followHIM - Lessons From A Casino • followHIM Favorites • Feb. 23 - Mar. 1 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

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Welcome to Follow Him favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week's lesson. John, the chapters for Come Follow Me this week are Genesis 18 through 23. There's a moment in here that I think I have a story that fits. Genesis 1926, you know this story. Lott and his family. They have to run away from Sodom and Gomorrah, which is like this sinful place that's about to be destroyed. They're trying to get away.

I think of it as kind of like the great and spacious building. Like, we got to get out of here. Run away. And you notice Lott's wife, for some reason, just can't do it. She turns around, looked back. And I think of that as like wanted to go back. She became a pillar of salt. Not exactly sure what that means.

So here's the story. I don't know if you ever read Percy Jackson the series to your kids, John, but I did. There's this moment where Percy Jackson and his friend Annabeth and his other friend Grover, they have to save the world. It's a pretty big job. They've saved the world. And on their way, they run into a place called the Lotus Casino. Their job is to get in there, get something out, and go.

Keep going to save the world. But they get in and they find that this place is full of games. It is wall-to-wall games and fun and food. And pretty soon they forget about their mission, which was to save the world. I can see how that might slip your mind. Well, they start playing games. Annabeth is playing trivia, brainiac games. Grover is playing hunting games,

which is kind of odd if you know anything about Grover. Percy Jackson is doing like these thrill, bungee cord jumping and things. He starts talking to another guy, a stranger at the casino, and every time they win a game, the guy says, whoa, groovy. Percy Jackson says,

why do you say groovy? And he turns to him and says, how long have you been here? How long have you been here? Yeah, and the guy says, I don't know, a couple weeks maybe. He then says to the man, what year is it? He's starting to pick up on things. He says, what year is it?

And the man says, it's 1967. Wait, and he goes to another guy and says, excuse me, sir, what year is it? It's 1985. He goes to someone else. Excuse me, what year is it? It's 1994. He figures out all of,

of these people have been in this Lotus Casino for decades. He says, we got to get out of here. He runs to find his friends, and he finds Annabath. She won't even look at him. Have you ever been talking to someone, John, who's staring at a screen? She doesn't even acknowledge that he's present. He's talking to her, and she's just staring straight ahead at this screen. He grabs her, and he says, he has to yell. He says, Annabat. And she turns to it. And she's kind of angry, right, that he interrupted her screen watching. She said, what? And he said, Annabeth, we have to go.

And Annabeth said, Percy, I don't want to go. I'm having fun. And then Percy said this. Annabeth, this place is a trap. You check in and you stay forever. And she snaps out of it and they go find Grover and they get out

and continue on their mission to save the world. I think in the movie, they drive like a sports car out the front doors. I thought of that with Sodom in Gamora, this place is a trap. The great and spacious building, this place is a trap. You come in, you might stay forever. Hopefully you'll have a moment of recognition like that. Somebody will say groovy and then you'll know. I got to get out of here. I think it was Elder Maxwell who said Babylon does not give exit permits. They don't want you to leave. And I thought of that with Lott's

wife. She can't seem to get out of there. Let it go. Do you remember John in the book of Revelation, Jesus says to the people in the great and spacious building, come out of there, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, receive not of her plagues. Wow. I saw a documentary once on casinos. They don't have exit signs unless they have to by law. They don't put clocks in there.

They put carpets with super bright colors so that you look down. There's no straight paths. You're going all over the place. Expertly designed to keep you in there. This place is a trap. You check in and stay forever. Or as the Eagles might say, you can... Check in any time you want, but you can never leave.

You can never leave. We hope you'll join us on our full podcast. It's called Follow Him. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We are with Dr. Carly Anderson this week. She is delightful. She is so much fun. Then come back next week.

We'll do another follow-in favorites.