The Hope Hotline - The Hope Hotline | S01-E03 | 01-25-23

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Question #1Pastor Tom says that you guys do not fight. How do you do that with two strong personalities?Question #2Why was Rehab blessed even though she lied?Question #3The area that I live in New York we have to “church hop” to find a church full of the fire and sound doctrine. I tithe to the River where we get fed. The church I attend nearby has closed for several reasons and shows videos. Should I attend a church with pansy Christians that love Jesus or stay home. Or just carry the fire and irritate everyone which is what I feel I do.Question #4I am struggling with my son. He has the coolest room an 8-year-old can ever dream of but at bedtime is the worst time of day for my husband and I. He has to take melatonin every night and he won’t sleep in his own room. I nursed him until he was 2 years old, I am sure that’s where the problem began. To keep up my milk supply, it was skin to skin all day long. I was never able to produce a sufficient amount of breast milk. Now he won’t sleep alone. My husband and I need our bed back and are struggling to find alone time for the important thing in a marriage (wink wink) please help!Question #5Should we read the books of the Bible that were removed like the book of Enoch?

Hello everyone, welcome to the Hope Hotline podcast. I am so glad to be with you today for an hour and we are gonna get started on our first question. So the first one is, Pastor Tom says that you guys do not fight. How do you do that with two strong personalities? Well, that is a very, very quick question because we definitely are two very strong personalities,

but we have a very biblical home. So because of that, that truly has helped us in keeping everything in its proper order. We've been married for a very long time. We've been married for 26 years, three years of dating prior to that. FYI, no hands in bad places. We lived a very biblical dating life as well so we were pure when we got married I was let's see almost 29 when we got married we started dating when I was 25 he is one year younger than me he likes to say that he's way younger than me but the truth is he is only a year and maybe a few months younger than me and he was 24 when we met so uh we were older we kind of knew what we were looking for we kind of found ourselves

um he was um I would say uh let's see I was the mature one in the relationship he was not he was like dating a high school boy when we first started and he would tell you that's true men mature far less at a slower rate than women but at any rate we didn't do a lot of fighting we like I said we got married much older so it helped us as far as like knowing what to fight over what not to fight over. In the dating time, we probably got in maybe one or two arguments. As far as true fights, he broke up with me three times, but that wasn't over fighting. That was over wanting to date other girls and then over a sandwich.

But I digress. We won't talk about those things. So in the time that we've been married, we've probably fought a total of 5 times that doesn't mean that we haven't had disagreements we have but we never like even we disagree. It's not a big deal. We usually laugh it off or we just take time to cool off a little bit and then we we come back we are very careful with our words and the reason that is is because you can't take words back and they are the life and death is held in the tongue so if you want to destroy your marriage if you want to have bigger problems then don't use your words wisely because i can guarantee you that you can destroy somebody's soul and spirit by the words that you use against them or towards them so like i said we were married when we were older it's funny because um the building that we're in no no no

the other building we were in this happened about three years ago, maybe four tops. There was a woman that we knew when we dated from our old church. We met at a church, a local church, and it was a church of God. And we met there and she watched us date for the whole entire three years. And then she actually attended our wedding and this lady I really like I think she's still alive today I like her a lot what I love about this woman is not I'll be honest with you I don't know if a lot of women do love this woman because she's kind of like me she's she always says what she thinks she's very nice she'll do anything for you for the most part,

but she's just a very straightforward personality. Well, she came and visited our church just a few years ago, and one of the things she said to us as she walked out the door is that she was surprised that Tom and I were still married. And I was like, like I thought when we got married though the birds were singing everybody thought oh my gosh like this is the best union ever like no one's more compatible than these two right now she was thinking they're probably not going to make it past a year and one of the reasons why is she said both of us and our strong personality

she's she always thought they're probably never going to make it because one of the others never going to give in will constantly fight and and argue and that will be the the ends of the whole entire thing um so she i was pretty surprised when she said it i'll be honest with you um but i could kind of see her point because uh we both are very strong personalities and if our marriage was not biblical uh then there would probably be major issues with the kinds of people that we are but because um he's it says the bible says submit to one another and both of us do submit to each other. We are both very good to each other.

And listen to each other's thoughts and opinions. Respectfully for the most part. We do it consistently. But the other thing is at the end of the day, he's the priest of the home. So if a decision has to be made, he always, always, always listens to what my opinion is. And he takes it into strong consideration. But if he does not think that's the way that we should go, and this hardly ever happens, but it does happen. If he believes that we should go in a different direction, then I submit to that authority. And then we walk out his decision together. and I do it with a joyful grateful heart not one that is a rebellious or

divisive so that's that's huge and that's one of the reasons why we don't fight but the other reason is is because we pick our battles most everything is not worth fighting over there's just not a lot in this in this life that you've chosen this person because you said outside of God, outside of the Trinity, I love this person the most on this earth. There's no one else I'd rather be with and spend the rest of my life with than this person. The thing is, is you can't pick your family. You're stuck with them for the rest of your life, whether you want it or not. That's just the facts. But you do get to choose who you're going to be married to and spend the rest of your life with.

Friends will come and go, but the person you marry, you're stuck with outside of adultery or abandonment. So pick wisely and always pray and make sure that that's the one God has for you. Just don't go based on we're in love, he's hot or she's hot. I can't wait, you know, lustful thoughts. I can't wait for the wedding night kind of thing. All of that fades away. Marry your best friend. Don't marry somebody you can't live without marry somebody you um want

to live with you know a lot of times people always like i can't live without this person all of us can live without somebody we want to have somebody that we we can't we don't want to live without um and life would not be the same without so always marry your best friend and if that's the case then you don't want to fight. You don't want to argue. It's a miserable existence. People say, oh, marriage is hard. Marriage is not hard.

It's not hard when you choose the one that God has designed you to live with. And then you die to yourself on a daily basis, and you take that person into consideration over yourself. Marriage is not hard at all it's actually quite easy um i dated tom pretty much because he was hilarious not because he was good looking because he really wasn't when i first started dating him um he was he was big he's a big dude and his eyes were squinty because his face was so heavy. And, well, so fat. And so, like, he was not attracted to me.

His hair needed help. His clothing was not good. He had no style whatsoever. But he was hilarious. So I went and I had come back to the Lord and gotten saved again because I had walked away, and I decided, you know what? I'm not going to marry this guy but he's super funny and I've dated a lot of all other types so let's go with big and funny. I never dated that before so then he lost all this weight he got hot

that doesn't mean turn down the heat just so so you know. That was a key word. Our key word for turning the heat down because it's flipping freezing where we're at right now was the word hot. I didn't mean that. He was very good looking. Then I started chasing him. It worked out in my favor. But we laugh a lot. We laugh a lot in my house. My husband is hilarious.

Then my son is like, he is very funny. My daughter, who doesn't think she's funny, that's when she's the funniest. So we laugh a lot in our house. And we take life seriously to a certain extent. We take sin seriously. But outside of that, we enjoy life and we have lots of fun. But I would tell you, pick the one or find somebody who you laugh with, who's your best friend. And you won't fight a lot. You won't want to fight. You'll look at those times as miserable and you'll run the opposite direction from them so that you have a daily life of laughter and joy. And that's huge. So that's that on that question.

Question number two. Why was Rahab blessed even though she lied? That is a excellent question. Excellent question. Let's look at Joshua. Let's look at scripture first. Let's look at Joshua chapter 2, verses 1 through 7. And I'm going to read from the American Standard so that it's a little bit easier for everybody to understand. In some cases, most of the time I'm going to stick to New King James. Every now and then i'll go to the amplified um and then something else um but it says in scripture then joshua the son of none sent two men as spies secretly from shenom um saying go view the land why i'm reading this

to you is we have a lot of people who don't even know who Rahab is so I want everybody to understand where we're at and what we're talking about before I explain the question okay so let's just let me go back so Rahab was a prostitute who helped two spies Israel's Israelite spies when they were trying they have exited out of Egypt. They've been wandering 40 years in the wilderness. And now it's time to take the promised land. Okay. So Joshua sent out two spies.

And so Rahab assisted these two spies in like spying out the land to make sure what the situation was okay so here we go then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim saying go view the land especially Jericho so they went and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and rested there now Rahab's house was on the outer side of the wall. Okay so it's not like they went inside the gates. It was easy for them to get to her because her wall or her house was on the outer wall of Jericho. But it was told to the king of Jericho saying behold men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to spy out the land. And the king of Jericho sent word to It says, It came about when it was time to shut the gate at dark that the men went out. And it says, I do not know where the men went.

Pursue them quickly for you will overtake them. So that is what she said. That's a lie because, but she had brought them up to the roof. So she brought the spies to the roof and had hidden them in the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued them on the road to the Jordan to the crossing places. And as soon as those who were pursuing had gone, they shut the gate. So they're up on the roof.

And then the men pursuing them that the king had sent out go out, listen to her, and they start chasing and looking for these men or looking for the two spies on the road to Jordan okay so she lied to protect the two spies there's reasons for that and we're gonna go into that a little bit of detail but she lied to protect them but the reason she lied to protect them is because she was getting revelation the people of jericho realized that their god our god was the true god and they feared for their lives because they had seen what had taken place when they had crossed out or had heard stories if they if some of them weren't still alive as children and

grown up for 40 years listening to the stories of how the israelites had been taken out of egypt pharaoh chased them the red sea was parted and then closed in on pharaoh and the men chasing them the soldiers they had all heard the stories of this. So they knew God was real. It had been passed down and passed down and passed down through generation for the 40 years as they wandered in the wilderness, the Israelites did. So the people of Jericho, they were afraid when they found out that two spies were checking them out. So she was no dummy. But let's also look at time of war.

In times of war, we know lying is a sin. Well, murder is a sin too. They're both in the Ten Commandments. Lying and murder are a sin. Times of war, though, there is lying, and there's times of murder. And God has, like, there have been wars where the Israelites were killing their opponents, like the Amorites and things like that. The people are not held to account for the murders of the people that they killed.

Correct? Right. So I would say in the same way, line would be held to the same standard. I know that sounds somewhat hypocriticalical but you have to use the examples of that are biblical so if murders ascend then god would not allow the israelites to go in and conquer and then tell in many cases he told them when you go into a land kill everybody kill everybody from the livestock to the king. That meant women, children, men, everybody.

He told them to kill everybody. But the Ten Commandments clearly say, do not murder. Why would God do that? Because there are circumstances where it is called for and it is not considered sin. It's crazy, but wartime would be one of those times. And it's not very often that that an exception is made to the rule but in this case it is and also let's look at this she was praised as a woman of faith she was not praised for being a truth teller correct so

Hebrews 11 is a chapter called the people of faith so in hebrews 31 it says by faith the prostitute rahab did not perish along with those who had who were disobedient after she had welcomed the spies in peace so what happens with her is the whole jericho is conquered they're taken over and the only people who are saved are the people who live in Rahab's house that's it and so if you wanted to be saved and you were a family member of her you were to gather into her room into her home and stay there until the place had been conquered so her family was saved let's also remember she was not a jew so the ten commandments do not apply to her it's kind of like um people who are um not saved they don't abide by the rules that the bible applies to us

because they're sinners they don't know they don't know that they're sinning a lot of times like when i walked away from god i was doing things that i shouldn't have but believe me i wasn't thinking about what the Bible was telling me. And in some cases, the further away that you go, the more you just, you don't care about what the Bible says. It's not even something that comes to your memory. It's just you're living your life. Everybody's doing it.

So it's okay. Even though it's not, sinners, it's like lying for a sinner is like nothing. It's a part of your life. It's what you do. You have to do it to protect yourself. If your boss comes in and says, why are you late? Your natural instinct is to say traffic. When really you were late because you got out of your apartment or your house too late.

You were busy doing other things or you got up too late. And so you blame it on traffic. It's self-preservation. Believers know because of the conviction of the Holy Spirit, okay, if you're late because you were late because of you, you don't lie about traffic. Now a lot of Christians do lie. It's like second nature for them. It should not be because it's a sin and if you continue on with it the word is very clear that you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven but it is second nature for the unbeliever all the time she was not of the Jewish faith the ten commandments did

not apply to her because she wasn't a Jewish person she didn't really probably even know about it um but the truth is she did she did become a believer she did recognize God as her God after because she told the 10 spies this is what she said in Joshua 2 8 through 11 she knew who the true God was she says now before the spies laid down she came up to them on the roof and said to to the men so this is what she said before she sent them out she goes i know that the lord has given you the land and that the terror of you has fallen on us and all the inhabitants of the land have despaired because have despaired because of you so everybody's afraid because of you and your people he says and what they can potentially do because of their god says for we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you

when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Shihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. When we heard these reports, our hearts melted, and no courage remained in anyone any longer because of you. For the Lord your God, he is God in heaven, above and on earth below. So she was spared. She recognized who God was.

She helped save the two spies. And because of that, she earned an inheritance that not only spared her family, and she got to live in Jericho with the Israelites. She became one of them through, this is crazy, but she's in Matthew. Her name is in Matthew and she's in the genealogy of Jesus because of what she did for the Israelite people. And we're going to go to that. But her actions proved her faith. She did not obey her king.

She betrayed her own people because she knew who God was and who he was to the Israelite people. She did not turn in the spies. She's been praised for her faith. She was not praised for her lying. She was only praised for her faith she was not praised for her lying she was only praised for her faith and lying is a sin it says in revelation 21 8 but the cowardly unbelieving and let's remember this it's clear the cowardly but the cowardly, people think that not standing up for things sometimes is the best way to go, go along, to get along. The cowardly will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

So if you have made poor decisions because you were scared of the results of those decisions, you need to be bold as a lion. Because the cowardly will not inherit the kingdom of heaven and the um and the thing is is you will become weaker and weaker and weaker the more cowardly you become you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven because the facts remain if you can't stand up for your faith stand up for what the word of god says when real tough times come and they will come you will be a coward and it could be the balance of eternal life for you in heaven or hell and that's a serious serious thing to contemplate it says but the cowardly unbelieving abominable murderers sexually immoral sorcerers idolaters and all liars my husband says this all the time it doesn't say all murderers all sexually immoral all sorcerers it doesn't say all that it

says all liars there's a reason why that is prefaced all liars because lying is a big deal if you are a christian or call yourself a christian and lying is a big deal. If you are a Christian or call yourself a Christian and lying is a part of your lifestyle, then you need to really seriously say, am I saved? Because it says if you live like this, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. In Galatians and Ephesians it says that. If you live like this, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

So it's a difference between living like something and struggling with something. Struggling with lying is way different than saying it's a lifestyle for me if i get in a situation i'm going to lie okay there that's where things change all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire which burns with in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death lying is serious it is not something that is allowed and i will say that uh i don't know that rahab really had much of a choice in not lying to save the uh spies that's why war is is different but in those situations that are outside of that, lying is never acceptable.

Matthew 1, 1 through 6. Let's look at the genealogy of Jesus and how big of a deal it was what she did. And the thing is, is we are no different. Rahab was a prostitute. She did not come from the greatest of backgrounds. And all of us, to some extent, have a past. Some of us are like my sister, who is my baby sister. She hardly ever did anything wrong.

I have an older sister. Then it's me. Then I have a brother. And then I have a younger sister. My baby sister, for the most part, was like I always say I was I was as pure as the driven on snow and she was as pure as the snow she was very good girl um but there's a lot of people like me who your past holds you up and so you think how can God use me because of of my past and I would say to you well what that didn't hold Rahab back Rahab didn't and there's plenty of other women and men in the Bible who

have done like Paul Paul murdered and or participated in murders or called out murders on people and it didn't hold him back to being the one of the well I would say he won the most people in the New Testament to Jesus he was our biggest evangelist he was our biggest evangelist. He was our biggest soul winner. And he wrote more books of the Bible. He did not let his past define him. So you and me cannot allow the same thing.

If God can use a prostitute like Rahab, he can use us. Let that be an encouragement to you. It says the book, Matthew 1, 1 through 6, is the book of genealogy of Jesusesus christ the son of david the son of abraham says abraham begot isaac isaac begot jacob and jacob begot judah and his brothers judah begot parrot perez and zara from by tamar perez begot hezron and tamar there's very few women ever mentioned in the bible tamar is one of them in the genealogy. And Hezron begot Ram.

Ram begot Amidab. Amidab begot Nashon. And Nashon begot Salmon. And here's where it gets good. Salmon begot Boaz. The same Boaz as Ruth and Boaz. The same Ruth as Ruth, the book of Ruth, with Naomi. So Boaz's mother was Rahab.

So Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab. Her name is one of the names in Matthew with the genealogy of Jesus. And Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. Obed begot Jesse, and begot King David the king so if you look at this Rahab was David's grandmother so she was in the genealogy of kingship royalty and it said that Jesus would be in the genealogy of kingship, royalty. And it said that Jesus would be in the genealogy of royalty. King David, it goes all the way through. So Jesus is in the family genealogy of King David. But it took Rahab to make that happen.

What parts can we play in making major things happen in the Christian world if we forget about our past and move forward? We don't lie, but we become people of faith, and we walk those things out in excellence. Amen? What can we do? So whatever you've done in your past forget it that's what Paul says we forget what we what our what our past is and we move forward to to the

prize of the high calling amen everybody is usable question number three says I and this is hey listen I I am about to I I wrote this down but it's specifically because it's what I'm saying it says I abbreviated this question but here's the gist of what it is it says and I'm kind of like protecting the person that wrote this even though they don't need protecting but they'll know who I'm talking about this is the area that I live in New York we have to church hop to find a church full of the fire and sound doctrine. I tithe to the river where we get fed. You're tithing to a great place, and everybody should be very careful where they tithe and where their money goes to because it's a big deal.

But that's another question for another time. The church I attend nearby has closed for several reasons and shows videos. Should I attend a church with pansy christians that love jesus or stay home or just carry the fire and irritate everyone which is what i feel i do well scripture is very clear that you're not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together so we have to we have to make sure that that scripture stays intact okay so you are to make sure um that you fellowship with other believers now what that looks like uh can be very very different i will tell you this is this is me personally i would

not go to a church that closed i would even though they probably have lovely people there and they love Jesus I wouldn't be going there I wouldn't go to church where it shows videos of the pastor um that's not my style I don't like that um I'm not saying that there aren't good churches that do that but I'll be honest with you I don't know of any um so for me that would be completely out I also would go with like-minded believers where I'm not irritating them where iron sharpens iron because that is huge if you feel like you're being an irritant maybe maybe you will have some influence on them I doubt it I know that being the example is important but for me the connection would be iron sharpening

iron where i'm actually uh going there and i have a a positive influence i have a ministry that i can provide um some people might like like it every now and then but on the whole they embrace the ministry that God's called me to do and that I can be something that is a beneficial for the church that I attend instead of something that's a nagging gnat like that's a buzzing in the air and that people keep wanting to swat away that's not for me so I'm going to tell you I would strongly suggest don't go okay but I'm not telling you not to do church but I am going to tell you I even asked my husband about this question so I have my opinion and then I'm going to show you tell you what his opinion is so I would say you start a bible study or you find a really good one where you guys all believe the same thing then you're not forsaking the assembly of yourself it didn't say you have to

go to church it says you have to come together okay so either so maybe you start a bible study and you and you get your friends that you have that are like-minded, and all of you guys feel like you're a fish out of water, that you have the same, maybe not necessarily all the same, strong political viewpoints, because sometimes that makes it difficult, but biblical viewpoints are very close, or people that attend are very open-minded to maybe things that they don't know so that they can grow in areas that they should so bible study that would be my plan for you if that's not possible um because

this is we're in tough times like it is to be all on your own right now is not is not something that's conducive for anybody one of the reasons why we are to stay together and stick together and fellowship is it says as we see the day approaching and the the thing is is we do see that the times of of end times are coming now what that looks like and how close that is i don't know but i do believe that we are in the beginning of birthing pains and so how long does that last I don't know I mean my labor went on for over 24 hours and it says a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day so like this depends who knows how long we have that things will be like this but the more more isolated you are, the harder it will be for you to be able to stand against some of these things that you might come up against.

So I would make sure that I was around people who were like-minded and strong in their faith to be able to stand with you. Tom said, move. He said, get out. He's very drastic, though though and some of his things but he's like if you can't find a good bible study and you can't um if you can't create a bible study or find a good bible study he said you need to move and he's like if you got give to the river you need to move and come to where you're you're being fed and he's like i know that sounds radical but that's where we're at. He's like, radical times call for radical measures.

And I do agree with him. For the most part, I do. But if you can stay where you're at and you have family and you can do a Bible study, do that. And he even agreed. So for that, I would say do that. I keep seeing my hair. I keep seeing my hair. I keep seeing my hair.

My split ends are really bad. My hairdresser, who's my friend, I'm going to get it from her. She's not going to be real happy that my hair looks like this at all. The girls in the room are like, what? I'm not kidding you. My hairdresser, I would give you her name, but then everybody would bombard her. At some point, I might do that. Give her some good shout outs.

She's a great hairdresser. I'm very picky. And it just so happens she's my friend, so that helps too. But question number four. Enough about me and my hair, my bad hair. It's going to drive me crazy. I'm looking at, I'm not looking at the camera anymore. There's a camera.

I mean, after the camera, there's a screen and I get, I get told not to look at that thing, but I can't, I see my split ends really bad. It's driving me crazy. All right. For the guys that are watching, you're like, get on with it. I've had enough women. You totally relate. You get it.

You understand my plight. You have compassion for me. But even this might be too much for you too. So let's go on to question number four. I have been in this position, not exactly, but I know what this person's feeling. So although my advice might help you out in a little bit, it might not help you out right now. So it says, I am struggling with my son.

He has the coolest room an eight-year-old can ever dream of, but at bedtime is the worst time of day for my husband and I. He has to take melatonin every night, and he won't sleep in his own room. I nursed him until he was two years old. I am sure that's where the problem began. To keep up my milk supply, it was skin to skin all day long. Okay, I ain't gonna lie to you, that sounds flippin' miserable. I nursed until my Tommy was six months, and because of my milk supply, I went skiing. Tom talked me into going on a youth ski trip elevation does

not go well if you're trying to breastfeed so that did that in and then normal was a year but nursing to two years old oh my that would be rough i applaud you um and then uh skin on skin i need my space. So it says, I was never able to produce a sufficient amount of breast milk. And now he won't sleep alone. My husband and I need our bed back and are struggling to find alone time for the important thing and important things in a marriage. Wink, wink. Please help.

Yeah, that's rough. I ain't gonna lie. I had the same problem with Tommy my oldest boy he uh for about two years uh was very very fearful it had nothing to do like I said I didn't breastfeed him until he was six months I it had nothing to do with that and it might listen to be honest with you your son if I was to guess he's been not breastfeeding for six six years so it's very doubtful that that's his issue he might just be very attached from that but if I were to guess it's probably something underlying that's causing him to not want to be away from you guys and for Tommy his was fear he it wasn't even necessarily afraid of the dark it was just afraid of what could happen or nightmares or things like that so literally for probably two years we'd start out

alone and then eventually he would come in and he would just be beside himself now some of you are like well then just spank his butt and send him back to bed i get it and to some extent that is true um but tom is a softy uh if anybody's seen his podcast before they probably don't think he's a softy like he watched a little bit of this podcast um sunday and he goes where's the screaming because i don't scream he does a lot of screaming and this is funny this is off topic i'll get back to your question in one second but like he used to coach football um heather who's his assistant her husband was one of his football players in high school so he coached high school football and literally literally, I would say to him, you have got to turn your back. Because when you're screaming at your football players, they all think you're cussing.

People in the stands think you're cussing, which he doesn't cuss at all. They would think he was cussing because he was screaming and his face would be so red when he was yelling at him. So I'd be like, turn your head. But he's like, even in those moments those moments he would say I'm not mad it's just all an act to get them to respond to get them to do what I want them to do out there so I digress so he thought I'm chill too chill because I'm not screaming but Tommy Tom is a softy and so he couldn't put Tommy back to bed because he'd be so beside himself. And it was fear.

But we knew he would grow out of it, and we prayed consistently over it. He and I, not together necessarily, we prayed on our own for Tommy to grow out of it, but more importantly, to find out what was causing him the fear so that he could get beyond it. And when I say grow out of it, I don't mean over two years. I mean, like, grow beyond it. So that's what we did. We began to pray. We would see positive results. It became where he was in there less and less.

He would revert back. We had to spiritually attack it every night. It got to be where he didn't sleep in there anymore. He didn't care to be in there. And listen, it was right around the same age just so you know it wasn't like he was 12 and 13 or even five he was right in this age bracket um seven to nine i think it was somewhere in there that he had a very very difficult time being in his bedroom at night he started out on his own and he would end up with us right around midnight or one in the morning. And we tried sending him back, but he was so beside himself. So

we left it up to God. We left it to prayer and it works. So I would strongly suggest to you, make it a matter of prayer, you and your husband, and then, and even talk to your son about it. Because that's what we did with Tommy. We would spend time talking to him about why was he afraid walking him through it praying with him those kinds of things if it's sheer defiance and disobedience to you that's a whole nother story and that's when you do spank their butt and send them back to bed because really they want what they want and they are not going to be obedient to you and what you're doing when you don't uh you don't give a punishment or you don't uh treat the the problem all you're doing is allowing rebellion to breed and it will get worse as they get older they'll find out okay well no there was no consequence for my action when

i was disobedient here or disobedient here so what happens is it grows the disobedience become bigger issues um bigger things that they're disobedient in um and then the rebellion is stirred up and and we're you need to be very careful about that because um that's going to be a bigger problem when they get to be in their teens and things like that. Then it's very hard to discipline them and make them mind and you'll have to do it, but it'll be even more difficult. So I would say if it's fear or something along those lines, address that with them, love them through it, pray with them. If it's defiance and disobedience, then strong discipline needs to be applied and deal with that. It's healthy for your son.

It's healthy for your relationship with your husband. And it's not going to be easy, but you need to stand strong and work through either case. But I will tell you, if it's fear it'll go in well either one it'll go it'll be resolved pretty darn quick but um pretty darn quick if you start handling it quickly now so question number five is should we read the books of the bible that were removed from the book of enoch or remove like the book of Enoch I'm gonna say no and the reason I say no you don't need to read those books that are not in the Bible is because most people have not mastered the Bible. You master the Bible, and then you can master the other books.

Most people don't even have 10 scriptures that they have memorized, or can even give you 10 different illustrations in the Word about a problem that someone may have, and that you can go and say, like faith. If somebody came to you and had a question about faith, do you have five different ways of explaining how faith works by five different people are actions in the bible that took place to be able to walk somebody through a faith issue probably not until you do you don't need to um i'm going to

give you some really strong statistics that'll prove my case it says over 2 billion christians in the world okay so over 2 billion christians in the world less than 30 percent will ever read through the entire bible there's 8 billion people okay on the planet and 2 billion christians in the world less than 30 percent will ever read through the entire Bible. That is a horrible statistic. Over 82% of Christians, Christian Americans, only read their Bibles on Sundays while they're in church. 82%. Pew Research indicates that only 25% of Americans now attend church any given Sunday, significantly down from 47 percent in 1990 so in 1990 we had 47 percent of Americans attending church and now it's less than uh

well it says it's 25 percent so out of 100 percent if you have 100 people, 75 people are not going to church and 25 people are going to church. Those are horrible statistics. Horrible. And then you take that number and you keep going down, fewer people actually read the Bible. 57% of American Christians believe other religions can lead to eternal life.

57 American Christians believe there's another way to heaven outside of Jesus. That is frightening. The word is very clear that there's no other way by which a man can come is but through Jesus Christ. There's no other way to get to heaven. There's no other way to have a relationship unless you ask the Lord Jesus Christ into your life and to forgive you of your sins and to go to heaven. That's it.

And 57% of American Christians believe that there's another religion, there are other religions that can lead to eternal life. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one come to the Father but through me. How in the world do Christians, 57% of Christians, believe that other religions can get them to heaven. At one time, right before this guy, he was in leadership at our church. He held a pretty big position in our church.

And it came to our attention that in front of us this person said all the right things but on Facebook which we were not a part of Facebook so we didn't see it but on Facebook he was preaching a whole different theology and one of the theologies was is that gandhi was saved okay gandhi was never saved it doesn't show or indicate in any way that gandhi was ever saved um but that he was going to heaven and things like that now this person also became a person that believed that there was no such thing as hell anymore um and and what happens happens is people start reading books about the Bible instead of the Bible. They no longer read.

They read from people that will translate the Bible for them and their interpretation of the Bible instead of reading the Bible and what it says. And that is a very dangerous thing. So people don't need to read the book of ignac they need to read the bible um it's super important i'm going to continue going on we laughed so hard before the podcast started my face is itching and my nose is running i'm not kidding you we were crying laughing So 2021 statistic says 11% of Christians read the Bible every day.

In 2021, this is called, these stats are coming from a place called statistic. 11% of Christians read the Bible every day. So 11% is a very low percentage. Only 22% of Christians believe the Bible is fully inspired by God himself. So where do they think it came from? I think they think that the men just wrote it and they wrote down whatever they thought was good. But in the next podcast,

that question will be answered very thoroughly and how wrong that actually is because somebody had an excellent question that followed this one it just so happened i don't know that's god that shows that the bible is truly god inspired it is prophetically been played out and proven over and over and over again that it is the true word of god um and so that's a very frightening thing that 22 of christians believe that that um the bible is fully inspired by god himself what do the other 20 what did the other percentage think what is that 80 88 no yeah Yeah. What's 100 minus 22? 78, right? Is that 78? That's 78. Oh gosh. You know what?

I got two homeschool mothers in here. I homeschooled my kid. That's frightening. Yeah, 78. Thank you, Lord. I got it. And both of you are fired. You're going to take your kids back to the public school system because you stink you shouldn't know that like that yeah they just told me I can teach you math okay they won't graduate if that's the case I had to get a tutor for my kids math is not my subject yeah they would have not passed they wouldn't have gotten a high school degree if i taught them math frightening uh let's see pew research indicates that only 25 of americans now attend church any given cent did i say that i did that all right so let me just ask the person that asked this question and everyone

else that's uh listening to that wonders the same thing you You know, can I read other books than the Bible? Is it good to, or is it okay to read other books that were a part of the Bible? I would say to you is, do you already read it daily? How much time do you spend in the Word on a daily basis? Okay? Do you know Scripture? If you were to have to win the lost, would you be able to tell them how to be saved? So important.

I mean, you need to understand Scripture to be able to explain how one becomes saved. Everybody should be a soul winner. If you don't know the Bible, you can't win the lost. That's just the facts. That takes knowing scripture. That means knowing the word. Because someone's missing that. Whenever you go up to somebody, they're not going to ask you all the same questions. They're going to have all different questions. And you need to know where in the word to go and find those answers so that you can prove or give them an answer so that they can be won. If you can't find it and you don't know it yourself, you need to sit down, start checking it out, and start knowing the word. Because seriously, the goal is to win the lost and disciple believers.

That's why we're here. To win the lost and disciple believers. That's why we're here, to win the lost and disciple believers. The rest of the things that we apply and add to our life, those are added bonuses. They are not things that are, like, a lot of people live their Christian lives where they have their own agenda and then they add God into wherever he fits in. That's not what it's all about.

It's God's agenda. And then you get to add in when there's left over time. You get to add in what you want to add in. That's how it should be. Not the other way around we are totally off as as christian believers on our perspective of what a christian walk looks like that looks like um and we look like the rest of the world almost all of the time and if we would live like the bible says then we would be the city on a shine we would be a shining city on a hill and people would be drawn to us.

And then they would come to know us and then they would come to know him. And then there would be a reason, right? Right now, most of us, we live our lives like the world. There is no reason. No one has a reason to want to live like you because you live like them. There's no like, you because you live like them there there's no like you don't look like anybody else um so people are not wanting what you have um if you were out uh healing the sick raising the dead doing the things that Jesus did because it says we are Christians so that

means we are Christ-like if you look like him people would be running to you they would want what you have you would be different and that would radically change their life um and then you would just be keep multiplying what's that what was that uh commercial back in the day where there would be a girl, she got her hair washed, and then in all these squares, do you know what I'm talking about? I think it was, gee, your hair looks terrific or something like that. And then, like, I'm going to pull, we're going to pull that up so that people can see it for this podcast. We're going to find it, and then you're going to see it in two seconds. It was so good, I told two friends about it,

and they told two friends, and so on so on and so on and believe me there's still nothing like the original Fabergé Organic. It gives me super shine, super body and super fresh smelling hair. Try it and you'll tell your friends about it and they'll tell their friends and so on and so on. She just multiplied herself. Well that's what we do as believers. What we're supposed to be doing is multiplying ourselves. Like, that's our job, to be a Christian, to multiply and make other little Christians, and then we disciple. You have it?

What is it? Gee, your hair smells terrific. Gee, your hair smells terrific. 1979. That's why everyone in this room does not know it. Because they weren't born. I was. I was just shy of high school.

And gee, her hair did look terrific. We all bought that shampoo because it looked great. But that's our job. Our job is to multiply ourselves and then disciple um people into becoming stronger and their walks with god they multiply themselves uh that's the goal the goal is to win the loss so that people do not go and die in hell that's the facts our job is to not be about ourselves, to not strive for our own ambitions. That is, that actually says, seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things

will be added unto you. You'll get every desire that you actually want if you seek him first. He'll add all of that. Those are like cherry, that's like a cherry on top. But if you follow his path and his design for you, watch out. You will never be happier you won't be striving for earthly gain you will actually have far more than you ever thought or could have imagined for yourself but it'll be pure it'll be good um it'll be exactly what god

had for you and you think your plans are good, you just wait and see. His plans far exceed anything you could ever hope or want for yourself. I'm sitting in a room with like one, two, three, four, five, six. Six people, six girls. And I know all of them but one really, really well. And I will tell you that all of them are doing far more in their lives now that they are totally giving them over to god and said god might not my plan your plan what god has them doing right now one is traveling the world never ever probably thought this i mean if you knew

where she came from you'd sit there and go it's not possible with God all things are possible traveling the world seeing sights that only she could have dreamed about but and if she would have gone her route she wouldn't be where she is the two other girls same exact thing they may not be traveling the world but they're doing ministry who knows they might be traveling the world relatively soon but they're doing ministry like never before they're doing things that they didn't even know how to do and God is showing them how to do it and uh once producing this never produced ever in her life as far as something like this um produce commercials

and things but like God will take you places you never dreamt were even possible if you allow him to take you there. So get rid of your plan, get in the word, study it out, start winning the lost, start discipling believers, start living your life for him and see where he takes you. And then tune into the next podcast because the next podcast is going to even take this question to another level um but like i say i never want to close out um a podcast without giving someone a chance that doesn't know the lord because my podcast isn't specifically

just for christians my podcast is for anyone and everyone that has any kind of question, whether you're saved or not saved. And if you don't know, if you do not know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I can only promise you, you have a void in your life that only he can fill. I've been there. Everyone in this room has been there. And we live a much happier, joyful life because we have allowed him to become our Lord and Savior and to rule and reign in our lives and be all that he has called us to be. If you want to truly be happy and you really want to experience life for all that it has for you, the only way is to ask the Lord to be, if you repent of your sins and ask the Lord to be your Lord and Savior. And with that comes freedom, with that comes peace, with that comes comfort.

Things that you never thought you would experience are people that you thought would come your way. Once you make that decision and you truly live it out, sky's the limit so if you don't know him um i just ask you to pray this prayer with me right now let's do it and let's see your your today change radically um and tomorrow will be brighter in jesus name we come to you right now and father i ask that there be anyone that is watching this that doesn't know you. I ask, Father, that they would come to know you. And it's simply by saying, Lord, I ask you to forgive me of my sin.

I ask that you be my Lord and Savior. I ask, Father, that from this day on, I will serve you. And I thank you for what you did on the cross. In Jesus' mighty name we pray, amen. Your day starts today. Your new life is better than you ever dreamt. And I'm excited for you. If you ask Jesus into your heart with us,

I ask that you would just let us know. We'll be praying with you. We'll be standing with you. We'll be standing with you. And I'm excited for you. One other thing is I want to talk about giving. Giving is huge. It'll radically change your life. A lot of people think, oh yeah, now you want my money. I don't want your money. You can send your money to anywhere you want to. It doesn't have to be Foundation Church. If you want to give to Foundation Church and help us with this podcast and the things that we're doing in the area that's great right below me is where you can give otherwise you can send it to two other places that we strongly encourage

because i think that where you send your money is truly important your investment and where you give will be uh will help the return of what you'll get as well as i mean i think that you don't give to a place that's not truly preaching the true word of god um and i think like we give the church personally gives as well as myself and my husband we give to revival today which is jonathan sheldersworth and adalas and And we also give to the River, which is Pastor Rodney Howard-Brown and Adonica Howard-Brown, everyone's pastors that I just mentioned. And we've given, but we've never seen the return

like we've received by giving to these two ministries. They're doing mighty things for the Lord as well as Foundation Church. And I think that your return is really good when you're giving to the right places. But I will tell you this. Giving is truly important, and I just shared this with our church about a month and a half ago. It's something that I saw in the Word I think is profound. A lot of times we think that we're being obedient with what God is telling us when it comes to

giving and we limit ourselves based on our understanding but let us look at the scripture achy monkeys I forgot to write the scripture down but I will have it it's going to be below right now. So you can look it up. It says it's in, I believe it's in Mark or it's in John. Actually, it's in John. So I'll have the scripture below in two seconds. It said,

it came to pass that as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, which is Jesus and the two ships standing by the lake. But the fishermen were gone out of them and were washing their nets. So Jesus, the people are pressing in on him. So he normally would preach from a boat because the voice would carry. And then he wouldn't be, people wouldn't be on him. And then everybody could hear what he's saying.

So he sees, Jesus sees two ships that are in the lake, and he sees the fishermen are washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon, which is Peter, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people out of the ship. Now Peter knew who he was because he had already seen him before previously. So he knew who Jesus was. And when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon,

Launch out into deep and let down your nets for a draught. Okay, so they had already been fishing. Fishermen fished in the evenings, and then they would go in for the day. Okay, so this is already daytime. They're washing their nets because they have been out fishing all night long and simon answering um said unto him master we have toiled all night and have taken nothing nevertheless at thy word i will let down the net okay now i want you to what i said in verse four was which we just read five 5, it says, Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon,

Jesus said to Simon, Watch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. But Peter said, I will let down the net. See, because of the night he said that they caught nothing. He said, I'll let down the net. Jesus said, let down your nets. He had a preconceived idea based on his experience. Okay, we do not, the word is what we go by. We don't go by our experiences.

Okay, and when they had done, when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes and their net and their net broke. Okay so the one net was breaking because so many fish were coming into it and they beckoned unto the partners which were in the other ship. So Peter starts calling out to the other fishermen we need help. So they bring out the other boat and they that they should come and help them and they came and filled both the ships so that they began to sink see that's what we do that's what we do as Christians when we give we have a preconceived idea of what God's going to do for us but his ways are higher than our ways and you can't go by what you believe. You've got to go by what the word says.

When the word tells you to do something, you do it. And then you see the results of your obedience. If Peter would have just let down the nets, he would not have been ill-prepared. He would have been prepared for all that was coming in. And his faith, he doubted and what Jesus was telling him so that's the reason why he only gave one net if he would have had faith and no doubting he would have let down the nets and everything would have come in he still because he was obedient and because God is merciful and Jesus was graceful and gracious.

He still had everything come in. So what I strongly encourage you is don't throw in one net. When you give, don't throw in one net. Believe for the full abundance of what the word says. And the full abundance of what the word says is whatever you give in this lifetime, you'll get a hundredfold back. So believe for that hundredfold. When you give, it says that you are to give with a joyful heart give with that joyful heart you don't give so that you get but the word is true jesus said test me in this and no and so he said and this that's the only place in giving jesus said to testament so when you give give with expectation know that a hundredfold is going to come back and be returned to you.

And don't throw down one net. Throw down your nets and wait for the multitude of fish to come in. Amen? I'll see you next time.