The Exorcist Files - Guardian Angels, Demonic Tactics and Turning The Other Cheek- With Fr. Martins

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Fr. Martins answers questions on Demonic Tactics, Guardian Angels and so much more. Thank you to our sponsors!Truthly.ai- the Catholic AI app. Download today in the Apple app store or on Android. Graza.co- Get the olive oil you need for the holiday season. Use our promo code EXFILES for 10% offSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is the demon having to battle me and the forces of heaven while also holding on control of the person? The answer to that is, yeah, he has to do that. Then he says, or is the person constantly coming in and out of consciousness, and the demon has to fight that off too? Yes, at least, potentially for that. It depends on the hold because possessions themselves, it's a sliding scale, depends on many factors. The demon himself.

What power does he possess in his nature? What kind of rights does he possess on this victim? What else is going on in this victim that will interfere with or aid him in the possession? Welcome back to The Exorcist Files. A special Q&A today with Ryan Bethay and, of course, the Padre with the Guardian Angel Cadre, Father Martins. Father Martins, thanks for being here. Hey, you're welcome. Good to be here with you, Ryan.

Well, what do you say? We get to some questions from the listeners. We just have so many, and every now and then we just got to give the fans what they want, right? Yeah, sure. Okay. Well, why do we just dive right in? Father, we have a question that came in. In exorcisms, when the demons are manifesting, are they having to battle you and the forces of heaven while trying to hold on to control of their person or victim? Or is the person constantly coming in out of consciousness and the demon is actually fighting that person off too? Or is it the opposite? The demon actually wants to go back in and hide and they're being pulled out, so to speak.

Any thoughts? Appreciate it. Yes. All of the above and it really depends. To properly frame this question, there's different distinct things going on in there. But demonic possession, demonic affliction, oppression, demonic addiction, and so forth. like all of those things are just different types of words for one word, which is relationship. So when somebody is demonically possessed, it means that individual's relationship with the devil has reached a level that the devil can control them from within and control the body as if that body were his own and make them do things that they would ordinarily never, ever do. But more than that, control them in such a way internally that they can suppress their consciousness,

such that they have no conscious experience during a possession. So they're unconscious until the devil decides he wants to possess again. Now, with that in mind, let's go back to the parts of these questions, right? So you said, you know, is the demon having to battle me and the forces of heaven while also holding on control of the person? The answer to that is, yeah, he has to do that. Then he says, or is the person constantly coming in and out of consciousness and the demon has to fight that off too? Yes, at least, potentially for that. It depends on the hold because possessions themselves, it's a sliding scale, depends on,

many factors. The demon himself. What power does he possess in his nature? What kind of rights does he possess on this victim? What else is going on in this victim that will interfere with or aid him in the possession? Her or his relationship with God, for example, the structure and organism, the makeup of the individual, the type of strengths that there exist, say, at the level of will, at the level of intellect, a kind of desire to fight, let's say, or lack thereof, all of this factors in. This is why no two possessions are the same. So the demon may, and at times does when it's expedient to him, suddenly cease possessing,

say even in the midst of an exorcism, in order to bring the person back so that the person views something that is damaging. So I'll give you an example. This didn't actually happen with me, but I was there for this. And this particular victim was heavily, heavily abused when she was young. And so part of the things that she was made to do by her family was physically hurt other children and hurt them really badly. And then they were. would actually turn on her, and when it was expedient, blame her for doing the very things that they got her to do. So what he does in this case is suddenly attack the priest physically in some way, is able to get an arm free and all of a sudden here comes a knuckle sandwich at the priest,

splits his lip open, all of a sudden he leaves and jostles her back, and all of a sudden she sees that the exorcist, the guy that's helping her, whom she esteems and admires and even venerates because he has been through the possession, through thick and thin, and it had lasted over a couple years at this point, she sees that she's hurt him. So she feels distraught over that. And the devil then begins a torment of this is what you did to him. If you had just left him alone, let him go on with his life. This wouldn't happen to him. But this is your fault. You have done this to him. So that is just one demonic technique that a demon sprung up upon both the victim and the exorcist in order to attempt to gain an advantage. So there really isn't a

straightforward answer to these series of questions in this contribution by a listener. It just really depends. So when you walk into a case, a great big part of the initializing of that case by the exorcist, at least in my experience, at least the way I do business, is I want to learn about this devil. I want to learn about what's his personality like? What is he after? How was he constructed, so to speak? How did he come to develop his relationship with the victim? And that's going to tell me a lot about his nature. And it's also going to tell me about the victim himself or herself. Now, Father, we did have a question come in about a really cool saint story that you may not have shared in season one. And unfortunately, that can't be shared because we have saved that

for an upcoming dramatic case episode. But Father, I know you are a big fan of sort of the lesser-known saints, the saints that get relegated to the B team and PR. Is there one you might recommend the fans go look up and maybe acquaint themselves with? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's a million them, but I'll tell you one in particular, just one that I find absolutely delightful, and that is St. Benedict, Joseph, Labre, L-A-B-R-E, not Labre. There's no accent on the E. So it's Labre, L-A-B-R-E. So he died, a very young man. He had, frankly, in a word, mental illness, slight mental illness. I mean, enough that kept him from doing the one thing that he wanted the most, and that to become a priest. And he joined seminary or at least attempted to three times. And they rejected him

because he was eccentric. And it was clear that he didn't totally own himself. He didn't totally own his mind, at least socially in a social context. He was unusual and weird. But my God, did he ever have a burning love of God? And he spent his life living in poverty, traveling from shrunk. to shrine throughout Europe, simply devoted to God. Kids would throw rocks at him. He would sleep in cemeteries because that was the only place where he could find lodging until he got to Rome at the end of his life. And he died in his 30s. He died a young man. And he was so devoted to the blessed mother. He would make an active devotion to her for having been the means by which the Savior came to the world every day. He made this act of devotion to her. And he died in a church in Rome, Santa Maria

I Monte. Santa Maria Aimonte. His tomb there has the most marvelous marble sarcophagus over it that I have ever seen. It's more regal than any popes that I've ever seen. Because when he died, there were more documented miracles than any other saint in the church's history. So this is a nobody had just a mountainous presence of God within him. So St. Benedict Joseph Labr. Go read about him. He was absolutely positively amazing. All right. Father, well, here's an interesting one. Do you think there have ever been any popes who were demonized throughout history? And maybe I'll have been add, do you think there have ever been popes that were possessed? Yes, there were. So I'm thinking of St. Peter the Apostle.

he was absolutely at least partially possessed of the 12 apostles he is the one where we have the richest character sketch in scripture and you know in terms of the possession what we see is that there is a particular demonic hold on him that emerges and that hold was manipulated at different times by the devil it's all grounded in his wounds right so peter is a guy that needs to be in charge, right? He hates to not be in control. Right. So in Matthew chapter 16, verse 18, Christ appoints him as the rock upon whom he's going to build his church. Well, just four verses later, he's telling Jesus what to do. Jesus makes his first prediction of his impending death. And Peter rebukes the Lord and say, hey, you know, don't ever talk like that again.

Like, I'm not going to have any of that. And, of course, it prompts the famous response from the Lord, get behind me, Satan. You're thinking not as God does, but as man does. Then you have that famous passage from Luke, towards the end of Luke chapter 22, where the Lord, on the night of his passion, says, Simon, Satan has asked for all of you to sift you all like we. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. and when you have turned, strengthen your brethren.

Now, obviously, Jesus is saying this not to scare Peter. He's saying it to him in order to give him strength. But it has the exact opposite effect. Like Peter begins falling apart. Like he gives the Lord a fake answer. Lord, I'm ready to go with you, even to prison and to death. And then, of course, there's the prediction. Before the rooster crows, you will have denied me three times.

So the fact that the devil has specifically asked for Peter by name just frightens the heck out of him. So along with loss of control, the demonic frightens Peter a lot. And you see that when he begins walking on the water. In the Jewish mindset of the day, when the waters were stirred, what they believed was that that was caused by demons. Storms were caused by demons. So when all of a sudden the Lord comes walking along the water and showing the power he has over water, they're viewing that within their cosmology. Like he has power over the demons.

When he tells the storm, peace be still and it obeys, he's showing a demonic power. He's showing a power over the demons. So when Peter goes out and walks on the water, like extend the same power to me. I don't have to be scared anymore. So he goes on the water. and then what happens? He begins to lose faith in God. He just becomes aware of the power of the devil manifested through the water and he begins to sink. So the problem is not that he doesn't know how to swim. We know he knows how to swim in John chapter 20. When they catch a fish during the scene of the fish

barbecue, the first resurrection appearance of the Lord to his apostles on the sea of Galilee, well, Peter swims to the shore. So we know he knows how to swim. So what's the problem? The problem is his fear of the demonic. And the third great big fear that he has is a fear of death. Whenever death comes up as a topic, keep reading, Peter is about to have a meltdown. He can't handle death. So what brought the healing to Peter? It was not the passion, death, a resurrection of Jesus. it was not after the resurrection on that shore during the fish barbecue where he swims to the shore and Christ recommissions him and forgives him for having denied him and so forth. That's not when it happens. It happened at Pentecost. When he received the Holy Spirit, that was an exorcism for Peter.

So was he demonically possessed? He was partially possessed. There were parts of himself that Peter did not own. The devil owned them. But that was expelled during that. So what's the proof of it? Well, he receives the Holy Spirit. He goes out and he preaches his famous sermon that 3,000 people convert

and it's all about those things that to this point terrified him. Loss of control, death and the devil. His sermon is all about that. And so he, for the first, first time you have Peter bellowing like a champion. You have Peter just all 10 gauges of his shotgun are firing. Boom. And, you know, there's the liberation that the Holy Spirit accomplished. Father, and I'm sure there's no official teaching on that, but if I pulled potentially, you know,

a couple dozen priests, do you think many would hold this position or is this kind of a fun, you know, alternative theory with Peter? Is this something that's discussed? No, this is something that I've observed. Certainly, I mean, I've talked to other theologians and so forth about this. I think it's just clear within Scripture, but it's not received teaching, so to speak. But I think you extract it from what's given in Scripture. Otherwise, you have to explain, you have to explain why Peter behaves the way he does. It's all about his wounds.

His wounds are healed at Pentecost, or at least the slavery to his wounds. Those wounds were the attractive thing to the devil, the handles, by which the devil was able to grab a hold of Peter and manipulate him. Amen. Father Martin's here. I want to do a quick plug for one of the most powerful tools I've seen for breaking free and growing closer to Christ. Exodus 90

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God bless you. All right. This is a good one, and something that we have touched on in previous episodes. But, Father, walk us through your process again when it comes to exorcism. In many of the episodes, demons seem to speak,

and in the case files, you let them talk for a brief moment. This is where we hear all the profanity and all their insults towards you, and then you tell them to be quiet. I have heard other exorcists, quote, bind them and say, don't speak and try to prevent them from doing anything. Why can't we just tell them to be quiet and don't do anything? Can an exorcist not just say, be quiet and don't speak

until spoken to? I think of you scolding them like misbehaving toddlers. I just love a little clarity in all this. Big fan from New York. Okay. Again, a multifaceted answer is necessary for here. Okay. So look, you can go there and exercise your authority as much as you want, telling them to be silent, and they may obey, they may not obey. And what determines the obedience on the part of the devil? Well, ultimately God. It's what God desires. But he may not desire for the demon to be silent.

And I'll tell you this, I usually don't. I don't want him to be silent. I mean, I want him to shut up when I tell him to shut up, but initially I want him to talk, and I give him a certain amount of room to maneuver because I want to see what I'm up against. Who is he? What is he about?

What has he got to say? What can I extract from him? Because I've got to develop in my own mind a kind of character sketch about him. And in doing so, the information that I am able to obtain, which is always provisional, because they're Academy Award winning actors. And they will try to get you to form a certain notion of them, form a certain belief. that, gosh, often will be false. And so if you're looking for a purple rabbit and they come along as a pink fish, well, you're conscious, they might be able to slip past you because you're looking for the wrong thing.

You may not be able to see the obvious in front of you because they've managed to camouflage it. So I give them room to March, limited, but those manifestations that they exhibit during that room, when I give them that room, gives me a lot of information. It exposes me to his personality, or at least an aspect of his personality, which will reveal to me a lot about his goals, what he's about, his methods, and in general, what makes him tick. And that information itself will indirectly give me crucial information, or at least hunches about how he came to ensnare this victim. which the victim himself or herself may have a certain notion about that or at least can describe certain happenings that, you know, leads the team to believe that a certain thing has happened

here, a certain event, or it's due to certain causes. But acting, interacting with the demon might give me a completely different picture. And so it's important. So I want to be able to extract as much information as I can about the demons. So I give him a certain amount of room to operate. All right. So Father Protestant here, in short, what do you think Luther got right and where did he go wrong? I've heard the church did accept many of his reforms. Is that true? Yeah. The church did acknowledge that there are things that Luther said that were correct. So namely, for example, his critique of abuses. So there were abuses. So there were abuses. is done by churchmen, and Luther was genuinely concerned about people's salvation. He criticized

those abuses as standing in the way of salvation. So he was right about that. He was right to emphasize grace and faith as the means of our salvation, that grace and salvation are, in fact, free gifts. At the same time, there's more to the picture than only that, but Luther was right in the sense that one cannot ever manufacture those or earn those, that they are free gifts, ultimately by God. Luther was correct in emphasizing the prominence of Scripture. All right. So the Word of God is not present only in Scripture. This is the Catholic and Orthodox view. The Word of God is also present in sacred tradition. So the Word of God has one source, God, but two fonts, the font of Scripture and the font of sacred tradition.

He was right to emphasize one's personal relationship with God, to have more than just a relationship with God's church, but a relationship with God himself. Okay. But where was there an excess in Luther? Where did he go wrong? Well, the teaching of Soliscriptura, right, which is itself extra scriptural. is nowhere found in scripture. So that was a conjecture that Luther came up with, which is an erroneous conjecture. The concept of Solafide, justification by faith alone. So yes, we're saved by faith,

but we can dispose ourselves to the gift of faith. So there is a process of cooperating with God in order to dispose ourselves to the faith that he freely gives. And by extension, we can freely reject it, too. His rejection of the sacraments was absolutely wrong. The seven sacraments are these seven ways Jesus Christ left to heal the world. They are his last will and testament, so to speak, the inheritance that he left by which to transform us by his presence. So his rejection of them, well, I mean, he retained two, baptism in the Eucharist, but he denied the sacramental nature, which for 1500 years was believed in by every Christian, for example, in the Sacrament of Confession, Sacrament of Marriage.

It was just wrong on that. The denial of papal authority, right? So again, you know, if Christ promised the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth and Christ promises he will guide us to all truth, whatever was held by every Christian worldwide for 1,500 years, right, those tenants to deny them to all of us say, hey, we've just had an insight here that one of those that we've held from the beginning as fundamental to the faith is wrong. That can't be of God because otherwise Jesus was a liar, that he either didn't give us the

spirit of truth or that the spirit of truth does not have the power that Christ proclaims that he does. And of course, you know, Luther also, he caused division. I mean, there were just inconsistencies within him. So, for example, when his mother was dying, well, he made sure to send a Catholic priest to tend to her. That Catholic priest gave her the sacraments as she was dying. Luther himself prayed his rosary until the day he died, and he thought it was horrible that people were tearing apart their rosaries. So he had a great devotion to the mother of God. And, you know, based on one of the writings that he published, gosh, the name of which escapes me at the moment, but he ordered men to be free, to not be enslaved by anyone. And so he meant this in a religious

context, but he published it the way, more or less the way that I said it. And this was picked up by the serfs in Germany. There were 300,000 serfs at that time. A surf is an indentured employee. So in other words, the equivalent of a slave. And they threw off the shackles of their serfdom and started walking across Germany, quote unquote, enjoying their newfound freedom. Well, Luther had ordered them attacked, you know, for this. So there's an inconsistency within his teaching. So look, Luther, bottom line, he differed in the Catholic viewpoint by throwing off the what we call the theological anthropology of the church. The church's teaching is that we are essentially good beings, having been created good by God, but we are damaged. went because of the fall. And Luther took a much more radical view that we are as close to pure evil as you can get.

So out of this, there's no effort on your part that can redeem you. It is just pure, simple gift by Christ. So that was the radical changing that he did is that theological anthropology, the substratum that he believed existed within the human being or as the human being, he's greatly at odds with the church in that. We believe that we remain essentially good, although damaged goods. All right, Father, new Catholic here.

I'm a little nervous about talking to my guardian angel. It feels strange coming from a Baptist background. Any advice? I still can't help but feel I'm cheating on Jesus a little bit. Thank you. Yeah. So, well, look, I commend that you're tackling this. I commend the fact that you're pressing into this.

But, you know, remember, if Christ gives you a gift, he wants you to open it. He wants you to accept that gift. And if he gives you a gift, then that gift is not going to take anything away from him, but in fact is going to enrich his relationship with you even more. So it's awkward to you because you're not used to it. Hey, I get it. but it is part of our faith that we have a guardian angel, that the guardian angel is there to protect you, that your guardian angel is one of the good guys. Your guardian angel belongs on God's

team and there is no way that he can change teams, right? So that the definitive choice on his part was made and it was made correctly. So he's there for your benefit. And that relationship is there, whether you acknowledge it or not, but it is helpful and just and good that you live out that relationship. And how do you do that? Well, a simple acknowledgement, pray to your garden angel to ask for his assistance to thank him. I mean, it's a thankless job to be somebody's guardian angel. It's a thankless job. So that begins to put some justice in that relationship. And is he going to respond back to you? Nope. But that doesn't matter. The fact that you're doing a just action is itself its own reward. Is itself its own justification for doing it? Because it's proper, it's true, and it's just.

All right, Father, what is the Catholic understanding of turn the other cheek? I've heard, of course, that violence can at times be justified. I can't imagine turning the other cheek to allow my family to be assaulted, for example, and I'm sure the church wouldn't agree with that. But also, I feel many ways our society does not do a good job of this, any thoughts? And when Jesus has turned the other cheek, what do you think that implies generally? Okay. So that's a really good question. So first of all, look, scripture has genres. It has styles of speech and teaching and, well, communication that accomplish a certain point. For example, in the book of Job, it begins with, like, in the land of ooze that lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright. He feared God and Shundee.

Well, Uze was not a physical place. There's no city in the ancient world or no territory nor land that had the name of Uz. And, you know, he had seven sons and three daughters and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 dogs. So let me put this into context the way that we would tell this story, the same story of Job, in a land far away named Ouse, there lived a man who was so awesome. His name was Job. He was blameless and upright in every way. What does it sound like I'm doing? It sounds like I'm telling a fable, right? And that's exactly what it is. The book of Job is a fable. Did Job exist historically? No. No. You can tell that from the elements of the story and the way that the story is arrived at.

Now, it's part of the deposit of faith because there's certain truths, divine truths, that God is using that story to communicate. But not the entire Bible is not historical. It doesn't have to be. Certainly, when Jesus told parables, those are teaching tools. They are not historical things. There are simple teaching tools. And, you know, why can't the same be said of Job?

Well, because that's exactly what it is. So now, with that in mind, let's go back up and look at this teaching of Jesus. So one of the tools to extract proper meaning from Scripture is to examine and investigate, how would the people of the time have understood this teaching? So Jesus is a Jew teaching teaching other Jews in the land of Jews about Jewish themes. So in order to extract the proper meaning of scripture, we have to know how would a Jew have interpreted Jesus' teaching? So the slap in Jewish's time was given as an insult. And it always denoted when you talk about a slap as a backhanded slap that would be given on a cheek. And that was a way to insult somebody because they were either foolish or offensive or what have you.

So what Jesus is talking about is be willing to accept an insult and don't resist that insult because your worth doesn't come from the dignity that you've built up on earth or that society bestows on you. So if somebody comes along and decides to take away your dignity by giving you a slap, hey, put up with it. Love your enemy. Turn the other cheek and be willing to give back. what society has given you regardless, this position of dignity or this bestowal of dignity, because your real dignity comes from God, not from those around you.

So in other words, this slap was considered an insult or humiliation, not an act of physical harm. So he's addressing personal offenses and insults, not violence. Of course, if somebody is being violent towards you or to fan. family members, we are meant not to just sit there as a doormat and take it. In fact, it would be cruel to the offender to not point out his sin, which we're told to do by Christ himself. When your brother offends you, point it out. Alert him. He never once says be a door mat. And in fact, it is absolutely unchristian to allow somebody to sin unhindered and to not try to stop them. Right. So if somebody is intent on causing you or somebody you love or anybody for that matter physical harm your job as a christian

is to try to prevent that from happening and if you can't prevent it then remove yourself or the person in question from being a target so turn the other cheek is does not refer to violence it refers to being ready to submit to insult or humiliation by someone so that you give room give space for the dignity that Christ has given you to shine through. And it teaches not only you through the humiliation, but it teaches the one who does the slapping that your worth, your value comes from God and not from him or from society as a whole.

All right. We've got two more. We can get you on your way. This is a weird one. In Jude, we hear of Moses's body being disputed over by Michael and Lucifer. Does the church have an official position on what that refers to, or is that something that theologians get to have a cigar and a whiskey and debate into the endless hours of the night?

Yeah, so the church does not have an official teaching on that. So there's a lot of mystery to that. But the fact that there's mystery doesn't mean that there's not available meanings. So we're talking about the passage in question is from verse 9 of the letter of Jude. and, you know, Jude's letter only is very short. It's all but a page. And the text alludes to an ancient Jewish tradition that is found in extra biblical work known as the assumption of Moses, or ascension of Moses, if you will. It's referred to by both names. So it's a work that circulated within some circles of Israel around the time of Christ,

but it's a work that it's lost today. We just have little bits and snippets here and there. But guess what? It makes a cameo appearance in the letter of St. Jude. And so in that tradition, Michael is portrayed as protecting the body of Moses after his death. And the devil, on the other hand, claims rights over the body and is asserting that because Moses was human and sinful, he belonged to death and corruption, or at least that's one of the obvious meanings out of it. But there could be something even deeper, and that is pointing to something

close to my heart, the veneration of relics, which it says that God hid the body of Moses and the devil wanted to lay claim to it. Why? Well, possibly because, and this is a conjecture, but the context leaves us open to this meeting, that the devil would use his body, if the Jews knew where the body was, to try to produce and evoke an idolatry on their part. Because this is the guy to whom the law was given, that he would become something larger than life, and that tomb then would become something that God did not intend. That's one possible meaning. But it's certainly the fact that God didn't want the body known at all, it has to be because it is better than if the Jews knew where it was. So the church doesn't have an official teaching on this,

but it certainly recognizes this as part of the canon of Scripture. Different theologians have had different interpretations of the meaning through the centuries, but one thing that bottom line we can be certain about that is being taught by this has less to do with Moses's body than divine authority, which even angels respect and the proper way to oppose evil, which Michael does here, is not through pride or accusation or even trying to, in a sense, bully evil, but by appealing to God's power, which is exactly what Michael does. May the Lord rebuke you. He doesn't take on the fight and make it his own.

because he hasn't been given those orders by God. He keeps God as God and knows his proper place. If the Lord all of a sudden said to Michael, go and rebuke him, well, what do you think Michael's going to do? He's going to open up a can of whoop-ass. But God didn't say that. He didn't do that. And so out of this lesson, which is less about the body of Moses,

which everybody gets hung up on that, which I grant it, it's interesting, right? like it's weird, it's fascinating. But the theological and spiritual lesson here is to defer to God and wait on him and act only when he directs it and how he directs that. All right. Last one here. All right. Father, in the book of Acts, chapter 16, verse 6, there is a reference to the Holy Spirit,

quote, forbidding Paul and Silas to go somewhere. Does that mean conviction or what's going on or does that mean we can trust that God will just reroute us, but it's an interesting word choice. We know we also hear Paul at various points say, I long to come to you, but was prevented. But the language here of the Holy Spirit forbidding Paul to go somewhere seems interesting. So maybe some thoughts on that as we go about our lives and ask for guidance. Yeah, certainly. So when I look at that, what I see is Paul is expressing the fact that he had an idea to go do something. And that idea seemed to him to be the best course of affairs, the best thing to do. And God intervened and said, no, you know what? I know

that's what you think or that's what you want to do, I have different plans. So I don't want you to do that. I forbid you, although it may seem to be the most logical, the most like, gosh, the most absolutely obvious thing that ought to be done. But the Lord intervened and said, no, I want you to do something else. And so what does it tell us? Well, a number of things. First of all, God will communicate to us when he wants. Right. God is perfectly capable of communicating. and that if we are sensitive to God, then we'll hear him. Look at Joseph. When Mary pulled on him the great surprise, which, by the way, Joseph, I am pregnant,

but don't worry, this baby is from God. It's not from any man. Right? And so, of course, like imagine how that's going to hit him. Well, he decides to divorce her quietly. But then in the night, God comes to him in a dream and says, hey, don't be afraid to take her as his wife, because this child is from me? Well, Joseph is so attentive to the word.

Joseph is so sensitive to divine things that he's able to recognize a message from God in a dream from all the other crap that can come at us in our dreams. Right? He is so sensitive, he has cultivated that sensitivity. He has come to a point in his life. life where he can identify the divine word from garbage and not only be able to identify it but have the courage to go forward and that's what he does and so paul is here saying paul is expressing a

similar situation where hey i wanted to do x god told me nope i want you to do y paul obeyed okay love it all right well that is all the time we have four questions thank you so much for writing in. Thank you so much for listening, folks. We appreciate your support, and we will talk to you very soon. Thanks again, Father, for joining us. Okay, you're welcome. God bless, everyone.