everseen those movies where somebody
will have like an epiphany or arealization of something, and
it'll have all these like-.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Yeah, segments, this chain right.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
And then it zooms all the way back to that moment,
like whoa, this moment ofrealization.
And I think that was the momentwhere I realized I was leaving,
I wasn't gonna come back, so Idecided to back.
So I decided, um, to hustle upsome money, get some gas I
believe we had already ran outof our stash and we were broke

(50:29):
and I had enough gas to get upto um.
I think it's somewhere aroundthe grapevine and we would stop
at gas station after gas stationasking people for quarters like
all the way up from san SanDiego.
Now, if you ever did that drive,it's like a five hour drive,
yeah so we were stopping everygas station, just trying to get
quarters, just to get enough gasto the next station, and

(50:50):
finally I um, I landed at mysister's porch and she actually
needed me there at that time.
She was, you know, things weregoing on in her home and she
needed me there.
So I asked her if were going onin her home and she needed me
there.
So I asked her if I could stayfor a little while, help her
with the kids while I looked forwork.
And it worked out, perfect.
And at that place she was goingto church.

(51:11):
My sister had also been going tochurch.
She had three kids and she's myolder sister.
So she started going to churchas a teenager and she was one
that kind of just stuck with it.
Even though we never reallytalked about it too much, she
stuck with it.
So from there I started goingto this church I don't remember

(51:31):
what it was called, it was somechurch here in Visalia, anyhow
and I would do Bible studies.
And now, at this point, Ididn't want anything to do with
religion.
I didn't want anything to dowith religion.
I didn't want anything to dowith organized church.
I was actually into, like thehome church idea.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Right, but I was just reading your bible.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Yeah, yeah and my stepmother at the time.
Mind you, my father's alreadygone, my stepmother's, you know
she's by herself.
But she still held on to herfaith and she was in kind of
like the fringe type of faith,like into the um, not the
ancient aliens, but she was intothat.
But she had a different view ofit which I later started to
realize and now I actually holdthat viewpoint of what it really

(52:09):
was and what it really is.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
But she fallen entities.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Yeah, yeah so she would come into, uh, the house
and we would do like biblestudies.
She'd come in the morning andwe read our bible.
And I actually came across thisbook called Pagan Christianity.
Have you ever heard of that?
Book.
Very, very interesting.
It really opened my eyes to alot of the religiosity and why
we do certain things, wherecertain practices or certain

(52:33):
setups come from, and a lot ofthose roots started making me
realize, okay, I was into theoccult, I've seen the pagan
stuff, I seen the pagan stuff, Isee the church stuff, and now
things are starting to say, youknow, why is this in here?
Okay, this is how it snuck inhere, or whatnot.
Right, and I think one of thebiggest problems I'll go right
back to that People don't askquestions.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
They do not Right.
And there's backsliders do,yeah, they do.
And and um Right, backslidersdo, yeah, they do.
And people that come out ofwhat you've come out of do,
because there's no room forplaying, in that You're seeking
truth, even though it'sdeception.

(53:16):
What?

Speaker 3 (53:16):
was so good about you is you were hungry.
It could be.
It's honestly.
It could be a blessing and itcould be a curse too, Well, sure
, I think everything has adichotomy.
yeah, for sure, and so um anyhowI I was doing the home church
thing for a while and I was coolwith it.
You know, I met a man, um inlos banos.
We went and had a bible study alittle church group over there,

(53:36):
and he actually is friends withsome of the people that I'm
friends with on facebook, likesome people from goshen church
and stuff like that so he hadties with them at one point.
Um, I believe he's like aunitarian now.
He's not even in a church atall wow but, um, he was.
It was really cool to to get tohave that experience and that

(53:58):
was how I was allowed to slowlycome back to knowing the lord
and getting back into church.
And, um, from then on, yeah, Ihaven't turned back, I've
continued to move forward and,um, you know, I met brianna, my
wife, at applebee's and Istarted to go to, uh, the

(54:19):
lighthouse.
I was actually going to anotherchurch at the time.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
A Pentecostal church.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
No, it wasn't.
It wasn't a Pentecostal church.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
I think it was in Adinam.
Okay.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
But I had had my experience before.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Right right.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
And I had come in on a Friday night and I saw Jeremy
preaching and I met him and Ireally liked him Like this guy's
cool, you know really good andI really liked his style and, uh
, I would come in there onFriday nights.
You know, youth, when he wasyouth pastor yeah, when he was a
youth pastor and I would comein on Fridays, and I think I
came in on a couple Sundays, butI would still like go to that
church.

(54:52):
Then I'd come to the you knowthe lighthouse, and after a
while I just started just goingthere, you know, and that's
where I started to make it myhome church so that's probably
about 2012, so it was about a atwo-year process from when I
started to come back to goduntil I finally planted my feet
in in a church that I can callmy home church, you know, but it

(55:15):
was.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
It was a process so that's pretty remarkable that
you found yourself back orwilling to go to organized
church.
Did you struggle with UPC?
Did you struggle with ourorganizational?
I think any backslider has youknow?

(55:36):
Yeah, of course it's partlysome of the reason people leave.
But I think it's an importantconversation to have because you
know we're still trying toreach people.
So what did you struggle with?
How did you overcome it?

Speaker 3 (55:50):
Okay, so I would actually say I still struggle
with things, you know, and I seethings that people don't see.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
I question things that other people don't see.
Can you talk about some ofthose things that people don't
see?
I question things that otherpeople don't see.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
Can you talk about some of those things?
I see that there's a big trustwith just the idea of a man on a
pulpit and then thecongregation.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Just blindly following.
Just blindly following anythingand everything.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
I've heard a lot of preachers say stuff that was
just not biblical.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Tell me some things.
They just get a bunch of amensand clapping their hands I mean.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
I'm right there with you, but I want to have that
conversation because it'simportant and over time I've
learned that it's commanded tous to not despise prophetic
utterances but to test allthings.
Right test all the spirits we'resupposed to test things, and
what standard do we have to beable to test those but the Word
of God, the divine revelationgiven by God?
Right, have to be able to testthose but the word of God, the
divine revelation given by God?

(56:44):
And so I think that that's oneof the issues, that one of the
things that kind of make me Iwould have to be put in my place
is I don't see that questioningand it's just the acceptance.
And I, you know, I have to bereminded.
The Lord has worked on me a lot.
You know this last 15 years onhow to be humble and accept that
not everybody's you know whereI have been, not everybody's

(57:06):
where I'm at, and that I'm noteven where God wants me to be
yet Right, right, right rightand it's a constant humbling
experience.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
Right.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
I mean, when should I shut up?
When should I say something?
Right.
Should I just let these kind ofthings go?
And I struggle with that stillto this very day.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Well, I think we have a pastor and I don't know how
other churches function.
I'm a question asker.
I mean I always have been andsometimes that has been frowned
upon from different otherchurches and stuff like that I
don't know.
There has been in Pentecost and, for anyone watching, I'm not

(57:48):
bashing Pentecost, I'm justsaying these are the things that
have been observed and that Iobserve.
You know, visiting otherchurches, listening to other
people, I think it's fairlyrecognizable when ego is at play
versus humility behind thepulpit, and so I know that I've

(58:16):
asked a ton of questions andwhen something doesn't sit right
with me for example, I heard apodcast the other day by someone
very well known in UPC and itreally did not sit well with me
and I, you know right away,wanted to call pastor and say,
hey, I want you to listen tothis, I need you to walk me

(58:37):
through this, because you knowI'm not trying to judge, it's
just that, oh boy, this doesn't,this just doesn this.
Because you know I'm not tryingto judge, it's just that, oh boy
, this doesn't feel right, youknow.
And then I waited and I justkind of prayed about it and
thought, you know, god, it'swhat you said, michael, my
sensitivities to certain thingsare going to be different than

(59:00):
someone else's, because someoneelse doesn't come to the table
with the same background or thesame hurt or the same.
You know, I don't just blindlygive over my trust to people.
I'm going to watch how theylive their life before.
I you know and so.
But I have really the Lorddealt with me.
Before I ever came back to UPCChurch, I was judging people.

(59:26):
I would see the women in themall or in Costco and I would
judge them and I would be like,oh, they're in such bondage.
And the Lord said to me one dayyou're upset that they have
judged you all these years as abackslider based on how I looked

(59:46):
, you know, as a backslider andeverything, but yet you're doing
the very same thing to them.
And so I had to take a big stepback and learn to just love
them and not have that samereverse discrimination towards
them that I was so hurt by.
And so when this happened Iheard that on the podcast I

(01:00:11):
thought, man, god, I'm justgoing to pray for them.
And maybe I heard it wrong ormaybe I misunderstood what they
were saying In any event, not mypastor.
I'm going to follow theleadership of my church and my
pastor and I feel like we havesomebody that we could go to and

(01:00:32):
ask questions of.
And I would say to the audience, to whomever I hope that you
have a pastor that you canapproach and that they allow for
questions, because we aresupposed to search out our own
salvation with fear andtrembling.
We've got to ask, because whatwe don't get answers to, the

(01:00:54):
enemy can come in and weave thatlittle thread of judgment or
deception or self-righteousnessor whatever the case may be, and
it's dangerous.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
So if you've got a question, we need to ask it
Absolutely and you should beable to have that freedom to
feel like you can ask.
I think that's another reasonwhy people don't, it's because
they feel like they're going tobe judged or looked at funny.
Right.
And because of the dogmas inreligion itself, put people in
that place where you just shutup and listen to what the man on
stage tells you right?

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
well, because for a long time, like in my childhood
generation, we had a churchsplit, and it is because my
parents came into church.
They didn't have a backgroundand so their friends were all
there and that's exactly whatthey did they blindly followed
the man of God.
I grew up I've said this manytimes I wasn't taught to read my

(01:01:51):
Bible at home.
I was a grown adult before Iknew who the children of Israel
were, because I knew the storiesfrom Sunday school, but I never
picked up it and read it formyself, and my dad did.
But when the pastor fell, itreally rocked a lot of people
because all they did was followa man and we were taught you

(01:02:14):
obey the man of God, and I hearthat now all the time.
But the Lord is our shepherd.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
And I think we have to be submitted and we have to
have covering.
But Paul said follow me as Ifollow Christ, and so you know
that can be a very slipperyslope and there is a lot of room
for error, because people arehuman and pastors and
evangelists and they're allhuman.

(01:02:43):
So do you ask questions now?

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
Have you gone to Pastor Cain and asked?
I have talked to him.
We've had conversations, acouple of conversations.
I think that one of the thingsis everyone has their own
different experience, but thereare certain mindsets in there.
Like you said, they put thisperson on a pedestal and the the

(01:03:08):
.
The scary part about that isand I'm going to use a bad word
is that's where the cultishmindset comes from.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Correct, right, it comes and we've been accused of
that many times, and there'sreasons why, and I think that
there are some valid points.
Sure so do.
I have too.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
You know, in all different not all churches, but
a lot of different kind ofchurches, you can see that
cultish mindset on individualpeople.
I've experienced it myself withyou.
Know close family and friends,but we don't question.
A lot of people don't feel likethey have that freedom, um, but
we don't question, we don't?
A lot of people don't feel likethey have that freedom and um,
there's some things that I'mlike I'm still even afraid to

(01:03:46):
bring up myself, like how arepeople going to look at me if I
even talk?
about that or say hey, this issomething that I've seen.
You know, I recognize this fromyou, know my past.
I don't really see it in theBible.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
It's something to be concerned with.
Know, stuff like that you knowyou don't want.
I think that's importantbecause there could be an answer
for you.
Yeah, you know, and, um, youknow, like smelling in the
spirit I don't know if it's inthe bible, I know, I definitely
experienced it.
I know there was scripturereference for it when it was the
lilies.
But, um, you know, I know theenemy can come in and do all
that kind of stuff too, you know, and so I don't think we should

(01:04:29):
be preaching it as a doctrineor theology or anything like
that, but, um, and I think thereis a lot of room for growth, I
guess is a good way to say it.
And I tell people, especially myclients, when they're wrestling
with things I measureeverything by the fruit of the

(01:04:52):
Spirit.
If it's not peaceable, if itdoesn't bring faith, if it
causes confusion, probably notof God.
And so I measure things by thefruit.
And the Bible says you willknow them by their fruit.
That's true.
Yeah Well, so what?

(01:05:12):
Tell me more, Michael.
Like you're being just a hairvague.
Okay.
Like what do you, what have you,what do you see?
Where do you think there's whatcan you give some broad strokes
about where you've seen thingskind of float into church

(01:05:34):
culture?
That that you feel is maybe alittle on the edge okay, um.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
Well, everyone's gonna get mad at me for this, so
I'm gonna just pour it outthere.
The law of attraction is big inchurches and people don't
realize it, okay, um, one of thebig reasons is because they,
like I said earlier, like people, like to use biblical verses
and, um, twist them into youknow meaning what they desire
them to do.
Such as what Such as power oflife and death in the tongue.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Well, that is a scripture.
It is a scripture, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
But does it mean that you can speak things into
existence and kill things withyour mouth?

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Like I'm going to win the lottery.
Yes, I say that all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
But it's yeah, where's your money at?
So this is just an example, andthese are the kind of stuff
that Helena Blavatsky wouldbring If you read her books.
Supposedly she channeled thesebeings and they gave her all
this information, and she uses aton of scripture.
But these concepts, like thelaw of attraction in church,

(01:06:37):
like if you just you canmanifest reality, basically the
universe is your genie, um, andall you have to do is speak
things into existence and andthat's the occult piece of it,
yeah and so you're saying thatin the church culture, that
they're using jesus as the genieand speaking things into the

(01:06:58):
existence from a propheticstandpoint, yeah, exactly, and
the idea of having enough faithto make it happen.
And when you get into like othercharismatic, like extreme
charismatics, it goes as far asthe point where oh well, your
family member died because youdidn't believe it enough.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Oh right, With healing and stuff like that and
that kind of stuff can reallyhurt people and yes, it does.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
I really feel that these ideas of the occult,
particularly the law ofattraction in the church, which
is not recognized as that, butit is taught and I recognize it
that can push a lot of peopleaway.
So-and-so got cancer, theyweren't healed.
They prayed and they prayed andthey prayed and then you know
what I mean and so-and-so wastelling them hey, you know it's
going to happen, god's going toheal you, god's going to heal

(01:07:41):
you.
And then there's thedisappointment, you know, and
things like that.
We just have to be very carefulnot to go too far of the
extreme.
The Bible talks about faith.
We understand that.
We understand that God can healit's not necessarily always his
will to heal people.
It just isn't, and you know ifwe're sensitive and I and I
appreciate that in our churchbecause we don't push that.

(01:08:03):
But I seen it, you know, I'veseen it a lot.
And so, yeah, there there's agood example.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
And, like I said, I think though and I'm not, I'm
not arguing or anything with you, I'm just I think it's a really
great discussion, because thedevil does use scripture he used
it against jesus and and um,and the scripture is always used

(01:08:30):
against us, for guilt, forcondemnation, for all you know,
it's always used to twist yes,twisted it's twisted from the
enemy, um, but it is, you know.
On this, on the other hand, wewere supposed to speak to the
mountain and tell it to moveyeah you know, we're supposed to
speak faith and believe andapply the blood of the cross and

(01:08:55):
apply the healing that jesusalready took care for us.
So, like, where is the line?
I think that's the questionbecause blessing us.
So where is the line?
I think that's the questionbecause blessing and cursing is
in the tongue.
That's what the Bible says,death and life, is in the tongue
.
Now, is my tongue going to takea knife and stab you in the
heart?

(01:09:15):
Of course not, but from atherapeutic standpoint, I think
words are one of the mostdamaging things that people can
do to one another Criticism, forexample.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
Absolutely that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
So where are you saying that there is law of
attraction in the church, whenall of that stuff?

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
is very real and very biblical so the manifesting, uh
idea of like doing, you know,constantly meditating on a
certain thought and it will cometo pass, versus yes versus like
you said, power of life anddeath and tongue.
I can cut somebody's life downwith my mouth.
I can belittle them andcriticize them and they will
start to really believe that ofthemselves right right and it

(01:10:01):
starts to affect them versus itis my words having some kind of
magic effect and creating that.
No, it's not right, right yeah,yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
So that's so interesting because I had this
conversation with brotherlogston.
Did you listen to?

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
no, I haven't got.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
Okay, I'm gonna have to get you guys together and
hear that, because he had a veryinteresting point in Genesis
when God spoke the world intoexistence, but we didn't see the
manifestation of it untilGenesis, chapter 2.
And so he also came from asatanic background and

(01:10:41):
understood manifestation.
So he brought it out fromScripture in a whole different
light, which was reallyfascinating to me.
But you know, I wonder, michael, maybe it's something that we
can pray about, but the Biblesays that nothing is unclean in

(01:11:03):
and of itself until it entersthe heart of man, and so I
wonder if, even if those sortsof things are done in ignorance.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
Of course they are In ignorance.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
It's God who judges the heart, and he knows the
heart, and so people might be,they might be doing those things
that you know, manifesting andmeditating on a thought from a
right place in their heart, andso is that sin if their heart is
pure?
I don't know.

(01:11:36):
I think it's a question.
I do think that church and thisis a super slippery slope as
well, but particularlycharismatic churches attract
narcissism, and so you have alot of manipulative pastors who

(01:11:59):
are operating from, in myopinion, a different spirit, and
they do all the right thingsand say all the right things,
but their spirit is wrong, andso, in that sense, I think some
of you would feel that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
When it's that way, and so that's where religious
abuse occurs.
That's where religious abuseoccurs, and it's very hard to
determine the difference betweenan authentic, holy Ghost-filled
pastor who's really humble,following after God, versus one
that's very narcissistic innature and controlling.

(01:12:37):
I've seen a lot of churcheswith a pastor that's very
controlling, so that's a wholedifferent thing, and in that
sense, I think you would hearthat, you would definitely feel
it, because the spirit behind itis wrong.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Anyways, I don't know.
Yeah, so I don't know.

(01:12:59):
I think it's good for you to askthe questions and see, and I
wonder if, I wonder if it's donein naivety.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
I believe, I believe it is, you know, and it can all
mesh together.
You know the word of faith,movement, and you know getting
into, like the prosperity gospel, which health, wealth and
happiness right.
All that stuff, just speakingit into existence.
You just got to have faith.
You know, god said asking thatyou shall receive, but later on

(01:13:28):
we realize if it's in his will,you know.
Right, right but we can takethat one verse, cut it out and
people you know have a doctrineout of it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
So I think that goes back to rightly dividing the
word of truth right and takingthe Bible as a whole, and not
everybody does that or readstheir.

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
Bible.
It goes back to reading theBible.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
It corrects to study what really the word says,
because there's always going tobe a counterbalance for all
those things.
You know it's not just ablanket.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
Apply this verse to this and it's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
And I think that that's what happens with these
practices being able to enter inis because it's, it's, it's not
.
Uh, it's, it is applied with ablanket, it's one thing at a
time.
You know, here a little, therea little and the enemy uses that
tactic as well yes, he does andmaybe it might seem innocent
right here.
You might be thinking that it'sinnocent, there's nothing wrong
with it.
But what can it possibly leadto?

(01:14:22):
And we've seen it on theextreme level of where it does
lead to the little god's ideaI've heard somebody misquote.
There's a verse in the bible um.
It says that you know, he whospeaks things as if they are
that are not as if they are,right, I've heard people use
that and say that we do that.
You know we don't in pentecost.
You mean well, yeah, yeah yeah,in pentecost I've heard someone

(01:14:45):
say that um, but we're not theones who do that.
It's literally speaking aboutgod, because he spoke things ex
nihilo, you know from nothing.
And that little god's doctrinethat we are made in the image of
god, we can create just likegod does, and it starts to put
that, like you said, that ego,and we get people like Kenneth

(01:15:05):
Copeland and Creflo Dollar andthese big prosperity preachers.
That's where it leads and itstarts to satisfy everything
that the flesh wants, and that'sbasically what the doctrine
ends up being is a self-servingman becoming his own God.
You're claiming that Jesus isour God, but we're really
serving ourselves, which isessentially the lie that the

(01:15:28):
enemy told us from the get go.
Right.
That you can be like God withthis knowledge from the fruit
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Yeah, I mean it is, it is, it is kind of both,
because there is the belief I'mguilty of this myself that we
believe that we have favor withthe Lord and that good things

(01:15:56):
are going to happen and all that.
And I do believe all of that,Of course.
But it also is counterbalancedwith the life of sacrifice and
taking up your cross and dyingdaily and constantly dying to
the flesh yeah you know, um wasI going to ask you?
I was going to ask you one morething.
So, when it comes to knowledgenow, um, how do you approach

(01:16:21):
that?
Are you still a seeker of ofknowledge, are you?
Are you very careful about whatyou study out and and seek out?

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
Yeah, like, do you?

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
have any boundaries where that is concerned.

Speaker 3 (01:16:34):
For you now Not necessarily um with boundaries I
don't really do as much butI've come to a point where, like
I, that information that hadpushed me away before I, I found
an explanation and I studieddeeper into it and I realized,
you know, it was a bunch of liesand I could see the lies and I

(01:16:55):
think that that really hardenedme to be able to encounter
information and stuff um alittle bit easier objectively,
yeah, you mean not not yeah,yeah, yeah, objectively, of
course yeah, and, and study itout and not be afraid I remember
being um afraid of looking intoyou know things that were being
said about christianchristianity and history and

(01:17:16):
stuff like that, and not wantingto look at it because I didn't
want to feel like I had question.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
Yeah, but now I'm perfectly fine with it because I
didn't want to feel like I had,yeah, but now I'm, I'm
perfectly fine with it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
And, um, it goes back to that verse that you said
earlier in first Peter, when hesays to get to be ready to give
a defense for the hope that iswithin you.
Um, that word in there isapologia, which is to give a
defense.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
It's where we get the word apologetics.
And.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
I, and I personally, believe that every Christian
should have some measure ofapologetics, training or
teaching.
Because of that, we should knowthe whys and the whens of our
faith.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
Because it's not a religion.
No, it's the Bible, it's thepursuit of living like Jesus.
New Testament church.
Yeah, living like jesus, youknow new testament church.
Yeah, I mean, we belong to areligion, but that is not what
we're defending.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
Yes, right we're.
We're defending the, the birth,the death, the life of the
death and the burial andresurrection of jesus christ
right you know the sending ofhis spirit and, uh, the life
after after death that's whatwe're defending.
It's not religion.
I know people hate that wordreligion and I don't.
I think it just gets a badtaste.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
It has a bad reputation.
It does, it does.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
I look at religion more like I love my wife.
I don't have to go and buy herflowers for her to love me back,
but I'm going to go buy herflowers because I love her.
Right.
And that's kind of where.
But it can be used as tools tocontrol people.
We talked about that, and itdoesn't matter if you're uh, if
you're upc or if you're umsouthern baptist.

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
There's people in every every denomination that
can you that can have thategotistical sure mindset and let
it go to their head thatcontrol control that power?
Honestly, I think we've seen itLaw enforcement yeah anything.

Speaker 3 (01:19:07):
So where was I?
I was talking about.
What was I saying?
Uh at knowledge.
Yeah, yeah, so seeking, seeking, pursuing that knowledge, so
now I'm okay with finding thingsand studying things out and,
like I said, it takes, it takesa lot for me to sort of step

(01:19:27):
back and say, lord, just youknow, humble me in this, when,
when do I, when do I just stopand say, okay, you know, I'm not
going to get it all, and Ithink that that has really,
really helped me realizingthere's so much more out there.
You mean with the Lord, with Him, yeah, with who he is Right,
right With who he is, and it'sway bigger than us, and we have

(01:19:50):
crammed as much of Him into abox that we possibly can?

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
Yes, we have, yes, we have, and it is not enough.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
You know, the Lord cannot be contained.
No.

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
So having humility, having compassion and love for
others and understanding that wesee through a glass darkly.
Yeah.
It's really, really carried meand allowed me to move forward
in my faith, and I mean I'mgrowing still and I feel like
that is just a part of mysanctification you know, um that

(01:20:18):
walk in that perfection thatGod is doing, and it will not be
complete until the day, youknow, until Christ returns, we
will not be complete until then.
We will not be perfect until theperfect comes Right.
So, uh, through that, I'mperfectly fine with learning new
things.
Um, I, actually, I like tolearn new things.
I'm perfectly fine withlearning new things.
Actually, I like to learn newthings.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
I'm fascinated with it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
And it helps me out, it really does.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Yeah, I've recently, you know,because when I came back and I
started doing, I stopped livingall the standards because I
didn't have an answer for them.
Yeah.
I went to a non-denominationalchurch for a long time, and so I
could.
It was a Trinitarian church.

(01:21:03):
I always knew what I believedin terms of my doctrine, but I
would hear them.
You know, to me at least, thechurch that I attended.
I felt like they were oneness.
They just used differentsemantics, but there are
definitely Trinitarian churcheswhere they believe three
separate entities, but that'snot what I'm talking about.
But I never got fed reallythere, but I needed to be in

(01:21:27):
church.
I kind of like the anonymity ofgoing to a church like that,
but I never really got fed.
So I listened and studied anddid a lot of online stuff and
I've found little pockets ofthings that was interesting.
I'd study it out in scripture.
But just recently, probably inthe last year, maybe year and a

(01:21:53):
half I've kind of shut down alot of the people that I used to
listen to and I've just reallynarrowed my focus.
And I remember growing up mydad my dad is still like this my
dad wouldn't listen to anybodyelse unless they were UPC.
No one Didn't matter, they hadsomething great to say.

(01:22:13):
They just wouldn't, he wouldn'tlisten to it.
No one Didn't matter, they hadsomething great to say, they
just wouldn't, he wouldn'tlisten to it.
And I there's some I'll listento I still struggle a little bit
because I'm a therapist, so Ijust hear all the.
You know I'm analyzing.
I don't I'm not trying to dothat, it just comes naturally.
So but I've really just kind ofnarrowed what I listen to and

(01:22:34):
who I listen to and what I study, Because when it comes to the
supernatural and all thedeliverance ministries and all
of that kind of stuff, man, itis a rabbit hole and a slippery,
slippery slope and I got intolearning all of that stuff from
my own childhood experiences.
Learning all of that stuff frommy own childhood experiences.

(01:22:54):
But then, seeing what myclientele base was going through
, I thought, oh man, I have tobe able to help them and be able
to give them you know, I couldtell them oh, that's the devil.
That doesn't work so well in atherapeutic practice.
So I started learning about alot of stuff satanic ritual

(01:23:16):
abuse and all that stuff is soreal and very prevalent in ways
I don't think we talk about inthe church culture because it's
not such common knowledge.
But all that to say, I'vereally kind of stopped listening
and digging and now pretty muchall of my focus is just the

(01:23:37):
Word and studying the Greek andthe Hebrew and all of the
history of the Bible itself,because I just love it.
I find that there's volumes andvolumes and treasure troves of
information in the Bible andthat is enough.
But I love conversations likethis and more.

(01:24:00):
I love the conversation, butwhat I'm discovering in doing
all these podcasts is that wereally don't know the people we
attend church with.
We do not take the time to hearthe story.
I mean, you're a great worshipleader.
I love when you lead worshipand you know you're very

(01:24:21):
anointed.
You know, michael, when youlead and you know we just take
for granted these people that weattend church with.
And to hear their backstory andwhat God has done in their lives
.
It's so powerful and I feellike it gives a deeper
connection and a deeperappreciation to who you are that

(01:24:42):
we see at church all the timebut also man.
Look at what God is doing inthe lives of people and what
he's pulling people out of, andI think my friend always used to
say if God can do it for me, hecan do it for anybody.
But showing all thesetestimonies where people have

(01:25:02):
come from, we meet people likethis, we know people like this
and now we have more to talk tothem about and say, hey, I have
used testimonies on my podcastjust with clients, Listen to
this.
I think this will really speakto you, or whatever, because

(01:25:26):
there's a witness there.
There's some commonality there.
Okay, so, changing gears whilewe wrap up, I'm going to ask you
two questions and I'll have youtell me about your business.
So what would you say, sinceyou weren't a backslider and
you're someone that came in outof the world, what would you say

(01:25:47):
to the people who have dabbledand are dabbling in witchcraft
and the cult?
Because what we've learnedthrough this podcast is there
are a lot of people sitting inthe church building who are into
witchcraft and the cult.
Because what we've learnedthrough this podcast is there
are a lot of people sitting inthe church building who are into
witchcraft and who are dabblingwith supernatural in that realm
.
What would you say to thosepeople if they're out there?

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
If they're in the church and dabbling or just
dabbling out there.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
Just whatever, if they're messing around with that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:26:13):
I would say everything that you first start
to dabble with is going to startto feel good, it's going to
feel right, it's going to feelnew.
But don't stop there.
There's not the end.
All be all, keep going forward.
Start to look into reasons.
Why are origins of what you'redoing, what you you're, what
you're looking for, where itcomes from?

(01:26:35):
Look, learn your history andthen learn the opposite side of
that and then kind of test thetwo and see which one balances
out.
You'll you'll start to see thatthere has always been a war
between good and evil.
There has always been a warbetween that witchcraft and what
, what the Bible says about it,which it's.
It's all throughout the oldTestament.
Oh yeah, there's, a lot thehistory of you know.

(01:26:57):
You search on the Canaanitesand the Malachites and all them
Right.
You'll see all this in historyIn biblical history, but that is
verifiable in literature.
Oh yeah, yeah.
So extra biblical, historicaltexts.
You can search this out.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
So don't just sit where you take it for granted
that what they're reading istrue yeah, search it out and you
might have the experiences.

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):
The spiritual realm is very real the devil has no
problem with showing you thathe's real.
Spells and stuff, all that kindof stuff will work.
There will be somemanifestation happening.
But as soon as you turn yourback on it, you're going to
start to see that they weren'tyour friends to begin with.
So not only do your research,extensive research, but also

(01:27:43):
beware, once you start to uh,turn away from it, because
you'll realize the truth, andthat's the one thing that the
enemy does not want you torealize and that god is the
answer.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
Right, I mean, the lord is the answer.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
Yeah, that's, that's the number one enemy of your
enemy, right, you know?
And that's why he wants to tearyou down.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
So the real power is in, is in god is in god, and
everything else is justsecondary to that absolutely
yeah and um okay.
I usually ask what do you wantto say to parents whose kid is
out there?
You know doing this kind ofstuff to give the parent hope.

(01:28:21):
What would you?
What would you say?
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:28:23):
I didn't have my parents involved in my life as a
teenager.
Um, my, my outlet was kind ofmusic and running around with
you know, with my friends andstuff, and I was out very late.
I didn't have very muchsupervision as a teenager.
So I would say, be involved ineverything that your child is
doing.

(01:28:43):
Be an active parent.
Be there for them when they havequestions.
Don't let them feel like theycan't ask you questions about
certain things.
If the parent is a Christianand the child is kind of, you
know they're in the church butmaybe they're not really they
haven't come to their own faithyet.
Just be active.

(01:29:04):
Be diligent as well.
There's a lot of informationout there that your kids are
learning, and the occult is moreprevalent than it ever has been
.
Oh yeah.
It's not just a trip to thelibrary anymore, it's literally
on their phones In cartoons.
Yeah, it's in cartoons.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
In video games.

Speaker 3 (01:29:20):
It's everywhere, it's everywhere, and all it takes is
one small thing to make thatsnowball start to build.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
And it begins with a curiosity.
A curiosity, yeah, it's superpervasive, I think, and it's
fascinating.

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):
It can be very fascinating, very alluring.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
For someone that's a curious mind.

Speaker 3 (01:29:42):
Because the enemy.
He uses two tactics.
He uses seduction and he usesfear, and if one doesn't work,
he'll use the other, and usuallyseduction was the first one
that he used on Eve Right.

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):
That's right.
That's very good that'senticement.

Speaker 3 (01:29:56):
Um, things look sparkly, they look shiny, they
look new and curious.
Um, and then sitting you know,comparing a kid and a teenager
sitting into us in a servicelistening to some guy talk about
a old book versus you knowsomething that really can
attract them, the likelihood ofthem going that way is very high
.
So be involved in what yourkids watching, what they're

(01:30:18):
doing.
Don't um, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
I don't want to say, granted that they're good kids
Cause great great, great kidsfall prey to the devices of the
enemy.

Speaker 3 (01:30:27):
Very, very easily.
Um, adults fall very easily,you know, let alone kids.
So I would say to a parent justbe active.
And I would be taking your timeto kind of research what
everyone's looking into popculture.
Yeah.
You know you start getting intoHollywood and all that.
They're all involved in thisstuff.
Oh yeah, and it sounds great.

(01:30:48):
It doesn't sound like what theBible says that it is.
Right.
It's wrapped in a differentpackage.
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
It's wrapped in a different package.
So right, it's so true.
Yeah, okay, michael.
And recently I'm going to givea little business plug for you
guys.
You and your lovely bridestarted a company, and what's
what started that?
It was at the ladies day.
Sister Angela asked Brie tomake a hat.
What was it that started thiscompany?

(01:31:17):
Your hat says repent.
Your shirt says repent 180.

Speaker 3 (01:31:22):
So tell us how it started, and what you guys do.
Absolutely so.
I mean, I'm a full-timecarpenter.
That's what I do for a living.
My wife is a stay-at-home mom,excuse me.
The conversation at the dinnertable started.
She said said, hey, I want toprobably do a side hustle.
I was thinking about doingembroidery.
I'm cool with that.
So I'm all about.

(01:31:43):
I'm an entrepreneur, naturally,you know I'm.
I had a real estate license.
I've uh, I did bible rebindsyeah, my beautiful bible I used
to sell beats, I used to makebeats and stuff um music.
So I mean, naturally you knowI'm all about side hustles and
so I was totally encouraging mywife to get involved in it.
So we started looking into it.
I started looking into what shewas talking about and very

(01:32:04):
quickly it wasn't just like asmall little side hustle.
It became an idea to start abusiness and, yeah, that's how
it launched off.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
And we just started.
So what's the name of thebusiness now?
The?

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
business is called grace in harmony co okay um,
it's named after our son graysonand our daughter harmony.
So grace and harmony is thename of our, our business, and
we are um embroidery.
We do custom embroidery, um, wedo our own brand stuff and we
do printed apparel.
So, uh, screen printing, dtf,vinyl and um sublimation as well

(01:32:37):
, and we have.
We did it for about a year, um,and we started out with doing
just I think just hats andt-shirts, and now we're on to
yeah, you can hold some of thosehats up for anybody who's
looking so this one says gyrathere's our repent hat.
That was one of the firstdesigns.
That's the shirt that I'mwearing and, um, we started to

(01:32:59):
do shirts and sweaters andchurch merch.
Um, we've done one for ourchurch which our pastor's theme
is grow, growth and ray.
When he uh said that that wasgoing to be the theme, like
immediately it popped in my head.
I knew what I wanted to do.
Yeah, so we do.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
Uh, mugs, tumblers and a whole bunch of other
little knickknack stuff now soyou can do swag for any church
out there that doesn't havechurch merch right now.

Speaker 3 (01:33:25):
Yeah, um, we've done church for our youth, anything,
ladies events, any kind ofevents that might be coming yeah
, it's top quality and you can.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
it's great.
Yeah, what you guys are doingis great, so we'll put.
His website isgraceandharmonycocom.
I'll put that in thedescription, too, so you guys
can reach out to it, and hisname is Michael Arango.
We're also on Instagram.
Oh, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:33:52):
Follow us on Instagram.
There's a lot.
My wife posts a lot of reelsand stuff on there.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
And it's all like we do this all in in our home.
It's not something that weoutsource.
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
I'm not knocking outsourcing, but we you guys do
this, we take time to do this.
Yeah, sweat laboring, yeah thisis all done by hand.

Speaker 3 (01:34:09):
My wife is a hustler.
She gets down and it's all we.
We do the best that we can togive great quality.
We don't want just the cheapesttype of shirt you're going to
get to make a profit.
We give good quality material.
We want our name to be knownand we want people to have good
quality product that's going tolast.
And it's also a ministry,because I mean, you can't see

(01:34:29):
the back of the shirt, but ithas a definition of what
repentance is, um the spiritualand the physical.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):
Turning 180 degrees yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:34:39):
And we want our clothes to not just be worn, but
our vision is.
We believe that.
You know, paul calls us.
He says that we are epistles,right.
Red of all men and so we arethe epistles of God.
We are beautiful, are the feetthat preach the gospel
Everywhere we go and forwhatever reason, one reason or

(01:34:59):
another, as believers, we are soreluctant so often to speak
about the gospel Right To bringcontroversial issues good news
to the world to those who areout there, so we thought it
would be a wonderful idea to letour apparel do that, even if
it's something that can be likea, you know, controversial issue
.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:35:18):
We want, we, we don't want our brand to just be oh
Jesus, is you know, love and Godis good, yeah, like of course
we do have, we have the trendystuff, right, right, right.
Everyone loves the trendy stuffwe do, that is, in putting it
out there, having a message,having a message.

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):
Yeah, and so someone can come to you and say, hey, I
want you to put this on a hat orthis on a shirt, and you make
50 of them, or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
Absolutely.
Yeah, the custom stuff is great.
We love to do that and I liketo pick people's brain.
What do you want on that?
I'll design your logo if youwant, or people come to me with
what they already want and we'lldo it, no problem, um, but,

(01:36:02):
like I said, we don't want to belike everybody else.
We trendy trendy is cool, wewill have those things, but we
do, uh, have our heart and makean original, meaningful um
product that people can wear andpresent their faith everywhere
they go and stir up conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:36:09):
yeah, yeah because once you really get it for
yourself, man, it's you justwant the world to know about it
right you just want to telleveryone, because I think that
God is the thing that everyone'slooking for.
I used to want to fit in witheveryone else and now I think
you know what I actually havethe thing that people are

(01:36:31):
looking for.
You have peace and the presenceof God, and there's just
nothing else like it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):
Yeah, once you really have it all that stuff we were
talking about earlier, likehaving the like I don't care if
yeah, I care about my prayersbeing answered, but if God
doesn't answer it, I still have.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
Him Right, right, I'm fine with it.
It's not going to change yourcommitment.
It's not Right it yourcommitment.
It's not Right.

Speaker 3 (01:36:53):
It's not because you know, all the gain that we have
in this world is nothing at theend.
And as long as we have him and,like you said, once you really
truly have a grasp, you know ahold of him.
That.
What is it?
The apprehending, that whichapprehended me, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):
That's when that my favorite scriptures.

Speaker 2 (01:37:16):
Well, Michael, I so enjoyed this.
Thank you very much for coming.
You're super busy, I know, but Ireally appreciate you taking
the time and coming and for allof you listening.
I hope you enjoyed it and ifyou have a testimony to share,
if you are a redeemed backslider, if you are a redeemed
backslider, I would love, love,love to interview you, because

(01:37:39):
the Lord is really using this toreach people.
We've seen a lot of backsliderscome back and it's not or
anything special, but I justthink that this is the time
we're in in this world and Godis drawing people back to
himself.
So I would love to hear fromyou.
Please reach out to us and ifyou have a testimony to share,

(01:38:01):
please follow us.
Like us, subscribe.
If you'd like to partner withus, we could definitely use the
help, but whatever God lays onyour heart, you know, reach out.
We'd love to hear from you.
Thank you, bye.
Reach out, we'd love to hearfrom you.

Speaker 1 (01:38:13):
Thank you Bye.
We are so glad you joined us.
If you have a story ofredemption or have worn the
label of a backslider, we wouldlove to hear from you.
If you'd like to support ourministry, your donation will be
tax deductible.
Visit our website attheredeemedbacksliderorg.
We hope you will tune in forour next episode.

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