Live Free with Josh Howerton - The DEMONIC Double Standard Behind Jaden Ivey's NBA Controversy!? | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: April 5, 2026

Why was Jaden Ivey reportedly fired after refusing to celebrate what he called unrighteousness, and what does that reveal about the cost of Christian conviction in today’s culture? In this episode, Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo, and Paul Cunningham respond to the controversy surrounding Jaden Ivey, unpack how believers should stand with courage and wisdom under pressure, and show how the resurrection of Jesus changes the way we read the entire Bible. From cultural backlash to Christ in all of Scripture, this conversation will challenge you to think biblically and live boldly. In this episode, you’ll learn: • How the resurrection changes the way you read the entire Bible • Powerful Old Testament shadows and types that point directly to Jesus • Why Luke 24 is one of the most important chapters for understanding Scripture • How Christians should think about courage, conviction, and wisdom in a hostile culture • Why faithfulness to Jesus matters more than cultural approval Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free. 💬 This week’s giveaway: Comment HAT 🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop 📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

You may not be very interested in the culture war. The culture war is interested in you. Oftentimes we tend to think a lot about me, but then when you open up the scripture, ultimately, you end up focusing less about you and more about Jesus. The blood of Abel was crying out for a man's condemnation, and the blood of Jesus Christ, a descendant, is crying out for our acquittal. Well, hey, Lifree Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas.

but the live free nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are a live host in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church,

or just looking for a place to start. Church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now, enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast. My name is Carlos Rassar, and I'm here.

Let me open this fortune. With Pastor Josh, who's got a fortune cookie and messing with the audio. We also got Paul Cunningham over here coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. And that's great. It's 8.30 p.m.

I just finished preaching. I need a for forging cookie. Hey, bro. Let's get some Red Bull for Pastor Josh. Yeah, that is definitely not what he needs right now. Let me read my fortune. Please do. What?

Bro, that's a different team, Josh. That's a different team. It says, nurture your dreams. That's not a fortune. Sorry. What translation of the Bible is that? I don't know. The message.

That's a good. That's a joke. That's a joke. Hey, today we're going to be talking about reasons to, actually, not just kidding, deep dive in the resurrection accounts in the Bible. We're going to be dropping. We're going to be dropping some mind-blowing examples from the Old Testament that points to Jesus, all the different hidden shadows and types. You'll never read the Bible again. Easter eggs, one might say.

Yeah. Well, boy. Oh, okay. You see what I did? I just picked that joke. It's going to be so good that today I brought the high button. Oh! Wow.

Bro, this will come in handy today, so I'm going to put it right here. I'm telling you it's going to be a great episode. Wait, and then we're obviously, we're going to also talk about Bulls player Jaden Ivy get fired. That's right. Yeah, that's right. For saying that, how would you phrase it, actually? He said that... He said that same...

Homestead... Basically, he was talking about the Bulls asking the players to support... Pride Month. That's right. And him as a Christian going, I'm out. That's right. And calling it unrighteousness. And he was fired the next day.

So we're going to talk about the dynamics around that. And then, man, I hate to do this. But we're going to react to my boy, Emmanuel Acho. Okay. It was not awesome. So we'll get there. Amen. Pastor Josh, you just preached your first Easter sermon.

I see you were about to think about to that. If you want to think a bite of that, if you want to think a bite of that, portion cookie, I got you brought. While he's doing that, Carlos, I just want to say, great shirt. really great shirt. You know, it's really good. What are you talking about? Just, you know, we kind of almost match, you know.

Yeah. It's just one of the same. He was secretly hoping you came with one too. If he does the same thing, this is going to be kind of awkward and funny. Hey, can I give an announcement to Live Free Nation? Please do. Then let's dive in. Well, first of all, shout out.

I just got back from our grandpa's funeral. Flew up to New York, buried him on, you know, right outside of the farm there. I got one of his international harvester hats on from grandpa 96 years old died on the same farm he was born on Wow refused to go to hospice care

because he was like I was born on this land I'm gonna die on this land They don't make them like that Related to Ernest Hemingway Grandpa Hemingway And this is awesome man So rep in the international Arvester hat for Grandpa

That's amazing. That's amazing. Hey, we're meeting a lot of people in the lobby here at Lake Point and just literally people from all over the place and so if you are listening to this or watching on YouTube and you're part of the Live Free Nation,

we will love to meet you, come hang out and if you visit us for the first time at any of our physical locations, we got a gift for you. Also, I would want to show a photo this last weekend. The lady in the middle, her name is Nesh. She came to visit us this last weekend.

She's California born and raised. She grew up in a family where her mother was Jehovah's Witness, and her father is Kurdish. And he was a survivor in Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, so she did not grow up Christian. She wrestled with family loss, panic attacks, and high anxiety. Last year, September 2025, she starts listening to the Live Free podcast and decides to go to Barnes & Noble's to buy her first Bible. On that day, she gives her life to Jesus. She hasn't had a panic attack since then. She joins Lakeport Church Online.

She gets plugged in in her local church. She just got baptized last weekend with her best friend, Jennifer, who's in the picture as well. And we are celebrating that today, man. Where's word? There you go. That's amazing. Man, we're celebrating with you, Nesh. Happy for you and Jennifer as well.

Also, if you want to purchase a live-free hat right here, we got a new hat for the ladies. By the way, you can go to live-free.shop or text the word hat to two. 0411. Boom. Boom. And if, for the people that are asking as well to find our daily Bible reading plan, plus the weekly sermon, plus an early release of the live free podcast plus the discipleship guide, you can download the Lake Point Church app or text the word app to 20411 or go to Apple or Google or go to Apple. I will allow it. Do you want a red bull?

I'm kidding. I don't want a red ball. Wait, before you go any farther. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then we're going to start talking about the Bible. So I'm really serious about this. If godly people, if godly people don't, godless people will on Christians and political and governmental engagement.

So we're 100, I meant what I said. We are going to leverage live free nation to keep an overtly, like an actual biblical false profit from winning a Texas midterm election in James Talarico. So here's what we have done. We have created a landing page. Basically, here's a deal. It's somewhere around, it's an estimated 40 million evangelical Bible believing Christians don't vote, and that's in presidential elections. It's probably three times that for midterm elections.

So let me just, that's an estimated like 100 plus million Christians not voting in elections, which, like I said, if godly people don't, godless people, if godly people don't take the driver's seat, godless people do. Yes. So here's what we're going to do. we are going to leverage Live Free Nation to try to legitimately flip a Texas election because as of the most recent data, James Tolariko, all the LGBT, all the trans ideology, max boost abortion, an actual biblically defined heretic and false teacher, all the things.

Socialism, light, all the stuff, he's winning in the polls. So, Live Free Nation, we're going to change that. So here's what you can do. We built a website. You can simply text the word vote to the number 20411. And what you get there is most people just don't vote because they don't know when, where, and how. So we literally built this.

I am told it is one of, if not the first website of its kind, because it's got a bunch of AI on the back end that has recently enabled this function. So literally, you or anybody that you know can simply go to this webpage. You text vote to 2041. And then all you got to do there is enter your home address. That's all private. We don't see any of that data. Nothing stored. And it will spit out to you

instantly when to vote, where to vote, and what is needed in wherever you live to be able to vote. That's awesome. So here's what we're going to do. We're just going to max boost this thing. We're going to leverage Live Free Nation to get Christians to engage to keep an actual heritage and false teacher from winning a Texas election. We'll just see we can flip a whole election. It'll be fun. That's go, man. Salt of the world. Salt of the world.

Let's go. Salt of the earth. Pastor Josh, what did he make to the sermon? A lot. A lot, dude. All right, let me just... By the way, great job.

Hey, thank you, man. Thank you, man. Thank you. On Easter, you just want to run it up the middle. Like, you don't mess with that. You preach the cross and you preach the resurrection. So, dude, honestly, a lot.

I'm going to try to do this fast because, dude, there is so much... Let's go a little Indiana Jones. So here's what I wish I had time. to do in this in a sermon like this if we could all get in a bus and go over to Israel together if you can actually see all the stuff i was just told you i told you two days ago i was just waiting for i was i've got i may have an over under and how many times we're going to do this i was waiting for me i just looked at paul he had this like you bro the the tension in the air

It's like changing a second. So let me show all the things that Paul would have seen. We're going to do this really fast. So, and here's the big idea, dude. Once you see this, you just start realizing, like, there's no chance this didn't happen. Yeah. Okay. So let's do this real fast.

We're going to do it in chronological order. First of all, throw that, toss that tree up there, Trinity. So that's the garden of, that's the garden of Gassimini. There are all of trees grow to be, what do you laugh at? Are you looking at it? You can look at me too. Paul feels like you're just looking at him, but go ahead. Don't let me interrupt you.

Olive trees grow very old. That is the oldest olive tree in the Garden of Gassimini. I don't know if it's the oldest one in the world. That olive tree is over 2,000 years old. Let me put that in perspective. When Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gisemone, that exact tree was alive. I'm going to just pause and let that sink in.

That tree was alive when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gassimony. Wow. Now go to that next picture with the dude there. Okay. that guy's name is Yuval. He's like the greatest. He's a messianic Jew. He's the best guide in the whole world. So here's what you're looking at here, dude. This will blow your mind. So that, what you're looking at over on top of his hand, that is a 2000 plus year old olive press from, that's actually not in the Garden of Gessimini, but it's around there. It's an olive press. Now, dude, here's what a lot of people don't know. The word Githsemini, Garden of Gessimini, where Jesus remember, he prays. Remember, this is really important. We're going to come back to this. Prays, how many times? Three times. Prays three times. And on the third time, begins to sweat.

Drops of blood. Drops of blood. Okay. And he's obviously praying in the garden of Gassimini. Gassimini literally means oil press. That's what the word Gessimini means. Now, dude, this is going to blow your mind. Okay. So we're here with you, Valle, Miss Ant, Jew, and he shows this oil press. Now, if you can see that little, the little circular stone in there with a hole in the middle, first of all, whenever Jesus does the whole deal where he's like, anybody that causes one of these little ones to sin, it would be better if they tied a millstone around their neck. That's literally the type of stone he's talking about.

That's a millstone. So, and the reason he says that, you could tie one around your neck is because they had that hole in it. So it's like envisioning like, hey, you can make that a necklace, brother, and jump in the ocean and actually go better for you than if you cause little kids to sin.

All right. So you vals here, and we just saw Gassimini. Means Oil Press. Bookmark that in your head. head shows us this oil press. What they would do is they put the olives in the big stone holding and then they would put a big wooden pole through the middle of that sucker and then turn it. So then it crushes them. Now this is really important. They would crush the olives three times, and this is very clearly historically documented. And each pressing of the olive, the oil would have

different levels of purity and they would be used for different things. So like if you go to the store and you buy extra virgin olive oil, what that literally means is it was a virgin, it was an unpressed olive, and this was the first pressing of the oil. Okay. So the virgin oil, first pressing, was used back then for anointing oil. That's a big deal. If you're anointing somebody, you do that. Then they would run that sucker a second time. The second oil, it was not quite as pure. They would use that oil for like medicinal purposes for healing and light. So like on a menorah, that second oil is the type of oil that would light a menorah. And to clarify, a menorah is... That's that seven-pronged candlestick thing. Okay. Thank you. Then they would press it a third time

just to get the last drops out. And that third pressing of the oil is like what we call lie, that's the third pressing. Okay. So it would be used for like for cleansing. All right now, bro, just stop thinking about this for a second. Jesus goes into the Garden of Gassimini, which means oil press. How many times does Jesus pray as, to quote the scriptures, as the son of man is about to be crushed? How many times does he pray?

Three times. And we just heard that the first pressing was used for anointing oil, the second pressing was used for healing the third pressing was used for cleansing and then Jesus Christ goes into the garden of Gassimony he's crushed for our iniquities praised three times in his crushing and exactly what those olives

the oil were used for guess what Jesus does he is used he's crushed for our anointing our healing and our cleansing. Ladies and gentlemen, the Garden of Gatsimity. Whoa.

That's crazy, dude. The Bible's amazing. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. So go to this next one, the tree. This is real quick. You saw on last week's pod, by the way, that thing's blowing up.

That's right. He's that gum. J.J. Shout to Jeremiah. By the way, he was on Sean Ryan like two days after ours. Ours was better. I agree.

I agree with you. I just teasing. So, you know, And he showed the whole, the helmet of thorns. Yes. Okay. I took this when, you'll see this. I took this right outside of the garden.

Sorry, there's a bet. This is an acacia tree. And so they're all over, right, right around there, right? Where Jesus was crucified. And, bro, if you look real close, Trinity, do you have the ability to zoom in? Can you do that? Zoom in on those thorns, like, if you can. I don't even know if you can.

Oh, yeah. Zoom in if you can on those thorns like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You see those zoom in even farther. Bro, they're like, some of them are literally like, I pulled a couple off, or like six inches long. So most people think the crown of thorns was made from that guy right there, which is what Jeremiah showed us last week. A little side note that's interesting is God dictated in the Old Testament

that the Ark of the Covenant be made of. Acacia wood. Acacia would. And by the way, let me just point this out, everything that was contained in the Ark of the Covenant was a reminder of the disobedience of the people. There is a connection, a lot of Bible scholars think, between the Crown of Thorns being Acacia Wood

and the Ark of the Covenant being Acacia Wood, and obviously this thing holding the things that reminded of the disobedience to the people and that being the curse for the disobedience of the people. That's a fun little fact. Now, let's do another one. Go to that little, this is the stuff, dude, I wish I could just show everybody and you never,

it doesn't make it into a sermon. Yeah, go to the next little, thing that's the game on the ground. Okay, dude. So if you go into, there's two places. One of them's called Antonio's Tower and the other one is the remains of one of Herod's little palace outposts. And both of them, one of those two places is where Jesus was scourged. So you see both of them and you literally, you're looking at 100% one of those two places is where Jesus Christ himself had the flesh raked off his back. Now, bro, this is nuts.

So this, you can barely see it. If you look real close, you see that little circle right there? You see a little circle and there's some etchings inside the circle. So what this is, they put a glass protective casing over this because remember, it's where Jesus was scourged. This was called, it was called the Game of Kings, not to be confused with, Game of Thrones. This is the game of kings.

And what Roman soldiers did is they etched to this. little thing in the ground, it was a game with dice, and they would play this little game, and it was like a board game. Now, remember, that thing is on the ground to where Jesus was scourged. Bookmark that in your head, that's going to be important in a second. And what they would do is they played it with these puppets, and they would, I don't understand how he explained it, but I'd understand it. But somehow with these puppets, the outcome of what they did in this little board game, game of Kings, when your little puppet lost, bro, they would put a crown on it. they would mock it, and they would execute it.

Whoa. And that game is on the floor, in the stone, at the place in Jerusalem where pilot sentenced Jesus. Essentially, what our guide was saying is it is a very considerably more than just likely that the same dudes that were playing this game, they see Jesus and they were like, huh? So this guy thinks he's a king, and they played the game on Jesus. Wow. So there you go. Now, let's fast. I'm going chronologically, and we're going to wrap this up here in a second here.

Go to the next one, that Pontius Pilate Stone. So I'll do this real fast. For years, people, like critical, Bible critical scholars, they were like, ah, the Pontius Pilots thing was a made-up figure just to plug a hole in a narrative, and they needed somebody da-da-da-da. Well, sure enough, this is Incessaria by the Sea. It's a cool spot. They found this guy in 1961.

It's called the Pontius Pilate Stone, and it shut all those guys up real fast. Because it literally says, that's the stone. It literally says Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea. Like literally exactly what the gospel will say. Wow. So until 1961, people were like, oh, they probably made up pilot to move forward the narrative. And there it is. Okay.

Now, let's go to Galgotha. and we're going to come back to this in a second. So this is Galgotha. This is the likely spot of Galgotha. Now I'm going to show you here in a second. Obviously, Galgotha is where Jesus crucified. Galgotha means place of the skull. Place the skull.

Now you're looking at that, and you may be going, huh, I wonder why they think that's Galgotha. Let me point out two things. So if you look real, real, real close at that little retaining wall above it, so I don't have time nor expertise to explain this. Right now, the area around, Jerusalem in and around Jerusalem, there are certain spots that are controlled by Muslims, certain spots that are controlled by Jews.

This spot is controlled by Muslims. If you ever go there, it's like the whole area, if you look down, if you're outside the field of the vision of this picture down, it's just, honestly, it's just a big, it's a bus station. It kind of, you're kind of like, bro, this feels real, your reference. I don't know. So this is where it is. Now, that retaining wall up there, if you look real close, again, it's Muslim-controlled. You can see that little writing up there, this kind of thing that ticks you off and then makes you pray.

So go to the next picture where I zoom in on it, Trinity. So that's the Arabic. And what the Muslims have done is right above the place of the skull where Jesus is probably crucified. In Arabic, they have written, Allah is God, Muhammad is his prophet, Allah has no son. is essentially a way to taunt Christians. That's what that is. That's a little fun fact. Now, you may be wondering, go back one picture, Trinity.

You may be wondering, well, I wonder why they think that's Galgotha. One, we know that Jesus was taken outside the city walls. The gospel tells us Jesus was taken outside the city walls to be crucified. This fits, it's within walking distance, you can see right to the temple mount, all that stuff. and it's one of the only places that fits that. But here's the big reason is until 1901, this is what that spot looked like. Go to that next picture.

That's it. Now, zoom in for me. Can you zoom in on that skeletor looking part? Hang on. Yeah, zoom in. Zoom in. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

You see it? Okay, you see those two creepy-looking eyes? Wow. So, dude, look at it. Wow. You see the two eyes and then look right below it. and there's a little outcropping that it for real looks like a dagum nose it looks like a forehead look at that it looks like a crinkled forehead above those two little eye spot it's cool yeah i mean dude

it looks just like a skull yeah so if i'm understanding this correctly until basically that there was some kind of like earthquake or something in 1901 that collapsed part of it so then but when i understand until 1901 everybody was like that's a spot man yeah and everybody knows that's a spot. Wow. So first of all, just like pause for a second and drink that in. You're almost certainly right there looking at the spot where the son of God choked to death on his own blood for you. That right there. All right. Just let that sink in. Now, I'm going to go to one last thing. This was just discovered a few years ago. This is the, you know what this is, Paul? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course, Chip. Cheap Altee knows what he does.

Paul. So this is, this is in Rome. It is, from what I understand, the earliest case of, quote unquote, Christian graffiti ever discovered. But what's interesting is, it's mocking graffiti. So the title of it is Alexa Menos worships his God. Well, actually, I'm skipping ahead. So if you look real close on the left, that's the graffiti,

the sketching of the, of the, uh, graffiti. On the right, that's like what it would have looked like just to make it more clear. And it's a painting of a little Roman dude in front of a guy being crucified with a donkey's head on. This dates to, from what I understand, the second century, so the 100s A.D. and look at those letters right below it. What it says is Alex Menos worships his God. And essentially, what's happening is there was apparently a Christian young man in early Rome named Alex Menos. And he worshipped Jesus Christ.

And every Roman person was like, bro, no God would ever die. What kind of God would die for his people? That way, too, in such a crucifixion. And so they literally drew to mock him, Jesus with a, and I'm going to use strong language on purpose, Jesus with a head of a jackass, as if to say anybody who worships Jesus Christ worships a dead jackass. That's what they were doing. Now, with that in front of your eyes, I would just like to remind you. remind us what 1 Corinthians 123 says,

but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. I'm all in, man. Amen. Now let me do one last one, and then Paul, I want you to comment on that weird passage in Matthew where Matthew is the only gospel that says when Jesus died, a whole bunch of people were raised from the dead,

and they walked around. It was like a zombie apocalypse. and then I want to, I want you real quick to answer whether or not Jesus descended into hell, like the Apostles' Creed says that he does. Let me just do one last. This was one that all I, dude, I had to cut this from the sermon like one hour before preaching it, and it really took me off. I just didn't have time to get it in.

All right. So the gospel of Luke, whenever Jesus is carrying his cross to Galgotha, and he stumbles, and they pull Simon. and so the Luke is the only gospel that records, it says Simon the Cyrenian. It's the only one. And you read it and you're like, well, huh, I wonder why they specifically say he was from Cyrene?

It's like nothing else ever comes to that. Why'd they say that? Mark is the only gospel that records the names of the dude's two kids, Rufus and Alexander. Now here's the question. Why is Luke record, hey, not just Simon, the one from Cyrene.

And why does Mark go, ooh, not just Simon, the Simon whose kids were Mark and Rufus? Well, here's a deal, man. What the New Testament's doing, it's an ancient footnote. So what church history records is that that guy,

Simon the Cyrenian, eventually became a Christian, became very well known in the ancient church. So when these dudes are writing all the Gospels, they're writing with people, they're trying to convince people. And they don't, you know, there's not like, I don't know, 23 and me.

There's not like, go look them up on Facebook. No Facebook. That's right. No social media. Yeah. So what they did is they're literally putting a footnote. It's like super meta into the gospels where anybody that was reading would have gone, now wait a second.

Simon from Cyrene? The one whose kids are Rufus and Alexander. I know that guy. And they all would have been going, well, I'll just go ask him if this happened. but dude here's here's the awesome part so if you go to roman 1613 so at the end of all the epistles where paul does his little deal where he does the whole farewell speeches and he's saying goodbye to like 57 different people in every epistle by the way those little names matter and if you study those names it gets real interesting real fast this is one of them so in roman 1613 it says greet

Rufus, it's that guy. It's that guy's kid. Greet Rufus and his mother, who has been a mother to me also, and it says that they were chosen in the Lord.

And he says goodbye to I think it's like 45 different people in Romans. Rufus is the only one that he says, that guy, chosen in the Lord. And dude, it seems like what Paul is doing is he's gone, Jesus was carrying his cross and he stumbles, he picks Simon.

And he's like, I want that guy. And Jesus, in his sovereign foreknowledge, knew not only am I going to save that guy, I'm going to save his son, Rufus, too. Cool. And Paul is in Roman 16 going, I know exactly what Jesus did. Tell Rufus, I said, hey. Wow. Wow.

Awesome. The Bible's amazing. My goodness. It's also a good, it's just a good reminder that the gospels are not myths. A lot of times people say, oh, these are just myths. That if you actually go and read ancient myths, they don't read this way. They don't put random dudes and kids' names in there. That actually, a lot of scholars that's been done in the last 20 or 30 years say, no, no.

This is an example of eyewitness testimony. That they include little names like this. Say, hey, if you don't believe me, go and ask them, they will attest to this kind of thing. So it's just a reminder that these were real people in real places that saw real things happen. And so if we get to just some proofs of the resurrection, I wasn't going to mention that, but that is actually a perfect example to say, hey, this is eyewitness testimony of something that either did happen or it did not happen. That's right.

Yeah, that's good stuff. Let's go ahead. One of the questions was. Yeah, all right. So, Paul, you get a rapid fire of these because we got to talk to J and I.V. I was going to put one other thing you left out, though. Oh, do it. What did I miss?

Okay. So you started your sermon off the great illustration of big reverses that happened. I did. Okay. But you left out like the biggest one in NCAA history. You jerk. That happened over 30 years ago. If you freaking play the Christian Leitner shot, I'm going to be ticked at you.

Are you going to do it? I'm not going to do it. I literally told the team, I thought about having them ready to prompt it, but I love my job. And I love you. And that's just wrong. I'm over there as a Duke fan. You're saying this. And all my family, they had to watch me and watch that game.

I'm like, oh, it's painful right now to even think about it. But I thought about doing it, but I like my job, but I love you. And I just wanted to at least mention that you didn't leave out the greatest reversal in NCAA history. But yeah, so great detail from Matthew. So here's what we're going to do. Paul, rapid fire are these two questions that a lot of people have, there are weird verses that a lot of people have about the crucifixion and resurrection accounts. Number one, Matthew is the only gospel that records when Jesus was crucified, right?

It's at the crucifixion. It's when he gives up the spirit. The crucifixion is literally when the curtain is written. When the curtain is torn in the temple. And all the rocks are splitting apart, yeah. then it says that the bodies, do you have the verse in front of you? Yeah. Read it. The tombs were also opened and many of the bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

And coming out of the tomb, this is a key detail that a lot of people miss. After his resurrection, they went into the Holy City and appeared to many. What the heck? Matthew is the only gospel that records this. What the heck is happening? You got any thoughts on why Matthew's the only gospel records it? I'd say two or three reasons. Number one, one is just the idea of they attest to the reality of what happened.

It's like saying, oh, it's one thing to say that, oh, maybe they just hid Jesus' body. But if you have a bunch of people that are rising from the dead that are all of a sudden going in and testifying that they're alive, that's really tough to explain, you know, at that point. A second thing is I think it's actually a coming attraction in a sense. A little bit of a tease or trailer. Because the idea is that when Jesus rises from the grave, the new creation begins. It's not fulfilled yet. This is the idea of the already not yet that we talked about before. but he ushers in the new creation and the new age

where he is going to recreate all things and give life to all things. And so it's almost like, hey, this is what I'm going to do for everybody. The difference would be all the people that were raised died again in the same way that Lazarus was raised to life and he also died again. But when we're raised to life, we will never die again and we will live forever with him. So I said that's a big thing. But I think it's an interesting little detail that it says that the tombs were opened

but that they did not come out until after Jesus had come out. So it's almost like we're like, no, no, we got to make the main thing the main thing. He's the guy who's making all this possible. We're not coming out until he's come out first. Interesting. Yeah. If somebody, Paul, that's maybe a little bit more of a skeptic is asking me, wait, something's so supernatural, why is it only in one gospel?

Why don't you find in the other gospels? Oh, yeah. I think each of these, any of the gospels, you'll find little details that the other doesn't put in. Sometimes it's set for emphasis. sometimes it's just for, hey, they're telling it from a unique angle. Just because it's not in all of them doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. It just means they're just wanting to include a detail. Potentially with the Jewish people, they were really had this idea that there would only be one resurrection of everybody at the end of the age.

The huge change that's introduced is that Jesus inaugurates this new age, but he rises. And so it potentially could be proof to Jews to say, hey, this was legit, because only did he rise. his resurrection affects other people's resurrections as well. Question number two. Question number two. Okay, so the Apostles Creed, yeah, says that he was crucified on the third day. He descended into hell. That's literally with the Apostles' Creed.

He descended into hell. So Paul Cunningham, after between Jesus' death and resurrection, did he descend into hell? If so, what did he do? If not, why does the Apostles' Creed say that? Exactly. So we had to say Jesus died. In his human nature, he died. Now it's divine nature.

He did not because God cannot die. But Jesus in his human nature died. He experienced death. The question to your point is, so where did his solar spirit go to? So two broad views on this question. One is that the idea of that phrase descended into hell is more of a description of what happened on the cross. That on the cross, he experienced hell. But not in hell.

He experienced it on the cross. The wrath of God. The wrath of God poured out on the cross. A second view, and by the way, I'm more of a hybrid of these two, is that he did receive that wrath on the cross, but then he descended into hell. But here's the key thing, not to receive more punishment. Mel Gibson's making Passion of Christ Part 2.

The resurrection. And it's going to be the resurrection, but it's really about the in-between, is what happened in between. And if he depicts Jesus suffering in hell, he and I are going to have some words. That's what he's making the movie about? It's about the in-between? It's the in-between. Or at least that's supposedly like it's going to be the huge emphasis

because it's like, resurrection wouldn't take a long movie. You know, this kind of thing is like, he's got to fill with some time. So apparently it's going to be what happened in the in-between. What's the official Catholic stance on that? The herring of hell. Basically, he goes into Hades, but to proclaim the gospel,

not to proclaim the gospel in the sense of to get people a second chance to repent, but to proclaim it over demons, his authority, but then potentially over Old Testament saints to give them a chance, but basically he's rescuing them out of, of Hades kind of a thing.

Well, Gibson is like a Catholic Catholic. He's like a pre-Vatican II Catholic. Yes, yeah. So I bet he's going to go with whatever the Catholic doctrine is. Because historically, it's not been that he was punished because remember when Jesus was on the cross before he died, he said, it is finished. We don't, we shouldn't think that he then closed his eyes and opened him in hell and said, oh, never mind.

I've got more suffering. No, no, no. The idea is he would have gone to hell, but to proclaim his victory over demons, but then also potentially, yes, to proclaim the God. gospel, but to people who are already believers from the Old Testament. I'm a person that's more of a hybrid. I would say he endure the full punishment of hell on the cross, but I am a person who say he descended into hell, but to proclaim his victory over demons. However, we got verses for that. Yeah, that's the first Peter that we actually went into a few weeks ago, that we actually went

into a few weeks ago, the idea of he went in there to proclaim victory over the evil spirits, the demons. But then we have to also remember, it's not that he then stayed there for all those days, because what did he also tell to the thief on the cross? Today, you will be with me in paradise kind of a thing. And so I'm more of a hybrid between those. And so those are the two broad views, though. Okay. That's great.

Lots of things we could double click on in that one. I know that we would want to follow upon. But yeah. What are you at, though, on that Pastor Josh? I have no idea. There's a few things, man, where I'm like, I'm totally comfortable going, I don't know, man. Yeah. So in just a second, we're about to talk about how literally every single page of the Bible points to Jesus.

But before, Pastor Josh, I have a question. And did you know the secret identity of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? Bro, I got no idea. And I'm really fascinated to see what you're going to say here. So this is honestly, like, this is amazing because I thought this was the coolest thing this week. So Luke 24, obviously the sermon, for those of you that have not checked it out, you've got to go back and listen to it. It was the first section of Luke 24, right? So when the spice girls, they go to the tomb.

That was great, by the way. That was great, by the way. So right after that, there's a little section, verse 13. of two disciples that go, they're on a road called Emmaus, and Jesus shows up, and he basically does a little Bible study. They initially did not recognize him, and then after eventually their eyes are open. And so I'm about to share with you the secret identity

of these two disciples. This is really interesting. So the Bible does not give us the name of both of the disciples, but it does mention one of them, and his name was Cleopas. The other one is not named. And so honestly, I always thought it was sure. two men, two dudes kind of walking and, you know, two friends maybe.

They're leaving Jerusalem. They're, you know, and then Jesus shows up. According to church tradition and early historians, Cleopas was the brother of Joseph who was Jesus' earthly father, which would have made him Jesus' uncle. Now, hold on. John chapter 19, verse 25, mentions a Mary, the wife of Clapas. Now, Clapas and Cleopas, historians believe they're the same name, different spelling. And so many scholars believe that the unnamed second disciple in this story of Emmaus is Clapas' wife, the aunt of Jesus.

So it is possible that the two disciples were Jesus and an uncle, which Jesus is aunt and uncle, which means this is a family Bible study with the risen Lord Jesus. But wait, there's more. If that's true, what happens after? Jesus is about to leave them, but then basically they say, hey, no, don't go. Stay with us. And Jesus does, and they have a meal together. So if that's true, and then you zoom out of Scripture, this is what you see. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, a married couple, they eat, their eyes are open, and they experience shame.

In Luke 24, Cleopas and his wife, a married couple, they eat, their eyes are opened, and experience revelation. Hold on, there's more. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, they hide from God in the cool of the day. That's evening. In Luke 24, Cleopas and his wife do the opposite. they say stay with us for it is toward evening. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve misunderstand God's word. They say, did God really say?

In Luke 24, Jesus helps Cleopas and his wife understand God's word correctly. This is what God really says. It's about me. This is what Jesus says. We're about to go there in a second. In Genesis 3, God walks in the garden for confrontation of sin. In Luke 24, Jesus walks in Emmaus for restoration from sin. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, they try to hide themselves from God.

In Luke 24, Jesus reveals himself to them as God. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are banished from Eden, separated from God. In Luke 24, after encountering Jesus, Cleopas and his wife, they go back to Jerusalem to be on mission. The first meal in Genesis brought the fall. The first meal after the resurrection, a new Genesis brought redemption. Wow. Come on. Bro, that's amazing.

That's amazing. So there you go. There you go. It could have been. All right. There you go. So let's do this real quick. Yeah.

And then let's talk, Jade and I be getting fired from the Bulls for being a sane person. So let's do this real quick. The passage in Luke 24, the Emmaus Road deal, it honestly, so for our listeners, honestly, of everything we say on this podcast, this, what we're about to talk about, long term will probably be the most important thing for you as a Bible reader. So what Jesus does in Luke 24 is he rolls up on them and on Amas Roald. but they don't recognize him, which is, it's kind of interesting. There's different theories on why, glorified body, maybe they were overcome a grief.

There's a lot of different theories on that. But they don't recognize him. So then they essentially go, oh, didn't you hear what happened, you know, with this Jesus fella? And, you know, he kind of ropedops him a little bit. It's like, tell me about it. He says, you're the only one who hasn't heard. You're the only one who hasn't heard. Yeah.

He's the only one who knows. So then, dude, what Luke 24 says is he keeps walking with him, and he, It says, beginning with the law and the prophets, he explained to them all the things in the law and the prophets concerning himself. What Jesus essentially, so here's both, actually, this is not a theory, this is a fact. If you read the rest of the New Testament, one of the things that is striking is the entire rest of the New Testament is showing how everything in the Old Testament was about Jesus and you didn't know it. basically bro the entire new testament is the extrapolation of whatever jesus told them in luke 24 on the amas road that's the rest of the new testament so here's the big idea for uh for christian bible readers what a lot of christians do is they read their bible and they just think oh man what i need to do is just read it chronologically and the chronological reading and by the way i love chronological

Shout out Terri Lee Cable, we love you and all the things. But they're just like, oh, you interpret it chronologically. You know, Genesis, and then you get to, you know, the Old Testament, and then Jesus, and then Revelation. And great, that's how, you get it. No, no, no, that is not how you read your Bible. Remember, Jesus said in Luke 24, everything that happened before was about him. That's what Luke 24 says.

Okay. So here's the analogy. You guys remember the first time you watched Sixth Sense? Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you've never seen the Sixth Sense, I'm about to spoil the ending, but that's on you. You've had 25 years to watch it. Wait, don't spoil it. I haven't seen it.

I am going to spoil it. I'm kidding. Go ahead. So you see the Sixth Sense, bro, and it's the only movie I've ever watched twice back-to-back, immediately. Yeah. Because you see the whole thing. Bro, you haven't seen Inception or, you know. I'm not watching twice back-to-back. I'm not.

Keep cooking. That's a pretty good movie, too, you know, if you haven't seen it. So you see Sixth Sense. You watch a whole movie. then you get to the what's the famous line what's the famous line I see dead people

but then you realize there's that moment where he realized he was dead the whole time and then you go back and you immediately rewatch the movie and now you're interpreting the entire movie through the lens of what was revealed at the end

and the whole movie takes on a complete completely different light. That's how you're supposed to read your Bible. Yes. So the whole Old Testament happens. Then Jesus shows up and he does the life, death, resurrection. And then Jesus goes, oh, by the way, all that stuff that's been written for the last

4,000 years, all that was about me. And then what a Christian Bible reader does, they go, oh, dang, I need to go back. And you start realizing, like, every single thing that happened, was pointing to Jesus and was about Jesus. It's kind of, honestly, it's kind of like a magic eye. You remember this when you were a kid? Yeah. Did they have magic eyes in El Salvador?

Me and I see, I know what you're talking about. How do you say magic eye in El Salvadorian? Bola Negra, maybe. I could. How? I mean, it's a black ball, right? It's a black ball, right? No, what did you talk about?

Magic eye? Wait, oh, no. Oh, we don't do sorcery in El Salvador, bro. Oh, no, we don't know what you're talking about. The magic eye. Magic guy. What are you talking about? You said something Negra and I was like, this is lost in translation.

Wait, I don't know. What is magic? What are you talking about? I don't know what's going on. No, yeah, I see what you're talking about. I was thinking about something completely different. That's on me. I thought magic eight ball.

It's the art that if you like, we've got to cross. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. Then you see it different. Hey, Josh, that reached the, you know, the far corners are all separate. Were you thinking of the magic eight bar? I was, I was. It's just understandable. It's okay, yeah.

Well, it's kind of like that where once you see it, you can't unsee it. Right, got it. So we could, literally, it would take years. Yes. Multiple podcasts for us to show how everything in the Old Testament is like a mind-blowing six-sense moment. Oh, that was about Jesus. You guys just want to round-robing some of the best ones. And then what we're going to do for listeners, once you hear how we do this,

which, by the way, is the pattern of the New Testament, this is how you need to start reading your old Testament. Okay. So you just want to round robbing them? How do you want to do this? You want to go first? Please lead us. Let me pick one. This feels like a fantasy draft.

Okay, I'm going to go, I'll do these. We're going to rapid fire up. All right. So first of all, you obviously have in Genesis 1, 2, 2, and 3, Adam and Eve sin, they hide in their shame. Theologians call, it's Genesis chapter 3. God starts chasing them when they're hiding in their shame. Theologians call it the proto-evangelion, which in Latin means first telling of the gospel. and remember what God does.

He walks up to him. He finds an innocent animal, slays the innocent animal, uses the skins from the slain innocent animal to cover their sin and their shame. Sound familiar, my friend? All right, now think about that. Again, once you go back and read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus, you're like,

what? All right, so that's one. I'll do another one. Also in Genesis 3, God, when he's pronouncing the curses on Adam and Eve, he tells Adam and Eve, he's like, he looks at Eve, he's like, hey, so here's a deal. One day, one of your offspring, an offspring is singular. One of your offspring is going to come, and the serpent is going to strike at his heel, but he's going to crush their head. So you're going to have an offspring that becomes a serpent crusher. And then Jesus comes.

And Jesus is A, offspring of Eiff, B, the serpent strikes at his heel. That's he, obviously, in the crucifixion. And C, the Bible says that he triumphed over the demons, Satan and the demons, putting them to open shame, he crushes the serpent. Okay, so there you go. Points of Jesus. I'm going to do one more. You got one? I was going to say, Hebrews 2.14, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death.

Romans 1520, the God of peace will soon crush Satan, where? Under your feet. Okay. Actually, let me do two other quick ones. I'll do another one. There's a bunch in Genesis. Oh, yeah. So after Abel, Cain kills Abel.

And there's that verse. Hebrews does this super Inception meta thing with this verse. So Genesis says, God comes up to Kane that just killed Abel. And he's like, where's your brother? And he's like, I'm a brother, keeper. I said that to my mom one time when I was a kid. She was like, hey, are you supposed to be looking after your brother? I was like, mom, am I my brother's keeper?

She's like, you know who said that? Kane who killed his brother. All right, soon away. So then you remember what God says to Kane? He's like, the blood of your brother is crying out for your condemnation. And the book of Hebrews says that the blood of Jesus, who is the second Adam, innocently slain, it says that his blood cries out from the ground and speaks a better word. So where at, bro, so the blood of Abel was crying out for a man's condemnation.

And the blood of Jesus Christ, a descendant of Adam Cain Abel, a descendant, is crying out for our acquittal and forgiveness. Okay. Again, you read everything through Jesus. it's like, my mind's ball. Let me do one last one, then I'll give you all a turn. And then we'll just rapid fire around robbing this thing, and then we'll talk Jade and Ivy and shut her down.

So here's one of my favorites. So Genesis 22, you got Abraham and Isaac, and we all know the story. Actually, I'll read the verse. So here's what God says. Listen, really close to the verse. There's something in this verse,

people don't notice, and it's a big deal. God comes to Abraham. And he's like, hey, take your son, your only son whom you love. Hey, hey, just take Abraham, why don't you take your only begotten son whom you love?

Well, this is starting to sound a little familiar. Isaac, now this is important, here's what people miss. He didn't just say, and walk up the closest mountain you can find. He says, and go to the region of Mariah. Now, I studied this years ago,

and if I remember right, Mariah was like 80 miles from where he was, so Abraham would have been going, well, daggam, there's mountains all over the place. Why can't I just walk up one of these? I was like, no, no, no. I want you to go to the region of Mariah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering,

and there's a specific mountain on a mountain that I will show you. So think about it, you're Abraham, you're walking around, you got your kid on your back. He's your son, your only son, whom you love. You're walking 80 miles, and you're like, why the heck am I walking past all these mountains to this region? And you get there, and then somehow that we don't know, God shows him one specific mountain.

Side note for all the listeners, you have already seen a picture of the mountain that God showed him in this podcast. He shows him one specific mountain. He's like, I want you to walk up that specific mountain. And I want you to sacrifice your son, your only son, whom you love up there. Now remember, Isaac, he puts, this is crazy dude. He puts the wood that he's going to sacrifice him on on the back of his son, Isaac. So you got an only-begotten son that the father loves with wood on his back. Son's got to carry the wood on his back up the hill where he's going to die.

Bro, bro, are you kidding me? He gets up there. And remember, as soon as he's about to kill him, God's like, hey, dang, stop. And there's an innocent animal, a little ram in the thicket. And he's like, why don't you kill that thing instead of your son? So there's a substitutionary sacrifice or atonement. Now, bro, this is nuts. Guess what region the Mount of Galgotha is in?

Mariah. Guess what mountain? God told Abraham to walk like 80 miles to go fine and then showed him when he got there. Almost certainly, Galgotha. Bro, are you kidding me? I was going to say, do it for him. Oh, it's not like Oregon. Oh, no.

Hey! Went back to Italian. I've got a quick one because I've got another that's going to take a few minutes to cook. So I'll do a quick one, then you can take it for a few minutes. So when Satan went to Adam and Eve, basically he tried to get them to take and eat, which led to the fall of humanity and to send and train the world. When Jesus went to the cross to undo that the night before, what did he tell us disciples to do? take and eat at the last supper at the last supper i need to add to that go oh adam disobeyed in the garden

of eden jesus obeyed in a garden of godemone adam was naked in the garden and was filled with guilt and shame jesus was crucified naked on the cross and took upon himself that guilt and shame after adam sin the ground produced thorns as part of the curse after jesus obeyed he wore a crown of thorns, asking, taking upon himself to curse of sin. Adam's side was pierced when God took one of the ribs to create Eve, and Eve came back to, came to life. Jesus' side was pierced and out came blood and water, and from that the church came to life. Adam, like you said, took from the tree and sin entered the world. Jesus, the second Adam, didn't take, but he gave himself on a tree and salvation entered the world. Eve ate the fruit in when God confronted Adam, he blamed the

woman, and since God has said that the wages of sin is death, Adam was essentially saying, God don't kill me, kill her. In the story of Jesus, when he came to the sin of his bride, the church, Jesus, the last Adam said, God, don't kill her, kill me. That's a gospel. Bro, that's so good. Now, can I just point something out? Whenever you start doing stuff like this, for every, like, born-again Christian,

your heart starts to burn within you. Yeah. It's Luke 24. Yes. Did not our hearts burn within us as he opened the scriptures? does. Like, once you start learning to read the Bible through what theologians call a Christological lens, that is when it detonates like a nuclear bomb in your soul. Yeah. And even like to give an example of how even the most boring of things can do that,

let's be honest, when we're doing our Bible reading, a lot of people who start, and they've never done it before, they usually do decent through Genesis and everything. But then you get to access and the first part is really good. And then eventually you get to where they tell you, tell them how to build the tabernacle. And you're like, oh, my gentle Jesus, are you kidding me? Kind of a thing. And it's really hard because there's all these descriptions of the tabernacle and it feels really boring.

Oh, let's be read two times that if you're listening to it, whatever. But actually the tabernacle is really cool because in part what it's doing is recreating the Garden of Eden. And almost every Christian misses this. So let's think about the Garden of Eden for a second. So when Adam and Eve sin, they are kicked out and they are kicked out towards the east. And they go towards the east. And then what does God do to guard the tree that is in the garden?

Angel of a flaming tree, right? He puts cherubim. It says cherubim at the front of the garden. And so there's no way to get back into the presence of God. Except, wait, God does provide a way to get back into the presence of God through the tabernacle. We actually have a drawing to kind of show and to help people see what is happening here. Because when you go into the tabernacle, you're going into the presence of God and you have to come from the east towards the West and what do you have to go through?

Cherubim that are on a veil. You have to pass by a menorah. A menorah was... So wait, on the veil, there was woven cherubim. I forgot that. Bro. It's an... Interesting.

It keeps going. It keeps going. So then you've got that manure. It has seven. That's going to be important in a minute. But what does it kind of just look like if you looked at it real quick? A tree. And in fact, it has almonds and branches woven into the gold so it looks like a tree.

then you have to go into the Holy of Holies. But to do all of this, it takes what? It takes atonement. It takes atonement to get back into the presence of God. So it's recreating literally the Garden of Eden. And so you had this tabernacle. I think we actually have a picture, though, of what the encampment around it would have looked like. Now, let's go.

Yeah, that one, the Enchantment of Israel. Yeah, this is amazing. So this is what it would have looked up. Okay. Now, if you're watching this and you're a Christian and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the red lights aren't flashing on your dashboard, you're not saved. It's like you may be like the two,

if it really was the and the uncle, that makes the fact they didn't recognize Jesus even funnier, by the way, it might be kind of like one of those situations right here. Wow. So here's the tabernacle that was in the middle of camp, the presence of God, in the middle of camp. And what you have, if you're not watching this,

is literally when the camps would set around it, it would make it into the shape of a cross. Yeah, and we know this. because God dictated exactly on which side of the tabernacle each of the 12 tribes were supposed to camp, and the scriptures record the number of people in each tribe. That's how we actually know it was a daggone big cross with the presence of God at the middle, wandering through the wilderness. And here's what's so cool that I think this is pointing to, is that the tabernacle did

give the ability to get back into the presence of God, but for only one person on one day a year. but when Christ died it talks about eventually the tabernacle became the temple it talks about how that curtain was torn into so that now all could have access to God for all time if they placed their faith in Jesus

but it gets even better because the tabernacle shows up in another place in scripture but you have to really look hard for it shows up in the book of Revelation but I need to show you something else to help you see it go to the one that has the tribes and the banners this is also a depiction of tribes and banners just to the left of what you just

clicked on. There you go. This is another depiction of how they would have camped around it. They put them side by side to fit it all on one page. But at the heads of the different kind of cardinal directions, you had different tribes that would have had different banners at them, right? So you had one of an eagle, a lion, a man, and an ox at these four. So if we go to the book of Revelation, it says this, around the throne. And remember, the Ark of the Covenant would have been the idea that's the throne of God. On each side of the throne are four living creatures full of eyes in front behind, the first living creature like a lion, the seven living creature like an ox, the third living creature that's face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle

in flight. So the idea is this, is that because what Christ did on the cross, we do have access to presence of God now, but it's not uninhibited because we still live in a world of sin and shame, but one day we will be gathered around the throne of God, just like the Israelites were, and we will be on the uninhibited access and presence of God, just like Adam Nehawar before the So, wow. Wait, while he's doing it, let me go a layer deeper on this one. Come on. Because, dude, there's so much here.

So Day of Atonement. Yeah. Obviously, literally called Atomat. Atonement is a big word. Just break it down. It means at onement. How do you make two people who are at odds into, you know, one, reconciled at one meant? So on the Day of Atonement, High Priest, obviously, he, first of all, he would take two, there's

two goats. So you got an innocent animal. Again, we're just teaching you. We're teaching you, man. Listen, we're teaching you how to read the whole Bible to where it's, it's just a series of mind melts and points you to Jesus. Okay. So he takes two goats. One of them is called the scapegoat. Remember what he does. They confess and place the sins of all the people on the scapegoat and send it out in the wilderness to literally physically, visually show that God is

separating you from your sins as far as the east is from the west. That's what he's showing. And then number two, he's the other one. They kill the other one. other goat they take, innocent animal they would take. Then he would sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat, which is the thing on the top of the Ark of the Covenant where the presence of God dwell. So think about this. And what's inside of the Ark of the Covenant? One of the things is you have the broken tablets of the Ten Commandments from where the people disobeyed. So think about this. He sprinkles the blood over the Ark of the Covenant with the broken Ten Commandments inside of it. Why? So that God from heaven, when he's looking down, he's not seeing your broken commandments. He's seeing the

blood covering the broken commandments. So dude, again, all this, you just start going like, well, that's Jesus and that's Jesus, and that's Jesus, and that's Jesus. And that's Jesus. And that's Jesus. And it's the whole Old Testament is watching the sixth sense the second time. It's amazing. I think even just as a practical thing around this, just four helpful questions that I think people can ask whenever you're reading the Bible. I tell me, if you get stuck asked these four questions, it's a nice little grid, especially if learning to read the Bible. First question is, hey, what did this mean to the people who had received this in their time? Like, what was God trying to say to the people in their time kind of a thing. That becomes important whenever you try to apply the Bible in your life,

because if you start having it say stuff to you in your time that they would have never read in their time, you're probably off kind of a thing. Number two, hey, are there any truths in here that are true for all time? Are there things about God or things about humans that are true in all places in all times? Number three, what does this mean for me in my time? Here's a key one though. I did not say what does this mean to me. With all due respect and all love and grace, no one cares, especially God, what the passage means to you, okay? That does not matter what it means to you. It's what did it mean for the people who received it?

Man, what does it mean for all the time? And then what does it mean for you in your time? What is God trying to speak to you right now wherever you're at? This is you applying the Bible to your life. It doesn't matter what it means to you. It does matter what it means for you. Exactly. How should I respond to the truth that is in the Bible?

But then number four, how does this point to the author of time, Jesus Christ? And there we go. We got kind of four fancy. A little chart here. A little chart that I made for us. Because if you only do that first one, if you only say, hey, what this mean to the people in their time? That's just a history lesson. If it's, hey, what does this mean for all time?

That's a theology lesson. If it's only, hey, what does this mean for me? It's going to be an adventure and missing the point. Like, for example, I knew someone one time who, man, they were reading the Bible. They were reading the book of Exodus. And it got to the point where the Pharaoh said, hey, I'm actually going to take away your supplies, but you got to make just as much, if not more. And the person said, I think this is just God telling me, I just need to work harder.

And I was like, and I love you reading the Bible. And this, Pharaoh's the bad. guy, not the guy you want to emulate here. So it's just an example, though, because they left out the first two, they got the term wrong. But then it's like, hey, at the end of the day, man, you want every passage of scripture to point you to the one who is for all time, the one who is at the center of the host story, and that's Jesus Christ. So just four helpful questions for you as you reading the Bible. You ever heard about that guy who said, Lord speak to me, grab the Bible, and then he opened it and went to Matthew 27, 5, and it says, then Judas went

and hung himself. And then he said, oh, no, that's definitely not it. I'm going to try again. went to Luke 1037 and then he found go and do likewise and he's like no no no there's no there's no chance the third time's charm and then he landed on john 1327 what you're about to do do it quickly yeah yeah yeah that's the old preacher joke i've used that thing like 40 times good old good old tread and true you're saying you're saying paul don't do that don't jump to number three i do those first two questions first and then that can have you done wait i'd do one last please all right did you have one or do you have another one but we'll let me wrap it fire these yeah okay let's rapid fire them and then we're going to talk jade and ivy

and that stuff. All right, so Abraham. Obviously, Abraham's in Sodom. Lots over there. Abraham comes, this is one of my favorite ones. This is one I'm like, oh, dang, I didn't see that. And now I totally see it. Abraham's in Sodom. And he knows Lot's families there, his boy.

And so he starts interceding to God. Abraham is functioning as a mediator between sinful man and holy God. And remember how he starts praying? I love this. So I remember he starts praying? He's like, hey, God, if I can find 50 righteous people, will you spare the whole city on the behalf of 50? And God's like, deal.

And everyone's like, oh, what about 40? God's like, deal, 40. He's like, oh, oh, 30, 30. What if I just found 30? And God's like, absolutely Abraham, deal. Abraham's going to go 20. God says, deal. Abraham gets down the last request he makes.

He says, what if I can just find 10? just 10 righteous people and God I just imagine God almost with like a knowing look on his face about what's going to happen in 2000 years God's like Abraham if you can find 10 righteous people you bet you I'll spare him

but Abraham never continues his prayers because what Abraham could have done is he could have gone what about 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 and then Jesus comes who is the

offspring of Abraham, the New Testament says. And Jesus is functioning as a mediator between sinful man and a holy God. And I think essentially what Jesus does is he picks up Abraham's prayer and he looks up at heaven and says, what about one? If I can give you one righteous man, can I plead the blood of one righteous man to save all the people? And I think God is essentially picking up Abraham's prayer and going, you bet. Wow. You bet I can. And that's how Jesus saved us.

Now, dude, we could literally do this for hours. Yeah. Like, no joke. Like, we could do this for hours. And do not your hearts burn within you. It's just what it does. So for all of our listeners, man, when you're reading the Old Testament, I want to just verbal highlight something Paul said.

And then let's wrap this up talking Jade and Ivy getting fired for saying just a normal Christian thing. Saying the Bible. you know, yes, you know, like Paul said, when we read the Bible, we want to ask, okay, God, what did this mean for them? What does this mean for me? I cannot encourage you strongly enough when you're reading the Old Testament to ask the third question. How does this point forward to the person and work of Jesus Christ? That's when your Bible becomes like a nuclear bomb in your lap.

Yes. Will not your heart's burn within you? And there's freedom to know as well. man like you know oftentimes we tend to think a lot about me but then when you open up the scripture ultimately you end up focusing less about you and more about jesus and man there's just something so freeing about that so much dude amazing all right let's uh let's talk NBA players that's going getting fired for saying things that Christians have believed for 2,000 years 5,000 if you include the old covenant all right so here's the deal and the reason i want to bring this up is this

honestly brings up something that I would say a majority of Christians in America, like have to ask where they work in their workplace. So here's the backstory on this. Jaden, I'm a, I'm an NBA head. So Jaden Ivy was a lottery pick. Like Jaden Ivy was a legit NBA draft pick. He wasn't drafted by the Bulls. I can't remember who he's drafted by, but just ended up on the Bulls. So it starts here, Jaden Ivy, after a pretty rough past, was apparently radically saved, if I'm understanding the parts of this correctly, gets radically saved. Then he's doing like an Instagram live, and essentially what he's doing, we're going to show it to you here in a second. What he's doing is he's pointing out that honestly, I've always wondered like, I've always thought, oh, I would get fired from any professional sports team, and that's not just because of lack of talent. I would get, because they've always, they make these guys during June.

they make, like, all of them, they make all these guys where all the LGBT, all the Pride flag stuff. And I always been like, dude, if you're a Christian in the league, how are you going to handle that? Like, so Jaden is very fairly

in this Instagram live, kind of sounding off on this phenomenon and the problem that creates from his Christian. Now, watch what he says. Check, let's do this first. The world can proclaim LGBTQ, right? They have, they have, they proclaim Pride Month and the NBA. Yeah.

They proclaim it. They, they show it to the world. They say, come, come, come, come join us for pride, for Pride month to celebrate unrighteousness. That's it. Okay. Now, you're good, you're good there. Now, okay, so he says this, join us for Pride Month to celebrate unrighteousness. First of all, that's 100% true.

Yeah. that is a very basic biblical application. That is 100% true. So then the very next day, it took less than, I think it was like 15 hours. Bulls post this on their Instagram account. Chicago Bulls announced today the team has waveguard Jaden Ivy

due to conduct detrimental to the team immediately. Like, didn't even take one day. Now, I want to point out a couple things about this. First of all, you've got players all over the NBA who have beaten their wives, who have been found guilty of domestic abuse, who have made, I mean, you can, like I actually looked up, there's like 60 examples like six.

It's not awesome. All them still got their jobs. But you say one thing that Christians have believed for 2,000 years or 5,000, include the Old Covenant, you're gone in a day. Now, I'm going to show you here in a second. I want to show you how, how people that call themselves Christians

but are either on purpose or accidentally playing for the other team, how they respond when a Christian with convictions and courage acts like a Christian with convictions and courage. But I just want to point out a couple things about this, and then I love to hear your thoughts, and then we'll respond to Emmanuel Osha real quick. First of all, to my fellow,

I know we got a ton of pastors that watch this podcast. I just want to gently but firmly encourage pastors. Pastors have like an ick. There's a huge ick factor among pastors. I'm talking to like my, this is like insider baseball real quick. Everybody else is listening in it. There's like a huge ick factor among pastors

for like leaning in on what are called quote unquote culture war issues. I would just like to remind every pastor that's watching this is that you are literally the only, person in your entire church who has the luxury of avoiding quote unquote culture war issues because you get to live in a tithe dollar created bubble by the generous giving of your people and they actually have to walk out the door and work in actual real world offices and risk their jobs where they're faced with questions and issues like that every single day. So I just gently want to encourage passion like how are you going to expect your people to have convictions

and courage in their workplaces when you won't have convictions and courage in your pulpit. So I just gently want to remind pastors who tend to have an ick factor about talking about issues like this because I don't want to sound like a culture warrior or I don't do, da, da, da, da.

Well, hey man, here's the deal. You may not be very interested in the culture war. The culture war is interested in you. And the culture war is interested in the people that God puts you on this planet to shepherd and protect. So I just gently want to like use this as a moment to say like, hey man, do your job, be willing to lean over the plate, be willing to go

over the middle, and you may take a few hits, but that's okay. That's what we signed up for. And again, the courage of your people is never going to rise above the courage of their pulpit and their pastor. So number one, I just want to point that out. Number two and three, I also want to point out, there is a, again, it's a very demonic double standard. So what you got is players can rob their families and they can beat women, they can make very openly anti-Christian comments from both players and coaches. I have some examples. I won't use them for the moment. Very openly, they can make extremely polarizing political comments, commentary on things like BLM or how ICE are murderers and do like this is stuff this literally happened. Zero consequences. But the second

somebody voices a Christian belief about marriage and sexuality, You're gone. Yep. You're gone. So I just want to point out the demonic double standard. Okay. I also just want to gently point this out. And I'm not an idiot.

For people who listen to the podcast, I just want you know, I'm not stupid and I'm not unself aware. I know that what a lot of pastors say about me is, oh, Josh went off the rails and he started getting political. Okay. There's a million things I could say about that. The biggest one I want to say is, hey man, I didn't start getting political, politics started getting spiritual.

because when you have issues like that and people, when you address them, people call you political. No matter. All I did is just open my Bible and apply it to the world that my people have to deal with. So what I want to point out with, and you can call me partisan all you want, I don't care. I just want to point out the reality to Christians who and every Christian should engage in the political process. I just gently want to point out, man, you can say all you want, oh, the gospel is neither right nor left or da, da, da, da, da. Okay, the gospel is neither right nor left, but the gospel is about right and wrong. And there is a moral asymmetry in the current political taxonomy and stuff like that that gets Christians fired or makes it impossible to be a publicly, a convictional Christian in a workplace.

Stuff like that only comes from one political side. I'm sorry, man, that's just reality. There's only one political side that does stuff like that. So, like, as a Christian, we need to acknowledge reality and play the game that has been handed to us and acknowledge that reality. Now, last thing I want to say is, here's what I'm going to point out, and I want to talk about this, I want to respond to Emmanuel Ocho real quick. It is not a coincidence that in the Old Testament, the demonic false gods in the Old Testament are very frequently, they mix their demonism with sexual perversion. You all right over there? Yeah, I was going to.

They mix their demonism with sexual perversion. So when you're reading the Old Testament about the gods like Mollick, Asherah, by the way, all Asherah is in the Old Testament, a lot of people don't know this, all Ashera was, whenever you see in the Old Testament it talks about the Ashera poles in high places, this is going to sound real gross, but like this is just where the Bible is. All it was was a massive phallic symbol that these people who worship this demonic false God of Asherah is like, honestly, I'm just going to say, if you've got a mom with kids in the car, like, just mute this for five seconds real quick. If anybody's not picking it up, like all those were like giant penis statues that they would worship and do extremely sexually degraded things around in demonic, in demon worship. In the New Testament, when it talks about the Revelation chapter three mentions Jezebel that was apparently some kind of demonic spirit,

because it's referring back to something that happened in the book of kings in the Old Testament, but it's saying, hey, the same thing's happened in the church, says demonic spirit. And it says that what that demonic spirit does is it, quote, teaches and seduces my people to practice sexual immorality. So what you need to understand is what demons do is they mix with sexual perversion and they create demonic, false, sexually perverse, and degraded religious expressions. So, dude, here's the thing, and I get crushed. Every time I talk about this, we get crushed, but it's like,

we just need to help people understand the spiritual realities. The LGBT movement, if you're asking yourself the question like, man, how did essentially this movement like take over? Like it literally took over our culture in two decades, like two and a half decades. How did that happen? Because it's a demonic thing and it functions like a religion. So think about this for a second. LGBTQIA, all those things, it's a religion.

It's a religion of demonic sexual perverse. version, every letter in the LGBTQIA plus functions like a denomination of the religion. And if you, like, thinking people have started asking themselves, like, huh, well, why are they, like, so passionate about having drag queens read books to little kids in libraries? Why are they so passionate about that? Why are they so passionate about having, like, gay porn books, gay porn literature books in elementary schools and they lose their minds when people want to take extremely graphic, homosexual, perverse books out of kids' elementary schools. Why are they so passionate about

this? Well, here's why. Because eventually, every religion has to get into children's ministry. That's why. Now, let me take it a step further. Here's what, like, what good Bible readers got to learn to do is let me take the word and use it as a taxonomy to overlay on the word. And, that's in front of me. So here's the deal, man, and Christians are not good at, like, making this connection. Here's a deal. Every religion has its Pharisees. Usually in our culture, when people hear the word Pharisee, they think of, like, super conservative Bible thumper that's angry at people all the time. And by the way, there are horrible, awful, satanically empowered people with bibles in their hand, thumping them, and being agents of condemnation. Absolutely.

But honestly, dude, in our culture, so who are the Pharisees? The Pharisees were people who had serious political and cultural power. They were the cultural elites of their day. And they enforced the cultural hegemony, the cultural orthodoxy that was there. And if anybody crossed them, yeah, it was like, dude, we're going to be in trouble, man. No grace. No grace, no grace. right now, dude, it's people in that movement. Like, honestly, here's the best way to say it. Honestly, secular, progressive people are the modern day Pharisees of our culture. They force and enforce a rigid orthodoxy on the surrounding culture.

And if you cross their line and you apostatize from it, they will judge you, damn you, excommunicate you, and make sure you get fired. So you just got to start learning to put the spiritual realities together. You're dealing with the religion. Religions are spiritually empowered, either by the Holy Spirit or unholy spirits, and every religion has its Pharisees. Those are the Pharisees. What's interesting before we get into the video, you mentioned a lot of different passages.

Romans 1 is so intriguing on this one because Romans 1 is often pointed out where this is where Paul explicitly says, no, like any kind of homosexual behavior is not honoring to God. It's not God's design. But what does he address just before he does that? He addresses idolatry. That's right. And he says because they were not willing to worship God as he actually is,

he gave them up to dishonorable passions. This is literally what it says. And so the thing about what Paul in another place in Corinthians says idol worship is, it's the worship of demons. That's right. And so the idea of they're not worshiping God correctly. And so God hends them over. And so it literally says, and this is actually pretty close to what,

Jordan said, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do it not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness. So he's pretty much just quoting Romans 1. That exact what Romans 1 says. Yeah. So that was an intriguing connection that I just want to make there. Yeah. Remember what it says. So he says at the end of Romans 1, check this out. Now, before I read this verse, remember what Jaden Ivy is objecting to is, man, they're making me as a Christian NBA player celebrate and promote Pride Month. They're making me get, I'm going to use this language, they're making me publicly give approval to those who practice this unrighteousness. Now that in mine, let me read Romans 132. Though they know God's degree that those who practice such things

deserve to die, and it's just talking about sinners. Sinners in general, sin deserves death. they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them. Every culture war is a spiritual war in disguise. That's, bro, that's the thing. So, like, for pastors who are listening, I get this all the time. Like, you know, don't lean into the culture wars. My brother, it's called a culture war. It's actually a spiritual war.

Like, literally our job is to not run away from spiritual wars. that's literally our job. Now, let me just, what I want to help people understand, because every Christian is going to get faced with stuff like this. Like, the Jade and Ivy thing, that's a microcosm of what I won't use any names,

what men and women in our church have had to happen to them. And, again, no names. But like, we have multiple NBA players that listen to this podcast. So it's like helping guys, how do I think about this? Okay, how do I think about this?

So check this out. This is Emmanuel Ocho. who's a sports commentator, I think he's the ESPN guy. He calls himself a Christian, and I don't want to go too hard on him. But on this big swing and a miss, the reason I want to do this is he's commenting

on that Jaden Ivy deal. The reason I want to do this is whenever you as a Christian begin to live by your convictions, what you are about to see is what all the lukewarm Christians around you are going to start saying about you. So I want to help inoculate you to what 1,000%

is going to happen to you from people who call themselves Christians. Okay? So check this out. Let's go for it. There is freedom of speech, but freedom of speech does not necessarily mean freedom of consequence. I also will remind everybody, starting from the sports perspective,

your talent will make room for you. If Dayton Ivy was averaging 20 points and 10 assists right now, 20 points and 10 boards right now, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. But because in January of 2025, he broke his left fibula. And then in October of 2025, he had arthroscopic knee surgery. And then, again, he's missed the last two weeks he had missed, starting in February 21st after getting traded

from the Detroit Pistons to the Chicago Bulls. As a result, averaging 11 points and three assists, his talent is not making room for him. Plus, if you're in the training room, we do not... Pause, pause, pause. So what he said is, your talent will make room for you. Listen, man, here's my big deal. What I would say is, yes, Emmanuel, and your righteousness will make rewards for you.

Whose team do you care the most about being a star on? So, like, this is basic parenting 101. Like, when my kids come home and they're using words like cool and popular, what Jan and I immediately do is, like, cool in whose eyes. Popular in whose eyes. in God's eyes or in some fourth grader that's a fool and is a godless fool at that. Yeah. So it's like what I want to say is, man, he sent your talent will make room for you.

Yeah, yeah. And your righteousness will make rewards for you and praise God for a Christian that cared more about living by his convictions and seeking eternal rewards than, quote unquote, making sure your talent. So makes room for you. So what I say is, man, whose team are you trying to make? Yeah. And who's who you're trying to earn reward from? Yeah. Well, and I think with that is much like when I hear them,

so are you saying that if he was doing that, it'd be okay for me to do that? So if he was scoring 20 and you said that, you'd have no problem with it then? Yeah, yeah. Like, he was in the best response question I'm going to have. So I'm like, starting with that kind of, to me, kind of feels like a non-starter because I'm like, I get what are you saying in terms of the practicality of it. But at the same time, so you're saying, so then everybody would be okay with it. And the reality is we and I both know.

Yeah. everybody would not be okay with it. We still have the double standard. No, I do think there would be a double standard. I do think like, like, both like Seth Curry or somebody said that, like you would not see the team cut them in 14 hours. No, no. It would have been fired. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. It's just a reality. All right. Let's keep going. I want you to see this. Watch this. I don't necessarily want to hear from you. We want to just see you recovering.

So from a sports perspective starting there, athletes, you know, your talent makes room from you. The talent starts to diminish. We do not want to hear you more than we see you. That's number one. This is nasty right here. This is nasty right here. This is nasty. I don't like the path that Jaden Ivy is going down.

And the reason I say this is this. Number one, Jaden Ivey's been through a lot. If you hear what he's talked about, he was sexually molested as a child. He had a porn addiction while he was married. He's self-admitted that he was abusive towards his wife and his children. Pause. Yeah. That's why he hates perversion.

It's like, I just want to pause and say that. Like my dad was saved out of alcoholism. My dad has a unique hatred for alcohol. what you're pointing out is you're just going, oh, who's this guy to have this conviction because he came out, it's like, bro, that's why he hates it.

He's seen what perversion and degradation can do to a man. Of course he has to care about it. Now, what I really don't like is, watch what happens here. He starts questioning the guy's mental stability. These are all Jaden Ivy's words, not my own. And so Jaden Ife is also acknowledging

like he's a struggling, a struggling individual or an individual that has struggled. So let me acknowledge that, acknowledge the emotional and the interpersonal aspects as well. Anybody that's been to therapy understands things that happen to you as a child, they impact you as an adult. Now, let me talk about the biblical aspect of it. Now, pause real quick.

So obviously he's alluding to the whole mental health thing. So this is, and I've seen this. If you guys seen this where people are starting to like, ah, maybe he has some mental health issues, that kind of thing. First of all, he may. I don't know. I don't know. I've seen no evidence of that.

So if it comes out later, then okay, whatever. But I do just want to point out there is a double standard here. And here's a double standard. And this is kind of thing, just keep the camera on me so they don't get in trouble. This is just be me. What I want to point out is, so think about what's happening. What you have is a Christian heterosexual man, a Christian heterosexual man that's saying that same-sex sexual activity is unrighteous. That's all he said.

We played the clip. That's all he said. As a result, people are gone, that guy probably has mental health issues. Now, let me just remind us, until 1973 in the official DSM manual in the United States, homosexual orientation, same-sex sexual orientation, was classified until 1973 as a mental health disorder. In 1973, they changed it, they changed the name of it to, they reclassified. as quote unquote sexual orientation disturbance. It stayed in the DSM as a form of mental health disorder until it's removed entirely from activist pressure in 1987. Now man, can I just point this out like this the Christian heterosexual man that's saying that man, that's unrighteous. That's the guy that everybody wants to call the mental health issue. When until like five minutes ago in human history, what we understood is, man, actually something's

wrong if somebody's attracted to the same sex. And I'll just want like, man, obviously all of us as disciples of Jesus Christ, friend of sinners, when somebody struggles with same-sex attraction, my goodness, mercy, compassion, love, love that person, want to help disciple them just like everybody else out of any issue that they face. But very frankly, if a dude is sexually attracted to another dude, yes, there is something wrong. If a chick is attracted to other girls, yes, something is wrong. So we have the mental health issues flipped. Why? Because what demonic false prophets always do, according to the book of Isaiah, woe to you who begin to call good evil and evil good. That's always what happens. Amen. Now, all right, keep going. Check this out. Because Jade and Ivy also has to

understand that not everything that's legal is going to be biblical. Render to Caesar, what is Caesar's. What's he even talking about? Also have to understand, you have to be wise discerning. Pause, pause, hold on. So on the render to Caesar what is Caesar, I just want to point this out. First of all, he didn't say anything about legality. He just called it a righteous, like, hey man, I don't like as a Christian being forced to participate in pride celebrations. That's all I said. The other thing I want to say, and man, if Emmanuel watches this, first of all, dude, I love most of your stuff. So like, please don't take this. It's like, I mean, I just think you missed it here as a brother. And I think it's important because you're hurting the convictions and the courage of Christians who are

watching you. That's why I'm saying this. What I want to point out is he's bringing up the renter to Caesar, what is Caesar's and renter to God, what's God's? Well, hey, bro, guess what the point of that whole parable, that whole little saying is? Jesus does that whole thing where it's like, hey, whose likeness and inscription is on the coin? Caesar's. And then Jesus does the, hey, well, then render under Caesar what's Caesar's, and render under God's what's gods. And everyone around him knew, well, man, remember from the book of Genesis, guess whose likeness and inscription is on you and you and you and you and Caesar? You're created in God's likeness and God's image. The whole purpose of that thing

is not, well, we just let Caesar do and enforce evil. And because Caesar says it, we just let him do thing we stay over here. The whole purpose of that little statement of Jesus is Caesar belongs to God. And Caesar should not be enforcing anything as good that God calls evil. All right, let's keep going. Now right here, back up to 130 because he actually makes an important point here. Yeah. Also have to understand, you have to be wise, discerning, and tactful as to how you speak and when you speak and who you speak to. True. Jay and Ivy, if you want to quote Paul and Corinthians, Paul wrote what he wrote to the church in Corinth. He didn't necessarily write what he wrote to the church in Ephesus or the church in Galatia. And the same manner, J. Naid, you've got to use

discernment of when you speak and who you're speaking to. If your job and your goal is to emulate Jesus, also understand. Pause. So first of all, let me just say true. Yeah. It actually is true. Yes. That as Christians, you don't just walk in every building, just start spouting every conviction you have that's necessarily offensive. He's right. You do need to have tack there. Now, let me ask you guys real quick, thoughts for biblical principles for Christians that are listening, well, how do I know when I do speak about my convictions in a public setting? And when do I not? You guys got any, what guiding principles you got here? Yeah, first of all, you have to be mindful that, you know, people will say today, well, hey, Josh, you're a Christian, you shouldn't impose your

views in other people. But when somebody says that to you, you need to understand that those people saying that, they don't realize that by saying that you are literally imposing your view on other people as well. Like, you're doing the very same thing that you're complaining about. So that's one, just be mindful. The question is not whether we will impose views in other people. The question is whose views will be imposed on other people. Man, first Peter 315 says, but in your heart's revere Christ's Lord, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who ask you to give the reason for the hope that you have. In other words, be ready when somebody says, hey, you're a Christian, why do you believe LGBTQ pride celebration is unrighteous? Bible literally commands us to be

prepared to respond, but then the key word is right after that it says, but when you do it, do it with gentleness and respect. And so I think when Christians share truth, we do it with conviction, but we also do it with compassion. And so we want to be bold. And at the same time, we want to have a heart that is brokenhearted for the people that are. are lost. And so we're sinners saved by grace. And so when we share other people, what is true ultimately is to point him to the person who said, I am the truth. That's ultimately to point people to Jesus. We want to win souls, not just arguments. That's right, man. Yeah, at one point, Jesus said, Behold, I'm sending you out as sheep amongst wolves. So, but then he literally then connects

that to, so therefore be as shrewd as a serpent and as innocent as a dove. So on your conduct, be innocent. But then there is this idea of, hey, I'm sending you out as sheep amongst wolves. You've got to be shrewd. be wise. You've got to be almost like cunning in how you're behaving. And so even like there's this temptation for Christians. I'm like, I'm going to take a stand and go out in a blaze of glory. And sometimes you might be called to do that. But it's noteworthy that in the first two or three hundred centuries while Christianity was so very much persecuted. That's not what Christians did. They didn't just go out and in front of the marketplace. Say, I am a Christian. Kill me now. No. They at some points had to be willing to take a stand for their faith when it was necessary, but they didn't necessarily go

looking for a fight. And so I think that's just one thing, because I've had friends in the marketplace when I was up in Washington, had a friend that was in a company that they said they were going to put their preferred pronouns on their emails. And then you had to say, I opt out if you didn't want it. So you had to basically step forward, and he struggled with that. And so on the one hand, because he was very much, because he knew he was going to put a mark on his back. Because, yeah, because we had a bunch. And they were. people going for his position and he knew that they could potentially use this to leverage to get him out to get his position. Oh, yeah. And so it's hard because he's a faith. He was a faithful brother. And there were places where he had to take some stands. But he was also still trying to be shrewd so that he could be a light in that workplace. And he knew that this could be a thing. And so hard thing is every situation is so different. By the way, this is why for those who are listening from not here, being in a local church is so crucial because every situation is so complicated. This is why you need good local pastors and elders who.

can go get counsel from. People who can listen to you know your situation. But it's just an example where he didn't go looking for fights everywhere, but then occasionally he had to take a stand. So like with that being said, you know, maybe Jaden Ivy was unwise just to throw this out there when no one was asking him the question. I'll just go to say that's actually not what we're frustrated about. I think I'm correct to say what we're frustrated about is the double standard of a lot of what's taking place here. That it's not right in every direction. And even as I brought up to you guys when you were texting back and forth about this is that the Chicago Bulls let him go because of this.

And yet they didn't say anything when the NBA renewed their contract with United Arab Emirates for $300 million, where by the way, they don't just consider it unrighteous to practice same-sex acts. They consider it illegal to practice same-sex acts. Let's pause and just say this more time. The NBA just entered into a contract with a nation where it is illegal to practice any form of homosexuality. Yeah. And when this happened. But then J. I saw so many NBA plays.

players and teams and people to say, no, you can't do this. This is so terrible. No, no, they didn't. So I think all that being said in that wrap up is that's, I think, part of a lot of what we're frustrated at is like, hey, if you're going to do something, be consistent in it. But I say just to Christians to say, hey, there might be some places where honestly you might need to practice some discretion about where you do that. But then if it is forced upon you, you need to be willing to take the heat, just like Daniel

was when it came time. Yeah, man. So, like, I think the principle, so two things I would say is obviously as a Christian, what you don't do is you don't lead in your relationships with whatever is the thing that's like the whatever's going to be the most offensive thing. So here's the here's the example I have. So in 1st Corinthians 5, this is a really important guiding verse here. In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul's got that deal where there's the dude that sleeping with a stepmom and they have to, they have to practice church discipline on the guy and kick him out of the church because he's

unrepentant, severe sexual degradation. Now, listen to what Paul said. here. So 1 Corinthians 5.9, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, but then he's got to make a qualifier. And here's his qualifier. Verse 10, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world since then you would need to go out of the world. So essentially he's gone, hey bro, welcome to life in Rome. You're not going to meet, essentially he's gone, you're not going to meet like a chaste heterosexual monogamous dude in Rome. So he's gone, man, obviously I'm not telling you to avoid anybody that's like that. So then he qualifies. He says, but now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother.

So a Christian, if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, swindler, and he's saying like people who are, they're reveling in the sin. It's totally unrepentant. They're actually promoting it as a fine and positive thing. He's saying, don't even eat with such a one. And then this is what, what's important, verse 12, for what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Okay. So what I would say is, hey man, when you're talking to lost people, they're going to be lost people. Don't be surprised about them being lost people. Whenever I talk to somebody like on a plane or whatever, I talked to a guy in the

airport this week and I'm having faith conversations, if anything about sexuality comes up, I'll be honest, usually what I do, and somebody may yell at me and tell me I'm a wrong. But here's what I do is I'm trying to get the first thing first because once they get the Lordship of Jesus, everything else is going to fall into line. You don't start with second things first. So what I usually do is if they ask me about anything sexuality, I say, hey man, actually I'll answer any question you want, any question I want. But honestly, dude, here's what I'd encourage you to do is just figure out where you are on Jesus and then try to figure out what he says about everything else. That's great.

But really, first, just figure out the first thing first, or you're going to get confused by all the second things. I would just focus on what you think about, did Jesus rise from the dead? And once you figure that out, then you can figure out what he says about everything else. That's great. Now, I do always toss in, I'll answer any question you want,

but I'll be super honest. I try to madador them and just let, because I just want to talk about Jesus. Yeah. You know? Now, the one thing I would say to Acho over here is like, when's, if you're going, when is the spot where I do say something,

I actually think what Ivy did was a strategic and courageous thing because the principle that I've got, I'm going to go back to Daniel. When someone is asking you to violate your convictions as a Christian, that's when you say something. And very frankly, will you toss up that picture of the Bulls last June? Yeah, I mean, there you go. There you go. There you go.

That's the Bulls Stadium last June. And on every single player's jersey, they asked them to wear as a promotion of something that no Christian can support. They asked them to wear the jersey. So the Bulls are, as people are like, oh, why did Jaden Ivy bring a fight to the Bulls? Jaden Ivy didn't bring a fight to the Bulls. The Bulls brought the fight to Jaden Ivy. and essentially tried to go, bow down, son.

Seems like they're trying to impose their religion on other people as well. That's it. So think about, here's what I'll say, and then we'll finish it up. We'll finish up this otcho thing, and we're going to be done. Notice what Daniel does.

If you go back and read Daniel 1, 2, and 3, so Daniel, he gets captured by this pagan Babylonian empire. They bring him in. They tell him where he's going to live. They tell him what school he's going to go to. They literally castrate him. And then they start teaching him all their pagan stuff.

But then there comes a moment where they start telling him what he's got to eat. And they try to make him eat stuff that was in violation of the Old Testament commands on cleanliness laws. And that's where Daniel goes, sorry, I got a line. Yeah. And here's my line. I'll live in your nation. I'll go to your school. I even just let you castrate me

and I'll study your books. But I will not let you make me sin. And that's where a Christian has to decide. Yep, that's where my line is. That's where my line is. Okay. Let's just finish her up here. When Jesus saw the woman who had committed adultery,

he said, go and sin no more. He didn't then try to extrapolate every single sin and every single man she has slept with adulterously. Period. Pause, pause. That's not what Jay and Ivy did. I just want to say that's not what Jay and Ivy did. He didn't do that.

Keep going. So I will just start by saying, one, understand there's a difference between legal and biblical. Two, Jada and Ivy, make sure you tend to your mental and emotional health. If indeed, there is anything going on because you have been very vulnerable about your struggles previously. And then three, render to Caesar what is Caesar's and render to God what's God. That's biblical if you want to talk to. Yeah, I'll just say this. Pull up that meme.

that is what just happened. Let's go back to Daniel. Everybody needs to bow down to this idol, and if you don't bow down, you're going to lose your job. And what it took is one guy going, sorry, no. And then, you know, if somebody's a professional athlete, somebody's in the league, somebody's doing this stuff, the courage of one man, what it ought to do

is put courage in the hearts of other men. And I'm not telling anybody how they need to handle stuff, you know, like Paul said, why is this serpents innocent as doves? But let the faith and courage of one guy spread. And I just want to say, good job, Jaden Ivy. Amen. You must obey God rather than men. And I want to encourage Jaden Ivy with Matthew 1023.

Jesus said, if you confess me before men, I also will confess to you before my father who is in heaven. Well done, brother. Yeah. Pastor Josh, would you pray for us? Amen. First of all, Father, we love you and we love people who don't know you coming and know you. So, Father, I just, I pray for a lost and dying world

that you would give all of us the heart of Jesus Christ who is a friend of sinners who died for sinners. So, Father, more than anything else, would you just give us a heart to seek and to save those who are lost, no matter the background, no matter the sin, of the ideology. That's what I pray. I also pray that you would strengthen the courage, the hearts, and the resolve of Christians. Just like your word says, to be strong, stand firm, be strong, act like men, let all that you do be done in love. I pray that for that man and for men and

women of the word all over the world. And Father, I pray especially on this Easter week that you would harvest a mass in gathering into your kingdom and that hundreds of thousands and millions of people would meet the risen Jesus Christ this Easter as we're all celebrating. I pray that in his resurrected name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Live free, brother. Live free. Thank you.